Ross Poldark (27 page)

Charles Poldark made an obstinate recovery from his heart attack, but was confined to the house for the rest of the winter. He still put on weight. Soon it was all he could do to struggle downstairs in the afternoon and sit panting and eruptive and purple before the parlour fire. There he would remain scarcely speaking for hours, while Aunt Agatha worked the spinning wheel or read the Bible to herself in an audible undertone. Sometimes in the evenings he would talk to Francis, asking him questions about the mine, or he would tap a mild accompaniment on the arm of his chair when Elizabeth played an air on the harp. He seldom spoke to Verity except to complain that something was not to his liking, and usually dozed off and snored in his chair before he would allow himself to be supported up to bed.

Jinny Carter's child was born in March. Like Elizabeth's child, it was a boy; and he was christened, by permission, Benjamin Ross.

A fortnight after the christening Ross had an unexpected visitor; Eli Clemmow had walked in the rain all the way from Truro. Ross had not seen him for ten years, but he instantly recognized his loping walk.

Unlike his elder brother, Eli was built on a narrow economical scale, with a suggestion of the Mongol in his features. When he spoke he slopped and slurred with his teeth as if his lips were waves washing over half-tide rocks.

To begin with he was ingratiating, asking about his brother's disappearance, enquiring if no trace at all had been found. Then he was complacent, mentioning with satisfaction the good position he had got. Personal servant to a lawyer; a pound a month and all found; snug little room, light work, drop of toddy every Saturday night. Later, when he brought up the question of his brother's belongings, and Ross said candidly that he was welcome to what he found in the cottage but doubted if there was anything worth the effort of carrying away, Eli's eyes betrayed the malice which had all the time been hiding away behind his obsequious manner.

“No doubt,” he said, sucking with his lips, “all the neighbours will have took anything of value.”

“We don’t encourage thieves,” Ross observed. “If you want to make remarks of that kind, make them to the people you accuse.”

“Well,” said Eli, blinking, “I shouldn’t be saying more’n I’ve the right if I said Brother ’ad been drove out of his home by lying tongues.”

“Your brother left his home because he couldn’t learn to control his appetites.”

“And did ’e do anything?”

“Anything?”

“Anything wrong.”

“We were able to prevent that.”

“Yes, but he was drove out of his ’ome fur doing nothing at all, and mebbe starved to death. Even the law don’t say ye can punish a man before ’e do do a wrong.”

“He was not driven from his home, man.”

Eli fingered his cap. “Of course ’tis common knowledge that ye’ve always had a down on we. You and father. Your father had Reuben put in the stocks for next to nought. ’Tis ’ard not to remember that.”

“You’re fortunate,” Ross said, “not to receive something else to remember. I give you five minutes to be off my land.”

Eli swallowed something and sucked again. “Why, sur, ye just said I could go down fur to take anything of Brother's away that's worth the carrying. Ye’ve just said so. That be common justice.”

“I don’t interfere with the lives of my tenants unless they interfere with mine. Go to the cottage and take what you choose. Then go back to Truro and stay there, for you’re not welcome in this district.”

Eli Clemmow's eyes gleamed and he seemed about to say more, but he changed his mind and left the house without a word.

So it came about that Jinny Carter, nursing her baby by the upstairs window, saw the man come over the hill in the rain with his slow dipping stride and go into the next cottage. He was inside for about half an hour, and then she saw him leave with one or two articles under his arm.

What she did not see was the thoughtful expression on his sly Mongolian face. To one of Eli's peculiar perceptions it was clear that the cottage had been inhabited by someone less than a week ago.

That night the wind got up with violence and blew unabated through the following day. The next night about nine news came that a ship was in the bay and drifting ashore between Nampara and Sawle.

Demelza had spent most of the afternoon as she was coming to spend many afternoons when heavy rain stopped all but the most urgent outdoor work. Had Prudie been of an industrious turn of mind she would have taught the girl something more than the neat but primitive sewing she now understood; and there was weaving and spinning to learn, the drying and dipping of rushes for making rushlights. But these things were beyond Prudie's idea of housecraft. When work was inescapable she did it, but any excuse was good enough to sit down and take off her slippers and brew a dish of tea. So soon after dinner Demelza had sneaked off to the library.

And this afternoon by the purest chance she made the greatest discovery of all. Just as a premature dusk was falling she found that one of the big chests was not really locked but only held by a trick clasp. She lifted the lid and found the box full of clothing. There were dresses and scarves, three-cornered hats and fur-lined gloves, a periwig and red and blue stockings, a pair of lady's green lace slippers with blue heels. There was a muslin neck scarf and an
ostrich feather.
There was a bottle with liquid that smelt of gin, the only intoxicant she knew, and another half full of scent.

Although she had already stayed longer than usual, she could not bring herself to leave, and went over and over the velvet and the lace and the silk, stroking it and shaking out the crumbs of dry lavender. She couldn’t put down the slippers with the lace and the blue heels; they were too dainty to be real. The ostrich feather she sniffed and pressed against her cheek. Then she tried it round her neck and put on a fur hat and pirouetted up and down on her toes, pretending to be a great lady, with Garrick crawling at her heels.

With darkness closing in on her she lived in a dream, until she woke and found she could no longer see and was alone in the sombre room with the draught blowing cold and rain seeping through the shutters.

Frightened, she rushed to the box, pushed in every thing she could find and shut the lid, and slipped through the big bedroom and thence to the kitchen.

