The Stranger From The Sea (24 page)

Jeremy glanced from one to the other, uncertain whether he had made a tactical error in speaking to them both at the same time. Often in the past he had found it easier for his purpose if he approached one and let that one put his point of view to the other. They would confer, and usually the one he had approached would act as his advocate. At least, that was how he supposed it happened.

But this was probably too important to be treated that way.

'Yesterday morning, Father,' he said, 'I did not go down Grace, as usual. I went the other way - for a walk along the cliffs. Fine views you get from there. Sands are very clean at the moment - no driftwood, no wreckage.

But unfortunately it came on to drizzle. You remember? About ten. And I thought to myself, drot it, this is not good enough. I thought, I'm getting wet, and to no purpose; I must shelter somewhere. So I decided to shelter by going down Wheal Leisure. It just happened to be handy, there on the cliffs. So down I went.'

The brilliant morning was nearly over. Wisps of cloud, like white smoke from a fire, were drifting up from the south-west, unobtrusive as yet; they would darken and thicken by midday.

'I thought I told you not to go down Leisure!'

'I don't remember that, sir. I remember you were a mite discouraging.'

There was a glint of irony in Ross's eye. 'And what did you find there? Gold?'

'It is all in a poor way. Some of the shafts have fallen in, and it was necessary twice to come back and start again. The thirty fathom level is very wet; much of it is in two feet of water, running fast towards the lowest adit.'

'It was dangerous to go on your own,' Demelza said, memories stabbing at her.

'I didn't, Mama. Ben Carter went with me.'

'Who also happened to be just strolling along the cliffs?'

'Exactly
...
Well, in fact we were strolling together.'

'I'm sure. So you went down — getting wetter than you ever could by staying out in the drizzle. What was your feeling about it all?'

'Well, Ben is cleverer than I — ten times more experienced anyhow. He thinks it would pay to sink a couple of shafts deeper - say twenty fathoms deeper.'

'Pay whom?'

'We were working it out together: in this district the lodes usually run in an east-west direction - which means we could strike a continuation of the tin floors we've been working at Wheal Grace - or even pick up some of the old Trevorgie lodes. In any case the copper has only been exhausted so far as the present levels are concerned.'

After a moment Ross said: 'There is no way of going deeper without installing pumping gear.'

'In a few months if the spring is dry it should be possible to sink a shaft or two and temporarily drain them with hand pumps until we see if there are any signs of good-quality working ground.'

'And if there are?'

'Then we could build an engine.'

'But surely,' Demelza said, 'Wheal Leisure belongs to the Warleggans.'

'After we'd been down we went to see Horrie Treneglos. Home's grandfather was alive, of course, when the mine closed. Horrie asked his father about it; we thought the Warleggan interest might have fallen in altogether. But it seems it did not. The Warleggans by then had bought out most of the other venturers; so they sold off the few things that would fetch anything at all and declared the mine in abeyance, and that's how it has stayed. So far as Mr John Treneglos knows, he owns an eighth share and the Warleggans about seven-eighths, though he thinks there was some relative of Captain Henshawe's who refused to sell a sixty-fourth part. . . It's really all worth nothing at the moment; a few stone buildings and a hole in the ground.'

Ross said: 'Trust the Warleggans to preserve an interest in a hole in the ground.'

'So it still isn't feasible,' said Demelza.

'Well
...'
Jeremy cleared his throat and looked from one to the other. 'I suggested to Horrie that he could perhaps persuade his father to do something - such as call in at Warleggan's Bank when he is next in Truro and say he would like to reopen Leisure with them. They're sure to say conditions aren't favourable - and he could then offer to buy their interest and go ahead on his own. They might very well sell to him where they'd not be willing to sell to us.'

Ross said to Demelza: 'The boy is developing an instinct for commerce. And this deviousness is in the best traditions . . . Are you suggesting that John Treneglos should act as a sort of nominee?'

'Not altogether, Father. We think - if the price isn't too high - he might put up a third.'

'It d
oesn't sound like the John Trene
glos I know.'

'It
could
be profitable. His father did well out of it. And as it's Treneglos land, he's mineral lord and would get his dish if the mine opened; just as we have done all these years from Wheal Grace.'

'In the old days Mr Horace Treneglos only put up one-eighth - and that reluctantly.'

'Well
...
it's like this. Since Vincent went down in his sloop Horrie says his father and mother are passing anxious to keep him home. They would, he thinks, welcome the idea of giving him a mining interest.'

