Виктория Холт - Bride of Pendorric

” I never realised it before, but neither of them ever talked about . before they married. As a matter of fact I think they felt that all that happened before was insignificant.”

” It must have been a completely happy marriage ” It was. “

We were silent again. Then he said: “Favel! It’s an unusual name.”

” No more unusual than yours. I always thought a roe was a legendary bird.”

” Fabulous, of immense size and strength, able to lift an elephant … if it wanted to.”

He spoke rather smugly and I retorted: ” I’m sure even you would be incapable of lifting an elephant. Is it a nickname?”

” I’ve been Roc for as long as I can remember. But it’s short for Petroc.”

” Still unusual.”

” Not in the part of the world I come from. I’ve had a lot of ancestors who had to put up with it. The original one was a sixth-century saint who founded a monastery. I think Roc is a modem version that’s all my own. Do you think it suits me?”

” Yes,” I answered. ” I think it does.”

Rather to my embarrassment he leaned forward and kissed the tip of my nose. I stood up hastily. ” It really is time I was getting back to the studio,” I said.

Our friendship grew quickly and to me was wholly exciting. I did not realise then how inexperienced I was, and imagined that I was capable of dealing with any situation. I forgot then that my existence had been bounded by school in England with its regulations and restrictions, our casual unconventional studio on an island whose main preoccupation was with passing visitors, and my life with my father who still thought of me as a child. I had imagined myself to be a woman of the world, whereas no one who could lay a true claim to such a description would have fallen in love with the first man who seemed different from anyone else she had met.

But there was a magnetism about Roc Pendorric when he set himself out to charm, and he certainly was determined to charm me. Roc came to the studio every day. He always took the statuette in his hands and caressed it lovingly.

” I’m determined to have it, you know,” he said one day. ” Father will never sell.”

” I never give up hope.” And as I looked at the strong line of his jaw, the brilliance of his dark eyes, I believed him. He was a man who would take what he wanted from life; and it occurred to me that there would be few to deny him. That was why he was so anxious to possess the statue. He hated to be frustrated.

He bought the bronze Venus then.

” Don’t think,” he told me, ” that this means I’ve given up trying for the other. It’ll be mine yet; you see.”

There was an acquisitive gleam in his eyes when he said that and a certain mischief too. I knew what he meant, of course.

We swam together. We explored the whole island and we usually chose the less well-known places to avoid the crowds. He hired two Neapolitan boatmen to take us on sea trips and there were wonderful days when we lay back in the boat letting our hands trail in the turquoise and emerald water while Guiseppe and Umberto, watching us with the indulgent looks Latins bestow on lovers, sang arias from Italian opera for our entertainment.

In spite of his dark looks there must have been something essentially English about Roc, because Guiseppe and Umberto were immediately aware of his nationality. This ability to decide a person’s nationality often surprised me but it never seemed to fail. As for myself, there was little difficulty in placing me. My hair was dark blonde and there was a platinum-coloured streak in it which had been there when I was born; it had the effect of making me look even fairer than I was. My eyes were the shade of water, and borrowed their colour from what I was wearing. Sometimes they were green, at others quite blue. I ‘had a short pert nose, a wide mouth and good teeth. I was by no means a beauty, but I had always looked more ‘like a visitor to the island than a native.

During those weeks I was never quite sure of Roc. There were times when I was perfectly happy to enjoy each moment as it came along and not concern myself with the future; but when I was alone—at night, for instance—I wondered what I should do when he went home. In those early days I knew the beginning of that frustration which later was to bring such fear and terror into my life. His gaiety often seemed to be a cloak for deeper feelings; even during his most tender moments I would imagine I saw speculation in his eyes. He intrigued me in a hundred ways. I knew that given any encouragement I could love him completely, but I was never sure of him, and perhaps that was one of the reasons why every moment I was with him held the maximum excitement. One day soon after we met we climbed to the villa of Tiberius, and never had that wonderful view seemed so superb as it did on that day. It was all there for our delight as I had seen it many times before—Capri and Monte Solaro, the Gulf of Salerno from Amalfi to Paestum, the Gulf of Naples from Sorrento to Cape Misena. I knew it well, and yet because I was sharing it with Roc it had a new magic. ” Have you ever seen anything so enchanting? ” I asked. He seemed to consider. Then he said: “I live in a place which seems to me as beautiful.”

“Where?”

” Cornwall. Our bay is as beautiful—more so I think because it changes more often. Don’t you get weary of sapphire seas? Now, I’ve seen ours as blue—or almost; I’ve seen it green under the beating rain and brown after a storm and pink in the dawn; I’ve seen it mad with fury pounding the rocks and sending the spray high, and I’ve seen it as silky as this sea. This is very beautiful, I grant you, and I don’t think Roman emperors ever honoured us in Cornwall with their villas and legends of their dancing boys and girls, but we have a history of our own which is just as enthralling.”

” I’ve never been to Cornwall.”

He suddenly turned to me and I was caught in an embrace which made me gasp. He said, with his face pressed against mine: ” But you will .. soon.”

I was conscious of the rose-red ruins, the greenish statue of the Madonna, the deep blue of the sea, and life seemed suddenly too wonderful to be true.

He had lifted me off my feet and held me above him, laughing at me. I said primly: ” Someone will see us.”

“Do you care?”

” Well, I object to being literally swept off my feet.” He released me and to my disappointment he did not say any more about Cornwall. That incident was typical of our relationship.

I realised that my father was taking a great interest in our friendship. He was always delighted to see Roc, and he would sometimes come to the door of the studio to meet us after we’d been out on one of our excursions, looking like a conspirator, I thought. He was not a subtle man and it did not take me long to discover that some plan was forming in his mind and that it concerned Roc and me.

Did he think that Roc would propose to me? Was Roc’s feeling for me more marked than I dared hope, and had my father noticed this? And suppose I married Roc, what of the studio? How would my father get along without me? -because if I married Roc I should have to go away with him.

I felt unsettled. I knew I wanted to marry Roc—but I was not sure about his feelings for me. How could I leave my father? But I had when I was at school, I reminded myself. Yes, and look at the result. Right from the beginning, being in love with Roc was an experience that kept me poised between ecstasy and anxiety.

But Roc had not talked of marriage.

Father often asked him to a meal; invitations Roc always accepted on condition that he should provide the wine. I cooked omelettes, fish, pasta and even roast beef with Yorkshire pudding; the meals were well cooked because one of the things my mother had taught me was how to cook, and there had always been a certain amount of English dishes served in the studio.