‘He looked ill when he spoke last in the House.’
‘I believe his romance has f-foundered. He hoped to marry Miss Eden but the matter has gone awry. Some say he was so short of money that he lacked the courage to put the question. Well . . . sometimes integrity can exact too high a price. A man who has been first minister of this country for so many years . . .’
‘Ireland is a terrible trouble,’ Ross said. What a story! Persecution, insurrection, conspiracy, betrayal. There’s no end to it.’
‘And in the meantime I wonder where General Buonaparte has gone.’
‘To the East probably.’
‘But where east? Egypt?’
‘It is possible. He must have his eyes on India.’
‘Ross, are you sorry you have chosen to represent Truro?’
Ross frowned. ‘Not sorry. Not yet. But – restive.’
‘Have you ever been anything else?’
‘Well . . . the needs of mankind are so great, the process of satisfying them so slow. I mean, of course, the fundamental needs – even while we are fighting a war for our very existence. The days are ending, I think, Harris, when nation fought nation without involving the mass of the people. Now, especially since Carnot, war is a word which involves everyone. England, all of us, are fighting France, all of them, so it is more than ever important that the poor and the dispossessed should feel they are no longer forgotten and unregarded. They are just as much a part of England as the noblemen and the mercantile houses.’
Harris looked at the colour of the wine in his glass. ‘Produce of France,’ he said. ‘Once we saw them as a nation of benighted papists. Now we see them as revolutionary atheists. I wonder at heart how far they are different from us. Were you able to obtain any silver change in Truro this morning?’
‘None. None at all.’
‘People have started hoarding it. One cannot keep pace. Have you seen these – Spanish dollars, taken as prizes, reissued at the Mint with our own King’s head stamped over the other?’
‘They offered me such but I refused.’
‘No need. They are legal tender. At four shillings and ninepence each. But I suspect they will disappear like all the rest. Do you suppose your mine will dry up in its riches as quickly as it began?’
Ross smiled. ‘I see you keep well informed. We shall be rich for a year or two yet, and maybe much longer. The north is a keenly lode and hardly yet explored. I’ve also ordered a resumption of work in the direction of Wheal Maiden.’
‘You have a 1-large balance with us at the moment, Ross: close on £4,000. Have you thought of putting some away in Consols? They were back to 71 last week.’
‘It’s an agreeable feeling to have it all readily available in your bank. I’m looking for something else in which I can take an interest, like Blewett’s shipyard at Looe; like the Daniell furnaces. The more I spread my interests, the more insulated I am against the vagaries of Wheal Grace.’
‘Now that you are a member of Parliament your name will carry weight. Oh, don’t pull a face, it’s true whether you like it or not. There will be men looking to add your name to theirs in many enterprises.’
Ross said: ‘I shall be like a rich heiress – suspecting the intentions of my suitors . . . Seriously, Harris, is all well with my cousin?’
‘Who? St John Peter?’ Pascoe shrugged. ‘He leads my daughter a dance.’
‘The young fool. I’d like to knock his head in. What can one do with such people?’
‘Wait perhaps until they grow into old fools. Joan says very little, but one hears reports.’
‘Does he still bank with the Warleggans?’
‘Yes. But he has hardly touched Joan’s money. He must have some personal arrangement with them. I don’t know of its nature.’
Ross grunted in some discomfort. ‘I wish I had influence with him. But sweet reason has never been his strong point. I wonder about his father, whether I might have a word with him.’
‘I don’t think it would have any good outcome. St John always speaks of his father in the most disrespectful terms.’
Ross grunted again, and silence fell. ‘Talking of the Warleggans . . .’
‘Were we?’
‘In a fashion. Happily I have seen nothing of George as yet. I suppose he is in Truro?’
‘Oh, yes. They all are. George, I believe, is in tbe process of buying himself back into Parliament.’
‘The devil . . . With Basset’s help?’