'And the other two-thirds?'

'I thought you might take up a third, Father, and the other third we could advertise. With your name and Mr Treneglos's heading the list I don't think we should be hard set to find a few investors.'

Ross said after a few moments: 'You are of a sudden very practical and enterprising. It is somewhat of a change.'

Jeremy flushed. 'I simply thought it a good thing, with Wheal Grace nearing exhaustion
...'
His voice ended in a mumble. Demelza eyed him.

Ross said: 'Twenty years ago when Cousin Francis and I opened Wheal Grace it cost us about twelve hundred pounds. Today that would no doubt be fifteen hundred without the cost of having to buy the mine back. I know the expense would not come all at once; but the engine itself - if it came to that, as it surely would - would cost in the neighbourhood of a thousand pounds.'

The first real smudge of cloud moved across the sun. All the lights of the day were lowered; then they came on again.

Jeremy said:
^‘
I have been studying pumping engines. While you have been away.
I
believe I could design a suitable engine - with Aaron Nanfan and one of the Curnows to advise. Of course that would not reduce the cost of manufacture, but it would be a considerable saving over all.'

Ross stared at his son, then at his wife.
'Has
he?'

'If he says he has, Ross, he has.'

Ross said at length: 'But, Jeremy, it cannot all be learned in a few months, however much you have been studying; nor all by diagrams.'

'It has not all been diagrams.'

'I shall need to be convinced of that. In any case it would not reduce the cost by more than - fifteen per cent?' 'I thought twenty, Father.'

'Even so, it would not do to build an engine which by some perhaps small flaw in design would put the other eighty per cent at risk. However,' he went on as Jeremy was about to speak, 'we can consider that later. Supposing we should come to look on this reopening as a practical idea - and clearly there'd have to be a deal of consideration before we came to that point - two hurdles must be cleared first. Thoughts of an engine must wait on those. First, is the prospect of the mine as good as Ben seems to think? Though I dislike the thought of trespassing on Warleggan property, I'd want to go down myself. And if Zacky Martin be well enough I'd wish him to go with me. Second, if we are convinced of a fair prospect, will the Warlcggans sell?'

'Yes,' agreed Jeremy, satisfied with progress so far. 'That's the order of things.'

Ross frowned at the rising wind and perhaps a little also at his son's tone of voice. 'We've stopped your gardening, my dear.'

'Oh, I shall go on for a little bit yet.'

'I'll help you,' said Jeremy.

'Well, you can try to pull that stroil out from among the fuchsia,' said Demelza. 'It's a horrid job and it hurts my fingers .
..'
She looked up, pushing away her hair again. 'D'you think George really
would
sell his interest, Ross?'

They stared at each other. 'It's possible now,' he said. 'We might even get it at a bargain price.'

'And that,' Demelza said, 'would not be playing Caiaphas.'

'Well, I shall be seeing John Treneglos on Friday. We'll talk it over then.'

When Ross had gone in Jeremy said: 'You two have a secret language which defeats me even yet. Damn it, what was this supposed to mean - this biblical thing? It was Caiaphas you said?'

'Never mind,' said his mother. 'Sometimes it is more proper to be obscure
...'

'Especially in front of your children
...
Mother.'

'Yes?'

'I would like to be away next Saturday night.' 'Not for the Scillies again?'

'No. Though it springs from that. The Trevanions -who were so kind when I landed near their house - are giving a small party on Saturday evening and have invited me to spend the night there.'

'How nice
...
They did not invite Clowance?'

'No
...
I'm not sure if they know I have a sister.'

'Inform them sometime. She needs taking out of herself.'

'Yes, I know. I'm sorry. But - well - perhaps I could ask one of them - Miss Cuby Trevanion - to spend a night here sometime towards the end of the month? As we had no party at Christmas, with Father being away, it wouldn't come amiss to have one now. I don't mean a big one. Perhaps a dozen or fifteen?'

'Easter is early this year. We might do something as
soon as Lent is over. Have you
met Miss Trevanion's parents?'

'Her father's been dead a long time. I've met her mother. Her brother - her elder brother, Major John Trevanion, that is - was away when I was there last. He is head of the family; but he has lost his wife recently, very young. Another brother, Captain George Bettesworth, was killed in Holland. There's a third brother, Augustus, whom I also haven't yet met, and another sister, Clemency.'

Demelza sat back on her heels and watched him tugging absent-mindedly at the couch grass. 'I would not have expected them to be party-spirited at such a time.'

