The Gentle Prisoner

by Sara Seale

  The tears were still wet on Shelley's face as she ran into the living-room of the cottage. Lucius, his feet comfortably on a chair while he idly filed his nails, looked up enquiringly.

  "Back so soon?" he said. "I didn't expect you for hours. What have you done with your sinister swain? Ah, tears! Have you quarrelled, my pretty?"

  She stood looking at him with drowned eyes. "Father, he - he - " she began. Lucius began his filing again.

  "He what? Don't tell me he lured you into a dark cave and wreaked his will."

  She pushed the hair back from her forehead with a tired gesture.

  "I don't understand you when you talk like that," she said wearily. Lucius cocked an eyebrow.

  "Didn't they teach you the facts of life at the convent?" he enquired.

  "Oh, that. I know what your words mean, of course, but I don't know what you mean." "Perhaps it's just as well. And what is all this distress for?" "He wants to marry me." Lucius filed vigorously.

  "Is that all? I've been expecting you to come and tell me that long ago, but I niust say I didn't think you'd arrive in tears."

  She rubbed her wet lashes.

  "Did you know, then?" she asked without surprise.

  "Of course. Your distinguished admirer, quite rightly and properly, acquainted me with his intentions some time ago - on the evening when he first met you, in fact."

  Her eyes widened.

  "But how could he know? We were strangers ..." Lucius gave her a puckish look.

  "Things happen that way, sometimes, my love. What did you say to Old Nick?"

  "Say?" she looked stupid for a moment, "oh, I said I wouldn't, of course."

  The file rasped suddenly, but Lucius did not look up.

  "Dear me! Might one ask why?" he said.

  "Father! But you must see! He's so much older ... I don't know him at all... and... and... his face..."

  "Ah, his face. It repulses you?"

  "No - not exactly. It frightens me a little because - because of the hurt he must suffer - feeling he's different, I mean. If

  I loved him - "

  "Ah, love," said Lucius. "You believe that love transforms ugliness - makes it beautiful?"

  "I don't know. I know nothing about love, but surely - "

  Lucius started on the next nail. His hands were his pride, and he had beautiful nails, shapely, though brittle.

  "Now love, let me tell you, has very little to do with these things," he said and waved the file at her. "No, don't interrupt. To be intelligent about life is what matters. I, my dear child, have not been at all intelligent about life - until now. And you - well, my dear, I have very little future to offer you. Think twice before you throw away security, for, whatever else he may be, Nicholas Penryn certainly represents that. Besides, I think he's fond of you, and that makes a lot of difference."

  "You mean he loves me?"

  "Did he say so?"

  "No, he didn't say so. He said he had learnt long ago not to expect love from any woman."

  "Sensible man. Well then, what ails you, Shelley?"

  She looked at him wistfully, seeking for the understanding she needed.

  "It's just - well, it's just that it's impossible," she said flatly. "I don't love him - I don't even know him. He's shut up in himself and his private world and never speaks of it. How can I go to live with a stranger?"

  Lucius finished off the last nail and tucked his file carefully away in his breast-pocket.

  "Very lady-novelist, my dear, but in point of fact we all marry strangers, and if you don't - if you don't -"

  "Yes, if I don't?"

  "Then we shall both find ourselves rather in the soup." She said accusingly: "You do owe him money." Lucius examined his nails with satisfaction. "Well, yes, I suppose I do." "And did he make some bargain with you?" "Not exactly a bargain. As I told you, he took a fancy for you that first evening."

  She said passionately, childishly:

  "Then you've been in league together against me."

  "Oh, my dear child;" Lucius' voice was acquiring a thin edge to it, "Don't let's have such melodramatic talk. Penryn is simply a rich man who can afford to pay for his whims. The fact that I may owe him money is neither here nor there, but I gave my consent, should you agree to marry him, and that's all there is to it. When are you going to see him again?"

  "He's going away on business for a fortnight - perhaps longer."

  "Wise man. Then what are we having such a scene about? By the time he comes back you'll have got over the first shock and be quite used to the idea."

