Ross Poldark (34 page)

Demelza began to feel that she was caught in a trap which was only just beginning to show its teeth.

There was silence. A curlew had come down in the field and was taking its little run forward, crested head down, and uttering its sad “pee-wit” sound. She looked across at Prudie, who had gathered up her tools and was ambling
untidily towards the house. She stared at the field of turnips, half thinned out, the other half to do. Her eyes went across the sand and the sand hills to the cliff where two huts were being built and men moved like ants on the summer skyline. Wheal Leisure.

She couldn’t leave this. Not for anything. She had come to look upon it all, quick and dead, all things alike, as owned by it and owning. She was fiercely attached to it. And of course to Ross. If this were anything for him she was being asked to do it would be different, but instead she was expected to desert him. Not until she came here had she lived at all. Though she did not consciously reason so, all the early part of her life was like a dark prenatal nightmare, thought and imagined and feared rather than suffered.

“Where's Cap’n Poldark?” Tom Carne said, his voice having hardened again at her silence. “I come to see him. I got to explain and then ’e’ll understand. There’ll be no call for wrastling this time.”

That was true. Ross would not stop her going. He might even expect it of her.

“He's from home,” she said bluntly. “ ’E’ll not be back till dark.”

Carne moved round to meet her gaze, as in the old days he had sidled round to grip an opponent.

“You can’t do nothing ’bout un. You got to come.”

She looked at him. She saw for the first time how coarse and common he really was. His cheeks sagged and his nose was crossed with tiny red veins. But then all the gentlemen were not like the one she served.

“You can’t expect me to say ‘yes,’ just like that and come away, after all these years. I got to see Cap’n Ross. He engaged me by the year. I’ll see what he says and leave you know.” That was it. Get him off the farm before Ross came back, get him away and allow herself time to think.

Tom Carne was eyeing his daughter in return, keenly, with a tinge of suspicion. Only now did he take in the full change in her, the way she had advanced, matured, grown to a woman's shape. He was not a man to mince matters.

“Is there any sin twixt you and Poldark?” he demanded in a low sharp voice, in the old voice of old Tom Carne.

“Sin?” said Demelza.

“Aye. Don’t look so innocent.”

Her mouth tightened. The instinct of an outgrown fear saved him from a reply he would not quite have expected from a daughter's lips—even though they were words she had learned from him.

“There's nought twixt us except what should be between master and servant. But you did ought to know I’m hired by the year. I can’t walk out without so much as a by-your-leave.”

“There's talk about you,” he said. “Talk that comes so far as Illuggan. Whether us all lies or no, tedn’t right for a young girl to be mixed up in such talk.”

“It's nothing to do wi’ me what folks say.”

“That's as may be. But I don’t want for a dattur o’ mine to be mingled up in such talk. When will he be home?”

“Not till nightfall, I say. He's gone to Truro.”

“Well, ’tis a long way for me to walk ’ere again. Tell un what I’ve telled you and then come you over to Illuggan. If you’re not back by the end of the week, I’ll come over again. If ’tis Cap’n Poldark putting obstacles, I’ll talk un over with ’im.”

Tom Carne hitched up his trousers and fingered the buckle of his belt. Demelza turned and walked slowly towards the house, and he followed.

“After all,” he said on a more palliative note, “I’m not asking more’n any dattur would do.”

“No,” she said. (Buckle end of a strap when it suited him; sores on her back, ribs you could count, dirt and crawlers; not more than any daughter would do!)

As they reached the house Jud Paynter came out with a bucket of water. He raised his bald eyebrows at the sight of the other man.

Tom Carne said: “Where's your master?”

Jud stopped and set down his bucket and eyed Carne and spat. “Over to Truro.”

“What time will ’e be home?”

Demelza held her breath. Jud shook his head. “Tonight mebbe. Or tomorrow.”

Carne grunted and walked on. At the front of the house he sat on the seat and took off his boot. Complaining of his corns, he began to press the boot into a more comfort able shape. Demelza could have screamed at him. Jud had told the truth as far as he knew it. But Ross had told her he expected to be back for supper at six. It was now after five.

