Demelza (38 page)

Her screaming stopped. Her eyes started tears, died, grew big. She knew there was death; but life called her, sweet life, all the sweet of youth, not yet gone. Dwight, the baronet, years of triumph, crying, dying.

She twisted and upset him and they fell against the shutter, whose flimsy catch gave way. They leaned together out of the window, she beneath him.

A summer morning. The glazing eyes of the girl he loved, the woman he hated; her face swollen now. Sickened, mad, his tears dropped on her face.

Loose his hold, but her beautiful face still stared. Cover it with a great hand, push it away, back.

Under his hand, coming from under his hand, a faint gentle click. He fell back upon the floor of the cottage, groping, moaning upon the floor.

But she did not move.

There was no cloud in the sky. There was no wind. Birds were chirping and chattering. Of the second brood of young thrushes which Mark had watched hatch out in the stunted hawthorn tree only a timid one stayed; the others were out fluttering their feathers, shaking their heads, sharp with incentive, eyeing this strange new world.

The ribbon of milky mist still lay in the gully. It stretched down to the sea, and there were patches across the sand hills like steam from a kettle.

When light came full the sea was calm, and there seemed nothing to explain the roar in the night. The water was a pigeon's-egg blue with a dull terra-cotta haze above the horizon and a few pale carmine tips where the rising sun caught the ripples at the sand's edge.

The ugly shacks of Wheal Leisure were clear-cut, and a few men moving about among them in their drab clothes looked pink and handsome in the early light. The mist stirred before the sun's rays, quickened with the warmth and melted and moved off to the low cliffs, where it crouched in the shade for a while before being thrust up and away.

A robin that Keren and Mark had tamed fluttered down to the open door, puffed out his little chest and hopped inside. But although the cottage was silent he did not like the silence, and after pecking here and there for a moment he hopped out. Then he saw one of his friends leaning out of the window, but she made no welcoming sound and he flew away.

The sun fell in at the cottage, strayed across the sanded floor, which was pitted and scraped with marks of feet. A tinderbox lay among the sand, and the stump of a candle, a miner's hat beside an upturned chair.

The moonflower Keren had picked lay on the threshold. Its head had been broken in the struggle but the petals were still white and damp with a freshness that would soon begin to fade.

ROSS HAD BEEN dreaming that he was arguing about the smelting works with Sir John Trevaunance and the other shareholders. It was not an uncommon dream or one which went by contraries. Half his waking life was made up of defending the Carnmore Copper Company from inward fission or outside attack. For the battle was fully joined, and no one could tell which way it would go.

Nothing much was barred in this struggle. Pressure had been brought to bear on United Mines, and Richard Tonkin had been forced out of the managership. Sir John Trevaunance had a lawsuit dragging on in Swansea over his coal ships.

Ross dreamed there was a meeting at Trevaunance's home, as there was to be in a few days, and that everyone was quarrelling at once. He pounded the table again and again trying to gain a hearing. But no one would listen and the more he pounded the more they talked, until suddenly everyone fell silent and abruptly he found himself awake in the silent room and listening to the knocking on the front door.

It was quite light and the sun was falling across the half-curtained windows. The Gimletts should be up soon. He reached for his watch but as usual had forgotten to wind it. Demelza's dark hair clouded the pillow beside him, and her breathing came in a faint tic-tic. She was always a good sleeper; if Julia woke she would be out and about and asleep again in five minutes.

Hasty footsteps went downstairs and the knocking stopped. He slid out of bed and Demelza sat up, as usual wide-awake, as if she had never been asleep at all.

'What is it?'

'I don't know, my dear.'

There was a knock on the door and Ross opened it. Somehow in such emergencies he still expected to see Jud standing there.

'If you please, sur,' said Gimlett, 'a boy wants to see you. Charlie Baragwanath, who's gardener's boy over to Mingoose. He's terrible upset.'

'I'll be down.'

Demelza breathed a quiet sigh into the bedclothes. She had thought it something about Verity. All yesterday, lovely yesterday, of which they had spent a good part on the beach in the sun paddling their feet in the sun-warmed water, all the time she had thought of Verity. It had been Verity's day of release, for which she, Demelza, had plotted and schemed for more than a year. She had wondered and waited.

