‘And marrying me . . .’
‘Marrying you openly would set a seal on my happiness – yes, and on my respectability too – that I don’t deserve – but gladly take. Marrying you in secret, running away with you at night – though I willingly, gladly take that too – smacks a little of the fortune hunter, of the morally equivocal person which my affair with Keren suggests I really am. To leave also all my friends and patients without a word hints at desertion too, a desertion vastly different from the affair of Keren but not altogether different in effect . . .’
He broke off and covered her hand with his other one. It lay quiescent between his, but he did not delude himself that that signified quiescence on Caroline’s part. He had said more than he intended.
She said quietly enough: ‘Do you liken me to Keren?’
‘Good God, no! You’re as far apart—’
‘Isn’t this really, truly, something in yourself, Dwight? Haven’t you to overcome it in any case? Nowhere I’ve been have I heard a word of blame for you in Keren’s death. She threw herself at every man. Why should anyone think worse of you for marrying me?’
‘Not marrying you, no—’
‘Or of running away with me.’ She withdrew her hand but not angrily. ‘Dwight, you may feel I’m unreasonable in not doing as you want – but I have such a strong instinct that the other way is right. If we come out into the open before we go – now, with a whole month to wait, there will be all manner of complications, new difficulties to face. It will mean leaving my uncle’s house, breaking with him directly; and although I know I can do that, I don’t want to. I don’t at all want to if it can be avoided. Although I pretend to care nothing what he thinks, my ties are really quite strong. I owe him things which I should not if he were my father . . . If we leave in secret, run away, he will be furious. He will denounce us both in the strongest possible language. But he will denounce us only to himself, for there will be no one else to say it to. Nothing will be said to us which it would be impossible for his dignity’s sake to withdraw. Nor should I say anything definite, final, wounding, as I should if confronting him to his face. This way, with luck, there should be nothing to stop a reconciliation in six or twelve months. He will accept what cannot be undone. But the other way there would be a “if-you-leave-this-house-you-leave-it-for-ever” scene, and his pride would prevent him from retracting.’
Dwight was silent, and was silenced. There was nothing to advance against this. It was true what Caroline said, that his reluctance was something he must personally fight and overcome. In any case, it was manifestly unfair to burden her with the aftereffects of an old love affair – for it was nothing more than that. He liked her better not less well for her loyalty to the old man, which was something she had not betrayed until it came to the point of defying him. Like most of her feelings, she had kept it well hidden.
Dwight still woke up sometimes with a sense of incredulity that this brilliant, vital young woman had consented to marry him at all. She was giving up so much to do so. It would be a measure of his own smallness and ingratitude if he queried her way of doing it.
A week later Elizabeth sent a message that she wanted to see Ross. He rode to Trenwith in the teeth of a northwesterly gale. When he got there, he thought he had never known the old house so empty. The wind howled down the big open chimney in the hall, loose panes in the great window rattled ceaselessly, a worn mat by the door floated and flapped in the air current. Human life and warmth had gone from the place.
Elizabeth was upstairs, and he watched her come down the broad staircase in that swift, lightfooted way she had made peculiarly her own. She was wearing a little white masculine jacket over her tight-waisted grey dress. She saw his eyes light up at the sight of her.
‘Ross.’ She offered him her hand. ‘Please come in. I am sorry to have brought you from your work. But I want to know what I must do.’
He followed her into the winter parlour, and she took up two letters from beside the spinning wheel. She gave him the first. Although he knew very much what its contents were, he went through it carefully, interested to see just how Pascoe had worded the thing. When he’d finished, he looked up at her.
‘Well, isn’t it astonishing?’ she said. ‘That anyone should offer us – at this stage – as much for my share in Wheal Grace as Francis first put into it? Has there been some new discovery of ore?’
‘None. I wish there had. It’s strange, I agree. Indeed, it’s hard to understand. Everyone knows we must finish soon. And Pascoe says he may not disclose who it is. You had this yesterday?’
