Demelza (4 page)

'My dear, I don't think we can measure the behaviour of others by our own judgments. This is what the world is always at. My…father and brother have strong and considered principles and they acted on them. Whether it was right or wrong to do so is hardly for us to say. But what is done cannot be undone, and anyway, it is long since buried and almost forgot.'

'Did you never hear of him again?'

Verity got up. 'No.'

Demelza went and stood beside her. 'I hate it. I hate it,' she said.

Verity patted her arm, as if Demelza had been the injured one.

'Will you not tell me about it?' said Demelza.

'No,' said Verity.

'Sometimes telling helps - makes it easier, and that.'

'Not now,' said Verity. 'Speaking of it now would be…digging an old grave.'

She gave a little shiver of emotion (or distaste) as Jinny brought in the tea.

That evening Demelza found Jud in the kitchen alone. No one could have told from their behaviour whether these two liked each other or held to an armed neutrality. Jud had never been won over by Demelza quite as his wife had been. For long he had felt a grudge that this foundling who had once run at his bidding should now be in a position to order him; but then Jud was sure Fate was cruel to him in many ways. Given the choice, he would have preferred Demelza to some coxy-faced madam used to luxury and being waited on all ends.

'Jud,' said Demelza, taking down the baking board and the flour and the yeast. 'Jud, do you recollect a Captain Blamey who used to come here to see Miss Verity?'

'Do I just,' said Jud.

'I must ha' been here then,' said the girl, 'but I don't recall nothing - anything about it.'

'You was a little small tiddler o' thirteen,' Jud said gloomily, 'an' kep' in the kitchen where ye belonged to be. That's what.'

'I don't suspect you remember much about it now,' said the girl.

'No, I don't know, not I, when I was thur through un all, what next.'

She began to knead the dough. 'What happened, Jud?'

He took up a piece of wood and began to whittle it with his knife, blowing a little between his two teeth. His shiny head with its fringe of hair gave him the look of a dissident monk.

'He'd killed his first wife by accident, like, hadn't he?' she asked.

'I see ee d'knaw all about un.'

'No, not all. Some, not all, Jud. What happened here?'

'Oh, this Captain Blamey fellow, he was tinkering after Miss Verity for a rare time. Cap'n Ross put'n to meet here when they'd been foiled to meet else, an' one day Mister Francis and is fathur - 'im they berred Septemby last - come over and found un in the parlour. Mister Francis called 'im to meet'n outside, and out they stamped wi' them duelling pistols that's hung by the window. Me they broft in to see fair play, as you'd only expect, as you'd be right to expect; and afore the day was five minutes olderer Mister Francis'd shot Captain Blamey and Blamey'd shot Francis. As tidy a bit of work as never you saw.'

'Were they hurt?'

'Not as you'd say 'urted. Blamey'd taken a snick in the hand, and the other ball fetched in Francis's neck. Twas straight and fair doin', and Cap'n Blamey up on his 'orse and rid away.'

'Have you ever heard tell of him since then, Jud?'

'Not a whisper.'

'Don't he live at Falmouth?'

'When he's not to sea.'

'Jud,' she said, 'I want for you to do something for me.'

'Eh?'

'The next time Captain Ross rides to see Jim Carter I want you to do something.'

Jud looked at her with his bloodshot bulldog eyes, old and wary. 'How so?'

'I want for you to ride to Falmouth and ask after Captain Blamey and see if he's there still and see what he's doing.'

There was silence while Jud got up and spat emphatically in the fire.

When it had finished sizzling he said: 'Go on with yer mooling, Mrs. Tedn for we to be setting the world in step. Tedn sense, tedn natural, tedn right, tedn safe. I'd as lief bait a bull.'

He picked up his stick and his knife and walked out. Demelza gazed after him. She was disappointed but not surprised. And as she looked at the dough, turning it slowly with floured fingers, there was a dark glint in the depths of her glance which suggested she was not discouraged.

THE DAY OF the christening broke fine, and inside Sawle Church the ceremony passed off well before thirty guests, Julia squinting self-consciously when her second cousin, the Rev. William-Alfred Johns, dripped water on her forehead. Afterwards everyone began to trek back to Nampara, some on horseback, others walking in twos and threes, chatting and enjoying the sun; a colourful procession straggling across the scarred countryside and gazed at with curiosity and some awe by the tinners and cottagers as they passed. They were indeed visitors from another world.

