Ross Poldark

by Winston Graham

  Just clear of the bar were two gaunt fish-packing houses, and about these the summer industry of the village centred. Here the fish were picked over and packed into cellars for a month or so until the oil and blood had drained off them and they could be preserved and exported in hogsheads to the Mediterranean.

  3

  Elizabeth's child was born at the end of October. It was a difficult and protracted birth, but she stood the strain well and would have rallied more quickly had not Dr. Choake decided to bleed her the day afterwards. As a result of that she spent twenty-four hours going off into dead faints which alarmed everyone and from which it needed any number of burnt feathers held under the nose to revive her.

  Charles was delighted at the event, and the news that it was a boy roused him from his after-dinner stupor.

  “Splendid!” he said to Francis. “Well done, my boy. I’m proud of you. So we have a grandson, eh? Damme, that's just what I wanted.”

  “You have Elizabeth to thank, not I,” said Francis pallidly.

  “Eh? Well, I expect you did your part?” Charles quivered with subterranean laughter. “Never mind, boy; I’m proud of you both. Didn’t think she had it in her. What are you going to name the brat?”

  “We have not yet decided,” Francis said sulkily.

  Charles prised his great bulk out of the chair and waddled into the hall to stare around. “Well, we’ve a fine variety of names in the family without going farther afield. Let's see, there's Robert, and Claude… and Vivian… and Henry. And two or three Charleses. What's wrong with Charles, eh, boy?”

  “It must be for Elizabeth to decide.”

  “Yes, yes, she’ll do that, I expect. Anyhow, I hope she doesn’t choose Jonathan. Infernal silly name. Where's Verity?”

  “Upstairs now, helping.”

  “Well, tell me when the brat's open to receive its grandfather. A boy, eh? Well done, both of you.”

  Elizabeth's weakness delayed the christening until early December, and then it took place on a quieter scale than Charles would have liked. There were only eighteen present including the immediate family.

  Dorothy Johns, Cousin William-Alfred's wife, had been caught between her pregnancies and was with him. She was a dried-up prim little woman of forty with a reserved, sub-acid smile and inhibitions ahead of her outspoken age. She never used the word “bowels” even in private conversation, and there were subjects which she did not mention at all, a matter for astonishment among most of her women friends. Her last two confinements had told heavily on her, and Ross thought that she looked drawn and wrinkled. Would Elizabeth some day come to look like this? Her first child seemed even to have improved her looks.

  She lay on the couch where Francis had carried her. A great log fire was blazing and the flames leapt up the chimney like chained hounds. The big room was warm and people's glances were lit by the reflection of the fire; outside the grey cold day curled in a thin fog over the windows. There were flowers in the room, and Elizabeth lay among them like a lily while everyone moved around her. Her fine clear skin was waxen about the arms and throat, but in her cheeks there was more colour than usual. She had the hot-house bloom of the lily.

  They named the child Geoffrey Charles. A bundle of blue silk and lace, with a small round fluffy head, deep blue eyes, and Aunt Agatha's gums. During the christening he made no protest and afterwards he went back to his mother, uncomplaining. A model baby, they all agreed.

  Over the meal which followed, Charles and Mr. Chynoweth discussed cockfighting, and Mrs. Choake talked to anyone who would listen of the latest rumours about the Prince of Wales.

  Mrs. Chynoweth talked to George Warleggan and monopolized his attention, much to Patience Teague's annoyance. Aunt Agatha munched crumbs and strove hard to hear what Mrs. Chynoweth was saying. Verity sat silent and stared at the table. Dr. Choake pulled his eyebrows down, and from under them told Ross some of the charges which ought to be preferred against Hastings, the governor general of Bengal. Ruth Teague, embarrassingly near Ross, tried to carry on a conversation with her mother as if he were not there.

  Ross was faintly amused at Ruth's attitude, but a little puzzled at a constraint towards himself in one or two of the other ladies—Dorothy Johns and Mrs. Chynoweth and Mrs. Choake. He had done nothing to offend them. Elizabeth went out of her way to be kind.

