The Miller's Dance

  ‘One of these days?’

  ‘One of these days lying rumours will maybe come true.’

  ‘About you and some other woman?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She was very still. ‘Who is to say it might not be just the same if I married you?’

  ‘It would not be, I swear it. For the need will have gone! D’you understand me, Clowance? Do you at all? Men are not born to be monks. Least, I’m not, and I reckon most are the same. When you’re on board ship, it is a mite different. You’re living hard, working hard, maybe fighting; the thoughts and the desires don’t come – leastwise if it’s women you care for. But here, there’s girls in Grambler and Sawle and St Ann’s ready for an easy laugh and a joke and then what follows. And here I am eaten up with desire for a girl who won’t give way to me! Every time I see you it make it worse.’

  ‘D’you think I am – unmoved? D’you know all that much about women?’

  ‘Maybe not. But a man’s desire can reach a point where the need will force him to look elsewhere.’

  A moon was rising but it gave little light inside this room. She half saw, half imagined the expression on his face, which could look so boyish when it smiled, so mature and experienced in displeasure. She realized the truth of what he said. By offering him a partial love she was putting him in a physically intolerable position. Yet if she gave herself to him without marriage society looked on it as the unforgivable sin. For a poor girl of the parish, of course, it was nothing out of the way to become pregnant by a man before she married: it proved to him that they could have children; and if he refused to marry her and support the child he could go to prison on a bastardy charge. But for a girl of the Poldark class, while the matter would be hushed up and the wedding hurried on, the scandal would be soiling, tawdry; beyond contemplation for her.

  Only last month a girl, who it was believed had been going with a soldier lately moved away, had taken her own life because she was pregnant – and been buried at Bargus where the four parishes met, there being no consecrated ground for the suicide. How many other girls concealed their pregnancy, then delivered themselves and put the child over the cliff or down a disused mine shaft?

  Yet she loved Stephen and he loved her. If she went on refusing him, whose fault would it be if he did turn to someone else, and she eventually lost him?

  Stephen was watching her. ‘What are you thinking of, love?’

  ‘I’ve been thinking that what you said is all true. I must give – must do what you want or promise a date to marry you.’

  He put his hand on her bare knee. ‘Why not both?’

  The question slightly jarred. She shook her head. ‘I have been badly brought up, Stephen, that’s what it is. My churchgoing has been irregular and not of great conviction, but somehow the commandments have come to mean something to me. If I can avoid breaking the seventh it would also help me to avoid breaking the fifth.’

  ‘Now I am at sea, adrift. What is the fifth?’

  ‘Honour thy father and thy mother . . . I think it is more that than the other which is the chief barrier.’

  ‘Well, then.’

  ‘Well, then. I must still try to play fair to them but no longer play unfair to you. Can I make a promise?’

  ‘If it is a good one.’

  ‘Give me until Easter. What is that? Six, seven weeks. Perhaps it will not be as long as that. You have said – rightly – that my parents have an inkling. Let me make it more than an inkling. Let me try to prepare the way. I can do it. I will have a word perhaps with my father first. If he agrees, if they agree, there will be no more delay.’

  ‘And if they disagree?’

  She kissed him. ‘There will be no more delay.’

  II

  A great storm struck the south-west in late February, and four vessels were wrecked on the north coast of Cornwall, one of them on Hendrawna. The riots of 1790, however, were not repeated, and no sailor was lost or molested who could be saved; though the vessel was comprehensively stripped. Wesleyans joined in with the best and with a clear conscience, since this was a traditional way of tempering the struggle for bare survival, and since the struggle was becoming harsher than ever just now. The carcase of the brig was surrounded by horse-drawn carts and panniered mules and men and women and children laden with ladders and sacks and hatchets and saws. Viewed from Nampara, they looked like pygmies about a dead whale. Only Sam Carne and one or two of his most devoted followers were of unquiet mood, and some blamed the wrecking for the outbreak of putrid peripneumonia which began to sweep through the county in the following weeks. It was a scriptural judgment, they implied. Dr Enys was hardly in his bed, and Caroline vehement in her protests at his overwork. She had never, Dwight explained to Demelza, altogether grown out of her early upbringing which looked on epidemics as a useful way of regulating and reducing the surplus population. Indeed why not? Caroline replied; or why did the epidemics occur? To fight them was to go against nature.