'Oh, it is a music party. Clemency plays the harpsichord, and I believe some neighbours are coming in.'

'Does Cuby play?'

He looked up, flushing again. 'No. She sings a little.'

'That's nice,' said Demelza. 'Please tell her I would much like to meet her.'

She
knew
now what had been wrong - or what had been right - with Jeremy these last few weeks. He had been striding about, acting as if galvanized by one of those electric charges one read about in the newspaper. Also -wasn't it true? - she fancied she had heard him shouting out at the top of his voice just now with Isabella-Rose on the beach. Did not Miss Cuby Trevanion explain everything?

^{Chapter Seven}

The girl with the face like a new-opened ox-eye daisy, as her mother had once described it, was not being quite so open with her family as her reputation suggested. On Friday, having seen young Lobb - son of old Lobb -riding down the valley with the post, she had intercepted him, not for the first time, to ask if there were any letters for her. And on this occasion there had been.

Having opened her letter and read it, she had not announced at dinner - as she well could have done - that she had just received a note from Stephen Carrington. After all, everyone at the table would have been interested to hear. Instead she had slipped it into the pocket of her skirt, buried it with a handkerchief, and mentioned it not at all.

Miss Clowance, dear Clowance, [it ran]

You will have wondered what has become of me. Since we was near caught by the Preventive men and I wonder even now if Jeremy escaped safe, I have bin most of this time in Bristow. There was trouble with my lugger Phillipe because they said I had no right to my prize or could not pruve my right. So I am still in Bristow in Argument and trouble over this. I am sartin I shall not give way for no one has a better Right than me to the prize Money. When tis settled I shall come back to Nampara where my own lo
ve is. Miss Clowance I put the ti
ps of my fingers on your cool skin. I beg to remane respectfully Yours.

Stephen Carrington.

A strange letter from a strange man. Imagine her
father
getting hold of it! Clowance was lost in cross-currents of feeling. But a darker one than all the others moved in that stream.

By the following day, which was the Saturday Jeremy was going to Caerhays, Clowance knew the letter by heart. She repeated some of the phrases over to herself as she walked towards Sawle through the damp misty sunlight with comforts for the Paynters. 'Back to Nampara where my own love is.' 'Where my own love is.' 'My own love.' 'Miss Clowance, I put the tips of my fingers.' 'Miss Clowance, dear Clowance.' 'I put the tips of my fingers on your cool skin.' 'Back to Nampara.' 'Back to Nampara where my own love is.'

As she came near to the first shabby cottage in Grambler village she gave her head a defiant shake, almost unseating the pink straw hat she was wearing. It was a motion more suitable to a swimmer coming up through a wave than to the young lady of the manor out on a charitable visit. But that, to Clowance, was what it amounted to, a shrugging away, a throwing off, of some dark beast that clutched at her vitals and made her blood run thick, her heart pulsate. For the moment let it be forgotten. 'Back to Nampara where my own love is.'

She saw that Jud Paynter had been put out to air. Put out was a literal fact these days, for at the age of about seventy-eight he had become almost immobile. Prudie, a mere girl ten years his junior, was still active, if activity could ever have been called a characteristic of hers. She was now totally in charge, for Jud could only totter a few steps with a stick, clinging fiercely to her arm. He had lost weight in the body, but his face had become fuller, as it swelled with age and rage and inebriety. Today, it being still March though very mild, he was wrapped in so many old sacks that he looked like a bull frog sitting on a stone. Clowance was relieved to see him out of doors because with luck her business might be concluded there and she would be saved the need to go inside where the smells were strong.

Jud spat as she came up and stared at her with bloodshot eyes, half concealed among a pie-crust of wrinkles.

'Miss Clowance, now. Where's yer mammy today, an? Reckon as she's becoming tired of we. Reckon as she's thought to give us the by-go. Not surprised. When ye get nashed and allish, that's when ye d'come to know yer friends
...'

'I've brought you some cakes, Jud,' Clowance said cheerfully. 'And a drop of toddy. And one or two things for Prudie.'

The sound of voices had penetrated the open door, for Prudie came out, wiping her hands on her filthy apron and all smiles, followed by a duck which trailed eight tiny goslings behind her.

'So they've hatched!' exclaimed Clowance.
'All
safe? When?'

'Ah, twas some time we 'ad wi' 'em. Nosy didn' have 'nough feathers to cover 'em all. She were restless as a whitneck, turning back and forth. So seems me if she was to hatch all eight
‘
twer fitty she should be 'elped. So I hatched three myself.'

