The Four Swans (23 page)

`He’s seldom about when I call’

‘I have always wanted to throw him in some stinking pond.’

Caroline said: ‘I admire you for your subtlety, Ross. What has the poor man done to deserve such dislike?’

`Except that he used at one time to come sniffing round Demelza, very little to me personally, but–-‘

‘Well, I trust you don’t, dislike every man who takes a fancy to Demelza, or you would be hard pressed to find a friend!’

‘No, but Whitworth has such an intolerable, loud conceit of himself. I’m sure Demelza has no fancy for the fellow either.’

`Sniffing,’ said Demelzaa `I don’t recollect him sniffing. It was the way his tail wagged I didn’t greatly care for.’

The spire of St Mary’s Church lofted itself above the huddle of the town. Water wrinkled under the crouching clouds. The convoy threaded through the narrow streets, hooves slipping and clattering over the cobbles and the mud. Ragged children ran after them, and Caroline opened her bag and threw some ha’pence in a scattering fan. Immediately the urchins fell on them but they were beaten away by men and women nearly as ragged, who had been sitting in doorways.

They turned a corner, and the noise of the struggle and of the shouts and cries and the yapping dogs was left behind. They made for Malpas, and here Dwight left them. A drop or two of rain fell. The way was narrow, and they went in single file to avoid the cart ruts.

Ross looked at Demelza’s straight back jogging ahead of him. She hadn’t the `seat’ of Caroline, but considering how little she rode it was pretty good. He had not told her of his meeting with Elizabeth. However carefully he explained, she would be liable to misunderstand it. Not surprising in view of their history. Yet he would have liked very much to tell her. Elizabeth’s news of George’s suspicions worried and shocked him, and Demelza’s wisdom would have been specially welcome. But this was the one subject on which Demelza’s wisdom would be drawn off course by the lode star of her emotions. You could expect no other. It was a dangerous and. nasty situation that he saw ahead, but he had no right to bring Demelza into it further than she, already was.

But more particularly he would have liked to tell her again of his feelings for Elizabeth. He had tried to do this once before and it had nearly led for the second time to a break-up of their marriage. The good news that he then tried to convey to her, namely that his love for Elizabeth was no longer to be compared to his love for her, had somehow in the telling become pompous and condescending, and in the terrible quarrel that ensued had led to her saddling her horse and being almost away before a last appeal from him and a bathetic domestic crisis had stopped her.

So nothing good, certainly, would come of his reopening the wound after it had been healing for three years. Yet, riding towards the ferry on that oppressive July afternoon, with bees buzzing in the hedgerows and butterflies flickering at the water’s edge and, thunder spots falling, he would have liked to say: ‘Demelza, I met Elizabeth and we talked for the first time for years. At first she was bitter and hostile. But towards the end she softened and, when we parted I kissed her. I’m still fond of her, in the way a man is for a woman he has once loved. I’m grieved for her predicament and would do much to help her. I tried deliberately to show my affection for her because it sears me to find her so hostile. I have an uneasy conscience about her for the two misdeeds I committed against her. One, I took her against her will - though in the end I do not believe it was so much against her will. But, two, I never went to see her thereafter and I believe to the first injury - added a much greater injury for which it would be far more injurious to apologize. I would like to be friends with her again - so far as is possible considering whom she has married. The other evening I tried to make her think I still loved her - for in a way I truly do. But not in any way you need fear, my dear. Fifteen years ago I would have given the whole earth for her. And she hasn’t changed much, aged, coarsened, or become less lovely. Only I have changed, Demelza. And it is your fault.’

He would very much have liked to say all this to Demelza; but one attempt to explain about his feelings for Elizabeth was enough. Once bitten twice shy. Somehow in the telling the confidence would have got itself twisted up and turned inside out and become an attempt to reassure his wife of something he didn’t believe himself.

His witty, earthy, infinitely charming wife would for once in her life employ her wit and earthiness to unseat his reason and his good-will, and in no time they would be saying things to each other that they neither thought nor meant. And there would be Hell to pay.

So all must be kept secret. And all must be left unsaid.

