Demelza (36 page)

'An agreeable duty?'

'Well, it may be considered so. It has to do with Sanson and the matter you raised some time since.'

So far neither Francis nor anyone else had got anything out of the miller. He had left Truro the day following Ross's exposure and was believed to be in London. His mills, it turned out, belonged to a company and that company to other companies.

George took out his gold-mounted snuffbox and tapped it. 'We have talked this over several times, my father and I. While there's no obligation in it, Sanson's conduct is a stain we feel rather deeply. As you know, we have no ancestors to bring us repute; we must make our own.'

'Yes, yes, you are clear enough,' Francis said briefly. It was seldom that George mentioned his humble beginnings.

'Well, as I told you in May, many of your bills given to Matthew Sanson have found their way into Cary's hands. He has always been somewhat the treasurer of the family, as Matthew was the black sheep, and your bills were accepted by Cary in exchange for cash advances made to Matthew.'

Francis grunted. 'I take that as no advantage.'

'Well, yes, it is. We have decided between us as a family to cancel one half of all the drafts which came into Cary's hands from Matthew. It will not be a crushing matter, but it will be a token of our will to undo what wrong has been done. As I say, not a big thing. About twelve hundred pounds.'

Francis flushed. 'I can't take your charity, George.'

'Charity be hanged. You may have lost the money unfairly in the first place. From our viewpoint we wish it, to re-establish our integrity. It is really nothing at all to do with you.'

Mrs Tabb came in with the supper. She set up a table by the window, put her tray on it and two chairs beside it. Francis watched her. Half his mind was still battling with the desertion of Verity, the perfidy of Ross - the other half facing this princely gesture from a man he had begun to distrust. It was a princely gesture and one that no stubborn pricky pride must force him to refuse.

When Mrs Tabb had gone he said: 'You mean - the money would be put to reducing my debt to you?'

'That's for you to decide. But I'd suggest one half of it should go to reducing the debt and the other half should be a cash payment.'

Francis's flush deepened. 'It is very handsome of you. I don't know quite what to say.'

'Say nothing more about it. It's not a comfortable subject between friends, but I had to explain.'

Francis dropped into his chair. 'Take some supper, George. I'll open a bottle of my father's brandy after in honour of the occasion. No doubt it will loosen up my anger over Verity and make me a more easy companion. You'll stay the night?'

'Thank you,' said George. They supped.

In the winter parlour Elizabeth had just excused herself and left again. Mr Odgers was finishing up the raspberry syllabub and Mrs Odgers the almond cake. With only the old lady's eyes on them their manners had eased up.

'I wonder if he means to do the honest thing by her,' Mrs Odgers said. 'They could not get married tonight, and you never can tell with these sailors. He may well have a Portugee wife for all she knows. What do you think, Clarence?'

'Um?' said Mr Odgers, with his mouth full.

'Little Verity,' said Aunt Agatha. 'Little Verity. Imagine little Verity going off like that.'

'I wonder what the feeling will be in Falmouth,' said Mrs Odgers. 'Of course in a port morals are always more lax. And they may go through some marriage ceremony just to pull the wool over people's eyes. Anyway, men who kill their first wives should be forbidden ever to marry again. Don't you agree, Clarence?'

'Um,' said Mr Odgers.

'Little Verity,' said Aunt Agatha. 'She was always obstinate like her mother. I bring to mind when she was six or seven, the year we held the masquerade ball...

In the large parlour the brandy had come.

'I can't bear these sneaking underhand dealings,' Francis said bitterly. 'If he had had the guts to come here and face me out maybe I should not have liked that, but I shouldn't have held him in such dead contempt.' After his estrangement from George the reaction was carrying him back beyond the old intimacy. As good as in his pocket was six hundred pounds he had never thought to see again - and the same amount cut from his debts. Never could it have been more welcome than today. During the coming months it might just make all the difference. It meant an easing of their life and the strain of bitter economy. A grand gesture which deserved the grand recognition. Adversity showed up one's friends.

'But all along,' he continued, 'that has been his way. At the outset he went sneaking behind our backs and meeting the girl at Nampara - with Ross's connivance. All the time it has been this sneaking, sneaking. I've half a mind to ride to Falmouth tomorrow and flush them from their love nest.'

