Bride of Pendorric

Chapter II

All the joy had naturally gone out of our honeymoon, and I could not rid myself of the fear that I had failed my father in some way. I remember lying in Roc’s arms during the night that followed and crying out: ” There was something I could have done. I know it.” Roc tried to comfort me. ” But what, my darling? How could you know that he was going to have cramp? It could happen to anybody, and, smooth as the sea was, if nobody heard his cry for help, that would be the end.”

” He never had cramp before.”

” There had to be a first time.”

” But Roc … there was something.”

He smoothed my hair back from my face. ” Darling, you mustn’t upset yourself so. There’s nothing we can do now.”

He was right. What could we do?

” He would be glad,” Roc told me, ” that I am here to take care of you.”

There was a note of relief in his voice when he said that which I could not understand, and I felt the first twinges of the fear which I was to come to know very well.

Roc took charge of everything. He said that we must get away from the island as quickly as possible because then I would begin to grow away from my tragedy. He would take me home and in time I should forget. I left everything to him because I was too unhappy to make arrangements myself. Some of my father’s treasures were packed up and sent to Pendorric to await our arrival; the rest were sold. Roc saw the landlord of our studio and arranged to get rid of the lease; and two weeks later we left Capri.

Now we must try to put that tragedy out of our minds,” said Roc as we sailed to the mainland.

I looked at his profile and for one short moment I felt that I was looking at a stranger. I did not know why—except perhaps because I had begun to suspect, since my father’s death, that there was-a great deal I had to learn about my husband.

We spent two days in Naples, and while we were there he told me that he was not in any hurry to get home because I was still so shocked and dazed, and he wanted me to have time to recover before he took me to Pendorric.

” We’ll finish our honeymoon, darling,” he said.

But my response was listless because I kept thinking of my father sitting at the studio table in the dark, and wondering what he had had on his mind.

” I ought to have found out,” I reiterated. ” How could I have been so thoughtless? I always knew when something worried him. He found it hard to hide anything from me. And he didn’t hide that.”

” What do you mean?” demanded Roc almost fiercely.

” I think he was ill. Probably that was why he got this cramp. Roc, what happened on the beach that day? Did he look ill?”

” No. He looked the same as usual.”

” Oh Roc, if only you hadn’t come back. If only you’d been with him.”

“It’s no use saying If Only, Favel. I wasn’t with him. We’re going to leave Naples. It’s too close. We’re going to put all this behind us.”

He took my hands and drew me to him, kissing me with tenderness and passion. ” You’re my wife, Favel. Remember that. I’m going to make you forget how he died and remember only that we are together now. He wouldn’t have you mourn for him.”

He was right. The shock did become modified as the weeks passed. I taught myself to accept the fact that my father’s death was not so very unusual. I must remember that I had a husband to consider now and as he was so anxious for me to put the tragedy behind me and be happy, I must do my best to please him. And it was easier as we went farther from the island.

Roc was charming to me during those days; and I felt that he was determined to make me forget all the sadness.

Once he said to me: “We can do no good by brooding, Favel. Let’s put it behind us. Let’s remember that by a wonderful chance we met and fell in love.”

We stayed for two weeks in the south of France, and each day, it seemed, took me a step farther away from the tragedy. We hired a car and Roc took a particular delight in the hairpin bends, laughing at me as I held my breath while he skilfully controlled the car. The scenery delighted me, but as I gazed at terraces of orange stucco villas which seemed to cling to the cliff face. Roc would snap his fingers. ” Wait,” he would say, ” just wait till you see Pendomc!” It was a joke between us that not all the beauty of the Maritime Alps nor the twists, turns and truly majestic gorges to be discovered on the Corniche road could compare with his native Cornwall. Often I would say it for him while we sat under a multi coloured umbrella in opulent Cannes or sunned ourselves on the beach of humbler Menton: ” But of course this is nothing compared with Cornwall.” Then we would laugh together and people passing would smile at us, knowing us for lovers.

At first I thought my gaiety was a little forced. I was so eager to please Roc and there was no doubt that nothing delighted him more than to see me happy. Then I found that I did not have to pretend. I was becoming so deeply in love with my husband that the fact that we were together could overwhelm me and all else seemed of little importance.

Roc was eager to wean me from my sorrow; and because he was the sort of man who was determined to have his way he could not fail. I was conscious of his strength, of his dominating nature, and I was glad of it because I would not have wished him to be different. He was the perfect husband and I wondered how I could ever have had doubts about him.

But I grew suddenly uneasy one night in Nice. We had driven in from Villefranche, and as we did so, noticed the dark clouds Which hung over the mountains—a contrast to the sparkling scene. Roc had suggested that we visit the Casino, and I as usual readily fell in with his suggestion. He took a turn at the tables and I was reminded then of the light in his eyes when he had sat with my father in the studio.

There was the same burning excitement that used to alarm me when I saw it in my father’s.

He won that night and was elated; but I couldn’t hide my concern, and when in our hotel bedroom I betrayed this, he laughed at me. ” Don’t worry,” he said, ” I’d never make the mistake of risking what I couldn’t afford to lose.”

” You’re a gambler,” I accused.

He took my face in his hands.

“Well, why not?” he demanded. ” Life’s supposed to be a gamble, isn’t it, so perhaps it’s the gamblers who come off best.”

He was teasing me as he used to before my father’s death, and I assured myself it was only teasing; but that incident seemed to mark a change in our relationship. I was over the first shock; there was no need to treat me with such delicate care. I knew then that Roc would always be a gambler no matter how I tried to persuade him against it, and I experienced once more those faint twinges of apprehension.

Now that the results of the shock were diminishing, I began to think of the future, and there were occasions when I was uneasy. This happened first during the night when I awoke suddenly from a hazy dream in which I knew myself to be in some unspecified danger. I lay in the darkness, aware of Roc beside me, sleeping deeply, and I thought: What is happening to me? Two months ago I did not know this man. My home was the studio on the island with my father, and now another artist works in the studio and I have no father. I had a husband. But what did I know of him? —except that I was in love with him. Wasn’t mat enough? Ours was a deeply passionate relationship and I could at times become so completely absorbed in our need of each other that this seemed all I asked. But that was only a part of marriage. I considered the marriage of my parents and remembered how they had relied on each other and felt that all was well as long as the other was close by.

And here I was waking in the night after a nightmare which hung about me seeming like a vague warning.

That night I really looked the truth in the eye, which was that I knew very little of the man I had married or of the sort of life to which he was taking me.

I made up my mind that I must have a talk with him, and j when we drove into the mountains next day I decided to do so. The fears of the night had departed and somehow seemed | ridiculous by day, yet I told myself it was absurd that I should know so little of his background.

We found a small hotel where we stopped to have lunch. I was thoughtful as we ate, and when Roc asked the reason, I blurted out: ” I want to know more about Pendorric and your family.”

” I’m ready for the barrage. Start firing.”

” First the place itself. Let me try to see it and then you fill it with the people.”

He leaned his elbows on the table and narrowed his eyes as though he were looking at something far away, which he could not see very clearly.

” The house first,” he said. ” It’s about four hundred years old in some parts. Some of it has been restored. In fact there was a house there in the Dark Ages I believe—so the story goes…. We’re built on the cliff rook some five hundred yards from the sea; I believe we were much farther from it in the beginning but the sea has a habit of encroaching, you know, and in hundreds of years it advances. We’re built of grey Cornish granite calculated to stand against the southwest gales; as a matter of fact over the front archway—one of the oldest parts of the house—there’s a motto in Cornish cut into the stone. Translated into English it is: ” When we build we believe we build for ever. ” I remember my father’s lifting me up to read that and telling me that we Pendorrics were as much a part of the house as that old archway and that Pendorrics would never rest in their graves if the time came when the family left me place.”

” How wonderful to belong to such a family!”

” You do now.”

” But as a kind of outsider … as all the people who married into the family must be.”

” You’ll soon become one of us. It’s always been so with Pendorric brides. In a short time they’re upholding the family more enthusiastically than those who started life with the name Pendorric.”

“Are you a sort of squire in the neighbourhood?”

” Squires went out of fashion years ago. We own most of the farms in the district, and customs die harder in Cornwall than anywhere else in England. We cling to old traditions and superstitions. I’m sure that a practical young woman like yourself is going to be very impatient with some of the stories you hear ; but bear with us—we’re the fey Cornish, remember, and you married into us.”

” I’m sure I shan’t complain. Tell me some more.”

“Well, there’s the house—a solid rectangle facing north, south, east and west. Northwards we look over the hills to the farmlands—south we face straight out to sea, and east and west give you magnificent views of a coastline that is one of the most beautiful in England and the most treacherous. When the tide goes out you’ll see the rocks like sharks’ teeth, and you can imagine what happens to boats that find their way on to those. Oh, and I forgot to mention there’s one view we don’t much like from the east window. It’s known to us in the family as Polhorgan’s Folly. A house which looks like a replica of our own.

We loathe it. We detest it. We nightly pray that it will be blown into the sea. “

” You don’t mean that, of course.”

” Don’t I?” His eyes flashed, but they were laughing at me. ” Of course you don’t. You’d be horrified if it were.”

” There’s actually no fear of it. It has stood there for fifty years—an absolute sham—trying to pretend to those visitors who stare up at it from the beach below that it is Pendorric of glorious fame.”

“But who built it?”

He was looking at me and there was something malicious in his gaze which alarmed me faintly because for a second it seemed as though it was directed at me; but then I realised that it was dislike of the owner of Polhorgan’s Folly which inspired it.

” A certain Josiah Fleet, better known as Lord Polhorgan. He came there fifty years ago from the Midlands, where he had made a fortune from some commodity—I’ve forgotten what. He liked our coast, he liked our climate, and decided to build himself a mansion. He did, and spent a month or so there each year, until eventually he settled in altogether and took his name from the cove below him.”

” You certainly don’t like him much. Or are you exaggerating?”

Roc shrugged his shoulders.

“Perhaps. It’s really the natural enmity between the nouveaux poor and the nouveaux rich.”

