The Twisted Sword: A Novel of Cornwall 1815

by Winston Graham

  That was the best day of all. It had never been so good after, with Katie only having eyes for Saul Grieves and Grieves only having eyes for any slip or mistake or shortcoming Music might have or make. It had been sneer, sneer all the way.

  Music had never seen Ben Carter tipsy drunk before, nor never since, and his brother John had said it was because Clowance Poldark had gone off to wed that up-country sailor feller, Stephen Carrington. Crossed in love Ben had been, not just so different from Music’s own plight now. But ne’er as bad. Ne’er as bad. Music would have taken his oath Miss Clowance Poldark could never have promised to wed Ben, let alone scat it up at the last minute. Ben had got tipsy drunk all the same. Why not? Why shouldn’t he get tipsy drunk today? He’d pennies enough. He’d been saving for the marriage day, and Surgeon Enys had been generous about those shelves. And that wonderful lady whose dog him and Miss Clowance had helped to bring home in the snow last February, that wonderful lady, Lady Something, had given him more money than he had ever had before in his life.

  Rum. That was what Emma Hartnell had said Ben had been drinking all day. Music had only touched spirits three times in his life but he’d never tasted rum. Maybe ’twas the best thing to fill up a hollow heart.

  But where to get it? There was Sally Chill-Off’s, just at the head of the Combe. Emma’s the other way, past the church. A half-dozen more to choose from. But which might turn him away afore he had had his fill? They cared naught, none of ’em cared naught so long as he had the pennies and they didn’t have to chalk up his debt on the side of the bellows. Ned Hartnell was the most likely to see him away too soon. The Bounders’ Arms was a bit superior against the rest. But that was where Ben had gone. That was where Music thought he was least likely to meet the village lads. If Ned and Emma would let him he would drink himself quickly into a state where everything would be forgot.

  II

  Three hours later Ned edged him out of the side door of the inn. Music was a mite frustrated, because he had wanted to be just so far gone as Ben had been, and then Emma could’ve helped him all the way home. It would have been nice to have leaned on Emma all the way home, because she was soft and kindly and he might have got his arm around her waist even if only in the most chaste way. In fact, though he did not know it, Ned had substantially watered his rum, not wishing to have the young man snoring under his table for the next twelve hours.

  Still, he was distinctly merry and the emptiness and grief had disappeared. And he was unsteady enough for Ned to lend him a stick. And they’d been all strangers in the inn – that is from places more than a mile away, like Marasanvose and Bargus – so they’d not tormented him with jokes about the wedding.

  In the left pocket of his rough smock he carried a small flask. When he got home he reckoned if he finished that off he would sleep his way into oblivion for the rest of the day.

  Fine morning, wet evening, that’s what it was going to be. The sun had sneered its way behind some mackerel clouds, and there were heavier ones creeping up.

  Creeping up, that was the word. Something hit him on the shoulder. It was a clod of earth. He turned slowly, trying to keep his balance, and there was a titter. It was a girlish titter and after a moment or two another piece, half stone, half grass, hit him on the leg. He recognized the black tousled head of Lily Triggs. Then he saw Mary Billing and Susie Bice. Others began to appear out of the rough gorse and outcroppings of rock.

  ‘Goin’ church, Music, are ee? Can we come ’long and see the fun? Like to wed one of us, would ee, now? How ’bout Mary ’ere? She’m a fine maid, she be. Just ripe for ee! Heh! Heh! Heh!’

  He waved his stick, half in menace, half in fun and then went on. But in front of him he found five big lads barring his way. Another Bice, another Billing, and Joe Stevens, who was one of his long-term tormentors.

  ‘Let’s all go church, shall us,’ said Stevens. ‘Be ee bride or groom, Music?’ He tried to hang a lump of turf with trailing ends on Music’s head. ‘Crown ’im, crown ’im!’

  Music knocked the turf away and lost his hat. He pushed his way through the lads and went on his way. He was near the church, and was almost up to the churchyard when his arms were seized.

  It was the girls who had got hold of him – hard and noisy as the lads – but because they were women he could not very well knock them away. He struggled to be free, but his fumed head let him down and he fell. Hands grabbed him again and he was yanked to his feet. Laughing, jeering faces.

