‘You said that before.’
‘I think she will keep to her decision – to her principles—’
‘Principles indeed!’
‘Well, whatever you may call them—’
‘So all was sweetness and light between you!’
‘No, Ross. Far from it indeed in my heart. But if she chooses to marry in the way she says she will . . . She cannot altogether be accountable for Jeremy’s passion for her, which amounts sometimes, I believe, to a mania. It is – or could be – a fearful tragedy . . . but unless she has encouraged him wantonly and then turned her back . . . I don’t believe that to be so, not from what he says. Right at the beginning she tried to warn him.’
Ross took his brandy. ‘Well, if it were not for Jeremy’s sake I should be pleased not to be having a Trevanion in the family. They’re a feckless, overweening lot.’ He frowned down at the flag floor. ‘Perhaps your kindness to Miss Cuby will help to ease her conscience – always supposing she has one.’
‘I did not show any special kindness to her,’ said Demelza. ‘No special kindness at all. We both understood each other perfectly well.’
III
Soon after the dancing began the staff in the kitchen sat down to their supper. In addition to the five Geoffrey Charles had temporarily engaged, there was Jane Gimlett and Cal Trevail and Ena and Betsy Martin, all from Nampara, there was Music Thomas and Katie Carter and a kitchen maid called Dorothy Ellery, all from Place House, and Wallace Bartle and two girls from Killewarren. Two others, Polly Odgers and Beth Bate, were upstairs, but they would eat later. Jane Gimlett, by consent and by seniority, was in charge.
Music Thomas, though confined to the kitchen and only allowed an occasional peep into the house proper, was in his seventh heaven, being in close contact with Katie, taking dirty plates and glasses from her, fetching bottles up from the cellar for her, accepting a candelabra from her and changing the candles which had guttered in a draught, drawing water from the well, brushing up the mess when Betsy Martin – not he, not he! – had dropped a tray of cream cakes. Katie, being herself clumsy and in haste tonight, had twice nearly had an accident, but twice just saved herself, and she had laughed at the nearness of the escape and her face all night was flushed and animated, and she had spoken to him and smiled at him as if he was her chosen friend.
Ever since the death of Mr Pope they had seen a little more of each other; there is nothing so cementing as a secret shared; and Music had shamelessly made use of his knowledge to stop her in a passage or going by the kitchens to ask her advice on some moral or physical aspect of the secret. Since Music did not have an inventive brain, most of his queries demanded such obvious answers that Katie was irritated by them, but as her job as well as his hung on their silence she could hardly refuse to stop and listen and even answer more politely than she wanted to. It was a kind of blackmail. Aware that he was making himself no more popular with her, he still couldn’t resist it. He could see an indefinite future of such encounters, allowing him brief moments of her company which he’d never had before.
But tonight was quite different; in the excitements of the party and the new company they were working with, the usual barriers were down. Katie had confided in him that Wallace Bartle could not carve and on another occasion that all the fine ladies ‘in there’ were eating just so much as the men.
Now, after the hurry and the labour, came the temporary rest. The big table in the kitchen had been swept clear of the accumulations of the night, and a feast of left-overs was ready for the staff. And beer a-plenty; though Mrs Gimlett was careful to warn them, particularly the men, that their intake should be limited to three mugs each, since the duties of the night were not yet over.
They were all famished and fell upon the food like seagulls; and so for a time they ate in silence, content to reserve their mouths and energies for the more important function. Music had contrived a seat next to Katie, not without difficulty for Cal Trevail also wanted it, not specially to be near Katie but to companion Dorothy Ellery. In the end, after a good deal of shoving and grunting, room was made for them both.
As the mountain of food disappeared, talk broke out again – about Polly Odgers – Mr Valentine’s ex-nurse – coming all the way from St Michael to help tonight – about how Parson Odgers had gone to sleep in the middle of his own sermon on Sunday last – about that drefful thing that happened to the Poldice bal-maiden last week who went into the stamp-shed and got too near the axle of the stamp, her clothes was caught and she was drawn in and crushed to death – about the old red cow with a wen on the right foreleg missing from Farmer Hancock’s just above Pally’s Shop: they reckoned she’d fell down a shaft – about picking over the potatoes in the barn and how some had gone poor with rot, gracious knew why.
