Penmarric

by Susan Howatch

  “I’ll call on her and introduce myself,” I said. “Perhaps if she were to meet me and learn that I’m in St. Ives to visit the St. Enedocs at Menherion Castle—”

  “The St. Enedocs!” I might have been referring to a connection with royalty. “Oh, then I’m sure Mrs. Treen wouldn’t object! She often engages in charity work with Lady St. Enedoc, and occasionally she and Mr. Treen dine at the castle …”

  And so it was settled. Nothing could have been easier.

  “I’m so sorry,” said Rose when at last it was time for her to collect James and leave the beach, “I feel shy of asking again after we’ve been talking for. so long, but what did you say your surname was, sir?”

  “Castallack,” I responded, and seeing the blank expression with which the English customarily greet Cornish names, I added with an ease born of long practice, “ ‘Cast’ as in ‘castigate,’ ‘allack’ as in the abbreviation of Alexander, and the, emphasis on the second of the three syllables.”

  “Mr. Mark Castallack,” said Rose, sighing, and the sigh was the sigh of one who is alone in the world and has longed in her loneliness to be befriended by a well-intentioned gentleman. “Oh, I shall be so looking forward to seeing you for tea tomorrow, Mr. Castallack!”

  After we had parted I rationalized my foolish behavior by telling myself that tea was the most innocuous social convention ever invented and that as soon as it was over I could continue on my way without seeing her again.

  So much for my good intentions.

  At three-thirty the following afternoon I presented myself to Mrs. Roderick Treen and was duly scrutinized by her with meticulous care for some minutes. Finally, having satisfied herself that I was indeed who I said I was and that I appeared to be an honorable gentleman, she summoned Rose to the drawing room, gave us both her blessing and told me she expected Rose to be home by six.

  Over a cream tea in a teashop near the High Street I found conversation was far from difficult. I told her about Oxford and London and she listened breathlessly, hanging on my every word; I told her of my taste for historical scholarship and she drank in everything I said, the sincerity of her admiration shining in her eyes; I told her of my father and brother and home at Gweek, and she, who had neither home nor relatives, sighed and was wistful and said how she wished she could be as fortunate as I was.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Treen are very kind and considerate,” she was quick to add, “but after all, I’m only the nursemaid and can’t expect too much.”

  My heart went out to her. I thought of the girls I had met in London that Season, rich, spoiled heiresses who threw tantrums unless they had the exact shade of material they wanted for their ball gowns, who went into a decline if they could not capture a title for themselves in the marriage market. Yet here was this doctor’s daughter, worth ten of any female paraded for the London Season only not one tenth as fortunate in terms of affluence and position.

  Naturally I saw her the next day. She did not have the afternoon off, but I met her by arrangement on the sands and hired one of the bathing tents in order that we could have greater privacy. The bathing tents, which had been erected by some daring local entrepreneur to cater to the most modern of the summer visitors, were attended by an old man who made a great fuss when I took Rose to the tent I had hired in the gentlemen’s section,, but a guinea soon silenced him and he made no further effort to disturb us.

  After we had eaten the picnic tea Rose had brought, Master James was set to work digging sand castles and Rose and I remained in the tent out of the wind. Presently I leaned forward, closed the flap and secured it tightly against the world outside.

  “Please,” said Rose anxiously at once, “I must be able to see James. If anything should happen to him …”

  I kissed her. I thought: One kiss won’t make any difference. What’s one kiss? It needn’t go any further. So I kissed her until all I could see was the sheen of fair hair, the shimmer of white skin, the blur of blue eyes, and suddenly it was as if I were kissing not her at all but Janna and I was in the parlor of Roslyn Farm.

  “Please,” said Rose’s soft, well-bred English voice, so different from Janna’s. “Please, Mark … no …”

  Sanity returned with a rush. I released her. “Im sorry,” I said rapidly. “Please forgive me. I’ve behaved very badly, particularly since I have to leave St. Ives soon and have no idea when I shall be able to return. Our … friendship can have no future and it would be utterly wrong of me to pretend otherwise.”