” Are we very poor?”

” By the standards of my Lord Polhorgan … yes. I suppose what annoys us is that sixty years ago we were the lords of the manor and he was trudging the streets of Birmingham, Leeds or Manchester—I can never remember which—barefooted. Industry and natural cunning made him a millionaire. Sloth and natural indolence brought us to our genteel poverty, when we wonder from week to week whether we shall have to call in the National Trust to take over our home and allow us to live in it and show it at half-a-crown a time to the curious public who want to know how the aristocracy once lived.”

” I believe you’re bitter.”

“And you’re critical. You’re on the side of industry and natural cunning. Oh, Favel, what a perfect union! You see, you’re all that I’m not. You’re going to keep me in order marvellously!”

” You’re laughing at me again.”

He gripped my hand so hard that I winced. ” It’s my nature, darling, to laugh at everything, and sometimes the more serious I am the more I laugh.”

” I don’t think you would ever allow anyone to keep you in order.”

” Well, you chose me, darling, and if I was what you wanted when you made the choice you’d hardly want to change me, would you?”

” I hope,” I said seriously, ” that we shan’t change, that we shall always be as happy as we have been up till now. “

For a moment there was the utmost tenderness in his expression, then he was laughing again.

” I told you,” he said, ” I’ve made a very good match.” I was suddenly struck by the thought that perhaps his family, who I imagined loved Pendorric as much as he did, would be disappointed that he had married a girl with no money, but I was touched and very happy because he had married me who could bring him nothing. I felt my nightmare evaporating and I wondered on what it could possibly have been founded.

“Are you friendly with this Lord Polhorgan?” I asked quickly to hide my emotion.

u Nobody could be friendly with him. We’re polite to each other. We don’t see much. of him. He’s a sick man, well guarded by a nurse and a staff of servants. “

“And his family?”

” He quarrelled with them all. And now he lives alone in his glory.

There are a hundred rooms at Polhorgan . all furnished in the most flamboyant manner. I believe, though, that dustsheets perpetually cover the flamboyance. You sec why we call it the Folly. “

“Poor old man!”

” I knew your soft heart would be touched. You may meet him. He’ll probably consider that he should receive the new Bride of Pendorric.”

” Why do you always refer to me as the Bride of Pendorric —as though in capital letters?”

” Oh, it’s a saying at Pendorric. There are lots of crazy things like that.”

“And your family?”

” Now things are very different at Pendorric. Some of our furniture has been standing where it does at this moment for four hundred years.

We’ve got old Mrs. Penhalligan, who is a daughter of Jesse and Lizzie Pleydell, and the Pleydells have looked after the Pendorrics for generations. There’s always a faithful member of that family to see that we’re cared for. Old Mrs. Penhalligan is a fine housekeeper, and she mends the counterpanes and curtains which are constantly falling apart. She keeps the servants in order at the same time—as well as ourselves. She’s sixty-five, but her daughter Maria, who never married, will follow in her footsteps. “

“And your sister?”

” My sister’s married to Charles Chaston, who worked as an agent when my father travelled a good deal. He manages the home farm with me now.

They live in the northern section of the house. We shall have the south. Don’t be afraid that you’re going to be hemmed in by relations.

It isn’t a bit like that at Pendorric. You need never see the rest of the family if you don’t want to, except at meals. We all eat together—it’s an old family custom—and anyway the servant problem makes it a necessity now. You’ll be surprised at the family customs we preserve. Really, you’ll think you’ve stepped back a hundred years. I do myself after I’ve been away for a while. “

” And your sister, what is her name?”

” Morwenna. Our parents believed in following the family traditions and giving us Cornish names wherever possible. Hence the Petrocs and Morwennas. The twins are Lowella and Hyson—Hyson was my mother’s maiden name. Lowella refers to herself as Lo and her sister as Hy. I suspect she has a nickname for all of us. She’s an incorrigible creature.”

” How old are the twins?”

” Twelve.”

“Are they at school?”

” No. They do go from time to time, but Lowella has an unfortunate habit of running away and dragging Hyson with her. She always says that they can’t be happy anywhere but at Pendorric. We’ve compromised at the moment by having a governess—a trained schoolmistress. It was difficult getting the permission of the educational authorities, but Charles and Morwenna want to keep them at home for a year or so until the child becomes more stable. You’ll have to beware of Lowella.”

“How?”

” It’ll be all right if she likes you. But she gets up to tricks. Hyson is different. She’s the quiet one. They look exactly alike, but their temperaments are completely different. Thank heaven for that. No household could tolerate two Lowellas. “

“What about your parents?”

” They’re dead and I remember very little about them. My mother died when we were five, and an aunt looked after us. She still comes to stay quite often and keeps a suite of rooms at Pendorric. Our father lived abroad a great deal when Charles came in. Charles is fifteen years older than Morwenna.”

” You said your mother died when we were five. Who else besides you?”

“Didn’t I mention that Morwenna and I were twins?”

” No. You said that Lowella and Hyson were.”

“Well, twins run in families, you know. Quite obviously they’ve started to run in ours.”

“Is Morwenna like you?”

” We’re not identical like Lowella and Hyson; but people^ say they can see a resemblance.”

” Roc,” I said leaning forward, ” you know, I’m beginning to feel I can’t wait to meet this family of yours.”

That’s settled it,” he replied. ” It’s time we went home. “

So “I was, in a measure, prepared for Pendorric.

We had left London after lunch and it was eight o’clock before we got off tile train.

Roc had said that he wished we could have motored down, because he wanted to make my crossing of the Tamar something of a ceremony.

However, he had arranged that his car should be waiting at the station so that he could drive me ‘home. Old Toms, the chauffeur-gardener and man-of-all-work at Pendorric, had driven it in that morning. So I found myself sitting beside Roc in his rather shabby Daimler and feeling a mingling of longing and apprehension, which seemed natural enough in the circumstances.

I was very anxious to make a good impression, for in this new life to which I was going I knew no one except my husband; and I had suddenly realised what an odd position I was in.

I was in a strange country—for the island had been my home—and without friends. If Esther McBane had been in England I should not have felt quite so lonely. She would at least have been one friend.

But Esther was far away in Rhodesia now, as deeply absorbed in her new life as I was becoming in mine. There had been other school friends, but none as close as Esther, and as we ‘had never exchanged letters after we left school those friendships had lapsed.

But what foolish thoughts these were! I might not have old friends, but I had a husband.

Roc swung the car out of the station yard, and as we left the town, the quiet of the summer evening closed in about us. We were in a narrow winding lane with banks on either side which were dotted with wild roses, and there was the sweet smell of honeysuckle in the air.

“Is it far to Pendorric?” I asked.

“Eight miles or so. The sea is ahead of us, the moor’s behind us.

We’ll do some walking on the moors . or riding. Can you ride? “

” I’m afraid not.” , “I’ll teach you. You’re going to make this place home, Favel. Some people never can, but I think you will.”

” I believe I shall.” ] We were silent and I studied the landscape avidly. The : houses which we passed were little more than cottages, not by any means beautiful—indeed they struck me as rather grim-all made of that grey Cornish stone. I fancied I caught a whiff of the sea as we slowly climbed a steep hill and went forward into wooded country. We were soon descending : again on the other side of the hill. ” When you see the sea you’ll know we’re not far from home,” Roc told me, and almost immediately we began to climb again.

At the top of the hill he stopped the car, and putting his arm along the back of the seat, pointed towards the sea.

” Can you see the house there, right on the edge of the cliff? That’s the Folly. You can’t see Pendorric from here because there’s a hill in the way; but it’s a little to the right.”

The Folly looked almost like a medieval castle.

“I wonder he didn’t supply a drawbridge and a moat,” murmured Roc. ” Though heaven knows it would have been difficult to have a moat up there. Still, all the more laudable that he should achieve it.” He started up the car, and when he had gone half a mile I caught my first glimpse of Pendorric.

It was so like the other house that I was astonished.

” They look close together from here,” said Roc, ” but there’s a good mile between them on the coast road—of course as the crow flies they’re a little nearer—but you can understand the wrath of the Pendorrics, can’t you, to find that set up where they just can’t get it out of their sight.”

We had now reached a major road, and we sped along this until we came to a turning and began to plunge down one of the steepest hills we had come upon as yet. The banks were covered with the wild flowers which I had noticed before, and stubby fir trees with their resinous scent.

At the bottom of the hill we struck the cliff road, and then I saw the coast in all its glory. The water was quiet on that night and I could hear the gentle swish as it washed against the rocks. The cliffs were covered in grass and bracken, and dotted here and there were clumps of pink, red, and white valerian; the sweep of the bay was magnificent.

The tide was outland in the evening light I saw those malignant rooks jutting cruelly out of the shallow water.

And there half a mile ahead of us was Pendorric itself, and I caught my breath for it was awe-inspiring. It towered above the sea a massive rectangle of grey stone, with crenellated towers and an air of impregnability, noble and arrogant as though defying the sea and the weather and anyone who came against it.

” This is your home, my dear,” said Roc, and I could hear the pride in his voice.

” It’s … superb.”

” So you’re not unhappy? I’m glad you’re seeing it for the first time.

Otherwise I might have thought you married it rather than me. “

” I would never marry a house! “

” No, you’re too honest—too full of common sense … in fact too wonderful. That’s why I fell in love with you and determined to marry you.”

We were roaring uphill again, and now that we were closer the house certainly dominated the landscape. There were lights in some of the windows and I saw the arch leading to the north portico.

“The grounds,” Roc explained, “are on the south side. We can approach the house from the south; there are four porticoes—north, south, east and west. But we’ll go into the north tonight because Morwenna and Charlie will be waiting for us there. Why, look,” he went on, and following his gaze I saw a slight figure in riding breeches and scarlet blouse, black hair flying, running towards us. Roc slowed the car and she leapt on to the running-board. Her face was brown with sun and weather, her eyes were long and black and very like Roc’s. ” I wanted to be the first to see the bride!” she shouted. ” And you always get your way,” answered Roc. ” Favel, this is Lowella, of whom beware.”

