George came nearer to her than perhaps he had ever been before. He spoke loudly, close to the grey whiskery ear. ‘Can you hear me now, old woman?’
‘Aye. I can hear ye. And I’ll have no more insults, or Elizabeth will learn of it.’
‘I have bad news for you, old woman.’
‘Eh? What is it? What is it? I knew ye’d not come with aught but bad news. Ye’ve got it writ all over ye, like blood on a carrion crow. Speak up.’
George looked at her and shook his head. His brief smile had gone. He was sober now, his manner grave and decisive.
‘There will be no party on Monday.’
Agatha felt a surge of blood move through her old body. She must be careful. If he had come to taunt her into illness she must take great care.
‘Nonsense. Ye could not stop it, George, though no doubt twould give ye great pleasure.’
‘I must stop it, old woman. Otherwise you will be made out to be a liar.’
Agatha looked him up and down. An old adversary, this. She must beware his tricks.
‘Leave me be. Leave me in peace.’
‘Can you hear me? It is important you should hear me! When Morwenna was married to the Rev. Osborne Whitworth, I observed the church register and saw that its records went back a century and a half. Yesterday, as I was passing, I called on Mr Odgers and spent a half-hour reading through the register. It made interesting reading, for it was a history of the Poldarks and the Trenwiths, all in dry, old ink; nearly as old and faded as you, old woman.’
Agatha did not speak. She watched him out of small venomous eyes.
‘I looked to a record of the baptisms, old woman. And I looked for yours in 1695. It was not there. Can you hear me? It was not there! You were baptized, the entry is there, for September 1697. What do you say to that?’
Agatha’s heart was pumping. She felt it was pumping in her head. Keep calm. Keep calm. Don’t let him triumph.
‘Tis a lie! A scabby lie! There’s no such—’
‘Hark, old woman. Can you hear me still? I was not quite content with that, for baptisms do not always instantly follow births. So last afternoon and eve and all this morning I have had the servants turning the lumber out of the old room above the kitchens, where everything was thrown when the house was changed and repaired. Can you hear me? Let me come closer. Let me speak right into your ear. We found the old family bible which once used to be downstairs in the hall when Francis’s father was alive, and behold I have found an entry in it. Let me read it to you. Or would you prefer to read it yourself? Here!’
He took up the book from the table and opened it. He offered it to her but she shrank away.
‘Then let me read it. I dare suppose it is your father’s handwriting, the ink is very faded. But very very clear, old woman. Very clear. It says: “Ye tenth day of August, 1697, born to us this wet summer morn eleven o’clock in ye forenoon, our first child, a daughter, Agatha Mary, Praise be to God.” Can you hear me or shall I read it again?’
‘I hear.’
‘And then in the margin beside in another hand is written: “Christened third September.” So you see, old woman, on Monday next you will be but ninety-eight.’
Agatha remained quite rigid. The black cat, unaware of her agitation, looked at her and yawned and tried to settle beside her. George turned and took the book to a table by the window and then came back and considered his victim. With this old woman he had carried on a bitter vendetta for years. It was too long ago to remember who had begun it, whether it had been a mutual antipathy from the start or had grown from some resented slight. But it was too late to heal it now, too late for half measures or for drawing back the knife.
‘Can you hear me? I am going downstairs to instruct that letters shall be sent to all the people of the country who have accepted your invitation. It will inform them that you have made a mistake as to your age and that a new invitation will be issued in two years’ time.’
‘Ye would not dare! Elizabeth would ne’er – ne’er allow it! Nor would she! Nor would she!’
‘She cannot stop me. I am the master of this house, and, although I would have permitted this celebration to take place in it, I will not be party to a flagrant deception. You are ninety-seven, old woman. On Monday you will be ninety-eight. Live two more years and you may invite your friends all over again.’
