After a couple more minutes Demelza excused herself and went upstairs, found Clowance in her room, sitting on the bed, a valise half full at her feet. She looked at her mother with full eyes, then blinked out at the bright day.
Demelza said: ‘Can I help you pack?’
Clowance choked. ‘Oh, Mama, you are so kind! I thought you might . . . What else can I do?’
‘What else can you do?’ said Demelza with a degree of bitterness in her heart but none in her voice.
‘You see . . . I still care something for him.’
‘I know.’
‘But even if I did not . . . If he is dying . . .’
‘Andrew will go back with you. He must, of course. Shall I get someone to saddle Nero?’
‘Thank you, Mama.’ As she reached the door. ‘Please, don’t go for a moment.’
Demelza waited.
‘I shall not come back tonight. Or perhaps tomorrow unless he – unless he . . . I shall stay with Aunt Verity.’
‘Of course.’
‘Will you tell Papa, please? Explain. Tell him how it is. And tell him I couldn’t bear to come out among all those people and try to explain to him! I wouldn’t want him to feel I had gone without his permission.’
‘Yes, I’ll tell him.’
‘Do you think he will mind?’
‘I think we both mind.’
‘But if Stephen is so ill . . . if he is dying . . . perhaps I shall not get there in time . . .’
‘We can only hope . . .’
‘And Mama.’
‘Yes?’
‘Do you think there would be any way – any way at all – of Uncle Dwight travelling as far as Penryn? I know it is a lot to ask . . .’
‘I will go and see him myself this evening.’
Tears were now streaming down Clowance’s face. She wiped them away impatiently.
‘I am such a fool. But this has come so sudden. Like a stab in the back. Thank you. Thank you again for being so good about it . . . I wish I were as strong as you.’
‘I’m older,’ said Demelza. ‘But as for being stronger . . . I’m not so sure.’
IV
‘So you let her go,’ said Ross. ‘Without telling me.’
‘She asked me not to. She was afraid of what you’d say.’
‘No wonder.’
‘And do you think if I had refused her permission to go she would have heeded me?’
‘Yes!’
‘And if he dies tomorrow?’
They were standing in the dark amid the ruins of the feast while their servants and willing helpers from the villages were clearing up by the light of storm lanterns and a quarter moon striped with cloud.
Though neither of them had mentioned it and under no circumstances would ever have considered mentioning it, their thoughts had individually slid away to an occasion when a young naval lieutenant had lain dying of some brain fever at Tregothnan eighteen odd years ago. His passion for Demelza had kindled some corresponding spark of sympathy and love in her which briefly she had been unable to withstand. She had not been at his side when he died; Ross wondered, had her sympathy for Clowance been the greater for her own memory of that time?
At least the two young men could hardly have been more different, and most of the advantages of comparison lay on Hugh Armitage’s side; Ross had to admit this – and could admit it to himself more freely now with the passage of the years. In fact he would much have preferred the competition of someone like Carrington – in the very unlikely event of Demelza’s ever falling in love with anyone so bold and obvious as Stephen. Armitage had been artistic, well-educated, intellectual, thoughtful, sensitive; infinitely difficult qualities to compete with. And he had died before there was any resolution of the test.
Ross’s hand on his wife’s shoulder was heavier than usual, and she glanced up at him quietly, trying to see his expression.
‘What would you have done?’
Ross sighed. ‘Damned Andrew.’
‘For coming to tell us?’
‘Yes, if viewed in a cold-blooded fashion. If Stephen dies tomorrow Clowance would have known nothing about it till too late. If he recovers, she is thrown into his lap again.’
‘She has never been free of him,’ Demelza said. ‘Especially these last few months. Since she refused Tom. I believe Tom forced her to face up to something she hadn’t faced before.’
There was an uneasy pause. As if their minds worked in accord, each was now thinking of another occasion still further back, when Francis Poldark and Geoffrey Charles had lain dangerously ill of the morbid sore throat, and Demelza had gone over to help Elizabeth and had caught the infection herself.
Eventually Ross said: ‘Do you think Dwight will go to Penryn?’
‘I said I would see Dwight and ask him myself; but it was impossible with Henry so teasy. I wrote him a long letter – long for me! – telling him all about it; sent it with Music Thomas who said he would take it on his way home.’
Ross put his arm round Demelza. ‘Life is like a gaming table, isn’t it. One has so many pieces on the board. With them one gains a little, loses a little.’
‘We are still gaining,’ said Demelza. ‘With peace Jeremy is safe – or as safe as is reasonable. With Wheal Leisure we are almost rich again. But I’m sorry, sorry, sorry for Clowance. My heart aches for her. And because of her. And I am anxious . . .’
Chapter Three
I
Dwight found the cottage at the third attempt. Like its upstart relative Falmouth, Penryn climbed the hill beside its river, steps and cottages reproducing themselves up and down steep slopes, with narrow lanes and passages bisecting the slopes laterally to allow of the carriage of produce and to make room for short lines of washing between the first and second floors.