'And no doubt you'd find he had just left for Lisbon and she with him.' George tasted the brandy on his lips. 'No, Francis, leave them be. It is no good putting yourself in the wrong by trying to force her to return. The harm is done. Maybe she'll soon be crying to come back.'

Francis got up and began to light the candles. 'Well, she shall not come back here, not if she cries for a year! Let her go to Nampara, where they have fathered this thing. Damn them, George.' Francis turned, the taper showing up his angry face. 'If there is one thing in this that cuts me to the root it is Ross's cursed underhand interference. Damn it, I might have expected a greater loyalty and friendship from my only cousin! What have I ever done to him that he should go behind my back in this fashion!'

'Well,' said George, 'I suppose you married the girl he wanted, didn't you?'

Francis stopped again and stared at him. 'Oh, yes. Oh, yes... But that's long ago.' He blew out the taper. 'That was patched up long since. He is happily married himself; more happily than... There would be no point in feeling a grudge on that score.'

George looked out on the darkening garden. The candles threw his blurred hunched shadow on the wall.

'You know Ross better than I, Francis, so I can't guide you. But many people - many people we accept on their face value have strange depths. I've found it so. It may be that Ross is one such. I can't judge, but I do know that all my own overtures towards him have met with rebuffs.'

Francis came back to the table. 'Aren't you on friendly terms? No, I suppose not. How have you offended him?'

'That's something I can't guess. But I do know when his mine was opened all the other venturers were for the business being put through our bank, yet he fought tooth and nail until he got them to accept Pascoe's. Then sometimes remarks he has made have been repeated to me; they were the words of a man with a secret resentment. Finally there is this wildcat scheme he has launched of some copper-smelting company which privately is directed at us.'

'Oh, I don't think exactly at you,' Francis said. 'Its aim is to get fairer prices for the mines.'

George glanced covertly at him. 'I'm not at all upset about it, for the scheme will fail through lack of money. Still, it shows an enmity towards me which I don't feel I deserve - any more than you deserve to have had this betrayal of the best interests of your family.'

Francis stared down at the other man, and there was a long silence. The clock in the corner struck seven.

'I don't think the scheme need necessarily fail through lack of money,' Francis said whitely. 'There are a good many important interests behind it...'

IT WAS AN easterly sky, and as they reached Falmouth the sun was setting like a Chinese lantern, swollen and crimson and monstrous and decorated with ridges of curly cloud. The town was a grey smudge climbing the edge of the bay. As they went down the hill Andrew said: 'Your last letter left all to me, my dear; so I trust what I have done you'll find to your liking.'

'I'm willing to do whatever you say.'

'The wedding is set for eleven tomorrow - at the Church of King Charles the Martyr. I took a licence from Parson Freakes yesterday morning. Just my old landlady and Captain Brigg will be there as witnesses. It will be as quiet as ever possible.'

'Thank you.'

'As for tonight' - Andrew cleared his throat - 'I had thought at first the best would be to take a room at one of the inns. But as I went round they all seemed too shoddy to house you.'

'I shall not mind.'

'I misliked the thought of you being there alone with perhaps noisy and drunken men about.' His blue eyes met hers. 'It wasn't right.'

She flushed slightly. 'It wouldn't have mattered.'

'So instead I'd like you to go to your new home, where Mrs Stevens will be there to see to your needs. I'll sleep in my ship.'

She said: 'Forgive me if I seem dull…It isn't that at all. It's only the wrench of leaving the things I've loved so long.'

'My dear, I know how you must feel. But we have a week before I need sail. I believe it will all seem different to you before I go.'

Another silence fell. 'Francis is unpredictable,' she said suddenly. 'In some ways, though I shall miss them so much, I wish we were further than a score of miles. It is within too-easy riding distance of some quarrelsome impulse.'

'If he comes I will soon cool it for him.'

'I know, Andrew. But that is above all what I don't want.'

He smiled slightly. 'I was very patient at the Assembly. At need I can be patient again.'

Sea gulls were flying and crying. The smell of the sea was different from home, tanged with salt and seaweed and fish. The sun set before they reached the narrow main street, and the harbour was brimming with the limpid colours of the afterglow.

