Warleggan Page 10

  ‘I don’t want to be like Elizabeth and Geoffrey Charles.’

  ‘Don’t worry on that score. Look at him already – twice the child he was a few months ago—’ Dwight stopped. ‘Is that Ross now?’

  ‘I think so. He’s long overdue.’ Demelza went to the window and peered out. ‘Yes. But on a strange horse. I hope there’s been no mishap.’

  For the moment she could not leave Jeremy; and when at last she got him into bed and went down, Ross was already in the parlour and insisting that Dwight should stay to supper. Dwight made several excuses, all of which were ignored; so smilingly he gave it up, and Mrs Gimlett laid a third place.

  Ross said: ‘We need a visitor, Dwight. We’ve been pretty much down these last days, and it’s as much your duty to see after our moral welfare as our physical. If there’s anyone with broken bones tonight, they’ll trace you here quick enough; so set your conscience at rest.’

  ‘My conscience is all right. But I’m sorry to hear of your condition.’

  ‘I’ll tell you more later. I have been trying to raise money all day, and it’s a subject that can only decently be spoken of on a full belly.’

  ‘I hope you’ve not sold Darkie,’ Demelza said, ‘for that would spoil my supper before it began.’

  ‘No . . . She cast a shoe near Stickler’s Wood, and I was offered a lift in a private coach to Killewarren and so came home on a loaned horse.’

  There was a sudden silence. Demelza raised her eyebrows. ‘Killewarren? It was Mr Penvenen’s private coach?’

  ‘Mr Penvenen doesn’t own a private coach,’ said Dwight.

  ‘It was Caroline Penvenen,’ said Ross. ‘She’d driven down from London – or Oxford, is it? Her uncle wasn’t expecting her. Were you, Dwight?’

  ‘Yes . . .’

  To fill the succeeding pause Demelza said: ‘I expect she wanted to surprise her uncle. When was she last here, was it May or June? It must be strange to have two homes.’ When neither man spoke, she leaned forward and snuffed one of the candles. ‘Will they send Darkie over tomorrow, Ross?’

  Ross said: ‘There’s no need to discuss it if you choose not, Dwight. But we’re old friends, and sometimes it’s good to have things out. She asked me how you were and said she hoped to see you before long.’

  ‘How did her uncle receive her?’

  ‘Not graciously. I think she was glad of me as a foil. But she’s hard to withstand when she lays herself out to please – as perhaps you know – and he looked to be coming round when I left.’

  Dwight’s long, slight hands fumbled with his doily napkin. ‘You’re not merely old friends but my oldest and best. If good would come of discussing this – this between myself and Caroline – I’d gladly discuss it. But I see none . . . Perhaps I owe you some explanation, and in that case—’

  ‘You owe us nothing,’ said Ross. ‘But I’d be sorry to see a situation grow half-realized. You know how it is sometimes.’

  ‘You mean, I know how it was last time. The dangers are different here, though, aren’t they? Well, I confess I’m in love with Caroline, and we’ve written; and now she’s here again, and for better or for worse, we shall be seeing each other soon. I have no money and she has a great deal, so the attachment . . . Do you dislike her very much?’

  This was said to Demelza, and she was taken aback by it. ‘No, Dwight. I don’t know her except to exchange a few words, and you can’t not like a person you don’t know. I am not the best one to judge.’

  ‘Nor I,’ said Ross. ‘But I believe she’s altered my opinion of her today – and I’m at a loss to say why. Certainly not for the favour of a lift . . .’

  ‘There’s a hardness to her,’ said Dwight slowly. ‘I’d be a fool to deny it. It’s like a – a brittle shiny armour, and its use has been the same. There is so much else behind it . . . In any case these things do not go by measure. The alchemy’s too subtle to be weighed up.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Ross, thinking suddenly of Elizabeth, and, as if there were telepathy between them, Demelza looked at him and knew what he was thinking.

  Dwight said: ‘The attachment’s bad, no doubt; but I can’t shake or break myself of it. Perhaps she will be wiser. It’s a discreditable situation which could come only to a weak man; a strong one would break the dilemma somehow.’

