Ross Poldark

by Winston Graham

  One could go no further. Let it rest. Ross thought of Demelza upstairs putting on her best and full of youth and good spirits. He hoped she was not going to overdo it. Fortunate that Verity had had the ordering. The thought of Demelza warmed his mind and lit it up, as the arrival of the candles had lit the room.

  To the devil with vicarious worries. Christmas was no time for them. In January they could be revived, if they still had the power to vex and disturb.

  CHAPTER NINE

  DINNER BEGAN AT FIVE AND WENT ON UNTIL SEVEN-FORTY. IT WAS A MEAL worthy of the age, the house, and the season. Pea soup to begin, followed by a roast swan with sweet sauce; giblets, mutton steaks, a partridge pie, and four snipe. The second course was a plum pudding with brandy sauce, tarts, mince pies, custards, and cakes; all washed down with port wine and claret and madeira and home-brewed ale.

  Ross felt that there was only one thing missing: Charles. The great paunch, the more or less subdued belches, the heavy good humour; at this moment the corporeal remains of that massive, mediocre, but not unkindly soul were rotting away and becoming one with the soil that had given it life and sustenance; the organic humours of which it was composed would soon be helping to feed the rank couch grass which overran the churchyard. But in this house from which he had spent few nights away in the course of his sixty-eight years, in this house remained some unspent aura of his presence more noticeable to Ross than the aura of all the portraits of forty-six ancestors.

  One did not so much feel sorrow at his absence as a sense of the unfitness of his not being here.

  For such a small party the dining hall was too gaunt and draughty; they used the winter parlour, which faced west and was panelled to the ceiling and was convenient for the kitchens. Chance stage-managed Demelza's arrival.

  Verity had come to the large parlour to tell them that dinner was ready. Elizabeth was there and the four of them left the room smiling and chattering together. As they did so Demelza came down the stairs.

  She was wearing the dress that had been made up from Verity's choice, the very pale mauve silk with the half-length sleeves, slightly hooped and pulled apart like a letter A at the front to show the flowered apple-green bodice and underskirt.

  What Ross could not quite understand was her appearance, her manner. Natural that he should be pleased with her; she had never looked so charming before. In her own queer way this evening she rivalled Elizabeth, who started any such competition with advantages of feature and colouring over almost all women. Some challenge born in the situation had brought out the best of Demelza's good looks, her fine dark eyes, her hair neatly dressed and tied, her very pale olive skin with the warm glow under it. Verity was openly proud of her.

  At dinner she didn’t burst her stays. In Ross's opinion she overdid her good behaviour by pecking at many things and always leaving the larger portion on her plate. She out-vied Elizabeth, who was always so small an eater; a suspicious person might have thought her to be mocking her hostess. Ross was amused. Tonight she was on her mettle.

  A talkative girl at meals, full of questions and speculations, she took little part in the conversation at this meal, refused the burnt claret which the others drank and herself drank only the home-brewed ale. But she didn’t look bored and her manner was always one of intelligent interest while Elizabeth spoke of people she did not know or gave some anecdote of Geoffrey Charles. When she was drawn in, she answered pleasantly and naturally and with out affectation. Aunt Agatha's occasional broadsides didn’t seem to disconcert her: she would look at Ross, who sat next to the old lady, and he would shout an answer. This put the onus on him of finding the right one.

  Talk turned on whether there was truth in the rumour of another attempt on the King's life. The last such rumour had certainly been true, when Margaret Nicholson tried to stab him at a levée; Francis made some cynical comments on the good cloth used in the royal waistcoat. Elizabeth said she had been told the King's household servants had not been paid for twelve months.

  They talked of France and the magnificence of the court there. Francis said he was surprised someone had not tried to sharpen a knife on Louis, who was far more deserving of one than Farmer George. The French Queen was trying to find a cure for all her ills in animal magnetism.

