The Gentle Prisoner

by Sara Seale

"It isn't as if it was myself that had found them," she said to Nicholas. "But for the girl to call Master Martin and find the new mistress there the very first morning - well, what are the servants going to think?"

  Nicholas' eyes were cold.

  "What should they think, Mrs. Medlar?"

  "That a bride's place is with her husband," she sniffed.

  "You forget yourself," said Nicholas icily. "Kindly tell Mrs. Penryn that breakfast is ready."

  He had poured his first cup of coffee when Shelley came down and he bade her good morning with a faint twinkle.

  "You appear to have had a night of adventure," he said, pulling out a chair for her. "Mrs. Medlar fears for the verdict of the servants."

  She told him how the cat had wakened her and led her into the other wing of the house.

  "He was lonely, poor little boy, and crying for his cat. I - I didn't mean to go to sleep myself."

  He looked at her with gentleness.

  "Just a couple of tired children. I'm afraid you can't have had much rest."

  "Why didn't you tell me about Martin?" He looked surprised.

  "I didn't think he concerned us. He's only here for a short time and he has his own rooms."

  "But don't you ever have him with you?"

  "Martin prefers his own company to mine," he said shortly. "My face frightens children."

  She did not know what to reply. The bitterness in him always defeated her and she could not deny his ugliness.

  "Tell me about Martin," she said. "Why is he here?"

  "He's my brother's child," he said, and she exclaimed involuntarily:

  "I didn't know you had a brother."

  "No?" He frowned.

  "No. I don't think I know anything about you at all."

  "I have a younger brother in the diplomatic service in India. He and his wife had to leave Martin behind on their last leave as he's delicate and the climate didn't agree with him."

  "I see," said Shelley. "Your brother - is he like you?"

  "Justin? No, he's not like me. He's a very handsome man."

  "Oh. Are there just the two of you?" "Yes, we're the last of the Penryns."

  She thought he glanced at her a little curiously as he spoke and found herself flushing.

  "I'm glad the little boy is here," was all she could find to say.

  "Yes, it's as well," he said briskly. "I shall have to be away a good deal. He'll be company for you when the winter comes."

  Dinner was a little easier that evening, with her place laid on Nicholas' right hand instead of at the foot of the table. In their little circle of candlelight they seemed closer to one another, and the room had no substance and the Penryn portraits were lost in shadow.

  She had not spoken of Lucius all day, but now she said:

  "Will Father be able to come and stay with us some time?"

  He hesitated for a moment. He did not want Lucius at Garazion, probing into their relationship and laughing at what he found, but he caught Shelley's anxious look and smiled.

  "Of course, if he wants to come," he said. "You're very fond of your father, aren't you, Shelley?"

  "He was all I had," she said simply.

  "And now?"

  She missed his meaning and replied:

  "Something went wrong the last weeks. Or perhaps I just expected something different. I don't think he ever really felt like a father to me."

  "Perhaps we none of us quite get what we expect," he said enigmatically.

  "No. It's strange, you know, but although I didn't know you at all, sometimes you seemed closer to me than my father."

  He looked at her sitting there beside him, the candlelight spilling on her hair and her white dress, and his fingers tight-

  ened on the arms of his chair.

  "Perhaps you should have been my daughter and not my wife, Shelley," he said a little sadly.

  Her fair eyebrows rose questioningly.

  "Is that what you wanted?" she asked.

  He pushed back his chair.

  "No, it's not in the least what I wanted," he said harshly. "If you've finished your coffee we'll go in the other room. I've some jewellery I want you to see."

  In his study he turned up the lamp and carried it to a table where some old jewel-cases lay. He opened these and spread their contents out for her to see. The settings were old fashioned but most of the stones were beautiful. He made his selection with care.

  "This - and this ... that's too heavy ... these are too old for you... this will look charming reset..."

  She asquiesced with all his decisions, shy of venturing an opinion of her own. Nicholas did not make the occasion seem like a bestowing of gifts. It was more as if he was handing certain of his property into her temporary keeping.

