The Black Moon (21 page)

see her,' Demelza said. `But I would not like you to see her today. I do not want to mend your bruises and broken teeth on another Christmas Day.'

`Oh, little risk of that. And there were no teeth broke, only loosened ... George is from home, an
d servants could not deter me.'

`I believe the Harry brothers are still there. They know you -
have fought with you before.'

`They cannot deny me sight of my aunt.'

Demelza
grimaced her doubts. `I don't know
.' Then she had an idea. `But why do you not take Caroline? She is welcome at the house. And they could hardly ref
use you entry if she were there
!
’

'You hear, Caroline?' Ross said. `Would you not prefer to go straight back to a roaring fire?'

`Since Demelza permits it, I would rather be your roaring guardian.'

`Well, then.' He put his hand round Demelza's arm, squeezing it gently and looking down at his tiny daughter, who had borne her ordeal with little complaint. `Give such good people as come back with you a strong tot of rum and some, of your splendid cake. We shall be home to dinner.'

`Your breath,' said Demelza, `looks like the engine at Wheal Grace. I never recollect it so cold, and I am afraid
for Clowa
nce. Help me up, Ross, and let us go.'

Trenwith House looked empty and lifeless as Ross went up the three steps and pulled at the bell. The whole countryside was a leaden monochrome. A thin column of smoke rose into the air from a back chimney of the house and was dissipated by the breeze. Two choughs stood on the roof of an outhouse, and a seagull planed across the clouds looking for food.

A red-faced mai
d Ross did not know came to the
door and reluctantly allowed them into the hall, then fled to find a senior servant. There was no fire in the hall. Except for the protection from the wind, it was scarcely less icy here than outside. Caroline drew her fur cloak around her and shivered.

`It is not quite the scene I saw here when Elizabeth's boy was christened.'

Ross did not answer. As always this place was full of memories, one laid upon another, yet each one individually separate and vivid
-
and now void.

A woman came in wiping her hands down a dirty apron. She was fat,
and everything
about her was short, especially her legs. She was more like a big
dwarf than a small woman. Half obsequious, half resentful
, she said her name was Lucy Pipe and she was Miss Poldark's maid and what could she do for them? Ross told her.

`There now. I dare say now. But d'you see Miss Poldark be sleepin' and be not to be disturbed. I dare say twould be mortal bad for she to be woke up now -'

`You dare say what you please,' Ross interrupted. `Will you lead the way or shall we go alone?'

`Welt, tis not for me to stand in your way, sur, but-'

Ross went slowly up the stairs, examining the portraits as he went and wondering what had happened to those
no longer considered worthy of
wall room. At Nampara they were notably short of ancestors. Perhaps Elizabeth would part with some of them ...

At the door of the bedroom Lucy Pipe inserted herself in front of Ross. Her breath smelt of spirits, and her skin, on closer viewing, was erupting with a skin affection. The roots of her thick black hair were choked with dandruff.

`There now. Let me see now sur. I'll go see Miss Poldark, see if she be a
sleep. I'll go see. Eh? I'll go
see.'

She disappeared inside. Ross leaned against the wall and
exchanged, glances with Caroline, who,
was -. tapping, her riding whip into her
other gloved hand. After a few moments Caroline said: `Oh, I know her sort, she will be tidying up. Let us go in.

As they entered the woman was pushing an unemptied chamber pan under the bed, while Aunt Agatha, a lace cap awry on top of a wig that was awry, was clutching at the bed curtains and muttering feeble curses. A black cat, half grown, stretched itself on her bed. In spite of her age her eyesight had remained remarkably good, and she recognized her visitor.

`Why, Ross, ain't it? Why, damme, boy.' She scowled at the straightening figure of her maid and aimed a feeble blow at her backside. `Dame,
ye should've telt me who twas s
kulking away like that
! Real skulk she be ... Why, Ros
s, come to wish me the Christmas wishes, eh? God bliss ee, boy!'

Ross put his cheek against the whiskery cheek of the old woman. He felt he was touching something out of a lost age, an age already dead but for her. Essentially a warm man but seldom a sentimental one, he felt a tug of emotion at kissing this stinking old woman, because here was the one contact that remained with a lost childhood. Both his parents long dead, his uncle and aunt dead, Francis dead, Verity seldom seen, here was the only one who remembered with him that time of stability, of thoughtless youth, of prosperity, of an unchanging family inheritance and tradition, the one link that remained between him and this house and all it had once meant to him.

Aunt Agatha pushed him sha
rply away and said : `Now, this
be not your wife, Ross. Where's my little bud? Where's my little blossom? Don't ee be, telling me as you're following your father! Leastwise Joshua stopped his whoring while Grace were alive!'

So Caroline had to be introduced and explained away at the top of his voice while Lucy Pipe folded a towel and clattered dirty crockery in a corner and the cat eyed the intruders jealously and the captive blackbird twittered in its cage. Now that he had time Ross
could take in the untidiness of
the room, the foul smell, the dirt, the curtain with a
ring off, the miserable fire.

It was surprising how much Aunt Agatha could still take in if you bawled, directly into her ear. It was simply that no one could really take the trouble of getting to close
quarters with her. It
was of course
an ordeal:

Now she learned
for the first time of Ross's new daughter, of the prosperity of his mine, of the alterations planned at Nampara, of Dwight's captivity in France, of Ray Penvenen's death.

In the middle of this Ross glanced at his tall companion who had perched on the edge of a chair and was examining distastefully some nostrums on the table beside her. `I am sorry for this, Caroline. Th
e air in here is very sour. Why
do, you not sit downstairs?'

She shrugged. `You forget, my dear. I am no stranger to the sick room. Your old aunt is little more noisome than my old uncle was.'

