The Miller's Dance

by Winston Graham

  ‘Oh yes, you have, old darling, you’ve had a lot of fun. For instance—’

  ‘Stop trying to comfort me! I can’t bear you! I suppose you never think of it, do you – so strong and healthy – what it must be like to die, to be nothing, not to feel or see or think again . . .’

  ‘Not so long ago,’ said Stephen, ‘less’n eighteen months gone I lay on a raft after the Unique was wrecked. Me and a lascar. We drifted. No food, no water, getting weaker. I thought then. I reckoned I was going to slip my wind. I prayed . . . first time for years.’

  ‘But you had hope.’

  ‘Well, and don’t you? Look you, for Heaven’s sake—’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I have no hope.’

  He took her hand. ‘What’s got into you today? It isn’t like old Violet—’

  ‘No, it isn’t like old Violet, is it – who always has a bright smile and a jest. Well, just now and then I lose it. Because I see my end in my mother’s face. Dr Enys tries to be cheerful; he smiles and says this and that; but I know what he has told them behind my back! Nothing has got into me today, you fool, but what has been there since before Christmas – only I’ve hid it – and now I can no longer hide it. So just for a minute I’m – not such passing good company . . .’

  The tears began to start again. He sat on the bed and put his hand on her cheek and pressed her head against his arm.

  ‘There now. Have a good cry if twill help. Or curse me, if that helps more.’

  ‘Curse you,’ she said. ‘Curse you, you great blundering, unfeeling, stupid male beast!’

  ‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘That’s right.’

  ‘And now no doubt you’ll not come to see me any more.’

  ‘Of course I will!’

  ‘She’ll not let you!’

  ‘Nay, she’s not mean-natured like that.’

  ‘You don’t have to be mean-natured to be jealous. She’s always been jealous of me, ever since last Midsummer Eve.’

  ‘I’ll tell her. I’ll explain.’

  ‘Do you love her?’

  Stephen hesitated. ‘If I say yes, you’ll hate me more. If I say no, you’ll dub me a liar. What do it matter, old darling?’

  ‘It matters to her!’

  ‘I promise I’ll come and see you still – every Friday – till you’re well again.’

  ‘Well again. D’you know, Stephen, it is most strange . . . A while ago I sowed some mignonette in pots so that they should bloom outside my window. You will see them if you go into the conservatory. They are already sturdy plants. But I wonder every day what colour they will be and if I shall ever know. It is most – frustrating.’

  ‘Now you’re sorry for yourself.’

  She pushed him away, instantly reacting to the challenge. ‘So would you be, you clumsy oaf! Really, I’m sorry for Clowance Poldark. She comes here to see me and sits there simple and sweet, and Lord knows what she thinks she’s caught! Tis like a little girl going out with a fishing net and coming back with an octopus!’

  ‘Now I know you’re feeling better,’ he said. ‘I always make you fell better, don’t I. Dr Carrington, they should call me.’

  ‘Surgeon Carrington with a bloody knife, that’s you! Plunging it into the hearts of innocent girls, one after the other! Go away, you irritate me beyond endurance!’

  ‘I’ll come Friday, old darling,’ he said, kissing her averted face. ‘I promise I’ll come again Friday.’

  II

  Downstairs Stephen ran Paul Kellow to earth behind the parlour in the small room Dr Choake had once used as his dispensary. He was writing at a desk piled with accounts books and littered with pamphlets, bill-heads, folded maps, bills of consignment.

  ‘Intruding?’ Stephen asked.

  Paul put his pen aside and swung his swivel chair. ‘Pray intrude. If you gave me two pennies, which I doubt you possess, I’d gladly drop this for the rest of the day.’

  ‘What are you about?’

  ‘Drafting an advertisement for the West Briton announcing a change in our routes in West Cornwall for the summer months.’

  ‘Expanding them?’

  ‘Reducing them. The Cornish are too damned slow to appreciate the benefits of easy travel.’