Prudie had had to light the candles, and delivered an ill-tempered lecture, which Demelza, not yet anxious to go to bed, adroitly steered round until it became a continuation of the story of Prudie's life. Hence the girl had only just gone upstairs and was not asleep when Jim Carter and Nick Vigus called in to say there was a ship in distress. When Ross, disturbed from his book, made ready to go with them he found Demelza, a kerchief about her hair and two old sacks on her shoulders, waiting to ask that she might go too.

“You’re better in bed,” Ross said. “But as you please if you want the wetting.”

They set out, Jud carrying a strong rope in case there should be a chance of giving help.

The night was so black as to be sightless. Out of the shelter of the house the wind struck a blow that was not temporary but enduring. They tried to overcome it, taking steps forward that should have been an advance. One of the storm lanterns went out, the other swayed and flickered, thrusting out a hoop of light which danced along with them clownlike and showed their heavy boots squelching across the dripping grass. Once or twice the force of the wind was so great that they were all brought to a stop, and Demelza, struggling voicelessly beside them, had to clutch Jim Carter's arm to hold her ground.

As they neared the cliff top the rain came again, drenching them in a few seconds, splashing, into their mouths and eyes. They had to turn their backs and crouch behind a hedge until it was over.

There were people at the edge of the cliff. Lanterns winked here and there like glowworms. Below them, about a hundred feet down, more lights gleamed. They went down a narrow path until they came to a group of people on a broad ledge all staring out to sea.

Before they could learn much a figure appeared from the lower path, coming out of the darkness like a demon out of a pit. It was Pally Rogers from Sawle, naked and dripping with his hairy body and great spade beard.

“It's no manner of good,” he shouted. “They struck not fifteen minutes since—” The wind bore his voice away. “If they was farther in, we could get them a rope.” He began to pull on his breeches.

“Have you tried to get out to them?” Ross shouted.

“Three of us ’ave tried to swim. The Lord was agin the venture. She’ll not last long now. Caught beam on she be, wi’ water spouting over ’er. By daylight she’ll be driftwood.”

“Any of the crew come ashore?”

“Two. But the Lord God had taken their souls. Five more there’ll be afore sun-up.”

Nick Vigus sidled between them, and a gleam from the lantern showed up his shining pink face with its toothless pockmarked innocence. “What cargo do she carry?”

Pally Rogers screwed the water out of his beard. “Taper and wool from Padstow they do say.”

Ross left them and with Jud went farther down the cliff. Not until they were near the bottom did he find that Demelza had followed.

Here they were sheltered from the wind, but every few seconds a wave would hit a ridge of rock and deluge them in spray. The tide was coming in. Below them, on the last few square feet of sand, was a cluster of lanterns where men still sat waiting for any slackening of the sea to risk their lives and swim to the wreck. From here it was possible to make out a dark lump which might have been a rock but which they knew was not. There were no lights on it and no sign that anyone still lived.

Ross slipped on the greasy path, and Jim Carter grasped his arm.

Ross thanked him. “There's nothing to be done here,” he muttered.

“What d’you say, sir?”

“There's nothing to be done here.”

“No, sir, I think I’ll be getting back. Jinny may be getting narvous.”

“There's another un coming in,” screamed an old woman near by. “See ’im there, bobbin’ ’bout like a cork. Head first, then tail. There’ll be a pretty find for the morning tide! There’ll be driftwood for ee!”

A flurry of spray fell on them like a swarm of insects.

“Take this girl back with you,” Ross said.

Demelza opened her mouth to protest, but wind and spray came together and took her breath.

Ross watched them climbing until they were out of sight, then went down to join the little group of lanterns on the sand.

J
INNY CARTER STIRRED IN HER BED. SHE HAD BEEN DREAMING, HALF DREAMING that she was baking starry-gazey pie, and all the fishes had suddenly blinked their eyes and changed into babies and begun to cry. She was wide awake now but the cry was still in her ears. She sat up and listened for her own baby in its wooden box that Jim had made, but there was no sound at all. It must have been her imagination working on the beat of the rain against the tight-closed shutters, on the howl of the gale as it whirled past the cottages and roared inland.

Why had Jim left his comfortable bed and gone out into the wild night just in the hope of picking up some bit of wreckage? She had asked him not to go, but he had taken no notice. That was the way: always she asked him not to go, and always he made an excuse and went. Two or three nights every week he would be absent—to return in the small hours with a pheasant or a plump partridge under his arm.

He had changed a good deal these last few months. It had really begun in January. One week he had been away from the mine and laid up, cough, cough, cough. The next he had gone out two nights with Nick Vigus and returned with food for her that the loss of his earnings would have made impossible. It was no good to tell him she would rather do without the food any number of times over than that he should be caught breaking the law. He didn’t see it that way and was hurt and disappointed if she didn’t seem delighted.

She slid out of bed with a shiver and went to the shutters. She made no effort to open them, or the rain would have burst full into the room; but through a crack where the rain was trickling she could tell that the night was as dark as ever.

She fancied there was a noise in the room below. All the woodwork in the cottage creaked and stirred under the strain. She would be glad when Jim was back.

Almost she would have been glad if Benjy had cried, for then there would have been the excuse to take him into her own bed for comfort and to feel the clutch of his tiny predatory hands. But the child slept.

She slipped back into bed and pulled the blanket up to her nose. Jim's bad habits were really all Nick Vigus's fault. He was the bad influence, with his evil baby face. He put things to Jim that Jim would never have thought of, ideas about property and the right to take food for one's belly that was not one's own. Of course Nick used such arguments only as an excuse for any of his sly doings that took him outside the law. But Jim accepted them seriously, that was the trouble. He would never have thought of robbing to feed himself, but he was beginning to feel himself in the right in stealing to feed his family.