Jeremy Poldark (18 page)

It's all over, thought Ross, and so much better
if I'd stuck to my guns and made the speech I wanted. Hedging at the last
moment. Cowardice-and compromising. Pretending to myself that it was for
Demelza. My own weakness and cowardice and Clymer's damned overbearing manner.
And it will avail absolutely nothing at all. Even if I had gone the, whole hog,
and crawled on my belly the way he wanted. As it is, two stools. Not even the
satisfaction of feeling that I told them exactly what I thought about the
trial, about the distress, about the wreck. Dirt in my mouth.

The judge with his thin sour face. A human
machine for administering the law. If I go to prison I really shall come out, a
revolutionary.- climb up and slit his throat one night as he snores in bed.-
Far safer to hang me.

And Demelza? Difficult to see her without
turning one's head. Just see, the colour of her skirt out of the corner of my
eye, and her hands on her lap. They can't keep still, can they, darling?
Perhaps I should have crawled, really crawled, for her sake. Mercy, mercy. The
quality, of mercy is not strained, it droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven upon
the place beneath.. What the devil are the jury' arguing about? It must be
perfectly plain to them, just as plain as to the judge, who practically
directed them.

Surprise to see Verity here. Must write to her
and ask her to look after Demelza. Should have thought of that before. Demelza
will take advice from her. Perhaps it, was as well Julia died: wouldn't have
been nice to grow up knowing .... But perhaps if she hadn't died none of this
would have happened. Perhaps Dwight wasn't too far off the truth. Nonsense, I
was in my right mind, sane as could be. Must write and thank him nevertheless.
Sober young fellow. Pity he got in that mess.

Suppose I shall get a few minutes with Demelza
when it's over. But what to say ... Meetings like that are robbed of their
sense by being so limited. What were the jury doing? Tis mightiest in the
mightiest, it becomes the throned monarch better than his crown. His sceptre
shows the force of temporal power. . Temporal power. The Hon. Mr. Justice
Lister. Temporal power. The jury were coming back.

It had only been ten minutes, but, as Zacky said
at the back of the court, it seemed like a month. They filed slowly in, the
twelve good men and true, looking as self-conscious as when they went out, and
the foreman had a guilty look, as if he thought himself liable to be charged
with a lesser felony and brought before the court for judgment. Everyone stood
while Mr Justice Lister came back, and silence settled suddenly on the court as
he sat down.

The clerk rose and said' " Gentlemen of the
jury, have you agreed upon a verdict?"

We have," said the foreman, swallowing
nervously.

"Do you find the prisoner guilty or not
guilty?"

" We find - him . . ." The foreman
stopped and started again. "We find him not guilty upon all three,
charges."

For a last moment the silence hung like a wave,
and then broke. Someone at the back of the court started to cheer, and others
took it up'. It was answered almost at once by boos and cries of "
Shame!" Then it stopped, and a backwash in tiny rivulets of conversation
lapped about the court: The clerk's gavel hammered them out of existence.

"If there is any further disturbance,"
said his lordship,

“the courtroom will be cleared and proceedings
taken against offenders."

Ross remained where he was not quite knowing
whether to believe the verdict or whether there was some further malevolence
the law might be capable of. After a moment his own self-contained blue eyes
met the judge's.

"Prisoner at the bar," said Mr.
Justice Lister. "You have been tried on three charges by a jury of your
fellow countrymen and found not guilty. It only remains for me, therefore, to
order your discharge. But before you go I wish to offer you a word or two of
advice: It would not be proper for me to comment on the verdict brought in by
this jury - except that you should feel in your heart a gratitude towards God
for a deliverance which owes much to mercy and little to logic. In a few
moments you will be leaving this court a free man - free to rejoin your
deserving wife, and to begin a new life with her. Your able defence - and your
reputation in other fields marks you as a man of talent and capacity. I urge
you in your

own interests to subdue those instincts to
lawlessness which may from time to time come upon you. Take warning from
to-day. May it bear fruit in your heart and in your life."

Tears-were beginning to fall on Demelza's hands.

They went home that same evening. He had a
morbid distaste for the interest his presence aroused in the town, and his
whole concern was to get away from staring eyes. There was no coach, so they
hired horses and left at half past six.

Demelza had wanted Verity to go with them and to
stay for a few days at Nampara before returning to Falmouth, but she obdurately
refused; instinct told her that at this stage they should be by themselves.
Dwight, too, was to have ridden with them, but he was involved at the last
moment in helping some injured man. The rest of them-Jud Paynter and Zacky
Martin and Whitehead Scoble and the Gimletts were coming on by stage wagon
tomorrow; and walking from St. Michael.

