Demelza

by Winston Graham

  They left Sawle Church behind and took the track past Trenwith.

  Ross said, “I feel we have a good deal in common, Captain McNeil.”

  “That’s one way of putting it.”

  “Well, I have been in and out of scrapes a good part of my life, and I imagine you have been the same.”

  The captain laughed, and a flock of birds rose from a neighboring field.

  “I think perhaps you will agree,” Ross said, “that though we may revere the law in abstract, in practice there are considerations that take a higher place.”

  “Such as?”

  “Friendship.”

  They rode on in silence.

  “The law would not admit that.”

  “Oh, I do not expect the law to admit it. I was asking you to admit it.”

  The Scotsman screwed in his mustache. “No, no, Captain Poldark. Oh, dear, no. You are out of uniform, but I’m still in it. I’ll not be maneuvered into a corner by such moral arguments.”

  “But moral argument is the most potent force in the world, Captain. It was that more than force of arms that defeated us in America.”

  “Well, next time you must try it on my troopers. They will appreciate the change.” McNeil reined in his horse. “I think we have gone far enough, Captain.”

  “It is another mile to Trevaunance yet.”

  “But farther I doubt before we reach agreement. It’s time we parted. I should have appreciated an assurance that ye had taken good heed of my warning—”

  “Oh, I have done that, I do assure you.”

  “Then there’s no more need be said—this time. It may be that we shall meet again—in different circumstances, I should hope.”

  “I shall look forward to it,” Ross said. “If you are ever in these parts again consider my house at your disposal.”

  “Thank you.” McNeil extended his hand.

  Ross took off his glove and they shook hands.

  “Have ye hurt your hand somewhere?” McNeil said, glancing down at the scarred knuckles.

  “Yes,” said Ross, “I caught it in a rabbit trap.” They saluted and separated, Ross going on his way, McNeil turning back toward Sawle. As the soldier rode away, he twisted his mustache vigorously and occasionally a subdued laugh shook his big frame.

  • • •

  The smelting works straggled up the side of Trevaunance Quay.

  A long way off it was possible to see the immense volumes of smoke from the furnaces, and on that still day it hung in the valley shutting out the sun. There was industry with a vengeance, with great piles of coal and heaps of ashes and an unending stream of mules and men busy about the copper house and the quay.

  He dismounted first beside the works to look them over.

  Several reverberatory furnaces had been built, some for roasting and some for fusing the ore. The copper was roasted and then melted, while at intervals the waste was removed, until after twelve hours, it was turned out in a molten state into a trough of water. The sudden cooling brought it to a mass of small grains, which were roasted for another twenty-four hours and again turned out, until eventually the coarse copper was run off into sand molds to cool. The melting and refining had to take place several times before it reached a proper stage of purity. The whole process averaged a fortnight. Small wonder, Ross thought, that it took three times as much coal to smelt a ton of copper as a ton of tin. And coal at fifty shillings a wey.

  Although the place had been open only three months he noticed already how ill and wan many of the men were who worked there. The great heat and the fumes were too much for any but the strongest, and there was a higher sickness rate there than in the mines. A factor he had not foreseen. He had labored long hours to bring it to pass, believing it meant prosperity for the district and perhaps salvation for the mines, but there did not seem much prosperity for the poor devils who worked there.

  The fumes were blighting the vegetation in the pretty cove. The bracken was brown a month in advance of its time and the leaves of the trees were twisted and discolored. Thoughtfully he rode up to Place House, which stood on the other side of the valley.

  When he was shown in, Sir John Trevaunance was still at breakfast and reading the Spectator.

  “Ah, Poldark, take a seat. You’re early. But then I’m late, what? I do not expect Tonkin for half an hour.” He flipped the paper. “This is a confoundedly disturbing business, what?”

  “You mean the riots in Paris?” said Ross. “A little extravagant.”

  Sir John put in a last mouthful of beef. “But for the king to give way to them! Egad, he must be a lily! A round or two of grapeshot is what they wanted. It says the Comte d’Artois and several others have left France. To bolt at the first grumble of thunder!”

  “Well, I fancy it should keep the French occupied with their own affairs,” Ross said. “England should take the hint and put her own house in order.”

  Sir John munched and read in silence for a while. Then he crumpled up the paper and threw it impatiently to the floor. The great boarhound by the fireplace rose and sniffed at the paper and then walked off, disliking the smell.

  “That man Fox!” said the baronet. “Damn, he’s a fool if ever there was one! Going out of his way to praise a rabble such as that. One would think the gates of heaven had opened!”

  Ross got up and walked over to the window. Trevaunance stared after him.

  “Come, man, don’t tell me you’re a Whig! Your family never was, not any of ’em.”

  “I’m neither Whig nor Tory,” Ross said.

  “Well, drot it, you must be something. Who’d you vote for?”

  Ross was silent again for some time and bent and patted the hound. He seldom thought such things out.

  “I’m not a Whig,” he said, “nor ever could belong to a party that was forever running down its own country and praising up the virtues of some other. The very thought of it sticks in my crop.”

  “Hear, hear!” said Sir John, picking his teeth.

