Jeremy Poldark Page 6

  “I wish I could write like you,” Demelza said. “Letters that tell something, I can’t write, no more’n Prudie Paynter, and never shall. It is there, there in my mind, but when I pick up the quill it all puffs away like steam out of the spout of a kettle.”

  Verity said: “But tell me now, who is to be for Ross’s defence, and what witnesses will be called in his favour? I am so ignorant of these things. How is the jury chosen? Is it of freemen and will they look on such a crime indulgently? And the judge…”

  Demelza tried to satisfy her from the information she had. She was surprised to find Verity as unlearned in the law as herself. They struggled with its complexities together.

  Verity said: “Andrew would have come, but he is at sea. I should have been happier with him to lean on. But perhaps it’s for the best…You don’t know, I suppose, if Francis will be at the assizes?”

  “No…No, I don’t think so. But there will be a great many there. We’re lucky, so they say, to have accommodation, because there’s an election this coming week—between Unwin Trevaunance and Michael Chenhalls on the Basset side, and Sir Henry Corrant and Hugh Dagge on the Boscoigne. There’ll be a big fuss about that.”

  “You’re well informed. Is that Unwin Trevaunance, Sir John’s brother?”

  “Yes. We—I—have got to know Sir John a slight bit. Of course Ross has known him for years—but I…He happened to have a sick cow—and I cured her—or she got better of her own—and so I’ve been over there once or twice and have details of the election.”

  “A sick cow?”

  Demelza coloured a little. “It was nothing important. Verity, I don’t want for you to mind if I act strange this week end. It is only a track of my own I’m following, like, and maybe it will lead somewhere and maybe it will lead to a dead end. But it is just the way I feel about things, and I hope you’ll understand. Are you really happy with Andrew?”

  “I’m very happy, thank you—thanks to you, my dear. But what is it you intend to do this week end?”

  “Maybe nothing at all. It’s only just a warning. And have you met your stepchildren yet?”

  Verity opened her new velvet bag, took out a handkerchief, then drew the strings of the bag together again. She frowned at the handkerchief.

  “No…not yet. I haven’t met them yet because—James is away still and—but I’ll tell you about it later…I think we should take our seats now.”

  They went out to the waiting coach, with its fresh horses stirring restlessly in the traces and the postboys to hand them up. They were the first in the vehicle, but a moment later three more entered, and several climbed on top. It was to be a crowded journey.

  ***

  The clash of election and assize had given the soberer citizens of Bodmin some anxious thought: the coincidence was maladroit, to say the least; inns would be packed to suffocating one week and empty the next; the solemn process of the law might be disconcerted by the no less important but noisier processes of an election contest in which some bad blood was already being shown. Everyone knew that there were two mayors in the town, each representing a rival patron; but no one yet knew which would prevail during this all-important week.

  The election of the members of Parliament, in more cordial circumstances, might have been put through in a couple of hours and no one the worse, since there were only thirty-six electors, members of a Common Council under the mayor. Unfortunately the dispute as to the mayoral office raised questions about the validity of the Council, each mayor having his own version of the electoral roll. Mr. Lawson, one mayor, had among his common councillors his brother, his wife’s brother, a cousin, a nephew, and four sons, and this was a situation which Mr. Michell, the other mayor, passionately challenged.

  As to the law, the lists were crowded with cases from the deferred spring assizes, the gaol crowded with felons, and the inns crowded with litigants and witnesses. On the Friday Ross had his first interview with his counsel, Mr. Jeffery Clymer, KC, a burly man of forty with a possessive nose and one of those chins which no razor’s edge will whiten. All considered, Ross thought it a good thing the barrister came in his robes or the turnkey might have been reluctant to let him out again.

