Penmarric (86 page)

The situation could hardly have been more inflammable. Soon fights began and breaches of the peace, until finally in the spring of 1932 even Michael had to admit that retaining Smithson as bailiff of Penmarric was more trouble than it was worth.

“I’ll take over the estate until Philip comes home,” I said, confident that this was the best solution that could possibly be devised to cope with the problem. “The tenants know me and trust me and I’ve had experience at the job. I could get everything running smoothly again in no time at all.”

But Michael, stony-faced and hostile, merely repeated that he would write to Philip.

I waited, convinced that Philip would agree to dismiss Smithson, positive that he, if not Michael, would see the advantages of letting me run the estate instead. But I was wrong. Philip agreed to dismiss Smithson, but he didn’t appoint me to manage estate affairs in his stead. He had chosen old Walter Hubert, the former purser of Sennen Garth, to totter out of retirement and put the Penmarric administration on a stable footing; deputies were to be appointed to perform the physical tasks of rent-collecting and inspection for him, and if he refused to take up the appointment Michael was to select the most suitable substitute he could find.

Naturally the substitute wouldn’t be me. Michael was quite shrewd enough to realize that I had engineered the trouble at Penmarric, and by this time there was no love lost between us. Feeling sick with disappointment at this latest injustice, I went to London for a week or two to cheer myself up, but the mood of London seemed to have changed subtly and the frenetic gaiety I remembered so well from my honeymoon was missing. The great financial crisis of the previous year which had led to the formation of the National Government seemed to have left the city limp. There was still gaiety, of course, and still plenty of amusement for anyone who had money to burn, but the vitality of the Twenties seemed to be drifting into a less spontaneous and less striking form of frivolity. After a while I began to wonder if the fault lay with me; I was on my own, since Rebecca had refused to accompany me for the sake of her reputation and Felicity had preferred to stay at home for the sake of her horses, and although in theory this should have given me a delicious amount of freedom I found I was too lonely to do more than go through the motions of having a good time.

Finally I cut short my holiday after a performance of Noel Coward’s
Cavalcade
had wedged me for an entire evening among a middle-aged audience sobbing with nostalgia, and returned to Cornwall. I reasoned that if I couldn’t enjoy a Coward play—or indeed any other of the current joys of London life—there must be something very wrong with me, but fortunately as soon as I reached Carnforth Hall, family affairs prevented me from wallowing in my depression. My brother-in-law Gerald Meredith died at last, and after the funeral Jeanne closed Polzillan House just as Philip had closed Penmarric and departed with Helena for an extended visit to the Continent. No sooner had we waved goodbye to them than news of a more cheerful kind reached us: Lizzie had married her professor. However, she had done so with such stealth that not one member of her family had been invited to the wedding and—adding insult to injury—her letter informing me that she was now Mrs. Edgar St. John Callendar did not reach Carnforth Hall until after she had departed with her husband for a honeymoon in Greece.

I don’t know whether I was more hurt than my mother or whether my mother was more hurt than I was. We were both of us deeply offended by the news.

“She might have told me!” exclaimed my mother angrily. “She might have let me know! I would love to have gone to the wedding!” Her curiosity overcoming her injured pride, she added, “A professor! Fancy! Well, I suppose that’s quite suitable. I always hoped Lizzie would marry despite her plainness, but to be honest I feared her personality would tell against her even more than her looks. She was so aggressive and unfeminine.”

I did not voice my opinion of Lizzie’s behavior to my mother, but as soon as I had the opportunity I wrote her a stiff letter of congratulations. “I can understand you not inviting Mama to the service,” I said acidly, “but I think you might have invited me. Am I ever to be allowed to meet your husband one of these days or is he to remain as private as your wedding?”

