The Four Swans

by Winston Graham

  Ross got up too. ‘I believe there may be some between the peer and the demagogue who may do better than either; but no matter. I realize there’s always danger in change but would not shun it for that reason . . . I think I should be getting back to the dance.’

  ‘You have a pretty wife and a worthy one,’ Falmouth said. ‘Appreciate her while you still have her. Life is uncertain.’

  At the door Ross said: ‘There’s one favour you might do me. And it would be by the exercise of that hereditary power which I have – at your invitation – ventured to deplore. Do you know the living of Sawle-with-Grambler?’

  ‘I know it, yes. I have land in the parish.’

  ‘I believe the living is in the gift of the Dean and Chapter in Exeter. The incumbent has died, and the present curate, an overburdened underpaid little man who has struggled to maintain services there for nearly twenty years, would be transported with joy if he were granted it. I do not know if there are other applicants but, while there will be many with better connections, there will be few who would more fully deserve it.’

  ‘What is your curate’s name?’

  ‘Odgers. Clarence Odgers.’

  ‘I will make a note of it.’

  Chapter Thirteen

  I

  As he came down the passage Ross heard laughter, and thought he could detect Demelza’s voice. He began to feel irritable. This visit seemed to him to be becoming a peculiar and undesirable repetition of the visit to Tehidy. He had been taken aside and engaged in stiff and sober conversation about the country’s and the county’s affairs by his stiff and sober host, as befitted his rapidly advancing years and considerable status, while his young wife enjoyed herself with people of her own age and flirted with a naval lieutenant. By rights he should be developing a pot belly and be taking snuff and having twinges of the gout. To hell with that.

  He crossed the hall, a man half looking for trouble, but restrained by his inherent good sense. He at once saw that Demelza was not among the group who were laughing: Caroline was the centre of it; and his hostess, Mrs Gower, came across to him.

  ‘Oh, Captain Poldark, your wife has gone upstairs with a group of others to see the view from our cupola while the light lasts. Would you permit me to show you the way?’

  They climbed two flights and then a narrow stair which brought them into a glass dome looking over the roofs of the house. Demelza was there with Armitage and Dwight and St John Peter, Ross’s cousin. Ross emerged into the small glass room with no pleasure in his soul; but Demelza’s welcoming glance salved his annoyance.

  He dutifully admired the view, and Mrs Gower pointed out the landmarks. The day had cleared with the sunset, and already a few stars glinted in the nacreous sky. The river, lying among its wooded banks, looked like molten lead. In a ‘pool’ nearby a half dozen tall ships were anchored and had their sails hung out drying after the rain. In the distance was Falmouth harbour and lights winking. Three herons creaked across the sky.

  ‘We were talking of seals, Ross,’ Demelza said, ‘and I was speaking of those we have in Great Seal Hole betwixt ourselves and St Ann’s. Great families of them. In and out of the caves.’

  ‘D’you know I’ve been a sailor for ten years,’ Hugh Armitage said, ‘and have never seen a seal – believe it or not!’

  ‘Nor I, for that matter,’ said Dwight.

  ‘Why, God’s my life!’ said St John Peter, ‘you get ’em on this coast too. You can see ’em any day round Mevagissey and the mouth of the Helford. Cavortin’ on the rocks. But who wants to? I wouldn’t walk a yard for the privilege of seeing ’em!’

  ‘I remember when I was a girl,’ said Mrs Gower, ‘we took an expedition from St Ives. We were staying with the St Aubyns, I and my brother and sister, and we set out one sunny morning but the weather turned stormy and we were near shipwrecked.’

  ‘Wouldn’t trust that damn’ coast,’ said St John Peter, his voice slurring. ‘Treacherous! Wouldn’t get me in a boat large or small. It is all too much like sailin’ in and out of the teeth of an alligator!’

  ‘We go fishing now and again,’ Demelza said. ‘It is all right so long as you know the looks of the weather. Pilchard men do and they come to no harm. Well, hardly ever.’

