Ross entered no further than the steps.
He said: ‘I came to call on you at my cousin’s request to make sure that all was well in her absence. What do you think I should report to her?’
None of them spoke, but one put down his cup and another hiccupped and wiped her nose on her sleeve.
‘That you are all drunk and unable to attend upon your proper duties? Do you think I should say that?’ He glanced at Caroline behind him. ‘Do you think I should say that? . . . It is Christmas. Perhaps I should turn a blind eye to harmless rejoicing. But how can it be harmless when a sick old lady upstairs lies unattended. You!’ One man jumped as Ross looked at him. ‘Answer me!’
‘Well, sur . . .’ The man stuttered and shuffled and rubbed his hands down the sides of his breeches. ‘Well, sur, tis not our work to tend on Miss Poldark. See—’
‘Listen,’ Ross said. ‘It is not my concern what is or is not your work. There is one lady in this house who must receive your full attention at all times. Miss Poldark is your mistress while the rest of the family is away. She is old and infirm, but she knows well what goes on. And I shall know well what goes on through her. So care for your step. I mind not how you neglect the house so long as she is well attended. When she rings a bell, two of you go to see her at all times! She must be waited on and her every request obeyed. Else you will all be discharged. Understand!’
‘Yes, sur.’ ‘Aye, sur.’ One after another answered, muttering, murmuring, resentful but scared. After a moment’s more looking round Ross turned to Caroline. ‘Now, let us go now.’ At that moment another man came into the kitchen. It was Tom Harry.
‘Ah,’ said Ross. ‘So you are here.’
Harry had stopped in the doorway. He was carrying a jar of rum. ‘What do you want?’
‘I was instructing the other servants on their business. They must take greater care of Miss Poldark, or they will be discharged.’
‘I’ll thank ye to git out.’ The man spoke truculently, but he was less confident without his employer beside him.
‘Heed what I say, Harry. It’s for your own good.’
‘You’ve no business comin’ yur interfering.’
‘It’s Christmas, and I come only to warn you, as I did last year. But if you wish to dispute the matter you must say so.’
Harry blinked. ‘I’ll thank ye to git out.’
‘Remember what I said. I shall be back a week from today with a horse whip, to be used where it seems necessary. I want Miss Poldark differently attended to. See to if you value your own good health.’
They went out then. Judith whinnied at the sight of her master. Ross helped Caroline to mount, then climbed up himself and they crunched slowly down the drive together. It was now beginning to snow in earnest, and they had left it late enough.
As they came to the gate, which Ross held open for her, Caroline said: ‘How I love a strong man!’
He blew out a breath. ‘Your jest is well deserved.’
‘Sometimes truth is spoken in jest.’
‘Ah, yes, but that is only by accident.’
‘Not at all by accident in this case.’
He smiled at her. ‘I cannot believe that so civilized and refined a woman as yourself can really appreciate our rough country ways.’
‘That shows how little you know me,’ said Caroline.
They rode off through the feathering snow.
Chapter Three
Six inches had fallen before midnight. By then the stars were out but it was freezing hard. An icy wind moved over the land as if it had come straight from Golgotha.
They were late to bed, being reluctant to tear themselves away from the raging fire that Ross had built. In the end the whole of the back of the fireplace glowed red, and they had to retreat further and further from it, scorched to their faces but always assailed by the cold airs behind. Upstairs warming pans had been in the beds, fires were burning, coal buckets were full, logs were stacked for the long night, but still they stayed down, clinging to the extra glow and companionship of the parlour, the light of the candles, the pleasant desultory talk.
At length Caroline got up and stretched. ‘I must go or I shall nod off here. Don’t disturb yourselves! This candle will escort me. I’ll lie deep under the blankets and think of others less fortunate. Indeed, though not a praying woman, as you know, I may try to find words to say something special for one particular man and trust this weather is not spreading over France as well. Good night! Good night!’
When she had gone Ross said: ‘We should go too,’ and both settled back in their chairs and laughed. ‘But we should,’ he insisted. ‘Clowance is still an early waker, even now that she is born, and I do not suppose she will be at all deterred by the snow.’
‘Do you think Caroline mean what she say?’ Demelza asked. ‘About her house. About making it a centre for French émigrés?’
‘Caroline always means what she says. Though I don’t think her invitations will be open and indiscriminate. There is a lot of talk of this counter-revolution in France, and it’s clearly her intention to foster that in any way she can.’
‘And how can she?’
‘Emigrés usually lack money. Also sometimes with the best will in the world on both sides, they outstay their welcome at one house or another. Two of those we met at Trelissick, the Comte de Maresi and Mme Guise, have been staying at Tehidy now for five months and they and their hosts would I’m sure be not unwilling to make a change. There are others like them.’
‘Are they in this – what do you call it? – counterrevolution?’
‘De Sombreuil is one of the prime movers. He and de Maresi, and a man called the Comte de Puisaye and a General d’Hervilly. There are constant messengers passing to and fro between England and Brittany.’
‘But what do they hope they can do?’
‘Half of France, the saner half, is sickened by the excesses of the revolution. All sensible men want a return to stable government, and many see a restoration of a Bourbon as king the only way of achieving it.’
