Ross Poldark

by Winston Graham

  William-Alfred finished his unemotional recital and licked his lips. There had been no animosity in his tones, a circumstance which made the indictment worse. Charles spat through the open window.

  Ross said: “Does Verity know?”

  “Yes, damme!” said Charles. “Would you believe it of the girl? She's known for more than two weeks. She says it don’t make any difference!”

  Ross went to the window, bit his thumb. While he had been concerned with his own day-to-day affairs, this had been happening.

  “But it must make a difference,” he said, half to himself.

  “She says,” William-Alfred observed judicially, “that he will touch no drink now at all.”

  “Yes, well—” Ross paused. “Oh yes, but—”

  Charles exploded again. “God's my life, we all drink! Not to drink is unnatural in a man. Aarf! But we do not become murderous in our cups. To kick a woman in that condition is beyond forgiveness. I don’t know how he got off so light. He should have been hanged from his own yardarm. Drunk or sober makes little difference.”

  “Yes,” said Ross slowly. “I’m inclined to agree.”

  “I do not know,” said William-Alfred slowly, “if marriage was his intention; but if it was, can we let a gentle girl like Verity marry such a man?”

  “By God, no!” said Charles, empurpled. “Not while I am alive!”

  “What's her attitude?” Ross asked. “Does she insist on wanting to marry him?”

  “She says he has been reformed! For how long? Once a drunkard always a drunkard. The position is impossible! She's in her room and will stay there until she sees reason.”

  “I’ve been very friendly with her this winter. It might help if I saw her and we talked things over.”

  Charles shook his head. “Not now, my boy. Later perhaps. She's as pigheaded as her mother. More so, in truth, and that's saying volumes. But the association's got to be broke. I’m mortal sorry for the girl. She's not had many admirers. But I’ll not have any wife-kicking skunk bedding with my flesh and blood. That's all there is to it.”

  So for the second time that spring Ross rode home from Trenwith having done nothing that he had set out to do.

  He felt restless and uneasy at the thought of Verity's misery. Very well for Charles to say “that's all there is to it”; but he had come to know Verity better than her own father and brother did. Her affections were slow to take and hard to break. He was not even sure that this one would be broken by Charles's veto. It might be that she would defy everyone and marry Blamey, and that only then would the affection break.

  That was the worst prospect of all.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  EVERYTHING ARRANGED NOW, JIM?”

  It was a week later and they had met in the stable. Jim Carter's gratitude was dumb. Two or three times before he had struggled with his tongue, but it wouldn’t move. Now at last he got out:

  “ ’Tis what I d’ want more than anything. I’d not thought to hope for it, hardly begun to. An’ I’ve to thank you for it.”

  “Oh, nonsense,” said Ross. “Don’t owe your happiness to anyone. Tell Zacky tonight that the warrant for Clemmow's arrest has been issued. As soon as he is located, we can put him away for a space to cool his head.”

  “It is the cottage I have to thank ee for,” Jim persisted, now that he was at last launched. “That d’ make all the difference. You see, if we had no hope for that—”

  “Which have you decided on?” Ross asked to cut short his thanks. “Reuben's or the one next door?”

  “The one next door, the one next to Joe and Betsy Triggs. We reckoned, sur, if twas all the same to you, that we’d not go into Reuben's cottage. It don’t seem too comfortable, if you follow me. And the other's clean ’nough after five year. Smallpox have gone long since.”

  Ross nodded. “And when are you to be married?” Jim flushed. “Banns will be called for the first time next Sunday. I can’t hardly… We’re startin’ repairing the roof tonight if the weather clears. There's little enough to do. Jinny would dearly like to come and thank you herself.”

  “Oh, there's no need of that,” Ross said in alarm. “I’ll call and see you when you are nicely settled.”

  “And we’d like,” Jim struggled on, “if we d’ get on, to pay you a rent… just to show—”

  “Not while you’re working for me. But it's a good thought.”

