The Black Moon

by Winston Graham

  In the meantime, Mrs Chynoweth ended, she was writing by this post to Elizabeth counselling gentle treatment for her daughter and suggesting a two months’ delay before she was asked finally to make up her mind.

  So the third meeting with Drake, and a more successful attempt on her part to keep it on an even keel. Wholly successful at first, so that he was hurt and dismayed. But it did not last. In her heart something said: ‘If I am to lose this, is it not excusable to indulge it while I may?’

  George had returned on the Tuesday, and the toads were cleared throughout Wednesday. Tom Harry said over and over again to George and to everyone else who would listen that he couldn’t understand there being so many. George grunted and made no other reply, but he woke in a peace on Thursday and Friday and Saturday mornings. On the Sunday they were back again.

  Now a rare anger came upon him and he would have had Tom Harry and Paul Bilco thrashed, had Tom’s elder brother not come to him with a special plea and a possible explanation.

  ‘These’re not the toads we got rid of last year, sur. These’re ordinary toads such as live in the ponds of Marasanvose.’

  ‘So?’ said George impatiently.

  ‘So maybe they’ve walked. Frogs and toads is queer critters. They’ve spawned here for upwards of ’alf a century. Or else . . . Or else they’ve been brought yur for devilment.’

  George looked at his servant, who was uneasily trying not to look at George.

  ‘Why should anyone wish to do that?’

  Harry did not know. It was not his place to furnish explanations. But George had no difficulty in answering his own question. A meeting house taken over for a store shed and its members turned out? A mine closed down and families existing off parish relief? Paths through his estate closed and fences erected? Any or all of these might give rise to a childish wish for reprisal.

  ‘How far is it from Marasanvose?’

  ‘Upwards of three mile to the nearest pond.’

  ‘Could they walk that far?’

  ‘Well, sur, I b’lieve they could, but I don’t b’lieve they ’ave.’

  George watched the dismal efforts of his servants fishing in the pool again. ‘I want a watch kept, Harry,’ he said. ‘From dusk to dawn. Since it is their responsibility, let Tom and Bilco keep it.’

  ‘Yes, sur. Beg pardon, sur, but if tis some loustering ’ooligans at fault, they’ll not prob’ly be back afore next Tuesday or Wednesday. They’ll leave a day or so till the next time – just the way they ’ave this.’

  ‘Let a watch be kept every night until they do come. It will do your brother good to stay awake more than is his custom.’

  ‘Yes, sur. Very good, sur.’

  So another day passed just like the Wednesday. It was a rare sunny and fresh spring day, but there was little pleasure in the household. Geoffrey Charles got into trouble for constantly leaving the room and hobbling up to his bedroom He made the plea of a slight stomach ache, which alarmed his mother, but in fact the only cause of his stomach ache was suppressed laughter. Since Morwenna refused to share his suspicions he would have adored to share them with Aunt Agatha, but he quailed at the thought of shouting them into her ear with Lucy Pipe possibly near by.

  It was unfortunate that on the same day George should learn of Ross’s weekly visits to the house. Elizabeth had heard of them the first day she was back but had thought it more discreet not to inform him. Since he returned George had not seen Aunt Agatha. But this sunny Sunday she was tempted to totter downstairs on Lucy Pipe’s arm and she was in the big parlour alone when George passed through it after having been down at the pool seeing how many toads his gamekeepers had caught.

  Thereafter ensued a conversation, or perhaps more truly a monologue, which resulted in Elizabeth’s being confronted by her husband in a state of white-faced anger.

  ‘Did you know Ross Poldark had been coming here regularly while we have been away?’

  She flushed. ‘I heard from Lucy. I thought no good would come of making an issue of it.’

  ‘Do you mean by telling me?’

  ‘Yes. It is done. We can take no steps to prevent it now.’

  ‘The impudent, arrogant . . . Coming here, when he knows he is not wanted – forcing his way in, tramping over my property, wandering about the house, making free of it, ordering and bullying my servants, observing what has been done here, no doubt looking in our desks and sitting in our chairs and – and using the house as if it were his own. By God! It is beyond bearing!’