  "Father ..." She knelt on the floor beside his chair and rested her arms on his knees. "Let's go away from here - now - before he gets back. If you owe him money he'll wait, like the others. But let's go away from St. Bede, let's go away from Cornwall."

  Lucius sighed.

  "Now, Shelley, I'm no good at scenes, you know that. We can't leave St. Bede just yet - there are reasons. And I want you to think this thing over very carefully before you finally decide. I may say it will make a great difference to me personally if you refuse - I can't explain everything to you now. Besides that" - he kissed her carelessly - "I want to see your future secure. Let's say no more about it now. In a few days, my pretty, you'll feel quite different. Dear me! Daughters can be more of a problem than I suspected!"

  It was an unhappy fortnight for Shelley, and during that time she grew up a little more, and the simple things of life were not quite so simple after all, and there was no one in all the world to turn to, for Lucius had failed her.

  "I thought you would want to please me," he would say sadly, looking at her with reproachful eyes, if she brought up the subject of Nicholas again.

  "Have I ever asked anything of you before...?"

  "I had a struggle to keep you all these years..."

  "Your mother would have counselled wisdom if she had been alive..."

  "I'm getting old, Shelley ... you could help me so much when the rot sets in..."

  All through those hot days Shelley listened, beaten down, drained by his pleadings. Lucius could always command words, and words could defeat her for she did not understand them. Between her father and Nicholas she could not fight for she did not know what she was fighting.

  "Is it something more than money?" she asked him once. "If it's just that you're in Mr. Penryn's debt, I'm sure he wouldn't want... well, he's decent... no man would ..."

  Lucius thought of his settled income, the two thousand a year that would buy freedom to live as he wanted, freedom from all those rich women and thin mealy-mouthed charity, the begging letters and the endless, endless evasions.

  "Yes," he said with a little twist to his lips. "It's more than money; it's peace of mind."

  She was sitting in the window, silhouetted against the evening sky, and she stretched up her arms to lift the long hair from her neck and hold it on the crown of her head. It was a simple, very charming movement, and Lucius said:

  "You are quite delightful, my dear."

  She turned at the genuine note in his voice, and ran across the room to sit on his knee.

  "Oh, Father," she said, "Peace of mind! If Mr. Penryn has some hold on you, I'll talk to him - I'll explain."

  She felt him stiffen.

  "You'll not mention it to Penryn, do you hear me, Shelley? It's nothing that you would understand, and he would not care for such things being discussed. I have your promise?"

  "Very well." Her arms slackened round his neck. "If he asks me again I'll just say no."

  "And that's your last word?"

  "It has to be."

  For a moment his face held the defeated disappointment of a child, and she laid her cheek against his.

  "I'm sorry," she said gently. "Can't you understand?"

  "I understand nothing except that there's no gratitude in one's children," he said, pushing her away. "Please, Shelley - it's too hot for this sort of thing."

  They did not know when Nicholas returned. Sometimes Shelley would go to th
e door half-expecting to see his tall figure striding along the shore, but he did not come, and the days were cooler and the fishermen said that rain was on the way.

  The quiet hour before supper was the easiest, for then Lucius went down to the inn and Shelley could sit idle in the window and think of nothing. She was sitting there one evening when a step sounded on the terrace and someone pushed open the door. She turned quickly and saw Nicholas standing inside the room, looking at her.

  She stared at him, the colour draining from her face, but she found no words to say, but stood up slowly, her hands behind her back like a child.

  "Good evening, Shelley," he said prosaically, and crossing to the window, took her gently by the shoulders and turned her round to face the light. She saw his face change and he said quickly:

  "What have you been doing to yourself, child? You look exhausted - drained." He touched the shadows under her eyes and she remembered the reassurance of his hands.

  "It's been so hot," she said. "Day after day - "

  "And day after day, your father," he finished for her. "I should have known how it would be."

  All at once she was weeping, standing there between his firm hands and crying.

