Philippa Carr: Pool of St. Branok

“Have you got the money?”

“Not much.”

“Nor I.”

We rode into Bodmin and left the horses at an inn where we had a glass of cider and a sandwich. Even the most ordinary food tastes like ambrosia when one is in the state I am in. We went to look in a jeweler’s shop. It had to be gold. The prices were beyond us. Then I had this idea. Why didn’t we buy one ring. He could wear it one week and I another. We hugged each other. So we went in and bought a gold signet ring which we could just manage with our combined money and we had our initials engraved inside: M.D. for him and W.B. for me.

I felt sick. I saw it again. The pool from which I could never escape. The ring I had found. I had given it to Grace and she had flung it into the sea.

“Wilhelmina,” he said, for he always calls me by my full name. He said it sounds important. Wilhelmina is grand. Mina is just ordinary. “Wilhelmina, with this ring I make you mine for as long as we both shall live.” I was so happy. I had never dreamed there could be such happiness. How we laughed over the ring. It was big for me. I could only wear it on my forefinger; and it went onto his little finger. We would later carry out our first intention. There should be two rings—one for him and one for me … and we should always wear them because of what they meant to us.

April 5th: I suppose one cannot exist forever on the top pinnacle of happiness. I understand how Mervyn feels. Perhaps I shall give way … in time. But I can’t just … lightly forget my upbringing, I suppose.

My mother and I were very close to each other, and although when she was so ill I sometimes lost patience with her, that did not mean that I did not love her very much. I always thought of her so wise. And she used to say, “A bride should go to her husband a virgin. I did, Mina; and I know it will be the same with you. It must be. I could never rest happy if it were not so. It is a sin, Mina.” I had said, Yes, it was and I promised her that I would be pure and virginal until my wedding day. It must have been in both our minds that living as I did it was hardly likely that there would be a wedding day, so it had been easy for me to give that promise. But now Mervyn was urging me. He seemed to have changed. He was fierce … even angry. He wanted to come to my room at night. My room was next to Jennifer’s. I wondered what would have happened if she had awakened in the night and come to me for something, which she might well do. I imagined being dismissed with ignominy … both of us. I was sure the Bonners would take a very virtuous stance in such matters.

So I said: “No. We must wait until we are married.”

“When will that be,” demanded Mervyn, “in the position we are in?”

“I thought we should wait. Make plans. Even tell the Bonners. They might allow us to continue working after we were married.”

He said he did not think they would. Nor did we want to be here all our lives.

“What else could we do?” I asked.

“We could get away from here … to a little place of our own.”

“And do what? We couldn’t live on my income.”

“We’ll do something. In the meantime … I want you, Wilhelmina. This is torment for me … being under the same roof.”

I should have been delighted that he cared so much, but there was the ghost of my mother and my puritanical upbringing holding me back. I wanted to give way, yet I was afraid and I felt I should never be quite happy if I did. Mervyn was so angry. I had never seen him so angry before. He was a different man.

April 15th: There is a rift between us. Sometimes Mervyn will take me so tightly in his arms that I could cry out with the pain of it. I am a little afraid. He looks so fierce and angry and different. I almost give way … and then I see my mother and I am afraid. She had talked to me about deserted women and unwanted babies. She said, “You see, they believe in these protestations of eternal love. And then they find they have been tricked.”

I can’t believe Mervyn would trick me. We truly love each other. I was wearing the ring all last week. He has it now. He was quite violent this evening. I was so upset. It was after dinner. He was with me when I was going up the stairs. He began urging me … even more insistently than usual.

I said: “Don’t talk so loudly. Someone will hear.” He threw me from him. I almost fell. Then I ran up to my room. I think if he had come after me I might have given way. But he did not come. Later I heard him leave the house. I am realizing that I am a little frightened of him. I did not know that he could be so vehement. He is like a different man.

I could not sleep. So I am writing in my diary.

April 16th: This is terrible. Everything I have dreamed of is gone like a soap bubble which the children blow with their clay pipes. I did not hear him come in last night though I sat for a long time at my window. I cannot believe I dozed. I was so upset. I kept going over that scene. I kept saying to myself, It is because he loves me so much. This morning he was very subdued. His eyes were shadowed.

He said to me: “I’m sorry, Wilhelmina.”

I said: “It’s all right. I understand. Let’s get married … no matter what we have to arrange afterwards.”

“Let’s do that,” he said. “Oh, God, Wilhelmina, if only we can get away from this to a life of our own. We’ll do anything. We’ll make plans right away.”

I was happy again. He understood. Everything would be perfect.

April 16th, afternoon: Two of the village children playing in the woods found the body. It was a girl aged about ten years—one of the children from the village. She had been sexually assaulted and strangled. I was very shocked of course. I didn’t realize then that it was anything to do with us, until they came to the house asking questions.

Mervyn knocked on the door of my room. He said, “I want to get away. I can’t stay.”

I was astonished. “Why not?” I said.

“It is necessary,” he said. “I can’t stay.” His eyes were wild. He had that mad look again.

Gwennie was at the door. She said: “They want you to go down to the drawing room, Mr. Duncarry.”

April 16th, evening: I cannot believe it. They have taken him away. Someone saw him coming from the woods last night and they have found a bloodstained jacket in his room. So … they have taken him away.

April 20th: I have not been able to write since. There is a black pall over everything. They are holding him on suspicion. Mrs. Bonner goes round bleating about the dangers. They had him in their house! We might all have been murdered in our beds … and when she thought of her daughter she was so overcome with fear and relief that they had him under lock and key.

I was bitter. I have tried not to believe it. But I do. I know it is true. I have dreamed a wild, impossible dream. Life could never be as good to me as I had for a brief while thought it might. When had I ever had good luck? I was bitter and angry with life. I had lost my lover. Suppose I had given way … he would never have come upon that child … he would never have felt that overwhelming lust which made him forget everything but that he must satisfy it. But there would have been other times perhaps … How could Mervyn do that? But what did we know of people … ordinary people who can suddenly turn into monsters of depravity driven by some incomprehensible sexual urge?

April 30th: I love him and I have discovered that whatever he has done, I love him. I will take care of him in future … if he comes out of this. But how can he come out of it? They will find him guilty. They will hang him. I shall have lost my lover forever. I believe I can help him. I believe I can save him. I could reason with him. I could make him explain to me. What I want more than anything is a chance to do this, to bring him back to a normal life, to do the things we planned to do before this happened. How could such a man as Mervyn … so amusing, so charming … behave like that? How could he suddenly change? It must have been a brain storm … a momentary attack … like an illness. And I had refused him … and because of that … Oh, I could cure him, I know I could.