The Angry Tide

  ‘I’m told,’ Elizabeth said, ‘that you have many abilities, Dr Anselm.’

  ‘I have been told so.’

  ‘Well, for reasons I can’t explain – don’t wish to explain – I would like this to be a seven-month or eight-month child.’

  He looked his surprise and then away. A French ormolu clock struck the half hour.

  ‘You mean you wish to come to parturition before the appointed time?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But you would like the child to be born alive?’

  ‘Yes, yes. Of course.’

  He put the tips of his hairy fingers together and stared down at the carpet.

  ‘Is it possible?’ Elizabeth asked at length.

  ‘It is possible. But not easy. And there would be risk.’

  ‘To me or to the baby?’

  ‘Either or both.’

  ‘How much risk?’

  ‘It would depend. I would have to examine you.’

  Oh, God, she thought.

  ‘Have you had other children?’

  ‘Yes, two.’

  ‘How old were you?’

  ‘My first – when my first was born I was twenty. My second – I would be twenty-nine.’

  ‘A considerable interval. Were they by the same man?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And now there is another interval – five and a half – six years?’

  ‘It will be six years to the month if this child comes to its proper term.’

  ‘I see. Were there any complications at the birth of your other children?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And they were both full term?’

  She hesitated. ‘. . . Yes.’

  ‘When did you miss your first menses?’

  ‘This time? In May.’

  ‘Can you be more specific?’

  ‘It was the 14th. I particularly remember. Perhaps the 13th.’

  ‘Are your showings regular or do they vary in occurrence and length?’

  ‘Regular. Sometimes they vary in length.’

  The chair creaked as Dr Anselm reared his great bulk out of it and took his stomach across to a Chinese cupboard. He opened it and took out a calendar and laid it on the Louis Quinze desk. He dipped his pen in an inkwell and scratched some figures on a piece of paper.

  ‘That means that you should come to your full term in February, most likely the early part. What you want me to do is to advise you how you may have your child, alive and well, in December or January. Am I right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Are you living in London? Would you wish me to attend you?’

  ‘I had intended staying in London, but now I think I shall go back to – well, my house in the country.’

  Franz Anselm rubbed the feather against his chins which, although shaved three hours ago, were already dark again.

  ‘Mrs Tabb. Before I go any further, may I ask you to consider what you are doing. Nature sets out immutable laws and is not lightly to be interfered with. Had you come to me with a two-month pregnancy I could have terminated it far more easily, and more safely, than what you are asking me to do. Indeed, although it is quite possible to do it, and although you look to be in good health, I would remind you that you are thirty-five, which is a disadvantage. Secondly, and more importantly, you would be asking me to prescribe a medicine whose effects I should not be in a position to supervise or oversee.’

  Elizabeth nodded, wishing she had never come.

  Anselm said: ‘Indeed, I suppose I am right in assuming that you would wish this to appear a naturally premature birth, and that the presence of a doctor openly intending to produce this result would be contrary to your wishes.’

  She nodded again.

  Silence fell in the room, but the bells of the hawkers outside were persistent.

  ‘Sometimes there is little peace even at night,’ said Dr Anselm. ‘The penny post comes at midnight and sets up such a clamour with his bell. Often, too, notices are read late in order to attract more attention. And some of the street men never seem to sleep.’

  Elizabeth said: ‘Dr Anselm, I think I was wrong to come to you. I should not have done so had I not been in great distress.’

  ‘Please sit down. I appreciate what you say, madam. We must discuss this coolly and quietly for a little while, and then it may seem easier to decide what is to be done.’

  She subsided miserably and waited.

  He padded across the room and came back with a glass of sweetened fruit juice, which she sipped. He nodded at that approvingly.