  "It's been so bad?" he asked compassionately. "Poor Shelley - poor drowned Shelley - drowned in a sea of tears."

  He drew her into his arms and she remained there passive and weeping and very tired.

  "That other day," he said quietly above her head, "I didn't mean to frighten you ... you know why I've come, Shelley?"

  She made a small movement against his breast. "And is your answer still no?"

  She looked up into his face and saw the ugly scar which twisted the muscles so cruelly, and, as once before, when the dead body of the young fisherman had been washed upon the shore, she found in him that strength and tenderness which her father had denied her. There was no one else.

  "No," she said wearily, "I'll marry you." He put a hand under her chin, searching her face with his hard, keen eyes. "Your father succeeded in persuading you?" he asked. She shook her head.

  "No," she said. "Until this moment I said I would not." He smiled.

  "So I've won my own battle?" "No one else wants me," she said. He kept his hand under her chin.

  "Look well at my face, Shelley," he said harshly. "It's what you will have to live with."

  She reached up and touched his cheek, her fingers running gently over the scar.

  "It doesn't matter," she said, and he bent his head and brushed his lips briefly against hers, turning his disfigurement away from her.

  "It's raining!" Shelley cried suddenly, and there was a great relief and still the tremor of tears in her voice as she broke away from him and ran out on to the terrace and lifted her face to the sky.

  He followed her slowly and saw her raise her arms and turn the palms of her hands upwards to catch the raindrops. Across the bay the rain swept, dancing on the water and washing the coal dust from the little coaster.

  "Is that the China Queen, Mr. Penryn?" asked Shelley, pointing.

  "No, she's the Star of Persia" he replied. "And my name is Nicholas - or Old Nick, if you prefer it."

  "Oh!" She gave him a startled look. "Of course. I think I prefer Nicholas. There's Father." She instinctively moved closer to him. "He'll think it's because - "

  He put a light hand on her shoulder.

  "Does it matter what he thinks?" he asked.

  "No," she said, remembering Nicholas' dark influence upon them. "No..."

  They watched Lucius hurrying across the cobbles, his collar turned up against the rain.

  CHAPTER THREE

  They were married at the end of August in the little church at St. Bede. The witnesses were Lucius and a fisherman, and outside, a small knot of villagers had gathered to watch them come out. A wedding was a wedding, however quiet it might be, and Penryn was a name that held interest in these parts. Shelley wore the white dress in which Nicholas had first seen her, and they went back to Gull Cottage to drink champagne. Shelley knew that her father's serious celebration would begin at the inn, after they had left. They were to go straight back to Garazion; Nicholas had business to attend to and a honeymoon seemed superfluous in the circumstances.

  To Shelley the day had been completely unreal. Walking along the quayside with her father, her white dress fluttering in the breeze, the curious eyes of the village women, gossiping at the doors, and Nicholas waiting at the church, very tall, very dark, a stranger again as he had been that first evening at Gull Cottage. Standing beside him in the damp little church, making her responses, she had known only a longing for the sunlight. She missed the smell of incense and the twinkling lights of the convent chapel, and only Nicholas' hand on hers was warm and reassuring. But the ring, as he slipped it on her finger, was cold, and she heard the vicar's words with dismay.

  "With this ring I thee wed, with this body I thee worship ..."

  But she did not worship, and Nicholas... what did she know of Nicholas who had said, "I learned long ago not to expect love from a woman..."

  Lucius was pouring out more champagne.

  "Well, here's to you both," he said, raising his glass, "and here's to you, Shelley, for turning into the daughter of my old age, after all."

  He was in high good humour. Nicholas' lawyer had called on him in the morning, and there was nothing any longer that could be a danger to him.

  "We ought to be going, soon," Nicholas said.

  Silence fell upon them. Lucius drank, his eyes on his own

  well-being, Nicholas watched them both under his straight black brows, and Shelley was suddenly still. This was the end, she thought; the end of Gull Cottage, of the convent, and of Shelley Wynthorpe. She was Shelley Penryn now, and belonged to that dark Cornish family who sent their ships across the bay and were rooted in the harsh soil of the west.

