The Miller's Dance (6 page)

'Fifty-nine. No age at all.'

'Oh, I agree. But when one is nearing sixty it may be wise to ease off
a
little, take life at a slower pace.'

‘I
believe this to be an unhealthy climate,' said Mr Pope. 'Much of the putrid fever that is about derives or is spread from the malignancy of the mineral effluvia. When I settled here I certainly had not taken these facts into account.'

'You are not at present suffering from a putrid fever. You have over-taxed your strength. You must rest more, that is all. Living a quiet and ordered life will help you a great deal.'

Pope said irritably: 'In what way do you suppose I do
not
lead an ordered and quiet life? As you must know, I am
retired
here. I manage my property, look to the education of my daughters, accompany Mrs Pope on social visits. Since
‘I
broke my collar-bone two years ago I no longer ride to hounds. I retire to bed sober. I seldom over-eat. I become angry only at the most flagrant disobedience. My life is most placid and well regulated.'

'Quite so, quite so.' Dwight's eyes flickered towards Mrs Pope and away again. It was not his business to speculate on what the relationship was between them and whether Mr Pope felt himself under an obligation to accommodate his pretty young wife in other ways besides accompanying her, on social visits to their neighbours. 'Well, Mr Pope, I believe your heart to be over-tired, to have been under some strain, and for that the best medicine - better than any I can prescribe - is light exercise with ample rest.'

Presently he was walking down
the
stairs with Mrs Pope floating beside him.

'I'm sorry,' he said, 'if my diagnosis has somewhat upset your husband. I thought not to say more, but came to the conclusion that if I left him unsatisfied he would disregard my advice.'

'Totally,' said Mrs Pope with a slight smile. 'He can be a very stubborn man—and a difficult patient. But are you sure it is his heart?'

'One can seldom be sure of anything, Mrs Pope. Medicine is
mostly
guesswork, which becomes more accurate with practice. I would have thought
...'

‘
Yes?'

'I would have thought the symptoms were completely typical of an anginal condition. But they could also be caused by stone in the gall-bladder; or even by a form of dyspepsia in which the food comes back into the gullet instead of being properly ingested. We can only wait and see.'

D
wight was shown out, as he had been shown in, by Katie Carter. Katie did not exactly tower over Dwight, but seemed to as she handed him his cloak because tall, big women always appear bigger than they really are. Dwight of course knew almost everyone in the district and they knew him. He had first treated Katie for a summer cholera when she was nine and had seen her a couple of times medically since. Katie smiled at him broadly now and dropped his hat, then almost dislodged her cap as she stooped to pick it up. Strange, Dwight thought, that she should be so clumsy where her brother was so deft.

Strange too that Mr Pope should insist that his indoor staff should be entirely of women. He was like a thin little sultan ruling over a harem. But at the moment, Dwight was sure, the sultan was sick.

III

Dwight had not yet left the grounds when he saw ahead of him a blond-haired man walking up the hill at the far side of the valley in company with a thin gangling youth whose manner of walking on tiptoe was easily identifiable. The first was Stephen Carrington, the second Music Thomas, the oddest or the three odd bachelor brothers who lived next to Jud and Prudie Paynter in Grambler. Music worked part time, or as much time as
he was allowed to, as a stable-b
oy at Place House. He was good with horses and was paid three shillings a week for his trouble; for the rest he got a midday meal there and that was enough. Stephen had a spade over his shoulder.

As Dwight came up they both stopped and turned.

'Good day to you, Stephen, good day, Music. Are you both going my way?'

'Marning, sur,' said Music. It was actually evening.

'Dr Enys,' said Stephen. 'Good day to you indeed. You bound for Grambler village?'

'Near enough.'

'I'm going part way but have a message for Sally Chill-off in
Sawle.'

'I be gwan that way, sur,' said Music, beaming. 'I be gwan right 'ome.'

Dwight slowed his horse to keep pace with them. It was this companionableness that endeared him to the villagers. He had not changed a de
gree since he was an unsophisti
cated, barely fledged boy of twenty-four, living in Captain Poldark's tiny Gatehouse, with no experience of doctoring except what he had learned from books and as a student in London, and very little more experience of women or human nature either. Now, forty-nine years of age, widely experienced, correspondent of famous men, called up to London sometimes for consultation, it was rumoured, and married to an heiress and living in one of the big houses, he still made time to slow his horse and chat.

'If you wonder for me spade,' volunteered Stephen, 'I work two days a week on St Ann's pier. It is in a poor way after
the
storms. Many of the granite blocks is part dislodged.'

'I doubt they'll ever make it secure against the worst gales,' Dwight said. 'There's not enough of a natural barrier provided by the cliffs. At least not from the northwest. The wind brings the waves directly in upon it.'

'He'll never stand,' said Music in his thin alto voice;
'the wind bring the waves directl
y in upon him.'

'I came round this way,' Stephen said, 'to leave a message for Music. Music works in the stables at Place House, y' know.'

'Yes, I know.'

'His brothers be going to take out their boat tonight -they have her
at
St Ann's - but Art has taken this fever
that
is abroad, so he can't go. They want - John and his mates want Music to take his place.'

'Gwan fetch my gear,' said Music. 'He'm all over to Grambler, you. Brother say, be over by sundown. Can just do that, I reckon.'

Dwight looked
at
the sky. 'There's wind about somewhere.'

Music smiled. 'Nay, tis narthin'. He'm only dappled mackerel, sur. He'll pipe up for a while when the sun d'

drop, but twill all be over in a hour or two.'