  “Jinny d’ hope to stay on at the mine, at least to begin. With my two brothers doing well for theirselves, Mother hasn’t the same need of my help… So, I believe twill work—”

  A sneeze attracted Ross's attention and he saw Demelza crossing the yard with a pile of logs held in her pinafore. It was raining and she was without a hat. Behind her Garrick, grown tall and ungainly in mid-puppyhood, black and tailless and sparsely curled, gambolled like a French poodle. Ross wanted to laugh.

  “Demelza,” he said.

  She stopped instantly and dropped one of the logs. She could not see where the voice came from. He stepped out of the darkness of the stable.

  “You’re not allowing Garrick in the house?”

  “No, sur. He come no further than the door. He come that far just to keep me company. He's awful sore at not coming no further.”

  He picked up the log and put it back on the bundle in her arms.

  “Perhaps,” she said, “he could come in just so far as the kitchen when he's rid of cra’lers too.”

  “Crawlers?”

  “Yes, sur. The things that crawl in your hair.”

  “Oh,” said Ross. “I misdoubt if he ever will be.”

  “I do scrub him every day, sur.”

  Ross eyed the dog, which was sitting on its haunches and scratching its floppy ear with one stiff hind leg. He looked again at Demelza, who looked at him. “I’m pleased that Prudie is directing you so well. I believe his colour is a thought lighter. Does he like being scrubbed?”

  “Judas God, no! He d’ wriggle like a pilchard.”

  “Hm,” Ross said drily. “Well, bring him to me when you think he's clean and I’ll tell you then.”

  “Yes, sur.”

  Prudie appeared at the door. “Oh, there you are, you black worm!” she said to the girl, and then she saw Ross. A faint sheepish smile creased her shiny red face. “Miss Verity's here, sur. I was just going to tell ‘er to go seek ee.”

  “Miss Verity?”

  “Just come this inster. I was rushin’ out for to tell ee. Hastenin’ I was and no one can say different.”

  He found Verity in the parlour. She had taken off her grey cloak with its fur-lined hood and was wiping the rain from her face. The bottom of her skirt was black with rain and splashed with mud.

  “Well, my dear,” he said. “This is a surprise. Have you walked in this weather?”

  Her face had become sallow under its tan, and there were heavy shadows below her eyes.

  “I had to see you, Ross. You understand better than the others. I had to see you about Andrew.”

  “Sit down,” he said. “I’ll get you some ale and a slice of almond cake.”

  “No, I mustn’t stay long. I—slipped out. You… came over on Thursday last, did you not? When William-Alfred was there.”

  Ross nodded and waited for her to go on. She was out of breath, either from haste or from the press of her feelings. He wanted to say something that would help her, but couldn’t find the right words. Life had clutched at his kind little Verity.

  “They—told you?”

  “Yes, my dear.”

  “What did they tell you?”

  As close as he could remember, he gave William-Alfred's account. When he finished, she went to the window and began pulling at the wet fur of her muff.

  “He didn’t kick her,” she said. “That is a lie. He knocked her down and—and she died. The rest—is the truth.”

  He stared at the trickles of water running down the windowpane. “I’m more sorry than I can say.”

  “Yes, but… They want
me to give him up, to promise never to see him again.”

  “Don’t you think that would be for the best?”

  “Ross,” she said, “I love him.”

  He didn’t speak.

  “I’m not a child,” she said. “When he told me—he told me the day after the ball—I felt so sick, so ill, so sorry—for him. I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat. It was so terrible hearing it direct from him, because I had no hope that it wasn’t true. Father doesn’t understand me because he thinks that I am not revolted. Of course I was revolted. So much so that for two days I was in bed of a fever. But that—that doesn’t make me not love him. How can it? One falls in love for good or ill. You know that.”

  “Yes,” he said. “I know that.”