  ‘It would be agreeable to have a little adventure tomorrow if the day were fine,’ said Mrs Gower. ‘It’s no great distance to the Helford, and I know my children would love it. You could not delay your departure, Hugh?’

  ‘Alas. I must be in Portsmouth by Thursday.’

  ‘Well . . .’ Mrs Gower smiled at Demelza. ‘Perhaps we should postpone it and come to the Great Seal Hole some time. I have heard of it. It is quite famous.’

  Ross said: ‘If the weather ever sets fair in this unaccommodating summer, bring your children to Nampara, Mrs Gower. It’s twenty minutes at the most from my cove to the Great Seal Hole, and I think there would be little risk of disappointment. ’

  Demelza looked at Ross in surprise. For someone who had not wanted to come today this was an unexpectedly friendly move. She was not to know that his change of mood from irritation and jealousy to reassurance at the sight of her had spurred a brief accompanying impulse to set his own conscience to rights.

  ‘And please to spend the night,’ she said to Mrs Gower rashly.

  ‘That would be delightful. But . . . perhaps we should wait till Hugh is home again.’

  Armitage shook his head. ‘Much as it would pleasure me, it may be two years before I am in England again.’

  ‘Damn me,’ said St John Peter, ‘there are better ways of employing one’s time than going out in a pesky boat staring at an aquatic mammal with a set of whiskers. But chacun à son goût, I suppose.’

  They went down again and drank tea and danced and talked and danced again, and Demelza drank too much port and behaved more freely in the house of a nobleman than she would otherwise ever have dared to. Knowing her own liking for the drink, she had kept off it while Clowance was small, but her indulgence tonight had an emotional, almost a masochistic, motive. Hugh Armitage saw her as an example of flawless womanhood, as a creature of Greek mythology, as his ideal beyond fault; and must be disillusioned for his own good. In spite of his protestations that he had known other women and knew their shortcomings, he refused obstinately to recognize hers. So, sad though it was to behave in this way – for she cherished the image even though she knew it to be false – only thus could she show herself to him as undifferent from the rest.

  It was particularly necessary before he went away. She really valued his friendship and wanted to keep it by her like a good thought, a warm memory, until such time in two or three years as she met him again and their companionship could resume where it had left off. Warm affection was right. Even admiration if, Heaven help him, he felt that way. But not idealism, not adoration, and not love. It was bad for him to go away in that rapt, deluded frame of mind.

  In the bedroom that night she had a sharp reaction from these level-headed instincts and sat on the edge of the bed pulling off her stockings with a sudden feeling of depression. It was rare for her, and Ross soon noticed it.

  ‘Feeling sick, love?’ he asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘You were a thought liberal with your port. It’s long since you drank it for Dutch courage.’

  ‘It was not for Dutch courage.’

  ‘No. I think I know.’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘Well, tell me.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  He sat on the bed beside her and put his arm round her shoulder. She leaned her head against him.

  ‘Oh, Ross, I’m so sad!’

  ‘For him?’

  ‘Well, I wish I were two people.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘One, your loving wife, that I always wish to be and always shall be. And mother. Content, content, content . . . But for a day . . .’

  There was a long silence.

  ‘For a day you’d like to be his lover.’

  ‘
No. Not that. But I’d like to be another person, not Demelza Poldark, but someone new, who could respond to him and make him happy, just for a day . . . Someone who could laugh with him, talk with him, flirt with him maybe, go off with him, ride, swim, talk, without feeling I was being disloyal to the man I really and truly and absolutely love.’

  ‘And d’you think he’d be satisfied with that?’

  She moved her head. ‘I don’t know. I suppose not.’

  ‘I suppose not neither. Are you sure you would?’

  ‘Oh, yes!’

  The candle had a thief in it, and the smoke it was sending up was as dark as from a mine chimney. But neither moved to snuff it.

  Ross said: ‘It is not a unique occurrence.’

  ‘What’s not?’

  ‘What you feel. How you feel. It occurs in life. Especially among those who have loved early and have loved long.’

  ‘Why among those?’

