The Miller's Dance (42 page)

For more than an hour Jeremy sat in the dark. Sometimes his feelings induced a claustrophobia which made him want to burst open the lattice window, shattering the glass into the yard below. He wanted to shout to get out. But it was not the house he wanted to flee from, it was himself. However far he ran over the cliffs or across the beach, his own mind, his knowledge of what was going to happen, his own feelings about it, would dog his footsteps as inescapably as a moon shadow. There was no repeal, no avoidance, no hope.

The rattle of feet in the passage and the door shivered open. Isabella-Rose.

.
'Jeremy! I wondered where you was! Why're you sitting in the dark?'

‘
I
was counting the moths,' Jeremy said.

'Oh, stupid! Here, you stole my
hairl
Mama's just shown me. You long-leggety beastie! Stealing my
hair!’

'You've got plenty more. Look, what's all this? And all this ? Enough to make a beard for a beggar!'

She squeaked and slid away from him. 'Supper's almost ready! What d'you think of the baby? Isn't he
ugly}
Uglier even than
you.
What are we going to christen him?'

'I'd call him Bellamy,' said Jeremy. 'Bella and Bellamy would go well together.'

'Then I'd call him Gerald. Gerald and Jeremy.'

'Or Clarence to go with Clowance. Doesn't Mama really know?'

‘I
f she knows she's not telling. Come along, I was sent to fetch you.'

Jeremy allowed himself to be towed out into the light and jollity or the rooms downstairs.

I

They called him Henry, after an uncle of Demelza's. And Vennor, after Ross - and Ross's mother who had been a Vennor. A dny baby, five pounds at birth and less than six at the christening. If Henry was tiny Demelza was a waif and reminded Ross, he told her, of the day he had given her a lift back from Redruth Fair.

She smiled at him.
I
'm not as scared of you now.'

'More's the pity. You'd recover your health more quickly if you obeyed me.'

'By eating more? Ross, I'm eating like a horse!'

'More like a bony mare.'

'A bony pony.' She giggled at her own joke.

He said: 'But serious. You
do
remind me.'

‘
I
wish it was that again. I'd wish for
all
my life over again from the moment you brought me home here as a dirty urchin!'

'Like to be swilled under the pump?'

'That water was
cold.
I mind it was cold.'

'Well, you'd have to take the rough with the smooth.'

'Yes, yes. And find Jud scratching his bald head and predicting doom. And Prudie and her feet. And my father coming to take me home
...
But there was lots of smooth too, wasn't there. You must admit there was lots of
smooth,
Ross.' She drawled the word.

She was in one of her provocative moods this afternoon. She looked about twenty-five and interested in men. It boded ill for their own relationship, if their intention was to keep that relationship chaste.

‘
He said abrupdy: it's time I went away.'

'Are you tired of us?'

'Of course. Cannot endure you any longer.'

'Seriously?'

'Seriously, my reasons are more self-sacrificing.' 'That would be a sad mistake, now that I am coming ' brave.'

'You must be left alone to come brave.' 'Who said so?'

I
say so. Look at you now, like a skittish colt! By all rights you should be
fat
and sitting in a big armchair in front of the fire with a shawl round your shoulde
rs, smelling of milk and babies’
clouts.'

'Would you like me like that?'

.'Never mind what I would like. It would be a safer situation. Safer for you.'

She stared out at the slanting sunshine falling across her garden. It was in fairly good trim, but small things had been neglected during the last two months when she had felt too listless to work in it herself. Even the withered brown relics of the lilac flowers on the old tree by the parlour window had not been cut off.

She said: 'You don't live to be
safe,
Ross. You live to be alive, to take a deep breath of the air and to know your heart is beating! After Isabella-Rose was born I d
id not conceive for nearly ten y
ears. There is no reason why I should conceive again for another ten years; and by then twill be too late.'

'Come along,' he said roughly. 'The others are waiting.'

‘I
f you desert me now,' she said, 'for some fancy guinea-hen in London I shall think very hard on you.'

'Damn you,' he said, in another two weeks I will ask Dwight -'

.. 'Oh, fiddle to Dwight. It is not any business of his.'

He put his hand on her shoulder. 'Well, maybe I will consider you suitable when I can no longer discern that bone so plain.'

