The Miller's Dance (4 page)

I have been keeping singularly well, and in a whole year of fighting have not so much as suffered a bellyache or earned a scratch. More of my good friends have gone, but, as I say, a sufficiency remain to continue to sustain me in comradeship and accord. Again my love to you all. Ever most sincerely Geoffrey Charles.

PS.
Any news of
stepfather George? When we last
met, you mentioned that he might be thinking of remarrying, but I have heard Nothing of it. My only correspondent, short of Yourselves, is Valentine, who sometimes sends a note. I received one from him last month, in which he was full of a flirtation he was conducting with someone else's pretty young wife, but he said nothing of acquiring a Step Mother. So I assume George's suit was unsuccessful, or is it still on the Boil?

PPS.
Odds heart, I tell an untruth! A Letter from Drake in June. They are
happy.
That is such a
splendid
thing. Him and Morwenna I
must
see when I come home.

Demelza took the letter from Ross and held it crackling in her fingers. Then she got up and put it back in the drawer.

'Perhaps if George remarried, Geoffrey Charles would be more willing to come home, make his home among us again.'

'I doubt if that would make so much difference. Not, that is, while the war lasts.' 'Well, at least thank God Jeremy has not gone.'
'No...'

Demelza came back, noticing his tone. 'You do not surely wish him to
go?...
Do you?'

Ross scowled his discomfort at the question. 'Of course not! Not my only son. But mixed feelings, as you must realize. This is not a colonial war
- not a war such as I fought in, which was a mistake from the beginning. This is a war for survival - our survival; and as such must be
...
fought out. If I
were younger - as you know
...'

'Yes, I know. But Jeremy's not a fighter - at least not in that way.'

‘
No, not in that way.'

'But he is working, is he not, for the mine?'

'Oh, indeed! I cannot fault him. He takes more man his fair share of any work that is going. I must admire him gready for all of it.' -

'Must?
'
Demelza said gently.

Ross shifted. 'We have been well enough together these last months. Since he discovered to me his passion for
the
properties of strong steam - since we had it out together as to why he had concealed it so long, and all the foolish subterfuge of his going fishing - since then we have been in good accord. Really, my love, I mean it.'

‘I
m glad. I still think sometimes he feels...' 'That he cannot escape from being the owner's son? That I understand. Perhaps if I went away again
..
'No.'

Ross put his hand over hers. 'At first, of course, I was so angry with him for putting me in a false position
...
And yet, after a time, I felt that more than half the fault was mine. If there is not the communication there should be between a father and a son, surely it is the father who mostly lacks the insight and the understanding.'

'Not always,' said Demelza. ‘I
have seen you make the effort. But anyway let it be. Forget it - if it is over.'

'It is over. But should not be forgotten, as an object lesson for us both. I mean for him and me.'

Demelza said: 'Even Mr Harvey was telling me what a talented son we have.'

'It is good to know he is so regarded.' Ross added: 'Thank God he seems to have grown out of his disappointment over Cuby Trevanion.'

She turned. 'He hasn't, Ross. I'm certain sure of that. More's the pity. If Clowance is in two minds, Jeremy is not. It's something I know. He grieves for that girl all the time.'

I

Friday was lowering, with nothing to illumine either sky or sea until late in the afternoon when a red grin appeared in the west where the sun was about to set. At the same time drifting rain moved over the land and a few partial and indistinct rainbows slid across the moorland to semaphore the end of the day.

Trenwith House, that property belonging to Geoffrey Charles Poldark; inherited from his father, long ago dead in a mining accident, looked at its coldest and most neglected as dusk began to fall. Bu
ilt of enduring Tudor stone and
designed with the natural elegance which seemed to come to those forgotten men who generally worked without benefit of architect, it had survived the endless ranting of storm and tempest for three centuries, and structurally it was still sound. A pane or two of glass was cracked, a gutter had rotted here and there and a chimney stack had split. But the roof of giant Delabole slates - put there, one would suppose, by a race of weight-lifters — had cared nothing for wind and weather, and all the granite mouldings, lintels and architraves were as sound as when they had been constructed in the year Henr
y VIII married Catherine of Ara
gon.

