But Drake would not be drawn. He did not know how reliable the boy’s tongue was, and although he was happy to let Geoffrey Charles suspect what he liked, he was admitting nothing.
‘And how is your ankle now? Is it all healed over at last?’
‘Not complete; but it is better than when I laid up. Talking of flying in the air, you remember the bow you made me in November, and how you said you would make me a better when you had time, and I said I wished we had a design for a real longbow such as they used at Agincourt? Well, I have it now. It is in a book Uncle George has bought me, and I copied it on this sheet for you to see.’
As they sipped the hot weak tea they spread the paper on the rough table and stared at it together.
‘You see,’ Geoffrey Charles said, ‘I have put in all the measurements and the other details. But first we shall have to find some yew. It says in the book that nothing else will do so well.’
‘But this is a bow – does it not say tis for a pull of sixty pound? That’d be too much, my son. Ye could not fire it. Perhaps—’
‘I’ll grow. When I go away to school I should want to take it with me. There is sure to be archery, and it would be grand to arrive with a proper longbow. Nobody else, I’ll wager, would have—’
‘Twould be better scaled down none the less. Forty pounds would be more’n enough. Did ee say you was going away to school?’
Geoffrey Charles nodded. ‘Uncle George is already making inquiries for me. I shall miss you, Drake, but it will be only for a part of the time, and when I come back for the holidays—’
‘You’ll be too grand to talk to the likes o’ me. And what will Miss Morwenna do while you are from home?’
‘Oh, I shall not go, I believe, until after Morwenna is wed. And I shall never be too grand for the likes of you, Drake, for you’re my very best friend. You’re my first friend, the first real true friend I ever had. As I grow older I shall be more my own master, and it will be not so much, please Mama this, and please Uncle George that. Then I shall be able to have you much more closely as my friend than I can now!’
Drake was folding the drawing the boy had brought. ‘Miss Morwenna to be wed! I don’t follow. What do ye mean?’
‘Oh, it happened while we were in Truro. A clergyman – Ossie Whitworth. I do not very much care for him myself – he reminds me of a pigeon. But it was all fixed up by Mama and Uncle George before we left.’
‘And . . . what do Morwenna say?’
‘Oh, I believe she does not mind. After all, it is marriage that girls are for. Of course they will live in Truro, so I shall see her from time to time. Drake, do you know of any yew? If I could get some . . .’
‘I’ll make it for you – sometime . . . When I – when I . . .’
‘You may keep this plan. That is why I copied it—’
‘Geoffrey, when are they to be wed?’
‘Morwenna? Oh, I do not believe there is a day. There was some dispute, I believe. Morwenna did not want it yet. Anyway I am glad because I do not wish to lose her while I am home.’ Geoffrey Charles put his cup back on the side. The twigs in the hearth had burnt down, and only a gleam or two showed in the heart of the fire. ‘I will ask Uncle George for a piece of yew. He can get anything.’
They went outside and talked in the fitful sunshine. Geoffrey Charles did not notice his friend’s silences. At length Drake said: ‘You must go, boy; else they’ll be sending out a search party and saying I’m a kidnapper. But would ee do something for me? Something special?’
‘Of course! Certainement! What?’
‘I want for you to take a message to Miss Morwenna. Tis something I forgot when last we met up in your room, and now Mr Warleggan’s back tis more’n I dare to come to the house. Tis just – just something I forgot tell her when last we met, up in your room.’
While the boy waited outside, throwing stones across the valley to disturb some rooks, Drake went inside and with a pencil borrowed from his visitor tried with trembling fingers to make the letters Demelza had taught him. He scarcely felt the pain in his arm.
‘M. Will yow met me at the charch Sundy five a clok. Ile wait. D.’
He had no means of sealing the message, but he tied it with a strip of ribbon off an old shirt of Ross’s which had come to him via Demelza. He had no fear that Geoffrey Charles would open it. When he went out again with the pencil and the quill of paper he asked the boy to give it to her when she was alone, and this he promised to do.