  Elizabeth bent over her child, affecting to study his sleeping face. ‘My dear . . .’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I share your irritation, and understand it, though I feel it perhaps less acutely. He had no right to enter this house without your permission. But unfortunately we gave him an excuse – no more, but it was an excuse – by leaving Aunt Agatha unattended—’

  ‘There were servants! She has her own maid—’

  ‘If you will let me finish, I was going to say, unattended by any relative or friend. Of course she had servants and a personal maid, and that should have been sufficient, but you do see, don’t you, that this offered him just the opportunity to behave in the high-handed fashion that is his wont. Also, without justification, he regards this as his family house because it was his grandfather’s and he spent much time here as a boy. He knows it intimately – I believe better than I do – and I have no doubt that if he had been refused admittance at the front door he would have found his way in by some other means. You will remember how he came upon us once.’

  ‘Are you saying that even now, even when we are in residence, I have no means of keeping him out?’

  ‘I do not think he will attempt to come. Not if he is wise. Not if he meant what he said last year. But I think if Agatha lives another year we must make other plans for her. He mustn’t be granted the excuse.’

  George too looked at his child. Since his illness Valentine had put on weight and, sleeping, looked quite beautiful. Like one of those angels George had seen on the painted ceiling of a mansion in Greenwich. The chubby hands clasped, the lips pursed to blow Gabriel’s trumpet. He was dark-haired like his father, but very fair of face, the fine curling hair framed ear and eye and nape. As always this sight gave George pleasure and a sense of achievement. It damped down but could not altogether quell the double angers of the day. He had spoken out against Ross more vehemently than he had ever done before in their married life, and, although he could not quarrel with Elizabeth’s sentiments, he would have liked to quarrel with her coolness.

  ‘If Agatha lives another year! No doubt you will be fully aware of what she is planning for August!’

  The sleeping child stirred, and Elizabeth pulled up the blanket. ‘She told me. I suppose it is natural to wish for such a celebration.’

  ‘In our house. With our servants!’

  ‘It is her house, George. Before me, before you, before Ross. She says she will pay the—’

  ‘Oh, pay! That is the least of it. You must be aware that ever since I came here, since long before we married, she has conducted a personal feud against me. She hates me and my family and resents my possession of what she considers the Poldark house. Yet now she is claiming the right to celebrate her hundredth birthday here, using the house as if it were her own and inviting all her stinking and decrepit friends!’

  Elizabeth smiled. ‘My dear, all her stinking and decrepit friends are long since dead and gone. Those she would invite are likely to be elderly people of the country whom we know too.’

  ‘And Ross Poldark?’

  ‘Ross Poldark?’

  ‘She has just told me that she intends to ask him to her party.’

  Elizabeth put her hands on the side of the cot. ‘Oh, dear.’

  ‘And his wife. And his two children.’

  Valentine began to stir and woke. The voices had roused him. It was in fact time he was up and fed, but Dr Behenna had advised them to let him sleep on just as long as he could, and had ad
ded a little diluted tincture of opium to his nightly medicine to make his advice more effective.

  ‘I don’t think he would come,’ Elizabeth said.

  ‘You underestimate him.’

  She shook her head. ‘No. I don’t think he will come – not and bring Demelza.’

  ‘Why not? It will give him the opportunity he wishes to add to his recent insult.’

  She sighed. ‘Perhaps we ought to see it as a chance to mend the old feud.’

  He watched her carefully. ‘Do you wish that?’ It was a very important question to him.

  Valentine opened his eyes and saw them looking at him and suddenly smiled. The illusion of angelic innocence was quite gone. George picked him up at once and held out one of his fingers for the chubby hand to grasp.

  Elizabeth said: ‘I would be happier if I never saw them again. I would be happier if I were not living so close to them. But if Agatha wishes it, they surely must be invited. And if they come, we surely must attempt to hide our dislike and let the occasion pass as it may. The feud two years ago was the talk of the county. A superficial reconciliation will at least still the remnants of that talk.’