Katie blew out a breath and leaned back. ‘Dear life, I’m full to bust. ’Ope no one in there ask for me yet a-while.’ She stretched her hand for the pitcher to refill her beer-mug, but the pitcher was empty.
‘There’s another on the slab,’ said Cal Trevail.
‘I’ll get’n for ee,’ said Music, squeezing to his feet.
‘Have a care,’ said Jane Gimlett. ‘Remember what I warned.’
‘I’ve only ’ad just the one,’ said Katie.
‘I’ll get’n for ee,’ said Music, beaming at her.
‘Thank ee.’
Music picked up the pitcher, then after a bare hesitation he picked up Katie’s mug as well. ‘I’ll get’n for ee.’
Over on the slate slab was the last pitcher of all. Fingers a-tremble, he poured some out of the pitcher into her mug. Then he fumbled in his pocket. The little earthenware bottle with the worm-eaten cork. He prised at the cork – thing would not come out – they were all talking, noticed nothing so far. Cork popped out and rolled across the slab. He poured the liquid, which was about two wine-glassfuls; it made the beer a bit cloudy. With great ingenuity he found a spoon, stirred; that was better.
He carried the mug back to the table. ‘’Ere you are, Katie.’ He put it down on the table just by her plate.
She smiled contentedly at him.
‘’Ere what about us folk?’ demanded Wallace Bartle. ‘Have you got nothing for we?’
‘’Ere you are, Katie,’ Music said, squeezing down into his seat. It was important where she looked first after she had drunk it.
‘Darn ’ee, that’s what ye call manners, eh?’ said Bartle. ‘Wait on yourself, eh?’
‘’Ere you are, Katie,’ said Music, looking as closely into her face as he dared.
‘I’ve said thank ee; what more?’
As a disgruntled Bartle got up, scraping his chair on the stone floor, and walked across for the pitcher, Katie took a long draught of her ale. Music waited expectantly. He would have been baffled if asked to say what he did expect, but the outcome took him entirely by surprise. Her long, pale-skinned face began to redden, it seemed to swell, her eyes started tears, she clutched at her throat, she gave a sort of vomiting cough and sprayed beer all over the table and over Music’s face, which had come close to hers.
She was on her feet hawking and spitting. Everyone was up, patting her on the back, pulling the remains of the food away from the wet table, saying, ‘There, there, me dear, what’s amiss – go the wrong way did it?’ ‘Vomit in the scullery. Get the pail, Ena,’ and ‘My dear life and body, poisoned are ee?’
It remained for Cal Trevail to see the thing in its true colours. He gave a screech of laughter and pointed to the beer, which seemed to be frothing over the top, as if it were fermenting.
‘Ho, Music, you’ve done for yerself this time! You was always a one for jokes! My blessed Parliament, that were a tease, that were!’
Music, wiping the beer off his face, strove to protest, but clearly no one believed him. The beer was there as witness. The younger ones were laughing at the joke, which to them was very funny, the older ones were half frowning, chiefly because it should not have been perpetrated in someone else’s house.
The mouse in the soup, the frog in the pie, the dog-dirt in the pasty: these were routine jokes in a community that liked its humour broad and obvious.
‘Katie!’ Music said. ‘I tell ee as God is my witness—’
He did not get any further. With all the strength that fury could give to a very strong right arm, Katie slapped his face. It knocked him over, and staggering back he upset a chair and fell to the floor. More laughter.
‘Ssh,’ said Jane Gimlett disapprovingly. ‘Remember where you be! Quiet, all of you. How dare you, Music! Katie . . .’
But Katie had already disappeared into the scullery to try to make herself sick over again, just in case whatever it was that doltish man had fed her might be poison.
IV
Although the two bottles were very similar, Music would not admit even to himself, in this tragedy for him, that he might have made a mistake. Only three months later, towards Christmas time when Widow Permewan had occasion to use the chilblain cure, did he admit his total fault.
