Jeremy Poldark

by Winston Graham

  He said in a thin, rather musical voice: “Are you Dr. Enys?”

  “Yes.”

  “My niece is ill. Dr. Choake has been attending her for two days, but she is worse and she insisted on sending for you.”

  As Penvenen fumbled to put his spectacles away Dwight wondered how he managed to keep his hands clean.

  “Does Dr. Choake know I am being called?”

  “No. We’ve not seen him since this morning.”

  Dwight said: “Of course, you know, it makes it very difficult—”

  “I’m well aware of the usual etiquette, Dr. Enys, and I’m not responsible for the breach of it. It is my niece who has sent for you. But in fact I am not satisfied. She’s in great pain tonight—and the throat can be so dangerous.”

  “Did Dr. Choake diagnose the complaint?”

  “Yes. A quinzy.”

  “Is there any fever?”

  “That we don’t know. But she can hardly swallow at all.” They set off again, back down the passage and up a half dozen steps, and turned towards the south end of the house. Penvenen came to a door and stopped and knocked.

  It was a big timbered room with an open fireplace in which a fire was flickering; wind down the chimney was fanning the smoke, and the blue damask untasselled curtains at the windows stirred furtively as the air was sucked through the door. A serving girl got up as they came in and Dwight went over to the bed.

  Her tawny hair was loose and over her shoulders, and her fiery grey-green eyes a little dulled with pain, but she smiled at him with a faint sardonic twist to her lips. Then with an accompanying gesture she lifted the sheet and disclosed Horace asleep on a blue cushion beside her.

  Dwight smiled back at her and took the seat the servant girl had left. He felt Caroline’s pulse. It was quick but not sufficiently so to indicate a serious fever. He asked her one or two questions, which she answered by shakes or nods of her head. He saw her throat muscles quivering and then the effort she made to swallow.

  “Will you open your mouth, Miss Penvenen.” She did so and he peered at her throat.

  “Would you get me a spoon, please,” he said to the maid. “A tablespoon.” When she had gone he said to Penvenen: “What treatment has Dr. Choake prescribed?”

  “…Two bleedings; that’s so, isn’t it, Caroline? A strong purge; and some sort of a draught, here. That’s the lot, isn’t it?”

  Caroline pointed to the back of her neck.

  “Oh, and a large blister. That’s it. He said it was simply a question of getting the poisons to disperse.”

  Dwight smelled the mixture. It was probably syrup of gill and Gascoigne’s powder with a few other things in cinnamon water. The maid came back and Dwight took the spoon and sat on the bed.

  The left side of the throat was much inflamed and there was no sign of suppuration yet. The uvula, the soft palate, and the pharynx were all involved. At least there was nothing to suggest the disease they all feared. It seemed in fact a fairly clear case of quinzy and there was not a great deal he could do to improve on Choake’s treatment. Her hands and forehead were quite cool, that was the only unusual sign. She was in a lot of pain.

  “Mr. Penvenen,” he said, “would you kindly bring that candle over and hold it quite still. Just here. Here. That’s it. Thank you.” He pressed the tongue down with the spoon again.

  Penvenen’s breathing was heavy and rather stale, his nodular hand only just steady enough. Little blisters of grease followed each other down the side of the candle and congealed on the silver stick.

  After a time Dwight released her and stood up. He had seen something, and a twist of excitement went through him. Penvenen also straightened, glad of the change of position, hitching the shoulders of his coat. They were all watching Dwight, but he was only aware of the green-eyed girl in the bed.

  He turned his back on them and walked slowly to the fire. On the mantelshelf were things of hers. A velvet purse, embroidered and shutting with a spring; a gold repeating watch, probably French; a lace handkerchief with her initial in the comer; a pair of oiled dogskin gloves. He felt in his pocket and took out the etui that he always had with him. In it were the few small instruments that he found it useful to carry. A tooth forcer, a pair of tweezers, a fleam, tiny incision shears. He slid out the tweezers. Too short. Yet it would take an hour and a half to get the thing he really wanted. Might do. He had long fingers. And in another hour or so the swelling might have got so bad that what he wanted to do would not be possible at all.

  He went back to the bed. “Would you hold the candle for me again, Mr. Penvenen? Miss Penvenen, sit up a little more, your head against the wood of the bed instead of against the pillow. Thank you.” For a minute his eyes met hers steadily. He seemed to see into the depths of them as into the far reaches of a pool, where the spring began. “I can help you if you’ll keep quite still. You mustn’t jerk or jump. It may hurt a little, but I’ll be as quick as I can.”

  “What is it?” asked Penvenen. “What are you going to do?”

  “He’s—going to lance my throat,” she said in a whisper.

  “No, I’m not. I want you to keep still. Will you do that?”

  She nodded. “Of course.”

  Penvenen could not hold the candle steady now. It flickered and bobbed; and the bed curtains got in the way; Dwight had the impulse to tear them all down. Eventually he got the light where he wanted and pressed her tongue down with the spoon. He inserted the tweezers. He could tell she had complete confidence in him; she opened her mouth wide and didn’t flinch away.

