The House On The Strand Part 9

I did not want it, that was the crux. Nor did I want a similar job, literary agency or publis.h.i.+ng, in London. It was the end of the road, the end, temporarily, of a particular moment in time, my time. And I could not plan ahead, not yet.

"Don't go on about it now, darling," I said. "Let's take each moment as it comes. Today, tomorrow... I'll think constructively about the whole thing soon, I promise you."

She sighed, and let go of my hand, reaching in the pocket of her towelling wrap for a cigarette. "As you say," she said, the upward inflexion on the say proclaiming her origins on the western Atlantic seaboard. "But don't blame me if you find yourself left high and dry by brother Joe."

The boys came running across the beach with various trophies to show us, star-fish, mussels, and an oversize, long-dead crab that stank to heaven. The moment of truth had pa.s.sed. It was time to gather up our things and face the trek uphill back to Kilmarth. As I brought up the rear I looked over my shoulder across the bay. The coast was clearly defined, and the white houses on the edge of Chapel Point, some eight miles distant, were caught by the western sun.

In such a night Otto methinks mounted Bodrugan walls, And sighed his soul towards the Treesmill creek Where Isold lay that night..

But did she? Surely she must have followed the children later, after Otto sailed. But where to? Bockenod, where her husband's brother, the self-important Sir John, lived? Too far. Something was missing. She had mentioned another name. Treg something. I must look on the map. The trouble was that every other farmhouse in Cornwall began with Tre. It had not been Trevenna, Treverran or Trenadlyn. So where was it that Isolda and her two children had lain their heads that night?

"I don't see myself doing this often," complained Vita. "My heaven, what a hill! It's like the ski slopes in Vermont. Let me take your arm." The thing was, they had crossed the water-splash below the mill and taken a track to the right. And then I had not seen them any more, because of that car coming up behind me. They could have gone in any direction. And Roger was on foot. When the tide came in the ford would be fully covered. I tried to remember if there was a boat beneath the blacksmith's forge to ferry him back.

"After all this exercise and air I ought to sleep tonight," said Vita.

"Yes," I replied.

There had been a boat. High and dry on the edge of the creek. At high water this would be used for carrying pa.s.sengers to and fro between the blacksmith's forge and Treesmill.

"You couldn't care less, could you," she asked, "what sort of a night I have, and whether I'm dead on my feet right now?" I stopped and stared at her. "I'm sorry, darling," I said, "of course I care. Why revert suddenly to that business of a sleepless night?"

"You were miles away in thought-I can always tell," she said.

"Four miles at the most," I told her. "If you really want to know, I was thinking about a couple of children riding ponies I saw this morning. I wondered where they were going."

"Ponies?" We continued walking, Vita a dead weight on my arm. "Well, that's the most sensible thought you've had yet," she said. "The boys love riding. Maybe the ponies were let out on hire?"

"I doubt it," I said. "I imagine they came from some farm."

"Well, you could always make enquiries. Nice-looking children?"

"Enchanting. Two little girls, and a youngish woman who looked as if she might be their nurse, and a couple of men."

"All riding ponies?"

"One man was walking, holding the children's bridles."

"Then it must be a riding-school," she said. Do find out. "It would make something for the boys to do other than swimming or sailing."

"Yes," I said.

How convenient it would be if I could summon Roger from the past and bid him saddle two of the Kilmarth ponies for Teddy and Micky, then send them off with Robbie for a gallop on Par sands! Roger would handle Vita to perfection. Her slightest whim obeyed. Juice of henbane whistled up from Brother Jean at the Priory to induce a restful night, and if that failed... I smiled.

"What's the joke?"

"No joke." I pointed to the fading foxgloves, a purple ma.s.s thrusting tall stems through the hedge encircling the paddocks below Kilmarth. "If you have a heart attack, no problem. Digitalis comes from foxgloves. You've only to say the word and I'll crush the seeds."

"Thanks a lot. No doubt your Professor's laboratory is full of them, along with other poisonous seeds and goodness knows what sinister mixtures."

How right she was. An error, though, to let her dwell on Magnus. "Here we are," I said. "Through that gate and into the garden. I'll mix you a long, cool drink, and the boys as well. Then I'll cope with the supper."

"Plenty of cold beef and salad."

Let cheerfulness prevail. Memories of my mis-spent morning fade into an urge to please. Attentive husband, smiling stepfather; keep the whole thing going to bedtime and beyond.

