The Black Moon (28 page)

Wheal Maiden. Every day Ross regretted that he had
encouraged them, but every day
he had to admit a grudging admiration of their determination. A roster was kept and each man worked his specified number of hours. Sometimes passing by he heard them singing hymns as they worked. Sometimes the women worked. Sam had even succeeded in recruiting a few of the destitute miners from Wheal Leisure to give him a hand. Payment was, in Heaven, except for the occasional cup of tea.

One day Ross had gone to see Caroline, who was now supporting six French
é
migr
é
s at Killewarren, and Demelza had been trying to sow some hollyhock seeds, to replace those which had not survived the winter. Sir John Trevaunance had advised her that these were best started in boxes of sandy soil and planted out later. She was not far from the lilac tree beside the front door when she saw a man coming down the valley on a pony which was several sizes too small for him. As he clattered across the stream he took off a battered hat and raised it to her. She saw that his other hand
-
the hand which held the reins
-
was an iron hook.

`Morning, Mrs. Morning, Ma'am.' He was not quite sure of her position. `Be you Mrs Poldark?'

'Yes.'

`The Cap'n's wife?'

She nodded. He smiled, showing a mouthful of decayed teeth, and stepped down. It was no more than a step. He was a very big man, middle-aged, hawk-f
aced despite a flattened nose.
He had probably been handsome once, before the great disfiguring scar.

`Be the Young Cap'n in?'

`Do you mean Captain Ross Poldark? No, he's from home.'

'Ah . . . Well I'm glad to meet ye, ma'am. Me name's Bartholomew Tregirls. The cap'n will've spoke of me.'

She said, yes, yes, Ross had, but privately she could not remember much. An old companion of some sort w
ho had, sold them the pony.

Tholly soon enlightened her. Close friend of the old captain, Cap'n
Joshua, friend
and companion of Cap'n Ross
when
he was
but a tacker; many's the wild time they'd had
together:
line
fishing, wrestling, rum-running, chasing the girls, gambling; all innoc
ent, mind, but, wild, wild in a
sort of way. Towering over he
r - and she was not short - he
told her this, whi
le his ice-grey, canny eyes summ
ed her up in a half-respectful, half-impudent fashion. Probably he had heard of her origins and was trying to discover from the expressions on her face whether Ross had married a saucy piece who would give as good as
she got and would be out for a
lark herself, or an ambitious climber who would be so careful of her new position that she would try to freeze his reminiscences to death.

Demelza nodded and smiled and said, yes, and no, and indeed, and fancy; while she made her own assessment. Then she invited him in to take tea. He
was pleased at this, if not by
the beverage offered, and followed her in and sat like a bear in
the parlour, looked at askance
by Jane Gimlett who brought in the tea. But he was still not quite sure where he stood, because his hostess did not quite fit into either of the expected patterns.

For her part Demelza
summed him up as a dangerous m
an - because he looked to her like a man whose regard for person, law or property was conditioned only by his personal need. He looked a pirate.

Tregirls hitched up his green breeches, took up the cup and its saucer, and looked at them as if they were curiosities from another world and he wasn't sure whether to bite them. Then he took a gulp of the contents.

`I warned Cap'n Ross as I might come around these parts again, these parts being me own parts as you might say; born and bred in St Ann's; and I've two children in the neighbourhood, ' I thought t'see something of 'em now I'm off of the sea for good. Lobb, my eldest, and Emma, my youngest. Not as there ain't others about too, but I don't acknowledge they.' He set the cup down with a clack.

`Ross will be, that sorry to have missed you,' Demelza said.

`Oh, I'll call 'gain, of you'll allow. I'm not to be far away, and tis more or less permanent, I conject. I'm staying with Sally Chill-Off.'

`With who?'

'You know
her as keeps the kiddley in Sawle. Don't say you don't know the Widow Tregothnan.'

`Oh, yes we used to have -
perhaps you remember Jud Paynter?'

'Jud? That I do. Walks like a gelded bulldog-'

`Well, he is there most nights when he has
the money. I
wonder you have not seen him.'

`I only been t
here three days, mistress. Jud’
Tholly leaned back and stretched out one leg. `That bring back the memories
. My grandfather's ghost, it do
! And Prudie ! Great lump of caff she were. Like a house. They played the old Cap'n up, I tell ye. The worms not got her neither?'

Not neither,' said Demelza; s
ipping
her tea.

`I'll never know where Jud picked her up. Came back one day wi' she riding on a pony. The old Cap'n took her in: More'n I'd've done. Great cab of a woman.' A hint of old strife moved in his voice.

`She's no smaller,' said Demelza.

