Jeremy Poldark (33 page)

Verity moved her cup, set it down again, stared
at her hands.

" Oh; James, I'm so happy that you came.
I'm happy to have made one friend so soon. I am so happy that ..." She
stopped and choked.

He laughed, a sudden boyish laugh. " It
looks as if I shall be spending most of my leave looking after you, Aunt."

There was another knock on the street door.

She said : "You've no more brothers or
sisters, have you?"

"Not to my' knowledge. Though it would be a
lively enough lark, wouldn't it? Stay on deck, ma'am..I'll see who it is."

When he had gone down she walked to the window.
The day was nearing its close, and clouds had gathered over the harbour. Three
fishing boats, one with copper-coloured sails and two with white, were moving
sedately in like swans coming home to rest. She didn't know the man at the
door. He had come by horse.

James came up the stairs four at a time.

"It is a man with a letter for you he will
hand to no one but you personal. He says his name is Gimlett."

Gimlett. Ross's servant. Demelza "
Oh," she said and flew down the stairs.

Mrs. Blamey, ma'am?"

"Yes. You have a message?"

"A letter, ma'am. Captain Poldark asked for
me to give it into your hands."

With excited, and apprehensive fingers Verity
fumbled with the seal and at last got it, open. The letter inside was very
short.

Dear Verity,

We have a son. It was yesterday evening, after
an anxious time, but, both so far are, well. His name will be Jeremy. We wanted
you to be the first to know.

Ross

It was just a small party at Nampara House:
Francis and Elizabeth and Andrew Blarney and Verity and Dwight Enys, who was
now almost one of the family. Not a christening party for Jeremy, because it
was natural to shrink from repeating anything which had happened in Julia's
life this marked the opening of Wheal Grace - the first men engaged, the first
sods broken. Demelza, handicapped by weakness and a delicate baby, had left all
the catering to the Gimletts, and they'd done well enough. Boiled cod with
oyster sauce, a piece of boiled beef, roast neck of pork, two small turkeys
with ham, fried rabbits, a plum pudding, tartlets and pies with apples and
olives and almonds and raisins for dessert. Demelza looked round and thought:
This is much more than we can afford, but of course it's quite right not to
skimp for such an occasion.

It was nearly a month since she'd reached the
house that day, soaked and exhausted - to find no one about, the surveillance
she'd disliked gone when it was most needed, the house terrifying in its
emptiness the garden and the trees rustling and the nearest help half a mile
away. It seemed a year since she had fought her way from kitchen to parlour,
her hands full of paper and shavings to start a fire. Minutes later, Jane
Gimlett had found her crouched in a chair, unable to, move in a room full of
smoke; Cobbledick was sent flying on his long legs' for Dr. Enys - and had the
luck to find him home. Ross returned at seven to find Jeremy just born and
Dwight despairing of them both.

Well, all that time was over and they had both
survived; though Jeremy still did not seem oversecure. Very different from
Julia, who from her earliest moments had put forward all the claims she could
to be considered a permanency. Perhaps it was an omen, Demelza thought, that
this frail one would survive where the lusty one died.

Over the meal the men had been talking of a book
called The Rights of Man in which an atheist, Tom Paine, advocated a parliament
of nations to prevent war, and many other sweeping reforms; but Demelza had
only been indifferently attending. She thought: So Francis and Andrew Blarney
are sitting at the same table at last; it isn't complete reconciliation, but
that will follow as they have time in each other's company - in the way Ross's
and Francis's has followed. And Verity will no longer be shut off from Trenwith
and there will no longer be the strain of, ill feeling.

And Elizabeth ... Elizabeth blooms like a
painting; she has had a better year. By contrast, I'm dowdy and untidy, pale as
a sheet from being indoors, no good as a hostess and unattractive to any man.
No wonder Ross looks at her with interest. She, doesn't love Francis, but she's
more content.

And Dwight? He looks happy to be here. A good
thing Caroline Penvenen has gone, because there was something between them. He
ought to marry Joan Pascoe, who will have lots of money and yet wouldn't
consider herself too good for him.

And me ...?

They drank a toast to the new mine, and when
they sat down again silence fell. On the fortunes of Wheal Grace the financial
survival of all the Poldarks would now depend. It was a sobering thought. Well,
at least, thought Demelza, - we are all together this time. And Jeremy is in
the next room waiting for me, already knowing me. And Ross is at least
temporarily content in knowing the venture, started. Was it time now, she
wondered, to lead the way out, leaving the men to their usual talking and
drinking? And if so, should she get up and then speak, or speak before she got
up?

Forestalling her, Francis rose instead.

"Toasts," he said, "are a plaguey
nuisance at the best of times. But I've a fancy to propose one more now, and I
was never one not to indulge a fancy. I want to drink to our hostess,
Demelza."

Taken completely by surprise, Demelza for once
in her life blushed up to the roots of her hair. " Oh no!" she said.
" Twould be most uncalled for."

In a confusion of voices she heard Andrew
Blarney, siding with his old enemy, say, "It's the very thing," and
the others concur, Elizabeth a second later than the rest. Then they, seemed
all to be looking at Ross, and Ross looked up and smiled.

" Demelza is wrong it has been long called
for. Thank you, Francis."

Francis, thus encouraged, fiddled with his glass,
and looked across the table at her, embarrassed, but determined. "I was
never one for speechmaking, but there it is. She came to live among us almost
while we were unaware of it. But we've all' come aware of it in time. There's
not one among us unless it's young Enys here - who has not had some special
benefit from her coming. That's no more than the truth, and there's little more
I can say! But if it wasn't for her there'd be none of us gathering here
together to-day-and if there's any merit in being a united family, then the
merit's not the family's but hers. It isn't where you're born in this world,
it's what you do. She is proper that proper doth. So I say we should drink to
Demelza - a lady of the first quality.”