‘Is he in England too?’
‘Who?’
‘The – Bourbon.’
‘The Comte de Provence. No, he is in Bremen at present. But he would come to England when the time was ripe. The idea would be to make a landing in Brittany and proclaim him king. The Bretons are much disaffected and would rise in his support.’
‘Do you think it might succeed?’
‘It was first talked of to me at Trelissick in July. At that time I thought the plans too vague. But they appear, from what Caroline says, to have made practical progress since then.’
‘But why is Caroline concerning herself in this? Because of Dwight?’
‘Well, Dwight is in Brittany, and perhaps she thinks of his release coming this way. But chiefly I believe it is because with Dwight a prisoner she cannot bear inactivity. Of course she is going to London in the new year to see if she can free him by paying a ransom; but I think the Admiralty will warn her against this because, once the ransom was agreed and paid, there would be no one to be trusted to see that their side of the bargain was kept. It would be likely to be expensive and useless, and I know she suspects this. Therefore, to help to plan an uprising in Brittany, working to overthrow the revolutionaries, is the best way of using up her energies and absorbing some of her anxiety.’
Demelza was silent for a while, staring unwinking into the brazen embers of the fire. ‘D’you know, Ross, I believe Caroline is more than half in love with you.’
Ross fingered the hair covering his scar. ‘I believe I am more than half in love with Caroline, but not in the way you mean.’
‘What other way is there?’
‘The way of friendship – companionship. We accord so well. But on my side it is quite different from what I feel for you, from what I once felt, may have felt . . .’
‘For Elizabeth,’ said Demelza, bringing it into the open.
‘Well, yes. But as for Caroline, do not think there
is in my feeling for her any rivalry with my feeling for you. Nor do I suppose for a moment that there is any comparison between her liking for me and her love for Dwight. It is a peculiar thing, but there it is.’
‘“Things” can ripen suddenly and very rapid. That is surprising too.’
‘Not in any way that can be a danger to a happily married man.’
‘There is always a danger. Especially when the wife has not been able to be a wife – or look a wife – for a while.’
‘How better could you be my wife than by bringing me another daughter?’
‘That is a very – worthy sentiment Ross.’
‘Worthy! Good God, is that how you see it? What a perverse creature you are! There is nothing worthy about it. And I promise you that when you don’t look like a wife to me I’ll tell you.’
Demelza pushed off her slippers and moved her toes about. ‘Well, perhaps wife is the wrong word – perhaps I used it wrong. You see, Ross, in every right marriage, in every good marriage a woman has to be three things, don’t she? She’s got to be a wife and look after a man’s comforts in the way a man should be looked after. Then she’s got to bear his children and get all swelled up like a summer pumpkin and then often-times feed them after and smell of babies and have them crawling all about her . . . But then, third, she has also to try and be his mistress at the same time; someone he is still “interested” in; someone he wants, not just the person who happens to be there and convenient; someone a bit mysterious, like that woman he saw riding to hounds yesterday, someone whose knee or – or shoulder he wouldn’t instantly recognize if he saw it beside him in bed. It’s – it’s impossible.’
Ross laughed. ‘Surely it applies also in the opposite way. What does a woman expect of her husband—’
‘Not near so much. It’s not as impossible.’
‘But to some extent. Well, I’m not going to reassure you, if that’s what you want, for if you are not reassured by now, no pretty speeches I can offer you will make the difference.’
‘No, I am never reassured—’
‘And why should I be? You only have to crook your finger and the men come running. Your past is littered with their importunings.’
‘I believe,’ said Demelza, ‘that you must be feeling guilty, for you are accusing me of what never happened. You always accuse me when you feel guilty yourself.’
‘D’you remember,’ Ross said sleepily, ‘what happened a year ago yesterday? We began to talk about our love for each other, and the principles of fidelity and I don’t know what else; and at the end of it you were going to leave me. Remember? You had got as far as the saddle, and if a barrel of beer had not fomented at the wrong time we might not be living together at this moment.’
‘I always thought that that beer had a taste to it.’
But his half jesting warning had silenced her.
After a minute or so she said: ‘I’m grateful to Caroline for going with you to Trenwith today; and as it turned out her absence made it easier for me. The folk who came back are not quite as comfortable with Caroline as they are with us.’
‘I was surprised to find them all gone.’
‘Well, it was such a bad day they wished to be home before it grew worse. And Sam was holding a meeting for some of them.’
‘What you have saddled that poor child with!’
‘But he is a kind man, Ross, though you may jest. Last eve in Grambler he found old Widow Clegwidden crawling back to her shack on all fours trying to carry a bucket of water. She’s so bad in the legs with rheumatics that she cannot stand, and she has a quarter mile to go to the pump. He says he will go every eve and do that for her when he comes off core.’
‘There will be plenty of opportunity for it,’ Ross said, ‘if this weather lasts. Coal is up this month to forty-five shillings a chaldron. Potatoes are up from four shillings to five shillings a hundredweight. There is a great scarcity of barley for making bread. Eggs are five for two pence, butter a shilling a pound. What can a labourer buy on eight shillings a week?’
