Ross Poldark

by Winston Graham

  Sea gulls flapped and screamed low overhead. No one took much notice of the new arrivals. One or two called friendly greetings. The arrival of Ross on the scene did not embarrass them as the arrival of others of the gentry might have done.

  He rowed his boat close to where the master seiner was standing in his craft giving brief orders to the men who were within the circle hauling in the net. As it became clear that the net was heavy a short silence fell. In a moment or two it would be known whether the catch was a fine or a poor one, whether they had trapped a good part of the shoal or some part with fish too small for salting and export, whether by some mischance they might have caught a shoal of sprats instead, as had happened a couple of years ago. On the result of the next few minutes the prosperity of half the village hung.

  The only sound now was the bobble and swish of water against fifty keels and the deep “Yoy… ho! Hoy… ho!” chorus of the men straining to haul in the net.

  Up and up came the net. The master seiner had forgotten his words of advice and stood there biting his fingers and watching the waters within the tuck net for the first sign of life.

  It was not long in coming. First one of the spectators said something, then another exclaimed. Then a murmur spread round the boats and increased to what was more a shout of relief than a cheer.

  The water was beginning to bubble, as if in a giant saucepan; it boiled and frothed and eddied, and then suddenly broke and disappeared and became fish. It was the miracle of Galilee enacted over again in the light of a Cornish moon. There was no water any more: only fish, as big as herrings, jumbled together in their thousands, jumping, wriggling, glinting, fighting and twisting to escape.

  The net heaved and lurched, the big boats heeled over as the men strained to hold the catch. People talking and shouting, the splash of oars, the excited shouts of the fishers; the earlier noise was nothing to this.

  The tuck net was now fast and the fishermen were already dipping baskets into the net and tipping them full of fish into the bottom of the boat. It seemed as if everyone was mindful of the haste necessary to take full advantage of good fortune. It was as if a storm waited just over the summit of the nearest cliff. Two big flat-bottomed boats like barges were ferried alongside, and men hanging over the side began to work with fury to fill them. Other small boats quickly surrounded the net to take in the catch.

  Sometimes the moonlight seemed to convert the fish into heaps of coins, and to Ross it looked like sixty or eighty darkfaced sub-human pygmies scooping at an inexhaustible bag of silver.

  Soon men were up to their ankles in pilchards, soon up to their knees. Boats broke away and were rowed gingerly towards the shore, their gunnels no more than two inches above the lapping water. On shore the activity was no less; lanterns were everywhere while the fish were shovelled into wheelbarrows and hurried towards the salting cellars for picking over and inspection. Still the work round the net went on amongst the springing gleaming fish.

  At the other side of the bay, another but lesser catch was being hauled in. Ross and Demelza ate their cakes and took a sip of brandy from the same flask and talked in lowered voices of what they saw.

  “Home now?” Ross said presently.

  “A small bit longer,” Demelza suggested. “The night is so warm. It is grand to be ’ere.”

  He dipped his oars gently and straightened the bows of the boat towards the gentle lift and fall of the sea. They had drifted away from the crowds of boats, and it rather pleased him to get this detached view.

  He found, quite to his surprise, that he was happy. Not merely happy in Demelza's happiness but in himself. He couldn’t think why. The condition just existed within him.

  They waited and watched until the tuck net was almost cleared and the fishermen were going to lower it again. Then they waited to see if the second haul would be as big as the first. Whenever they were about to leave some fresh interest held them. Time passed unnoticed while the moon on its downward path came near the coast line and picked out a silver stitching on the water.

  At last Ross slowly exerted his strength on the oars and the boat began to move. As they passed near the others Pally Rogers recognized them and called, “Good night!” Some of the others paused, sweating from their labours and also shouted.

  “Good catch, eh, Pally?” Ross said.

  “ ’Andsome. More’n a quarter of a million fish, I reckon, afore we’re done.”