They had been talking five more minutes and Agatha was launched on a stream of complaints when Ross came to a decision which had been formulating in his mind ever since he came into this neglected room. He stayed the old woman with a hand on her skeletal arm. She looked up, munching on toothless jaws, eyes alert, the inevitable tear trickling down the ravines of her right cheek.

`Agatha,' Ross said. `You can hear me well?'

'Yes, boy. There's little I can't hear when folk speak plain.'

`Then let me speak plain. You shall come home with us. Our house is not so grand as this, but you will be with your own people. Come to live with us. We have a comfortable room. Bring this maid if you so wish: we can accommodate her as well. You are old and it is not right you should be among strangers.'

Lucy Pipe folded the last towel and noisily poured some water out of a pitcher into a bowl, splashing the water on the threadbare carpet. Then she filled a kettle and shoved it on the sulky fire.

Agatha's face twitched and she munched away for a minute more. Then she grasped Ross's hand. `Nay, my son, that I couldn't do ... That what you said? That what you meant -
come live wi' you at Nampara?'

`
That is what I meant.'

`Nay, boy. Lord damn me if tis not brave and
fine to think on it, but, nay, I
could not. An' would
not. Nay, Ross, boy. I've
lived in this house ever since I noozled the nepple, an' that's ninety and nine year, and no one shall put me out till my pass comes. Cheil, girl, woman and old body . . . I been here nigh on a century, and no whipper-snapper and
upstart from Truro shall pooch me, forth! Why, what would, my father say!'

`It is good to have courage,' Ross shouted. `But it is also good to understand the changes that time has brought! You are alone
-
the last Poldark here
-
dependent on undependable servants. Look at this woman, this lazy slattern
-
no doubt she tends you in her way, but she does not care, she has no concern for you
`There now, sur. Tis not fit
ty n
or proper to say no such thing-‘

`Hold your tongue, woman, or I'll nip it out . . . Agatha, think before you so quickly decide. I cannot come here when George is at home for he protects the house with his bullies. Elizabeth, no doubt, cares for you, but there is no one else. If you will not decide to live with us perm
anently, give us the pleasure of
coming for Christmas
-
and stay until George and Elizabeth return. Do you not lack for company here? Are you not very much alone?'

'Oh, aye. Oh, aye, alone . . .' Her claw patted his sleeve. `But at my age,
wherever you live, you be alone
...'

`Alone, I grant.' But need you be lonely also?'

`Nay. Tis true
.' She nodded. `Ever since your
uncle went - an' more
since Francis was took - I been
- lonely. They don't talk to me, Ross. No one do talk to me. Alone. All on my
own. But
not so much alone as I shall be in a
year or two.' She gave a gulp of
self-p
ity which ended in a cackle of
laughter. `Till then I mean to stay where
I belong to be. Miss Poldark of
Trenwith. Though I be sick and weary and all scrump with the cold, I mean to stay till my hundredth birthday next year. And to torment George, Ross. I real torment him. He hate me dearly and I hate him, and tis a r
are pleasure to get him all riff
led up with anger like a ram's cat. Why, if I left this house I'd not live the mon
th. Not even wi' all your care
and your docy little bud to tend me. Nay, God bless ye, boy. And God bless yep ye thin rake op a gel. Back to your childer, and leave me be!
’

They stayed another ten minutes, and Agatha had a drawer opened and brought to her, and took out a small painted cameo, which was to be given to little Clowance; but she would not be moved prom her decision. Acknowledging her to be probably right but exasperated nevertheless by her obstinacy, Ross turned suddenly at his most venomous on Lucy Pipe.

'You, slut. You're paid, housed, fed: see to it you discharge your
duties! A word f
rom me to Mrs Warleggan will have you turned out op the house. And I'll do it
-
for I'll come
by surprise again,
as this time., When I come I want this room-clean - d'you hear, clean!
-
that curtain mended,, the glass shining, Miss Poldark's ornaments and possessions disinterred
f
rom
these layers of
dust. I want a good bright fire -
no sulky coal and no sulky maids, else out you go! No unemptied night trays thrust under the bed; the close stool properly cleaned, Miss Poldark's night rail washed, and all other linen! D'you hear me!'

`Yes, sur,' said Lucy Pipe, obsequious and resentful wit
h the same glance. `I dare say
as
I can do what you d'say, but of
t times
–
I
..’

'Save
your breath. And get off your f
at rump and work!' Ross looked at Caroline. `Shall we leave?'

After a last Christmas kiss th
ey went, out into the cold and
draughty corridor, back the way they had come. Both were relieved to be out, to be breathing an air not tainted with putrefaction. They did not speak, but when they reached the hall Ross said: `Wait'. There is one more thing .,..'

Caroline followed-him through two doors and along a narrow corridor to another door, which he flung open. They were looking down into the kitchen. In the big dark room two lanterns were already burning, and a great fire raged in the hearth. There were some Christmas decorations, and about the kitchen five servants lolled
in various postures. At sight of
him they stopped a song they were half through, and three of them
-
the three women-got to their feet, uncertain who he was but aware that he represented some authority they were not expecting.

Ross entered no further than the steps.

He said: `I came to call on you at my cousin's request to make sure that all was well in her absence. What do you think I should report to her?'

None of
them spoke, but one put down his cup and another hiccupped and wiped her nose on her sleeve.

`That you are all drunk and unable to attend upon your proper duties? Do you think I should say that?' He glanced at Caroline behind him. `Do you think I should say that? ... It is Christmas. Perhaps I should turn a blind eye to harmless rejoicing. But how can it be harmless when a sick old lady upstairs lies unattended.
You"
One man jumped as Ross looked at him. `Answer me!'