“No,” said Ross dryly. So she was hiding something. Queer if she too had met someone. But who? In that seething jumble almost anyone in Cornwall. One of the Trevaunances? She had been visiting there before the trial on some strange business of her own. It would explain her interest now in Caroline Penvenen, her shying away from where they had met Oh, it was impossible. The Trevaunances were not her sort, nor she theirs…He stirred restlessly.
“I’ve just finished,” said Demelza, and put the shirt on the table and blew out the light.
They lay quiet, listening now to the purr of the rain on the glass. Demelza put her hands behind her head, but the movement was uncomfortable and she lowered them. How much longer shall I be able to hide it? she thought. There’s no sign yet—I think, but Mrs. Chynoweth’s one good eye seemed to see everything. Ross is not observant that way; but if Mrs. C. suspects, she’ll tell Elizabeth, who’ll tell Francis, who may say something to Ross. Anyway, he will have to know sometime. Put it off, put it off.
Count your blessings. He’s safe from the worst things, from the debtor prison for another year, from the hangman or transportation—if he behaves—for ever. He can’t hardly go off with Elizabeth. Even if he’s unfaithful—should that matter? In a few months or years he may tire of her. She may get old and withered, or fat and ugly. But that’s much more likely to happen to me.
“Are you asleep?” he said.
“No.”
He leaned over and kissed her forehead. “Good night, my love.”
“Good night, Ross,” she said.
After that the silence fell again and was not broken. She thought, trying to forget the heartache, if my child’s a boy, perhaps it will make a difference, alter his feelings. We’ll call him Jan or Humphrey—or even Ross.
But if it’s a girl…then we shall have no ready name.
Chapter Five
On the last day of the old year Myners brought a message to the Gatehouse where Dwight was experimenting with certain poisons to see if in small doses they had any medicinal values.
The letter, on green note paper, had been sealed with a heraldic ring and read as follows:
Dear Dr. Enys,
Having saved my life on Christmas Eve, you appear to have no further interest in my recovery. Perhaps you will be interested to know that it is now complete. My uncle and I would nevertheless esteem it a favour if you would call on us in the near future to assure yourself of this and to receive Payment and our thanks for your skill of a week ago.
I am, sir,
Yours, etc.,
Caroline Penvenen
Dwight stared at the letter and then, after a struggle with himself, went to his escritoire and wrote his reply while the bailiff waited.
My dear Miss Penvenen,
I am happy to hear of, and offer my felicitations on, your recovery. I did not, in fact, anticipate any other outcome once the fishbone had been removed. Nevertheless I should certainly have called, and ask your Pardon if my not doing so has seemed lacking in courtesy; but, as you will understand, you are my colleague Dr. Choake’s patient, and it would be a breach of etiquette on my part if I continued to attend you without his knowledge or consent. In these circumstances I have regretfully had no alternative but to assume an indifference to your health which I did not feel.
As to Payment, I am amply recompensed for the small service I performed by the knowledge of your gratitude.
I am, madam,
Your obedient servant,
Dwight Enys
When Myners had gone back with this message Dwight turned again to his mixtures, but the experiments had lost their savour. In any case he had only his own stomach to experiment on, and he was already feeling very unwell from the last draught he had taken, so he went for a walk round the garden to see if the air would help the attack to pass off.
After an hour, when he was feeling better, Myners arrived back with another message. It ran:
Dear Dr. Enys,
To you, no doubt, the saving of my life may seem a very small Service indeed. To me, as I am sure you will understand, the matter assumes a slightly greater importance. Naturally I should not expect you to change your opinion on this point; but I should inform you that when Dr. Choake called on the following day my uncle sent him about his Business, and I have therefore been without medical attention since.
I should be obliged if you would call today; and enclose a guinea, which is the smallest value, little as I esteem myself, that I can put upon your visit of Christmas Eve.
I am, sir,
Yours, etc.,
Caroline Penvenen
Dwight went to the escritoire and sat tapping his pen in agitation. Why not admit the truth? He was in love with the girl—desperately so. And the train of incident, although the women were so vastly different, was disturbingly close to events in his love for Keren. One of Choake’s patients—himself called in suddenly in an emergency—some sudden attraction—Choake turned away the following day and Dr. Enys chosen as a permanent medical man. This far the same. Of course Keren was married; but everyone knew that Caroline was promised to the younger Trevaunance. In a sense this situation was more explosive, for although he had eventually fallen in love with Keren, the infatuation had been mainly hers. Not so this time. Indeed he might be going much too fast: the infatuation might be wholly his. But the potential danger was obvious. He did not deceive himself. Despite his good breeding, Caroline was as much above him as Keren had been below him. Ray Penvenen weighed money and rank in the same scale. What was lacking in one must be made up by the other, and rumour was about that Unwin Trevaunance, despite his being a member of Parliament and brother of a childless baronet, might only just make the grade. Hence the delay in marriage.
Was he to intrude into this situation, already aware of his own feelings and half afraid, half hoping that it involved hers?