You tried to control yourself. All the iron discipline of determined old age told you what to do – close your eyes, breathe deeply, shut out the angry thoughts, remember only survival. It had been practised before in so many every-day affairs. Apparent temper, apparent furious scoldings were surface storms, creating no real disturbances, no disturbance in depth. You grew to know how . . . But sometimes the discipline does not, cannot work. The fury, the agony builds up until it bursts all controls, and you are defenceless against all the rushing, blood-surging, damaging emotions which sweep through you and over you and will eventually destroy you.
God in his heaven has no help.
George was going to the door. ‘Wait!’ she said. He turned politely back. He gave no outward sign of any triumph he might be feeling. Could she plead? Could she lower herself to plead with this man?
‘All this prepared,’ she said. ‘All me clothes. Things got ready. In the kitchens. Food ordered.’ She stopped and tried to get her breath. She could not. It had left her.
He said: ‘A pity. It will all do again.’
She gasped, swallowed, took in air just in time. ‘Send Elizabeth . . . Ask Elizabeth to come . . . Birthday on Monday whether or no. Party for me whether or no. Ninety-eight. Good old age . . . But I’ll be a hundred. I know. I know. I’ve counted. How could I be wrong?’
‘You’re wrong, old woman, and there will be no party. It will be easy to cancel. And open your window more on such a fine day. This room stinks.’
‘Stop!’ He was going again. ‘I’ll not live two year more. Ye know that. Who’d know if ye said naught? I’ll ne’er live another two year. I’ll not cross ye again, George. I’ve been looking forward to this so long. Eh? Eh? I’ll not cross ye again, George. Twill do ye no hurt. No harm will come of it. I’ll make a new will – leave ye the money that I have in Consols. No one’d ever know.’
‘I don’t want your money, old woman!’ George came back, book under his arm. ‘Nor your goodwill. I’m sorry for you now, but I’ll see you rot in this room before I’ll be party to such a lie!’
Then the hatred was plain on both sides, on that of the normally cool, composed, dignified man, on that of the wisp of tattered humanity clutching and gasping in the bed. Tears were on her cheeks now, and they were not the perpetual tears of a watering eye.
‘If ye do this to me,’ she said, and choked and spat to get the words out, ‘may ye rot too – and rot I know ye surely will. Aye, you and your clumsy father and your vulture uncle and your – your stupid clammy mother and your twisted son. Little Valentine! Born under a black moon and twisted already! He’ll eat the worms of this world afore he’s far gone! I know! I can tell! Born under a black moon! The last of the Warleggans!’
Although her life was far spent, she had sight enough to perceive that for the moment her puny shot was stinging him. She might be going down, but she would continue firing to the end. That shot had told. And one last shot remained.
‘The last of the Warleggans, George! Or be he a Warleggan at all?’
George had gone to the door and had turned to watch her, this puny, smelly, shrivelled old woman. She was a pitiable sight, twisting and choking, her lips blue, some last flush of blood in her cheeks, eyes like slits, lips pendulous, struggling to shout, to bite, to inject him with a last venom.
She said: ‘That wasn’t no seven-month baby, George. Nor eight month neither, for the matter of that. I seen ’em seven month – I seen ’em eight month – many times and oft in my life. No nails they have, see. And skin wrinkled like a – like an apple kept too long and . . .’ She choked and spat saliva on the sheet. ‘. . . and no c
ry, a poor weak cry like a meader, and – and no hair. That were a full term child! Your precious twisted Valentine were a full term child, I’ll lay my oath! So . . .’
He stared at her, and it was as if he could well have spat back. But he did not. He stood there listening while the last shots were fired, the last injury attempted.
‘Maybe ye didn’t wait for the wedding ceremony, you and Elizabeth, eh? Maybe that was it. Was that it, eh? . . .’ She showed her gums in a snarl. ‘Or maybe someone else was riding she afore ever you was wed! Eh? Eh? Your precious Valentine!’
He left the room and the slam of the door shook the old house. Agatha Poldark sank back on her pillows. And the blackbird in the cage by the window twittered in fright. And a gentle breeze lifted the curtains and told that a current of air had passed.
