‘You can keep ’em both for good, ma’am. They don’t b’long to me.’
Demelza studied the ring. It was a thick ring and looked as if it had had a jewel – or two jewels – at some time; there was the remains of a raised piece with broken claws. She tried it on and it fitted her middle finger.
‘Findings are keepings,’ she said. ‘I think it is yours to do what you will with, Ben. It is a woman’s ring. Maybe your mother would like it.’ She handed it back.
III
A week ago she had had a letter from Dr Goldsworthy Gurney. He had explained in somewhat unnecessary detail his friendship with Jeremy and then told her of Jeremy’s visit to him while he had been on leave. He went on:
Mr Jeremy Poldark kindly offered me all his drawings and designs made for use in an experimental horseless carriage, and before he first left to join his regiment he brought over a portfolio of these. But when he last called he said there were still two drawings which had been made by Mr Richard Trevithick last year and which he had forgotten to bring. He said he would send them, but in his short leave he must have forgotten to do so. They are marked, according to your son: ‘Sketches front and side of recoil engine and boiler, November 1812.’ If it is at all possible I should greatly esteem a sight of these.
Should you wish to write first and obtain your son’s permission, I will of course fully understand the delay. But it so happens that my wife will be staying with her parents all of next week, and I am hoping during her absence to visit my uncle at St Erth, and from there to go to Hayle; and it would advantage me to have had an opportunity to study the drawings before then.
Believe me, my dear Mrs Poldark,
Your humble and obedient servant,
Goldsworthy Gurney.
On reading this Demelza had gone in search of the plans. In the closet under the window, Demelza knew, Jeremy kept almost all his papers, and for a young man not notable for his tidiness about the house, these were usually in excellent order. She had soon found the drawings referred to, but not before she had picked up and read a press cutting from the Royal Cornwall Gazette, eighteen months old, reporting a daring robbery of a stage coach during its journey from Plymouth to Truro. It was a very odd thing, Demelza had thought at the time, for Jeremy to keep. Far removed in subject from all the other cuttings, which exclusively dealt with the development of steam carriages and high-pressure steam.
IV
Ross was late getting home. Daylight had long since fled and the lights were out in the house. Only Matthew Mark Martin was waiting to take his horse and lead it to the stables.
‘Is your mistress abed?’
‘I don’t rightly know, sur. I believe she’ve gone.’
‘Well don’t wait up after you have seen to him. I supped in Truro.’
‘Thank ee, sur.’
Ross went in, hung up his cloak and hat. A candle was burning on the bannister post of the stairs. There was a faint light from the parlour and he went in. One candle had been left burning, so that he might light the others from it if he wished. He did not wish. He was sleepy enough. He had ridden in this morning, and more than six hours in the saddle had tired him.
He was about to blow out the candle when something stirred in the chair by the fireplace.
‘Demelza!’ he said. ‘You should not have waited. I said I should be late, and you know how early Henry is abroad in the mornings.’
‘Oh,’ she said, and stretched her arms, but did not rise. ‘I just thor I’d—’ She blew out a breath. ‘I just thought I’d wait a little while.’
He picked up the candle and took it closer to her. She blinked and held up a hand to her eyes.
‘Take it away . . . Too . . . too bright.’
‘Demelza, are you not well?’ He turned and lit another candle, spilling grease in his haste. The second candle seemed an age in adding anything to the light of the first. He went down on one knee to peer at her.
‘Go away,’ she said. ‘Stop staring.’
He took her by the shoulders. ‘Tell me.’
Her breath was liquorous.
‘Ross, I thought – I dreamed . . .’
‘By God! You’re drunk!’ he exclaimed in surprise, and released her shoulders. She fell back in the chair. ‘Aren’t you?’
‘Coursh I’m not. Just took a glass of port . . .’
‘My God,’ he said again. ‘What has got into you? You – you’re drunk Demelza!’
As the light of the second candle at last grew he saw the empty port bottle in the hearth, and beside it a broken glass.
‘You stupid slut! How long has this been going on?’
‘Whassat? Going on? Nothing’s been going on. I just – just felt some sad, and I just took a drink to cheer me up, and then and then . . .’
In exasperation he turned to light the other candles, while she protested she couldn’t stand it. He looked into her eyes, which tonight were lacking focus. The impulse came to him to hit her. To check himself he picked up the gloves he had let fall, put them on a table beside a newspaper, knelt to poke the fire. But it was as far gone as Demelza.
She whispered: ‘Do you believe in God, Ross?’
He said: ‘What’s wrong with you? What has happened? Has something happened? Are the children all right?’
‘The children?’ She hiccupped. ‘Pardon. The children. I’ve been wondering.’
‘Wondering what?’
‘What’re we here for, Ross? Who put us here? Eh? Why do we marry and have children and grow old and go to our graves? Wha’s at the end of it? Do you b’lieve we go to Heaven? Do you believe Julia is in Heaven? What is she doing there? Is she perched on a cloud chirruping like a bird? Has she grown any bigger since she died? She should be a fine girl of twenty-something now. I – I . . .’ She blinked at him . . . ‘I believe you blame me, don’t you, always have, for going to help Francis and Elizabeth when they had the – the morbid sore throat. You’ve always blamed me for – for going to help them and catching it and giving it to Julia . . . What if I had died too? Maybe I ought to have died too. If I had died too, should I be perched on a – on a cloud with Julia chirruping like a bird?’
