Penmarric Read Free Page A

cliffs facing the sea. I gasped and then saw on a second examination that the building was not a castle at all but an immense house built of gray-black stone and endowed with turrets and towers and fanciful architectural fripperies which captivated my childish imagination. Later I was to dismiss the whole preposterous design as a contortion of modern taste, but to me, as I saw the house for the first time through my child’s eyes, it was beautiful,
    “I want that house,” said my mother, echoing my thoughts, and the bond was forged that was to chain us to each other throughout all the quarrelsome years ahead. “I want that house, and I’m going to get it—if not for myself, then at least for you.”
    And I said, “Can we go on? Why are we stopped here? Can we not drive to the house and call on Cousin Giles?”
    She looked at me as if I had gone mad. “Call on Giles? My dear child! Do you really think that after six years of incessant litigation I would be received as a guest under the roof which he illegally claims as his own? What an extraordinarily unintelligent remark! I hope you’re not going to grow up to be a fool.” She turned to our driver, a Cornish yokel who was gaping at our conversation as he struggled to understand our English accents. “Home to Penzance at once, my man. The purpose of our drive is accomplished.”
    I allowed myself one last look at Penmarric before I followed her into the carriage. It was four years before I was to see my Inheritance again.
4
    I was fourteen when my mother won her lawsuit and demanded to see me once more. Again we journeyed down to Penmarric, this time with the intention of crossing the threshold since Giles was no longer the legal owner of the house, but Giles had lodged an appeal against the decision and the matter was no longer resolved but sub judice. The front door was closed and bolted in our faces; my mother, trembling with rage, battered the panels with her fists, but her gesture was worse than useless. Penmarric still belonged to Giles.
    Two more long years of litigation passed, and then came the disaster. The Court of Appeal decided in favor of Giles and the decision of the court below was reversed.
    “I shall appeal to the House of Lords!” cried my mother, wild-eyed with grief. “I shall never give up, never!”
    But the House of Lords rejected her suit. Years of futile litigation and endless expense had ended in the annihilation of her cause.
    Yet still she refused to give up. Something, she decided, must be salvaged from the wreck of her hopes. She would travel down to Penmarric, make her peace with Giles and at least coax him to allow her to visit the house now and then. In vain Cousin Robert Yorke and I pointed out that there was no reason why Giles should pursue a policy of forgiving and forgetting the past twelve years of extreme animosity; in vain we told her she would be wasting her time. She remained—as always when her will was opposed—highhanded, domineering and incorrigibly inflexible.
    “Very well,” I said with all the aggressive defiance of a sixteen-year-old youth who wished to show some independence. “Go alone, if you wish. But don’t expect me to waste my time by coming with you.”
    “You’re coming with me whether you like it or not!” My mother was more than a match for any sixteen-year-old youth anxious to rebel. “Robert, remind the boy of his filial duty!”
    “Mark, you really do owe it to your mother, you know,” said Cousin Robert obediently. “Maud’s worked so hard on your behalf.”
    I gave in with a great show of sulkiness and my mother somehow managed to refrain from boxing my ears.
    It was on this, my third visit to Penmarric, that I first met Giles’s children, my three cousins, Raymond, Harry and Clarissa Penmar. In actual fact Giles had only the one child, my cousin Raymond, who was the same age as I was, but Giles’s wife, who was now dead, had taken pity on an orphaned nephew and niece of hers, and