Ross Poldark (23 page)

The week before, Mrs. Teague had sent a letter by one of her grooms inviting him to “a small afternoon party” they were holding next Friday, at four. Heaping abuse on himself, he wrote out an acceptance while the man waited. The next
day Verity came over to ask if she might meet Andrew Blamey at Nampara on Friday afternoon at three.

There was no need for Ross to be in while they met, except a convention which, knowing Verity, he didn’t subscribe to; so he raised no objection, and only delayed long enough to welcome them.

Having seen them into the parlour and left word they were not to be disturbed, he got his horse and rode up the valley, casting regretful eyes about at all the work he might have been doing instead of riding away to play at foppery with a half-dozen silly young men and women. At the head of the valley, just beyond Wheal Maiden, he met Charles and Francis.

For a moment he was put out.

“A pleasure to welcome you on my land, Uncle,” he said. “Were you thinking to pay me a visit? Another five minutes and you would have found me away.”

“That was our intention,” said Francis shortly.

Charles jerked his horse's head up. They were both looking flushed and angry.

“There's a rumour afoot that Verity is meeting that Blamey fellow at your house, Ross. We are riding over to discover the truth of it.”

“I’m afraid I can’t offer you my hospitality this after noon,” Ross said. “I have an engagement at four—at some distance.”

“Verity's at your house now,” said Francis. “We intend going down to see if Blamey is there, whether you like it or not.”

“Aarf!” said Charles. “There's no need to be unpleasant, Francis. Perhaps we are mistaken. Give us your word of honour, boy, and we’ll ride back without the need of a quarrel.”

“Well, but what is she doing there?” Francis asked truculently.

Ross said: “Since my word of honour would not remove Captain Blamey, I can’t give it.”

He watched Charles's expression change. “God damn you, Ross, have you no sense of decency, no loyalty to your family, leaving her down there with that son of a whore?”

“I told you it was so!” Francis exclaimed and without waiting for further talk turned his horse at a trot down the valley towards Nampara.

“I think you misjudge the man,” Ross said slowly.

Charles snorted. “I think I have misjudged you.” He followed his son.

Ross watched them nearing the house with an unpleasant premonition of ill. Their words and looks left no doubt of the attitude they would take.

He pulled at Darkie's head and followed in their wake.

When he reached the house Francis was already in the parlour. He could hear the raised voices as Charles slid laboriously from his horse.

When they got inside, Captain Blamey was standing beside the fireplace, one hand on Verity's sleeve, as if to stop her from coming between him and Francis. He was in his captain's laced coat of fine blue cloth with a white wing collar and black cravat. He wore his most self-contained look, as if all unruly passion were locked away, bolted and unreachable, guarded by all the controls of his own choosing and testing. He looked sturdy and middle-aged against the flushed handsome arrogance of Francis's youth. Ross noticed that Charles was carrying his riding whip.

“… no way to speak to your sister,” Blamey was saying. “Any hard words you’ve a mind to speak can come to me.”

“Dirty skunk!” Charles said. “Sneaking behind our backs. My only daughter.”

“Sneaking,” said Blamey, “because you would not meet to talk over the matter. Do you think—”

“Talk it over!” said Charles. “There's nothing to talk over wi’ wife murderers. We don’t like ’em in this district. They leave a nasty stink in the nostrils. Verity, get your horse and go home.”

She said quietly: “I have a right to choose my own life.”

“Go, dear,” said Blamey. “It's no place for you now.”

She shook off his hand. “I stay.”

“Then stay and be damned!” said Francis. “There's only one way of treating your sort, Blamey. Words and honour don’t count. Perhaps a thrashing will.” He began to take off his coat.

“Not on my land,” said Ross. “Begin any brawl here and I’ll throw you off it myself.”

There was a moment's nonplussed silence.

“God's name!” exploded Charles. “You have the impudence to take his side!”

“I take no one's side, but you won’t change the issue with horseplay.”

