Warleggan (32 page)

She turned back into the room she had left. Irrationally suspecting she might be going to call someone, he followed her in and closed the door,

'This will do.'

It was her bedroom, and she lifted her hand from
the candlestick. `I don't think
'

`There's no one else to consider. I
want to talk to you, Elizabeth,
and now.'

A nice room. The brown draped curtains hung with cord, the, gilt dressing-mirror, the rocking horse, the blue slippers, the white lace nightgown over a chair.. He had
never been in here before.

He could see the blood coming back to her face, to her, lips. And some of the confidence.

`I so much hated sending you
that letter, Ross.
The last thing I wanted
-
as I said.... But you can't come here like this, now. In the morning.
’
'

`The morning's too late. I want to know tonight'

`To know what? What I've already told you in my letter? Is there anything more to say?'

`Well, yes.' He moved away from the door, pulled off his gloves and. dropped them in a chair, came closer to her. She took a step away. `I had a certain impression of how things stood. Tell me, Elizab
eth, where I have gone wrong:
George Warleggan I have long thought of as my greatest
enemy. You I have long thought of as my greatest, friend. In which particular am I farthest adrift?' '

She flushed. `It isn't-like that at all, Ross. But it has been a grievous position for me. Of course I'm happy and, proud
to think of you as my, greatest friend-' 'Well, it was more than that, wasn't it? How long is it,
not more than
twelve months, since we
met one evening at the Trevaumances. What d
id you tell me over, the dinner
table the
n? That when you turned me down
and married Francis, you made
a mistake which you
discovered a few months after and have
regretted ever since. It was a
-
an astonishment and humiliation to you, you
said, that you should
have made such a mistake. I remember the words.'

She stretched out a hand to the back of a chair. `Your
coming like this, Ross. . The
shock has made me feel faint
But
h
e was not to be put off. 'That mistake, you confessed to, Elizabeth, was one Francis suffered for all his life. And you suffered for it, and I. What sort of a mistake are you making this time?'

`No,' she said. `What I told you that night
-
I'll not go back on it
-
though I should never have
spoken if I'd thought anything was going to happen to
Francis
. Please, Ross, understand. I felt that some
day I had to tell you, to
let you know that if you were
unhappy in
t
hose early days, it was not long before I was too. I thought
it would please you
to know - that the mistake had been mine and not yours! It was too
late, years too late to put thin
gs right; but I wanted you to know. As soon as I'd spoken I
realised it was wrong to have spoken. And when Francis died . . . then more than ever,'

`It explains nothing. W
here does George Warleggan come
into this?'

'Not at all at that time, of course. Only now
-
much later. He's been so kind, Ross, so good-'

'Do you marry a man out of gratitude?'

`Not alone out of gratitude. But you're far wrong to think of him as your greatest enemy. I think - I believe - that I can
bring you together, that truly you can and will be
friends. He has no bitterness-‘

'Are you marrying him for his money?'

She said nothing for a minute, her eyes narrowed in an effort to be calm. So far they had faced each other like adversaries, she content or able only to parry each thrust that he made, and with no time or thought for manoeuvre. So far only the situation made the encounter worse th
an her imagining. She had known
how bad it would be; and remembering her expectation of it, she took a
grip of
herself. She was injuring him, not he her; therefore she must bear his insults, try to lead him to reasonableness and perhaps later friendship again. To evade the issue wasn't possible. To give him detailed reasons f
or her decision to marry George
was a waste of time. Each one she put up he would demolish in a moment.

`Please, Ross' She smiled
at him but avoided
the searching look in hi
s eyes. `Will you come tomorrow and we can talk more calmly and more properly than here?
Believe
me when I say I am, not marrying George for his money. I have not been very clev
er with my life. But I've tried
to be loyal to the people I care; for. What may seem disloyalty to you, isn't really that at all. What would you suggest for me, Ross? Thirty years of widowhood and loneliness? I might well live thirty years. Is that
what
you ask for the mistakes I've already made? Can you offer me anything else to hope for?'

He was silent, studying the curves of her, brow and cheek and mouth.

`I'll go if you can answer me one
thing. Do
you love George?'

The clock struck eleven, accenting the other stillnesses. Far in the distance, communicated to an inner ear, was the sound of the sea.

`Yes,' she said.

