The Black Moon

by Winston Graham

  ‘Of course we’ll go,’ Ross said. ‘Verity has been invited, and Andrew will be home, so they will both be there – and baby Andrew also. I have asked them to spend the night here afterwards.’

  ‘I am surprised that Agatha was permitted to invite us, but perhaps George could not deny her that indulgence.’

  ‘We’ll go,’ said Ross, ‘and perhaps, who knows, it will be the beginning of a better era between the two houses. I had a desperate unpleasant interview with George in the matter of Drake’s arrest; but he did release him, and whether he bowed to my threats or listened to my reason, at least the outcome is good. So perhaps we may learn to live beside each other with some reduction of enmity. Indeed, no one wishes to be friends, but it is ludicrous that we cannot meet now and then as civilized beings instead of snarling at each other like wild beasts.’

  ‘May it be so,’ said Demelza, but a little doubtfully. ‘And Drake? You tell me he is quite recovered?’

  ‘From the musket ball? Not altogether. But Dwight thinks him out of danger, and he was eating well when I left. Whether the movement of his arm will be affected we don’t know . . . Demelza . . .’

  ‘Yes?’

  Ross listened to the complaints of Jeremy, who had just been carried off. Clowance slept peacefully through it all.

  ‘I have been thinking of Drake.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘D’you know, my dear, I don’t believe I have sufficiently esteemed him. On this expedition he behaved with courage. I’ll tell you of that later. But it seems to me that we should try to set him up in some way. We have money now. He is excessive young – that is a great disadvantage – but it is a disadvantage that time will take care of. I do not know whether it would be better to set him up on his own – perhaps in some small engineering or tool-making way – or whether he might be better engaged with Blewett at shipbuilding in Looe, with a view to an eventual partnership. In two years he will be twenty-one and will be capable of taking over my interest there then.’

  Demelza studied Ross’s expression. ‘Judas, this is a change-around. I thought you looked on my brothers like the plagues of Egypt.’

  Ross laughed. ‘Drake – Drake is so much like you that I have found myself resenting it. But in spite of the unfortunate involvement with Trenwith he has become a greater concern of mine. Indeed, on the way home, I have been thinking of that too.’

  Demelza said: ‘My love . . .’

  ‘If we can establish Drake in some position where he can afford a respectable marriage, and if the Chynoweth girl stays faithful to him for a couple of years, as seems likely enough, why should we not contrive a match between them – right outside the orbit of the Warleggan household? She will be in Bodmin, and if he were in Looe—’

  Demelza said: ‘My love. I have to tell you that that is no longer possible.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because Morwenna was married to Osborne Whitworth in Sawle Church a week ago.’

  Chapter Twelve

  It had all happened to Morwenna very quickly. Or it seemed very quickly to her. A landslide of pressure and emotion and panic and duty may move slowly to carry someone away, but the person so carried feels as if in the grip of an avalanche.

  The news that Drake had been freed had brought such relief to her that for a while nothing else seemed to matter; and she was reconciled to a return home and all that that entailed. A disappointed mother, curious and inquisitive sisters, an attempt to pick up a routine she had now outgrown. Geoffrey Charles was still at Cardew, and she did not expect to see him again before she left. But Drake was free and unharmed – that was the one vital concern. Everything else could be forgotten now, and time – for everyone but her – would see that it eventually was. The eighteen months she had spent in the Warleggan household would become just an episode in the life of a young woman who had made a rather foolish and injudicious friendship. Bodmin was far away. News of her indiscretion might travel – vastly exaggerated no doubt – but it could be lived down. She did not want to go home; her life with Geoffrey Charles had been too pleasant for her not to know that she was returning to a narrower and poorer existence. But she accepted that and was only waiting for her mother to come and fetch her. Even this seemed a far from necessary journey for a delicate and overburdened lady; but George and Elizabeth had insisted that it should be so.

