The Miller's Dance

  ‘There, there, my dear, it is not the first time two men have quarrelled over a girl; and this pot has been simmering for a while. Let us hope in a few days it will all cool off—’

  ‘You don’t need to suppose it’ll do that,’ said Clowance, annoyed with her mother for taking it too lightly. ‘You don’t know anything about it, do you!’

  ‘Only what I have been told. Well . . . let us look at the good things that have come of it. Did you say you had found a coin?’

  ‘Yes . . .’ Clowance fumbled miserably in her pocket. ‘Now where did I . . .? Oh, here it is.’

  They found an old magnifying glass and peered through it.

  ‘She’s right, in faith,’ said Jeremy excitedly. ‘Antoninus in full, and then AUG, which means Augustus. Then PIUS; then it looks like P.P. whatever that may stand for. On the reverse side it – it seems to say TR. POT COS. III. SC. I’ve no idea what any of that can mean. But it is perfectly genuine! I thought – I was certain it was a coin minted by one of the tin or copper companies.’

  ‘Ben thought that,’ said Demelza. ‘Didn’t he?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Lord’s my life, I cannot contain myself to go down! Where is Ben? He must be somewhere around! I hope this quarrel is not going to bite too deep – just at the moment of this marvellous discovery! I’ll walk across now, see if he’s there. If he’s not, would you come and show me, Clowance?’

  Before she could reply, if she was going to, Demelza said: ‘As it is so late, as it has been there so long undiscovered, would it not be more proper to wait for your father? If I know him he’ll be back before noon tomorrow. Then we could all go down together.’

  ‘You would come, Mama?’

  ‘Indeed I shall.’

  ‘But . . . in your present condition . . .’

  ‘Clowance tells me it is just up a ladder.’

  ‘Yes, but you have to climb all the way down first.’

  ‘Exercise is good for one.’

  ‘I do not think Father will like it.’

  Demelza said: ‘I shall persuade him.’

  Jeremy said: ‘I wonder when Antoninus lived. I’ll go and see Uncle Dwight – he has an encyclopaedia. I can’t sit still this evening. I have to do something with the time. Then I’ll go and see if I can find Ben. But we’ll not go down. You’re right, Mama: it is a family concern. We ought to go together. Perhaps we can winch you down.’

  Demelza said: ‘I’ll sit astride a kibble.’

  II

  Two days later, as the evening was falling, Clowance came upon Ben, who had been working near Jonas’s Mill, digging over the site he had been engaged on before Wheal Leisure was opened.

  As they stared at each other in the windy twilight she could just see the swollen eyebrow, the slow flush mounting to his face, colouring the sallow skin.

  Without any preamble she said: ‘Jeremy tells me you have resigned as underground captain of Wheal Leisure.’

  ‘Yes . . .’

  ‘Because of the fight you had with Stephen?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose.’

  ‘You don’t suppose. You know.’

  ‘Well . . . I was the first, the one to start it. I hit ’im first. That’s no way to be’ave. Not wi’ the man who’s going to be your husband.’

  ‘He insulted you!’

  ‘Mebbe.’

  ‘There’s no maybe about it. Ben.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I expect a lot from my friends. From Stephen as well as from you. Are you my friend?’

  ‘You should know.’

  ‘Are you my friend?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then I want you to return to Wheal Leisure.’

  He shifted in the gusty half-dark, leaned on his spade.

  ‘I cannot do that, Clowance.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Twouldn’t be right. Twouldn’t be fitty. Your husband. And he’s a shareholder.’

  ‘He’s not going to be my husband just yet.’

  Ben looked up. ‘Why not? Because of me?’

  She pressed her hair back with her hand. ‘Look, Ben. You – found the old Trevorgie workings. You came to Nampara and I was the only one there. I went back with you. Was that wrong?’

  ‘Well, no.’

  ‘Did you do anything wrong by telling me?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did you not try to dissuade me from going down?’

  ‘Well, yes.’

  ‘But I went down. I insisted. I went down with you. When we came up to grass Stephen was there and made those offensive remarks . . .’