  “I’m very glad. It will make a difference next winter.”

  “Night, sur.”

  “Good night.”

  “Night, sur.”

  “Night…”

  They rowed away, and as they went the sounds of all the voices and human activity slowly faded, into a smaller space, into a little confined murmur in the great night. They rowed out towards the open sea and the sharp cliffs and the black dripping rocks.

  “Everyone is happy tonight,” Ross said, half to himself.

  Demelza's face gleamed in the stern. “They like you,” she said in an undertone. “Everyone d’ like you.”

  He grunted. “Little silly.”

  “No, ’tis the truth. I know because I’m one of ’em. You and your father was different from the others. But mostly you. You’re—you’re—” She stumbled. “You’re half a gent and half one of them. And then you trying to help Jim Carter and giving food to people—”

  “And marrying you.”

  They passed into the shadow of the cliffs. “No, not that,” she said soberly. “Maybe they don’t like that. But they like you all the same.”

  “You’re too sleepy to talk sense,” he said. “Cover your head and doze off till we’re home.”

  She did not obey, but sat watching the dark line where the shadow of the land ended and the glinting water began. She would have preferred to be out there. The shadow had lengthened greatly since they came out, and she would have rather made a wide circuit to keep within the friendly light of the moon. She stared into the deep darkness of one of the deserted coves they were passing. To these places no man ever came. They were desolate and cold. She could picture unholy things living there, spirits of the dead, things come out of the sea. She shivered and turned away.

  Ross said: “Take another nip of brandy.”

  “No.” She shook her head. “No. Not cold, Ross.”

  In a few minutes they were turning into Nampara Cove. The boat slipped through the ripples at the edge and grounded in the sand. He got out and as she made to follow caught her about the waist and carried her to dry land. He kissed her before he put her down.

  When the boat was drawn up into its cave and the oars hidden where a casual vagrant could not find them, he rejoined her where she was waiting just above high-watermark. For a while neither of them made a move and they watched the moon set. As it neared the water, it began to grow misshapen and discoloured like an overripe blood orange squeezed between sea and sky. The silver sword across the sea became tarnished and shrank until it was gone and only the old moon remained, bloated and dark, sinking into the mists.

  Then without words they turned, walked across the sand and shingle, crossed the stream at the stepping-stones, and walked together hand in hand the half mile to the house.

  She was quite silent. He had never done what he had done tonight. He had never kissed her before except in passion. This was something different. She knew him to be closer to her tonight than he had ever been before. For the very first time they were on a level. It was not Ross Poldark, gentleman farmer, of Nampara, and his maid, whom he had married because it was better than being alone. They were a man and a woman, with no inequality between them. She was older than her years and he younger; and they walked home hand in hand through the slanting shadows of the new darkness.

  I am happy, he thought again. Something is happening to me, to us, transmuting our shabby little love affair. Keep this mood, hold on to it. No slipping back.

  The only sound all the way home was the bubbling of the stream beside their path. The
house greeted them whitely. Moths fluttered away to the stars and the trees stood silent and black.

  The front door creaked as they closed it, and they climbed the stairs with the air of conspirators. When they reached their room, they were laughing breathlessly at the thought of waking Jud and Prudie with such gentle noises.

  She lit the candles and closed the windows to keep the moths out, took off the heavy coat, and shook out her hair. Oh yes, she was lovely tonight. He put his arms about her, his face still boyish in its laughter, and she laughed back at him, her mouth and teeth gleaming moist in the candlelight.

  At this his smile faded and he kissed her.

  “Ross,” she said. “Dear Ross.”

  “I love you,” he said, “and am your servant. Demelza, look at me. If I’ve done wrong in the past, give me leave to make amends.”

  So he found that what he had half despised was not despicable, that what had been for him the satisfaction of an appetite, a pleasant but commonplace adventure in disappointment, owned wayward and elusive depths he had not known before and carried the knowledge of beauty in its heart.

