Ross Poldark

by Winston Graham

  “Where's your good behaviour, bud? They’ll think I’m beating you.”

  “Which is the truth. Which is the truth.” She slipped away from him and danced back with the box held behind her.

  “Go down now, please, Ross! You was not to know anything about it! Maybe I’ll not wear it, but I want to try it on and dinner is in an hour. Go down and talk to Aunt Agatha and count the whiskers on her chin.”

  “We’re not attending a ball,” he said. “This is just a family party; no need to flig yourself up for it.”

  “It is Christmas Eve. I asked Verity. She said it was right to change my clo’es.”

  “Oh, have it as you please. But mind you’re ready by five. And,” he added as an afterthought, “don’t lace your stays too tight or you’ll be incommoded. They feed you well, and I know your appetite.”

  With this he went out, and she was left to make her preparations alone.

  She did not feel that she need heed Ross's final warning tonight at any rate. All day she had had recurring bouts of nausea. The Trenwith dinner was safe from her greed: all that was unsafe was the little she might force down. It would be too bad if she made a show of herself this evening. It would be tragic. She wondered if she had to get up from the table in a hurry where the nearest close-stool was.

  She pulled her dress over her head, stepped out of her underskirt and stood for a moment in the small clothes Verity had lent her, staring at her reflection in the lovely clear mirror of the dressing-table. She had never before in her life seen herself so clearly and so entirely. This reflection was not too shameful, but she wondered how she had had the brazenness to move about and dress with Ross in the room when she was wearing the underclothes of her own and Prudie's devising. She would never wear them again.

  She had heard it whispered that many good-class town women wore white stockings and no drawers. What with hooped skirts it was disgusting, and they deserved to catch their death.

  She shivered. But soon she would be unsightly, however dressed. At least, she expected so. It was a surprise to her that so far there had been no change. Every morning she took a piece of string with a knot tied in it and measured herself. But, unbelievably enough, she seemed so far to have lost half an inch. Perhaps the knot had slipped.

  A village upbringing had left little out in teaching her the ordinary facts of getting and begetting; yet when it came to herself she found gaps in her knowledge. Her mother had borne six other children, but she remembered so little of what had happened before she was eight.

  She must ask Verity. This was now the usual resort for all problems which baffled her. She must ask Verity. It didn’t occur to her that there were questions on which Verity might know less than herself.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  DOWNSTAIRS IN THE LARGE PARLOUR ROSS FOUND ONLY ELIZABETH AND Geoffrey Charles. They were sitting in front of the fire. Geoffrey Charles was on his mother's knee, and Elizabeth was reading him a story.

  Ross listened to the cool, cultured voice; there was pleasure for him in that. But she looked up, saw who it was, and stopped.

  “ ’Gain, Mummie. Tell it again.”

  “In a little while, darling. I must have a rest. Here is your Uncle Ross, come to tell me a story for a change.”

  “I know no stories except true ones,” Ross said. “And they are all sad.”

  “Not all, surely,” said Elizabeth. “Your own must now be happy with so charming a wife.”

  Ross hesitated, uncertain whether he wished to discuss Demelza even with Elizabeth.

  “I’m very glad that you like her.”

  “She's greatly changed since I saw her last, and that's not seven months ago, and I think she will change more yet. You must take her into society and bring her out.”

  “And risk the snubs of women like Mrs. Teague? Thank you, I’m well enough as I am.”

  “You’re too sensitive. Besides, she may want to go out herself. Women have the courage for that sort of thing, and she is yet so young.”

  “It was with the greatest difficulty that I persuaded her to come here.”

  Elizabeth smiled down on her son's curly head. “That's understandable.”

  “Why?”

  “Oh… it was meeting the family, wasn’t it? And she is a little gauche yet. She would perhaps expect to find antagonisms.”

  “Mummie, ’gain. ’Gain, Mummie.”

  “Not yet. In a while.”

  “Man's got a mark on his face, Mummie.”