  ‘The longer I live,’ Ross said, pulling his brows together painfully, ‘the more I distrust these distinctions between strong men and weak. Events do what they like with us, and such – such temporary freedom as we have only fosters an illusion. Look at Francis. Was there ever a sorrier or more useless end or one less deserved or dictated by himself, or more unfitted to the minimum decencies and dignity of a human being? To drown like a dog in a well, and for nothing – to miss help by the space of an hour – to go out from this room and walk over to the mine and within a short while to slip on a greasy floor and be dead, and for nothing.’ Ross pushed back his chair in sudden vehemence. ‘It is what I have always resented most in life: the wantonness, the useless waste, the sudden ends that make fools of us, that make nonsense of all our striving and contriving . . . You’ve been with me in most of the worst of it, Dwight: Julia’s death and much else. If you see a difference in result between any strength or weakness that’s been shown, I confess you’re cleverer than I am.’

  Dwight did not speak, but after a minute Demelza said: ‘Oh, yes, that’s true, Ross. But is it all the truth? I feel that there are some things good which have come to us for our own striving. And though, for the whole, luck has been against us, sometimes it has moved for us and may yet do again. Wheal Grace is failing, but Wheal Leisure has prospered – and, if there was Julia, there is also Jeremy – and there was your acquittal from the trial; and – and much else besides.’ She stared into the candle flame for a moment with a curiously blind stare, then blinked and was herself again. ‘It may be that if on balance we have been unlucky, Dwight will not be so. There may be some happy way for him and Caroline, and a little patience will find it.’

  In spite of a matter-of-fact tone, she spoke, Dwight thought, with a curious sense of fatality, as if she knew things had gone wrong for herself and could not now be righted. It was the first time he realized what Francis’s death had meant to her, to them both, in terms of their own relationship.

  Chapter Two

  November is a bad month for secret assignments out of doors; but Caroline had hunted the country too often to be at a loss, and she sent a note to Dwight to meet her at the old mine at the edge of the wood near Bargus. When Dwight got there, his pulse quickened at the sight of a horse already tethered to a tree. He slid off his own horse, looped the reins over a stump, and went quickly into the old stone house. Caroline was crouching beside the open shaft; and as he entered, she threw a stone down and listened to its echoing fall.

  She straightened up quite casually. ‘No wonder there are so many illegitimate babies in Cornwall, it’s so easy to be rid of them. I suspect that these old shafts are kept open for the purpose, Dwight.’

  It was very shadowy in here and he could not see her expression, but he came over to her determined not to be put out of countenance, determined this time to play her at her own game.

  ‘Not only babies but women, who spoil one’s sleep, who interrupt one’s work, who send unprincipled letters, who flirt and have no heart. It’s a good and easy way of disposal, and who should be the wiser? Does anyone know where you’ve come?’

  She stood balanced on the edge of the shaft as if challenging him.

  ‘No one knows, Dwight; but I don’t tremble with fear. Were my letters unprincipled? Did they spoil your sleep? Were they not a source of pleasure also? Be honest. Confess to me.’

  Dwight put his hand on her elbow, drew her away from the edge, turned her towards him. They looked at each other, unfamiliars but friends. She lifted one eyebrow slightly and smiled. He bent forward and kissed her. Then they stood for a while in each other’s arms while a gleam of sunshine fell through the ruined door
way and the only sound was the movement of their horses outside. It was a reunion from which obvious passion was absent.

  ‘Your letters were pleasure and pain in equal halves, as no doubt they were meant to be. Do you like to torment those who love you?’

  She looked at him closely, searchingly, renewing her own acquaintance. ‘No . . . Perhaps I like to torment myself. I don’t know. I can’t say. All I know is that I’m back, that my uncles are furious, that I’m my own mistress, that I’ve made an appointment with you, and that you have come. Just now it’s uncomplicated – clear in my mind. Don’t expect too much of me, Dwight. Don’t press me too hard.’

