The Miller's Dance (49 page)

'Oh,' said Stevens. 'Sorry 'bout that, sur. She'm looking some slight at 'Skeard. I'll tell Bob.'

Marshall'was summoned. The Reverend Mr May repeated his statement to him.
I
very much fear,' he said,
I
very much fear we shall not be able to proceed today. It is quite possible that a long rest may put my wife in fair enough condition to continue the journey tomorrow. Do you know the innkeeper here?'

. 'Ais. Mr Roberts you d'mean, sur. Shall I go ask 'im now. if 'e would have suitable accommodation?'

'For one of the cloth,' said Mr May. 'Accommodation for one of the cloth. I should consider it a favour if you would do so.'

Marshall busded off.

'Come, my dear,' said Mr May, extending his hand into the coach, careful not to bang his coat on any projection,
I
trust you will be much recovered by a night's rest. If you are better we can go on tomorrow.'

I

Tuesday, January 26th was much like Monday the 25th, except that the cold north-westerly breeze had altogether dropped. The weather, Demelza said, was making up its mind whether to be fair or foul. Anything might occur tomorrow, from a tempestuous westerly gale to a return to northerly airstreams, with snow or hail showers and shivering temperatures. In the meantime Tuesday was halcyon. The sun streamed out of a remote pale aniline sky, so different from the peacock blues of yesterday, the sea had settled, the Dark Cliffs looked pale as bread in the afternoon sun, primroses peeped i
n the hedgerows and little bristl
y tufts of future bluebells thrust out among the worn undergrowth of winter. Birds, not totally deceived, nevertheless chirped and twittered and pinked around the house and the stream.

She decided the family should go for a walk. There was nothing but good news everywhere, particularly from Geoffrey Charles. Ever since Christmas her health and energy had been coming back like fresh water irrigating dry ground. She had not had a single night of fever and only one day of uncertain malaise.

They went across the beach. Clowance and Isabella-Rose led
the
way. Clowance would have been perfectly happy to keep pace with the brisk progress of her parents, but Bella inevitably had to be first. All her life was taken at
the
run. So they were half a mile ahead on the enormous smoothly rolled expanse of Hendrawna Beach, Bella skipping sideways and urging Clowance along. Jeremy was still away. He had been gone two nights but had said he would be home sometime today.

it's a year,' said Demelza, 'just about a year since ail the machinery was landed for Wheal Leisure. What was the date, I can't remember, no matter, it was a fine day though dull; only a year ago Henry was not even thought of! So life changes. Isn't it wonderful to feel we have another son,
I
another child! And so like you! What was the word Aunt
S
Agatha used to use? The very daps of his mother. She said that about Julia. Well, Henry is the very daps of his father, don't you agree?' 'We'll have to scratch his
cheek with a pin,' said Ross.
'Then there'll be no knowing us apart.'

'But aren't you happy about it, Ross? Aren't you content?'

I
don't know where one ends and another begins! I
think
I'm happy; I
know
I'm content; and I'm
vastly
relieved.'

'That's the opposite way round from me. But you were always of a contrary nature. Relief is such a small thing
...'

'Not for me it is not. When you were so mopish. And so irritable
...'

'Was
I irritable? Yes, of course. I know I was. I don't imagine what got into me. I could not help myself. Well, it is gone now. Now I feel like Bella!' She began to skip sideways like her younger daughter, prancing ahead of Ross, eyes aglint, hair blowing.

'D'you remember one day coming back from Trenwith— that first Christmas when I was expecting Julia - and we walked home singing Jud's song?