  She nodded, not looking at me, dumb with disappointment, and suddenly pity destroyed all my good sense and I was leaning forward, taking her in my arms again and holding her in a long and intimate embrace.

  “Oh no … no, please …”

  Her lips were soft and warm and very feminine. Her lashes flickered against my cheek and were still.

  “Mark … no, Mark …”

  I could feel her breasts straining against her blouse. I undid one button. And another.

  “No, you mustn’t …”

  “I won’t do anything.”

  “Then …”

  “Let me just …”

  “No!”

  “Please, Rose, please.” I felt her hesitate at my tone of voice. She no longer stiffened or tried to draw away from me. “Please … please …”

  “You mustn’t I …”

  “I must. You’re so pretty. I must just see …”

  “I won’t hurt you.”

  But I did. I was more careful than I had ever been with a woman before, but I still hurt her. Afterward she cried and clung to me and would not let go.

  “I didn’t mean to … What a low opinion you must have of me …” She wept, overcome with horrified remorse. “If Mrs. Treen were to find out…”

  I started reassuring her, consoling her, swearing that I had a higher opinion of her than ever, and all the time I was thinking: This must never happen again. Presently when her tears stopped she gazed at me with such adoration that I looked away in embarrassment “You’re so kind,” she said tremulously, “and so good. I knew from the beginning that I would fall in love with you.”

  I cleared my throat “I can’t offer you anything, Rose. In fact, I—”

  “But you can!” she said with shining eyes. “You have!”

  I laughed uneasily. “I can hardly expect you to be content with meetings in a tent!”

  “I don’t mind,” she said truthfully. “I think it’s romantic. And I did so long for romance when I was alone with no one to talk to.”

  I was touched again by her simplicity, confused by her unexpected willingness.

  “Could you meet me again tomorrow—here—like this?”

  “Oh yes—please, yes.”

  “Rose …” I kissed her again. Somewhere far away in the back of my mind common sense stirred and was still. “I suppose,” I said idly as an afterthought, “I suppose it’s … convenient? I mean, you’re sure, of course, that it’s the right time of the month?”

  She blushed scarlet at such an indelicate inquiry and looked away at once. “Yes,” I heard her whisper.

  It did not occur to me until it was too late that she had completely misunderstood the question.

  2

  I stayed seven days in St. Ives. After the third day I wrote to my father to tell him my intention of prolonging the visit and on the seventh day, so that I would not be obliged to lie to him later, I called at Menherion Castle to see my friend Russell St. Enedoc and his family. I was penniless. I had just enough money to pay my bill at the inn and I knew I would not be able to return to St. Ives again until I received my next quarter’s allowance on the thirtieth of September, a date still more than a month away. However, I left Rose with the promise that I would write and set off at last along the road to Morvah.

  I did mean to write. But when I returned to my father’s house sanity reclaimed me, and I began to be appalled by what I had done. To treat a whore like a whore was one thing; to treat a well-bred innocent girl like a wh
ore was quite another. The memory of Rose became an embarrassment to me. I knew it would be the height of stupidity to continue the relationship and hoped that she would not be too unhappy if I did not write, but, I told myself firmly, I had to be cruel in order to be kind. It would be better for her as well as for me if she never saw me again.

  In an effort to turn my back on such a disgraceful episode I tried to pick up the threads of my old life and spent time seeing Michael Vincent, lunching at the rectory and making sporadic largely unsuccessful efforts to work on my thesis. I would have tried my hand at gambling again to recoup the money I had spent in St. Ives, but I was already living on borrowed money from my father and I was too afraid of losing it and having to ask him for more. Besides, perhaps fortunately, my card-playing companions were all otherwise engaged at that time; three or four of them, including Roger Waymark, were away in London, and Justin Carnforth was busy entertaining my cousin Harry Penmar, who had become formally engaged to Carnforth’s plain but wealthy sister. Soon I was deprived even of Michael Vincent’s company, for Clarissa had decided to amuse herself by taking an interest in him and the poor fool was forever rushing over to Penmarric to dance attendance on her. No doubt Miriam Barnwell was full of scorn for him in consequence, but she had become unwell at the time that Harry had announced his engagement to Miss Carnforth, and I had not seen her either for several days despite my weekly visits with my father to the rectory at Zillan.