That settled it. He took her by the shoulders, quietly but firmly, so that her eyes flicked up q
uickly to his in surprise and
alarm.

'This is a
very similar imposture to the
one just after you married, Francis. You told me you loved him then, and you didn't mean a word of it. I was simpler then and believed you. I don't believe you tonight,'

She tried to free herself, `Don't, Ross; You're hurting me.' 'You ask me if I'd condemn you to thirty-years of widowhood. The answer's no. But with your looks you could have the pick of six men. I do not like this betrothal to George Warleggan. I ask you to wait awhile and try again.' '

`Let me go! I'm my own mistres
s and shall; please myself! I'm
sorry t
hat you feel like this,. But I
can't help it.'

`You never have been able to help anything, have you? It has all been beyond your control. All your life you've drifted helplessly down a stream of good intentions. You can't help this either.' He kissed her. She turned her face away but
could not get it far enough round to avoid him.

When he lifted, his head
, her eyes were lit with anger.
He'd never seen her like it before, and he found, pleasure in it.

'This is
contemptible! I shouldn't have believed
it of you! To force yourself.
To insult me when
-
when I have no
..’

`I don't like this marriage to George, Elizabeth. I
don't like it! I should be glad
of your assurance that you'll not go through with it.'

'I'd be surprised if, you believed
me if I gave it you! You called
me a liar ! Well, at least I do not go back on my p
romises
! I
love George to distraction and
shall marry him, next week-'

He caught her again, and this time began to kiss her with int
ense passion to which anger had
given an extra relish, before anger was lo
st. Her, hair began to fall in
plaited tangles. She got her hand up to his mouth, but he brushed it away. Then she smacked his face, so he pinioned her arm.

She suddenly found herself, for a brief second nearly f
ree. 'You treat me
like a slut

`It's time you were so treated-'

`Let me go, Ross ! You'r
e hateful, horrible! If George-
'

'Shall you marry him?'

`Don't! I'll scream! Oh, God, Ross.... Please....'

`Whatever you say, I don't think I can believe you now., Isn't that so?'

Tomorrow

`There's no tomorrow,' he said. `It doesn't come. Life is an illusion. Didn't you know? Let us make the most of the shadows.'

'Ross, you can't intend ... Stop ! Stop, I tell you.'

But he took no further notice of the words she spoke. He lifted her in his arms and carried her to the bed.

Demelza stayed awake till four and then woke again at six to hear him come into the house. He did not come upstairs, and that confirmed what she already knew. For she had known it from the moment he left.

Jeremy woke soon after and began to play and crow in his cot. Jeremy didn't talk much yet, but his two favourite remarks were `Aberdare' and `No anemone,' which he employed in a system of his own to meet t
he varied circumstances of life.
He, had become a happier child recently as well as more robust, not so liable to fly off the handle if things didn't come his way, but as full as ever of intense nervous energy. It was one of Demelza's pleasures to wake early and lie in a drowsy contentment listeni
ng to the murmurs and chuckles of
Jeremy in his cot.

Not so
today. She got up at half past six, which was about the usual time, and went to the north window out of which she had climbed not many months ago. The sun had risen two hours since, and the rhetorics of dawn were lo
ng past. The morning was cloudy
but very still, the sea a shadowy slate blue and deeply calm, having fallen away in the night. Some times there seemed to be no movement at all, it was a stretched silk cloth, but every now and then an apparent ripple would form under the surface and at rarer intervals one of the ripples would topple over, betraying its size by the crackling roar with which it
broke the stillness of the day.
Gimlett was already up and about, tirelessly and persistently busy in the farmyard. Demelza often wondered at his quietness in the morning, for he never woke them with the clatter of pails or other untoward noise,
This morning there was in her a pain so deep that it derived from some part of her she had not known of before.. She had never known such despair. Everything was in ruin and in ashes. Whatever consolation her brain turned to crumbled at the first touch. Nothing
would ever be the same, again,
for she had lost faith.. Not long ago, talking to Verity, she had said that trusting
one's husband . . If one did…

Well
now the faith was gone. Of course it was not so cleancut as that really. She had lived with Ross too long, not to know his faults, his weakn
esses; if you thought .of your
husband as godlike and perfect, you were a fool and asking for disillusionment. But it was the principle of trust that
mattered. All his life Ross had been in love or partly in love
with Elizabeth. The discontent
had been more active since
Francis died; but all the same
Demelza had known him in and out of love with herself, more in than out, and had felt that that intense sense of, loyalties which was one of the faults
and one of the virtues of his
nature would preserve him to herself in the last resort.