  “Hush, dear. You must not say such things.”

  “But he has. He has, Mummie!”

  “And I’ve washed it and washed it and it won’t come off,” Ross assured him.

  Thus addressed, Geoffrey Charles fell utterly silent.

  “Verity has become very fond of her,” Elizabeth said. “We must see more of you now, Ross, now that the ice is broken.”

  “What of your own affairs?” Ross said. “Baby Geoffrey is thriving, I see that.”

  Elizabeth put out her small slippered feet and allowed her son to slide from her lap to the floor. There he stood a second as if about to run off, but seeing Ross's eyes still on him was overcome with his new shyness and buried his face in his mother's skirt.

  “Come, darling, don’t be foolish. This is Uncle Ross; like Uncle Warleggan only more so. He is your true and only uncle and you mustn’t be coy. Up, up, and say how d’you do.”

  But Geoffrey Charles would not move his head.

  She said: “I haven’t been too well in health, but we are all worried about my poor mother. She's greatly troubled with her eyes. Park the surgeon from Exeter is coming to examine her in the New Year. Dr. Choake and Dr. Pryce take a grave view of the disease.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “They say it's a recurrent distemper of the eye. The treatment is most painful. They tie a silk kerchief about her throat and tighten it until she is nearly strangled and all the blood is forced into her head. Then they bleed her behind the ears. She has gone now to rest with her cousin at Bodmin. I am very worried.”

  Ross made a face. “My father had no trust in physicians. I hope you’ll have good news.”

  There was silence. Elizabeth bent and whispered in Geoffrey's ear. There was no response for a moment, then with a sudden, peculiarly sly glance at Ross, he turned and ran from the room.

  Elizabeth's eyes followed him. “Geoffrey is at an awkward age,” she said. “He must be cured of his little whimsies.” But she spoke in an indulgent voice.

  “And Francis?”

  An expression he had never seen before flitted across her face.

  “Francis? Oh, we get along, thank you, Ross.”

  “The summer has gone so quick and I have intended to come and see you. Francis may have told you I spoke to him once.”

  “You have your own concerns to tend now.”

  “Not to the exclusion of all others.”

  “Well, we have kept our head above water through the summer.” She said this in a tone that went with her expression. The personal pronoun might have referred to the finances of the house or to the fastnesses of her own spirit.

  “I can’t understand him,” Ross said.

  “We are as we are born. Francis was born a gambler, it seems. If he's not careful he’ll have gamed away all that has come to him and die a pauper.”

  Every family, thought Ross, had its rakes and its spend thrifts; their blood was passed on with the rest, strange taints of impulse and perversity. It was the only explanation. Yet Joshua, even Joshua, who had been eccentric enough and roving in his eye for women, had had the sense to settle down when he got the woman he wanted and to remain so settled until nature took her from him.

  “Where does he spend most of his time?”

  “At the Warleggans’ still. We used to have great fun until the stakes became too high. I have only been twice since Geoffrey was born. Now I’m not invited.”

  “But surely—”

  “Oh yes, of course, if I asked Francis
to take me. But he tells me that they’re becoming more exclusively male. I would not enjoy them, he says.”

  She was staring down at the folds of her blue dress. This was a new Elizabeth who spoke so straightly, in such objective tones, as if painful experience had taught her the lesson of keeping life at a distance.

  “Ross.”

  “Yes?”

  “I think there is one way in which you might help me if you would—”

  “Go on.”

  “There are stories concerning Francis. I have no means of knowing what truth there is in them. I could ask George Warleggan, but for a special reason don’t wish to. I have no claim on you, you know that; but I should esteem it so highly if you were able to discover the truth.”

  Ross stared at her. He had been unwise to come here. He could not sit in calm intimacy with this woman without the return of old sensations.

  “I’ll do anything I can. I shall be pleased to do it. Unfortunately I don’t move in the same set as Francis. My interests—”

  “It could be arranged.”

