The Black Moon

by Winston Graham

  With blind eyes Morwenna looked for help across at Elizabeth, but Elizabeth was not looking at her at all.

  ‘I well understand now,’ George said, still in a low voice, ‘why you were reluctant to accept the proper and successful marriage we had arranged for you. Having given yourself to this miner, you felt you could not come to the marriage ceremony with a pure body and a clear heart.’

  ‘I did not “give myself” to this miner, as you call him!’ Morwenna said, standing up and the tears now running down her cheeks. ‘We talked and – and we became fond of each other . . .’

  ‘You became fond of each other,’ said George. ‘That is the second time you have used the expression. Well . . . it is a plain declaration, is it not, made apparently without shame or apology—’

  ‘I have already tried to—’

  ‘Let me finish, please. I wonder what your father would have said had he been alive. I wonder, indeed, what your mother will say, for she certainly must be told. Or your younger sisters, who, I would have thought, looked up to you as a person whose example they should follow. This intrigue, which has been taking place under our roof, is of such a sordid nature that one wonders how much more of it there is yet to be revealed!’

  He went on. Elizabeth, while agreeing with his sentiments felt that he was too outraged and too severe. She could not help but wonder if, having always thought himself inferior to the Chynoweths, he was not now making special use of the opportunity to strike at one who had broken the rules of good behaviour. Here at last was one he was justified in condemning . . . Also, of course, the offence was made much worse because Carne was Ross Poldark’s brother-in-law . . . Not yet being able to see into the whole of her husband’s mind, it did not occur to her that George had felt a part-suppressed attraction to the girl himself and so discovered some inverted satisfaction in being specially brutal to her because she had let him down.

  Presently, seeing Morwenna look as if she was going to faint, Elizabeth made a sharp urgent sign for George to stop.

  ‘One thing is certain,’ he said to Elizabeth. ‘The marriage with Mr Whitworth cannot take place. I will write to him giving him a full explanation of the reasons, and ask him to postpone his visit to this house until Miss Chynoweth has left. At the end of this month Miss Chynoweth will go back to her mother. I will also make arrangements for Geoffrey Charles to be sent away to school. In the meantime any communication with this man Carne must cease. I know you will see to it, my dear. I can leave it in your hands. You will do all that is best.’

  He left the room and the two cousins together.

  There was only one thing Elizabeth possibly could do. She no more approved of Morwenna’s behaviour than George, but in such circumstances all the disapproval had already been stated. She put her arm round the girl’s shoulders and kissed her wet cheeks.

  ‘There, there. Let us sit down and talk it over. Do not break your heart.’

  Every crop was a month behind, and most were deficient and poor in quality. Cornish farmers did not lift their early potatoes in bulk so the frosts of early May destroyed many of them and damaged the other early vegetables. The hay was short and weak, and Ross thought he would not be able to cut until the end of July.

  Distress, when it comes to the point of starvation, means unrest and rioting. Trouble had broken out up and down the country. With a revolutionary state only a few miles across the Channel, it was a trying time both for the law and for the law-breaker. Attitudes of admonition and of defiance were taken up and, once assumed, had to be maintained in the face of pressures for compromise. Yet by and large an astonishing restraint prevailed. If the rioters invaded a town they did not sack the shops, they organized a distribution of the goods at what seemed to them a fair selling price. At Bath great numbers of women boarded a corn ship in the river, and when the justices read the Riot Act they said they were not rioting, only stopping the export of the corn, and together sang ‘God Save the King’.

  Yet repressive measures had to follow, and the ringleaders be punished.

  In Cornwall serious disturbances had already occurred in four towns. Again a degree of discipline prevailed among the miners; they seized mills and granaries and forced millers and dealers to sell the corn cheap, but they offered no other violence and usually, having got what they came for, dispersed peaceably enough. But many of the Cornish gentry were in high alarm, and a rumour spread that some soldiers, being ordered to fire on rioting tin miners in Truro, had refused to obey the order. This looked like a direct road to the French hell.