Tom Carne began to tell her about her brothers. The five eldest were all at work in mines—or had been until two were put off when Wheal Virgin closed. The youngest, Drake, was starting as forge boy at a wheelwright's next week. John and Bobbie were both saved and had joined the society, and even Drake nearly always went to the meetings, although he was too young to be admitted. Only Samuel was erring. His conviction had worn away and the Lord had not seen fit to send him mercy. It was to be hoped that when she, Demelza, came back among them, she would soon lay hold of the blessing.

At another time she would have found quiet fun in his new talk, which for all its glibness fitted him as ill as a Sunday suit. She took in the news of her brothers, of whom she was as fond as they had allowed her to be. But above all was the need to see him gone. She could have kicked him to move his great slow body, fallen on him with her nails and drawn red scratches across his coarse complacent face. Even when he left she didn’t know what was to be done. But at least she would have time to think. She would have time. But if he stayed here talking all day until Ross came home, then Ross would hear of it tonight and that would be the end. Ross would invite her father to sleep here and bundle them off in the morning.

She stood quivering and watched him while he bent to pull on his boot, angrily offered to buckle it, jerked upright and stood again silently watching him while he picked up his stick and made ready to go.

She walked with him, two paces ahead of him to the bridge, and then he stopped again.

“You’ve nought much to say,” he observed, eyeing her again. “Tedn’t like ee to be so silent. Have you still enmity and uncharitableness in your heart?”

“No, Father,” she said quickly. “No, Father. No.”

He swallowed and sniffed again. Perhaps he too felt a strangeness in talking this flowery language to the child he had been wont to order and bully around. In the old days a grunt and a curse had been enough.

He said slowly and with an effort: “I forgive ee fully and altogether for leavin’ me when you did, and I ask forgiveness, God's forgiveness, fur any wrong I did ee with the strap in my drink. There’ll be no more o’ that, dattur. We’ll welcome you among us like the lost sheep back to the fold. Nellie too. Nellie’ll be a mother to ee—what you’ve lacked this pretty many year. She's been a mother to my flock, and now God's giving her her own.”

He turned and stumped off across the bridge. Standing on one leg and then the other, she watched him go up slowly into the young green of the valley and prayed urgently and angrily—was it to the same God?—that he should not meet Ross on the way.

“They calves want feeding,” said Prudie. “An’ my poor feet is tryin’ me something bitter. Sometimes I’d like to saw off me toes one by one. Saw ’em off I would, wi’ that old garden saw.”

“Here,” said Demelza.

“What's that?”

“The carving knife. Chop ’em off and then you’ll be settled. Where's the meal porridge?”

“Well to jest,” said Prudie, wiping her nose on her hand. “Iggerance always jests. You wouldn’t jest when the knife were gratin’ on the bone. And I’d do it if twere not for considering what Jud would do without un. In bed he says my feet are as good as a warmin’ pan; nay, betterer, for they don’t cool down as the night goes on.”

If she went, Demelza thought, there was no need to go so soon. August, he had said. Tomorrow was the last day of May. She need not stay more than a month; then she could come back here to her old duties.

She shook her head. Things would not turn out like that. Once home she stayed home. And whether the ruling force was the leather strap or religious zeal she had a feeling that her job would be the same. She tried to remember what the Widow Chegwidden had looked like behind the counter of her little shop. Dark and small and fat, with fluffy hair under a lace cap. Like one of those little black hens with red combs that would never lay their eggs in the box, but always hid them away and then before you knew where you were they were sitting on a dozen and had gone broody. She had made Tom Carne a good wife; would she make a good stepmother? Plenty worse, maybe.