  ‘A recipe of my own. Very soothing to the nerves . . . Mrs Tabb.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘What I suggest – what I will suggest to you is that if my examination shows you to be in good health and the pregnancy – so far as I can tell at this stage – a normal one, I will make up a medicine for you, which you may take away with you today. It is a simple vegetable remedy, compounded of a distillation of a number of valuable herbs and of a fungus that grows on rye. If you take it as prescribed – neither more nor less; the amount will be carefully written down for you – and at the date prescribed – you are likely to produce a living child in the manner you desire. I shall put down two dates, one in December and one in January. It will be for you to choose, but I would certainly recommend the December one.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘At seven months the child, though less mature, is suitably positioned for birth. Towards the eighth it turns and is not so positioned. There are far more children born alive at seven months than eight.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘What I suggest is that you take this medicine away with you and keep it always by you. When the time comes you may decide not to take it after all, and then you will go to your full term as nature has designed. But if you are still of the same mind, then it will be available to you as required. I presume you will have a physician to attend you at the time?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  ‘Good. Ah, so . . . Well, if there should be any complications – if, for instance, uterine spasms continue for long after the birth of the child – do not hesitate to take the doctor into your confidence. You could become ill yourself, and it would then be necessary for him to know what you have taken. After all. I am not the only doctor in the world capable of keeping his own counsel.’

  Elizabeth gave him a wan smile.

  ‘However, that need not be and should not be. The fine blending of these herbs should prevent such complications.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Very well, then,’ said Dr Anselm. ‘If you would kindly lie on this couch. I shall confine my examination to the mere essentials, so that it may be as little distressing to you as possible.’

  Chapter Ten

  I

  Demelza’s long journey home with Dwight was one in which she was torn between a feeling that she had deserted Ross in what might yet be a crisis, and a stronger conviction that she could stay no longer with him in London. An impossible situation had been reached, and the only way was to separate. Whatever effect this might have on their future together, it could be no worse than the risk that would otherwise be run.

  As they neared home, she tried to put aside all the bitterness and the heartache of a London visit which had promised and begun so well. However Ross felt when he returned – whatever was going to happen to their marriage – just now, within a day, within a few hours, within a few minutes, she was going to be reunited with her children and her home and her friends and servants and everything – except Ross – that she cared most about in the world. She must concentrate her thoughts on that.

  It was strange coming back to Cornwall after her first time away. She saw again its barrenness, but also she instantly breathed in the soft air like a tonic. She understood the county’s overall indigence and untidiness compared to the well-groomed and wealthy countryside through which she had passed. She felt once again that there was not the enormous gap in Cornwall between rich and poor. The great hous
es, with one or two exceptions, were much smaller than up-country, and there were many fewer. The poor in Cornwall, so far as she could judge, were no poorer, the gentry more on terms with their workpeople.

  The only way from Truro was to hire horses, and this they did. She wanted Dwight to fork off for Killewarren, but he insisted on seeing her home. So she came, and suddenly there was great commotion and squeals of delight, and her hat was knocked away and a pair of fat and a pair of thin arms were round her, and Jane and John Gimlett were crowding in and Betsy Maria Martin and Ena Daniel and all the rest. Presently Clowance burst into noisy tears, and when asked why, replied it was because Mama was crying. Demelza said what nonsense, she never cried, it was because she had an onion in her pocket; but when they clamoured to see it she could only produce an orange. When Dwight turned to go she asked him to stay the night, knowing that no child waited to welcome him, but he shook his head and said he was anxious to see Clotworthy.

  Over the next day talk never stopped at Nampara. The children were well, although Jeremy had been at death’s door with a boil on his arm. At least, this was what Jeremy said, but it happened to be his favourite phrase at the moment. He had heard Mrs Zacky Martin use it, and liked it so much that he brought it in whenever possible. Clowance had actually grown, though without any sign yet of shedding her puppy fat. Neither of the children, Demelza thought, looked as clean as they ought. Although they had probably had more attention than when she was at home, they looked a little neglected and untidy. It was very strange. They lacked the lick of the mother cat.

