The Black Moon (31 page)

With a basket on each arm he began cautiously a half—
circuit of the house, and having completed
it,
he moved off towards the cliffs.

By morning his forearm was black, but he went in
to the library as usual and man
aged somehow to carry on, There was in fact little to do now until Ross came t
o some decision. When the roof
was taken off it had been discovered, contrary to all expectation, that although the walls of the library were granite-faced they were in fact not solid granite at all but were made of rubble stone. This was wall-building of a more primitive kind: stones built up into a rough double wall about two feet six inches apart, mortared over and the space between filled ,with anything that came to hand: stone chippings,
clay,
subsoil and the attle from the local mine. The result was strong enough but there was some hesitation as to whether to use it to support a second storey. It had been irritating to Ross to discover that the engine house of Wheal Maiden had be
en built of the best granite.

However, Drake rake was able to employ himself and would have passed unnoticed if it had not happened to be the day for his once-weekly lesson in reading and writing. Though he managed the first half successfully, the second half defeated him.

`You're holding your arm too stiff,' said Demelza. `Is your arm stiff? What have you been doing?'

`I slipped and fell,' he said. 'Tis nothing but a bruise, but it d'make it hard to form the letters.'

`Let me see.' She waved aside his protests and made him take his jacket off. `Oh . . . Well, that is
a rare old bruise to get from
a fall. Let me ... it is not broke?'

'Ugh . No. Just a bruise. It is just coming out, that's why tis so dark coloured.'

`You should bind it up. Else you'll scrow the skin, and if it breaks you'll have a sore place. I'll find a piece of cloth and some basil ointment.'

When it was done she said: `Well, you cannot write today. We shall have to do some more reading.'

They spent the weekly hour of study in the parlour, and it was a time they had both come to find pleasure in. During the winter months brother and sister had come closer together. Often they saw things in the same way. Though men in those districts matured early, he was still in some respects very young. His fresh, carefree male vitality appealed to her. She hated the thought of his coming up against the Warleggans in a
fruitless and unequal struggle
yet had never
said anything, for it seemed to her so
futile. Now, quite
on impulse, she broke he
r silence, It was too late. But
it
always had been too late.

`Are you still seeing Morwenna Chynoweth?' He looked up, startled. `Who told you?' 'Sam.'

'Oh . . . Sam.' He breathed out his relief, then his face
closed up. `Yes.'

She waited but he did not speak. He had picked up the
book he had been reading earlier and was paging through it.

She said: `It is a pity it has happened.'

'Maybe. ..Maybe that's what most folk would say.' `Drake, I don't believe any good can come of it.'

hat's good?' he said `I wonder sometimes'

`Good for either of you. Is she fond of you?' 'Oh, yes.'

She said: `I've often thought to say something. But though
I'm your sister perhaps it isn't for me to interfere.'

`Not yours. Not Sam's.' `But don't take it amiss.'

`No, I'd not do that. You wish well.'

`I wish well. But I wish much it, had been someone from
some other household. Who knows, some accommodation
might have been come to. But
-
not with the Warleggans.' `Morwenna is not a Warleggan. No more 'm I a Poldark.' 'But related, that's the misfortune.' `Feuds are wicked things, sister. I do not know the, rights
nor wrongs of this one, but they should play no part in the
life of someone dedicated to Christ.'

`Yet Sam himself feels this - this friendship is an unfortunate one.'

`He d'think it unfortunate because he believe it to be
carnal and so thrusts God into second place. And he d'think
it unfortunate because Morwenna aren't of the connexion
and not saved and therefore might lead me away.'

`And might she?'

Drake shook his head. `We've scarce thought o' that. But
there be more'n one way of serving God. I d'believe two
people
-
a man and a woman
-
in perfect harmony can give
more to the world and to God than either of 'em can do
separate.'

Demelza looked at him with a gentle eye. What he said
was so much in line with her beliefs and with her experience
.that; she had no amendment to make,

`Morwenna Chynoweth is a dean's
daughter. Would she be w
illing . . . can she accept a life
?’

`Oh, don't ask me, sister. Tis more'n I yet know. I know l have naught t'offer her naught. Tis a hard bitter thing for me. As yet - so far
-
we can plan no more'n the next meeting, And oft-times not even that. What should be so good betwixt, us
-
God given, I b'ieve - is all stained u
p
wi' fore
thoughts and afterthoughts and the prohibitions of this world .. '

He had got up, still holding the book, walked to the window.

Demelza said: `Only one other thing, Drake. If you meet, we cannot stop you. It is between the both of you and no other. But where you meet, that is another thing. It should not be on the Trenwith estate now Mr Warleggan is back. He has many servants, and violence has twice been offered to Captain Poldark when he has gone there. If, Mr Warleggan knew you were coming to meet his cousin, then you might get even bigger bruises than the one now on your arm.'

Drake half turned. `What happened to Captain Poldark?'

'He
returned the violence. I do not think there was a victor, but blood was shed.'

`I'll bet twas....'

Demelza had come up behind him and took his sound arm. `If I do not want it for my husband, neither do I want it for my brother. And you would not be in so strong a position as he was to resist . . . So have a care, for my sake
-
and perhaps for Morwenna's .. Now, what page had we reached? Twenty-two, wasn't it? We had just turned over.'

Drake walked back to Reath Cottage about four. Demelza said he could not work with one arm and must go home and rest it. But his body was without rest or wish for rest, so he thought he would make a pot of tea and then go for a long walk across the beach. He had been so preoccupied with other things that he had not even put his feet in the sea since last November. Sam would not be home from the mine until late.

