Bride of Pendorric

by Victoria Holt

  I looked at those two signatures; they might have been written by the same hand.

  So Deborah and Barbarina had kept a diary between them.

  I was excited by my discovery; then I remembered that I was prying into something private. I shut the book firmly and drank some more milk. But I could not put the diary back into the drawer.

  Barbarina had written in it. If I read what she had written I might learn something about her, and she had roused my curiosity from the moment I had heard of her; now of course that curiosity was intense because I had always felt that Barbarina was in some way connected with the things which were happening to me, and as I sat there in that strange bed it occurred to me that my position was not less dangerous because I had left Pendorric for a temporary respite. When I returned, more attempts might be made on my life.

  I remembered that strange singing I had heard in the graveyard before I had been locked in the vault. If it were indeed true that someone was planning to murder me, then that someone was going to make it appear that my death was connected with the legend of Barbarina. And there was no doubting the fact that, if the superstitious people who lived round Pendorric were determined that the death of the brides of Pendorric was due to some metaphysical law, they would be less likely to report any strange incident that they might witness.

  And as I held that book in my hand, I became convinced that I should be foolish to put aside something which might help me in my need. There might be something in this book, some hint as to how Barbarina had met her death. Had she been in a position similar to mine before that fatal fall? Had she felt, as I was feeling now, that danger was creeping closer and closer, until it eventually caught up with her? If she had felt that, might she not have put it into her diary?

  But this was her childhood diary; the one she shared with Deborah. There would scarcely be anything in it about her life at Pendorric.

  But I was determined to see, and I opened the book.

  It had probably not been intended for a diary in the first place, for there were no printed dates on the pages; but dates had been written in.

  The first was September 6. No year was given, and the entry read: “Petroc came today. We think he is the best boy we have ever met. He boasts a bit, but then all boys do. We think he likes us because we are asked to his birthday party at Pendorric.”

  The next entry was September 12. “Carrie is making our new dresses. She didn’t know which of us was which. She is going to put name tabs on our clothes: Barbarina. Deborah. As if we cared. We always wear each other’s things, we told her. Barbarina’s are Deborah’s and Deborah’s Barbarina’s; but she said we should have our own.”

  It seemed just a childish account of their lives here in this house on the moor, of the parties they went to. I had no idea who was writing because the first person singular was never used; it was all in the first person plural. I went on reading until I came to a blank page and thought for a moment that was the end; but a few pages on there was more writing, yet it was not the same. It had matured and I presumed that the diary had been forgotten for some time and taken up again. There was more than a change in the handwriting, for I read:

  “August 29. From my window I saw Deborah come back.”

  I was excited because now I could say: That was actually written by Barbarina.

  Barbarina seemed to have taken on the diary from that point.

  “August 16. Petroc has asked Father and of course Father is delighted. He pretended to be surprised. As if it isn’t what they’ve all wanted for so long! I’m so happy. I’m longing to be at Pendorric. Then I shall escape from Deborah. Fancy wanting to escape from Deborah who up till now has always seemed a part of me. She is in a way a part of me. That was why she had to feel as I do about Petroc. It used to be wonderful before we knew Petroc. There were always two of us to go places, to get ourselves out of trouble … silly little troubles, of course, which you think are so important when you’re children. But that’s all changed now. I want to get away … away from Deborah. I can’t stand the way she looks at me when I’ve been with Petroc … as though she’s trying to read my mind and can’t, like she used to … as though she hates me. Am I beginning to hate her?”

  “September 1. Yesterday Father, Deborah, and I arrived at Pendorric for a visit. We’re going ahead fast with arrangements for the wedding and I’m so excited. I saw Louisa Sellick today while I was out riding with Petroc. I suppose she’s what people would call beautiful. She looks sad. That’s because she knows now she has lost Petroc forever. I asked Petroc about her. Perhaps I should have said nothing. But I was never one to stay calm. Deborah was the calm one. Petroc said it was all over. Is it? I wish I’d fallen in love with some of the others. George Fanshawe would have been a good husband and he was very much in love with me. So was Tom Kellerway. But it had to be Petroc. If Tom or George would fall in love with Deborah … Why is it they don’t? We look so much alike that people can’t tell us apart and yet they don’t fall in love with Deborah. It’s the same as it was when we were young. When we were at parties she’d keep in the background. I never did. She always said: ‘People don’t want me. I get in on your ticket.’ And because she believed it and acted that way, it came to be true. Now Deborah doesn’t know I’m going on with our diary I can write exactly what I feel. It’s such a relief.”

