The Four Swans

by Winston Graham

  She took out her purse and paid, the coins clinking and glinting as she put them in Drake’s hand. Then she gave a heave and hoisted the heavy bar on her shoulder and prepared to leave.

  ‘You be going Sawle, mistress?’ Sam said. ‘I’m going that way. I’ll carry him for you. That’s too great a weight for a maid.’

  Emma hooted with laughter. ‘I brought’n here! What’s the difference?’

  ‘Tis time I left, Drake,’ Sam said soberly. ‘I mustn’t miss Meeting tonight. There’s none to carry on if I be away.’

  Emma said: ‘Giss along! I’m so strong as you any day of the week. Reckon I could wrastle you down, if twas not considered unladylike to take hold of a man. Dear life!’

  Sam said: ‘I’ll come over next week, Drake. There’ll be little done feast day. I’ll be over then.’

  ‘Yes, Sam. When you please. I’m here all day and all night.’

  Sam said: ‘Leave me take him from you, mistress. Tis no weight for a maid.’

  Wide-eyed with amusement, Emma put her shoulder against Sam’s and allowed him to transfer the weight. Then she rubbed her shoulder where the weight had rested and looked at Drake.

  ‘Reg’lar gent, your parson brother, edn ee. Think he’ll convert me, eh? What do you think, Wheelwright?’

  Drake said: ‘You may laugh at Sam, mistress, but you’ll never make him shamed of his goodness.’

  Emma shrugged. ‘There, now. There’s words for ee. Well, come ’long, Parson, now. We’d best be off home.’

  III

  Neither spoke for a while as they went. The tall sturdy girl walked beside the taller sturdier man. The strong breeze was from the north-east so that it blew the hair away from her face showing the clean bold lines; it also made her frock cling to her so that you could see the fullness of her breasts, the tightness of the waist, the curving swell of her thighs. After one startled glance Sam kept his eyes averted.

  She said: ‘Don’t Brother have any taking for girls, Preacher?’

  ‘Ah, tedn’t that.’

  ‘I reckon he has no taking for me.’

  Sam hesitated, wondering whether to say more. But it was well known. She had only to ask elsewhere.

  ‘Drake had a great taking for another young woman. But she were not for him.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘They weren’t – matched. She was of a different station in life. She’s wed now.’

  ‘Huh? Still grieving, is he?’

  ‘That’s so.’

  ‘What a brock! I’d see no man weeping long over me! Hah! Nor me over they! Life’s too short, Preacher. Well . . . so he d’want no girl but the one he cann’t have, eh? Well . . . Tes a pretty picture, I’ll say that. And you?’

  ‘Me?’ said Sam, startled.

  ‘God didn’t say ye couldn’t marry, did he?’

  ‘No . . . When the time comes, mebbe . . . Er – that’s not the way, Emma. That’s over Warleggan land.’

  She looked at him. ‘Oh, so ye d’know what I’m named . . . This is the short cut. It d’cut off all Grambler village.’

  ‘I know. But they don’t like folk on Trenwith land. I been stopped before.’

  Emma smiled, showing her teeth. ‘I always d’go this way. Have no fear. Whilst you’re wi’ me, Parson, I’ll protect ee.’

  Sam still wanted to protest, but she had already climbed the stile and was walking on. He followed, with her load on his shoulder. It was odd, he thought, the last time he’d come this way he’d been shouldering another load with Drake, and in the copse ahead they had first met Morwenna Chynoweth and Geoffrey Charles Poldark. The commencement of all that trouble.

  ‘D’you know my other name?’ Emma asked.

  ‘Tregirls.’

  ‘And d’you know Father? A rare old lickerish devil, he be. Found a cosy nest wi’ Sally Chill-Off now, he has. Hope he rots.’

  Sam was shocked and wasn’t quite sure how to answer. True, he had never liked or admired his own father but he had tried dutifully to love him, which was a different thing, and would certainly never have uttered words like these.

  Emma looked at him and laughed. ‘Don’t hold wi’ that talk, eh? Honour thy father and thy mother . . . I know. But this father deserted us when Lobb were twelve and I were six. We was brought up in Poor House, Lobb and me. Then Tholly come back looking to be a father again after leaving us fend for ourselves for thirteen year. We told’n to go drown his self.’

  ‘Forgiveness in Christ is a noble virtue,’ Sam said.

