The Four Swans

by Winston Graham

  It was bemusing and horrible, and usually he hated her. It was the fact that he had to lower himself so much that he most resented. He was brought to the level of a fifteen-year-old boy, asking, pleading, arguing, cajoling. And then in the middle of some particularly abandoned moment she would call him ‘vicar’, as if jibing at him, challenging him, daring him to consider his dignity.

  Yet sometimes he thought he loved her. In spite of her lack of looks, she had terrible charm, and sometimes after their love she would stroke his brow and seem to be trying to mend his self-esteem. He had never had a woman stroke his brow, and he liked it. Of course his attitude to women before had always been that they were there for a purpose; they existed for his pleasure and not for their own. He had never before seen a woman get pleasure out of it – and it made him all the more suspicious of this tigress he had discovered masquerading as a kitten. She was not natural. In his more moral moments he knew that she was evil through and through. There were enough examples of such women in the Book from which he preached every week. There were even more examples of evil men, but he tried not to think of them.

  He realized also, even if Rowella did not, the pitfalls that lay ahead if he did not break off the attachment. It had been begun partly because of his deprivation of a normal relationship with his wife. If he had any sense he now knew that he should make some excuse to have Rowella sent home. Now that Morwenna was about so much more there was a greater risk of discovery, and, apart from everything else that would ensue, he much disliked the thought of his wife having any sort of moral excuse for her fastidiousness towards him. Even if that did not happen, there always was the risk of a servant suspecting something and starting a rumour in the parish. While Sawle lay in the balance he particularly wanted to avoid this.

  But against all those sensible and cautious thoughts, heavy in the balance, one factor weighted down the other side: Rowella. There was nobody like her. There never had been. There never would be again.

  So Rowella perhaps would be sent home next week. Or the week after. She was only fifteen; a child. Although a dean’s daughter, she appeared to suffer no qualms of conscience at committing fornication, nor even at the compounded sin of lying with her sister’s husband. It was his duty to instruct her in the sin. It was his duty to show her the wrong of what she was doing, apart altogether from his own wrong. Some day soon they would talk together. Soberly and properly, not wildly and improperly, and then she would agree to go home . . .

  Outside in the hall Ossie heard the padding footstep that he had been listening for. Rowella was home. She read too many books. Perhaps she had learned something of her total wantonness from the books she read. In the evenings she should play whist or piquet instead of having her head in a book. One day perhaps he could teach her. But no, that was risky. Nothing must be done to suggest he was singling her out for any special attention. If they were careful, very careful, it might be quite a while yet before he had to send her home.

  II

  Jud Paynter was a man whose grievances against life had become a part of the lore of the parish. Beginning as a miner, he had been befriended by Ross’s father, and had come to live at Nampara with his putative wife, Prudie. He had been part of an era when Joshua Poldark was running wild. Joshua’s other chief companion had been Tholly Tregirls; but Tholly had always been much more the daredevil. Even in those days Jud had been the reluctant adventurer, pessimistic of every outcome, sure that the world was against him.

  When Ross returned from America after his father’s death he had retained the Paynters for a year or two, but had found them too unreliable and they had been ejected and found a broken-down shack at the north end of Grambler village. After that for quite a while Jud had worked for Mr Trencrom and ‘the trade’, but he was too often in his cups and too often talkative in his cups to please the more cautious members of that profession who remembered the night of February ’93 when their landing had been surprised by the preventive men and several of their friends transported or imprisoned as a result.

  So one day Mr Trencrom, wheezing, and daily more closely resembling Caroline’s pug dog, had called at the little cottage and paid his retainer off. Shortly after this, a fortunate chance had killed the gravedigger at Sawle Church and Jud had been appointed to the vacant see.

  It was work that suited his age and his temperament. Now in his middle sixties, labour was something he had tried to avoid all his life, but he did not so much mind a little if he could do it in his own time. When asked to dig a grave he usually had a couple of days’ notice and it was in the open air, which he preferred; he could turn a couple of spades and stop for a smoke, and the employment, while earning him a few pence, gave him the excuse to get away from Prudie.

