The Stranger from the Sea: A Novel of Cornwall, 1810-1811

by Winston Graham

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Jeremy, satisfied with progress so far. ‘That’s the order of things.’

  Ross frowned at the rising wind and perhaps a little also at his son’s tone of voice. ‘We’ve stopped your gardening, my dear.’

  ‘Oh, I shall go on for a little bit yet.’

  ‘I’ll help you,’ said Jeremy.

  ‘Well, you can try to pull that stroil out from among the fuchsia,’ said Demelza. ‘It’s a horrid job and it hurts my fingers…’ She looked up, pushing away her hair again. ‘D’you think George really would sell his interest, Ross?’

  They stared at each other. ‘It’s possible now,’ he said. ‘We might even get it at a bargain price.’

  ‘And that,’ Demelza said, ‘would not be playing Caiaphas.’

  ‘Well, I shall be seeing John Treneglos on Friday. We’ll talk it over then.’

  When Ross had gone in Jeremy said: ‘You two have a secret language which defeats me even yet. Damn it, what was this supposed to mean – this biblical thing? It was Caiaphas you said?’

  ‘Never mind,’ said his mother. ‘Sometimes it is more proper to be obscure…’

  ‘Especially in front of your children … Mother.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I would like to be away next Saturday night.’

  ‘Not for the Scillies again?’

  ‘No. Though it springs from that. The Trevanions – who were so kind when I landed near their house – are giving a small party on Saturday evening and have invited me to spend the night there.’

  ‘How nice … They did not invite Clowance?’

  ‘No … I’m not sure if they know I have a sister.’

  ‘Inform them sometime. She needs taking out of herself.’

  ‘Yes, I know. I’m sorry. But – well – perhaps I could ask one of them – Miss Cuby Trevanion – to spend a night here sometime towards the end of the month? As we had no party at Christmas, with Father being away, it wouldn’t come amiss to have one now. I don’t mean a big one. Perhaps a dozen or fifteen?’

  ‘Easter is early this year. We might do something as soon as Lent is over. Have you met Miss Trevanion’s parents?’

  ‘Her father’s been dead a long time. I’ve met her mother. Her brother – her elder brother, Major John Trevanion, that is – was away when I was there last. He is head of the family; but he has lost his wife recently, very young. Another brother, Captain George Bettesworth, was killed in Holland. There’s a third brother, Augustus, whom I also haven’t yet met, and another sister, Clemency.’

  Demelza sat back on her heels and watched him tugging absent-mindedly at the couch grass. ‘I would not have expected them to be party-spirited at such a time.’

  ‘Oh, it is a music party. Clemency plays the harpsichord, and I believe some neighbours are coming in.’

  ‘Does Cuby play?’

  He looked up, flushing again. ‘No. She sings a little.’

  ‘That’s nice,’ said Demelza. ‘Please tell her I would much like to meet her.’

  She knew now what had been wrong – or what had been right – with Jeremy these last few weeks. He had been striding about, acting as if galvanized by one of those electric charges one read about in the newspaper. Also – wasn’t it true? – she fancied she had heard him shouting out at the top of his voice just now with Isabella-Rose on the beach. Did not Miss Cuby Trevanion explain everything?

  Chapter Seven

  I

  The girl with the face like a new-opened ox-eye daisy, as her mother had once described it, was not being quite so open with her family as her reputation suggested. On Friday, having seen young Lobb – son of old Lobb – riding down the valley with the post, she had intercepted him, not for the first time, to ask if there were any letters for her. And on this occasion there had been.

  Having opened her letter and read it, she had not announced at dinner – as she well could have done – that she had just received a note from Stephen Carrington. After all, everyone at the table would have been interested to hear. Instead she had slipped it into the pocket of her skirt, buried it with a handkerchief, and mentioned it not at all.

  Miss Clowance, dear Clowance, [it ran]

  You will have wondered what has become of me. Since we was near caught by the Preventive men and I wonder even now if Jeremy escaped safe, I have bin most of this time in Bristow. There was trouble with my lugger Phillipe because they said I had no right to my prize or could not pruve my right. So I am still in Bristow in Argument and trouble over this. I am sartin I shall not give way for no one has a better Right than me to the prize Money. When tis settled I shall come back to Nampara where my own love is. Miss Clowance I put the tips of my fingers on your cool skin. I beg to remane respectfully Yours.