  “Knowing him, knowing Andrew, it was almost impossible to credit. It was terrible. But one cannot turn one's back on the truth. One cannot wish it away, or pray it away, or even live it away. He did do such a thing. I told myself again and again the thing he had done. And the repetition, instead of killing my love, killed my horror. It killed my fear. I said to myself: He has done this and he has paid for it. Isn’t that enough? Is a man to be condemned forever? Why do I go to church and repeat the Lord's Prayer if I don’t hold to it, if there is no forgiveness? Is our own behaviour higher than the Founder of Christianity, that we should set a higher standard for others?”

  She had been speaking quickly and fiercely. These were the arguments her love had forged in the quietness of her bedroom.

  “He never touches drink now,” she ended pathetically.

  “Do you think he will keep to that?”

  “I am sure of it.”

  “What do you intend to do?”

  “He wishes me to marry him. Father forbids it. I can only defy him.”

  “There are ways of coercion,” Ross said.

  “I am of age. They can’t stop me.”

  He went across and threw another log on the fire. “Has Blamey seen Charles? If they could talk it over—”

  “Father won’t consider seeing him. It is… so unfair. Father drinks. Francis gambles. They’re not saints. Yet when a man does what Andrew has done they condemn him unheard.”

  “It's the way of the world, my dear. A gentleman may get drunk so long as he carries his drink decent, or slips beneath the table with it. But when a man has been sent to prison for what Blamey did, then the world is not at all prepared to forgive and forget, despite the religion it subscribes to. Certainly other men are not prepared to entrust their daughters to his care with the possibility of their being treated in like manner.” He paused, struggling to find words. “I am inclined to agree with that attitude.”

  She looked at him painfully a moment, then shrugged.

  “So you side with them, Ross.”

  “In principle, yes. What do you wish me to do?”

  She picked up her wet cloak, stood with it between her fingers, looking at it. “I can’t ask anything if you feel like that.”

  “Oh yes, you can.” He walked over and took the cloak from her and stood beside her at the window. He touched her arm. “For me, Verity, the winter is over. That and much more. Without you I don’t know what the end would have been. Not this. If your winter is to come, am I to refuse to help you because I take another view in principle? I don’t bring myself yet to like the idea of your marrying Blamey; but that's because I care so greatly for your welfare. It doesn’t mean I’ll not help you in any manner I can.”

  For a moment she did not answer. Suddenly he despised himself for what he had just said. Qualified help was weak and timid. Either you come out dead against the attachment or else help without reservation, without giving the impression of reluctance and disapproval.

  Very difficult. Because of their special friendship the first was impossible. The second was against his better judgment—for he had no personal love or belief to sustain him, except his belief in Verity.

  But it was not good enough. The choice was difficult, but he must see more clearly than he had done. What would Verity have done if positions were reversed?

  He released her arm. “Forget what I said. There's no question of my disapproval. None at all. I’ll do whatever you wish.”

  She sighed. “You see, I have to come to you, for there is no one else. Elizabeth is very understanding, but she cannot openly side with me against Francis. And I don’t really think she wishes to. Besides I thought—Thank you.”

  “Where is Andrew now?”

  “At sea. He’ll not be back for two weeks at least. When he comes… I thought if I could write him telling him to meet me here—”

  “At Nampara?”

  She looked at him. “Yes.”

  “Very well,” he said instantly. “Let me know the day before and I will make arrangements.”

  Her lips trembled and she looked as if she was going to cry.

  “Ross dear, I am indeed sorry to implicate you in this. There is enough—But I could not think—”

  “Nonsense. It's not the first time we shall have been conspirators. But look, you must put a stop to this worrying. Or he will not wish to see you when he comes. The less you fret, the braver will things turn out. Go home and go about your normal life as if nothing was to do. Make a show that you have nothing to worry over and it will be easier to carry. God knows, I have no licence to preach, but it's good advice nevertheless.”

