The Miller's Dance by Winston Graham
A degree of silence settled in the church while the Reverend Clarence Odgers was led in by his wife. There was nothing wrong with Mr Odgers’s eyesight or his legs, it was only that his memory took in things like messages breathed on glass. It had even gone downhill since the opening of the mine: now, if not watched closely, he was as liable to marry Henry Poldark to his godmother, Caroline Enys, or indeed begin the words of committal on Jud – ‘earth to earth, ashes to ashes’ – which some possibly would have considered a sign of wishful thinking on the vicar’s part. Jud had been a thorn in his side far too long.
‘Thou shalt not move thy neighbour’s landmark!’ Jud said suddenly. ‘That’s what the Good Book d’say, an’ mark my words and no missment, if ye don’t obey the Good Book ye’ll be cast into the burnin’ fiery furnace along wi’ Shamrock, Mishap and Abendego. But ye’ll not come out like they come out – Aah!’
Prudie, not having needed the stick for his bearers, now rapped him on his bald head for silence. He turned like an empurpled frog, only to see the stick raised again, and he was constrained to swallow his fury, the noise of the fury reverberating in his windpipe like a pumping engine sucking up mud instead of water.
Thereafter the baptism would have proceeded uninterrupted had Mr Odgers not got it into his head that Henry was to be christened Charles. Three times he dipped his fingers in the water and began: ‘Charles Vennor I baptize thee . . .’ and it was only at the fourth attempt he got it right, by which time Henry Vennor was crying the church down and Bella had got a fit of the giggles.
The brief ceremony over, Jud’s four bearers hurried to get him out of church and by the church door in time to receive the piece of christening cake that was traditionally presented by the parents to the first person they met coming out of the church.
‘Blessed be the man that hath not walked in the counsels of the ungodly,’ called Jud as he was borne out like a sinking lugger in a rough sea, ‘nor stood in the way of sinners – Gor damme, what’re ee about – tossing me ’ere and thur wi’ no more consarn ’n if you was bearing a sack o’ taties!’
But he was sitting quietly, a smirk on his face, all ready to take the cake that Demelza handed him, and he held tight to it with his big grubby hand and would not allow Prudie a sight of it.
The only notable absentee from the church was Stephen Carrington.
III
It was altogether a noisy Christmas for the Poldarks. By a piece of unpremeditated timing, while everyone was out at the christening, a large bullock cart drew up at the stream, and after some manoeuvring managed to cross it and arrived at the front door of Nampara, where the two drivers alighted and, finding no answer to the bell, scuffed their feet and blew on their fists until a great crocodile of people appeared wending its way on horse, on pony, and on foot down the valley. The bullock cart contained the grand piano Ross had bought earlier in the month.
Room had been made for it in the library, but edging it, even bereft of its legs, through the narrow door was a tricky job. Men struggled and spat on their hands and heaved and called advice to each other all through the early part of the christening tea, and it was late in the evening, when everyone who was going had at last gone, before Demelza had a chance of trying it. With great difficulty Isabella-Rose was persuaded that until she grew up the spinet in the parlour was good enough for her, except for the special occasion. Demelza played a dozen pieces that evening, and most of her family tried to put her off by singing out of tune.
On Christmas Day the Enyses came to dinner with their two little girls, and Sam and Rosina Carne; and on St Stephen’s Day the Trenegloses came over, and Paul and Daisy Kellow.
The Kellows brought the Friday newspaper with them carrying the headline ‘Total Defeat of the French Army!’ This dispatch confirmed that of the 17th but went even further. Davoust’s Corps had been completely destroyed. What remained of the French army had been confronted by two Russian armies barring their way on the Beresina. Led by the Emperor himself, the French had broken through, but had left 12,000 drowned in the river and 20,000 more as prisoners. Of all his great army of half a million men, it was said Napoleon had now only 10,000 left. At Warsaw he had taken coach for Paris and abandoned these remnants to their fate.
It was a time for dancing again on tables, and if the Poldarks could not quite achieve that, they did their best most ways. The piano, like a new and handsome toy, came in for much use, with ever more singing. Demelza played any number of old Cornish songs as well as all the favourite carols.
Since her return from Flushing Clowance had caught sight of Stephen twice, but had not been trapped into a direct confrontation as at Pally’s Shop. Ferocious rumours of his doings sometimes reached her. But on the 27th a young man called Tom Guildford appeared just as they were sitting down to dinner and gratefully accepted an invitation to stay. It seemed that he had much of a taking for their elder daughter, and made no secret of the fact.
‘That’s better,’ said Ross in an aside to Demelza after.
‘D’you like him, then?’
‘So far as I can tell. But I am not so much comparing him favourably with Stephen as welcoming another young man just for comparison. She became committed too soon.’