  ‘Because others have supped at different tables first. And some others do not consider that loyalty and love must always go together. And then—’

  ‘But I do not want to be disloyal! I do not want to love elsewhere! That’s not it at all. I want to give another man some sort of happiness – some of my happiness perhaps – and I cannot – and it hurts . . .’

  ‘Peace, my love. It hurts me too.’

  ‘Does it, Ross? I’m that sorry.’

  ‘Well, it’s the first time I have ever seen you look at another man the way you look at me.’

  She burst into tears.

  He said no more for a while, content that she was beside him and that he was sharing her mind and emotion.

  She had a handkerchief up her sleeve and she waved his away. ‘Judas,’ she said. ‘This is nothing. Just the port coming out.’

  He said: ‘I’ve never before heard of a woman who drank so much port that it popped out of her eyes.’

  She half giggled, and it ended in a hiccup. ‘Don’t laugh at me, Ross. It isn’t fair to laugh at me when I’m in trouble.’

  ‘No, I won’t. I promise. Never again.’

  ‘That’s an untruth. You know you will.’

  ‘I promise to laugh at you just half as often as you laugh at me.’

  ‘But this isn’t the same.’

  ‘No, love.’ He kissed her quietly. ‘This isn’t the same.’

  ‘And,’ she said, ‘I promised to get up tomorrow morning to tell him goodbye. At six.’

  ‘So you shall.’

  ‘Ross, you’re very good to me and very patient.’

  ‘I know.’

  She bit his hand, which happened to be within reach.

  He nursed his thumb for a moment. ‘Oh, you think I am become self-satisfied in my role as husband and protector. Not so. We both walk on a tightrope. Would you rather I gave you a good beating?’

  ‘Perhaps it is what I need,’ she said.

  II

  Dwight on his visit to St Margaret’s vicarage had been able to report an improvement in Morwenna’s health. The excitability of the tender tissues of the womb had much abated. She suffered no discharge, and her nervous condition was in a better state of tone. He told her she could now get up at a normal time, rest for a while after dinner, and then come down again in the evening. She might go short walks in the garden with her sister when the weather was suitable, feed the swans, pick flowers, undertake small tasks about the house. She must be careful not to over-tire herself and must continue with the prescribed diet at least until the four weeks were up.

  That would be in another week. Dwight said he would call next Thursday, when he expected another unpleasant scene with Mr Whitworth. During his year in the prison camp and his own illness which had followed it, Dwight had had time to observe the effects of elation and depression on the course of his complaint, and that of others, and he had come to believe that there was a peculiar relationship between what the mind and the emotions were feeling and the responses of the body. He was convinced – as Caroline was not convinced – that his own physical salvation depended on his returning to full practice at the earliest possible moment. If his mind animated his body against its will, at the end of the day his body felt better and was better for being so driven. And this in its turn seemed to reactivate his mind. So with other people. Of course, you did not cure a broken leg by telling a man he could walk; but often and often if you put a man’s mind to work for his body’s good you were half way to a cure.

  And there was no question in his view that, apart from a mistaken medical diagnosis, Morwenna had been suffering from acute melancholia. Still was, but less so. And gentle conversation with her, around the subject and about, left him with the unmistakable impression that she dreaded her husband’s physical attentions and that that at least in part was the source of her depression.

  Her husband was a man of God and Dwight was only a man of medicine, so it put him in an invidious position to do more than make a few suggestions on the subject – which he knew in advance would be deeply resented. In any case he was not really in a position to assume responsibility for the guide reins of an unhappy marriage. Last time he had been entirely within his rights as a medical man to forbid intercourse for a matter of four weeks. No one could question his entitlement to do that. But Morwenna was now really well enough in body to resume a marital relationship. She just was not well enough in spirit. She simply did not want sexual commerce. Either she loathed her husband or she was one of those unhappy women who are incurably frigid.

  By what right could he as the doctor intervene? Obviously the situation put Mr Whitworth under considerable strain. Yet Morwenna was his patient. Whitworth looked strong enough to lift an ox. Would he, Dwight, now be within his rights medically to forbid any relationship for, say, another two weeks? Whitworth as a Christian and a gentleman would probably obey him. Two weeks more might make a considerable difference to his wife. It might then be more proper if he dropped a hint or two to Morwenna on the obligations of marriage. An equally difficult task.

