A head popped up over the side of the table. “Beware the Ides of March,” said a voice low with prophecy.
“Oh give over, Miss Lowella, do,” said Mrs. Penhalligan. “She’s been under my feet all day. Looking through the window … popping up here and there with her talk of beware of this and that. Reckon she belongs to be in Bodmin Asylum.”
Lowella smiled and went into the bakehouse.
“I don’t know,” grumbled Mrs. Penhalligan. “That Miss Bective, she’s supposed to be looking after they two. Well, where be she to, half the time, I’m wondering.”
“You were going to tell me what tobacco.”
“That I were, and right good it is of you, m’am. ‘Tis Three Nuns … the Empire, you do know. His one extravagance. But then it’s only the two ounces a week he smokes and Maria and me like him to have his little treat.”
“I’ll remember.”
Lowella had come back; she was holding a small pasty in her hand.
“Someone won’t be wanting her supper like as not,” commented Mrs. Penhalligan.
Lowella regarded us both solemnly before crawling under the table.
“He’ll be that pleased,” went on Mrs. Penhalligan. “I reckon he’ll be sitting out this afternoon. It’ll make his day.”
“I’ll be getting along,” I told her.
As I made for the door Lowella darted out from under the table and reached it before me.
“I say, Bride,” she said, “I’ll come with you if you like … to see old Jesse, I mean.”
“Don’t bother,” I replied. “I know the way.”
She shrugged her shoulders and went back into the kitchen, presumably to sit under the table and finish her pasty and now and then pop up to tell Mrs. Penhalligan or Maria or Hetty to beware the Ides of March.
Not far from the cottages was a house which had been turned into a general store. It was small, overcrowded, and run by a Mrs. Robinson, who had come to Pendorric for a holiday twenty years before, realized that the nearest shop was two miles away, and had bought the house and made it into a shop. She sold, among other things, the brands of tobacco smoked by her neighbors, and kept stocks in readiness for them. So I had no difficulty in getting what I wanted.
As I came out of the shop I saw that the twins were waiting for me.
I was not pleased, for I had wanted to be alone with the old man, but there was nothing I could do but accept their company as graciously as possible.
They fell into step beside me without a word, as though we had arranged to meet.
“Where’s Miss Bective?” I asked.
The twins exchanged glances as though each was waiting for the other to speak.
It was Lowella who answered. “She’s gone off in the little Morris. She said we were to pick her six different wild flowers. It’s botany.”
“How many have you found so far?”
“We haven’t looked yet. My dear Bride, how long do you think it’s going to take us to find six different wild flowers? Becky won’t say much if we find ’em anyway. She’d never say we were undisciplined, would she, because if she did they’d say we ought to go to school, and if we went to school there wouldn’t be any excuse for Becky to be at Pendorric.”
“Don’t you think you ought to obey her instructions? After all she is your governess.”
“You oughtn’t to be worrying about us,” said Hyson.
Lowella leaped on ahead and ran up the bank to pick a wild rose. She stuck it in her hair and danced before us singing: “Beware … beware … beware the Ides of March.”
Hyson said: “Lowella is quite childish sometimes. She goes on repeating things.”
“She seems to like warning people,” I commented. “I remember, ‘Beware the awful avalanche!’”
“I like Ides better,” called Lowella. “You can’t have avalanches in Cornwall but you can have Ides anywhere. Pity they’re in March and this is July.”
“She doesn’t know anything,” put in Hyson scornfully. She went on to quote:
“March, July, October, May,
The Ides fall on the fifteenth day.”
Lowella had paused. “But what are Ides?”
“Just a date, stupid. Instead of saying the fifteenth, the Romans said the Ides.”
“Only a date,” wailed Lowella. “It sounds marvelous. I thought it was something like witches … or ghosts. Fancy having to beware of a date.”
“If something was going to happen on a certain date, if it were prophesied to happen … that would be more frightening or as frightening as witches or ghosts.”
“Yes,” said Lowella slowly, “I suppose it would.”
