The Black Moon (44 page)

Dwight sa
id indistinctly: `I am not fit
like this. You see,
I am a little altered; my love.'

`Yes, I observe, and so we must alter you, back, mustn't we? We must feed you on mutton broth and calves' liver and raw eggs and canary wine. Then you will have the courage to take me for your lawful wife, just as we arranged in the good old days . .'

Verity touched her cousin's arm. `Come, Ross, let us leave them. I do believe they will not fall out ...'

Dwight again said: `Caroline . . .' but this time as if, all the cracks in his heart were widening. `If you will still ta
ke me. But I shall need time .
.'

As Ross withdrew, Caroline was still weakly talking. It was the one solutive. `I think it should be an October wedding, don't you? Havi
ng seen old Agatha Poldark's
centenary out of the way, we must give the county time to recover before its next giddy round! Until then you must come home with me, even to the scandal of the neighbourhood. We will feed you up right away with the best things that we can find. You shall be cosseted and fed and allowed rest and given the best of everything. And if you are not feeling better in a week or two we will send for the doctor . . .'

On the Tuesday` Dwight at last took the old bandages from around Drake's arm. There was some bleeding, especially from the larger back wound, but it was a superficial bleeding, and both wounds were already closing up. But on
Wednesday Dwight himself was
running a fever, so the ordered coach was delayed by a day.

As it happened, the postponement resulted in their hearing news of the Quiberon expe
dition. A naval cutter arrived at
dawn on the Thursday morning. It was a sombre tale.

Extra supplies, and reinforcements of English soldiers from England, sent out under Lord Moira, had beet met by the returning fleet of Admiral Warren. Only the day after the Sarzeau left, d'Hervilly had launched his offensive against the Republicans massed at Sainte Barbe. But the strong Chouan support promised as an assault from the rear, catching Hoche between two fires, had sputtered out in a few half-hearted sorties, and the Royalists had been left to attack an army twice as numerous as themselves, in goo
d defensive positions and with
far more cannon. The pick of the advancing troops had been destroyed by cross-fine from hidden batteries, with something like half their number killed or wounded, and d'Hervilly himself hit and carried unconscious
from the field He had appointed no
deputy,
but in default
of one
,
de Sombreuil had managed t
o withdraw the remnants
of his army back into Fort Perithi
è
vre.

But shortly after, aided by turncoats within the walls who had told them the passwords, the Republicans had stormed the fort and put the remnants of the Royalist regiments to the sword. Retreating down the peninsula with such forces as he could muster, de Sombreuil had fought a rear-guard action all the way, while his men melted before the enemy, some changing sides, some surrendering, many taking to the small boats and paddling themselves out
to the safety of the English fleet. D'Hervilly was already aboard the Anson, seriously wounded. The Comte de Puisaye had left for the Pomone the day before, on the pretext, that he wished to confer with Admiral Warren, and had not returned. De Maresi had taken a chaloupe and with ten others had reached the Energetic. Almost all the other officers were captured or dead. De Sombreuil alone had held out with eleven hundred men in a mill called St Julien at the extreme end of the peninsula. With the sea on three sides
-
now too rough for rescue
-
and the enemy shelling them from the fourth, they had resisted until the last of their ammunition was spent. Then de Sombreuil had parleyed for the lives of his men; this had been granted with honour and he had surrendered.

But since then, news had reached the English that Hoche's undertaking to spare the lives of those who surrendered had been overruled by the, Convention under Tallien, and in a holocaust in a field outside Auray over seven hundred men, - the flower of the French aristocracy, had been shot to death. Others
-the more important
-
had been summarily executed on the promenade of the Garenne at Vannes among them the handsome and brav
e
Charles-Eugene-Gabriel, Vicomte de Sombreuil, in the twenty-seventh year of his age. Another of the executed men, the Bishop of Vol, standing
beside de Sombreuil, had asked
that his mitre should be removed so that he might say a prayer for them all before death. A guard
had been about to do this, but de Sombreuil, his hands bound, had taken the mitre off with his teeth, and had declared in
a loud voice that his
assassins
were not worthy to touch a man of God.