  Paul Kellow had had his twenty-first birthday last week, an occasion which had gone unmarked, ostensibly because his sister was so ill. Paul was slim and not tall, with rather effeminate good looks, but his dark sleek hair, sallow skin and composed and confident manner would have passed him for twenty-seven or eight. When Dr Choake died, Polly, his lisping wife, had moved smartly into Truro where whist was available every afternoon, but instead of selling Fernmore she had let it to her cousin by marriage, Mr Charlie Kellow, who was associated with new coaching enterprises in Truro and Penzance. Good sense would have suggested that he and his family were better accommodated nearer the centre of their business, but it was whispered that because of the relationship and because they were chronically short of money Mrs Choake had allowed them to take Fernmore at a peppercorn rent.

  Nothing they had done since they came had dispelled the impression that they were hard up. Dr Choake would have been deeply offended to see his old house so neglected, with its bare pretentions at the best of times to dignity and gentility. In his day he employed eight servants – now there were only two, one indoors and one out; and although the two girls, Violet and Daisy, were at home with their mother all day, the curtains were shabby, the furniture threadbare, the garden littered and untidy.

  Such were the Kellows, cursed with a tubercular strain and a chronic shortage of money, blessed with good looks and a supreme belief in their own importance in the world.

  ‘How did you find her?’ Paul asked.

  Stephen shrugged. ‘Depressed. That’s not common. What does Enys say?’

  ‘He says there’s a large cavity in the right lung and the left one is now affected. He thinks the next haemorrhage may kill her.’

  ‘D’ye reckon she’s come to know that?’

  ‘Not from us, she hasn’t. But then maybe she reads between the lines. It is not difficult. After all, it was the same with Dorrie – the year before we came here. Violet saw it all then.’

  Paul went over to a keg of beer lying on a trestle in the corner of the small dark room. However short of some things, the Kellows were never without the essentials. He brought back two brimming mugs.

  ‘I’ll never forgive that parson.’

  ‘What parson?’

  ‘The one at Dorrie’s funeral. Trevail. He was so drunk he damn near fell into the open grave. I wished he had, and broke his neck.’

  They drank together. A bell was tinkling somewhere in the house. It was Violet ringing for their solitary maid.

  Paul said: ‘Well, I have to congratulate you, eh?’

  ‘Thank you. Yes, thank you.’

  ‘You’ve won yourself a fine girl there. When’s the wedding?’

  ‘Not fixed yet.’

  ‘Twould be nice if it could be a double wedding.’

  ‘How d’ye mean?’

  ‘Well, Jeremy is very warm for Daisy. I think he’d take her tomorrow if she’d have him.’

  ‘And won’t she?’

  Paul allowed a frown to wrinkle his smooth brow. ‘You can never tell with her. She’s wayward.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Stephen, disbelieving.

  ‘I believe you’re going to work for Wilf Jonas.’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘When d’you begin?’

  ‘Week after next.’

  Paul finished his ale.

  ‘Wilf’s a sour puss. You won’t find him conversational.’

  ‘So I’ve noticed.’

  ‘Another one?’

  ‘Thanks.’

  As he came back again Paul said: ‘Still, it’s a beginning, I suppose. I would have thought the Poldarks could have done better than that for you.’

  ‘I seek no favours.’

  ‘But still. Of course, if you’re satisfied . . .’r />
  ‘I’m marrying the girl I want – that’s the main thing to be satisfied about, isn’t it?’

  ‘How’s the mine going?’

  ‘The mine?’

  ‘Wheal Leisure.’

  ‘Nothing of note. Tis early days. Or so I’m told.’

  ‘I heard two old miners at the Bounders’ Arms, night before last; they’d both worked in Leisure twenty years ago. They reckoned she was played out.’

  ‘Captain Poldark doesn’t think so. Nor Jeremy. Nor Ben Carter.’

  ‘Ah . . . Ben Carter. You want to watch out for him, Stephen.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘On account of his being moonstruck for Clowance. I reckon he thinks it’s the worst day’s work we ever did, fishing you out of the sea.’

  Stephen did not reply for a while. He did not fancy Paul’s manner this afternoon. The two tankards of ale Paul had just downed were clearly not the first, and it was making him cross-grained; he seemed to want to pick, to scratch, to rub things up the wrong way. But Stephen was not going to meet him at his own game. He wanted something and hoped he might be able to get it.

  ‘Paul, would you be interested in a venture?’

  ‘What sort of venture?’

