The Angry Tide

  ‘But did you not fall last time?’ Morwenna’s naturally warm nature forced its way through the veil of preoccupation that was obscuring her mind. ‘Wait. I’ll come part way with you.’

  ‘No, no. Look, it is just by the door where it is so bad. Once out in the yard . . .’

  ‘Two will be stronger than one. I’ll get my cloak.’

  As they were struggling out of the yard Morwenna called to one of the Trewinnard boys. ‘I am just taking Mrs Warleggan back to Trenwith.’

  ‘Ais’m.’

  It was a long struggle, with a raving south-west gale just gathering strength and buffeting them this way and that. Quite clearly Morwenna could not turn back until Elizabeth was safely home, right up to the door of Trenwith. There Elizabeth said, since Morwenna had come so far, surely she would just slip in for a moment to greet her father and mother. Morwenna said, well, just at present she would really rather not. Elizabeth said I think they would be hurt to know you had come right to the door and not seen them. With a shiver of remembrance, Morwenna stepped into the big, picture-hung hall. Then, with the wind ranting outside and rattling the great leaded window as if it would pull it down, she accepted their invitation to stay to dinner.

  II

  The gale of December the 9th, 1799, was little worse than a half dozen others that might occur most years; but it was distinguished by the great seas it brought in. The worst of the storms had been far out in the Atlantic, and the coast suffered the effects. Nine ships of varying size were wrecked, mainly along the south coast, and particularly in the area of the Manacles, but a few came to grief along the north coast. Hendrawna Beach drew a blank.

  Various people were converging on the area of Sawle-with-Grambler as the day progressed. Ross and Caroline had caught the new express coach that left Torpoint at seven-thirty and was due in Truro soon after midday. The gale delayed the coach, and two o’clock had gone when, after a brief and early dinner at the Royal, they mounted their hired horses for the last stage.

  Demelza and Drake had reached Bodmin in fair time, but the Reverend John Pomeroy, rector of Lesnewth, vicar of Bodmin and the archdeacon’s representative, was out and did not return until noon. Although he then raised no obstacles to the issue of a licence, it was time enough when the formalities were completed; and even then Drake had another call to make before they turned for home.

  The other notable riding towards the north coast was Mr George Warleggan.

  The first to reach his destination, if one excepts Caroline and her maid, whom he left at the gates of Killewarren, was Ross. Like his wife a few weeks earlier, his arrival was unannounced and unexpected. The first person who saw him was a thin, long-legged eight-year-old boy staggering across the garden carrying a ball of twine. His scream was lost in the scream of the wind, but soon he was in his father’s arms and soon there was all the confusion that had attended Demelza’s return. In the midst of it Ross asked where his wife was and was told that Mama had gone off with Uncle Drake early this morning and had said she would not be back to dinner.

  ‘Daddy!’Jeremy shouted, above the chatter of his sister and the welcome of the servants. ‘Daddy, come and look at the sea!’

  So they all went to look, at least as far as the stile leading down to the beach; further it was unsafe to go. Where the beach would have been at any time except the highest of tides, was a battlefield of giant waves. The sea was washing away the lower sandhills and the roots of marram grass. As they stood there a wave came rushing up over the rough stony ground and licked at the foot of the stile, leaving a trail of froth to overflow and smear their boots. Surf in the ordinary sense progresses from deep water to shallow, losing height as it comes. Today waves were hitting the rocks below Wheal Leisure with such weight that they generated a new surf running at right angles to the flow of the sea, with geysers of water spouting high from the collisions. A new and irrational surf broke against the gentler rocks below the Long Field. Mountains of spume collected wherever the sea drew breath, and then blew like bursting shells across the land. The sea was so high there was no horizon and the clouds so low that they sagged into the sea.

  As he steered his chattering family back into the house Ross tried to discover what their mother was about, being away all day in this fashion, but nobody seemed to know. Then Jane Gimlett drew him aside and whispered in his ear. Ross nodded and looked out at the lowering sky. Once again something important had happened in his absence. She should have been home before this, and in less than an hour it would be dark.

