Francis got up and began to light the candles. “Well, she shall not come back here, not if she cries for a year! Let her go to Nampara, where they have fathered this thing. Damn them, George.” Francis turned, the taper showing up his angry face. “If there is one thing in this that cuts me to the root it is Ross’s cursed underhand interference. Damn it, I might have expected a greater loyalty and friendship from my only cousin! What have I ever done to him that he should go behind my back in this fashion!”
“Well,” said George, “I suppose you married the girl he wanted, didn’t you?”
Francis stopped again and stared at him. “Oh, yes. Oh, yes… But that’s long ago.” He blew out the taper. “That was patched up long since. He is happily married himself, more happily than… There would be no point in feeling a grudge on that score.”
George looked out on the darkening garden. The candles threw his blurred hunched shadow on the wall.
“You know Ross better than I, Francis, so I can’t guide you. But many people—many people we accept on their face value have strange depths. I’ve found it so. It may be that Ross is one such. I can’t judge, but I do know that all my own overtures toward him have met with rebuffs.”
Francis came back to the table. “Aren’t you on friendly terms? No, I suppose not. How have you offended him?”
“That’s something I can’t guess. But I do know when his mine was opened all the other venturers were for the business being put through our bank, yet he fought tooth and nail until he got them to accept Pascoe’s. Then sometimes remarks he has made have been repeated to me; they were the words of a man with a secret resentment. Finally there is this wildcat scheme he has launched of some copper-smelting company, which privately is directed at us.”
“Oh, I don’t think exactly at you,” said Francis. “Its aim is to get fairer prices for the mines.”
George glanced covertly at him. “I’m not at all upset about it, for the scheme will fail through lack of money. Still, it shows an enmity toward me that I don’t feel I deserve any more than you deserve to have had this betrayal of the best interests of your family.”
Francis stared down at the other man, and there was a long silence. The clock in the corner struck seven.
“I don’t think the scheme need necessarily fail through lack of money,” Francis said whitely. “There are a good many important interests behind it…”
Chapter Thirty-Two
It was an easterly sky, and as they reached Falmouth the sun was setting like a Chinese lantern, swollen and crimson and monstrous and decorated with ridges of curly cloud. The town was a gray smudge climbing the edge of the bay.
As they went down the hill, Andrew said, “Your last letter left all to me, my dear; so I trust what I have done you’ll find to your liking.”
“I’m willing to do whatever you say.”
“The wedding is set for eleven tomorrow—at the church of King Charles the Martyr. I took a license from Parson Freakes yesterday morning. Just my old landlady and Captain Brigg will be there as witnesses. It will be as quiet as ever possible.”
“Thank you.”
“As for tonight, I had thought at first the best would be to take a room at one of the inns. But as I went around, they all seemed too shoddy to house you.”
“I shall not mind.”
“I misliked the thought of you being there alone with perhaps noisy and drunken men about.” His blue eyes met hers. “It wasn’t right.”
She flushed. “It wouldn’t have mattered.”
“So, instead, I’d like you to go to your new home, where Mrs. Stevens will be there to see to your needs. I’ll sleep in my ship.”
She said, “Forgive me if I seem listless… It isn’t that at all. It’s only the wrench of leaving the things I’ve loved so long.”
“My dear, I know how you must feel. But we have a week before I need sail. I believe it will all seem different to you before I go.”
Another silence fell. “Francis is unpredictable,” she said suddenly. “In some ways, though I shall miss them so much, I wish we were further than a score of miles. It is within too-easy riding distance of some quarrelsome impulse.”
“If he comes I will soon cool it for him.”
“I know, Andrew. But that is above all what I don’t want.”
He smiled slightly. “I was very patient at the Assembly. At need I can be patient again.”
Seagulls were flying and crying. The smell of the sea was different from home, tanged with salt and seaweed and fish. The sun set before they reached the narrow main street, and the harbor was brimming with the limpid colors of the afterglow.
People, she thought, stared at them. No doubt he was a well-known figure in the town. Would the prejudice be very strong against him? If any remained, then it was her task to break it down. There could clearly be none against her.
She glanced sidelong at him, and the thought came into her head that they had met not three dozen times in all their lives. Had she things to face that she knew nothing of? Well, if they loved each other there was no other consideration big enough to stand beside it.
They stopped and he helped her down and they went into the porticoed house. Mrs. Stevens was at the door and greeted Verity pleasantly enough, though not without a trace of speculation and jealousy.
Verity was shown the dining room and kitchen on the first floor, the graceful parlor and bedroom on the second, the two attic bedrooms above, which were for the children when they were home, children she had never seen. Esther, sixteen, was being educated by relatives; James, fifteen, a midshipman in the navy. Verity had had so much opposition to face at home that she had hardly yet had time to consider the opposition she might find there.
Back in the parlor Andrew was standing looking out across the glimmering colors of the harbor. He turned as she came and stood beside him at the window. He took her hand. The gesture brought comfort.
“Which is your ship, Andrew?”
“She’s well back from here, in St. Just’s Pool. The tallest of the three. I doubt if you can make her out in this light.”