  ‘Something that needs an outlay.’

  ‘What of, money?’

  ‘Among other things.’

  Paul gave a harsh laugh. ‘Enlighten me about the other things.’

  Stephen fished in his pocket, took out a crumpled cutting from a newspaper.

  ‘I was reading the West Briton Saturday. It is a useful paper, like – you learn a lot about the county. When I come here first I thought there’d be plenty of opportunity for someone like me. Are you Cornish?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, I kind of thought them a bit slow.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘I think maybe they’re not so backward where money is concerned. And yet – look at this.’ He extended the piece of paper. ‘Penzance lifeboat for sale.’

  Paul frowned at the print. ‘What is there about that?’

  ‘Did you know they had one?’

  ‘I can’t suppose I ever thought.’

  ‘No, well they have. They’ve had it for ten years. Built by public subscription. Everyone real proud of it. But it has never been used. Never once.’

  ‘It doesn’t say that here,’ Paul observed.

  ‘No, but it’s true. Know why it has never once been used in all these years? I can make a good guess. Can’t you?’

  ‘Well, unless . . .’

  ‘Unless the folk there better prefer the wrecks to drift ashore, eh? I’d guess that was the reason, wouldn’t you.’

  Paul shrugged. ‘Why are they selling it?’

  ‘To discharge a debt. It seems it sits in this shed day and night, year in year out, and the rent of the shed has mounted up and up and no one to pay it. Once the lifeboat was bought, there was no money left for aught else. So I’m told.’

  ‘Who told you?’

  ‘Never mind, it is the truth.’

  Paul got up and thrust his hands in his pockets. ‘Been to see it, have you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Yesterday. I borrowed a pony from Jeremy. It was too late to get back, so I slept under a hedge.’

  ‘Is he in this?’

  ‘No. Not yet. It would not be much use anyway. He has spent what small money he ever had on this road vehicle you have been attempting to build in Hayle. Save for what his father gives him monthly, he has no money. He’s told me so before.’

  ‘Well, I’ve none,’ said Paul. ‘What have you got?’

  ‘Ten pounds maybe. Since I came to live here the money’s slipped away.’

  ‘And what notion have you in your head?’

  ‘I thought to buy her.’

  ‘What, the lifeboat?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’re witless. Whatever point—’

  ‘Only to sell again.’

  Paul stared at his friend.

  ‘You think she’d sell again?’

  ‘Soon enough, I think. Not maybe in Penzance.’

  ‘At a profit? . . . What’s she like?’

  ‘She’s not a vessel I’d want to keep meself, not for the purpose I’d have in mind. But she’s a fine boat of her kind. Near on 30 feet long by 10 beam, and can row ten oars double banked. Stern and stern alike, and with a curved keel such as I’ve not seen afore. She’s not been well kept; but I went over her careful. Everything essential is Bristol fashion – well, she’s never even been afloat! They say she cost a hundred and fifty guineas, and I’d not disbelieve that.’

  ‘Paul!’ a voice called. ‘Are you there, Paul?’ It was Mrs Kellow’s voice.

  Paul shut the door on it.

  ‘What would you have in mind?’

  ‘Go down Thursday for the auction – with money in me pocket – enough to buy her if she was going cheap.’

  ‘What makes you suppose she will?’

  ‘No one seems interested. If I had forty guineas I could buy her, I’d guess. And at that price she would be cheap.’

  Paul’s eyes roved, back to the desk, to the cash-box. Then he shook his head. ‘I could borrow ten from the box . . . maybe twelve. There’s no more in there. And my father’d be raising the roof within the week. We’re skinned out, Stephen, you and I. Unless you can rob some poor old lady you’d best abandon the idea.’

  III

  The same evening while the two older children were still away and Isabella-Rose had retired conversationally to bed, Demelza told Ross that she was with child again.

  Ross put his pipe carefully down on the mantelshelf. ‘Good God!’

  Demelza said: ‘Yes, indeed.’

  ‘Almighty God, I never supposed . . .’

  ‘I don’t think we can blame Him.’

  Ross got up, looked at the accounts book he had been about to tackle on his desk. Priorities, perspectives had suddenly changed.

  ‘When?’

  ‘Oh . . . maybe November. Before Christmas anyhow.’

