Warleggan Page 7

  There was a long silence. The confession had moved Dwight in a new way. It was a new Caroline he suddenly saw – not supremely sure of herself and contemptuous of his efforts to please, but as unsure in her own way as he was, and hiding her unsureness behind a mask of laughter and ridicule. He was suddenly no longer infatuated but deeply in love.

  ‘And Unwin?’

  ‘Unwin was a suitor ready made. He came with all the possible recommendations. And there was no lack of confidence within him, Dwight. He seemed to think I should be flattered at the idea of marrying a seat in Parliament. Sometimes I caught him looking at me, and then I knew that he was interested in my money first, my body second, but myself, for myself, little at all.’

  ‘And I?’

  Caroline smiled at him queerly. ‘It is not very easy to say this to your face, is it? When we first met in Bodmin and quarrelled, I thought, there is a man who . . . And again when you came to examine my throat. It was not that I liked you, it was that I felt—’ She sat up. ‘No I can’t tell you. Let’s go.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘I don’t know what I feel for you – there that’s the truth. Now go away.’

  She got to her feet and moved a step towards her horse, but he jumped up and barred her way. ‘You must tell me, Caroline.’

  She flared at him, but he caught her wrist and held it. She said: ‘Well, you should know without being told. I wondered what it would be like to be kissed by you, whether I should like it or hate it, whether it would feed or kill my interest in you. But I didn’t know and I haven’t known and I shan’t ever know – and now it does not matter, because I’m going away. Oh, there have been other men who’ve attracted and plenty more who will! But I shall not marry the first of them nor the second. In October—’

  But she said no more. He put his hands on her elbows and pulled her against him and kissed her on the cheek and then on the mouth. After a moment her hands gripped his shoulders tight, not pulling him closer but slightly pushing him away, as a woman will whose critical mind is aware that she has got only what she asked for. They stood there so long that a chaffinch fluttered down and stayed pecking at the grass until one of the horses shuffled and frightened it off.

  At last a flight of rooks cawing and settling in the trees separated them. There was a curious strained silence when they broke. Dwight was out of breath and he thought Caroline was too.

  He said: ‘And now no doubt you hate me.’

  ‘No doubt I hate you.’

  ‘And will be glad to go, cured of your curiosity.’

  ‘You’d best,’ she said, ‘you’d best help me on my horse – if we’re to get back.’

  He moved to bend to make a step for her foot, but at the first contact of her skirt he straightened and she was in his arms again. They reeled against the horse, which shied and whinnied; a tree came up against them, and she leaned her back against it as he kissed her again, more deliberately this time.

  Already the sun was higher than it should have been. This time he really helped her to mount, and then he climbed up on to his own horse, and the soft morning breeze wafted on their faces.

  Their horses were ready to move off, but neither of the riders made any sign.

  ‘When will you be back?’ said Dwight.

  ‘When I choose.’

  ‘You’ll write?’

  ‘If you wish me to.’

  He made a gesture of hopelessness. Did she want reassurance of that? ‘If you come back . . .’ he began.

  ‘It will be the same over again? But in October there will be one change.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I shall be twenty-one. Uncle Ray can do nothing to prevent me from returning to this district after October the twenty-sixth.’

  They moved off slowly out of the glade, and nothing was left but some hoof prints and a few broken bluebells to mark the emotion which had flared there.

  Chapter Six

  The fine weather did not last, and June ended wet, to be followed by a wetter July and August. The rain beat upon the crops endlessly, flattened them, and turned them black. High winds swept the country, and the sun drifted pale and lost across the sky among the intermittent storms. In the cobbled streets of Paris new and strange terrors stalked. The eruption which had cracked the surface of the continental despotisms had suddenly festered and turned in upon itself. Hopelessly menaced from the east, tottering to its fall, it was pulling down upon itself the whole structure of civilized society. In this last phase of felo-de-se no infamy was too bad. News of the butchery of three hundred priests was followed by stories of children playing with heads and four days’ continuous slaughter of the packed prisons. Men whispered of the Princess Lamballe torn limb from limb, her head stuck on a pike, judgment pronounced by the mob and those found guilty cut obscenely into pieces on the spot among the corpses already piled; the prisons no sooner empty than filled again.