It was a lot for Francis to say. Horribly
affected, Demelza sat there while they drank the toast. When it was done a
silence fell more difficult than the last, because they were all waiting for
her to say something

She blinked the mist out of -her eyes and stared
at the magenta-coloured wine in her glass. She said in a low voice: "'If
I've done anything good for the family - look what you've done for me.

Outside Garrick was barking, chasing a sea gull
off the lawn. It might wake Jeremy. They seemed to be waiting for her to say
something more. In desperation a, few words of the church service she'd
attended in Bodmin came to her mind. She added: I've only followed the devices
and desires of my own heart."

Verity patted her hand. "That's what we
love, you for."

When the party broke up Ross went a little way
up the valley to see his guests off. Demelza, being convalescent, stayed behind;
and when they had crossed the river in the slanting sun she walked back into
the house and peered down at the sleeping Jeremy.

A small baby, unlike Julia and dark, active,
thin-featured and delicate. Strange the difference. Perhaps in some way he
reflected the changed circumstances in which he had been conceived and born.
Demelza thought: I am content. perhaps not the rich happiness of two years ago,
because Ross is still an uncertain quality, but content. Could one expect more?
They had all come through many hazards. Of course the future was uncertain,
full of dangers of its own. The mine might fail, Jeremy might die in a teething
convulsion like the last of the Martin children, Ross might go off with
Elizabeth, or the next "run" into Nampara Cove might be surprised by
the gaugers. But was any future, anyone's future, unfraught by hazards of some
sort? The only security was death. So long as one: wanted to go on living one
had to accept the risks. Well, she accepted them....

Outside Ross saw the visitors on their way and
then walked slowly back alone. The stream bubbled and whispered down the valley
beside him, adding its satirical commentary to his evening thoughts

The gamble was on. The fight was on. They were
setting out on this venture in the teeth of unfavourable circumstances and all
the opposition the Warleggans could muster.: George had been indoors for a week
after his fall, and there had been talk of summons for assault. But nothing had
come of it. George had not cut a sufficiently dignified figure to want it all
thrashed out in public. Nor was the cause of the quarrel so much common
property as Ross had imagined it might become. What he hadn't at first realised
was that the Warleggans would show up in a very bad moral light if they
accused Francis of any such transaction; and for the sake of their business
reputation they wouldn't want that. George, too, had evidently lost his temper
that day, - had tried to poison the new friendship between the cousins with the
most venomous accusation he could call up. (And nearly had succeeded!)

Francis certainly knew nothing as yet of the
cause of the brawl - though last week he had complained of a peculiar coldness
on the part of several people he had had dealings with in Truro. The evil
rumour, once let loose, wouldn't easily die. It would be liable to smoulder
underground and flicker up again where least expected. If it ever came; to
Francis's ears it might yet prove a menace to their new partnership:

Ross glanced across at the first signs of
activity around the ruins of Wheal Grace: a few ugly sheds, a heap of stones, a
mountain of cut gorse, a cart, a new track across the hillside. Nothing of
beauty; in twelve months the whole hill would be disfigured. But the disfigurement
would have its own appeal to a man with mining in his blood. The question was,
what would a further twelve months show? Another smokeless chimney stack,
silent sheds, grass growing in the mule tracks, an engine rusty and derelict?
Everything seemed to point to it.

Two things, could save them, could save the
Poldarks and their houses. The first was rich copper; at an easily workable
level. - The second was that the market price of the ore should not merely show
its present upward tendency but should leap thirty or forty pounds a ton. Ross
had gambled on both. For the first he relied largely on Mark Daniel's comments
on that August night two years ago. Mark could not have been so impressed-and
in such circumstances-without good cause.

For the second, Ross had gambled much more
dangerously. Across the Channel a neighbouring country was in the grip of a
revolutionary fervour. How long would it keep its energy within the confines of
its own territory? If war came in Europe England might well stay out. The
Channel was the surest wall. But it could not stay out unarmed. A defenceless
country was an impotent country. A re-arming country needed copper for its
arms.

That was the other chance.

The air was hazy, heavy in the evening light.
All the smells of the earth were strong; a blackbird twittered endlessly on a fallen
stump; and the smoke from a chimney of the house grew like a slow worm, for
once unhurried by the wind. In the distance a grey multitude of sea gulls were
wheeling and crying over Hendrawna Beach.

That was the other chance.

He came more slowly to the garden in front of
the house. At the door he stopped to sniff the lilac, which in a day or two
would' be in full bloom. Human beings were blind, crazy creatures, he thought,
forever walking the tightrope of the present, condemned to ever changing shifts
and expedients to maintain the balance of existence, not knowing even as far
ahead as tomorrow what the actions of to-day would bring. How could one plan a
year ahead, how influence the imponderables?

A butterfly settled on the lilac and stayed a
moment with poised trembling wings. Not by a hairbreadth would a: single
external circumstance move to accommodate him and his schemes - he knew that.
As well ask, on the butterfly's behalf, for the postponement of sunset or
tomorrow's gale. That was as it might be. Within the scope of his own
endeavour he accepted the challenge. He might at some later date look back on
this day as marking the beginning of his prosperity or the last move towards
his ultimate ruin. The tightrope was there. No one could see beyond the next
step.

Within the house there were movements, and from
where he stood he saw Demelza come into the parlour carrying some things of
Jeremy's which she spread before the fire. Her face was preoccupied,
thoughtful, intent, but not on what she was doing. He realised that all the
struggle and anxiety of the next few months would not be his alone. She would
bear her share of the burden. She was bearing it already.

He went in to join her.