Bride of Pendorric (19 page)

“Oh, doesn’t Charles like Rachel?”

” I don’t think he has any strong feelings of dislike, but at one time Morwenna used to bring her home from school for every holiday. I asked

if she hadn’t another friend who might come, or whether Rachel hadn’t a home of her own to go to, and I remember how stubborn Morwenna was.

“She must come here,1 she said. She wants to come and she hates going to her own home.” Charles didn’t actually say he disapproved of her, but he never took the two of them riding or with him when he went round the farms, as he took Morwenna when she was alone. I thought that would be enough to make her stop inviting Rachel. But it wasn’t. “

” And now she’s living here!”

” Only until the children go away to school again. And then I expect she’ll find some excuse to stay, although perhaps now you’re mistress of the house …”

Deborah sighed, and I knew what she meant. Unprivileged Rachel had come from a poor home to Pendorric, had loved what she had seen and longed to make it her own. Had she believed that she might be the new Bride of Pendorric? Roe had evidently been friendly with her, and I could understand how easy it was to fall in love with him. Was Rachel in love with Roe? Or had she been at some time? Yes, I decided in that moment, Rachel Bective might have a very good reason for resenting me.

I said slowly: “Do you remember telling me about Barbarina’s playing Ophelia and singing a song from the play?”

Deborah was very still for a few seconds and I was aware that she did not look at me. She nodded.

” I thought I heard someone singing that song in the east wing. I wondered who it could be.”

The silence seemed to go on for a long time, but perhaps it was only for a few seconds. Then Deborah said: ” I suppose anyone might sing that song.”

” Yes, I suppose so.”

Deborah turned to get one of the albums which I had not yet seen; she sat beside me explaining the pictures. She evidently did not appear to think it strange that I should have heard someone singing the song.

A few days later, in response to an invitation, I called at the doctor’s house. It was a charming place—early nineteenth century—surrounded by a garden in which were beehives. Mabeli Clement was a very busy person, tall and fair like her brother, and she wore her hair in a thick plait which hung half-way down her back—at least that was how it was when e I first met her; on later occasions I saw it made into a knot in the nape of her neck that was always threatening to escape restriction;

she wore smocks, sometimes caught in at the waist by girdles, with raffia sandals, amber beads and swinging ear rings.

She was determined that everyone should recognise her as an artist, and this seemed to be her one foible, for she appeared to be good-natured, easygoing, and a good hostess. She was very proud of her brother; and he was affectionately tolerant towards her. I imagine that meals were served at odd times in that household, for Mabell admitted that when the urge to paint or pot or look after her garden came to her she simply had to obey it.

I was shown over Tremethick itself, the pottery shed, and what was called the studio, and I had an interesting afternoon.

Dr. Clement said that he would drive me back to Pendorric, but half an hour before I was due to leave, a call came through from one of his patients and he had to go off immediately.

Thus I walked back to Pendorric alone.

As I came into the village there was no sign of anyone. It was one of those still afternoons, very hot and sultry; I passed the row of cottages, and looked for Jesse Pleydell, but he was not at his door to-day. I wondered whether to call on him as I had promised to do, but decided against it. I wanted to find out from Mrs. Penhalligan or Maria what tobacco he smoked and take some along for him when I went.

The churchyard lay on my right. It looked cool and some how inviting.

I hesitated and then slipped through the lych gate. I have always been attracted by graveyards, particularly deserted ones. There seems to me to be a sense of utter peace within them, and I liked to think of all those people lying beneath the grey stones who had once lived and suffered and now were at peace.

I walked among the tombstones and read some of the inscriptions as Roe had, not very long ago; and eventually I saw ahead of me the Pendorric vault.

Irresistibly attracted I went to it. I wanted to see if the laurel wreath was still there.

It was gone, but in its place was a small wreath of roses, and as I went closer I recognised the Paul Scarlets which grew in the garden.

There was no note on the flowers, but I was sure they were there in memory of Barbarina. It occurred to me then that Carrie was the one who put them there.

I heard a rustle in the grass behind me, and turning sharply saw Dinah Bond picking her way towards me. She looked even more vital here among the dead than she did in the old blacksmith’s shop; she held herself erect and swung her hips as she walked, in a manner which was both graceful and provocative.