  And then in the middle of the luncheon Charles climbed laboriously to his feet to propose a toast to his grandson, spoke for some minutes breathing like a bull dog, then banged his chest, exclaimed impatiently, “This wind, this wind,” and slid sideways to the floor.

  With clumsy-handed care they upended the mountain of flesh, levering him first upon a chair, then bearing him step by step upstairs to his bedroom: Ross and Francis and George Warleggan and Dr. Choake.

  Once on the massive four-poster bed with its heavy stuff-brown hangings, he seemed to breathe more easily, but he did not move or speak. Verity, roused from her lethargy, hurried about doing the doctor's bidding. Choake bled him and listened to his heart and straightened up and scratched the bald patch at the back of his own head, as if that might help.

  “M’ yes,” he said. “I think we will do now. A heart stroke. We must be left perfectly quiet and warm. Have the windows kept shut and the curtains of the bed drawn so that there is no risk of a chill. He is so very big, hm; one must hope for the best.”

  When Ross returned to the subdued company down stairs, he found them settling to wait. It would be impolite to leave until there was some more definite word from the doctor. Elizabeth was much upset, they said, and had asked to be excused.

  Aunt Agatha was gently rocking the cradle and plucking at the white hairs on her chin. “A bad omen,” she said. “On little Charles's christening day for big Charles to go down like that. Just like an elmin tree strick by lightning. I hope nothing will come of it.”

  Ross went into the large parlour. There was no one there and he moved to the window. The gloomy day had grown heavier and darker, and there was a freckle of rain on the glass.

  Change and decay. Was Charles, then, to go so soon the way of Joshua? He had been failing for some time, getting purpler and looser and more unwieldy. Old Agatha and her omens. How would it affect Verity? Little enough except for her bereavement. Francis would become master of this house and all the land. He would have a free rein to go the pace with Warleggan if he chose. Perhaps responsibility would sober him.

  He moved out of the parlour into the next room, the library, which was small and dark and smelt of mildew and dust. Charles had been no more of a reader than his brother; their father, Claude Henry, had done most of the collecting.

  Ross glanced over the shelves. He heard someone come into the parlour talking, but took no particular notice, for he had found a new edition of Dr. Burns's Justice of the Peace. He had turned to the chapter on lunacy when Mrs. Teague's voice, coming through the open door, took his attention.

  “Well, dear child, what else can one expect? Like father like son, I always say.”

  “My dear ma’am”—it was Polly Choake—“the tales one hears about old Jothua! Most comical. I only do wish as I had been in these parts then.”

  “A gentleman,” said Mrs. Teague, “knows where to draw the line. Towards a lady of his own class his intentions should be most strictly honourable. His attitude to a woman of a lower class is different. After all, men are men. It is very disagreeable, I know; but if a thing is gone about in the right way and the wench is provided for, there is no reason for anyone to come to harm. Joshua would never face up to the distinction. That was why I disapproved of him; that was why all the county disapproved of him and he was always fighting with fathers and husbands. He was too loose with his affections.”

  Polly giggled. “Pwomithcuouth, as you might thay!”

  Mrs. Teague warmed to her subject. “The tales I could tell you of the hearts he broke! Scandal followed scandal.

  “But even Joshua kept his own house free from sluts and queans. Even he d
id not kidnap a starveling beggar wench before she had reached the age of consent and seduce her on his own hearth. And to keep her openly for what she is: that is the worst part! It would be different if he kept her in her place. It's not good for the vulgars to know that one of their sluts is living in a position of equality with a man of Ross's standing. It puts ideas into their heads. To tell the truth when I was last over to see him—just a passing call, you understand, and that many months ago—I saw the creature. A hussy. Already beginning to put on airs. You can tell the type anywhere.”

  “Hardly a day patheth,” Polly Choake said, “but what he comes widing into Thawle, with she behind on the same horthe, all fligged up in a scarlet cloak.”

  “It isn’t good enough at all. It isn’t good for the family. I wonder they don’t tell him it must stop.”

