Warleggan (18 page)

She smiled, across at him with a new brilliance. 'Loyalty's not all on one side, Ross, nor ever has been. Thank you for coming this morning.'

He rode home feeling already well paid for his sacrifice but with the old allegiance grievously reaffirmed,,

Mr. Coke, the Warleggans' nominee,
bought the shares,
at
£22
a share.

After paying P
ascoc £600 for Elizabeth, Ross
had £75 over. This he could put to the reduction of one of his other debts or could set aside for future interest payments. Or he could buy another month's supply of coal and keep Grace going through February.

Henshaw said : 'I think 'twould be a pity to hang on longer , than we'd planned. I'm so disappointed as you, except that, my loss is a hundred and not six. But there's such a thing as a feel about a mine. She've been awkward
from
the start. I'd never
have believed the poorness of the yield.

`We shall get little enough for the engine. I shall feel tempted to dismantle it and keep it for the time.'

`There's never been a sign of the Trevorgie lode,' said Hen
shawe, his eyes,
frowning at the map. 'I do believe
twas an old wives
tale from first to last. First we drove seeking it from Leisur
e, and then from Grace. If it w
as there
at all, we should have
found
some sign of it''

`And Mark Daniel,' said Ross broodingly. 'All our prophets have been false.'

D'you think he
was
in

his right mind that night you
speak
of?

'He may have been - deceived by one or two of the false promises that raised our hopes. There was that fine deposit in the northeast end of the thirty level....'

'Copper £103 a ton last week.' Henshawe bit the nail of his little '; finger. `When we
started Leisure, 'twas only £80
.
'Twas a crying pity you had to sell
your Leisure shares j
ust
now. I
reckon
we shall make a little fortune out of her before we're done. If there was any quality in the stuff we'd raised from Grace'. .' He took his finger out of his mouth and stared at it.

`What were yesterday's assays from the seventy level?"

'Copper, tin, silver lead; some of each; not enough of any. 'Tis as if the lodes have g
otten mixed, contaminated like.
The copper's less both in quality and quantity than it was
ten fathoms nearer grass'

Ross lifted a piece of the ore-bearing rock, turned it over and over in his hand. 'I fancy
there's more tin than anything
in this.!

'Copper
lodes often do peter out that
way

`What happens farther down still? The fault will not disappear, surely. Isn't there a chance of a renewal of copper at increased depth.?'

Henshaw
shook his
head. 'Nobody knows how the earth, was m
ade. Some do say that the sea ru
ns far inland and underground and makes the springs, forcing them along and up like to the blood of a man's veins. So the copper runs too, like to a bone
or a sinew, and then stops for
reasons we know naught of. . . She've been a grievous disappointment; but if I was you, I should n
ot throw good money after bad.'

Ross stared out of the half-shuttered window. The pale, grey
January light
fell on the scar half hidden by the hair growing down in front of his ear. All the old disquiet in his face today. The old rebellion against the pressure of inanimate things, the stubborn. secret anger. You could never get away from it, Henshawe thought, something inborn.

'How would it be this last month,' Henshawe said, trying to remove the look, `if we drove down again
-
not exactly starting an eighty level, but following these poor indications as if they was good and seeing what another ten fathoms have to show. I don't give much for the prospect; but 'twould perh
aps settle a query in your mind
like.!

"How long can we go on, with no fresh capital?'

'If this next parcel of ore fetch what the last did, I'd say three weeks. Of course if we closed the deeper level, I'd say two or three weeks more than that.'

`Your money's in as well as mine. I can't decide for us both.'

`You've six times my stake, sur. I'll abide by what you say.'

`Yet you're the mining man.'

`There's little or no mining in this now. 'Tis instinct so
much as anything, and
your instinct's as
good as mine.' `Very well,' said Ross after a moment. `We'll go down.'

When Henshawe had gone, Ross, stayed in the old library for an hour or more, checking
entries in the cost book, -
Presently, it being reckoning day, a file of miners, formed outside and came in one by one, made their marks in the book against their names, and received the money due to them. Almost all of them had their own private marks, few
being content with
the
conventional
cross. All of them knew that in a matter of weeks they would come here,
for the last time.
Ross had a word for each one, often
a
joke or a wry comment. They were not his chief friends, most of whom lie had engaged at Wheal Leisure when opening it; but they had, become his friends during the last year.