So they left Bodmin quite alone; left the buzzing
town, from which the crowds drawn by the election were already beginning to
dribble away. By next week, when the judges and the counsel were posting on to
Exeter, Bodmin would be back to normal.

It was dusk before they passed Lanivet and dark
by the time they were half across the moors. Mist, had blown up again and once
or twice they thought they had missed the way. They talked scarcely at all, and
discussion as to the right road was a welcome topic when other words would not
come. At Fraddon they rested for a while, but soon were in the saddle again.
They reached Treneglos land about nine-thirty and later made a detour to avoid
Mellin Cottages. This was another inducement to return early, to be home before
the news spread so that there were no cheering cottagers to welcome them. The
uncomplex Demelza would not have minded in the least a triumphal procession was
what the occasion deserved - but she knew how Ross would hate it.

So they came upon their own property at last:
the stone posts where the gate had once hung, the descending valley among the
wild nut trees. As always fog made the land secretive and strange; it was not
the familiar friendly countryside they knew and owned, it reverted to an
earlier and less personal allegiance. Ross was reminded of that night seven
years ago when he had come home from Winchester and America to find his house
derelict and the Paynters drunk in bed. It had been raining then, but otherwise
just such a night. There had only been the dogs and the chickens and the
dripping of moisture from the trees. He had been numb with the blow of
Elizabeth's engagement to Francis„ angry and resentful of a hurt only half realised,
desperately alone.

Tonight he was coming back to a house yet more
empty because Julia was not there, but riding beside him was the woman whose
love and companionship meant more than all the rest and he was returning free
of the cloud which had shadowed his life for six months. He should feel happy
and free. During his time in prison he had thought of all the things he should
have said to Demelza and would never have the opportunity of saying. Now with
unexpected reprieve came the old cursed constriction on his tongue, blocking up
emotional expression.

The mist was less thick in the valley, and
presently they saw the black shape of their house and crossed the stream and
reined in at the front door beside the big lilac tree.

Ross said: I'll take the horses round if you'll
get down here."

Demelza said: "It seem funny without even
Garrick to give a friendly bark. I wonder how he is, over to Mrs.
Zacky's."

"Likely to scent your return at any moment,
I should think. A half mile is nothing to him."

She slipped down and stood a moment listening to
the clatter and clop as the horses were led round to the stable.

Then she opened the front door with its familiar
friendly squeak and went in. The smell of home.

She groped into the kitchen, found the tinderbox
and scraped it. By the time Ross came in she had a fire flickering and a kettle
perched precariously on the sticks. She had lit the candles in the parlour and
was reaching up to draw the curtains.

As he saw the stretch of her young body, the
dark hair lank with the clammy night, the olive colour in her cheeks, an
impulse of warmth and gratitude towards her came to him. She had never for a
moment expected him to rejoice at his deliverance. She might not understand the
causes, but some instinct told her that spiritually he was still - at the most -
a convalescent. It would take time, perhaps a long time..

She looked round, met his gaze and smiled.
"There was some water left in the pitcher. I thought we could. brew a dish
of tea."

He took off his hat, flung it in a corner and
ran a hand through his hair. " You must be tired," he, said.

No.... Glad to be home.”

He stretched and wandered slowly round the room,
glancing at things he had, virtually said good-bye to a week ago - now
renewing their acquaintance as if after many years. The house was isolated and
empty in a dark, still world. The pulse of living had died while they were
away.

Shall I light up a fire in here?" she
asked.

" No.... It must be late: My watch has
stopped-and I see the clock has stopped. Did you forget to wind it?"

" Could you expect me to remember
that?"

" I suppose not." He smiled rather
absently, went across to the clock Verity and Demelza had bought three years:
before. "What do you think the time is?"

"About eleven."

He set the hands and began to wind up the
weights. " I should have thought later than that."

" We'll ask Jack Cobbledick in
the-morning."

"How will he know?"

" By the cows."

Ross said : " Couldn't we ask them
tonight?"

She laughed, but with a slight break in her
voice. "I'll go'n see if the kettle's singing."

While she was gone he sat in a chair and tried
to arrange his thoughts, to sort them out so that he knew what his own feelings
were: But relief and relaxation were still so entangled with the old tensions
that nothing clear would come. When she returned with cups and a steaming
teapot he was wandering round the room again, as if after his week's captivity
even these confining walls were irksome.

She said nothing but poured out the tea. "
P'raps Jack half suspicioned someone would be back tonight, for he left a jug
of milk. Come and sit down, Ross,."

He sat in the chair opposite her, accepted a cup,
sipped it, his lean introspective face showing the strain more now than at any
time. This side she could not see the scar. The tea was warm and grateful,
soothed one's stretched nerves, hinted at the old companionship.

