Demelza said: ‘What did you mean, Ross, those that are left alive?’
‘What? Oh, in the prison . . . Well, as I told you.’
‘Perhaps you have not told me quite all.’
‘I have heard twice more but have not harrowed you with the details – nor especially Caroline.’
‘Well, tell me now.’
He stared at her. ‘There was a Dutchman – released in February, I think because France and the Netherlands are no longer at war. He spent six months at Quimper, and saw many English brought in. One seaman was shot for trying to peer through a hole in the gate of the prison, and his body was left there for two days. The prisoners live on black bread and water, and although there is ample water in the well they are allowed only to visit it twice a day and for long had no receptacles to store it in. Many had been marched almost naked from where they were landed, after having been stripped of their belongings and beaten. Any serious misdemeanour is punished by death, and any general disorder in the camp means neither food nor water for all for thirty hours. No medical supplies, of course, and no blankets. Officers treated worse than the other ranks because they represent the ruling class in England. A French peasant woman, who though pregnant, attempted to pass a bowl of soup to some prisoners was bayoneted in the belly by the guard. The guard was afterwards congratulated by his commanding officer for this act. It is a long story and there is much more. Typhus, influenza, scorbutic fever and most diseases rampant. Dwight will be busy, if he still survives.’
Demelza knelt on the green velvet sofa beside Ross and pushed back her hair to look at him. ‘He had survived until February.’
‘Yes. He had survived until February.’
A rising wind was now blowing the rain against the windows. Water gurgled in one of the new gutters.
She said: ‘I do not understand, Ross. What is it that gets into men? Is it the French who are special savages?’
‘No. Though they have a history of civil war and bitterness such as we have been lucky enough to avoid.’
‘Yes, well . . . but if you look around at men. And I mean women too, of course. If you look around at them, most are not, do not seem, wicked. Folk round here live hard, work hard, are – rough. Only a lucky few have the time, the leisure to enjoy life. But all the others, all of them, they do not seem evil. I have not been brought up delicate but I have seen only a little evil. Scarcely—’
‘Such as being beaten every night with a belt by your drunken father.’
‘Yes, well.’ She paused, put out of her stride. ‘But that is in drink . . .’
‘Or seeing the boys tie Garrick’s tail to the tail of a cat for the sport.’
‘Yes. But that is – they were young, deserved a beating. But I still don’t know where the evil comes from that makes men bestial to others like you have told. And her one of his own folk! I shall never understand it, Ross.’
He put his hand up to her neck and moved his fingers where the wisps of black hair curled. ‘Perhaps it is because you have so little evil in yourself.’
‘No, no. I do not think so. That is not what I meant at all. I do not believe ordinary men have this evil. Perhaps it is like a fever that blows in the air, like cholera, like the plague; it blows in the air and settles on men – or a town – or a nation – and everyone in it, or nearly everyone, falls a victim.’
He kissed her. ‘It is as good an explanation as any I know.’
She withdrew her face an inch to study his expression. ‘Do not be amused at me, Ross.’
‘I am not amused in the way you suspect. Not in any superior way, believe me. These days I often have a struggle not to feel inferior to you, that is in your judgment of human beings.’
‘I don’t think I have any judgment, at least not to be proud of. But perhaps I am nearer the earth than you. Like Garrick, I can smell a friend.’
‘Or an enemy?’
‘Sometimes.’
‘And Tholly Tregirls?’
‘Oh, not an enemy.’ She frowned. ‘Perhaps a dangerous friend.’
‘In what way dangerous? One who could lead me back into my old bad habits?’
‘If you went back to your old bad habits, as you call them, you would be the leader, not the one who is led. No, I meant . . . Your loyalties are so strong – maybe too strong. Once a person is your friend he – he is almost above criticism.’
‘Perhaps that is a form of egoism.’
‘I don’t think I know what that means . . .’
