Warleggan

by Winston Graham

  Elizabeth had found life with her second husband a mass of contradictions. He lived, she found, more genteelly than the people of her own kind. Although he was putting on weight, he ate considerably less than Francis had done or her father did. Accustomed to a society in which men considered the courtesies observed if they didn’t slide under the table before the ladies left, she found his sobriety attractive. He drank but never got the worse for drink. He never spat or blew his nose in her presence. His courtesy towards her was unchanged whether they were in company or alone.

  But of course it was impossible to treat him as she had treated Francis. He was not one quarter so malleable, so mercurial, so easy to understand. She missed Francis’s dry humour and easy sophistication. Somehow she never seemed able to meet George on equal terms. While she was absolute mistress of the small things, she found him absolute master of the large. She did not love him; she was not even sure that he loved her; but she felt herself to be a treasured possession, cared for and considered in every way. Often it was delightful to be so treated. It was what she had longed for during her widowhood. Occasionally she found it oppressive.

  He kept all his other feelings under as good a control as his feelings for his wife. It seemed as if in climbing the ladder of society he had been so afraid of betraying the wrong emotions that he had grown afraid of showing any at all. He was morbidly sensitive about his humble beginnings, though even that he was clever enough to keep from her for some months. Then one day she made a remark that could be taken two ways, and she saw the instant resentment before he could hide it. After that she walked carefully, watching her own words when necessary so that no hint of condescension could be gathered from them.

  Tonight in the first part of dinner they talked about the news which had just come through to Falmouth of the fall of Toulon. Its surrender to the British last August, together with thirty battleships and great quantities of naval stores, had looked like the end of the war. Lord Hood in grateful astonishment had taken possession and had sent an urgent appeal for forty thousand troops to consolidate this magnificent opportunity. The government had sent two thousand British soldiers, some Piedmontese, and a few Spaniards. Now in December the Republic, freed of its other preoccupations, had sent a large force and reduced the town, led by a new young general of whose name the Falmouth news-sheet had three different spellings in the length of a column but of whose ability no one seemed in doubt.

  George had always been for war as against Revolution. The Warleggans were founding their dynasty within the framework of a settled and ordered society. Anything which might undermine that society was to be resisted and condemned. War was far the lesser of the evils.

  ‘. . . small forces,’ he was saying, ‘which we reduce to complete incompetence by distributing to the corners of the globe. Our campaign in Flanders is bogged in mud. The Vendeans have asked for our help in vain. This would bring about Pitt’s downfall if there were anyone to replace him. But Dundas, Grenville, Richmond, none of them have the parliamentary command . . .’

  Elizabeth saw the door open just behind the manservant and Ross come in. So certain was she that it must be another servant with the wine that for a second she disbelieved her eyes. Then George saw her face and turned.

  He instantly pushed back his chair.

  Ross said quietly: ‘I have not come to make a disturbance this time – unless you force it.’

  George did not move his chair any farther.

  ‘And you,’ said Ross, as the manservant, catching some glance from his master, moved towards the bell pull.

  ‘How did you get in?’ George said.

  ‘I want a word with you, George.’

  The servant said: ‘Shall I . . .’

  ‘No,’ said George, watching Ross like a snake.

  ‘That’s wise. There’s no need to wreck your dining-room: I have committed enough violence in this house . . .’

  Nobody spoke. Ross’s eyes flickered across to Elizabeth. She met this gaze with bitter hostility. It was the first time they had seen each other since the night in May. He looked at her a moment longer, in surprise, a little in assessment. ‘I am sorry to upset you, Elizabeth.’

  ‘You don’t upset me,’ she said.

  ‘I’m glad of that.’

  ‘You may be glad or sorry. I’m not interested.’

  George, gratified, said: ‘Pray forgive me for exposing you to this intrusion, Elizabeth.’

