Ross Poldark

by Winston Graham

  They went down the hill. He waited for her to speak, but she did not. He glanced down at her. The vivacity had gone from her face and some of the colour.

  “Well?”

  “She wouldn’t come—”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “All your family—they hate me.”

  “None of my family hate you. They don’t know you. They may disapprove. But Verity is different.”

  “How can she be if she's one o’ the family?”

  “Well, she is. You don’t know her.”

  There was silence for the rest of the walk home. At the door they parted, but he knew that the discussion was not finished. He knew Demelza well enough now to be sure that nothing but a clear-cut issue was ever satisfactory to her. Sure enough, when he went out to go to the mine she ran after him.

  “Ross.”

  He stopped. “Well?”

  She said: “They think—your family think you was mad to marry me. Don’t spoil this first summer by asking one of ’em to stay here. You told me just now I was a lady. But I ain’t. Not yet. I can’t talk proper, and I can’t eat proper, and I’m always getting cagged wi’ dirt, and when I’m vexed I swear. Maybe I’ll learn. If you’ll learn me, I’ll learn. I’ll try all the time. Next year, maybe.”

  “Verity isn’t like that,” Ross said. “She sees deeper than that. She and I are much alike.”

  “Oh yes,” said Demelza, nearly crying, “but she's a woman. You think I’m nice because you’re a man. Tedn’t that I’m suspicious of her. But she’ll see all my faults and tell you about them and then you’ll never think the same again.”

  “Walk with me up here,” Ross said quietly.

  She looked up into his eyes, trying to read his expression. After a moment she began to walk beside him and they climbed the field. At the gate he stopped and leaned his arms on it.

  “Before I found you,” he said, “when I came home from America things looked black for me. You know why, because I’d hoped to marry Elizabeth and returned to find her with other plans. That winter it was Verity alone who saved me from… Well, I was a fool to take it so to heart; nothing is really worth that; but I couldn’t fight it at the time, and Verity came and kept me going. Three and four times a week all through that winter she came. I can’t ever forget that. She gave me something to hold on to; that's hard to repay. For three years now I’ve neglected her shamefully, perhaps when she most needed me. She has preferred to stay indoors, not to be seen about; I have not had the same need of her; Charles was ill and she thought it her first duty to nurse him. But that can’t go on, now Charles is dead. Francis tells me she's really ill. She must get away from that house for a change. The least I can do is to ask her here.”

  Demelza moodily rustled the dry stubble of barley stalks under her foot.

  “But why has she need of you? If she is ill, she needs a surgeon, that's all. She’ll be the better looked after at—at Trenwith.”

  “Do you remember when you first came here? A man used to call. Captain Blamey.”

  She looked at him with eyes in which the pupils had grown dark. “No.”

  “Verity and he were in love with each other. But Charles and Francis found that he had been married before; there were the strongest objections to his marrying Verity. Communication between him and Verity was forbidden and so they used to meet here secretly. Then one day Charles and Francis found them here and there was a violent quarrel and Captain Blamey went home to Falmouth and Verity has not seen him since.”

  “Oh,” said Demelza moodily.

  “Her sickness, you see, is one of the spirit. She may be ill other ways too, but can I deny her the help that she gave me? To find a change of company, to get away from brooding, that may be half the battle. You could help her so much if you tried.”

  “I could?”

  “You could. She has so little interest in life, and you’re so full of it. You have all the zest for living, and she none. We have to help her together, my dear. And for this I want your willing help, with no grudging.”

  On the gate she put her hand over his.

  “Sometimes,” she said, “I feel angry-like, and then I go all small and mean. But of course I’ll do it, Ross. Anything you say.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  l

  DEMELZA NIGHTLY PRAYED THAT VERITY WOULD NOT COME.

