The Angry Tide

by Winston Graham

  ‘From what I could see,’ said George, ‘the gardens are in poor state. What have the men been doing?’

  ‘It is difficult to keep a place tidy at this time of year. And in this wind. I see a branch of the fir by the gates is hanging.’

  ‘The whole tree should come down. Have the apprentices arrived?’

  ‘Yesterday in the forenoon.’

  ‘They cost me £15 each. It was too much I thought, coming from a poor house, but the overseers said they were apty young boys.’

  ‘They seem so. But one, George, one called Wilkins, I would not allow in the house as he hadn’t had the smallpox. He will have to sleep in the village.’

  ‘Oh, George,’ said Mrs Chynoweth, digging into her immediate memory and struggling with her unruly tongue. ‘Did you th-know that our little Morwenna is to wed again?’

  Morwenna stared at the old woman in horror: during the whole of her visit this had not even been mentioned. She had given no idea that Mrs Chynoweth even knew.

  ‘No,’ said George, and laid down his knife to take a sip of wine. ‘That might be a way out of your present difficulties. Who is to be the man?’

  ‘Papa,’ Valentine said, ‘I have been doing some painting in that picture-book you bought me in London. You have to have the book quite flat or the colours run. I’ll show you when I get down. Mama, might I get down?’

  ‘No, dear, not yet . . .’

  ‘The United States,’ said Mr Chynoweth, half waking from a doze. ‘That’s what they call themselves. A democracy, Hah! But what does their president say about it, what does he say? Eh? I’ll tell you. He says, “Remember, there never was a democracy that did not commit suicide.” That’s what he says. What’s his name? I forget. Adamson or Adams or some such.’

  An accumulation of the gale leaned against the house and seemed about to push it over. A footman came in and took away plates.

  Elizabeth said: ‘That silver coffee-pot we bought in London: one of the hinges of the lid is defective, I believe. I think we should take it back.’

  ‘I paid £26 for it,’ said George.

  ‘Your old horse, Kinsman, has been ill with the butts,’ Elizabeth said. ‘A bottle of Daffy’s Elixir has brought him a little better, but I fear it is partly his age.’

  ‘Let him be put down,’ said George.

  ‘Papa,’ said Valentine, ‘the day we arrived was such fun! We had scarce got into the house when a hawk was chasing a sparrow and the sparrow fled into the big hall through the open door and hid under the sideboard with the hawk following right into the house. Such a commotion! All the servants beating about! And in the end away flew the sparrow with the hawk still after him!’

  There was a silence while they listened to the wind.

  Elizabeth said: ‘Farmer Hancock called yesterday. He was concerned to renew the lease on the 30 acres that you rent him. He says at present he pays £35 a year.’

  ‘Hancock should know better than to call on you with his troubles,’ said George. ‘Tankard will be here next week.’

  ‘I didn’t know that. I didn’t know, of course, that you were coming.’

  Silence again.

  ‘Who is to be the man?’ George asked Morwenna.

  Morwenna looked at him with sightless eyes.

  Lucy Pipe came back with the th-news from th-church yesterday,’ said Mrs Chynoweth. ‘The-some name. A carpenter or a smith or th-some such. Not a good match, I th-should say. I don’t know what her mother will think.’

  ‘Is it Carne?’ George said, still looking directly at Morwenna.

  ‘Papa,’ Valentine said. ‘When dinner is over, will you come up and let me show you—’

  ‘Stevens,’ George said, turning to the butler, ‘please take this child away.’

  There was a brief stormy interlude while Valentine, tears in his eyes but not falling, was led away.

  After the commotion had settled George said: ‘It is Carne?’

  Morwenna continued to look back at him. ‘Yes,’ she said.

  II

  Near Trenwith gates a gust of wind almost had pony and rider over, so Drake jumped off and ran beside Judith up the gravel drive. It seemed a long way, but his anxiety swamped fears of meeting the gamekeepers. He reached the front door. He hitched Judith to a post and pounded on the door. It was no time for courtesy or finesse.