"Wish I was going with 'em,' said Stephen. 'I've never had aught to do with fishing but I'd like a night afloat'

'Shall you go back to sea in the end?'

Stephen glanced at Dwight to see if the question was
loaded. Concluding it was not, he
said: it depends, Dr Enys. Sooner or later maybe. But living here, it is like being at sea.' 'On the whole I prefer to be a landlubber.' 'You can hardly call yourself that, surgeon.' 'What d'you mean?'

'Well, you being once in the Navy.’

Dwight laughed, it seems a long time ago.' The direct track to Sawle Combe came into view, and Stephen, went off down it, spade on shoulder, his gait, it seemed, a little more rolling for the talk of being afloat. Music's gait continued as of a man making a carefree way t
hrough a minefield. 'Surgeon.' ‘
Yes?'

'That's what Stephen Carrington d'call ee. Surgeon. I like that. Could I call ee surgeon too?' if you wish.'

'You bein' once in the Navy, sur.' 'That's true.'

Dwight watched Stephen disappear down
the
hill. He wondered why Stephen had seemed a little over-anxious to explain his presence near Place House. Why should he? What did it matter? Or was he imagining something
that
hadn't been there?

'What's amiss wi' me, surgeon?' Music Thomas asked, smiling.

'Amiss? I don't know that anything is. Are you not well?'

'Oh, ais. Brave. Sur. Surgeon
...
Ha! Sur be short for surgeon, eh?'

if you like to look on it that way.'

‘I
don't mean to be insolent, sur. You d'know Parson Odgers?... You d'know what he d'say 'bout me once? He say I be in
the
front rank of the insolent squad. Ted
’
n my intention, like! Ted
’
n my wish to be in the insolent squad! It be just that I don't always knows just 'ow to be'ave, see?'

'Of course.'

'So if I d'say surgeon when I didn't ought to, tis not a wish I'ave to be in the insolent squad
...'
He ti
ptoed a few yards in silence.'Sur, what be amiss wi'
me?'

'You haven't told me what is wrong with you?'

‘I
never 'ad no sickness in me life, not
ever,
see?
But folk d'laugh at me! Boys d'l
eer. Girls
...'
Still smiling, Music swallowed his large adam's apple as if he had a quinsy. 'Even Brothers. Both on em! They treat me like I were half an eedgit! Mebbe I aren't a one for schoolin', but I aren't a lubber-head neither! I think to myself, mebbe surgeon'll know.'

They went on a way without further conversation. Dwight glanced
at
the young man. He was about twenty, and outward signs were that he had not yet come to puberty. He was altogether an unusual figure, with his walk, his tall stooping weedy figure, and his voice; and country villages seldom took kindly - or silently - to the unusual. Dwight had always looked on him as a hollow young man. There was certainly nothing wrong with his counter-tenor voice when it soared in church, but in speech or in laughter it sounded false, empty of feeling. Sometimes too his eyes were empty, hollow, as if sentience had left them. One knew the look so well in the young man or woman who walked crooked and dribbled at the mouth and had fits: there were enough of such about, products of a brother-sister or father-daughter parentage, or of a midwife's mishandling at birth or any other of a dozen misalignments. Dwight had always put Music down as a borderline case: demonstrably odd but not quite a simpleton. He had got himself into mischief once or twice but so far had kept out of the hands of the law.

But this question he was putting
...
Some simpletons, in Dwight's experience, were sensitive enough; but to them it was the world that was at fault, not themselves. It seemed that Music felt that the fault was in himself and vaguely detected the causes. It put him in a different category. And if Dwight was not mistaken, it was something new. As if he had only just come to realize his peculiarities.

'Do you shave, Music?'

'Well
..
. more or less, sur. Most times I
cut
off’n wi scissors. If I go Barber ‘ed
make game.'

'Your voice has not yet broken. That is unusual in a man.'

'Drop
‘
n on the floor and scat'n to jowds,' said Music with a secret smile.

'When you walk, why do you not put your heels down?'

'When I were a tacker I walked on some 'ot coals. When it 'ealed over twas tender for so long I got into this way o' walking.'

'So if yo
u got into this way of walking you could get out of it?'

'Couldn' now,' said Music, a cloud coming over his face. 'Why not?
’
'Couldn'now.'

Four small boys were working a field with two teams of oxen and were chanting their usual encouragement.
'Now
then, Beauty,
come
on, Tartar;
now
then, Britain,
come
along, Cloudy;
now
then, Beauty,
come
on, Tartar;
now
then, Britain,
come
along, Cloudy.' They could have been young novitiates at their plainsong. Then one of them spoi
led it by seeing Music and whistl
ing rudely through his fingers.

Dwight said: 'In this world people - folk - do not like what is different from themselves. To be happy perhaps it is necessary to be as nearly like everyone else as possible. Do you follow me?'

‘
Ais, I reckon.'

'Because you are different they make fun. It is - a form of ignorance, but you cannot change it. But perhaps you can change yourself. Have you ever tried to talk—deeper, more in the back of the throat?'

'Nay.'

Try. You don't need to - what is it? - drop it on the floor and scat it to jowds. A man I knew once in London had just such a voice as yours for singing, but in speech his voice was as deep and firm as the next man's. It might be worth your trying.'

'They'd laugh the more.'

'Possibly. But they could not laugh so much if you altered your way of walking too.'

Music's attention appeared to be straying, as if the act of concentration could not be sustained too long. Or perhaps it was because Dwight's replies were unwelcome to him.