Stephen had found a landlady at the end of a row. It was a not unpleasant room except that the roof enabled one to stand upright only in the centre space. Low windows, hung with threadbare curtains of faded pink cotton, and longer laterally than they were high, looked out both ways, down towards the tidal river and up towards the rampant woods that surrounded the turn-pike road to Truro. The entrance to the house was dingy, with an open drain trickling over cobbles towards a ditch, and tattered, half-naked children with scabrous lips and running nasal mucus playing on the door step. Upstairs was moderately clean, if the air could and should have been fresher.
Stephen was lying on a sort of truckle-bed – except that the castors had long since broken off. He was conscious, very flushed, breathing fast. Clowance was on a low chair beside him, still in the frock she had been wearing at the celebration, her blonde hair caught in a trim blue ribbon. She looked very pale, and suddenly much older.
‘Oh, Uncle Dwight, how good of you to come!’ She got up, kissed him on the cheek.
‘Good day to you, Stephen,’ Dwight said, having squeezed Clowance’s hand.
‘Good – ur . . .’ His voice was choked by a cough, and a grimace of pain narrowed his eyebrows.
They exchanged glances over him. Clowance said: ‘Mr Wheeling was here this morning. He says there is no change and nothing more he can do.’
Dwight took his time examining the sick man. Then he went through the remedies Mr Wheeling had left, raising his eyebrows at one or two of them.
‘Who is looking after him?’
‘I am,’ said Clowance.
‘But before you came?’
‘Andrew did his best. And Mrs Nye, the landlady, came up when she could.’
‘You cannot do it all yourself. Did you have any sleep last night?’
‘Andrew is coming in tonight. And Aunt Verity will take a turn when she can.’
‘How often is he bled?’
‘Every time Mr Wheeling calls. Which is three times a day.’
‘Well, that must only be once a day – if you accept my decision on these matters.’
‘Of course.’
‘It is difficult for me to come and issue these commands and the
n go away again. But clearly I cannot stay for long, with my own patients to see to . . .’ Dwight picked up another bottle and stared at it. ‘Tincture of mercury . . . Yes, well. Where does Mr Wheeling live? Perhaps I could see him . . .’
‘Tell me what to do,’ said Clowance, ‘and I’ll tell him.’
Dwight smiled at her. ‘I believe you will . . . But, my dear, please don’t think I have any miracle I can perform . . . How often does he expectorate?’
‘Scarcely at all.’
The smile faded. ‘But when he coughs?’
‘No. Nothing comes up.’
‘And what did Mr Wheeling leave him for that?’
‘I have to give him this twice a day.’
Dwight took the bottle. ‘I think I can improve on that. Clowance, it is vital he shall spit freely, otherwise the congestion will not clear away. It is of the essence of the disease . . . Stephen . . .’
‘Yes?’
‘When you cough, why do you not spit?’
He lay there as if he had been running a race. ‘Don’t know. Nothing comes.’
Dwight rubbed his chin. ‘Can you try. Now.’
Stephen tried. After a bout of horrible coughing his head went back on the pillow. Clowance dabbed gently at his face and forehead with a cloth.
Dwight sat on the bed. ‘Can you hear me, Stephen?’
‘Yes.’
‘I am going to change some of your medicines. Little bleeding. But something to agitate the cough. And a teaspoonful of brandy every four hours.’
A tired grin came to his face. ‘Like that.’
‘But no more. Only that much. Stephen, I expect you know that we doctors can only lend a little outside aid. You are the one who is attacked. You must fight. D’you understand that?’
‘Yes.’
‘And spit. Force yourself if you possibly can – even if it hurts – however much it hurts – spit out the sputum. For that is the disease you are spitting away from yourself. No help I can give, no help Clowance can give, is half as important as that. D’you understand?’
‘Yes. And thank ee.’
In the claustrophobic passage outside, where even Clowance had to bend her head, Dwight said:
‘I won’t pretend to you that it is a good prognosis. Both lungs are affected, the right more than the left, and the lower part in each case more than the upper. There is scarcely any air getting into the affected lung tissue. I suspect that a certain amount of red hepatization has already taken place But he is essentially a very strong man. Not that I . . .’ He stopped. He had been going to say that a peculiarity of pneumonia was that it often killed the strong and spared the weak. ‘Every day that passes is a day in his favour. If he can reach the crisis he may yet pull through. It is perfectly true what I told him in there: he is fighting this disease. We are the spectators. One other thing.’
‘Yes.’
‘Get one of the windows to open if you can. Not to let the air fall directly on him but to keep it stirred in the room. Let’s see, you have a fireplace; a small coal fire will help to clean the air, though do not get the room too warm. Keep a kettle boiling. And change that poultice on his chest. It smells as if Wheeling has used tincture of cantharides last time; but I think enough is enough. Anyway the value of blistering is doubtful. Something to soothe now. Goose grease on brown paper, with the singlet over to keep in the warmth.’
‘I am so grateful that you came.’
‘I will come tomorrow evening if . . .’ Again he stopped what he was going to say. ‘. . . if I can. How long did Andrew say he had been ill?’
‘Like this? About four days.’
‘Yes, well, the disease should be nearing the crisis. How long is it since he had typhus?’
‘Andrew said he had been better a week before this came on.’
