The Black Moon

by Winston Graham

  When the last of the tributers were gone the two men sat together for ten minutes going over the books, and then Ross put his question. Henshawe looked up from the pipe he was lighting and turned to study the flame of the taper before he blew it out.

  ‘Oh, tis true enough. The main lode has dwindled to a mere line. We’ve tried all ways to come upon good ground again but there’s been no fortune so far.’

  ‘And the other lodes?’

  ‘Oh, fair enough but small, as you know. And the quality’s not there. Twas the red copper that brought in the profits. Mind you, at present we can just keep going. It is turning over, keeping men employed. At the last accounting we still showed a narrow profit.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Ross. ‘This was what I heard as rumour.’

  ‘I thought you would be sure to know. Tis all about. Leastwise in this district. It is useless to hide it.’

  ‘But you were so asked?’

  ‘Yes.’ Henshawe stretched his big booted foot, rubbed some of the sandy clay off it with the other boot. ‘I was perplexed whether or no I should tell you, but when something be decided at one mine, then I reckon you must abide by what has been agreed. But the next ticketing will show it all.’

  ‘What is the share holding now?’

  ‘Mr George Warleggan has taken over Mr Coke’s ninety. All ’long, of course, Coke was naught but a figurehead. Mr Cary Warleggan has bought in Mr Pearce’s thirty. The others are not changed.’

  ‘So they own the half. It is an interesting situation, Henshawe. But for the fact that my friends own the other half I would be greatly diverted.’

  ‘And most of your friends still work in it,’ said Henshawe.

  ‘Yes. I am glad it is still in profit.’

  Next day by hand Ross received a letter which was an invitation to dinner at a house a few miles outside Truro. It was from a man called Ralph-Allen Daniell, whom he had met only a few times in all. Once when he was struggling to maintain the existence of the Carnmore Copper Company, Daniell had offered him some disinterested assistance in obtaining parts for the smelting works. And then little over a month ago, at the last tin ticketing, Daniell had been one of a group with him coming out of the Red Lion together, and afterwards they had walked through the streets talking.

  Daniell was a very rich merchant, middle-aged, comfortable, well thought of, who had had no need to align himself with anyone, since his interests were wide enough to guarantee his independence and his innate caution saw no virtue in taking sides. He was a great-nephew of Ralph Allen, the innkeeper’s lad from St Blazey who had gone up country to make his fortune and become a philanthropist in Bath. Daniell had ambitions to copy his namesake: he had already given a number of benefactions to charities in Cornwall and recently he had bought 500 acres on the banks of the Fal and was building a mansion there. The invitation was to dinner at the new house. Ross suspected that this was probably one of a series of receptions Daniell was giving to show it off.

  The invitation was shown to Demelza.

  ‘It is our first for months!’ she said. ‘What a pity; I would have liked to have gone.’

  ‘And why should you not go?’

  ‘I cannot appear in company with a great swollen belly.’

  ‘Your belly is scarcely larger than usual; and I should know. I would deny even a lynx-eyed old woman to detect anything when you’re dressed.’

  ‘But it is altering daily now, Ross. This is not until the 28th. By then I shall look like Dr Choake.’

  He fought down a laugh. ‘In any event what does it matter who knows? I am not ashamed of my wife’s pregnancy.’

  ‘I am not ashamed but I don’t like to parade it in front of other folk – especially smart folk.’ She picked up the invitation. ‘Where is this Trelissick?’

  ‘About four miles from Truro, I should imagine.’

  ‘It is a long way to ride.’

  ‘Ah, in that case I understand. Then I shall refuse for us both.’

  ‘Why both? You can go.’

  ‘I don’t go to social occasions without my wife.’

  ‘But it might be good – it must be good for you to be more among your own kind.’

  ‘My own kind are here all around me.’

  ‘You know what I mean.’

  ‘Well, it is neither of us or both.’

  She said after a moment: ‘As for the riding, that is nothing. I used to ride bare ridged before Julia was born – that was when you were not about. But I do not fancy going into – into that sort of company feeling fudgy faced and pudding paunched.’

  ‘Let us look at the map,’ Ross said. ‘I think we could ride across the moors to Killewarren, take a cup of chocolate with Caroline, and then go on to the Fal from there. I believe the house is near King Harry Ferry. Then in returning we could sleep in Truro and do some shopping and come home comfortable the next day.’

  She went to the mirror and looked at herself sideways. ‘Well, we have not been from home since little Andrew Blamey’s christening. It would be nice to have a jant.’

  ‘Jaunt,’ Ross gently corrected her.

  ‘I better prefer to call it a jant,’ Demelza said.

  They left home before eight on the 28th. It was a perfect day for such an outing: warm without great heat, mixed sun and cloud, with shadows drifting gently over the countryside, moved by a tolerant breeze. Even the barren land of the north coast looked full and heavy today, and as they rode south so the trees and the vegetation and the ripeness grew.

