The Four Swans (12 page)

Sam worked the bellows while Drake hammered out an iron stave. Among the clanging and the sparks he told his brother where he had been.,

`Poor Bobbie ! D’you think he’ll come brave and well again?’ ‘They believe he have come to no mortal hurt, thanks be to God.’ `I thought you was early from core. Twas good of you to go, but

you should have let me know. I’d have come with you.’

`You’ve customers to tend,’ Sam said, looking around. `Be away a day, someone’ll call, think that’s no good and go elsewhere.’

With a forearm which remained obstinately pale; Drake wiped, the sweat from, his forehead. `Ye’ve missed a core at the, mine? Leave me pay you for that. I’ve more’n I need here.’

`Nay, I make do, boy. You’ll need all you make here for a while yet . . But the good Lord has set you in pleasant places—’

‘Cap’n Poldark done that .. I got a letter last week. Sam…’

A shadow passed across Sam’s face, for he dreaded always that Morwenna might write.

`. from Geoffrey Charles.’

This was close home but to be preferred to the other.

`He say he’s doing brave at Harrow, and he’s longing to see me when summer come.’

`I doubt his father will give him leave.’

‘Stepfather. They’ve not been back at Trenwith yet. The less truck I have with they the better, but Geoffrey Charles may come and go as he pleases.’

Among Drake’s earliest purchases was an old cracked ship’s bell that he’d bought for a few pence in St Ann’s; it now hung over the entrance to the yard so that a customer might draw attention to himself if Drake were working in the fields. Someone now started drawing attention to themselves in no uncertain fashion. Drake went to the door. Sam, following more slowly, heard a woman’s laugh that he instantly and painfully recognized.

‘Wheelwright Carne! Finished that job for us, have ee? Two weeks gone since I brought’n in. My dear life and body, Parson Carne too! Did I break in on a praying feast? Shall I call again Friday?”

Emma Tregirls, black hair shredding in the breeze, pink cotton frock caught at the waist with a red velvet belt, heavy black shoes smeared with mud; skin glinting in the sun, eyes alive with animal vitality.

‘Tis all ready for ee,’ Drake said. `I made a new arm. Twas no dearer than to repair the old and there’ll be a longer life to him.’

She came in and stood arms folded while Drake lifted out a heavy wooden bar with an iron crook on the end. Sam said nothing to her, and after her first taunt she said nothing to him, but watched Drake.

She was a little-piqued at finding the older brother there. Two weeks ago, on her afternoon off, she had visited her brother Lobb who ran his tin stamp at the bottom of Sawle village near the Guernseys and found him with part of a broken lifting bar, and. about to put it over his shoulder and carry it to the blacksmith in Grambler for repair. But as usual he was coughing hard and worried about his old rupture, so she had said she would take it instead. At the top of Sawle Combe she had turned right instead of left. It was a deal further to Pally’s Shop but she had heard Pally had sold out and a handsome young wheelwright now worked there on his own, so she thought she would look him over.

This she had done, though not with noticeable effect so far as he was concerned: She was quite impressed with his looks but piqued that for once in her young life her own looks seemed to go unnoticed. He treated her with courtesy, and soberly, walking with her to the gate when she left; but there was no `look’ in his eye at all; she might have been thirty. It didn’t please Emma.

Now she was back to test out the temperature of the water again; and here was his bible-spouting brother to spoil it all! Indeed the bible-spouting brother was looking at her with more interest, she was certain, than the wheelwright, though how much concern was for her body and how much for her soul she couldn’t be sure.

She took out her purse and paid, the coins clinking and glinting as she put them in Drake’s hand. Then she gave a heave and hoisted the heavy bar on her shoulder and prepared to leave.

`You be going Sawle, mistress?’ Sam said. ‘I’m going that way. I’ll carry him for you.. That’s too great a weight for a maid.’

Emma hooted with laughter. `I brought’n here! What’s the difference?’

‘Tis time I left, Drake,’. Sam said soberly. `I mustn’t miss Meeting tonight. There’s none to carry on if I be away.’

Emma said ‘Giss along! I’m so strong as you any day of the week. Reckon I could wrastle you, down, if twas not considered unladylike to take hold of a man. Dear life!’

Sam said : `I’ll come over next week, Drake. There’ll be little done feast day. I’ll be over, then.’

`Yes, Sam. When you’ please. I’m here all day and all night.’

Sam said: `Leave me take him from you, mistress. Tis no weight for a maid.’