  She stopped, struggling with words which could not be spoken here. She could not explain that to behave that way towards her in front of Ben was the most odious insult Stephen could have shown her. Of course she was not in love with Ben; but knowing his feelings for her, it was enormously important to her that Stephen should behave with at least a show of decent manners, just because he was going to become her husband. If Ben couldn’t admire him he could at least respect him. But the sheer nastiness of the insults he had levelled at Ben became that much nastier because Ben, although a lifelong friend, was not of their class, on a different level from them. That more than anything else made her unappeasably angry. The quarrel was totally degrading. It would not even have been so intolerable if Stephen quarrelled and fought with Jeremy.

  ‘That fight,’ she said.

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘That two men could – could . . .’

  ‘I’m sorry, Clowance, sorry.’

  She brought her thoughts away from it to what she was about now. ‘Ben, I want to ask you something.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Was there anything neglectful of the mine in what you did?’

  ‘Not of the mine, no.’

  ‘Well, is it not from the mine you have resigned?’

  ‘Aye, but you cann’t just forget the folk involved—’

  ‘In this you can. For they are two separate issues. If you – if you quarrel with the man I intend to – intended to marry, that is something between him and you and me. I may indeed be at fault for being between you. But it is nothing whatever to do with the mine. You have no right to resign on those grounds! Especially in the light of this new discovery you have made. Jeremy is relying on you to help him exploit it. My father is relying on you! You must go back!’

  He rubbed his short black beard. She stood there so sturdy and yet so feminine, so honest and yet so – apparently – unable or unwilling to see that she was asking the impossible.

  ‘Ben!’

  ‘Yes, Clowance, I see what you d’mean, but tisn’t as easy as that—’

  ‘I didn’t suppose it to be easy. But I ask you to do it.’

  He struggled for words. ‘Twouldn’t work. Not any longer.’

  ‘What wouldn’t work?’

  ‘The men. The women. They’ll gossip ’nough as tis. Be’ind their hands. Me, underground cap’n, when I been in a fight wi’ a shareholder.’

  ‘Are you afraid of facing them out? I wouldn’t believe that of you!’

  ‘Well . . . coming down to it – if you forget the miners, there’s me and him. Me and him. We could never pass the time o’ day, never meet face to face, wi’out snarling . . . And him one of your family!’

  ‘Not yet!’

  The half-dark and the pressure of her urgent demands gave him courage he’d not had before, courage at least to try to say what was in his heart.

  ‘Y’know, Clowance, y’know what I d’feel for you. Ever since you was ten or eleven – all these years. I tried – have tried never to think on it, on account of I know tis hopeless, and so I . . . haven’t thought on it much. Not more’n I can help anyway. But then when this man come along . . . Tis not for me to say who you shall wed – or where or when. But neither is it for me to say what I can feel and cann’t feel. It is not in me to master that. And if so be as I don’t like Stephen Carrington, that d’make it fifty times worser for me than if he been
someone I could b’lieve was good enough for you. There, I have said that! Follow me, do you?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Clowance.

  ‘So then come this quarrel. Twas bound to be soon or late, for he was waiting for me and watching the opportunity. He’s jealous because he d’know how I feel for you. He thinks I wish him ill. So how could it be that I could go on working at bal, and me knowing and him knowing of this hatred?’

  Clowance said slowly: ‘There’s no need for hatred.’

  ‘Nay, mebbe no. But you say . . . Did you say he’s not going to be your husband just yet?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But if you’re doing this just because of this that happened yesterday—’

  ‘I’m not. Well . . . not altogether. I think I have made a mistake. But what happened yesterday was important – the breaking-point. You see, the thing that I find impossible to accept . . . Do you mind if I speak to you in confidence, Ben?’

  His throat swelled. ‘Of course not.’

  ‘I think I loved Stephen. Perhaps I still do in a way. Do you know how it is if someone comes near you and your mouth dries, your heart beats.’

  ‘Do I not, just!’

  She blinked. ‘Well, yes. Well, that is what happens when I see him. That is what happens, Ben. I am sorry if I have to tell you this.’