  It suited him to bury people. The gloom that had surrounded him all his life was lightened by observing the gloom of other folk. He was interested to watch and comment freely on the relative grief shown by two widows who he happened to know had detested their husbands anyhow. The quality or lack of quality of a coffin was something he was willing to talk of at some length in Sally Tregothnan’s kiddley – or even at home unless Prudie shut him up. Paupers’ graves and the lack of coffins was another subject that interested him. And, while many of his clients were children and young people carried off by this or that epidemic, he found a special pleasure in burying his contemporaries. He saw each one underground with relish and smacked his lips that he had outlived another of them. In his cups, the evening after the teeling, he would gladly give anyone who would listen a potted biography of the deceased, heavily weighted towards the dead man’s or woman’s misfortunes and faults. Since he had lived in the village all his life and was now one of its oldest inhabitants, he knew everyone and knew ‘about’ everyone; and as always liquor would light the fires under the pot of reminiscence so that all the past was boiled up like milk into a dimension larger than life.

  It depended on the mood of his listeners whether they appreciated him or not. Sometimes they thought him good entertainment and let him have his head; sometimes they were impatient at the very sound of his voice and shouted him down. Although he bitterly resented this, it helped to confirm his view of the injustice of the world.

  One day in September he walked to the graveyard in a special state of pessimism and annoyance because he had been thrown out of the kiddley the night before by Ed Bartle. Old Aunt Mary Rogers, keeper of the one tiny shop in Sawle, had died and Jud had had to see her safely underground. Over his rum he had snorted his disgust at Parson Odgers and what he had said at the graveside: ‘Our sister has now departed to the place prepared for innocence and virtue.’

  ‘Innocence? ’Er? Dirty ole malkin! ’Er an’ ’er pindy shop! Never a ha’penny would you get from she, never a ha’penny would she let you owe! Never a ha’penny nor the half nor the quarter. Open shop door, you would, and go in – out she’d crawl from inside blinkin’ like a want, besting ’ow to cheat you.’ Jud took another gulp. ‘An’ virtue, mind! Virtue. That d’make you laff. That made me laff till the water spouted out of me eyes. Why, ole Aunt Mary took in Wallas Bartle when she were fifty-eight and he were twenty-one, and we all d’know what used to ’appen in that there back room . . .’

  Jud had not been allowed to finish his rum for he had omitted to think that Ed and Wallas Bartle were cousins and that Ed might take exception to these remarks. Jud arrived home earlier and soberer and sorer than he had done for months.

  So the following day he was looking more than ever for reasons to complain about the injustices of the world. He bickered for a time with Prudie, but she gave him no sympathy and no quarter, so he took himself off to his playground. Aunt Mary Rogers still needed two feet of earth on her to bring her up to the common level.

  It was a pleasant day, sunny, with wisps of high cloud, and when he got there he settled with his back against a headstone which ran: ‘Penlee. Father and Mother and I, chose to be buried as under. Father and Mother lies here, and I lies buried yonder.’ T
his always appealed to his sense of humour; and it was a comfortable stone with a slight slant that fitted his back. He smoked a pipe of baccy and then had a snooze; but about midday he roused himself, picked up his spade and went to finish off Aunt Mary. And then he saw the lurcher.

  Jud had always hated dogs. He hated the noise they made, the way they walked, their wobbling tails and lolling tongues, their panting breath, their dirty habits and the places they sniffed at other dogs. Somewhere hidden in Jud – deeply hidden – was a Puritan. In his own behaviour he had no difficulty in forgetting this, but it showed in his prejudices. He thought dogs weren’t decent. Licking, snuffling, ranting, rutting, four-legged obscenities.

  And of all the dogs he disliked he disliked most the two lurchers that pestered him in this holy ground. They didn’t belong to anybody, were just running wild, and they were a proper nuisance, scratching and sniffing around, quarrelling and yelping, barking at him from a distance and ‘turding’ – as he called it – all over the place.