  "Come, Shelley, it's time," Nicholas said.

  "I'm ready," she said. She went to her father. "Goodbye, Father. We have to go now."

  She kissed him carefully, knowing now that the parting meant nothing to him, then she took Nicholas' outstretched hand, and they went together down the steps.

  At last it was done. St. Bede was behind them, and the car climbing slowly to the headland. Gull Cottage was behind them and the walks on the shore and the last exhausting weeks, and Lucius who would be gone tomorrow. Now there was only Nicholas.

  Soon the moor unrolled before them, and St. Bede was left far behind. The screaming gulls, the fishermen, the children, even the sunlight seemed to have vanished. There was only a great stillness, an unbroken stretch of country which held no life and the long road, stretching solitary ahead. At last the high granite walls of Garazion rose to meet them and they stopped before the gates.

  "Home," Nicholas said, and she looked at the wall and shivered.

  An old man came out of the lodge to open the gates and stared hard at Shelley as they passed, then she saw the rose-garden.

  "Oh," she said softly. "It is like the fairy tale."

  Nicholas' mouth twisted in a wry smile.

  "The garden of the beast?" he said. "You shall have another rose to wear tonight - Beauty."

  The front door was opened by the old servant who had admitted Lucius on his only visit.

  "Welcome to Garazion, ma'am," he said, and his old eyes widened, then softened as he saw her.

  "Yes, Shelley, welcome home," Nicholas said.

  But this could never be home, thought Shelley, stepping into

  the dark, echoing hall. It was too big, too solemn for laughter and coats flung untidily on chairs. The gleam of old wood and brass and immense silver salvers greeted her from the gloom. Coats if they were here at all, would hang decorously in the great oak press which looked like a vault.

  "Bring some tea for Mrs. Penryn, and whisky and soda for me," said Nicholas, and she followed him across the hall to an open door, thinking how strange it was to hear herself called by his name.

  It was the same ro
om into which Lucius had been shown, and which Nicholas called his study. Shelley stood just inside the doorway gazing with wide eyes at the crowded cabinets, the cases of books, the elegant period furniture.

  "There's so much," she said at last.

  "The collector's failing, I'm afraid. One tends to become overcrowded," Nicholas said. "Now, let me introduce you to your portrait."

  He took her to the fireplace and stood her beneath the painting of the unknown child.

  "The very first time I saw you you reminded me of this," he said. "I've always been very fond of her. She's been my close companion for years."

  "Who is she?"

  "No one knows."

  "And am I really like that - so grave and solemn?" "I think so."

  The old man brought in a laden tray and set it down on a table.

  "Don't you think there is a likeness, Baines?" asked Nicholas nodding to the portrait.

  The old servant straightened his back and smiled at Shelley.

  "Undoubtedly, Mr. Nicholas," he said. "I noticed it myself as soon as I set eyes on madam. Will that be all, sir, or shall I send Mrs. Medlar to madam?"

  "Later," said Nicholas. "Now, Shelley, pour out your tea. It's rather soon before dinner, really, but I've no doubt you'll be glad of it."

  Watching Nicholas handling the decanter. Shelley privately thought that she would have preferred whisky. The evening

  stretched very long ahead of them.

  "Who is Mrs. Medlar?" she asked, wielding the heavy silver teapot with difficulty.

  "She's the housekeeper. She came to look after my mother before she died and has been here ever since. After dinner I'll show you some of my treasures, and tomorrow I'll take you over the house."

  And the next day, and the next? The tomorrows stretched endlessly ahead and she put down her cup abruptly.

  He gave her a sharp glance.

  "You'd like to tidy for dinner," he said. "I'll ring for Mrs. Medlar."

  Mrs. Medlar was a Cornish woman, bustling and broad. She reminded Shelley of Mother St. Ursula who had looked after the children's clothing and dosed them for colds. There was something nun-like, too, about her voluminous black skirts and jangling chains, and her black hair drawn primly over her ears like a coif.