'D'you think I'm a goose hanging in a poulterer's?' she said. 'Because if I were ever to buy a goose,
that's
not the part I would feel.'

His sudden explosion of laughter brought the children hurrying in, but neither of the elders would explain what the fun was about. A few minutes later they were all riding decorously off to church.

II

The church and churchyard were crowded. Everyone, it seemed, in the district of Sawle and Grambler and Mellin and Marasanvose had heard of the birth of a second son to the Poldarks and everyone wished to be there for the christening. There was simply no room for all who wanted to get into the church, and to make things worse Jud Paynter arrived at the last moment on a sort of throne-litter borne by four of his young neighbours, the two in the van being Art and Music Thomas. It was a lark, of course, but they had promised there should be no fooling, and Prudie followed behind them carrying a stick to crack over their heads if they did not behave. Jud sat on the top of it all like a careworn and unspiritual Buddha, staring gloomily at the too-distant ground and trying to keep his old felt hat in place. Everything about him looked rusty, from his eyes and his nose to the blanket stained with iron-mould that someone at the last minute had thrown over his shoulders.

'Could as well be carred to me buryin',' he said. 'Twill be me next journey this way, and good shut to the world, I d'say. Poor little meader up thur,' he added in a loud voice, as soon as he got in church, pointing towards the font, "e don't know what 'e's in fur, that'e don't, else 'e'd be turning tail and going backsyfore the way 'e come. To save his self from the fi
res of 'e
ll and damnation, like all you folk 'ere. 'Ell and damnation to all of ye what 'aven't repented!'

'Hist your noise!' whispered Prudie. 'Ye promised ye'd be quiet, ye old gale.'

'Gale yerself!' said Jud.
'Hey
up,
men! Load me if I didn't think ye was a-going to drop me like a basket of eggs!
Easy thur!’

He was slowly brought to ground, his carriers, sweating freely, having apologized for stepping on the toes of, and elbowing, the people around them. Prudie, to his intense annoyance, whipped off his hat.

A degree of silence settled in the church while the Reverend Clarence Odgers was led in by his wife. There was nothing wrong with Mr Odgers's eyesight or his legs, it was' Only that his memory took in things like messages breathed on glass. It had even gone downhill since the opening of the mine: now, if not watched closely, he was as liable to marry Henry Poldark to his godmother, Caroline Enys, or indeed begin the words of committal on Jud - 'earth to earth, ashes to ashes' - which some possibly wou
ld
nave considered a sign of wishful thinking on the vicar's part. Jud had been a thorn in his side far too long.

'Thou shalt not move thy neighbour's landmark!' Jud said suddenly. 'That's what the Good Book d'say, an' mark my words and no missment, if ye don't obey the Good Book ye'll be cast into the burnin' fiery furnace along wi' Shamrock, Mishap and Abendego. But ye'll not come out like
they
come out—
Aa
h!'

Prudie, not having needed the stick for his bearers, now rapped him on his bald head for silence. He turned like an empurpled frog, only to see the stick raised again, and he was constrained to swallow his fury, the noise of the fury reverberating in his windpipe like a pumping engine sucking up mud instead of water.

Thereafter the baptism would have proceeded uninterrupted had Mr Odgers not got it into his head that Henry was to be christened Charles. Three times he dipped his fingers in the water and began: 'Charles Vennor I baptize thee...' and it was only at the fourth attempt he got it right, by which time Henry Vennor was crying the church down and Bella had got a fit of the giggles.

The brief ceremony over, Jud's four bearers hurried to get him out of church and by the church door in time to receive the piece of christening cake that was traditionally presented by the parents to the first person they met coming out of the church.

'Blessed be the man that ham not walked in
the
counsels of the ungodly,' called Jud as he was borne out like a sinking lugger in a rough sea, 'nor stood in the way of sinners - Gor damme, whafre ee about - tossing me 'ere and thur wi' no more consarn 'n if you was bearing a sack o' taties!'

But he was sitting quietly, a smirk on his face, all ready to take the cake that Demelza handed him, and he held tight to it with his big grubby hand and would not allow Prudie a sight of it.

The only notable absentee from the church was Stephen Carrington.

