The House on the Strand (38 page)

"Read it to Lady Carminowe," she said. "I have no desire to strain my eyes in this dim light. And you may leave us," she added to Roger. "Family matters are no longer your concern. You meddled with them enough when you were my steward."

"This is his house, and he has the right to be here," said Isolda. "Besides, he is my friend, and I prefer him to stay."

Joanna shrugged, and sat down at the lower end of the table opposite Isolda.

"If Lady Carminowe permits," said the monk smoothly, "this is the letter from her brother, Sir William Ferrers, which came to Trelawn a few days since, Sir William thinking his messenger would find her there with Lady Champernoune. It reads thus:

'Dearest Sister, the news of your flight from Tregesteynton has only reached us here at Bere within the past week, because of the hard weather and the state of the roads. I am at a loss to understand either your action or your great imprudence. You must know that by deserting your husband and your children you forfeit all claims on his and their affection, and, I am bound to say, on mine as well. Whether Oliver, in Christian charity, will receive you at Carminowe again I cannot say, but I misdoubt it, fearing your pernicious influence upon his daughters, and for my own part I could not offer you protection at Bere, for Matilda, as Oliver's sister, has too much sympathy for her brother to offer hospitality to his erring wife. Indeed, she is in so sore a state since hearing you have deserted him that she could not countenance your presence amongst us with our five sons. It seems, therefore, there is only one course open to you, which is to seek refuge in the nunnery of Cornworthy here in Devon, the Prioress being known to me, and to remain there in seclusion until such time as Oliver, or some other member of the family, may be willing to receive you. I have every confidence that our kinswoman, Joanna, will permit her servants to escort you to Cornworthy.

Farewell, in the power of Christ,

Your sorrowful brother,

William Ferrers'"

The monk folded the letter and passed it across the table to Isolda.

"You may see for yourself, my lady," he murinured, "that the letter is in Sir William's own handwriting, and bears his signature. There is no deception."

She barely glanced at it. "You are very right, she said there is no deception."

Joanna smiled. "If William had known you were here and not at Trelawn, I doubt if he would have written so generously, nor would the Prioress at Cornworthy be willing to open her convent doors. However, you may count on me to keep it secret, and arrange your escort into Devon. Two days under my roof to make the necessary preparations, a change of attire, which I can see you need, and you can be on the road." She leant back in her chair, a look of triumph on her face. "I am told the air is mild at Cornworthy," she added. "The nuns there live to a great age."

"Then let us dwell behind convent walls together," replied Isolda. "Widows, when their sons marry, as your William does next year, must needs find new shelter, along with erring wives. We will be sisters in misfortune." Proud and defiant, she stared at Joanna down the length of the trestle table, and the candlelight, throwing shadows on the wall, distorted both their figures, turning Joanna, because of her hooded cloak and widow's veil, to the likeness of some monstrous crab.

"You forget," she said, playing with her multitude of rings, slipping them from one finger to another, "I have a licence to remarry, and can do so whenever I choose to pick a new husband from a chain of suitors. You are still bound to Oliver, and furthermore disgraced. There is a second course open to you other than the nunnery at Cornworthy, if you prefer it, and that is to remain as drab here to my one-time steward, but I warn you the parish might serve you as they served my tenant this day in Tywardreath, and have you riding to do penance in the manor chapel on the back of a black ram."

She broke into a peal of laughter, and, turning to the monk who was standing behind her chair, she said, "What do you say, Fr+¿re Jean? We could mount the one on a ram and the other on a ewe, and have them jog-trot together or forfeit the Kylmerth land."

I knew it must happen, and it did. Roger seized the monk and threw him back against the wall. Then, bending to Joanna, he jerked her to her feet.

"Insult me as you please, not Lady Carminowe," he said. "This is my house, and you shall leave it."

"I will do so", she replied, "when she has made her choice. I have three servants only in your cow-house in the yard, but a score or more waiting by my carriage on the hill, only too willing to pay off ancient grudges."

"Then summon them," said Roger, freeing her. "Robbie and I can defend our home against every one of your tenants, the whole parish if you will."