  When a reply was brought and she learned that her cousin-in-law had accepted the invitation and hoped to be well enough by next weekend, her heart turned over and climbed into her throat. She tried to hide her panic from Ross and to accept his amused assurances. During the rest of the week her fears found outlet in a frenzy of summer cleaning, so that not a room was left unscoured and Prudie moaned wild complaints each morning at the sight of her.

  No amount of work could stave off Saturday's approach and with it Verity's. She could only hope that Aunt Agatha would have a fit or that she herself should go down with measles just in time.

  Verity came shortly after midday, attended by Bartle carrying two valises strapped behind him.

  Ross, who had not seen his cousin for some months, was shocked at the change. Her cheeks had sunk and the healthy open-air tan was gone. She looked forty instead of twenty-nine. The gleam of vitality and keen intelligence had gone out of her eyes. Only her voice was the same, and her disobedient hair.

  Demelza's knees, which had wanted to give way earlier in the morning, were now as stiff and immovable as her lips. She stood at the door in her plain pink frock, trying not to look like a ramrod, while Ross helped his cousin from her horse and kissed her.

  “Ross, how good to see you again! It's so kind of you to have me. And how well you look! The life is agreeing with you.” She turned and smiled at Demelza. “I do wish I could have been at your wedding, my dear. It was one of my biggest disappointments.”

  Demelza let her cold cheek be kissed and stood aside to watch Verity and Ross enter the house. After a few moments she followed them into the parlour. This isn’t my room now, she thought; not mine and Ross's; someone else has taken it away from us. In the middle of our bright summer.

  Verity was slipping off her cloak. Demelza was interested to notice that she was very plainly dressed underneath. She wasn’t beautiful like Elizabeth, but quite elderly and plain. And her mouth was like Ross's, and sometimes the tone of her voice.

  “… at the end,” Verity was saying, “I don’t think Father minded so much. He was so very tired.” She sighed. “Had he not gone so suddenly we would have summoned you. Oh well, that's over, now I feel only like rest.” She smiled slightly. “I am afraid I shall not be a sportive guest, but the last thing I want is to put you or Demelza to any trouble. Do just as you have always done and leave me to fit in. That is what I want best.”

  Demelza racked her brains for the sentences she had prepared this morning. She twisted her fingers and got out:

  “You would like something to drink, now, after your ride?”

  “I have been recommended to take milk in the morning and porter at night. And I hate them both! But I had my milk before I left, so thank you, no, I’ll stay dry.”

  “It's not like you to be ill,” Ross said. “What ails you but fatigue? What does Choake say?”

  “One month he bleeds me and the next he tells me I am suffering from anaemia. Then he gives me potions that make me sick and vomits that don’t. I doubt if he knows as much as the old women at the fair.”

  “I knew an old woman once—” Demelza began impulsively, and then stopped.

  They both waited for her to go on.

  “It don’t matter,” she said. “I’ll go an’ see if your room's ready.”

  She wondered if the lameness of the excuse was as plain to them as it was to her. But at least they raised no objection, so she gratefully escaped and went across to Joshua's old bedroom, which was to be Verity's. There she pulled back the coverlet and turned and stared at the two valises as if to see through them into their contents. She wondered how she w
ould ever get through the next week.

  2

  All that evening and all the following day constraint was heavy on them, like an autumn fog hiding familiar land marks. Demelza was the culprit but she couldn’t help herself. She had become the intruder: two were company and three none. Ross and Verity had a good deal to say to each other, and he stayed in more than he would have done. Whenever Demelza entered the living-room their talk always broke. It was not that they had any secrets from her, but that the topic was outside her sphere and to continue it would be to ignore her.

  It was always hard at meals to find a subject which would include Demelza. There was so much that would not: the doings of Elizabeth and Francis, the progress of Geoffrey Charles, news of common friends Demelza had never heard of. Ruth Treneglos was blossoming forth as the chatelaine of Mingoose. Mrs. Chynoweth, Elizabeth's mother, was troubled with her eyes and the doctors advised an operation. Cousin William-Alfred's second youngest had died of measles. Henry Fielding's new book was all the rage. These and many other items were pleasant to chat over with Ross but meant nothing to Ross's wife.