  Gimlett had taken his horse to the stables, and, after a glass of ale, he patted his children’s eager faces and said he was going out and would be back in half an hour and, alas, it was too windy for them to come with him. So he went up to the mine and saw Zacky Martin and some of his other friends, and as he moved to return to the house he saw Drake riding away up the valley. Avoiding a meeting at this stage, he stood behind one of the sheds until he was past and then walked down.

  Demelza, having heard of his arrival, had come quick again to the door and was peering into the dark afternoon looking for him. They saw each other, and she came as far as the edge of the garden to meet him; almost breaking into a run but then checking herself.

  She stopped, uncertain.

  He said: ‘Well, Demelza . . .’

  ‘Are you –’ she said. ‘Did anything happen?’

  ‘When?’

  ‘After I left, of course.’

  ‘No, the incident is dead.’

  She said: ‘Oh . . .’

  ‘An unfortunate choice of words, perhaps.’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘The incident is – dead.’

  ‘Though it will live a long time in my mind.’

  There was a pause.

  He bent and kissed her. Her lips were cool and tentative.

  ‘Have you been back long?’

  ‘Less than an hour. I came with Caroline. The coach was late.’

  ‘What a day . . .’

  They stared about them, glad of a subject they could share without emotion. Foam blew in soapsuds about the garden and hung in tattered streaks from brambles and branches like the seeds of wild clematis.

  Ross said: ‘This is why some of those pretty trees from Strawberry Hill would not grow here.’

  ‘Even those that are growing here look in a poor way.’

  ‘When I got home Jeremy was trying to tie some of them up.’

  ‘Was he? He loves plants. This morning it was only normal gusty. I have been to Bodmin with Drake.’

  ‘Jane told me.’

  ‘I’ll explain it all later. Have you eaten, Ross?’

  ‘Briefly and early. But I can wait till supper.’

  At the moment each was content with a neutrality founded on the exchange of commonplaces, the incidence and occurrence of mundane things. If there was to be war or peace between them, love or lost love, agreement or disagreement, affinity or misunderstanding, it must yet wait a while to emerge. The sharp edges could be cushioned for a time by the routine of home.

  They turned and went into the house together.

  With the licence in his belt Drake was meanwhile making his way towards Sawle. Demelza had lent him Judith until tomorrow, so he was in time at Parson Odgers’s cottage to catch him and his eldest son hammering at a piece of guttering that had come down in the gale. Drake was feeling so benevolent to the world in general that he said he would come up so soon as ever the gale had abated and replace all that piece over the front door with a piece of new. What they were putting back, he said, had gone poor and would hardly see the winter out.

  He did not intend this as an ingratiating gesture, but Parson Odgers did seem to feel that there might be more in the young man than he had previously noted; he peered at the licence through a pair of broken spectacles, said all was in order and when did they now wish to be wed: next Monday? Drake said, could it be earlier than that? Parson Odgers said, well, there was nothing to stipulate that it should not be earlier, when
did the young man suggest? The young man suggested tomorrow. Odgers winced as if he had been trodden on and said impossible, he was busy tomorrow; he had appointments, all sorts of things to see to; couldn’t manage that. Perhaps, if he rearranged his timetable he might be able to fit it in on Wednesday morning. Drake, having observed the unintended effect of his offer to replace some of the guttering, said, well, if by some chance Mr Odgers could fit them in any time tomorrow, didn’t matter whether twas early or late, he would, could, easily repair the whole of the guttering of the cottage before the end of the winter. He’d got some very suitable iron that could soon be knocked into shape and given a coat of paint before it was put up. Heavy stuff that would last for years. Mr Odgers coughed into his woollen scarf and said: ‘Eleven-thirty, then.’

  ‘Mind you’re not late,’ he added, as Drake turned happily away. ‘I can’t celebrate after noon. It’s against the law.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Odgers. Rest sure we’ll not be late. Reckon we shall be in church soon after eleven.’

  ‘Eleven-thirty, I said! And that, of course, is dependent on the gale. In this climate my poor church has so much to stand.’

