Demelza Page 8

  They had no watch between them, but two or three hours before midday they caught a gleam of blue-and-silver water, and she knew she must be near.

  They lost the river among the trees and began sharply to pick their way down a dusty hill with cart ruts, and found themselves among cottages. Beyond the cottages was a great landlocked harbor and the masts of ships. Her heart began to beat. The hazard of the day began. All her private imaginings in the quiet of the night were to come up against the hard and difficult truth. Her own view of Verity’s lover, a soft-spoken, handsome, middle-aged sailor, and the picture that Ross had raised by his description of the scene in Truro—those had to be reconciled and confronted with the truth before anything else was begun.

  After a few minutes, they reached a cobbled square, and the water glittered like a silver plate between some houses of larger size. There were plenty of people in the streets who seemed in no hurry to move aside for a couple of riders. Jud pushed his way through, shouting and swearing.

  At the other side they looked upon a quay pyramided with merchandise being unloaded from a longboat. Demelza stared about her, faintly mesmerized. A group of blue-coated sailors with pigtails stared up at the girl on the horse. A big Negress went by, and two dogs were quarreling over a crust. Someone leaned out from an upper window and threw more refuse in the road.

  “Wot now?” said Jud, taking off his hat and scratching his head.

  “Ask someone,” she said. “That’s the proper way.”

  “Thur’s no one t’ask,” said Jud, staring around at the crowded square. Three important-looking sailors with gold braid on their uniform were past before Demelza could decide. Jud sucked his two great teeth. She edged her horse past some urchins playing in the gutter and closed up to four men who were talking together on the steps of one of the large houses. Prosperous merchants, fat-stomached and bewigged.

  She knew that Jud should have done the asking but could not trust his manners. At that moment Random chose to sidestep, and the clatter of his hooves on the cobbles took their attention.

  “I beg your pardon for the interference,” Demelza said in her best voice, “but could you please direct me to the house of Captain Andrew Blamey.”

  They all pulled off their hats. Nothing quite like that had ever happened to Demelza before. They took her for a lady and it made her blush.

  One said, “Pardon me, ma’am. I didn’t catch the name.”

  “Captain Andrew Blamey of the Lisbon packets.”

  She caught an exchanged glance.

  “He lives at the end of the town, ma’am. Down this street, ma’am. Perhaps one third of a mile. But the packet agent would direct you, if you called on him. He could also inform you if Captain Blamey is home or at sea.”

  “He’s home,” said another. “The Caroline’s due to sail on Saturday forenoon.”

  “I’m greatly obliged to ye,” said Demelza. “Down this street, you said? Thank you. Good day.”

  They bowed again; she touched her horse and went off. Jud, who had been listening with his mouth open, followed slowly, muttering about fine feathers.

  They trekked up a long, narrow lane, mainly squalid huts and courtyards with here and there a house or a tiny shop, the land climbing steeply away among trees and scrub to the right. The harbor held two or three dozen ships in an almost closed hand; she had seen nothing like it in her life, accustomed as she was to the sight of an occasional brig or cutter beating away from the land on the dangerous north coast.

  They were directed to one of the better houses with a room built out over the front door to form a pillared porch. It was more imposing than she had expected.

  She got down stiffly and told Jud to hold her horse. Her habit was thick with dust, but she knew of no place to go and tidy herself.

  “I’ll not be long,” she said. “Don’t go away an’ don’t get drunk or I’ll ride home wi’out you.”

  “Drunk,” said Jud, wiping his head. “No one ’as the call to leave that at my door. Many’s the week as passes an’ never a drop of liquor. Many’s the time I ain’t gotten the spittle for a fair good spit. That dry. An’ you says drunk. You says drunk. Why, I mind the time when you was tiddly on account of finding a bottle o’ grog, an’ ’twas—”

  “Stay here,” said Demelza, turning her back. “I’ll not be gone long.”

