Ross Poldark (13 page)

“Drink this.” Ross put the glass against the girl's elbow and she picked it up and gulped at it. She was a thin scarecrow of a child of eleven or twelve. Her shirt was dirty and torn; the mop of dark hair hid her face.

“Are you with someone?” Ross asked. “Where is your mother?”

“She an’t got one,” said the woman, breathing stale gin over his shoulders. “Been in ’er grave these six year.”

“Well, that edn my fault,” said the girl, finding her voice.

“Nor never said twas,” said the woman. “And what you doing in your brother's clo’es? Young tomrigg! You’ll get the strap for this.”

“Go away, woman,” said Ross in irritation at being so much the focus of attention. “Go away, all of you. Have you nothing better to gape at?” He turned to the girl. “Is there no one with you? What were you about?”

She sat up. “Where's Garrick? They was tormentin’ him.”

“Garrick?”

“My dog. Where's Garrick? Garrick! Garrick!”

“Ere ’e be.” A crofter pushed his way through the others. “I got un for you. It was no easy job.”

She got to her feet to receive a wriggling black bundle, and collapsed on the seat again with it in her lap. She bent over the puppy to see if it was hurt, getting her hands more bloody than they were. Suddenly she looked up with a wail, eyes blazing amid the dirt and hair.

“Judas God! The dirty nattlings! They’ve cut’n off his tail!”

“I done that,” the crofter told her composedly. “Think I was going to get me ’ands tored for a mongrel cur? Besides, twas ’alf off already, and he’ll be better placed without it.”

“Finish this,” Ross said to the girl. “Then if you can talk, tell me if you feel any bones broke in their handling.” He gave the crofter sixpence, and the crowd, aware that the show was over, began to disperse, though for some time a ring of them remained at a respectful distance, interested in the gentleman.

The dog was an emaciated mongrel puppy of a muddy black colour, with a long thin neck and covered sparsely about the head and body with short black curls. Its parentage was unimaginable.

“Use this,” said Ross, holding out his handkerchief. “Wipe your arms and see if the scratches go deep.”

She looked up from fingering her body and stared at the linen square doubtfully.

“Twill foul it,” she said.

“So I can see.”

“It mayn’t wash out.”

“Do as you’re bid and don’t argue.”

She used a corner of the kerchief on one bony elbow.

“How did you come here?” he asked.

“Walked.”

“With your father?”

“Fathur's down mine.”

“You came alone?”

“Wi’ Garrick.”

“You can’t walk back like that. Have you friends here?”

“No.” She stopped suddenly in her perfunctory wiping. “Judas, I feel some queer.”

“Drink some more of this.”

“No… ’tis that atop of nothin’…”

She got up and limped unsteadily to the corner of the gin shop. There, for the diversion and reward of the faithful spectators, she painfully lost the rum she had drunk. Then she fainted, so Ross lifted her back into the stall. When she recovered, he took her into the stall next door and gave her a square meal.

The shirt she was wearing had old tears in it as well as new; the breeches were of faded brown corduroy; her feet were bare and she had lost the round cap. Her face was pinched and white, and her eyes, a very dark brown, were much too big for it.

“What is your name?” he said.

“Demelza.”

“Your Christian name, though?”

“Please?”

“Your first name.”

“Demelza.”

“A strange name.”

“Mother were called that too.”

“Demelza Carne. Is that it?”

She sighed and nodded, for she was well filled; and the dog under the table grunted with her.

“I come from Nampara. Beyond Sawle. Do you know where that is?”

“Past St. Ann's?”

“I am going home now, child. If you cannot walk I’ll take you first to Illuggan and leave you there.”

A shadow went across her eyes and she did not speak. He paid what he owed and sent word for his horse to be saddled.

Ten minutes later they were up and away. The girl sat silently astride in front of him. Garrick followed in desultory fashion, now and then dragging his seat in the dust or peering suspiciously round to see what had become of the thing he had sometimes chased and often wagged but now could not locate.