“Oh, yes, she looks beautiful. Can I see over her sometime?”
“Tomorrow if you wish.” She suddenly felt his happiness.
“Verity, I’ll go now. I have asked Mrs. Stevens to serve your supper as soon as she can. You’ll be tired from your ride and will not mind being quiet.”
“Can you not stay to supper?”
He hesitated. “If you wish it.”
“Please. What a lovely harbor this is! I shall be able to sit here and see all the shipping go in and out and watch for your coming home.”
In a few minutes they went down into the little dining room and ate boiled neck of mutton with capers, and raspberries and cream. An hour before, they had been very adult, making a rash gesture with strange caution, as if unable quite to free themselves of the restraints and hesitations grown with the years. But the candlelight loosed thoughts, softened doubts, and discovered pride in their adventure.
They had never had a meal together before.
Net curtains were drawn across the windows, and figures crossed and recrossed them in the street outside. In the room they were a little below the level of the cobbles, and when a cart rumbled past, the wheels were more visible than the driver.
They began to talk about his ship, and he told her of Lisbon, its chiming bells, the endless blazing sunlight, the unbelievable filth of the streets, the orange trees, the olive groves. Sometime she must go with him. Was she a good sailor?
She nodded eagerly, never having been to sea.
They laughed together, and a clock in the town began to strike ten. He got up.
“This is disgraceful, love. Compromising in the eyes of Mrs. Stevens, I’m sure. She’ll expect us to have eaten all her cakes.”
She said, “If you had
gone before I should have felt very strange here alone.”
His self-disciplined face was unguarded just then. “Last night I closed a book on my old life, Verity. Tomorrow we’ll open a new one. We must write it together.”
“That’s what I want,” she said. “I’m not at all afraid.”
He walked to the door, and then glanced at her still sitting at the table. He came back.
“Good night.”
He bent to kiss her cheek, but she offered him her lips. They stayed so. His hand on the table came up and lay on her shoulder.
“If ill comes to you, Verity, it will not be my doing. I swear it. Good night, love.”
“Good night, Andrew, my love, good night.” He broke away and left her. She heard him run upstairs for his hat and then come down again and go out. She saw him pass the window. She stayed there for a very long time, her eyes half closed and her head resting against the high-backed chair.
Chapter Thirty-Three
At about the time Verity was climbing the stairs with a candle to sleep in her new bed, Mark Daniel was taking up his pitch in Wheal Leisure Mine.
With him was one of the younger Martin boys, Matthew Mark, who was there to help him by carrying away the “dead” ground as he picked it and dumping it in a pit in the nearby cave. The air was so bad in there that their hempen candles would not burn properly, so they worked in more than half darkness. The walls of the tunnel streamed with moisture and there was water and slush underfoot. But Matthew thought himself lucky to work for so experienced a man for sixpence a day—or night—and he was learning fast. In another few years he would be bidding for a pitch of his own.
Mark never had much to say when he was working, but he had not spoken a word that night. The boy did not know what was wrong and was afraid to ask. Being only just nine, he might not have understood quite what was gnawing at his companion even if he had been told.
For days Mark had given up trying to believe there was nothing wrong. For weeks he had known in his heart but had said no to himself. The little signs had piled up, the hints from those who knew and did not dare, the sly glances; small by themselves, they had grown like snowflakes on a roof, weight to weight, until the roof crashed in.
He knew, and he knew who.
She had been clever. He had always looked for signs of a man in the cottage but had never found any. He had tried to catch her out, but always she thought ahead of him. Her wits moved quick. The snow leopard was sharper than the black bear.
But in the wet weather of the previous week she had not been so clever. The ground had been so soft that even though she kept to the stony places there were marks here and there of her feet.
He dreaded that week of night work because it would bring him to some climax. The fear he felt in breaking out was because he could not shake his anger free from the clinging strands of his love. They still bound him; he struggled in a mesh with his grief.
The powder for blasting was needed. He could go no farther with the pick. He said as much to Matthew and picked up his great hammer and the steel borer. With ease come from long practice he chose his place in the hard rock, drilled a deep hole in the face of the work, pulled out the borer, and cleaned and dried the hole. Then he took up his case of powder and dropped powder in. Through the powder he pushed a tapering rod like an iron nail and filled up the mouth of the hole with clay, ramming it hard with his boring bar. That done, he puffed out the nail and into the thin hole threaded a hollow reed filled with powder, for a fuse.
He took off his hat, gently blew the smoky handle until it flickered into a flame, and lit the reed. Then they both backed away around the first corner.
Mark counted twenty. Nothing. He counted another twenty. He counted fifty. Then he picked up his can and swore. In the darkness he had planted it against the wall and water had gotten into it.
“A misfire,” he said.
“Have a care, Mr. Daniel,” Matthew said. Blasting was the part of mining he did not like. “Give it a while.”
But Mark had grunted and was already walking up to the charge. The boy followed.
As Mark drew out the reed there was a flash and a rumble and the rocks flew in his face. He put up hands to his eyes and fell back. The wall gave way.
