The Miller's Dance (13 page)

course she moved to pass him but he barred the way. The drawing-room door was half open only just behind him.

'Let me pass,' she whispered intensely but he did not move.

I
asked for ten minutes.'
'No!'

'Five, then. Tell me, explain to me, a little more of your thinking in this matter. After all, do you not owe me that? You say you would - sell yourself merely to preserve a house - not an ancient and beloved family seat which has sheltered ten or twelve generations of Trevanions, but a castle, a new
castl
e, a beautiful but somewhat ridiculous castle - on which your family has insanely overspent itself.'

'Yes
!
If
you wish to put it so unpleasantl
y. That is no worse a reason than many people marry, for. Certainly I should never rest easy, if I married for preference only and went away somewhere to some other part of the country and watched from afar as the house and the grounds and all the other lands were sold and the Trevanions vanished from a countryside where they had lived for so many centuries! For
that
is what will
happen,
and I should have contributed to
it!'

'And Augustus and Clemency? Do they also have these noble ideals?'

'Why are you so objectionable? Clemency, yes, she does. Augustus... I cannot say.'

'You think that if he finds a young lady with a pretty fortune he will be likely to hand over most of it to enlarge the affairs of his eldest brother. I rather doubt it!'

She did not reply.

'Of course,' Jeremy
said, 'his name is still Bettes
worth...'

She said: 'Good night, Jeremy. And goodbye. There are many pleasant girls who would make as good a wife for you as I would. I urge you to find one.'

'The difficulty is,' he replied, 'that I have found the one I want
.
Be she pleasant or unpleasant, I still want her.'

Her pearl-ivory skin was darkened rather than coloured by its flush.

He said: 'When I knew - when I was told it was money that you wanted and not breeding I was somewhat more disgusted even than before. To want someone of higher estate, if fastidious and arrogant, was yet understandable. This willingness to auction yourself for money...'

'If you don't let me pass I shall call out to my brother!'

'Call out! Go on. Call out!'

She did not.

'So,' said Jeremy unmoving, 'I thought I would cut you out of my life - forget you - as you seem always to be urging me to do - set the sour page aside as a lesson in the futility of - of trying to judge human nature - of its shallowness, of its worthlessness, of its disenchantment
...
Until by misfortune I met you again today
..
.
’

There was a bray of laughter from the room beyond. It was Unwin Trevaunance, who always laughed like that.

Jeremy said: 'Now, having seen you again, I discover my mistake in supposing you
can
be forgot On whatever terms, I am still tied
...
So now
...
so now I think, how much would you want, Cuby? If you are for sale, what is your price?'

'Coming from you,' she
said in a low voice, 'could anything be more insulting?'

'No, I don't see that. I'm in the market I want to
buy
you. I'd rob a bank to buy you! Tell me how much you would cost?'

She began to cry. It was totally without noise. Just tears coming out of her eyes and running down her face. For some moments she did not even try to brush them away.

'Ten thousand?' he asked.

She said: 'Oh, Jeremy! Please take yourself away to
Hell
and leave me alone!'

III

All those who were leaving had left. The dark, vivid sister of the Duke of Leeds had departed with the Hon. Maria Agar, with whom she was spending the night Having accepted a
postponement of one month to his first marriage, with disastrous consequences to his happiness, George looked with an element of unease on his future wife's insistence on continuing secrecy about his second. In fact, as he had pointed out to her this afternoon, there could be little secrecy remaining. The banns had been published for the first time yesterday in the church of Breage in which parish Lady Harriet was at present living, so anyone attending prayers there would be bound to know. Her aunt, Miss Darcy, obviously knew
. Maria Agar knew. Caroline Pen
venen knew. And the household or Cardew could hardly be given less than three weeks to prepare for a new mistress.

She had patted his face and said: 'Do you want a big wedding with three choirs and five hundred guests and a great marquee?'

'You know I do not! It is the very last thing. But that is not -'

'Nor do I. This way — nobody speaking about it until a week before - a quiet, simple ceremony - the fewer relatives and friends the better. Is it not more dignified, for us?'

'Yes, I agree. But-'

'Then pray do not be a sulky boy.'

It was so long since he had been called any such thing that he was not quite sure whether to be flattered or annoyed. But she had her way.

The one advantage of the secrecy was that Valentine need not be told until he was back at Eton. Disciplined by his father last year for over-spending and for having been rusticated for a half for immoral behaviour, Valentine had this year been noticeably more circumspect and the tensions between him and Sir George had lessened. But there was still a disaffection between them. Many boys go through a cynical, world-weary, disillusioned stage which means only tha
t they are unsure of themselves
and are having difficulty growing up. Valentine's was more deep-seated and enduring man that; and often he made George uneasy and irritable with his thin handsome good looks and sharp sarcastic tongue. Sometimes in their quarrels the old suspicion had reared its head in George and he had had difficulty in keeping to the oath he had sworn on his dead wife's body that he would never again give room to the old corroding doubt and jealousy which had ruined the last years of their married life.

Elizabeth, by giving birth prematurely to her daughter, had reinforced and made concrete all her angry denials about the birth of her son. George, at her death, had totally accepted them. And in the intervening years he had adhered to his belief that Valentine was truly his son. He still did not really doubt it even now, but he wished the boy would exhibit some more solid Warleggan traits, like his sister Ursula.

