The Angry Tide

by Winston Graham

  ‘I don’t like you going down,’ said Demelza. ‘I always think what happened to Francis.’

  ‘He went on his own. And would you have me shrink from the tasks I expect others to do?’

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘I can bear you as you are. But I don’t want to lose you as you are.’

  He put his hand on her arm. ‘Are you fretting about Jeremy?’

  ‘No, no. I just wish the fever would abate.’

  From this window they could see a few lights beginning to wink up at the mine.

  ‘Would you like Dwight to come again? I can send Benjy Carter.’

  ‘I thought not to bother him, Ross. Sarah is none too well, he says.’

  Ross looked up. ‘Sarah?’

  Demelza raised her dark eyebrows at him. ‘Sarah. His own little girl. Why do you look so strange?’

  ‘Do I? No. I could not think who you meant.’

  ‘She has caught a cold like Jeremy. There are so many about. Half the countryside is snorting and sniffing.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Ross. ‘Well, yes. I suppose.’ He patted her arm again and went through the dining-room into the library.

  She put coal on the fire, watched a spurt of smoke billow into the room as the uncertain wind eddied about the chimney. Then she went to the piano and began to play a piece she knew by heart, a simplified sonata by Scarlatti that Mrs Kemp had taught her.

  Ross came in again. ‘I had forgot,’ he said. ‘There is some unfinished business up at the mine. It will take me about an hour. It will be – well, I’ll be back in good time for supper.’

  She nodded, hair over brow, tongue between teeth and lip, where it tended to go when she was playing. But presently she heard a clatter on the cobbles and she went out to the kitchens.

  ‘Has Captain Poldark taken his horse?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am. John have saddled it for ’n.’

  ‘To go up to the mine?’

  ‘Dunno, ma’am. He just say to John, he say, I’m taking Sheridan.’

  II

  The light was fading as he turned in at the gates of Killewarren. It was a featureless house: long, low and built without benefit of architect. The drive and grounds were better kept than they had been in Ray Penvenen’s day, but a branch of one of the old pine trees had come down in the gale and the arm of it, sweeping in the wind, startled Sheridan and made him sidestep. There were three or four lights.

  When he knocked at the door Bone came. He had been Dwight’s personal servant before he married and he had sailed with Ross on the French adventure. ‘Oh, good evening, sur; come in, sur; some wild, isn’t it. Did you wish to see the master?’

  ‘Either him or Mrs Enys or both.’

  ‘Yes, sur. Please to come in here. I’ll tell them you’ve called.’

  He was shown into the small parlour on the ground floor. Most of the better rooms were on the first floor and the big drawing-room was above the stables.

  Dwight came in. Although he was dressed and shaved and his hair neatly brushed, Ross was reminded of the emaciated wreck he had rescued from the Quimper prison. It was the look in his eyes.

  He smiled. ‘Well, Ross. Is Jeremy none so brave?’

  ‘Jeremy will do again. But Demelza told me Sarah was – ill.’

  ‘She has a cold.’

  ‘That is all?’

  Dwight made a grimace. ‘It will be enough.’

  ‘Oh, God. Does Caroline know?’

  ‘Yes . . . I felt now I had to tell her.’

  Ross hit his crop against his boot. ‘I’m no use to you. But I had to come.’

  ‘It’s good of you.’

  ‘No . . . How is she taking it?’

  ‘Very well,’ said a voice from the door.

  Caroline, as always, the tall stalk of a flower, red-haired, green-eyed, freckled across the nose. The only difference was that her lips were without colour.

  ‘Caroline . . .’

  ‘Yes, Ross, it is all a trifle distressing, is it not. Had Dwight already told you?’

  ‘He’d warned me it might happen.’

  ‘Confidences between men from which wives and mothers are excluded . . . Yes, it has been rather a shock, but Caroline is taking it well, with all the dignity and stoicism of a lady of breeding.’

  ‘Let me get you something, Ross,’ Dwight muttered.

  ‘. . . Caroline, I don’t know what to say. I don’t know why I’ve come; but I felt . . .’ A glass of brandy was in his hand.