With only her eyes showing over the rim of the bedclothes she watched Ross dress and go down. She wished people would leave them alone. All she wanted was to be left alone with Ross and Julia. But people came more, especially her suitors, as Ross satirically called them. Sir Hugh Bodrugan had been several times to tea.

Ross came back. She could tell at once that something was wrong. 'What is it?'

'Hard to get sense out of the boy. I believe it is something at the mine.'

She sat up. 'An accident?'

'No. Go to sleep for a little. It is not much after five.'

He went down again and joined the undersized boy, whose teeth were chattering as if with cold. He gave him a sip or two of brandy and they set off through the apple trees over the hill.

'Were you first there?' Ross asked.

'Aye, sur…I - I b'long to call that way on my way over. Not as they're always about not at this time o' year when I'm s'early; but I always b'long to go that way. I thought they was all out. An' then I seen 'er…an' then I seen er…'

He covered his face with his hands.

'Honest, sur, I near fainted away. I near fell away on the spot.'

As they neared the cottage they saw three men standing outside. Paul Daniel and Zacky Martin and Nick Vigus.

Ross said: 'Is it as the boy says?'

Zacky nodded.

'Is anyone…inside?'

'No, sur.'

'Does anyone know where Mark is?'

'No, sur.'

'Have you sent for Dr Enys?'

'Just sent, sur.'

'Aye, we've sent fur he, sure 'enough,' said Paul Daniel bitterly.

Ross glanced at him.

'Will you come in with me, Zacky,' he said.

They went to the open door together, then Ross stooped his head and went in.

She was lying on the floor covered with a blanket. The sun from the window streamed across the blanket in a golden flood.

'The boy said…'

'Yes... We moved 'er. It didn't seem decent to leave the poor creature.'

Ross knelt and lifted back the blanket. She was wearing the scarlet kerchief Mark had won at the wrestling match twenty months before. He put back the blanket, rose, wiped his hands.

'Zacky, where was Mark when this happened?' He said it in an undertone, as if not to be overheard.

'He should have been down the mine, Cap'n Ross, should by rights have been coming up now. But he had an accident early on his core. Matthew Mark was home to bed before one. Nobody has seen Mark Daniel since then.'

'Have you any idea where he is?'

'That I couldn't say.'

'Have you sent for the parish constable?'

'Who? Old Vage? Did we oughter have done?'

'No, this is Jenkins's business. This is Mingoose Parish.'

A shadow fell across the room. It was Dwight Enys. The only colour in his face was in the eyes, which seemed suffused, as in a fever.

'I…' He glanced at Ross, then at the figure on the floor. 'I came…'

'A damned nasty business, Dwight.' Friendship made Ross turn away from the young man towards Paul Daniel, who had followed him in. 'Come, we should leave Dr Enys alone while he makes his examination.'

Paul seemed ready to challenge this; but Ross had just too much authority to be set aside, and presently they were all out in the sun. Ross glanced back and saw Dwight stoop to move the cloth. His hand was trembling and he looked as if he might fall across the body in a faint.

All that day there was no word of Mark Daniel. Blackened and hurt, he had come up from the mine at midnight, and in the early hours of Monday morning had put his stamp upon unfaithfulness and deceit. Then the warm day had taken him.

So much everyone knew. For like the quiet movement of wind among grass, the whisper of Keren's deceit had spread through villages and hamlets round, and no one doubted that this had brought her death. And curiously, no one seemed to doubt the justice of the end. It was the Biblical punishment. From the moment she came here she had flaunted her body at other men. One other man, and they knew Who, had fallen into her lure. Any woman with half an eye would have known that Mark Daniel was not to be cuckolded lightly. She had known the risk and had taken it, matching her sharp wits against his slow strength. For a time she had gone on and then she had made a slip and that had been the end. It might not be law but it was justice. And the Man in the case might thank his stars he too wasn't laid across the floor with a broken neck. He might yet find himself that way if he didn't watch out. If they were in his shoes they'd get on a horse and ride twenty miles and stay away while Mark Daniel was at large. For all his scholaring he was not much more than a slip of a boy, and Daniel could snap him as easy as a twig.