‘No, no. George has been buying burgage property in St Michael from Sir Christopher Hawkins. I have no details, but I gather a substantial number of properties are likely to change hands.’
‘That may give him an interest in a borough, but surely there are sitting members?’
‘Yes; a man called Wilbraham, and a Captain Howell. Warleggan hopes no doubt to persuade one or the other of them to resign. It’s not impossible if the money is right.’
Ross stretched his legs. ‘I must go, Harris. Why will you never come to see us? It is the same distance either way.’
‘I have to be here most days,’ said Pascoe. ‘None of my partners is active, and I had hoped, as you know, that Joan’s husband might have come in in an active capacity, but, as you also know, he looks on banking as usury and will have no part of it.’
They went downstairs. The bank was busy with market-day customers. Pascoe opened the side door.
‘George,’ said Ross, bending his head to go through. ‘Could he not find less expensive ways of gaining a seat?’
‘Oh, yes. But what he hopes no doubt in the end is to control both seats at St Michael. Then, who knows, he might spread his fingers further. With seats to put at the government’s disposal, he would be in a strong position to ask for favours in return. While Pitt is so scrupulous in his personal life, he has no hesitation in buying support for his policies.’
‘Say no more,’ Ross commented. ‘I have a queasy stomach.’
II
So it came that he met Dwight and they jogged home together in the wind and an occasional flurry of mist. June had been a damp month. The sun had got permanently lost in a southwesterly air current that blew before it unending canopies of cloud. Demelza had wanted to know where it all came from. Did somebody manufacture it, she asked, just over the horizon?
So perhaps in this tiring weather it was not surprising that Dwight should seem quieter even than ever, more withdrawn. Ross minded it not at all: the soft air was so fresh after the stinks of London. He needed sun for his hay and drier winds to keep the blight off his potatoes, but he was not in a mood to complain of that.
Presently Dwight said: ‘All is well between you and Demelza now?’
‘What? Should it not be?’
‘Well, Ross, I am your closest friend, aside from being your doctor, so I ventured to ask, knowing there had been – a few difficult times last year. It’s not my wish to intrude.’
Ross checked his horse. ‘If by difficult times you mean Demelza’s passion for Lieutenant Armitage, then yes, I grant you, they were difficult. What do you do about a young man, a brave one, in many ways an admirable one, but sick – and as it turned out mortal sick – who attempts – and succeeds or fails, I know not – to make a cuckold of you? And what do you do about a wife whose loyalty has hitherto been absolute, and you see her like a sapling blown in a hurricane, bowing to the ground, perhaps uprooted by it?’
‘Oh . . . I’m not sure if—’
‘But perhaps you know more than I? Caroline was Demelza’s only confidante.’
Dwight smiled and pulled his hat on more firmly. ‘We are all very close to each other, Ross. It is a very peculiar relationship. Sometimes I think you know Caroline better than I do. In that case, do you suppose for one moment that any confidence Demelza made to her would ever be passed on to me?’
Ross nodded. ‘. . . You have to face the fact, Dwight, that a jealous man is a suspicious one.’
‘Armitage is dead. Whatever it was, however little or how
ever great, it is over. There can be nothing now. Hold what you’ve got, Ross. You’re so lucky. Above all forget. If you let it fester . . .’
‘D’you know, in spite of everything – for many people think we are the most devoted couple – my relationship with Demelza has never been anything but a fiery one. In eleven years we have survived many storms – most of them, perhaps, of my making. Now we must try to survive one of hers.’
‘Which is always harder.’
‘To be sinned against rather than sinning? Of course. Put in those terms it makes me ashamed. But you are not dealing always with the rational emotions. Feelings spring from the depths of one’s entrails – to master those when they come needs a control, an iron control of one’s tongue, one’s eyes, one’s very thoughts . . .’
They were near now where their roads separated, Dwight to fork left towards the declivity in which stood John Jonas’s Mill, with four cottages on the rise beyond and the finger of a worked-out mine pointing to the sky; thence a mile of moorland to Killewarren; Ross straight on to Bargus Crosslanes and past it to Grambler and Nampara.