When the last had left he still stayed on, though it was well after two. Again and again he weighed up the samples of ore, comparing what had b
een raised this week with what
had been mined last. Several times he took up a hammer and split pieces off. Once he nearly went through the floor in doing so. It was as well
that he was not
immediately above the cache, which had been made at the far end of the
room
under the last window. Where the trap door had been cut, two big metal trunks stood, hiding the joins in the floor boards..

That reminded him, he must see Mr. T
rencrom, for Mr.
Trencrom was not playing fair.
The storage place had
been made on the strict understanding that goods should be pu
t there for a limited time only
three or four days at the most until they could be carried away. There were things in there now, a roll of fancy lace and ten five-gallon casks of Geneva rum which had been left more than three weeks. That wasn't good enough.'

At that moment Demelza called him from the front door, and' he put his head out and answered her. The house being L-shaped, he let himself out of the end door, slipped its padlock on, and was about to walk across the garden when he saw Will Nanfan coming down the valley.

Will was an old friend. For the time he was comfortably off, with a small holding, five grown -children, and a pretty second wife. He was a big fair man in his fifties, still handsome, and played the fiddle.

'Good day, sur, I'm glad to
find
ee

in, I thought 'twould, be a good time to call.'

`Come inside, Will, You have news for me?'

`'Yes, but I'll not come in if 'tis all the same to you. I just dropped by to tell ee we've found Mark Daniel.'

Ross looked up sharply. `Found him? At Cherbourg?'

'No, sur, riot at Cherbourg. He's in Ireland.'

Ross stared across at the mine chimney on the hill. It was throwing out black smoke, which meant inefficient firing. He did not speak.

`That's why we couldn't seem to trace 'im. The people; he'd been with said he'd left, but they'd no notion where. Nine months ago there was a deal o' trouble in Cherbourg. , All this kick an' sprawl over the revolution. There was house burning and what not. Folk began to look askance at Mark, him being a foreigner; so he bested to go to Ireland, and slipped away in one of the Irish ketches that run goods over from time to time. He's living, they d'say, in Galway; or 'twas some such outlandish name.'

`How did you find this out?'

`Got talking with the skipper o' one of the ketches. He's a friend of Mark's, it 'pears.
We
do business wi' the Irish vessels, upon times. They run into the Scillies same as we do; they've depots to leave goods there same as we 'ave. They haven't the size, y'know, and often come back that far laden to the gunnels.'

Ross said: `When will you
seeing this man again?'

`O Higgins? Next week, like as not. The One and All
will n
ot be sailing till near the end of the month, but I'm
takin' the cutter over to the
Scillies on Monday if the weather d'lift.'

`Will you
give him a message from me?

'I've already said for him to tell Mark Dani
el ye are wanting to see him.'

`Good. I'll send a note to Mark. Someone will read it to him, even if it's the priest. Come in h
ere.' Ross unlocked the door
of the library again and went over to the desk.

Demelza, who had been occupying her waiting time giving Jeremy his food, got up and went to the window just as Nanfan left the library. When Ross came across, he looked preoccupied but not displeased. They ate the meal in silence for a time, 'the sole conversationalist being Jeremy, who was intelligible only to himself.

`Everything is the matter. I have: surprised your secret life! "From Rosina, with love." Is that how your patients address
you?'. She handed
him the scarf that Rosina had
made for him, to which the printed not
e was still pinned. He accepted
it
,
but put it over the back of a chair, took her hands.

`You should have sent a message, my love. Have you been allowed out without, your faithful groom?'

'No, I gave him the slip. I mustn't stay long.
'It's more tha
n good to see you. Let me look
at you. Always when you are away from me . . .

`There is a complication to report, and I came to report it. Uncle, Ray
has advanced our departure for
London by one week. He now proposes, to leave Killewar
ren on the third of February.'

He stared at her. 'We can put forward our own going by a couple of days, then. That's all. It will mean a slight arrangement, but we can leave on the first.'

`Have you heard again from Paul, Hardwicke?'

`Yes. He thinks there
will be a clear opening in the town when Dr. Marquis retires. Until then it should not be diff
icult,
he says, to find full occupation in temporary work. He counsels against my setting up on my own.'

`No doubt there is a' certain cliquishness among the apothecaries. Dwight, I think it would be a good thing if we fixed our going for the second. If I am supposed to be leaving for London on the morning of the third, it will make my packing that much easier. Instead of escaping with a bundle through a top window in the approved fashion, I can get my trunks downstairs and safely stowed in the coach.'