  In the district of Grambler and St Ann’s there were rumblings but so far there had been no explosion. The long light days were a help, for even the brief nights had a luminosity, and the sun hid itself rather than disappeared. Larks sang high, and the lapwings, which had suffered much in the winter, screamed and squirted and tumbled above the oat fields and the wheat. The hedgerows, after having been plastered down under weeks of frozen snow, seemed to flower the more, and bluebell and campion and milkmaid trembled in a patriotic riot of their own. The sea was quiet and brought no pickings. With the warmer weather typhus at last emerged from its quarantine in the poor house and spread among the mining families. It was high time Dr Enys was back.

  Yet in spite of all, the building of the new Meeting House went on. Characteristically, Ross thought, Sam had planned his new house considerably larger than the old. As for the library, after consultation with a couple of builders and with old Horace Treneglos, who was knowledgeable about such things, Ross had decided to proceed with the existing walls. Mingoose, Treneglos said, was entirely built of rubble stone and granite stone and had stood for long enough. But chief reassurance came when Ross decided the two miserably inadequate windows at the end, facing south-west, should be blocked up and a larger one made. Cutting a new hole in the wall removed any doubt as to its strength and fitness to carry another storey.

  In June there was a big revival at Gwennap. It had begun at Redruth where eight people almost together suddenly found peace with God. The night following many more were powerfully seized with a conviction of their sins and, after much wrestling and importuning in prayer, had found their Saviour. One of these was a Gwennap man, and he, bearing the glad tidings home, started an even bigger revival, centred chiefly on the Gwennap Pit where Wesley had often preached. This great bowl, which some thought to be ancient, had in fact been caused by the subsidence of a large area of the mine workings just below the surface, and it now formed a natural amphitheatre which the Greeks would have loved and which John Wesley had turned to a good account.

  The district surrounding, one of the biggest mining areas in the county, contained within a square mile or so, Wheal Unity, Treskerby, Wheal Damsel and Tresavean – all now derelict – and the unemployment and the poverty were therefore intense. But in this district instead of turning to riot they turned to God. Favoured by fine weather and light nights, the revival continued for a week, during which more than five thousand of the ignorant confessed their sins and united themselves into a religious society which rose above the cares and privations of this world and found solace in Christ and the promise of eternal life. Sam, hearing of it on the second day, went to Captain Henshawe, asked permission to absent himself and walked the twelve miles to Gwennap to participate in the religious experience. He tried his hardest to persuade Drake to accompany him, but Drake was in such a state of emotional and physical turmoil that for the moment the spiritual life did not appeal. Sam went on his way rejoicing in the glory of God and in His goodness in opening men’s hearts, but sorrowing that his beloved brother should be in such a gall of bitterness that he could not be with him at this precious time.

  At Trenwith George no longer insisted that Morwenna should be sent home immediately, but it was understood that she should return to Bodmin early in September when Geoffrey Charles went to school. George had been making inquiries for twelve months about schools, and now, with his usual ability to turn a set-back to good account, he was
able to use the recent trouble as a lever to persuade Elizabeth into agreement. Geoffrey Charles was clearly out of hand at home. Look at the hysterical way he had behaved when they told him he must no longer see this young miner, Drake Carne. It seemed likely now that even a male tutor would be unable to control him. A boarding school was the right and only solution.

  ‘Harrow is the school for Geoffrey Charles,’ George said. ‘I know the journey will be expensive and tedious, but the policy of the governors, declared most recently, is precisely what I think we both want. They say – you see in this printed letter – that whatever the intentions of the founders may have been, “the school is not now generally adapted for persons of low condition but better suited to those of a higher class”. This is what we want for Geoffrey Charles, that he should mix with people of his own station and higher. All the other schools I have been considering lately, Eton, Westminster, Winchester, still have a policy of admitting the sons of tradesmen.’

  Elizabeth said: ‘The journeys there and back will take nearly two weeks from his holidays. And it will be a big cost for his small means.’