Ross said: ‘We are talking of my problems, Dwight. I think we have not yet dealt fully with yours.’
‘Why d’you say that?’
‘You said, “You’re so lucky.” While acknowledging it as the truth I sense some extra meaning.’
‘Oh, I think I meant as compared with the most of my patients that I see, rich and poor. They’re a sorry lot and make me feel health is the first condition of life. Without it – nothing.’
‘Well, I assume since they are your patients they are likely to be ailing to call you in. I confess I meet a number of healthy people about. Of course it is a prime essential; and those who have it don’t appreciate it until it is lost. But this seems to have a personal implication. Hasn’t it? You’ve told me you’re not unwell yourself. There’s a darkness of spirit in you, Dwight.’
They had both checked their horses at the fork in the path. Ross’s Sheridan was restless and anxious to be home.
Dwight said: ‘Sometime perhaps we can talk of it.’
‘I have no appointment. Let us get down for a minute. Is there some way I can help?’
‘No . . .’ Dwight patted his horse’s neck. ‘There’s no need to get down. It can be said in a few words, if you wish it. Sarah will not live.’
Ross stared at him. ‘What?’
‘Have you observed that the child has a slight bluish tinge to the lips? It is little noticeable but, being a surgeon as well as a father, I noticed it. She has been born with a congenital defect of the heart. A murmuration. Perhaps even a perforation – that I don’t know – one cannot be sure.’
‘My God,’ said Ross. ‘My God. My God!’
Dwight narrowed his eyes and stared at the colourless day. ‘When one sees, as I do, hundreds of children brought into the world in poverty and squalor and deprivation, many of them attended by some clumsy midwife who mishandles the mother, bites the cord with her teeth and gives the child a drop of gin to keep it quiet, and they all, or almost all, in the first place, in the first months of life, whatever happens later, they almost all are perfect in every way, it is very strange to contemplate the paradox of a rich child, attended by her own father and brought up with all the care and attention of a princess, that such a child should be flawed, and flawed in a way that it is beyond the skill of man to cure.’
It was a long speech, and it came out so quickly that Ross realized his friend had had these words, or similar, in his mind night and day over the past months.
‘Dwight, I don’t know what to say. I suppose . . . Caroline doesn’t know?’
‘No. I can’t tell her. I have thought of every way. Of trying to break the news gently – even of writing. It’s impossible. It must take its course.’
Ross caught at his reins harshly to keep Sheridan quiet. The horse shook its head and a drip of foam fell from its mouth.
Dwight said: ‘You mustn’t tell Demelza. Not that she would say anything, but she could not keep it out of her face.’
‘Dwight, this is the worst thing that has happened to us – to us as a quartet – since Julia died. But – forgive me – my knowledge of medicine is limited to a few crude facts. Can you be so sure?’
‘Yes – unhappily. At least, nothing is certain in this life, but there is hardly anything could be more certain. I have seen it a half dozen times all told – as it happens, more often when I was a student in London. The complaint is readily detectable. One puts one’s ear to the child’s chest. The normal heart beat is a gentle thump – thump. Sarah’s heart goes hush – hush.’
‘Let me ride a way with you, Dwight.’
‘If you wish. But not as far as Killewarren, or Caroline will wonder you don’t come in. And your face at the moment would betray you.’
Ross wiped his gauntlet glove across his nose, and they moved off slowly in the direction of Jonas’s Mill. Sheridan was difficult to turn away from home.
After a while Ross said: ‘But she seems – bright, alert, in every way well. Is there nothing else to show?’
‘Not yet. There may not be. It is simply a question, Ross, of waiting for the first infection. Whether it comes this year or next, her heart will not have the resources to meet it.’