T
regirls hunched his shoulders and coughed. He said: `I got tissick. It come on sudden and as sudden go.' As he shifted in his seat, a thin bag round his waist rattled, and he grimaced and grinned. `Know what that be, ma'am? Bones of me arm and hand. Carry 'em everywhere, even in the bed. I been at sea eight year
-
two year a prisoner of the French-fightin' here, fightin' there. Killed more than I can count. And not a spl
inter, not a scratch. But this ye
see this?' He indicated the puckered scar. `Done by a jealous father, just over the, hill. And this -' He held up the iron hook. `Crushed by a gangway, in port. Just coming alongside and they ran the gangway out, and my arm were in the way. Dangling it was when they pulled me clear. Surgeon had it off in a twin
k. Saw,
saw through the bone; then the tar barrel. No time even to be properly drunk: Makes me sweat o'nights even now.'

`It makes me sweat too,' said Demelza politely.

Tregirls threw back his head and laughed. `Well, thank ye, mistress, for the kind thought. And why do I keep 'em? Ye don't ask me what most folk ask me, why do I keep 'em?'

`Why do you keep them?'

'Ah, tis too late now to ask that question! But I'll tell ye, whether or no.' He hunched his shoulders against the next cough. `I'm not a praying man, not by no means. I says "God bless" when I wakes up and "Amen" when I lies down, that be all. But I reckon there's somethin' t
o it, and I reckon at the Last
Trump, I'll be in me grave, and they'll jerk me o
ut like I was a stranded fish
and what'll I do
if all me bones is not complete? Think you I want to go up to Heaven. - or even down to Hell -
with a hook for a hand? No, ma'am, not me, ma'am; so I carries the bones along wherever I, goes,

and I reckon they’ll be buried with me. When will Cap’n Ross be home?'

`Not until after dinner.'

He got s
lowly up, bending his head like
a man used to low ceilings. His whole frame seemed to dominate the room. `Thank ye; ma'am. Tell the young Cap'n I'll be back, mebbe tomorrow, mebbe in a day or two.'

`I will.'

She followed him to the door, w
here he blinked in the watery
sunlight. His pouch rattled again. 'Twas done less'n two year, gone, but the bones've cleaned up like they was new. Stank a bit at first; but that's all gone. Like to see them, would you?'

'Next time,' Demelza said.

He grinned at her, showing his ravaged teeth. `That were a fine horse I sold you.'

`Pony.
’

'Well, call it what ye will, Cap'n Poldark got it dirt cheap. Would ye be having a fancy to buy a bull, pup? Finest pedigree. Finest for bull baiting. Three months old. Or a ferret? You need one.'

`I'll ask Captain Poldark,' she said.

He strode over his small, ill-kept pony, put on his hat, took it off again to her, and then kicked th
e animal with one heel and they
began to proceed slowly up the valley.

Demelza watched him until he was out of sight. Then she went in. Jane Gimlett was clearing the tea.

`Who were that, ma'a
m?' she said. 'If tis not rude t’
ask.'

`A sort of a ghost,' said Demelza. 'I think ... A sort of a ghost.'

Ross said: `My ivers.' An expression she had only heard Prudie use before. `What did he want?'

'To see you. Chiefly, I believe. Perhaps also to see me.'

`You?'

'Well, yes. To see what the Young Cap'n had married.' '
He laughed. `Likely
enough. I do not suppose he went
away with a negative impression.'

`I don't know rightly what that means, Ross? `Well,
are you ever negative?' `I felt
a small matter so this morning.' `Did you like him?'

She said quietly:
`My husband's friends are mine.' `That was not what I asked.'

`You see? I am, being negative.' '

`Not a bit. You're being evasive, which is
quite different,'

She thought about it. `Ross, last year two people came out
of my past. This year, if one comes out of yours
’

`Let's hope he is not going to be as much trouble to us as
Sam and Dra
ke!
But it is typical of him that he has found a berth with Sally Chill-Off. I wondered, when
saw him last and he said he wanted to come home . . . But to find a warm widow who has been a widow too long, and one with a beer shop where he can make himself doubly useful
-
that is the perfect solution!'

`And he is breeding bull-pups and ferrets and who knows what else besides.'

`I believe you do not like him after all,' Ross said, teasing her.

'I do not think I altogether like having old bones rattled in my face to see if I will shiver.'

‘I
t is his way.'

`With women?'

'Perhaps. He has had many, and that as often as not blunts a man's perceptions for women, for particular women, for the exceptional woman anyway. What did you talk of, when you had exhausted such raillery?'

`His children. He has not seen them for I don't know how many years.'

'I do. It is thirteen. They were brought up in the poorhouse.'

`He said his daughter worked for the surgeon.'

