Demelza (15 page)

Keren looked at her keenly a moment to make sure what was intended. Failing, she glanced at her basket and said: 'To Sawle. It is a miserable small place, isn't it? I suppose you do all your shopping in Truro.'

'Oh, I like to buy from Aunt Mary Rogers whenever it is feasible. She's a brave kind soul for all her fat. I could tell you things about Aunt Mary Rogers…'

Keren looked uninterested.

'And then there's pilchards,' said Demelza. 'Sawle pilchards are the best in England. Mind you, it has been a rare bad season for 'em, but last year was wonderful. It set 'em up for the winter. What they'll do this year is beyond imagining.'

'Mistress Poldark,' Keren said, 'don't you think Mark is worth something better than being a common ordinary miner? Don't you?'

Surprised, Demelza stared at the sudden question. She said: 'Yes. Maybe I hadn't thought to look at it that way.'

'Nobody does. But look at him: he's strong as an ox; he's sharp enough; he's keen; he's a worker. But Grambler Mine is a dead end like. What can he do but work an' work, day in day out for a starvation wage till he's too old an' crippled like his father. An' then what's to become of us?'

'I didn't know twas so near starvation,' Demelza said. 'I thought he made a fair wage. He's on tribute, isn't he?'

'It keeps us. No more.'

Demelza saw a horseman come over the hill.

'My father was a miner,' she said. 'Tributer like Mark. Still is. He made a fair wage. Up an' down of course, an' nothing startling at the best. But we would have managed if he hadn't swilled it all away at the gin shops. Mark don't drink, do he?'

Keren moved a stone about with her foot.

'I wondered if it was ever possible Captain Poldark ever had a vacancy in his mine, you see; a vacancy for something better. I only wondered. I thought it might be. Those on tribute there are doing well, they say; and I thought maybe there might be something better sometime.'

'I've nought to do with it,' Demelza said. 'But I'll mention it.' It was not he on the horse.

'Mind,' said Keren, tossing her hair back, 'we're nice and comfortable and all that. It isn't that one needs to ask favours, so to say. But Mark is so behindhand in that. I said to him one day, "Why don't you go ask Captain Ross; you're a friend of his; he couldn't bite you; maybe he's never thought of you in that way; nothing venture, nothing have." But he just shook his head and wouldn't answer. I always get angry when he won't answer.'

'Yes,' said Demelza.

The horseman was coming through the trees now, and Keren heard him and looked over her shoulder. Her face was slightly flushed and slightly resentful, as if someone had been asking a favour of her. It was Dwight Enys.

'Oh, Mrs Poldark. I have just been to Truro and thought to call in on the way back. Is Captain Poldark at home?'

'No, he's in to Redruth, I b'lieve.'

Dwight dismounted, handsome and young. Keren glanced quickly from one to the other.

'I have a letter here, that's all. Mr Harris Pascoe asked me to deliver it.

May I presume to leave it with you?'

'Thank you.' Demelza took the letter. 'This is Mistress Keren Daniel, Mark Daniel's wife. This is Dr Enys.'

Dwight bowed. 'Your servant, ma'am.' He was not sure from the girl's dress to what class she belonged, and he had forgotten who Mark Daniel was.

Under his gaze Keren's expression changed like a flower when the sun comes out. While she spoke she kept her eyes down, her long black lashes on the dusky peach bloom of her cheeks. She knew the young man, having seen him two or three times from her window after that first glimpse of him with Ross. She knew that he had come to live in that turreted house half hidden in a clump of trees just up the other side of the valley from her own cottage. She knew that he had never seen her before. She knew the value of first impressions.

They walked down together towards Nampara House, Keren determined that she should not leave the other two until she was forced. At the house Demelza invited them in for a glass of wine, but to Keren's great disappointment he refused. Keren, quickly deciding that a few minutes of Dr Enys's company was worth more than the interest of seeing the inside of Nampara House, refused also; and they left together, Dwight leading his horse and walking beside Keren.

The twentieth of October was a windy day with dust and dead leaves blowing and the promise of rain. Demelza was on edge, as if she had a long-distance coach to catch; and Verity was amused by her wish to get into Truro by eleven at the latest. Demelza said that it wasn't nervousness for herself but that Julia had been restless in the night and she suspected she was a bit feverish.