  In the interval of waiting she spent more time with Agatha, whose needs increased as her day neared. Remarkably in so old a woman, Agatha drew on fresh reserves of interest and energy and concern the more she found to do and to think about. ‘Doing’ meant in the main getting someone to do for her, and now that Geoffrey Charles was no longer in Morwenna’s charge, and now that Morwenna sought to be as little as possible in the company of the other members of the household, she spent several hours a day with the old woman, mainly in her room, but usually accompanying her on her forays downstairs. In Agatha’s company she was protected against the raising of matters to do with her own life. And her attendance was not without an element of penance. The horrid atmosphere of the old woman’s room was a sort of hair shirt she drew on to counteract the prickings of her own thoughts.

  One Sunday it had been morning service, and she came home to find all the old people down together. This was something she knew would keep George away, so she sat with them sharing a pot of tea and trying to listen to their desultory conversation.

  On this came Elizabeth, smiling at them all, coolly pleasant, refusing the tea, which she thought should not be drunk at this time of day, and saying that she wanted a word with Morwenna. So Morwenna rose and went with her, and Elizabeth said she thought she should tell Morwenna to change her frock after dinner for the Whitworths were expected about seven.

  Morwenna felt a constriction round her heart. ‘But – why are they coming, Elizabeth? You should have told me – I could have gone before they came!’

  ‘No . . . they are coming to see you. Mr Whitworth has been very good, very patient with you. Osborne Whitworth knows nothing of the trouble we have had here.’

  ‘But . . . Mr Warleggan said he had written!’

  ‘So he did. But after he had released that man – that young man – he decided not to send the letter. Lady Whitworth and Mr Osborne Whitworth were due in any case to come to stay with us, and so we have said nothing to dissuade them.’

  ‘And – how can I greet them? How can you—’

  ‘As if nothing had happened.’

  ‘But much, so much, has happened! It’s not possible to pretend—’

  ‘There is no need to pretend anything. Be your normal, natural self. What is there to be afraid of?’

  ‘But, Elizabeth . . . How can this be? . . .’

  Elizabeth smiled. ‘How can what be? All that has occurred is that Mr Warleggan and I have talked together and we have decided that the incident of your infatuation with this young man was too trivial to be allowed to wreck your life. It need never be mentioned among us again. After all, who knows of it?’

  ‘Many – many people. Even here – even in this house! Your own father and mother and – and—’

  ‘My father and mother are aware that something happened, but they are not really very interested. You only have to look at them to know that. Aunt Agatha knows nothing. Geoffrey Charles will spend the rest of the summer away. As for the rest – a few village folk, who can be ignored.’ Elizabeth stopped at the door and looked out. ‘It is a fine day, and I trust the way will not be too rough for their journey. Lady Whitworth is getting up in years and Mr Whitworth did not wish to leave until he had read prayers and preached.’

  ‘Elizabeth! . . . I – it has come as such a great shock! I do not know how I can possibly face them at such short notice!’

  ‘There’s time enough. We considered it better and kinder to arrange it thus. I know it has startled you, given you a small shock to begin. But I believe when you have thought a few minutes and realize that now you have lost nothing at all of what you thought you had
lost, you will be very happy to greet them.’

  ‘I cannot see how that can be!’

  Elizabeth’s face hardened. The delicate beauty of her cheek and chin seldom moved into harder lines, but when it did the change was noticeable. ‘Morwenna, pray, pray count your blessings. That young man has been spared the prosecution and punishment which would have ruined his life. When Mr Warleggan decided to withdraw the charge against him, it was a very compassionate and kindly thing to do. I’m sure you appreciate that.’

  ‘Oh, indeed I do! All I ever—’

  ‘Well, from it stemmed our other wish. If the young man was not to suffer for his indiscretion, why should you? This is the moment to be grateful, not one to renew your obduracy.’

  They walked down the steps and out into the garden. A gardener touched his cap to them and Elizabeth spoke to him about the roses. When she had rejoined Morwenna she said: ‘I’m sure your mother will give you good advice, my dear.’

