Warleggan (4 page)

`Not looking for smugglers?'

'No, no, Mrs. Poldark; not this time. Why, are there some still? I thought my last visit had quite put them down.'

`And so it did. We was all, downcast after you had gone.'

Th
e Scotsman glanced at her with
a twinkle 'That is a remark capable of two interpretations.,
Demelza looked up the table and saw Ross smiling at Elizabeth 'I didn't think, Captain McNeil, that you could have supposed me a smuggler.'

McNeil's chuckle, restrained as it was by his standards, was enough to silence the rest of the table for a second or two.

Mrs. Frensham said, smiling:' 'If that pleasantry will bear repetition, I think you should not keep it to yourselves.'

Demelza said: `Oh, it was not a jest on my side, ma'am. Captain McNeil was assuring me that he had not come down this time to catch smugglers, and I told him I did not know what else he could expect to catch in these parts,'

Sir Hugh Bodrugan
rumbled: 'Damme, I differ as to the jest'

Mrs. Frensham said : `Captain McNeil has been convalescent, His purposes here, he, assures me,
are wholly
innocent; otherwise we should have put a guard over him and locked him in
his room
!
’

'I truly believe, ma'am, you should do so at once,' said Demelza;
at which Sir Hugh
and the Captain laughed again.

At the other, end of the table Sir John Trevaunance, with a not unobvious purpose in mind, had made a derogatory remark about young Dwight Enys. Ellery had died that morning, and Sir John was of the opinion that the scandal should receive public attention. Ellery, a hale and hearty man of sixty
,
Enys had so probed into the jaw that the wound had never healed. `His old friend Dr. Choake would bear him out... . Ignorance and neglect. But Sir John found the move a mistaken one, because not only did Caroline speak quickly in Dr. Enys's defence but she found an ally in
Ross Poldark, and the baronet,
to his annoyance, and
still more to Unwin's, found
himself between two fires. Ross had thought Caroline pert on their first introduction; but now for the moment they were in accord, and it was noticeable at the end of the argument that Caroline's eyes travelled over him approvingly.

Elizabeth said in an undertone to Ross 'She's lovely, isn't she?'

`Very striking. Beauty's a matter of taste.'

`Is it true, do you think, that what the eye doesn't admire the heart doesn't desire?'

`Oh without doubt. Do you know
anything to disprove it? Well, it has been so with me. As you should know.
’

`I know very little of you, Ross. How often have we met in five years? A dozen times?'

Ross was silent. `I was not thinking of the last five years. But perhaps you're right. I, am inclined to ag
ree, I know very little of you
either. And you've changed so much - inwardly I mean... ,
’

`Have I? Tell me in what way the deterioration is most noticeable.'

`That's asking a
reassurance, isn't it? You may
have it. It's a different Elizabeth, that's all. The opposite of deterioration. But startling at times. I understand now how young you were when you promised to marry me.'

Elizabeth put her hand out to her wine glass but only fingered the stern. 'I should have been old enough to know my own mind.!
’

Something in the way she spoke surprised him. The sudden feeling in her
voice was like self
-contempt. It
swung
their talk right away from the polite, slightly flirtatious conversation that had been passing between them.

He looked at her, trying to weigh this up,, said cautiously to provide her, with the normal escape:. `Well, let us agree you were
young.
And then you thought I was dead.'

Elizabeth glanced down the table
to
where Francis was
talking to Ruth Treneglos. The
emotion had perhaps caught her unawares too. Or perhaps she decided she had escaped too often. In a perfec
tly cool, young voice, she said
: 'I never really believed you were dead. I thought I loved Francis
better
!
’

'You thought you
loved' him.'

She nodded her head. `And then I discovered my mistakes'

When?'

'Quite
soon.'

His rational mind still refused to accept this sudden, conversation at its full value, but somewhere inside him his heart was beating, as if the intelligence reached him through another channel. Twenty-odd people, at this t
able, his own wife talking to
the cavalry officer with the big moustache, Sir Hugh at h
er other hand waiting to break in;
George Warleggan, for the most part silent and intent but his gaze every now and then flickering up from his food or from his partners to rest upon Elizabeth's hair or mouth or hands. Incredible that Elizabeth should choose this moment to make such a confession, after nine years
. Incredible that it should be true,’

'These damned mongrels that roam about,' said Lady Bodrugan feelingly, `breeding and interbreeding; they make it un
common hard to keep one's stock
pure. You're that much luckier, John, dealing only i
n cattle, What did you say your
dog was, miss?'

`A pug,' said Caroline. With
beautiful black curly hair and a
gold-brown face no b
igger than the centre of this plate, Unwin regards him with the utmost respect and
affection, don't you, dear
!
’

'Respect, yes,' said Unwin, `for his teeth are devilish sharp'

Ross said to Elizabeth: `This is some pleasant
joke you are trying on me?'

Elizabeth smiled with a sudden brittle brilliance. `Oh, it's a joke indeed. But it is against myself, Ross. Didn't you know? I wonder you never guessed.'