  Stephen Carrington.

  A strange letter from a strange man. Imagine her father getting hold of it! Clowance was lost in cross-currents of feeling. But a darker one than all the others moved in that stream.

  By the following day, which was the Saturday Jeremy was going to Caerhays, Clowance knew the letter by heart. She repeated some of the phrases over to herself as she walked towards Sawle through the damp misty sunlight with comforts for the Paynters. ‘Back to Nampara where my own love is.’ ‘Where my own love is.’ ‘My own love.’ ‘Miss Clowance, I put the tips of my fingers.’ ‘Miss Clowance, dear Clowance.’ ‘I put the tips of my fingers on your cool skin.’ ‘Back to Nampara.’ ‘Back to Nampara where my own love is.’

  As she came near to the first shabby cottage in Grambler village she gave her head a defiant shake, almost unseating the pink straw hat she was wearing. It was a motion more suitable to a swimmer coming up through a wave than to the young lady of the manor out on a charitable visit. But that, to Clowance, was what it amounted to, a shrugging away, a throwing off, of some dark beast that clutched at her vitals and made her blood run thick, her heart pulsate. For the moment let it be forgotten. ‘Back to Nampara where my own love is.’

  She saw that Jud Paynter had been put out to air. Put out was a literal fact these days, for at the age of about seventy-eight he had become almost immobile. Prudie, a mere girl ten years his junior, was still active, if activity could ever have been called a characteristic of hers. She was now totally in charge, for Jud could only totter a few steps with a stick, clinging fiercely to her arm. He had lost weight in the body, but his face had become fuller, as it swelled with age and rage and inebriety. Today, it being still March though very mild, he was wrapped in so many old sacks that he looked like a bull frog sitting on a stone. Clowance was relieved to see him out of doors because with luck her business might be concluded there and she would be saved the need to go inside where the smells were strong. Jud spat as she came up and stared at her with bloodshot eyes, half concealed among a pie-crust of wrinkles.

  ‘Miss Clowance, now. Where’s yer mammy today, an? Reckon as she’s becoming tired of we. Reckon as she’s thought to give us the by-go. Not surprised. When ye get nashed and allish, that’s when ye d’come to know yer friends…’

  ‘I’ve brought you some cakes, Jud,’ Clowance said cheerfully. ‘And a drop of toddy. And one or two things for Prudie.’

  The sound of voices had penetrated the open door, for Prudie came out, wiping her hands on her filthy apron and all smiles, followed by a duck which trailed eight tiny ducklings behind her.

  ‘So they’ve hatched!’ exclaimed Clowance. ‘All safe? When?’

  ‘Ah, twas some time we ’ad wi’ ’em. Nosy didn’ have ’nough feathers to cover ’em all. She were restless as a whitneck, turning back and forth. So seems me if she was to hatch all eight twer fitty she should be ’elped. So I hatched three myself.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Down ‘ere.’ Prudie pointed at her fat bosom. ‘Kep t’em thur night and day, night and day. Twer not uncomfortable day times, but night I was feared I should overlay them.’

  ‘Proper Johnny Fortnight she looked,’ Jud said. ‘And what ‘bout me? What �
��bout me? She paid scant ‘eed. Never a moment but what she wur thinking of her eggs. “Cann’t do that there,” she’d say, “else I’ll crush me eggs.” “Don’t shake me when I help ee up, else ye’ll shake me eggs.” “Cann’t go out today, cos I’ve got to sit wi’ me eggs.” Great purgy!’

  Prudie said: ‘I wish ye’d been buried in a stone box and put away alive; that’s what did oughter’ve been done to ee, twenty year agone when you almost was! Come inside, Miss Clowance, and I’ll make ee a dish o’ tay.’

  ‘I’m going on to Pally’s Shop,’ said Clowance. ‘But thank you.’

  ‘And look at ’em now they’m hatched!’ Jud went on. ‘Squirty little things. Hens an’t so durty. Hens ye can live with. Hens drop their droppings like a gentleman, like you’d expect. Ducks squirt. Look at our kitchen floor already, lampered all over wi duck squirtings!’