  Yet for all her talk it was known that she was about to launch one of her winter campaigns to aid the needy.

  One thing Dwight noticed was that in the strong and well fed the complaint was little more than a common cold, to be thrown off in a few days. The older he grew, the more he became convinced that, although the rich suffered as many diseases as the poor, they were different diseases. It was like treating two races. Whoever heard of a poor man suffering from strangury and stone, or tympany or gout?

  One of the victims of the epidemic was Violet Kellow, who, in her consumptive condition, was quickly laid low and just when she appeared on the mend, suffered a severe haemorrhage. Indeed, although she had that curious tenacity of the young tubercular, Dwight did not think she could survive much longer. Had he known that she had been seen entering the church door in the darkest hour of last Midsummer Eve he would have dismissed the superstition as childish nonsense; but her family and friends, who knew of it, did not.

  One of her first visitors, when she was able to see visitors, was Stephen Carrington, who had been seen passing into the church with her.

  It so happened that in the second week of Violet’s illness Dwight received a message from Place House to the effect that Mr Clement Pope wished to see him. On the Thursday, therefore, after a brief visit to Fernmore to reassure himself of the girl’s improvement he rode on to the bigger house.

  Dwight had known Sir John Trevaunance, as of course in a sparsely populated district everyone knows everyone else, but Sir John had never been his patient. Of course his brother, Unwin Trevaunance, now Sir Unwin on the baronet’s death without issue, had once been half engaged to marry Caroline Penvenen; and neither Trevaunances had taken it kindly when she threw over such a distinguished and coming politician as Unwin to marry a penniless doctor called Dwight Enys. Although a cool, half-spiteful, half-jocular relationship had henceforth existed between Caroline and the two brothers, and they had often met in the hunting field, the social closeness of the early days had never returned. In later years Sir John had become more and more a recluse, and Unwin, having at last married the heiress he was looking for – a girl called Lucy Frant, from Andover, whose father it was said was rich from making army boots – had had less reason to come to see his brother to borrow money.

  When Sir John died in 1808 Unwin had lost no time in converting the property into cash by selling it to the austere Mr Clement Pope who, it was said, had made a fortune in the Americas and wished to establish himself socially as an English country gentleman, in company with his pretty blonde second wife and his two rather vacuous daughters. Jeremy renamed the new owner Inclement the First, and his house The Vatican.

  Since then public opinion, for what it was worth, had endorsed Jeremy’s sardonic reaction. Mr Pope, with his bloodless, austere face, long neck and high collar, spindly legs and precise in-toed walk, exercised an inclement discipline over his two daughters. Although one was now nineteen and the other eighteen, it was believed he had only recently stopped beating them with a st
rap for the smallest misdemeanour; and even now, though not recently resorted to, the threat was still there.

  His pretty young wife was a different matter: he doted on her; when in a room together his eyes followed her wherever she went. But even for her the discipline was formidable.

  Although the Cornish gentry were not outrageously clannish, the attempt of the Popes to become a part of the scene had not really come off. However hard Mr Pope tried to be agreeable to the right people, his personality was against him, as indeed were his over-correct manners. (‘Like a damned draper,’ old Sir Hugh Bodrugan had said after they first met.) This failure was a matter of chagrin not only for Mr Pope, who wished to arrange marriages for his two daughters, but for Mrs Pope, whose natural elegance, left to itself, would soon have overcome any deficiency in breeding.

  Caroline had once or twice gone out of her way to befriend them – a gesture which it was difficult to know whether they sufficiently appreciated. Of course she was very much ‘county’. On the other hand, they thought, she was only the local surgeon’s wife. It was the uncertainty of their manners – or chiefly Mr Pope’s manners – in such matters, an inability to know quite how to behave, that was an obstacle to their acceptance in the district.