- 'There was an old couple and they was poor, Tweedle, tweedle, go twee.' . Dear life, it seems a long time since—are we the
same
people, you and I, Ross? All that experience since, of striving and living and loving
...
All the stress and the strain and the joy and the pleasure.' She stopped hopping to get her breath. 'So many people dead - Francis, Elizabeth, Aunt Agatha, Mark Daniel, Dr Choake, Sir John Trevaunance, Cousin William-Alfred and
...
Julia. So much has happened: two of our children grown up and having love-affairs of their own. Dwight and Caroline married, Geoffrey Charles, then a tiny infant now a gallant captain, so much, so much. Can we
two
be the
same}
Would you know yourself if you saw yourself coming across the beach as you were then? Would I? I doubt it. If I am not cleverer, I
must
be
wiser. But do you not love me still? Did you not last night? Are we not somehow, somehow the same?'

if you proclaim it so loud,' Ross said, 'the gulls will hear you.'

'There was an old couple!' Demelza shouted at the top of her voice. 'Tweedle, tweedle, go
t
wee-ee-ee’
. The girls heard her and turned and waved. She waved with both hands held aloft. They stopped, thinking she wanted them, but she gestured to them to go on.

'Come here,' said Ross. 'Sober down. Walk beside me. Take my hand.'

So she did as she was told.

II

They had turned back, leaving Clowance and Bella to go further and further on until they were two dots almost out of sight.

Ross thought: sometimes one speaks the truth on impulse. I did then. I
think
I am happy, I
know
I am content. Everything in the end has moved tor us well. (The end? Well, so far.) Thanks to the discovery of the Trevorgie workings the mine will pay out a good dividend next
quarter. Not riches like Grace,
but a fair enough beginning considering. {Grace is failing, but no matter; perhaps somehow the two may be profitably propped up together.) Must get Ben back soon. He, after all, discovered Trevorgie. His resignation can only be accepted as token. In a week or so, when his grandfather is better, he and I will tackle Ben together. It seems even more stupid of him to refuse to come back now that Clowance and Stephen have
not
been reconciled. Their separation must have arisen from something deeper, some more fundamental disaffection than a crude quarrel and a fight outside Wheal Leisure.

The new young man: does he mean anything in Clowance's life? Is he just a charming, eligible, comforting figure she is, almost without realizing it, using as a reassurance to herself that she is now finally over her infatuation for Stephen. Or by this time next year will he be our new son-in-law?

And Jeremy ? Jeremy is more of a problem because he is so much harder to read. Everything
seems
to be going well for him. The opening of the mine is now justified, a new small whim-engine is building, some sort of a reconciliation has occurred between him and the Trevanion girl. And with the total defeat of the French army in the snows of Poland, there is literally far less inducement for him to go to fight. That will make Demelza happy. And now Geoffrey Charles
...

And for myself? Ross thought. Perhaps I am doomed in some way (or blessed, who knows which it is?) to find a large part of my own pleasure or otherwise in the pleasure or otherwise of my family. I believe I
reflect
more happiness than I generate. This is especially so where Demelza is concerned. But to some extent with all of them. It is not so much that I do not
seek
happiness, as come upon it most often at second hand. Yet I am as selfish as the next man. Poldark is perhaps not a breed to live high and free. How fortunate that I have this woman whose nature is devoted to loving all life, appreciating the small things, seeking them out like a collector seeking a new butterfly, and never allowing any of them to stale. I follow behind her, knowing of my happiness through her.

As selfish as the next man. True enough. For in spite of my total involvement with my wife and children I know that next month I shall go to London, and when that comes I shall know a perverse distress at leaving them, yet a perverse sense of relish at returning to the scene I consciously despise. In spite of being no use in the House I shall be interested in its new composition. It is said that Liverpool has increased his majority by forty. It is also said that five or six of Canning's most loyal supporters have lost their seats because of their devoted allegiance to him. There will be a shifting and a realignment. That will not be without pleasure to observe by one who seeks nothing.

Except
the
prosecution of the war. If Napoleon is temporarily down we cannot lean back and think our greatest efforts are past. That way we shall lose all our gains
...

'Who is that coming down the cliff from Leisure?' Demelza asked.

As selfish as the next man. 'What?' Ross asked.

‘I
t's Jeremy. I can tell by his lanky legs. He's back, then. I told them to lay for him for dinner.'