  "Don't you care for jewellery?" he asked a little sharply, aware of her awkwardness.

  "I've never had any," she said simply. "I was wondering when I would wear all this."

  "Well, not all at once, in any case," he said with a smile. "But this - " He picked up a string of small, well-matched pearls. "This you can wear now. It needs nothing doing to it."

  He stood behind her, and, brushing her hair aside, fastened the pearls round her neck, then turned her round.

  "Very nice," he said. "You have the right skin for pearls."

  "Thank you," she said haltingly. "Thank you very much -they are lovely."

  His hands still rested on her shoulders.

  "Don't I get a kiss for them?" he said lightly. "Do you know you've never kissed me, Shelley?"

  He saw the sudden confusion in her eyes and his expression hardened, but she raised her face at once, and reached up to him.

  "Of course," she said, and he turned his head slightly away so that her lips touched the unmarred side of his face.

  "I shall be going to London in a day or two, and I'll take these with me," he said, snapping the cases shut, and locking the discarded ones away in the safe.

  "Will you be away long?" she asked.

  "A few days. It depends."

  He did not suggest that she should accompany him and she did not expect it. In the brief time she had known him he had never consulted her in the matter of his arrangements.

  "Get Mrs. Medlar to take your measurements before I go," he said. "I'll see about some clothes for you."

  "Nicholas - " she said, and he turned at once to give her his attention.

  "Yes?"

  She did not know quite what it was she had meant to say and Mrs. Medlar interrupted them at that moment.

  "It's Master Martin, sir," she said with disapproval. "He won't settle down until Mrs. Penryn has said good night to him."

  Nicholas raised his black eyebrows.

  "This is a new departure, isn't it?" he said.

  "Yes, sir. I told him you wouldn't want madam disturbed at this hour, but if he doesn't go to sleep soon, he will be fretful and difficult tomorrow."

  "But of course I'll come," said Shelley instantly. "Poor little boy, I expect he misses his mother."

  Mrs. Medlar pursed her lips and left the room, and Shelley turned to Nicholas.

  "Come with me," she said impulsively. "He would like us both to say good night to him."

  "I don't think so," he said with an odd expression. "You'd better run along, and then go straight to bed yourself. It's late. I have some work to attend to before I go over to the works tomorrow, so I won't disturb you when I come up."

  His voice sounded cold and she hesitated, feeling herself reproved.

  "Run along," he said again.

  She went to him, holding up her face like a child to be kissed.

  "Very well," she said. "Good night, Nicholas." "Good night," he said, and kissed her gently on the forehead. Suddenly wanting to cry, she turned from him and ran out of the room.

  He was gone before she was down the next morning, and she breakfasted alone in the small morning-room wondering what she should do for the rest of the day. Mrs. Medlar had made it plain that she needed no help in
running the house, and indeed, Shelley would have been dismayed had she been expected to take over the reins of such an establishment as Garazion. But there was Martin, she thought happily. After breakfast she would find Martin and make plans for the day.

  Nicholas did not return for lunch, and she and the boy had it together in the morning-room, and afterwards, when rain began to fall, they spent the afternoon in Martin's room and he showed her all his treasures. She was reminded of Nicholas that first evening, and wondered if all the Penryns had the collector's instinct. Martin handled his possessions with just that same loving care with which Nicholas had handled his, and there was a likeness, too; the black hair, growing to a widow's peak on his forehead, the dark eyes, and the clean, definite line of the jaw.

  Shelley read him fairy-tales, while the cat, Mitzi, sat in an Empire chair, and watched them aloofly. Rumpelstiltskin ... What will you give me if I spin this straw into gold ... The Juniper Tree ... my mother she killed me; my father he ate me; my sister, little Margery, gathered up all my bones . .. and Riquet with the Tuft ... "tell me candidly, is there anything in me, except my ugliness, which displeases you ?" "No, truly," replied the princess, "I like everything in you, except -your appearance . . ."

  She shut the book, and absently returned the cat's stare. How they harped on ugliness, she thought. Riquet of the Tuft, the Frog Prince, the Prince with the Nose, Beauty and the Beast ... all were ugly, all enchanted...