  As he mounted Judith, Drake offered up a silent prayer that Sawle’s leaning spire should resist at least one more storm. The gale was becoming a little less violent with the onset of dusk. That was not saying much; Judith staggered under the constant buffeting, and even here, two hundred feet above the sea, puffs of foam drifted like ghosts, dodging and dipping in the wind.

  It had been a long day for Drake following other long days, but there was no fatigue in any of them. He had slept barely three hours any night since Morwenna came but he had felt no sleepiness during the day, nor did now, nor would when he put his head down. If there had been need he would cheerfully have ridden the fifty miles to Bodmin and back all over again. Life was in him like a burning, glowing spark, every moment, every thought added breath to it, fanning it alive. Ross had said to him once: ‘Nothing should be able to destroy your life like that.’ But it had. Perhaps equally nothing – no one person – should have been able to make his life like this – to make it over again, in Sam’s terms. But it was so. And if the depths were too deep, surely no heights could be too high. There might be a moral law against misery: there was none against happiness.

  Nor did he feel any serious doubts about Morwenna’s love for him. At the moment he had no thoughts beyond securing her in wedded companionship: let the rest come if or when it would. He was prepared to be as patient as he promised – to wait for months or years. What did it matter if it was half a marriage? There was a proverb that among the blind the one-eyed was king. Until a few days ago he had been blind.

  As the top of the last long hill he dismounted, for Judith was very tired. He led her down the narrow track, noticing with some surprise that there seemed to be no light in Pally’s Shop. Indoors it must surely be dark by now, and Morwenna, if she were sewing, should not be straining her eyes. A worm of alarm moved in him. But then, of course, she might be at the gate waiting for him. She should be the one who might be worried.

  But she was not at the gate. The place looked deserted. The Trewinnard boys normally worked from dawn until dusk, but on a day like this he would have sent them home by three. Had they gone? And had Morwenna gone? He jumped off the pony, looped the reins over the post and ran into the house.

  ‘Morwenna! Morwenna!’ Through the kitchen up to the parlour, and then part way up the ladder to the bedrooms. Nobody. The fire was out. Nothing. He was back to what he had been a week ago. He climbed the rest of the way and looked in at the bedroom where she had been sleeping. There was her bag, her nightdress, her slippers, her brush and comb. So at least she could not have—

  ‘If ee plaise, sur.’ One of the Trewinnards, he didn’t know which. ‘Mistress Whitworth, sur, she ’m gone out.’

  ‘Gone out? Where?’ Relief of a sort.

  ‘Gone Trenwith.’

  ‘Trenwith?’ No relief now.

  ‘Mistress Warleggan came for she this morning. Mistress Whitworth say she will walk her ’ome, as Mistress Warleggan be carren a baby, and in this gale o’ wind.’

  ‘When was this, Jack?’

  ‘Jim, sur. Jack he gone. We tossed a coin to see who’d stay till one of ee was ’ome. Oh . . . dunno. Aven no wa-atch. Twould be afore noon, reckon.’

  ‘Did she say – anything more – how long she’d be?’

  ‘Nay, sur, naught more’n I d’say. She just say she be gwan walk Mistress Warleggan ’ome. I reckoned she’d be no moren’ a ’our.’

  ‘Thank ee, Jim. Go home now.’

  ‘Ais, sur.’

  Barely stopping to slam the door behind him, Drake ran for the tired pony, clambered on its back, dug his heels in and turned wildly up the hill towards Trenwith.

  Chapter Thirteen

  I

  As soon as she sat down to dinner Morwenna regretted the decision to stay. It had been very hard to refuse and would have seemed like a rebuff to the two old people welcoming her. It would, too, have been a rebuff to Elizabeth who, however misguided earlier, had made what amends she could. Especially she had befriended Drake on an issue of great importance to his survival as a smith. It was good also to see that darkly attractive little boy, Valentine Warleggan, again. On their visits in Truro Morwenna had seen a good deal of him and become fond of him. He sat beside her at the meal, and plied her with more food and drink than she could eat.