Chapter Seven
I
In July Drake Carne had two visitors, one regular and expected, the other irregular and unexpected. The first was his brother Sam, whom God had chosen – and Sam felt this in all humility – to help to draw lost souls nearer to the gates of Paradise. He had received again and again the impress of the Seal and the earnest of the Spirit in his heart, beholding, as in a glass, the glory of Christ. Yet humbly witnessing, never claiming for himself more than he could offer to others. Employed as a tut-worker at Wheal Grace, he spent every leisure moment either in class or in prayer with his fellow Wesleyans or helping in some practical fashion with the problems of the poor and the sick in Grambler and Sawle. As a stranger to the district, having come from Illuggan little more than four years ago, he had been regarded with suspicion at first, and with not a little hostility from those who were not of his religious persuasion. But good works had worn the resistance down and he was now about as popular as any man who didn’t drink in the kiddleys could be.
Sam visited his brother twice weekly, though, as his commitments ever grew, the visits tended to become shorter. He had twice refused Drake’s offer of a partnership in the blacksmith’s shop, saying that his call lay elsewhere.
On this Tuesday Sam stayed longer than usual, helping Drake fix the shafts into a cart. When they were almost done he said: ‘Brother, it pleasures me to hear tell you are going with a young woman again.’
‘Give me another heave,’ said Drake. ‘Now, if you’ll hold ’n steady while I drive in another nail.’ This was done. ‘Rosina Hoblyn, you d’ mean? I’ve seen her thrice – and all but once by accident. Tis oversaying it to say I’m going with she.’
‘Well . . . it is not for me to direct ee, Drake; though I will say I would gain pleasure to see you wed to a fitty young woman. Tis hardly natural to spend all your life alone. You know how I’ve grieved that you’ve not come back fully to us in the Society; but I know too how you’ve suffered these last three year gone, and twould raise my heart just to feel you was making the first steps to climb out of the pit.’
Drake stood back and frowned at the cart. ‘Tis level or not level, brother?’
‘Tis level.’
‘This side? You think this side too?’
‘Aye . . . Drake, you’re still some young, yet already you’re in a good style of trade. Day after day, month after month, you’ve risen early, wreaked late and eaten the bread of carefulness. It is not in you to seek riches, but modest riches will come your way. To what end, brother? I ask myself, and you must ask yourself, to what end?’
‘That is what I never do ask myself,’ said Drake.
‘Not yet. For you have been sore stricken. But i
n time the sorest wounds must heal.’
‘Must they?’ said Drake.
‘I ask your pardon, brother, if I tread on delicate ground. But if I do, ye must know tis out of love and affection that I do. There comes a time I d’ b’lieve when tis necessary to look about the world and see what tis your duty to do. Not your inclination, maybe, but your duty. For looking to help others is the best way of looking to save yourself. If now – if now you became convinced through prayer that twas your Christian duty to alter your condition in life by exchanging the state of a single for that of a married man, then I would say there are few young women who would be more comfortable to you than Rosina Hoblyn.’
‘You would, eh?’ said Drake.
Sam eyed his brother. Although a man still of slim build, the years at the forge had given Drake great physical strength. His were the sort of muscles that hardly showed except when they were being used. They were being used now when he lifted the end of the cart bodily on to a low trestle and began to knock out the wheel pin.
Drake said: ‘You think I’d make Rosina a comfortable husband if I didn’t love her?’
‘Love might come, brother. If you shared in the love and worship of Christ, love would come. Then if your marriage was blessed with the precious fruits of little children, your soul would become like a watered garden and you would know the truest fulfilment of life.’
‘And Morwenna?’ said Drake.
There was silence. It was a name never mentioned by either of them. The silence was shattered by a single blow of the hammer, and the pin fell to the floor. Drake began to lever off the wheel.
‘Morwenna is wed,’ said Sam.
‘That I d’ know all too well.’
‘And is a vicar’s wife and has a child of her own . . .’
‘And is in hell.’
‘Drake, ye cannot know this.’
‘I know this. Would ye, then, brother, counsel me to find my own heaven and leave her in hell?’
The Angry Tide Page 8