” Don’t listen to him,” said the girl. ” I expect I’ll be your friend.”

” Thank you,” I said. ” I hope you will.”

The black eyes studied me curiously. ” I said she’d be fair,” she went on. ” I was certain.”

“Well, you’re impeding our progress,” Roc told her. ” Either hop in or get off.”

” I’ll stay here,” she announced. ” Drive in. ” Roc obeyed and we went slowly towards the house.

“They’re all waiting to meet you,” Lowella told me.

“We’re very excited. We’ve all been trying to guess what you’ll be like. In the village they’re all waiting to see you too. Every time one of us goes down they say, ” And when will the Bride be coming to Pendorric? “

” ” I hope they’ll be pleased with me. “

Lowella looked at her uncle mischievously and I thought again how remarkably like him she was. ” Oh, it was time he was married,” she said. ” We were getting worried.”

” You see I was right to warn you,” put in Roc. ” She’s the enfant terrible.”

” And not such an infant,” insisted Lowella. ” I’m twelve now, you know.”

“You ‘grow more terrible with the years. I tremble to think what you’ll be like at twenty.”

We had now passed through the gates and I saw the great stone arch looming ahead. Beyond it was a portico guarded on either side by two huge carved lions, battered by the years but still looking fierce as though warning any to be wary of entering.

And there was a woman—so like Roc that I knew she was his twin sister—and behind her a man, whom I guessed to be her husband and father of the twins.

Morwenna came towards the car. ” Roc! So you’re here at last. And this is Favel. Welcome to Pendorric, Favel.”

I smiled up at her, and for those first moments I was glad that she looked so like Roc, because it made me feel that she was not quite a stranger. Her dark hair was thick with a slight natural wave and it grew to a widow’s peak which in the half-light gave the impression that she was wearing a sixteenth-century cap. She wore a dress of emerald-green linen which became her dark hair and eyes. and there were gold rings in her ears.

” I’m so glad to meet you at last,” I said. ” I do hope this isn’t a shock to you.”

” Nothing my brother does ever shocks us, really, because we’re expecting surprises.”

” You see I’ve brought them up in the right way,” said Roc lightly. ” Oh and here’s Charlie.”

My hand was gripped so firmly that I winced. I was hoping Charles Chaston didn’t notice this as I looked up into his plump bronzed face.

” We’ve all been eagerly waiting to see you, ever since we heard you were coming,” he told me.

I saw that Lowella was dancing round us in a circle; with her flying hair, and as she was chanting something to herself which might have been an incantation, she reminded me of a witch, “Oh Lowella, do stop,” cried her mother with a little laugh.

“Where’s Hyson?”

Lowella lifted her arms in a gesture which implied she had no idea. ” Go and find her. She’ll want to say hallo to her Aunt Favel.”

“We’re not calling her aunt,” said Lowella.

“She’s too young. She’s just going to be Favel. You’ll like that better, won’t you, Favel?”

” Yes, it sounds more friendly.”

” There you see,” said Lowella, and she ran into the house. Morwenna slipped her arm through mine, and Roc came up and took the other as he called: “Where’s Toms? Tom's Come and bring in our baggage.”

I heard a voice say: ” Ay sir. I be coming.”

But before he appeared Morwenna and Roc were leading me through the portico, and with Charles hovering behind we entered the house. I was in an enormous hall at either end of which was a beautiful curved staircase leading to a gallery. On the panelled walls were swords and shields and at the foot of each staircase a suit of armour. ” This is our wing,” Morwenna told me. ” It’s a most convenient house, really, being built round a quadrangle. It is almost like four houses in one and it was built with the intention of keeping Pendorrics together in the days of large families. I believe years ago the house was crowded. Only a few servants lived in the attics; the rest of them were in the cottages. There are six of them side by side, most picturesque and insanitary—until Roc and Charles did something about it. We still draw on them for help; and we only keep Toms and his wife and daughter Hetty, and Mrs. Penhalligan and her daughter Maria, living in. A change from the old days. I expect you’re hungry.” I told her we had had dinner on the train.

” Then well have a snack later. You’ll want to see some thing of the house, but perhaps you’d like to go to your own part first.” I said I should, and as I spoke, my eye was caught by a portrait which hung on the wall of the gallery. It was a picture of a fair-haired young woman m a clinging blue gown which showed her shapely shoulders; her hair was piled high above her head and one ringlet hung over her shoulder. She clearly belonged to the late eighteenth century, and I thought that her picture, placed as it was, dominated the gallery and hall.

” How charming!” I said.

” Ah yes, one of the Brides of Pendorric,” Morwenna told me. There it was again—that phrase which I had heard so often. ” She looks beautiful … and so happy.”

” Yes, she’s my great-great-great… one loses count of the greats . grandmother,” Morwenna said. ” She was happy when that was painted, but she died young.”

I found it difficult to take my eyes from the picture because there was something so appealing about that young face.

” I thought, Roc,” went on Morwenna, ” that now you’re married you’d want the big suite.”

” Thanks,” Roc replied. ” That’s exactly what I did want.” Morwenna turned to me. ” The wings of the house are all connected. You don’t have to use the separate entrances unless you wish to. So if you come up to the gallery I’ll take you through.”

” There must be hundreds of rooms.”

“Eighty. Twenty in each of the four parts. I think it’s much larger than it was in the beginning. A lot of it has been restored, but because of that motto over the arch they’ve been very careful to make it seem that what was originally built has lasted.”

We went past the suit of armour and up the stairs to the gallery. ” One thing,” said Morwenna, ” when you know your own wing you know all the others; you just have to imagine the rooms facing different directions.”

She led the way, and with Roc’s arm still in mine we followed. When we reached the gallery we went through a side door which led to another corridor in which were beautiful marble figures set in alcoves, ” Not the best time to see the house,” commented Morwenna. ” It’s neither light nor dark.”

“She’ll have to wait till the morning to explore,” added Roc. I looked through one of the window down on to a large quadrangle in which grew some of the most magnificent hydrangeas I had ever seen. I remarked on them and we paused to look down.

” The colours are wonderful in sunlight,” Morwenna told me. ” They thrive here. It’s because we’re never short of rain and there’s hardly ever a frost. Besides, they’re well sheltered in the quadrangle.” It looked a charming place, that quadrangle. There was a pond, in the centre of which was a dark statue which I later discovered was of Hermes; and there were two magnificent palm trees growing down there so that it looked rather like an oasis in a desert. In between the paving-stones clumps of flowering shrubs bloomed and there were several white seats with gilded decorations.

Then I noticed all the windows which looked down on it and it occurred to me that it was a pity because one would never be able to sit there without a feeling of being over looked.

Roc explained to me that there were four doors all leading into it, one from each wing.

We moved along (he corridor through another door and Roc said that we were now in the south wing—our own. We went np a staircase and Morwenna went ahead of us, and when she threw open a door we entered a large room with enormous windows facing the sea. The deep red velvet curtains had been drawn back, and when I saw the seascape stretched out before me I gave a cry of pleasure and at once went to the window.

I stood there looking out across the bay; the cliffs looked stark and menacing in the twilight and I could just glimpse the rugged outline of the rocks. The smell and the gentle whispering of the sea seemed to fill the room.

Roc was behind me. ” It’s what everyone does,” he said. ” They never glance at the room ; they look at the view.”

” The views are just as lovely from the east and west side,” said Morwenna, ” and very much the same.”

She turned a switch and the light from a large chandelier hanging from the centre of the ceiling made the room dazzlingly bright. I turned from the window and saw the fourposter bed, with the long stool at its foot, the tallboy, the cabinets—all belonging to an eariier generation, a generation of exquisite grace and charm.

“But it’s lovely!

“I said.

” We flatter ourselves that we have the best of both worlds,” Morwenna told me. ” We made an old powder closet into a bathroom.” She opened a door which led from me bedroom and disclosed a modern bathroom. I looked at it longingly and Roc laughed.

” You have a bath,” he said. ” I’ll go and see what Toms is doing about the baggage. Afterwards we’ll have something to eat, and perhaps I’ll take you for a walk in the moonlight—if Acre’s any to be had.” I said I thought it was an excellent idea, and they left me.

When I was alone I went once more to the windows to gaze out at that magnificent view. I stood for some minutes, my eyes on the horizon, as I watched the intermittent flashes of the lighthouse.

Then I went into the bathroom, where bath salts and talcum powder had all been laid out for me—my sister-in-law’s thoughtfulness, I suspected. She was obviously anxious to make me welcome, and I felt it had been a very pleasant homecoming.

If only I could have thought of Father at work in his studio I could have been very happy. But I had to start a new life; I must stop fretting. I had to be gay. I owed that to Roc; and he was the type of man who would want his wife to be gay. I went into the bathroom, ran a bath and spent about half an hour luxuriating in it.

When I came out. Roc had not returned, but my bags had been put in the room. I unpacked a small one and changed from my suit to a silk dress; and I was doing my hair at the dressing-table, which had a three-sided mirror, when there was a knock at the door. ” Come in,” I called, and turning saw a young woman and a child. I thought at first that the child was Lowella and I smiled at her. She did not return the smile but regarded me gravely, while the young woman said:

” Mrs. Pendorric, I am Rachel Bective, the children’s governess. Your husband asked me to show you the way down when you were ready.”

“How do you do?” I said, and I was astonished by the change in Lowella.

There was an air of efficiency about Rachel Bective, whom I guessed to be around about thirty, and I remembered what Roc had told me about a schoolmistress looking after the twins’ education. Her hair was a sandy colour and her brows and lashes so fair that she looked surprised; her teeth were sharp and white. I did not warm towards her.

She seemed to me to be obviously summing me up, and her manner was calculating and critical.

” This is Hyson,” she said. ” I believe you met her sister.”

” Oh I see.” I smiled at the child. ” I thought you were Lowella.”

” I knew you did.” She was almost sullen.

“You are so much like her.”

” I only look like her.”

” Are you ready to come down?” asked Rachel Bective. ” There’s to be a light supper because I believe you had dinner on the train.”