  ‘Hold thi clack!’ said Prudie, getting annoyed. ‘Else I’ll leave ee there to freeze when the sun d’go down. Miss Clowance ‘ave better things to do than to listen to ee grumbling away!’

  ‘Tedn right,’ shouted Jud. ‘Tedn proper. Tedn fitty. All them ducks squirting anywhere where they’ve the mind to squirt. Tedn decent!’

  The two women, to his consuming annoyance, walked out of hearing, where Clowance handed Prudie the halfsovereign Demelza had sent. Prudie as usual was so pleased, already translating it into quarts of gin, that she accompanied Miss Poldark a little way down the track through the village, making comments on life as she went.

  Chief targets were her immediate neighbours, the three brothers Thomas, who had not only committed the crime of coming to Sawle from Porthtowan a few years ago but had compounded it by closing down the gin shop that had always been there, since they were teetotallers and Wesleyans. However, their religion and their abstention from strong drink did not excuse their sinfulness in other ways, particularly, according to Prudie, their common lechery.

  Every day of his life John, the eldest, whose name often evoked ribald comment, visited Winky Mitchell in her cottage on the other side of Sawle: regular as a clock when he was not at sea, five of an evening, tramp the moorland, regular as a clock home he came at ten. What went on there didn’t bear thinking of, for Winky Mitchell, who had an affection of one eye and a deaf and bed-ridden husband, was known for her shameless wanton ways. As for Art Thomas, he was paying an outrageous courtship to Aunt Edie Permewan, who was thirty years olderer than him and as fat and round as a saffron bun. Of course everyone knew what he was about, for with no children to carry on the tanner’s business since Joe died, a strong young man was just what was needed to pull it together again. Twould not be that bad except Art was known to be lickerish after girls; and who thought if he wed Aunt Edie he’d be content with what she had to offer? As for Music Thomas, the youngest, who was a stable boy at Place House, Prudie considered him the most dangerous of the three, because he hadn’t ever actually been caught doing anything. But to be eighteen and still singing treble in the choir, and to walk on tiptoe all the time as if he was a fly …

  ‘Some folk,’ said Prudie, scratching, ‘d’think he’s a Peeping Tom. Let’n be catched is all I d’say and he’d be tarred and feathered afore you could say knife!’

  So it continued until, complaining of her feet, Prudie turned and slopped her way home. Clowance went on, aware that Prudie’s mutterings only lit up a few dark corners of scandal in the village. As for most, she knew it already. Though she lived away from them, distant at Nampara, the villagers were too close not to be personally known. Captain Poldark – though a landed gentleman and now, with Trenwith empty, the only squire around – had always been on closer terms than normal. It could have happened that his wife – a miner’s daughter – might have sought to create a greater distance between them so that there should be no risk of presumption; in fact it hadn’t happened that way. That one of her brothers was the local preacher and had married a girl from Sawle only served to reaffirm the peculiar friendly relationship.

  Clowance knew them all. Next to the Thomases was the elderly Miss Prout – about whom Prudie darkly muttered: ‘Her mother was Miss Prout, and her mother was Miss Prout’ – a large loose jolly woman with no teeth. Then a brood of Triggs, tumbling over each other in the rags and the dirt. At the pump two girls drawing water and giggling, Annie Coad and Nell Rowe, one pock-marked and thin, the other with the wide hips and short legs of a farmer’s daughter. They smiled and half curtsied and whispered together as she passed. On the opposite side Jane Bottrell was standing at the doorway (sister-in-law of Ned) with ragged black curls, eccentric eyebrows and big yellow teeth – her husband had died in a smuggling venture; of five children one survived and worked at Wheal Grace. No one stirred in the next cottage though everyone knew it was full of Billings. Further on came the Stevenses, the Bices, Permewan’s tannery, the field with the goats straggling up to the first empty buildings of Grambler mine. Other cottages were dotted about. Clowance knew them all: she knew the smell of the place, goats and pigs here instead of the rotting fish of Sawle; and of course the open catchpits that emitted wafts offensive to all but the strongest nose. Fortunately, for nine days in ten, a cool clean wind blew.