As it turned out, beyond took care of itself. The swim, the long climb and the soporific Cornish air had done their trick. Vita, yawning her head off at a television play, was in bed by ten, and fast asleep when I crept in stealthily beside her an hour later. Tomorrow would be fine, judging by the sky, and we would sail to Chapel Point. Bodrugan existed still. I had found it on the road-map after supper.

There was just enough breeze to take us out of Fowey harbour. Our skipper, Tom, a stalwart fellow with a ready smile, busied himself with the sails, aided or hindered by the boys, while I stationed myself at the tiller. I knew just enough about it not to bring the boat up into the wind and set the sails flapping, but neither Vita nor the boys knew this, and were suitably impressed by my air of efficiency. Soon we had mackerel lines astern, the boys hauling them in with shouts of excitement as soon as they felt the slightest tug, caused by the ripple of tide or a piece of weed, while Vita stretched herself at my side. Her jeans became her-like all Americans, she had a stunning figure-and so did her scarlet sweater.

"This is heaven," she said, snuggling close and leaning her head against my shoulder. "So clever of you to arrange it, I give you full marks for once. The water couldn't be smoother."

The trouble was, it didn't stay heaven for long. I remembered of old, after pa.s.sing the Cannis buoy and the Gribbin Head, a westerly wind met the tide with a smacking force, increasing the boat's speed-always a joy to the helmsman with his heart in his job, like Commander Lane-but causing the craft to heel over, so that the pa.s.senger sitting on the leeward side found himself within a few inches of the sea. In this case the pa.s.senger was Vita.

"Hadn't you better let the man steer?" she said nervously, after the boat had curtseyed three times like a rocking-horse-my fault, too close to the wind-then lay firmiy on her side with the lea rail awash.

"Not a bit of it," I said cheerfully. "Crawl under the boom and sit on the weather side."

She groped to her feet, and caught her head an almighty tonk on the boom. As I bent to help her unravel a rope from her ankle, which took my eye off my work as helmsman, I s.h.i.+pped a short sea across the bows, thus drenching the whole party, myself included.

"A drop of salt water hurts n.o.body," I shouted, but the boys, clinging to the weather rail, were not so sure, and with their mother made a dive for the shelter of the small cabin, which, lacking headroom, forced them to crouch like hunchbacks on the tiny locker seat, where they rose and fell with every curtsey of the over-lively craft.

"Nice fresh breeze," said our skipper Tom, grinning all over his face. "We'll be at Mevagissey in no time at all."

I bared my teeth in imitation of his confidence, but the three white faces upturned to me in the c.o.c.kpit lacked enthusiasm, and I had the impression that none of them shared the skipper's opinion about the breeze.

He offered me a cigarette, but it proved an error after three puffs, and I let it fall over the side when he was not looking, while he proceeded to light up a particularly noxious pipe. Some of the smoke found its way down to the cabin and circled there in rings.

The lady would feel the motion less if she sat in the c.o.c.kpit, suggested Tom, and the lads as well.

I looked at the boys. The boat was steady enough now, but penned in the dark cabin they felt every thump, and an ominous yawn appeared on Micky's face. Vita, her eyes glazed, appeared hypnotised by Tom's oilskin, which was hanging on a hook by the cabin door, swaying to and fro with the boat's motion like a hanging man.

Tom and I exchanged glances, seized by a sudden freemasonry, and while he took over the tiller and knocked out his pipe I pulled the family up into the c.o.c.kpit, where Vita and her youngest were promptly sick.

Teddy survived, possibly because he kept his head averted.

"We'll soon be under the lea of Black Head," said Tom. "They won't feel any motion in there."

His touch on the tiller was like magic. Or perhaps it was pure chance. The rocking-horse motion moved to a gentle lilt, the white faces lost their pallor, teeth ceased their chattering, and the pasties baked by Mrs. Collins were torn from their napkins in the basket and fallen upon by all of us, even Vita, with the ferocity of carrion crows. We pa.s.sed Mevagissey and came to anchor on the western side of Chapel Point. There was not a tremor in sea or sky, and the sun blazed down.

"Rather extraordinary," observed Vita, now stripped of her sweater, which she bunched under her head as a pillow, "that as soon as Tom took charge of the boat it scarcely moved at all and the wind dropped."