At that Verity suggested they might postpone the visit: they could very easily ride in another day when it was more convenient. It would have suited her, for the date had come round for the quarterly meeting of the Grambler shareholders. But Demelza now seemed more than ever keen to go...

This time they had Bartle for company, for Jud was growing ever more wayward.

Halfway there it began to rain, a thin damp drizzle moving across the country like a mesh of fine silk, slower than the low bags of cloud which spun it. About three miles from Truro they saw a crowd of people stretching across the road. It was so unusual to see many people about in the middle of the day that they reined in.

'I think tis a pile o' miners, ma'am,' said Bartle. 'Mebbe tis a feast day we've forgot.'

Verity went forward a little doubtfully. These people did not look as if they were celebrating.

A man was standing on a cart talking to a compact group gathered around him. He was some distance away, but it was clear that he was giving expression to a grievance. Other groups of people sat on the ground or talked among themselves. There were as many women as men among them, all poorly dressed and some with young children. They looked angry and cold and desperate. A good many were actually in the lane, which here ran between clearly defined hedges, and hostile looks met the two well-dressed women on horseback with their well-fed groom.

Verity put a bold front on it and led the way slowly through: and silently they were watched and sullenly. Presently the last were left behind.

'Phhh!' said Demelza. 'Who were they, Bartle?'

'Miners from Idless an' Chacewater, I bla'. These are poor times, ma'am.'

Demelza edged her horse up to Verity's. 'Were you scairt?'

'A little. I thought they might upset us.'

Demelza was silent for some moments. 'I mind once when we were short of corn in Illugan. We had potatoes an' water for a week - and mortal few potatoes.

For the moment her attention had been diverted from the plot on hand, but as they reached Truro she forgot the miners and only thought of Andrew Blamey and what she had engineered.

TRURO WORE ITS usual Thursday-morning appearance, a little untidier than most days because of the cattle market of the afternoon before. They left Bartle in the centre of the town and made their way on foot, picking a fastidious path over the cobbles and through the mud and refuse.

There was no sign of a stocky figure in a blue-laced coat, and they went into the little dress shop. Demelza was unusually fussy this morning; but at length Verity persuaded her to pick a dark bottle-green cloth which would not clash with any of the clothes she already had and which greatly suited the colour of her skin.

When it was all over Demelza asked the time. The seamstress went to see, and it was just noon. Well… she'd done her part. She could do no more. No doubt the date was wrong and he was still at sea.

The little bell in the shop pinged noisily and her heart leapt, but it was only a Negro page boy to ask whether the Hon Maria Agar's bonnet was finished.

Demelza lingered over some silk ribbons, but Verity was anxious to get her own shopping done. They had arranged to take a meal at Joan Pascoe's, an ordeal Demelza was not looking forward to, and there would be little time for shopping after that. There were more people in the narrow street when they left the shop. A cart drawn by oxen was delivering ale at a near-by gin shop. Ten or twelve urchins, undersized, barefoot and scabby, and wearing men's discarded coats cut down and tied with string, were rioting among a pile of garbage. At the end of the street by the West Bridge a sober merchant had come to grief in the slippery mud and was being helped to his feet by two beggars. A dozen shopping women were out, most of them in clogs and with loops to their wrists to keep their skirts out of the dirt.

'Miss Verity,' said a voice behind them.

Oh, God, thought Demelza, it has come at last.

Verity turned. Riding and shopping brought a delicate flush to her cheeks which they normally lacked. But as she looked into Andrew Blamey's eyes the colour drained away: from her forehead, her lips, her neck, and only her eyes showed their blue greyness in a dead-white face.

Demelza took her arm.

'Miss Verity, ma'am.' Blamey glanced for a second at Demelza. His own eyes were a deeper blue, as if the ice had melted. 'For years I dared to hope, but no chance came my way. Lately I had begun to lose the belief that someday…'

'Captain Blamey,' said Verity in a voice that was miles away, 'may I introduce you to my cousin, Mistress Demelza Poldark, Ross's wife.'

