The Loving Cup (3 page)

'I don't think they were suited.'

'That I can well understand. It would be such a poor match.'

'It was not what I meant. Unless you use the word match in a wider sense.'

She smiled. 'You are very wise for one so young, Jeremy.'

'Is twenty-two young?'

'It seems so.' She was going to add 'to me', but did not.

He took another grip of her. Every now and then he had to do this, for she tended to slip.

The sun had been gone down well before they came within sight of Place House. Swallows were wheeling. A long twilight was yawning up the sky.

'This will do,' she said. 'I am most grateful to you. See, the bank here will do for me to sit while you go for help.'

'What help is necessary now?'

'If my husband is looking out, as he may well be, he might become unduly alarmed, think I am serious hurt.'

'We shall soon be able to reassure him.'

'And jealous,' she said lightly. 'My husband, because I am so much younger than he, is jealous of all men.'

'Oh,' said Jeremy, 'that I can understand.'

'Thank you.'

He set her down on a piece of greensward between two rocky outcrops.

'Thank you,' she said again.

'And what would you like me to do now, Mrs Pope?'

'If my husband does not see you, then the best way will be to go round to the stables. Music Thomas will still be there. Ask him to come. I believe I can lean on his arm.'

'Why not have two men and sit in a chair?'

'We have no other men about the house, Jeremy. Mr Pope will not have them.'

‘
Indeed.'

'Tell one of the maids. If possible tell my personal maid, Katie Carter. Ask her to inform Mr Pope, but on no account to alarm him. He mus
t not be subjected to shocks.'

He took the stocking out of his pocket and put it beside the boot. 'I shall be back in three or four minutes.' He turned to go.

'Jeremy.’ ‘
Yes?'

She stared at him with eyes like a cat's, more open with the coming of dark. 'Believe me, you have been most obliging.'

II

Music Thomas was the youngest of the three brothers Thomas who lived next door to Jud and Prudie Paynter; he sang alto in the choir, walked on his toes, and was not the brightest of men. He worked at Place House as a stable-boy, and in the light of the startling information Mrs Pope had just given Jeremy, it occurred to Jeremy to suppose it was Music's apparent disabilities which made him employable by Mr Pope.

That the strange, now sickly, Robespierre-like figure of Mr Clement Pope should insist on presiding over an entirely female household, like some sultan jealous of his harem, gave Jeremy a disagreeable
frisson.
It lifted a curtain on life. There had been rumours from the first that Mr Pope kept a cane for his daughters, which was
not
used on their hands, and that even now when one was twenty years of age and the other twenty-one, the sanction at least still existed. What of Selina, his wife? It had been said that she came of a poor family, her father an army surgeon who had died young. She had married for money, and so far as one could tell had kept her part of the bargain. That Mr Pope doted on her was plain to see whenever they appeared in company together. Was
she
subject to the same discipline? It seemed unlikely, since any pretty woman with an old husband has ways of making her pleasure or displeasure felt. But it was clear that Mr Pope was insanely jealous. A friendly neighbour, nine or ten years her junior, must not be seen carrying her into the house after a mishap on a horse. And the only man employable, within permissible touching distance of her, must be one whose manhood was in considerable doubt - and even he did not sleep in.

Jeremy was lucky enough to find Music at the first call, and Music who, unknown to Mr Pope, was betraying all the conventional signs of being normal by having fallen hopelessly in love with Katie Carter, was delighted to be given the excuse to seek his beloved out and pass on the message that Mrs Pope had sent. Then he accompanied Jeremy, with his lolloping twine-toed walk, to succour his mistress.

Unknown also to Jeremy, indeed unknown to anyone but the surgeon, Music Thomas had been several times to see Dr Enys on the subject of his own disabilities. Though he could only with great difficulty tell the time, and never knew what a month was, he was quite capable of living a fairly normal life, if other people would allow him. Unfortunately he was the butt of small boys, who whisded and gestured after him, and he was aware that he didn't really 'count' where women were concerned and that particularly he didn't count where Katie Carter was concerned, that clumsy, black-haired, long-faced girl on whom his mind and his heart had settled fond hopes. He meant nothing to her; he was a joke, a chorister with the wrong voice, a young stupid who was always making mistakes and getting into scrapes, some of them true, some of them apocryphal, invented by witty, scabrous tongues.' 'Eard the latest 'bout Music, 'ave ee?' In. order to impress Katie, in order to be thought a serious young man worthy of being her suitor, he wanted to shed this reputation, this sort of false renown.

It was this tall gangling stable boy who h
elped Mrs Pope home; and Jeremy
went on his way.

He took the cliff pathway, skirting Trenwith land - a dangerous route in the twilight for one who did not know the way, for the fences put up long ago by the Warleggans had rotted or been stolen for firewood, and here and there the cliff had fallen, takin
g part of the path with it. Littl
e detours to skirt the sudden precipices were easy to miss in the dusk. But he knew his way all too well. It was a way he had walked so often this year.

Down into the depths of Sawle village, with a few sickly lanterns and candles gleaming here and there; broken and boarded windows, half doors patched with driftwood; the stink of stale fish and sewage and the skeletal clang and clatter of the stamps. Poverty clung round the Guernseys. like sediment at the bottom of a pond; there had been no change, no improvement since Jeremy was a boy; but as one climbed the cobbled rutted way up to Stippy-Stappy Lane, so the small respectabilities grew, past the Carters' shop and up the hill towards Sawle Church. Then past the church with its inebriate spire and through Grambler village, which was just a row of cottages on either side of a miry lane, put up when Grambler mine was working, but now, though all inhabited, mainly in a high state of disrepair. The Coads lived here, and the Rowes, the Bottrells, the Prouts, the Billingses, the Thomases, and next to the Thomases, last cottage in the village, the semi-hovel where Jud and Prudie eked out their last days.

