After a while they reached the stile which marked the end of the sand and the beginning of grass and meadow. She went over first. No one would have thought her dependent on anyone. Their words tonight had immeasurably widened the gulf between them. The fact that she had been wrong in supposing him at Trenwith did not seem to carry the weight it should. Acts had been succeeded by principles. Hostility by omission had become hostility by commission. They were both desolate people, needing friendship and sympathy and finding none.
As they reached the garden Demelza said: ‘When do you want for me to leave, Ross?’
‘Have I said that I wanted you to?’
‘No . . . But I thought ’twould be better for you – for us both. I can find work easy.’
‘And Jeremy?’
‘Jane can see for Jeremy, for the time being anyhow.’
‘Do you want to leave?’
‘I – think so. I want to do what’s right.’
There was silence for a minute or two. He tapped some mud from his boot, his face half turned from her.
‘God knows what’s right, Demelza! And I don’t believe there’s anything to be gained by trying to do the right thing or the wrong thing in a situation such as this. We can only follow our own feelings so far as they lead and judge from day to day. I don’t want you to leave if you’re willing to stay.’
They had reached the door. She put her hand against the jamb, suddenly very tired. It was a long time since she had eaten.
‘I’d like you to stay,’ he said. ‘That’s if you feel you can.’
‘Very well. It’s as you wish. But what I said about you going to live with Elizabeth – please do that if you want. George can’t marry her if you’re there.’
He didn’t speak.
‘When will you know?’ she asked.
‘What?’
‘About George and Elizabeth’s marriage.’
‘I can’t tell . . . We’ll hear.’
‘She didn’t promise to let you know?’
‘She didn’t.’
It was going dusk. The afterglow had ended. Demelza stared out over her garden. A bat flitted before the fading face of the sky. A hundred times before she had taken a last look here before going in. But never like this. She had never thought it would be like this. The garden was nothing to her any more. Let it run to waste and let the giant weeds grow. It would match the desolation in her soul.
An hour before this George had come in haste to see Elizabeth.
He said: ‘When I had your letter, I came straight away, Elizabeth. I knew if I didn’t see you tonight I should not sleep. What’s the meaning of it? I can make neither head nor tail of your reasons. Explain what it is that is troubling you.’
He spoke more sharply than he had ever done before to her, but she was far too caught up with her own feelings to notice it.
‘All this week, George, I have been thinking, worrying. It seemed – somehow it came home to me that I was plunging into this marriage without due respect for Francis’s memory. It isn’t yet twelve months. Dear George, please try to appreciate my feelings. I’ve no one to advise me. I— To be married in secret – oh, I know it was my own request – but in such haste does not look seemly. All this week I have been turning it over in my mind, and at last I plucked up courage to write to you—’
‘Three days before the wedding—’
‘It is only a postponement! Perhaps two months – or even six weeks – and I should feel better about it. I don’t somehow feel I can go into it with relish so soon. People will say that I have married you for your money and—’
‘People will talk if you sit all day by your own fireside. They concern me no more than the gnats on a summer pond. What is your real reason for asking a delay?’
Elizabeth’s troubled eyes widened. She looked very lovely in her white dress against the dark wainscot of the room. ‘I have given my reasons. Aren’t they sufficient?’
He smiled. ‘No, they are not.’
She made a little gesture of helplessness. ‘I have no others, George, but they’re sincere. Will you not humour me?’
‘All the guests are invited.’
‘Guests? But we agreed there were to be none! This was to be an entirely private wedding.’
‘And so it is. A few of my closest friends would be hurt if they didn’t come to the house afterward. I have had to notify them. I am proud, so proud of my bride. I would have asked five hundred if it had been left to me.’
‘How many are there? What numbers have you asked?’
‘Oh . . . about twenty-five.’
From the way he spoke she knew it was more. She bit her lip.
‘I feel so ashamed to be asking for a postponement; but . . .’
‘But what?’
‘I have promised to marry you, George, and I’ll try not to go back on that promise. But it would – somehow, I feel it would not be fair to you – to either of us – to marry in such haste.’
He watched her with his careful, possessive eyes. She was more nervous than he had ever seen her, fine-strung; her eyes did not meet his but went anywhere about the room.
‘Is it something to do with Ross?’
She instantly flushed. The colour came almost before he had stopped speaking. ‘It is nothing to do with anyone but myself! That day you asked me – at Cusgarne – I was so beset with worry, not able to see which way to turn. I said I would marry you—’
‘You regret it?’
Her head went up. ‘Not in the very least. But time then seemed unimportant—’
‘So it is.’
‘Not altogether. I was forgetting Francis. It’s only right to allow a decent interval to pass.’
‘Many marry after three months – some less. You know that, my dear. No one would think anything of it at all. Ross has been here, hasn’t he?’
‘He came, of course.’
‘You quarrelled?’
‘. . . In a way.’
‘He naturally does not like the idea of our marriage.’
‘No.’
‘And he is at the bottom of this change of heart on your part.’
She hesitated. George had so exactly stated the truth that she didn’t know how to answer.