  “But neither could I belong to a party that looks with complacency on the state of England as it is. So you’ll see the difficulty I’m in.”

  “Oh, I don’t think—”

  “And you must not forget,” Ross said, “that it is but a few months since I stormed a jail of my own. And one that held considerably more than the six prisoners of the Bastille. It is true I didn’t parade the streets of Launceston with the jailer’s head stuck on a pole, but that was not for lack of feeling like it.”

  “Hm!” said Sir John uncomfortably. “Hrrrm! Well, if you will excuse me, Poldark, I’ll change my gown to be ready for Tonkin.”

  He left the room hastily and Ross continued to pat the head of the boarhound.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Demelza had been wrestling with her conscience ever since Monday evening, and when Ross left on the Friday, she knew she would have no peace unless she gave way.

  So after he had gone, she walked over to Trenwith. She was almost as nervous as she had ever been in her life, but there was no escape. She had hoped for a letter from Verity the previous day with the Mercury, but none had come.

  Making the mistake of most early risers, she was surprised to find that Trenwith House had an unawakened look, and when she plucked at the doorbell, Mary Bartle told her that Mrs. Poldark was still in bed and that Mr. Poldark was breakfasting alone in the winter parlor. It might suit better than she had hoped, and she said, “Could I see him, if you please?”

  “I’ll go and ask, ma’am, if you’ll wait here.” Demelza wandered around the splendid hall, staring up at the pictures, able to take a longer view of them than she had ever done before. A strange crew, more than half of them Trenwiths, Ross said. She fancied she could detect the Poldark strain coming in, the stronger facial bones, the blue, heavy-lidded eyes, the wide mouth. Those early Trenwiths were
the men with the looks, soft, curling, dark beards and sensitive faces, and the red-haired girl in a velvet gown of the style of William and Mary—but perhaps the Poldarks had given a new vigor. Was it they too who had brought the wild strain? Elizabeth had not been painted yet. That was a pity, in fairness Demelza had to admit it.

  The house was very quiet, seemed to lack something. She suddenly realized that what it was lacking was Verity. She stood quite still and saw for the first time that she had robbed the household of its most vital personality. She had been the instrument of a theft, perpetrated on Francis and Elizabeth.

  She had never looked on it that way before. All the time she had seen Verity’s life as incomplete. She had looked at it from Andrew Blamey’s point of view but not from Elizabeth’s or Francis’s. If she had thought of them at all she had considered them as clinging to Verity from selfish motives, because she was so useful to them. It hadn’t occurred to her that everyone in the household might, in fact, love Verity and feel her personal loss—not until she stood in that hall, which seemed so large and so empty then. She wondered how she had had the impertinence to come.

  “Mr. Poldark will see ’ee right away,” said Mary Bartle behind her.

  So while Sir John Trevaunance was entertaining Ross at his breakfast table, Francis was entertaining Demelza.

  He got up when she went in. Unlike Sir John he was fully dressed, in a buff-colored morning coat with velvet lapels, a silk shirt‚ and brown breeches. His look was not friendly.

  “I’m sorry,” he said shortly. “Elizabeth is not down. She breakfasts upstairs these days.”

  “I didn’t come to see Elizabeth,” Demelza answered, flushing. “I came to see you.”

  “Oh. In that case, please sit down.”

  “I don’t want for you to interrupt your meal.”

  “It is finished.”

  “Oh.” She sat down, but he stood, a hand on the back of his chair.

  “Well?”

  “I have come to you to tell you something,” she said. “I b’lieve you had a quarrel with Ross over Verity leaving the way she did. You thought he was at fault.”

  “Has he sent you here this morning?”

  “No, Francis; you know he would not do that. But I—I have to clear this up, even if you hate me for it ever after. Ross had nothing to do with Verity’s elopement. I know that for certain.”

  Francis’s angry eyes met hers. “Why should I believe you when I have disbelieved him?”

  “Because I can tell you who did help.”

  He laughed shortly. “I wonder.”

  “Yes, I can. For I was the one who helped, Francis, not Ross. He knew nothing about it. He didn’t approve of her going any more than you did.”

  Francis stared at her, frowned at her, turned sharply away as if shaking her confession aside, went to the window.

  “I believed it was…I believe it was for Verity’s happiness,” she stumbled on. She had intended to tell him the whole truth, but her courage failed her. “After the Assembly, I offered to act as—as a go-between. Captain Blamey wrote to me an’ I passed the letters to Verity. She gave letters to me and I gave them to the Mercury man. Ross didn’t know nothing at all about it.”

  There was silence. A clock in the room was ticking. Francis took a deep breath, then blew it out slowly on the window.

  “You damned interfering—” He stopped.

  She got up.

  “’Tisn’t pleasant to come here and confess this. I know how you feel for me now. But I couldn’t let this quarrel betwixt you and Ross go on from my fault. I didn’t wish to hurt you or Elizabeth, please know that. You’re right. I was interfering, but if I did wrong ’twas out of love for Verity, not to hurt you—”

  “Get out!” he said.

  She began to feel sick. She had not thought the interview would be nearly as bad. She had tried to repair a mistake, but it did not seem that she had done any good at all. Was his feeling for Ross any different?

