Ross Poldark (8 page)

Now the rungs began to prove treacherous. Several had to be missed altogether, and then one gave just as Ross put his full weight on it. His foot caught in the next rung, which was sound.

“If ever I open a mine,” he called up, his voice echoing round the confìned space, “I shall put iron ladders down the main shaft.”

“When times are better, we intend to do that at Grambler. Bartle's father was lost that way.”

Ross's feet went cold. He bent his head to peer at the dark, oily water which barred his way. The height of the water had dropped during the last months, for all round him the walls were covered with green slime. His breath rose steamily to join the smoke from the candle. Beside him, some two feet deep in water, was the opening of the second level. This was the lowest part of the old Trevorgie Mine.

He took two more steps down until the water was above his knees, then stepped off the ladder into the tunnel.

“Faugh! what a stench,” came from Francis. “I wonder how many unwanted brats have been dropped down here.”

“I think,” said Ross, “that this level runs east under the valley in the direction of Mingoose.”

He moved off into the tunnel. A splash behind him told him that Francis was off the ladder and following.

The walls here were streaming with brown and green stained water, and in some places the roof was so low that they had to bend to get through. The air was foul and dank, and once or twice the candles flickered as if about to go out. Francis caught up with his cousin where the tunnel widened into a cavern. Ross was peering at the wall where an excavation had been begun.

“See this,” Ross said, pointing. “See this streak of tin showing between the mundic. They chose their level wrong. We know how big the jumps have been at Grambler.”

Francis wet his finger in the water and rubbed the rock where the faint dark mottling of tin showed.

“And what then? You haven’t seen our cost sheets at Grambler since you returned? The profits have a shy fancy to leap to the wrong side of the ledger.”

“At Grambler,” said Ross, “you have driven too deep. Those engines were costing a fortune when I left.”

“They do not burn coal,” said Francis. “They eat it as a donkey would eat strawberries. ‘Munch,’ and they’re braying for more.”

“Here a small engine would do. This level is workable even without pumping.”

“Don’t forget it is the autumn.”

Ross turned and stared down at the black, foul water above his knees, then looked again at the roof. Francis was right. They had only been able to come this far because of the dryness of the summer. The water was rising now. In another few days, perhaps even hours, it would not be possible to get back.

“Ross,” said the other man. “You heard, did you not, that I was to be married next week?”

Ross gave up his peering and straightened. He was about three inches taller than his cousin. “Verity told me.”

“Um. She said too that you didn’t wish to attend the wedding.”

“Oh… it isn’t that in so many words. But with one thing and another… My house is like the Sack of Carthage. Besides, I was never one for ceremonies. Let us go on a little. I wonder if it might not be possible to unwater all these old workings by means of an adit driven from the low ground beyond Marasanvose.”

After a few seconds Francis followed his cousin.

The flickering light of the two candles bobbed about, throwing back the darkness here and there, drawing smoky shadows to follow and casting odd grotesque reflections on the bottle-dark water.

Soon the tunnel contracted until it became egg-shaped, about four feet six inches high and not above three feet across at the widest part. It had in fact been cut just big enough to allow the passage of a man pushing a wheelbarrow and bending his head over it. The water came to just below the widest part of the egg, and here the walls were worn smooth with the rubbing of long-forgotten elbows.

Francis began to feel the need of air, the need to straighten his bent back, the weight of thousands of tons of rock above his head.

“You must, of course, come to the wedding,” he said, raising his voice. His candle was sputtering with a drop of water that had fallen on it. “We should be greatly upset if you did not.”

“Nonsense. The countryside will soon tire of talking about it.”

“You’re damned insulting today. It's our wish that you should come. Mine and—”

“And Elizabeth's?”

“She especially asked that you should.”

Ross checked a sentence on his tongue. “Very well. At what time?”

“Noon. George Warleggan is to be my groomsman.”

“George Warleggan?”

“Yes. Had I known that you—”

“You see, the ground is rising a little. We’re turning north now.”

“We don’t intend to have a big wedding,” Francis said. “Just our families and a few friends. Cousin William-Alfred will officiate and Mr. Odgers will assist him. Ross, I wished to explain—”

“The air is improving here,” Ross said grimly, pushing his way round an awkward corner of the confined tunnel and bringing down a shower of loose stones plop-plopping into the water.

They had climbed a few feet and were almost free of water. Ahead was a glimmer of light. Climbing still, they reached an air shaft, one of the numerous winzes driven down to make working conditions just supportable. Like the main shaft, this went deeper; it was full of water to within a few feet of them and was crossed by a narrow bridge of planks.

There was no ladder up this shaft.

They peered up at the small circle of daylight above.

“Where is this?” said Ross. “It must be the one beside the track to Reen-Wollas—”

“Or that at the edge of the sand hills. Look, Ross, I wished to explain. When I first met Elizabeth this spring past, there was no thought in my head of coming between her and you. It was like a stroke from the blue. Both she and I—”

Ross turned, his face high-strung and dangerous. “In the
devil's
name! Isn’t it enough to—”

Such was his expression that Francis stepped back upon the wooden bridge crossing the shaft—the bridge broke to pieces like a biscuit and he was struggling in the water.

This happened so quickly that for a moment nothing could be done. Ross thought: Francis cannot swim.

In the semidarkness he came to the surface anyhow, an arm, fair hair, and the hard hat floating, his clothing a help before it became waterlogged. Ross fell on his stomach, leaned over the edge, nearly overbalanced, could not reach; a despairing face; the water was viscous. He pulled at a piece of the rotten bridge; it came away; he swung it down and a big iron nail caught on the shoulder of his cousin's coat; pulled and the coat tore; a hand grasped the end of the wood and Ross pulled again; before the wood crumpled they made contact.