"
There was a light in their cottage, and Jeremy stepped delicately past, not at all anxious to be recognized and called in, when a hand touched his arm.

'
Well, me old lad. Well met, eh?’

Even in the dark the tawny hair showed; anyway no one could
mistake the voice.

'Stephen! For God's sake! What are you doing here?'

Teeth showed in the dark. 'The bad penny, eh? Or should it be the bad guinea?'

'You never wrote. I didn't know what to expect -'

'You must have expected me back soon or late. And I was never one much for the letter.'

'When did you come?'

'Landed at Padstow yesterday. Borrowed a nag from there.'

Belatedly they shook hands. Old friends, old comrades, old companions in crime. 'Anything happened here?' Stephen Carrington asked. .'No. Not in that way.' 'No questions asked?' 'Why should there be?' 'How's Paul?' 'Well enough.'

'Being careful, is he?' 'Yes. I think so.'

From the Paynters'cottage came the crash and rattle of pans and Jud's complaining voice. 'Are you walking home?' 'Yes.'

'I'll come a way with you.' They went off, tramping together in the dark. Jeremy said:'Did you find your privateer?' 'There were two or three proposit
ions I carefully considered.' ‘
But?',
'They weren't right And the money wasn't really enough.' Jeremy did not speak. 'Have you
taken any of it yourself yet?' ‘
No.'

'You're a fool, old son. We agreed to split by a third.' 'I'll take it in due course.'

'Oh, yes. I know. — I know. We were all in a bit of a stank to begin with. But by now things must have quieted down.'

The sky was lightening
where a moon was due to rise. 'How is Clowance?' ‘
Well.'

'Is she wed yet?' 'No.'

'That fellow Guildford will be no good to her. She'll wipe her feet on him. She needs a firm hand.' 'Such as yours?'

'Oh, well, let's not go into that yet a while.' 'Where are you staying?'

'With Ned and Emma Har
tnell. They have agreed to put
me up for a few days.'

'Is that all you are staying?'

'Not in Cornwall. I've new ideas for Cornwall. But mebbe it will not be in this district.' 'Privateering?' 'No. Pilchards.'

'What?'

I’ll
tell ye about it sometime.'

Jeremy laughed humourlessly. 'It's a far cry from fighting the French at sea to catching fish on the Cornish coast.'

'Mebbe you think so. But one could be as profitable as the other. And not without risk neither.'

'You rouse my curiosity, Stephen.'

'Hold hard for a few days and I may satisfy it.'

As they neared the old trees around Wheal Maiden the moon was just glimmering over the top of the sandhills. A geometry of bats were drawing their eccentric triangles against the sky.

There was a light in the Meeting House. 'Your uncle still belongs to that lot, I suppose?'

'Oh, yes. The leader of it. You'll never separate him from his religion. He's a rare good man.'

Stephen grunted. 'And how's Wheal Leisure?'

'Production up. Some of those medieval galleries have been interesting; and we've profitably expl
ored the north set.
You have money due from the last dividend.'

'How much?'

'Sixty pounds.'

Stephen grunted again.

it's more than a 50% return on your investment,'Jeremy said sharply.

'Oh, aye. I don't complain. Far from it, me old lad. It will all help in this new project I have. I wish twas ten times as much!'

‘I
am sure no one would object; but at least the mine is paying, and it has only been in operation fifteen months.' 'And Ben Carter?' Stephen said. 'What about him?'

'He's back as underground captain, I suppose?' 'Yes.'

'He would be, so soon as I was out of the way.' Stephen stopped. 'This is as far as I shall come, Jeremy.'

Jeremy said:
I
should ask you in but Clowance is home, and it would not be fair to her just for me to turn up with you.'

Stephen said: 'D'ye know, but for Ben Carter I'd be married to Clowance now. D
^?
ye realize that?' 'I suppose so.'

'No suppose so about it. If he hadn't picked that quarrel
...'

'Come, Stephen, you don't expect me to believe it was that way round.'

'Well
...
whichever way round it was,
he
was the one who came between us. Faults I have a-plenty, but harbouring old grievances I never thought was a failing of mine. All the same, I'll kill him one day. That's a promise.'

'We'd lose a good underground captain,' Jeremy said, trying to lighten the tone.

'On, yes. Oh, yes.' Stephen stirred the ground with his foot. 'You can joke. But let me ask you this. Suppose you'd ever
been betrothed to marry your Cu
by - or whatever she is called. Suppose the wedding day had been set. Suppose someone came between you and her. However the quarrel happened, supposing one man came between you. How would you feel about him?'

Jeremy looked into his own life.

'Well?' said Stephen, peering into his face.

'Yes,' said Jeremy, not wanting to be drawn about his own affairs. 'But you've got to remember Ben Carter will never be your rival. He could never marry Clowance. Clowance is just fond of him. If you'd had any sense you'd never have flared up the way you did. I know it's easy to talk-'

'Yes, it's easy to talk. But when you're in love you're easily jealous, and things come out. You say things... But, Holy Mary, I said but little! She took it all as if twas mortal hurt...'

'We've talked of this too often,' said Jeremy wearily. 'Clowance has strong, deep loyalties. Anyway, the quarrel happened. As I've said to you before, it has always seemed to me—a sign of a deeper complaint. Things must have been going wrong between you before, though maybe you did not notice it. And she hasn't come round. I think you'd best forget her.'

'Some chance.' 'Oh, I know.'

The two young men stood silently for a few moments longer, each considering his own ill-treatment at the hands of fate.