Warleggan

by Winston Graham

‘And do you suppose we should fail to give it?’

  ‘No . . . no.’

  The fire was burning low and needed more wood. Presently it would be made up for the night.

  ‘There are many things on which I could not answer for Demelza. But in this I can.’

  He went for the big logs into the storeroom after Dwight had gone. When he returned to the parlour with the logs, he found that Demelza had come in again. She was standing before the mirror, pinning up her hair.

  She saw him in the glass. ‘They’re both settled?’

  ‘Yes. All’s well.’

  ‘I hope Caroline won’t want for anything. John left plenty of wood for her fire, but I expect she will not need it. Did you find London likeable?’

  ‘Likeable enough for a visit. You must come with me next time.’

  She lowered her arms and moved aside to let him put on the logs.

  ‘I wonder why the weather is colder in London. It is four years since we had snow here . . . If Julia had lived, she would have been near on six.’

  He took up the poker and began spreading out and flattening the remnants of the evening’s fire. ‘I know . . . And you . . . Barely yet in your middle twenties.’

  ‘Do I look that much older?’

  ‘No. Often younger. But you began living so young, have experienced . . . Sometimes I feel you’re as old as I am. Already in six and a half years we’ve shared so much.’

  ‘And lost so much.’

  ‘We’ve lost Julia. Nothing else irreparably.’

  She lifted her shoulders. It was a shrug half abandoned, for she was watching him. This they both suddenly knew was the moment when he was going to force past the casual guards of companionship.

  She said: ‘So you came away from Trenwith without a torn shirt.’

  ‘Yes . . . In recent weeks, more particularly since I went to London, I have come to realize how silly this constant enmity is, that its chief poison acts on the man who feels it. Not an original discovery, nor perhaps one I shall always be able to abide by, but worth a run. I put it as a proposition to George tonight that we should try to live without rancour.’

  ‘And what did he say?’

  ‘Nothing promising; but I hope when he gets over his astonishment he’ll see the reason in it.’

  ‘And Elizabeth?’

  ‘Ah . . . About her I’m not sure.’ He got the two logs firmly settled and then, still crouching, looked up at his wife. His face was less guarded tonight. ‘Demelza, I wanted to talk to you about her.’

  ‘No, that I would rather not hear.’

  ‘I think you must. Before I went away I thought not. But there’s no other way.’

  ‘Ross, I’ve forgotten it. All that time. It will do harm to bring it back now. I would much better prefer that nothing should be said of it.’

  ‘I know but – in fact it can’t be forgotten, can it? It is only – overlooked, set aside.’

  She moved away from the fire to give herself breathing space, pulled a curtain straight, snuffed three candles on a side table so that the furniture at the end of the room slid its surfaces into an encroaching shadow. Absently she began to shake out a cushion.

  Ross said: ‘I want to tell you that Elizabeth means nothing to me any more.’

  ‘Don’t say that, Ross. I shouldn’t want for you to say more than you feel—’

  ‘But I do feel it—

  ‘Yes, at present. But then again sometime, perhaps next month, perhaps next year . . .’

  He said: ‘Come here, Demelza. Sit down, will you? Listen to what I have to say.’

  After a minute she came back.

  He said: ‘You’re so desperately anxious to be fair, not to be self-deceiving, to make the best of what you have . . . But what you have is all . . . Will you try to believe that?’

  ‘Have I call to believe that?’

  ‘Yes. I wish I could explain about Elizabeth. But in a way I think you must understand. I loved Elizabeth before ever I met you. It’s been a – a constant attachment throughout my life. D’you know how it is when a person has wanted something always and never had it? Its true value to him may be anything or nothing; that doesn’t count; what does count is its apparent value, which is always great. What I felt for you has always been assessable, comparable, something human and part of an ordinary life. The other, my feeling for Elizabeth, was not. So what I did – what happened in May, if it could only have happened in a vacuum, without hurt to anyone, I should not have regretted at all.’