  ‘Have you been feeling unwell for some time?’

  ‘A couple of weeks. It is passing now. I shall feel brave now. I always do.’

  He stared at her – this dark-eyed, witty, warmly perceptive, earthy woman who had been his loving companion for twenty-five years, a woman who, at rising forty-two, still attracted straying glances from men whenever she went into company.

  ‘I didn’t expect this!’

  ‘The old women say it’s a good thing – to have another baby at my age.’

  ‘Your age! You’re a mere child yet.’

  ‘Yes, grandpa. I . . . hope the others won’t mind.’

  ‘What others?’

  ‘Jeremy and Clowance, of course. They may think it a little inopportune. Is that the right word?’

  ‘I’ll knock their heads together if they show the least sign of thinking that. But . . . how will it affect your megrim?’

  ‘May stop it. Should not anyway do it any harm. Ross, having babies is natural in a woman. It does not have any permanent effect – on their health or on their ordinary ailments.’

  ‘I’m not so sure,’ he said, thinking of all the women he had known who had died in childbirth. ‘Have you told Dwight?’

  ‘I haven’t seen him. You are the first one to hear – of course.’

  He took up his pipe and began to fill it. It was not done very expertly tonight. Every time this happened with Demelza it got worse. Each time he found he had more to lose. He had hoped it would never occur again.

  ‘I’m very selfish,’ he said. ‘I think only of you.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound selfish.’

  ‘Well it is. Because the older I get, the older we both get, the more I depend on you.’

  ‘I know that, Ross. At least, I feel it so also. It operates both ways. But in what respect will this alter it?’

  He hesitated. ‘Not at all if it is as the others have
been.’

  ‘Well, then. That is how it shall be.’

  He held his tongue, not wanting to damp her with his own fears.

  Presently she said: ‘I wonder what we shall call him.’

  ‘Him?’

  ‘Shouldn’t that be? On average. We’ve had three girls and only one boy.’

  ‘As God is my judge,’ Ross said, ‘I’ll be well past seventy before the child is of age!’

  ‘Never mind. You are not so yet. I am – delighted.’

  He looked into her eyes. ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes! Oh yes! It – puts the clock back. One is – young again!’

  ‘How strange,’ he said. ‘I have never thought of you as anything but young.’

  ‘We’ll call him,’ she said, ‘Vennor. Or Drake. Or Francis.’

  ‘Why not Garrick?’ Ross suggested, and dodged the cushion she threw at him.

  But he was not amused. There was no laughter in him at all.

  IV

  News was now reaching England of the fall of Badajoz. The great fortress had been taken at bitter cost. Wellington, it was said, had wept in the greyness of the early morning, knowing so many of his best officers slain. Even the great General Craufurd, commander of the Light Division, was dead. And afterwards a terrible sacking of the town which, legitimate though it was according to the bitter rules of war which decreed a garrison must surrender after the first breaches had been made or suffer the full penalty, nevertheless went far beyond all humane licence. Wine ran everywhere, doors were blown off, old men murdered, women raped and robbed. The newspapers in England were discreet but the hideous stories spread.

  Was Geoffrey Charles alive? No news of individual casualties or survivors had yet come through, except for the names of the senior officers who had fallen.

  Jeremy, racked and strained beyond his endurance by the encounter with Cuby, decided on his first day home to go to Hayle. Short of the engine at Wheal Leisure, which anyhow was at present working without particular problems, this challenge at the Harvey works was the only counter-irritant he knew. Paul was not available so he persuaded Ben Carter to ride with him. The mine could go hang for a solitary day.

  In the last six months Jeremy’s visits to Hayle had been infrequent – far less often than when he went by sea and had to employ the subterfuge of apparently going out for a day’s fishing. This was not because of any loss of interest in the idea of developing a steam-powered road carriage but because he had staked his pride on producing a suitable steam engine for Wheal Leisure. His father had agreed – albeit with unspoken elements of doubt – and this had now been done. But while it was being done, both during the manufacture at Hayle and the erection of the parts on the site, there had been little time for secondary issues. Now perhaps they could be taken up again. In fact, they must be taken up again – or he must find some other preoccupation to take his mind off Cuby.