Then Geoffrey Charles was mounted on his pony, and Drake grasped the small soft hand and stood watching the boy trot away towards the main track at the Gatehouse. Then he went into the cottage again and knelt before the fire, trying to bring it to life again. He went for some shavings and strips of wood he had brought from his work and fed these to the embers, and presently by blowing on the sticks he brought a flame back licking at the new wood. He stayed there. It was not cold, but he felt cold. There was no need to revive the fire at this time of year and if Sam had seen it he would have said it was wasteful. After March you burned wood only to cook, and as often as not went to the baker’s even for that to save your fuel. But Drake was cold. He began to shiver. He felt he needed the fire. He needed it for company as much as for heat. He felt as if the warmth had gone out of the world.
BOOK THREE
Chapter One
It was the third week in May before Tholly Tregirls called at Nampara again. Shortly after his visit to Demelza there had been a row at Sally Chill-Off’s kiddley, for which he was partly responsible. Normal times Sally kept good order, and the fact that she was a widow always helped. Men regularly staggered home drunk, but for the most part it was a peaceful procession, and if one or another became aggressive and sought to pick a quarrel, there were enough responsible ones to sit on his head or throw him into the ditch outside.
Tholly’s arrival changed that. In theory the presence of a man in the house – and a powerful, tough man – should have contributed to law and order. But it released the customers from an unwritten obligation to see to the safety of the widow. Also, village folk have long memories, and there were some who remembered Tregirls without warmth or pleasure.
Afterwards no one quite remembered how the trouble began; but in fact the instigator of it was, of all people, that Jud Paynter. Under the influence of Sam and his teaching, Jud’s Wesleyanism, which wavered with the years, had suddenly caught fire, and, although he did not allow it to interfere with his drinking habits, he felt himself called to attend prayer meetings and to imbibe new wisdom weekly.
One trouble with Jud was that anything he learned he felt powerfully concerned to pass on, and as his voice was always loudest in a crowd, what he was saying could not altogether be ignored even in the noisiest company. That night, well warmed with noggins of beer laced with rum, he had got himself into a corner in which were also Jacka Hoblyn, Sid Bunt, Joe Nanfan and two St Ann’s men, Kemp and Collins, and was giving them the benefit of Sam’s reading of the day before, so far as he was able to remember it.
‘There were this yur king – gracious know ’ow long ago – but this yur king in the Good Book – true as I’m telling ee. Nebranezzar. He d’put up this yur golden image – big, biggerer ’n a house, biggerer ’n a mine chimley – set ’n down in a plain and says, ’e says, any time I d’blow on my ’arp, sackcloth, dulcimer and salt box all you lot ’as to flatter down and creep around like bullhorns. And any as don’t, any as don’t flatter down and worship when you d’hear the trump of the ’arp, sackcloth, dulcimer and salt box, phit, into the burnin’ fiery furnace, and yer dead. See? So—’
‘Ye got the names all wrong,’ said Kemp disagreeably. ‘All wrong. I mind when I were in dame school I was telled the story. Nebranezzar indeed!—’
‘How long was you in dame school, Tom?’ Tholly asked, filling up a glass. ‘Long enough to put a knot in the dame’s daughter?’
He meant it as a joke, but Kemp was one of those with a memory.
‘Then,�
� persisted Jud, showing his two teeth, ‘then up starts three men. Like you, me and Jacka here. Up they stands and they d’say, “King, oh, king, live for ever! But don’t ’spect we to crawl around like bullhorns whenever you d’blow on the ’arp, sackcloth, dulcimer and salt box. Because we aren’t going to, see? – ”’
‘And all kinds o’ music,’ interrupted Kemp. ‘That d’come in somewhere. And all kinds o’ music.’
‘Well, that’s what I just said! ’Arp, sackcloth and the rest. That’s music, see? Didn’t know, I s’pose. But that’s music . . .’ Jud took a long swig of his laced beer, and his frothy mouth presently appeared over the rim to continue his tale. ‘So soon as the king d’hear this . . . So soon as ’e heard—’
‘Damme, you’re spitting on me!’ said Collins, and wiped his face with his sleeve. ‘Spraying all over like a wet shower!’
‘’E d’say to the three – danged if I mind their names – ’e says, bow down or in the furnace. Bow down when I d’blow the ’arp, sackcloth, dulcimer and salt box, or in the furnace. Frizzle, frizzle, and yer dead—’
‘Tis only a tale of old Jews,’ said Jacka. ‘That’s all tis, anyway. Tis naught to do wi’ we.’
