The Four Swans (13 page)

Lobb said: `Reckon I’m obliged to ee, Carne, Are ee one of Emma’s men?’

‘No,’ said Sam.

`Reckon she’s besting what man t’ave. Tes wise. She’ll get caught if she don’t. Many a maid’s forced put for less’n she’s done.’

Sam stared out to sea. `Reckon tis time I was going.’

Seldom, in late years had he felt so awkward as he had done among these Tregirls. With the Hoskins there could be disagreement over the rights of miners to take the law into their own hands, but if they had so argued they would have been arguing from the same basic beliefs, differing as to how they should be applied. Not so here. Seldom had his language in a single afternoon so noticeably lacked the rich and colourful phrases of the Testaments to which he subscribed his life. It was not that they were not pertinent rather was it as if he might have spoken the English language to people who knew only. Chinese, He was among heathens to whom the word of the Gospel signified nothing at all. The sentences meant nothing, the phrases meant nothing, the words meant, nothing. For the time it was better to save one’s breath.

‘Ullo,’ said Lobb, glowering. `Look oo’s ‘ere.’

A man on a donkey was coming down the hill. He wore a wide-brimmed hat; his legs dangled so low that they reached the floor; the reins were gathered in one skinny powerful hand, the other arm lay across the saddle and ended in an iron hook. His face was lined but twinkling.

`Fathur,’ said Lobb with great contempt. `I want no truck with he.’

`Even if ye can’t abide him,’ Sam, said, `should ye not go down and greet him?’

`Look,’ said Lobb, `tis no business of yourn.’

‘I know he deserted you. Emma, told me.’

`When he left, we all went Poor House: Know what that’s like, do ee? That’s what he left Mother to. Now he d’come round here smarming and bringing his presents … I can’t bear to speak with un. Go if you’ve the mind, Carne. I’m obliged for the ‘elp.’

When Sam got down Tholly was already off his donkey and holding a bag with his hook while he delved into it with his good hand.

`See, I had a morsel of luck Redruth. this morn, so I brought ye a few little things, like. Now how ‘bout these here.’ He pulled out a pair of leather breeches and held ahem up. `Won’t fit me. Thought they’d do for Lobb. Three shillings and sixpence I paid for ‘em. Mint of money, that. They got years of wear yet, years of wear.’

`Thank ee, Uncle Tholly,’ said Mary Tregirls, a bedraggled thin woman who might have been pretty not so long ago. `I’ll tell Lobb when he come down from the wheel.’

‘Lo, Lobb!’ shouted Tholly, undeterred by the enmity. `I brought something for Mary too!’ He glanced at Sam. ‘Drake Carne’s brother, ain’t it? Peter, ain’t it?’

`Sam,’ said Sam.

`Sam Carne, eh? Been helping Lobb, have ee? We all try to help Lobb when he’ll leave folk help, him. Emma, me little apple-bird; looking as docy as ever, I see.’

‘I’d best be going, Emma,’ Sam. said. `I did ought to be home, ‘fore six. You’re - you not coming yet?’

`No,’ said Emma. To her father: `What.ee got for Mary?’

He delved in. `See here. Warm petticoat. Four shillings it cost! That’s seven and six for the two! Don’t say your old father never - give you nothing, now! I near bought a bonnet for you, Emma, but twas more’n I could run to.’ He coughed horribly into the air, fine spray glinting in the sunlight. `Peter!’ he said as Sam turned away.

`Sam,” said Sam.

`Course. I’m absent as a fool. Sam, you a wrastler?’ Sam hesitated. `Nay. Why?’

`Feast day next week there’s to be wrestling. I’m getting up a match. You’re big and handsome. Never wrastled?’ `Only as a lad.’

`Well, then!’

`Nay. Tis not my style. No longer.’ He smiled at Tholly to soften his blunt refusal. `Good bye, Emma.’

`Good bye,’ said Emma. `‘You should’ve brought food, Fathur, not clothes for their backs!’

`Aye, aye, is that all the thanks I get? Next time I’ll buy something for my own back! Sam!’

‘Yes?’ Sam stopped again.

`You interested in bull -pups? I got two proper little beauties. Handsome, handsome. Last of a litter. I’d let one of ‘em go cheap to a friend. Fine for the baiting! In a year.’

`Thanks.’ Sam shook his head. ”Thanks, no,’ and walked on.