  Verity, who was as susceptible as anyone, would have made her excuses and left on the third day if she had been sure that Demelza's stiffness was the outcome of dislike or jealousy. But Verity thought it arose from something else, and she hated the idea of leaving now with the knowledge that she could never return. She disliked equally the thought that she was coming between Ross and his young wife, but if she went now her name would be forever linked with this visit and she would never be mentioned between them. She was sorry she had come.

  So she stayed on and hoped for an improvement without knowing how to bring it about.

  Her first move was to stay in bed in the mornings and not get up until she was sure Ross was out of the house; then she would come on Demelza accidentally and talk to her or help her in the work she was doing. If this could be settled at all, then it must be settled between them while Ross was out of the way. She hoped that she and the other girl would lapse into companionship with nothing said. But after a couple of mornings she found her own casual manner becoming too noticeably deliberate.

  Demelza tried to be kind, but she thought and spoke from behind a shield. Advances upon that sense of inferiority could easily be mistaken for patronage.

  On Thursday morning Demelza had been out since dawn. Verity broke her fast in bed and rose at eleven. The day was fine but overcast and a small fire burned in the parlour, attracting as usual the patronage of Tabitha Bethia. Verity perched on the settle and shivered and began to stir the logs to make them blaze. She felt old and tired, and the mirror in her room showed a faint yellow tinge to her skin. It wasn’t really that she cared whether she looked old or not these days… But she was always so listless, so full of aches, could do no more than half the work of a year ago. She slid farther into the corner of the settle. The pleasantest thing of all was to sit back as she was doing now, head against the velvet cover, to feel the warmth in her feet from the fire, to have nothing at all to do and no one to think of…

  Having slept all night and been awake no more than three hours, she went off to sleep again, one slippered toe stretched towards the fire, one hand hanging over the wooden arm of the settle, Tabitha curled against her foot, purring lightly.

  Demelza came in with an armful of beech leaves and wild rose hips.

  Verity sat up.

  “Oh, beg pardon,” Demelza said, ready to go.

  “Come in,” Verity said in confusion. “I’ve no business to be sleeping at this hour. Please talk to me and help me wake.”

  Demelza smiled reservedly, put the armful of flowers on a chair. “Do you feel the draught from this window? You should have shut’n.”

  “No, no, please. I don’t consider the sea air harmful. Let it be.”

  Demelza closed the window and pushed a hand through her ruffled hair.

  “Ross’d never forgive me if you caught cold. These mallows is dead; their heads are all droopin’; I’ll bury them.” She picked up the jug and carried it from the room, returning with it freshly filled with water. She began to arrange the beech leaves. Verity watched her.

  “You were always fond of flowers, weren’t you? I remember Ross telling me that once.”

  Demelza looked up. “When did he tell ee that?” Verity smiled. “Years ago. Soon after you first came. I admired the flowers in here and he told me you brought in fresh every day.”

  Demelza flushed slightly. “All the same, you got to be careful,” she said in a matter-of-fact voice. “Tedn’t every flower that takes kindly to bein’ put in a room. Some of them looks pretty but they fair stink when you pick them.” She thrust in a spray or two of the rose hips. The beech leaves were just turning a delicate yellow and they toned with the yellow-orange-red of the hips. “I been trespassing today, picking these. Over as far as Bodrugan land.” She stood back to look at the effect. “And sometimes flowers don’t take kindly to one another, an’ no matter ’ow you try to coax ’em they won’t share the same jug.”

  Verity stirred in her seat. She must take the risk of a frontal attack. “I ought to thank you, my dear, for what you’ve done for Ross.”

  The other girl's body tautened a little, like a wire on the first hint of strain.

  “What he's done for me, more like.”