It could be said that he bore most resemblance in bearing and manner to his half-brother, Geoffrey Charles Poldark, at that age. In the days when Geoffrey Charles was living under his roof George had found him a constant irritant and n thorn. At the time he had blamed the Poldark blood of his father, since nothing ever good, in George's view, came from that poisonous strain. But possibly, since Elizabeth was mother to them both, the fault lay at least partly with the Chynoweths. Old Jonathan had been an ineffectual nonentity all his life; but Elizabeth's mother, herself a Le Grice, had been a determined and difficult woman, so one might trace the contrariness and perverseness to her. It was the most acceptable explanation.

Anyway, George would be saved the necessity of explaining or at least announcing personally his forthcoming marriage. A letter was altogether different. When Valentine came back it would all have happened; everyone would have settled down and a new pattern be firmly established.

After the Trevanion girls had retired, only the three older men were left in the drawing-room on the first floor, drinking port and stretching their legs towards the fire.

Sir Unwin Trevaunance, who had left Tehidy this morning, was catching the coach for London tomorrow at eight-thirty, so he said he was sleepy and would leave the other two to their own devices.

'You've told us little of your own project,' George said. 'I trust it augurs well.'

'Fair enough’
said Unwin. 'The advance in copper prices ' makes the venture
the more promising. I doubt not
shall be down again before long. It's a pesky distance to travel. When I sold Place House I thought, that's an end
to those interminable bone-rattl
ing journeys.'

'Except that you still sit
for Bodmin,' said Major Trevan
ion.

'Oh, pooh. Who cares about that? There's no election pending.'

George said: 'And you find Mr Pope amenable to the idea?'

'Not at all! He's as stubborn as a horse with glanders. I'd damn his eyes if
‘
twere not for that pretty woman he has somehow enticed into being his wife. God knows, I wonder what happens to women sometimes! Morsels as tasty as that
hide
away when you're looking for a wife and then they turn up
married
to old men as thin as asparagus tips, and with a good deal less
juice in 'em, I would suppose.'

‘
it is possible that money and possessions play an important part,' observed Trevanion drily.

‘
On yes. Oh yes. Alas, alas.'

'So what do you intend to do?' ask George.

'About what?' Unwin looked startl
ed, as if his secret thoughts had been surprised.

'About the mine?'

'Oh,
that.
Well, go ahead, of course! He cannot stop us. . There's not a court in the land that would find for him
...
How's your mine doing, by the
way ? That one I see smoking
each time I go to Place House.'

'Spinster? Only moderate well. We cleared a small profit last year, but costs are ever rising.'

'What made you close Wheal Plenty just along the coast? Good copper, wasn't it?'

'High grade ore. But it is the sort of mine that yields abundantly only for a time. Once such ventures show signs of being mined out, it is essential to shut them down to save the loss you know will be coming.' George narrowed his eyes. 'As we have done before. Wheal Prosper, for instance. And Wheal Leisure.'

'That's been opened again, though, hasn't it? By the Trenegloses. And the Poldarks.'

'Much good may it do them,' said George spitefully. 'Copper never improves as you go deeper.'

'Well, we shall hope to find ore at shallow levels. The signs are good
...
We're wanting a name for the venture, by the way. Do you have any thoughts?' 'Wheal Pope?' suggested Trevanion, and laughed loudly. 'If you are interested,' George said, 'we might have
s
urplus materials from Wheal Spinster
and ladders from the west shaft that we are closing down. We could agree a price.'

John Trevanion, on whom the port was having a deleterious influence, pursued his own line of thought. 'If Wheal Spinster, why not Wheal Virgin, eh? Or Wheal Wife? Or Wheal Widow.'Another gust of laughter.

Unwin stared at him, as if taking his proposal half seriously. 'Chenhalls wants to call it some fancy name -
Hannah, I think, after a mistress he once had. For my own part, since your nearest mine has closed, George, I thought we might call it West Wheal Plenty.' 'Plenty?' said Trevanion. 'Plenty of what?' Unwin smiled. 'O
f all the things we most desire
my friend. And now good night to you both. I must be up betimes.'

IV

Left alone at last, the two remaining men changed from port to brandy and talked for a while. The only other active person in the house was Valentine, who on the third floor was making successful advances to a young kitchen maid who had recently been engaged. His father might think him too tall, with over-thin shanks, one slightly bowed, and a long nose down which he permanently took a spur view of the world; but she found his dark good looks and gentility and cheerful, charming confidence quite overwhelming.

In the drawing-room Sir George kicked at the fire to make it blaze. 'On the subject we have so far scarcely discussed, Major Trevanion, I have to tell you that the sort of advance you had in mind, made virtually without security, must attract a high rate of interest.'

John Trevanion shook himself out of his semi-torpor. This was too important a matter to debate with a fuddled brain. 'Surely the land...'

'Already mortgaged. However, let us not quibble. The thousand pounds
that
my bank is advancing this month, with a further thousand next, should help to tide you over the immediate crisis. Am I not right?'

'You are right. And I am obliged. Nevertheless it will only be a temporary alleviation.'

'Well, it will hold the position for the time being. Possibly until the end of the year?'

I
doubt that. I have other commitments, such as -'

'Not, I trust, wagering on horses.'

Trevanion's florid face went a deeper red. As always, his moods were quick-changing, unpredictable. Had he not been so heavily in hock, not only to this damned banker but to a dozen other folk, he would have stalked out of the house.