Demelza was surprised to see her wearing the frock of startling crimson velvet with the cascades of fine lace, which she had worn at Julia’s christening. There had been no suggestion that this was to be a party, and Demelza, feeling that any display in the present circumstances would be looked on as bad form by these well-bred people, had come in her afternoon dress.
So she’s still interested in Ross, thought Demelza with a sharp twinge, and any gratefulness to me won’t make the least difference. I might have known. Nevertheless she went forward with a smile on her face and was graciously welcomed. Too graciously, she at once thought. It didn’t ring true, like the sick Elizabeth of twelve months ago. What a fool I’ve been.
Francis was not there to welcome them, but when they had taken off their cloaks he came out of the big parlour. He was a little hesitant at this first proper meeting, and the two men eyed each other for a second.
Francis said: “Well, Ross…so you came.”
“I came.”
“It’s—a good thing, I think. I’m glad, anyway.”
He put out his hand rather tentatively. Ross took it, but the clasp was not a long one.
Francis said: “We were always good friends in the past.”
“The best way,” Ross said, “is to forget the past.”
“I’m very willing. It’s a bitter subject.”
That said, the reconciliation formally made, there seemed nothing to add to it, and so the constraint grew up again.
“Did you walk here?”
“Yes.” A sore point, with Caerhays sold. “I see Odgers is getting some repairs done to Sawle Church at last.”
“To the roof only. It has rained in so persistently these last few months that often the choir have had to sing with water dripping down their necks. I wish the damned steeple would fall down. It always persuades me I’m drunk when I get to the northwest of it.”
“Someday perhaps, when a Poldark is rich again, we shall be able to do something about it.”
“I think the church will have fallen down naturally before then.”
“My dear,” said Elizabeth, linking Demelza’s arm, “I was afraid you would never bring him. If he makes up his mind there’s seldom much prospect of changing it. But perhaps you are clever enough to know how to set about it.”
“I’m not clever,” said Demelza. Indeed I’m not, she thought. Can I hold my own this week end, like I did three years ago? This time I haven’t the heart. I’m too miserable and sick in mind to want to fight for him if he doesn’t want me.
“My father and mother will be here for dinner,” said Elizabeth. “Also Dwight Enys. I’m afraid we shall have no visitors after. You remember last time, George Warleggan and the Trenegloses turned up and you sang those enchanting songs.”
“I haven’t seen the Trenegloses for ages,” said Demelza, as they went into the big parlour.
“Ruth is expecting her first child next month. There’ll be great excitement if it is a boy. They say old Mr. Horace Treneglos is already planning for his first grandson. There’s not a lot of money about these days but when a family has been in existence more than six hundred years…Of course, ours is older.”
“What, the Poldarks?”
Elizabeth smiled. “No. I’m sorry. I meant my own family. We have records back to 971. Ross, it’s like old times to see you in this room.”
“It’s like old times to be here,” said Ross enigmatically.
“And old times,” said Francis, bringing a wineglass across, “is precisely what we are doing our best to forget. Here’s to new times, I say. If there are any, then they can be no worse than what’s gone, and good riddance.” He smiled into Demelza’s eyes.
Demelza slowly shook her head, smiling back. “Old times were good to me,” she said.
***
It wasn’t the sort of meal they’d had before, either, though it was the best put on for two years. They had ham and fowls and a leg of mutton, boiled, with caper sauce, and afterwards batter pudding and currant jelly and damson tarts, and black caps in custard, and blancmange.
Demelza had never met Elizabeth’s father and mother, and she was astonished at them. If keeping records since 971 made you look like that, then she’d rather have an ancestry that was decently forgot. Mr. Chynoweth was thin and wiry, with little pompous mannerisms that surprised because they claimed too much. Mrs. Chynoweth was a dreadful sight, corpulent, with one eye discoloured and a swollen neck. Not having seen her before her illness, Demelza couldn’t imagine where Elizabeth had got her ravishing looks. It didn’t take long either to discover that they were people with a grievance. Something had gone wrong with their lives and they resented it as a personal affront. Demelza preferred old Aunt Agatha any day, for all her whiskers and her dribbling chin. You couldn’t answer her back, but her conversation had vitality and point. It was a pity someone didn’t write down her flow of memories before she died and they were all gone, lost for ever in yesterday’s dust.