So, with a characteristically grand gesture, had died the one man among the French for whom R
oss had come to have a deep and
abiding affection. And in his purse was a ring. And sometime it must be delivered to Mile de la Blache,
who, would now never live
in the great
chateau and
help to
recreate
the family that the Revolution had destroyed.

This complete and utter disaster which had befallen the expedition seemed to Ross a shameful thing he could not get it out of his mind. The road to hell was so often paved with good intentions; but these intentions should have been at least co-ordinated
and given into the control of a
true leader. All the heady talk throughout the preceding months, all the high courage and the preparations and the hopes; they had never really stood a chance. The British government was as much to blame as the French Royalists. Half measures, and again half measures. And four thousand British troops sailing off to support the landi
ng when the landing had already failed.

His own small success was overshadowed by the greater tragedy, the greater failure. He could have done nothing to meet it if he had stayed behind; but somehow he felt personally culpable for paving left. And he knew now, everyone must know now that the war would be bitter and long. With the failure at Quiberon had perished the last hope of a restoration of the monarchy and a reasonable and negotiated settlement. Against the Republicans there was no hope of an honourable peace. For England it was conquer or die.

Yet his own success was real. Overcoming odds whose length he was perhaps only realizing now it was over, he had fulfilled his main purpose in going with de Maresi and de Sombreuil. For the loss of Joe Nanfan, who had never married and who in a sense
owed his life to Dwight, he had
brought back his friend. It was an achievement that all his sombre regrets could not quite dissipate.

He left Dwight and Caroline at
the gates of Killewarren and
refused to go in. He felt they should go to their happiness, go to their future home, absolutely alone. It was the beginning of life for them. They needed no third person. Caroline, who had participated so closely in the preparatory stages, might regret just as much a
s he the failure
of the Quiberon invasion, but for her all else was at present overwhelmed by personal happiness. They had several times tried again to thank him and always he had cut them short.

But his excuse that he wanted to be home was only an excuse
in part. The five weeks he had
been away seemed a year. Well, he did not know so much about seeking adventure the better to appreciate domestic life. He had had adventure enough at Quimper to last him a long time,
In the warmth of his present feelings -
fluctuating though
they might be
between a sense of achievement and a sense of failure -
he had thought a
good
deal about, Drake, and wished he could do more for him. During a number of idle hours in Falmouth his mind had not been at all idle. Drake must be given some status, or some way of attaining status. The trouble was he was still so young. At nineteen, what could o
ne do for a boy? Well, he, Ross had money now.
There
ought to be something one could
do. And George had said Morwenna's marriage to that clerical fop Whitworth was off. So the girl would be returned to her mother in Bodmin. Would any other suitor come hurrying round for a while? It seemed improbable.

Well, if Morwenna was as much in love with Drake as he with her, the chances were, she would be faithful to thoughts of him for a year or so.

So might not something in the end be arranged? Drake might only be a wheelwright,
but he was brother-in-law to a
Poldark. That counted for something. And class, birth, money were not such rigid structures in England as they once had been. The present Archbishop of Canterbury was the son of a glazier. It was this ability to allow a traffic between the classes
which had so far saved England
from the fate of France. Every man who rose from nothing to be a person of imp
ortance in his community was an
additional safety valve in the body of society, allowing some of the compressed steam to escape.

And marriages were not always between equals. Thomas Coutts had married his brother's serving maid, and she was now received by Prince Henry of Prussia; one of their daughters was married to Sir Francis Burdett, another affianced to the Earl of Guildford. The barriers in certain circumstances could fall. Why
was the impoverished daughter
of the late Dean of Bodmin, so impossible of attainment by a talented tradesman with wealthy and well-born relatives? The only real bar had been Morwenna's relationship with the house of Warleggan. Let her only remove herself from Trenwith, and Drake from Nampara, and there seemed no real reason why they should not come together again in a year or two.

