The Loving Cup (30 page)

He was still just as much out of breath. 'That sort of thing. Losing you like that. It makes a man humble.'

'Don't say that. That was not what I wanted.' .

I
know. I know. But it does
...
Makes ye do strange things
...
Did Andrew go for you?'

'He came over and told me. Otherwise I should not have known.'

'God bless him. And you for coming.'

The daylight crept in like a thief, picking out the other chair, the home-made wardrobe, the tumbled bed, the soiled linen, the foul bucket and the pitcher and the bottles of medicine, last almost it seemed the colours of her face and hair. Pink was in the sky now, staining the hillside above the trees.

He said: if I die
...
if I live
...
I'll be happier either way knowing that you care a little.'

He fell into a deep sleep that Clowance was afraid was too much like unconsciousness.

At eight Andrew came and wanted her to leave but she would not. She dozed uncomfortably in the other chair while he brought fresh coal and re-lit the fire, carried out the bucket and the other soiled stuff, made her a cup of tea. She sipped it and they stared together at the man on the bed.

‘I
t is time for his brandy,' said Andrew.

'Let him sleep. I -I
think he is sleeping.' . Dwight Enys turned up at eleven, in spite of his having said he would not be able to come until the evening. By then Stephen was just stirring again and beginning to cough- '

Dwight felt his pulse, his forehead, looking at his tongue, not very much more.

'This crisis is past,' he said. 'The fever has gone. Now it remains to be seen
...
But with reasonable care. Care such as he has had these last two days
...'
He smiled at Clowance. 'With reasonable care he should recover.'

III

Clowance stayed nearly two weeks, having sent Andrew with a long letter to her parents on the third day, and thereafter writing them regularly by the common post.

After the intense fever Stephen was still a very sick man, still plagued with a racking cough and pains in both lungs. Andrew took the third night, and Stephen would not allow Clowance to return on the fourth. Thereafter she spent each day with him, sleeping at Verity's, and as he recovered taking a little more time off to buy delicacies for him to eat and books and magazines for him to read.

It was a fine month, and the retarded spring was all the more lush for having been kept waiting. There came a day when, walking with a stick, and gingerly like an old man,. Stephen took a turn about the town. That really marked the end of his invalidism, though it was four days after that before he risked himself on a horse. It was, he explained apologetically to Clowance, the two fevers, one atop the other, that had brought him so low. Clowance needed no apology; she was only happy to see
the life returning to his step.

By the time it came time for her to leave, much had been said between them, much explained. Yet much remained to be said. In all their conversation they had never really got round to the subject of their final quarrel, the cause of their parting. For himself he could still scarcely understand it, for her part she could scarcely explain it. By a common instinct to preserve their new-found accord they sheered away from the danger spot, content that at least for the moment it could be ignored.

A little late in being aware of the proprieties, she now tried each day to leave his lodgings before dark.

He said: 'M' love, I'm not much of a fatalist. I believe on the whole a man makes his own fate, don't wait for it to come to him. But I've had three great strokes of fortune in me life so far, and they were all nothing to do with me as an active party. First was when I was a starving urchin runaway of eight and I happened upon the Elwyn's farm, who were a childless couple and Mrs Elwyn just needing me in place of a son. Second was when I was drifting with a dead man on that raft and Jeremy picked me up. Third was when I was near dead with the peripneumonia and you heard and rode over and spent two nights and three days without break nursing me through it. For I should
never
have recovered wi'out your nursing, you can be sure of that!'

'Oh, I don't know-'

'Oh, I
do
know. So three times my life has been preserved and two out of the three times it has been a Poldark that has done it. D'you not think there is some fate in that?'

'Perhaps.'

He was sitting down so she kissed his forehead, now healthily dry with the hair upgrowing again. He quickly put his arms around her knees, half pinioning her.

He said: 'What will they say when you tell them?'

'I've no idea.'

'Do you care?' 'Very much.'

'Yes.'He sighed.'That'
s what I have to get used to.'
'What?'

That you owe them a love and affection that don't belong to me, that I'm no part of. I think that's mebbe what I
shall
get used to now.'

I
hope so.'

'D'ye know,' he said. 'To tell the sober honest truth, I'm a bit of an egotist. Except for those two times being rescued before this, I've always relied on meself and, most times, not been disappointed. So it's led to me being reliant on meself and confident of what I am and what I think and what I stand for. You've taught me a lesson in that.'

'Believe me, Stephen, that wasn't what I wanted or intended -'

'Well, that's what you got. And if I'm self-sure about anything now, it is that I can learn from experience. Experience has taught me never to take anything about
you
for granted, f’
instance. And I promise you I never shall.' '

‘
Not even my legs?'
she said.

He released her instantly, and gave a little gurgle of laughter, which ended in a cough. 'Oh, Clowance, we'll make a good pair, I swear it! Promise you will always be like this - loving,
warm;
but always, always one on your own,
quick
as me or quicker, and ready to hit back if I take liberties!'

I’ll
do my best.'