“One skunk and another,” said Francis. “You’re small matter better than he is.”

“You heard what your sister said,” Captain Blamey interposed quietly. “She has the right to choose her own life. I have no wish to quarrel, but she is coming away with me.”

“I’ll see you in hell first,” Francis said. “There’ll be no cleaning of your boots on our family.”

Captain Blamey suddenly went very white. “You insolent puppy!”

“Puppy, is it now!” Francis leaned forward and smacked Captain Blamey with an open hand across his cheek.

The red mark showed, and then Blamey hit Francis in the face and Francis went to the floor.

There was a brief pause. Verity had backed away from them both, her face small and sick.

Francis sat up and with the back of his hand wiped a streak of blood from his nose. He got to his feet.

“When will it be convenient for you to meet me, Captain Blamey?”

Having found outlet, the seaman's anger had ebbed. But somehow his composure was not the same. If only for a moment, the controls had been broken.

“I leave for Lisbon by tomorrow's tide.”

Francis's expression was contemptuous. “That, of course, is what I would have expected.”

“Well, there is still today.”

Charles stepped forward. “Nay, there's no call for these damned Frenchy methods, Francis. Let's thrash the beggar and then go.”

“There’ll be none of that, neither,” said Ross.

Francis licked his lips. “I demand satisfaction. You can’t deny that. The fellow once laid claims to be a gentleman. Let him come outside and meet me—if he's got the guts.”

“Andrew,” Verity said. “Don’t agree to anything—”

The sailor glanced at the girl distantly, as if her brother's hostility had already separated them.

“Fight it out with fists,” said Charles stertorously. “The skunk's not worth the risk of a pistol ball, Francis.”

“Nothing else will discourage him,” said Francis. “I’ll trouble you for weapons, Ross. If you refuse them I’ll send over to Trenwith for my own.”

“Send over, then,” snapped Ross. “I’ll be no party to your blood-letting.”

“They’re on the wall behind you, man,” said Blamey, between his teeth.

Francis turned and took down the silver duelling pistols with which Ross had threatened Demelza's father. “Will they still fire?” he said coldly, addressing Ross.

Ross did not speak.

“Come outside, Blamey,” Francis said.

“Look, boy,” said Charles. “This is stuff and nonsense. It's my quarrel and—”

“Nothing of the sort. He knocked me down—”

“Come away and have no truck with the varmint. Verity will come with us, won’t you, Verity?”

“Yes, Father.”

Francis looked at Ross. “Call your man and get him to see these pistols are properly primed.”

“Get him yourself.”

“There are no seconds,” said Charles. “There's no suitable arrangements.”

“Formality! One needs no formality when stalking a crow.”

They went outside. It was easy to see that Francis was determined to have his satisfaction. Blamey, white about the nostrils, stood apart, as if the business didn’t concern him. Verity made a last appeal to her brother, but he snapped at her that some solution to her infatuation must be found and he had chosen this one.

Jud was outside so there was no need to call him. He was visibly interested and impressed by the responsibility thrust on him. He had only seen such a thing once before and that thirty years ago. Francis told him to act as referee and to count out fifteen paces for them; Jud glanced at Ross, who shrugged.

“Yes, sur, fifteen did ye say.”

They were in the open space of grass before the house. Verity had refused to go indoors. She held to the back of the garden seat.

The men stood back to back, Francis an inch or more the taller, his fair hair glinting in the sun.

“Ready, sur?”

“Aye.”

Ross made a movement forward but checked himself. The headstrong fool must have his way.

“Then go. One, two, three, fower, five, six—”

As Jud counted the two men paced away from each other, and a swallow dipped and swerved between them.

At the word fifteen they turned. Francis fired first and hit Blamey in the hand. Blamey dropped his pistol. He bent and picked it up with his left hand and fired back. Francis put up a hand to his neck and fell to the ground.