” Yes, we did and I’m quite ready.”

For the first time since I had come into the house I felt uncomfortable, and was glad when Rachel Bective led the way along the corridor and down the staircase.

We came to a gallery and I did not realise that it was not the same one which I had seen from the north side until I noticed the picture there and I knew that I had never seen that before.

It was the picture of a woman in a riding jacket. The habit was black and she was very fair; she wore a hard black hat, and about it was a band of blue velvet which hung down forming a snood at the back. She was very beautiful, but her large blue eyes, which were the same colour as the velvet band and snood, were full of brooding sadness.

Moreover the picture had been painted so that it was impossible to escape those eyes. They followed you wherever you went, and even in that first moment I thought they were trying to convey some message.

” What a magnificent picture!” I cried.

” It’s Barbarina,” said Hyson, and for a moment her face was filled with vitality and she looked exactly as Lowella had when she had welcomed us.

“What an extraordinary name! And who was she?”

” She was my grandmother,” Hyson told me proudly. ” She died … tragically, I believe,” put in Rachel Bective.

“How dreadful! And she looks so beautiful.”

I remembered then that I had seen a picture of another beautiful woman in the north hall when I had arrived and had heard that she too had died young.

Hyson said in a voice which seemed to hold a note of hysteria: ” She was one of the Brides of Pendorric.”

” Well, I suppose she was,” I said, ” since she married your grandfather.”

This Hyson was a strange child; she had seemed so lifeless a moment ago; now she was vital and excited.

“She died twenty-five years ago when my mother and Uncle Roc were five years old.”

“How very sad!”

” You’ll have to have your picture painted, Mrs. Pendorric,” said Rachel Bective.

” I hadn’t thought of it.”

” I’m sure Mr. Pendorric will want it done.”

” He hasn’t said anything about it.”

” It’s early days yet. Well, I think we should go. They’ll be waiting.”

We went along the gallery and through a door and were walking round the corridor facing the quadrangle again. I noticed that Hyson kept taking covert glances at me. I thought she seemed rather a neurotic child, and there was a quality about the governess which I found distinctly disturbing.

I woke up in the night and for a few seconds wondered where I was.

Then I saw the enormous windows, heard the murmuring of the sea, and it sounded like the echo of voices I had heard in my dream. I could smell the tang of seaweed and the freshness of the ocean. The rhythm of the waves seemed to keep time with Roc’s breathing. I raised myself, and leaning on my elbow looked at him. There was enough moonlight to show me the contours of his face which looked as though it had been cut out of stone. He appeared different in repose, and, realising how rarely I saw him thus, again I had that feeling that I was married to a stranger.

I shook off my fancies. I reminded myself that I had sustained a great shock. My thoughts were so often with my father, and I wondered again and again what he must have experienced in that dreadful moment when the cramp had overtaken him and he realised that he could not reach land and there was no one at hand to help him. He had come face to face with death, and that must have been a moment of intense horror; and what seemed so terrible was that at that moment Roc and I were laughing together in the kitchen of the studio.

If Roc had only stayed with him . I wished I could stop thinking of my father, sitting in the lonely studio in the darkness, of the anxiety I had seen on his face when I had come upon him and Roc together.

I must have been dreaming about the island and my father, for what was disturbing me was the memory of relief I had fancied I saw in Roc’s face at the time of the tragedy. It was almost as though he had believed it was the best possible thing that could have happened.

Surely I must have imagined that. But when had I started to imagine it? Was it that hangover from some dream?

I lay down quietly so as not to disturb him, and after a while I slept. But again I was troubled by dreams. I could hear a murmur like background music and it might have been the movement of me waves or Roc’s breathing beside me; then I heard the shrill laughter of Lowella, or it might have been Hyson, as she cried out: “Two Brides of Pendorric died young…. Now you are a Bride of Pendorric.” I remembered that dream next morning, and what had seemed full of significance in my sleep now seemed the natural result of a day crammed with new experiences.

The next day the sun was shining brilliantly. I stood at a window watching the light on the water, and it was as though some giant had thrown down a handful of diamonds.

Roc came and stood behind me, putting his hands on my shoulders. ” I can see you are coming under the spell of that Pendorric as well as this one.”

I turned and smiled at him. He looked so concerned that I threw my arms about his neck. He waltzed round the room with me and said: ” It is good to have you here at Pendorric.

This morning I’m going to take you for a drive and show you off to the locals. You’re going to find them very inquisitive. This afternoon I’ll have to go into things with old Charles. I’ve been away a long time—longer than I planned for—and there’ll be a little catching up to do. You can go off and . explore on your own then, or perhaps Lowella will join you. “

I said: “The other child is quite different, isn’t she?”

“Hyson?

Thank heaven. We couldn’t do with two like Lowella. There’d be no peace. “

” And yet they’re so alike I couldn’t tell which was which.”

“You get to know the slight difference after a while. Perhaps it’s in the voices. I’m not sure, but we can usually tell. It’s strange, but with identicals you sometimes get two entirely different temperaments.

It’s as though characteristics have been divided into two neat little piles—one for one, one for the other. However, Rachel takes good care of them. “

” Oh … the governess.”

” That makes her sound rather Victorian, and there’s nothing Victorian about Rachel. Actually she’s more a friend of the family. She was an old schoolfellow of Morwenna’s. Ready?”

We went out of the room and I followed where Roc led, realising that I must expect to be a little vague as yet about the geography of the house.

We were on the third floor and it seemed that there were linking doors to all wings on all floors. I looked down at the quadrangle as we passed the windows. It was true that it was quite charming in sunlight. I imagined myself sitting under one of the palm trees with a book. It would be the utmost peace. Then I looked up at the windows.

” A pity,” I murmured.

“What?” asked Roc.

” That you’d always have the feeling of not being alone down there.”

“Oh … you mean the windows. They’re all corridor windows, not the sort for sitting at.”

” I suppose that does make a difference.”

” I had not noticed that we had come round to the north wing until Roc paused at a door, knocked and went in.

The twins were sitting at a table, exercise books before them; and with them sat Rachel Bective. She smiled rather lazily when she saw me, reminding me of a tortoise-shell cat who was sleeping pleasantly and is suddenly disturbed.

“Hello, Favel!” cried Lowella leaping up.

“And Uncle Roc!” Lowella flung her arms about Roc’s neck, lifted her feet from the ground and was swung round and round.

Rachel Bective looked faintly amused; Hyson’s face was expressionless.

” Help!” cried Roc. ” Come along, Favel … Rachel .. , rescue me.”

“Any excuse to stop lessons,” murmured Rachel.

Lowella released her uncle.

“If I want to find excuses I always can,” she said gravely. ” That was meant to say how glad I was to see him and the Bride.”

” I want you to entertain her this afternoon,” said Roc, ” while I’ll be working. Will you?”

” Of course.” Lowella smiled at me. ” I’ve such lots to tell you.”

” I’m looking forward to hearing.” I included Hyson in my smile but she quickly looked away.

” Now you’re here,” said Roc, ” you must have a look at the old schoolroom. It’s a real relic from the past. Generations of Pendorrics sat at that table. My grandfather carved his initials on it and was sternly punished by his governess.”

” How was he punished?” Lowella wanted to know.

” Probably with a big stick … or made to fast on bread and water and learn pages of Paradise Lost.”

” I’d rather the stick,” said Lowella.

” You wouldn’t. You’d hate that,” put in Hyson surprisingly. ” No, I’d love it, because I’d take the stick and start beating whoever was beating me.” Lowella’s eyes shone at the prospect.

“There you are, Rachel, that’s a warning,” said Roc.

He had gone to the cupboard and showed me books which must have been there for years; some were exercise books filled with the unformed writing of children; there were several slates and pencil boxes.

“You’ll have to have a good look when it’s not lesson time, Favel. I believe Rachel’s getting a little impatient with us.” He flashed a smile at Rachel, and because I thought I saw intimacy in it I felt a pang of jealousy. Until now it had not occurred to me that the easy manner in which my friendship with Roc had progressed was due to his easygoing friendly nature. Now it occurred to me that he was very friendly with Rachel—and she with him, for if his smile for her was warm, hers was a good deal warmer. I began to wonder then how deep a friendship it was.

I was glad to leave the schoolroom, the exuberant Lowella, the silent Hyson, and Rachel who was too friendly—towards Roc. There were lots of questions I wanted to ask him about Rachel Bective but I felt that I might betray my jealousy if I did, so I decided to shelve the subject for the time being.

When I was sitting in the car with Roc I felt happy again. He was right when he had suggested that an entirely new life would help me to put the past behind me. So many new impressions were being superimposed on those old ones that they now seemed to belong to another life.

Roc put his hand over mine and I would have said he was a very contented man that morning.

” I can see you’ve taken to Pendorric like a duck to water.”

“It’s all so intriguing, so beautiful … and the family is interesting.”

He grimaced. ” We’re flattered. I’m going to drive you past the Folly; then you can see what a sham it is. “

We drove down the steep road and up again and then we were on a level with Polhorgan. At first glance it appeared to be as old as Pendorric.

“They’ve deliberately tried to make the stone look old. The gargoyles over the front porch are crumbling artistically.”

” There’s no sign of life.”

” There never is from this side. The master of the house has his apartments on the south side, facing the sea. He owns the beach below and he has magnificent flower gardens laid out on the cliffs. Much grander than ours. He bought the land from my grandfather.”

” He has a wonderful view.”

” That’s as well because he spends most of the time in his room. His heart won’t allow him to do otherwise.”

We had passed the house and Roc went on: “I’m taking this road which will carry us back to Pendorric because I want you to see our little village. I know you’re going to love it.”

We had turned back and were going steeply down again to the coast road which led past Pendorric. I gazed at the house in a happy proprietorial way as we passed. In a short time we were roaring up the steep hill to the main road and I could see the sea on our left.

” It’s the twists of our coast that make you lose your sense of direction,” Roc explained. ” This was once an area of terrific volcanic upheaval, which means that the land was flung in all directions. We’ve been rounding a sort of promontory and we’re now coming into the village of Pendorric.”