  Mr Trencrom, keeping up his illicit traffic in spite of politics and the weather, reported that Mark Daniel was no longer in Cherbourg but had moved farther along the coast; they hoped to get in touch with him on the next trip. At Wheal Grace the excess of outgoings over revenue was enough to depress the most obstinate mind; and every inch of rain that fell added to the cost of fuel.

  In August, Caroline Penvenen wrote to Dwight Enys:

  Dear Dwight,

  I am not a prisoner in a tower guarded by a wolf, but in order to write to you and see it posted before Uncle William’s sultry eye falls on it is no mean Achievement. Your last letter I snatched away from under his very hand and in the nick of time; so when you reply to this pray direct it care of Mistress Nancy Aintree at the Black Dog, Abingdon, where I can redeem it at my tenure. Never have I known a month so long as this; its first fifteen days have seemed like thirty; my adolescence dies hard. How is your Ross Poldark, does his mine prosper and his cousin-in-law continue to eye him acquisitively? How are all your patients and especially the pretty one with the bad knee? Is her father still suspicious of you? I don’t wonder. Can you recommend me some genteel, not unpleasant Malady which I may take leisure to develop between now and October the twenty-sixth?

  Oxford has many miserable French refugees about its closes: aristocrats with powdered wigs and holes in their stockings. They paint a picture of streets running with gore; I wonder if they overcolour, the more to excite our pity. Uncle William entertains them, but when they have gone he grunts, ‘A few more heads and it would have been the easier for us!’ You see now where I come by my Sensibility. The Penvenen family has no equal for it.

  Dear Dwight, I wonder if you truly miss me, or if I am like a recurrent fever that enters your Veins, creating a hectic flush of excitement and leaving you wasted and rabid after I am gone? I know I should leave you alone, I really do, but I cannot suppose myself strong enough for such Resolution. My first small experience of you, I must confess though it’s unmaidenly, was endurable, so that it’s not too much to suppose a second would be the same. Between now and October I will try to get into some flirtation here, partly so that when my birthday comes Uncle William will the more readily see me gone, and partly so that when I come down I may have some surer grounds for comparison.

  This I think you are unlikely to approve at first thought; yet I know you will not really wish to deprive me of what modest experience I may be able to gain which will help to make me a Woman of discrimination.

  Believe me,

  Your sincere friend,

  Caroline Penvenen

  In early September, a small new lode was found at Wheal Grace bearing better results than the old ones. But the discovery could only postpone the evil day, not prevent it. Ross and Francis still spent two days a week in the old upper levels. Lack of air became one of the worst obstacles, for most of the old air shafts had been filled in. In other places the roof had fallen, and one had to choose whether to abandon the search in that direction or to bring out workers to dig or blast a way through.

  On the fiftee
nth of September, Ross and Francis had arranged to meet Zacky Martin and Jope Ishbel and to make some final investigations. They spent the morning blasting and trying to drain the old work, which was out of range of the engine. At noon Zacky went, and an hour later the cousins came up and changed out of their streaming things and walked down to Nampara for dinner. Ross found a letter waiting for him. Usually the man who brought the weekly paper carried the letters, but this had been delivered by a journeyman draper who called to see Demelza in the hope of tempting her to buy. The letter was from his friend and banker, Harris Pascoe.

  Dear Captain Poldark,

  I have not had the pleasure of seeing you for some months; and I should be glad to receive a call from you to sign your account with us, when it is convenient to you.