  Mr. Clymer thought the case of the Crown v. R. V. Poldark would not come on before Wednesday morning. In the meantime he thumbed through Mr. Pearce’s brief, shot questions at his client, tutted over the answers and sniffed at a handkerchief soaked in vinegar. When he left he said he would be round on Monday with a list of witnesses who had been subpoenaed to appear and a draft of the line of defence he would advise his client to pursue. The one tentatively sketched out by Mr. Pearce was quite useless—it admitted altogether too much. When Ross said that was the defence Mr. Pearce had prepared on his instructions, Clymer said fiddlesticks, it wasn’t for a client to issue instructions of that sort; a client must be guided by his legal advisers or what was the good of having them. You couldn’t plead not guilty and say in the next breath, I did it after all. It was an infernal pity Captain Poldark had made such admissions and offered such expressions of opinion to the examining justice. Asking for trouble, that’s what you’d call it. Whole purpose of the defence now must be to remove that impression, not emphasize it. Ignoring Ross’s look, he said it would profit them both if Captain Poldark would spend the week end thinking this over, and also in casting back in his memory for any new recollection that would help. After all, he said, rubbing his blue chin, no one but the prisoner could know all the facts.

  One condition of Ross’s consent to Demelza’s presence in the town was that she should make no attempt whatever to see him in gaol. In fact she was not altogether loth, for she would not then have to account for her movements.Only to Verity need she make excuses, and at the worst Verity had no control over her.

  As soon as they got to the inn there was trouble, for the landlord had put up another double bed in their room and claimed the right to let two other women share it. Only a long and painful argument and some extra money from Verity won them their privacy. They had a meal together and listened to the slamming of doors, the cries of ostlers, the hurrying feet of the maids, and the singsong of drunken wayfarers under the window.

  “I think we shall have to plug our ears to sleep,” said Verity, taking the pins out of her hair. “If it’s like this at seven what will it be in another three hours?”

  “Never worry,” said Demelza, “they’ll all be drunk insensible.” She stretched herself, arching her back like a cat. “Oh, that old coach: joggle, joggle, bump. Three times I thought we were going to upset or spend the night in the mud.”

  “It has given me a sick headache,” Verity said. “I shall take a draught and lie down early.”

  “In another hour I believe I should have felt the same. What were you going to tell me about your stepchildren, Verity?”

  Verity shook out her hair and it fell in a cloud about her shoulders. The action was like some new and secret blossoming of her personality. She did not look eleven years older than Demelza now. Happiness had brought the keen intelligence and vitality back into her eyes, and an extra roundness to her cheeks, and made the wide generous mouth less unproportionate.

  “It’s nothing,” she said. “Nothing beside what is happening to Ross.”

  “I want to hear,” said Demelza. “Have you not even seen them once yet?”

  “…It is the only flaw at present. Andrew is very fond of his children, and I hate to feel they will not come because I am there.”

  “Why should you feel that? It is naught to do with you.”

  “It should not be. But…” She split one side of her hair into three parts and began to plait them. “It is a very peculiar position, with Andrew’s first wife dying as she did and the children being left so young—with that scar; their mother dead, their father in prison; brought up by relatives. Their father has always been at a disadvantage with them. They have come to see h
im occasionally, but never since we married. Of course James could not, for he is with the fleet and depends on the movements of his ship; but he has never once written. And Esther is only at Plymouth…Andrew hardly mentions them now, but I know he thinks about them. I know he would be very happy if we could come together. I have wondered sometimes whether to go to Saltash to meet Esther—not telling Andrew, while he is away.”

  “No,” said Demelza, “I wouldn’t do that. She should come to you.”

  Verity stared at her reflection in the mirror, then at Demelza, who was changing her stockings. “But suppose she never comes.”

  “Get Andrew to invite her.”

  “He has already done that, but she has made excuses.”

  “You must use a bait, then.”

  “A bait?”

  Demelza wriggled her toes, and her eyes considered expressively the three pairs of shoes she had to choose from.

  “Is she fond of her brother?”

  “I believe so.”

  “Then get him to Falmouth first. Perhaps it is only shyness with them and he might be easier to entice in the first place.”