II

The drive to the house from the entrance gates above Tresillian was four miles, but by crossing, at the ferry they cut this out and in a few minutes they were approaching Tregothnan. It was, Demelza found, an older and altogether more shabby house than Tehidy. Nor had it the singular Elizabethan elegance of the far smaller Trenwith. It was built of some sort of white stone with a pale slate roof, and it stood on rising ground looking down’ the river. Inside the rooms were gaunt and rather gloomy, being hung with flags and war trophies and full of suits of armour and small cannon.

‘I had no idea you were such a warlike family,’ she, said to Hugh Armitage. ‘It seems-‘

`Some of these things belonged to my grandfather, the great admiral;’ Hugh said, `whose widow still lives in London. But as for the rest, I suppose they have accumulated. As individuals we take part in most wars, but as a family we have chiefly prospered by minding our own business.’

He had come down the steps to greet them, and Mrs Gower, a pleasant plump woman, in her forties, had been just behind him. Lord Falmouth’s two children were in the hall, as was Colonel Boscawen, an uncle, but of the earl himself nothing was yet, to be seen. Half a dozen other guests had arrived about the same time, and in the bustle Demelza was able to withdraw her hand from Hugh’s without Ross noticing how long he had held it.

`I think I have offended you, Mrs Poldark,’ Armitage; said.

‘If you have I didn’t know it,’ she replied.

He smiled. In spite of his tan he still contrived to look pale. ‘I know no woman so witty without any element of malice. Nor one so beautiful without any element of conceit.’

`Kind words … If they were deserved they couldn’t hardly fail to spoil what they try to praise.’

`That I cannot believe, and will not believe.’

`I suspect you build something, Lieutenant Armitage, that isn’t really thereat all:’

`You mean I set up an ideal woman which cannot be attained of? On the contrary. On the very contrary. Let me explain..’

But he could not explain because a footman came to show them the way upstairs. They changed and supped at a long table at which, apart from the family, there were twenty guests. After supper another twenty-odd people arrived, and they danced in the great parlour, that room in which, not so long ago, Mr Hick and Mr Nicholas Warleggan had had their protracted and uncomfortable wait., But now much of the furniture and armoury had been removed and a three-piece band played in the corner by the empty fireplace with its large caryatids supporting the wooden chimney piece.

His Lordship had come to dinner, and his manner was gracious; but there was a reserve about him that made high spirits seem out of place in his presence, and no one complained when he disappeared as dancing began.

Most of the other guests were young, and it made for a lively party. Lieutenant Armitage acted the part, of host, and behaved very circumspectly towards Demelza; and it was half through the evening before he approached Ross and asked if he might dance with his wife. Ross, who had just done so and found the evening warm, smilingly agreed. He stood by one, of the double doors and: watched them go on to the floor: it was still a formal dance, this, a gavotte, and he saw them talking to each other as they came together and separated and met again. Demelza was one of those women who usually contrive to retain some element of attractiveness under the most adverse conditions; and he had seen her in plenty; hair lank and sweaty with fever, face twisted in the pains of childbirth, dirty and unkempt from taking some nasty job out of the servants’ hands; bitter from that long disastrous quarrel. But perhaps her greatest asset was an ability to bloom with, excitement at, quite small things. Nothing ever seemed to stale. The first baby wren to hatch was as fascinating this year as last. An evening out was as much of an adventure at twenty-six as it had been at sixteen.

So he must not take too much account of the way she was blooming tonight. But he suspected there was something different about it; some look of serenity he had not noticed before. Of course any woman likes admiration, and new admiration at that, and she was not different. They had quarrelled once on a ballroom floor - God knew how long ago it was that time, if he remembered, he had angrily accused her of leading on a pack of undesirable and undeserving men, and she had retorted that he, Ross, had been neglecting her.

This time he was not neglecting her, and only one man, the man she was dancing with, was many way being led on. Armitage was an honest, charming and likeable chap, and there was nothing whatever to show that Demelza was more than the passive recipient of his admiration and attentions. Ross hadn’t really very serious doubts about Demelza; he and she had been so close so long; but he hoped she didn’t allow Armitage - almost by default – to imagine something different.

A throat was cleared behind him, and he turned. A white-wigged footman.