  That was all right; but this house was darkly reminiscent of trouble and bitter scenes and heartbreak. Merely being in it put the clock to the time when she was Geoffrey Charles’s governess and an impressionable girl in her teens, likely to be overborne by her elders. It served to undermine her conviction now. Now that she was here, nothing seemed as definite, nothing as decided. She told herself that this was a weakness within herself, created by the nervous strains of these last years; irresolution was not deep in her temperament. Yet it was deep in her consciousness.

  Nor, now that she had stayed, did she feel she had had the need to for fear of offending the old Chynoweths. Though they knew her to be a widow and had had a child of her own, they were not really interested in her or concerned about her affairs. The four years since she left Trenwith as a modest bride might have contained a whole lifetime for Morwenna; to them it was a few months in a repetitive existence whose monotony was only broken by the variety of the ailments they suffered. And their welcome to her was not really based on any personal warmth but on the recognition of a familiar human being who in the past had always been willing to sit and listen sympathetically to their complaints.

  They had finished their main course and the heavy dishes were just being borne away when George arrived.

  First it was a noise at the door and distant voices and the sound of feet. Then voices nearer and the clop of hooves on the gravel near the window. Elizabeth rose, her face flushing, put her hand on the back of her chair. George came in.

  He was in tall boots and snuff-coloured riding suit, and he was handing his cloak and hat to a servant as he entered. His hair was blown about by the wind, and he put up a hand to smooth it. His face was unusually red from the buffeting.

  ‘Well, well,’ he said. ‘The family at dinner. Am I late?’

  ‘Not in the least,’ Elizabeth said. ‘It can all be brought back straight away. Stevens, Morrison . . .’

  ‘Yes’m.’

  ‘And Morwenna,’ said George, looking across as he greeted his mother-in-law. ‘I had not thought to find you here.’

  ‘Just a visit,’ said Elizabeth. ‘What a day! What brought you in such weather?’

  ‘Impulse. And I felt I should look to my affairs—’

  ‘Papa! Papa! Did you get near blown away?’

  ‘And Valentine,’ said George sarcastically. ‘What a happy family!’

  ‘Papa! Did you see the sea? It is e-nor-mous! Tom and Bettina took me to look down into Trevaunance Cove!’

  ‘It is almost six months
since I was here,’ George said, ‘and sometimes the presence of the owner has a salutary effect on the servants.’ He sat opposite Morwenna and glanced around him. ‘Ah . . . well, no, I think the cod is not for me, Stevens. Nor the fried beef. Was the goose good?’

  ‘I did not eat it,’ said Elizabeth. ‘Father . . .’

  ‘Eh? What? Oh, yes, the goose was fair enough. We’ll need bigger than that for Christmas, though. There’s few enough of any size about. The bad spring seemed to start ’em off late.’

  ‘Papa! They say the roof came right off Hoskin’s cottage! Just like stripping a wig off a bald man! That’s what Bettina said. ‘Just like stripping a wig off a bald man!’

  ‘Are you settling down with Lady Whitworth?’ George asked Morwenna, ignoring the little boy. ‘No doubt you will find the life somewhat constricting.’

  ‘Well, no,’ said Morwenna, and stopped.

  ‘Papa—!’

  ‘Valentine,’ Elizabeth said, ‘please do not talk so much at the table. Allow your father a little peace.’

  ‘Peace,’ said George, still not looking at Valentine, ‘is something we prize only when it is lost. Like faith, like trust, like confidence.’ He began his dinner.

  ‘Talking of peace,’ said Mr Chynoweth, pulling at his thin beard. ‘I see that fellow George Washington has died. He was a thorn if ever there was one. Puffed-up reputation too. Ah, well, end of an era, I suppose. End of a century too. Gracious knows what the next will bring.’ He peered distrustfully into a future that did not belong to him.

  Elizabeth motioned to the butler to bring in the next course for the rest of them. It consisted of cherry tarts, mince pies, apple fritters, and a plum pudding, with cream and custard and jelly. Dinner went on for a while to the sound of the buffeting wind. George’s presence was big and alien and dominant in the room, like that of a king who has just come into a group of his subjects. Everyone strove to behave normally and no one quite did.

  Morwenna looked at Elizabeth, caught her eye, and indicated that she would like to leave. Elizabeth made a little warning negative movement of the head.