We swooped down again and there it lay—the most enchanting little village I had ever seen. There was the church, its ancient tower, about which the ivy clung, clearly of Norman architecture, and it was set in the midst of the graveyard. On one side the stones were dark with age and on the other they were white and new-looking. There was the vicarage, a grey house set in a hollow with its lawn and gardens on an incline. Beyond the church was the row of cottages which Morwenna had mentioned; they had thatched roofs and tiny windows and were all joined together—the whole six of them. I imagine they were of the same period as the church.

Not far from the cottages was a garage with living quarters above it.

” It was once the blacksmith’s forge,” Roc explained. ” The Bonds who lived there have been blacksmiths for generations. It broke old Jim Bond’s heart when there were no longer enough horses in the district to make the smithy worth while, but they have compromised. The old forge is still in existence and I often pull up here to have the faorsesa shod.” w He slowed down and called: “Jim! Hi, Jim!”

A window above was thrown open and a handsome woman appeared there.

Her black hair fell loosely about her shoulders and her scarlet blouse seemed too tight for her. She had the look of a gipsy. ” Morning, Mr. Roc,” she said.

” Why hallo, Dinah.”

” Nice to see you back, Mr. Roc.”

Roc waved a hand and at that moment a man came out to us. ” Morning, Jim,” said Roc.

He was a man in his fifties, an enormous man, just as one would have imagined a blacksmith should look; his sleeves c were rolled up to display his brawny muscles. Roc went on: ” I’ve brought my wife along to show her the old forge and get her acquainted with the village.”

” I’m glad to see you, ma’am,” said Jim. ” Would ‘ee care to come in and have a drop of our old cider?”

I said I should be delighted, and we got out of the car and went into the blacksmith’s shop, where a strawberry roan was actually being shod. The smell of burning hoof filled the air, and the young man who was working at the forge said good-morning to us. He seemed to be Jim too.

I was told that he was young Jim, the son of old Jim, and that there had been Jim Bonds at the forge for as long as anyone could remember.

“And us reckons there always will be,” said old Jim. ” Though … times change.” He looked a little sad.

“You never know when your luck will turn,” Roc told him. Old Jim went to a corner and came out with glasses on a tray. He filled the glasses from a great barrel with a tap at the side which stood in a corner of me shop.

” The Bonds have always been noted for their cider,” Roc explained. ” Oh yes, m’dear,” said old Jim. ” Me Granny used to keep a live toad in the barrel and ‘twas said that hers was a cider as had to be tasted to be believed. Now don’ tee look scared like. We don’t use the old toad now. Tis just the juice of good old Cornish apples and the way we Bonds have with ‘” em. “

” It’s as potent as ever,” said Roc.

” It’s very good,” I commented.

” Sometimes a bit too much for the foreigners,” said old Jim, looking at me as though he hoped I was teetering on the verge of intoxication.

The younger man went on stolidly with his work and hardly looked at us.

Then a door opened and the woman who had looked from the window came in. Her black eyes were sparkling and she swayed her hips as she walked; she was wearing a short full skirt and her shapely legs were bare and brown; her feet, slightly grubby, were in scuffed sandals. I noticed that all three men were intensely aware of her the moment she came in. Old Jim scowled at her and didn’t seem very pleased to see her; young Jim couldn’t take his eyes from her; but it was Roc’s expression which was not easy to construe. I could see immediately the effect she had on the others, but not on Roc. It was my husband whom I could not understand.

She herself studied me intently, taking in each detail of my appearance. I felt she was a little scornful of my clean linen dress, as she smoothed her hands over her hips and smiled at Roc. It was a familiar and, I thought, even intimate gaze. I was a little ashamed of myself then. Was I over-jealous because I had a very attractive husband? I must stop myself wondering what his relationship had been with every young woman he had known before he met me. ” This is Dinah, young Mrs. Bond,” Roc was explaining to me.

“How do you do?” I said.

She smiled. ” I do very well,” she answered, ” and I’m terribly glad to see Mr. Roc has brought a bride to Pendorric.”

” Thank you,” said Roc. He drained his glass. ” We have a lot to do this morning,” he added.

” Can I fill up your car, sir?” asked old Mr. Bond.

“We’re all right for a bit, Jim,” said Roc, and I had a feeling that he was anxious to get away.

I felt a little dizzy—it was the cider, I told myself—and I was rather glad to get out into the fresh air.

The old man and Dinah stood watching as we drove away. There was a slow smile on Dinah’s face.

” Dinah rather broke up the happy party,” I said.

“The old fellow hates her, I’m afraid. Life doesn’t go smoothly at the old forge since Dinah came to live there.”

” She’s very attractive.”

” That seems to be the majority opinion—including Dinah’s. I hope it works out, but I fancy young Jim doesn’t have too good a life between the old man and the young woman. Old Jim would have liked to see him marry one of the Pascoe girls from the cottages; they’d have had a little Jim by now. But young Jim—always a docile lad till he fell in love with Dinah—married her, and that has not made for peace at the old forge. She’s half gipsy and used to live in a caravan in the woods about a mile away.”

” Is she a good and faithful wife?”

“Roc laughed. ” Did she give you the impression that she was? “

” Far from it.”

Roc nodded.

“Dinah wouldn’t pretend to be what she isn’t.” He pulled up the car before a gate and a voice called to us: “Why, Mr. Pendorric, how nice to see you back. “

A plump, rosy-cheeked woman who had a basket full of roses on her arm and cutters in her hand came to the gate and leaned over. ” This is Mrs. Dark,” said Roc. ” Our vicar’s wife.”

” So nice of you to call so quickly. We’ve been so eager to meet Mrs. Pendorric.”

We got out of the car and Mrs. Dark opened the gate and took us into a garden which consisted of a lawn bounded by flower beds and enclosed by hedges of macrocarpas.

” The vicar will be very pleased to see you. He’s in the study working on his sermon. I hope you’ll have some coffee.”

We told her we had just had cider at the forge. ” And,” added Roc, ” I’d like to show my wife the old church. Please don’t disturb your husband.”

” He’d be so sorry if he missed you.” She turned to me. ” We’re so pleased to have you with us, Mrs. Pendorric, and we do hope you’re going to enjoy living here and will be with us quite a lot. It’s always so pleasant when the big house takes an interest in village things.”

” Favel is already enormously interested in Pendorric affairs,” said Roc.

“She’s looking forward to seeing the church.”

” I’ll go and tell Peter you’re here.”

We walked through the garden with her, and passing through a hedge were on the lawn that sloped down to the vicarage. Opposite the house was the church, and we went towards it while Mrs. Dark hurried across the lawn to the house.

” We don’t seem to be able to escape people this morning,” said Roc, taking my arm. ” They’re all determined to have a look at you. I wanted to show you the church on my own, but Peter Dark will be on our trail soon,” I, was conscious of the quietness about us as we passed the yews, which had grown cumbersome with age, and crossed a part of the old graveyard and went into the ‘church.

I immediately felt that I had stepped back in time. There was a thirteenth-century church looking little different, I imagined, from what it had in the days when it had been built. The light filtered through the stained-glass windows on to the altar with its beautiful embroidered cloth and exquisite carving. On the wall, carved in stone, were the names of the vicars from the year 1280. ” They were all local people,” Roc explained, ” until the Darks came. They come from the Midlands somewhere and they seem to know far more about the place than any of us. Dark is an expert on old Cornish customs. He’s collecting them and writing a book on them.” His voice sounded hollow, and as I looked up at him I was not thinking of the Darks, nor the church, but of the expression I had seen in Rachel Bective’s eyes that morning and later in those of Dinah Bond. He was extremely attractive; I had known that the moment I set eyes on him. I had fallen deep in physical love with him when I knew little about him. I knew little more now and I was more deeply in love than ever. I was so happy with him except when the doubts came. I was wondering now whether I had married a philanderer who was a perfect lover because he was so experienced; and it was not turning out to be such a happy morning as I had imagined it would.

“Anything wrong?” asked Roc.

“Should there be?”

He took me by the shoulders and held me against him so that I couldn’t see his eyes. ” I’ve got you … here in Pen dorric. How could anything be wrong with that?”

I was startled by the sound of a footstep, and breaking away I saw that a man in clerical clothes had come into the church.

” Hallo, Vicar,” said Roc easily.

” Susan told me you were here.” He advanced towards us, a pleasant-mannered man with a happy, alert expression which suggested he found his life one of absorbing interest. He took my hand. ” Welcome to Pendorric, Mrs. Pendorric. We’re so pleased to have you with us. What do you think of the church? Isn’t it fascinating?”

” It is indeed.”

“I’m having a wonderful time going through the records. It’s always been an ambition of mine to have a living in Cornwall. It’s the most intriguing of all the counties—don’t you think, Mrs. Pendorric?”

” I can well believe it might be.”

” So individual. I always say to Susan that as soon as you cross the Tamar you notice the difference. It’s like entering a different world—far away from prosaic England. Here in Cornwall one feels anything might happen. It’s a fey country. It’s due to the old superstitions and customs. There are still people here who really do leave bread and milk on their doorsteps for the Little People. And they swear it’s disappeared by morning.”

” I warned you,” said Roc, ” that our vicar is enthusiastic about the customs of the place.”

“I’m afraid I am. Mrs. Pendorric, are you interested?”

” I hadn’t thought much about it. But I believe I could be.”

” Good.

We must have a talk some time. ” We started to walk round the church and he went on: ” These are the Pendorric pews. Set apart from the rest, you see . at the side of the pulpit. I believe in the old days they used to be filled by the family and the retainers. Things have changed considerably. “

He pointed to one of the most beautiful of the stained-glass windows.

” That was put in in seventeen ninety-two in memory of Lowella Pendorric. I think the colouring of the glass is the most exquisite I’ve ever seen.”

” You’ve seen her picture in the north hall,” Roc reminded me. ” Oh yes … didn’t she die young?”

” Yes,” said the vicar, ” in childbirth with her first child. She was only eighteen. They call her the First Bride….”