The boy lost his head and turned and ran away, going for help. Then he checked himself and pushed his way through the choking black fumes to where Mark was trying to climb out from among the rocks.
He caught at his arm. “Mr. Daniel! Mr. Daniel!”
“Get back, boy! There’s only a part gone.”
But Matthew would not leave him and they groped their way to the bend in the tunnel.
Matthew blew on his candle, and in the flickering light stared at Mark. His gaunt face was black and striped with blood, his front hair and eyebrows singed.
“Your eyes, Mr. Daniel. Are they all right?”
Mark stared at the candle. “Aye, I can see.” There was another roar in the tunnel as the rest of the charge went off. Black smoke billowed out and around them. “Take heed, boy, an’ a warning that you always use the powder wi’ a greaterer care.”
“Your face. Thur’s blood.”
Mark stared down at his hands. “Tes these.” His left hand was bleeding from the palms and fingers. The dampness of the powder had caused the accident, but it had saved his life. He took out a dirty rag and wrapped it around his hand.
“We’ll wait till the fumes clear, an’ then we’ll see what it’s brought down.”
Matthew sat back on his heels and looked at the blood-streaked figure. “You did ought to see surgeon. He’s proper with wounds an’ things.”
Mark got up sharply. “Nay. I’d not go to him if I was dying.” He turned into the smoke.
They worked on for a time, but he found it hard to use his injured hand, which would not stop bleeding. His face was stinging and sore.
After an hour, he said, “Reckon I’ll go up to grass for a bit. You’d best come too, boy. There’s no good breathin’ this black air if you’ve no need.”
Matthew followed him gladly enough. The night work tired him more than he would admit.
They reached the main shaft and climbed up it; the distance was nothing to Grambler and they were soon sniffing the fresh night air and hearing the rumble of the sea. There was a lovely biting sweetness in filling your lungs as you came up to grass. One or two men were about, and they clustered around Mark, giving him advice.
He had come up to have a proper bandage put on and go below again. But as he stood there talking with the others and let his fingers be tied up, all the old trouble came back and he knew with angry panic that it was the moment for the test.
For a while he resisted, feeling it sprung on him too soon, that he had need to be prepared. Then he turned to Matthew and said, “Run along home, boy. ’Twill be better for me not to go b’low again tonight.”
When Matthew was out and working, he never let himself think of sleep—it didn’t do—but he was overwhelmed. It was a little after midnight. A whole six extra hours in bed! He waited respectfully for a moment to walk partway home with Mark, but another gruff word sent him off in the direction of Mellin Cottages.
Mark saw him out of sight, then briefly bade good night to the other men and followed. He had told them he didn’t know whether to bother Dr. Enys, but, in fact, his mind was quite made up. He knew just what he was going to do.
He walked quietly home. As the cottage showed up in the starlight, he felt his chest grow tight. He would have prayed if he had been a praying man, for his own mistake, for Keren’s trueness, for a new life of trust. He came to the door, reached out for the latch, grasped it, pressed.
The door opened.
He entered clumsily and found himself breathing hard. He couldn’t hold his breath, and it panted away as if he’d been running for his life. He didn’t stop to make a light
but passed through into the bedroom. The shutters were closed, and in the dark, with his unhurt hand, he groped a way around the walls of the cottage—his cottage—to the bed. The corner, the rough blanket. He sat on the edge and moved his hand over the bed for Keren—his Keren. She was not there.
With a deep grunt of pain he sat there knowing it was the end. His breath was in sobs. He sat and panted and sobbed. Then he got up.
Out in the night again a pause to rub fingers over his eyes, to look right and left, to sniff, to set off for Mingoose.
The Gatehouse looked in darkness. He made a circle, sizing it up. A chink of light in an upper window.
Stop and stare and try to fight down the pain. It was in his blood, beating through him. The door of the house.
And there he stopped. To hammer to be let in would give warning. Time to think before they opened. She might slip out another way. They both thought so much quicker. They’d brazen it out. He must have proof.
I’ll wait, he thought.
He crept slowly away, his long back bent, until he was just right to watch the front door or the back.
I’ll crouch here and wait.
The stars moved up the sky, climbing and turning on their endless roundabout. A gentle wind stirred and sighed among the bracken and the brake, stirred and moved and then lay down again to sleep. A cricket began to saw among the gorse, and somewhere overhead a nighthawk cried: a ghostly sound, the spirit of a long-dead miner walking sightless over his old land. Small animals stirred in the undergrowth. An owl settled on the rooftop and harshly cried.
I’ll wait.
Then in the east a faint yellow light showed, and there crept up into the sky the wasted slip of an old moon. It hung there sere and dry, climbed a little, and then began to set.
The door of the Gatehouse opened a few inches and Keren slipped out.
• • •
For once she was happy. Happy that it was only the first night of Mark’s night core. Their way—hers and Dwight’s—was still strange, touched with things that had never been in her first thoughts. Possessive and a little jealous, she found herself forced to allow a division of his loyalty. His work was his first love. She had reached him by taking an interest in his work. She held him by maintaining it.