  A man at length opened it, and held it open a bare three inches as the wind thrust to be in.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Is Mor – Is Mrs . . . Is – I came for Mrs Whitworth.’

  The light showed up Drake’s clothes. ‘Go round to the back door.’

  This door was closing. Drake put his foot in it. ‘I’ve come to see Mrs Whitworth! Miss Chynoweth that was? She did say as she were coming here about noon time.’ He hesitated. ‘Be Mrs Warleggan here?’

  ‘You get round to the back, my man, where you belong, or else . . .’

  ‘Can I see Mrs Warleggan, please.’

  A struggle developed in the doorway. A door beyond opened, and more light came out.

  ‘What is it, Morrison?’

  ‘A man, sur—’

  The door went back and the wind screamed like mad children and rushed round the hall.

  ‘Begging your pardon, Mr Warleggan,’ said Drake, his face tight. ‘I’ve no wish nor want to intrude, but I’ve heard that Morwenna’s come up here and I’ve come for her.’

  ‘Carne,’ said George. ‘You are trespassing on this property. The law of trespass is a severe one, and I am a magistrate. I give you three minutes to be off my land.’ He took out his watch. ‘Then I’ll send my gamekeepers after you.’

  Elizabeth came out of the room behind him. Her face was stretched with controlled emotion.

  ‘Oh, Drake is it?’ she said. ‘You must have—’

  ‘Ma’am, I’m seeking Morwenna. If—’

  ‘She’s gone. Not ten minutes since.’

  A child was shouting upstairs and a door banged violently.

  ‘Gone? Where? Where, ma’am?’

  ‘She left. I thought she was—’

  ‘On her own?’

  ‘Yes, she would not stay—’

  Drake said: ‘I just come from my shop. I’ve not seen her on the way.’

  ‘You have two minutes,’ said George. ‘And if you doubt my wife’s word I shall rescind that, you insolent puppy. As for that dim-sighted slut you intend to marry, I’ll see she never enters this house again. Nor will she have any connection with anyone here! D’you understand! If she comes on this land I’ll have her turned off for a beggar!’

  ‘Drake,’ said Elizabeth. ‘If you came by the drive . . . She may have taken the short cut.’

  ‘Only ten minutes since?’ He hesitated. ‘Thank ee, ma’am. Thank ee, ma’am.’

  Trembling with anger and anxiety, Drake turned again and went out. Before he was through the door it shut behind him, knocking him down the steps. He grabbed Judith and mounted her again, riding now into the teeth of the gale.

  Elizabeth must be telling the truth. But even if she’d left, had she gone home? She might have wandered off somewhere. Even towards the cliffs. If George had treated her as he had treated him she would be desperately distraught. And the dark, and the low clouds, and this vile wind . . .

  Kicking at the ribs of the pony, he reached the gates and began the struggle home.

  Now that the tide was ebbing there was less spume to contend with; but still bits of twigs and dust and other light refuse flew intermittently, getting in Judith’s eyes and making her ever more nervous. Few people were about even though it was yet early evening. Few would stir in such weather. A cottage here and there in the sheltered declivities of the land showed a gleam of light. Past Trevaunance the wind slackened.

  Judith reared and nearly unseated him; it was a badger scuttling like an evil spirit across their path. Suppose Morwenna had fallen and he had missed her in the dark. He was superstitious about calling her name aloud as he rode. It might drive her aw
ay. She might not recognize his voice and cower in a ditch till he was past. Still worse, distressed by whatever had been said at Trenwith, she might have returned to the neurotic mood in which she had rejected him in April, and refuse to answer.

  He had to see her first, to see something moving. He prayed silently, but altogether without words.

  The moon was rising, so it was not properly dark. The wind boomed overhead as if in an echoing, hollow tunnel from which all life had long since fled. The few harried trees nodded their heads against the breaking clouds. The land crouched in ungainly lumps and shadows, unfamiliar in the half-dark.

  Down the last hill, which was the sharpest of all, and he got from the pony again as they went down, slithering and slipping among the mud and the stones. Pally’s Shop was still in darkness. A single light gleamed on the opposite hill. And then he saw her.