'How do you mean?'

'Down 'ere.' Prudie pointed at her fat bosom. 'Kept 'em thur night and day, night and day. Twer not uncomfortable day times, but night I was feared I should overlay them.'

'Proper Johnny Fortnight she looked,' Jud said. 'And what 'bout me? What 'bout me? She paid scant 'eed. Never a moment but what she wur thinking of her eggs. "Cann't do that there," she'd say, "else I'll crush me eggs." "Don't shake me when I help ee up, else ye'll shake me eggs." "Cann't go out today, cos I've got to sit wi' me eggs." Great purgy!'

Prudie said: 'I wish ye'd been buried in a stone box and put away alive; that's what did oughter've been done to ee, twenty year agone when you almost was! Gome inside, Miss Clowance, and I'll make ee a dish o' tay.'

'I'm going on to Pally's Shop,' said Clowance. 'But thank you.'

'And look at 'em now they'm hatched!' Jud went on. 'Squirty little things. Hens an't so durty. Hens ye can live with. Hens
drop
their droppings like a gentleman, like you'd expect. Ducks
squirt.
Look at our kitchen floor already, tampered all over wi duck squirtings!'

'Hold thi clack!' said Prudie, getting annoyed. 'Else I'll leave ee there to freeze when the sun d'go down. Miss Clowance 'ave better things to do than to listen to ee grumbling away!'

'Tedn right,' shouted Jud. 'Tedn proper. Tedn fitty. All them ducks squirting anywhere where they've the mind to squirt. Tedn
decent’

The two women, to his consuming annoyance, walked out of hearing, where Clowance handed Prudie the half-sovereign Demelza had sent. Prudie as usual was so pleased, already translating it into quarts of gin, that she accompanied Miss Poldark a little way down the track through the village, making comments on life as she went.

Chief targets were her immediate neighbours, the three brothers Thomas, who had not only committed the crime of coming to Sawle from Porthtowan a few years ago but had compounded it by closing down the gin shop that had always been there, since they were teetotallers and Wesleyans. However, their religion and their abstention from strong drink did not excuse their sinfulness in other ways, particularly, according to Prudie, their common lechery.

Every day of his life John, the eldest, whose name often evoked ribald comment, visited Winky Mitchell in her cottage on the other side of Sawle: regular as a clock when he was not at sea, Ave of an evening, tramp the moorland, regular as a clock home he came at ten. What went on there didn't bear thinking of, for Winky Mitchell, who had an affection of one eye and a deaf and bed-ridden husband, was known for her shameless wanton ways. As for Art Thomas, he was paying an outrageous courtship to Aunt Edie Permewan, who was thirty years olderer than him and as fat and round as a saffron bun. Of course everyone knew what he was about, for with no children to carry on the tanner's business since Joe died, a strong young man was just what was needed to pull it together again. Twould not be that bad except Art was known to be lickerish after girls; and who thought if he wed Aunt Edie he'd be content with what she had to offer? As for Music Thomas, the youngest, who was a stable boy at Place House, Prudie considered him the most dangerous of the three, because he hadn't ever actually been
caught
doing anything. But to be eighteen and still singing treble in the choir, and to walk on tiptoe all the time as if he was a fly
...

'Some folk,' said Prudie, scratching, 'd'think he's a Peeping Tom. Let'n be catched is all I d'say and he'd be tarred and feathered afore you could say knife!'

So it continued until, complaining of her feet, Prudie turned and slopped her way home. Clowance went on, aware that Prudie's mutterings only lit up a few dark corners of scandal in the village. As for most, she knew it already. Though she lived away from them, distant at Nampara, the villagers were too close not to be personally known. Captain Poldark - though a landed gentleman and now, with Trenwith empty, the only squire around - had always been on closer terms than normal. It could have happened that his wife - a miner's daughter - might have sought to create a greater distance between them so that there should be no risk of presumption; in fact it hadn't happened that way. That one of her brothers was the local preacher and had married a girl from Sawle only served to reaffirm the peculiar friendly relationship.