‘Well . . . avoid his breath. Try to keep the sputum, if it comes, out of contact with other things, and have it emptied quickly away. Our knowledge of these fevers is rudimentary even today, but these are elementary precautions. When is Andrew coming to relieve you?’
‘About two he said.’
‘And how far is your aunt’s house from here?’
‘Oh . . . three and a half, four miles.’
‘You must get food and sleep, you know.’
She smiled. ‘I dozed off last night in the chair. I think he wants me near him.’
II
Most of the second night she was there he was lightheaded, rambling. The guttering candle threw monstrous shadows of his head against the unrendered bricks of the bedroom wall, as if the ugly silhouettes as he tossed and turned were reflections of the nightmares going on in his mind. In the end Clowance moved the candle to kill the images and then, having given him his sip of brandy, fell into a doze herself.
When she woke he was struggling to get out of bed. She put her arm about his shoulders to restrain him. He didn’t know her and began to talk about some box he wanted to open, for which he had no key. He was using a lever and attempting to force the lock of the box, but the lever kept slipping in his hands. She tried again to wake him and he half woke, stared at her with glazed eyes and called her Jeremy. ‘It’s no good, Jeremy,’ he kept saying. ‘Got to leave it, get away, else they’ll catch us. Red-handed, eh? Holy Mary, let me try again! Jeremy, let me try again!’
It was as much as she could do to stop him rolling out of the bed, for he was a heavy man, and his shirt and arms were slippery with sweat. Then he began to gasp, taking in each breath as if it were his last, drawn up like deep water from some drying well. She took a damp sponge and wiped his face and forehead with it, but this gave him no ease. Though only two hours had passed since the last dose she poured out another spoonful of brandy and tried to get him to swallow it, but what with her trembling hands and his wavering head most of it ran down his chin.
It was the darkest part of the night, when there seemed no end to her striving and no end to his distress except death. She poked at the sulky fire but it seemed as lifeless as her thoughts and hopes.
He was rambling on again now. Once he brought up Violet’s name; twice he mentioned Lottie – presumably Lottie Kempthorne; then he began to talk to Clowance, though as if she were not there, his blue eyes bloodshot and glazed. He told her he had to confess, he had never been a privateer. He began to persuade her to go away with him on some sort of a stage coach which was – to his horror – already approaching Liskeard. She held him down as he again tried to climb out of bed.
Then, whereas before he had been as hot as fire, he began to shiver, so that she had to keep the blanket close up to his chin. Again and again she wiped his face, until the towel she was now using was wet through. In and out went the lungs, like a mining engine fighting against loss of fuel. The hands grasped at the air, found hers, but as soon as they had found them released them, groping for something more. Groping in fact, she thought, for life; and that was escaping him.
For another hour this went on, and she scarcely had time to light one candle from the guttering end of another to keep away the dreadful and intolerable blackness that would follow. Then he was sick, a sort of black vomit emerging from a corner of his mouth, which she tried to wipe away as it came.
Thereafter the breathing was a little easier and he seemed to have reached the limits of exhaustion, which led either to sleep or to coma. Exhausted herself, she released her hold of him and lay back in her chair, slowly dozing off to sleep . . .
She woke with a start to see a faint smear of light showing through the splits in the stirring curtains. She stared at him anxiously. Either his breathing was quieter or it was not there at all. She jumped up and pulled aside the curtains, glimpsed the creeping greys of dawn, turned back into the tallow yellows of the sick and heavy room.
He was watching her.
‘Clowance . . .’ He tried to moisten his lips.
She came to the bedside, trembling, questioning, staring for signs of good or ill.
‘You’ve . . . been here all night?
’ he whispered.
‘Of course.’
‘Dreams . . . nightmares . . .’
‘Yes.’
‘I dreamt . . . Holy Mary . . . dreams.’
‘Do you feel – how do you feel?’
‘I’ve – I don’t know.’
She wiped his forehead for the fiftieth time; it was wetter than ever, his mane of tawny hair was as lifeless and bedraggled as if it had been out in a storm. But wasn’t the sweat cooler?
He said: ‘You stayed. This . . . the second night you stayed.’
‘Don’t talk now.’
She tried to make the greasy poultice easier on his chest; and then they were quiet together. As the dark room lightened with the reluctant day he stirred again.
‘You came – to look after me.’
‘Rest now.’
‘Want to talk – a little. Sit here.’
She sat on the chair. His hand came wandering out and she took it.
‘Clowance. Don’t know how this will end.’ He made an effort. ‘Still can’t spit, ye see.’
‘Never mind.’
‘Can’t say all I want to say yet – mebbe never. But – I love you. Ye know that, don’t you.’
‘Yes.’
‘You coming like this – does it mean you care a little?’
‘I care a little.’
His hand tightened on hers. ‘You don’t know how much that means . . .’ The hand was definitely cooler.
‘Can you sleep again now?’
‘Eighteen months I been – like a man bereft. Didn’t know – couldn’t believe that you . . .’
‘Don’t go into it now.’
He was still just as much out of breath. ‘That sort of thing. Losing you like that. It makes a man humble.’
‘Don’t say that. That was not what I wanted.’
The Loving Cup Page 25