‘My dearest,’ said Selina, ‘you are so kind to take this interest in my step-daughters. Is he not so, Clowance? For they are nothing to him.’
They took tea in the drawing room and asked after Jeremy. He was still quartered near Brussels, Clowance said. She had heard from him about a week ago. (But when he wrote he had not heard of Valentine’s marriage.) Amadora Poldark, if they did not know it, was expecting a baby next month. As soon as possible after it Geoffrey Charles was to bring his family to England again. Did they know he had resigned from the army? Although he was not quite free of it, being retained on half pay. Which would not come amiss, Geoffrey Charles said, since money was not easy to transfer from Spain to England at the moment, and in any case the less he had to depend on Amadora the better he was pleased.
Cuby was not mentioned. Clowance did not utter the name, for she did not know to what extent if any Selina had been informed of Sir George’s plans for his son.
Valentine, of course, was less tactful. ‘Tom Guildford will be in Cornwall for Christmas. Naturally he was heartbroken at the news.’
‘I wrote to him,’ Clowance said shortly.
‘I know. He told me so . . . D’you know, he said a very strange thing. A very strange thing indeed, Clowance. He said: “I’ll wait for her.” Just that. “I’ll wait for her.”’
He had said the same in a letter to Clowance.
‘He was joking.’
‘I suppose. He’s a queer character, old Tom. You don’t bottom him easily . . .’ Valentine helped himself to a biscuit. ‘I often think it a pity charming young women cannot be three or four people – multiply themselves, as it were. I hear Lord Edward Fitzmaurice is still unmarried.’
‘Is he?’
‘Yes, he is, dear Cousin. You’d have made a good wife for him. And a good wife for old Tom. And I’m sure Stephen is happy. But only one of ’em can have you!’
‘And what about charming young men?’ Clowance asked.
‘Ah, yes, well that is sometimes true too. Though a little different in some respects.’
‘Yes, do tell us, Valentine,’ said his wife, her wisteria blue eyes narrowing. ‘If you were able to have three wives, who else would you choose?’
‘My dear,’ said Valentine coolly. ‘I should go around the country looking for two more Selinas.’
When Clowance left, which she did at four, they insisted on their head groom, Grieves, riding with her to Nampara, where she was to spend the night.
They walked with the two horses a little way, since Valentine said he had had no exercise that day and he liked the time before the fall of night. Arms linked, they watched their visitor and her escort going off, waved, stood a while until the horses had disappeared round the corner into the evening mists.
Valentine said: ‘I like little Clowance.’
‘I noticed.’
‘But a virtuous girl. Having married Stephen Carrington, she will feel herself bound to him through thick and thin, and never look elsewhere.’
‘Isn’t that the purpose of marriage?’
‘There are exceptions. Can you walk with me a little further?’
‘Down that old slope?’
‘Down that old slope.’
‘It will soon be dark.’
He held out his hands. ‘Trust me.’
She laughed. ‘Oh, that I shall never do!’
‘A very proper approach. But you may be surprised.’
‘Nicely?’
‘Who knows?’
‘Very well, then.’ She gave him her hand.
He helped her down a few feet and then drew her closer to him and began to kiss her.
She wriggled, but without conviction. ‘Not here.’
His lank dark hair was falling over his brow. ‘I often think it strange that this is all now legal. No more listening for the old man in the other room.’
She shivered. ‘Don’t speak of it.’
‘I speak of it to make the contrast. Don’t tell me you liked it better when it was forbidden.’
‘Of course not! Valentine, it is wicked of you to suggest it.’
‘Pleasure thrives on wickedness.’ He released her, took her hand again, and they slid and stumbled down to a plateau of ground which had been cleared of gorse bushes.
Valentine said: ‘This is the site that first enticed Unwin Trevaunance and Michael Chenhalls.’
‘I know. When Sir Unwin called in the summer we walked out this far.’
‘We are well rid of him . . . D’you know, your eyes are like a cat’s in the half dark, Selina. They close like a cat’s. Yet they see everything. Unloose your hair.’
‘Dearest, there are servants!’
‘What is it to them?’
‘Source for gossip. Guess what I seen Mistress do last night!’
‘Far more likely to gossip about what Master may do at any moment if you continue to look like that.’
‘How shall I look? Cold? Austere?’
‘I disbelieve you could!’
There was a pause. Out at sea the lights of a half dozen fishing boats winked.
Valentine said: ‘Would you like me to tell you something?’
‘Please do.’
‘That evening at Cardew. D’you know when I told my father of our marriage and we quarrelled, I said to him that I worshipped the very ground you walked on.’
Selina leaned against him. ‘Oh, Valentine, you are so kind.’
‘But I meant it. It was the truth!’
‘Of course I believe you. However unworthy I may feel—’
‘The literal truth,’ he said.
There was another pause. Selina pushed back a strand of her hair.
‘I don’t think I conject what you mean, Valentine.’
‘The literal truth. This is the ground I worship that you are walking on now.’
