The Black Moon (3 page)

`Elizabeth'll hear 'bout th
is.' said Aunt Agatha. `Carried
out of me own ha
ll
like a spar o' driftwood ... Ninety year I known this hall. Ninet
y year'. '
Her frail complaints disappeared behind Tom Harry's b
road back as she was carried up
the stairs.

`We should have had Elizabeth at Cardew for the lying in,' said Mr Warleggan between coughs and sips, `then we should have been spared these irritations.'

`I think it not inappropriate that our first child should have been born here.'

`But shall you stay? I mean to make it your home?'

A Wary
look crossed George's
face. I
am not sure. We have not yet decided. This has been Elizabeth's home, you
understand. I
do not fancy selling it, Nor do I fancy maintaining it solely for the convenience of the Chynoweths and the residue of the Poldarks. And. I have already, spent
money
as you can see.'

`Indeed.' Nicholas wiped his
eyes and put away his
hand
kerchief. He eyed his son. `There is one other Poldark to be considered, George.'

'Geoffrey Charles? Yes. I have nothing against him. I have promised to Elizabeth that his education shall be as expensive as she desires.'

`It is not just that. It is the fact of his being so, firmly
attached to his mother's apron strings. I hope your son
–
this
new baby-will, distract Elizabeth from her preoccupation
with him, but it would seem necessary-'

`I know exactly what would seem necessary, Father. Give
me leave to manage my own household.'

`I'm sorry, I
had thought simply to suggest
..’

George frowned down at a stain on his cuff. The matter
of Geoffrey Charles's future had been one of the few points
of difference with Elizabeth these last months.

`Geoffrey Charles is to have, a gover
ness.' 'Ah Good ... But at ten-‘

`He would be better with a tutor or to go away. I, agree.

Some good school
near London.' Or Bath. That we
have not
been able to arrange yet.'

'Ah.'

After a pause, while Nicholas read between the lines, George added. `For a year or so, at,
least until
he is eleven, he will stay here. We have found
a
suitable person to look after him,'

`A local person?'.

`Bodmin. You will rem
ember the Reverend Hubert Chyno
weth, who was the Dean the
re. He was Jonathan's cousin.'

Did he die?'

'Last year. Like all the Chynoweths he had no private money, and his family is poorly off. The eldest gir
l is seventeen. She is genteel
like all the Chynoweths-and has had some educat
ion. It will
please Elizabeth to receive her.'

Mr Warleggan grunted. `I would have thought there were enough Chynoweths about the place. But ' if it suits you ... You've seen her?'

`Elizabeth knew her as a
child. But a dean's daughter as a governess should be no social detriment.'

`Yes, I see
that. And she' will, know how
to beha
ve. The question is whether she
will be able to make Master Geoffrey Charles behave. He has
been greatly spoiled and needs
a firm
hand.’

`That in
due course he shall have,' George said. 'This is an
interim measure. An experiment. We must see how it works.' Mr Warleggan mopped his forehead with his handkerchief.

`My cough has gone now that old woman has gone. D'you
know I believe she wished it on me."

`Oh, nonsense.'

`What was that -
what was that she said about the child
being born under a black moon?'

`There' was an eclipse on Friday, a total eclipse, at the
time of his birth.' You didn't
notice?'

`'No. I was too preoccupied.'

`So was I. But the Sherborne, paper mentioned it. And
I did notice the animals, and some of the servants, were
restless.!

"Your mother
is coming down for supper?' '
I assume so. We shall go in in ten minutes.'

`Then
Nicholas Warleggan shrugged uncomfortably.

`If I were you, do
not mention that old woman's, nonsense
to her.'

'I h
ad no intention of doing so.' `Well, you know how she is
a little wayward in matters of

superstition. She has always paid too much attention to
signs and portents. It is better not to worry her with such
things.
’

t

In the mid morning of a windy March day, two young men were tramping along the mule track which led past the engine house and the derelict buildings of Grambler Mine. It was a day of lowering clouds and flurries of rain, the wind westerly, booming and blundering. Glimpses of the sea showed it to be licked white and untidy; where there were rocks
a mist
of spray
drifted.

A
dozen or so cottages straggled beside the mine. These were still occupied though in poor repair; the mine buildings themselves - those not built of stone - were already in ruin; but much of the headgear and the three engine houses remained.
Grambler -
on which the prosperity of the senior Poldarks had depended, to say, nothing of three hundred miners and spallers and bal-maidens - had been closed now for
six years and the prospec
ts of its ever opening again were remote. It was a depressing sight:
"Tis the same all the way, Drake,' said the elder one. `One mine smoking twixt here
and Illuggan. It is a dire
picture. But we must not sink into the sin of ingratitude. A merci
ful God has ordained it so for
our chastisement.'