  “I should like to think you’re right, for he must be home soon. He was expected back at Easter, but his ship was diverted to Gibraltar…What is that?”

  Above the noises of the inn and street a man was shouting. He had a loud voice and a bell.

  “The town crier,” said Verity.

  Demelza had just taken off her riding habit, but she went to the window, which was at floor level, and knelt and peered through the lace curtains.

  “I can’t hear what he’s saying.”

  “No…it is to do with the election.”

  Through the mirror Verity looked at Demelza’s crouched figure which had some of the alertness of a young animal—the cream satin underskirt, the little décolleté bodice of Ghent lace. Three years ago she had lent Demelza her first dainty underclothes. Demelza was a quick learner. Verity’s lips moved in an affectionate smile.

  The crier was not coming their way, but in a temporary lull in the local noises they caught some disconnected words. “Oyez! Oyez! Hear ye, hear ye…by the sheriffs precept…Notice of election…The mayor and aldermen of the borough of Bodmin…Speaker of the House of Commons, does command, issue and proclaim on Tuesday, the seventh day of September, in the year of our Lord…”

  “Does that mean the election is to be Tuesday? I thought it was Thursday,” Demelza said.

  “The notices will be posted now. We can see them tomorrow.”

  “Verity…”

  “Yes?”

  “You are tired tonight?”

  “I shall be well enough in the morning.”

  “You will not mind if I go out by myself for a little?”

  “Tonight? Oh no, my dear! It would be the height of folly! You’d never get along the pavements. You’d be in grave danger.”

  Demelza went across to the things she had unpacked, considered them in the failing light. “I should keep to the main streets.”

  “You don’t realize what it is like! In Falmouth, even on a normal Saturday night, it’s impossible to venture without escort. Here, when there is free drinking, and the town’s crowded with sightseers…”

  “I am no lent-lily to snap off at the first touch.”

  “No, my dear, but it would be madness, I assure you. You don’t realize…” Verity watched the other girl’s face.

  “If you’re resolved, then I must come with you.”

  “That you cannot…You’ve helped me so often, Verity, but in this you cannot help me. It is—just something…between Ross and me…”

  “Between…Did Ross ask you to do this?”

  Demelza wrestled with her conscience. She knew the mischief which had come from her white lies before. But also the good!

  “Yes,” she said.

  “In that case…But are you sure he meant you to go out alone? I can scarcely believe that he could ever have agreed to…”

  “I am a miner’s daughter,” Demelza said. “I was not brought up gentle. Gentleness—is that the right word?—came upon me when I was half grown. I have Ross to thank for that. And you. But it don’t alter me underneath. I still have two marks on my back where Father used the belt. There’s naught a few drunks could do but what I couldn’t give them back. Tis all a matter of being in the mood.”

  Verity watched her cousin’s face a minute longer. There was a strength of line belying the soft feminine expression of mouth and eye.

  “Very well, my dear.” Verity made a gesture of resignation. “I am not happy about it, but you are your own mistress now.”

  Chapter Six

  There was no moon to light the town that night, but every shop, tavern and house contributed its share to the yellow flicker of the streets. In accordance with custom both parties in the election were offering free drinks to their supporters, and there were already numbers of people stumbling as they walked or sitting in a lazy stupor in alcoves or against a handy wall.

  When Demelza came out she turned down the hill and in a few minutes was in the main thoroughfare, which this afternoon she had thought the narrowest and most crowded in the world. The shops and inns and houses, tight squeezed, had along their frontages a succession of slated porticoes reaching into the roadway on stone posts and forming an unbroken way down both sides of the street. The space left for traffic was little more than wide enough for one coach, and, since in the case of shops the porticoes were often used for the display of goods, pedestrians found themselves out in the road much of the time. Such an arrangement might have served for the normal life of the town; it was inadequate now.