  CHAPTER THREE

  l

  SEPTEMBER OF THAT YEAR WAS CLOUDED BY THE DEATH OF CHARLES. THE OLD man had grunted miserably on all through the summer, and the doctor had given him up a half-dozen times. Then one day, perversely, he collapsed just after Choake had made his most favourable report of the year, and died before he could be resummoned.

  Ross went to the funeral, but neither Elizabeth nor Verity was there, both being ill. The funeral attracted a big attendance both of village and mining people and of the local gentry, for Charles had been looked on as the senior personage of the district and had been generally liked within the limits of his acquaintance.

  Cousin William-Alfred took the service and, himself affected by the bereavement, preached a sermon which was widely agreed to be of outstanding quality. Its theme was “A Man of God.” What did the phrase mean, he asked? It meant to nourish those attributes in which Christ himself had been so conspicuous: truth and honesty, purity of heart, humility, grace, and love. How many of us had such qualities? Could we look into our own hearts and see there the qualities necessary to make us men and women of God? A time such as this, when we mourned the passing of a great and good man, was a time for self-inspection and a renewed dedication. It was true to say that in the loss of our dear friend Charles Poldark we marked the passing of a man of God. His way had been upright; he had never spoken an ill word. From him you grew to expect only kindness and the courtesy of the true gentle man who knew no evil and looked for none in others. The steady, unselfish leadership of a man whose existence was an example to all.

  After William-Alfred had been talking in this vein for five minutes, Ross heard a sniff in the pew beside him and saw Mrs. Henshawe dabbing unashamedly at her nose. Captain Henshawe too was blinking his blue eyes, and several others were weeping quietly. Yes, it was a “beautiful” sermon, tugging at the emotions and conjuring up pictures of greatness and peace. But were they talking about the decent peppery ordinary old man he knew, or had the subject strayed to the story of some saint of the past? Or were there two men being buried under the same name? One perhaps had shown himself to such as Ross, while the other had been reserved for the view of men of deep insight like William-Alfred. Ross tried to remember Charles before he was ill, Charles with his love of cockfighting and his hearty appetite, with his perpetual flatulence and passion for gin, with his occasional generosities and meannesses and faults and virtues, like most men. There was some mistake somewhere. Oh well, this was a special occasion… But Charles himself would surely have been amused. Or would he have shed a tear with the rest for the manner of man who had passed away?

  William-Alfred was drawing to the end.

  “My friends, we may fall far short of the example which is thus set before us. But in my Father's house are many mansions, and there shall be room for all that believe. Equality of life, equality of opportunity are not for this world. Blessed are the humble and meek, for they shall see God. And He in His infinite wisdom shall weigh us all. Blessed are the poor, for they shall enter into heaven because of their poverty. Blessed are the rich, for they shall enter into heaven because of their charity. So in the hereafter there shall be one mighty concourse of people, all provided for after their several needs, all rewarded according to their virtues, and all united in the one sublime privilege of praising and glorifying God. Amen.”

  There was a scraping of viols as the three musicians by the chancel steps prepared to strike up, the choir cleared their throats, and his son wakened Mr. Treneglos.

  Ross accepted the invitation to return to Trenwith, hoping he might see Verity, but neither she nor Elizabeth came down. He did not stay longer than to drink a couple of glasses of canary, and then he made his excuses to Francis and walked home.

  He was sorry he had not come straight back. The attitude of some of the mourners had a certain pained withdrawnness towards himself. Despite his own thoughts at the time of his marriage, he was unprepared for it, and he could have laughed at himself and at them.

  Ruth Treneglos, née Teague. Mrs. Teague. Mrs. Chynoweth. Polly Choake. Quacking geese, with their trumpery social distinctions and their sham code of ethics! Even William-Alfred and his wife had been a little constrained. No doubt to them his marriage looked too much like the mere admission of the truth of an old scandal. Of course William-Alfred, in his well-intentioned way, took “the family” very seriously. Joshua had rightly called him its conscience. He liked to be consulted, no doubt.

