Jeremy Poldark

by Winston Graham

  There was a light in Ross’s eyes as he looked out over the garden, but he was careful not to let it be seen by his visitor. “I’m afraid,” he said, “I should like some proposal. One could only consider the suggestion by weighing the risks against the benefits. At present we know only the risks…”

  “Hm—ah. Well…” Mr. Trencrom stretched out a fat hand for the tea Demelza was still holding. “Thank you, ma’am. Delightful. It’s very difficult betwixt friends. One wishes to be fair. But things are not what they was. Everything is more trying than it used to be. What had you in mind yourself? Would five per cent of the profits seem fair?”

  “Can you suggest a lump sum per cargo?”

  “Well…fifty pounds, say?”

  “I thought,” said Ross, “that you had come here to talk business, Mr. Trencrom.”

  The fat man wheezed over his tea, and his breath made bubbles on the surface.

  “Is that a very poor offer? I don’t think so. Fifty pounds is a big sum of money. What do you suggest—yourself?”

  “Two hundred and fifty pounds per cargo.”

  “My dear sir! Impossible! You don’t understand.” Mr. Trencrom’s feelings were hurt. “It would make the voyage virtually without—”

  Ross said: “I’m not without experience of the trade myself. Fifteen years ago when I was a boy, my father and I would make the trip to Guernsey twice or so a year. We could fill our tiny cutter with brandy, gin, and tea for a hundred pounds. If we had chosen to—as we did sometimes—we could have sold the cargo as soon as we landed it for double the money. Your cutter, the One and All, will carry a cargo of ten times that size—and of greater value, for prices have risen. It’s not hard to work out the profit.”

  Mr. Trencrom slightly pouted. “Oh, these small private runs! They always show—the big profits. Give quite a false impression. No overheads. No organization to maintain. Quite different as a commercial undertaking. I have the cutter to maintain. Wages to pay—usually a portion of the cargo. Palms to grease. Deliveries to arrange. Travellers who go round for orders. Storage. Mules. Ropes. Nets. Tackle. A very different thing, my dear sir. Do you know how much I pay my riders merely—for carrying away the goods from the shore? Half a guinea per night, plus all their expenses of food and drink! Plus half a bag of tea weighing forty pounds—or the equivalent, which they can resell if they wish for twenty-five shillings. Or more! All off the profits. I couldn’t possibly afford to pay you more than a hundred pounds a run. After all, you would do nothing. You would sit quiet in your home here. Behind drawn curtains. Others would do it all. Merely for the privilege of using your cove.”

  Ross shook his head. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be willing to do it for that.”

  “Don’t do it at all, Ross,” said Demelza.

  “But why?” said Mr. Trencrom, turning to her. “I’m sure you agree it’s not a wicked trade to be concerned in. Man-made laws. Not by God. Quite unreasonable that taxes should be paid on these necessaries of life. You’d make two or three hundred pounds a year. Very welcome, surely.”

  “Nampara Cove is my land,” Ross said. “If you run a cargo at St. Ann’s or Sawle or on Hendrawna Beach no one is accountable but the people who run it. If you run one here and are surprised it will go hard with me to put on a look of innocence, with mules tramping almost under my windows. I have already been at the assizes once. I don’t wish to appear there again. The inducement would have to be big to make me take that risk. I’ve suggested to you what that inducement would be.”

  “No, Ross,” said Demelza. “No!”

  Ross turned his eyes on her. “I’ll not hide from Mr. Trencrom that the money would be specially useful just now. Otherwise I should not consider it. It’s really up to him to choose.”

  ***

  About half an hour later a big brown horse carrying a big fat man in a big brown cloak rode up the valley away from the house. Darkness had fallen, but a moon behind the clouds made it possible to see the track. It would be a lonely ride to St. Ann’s and there were nervous people who would not have fancied it; but Mr. Trencrom was not as delicate as he made himself out. Also he carried a brace of pistols. There was a dejected, defeated set to his shoulders as he made his way through the trees.