  Caroline looked at the glass Dwight had given her. ‘My husband clearly wishes me to become a toper. Or is it that he thinks drink softens the edges of tragedy and converts it into some lighter form of grief? Or are we proposing a toast to something or someone?’

  ‘Caroline,’ said Dwight. ‘You are deceiving no one. Sit down. Perhaps just sitting quiet for a while . . .’

  She sipped her drink. ‘D’you know, Ross, I said I didn’t want the wretched little creature – and that was true. I find animals vastly more grateful and rewarding. But, over the months, I have to confess she has wormed her way into my affections. Poor Horace has been quite put out that I have neglected him so. Well, well, Sarah Penvenen. Ave atque vale. How my uncle would have been annoyed that his grandniece was to have so short a stay.’

  Nothing was said for a while. Some light branch, torn away by the wind, was tapping at the window, like a bird trying to get in.

  Ross said: ‘Is she? . . . How long?’

  Dwight said: ‘Hours, I would suppose.’

  Ross said: ‘I should have brought Demelza.’

  ‘No, no,’ said Caroline, ‘that would have been the greatest of a mistake. You are two strong men and can support me. I am a hard woman and can fend for myself. But Demelza – Demelza would not be so – formal; she would not be so – controlled; she would not be so – dignified. Demelza does not understand dignity and – and all that it stands for . . .’ Caroline sipped her drink again. ‘I believe Demelza would cry – and that, and that, I rather think – would – ruin us all . . .’

  Chapter Two

  I

  While the frail fair-haired waif born in 1798 and baptized Sarah Caroline Anne departed this life in the same year with scarcely a struggle, dying, as she had lived, peaceably and without purpose, an old man born as long ago as 1731 and baptized by his doting parents Nathaniel Gustavus, refused altogether to go when everything pointed to the suitability of his passing. His doctor predicted it, his vicar expected it, he daily forecast it himself, and his Methody daughter had three times supposed that he was gone. But Mr Pearce, Notary and Commissioner for Oaths, was made of stout and enduring material. The door was open but nothing could squeeze him through. Lying in bed, he grew weekly more amorphous in bulk, and though Dr Behenna had twice tried to tap him for dropsy, the bulk did not seem to be composed of water. There he lay like a stranded whale, slightly putrescent, mulberry-coloured of face and hands, constantly clutching his nightshirt beneath which somewhere, very deep buried, his over-burdened heart continued its lonely labours.

  His attack of conscience had passed – or perhaps it had been submerged in the day-to-day struggle of keeping alive. He no longer thought of the widows and orphans he had cheated – indeed, there were no widows and only two orphans among them – and he welcomed the visits of his spiritual adviser with a new appreciation. Had he not had this latest manifestation of the Reverend Osborne Whitworth’s concern, he would have called Ossie a selfish young man – and conceited too – conceited especially about his prowess at whist – but he had been touched and grateful at the regularity of Mr Whitworth’s visits. Every Thursday without fail. True, Ossie only stayed half an hour; and then took himself off with relish. But the regularity of the visits – when there was no longer any whist to attract, and the canary wine was probably no better than one could get elsewhere – these visits touched and impressed him. He had misjudged the stout young man.

  Mr Pearce, though aware that he caused Dr Behenna some irritation by continuing to breathe wh
en he no longer should have been able to, was quite unaware of that other frustration he was causing – and causing to no less a person that Cary Warleggan, who waited like a puppet-master with all the strings ready to draw, but no one to play the introductory chorus. While Mr Pearce survived, the puppets could not be made to dance.

  In the meantime, that more distinguished member of the family, Mr George Warleggan, continued to acquire interests in the parliamentary borough of St Michael. Sir Christopher Hawkins had been persuaded to part with most of his property there – at a handsome price – but the Scawen interests were still strong, and George, never a man to do things by halves, was anxious to obtain a controlling interest over both seats.