There wasn't much feeling against him, as there might well have been.

In the months he had been here they had grown to like him, to respect him, where they all disliked Keren. They might have risen against him as a breaker of homes; but instead they saw Keren as the temptress who had led him away. Many a wife had seen Keren look at her man. It wasn't the surgeon's fault, they said. But all the same they wouldn't be in his shoes. He'd had to go in and examine the body, and it was said that when he came out the sweat was pouring off his face.

At six that evening Ross went to see Dwight.

At first Bone would not admit him; Doctor had said in no circumstances was he to be disturbed. But Ross brushed him aside.

Dwight was sitting at a table with a pile of papers before him and a look of hopeless despair on his face. He hadn't changed his clothes since this morning and he hadn't shaved. He glanced at Ross and got up.

'Is it something important?'

'There's no news. That's what is important, Dwight. If I were you I should not stay here until nightfall. Go and spend a few days with the Pascoes.'

'What for?' he asked stupidly.

'Because Mark Daniel is a dangerous man. D'you think if he chose to seek you out Bone or a few locked doors would stop him?'

Dwight put his hands to his face. 'So the truth is known everywhere.'

'Enough to go on. One can do nothing in private in a country district. For the time being…'

He said: 'I'll never forget her face! Two hours before I'd been kissing it!'

Ross went across and poured him a glass of brandy. 'Drink this. You're lucky to be alive and we must keep you so.'

'I fail to see any good reason.'

Ross checked himself. 'Listen, boy,' he said more gently, 'you must take a good hold on yourself. This thing is done and can't be undone. What I wish above all is to prevent more mischief. I'm not here to judge you.'

'I know,' said the young man. 'I know, Ross. I only judge myself.'

'And that, no doubt, too harshly. Anyone sees that this tragedy has been of the girl's making. I don't know how much you came to feel for her.'

Dwight broke down. 'I don't know myself, Ross. I don't know. When I saw her lying there, I - I thought I had loved her.'

Ross poured himself a drink. When he came back Dwight had partly recovered.

'The great thing is to get away for a time. Just for a week or so. The magistrates have issued a warrant for Mark's arrest, and the constables are out. That is all that can be done for the moment and it may be enough. But if Mark wants to evade capture I'm sure it will not be enough, because although every villager is bound by law to help in his capture, I don't believe one of them will raise a hand.'

'They take his side, and rightly so.'

'But not against you, Dwight. However, in a day or two other measures may be taken, and in a week Mark should be put away and it should be safe for you to return.'

Dwight got up, rocking his half-empty glass.

'No, Ross! What d'you take me for! To skulk away in a safe place while the man is tracked down and then to come slinking back! I'd sooner meet him at once and take the outcome.' He began to walk up and down the room. Then he came to a stop. 'See it my way. On all counts I've let these people down. I came among them a stranger and a physician. I have met with nothing worse than suspicion and much that's been better than kindness. Eggs that could be ill spared pressed on me in return for some fancied favour. Little gestures of good will even from people who are Choake's people. Confidence and trust. In return I have helped to break up the life of one of their number. If I went now I should go for good, a cheat and a failure.'

Ross said nothing.

'But the other way and the harder way is to see this thing out and to take my chance. Look, Ross, there is another case of sore throat at Marasanvose. There is a woman with child at Grambler who nearly died last time with the ill management of a midwife. There are four cases of miner's consumption which are improving under treatment. There are people here and there trusting on me. Well, I've betrayed them; but it would be a greater betrayal to leave now - to leave them to Thomas Choake's farmyard methods.'

'I was not saying you should.'

Dwight shook his head. 'The other's impossible.'

'Then spend a few days with us. We have a room. Bring your man.'

'No. Thank you for your kindness. From tomorrow morning I go about as usual.'

Ross stared at him grimly. 'Then your blood be on your own head.'