  It really wasn’t too difficult after all. The tweezers reached quite well and at the third attempt he got them firmly fixed on the bit of foreign matter. He tried not to tear the swollen tonsil, and after a minute the thing came out, followed by a little spurt of blood.

  He stood up, nearly knocking Penvenen’s candle over.

  “Rinse your mouth now.” He drew back and motioned to the maid to come forward, then went over to the fire to examine his prize. Warm and comforting to feel the triumph. Supreme satisfaction. But it would be unworthy to show it.

  He turned back. Some blood had come from the throat and the usual suppurative matter. She met his eyes again.

  “Is that better?” he said, a little flushed in spite of himself.

  She nodded.

  “It will get easier now. I have nothing here, but if your man cares to come with me I can make him up something to wash the throat. Or any apothecary will give you a melrose mixture tomorrow.”

  “What,” said Penvenen, and cleared his voice, “what did you take away?”

  Dwight said: “When did you last eat fish, Miss Penvenen?”

  “I…” She wrinkled her nose. “On Wednesday.”

  “You must be more careful.” He showed her the tiny piece of sharp fishbone he had taken from her throat. “It has caused you inconvenience and might have been serious if it had been left longer.”

  ***

  At Trenwith they spent a quiet evening, cosy but a little isolated. The rain had kept even the usual carol singers away. They played quadrille for a time to the sound of Mr. Chynoweth’s snores, and when Dwight got back he changed into a pair of Francis’s breeches and joined in the games and won all the money. He was quiet about his visit to Killewarren, but Demelza could see he was inwardly excited or pleased. When waiting for his cards his fingers would be drumming the chair, and there was an unusual flush on his face.

  All through the evening Francis went out of his way to be nice to Demelza; and when he chose to exert himself, which was not often these days, there were few men who could be more agreeable company. It was as if he were trying to efface in her memory the day when he had turned her out of the house. Demelza met him, as she would have met most people, with forgiveness and good will. Nevertheless she was a little uneasy for Ross, who naturally had more time with
Elizabeth.

  If Dwight had had leisure from his own thoughts to observe them he might have felt this regrouping strangely apt. Demelza’s impish wit had an echo in Francis’s wry sense of humour; socially they were well suited. And Ross and Elizabeth had much in common; all those interests and tastes which had helped to make them boy and girl sweethearts.

  Just before eleven Mrs. Chynoweth helped her yawning husband to bed, and Aunt Agatha went soon after, but the others stayed till midnight had struck. Then they counted up their sixpences and drank a glass of hot punch before going off desultorily up the broad stairs. Demelza was feeling tired and overfed and got undressed and between the sheets quickly, trying not to think too sentimentally of the last time they had slept in this house. Ross sat on the bed for a minute or two talking over the evening, and then remembered his pipe which he had left in the winter parlour where they had dined. He took a candle and went back through the darkened house, his light flirting with the ancient shadows. There was a gleam under the door of the winter parlour; and when he went in he found Elizabeth clearing away the remains of the evening meal.

  He explained what he had come for. “I thought everyone was upstairs,” he said.

  “Emily Tabb has a bad arm, and Tabb has been unwell. We can’t expect them to do everything.”

  “Then you should press your guests. They have good will but no knowledge of how the house is run.” He began to move some of the plates.

  “No,” she said, “I don’t want you to bother. It will only take me half an hour.”

  “A quarter, then, if you’re helped. Don’t worry; I know the way to the kitchen.”

  She smiled, but obliquely, privately, as she turned away. Her looks had been troubling him all evening. Rich crimson flared about the unsubdued whiteness of her arms and throat, her eyes had new lights in them. She had made no provocative move at all, but in her cool cultured way her manner was not without challenge.

  He followed her into the large kitchen.

  “What did the Bartles do when they left you?”

  “Mary is in service in Truro. Bartle was trying for work in the brewery, but I haven’t heard if he got it.”

  “The Poldarks have fallen low,” he said. “You must be sorry you married into the family.”

  She picked up an empty tray. “Do you think I should answer that?”

  “Perhaps you think I shouldn’t have said it.”

  “Oh…You’re free to say what you like, Ross. If anyone has the right, you have. I don’t take offence so easily these days.”

  They went back into the dining room and began to fill the tray together.

  He said: “I’m surprised to hear Francis has a little money put by. I wonder it hasn’t been spent on ekeing out your ordinary life.”

  “He doesn’t want to spend it that way. It’s a special sum—six hundred pounds.”

  “Do the Warleggans know of it?”

  “They gave it him.”

  “What?”

  “It was a token payment for all the money he’d lost at the gaming tables to Sanson. They felt Sanson’s disgrace was a reflection on their family and offered him this. But he won’t spend it at present. He hasn’t spent a penny.”

  Ross put a hand through his hair. “That’s very strange.”

  They went on with the clearing.

  When the last dishes were in the kitchen Elizabeth said:

  “Thank you for your help, Ross. You’re very kind—and forgiving, perhaps. Somehow I hadn’t thought…”

  “Forgiving?”

  She avoided what she had meant to say. “But of course there has long since been nothing to forgive, has there? Your marriage with Demelza has been so happy.”