`Yes, she's
a kitchen maid at Choake's. She's like him, tall and bold and good-looking. The rumour is that she has had one man after another; but I suppose she must somehow continue to keep it circumspect, as Polly Choake would not have her in the house
if it were done too blatant.
Th
e boy is like his mother, small
and quiet, married, with a brood of children; he works a tin stamp in Sawle Combe. When he left the poor house he was apprenticed to Jose, the farmer; but when he was seventeen he was convicted with another lad of stealing apples from Mr Trencrom's orchard and sent to Bodmin for a month's hard labour. But working on the treadmill ruptured him and so he has not been good for heavy work-'

`Ruptured
him?'

`Yes. It is necessary on the wheel, you know, to take fifty steps a minute, and three hours a day, which is the
usual, imposes a strain. It is not an uncommon
thing to happen. But Lobb Tregirls has
always since looked
a man with a grudge against life, and I cannot see him welcoming his father back af
ter so many years of neglect'

A screech owl was squealing by the stream in the evening
rain. Ross said: `Did Tregirls say he had been a prisoner of the French? I wonder if he speaks the language.'

He only tried his own on
me
-
which in a way, Ross, was sufficient. But why do you ask?'

`This venture.'

'Ah . . . what has been decided?'

'How did you know anything had been?'

'By the length of time you were there. And by your face
’

When you came home.'

He laughed briefly. `More by the second than the first, I would suppose. Talk is cheap, and, there has been enough of it these last months.'

'But now it is to mean something?'

`It would seem so. The Government has agreed to finance the expedition and to provide it with transports and a covering force of British warships. The French when lan
ded will be under Comte Joseph
de Puisaye as we expected. We do not know exactly when as yet but it will be during the light weather and when there is a best chance of calm seas.'

`But why do you ask about Tregirls?,

'Well, when the expedition lands, if it is successful, a few English may go ashore.'

`I trust
- I hope you are not going to become involved.'

He loosened his stock, pulling at it with a finger against his neck,

`In all honesty, love, I had no thought to be. Not personally. Certainly not at first ...'

`You have a wife and two children.'

`Yes,
oh, yes. 1 am not unmindful. But let me repeat
-
there is no English
army going, nor any intention of sending one, Five or six thousand French will land, with naval support, and some marines to strengthen them in the early stages. Then great quantities of munitions will be put ashore to supply the Royalists who will flock to join the invaders.
I
f the landing establishes itself then some English may be of help in maintaining supplies, establishing a commissariat ashore, or maintaining communications with England. But this is not what might influence me in a choice. Quimper, where Dwight is interned, is only perhaps two score miles
from where
the landing is
likely
to be made. When the Loyalist army takes
Quimper Dwight will be released -
It would be of value to him perhaps more than value
-
if some of his own people were on hand at
the time.'

Demelza put a paper quill in, the fire and from it began to light the candles. In the kitchen , Jeremy was crying, but for once the sound did not send her hurrying out.

`And if the landing fail?'

`If it fails it will not be likely to fail before Quimper is reached. Believe me, it is vital that that prison be sprung.'

`You do not think even if they are left alone that the prisoners will be
-
what is
the word?'

'Repatriated. Yes, it may be. Those who are left alive.'

Light grew reluctantly. Demelza went to pull the curtains, and he helped her with them. This year even the birds had been reluctant to begin their song. In the wet, chill evening light, the lights of, the engine house up the valley were remote and unreal. She pulled the last curtain.

Ross said: `Have you warned Drake about his friendship with Miss Chynoweth?'

`No. Objections don't often stop love affairs, Ross.'

`I know. But I believe George and Elizabeth are due back this week. I am anxious that there should be no renewal of the quarrel between the houses.'

`I will ask Sam,' she said. `This week I'll ask him if they are still seeing each other.'

Betsy-Maria Martin came in to light the candles but, finding this done, prepared to withdraw. `What is amiss with Master Jeremy?' Demelza asked.

`If ee plaise, ma'am. He
wouldn' eat 'is bread'n milk.
and Mrs Gimlett were tryin' to best him and he woudn' be bested, so he duffs 'is spoon in the bowl and splutters milk all 'bout the kitchen, so Mrs Gimlett, she gives he a tap wi' 'er hand and he didn' liken.'

`No, he wouldn't,' said Demelza. `Thank you, Betsy.'

The little girl left.

Demelza said: 'What did you mean, Ross, those that are left alive?'

'What?
Oh, in the prison.
Well, as I
told you.'

`Perhaps you have not told me quite all.'

`I have heard twice more but have not harrowed you with the details
-
nor especially Caroline.'

`Well, tell me now.'