  There was no doubt at all in his mind because she looked exactly as she had done when she first came last Thursday. Tall, mannish in her long cloak, with a shuffling walk. She was at the gate of the smithy.

  He dropped the reins and ran on and called her name, but it was too gentle and the wind snatched at it and bore it away.

  ‘Morwenna!’ he shouted.

  She heard him this time and turned, but with the cloak over her hair it was too dark to see her face.

  ‘Drake.’

  He said: ‘I been searching for you and searching for you everywhere.’

  ‘Drake,’ she said, and hesitated, and then went into his arms.

  He said: ‘I just been to Trenwith. They said you’d just left . . .’

  ‘I was looking for you. I thought you weren’t home.’ She was trembling and out of breath, exhausted.

  ‘I must’ve missed you. Ye must’ve come through the wood.’

  ‘I came through the wood.’

  ‘Never fear, my love. Tis all past now. There’s no need to worry no more.’

  He carefully did not kiss her or hold her against her will. But he noted that at this moment she was clinging to him.

  III

  George found Elizabeth in her bedroom, whence she had gone after quieting Valentine and talking to him and admiring his painting. George moved around the bedroom for a few moments, picking up one or two things and looking at them and then setting them down.

  He said casually: ‘It is good to be in this house again. Having been absent so long one forgets its virtues.’

  Elizabeth did not reply, but examined a tiny blemish on her face.

  George said: ‘A disagreeable ride and a disagreeable welcome. I fear I lost my temper downstairs.’

  ‘There was nothing disagreeable until you made it so.’

  He turned his head slowly, viewing her with quiet hostility. ‘You feel perfectly content that your cousin should be marrying that insolent, down-at-heel Methodist?’

  ‘Not happy, no,’ said Elizabeth. ‘But before this we attempted to guide her, and perhaps we guided her wrong. Now there is nothing to be done. She is a woman – no longer a girl – and a widow, without ties, except that her mother-in-law has accepted. We cannot control her, and it is stupid not to admit the fact.’

  ‘Stupid,’ he said. ‘I see. And is it not stupid of you to have invited her here?’

  ‘I hardly expected you to arrive today.’

  ‘And that excuses it?’

  ‘I don’t consider any excuse is necessary,’ she said quietly.

  ‘Ah, so that is it.’

  ‘Yes . . . that is it.’

  George recognized the steely sound in Elizabeth’s voice which meant that she was willing for once to do battle. He realized that at this moment her anger was greater than his own. His had reached its peak downstairs when he had turned Morwenna out of the house, and was evaporating now into a sardonic ill-humour.

  ‘You think it right that she should answer me in the way she did – that girl, that woman?’

  ‘Do you think it right to say what you did to her? Implying that Drake Carne might have had some complicity in Osborne’s death!’

  ‘I said nothing of the sort. If she chose to take it that way . . .’

  ‘You know it was investigated and proved he was far away at the time.’

  ‘Oh, proved . . . Once can prove anything. After all, Carne, it seems, stands most to gain by the event.’

  ‘Sometimes I cannot understand you, George. You seem . . . driven on by something.’

  ‘Oh, yes, driven on. Sometimes I am driven on.’

  She took up her brush and began to touch the sides of her hair with it, arranging and adjusting the fine strands.

  He made an effort. ‘I hope you’ve been well.’ But the words were cold.

  ‘Quite well. Though scenes such as those downstairs make me feel no better.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Are you?’

  He analysed his thoughts. ‘I am sorry that you upset yourself over what I said. I am not sorry to have turned that impudent creature out of the house, even if she is your cousin. Nor am I sorry to have sent her dishonest dandy-boy packing.’

  ‘On the contrary,’ Elizabeth said. ‘I felt – degraded.’

  George flushed. He was struck in his most vulnerable point. No Achilles could more obviously have possessed a heel through which his pride and confidence would escape.

  ‘You have no right to say that!’

  ‘You think not?’

  ‘I say not.’

  He hacked the curtain aside and looked out. The moon was making the night light, and in Elizabeth’s room, which overlooked the small courtyard, the wind was not strong enough to create a draught through the leaded panes. One more effort at some sort of conciliation.