She brushed some dust and fragments of heather from the hem of her skirt. Her voice was smaller, a little colder. ‘Is this some sort of jest? A joke? Yes, I see it is a joke. That is funny, Valentine.’
‘Funny but utterly and precisely exact. I could not have spoken more clearly what was in my mind.’
‘That? . . .’
‘That I worship the ground you are walking on! Do you not understand? Or covet it, if you prefer the word. The early assays that Chenhalls had taken were over-optimistic, but later ones have shown a real basis for a new enterprise. We should do well.’
She was very still against him. After a while she said: ‘Sometimes before you have shown sarcasm, cynicism. I have always persuaded myself that it would not be turned upon me. Why now?’
He stroked her hair but she moved her head away. He said: ‘It is not turned upon you, my kitten. It is turned upon life.’
‘That I still don’t understand. Are you trying to inform me that you have married me for my money, for the house and land I own?’
He thought it over, eyes fixed on the fishing boats. ‘I married you for yourself – and for everything you possess – and for the ground you walk on. There is mining blood in me and I cannot disown it. Nor do I wish to. That letter I was writing this morning, was to friends I have who may be able to advance me the development money. I think I can convince them.’ The statement was plain and unemphatic, not governed or affected by friendship or emotion.
Suddenly, bitterly she burst out: ‘Why bother? My money is now yours. I am now no longer the rich widow but the unimportant wife!’
‘Thank you, but I have my pride and prefer to try for my own fortune. However, I shall call on you for much. Money, true, to live on. Indulgence. Your body, which I covet most of all at this moment . . . If there is cynicism in me, Selina, you must bear with it . . . just as you will bear my love. Just as you will have to bear my infidelities.’
She turned to look at him incredulously, doubting what she had just heard, but she could only discern his sharp profile. Because of some trick of the light it was as if his eyes were dark sockets under the ledge of his brows, empty of l
ife and expression. It had suddenly happened, this change of mood, a matter-of-factness, a coldness, which seemed only the reverse side of all the charm, all the ardour. The coin had turned. She swung angrily round to climb up the way she had come, but he caught her. She hit him across the face, but it stung only a moment as he gripped her arms.
‘Do not do that, Selina, for I need you.’
‘You’re hurting me!’
‘Not very much. Besides, we are bound together in holy matrimony, are we not, and that bond will hurt us both much, much more from time to time. Can we not be honest about it?’
‘Honest!’ she exclaimed. ‘What honour is there in what you’ve just said?’
‘I did not say honour, but honesty, my little pussy cat. Or candour, if you prefer it . . .’
‘The candour of a brute! Why are you doing this to me? Why are you saying this now?’
‘No reason. Just that it had to be said sometime. And one thing led to another . . . I have been faithful to you for five months, Selina. Truly. Genuinely. Is that not a great deal? But I cannot be faithful indefinitely, for it is not in my nature. There are too many pretty women in the world. I simply cannot resist them. Nor shall I try . . . Many wives – most wives – find this out in time. Look around you. But look at their husbands, who do not have the honesty – or candour – that I have but behave just the same in the end.’
‘Let me go!’
‘Not yet. For I have now said all that will be disagreeable to your self-esteem. Now let me say that if I stray from you – when I stray from you – it will always, I think, be to return. There is something in you—’
‘I may not be here to greet you!’
‘There is something in you that I do not find in any other woman—’
‘So far!’
‘So far. And believe me, that has been quite far. I have not wasted my youth—’
‘I do not want to hear any more of your reminiscences! Do you enjoy insulting me?’
He tried to kiss her again but she averted her face.
‘For me,’ he said, ‘women are a game. A game I greatly relish. But still – just that. You, my little Selina, are not a game; you are a reality. Whenever I come to you it is to someone real, a touchstone – and a wife that I cherish: perhaps I should say that! – I lose myself in you as in no other woman. Marriage to you has been a consummation. We belong to each other. Have you realized that? If another man touched you I should kill him.’
‘My God!’ she exploded. ‘You are telling me that; at the same time you are demanding all the freedom in the world for yourself!’
‘I am indeed. I am indeed. I am indeed.’ Although she had not relaxed, his grip slackened and he took her in his arms. ‘You have to believe all this. You have to understand all this. For it is going to be the very essence of our relationship.’
‘Who says so?’
‘I say so. And I am your husband. And you must obey me. You promised to in the marriage service.’
‘That is nonsense!’
‘Far from it. You promised it, and you must keep your promise.’
‘I shall not!’
‘Yes, you shall. As my only beloved wife. On whom I am shortly going to exercise every husbandly privilege and right. Be still now. Be still.’
She still struggled, but not with all her strength. She knew what he meant and she knew what he was promising, and although she was fierce and hurt, she found it hard to resist that promise. She thought: I will never forgive him for the cynicism and brutality of what he has just said. If he behaves in that way I shall break his head when he comes crawling home! She thought: I hate him. But he desires me. All right, I desire him. In the morning it will be different. In the morning I will have this out; in the morning I will show him he is not such a master as he thinks; I shall be cold and distant; he must be taught that he is not the owner and controller of everything. I, I, Selina, am the mistress of my own body. I can deprive him, deny him, taunt him, control him. If he really desires me as he says he does, then I am the mistress. He cannot take me against my will, and my will is at least as strong as his! Place House will still belong to me.