  Today there was just one of them – the bigger of the two – a big brindle-coloured mongrel with something of the collie in him, and he was scratching away at some soft earth near James and Daisy Ellery and their six children. And, of all things, the dog was burying a bone.

  This seemed a peculiar insult to Jud, who knew all about the bones already buried in this place and wanted no additions. And then he noticed that not only had the lurcher got his back to him but that the shape of the old gravestones just there formed a sort of cul-de-sac which might serve as a momentary prison if he could be surprised. Jud believed that all dogs should be hanged – which no doubt would be the fate of these two if they were ever caught; but catching was the difficulty. He picked up his long-handled spade – the lazy-back, as it was called – and began to creep nearer.

  The grass between the graves was rank and soft, and the breeze was blowing away from him. Almost to his own surprise he came within striking distance. As he raised his shovel high above his head the lurcher heard him. All the pent-up grievances of weeks went into Jud’s blow, but the dog had leapt up and away; he let out a pained yelp as the spade caught his flank and tail; the spade struck a stone and jolted out of Jud’s hand, and Jud overbalanced and fell.

  As he fell he saw that the bitch was there too, behind a gravestone, and suddenly the two dogs were trapped and snarling at him; then they were up over the top of him and away. Among the flying paws across his back came a nip in the seat of his trousers, and then he was sitting up dusting the earth off his bald head and shouting and cursing to high heaven.

  One of the Ellerys who were still alive, little Nigel, was the next moment startled to see emerge from the churchyard on to the track in front of him an angry and alarmed Mr Paynter who clutched the seat of his trousers and said: ‘I’ve been bit! Bit by a danged blathering whelp of a mad cur!’

  He set off towards his home – no distance – and little Nigel followed him, passing on the message in a fluting treble as he went, so that by the time the last shack was reached a dozen or so people had been gathered to escort him.

  Prudie was making tea for her cousin Tina from Marasanvose when the cavalcade arrived. Prudie made tea as often as she could afford to; the big teapot Demelza had given her was only emptied once a week, boiling water and another pinch of tea being added from time to time.

  ‘I been bit!’ Jud shouted as he entered. ‘Bit by a mad dog. Tedn right, tedn proper! Ravin’ mad twas – tongue ’anging out like twas falling off. A lurcher near so big as a pony. Knocked me down, it done, savaged me; I ’ad to fight’n off wi’ me bare ’ands!’

  ‘My ivers!’ Prudie started up, teapot in hand, put it down, glowered at Jud suspiciously, caring that he should continue to live and be a nuisance to her but knowing his capacity to make mountains. ‘What d’ye mean – bit by a mad dog? Where ee been bit? I don’t see no bites!’ She stared over his shoulder at the group who crowded in after him. ‘What mad dog? Seen a mad dog, ’ave ee?’

  They all started talking at once, explaining to her what they hadn’t seen, repeating Jud’s own words. Jud shouted them down, his two teeth showing in a snarl. ‘I been bit ’ere. Maybe other places too if the truth be known. Send for surgeon! I been bit by a mad cur! Tedn safe!’

  ‘Naow,’ said Prudie, ‘out you go, all of ee! Out you go while I see what the ’urt is. Go on. Go on. You too, Tina.’

  ‘Ais,’ said Tina.

  ‘Send for surgeon!’ shouted Jud, clutching his seat.

  ‘Now wait. ’Old yer sweat. Where you bin bit? On yer bum? Well, take yer britches down and leave me see. Bend over. Bend over this chair.’

  Grumbling, Jud did as he was told. Prudie knitted her heavy brows as she surveyed the very substantial area exposed. ‘That it?’ She prodded.

  ‘Aye! Rabies ye get, mad rabies, and phit! – yer dead. Mad curs . . .’

  The mark was a tiny nip, a little reddened rim, about an inch long, no skin broken.

  ‘Giss along, tis naught, you old dooda. Bleating like a lammy . . .’