Ross tensed his muscles on the slippery rock floor and hauled his cousin out of the shaft.

They sat there in silence for some moments, Francis gasping and spitting out the foul water.

“By God! What was your reason to flare up so?” he said in anger.

“By God, why don’t you learn to swim!” Ross said.

There was another silence. The accident had released emotions within them; these for a time hung in the air like a dangerous gas, impossible to name but not to be ignored.

While they sat there, Francis took sidelong glances at his cousin. That first evening of Ross's return he had expected and understood Ross's disappointment and resentment. But in his casual, easygoing way he had had no idea of the extent of the emotion behind the fine drawn expression of his cousin's face. Now he knew.

He also sensed that the accident of his fall had not been the only danger in which he had stood… in which perhaps he still stood.

They had both lost their candles and had not brought spares. Francis glanced up at the disc of light high above them. Pity there was no ladder here. It would be an unpleasant journey back all the way they had come, groping in the dark…

After a minute he shook some water off his coat and began the trip back. Ross followed him with an expression which was now half grim, half ironical. For Francis the incident might have betrayed the extent of his cousin's resentment— but Ross felt it should also have shown him its limitations.

It had done that much for himself.

I
N THE WEEK BEFORE THE WEDDING ROSS LEFT HIS PROPERTY ONLY ONCE: TO visit Sawle Church.

Joshua had expressed a wish to be buried in the same grave as his wife, so there was little to see.

Sacred to the memory of Grace Mary: beloved wife of Joshua Poldark, who departed this life on the ninth day of May, 1770: aged 30 years.
Quid Quid Amor Jussit, Non Est Contemnere Tutum.

And underneath Charles had had carved:
Also of Joshua Poldark, of Nampara, in the County of Cornwall, Esqr., who died on the eleventh day of March, 1783, aged 59.

The only other change was that the shrubs Joshua had planted had been uprooted and the mound was thinly grown over with grass. Beside this on a small headstone adjoining was:
Claude Anthony Poldark, died 9th January, 1771, in the sixth year of his age.

Four days later Ross returned to the church to bury the hopes he had carried with him for more than two years.

All the time at the back of his mind had been the half conviction that somehow the wedding would not be. It was as hard to believe as if someone had told him he was going to die.

Sawle Church was half a mile from the village of Sawle at the head of the track leading to the village. Today the main altar had been decorated with golden chrysanthemums, and four musicians scraped out the hymns on fiddles and bass-viols. There were twenty guests; Ross sat near the front in one of the tall pews so convenient for sleeping, and stared across at the two figures kneeling at the altar and listened to the drone of William-Alfred's voice forging the legal and spiritual bond.

Soon, it seemed in no time at all for so vital a matter, they were out in the churchyard again where were gathered about four dozen villagers from Sawle, Trenwith, and Grambler. They stood at a respectful distance and gave out a thin little unrehearsed cheer when the bride and bridegroom appeared at the door.

It was a bright November day with areas of blue sky, intermittent sun, and grey-white monuments of cloud moving unhurriedly before the fresh wind. Elizabeth's veil of old lace blew in billows about her figure, making her seem unsubstantial and ethereal; she might have been one of the smaller clouds which had lost its way and been caught up in the human procession. Soon they were in their coach and were bumping off over the rough track, followed by the rest of the wedding party on horseback.

Elizabeth and her father and mother had come out from Kenwyn in the Chynoweth family coach, rattling and lurching along the narrow rutted lanes and throwing out behind a fog of grey dust which settled evenly over the staring people who gathered to watch it go by. For the appearance of such a vehicle in this barren countryside was an event of the first importance. Horseback and mule train were the unvarying means of travel. News of its coming moved faster than its large red iron-rimmed wheels could carry it, and tinners panning tin in nearby streams, cottagers and their wives, farm labourers, miners off duty, and the flotsam of four parishes turned out to see it pass. Dogs barked and mules brayed and naked children ran shouting after it through the dust.

As the drive was reached the coachman set the horses at a trot. Bartle on the back seat blew his horn, and they arrived before the front of Trenwith House in fine style with several of the following riders trotting and shouting alongside.

At the house a banquet had been prepared which put all other feasts in the shade. All were here who had been here on the night of Ross's return. Mrs. Chynoweth, beautiful as a well-bred female eagle; Dr. Choake and his silly, pretty wife; Charles, rising to the occasion in a large new wig, with a brown velvet coat finely laced about the cuffs, and a red waistcoat. Verity spent less than half her time at the table, being constantly up and down to see that things were going right, her fluffy dark hair becoming untidy as the afternoon advanced. Cousin William-Alfred, thin and pale and unapproachable, lent some solemnity and restraint to the proceedings. His wife Dorothy was not present, being ill of her old complaint, which was pregnancy. Aunt Agatha, taking her usual place at the foot of the table, wore an old-fashioned velvet gown with a whale bone hoop, and a cap of fine lace on her dusty wig.

Among the newcomers was Henshawe, captain of Grambler, a big young man with the lightest of blue eyes and small hands and feet, which allowed him to move easily for all his weight. Mrs. Henshawe was out of her depth here and paused now and then in her over-genteel eating to glance uneasily at the other guests; but her husband, though he had been down a mine since he was eight and could neither read nor write, was used to mixing with any class, and was soon picking his teeth with the two-pronged fork set for the sweetmeats.

Opposite them, trying not to notice this, was Mrs. Teague, the widow of a distant cousin with a small estate near St. Ann's; and dotted about the board in diminished thirds were her five marriageable daughters, Faith, Hope, Patience, Joan, and Ruth.