  Ross looked at her quickly. “How?”

  “I could get George Warleggan to invite you to one of his parties. George likes you.”

  “What's the extent of the rumours?”

  “They say Francis is going with another woman. I don’t know what truth there is in it, but it's plain I cannot suddenly choose to go to the parties myself. I cannot—spy on him.”

  Ross hesitated. Did she realize all she asked? She was of course reluctant to spy herself, but that would be his task in fact if not in name. And to what end? How could his intervention serve to underpin a marriage if the foundations of the marriage were already gone?

  “Don’t decide now, Ross,” she said in a low voice. “Leave it. Think it over. I know I’m asking a great deal.”

  Her tone made him glance round, and Francis came in. Sitting in this big pleasant parlour, Ross thought, one would soon come to recognize the footstep of everyone in the house as it approached the door.

  “A tête-à-tête?” Francis said, raising an eyebrow. “And not drinking, Ross? This is a poor hospitality we offer. Let me mix you an eggy-hot to keep away the chills of winter.”

  “Ross was telling me how well his mine is doing, Francis,” Elizabeth said.

  “Lord save us; such talk on Christmas Eve.” Francis busied himself. “Come over in January—or maybe February—and tell us about it, Ross. But not now, I implore you. It would be dull to spend this evening comparing notes on copper assays.”

  Ross saw that he had been drinking, though the signs were very slight.

  Elizabeth rose. “When cousins have been so long separated,” she said pleasantly, “it's hard to find something to talk of. It would do us no harm, Francis, if we thought of Grambler a little more. I must see Geoffrey to bed.” She left them.

  Francis came across with the drink. He was wearing a dark green suit and the lace at the cuffs was soiled. Unusual in the immaculate Francis. No other sign of the rake's progress. Hair as carefully brushed, stock as neatly tied, manners of a greater elegance. There was an extra fullness of the face, which made him look older, and something superficial in his glance.

  “Elizabeth makes life a mortal serious business,” he remarked. “Aarf! as my old father would say.”

  “Elegance of expression is something I have always admired in you,” said Ross.

  Francis looked up and grinned. “No offence intended. We have been estranged too long. What's the good of choler in this world? If we took account of every grievance, we should only make more bad blood for the leeches. Drink about.”

  Ross drank about. “I have no grievances. The past is past and I’m content enough.”

  “So should you be,” Francis said over the rim of his tankard. “I like your wife. From Verity's account I thought I should. She walks like a mettlesome colt. And after all, so long as her spirit be good, what does it matter whether she comes from Windsor Castle or Stippy-Stappy Lane?”

  “You and I have much in common,” Ross said.

  “I used to think so.” Francis stopped. “In sentiment or in circumstance, do you mean?”

  “In sentiment I meant. Clearly in circumstances you have the advantage of me. The house and interests of our common ancestors; the wife, shall I put it, of our common choice; money to splash at the card table and the cockpit, a son and heir—”

  “Stop,” said Francis, “or you’ll make me weep with envy at my own good fortune.”

  “I’d never thought it a conspicuous danger in your case, Francis.”

  Francis's forehead puckered in a frown. He set his tankard down. “No, nor in any other case neither. It's the custom of mankind to judge others in ignorance. They take it—”

  “Then correct my ignorance.”

  Francis looked at him for a moment or two.

  “Pour out my distempers on the eve of Christmas? God forbid. You would find it all so tedious, I assure you. Like Aunt Agatha talking of her kidneys. Finish your drink, man, and have another.”

  “Thanks,” said Ross. “In truth, Francis—”

  “In truth, Ross,” Francis mocked from the shadows of the sideboard. “It is all as you say, is it not? A lovely wife, fair as an angel—indeed, perhaps more of an angel than a wife—the home of our ancestors, hung with their curious visages—oh yes, I saw Demelza admiring them open-mouthed—a handsome son brought up in the way he ought to go: honour thy father and be worshipped by thy mother that thy days may be long in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. And finally money to splash at the card table and the cockpit. Splash. I like the word. It has a pleasantly expansive sound. One is put in mind of the Prince of Wales dropping a couple of thousand guineas at White's.”