  The ungainly Kate Carter – Ben’s younger sister – let Dwight in. Mrs Pope was waiting for him, in Sir John’s old study, that pleasant long room which looked down the cove to the sea. She came from beside the curtain, where she had been standing, and greeted him, putting four cool slim fingers into his hand to be bowed over. Then, talking, explaining, she gracefully led the way upstairs, her skirt lapping at each step. Mr Pope, it seemed, had had severe pain this morning early. He had wakened her, but just when they had been about to send for the apothecary the pains had eased. Mr Nat Irby had called at eleven and had made light of the occurrence, but Mr Pope, having heard a good account of Dr Enys’s wide physical experience, had thought it desirable to call him in.

  The bedroom they entered was dark and stuffy. Heavy velvet curtains, reinforced by lace curtains, kept out most of the light. A slim girl rose to her feet as they entered.

  ‘Thank you, Letitia,’ said Mrs Pope, and the girl, with none of her stepmother’s grace, ambled out.

  Mr Pope smelt of cinnamon and camphor and Peruvian bark. Boluses and draughts were neatly arranged in order of size on the bedside table.

  Skullcap askew, he stared aridly at Dwight, clearly not liking the idea of not being the master of any situation in which he found himself, of being beholden or dependent on someone else for an opinion, a verdict, especially, when that someone was of an undetermined social status.

  The pains, Mr Pope said, had been over the breast-bone and down the left arm. He had felt a constriction all across the chest and a difficulty in taking a deep breath. He had no doubt whatever that it was the prevalent fever, but he had been persuaded to avail himself of Dr Enys’s reputation to confirm this opinion. Still explaining to Dwight exactly what was the matter with him, he allowed his nightshirt to be unbuttoned and pulled down off his bony shoulders. Dwight tapped his chest and back with bent knuckle. Then he took his pulse, which was slower than normal and small and hard. There was no evidence of pyrexia, from feeling the brow or hand. His tongue, for a man of his age, was clear enough, but he had a mouthful of decayed teeth. Resentfully Mr Pope allowed his stomach and belly to be pressed. During this examination Mrs Selina Pope stood by the window wrinkling her smooth brow. She was in pale blue, her hair simply caught at the back with a darker blue bow; navy blue pattens.

  Dwight asked his patient to sit up, and tested his kneecaps with a percussion hammer, asked him to stand and observed whether he swayed or trembled. Presently Mr Pope was back in bed, clearly further irritated by all this medical humbug, yet not really wishing to offend or antagonize the husband of Caroline Enys. Dwight made a few notes in his book.

  ‘Well, sir?’ said the patient.

  ‘Well, sir,’ said Dwight; ‘it is perfectly clear that you do not have peripneumonia.’

  ‘Both my daughters have had it. One is still abed.’

  ‘I’m sorry to learn this. It can be a distressing illness, though seldom so serious among the well-to-do.’

  ‘Then what is your diagnosis of this pain?’

  Dwight continued to write, while carefully considering what he should say, how much he should say. There was some evidence of dropsy. And the man’s teeth . . . Dwight had been successful in promoting a new health in one or two of his patients by taking out all the teeth. But he knew the prejudice against this: the accepted course, both among rich and poor, was not to touch the teeth unless toothache made it imperative. When teeth died without toothache they were allowed to remain in situ permanently, and people congratulated themselves. But in any case a bad condition of the mouth was not Mr Pope’s main complaint.

  Dwight said: ‘I think you have been over-taxing yourself. You should rest every day after dinner for at least two hours. I will mix you a draught which may prevent a recurrence of the pain, and, if it does recur, another draught to ease it.’

  Clement Pope adjusted his skullcap. ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘It means that you should not bother with all these potions you have been taking. I intend no offence to Mr Nat Irby, but I believe you are not helping your own health by swallowing so many medicines. I would advise a very light diet, Mrs Pope: eggs and milk and chicken and jelly. Only the lightest of wines or none at all. A little exercise every day, sir: a definite walk round the garden or to the sea and back. Be regular in everything and excessive in nothing. If you are troubled again please call me at once.’