  Verity said she thought she would try that for her catarrh, for she had been told to drink half a pint of sea water daily and she found she could not stomach it. Dr. Choake blamed all colds on the malignancy of the air; raw meat put on a pole turned bad in forty minutes, while similar meat kept in salt water remained fresh for a long time. Ross remarked that Choake was an old woman. Francis said perhaps there was literal truth in that statement, since Polly was so unfruitful. Elizabeth turned the conversation to her mother's eye trouble.

  Francis drank ten glasses of port over the meal but showed little change. A difference, Ross thought, from the old days when he was always the first under the table. “Boy's no head for liquor,” Charles would grumble. Ross glanced at Elizabeth, but her look was serene.

  At fifteen minutes before eight the ladies rose and left the two men to drink brandy and smoke their pipes at the littered and derelict table. Between themselves they talked business, but the conversation had not been in progress many minutes when Mrs. Tabb appeared at the door.

  “If you please, sir, visitors has just come.”

  “What?”

  “Mr. George Warleggan and Mr. and Mrs. John Treneglos, sir.”

  Ross felt a spasm of annoyance at having this surprise sprung on him. He had no wish to meet the all-successful George tonight. And he felt sure Ruth would not have come had she known he and Demelza were here.

  But Francis’ surprise was genuine.

  “Cock's life, so they come visiting on Christmas Eve, eh? What have you done with them, Emily?”

  “They’re in the big parlour, sir. Mistress Elizabeth said would you come soon and help entertain them, and they do not intend to stop long.”

  “Surely. We will go right away.” Francis waved his glass. “Right away.”

  When Mrs. Tabb left he lit his pipe. “Imagine old George coming tonight. I thought he was spending Christmas at Cardew. A coincidence, what? And John and Ruth. You remember when we used to fight John and Richard, Ross?”

  Ross did.

  “George Warleggan,” said Francis. “Great man. He’ll own half Cornwall before he's done. He and his cousin own more than half of me already.” He laughed. “The other half he wants but can’t have. Some things just won’t go on the table.”

  “His cousin?”

  “Cary Warleggan, the banker.”

  “A pretty name. I’ve heard him called a moneylender.”

  “Tut! Would you insult the family?”

  “The family grows too intrusive for my taste. I prefer a community run on simpler lines.”

  “They’re the people of the future, Ross. Not the worn-out families like the Chynoweths and the Poldarks.”

  “It's not their vigour I query but their use of it. If a man has vitality let him increase his own soul, not set about owning other people's.”

  “That may be true of Cousin Cary, but it's a small matter hard on George.”

  “Finish your drink and we’ll go,” Ross said, thinking of Demelza with these new people to face.

  “It is more than a little strange,” said Francis. “Philo sophers would no doubt hang some doxy name on it. But to me it seems just a plain perversity of life.”

  “What does?”

  “Oh—” The other hesitated. “I don’t know. We envy some other person for something he has got and we have not, although in truth it may be that he really hasn’t it. Do I make myself clear? No, I thought not. Let's go and see George.”

  They rose from the ruins of the feast and walked through into the hall. As they crossed it, they heard shouts of laughter from the large parlour.

  “Making a carnival of my house,” said Francis. “Can this be George the elegant?”

  “Long odds,�
� said Ross, “on its being John the Master of Hounds.”

  They entered and found his guess a good one. John Treneglos was sitting at Elizabeth's hand spinning wheel. He was trying to work it. It seemed a simple enough action but in fact needed practice, which John Treneglos lacked.

  He would get the wheel going nicely for some moments, but then his foot pressure on the treadle would be not quite even and the cranked arm would suddenly reverse itself and stop. While it was working right there was silence in the room, broken only by an interplay between Treneglos and Warleggan. But every time John went off his stroke there was a roar of laughter.

  Treneglos was a powerful, clumsy man of thirty, with sandy hair, deep-set eyes, and freckled features. He was known as a fine horseman, a first-class shot, the best amateur wrestler in two counties, a dunce at any game needing mental effort, and something of a bully. This evening, though on a social call, he wore an old brown velvet riding coat and strong corduroy breeches. It was his boast that he never wore anything but riding breeches, even in bed.

  Ross was surprised to see that Demelza was not in the room.