  ‘Come us on, me dears. Getten wed are ee? Set ’im down in church porch, and ye can wait for yer bride!’

  Struggling they lugged him into the churchyard and half-way to the church. Stevens tore up another hummock of grass and clumped it on his head; it stayed there while they howled with laughter. There were now a dozen or more, dancing round him, jeering at him and thumping him. He aimed a couple of swinging blows: one landed on Stevens, the other floored Mary Billing, who got in the way at the last moment.

  They didn’t dare frog-march him into the church, but Mary Billing, scrambling to her feet, screamed: ‘Put’n in the stocks! That’ll learn un. Let’n spend ’is wedden day setten in the churchyard!’

  Not far from the porch of the church was a pair of stocks and beside it a whipping post. The post was not often used but the stocks were accepted as a valuable corrective for the minor miscreant.

  Struggling and wriggling and dizzy with drink, Music was hauled towards the stocks; he would have been a handful to force into them, but at the wrong moment Mary Billing charged him head down like a bull and knocked all the wind out of him. By the time he began to get it back his ankles were secured, and then it was only a bit more struggling before his arms were fixed into the appropriate holes.

  The lads and the girls – six of one and nine of the other – now stood back and looked at their victim. They screamed with laughter, disturbing the rooks overhead. It was the best joke they’d had for years, and into it came a half-realized resentment against the village fool who had striven to shake off his image. While he had been ready to play the idiot, singing alto at the head of any procession they got up, capering like a loon on the balls of his feet, ready to be laughed at because it was the only claim he would ever have to notoriety, he was a popular figure. But these last two years the fun had gone out of him; except for church he wouldn’t sing at all; he had begun walking more or less ordinary; he’d put on a few airs, trying to distance himself from his old reputation; and all this had come to a head by him having the cheek to think he could wed a capable girl like Ben Carter’s sister. Now she’d jilted him and good luck to her; that’d learn him. And this’d learn him too.

  Of all people it was Susie Bice who threw the first handful of gravel at him. The Bices were not a nice family – shiftless and ailing and far from honest – but Susie had always been thought to be the best of a poor lot. It is doubtful now if she thought to start anything serious, but that was how it began. One after another the group began to pick up anything they could find in the churchyard and pelt Music with it.

  Then Joe Stevens said: ‘Nay, let’s play fair. Let’s draw a line, see. No one afore that line. No cheaten. We tak it from this yur line, see who scores a hit. See—’

  ‘Stick a pipe in ’is mouth!’ screamed Mary Billing excitedly. ‘Make ’im into an Aunt Sally!’

  ‘Nay, he’d never ‘old un. Leave’n be.’

  ‘Nay, let’s dress im all golden like wi’ gorse prickles, ready for ’is wedden.’

  But Stevens and Bert Bice had no time for frills. They had drawn their line and were beginning to aim. And the one thing available was just beneath a headstone to old Dr Choake. The grave was covered with grey pebbles.

  III

  The Warleggans – Valentine and Selina, that is – had engaged a housekeeper called Mrs Alice Treffrey to take charge of Place House while they were in Cambridge. Mrs Treffrey came as senior parlourmaid from Tehidy, with the highest references, and there was not likely to be a repeat of Saul
Grieves’s misbehaviour. Because she was new to the job she did not notice the absence of the stableman; but others did. Katie – whose waistline had by now almost resumed its normal dimensions – could not get away until well on into the afternoon; then she went in search of him. She thought it might be his ‘purty chets’ that were keeping him. Or, the day being what it was, he might just be sulking. Anyway there was no call for him to lose his job: she would soon root him out, knock some sense into him.

  The cottage was empty. Even the cats were not to be seen, though when she went out of the back door she thought she spotted a vanishing tail. She went through and out to the front. In the next cottage were the formidable Paynters, and Prudie was leaning over the wall.

  ‘Looking for lover?’ she asked with a leer.

  Katie caught a glimpse through the open door of the lamentable Jud filling his pipe.

  ‘I be seeking Music, if that’s what ye d’mean.’

  ‘He be gone that way,’ said Prudie with a sweep of a fat wobbly arm.