  She pulled at the bell. Jud was a specter of old times. Forget him. Face this. What would Ross say if he could see her? And Verity. Base treason. She wished she had never come. She wished…

  The door opened and Jud’s grumblings died away.

  “I wish to see Captain Blamey, please.”

  “He bain’t in, ma’am. He did say he’d be back afore noon. Would ye wait?”

  “Yes,” said Demelza, swallowing and going in.

  She was shown conversationally into a pleasant square room on the second floor. It was paneled with cream-painted wood and there was a model ship among the littered papers on the desk.

  “What name sh’ll I tell him?” asked the old woman, coming to the end of her chatter.

  At the last moment Demelza withheld the vital word. “I’d better prefer to tell him that myself. Just say a—er—someone…”

  “Very well, ma’am.”

  The door closed. Demelza’s heart was thumping in her breast. She listened to the woman’s self-important footsteps receding down the stairs. The documents on the desk took her curiosity, but she was afraid to go over and peer at them and her reading was still so slow.

  A miniature by the window. Not Verity. His first wife whom he had knocked down to die? Little framed silhouettes of two children. She had forgotten his children. A painting of another ship, it looked like a man-of-war. From there she found she could see the lane outside.

  She edged nearer the window. Jud’s shiny head. A woman selling oranges. He was swearing at her. She was swearing back. Jud seemed scandalized that anyone could match his own bad words. “Captain Blamey,” she would say, “I have come to see ’ee—to see you about my cousin.” No, first she’d best make sure he was not married again to someone else. “Captain Blamey,” she would begin. “Are you married again?” Well, she couldn’t say that. What did she hope to do? “Leave it alone,” Ross had warned. “It’s dangerous to tamper with other people’s lives.” That was what she was doing, against all orders, all advice.

  There was a map on the desk. Lines were traced across it in red ink. She was about to go and look when another noise in the street drew her notice again.

  Under a tree a hundred yards back were a group of seamen.

  A rough lot, bearded and pigtailed and ragged, but in the middle of them was a man in a cocked hat talking to them in some annoyance. They pressed around him, angry and gesticulating, and for a moment he seemed to disappear among them. Then his hat showed again. The men stepped back to let him through, but several still shouted and shook their fists. The group closed up behind and they stood together staring after him. One picked up a stone, but another grasped his arm and stopped him from throwing it. The man in the cocked hat walked on without glancing behind.

  As he came nearer the house Demelza felt as if the lining of her stomach was giving way. She knew by instinct that was the person she had plotted and schemed and ridden twenty miles to see.

  But for all Ross’s warnings she had not imagined he would be like that. Did he never do anything but quarrel with people, and was that the man for loss of whom Verity was sere and yellow before her time? In a flash Demelza saw the other side of the picture, which up till then had evaded her, that Francis and Old Charles and Ross might be right and Verity’s instinct at fault, not theirs.

  In panic she looked at the door to gauge her chance of escape, but the outer door slammed and she knew it was too late. There was no drawing back.

  She stood rigidly by the windows and listened to the voices below in the
hall. Then she heard a tread on the stairs.

  He came in, his face still set in hard lines from his quarrel with the seamen. Her first thought was that he was old. He had taken off his cocked hat and he wore his own hair: it was gray at the temples and specked with gray on the crown. He must be over forty. His eyes were blue and fierce and the skin was drawn up around them from peering into the sun. They were the eyes of a man who might have been holding himself ready for the first leap forward of a race.

  He came across to the desk and put his hat on it, looking directly at his visitor.

  “My name is Blamey, ma’am,” he said in a hard, clear voice. “Can I be of service to you?”

  All Demelza’s prepared openings were forgotten. She was overawed by his manner and his authority.

  She moistened her lips and said, “My name is Poldark.”

  It was as if some key turned in the inner mechanism of that hard man, locking away before it could escape any show of surprise or sentiment.

  He bowed slightly. “I haven’t the honor of your acquaintance.”

  “No, sir,” said Demelza. “No. You know my husband, Captain Ross Poldark.”