His voice, raised in anger, had penetrated to the sleeping-room above, and Bess came running down the ladder, pale and anxious, to take her stand behind Isolda's bench.

"Who's this?" asked Joanna. "A third for the sheep-fold? How many other slatterns do you harbour in your loft?"

"Bess is Roger's sister, and so my own," answered Isolda, putting her arm round the frightened girl. "And now, Joanna, call your servants so that this household can be rid of you. God knows we've borne your insults long enough."

"We?" queried Joanna. "Then you count yourself one of them?"

"Yes, while I receive their hospitality," said Isolda.

"So you do not intend to travel with me to Trelawn?"

Isolda hesitated, glancing first at Roger, then at Bess. But before she could reply the monk stepped out of the shadows on the wall and stood beside them.

"There is a third choice yet for Lady Carminowe," he murmured. "I sail from Fowey, within twenty-four hours, to the parent house of Saint Sergius and Bacchus at Angers. If she and the girl care to accompany me to France, I know very well I could find asylum for them there. No one would molest them, and they would be safe from all pursuit. Their very existence would be forgotten once they were in France, and Lady Carminowe herself be at liberty to start life anew in pleasanter surroundings than behind convent walls."

The proposal was so obvious a trick to get both Bess and Isolda out of Roger's care and into his own charge, to dispose of them as he wished, that I expected even his patroness to round upon him. Instead, she smiled, and shrugged her shoulders.

"Upon my word, Fr+¿re Jean, you show true Christian feeling," she said. "What do you say, Isolda? Now you have three alternatives: seclusion at Cornworthy, life in a pigsty at Kylmerth, or the protection of a Benedictine monk across the water. I know which I would choose." She glanced about her as she had first done when she entered the house, and moving round the room touched the smoke-grimed walls, grimacing, then examined her fingers, wiping them with the handkerchief she carried, and finally paused by the ladder leading to the loft above, her foot upon one rung.

"One pallet amongst four, and louse-ridden?" she asked. "If you travel into Devon or to France, Isolda, I'll thank you to sprinkle your gown with vinegar first."

The singing started in my ears, and the thunder. Their figures began to fade. All but Joanna's, standing there at the foot of the ladder. She stared towards me, her eyes opening wide, and I did not care what happened afterwards, I wanted to put my hands round her throat and choke her before she vanished, like the others, out of sight. I crossed the room and stood beside her, and she did not fade. She began to scream, as I shook her backwards and forwards, my hands round her plump, white neck.

"Damn you," I shouted, "damn you... damn you..." and the screaming was all around me, and above as well. I loosened my grip and looked up, and the boys were crouching there on the landing at the top of the back stairs, and Vita had fallen against the bannister beside me, and was staring at me, white-faced, terrified, her hands to her throat.

"Oh, my God!" I said. "Vita... darling... Oh, my God..." I fell forwards on to the bannister rail beside her, retching, seized by the uncontrollable, blasted vertigo, and she dragged herself away up the stairs to safety beside the boys, and they all started screaming once again.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

THERE WAS NOTHING I could do. I lay there on the stairs, clinging to the handrail, arms and legs splayed out grotesquely, with walls and ceiling reeling above my head. If I shut my eyes the vertigo increased, with streaks of golden light stabbing the darkness. Presently the screaming stopped; the boys were crying, and I could hear the crying die away as they ran into the kitchen overhead, slamming both the doors. Blinded by dizziness and nausea, I started to crawl upstairs, step by step, and when I had reached the top stood upright, swaying, and felt my way across the kitchen to the hall. The lights were on, the doors were open. Vita and the boys must have run up to the bedroom and locked themselves in. I staggered into the lobby and reached for the telephone, floor and ceiling blurring to become one. I sat there, holding the receiver in my hand, until the floor steadied, and the telephone directory, instead of being a jumble of black dots, straightened into words. I found Doctor Powell's number at last and dialled it, and when he answered the tension inside me broke, and I felt the sweat pouring down my face.

"It's Richard Young from Kilmarth," I said. You remember, the friend of Professor Lane.