  ‘No?’ said Demelza.

  ‘No. Because from it I came to recognize things which no doubt I should have had common sense and insight enough to have known without the experience but did not. One is that if you bring an idealized relationship down to the level of an ordinary one, it isn’t always the ordinary one that suffers. For a time, after that night, things were upside down – for a time nothing came clear. When it did, when it began to, the one sure feeling that stood out was that my true and real love was not for her but for you.’

  She was very still, eyelids pale, brows straight with a hint of concentration at their inner ends. He received no hint that she was wrestling with demons, her mind and emotions split: on the one hand struggling against the too easy capitulation ready, so ready, within herself; on the other looking at the love that he now offered with both hands, and finding it, perversely, not enough – not of itself enough as a single isolated factor.

  ‘May I ask a question?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘How did you come to feel that, Ross? What persuaded you of it? I mean, the experience itself can’t hardly have been unpleasant.’

  ‘What experience?’

  ‘Of making love to Elizabeth.’

  ‘No . . . far from it.’ He hesitated, a little put out. ‘But I wasn’t seeking just pleasure. I was – I suppose in fundamentals I was seeking the equal of what I’d found in you, and it was not there. For me it was not there.’

  ‘Perhaps it would have come in time. Perhaps you did not persevere, Ross.’

  He glanced at her dryly. ‘Would you have had me do so?’

  ‘Well, I do not know the details of your – adventure, but it seems to me you are hardly quite fair on Elizabeth. At least . . . I do not very much like her, but she is not a light woman. You came upon her, I suppose, in surprise. I should not be astonished if at first she tried to be faithful to her new promise. I do not know how long you stayed with her or how much you made love to her, but I should think there could be times when she might show to better advantage.’

  ‘Are you defending Elizabeth now?’

  ‘Well, yes . . . or no. I think I am defending women. Truly, Ross, are not all women treated by all men like something inferior, like chattels you take up and put down at will? I – I’m very happy tonight that you prefer me and I hope you always will. But I ink it is unfair to any woman to judge her, to condemn her, upon a chance encounter, like. I should not wish to be so judged. Though indeed I think I have been so judged, quite recently.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  She hesitated, uncertain now of the chasm that gaped before her, then suddenly certain that – though all unplanned – this was the testing jump.

  ‘If we have to talk of this, then there’s something I must tell you. I have often thought I should, but it did not seem important if you did not care for me any more. But now if it is true what you say, if you really mean this . . .’

  ‘Of course I do.’

  ‘Then I must tell you, before we go any further, that on my last visit to the Bodrugans I had an adventure – though it did not end in quite the same way as yours. I went – you will know the sort of mood I went in to that ball. It was but four days after you had gone to Elizabeth. I should dearly have liked to revenge myself on you in the only way I could. And as it came about, the opportunity was there. Malcolm McNeil was there.’

  ‘McNeil?’ said Ross. ‘The—’

  ‘Yes. We were something flirtatious dur
ing the evening. Then afterwards he came to my room.’

  Ross looked at her.

  She said: ‘I do not want for you to blame him, for it was almost at my invitation that he came. But when he came and began to make love to me, I found him less attractive than I could tolerate. I do not know what standards I have created in you, but I know what standard you have created in me. And so at the last I would have nothing to do with him. The meeting did not end as happily as yours with Elizabeth. He was very angry.’

  ‘My God! So I should think!’

  ‘There, you see! You are taking the man’s side, just as I took Elizabeth’s—’

  ‘I am not! If ever I meet with the profligate swine—’

  ‘But it’s not fair to rail at him. It is me you should be angry with, if anyone . . .’

  Ross got up and walked slowly across the room. He stood with his hands behind his back, seeing without reading the titles of books on his bookshelf. After a while he said: ‘I don’t understand. What occurred between you and McNeil? Have you ever had any feeling for him?’

  ‘At one time I believe I had a little, but not now.’

