‘No. But that was clearly what she meant. And why should she say anything of the sort?—’
‘Because she hated you, George, that is why! She hated you just as much as you hated her! And how could she hate anyone more than you, when you had just ruined her precious birthday celebrations! She would say anything, anything that came into her head to damage you before she died.’
‘I thought you were fond of her.’
‘Of course I was!’
‘Then why should she say something that might spoil your life just as much as mine?’
‘Because hurting you was more important to her than anything else at that moment. It must have been! It was a vile trick of yours to ruin everything for her—’
‘No trick! It was the truth!’
‘Which no one need have known but for you! If you had come to see me first I would have besought you to say nothing about it. The celebration would have gone off, and everyone would have been happy, and in a few months Aunt Agatha would have passed peaceably away, content with her great triumph. But no! You had to go up and see her and tell her – you had to exact your cheap and petty revenge on her! So she tried to fight back, to hit you back with any weapon she had. And she could see that you were happy in your child; this was your great pride, that you had a son, a son to follow you and succeed to all your possessions. So she had to try and destroy that. I don’t suppose it ever entered her head to consider me – or Valentine. Her one aim was to revenge herself on you! . . . And she did, didn’t she? She succeeded!’ Elizabeth laughed harshly. ‘She succeeded more than she could ever have imagined! Ever since then the venom has been working in your veins, and it will go on working till the day you die! What a revenge, George, what a revenge she scored on you, all because of your mean little triumph! Every day you’ve lived since then has been destroyed for you by Aunt Agatha!’
The sweat was standing out on his face. ‘God damn you, how dare you say anything like that to me! Mean and petty, you call me. Cheap and petty. I’ll not suffer such insults!’ He turned as if to walk out of the room. ‘I sought to set things to rights about her age, that was all. Trust a Poldark to be cheating—’
‘She didn’t know it!’
‘I suspect she did.’ At the door he turned again, came back to the dressing-table. ‘And what you have said to me tonight, Elizabeth – apart from such unforgivable insults – is totally untrue! It is not true that Agatha has poisoned my life ever since she died. Elizabeth, stop laughing!’
Elizabeth had her knuckles to her mouth, trying to control her laughter, the hysteria. She hiccuped and coughed and laughed again, then retched.
‘Are you ill?’
‘I think,’ she said, ‘I’m going to faint.’
He came quickly behind her as she swayed, caught her shoulders, then round the waist. As she slipped out of the chair he gathered her, picked her up with a grunt, looked down at her clouded eyes, carried her to the bed. She lay back, colour returning slowly, her fine fair hair, a little brazen from its recent tintings, coiled about her as it had fallen down, gleaming in the candlelight like a tarnished lake.
‘What is it? What’s the matter?’ His anger was different now, deriving from alarm and not ill-temper. But it sounded little changed.
‘It’s nothing.’
‘It must be something! What can I get you? I’ll ring for Ellen.’
‘No . . . The smelling-salts. The drawer . . .’
He got them and waited. For a while neither spoke, and the interval allowed their passions to cool. Presently he moved away, stood with his back to the fire staring across at the bed.
She took another sniff and sighed. ‘My child moved – and there was pain.’
‘You’d best have a doctor,’ he said shortly. ‘Though God knows who to have in this benighted district! Choake is a cripple now, and that fellow Enys is too superior by half . . .’
‘I shall be all right.’
‘We’ll go back to Truro so soon as Christmas is over. Or before. It’s safer with Behenna close by.’
‘You upset me greatly,’ she said. ‘I was very well.’
He thrust his hands into his pockets. ‘It seems that I am a bad influence!’
‘Indeed you are.’
‘So I should go again, eh?’
‘I don’t wish you to go, but I cannot stand another scene like this.’
‘You perhaps would rather prefer I behaved like your first husband, going with light women, drinking myself stupid, gambling my money away . . .’
‘You know I would not.’