  It was in this village Stephen Carrington had made his home after leaving Nampara; the Nanfan cottage was a bit further on, near the village pond. After years the Thomases were still looked on with suspicion by Prudie and her like, yet Stephen Carrington had been accepted with good grace. Of course he was different; a sailor saved from drowning and recuperating here, not expected to stay and make his home, so arousing sympathy and kindness, not assessment and wariness. He had soon come to be on drinking terms with the men and – possibly – on flirting terms with the women. She had heard whispers. But no village could exist without whispers. What if he came back and really made his home here? How would they take it then? And how would she take it? Her skin crawled at the thought. Quite clearly from his letter he was coming back.

  II

  Jeremy left a bit later riding Hollyhock, the little mare Demelza and Sam had bought one day in Truro, and taking with him the pony he had been loaned. He went via Marasanvose, Zelah, St Allen and St Erme, crossing the main turnpike road from Truro to St Austell at Tregony and then riding down the leafy lanes and tracks towards the southern sea.

  It was a cobwebby day: after heavy rain very mild with smears of mist and sun, the whole countryside beautifully, wonderfully damp, with pools of clear water and rushing soaking streams. Everywhere the bare twigs of trees and shrubs were festooned in cobwebs picked out in molecules of shining water. Demelza always said the spiders had a bad time when it was like this because no fly would be stupid enough to blunder into nets so plain for everyone to see.

  She walked a way up the valley with Jeremy, as far as Wheal Maiden and the Meeting House, wishing as long as possible to share in his excitement and pleasure. Though knowing she was no part of it, she savoured seeing him so vitalized, so tense, so ready to be irritable or to be jolly at the least thing. Not like her Jeremy at all, who, though high-strung in childhood and prone to every minor ailment, had developed into this light-weight young man who seemed to prefer to observe life rather than get involved in it.

  From the top of the hill she watched him go. Well, now for better or worse he was involved. The agony and the joy. She only hoped Miss Cuby would be worthy of him. She hoped too she would be kind. Girls could so easily cut deep with their sharp little knives, often not even meaning to. At such a time one was so vulnerable. What did Ross think of it all? He said little unless probed. His elder daughter who had half lost her heart to a handsome sailor of dubious character, and who almost concurrently was considering an interest shown in her by Lord Edward Fitzmaurice – a letter from him had just arrived. His son riding away to see his first girl; in his case a very eligible girl with a beautiful home and an ancient ancestry. It was all happening at the same time. Perhaps that was how it always was: two children, the younger, being a girl, more grown up, so both in the sam
e year coming to sudden maturity and all the travail that that was likely to involve.

  As Jeremy’s figure dwindled into the distance and then disappeared around a turn in the ground Demelza looked towards Grambler and saw her daughter returning with her aunt. Demelza’s sister-in-law was leading a young bull calf by a cord round its neck and nose, and Clowance was bringing up the rear, giving the calf a friendly shove when it chose to be obstinate, as it frequently did.

  Years ago when it seemed that her brother Drake was breaking his heart over his lost Morwenna, who was hideously and irrevocably married to the Reverend Osborne Whitworth, Demelza had thought to save him by introducing him to the pretty young Rosina Hoblyn, the surprisingly intelligent and refined daughter of Jacka. Drake had presently agreed to marry Rosina, but an accident to Mr Whitworth had intervened, sadly for Rosina but in the end joyfully for Drake, and the planned wedding had never taken place. After the break-up Demelza had continued to befriend Rosina but had studiously avoided putting her into social contact with Sam, her other brother, who was smarting under a broken love-affair of his own. Enough was enough. Matchmakers could be a danger to the community. She had burned her fingers.

  Sam, indeed, with Salvation to sustain him, went joyfully on his way, without an apparent thought for any other woman than his lost Emma (and precious few one would imagine for her). When Drake and Morwenna moved to Looe, Drake to take over management of Ross’s boatbuilding yard, Ross had offered Pally’s Shop to Sam. Sam had prayed about it and refused. His flock was centred round Nampara, Mellin and Sawle, the Meeting House on Poldark land. It would take him too far away. Better to remain a humble miner, not become a tradesman, putting himself in a superior position to most of his Society. Apart from which, he was no wheelwright and none too smart a carpenter.