  ‘And that is what you wish?’

  ‘I don’t say that it is what I wish. But we cannot deny Agatha her birthday party. It would get about everywhere that we had refused her, and do us more harm than half a dozen feuds.’

  Later that morning after his ride, during which, accompanied by Tankard, he visited a number of the outlying hamlets and distributed a little judicious charity, George came back and saw four men still searching with their nets in the pond. A thought came to him. Ross Poldark had frequently been to the house, this winter. He had frequently talked to old Agatha up in her room. When the pool was first being cleared of toads Agatha had complained that they were a special kind brought here by her father from Hampshire and that it was disgraceful to have them killed. During her communings with Ross this winter she might well have complained to him. Might he not perhaps be responsible for this wanton and childish practical joke?

  It did not seem quite in his line; yet the more George thought about it, the more the events seemed to link together. Who else could know of his personal aversion? Who else, among the village people, would know or care about the clearing of the pool? Who else, certainly, would have the mind to think this thing out, to bring the toads back to the pool especially to greet his return. Although it was a ludicrously childish joke, it showed a degree of thought and ingenuity. And malice.

  Round at the stables he sent for Harry Harry.

  ‘Sur?’

  ‘Look now. I want those two men who are going to guard the pool at night reinforced. I want five men. And I want you to be among them.’

  ‘Me, sur? Yes, sur.’

  ‘Understand? Five of you. Every night for the next week. From dusk till dawn. Cancel your day duties altogether. I want you all to be fresh and alert for a whole night’s watch.’

  ‘Yes, sur.’

  ‘And, Harry. If you catch someone and he offers any resistance do not deal with him lightly. Remember he is trespassing, poaching and resisting arrest. A bloodied head and a few broken bones will not be out of keeping at all.’

  ‘No, sur. Rely on me, sur.’

  ‘But . . . try not to rouse the house. We do not wish to upset the ladies.’

  Chapter Eight

  There had been a moon last week, but now it rose too late to be of use in the early part of the night. But there were a few stars about in a patchy, windy sky. It was light enough for the purpose and perhaps safer than moving among the high shadows cast by the moon.

  Drake slept early and woke about ten just as his brother was soundly in his first sleep. It was difficult to quarrel with Sam, and indeed there had been no real quarrel between them from the beginning of this affair. Only grief. Only sadness. Only regret, that Sam’s own brother, whose uttermost acceptance of Christ had seemed so sure, so rooted in his heart and in his soul, should have allowed his conviction to wear away until he was in the very valley of the shadow.

  For a time Sam had prayed with him and argued with him, explaining that his heart was like a garden from which the tree of evil had long been cut down. But the stump remained, and that stump, though lightly strewn with the earth of repentance, could send out, and clearly had sent out, strong and sinful shoots which threatened to choke and kill the flowers of the spirit. Let Drake beware. Let him pluck it out in time lest the deadly remains of his carnal mind become rampant and he be lost for ever to Satan and the Pit.

  Drake’s arguments in this case were that he did not feel his actions were in sin. That he was meeting a young woman of another religious way of thinking was perhaps unfortunate; but if it ever went beyond that, who knew but that she might in time be converted? Marriage was not sin. Wedlock was not sin. Love was not sin. That he was meeting a young woman of a completely different class and in a situation which made marriage almost impossible, was still more unfortunate. But it was innocent. (Or almost innocent.) That because of this preoccupation he was taking a too carnal view of life he was prepared to admit. But he was not prepared to admit, as Sam argued, that this life was only a preparation for the next. Drake loved this life; he loved everything about it: the sunsets, the moon-rises, the ruffled golden glow on ripe corn, the ink-black sheen of a bluebottle’s wings, the taste of fresh spring water, lying down and stretching on your back when you were tired, getting up in the morning with a whole new day ahead, eating fresh-baked bread, feeling the cold sea rushing round your legs, roasting a potato in the embers of a fire and peeling it and eating it while it was still too hot to hold, walking on a cliff, lying in the sun, turning a good piece of wood, beating the sparks from iron. He could have listed fifty more pleasures.