  ‘Aye, no doubt. D’ye know he laid hands on me behind a hedge last month, Tholly did. What d’ye think on that, Parson? Want me to show that sort of forgiveness, do ee? I says, no, Father, I says, when I want that there’s young men in plenty about; betterer than an old devil wi’ one arm, I says, as deserted Mother and we, when we was all young!’

  Sam shifted the lifting bar to the other shoulder. Emma was not even seeking the shelter of the wood but was skirting it to take an even shorter cut which would bring them within sight of Trenwith House. There were two men in the distance. This was trouble, and it was the sort of trouble Sam had particularly wanted to avoid after all the upsets of last year. He recognized one of the men coming towards them as Tom Harry, the younger of the two Harry brothers, who were not only gamekeepers but particular creatures of Mr Warleggan.

  Emma said: ‘Lobb is always ailing. He was sent prison when he was seventeen for stealing apples, and the treadmill double ruptured him, so he d’look athurt at the world. And what wi’ five chider I go over now’n then on my off day t’see how they be . . . Well, Tom, ye old hummock, been working hard all day watching the pheasants, ’ave ee?’

  Tom Harry was a burly man with a heavy red face, the less ugly of the two brothers, but for all that formidable in a blunted unreasoning way, a brute force controlled by an intelligence that only recognized absolutes. He grinned at Emma, his eyes prepared to ogle, but sharply frosting as they glanced at Sam.

  ‘’Ere,’ he said. ‘What d’ye want? Be off afore I have ee throwed off. Jack, get this labbat off of our land and see ’e stays off.’

  ‘Sam Carne’s carren that lifting bar for me!’ Emma said sharply ‘It belong to brother Lobb, and if Sam hadn’t carried it I’d’ve had to!’

  Tom looked her up and down, his eyes appreciating what the wind was doing to her frock.

  ‘Well, Emma, ye’ll need ’im no longer, for I shall carry it for ee from ’ere right into Lobb’s ’ands. Now off with you, Carne.’

  Emma said: ‘Sam’s brought’n this far, Tom Harry, and he’ll go the rest of the way. Why should you have the good for it?’

  Tom stared at her and then at his companion, and then at Sam, his brain working slowly.

  ‘Off with ee, Carne. Or I’ll give ee a hiding. Time’s finished when worms like you can crawl over Warleggan land. Jack!—’

  ‘Lay hand on him,’ said Emma, ‘and I’ll never speak to you again. So ye may take your choice!’

  Another pause while the matter was thought over.

  Tom Harry said: ‘You still my girl?’

  ‘So much as ever I was, no more’n no less. I’m not your property yet, nor never will be neither if ye say I can’t come acrost your land . . .’

  ‘I always said you could! Mind that, I always said you could. But this . . .’

  A short wrangle ensued, during which the second man glanced vacantly from one speaker to the other. Throughout the whole encounter Sam had remained unspeaking, staring out towards the sea. Presently it was over and the girl and her new escort were allowed to pass on. They walked away in silence until they reached Stippy Stappy Lane which led down to Sawle. Then Emma laughed.

  ‘See? It was easy, see? They do what I tell ’em to do, see?’

  ‘That true, what he said?’ Sam asked.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You be his girl?’

  ‘We-ll . . .’ She laughed again. ‘Just what I said. More or less. He d’want me to wed him.’

 
‘What shall you say?’

  ‘Ah, that depend, don’t it. Tedn’t the first offer ever I had.’

  ‘Nor like to be the last.’

  She glanced at him. ‘As I see ’n, Sam, girl’s only strength be when she have men dandling on a string. Once they get her, then she’s got. String be round her neck then. Come ’long, do’s you’re told, bear the childer, moole the bread, sweep the planchin, teel the ground; tes like that all the time from bedding night to burying night. So I don’t see’s I can improve my lot by wedden anyone just yet awhile.’

  Sam thought of the rumours current about this girl. He felt deeply drawn towards her, both as a woman and as a soul worth saving. Yet he knew that if he spoke of his spiritual interest in her it would be greeted with her usual derisive laughter. They went down the steep hill until they reached the broken-down cottages and the fish sheds at the bottom. There was a tremendous stink of decaying fish, though pilchards never came till summer. Some lads had been out fishing, and a quarrelsome flutter of seagulls marked where offal and bones had been left. But the smell was never absent; nor was it wholly of fish.