Wide-eyed with amusement, Emma put her shoulder against Sam’s and allowed him to transfer the weight. Then she rubbed, her shoulder where the weight had rested and looked at Drake..

‘Reg’lar gent, your parson brother, edn-ee. Think he’ll, convert me, eh? What do you think, Wheelwright?’

Drake said: `You may laugh at Sam, mistress, but you’ll never make him shamed of his goodness.’

Emma shrugged. `There now. There’s words for ee. Well, come ‘long, Parson, now. We’d best be off home.’

Neither spoke for a while as they went. The tall, sturdy girl walked beside the taller sturdier man. The strong breeze was from the northeast so that it blew the hair away from her face showing the clean bold lines; it also made her frock cling to her so that you could see the fullness of her breasts, the tightness of the waist, the curving swell of her thighs. After one startled glance Sam kept his eyes averted. :

She said: `Don’t Brother have any taking for girls, Preacher?’

‘Ah, tedn’t that.’

`I reckon he has no taking for me.’

Sam hesitated, wondering whether ‘to say’ more. ‘ But it was well known. She had only to ask elsewhere.

`Drake had a great taking for another young woman. But she were not for him.’

`Why not?’

`They weren’t-matched.’ She was of a different station in life. She’s wed now.’

`Huh? Still grieving, is he?’

`That’s so.’

`What a brock ! ‘I’d’ see no man weeping long over me ! Hah! Nor me over they ! Life’s too short, Preacher.’ Well … so’ he d’want no girl but the one he cann’t have, eh? Well .., Tes a pretty picture, I’ll say that. And you?’

`Me?’ said Sam, startled.

`God didn’t say ye couldn’t marry, did he?’

‘No… When the time comes, mebbe … Er - that’s not the way, Emma. That’s over Warleggan land.’

She looked at him. `Oh, so ye d’know what I’m named…This,is the short cut. It d’cut off all Grambler village.’

`I know. But they don’t like folk on Trenwith land. I been stopped before.’

Emma smiled, showing her teeth. `I always d’go this way. Have no fear. Whilst you’re wi’ me, Parson, I’ll protect ee.’

Sam still wanted to protest, but she had already, climbed the stile and was walking on. He followed, with her load on his shoulder. It was odd, he thought, the last time he’d come this way he’d been shouldering another load with Drake, and in the copse ahead they had first met Morwenna Chynoweth and Geoffrey Charles Poldark. The commencement of all that trouble.

‘D’you know my other name?’ Emma; asked.

`Tregirls.’

`And d’you know Father? A rare old lickerish devil, he be. Found a cosy nest wi’ Sally Chill-Off now, he has. Hope he rots.’

Sam was shocked and wasn’t quite sure how to answer. True, he had never liked or admired his own father but he had tried dutifully to love him, which was a different thing, and would certainly never have uttered words like these.

Emma looked at him and laughed. `Don’t hold wi’ that talk, eh? Honour thy father and thy mother . I know. But this father deserted us when Lobb were twelve and I were six. We was brought up in Poor House, Lobb and me. Then Tholly come back looking to be a father again after leaving us fend for ourselves for thirteen year. We toldn’ to go drown hisself.’

`Forgiveness in Christ is a noble virtue,’ Sam said.

`Aye, no doubt. D’ye know he laid hands on me behind a hedge last month, Tholly did. What d’ye think on that, Parson? Want me to show that sort of forgiveness, do ee? I says, no, Father, I says, when I want that there’s’ young men in plenty about; betterer than an old devil wi’ one arm, I says, as deserted mother and we, when we was all young.’

Sam shifted the lifting bar to the other shoulder. Emma was not even seeking the shelter of the wood but was skirting it to take an even shorter cut which would bring them within sight; of Trenwith House. There were two men in the distance. This was trouble, and it was the sort of trouble Sam had particularly wanted to avoid after all the upsets of last year. He recognized one of the men coming towards them as Tom Harry, the younger of the two Harry brothers, who were not only gamekeepers but particular creatures of Mr Warleggan.

Emma said: `Lobb is always ailing. He was sent prison when he was seventeen for stealing apples, and the treadmill double ruptured him, so he d’look athurt at the world. And what wi’ five childer I go over now’n then on my off day’ t’see how they be.’.. Well, Tom, ye old hummock, been working hard all day watching the pheasants, ave ee?’

Tom Harry was a burly man with a heavy red face, the less ugly of the two brothers, but for all that formidable in a blunted unreasoning; way, a brute force controlled by an intelligence that only recognized absolutes. He grinned at Emma, his eyes prepared to ogle, but sharply frosting as they glanced at Sam.