After dinner, to Demelza’s horror, though she should have remembered this was the routine, the women went off on their own leaving the men over the port; and in any nightmare Demelza could not have chosen more fearful companions than Elizabeth—in her present mood—Aunt Agatha, and Mrs. Chynoweth. They all walked upstairs and into Elizabeth’s bedroom and chattered round the mirror and tidied their hair and in turn visited the noisome apartment down the passage which Demelza thought so much worse than the outdoor arrangements of Nampara; and Elizabeth adjusted Aunt Agatha’s lace cap, and Mrs. Chynoweth said she’d heard the new fashions at London and Bath were verging on the indecent; and Aunt Agatha said she still had some recipes somewhere for the face: pomatums and suchlike, and lip salves, white pots and water of talk: she’d find ’em for Demelza before she left. And Elizabeth said Demelza was very quiet, was she quite well? And Demelza said, Oh yes, fine and well; and Mrs. Chynoweth gave her a casual glance up and down that seemed to strip her secret bare, and said the new fashion was for the waist to be right up under the arms and for the whole dress to fall quite like a candle sconce to the floor and the less worn under, the better. Demelza sat on the rosewood bed with its pink quilted satin hangings, and adjusted her garters and thought, Ross was right, we should never have come back here till Verity came; she makes all the difference, she’s my mascot, my luck; I’m dull tonight and even port won’t help; so Elizabeth’ll score all round with her lovely sheeny hair and sapling waist and big grey eyes and her educated voice and her grace and poise. How is the rest of this evening and tomorrow to be got through?
Downstairs the port had circulated twice, and Jonathan Chynoweth, who had a humiliatingly weak head, was looking drowsy and talked with a slurred speech. Dwight, who had never had the money to drink regularly, was aware of his own deficiencies and kept sipping a drop and adding a drop when the bottle came round. The cousins, of course, were hardly aware that they had yet begun.
Francis said to Ross: “These are the last three bottles of the ’83 port. Did you lay in much of it at the time?”
“I hadn’t the money then—just back from America and the place in a ruin. I’ve nothing earlier than last year’s. When that’s done we shall have to resort to cheap gin.”
Francis grunted. “Money. The lack of it is poisoning both our lives. Sometimes I could rob a bank—would, if it were Warleggan’s and I could escape the gallows.”
Ross glanced idly at him. “What made you quarrel with ’em?”
It was the first question which touched on the fundamentals between them. Francis instantly realized its importance and the impossibility of giving a full answer here. Yet he must not seem to evade it. “A realization that your estimate of them was the right one.”
There was a pause while the clock struck. The metallic vibrations trembled round the room long after it had finished, seeming to seek a way out.
Francis drew three straigh
t lines down the tablecloth with a fork’s prongs. “These things—soak in slowly. They’re hardly noticed, until suddenly you wake up one day knowing that the man who has been your friend for years is a—blackguard and…” he waved his hand, “…that’s all!”
“Have you moved your affairs?”
“No. I’ll say that for them. I was offensive enough to George to blow his hat off, but he’s done nothing about it.”
“I should move them.”
“Impossible. No one else would take the debt.”
“Look,” said Dwight uncomfortably, “I’ve had what drink I want, and if you’d like to discuss private money matters…”
“Ecod, there’s nothing private in debts,” said Francis. “They’re everybody’s property. It’s the one consolation…Anyway—I’ve nothing private from you.”
The bottle was passed round.
“By the way,” said Francis, “what has Demelza been doing with Bodrugan’s mare?”
“Doing with it?” Ross said cautiously.