  The Scawens were an old Cornish family who for centuries had had property at St Germans and elsewhere, and, though more recently, through marriage into the Russell family of Northants, they had made more of their extensive interests up-country, James Scawen, a tetchy bachelor, saw no reason to part with properly in St Michael which had been theirs for generations. It was going to require patience, persistence and skill to make him change his mind. Not to mention money. In the meantime, on a visit to London, George had contrived to make the acquaintance of both sitting members, and had taken particular note of Captain David Howell, who had been Sir Christopher Hawkins’s nominee. Captain Howell did not appear to be a wealthy man – he was a Cornishman with a relatively poor estate near Lanreath – and it did not seem likely that he would be unsusceptible to financial inducements when the time came.

  Following these manoeuvres at a distance, like a nonparticipator at a foxhunt, but avidly interested in the outcome, was the vicar of St Margaret’s, Truro. He realized that if George should once become a boroughmonger, his influence would be far greater than any he had ever exercised as a mere MP.

  He said as much as this to George one evening when they were supping together, but George was uncommunicative. Even if Ossie had not used the word ‘mere’ he would have been lacking in encouragement. But Ossie, undeterred, pointed out the various forms of patronage that could be exercised when in such a position – notable among them the furthering of the prospects of younger relatives who had made the church a career.

  ‘The church,’ he said between mouthfuls, ‘the church as a career is a lottery. Everyone must agree that, George. The Archbishop of Canterbury gets £25,000 a year! The Bishop of London £20,000! But men such as myself have to make do with £300! Some get less. Some get even less. And not bad fellows neither! The revenues of the church, the total revenues if divided all round would probably not come to more than £300 a year each. So one enters the profession as one buys a ticket in a sweepstake – hoping for one of the great prizes. If gentlemen didn’t have that hope, they wouldn’t enter the profession at all. You’d get men like Odgers – unlearned, unwashed, doesn’t know how to dress – or sometimes how to spell! – uncouth – little better than agricultural labourers. And then where would the church be?’

  Nobody answered.

  Ossie took another quaff of wine. ‘I’ve been looking at the living of Manaccan, George. It has just become vacant and would be a useful little addition to my stipend. The tithes are worth a good £300 a year, I’m told.’

  As he went on Elizabeth glanced at Morwenna, who sat quietly picking at her food, scarcely eating anything. Elizabeth and George were seeing less and less of the Whitworths as George jibbed at these family suppers. They had dropped off from one a week to one a month. Elizabeth made up for it by going to tea with Morwenna at St Margaret’s from time to time – usually when she knew Ossie would be absent. She could not make Morwenna out. She never made any complaint; but she was frequently strange – absent-minded, untidy, distraught. Her dark eyes seemed so often to be gazing at something her visitor could not see. And it was certainly something unpleasant. Sometimes her soft, gentle voice was quite harsh, and it was startling then in its strength. She did not answer when spoken to. (This usually passed off after Elizabeth had been there a few minutes.) She hardly ever wrote to her mother now, and the last time Mrs Chynoweth had proposed to come on a visit she had made an excuse and said it was not convenient. She never spoke of Rowella, and if Rowella’s name were mentioned the conversation dropped.

  Yet she did not seem ill. She moved about with energy when she chose to move at all; and the house, though superficially untidy, was well run. She did many good works and was never unwilling to visit the sick and the dying. Superficially a vicar could hardly have had a more suitable wife. Nor had she lost her looks. But they were different looks, wilder, more unstable.

  One thing that surprised Elizabeth on her visits now was that they never seemed to have a satisfactory nurse for young John Conan. The pleasant young girl they had employed for eighteen months had been discharged, and a succession of strange women took her place: strong, thick-legged, middle-aged, grim faced, grey faced or warty, with sharp narrow eyes and smelling of starch and camphor balls, they varied between the obsequious and the insolent. Elizabeth would not have had one of them in her house and ventured to say to Morwenna that she would have thought a bright young girl more suitable: she knew of two she could recommend.

  A grimace crossed Morwenna’s face. ‘It is Ossie who chooses them, Elizabeth. And Ossie who discharges them. I believe he cannot find just the right person. Or so he tells me.’

  ‘To companion and care for a little boy? How strange.’