‘Egoism is thinking a lot of oneself and therefore of one’s own opinions. Whether one’s opinion is of politics or religion or wine, or just a friend, to the egoist it is equally above dispute.’
She straightened her legs and sat beside him. ‘You confuse me, Ross. I only meant that your friendships have caused you trouble in the past and Tholly Tregirls might become dangerous if he fell into trouble here and you was drawn in.’
‘Like Jim Carter, eh? And Mark Daniell? And now Dwight Enys?’
She nodded. ‘Except that they was all – worth more, I think, than Tholly Tregirls.’
‘That is a nice pink bow on your blouse. Is it new?’
‘The blouse is new. It has been made by Mrs Trelask.’
‘Good. Good . . . Anyway you are a fine one to talk of friendship! As for Tholly, well, let us see what time brings before worrying about him.’
‘Oh, him I am not worrying about.’
‘It is this enterprise – and Dwight – that frets you?’
‘Yes.’
‘You would like me to leave it alone?’
She said: ‘These candles are all burning crooked. There is still a draught in the room.’
‘We need curtains over the door.’
There was silence. She said: ‘You have had two reports from Quimper? What was the second one?’
‘Only last week. A young midshipman from the frigate Castor wrote to his mother in St Austell. It reached her recently and is dated a month later than the letter Caroline had from Dwight.’
‘And it is bad?’
‘He says he is the only midshipman left alive of the four who were captured, and that he is near a skeleton and has lost all his hair from illness. He says – and I do not remember the precise words but I cannot ever forget the sense – that it makes one’s heart ache to see our men, without money, without clothes, worn down by sickness and emaciated to the last degree, fighting over the body of a dead dog which they sometimes pick up and devour with the most voracious appetites. The head and pluck of such a dog, he says, will fetch thirty sous any day among his starving compatriots.’
Demelza got up.
‘I think Clowance has wakened,’ she said. ‘I think I can hear her.’
Ross did not move while she walked round the settee. There she stopped and rested her chin on his head.
‘When is the landing to be made?’
‘Sometime in June we think.’
‘Pray that it prosper.’
Chapter Seven
George Warleggan was not an impatient man, nor one given to displays of ill-temper if things did not go all his way; and he returned to Trenwith in a fair enough mood. The New Year’s Ball had been a fiasco, and some probably laughed about it behind their hands; and the minor matter of the Chynoweth-Whitworth match was held up because of the girl’s girlish obstinacy; and his father was smarting – and therefore he was smarting – under another snub from the Boscawens. But there was much to please him also. Most important of all, Dr Behenna’s heroic treatment – or Dr Pryce’s less heroic sequel – had had its effect, and Valentine was well on in his recovery. Behenna was absolutely certain that if there were any deformity at all it would be so slight as to be unnoticeable.
And Osborne and his mother had accepted an invitation to spend a week at Trenwith in early July, and George felt that after a week in Osborne’s company Morwenna would not be able to resist the gentle but firm pressure from all sides. And Warleggan interests, stimulated by a war economy
, were prospering as never before. And he had made an important new friend at a dinner at Pendarves last week. And his country house, when he returned to it, looked more distinguished than ever. And next Friday he was to take his place on the bench for the first time.
True enough, the journey here had been very tiresome. The rain, so much a part of a normal Cornish spring (and summer and autumn and winter), had fallen incessantly all day, and once they were off the road the going had become such that twice he had suggested to Elizabeth they should take to the horses and ride on. But Elizabeth, although sick with the pitching and lurching of the coach, had refused to leave Valentine in the sole care of Polly Odgers; and so at last they had got through.
By then it was dark, and then, again like a Cornish spring (and summer and autumn and winter), the weather had suddenly relented and they had reached the house as the clouds cleared and a ravishing full moon rose. The wind had dropped, an owl hooted, the ornamental pond glittered, and the sharp roofs of the house threw Gothic shadows over drive and lawn and bush. And welcoming candles glimmered in the windows.