  The street was crammed with people, milling about, pushing up one side and down the other, rough but good-tempered so far. A few yards from the Queen’s Head she came to a stop, unable to go farther because of the press. Something was going on at the hotel, but at first she could only see the scarlet and orange banners which hung from the upper windows. People were shouting and laughing. Near the portico against which she was standing a blind man was whining and trying to find his way through; a woman quarrelled with a brass worker over the price of a bell; a man, half drunk, was sitting on a stone step used for mounting horses, stroking the cheek of a vacant-faced full-bosomed young country girl on the step below. Two ragged urchins in cut-down coats came suddenly to blows and rolled over, scratching and biting, in the dried mud. A half dozen people laughed and formed a ring, hiding them from view.

  There was a sudden shout and a rush towards the Queen’s Head, and the press here was eased. A window of the upper room of the inn had been opened and people were cheering and shouting at the figures in the window. Others were rolling and fighting in the road just below. Another great cheer and a rush. The people above were throwing things down, scattering them in the road. An urchin came doubling and ducking through the crowd, holding his hands under his armpits, his face contorted but triumphant. Three men were fighting, and Demelza had to duck under the portico to avoid them. One crashed into the stall of the brass worker, who came out with a flood of shouts and curses to drive them off.

  “What’s to do?” Demelza asked him. “What are they about?”

  The man eyed her up and down.

  “Scattering red-hot coins, they be. From a frying pan. Tis the custom.”

  “Red-hot coins?”

  “’S. Tis the custom, I tell ee.” He went in.

  She worked her way nearer and could see the cook at the window in his tall hat, and two men with huge red and gold favours in their buttonholes. There was a great scream and a rush as more money was flung down. The human beings milling together in the flame and shadow had lost some part of their individuality and moved with a mass impulse not quite their own, not quite the sum of all the separate souls. She felt if she was not careful she might become a part of the mob in the yel
low dark, be caught up in it, and lose her individual purpose and volition, being sucked towards the window with each wave that broke. She found herself beside the blind man.

  “You’ll not get through by yourself, old man,” she said. “Where do you want to go?”

  “Guildhall, Missus,” he said, showing broken teeth. “Tes up along, no more’n a short way.”

  “Take my arm. I’ll help you.” She waited for the next rush, and then thrust her way forward, finding comfort in being able to join with somebody, be of use to somebody, against the rest.

  The blind man breathed gin over her. “Tes rare an’ kind of ee t’elp a poor old man. I’ll do the same for ee one day.” He cackled as they got through the worst of the press. “Tis a rare dring tonight, you; an’ worse to follow, I misdoubt.”

  “Where is the Basset headquarters?” she asked, peering up the street. “I thought this afternoon it was up here?”

  The blind man squeezed her arm. “Well, tes no more’n a few paces now. But ’ow would it be if ye came along of me—up Arnold’s Passage. I can give ee a nice little drop o’ dripshan. Warm ee up, twould.”

  She tried to get her arm free, but his fingers were tight and playing a little tune on her arm.

  “Leave me go,” she said.

  “No offence, Missus. No ’arm meant. I thought you was a docy little maid. I can see naught, ye follow—so tes all a question of feel wi’ me, and ye feel young and friendly. Young and friendly.”

  Two riders came down the street, picking a slow way among the people, trying to quiet their horses, often unable to go forward at all. She steered the blind man past them and then wrenched her arm free. He tried to catch her fingers but failed, and she pushed her way ahead.

  As she got opposite the Guildhall another great press of people came down the street from the west, shouting and singing and carrying someone precariously on a chair. She was just able to slip into the arched entrance of the Crown. They seemed about to go right past, but some stopped, and a man stood on another’s shoulders to try to reach the blue and gold flag just above them. He had caught at a corner, when a dozen or more men rushed past Demelza out of the hotel, sent the climber flying off the other man’s shoulders and in a minute a fight was in progress. Someone threw a brick, and Demelza retreated farther into the yard and tried to tidy herself. Then she went in.