The Loving Cup (11 page)

Drake looked at Morwenna, who did not speak.

'At present we live in Looe, Geoffrey Charles. It has become our home
...
But that does not mean we cannot see much of you, or of Trenwith, if that be your wish. It is a long trip; we left at four this morning; but if Captain Poldark do approve -
I
mean the other Captain Poldark - then it should not be impossible to have one home and one - one second home, where you and Mrs Poldark will ever be.'

'Of course.' Geoffrey Charles, since he could not reach Drake across the table, patted Morwenna's hand, it is understood. It has always been a dream of mine
...
you know that
...
You will stay now?'

Morwenna smiled at him. 'Just as long as you want - as long as you both want.'

'We should have been here the sooner,' said Drake, 'did we not have this sudden order for a new mackerel driver, which come in almost the same day as the letter from you telling us of the great news that you were home. This have delayed me, as twas a rush order, and the young man ordering her wishes for to see her launched in less than two month, which will be a test an' a trial. But I stayed to see the templates completed an' the frames marked and sawn. There's two-three weeks' work now before they shall think of needing me.'

'Well, let us enjoy these two or three weeks to begin,
’
said Geoffrey Charles. He smiled and. ran a finger along the thin line of his moustache. 'It's strange: when I knew you last you were becoming an expert wheelwright. Now that has changed and instead you are a builder of boats.'

'Thanks to the other Cap'n Poldark - Ross. D'ye know after all this time ds quite an effort on my part to call him Ross.'

'Then we're in the same case, for although he is really my second cousin I have always called him Uncle, and it needs an effort every
time
I open my mouth to him to correct myself!'

'So I think I must tell 'im about the new boat I'm having built for this young man. Was not Clowance engaged to marry a young man called Stephen Carrington? This man is called Stephen Carrington who have come to me in Looe to order the new vessel. I wonder if tis one and the same?'

I

Returning from another equally early foray the following morning, Jeremy found his mother already abroad. As he crossed the plank bridge to the house she was coming out of the front door with a bucket of water.

The light had flooded the land long before the sun was up, and the sea, where wisps of mist clung to it, looked like milk in a pan being heated to make cream. The wind would come later, but at the moment there was none.

'You're up early, my lover,' she said.

'The same might be said of you, mother. Are you watering
your flowers?' . "

'No.' She looked into the bucket. 'While it is dewy is the time to catch the snails. If you drop them into salt they die quite easy.'

is Father up?'

'Oh, yes. In the yard. We're starring the Long Field today.'

'Ah. A good crop?' That he should have to ask, he thought.

it is a trifle thin the higher you go, but all the lower part is handsome.'

'So another pair of hands would not come amiss?'
I
don't need to answer that.'

'Well, first I'll go up and take a look at Leisure, see all is well there. What time do we break our fast?' 'In half an hour.'

'Then let me try my hand at some slug-murder: I see you have gloves. I don't mind snails, but slugs are uneasy in the fingers.'

'You take the snails, then.'

‘I
can't see any!'

'You will if you look.'

Mother, and son crouched first about the hollyhocks. Jeremy, peering like a short-sighted man, felt something crunch under his foot in the long grass and discovered he had caught his first snail. They laughed at this.

'The only way I can see 'em is by treading on 'em!' Jeremy said.

'I'll get you your grandfather's spectacles,' Demelza said.

'Didn't know he ever had a pair.'

'They're in the long drawer in the parlour, right at the back. I tried them last year when my eyes were funny when Harry was coming, but they didn't help.'

‘I
didn't know your eyes were funny, as well as everything else.'

'Well, they aren't now,' said Demelza disgustedly unpeel-ing a yellow and brown slug from the side of a loose stone. 'And what d'you
mean,
as well as everything else!'

'Well, you were really quite ill, Mama, even though you may become indignant at the idea now.'

‘I
suspect I found my family too much for me!'

'Most particularly the one that was just arriving, no doubt. How is he?'

'Fretful in the night. But he's forgotten it now.'

They went on undisturbed for a few minutes. Then they moved over to the pansies. Jeremy said:
I
had a letter a couple of weeks ago from some man interested in steam cars - a doctor somebody. Difficult to tell if he's just a crank. He suggested we should meet in Truro one Wednesday. I haven't replied.'

