Demelza (19 page)

'That was very brave of you,' he said. 'Take another drink of this.'

She took it because it was in his flask, and began to feel better.

Footsteps sent him to the door and he told Bobbie Martin to go for his mother. It had taken less than a month to teach him that if anyone in the district needed a good turn they sent for Mrs Zacky, whose twelve children never impeded her instinct for mothering the neighbourhood.

Then he sat on the bed and bathed her other elbow and bathed her ankle and tied it up. This was sheer bliss to her and her eyes would have let him see it if he had not kept his own on the business in hand. All this done, he talked to her in a tone that had become steadily more dry and professional in the last ten minutes, suggesting that she should call her husband out of the mine.

But she was set against this, and when Mrs Zacky's flat face and spectacles showed in the doorway she greeted her so sweetly that Mrs Zacky thought the district had summed up Mark's wife too quick and too drastic.

Dwight Enys stayed a little longer, his handsome face sober but youthful, telling Mrs Zacky what to do. Then he took Keren's hand and said he would call again in the morning.

Keren said in a soft contralto: 'Thank you, Dr Enys. I didn't know anyone could be so kind.'

He flushed slightly. 'Cruel to be kind. But you took it all well. The arm will give you pain tonight. Do, please, stay in bed. If you get up you may raise a temperature, and then it will be perhaps a long job.'

'I'm sure I shall be all right,' Keren said. 'I'll do anything you say. 'Very well. Good day to you. Good day, Mrs Martin.'

GRAMBLER WAS TO close on the twelfth of November, and the day came still and misty with a humid air and a threat of rain. Unhealthy weather, Dr Choake said, which raised up all the putrid vapours. They had run the engine this long to finish the coal in stock.

There were three pumps to the mine. Two engines - both modernized but both left hopelessly out of date by Watt's invention of the separate condenser - and a great water wheel of thirty feet diameter, worked by the Mellingey Stream.

At noon a small party of men gathered in the big central engine house. Present were Francis Poldark, Captain Henshawe, the 'grass' captain, Dunstan, Dr Choake, the two chief enginemen, Brown and Trewinnard, the purser and a few other officials. They stood there and coughed and avoided each other's eyes, and Francis took out his watch.

Up and down went the great bob, to the rattle of the chains, the roar of the furnace and the suck and splash of water with its dull inrush through the leather valves. From the house the mine spread away like a great beast, unsightly, unordered; wooden sheds, stone huts, thatched air shafts, water wheels, washing floors, horse whims, mounds of refuse and stone and cinders, the accumulations, additions and wastages of years. And here and there, running away down little valleys like tributaries of the mine, were the cottages of Grambler village.

Francis looked at his watch.

'Well, gentlemen,' he said, raising his voice, 'the time has come for the closure of our mine. We have worked together many years, but the times have beaten us. Someday perhaps this mine will be restarted and we shall all meet here again. And if we have not that good fortune our sons may enjoy it in our stead. It is now twelve noon.

He reached up to the lever which controlled the steam in its passage from the giant boiler of the engine, and pulled it down. The great engine bob paused in its stroke, hesitated, lumbered to a stop. Meanwhile the engineman had moved round and opened a valve, and there was a sigh of escaping steam as it rose white in the still, misty air, hovered and seemed reluctant to disperse.

A silence fell on the company. It was not that the engine had never stopped before: it was halted monthly for the boilers to be cleaned; and there had been any number of breakdowns. But this silence was heavy with the knowledge of what it brought.

With an impulse foreign to himself Francis took up a piece of chalk and on the side of the boiler chalked the word RESURGAM.

Then they filed out of the house.

Over at the Sawle end of the mine the smaller engine 'Kitty' was still chattering and thumping. Captain Henshawe raised his hand. The signal was seen, and Kitty thumped and muttered herself into silence.

Now all that was left was the water pump; but this used no fuel and needed little attention, so it was allowed to go on.