Demelza didn’t want a stepmother, nor a father, nor even a spawn of brothers back. She was not afraid of work, but there she would be working in a home where no kindness had ever been shown her. Here, for all her ties, she was free; and she worked with people she had grown to like and for a man she adored. Her way of seeing things had changed; there were happinesses in her life she had not understood until they were on her. Her soul had blossomed under them. The abilities to reason and think and talk were new to her—or they had grown in a way that amounted to newness, from the gropings of a little animal concerned only for its food and safety and a few first needs. All that would be stopped. All these new lights would go out; snuffers would be put on the candles and she would see no more.

Not heeding Prudie, she slopped the meal porridge into a bucket and went out with it for the six calves. They greeted her noisily, pushing at her legs with their soft damp noses. She stood there and watched them eat.

Her father, by asking if there was any sin between herself and Ross, meant of course exactly the same as those women at Grambler and Sawle who sometimes
would turn and stare after her with greedy curious eyes. They were all thinking that Ross…

Red-faced, she gave a little half-scornful titter in the shadows. People were always thinking things; it was a pity they couldn’t think up something more likely. Did they think that if she… that if Ross… would she then be living and breathing as an ordinary servant? No. She would be so filled with pride that everyone would know the truth without having to whisper and peer and pry.

Ross Poldark lying with the child he had befriended and swilled under the pump and scolded and taught and joked with over the pilchards in Sawle! He was a man, and maybe he wanted his pleasures like any other man, and maybe he took them on his visits to town. But she would be the last person he would turn to, she whom he knew so well, who had no strangeness, no pretty dresses, no paint and powder, no shy secrets to hide from him. Fools people were with their double-damned, soft-silly imaginings.

The six calves were fussing round her, rubbing their heads against her body, sucking at her arms and frock with their wet mealy mouths. She pushed them away and they came back again. They were like thoughts, other people's and her own, pressing upon her, worrying her all at one time, sly and impossible and suggestive, importunate and friendly and hopeful.

What a fool her father was! With the sudden adultness of a growing wisdom she saw that for the first time. If there was
anything
between herself and Ross, like he suggested, would she even for an instant have listened to him asking her to go back? She would have said: “Back? I’m not coming back! This is where I belong!”

Perhaps it was. Perhaps Ross would refuse to let her go. But there was no proper feeling for her on his part, not beyond a kindly interest. He would as soon become used to her not being in the parlour as he had to her being there. That was not enough, not near enough…

One of the calves trampled on the bucket and sent it rolling to the back of the stall. She went after it, picked it up, and in the darkness of the shed, in the corner right away from the light, she came up against the most terrible thought of her life. It startled her so much that she dropped the bucket again. The bucket clattered and rolled and was still. For several moments she stood there holding to the partition, her mind cold and frightened.

Madness. He would think her drunk and turn her out of the house, as he had threatened her after that fight with Jud.

But then she must go; by any reckoning she must go… There would be no loss. But she would have to take his contempt with her. A big price to pay. Even if she succeeded, she might still earn his contempt. But
she would not go.
She picked up the bucket again and gripped it with whitening knuckles.

The calves came again, pushing at her frock and hands. Her mood wilted. It was not the right or the wrong that troubled her. It was the fear of his contempt. The idea was bad. Put it away. Lose it. Bury it.

She pushed the calves impatiently aside, let herself out and walked across the cobbles to the kitchen. Prudie was still there rubbing her flat bunioned feet on a dirty towel.

The kitchen smelt of feet. She was still grumbling, might never have noticed that Demelza had been away.

“One o’ these days I shall go off like a snip o’ the finger.
Then
folk’ll be sorry for driving of me. Then folk’ll be sorry. But what good will that do me, an? What good do it do to shed bitter tears over a cold corpse? ’Tis a little more kindness I want now while the breathin's still in me.” She glanced up. “Now don’t tell me you’ve caught a fever. Don’t tell me that.”

“There's nothing wrong wi’ me.”

“There must be. You’re sweating awful.”

“It's
hot
,” said Demelza.

“An’ what’re ee doing bringing that bucket sloppering in ’ere?”

“Oh,” she said. “I forgot. I’ll leave it outside.”