Ross's thought as he went forward was, I should have stopped them. What will this mean to Elizabeth if Francis…?

He turned Francis over upon his back and ripped away the ruffles of his shirt. The ball had gone into the base of the neck by the shoulder but had not come out again. Ross lifted him and carried him into the house.

“My God!” said Charles, following helplessly with the others. “The boy's dead… My boy—”

“Nonsense,” Ross said. “Jud, take Mr. Francis's horse and ride for Dr. Choake. Say there has been a shooting accident. Not the truth, mind.”

“Is the hurt serious?” Captain Blamey said, with a handkerchief about his hand. “I—”

“Get out of here!” said Charles, empurpled. “How dare you come into the house again!”

“Don’t crowd about him,” Ross urged, having laid Francis on the sofa. “Prudie, get me some clean rags and a bowl of hot water.”

“Let me help,” said Verity. “Let me help. I can do something. I can—”

“No, no. Leave him be.”

There was silence for some moments until Prudie returned in haste with the bowl. Ross had kept the wound from bleeding excessively until now by pressing on it with his own coloured kerchief. Now he lifted this and pressed a damp cloth in its place. Francis winced and groaned.

“He’ll be all right,” said Ross. “Only give him room to breathe.”

Captain Blamey picked up his hat and left the room.

Outside he sat a moment on the seat beside the front door and put his head in his hands.

“God's blood, that gave me a fright,” said Charles, wiping his face and neck and under his wig. “I thought the boy was gone. A mercy the fellow didn’t shoot with his right hand.”

“Perhaps then he would have missed more cleanly,” Ross said.

Francis turned and muttered and opened his eyes. It took some moments for full consciousness to return. The rancour had left his eyes.

“Has the fellow gone?”

“Yes,” said Ross.

Francis grinned wryly. “I winged him. It was your pesty duelling arms, Ross. Their sighting must be awry. Ach! Well, this will save the leeches for a week or two.”

Outside in the garden Verity had rejoined Andrew Blamey.

He had withdrawn completely within himself. In the space of fifteen minutes their relationship had been irrevocably changed.

“I must go,” he said, and they both at once noticed the pronoun. “It's better before he comes round.”

“Oh, my dear, if you could have—shot wide—or not at all—”

He shook his head, oppressed with the complex struggles of his own nature and with the futility of trying to explain.

She said: “This—I know it was his seeking all this quarrel. But he is my brother. It makes it so
impossible
for me—”

He struggled to find the hope to argue. “In time it will cool, Verity. Our feelings can’t change.”

She did not answer but sat with lowered head.

He stared at her hard for some seconds. “Perhaps Francis was right. There has been only trouble. Perhaps I shouldn’t ever have thought of you—have looked at you.”

She said: “No, Francis wasn’t right. But after this… there can never be any reconciling.”

After a minute he got up.

“Your hand,” she said. “Let me tie it.”

“It's only a scratch. A pity his aim wasn’t better.”

“Can you ride? Your fingers—”

“Yes, I can ride.”

She watched him walk round the house. He held his shoulders like an old man.

He came back mounted.

“Goodbye, my love. If there's nothing else, give me leave to keep the memory.”

She watched him cross the stream and ride slowly up the valley until the image in her eyes was suddenly misted and smeared.

T
HE WHOLE PARTY WAS BACK AT TRENWITH. FRANCIS, TEMPORARILY PATCHED, had ridden his horse home, and now Choake was with him, making a showy job of the dressing. Charles, belching wind and the remnants of his anger, had stumped off to his own room to take a vomit and rest until supper.

Elizabeth had almost fainted at the sight of her husband. But recovering herself, she had flown up and downstairs to hasten Mrs. Tabb and Bartle in supplying Dr. Choake's needs and in tending to the wounded man's comfort. As would be the case all through her life, she had a store of nervous energy, unavailable at ordinary times but able to serve her in sudden need. It was a fundamental reserve which a stronger person might never know.