" So we're to start life afresh," he
said at length.

"Yes . . . “

Clymer said I was amazing lucky that a Cornish
jury was the most pigheaded in the world. He charged me thirty guineas; I
thought it not unreasonable."

“I thought he did nothing at all.”

"Oh yes.Again and again it was his guidance.
And the speech I made was partly his." Ross's face twitched.

“God, how I disliked that!"

" Why? It was a handsome speech, I thought.
I was so proud of you."

“Proud ... Heaven forbid!"

" And others thought the same. Dwight told
me he'd heard that was what got you off.."

Which is worse. To have to go crawling for one's
freedom."

Oh no, Ross ! There was no crawling in that. Why
should you not defend yourself explain what you did?"

"But it was not true-! At least ... if it
was not false it was an evasion of the truth. I had no thought of saving life
when I roused the neighbourhood. It was the Warleggans' ship. That was all I
cared about. When I found Sanson dead in the cabin I was glad! That was what I
should have told the jury this afternoon-and would have but for Clymer and his
counsels of expedience !"

"And now tonight you would not be free,
but perhaps sentenced to transportation. Do you think, Ross, that that would
have been a good exchange - just for stretching a story so's to put it in the
best light? And if you'd said what you wanted, would it have been more than
half the truth, more the truth than what you did say? Dwight was right, and you
know it! You were crazed with grief-and the jury's verdict was the only fair
one."

Ross got up. " Whitewashing my neighbours
too.. We knew they were all on the beach for what they could get, and with
little thought to the shipwrecked sailors. Who would blame them?"

"Right enough. Who would blame them - or
you?"

Ross made an angry disquieted movement.
"Let's talk of other things."

But instead they talked of nothing, and silence
fell. The house seemed to hold itself together about them. She tried to bring
up the election, but it didn't make sense. Eventually he sat down again and she
refilled his cup.

“I'd dearly love to go on doing this
forever," she said.

" Drinking tea? You'd find it incommoding
after a while. ... But why?'

“ It is the homely thing," she said.

One of the candles began to sputter, and she got
up and snuffed it. The smoke it had made drifted upwards in a dark spreading
curl.

"It's you and me, she said, "in our
own house; nothing between us - no interruption. Maybe it's because I'm just of
common stock, but I want the home about me candles burning, curtains, drawn,
warmth, tea, friendship, love. Those are what d'matter to me. This morning - even
a few hours ago ! thought it was all gone for ever."

''Common stock? Don't believe it." After a
minute he added : " Nor was Julia of common' stock, and she was like
you."

"That is the other thing I want, she said,
taking the opening

" What?"

" A fire-and perhaps a cat by the hearth
... but mostly a child in the cot."

His jaw muscles tightened, but he didn't speak.
"What is it?" she asked.

Nothing, It's time for. bed. Tomorrow I am to
become a farmer again--eh?"

"No, ' tell me, Ross."

He stared at her." Was not the last
experience enough for you? I want no more fodder for the epidemics."

She stared back at him, horrified. " Not
ever?"

He shrugged, uncomfortable and a little
surprised at her expression. He had thought she felt the same as himself.

"Oh, it may be they will come in due
course. We cannot help that. But - not yet, pray heaven. And they can never
take Julia's place. I should not want them to. I should not want them at all
yet."

She was about to say something more but checked
herself. She had known in court to-day that she was with child again, and since
the moment of his acquittal had been keeping the knowledge to herself like some
secret to be betrayed in due time; when it would perhaps help him in the
struggle back to normal life again, give a new interest, a renewed purpose. Now
the gold had suddenly peeled off and revealed something tawdry and inferior-and
unwanted. She went round snuffing the other candles, getting the smoke in her
eyes, thankful that he was staring into the fire. The triumph of the day gone.
She was as desolate as he.

just then there came a tentative knock on the
front door. At first they thought they had mistaken it, but it came, again. In
surprise Ross went out and across the hall and flung it open. The flickering
light of a horn lantern showed up half a dozen people standing in the mist.
There was Paul Daniel and Jack Cobbledick, and Mrs. Zacky Martin and Beth
Daniel and Jinny Scoble and Prudie Paynter.

" We seen the light," said Mrs. Zacky.
"We thought to come'n see' if twas you back, my son."

"Praise the Lord," said Beth Daniel,

"Es it all right?" asked Paul Daniel.
"Are ee free and it all over?"

" You're early for carols," said Ross,
"but come in and take a glass of wine."

"Aw, no, we'd no thought t'intrude, my
dear. Twas only wanting to know, and seeing the window alight."

"' Of course you must come in," said
Ross. "Aren't you all my good friends?