The last shift of the tut-workers had been told to come up at twelve, and as the group of men walked slowly towards the offices the miners were appearing in twos and threes at the mouth of the engine shaft, carrying up their picks and shovels and drills for the last time.

A mixed company, they formed a long slow caterpillar to file past the purser and take their last wages. Bearded or clean-shaven, young or middle-aged, mostly small and pallid, wiry and uncouth, sweat-stained and mineral-stained, grave-eyed and silent, they took their shillings and made their 'marks' of receipt in the cost book.

Francis stood there behind the purser, exchanging a word with one or another of the men, until they were all paid. Then he shook hands with Captain Henshawe and walked home alone to Trenwith.

The engineers had gone back to their engines to go over them and decide what could be dismantled and sold for scrap; the purser was adding up his books, the manager and the grass captain began a wide tour of the buildings to take final account of what stock was left. Henshawe changed into old clothes and a miner's hat and went down to make a last inspection.

With easy familiarity he climbed down the shaft to the forty-fathom level, and there stepped off into the tunnel in the direction of the richer of the two bearing lodes, the 'sixty' level.

After walking about a quarter of a mile, he began to drop with the tunnel, picking his way past mounds of dead ground and climbing down ladders and across slippery slopes through mazes of timber used to shore up the roof and sides. He ploughed through water and at length heard the steady pick, pick and bang, bang, bang of men still at work.

There were about twenty tributers left. If they could mine a few more shillings' worth it would all add up on their accounts sheet with the company and would help in the struggle with poverty which would soon begin.

Zacky Martin was there, and Paul Daniel and Jacka Carter, Jim's young brother, and Pally Rogers. They were all stripped to the waist and sweating, for the temperature here was hotter than the hottest summer's day.

'Well, boys,' said Henshawe, 'I thought I'd come tell you that Big Bill and Kitty have stopped.'

Pally Rogers looked up and wiped an arm across his great black beard. 'We reckoned twas about time.'

'I thought I'd tell you,' Henshawe said, 'just to leave you know.'

Zacky said: 'We should have a few days. There's been no weight of rain.'

'I shouldn't bank on too much. She's always been a wet mine. And how will you get the stuff up?'

'By the east shaft. The Curnow brothers are keeping the horse whim going. We'll have to haul it as best we can to there.'

Henshawe left them and went on as far as he could until he reached the flooded eighty-fathom level. Then he turned and went back, found his way through more water to the poorer west lode and made sure that nothing of value had been left. A few rusty tools, a clay pipe, a broken barrow.

It was two o'clock by the time he came up. The unnatural silence greeted him all round. Kitty still steamed a little in the quiet. A few men were pottering about the sheds, and about twenty women were out washing clothes in the hot water from the engine.

Henshawe walked into the changing-shed to put on his own clothes, and saw a half dozen men gathering at the shaft head. He thought of shouting, and then realized that it was the relieving men going down to take over work from their partners. He shrugged his shoulders and turned away. Tributers were a hardy breed.

By eight the following evening the water had risen a good deal but the lode was still untouched. Mark Daniel sent one of the others up to tell those who would come down and relieve them.

Up above it was a ghostly night, dark and gossamer-damp, marking the silence and emptiness of the mine buildings. Usually there were dozens in the changing-sheds, lights in the engine houses, the engineers to pass a word with, all the reassurance of companionship. Now there was no heat, no talk except the exchange of a muttered word among themselves, no light except from two lanterns.

They blew these out after lighting their candles and stolidly took to the ladders: Nick Vigus and Fred Martin and John and Joe Nanfan and Ed Bartle and sixteen others.

By four in the morning some of the lode was covered. They were working in water, and there were deep lakes in lowlying parts of the plot behind them. There was, however, a ledge round; and at a push they could still get away by the east shaft. Nick Vigus went up ahead to tell the newcomers the situation. There was a consultation, and Zacky Martin and the others decided to go down, for there was a chance of a few hours more.

At seven a fall of stone and rubble into one of the pools brought them to a halt. They spent another hour tugging away a few last buckets of ore up the side of the tunnel until they could attach it to a rope and get it pulled along the back of an exhausted lode to the east shaft. Then they climbed up a few feet and sat and watched the water lapping round the long black cavern which had been their working home for months past.