It was more than that, of course. The loss was more than that. However sane and civilised she might be, however she might reason it out, Ross had always been one step more than a husband to her. From the moment when
, a little over nine years ago,
he had taken her into his, kitchen as a starving miner's brat, he had represented a kind of nobility, not of birth but of character, a person wh
ose standards of behaviour were
always, and always would be, slightly better, surer
than her own. Often she argued
with him, lightly, flippantly, disagreeing with his views and his judgments; but, underneath and on fundamental matters she gave him best.

So whether one expected complete fidelity from one's husband or not, there was so muc
h else lost besides. Demelza's pride had been in him more
than in herself. She
had believed herself be
tter
than ot
her women because a man like Ros
s had, married her. In his visit to Elizabeth last night he had not only let himself down, he had let her down. It was a joint betrayal, something which destroyed the whole basis of her
life.

Jeremy was waiting to be picked up, no longer content within the
confines of his cot, becoming
fretful. She ignored him and went to the other window while she brushed her hair. Somewhere within herself there was still a tiny
thread of protest that perhaps
this thing had not been; yet consciously she knew the truth. She had known it before he did, kn
own what his purpose was before he rode awa
y
; And now? Why had he
returned? Had he
come to fetch his things and was he going to live at Trenwith with Elizabeth? Was the marriage between Elizabeth and George finally abandoned? Demelza was not a good hate
r, but she felt she could kill
Elizabeth. Elizabeth had done her best to ill-wish the first years of their marriage, She had failed; but indirectly and innocently she
was responsible for the death
of Julia. That had been the first breach between Demelza and Ross. An estrangement, though barely p
erceptible, had grown from that
day out of Ross's grief, and Elizabeth had made the most of it. Now, since Francis's death, she had had a free hand. One wondered if she had ever, seriously meant to marry George, or
if it, had not been a gauntlet
thrown down to provoke the reaction that she had in fact provoked.

Jeremy began to cry, and Demelza, at last picked
him
up, changed him, and dressed him. Then she carried him downstairs. Jane Gimlett was in the kitchen.

`The master's 'axing his breakfast. I put on the cold gammon. I
thought you w
as sleeping, and he says not to disturb you.'

`Is there tea
?'

`Yes'm. Not made ten minutes. Shall I cut' ee some bread
and butter?'

`No....' Can you keep Jeremy for a few
minutes
?'

She went into the, parlour. Ross had changed' his clothes
and shaved, had
almost finished his tasteless breakfast. He looked up and they looked at each other. In that moment she knew finally, and he knew that she knew,
`I thought you might be asleep,' he said. `I thought I'd begin without you.'

She did not speak, but after a moment she came forward
and sat at the table some distance, from him, She poured herself out a cup of tea, added milk and sugar. The light from the window fell on her pale eyelids, the dark gloss of her hair.

`It won't be the last time, will it?' she said.

He didn't speak, but looked down at his plate and pushed it away.

She was suddenly visited with an overwhelming gust of anger. It came upon, her and took her utterly by surprise, She, had been afraid of crying, but now there was not a tear in her.

'Is
their wedding to go on?'

'I don't
know..’
His scar was very noticeable this turning. Often it was as
if that chance
sword-thrust in Pennsylvania remained with him and had become a symbol of the nonconformity of his nature, the unabiding renegade.

She found her lips were trembling with anger,

'When are you seeing her
-
seeing her again?'

`I don't know.'

She swallowed, tried to control her voice;

'What time did you get back?'

`I think it was about five.

There was silence between
them then.
She would not
ask anything more
acid he could not explain the unexplainable.

Trying hard to make talk, to be matter-of-fact, as if this was like any other breakfast there had
ever been,
he said: 'I called at Mistress Trelask's yesterday
- about the ribbons for Jeremy. She says she will have cheaper ones in a month or two'?

Demelza did not speak.

`I was with Harris Pascoe a good part of the morning and so, did not
have the opportunity to buy the
other things you mentioned.'