  “What I came for,” she said, “was to take the blame. If you hate me, that’s maybe what I deserve, but please don’t let this be a quarrel between you and Ross. I should feel—”

  He put up his hand to the catch of the window as if to open it. She saw that his hand was trembling. What was the matter with him?

  “Will you go,” he said, “and never enter this house again. Understand, so—so long as I live I never want you to come near Trenwith again. And Ross can stay out as well. If he will marry an ignorant trull such as you then he must take the consequences.”

  He had controlled his voice so hard that she could only just hear what he said. She turned and left him, went out into the hall, picked up her cloak, passed through the open doorway into the sun. There was a seat beside the wall of the house and she sat on it. She felt faint, and the ground was unsteady.

  After a few minutes, the breeze began to revive her. She got up and began to walk back to Nampara.

  • • •

  Lord Devoran was not present, being kept away by an attack of tissick. Mr. Trencrom was away also, being still privily occupied with the claims of his suffering employees—those who had had the misfortune to be found with contraband goods in their cellars and lofts.

  From the beginning Ross felt there was something wrong. It was a general meeting of the shareholders and as such was not held until after dark. No general meeting had ever yet been held in daylight, since there might always be a spy about watching comings and goings.

  A score had turned up. Chief item for discussion was Ray Penvenen’s proposal that a rolling and cutting mill should be built at the top of the hill where his land joined Sir John’s, he personally to pay half the cost, the company the other half. The project was urgent, for the venturers of Wheal Radiant had suddenly refused to renew the lease on their battery mill. Unless the company put up its own mill at once it would be forced to sell the copper solely in block ingots.

  The only debatable point was the selection of site. Nevertheless Ross was for making the concession to Penvenen’s amour propre, for Penvenen had what was at a premium: free money. What Ross expected was opposition from Alfred Barbary. And he got it. The dreary old argument was dragged up about the north coast shareholders’ getting all the plums.

  Ross listened to the wrangle but noted again that the cross-eyed Aukett sat silent, plucking at his bottom lip. A carpet manufacturer named Fox might have been turned to stone. Presently Tonkin, who made the perfect chairman, said, “I should like the opinion of some of the other shareholders.”

  After the usual sort of hesitation, some views were given, mainly in favor of the mill near the works. Then Aukett said, “It’s all very well, gentlemen, but where’s our half of the money coming from, eh? That’s what I’d like to know.”

  Tonkin said, “Well, it was understood by the leading shareholders that additional calls might be expected and we all accepted that. The need is great. If we can’t roll and beat the copper we miss nearly all our small markets. And the small markets may just turn the scale. We can’t force the government to buy our copper for the mint, but we can expect our own friends to buy their requirements from us.”

  There was a murmur of agreement.

  “Well, that’s very well,” said Aukett, squinting worse than usual in his excitement, “but I’m afraid our mine will be unable to meet any such call. Indeed, it looks as if someone will have to take over the shares I hold.”

  Tonkin looked at him sharply. “Whether you sell the shares is your own concern, but so long as you retain them you’re in honor bound to accept the responsibilities we all jointly incurred.”

  “And so we’d like to,” said Aukett. “But you can’t get blood out of a stone. Whether we like it or not we shall have to contract out of the undertaking.”

  “You mean default?”

  “No, there’s no question of defaulting. The
shares are paid up. And our goodwill you’ll retain, but—”

  “What’s wrong?” said Blewett. “You told me on Tuesday that the higher prices at the last ticketing had put the Wheal Mexico venturers in better heart than they’d been for years.”

  “Yes.” Aukett nodded. “But yesterday I had a letter from Warleggan’s Bank telling me they could no longer support our loan and would we make arrangements to get it transferred elsewhere. That means—”

  “You had that?” said Fox.

  “That means ruin unless Pascoe’s will take it over, and I have my doubts, for Pascoe’s was always on the cautious side and want more security. I’m calling in at Warleggan’s on my way home to see if I can persuade them to reconsider it. It’s unheard of suddenly to withdraw one’s credit like this—”

  “Did they give any reason?” Ross asked.

  “I had a very similar letter,” Fox interrupted. “As you know I have been extending my business in several directions and I have drawn heavily during the last year. I went to see Mr. Nicholas Warleggan last evening and explained that a withdrawal of their facilities would mean the failure of these schemes. He was not very amenable. I believe he knew all about my interest in Carnmore and resented it. I really believe that was at the bottom of it.”

  “It was.” Everyone looked at St. Aubyn Tresize. “My private business is not for discussion at this table, gentlemen. But money has been advanced to me during the last few years from Warleggan’s Bank. They have the finest security in the world—land—but it is a security I don’t propose to forfeit. If they foreclose at this stage I shall fight them, and they’ll not get the land. But they will get most of my assets, including my shares in the Carnmore Copper Company.”

  “How the Devil have they come to know all this?” Blewett demanded nervously. “More than half of us here have some indebtedness that can be assailed.”

  “Someone has been talking,” said a voice at the bottom.

  Richard Tonkin tapped the table. “Has anyone else here had word from the Warleggans?”