  And among the things he loved was a girl, and this was the greatest love of all. There were many aspects of the affair which were unfortunate, but he felt no sin. Paradise might hold greater glories but he could not imagine them.

  So Sam and Drake had agreed to differ. When he was home Drake still participated in the full life of the circle; he still did his weekly volunteer work on the foundations for the new meeting house on the hill; he still prayed with Sam nightly. But Sam had given up trying to control Drake’s movements at other times; and when he chose to rise in the early hours of the night and absent himself from the cottage Sam did not comment. He could not believe real evil of his brother; and indeed from Drake’s face in the morning Sam thought he could judge that the devil had not got him in too tight a grip.

  This was the third time Drake had been out. It was the sort of high-spirited joke that appealed to him. George Warleggan, whom he had never spoken to and only seen in church, had become something of a dragon figure. This was the only way in which he could attempt to spear the dragon.

  Drake had first thought to do it only once. He had borrowed two fish jousting baskets from old Betsy Triggs and a piece of pilchard net from a man in Sawle. With the latter and with the help of a pole and a couple of pieces of wood, he had made a sort of coarse shrimping net. Thereafter it was easy. The frogs and toads were mating late this year and the three connecting ponds at Marasanvose were alive with them. He caught a couple of dozen and put twelve in each basket and tied a piece of sacking over the top. Then up and away. He was back in his bed in little more than two hours.

  He had thought it fun and hoped it would work. The toads might well not like their move and be off back to their old haunts by morning. But the Trenwith pond had been their natural home, and he thought they would not object. Of course he knew he was taking a risk, and a risk out of proportion to the laughter and the satisfaction to be found in it. Trespass was a serious crime, particularly trespass at night. But he knew the Trenwith grounds well by now, having explored them both to and from his Sunday visits to the house. Although tall, he was a quick and quiet mover, and he felt sure he could outwit any clumsy keeper who did happen to be abroad. The risk of dogs was small, for George did not like dogs. Ther
e were only a couple of terriers belonging to the Harrys, and they seemed to be shut up most of the time.

  On the Wednesday he wondered if his visit had been noticed, but on the Friday, returning to their cottage, he found a note waiting for him from Geoffrey Charles. Presumably it had been delivered by one of the house servants.

  ‘Dearest Drake,

  I was so escited on Wensday! Toads were in the pool and Uncle George was besides himself with fury! Was it you? I larfed so much I was sent to my room. Tom and Paul have been in dire trouble for not clearing the pond. They were in it all day, catching the Toads. They have catched them all I believe. Dearest Drake, when can we meet and go to Marasanvose?

  Love, Geoffrey Charles.’

  In another hand, scribbled hastily underneath. ‘If it were you, you should not have done it. M.’

  So on the Saturday night he did it again. There seemed little more risk, for clearly the gamekeepers were getting the blame, and Geoffrey Charles was getting the fun. This time, although darker than the Tuesday, the moon had risen before he reached the Trenwith pool, and Drake proceeded with a good deal of caution. But no one saw him come and go, and his second legacy of toads was left for Geoffrey Charles’s diversion.

  So it might have ended, with no further letter to spur him or to warn him. But things got out, as they always will when villagers are employed at a house. Polly Odgers talked to her father, Lucy Pipe talked to her brother. Char Nanfan had the story from Beth Bate, whose husband, Saul Bate, was a gardener at the house. There were whispers and speculation. The country folk had no belief in an invasion of toads from the outer fields. These were Marasanvose toads and they hadn’t hopped there on their own four legs. It was a joke and a good joke, and what made it more interesting was that nobody knew Who. There was talk and laughter about toads and frogs raining out of a clear sky, and how Mr Warleggan had best open up one of his mills for making them into meat for his kitchen. And so on.