  She looked round the room with its cabinets, its heavy tapestries; strange playroom for a little boy, as strange, perhaps as the stories she had just read to him...

  Tea was brought, and afterwards they played games of Martin's invention while the shadows deepened, and nobody came to light the lamps. Rain beat steadily against the windows, and dusk descended early. Nicholas came in, and Martin seemed only too relieved to be packed off to bed out of his way.

  "Have you got those measurements for me?" Nicholas asked Shelley. I shall be leaving for town in the morning."

  "So soon?"

  He glanced at her then, and the eyebrow which the scar pulled out of line had a satanic lift. "Yes. Do you mind?"

  "No," she said quickly. "No, of course not."

  He gave an odd little smile, and carried his mail into his study, leaving her standing in the hall.

  Mrs. Medlar took her measurements before dinner, clicking her tongue at the narrowness of Shelley's waist and the slim-ness of her hips.

  "You'm no bigger than a child," she said, lapsing momentarily into her native west country speech, and disconcerted Shelley by adding: "The Penryn ladies are big and broard and get fine sons."

  Shelley sighed.

  "Did you know Martin's mother?" she asked.

  "No, poor lady, she died in childbirth," the housekeeper said and Shelley turned startled eyes on her.

  "But he speaks of his mother," she said.

  "Oh, as to that, Mr. Justin Penryn married again. A very nice lady. She brought Master Martin here before she went back to India this time."

  "Oh, poor little boy," said Shelley softly, thinking of her own mother.

  "Yes, it was sad," Mrs. Medlar said, for once relishing a little gossip. "Miss Lydia - Master Martin's mother - stayed here a great deal as a girl, so I understand. She was a Penryn before she married; a cousin, and quite the daughter of the house."

  She paused in her measurements, darting a quick, bright glance at Shelley, no doubt thinking it strange that she should know so little of the family she had married into.

  "Oh," Shelley said and added quickly: "Is Martin's stepmother fond of him?"

  "Oh, as to that, Mrs. Justin Penryn is a proper mother, but she believes in a time and a place, like Mr. Penryn. There was no nonsense about the boy when she was staying here. She realized at once that this isn't the sort of house for children to go rioting through."

  No, thought Shelley, it wasn't.

  "He seems a good child," she said placatingly.

  Mrs. Medlar whisked the tape-measure round her chest.

  "Good enough if let be," she said primly. "But children should have their regular hours and not be a nuisance to their elders. Master Martin can play up something shocking if he's encouraged. Will that be all, ma'am?"

  "Yes, thank you."

  Shelley changed her dress, listening to the rain beating against the windows. She heard Nicholas go to his room, but he did not come in to her, and when she was ready she went along to Martin's wing to say good night.

  Sitting opposite Nicholas in his study after dinner, she longed to ask him questions about the dead Lydia who had been a Penryn too, and a daughter of the house, and fallen in love with the handsome younger brother. But she found she could not ask him the things he had already omitted to tell her, and said, instead:

  "Will you take me to see your clay works some time?"

  He looked surprised.

  "Certainly, if you would be interested," he replied.

  "Tell me how china-clay is found," she said.

  He answered her with the careful attention he always paid to her enquiries, telling her of the discovery of china-clay in Cornwall in 1755, of its uses, and the way it was worked, and of the Penryn connection with the industry for two centuries back.

  "Has there always been a son to take over the business?" she asked.

  "Yes," he said, and was silent.

  Sitting there quietly, listening to the rain, she wondered if that was why he had married her. Surely, in that case he would have chosen some Cornish girl, big and broad, as Mrs.

  Medlar had said...

  She was aware of his eyes upon her in the old piercing regard, and he said a little mockingly:

  "No, that wasn't the reason, Shelley."

  She flushed scarlet, not knowing how to reply, and he picked up an engineering quarterly and began to leaf through it.

  "There are plenty of books if you'd care to choose one," he said, and she got up, feeling as she had done in the convent when reproved for idleness.