  ‘Yes, I know she will! When will she be coming?’

  ‘She sleeps in Truro tonight, and if the weather is good should be with us for dinner tomorrow. I know how much you are looking forward to seeing her again.’

  ‘Elizabeth, could it not be arranged for me not to meet Mr Whitworth again until after I have seen her? I so badly want her aid and advice.’

  ‘It is hardly possible. You cannot absent yourself for a whole day. But nothing need be decided in the first day. You only have to be welcoming and polite, as you so well know how to be.’

  ‘But if – How can it be kept secret, what has happened? I have told my mother everything and she will most certainly have said something to my sisters. Perhaps others too . . .’

  ‘She does not know yet.’

  ‘But I wrote to her – six pages last week. It will certainly have reached her before this and—’

  ‘I did not have it posted,’ Elizabeth said. ‘It is upstairs now. It has not been opened. Nothing that you wrote has been read. Oh, you may think it was a liberty on my part to withhold it. But if so, it was only done with the kindest of intentions.’

  Morwenna bit at her lip to keep back the protest.

  ‘With this – this new accommodation in mind,’ Elizabeth said, ‘we thought it better that your mother should know nothing of your association with this young miner until you met her. Then you can tell her what you choose to tell her in your own words. We cannot stop you, my dear, nor would we attempt to! But when you meet her you will be in a cooler and more reflective mood. She arrives tomorrow knowing only of your earlier proposal of marriage from Mr Osborne Whitworth and whatever you may have written to her about that.’

  Lady Whitworth did not seem to Morwenna to be the delicate elderly flower Elizabeth’s words had suggested. She was a tall, strong-built woman with tough but sagging cheeks, a masculine voice and button-bold eyes. She would never for a moment have thought this modest quiet girl suitable for Osborne in her own right; but the connection with Mr Warleggan’s money made it something she would welcome from a practical point of view. She constantly wielded a fan, indoors and out, barely relinquishing it to eat; and her harsh strong aristocratic voice filled every room she entered.

  Her son topped her by a couple of inches and his voice joined with hers in dominating the conversation. Aunt Agatha, who had known Lady Whitworth’s mother and thought little of the daughter, had not included them in her birthday invitation.

  Ossie’s attitude towards Morwenna was reserved, and a little more haughty than hitherto. He knew he had been rejected in Truro and, while he took small account of this – many girls thought it their duty to refuse a man a couple of times as part of the game – the rejection rankled. He needed the marriage dowry, which was much the best in sight – and he needed the girl’s body, which was so incapable of being hidden even in those dowdy clothes – but he had a grudge against the personality behind those shy sleepy brown eyes. He was prepared to overlook it for the gains which would accrue but it left him a little stiff and constrained.

  That first evening he did have a few moments alone with her but he did not stoop to press his suit. Instead he told her the text of the sermon he had preached that morning and the effect his sermon had had on the congregation, and of the extreme difficulty he had had in getting away from his parish in order to pay this visit to Trenwith. It could not have been more cold or more formal. But all the time he was looking at her, and she knew he was looking at her.

  Then the following day just before dinner – and really fatigued by the journey, not like Lady Whitworth ready for a strong rum and a game of quadrille – came her mother. So tired was she that they postponed the meal until three.

  Amelia Chynoweth had been, and indeed still was, a very pretty woman. She had been born a Tregellas, daughter of Trelawney Tregellas, the notorious bankrupt. When he died in the Fleet, it was considered a good match for his only – legitimate – daughter that she should marry the Reverend Hubert Chynoweth, a man of unimpeachable family, a fine tenor voice, and a rising light in the church.

