The Four Swans (43 page)

`You sound very severe,’ Demelza said.

`War is a severe thing, if I may so put it. We’re fighting for our very lives, and I do not know how we may prevail. The country seems to have lost faith in itself, to be no longer willing to fight for the principles in which it used to believe. As a nation we are slothful or altogether asleep.’ He paused and his face relaxed. `But why, do I trouble you, with such thoughts? Only because I believe you to be too intelligent to be content with idle chatter. Tell me more of your own doings since last we met.’

`That would be idle chatter.’

`Well, I am happy to listen to anything you have to say. Sitting here I am happy anyhow.’

She began to speak of one or two things, but not in her usual fluent style. Usually talk at any, level came easy to her, but not now, and she was glad to break off at the sound of screams of laughter and childish voices behind the house.

`It’s my children and some of their friends,’ she explained, `they’re going off to build a great wall of sand against the tide.’

`You were going with them?’

‘No, no. They have someone to look for them. I took them down to a pool for a swim earlier.’

He had risen and was screwing up his eyes, peering towards the beach. `The tide is flowing then?’

`Yes. It will be full soon after midday. But it’s not a high tide. The highest tides here are always about five in the afternoon.’

There was silence for a while. She watched a bee feeding itself on a lilac flower. It crawled on heavy drunken legs from one stamen to another like a fat soldier burdened with too much loot. The flowers were just past their best but the scent was heavy on the air.

He said : `Could we not go today?’

II

Looking back, she remembered quite well the somewhat disorganized defences she put up against his request. Because her brain was impeded by unexpected emotion it was not quick enough to know that no defence at all was needed to such a suggestion - a plain polite refusal would do. Instead she made a number of excuses, each of which sounded lamer than the last in her own ears, and in the end, confronted with his tentative solutions to her excuses, she found herself saying: `Well, I suppose we could.’

On their way down Nampara Cove, with the emaciated stream whispering a thin treble tune beside them, and the tall groom solemnly carrying oars and, rowlocks, she wondered whether it was indeed unseemly of her to have agreed to his suggestion. The behaviour of the aristocracy was something she was still not wholly familiar with. Ross might not like it when he knew. Nobody else mattered. But what harm could there be? Even; without the big servant, the seals would be chaperone enough.

`Why is the water in the stream so red?’ Hugh asked.

`It’s the tin washings from the mine.’

But when they got to the little shingly beach and pulled the dinghy out of the cave and dragged it down to the sea she saw that at least the groom was not to be a chaperone.

`We shall be some time?’

‘Oh - perhaps an hour. One cannot always be sure. There may be none about.’

`Well, stay here, Mason. I shall need your help to pull the boat up again:

`Yes, sir.’

`Oh, I can do that,’ Demelza said. `I have pulled this up myself before now.’

Hugh said: `Mason might just as well stay here as at the house.’ `Should he not come with us and row?’ ‘No - if you’ll permit it, I’ll row myself.’ She hesitated.

He said: `It’s such a rare pleasure to talk to you that I should like the privilege of privacy.’

`Oh, very well.’

Used to clambering into a boat with bare feet and wet to the knees, she found a mild amusement in being handed into the dinghy by the two men as if she were porcelain. She sat in the stern and tied a green silk scarf about her hair as they were pushed off.

The sea danced little measures around them in the sunshine. Hugh had taken off his long coat; and rowed in his shirt sleeves, his forearms pale with a freckling of dark hair along the bone. She had thought when she, saw him first at Tehidy that he was a hawk-faced man, but the sharpness of his features resembled something less predatory; the fine bones were too fine, the shape of the face aristocratic rather than aggressive. He wore no hat in the boat and his hair was tied with a ribbon at the back.

The dinghy had a mast and a small sail which could be hoisted, but the only air today was that created by their passage through the water. Hugh was soon sweating, and even Demelza, though so scantily clad, was hot.

She said : `Let me row a while.’

`What?’ He smiled. `I couldn’t permit it.’

`I can row very well.’

`It would be unseemly to try:

`Then row easy. It is no more than a mile.’