Throughout this time the house had rece
ived the intermit
tent consideration and negle
c
t of varying generations of Trenwiths and Poldarks who, according to their temperaments or fortunes, had used their home with greater or lesser loving care; but the gardens for the larger part of the three hundred years had received the minimum or attention. This was partly because on a poor, sandy and windswept soil gardening was an ill
-rewarded occupation, partly be
cause none or the Trenwiths or Poldarks had been notably
interested in flowers or shrubs and could find other uses for their usually limited funds. Only, paradoxically, when the house for the first rime moved out of the direct care of the family was money and time and attention spent. This was when Geoffrey Charles's young and beautiful widowe
d mother had married George Warl
eggan, the blacksmith's grandson and a new power in the mercantile world of the county. With Geoffrey Charles still a little boy, George had foreseen Trenwith as his own and his wife's country home for at least the next fifteen years, and not only had restored and refurbished the house with extravagance and excellent taste (chiefly his wife's) but had had the old stagnant pond cleared and made into an ornamental lake, and the gardens laid out and tended like a park.

For a few years Tren
with had glowed under this unex
pected attention, and the gardens, though ravaged by winds, had surprisingly repaid the care and time spent on them with flushes of brilliance and vigorous growth in the hot sun. But high noon had lasted too short a time: in five years Elizabeth was dead in childbirth and George, just become a knight bachelor, could no longer bear the sight of the house; it was occupied by Elizabeth's parents until they died, then the best of the new furniture was moved to George's other home at Cardew, and Trenwith left to the untender mercies of the Harry brothers and their one slatternly wife, who lived in the lodge house and intimidated the neighbourhood with their brutish ways. Geoffrey Charles Poldark, the rightful owner, was now twenty-seven, but a capta
in in the Monmouthshires, the 4
3rd, of the crack Light Division, fighting in Spain, and had not been to Cornwall for five years.

So the house for that length of time, which was since old Mr Chynoweth had died, had lain entirely empty, visited perhaps once a quarter by Sir George just to keep the Harrys up to scratch.

But visiting it occasionally - at first quite openly -
Clowance Poldark came. She loved the house and admired her cousin, what little she had seen of him, and being a girl without reservations or second thoughts she saw no reason at all why she shouldn't visit the house just whenever she chose - with or without the knowledge of the odious Harrys. Once indeed by the purest accident she had encountered Sir George himself. He had snarled at her - as being the interfering daughter of his worst enemy - but she had refused to be dragooned or intimidated into leaving - and there was not much physical force that even George could sanction for use on a pretty girl of sixteen with bare feet and fine skin and a luscious bosom; so she had stayed to leave him some flowers and departed in her own time.

But since Stephen Carrington came out of the sea to lure her with his strong arms and compulsive maleness, her visits had become clandestine, secretive, and therefore to her — however necessary - shameful, for she had an instinctive distaste for the least subterfuge. Worse still, it was at her instigation that the secrecy was maintained. He cared nothing for gossip and would have been happy to be seen with her anywhere in the world.

They met upstairs, in Geoffrey Charles's old bedroom, the one he had occupied as a little boy, the turret room, up the three steps and overlooking
the
courtyard. Some of Geoffrey Charles's old paintings and drawings still hung on the walls, curling and spotted with damp. The bed and chairs were draped in dust sheets, the faded curtains hung askew in the ebbing light. The house was tomb-cold and still. She was there a few moments before him, and when sh
e heard his footsteps very quietl
y on the stairs her mouth went dry, something swelled in her body and her knees went weak as if she had already swallowed a love-potion prepared by a witch.

His hand came cautiously round the door; he frowned at its sprained squeaking when he pushed it open; then his face lit up when he saw her standing there near the window in her muslin dress and heavy cloak.

'Clowance! Dear love! There's a good girl! I was afeared
...'

'What, that I would break my promise?'

'No, but someone might have crossed your will to be here. I know it is not easy for you
...'

He came towards her, but cautiously, not as he would have wanted to do, hungrily, encompassing her in his arms. Experience of her made nim calculating. She was like a bird, for all her sturdiness, easily put off, turned to flight. He put his hands experimentally on her shoulders, kissed each cheek and then her mouth, letting his lips linger but not insist. He withdrew before she did. He drew her to sit beside him on the bed, put
his
arm around her.

'Are you cold, me love?'

'Did anyone see you come?'

'I've been waiting for this all week, counting the hours.'

She said:
'It's good to be here.'

They talked, while he stroked her face and hands, kissing her
gently
, smoothing her body under its heavy cloak like someone who had to be reassured and pacified.

She said again: 'Did anyone see you come?'

'Not a soul
...
But I had just to get away from Jeremy. He wanted to talk
. I had to hurry back to the Nan
fans to take a wash and change me shirt before I came to see me dear love.'

'It's always dangerous,' she said. 'Villages have eyes everywhere.'

'Let
'em see what they want to see.
’

'Stephen, I don't wish what we feel for each other soiled by ugly gossip.'

'Then come into the open.'

She was silent, and for a moment he pressed no more, sitting quietly beside her.