  Well, he had risen; and propagated; and set too soon, leaving an impoverished widow of forty-two and a brood of children quite unprovided for. Amelia Chynoweth, perhaps because she came of a father who had always been out of step, first in the county of his birth and then in the metropolis that he sought to conquer, had herself hardly ever put a foot wrong. In voice, in bearing, in taste, in opinions, she conformed. Over the years it had ceased to be an anxious conformity and become a willing and instinctive one. So it was not surprising that she should look with some pleasure on the union of her eldest and first unprovided-for daughter with a man of superior family and another rising light in the church, however far his voice might fall short of tenor quality.

  They talked of it for two hours the next morning, in the tiny dark panelled Tudor bedroom which was the only bedroom left for Mrs Chynoweth to occupy. Morwenna did not tell her all – Elizabeth’s prophecy came true and somehow the whole story of her relationship, as she had told it in the letter, could not now come out – but she spoke of Drake as a young man in the district, a carpenter, related to the Poldarks by marriage, and a good-living, pure-hearted Christian, whom she loved devotedly and whom she would love to her dying day.

  Her mother was not without sympathy and understanding. She knew something of Morwenna’s sincerity and honesty and steadfastness in all things. When Hubert died she had been the greatest comfort. But Amelia lacked empathy, that ability to put oneself in another’s place and to see the world through another’s eyes. She had done this so much for the last twenty years on a superficial level that she had lost the ability to do it in depth. While Morwenna was talking she looked back into her own life and vaguely wondered – and could not remember – whether she had loved Hubert when she married him. Marrying him had been the culmination of a number of ‘right’ things to do. Since her marriage the ‘right’ things had been more clearly defined by her position and her responsibilities. Since she became a dean’s wife, the responses had become automatic.

  How, then, to deal with a daughter who was sorely troubled at heart because she loved a quite unsuitable man?

  ‘Morwenna, my dear. To be sure, I understand how you feel. But I think you have to remember that you are still exceeding young.’ Morwenna’s heart sank at this, for she saw now, instantly saw, imminent defeat. Whenever anyone told her she was young . . . Her mother went on speaking for some minutes, and she scarcely listened, staring into an almost unfaceable future. It was an appreciable time before her mother’s voice broke through the darkness and the bitterness and the fear. ‘Of course, it could be said that you need not marry at all – at least, not yet. This young man whom you misfortunately and injudiciously met – such a marriage is hardly to be considered, is it? You don’t even suggest it. I know you see that yourself. But the other choice, this Mr Whitworth. I think you must be very careful before you do anything which will discourage him. I quite see that your – your feeling for one young man will make it m
ore difficult to entertain the same or a similar feeling for another. But I think you must take that into account and try to overcome it.’

  ‘And if I fail, mama?’

  Mrs Chynoweth kissed her daughter. ‘Try not. For your own sake. And for all our sakes.’

  ‘You ask me to do it for your sake?’

  ‘No, no, not just for my sake. Though I should find much happiness in it – not just selfish happiness, I assure you. Take the widest view you can of this. Oh, I so wish I could put an old head on your shoulders so that you could consider it wisely and thoughtfully and from the experience which you cannot yet have had. I ask you to consider it for your own sake first: a better marriage than you could really ever hope to make again; an assured position in society; enough money; a personable young husband with great prospects in the church; security for the rest of your life; and a good religious life. It is what any girl would jump at. I know how much your father would have rejoiced at the thought of his daughter marrying into the church. Then, after you have thought of that, consider the great generosity of Mr Warleggan in making this marriage possible, and whether it is seemly that you should reject it. Finally, only then, spare a thought to my own pleasure at such a match. And relief, my dear – I have to confess it. Relief. Not that I wish to lose you or would not welcome you home with open arms, but there are three others, as you well know, all younger, and our means are small. You know how delicate I am and how much of a struggle it has been for us since your father died. Do not let this be of major concern to you—’

  ‘Oh, but it is, it is!’

  ‘Not of major concern, my child. It is your own future you must consider first and foremost. And it is because of your own future that I hope and pray you will make a wise decision. But I am sure Mr Whitworth will speak to you in the course of the next day or two. Please think carefully how you shall reply.’