‘Yes.’ She hesitated, lashes dark on her cheek. ‘My first thought was George Warleggan. You know of his attempts to help me. Indeed I think he tries to make things better for me just as persistently as he tries to make them worse for you. And I thought that by buying these shares he was perhaps seeking both ends at the same time . . . So I wrote to Mr Pascoe – sent it in by Tabb yesterday. Tabb waited for an answer.’
She offered him the second letter. ‘Dear Madam,’ Ross read, ‘I thank you for your communication delivered to me today. I am able to assure you that, should you and Captain Poldark decide to sell your son’s holding in Wheal Grace, the interest will not pass to any member of the Warleggan family nor to anyone representing them. The prospective buyer is an independent gentleman with your son’s and your own best interests at heart. There will be no attempt to interfere with the present control of the mine. I have the honour to be, madam, Your obedient servant, Harris Pascoe.’
Ross handed the letter back. She was watching him closely, and he had to say something. ‘Extraordinary.’
‘And what do you advise? I do not know if we should consider it.’
‘Consider it? We should accept the offer.’
‘That surprises me too. I thought you would fear interference from an outsider.’
‘In other circumstances I should. But there is Pascoe’s letter. And I have to tell you of a certain good fortune which has come to me recently.’ He explained about the anonymous loan to himself. ‘I can only suppose the same person is trying to help you. Some eccentric with the Poldark good at heart . . . He could not have come at a more opportune time.’
‘Have you any idea who it might be?’
‘None at all. But I trust Pascoe. I know he would not betray us into any false position.’
The tightness of her waist emphasised the shape of her small breasts as she turned away from him. ‘I – this money would of course make all the difference.’
‘We should be out of our minds not to take it – for Geoffrey Charles’s sake. There’s little prospect for the mine unless this newcomer will invest fresh money. He may have some such idea. If so it can only be to my benefit. I shall hope to meet him.’ Ross thought he was coming through the interview rather imaginatively. But not without a curious feeling as if he were cheating Elizabeth instead of helping her at great cost to himself. He had not told Demelza what he’d done, and he hoped it would be a long time before she found out.
Elizabeth said: ‘You’re sure you feel this is right, Ross – for yourself, I mean? Perhaps you are pretending to like this because you believe it is best for us. I should dislike to think I was being false to our friendship.’
‘You’re not being false to anything, Elizabeth. I mean what I say. You should sell. It will enormously ease your position. I’m only grateful to you for hesitating, for your loyalty and for your interest all through.’
She smiled across at him with a new brilliance. ‘Loyalty’s not all on one side, Ross, nor ever has been. Thank you for coming this morning.’
He rode home feeling already well paid for his sacrifice but with the old allegiance grievously reaffirmed.
Chapter Seven
Mr Coke, the Warleggans’ nominee, bought the shares, at £22 10s a share.
After paying Pascoe £600 for Elizabeth, Ross had £75 over. This he could put to the reduction of one of his other debts or could set aside for future inte
rest payments. Or he could buy another month’s supply of coal and keep Grace going through February.
Henshaw said: ‘I think ’twould be a pity to hang on longer than we’d planned. I’m so disappointed as you, except that my loss is a hundred and not six. But there’s such a thing as a feel about a mine. She’ve been awkward from the start. I’d never have believed the poorness of the yield.’
‘We shall get little enough for the engine. I shall feel tempted to dismantle it and keep it for the time.’
‘There’s never been a sign of the Trevorgie lode,’ said Henshawe, his eyes frowning at the map. ‘I do believe ’twas an old wives’ tale from first to last. First we drove seeking it from Leisure, and then from Grace. If ’twas there at all, we should have found some sign of it.’
‘And Mark Daniel,’ said Ross broodingly. ‘All our prophets have been false.’
‘D’you think he was in his right mind that night you speak of?’
‘He may have been deceived by one or two of the false promises that raised our hopes. There was that fine deposit in the northeast end of the thirty level . . .’