  The sweep covered an area of about a quarter of the compass, but there were virtually only two tracks leading in that general direction: one towards the ruined engine house of Grambler and thence to Nampara, the other to the church. Katie chose the church, and very soon heard excited cries and whoops from inside the lych gate. A few strides inside and she came on a group of lads and girls, in their late teens and early twenties, excitedly, hysterically egging each other on to stone her ci-devant fiancé imprisoned in the stocks. There had been a number of good hits and blood was running down his face. He was struggling to get out.

  Not far from this scene was an open grave, ready dug but not yet occupied. Beside the mound of clay and stones (some of the stone bearing unmistakable gleams of mineral) was the shovel Jan Triggs, the present sexton, had been using. It was a type known as a ‘lazy back’, having a long handle and a heart-shaped blade. Katie picked it up, twisted it round in her hands to get a firm grip, walked back and knocked Joe Stevens unconscious with a tremendous swing to the head. Then she swung back the other way and caught Bert Bice in the chest, breaking two of his ribs. Mary Billing just dodged a blow that would almost have decapitated her, and the rest simply dropped the stones and fled.

  Katie flung the shovel aside and went up to the stocks. Music blinked up through the blood at his new tormentor.

  ‘Get out o’ thur, ye great drunken fool!’ she shouted in a fine temper. ‘Cor, I can catch your breath a mile away—’

  ‘Katie, I done me bestest—’

  ‘Bestest, is it, an? My dear soul, I’d dearly not wish to know your worst! Come us on, come us on!…’

  She lifted the wooden frame and helped him out of the stocks. A stray stone hit the woodwork as she did so, but she looked up with a glare so fierce no more followed. Two youths were kneeling beside Joe Stevens, who was stretched out on the grass just beginning to groan. Bert Bice was being helped away, holding his chest.

  Free of the stocks, Music fell back on the grass and then made an effort to struggle to his feet.

  ‘Lay still, ye gurt fool! Blinded your eyes, ‘ave they? I’ll see the magistrates ‘bout that; have ’em up—’

  ‘Nay, Katie, I can see well ‘nough. ’Tis only the blood from these yur cuts on me ’ead. See.’ He smeared his face with the back of his hand and blinked up apologetically at her. He might still smell strongly of rum, but his ordeal had gone a way to sobering him up.

  Katie took off her yellow kerchief and began to wipe his face. It emerged through the blood and the dirt.

  ‘Stinking great labbats,’ she said, stopping to glare behind her. Two lads were half helping, half carrying Joe Stevens out of the danger zone. Presently they were all gone. She stood hands on hips staring belligerently around her, then turned her attention to the wounded man.

  ‘Get on up, can ee?’ She helped him to his feet. He lurched against her, then straightened, himself. ‘Come us on; I’ll put ee home.’

  It was not a long way – nothing to the distance Music had aided Ben to walk on a previous occasion. They reached the cottage. Luckily Prudie had gone in, and all the people in the cottage on the other side were at work. It was beginning to rain.

  ‘Ye gurt fool,’ said Katie again. ‘What d’ ye want to go get drunk for? Sit down!’ she commanded. ‘I’ll get ee a dish of water to bathe off your face. And I’ll boil a pan – make ee some tay. Not as I’d not be above one myself!’ Her own hands were trembling with the spent anger.

  She brought him a bowl and then while he dabbed at himself she lit the fire with some shavings and pieces of driftwood.

  She sat back on her heels, looking at the fire. ‘My, don’t it draw!’

  When she had come back from the pump for a second time with water to make the tea, she glanced at Music who had finished dabbing and was drying his face on a duster.

  ‘That won’t do! That’s a halfy job. ‘Ere, take yer shirt off. And yer breeches. You’re all caked and cabby.’

  He reluctantly removed his shirt and she looked at the muscles rippling in his arms.

  ‘My, what a gurt man ye are! Look, I reckon Surgeon Enys should tend this wound in yer ’ead. ’Tis gaping like a little mouth.’

  ‘’Tis narthing, Katie. Reelly. I’ll go Irby’s and he’ll put some salve on it.’

  ‘We’ll see ‘bout that. Now yer breeches.’

  Music looked at her sidelong. ‘Cain’t do tha-at. I got no slights on.’