  ‘A little . . .’ Emotions disturbed his normal balance. ‘Yet you allowed him the freedom of your room, of yourself—’

  ‘Can you imagine how I felt at that time? You had just abandoned me for Elizabeth.’

  ‘So you threw yourself at the first man available—’

  ‘Not the first, Ross. At least the fourth.’

  Their eyes met and clashed. There was an awful silence.

  He said very bleakly: ‘God in heaven, I don’t admire your frankness after all this time!’

  ‘Maybe I should not have told you, but I don’t like to be dishonest. If there is to be something good and true between us again—’

  ‘Good and true . . . How far did this – thing go between you and him?’

  ‘Not any great way.’

  ‘So I should think not!’

  ‘Why should you think not, Ross? Should not the goose, if she chooses, be able to drink as deep as the gander?’

  Anger was in him unencouraged. ‘Well, I don’t think I admire your attitude, either then or now! I take no pride in my visit to Elizabeth. But the thing was the outcome of a devotion which had lasted on my side for more than ten years. It was not some tawdry little passion worked up over the wine for a cheap satisfaction between dinner and supper!’

  Her pulses began to beat suffocatingly. ‘And Margaret Vosper?’ she said.

  ‘Margaret Vosper?’

  ‘Yes. She was at the ball. Have you a ten-year devotion for her also?’

  He could have struck her. ‘The only dealings I ever had with Margaret Vosper were one night before I met you. I believe you would be twelve at the time. I can’t swear to my faithfulness to you while you were in swaddling bands, and I don’t propose to begin! Can you think of any other excuses to give a soldier licence of your body?’

  ‘That was what I didn’t do, Ross, as you would know if you had been attending instead of getting hot and angry about it. I could not. I found I had no love for him at all. I don’t know if that gives you any gratification . . . It gave him none.’

  Ross said: ‘How am I to know what gratification he received?’

  ‘Oh,’ she said, and stared at him blindly. ‘Ross, what a thing to say! After you just told me . . . That you should think . . .’ She could get no words out.

  He said: ‘How am I to know anything any more?’

  There was dead silence for a moment or two. ‘No,’ she said. ‘How are you to know . . .’

  She ran from the room.

  Upstairs in an impossible trembling state, part anger, part grief. In a cupboard the valise she had taken to Werry House. Out with it and a few things. Anything almost. A change or clothes, shoes, a few coins. She began to struggle out of her dress, pulling at the hooks, ripping the lace. Then into her travelling clothes. Boots, crop, hat; it all took too long. Now and then tears fell on her hands. Now and then she took a breath as if there was no air left in the world. Jeremy stirred in his sleep. She must leave him now. Later she would send for him. She could not wake him, take him through the night.

  Impossible end to the evening! Dwight and Caroline reconciled. They almost. It had begun so well. Ross could hardly have said more. Then her need of conviction. Then her mention of McNeil. McNeil. A test which had somehow recoiled on herself. She stared round, at this room which had been hers ever since they married. Never again. Not here. It was the end of all. Never again.

  She got her hat on, pinned it, could not find gloves, must go without; picked up the valise. Handkerchief. She must go quickly or the sounds she was making would wake Jeremy.

  Out in the passage and down the stairs. Ross. In the doorway of the parlour.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  She glared at him, eyes like lamps, opened the front door, and went out. Round the house, stumbling, into the yard, the stables. She must take Darkie, no other mount of their own. The stables full tonight. Gimlett had left a lighted lantern. She stumbled, dropped her valise, almost fell, pulled herself to where the saddles were. Her own. Darkie whinnied. She carried the saddle to the mare and threw it over her back.

  She had saddled horses many times, but now her fingers were all ways. The girth kept slipping through her hands. Darkie was restless, sensing her haste and frightened by it. The other horses pushed against each other, whinnied; a bat disturbed fluttered with futile wings among the rafters. The seventh Christmas of their marriage. What had Verity said in her letter? They were all so wrong!

  A footstep. Ross said: ‘Where are you going?’

