” How wonderful to belong to such a family!”

” You do now.”

” But as a kind of outsider … as all the people who married into the family must be.”

” You’ll soon become one of us. It’s always been so with Pendorric brides. In a short time they’re upholding the family more enthusiastically than those who started life with the name Pendorric.”

“Are you a sort of squire in the neighbourhood?”

” Squires went out of fashion years ago. We own most of the farms in the district, and customs die harder in Cornwall than anywhere else in England. We cling to old traditions and superstitions. I’m sure that a practical young woman like yourself is going to be very impatient with some of the stories you hear ; but bear with us—we’re the fey Cornish, remember, and you married into us.”

” I’m sure I shan’t complain. Tell me some more.”

“Well, there’s the house—a solid rectangle facing north, south, east and west. Northwards we look over the hills to the farmlands—south we face straight out to sea, and east and west give you magnificent views of a coastline that is one of the most beautiful in England and the most treacherous. When the tide goes out you’ll see the rocks like sharks’ teeth, and you can imagine what happens to boats that find their way on to those. Oh, and I forgot to mention there’s one view we don’t much like from the east window. It’s known to us in the family as Polhorgan’s Folly. A house which looks like a replica of our own.

We loathe it. We detest it. We nightly pray that it will be blown into the sea. “

” You don’t mean that, of course.”

” Don’t I?” His eyes flashed, but they were laughing at me. ” Of course you don’t. You’d be horrified if it were.”

” There’s actually no fear of it. It has stood there for fifty years—an absolute sham—trying to pretend to those visitors who stare up at it from the beach below that it is Pendorric of glorious fame.”

“But who built it?”

He was looking at me and there was something malicious in his gaze which alarmed me faintly because for a second it seemed as though it was directed at me; but then I realised that it was dislike of the owner of Polhorgan’s Folly which inspired it.

” A certain Josiah Fleet, better known as Lord Polhorgan. He came there fifty years ago from the Midlands, where he had made a fortune from some commodity—I’ve forgotten what. He liked our coast, he liked our climate, and decided to build himself a mansion. He did, and spent a month or so there each year, until eventually he settled in altogether and took his name from the cove below him.”

” You certainly don’t like him much. Or are you exaggerating?”

Roc shrugged his shoulders.

“Perhaps. It’s really the natural enmity between the nouveaux poor and the nouveaux rich.”

” Are we very poor?”

” By the standards of my Lord Polhorgan … yes. I suppose what annoys us is that sixty years ago we were the lords of the manor and he was trudging the streets of Birmingham, Leeds or Manchester—I can never remember which—barefooted. Industry and natural cunning made him a millionaire. Sloth and natural indolence brought us to our genteel poverty, when we wonder from week to week whether we shall have to call in the National Trust to take over our home and allow us to live in it and show it at half-a-crown a time to the curious public who want to know how the aristocracy once lived.”

” I believe you’re bitter.”

“And you’re critical. You’re on the side of industry and natural cunning. Oh, Favel, what a perfect union! You see, you’re all that I’m not. You’re going to keep me in order marvellously!”

” You’re laughing at me again.”

He gripped my hand so hard that I winced. ” It’s my nature, darling, to laugh at everything, and sometimes the more serious I am the more I laugh.”

” I don’t think you would ever allow anyone to keep you in order.”

” Well, you chose me, darling, and if I was what you wanted when you made the choice you’d hardly want to change me, would you?”

” I hope,” I said seriously, ” that we shan’t change, that we shall always be as happy as we have been up till now. “

For a moment there was the utmost tenderness in his expression, then he was laughing again.

” I told you,” he said, ” I’ve made a very good match.” I was suddenly struck by the thought that perhaps his family, who I imagined loved Pendorric as much as he did, would be disappointed that he had married a girl with no money, but I was touched and very happy because he had married me who could bring him nothing. I felt my nightmare evaporating and I wondered on what it could possibly have been founded.

“Are you friendly with this Lord Polhorgan?” I asked quickly to hide my emotion.

u Nobody could be friendly with him. We’re polite to each other. We don’t see much. of him. He’s a sick man, well guarded by a nurse and a staff of servants. “

“And his family?”