He scraped a light and put it to a few sticks piled in the hearth. Mark Daniell when he built this cottage had not had much skill in design, nor even care for it, so that the single fireplace and chimney was so sited that when the fire was lit in the winter, it seemed to create extra draughts from
every direction: door, window, and
roof. If
in the
interests of warmth and comfort
one gradually stopped up the draughts, a point was reached when the warmth !in the house suddenly increased. It was at this point that the fire always began to smoke.

There was a
pitcher
half full of water that Drake had drawn from the well in Mellin that morning, and he eked two cupfuls carefully into a pan and put it on the crack
ling sticks. Just then someone
knocked on the open door, and he turned to see Geoffrey Charles standing there.

The boy ran into his arms. Trying not to wince under his embrace, Drake laughed and hugged him in return, his eyes eagerly looking through the doorway for another figure.

`Is this a surprise? Is it, Drake? Were you surprised? I stole out. No one knows. Mon cher,
I'm near on eleven. Isn't it
time I rode abroad-'

`Miss Morwenna?'

`She is helping Mama to make cowslip wine. I ordered Santa to be, saddled and Keigwin said, where are you going, shall I ride with you, and
I answered, oh no, just so far as, the copse near the gates; so then I
mounted and just rode through!’

`But did ye know where to find me any'ow? I work
normal days I'm not from work till six-'

`I asked. And I took the chance you might be here. It's luck, you see. My lucky day.'

`Mine,' said Drake. `Mine to be in to bid ye welcome. I'm making a dish of tea. Join me, will ee?'

The boy said he'd be delighted, and they chattered about this and that while the pan boiled. To cover up his disappointment that his visitor was alone, Drake told him the. problems of the draught and the fire and laughed about their efforts in the winter to stay warm and yet continue to breathe. Geoffrey Charles was looking round.

`It is like a chapel, Drake. It is more like a chapel than a house. I do not believe I would like to live in 'a house arranged this way. But about the fire, why do you not dig up the floor?'

Drake sprinkled a few leaves from a tin box into each cup and poured the hot water on it. `What then?'

`The ground falls away from the front door, so you could lay a drain pipe all the way to the fireplace. Cover it and beat it down. Then put a grid - a fine grid it woul
d have to be - where you build
the
fire. Then the air would come
in
from outside and blowup the chimney. Drake, did you cone again last night?'

'Come again? I've, no milk, Geoffrey. Will ee drink'n without?'

'There were more toads! This morning there were dozens
more,
And making an enormous and extraordinary loud
noise! Uncle George was beside
himself!'

`That's a rare good idea 'bout the hearth. Are ye going to be an engineer, boy? But all the ash would fall through the grid and block the drain, I reckon. How 'bout that?'

`You'd have to clean it out, like cleaning soot from a chimney. Did you come?'

'I reckoned them clouds, was bad last night. I says to myself, I says, afore ever cocklight comes twill be raining toads, and then what'll Master Geoffrey say?'

The boy gurgled with delight, and accepted his cup and stirred it. `You're teasing me! It was you, wasn't it! There was such
a
to-do this morning: servants running, terriers barking, gamekeepers sploshing about in the pond! Oh, it went on for hours! Uncle George was so angry! I went up to my room and hid my face in the pillow with
un access de fou rire
.
Dear Drake, how did you manage it without getting caught? I heard that they had been up all night watching for a trespasser - and had near caught one I Did they near catch you? Do you fly in the air? Have you witch's wings?'

But Drake would not be
drawn. He did not know how reliable the boy's tongue was, and although he was happy to let Geoffrey Charles suspect what he liked, he was admitting nothing.

`And how is your ankle now? Is it all healed over at last?'

`Not complete; but it is better than when I laid up. Talking of flying in the air, you remember the bow you made me, in November, and how you said you would make me a better when you had time, and I said I wished we had a design for a real longbow such as they used at Agincourt? Well, I have it now. It is in a book Uncle George has bought me, and I copied it on this sheet for you to see.'

As they sipped the hot weak tea they spread the paper on the rough table and stared at it together.

`You see,' Geoffrey Charles 'said, 'I have put in all the measurements and the other details. But first we shall have to find some yew. It says in the book that nothing else will do so well.'

`But this is a bow-does it not say tis for, a pull-of sixty
pound?' That'd be too 'much',
my
son. Ye could not fire it.
’

‘
Perhaps'

'I'll grow. When I go away to school I should want to take
it with me. There is sure to be arc
hery, and it would be grand to
arrive with a proper longbow. Nobody else, I'll wager, would have-'

'Twould be better scaled down none the less. Forty pounds would be more'n enough. Did ee say you was going away to school?''

Geoffrey Charles nodded. `Uncle George is already making inquiries for me. I shall miss you, Drake, but it will be only for a part of the time, and when I come back for the holidays -'

`You'll be too grand to talk to the likes o' me. And what will Miss Morwenna do while you are from home?'

`Oh, I shall not go, I believe, until after Morwenna is wed. And I shall never be too grand for the likes of you, Drake, for you're my very best friend. You're my first friend, the first real true friend I ever had. As I grow older I shall be more my own master, and it will be not so much, please Mama this, and please Uncle George that. Then I shall be able to have you much more closely as my fr
iend than I can now
'

Drake was folding the drawing the boy had brought. `Miss Morwenna to be wed? I don't follow. What do ye mean?'

'Oh, it happened while we were in Truro. A clergyman - Ossie Whitworth. I do not very much care for him myself - he remin
ds me of a
pigeon. But it was all fixed up by Mama and Uncle George before we left.'

`And ... what do Morwenna say?'

`Oh, I believe she does not mind. After all, it is marriage that girls are for. Of course they will live in Truro, so I shall see her from time to time. Drake, do you know of any yew? If I could get some . . .'

`I'll make it for you
sometime ... When I -
when I
-..'

`You may keep this plan. That is why I copied it-'

`Geoffrey, when are they to be wed?'