But for the moment lust was too strong. She knew it for what it was and despised it with the relish of a woman who had never known what sensuality was until Valentine took her. So for the moment she was quiet in his arms.
Mistaking her quiescence – or reading it correctly – he said:
‘This mine will need considerable exploration before we can be sure of everything. I hope – I very much hope that we can arrange the workings so that they run away from the house down the valley, so that little of our view from the house looking north will be spoiled. I think it may be a very important working once it is launched.’
She did not speak, licking her lips, licking her psychic wounds.
Valentine said: ‘I have thought about a name. Perhaps it is premature with scarcely a sod yet turned. However I have thought about a name.’
She still did not speak.
‘Wheal Elizabeth,’ he said.
Selina peered at him. ‘After your mother?’
‘Just so.’
II
Clowance thought Demelza had gone thin again, but put it down to the monthly megrim. Good to be home among all the friendly faces, sleep in her own bed, listen to Isabella-Rose bubbling like a hoarse nightingale, see young Harry’s fat little pudding-basin of a face crack into a beaming smile at sight of her, ride across the beach at break-neck pace, have long talks with her mother by the fireside. She asked a number of intimate questions about her own body and sex life which Demelza tried to answer. She stayed three days.
Demelza asked her few questions in return; she felt the need above all not to pry. But that scarcely mattered. Whatever else married life had done to Clowance, it had not changed her frankness. She said she was more in love with Stephen than ever. In spite of his upbringing and his harsh life, there was no physical coarseness in him, she said. They talked a lot, she said, sometimes had arguments, but he seemed to want to learn of things she knew and he did not. She found they could learn from each other. When he went away she was desperately bored, and couldn’t wait for his return. As he was likely to travel in his boats from time to time she felt she must find something to do. Of course, if a child came, that might alter her views, but so far there was no child on the way. She saw a lot of Aunt Verity and they had become closer friends than ever before. (Demelza felt an unaccustomed twinge of jealousy that of the three women she held most dear, two were enjoying each other’s company and she could not be with them.)
Verity had promised to come over last month, Demelza said, with her step-son, the ever-popular James and his wife and child, who were now living in Portsmouth. But young Alan had gone down with measles so they could not come where other children were. It had been a big disappointment for everyone.
And what of Papa? Clowance asked. When would he be home? Probably next week. The Committee was holding its last meeting on Thursday and he had promised to leave immediately after. All would be home for Christmas, so she and Stephen must spend at least three days with them. It would be a lovely party time: the first Christmas of peace or nearly peace.
‘All?’ said Clowance. ‘Do you mean Jeremy as well?’
‘I heard from him yesterday. He says he has applied for leave and there is so little for the battalion to do at the moment, that he has a fair hope of getting it.’
‘Thank goodness he’s not been sent to America,’ said Clowance, and then at the shadow on her mother’s face wished she had not. She went on: ‘Does he know about Valentine’s marriage?’
‘I told him. In his reply he simply says “What a shock about Valentine!” and nothing more.’
‘No mention of Cuby?’
Demelza shook her head. ‘No.’
‘Perhaps he is “over” her.’
‘I don’t know, Clowance. I used to think I understood my children. Now I don’t believe I understand Jeremy any mo
re.’
Clowance admired the little silver cup on the sideboard in the dining room and asked where it had come from. Demelza gave her usual explanation. They examined it together and read the motto. Presumably the cup had been washed up from some shipwreck. Talking of ships, Demelza said, she hoped Stephen was going to prosper. Had he had to borrow the money for his first two vessels?
‘No, an uncle in Bristol died, left him quite a lot of money. He had the Clowance built at Drake’s shipyard, and the other was a French prize he picked up cheap at St Ives. It was lucky because it was just enough to start him off. Then he sailed as you know to Italy with pilchards and brought another cargo – back.’
‘I thought his mother was very poor.’
‘Well, so she was. But he has lost touch with her. When last he heard she was on the stage. This uncle was his father’s brother. Stephen says he kept an inn at Clifton. He met him years ago when he first went to Bristol; but of course he never expected any money.’
‘No,’ said Demelza. ‘Twas indeed fortunate.’
‘You know that Stephen has now borrowed money – from Warleggan’s Bank – to buy the Adolphus? Everybody has been warning us of the risks we are taking!’
‘If it is just business it may be well enough. Many hundreds of people bank at Warleggan’s Bank and come to no hurt. And Sir George has always been of a favourable disposition towards you.’
‘To me? Well, yes, I believe he has.’ Clowance stretched out and patted Farquhar, who was leaning against her skirt. ‘I must see the Kellows before I leave. Is it true that Daisy is now encouraging Horrie Treneglos?’