The Black Moon (20 page)

`Well -
he has manners. Which cannot be said of all
the young. Yes, I like him.
Are there others on your list?'

‘
You still find this a jest?'

'Far from it. But I must have some concern for M
orwenna's happiness. That must
be of account too.'

`Morwenna's
happiness must be our chief concern. The only other two I have considered are both w
idowers. One is Ephraim Hick..’

`You mean William Hick.'

`No, Ephraim, the father. William is married.'

'But Ephraim is a drunkard ! He is never sober afte
r midday any day of his life!'

`But he is rich. And I do not like William Hick. It would be agreeable to see his father spawn another family and deprive William of his expectations. And Ephraim will not live long. As a rich widow Morwenna would be a far more valuable prize than she is today.'

Elizabeth looked at him. As usual when thinking he sat quite still, his shoulders a little hunched, the big hands clasped together. She wondered why she was not more afraid of him.

`And the last choice?'

`Oh there may be others. You may well think of. others. The last I had in mind was Osborne Whitworth
. He is young, a cleric, which
might please your cousin-'

`He is married, with two young children!'

`His wife died in childbirth last week. You will notice I have added him to our list
of guests. By the end of this
month he should be sufficiently out of mourning to accompany his mother. I believe he is just thirty, and as you know recently installed at St Margaret's, Truro. With two young children to manage and considerably in debt, he must seek another marriage soon. One which provided him with a dean's daughter and at the same time cancelled his debts would I think attract him not a little,'

`But what,' said Elizabeth curiously, `attracts you?'

George got up and stood a moment, idly turning the money in his fob. `The Whitworths were nothing, Sir Augustus a highly ineffectual judge. But Lady Whitworth was a Godolphin.'

So that was it. An alliance with a family n
ow in decline but itself allied
with half a dozen of the great families of England, and in particular the Marlboroughs.

`Yes,' said Elizabeth presently. `'Yes.' She came back from the window and patted George's shoulder lightly as she
passed: `It
is all a very interesting s
peculation, my dear and I am still surprised that your thoughts should have gone so far. For my part I still think of Morwenna as a child hardly old enough for ideas of ma
trimony. I still think it, pre
mature. I am sure
she is
very happy with us and would like to continue with us for a while. Let us make haste slowly, shall we?'

`There is no haste,' said George. `But , I do not think the question should be shelved.'

The great frost came down on Christmas Eve. Before that the month had been mild but very wet. Ceaseless rain had flattened alike the sea and the fields, and the smoke from the mine chimneys; rivulets had formed in fields and the Mellingey had been in swollen spate, the roads and tracks were quagmires. George had sen
t his coach to fetch. the two
elderly Chynoweths, and five times there and five times on the way back the coach was bogged down in mud and had to be dragged out. In order to lighten the load the day being temporarily dry, Morwenna and Geoffrey Charles followed on horseback.

Ross and Demelza had intended holding a christening party for Clowance over the Christmas period; but it had failed on a matter of numbers. Verity and Andrew Blarney had been asked, but young Andrew was teething, Verity wrote, and, dearly as she would have loved to see them, she felt she could not risk such a journey. Caroline promised to come and spend a few days, but somehow there was no one else intimate enough to ask. Both of them shied away, and, always would again, from the celebrations and the double christening they had given J
ulia. It had been an ill-omen f
or her.

On the 23rd the rain stopped, and Caroline arrived in bright afternoon sunshine. But it was a curious sunshine, with something aged and sinister about it, as if it belonged to a world which was slipping away, was leaving them behind. As the day waned the, light lost its last warmth and the sun became a disc of brass, contaminating the sea with its base metal light and flinging shadows of cobalt grey among

the
cliffs and the sandhills The ceaseless wind had droppe
d
boughs and twig and every blade of grass were still. '

`I believe we are
in for a change,' Caroline said as she dismounted. She kissed Demelza, and then turned her cheek
expectantly for Ross to kiss.
`It is time. We have been hock deep in mud at Killewarren ever since the funeral.'

`It is a change,' said Ross, having lik
ed the taste of her skin. `But I
think it will, be a cold change.'

`But you are slim, Demelza! I thought one stayed plump f
or months after bearing a child
!'

`I was a podge. It has not all gone, I believe.'

'Enough has gone,' Ross said. And it
does not suit you to be thin.' He h
ad been going to say, it does not suit a woman, but stopped in time.