We had reached the row of cottages and old Jesse was seated at his door. I went over to him and said: “Good afternoon. I’m Mrs. Pendorric.”
I noticed that his hands, resting on his knees, started to shake. “’Tis good of ’ee, m’am,” he said.
“I’ve brought you some tobacco. I found out from Mrs. Penhalligan what brand you smoke.”
His trembling hands closed over the tin and he smiled. “Why, ‘twas thoughtful of ’ee, m’am. I mind how kind she always were …”
Hyson had gone into the cottage and brought out a stool which she set beside the old man’s chair. She nodded to me to sit down while she squatted on the other side of him. Lowella had disappeared.
“Your daughter has been baking pasties this morning,” I told him.
“A wonderful cook, my Bessie. Don’t rightly know what I’d do without her. I’ve got a lot to be thankful for. Mr. Roc—he’s been good to me. Is the little ’un here?”
“Yes, I’m here,” Hyson answered.
He nodded and turned to me. “I hope you find this place to your liking, m’am.”
“I’m delighted with it.”
“’Tis a long time since we’ve had a new bride at Pendorric.”
“There was my mother,” said Hyson, “and before that my Granny Barbarina.”
“A sweet lady, she were. I remember the day she come.”
“Tell us, Jesse,” urged Hyson. “The new bride wants to hear about it.”
“Well, we’d seen her many a time. ‘Twasn’t like her coming from nowheres. I remember her as a little ’un, her and her sister. Used to visit us … and master and mistress used to visit them. Hyson their name was. Such pretty names. Miss Barbarina and Miss Deborah.”
“I was named after them,” put in Hyson.
“So you were pleased when she became Mrs. Pendorric,” I said.
“I reckon I were, Mrs. Pendorric. We didn’t rightly know what would happen. We knew something of how it were and there was talk of giving up Pendorric. Pendorric as it were in the old days, that be. Us didn’t know what would happen to we like. There was talk of Mr. Petroc marrying that Sellick girl and then …”
“But he didn’t,” Hyson said. “He married my Granny Barbarina.”
“I remember the wedding. ’Twas a wonderful summer’s day. It was there in the church. The Reverend Trewin were parson then. Oh, it were a grand wedding. And Miss Barbarina was a picture with Miss Deborah her maid of honor, and Mr. Petroc looking that handsome … and it was so right and proper that it should be.”
“What about the other girl?” I asked.
“Oh, that were reckoned to be done with. She’d gone away … and all was merry …”
“Merry as a marriage bell,” murmured Hyson.
“A wonderful mistress she were. Kind and good … and gentle like. She used to ride a lot and play the violin. Often I’ve been working on the quadrangle gardens and heard her.”
I was aware of Hyson, looking at me intently. Hyson, I thought, was it you who tried to scare me? And if so, why?
“Then she had a way of singing to herself. I remember once coming home I heard her singing in the graveyard. It sounded so queer and yet beautiful and like something not quite natural. I went in and saw her. She’d been putting flowers on the grave of little Ellen Pascoe from the cottages. Little Ellen
had died of the meningitis and it was her way of saying she was thinking of ’un. We thought a terrible lot of her here in the cottages.”
“You remember her very well,” I said softly.
“It seems only yesterday she were talking to me, as you be now. I was working then. Right up to the time she died I was working. But she knew I couldn’t go on. I told her what was happening to me and she did comfort me. She said: ‘Never be feared, Jesse. I’ll see that you be all right.’ And every time she saw me she’d ask after me. And I was getting blind, Mrs. Pendorric. I can’t even see you now. But you remind me of her in a way. You’ve got a kindness which was hers. Then you be happy. I can tell that. So were she … at first. But it changed for her, poor gentle lady. Then she weren’t happy no more. My tongue be running away with me, I fear. Bessie says I be alone so much that when people come to see me I’ve got so much to make up for.”
“I’m glad you want to talk,” I said. “It’s very interesting.”
“She’s the new bride, so she naturally wants to hear about the other one,” said Hyson.