  He did not speak but gripped his spade the harder. A flock of crows flew creaking overhead, urging their rusty wings into the night.

  She said: ‘Perhaps that is enough. Perhaps it should be enough. But ever since we have been going together . . .’ She stopped. ‘Now I am being unfair to him . . . I can only say that there is a level of our – our understanding where nothing meets. Perhaps I am as much to blame as he is. When – when he was visiting Violet Kellow I allowed myself to become jealous. Jealous of her. In what then am I better than he, who was jealous of you yesterday?’

  Ben said: ‘Tisn’t quite the same.’

  She choked and then coughed to hide her tears. ‘Dear Ben. You would say that. But there are other things – things I cannot tell you about which have helped to build up, to make this break. I cannot tell you about them for I do not altogether understand them myself. I feel I am being drawn into a world where meanings are never so clear any longer, distinctions between this and that, colours are blurred, edges of plain speaking, candour maybe. Perhaps it’s not his fault. Perhaps it is all part of the deceit of growing up, and I blame him for it!’

  ‘My dear,’ said Ben indistinctly, ‘twould be error to blame yourself. Yet what can I say that don’t sound like I were trying to make you take my opinion of him? He is not good ’nough for you, but if you d’love him maybe that’s the way it must be.’

  ‘Nothing must be,’ said Clowance fiercely. ‘Nothing yet must be.’

  III

  When she left him it was too dark to work, so Ben shouldered his spade and walked home. It was less than two miles across rough country to Grambler village where a few dispirited candles glimmered, past Sawle Church and down Sawle Combe with the tin stamps endlessly clanking and thumping, over the steep cobbles of Stippy Stappy Lane till one came to the small bow-windowed shop in which the Carter family lived. There were lights in here and the shop was still open. His mother was behind the counter weighing out a piece of hardbake for Music Thomas.

  As soon as the bell pinged Music swung round sharply but his smile of welcome faded when he saw Ben.

  ‘Aw, tis thee, Ben . . .’

  ‘Who’d you expect?’ Ben said irritably.

  ‘Mind that spade, there’s mud on it,’ said Jinny Carter. ‘An’ your boots.’

  Ben, who was normally careful enough but was too emotionally exhausted tonight to have given it much thought, went back to the door and began to scrape his boots on the iron grating outside. When he came in his mother gave him a smile of thanks.

  ‘That’s twopence,’ she said to Music.

  ‘Ais,’ said Music, ‘an’ I’ll ’ave a quarter-pound of they sweets.’ He pointed.

  ‘Music,’ said Jinny to her son, ‘be waiting for Katie, I reckon.’

  ‘What for?’ said Ben.

  Music swallowed and grinned and looked embarrassed. ‘I just came in fur they sweets,’ he said.

  ‘Well, you asked for her,’ said Jinny. ‘That’s all I was thinking.’

  ‘I come for the ’ardbake,’ said Music, ‘an’ the sweets.’

  ‘You’ve grown a proper sweet tooth this last few days,’ said Jinny.

  ‘Ais,’ said Music.

  ‘What for d’ye want to see Katie?’ Ben demanded. ‘Don’t you have sight of her every day at Place ’Ouse?’

  ‘Oh, ais. I d’see Katie every day.’

  ‘Well, then.’

  ‘I come for the ’ardbake,’ said Music.

  ‘Got a message for ’er, ’ave ee?’

  ‘Naw. Tis just . . .’ Tormented by Ben’s questions, Music forced words out. ‘I’d see Katie every day, like. I ’ave sight of ’er. But never a word d’pass . . . But I come in fur they sweets. Brother Art sends me. Says he d’want more of they sweets.’

  ‘How many d’you say d’you want?’ Jinny asked. ‘Your father’s in back, Ben. There’ll be supper just so soon as we close.’

  While the sweets were being weighed Ben went inside, nodded to his stepfather who was stirring the soup on the fire, put his spade in the outhouse and came back to hear his sister in the shop. He parted the curtain.