  He realized she had turned the conversation. He leaned back on the table behind him and watched as she stacked the plates. “I like that dress.”

  Her lips moved in a half-smile.

  “You’ve grown up a little since we first met,” he said.

  “A little? I feel old…old.”

  “I doubt the truth of that remark.”

  “Why?”

  “You have your mirror. My reassurance can’t add anything to it.”

  “Oh,” she said, “your reassurance isn’t unwelcome.” And she turned to carry a dish into the kitchen beyond.

  He waited until she came back. “Demelza would have helped you willingly if you had asked her.”

  “Demelza…Of course. Yes, she would, wouldn’t she?”

  Elizabeth began to put some unused cutlery away in a drawer. Then she reached up to the cupboard above and tried to open it, but the door had stuck.

  “Let me,” Ross said, and came up behind her. He put his hand on the knob and jerked the cupboard open, and she stepped back against him. Just for a moment they were together and her hair brushed his face. He put his arm round her, his hand closing against the velvet of her other arm. Time briefly ceased to have progression and became an intimate perception of a single emotion breathed by them both—then he stepped away.

  “Thank you,” she said, and picked up the jar and put it in the cupboard. “It’s all the rain and damp weather—makes the woods well.”

  “Have you finished now? It must be nearly one o’clock.”

  “Almost. You go on, Ross. I don’t need you any more.”

  “Not any more?”

  She laughed slightly, but with a catch in her voice. “Well, not that way.” She had still not turned to face him.

  ***

  When he got upstairs Demelza was sitting up in bed darning a torn ruffle on one of his shirts. He was faintly and unreasonably irritated because she was not asleep or trying to get off, for then she would not have noticed how long he had been.

  In fact she noticed more than that, some change in his face, on which she instantly put the right interpretation and a wrong emphasis.

  He went across and put his pipe on the table, began to unbutton his coat.

  She said: “This weather’ll hold up the start of ploughing. The land’ll get so soggy and sad.”

  “Oh, we may have some fine days next month.” Because she had not asked, he forced himself to say: “Elizabeth was in the dining room clearing the remains of the feast. I helped her with a few things.”

  “She should’ve told me. I didn’t like to offer.”

  “That’s what I said.”

  Did you, Ross? Did you? And what else? “When I saw Elizabeth I was sorry not to have my better frock. I didn’t know we were to dress up.”

  “You looked very nice as you were.”

  But she looked nicer. “Well…I’m glad there’s peace in the family again. But I’ll not be satisfied really till Verity and Andrew come as well.”

  “Nor I.” He undressed quickly and got into bed beside her. She went on stitching.

  I suppose, she thought, this had got to come someday. Elizabeth had Ross fast even though she married Francis. Then I came along and took him from her. But always there were some ties, some ropes left that wouldn’t break; and when his interest in me began to slacken it was as sure as life he’d turn again to her. And now she’s no longer in love with Francis. She’s heart-free, though still bound in marriage. What will happen? He’s hers again for the beckoning. He doesn’t want me or my child. I think I want to die.

  “Would you like me to blow out the light?” she asked.

  “No…I don’t mind. When you’re ready.”

  “There’s just this end to do. You must have caught it somewhere.”

  “All my shirts are wearing out.”

  He thought: Were beauty under twenty locks kept fast…If she went to London or Bath she’d have half the aristocracy at her feet. Instead she’s immured here, in an ancient house and with a bankrupt husband, doing half her own work. It must be galling to her to feel her life’s slipping away. She wa
s twenty-six last birthday. Perhaps that’s the reason for the change. But it’s a change towards me.

  “What are you thinking of, Ross?”

  “Um? Oh, about the rain. The Mellingey will be in flood very soon.”

  What would have happened, he thought, if she’d married me? Would events have been very different? Would the results have been different? We’re the slaves of our characters: would I have been happier, or she? Perhaps there are elements in her nature and mine which would have made our life together difficult.

  Demelza said: “I was thankful to know it was not the morbid sore throat at Killewarren. Always now I shall be frightened out of my life of it.”

  “So shall we all.”

  “I met Miss Penvenen at Bodmin. She’s a handsome girl.”

  “Did you, now? Where did you see her?”

  “She was—we were just introduced one day…Dwight was a small matter unsettled when he came back. I think he may feel a taking for her.”

  “Isn’t she promised to Unwin Trevaunance?”

  “I don’t know. Twould be a pity if Dwight got into something again—I mean, made a second bad choice.”

  “Yes…”

  And what of this young woman beside him, whom he had loved devotedly for four years and still did love? She had given him more than perhaps Elizabeth ever could: months of unflawed relationship, unquestioning trust (which he was now betraying in thought). Oh, nonsense. What man did not at some time or another glance elsewhere; and who could complain if it remained as a glance? (Chance was a fine thing.) And if there had been a cooling between him and Demelza, hers had been the first move, not his.

  He said: “What did you do with your time while you were in Bodmin? You’ve never told me.”

  Demelza hesitated, but felt this the worst moment for confessions. “I was so worried I can’t hardly remember…I don’t know what I should’ve done if it hadn’t been for Verity, that I don’t.”