Four miles away Ross sat with Demelza and his two children on the lawn in front of their house. Except for the thump and rattle of a tin stamp, which somehow was absorbed and ignored by the ears, there was no untoward sound. On the upper ground of the valley the chimney of Wheal Grace emitted a trickle of cloudy smoke, and a few figures moved among the offices of the mine.
It was unusual for them to sit as a family like this, but the hot day had interfered with their normal intentions. Ross sat with Clowance on his knee and Garrick crunching a bone at his feet. Jeremy was sprawled on his stomach making a daisy chain, and Demelza was sprawled on her stomach helping him. A contentment marked them all. After the first shock of knowing that his best plans for Drake could now come to nothing, Ross had deliberately willed himself to think no more of it. Now and then in the night he woke up and remembered George and his rare and galling ability to turn a set-back into a victory, and all the incipient goodwill of the time of his homecoming was gone again. But he saw well enough that it would be irresponsible to allow this recurrent bitterness in one aspect only of his life to spoil the over-all contentment. Something must be done for Drake, and meantime he must forget. Forget George and forget Elizabeth and see only all that he had. For all that he had was all that he wanted. And the sun was shining; and Clowance was dozing gently on his knee, her small head suddenly top-heavy on its frail stalk; and on the grass beside him Demelza and Jeremy were making a daisy chain . . .
And a dozen miles away Caroline Penvenen was watching a groom help Dwight mount his first horse. He accomplished it like an old man, needing two hoists before his own muscles would take him up and when he got there he seemed close to slipping off again. But having settled himself he grinned in triumph, a paper-white grin which a week’s good food had not yet given enough red blood to, and Caroline smiling beside him was glad they had chosen her oldest and staidest mare. They had settled on an October wedding, though had not yet decided between Caroline’s desire for a big one and Dwight’s for a small. Much in his attitude, she suspected, would depend upon how quickly he recovered his physical health . . .
And in Truro the Reverend Osborne Whitworth, restored to perfect mental health, was arguing in a loud voice with his warden about the contributions of the pew-owning families, while Morwenna Whitworth, holding the stocky hand of one of her little step-daughters, looked out across her garden to where the river had just gone down and wondered if it might be better to drown in mud, in real mud, rather than suffocate in the mud of physical revulsion . . .
And in Falmouth Drake Carne limped down the main street with Mrs Verity Blamey to meet her husband whose packet the Caroline had but an hour ago dropped anchor in the roads. His arm was still in a sling but his shoulder was much better, and his hands had completely healed. He was eating enormously, he felt well, and some of the pleasures of life were returning. This was more particularly because Ross, before he left, had let drop that Morwenna was not now to marry the parson from Truro after all. Even if Morwenna were not for him, this made so much difference to his feelings, for he knew she had no liking for Whitworth. His days were no longer tortured. By now, he thought, she would be in Bodmin. Who knew but that sometime he might walk to Bodmin to see her? Just the sight of her now and again would be enough. He looked no further than that. He asked no more . . .
And in Trenwith George walked slowly through the house, with no expression on his face but something in his mien which made servants shrink away from him as he passed. It was such a beautiful day that all the family were out of doors, even the two old Chynoweths.
He had killed his viper. He had given it, he knew, a mortal wound. But as he took his foot from its neck it had turned and bitten him in the heel. And the venom it had left behind was working. After he had completed two circuits of the house he slowly mounted the stairs and went into his study. He locked the door and took a seat in his favourite chair. For once in his life he felt ill and unsure of himself. The spread of the poison was slow but steady. He did not know if he could shake it off.
It might be that he would die of it. It might be that others would die of it. He did not know and only time would reveal the extent of the poison . . .
And at the other end of the house Agatha was fighting for her life. She was quite alone. Lucy Pipe had settled in the kitchen and would certainly not stir again until the bell jangled. Only the blackbird twittered in its cage and Smollett, having been disturbed by all the commotion on the bed, had dropped to the floor and was licking one of his back legs near the door.