” The first! But there must have been other brides. I understood there had been Pendorrics for centuries.”

The vicar stared blankly at the window.

“The sayings become attached and the origins are often steeped in legend. This is a memorial to another Pendorric. A great hero. A friend and supporter of Jonathan Trelawny who is himself buried at Pelynt, not so very far from here.

The Trelawny, you know, who defied James II and of whom we sing:

‘ And shall Trelawny die?

Here’s twenty thousand Cornishmen will know the reason why. “”

He went on to point out other features of the church, and after renewing his wife’s invitation to coffee, he left us, but not before saying that he looked forward to meeting me soon and that if I wanted any information about ancient Cornwall he would be pleased to give it to me.

I thought his kind face was a little anxious as he laid his hand on my arm and said: ” It doesn’t do to take much notice of these old stories, Mrs. Pendorric. They’re interesting just as curiosities, that’s all.”

He left us outside the church and Roc gave a little sigh. ” He can be rather trying when he gets on to his favourite hobby. I began to think we were in for one of his longer lectures and we’d never get rid of him.” He looked at his watch. ” Now we’ll have to hurry. But just a quick look round the old graveyard. Some of the inscriptions are amusing.”

We picked our way between the gravestones; some were so old that the words which had been engraved upon them were obliterated altogether; others leaned at grotesque angles.

We stopped before one which must have been more sheltered from the winds and weather than most, for although the date on it was 1779 the words were clearly visible. Roc began to read them aloud: “When you, my friends, behold Where now I lie, Remember ‘tis appointed For all men once to die. For I myself in prime of life The Lord took me away And none that’s on the Earth can tell How long they in’t may stay.”

He turned to me, smiling: “Cheerful!” he said.

“Your turn. When Morwenna and I were children we used to come here and read them to each other, taking turns.”

I paused before another stone, slightly less ancient, the date being 1842.

” Though some of you perhaps may think From dangers to be free Yet in a moment may be sent Into the grave like me.” I stopped and said: ” The theme is similar.”

” What do you expect here among the dead? It’s appropriate enough.”

” I’d rather find one that didn’t harp so much on death.”

” Not so easy,” said Roc. ” But follow me.” He led the way through the long grass and eventually stopped and began to read; ” Though I was both deaf and dumb Much pleasure did I take With my fingers and my thumb All my wants to relate.”

We smiled. ” That’s more cheerful,” I agreed. ” I’m so glad he was able to find pleasure through his misfortune.”

I turned to look at a stone nearby, and as I did so I tripped over the edge of a curb which was ‘hidden in the long grass and I went sprawling headlong over a grave.

Roc picked me up. ” All right, darling? Not hurt?”

” I’m all right, thanks.” I looked ruefully at my stocking. ” A run-ladder. That seems to be all the damage.”

” Sure?” The anxiety in his eyes made me feel very happy and I forgot my earlier vague misgivings. I assured him that I was all right and he said: ” Now some of our neighbours would say that was an omen.”

” What sort of an omen?”

” I couldn’t tell you. But falling over a grave! I’m sure they’d see something very significant in that. And on your first visit to the churchyard too.”

” Life must be very difficult for some people,” I mused. ” If they’re continually seeing omens it doesn’t give them much chance of exercising their own free will.”

“And you believe in being the master of your fate and captain of your soul, and the fault not being in your stars and so on?”

“Yes, I think I do. And you, Roc?”

He took my hand suddenly and kissed it. ” As usual you and I are in unison.” He looked about him and said: ” And that’s the family vault over there.”

” I must see that.”

I made my way to it, more cautiously this time. Roc following. It was an ornate mausoleum of iron and gilt, with three steps leading down to the door.

” Locked away there are numerous dead Pendorrics,” said Roc. I tamed away. ” I’ve thought enough about death for one bright summer’s morning,” I told him.

He put his arms round me and kissed me. Then he released me and went down the three steps to examine the door. I stood back, where he had left me, and saw that on one of the gilded spikes of me railings a wreath of laurels had been put.

I went towards it and looked at it more closely. There was a card attached to it and on it was written: ” For Barbarina.”

I did not mention the wreath to Roc when he came up to roe. He did not seem to have noticed it.

I felt a strong desire to get away from this place of death; away to the sun and the sea.

Lunch was a pleasant meal served in one of the small rooms leading off the north hall. I felt that during it I became better, acquainted with Morwenna and Charles, who were determined to make me feel at home. The twins and Rachel Bective ate with us. Lowella was garrulous; Hyson said scarcely a word; and Rachel behaved as though she were indeed a friend of the family. She reproved Lowella for over-exuberance, and seemed determined to be friendly with me. I wondered whether I had made a hasty judgment when I had decided I did not like her. After lunch Roc and Charles went off together and I went to my room to get a book. I had decided that I would do what I had wanted to ever since I had seen it—sit under one of the palm trees in the quadrangle.

I took my book and found my way out. It was delightfully cool under the tree, and as I sat gloating on the beauty of the place it occurred to me there was a look of a Spanish patio about it. The hydrangeas were pink, blue, and white, and multi-coloured masses of delightful blooms; the lavender scented the air about the water over which bronze Hermes was poised; I saw the flash of gold as the fish swam to and fro.

I tried to read, but I found it difficult to concentrate because of those windows which would not allow me to feel alone. I looked up at them. Who would want to peer out at me I asked myself. And if someone did, what would it matter? I knew I was being absurd.

I went back to my book, and as I sat reading there I heard a movement close behind me, and I was startled when a pair of hands were placed over my eyes and quite unable to repress a gasp as I said rather more sharply than I intended: ” Who is it?” As I touched the hands, which were not very large, I heard a low chuckle and a voice said: ” You have to guess.”

” Lowella.”

The child danced before me. ” I can stand on my head,” she announced.

” I bet you can’t.”

She proved her words, her long thin legs in navy-blue shorts waving perilously near the pond.

” All right,” I told her, ” you’ve proved it.” She turned a somersault and landed on her feet, then stood smiling at me, her face pink with the effort.

” How did you guess Lowella?” she asked.

” I couldn’t think of anyone else.”

” It might have been Hyson.”

” I was certain it was Lowella.”

“Hyson doesn’t do things like that, does she?”

” I think Hyson’s a little shy.”

She tamed another somersault.

“Are you afraid?” she asked suddenly.

“Afraid of what?”

“Being one of the Brides.”

“What brides?”

” The Brides of Pendorric, of course.”

She stood very still, her eyes narrowed, as she surveyed me. ” You don’t know, do you?” she said.

” That’s why I’m asking you to tell me.” She came towards me and, putting her hands on my knees, she looked searchingly into my face; she was so close that I could see the long dark eyes which slightly resembled Roc’s, and the clear unblemished skin. I was aware of another quality which reminded me of Roc. I thought I sensed a certain mischief in her look but I was not sure. ” Will you tell me?”

I asked.

For answer she looked over her shoulder and up at the windows, and I went on: “Why did you ask me if I was afraid?”

” Because you’re one of the Brides, of course. My granny was one. Her picture’s in the south hall. Have you seen it?”

” Barbarina,” I said.

” Yes. Granny Barbarina. She’s dead. You see, she was one of the Brides too.”

” This is all very mysterious to me. I don’t know why she should die simply because she was a bride.”

” There was another Bride too. She’s in the north hall” She was called Lowella and she used to haunt Pendorric until Granny Barbarina died. Then she rested in her grave. “

” Oh, I see, it’s a ghost story.”

” In a way, but it’s a live person’s story too.”

” I’d like to hear it-” Again she turned to look at me and I wondered whether she had been warned not to tell me.

” All right.” She spoke in a whisper. ” When Lowella in the south hall was a bride there was a great banquet to celebrate her wedding. Her father was very rich and lived in North Cornwall and he and her mother and all her sisters and brothers and cousins and aunts came to dance at a ball here at Pendorric. There were violins on the dais and they were all eating and dancing when the woman came into the hall. She bad a little girl with her; it was her little girl, you see, and she said it was Petroc Pendorric’s too. Not Roc’s—because this was years and years ago. It was another Pendorric with that name—only they didn’t call him Roc. This Petroc Pendorric was Lowella’s bridegroom, you see, and the woman with the little girl thought he ought to have been hers.

This woman lived wild in the woods with her mother, and the mother was a witch so that makes it a curse that works. She cursed Pendorric and the Bride and all the fun stopped then. “

” And how long ago did this happen?” I asked.

” Nearly two hundred years.”

” It’s a long time.”

” But it’s a story that goes on and on. It doesn’t have an ending, you see. It’s not only Lowella’s story and Barbarina’s story … it’s yours too.”

“How could that be?”

” You haven’t heard what the curse was. The Bride was to die in the prime of her life and she wouldn’t rest in her grave until another Bride had gone to her death … in the prime of her life, of course.”

I smiled. I was astonished that I could feel so relieved. That ominous phrase the Brides of Pendorric was now explained. It was only this old legend which, because we were in Cornwall, where superstitions prevailed, had lived on and provided the old house with a ghost ” You don’t seem very worried. I would if I were you.”

” You haven’t finished tike story. What happened to that bride?”

” She died having her son exactly a year after her wedding day. She was eighteen years old, which you must admit is very young to die.”

“I expect a great many women died in childbirth. Particularly in those days.”

” Yes, but they said she used to haunt the place waiting for a bride to take her place.”

” To do the haunting, you mean?”

” You’re like Uncle Roc. He always laughs at it. I don’t laugh though.

I know better. “

” So you believe in this haunting business.”

She nodded.

“I’ve got the second sight. That’s why I’m telling you you won’t always laugh.”

She leaped away from me and turned another somersault, her long thin legs swaying before me. I had the impression that she was rather pleased because I was going to be shocked out of my scepticism. She came to stand before me again and with a virtuous expression said: “I think you ought to know. You see, the Bride Lowella used to haunt Pendorric till my Granny Barbarina died. Then she rested in her grave because she’d lured another bride to take her place and do the haunting. My Granny Barbarina’s been doing it for twenty-five years. I reckon she’s tired. She’d want to rest in her tomfc, wouldn’t she? You can bet your life she’s looking out for another bride to do the job.”