  ‘I love you,’ he said. ‘That’s uncomplicated too. Whether for you this is just a sample of life to be taken and then conveniently forgotten—’

  ‘No, it is not; and you know it is not. And that was only in a half of my letters or a third, and the nice parts you’ve wilfully overlooked. Anyway, I’m not used to writing love letters any more than I am used to being made love to. It is—’

  ‘I hope your experiments in Oxfordshire were satisfactory.’

  ‘Yes, yes. Delectable. Quite enchanting. So much so that I’ve hurried down here as soon as the lawyers agreed to release my money . . .’

  They talked on, aware of their temporary isolation and making the most of it, yet both knowing that secret meetings could not be secret for long. Convinced now of all that he needed to be convinced of, Dwight would have liked to face up to their difficulties at this very first encounter; but he sensed that Caroline was still groping her way towards an understanding of her own feelings. Until then one could only live for the day.

  As the weather was lifting, they went out of the old ruin and she perched on a stone wall while he stood beside her.

  ‘I met your Captain Poldark again,’ she said. ‘But of course he told you. The more I see of him the more I like him. I must confess that, if you want me to be honest.’

  ‘You’ll not make me jealous of him. I only wish his circumstances were happier.’

  ‘Circumstances? Is it his cousin’s widow who is the circumstance, or has he some other trouble?’

  ‘Financial,’ said Dwight, and hesitated. He’d no wish to betray a confidence; but some desire to turn her off the scent, to steer her away from asking him about the Elizabeth-Ross relationship, made him say more than he intended.

  ‘I thought he looked a shade down-in-the-mouth when we met. And so you were having supper with his wife when he returned. Perhaps that’s cause for jealousy on my part. Tell me, what’s the hold she has on men? She’s pretty enough, I grant, but so are others who get far less attention. Do you know the secret?’

  ‘It’s not a question of knowing a secret. It’s just a question of knowing Demelza.’

  ‘Is she the sort of woman that all men desire except her husband? It so often happens. What an advocacy for married life! Don’t you think I should be very ill-advised to marry, Dwight?’

  ‘No, I don’t think you would be ill-advised to marry, if you marry the right man.’

  ‘Ah, the right man, of course.’ She picked up two stones from the crumbling wall, weighed them in her palm, like subjects for discussion. ‘But tell me what you have been doing yourself. I hear you’ve performed a miracle upon your little fisher girl and that she can now dance the cotillion. Is it really so?’

  Remembering her earlier derision, he glanced quickly at her; but her face was serious enough. Then she met his gaze and laughed. ‘No, no, I mean it. Tell me. Why should I not be interested?’

  ‘Well, it was all greatly talked up, and I suspect you of pretending a polite attachment for the subject.’

  ‘Then you don’t understand me yet, Dwight. When last I was here I had to defend you against some supposed failure. Why shouldn’t I be told of your triumphs?’

  Perhaps it was something in one of her letters that still left him reluctant. ‘The matter was made overmuch of, as I say. The girl had been lame for eight years from some disease of the knee. At least, one assumed disease. After some futile attempts to do good with blisters and the like, I made an effort to study the structure of the knee – first the bone formation, and then in other ways.’

  ‘What other ways?’

  ‘Last month a dead sailor was washed up on Hendrawna Beach and buried in the sand by the miners. I went down in the night and took part of one leg away and so was able to study the ligaments as they are in a living person.’

  ‘You did?’ she said, watching him, interested in this new light on his character.

  ‘Yes. Then one day—’

  ‘Did you not find it unpleasant?’

  ‘Well, it wasn’t pleasure I was looking for.’

  ‘You may think it unfeminine,’ said Caroline, ‘but do you know I believe I should be interested to watch such work.’

  ‘Would you?’

  ‘Yes, I would. I see it shocks you. Go on.’

  ‘It does not shock me at all. Then one day at the beginning of this month I was able to put the girl’s knee right with my hands. It was nothing more than a displacement. But the years have caused atrophy of the muscles and some local inflammation. At present she is about with a bandage on it, but I think she can discard that when she has the confidence.’

  Caroline put her hand over his. ‘So now you are a miracle worker and have people waiting outside your house every morning. Bravo. I will tell my uncle. It will irritate him.’