“Yes. I met him this morning, and he was all cock-a-hoop because his beloved Sheba was on the mend. I didn’t even know the beast had been ill. He said it was Demelza’s doing. The recovery, I mean, not the sickness.”
The bottle came to Ross. “Demelza has some skill with animals,” he said hardily. “Bodrugan came over and seemed anxious for her advice.”
“Well, she’s in his good graces now. He was fairly slapping his boots about it.”
“What was wrong with the animal?” Dwight inquired.
“You must ask Demelza,” Ross said. “No doubt she will explain.”
“Quarrelling with the War-Warleggans,” said Mr. Chynoweth. “A bad business. Very influ-influential. Tentacles.”
“How eloquently you express yourself these days, Father-in-law,” said Francis.
“Eh?”
“Let me fill your glass just this once more and then you can go to sleep comfortable.”
“For twelve months,” Ross said, “they’ve been trying to buy a share in Wheal Leisure.”
“I don’t doubt it. They’d be interested in any paying concern and any belonging to you in particular.”
“Wheal Leisure doesn’t belong to me. I wish it did.”
“Well, you’re the largest shareholder. Have you had any success in linking up with the old Trevorgie workings?”
“No. We abandoned it for some of the wet months and then took it up again. I don’t think the others will sanction the expense much longer.”
“There’s good work there somewhere.”
“I know. But the men’s wages mount up when you see them in the cost book.”
“You remember when we went down the old workings together, Ross. It doesn’t seem so long ago. There’s money in Trevorgie and Wheal Grace. I could smell it that day.”
“You need to put money in before you can take money out. It’s one of the imperatives of mining.”
“Both copper and tin have gone up again,” said Dwight. He accepted the bottle and let it cool his fingers. “D’you think there’s any chance of restarting Grambler?”
“Not a dog’s chance,” said Francis. “Here, drain up your glass, you’re not keeping pace at all.” He stared at Ross, whose lean restless face as yet showed no flush. “You know old Fred Pendarves. For a month now I’ve had him prospecting over my land. And Ellery helping him. I don’t think if he lived to be eighty you’d make a farmer out of Ellery or get him to tell the front of a cow from the tail; but he’s been bred to mining like a terrier’s bred to ratting, and between ’em I’m hoping for some sort of a workable venture. At heart I’m just the same as Ellery: there’s copper in my blood, and if I have to go on living then I’ve got to start mining again, not rooting up stroil or driving pigs to market.”
A snore came from Jonathan Chynoweth, whose head was resting back against his chair.
“Driving pigs to market indeed,” said Francis.
Ever since he came back from America, Ross thought, he and Francis had had something or other to quarrel about; but almost always when he met Francis he wondered if the quarrel was worth while. Francis had a way with him, always had had: a wry humour that carried one along, made one forget the bitterness and the possible betrayals. Perhaps the attraction was still mutual, for Francis had brightened up a lot since he came.
“Don’t let me damp you,” he said, “but even a hole in the ground costs money. Unless one can pick copper out of the subsoil as they did in Anglesea…”
“I—have some ready money,” said Francis. “A few hundred. It might see me through. Anyway, that’s how it shall be spent.”
When Francis had offered to help Demelza with money if things went wrong at Bodmin, Ross had dismissed it as a rhetorical flourish. But here it was again. Ready money in a near-bankrupt.
“Well, and have they found anything yet?”
“Oh, traces enough. There’s mineral everywhere, as you know. But I can’t afford to take chances. I want a reasonable venture. What d’you think of this Virgula Divinitoria. It’s supposed to be a sure test of where there is metal underground.”
“The name’s impressive. Do you know the English for it, Dwight?”
Mr. Chynoweth twitched and woke up. “Where am I?”
“In bed with your wife, old man,” said Francis, “so have a care lest we take advantage of you.”
Mr. Chynoweth blinked at him, but was too stupefied to be insulted. He reached for his glass, but before he grasped it his head was nodding again.