  “September 3. Pendorric! What a wonderful old house. I love it. And Petroc! What is it about him that’s different from everyone else in the world! Some magic! He’s so gay, but sometimes I’m frightened. He doesn’t seem to be entirely with me.”

  I had come to several blank pages in the book but after that the writing went on.

  “July 3. I found this old diary today. It’s ages since I wrote in it. The last time was just before I married. I see I’ve only put the months and days and left out the years. How like me! Still, it doesn’t matter. I don’t know why I want to write in it again. For comfort, I suppose. Since the twins were born I haven’t thought of it. It’s only now. I woke up last night and he wasn’t there. I thought of that woman, Louisa Sellick. I hate her. There are rumors about her. I suppose he’s still seeing her … and others. Could anyone be all that attractive and not take advantage of it? If I’d wanted a faithful husband I ought not to have married such an attractive man as Petroc. I notice things. I’ve seen people at parties talking. They brightly change the subject when I come up. I know they’re talking about Petroc and me … and some woman. Louisa Sellick probably. The servants look at me … pityingly. Mrs. Penhalligan for one … even old Jesse. What are they saying? Sometimes I feel I’ll go mad if I let things drift like this. When I try to talk to Petroc he’ll never be serious. He says: ‘Well, of course I love you.’ And I snap back: ‘And how many others too?’ ‘Mine’s such a loving nature,’ he answers. He can never be serious. Life’s so amusing to him. I want to shout at him that it’s not so amusing to me. When I think of the old days in Father’s house I remember how I used to love parties. Everyone made a fuss of me. And Deborah was there … she used to be as pleased as I was with my popularity. Once she said:”I enjoy it just as though it were mine.’ And I answered: ‘It is yours, Deb. Don’t you remember we always used to say that we weren’t two people … but one.’ In those days that satisfied her.”

  I had been so excited by what I read that I hadn’t noticed what was happening to myself. I had actually yawned several times during the reading and my lids now seemed so heavy that I couldn’t keep my eyes open.

  If I had been less enthralled I should not have been surprised, but the contents of this diary should surely have kept me wide awake.

  I was determined to go on reading.

  “August 8. Deborah has been here for the last fortnight. She seems to come more often now. There is a change in Deb. She’s become more alive. She laughs more easily. Something has changed her. Other people may not notice … but then they don’t know her as I do. She borrowed my riding hat the other day—the black one with the band of blue
round it. She stood before the looking glass and said: ‘I don’t believe anyone would know I wasn’t you … not anyone.’ And actually she has grown more like me since she became more lively. I know on several occasions the servants called her by my name. It amused her very much. I had an idea that she longed to be in my place. If only she knew. But that’s something I wouldn’t tell even her. It’s too humiliating. No, I couldn’t even tell Deborah about all the times when I wake up and find Petroc not with me, how I get up and walk about the room imagining what he’s doing. If she knew what I had to suffer she wouldn’t want to be in my place. She sees Petroc as so many others see him … just about the most fascinating man anyone could meet anywhere. It’s different being his wife. Sometimes I hate him.”

  “August 20. There was another scene yesterday. Petroc says I’ve got to be calm. He says he doesn’t know what’ll happen if I don’t control myself more. Control myself! When he treats me like this! He says I’m too possessive. He says: ‘Don’t pry into my life and I won’t pry into yours.’ What sort of a marriage is this?”

  “August 27. He has not been near me for more than a week. Sometimes I think everything is over between us. He can’t stand scenes, he says. Of course he can’t, because he’s in the wrong. He just wants to go on living his own way … which is more or less the same as before he was married; but everything must seem all right on the surface. There mustn’t be scandal. Petroc hates scandal. The fact is he’s lazy. That’s why he married me. Pendorric needed money. I had it. It was simple. Marry money and there’s no need to worry. Why does he have to be so amusing, so charming on the surface … so feckless and cruel underneath? If only I could be as lighthearted as he is! If only I could say: ‘Oh … that’s just Petroc. I must take him as I find him.’ But I can’t. I love him too much. I don’t want to share him. Sometimes I think I’ll go mad. Petroc thinks so too. That’s why he stays away. He hates it when I lose control. Father used to hate it too. But Father was kind and gentle with me. He used to say: ‘Barbarina my dear, you must be quiet. Look at Deborah. How calm she is. Be more like your sister, Barbarina.’ And that used to help. I’d remember that Deborah and I were one. She had all the calmness in our nature. I was the volatile one. Father might deplore my wildness; but it was what made me attractive and Deborah a little dull. Deborah ought to comfort me now but even she has changed.”