‘Please. I don’t want to discuss Ross. What we decide, you and I, is quite our own concern. I’ve asked as a great favour, George, that you would postpone the wedding. When I wrote you, I did not know it would inconvenience you so much, because of the guests. But I still request it. Believe me, I don’t ask lightly or capriciously. It is a – a feeling I have.’ She touched her breast. ‘Please don’t be angry with me. I – can’t stand that . . .’
George’s fingers moved round the knob on the end of his stick. He was disappointed, angry, suspicious, and jealous. But fortunately he did not suspect the truth. He was jealous of Ross’s influence and bitterly resentful of it, that was all. Thanks to Ross, thanks to something he had said or done, the prize that he, George, had coveted for so many years had slipped a little out of his grasp. No money could buy it, no power obtain it. At present he had no control over it at all. He must go carefully, walk gingerly, lest it slip away altogether.
He said: ‘I want to be indulgent to your wishes both before and after marriage, my dear. It’s a bitter disappointment to me. When I read your letter, I could hardly believe it true. I have the licence, the ring, the . . . But whatever you wish in the way of a postponement I will do – if you’ll promise one thing.’
‘What is that?’
‘That you fix another date tonight.’
She hesitated again. Her impulse to postpone had been overwhelming. Whatever else, she was not a liar and a wanton. To go from one man’s bed to another in the course of a few days – however disgracefully she had been taken advantage of . . . Still less could she go from Ross’s caresses to George’s. Perhaps that was at the root of her feelings. Well, now the postponement was achieved. George had given way.
But there was a sting in the ta
il. To gain her end she must bind herself for the future – to an exact day, not a vague time such as she had promised herself.
‘A month from today,’ he said. ‘That’s surely a sufficient concession.’
‘Oh, no . . .’ She stopped. Did she want and need to marry him or did she not? If she did, she owed him some consideration. But in the meantime, what would Ross do? ‘I had thought of August,’ she ended lamely. ‘That would then be almost the twelve months.’
He shook his head decisively. She knew that shake. It meant business. ‘I may have to go away in August. Besides, that would upset other arrangements relating to Cardew – and to your own mother. Whom do you fear?’
‘Fear? Why, no one!’
‘Whose opinion do you fear, then? Ross’s?’
‘No, no, of course not. It is entirely what I feel myself—’
He took her hand and tried to look into her face again. ‘Come, my dear Elizabeth, let’s not shy at bogies. And let us compromise in this arrangement so that we may both have something out of it. You disappoint me grievously by wishing to postpone our wedding at all. Give me the consolation of being able to fix it for this day month. I know you are not a changeable-minded woman, and I know you will stick to your word. Let me take something home with me tonight . . .’
Elizabeth freed her hand, but not ungraciously, and walked to the table, stood turning the leaves of a book with beating heart. If Demelza had been in tribulation this last week, hers had not been much less. She had not seen Ross since the night he had called. In some moods she felt she never wanted to see him again. But those moods were by no means constant.
Not a changeable-minded woman! Was that what George thought her? All, all that had happened was a result of it. If she had not changed her mind, she would have been married to Ross these ten years and neither George nor Demelza would have been anything in their lives. But what had Ross to offer her now? A sudden wicked climbing in at windows, an incursion on her privacy, a violent taking of what was not rightly his. Demelza lived and would live. They had no money to run away. Ross had not proposed it. He had not even been near her since. That was the crowning insult.
‘I know you will stick to your word,’ George had said. ‘I do not go back on my promises,’ she had said to Ross that night. Were these things true? Yes, but the whole purpose of this postponement was that she should have time to think, to consider, and perhaps leave others with time to consider too. What was the good of time if she was bound at the end of it?
He had come up behind her. So far he had kept his attentions within the strictest confines. A half dozen times he had kissed her cheek; sometimes he held her hand. No more. She was not so foolish as to think him cold because of it. He disciplined himself to meet her varying moods. Only a man of his calibre could do it and she respected him for it. Now he lightly rested his fingers on her shoulder – in such a way as to make it quite clear that she was free to escape. She made no move to escape.
‘Can I rely on you, Elizabeth?’ he said. ‘A month from today?’
‘Very well,’ she said. ‘A month from today.’
At that he put his lips on her neck. She thought: other lips have been there. God, I am in a cage! Lost for ever! Why did Ross have to come? How I hate him for coming! And despise him. There’ll never be any friendship between us again! Only enmity. I shall be George’s heart and soul, his faithful wife and faithful friend! Anything I can do against Ross. Why did he have to come? God, I am in a cage. Lost for ever.
BOOK FOUR
Chapter One
Elizabeth and George were married on the twentieth June. Contrary to her wishes, a big reception was held at Cardew at which more than a hundred guests were present. This had been George’s intention all along. The bride and groom went away for their honeymoon and did not return to the county until late August. Then they took up residence at Cardew. Elizabeth found that Nicholas Warleggan and his wife had not yet moved out, which according to George they had promised to do, but which, also according to George, they were still preparing to do.
Cusgarne was sold and Elizabeth’s father and mother moved to Trenwith, where two elderly gentlefolk and a number of servants were engaged to look after them. George wanted to have Aunt Agatha turned out so that Ross would be forced to look after her; but Elizabeth would have none of that and Aunt Agatha stayed.