He slowed and allowed his oars to keep way on the boat without putting much effort into it. They made progression westwards in the direction of Sawle, keeping not more than a hundred yards from the towering cliffs. Here and there little beaches showed, sandy lips in coves unreachable except by sea. There were no boats about. Sawle fishermen, amateur and professional, always tended to find more profit in the waters beyond Trevaunance.

Hugh stopped and put an arm across his brow. `I am happy that you’ve come with me. Wasn’t it Dryden who said : “Tomorrow do thy worst, for I have lived today.’

‘Well, the weather may not last’

`It’s not the weather, my dear Demelza.. There are other things I have to say to you.’

`I hope they are not things you should not say.’

`They are things I do not wish to say. Believe me.’

She looked her surprise, and he smiled again, then twisted the oars in his hands, looking down at his palms. `Surprising what small practice one gets at rowing when one is an officer. I was a horny-handed boy, but it has worn off.’

`What is it you are going to say to me?’

`Sadly, I have to tell you that my leave from the navy is not indefinite. It is permanent. I have been discharged. Otherwise, of course, I should not be here. Shore leave in time of war is scanty indeed.’

`Discharged?’

`Well, not altogether as a mutineer. Ours was a happy ship. Captain Grant is of the mould of Collingwood and Nelson. But, it’s mutiny of a sort . Or at least, inefficiency.’

`‘Inefficiency? You? How’ could that be?’

`Your incredulity warms, my heart. Well, no, but it’s, as I say, a form of insubordination. My eyes will not behave. Once they refused to recognize a flag at two hundred yards - now they’ll not do it at fifty. Like any rebellious matelot, they will not respond to discipline.’

She stared at him. `Hugh, I’m that sorry ‘..‘But what are you trying to say?’

He began to row again. `I’m saying I can see the land from here - just. Tell me how we go.’

Demelza continued to stare at him in silence. Her hand had been over the side, and she drew it in and let the drops fall on the seat beside her.

`But it was to be better ! You said that when we first met.’

`It was to be better but instead it is to be worse. I have seen two special doctors in London, one a naval surgeon, the other private. They agree that nothing can be done.’

For Demelza the heat had gone out of the day. `But even if you are short sighted, there must be naval work ashore, or…’

`Not with this verdict over me They think I have a short time.’ `A short time?

`Oh, it is all dressed up in the Latin tongue like ribbons on a maypole, but what emerges is their opinion that there is something amiss behind the eyes and that in six months or so I shall be following in Milton’s footsteps, though without a suitable share of his talent.’

III

Hugh said : `Is this the season for the young to be born?’

`Not usually for this kind. Most seals have the young now, yes, but these - these are usually born later -September or October. Or that’s what I’ve noticed. I don’t really claim to know much about them.’

`And the breeding season?’

`Much the same. You should hear them then - they go on and make such a noise.’

`Demelza, do not look so sad, or I shall regret having told you.’ `How can I be anything else?’

`Perhaps they’ll be wrong. Doctors know very little even these times. And today is fine; remember what Dryden said.’ `Why did you tell me, then? Why?’

`Because no one else yet knows - I have kept it from my family - and I had to tell someone - and you are my closest friend.’

She studied and perceived the tensions and the bitterness under his bantering tone. ‘That makes it worse.’

‘Explain to me more about this cave.’

`It’s just over there. No more’n a quarter of a mile. If you use your left oar. It’s a big cave. There used to be a mine that drained into it in the olden, days but it’s been dead for half a century or more. Later in the year tis crowded - the rocks are crowded with seals. Now I’d expect some - it is just luck.’

`Please, I am sorry I said, anything now’

`Would you expect me to be joyful, and act as if nothing had happened?’

`No … I’m sorry. I was selfish in not realizing what it would mean to you. I am very flattered.’

`Don’t be. It is not to flatter you that I am upset’

He shipped his oars and took a deep breath..; `So .. but it must not spoil today. Of course I should have written, told you. But look - look at me, listen to me’

‘Well…’ She raised her eyes.