‘Tis out the Good Book!’ Jud asserted wildly, nearly upsetting his drink. ‘All from the Good Book! Tes out the book o’ Job! I d’know, and I tell ee. Tes naught but the merest ignorance to say other—’
‘All the Good Book’s about Jews,’ said Jacka. ‘I reckon I don’t b’lieve the half of it.’
‘Jesus Christ were a Jew,’ said Tholly, returning with more drink and picking up the conversation as if he had never left it ‘Maybe we’re all Jews, eh? You Tom Kemp, me, the next man. If God’s a Jew who wants to be other?’
‘Nay, Jesus were a Christian!’ shouted several voices.
‘If ye all d’want to know the truth,’ said Jud, getting up and draining his glass. ‘If ye all d’want to know the word o’ truth from the Good Book, like I say, like I tell ee, like Gospel, like the word, Jesus Christ were a Cornishman, and never say nothing different!’
There was a howl of laughter from those around, and when Jud tried to sit down Collins put his boot there so that Jud jerked up again.
‘Go on! Let ’im talk!’ shouted Kemp. ‘Tis fit to beat you, this is!’
‘Course he were a Cornishman!’ Jud snarled, his bald head glistening with sweat. ‘A St Austell man, that’s what ’e were, an’ no missment. I tell ee. Born at Bethel, nigh St Austell. I tell ee! It all happened around these yur parts. Sermon on the Mount. That’s still there, where that was, nigh to Market Jew. St Aubyns d’live there now or some such swells. But tweren’t like that in the old days! Tweren’t like that ’tall!’
‘Aw, giss along!’ said Collins. ‘Great old may-worm, you. Don’t know your backside from your front. Why if I—’
‘Jud!’ said Kemp, and snickered. ‘Jud! There’s a fine name for ee. Wonder how ee come by Jud? Think you twas Judas to begin?’ He let out a roar of laughter. ‘Judas Paynter! Be that it? Judas Paynter!’
Entirely by accident, though it looked by design, Jud brought his glass down with a thump on Kemp’s head, then turned and caught his elbow on Joe Nanfan’s beer and upset it into Collins’s lap. Thereupon he fell across Jacka Hoblyn, upsetting his drink too. In a flood of wasted beer and self-pity, Jacka got up and hit at Jud, who instantly disappeared among their trampling feet, and a fight was on. Tom Kemp, his old grudges simmering against Tholly, with the further insult of being called a Jew, threw the remains of his beer in Tholly’s face. Jacka smacked Kemp across the face with the back of his hand, and there followed pandemonium. It was as if the urge to violence had been only just under the surface for most of the evening, and this incident broke the surface up.
In fifteen minutes half the drinking room of the kiddley was wrecked; and when at the end of that time most of them found themselves outside, the drunken fighting went on; and when morning came twelve or fourteen of them were still lying asleep or half-conscious or in a drunken stupor in the road or in the ditch beside the inn, some half-stripped, some lying in their own vomit. It was midday before the last straggler roused himself and crawled away. Jud arrived home limping in the middle of the night, and in the morning nursed a bruised nose and a deep sense of injury. During that day he repeated often enough and loud enough for Prudie to hear: ‘He were a S’n Aus’ell man!’
Later Widow Tregothnan said: ‘Twas not all your fault Tholly, by no means, but you’ll get the blame, for in ten year there’s been naught so bad, and I don’t fancy the complaints.’
‘Why,’ said Tholly, ‘I reckon I only put out four or five wi’ my own hands. The rest went peaceable enough.’
‘Peaceable? It looks like it. And hands? You mean hand. That there hook is no hand, and some of them you grasped’ll feel it. I don’t want the magistrates on me. I reckon you’d best move away till the fuss has died over.’
‘Move away? But I only just moved in! How long, my dear? I cann’t bear to be without you.’
‘Give over. A month will do. But mind . . . I’m serious; when you return no more of this, or I’ll have to lose you.’
