He sat back, spread his hands. ‘Really, old darling—’
‘Please do not call me that.’
‘Really, Violet, you are not suggesting . . .’
‘Should I not? Why should I not?’
‘Maybe sometime in the future . . .’
‘I have no future.’
‘When, then?’
‘Now, of course.’
‘Now? At this moment?’
‘Could there be a better? There is no one in the house, but there is a bolt on the door, if you wish to be double sure.’
He suddenly stood up. ‘Holy Mary! God’s me life! It would kill you!’
‘And if it did?’
‘I’d feel a murderer.’
‘Is it just thinking of yourself, or is it an attempt to discover an excuse? . . . But of course, it is not that at all! You find me repulsive.’
‘Not so! But can you imagine – if you died next week . . . You are shaping up splendid this week. By next summer you may well be quite recovered.’
She moistened her lips, coughed quietly into a handkerchief. ‘Do you not suppose I have the clearest possible memory of how Dorrie, my elder sister, died? The terrible pains in her chest, the lack of breath, the flow of blood. Do you imagine that I entertain the least hope that it is not all going to happen also to me? – is indeed already happening! If by any act of my own I were to shorten that agony, should I for one moment regret it? Incidentally—’ She stopped.
‘What?’
‘Do you know what a woman’s courses means?’
‘Surely.’
‘Well, I have not suffered one for almost a year – so that, if this were to happen now, and I, ungrateful wretch, were to survive the experience, and indeed to survive and recover, there would be no risk of a bastard child or a paternity claim. So your suit with Miss Clowance Poldark would remain unassailable.’
‘Almighty Christ!’ said Stephen, clutching his hair.
After a moment Violet said: ‘I do not believe you have had Clowance yet.’
‘Shut up!’
‘Village girls . . . I do not believe that they will have been easy in these villages that almost belong to the Poldarks. The scandal might ruin your chances.’
He scowled at her. ‘I shouldn’t never have supposed you would say such things.’
‘Well, it is quite rational, is it not? No doubt you have your fun when you are away. But I do not believe you can have been inundated with offers such as this. So, it cannot be altogether to your discredit if you consider it. As for me, well, I . . . I seek an experience which only you can give me. You must once have felt a strong attraction for me, if our encounter in Sawle Church a year ago is anything to judge by. Whatever happens, I swear to eternal silence on it. Soon the grave will close my mouth. You once wanted me . . .’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I once wanted you. But—’
‘Well,’ she said, ‘examine my body if you will. It is frail but clean. I can only offer it to you. If you reject it, please go now and leave me to my tears.’
He came very slowly over and laughed and sat on the bed. ‘You she-devil,’ he said.
‘Please draw the curtains.’
‘You little she-devil,’ he said.
She shook her head. ‘Don’t blame me, Stephen. Please don’t blame me.’
He put his hand on her arm. ‘Me old dear . . . How can I? Not now? Some day later when you are feeling better, stronger. We could maybe make arrangements.’
‘My mother will stay gossiping for at least another hour. Lecky has gone into Sawle, and anyway if she came back would not come up unless I rang. And I am feeling much better today. So for me it is now or never. You must tell me if you find me repulsive, Stephen.’
He looked at her. ‘I’ll swear it isn’t that!’
‘Then what is it? Loyalty to Clowance? Right enough. But she can never know. Or are you so embarrassed and upset that you could not make love to me today?’
After a long pause he wiped his hand across his mouth. ‘No, I reckon it wouldn’t be that neither.’
She said: ‘I believe I am totally shameless.’ She pulled back the sheet. ‘You see, my legs have not shrunk so much. They, I would have thought, could not be an ill sight to an interested man . . . Kill me if you like, I swear to you I should be entirely without regret.’
He stared at her a moment longer. Then he got up and drew the curtains over.
‘It is so warm today,’ she said, stretching. ‘It is so warm.’
Chapter Two
I
In late July Valentine Warleggan, just home finally from Eton, wrote to Ross and Demelza telling them he was making a few courtesy calls in their district on Thursday next and would be spending the night with the Trenegloses. Might he take the liberty of inviting himself to sup with them at Nampara? He hoped to arrive about seven.