  To the right of the gravel track a last tin stamp made use of the final trickle of water called Mellingey Leat, and it was towards this that Emma led the way.

  Sam had been here before, for it was here that Betty Carkeek lived, who was a recent convert to his flock; but Lobb Tregirls, who lived in the next hut, Sam had never met, and he was startled when he saw a pale, wizened man, bent from the waist, hair thin and greying, who looked nearer fifty than the twenty-six or seven he must be if Emma was to be believed. Around him a brood of young children worked or grovelled according to their ages, half clothed, with stork-like legs and arms. Their mother was out on the beach gathering seaweed.

  Emma arrived like a breath of laughter and good health, indicating Sam and telling of his help; and Lobb shook his hand and nodded and went to stop the stamp and asked Sam right away to help him fit the rod. While this was being done Lobb spoke hardly a word, and Sam did as he was told, while occasionally lifting a glance at the pink cotton frock and the fluttering black hair as it moved across the beach to greet a sister-in-law.

  In about half an hour the rod was in place and Lobb pulled over the lever to divert the water back to the water-wheel. Sam watched interestedly to see the frail fall of water gradually bring the great wheel into motion again. The wheel activated a metal drum which had raised keys on it at intervals, for all the world like a musical box, but these keys instead of creating music lifted and let fall at varying intervals a series of twelve giant rods which when they fell helped to crush the crude ore-bearing ground tipped into the chute from above as it slithered or was shovelled down. Below this the water was utilized again to work a sweep which allowed the tin to settle and brushed away the lighter earth as it turned.

  Lobb said: ‘Reckon I’m obliged to ee, Carne. Are ee one of Emma’s men?’

  ‘No,’ said Sam.

  ‘Reckon she’s besting what man t’ave. Tes wise. She’ll get caught if she don’t. Many a maid’s forced put for less’n she’s done.’

  Sam stared out to sea. ‘Reckon tis time I was going.’

  Seldom in late years had he felt so awkward as he had done among these Tregirls. With the Hoskins there could be disagreement over the rights of miners to take the law into their own hands, but if they had so argued they would have been arguing from the same basic beliefs, differing as to how they should be applied. Not so here. Seldom had his language in a single afternoon so noticeably lacked the rich and colourful phrases of the Testaments to which he subscribed his life. It was not that they were not pertinent – rather was it as if he might have spoke the English language to people who knew only Chinese. He was among heathens to whom the word of the Gospel signified nothing at all. The sentences meant nothing, the phrases meant nothing, the words meant nothing. For the time it was better to save one’s breath.

  ‘Ullo,’ said Lobb, glowering. ‘Look oo’s ’ere.’

  A man on a donkey was coming down the hill. He wore a wide-brimmed hat; his legs dangled so low that they reached the floor; the reins were gathered in one skinny powerful hand, the other arm lay across the saddle and ended in an iron hook. His face was lined but twinkling.

  ‘Fathur,’ said Lobb with great contempt. ‘I want no truck with he.’

  ‘Even if ye can’t abide him,’ Sam said, ‘should ye not go down and greet him?’

  ‘Look,’ said Lobb, ‘tis no business of yourn.’

  ‘I know he deserted you. Emma told me.’

  ‘When he left, we all went Poor House. Know what that’s like, do ee? That’s what he left Mother to. Now he d’come round here smarming and bringing his presents . . . I can’t bear to speak with un. Go if you’ve the mind, Carne. I’m obliged for the ’elp.’

  When Sam got down Tholly was already off his donkey and holding a bag with his hook while he delved into it with his good hand.

  ‘See, I had a morsel of luck Redruth this morn, so I brought ye a few little things, like. Now how ’bout these here.’ He pulled out a pair of leather breeches and held them up. ‘Won’t fit me. Thought they’d do for Lobb. Three shillings and sixpence I paid for ’em. Mint of money, that. They got years of wear yet, years of wear.’

  ‘Thank ee, Uncle Tholly,’ said Mary Tregirls, a bedraggled thin woman who might have been pretty not so long ago. ‘I’ll tell Lobb when he come down from the wheel.’

  ‘Lo, Lobb!’ shouted Tholly, undeterred by the enmity. ‘I brought something for Mary too!’ He glanced at Sam. ‘Drake Carne’s brother, ain’t it? Peter, ain’t it?’

  ‘Sam,’ said Sam.