“Dearest Jan,” Lizzie wrote contritely as soon as she returned from her honeymoon in September. “The wedding was just a short church blessing by a clergyman in front of two witnesses! I hardly thought it was worth hauling you up from Cornwall to be present, but please forgive me if I’ve mortally offended you. Of course I wasn’t going to invite Mother to take the wedding arrangements out of my hands and turn the event into a circus, and anyway I think if Eddy had known my mother was coming he would have taken fright and locked himself in his study. He’s very shy and sensitive, poor darling, and after spending almost seven years luring him into matrimony I simply couldn’t run the risk of any last-minute hitches! However, now we’re safely married he actually seems anxious to meet my family and so I expect we’ll be making the trek west before long. Have you any idea where we can stay? Since both Penmarric and Polzillan House are closed I’m at a loss to know where to go. I’d like to stay with you at Canforth Hall but I don’t think I could stand Alice for long and I know Eddy couldn’t stand Felicity. No offense meant, of course, but horsey, hearty women make him extremely nervous, and I don’t want him upset. Perhaps it would be easiest if we stayed at the Metropole. Any suggestions?”

I began to have grave reservations about this husband of hers. After considering the letter again I was just about to write to propose I visit her in Cambridge to save her the tedium of a visit to Cornwall, when I suddenly saw how the situation could be turned to my advantage. I went pale with excitement. The idea simmered in my mind for five delightful minutes, and then I picked up my pen and wrote a charming letter inviting Lizzie and her husband to visit Penmarric at the earliest opportunity which presented itself to them.

My mother thought it was an excellent idea that I should be host to the visitors at Penmarric, and since she was in favor of the scheme Michael could hardly do less than acquiesce. I asked Felicity if she minded my spending a few days at Penmarric, but she was just off to visit friends in Devon and didn’t mind in the least.

Luck at last seemed to be on my side.

I was excited at the thought of seeing Lizzie again, for as I have already mentioned she was my favorite sister, sharp-witted, quick-tongued and good company. We were rather alike; we both took after our father in looks, so both of us were in the unfortunate position of being plain children among a host of handsome older brothers and beautiful older sisters; and both of us were always aware of an antipathy existing between ourselves and our parents. Only two years separated us in age, and in childhood at least we had had several interests in common. However, as we grew up we grew less alike. Lizzie, like our father, was a born intellectual with a passion for learning, but learning for learning’s sake held no appeal for me, and although I was well informed—particularly on my hobby, religion—and didn’t consider myself a fool, I was certainly not an intellectual. Lizzie’s long love affair with the academic life of Cambridge was something I had never been able to understand. However, my lack of comprehension had not lessened my affection, and even now, long after I had accepted the fact that I seldom saw her, I had only to see her once to regret our long periods apart.

I started regretting them again as soon as she stepped out of her husband’s chauffeur-driven Bentley to meet me on that fine September morning. She looked well—and smart, smarter than I had ever seen her look before. Her luxuriant black hair was coiled sleekly upward and crowned by a glamorous hat. Her skin, over which she had shed so many frustrated tears in adolescence, was milkily smooth; her slanting eyes sparkled; her full-lipped mouth seemed sensual instead of out of shape. She wore a cream-colored suit that emphasized the generous curves of her figure, and her legs, always good, were encased in a pair of the sheerest silk stockings.

“How you improve with age!” It was she who spoke, not I. We hugged each other. “Whatever happened to that ugly little horror I had to share a nursery with?”

“I was asking myself exactly the same question!” I kissed her. “Marriage must suit you, Lizzie.”

“You too evidently! Here’s Eddy. Eddy darling, this is Jan-Yves.”

I turned to inspect my brother-in-law. I had expected a desiccated elderly bore, but instead I was confronted with a tall good-looking man of about forty-five with gentle blue eyes and a sensitive mouth. Lizzie had understated his extreme shyness. I could hardly get a word out of him until we had finished dinner that evening, but at last the two whiskys before the meal, the three glasses of Hock with the food and the two brandies after the cloth had been drawn finally gave him the courage to open his mouth.

“Interesting place, Cornwall,” he said, making his major speech of the evening. “Elizabeth’s told me there’s a fine example of an ancient hill fort near here.”

“Yes indeed,” I said. “Chûn Castle.” After I had talked for a minute of the archaeological glories of Cornwall, he asked several questions which tested my knowledge to its skimpy limits, but I held my own and soon he was talking of Greece, his favorite subject, and I was able to leave him to carry the conversation. Presently we joined Lizzie in the drawing room. I was just wondering if I would ever have the chance to speak to her alone when he excused himself from us and said he needed an early night after the long journey. “And I’m sure you two would like a few words together,” he said with a shy smile at his wife. “I know it’s been a long time since you’ve seen Jan-Yves, Elizabeth.”