” Hallo there, Mrs. Pendorric,” she called jauntily. ” Hallo,” I answered.

” It be quiet in here … peaceful like.”

” I thought the village looked peaceful today.”

” But too hot to move about much. There’s thunder in the air. Can’t you feel it? All still and waiting like … for the storm to break.”

” I expect you’re right.”

She smiled at me half insolently, and what was worse, with something which I felt might have been compassion.

” Having a look at the family vault? I often do. I be tee haven’t been inside, Mrs. Pendorric.”

” No.”

She laughed: ” Time enough for that, I reckon you think. It’s cold as death inside … and all the coffins laid out on shelves. Sometimes I come and look at it … like this afternoon … just for the pleasure of knowing I’m outside and not locked in—like Morwenna once was.”

” Morwenna! Locked in! How did that happen?”

” It’s years ago. I was only a kid then … about six, I think. When are you going to let me tell your fortune?”

” Sometime, I expect.”

” No time like the present.”

“Why are you so anxious?”

” I’m just taken that way.”

” I haven’t any silver to cross your palm with.”

” That! It’s just a way to get the money. I wouldn’t do it for money—not for you, Mrs.

Pendorric. Now I’m married to Jim Bond, I don’t do it professional like. That went out when I gave up my gipsy ways. “

” Tell me about the time Morwenna was locked in the vault and who did it.”

She didn’t answer, but sat down on the edge of a grave stone, and resting her chin in her hands stared broodingly at the vault.

” The key of the vault was always kept in a cupboard in Mr. Petroc’s study. It was a big key. She’d come down for the holidays.”

“Who?”

” Rachel Bective.”

” How old was she then?”

” I’d say about as old as those twins are now … perhaps a year or so younger. I was always trailing them. I think it was the colour of her hair. Mine was that black and hers was ginger colour. I wanted to keep looking at it. Not that I liked it, mind. I liked Morwenna, though. Miss Morwenna we were told to call her. I never did, though, and she didn’t mind.

“She was like Roe—they never minded things like that. But she did, that ginger one. She’d say to me: You’ll call me Miss Rachel or I’ll know the reason why.” Miss Rachel! Who did she think she was? “

” Tell me how Morwenna came to be in the vault.”

” I was always in the churchyard. I used to come here to play among the tombstones; and one day I saw them together and I hid and listened to them talking. After that I just wanted to watch them and listen to them some more, so I was often where they were, when they didn’t know it. I knew they’d be at the vault, because I’d heard about it the day before when they were in the graveyard reading the inscriptions.

Morwenna told Rachel that’s what she used to do with her brother, and that made Rachel want to do it, for she did always want to do everything they did. She wanted to be one of them and she couldn’t . she couldn’t ever be . no more than she can now. Oh, she be educated, I do know . but I’d be as good as her if I’d had the schooling. “

” What has she done to you, that you hate her so much?”

” Tain’t what she’s done to me. Her wouldn’t deign to give much thought to the likes of I, Mrs. Pendorric. It’s what she’d do to others.”

” You were telling me.”

“So I were.” She held her hands in front of her, as though she were reading her own fortune. Then she went on:

” I heard ‘em talking. She wanted Morwenna to get this key so that they could have a look at the vault, and Morwenna didn’t want to. You see, it was in her father’s study. He was away at the time—he were often away after the accident—and she said to Morwenna:

‘ You’ll be sorry if you don’t. ” I was up in a tree and they couldn’t see me, but I knew that Morwenna would get the key because she knew she would really be sorry if she didn’t. Then I heard they were coming there next afternoon, so I were there too.”

” So Morwenna did get the key.”

Dinah nodded. ” I was here in the graveyard next day when they came, and they had the key. Rachel Bective opened the door of the vault and they went in, though Morwenna didn’t want to much, but Rachel was saying: You’ve got to. You’ll be sorry if you don’t,” and Morwenna was saying: “I can’t. Not again.” Then all of a sudden Rachel laughed and ran out of the vault, slamming the door after her. Then she locked it and Morwenna was shut in. “

” It must have been a horrible experience. I hope she didn’t stay there long.”