The parlour, large and accommodating as it was, was none too spacious for feeding a company of thirty, some of them with big hoop skirts and none of them used to being overcrowded.

Elizabeth and Francis had both come, and with them Geoffrey Charles, three and a half years old. Aunt Agatha, who had not been outside Trenwith grounds for ten years and not on a horse for twenty-six, had come over looking disgusted on a very old and docile mare. She'd never ridden sidesaddle before in forty-seven years of hunting and she thought it an indignity to begin. Ross got her settled in a comfortable chair and brought her a charcoal foot warmer; then he put some rum in her tea, and she soon brightened up and started looking for omens.

George Warleggan had come, chiefly because Elizabeth had persuaded him. Mrs Teague and three of her unmarried daughters were here to see what was to be seen, and Patience Teague, the fourth, because she hoped to meet George Warleggan. John Treneglos and Ruth and old Horace Treneglos were here, variously out of interest in Demelza, spite, and neighbourliness.

They had also asked Joan Pascoe, daughter of the banker, and with her was a young man called Dwight Enys, who spoke little but looked earnest and likeable.

Ross watched his young wife doing the honours. He could not but compare Demelza with Elizabeth, who was now twenty-four and certainly no less lovely than she had ever been. At Christmas she had been a little piqued by the young Demelza's success, and today she had taken pains to see if she could rebuild her ascendancy over Ross, a matter that was becoming more important to her than it had once been. She was wearing a brocaded dress of crimson velvet, with broad ribbons round the waist and tiers of lace on the sleeves. To anyone with a sense of colour the rich crimson made her fairness mesmeric.

Hers was the loveliness of gracious, aristocratic womanhood, used to leisure and bred to refinement. She came from uncounted generations of small landed gentlefolk. There had been a Chynoweth before Edward the Confessor, and, as well as the grace and breeding, she seemed to have in her a susceptibility to fatigue, as if the fine pure blood was flowing a little thin. Against her Demelza was the upstart: bred in drunkenness and filth, a waif in a parlour, an urchin climbing on the shoulders of chance to peer into the drawing-rooms of her betters: lusty, crude, unsubtle, all her actions and feelings a stage nearer nature. But each of them had something the other lacked.

The Rev. Clarence Odgers, curate of Sawle-with-Grambler, was present in his horsehair wig; Mrs Odgers, a tiny anxious woman who had somehow found room for ten children and spread not an inch in the doing, was at talk humbly over the boiled pike on parish problems with William-Alfred's wife, Dorothy Johns. A group of the younger people at the far end of the table were laughing together at Francis's account of how John Treneglos for a bet had last week ridden his horse up the steps of Werry House and had fallen off into Lady Bodrugan's lap, all among the dogs.

'It is a lie,' said John Treneglos robustly above the laughter, and glancing at Demelza to see if she had some attention for the story. 'A brave and wicked lie. True I came unseated for a moment and Connie Bodrugan was there to offer me accommodation, but I was back on the nag in half a minute and was off down the steps before she'd time to finish her swearing.'

'And a round cursing you'd get, if I know her ladyship,' said George Warleggan, fingering his beautiful stock, which failed to hide the shortness of his neck. 'I'd not be astonished if you heard some new ones.'

'Really, my dear,' said Patience Teague, pretending to be shocked, and looking up at George slantwise through her lashes. 'Isn't Lady Bodrugan rather an indelicate subject for such a pretty party?'

There was laughter again, and Ruth Treneglos, from farther along the table, eyed her elder sister keenly. Patience was coming out, breaking away as she had done from the dreary autocracy of their mother. Faith and Hope, the two eldest, were hopeless old maids now, echoing Mrs Teague like a Greek chorus; Joan, the middle sister, was going the same way.

'Don't some of our young people dress extravagant these days,' said Dorothy Johns in an undertone, breaking off her more substantial conversation to look at Ruth. 'I'm sure young Mrs Treneglos must cost her husband a handsome penny in silks. Fortunate that he is able to gratis her taste.'

'Yes, ma'am, I entirely agree, ma'am,' Mrs Odgers breathed anxiously, fingering her borrowed necklace. Mrs Odgers spent all her time agreeing with someone. It was her mission in life. 'It's not as if she had been accustomed to such luxury at home, like. It seems no time at all since my husband christened her. My first came just after.'