  At first I was glad to have no diversions and thought that at last I might steel myself to do some serious writing, but the will to tackle the thesis still eluded me and instead, in order to pass the time, I began to write my autobiography (the original draft of this later manuscript). However, this frivolous literary venture was hardly the practice I needed for my intellectual excursions as a historian, and to make matters worse I could not concentrate on the task for more than half an hour at a time. I was continually thinking of Janna, and as the weeks passed I found I was also, much against my will, thinking of Rose.

  The scene which haunted me most was the one in which I had carelessly inquired, “You’re sure, of course, that it’s the right time of the month?” and had accepted unquestioningly her embarrassed murmur of assent. An unpleasant chill tiptoed down my spine whenever I recalled the conversation. What did girls such as Rose know of counting days and making sordid calculations? Supposing she had misunderstood? I now saw it was more likely that she had misinterpreted my question and had thought I was referring to that other time of the month, the unmentionable time that no lady would ever discuss with a member of the opposite sex.

  Her letter appealing to me for help came on the day after my twenty-first birthday in late September. I had celebrated my coming of age quietly, drinking champagne with my father, who had given me a handsome gold watch and Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, and having decided to mark the occasion with greater festivities once we had both returned to Gweek for the winter, I was well content to spend an uneventful day at Morvah in my father’s company. We discussed my thesis at length, and after he had confessed that he was much impressed by my approach I went to bed with his praises ringing in my ears.

  It was a pity my happiness was so short-lived. Within twenty-four hours I was again facing Rose in St. Ives.

  3

  She came to the inn to see me. I had already called at the house where she lived and had been informed by Mrs. Treen that Rose was then indisposed but would be pleased to take tea with me on the morrow, and afterward, trying not to remember Mrs. Treen’s pleasure at the apparent revival of Rose’s flagging romance, I spent at least two hours walking around the town and dwelling on my predicament.

  At last when I finally dragged myself back to the inn I found Rose waiting for me in the hall.

  I braced myself, expecting her to burst into tears and dash into my arms in an embarrassing manner, but she did not. I think it was then that I first glimpsed her unexpected strength of character. A spark of admiration flared in my mind briefly and was gone.

  “Rose!” I exclaimed. “How did you manage to come, here at this hour?”

  “Mrs. Treen thinks I’m taking an early night. I asked not to be disturbed and then slipped out by the back stairs when everyone was at dinner. I remembered that you stayed here last time.” We stood facing each other. Her face was white and there were violet circles beneath her eyes. She looked fragile, delicate and unhappy. “It was good of you to come,” she said at last.

  “I came as quickly as I could.” I offered her dinner, but she was not hungry, so I suggested we withdraw to my room in order to gain some privacy. She shrank from the suggestion, looking around her desperately as if she were afraid someone was watching, but eventually she agreed to go upstairs with me. In my room we sat down together on the edge of the bed and presently I took her hand and held it.