‘Stop talking such damned nonsense! Tell me about the children – are they well? Is Harry well?’
‘Yes. Yes. He is learning to walk and what is the good of that? He’s only growing up to . . . There’s nothing for you to worry about.’
‘So what are you worrying about? When did this begin? Did the children see you like this?’
‘No, no. Bella had been tiresome so I sent her to bed early . . . Ross, maybe I am talking damned nonsense, but I do not believe if I had died all those years ago I would – I would be perched on a cloud chirruping like a bird. I believe I would be buried in the ground, mouldering to dust – like Elizabeth, like Francis, like old Agatha. I do not believe it matters what age we are when we die – we all become ageless – not chirruping on clouds but silent, with our mouths full of attle and sand. And what is it all? That’s what I wanna know. What is it all for? . . .’ She took a deep shuddering breath. ‘Oh, Judas, can I have another drink?’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘Have you eaten?’
‘Could not fancy supper. Lost my appetite.’
‘Why have you got drunk?’
‘Not drunk.’
‘Yes, you are.’
‘Give me another drink.’
‘No.’
She said: ‘Are we good parents, Ross? I sometimes wonder. Are we too easy, too easy-going, too sloppy. No discipline, no example, come as you please, go as you please. That’s us. Maybe the old way is best. The strap and the birch and the slipper. Stand in a corner, lock you in your room without supper.’ She swallowed hard, and coughed. ‘Maybe children really love you better that way, look up to you, respect you, listen to what you say. Animals – they’re animals really, are they not. Animals never mind a beating so long as they know what they’ve done wrong and where they stand.
’
‘Shut up and tell me what has gone wrong!’
‘Nothing’s gone wrong. Everything is handsome handsome.’ She sighed again, even more tremulously. ‘I just felt sad. Nasty dreams.’
‘You do not have dreams in the daytime, woman.’
She smiled crookedly at him.
‘I do.’
‘Are you going to take to the bottle seriously?’ he asked. ‘If so I shall throw you out.’
They stared at each other for several long seconds. Tears came to her eyes and began to trickle down her cheeks. ‘Just felt – sad.’
Ross got up again, went to the window, frowned out. No one had even bothered to draw the curtains. He knew his inability to stand Demelza’s tears, so had turned away from them to try to maintain his anger and his concern. Her partiality for port was a known joke in the family, and even Jeremy teased her about whether it was four or five glasses she had had. But always – or almost always – she had known when to stop. And on other rare occasions when she had taken too much it had been at celebratory parties where nobody minded in the least.
This was different. This drinking on one’s own after the children had gone to bed . . . A change which turned a mildly comic weakness into a risk of something else. And yet . . . why today? Had it been going on unknown to him for some time and this the first time it had got out of hand? When he was home he was not infrequently near to her during the day; he could not remember catching any whiff of spirits. In spite of all her denials, was she concealing something from him, something that had happened today, which had driven her to this excess? It seemed far more likely.
He turned, intent on questioning her again. She was sitting there, having lost her handkerchief, trying to dry her eyes on her sleeves.
‘Demelza,’ he said.
‘Yes, Ross?’
‘I’m going to help you to bed.’
She blinked at him owlishly. ‘No, you’re not. I – can find my own way.’
‘You can’t.’
‘I don’t wan any help from anyone who’s going to throw me out.’
‘That we will talk about in the morning.’
‘I don’t wan any help from someone who’s—’
‘Come along now.’
‘I don’t wan any help. Not from you, Ross. Nor anyone, anyone else. I can stand up for myself . . .’
‘We’ll see about that in the morning.’
Chapter Three
I
In fact it was very early morning when they spoke again. When he had got her upstairs she had immediately fallen into a heavy stertorous sleep and he expected her to be unconscious until Henry roused her; but, waking himself about six when dawn had just broken, he turned cautiously on his side to find her sitting up in bed, hands behind her head, knuckles on the bed rail.
‘You’re awake early,’ he said.
She looked at him but did not speak. Her brows were in a corrugated line.
‘Have you a headache?’ he found himself saying.
‘Yes.’
‘Well, I suppose it’s not to be wondered at.’
‘No, it isn’t, is it.’
‘What got into you?’
‘One thing led to another. I did have a terrible dream.’
‘When?’
‘The night before last. It stayed with me, oppressing me all day.’
‘That hardly seems reason enough.’
‘No?’
The swallows were flying to and fro across the window, up to their exercises before they took off for their long trek to Africa.
She said: ‘Did you mean what you said last night?’
‘What was that?’
‘That if I took to drink you would turn me out?’
‘How could I? We have made our lives together. We are part of each other. I come home to you. This house now belongs to you just as much as it does to me. And our family. How could I?’
She slid a little further down the bed. One hand came from behind her head and lay on the sheet.