"Not really," I said. "We were coming closer to the land, that's all."

"I know one thing," she said, "and that is that he's going to steer the boat home."

Tom was helping the boys into the dinghy. They had bathing-shorts and towels under their arms. Tom had fis.h.i.+ng-lines, baited with worm.

"If you want to stay aboard, sir, with the lady, I'll see the lads come to no harm," he said. "This beach is quite safe for bathing." I did not want to stay aboard with the lady. I wanted to climb up through the fields and find Bodrugan.

Vita sat up, and removing her dark gla.s.ses looked around her. It was half-tide and the beach looked tempting, but I saw, with delight, that it was temporarily in the possession of half a dozen cows, who were mooning about aimlessly, spattering the sand in the evitable fas.h.i.+on. "I'll stay aboard," said Vita firmly, "and if I want to swim I'll swim from the boat."

I yawned, my immediate reaction when feeling guilty. "I'll go ash.o.r.e and stretch my legs," I said. "It's too early to swim anyway, after a pasty lunch."

"Do as you like," she said. "It's perfect here. Those white houses on the point look enchanting. We might be in Italy." I let her think it, and climbed into the dinghy with the others. "Land me over there, in the left-hand corner," I said to Tom.

"What are you going to do?" asked Teddy.

"Walk," I said firmly.

"Can't we stay in the dinghy and fish for pollack?"

"Of course you can. Much the best plan," I told him. I sprang ash.o.r.e amongst the cows, free of enc.u.mbrance. The boys were equally glad to be rid of me. I stood for a moment, watching them pull away. Vita waved a languid hand from the anch.o.r.ed boat. Then I turned, and struck uphill.

The path ran parallel with a stream and curved, pa.s.sing a cottage on the right-hand side, and then the sea was out of sight. The track continued up the hill, leading to a gate between old walls, and on the left-hand side what appeared to be the ruins of a mill. I ventured through the gate, and Bodrugan farm was all about me, a big pond to my left that must have fed the mill-stream, and to my right the gracious, slate-hung farmhouse of today, early eighteenth century, perhaps, curiously like Magnus's Kilmarth, and beside it and beyond great stone-walled barns of a much earlier date that surely must have stood upon the site of Otto's fourteenth-century home. Two children were playing under the windows of the farmhouse, but they took no notice of me and I ventured on, crossing the wide sweep where cows were grazing, and stepped inside the high-roofed barn the further side. This served as a granary today, and must have done for centuries, but six hundred years ago perhaps a dining-hall stood here, and other rooms, while the long, low barn across the way could have been the chapel. The whole demesne was vast, far larger than the s.p.a.ce covered by those mounds and banks that once had formed the home of the Champernounes, below the Gratten; and I realised now why Joanna, born and bred a Bodrugan in this place, may have thought the house above the Treesmill creek a poor exchange when she married Henry Champernoune. I came out of the barn and followed the low stone walls surrounding the entire farm, then, striking off to the hills on the opposite slope, came once more in sight of the sea. Here, on top of the high field, was a mound that must once have formed a keep or outpost, commanding the bay, and I wondered how often Otto rode here from his house, and looked out from the keep past Black Head to the cliffs in the far distance that gradually descended to Tywardreath bay and to the winding estuary with its narrow arms, the first runmng to the Lampetho valley, the second to the Priory walls, the third to Treesmill and the Champernoune demesne. He would have seen all of this on a clear day, even perhaps the humped dwelling of Kylmerth, and the little straggling copse beyond. This would have been the moment to have the flask in my pocket, and have seen Otto leaning from the round tower of his keep, and beneath him, in the sheltered cove where the boys fished today, his s.h.i.+p at anchor, ready to make sail. Or travel even further back in time and watch him ride away to that first rebellion against Edward the Second in 1322, younger and hot-headed, to be fined a thousand marks when the rebellion failed. Champion of lost causes, seeker after forbidden fruit; how often, I wondered, did he steal across that bay, leaving his dim-faced wife Margaret, Henry Champernoune's sister, snugly secure inside Bodrugan house, or in their other property of Trelawn, wherever that might be, in which the Champernounes also seemed to have rights? I clumped back to the beach, hot and curiously tired. It was odd, but it seemed more of an effort to face the family now, without having swallowed the drug and moved in the other world, than it would had I actually taken a trip in time. I felt thwarted, drained of energy, and filled with a strange sense of apprehension. Imagination was not enough; I craved the living experience which had been denied me, and which I could have possessed had I taken a few drops from the flask safely locked away in the old laundry at Kilmarth. I might have witnessed scenes, on that old site above the cliffs or by the farmstead itself, that now I should never know; and the frustration was absolute. The cows had gone from the beach. The boys had returned to the anch.o.r.ed boat and were sitting in the c.o.c.kpit having tea, their swimming trunks strung up on the mast to dry. Vita was standing in the bows taking snapshots. A contented party, everybody happy, myself the odd man out. I wore bathing trunks under my trousers, and stripping off my clothes I entered the water. It struck chill, after the walk, and seaweed floated on the surface like tresses from the drowned Ophelia's hair. I turned over on my back and stared at the sky, still filled with this strange feeling of despondency, almost of doom. It would need a tremendous effort to respond to the family greeting, join in the general chatter, smile and joke.