  ‘It need never happen again,’ Ross said. ‘I have no ambitions here . . . But I’m tired of our relationship, George. Whenever we meet, we snarl like dogs – and every now and then it comes to the point of a scuffle, but inconclusive even then. It seems now we’re to be neighbours, close neighbours perhaps, for years to come. A disagreeable prospect for me, but not one that I can alter. There are really only two ways out of it, and I have come to suggest that we should choose the better one.’

  ‘Is there a better one?’

  ‘Well, I think so. I’d suggest that we agree to avoid heedless provocation and live as peaceable as we can. What is your view?’

  George looked down at his fingers. ‘I should have thought your visit tonight a very heedless piece of provocation.’

  ‘No, for I came to put the alternatives before you. I am lawabiding now, George, and prosperous. Think of that. Prosperous. That must gall you. But never mind. It surely must be in the interests of both of us that we should make the civilized choice.’

  ‘And what other do you suggest exists?’

  Ross listened to the sound of footsteps in the hall. ‘I’m a little unsure as to details, because my wife would not supply them, but I believe an insult was paid her while I was away.’

  ‘No insult was paid her that she did not invite.’

  ‘I understand you’re claiming the cliff path as your property between Sawle and Trevaunance.’

  ‘It is my property.’

  ‘I’m not sufficiently interested to dispute it, though there may be others who will.’

  ‘I have already made sure of the legal position.’

  ‘I thought you would have. But the possession of property doesn’t entitle you to be affrontful to people innocently using a footpath which has been public for years.’

  ‘Your dog was straying. In what way was your wife harmed?’

  ‘She has left me in no position to argue about it. But I suggest that you take care she’s not molested again.’

  ‘The remedy is in her hands not mine.’

  ‘That is where we differ, and differ beyond the point of peaceful enmity. As I say, I have no wish to come here again—’

  ‘You will not, I’ll see to that.’ George took out his watch. ‘You may have three minutes more.’

  Ross said: ‘I am trying very hard to put the choice intelligibly before you, and you asked me as to the other alternative. Well, that is it . . . Age has mellowed us both; but you must know of my ability to incite miners, for you once tried to get me convicted for doing so. It would not be difficult to bring three hundred, and you know what they are like. I don’t wish to threaten or to dramatize a simple promise; but they would trample across your lawns and pull up your trees, and in a night it would look as if a hurricane had blown. And any bloodshed caused by trying to keep them out would certainly lead to more bloodshed. The law will not protect you; for it knows no way of offering protection except with a company of infantry, and soldiers now are scarcer than battleships.’

  George turned as the door opened and Tom Harry put his head in.

  ‘Begging your pardon, sir. The cook— Ah . . .’

  He had seen Ross. Ross did not move. Harry sidled in and another man stood in the doorway.

  Ross said: ‘That’s an alternative you’ll have time to think over. The present alternative is before you.’

  George hunched his shoulders. ‘You’ve finished what you came to say?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Tom Harry said: ‘Now, see ’ere—’

  ‘Wait,’ sai
d George. ‘Let him go.’

  There was a pause. Harry’s hands dropped to his sides.

  Ross said: ‘It is Christmas tomorrow and believe me, I have come in no carping spirit. We cannot be friends, but it’s tedious to spend all one’s life with one’s hackles up. I certainly don’t want to; and I hope you don’t want to. In coming to live in my district, you have vastly annoyed me; but you have also offered up certain hostages for your own good behaviour.’

  He glanced at Elizabeth. Seeing her had upset him in a new way. ‘Explain to George, will you, that I’m in earnest.’

  She said: ‘I know nothing of any insult to Demelza. But I’ve complete faith in my husband’s capacity to order his life as he thinks best.’

  Ross stared at her. ‘Then see to it that he appreciates the choice.’

