Ross Poldark (11 page)

After this dance Ruth came to sit beside them. Her face, from being so pale, was now flushed. She fanned herself rapidly and her eyes were bright. Mrs. Teague was itching to question her, but so long as Lady Whitworth was irritatingly within hearing, nothing could be said. Mrs. Teague knew Joshua's reputation just as well as Lady Whitworth. Ross would be an excellent catch for little Ruth, but his father had had such a deplorable habit of snapping up the bait without getting caught on the hook.

“Miss Verity is quite forthcoming tonight,” said Mrs. Teague to distract Lady Whitworth's attention. “I believe she is more vivacious than I have seen her.”

“The young company, no doubt,” said her friend drily. “I see Captain Blamey is here also.”

“A cousin of the Roseland Blameys, I understand.”

“I have heard it said they prefer it to be known as a second cousinship.”

“Oh, really?” Mrs. Teague pricked up her ears. “Why is that?”

“One hears these rumours.” Lady Whitworth waved a gloved hand indifferently. “One does not, of course, repeat them when there are young ears to hear.”

“What? Er—no, no, of course not.”

Captain Blamey was bowing to his partner.

“Warm in here,” he said. “Perhaps—some refreshment?”

Verity nodded, as tongue-tied as he. During the dancing they hadn’t spoken at all. Now they went into the refreshment room and found a corner sheltered by ferns. In this seclusion she sipped French claret and watched people passing to and fro. He would drink only lemonade.

I must think of something to say, thought Verity; why have I no small talk like those girls over there; if I could help him to talk, he would like me more; he's shy like me, and I ought to make things easier, not harder. There's farming but he would not be attracted by my pigs and poultry. Mining I’m no more interested in than he. The sea I know nothing of except cutters and seiners and other small fry. The shipwreck last month… but that might not be a tactful thing to discuss. Why can’t I just say, la, la, la, and giggle and be fanciful. I could say how well he dances, but that isn’t true, for he dances like that big friendly bear I saw last Christmas.

“Cooler out here,” said Captain Blamey.

“Yes,” said Verity agreeably.

“A little overwarm for dancing in there. I don’t believe that a breath or two of night air would do the room any harm.”

“The weather, of course, is very mild. Quite unseasonable.”

“How graceful you dance,” said Captain Blamey, sweating. “I’ve never met anyone so, well—er—hm—”

“I greatly enjoy dancing,” she said. “But I get little opportunity for it at Trenwith. Tonight is a special pleasure.”

“And for me. And for me. I never remember enjoying anything—”

In the silence which followed this breakdown they listened to the laughter of the girls and men flirting in the next alcove. They were having a most agreeable time.

“What foolish things those young people are saying,” Andrew Blamey got out abruptly.

“Oh, do you think so,” she answered in relief.

Now I’ve offended her, he thought. It wasn’t well framed. I meant no reflection on her. How pretty her shoulders are. I ought to take this opportunity of telling her everything; but what right have I to imagine she would be interested? Besides, I would tell it so clumsily that she’d be affronted at the first words. How clean her skin looks; she's like a westerly breeze at sunrise, rare and fresh, and good to get into your lungs and your heart.

“When do you next leave for Lisbon?” she asked.

“By the afternoon tide on Friday.”

“I have been to Falmouth three times,” she told him. “A fine harbour.”

“The finest north of the equator. A farsighted government would convert it to its proper use as a great naval base and depot. Everything is in its favour. We shall need such a harbour yet.”

“For what?” asked Verity, watching his face. “Aren’t we at peace?”

“For a little while. A year or two, maybe; but there will be trouble with France again. Nothing is properly settled. And when war comes, sea power will decide it.”

“Ruth,” said Mrs. Teague in the other room. “I see Faith is sitting out this dance. Why do you not go and keep her company?”

“Very well, Mama.” The girl rose obediently.

“What sort of rumours do you mean?” asked her mother when she was out of earshot.

Lady Whitworth raised her pencilled eyebrows.

“About whom?”

“Captain Blamey.”

“About Captain Blamey? Dear me, I don’t think it kind to lend too much credence to whispered stories, do you?”

“No, no, certainly not. I make a point of paying no attention to them myself.”