‘We live in an uncertain world,’ he said gently. `At its best life is short. Tomorrow the French or the Dutch may land, and ravage and kill and burn. Next week the cholera may come in, in a ship at Padstow or Falmouth. Or the smallpox rage. Six months! Even if they’re not wrong there’s still six months. What would those naval mutineers now waiting trial give for six months of life and laughter? “Tomorrow do thy worst, for I have lived today.” Can’t I persuade you to forget what I’ve told you - or at least to ignore it?”

`Well, it’s easier said than done.’

`Smile at me please. When I saw you first you didn’t smile all through dinner, and it was not until we went down to the lake afterwards. It was like someone spilling diamonds.”

`Oh, nonsense, Hugh.’

`Come, please. Just a little one. I’ll not row you till you do.’

`I can row myself,’ said Demelza.

`That would be mutiny on the high seas and I have no convenient yardarm.’

Demelza smiled uncertainty and he gave a little whoop of joy. ‘ ‘

‘Quiet!’ she said. `You’ll scare them. They scare easy and then you’ll never see one for all your trouble.’

`Seals?’ - said Hugh., `Ah yes, was that what we came out to see?’ He unshipped his oars, and, obeying her directions, began to paddle towards the cliffs.

The sun was overhead and shadows’ were at their shortest. Because of the angle of the coast to the sun the face of the cliff was sunlit, and even when they were ten feet from the rocks they were still in full light. Demelza again wanted to take the oars, for she knew they had to approach the cave from an angle so as not to disturb their quarry. But he still rowed. Already ten or a dozen great cow seals had slithered off the rocks as they approached.

On the rocks near the mouth of the cave was the wreck of a ship. Most of it had been pounded to pieces long ago, but a few spars and the bow had become wedged where they were protected from the weight of the waves, and seaweed hung from them like shrouds from a corpse. Opposite it was a strip of fine sand no more than thirty feet across with sharply shelving sides.

They could hear the hooting coughs of the seals, and now and then a strange moaning wail which might have come from a human throat in distress, as if long-drowned mariners were hiding in the cave. Here, in spite of the calmness of the weather, one was conscious of a rise and fall of the sea, not so much a wave as the breath of an ocean.

`I don’t think we’ve disturbed them,’ Demelza said, as they came round the corner.

At the entrance of the cave, sunning themselves on the rocks, were a score or more of grey seals, some large, some half grown. Hugh stopped rowing and the boat drifted slowly towards them. At first it seemed that the mammals did not notice the intruders, then that they were merely curious and not at all alarmed. The eyes of one after another settled, on the dinghy. Their faces were human, or half human, and old-young, childish and whiskered, innocent yet worldly wise. One of them gave a curious hooting sound, and a small one, its calf, responded with a whiskery bleat. Another yawned. Mixed noises came from inside the cave.

Demelza said in a low voice: `I hear tell they’re awful fond of music. Sometimes, they say, Pally Rogers comes out here with his flute and they all gather round his boat’

They had drifted a little too near one cow, and she rose, curving her back upwards, and threw herself farther up the rocks with a series of convulsive jerks. The sun was too warm for her to want to take to the sea.

`I wish my aunt were here,’ said Hugh. `And the children. Yet I would be a little concerned lest, if this. group took suddenly to : the water, they might upset the boat.’

`It’s possible.’

`You can swim?’

`…I could keep afloat, I b’lieve.’

After a few moments he said: `I’m sorry they’re not here for they’d be enchanted.’ But I’m happy they’re not here because I am enchanted.’

‘I’m glad.’

`Oh, not with the seals, though I never thought I should see them so, well, and thank you for bringing me. My enchantment is in spending the morning with you.’

`Well,’ said Demelza uncertainly. `The morning is half gone, so I think we should just go into the cave a little and then start home.’

The dinghy had come to a stop and, was grating against a sea-weedy rock. Just then the ocean breathed again and Hugh had to make a sudden movement with an oar to prevent danger. This was enough for the seals. One after another they dragged their fat sleek bodies laboriously across the rocks with their forepaws and slid and dived and belly-flopped into the sea. For a few moments all was commotion; heads and bodies swirled and snorted close beside the boat; it rocked and lurched,; and the quiet rock-strewn sea was a-boil with little waves. Then as quickly as it had begun the storm died, the boat settled and they were left gazing at the empty rocks, in silence except for a disturbed seagull crying.