  He went out, pushing past Tom Harry, who only shifted an inch or so. The man in the doorway retreated more quickly, and Ross walked across the hall, half expecting some attack from behind. He glanced round that great hall which had been a part of his life ever since he was a child. Here he had come with his father and mother when he was just old enough to walk. He had played here in a corner with Verity and Francis while words from the sober elders grouped round the fire had floated across to his half-attending ears: Chatham’s illness and the Wilkes controversy and the repeal of the Stamp Act. Here, returning from America, he had found Elizabeth celebrating her engagement to Francis. Here he had come for the christening of Elizabeth’s child, for his uncle’s funeral . . . Something belonging intimately to his family had existed in this room.

  But not any longer. The familiar wood and glass and stone were not enough.

  Warleggan ground. George’s influence was all-pervasive.

  The bitterness of Elizabeth’s tones and looks had only surprised Ross in their degree. He had expected her enmity. But he did not suppose all of it derived from the ninth of May. He was not proud of his adventure then, nor ever a man given to passing off his own behaviour with an easy excuse; but after the initial resistance that night there had been no particular indication that she hated him. Her attitude towards him during a number of years, and particularly the last two, was more than anything else responsible for what had happened, and she must have known it. Her behaviour that night had shown that she knew it.

  But there had been other – and later – sins on his part. Over and over again during those first weeks following he had known he should go and see her and thrash the whole thing out in the light of day. It was unthinkable to leave the situation as he had left it, but that was precisely what he had done. He had behaved abominably first in going, then in not going; but he did not know what to say, and the impossibility of explaining himself had stopped him. If the history of the last ten years had been the tragedy of a woman unable to make up her mind, the last six months was the history of a man in a similar case. For a long time he had been quite unsure of his own feelings; then they had crystallized; and from that moment a private meeting with Elizabeth was impossible.

  Now it was too late.

  Chapter Seven

  He was back in time to soothe Demelza’s fears, and just before eight Dwight and Caroline came.

  Caroline had been sobered by her visit to her uncle’s. In spite of what they had agreed, she had been determined to tell him at once of her meeting with Dwight; but sight of her uncle had shown her how ill he was, and she was silent.

  Demelza was nervous and excited too; and as dinner wore on, her attitude helped Caroline to an easier frame of mind.

  Demelza said: ‘But how long shall you have to be away, Dwight? Have you not heard yet? It is a matter of some importance to us all.’

  ‘The naval surgeon is neither fish, flesh, nor fowl – but I’m told my appointment can be considered to be for two years or for the duration of the war, whichever is the shorter.’

  ‘And if the war go on after that?’

  Dwight hesitated. Caroline said: ‘He will stay. I feel it in my bones he will not reconcile it with his conscience to retire.’

  Dwight smiled. ‘For once you overrate my conscience. Since Caroline came, my patriotism has been running out fast.’

  Demelza said: ‘But you will not have to wait until then, until you are out of it—’

  ‘No. I think she will marry me – I believe she will – on my first shore leave. That may be in three months or six, no one knows . . .’

  ‘And until then?’ Ross said to Caroline. ‘What shall you do in the meantime?’

  ‘Stay with Uncle Ray for a time. Then perhaps go back to London.’

  ‘I’d prefer you to stay here,’ Dwight said. ‘The air is good and London hasn’t suited your health.’

  ‘Oh, yes, do you know,’ Caroline said to Demelza, ‘he spent the first morning of our reconciliation sounding my chest. Faith, I found it more embarrassing than any conjugal endearment.’

  Dwight went very red. ‘Nonsense, Caroline, you make it sound much worse than it was! I was less than half an hour, and your maid was present—’

  ‘Oh, yes, my maid was present, which made it even more overfacing. What allurement can a woman hope to have for a man who has already examined her tonsils and her teeth and has counted her ribs in the harsh light of day?’

  Dwight took a gulp of wine. ‘Well, if you want to know that, let me tell you! You have every possible allurement for me. I love you and am fascinated by everything you do, and no amount of medical attention, either on you or on myself, will ever cure me of that!’