“Mind you, I heard this on good authority; otherwise, I should not consider repeating it even to you.” Lady Whitworth raised her fan, which was of chicken-skin parchment delicately painted with cherubs. Behind this screen she began to speak in an undertone into Mrs. Teague's pearl earring.

Mrs. Teague's black button eyes grew smaller and rounded as the tale proceeded; the creases in her eyelids moved down like little Venetian blinds which had come askew. “No!” she exclaimed.

“Is that so! Why, in that case he should not be allowed in the room. I shall consider it my duty to warn Verity.”

“If you do so, my dear, pray leave it until another occasion. I have no wish to be drawn into the quarrel that might ensue. Besides, my dear, perhaps she already knows. You know what girls are these days: man mad. And, after all, she's twenty-five—the same as your eldest, my dear. She won’t get many more chances.”

On her way to join her sister, Ruth was intercepted by Ross. It was to ask her for the dance which was about to begin, a gavotte, that variation on the minuet which was now rivalling the minuet in favour.

He found this time that she smiled more easily, with less constraint. From being slightly scared by his attentions it had not taken her long to become flattered. A girl with four unmarried sisters does not come to her first ball with overweening expectations. To find herself singled out by a man of some distinction was heady wine, and Ross should have been careful with his doses. But he, in a good-natured way, was only pleased to find pleasure in making someone's evening a success.

Rather to his own surprise he found he was enjoying the dance; there was a pleasure in mixing with people although he had tried to despise it. As they separated and came together again, he continued without break his whispered conversation with her, and she giggled abruptly, earning a glance of reproof from her second sister who was in the next square and dancing with two elderly men and a titled lady.

In the refreshment room Captain Blamey had produced a sketch.

“Now, you see, this is the foremast, mainmast, and mizzenmast. On the foremast is the mains’l, the—”

“Did you draw that?” Verity asked.

“Yes. It is a sketch of my father's ship. She was a ship o’ the line. He died six years back. If—”

“It's uncommonly well drawn.”

“Oh, that. One gets used to the pencil. You see, the foremast and the mainmast are square-rigged; that is to say they carry yards at—um—across the run of the ship. The mizzenmast is part square-rigged, but she carries a gaff and a spanker boom, and the sail is called the spanker. It was called a lateen in the olden days. Now this is the bowsprit. It is not shown in this sketch, but a sprits’l is set beneath it, so… Miss Verity, when can I see you again after tonight?”

Their heads were close together and she glanced up briefly into his intent brown eyes.

“That I couldn’t say, Captain Blamey.”

“It is all that I plan for.”

“Oh,” said Verity.

“… On the foremast, this is the mains’l. Then comes the lower tops’l and then the upper tops’l. This attachment to the bowsprit is called the jackstaff, and—and—”

“What is the jackstaff for?” Verity asked, short of breath.

“It is the—er— Dare I hope that—if I could hope that my interest was in the smallest way returned— If that were possible—”

“I think that is possible, Captain Blamey.”

He touched her fingers for a moment. “Miss Verity, you give me a hope, a prospect which would inspire any man. I feel—I feel—But before I see your father, I must tell you something that only your encouragement would give me strength to venture—”

Five people entered the refreshment room, and Verity hastily straightened up, for she saw it was the Warleggans—with Francis and Elizabeth. Elizabeth saw her at once and smiled and waved and came across.

She was wearing a dress of peach-coloured muslin, with a white crepe turban close-fitting about her head.

“We’d no intention of coming, my dear,” she said in amusement at Verity's surprise. “How pretty you’re looking. How do you do, Captain Blamey.”

“Your servant, ma’am.”

“It was really George's fault,” Elizabeth went on, excited and therefore radiantly beautiful. “We were supping with him and I believe he found our entertainment difficult.”

“Cruel words from kind lips,” said George Warleggan. “The fault is with your husband for wishing to dance this barbarous
ecossaise
.”

Francis came across to them. His face was flushed with drink, and the effect also with him was a heightening of his good looks. “We’ve missed nothing that
matters,” he said. “All the fun's to come. I could not be sedate tonight if all England depended on it.”

“Nor I,” said Elizabeth. She smiled at Captain Blamey. “I hope our boisterous spirits don’t jar on you, sir.”

The sailor took a deep breath. “Not in the very least, ma’am. I have every reason to be happy myself.”