  There was something ship-like about his face, jutting and aggressive and square, weathered but unbeaten.

  “A few years ago I had occasion to meet him.”

  She could not shape the next sentence. With her hand she felt the chair behind her, and sat in it.

  “I’ve rid twenty miles to see you.”

  “I am honored.”

  “Ross don’t know I’ve come,” she said. “Nobody knows I’ve come.”

  His unflinching eyes for a moment left her face and traveled over her dusty dress.

  “I can offer you some refreshment?”

  “No…no…I must leave again in a few minutes.” Perhaps that was a mistake, for tea or anything would have given her ease and time.

  There was a strained pause. Under the window the quarrel with the orange woman broke out afresh.

  “Was that your servant at the door?”

  “Yes.”

  “I thought I recognized him. I should have known.”

  His voice left no doubt of his feelings.

  She tried once again. “I—mebbe I shouldn’t ought to have come, but I felt I must. I wanted to see you.”

  “Well?”

  “It is about Verity.”

  Just for a moment his expression grew embarrassed; that name could no longer be mentioned. Then he abruptly glanced at the clock. “I can spare you three minutes.”

  Something in the glance quenched the last of Demelza’s hopes. “I been wrong to come,” she said. “I think there’s nothing to say to you. I made a mistake, that’s all.”

  “Well, what is it you made a mistake in? Since you are here you’d best say it.”

  “Nothing. Nothing will be any use saying to the likes of you.”

  He gave her a furious look. “I ask you, tell me.”

  She glanced at him again.

  “It is about Verity. Ross married me last year. I knew nothing about Verity till then. An’ she never told me a thing. I persuaded it out of Ross. About you, I mean. I love Verity. I’d give anything to see ’er happy. An’ she isn’t happy. She’s never gotten over it. She’s not the sort to get over it. Ross said it was dangerous to meddle. He said I must leave it alone. But I couldn’t leave it alone till I’d seen you. I—I thought Verity was right an’ they was wrong. I—I had to be sure they was right before I could let it drop.”

  Her voice seemed to go on and on, into an arid empty space. She said, “Are you married again?”

  “No.”

  “I schemed today. Ross has gone to Bodmin. I borrowed the horses and came over with Jud. I’d best be getting back, for I’ve a young baby at home.”

  She got up and slowly made for the door.

  He caught her arm as she went past him.

  “Is Verity ill?”

  “No,” Demelza said angrily. “Ailing but not ill. She looks ten years older than her age.”

  His eyes were suddenly fierce with pain.

  “D’you not know the whole story? They cannot fail to have told you the whole story.”

  “Yes, about your first wife. But if I was Verity—”

  “You’re not Verity. How can you know what she feels?”

  “I don’t, but I—”

  “She never once sent me any word…”

  “Nor you never sent her any word neither.”

  “Has she ever said anything?”

  “No.”

  “Then it’s pitiable, this attempt on your part, this—this intrusion…”

  “I know,” said Demelza, nearly crying. “I know now. I thought to help Verity, but I wish now I’d never tried. You see, I don’t understand. If folks in our way love one another it is more than enough to bring ’em together, drink or no. If the father’s against it then that’s some reason, but now the father’s dead an’ Verity’s too proud to make any move. And you—and you… But I thought you were different. I thought—”

  “You thought I was likely to sit moping my time away. No doubt the rest of your family has long since written me off as a failure and a drunkard, drooling in taprooms and lurching home of a night. No doubt Miss Verity has long since agreed with her weakling brother that it was better for all that Captain Blamey was sent about his business. What for—”

  “How dare you say that of Verity!” Demelza cried out, standing up to him. “How dare you! An’ to think I’ve rid myself sore to hear it! To think I’ve schemed and plotted and lied and borrowed the horses and one thing and the next. An’ to say such of Verity when she’s ill for pining of you! Judas God! Let me get out of here!”

  He barred her way. “Wait.”

  His epaulets and gold braid no longer counted.