  When he had disappeared from view Ross shut the door and stood a moment in indecision in the hall, then returned to the parlour.

  Demelza’s back as she lit the candles had a taut look. Ross went to the cupboard and poured himself a drink.

  “The Warleggans,” he said, “have at last got a foot in Wheal Leisure. Pearce came today with the news that Benjamin Aukett had sold out. Their nominee is a man called Coke.”

  Demelza did not reply.

  “I suspected it would be only a matter of time,” he said. “When there are seven shareholders, one or another will sooner or later give way to the temptation of a large profit. I shouldn’t be surprised if Pearce sells his share any time. So now we shall have George at our board.”

  She said: “What does it matter?”

  “Um?” He stared at her back broodingly.

  “What does it matter? Oh, I dislike the Warleggans just so much as you; but if they come to have a share in your mine we can do naught about it. An’ they can’t steal your share. That’s all that matters. It is none of it any excuse for having the tub carriers on our land!”

  He said sharply: “Two hundred pounds is excuse enough for that. I want no other.”

  “It’ll not buy you out of prison.”

  “I shall not be in there, thank you.”

  “You’ll have small choice if the landing is surprised.”

  “Nonsense. It’s a risk, I know—but not as big as I made out to Trencrom. It would be possible in fact to claim ignorance. We might not be believed, but there would be no proof to the contrary.”

  She put her hand on the mantelshelf. “I can’t stand it all again! All the worrying anxious time of the trial—and before; not sleeping, like a cloud all day. Picturing this an’ that. Transported, hanged, rotting in gaol. The days in Bodmin—all I did—or tried to do! It isn’t fair! Not again, so soon. It isn’t fair to yourself…or to anyone!”

  He looked at her again and perceived that she was very upset. He said more gently: “Now you’re seeing bogles in the dark. There’s nothing to be scared of in a little free trading. I was only afraid lest I had set my price too high. That’s why I came down fifty. Today, on top of this news of the Warleggans, if he but knew it, Mr. Trencrom was an angel in disguise.”

  “The devil!” she said vehemently. “No less.”

  “Perhaps I should lie meek under this latest of George’s encroachments, but it’s not in me to do so. Besides…you may have forgotten it, but we have recently sold all our stock, your brooch and horse, the clock, and the newer furnishings of the house. Not, mark you, to cancel our debts but to postpone them for a mere twelve months. We’re not out of the wood if we sit together in bucolic bliss and weave daisy chains. I’m more likely to go to prison that way than any other.”

  She said: “I can’t help it! I want your child to be free from fear.”

  Ross put down his glass. “What?”

  There was a tap at the door and Jane Gimlett came in.

  “Please, will you be wanting supper at the usual time? I put the pie on to hot up just in case, like.”

  “The usual time,” said Demelza.

  “And the ham? There’s a fair cutting on it yet, though tis largely fat.”

  “Put it on,” said Demelza.

  “The scones has come out nice’m. I thought I’d leave you know.” She went out.

  One missed the ticking of the clock in here. A new piece of wood, not quite dry, was hissing on the fire. Little bubbles of moisture were forming at one end of it, trying to escape the flames.

  Ross said: “When did you know?”

  “Septe
mber.”

  He made a gesture. “Good God…! Not to tell me…!”

  “You didn’t want it.”

  “What?”

  “You said you didn’t want another child—after Julia.”

  “Nor did I—nor do I—” He picked up his glass, set it down again without drinking. After a minute he added: “To grow into our hearts, and then to die. But if one is coming—that’s different.”

  “How different?”

  “Well…it’s different.”

  “I wish I could believe that.”

  “Why should you not? It’s the truth.” He turned. “I don’t know what to say—how to say it…I just don’t understand you. You’ve been closer about it even than last time. When do you expect—the birth?”

  “May.”

  He frowned, trying to shut out his memories.