It put Demelza in a dilemma. Ross’s absence provided an excuse for a refusal; but she was out when the groom delivered the letter, and Valentine had hardly left time to reply. He was obviously counting on a welcome and would be offended if he did not receive it – offended even by a letter and such a lame excuse. After all, Jeremy and Clowance had been to Cardew last year and to the theatre as his guests at Easter. Need she be embarrassed by his controversial presence at this late stage in their lives? But for this, his first visit, his very first visit to Nampara, she would have preferred Ross to be at her side.
It was a problem she could not even explain to Caroline, who was her normal confidante at such times. All she could do was ride over and ask Caroline and Dwight to come to sup with them on Thursday too. She also sent an invitation to Horrie Treneglos and asked Clowance to be sure to ask Stephen. Clowance, who had been going around with a face like thunder, said she would try.
‘What is amiss?’ Demelza asked. ‘Have you had a quarrel?’
‘I am not so sure it is as bad as that. Sometimes we do not altogether agree.’
‘So then you disagree.’
‘Well, yes. I – have not spoken to him for a week.’
‘That’s a fine way to begin! Is that how you expect to conduct your married life?’
Clowance muttered something in reply.
Demelza said: ‘If he has done something you don’t like, or you have done something he doesn’t like, why do you not go and see him and have it out? The sun shouldn’t go down on one’s wrath, you know.’
‘It is well for you,’ said Clowance. ‘You and Papa are different. You never seem to irritate each other, get on each other’s nerves . . .’
‘My dear life,’ said Demelza, ‘everyone quarrels sometime. Your father and I have quarrelled in the past – have we not! – but then it has been over big things; and big things, thank God, are rare. Life is too short to allow little things to fret.’
‘How do you know when a thing is big?’
‘You’ll know, I assure you . . . Is this big?’
Clowance shrugged. ‘I don’t suppose so. But sometimes, so often, the point seems to become a matter of principle.’
‘And neither will give way?’
‘I think it is really rather important.’
‘Do you want to talk to me about it?’
‘No . . . Oh, I don’t know. One of the things I object to is his wish to spend every Friday evening with Violet Kellow . . .’
Demelza was surreptitiously letting out a frock, but none of her children bothered to inquire what she was doing. It was early days yet but she didn’t want to be caught unawares. Becoming large was the only part of child-bearing she hated.
‘Violet is some sick,’ she said. ‘Dr Enys has been to her twice this week.’
‘I know. And that makes me feel ashamed. But it’s the way in which it’s done. He – he seems to think going there is more important than anything else. Then he began to sneer at my family.’
Demelza looked up in surprise. ‘What? In what way?’
‘He was repeating stories he’d heard of my grandfathe
r. Papa’s father, I mean. Of course we’ve all heard something about him; but Stephen was gloating, as if what my grandfather did made the family come low, made me come low.’
Demelza said: ‘You must warn him sometime. Tell him to be careful to say nothing of that nature in front of your father. It would not matter if it were true or not. He would go out, either through the door or the window.’
Clowance half laughed. ‘Just at the moment one part of me would like that.’
When she had gone Demelza put away the frock, and then Isabella-Rose came in, and naturally after that there was no time for rational thoughts. Demelza wondered if Clowance were a little too fond of her father, too fond, that was, for the good of her coming marriage. It wouldn’t be unlikely for Stephen to be jealous of the relationship and so be not unwilling to cast slurs on her beloved father’s father: as near as he could get to tilting at Ross himself. Not a pretty manoeuvre; but then people in love often felt too deeply to choose only genteel weapons.
The following day, which was the Wednesday, she rode over to Mingoose to see Ruth Treneglos and on the way home she saw Stephen working on the dry-stone wall outside the Gatehouse. It was evening and a brilliant remote sky was cloudless except for a few cherubs and elephants flushing fatly in the sun’s path. She called to him and he looked up and dropped his hammer and came over.
‘Mrs Poldark. There now, what an honour! Have ye come to see the house again?’
‘No. To invite you to supper tomorrow night. Valentine Warleggan, whom you’ll remember by name, is coming, and I thought you should meet him.’