  He said with a dry laugh: ‘I have ridden here especially to see you, and we quarrel over two trivial people who concern us very little at all.’

  ‘There is one who does concern us both.’

  ‘Who is that?’

  ‘Valentine.’

  He let the curtain fall. Elizabeth was sitting at her dressing-table in a long flowing robe which hid the child she was bearing, and her slim shoulders and straight back seemed almost as girlish as when he had first seen them twenty years ago. The usual mixed emotions struggled within him when he looked at her. She was the only human being who could disturb him in this way.

  ‘I have been – busy – scarce time to eat. I came here to rest. Valentine’s prattle – annoys me.’

  ‘It is only the prattle of a normal boy. He was vastly upset tonight at being so dismissed.’

  George did not speak.

  ‘Have you been in to see him since?’ Elizabeth asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then you should.’

  George’s neck stiffened all over again. Another reprimand. Ever since he came in this room everything she said had been a reprimand. As if she were the master. As if hers were the money, the mines, the bank, the properties, the membership of the House, the business connections! It was insufferable! He could have struck her. He could have squeezed her neck between his fingers and silenced her in half a minute.

  She turned and half smiled at him. ‘You should, George.’

  His feelings broke then, like a wave against the immutable rocks. And the immutability lay in his concern for this woman and what she thought of him.

  ‘Elizabeth,’ he said harshly. ‘You know at times I am in torment.’

  ‘Because of the thoughtless words of another child?’ She was bringing the issue into the open.

  ‘Possibly. Partly. Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings . . .’

  ‘So you think Geoffrey Charles in idleness points the truth, while all I have sworn to you before is false?’

  He lowered his head like a goaded bull. ‘One does not always see these things in such precise terms. Let us say that at times I have been in torment; and then – then I speak my mind without concern for the courtesies of polite conversation. Then, no doubt, you reflect on the hazards of having married a blacksmith’s son.�
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  ‘I did not say that.’

  ‘You said as good as that!’

  ‘No, I did not. And if you are in torment, George, how do you think I feel when you come into this house and ride roughshod over everyone and are violent to my cousin and cruel to our son? Our son, George! Our son! No, I do not think I have married a blacksmith’s son, I think I have married a man who still carries a terrible weight upon his shoulders, a terrible evil weight of jealousy and suspicion that nothing and nobody can remove! Not anything I say! Not anything I have sworn! Not anything I may do! You will carry this black load for evermore and ruin the rest of our married life with it! . . . If there is to be more to our married life . . .?’

  George looked into the darkness of his own soul and knew that she spoke the truth. He collected his temper, struggled with it, strove to put it aside. ‘Yes, well; we have had all this out before.’

  ‘So I had thought!’

  ‘It is not a pretty subject. Old Agatha laid a curse upon our marriage, I believe, and—’

  ‘Agatha?’ She turned swiftly. ‘Aunt Agatha? What has she to do with this?’

  He brooded a moment. ‘I had not intended ever to tell you . . .’

  ‘I think it is time you told me, whatever there is to tell!’

  He still hesitated, plucking at his lip. ‘No matter now.’

  ‘Tell me!’

  ‘Well, the night she died she – when I went up to tell her she was only ninety-eight and not a centenarian as she pretended – she turned on me – I believe it was out of spite, out of revenge . . .’

  ‘What did she say?’

  She said that Valentine was not my child.’

  Elizabeth stared at him, her face bitter.

  ‘So that was where it all came from . . .’

  ‘Yes. Most of it. All of it, I suppose.’

  ‘And you believed her? You believed a half-demented old woman?’

  ‘She said you had not been married long enough to me to bear the child to its full term.’

  ‘Valentine was premature. I fell on the stairs!’

  ‘So you said . . .’

  ‘So I said! You still think, then, in spite of everything I’ve told you, that I have been living a deliberate lie ever since Valentine was born? That I never fell down the stairs, that I made it all up, to pass off Valentine as your child when he was not! Did Aunt Agatha tell you all that too?’