`We're on the right way?' asked Drake. 'I never been afore. Did I come? I don't mind it.'

`No, you was too small.'

`How
much farther then?'

`Three
or four mile. I don't recollect too well.'

They turned and went on, both tall, young men mot immediately recognizable as brothers. Sam, the elder by four years, looked more than twenty-two. He had big shoulders, an ungainly walk, a thin, deeply furrowed face, which looked sombre as if it bore all the sorrows, of the ; world, until' he smil
ed,, when the sorrowful, lines
broke
up
into benign and affable creases. Drake was equally tall but of slighter
build and notably good-looking,
with a fine skin unmarked by the pox; a
mischievous face;
he looked as if he enjoyed poking fun. It was a propensity he had had to keep on a leash when in the vicinity of his father. They were both
poorly but respectably dressed
in dark blue barragan trousers with, low quartered
shoes,
waistcoats and jackets over coarse
shirts. Sam wore an old hat, Drake a pink striped neckcloth; Both carried small bundles and sticks.

They crossed the Mellingey stream by a footbridge that nearly gave way under them, then climbed to a coppice of pine trees; with beyond, it the next ruined mine, Wheal Maiden, which had been silent half a century and looked it. Stones lay wher
e they had
fallen
.
Anything of use had long since been carried away. The rooks rose and made a
corn motion at being disturbed.

But now in the shallow valley
they were entering they could see smoke. On a
quiet day they would have seen it earlier. Both walked a little slower as they neared the end of their journey, as if hesitant to end it. As they went down the high hedged lane they could peer between the ferns and the brambles, the hawthorn and the wild nut trees, and could see the engine house
- not a new one, it looked as if it had been rebuilt but the headgear was all new, the huts that clustered around were new and in obvious use; the Mellingey stream, which curled back into the valley, had been dammed and they could hear the thump and clatter of the
water
driven tin stamps; all the noises had been held back by, the wind; a dozen women worked on a washing floor; farther; down the water, activated a sweep which rotated awkwardly round and round helping to separate the ore. A train of mules with panniers on were being driven up the opposite slope of the valley. At the foot of the valleys with a small lawn and, a few bushes only separ
ating it from all the industry,
was a low granite-built house, part slate roof, part thatch, bigger and grander than a farm house, with its ou
tbuildings, its squat chimneys, its straggling wing and its
mullioned windows, yet hardly of the distinction to be called a gentleman's residence. Behind the house the land rose again in a ploughed field running up to a headland
beyond scrubland to
the right was a beach with a scarf of slaty sea.

"Twasn't no lie,' said Drake

`'Reckon you're right. It look different from when I came afore.'

`This work is all new?'

"
’
S I reckon. Nanfan, said it
had not been started more'n two
year.
’

Drake ran a hand through his shock of black hair. `Tis a handsome house. `Though not near so great as Tehidy.'

`The, Poldarks is small gentry, not big.'

`Big enough for we,'
said Drake with a nervous laugh.

`All
men are alike in the sight of the eternal Jehovah,' said Sam.

`Mebbe so, but it isn't Jehovah we got to deal with.'

`No, brother. But all people are set at, liberty by the blood of Christ.'

They went on and recrossed the stream and came up to the house. Disturbed, some seagulls blew up f
rom the lawn like white clothes
flapping in the wind.

The two young men were saved the necessity of knocking because the front door opened and a small plump-brown
-
haired middle-aged woman came out carrying a b
asket. When she saw them
she stopped and
rubbed
her free
hand down her apron.

`Yes?'

`If ye please, ma'am,' said Sam. `We'd like to see your mistress,.'

`Just tell her two friends has called.'

`Friends?' Jane Gimlett eyed them and hesitated, but she was not suffic
iently the well-trained servant
to stare them down. `Wait here,' she said, and turned
back into the house. She found
her m
istress in the kitchen bathing
one of Jeremy's knees where he had scuffed it climbing a wall. A large hairy, dog of ano
nymous breed lay
at her feet. `There's two young men a
t the door ma'am want' to see e’
Miners or the like I'd say.' ,

`Miners? From our mine?'

'Nay. Strangers. From a distance, I'd say.'

Demelza looped up, a curl of hair and straightened. `Stay there, my handsome, she said to Jeremy, and walked
along
the passage to the front door, frowning in the brighter light, At first she
did
not recognize either of them.

`We came to see ye, sister,' said Sam. `Tis six years since we met. D'you `recall me? I'm Sam, the second one. I
mind
you well. This is Drake, the youngest. He were seven when you left home.'