So Elizabeth had retired to bed and he had supped with the elder Chynoweths, who were not as tiresome as usual, and then he had seen Tom Harry and two of the other senior servants and had received an account of the winter happenings and had himself retired to bed before ten and had slept dreamlessly until six.
When he woke he felt fresh and vigorous and splendidly rested. Elizabeth was still asleep, her beautiful arms thrown in fragile abandon across the pale silk quilted counterpane, so he thought he would steal out without waking her and have his horse got ready for an early ride about the estate. He lay for a few minutes more, drowsily contemplating the blue sky visible between the partly drawn curtains, then slipped out and put on his green frogged dressing coat. He stole into his dressing-room, used the chaise-percée he had had installed, and then rang for his valet. It was a truly beautiful morning, even though there might be rain again before the end of the day. Perfect at present for a canter, the air so washed and clear after the muggy cold of Truro . . .
A sound came to his ears. It was a sound he peculiarly disliked, and one he had not expected to hear on his property again. It was particularly annoying after all that had been done last year and the instructions he had left behind. So when his valet came he did not ask for washing water but snapped: ‘I want to see Tom Harry.’
The servant, hearing razors in his master’s voice, hurriedly left, and in about three minutes there was a tap at the door and Tom Harry, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth, came in. ‘Sur?’
‘Come here.’
Harry came to stand beside him. ‘Sur?’
‘Listen. What do you hear?’
Harry listened: ‘I don’t rightly—’
‘Quiet! Listen! There!’
‘Frogs? Down thur? My life, I cann’t believe’n! Twas—’
‘This lake was cleaned last year. Why are they here now?’
‘Sur, I dunno! Honest, sur, tis the biggest surprise to me! We was on the look out for ’em in March. You know how they do be’ave, sur.’
‘You told me last year. They go away.’
‘Yes, sur. D’rectly they’ve mated and left their spawn be’ind, off they d’go an’ live in the fields, specially down by the stream. When we cleared ’em last year, sur, twas summer and we could only clear out the spawn and the tadpoles and the young frogs and toads. No more’n that. Tis not possible to find all the old ’uns—’
‘So? What happened in March?’
‘Sur, we was on the look-out. Soon as they come back, soon as we ’eard one we catched’n. A score or more we catched. Three times through March. But there’s been naught since then. Me and Bilco, we been down most every eve, so there’d be none when you comed, sur. I’ll swear there’s been no sign for all of this month!’
‘I hope,’ said George, ‘you have performed the other tasks I set you better than this one. Go with Bilco and now clean up that pool.’
‘Yes, sur! Right away, sur! I’m that sorry, sur! I just dunno ’ow t’s come ’bout.’
When Geoffrey Charles heard of the invasion he let out wild hoots of laughter and went hobbling down to the pool to watch Tom Harry and Paul Bilco bleakly wading about in it looking for the creatures. They had their terriers with them, but neither terrier would go near the toads after first catching one and then rapidly letting it go again: the poison under the skin was more than they could face. Geoffrey Charles, after a brief angry word from George, moderated his laughter indoors, and his attempts to draw Morwenna into the joke brought from her a scarlet-faced refusal to follow his line of thought.
Every now and then throughout the day shouts and running feet and the crack of sticks could be heard. Aunt Agatha, up for a few minutes in the morning, somehow got wind of the work and tottered to a vantage point at a window where she was heard cursing the men and encouraging the toads. For most of the day it rather spoiled George’s temper, and the servants whenever possible kept out of his way. Geoffrey Charles would like to have joined in Aunt Agatha’s anathemas but did not dare. Every now and then the laughter bubbled in him like an underground spring.
The boy’s ankle would not heal. A part of the original wound had skinned over, but a sore place had broken out just above it, and Dr Choake’s unguents and ointments had successfully prevented nature from taking its course. The patient had been bled, given severe clysters, kept closely confined to his bed for two weeks and then, when that failed, advised to exercise himself and get about with a stick as much as he could. This advice he gladly accepted, for the ankle sore was only painful when it was touched, and he limped around everywhere, talking, talking, accepting Morwenna’s teaching with an ill grace and generally proving himself difficult to control.