  ‘Osborne is a strange man, Elizabeth.’

  ‘I wonder you do not think of one of your other sisters. I think Garlanda might be glad of the opportunity, and it would be company for you.’

  Morwenna said: ‘I would never have a sister of mine here again.’

  II

  On the 10th of December, a week after the pathetic little coffin had been put into the ground beside the ostentatious memorial Ray Penvenen had had erected for himself, Caroline Enys came into her husband’s study after supper and stood a moment with her back to the door staring at his gaunt sensitive face and greying hair. He rose and pulled a chair forward so that they could sit near each other at the desk, but instead she walked over and warmed her hands at the fire. She was wearing a green pinafore over a white satin frock, as if there were still a child to be taken on her knee.

  ‘Dwight,’ she said, ‘I think we are taking this far too much to heart.’

  ‘It’s possible.’

  ‘Children die every day. We are agreed on the overpopulation of the world, are we not? There are far too many of us already. What does another matter? You told me last week of Mrs Barnes who has lost nine in ten years. The fact that this one is ours and that we esteem it above the others only shows a doleful lack of proportion. We have lost a baby, that’s all. I – if I were of a true motherly condition – I might be expected to take it a trifle hard – my very first and me already in my middle twenties! But you – you who spend all your life observing the feeble struggles of your patients to escape the inevitable end, you who tell me of this or that person who has a goitre or scrofulous eczema or scorbutic anaemia and can do nothing to help them, who can only try to alleviate and palliate the universal suffering that you see all round, why should you grieve that the product of our union should be excused and pardoned the pains of living and allowed to escape into an early grave? It puzzles me.’

  Dwight smiled slightly. ‘No, it does not. Because you are a human being, and so am I, and the penalty of this condition – and also the reward – is that we do not see each other as numbers on a board but as persons for whom love and emotional attachment is all. We can’t escape the obligations of humanity. And one of those obligations is to grieve at the loss of those who are – are part of our love and part of our blood.’

  Caroline pursed her lips. ‘But you know, Dwight, I was never meant to be a mother.’

  ‘What nonsense! You have been one – and a good one – and I trust you’ll be one again.’

  ‘No . . . Or not yet.’ She took two paces to come behind him and to put a hand on his s
houlder. ‘Dwight, I want to leave you.’

  In the silence some gas blew in the coal, burning brilliant and blue until it was exhausted.

  Dwight said: ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Oh, not permanent. Don’t rejoice: you can’t rid yourself of me as easy as that . . . But I want to get away. I want to get away from Killewarren – and Sawle – and the people here. I feel I have failed you, have failed myself, everything – there’s such a weight on me. I’ve never been able to cry about this – you know that – and I carry about in my breast such a weight of unshed tears that it seems it will burst me open. This is a terrible and humiliating confession that I would make to no one but you. But I feel – so long as I stay here, in this house, with its . . . furnishings, and Uncle Ray’s silver, and the medicine bottles and all the servants trying to be kind, and my – my horses, and Ruth Treneglos for company on a day’s hunting, and – and your kind, hurt indulgence – I feel I shall not take any steps to mend.’

  Dwight got up, closed his book without seeing it, stared at his cuff on which there was some sort of an ink stain, and looked up to meet the brilliance of his wife’s eyes.

  ‘What do you wish to do?’

  ‘I don’t know. Perhaps go to London, stay with my aunt for a month or two. I don’t know.’

  ‘Do you wish me to come with you or do you want to go alone?’

  How can you go? There are fifty – a hundred – two hundred sick people who depend on you. How could I take you away from them? I am already – I already feel sufficiently selfish in saying that I want to get away. There is no such escape for you. And it is only three years since you were rescued like a skeleton from a French prison; it is barely a year since you appeared to recover from that ordeal. Now you are rooted here, surrounded by your bereavement, the loss of Sarah; and your useless brittle wife wishes to leave you to your own devices and to comfort herself by some sort of escape. I can’t ask you to come with me, Dwight. I wouldn’t. I could never ask you to be so selfish. Only I am entitled to be so selfish.’