  ‘It irritates me,’ said Dwight, ‘but I can make use of it.’

  ‘And no doubt your little girl looks on you with the most adoring eyes.’

  ‘No doubt she does,’ said Dwight shortly.

  ‘And so she should. There are not many physicians of your accomplishments using all their energies to help the poor. How do you live, Dwight? Tell me that.’

  He glanced at her. As always she asked questions frankly, bluntly, with no apparent awareness that she might be on delicate ground. Yet surely she, if anyone, had the right to know.

  ‘I’ve an income of a few pounds a month, and this is supplemented by about £40 a year from the two mines and by those of my other patients who can afford to pay. Often I get gifts in kind from those who have no money to spare. In the main I keep out of debt. That’s all I care for – or it’s all I have cared for.’

  ‘Will the Hoblyns pay you?’

  ‘In some way. And not all the gentry on my list are as healthy as your uncle. Old Mr Treneglos, who would never have a surgeon near him, regularly calls me in—’

  ‘That’s what I mean,’ said Caroline. ‘Have you not thought of setting up in a town, especially a fashionable town – such as Bath or Oxford – where you would be able to work among people of your own kind? It is nice to help the poor, but charity – some charity – begins at home; and I believe you would be well received anywhere, not just among fisherfolk. Although you may not believe it, your manner at the bedside is an impressive one; and you have qualifications, Captain Poldark says, rarely met with outside of London . . .’

  Although she did not think he noticed, he had seen the glance she gave his clothes when they came out into the daylight. But much that she implied by what she didn’t say was salved by its obvious purpose.

  He said: ‘When I came back to Cornwall, I’d no thought but to open a business in a town; it was Captain Poldark who invited me here. But to help poor people was part of my own purpose – still is. And in a town – even in Bath and Oxford – the poor are in greater need of attention than the well off. I don’t want to become a society pet.’

  She slipped off the wall and went over to her horse, made some pretence of fumbling with the saddle. The wind stirred her tawny hair, lifting it away from her ear and letting it fall. He was at once angry with himself for sounding pompous, for having irritated her. Yet what he said was the truth! Would she have disguised her own feelings for his benefit?

  He went over to her: ‘Caroline, you may think—’

  She turned and smiled. ‘What sho
uld I think, Dwight? That you’re the most noble of men? Or does it even matter? The sun has gone in and I’m chilly. That’s of the chiefest moment. Let us ride.’

  Before he could help her, she had pulled herself into the saddle, and her horse stepped spiritedly across the soft turf. She checked it while he mounted and came up with her.

  ‘It matters everything what you think, Caroline; but because it matters so much, I can’t pretend to you to gain an easy favour—’

  ‘I’ll race you. As far as Jonas’s Mill, eh? You know the way?’

  She swung her horse round and headed it for the rough common beyond the ruined mine. To gallop across this stonestrewn ground was asking for a fall; but she set off at a pace which Dwight with his inferior mount couldn’t hope to equal.

  But if Caroline knew the neighbourhood well, Dwight knew it better. He cantered along the track beside the common until she was safely across and had taken the stone wall at the other side. Then he spurred his horse forward down the track. A minute or two later a hamlet of four cottages was surprised to see the black-coated figure of their surgeon, who normally rode at a discreet trot, flying through as if for his life. Behind him in the settling dust children gathered and stared.

  Dwight took the track which came out at Bargus Crosslanes and plunged as recklessly as Caroline could have wished through the rough scrub on the other side. Then he jumped from his horse and slipped and slithered with it down the slope beyond. Jonas’s Mill came in sight and at the same moment Caroline again. Dwight swung into the saddle. The only way of getting to the mill before her was to jump the stream that worked the mill. It was quite narrow, but his horse was not a hunter. As Caroline saw him, he set his horse at the stream. They rose together and the horse landed half in and half out of the water at the other side, floundering and almost falling. Dwight slithered off its back into a foot or so of water and hauled the horse up the sloping bank. By the time Caroline came up he was mounted again and waiting for her, while the miller and the miller’s wife peered in astonishment out of windows and a small boy driving a yoke of oxen forgot to call to his team.