  ‘You don’t intend to bleed me?’

  ‘In this case it is of no value.’

  ‘What case? What do you suppose the case is?’

  ‘Over-fatigue. May I ask how old you are, Mr Pope?’

  ‘Fifty-nine. No age at all.’

  ‘Oh, I agree. But when one is nearing sixty it may be wise to ease off a little, take life at a slower pace.’

  ‘I believe this to be an unhealthy climate,’ said Mr Pope. ‘Much of the putrid fever that is about derives or is spread from the malignancy of the mineral effluvia. When I settled here I certainly had not taken these facts into account.’

  ‘You are not at present suffering from a putrid fever. You have over-taxed your strength. You must rest more, that is all. Living a quiet and ordered life will help you a great deal.’

  Pope said irritably: ‘In what way do you suppose I do not lead an ordered and quiet life? As you must know, I am retired here. I manage my property, look to the education of my daughters, accompany Mrs Pope on social visits. Since I broke my collar-bone two years ago I no longer ride to hounds. I retire to bed sober. I seldom over-eat. I become angry only at the most flagrant disobedience. My life is most placid and well regulated.’

  ‘Quite so, quite so.’ Dwight’s eyes flickered towards Mrs Pope and away again. It was not his business to speculate on what the relationship was between them and whether Mr Pope felt himself under an obligation to accommodate his pretty young wife in other ways besides accompanying her on social visits to their neighbours. ‘Well, Mr Pope, I believe your heart to be over-tired, to have been under some strain, and for that the best medicine – better than any I can prescribe – is light exercise with ample rest.’

  Presently he was walking down the stairs with Mrs Pope floating beside him.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘if my diagnosis has somewhat upset your husband. I thought not to say more, but came to the conclusion that if I left him unsatisfied he would disregard my advice.

  ‘Totally,’ said Mrs Pope with a slight smile. ‘He can be a very stubborn man – and a difficult patient. But are you sure it is his heart?’

  ‘One can seldom be sure of anything, Mrs Pope. Medicine is mostly guesswork, which becomes more accurate with practice. I would have thought . . .’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I would have thought the symptoms were comp
letely typical of an anginal condition. But they could also be caused by stone in the gall-bladder; or even by a form of dyspepsia in which the food comes back into the gullet instead of being properly ingested. We can only wait and see.’

  Dwight was shown out, as he had been shown in, by Katie Carter. Katie did not exactly tower over Dwight, but seemed to as she handed him his cloak because tall, big women always appear bigger than they really are. Dwight of course knew almost everyone in the district and they knew him. He had first treated Katie for a summer cholera when she was nine and had seen her a couple of times medically since. Katie smiled at him broadly now and dropped his hat, then almost dislodged her cap as she stooped to pick it up. Strange, Dwight thought, that she should be so clumsy where her brother was so deft.

  Strange too that Mr Pope should insist that his indoor staff should be entirely of women. He was like a thin little sultan ruling over a harem. But at the moment, Dwight was sure, the sultan was sick.

  III

  Dwight had not yet left the grounds when he saw ahead of him a blond-haired man walking up the hill at the far side of the valley in company with a thin gangling youth whose manner of walking on tiptoe was easily identifiable. The first was Stephen Carrington, the second Music Thomas, the oddest of the three odd bachelor brothers who lived next to Jud and Prudie Paynter in Grambler. Music worked part time, or as much time as he was allowed to, as a stable-boy at Place House. He was good with horses and was paid three shillings a week for his trouble; for the rest he got a midday meal there and that was enough. Stephen had a spade over his shoulder.

  As Dwight came up they both stopped and turned.

  ‘Good day to you, Stephen, good day, Music. Are you both going my way?’

  ‘Marning, sur,’ said Music. It was actually evening.

  ‘Dr Enys,’ said Stephen. ‘Good day to you indeed. You bound for Grambler village?’

  ‘Near enough.’

  ‘I’m going part way but have a message for Sally Chill-off in Sawle.’