Tom had seen me, and was bringing the dinghy ash.o.r.e to fetch my clothes. I swam out to the boat and managed somehow to clamber aboard, with the aid of a rope's end and the willing hands of Vita and the boys.

"Look, three pollack," shouted Micky. "Mom says she'll cook them for supper. And we've found a lot of sh.e.l.ls."

Vita came forward with the remains of the tea from the thermos jug. "You look all in," she said. "Did you walk far?"

"No," I said, "only across the fields. There was a castle of sorts there once, but nothing's left of it."

"You should have stayed on the boat," she said. "The bathing was heaven. Here, rub yourself down with this towel, you're s.h.i.+vering. I hope you haven't taken a chill. Such a mistake to plunge into cold water when you've been perspiring."

Micky thrust a damp doughnut into my hand tasting of cotton wool, and I swallowed the lukewarm tea. Then Tom climbed aboard, bearing my clothes, and before long it was up anchor and away, with Tom at the tiller. I put on another jersey and went and sat up in the bows, where Vita presently joined me.

The little popple in mid-bay sent her back to the c.o.c.kpit, to wrap herself in Tom's oilskin, and I stared ahead towards the distant prospect of Kilmarth, screened by its belt of trees. In old days, sailing nearer to the coast, Bodrugan would have had a closer view, as he steered his s.h.i.+p towards the estuary that covered Par sands then, and Roger, had he been watching from the fields, could have signalled to him that all was well. I wondered whose fever was the greater, Bodrugan's as he rounded the sloping headland to the channel, knowing she waited for him in that empty house behind the low stone walls, or Isolda's, when she sighted the masthead and saw the first flutter of the dark sail. Now, with the sun astern, we pa.s.sed the Cannis buoy and made for Fowey, entering the harbour, to the great excitement of the boys, just as a large vessel, her decks white with china-clay and escorted by two tugs, left it outward bound.

"Can we come again tomorrow?" they clamoured, as I paid off Tom and thanked him for our sail.

"We'll see," I said, uttering the inevitable adult formula that must be so infuriating to the young. See what, they might have asked? If the mood suits and there is harmony in the grown-up world? The success or failure of their day depended upon the state of truce between their mother and myself.

My immediate problem, when we got back to Kilmarth, was to telephone Magnus before he telephoned me, which he was bound to do, now the weekend was over. I hung about the library furtively, waiting for a good moment, and then the boys came in and switched on the TV, so I had to go upstairs to the bedroom. Vita was downstairs in the kitchen seeing about supper: it was now or never. I dialled his number and he answered immediately.

"Look," I said quickly, "I can't talk long. The worst has happened. Vita and the boys arrived unexpectedly on Sat.u.r.day morning. They caught me almost in flagrant delit. You understand? And your telegram was an equal calamity. Vita opened it. Since when the situation has been decidedly tricky, and that's putting it mildly."

"Oh, dear..." said Magnus, in the tone of an elderly maiden aunt confronted with a mild household problem.

"It's not Oh, dear at all, it's h.e.l.l and d.a.m.nation," I exploded, "and the end of the road, as far as any more trips are concerned. You realise that, don't you?"

"Keep calm, dear boy, keep calm. You say she arrived and actually caught you en route?"

"No, I was returning from one. Seven in the morning. I won't go into it now."

"Was it valuable?" he asked.