  Old Mr. Warleggan had been very distant, but that was more understandable. The episode of the courtroom rankled. So perhaps did Ross's refusal to put the mine business through their hands. George Warleggan was far too careful of his manners to show what he felt.

  Well, well. The whole of their disapproval added together didn’t matter an eyewink. Let them stew. As he reached his own land Ross's annoyance began to leave him at the prospect of seeing Demelza again.

  2

  In fact he was disappointed, for when he reached home Demelza had gone to Mellin Cottages, taking some extra food for Jinny and a little coat she had made for her week-old baby. Benjamin Ross, too, had been having trouble with his teeth and last month had had a convulsion. Ross had seen his two-and-a-half-year-old namesake recently and had been struck by the coincidence that Reuben's knife had left a scar on the child's face roughly similar to his own. He wondered if this would be remarked when the boy grew up.

  He decided to walk over to Mellin now in the hope of meeting Demelza on the way back.

  He met his wife two hundred yards from the cottages. As always it was a peculiar pleasure to see her face light up, and she came running and hopping to meet him.

  “Ross! How nice. I didn’t expect ee back yet.”

  “It was indifferent entertainment,” he said, linking her arm. “I’m sure Charles would have been bored.”

  “Ssh!” She shook her head at him in reproof. “ ’Tis poor luck to joke about such things. Who was there? Tell me who was there.”

  He told her, pretending to be impatient but really enjoying her interest. “That's all. It was a sober crew. My wife should have been there to brighten it up.”

  “Was—was Elizabeth not there?” she asked.

  “No. Nor Verity. They are both unwell. The bereavement, I expect. Francis was left to do the honours alone. And your invalids?”

  “My invalids?”

  “Jinny and the infant.”

  “Oh, they are well. A proper little girl. Jinny is well but very much down. She is listless-like and lacks poor Jim.”

  “And little Benjy Ross and his teeth. What is the matter with the boy: do they grow out of his ears?”

  “He is much better, my love. I took some oil of valerian and told Jinny—told Jinny—What is the word?”

  “Instructed?”

  “No—”

  “Prescribed?”

  “Yes. I pr
escribed it for him like an apothecary. So many drops, so many times a day. And Jinny opened her blue eyes and said, yes, ma’am, and no, ma’am, just as if I was really a lady.”

  “So you are,” said Ross.

  She squeezed his arm. “So I am. I d’ forget, Ross. Anybody you loved you would make a lady.”

  “Nonsense,” said Ross. “The blame's entirely yours. Have they heard of Jim this month?”

  “Not this month. You heard what they heard last month.”

  “That he was well, yes. For my part, I doubt it; but fine and good if it reassures them.”

  “Do ee think you could ask someone to go and see him?”

  “I’ve already done so. But no report yet. It is true that Bodmin is the best of a bad lot, for what consolation that maybe.”

  “Ross, I been thinking—”

  “What?”

  “You told me I did ought to have someone else in to help in the house, to give me more time, like. Well, I thought to ask Jinny Carter.”

  “What, and have three infants crawling about the house?”

  “No, no. Mrs. Zacky could look after Benjy and Mary; they could play with her own. Jinny could bring her mite and sit ’er in a box in the sun all day. She’d be no trouble.”

  “What does Jinny say?”

  “I haven’t asked her. I thought to see what you said first.”

  “Settle it between yourselves, my dear. I have no objection.”

  They reached the top of the hill by Wheal Grace, and Demelza broke away from him to pick some blackberries. She put two in her mouth and offered him the choice of a handful. He took one absently.

  “I too have been thinking. A good flavour this year. I too have been thinking. Now that Charles is gone, Verity is much in need of a rest. It would give me much pleasure to have her here for a week or two, to recuperate from all her nursing.”