‘Could we not do more for folk ourselves?’
‘Well, those working on our mine are not hard hit, but it gives us no excuse for living in a blinkered world. I had thought to approach some of the other landowners and suggest we might help in some more concerted form. But of course I know what their answers will be – that they already contribute to need through the Poor’s Rate. They also help such deserving cases as are near home. They do not they would say, wish to encourage idleness and sloth.’
‘But is it idleness they would encourage?’
‘No, it is famine and disease they would discourage, if they would look at it right. In normal times it may be in the main the widows, the orphans, the infirm and the old who need the Poor’s Rate; but now it is also the able-bodied and the industrious, because even those who are in work cannot earn enough to keep themselves.’
Demelza said: ‘Perhaps Caroline would help to bring the others together. After all she is a landowner now.’
‘But not noticeably more sympathetic towards the poor than the others. She lacks Dwight’s influence on her.’
‘You talk to her, Ross. I believe you could persuade her.’
He raised a cynical eyebrow. ‘We’ll see. But you over rate my influence.’
Demelza put on one of her slippers and stirred the other with her toe.
Ross said: ‘I’ll take a last look round at the animals. It’s four hours since Moses Vigus left them and I never trust him too far . . . We could take more help on the farm. That is one way – one practical way to give work.’
‘Ross,’ she said, ‘there is one other thing I should perhaps tell you before you go. Sam told me in confidence and asked me not to tell you but I said we did not have secrets from each other . . .’
He nodded. ‘That is a good beginning. Is he still fretting about his preaching house?’
‘No. I have hinted – just hinted that in the spring you may favourably consider that. No . . . He is a small matter concerned over Drake.’
‘Over Drake?’
‘It seems Drake has been seeing a lot of Geoffrey Charles. They have struck up a great friendship and Drake has been visiting Trenwith regularly – that is until Geoffrey Charles left.’
‘How did they meet? But what is wrong in it – except for . . .’
‘His friendship is not only for Geoffrey Charles. He has discovered also a great attachment for Geoffrey Charles’s governess Morwenna Chynoweth.’
Ross stood up and stretched. The candles flickered lazily. ‘Elizabeth’s cousin? Have I ever seen her?’
‘She was at church when we went at Michaelmas. She is tall and dark and sometimes wears spectacles.’
‘But how has this come about? One does not suppose there is any contact between Drake and such as she.’
‘They met out of doors and a friendship has followed. Sam says that although Drake tries to hide it he is quite infatuated. I do not think Elizabeth or anyone else knows of the friendship. Now of course they have all gone to Truro for Christmas but they are expected back next month. Sam is worried because he believes it will take Drake out of the connexion.’
‘That might be the least of his anxieties.’
‘I know.’
It was very quiet in the house. Even the sea was quiet. After the constant winds one noticed it, the stillness, the silences of snow.
‘How old is she, this girl?’
‘Seventeen or eighteen.’
‘And is she – has she become fond of Drake?’
‘I suspicion so, from what Sam says.’
Ross made an irritable gesture. ‘Why do they not all move away, the whole damned lot of ’em! There is this constant embarrassment of enmity. I do not suppose John Trevaunance or Horace Treneglos would welcome an attachment between Drake and a niece of theirs but at least we could meet and discuss it together in a reasonable manner. But between George and us – and indeed between Elizabeth and us now – everything is
poisoned. Clearly Drake cannot have any hope of prospering his suit there.’
‘I do not know what he can hope himself.’
‘Sometimes infatuation sees no further than the next day.’
‘Sam says Drake will take no guidance from him in this, and he asked me what he should do.’
‘What can any of us do? I can discharge him and send him home to Illuggan, if you wish, but why should I penalize him for what is not really a concern of ours?’
‘It may become a concern of ours, that’s what I’m afraid for.’
‘D’you want me to dismiss him?’
‘Judas, no. But it’s a small matter worrying. I would not want for him to get at cross with George and George’s gamekeepers.’
‘What is this girl like, do you know? Has she a mind of her own? If Elizabeth gets to know, and forbids the friendship, as she will, do you think this girl will defy her?’
‘I know no more than you.’
‘A pest on your brothers,’ Ross said. ‘I believe they were sent here specially to become a nuisance to us. We should have hardened our hearts at the beginning and sent them back where they belong.’
The weather did not relent. There was little more snow after that night, but what fell stayed on the ground. All England, all Europe was in a winter’s grip. In Demelza’s bedroom the water in a hand basin, brought up overnight, was frozen solid each morning, and on the third morning the basin cracked. Downstairs in the parlour, even though the fire burned all night, the frost spun spiders’ webs on the inside of the windows, and this was not gone by two in the afternoon.
In Cumberland all the great lakes froze, and the Thames began to mist and choke. By the New Year ice floes were cutting hawsers and damaging vessels in the river, and a week later it froze at Battersea Bridge and at Shadwell to permit people to cross the river on foot. Preparations were put in hand for one of the great fairs. But it never came, for a sudden brief thaw in the middle of the month made the ice unsafe without actually moving it.
The Black Moon Page 21