  ‘You know that I long ago undertook the expense of his education. I am told that boarding, books and teaching fees will amount to about thirty pounds a year and clothes another twenty-five. Travel will add to the cost; but he is the heir to this house and estate, and as such should have the best. As your son he should have the best.’

  Elizabeth smiled as George patted her hand. She knew his remark to be complimentary with a purpose; she knew his desire to weaken the bond between mother and son.

  Elizabeth had not yet the detachment – perhaps never would have – to recognize how much Geoffrey Charles had developed since he had attained greater freedom from her. At times she had had her own tinges of jealousy at seeing him so happy in the company of Morwenna; but she would gladly have accepted that as a permanence rather than lose him altogether, as she felt she was going to, to a rough male world which in the process of knocking him into shape would no doubt knock him about so much that he would come home a different boy.

  But those happy times were behind.

  As George seemed in a warmer mood than of late she broached a subject which she had wanted to mention for some days but which she knew would irritate him afresh. ‘Aunt Agatha has made out a list of invitations.’ She offered him a sheet of paper on which it looked as if an inky fly had struggled in its death throes. ‘Some of this she has writ herself, some Geoffrey Charles has put down at her request. I confess I do not know the half of the people she has named.’

  ‘Nor would wish to.’ George took the paper between finger and thumb as if it had come from the bed of a fever patient. ‘I really do not see that we are compelled to do this at all. The nearer it comes the more nauseating it appears.’

  ‘Not compelled – not physically. But morally are we not?’

  ‘I do not see it. God’s life, I do not see it. What are all those names crossed out?’

  ‘They are all dead. I consulted Mr Odgers and old Agnes in Sawle, who used to work for the Poldarks many years ago. They are people Aunt Agatha no doubt still believes to be alive.’

  George handed the paper back. ‘Should we not better have the birthday party in the churchyard? Then all the graves would jump open when we cut the cake.’

  Elizabeth shivered. ‘Some of these names, of course, we know well and are people we should welcome here in any case. The Trenegloses, the Bodrugans, the Trevaunances. Some of these others are no doubt too old to come or too far away. I do not think it will be a big party altogether. Perhaps twenty or thirty.’

  ‘There must be a hundred names there!’

  ‘Oh, yes, but most will not come.’

  ‘I am not – Elizabeth, if I have to put up with the invasion of my house – our house – by a swarm of unsavoury people to satisfy the last feeble egoism of an old woman – I am not – we are not – offering them hospitality overnight! I will not have our house filled with doddering skeletons, some of whom no doubt will be incontinent and others feebleminded; they shall not be put up in our house, not even to maintain a pretence of approving of this ghastly celebration. No, Elizabeth, make that clear from the beginning; tell that old woman if you can get anything into her head, that we will not do that and she cannot compel us!’

  ‘I think,’ said Elizabeth pacifically, ‘I believe Agatha is making plans for the reception to end about six. So most will have ample time to return – that is, those who have the health and the means to get here.’

  George considered this for a few moments, turning the money in his fob. ‘So the old woman has ideas as to the sort of reception we are supposed to give her?’

  ‘She is paying for it all, my dear. Remember that. It is the house in which she was born. Forgive me if I remind you of this – of course you know, but . . . you see, she feels she is entitled to it. Just as, say, if your father were forty years older and still living at Cardew. So she – makes plans and expects us to arrange it in the way she wants – assuming that what she wants is reasonable.’

  ‘And is it?’

  ‘I think so. I have been up in her room quite a little—’

  ‘May God preserve you.’

  ‘And so we have discussed it together. She wants – she would like to invite her guests to breakfast at two o’clock. She will hope to be down to receive them, and this will be served in the big parlour and the winter dining room. Nothing elaborate – hot chocolate or brandy wine to drink, with biscuit-cakes and ginger bread and the like. Then we thought if the day was fine the company could walk round the garden for an hour or more. Some would no doubt stay and chat to Agatha – others could admire what we had done to improve the house and grounds.’

  She paused, letting this sink in. If she could get George’s active support, or at least soften his opposition, it would make the day easier for her.