‘So there are disadvantages to the fact that I care, eh? That it matters to me what you do and what you have done?’
She did not reply, and he stood over her, the conflict in himself still unresolved but aware that he could air it no further. His anxiety about her health made it necessary for him to make a peaceable end of the quarrel, but he did not know how.
‘I’ll go and see Valentine,’ he said grudgingly.
‘Thank you.’
‘This damned house is unlucky,’ he said. ‘Always it seems our misfortunes have come here.’
‘What misfortunes have we had?’
‘It is a wrong word. Everything I say today seems wrong . . .’ He struggled with his resentment. ‘You know my – my fondness for you never wavers.’
‘It is hard to believe that!’
‘Well, it’s the truth!’ Suddenly angry again, he shouted: ‘You must know it, Elizabeth! You’re the only person I’ve ever cared about!’
‘There’s one way you can prove it.’
‘How?’
‘Include Valentine in your love.’
IV
After he had gone she lay and dozed for a while.
She had genuinely felt ill and been afraid she would faint. The child had been very restless, and the passion of the quarrel had exhausted her. But after about an hour she got up and went into the next room and took a bottle out of her valise.
She knew it was nearly time for tea, but she had asked not to be disturbed, and anyway she was not thirsty. She carried the bottle back to the bed, with a spoon, and unscrewed the cork and sniffed the reddish-brown liquid inside. A rather fusty smell, as of stale mushrooms. Then she put a spot on her tongue. It was not particularly unpleasant.
After seeing Dr Anselm she had been on the point of throwing the bottle away. Eventually she had decided to keep it, but was sure she would never take it. As the time for taking it drew nearer this resolution hardened. As she ailed frequently in small ways she had a decent respect for her own health, and she had no wish to damage it. Dr Anselm had not disguised the fact that there was some risk, though he had not specified what the risk precisely was. Risk to the child, for one thing. She had no wish to risk its life. She hoped for a daughter. It seemed sometimes that she was surrounded by men. A little girl would be a joy and a comfort.
But George’s manner tonight had shown that, even if he tried, he could not relinquish his old suspicions. Would a seven-month child now lay them for ever? He could not fail to be impressed. He could not possibly know of any artificial means she had resorted to to induce it. It must destroy his suspicions – surely. Even if Valentine grew up dark and tall and bony. A second premature child. He could not continue to harbour the old jealous fevers.
So, if she took the risk and all was well, she gained a stability for her own married life, but still more she was likely to ensure a normal life for Valentine. If he lived as he had lived intermittently these last years, as George’s suspicions waxed and waned, he would grow up a nervous wreck. But if this ghost were laid for ever he could look forward to inheriting all that the Warleggans had built up for him. Nothing was dearer to Elizabeth’s heart than the friendship which had grown between her first and her second son. If her first son – for whom she still cared most – was poor, and her second son was rich, and they loved each other, there could well be some interchange of interests and property which would enable Geoffrey Charles to l
ive at Trenwith as its squire in the manner to which he should be entitled. Valentine, of course, was still very young and this was all in the future; but she would look forward to that future with a different vision if Valentine’s position as George’s heir were assured.
And this was the way of assuring it? It seemed so. There seemed no other.
She unstoppered the bottle again and put a drop of liquid into the spoon. It was quite a small bottle and it carried no label. The instructions were on a separate piece of paper in her handbag, and she knew them by heart. ‘Eight tablespoons of the liquid before retiring, during the second week of December. If the medicine fails to act, do not repeat.’
V
A good deal later that evening, when the children were in bed, Ross asked Jane where her mistress was.
‘She was out back somewhere, sur. Looking to the pigs, I b’lieve. But I think she’ve gone out by the back way. She thought to see the sea.’
Ross put on his cloak and went to look for her. Whereas two hours ago he had hardly been able to stand, now it was only the occasional gust that made him stagger. The clouds had broken up and a brilliant moon two days from full was riding the sky.