  “I know tis the same month,” she said desperately. “I could’ve wished for any other. But that’s the way things are. I shouldn’t be amazed if it’s born the same day, three years after. It’s been the same so far—the visit to Trenwith and all. But all history don’t repeat itself. I don’t believe it can. Anyway, I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry? What for?”

  “That it’s happened. That it has got to come. That you’ll have this extra burden which you don’t want.”

  He came and stood beside her at the fireplace. “Now stop crying and be sensible.”

  “I’m not crying.”

  “Well, wanting to, then. Is this what’s been on your back all winter?”

  “Not on my back,” she said.

  “As you like. Ever since September you’ve been withdrawn from me—poking up your head now and then like a sheep from behind a fence. I couldn’t reach you. Is this child the cause of all of it?”

  “If I have, then it may be.”

  “Because you thought I didn’t want it?”

  “Tis only what you said.”

  He said in exasperation: “God damn it, you should know I’m not used to dealing with women! You search the earth to find some special secret feminine grievance to gnaw over for months on end, and then produce it coolly on the mat to explain all the irrational hedging and dodging of an entire winter—”

  “I didn’t search the earth for it!”

  “Well, I thought you could distinguish between a theoretical case and a practical one—evidently that isn’t so.”

  “I wasn’t well educated—”

  “No more was I. Look.” He thumped the flat of his hand on the mantelshelf. “Look. If you ask me, do I want more children, I’ll say, no. We’re nearly paupers, the world’s awry, and we’ve lost Julia. Correct? That’s a theoretical case. But if you say you’re having another child, do I dislike the prospect, I’d say, yes, for all these reasons I still dislike the prospect; but a prospect is not a child, and a child can be welcomed for all that. D’you understand what I mean?”

  “No,” she said.

  He stared at his tobacco jar on the shelf, his first protest exhausted, his mind leaping forward to what this news entailed. And all the memories of Julia it revived. The storm at her birth, the two christening parties, the drunken Paynters that day Demelza was out, the high hopes, the love—and the storm at her death. It had come in a cycle, had conformed to a pattern, like a Greek tragedy prepared by a cynic. It was to happen again. History had to repeat itself in the early stages whatever the later might bring.

  He glanced down at her. What did it mean for her? Weeks of discomfort, agony at the end, then months of unremitting care. All that had gone to Julia and much more; yet it had all been lost. What right had he to claim a monopoly of grief?…He’d never done that, and yet…

  He said more gently: “I’ve noticed no stoutness so far.”

  She said: “By April I shall look like Mr. Trencrom.”

  It was the first time they had laughed together for a long time; but her laughter was still dangerously near tears, his a not quite voluntary surrender of his irritation.

  He put his hand on her shoulder, trying to express something that he couldn’t yet say. Strange, the meaning of contacts! His firm clasp of this arm was entirely permissible, familiar, pleasurable, the touch of a known and loved person, however exasperating. His clasp of another arm at Christmas had had electricity in the touch. Was it because he loved Elizabeth more—or because he knew her less?

  Demelza said: “If you’ll care what is going to happen to us…then you must have more care in what you undertake.”

  “I shall have care in everything I undertake—believe me. I’ve every possible intention of keeping on the right side of the law.” He released her shoulder. “Or at any rate the blind side…Thank God at least that we have a capable physician in the neighbourhood.”

  “I’d still rather have Mrs. Zacky,” said Demelza.

  Chapter Seven

  The next day Ross was up before dawn and spent the morning at the mine, arranging with Zacky Martin about the redeployment of the men who had been tunnelling towards Wheal Trevorgie. He spent longer than he need have done at the workings and went down to see how things were below grass. He felt as if the acquisitive hand of the Warleggans was already over Wheal Leisure. He had not slept well during the night, his brain being active with all the developments of yesterday.