  “You lose,” said George Warleggan. “You lose. Five guineas are mine. Ho, Francis.”

  “One more try, damme. The first was a trial try. I’ll not be beat by a comical contraption of this sort.”

  “Where is Demelza?” said Ross to Verity, who was standing by the door.

  “Upstairs. She wished to be left alone for a few moments so I came down.”

  “You’ll break it, John,” said Elizabeth, smiling. “You’re too heavy-footed.”

  “John!” said his wife. “Get up at once!”

  But John had been merrying himself with good brandy and took no notice. Once more he got the wheel going, and it seemed that this time he had done the trick. But at the wrong moment he tried to increase the speed, and the cranked arm reversed and everything came to a jerking standstill. George uttered a cry of triumph and John Treneglos rose in disgust.

  “Three more times and I should have mastered the pesty thing. You must give me a lesson, Elizabeth. Here, man, take your money. It's ill gotten and will stick in your crop.”

  “John is so excitable,” said his wife. “I feared for your wheel. I think we are all a little foxed, and the Christmas spirit has done the rest.”

  If John Treneglos set no store by fashion, the same could not be said of the new Mrs. Treneglos. Ruth Teague, the drab little girl of the Easter Charity Ball, had shot ahead. An instinct in Ross had sensed at the ball that there was more in her than met the eye. She wore a blossom-coloured hoopless dress of Spitalfields silk with silver spangles at the waist and shoulders. An unsuitable dress for travelling the countryside, but no doubt her wardrobe was well stocked. John would have other calls on his pocket now besides his hunters. And John would not have things all his own way.

  “Well, well, Captain Poldark,” said Treneglos ironically. “We’re neighbours, but this is how we meet. For all we see of you you might be Robinson Crusoe.”

  “Oh, but he has his Man Friday, dear,” said Ruth gently.

  “Who? Oh, you mean Jud,” said Treneglos, blunting the edge of his wife's remark. “A hairless ape, that. He cheeked me once. Had he not been your servant I’d have give him a beating. And what of the mine? Old Father is cock-a-hoop and speaks of shovelling in the copper.”

  “Nothing ambitious,” Ross said, “but gratifying so far as it goes.”

  “Egad,” said George. “Must we talk business? Elizabeth, bring out your harp. Let us have a song.”

  “I have no voice,” said Elizabeth, with her lovely slow smile. “If you have a mind to accompany me—”

  “We’ll all accompany you.” George was deferential. “It would suit the night admirable.”

  Not for George the self-confident uncouthness of John Treneglos, who traced his ancestry back to Robert, Count of Mortain. It was hardly credible that a single generation divided a tough, gnarled old man who sat in a cottage in his shirt sleeves and chewed tobacco and could barely write his name from this cultured young man in a new-fashioned tight-cut pink coat with buff lapels. Only some thing of the blacksmith's grandson showed in the size of his features, in the full, tight, possessive lips, in the short neck above the heavy shoulders.

  “Is Demelza coming down?” Ross asked Verity quietly. “She has not been overawed by these people?”

  “No, I don’t think she knows they’re here.”

  “Let's have a hand of faro,” said Francis. “I was damned unlucky on Saturday. Fortune cannot always be sulky.”

  But he was shouted down. Elizabeth must play the harp. They had come specially to hear Elizabeth play. Already George was moving the instrument out of its corner and John was bringing forward the chair she used. Elizabeth, protesting and smiling, was being persuaded. At that moment Demelza came in.

  Demelza was feeling better. She had just lost the dinner she had eaten and the ale she had drunk. The occurrence itself had not been pleasant, but, like the old Roman senators, she was feeling the better for it. The demon nausea had gone with the food and all was well.

  There was a moment's silence after she entered. It was noticeable then that the guests had been making most of the noise. Then Elizabeth said: “This is our new cousin, Demelza. Ross's wife.”