'Why not?
’

I
can't make up my mind.' is there anything to lose?'

Jeremy laughed. 'An afternoon. To tell the truth I cannot work up a great deal of interest in the subject these days.'

Demelza sat on her haunches and looked at him. 'Or any other subject?'

'True enough, I suppose.'

‘
What happened last Christmas?'

'Christmas?'

'About then. About the time Harry was born.' He turned the flower of a pansy. 'Something has eaten this one.'

'A caterpillar, it look more like
...
Yes, there it is. Such a little one, too.' He said: 'You see too much, Mother.'
'It isn't only caterpillars.' ‘
I know.' 'But will not tell?'

'Cannot tell. Don't let it worry you.'

'It does. When my eldest son suddenly seems to — to go adrift. Is it still to do with Cuby?'

He flushed. 'Earlier, yes. I became very disgusted with the way my life was leading, and out of the disgust grew - other things. Now
...
I think I am just going through a bad patch. Give me a little time.'

'You don't even care so much for Wheal Leisure now, do you.'

'Not as much as I did.' He changed his tone. 'But don't ee fetch on so.
‘
Tis no more 'n a touch of the spiritual mulligrubs.' He patted her on the bottom. 'All will be well.'

'Not that way.'

'Well, look what you were like when you were carrying Harry! We've just spoken of it.'

'But you're
not
carrying Harry, my lover. What
are
you carrying?'

There was a plop as he at
last found a snail and dropped it in the water.

He said: 'Even in spite of everything, I can talk to you better than anyone else. I wonder why.' 'I can't think.' 'Wasn't Father lucky!'

'Oh, ho,
thank
you. But for long he part-yearned for someone else.' 'I know. Very stupid of him.'

'Oh, she was nice. Nicer tha
n in those days I ever cared to
think.'

'Well, I suppose
...'

'Yes, it's all over. The heartache and the happiness
...'

‘
0h,
Mother, don't say
that’
. She examined ano
ther stone, but it was clean, ‘I
don't mean it
that
much, that way. Perhaps what I was really trying to say was that
..."

That all things pass? Yes. But don't you need
too
much detachment - an unhealthy detachment - to come to that conclusion? Looking down from above at the poor' little creatures wriggling, and thinking, "I'm no longer one of them!" Or looking back from a distance and thinking, "I was one of them!"'

Demelza peered into the bucket. There are one or two creatures wriggling in there that I don't like the look of
...
Jeremy, why don't you reply to that doctor Somebody and. see what he has to say? At the worst, as you point out, it's a wasted afternoon.'

‘I
might
suffer,'
he said. 'Maybe he's a crank and thinks pistons grow in the centre of flowers.'

'Don't they?'

'They probably would for you. Is it time for breakfast yet?'

'The slugs think so.'

'All right. All right. I'll stay a bit longer.'

II

It was a close stuffy day on the. Wednesday, with occasional damp flurries scarcely wetting the cobbles in Truro. The town was crowded for the market: cows and sheep filled the streets, lowing and bleating. Herdsmen gossiped at corners; drovers poked at their flocks; beggars standing in the gutters, beside or almost in the rivulets, had hardly room to plead their poverty. The Red Lion was full of noisy drinkers.

News from Europe had just come in - that Wellington, - after his great victory at Vittoria, was on the move again, was investing San Sebastian for the second time and was likely to take it by storm. His troops were poised all along the Pyrenees, ready to invade France. Ross remembered the
day when George Canning in the House had predicted that there would come a time when a British army would look down into France from the Pyrenees. He had been greeted with derisive laughter from many members then. Well, it had taken almost five years.

But Wellington was still biding his time. Napoleon, recovering rapidly from his disasters of the winter and with an army of which the leading sixteen battalions were raw youths, had scored a resounding victory over Bliicher and the Germans at Lutzen in May and followed it with another at Bautzen, this latter too costly in arms and men but of vital importance to the strategy of keeping the Allies on the defensive; then, still faced by the gathering forces of his enemies and the uncertainty of his friends, he had agreed to the armistice of Poischwitz, which lasted precariously from June
4th
until August 10
th. During the negotiations Napoleon had spent his time in Dresden, arguing terms but manifestly preparing for a renewal of the war. As soon as the armistice ended he flung an army at Blucher hoping to take him by surprise. There were rumours of another battle of Dresden, the outcome still unsure.