On this happy thought Ross came through Grambler village, past the last shack, where Jud and Prudie Paynter lived, and had just forded the Mellingey when he beheld a small boy racing towards him from the direction of the
old Wheal Maiden mine. For
a moment he did not recognize
his four-year-old son
- until he saw a woman also running, coming out o
f the wind-battered fir trees,
and also coming towards him.

He jumped off his horse and Jer
emy leapt breathlessly into his arms, squealing his
ravished delight. Then Demelza, smiling her most radiant smile; and he knew he was home,

They laughed
and talked and chattered up the
hill to where the new meeting house had now got the timbers of its roof on, and down the valley to their home, where the library almost had its second storey complete, and they were met at the door by the Gimletts and the Cobbledicks and Betsy Maria Martin and Ena Daniell, and all were waiting to welcome him like a conquering hero. (Another reward for danger, he thought? There you went again. Life was contrast: light made brighter, by the shade. But he was content, and would be content for a long time now if the light would but shine.)
Jeremy, Demelza said, had been, up by Wheal Maiden nearly all
of yesterday, and she or Jane,
with him, so that nothing was done in the house all day, and at the end of it no father either. Ross apologized and explained the reasons. Over a late dinner he was hardly able to eat for talking, nor talk for eating; and Demelza, incessant in her questions, was also telling him that he had lost pounds in weight and looked as if he had been in a prison camp himself, and when could they go over and see Dwight and Caroline and when was
the wedding to be? (
God, thought Ross, it does work, and how unfairly; but I want her, not any other, not the most beautiful eighteen-year-old damsel born out of a sea-shell, not the most seductive houri of any sultan's harem; I want her with her familiar gestures and her shining-smile and her scarred knees, and I know she wants me in just that same way, and if there's any happiness more complete than this I
don't know it and am not sure
I even want it. So you've been away and risked your life, you damned fool, and this is your undeserved reward.)
And did he see, Demelza was asking, knowing his looks and returning them but wanting to keep the conversation casual for at least another hour, did he see that they all had an invitation to Trenwith House for next week for Au
nt Agatha's hundredth birthday
all four of them, and would he make an exception and go?

‘
of course we'll go,' Ross said. `Verity has been invited,
and
Andrew will be
home
so
they will both be there
and
baby Andrew also. I have asked them to spend the night here afterwards.'

`I am surprised that Agatha was permitted to invite us, but perhaps George could not deny her that indulgence.'

`We'll go,' said Ross, `and perhaps, who, knows, it will be the beginning of a better era between th
e two houses. I had a desperate
unpleasant interview with George in the matter of Drake's arrest; but he did release him, and whether he bowed to my threats or listened to my reason, at least the outcome is good. So perhaps we may learn
to live beside each other with
some reduction of enmity. Indeed, no one wishes to be friends, but it is ludicrous that we cannot meet now and then as civilized beings instead of snarling at each other, like, wild beasts,'

`May it be so,' said Demelza, but a little, doubtfully. `And Drake? You tell me he is quite recovered?'

`From the musket bail? Not altogether. But Dwight thinks him out of danger, and he was eating well when I left. Whether the movement of his arm will be affected we don't know ... Demelza ...'

`Yes?'

Ross listened to the complaints of Jeremy, who had just been carried off. Clowance slept peacefully through it all.

`I have been thinking of Drake.'

`Oh?'

'D'you know, my dear, I don't believe I have sufficiently esteemed him. On this expedition he behaved with courage. I'll tell you of that later. But it seems to me that we should try to set him up in some way. We have money now. He is excessive young
-
that is a great disadvantage-but it is a disadvantage that time will take care of. I do not know whether it would be better to set him up on his own
-
perhaps in some small engineering or tool-making way-or whether he might be better engaged with Blewett at shipbuilding in Looe, with a view to an eventual partnership. In two years he will be twenty-one and will be capable of taking
over my interest there then.'

Demelza studied Ross's expression. `Judas, this is a changearound. I thought you looked on my brother
s like the plagues of Egypt.'