  Demelza was surprised at this influx of people whom she must now meet. She remembered Ruth Teague from seeing her once on a visit to Ross, and she had seen her husband twice out hunting: Squire Treneglos’ eldest son, one of the big men of the neighbourhood. When she last saw them both she had been a long-legged untidy kitchen wench for whom neither of them would have spared a second glance. Or Ruth would not. By them and by George Warleggan, who from his dress she felt must be at least the son of a lord, she was overawed. But she was learning fast that people, even well-bred people like these, had a surprising tendency to take you at your own valuation.

  “Damn it, Ross,” Treneglos said. “Where have you been hiding this little blossom? It was ungrateful of you to be so close about it. Your servant, ma’am.”

  Since to reply “your servant, sir,” was clearly wrong, besides being too near the truth, Demelza contented herself with a pleasant smile. She allowed herself to be introduced to the other two, then accepted a glass of port from Verity and gulped half of it down while they were looking the other way.

  “So this is your wife, Ross,” said Ruth sweetly. “Come and sit by me, my dear. Tell me all about yourself. All the county was talking of you in June.”

  “Yes,” said Demelza. “People dearly love a gossip, don’t they, ma’am?”

  John roared and slapped his thigh.

  “Quite right, mistress. Let's drink a toast: a merry Christmas to us all round and damnation to the gossips!”

  “You’re drunk, John,” said Ruth severely. “You will not be able to sit your horse if we don’t leave at once.”

  “First we must hear Elizabeth play,” said George, who had been exchanging some close confidence with Elizabeth.

  “Do you sing, Mistress Poldark?” asked John.

  “Me?” said Demelza in surprise. “No. Only when I’m happy.”

  “Are we not all happy now?” asked John. “Christmastide. You must sing for us, ma’am.”

  “Does she sing, Ross?” Francis enquired.

  Ross looked at Demelza, who shook her head vigorously.

  “No,” said Ross.

  This denial seemed to carry no weight. Somebody must sing to them, and it looked as if it was going to be Demelza.

  The girl emptied her wineglass hurriedly, and someone refilled it.

  “I only sing by myself,” she said. “I mean I don’t rightly know proper tunes. Mistr—er— Elizabeth must play first. Later, mebbe—”

  Elizabeth was very gently running her fingers up and down the harp. The faint rippling sound was a liquid accompaniment to the chatter.

  “If you sing me a few bars,” she said. “I think I could pick it up.”

  “No, n
o,” said Demelza, backing away. “You first. You play first.”

  So presently Elizabeth played, and at once the company fell silent, even the tipsy John and the well-soaked Francis. They were all Cornish, and music meant something to them.

  She played first a piece by Handel and then a short sonatina by Krumpholz. The plucked vibrating tones filled the room, and the only other sound was the murmur of burning wood from the fire. The candleglow fell on Elizabeth's young head and on her slim hands moving over the strings. The light made a halo of her hair. Behind her stood George Warleggan, stocky and polite and ruthless, his hands behind his back, his eyes fixed unwinkingly on the player.

  Verity had subsided on a stool, a tray with glasses on the floor beside her. Against a background of blue moreen curtains, she sat with hands clasped about her knees, her head up and showing the line of her throat above its lace fichu. Her face in its repose reminded one of the younger Verity of four years ago. Next to her Francis lolled in a chair, his eyes half closed, but listening; and beside him Aunt Agatha chewed meditatively, a dribble of saliva at the corner of her mouth, listening too but hearing nothing. In her finery sharply different from the old lady, but having something strangely in common with her in the vitality of her manner, was Ruth Treneglos. One felt that she might be no beauty but that she too would take some killing off when the time came.

  Next to her was Demelza, who had just finished her third glass of port and was feeling better every minute; and beyond her Ross stood, a little withdrawn, glancing now and then from one to another of the company with his unquiet eyes. John Treneglos was half listening to the music, half goggling at Demelza, who seemed to have a peculiar fascination for him.

  The music came to a stop, and Elizabeth leaned back, smiling at Ross. Applause was on a quieter note than could have been expected ten minutes ago. The harp music had touched at something more fundamental than their high spirits. It had spoken not of Christmas jollity and fun but of love and sorrow, of human life, its strange beginning and its inevitable end.