  “Now, Rose …” I knew exactly what I was going to say. I had rehearsed the interview twenty times throughout my long ride from Morvah and had made up my mind exactly what was to be done, so I started out by speaking with a confidence that was intended to reassure her. “The first thing we must do,” I said briskly, “is see a doctor. There must be a proper diagnosis. Then if the worst is true you can leave all the arrangements to me. I’ll take care of you. I’m not rich—in fact I have virtually no money at present—but I do have expectations and I believe I know how I can obtain the money I need. Once I have the money I’ll write a letter to you on my mother’s notepaper—by a stroke of luck I still have a sheet or two of her stationery in my writing case—and pretend that my mother is offering you a post in London. You can show the letter to Mrs. Treen and I don’t think she’ll question it. That’ll give you the excuse to leave St. Ives. Now, while you’re waiting I think it would be best if you lived in Penzance—at least so long as I’m at Morvah; if I have to return to Gweek I can arrange for you to move to Helston. However, Penzance is best at present since it’s near enough to Morvah to enable me to visit you every week to see that all’s well, I’lll rent some rooms for you there, and I’ll pay the doctor and the midwife and the rent and all the other expenses. There’s no need for you to worry, you see. You can wear a wedding ring and be known as Mrs. Parrish, a widow, and no one will ever guess the truth. After it’s all over, you can have the baby adopted. There are plenty of well-to-do childless couples—”

  “No,” she said.

  There was a silence. As I caught my breath I saw a tear trickle silently down her cheek. “But, Rose—”

  “No,” she said and set her gentle mouth in a stubborn line. “I couldn’t. I couldn’t give away my own baby. It would break my heart.”

  I was silenced. I did not know what to do. I had not considered this possibility at all.

  “I won’t ask you for help after he’s born,” she said. “I’ll manage somehow. But I won’t give him away.”

  “But, Rose, I don’t see how I can support—”

  “I’ve said I won’t ask you for help.”

  “But of course I must help you!” I felt trapped and angry. “But don’t you think you’re being selfish? Don’t you think well-to-do foster-parents would give him more of a start in life than—”

  “No,” she said, “I’m his own mother and I shall love him and no child can have a better start in life than love. You’re the one who’s being selfish.”

  I stood up abruptly. “I’m merely trying to be practical and constructive and do what’s best for us both! Da—” I checked the profanity just in time—“dash it, Rose, if you keep the child you may never get married! At least as an unattached woman you would have more chance to—”

  “If I can’t marry you I don’t want to marry anyone.”

  I was silenced again. “But I …” Words failed me. At last I managed to stammer, “But I can’t marry you, Rose! I can’t!”

  “Yes, you explained,” she said. “You have no money.” She hesitated before adding rapidly, not looking at me, “But if you have expectations … perhaps lat
er …”

  “It’s not just the question of money.” Guilt made me confess a truth which I had always intended to keep from her. “You see, there’s this other woman …”

  She put her hands over her ears. “I don’t want to hear.”

  “But …”

  She let her hands fall. “If there was someone else, why did you pay attention to me that week when you came to St. Ives?

  “It was wrong of me—”

  “So you never cared. Not even then.”

  “Yes, I did—I did in a way … I am fond of you, Rose, but—”

  “Are you and she—as we were in the bathing tent?”

  “No.”

  She looked wretched. As I stared at her in misery she tried to speak but the words would not come. At last she managed to say unevenly, “I shouldn’t have consented … in the bathing tent … but I loved you so much I scarcely knew what was happening until—oh, how foolish you must think me, how foolish and ignorant and contemptible!”

  “It wasn’t your fault, Rose. Of course any decent well-brought-up girl should be ignorant of such things. That goes without saying. The fault was mine, and why you should even want to marry me after I’ve treated you so shamefully—”

  “I love you,” she said simply.

  “You can’t possibly!”

  “I do, I can’t help it.” Her eyes were bright with tears again. “I’ve never met anyone like you before. You’re so different, Mark, from the young men I used to know in Devon. You’re so clever, so full of energy and—and purpose … even to be with you is exciting and novel. You cannot conceive how much those few days we spent together meant to me. They were the most wonderful days of my whole life.”

  I was scarlet with embarrassment, speechless with remorse.

  “Don’t be angry with me, Mark. Please.”

  “I’m not angry with you, Rose,” I said. “I’m not.” I felt so consumed with shame that I could hardly bear to stay in the same room with her. “But I’m plain!” I said angrily, wanting her to hate me, wanting her contempt, wanting anything that would take the edge from my enormous sense of guilt. “I’m ugly! I’m too stout! I’m not even attractive! How can I seem exciting to you?”