`Beg pardon, sir, but his Lordship says would you be kind enough to wait on him in his study.’

Ross hesitated. He had the least possible desire to talk with his Lordship, but as he was a guest in the house he could hardly refuse. As he walked through the hall Caroline was coming down the stairs and he said

`Will you tell Demelza, if she should come off the floor, that I’m in his Lordship’s study. I shall not, I trust, be long.’

Caroline smiled at him. `Of course, Ross.’

It was not until he had followed the footman into Falmouth’s study that the faint surprise registered that for once she had not returned some flippant or satirical answer.

`I am the unhappiest of men,’ Hugh Armitage said.

`Why?’ asked Demelza.

`Because the woman I have come to hold dearer than life is married to the man to whom I owe my life itself.’

`Then I think you should not say what you have just said.’

`The condemned man must surely be allowed to speak what is in his heart.’

`Condemned?’

`To separation. To loss. I leave for Portsmouth tomorrow.

`Lieutenant Armitage, I –‘

‘Will you please call me Hugh?’

They broke apart but presently came together again.

`Well, then,’ Hugh, if it must be. I don’t think you’re condemned to loss - for how can you lose what you haven’t never had?’

`I have had your company, your conversation, the inspiration of touching your hand, of hearing your voice, of seeing the light in your eyes. Is that not grievous loss enough?’

`You’re a poet, Hugh. That’s the trouble-‘

`Yes, let me explain, as I wished to explain before. You think I set up an ideal which is impossible of attainment. But all poets are not romantic. I have not been a romantic, believe me. I’ve been in the navy since I was fourteen and I’ve knocked about and seen a lot of life, much of it sordid. I have seen and known a number of women. I have no illusions about them.’

`Then you must have no illusions about me.’ `Nor have I, Nor have I.’

‘Oh, yes, you have. That poem ..’

`I have written others. But I couldn’t venture to send them.’ - ‘I think you shouldn’t have sent that.’

Of course I should not. It was wholly improper of me. But if a man sings a love song he hopes that once, just once, the object of, his love may hear him.’

Demelza said something under her breath. `What? What did you say?’

She raised her head. `You trouble me.’ `Dare I hope that means - ‘

`Don’t hope anything. Can’t we not be happy just in - in being alive? D’you mind what you told me at Tehidy about appreciating everything over afresh?’

`Yes,’ he said. `You turn my own words against me.’

She smiled at him brilliantly. `No, Hugh,, for you. In that way - that way we can feel affection, and hurt no one and come to no hurt ourselves.’

He said : `Is that what you feel for me - affection?’

`I don’t think you did ought to ask that.’

`Now,’ he said, `I have cut off the sunshine - all that your smile is. But it was worth it, for I see you’re too honest to deceive me. It’s not affection that you feel.’

`The dance is ended. They’re going off the floor.’

`You don’t feel for me what you would feel for a brother. That is true, Demelza, isn’t it?’

`I have a lot of brothers, and none of them quite like you.’ `Sisters?’

`No.’

‘Ah. Alas. It would be too much to ask. God does not repeat his masterpieces.’

Demelza took a deep breath. `I’d dearly like some port.’

IV

`This smuggling,’ said Viscount Falmouth, `has reached outrageous proportions. Do you know that last week a schooner, the Mary Armande, arrived in Falmouth harbour with a cargo of coal. But someone had told upon her and she was boarded by preventive men while the coal was being unloaded. She was found to have a false bottom, under which was hid 276 tubs of brandy.’

`Indeed,’ Ross said. He reflected idly that this at least was something Falmouth, Basset and George Warleggan had in common: a hatred of smuggling. Since he, Ross, had not been above indulging in it himself, and not so very long ago, he felt that the single word was all he could suitably offer. In any case he did not suppose he had been invited to see his lordship to discuss such a matter.

Falmouth was sitting beside a small fire, which was smoking and looked as if it had been recently lighted. He was wearing a green velvet jacket and a small green skullcap to cover his scanty hair. He looked like a well-to-do gentleman farmer, youngish-middle-aged, healthy, putting on weight. Only his eyes were autocratic. A bunch of hot-house grapes was on a plate at his elbow, and occasionally he plucked at one.