  “August 29. From my window I saw Deborah come back from a ride today. She was wearing a hat with a blue band. Not mine this time. She has one exactly like it. As she came round from the stables the children were just going out with their nurse. They called to her. ‘Hello, Mummy,’ they said. Deborah stooped and kissed first Morwenna, then Roc. The nurse said: ‘Morwenna’s knee is healing up nicely, Mrs. Pendorric.’ Mrs. Pendorric! So the nurse and the children had mistaken her for me. I felt angry. I hated Deborah in that moment and it was like hating myself. I did hate myself. It was some minutes later when I said to myself: ‘But why didn’t Deborah explain?’ But she didn’t. She just let them think that she was the children’s mother … the mistress of the house.”

  “September 2. If this goes on I think I shall kill myself. I’ve been thinking about it more and more. A quiet sleep forever and ever. No more Petroc. No more jealousy. Sometimes I long for that. I often remember the Bride story. Some of the servants are sure Lowella Pendorric haunts the place. They won’t go in the gallery where she hangs, after dark. This Lowella died after a year of marriage, having a son; she was cursed by her husband’s mistress. The Pendorric men haven’t changed much. When I think of my life at Pendorric, I’m ready to believe there might be a curse on the women of the house.”

  “September 3. Petroc says I’m getting more and more hysterical. How can I help that? All I ask is that he should be with me more, should love me as I love him. Surely that’s not asking too much. All he cares about is that he should miss none of his pleasures, which means women … women all the time. Though I believe he’s kept on with this Louisa Sellick. So he’s faithful to her … after his fashion. There’s one other thing that he cares about: Pendorric. What a fuss the other day when they discovered wood worm in the gallery. The wood’s particularly bad in the balustrade—near Lowella Pendorric’s picture—the one who was supposed to have died because of the curse, and haunt the place. That’s what’s made me think of her so much.”

  “September 12. Deborah is still with us. She doesn’t seem to want to go back to the moor. She certainly has changed. Sometimes I think she’s growing more as I used to be, and I’m becoming more like her. She’s inclined to use my things as though they were hers. We did this in the old days but it was different then. She comes into my bedroom and talks. It’s odd but I fancy she’s trying to get me to talk about Petroc, and when I do she seems to shy away. The other day when we were talking she picked up a jacket of mine—a casual sort of thing in mustard color. ‘You hardly wear it,’ she said. ‘I always liked it.’ She slipped it on and as I looked at her I had a strange feeling that I am Deborah and that she’s so longing to be in my place that she is Barbarina. I felt it was myself I was looking at. Is Petroc right? Is all that I’m suffering driving me crazy? Deborah took off the jacket but when she went out she slung it over her arm and I haven’t seen it since.”

  “September 14. I cry a lot. I’m so wretched. No wonder Petroc hardly ever comes near me. For some weeks he’s been sleeping in the dressing room. I try to tell myself it’s better that way. Then I don’t know whether he’s there or not, so I don’t have to wonder whom he’s with. But of course I do.”

  “September 20. I can’t believe it. I must write it down. I think I’ll go mad if I don’t. I could bear the others; but not this. I know about Louisa Sellick and I can understand it—and up to a point forgive it. After all he wanted to marry her. It was because of Pendorric that he married me. But this. It’s all so unnatural. I hate Deborah now. There isn’t room for the two of us in this world. Perhaps there never was. We should have been one person. No wonder she’s going about deceiving people … not correcting them when they call her Mrs. Pendorric. Petroc and Deborah! It’s incredible. But of course it’s not. It’s inevitable in a way. After all so much of me is Deborah and so much of her me. We are one … so why shouldn’t we share Petroc as we have shared so many other things? Gradually she’s been taking what’s mine … not only my husband but my personality. The way she laughs now … the way she sings. That’s not Deborah; it’s Barbarina. I go about the house outwardly calm letting the servants think that I don’t care. I stand there smiling when they talk to me and pretend to be interested as I did today when old Jesse talked about bringing something into the hall … some plant or other. It’s getting too cold out of doors or something and he doesn’t think the hothouse is quite right for it. Yes, yes, yes, I said, not listening. Poor old Jesse! He’s almost blind now. I told him not to worry; we’d see he was all right. And Petroc will, of course. That’s one thing about him—he’s good to the servants. I’m writing trivialities to prevent myself thinking. Deborah and Petroc—I’ve seen them together. I know. It’s her room he goes to. It leads from the gallery not far from that spot where the picture of Lowella Pendorric hangs. I lay listening last night and heard the door close. Deborah … and Petroc. How I hate them … both! There shouldn’t be two of us. I’ve tolerated others but I won’t tolerate this. But how can I stop it?”