  Demelza had been relieved to find she could still get into the blue riding habit made by Mistress Trelask seven years ago, and she wore the blue tricorn hat with the white feather in it ordered for her by Verity at the same time. She rode Darkie, who now at about sixteen years old was too reliable to jolt her rider even if a badger ran across her path. Ross was quite content to follow on Judith, who was proving a fair investment although still too restive to trust with a pregnant lady.

  They reached Killewarren about ten-thirty, but when they were shown into the parlour they were astonished to find not only Caroline but Ray Penvenen, crouched in a velvet smoking jacket sizes too big for him, with a rug around his shoulders before a coal fire. Mr Penvenen had not been good-looking in the prime of life: sandy-haired, undersized, his lashless eyes always red-rimmed, a sharp mobile nose, indrawn lips, his hands warty and seldom still. Now he resembled a mummified caricature of himself. The skin of his face was so sallow and brown that he might have been a half-caste, all his flesh had fallen away, the eyes were sunken and dull. One felt he would look exactly the same when he was dead.

  Yet he knew Ross and acknowledged Demelza and was not short of dry whispered conversation. So what should have been a pleasant meeting with Caroline over a cup of chocolate became an occasion of forced and stilted talk in an over-hot and stuffy room.

  They stayed just twenty minutes and then took their leave. But after they had come downstairs Caroline drew them into a small sitting-room by the front door. She said: ‘Last week I took a whole day off and went to see Susan Pellew at Treverry. I told her the truth about myself and Dr Enys and asked her what news her husband had given her of the battle. She was kind enough to give me his letter to her about this, and I said I would faithfully return it in a week or so. I’m sure she will not mind if you read it, if you have the time.’ Ross and Demelza read it together standing by the window.

  ‘Dearest heart,’ it began, ‘you will ere now have received news of the successful action which we fought against the French on the 21st and 22nd last. A full report has gone to the Admiralty, and you may know many details, yet I feel I should give you what information I have with my own pen.

  ‘On the Monday afternoon aboard the Nymphe we were about fifty leagues off Ushant and beating into a south-westerly wind when a sail was discovered to the north-west of us and we gave chase. At first we supposed the stranger to be a frigate, for the weather was so thick that it did not suffer us to get a good view of her for upwards of an hour.
Then we saw her to have no poop and could clearly make her out as a French two-decker. With her was a frigate as yet barely visible but closing the distance. The French clearly desired not to come to action but we bent all sail in pursuit. I had with me the Travail and the Mermaid, though the latter had fallen behind and was only just in sight. The wind by now had increased to a gale, and the sea was fast rising. At half past four the larger enemy carried away her fore and main topmasts in a squall and so we were able to come up with her and see she was the Héros, commanded, I found later, by Commodore, ci-devant Baron, Lacrosse. The frigate was the Palmier, I do not yet know her captain. At three quarters after five we shortened sail to close-reefed topsails and poured in our first broadside as we crossed the stern of the Héros. The enemy returned it from some of the upper deck guns and by showers of musketry from a company of troops, of whom I believe there were some two hundred on board. So close were we that some of our crew tore away the enemy’s ensign which had become entangled with our rigging. We then tried to pass ahead and gain a position on the enemy’s bow, but the Héros avoided this and attempted but without success to lay herself on board, actually grazing the Nymphe’s spanker-boom in doing so.

  ‘Thereupon began a long and bitter fight between our frigate and this French ship of the line. A half league away the Travail and the Palmier were similarly engaged, and I grieve to have to tell you that early in that encounter my dear friend and comrade Captain Ernest Harrington was struck in the chest and thigh with musket balls, and expired shortly thereafter. He will be much missed, for a finer man never breathed. The command of the Travail was taken over by Lieutenant Williams, who handled his ship throughout the action with great skill and courage.

  ‘The gale and the action continued all night with a very heavy sea, and the violent motion of the ships made the labour of the crews most excessive. On our Nymphe the men were often up to their middle in water, and some of our guns broke their breechings four times. But all did their duty nobly. The Mermaid, by having come later on the scene, suffered less extensively than we did; but the Travail continuing her engagement with the smaller French ship, was in worse case than either, her masts and rigging being very much damaged, her mizzen topmast being shot away, as was also her gaff, spanker-boom and main topsail yard. This we were able to see as these engaged ships drifted more closely to our own. We could also see that she was answering sluggishly and lying heavily as if there were some feet of water in her hold.

  ‘At four o’clock in the morning one of our sailors spied the French coast, and immediately the tacks were hauled aboard and we broke off the action, wearing to the northward. Night signals of danger were sent to both the Mermaid and the Travail. As we bore away the Héros discharged a final and most destructive broadside into us, the three lower masts being all wounded and the larboard main topmast shrouds shot right away. It then required great activity and coolness to save the topmast which if lost would surely have meant the loss of our ship.

  ‘By now all five ships were drifting rapidly towards the French shore, close in with the surf, a heavy gale dead on shore and a tremendous sea rolling in. We were carrying four feet water in our hold, and to beat off the land would have been a difficult undertaking even for an unwounded ship. We saw the Palmier strike and heel over and the Héros drifting unmanageably towards the beach. The Travail with all her principal sails shot away was in like case, but the Mermaid hazarded herself for some time trying to get a rope aboard. For our part we were in such grave danger that we could only stand to the south until we saw breakers on the lee bow and then wear ship in eighteen fathoms and stand to the north until land was again seen close ahead on the weather bow with breakers under the lee.