"I don't know what you call valuable," I said. "It concerned a near rebellion against the Crown. Otto Bodrugan was there, and Roger, of course. I'll write you fully about it tomorrow, and Sunday's trip as well."

"So you did risk it again, despite the family? How splendid."

"Only because they went to church, and I was able to slip off to the Gratten. And there is a time problem, Magnus; I can't account for it. The trip seemed to last half an hour to forty minutes at the most, but in actual fact I was out for about two and a half hours."

"How much did you take?"

"The same as Friday night-a few more drops than on the first two or three trips."

"Yes, I see. He was silent a minute, considering what I had told him."

"Well?" I asked. "What's the significance?"

"I'm not sure," he said. "I'll have to work on it. Don't worry, it won't be serious, at this stage. How are you feeling in yourself?"

"Well... healthy enough physically, we've been sailing all day. But it's a h.e.l.l of a strain, Magnus."

"I'll see how the week goes and then try to get down. I shall have some results from the lab up here in a few days and we can discuss them. Meanwhile, go easy on the trips."

"Magnus-"

He had rung off which was as well. I thought I could hear Vita coming up the stairs. In a sense, I was relieved this time at the thought of seeing him, even if it meant difficulties with Vita. He would adopt his special brand of charm and smooth them away, and the responsibility would be his, not mine. Besides, I was worried about the drug. This sense of depression, of foreboding, might be a side-effect. I looked in the shaving-mirror in the bathroom. There was something odd about my right eye, it looked bloodshot, and there was a faint red streak across the white. A bloodvessel burst, perhaps, which was nothing, but I did not remember it having happened before. I hoped Vita would not notice it. Supper pa.s.sed off all right, with the boys chatting happily about their day and enjoying the pollack they had caught (the most tasteless of all fish, to my mind, but I did not damp their ardour). Just as we were clearing away the telephone rang.

"I'll get it," said Vita quickly, "it could be for me." At least it would not be Magnus. The boys and I loaded the dish-washer and had set it going when Vita came back into the kitchen. She had on a face I knew. Determined, rather defiant.

"That was Bill and Diana," she said.

Oh, yes?

The boys disappeared to the library to watch TV. I poured out coffee for us both.

"They're flying to Dublin from Exeter," she said. "They're in Exeter now." Then, before I could make some adequate reply, she said hurriedly, "They're just crazy to see the house, so I suggested they put off their flight for forty-eight hours or so, and came down to us for lunch tomorrow and to stay the night. They jumped at the idea." I put down my cup of coffee untasted, and slumped in the kitchen chair.

"Oh, my G.o.d!" I said.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

THERE ARE FEW strains more intolerable in life than waiting for the arrival of unwelcome guests. I had said no more in protest after my first groan of despair, but we had spent the hours until bedtime in separate rooms, Vita in the library watching television with the boys, myself in the music-room listening to Sibelius.

Now, the next morning, Vita was sitting on what she liked to call the terrace, outside the french windows of the music-room, listening for the blare of their horn, while I paced up and down inside, primed with my first gin and tonic, my eye on the clock, wondering which state was the worse-this of antic.i.p.ating the dire moment of a car coming down the drive, or the full flush of their having settled in, cardigans strewn on chairs, cameras clicking, voices loud and long, the smell of Bill's inevitable cigar. The second, perhaps, was better, the heat of battle rather than the bugle's call.

"Here they come," yelled the boys, tearing down the steps, and I advanced through the french window like one facing up to mortar-sh.e.l.ls. Vita, as a hostess, was magnificent: Kilmarth was transformed instantly into some American emba.s.sy overseas, lacking only a flagstaff bearing the Stars and Stripes. Food borne in by the willing and triumphant Mrs. Collins graced the dining-room table. Liquor flowed, cigarette smoke filled the air, we lunched at two and rose at half-past three. The boys, fobbed off with the promise of swimming later, vanished to play cricket in the orchard. The girls, disguised in uniform dark gla.s.ses, dragged lilos out of earshot to indulge in gossip. Bill and I installed ourselves on the patio intending, or so I hoped, to sleep, but sleep was intermittent; like all diplomats, he enjoyed hearing his own voice. He held forth on world policy and policy nearer home, and then, with elaborate unconcern and obviously briefed by Diana, touched on my future plans.

"I hear you're going into partners.h.i.+p with Joe," he said. "That's wonderful."