Sale of the headgear of Wheal Grace mine was countermanded, and work rebegan on the fourth June. By July the debris was cleared and the lode was being worked again. Among the first miners to go down were Ellery and young Nanfan. The money ran out, but Ross borrowed another £50 from Blewett and then another £50, and that saw them through.
Life at Nampara moved on with the change of the seasons. The hay was gathered and ricked. The wheat and the barley turned from green to yellow, and deepened and grew ripe. This year they had sown close down to the back of the house, and the stalks whispered together all day long. Even when the sea roared you could still hear the other sibilant voice close at hand.
The Allied armies had still not taken Paris, and now it looked as if the opportunity had passed for yet another year. Perhaps it had passed for longer than that, for the latent energies of the revolution were at last beginning to work. General Custine had been thrown to the guillotine for the crime of being unsuccessful, and an unknown Burgundian, Lazarre Carnot, had been appointed to organize victory. His first decree was a levee en masse, calling all Frenchmen to the colours and marshalling the services of France down to the last woman and child. It was a new conception of war, or an old conception revived, reversing the civilizing influence of a thousand years.
There had been no proper reconciliation between Ross and Demelza. Sometimes she wished she had left. Sometimes she thought of it even now. Yet she couldn’t be sure of what he was feeling. Elizabeth was married to George. The thing had gone through in spite of his intervention. Therefore unless he was prepared to take Elizabeth from Cardew by force he had nothing to hope for from her. Therefore he would stay at Nampara married to Demelza. If she was prepared to be content with second best, then she could be of service to him.
But was she content with second best? Sometimes she thought yes, often emphatically no. Still the goad of her refusal of Malcolm McNeil worked in her. She, Demelza Poldark, had proved herself to be chaste and virtuous, that was what almost killed her. She had given up praying to die, but only just. The next time she met Sir Hugh Bodrugan he had questioned her peevishly on what had happened, and she had lied to him, telling him she never intended to stay the night and had slipped away soon after the end seeing him surrounded by friends and not wishing to intrude. She prayed that she would never meet McNeil again. That would be the crowning horror.
Ross still slept downstairs. He had never made any attempt to resume a normal relationship with her, and this was a second alienating influence – even though she would have refused him if he had made the approach. She supposed him to find her distasteful after the rare and delicate joy of Elizabeth’s arms.
So two acids worked, both corroding to her self-respect, both in turn standing in the way of her customary impulses which always were to forgive and forget.
Often he was inscrutable to her, in a way he had never been since their marriage, though some days he was friendly and companionable enough within the limits of ordinary living. When news of Elizabeth’s marriage reached them, he did nothing and said nothing unusual; only his face expressed strain for a time, but he changed the subject and did not mention it again.
The mine was his escape from his own thoughts. He buried himself mentally as well as actually, working longer hours than any of the men, and his face grew paler instead of browner with the summer’s advance. The uncomfortable hours were in the evening, but usually Demelza contrived to be busy while the long days lasted.
As the nights drew in, the mine began to show a small profit. He worked it over twice with Henshawe to be sure there was no mistake. Henshawe proposed that they should frame the cost
book which recorded it. They could none of them expect money back yet, but at this rate they would creep slowly away from the red line. With four months still to go before the next reckoning of Ross’s personal account, he estimated that if he could see a hundred pounds clear, or a hundred and twenty, by the end of the year he might somehow, somewhere, scrape together enough to satisfy his creditors for another few months. His unknown well-wisher, being a well-wisher, could hardly foreclose on him for the sake of seventy or eighty pounds.
In September it became known that Mr and Mrs George Warleggan were staying at Trenwith House. This news served to incense Ross more than the news of the wedding, for which he had been in some measure prepared. For two days he contrived to spend all his time out of the house, and at mealtimes it was more than he could do to behave as if life were moving in a normal way. News soon followed that extensive repairs were being undertaken at Trenwith. One could not help but wonder at George’s generosity in doing so much for Elizabeth’s parents. If he was doing it for them. Both Ross and Demelza wondered, but neither spoke of it to the other. Speculation on such a subject was better not voiced.
Demelza received a letter from Verity.
My dear Cousin,
Thank you for your warm and Affectionate letter, and for all your Warnings and advice, which, coming from one who used to seek mine, reads a little strange. Howsoever, I fully admit that in respect of Babies your experience has been greater than mine, and I defer to everything you say.
We had a great Scare last week when news spread through the Town that five French Privateers had been sighted, one of them but three miles off the Castlehead. Everyone was in a Consternation, and the Iris, Captain Soames, the Barbadoes Packet, which had just sailed, had a near escape of being taken. However, he put back in time, and an Officer was sent hot to Penzance to deliver a message by swift Cutter to Admiral Bell, who was cruising off Scilly. There is no doubt that he would have intercepted the Privateers, but a thick sea-mist came down a few hours later to Blanket our sight and theirs. Much Qui Vive all night lest the Privateers should take advantage of the Fog; but they did not and when morning came the Horizon was clear. But it has given us all, I believe, a salutary shock.