  ‘Sam Carne, eh? Been helping Lobb, have ee? We all try to help Lobb when he’ll leave folk help him. Emma, me little apple-bird; looking as docy as ever, I see.’

  ‘I’d best be going, Emma,’ Sam said. ‘I did ought to be home ’fore six. You’re – you not coming yet?’

  ‘No,’ said Emma. To her father: ‘What ee got for Mary?’

  He delved in. ‘See here. Warm petticoat. Four shilling it cost! That’s seven and six for the two! Don’t say your old father never give you nothing, now! I near bought a bonnet for you, Emma, but twas more’n I could run to.’ He coughed horribly into the air, fine spray glinting in the sunlight. ‘Peter!’ he said as Sam turned away.

  ‘Sam,’ said Sam.

  ‘Course. I’m absent as a fool. Sam, you a wrastler?’

  Sam hesitated. ‘Nay. Why?’

  ‘Feast day next week there’s to be wrastling. I’m getting up a match. You’re big and handsome. Never wrastled?’

  ‘Only as a lad.’

  ‘Well, then!’

  ‘Nay. Tis not my style. No longer.’ He smiled at Tholly to soften his blunt refusal. ‘Goodbye, Emma.’

  ‘Goodbye,’ said Emma. ‘You should’ve brought food, Fathur, not clothes for their backs!’

  ‘Aye, aye, is that all the thanks I get? Next time I’ll buy something for my own back! Sam!’

  ‘Yes?’ Sam stopped again.

  ‘You interested in bull pups? I got two proper little beauties. Handsome, handsome. Last of a litter. I’d let one of ’em go cheap to a friend. Fine for the baiting! In a year—’

  ‘Thanks.’ Sam shook his head. ‘Thanks, no,’ and walked on.

  As he retreated he could hear them arguing among themselves about Tholly’s gifts, while Lobb remained obstinately aloft tinkering with his water-wheel.

  They were all Tregirls he had left behind, he thought – all nine of them: a mixed bag of heathens; quarrelsome, vital, grudging, grasping, noisy and ragged, and altogether unawakened in their sins. While all were worth the saving, since every soul was precious in the sight of Heaven, yet to Sam only Emma seemed to show a gleam of hope. And that gleam might as yet be more within his own soul than hers.

  Although she was a sinner, as all creatures were, he found it difficult after their walk and talk today to believe the worst that was said of her. She was so
straightforward, so direct, so bright and clear of eye and manner, that he found it hard to believe she was any man’s game. But even if she were, the Biblical analogy that had occurred to him in the mine that day still held good.

  But how to bring her to repentance? How make a person aware of sin when their unawareness was so complete? It was something for which he must pray for guidance.

  Chapter Seven

  I

  Another man who was praying for guidance at this time, though on matters very unrelated to those concerning Sam, was the Reverend Osborne Whitworth. He had two problems exercising his mind, one moral and one temporal.

  It was eight weeks now since Dr Behenna had told Osborne that he must forgo intercourse with Morwenna until after the baby was born.

  ‘You’re a heavy man, Mr Whitworth, if I may say so, and every time this happens now you risk crushing the child to death. I am not altogether satisfied with Mrs Whitworth’s health, and certainly she needs extra rest and care at this time.’

  Ossie had reluctantly acceded. He saw the point, of course, and he did not want to injure the child in case it happened to be a son; but this imposed a restraint on him that irked more with every week that passed. He had, of course, suffered the same deprivation during the confinements of his first wife; but those disentitlements had been of a shorter duration than this one was likely to be, and somehow the loving and kissing and petting which had still been permissible had made the time bearable.

  But the idea of kissing and petting with a woman who shrank from his touch and shrank from touching him was clearly an impossibility. So he was deprived of the normal routine association with a woman that a married man had a right to expect, and he found continence a heavy cross to bear. He found it more hard to bear than he would otherwise have done because of the presence of another woman in the house.

  Rowella, of course, was a child. She would not be fifteen until May. All the same she was as tall as a woman and walked and spoke like a woman and sat at his meals like a woman, and sometimes smiled secretly at him like a woman. He didn’t particularly fancy her looks – the long nose, the sandy eyebrows, the thin shapeless figure. Indeed, merely to consider her in a physical sense was nonsense – and sinful nonsense at that. But the two maids in the house were elderly women, his wife a quiet sad figure with a bulging belly, and Rowella shone in this company with a youthful attraction.