  “September 21. I’ve decided to kill myself. I can’t go on. I keep wondering how. Perhaps I’ll walk into the sea. They say that after the first moments of struggle, it’s an easy death. You don’t feel it much. My body would be washed in and Petroc would see it. He’d never forget. I’d haunt him for the rest of his life. It would be his punishment and he deserves to be punished. It would be the legend coming true. The bride of Pendorric would haunt the place, and I, Barbarina, would be that bride. It seems somehow right … inevitable. I think it is the only way.”

  The rest of that page was blank and I thought I had come to the end of the diary. I y
awned, I was very tired.

  But as I turned the page I came to more writing and what I read startled me so much that I was almost wide awake.

  “October 19. They think I am dead. Yet I am here and they don’t know it. Petroc doesn’t know. It’s a good thing that he can’t bear to be near me, because he might discover the truth. He’s away most of the time. He goes to Louisa Sellick for comfort. Let him. I don’t care now. Everything is different. It’s … exciting. There’s no other word for it. I shouldn’t write in this book. It’s all so dangerous, but I like to go over it again and again. It’s funny … really funny because it makes me laugh sometimes … but only when I’m alone. When I’m with anyone I’m calm … terribly calm. I have to be. I feel more alive now than I have for a long time … now that they think I’m dead. I must write it down. I’m afraid I’ll forget if I don’t. I had made up my mind how I would die. I was going to walk into the sea. Perhaps I’d leave a note for Petroc, telling him that he’d driven me to it. Then I’d be sure that I’d haunt him for the rest of his life. It all happened so suddenly. I hadn’t planned it that way at all. Then suddenly I saw how it could be done. How a new bride could take the place of Lowella Pendorric, for it was time she rested in her grave, poor thing. Deborah came into my room. She was wearing my mustard-colored jacket, and her eyes were bright; she looked sleek and contented, and I knew, as well as if she’d told me, that he’d been with her the previous night. ‘You’re looking tired, Barby,’ she said. Tired! So would she, had she lain awake as I had. She’d be punished too. She would never forgive herself. I doubted whether she and Petroc would be lovers after I had gone. ‘Petroc’s really concerned about the gallery,’ she said. ‘It’ll probably mean replacing the whole thing.’ How dared she tell me how Petroc felt! How dared she talk in that proprietorial way about Petroc and Pendorric! She used to be so sensitive to my moods; but now her mind was full of Petroc. She picked up a scarf of mine—Petroc himself had bought it for me when we were in Italy—a lovely thing of emerald-colored silk. She put it absently about her neck. The mustard-colored jacket set it off perfectly. Something happened when she took that scarf. It seemed tremendously important. My husband … my scarf. I felt I hadn’t a life of my own any more. I wonder now why I didn’t snatch it away from her, but I didn’t. ‘Come and look at the gallery,’ she said. ‘It’s really quite dangerous. The workmen will be coming in tomorrow.’ I allowed myself to follow her out to the gallery; we stood beneath the picture of Lowella. ‘Here,’ she said. ‘Look, Barby.’ Then it happened. It suddenly seemed clear to me. I was going to die because there was no longer any reason to go on living. I had thought of walking into the sea. Deborah was standing close to the worm-eaten rail. It was a long drop down to the hall. I felt Lowella Pendorric was watching us from her canvas, saying: ‘A bride must die that I may rest in peace.’ It was the old legend and there’s a lot of truth in these old legends. That’s why they persist. Deborah was, in a sense, a bride of Pendorric. Petroc treated her as such … and she was part of me. There were times when I was not sure which of us I was. I’m glad I wrote this down, although it’s dangerous. This book must never be seen by anyone. It’s safe enough. Only Carrie has ever seen it and she knows what happened as well as I do. When I read it, I can remember it clearly. It’s the only way I can come back to what really happened on that day. I can live again that moment when she was standing there, perilously close, and I leaned forward and pushed her with all my might. I can hear her catch her breath in amazement … and horror. I can hear her voice, or did I imagine that? But I hear it all the same. ‘No, Barbarina!’ Then I know of course that I am Barbarina and that it is Deborah who lies in the Pendorric vault. Then I can laugh and say: How clever I am. They think me dead and I am alive all these years. But it’s only when I read this book that I am absolutely sure who I am.”