” I see what you mean,” I said lightly. ” I’m the bride.”

“You’re laughing, aren’t you?” She stepped back and turned another somersault. ” But you’ll see.”

Her face seen from upside down looked jaunty as her long dark ponytail trailed on the grass.

” I’m sure you’ve never seen the ghost of your grandmother-have you?” She did not answer but regarded me stolidly for a few seconds; then she turned a rapid somersault and did a few more handsprings on the grass, going farther and farther away from me until she reached the north door. She went through this and I was alone.

I returned to my book but I found that I kept looking up at the windows. I had been right when I had thought so many windows would be disconcerting; they really were like the eyes of the house. It’s all this talk of ghosts, I thought. Well, I had been warned of the superstitions of the Cornish, and I suspected that Lowella had mischievously tried to frighten me.

The north door opened with a crash and I saw the brown face, the dark ponytail, the light blue blouse and dark blue shorts. ” Hallo! Uncle Roc said I was to look after you in case you were lonely.”

” Well, you’ve been doing that after your fashion,” I told her. ” I couldn’t find you. I went up to your room and you weren’t there. I hunted everywhere and then I thought of the quad. So I came here. What would you like to do? ” ” But you were here a little while ago.”

She looked at me blankly.

” You told me the story of the brides,” I reminded her. She clapped her hands over her mouth. ” She didn’t, did she?”

“You’re not … Hyson, are you?”

” Of course not. I’m Lowella.”

” But she said …” Had she said she was Lowella? I was not sure. ” Did Hy pretend she was me?” The child began to laugh.

“You are Lowella, aren’t you?” I persisted.

“You really are.” She licked a finger and held it out and said:

” See my finger’s wet?”

She wiped it.

” See my finger’s dry?”

She drew it across her throat.

” Cut my throat if I tell a lie.”

She looked so earnest that I believed her.

” But why did she pretend she was you?” Lowella’s brows puckered, then she said: “I think she doesn’t like being the quiet one. So when I’m not there she thinks she’ll be me. People who don’t know us much can’t tell the difference. Would you like to come to the stables and see our ponies?”

I said I would; I felt that I wanted to escape from the quadrangle as I had from the graveyard that morning.

Dinner that night was a comfortable meal. The twins did not join us and there were the five of us. Morwenna said that when I was ready she’d show me the house and explain how it was run.

” Roc thinks that just at first, until you’ve settled in, you would like things to go on as they are.” Morwenna smiled at her brother affectionately. ” But it’s to be as you want. He’s very insistent on that.”

” And don’t think,” put in Roc, returning his sister’s look, ” that Wenna will mind in the least whatever you want to do in the house. Now if you should want to root up her magnolia tree or turn the rose garden into a rockery, that would be quite another matter.” Morwenna smiled at me.

“I’ve never been much of a housekeeper. Who cares? It’s not really necessary. Mrs. Penhalligan’s a treasure. I do love the garden, but of course if you want anything changed …”

” So,” cried Roc, ” the battle of the trees is about to begin.”

” Don’t take any notice of him,” Morwenna said. ” He loves to tease us. But then I expect you’ve discovered that by now.”

I said I had and that I knew nothing of gardening and had always lived in a tiny studio which was as different from a mansion as any place could be.

I felt very happy to hear this banter between Roc and his sister because the affection which lay beneath it was very obvious. I was certain that Roc was anxious that Morwenna should not feel put out because he had brought a wife into the midst of their household, which could easily bring a lot of change. I loved him for his consideration of his sister; and when they asked me questions about Capri and were very careful not to mention my father, I guessed that Roc had warned them of my grief.

How considerate he was of us all; I loved him all the more because he never made a show of his care for us, but hid it under that teasing manner.

Morwenna and Charles were clearly trying to make me feel at home, because they were kindly and so fond of Roc. I was less certain of Rachel. She seemed absorbed in impressing on the servants that she was an honoured member of the family; she was a little on the defensive I thought, and, when her face was in repose, I fancied I caught a bitterness in her expression.

We sat in one of the small drawing-rooms drinking coffee which was served to us by Mrs. Penhalligan while Charles and Roc talked estate business, and Morwenna and Rachel, one on either side of me, launched into a description of local affairs. I found it all very interesting, particularly after the brief glimpse I had had that morning of the little village. Morwenna said she would drive me into Plymouth when I wanted to shop because it would be better for me to have someone who knew the shops the first time I went.

I thanked her, and Rachel said that if by any chance Morwenna wasn’t available I could count on her.

” That’s nice of you,” I replied.

“Only too pleased to do all I can for Roc’s bride,” she murmured.

Bride! Bride! I thought impatiently. Why not wife, which would have sounded so much more natural? I think it was from that moment that the eeriness of the house seemed to close in on me and I was conscious of the darkness outside.

We went to bed early, and when Roc and I were walking along the corridor on our way to our rooms on the south side I looked out of the window to the quadrangle and remembered my conversations with the twins that afternoon.

Roc stood close to me as I looked down.

“You like the quadrangle garden, don’t you?”

“Apart from the eye like windows which are watching all the time.” He laughed. ” You mentioned that before. Don’t worry. We’re all too busy to peep.”

As we went along to our bedroom Roc said: ” Something’s on your mind, darling.”

” Oh … it’s nothing really.”

” There is something then.”

I tried to laugh lightly, but I was aware of the silence of that great house and I could not stop thinking of all the tragedies and comedies which must have taken place within those walls over the hundreds of years they had been standing. I could not feel indifference to title past, which in such a place seemed so much closer than it possibly could in my father’s studio. I blurted out what had happened that afternoon.

“Oh, those terrible twins!” he groaned.

” This story about the Brides of Pendorric …”

” Such stories abound in Cornwall. You could probably go to a dozen places and hear a similar story. These people are not coldblooded Anglo-Saxons, you know. They’re Celtic—a different race from the phlegmatic English. I know of course that they may have haunted houses in Huntingdon, Hereford and Oxfordshire—but they’re merely houses.

According to the Cornish, the whole of Cornwall is haunted. If it’s not the pi skies it’s the knackers from the mines. There are the Little People in their scarlet jackets and sugar-loaf hats. There are foot lings who are born feet first, which is supposed to be a sign of their magical powers. There are pillar families—those inheriting power from fishermen ancestors who rendered some service to a mermaid; there are witches, white and black. So of course there are a few common ghosts. “

” I gather Pendorric has that kind.”

” No big house in Cornwall could possibly be without at least one.

It’s a status symbol. I’ll bet Lord Polhorgan would give a thousand or two for a ghost. But the Cornish won’t have it. He’s not one of us, so he’s going to be denied the privilege of being haunted. ” I felt comforted, though I scorned myself for needing’re assurance ; but that child this afternoon had really unnerved me, chiefly because I had believed I was talking to Lowella. I thought Hyson a very strange little person indeed and I did not like the streak of mischief, the almost gloating pleasure in my uneasiness which I had noticed.

” About the story,” I said. ” After all, it concerns the Brides of Pendorric of whom I am one.”

“It was very unfortunate that Lowella Pendorric died exactly a year to the day after her wedding. That probably gave rise to the whole thing.

She brought the heir into the world and departed. A common enough occurrence in those days, but you have to remember that here in Cornwall people are always looking for something on which to hang a legend. “

” And she was supposed to haunt the place after that?”

He nodded. ” Brides came and went and they must have forgotten the legend although they’d tell you now that Lowella Pendorric continued to walk by night. Then my mother died when Morwenna and I were five years old. She was only twenty-five.”

” How did she die?”

“That’s just what revived the legend, I imagine. She fell from the north gallery into the hall, when the balustrade gave way. The wood was worm-eaten and it was very frail. The shock and the fall combined killed her. It was an unfortunate accident, and because the picture of Lowella hangs in the gallery the story soon got round that it was Lowella’s influence that caused her to fall. Lowella was tired of haunting the house, they said, so she decided Barbarina should take her place. I am certain that the part about having to haunt the house until another bride took her place started at that time. You’ll hear now that the ghost of Pendorric is my mother Barbarina. Rather a young ghost for such an old house, but you see we haunt in relays.” “I see,” I said slowly.

He put his hands on my shoulders and laughed; I laughed with him.

Everything seemed comfortingly normal that night.

The woman in the riding jacket and blue-banded hat had begun to haunt my thoughts and I found myself drawn towards the spot where her picture hung, whenever I was alone in that part of me house. I was not anxious that anyone should guess how much the picture attracted me, because I thought it would appear that I was affected by this ridiculous legend.

It was so realistic that the eyes seemed as though they nickered as you watched them, the lips as though they were about to speak. I wondered what her feelings had been when she felt the balustrade giving way beneath her weight; I wondered if she had felt an unhealthy interest in that other bride . as I was beginning to feel in her.

No, I told myself. I was merely interested in the painting and I was certainly not going to allow the legend to bother me.

All the same, I couldn’t resist going to look at the picture. Roc found me there two mornings later. He put his arm through mine and said he had come to take me for a drive.

“We don’t take after her, do we?” he said.

“Morwenna and I are both dark as Spaniards. You mustn’t feel morbid about her. She’s only a picture, you know.”

He drove me out to the moor that morning; and I was fascinated by mat stretch of wild country with its tors and boulders so strangely shaped that they looked like grotesque parodies of human beings. I thought that Roc was trying to make me understand Cornwall, because he knew that I had been upset by the legend and he wanted to make me laugh at it.

We drove for miles, through Callington and St. Cleer, little towns with grey granite facades, and out on to the moor again. He showed me the Trevethy Quoit, a Neolithic tomb made of blocks of stone; he pointed out the burial grounds of men who had lived before history was recorded; he wanted me to know that a country which could offer so much proof of its past must necessarily be one of legend. He stopped the car high on me moor, and in the distance I could see that fantastic formation of rock known as the Cheesewring. He put his arm round me and said: ” One day I’ll take you farther west and show you the Merry Maidens. Nineteen stones in a circle which you will be asked to believe were once nineteen girls who, deciding to defy tradition and go dancing in a sacred place, were turned to stone; and indeed the stones lean this way and that as if they had been caught and petrified in the midst of a dance.” His eyes were very tender as he turned to me. ” You’ll get used to us in time,” he went on.