  She did not turn, tugged desperately at the girth, which had somehow got twisted and now would not release to begin again.

  ‘Demelza.’

  ‘I’m going away,’ she said. ‘What else can I do after . . .’

  ‘Are you going to McNeil?’

  ‘No, of course not.’

  He came a little farther into the stables. At last she got the strap free, but in tugging at it she slid the saddle over to one side.

  ‘Then tomorrow would be more convenient for us all.’

  ‘No . . .’

  He said: ‘Here, let me,’ and came up beside her and took the girth out of her hands and began to fasten it properly. In the lantern light his face looked like stone.

  She turned sharply away to hide her own face from him and went for her valise, carried it to the horse. In silence he finished saddling the mare and reached for the bridle. Then he stopped, weighed it in his hands.

  He said: ‘Since you went upstairs I’ve been trying to think how this began, this quarrel, how it came so swiftly on us, and the cause. Perhaps you think I was patronizing you by explaining myself in the way I did, by seeming to take your feelings for granted. Was that it?’

  ‘. . . Does it matter now?’

  ‘No, plainly not. What I feel for Elizabeth now is of small importance; other things have come up. Still it was the truth, what I told you, all of it. When I saw her tonight, that confirmed it – it was like seeing a stranger. Queer! Like a stranger, even an enemy, sitting there. George’s wife. I’m sorry that I did her an injury as well as you, but there’s no way of recovering the past.’

  ‘No . . .’

  He fastened the bridle and bit and then looked at her. ‘Shall I tie the case to the back of the saddle?’

  ‘Please . . .’

  ‘Where are you going? It’s very late.’

  ‘I . . . The Paynters for tonight. Prudie will find me somewhere.’

  ‘Will you come back for the rest of your things, or shall Gimlett bring them over?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’ll send word.’

  He said: ‘Before you go, you should know that I don’t seriously question your account of what took place between yourself and McNeil. What you told me came as a surprise – a shock, and in the first anger . . . or you could call it the first jealousy . . . But of course I don’t wan
t you to think that could be my eventual belief.’

  Demelza turned blindly, took the reins, led Darkie to the door. Ross did not at once follow her but stayed in the stable picking up some things which had fallen from a shelf. She hesitated, put her hand to the stirrup to steady it, but did not mount. He came out. Darkie pulled her a couple of paces forward and vigorously shook the bridle.

  ‘And there’s one other thing I want you to know,’ he added. ‘That is how deeply sorry I am that I ever hurt you in the first place – in May, I mean. You were so undeserving of any harm. All these months . . . I know how you will have felt. I want you to know that. If you had gone off with McNeil, I should have had only myself to blame.’

  She dropped the reins and put up her hands and covered her face with them in a sudden gesture of distress. She wanted to say something but could think of nothing at all.

  After a minute or two he said: ‘Does it upset you now to be told that I love you? D’you still prefer McNeil? Is he still in the district? I’ll go and call on him tomorrow.’

  ‘No, Ross, he is gone; and I care nothing, nothing.’

  ‘Then why are you leaving? Are you not willing to overlook what I said?’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because it is the truth! That is what I had never realized till you had spoken it. Oh, I don’t know why. A sort of blindness. ’Tis quite unbearable to think of . . . Impossible to live with! I don’t know what I shall do.’

  He came out and stood beside her. He looped the reins over a peg.

  ‘Should we not go inside and talk it over?’

  ‘No! I can’t.’

  ‘You cannot forgive me, then.’

  ‘I cannot forgive myself.’

  ‘That was a favourite Poldark complaint at one time, but I judged you too wise to catch it. Look, supposing we go as far as the kitchen. I don’t see that need compromise either of us too deeply.’

  He took the lantern and waited for her. She hesitated.

  He said: ‘You may leave in five minutes if you wish.’

  She followed him into the kitchen.

  He opened the side of the lantern and lit another candle from it. The fire was low but quite a glow still came from it. She resisted a sudden impulse to shiver.