He saw her standing by the old wall under the shelter of an outcrop of rock. It was the first place he looked because it was a favourite spot of hers from which to see the stretch of Hendrawna Beach.
He came up behind her, trying to make a noise with his boots so that he should not startle her. But all the same she started up.
‘You made me jump!’
‘I thought you might be here.’
‘Yes, I just came for a few minutes. I often do when you’re away.’
‘I would have thought you’d have had enough fresh air today.’
‘I really came to look. Look at it.’
With the tide more than half out, the beach lay tattered and broken in the moonlight, and covered with froth like the remnants of milk which has boiled away in a saucepan.
Ross said: ‘Thank God I didn’t come home by sea.’
Thank God, you didn’t.’
They stood there quiet for a while.
She said: ‘Nothing happened in London? There was truly nothing?’
‘Nothing.’
‘That’s . . . good to know.’
‘Mrs Parkins was upset when you left so sudden. She thought you did not like the room.’
‘I trust you told her different.’
‘I told her you did not like me.’
‘. . . That would not be exactly true.’
Conversation dropped.
He said: ‘Drake will wed tomorrow?’
‘He wants to. If Mr Odgers will do it.’
‘He’d better. For us.’
‘Has he any hopes this time? Mr Odgers, I mean.’
‘I think I have contrived it. But of course it must come from the patron, so he must hear it officially first.’
‘I’m that glad! Especially for Mrs Odgers and the children. It will mean him getting – what?’
‘Two hundred a year. It will multiply his present stipend nearly four times.’
‘I’m glad,’ said Demelza again.
For a few minutes the wind shouted them down.
‘But much more I’m glad for Drake,’ she continued. ‘Much, much more, of course. You would not believe the difference in him. He’s a new man. All the way home he was singing.’
‘D’you think it will work?’
‘I do now. Now I’ve met her properly. But I think in any case, Ross, if two people love one another the way they do, then it’s best to marry whatever the future bring. Even if it all goes wrong in a few years, nothing will take away the years they’ve had. Being in love is the difference between being alive and not being alive.’
‘Yes,’ said Ross.
After a minute Demelza went on: ‘Drake is very – right-thinking. Today, because we were going to Bodmin, we had to call and see Morwenna’s mother on the way home and ask her for her permission. I tried to put him off, but no. That’s why we were so late back.’
‘Did she give it?’
‘I wish I knew the word to describe her. Is it pretentious?’
‘I would think it likely.’
‘Of course, at first it was all distress. “My little Morwenna, throwing herself away . . .” But – for Drake’s sake, Ross – I had to put on a pretence myself. I pointed out that Drake, in spite of him not being smart in dress or speaking, is no common smith. After I’d told her that his brother-in-law was a mine owner, a member of Parliament and a partner in the new Cornish Bank in Truro she began to come round.’
Ross grunted. ‘Pretence is the word.’
‘No Ross, not all. But it all ended quite comfortable with her wiping away her tears and saying she was too prostrate to see us to the door, and Drake having the impudence to kiss her, and then he kissed both Morwenna’s pretty sisters, and they saw us away. So perhaps in a fashion it was a good thing to do after all.’
‘The other sister of hers,’ said Ross. ‘I think I saw her in Truro today. She’s a strange creature, if ever there was one. Dowdy dothes and a dowdy walk, but . . . somehow she draws the eye.’
‘Morwenna can draw the eye,’ said Demelza. ‘After all, she drew the eye of Ossie.’
‘To everybody’s ultimate ruin . . . But she does it in all modesty . . . Not the other sister . . . Not she. Are you cold?’
‘No.’
‘Demelza . . . I have brought you a small present.’
‘Oh? Where? Where is it?’
‘I’ll give it to you tomorrow – or whenever the wedding is.’
‘Why do I have to wait?’
‘I had intended it for Christmas. And then I had intended it for tonight. But then I remembered other times I had given you presents, and it seemed to me that this was too easy a way of buying myself back into your favour . . .’