“Everywhere you look in this place there’s some legend. You don’t take them seriously.”

I knew then that he was worried about me and I told him not to be because I had always prided myself on my common sense.

” I know,” he said. ” But your father’s death was a greater shock than you realise. I’m going to take extra special care of you.”

“” Then,” I replied, ” I shall begin to feel very precious indeed, because I fancy you have been taking rather a lot of care of me ever since that awful day. “

” Well, remember I do happen to be your husband.”

I turned to him then and said almost fiercely, ” It’s some thing I couldn’t possibly forget for a minute . even if I wanted to.”

He turned my face up to his and his kiss was tender. ” And you don’t want to?”

I threw myself against him, and as I clung to him, his grip on me tightened. It was as though we were both trying to make each other understand the immense depth of the love between us. It was the comfort I needed.

Roc could always emerge from an emotional scene with more case than I could, and in a short time he was his old teasing self. He began to tell me stories of Cornish legends, some so fantastic that I accused him of inventing them.

Then we both started inventing stories about the places we passed, trying to cap each other’s absurdities. It all seemed tremendous fun, although anyone listening to us would have thought we were crazy. As we drove back in these high spirits I marvelled at the way in which Roc could always comfort and delight me.

During the next few days I spent a great deal of time in Roc’s company. He would take me with him when he went on his rounds of the farms and I was welcomed everywhere, usually with a glass of some home-made wine or cider; I was even expected to eat a Cornish pasty as they came hot from the oven.

The people were warm and friendly once I had overcome a certain initial suspicion which they felt towards ” foreigners ” from the other side of the Tamar. I was English; they were Cornish; therefore to them I was a foreigner.

” Once a foreigner, always a foreigner,” Roc told me. ” But of course marriage makes a difference. When you’ve produced a little Cornish man or woman you’ll be accepted. Otherwise it would take all of fifty years.”

Morwenna and I drove into Plymouth one afternoon and stopped and had tea near the Hoe.

” Charles and I are very pleased Roc’s married,” she told me. ” We wanted to see him happily settled.”

“You’re very fond of him, aren’t you?”

” Well, he is my brother, and my twin at that. And Roc’s a rather special person. I expect you’ll agree with that.”

As I agreed so wholeheartedly I felt my affection for Morwenna increasing.

” You can always rely on Roc,” went on Morwenna, and as she stirred her tea thoughtfully her eyes were vague as though she were looking back over the past.

” Were you very surprised when he wrote and said he was married?”

” Just at first, perhaps. But he’s always done the unexpected. Charles and I were beginning to be afraid he’d never settle down, so when we heard, we were really delighted.”

” Even though he’d married someone who was a stranger to you.”

Morwenna laughed. ” That state of affairs didn’t last long, did it?

You’re one of us now. “

That was a very pleasant jaunt because I was always so happy to talk about Roc and to see signs of the affection he inspired in those people who had known him all his life.

Morwenna and I called on the Darks at the vicarage and I had an interesting afternoon listening to the stories the vicar had to tell of Cornish superstitions.

” I think they’re so sure that certain things are going to happen that they make them happen,” he told me.

We also talked of the people who lived on the Pendorric estate and I learned of some of the benefits which had come to them since Roc had been in control. I glowed with pride as I listened. It was at the vicarage that I met Dr. Andrew Clement, a man in his late twenties or early thirties. He was tall, fair and friendly and we liked each other from the start.

He told me that he too was what was known as a foreigner, having come from Kent, and been in Cornwall some eighteen months. ” I come past Pendorric several times a week,” he told me, “when I visit your neighbour. Lord Polhorgan.”

“He’s seriously ill, isn’t he?”

” Not so much seriously ill as in danger of becoming so. He has angina and threatening coronary thrombosis. We have to watch him very carefully. He has a nurse living there all the time. Have you met her yet?”

” No, I haven’t.”

” She does occasionally come to Pendorric,” said Morwenna.

“You’ll meet her sooner or later.”

That was a very pleasant afternoon, and as Morwenna and I drove back the conversation turned to the twins.

” Rachel seems to be very efficient,” I said.

” Very.”

” I suppose you’re lucky to get her. A person with her qualifications must be rather difficult to come by nowadays.”

” She’s here … temporarily. The twins will have to go to school in a year or so. They cant be at home like tills for ever.” Was it my imagination, or had Morwenna’s manner changed when I mentioned Rachel?

There was a short silence between us and I reproved myself because I suspected I was becoming over-sensitive. I was beginning to look for things which didn’t exist, and I wondered whether I had changed since coming to Cornwall.

I wanted to go on talking about Rachel because I was eager to know more about her. I wanted to find out what the relationship between her and Roc had been—if in fact there had been anything unusual in their relationship.

But Morwenna had dismissed the subject. She began to talk animatedly about the Darks and the changes they had made at the vicarage.

That afternoon I went to the quadrangle. I was drawn there somewhat unwillingly, for I would rather have taken a book into the garden which was on the south side and which led down to the beach. There I could have sat in one of the sheltered arbours among the hydrangeas, the buddleias and the sweet-smelling lavender, the house behind me, the sea before me. It would have been very pleasant. Yet because of that faint revulsion I had experienced in the quadrangle-mainly on account of the windows which looked down on it— I was aware of a compulsion to go there. I was not the sort of person Who enjoyed feeling even vaguely afraid, and I was sure that by racing whatever disconcerted me I should more quickly overcome it.

I sat under the palm tree with my book and tried to concentrate, but once more I found myself continually glancing up at the windows. I had not been mere very long when the twins came out of the north door.

When I saw them together I had no difficulty in distinguishing between them. Lowella was so vital. Hyson so subdued. I began to wonder then whether it really had been Hyson who had warned me to beware of Barbarina, or whether it had been a mischievous trick of Lowella’s to try to frighten me and then pretend that it was Hyson who had done it.

” Hallo,” called Lowella.

They came and sat on the grass and gazed at me. ” Are we disturbing you?” asked Lowella politely. ” I wasn’t very deep in my book.” I “You like it here?” went on Lowella. | ” It’s very peaceful.” f ” You’re shut right in. You’ve got Pendorric all around you. Hy likes it here too. Don’t you, Hy?”

Hyson nodded. ” Well,” went on Lowella, ” what do you think of usT’ ” I hadn’t given the matter a great deal of thought. “

” I didn’t mean the two of us: I mean all of us. What do you think of Pendorric and Uncle Roc, Mummy, Daddy, and Becky Sharp?”

“Becky Sharp?”

” Old Bective, of course.”

“Why do you call her that?”

” Hy said she was like a Becky Sharp she read about in a book. Hy’s always reading.”

I looked at Hyson who nodded gravely.

“She told me about Becky Sharp and I said, ” That’s Rachel. ” So I called her Becky Sharp. I give people names. I’m Lo. She’s Hy. Wasn’t it clever of Mummy and Daddy to give us names like that. Though I’m not sure that I like being Lo. I’d rather be Hy … only in my name I mean. I’d rather be myself than old Hy. She’s always sitting about and thinking.”

” Not a bad occupation.” I smiled at Hyson, who continued to regard me gravely.

” I’ve got names for everybody—my own secret names-and Becky Sharp is one of them.”

“Have you got one for me?”

” You! Well, you’re the Bride, aren’t you! You couldn’t be anything else.”

“Does Miss Bective like the name you’ve given her?” I asked. ” She doesn’t know. It’s a secret. But you see, she was at school with Mummy and she was always coming here and Hy said, One day she’ll come to stay because she never wants to go away.” “

” Has she said so?”

” Of course not. As if she would. It’s all secret. Other people never know what Becky Sharp is up to. But she wants to stay. We thought she was going to marry Uncle Roc.”

Hyson came and put her hands on my knees; she looked into my face and said: “It was what she wanted. I don’t suppose she likes it much because you did.”

” You’re not supposed to say that, Hy,” Lowella warned. ” I’ll say it if I want to.”

” You can’t. You mustn’t.”

Hyson was suddenly fierce.

“I can and I will.”

Lowella chanted: ” You can’t. You can’t.” And began to run round the pond. Hyson went in pursuit of her. I watched them running about the quadrangle until Lowella disappeared through the north door. Hyson made as though to follow her, hesitated, and turning stood looking at me for a few moments. Then she came back.

” Lowella’s really very childish,” she told me. She knelt at my feet and looked at me, and feeling a little embarrassed by her scrutiny I said: ” You never talk very much when she’s there. Why not?” She shrugged her shoulders.

“I never talk unless I have something to say,” she murmured primly.

Now it seemed she had nothing to say for she continued to kneel at my feet in a silence which went on for several minutes, then she rose suddenly and stood looking up at the windows.

She lifted her hand and waved, and following her gaze I saw that the curtain at one of the windows was slightly pulled back and someone was standing about a foot from the window looking down, I could just make out a vague figure in a black hat with a band of blue about it.

“Who’s that?” I asked sharply.

She rose to her feet and said slowly: ” That was Granny!” Then she smiled at me and walked sedately to the north door and I was alone in the quadrangle. I looked up at the window. There was no one there and the curtain had fallen into place.

” Barbarina,” I murmured and I felt as though eyes were watching me, mocking me, and I did not want to stay in the courtyard any longer.

This was ridiculous, I told myself. It was a trick. Of course, Lowella had gone in and they had decided to amuse themselves at my expense.

But it had not been a child I had seen at the window. It had been a tall woman.

I hurried into the house through the south door and I paused ‘before the picture of Barbarina. I fancied that the eyes were mocking me.

This is absurd, I said as I mounted the staircase. I was a normal, uncomplicated person who did not believe in ghosts.

Had I changed since I came to Pendorric? Was I still so self-sufficient since I had experienced emotions which had only been names to me before I met Roc Pendorric? Love, jealousy—and now fear?