‘Copper £103 a ton last week.’ Henshawe bit the nail of his little finger. ‘When we started Leisure, ’twas only £80. ’Twas a crying pity you had to sell your Leisure shares just now. I reckon we shall make a little fortune out of her before we’re done . . . If there was any quality in the stuff we’d raised from Grace . . .’ He took his finger out of his mouth and stared at it.
‘What were yesterday’s assays from the seventy level?’
‘Copper, tin, silver, lead; some of each; not enough of any. ’Tis as if the lodes have gotten mixed, contaminated like. The copper’s less both in quality and quantity than it was ten fathoms nearer grass.’
Ross lifted a piece of the ore-bearing rock, turned it over and over in his hand. ‘I fancy there’s more tin than anything in this.’
‘Copper lodes often do peter out that way.’
‘What happens farther down still? The fault will not disappear, surely. Isn’t there a chance of a renewal of copper at increased depth?’
Henshawe shook his head. ‘Nobody knows how the earth was made. Some do say that the sea runs far inland and underground and makes the springs, forcing them along and up, like to the blood of a man’s veins. So the copper runs too, like to a bone or a sinew, and then stops for reasons we know naught of . . . She’ve been a grievous disappointment; but if I was you, I should not throw good money after bad.’
Ross stared out of the half-shuttered window. The pale, grey January light fell on the scar half hidden by the hair growing down in front of his ear. All the old disquiet in his face today. The old rebellion against the pressure of inanimate things, the stubborn secret anger. You could never get away from it, Henshawe thought, something inborn.
‘How would it be this last month,’ Henshawe said, trying to remove the look, ‘if we drove down again – not exactly starting an eighty level, but following these poor indications as if they was good and seeing what another ten fathoms have to show. I don’t give much for the prospect; but ’twould perhaps settle a query in your mind, like.’
‘How long can we go on, with no fresh capital?’
‘If this next parcel of ore fetch what the last did, I’d say three weeks. Of course if we closed the deeper level, I’d say two or three weeks more than that.’
‘Your money’s in as well as mine. I can’t decide for us both.’
‘You’ve six times my stake, sur. I’ll abide by what you say.’
‘Yet you’re the mining man.’
‘There’s little or no mining in this now. ’Tis instinct so much as anything, and your instinct’s so good as mine.’
‘Very well,’ said Ross after a moment. ‘We’ll go down.’
When Henshawe had gone, Ross stayed in the old library for an hour or more, checking entries in the cost book. Presently, it being reckoning day, a file of miners formed outside and came in one by one, made their marks in the book against their names, and received the money due to them. Almost all of them had their own private marks, few being content with the conventional cross. All of them knew that in a matter of weeks they would come here for the last time. Ross had a word for each one, often a joke or a wry comment. They were not his chief friends, most of whom he had engaged at Wheal Leisure when opening it; but they had become his friends during the last year.
When the last had left he still stayed on, though it was well after two. Again and again he weighed up the samples of ore, comparing what had been raised this week with what had been mined last. Several times he took up a hammer and split pieces off. Once he nearly went through the floor in doing so. It was as well that he was not immediately above the cache, which had been made at the far end of the room under the last window. Where the trap door had been cut two big metal trunks stood, hiding the joins in the floor boards.
That reminded him, he must see Mr Trencrom, for Mr Trencrom was not playing fair. The storage place had been made on the strict understanding that goods should be put there for a limited time only – three or four days at the most until they could be carried away. There were things in there now, a roll of fancy lace and ten five-gallon casks of Geneva rum which had been left more than three weeks. That wasn’t good enough.
At that moment Demelza called him from the front door, and he put his head out and answered her. The house being L-shaped, he let himself out of the end door, slipped its padlock on, and was about to walk across the garden when he saw Will Nanfan coming down the valley.
Will was an old friend. For the time he was comfortably off, with a small holding, five grown children, and a pretty second wife. He was a big fair man in his fifties, still handsome, and played the fiddle.