“I gather it’s only a sort of divining rod,” said Dwight. “Even supposing it worked, I think it would be disappointing to sink a shaft expecting copper and find only lead.”
Ross said: “Or even a tin kettle left by one of the old men.”
Francis said: “Of course you’re lucky with both Wheal Grace and Wheal Maiden on your land. We never did nothing here except for Grambler. It took all our attention and all our money.”
“Two derelict mines,” said Ross, and remembered what Mark Daniel had said about Grace: There’s money in that mine. Copper…I’ve never seen a more keenly lode. “More expensive to restart than to begin anew working,” he added.
Francis sighed. “Well, I suppose all your interest is in Wheal Leisure now.”
“All my money is.”
“And that’s the same thing, eh? And I shall have to recourse to Virgula Divinitoria or the wisdom of old Fred Pendarves. Pass the port, Enys; you’re making no good use of it.”
There was a tap on the door and Tabb came in.
“If you please, sur, there’s a man asking for Dr. Enys.”
“What man?”
“He’s from Killewarren, sur. I think he wants for Dr. Enys to go to someone who’s ill.”
“Oh, tell ’em to be ill on a more convenient night.”
Dwight pushed back his chair. “If you’ll excuse me…”
“Nonsense,” said Francis, pouring his port so quickly that the froth circled to the centre. “If you must see the fellow ask him in here; see what he wants.”
Tabb glanced at Dwight and then went out, to bring back a small clerkly man in black. They hadn’t heard it begin to rain but his cloak dripped water on the rug.
“Oh, it’s Myners,” said Francis. “What’s amiss at Killewarren?”
The little man looked at Dwight. “Are you Dr. Enys, sir? I went to your house but was told you was here. Beg pardon for disturbing you. It is Miss Penvenen wanted to see you, and she sent me over to fetch you.”
“Miss Caroline Penvenen?”
“Yes, sir.”
So she was still in Cornwall—and no doubt her dog was having fits again.
“Has she not her own doctor?”
“Yes, sir, but she said for to fetch you. She’s been ill for near on three days. It’s her th
roat, sir, that is giving her grave trouble.”
A silence fell on the table. The casual good-fellowship of Francis, Dwight’s first impatience, were not proof against this. The malignant sore throat, which had struck both families last year, had hardly been heard of this. If it came in the district again…
“What symptoms?” Dwight said.
“I don’t rightly know, sir. I’m only the bailiff. But Mr. Ray Penvenen said she was mortal sick and I must fetch you.”
Dwight got up. “I’ll come at once. Wait and show me the way.”
Chapter Four
Penvenen land stretched up almost to the back of Grambler village, but the house, Killewarren, had its main entrance near Goon Prince and was about three miles from the gates of Trenwith.
They had not heard the rain indoors because it was coming in a fine silent slag from the southwest, moving with a tired wind. But it was more wetting than straight rain, and the night was dark with a close inner blackness more proper to a confined space than out of doors; even Myners had some difficulty in keeping to the grass-grown track that led home.
They did not talk much, because the way was often too narrow to ride abreast and the going so uneven that an incautious step might throw you. Dwight, too, had mixed feelings at the prospect of meeting the tall girl again; anxiety and a slight apprehension that was not entirely to do with her illness. More than ever he was glad he had not been free with the port.
He had never been to her home—or her uncle’s home—and when they turned in at the gates he rather expected to see such another gracious Tudor residence as Trenwith, or a small but solid Palladian house like Sir John Trevaunance’s; so it was a surprise to find an ill-lit, shabby, rambling building which seemed to be little more than an extensive farmhouse. They went in through a porch and up some stairs and along a narrow passage to a big untidy living room at the end of it, where a man with spectacles was turning the pages of a book. He took off his spectacles when Dwight was shown in—a sandy, stocky man in a coat sizes too big for him. As he came nearer Dwight saw that his red eyelids were almost lashless and that his hands were covered with warts. Ray Penvenen, bachelor, a onetime “catch” of the county who had never been caught.
Jeremy Poldark Page 19