Yet how to get out of it without seeming an obvious boor? A voice within him said, Well, perhaps it would mean only this one visit; she looked a healthy young woman not given to physical ill humours. It would be pleasant to see her again, to receive her thanks. And, finding as he did so many of the big houses closed against him by this doctor or that—and not having the reputation or experience to be called in as a consultant—wouldn’t it be the plainest common sense to set his feelings aside and take this opportunity of establishing himself with the richest family in the district? What other physician in his place would hesitate?
Nor would even he have hesitated if it had not been for the memory of the tragedy of Keren. That had brought home to him his own weaknesses, and it would be reckless to disregard them.
He picked up the pen again.
My dear Miss Penvenen [he wrote],
I am obliged to you for your further letter. In the first place I would assure you that it is far from likely that I saved your life. Medically one would have expected the Swelling eventually to burst and expel the foreign matter, though this not without considerable further pain and inconvenience to Yourself. In the second place I would assure you that I meant not to put any estimate upon the importance of the complaint in its relation to yourself but only to the trifling inconvenience I was put to in attending upon you.
Further, the value of your life or health is so plainly beyond computation that to express it in terms of money would seem an Impertinence, and I am therefore taking the liberty of returning the guinea you so kindly enclosed.
I will wait upon you tomorrow, Saturday, in the forenoon.
I am, madam,
Your obedient servant,
Dwight Enys
Seventeen ninety-one came in without change of weather or other outward sign to mark the beginning of a new year. Saturday was indistinguishable from Friday, grey and fine but with rain always heavy on the wind. For Dwight, however, Friday was the day he had given way to a reckless impulse; Saturday the da
y he must implement it. He rode over to Killewarren with the conflict still rife in his mind.
The house was no less shabby in the light of day. However much better circumstanced Ray Penvenen might be than his neighbours, he had no intention of outshining them in renewal and repair.
Caroline was waiting in the big upstairs living room with its heavy crimson plush velvet curtains and its warm Turkey rugs. She looked as tall as a sunflower in a low-cut frock drawn tight at the waist and a wide green skirt. Horace came yapping at him, but she silenced him, and Dwight went across to the window where she was standing. He touched her hand.
“Dr. Enys,” she said, “how kind of you to come at last. I haven’t been waiting above two hours, and the time has passed quickly looking over the garden. A happy New Year!”
“Thank you…And to you, Miss Penvenen.” As usual he had flushed. “I’m—sorry if you’ve been waiting. One or two other calls took me longer than I expected. And I said the forenoon. It’s only just after eleven o’clock.”
“The other calls, of course, were more important than mine,” she said sweetly.
“Only in that the people were more gravely ill.”
“Were you so certain I was not?”
“Your letter said not.”
“I might have been bravely hiding a serious disease. Did that never occur to you? Oh, faith, you can’t be as good a doctor as I thought.”
“I am not a good doctor. There are few such if any about…”
“You think I should have kept Dr. Choake?”
“I’d prefer not to discuss it.”
“Very well then, discuss me. Perhaps you would like to examine my throat again?”
“Yes…”
He moved nearer to her and she opened her mouth. Their faces were on a level; she was at least five feet nine, he thought. He turned her face a little more to the light. He noticed again the slight freckles on her nose. Her skin was warm and firm under his fingers.
“Say ‘Ah!’”
“Ah…” said Caroline.
“Yes, very satisfactory. You’ll have no more trouble there.” He withdrew his hands, still embarrassed, and she closed her mouth.
She laughed.
“What is it?” he said.
“Nothing.” She shrugged her bare shoulders, half turning away. “How different you are sometimes from others. Today I might be a sword’s edge, you flinch away at a touch. The other night it was not so. It was: ‘Turn this way,’ and ‘turn that.’ ‘Keep your head still! Open your mouth and keep it open! Bring me a spoon! Hold the candle steady! Now!’”
He half smiled through his flush. “You were ill then.”
“So one needs to be ill to call forth the physician, eh? Shall I swoon now or have a fit of the vapours?”
Something was shuffling and stamping in the room underneath.
“D’you so much prefer the doctor to the ordinary man?”
She looked out of doors, her eyes narrowed. “I have to confess a liking for a man who knows his own mind.”
Dwight’s heart began to thump.
“A man may know his own mind—and at the same time his own place.”
Her eyes did not flicker. “That’s a complaint I shouldn’t have thought you ever suffered from.”
“Well, now that you’ve discovered that I do, what would you suggest to remedy it?”
Caroline turned from the window. “Why, refreshment, of course. Refreshment is the remedy for all manner of embarrassments. And pray don’t be frightened by the noises below. This room is over the stables and our horses are restive for lack of exercise.”
He watched her while she poured two glasses of wine. He was grateful for this opportunity to collect his thoughts.
When she came back she said: “I should think your hero, Mr. Ross Poldark, must be a man who very clearly knows his own mind every instant of the day. And, having come to his decisions, I imagine he puts them through with the utmost ruthlessness and determination. Canary?”
“You’re quite right.” He took the glass. “Thank you. At least you’re quite right as to the determination. But I shouldn’t put his wife behind him at all in that respect.”