  This letter, however, is of another matter, of which I have some knowledge though personal to yourself. When the Carnmore Copper Co. failed in ’89 and you found events pressing you to discharge certain debts, I believe you raised a loan of £1,000 from Mr Notary Pearce at an abnormal rate of interest. This loan, I have always understood from you, was in the form of a second mortgage on your house and land, of which this Banking House holds the first mortgage.

  As you know, I rarely stir from my home; but much information comes to me unsought and I have heard recently that this loan was not in fact raised upon a second mortgage but was in the form of a Note of Hand or a Promissory Note. Pray tell me if this is so, because the Bill – if it is yours – is no longer, I am told, in Mr Pearce’s hands but has found its way into the possession of Mr Cary Warleggan.

  Your relationship with the Warleggans is your own concern, and I should not wish to intrude on it; but if it is what I suppose it to be, then I should not be astonished at your receiving notice at any time that the Bill must be immediately repayed. I do not know how your venture is prospering or whether you have been able to set aside any considerable sum to meet such an emergency, but as your friend I thought it my duty to tell you what I had learned.

  Call in when next you are in town: we should be glad to have you dine or sup with us.

  Yours etc.,

  Harris Pascoe

  At dinner Ross had little to say. Demelza sensed that the bad news, whatever it was, involved the Warleggans – Ross had a special face for them – but her pride would not let her ask when Francis was there. When the meal was near its end Ross said: ‘I’ll not be able to go down with you this afternoon. This letter calls me to Truro.’

  ‘But you were there yesterday,’ Francis objected. ‘Can’t this wait awhile?’

  ‘No. I’m sorry. No.’

  ‘You’ll be back tonight?’ said Demelza.

  His eyes met hers over Francis’s head. ‘I’ll try. But late. Don’t wait up.’

  She watched him as he left the room to change. She stayed talking with Francis; but when Ross came down, she slid out of the room and stood with him at the front door waiting for Gimlett to bring the mare.

  Ross put his hand on her shoulder. ‘I don’t want to explain now. The letter was from Harris Pascoe – certain things I had overlooked. I’m going to see him, that’s all.’

  She looked up into his face. ‘Bad, Ross?’

  ‘Not good. But I shall know more tonight.’

  ‘You’ll not be in trouble today?’

  ‘Should I be likely to be, with Harris Pascoe?’

  ‘Not if you stay closeted with him. But there are others you might chance to meet.’

  He smiled grimly. ‘The weather is cold enough for November. Go in now and talk to Francis. Have you noticed how fond of our house he is become since the mine opened? He’s as much here as at his own home.’

  ‘I’ve noticed.’

  ‘Go in and give him another glass of port and take one yourself.’

  ‘I dare not before supper or I should tope all day. About this letter—’

  But Demelza was interrupted by the arrival of Gimlett leading Darkie. Ross kissed her on the cheek and mounted and rode off up the valley. It seemed to his wife that the clouds were so low he was overtaken by them and half shrouded in them before he was lost to view.

  When she went in, Francis had risen from the table and was sitting by the fire she had lighted an hour ago.

  ‘No, don’t get up,’ she said. ‘Ross bade us finish the port, but I can’t take it myself, not so early; I’d do no work for the rest of the day else.’ She set the decanter with his glass on a table beside him and took a seat opposite, stretching out her scarlet slippers to the warmth. ‘In a minute I must go see if Jeremy is happy. He never takes his dinner so kindly from Mrs Gimlett as from me. Did you have no good fortune this morning, Francis?’

  ‘We’ve chosen the most barren piece of land in the Duchy, I believe.’

  ‘And the lowest levels?’

  ‘A venture of faith without good reason behind it. Perhaps they’ll succeed, because reason certainly has failed . . . Strange, Ross having to go in to Truro again. Can it be something to do with the Warleggans?’

  She looked at him in surprise. ‘I don’t know. But I wondered the same. Always when there is a hint of trouble one wonders if it is the Warleggans at the root of it.’

  ‘Or Francis,’ said Francis. ‘There was a time when I was at the root of it along with George.’