“Aye,” went on the old man. “You’re happy … as she were when she first come. ’Twas only after, poor body … I wish you all happiness, Mrs. Pendorric. I wish for you to stay as you be now forevermore.”
I thanked him and asked him about his cottage; he told me that if I cared to look over it, he would be pleased. It was kept clean and tidy by his daughter and granddaughter. He rose and, taking a stick from the side of his chair, led the way into the cottage. The door opened straight into the living room; it was certainly clean and tidy. There was his armchair, with his pipe rack and ash tray on a table beside it with a small transistor radio. There was a framed photograph on the wall, of Jesse standing, his hand resting on the shoulder of a woman sitting, whom I presumed to be his wife; they were both looking into the camera as though they were only engaged in the unpleasant duty for the sake of posterity. There were photographs of Mrs. Penhalligan at her wedding.
Leading from this sitting room was a kitchen with a door which opened into a garden. This, like the cottage, was trim and well kept; with wallflowers and cabbage roses bordering a small lawn, a water barrel leaned against the wall to catch the rain.
There were two rooms upstairs, he told me; and he managed the stairs well enough. There was nothing wrong with him except his affliction and the fact that his memory was not what it had been.
He settled in his armchair and bade me be seated while he told me about his meeting and marriage to Lizzie, and how she had been under-housemaid up at Pendorric in the days when he had worked in the gardens there.
This went on for some time and during it Hyson, presumably becoming bored, slipped away.
The old man said suddenly: “The child has gone?”
“Yes,” I told him. “I expect she’s gone to find her sister. They’re supposed to be collecting flowers for a botany lesson.”
“The little one … she questions and cross-questions …”
“She’s a strange child.”
He nodded. “She wants to know about it. It’s on her mind. ’Taint good, I reckon. Her’s young. ’T’as nought to do with her.”
“I think the story has caught her imagination. It’s because it’s a ghost story.”
“Mrs. Pendorric.” He almost whispered my name, and I went closer to him.
“Yes, Jesse?”
“There’s something I don’t talk of no more. I told Mr. Petroc and he said, ‘Don’t talk of it, Jesse. ‘Tis better not.’ So I didn’t talk. But I want to tell you, Mrs. Pendorric.”
“Why do you want to tell me, Jesse?”
“I don’t know … but you be the next bride, see … and there’s something tells me ’tis right and proper you should know.”
“Tell me then.”
“My eyes was bad and getting worse. Days was when I couldn’t make out shapes and such like. I’d think I saw someone and when I come close I’d find it to be a piece of furniture. That bad they’d got to be. But the more bad they got the more I seemed to hear, and sometimes I knew summat without seeing or hearing. They say ’tis the compensation of the blind, Mrs. Pendorric.”
“Yes, Jesse, I am sure there are compensations.”
“That day I come into the hall, Mrs. Pendorric. And she were in the gallery. I knew who ‘twas because I heard her speak. Low like she spoke … and then ’twas as though there were two shadows up there … I don’t rightly know … and ‘tis a long time to look back. But I believe, Mrs. Pendorric, that there were two on ’em up on that gallery a minute or two afore Mrs. Pendorric fell.”
“And you didn’t make this known before?”
“Mr. Pendorric said for me not to. You see, the picture were there … the picture of that other bride and they did say she’d haunted the place for more than a hundred years trying to lure a bride to take her place. There were two on ’em up there. I swear it, Mrs. Pendorric … but Mr. Petroc he didn’t want it said. I’d always obeyed the master, as my father had and his father afore him, so I said nothing … but I tell you this, Mrs. Pendorric.”
“It’s so long ago. It’s best forgotten, Jesse.”
“So I thought, Mrs. Pendorric. And have thought these twenty-five years. But you being here … and reminding me of her … in a way … and you being so good and friendly to me like, well, I thought I should tell ’ee. ’Tis a warning like. And there’s a feeling in here …” He tapped his chest. “There’s a feeling that I shouldn’t keep ’ee in the dark.”