” He quarrelled with them all. And now he lives alone in his glory.

There are a hundred rooms at Polhorgan . all furnished in the most flamboyant manner. I believe, though, that dustsheets perpetually cover the flamboyance. You sec why we call it the Folly. “

“Poor old man!”

” I knew your soft heart would be touched. You may meet him. He’ll probably consider that he should receive the new Bride of Pendorric.”

” Why do you always refer to me as the Bride of Pendorric —as though in capital letters?”

” Oh, it’s a saying at Pendorric. There are lots of crazy things like that.”

“And your family?”

” Now things are very different at Pendorric. Some of our furniture has been standing where it does at this moment for four hundred years.

We’ve got old Mrs. Penhalligan, who is a daughter of Jesse and Lizzie Pleydell, and the Pleydells have looked after the Pendorrics for generations. There’s always a faithful member of that family to see that we’re cared for. Old Mrs. Penhalligan is a fine housekeeper, and she mends the counterpanes and curtains which are constantly falling apart. She keeps the servants in order at the same time—as well as ourselves. She’s sixty-five, but her daughter Maria, who never married, will follow in her footsteps. “

“And your sister?”

” My sister’s married to Charles Chaston, who worked as an agent when my father travelled a good deal. He manages the home farm with me now.

They live in the northern section of the house. We shall have the south. Don’t be afraid that you’re going to be hemmed in by relations.

It isn’t a bit like that at Pendorric. You need never see the rest of the family if you don’t want to, except at meals. We all eat together—it’s an old family custom—and anyway the servant problem makes it a necessity now. You’ll be surprised at the family customs we preserve. Really, you’ll think you’ve stepped back a hundred years. I do myself after I’ve been away for a while. “

” And your sister, what is her name?”

” Morwenna. Our parents believed in following the family traditions and giving us Cornish names wherever possible. Hence the Petrocs and Morwennas. The twins are Lowella and Hyson—Hyson was my mother’s maiden name. Lowella refers to herself as Lo and her sister as Hy. I suspect she has a nickname for all of us. She’s an incorrigible creature.”

” How old are the twins?”

” Twelve.”

“Are they at school?”

” No. They do go from time to time, but Lowella has an unfortunate habit of running away and dragging Hyson with her. She always says that they can’t be happy anywhere but at Pendorric. We’ve compromised at the moment by having a governess—a trained schoolmistress. It was difficult getting the permission of the educational authorities, but Charles and Morwenna want to keep them at home for a year or so until the child becomes more stable. You’ll have to beware of Lowella.”

“How?”

” It’ll be all right if she likes you. But she gets up to tricks. Hyson is different. She’s the quiet one. They look exactly alike, but their temperaments are completely different. Thank heaven for that. No household could tolerate two Lowellas. “

“What about your parents?”

” They’re dead and I remember very little about them. My mother died when we were five, and an aunt looked after us. She still comes to stay quite often and keeps a suite of rooms at Pendorric. Our father lived abroad a great deal when Charles came in. Charles is fifteen years older than Morwenna.”

” You said your mother died when we were five. Who else besides you?”

“Didn’t I mention that Morwenna and I were twins?”

” No. You said that Lowella and Hyson were.”

“Well, twins run in families, you know. Quite obviously they’ve started to run in ours.”

“Is Morwenna like you?”

” We’re not identical like Lowella and Hyson; but people^ say they can see a resemblance.”

” Roc,” I said leaning forward, ” you know, I’m beginning to feel I can’t wait to meet this family of yours.”

That’s settled it,” he replied. ” It’s time we went home. “

So “I was, in a measure, prepared for Pendorric.

We had left London after lunch and it was eight o’clock before we got off tile train.

Roc had said that he wished we could have motored down, because he wanted to make my crossing of the Tamar something of a ceremony.

However, he had arranged that his car should be waiting at the station so that he could drive me ‘home. Old Toms, the chauffeur-gardener and man-of-all-work at Pendorric, had driven it in that morning. So I found myself sitting beside Roc in his rather shabby Daimler and feeling a mingling of longing and apprehension, which seemed natural enough in the circumstances.