  Also things had not been so good among the servants while she was away. When she was at home complete tranquillity reigned. Now it seemed that Mrs Kemp had presumed too much (or done not enough), that Jane Gimlett had found Betsy Maria Martin disobedient (or had been too harsh with her), that John Gimlett had not told Jack Cobbledick something about the pigs that he should have done (or had to do something Cobbledick had neglected). And so backwards and forwards in respectful, or not so respectful, asides, until Demelza told each one privately that she wished to hear no more, that she was glad to be home, and that henceforward everything must return to its previous harmony.

  All this should have helped her put events in London out of mind, or at least into the background. Instead contact with all the familiar things, all the preoccupations of a busy family life, accentuated her awareness of every detail of her stay in London, as a bright light will accentuate shadows. Production at the time, as Zacky had written them, was up for the month of October and he now reported it up for November too. At the coinage in Truro their stuff had sold well, and prices generally had risen. Wheal Maiden was still barren of tin, but a modest amount of red copper, not dissimilar from that mined in the recently extinct Wheal Leisure, was now being brought up, also small quantities of silver and silver lead. These last were never likely to be found in such amounts as to justify the outlay of working a mine to bring them up, but as a by-product they were a small addition to the profit side of the ledger.

  On the second day Sam called. He kissed his sister, an act which she always felt he performed with a proper mixture of respect and religious circumstance. She was his elder sister, and the wife of the squire, but she was also his daughter in Christ. She asked at once about Drake.

  He said: ‘He’s back in Pally’s Shop, as your – as Ross instructed him – and working. The roof is repaired, the outside washed, some furniture bought and made, and what ye kindly sent by way of curtains, carpets and mats have been put to the best use. His trade be back – that which he lost, I mean – and his fields are soon to be ploughed. But he have not yet climbed out of the mire of despond into which his spirit and his soul have fallen. I fear that the pains of Hell have gat hold upon him and that he is yet estranged from God.’

  ‘Sam,’ Demelza said; ‘As I have mentioned before, my concern for Drake is not quite the same as yours. Of course I want him to be happy in the next world. But just now I am concerned with his happiness in this. I ask about his spirits, not his spirit.’

  ‘Sister,’ Sam said, ‘Drake is dull and quiet – and that is not his nature, as you well d’know.’

  ‘Is he seeing anything of Rosina?’

  ‘Not’s I know. I would reckon nothing ’tall.’

  Demelza got up and pushed a lock of hair away from her face. Sam looked at her in her cream dimity frock, with the keys dangling at the waist, and thought how young she still looked. But pale. And less pretty. As if something were dragging at her spirit.

  He said: ‘Is something wrong wi’ your life, sister? Are ye troubled of body or soul?’

  She smiled. ‘A little perhaps of both, Sam. But it is something I cannot talk about.’

  ‘Tis easeful always for the soul to unburden itself to Christ.’

  ‘And that I cannot do neither. Though maybe more’s the pity . . . But tell me of Drake. Did he ever say – did he never tell you what happened when he went Truro?’

  ‘Mrs Whitworth would not see him. She turned him away as if they were strangers. Drake said she had changed so’s ye would not know her. Almost crazed she was, he says. And of course looking on Drake as far beneath her now. Ah, well . . . Twould have been a bad marriage whether or no, but Drake could not see that until it were too late . . . Did I ever tell you two constables called . . .?’

  ‘When? On you? What about?’

  Demelza listened to Sam’s story with a gathering coldness in her heart, half attending to the monstrous suspicion implied by the visit, half thinking of Ross and wondering whether someone might yet call on him. If they did, and she were not there, what might he not be trapped into admitting? Her stomach turned over within her. If the Cornish law had taken the trouble to stretch out its fingers and touch Drake, then the London law, which must be so much more efficient and so much more severe, could hardly fail to move against Ross in the end . . .

  ‘So I’ve wondered oft, if Lady Whitworth thought such a thing . . .’