Gossip in the town was of a shipwreck in the fog off the Lizard: a tin-ship moving up channel, five men missing; of a musical festival to be held at the Assembly Rooms next Tuesday at which the principal draw was to be the renowned Madame Catalini; of a Society for the Prosecution of Thieves just formed in
Truro under the patronage of Mr
Paul, the mayor; of the bad harvest, of the wicked poor price of tin.

Jeremy went into the second room and spoke to the tapster, who knew him.

The tapster wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. 'Oh, aye, sur, Mr Poldark. How's the Cap'n and his lady? Well, I 'ope. Seldom see 'em in here nowadays. Dr Garner? Surely, if I recollect, tis 'im over there, sur. Dr Garner over there, sur. Him in the yellow jacket, see? Just getting up now, sur, and coming this way.'

Coming this way, pushing his way through the crowd of drinkers, was a medium-sized but sturdy youth, dark haired, full lipped, heavy lidded. Jeremy looked beyond him but saw no one else.

'Poldark,' said the young man, smiling and holding out. his hand. 'Very civil of you to come.'

Jeremy stared, had his hand taken, but in his surprise hardly returned the grasp.

'Garner?' he said. 'Dr Garner?'

'Well, in a manner of speaking, yes.'

'But
...
you're not Garner. You're - Gurney!'

'True. True. Can't deny it. Wouldn't wish to really. Well
...'
The young man had flushed under Jeremy's uncompromising stare. 'It is all of four years since we met, and I thought
...'
He hesitated. "Well, I was two forms below you, wasn't I. Under Hogg. Remember old Hogg? Knew his stuff, d'ye know. Not a bad teacher of his own subjects.'

'But why Garner?' Jeremy demanded.

'Allow me to order you a drink. The ale is fair here. I've downed a pint while waiting. Can I -'

'Why Garner?' Jeremy insisted.

'Well, to tell the truth, I thought you might not come if I said I was Gurney! Thought you might remember me as a fifteen-year-old and say to yourself, God's my life, why should I talk to
him?
'

This was so exactly what Jeremy would have thought that he half smiled and then did not smile. He remembered Gurney at the Truro Grammar School, a bright, pert boy two years his junior, but rather a thorn in the side of some of the older boys because of his quick wits and argumentative, combative character. Thomas Hogg, the headmaster, had made a favourite of him, which had not endeared him to his fellows, but Gurney had usually managed to slide out of any collective bullying. In fact Jeremy had not particularly liked him, if only because he often tried to be too smart; and indeed if the letter
he had received had been honestl
y signed he would have replied to it quite differently, or not replied to it at all.

Having failed to find a waiter, Gurney had fought his way to the bar and was returning with two brimming glasses.

'There's two seats over there. I put a stick across 'em. What d'you think? - they say Austria's declared war on France. At last. Think you it will make much difference?'

‘I
doubt if you can rely on any of them very far. If Napoleon arrives suddenly at the gates of Vienna, they'll be suing for peace again in a trice.'

G
urney laughed as they sat down. 'Here's good fortune!'

They drank.

'You have not joined the colours yet?' 'No. Not yet.
’
.

'Nor I ever,' said Gurney. 'There are plenty who can fire a gun - few who can invent one. Tell me, Poldark, what started you on this experiment with the steam coach, and how far have you progressed ?'

Over the drink Jeremy told him, though briefly, still too irritated to go into details.

'Andrew Vivian told me part of this - as much as he knew. I've seen Trevithick twice -
I
told you in my letter. He's as discouraging as you say - but is he necessarily right? I would not dare to question the great man in matters of steam engineering - but only in applying those matters. After all, he has not made any great practical success of his own life, has he.'

As they talked Jeremy allowed himself to speak more freely. It seemed that all the rest that Gurney had told him in his letter was true. Though barely twenty he had been admitted to a junior medical partnership by Dr Avery of Wadebridge, who was at present in ill-health. Because of this ill-health Gurney seemed
to have assumed responsibil
ity for half the practice. Jeremy wondered how much physical book learning he could possibly have had time for in so short a life, what practical experience he could have had. If you were ill, would you welcome a
boy
taking your pulse, bleeding you, prescribing some drug or herbal remedy to stop the pain, even with sager advice in the background?