After such an understanding gesture my last reservation about him fell away and I decided I approved of Lizzie’s marriage after all.

“Why did he take such a long time to marry you?” I demanded of her as soon as we were alone. “He seems a decent sort of fellow. Why couldn’t he make up his mind?”

Lizzie launched into some high-flown rigamarole about how they had both believed in the intellectual validity of free love and had been content for some time to avoid such a fundamentally bourgeois institution as marriage. What she was really saying was that Eddy, a confirmed bachelor, had been frightened that a wife might have impinged on his dedication to his work, and Lizzie had evolved her own way of proving to him that he worked better with her than without her.

“I hope you haven’t betrayed your intellectual principles by your trip to the altar,” I said with a straight face.

“Oh heavens,” said Lizzie, “it’s much more comfortable to be married and respectable.”

“How fortunate you both came to the same conclusion!”

We laughed together.

“I suppose I
was
rather naughty,” admitted Lizzie presently, “but I did love him and at the end I did desperately want to marry him, so I don’t think I was being too low. Not nearly so low as Mariana. Honestly! Whoever will she sleep with next?”

Mariana was then living in Kensington after leaving her husband and child, running off with some undesirable roué and becoming enmeshed in a most unsavory divorce.

“Of course her husband refuses to let her see Esmond,” said Lizzie. “How much does Mother know about it all, do you think? I suppose Philip would have kept the newspapers from her when Mariana was the ‘other woman’ in that horrible divorce, but she must have heard
something.
Didn’t you hear any of the details? My dear, it was three-in-a-bed and everything. I knew someone who was actually at the hearing and she said …”

From Mariana’s sex life the conversation gravitated to mine. “I’m surprised you’re still infatuated with Rebecca,” said Lizzie—cattily I thought. “And I can’t think why you’re still married to Felicity. I’m not suggesting you should marry Rebecca—it’s obvious you can get exactly what you want from her without a trip to the altar—but why don’t you divorce Felicity and at least be free to marry again when you want to?”

“I don’t think you have any understanding of my relationship with Rebecca, Lizzie,” I said coldly. “And as for my marriage, that’s my insurance for the future. After all, one must have some sort of security, and now that I shan’t inherit Penmarric—”

“You could go to London, get a good job and earn a living. You’d probably make a lot of money in no time, and anyway aren’t you bored with being a gentleman of leisure by this time? No, don’t tell me how you help run Carnforth Hall and write detective stories in your spare time! That’s not a good enough excuse! You’ll be telling me next you can’t go to London because you couldn’t possibly leave Mother!”

I had no intention of arguing with her; I was too, pleased to see her again. “Mama’s not a bad old girl really, Lizzie,” I said, subtly changing the subject. “We never knew her properly when we were children.”

“I knew her quite well enough, thank you! I suppose she’ll have to come over to Penmarric tomorrow to inspect Eddy. What a bore! Would Rebecca come too with the children, do you think? I’d like to see if Jonas is such an abominable child as you say he is, and anyway I think a tea party with Mother alone might be too much of a strain …”

However, I knew my mother wouldn’t want to meet her new son-in-law for the first time in Rebecca’s presence, so I managed to coax Lizzie into agreeing that my mother should first come to lunch on her own.

“How difficult things are sometimes!” said Lizzie grumpily afterward. She was never at her best when a meeting with our mother was pending.

“I’m looking forward to seeing them both,” said my mother politely when I arrived at the farm the next day to collect her. “I’m so glad you asked me to lunch.” But her fingers were trembling as she drew on her gloves and I realized with astonishment that she was even more nervous of the corning meeting than Lizzie was.

In fact the meeting did begin uneasily. There was the usual awkwardness of the introductions and the opening remarks, and afterward I put my mother in the best armchair with a glass of sherry before her while Lizzie scrabbled frantically for a cigarette and Eddy wandered off in search of a distant ashtray. I was just wondering what I could say if my mother made some disparaging remark about women smoking when my mother herself put everything right with one short simple sentence.