‘There now. Thank you. What time would that be?’
‘I believe he is coming at seven. But we shall sup as usual about eight.’
‘Thank you.’ He looked down at his hands, which were brown with the sandy soil. ‘Does Clowance know I am to be asked?’
‘I did not consult her. As you are engaged to marry, I should not have supposed she would object.’
He laughed without amusement. ‘No, that’s true, isn’t it.’
There was a pause. Demelza said: ‘Have you ever built a Cornish wall before?’
‘No. I’m trying.’
‘It is a skill,’ she said. ‘There are men here who would show you.’
He laughed again. ‘I reckoned perhaps I could do it meself. Maybe I’m learning me mistake.’
‘Sephus Billing,’ said Demelza. ‘He helps us sometimes with the hay, and at harvest. He is not . . .’ She paused. ‘He would not pass the simplest scholar’s test. But no one can build a Cornish hedge or wall like him. He learned it from his father, who learned it from his father. It is a skill.’
Stephen straightened up, frowned at the cherubs in the sky, which were altering their shape. ‘Mrs Poldark, I suppose you know things is not quite what they should be betwixt me and Clowance just now . . .’
‘I – got that impression, yes.’
Stephen picked up a stone and threw it far across the moors. A rabbit, unexpectedly disturbed, flashed his white scut at them before disappearing into his burrow.
‘I think it is all me own fault,’ he said.
‘Have you said that to her?’
‘I’ve had little opportunity.’
‘Perhaps you’ll have the opportunity tomorrow evening.’
He said: ‘I think it has been all me own fault.’
She patted the pony’s neck to keep him quiet. ‘About seven then.’
‘Mrs Poldark,’ he said, as she made a move.
She settled her hat and tightened the rein.
‘I may not be the sort of man you would have wanted for Clowance, eh?’
Demelza looked at him, at his masculine sturdiness, the strong throat showing over the open shirt, the mature reckless face with its cleft chin, the tawny hair.
‘Clowance makes her own choice,’ she said pleasantly.
‘And for that I count me luck,’ he said. ‘Often enough I count me luck. But it is not in me not to get out of step sometime. That’s the way I was born. Maybe it’s the way I was bred too. I never saw me own mother after I was four or five. I was brought up by an old woman, and then ran away, and the rest . . . It makes a difference.’
‘I never saw my mother after I was seven,’ said Demelza. ‘She died.’
‘Did she? I didn’t know. Was you on your own?’
‘No, I had six brothers to look after.’
There was a pause.
‘Younger or older?’
‘All younger.’
‘Did your father marry again?’
‘Not until much later. Not until I was about to marry Captain Poldark.’
‘So – you looked after your brothers as best you could . . . I suppose you got a nurse.’
‘Nurse,’ said Demelza. ‘We did not have enough to eat. My father drank all his wages.’
Stephen picked up another larger stone, weighed it in his hands. ‘I reckon I must ask Sephus Billing about this.’
‘I reckon you should.’
Stephen said: ‘Is it not in your nature, Mrs Poldark, to get out of step sometimes?’
‘If I do,’ said Demelza, ‘it is not in my nature not to be able to say sorry.’
‘Yes,’ said Stephen. ‘Yes,’ and put the stone back on the wall. ‘Thank ye, Mrs Poldark.’
The soft dying sun had found its way among the curly clouds, and the bare moorland bloomed in its light. Demelza hesitated to leave on that note, wondering if her reply assumed a superiority she did not intend. This gave him time to come up to her, put his hand briefly on hers.
‘If I marry Clowance . . . when I marry Clowance, I reckon I shall be double lucky. Double lucky that she has a mother like you. You’re so young-seeming – and yet so wise. Thank ye for that.’
His look of frank admiration was uninhibited.
She said: ‘We shall expect you tomorrow, Stephen.’