'Do you stil
l very much insist on going in
your own coach?'

`Of course: Why are you so much against it? Because it looks as if I am running away with you?'

He frowned uncomf
ortably. `Not altogether. But I -
well I have a feeling for providing the means
of travel. It's going
to be a moot point with us many times in the future, no doubt; I shall have to accustom myself to having a wife with a will, and money of her own---'

'Especially a will.'

`-but in the first instance I should have better preferred us to travel by my ar
rangement and at my expense. I
admit there
is no logic to it.' He smiled `You have the coach
-
why shouldn't it be used? But---'

`Why not indeed? Once w
e have left Cornwall no, one is
to know it is not your coach. I shall certainly not say any different.'

Bone could be heard outside, raking the gravel path near the, front door. , The interview could not last much longer, and they ta
lked on at an accelerated pace.
This meeting might be their last before they met to be married, but he would not
kiss her.

'I care
nothing for poxes, small, large, or cow,' said Caroline. `But I am bitterly, jealous of your Rosina - still Hoblyn by name if no longer hobbling by nature. A nice scarf, if a thought coarse for a gentleman. I chanced to see her only last week when I happened to be i
n Sawle. Pretty enough, I grant
you. I hope you will not jilt me, dear.'

'I think I am a little sensitive
to such jokes,'' said Dwight, taking the scarf from her again, `and therefore hope
you'll
not make them. If there is any jilting, it will be on your side, and you know it. I shall
not rest easy until you wear a
ring on your finger and I have put it there.'

'So long as it is not a ring through my nose, you may put it there as soon as you can.'

She began to pull on her gloves. He had gone over to a side table, a trifle put out by what she had said although he tried not 'to be. She followed him with her eyes, which were a little doubting under their mockery.

`You do not regret making this move,, Dwight?'

He turned at once. `Heavens no
! How could I regret it?'

`Often since we decided to go I have noticed a discomfort in you, an unease, call it what you wish;' She threw back her hair to tie her own scarf. 'Is it still against your principles?'

`No, nor ever was. Believe me, please,' He stared at her and then half laughed himself;' 'You're incorrigible, Caroline. For a moment I believed you were serious. You must rate me for having so literal a mind,
`I
think,' said Caroline acutely, 'that you would not have taken it seriously if it had not been a serious consideration in your thoughts.'

`Utter nonsense: I could shake you.' He took her by the elbows but only held her firm. 'Caroline, look at me. I love
you. Does, that mean anything to you? Does it mean anything at all?'

'Oh, yes, quite, a certain amount; I assure you.'

That's an admission anyhow. Then perhaps you'll not goad me with these strange doubts which you put into my mind
ready-made. Its very
mischievous of you
-
and a little unfair. We are utterly agreed as to the end
-
how could I have second thoughts
as to that? -
and as to the method, what doubts I had I voiced long since and have now forgotten.'

She, put her gloved fingers up to his stock, patted it, there allowed her hand to travel affectionately down the line of his cheek.

`I'm sorry if I plague you so grievously. It is only that sometimes I wonder when the "end in view" has become a commonplace, sitting at your fireside and sharing your bed a
nd never absent from your table
- I 'wonder whether then you will not perhaps sigh for your Cornish patients and your lost integrity.'

`Can I say more than no? And why should the doubts be all on your side? What of you, throwing away thirty or forty thousand pounds for a down-at-heel physician? When the first excitement's failed and the
novelty's
over and it means living to an economy you've
never been used to
not able to keep up with the rich people of Bath, hun
ting to a
restricted purse, dressing and entertaining at the same rate.'

`in the first place, as you know, I do not suppose I am throwing away thirty or forty thousand pounds, not if we arrange to quarrel at a distance and leave loopholes for reconciliation. My uncles bark worse
than they bite, and they have
no one else to leave: their money to except a hatch of nephews and nieces who're already well, provided for. But if they do remain estranged and will their money to the Astronomical Society, I shal
l certainly n
ot complain and shall think the exchange a fair one. I intend to live my life in my own way and shall not be bribed by, them into remaining their domestic tabby. It will do me good, Dwight, to stand on my own feet, and I want you to help
me.'

`I'll help you, my darling,' he said. `I think perhaps we
s
hall
have to help each
other,'