  As to Demelza’s news, he could not yet evaluate his own feelings, but reflection didn’t dissipate the sense of insult that he had been kept in the dark so long. To him it looked like a wilful misunderstanding of his views—or at least a painful lack of trust in his good sense. Soon after noon he walked back with Zacky, who was slipping home for a snack before returning for the change of cores. At last there was some sign of a lift in the weather; the vast burden of cloud which had hung about so long was thinning, splitting up, and drifting away before a northeasterly breeze. The contours of the land were unequivocal, demarcating the colder lighter sky.

  “Tis a pity we’ve stopped that working,” said Zacky. “I feel we was driving towards rich stuff. But maybe it is no more’n an old wives’ dream.”

  “Where d’you estimate we had got to?”

  Zacky stopped and rasped his chin. “I wouldn’t be hard to take proper measurings, but it is hard to be sure without, sur. Just to be guessing, I’d say near on that clump of trees.”

  Ross scanned the distance from where the buildings of Wheal Leisure littered one skyline to where the broken wall and chimney of Wheal Grace stood on the rising ground near Mellin.

  “About halfway?”

  “I reckon. There’s no map, I b’lieve, of the old Trevorgie workings.”

  “No accurate one. But I went down with my cousin seven years ago and they were pretty extensive in this direction. That air adit is the only sign, but I believe several were filled up. My father worked the newer, Wheal Grace, part towards the southwest. You were never in Wheal Grace?”

  “I wasn’t in these here parts till I was twenty, and then I went straight on Grambler. Of course I’ve often thought twould injure no one to have a closer look at Trevorgie from that end. That’s if you could get by with the foul air.”

  “It was none too bad when we went down. But we didn’t go far. What we saw was all exhausted tin ground, and poor at that. Of course, Mark Daniel…”

  “Mark Daniel?” said Zacky cautiously.

  They went on. They were only a few hundred yards from the house Mark had built. In one part the roof had already fallen in. It seemed tactless to mention his name just here—so close to where he had killed his little faithless moonflower wife.

  “I don’t know if Paul ever told you,” Ross said, “but the day before Mark escaped to France he hid down Grace. Before he left I—happened to see him and he told me there was a lot of rich stuff in the mine.”

  “…Paul never told me. But I can add two an’ two, like. Did he say where the ore was to?”<
br />
  “No…At least, I fancy he mentioned the east face.”

  “That’s Trevorgie. That’s sense—for your father’d never have abandoned a rich lode. Anything might’ve happened when Trevorgie was worked.”

  “Yes,” said Ross, staring at the chimney of Wheal Grace. They separated just beyond Reath Cottage and Ross went up to the old mine building. There was very little left. Abandoned for twenty years, the bits of machinery had long since been carried away, and nature had licked over the scars. Ross sat down and put his chin in his hand.

  It was pleasant enough sitting here among the whispering grass, and he scarcely moved for half an hour. There was some community of spirit between the man and the scene. Strange ideas were milling in his head, at least two of them having taken shape from his conversation with Mr. Trencrom. All of them derived from the events of yesterday and all of them were moving him to one end. At length he got up and walked slowly, half aimlessly, back to Reath Cottage, pushed open the door and went in. It was dark, as it always would be except in the mornings; Mark had built it facing the wrong way. People wouldn’t pass the place after dusk; they said Keren still hung there sometimes with her broken little face out of the window. The earth floor was covered with brambles and gorse, and rank white grass, predatory and unhealthy, sprouted among the stones. An old stool stood in the corner, some faggots lay by the fireplace. He went out into the open again, deriding himself for being glad to go.

  From here you looked straight across the declivity to the Gatehouse. Every time Dwight Enys rode out on his doctoring this derelict cottage would stare and watch him leave. No wonder Enys still showed the scars of that time; he could not very well forget it. Ross began to walk over towards the Gatehouse. As he got near he saw Dwight at the door, and his horse was standing ready saddled. Dwight saw him and smiled and came to meet him.

  “Hope this is not a professional visit? No? You come so seldom that I was a little anxious.”