III

It was altogether a noisy Christmas for the Poldarks. By a piece of unpremeditated timing, while everyone was out at the christening, a large bullock cart drew up at the stream, and after some manoeuvring managed to cross it and arrived at the front door of Nampara, where the two drivers alighted and, finding no answer to the bell, scuffed their feet and blew on their fists until a great crocodile of people appeared wending its way on horse, on pony, and on foot down the valley. The bullock cart contained the grand piano Ross had bought earlier in the month.

Room had been made for it in the library, but edging it, even bereft of its legs, through the narrow door was a tricky job. Men struggled and spat on their hands and heaved and called advice to each other all through the early part of the christening tea, and it was late in the evening, when everyone who was going had at last gone, before Demelza had a chance of trying it. With great difficulty Isabella-Rose was persuaded that until she grew up the spinet in the parlour was good enough for her, except for the special occasion. Demelza played a dozen pieces that evening, and most of her family tried to put her off by singing out of tune.

On Christmas Day the Enyses came to dinner with their two little girls, and Sam and Rosina Carne; and on St Stephen's Day the Trenegloses came over, and Paul and Daisy Kellow.

The Kellows brought the Friday newspaper with them carrying the headline
'Total
Defeat
of
the
French
Army!
’
This dispatch confirmed that of the 17th but went even further. Davoust's Corps had been completely destroyed. What remained of the French army had been confronted by two Russian armies barring their way on the Beresina. Led by the Emperor himself, the French had broken through, but had left 12,000 drowned in the river and 20,000 more as prisoners. Of all his great army of half a million men, it was said Napoleon had now only 10,000 left. At Warsaw he had taken coach for Paris and abandoned these remnants to their fate.

It was a time for dancing again on tables, and if the Poldarks could not quite achieve that, they did their best most ways. The piano, like a new and handsome toy, came in for much use, with ever more singing. Demelza played any number of old Cornish songs as well as all the favourite carols.

Since her return from Flushing Clowance had caught sight of Stephen twice, but had not been trapped into a direct confrontation as at Pally's Shop. Ferocious rumours of his doings sometimes reached her. But on the 27th a young man called Tom Guildford appeared just as they were sitting down to dinner and gratefully accepted an invitation to stay. It seemed that he had much of a taking for their elder daughter, and made no secret of the fact.

'That's better,' said Ross in an aside to Demelza after.

'D'you like him, then?'

'So far as I can tell. But I am not so much comparing him favourably with Stephen as welcoming
another
young man just for comparison. She became committed too soon.'

Demelza remembered a conversation she had had with Caroline Enys on this particular subject a couple of years ago. It was certainly better to see many, but in the end did it matter how many one saw?

All through Christmas Jeremy was in the highest spirits. He flirted outrageously with Daisy, made puns and ludicrous jokes at the dinner table, got drunk and had to be helped to bed. He was absent on the evening of the 28th and
Clowance, by chance encountering him as he was tiptoeing in very late, was certain he had had a woman. Her sharp nose picked up a whiff of ch
eap scent. There was not much
open prostitution in this district, the nearest being in Truro; but no doubt there would be not a few in the villages Willing to oblige the future master of Nampara. Clowance hoped he did not get landed with a paternity suit. She did speculate for a moment about Daisy, but she knew the next time they met that it had not been so.

The only trouble was there seemed no overt reason for Jeremy's explosive good spirits. Sometimes it was more like rage than laughter.

On Tom Guildford's second visit he said he had ridden most of the way with Valentine, who had branched off to pay his respects to the Pope family at Trevaunance and would be coming on to Nampara within the hour. After some lively chatter Jeremy went off to the mine, claiming a crisis there, and was not seen again until bedtime, by which the two young men had left. To Demelza's indignant complaint that he had missed both his dinner and his supper, Jeremy replied that he would raid the larder right away and make up for lost opportunities. Remembering what had happened to Francis, Demelza was never easy when one of her family was out on mining business and did not return when expected, so she had discreetly sent Matthew Mark Martin off to Wheal Leisure about seven to make inquiries. The information was that Jeremy had left the mine at six with Paul Kellow. When he eventually returned home he offered no explanation as to his whereabouts and no one asked.