  “It's a relative word,” Ross said evenly. “Like many others. If one is a country squire and lives in the western wilds, one may splash just as effectively with fifty guineas as George with two thousand.”

  Francis laughed as he came back. “You speak from experience. I’d forgotten. You have been the staid former so long I’d quite forgotten.”

  “Indeed,” said Ross, “I should say that ours was far the greater hazard, not only in proportion but because we have no benevolent parliament to vote £160,000 to pay our debts or £10,000 a year to squander on the mistress of the moment.”

  “You’re well informed on the business of the court.”

  “All news flies fast, whether it concerns a prince or a local squire.”

  Francis flushed. “What do you mean by that?”

  Ross raised his mug. “That this drink's very warming to the vitals.”

  “It may disappoint you to know,” said Francis, “that I’m not interested in what a set of braggarty, pockmarked old grannies are whispering over their turf fires. I go my own way and leave them to fetch up what poisonous gases they choose. We are none of us immune from their clackings. Look to your own house, Ross.”

  “You misunderstand me,” said Ross. “I’m not concerned with gossip or the tales of idle women. But the interior of a debtors’ prison is damp and smelly. No one would be the worse for your bearing that in mind before it is too late.”

  Frances lit up his long pipe and smoked for some seconds before saying anything more. He dropped a piece of smouldering wood back in the fire and put down the tongs.

  “Elizabeth must have been pitching you a pretty story.”

  “I don’t need her confidences for a pretty story which is known all over the district.”

  “The district knows my own affairs better than I do myself. Perhaps you’d advise me to a solution. Should I join the Methodies and be saved?”

  “My dear man,” Ross said, “I like you and have an interest in your welfare. But for all it will affect me you may find your way to the devil by the shortest route. Fortune can provide lands and family but it can’t provide good sense. If you wish to throw away what you have, then throw it away and be damned.”

  Francis eyed him cynically for a mome
nt, then put down his pipe and clapped a hand on his shoulder.

  “Spoken like a Poldark. We have never been an agree able family. Let us curse and quarrel in amity. Then we can get drunk in company. You and I together, and to hell with the creditors!”

  Ross picked up his empty mug and regarded the bottom gravely. Francis's good temper under the quizzing struck a responsive chord. Disappointment, from whatever quarter it had come, had toughened his cousin; it had not changed the essential individual he had known and liked.

  At that moment Bartle came in carrying two branching candlesticks. The yellow games flickered in the draught, and it was as if the firelight had suddenly grown to fill the room. Elizabeth's spinning wheel stood out in the corner, its bobbins shining. A linen doll lay on its back beside the sofa with stuffing hanging from its stomach. On a chair was a wicker basket with needlework and a frame with a half-finished sampler. The light of the candles was warm and friendly; with the curtains drawn there was a sense of cosiness and quiet affluence.

  In the room were all the signs of feminine occupancy, and there had been about these few minutes of conversation an underlying maleness which drew the two men together by the bond of their larger, wider, more tolerant understanding. Between them was the freemasonry of their sex, a unity of blood, and the memory of old friendships.

  It occurred to Ross in this moment that half of Eliza beth's worry might be the eternal feminine bogy of insecurity. Francis drank. Francis gambled and lost money. Francis had been seen about with another woman. Not an amiable story. But not an uncommon one. Inconceivable to Ross in this case, and for Elizabeth it had the proportions of a tragedy. But it was unwise to lose one's sense of perspective. Other men drank and gambled. Debts were fashionable. Other men found eyes to admire the beauty which was not theirs by right of marriage and to overlook the familiar beauty that was. It did not follow that Francis was taking the shortest route to perdition.

  Anyway this was Christmas, and the day was intended to mark a family reunion, not to begin a new estrangement.