They cut across the moors by a mining track worn deep and hard and pitted by the passage of generations of mules. The countryside hereabout was entirely abandoned to the quest for minerals. All trees, except an occasional ragged pine, had been cut down for timber, every stream was discoloured, patches of cultivated land struggled among acres of mine refuse and mountains of stone. Engine sheds, wooden derricks, wheel stamps, windlasses, and horse gins were its adornment. Trenches and adits grew in the back gardens of the tiny cottages and huts; potatoes were hoed and goats grazed among the steam and the refuse. There was no town, scarcely even a hamlet, only a wide and sparse distribution of working people.

It was the first time he had been to Illuggan this way. With the improvement in the pumping engine and the new lodes of tin and copper available, Cornish mining had been going ahead until the slump of the last few years. People had migrated to these fortunate districts where the veins were richest, and the home population had increased rapidly. Now in the growing depression of the early eighties, many of the breadwinners were out of work and the doubt arose as to whether the population could be maintained. The danger was not immediate but the spectre was there.

The girl in front of him gave a wriggle.

“Could ee let me down ’ere?” she said.

“You’re but halfway to Illuggan yet.”

“I know. I doubt I shall be going ’ome yet awhile.”

“Why not?”

There was no answer.

“Does your father not know you’ve been out?”

“Yes, but I was lended my brother's shirt and breeches. Fathur says I must go to fair whether or no, so he says I can borrow Luke's Sunday fligs.”

“Well?”

“Well, I ain’t got what I went for. And Luke's clothes is all slottery. So I reckon—”

“Why did you not go in your own clothes?”

“Fathur tored ’em last night when he give me a cooting.”

They jogged on for some distance. She turned and peered back to be sure Garrick was following.

“Does your father often beat you?” Ross asked.

“Only when he's bin takin’ too much.”

“How often is that?”

“Oh… mebbe twice a week. Less when he ’an’t got the money.”

There was silence. It was now late afternoon and needed another two hours to dark. She began to fumble with the neek of her shirt and untied the string. “You can see,” she said. “E used the strap last night. Pull me shirt back.”

He did so, and it slipped off one shoulder. Her back was marked with weals. On some the skin had been broken, and these were partly healed, with dirt smeared on them and lice at the edges. Ross pulled the shirt up again.

“And tonight?”

“Oh, he’d give me a banger tonight. But I’ll stay outdoors and not go ’ome till he's below again.”

They rode on.

Ross was not oversensitive to the feelings of animals: it was not in his generation to be so, though he seldom hit one himself; but wanton cruelty to children offended him.

“How old are you?”

“Thirteen … sur.”

It was the first time she had sirred him. He might have known that these undersized, half-starved waifs were always older than they looked.

“What work do you do?”

“Looking after the ’ouse and plantin’ taties an’ feeding the pig.”

“How many brothers and sisters have you?”

“Six brothers.”

“All younger than you?”

“Es-s.” She turned her head and whistled piercingly to Garrick.

“Do you love your father?”

She looked at him in surprise. “Es-s—”

“Why?”

She wriggled. “Cos it says you must in the Bible.”

“You like living at home?”

“I runned away when I was twelve.”

“And what happened?”

“I was broft back.”

Darkie swerved as a stoat scuttered across the path, and Ross took a firmer grip on the reins.

“If you stay out of your father's way for a time, no doubt he’ll forget what you have done wrong.”

She shook her head. “He’ll save un up.”

“Then what is the use of avoiding him?”

She smiled with an odd maturity. “Twill put un off.”

They reached a break in the track. Ahead lay the way to Illuggan; the right fork would bring him to skirt St. Ann's whence he could join the usual lane to Sawle. He reined up the mare.

“I’ll get down ’ere,” she said.

He said: “I need a girl to work in my house. At Nampara, beyond St. Ann's. You would get your food and better clothing than you have now. As you are under age I would pay your wages to your father.” He added: “I want someone strong, for the work is hard.”

She was looking up at him with her eyes wide and a startled expression in them as if he had suggested some thing wicked. Then the wind blew her hair over them and she blinked.

“The house is at Nampara,” he said. “But perhaps you do not wish to come.”

She pushed her hair back but said nothing.

“Well then, get down,” he continued with a sense of relief. “Or I will still take you into Illuggan if you choose.”

“To live at your house?” she said. “Tonight? Yes, please.”

The appeal, of course, was obvious; the immediate appeal of missing a thrashing.

“I want a kitchen maid,” he said. “One who can work and scrub, and keep herself clean also. It would be by the year that I should hire you. You would be too far away to run home every week.”