She stirred the tea, took a sip, felt the hot
liquid go down, stared out of
the window with unseeing eyes. He picked up, a fork, made twin marks on the tablecloth with It.

`I supped with Richard Tonkin, He has bought a boatbuilding business in partnership w
ith Harry Blewett in East Looe.
It had prospered since; the outbreak of war.'

'Oh.'

'They have more orders, he says, than they know what to do with.
Small craft.... At least it is
satisfactory to hear of someone doing well.'

`Is it?'

Ross looked, at his wife. `You do not fee
l
that satisfaction?'

'No, I do not.'

`I'm sorry
’

'So am I:
’

`You're spilling your tea, Demelza

'Yes,' she said and delib
erately dropped her cup on the floor.
The most frightening blazing anger was alive in her now. It was not only Elizabeth that she could have killed but Ross. She could have thrown every piece of crockery at him, and knives and forks too. Indeed she could have attacked him
knife in hand. Fundamentally there was nothing meek or mild about her. She was a fighter, and it showed
n
ow. She struggled with herself and
gasped and met his grey
gaze, Then she swung with her arm, knocking off teapot and milk jug and sugar basin and two plates, sweeping them all
to the
floor.

She went out.

Ross did not stir an inch until Jane Gimlett
came
running

'My dear life! What happened, sur? The teapot's scat
all to jowls! And your rug. . .' She bent to clear the mess. `I caught my coat,' said Ross. `It jerked the tablecloth. Pity.'' 'Dear life, it is so! Where's, the mistress?`

'She -went out. She does not want breakfast this morning.''

All the week a great thunderbolt hung over the, house. All her life, Demelza's principle, though she did not know it as such, had been never to let the sun go down on her wrath. But she could very well have been buried with this wrath, because it came from a wound that
knew
no cure,
It was not
that she
could not forgive. She did
not know
that he cared about he
r forgiveness, or in any' case,
that that was of importance. You can forgive someone for cutting down a tree, for smashi
ng a precious vase, for burning
a picture; it makes no difference to the thing destroyed.

They met only at meals, and then often contrived an avoidance by beginning early or
coming late. When they had
to meet they spoke little, and of things about the house or farm. Ross
had a bed made
up in Joshua's old bedroom, where Demelza had slept, the first night she came, To him it seemed impossible after what had happened that he should force his presence on her upstairs; to her it seemed
that one contact with Elizabeth
had rendered his wife disgusting to him.

That so far he had made no effort to see Elizabeth again was rather a surprise, though of
course lie could
have walked over every day for all she knew. At
least he was continuing
to eat and sleep in his
own home. She would have died
rather than ask him what he intended to do.

After that one outburst she was calm, though the anger had not left her. It had become a recognisable companion, colder, more deliberate, and she could not order it away. She didn't want to. Sometimes afterwards she thought it was only her anger during that week that kept her alive. It was her opium, to
which she turned when ordinary thought became intolerable.

She knew he was busy all week over the sale of the mine gear. It was fetching about a quarter of what it cost. It would upset him when it began to go; but perhaps by then he would no longer be
here.
On the Thursday a letter came for him which he did not show
her; but
the following day he said
'I shall have to be away tomorrow night. I am going to Looe and cannot be there and back in the day. Harry Blewett has written and wants to see me.'

`Oh.' So this was the excuse be must make. It lowered the relationship even further that he felt he had to lie about it. Why not say, I am going to Elizabeth?

'If you like to, you can, read what 'he says.' Guessing perhaps, he pushed the letter across the table to her.

'No.' She pushed it back unread.

After a moment or two he said
: 'I do
not know what his motive
is, Richard Tonkin must-have told him I have no money to invest in his shipbuilding. I wish he would pay me back some he already owes me.'

She nearly said
: `Then you could give it to Elizabeth.' But at the last she had just too steady, a sense of proportion to be
petty.

On the Fr
iday, afternoon a man rode over
from Werry House with a verbal message. Sir Hugh had received no answer to his invitation. Were Captain and Mrs. Poldark able to accept? Demelza almost lau
ghed. Sir Hugh and his party.
Who felt like partying? Not she. And Ross would be away partying on his own. Partying with Elizabeth.
Perhaps she should suggest that
Ross should take Elizabeth, and then she, Demelza, could pair off with George Warleggan.