  ‘By now we had almost given ourselves up for lost, and I thought much of you and of my dear children, consigning my own body and soul to God; but by some miracle the masts and rigging which had suffered so much hurt withstood the full fury of the gale and after working and tacking for five hours more we passed a mile to windward of the Penmarche and gained the open sea.

  ‘We had seen the Héros lying on her broadside in the surf and the Travail a half mile further on in like state, but could not raise a finger to help. I know not the loss on the Travail or how many of her brave men got ashore. But a Cornish fishing smack with whom we had communication said that three days later there were men still on the Héros and still unable to be rescued because of the heavy seas.

  ‘My love, I have written much of this, but know you that I am thirsty for news of home and hope you will write again soon. Your last letter . . .’

  As they rode away Demelza said: ‘That house. That terrible old man. It is too bad, Ross. She looks old herself. ’

  ‘I know it is too bad.’

  After the woods around Killewarren they again climbed up to moorland, with the track bare and stony, abounding with gorse bushes and heather and at times so overgrown that it was difficult to follow. It was a desolate area, worse than the north coast, windswept and treeless. There was a squat cottage here and there, a mule working a windlass, a tethered goat. They disturbed a hare, a fox, and two wizened half-naked children, all of whom ran away with the same speed and anxiety. Then over the spur of the land they rode down into trees again. Here and there the track became so deep set between hedges that one rode almost through a tunnel.

  Demelza said: ‘Let me ride Judith for a change. I am sure I can manage her. She is really very docile.’

  ‘Be content where you are.’

  ‘Oh, I am content enough. And comfortable enough. But you don’t look right on her. Your legs are too long.’

  ‘If you attend the way you are going you will not need to be concerned for my legs.’

  They crossed the turnpike road and reined up for a few minutes while Ross made sure of his direction.

  Demelza said: ‘That letter. I do not think if I was Caroline that I should be at all comforted by it. In so long a battle there must have been many killed. And then to be wrecked in such a storm.’

  ‘So far as the battle is concerned a surgeon should be less at risk, since his place is between decks attending to the wounded. But Dwight may not have kept his place, being the man he was – or is. Still, I would have thought the shipwreck the worst of it . . . This way. The other track will lead us too far south.’

  They went on. His choice was the right one. After another couple of miles they began to descend a narrow valley which led to glimpses of the blue river: then they turned in at some fine new entrance gates and discovered a large square mansion built of brick and stone, with tall windows looking over slanting sun-shot meadows towards the Fal.

  Demelza said: ‘Do you know this is the first time I have not been nervous, Ross. Going into company like this.’

  ‘You’re growing up.’

  ‘No, I think it is carrying your child that makes the difference. I feel with him to help me I am somehow more confident.’

  Ross said: ‘In that case I think it is going to be a she.’

  Ralph-Allen Daniell said: ‘Of course I shall not live to see it, but these trees we have planted in the meadows will break up the prospect and give it an added elegance. At the present it is all a trifle new and un-mellow. We plan gardens before the house and a folly, in the wood to your right.’

  ‘However unimproved you may think it,’ Ross said, ‘the prospect is one of the finest. What is that path?’

  ‘It leads down to the boathouse. The advantage of living on a river is that one has a broad highway at one’s disposal. On a fine day now I would not think of riding to Truro or to Falmouth; and several great houses are within a few minutes’ rowing.’

  ‘You make my thoughts of improvement seem miserable.’

  ‘To Nampara? I have never been there. It is near Werry House?’

  ‘A few miles. It was built by my father while my mother was alive. Then when she died he lost interest and it was never quite completed. Since then there has been no money for maintenance, let alone improvemen
t.’

  ‘That has changed now, I gather.’

  ‘Modestly speaking. But of course the house is small by any standards. To give it any of the elegance of this house we should have to pull it down and begin again.’

  ‘You’re too kind. But in a few years, who knows, you may have that choice. The Bassets have built Tehidy on the proceeds of their mines. As indeed the Pendarves and many others.’

  They were standing on the terrace looking down towards the river; and just then they were called in to dinner. It was rather a grand affair, grander than Ross had associated with Ralph-Allen Daniell, and quite the smartest dinner-party Demelza had ever been to. She was more than ever glad that she had brought her best day frock to wear. The principal guests appeared to be a Viscount and Viscountess Valletort, who were English in spite of their name. With them were four French émigrés, a Viscomte de Sombreuil, the Comte de Maresi (whom Ross had met briefly in Looe), a Mlle de la Blache and a Mme Guise. Others in the party were Ross’s cousin, St John Peter, a Lieutenant Carruthers, Miss Robartes, who was an old friend of Verity’s, and Sir John Trevaunance – Unwin having returned to London. Both St John Peter and Lieutenant Carruthers had danced attendance on Demelza at one of the earliest balls, and this made her feel more at home in the distinguished company.