“I don’t want to go home ever,” she said.

“It will be necessary to see your father and get his consent. That may be hard to come by.”

“I’m a good scrubber,” she said. “I can scrub… sur.”

Darkie was fidgeting at the continued check.

“We will go and see your father now. If he can be—”

“Not now. Take me with you. I can scrub. I’m a good scrubber.”

“There is a law to these things. I must hire you from your father.”

“Fathur don’t come up from ’is core till an hour after cockshut. Then he’ll go drink afore he do come ’ome.”

Ross wondered if the girl were lying. Impulse had prompted him this far. He needed extra help as much in the house as in the fields, and he disliked the idea of handing this child back to a drunken miner. But neither did he wish to cool his heels in some bug-ridden hovel until dark with naked children crawling over him, then to be confronted by a gin-sodden bully who would refuse his suggestion. Did the child really want to come?

“About Garrick. I might not be able to keep Garrick.”

There was silence. Watching her closely, he could plainly see the struggle which was going on behind the thin, anaemic features. She looked at the dog, then looked up at him and her mouth gave a downward twist.

“Him an’ me's friends,” she said.

“Well?”

She did not speak for a time. “Garrick an’ me's done everything together. I couldn’t leave ’im to starve.”

“Well?”

“I couldn’t, mister. I couldn’t—”

In distress she began to slip off the mare.

He suddenly found that the thing he had set out to prove had proved something quite different. Human nature had outmaneuvered him. For if she would not desert a friend, neither could he.

They overtook Jud soon after passing the gibbet at Bargus, where four roads and four parishes met. The oxen were tired of the long trek and Jud was tired of driving them. He could not ride comfortably on blind Ramoth because four large baskets crammed with live chickens were slung across the saddle. Also he was deeply annoyed at having to leave the fair before he was drunk, a thing that had never happened to him since he was ten.

He looked round sourly at the approach of another horse and then pulled Ramoth off the track to let them pass. The oxen, being strung out in single file behind, followed suit quietly enough.

Ross explained the presence of the urchin in three sentences and left Jud to work it out for himself.

Jud raised his hairless eyebrows.

“He's all very well to play uppity-snap with a lame ’orse,” he said in a grumbling voice. “But picking up brats is another matter. Picking up brats is all wrong. Picking up brats will get ee in trouble wi’ the law.”

“A fine one you are to talk of the law,” Ross said.

Jud had not been looking where he was going, and Ramoth stumbled in a rut.

Jud said a wicked word. “Rot ’im, there ’e go again. ’Ow d’you expect for a man for to ride a blind ’orse. Ton my Sam, ’ow d’you expect for a ’orse for to see where he's going when he can’t see nothin’. Tedn’t in the nature o’ things. Tedn’t ’orse nature.”

“I’ve always found him very sure,” Ross said. “Use your own eyes, man. He's uncommonly sensitive to the least touch. Don’t force him to hurry, that's the secret.”

“Force ’im to ’urry! I should be forcin’ meself over ’is ’ead into the nearest ditch if I forced ’im to go faster than a bullhorn leaving ’is slime twixt one stone and the next. Tedn’t safe. One slip, one tumble, that's all; over you go, over ’is ears, fall on your nuddick, and
phit!
ye’re dead.”

Ross touched Darkie and they moved on.

“And a dirty bitch of a mongrel.” Jud's scandalized voice followed them as he caught sight of their escort. “Lord Almighty, tes fit to duff you, we’ll be adopting a blathering poorhouse next.”

Garrick lifted a whiskery eye at him and trotted past. There had been talk concerning himself, he felt, at the fork roads, but the matter had been amicably settled.

On one point Ross was decided: There should be no qualifying of his position in the lice and bug battle. Six months ago the house, and particularly Prudie, had been alive with most of the things that crawl. He was not fussy but he had put his foot down over Prudie's condition. Finally the threat to hold her under the pump and give her a bath himself had had results, and today the house was almost free—and even Prudie herself except for the home-grown colonies in her lank black hair. To bring the child into the house in her present state would knock the props away from the position he had taken up. Therefore both she and the dog must be given a bath and fresh clothes found for her before she entered the house. For this duty Prudie herself would be useful.