  It was a change to hear Caroline getting more than she asked for, and to save them both Ross said:

  ‘When Dwight has gone, so long as you stay with your uncle, I hope you’ll come and sup with us once or twice a week. It will help the time to pass.’

  ‘After Dwight has gone, I shall wake up sometimes and wonder if all this week has been a dream. I think I shall have to come here for reassurance. I hope my uncle improves so that I can tell him the truth.’

  ‘If you are in any difficulty, come straight here,’ Ross said. ‘We will put you up for as long as necessary.’

  Caroline looked at Demelza before replying. ‘Your husband’s committing you very deep.’

  Demelza said: ‘Well, no deeper than I’d want to go or be willing to go tomorrow.’

  It was Caroline who eventually smiled and glanced away. ‘I have told Ross. It was just a whim. Anyway, perhaps this war will be over next week and then I shall not need your kindness. In Plymouth the landlord’s wife was whispering news of some sacrilegious feast the French have been celebrating in Notre Dame. It all sounds very decadent, and I trust their armed forces will be corrupted by it – especially the Navy.’

  ‘Next year will see a change when I am at sea,’ said Dwight. ‘The lice at least will notice the difference.’

  At half past nine the carol singers came from Sawle Church, and Demelza thought of the many other Christmases . . . Six years ago at Trenwith, the Trenegloses had come unexpectedly with George Warleggan, and Elizabeth had sung and she had sung, and she had tasted port wine for the first time and had loved the flavour of it and what it did to you in spite of feeling sick with Julia four months forward. And then two years later, when she was alone here and the same carol singers as tonight – though a much depleted stock – and she had asked them in and had sympathized with them over their ailments, nervous only for her new status and anxious to behave well, not thinking or dreaming that in two weeks more Julia would be dead and she a drawn and wasted invalid. And the wrecks that had come in on the great January gale, and Ross, like herself only worse, spiritually worse, bitter and lost, going down to the shore and the teeming, struggling miners.

  The choir was at full strength tonight and in good form. Uncle Ben Tregeagle was in charge, ageless and gipsylike with his thin black curls, and Mary Ann Tregaskis, and Char Nanfan and Johnny Kimber and Betty Carkeek, whose husband had been killed in the tussle with the gaugers; and even Sue Baker got through the singing without going into o
ne of her fits.

  When they had gone, the four sat round the fire for another half hour drinking tea and eating homemade cake. Then Demelza excused herself and presently Ross followed.

  He went up to the mine and was gone some time. When he returned, Demelza was still in the kitchen and told him that Caroline had just gone to bed. He went into the parlour and found Dwight about to leave too.

  Ross said: ‘We thought you might like a few minutes alone.’

  ‘Thank you . . . And for so much else besides.’

  ‘Little enough.’

  ‘It isn’t often that one man can retrieve another’s mistakes for him. I want to tell you—’

  ‘Don’t try. Sometimes to be able to growl and bully is a signal advantage. And really it is very easy learned. Make the most of your happiness while it is here.’

  ‘That I will do. Caroline . . .’

  ‘The more I see of Caroline, the more I esteem her.’ Ross poured brandy into a glass for himself and then put it down untouched. He wanted no more. ‘Not until this week did I begin to understand her. You’ll have a lifetime to do it, and that I imagine will not be too long. Always she will disguise her goodness as if ashamed of it. I congratulate you on your acumen in picking so exceptional a wife.’

  Dwight shook his head. ‘I only wish she were my wife. I’d give years of my life for a month ashore now. But she could not be rushed into it this time – in this way . . . Demelza likes her, I think?’

  ‘Of course!’

  ‘I asked for a particular reason. I hope it will not be so, but it may be that I shall not have a lifetime in which to appreciate Caroline. In war it’s not uncommon for people to get hurt. I don’t propose to sentimentalize on the possibility, but it might be that she will need all your friendship and the help you could give even if we marry, then as a young widow . . .’