Then it seemed perfectly reasonable to him that two weeks after first using the mixture on her feet, Edie Permewan should at last give way to Art Thomas’s blandishments and agree to marry him.
Chapter Fourteen
I
At eleven the dancing stopped and Isabella-Rose sang. They had carried Demelza’s old spinet from Nampara, and this they now brought into the room and Mrs Kemp played the accompaniment. It seemed to have no effect upon Isabella-Rose that she was being listened to by a group of grown-up and relatively sophisticated people.
First she sang: Ripe Sparergrass. Her voice, so strong in one so young, did not sound quite so harsh or discordant in the bigger room, and the song was like a ‘cry of London’; if the voice didn’t keep on key it didn’t really matter. Demelza remembered that when she herself had first begun to sing she had been off the note. Perhaps it came from her. Ross had sung as a boy, but seldom did now; certainly he didn’t wobble like Bella.
There was polite applause at the end. The second song was called The Frog and the Mouse, and was one Jeremy had bought. It had strange choruses of mock Latin and bits of old Cornish, making a remarkable jumble of nonsense, which no one supposed Bella would learn in time. But she had.
‘There was a mouse lived in a mill.
With a ring-num, bulladimmy, coy-me.
A merry frog lived in a well
With a ring-num, bulladimmy, coy-me.
Coy-menaro, kilto-caro, coy-menaro,
Coy-me, prim-strim, stramadiddle,
Larrabong, ring-ting, bulladimmy, coy-me.
The frog he would a-wooing ride
To my ring-dom, somminary, ky-me
And on a snail he got astride.
To my ring-dom, somminary, ky-me.
Kymenare, gildecare, kymenare, ky-me.
String-strang, dan-a-dilla, lana-pana,
Rag-tag, rig-dom, bomminary, ky-me.
When he was on his high-horse set
His boots they shone as bright as jet . . .’
And so it went on for another four verses. The tune, such as it was, showed up the harshness of Bella’s voice, but the audience did not seem to notice this. They saw a black-haired, black-eyed little girl, singing vigorously – almost as if she were a man – and giving to the world all the enthusiasm for life and living that she possessed.
Enormous applause.
The plan was that she should sing two songs and then, if really pressed, one – quieter – encore, Cherry Ripe. (Bella had badly wanted to sing The Highwayman but had been bullied out of it, for it was really a baritone song.) There was no question: an encore was demanded. Everyone called for it. Bella put impatient hands up to her curls. Eyes agleam, she cleared her throat, Mrs Kemp turned over the music, and then a loud, strongly Cornish voice shouted:
‘Sing The Barley Mow, Bella!’
Isabella-Rose had won much popularity by singing The Barley Mow to the farm hands and the miners this last August and September. It was a rousing, catchy song, and no one before in the Nampara area had ever done it as well as she had.
In all the people at Trenwith that night there was no one, except in the kitchen, with so strong a Cornish accent, but Demelza, knowing her son, instantly suspected Jeremy. Whoever it was, he only had to say it three times, which he proceeded to do, and all the guests, knowing the tune and the frolic, began to shout too.
Miss Isabella-Rose Poldark glanced towards where her mother was sitting, then looked at Mrs Kemp, who was so flustered she couldn’t offer advice in time. So,
‘The Barley Mow,’ announced Bella.
Mrs Kemp trembled in her case and eventually produced the music. She whispered with Bella, and Bella adjusted the bow of her frock. Then, with spinet accompaniment, she began to sing, and, at appropriate intervals, the audience sang with her.
‘Oh, I will drink out of the nipperkin, boys.’
‘So here’s a good health,’ the audience sang, ‘to the barley mow.’
‘The nipperkin and the brown bowl,’ shouted Bella.
‘So here’s a good health,’ came the reply, ‘to the barley mow.’
‘Oh, I will drink out of the pint, my boys.’
‘So here’s a good health to the barley mow.’
‘The pint, the nipperkin and the brown bowl.’
‘So here’s a good health to the barley mow.’
‘Oh, I will drink out of the quart, my boys.’
‘So here’s a good health to the barley mow.’
‘The quart, the pint, the nipperkin and the brown bowl.’
‘So here’s a good health to the barley mow.’