'I'm honoured, ma'am.'

'And I, sir.'

'You are shopping?' Blamey said. 'Have you engagements for an hour? It would give me more pleasure than I can express…'

Demelza saw the life slowly creeping back into Verity's face. And with it came all the reservations of the later years.

'I don't think,' she said, 'that any good can come of our meeting, Captain Blamey. There is no ill thought for you in my heart… But after all this time we are better to renew nothing, to assume nothing, to - to seek nothing.

'That,' said Andrew, 'is what I passionately challenge. This meeting is most happy. It brings me the hope of - at least a friendship where hope had - gone out. If you will…'

Verity shook her head. 'It's over, Andrew. We faced that years ago. Forgive me, but there is much we have to do this morning. We will wish you good day.'

She moved to go on, but Demelza did not stir. 'Pray don't consider me, Cousin. I can do the shopping on my own, truly I can. If - if your friend want a word with you, it is only polite to grant it.'

'No, you must come too, mistress,' said the seaman, 'or it would be talked of. Verity, I have a private room as it happens at an inn. We could go there, take coffee or a cordial. For old times' sake…'

Verity wrenched her arm away from Demelza. 'No,' she said hysterically. 'No! I say no.'

She turned and began to walk quickly down the street towards the West Bridge. Demelza glanced frantically at Blamey, then followed. She was furious with Verity, but as she caught up with her and again took her arm, slowing her footsteps, she realized that Andrew Blamey had been prepared for this meeting while Verity had not. Verity's feelings were just the same as Blamey's had been that morning she went to Falmouth, a shying away from an old wound, a sharp-reared hostility to prevent more hurt. She blamed herself for not warning Verity. But how could she have done that when Verity…

Coming to her ears were all sorts of noises and shouts, and in her present upset and confused state she came to link them with Blamey.

'You've left him far behind,' she said. 'There's no hurry now. Oh, Verity, it would ha' been fine if you'd given him a hearing. Really it would.'

Verity kept her face averted. She felt stifled with tears, they were in her throat, everywhere but her eyes, which were quite dry. She had almost reached the West Bridge and tried to push her way towards it, but found herself blocked by a great number of people who seemed to be talking and staring up the way she had come. Demelza too was holding her back.

It was the miners, Demelza saw now. By the West Bridge there was a centre block of ancient houses with narrow streets like a collar about them, and in this roundabout the miners who had come down River Street were milling, jostling each other, packed tight together, shouting and shaking their weapons. They had lost direction, being set for the Coinagehall, but this junction of streets and alleys had confused them. Half a dozen of their number and several ordinary people had been pushed into the stream by the pressure from behind, and others were fighting in the mud to avoid following; the old stone bridge was packed with people struggling to get across it. Demelza and Verity were on the very edge of the maelstrom, twigs circling the outer currents and likely at any time to be drawn in. Then Demelza glanced behind her and saw people, miners, grey and dusty and angry, coming in a mass down Kenwyn Street.

They were caught between two floods. 'Verity, look!'

'In here,' said a voice, and her arm was grasped. Andrew Blamey pulled them across the street to the porch of a house. It was tiny, it would just hold the three of them, but they might be safe.

Verity, half resisting, went with them. Andrew put Demelza behind him and Verity by his side, protecting her with his arm across the door.

The first wave of the flood went past them, shouting and shaking fists. It went past them at speed. Then came the impact of the crowd at the bridge; the speed slackened as rushing water will slacken and fill up a narrow channel once there is no further escape. The miners became eight, ten, fifteen, twenty abreast in the narrow street and some of the women began to scream. They filled the whole of Kenwyn Street, a grey and haggard horde as far as you could see. Men were being pressed against the walls of the houses as if they would burst them open; glass cracked in the windows. Blamey used all his strength to ease the pressure in the doorway.

No one could tell what was happening, but the earliest comers must have found their direction, and this began to ease the congestion beyond the bridge. The flood began to move turgidly away across the neck of the bridge. Pressure eased, the crowd ebbed, at first slowly, then more quickly towards the centre of the town.

Soon they were stumbling past in ragged columns and the three in the porch were safe.