  “Maybe they don’t fancy to.” Polly giggled. “They do thay as how he ith a quick-tempered man. Mythelf, I shouldn’t like to do it, for he might stwike one a blow.”

  “Charles has been too easygoing,” came a fresh voice. So Mrs. Chynoweth was there. She sounded annoyed. “When Charles is gone Francis will take a different line. If Ross refuses to listen, he must accept the consequences.” There was the sound of a door opening and shutting.

  Polly Choake giggled again. “No doubt she would dearly like to be mistreth of Trenwith 'stead of Elizabeth. P’waps then she would weform Francis too. My husband, Dr. Choake, tells me as how he lost a hundred guineas on the turn of a card last night.”

  “Gambling is a gentleman's pastime, Polly,” said Mrs. Teague. “Possibly—”

  Polly's giggle became louder. “Don’t tell me bedding ith not!”

  “Hush, child; you must learn to moderate your voice. It isn’t—”

  “That ith what the doctor always thays—”

  “And very rightly. Especially is it unseemly to raise one's voice in laughter in a house of sickness. Tell me, child, what are the other rumours you have heard about him?”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  l

  CHARLES WAS INCONSIDERATE ENOUGH NOT TO GAIN HIS SENSES IN TIME TO satisfy the christening guests. Ross's parting picture of the unusually quiet house was of Aunt Agatha still rocking the baby and a thin bead of saliva trickling down one of the wrinkles of her chin as she muttered, “Tis an omen, for sure. I wonder what will come of it.”

  It was not, however, of Charles's illness or Geoffrey Charles's future that Ross thought on the way home.

  At Nampara they had been preparing for the winter by lopping some of the branches of the elm trees for kindling wood. One tree only was condemned, whose roots, in the soft ground by the stream, were uncertain after the autumn gales. Jud Paynter and Jack Cobbledick had a rope tied to one of the higher branches and were using a two-handled saw on the trunk. When they had worked for a few minutes, they would walk away and tug at the rope to see if the trunk would snap off. The rest of the household had come out in the afternoon twilight to watch. Demelza was dancing about trying to help, and Prudie, her muscular arms crossed like the knotted roots of the tree, was standing by the bridge giving unwelcome advice.

  She turned and bent her heavy brows at Ross.

  “I’ll take the mare. And ’ow went the christening, an? Did ee get a nice drop of bed-ale? And the brat, dear of ’m; like Mr. Francis, is ’e?”

  “Like enough. What is the matter with Demelza?”

  “One of ’er moods. I says to Jud, that girl, I says, will come to mischief in one o’ them moods. She's bin like that ever since ’er fadder left.”

  “Her father? What was his business here?”

  “No more’n a ’alf hour after you’d left, he come. By ’is self this time, and in his Sunday britches. ‘Want to see my dattur,’ ’e says, quiet like an old bear; and she come tripping over ’erself out of the house to meet him.”

  “Well?”

  “Ye want for to draw at the old tree from the other side,” Prudie advised in a voice like a pipe organ. “He won’t come down just by playin’ maypole with un.”

  Jud's reply was happily carried away down-wind. Ross walked slowly towards the men, and Demelza came running to meet him, running with an occasional hop as she did when excited.

  So absence had made the heart grow fonder and there was a reconciliation between father and daughter at last. No doubt she would want to return home, and the silly malicious gossip would lose its point.

  “He won’t come down,” she said, turning as she reached him and pushing back her mop of hair to gaze at the tree. “He's stronger than we suspicioned.”

  Silly malicious gossip. Wicked empty dirty gossip. He could have wrung Polly Choake's useless little neck. He might not have got Elizabeth but he had not yet sunk so low as to seduce his own kitchenmaid. Demelza of all wenches, whose dirty, skinny little body he had deluged with cold water when she came not so many months ago it seemed. She had grown since then. He supposed that the gossips of the countryside could not conceive of the son of Joshua living a celibate life. Some women had minds like addle-gutters; if there was no stench they had to create one.

  Demelza shifted and glanced at him uneasily, as if aware of his scrutiny. She reminded him of a restive foal, with her long legs and wayward eye. When she was in one of her moods, as Prudie called them, there was no foreseeing what she would do next.