  ‘Oh, I do not think so,’ she said quickly. ‘That time has gone anyhow.’

  ‘That time has gone. But I don’t forget it. At least I do not forget one thing.’

  ‘I think I will go and see for Jeremy.’

  ‘No.’ He hesitated, rubbing his hand on the chair. ‘No, I have long wanted to tell you this. It must come sometime . . . Years ago—’

  ‘This is best not started, Francis.’

  ‘Years ago – it would be August of ’89 – when the copper smelting company was fighting for its existence – George came to see me one evening. It was the night Verity had left. I blamed you bitterly for her marriage – for everything. In a sudden impulse of anger I gave off information to George which enabled him to put pressure on the shareholders of the company to withdraw their support. That is the one thing I cannot get over or forgive myself . . .’

  Demelza got up. ‘Why d’you insist on saying this to me – now?’

  ‘Because for long enough I have been facing up to it. I cannot go on accepting your friendship, sitting like a stray dog at your fireside, with this not completely cleared up between us. The more our friendship has become of value, the less can it be left as it is. I suspect that Ross already knows the worst – but he won’t let me tell him in so many words, he heads me off, and at the last I turn coward and let the matter drop. And so it rests.’

  Somewhere at the back Garrick was barking; he had been shut out and resented it. Demelza did not speak. Francis got up, put his hand over hers for a minute, and turned towards the window.

  Demelza said in great distress: ‘It was such a thing to do to us. Had you no other way of hurting Ross?’

  ‘An angry impulse – and then it’s too late. But I don’t begin to make excuse. You also knew?’

  ‘Yes – partly. But – but to hear it spoken outright . . .’

  Francis looked sick. ‘You can’t rebuild a friendship by ignoring what has destroyed it. I had to tell you. I’ll go now.’

  ‘No, wait. Ross is right, isn’t he?’

  ‘Not in this.’

  ‘Yes, in this. For if we break now, we shall injure each other the more. And the copper smelting could never have prospered, Francis, we know that. Even the Warleggans when they took it over could not make it pay. Sir John Trevaunance is selling the machinery.’

  ‘Do you excuse a murder because the victim was dying anyhow?’

  ‘Not excuse it, no. But I’ll not condemn to order neither. Does Elizabeth know?’

  ‘Does she know what I did? No. It doesn’t concern her at all. Except that she does not understand my worst antagonism for George Warleggan.’

  After a long silence she said: ‘You – haven�
��t finished your port.’

  ‘No? . . . All I’ve finished is our friendship – which I prized, though you may doubt it.’

  ‘I don’t doubt it, Francis, but I doubt if you have finished with it. One bad thing does not outweigh many good. ’Tis the balance that counts.’

  ‘It did not count with me that night.’

  ‘So ever after you regretted it. Should you wish me to make the same error?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, then, I shall not.’

  ‘Not even to please me?’ said Francis.

  ‘Not even to please you.’

  ‘I don’t wonder,’ Francis said, ‘that Ross loves you. For I could do so myself.’

  She glanced at him quickly, soberly, then bent and put another billet of wood on the fire. ‘Do you suppose he still does?’

  ‘Ross? Of course. Why, what did you think?’

  ‘I believe he loves Elizabeth better.’

  When she stood up, neither of them spoke for some moments.

  He said: ‘Well, if this is the day of confidences, may I tell you something about yourself, Demelza?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘You have one failing, and that is you don’t think enough of yourself.’

  ‘Oh, I think very well of myself, Francis. You would be surprised.’

  ‘I’d be surprised at nothing you think or do except that. You came here as a miner’s daughter, married into this ancient derelict family, took its standards as your own. So you mistake your own value, your own vitality, even your value to Ross. There are two qualities in blood, Demelza. There’s the quality of family and the quality of freshness. Ross was a wise man when he chose you. If he’s as sensible as I think he is, he’ll realize it. If you’re as sensible as you ought to be, you’ll make him.’