As he retreated he could hear them arguing among themselves about Tholly’s gifts; while Lobb remained obstinately aloft tinkering with his water-wheel.

They were all Tregirls he had left behind, he thought - all nine of them: a mixed bag of, heathens; quarrelsome, vital, grudging, grasping, noisy and ragged, and altogether unawakened in their sins. While all were worth the saving, since every soul was precious in the sight of Heaven, yet to Sam only Emma seemed to show a gleam of hope. And that gleam might as yet be more within his own soul than hers.

Although she was a sinner, as all creatures were, he found it difficult after their walk and talk today to believe the worst that was said of her. She was so straightforward, so direct, so bright and clear of eye and manner, that he found it hard to believe she was any man’s game. But even if she were, the Biblical analogy that had occurred to him in the mine that day still held good.

But how to bring her to repentance? How make a person aware of sin when their unawareness was so complete? It was something for which he must pray for guidance.

Another man who was praying for guidance at this time, though on matters very unrelated to those concerning Sam, was the Reverend Osborne Whitworth. He had two problems exercising his mind, one moral and one temporal.

It was eight weeks now since Dr Behenna had told Osborne that he must forgo intercourse with Morwenna until after the baby was born.

`You’re a heavy man, Mr, Whitworth, if I may say so, and every time this happens now you risk crushing the child to death. I am not altogether satisfied with, Mrs Whitworth’s health, and certainly she needs extra rest and care at this time.’

Ossie had reluctantly acceeded. He saw the point, of course, and he did not want to injure the child in case it happened to be a son; but this imposed a restraint on him that irked more with every week that passed. He had, of course, suffered the same deprivation during the confinements of his first wife; but those disentitlements had been of a shorter, duration than this one was likely to be, and somehow the loving and kissing and petting which had still been permissible had made the time bearable.

But the idea of kissing and petting with a woman who shrank from his touch and shrank from touching him was clearly an impossibility. So he was deprived of the normal routine association with a woman that a married man had a right to expect, and he found continence a heavy cross to bear. He found it more hard to bear than he would otherwise have done because of the presence of another woman in the house.

Rowella, of course, was a child. She would not be fifteen until May. All the same she was as tall as a woman and walked and spoke like a woman and sat at his meals like a woman, and sometimes smiled secretly at him like a woman. He didn’t particularly fancy her looks - the long nose, the sandy eyebrows, the thin shapeless figure. Indeed, merely to consider her in a physical sense was

Nonsense, and sinful nonsense at that. But the two maids in the house were elderly women, his wife a quiet sad figure with a bulging belly, and Rowella shone in this company with a youthful attraction.

Of course there were places in Truro down by the river where he could buy his pleasure - where he had been several times during his widowerhood - and these he patronized once or twice. But it was a dangerous game in a town of three thousand inhabitants; however disguised by heavy cloak, by taking off the clerical collar, by walking swiftly through the dark streets after nightfall. Someone might recognize him and report him to his wardens; someone might even rob him and then what redress? The woman herself might recognize him and attempt some sort of blackmail.

It was an increasingly difficult time for him.

His second problem was a matter of advancement, and could be discussed more appropriately with others. Eventually he took it to George.

He found Mr Warleggan in his counting; house discussing some matter of credit with his uncle, Mr Cary Warleggan, and it was some half-hour before George was free to attend to him. Thereupon Osborne put his case.

Two weeks ago the Reverend Philip Webb, vicar of the parish of St Sawle with Grambler, had died of an impostume of the kidneys; and so the living had become vacant. This living Osborne desired for himself.

The living, Osborne pointed out, was worth Ł200 a year. Mr Webb, as they all knew, had lived in London and Marazion and had seldom visited the church, the Reverend Mr Odgers having been installed as a curate at Ł40 a year to conduct the business of the parish. Osborne felt that this was an excellent opportunity for him to add to his own income and had written to the Dean and Chapter of Exeter, in whose gift it lay, applying for the living. He had also written to his cousin, Godolphin, who was an influence at court, to put in a word for him. What Osborne thought was that if George were to write to the Dean and Chapter also it might be just enough to sway their choice.