He said: ‘All the same, there is one thing I cannot stand, and that is a drunken woman. It may be hypocrisy on my part to make such a distinction, since at times I have drunk much myself, and we are both accustomed to drunkenness among some of our friends. But it still remains a fact. A drunken woman turns my stomach. I suppose at heart I still think of women as having too much taste and restraint and charm. Drunkenness contradicts these – these beliefs.’
‘I know, Ross.’
‘Will it happen again?’
‘I don’t know.’
There was silence for a while. There was no further sleep in either of them.
He said: ‘What was the dream?’
‘Oh, that . . .’
‘Yes, that.’
‘Well, Ross, I dreamt that you and I were both dead. Lying on this bed together, beside each other. Or almost dead, not quite.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘We were lying beside each other – almost dead – but holding hands. Your right hand. My left. And I knew that so long as we continued to hold hands we should not die – should not quite die, just stay alive. And I thought: who will get tired first – him or me? Will I let go first and let him die, just because my hand is clammy and I want to turn over and I am tired of holding on? Or will he? Will he get tired first and let me die? It’s only a matter of time. It’s . . . only . . . a matter of time.’
II
When she had stopped crying and had sniffed a few more times into the bedclothes she said: ‘What a fool I am! When you are young you can afford to be sentimental; no longer when you are getting old.’
‘Did nothing else happen yesterday to upset you?’
‘Nothing.’ She volunteered more brightly: ‘It was so lovely and warm I took Bella bathing. The sea was all bubbly as if you had dropped soda in it. We had a lovely time. Oh . . . and I forgot to tell you. Ben turned up.’
‘Ben?’
Glad of being able to change the subject, she told him of the visit, though not the whole of it.
Ross concentrated on this new matter with some difficulty. He had a stone in his chest from the night’s events, and it was hard to see other problems in their proper perspective. Eventually he said:
‘However much Ben may feel, however upset and grieved he may be, I cannot have an underground captain I cannot rely on. Although Zacky is about again, it is really on Ben – or on Ben’s replacement – that we shall depend for the smooth working of the mine, with Jeremy and myself both gone.’
‘He knows that,’ said Demelza. ‘I believe that if he feels any further grief over Clowance he will show it by an excess of work rather than by neglecting the mine.’
‘Always before he was a conscientious man.’
‘I believe he will be so again.’
‘We’ll see how he comes up today. Time is getting short if I am to find a replacement.’
She moved incautiously. ‘Ooh, my head!’
‘Why do you not sleep in this morning? Everyone is used to your occasional days of megrim.’
‘But this isn’t one of them, Ross. No, I will take a powder when it is time to get up.’
He said again: ‘That was the strangest dream. It is on you I depend for my cheer and comfort, not for such gloomy and despondent thoughts.’
‘Perhaps I am changing; perhaps life is changing me.’
She was better for her powder and went about the early morning normally enough, though they were guarded towards each other. But just before breakfast she took the piece of silver lead out of her pocket.
‘What is this, Ross? This seal? Do you know it?’
He took it from her and frowned at it, suspecting that again she was diverting or trying to divert his attention. ‘Yes,’ he agreed reluctantly. ‘It is a scorpion. It is the seal of Warleggan’s Bank. Where did you come by it?’
‘I picked it up on the road. Near Pally’s Shop.’
‘I suppose one of his men must have dropped it going to Whe
al Spinster. Though why . . . Did you go that far yesterday?’ he asked suspiciously. ‘I thought you took Bella bathing.’
‘Oh, I did that too.’
He eyed her, noting the unusual pallor of her face, different from the healthy pallor of normal times. (She never had much colour but the glow was underneath.)
‘I have to make arrangements to see Francis de Dunstanville at Tehidy this morning. I want more details about the quality of the tin at present being mined at Dolcoath and Cook’s Kitchen. But it is two weeks before I go to London. I can send John over with my apologies and suggest another day.’
‘Why should you? Because Ben is coming?’
‘No, of course not; I shall not leave till ten. I was thinking it better, if you are not well.’
‘I’m well now, thank you.’
‘Well enough?’
‘Well enough.’
‘But depressed.’
‘Not depressed enough to greet you as I did last night, if that is what you are thinking.’
‘I did not say I was thinking that.’
‘You may lock up the port if you wish,’ she said stiffly. ‘I believe there is a key on my ring that you may have.’
‘I trust I shall never have to do that.’
‘Then go today. There is no reason at all for you to change your plans. What time will you be home?’
‘Oh, about seven.’
Bella and Harry had already eaten so they had a quiet and mainly silent breakfast. Towards the end of the meal Demelza said:
‘I have been thinking about Jeremy.’
‘Do you ever stop?’
‘No. I have been wondering how much it cost us to fit him out in all those regimentals.’
‘Little enough,’ said Ross. ‘I bought him a few things, but he produced quite an amount of money of his own. I was surprised and pleased with him. I suppose he saved up what little we gave him – and then Wheal Leisure produced a dividend just in time.’
‘And since?’
‘He has come on me for nothing since; so I imagine he must have managed for the first few months on his pay. Now there are fatter dividends from the mine, he should have no particular problem.’
‘You didn’t think to ask how he was going to manage?’
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