I
'm sure you will. My dear
...'
He cleared his throat and waited for his breath. 'Don't come back again. Send me a letter—quite short - just saying what they say and telling me when I can come to Nampara - or
if
I
can come. Take a week. There's no hurry now. I've business to do with my two vessels - d'ye realize I'm a shipowner!'

'You've said so before.'

'This week I shall take it easy - just going down for a few hours a day — and eating
...
and, when I can, sitting in the sun. Andrew's been a real help to me, on this voyage and while I been ill. I hope he'll stay along with me as me second-in-command. Then by the time your summons comes I'll be total fit and well again and ready to ride over and face the music
’

‘I
t's I who will have to face the music first.'

‘
I
know. But surely by now they will have guessed.'

‘
I
think Mama did before I left. It is my father I am in doubt of." She tied a scarf about her head. 'But not so
much
in doubt of. All his life he has been far too indulgent to me.'

‘
I
don't blame him. What time will you leave in the morning?' 'About eight.'

He took her hand. 'There are some things I reckon I still ought to say to you, me darling. But twill not be easy.'

'Then don't try. If we quarrelled -'

'No, tis not altogether that. There's things still not quite straight between us, you and me. If I'm to marry you, as I hope and pray, I'd wish you to come to me knowing all me faults, all the things I've done in life that don't lie altogether easy on the conscience.'

'While you were delirious you were anxious to tell me that you had never been a privateer.'

He sighed. 'Quite true. I never have. Else I should not've been so scared of the press-gang when I was at sea, as I once told you. Crews of privateers don't often get pressed — should not at all! I went - adventuring with Captain Fraser, Budi Halim, Stevenson, and one other, Hawker, but we did not have letters of marque. Twas a sordid expedition, I can tell you, to seize what we could find; but all the rest was true — we were cornered by a French sloop, shipwrecked, sunk. From there on, until Jeremy and the others picked me up, twas all true
'And should I be shocked by that?'

'Nay, there are worse things about me, Clowance, as you may guess. God knows whether I shall gather the courage to tell you it all before we marry. I
should.
But I couldn't bear to lose you again.'

'You're not married to someone else, are you?'

'Holy Mary,
no
! What made you say that?'

'That's the only reason I can think of why 1 shouldn't marry you.' He kissed her hand.

'Ride safe and ride careful. I'll come for you soon.'

IV

Clowance said: 'You must think me an impossible daughter.'

'Not impossible,' said Ross; 'people have been known to change their minds. But I am concerned to learn the reasons.'

It had been a frustrating day. She had got home about twelve to find her father gone to Truro for a bank meeting and not exp
ected back ti
ll dark. Instead of being able to explain to them both together, so that both had the same information at the same time - and she was not appearing to persuade one in the other's a
bsence - she had sat down to a
noisy dinner at which Isabella-Rose was particularly exasperating by wanting to know all about Clawanc
e's two weeks away, being relentl
ess in her questions and refusing even to accept her mother's veto on the subject; while young Henry, newly promoted to a baby chair at the table, syncopated the meal by beating on his table top with a spoon. Eventually about four Clowance had disentangled her mother from the claims of the household and had walked her on the beach for an hour, pouring out her heart.

Now, belatedly, she had to do the same all over again while her father ate his s
upper. (She had said she would p
refer to wait until he fini
shed but he said, no, he'd like to h
ear at once.) And speaking to her father with her mother
l
istening was, she found, quite different, in spite of all her effort not to let it be so. It seemed to centre on the practical rather than the emotional, even though the latter at the final resort must be the one that counted most.

'Stephen now owns these two boats and has, made money out of the one voyage to Italy and back. He says that, though the outward trip was perfectly legal, he took a deliberate risk bringing home wine and silks. These have all been safely landed - were landed be
fore he was taken ill a second ti
me -and he has been paid for most of them. He says
that now the war is ov
er he knows he can never make this sort of money again, so he intends to use the vessels for coastal trading and at pilchard time to take the fish wherever they are most wanted; it might be Italy again; but if so he will probably not go himself. He says that with the end of the war there must be an enormous expansion of trade with Europe, and he is hoping to buy a third vessel to take advantage of this situation.'

Ross thought: these are his words; I can hear him saying them. 'And the smuggling?'

'He wants to avoid it if he can. He says that with the end of the war - except the war in America - there will be many more resources available in England to put smuggling down. He believes there is plenty of money to be made out of legitimate trade.'

Ross waved Demelza to stay where she was and took another piece of pigeon pie.

'And where does he intend to operate this business?'

'Penryn. It has good facilities for small trading vessels. He also thinks we should live in Penryn, where he can be near all the furnishings of his trade. The Gatehouse
...
would be too far away.'

Ross nodded and ate quietl
y, reflectively.

‘
I
should be near Aunt Verity,' Clowance said quickly.

'Yes
...
yes. Bear with me if I go back a little, Clowance. Perhaps you have already explained it to your mother
...
But you parted from Stephen eighteen months ago after a - a quarrel, a difference between you that seemed to be final. Do you suppose it is likely to occur again ? - for once you are married it is much harder to separate, indeed you are boun
d irrevocably together. You may
separate physically but neither of you may marry anyone else.'