  She found an anthology of seventeenth-century verse, and took it back to her chair, where she sat, dipping into it, listening to the rain, and wondering where her father was and what he was doing. Sometimes he had read verse aloud to her because he had liked the sound of his own voice declaiming, and those had been pleasant evenings with the light fading across the bay and the sound of the tide washing on the shore.

  Yes I could love if I could find A mistress fitting to my mind, Whom neither pride nor gold could move To buy her beauty, sell her love ...

  She looked across at Nicholas, his dark face still and closed in the lamplight; Nicholas who had said: "You're not the first woman to recoil from being kissed by me, though there were always plenty to be bought..."

  ... Were neat, yet cared not to be fine, And loved me for myself, not mine ...

  She shut the book and found his eyes on her again. "Do you know the seventeenth-century poets?" he asked. "No. We didn't have poetry about love in the convent." He smiled.

  "You liked your convent, didn't you?" "Yes. It was-safe." He raised his eyebrows.

  "That's an odd word to use at your age. Didn't you feel safe with your father?" She considered.

  "Not always. He was - unsettled."

  "And do you feel safe with me?"

  She thought he asked the question a little mockingly, but his eyes were steady, enquiring.

  "I don't know," she said. But she remembered him that day on the shore, shielding her from the sight of the dead fisherman and telling her that death could be beautiful. "Yes ... yes, I think so."

  He got up and, removing the book gently from her lap, took her hands in his, pulling her out of the chair.

  "Remember that," he said, looking down at her. "Remember that always. I'm giving you time, Shelley."

  Her grave eyes questioned him.

  "Time for what?" she asked.

  "Don't you know?" There was a hint of tenderness in his voice "When I come back I'll tell you."

  It was like that ot
her time when he had asked her to marry him. Then he had said: "When I come back I'll ask you again."

  She said: "How long will you be gone?" and he answered as before:

  "It all depends. Now, go to bed. Good night."

  He was gone a fortnight, and during that time Shelley did not hear from him except for a brief phone message stating when he would return.

  The time had passed quickly. She and Martin had been much occupied in arranging the room which Shelley had chosen for her sitting-room, denuding the unused upstairs rooms, pilfering like magpies anything that took their fancy until the room began to resemble a junk shop.

  "Half of it will have to go," Shelley said, surveying their efforts with dubious eyes and picturing Nicholas' face when he saw it, but it had been fun collecting things, and rather like playing at house in nursery days.

  The evenings were long once Martin had gone to bed, and often the rain was the only sound which broke the stillness of the house, and, towards the end of the month, mild gales, a foretaste of what would come in the winter.

  "I've known the wind so strong it would tear the ivy off the

  walls," Baines told her. "But the house doesn't even shake. Wonderful strong, these old Cornish houses."

  "Don't you ever feel lonely?" Shelley asked the old man.

  "Well, you see, ma'am, I've been here for so long," he said. "And in Mr. Nicholas' father's time, things weren't so quiet, as you might say. They've always kept themselves to themselves, the Penryns, but until Mr. Nicholas'accident there was entertaining."

  "How long ago was that?" asked Shelley, and he looked at her a little curiously, thinking, perhaps, it was a thing she should have known.

  "Twelve years last June," he said gently. "I remember well because it was the summer Miss Lydia married and went away, and six months before old Mr. Penryn died, and after that, Mr. Nicholas shut himself up at Garazion and would see no one."

  "Twelve years," said Shelley wonderingly. "That's a long time."

  Twelve years ago she had been six and in her first year at the convent, and Nicholas - Nicholas had been a young man of six-and-twenty with his career before him, and hopes - what hopes had he cherished at twenty-six?

  Another time she asked him what Lydia had been like. There were no photographs at Garazion, only the Penryn portraits, and neither Nicholas nor his cousin had joined their ranks. She was familiar now with the handsome face of Justin Penryn painted in his arrogant twenties, the dark eyes and lift of the eyebrows strongly reminiscent of his elder brother, but of Lydia she knew nothing.