  ‘We thought then a cold collation in the dining hall. Agatha wanted a full dinner but I have persuaded her out of it. She will sit at the head of the table, but the others will eat and sit as they desire. Hot soups, of course, but otherwise the more easily prepared things: roasted tongue, cold mutton, chicken pie, pigeons. Asparagus if we can get some, with pickled eggs. Syllabubs and fruit tarts. Then the cake. After the meal we will cut the cake and drink her health. I feel it will all pass very pleasantly.’

  George licked his lips. ‘And then?’

  ‘And then I daresay Aunt Agatha will feel she has had her day. No doubt she will be worn out with all the excitement. She will stay down until six, she says, but we shall see. At any rate we will serve tea at about six, and I shall hope all have gone home by seven.’

  ‘Amen,’ said George. ‘But why do we have to make these preparations in June when this lamentable anniversary does not occur until August?’

  ‘I thought I should just mention it to you, my dear, to keep you appraised. You know you do not like arrangements to be made without your knowledge and consent. Aunt Agatha wants the invitations sent out as soon as possible. She is living for this day, and naturally all her thoughts are on it.’

  There were crosses to be borne in having married into the Poldark household, and this, the heaviest of them, could not, George felt, in the nature of things have to be borne much longer. So he muttered something in sulky acquiescence and turned away.

  Chapter Three

  Sam had spent a glorious week at Gwennap, and only when the fervour had begun to die down did he return home. It was a fine day for his walk, and such was his happiness, such was his joy at what the Lord had accomplished in so short a time, that several times on the way he shouted aloud. People far distant, working fields away, lifted their heads and stared after him; gnarled old men, girls in straw bonnets, urchins grubbing among the stubble for gleanings. They thought him mad.

  But there was no madness in him, only a sweet joy at being united with Christ. He had seen such wonders at Gwennap as could only have occurred if the spirit of the Lord moved powerfully o
ver the land. And they were not finished yet. Of that he was convinced. It had died down at Gwennap, perhaps temporarily, perhaps, having done its work, for a long time. But once ignited the power and the grace of the Holy Spirit was like a bush fire. It smouldered and seemed to go out, then suddenly it would spring up in another place. The great spiritual revival had begun this time in Redruth and moved after a few days to Gwennap; from there it might suddenly shift to St Austell or Penzance. It might even smoulder and blaze up in the little coastal villages of Grambler and Sawle. Who knew? Who knew what a single vile unworthy creature such as himself, if imbued with faith and in bond with the heavenly Bridegroom, could do?

  As he neared home he perceived that his faith all the while had been too little, that he must not only exhort more urgently himself but that he must persuade his little flock to do the same. If only Drake was free of the powerful suggestions of the Devil and could lay hold once again of the full beauty of the blessing, no one knew – or only One knew – what they might accomplish together. He resolved that he must first look into his own heart and discover what carnal weakness lay there which might have prevented him from exerting a sufficient influence on Drake such as would bring him back to a full sensibility of the spiritual life. In some way the error might still be in him. Only prayer – only long hours on his knees before his Maker – would open the doors of self-knowledge. If he could but persuade Drake to share them. Then, who knew how many more they could persuade to share them? Faith could work miracles. Faith did work miracles. He had seen it demonstrated before his own wondering eyes all this week.

  But sometimes the carnal world grips too cruelly even for a man like Sam to ignore. Whatever sanctification he carried in his heart, the press of material and spiritual evil was to come upon him that day and make his mind a captive to it and drive out, at least for a time, his thoughts of bringing new life to the villages of Grambler and Sawle. It was well after seven before he reached home. One boot was biting into his toes, and he was thirsty and hungry and tired and he looked forward to breaking bread with Drake and telling him the good news of the salvation of so many souls. But Drake was not in. It had been a beautiful day, but a sort of white-coloured rain was now falling over the sea and the sandhills and would probably spread inland in a few minutes. The sun was half blotted out by the squall, but a golden light was falling over the moors and fields behind.