People, she thought, stared at them. No doubt he was a well-known figure in the town. Would the prejudice be very strong against him? If any remained, then it was her task to break it down. There could clearly be none against her.

She glanced sidelong at him for a moment, and the thought came into her head that they had met not three dozen times in all their lives. Had she things to face that she knew nothing of yet? Well, if they loved each other there was no other consideration big enough to stand beside it.

They stopped and he helped her down and they went into the porticoed house. Mrs Stevens was at the door and greeted Verity pleasantly enough, though not without a trace of speculation and jealousy.

Verity was shown the dining-room and kitchen on the ground floor, the graceful parlour and bedroom on the first floor, the two attic bedrooms above, which were for the children when they were home, these children she had never seen. Esther, sixteen, was being educated by relatives; James, fifteen, a midshipman in the Navy. Verity had had so much opposition to face at home that she had hardly yet had time to consider the opposition she might find here.

Back in the parlour Andrew was standing looking out across the glimmering colours of the harbour. He turned as she came and stood beside him at the window. He took her hand. The gesture brought comfort.

'Which is your ship, Andrew?'

'She's well back from here, in St Just's Pool. The tallest of the three. I doubt if you can make her out in this light.'

'Oh, yes, she looks beautiful. Can I see over her sometime?'

'Tomorrow if you wish.' She suddenly felt his happiness. 'Verity, I'll go now. I have asked Mrs Stevens to serve your supper as soon as she can. You'll be tired from your ride and will not mind being quiet.'

'Can you not stay to supper?'

He hesitated. 'If you wish it.'

'Please. What a lovely harbour this is! I shall be able to sit here and see all the shipping go in and out and watch for your coming home.'

In a few minutes they went down into the little dining-room and ate boiled neck of mutton with capers, and raspberries and cream. An hour ago they had been very adult, making a rash gesture with strange caution, as if unable quite to free themselves of the restraints and hesitations grown with the years. But the candlelight loosed thoughts, softened doubts and discovered pride in their adventure.

They had never had a meal together before.

Net curtains were drawn across the windows, and figures crossed and recrossed them in the street outside. In the room they were a little below the level of the cobbles, and when a cart rumbled past the wheels showed up more than the driver. They began to talk about his ship, and he told her of Lisbon, its chiming bells, the endless blazing sunlight, the unbelievable filth of the streets, the orange trees, the olive groves. Sometime she must go with him. Was she a good sailor? She nodded eagerly, never having been to sea.

They laughed together, and a clock in the town began to strike ten. He got up.

'This is disgraceful, love. Compromising in the eyes of Mrs Stevens, I'm sure. She'll expect us to have eaten all her cakes.'

'I'm so glad you stayed,' she said. 'If you had gone before I should have felt very strange here alone.'

His self-disciplined face was very much unguarded just then. 'Last night I closed a book on my old life, Verity. Tomorrow we'll open a new one. We must write it together.'

'That's what I want,' she said. 'I'm not at all afraid.'

He walked to the door, and then glanced at her still sitting at the table. He came back.

'Good night.'

He bent to kiss her cheek, but she offered him her lips. They stayed so a moment; and his hand on the table came up and lay on her shoulder.

'If ill comes to you, Verity, it will not be my doing. I swear it. Good night, love.'

'Good night, Andrew, my love, good night.'

He broke away and left her. She heard him run upstairs for his hat and then come down again and go out. She saw him pass the window. She stayed there for a very long time, her eyes half closed and her head resting back against the high-backed chair.

AT ABOUT THE time Verity was climbing the stairs with a candle to sleep in her new bed, Mark Daniel was taking up his pitch in Wheal Leisure Mine.

With him was one of the younger Martin boys, Matthew Mark, who was there to help him by carrying away the 'dead' ground as he picked it and dumping it in a pit in the near-by cave. The air was so bad in here that their hempen candles would not burn properly; so that they worked in more than half darkness. The walls of the tunnel streamed with moisture and there was water and slush underfoot. But Matthew Mark thought himself lucky to work for so experienced a man for sixpence a day - or night - and he was learning fast. In another few years he would be bidding for a pitch of his own.