“I’ve met her.” Caroline sighed. “A handsome enough creature in a sort of way. But not with the ‘stick at nothing’ look of her husband. You must bring him over sometime. I think he would divert me.”
“I’m afraid that would be difficult.”
“He’s not on call like a lackey—or a doctor? Is that what you were going to say? Well, I did not suppose he would be. But perhaps we can arrange it. A biscuit?”
“No, thank you.”
The horses were shuffling again. She bent her head. “That’s Firefly. I know his stamp. Are you fond of riding, Dr. Enys? For pleasure, I mean.”
“I’m in the saddle so much about my business that I get little time—”
“We must ride together one of these days.” She put a hand up to her hair. “I’ll let you know. I may even venture to summon you here from a sick bedside—from some really important case, not merely a fishbone or a triviality of that nature.”
“I’m sure you’ll appreciate,” he said impatiently, “that there are in fact serious cases about that make demands on one’s time—and one’s compassion. Scrofula among the undernourished children, phthisis among their fathers; the tertian fever has been everywhere this year, and scorbutus is spreading in Sawle. Thomas Choake is more interested in his hunting and those of his fashionable patients who can pay him. I deal with what I can and the rest go to ignorant rascally druggists or old women who brew rats’ tails and sell them as elixirs. It’s hard sometimes to maintain a sense of proportion that everyone can appreciate.”
“Yes,” she said after a minute, quizzically, “I think I do like you after all.”
“It’s very gratifying: I’m sensible of the honour. Now, I’m afraid I must be going as there are several more in this district I must see. Will you give my kind respects to your uncle…”
“Wait. Don’t be so stiff. I should prefer five minutes more of your attention. What are all these diseases with their Latin names? They interest me. What are you doing for them? Can you cure them? I think I should like to have been a physician or a barber surgeon—I have never had the least aversion for blood.”
“I can do next to nothing for the scrofulus conditions. Once the poisonous humour betrays itself the sufferer is likely to face a lingering death. For phthisis there are two cures for every forty failures. Few people die of the tertian ague but many fall a prey to other things from its weakening effects. For scorbutus I can do everything and nothing. A doctor’s drugs are useless, but certain foods can bring about an almost immediate cure. However, those foods are unprocurable by the people of Sawle, so they must bleed and die.”
“What foods? Breadfruit from the South Seas?”
“No, the ordinary staples of life. Green vegetables, fruit, fresh meat. Any one of those three in sufficient quantity.”
“Why do they not buy them then? I suppose they’re too poor. But scorbutus is only scurvy, isn’t it? Thousands of our sailors suffer from it and are no worse when they get home.”
“It depends on the length of the voyage. Many die.”
“But they cannot get the foods anyhow. Why don’t the people of Sawle spend less on gin? Drunkenness is no less for all their poverty. Or why don’t they run oranges instead of brandy when they sail to France?”
He said: “Oranges, when they can be had at all, are selling at two pence-halfpenny or three pence each. Meat is prohibitive. Gin costs them sixpence a quart or less. They’re only human after all. And, even so, many of them are as sober as you or I.”
She inclined her head. “Thank you. I’m very much complimented by the association…But there, Dr. Enys, shall you do any good by attempting to preserve all these people? Th
ey will multiply and multiply and so there’ll be ever more mouths to feed. Admitted it is sad to see them die, but it keeps the numbers in check and preserves a balance. If there’s more food than people, then the people grow in numbers until there’s more people than food. When that happens some die off until the food is equal to maintain the others. Is it for us to interfere? Ah, I see I’ve shocked you.”
“Only by assuming that you yourself are different from the rest and not to be included in this stocktaking.”
She smiled sweetly. “Well, of course I’m different from the rest! It’s no virtue but a happy chance. I was born a Penvenen, and so am rich and educated. If I had been born poor and weakly I should no doubt die of one of your nasty diseases, but don’t expect me to weep about it now!”
“It’s a comfortable reasoning,” Dwight said, “but dangerous. Isn’t it the sort of philosophy which has caused all this trouble in France?”
Before she could reply the door opened and Ray Penvenen came in. He greeted the young doctor cordially enough, though not with the freedom his niece permitted herself. After a few minutes Dwight left, glad to escape and to sort out his impressions. The unfamiliar scent of her clung about him all the day, perhaps in his memory more than in his nostrils. Even the taste of the wine was foreign, quickening to the pulse. That philosophy, he thought, the perfect one for the middle-aged bachelor with money dulling his heart. But not for the girl of nineteen or twenty. Monstrous. And so was she; but against judgment he was deeper in than ever. There was no escape except to hope that she would quickly become an M.P.’s wife and move up to London to keep house there. Out of sight would not be out of mind, but it would at least be out of danger.
***
Ray Penvenen hitched his coat to set it more firmly on his shoulders. “I hear Unwin is coming down tomorrow.”
“Yes,” said Caroline. “For about a fortnight.”
“You did not tell me.”
“I thought Sir John would this morning.”
“Unwin will expect some definite word from you while he is down.”
Jeremy Poldark Page 21