  Tall and long-faced and untidy but not without looks if only men could see it, Katie was just untying her head shawl, shaking out her Spanish-black hair and staring at Music who was stuttering over something he was trying to say. It seemed, so far as Ben was able to understand it, that Music had been trying to get Katie alone for days, had failed completely at Place House, and now was reduced to waiting for her at her mother’s shop and was blurting out what seemed like an apology – not just to her alone as no doubt he had hoped, and no doubt could have contrived if he had had the nous to wait outside the shop, but now semipublicly, in front of Katie’s mother, and her brother too. Something had happened, it seemed, at the Truro races that he was unhappy about, and he had been trying to explain. Drink – the drink had been in him. The Devil too – the Devil in some guise. He was concerned at the offence he had given. He did not quite understand the word apologize, but that was clearly what he had in mind. To apologize.

  But why? There was a puzzled expression on Katie’s face, reflecting the puzzlement on Ben’s. If there were some horseplay, some ill-humoured buffoonery in a village, at a fair, on a Saint’s day, however far it went it would never have occurred to anybody to say they were sorry. They wouldn’t know how. It would have been outside the conception of normal behaviour. It was clearly outside the conception of Music’s behaviour. He didn’t know how. But he was trying.

  A sort of explanation crossed Ben’s mind very much at the same time as it occurred to the two women. He gave a guffaw. If his own feelings had not been so much at stretch this evening it would not have occurred to him to laugh. But this was a release from intolerable tension. Music shot him a look which in a less vacuous face would have been taken for anger.

  Then Katie laughed too. That was the worst part for Music. She laughed and laughed. She dropped her scarf on the counter and laughed. Ben laughed. Mrs Jinny Scoble smiled. After a moment or two, Whitehead Scoble put his head round the curtain and said:

  ‘Supper’s ready. What’s to do?’

  Jinny said: ‘Tis just a little private joke, m’dear. A joke twixt Katie and Music.’

  ‘Katie and Music?’ said Scoble, scratching his head. ‘What’ve they got to do with each other.’

  ‘That’s it, Fathur,’ Katie said. ‘That’s just it!’ And laughed again.

  Music stared from one to the other, then turned and ran out of the shop. You could hear his hob-nailed boots striking sparks on the cobbles as he ran up the hill.

  ‘Dear life,’ said Jinny, sobering a little, ‘he’s gone and left ??
?is sweets be’ind.’

  But Ben, pursued by devils of his own, was already on his way upstairs.

  IV

  Two days later, at about the same time of the evening when Ross was riding home from a brief visit to Killewarren, a figure stepped out of the hedge and said:

  ‘Could I have word with ye, Cap’n Poldark?’

  Stephen Carrington’s coat collar was turned up, his mass of yellow hair subdued by the drizzle.

  ‘Of course. Why don’t you come to the house?’

  ‘I’d rather not. Thank you all the same. It will not take more than five minutes.’

  Ross hesitated, and then dismounted. To be five feet above the other man put him at a disadvantage.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘You’ll be likely to have heard that Clowance and me have split up.’

  ‘I have.’

  ‘Did she say definite that the wedding was off?’

  ‘She did.’

  ‘I doubt you’ll have heard all the rights and wrongs of our quarrel.’

  ‘Only the barest details. Clowance has said very little. I don’t know that I specially want to hear more.’

  ‘You mean you’re content with the way things have turned out.’

  ‘I did not say that. But – unless it directly concerns us as parties to the quarrel . . . Of course we’ll listen if we are told; and of course we are vitally concerned for Clowance’s happiness. But as you know, we have always tried to allow Clowance freedom to make up her own mind.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I do know that.’ Stephen’s bruised face was grim, the lines drawn fine about his mouth. ‘What I take leave to doubt is whether she knows her own mind at this moment.’

  Ross said: ‘You were content that she knew her own mind when she promised to marry you; so I think you must equally accept her decision now.’

  ‘Over a lovers’ tiff?’

  ‘Is it that?’

  ‘Little more.’

  ‘Then I imagine time will show.’

  Ross’s horse was restive so he began to walk the animal in the direction of home. Stephen walked with him.