"Oh yes?" He sounded surprised. After all, I was not one of his patients, and I must only be a face amongst hundreds of summer visitors.

"The most frightful thing has happened," I said. "I had a sort of black-out and tried to strangle my wife. I may have hurt her, I don't know."

My voice was calm, without emotion, yet all the time my heart was pounding, and the realisation of what had happened was clear and strong. There was no confusion. No merging of two worlds.

"Is she unconscious?" he asked.

"No," I said, "no, I don't think so. She's upstairs, with the boys. They must have locked themselves in the bedroom. I'm speaking to you from the lobby downstairs."

He was silent, and for one terrible moment I was afraid he was going to tell me it was none of his business and I had better call the police. Then, "All right, I'll be along straight away," he said, and rang off. I put down the receiver and wiped the sweat off my face. The vertigo had subsided, and I was able to stand without swaying. I walked slowly upstairs and through the dressing-room to the bathroom door. It was locked.

"Darling," I called, "don't worry, it's O.K. I've just telephoned the doctor. He's coming out at once. Stay there with the boys until you hear his car." She did not answer, and I called louder. "Vita," I shouted, "Teddy, Micky, don't be frightened, the doctor's coming. Everything's going to be all right."

I went back downstairs and opened the front door, and stood waiting there on the steps. It was a fine night, the sky ablaze with stars. There was no sound anywhere; the campers in the field across the Polkerris road must have turned in. I looked at my watch. It was twenty to eleven. Then I heard the sound of the doctor's car coming along the main road from Fowey, and I began to sweat again, not from fear but from relief. He turned down the drive and came to a standstill in the sweep before the house. I went through the garden to meet him.

"Thank God you've come," I said.

We went into the house together, and I pointed up the stairs. "First room at the top, on the right. That's my dressing-room, but she's locked the bathroom beyond. Tell them who you are. I'll wait for you down here."

He ran upstairs, two steps at a time, and I kept thinking that the silence from above meant that Vita was dying, that she was lying on the bed, and the boys were crouching beside her, too terrified to move. I went into the music-room and sat down, wondering what would happen if he told me Vita was dead. All of it was happening. All of it was true.

He was up there a long time, and presently I heard the sound of shifting furniture; they must be dragging the divan bed through the bathroom to the bedroom, and I could hear the doctor talking, and Teddy too. I wondered what the hell they were doing. I went and listened at the foot of the stairs, but they had gone through to the bedroom again and shut the door. I sat on in the music-room, waiting. He came down just after the clock in the hail struck eleven. "Everything's under control," he said. "No panic stations. Your wife's all right, and so are your stepsons. Now what about you?"

I tried to stand up, but he pushed me back into the chair.

"Have I hurt her?" I asked.

"Slight bruising on the neck, nothing more," he said. "It may look a bit blue tomorrow, but it won't show if she wears a scarf."

"Did she tell you what happened?"

"Supposing you tell me?"

"I'd rather hear her version first," I said.

He took a cigarette out of a packet and lighted it. "Well," he said, "I gather you didn't want any dinner, for reasons known best to yourself, and she spent the evening in here with the boys, while you were in the library. Then they decided to go to bed, and she found you had gone to the kitchen and switched on the lights. There was bacon on the stove burnt to a frazzle, the stove still on, but nobody there. So she went down to the basement. It seems you were standing there, near the old kitchen, so she said, waiting for her to come downstairs, and as soon as you saw her you went straight across to the foot of the stairs and began swearing at her, and then you put your hands round her throat and tried to throttle her."

"That's right," I said.

He looked at me sharply. Perhaps he thought I would deny it. "She insists you were fighting drunk and didn't know what you were doing," he said, "but it was a pretty grim experience for all of them, and she and those boys were scared out of their wits. More so, as I gather you're not a drinking type."

"No," I said, "I'm not. And I wasn't drunk."

He did not answer for a moment. Then he came and stood in front of me, and taking some sort of flash thing from the bag he had with him he examined my eyes. Afterwards he felt my pulse.

"What are you on?" he asked abruptly.