He said: 'What's amiss with Jeremy? He's crossed over some girl, isn't he, too? He'll say nothing, but I know it's that way.'

'Cuby Trevanion is her name,' said Clowance. 'Is she pretty?'

'I've never seen her. He met her that time w
hen he went with you to the Scill
ies and brought your boat in near Mevagissey. When you went away for four or five months.'

'I know all that.'

‘
Well, he was given shelter by the Trevanions and met this girl then. She helped him out of some difficulty. He won't say what.'

'Maybe I can guess,' said Stephen sardonically. 'Yes, well He fell in love with her. I don't know if she loves him in return
...'
'Does she live at that great house? That castle place?' 'Yes. Caerhays, it's called.'

'So
‘
twould be a good thing for Jeremy, eh? A fine match, eh? What's the let?'

'Her brother—who's
head of the family - does not th
ink Jeremy is good enough.'

'Holy Mary, so that's how the la
nd lies! But I don't follow you!
The Poldarks are gentry too! What's he looking for, a duke?'

‘I
t is not so much a question of breeding as of money. For all their possessions, they are desperate hard up. They have overspent on the house and now need Miss Trevanion to marry a rich man.'

Stephen kissed her, moving his lips about the corner of
her mouth, lifting her lip with his own. 'Well, dear God, I'm
sorry for him! But does not Miss Trevanion have some say
in the matter?'

'So far as I can make out she conceives it her duty to do as her brother wishes.'

'Then if she has no more will of her own than that I'd say Jeremy is well out of it!'

'A feeling of family duty takes people various ways.'

It was a significant comment. After a moment he said: 'Maybe him and me are in the same boat.'

'Do vou think so?'

'Well, both deep in love with a girl whose family don't think we're good enough for them.'

'My family don't yet know.'

'They must have a fair inkling.'

'Yes,' Clowance agree
d. 'They have a fair inkling.'

'That's why they took you away twice - first to London, then to this rich Lord's house in Wiltshire.'

'They didn't take me away. I went of my own accord.'

'Why?'

'Why? Because I wanted to - distance myself from you -try to be more sure.'

'And are you?'

‘I
think so. Though
...
I still
h
ear
things.
’

‘
Things!' he said scornfully. 'What do gossip matter? They link me name with every mopsy I so much as look at, let alone exchange a word with over a glass of ale!'

For a change she kissed him. ‘I
know, Stephen. It is the punishment for being such a good-looking man.'

-Slowly now, even under the shelter of her cloak there began the gentle but urgent exchange of love-play. She was as hungry for Stephen as he was for her, and she doubted her strength in the face of his importunities to continue to refuse him. Presently she half stood up, half broke away from him, her clothes untied and unbuttoned, her stockings fallen about her ankles, stood taking deep breaths, half swaying against him.

He said: 'Come here next week, same time. I'll light a fire, make the room comfortable, cosy. This window faces the courtyard. Who
could see?'

He thought she moved her head in a negative.

He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, trying to steady himself too. 'I'm no saint, Clowance, but I'm lost with you like no other ever and I want to be wed to you, and I can't say more. It is me dearest wish. But it can't go on like this. If it goes on like this, one of these days
...'

'One of these days?'

'One of these days lying rumours will maybe come true.'

'About you and some other woman?'

‘
Yes.
’

She was very still. 'Who is to say it might not be just the same if I married you ?'

it
would
not be, I swear it. For the
need
will have gone! D'you understand me, Clowance? Do you at all? Men are not born to be monks. Least, I'm not, and I reckon most are the same. When you're on board ship, it is a mite different. ' You're living hard, working hard, maybe fighting; the thoughts and the desires don't come - leastwise if it's women you care for. But here, there's girls in Grambler and Sawle and St Ann's ready for an easy laugh and a joke and then what follows. And here I am eaten up with desire for a girl who won't give way to me! Every time I see you it make it worse.'

'D'you think I am -unmoved? D'you know all that much about women?'

'Maybe not. But a man's desire can reach a point where the need will
force
him to look elsewhere.'

A moon was rising but it gave little light inside this room. She half saw, half imagined the expression on his face, which could look so boyish when it smiled, so mature and experienced in displeasure. She realized the truth of what he said. By offering him a partial love she was putting him in a physically intolerable position. Yet if she gave herself to him without marriage society looked on it as the unforgivable
sin
. For a poor girl of the parish, of course, it was nothing out of the way to become pregnant by a man before she married: it proved to him that they could have children; and if he refused to marry her and support the child he could go to prison on a bastardy charge. But for a girl of the Poldark class, while the matter would be hushed up and the wedding hurried on, the scandal would be soiling, tawdry; beyond contemplation for her.