Free Penmarric by Susan Howatch Page B

wished could be included in my Penmar inheritance.
    I did not know the St. Aubyns who lived at the Mount but I did meet the heir of Carnforth Hall, a large, wealthy estate which stood a mile or two from the sea east of Penzance. Justin Carnforth was three years my senior and a dreadful bore who could talk of nothing but horses, but he was friendly and hospitable and I did not consider myself above joining the card parties he gave from time to time whenever his parents were away from home. He had a sister, Judith Carnforth, but she was a plain, priggish girl and I was unable to find her congenial company; however, since her fortune was as large as her sense of humor was small, I supposed she would have no trouble finding a husband eventually.
    It was through the card parties that I met several other contemporaries of mine, including, my kinsman Roger Waymark, whose family owned Gurnards Grange at Zennor, the parish adjoining Morvah to the east; my father’s mother had been a Waymark of Zennor and it had been through her that my father had inherited Deveral Farm. Waymark was a pleasant fellow, but unfortunately he shared Carnforth’s obsession with horses, and since I have always regarded these animals merely as a convenient form of transport I soon found I had little to say to him. Harry Penmar had formerly been a member of the card-party set but had found it difficult to honor his debts; while he remained welcome at Carnforth Hall he was no longer invited there to play cards. I heard he had his eye on Judith Carnforth, but I did not believe that even Harry Penmar, who was notorious for his debts, could be desperate enough to consider Miss Carnforth as a matrimonial prospect.
    I was first introduced to Justin Carnforth—and thus to the card parties at Carnforth Hall—by the young man whose name I had first heard mentioned at Zillan rectory, the solicitor Michael Vincent of Holmes, Holmes, Trebarvah and Holmes. I met him on my second visit to the rectory for lunch, and although he too had little in common with me, I soon decided that he was the only one of my new acquaintances whom I could truly consider a friend.
    Being the youngest of four sons, he had been obliged to earn his living, but his education and background made him acceptable at Carnforth Hall even if his lack of money and abundance of moral scruples excluded him from the gambling circle there. When I first met him the disparity in our ages was then at its widest; I was still not yet twenty-one, while he was less than three years on the right side of thirty, a qualified lawyer making his own way in the world. Yet he was not sophisticated. When he was not working at his office he liked simple pleasures such as fishing or playing cricket, and although he enjoyed reading he had no taste for historical biography but preferred historical novels. But I found it easy to talk to him of casual matters, of the walks along the cliffs from Penzance to Lamorna, of expeditions to Logan’s Rock, of summer sailing in Mount’s Bay, and easier still to appreciate his good-naturedness and enjoy his company. I needed a friend and I sensed he needed one too; he had not been long in Penzance, and although he was well acquainted with the young men in the Carnforth Hall set I suspected they bored him as frequently as they bored me. Roger Waymark was too immature for him, Justin Carnforth too limited, and although Vincent never said so I was sure he disliked Harry Penmar as much as he worshiped Harry’s sister Clarissa.
    “How beautiful she is!” he would sigh, quite besotted, and would repeat for the hundredth time how hard it was that he had no money behind him and was not in a position to pursue his admiration to its logical conclusion.
    But I was still immune to Clarissa. By this time I had seen her once or twice in Penzance, but nevertheless I could only feel cynical about the looks Vincent admired so much. I had seen women before with that full-lipped red mouth and that