Dinah shook her head. ” No. There’s a little grating in the vault and Rachel was soon at that. She kept calling out: ” I won’t let you out till you say you’ll ask me for Christmas. I’ll go back and I’ll tell them I don’t know where you are. Nobody’ll think you’re in here because I’ll take the key back and put it where it belongs . and it’ll be weeks before they find you, then you’ll be a skeleton like the bride in “The Mistletoe Bough ” ” So Morwenna said she would do what she wanted and Rachel opened the door. I never forgot that, and I don’t never pass this spot without thinking on it and how poor Morwenna had to say she would do what it was Rachel wanted, and how pleased Rachel looked in her sly way.”

” She was only a child, I suppose, and she must have longed to come to Pendorric for holidays.”

” And you reckon that excuses her … doing a thing like that!”

” It was a childish trick….”

” Oh, no ‘tweren’t. She’d have left her there if Morwenna hadn’t given way.”

” I’m sure she wouldn’t.”

Dinah looked at me scornfully. ” I’m beginning to read your fortune, Mrs. Pendorric, without so much as a look at your hand. You’re one of them that says: Oh no, it bain’t that way … just when you don’t want it to be. Your sort has to beware.”

” You’re quite wrong. I assure you I face facts when I know they’re there to be faced.”

” Ay, but it’s knowing they’re there that’s important, don’ tee think, Mrs. Pendorric? I’ll tell ‘ee this: There’s people that don’t change much all through their lives. You can’t tell ‘tis so till you’ve proved like … but it don’t do no harm to be on your guard.

Oh, I do know a lot about Pendorrics . living close you might say, all of me born natural life. “

” I expect there’s always been a great deal of gossip about the family.”

” There was at the time, and though I was yet to be born, they were still talking of it when I were a little ‘un. My mother was a sharp one. Nothing much she missed. I remember hearing her talk of Louisa Sellick, the one he were sweet on before he married Miss Barbarina.”

“Louisa Sellick?” I repeated, for I had never heard that name mentioned before.

” Oh, ‘tis an old story and all happened long ago. Ain’t no sense in reviving it like … ‘cept of course, you be the next Bride.” I went over to Dinah, and looking down at her said earnestly : ” I sometimes get the impression that you’re trying to warn me about something.”

She threw back her hair and laughed up at me. ” That’s because I want to tell your fortune. They say The gipsy warned me,” don’t ‘em? Tis a kind of joke. “

” What do you know of Louisa Sellick?”

” Only what my mother told me. Sometimes I’ve been out that way … where she do live now, and I’ve seen her. But that was after he were dead like … so it weren’t the same. They say he used to go out to visit her and that Barbarina Pendorric killed herself because she couldn’t endure it no more … him liking Louisa better than her.

She’d thought when she first married that it was all over; that were when Louisa went out to live on the moor. “

” And is Louisa still living there?”

Dinah nodded. ” Well, least she were when I were last that way. Tis Bedivere House—a sizeable place. He bought it for her. Twas their love nest, you might say. And when he rode out on his business he’d land up at Bedivere. Perhaps there’d be mist on the moors or he was too busy to get back to Pendorric … see what I mean? But it was found out that she were there … and then things happened.”

” Do you often go out that way?”

” Not now. I got a home of me own now, remember. I married Jim Bond, didn’t I? I sleep on a goose-feather bed and there’s four walls all round me. But when I go out that way … Dozmary Pool and Jamaica Inn way … I see the house and I look for Louisa. She ain’t so young and pretty now … but we none of us stay that way for ever, do us?”

I remembered suddenly that listening to Dinah’s conversation I had stayed out longer than I had intended to. I looked at my watch. ” I’d no idea it was so late,” I said.

She smiled lazily. ” You’d better get back, Mrs. Pendorric. Time don’t matter to me, but I know it does to the likes of you. Some folks rush about like they thought they hadn’t got much time left. Perhaps they’re right. Who’s to say?”

She was smiling her mocking enigmatic smile.

” Goodbye,” I said, and started to pick my way through the gravestones to the lych gate.

My interest in Barbarina grew as each day passed. I went often to that room of hers and thought about her. I wondered if she had been of a passionate and jealous nature. She must have been terribly unhappy if, as Dinah had suggested, her husband had paid periodic visits to that woman on the moor.