  But fortunately that was all yet a week away.

  In the household, after he had left, dinner was a quiet meal. The resident vicar of St Margaret’s, and the wouldbe non-resident vicar of Sawle-with-Grambler, sat between the two tall sisters at a table far too long for their needs. Good cutlery shimmered as the footman in white gloves served the boiled knuckle of veal with the rosemary sauce.

  ‘So his Lordship says you’re finely, Morwenna,’ the vicar remarked, spearing a lump of meat. He thrust it well into his mouth as if afraid of it escaping, and chewed meditatively. He had adopted this sarcastic name for Dwight ever since his first visit. ‘The strengthening treatment is a success and the distemper is passing off. Eh?’ He glanced at Rowella, and his glance lingered.

  ‘Yes, Ossie,’ Morwenna said, ‘I’m feeling favourable. But Dr Enys said it would take a time yet to become quite well.’

  ‘I don’t know at all what sort of bill he’s going to send in, but I expect it will be in keeping with the high pretensions he has assumed since he married the Penvenen girl. Who’s to say Behenna’s treatment might not have been as good in the end – rest and quiet was what you needed, and that’s what you’ve had.’

  ‘But Dr Behenna’s treatment was lowering, Vicar,’ Rowella said. ‘Dr Enys’s has been the reverse. Would you not think that had made a difference?’

  ‘I see it’s two to one, so I must give way,’ Ossie said amiably. It had been noticeable over the last few weeks that has amiability when in the company of the two girls was greater than when alone with his wife.

  ‘What is the Penvenen – Mrs Enys – like?’ asked Rowella. ‘I don’t remember ever to have seen her.’

  ‘A great thin outspoken red-headed stalk of a girl,’ said Ossie. ‘She hunts with the Forbra.’ Little inflexions of malice moved in his voice, memories perhaps of rebuffs. ‘Her uncle would not agree to her marrying a penniless saw-bones, but when he died they were quickly wed. Of course it won’t last.’

  ‘
Not last, Vicar?’

  Ossie smiled at his sister-in-law. ‘Oh, in the eyes of the world perhaps. But I cannot see the noisy Mrs Enys being content for long with a husband who when not visiting his patients spends all his time in experimentation.’

  ‘It reminds me,’ said Rowella; ‘d’you remember Dr Tregellas, Wenna?’

  ‘Yes, yes, I do.’

  ‘He was an old man who lived near Bodmin, Vicar,’ Rowella explained, her face for once animated. ‘They say he was looking for the method to turn copper into gold. When my father called once he found him in his gown and square tasselled cap, stockings fallen round his shoes, reading some Arabic book and sipping out of an empty tea-cup while the water had all boiled away out of the kettle and quenched the fire!’

  ‘Ha! ha!’ said Ossie. ‘Well told! I must say that’s a very good story.’

  ‘But true, Vicar. Honestly true!’

  ‘Oh, I believe you.’

  ‘Once he was ill – Dr Tregellas – and he fell from his chair in a dead faint – and his two daughters lifted him back upon his chair, whereupon he went on reading the book where he had left off, never conscious that he had fainted!’

  The veal was finished, and was succeeded by a fore-quarter of roasted lamb, served with mint and asparagus. Morwenna’s eyes had been on her sister once or twice. Now Rowella looked up.

  ‘You’re eating nothing, Wenna.’

  ‘No, dear. I have all this to drink.’ Morwenna pointed to the tall glass of porter. ‘And the eggs in the morning, though they slip down very easy, take an edge from my appetite. But I’m eating well. Compared to a few weeks ago I’m a positive gourmande!’

  The lamb was followed by two spring chickens, with cauliflower and spinach and cucumber; then plum pudding and a syllabub. Ossie, who always drank well but in moderation for his time, took another half bottle of canary and finished with a substantial glass of cognac.