  ‘Twas a mad cur, I tell ee! Send for surgeon!’

  Jud was straightening up but Prudie impatiently shoved his head down again.

  ‘Wait, I’ll deal wi’ ye,’ she said.

  A bundle of sticks in the grate had been lit to boil the kettle. The kettle had boiled but the sticks were still burning. She bent to the grate and took out a stick with a blazing end. With a great puff she blew out the flame and then pressed the end to Jud’s bottom.

  III

  It was the following day that Demelza walked to Sawle Church. She started off with both Jeremy and Garrick; but Garrick as usual nowadays would not venture beyond the clump of pine trees surrounding the mine of Wheal Maiden and the new meeting house. He knew the limitations of his energy, and a brief rest at the top, head on paws, would revive him sufficiently for the gentle trot down the valley home. Demelza suspected that he put on this pose as an elderly gentleman especially for their benefit, but as he was now thirteen he was entitled to his foibles.

  This time Jeremy decided to return with him, so she went on alone. It was another fine day; the miserable summer was turning into a sunny autumn, and Ross had asked her to see if Boase, the stonemason from St Ann’s, had begun to put up the granite for Agatha’s grave. She took with her a small posy of flowers to put on the grave and a half guinea for Prudie Paynter.

  When she got there she found no work had yet been begun on Agatha and no sign of Jud; but she stopped a while looking at the inscriptions in the churchyard. Ross’s father and mother and brother were there.

  Sacred to the memory of Grace Mary, beloved wife of Joshua Poldark, who departed this life on the ninth day of May, 1770; aged 30 years. Quidquid Amor Jussit, Non Est Contemnere Tutum.

  Also of Joshua Poldark, of Nampara, in the County of Cornwall, Esqr., who died on the eleventh day of March, 1783, aged 59.’

  And on a small headstone beside:

  Claude Anthony Poldark, died 9th January, 1771, in the sixth year of his age.

  Demelza took a piece of paper and a crayon she had brought in the pocket of her skirt and copied down the Latin tag. She had asked Ross what it meant but he said he had long since forgotten what little Latin he had ever learned. She felt she would like to know. All she knew of his parents was Joshua’s reputation as a young man, of his brief but happy marriage and of his returning to his old ways when his wife died. All she had ever seen of Ross’s mother was a damp-spotted miniature, of Ross’s father nothing at all; there was not even a portrait of him among the stacked pictures at Trenwith.

  This morning a letter from Hugh Armitage. Fortunately Ross had been out with Jack Cobbledick looking to a sick calf, so she had been able to slip the separate piece into her pocket before he came in. It was on the back of this that she now copied the Latin inscription.

  Hugh’s letter was on board HMS Arethusa. Although it was addressed to her it was couched in general and unexceptionable terms. ‘Dear Mistress Poldark,’ an
d ‘pray convey to your husband and my liberator my warmest greetings and friendship,’ and signed ‘believe me, Mistress Poldark, your humble and obedient servant.’ Between the lines Demelza fancied she detected a note of melancholy. It seemed a sadness more for life than for her. Perhaps most poets felt this, a grieving for the timeless tragedy of all love. Unrequited it pined away. Requited it still pined away, either from staling or when one of the other ceased to live and was thrust into the cold ground. As now. As here. Sacred to the memory of Grace Mary who died in May 1770, aged 30 years. Quidquid amor jussit . . . How did it go?

  And Hugh, it seemed, loved and must write now from sea where the harsh winds blew and England was at war. Yet his pity, one felt, was not for himself but for human kind. And his poems, whatever the distance from which he wrote them, were becoming more direct and more amatory. She took the piece of paper out and glanced around before she read it, as if the people quietly sleeping here might look over her shoulder and disapprove.

  It was quite short. The wind rustled the paper in her hand.

  If she whom I desire would stoop to love me

  I would come heart in hand

  And kneeling ask that kindly she receive me

  And deign to understand,

  That all I have is hers and hers for ever,

  For ever and a day.

  Press but her lips to mine and never

  Let love decay.