In spite of years of bible reading, Agatha had little convinced belief in a future life, so she clung to this one with a rare tenacity, trying to marshal the last ebbing forces and see perhaps tomorrow. With age one never looked far ahead. The marathon horizons of youth narrowed and shortened into the hurdles of age. If she could see tomorrow she would have made the next objective. Control was everything; quiet the heart, regulate the breathing, relax the mind. Forget the anger, ignore the disappointment, concentrate on only one thing, the necessity of the next breath, of simple survival.
But this time she had gone too far. The shock of the disclosure, the overwhelming fury which had possessed her, had in a few minutes consumed the last fuel in her old body. This was not faintness; she knew it was something more. It would not do to be taken ill now, for in a few minutes her father would be here to take her to the party. There would be some dancing later on, and a few tables of whist. She must subdue this nervous stomach; her mother said it was time she grew out of it at seventeen. She must get up. She tried to move her legs and could not. The sensation had gone out of them. She whimpered with fright and moved a hand. That at least was still hers.
A coffin was in the room. That sick-sweet smell of decay and flowers. She had seen so many such. Whose was this? They had all looked so composed but so small in death, each one before the lid was screwed down. They had fallen about her all these years.
She lifted her hand up to her eyes and wiped the mist and the coffin away. The warm sunlight flooded in to the room, the life-giving sunlight that had no life to give back to her. The gentle scented breeze, the shadow of moving leaves, the flutter of birds; these might all have helped her at another time. Five more days until she was twenty-one, and they were disappointed with her that she had not turned out more pretty. Someone, too, an aunt, had told her she was lacking in vivacity. But that wasn’t what George Venables had said. George Venables had said many beautiful things. But why wouldn’t he let her have her birthday party?
Death came like a rising tide, inch by inch, putting her body to sleep. Soon there was no stomach, then there was no breathing left. She did not gasp for breath for she no longer needed air. For the last time, seeing its approaching extinction, her brain came clear again. What had she said? What trouble had she started, and for whom? She had not meant to injure Elizabeth. What had she said?
The bed shook as Smollett jumped on it again. Her head was sinking sideways on the pillow. With a great effort she straightened it. For a moment that was better. But then the light began to go, the warm, milk yellow sunlight of a summer day. The beamed ceiling smeared and blurred. She could not close her mouth. She tried to c
lose her mouth and failed. Her tongue stopped. But one hand still slowly moved. Smollett nudged up to it and licked it with his rough tongue. The sensation of that roughness made its way from her fingers to her brain. It was the last feeling left. The fingers moved a moment on the cat’s fur. Hold me, hold me, they said. Then quietly, peacefully at the last, submissively, beaten by a stronger will than her own, her eyes opened and she left the world behind.
THE BLACK MOON
The fifth Poldark novel
Winston Graham was the author of forty novels, including The Walking Stick, Angell, Pearl and Little God, Stephanie and Tremor. His books have been widely translated and his famous Poldark series has been developed into two television series shown in twenty-four countries. A special two-hour television programme has been made of his eighth Poldark novel, The Stranger from the Sea, whilst a five-part television serial of his early novel The Forgotten Story won a silver medal at the New York Film Festival. Six of Winston Graham’s books have been filmed for the big screen, the most notable being Marnie, directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Winston Graham was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and in 1983 was awarded the OBE. He died in July 2003.
ALSO BY WINSTON GRAHAM
The Poldark series
Ross Poldark • Demelza • Jeremy Poldark • Warleggan • The Four Swans • The Angry Tide • The Stranger from the Sea • The Miller’s Dance • The Loving Cup • The Twisted Sword • Bella Poldark
Night Journey • Cordelia • The Forgotten Story • The Merciless Ladies • Night Without Stars • Take My Life • Fortune Is a Woman • The Little Walls • The Sleeping Partner • Greek Fire • The Tumbled House • Marnie • The Grove of Eagles • After the Act • The Walking Stick • Angell, Pearl and Little God • The Japanese Girl (short stories) • Woman in the Mirror • The Green Flash • Cameo • Stephanie • Tremor
The Spanish Armada • Poldark’s Cornwall • Memoirs of a Private Man