  “Wait for what? For more insults? Let me past or I shall call Jud!”

  He took her arm again. “It is no reflection on you, girl. I grant you did it all from the best of motives. I grant you your goodwill—”

  She was trembling but with great self-control did not try to wrench her arm free.

  For a moment he did not go on but peered at her closely as if trying to see all that she had not said. His own anger was suddenly in ashes. He said, “We’ve all moved on since those days, grown, changed. It’s—you see, it’s all forgotten, behind us—but has left us bitter. There were times when I ranted and railed—if you understood—if you’d known it all you’d see that. When you stir up old things best forgotten, you’re bound to stir up some of the mud that’s settled around ’em.”

  “Let go my arm,” she said.

  He made a brief awkward gesture and turned away. She went stiffly to the door and grasped the handle.

  She glanced back. He was staring out toward the harbor. She hesitated a second longer and there came a knock at the door.

  No one answered it. Demelza stepped aside as the handle turned. It was the woman who looked after him.

  “Beg pardon. Did you want something, sir?”

  “No,” said Blamey.

  “Your dinner’s ready.”

  Blamey turned and glanced at Demelza.

  “Will you stay and take a meal with me, ma’am?”

  “No,” said Demelza. “Thank you. I’d best be getting back.”

  “Then perhaps you will first show Mistress Poldark to the door.”

  The woman bobbed. “Yes, surely, sir.”

  Conversationally she led Demelza downstairs again. She warned her to mind the step for the light was none too good, the curtain being drawn to keep the carpet from fading as that window looked due south. She said the day was warm and there might be thunder, it being a bad sign that St. Anthony’s Head was so clear. Still talking, she opened the front door and wished her visitor good day.r />
  Outside in the street Jud was sitting blinking on a stone wall beside her pony. He was sucking an orange he had filched from the orange woman’s cart.

  “Finished already, missus?” he said. “Reckoned ’e’d soon do for ’ee. Well, all’s for the best, I reckon, as leaves well alone.”

  Demelza did not reply. Captain Blamey was still watching her from the upper room.

  Chapter Seven

  Julia had wind and was thoroughly cross; Demelza had sore buttocks and was thoroughly disheartened. They made a mopey pair, while Jud took the two animals back to Trenwith and Prudie grumbled over the evening meal.

  Julia, fed and changed, went into a fitful sleep, but Demelza, feeding by herself for the first time in the parlor, swallowed her food anyhow and in lumps, hating the thought of her own defeat but knowing that the defeat was final. Ross had been right. Even Francis had been right. There would never have been hope for a happy marriage for Verity. And yet…

  Oh, well…

  There broke upon her deep reflections, levering a way like a swollen female Caliban into her absent mind, the amorphous figure of Prudie. It stood there beside the boiled beef talking at her, making growling and discordant claims on her attention, until at last she was forced to give it.

  “Eh?” she said.

  Prudie stared back at her, seeing that she had been wasting her breath.

  “Got the mulligrubs, ’ave ’ee, an?”

  “No, Prudie, but I’m feeling tired an’ cross. And I’m that sore I can scarce sit down. I can’t reckon how it is, but every time I touch a bone, I go, ‘Ooh!’”

  “There’s naught t’wonder at in that, maid… ’Osses, I always say, is not for ridin’ whether saddled or bare-ridged, side-sat or astride. Have ’em hitched to a cart an’ that’s different. But then a ox do do as well, an’ twice as peaceable. Only once ’ave I bin on a ’oss an’ that were when Jud brought me from Bedruthan nigh on sixteen year ago. ’Twere an irkish kind of a journey, up ’ill an’ down dell, wi’ no rest neither for flesh nor bone. That night I smeared axle grease all over me what’s-it, an’ none too soon for taking care, else the skin would’ve bursten, I bla’. I tell ’ee what I’ll do for ’ee. When you’ve took yer clothes off, I’ll come rub ’ee over them parts wi’ some balsam I got at Marasanvose Fair, an?”