The Loving Cup (43 page)

I

In fact it was very early morning when they spoke again. When he had got her upstairs she had immediately fallen into a heavy stertorous sleep and he expected her to be unconscious until Henry roused her; but, waking himself about six when dawn had just broken, he turned cautiously on his side to find her sitting up in bed, hands behind her head, knuckles on the bed rail. 'You're awake early,' he said.

She looked at him but did not speak. Her brows were in a corrugated line. 'Have you a headache?' he found himself saying. 'Yes.'

'Well, I suppose it's not to be wondered at.' 'No, it isn't, is it.' 'What got into you?'

'One thing led to another. I
did
have a terrible dream.' 'When?'

'The night before last. It stayed with me, oppressing me all day.'

'That hardly seems reason enough.' 'No?'

The swallows were flying to and fro across the window, up to their exercises before they took off for their long trek to Africa.

She said: 'Did you mean what you said last night?' 'What was that?'

'That if I took to drink you would turn me out?'

'How could I? We have made our lives together. We are part of each other. I come
home
to you. This house now belongs to you just as much as it does to me. And our family. How
could
I?'

She slid a little further down the bed. One hand came from behind her head and lay on the sheet.

He said: 'All the same, there is one thing I cannot stand, and that is a drunken woman. It may be hypocrisy on my part to make such a distinction, since at times I have drunk much myself, and we are both accustomed to drunkenness among some of our friends. But it still remains a fact. A drunken woman turns my stomach. I suppose at heart I still think of women as having too much taste and restraint and charm. Drunkenness contradicts these - these beliefs.'

I
know, Ross.'

'Will it happen again?'

I
don't know.'

There was silence for a while. There was no further sleep in either of them. He said: 'What was the dream?' 'Oh,
that...'
'Yes, that.'

'Well, Ross, I dreamt that you and I were both dead. Lying on this bed together, beside each other. Or almost dead, not quite.'

'How do you mean?'

'We were lying beside each other - almost dead - but holding hands. Your right hand. My left. And I knew that so long as we continued to hold hands we should not die -should not
quite
die,
just
stay alive. And I thought: who will get tired first - him or me? Will I let go first and let him die, just because my hand is clammy and I want to turn over and I am tired of holding on? Or will he? Will he get tired first and let me die? It's only a matter of time. It's
...
only
...
a
matter of time.'

II

When she had stopped crying and had sniffed a few more times into the bedclothes she said: 'What a fool I am! When you are young you can afford to be sentimental; no longer when you are getting old.'

'Did nothing else happen yesterday to upset you?'

'Nothing.' She volunteered more brightly: it was so lovely and warm I took Bella bathing. The sea was all bubbly as if you had dropped soda in it. We had a lovely time. Oh
...
and I forgot to tell you. Ben turned up.'

'Ben?'

Glad of being able to change the subject, she told him of the visit, though not the whole of it.

Ross concentrated on this new matter with some difficulty. He had a stone in his chest from the night's events, and it was hard to see other problems in their proper prospective. Eventually he said:

'However much Ben may feel, however upset and grieved he may be, I cannot have an underground captain I cannot rely on. Although Zacky is about again, it is really on Ben -or on Ben's replacement - that we shall depend for the smooth working of the mine, with Jeremy and myself both gone.'

'He knows that,' said Demelza.
I
believe that if he feels any further grief over Clowance he will show it by an excess of work rather than by neglecting the mine.'

'Always before he was a conscientious man.'

I
believe he will be so again.'

'We'll see how he comes up today. Time is getting short if I am to find a replacement.'

She moved incautiously. 'Ooh, my head!'

'Why do you not sleep in this morning? Everyone is used to your occasional days of megrim.-'

'But this isn't
one of them, Ross. No, I will take a powder when it is time to get up.'

He said again: 'That was the strangest dream. It is on you I depend for my cheer and comfort, not for such gloomy and despondent thoughts.'

'Perhaps I am changing; perhaps life is changing me.'

She was better for her powder and went about the early morning normally enough, though they were guarded towards each other. But just before breakfast she took the piece of silver lead out of her pocket.

'What is this, Ross? This seal? Do you know it?'

He took it from her and. frowned at it, suspecting that again she was diverting or trying to divert his attention. 'Yes,' he agreed reluctantly, it is a scorpion. It is the seal of Warleggan's Bank. Where did you come by it?'

I
picked it up on the road. Near Pally's Shop.'

I
suppose one of his men must have dropped it going to Wheal Spinster. Though why
...
Did you go that far yesterday?' he asked suspiciously,
I
thought you took Bella bathing.'

'Oh, I did that too.'

He eyed her, noting the unusual pallor of her face, different from the healthy pallor of normal times. (She never .had much colour but the glow was underneath.)

I
have to make arrange
ments to see Francis de Dunstan
ville at Tehidy this morning. I want more details about the quality of the tin at present being mined at Dolcoath and Cook's Kitchen. But it is two weeks before I go to London. I can send John over with my apologies and suggest another day.'

'Why should you ? Because Ben is coming?' 'No, of course not; I shall not leave till ten. I was thinking it better, if you are not well.'
I
'm well now, thank you.' 'Well enough?' 'Well enough.' 'But depressed.'

'Not depressed enough to greet you as I did last night, if that is what you are thinking.'