George watched all this with a dispassionate eye. Morwenna’s halting refusal of Osborne Whitworth had not caused any change in his attitude towards her. It was courteous, slightly without warmth – as it had always been – but not at all unfriendly. He usually got his way, and he had no wish to be thought unreasonable, particularly by Elizabeth. So for the moment nothing more was said. But, unknown to George, much more had been done since Morwenna returned to Trenwith. In three weeks there had been three meetings with Drake, who visited Geoffrey Charles each Sunday and, because he was laid up, had seen her for half an hour alone each evening in the back parlour afterwards.
They had been tense, deeply emotional meetings which had matured their relationship as in a forcing house. She had said nothing to him of any rival, partly because rival was the wrong word. How could Drake be a contestant for her hand? And how could Osborne be a contestant for her love? But in those encounters, conscious of the imminent threat to their meetings, yet unable to escape or to resist the discovery of her own feelings, she had followed her impulses or allowed them freer play than she would ever have done, or could in her right mind have conceived of doing, if Drake had been a young man courting her in a conventional way. To receive a young man and sit with him, unknown to her elders, was compromising to her position and her honour, were he never so eligible. But what she was experiencing in these encounters were fiercely uncompromising emotions which she could hardly begin to control. Was marriage to a man she did not even like, a giving of her body in a manner she did not altogether understand, a sharing of unthinkable intimacy, was that right because money and position were suitable and her elders had arranged it? Was marriage to – or at least love for – a clean-limbed, upright, good-living young workman, wrong because of a lack of money and a barrier of position and education? Was love wrong, this sort of love, this heady, rich, sick-sweet encounter; did it have to be stopped for ever?
At their second meeting they had sat together on the shabby couch and had talked of nothing for perhaps five minutes, and then he had begun to kiss her hand, and afterwards her mouth. The kisses were still chaste, but chastity drowned in the emotions they aroused. They sat on the settee together – out of breath, dizzy,
drunk, happy and sad; and lost.
After he had gone she realized that whatever she felt about marriage to Mr Whitworth was no excuse for allowing anyone else this freedom. She had not been brought up in a religious household for nothing, and she had prayed a good deal while in Truro. Chiefly it had been for strength to resist the family pressure; and she wondered guiltily now whether in fact her prayers had been not so much for guidance as for support in a decision she had reached without God’s help. She needed strength of another kind now, strength to resist the temptation of the flesh – for that presumably was what it was – strength to keep a balance, strength to be able to continue to resist a marriage that she did not want without giving way to a misalliance which could only lead to disaster.
On all this had come at last a letter from her mother, long, wise, reasoned, but not comforting. Of course she must not marry someone she did not desire to marry. Certainly she must not marry in haste. But . . . and then came the buts. The Dean had died almost penniless. Mrs Chynoweth, through the kindness of a brother, was not destitute, but she had three other daughters to bring up. None of them would have a position. All the girls would have to seek employment as governesses or teachers of some sort. They would be fortunate if they could find so delightfully pleasant a post as hers. And without money their marriageable prospects were not high. Being a governess all one’s life was not a future she would desire for any of her daughters. But in her case, Morwenna’s case, the prospect was completely changed. Through the munificence of Mr Warleggan, she was offered a substantial dowry. With it came marriage to a rising young clergyman – of the same persuasion in the church too – not himself penniless and with expectations of more when his mother died, and of good family too. With that marriage came a good vicarage in the most fashionable town in the county, position, a home, children, all, one would think, that a young woman could desire. Such would be her circumstances that it might even be possible in time to have one of her sisters there to care for her children.
She must think long before refusing all this, and she must pray, as they all would pray, for her guidance.