II
Demelza need not have been concerned about Valentine’s visit. The little party she had arranged went without hitch, and the chief contributor to its success was Valentine himself. Tall and elegant in his stork-like way because of the thinness and length of his shanks, dashingly good-looking if one ignored the narrowness of his eyes, he could hardly have looked less like George Warleggan if nature had tried. But in all manner of ways, if not exactly in looks, he resembled Elizabeth: gesture of hand and movement of head; the light timbre of his voice which was little heavier than his mother’s warm contralto tones; the smile that creased his cheeks could have been hers.
Unaware of Mr Clement Pope’s illness, he had written to Mrs Selina Pope inviting himself to dinner. Mrs Pope had not chosen to put him off, and he had arrived there and after a few minutes of embarrassment had decided to make the best of it – since that apparently was their wish – and had dined there alone with the three women. What charming girls Miss Pope and Miss Maud Pope were – particularly Maud, with that golden hair; he could swear if it were unloosed it would fall to her waist. His eyes glinted as he said this, as if picturing a scene in which he participated in such an event. No, he had not seen Mr Pope at all. It seemed that he had good days and bad days and this was one of the latter. It was some fatty condition of the heart, they said; or – begging Dr Enys’s pardon – what Dr Enys said. Though anyone less fat than Mr Pope it would be hard to conceive!
He was sure he would find Cambridge a tiresome place to be after Eton; it was such a dashed disadvantage being so far from London. He wished his father might have sent him to Oxford, since that at least was much nearer Cornwall. He pictured himself for the next three years spending a large part of his time suffering the oppilations and vertigo of travel in smelly and bug-ridden coaches.
How beautiful, he observed, Clowance was looking. All Cornwall would be jealous of Stephen – whom he had only just had the pleasure of meeting – my warmest congratulations, sir, for having gained such a rose. The rose and her future bridegroom muttered the appropriate replies, but to Demelza it was clear that ther
e existed between them only the sort of truce that occurred between the British and French after a battle: an agreed suspension of hostilities while the dead and wounded were attended to.
Valentine, in answer to Demelza’s inquiry – prompted by her own thoughts – told them he had had another brief letter from Geoffrey Charles, who was learning to write with his right hand again. He assured all his friends in Cornwall, did Geoffrey Charles, that he had lost nothing, no finger, hand, or other part of his anatomy; it was only that the fingers of his right hand had been part paralysed and that holding a pen took a little getting used to again. He had recovered, apparently, the use of his trigger finger more rapidly than any other. That morning Valentine told them, before he visited the Popes, he had called in at Trenwith. What blackguards and ruffians those Harry brothers were, allowing the place to fall into such disrepair. How his father ever came first to employ them he could not imagine, unless, on the assumption that ugly pigs can grow out of pretty piglets, they had been less surly and uncomely in their youth. In which case one wondered that his father still continued to retain them. He and Geoffrey Charles, he had to confess, had not got on too well together in the old days, but he was looking forward to the time when he returned and threw those two blackguards out. After all, he and Geoffrey Charles had the same mother, and that was the strongest link in the world, eh, Cousin Demelza. Fathers mattered less, or had done so to him. His father, especially, being what he was.
‘Being what he is?’ said Jeremy.
‘Well, a thought nouveau riche, cousin, wouldn’t you say? If that’s not filial in me, pray forgive. I mean it in the kindest way. Or do I? At least he has had the taste to marry two women of infinite breeding.’
‘I hope they’re happy together,’ Caroline said. ‘I mean your father and Lady Harriet. I have hardly seen them since the wedding.’
‘To tell the truth, Mrs Enys, hardly have I! It is but a week since I returned – in the company of Blencowe who had been sent to escort me! No side-slipping was I to be allowed this time! Accompanied across London too, eyes carefully blinkered to avoid the sights and sounds of temptation! Then side by side for five dreary days in a lurching coach with not a word or a thought in common. I would as soon have had a Methody for company! . . . Cardew? Well, yes . . . I must confess there is an elegance to the house now that of recent years it has lacked: merely to see Step-Mama taking her long strides about the place raises one’s body heat . . . As for my little sister Ursula, I do not think she is used to her new mother yet, but she much enjoys her new mother’s animals. These great hounds – or whatever they may be – look as if they could eat her for supper any day, and I believe Papa suffers anxieties on that account; but Ursula treats them like puppies and they behave to her as if they were.’