  “Your father has been here,” he said.

  Her face lighted up. “Yes-s-s! I’ve made en up with him. I’m some happy ’bout that!” Her look changed as she tried to read his expression. “Did I do wrong?”

  “Of course not. When does he wish you to return?”

  “If ’e’d wanted that, I couldn’t have made en up, could I?” She laughed with pleasure, an infectious bubbling laugh. “He don’t want for me to go back, for he's wed again. He was marre’d again last Monday! So now he's ready to be friendly an’ I don’t have to feel every night, what's Brother Luke doing and do Brother Jack miss me. The Widow Chegwidden will look after him betterer than ever I could. Widow Chegwidden is Methody, and she’ll look after they all right.”

  “Oh,” said Ross. So he was not to be rid of his charge after all.

  “I believe she think to reform Fathur. She believe she can make him tee-tottle. That's where she’ll be mistook, I reckon.”

  The two men, having sawed for a few minutes, solemnly walked away to the end of the rope and began to pull. Ross joined them and added his weight. A perverse spirit within him was glad that he was not to have the easy way of meeting the scurrilous gossip. Let them talk till their tongues dropped out.

  But surely Elizabeth wouldn’t believe such a story.

  He gave an extra hard tug on the rope, and it snapped where it had been knotted to a branch of the tree. He sat down with the other two men. Garrick, who had been out on a private rabbit hunt and missing the fun, came rushing down the valley and gambolled about the three men, licking Jud's face as Jud got to his knees.

  “Dang the blathering whelp!” said Jud, spitting.

  “It's poor stuff you rely on,” said Ross. “Where did you find it?”

  “In the library—”

  “Twas soggy at one end,” said Demelza. “The rest is sound.”

  She picked up the rope and began to climb the tree like a playful cat.

  “Come back!” Ross said.

  “She put en up thur first time,” said Jud, aiming a kick at Garrick.

  “She had no business to. But now—” Ross went nearer. “Demelza! Come down!”

  She heard him this time and stopped to peer through the branches, “What's to do? I’m all but there.”

  “Then tie it at once and come down.”

  “I’ll loop en over at the next branch.” She put her foot up and climbed a few feet higher.

  “Come down!”

  There was an ominous crack.

  “Look for yourself!” shouted Jud.

  Demelza paused and looked down, more than ever like a cat now which had found its foothold insecure. She
gave a squeak as the tree began to go. Ross jumped out of the way.

  The tree fell with a drawn-out noise exactly like the tipping of a load of slates. One second it was all noise, and the next there was complete silence.

  He ran forward but could not get very near because of the far-flung branches. Right in the middle Demelza suddenly appeared, climbing with pawing movements among the branches. Prudie came flapping across from the stables, shouting, “My ivers! My ivers!”

  Jack Cobbledick reached the girl first from his side, but they had to cut away some of the smaller branches before they could get her clothing free. She crawled out laughing. Her hands were scraped and her knees bleeding, the calf of one leg was interlaced with scratches but otherwise she had come to no harm.

  Ross glowered at her. “You’ll do as I tell you in future. I want no broken limbs here.”

  Her laughter faded before his glance. “No.” She licked the blood off one palm, then glanced down at her frock. “Dear life, I’ve breeked my dress.” She screwed her neck round at an impossible angle to see the back.

  “Take the child and give her something for those cuts,” Ross said to Prudie. “She's beyond me now.”

  2

  In Trenwith House the evening moved towards its close.

  When those guests had gone who were not staying the night, a flatness and lethargy fell on the house. The absence of wind and the glowing ashes of the great log fire made the hall unusually cosy, and five high-backed well-padded chairs supported a semicircle of relatives drinking port.

  Upstairs in his great curtained bed Charles Poldark, at the end of his active life, took short and anxious gasps at the vitiated air which was all medical science allowed him. In another room farther along the west passage Geoffrey Charles, at the beginning of his active life, was taking in the nourishment his mother could offer him, with which medical science had not found a means to tamper.