”Ere,’ he said. `What d’ye want? Be off afore I have ee throwed off. Jack, get this labbat off of our land and see ‘e stays off.’ `Sam Carne’s carren that lifting bar for me!’ Emma said sharply. `It belongs to brother Lobb, and if Sam hadn’t carried it I’d’ve had to!’

Tom looked her up. and down, his eyes appreciating what the wind was doing to her frock.

`Well, Emma, ye’ll need ‘im no longer, for I shall carry it for ee from ‘ere right into Lobb’s ‘ands. Now off with you, Carne.’

Emma said: `Sam’s brought’n this far, Tom Harry, and he’ll go the rest of the way. Why should you have the good for it?’

Tom stared. at her and then at his companion, and then at Sam, his brain working slowly.

`Off with ee, Carne. Or I’ll give ee a hiding. Time’s finished when worms like you can crawl over Warleggan land. Jack! - ‘

`Lay hand on him,’ said Emma, `and I’ll never speak to you again. So ye may take your choice!’

Another, pause while the matter was thought over. Tom Harry said: `You still my girl?’

`So much as ever I was, no more’n no less. I’m not your property yet, nor never will be neither, if ye say-, I can’t come acrost your land…’

`I always said you could! Mind that, I always said you could.. But this-‘ A short wrangle ensued, during which the second man glanced vacantly from one speaker to the other. Throughout the whole encounter Sam had remained unspeaking, staring out towards the sea. Presently it was over and the girl and her new escort were allowed to pass on. They walked away in silence until they reached Stippy Stappy Lane which led down to Sawle. Then Emma laughed.

`See? It was easy, see? They do what I tell ‘em to do, see?’

`That true, what he said?’ Sam asked.

`What?’

`You be his girl?’

`We-ll…’ She laughed again. `Just what I said. More or less. He d’want me to wed him.’

`What shall you say?’

`Ah, that depend, don’t it Tedn’t the first offer ever I had.’ `Nor like to be the last.’

She glanced at him. `As I see ‘n, Sam, girl’s only strength be when she have men dandling on a string. Once they get her, then she’s got. String be round her neck then. Come ‘long, do’s you’re told, bear the, childer, moole the bread, sweep the planchin, teel the ground tes like that all the time from bedding night to burying night. So I don’t see’s I can improve my lot by wedden anyone just yet awhile.’

Sam thought of the rumours current about this girl. He felt deeply drawn towards her, both as a woman and as a soul worth saving. Yet he knew that if he spoke of his spiritual interest in her it would be greeted with her usual derisive laughter. They went down the steep hill until they reached the broken-down cottages and the fish sheds at the bottom. There was a tremendous stink of decaying fish, though pilchards never came till summer. Some lads had been out fishing, and a quarrelsome flutter of seagulls marked where offal and bones had been left. But the smell was never absent; nor was it wholly of fish.

To the right of the gravel track a last tin stamp made use of the final trickle of water called Mellingey Leat, and it was towards this that Emma led the way.

Sam had been here before, for it was here that Betty Carkeek lived, who was a recent convert to his flock; but Lobb Tregirls, who lived in the next hut, Sam had never met, and he was startled when he saw a pale, wizened man, bent from the waist, hair thin and greying, who looked nearer fifty than the twenty-six or seven he must be if Emma was to be believed. Around him a brood of young children worked or grovelled according to their ages; half clothed, with stork-like legs and arms. Their mother was out on the beach gathering seaweed.

Emma arrived like a breath of laughter and good health, indicating Sam and telling of his help; and Lobb shook his hand and nodded and went to stop the stamp and asked Sam right away to help him fit the rod. While this was being done Lobb’spoke hardly a word, and Sam did as he was told, while occasionally lifting a glance at the pink cotton frock and the fluttering black hair as it moved across the beach to greet a sister-in-law.

In about half an hour the rod was, in place and Lobb pulled over the lever to divert the water back to the water-wheel. Sam watched interestedly to see the frail fall of water gradually bring the great wheel into motion again. The wheel activated a metal drum which had raised keys on it at intervals, for all the world like a musical box, but these keys instead of creating, music lifted and let fall at varying intervals a series of twelve giant rods which when they fell helped to crush the crude ore-bearing ground tipped into the chute from above as it slithered or was shovelled down., Below this the water was utilized again to work a sweep which allowed the tin to settle and brushed away the lighter earth as it turned.