As they went in the manservant who had come with Caroline untied the valise strapped to his horse and Gimlett took her cloak and fur and crop. Soon she was inside and sipping tea while Ross stabbed at the fire to make it blaze and Demelza tied a bib under Jeremy's chin and Ena Daniell brought in the hot scones.

`When am I to be allowed to see my new goddaughter? It is not seemly to have me here without her knowing of it. Has she been warned?'

`Soon,' said
Demelza. `Soon. You will see her when she wakes. Which usually is regular at seven. How well you look, Caroline!_'

`Thank you. I'm better. Thanks to this man ... Not that I do not wake up in the nights and wonder about my erring fiance, wonder what he sleeps on and if he has any comforts in his internment and if he ever thinks of me and if and when he
will be released ... But I am
no longer alone in the world - you know? you know how it is? -
even now that my uncle has gone I am yet no longer alone.'

`We know how it is' Demelza said.

`Since Uncle Ray died I have hardly had a minute: I have been striving to get some order in his estate; but as soon as Christmas is over I shall go to London and see the Admiralty and ask what chances there are of a ransom. If the French no longer exchange prisoners they will surely take notice of money.'

They supped late, Demelza played a little, cool airs stole in the parlour and they all went early to bed. The next morning was fine and equally still but now cold. There had been no frost in the night, but each hour that, passed saw
a slow ebbing of the temperature. By midday the
grass was crunching underfoot, and Drake and the other two men working, on the library were blowing the
ir hands with smoky breath. At
three o'clock Ross sent them home. Then he walked up to the mine. Night cloud was drifting up from the north. All was quiet in the engi
ne house except for the regular
clank of the pump rods, the clicking of the valve gear, the hiss of steam. It was warm inside after the cold of the evening; two lanterns reflected light off the great brass, cylinder, the
shining piston rod. Ross had a
few words with the younger Curnow before he left. A sudden glare lit the darkening scene as the firedoor of the boiler was opened
for two
men to shovel in coal -
everything glowed, brittle and orange and etched sharp; then it shut again and the cold dark of the afternoon had crept closer in the interval.

In the
house an enormous fire had been
built to ward off the draughts. It was the customary night for the choir of Sawle Church to come car
ol singing, Demelza remembered
when they had come on the Christmas before Julia's death; she had been alone and Ross had returned later to tell her of the failure of the copper smelting venture. Tonight she had mince tarts and ginger wine all ready in the kitchen but they
did not come. About nine, which
was their usual time, she looked out to see if she could see anything of them, and, what she saw made her call Ross and Caroline to the window. The ground outside was being covered, very quietly but very efficiently, with enormous feathers of snow.

It snowed till eleven, then stopped, but was snowing again before they went to bed, and by morning three inches had fallen and the sun was out. The garden had been turned into a dazzling feathery forest. Icicles hung and glittered from window-sills' and gates. The valley and all the mine buildings were smothered in fine snow which blew to powder in an icy breeze. But did not melt. So near the tempering sea, snow, rare anyhow, almost always disappeared or began to disappear the day it fell. Not so now. When he went out , with John Gimlett to see to the cows, Ross realized that all was not over yet, for clouds were assembling again, elbowing each other, leaden yellow across the north-west dome of the sky.

The christening was to be at eleven. Ross tested the ground, and found it not too slippery, so they decided to proceed with it. Caroline was prevailed on to let her groom walk ahead of her holding-the bridle; next came John Gimlett
holding the bridle of
old
sure-footed Darkie, which carried Demelza with Clowance; then Ross on a skittish and temperamental Judith, with Jeremy i
n front of him; and fol
lowing on foot a string of servants and friends: Jane
Gimlett, Jinny and Whitehead Scobie, a brood of Daniells and M
artins and, inevitably, hoping
for something, Viguses. Others joined in on the way or were waiting at the church:
Captain Henshawe
and his wife, the Carne brothers, the Nanfans, the Choakes, and of course, a little late and a little drunk, the Paynters. Scuffling through the snow, shivering in the biting wind, they assembled in the icy church and the Rev. Mr Odgers, looking as pinched and shrivelled as one of his vegetables that had been left out all night, stuttered through the service.