I couldn’t see why he should feel this, but I thanked him for his concern and changed the subject, which wasn’t difficult, for now that he had told me he seemed more relaxed, as though he had done his duty. He talked of the cottage and the old days when his Lizzie had been alive; and after a time, I left.
I did not see the twins as I walked back to Pendorric.
The next day Nurse Grey telephoned me.
“Oh, Mrs. Pendorric,” she said. “Lord Polhorgan has asked me to ring. He was wondering if you could come over this afternoon. He rather wants to see you.”
I hesitated and said that I thought I could manage it, and asked how he was.
“Not quite so well. He had an attack during the night. He’s resting today, but he says that he hoped you would be able to come, if not today, tomorrow.”
I set out that afternoon, wondering whether to pick some flowers from the garden to take to him; but as he had so many more than we had that seemed rather unnecessary.
When I arrived he was in his usual chair, not dressed, but wearing a Paisley silk dressing gown and slippers. He seemed delighted to see me.
“Good of you to come so promptly,” he said. “I was afraid you wouldn’t be able to manage it.”
“I’m sorry you haven’t been so well.”
“It’s all ups and downs, my dear. I’ll get over this little bout as I have others. They’re bringing in the tea. Will you pour, as usual?”
I did so and noticed that he ate very little, and seemed rather more silent than usual, yet in a way expectant.
And as soon as the tea was cleared away he told me what, he said, he had been longing to ever since we had first met.
“Favel …” he began, and it was the first time he had used my Christian name, “come and sit near me. I’m afraid what I have to say is going to be a great shock to you. I told you when we first met that I was an old curmudgeon, didn’t I?”
I nodded.
“An impossible person. In my young days I thought of nothing but making money. It was the only thing of importance to me. Even when I married my chief thought was to have sons … sons to whom I would leave my fortune … sons who would carry on my business and add new fortunes to the one I made. I had a successful business life but I was not so successful in my domestic affairs. My wife left me for another man—one of my own employees. He wasn’t a success. I couldn’t understand why she could leave a luxurious home for him … but she did. I divorced her and I got custody of our daugh
ter, which was something she hadn’t bargained for. The child was six years old at the time. Twelve years later she left me.”
“Doesn’t it distress you to talk of the past?”
“It’s a distressing subject but I want you to understand. My daughter left me because I was trying to arrange a marriage for her. I wanted her to marry Petroc Pendorric, who was then a widower. His wife had died accidentally and I thought there was a good opportunity of joining up the families. I was an outsider here, and I thought that if mine was linked with one of the oldest Cornish families I should be so no longer. Pendorric needed money. I had it. It seemed to me ideal, but she didn’t agree.”
There was silence during which he looked at me helplessly, and for the first time since I had known him he seemed at a loss for words.
“There are often such disagreements in families,” I said.
“My wife went … my daughter went. You’d think I’d learned my lesson, wouldn’t you? Flattered myself that in the world of commerce I’d learned all the lessons as they came along. So I had … but this was something I was pretty backward in. Favel, I don’t know how to explain. Open that drawer. There’s something in there that will tell you what I’m trying to.”
I went to the drawer and, opening it, took out a photograph in a silver frame. As I stared at it I heard his voice, hoarse as I had never heard it before, with the depth of his emotion. “Come here to me, my child.”
I came to him and he no longer seemed the same man to me. Sitting there in that very luxurious room he had become more frail, more pitiable; and at the same time infinitely closer to me.
I acted on impulse and, going to him, I took his frail body in my arms and held him against me as though he were a child and I were assuring him that he could rely on me to protect him.
“Favel …” he whispered.
I drew back and looked at him. His eyes were wet, so I took the silk handkerchief from the pocket of his dressing gown and wiped them.
“Why didn’t you tell me before … Grandfather?” I asked.
He laughed suddenly and his stern features were relaxed as I had never seen them before. “Afraid to,” he said. “Lost wife and daughter. Was making a bid for the granddaughter.”
Bride of Pendorric Page 17