‘Good day, sur, I’m glad to find ee in. I thought ’twould be a good time to call.’
‘Come inside, Will. You have news for me?’
‘Yes, but I’ll not come in if ’tis all the same to you. I just dropped by to tell ee we’ve found Mark Daniel.’
Ross looked up sharply. ‘Found him? At Cherbourg?’
‘No, sur, not at Cherbourg. He’s in Ireland.’
Ross stared across at the mine chimney on the hill. It was throwing out black smoke, which meant inefficient firing. He did not speak.
‘That’s why we couldn’t seem to trace ’im. The people he’d been with said he’d left, but they’d no notion where. Nine months ago there was a deal o’ trouble in Cherbourg. All this kick an’ sprawl over the revolution. There was house burning and what not. Folk began to look askance at Mark, him being a foreigner; so he bested to go to Ireland, and slipped away in one of the Irish ketches that run goods over from time to time. He’s living, they d’say, in Galway; or ’twas some such outlandish name.’
‘How did you find this out?’
‘Got talking with the skipper o’ one of the ketches. He’s a friend of Mark’s, it ’pears. We do business wi’ the Irish vessels, upon times. They run into the Scillies same as we do; they’ve depots to leave goods there same as we ’ave. They haven’t the size, y’know, and often come back that far laden to the gunnels.’
Ross said: ‘When will you be seeing this man again?’
‘O’Higgins? Next week, like as not. The One and All will not be sailing till near the end of the month, but I’m takin’ the cutter over to the Scillies on Monday if the weather d’lift.’
‘Will you give him a message from me?’
‘I’ve already said for him to tell Mark Daniel ye are wanting to see him.’
‘Good. I’ll send a note to Mark. Someone will read it to him, even if it’s the priest. Come in here.’ Ross unlocked the door of the library again and went over to the desk.
Demelza, who had been occupying her waiting time giving Jeremy his food, got up and went to the window just as Nanfan left the library. When Ross came across, he looked preoccupied but not displeased. They ate the meal in silence for a time, the sole conversationalist being Jeremy, who wa
s intelligible only to himself.
Ross told her the purpose of Will Nanfan’s visit. Demelza said simply: ‘I’m glad we shall know.’
‘Yes. I’d been afraid perhaps he was dead. It’s so long.’
‘Shall you get him to come here?’
‘I’ve asked him to meet me in the Scillies. There’s less danger for him there, and I’m sure he’ll come.’
‘And how shall you get there?’
‘I may pay a fishing boat to run me out from Penzance. Or I can go when Trencrom makes his next run.’
‘You won’t be quite so sure, that way, as bringing Mark to the mine. I’m sure he’d be willing to come.’
‘He would. But a half-hour’s conversation, with a plan of the workings, is all I need. I shall know then just what he was talking about and where it is likely to be found.’
Lottie Kempthorne was a great deal better. As Charlie put it: ‘She have very good symptoms upon her now, and the smallpox are coming out kindly.’ Dwight watched the other child but there was as yet no sign. Nor was there another case in the village. It seemed too good to be true. He called in one afternoon and was not at all pleased to find Rosina Hoblyn and her mother there.
Charlie was in high spirits, and after a few moments Dwight learned why. Rosina, with her father’s glowering permission, had at last promised to marry Charlie. At this Dwight glanced a little in surprise at Rosina, and she flushed. He had never thought her enamoured of her middle-aged suitor, and he was not convinced now. She was following the line of least resistance, edged by his persuasions down the path he wanted her to follow, her father softened for his part by what Charlie could offer her.
It might well turn out a happy marriage. This cottage, with the improvements Charlie had made, was lighter and much more comfortable than the one she would leave. And apparently she would no longer need to spend her whole day over a needle. Even as she was now, with her lovely face and unhalting walk, the chances were that any other offer she might get would come from some callow boy earning five or six shillings a week with only a tumbledown shed to offer her for a home.
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