`Guessed .. '

`Well, if you did not guess, it might have been more gallant of you to have met this barefaced confession halfway. Is it such an
astonishment that a woman who
changed her mind once could change it twice?. . Well, yes, perhaps it is, for
it has always been an
astonishment and a humiliation to
me.
'

After what seemed a long time Ross said: 'That first Easter I came to
you after you married-you told
me then plain enough that you loved only Francis and
had no thoughts for anyone else
`Was that when I should have told you? Only a few months after my marriage, and with Geoffrey Charles already alive in me?'

Something was taken away from Ross and another dish put in its place. Whatever the object of the party, Sir John was not sparing his
cellar, and talk at the table w
as louder than it had been. Yet Ross had to struggle with himself not to push his, chair back and get away. That Elizabeth should have chosen this moment .... Unless it was that only the presence of other people had given her the courage to tell him paint-blank what she had long wanted him to know. . . . And where a few minutes ago he had made no sense of what she said, now he saw it as sensible enough. Every second that passed fi
tted
it more inescapably into the pattern of the last nine years.

`And Francis?'' he said,. `Does he know?'

`I've said already too much, Ross. My
tongue. A sudden impulse -
it had best be forgotten. Or, if not forgotten, disregarded. What were we talking of before this?'

Three places down the table, Francis's slightly raffish face, in which the vivid lines of youth were losing themselves in a too early deterioration. . As if conscious just then of something toward, he glanced up at Ross, wrinkled one eyebrow and winked.

Francis had known. Ross saw
that now. Francis had known so long that his early outburst of disillusion and disappointment were far behind him. His own jealousy long spent, and perhaps his love with it, he felt no discomfort at seeing Ross and
Elizabeth together. His quarrels in earlier years, the enigmas of his behaviour, were all explained. And now so far as he was concerned it was all past
-
part of an era best forgotten, in this new time of tolerance and good will.

Perhaps, Ross thought, that was why Elizabeth had now ventured to tell him; because: her feeling was spent and she believed Ross's to be; she'd offered it as an explanation, an apology of things past, something due to him now that danger no longer existed for any of them in the confession.

Eliza
beth had turned to answer some
question put by the man on the other side of her, and it was a moment or two before Ross was able to see her face again. Even then she didn't meet his eyes, but he knew instantly by something in her expression
-
if he had
not in fact known all along-that for her the question was not in the very,
least a
dead on
e and she did not suppose it to
be so for him.

After the ladies had left, there was half an hour with the port, and then the sexes were reshuffled for tea and coffee.

Ross had one other meeting with Caroline Penvenen, He was passing a small withdrawing-room when he heard angry words and recognised the voice as Unwin Trevaunance a. He had only gone a few more paces when he heard the door bang sharply and quick footsteps caught him; up at the door of the main drawing-room. He stepped back to let Carolin
e go in before him. She smiled
at him rather breathlessly, her eyes still glinting with a disappearing emotion.

As he seemed ab
out to move away, she said
: 'Might I have your
company for a moment or two?'

`For as long as you wish it.'

She stood beside him,' scanning the people with narrowed eyes. He, was aware now how tall she was and how graceful.

`I'm gratified you are loyal to your friends, Captain Poldark.'

`Loyal? I hope-so.
But do you mean . .'

`I mean to Dr. Enys. Because I must tell you that when I met him first he was most loyal to you!
’

'When was that?'

`Before your trial, of course. He was quite hot-blooded in your defence'

In the general run of life people shied away from mentioning his trial to Ross. His was not a face that encouraged
liberties. But this girl
seem to suffer no hesitation. She spoke either from a complete lack of perception and sensitiveness or else out of her own particular conception of honesty which admitted no
taboos
: Since she seemed to wish to be friendly, he took the charitable view.

`Must I suppose from that that you gave him reason for defence?'

`Oh, 'yes,
of course. For if you wish to discover a man's true feelings, it is always best to provoke him'

`Are those the tactics you're applying now, Miss Penvenen?'

She smiled pleasantly. `It would be presumptuous of me
to imagine that I could.'

‘Shall you stay with your uncle
for the summer?'

`It depends. In October I shall be
twenty-one
and then I
shall be my own mistress. It's a provoking long time coming.' 'Perhaps before then you will be married.' 'Would that not only be exchanging one keeper for another?' `Always supposing you look on a husband in that light' `Never having had one, I cannot tell. But having seen so
many of them about, I should not have thought it an unflattering description.
’

`At least it's unflattering to your uncle.'

Caroline laughed:' `But why? He has kept me. Isn't that being a keeper?
There have been no bars across the windows -
at least only invisible
bars of conventionalism
and disapproval, But I fancy I should like my freedom for a while.'

As they were talking Unwin went past them with a thunderous face, and Caroline kept Ross in conversation while the other man was in the room. Good-humoured
ly aware that he was being used.
Ross reflected that his hope of seeing them quickly married did not seem likely to come off.

It deteriorated further when Unwin disappeared and was seen no more that evening. Cards were played, until midnight, but the fact that there had been a tiff between the young couple was underlined by Ray Penvenen's sour face, and all this put a blight on the last part of the evening.

Just when the party was going to break up, George Warleggan found himself temporarily isolated with Francis and immediately took the opportunity of speaking to h
im.

`Good evening to you. May I say I'm glad to see you again after all this time.'