The point, as in all these cumulative songs, was that the singer always added something else to the list of the things he intended to drink out of. The responses, though identical each time as to words, varied considerably in tune, and it was about four verses before the audience got the hang of it. Then it went really with a will.
At the fourteenth and last verse Bella sang:
‘Oh, I will drink out of the clouds, my boys.’
‘So here’s a good health to the barley mow.’
‘The clouds, the ocean, the sea, the river,’ sang Bella; ‘the well, the tub, the bath, the hogshead, the keg, the gallon, the quart, the pint, the nipperkin and the brown bowl.’
‘So here’s a good HEALTH to the barley mow!!!’
There was a tremendous yell of delight when it was over, and people broke the circle to cluster round the little girl to kiss and congratulate her. Oh, dear life, thought Demelza, she’ll be impossible now! Yet she could not but feel a surge of pleasure at her daughter’s success.
George Warleggan had watched this with the observant distaste he had brought to the rest of the evening. He was particularly annoyed the de Dunstanvilles were not here, and it made it worse to see this precocious Poldark child making an exhibition of herself. If the evening anyway was to be intolerable, he had at least hoped to take the opportunity of mending a few bridges between himself and Francis Basset, Baron de Dunstanville. After all it was five years since all that banking business; and George felt Francis could hardly blame him for having been drawn in as Sir Christopher Hawkins’s second in the duel they had fought. Francis was more than ever the richest and most active man in public affairs in Cornwall, and it served no good purpose not to be on terms with such a personage. But he was not here, so one had to make do with such few other people as were worth speaking to.
He and Harriet were separated, for she had gone to dance. Rather against his wishes she had gone to dance with Dr Enys. Her black hair was down to her shoulders and shone like patent leather in the candlelight. The new pearl earrings with their diamond setting glinted through the heavy strands of her hair.
He had questioned her, of course. Tactfully but thoroughly. It was not her custom, she amiably admitted, to pay money into the bank, into the account which as a special favour – she being a married woman – Warleggan & Willyams Bank had opened for her. On the contrary, it was her
regular custom to take money out. But this time – well, this time the only source of the tainted money, the suspect banknote, seemed to be the Faro table.
Of course any one of the players might have paid it in, and any one of them might have handled the note innocently enough. It could have been through a half-dozen pairs of hands since January. Nevertheless there was always the possibility that it had not, and George had made a list of the people playing at his house on the evening two days before the banknote was identified. There was Anthony Trefusis and Ben Sampson and Stephen Carrington and Andrew Blamey and Percy Hill and George Trevethan and Michael Smith. According to Harriet the chief losers had been Anthony Trefusis and Stephen Carrington and Andrew Blamey, so these were most obviously suspect. George had his sources of information and his creatures who could obtain more. Earlier today, before setting out to this party, he had ordered further inquiries to be made. Was Andrew Blamey in England or at sea when the robbery took place? Where were Carrington and Trefusis? Even if the inquiry promised no definite conclusion, it was worth putting in hand. It was the very first lead they had had in all this time.
Trefusis was a younger brother and a bit of a wastrel perpetually short of money, quarrelling with his father and elder brother for the lack of it, exactly the sort of young man Valentine seemed to attract. Andrew Blamey was half Poldark, the son of a packet captain and himself in the service. But when ashore he was always drinking and gaming and no doubt companioning Valentine in his pursuit of the light girls of Falmouth and Penryn. Carrington was the unknown quantity, rescued from the sea, someone said; had caught a Poldark and then lost her, always in and out of Cornwall since he first arrived, picking up trade or business here and there, turning a presumably honest penny. But recently buying a French prize in St Ives, according to Valentine. With whose money?
In addition to the heavy loss sustained by the banks as a result of the robbery, there had been other irritating aftereffects. Harriet’s aunt, Miss Darcy, had lost her father’s signet ring, and a loving cup that had been in the family for years; they had been in care of the Devon & Cornwall Bank, now partners of Warleggan & Willyams, and were being sent down to Godolphin. Miss Darcy, who did not care for George, appeared to hold him personally responsible that her property had been lost with everything else.
The Loving Cup Page 17