`Judas!
' said Demelza. ''How you've
both grown!
'

R
oss had been up at Wheal Grace
with Captain Henshawe and the two engineers who had built the engine. They had been over to check a fault which had developed in the pump rod, and the engine had been stopped for half a day until they came; so the opportunity had been taken to carry out the monthly cleaning of the boiler.

It was in a thoughtful but cheerful mood that Ross started
back to the house, The, mine
, he thought, had now reached
the limits of its forese
eable expansion. It employed
thirty tributers, twent
y-five tut-men, six binders and
timbermen, and about forty workers of one sort and another above ground. The engine was now working at near its comfortable capacity, and the water it pumped up
from sixty fathoms was ingeniously channelled into a
wooden trough which worked a small water-wheel at surface which itself worked a secondary and much smaller pump. The water then flowed down a ten
-
fathom adit until it worked a second-water-whe
el built sixty feet below the l
evel of the first wheel and about thirty feet below, the level of the sloping grounds where it ran on down
the adit to come out at the washing floor built just above
Demelza's garden. A fair amount of the mined ore was still sent to be crushed and washed at the tin stamps of Sawle Combe, for there was not enough room for, more stamps; in this valley without destroying it as a place to live.

Further, extension o
f the mine looked uneconomic.
To build another engine or to attempt to work this one harder would be self-defeating. Coal cost
l8s a ton free on
board, and even the war had not yet raised the price of tin to a level where a fair; return was assured. One of the contributing causes of this was a swing in fashion away from the use of pewter to the, us
e of cloam and china. It was a
nation-wide change of habit; and had come at just the wrong time.

Nevertheless, because the lodes were so rich and, in spite of their, depth, so, accessible, this mine was paying where so many others were failing or had failed. Great, concerns like United Mines had been losing £11,000 a year before they closed.
- Wheal
Grace, small as it was, was rich beyond his hopes and in six months had eaten up his many debts like a benevolent Lucullus. T
wo months' profit had paid off
the whole of his £1,400 debt to Caroline Penvenen; in another two months he had discharged his debts to Pascoe's Bank and swept away all his lesser dues; by May he could repay the twenty-year-old mortgage which Harris Pascoe personally held. Soon there would be money on deposit in the bank, or to invest in five per, cents, or to keep in bags under the bed, or to spend on whatever they wanted most.

It, was a heady brew. Neither he nor Demelza had become acclimatized yet they behaved as if the last ton of ore might be raised this afternoon. A week ago he had taken Demelza down the mine and shown her the two rich and expanding floors; suppose
dly it had been to convince her
in
fact; though
he saw them daily, it was
as muc
h to convince himself. He felt he needed the reassurance of her conviction too.

With the mine being so close to the house he went home most days for dinner, which was usually about 2 p.m. It was now barely 1, but he had some mine figures, he would work out in the library. Since the reconciliation of Christmas he had spent as much time
at home as possible; it was an
other form of rea
ssurance. They had all but lost
each other
-
she had been prepared to go, had been on her way out of the house. Now it seemed incredible that they had been so near to parting. The warmth of their reconciliation had been full of passion, had brought the
m closer in some ways than they
had ever been before, all defences down. Yet it had been a slightly feverish warmth - and still was - as if their relationship were recovering from a near-mortal wound and they were trying to reassure themselves. The quieter levels of absolute trust which had existed before had not yet been regained.

And tempering their delight and relief at the success of the mine was the knowl
edge: of the alien presence
at Trenwith
House only four miles away. Often they would
forget it; then it would recur
like an undulant pain, so that
temporarily they wer
e at a distance from each other
again. The birth and christening of Valentine Warleggan was the latest
thorn in
the flesh. Neither said what was uppermost in their m
inds; it could never be uttered by anyone. But
Caroline P
envenen had written to Demelza.

`Such disappointment
not, to see, you there, though to tell the truth I had hardly
expected it,
owing, the deep a
nd abiding love Ross and George
have for each other. I do not remember ever having been inside Trenwith before,
it's a fine house. The brat is dark, but I think
favours Elizabeth a well formed and quite handsome child,
as children
go. (I never really care for them. until they are about three years old. Dwight will have to arrange it for me. somehow l) A big assemblage for the Christening
- I did not know there were so many Warleggans, and one or two of the older ones a small matter unsavoury. Also as much of the near-by county as would turn out on a cold day.' She had gone into details of those present,

`Uncle Ray not able to go with me, alas too weak. He misses Dwight's ministrations. The last letter from Dwight
was two
weeks gone, aboard the Travail; but that itself was two weeks old when received, so in knowledge of his whereabouts I am already a month out of date. I fume at this like a love-lorn maiden in a tower, feeling it the worse for the knowledge that but for me he would not be in the Navy at all. I wish someone would stop this war ...'