So a month he was away. He took his small undernourished pony and his six bull-pups and went off to Penzance, where he helped to organize a bull baiting and other activities not smiled on by more respectable citizens. In that time he contrived to sell all his pups at good prices, and to spend the proceeds on good living as he understood it. Nevertheless he returned to Sawle with a new suit and ten guineas in his pocket, though he did not satisfy any of Sally’s curiosity as to how he had come by them.
Ross had also been much away these last weeks, and, coming home one day at Bargus Cross where the old disused gibbet stood, he was not altogether pleased to see the tall hunched man waiting for him, with his battered hat, his black woollen cloak, and his long legs dangling on either side of his pony, like a Sancho Panza waiting for a Don Quixote. Having made the comparison Ross hid a smile as he came up. He wondered briefly, with a return of his old self-criticism, whether in fact he did spend part of his own life tilting at windmills.
‘I see you coming,’ said Tregirls. ‘How do, young Cap’n. Can I keep ye company a mile or two?’
‘I am taking you out of your way.’
‘Far from it. I was thinking of calling ’pon you, but I been away P’nzance way and I had not been back long.’
‘A profitable trip?’
‘So-so. I sold all my bull-pups, so if you was wanting one twill be some time afore the next litter.’
‘I thought I said no. Did you not see Garrick when you called at Nampara?’
‘Garrick?’
‘Our dog. He does not take kindly to other dogs.’
They jogged on.
‘I seen your lady wife,’ said Tholly.
‘She told me.’
‘We had tea together, me and your lady wife.’
‘I’m surprised that you recognized the taste.’
‘What of?’
‘The tea.’
‘Well, twas some strange for me, I must admit.’
‘A shock to the system.’
Silence fell for a while.
‘I got on famous with your lady wife.’
‘That she said also.’
‘She said that pony I sold ye was worth its weight. Best animal ever you bought.’
‘This,’ said Ross, ’is the best animal I ever bought.’
‘Oh . . . Well, she’s getting on, though, isn’t she? Look at her muzzle. Look at her crest. She’s going grey. You’ll need another soon.’
‘Maybe.’
‘Leave me know when you do.’
‘I hear you have found a cosy berth for yourself at Widow Tregothnan’s.’
‘We get along. She needed a man.’
‘To keep order in her beer shop, no doubt.’
‘Oh, that. Twas all a misunderstanding. No harm done. Peaceable as a dovecote now.’
A dove? Ross glanced
at his companion. More the carrion crow. ‘How are your children?’
‘I only seen them last week for the first time. They’ve no room for me, Cap’n.’
‘Does that surprise you?’
‘Twas all a long time ago. Forgive and forget, that’s my motto. But not they . . . Mind, what a difference betwixt them! Emma d’take after me. Fine strong healthy wench! Personable too.’ Tholly licked his lips. ‘Aye, personable too. If she wasn’t me own . . . But Lobb! Poor meader. Just like his mother. No life in ’im. Bent he is, too, bent like a old man. Might be fifty. And his childer! . . . Eldest one is half saved, cann’t hardly speak, has fits. And the others, poor palched little things, crouching in the hearth among the cinders, bellies swelled up, legs like spiders. All down-trod, the whole boiling of them.’
From this high ground you could see the sea appearing and disappearing along the edges of the land. You could see the trees around Trenwith and those about Fernmore, the Choakes’ place, the drunken spire of Sawle Church, even a distant trail of smoke rising from the one mine working in the district.
‘They’ve made their own life,’ said Ross. ‘You can hardly expect them to feel a sense of duty towards you.’
Tholly chucked to his pony and dug in his heels. ‘I had a thought to help Lobb and his family.’
‘Can you help them?’
‘I can help them if other folk help me.’
Ah, thought Ross, the catch. One should have expected it.
‘In that case charity had better go direct.’
Tregirls hunched up his chest to breathe more easily.
‘Charity was not in me mind. Work sometimes, if so be as ye’ve the work. And when ye need a new nag, when that old mare has had her day, that poor old stumbling mare you’re riding, when she’s had her day, who better to find yer a new one? I can buy and sell. I know all about women and animals. So – when you have the thought to buy . . . save your own time, young Cap’n, leave it to Tholly, eh? How’s that?’
The Black Moon Page 30