  ‘Well, land sakes, ‘fraid o’ me seeing something, are ee? Giss along. ‘Ere – this cloth’ll do. Draw off yer breeches and wrap’n round like a skirt. ‘Ere, I’ll tak yer boots off. If ye bend too far ’twill open up the bleeding.’

  So presently he was sitting with a piece of old tablecloth round his middle and a potato sack over his shoulders while she made the tea. There were two clean cups he’d bought for the wedding and a half jug of milk the cats had not been able to get at.

  They sat there in silence for a few minutes, drinking the hot tea. It was raining heavily now and a rising wind beat the rain against the coloured window panes.

  ‘Them Bices, them Billings,’ said Katie, ‘they should be learned a lesson.’

  ‘Reckon they ’ave been,’ said Music with a half-giggle. ‘An’ Joe Stevens. He’s always one in the lead.’

  ‘Ah. Well, I’ve give ’im a sore ’ead.’

  ‘I’ll mind it fur a long time,’ said Music, sipping at his tea. ‘I’ll mind it fur a long time. You thur striking of ’em, this way, that way, they went down like ninepins.’ He relished the phrase. ‘Just like ninepins.’

  Katie poured out more tea, stirred each cup with the one wooden spoon. ‘I’d best be getting back. Else they’ll think I’ve fell down a shaft. I’ll tell ’em ye met wi’ an accident. Mind you come first thing tomorrow.’

  ‘Ais. Oh ais, I will that. I will that, Katie.’

  ‘Not that Mrs Treffrey will scold. She’m easy-going for time so long as the work d’get done.’

  ‘I’ll be there, Katie, sure ‘nough.’

  Katie looked at him. You’re a fine figure, ain’t you? Gotten more clothes upstairs, ‘ave ee?’

  ‘No. Well … I’ve a jacket and breeches ‘anging on the wall, but that’s for Sunday.’

  Katie went up and fetched them. She held them up for inspection and dropped them on the table. ‘Let’s look at yer ’ead.’

  She examined him again. You should see Surgeon for that. It d’keep welling up. Aside from that…’

  ‘Ais, Katie.’ He smiled at her.

  She stared at him again. ‘Reckon if I’d wed you you’d ’ve drove me mad.’

  ‘Stay a space longer,’ urged Music. ‘Look at’n. ’Tis enting down.’

  ‘Put yer clothes on, then,’ said Katie. You’ll catch yer death.’

  He dragged off into the scullery and presently emerged in his Sunday best. His face was a mess, three bruises and two cuts, but his eyes clear again, at their most dazed blue.

  ‘Recko
n ye need someone to look for you,’ said Katie contemptuously. ‘You’re as fazy as yer cats.’

  ‘No,’ said Music.

  The firmness of his voice surprised her. It was the first time he had contradicted her.

  ‘I want to look for you,’ said Music. ‘All the time – from daystrike to nightgleam. Tha’s what I allus wanted for to do. All the time. ’Tis still what I want for to do.’ An extra flurry of rain lashed on the glass.

  ‘You reckon that, do you?’ said Katie.

  ‘Yes, I do.’

  Katie thought for a long time.

  ‘You’d drive me mad,’ she eventually said.

  A smile cracked his battered face. ‘Nay, Katie, I wouldn’t. Honest I wouldn’t.’

  Chapter Twelve

  On Friday, the 13th October Stephen was brighter than he had been for several days, and he seemed no longer in pain. He talked a lot to Clowance, though it was not always coherent.

  ‘I’ve come a long way with you already,’ he said, ‘and there’s big plans for next year and the year after. I been thinking them over all this time I’ve been laid up. For you and Jason and the Carrington line. I shall build another vessel, that’s what I shall do, one to me own specifications, give the Lady Clowance over to Jason. Now the war’s really over it looks as if we shall have peace in our lifetime, so we must bend our ways to make the best of peace. Peaceful trade’s profitable if you get in when the tide’s making, before your rivals. Great thing is not to work for other folk but to work for yourself. Then ye don’t get paid per week – per month – ye get what ye’ve earned and it goes into no one else’s pocket. I’m thinking to start a Joint Stock Company.’