Jeremy waved and they waved back. They approached each other at a rate of about eight miles an hour. They came together and he kissed his mother, shook hands with his father, and they turned for home.

'How long will dinner be? I'm ravenous!'

'Oh, twenty minutes. How was Mr Harvey?'

‘
Harvey?'

' Yes, you were—

'Of course. Well enough. Still in straits for money, you know. Until he can pay off his late partners
...'
'Does he have much to pay?'

'Oh yes
...
Yes, there are considerable sums outstanding. But he will survive and prosper, I believe, for it is his nature
...'
Jeremy frowned across the beach, is that Clowance and Bella?'

'Yes. I think they are just turning back.'

'Did yo
u see Trevith
ick?' Ross asked.

'No, Father. He was in - in Bridgnorth.'

'Bridgnorth?'

'Some - er - castings that were to have been done for him in Hayle have now had to be transferred there because of the injunction
...
And you, Mama,' said Jeremy with an effort. 'You look
brave’

I
feel
brave,' said Demelza, 'and believe I shall eat just so much as you for dinner.'

All the same she did not think
Jeremy
looked brave. From seeming younger than his twenty-one years he had of a sudden come to look much older. His complexion was
sallow, and his eyes dark, as if from worry or lack of sleep. A woman of eccentric perceptions where her own family was concerned, she had a sudden moment of unease, of panic, an awareness of crisis, as if something less tangible than the sensory was warning her of a looming danger, either shortly to come or just past She looked again at Jeremy, assuring herself, trying to reassure herself that it was only a recurrence of the fever disturbing her blood.

'Reports from Leisure are encouraging,' Ross said.

'I'm glad. I—went up there as soon as I came home.'

'Manny Bice and Toby Martin have had a new find. It should bring them a small fortune before the pitches are agreed again.'

'So - we are in profit'

'Distinctl
y
so.'

So
...
we are in profit, Jeremy thought, sail staring at
the
sea. In profit two ways - only one legitimate. It had come off. After the early hitches it had all gone according to plan. They were safe. Reasonably safe, anyway. All clothes, wigs, disguises had been burned before dawn broke. What they had brought away with them from the two steel boxes had been assessed, counted, carefully hidden. So long as they all behaved with circumspection and intelligence the risks were now small. There was nothing to identify them. Descriptions were bound to be vague and unreliable. They had ridden away into the night How could anyone know where they had come from, where they had gone to?

In profit. Yet it didn't feel in profit. The bitter rage that had driven him to organize this thing had burnt itself out in the performance of the act. His anger, his frustration, had blinkered him to normal considerations of right and wrong and risk. Now it was over, and successfully over; yet all that was left in his heart was ashes. It was as if his love for Cuby had been purged by the robbery, had apparently died in the coach. Maybe at some future time it would revive, but at the moment he no longer cared anything for her and only asked himself how he could have been so obsessed, so stupidly obsessed as to take the risks he had done in the hope of gaining so unworthy a young woman. It didn't matter any more. She didn't matter any more. All that mattered was disgust.

Perhaps in a day or two - a month or two - the feeling would wear away; the self-disgust would weaken into some more easily containable emoti
on. At present he felt he had
wakened from a nightmare - to find that the nightmare was true. But all things pass. With time one would no doubt begin to feel and think normally again.

He wondered how his father and mother would react if he said something to them now. The Poldarks, it seemed to him, had often been against the law. But not in this way. They had contrived to pick some sort of a fine line among the 'thou shalt nots' of English and Hebraic decree. Yet
J
eremy was aware that the basic emotions which had driven lim to do this thing had been stronger than his own common sense. And the angry resolution had never faltered, not even in the long hours of the night before the coach ride. That it had now relaxed its grip in no way minimized the power it had exerted while it lasted. Through what wilder
generations had his blood come
down? But did that inheritance explain anything, excuse anything? Was not one the possessor of one's own soul?