  With difficulty she brought her attention fully back to Sam. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, Mrs Whitworth – Morwenna – she did claim to be in love wi’ Drake. That she should reject him just like that – so sharp, so unfriendly – I’ve thought since, if Lady Whitworth thought Drake might’ve had a hand in Mr Whitworth’s death, Morwenna might’ve thought the same.’

  ‘D’you mean that being why she turned him away?’

  ‘Mebbe.’

  Demelza thought, and then shook her head conclusively.

  ‘Whatever else, Morwenna, if she cared at all for Drake, must have come to know him well. No one who ever comes to know Drake well could ever suspect him of such a thing.’

  They moved on a few paces. How long now before Ross left London? Perhaps only a few days. Perhaps he had already left – if he was permitted to . . . What, she wondered, would her leaving him imply to him when he read her note? Their relationship at this moment seemed the most impossible of resolution that had ever been. Everything they did, said, thought, took place behind endless barriers of hurt pride and misunderstanding.

  ‘What did you say, Sam? I’m sorry.’

  ‘I just wondered – when you’ve been Tehidy – I wondered if maybe you’d ever seen her?’

  ‘I’ve not been to Tehidy while she’s been there. Ross has been two or three times, but then he hardly knew her. Do you want me to ask?’

  Sam squeezed his knuckles. ‘Nay. She’s wed, and I pray she will be happy wed. Tis best left at that.’

  Demelza said bitterly: ‘There’s a saying in London that Hell is paved with good intentions. That seems to be what happens to all my good intentions, both for my brothers and for myself.’

  Sam put a hand on her arm. ‘Never say that, sister. Nevet regret anything you do out of the goodness of your heart.’

  II

  Two days later she walked the five miles to see Drake, feeling that life in London had been too sedentary, and that anyway perhaps the exercise would help to calm some of the
cross-currents in her heart.

  Also they said Jud Paynter was very ill, so she could call on him on the way. She didn’t want anyone else to die.

  Up the nutty valley with the red stream bubbling beside her and Wheal Grace smoking, the clang of stamps, the braying of donkeys, the rattle of carts (was London after all that much noisier?), past Wheal Maiden, down towards Sawle Church, past the track leading to Sawle Combe. Goats were pasturing on the bare moorland, living comfortably on what no other domestic animal could subsist on. (She should really also call at the Nanfans’, for Char had been ill.)

  When she got to the Paynters’ she was relieved to see Jud sitting up in bed and looking little different. Thinner, certainly – like a bulldog that has been pickled in spirit – but as full of complaints as ever and eating all that was put before him. Prudie admitted that he had been some slight, but then, she said, twas only gouty wind and bile, and it all came from him getting drunk last Wednesday sennight at Tweedy’s kiddley, and then mistooken the road home and fallen into Parker’s timber pond, and twas a pity he hadn’t drownded there and then so he could have put an end on it.

  Timber ponds were pools, or parts of a dammed stream, where wood was seasoned before use. The timber lying in them was very greasy, and Jud bitterly commented on the fact.

  ‘I were feeling nashed afore ever this, I tell ee! Nay, Mrs, twas naught to do wi’ drink. Sober I were and walking home as slow as a dewsnail. Hat on head, nose-warmer in mouth, I were quaddling home as slow as a dewsnail all along of me feeling slight from all the work I done that day teeling in Widow Treamble. Gurt woman, she were, and her coffin, twas all we could do to prize un into the ’ole. They d’say she wouldn’t go in the coffin proper way round so they ’ad to thrust ’er in backsyfore. And that’s ’ow she’ll stay, backsyfore till the Day of Judgment! And who d’know what the Lord God will say when He see a woman edging out of ’er coffin backsyfore? Shocked He’ll be, I reckon, shamed, He’ll be at such a sight! . . . Shouldn’t wonder if the same thing don’t ’appen to you, Prudie, when it come your turn.’

  ‘Twill not be afore I’ve seen you closed ’ome,’ said Prudie.