I
did not say I was thinking that.'

'You may lock up the port if you wish,' she said stiffly,
I
believe there is a key on my ring that you may have.'

I
trust I shall never have to do that.'

'Then go today. There is no reason at all for you to change your plans. What time will you be home?'

'Oh, about seven.'

Bella and Harry had already eaten so they had a quiet and mainly silent breakfast. Towards the end of the meal Demelza said:

I
have been thinking about Jeremy.'

'Do you ever stop?'

'No. I have been wondering h
ow much it cost us to fit him
out in all those regimentals.'

'Littl
e enough,' said Ross,
I
bought hi
m a few things, but he produced quite an amount of money of his own. I was surprised and pleased with him. I suppose he saved up what little we gave him - and then Wheal Leisure produced a dividend just in time.'

'And since?'

'He has come on me for nothing since; so I imagine he must have managed for the first few months on his pay. Now there are fatter dividends from the mine, he should have no particular problem.'

'You didn't think to ask how he was going to manage?'

'No, I didn't wish to interfere. Why - are you worrying about him? Did you have some private letter from him yesterday?'

'Nothing!
I've heard nothing from him! It was just an idle question.'

'Well, I believe he has a fancy to arrange his own life. Jeremy, you know, however much we love him, is rather the dark horse. Not long ago we were talking: you said so yourself.'

'Yes...
I know I did.'

Jane Gimlett came in. if you please, sur, Ben Carter is outside.'

'Tell him I will see him in a moment.' Ross got up. 'Are you sure you don't need me here today?' 'Quite sure.'

He hesitated a moment more,
I
suppose it could have been nothing / had done to cause you to behave as you did yesterday?'

'Of course not.'

'Yet you are stiff towards me.'

Demelza said: 'Only because I am stiff towards myself.'

III

After Ross had gone Demelza spent a quiet morning, nursing her headache and her queasiness, and making preparations for the afternoon. Although not at her best today, some things could not be allowed to wait.

Even getting away seemed a major task, for she had to surround it with so many excuses. She knew this was one of her weaknesses: she never seemed able to make a majestic pronouncement simply that she was 'going out'. (She remembered an occasion when Jeremy was eight and she had put on her cloak and Jeremy had said, 'Where are you going, Mama?' To which she had replied, 'Nowhere
.' Instantly he had said, 'Can I
come?')
Eventually this afternoon Bella was dispatched and Henry 'seen to', and some cider-pressing that she had agreed to superintend postponed until the following day. She went upstairs and, the weather still being warm, she put on a cool linen blouse with short sleeves, and a linen skirt which wrapped around and was secured by five big bone buttons. Under the skirt she pulled on Clowance's shabby blue barragan trousers which Clowance had been too ashamed to take with her into her married life. These could be rolled up to the knee and prevented from unrolling by means of pieces of ribbon elastic. She put on thin lisle stockings and a well-worn pair of leather-laced boots which would not slip easily.

Then she took up a small bag, put in it two candles, a tinder box, a pair of scissors, a twenty-foot length of rope. She had no certain use for the rope, but she thought it appropriate to carry it, just in case.

Even now she had to shake off one member of the family, and the one most difficult to reason with: Farquhar.

Farquhar was the family's dog, and most particularly Isabella-Rose's; but like most animals he had
a.
habit of attaching himself to Demelza. So he did today, and was constantly ordered to go home, only to be observed a few minutes later following at a distance crawling on his belly. Demelza was painfully reminded of that other day and that
other dog which had been so much a part of her life and was now long gone. There had been an occasion when she had walked this way one Christmas long ago and Harry Harry, the Warleggan gamekeeper, had shot Garrick in the ear
...

This of course was not so long a walk. Kellow's Ladder came even before Sawle Cove.

She had passed it many ti
mes but never investigated it. The Ladder was something she knew the boys had used -
and Charlie Kellow also had used before he became so fat and boozy - and she had, without personal examination, assumed it to be about as safe and as unsafe as any other cliff climb in the neighbourhood. If you bred young children and lived in the neighbourhood of fearsome cliffs and a treacherous sea you just had to close your mind to the dangers and accept the fact that young people grew accustomed to their environment - otherwise you would never have a peaceful hour.

To get to the ladder you climbed or slid down a narrow path running diagonally across the face of the cliff, which here was not sheer but inclined inwards and upwards towards the land. This cliff face was tufted with grass and thrift and heather and the occasional stunted gorse bush, and was populated and punctuated by rabbits and rabbit holes. Then you picked your way further downwards among -an outcrop of granite boulders. By this time you had dropped about
150
feet, and here you came on a platform slanting at about thirty degrees towards the sea, largely grass covered, but part of it stone-walled with the ruins of a mine-working. From here it was about another fifty feet, slithering among boulders until you saw a V-cleft in the precipice face and at the bottom of the V was the hole and the ladder. Demelza reached it, lonely and breathless, and peered down the hole at the sand sixty feet below.

As she looked the sand was covered by the sea, and then uncovered ag
ain. The tide was later today.
It was not nearly
as
good a day as when Ben had come. There had been an uncertain, watery sun all morning, and streaky clouds had gathered to make a birch-broom sky. It looked as if autumn was on its way. But you could not be certain: in this peninsula of land thrust out into the Atlantic you could never be sure even of the bad weather.