  “Yes, perhaps you’re right,” Verity agreed, some of the old spirit creeping into her voice. “I know he's—brought you up—all that. But you’ve—you seem to have made him fall in love with you, and that… has changed his whole life—”

  Their eyes met. Demelza's were defensive and hostile, but also puzzled. She thought there was antagonism behind the words but couldn’t make out where it lay.

  “I don’t know what you d’ mean.”

  This was the final issue between them.

  “You must know,” Verity said, “that when he came home, he was in love with Elizabeth—my sister-in-law.”

  “I know that. You ’aven’t any need to tell me that. I know it as well as you.” Demelza turned to leave the room.

  Verity got up. For this she had to stand. “Perhaps I’ve expressed myself badly since I came here. I want you to understand… Ever since he came back—ever since Ross came back and found Elizabeth promised to my brother I have been afraid that he would not—would not get over it as an ordinary man would get over it. We are strange that way, many of our family. We don’t have it in us to make a compromise with events. After all, if part of you is—is wrenched away, then the rest is nothing. The rest is nothing—” She regained her voice and after a moment went on, “I have been afraid he would mope his life away, never find any real happiness, such as he might… We have always been closer than cousins. You see, I’m very fond of him.”

  Demelza was staring at her.

  Verity went on: “When I heard he had married you I thought it was a makeshift. Something to console him. And I was glad even of that. Even a makeshift is so much better than a life that goes withered and dry. I was consoled to feel that he would have companionship, someone to bear his children and grow old with him. The rest didn’t really matter so much.”

  Again she stopped, and Demelza was about to speak, but changed her mind. A dead mallow flower lay between them on the floor.

  “But since I came here,” Verity said, “I have seen it's no makeshift at all. It is real. That is what I want to thank you for. You’re so lucky. I don’t know how you’ve done it. And he is so lucky. He has lost the biggest thing in his life—and found it again in another person. That's all that matters. The greatest thing is to have someone who loves you and—and to love in return. People who haven’t got it—or had it—don’t believe that, but it's the truth. So long as life doesn’t touch that you’re safe against the rest—”

  Her voice had again lost its tone, and she stopped to clear her throat.

  “I’ve not come here to hate you,” she said. “Nor to patronize you. There's such a change in Ross, and it is your doing. D
o you think I care where you came from or what is your breeding or how you can curtsey? That's not all.”

  Demelza was staring again at the flowers.

  “I’ve—often wanted to know how to curtsey,” she said in a low voice. “Often I’ve wanted to know. I wish you would teach me—Verity.”

  Verity sat down again, desperately tired with the effort of what she had said. Near tears, she looked at her slippers.

  “My dear, I am poor at it myself,” she replied unsteadily.

  “I’ll get some more flowers,” Demelza said, and fled from the room.

  3

  Ross had spent most of the day at the mine, and when he came home for a meal at five, Demelza had gone into Sawle with Prudie to buy rushlight and candles, and some fish for dinner tomorrow. She was late coming back on account of watching another catch of pilchards, so Ross and Verity had their meal alone. No reference was made to Demelza. Verity said that Francis still spent three or four nights a week in Truro playing whist and faro. This was bad enough in the winter months, but during the summer it was indefensible.

  “I think,” Verity said, “we are a peculiar family. Francis comes near to having all he desires, and now acts as if he cannot settle to anything but must rush off to the gaming tables and plunge further into debt. What is there in us, Ross, that makes us so uncomfortable to live with?”

  “You malign us, my dear. It is only that, like most families, we are never all happy at one time.”

  “He is fretful and irritable,” Verity complained. “Far worse than I. He takes no interference with his aims and is quickly angry. It's not a week since he and Aunt Agatha had a cursing match across the dinner table, and Mrs. Tabb listening open-mouthed.”

  “Aunt Agatha won?”

  “Oh, without question. But it is such a bad example for the servants.”

  “And Elizabeth?”

  “Sometimes she can persuade him and sometimes not. I don’t think they get on very well. Perhaps I shouldn’t say so, but that is my impression.”