`The godparents were Caroline, Verity, for whom Demelza stood proxy, and Sam Ca
rne. The last named had caused
some argument among the parents. `Damn me,' Ross had protested. `He's no doubt a worthy young man, and being your brother is the more to be commended, but I don't want to turn the child into a Methody!' No, Ross, no more don't I. But I think Verity is like to be far away and Caroline, even if she weds Dwight and stays on at Killewarren,
is not, as she admits herself,
of a religious turn of: mind
-
while Samuel is.' `By God, he is! One is never for a moment allowed to forget it!' `But that is just the way Methodists talk, Ross. I think he, is a good man neverthel
ess, and he is much beholden to
us. I think if anything happened to us he would
devote his life to her.' 'God
forbid,' said Ross. `What hazards parents sometimes prepare for their children!'

Nevertheless he gave way, as he had more or less given way on the matter of allowing a new preaching house to be built out of the ruins of Wheal Grace; that is to say, he had told Demelza it could be built but not yet permitted her to tell her brothers. He thought it could all well wait until the spring,-when problems of mere survival would not be so acute. In the meantime the old meeting house at Grambler had been forcibly closed this month, and such furnishings as it still possessed
-
benches, a small lectern, two lamps, two bibles, some hymn sheets and some wall texts
-
were sharing Will Nanfan's barn with his cow, "his sheep and his chickens.

At the end of the service Mr Odgers, having had to break a crust of ice on the font to damp his fingers, quietly put
his prayer
-
book
down and fainted right away, overcome; by the cold.
His wife screamed that he was
dead, that she was a poor miserable deserted widow with seven children, still to feed; but a few minutes of Dr Choake's, ministrations together with, and more importantly, a flask of brandy that Ross was carrying, brought life and tears to the eyes of the little man, and presently he was able to limp away on the arm of his sorrowing and lamenting wife.

Jud Paynter, who was in one of his awkward moods, saw an ill-omen in this and chewed it over between his gums and his two teeth in spite -of all Prudie's efforts to muzzle him.

'Tedn right,' he said. 'Tedn proper. Givin' a cheeil a name like that! Clarence is fur a boy, not a cheeil. Tedn sense. Tedn 'uman. Theare's a bad omen to 'n, I tell ee.'

`Gins along, you great lug,' Prudie hissed, shoving him to be quiet with her elbow. `Clowance, not Clarence. Skeet out yer ear'ole,'

I'm earin' just so much as you! An' tis all wrong! All wrong, I tell eel For there's the passon flat on 'is tiddies to prove 'n, Clarence indeed! What they'm thinkin' of ... Poor little quab. She'll scarce see the new year in, I reckon.'

`You'll not see the new year in nor yet the old year out if you don't shut that gurt opening in yer face,' Prudie hissed, dragging him towards the church door.

`Clarence!' said Jud, disappearing reluctantly. 'Gor damme, tis fit to sink ee, what folk
s'll do to their own kith an' k
ine. Leave me be, you dirty ole sprousen! ...' His compliments faded.

The rest of the company had seen fit to ignore this . muttered disturbance. Demelza was wrapping a warm shawl more tightly round her precious new daughter, Caroline was wondering how she might dispose of the musty prayer book she had been lent, Zacky Martin was blowing on his fingers, and Polly Choake was t
rying to see her reflection in
a brass memorial plate. Ross went to meet Dr Choake, who had just seen Odgers off by the vestry door.

`Tell me, Choake, how is my aunt? My great-aunt, that is. Have you been to see her recently?'

Choake looked at Ross suspiciously from under hairy eyebrows. `Miss Poldark? Miss Agatha Poldark? We attended upon her in the middle of this month. We found her little changed. Of course our condition is one of age rather than of gouty disease. Effete matter riots in the sanguinaceous
system and oppresses, the vital members. We eat but little,
we move but little. Yet the living spark remains.'

`Who is, attending on h
er? Is she not almost alone in
the house now?'

Choake began to draw on his grey woollen gloves. `I could not say. On our last vi
sit the Chynoweths had not left.
But Miss Poldark has a proficient maid who understands the rudiments of nursing. If there were any change we should be sent for.'

At the door of the church Ross looked up at the sky. The dying sun had now been overtaken by its funeral pall of cloud; and since they went inside the whole scene had become appallingly cold and depressing. An idle, absent-mi
nded flake was already drifting
down from a sky which looked loaded with snow.

He said to Demelza: `Can you take the chil
dren home? If there be any risk
of slipping, tell Gimlett to carry Clowance. I am worried about Agatha alone in that house and have a mind to call while I am so near. It may be a day or so before it is possible again.'

'I would like
you
to