One by one they picked their way out, through the old workings and out of the mine. Zacky Martin was the last to leave. He sat on the edge of the underground shaft and lit his pipe and stared down at the water, which rose so quietly that it hardly seemed to rise at all. He sat there nearly an hour, smoking and rubbing his chin and occasionally spitting, his eyes under their candle thoughtful and steady.

It might be weeks yet before there was a full house of water, but already the 'sixty' was gone. And that was the best.

He came to his feet, sighed and began to pick his path in the wake of the others, past deserted windlasses, broken ladders, pieces of timber and piles of rubble. It was a honeycomb this upper part, a crazy twisting and turning with tunnels going off in every direction, most of them blind, where earlier miners had driven in search of fresh ore. There were underground shafts to trap the unwary and great hollow caves with dripping roofs. Eventually he came out at the main shaft at the 'thirty' level. Pick and shovel over one shoulder, he began to climb up it for the last time, taking it in slow steady stages from platform to platform, as became an old-timer. Now the quietude struck him again.

He reached the surface and found that the November day, hardly breaking when he went down, had fallen into a wet mist. It covered the countryside in a blanket, and only near things were clear.

Everybody had gone home. The Curnow brothers had stopped the water pump, and the ore they had raised these two days was dumped in heaps beside the east shaft. It would have to be accounted later, but nobody had the heart to begin it today. Even the fat familiar figure of the purser was not to be seen.

After resting a minute or two Zacky picked up his shovel and pick again and turned to go home. As he did so he saw Paul Daniel waiting by the engine house.

'I thought I'd make sartin you was out,' Paul said, rather apologetic as Zacky reached him. 'You was a long time after the rest of us.'

'Yes,' said Zacky. 'Just had a last look round.'

They walked off together towards Mellin.

And then the mine was quite deserted and alone in the mist. And the silence of its inactivity and the silence of the windless misty day was like a pall on the countryside. No rough boot jarred upon the old paved way between the office and the changing-shed. No voice called from the engine house or shouted a joke across the shaft. No women clustered today about the engine to get hot water for their clothes. No bal-maidens or spallers talked and chattered on the washing floors. All was in place but nothing stirred. Grambler existed but no longer lived. And in its vitals the water was very slowly filling up the holes and the burrowings of two hundred years.

The mine was still and the day was still and no man moved. Only somewhere up in the mist a sea gull was abroad, and crying, crying, crying.

ON FRIDAY APRIL the third 1789 a ticketing took place in the upstairs dining-room of the Red Lion Inn. The low panelled room was already set out for the customary dinner that was to follow.

There were about thirty men, grouped in chairs round an oblong table raised on a wooden dais by the window. Eight of the men represented eight copper companies. The others were managers or pursers of the mines offering the ore. As was the custom the chair was taken by the manager of the mine which had the largest parcel to offer, and today this fell upon Richard Tonkin.

He sat at the middle of the table, with the ticket offers in heaps before him and flanked by a representative of the miners and the smelters. The faces of the men were grave and there was little of the good-humoured raillery of prosperous times. Copper - the refined product - was now fetching fifty-seven pounds a ton.

As the clock struck one, Tonkin got up and cleared his throat. 'The auction is open, gentlemen. There are no further offerings? Very good. I have first to dispose of a dole of ore from Wheal Busy.'

With the two men beside him to supervise he opened the first lot of tickets and entered the bids in a ledger. One or two men shuffled their feet and the purser of Wheal Busy took out his notebook expectantly.

After a few moments Tonkin looked up.

'Wheal Busy ore is sold to the Carnmore Copper Company for six pounds seventeen shillings and sixpence a ton.'

There was a moment's silence. One or two men looked around. Ross saw an agent frown and another whisper.

Tonkin went on. 'Tresavean. Sixty tons.'

He opened the second box. There was another consultation as the figures were written in the ledger.