'She's grown quite fat since I saw her last,' whispered Mrs Teague to Faith Teague, while Prudie clattered the gooseberry pies behind her. 'And I don't like her dress, do you? Unbecoming for one so recently - um - a matron. Worn with an eye for the men. You can see it.'

'One can understand, of course,' said Faith Teague to Hope Teague, passing the ball obediently a step down table, 'how she appeals to a certain type. She has that sort of full bloom that soon fades. Though I must say I'm quite surprised at Captain Poldark. But no doubt they were thrown together...'

'What did Faith say?' said Joan Teague to Hope Teague, waiting her turn.

'Well, she's a fine little monkey,' said Aunt Agatha, who was near the head, to Demelza. 'Let me hold her, bud. Ye're not afraid I'll drop her, are you? I've held and dandled many that's dead and gone afore ever you was thought of. Chibby, chibby, chibby! There now, she's smiling at me. Unless it's wind. Reg'lar little Poldark she is. The very daps of her father.'

'Mind,' said Demelza, 'she may dribble on your fine gown.'

'It will be a good omen if she do. Here, I have something for you, bud. Hold the brat a moment. Ah! I've got the screws today, and the damned jolting that old nag gave me didn't help…There. That's for the child.'

'What is it?' Demelza asked after a moment.

'Dried rowanberries. Hang 'em on the cradle. Keep the fairies away…'

'He hasn't had the smallpox yet,' said Elizabeth to Dwight Enys, rubbing her hand gently over the curls of her small son, who was sitting so quietly on his chair beside her. 'I have often wondered whether there is anything in this inoculation, whether it is injurious to a young child.'

'No; not if it is carefully done,' said Enys, who had been put beside Elizabeth and was taking in little except her beauty. 'But don't employ a farmer to give the cowpox. Some reliable apothecary.'

'Oh, we are fortunate to have a good one in the district. He's not here today,' Elizabeth said.

The meal came to an end at last, and since the day was so fine people strolled into the garden. As the company spread out Demelza edged her way towards Joan Pascoe.

'Did you say you came from Falmouth, did I hear you say that, Miss Pascoe?'

'Well, I was brought up there, Mrs Poldark. But I live in Truro now.'

Demelza moved her eyes to see if anyone was within hearing. 'Do you chance to know a Captain Andrew Blamey, Miss Pascoe?' Joan Pascoe cooed to the baby.

'I know of him, Mrs Poldark. I have seen him once or twice.'

'Is he still in Falmouth, I wonder?'

'I believe he puts in there from time to time. He's a seafaring man, you know.'

'I've often thought I'd dearly like to go to Falmouth on a visit,' Demelza said dreamily. 'It's a handsome place they say. I wonder when is a good time to see all the ships in the harbour.

'Oh, after a gale, that is the best, when the vessels have run in for shelter. There is room enough for all to ride out the greatest storm.'

'Yes, but I s'pose the packet service runs regular, in and out, just like clockwork. The Lisbon packet they say goes every Tuesday.'

'Oh, no, I think you're misinformed, ma'am. The Lisbon packet leaves from St Just's Pool every Friday evening in the winter and every Saturday morning in the summer months. The week's end is the best time to see the regular services.'

'Chibby, chibby, chibby,' said Demelza to Julia, copying Aunt Agatha and watching the effect. 'Thank you, Miss Pascoe, for the information.'

'My dear,' said Ruth Treneglos to her sister Patience, 'who is this coming down the valley? Can it be a funeral procession? Old Agatha will certainly smell a bad omen here.'

One or two of the others now noticed that fresh visitors were on the way. Headed by a middle-aged man in a shiny black coat, the newcomers threaded their way through the trees on the other side of the stream.

'My blessed parliament!' said Prudie, from the second parlour window. 'It's the maid's father. 'E's come on the wrong day. Didn ee tell him Wednesday, you black worm?'

Jud looked startled and swallowed a big piece of currant tart. He coughed in annoyance. 'Wednesday? O' course I says Wednesday. What for should I tell Tuesday when I was told to tell Wednesday? Tedn my doing. Tedn me you can blame. Shake yer broom 'andle in yer own face!'

With a sick sensation in the pit of her stomach Demelza too had recognized the new arrivals. Her brain and her tongue froze. She could see disaster and could do nothing to meet it. Even Ross was not beside her at this moment but was tending to Great-aunt Agatha's comfort, opening the french windows for her to sit and view the scene.