In the ballroom Ruth Teague had returned and Lady Whitworth had gone.

“So Captain Poldark has left you at last, child!” said Mrs. Teague. “What explanation did he offer you for such conduct?”

“None, Mama,” said Ruth, fanning herself brightly.

“Well, it is gratifying to be distinguished by such a genteel man, but there is reason in all things. You should know your manners if he does not. People are talking already.”

“Are they? Oh, dear. I cannot refuse to dance with him; he is most polite and agreeable.”

“No doubt, no doubt. But it is not becoming to make oneself too cheap. And you should think also of your sisters.”

“He has asked me for the next dance after this.”

“What? And what did you say?”

“I promised it for him.”

“Uff!” Mrs. Teague shuddered fastidiously, but she was not as displeased as she sounded. “Well, a promise is a promise; you may dance it now. But you must not go into supper with him and leave Joan to her own devices.”

“He has not asked me.”

“You’re very free with your answers, child. I think his attentions must have gone to your head. Perhaps I shall have a word with him after supper.”

“No, no, Mama, you mustn’t do that!”

“Well, we shall see,” said Mrs. Teague, who really hadn’t the slightest intention of discouraging an eligible man. Hers was a token protest to satisfy her sense of what was right and proper, of how she would behave if she had only one daughter and that one with a fortune of ten thousand pounds. With five on the books and no dowry for any of them, it deprived one of scope.

But they need not have concerned themselves. By the time the supper interval came, Ross had unaccountably disappeared. In his last dance with Ruth he had been stiff and preoccupied, and she wondered furiously whether in some manner her mother's criticisms had reached his ears.

As soon as the dance was over, he left the ballroom and walked out into the mild cloudy night. At the unexpected sight of Elizabeth his make-believe enjoyment had crumbled away. He wished more than anything to get out of her view. He forgot his obligations as Verity's escort and as a member of Miss Pascoe's party.

There were two or three carriages with footmen out side, and also a sedan chair. Lights from the bow windows of the houses in the square lit up the uneven cobbles and the trees of St Mary's churchyard. He turned in that direction. Elizabeth's beauty struck him afresh. The fact that another man should be in full enjoyment of her was like the torture of damnation. To continue to flirt with a plain little pleasant schoolgirl was out of the question.

As his hand closed about the cold railings under the trees, he fought to overcome his jealousy and pain, as one will to overcome a fainting fit. This time he must destroy it once and for all. Either he must do that or leave the county again. He had his own life to live, his own way to go; there were other women in the world, common clay perhaps, but charming enough with their pretty ways and soft bodies. Either break his infatuation for Elizabeth or remove himself to some part of the country where comparisons could not be made. A plain choice.

He walked on, waving away a beggar who followed him with a tale of poverty and want. He found himself before the Bear Inn. He pushed open the door and went down the three steps into the crowded taproom with its brass-bound barrels piled to the ceiling and its low wooden tables and benches. This night being Easter Monday, the room was very full, and the flickering smoky light of the candles in their iron sconces did not at first show him where a seat was to be found. He took one in a corner and ordered some brandy. The potman touched his forelock and took down a clean glass in honour of his unexpected patron. Ross became aware that at his coming a silence had fallen. His suit and linen were conspicuous in this company of ragged underfed drinkers.

“I’ll have no more of such talk in ’ere,” said the bartender uneasily, “so you’d best get down off of your perch, Jack Tripp.”

“I’ll stay where I am,” said a tall thin man, better dressed than most of the others in a tattered suit sizes too big for him.

“Leave ’im stay,” said a fat man in a chair below. “Even a crow's not denied its chimney pot.”

There was a laugh, for the simile was apt enough.

Conversation broke out again when it became clear that the newcomer was too deeply set in his own thoughts to spare time for other people's. His only sign
of life was to motion to the tapster from time to time to refill his glass. Jack Tripp was allowed to stay on his perch.

“It is all very well to say that, friend, but aren’t we all men born of women? Does it alter our entry into the world or our exit out of it that we are a corn-factor or a beggar? Talk of it bein’ God's devising that some should wallow in riches and others starve is so much clap-trappery. That is of man's devising, mark ee, the devising of the rich merchants and sich-like, to keep them where they be and other folk in chains. ’Tis fine and pretty to talk religion and bribe the clergy with food and wine—”