  “I’m sure of it.” She sighed again and put a hand to the side of her tired face. “If I can come here and talk with you, that will help more than you know. To be contained within my own thoughts all the day, and surrounded by hostile ones. Merely to talk to someone with understanding is like—”

  “Come when you like. And as often. I am always here. You shall tell me all there is to know. I’ll get you something warm to drink while Jud saddles Darkie. Then I’ll ride you back.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  l

  JIM CARTER AND JINNY MARTIN WERE MARRIED AT 1 P.M. ON THE LAST MONDAY in June. The ceremony was taken by the Revd Mr. Clarence Odgers, whose fingernails were still black from planting his onions. As he had kept the party waiting a few minutes while he donned his vestments, he thought it only right to keep them no longer than strictly necessary over the actual ceremony.

  He therefore began:

  “Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here in the sight of God, anin the face this congregashun nay—num—num—this man and this woman holy matrimony; which is an—num—state—num—signifying unto us a mythical union—num—nite—murch—num—nar duly considering the causes for which matrimony is ordained. First it was ordained for the procreation of children to be brought up in the num—nurcher—num. Secondly it was ordained for a remedy against sin nar—num fornication nar—nar undefiled members of Christ's body. Thirdly it was ordained for the mutual society, help, comfort, num—num— perity—versity—nar—num—man—shew—num—or else hereafter forever hold his peace.

  “I require and charge you both—num—num—num—”

  Jinny's red-brown hair was brushed and combed until it glistened beneath the homemade white muslin bonnet set well back on her small head.

  She was far the more composed of the two. Jim was nervous and halted several times in his responses. He was self-conscious in his own splendour, for Jinny had bought him a bright blue kerchief from a pedlar, and he had bought himself a secondhand coat almost as good as new, of a warm plum colour with bright buttons. This would perhaps have to last him as a best coat for the next twenty years.

  “… and live according to thy laws; through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen. Those whom God hath joined let no man put asunder. For as much as N. and N.—er—foras much as James Henry and Jennifer May have consented together in holy wedlock and’ve nessed—name—no—given—nar—nar—reeve—ring— hands—I pronounce that they be man and wife together. In the name Far, Son, Holy Ghost, Amen.” Mr. Odgers would soon be back with his onions.

  A meal was provided in the Martins’ cottage for all who cou
ld attend. Ross had been invited, but had refused on a plea of urgent business in Truro, feeling that the gathering would be likely to enjoy itself more freely in his absence.

  As there were eleven of the Martins without the bride and six of the Carters not counting the groom, the accommodation for outsiders was limited. Old Man Greet doddered and creaked in a corner by the fireplace, and Joe and Betsy Triggs kept him company. Mark and Paul Daniel were there, and Mrs. Paul, and Mary Daniel. Will Nanfan and Mrs. Will were there as uncle and aunt of the bride; Jud Paynter had taken the afternoon off to come—Prudie was laid up with a bunion—and somehow Nick Vìgus and his wife had managed to squeeze in—as they always managed to squeeze in when anything was going free.

  The room was so full that all the children had to sit on the floor, and the juveniles, those from nine to sixteen, were arranged two by two up the wooden ladder to the bedroom—“just like the animiles in the ark,” as Jud benevolently told them. The wooden bench that Jim and Jinny had used during most of the dark quiet evenings of the winter had been raised to the status of a bridal chair, and on this the married couple were perched like love birds where, for once, everyone could see them.

  The feast was a mixture of food designed to tempt the appetite and upset the digestion, and port and home brewed mead were in lavish supply to wash it all down and make the company more boisterous.

  When the feast was over and Zacky had made a speech and Jim had said thank you for all your good wishes and Jinny had blushed and refused to say anything at all, when even with the door open the room had become insuffer ably hot and sticky and nearly everyone was suffering from cramp, when the babies were becoming fractious and the children quarrelsome and the grownups sleepy from heavy food and lack of air, then the women and children went to sit outside, leaving the men room to stretch their legs and light their pipes or take their snuff, and freedom to drink their port and gin and yarn contentedly about how the tamping got wet on the 120 level, or the chances of a good pilchard season.