George considered this unemotionally while Ossie was speaking. It was a natural enough ambition and a natural enough request, yet he resented it. Although the marriage of Elizabeth’s cousin to this young man had been his, idea and he had pushed it through in spite of various obstacles, not to mention Morwenna’s objections, yet he found himself holding the young man in some distaste. His manner of dressing was too flamboyant for a parson, his voice too assertive, too important; George remembered the long haggling they had, had over terms. Ossie had to keep in mind - and didn’t seem sufficiently to realize - that although his marriage into the family linked the important name of Godolphin with that of Warleggan, he, financially, was small fry, as all the Whitworths - and indeed the Godolphins were these days. A greater deference would have been suitable on the part of the younger man towards an older and, much richer man who had befriended him.

Also Elizabeth, George knew, was not pleased with Morwenna’s looks; the girl had gone more sallow than ever and her eyes were specially dark these days as if brooding on an inner tragedy. Most girls when they had made a loveless but advantageous marriage quickly adapted themselves and made the best of things. So Morwenna should. George had no patience with her. But Elizabeth blamed Ossie. Elizabeth said Ossie was a nasty young man, not an ornament to the church at all. When challenged to go into detail she shrugged her pretty shoulders and said it was nothing definite she knew - for Morwenna would, never say anything - it was just a general feeling that had been growing in her bones over the last year.

So, when Osborne had finished, George said nothing for a time but turned the money in his fob and stared through the lattice window.

Eventually he said: `I doubt that my influence with the Dean and Chapter is as great as you suppose.’

`Not great;’ said Osborne practically. `But as the owner of the old Poldark estate at Trenwith you are the biggest landowner in the parish, and this will count with the Dean, I’m sure.’

George looked at the young man. Osborne never phrased his sentences well. `Not great’. `The old Poldark estate’. If he wrote in this fashion to the Dean it was not likely to commend him. Yet Ossie was now part of the family. George did not like to think he had made a bad choice. And if things went as they now appeared to be going, a fashionable friend in London, one specially with an entree at court, such as Conan Godolphin had, could be of considerable value to a new Member of Parliament, groping-his way at Westminster, not quite sure of his social Position or, friends.

`I’ll write. You have the address?’

`I just address my letters to the Dean and Chapter at Exeter. There’s no need for more.’

`How is Morwenna?’

Ossie raised his eyebrows at the diversion. `I could wish her better. It will be good when it is out of the way.’

`When is it to be?’

`About another month, she thinks. But women so often make mistakes. George, when you write, will you point out to the Dean that from my residence in Truro it will be easier for me to oversee Odgers than ever it was for Webb to do so, and even to preach there occasionally when I stay at your house.’

George said: `Osborne, it is possible that I may be going to London later this year. When you next write to your uncle you might inform him that I shall expect to give myself the pleasure of waiting on him then.’

Ossie blinked, shaken out of his preoccupation by the steeliness of George Warleggan’s tone.

`Of course, George. I’ll do that. Shall you be going for a prolonged stay?’

`It depends. Nothing is decided.’

There was silence for a moment or two. Ossie got up to go.

`The extra income would be more than useful now there is another mouth to feed!’

‘I believe little Odgers has not had his stipend raised for more than ten years,’ George said.

`What? Oh, no. Well … it is a matter I should be prepared to consider though in the country he is on very little expense, I would have thought.’

George rose also and glanced back into his office, where two clerks were working, but he did not speak.

`I’m writing to Lord Falmouth too,’ Ossie said. `Although he has no direct interest he is generally so influential. I also considered approaching your friend Sir Francis Basset, although I have not actually had an opportunity of meeting him. At the Enys’s wed –‘

`I’ think both those gentlemen will be too preoccupied over the next, weeks to have the time to pay attention to your request,’ George said shortly. `You are better to save your ink.’

‘D’you mean, over this by-election? Have, you heard whom Lord Falmouth is favouring?’

`None of us will know until much nearer the time,’ George said.

II

That night Ossie made a very distressing discovery.

After Morwenna had gone to bed he went up to the lumber room to find an old sermon which he thought would serve as a basis for the one he had to deliver on Sunday. He found it and was about to leave the room when a gleam of light showed that there was a flaw in the wooden partition dividing this room from the one where Rowella slept. He tiptoed across and peered through, but the blue flock paper on the other side blocked his view. Taking a pin out of the sheets of the sermon, he inserted it and very carefully made a hole. Through it he saw Rowella in a white nightdress brushing her long lank hair.