‘Do you think you need to?’
‘Well . . . what was done in London was not well done.’
She said: ‘Is it then perhaps your own favour that you should first seek?’
‘Maybe. Maybe it’s the same thing. But in either case it is too easy a way of setting things to rights. A present, a little money spent, and all is forgiven and forgotten. It won’t do.’
Moonlight briefly flooded the scene, and she looked up at the scudding sky.
She said: ‘I left you. I left you when I should not have done – while there was still danger.’
‘Perhaps it was the only thing you could do.’
‘At the time it seemed so. But afterwards, when I got home I thought different. That too was not well done.’
He said: ‘In the past sometimes, when we have had great differences, there have been occasions when we have talked them out. We have talked and argued back and forth, and in the end I believe come to some acceptable conclusion. But other times nothing has been said. Nothing much but a word or two of regret or understanding. And that too has served. I am not sure which is the proper way here. Sometimes I think talking, explaining, creates as much misunderstanding as it clears away. And yet we cannot resume, cannot go on as if nothing at all had happened.’
‘No, I don’t think we can, Ross.’
‘What can I say to put it right?’
‘Perhaps not much. Perhaps that is the wisest. For what can I say in my turn?’
‘Well, I don’t know. In our lives before this we’ve each given the other cause for deep offence. This is not worse, and should in ways be less bad. Yet it cuts as deep.’
‘It cuts as deep.’
They had reached the heart of the issue.
‘This time,’ Ross said, ‘I’m the chief offender – maybe the only one. At least I plead no excuse.’
‘Oh, Ross, it is not—’
‘Perhaps in the end one measures the quality of one’s forgiveness by the quality of one’s love. Sometimes my love has been lacking. Is yours now?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘Nor ever will be. Tisn’t
love I lack, Ross, but understanding.’
‘Understanding comes from the head; love from the heart. Which have you always believed to be the more important?’
‘It isn’t quite as easy as that.’
‘No, I know,’ he acknowledged slowly. ‘I ought to know.’
The clouds were flying so fast it looked as if the moon were being thrown across the sky.
‘Perhaps,’ she said, ‘we both care too much.’
‘It’s a signal failing in two people who have been married fourteen years. But I think if we can admit that, it is a long way towards understanding.’
‘But caring,’ she said. ‘Doesn’t that mean thinking of the other? Perhaps we have each done too little of that.’
‘In other words our love has been selfish—’
‘Not that much. But sometimes—’
‘So we must be more tolerant, each of the other . . . But how do we achieve tolerance without indifference? Isn’t that a worse fate?’
After a minute she said: ‘Yes.’
‘Then what is your answer?’
‘My answer?’
‘Your solution.’
‘Perhaps we must just go on living – and learning, Ross.’
‘And loving,’ said Ross.
‘That most of all.’
Chapter Fourteen
I
Drake was round at Nampara by seven. Having told them the time of the wedding, he went off to see Sam. Demelza rode to see Caroline and asked her if she could borrow a dress for Morwenna, since Caroline was about the right height. She bore this away to Pally’s Shop.
Problems here, for Morwenna, although she looked slim enough, was like her sister Rowella and fuller in the right places than she appeared, and Caroline’s frock would not button. This had all happened before, but only Morwenna knew it. Four years ago sew and stitch, sew and stitch – then it was altering Elizabeth’s wedding frock for her. So another marriage now, in even greater haste, same church, same cleric – only the man was different. A tight hold, keep a tight hold on over-strung nerves. But her quarrel with George Warleggan last night – the vile things, the evil insinuations against Drake – somehow it had broken some mental block – not the effect Mr Warleggan intended. She had defended Drake – would with her life – and in so doing became clearer in heart and mind. Marriage – this marriage – was still a haven to be sought, where she could at last be at peace. But the conflict last night had emptied her heart of doubt.