Clowance knew them all. Next to the Thomases was the elderly Miss Prout - about whom Prudie darkly muttered:
'Her
mother was Miss Prout, and
her
mother was Miss
Prout
- a large loose jolly woman with no teeth. Then a brood of Triggs, tumbling over each other in the rags and the dirt. At the pump two girls drawing water and giggling, Annie Coad and Nell Rowe, one pock-marked and thin, the other with the wide hips and snort legs of a farmer's daughter. They smiled and half curtsied and whispered together as she passed. On the opposite side Jane Bottrell was standing at the doorway (sister-in-law of Ned) with ragged black curls, eccentric eyebrows and big yellow teeth - her husband had died in a smuggling venture; of five children one survived and worked at Wheal Grace. No one stirred in the next cottage though everyone knew it was full of Billings. Further on came the Stevenses, the Bices, Permewan's tannery, the field with the goats straggling up to the first empty buildings of Grambler mine. Other cottages were dotted about. Clowance knew them all: she knew the smell of the place, goats and pigs here instead of the rotting fish of Sawle; and of course the open catchpits that emitted wafts offensive to all but the strongest nose. Fortunately, for nine days in ten, a cool clean wind blew.

It was in this village Stephen Carrington had made his home after leaving Nampara; the Nanfan cottage was a bit further on, near the village pond. After years the Thomases were still looked on with suspicion by Prudie and her like, yet Stephen Carrington had been accepted with good grace. Of course he was different; a sailor saved from drowning and recuperating here, not expected to stay and make his home, so arousing sympathy and kindness, not assessment and wariness. He had soon come to be on drinking terms with the men and - possibly - on flirting terms with the women. She had heard whispers. But no village could exist without whispers. What if he came back and really made his home here? How would they take it then? And how would
she
take it? Her skin crawled at the thought. Quite clearly from his letter he was coming back.

Jeremy left a bit later riding Hollyhock, the little mare Demelza and Sam had bought one day in Truro, and taking with him the pony he had been loaned. He went via Marasanvose, Zelah, St Allen and St Erme, crossing the main turnpike road from Truro to St Austell at Tregony and then riding down the leafy lanes and tracks towards the southern sea.

It was a cobwebby day: after heavy rain very mild with smears of mist and sun, the whole countryside beautifully, wonderfully damp, with pools of clear water and rushing soaking streams. Everywhere the bare twigs of trees and shrubs were festooned in cobwebs picked out in molecules of shining water. Demelza always said the spiders had a bad time when it was like this because no fly would be stupid enough to blunder into nets so plain for everyone to see.

She walked a way up the valley with Jeremy, as far as Wheal Maiden and the Meeting House, wishing as long as possible to share in his excitement and pleasure. Though knowing she was no part of it, she savoured seeing him so vitalized, so tense, so ready to be irritable or to be jolly at the least thing. Not like her Jeremy at all, who, though high-strung in childhood and prone to every minor ailment, had developed into this light-weight young man who seemed to prefer to observe life rather than get involved in it.

From the top of the hill she watched him go. Well, now for better or worse he was involved. The agony and the joy. She only hoped Miss Cuby would be worthy of him. She hoped too she would be kind. Girls could so easily cut deep with their sharp little knives, often not even meaning to. At such a time one was so vulnerable. What did Ross think of it all? He said little unless probed. His elder daughter who had half lost her heart to a handsome sailor of dubious character, and who almost concurrently was considering an interest shown in her by Lord Edward Fitzmaurice - a letter from him had just arrived. His son riding away to see his first girl; in his case a very eligible girl with a beautiful home and an ancient ancestry. It was all happening at the same time. Perhaps that was how it always was: two children, the younger, being a girl, more grown up, so both in the same year coming to sudden maturity and all the travail that that was likely to involve.

As Jeremy's figure dwindled into the distance and then disappeared around a turn in the ground Demelza looked towards Grambler and saw her daughter returning with her aunt. Demelza's sister-in-law was leading a young bull calf by a cord round its neck and nose, and Clowance was bringing up the rear, giving the calf a friendly shove when it chose to be obstinate, as it frequently did.

Years ago when it seemed that her brother Drake was breaking his heart over his lost Morwenna, who was hideously and irrevocably married to the Reverend Osborne Whitworth, Demelza had thought to save him by introducing him to the pretty young Rosina Hoblyn, the surprisingly intelligent and refined daughter of Jacka. Drake had presently agreed to marry Rosina, but an accident to Mr Whitworth had intervened, sadly for Rosina but in the end joyfully for Drake, and the planned wedding had never taken place. After the break-up Demelza had continued to befriend Rosina but had studiously avoided putting her into social contact with Sam, her other brother, who was smarting under a broken love-affair of his own. Enough was enough. Matchmakers could be a danger to the community. She had burned her fingers.