Demelza remembered a conversation she had had with Caroline Enys on this particular subject a couple of years ago. It was certainly better to see many, but in the end did it matter how many one saw?
All through Christmas Jeremy was in the highest spirits. He flirted outrageously with Daisy, made puns and ludicrous jokes at the dinner table, got drunk and had to be helped to bed. He was absent on the evening of the 28th and Clowance, by chance encountering him as he was tiptoeing in very late, was certain he had had a woman. Her sharp nose picked up a whiff of cheap scent. There was not much open prostitution in this district, the nearest being in Truro; but no doubt there would be not a few in the villages willing to oblige the future master of Nampara. Clowance hoped he did not get landed with a paternity suit. She did speculate for a moment about Daisy, but she knew the next time they met that it had not been so.
The only trouble was there seemed no overt reason for Jeremy’s explosive good spirits. Sometimes it was more like rage than laughter.
On Tom Guildford’s second visit he said he had ridden most of the way with Valentine, who had branched off to pay his respects to the Pope family at Trevaunance and would be coming on to Nampara within the hour. After some lively chatter Jeremy went off to the mine, claiming a crisis there, and was not seen again until bedtime, by which the two young men had left. To Demelza’s indignant complaint that he had missed both his dinner and his supper, Jeremy replied that he would raid the larder right away and make up for lost opportunities. Remembering what had happened to Francis, Demelza was never easy when one of her family was out on mining business and did not return when expected, so she had discreetly sent Matthew Mark Martin off to Wheal Leisure about seven to make inquiries. The information was that Jeremy had left the mine at six with Paul Kellow. When he eventually returned home he offered no explanation as to his whereabouts and no one asked.
The only one to comment earlier was Tom Guildford, who, having persuaded Clowance to go for a walk with him along the beach, said:
‘I trust I’m mistaken, Miss Clowance, but it seems that your brother may not like me.’
‘Oh, I don’t think that at all!’
‘Well, I had only been with you a short time and it seemed to me his face changed, and soon after that he left. I know of nothing I said that could have offended him.’
Clowance decided to be as direct. ‘I think what you said that offended him was to tell us Valentine Warleggan was on his way to see us. I have no reason at all to suggest to you as to why he should not care to meet Valentine – they were friendly enough earlier in the year – but twice since Christmas when I have suggested we should call on him Jeremy has refused – and brusquely, as if the suggestion should never have been made. I’m sorry if that is so, for Valentine is v
Surf was thundering at them in the distance. So resonant was it that the beach might have been hollow like the stretched parchment of a bass drum.
‘Well,’ Tom said, ‘if that is all, I am happy it is not I of whom he disapproves. For, wishing to stand so well with one of the Poldarks, I should be very unhappy to stand ill with any of them.’
‘Certainly Isabella-Rose has a taking for you.’
‘That is not kind.’
‘Oh? It was not meant unkind.’
‘In some circumstances the merest pinprick can stab deep.’
‘Oh, Tom,’ Clowance said, smiling, ‘you must not play the ardent suitor quite so soon. We have met three times, is it, and have been comfortable in each other’s company. That is all.’
‘It is not all with me, I assure you. I swear to you I came to spend time at my uncle’s house this Christmas quite heart free and fancy free, and looking for nothing but a pleasant relaxation; some gambling, some shooting, some drinking perhaps – but never this. An arrow has gone through my heart. If you cannot understand me you can at least pity me.’
Wheal Leisure had just been coaled and was sending up smoke from its chimney like curls escaping from a full-bottomed wig.
‘Perhaps you know,’ Clowance said, ‘that I was until recently engaged to be married.’
‘Valentine said something. I trust I am not . . .’ He paused.
‘No, you are not. At least . . .’
‘What unfortunate creature can have been so careless as to let you slip away? I am sorry for him.’
‘But not for me?’
‘I cannot suppose you really loved the fellow, or I believe you would have stuck to him through thick and thin.’
‘Oh, Tom, that makes me feel very uncomfortable!’
‘It was not meant to, God help me. What minefield am I straying through?’
She laughed. ‘Perhaps we should change the subject. It is a very difficult one to consider rationally, even for me – as yet. I only wanted you to know – to be aware – that . . .’
‘A burnt child dreads the fire?’
‘I was not going to say that, but I think you are right.’
‘Fire can be warming as well as hurtful. However . . . let us not press the point. Do you want to know anything about me?’
She looked at his sturdy darkness – not a very good skin for a young man, but healthy. His teeth showed uneven when he smiled, but the quality of the smile was not affected. Physically attractive, if not with the dangerous animal maleness of Stephen. She thought he would have more humour in his disposition than any of her previous suitors. Even when he was at his most passionate she suspected there would be a hint of self-deprecating irony at the root of his behaviour.
‘Clearly you do not,’ he said, after waiting. ‘But I will tell you all the same, even though in the briefest way. I am twenty-three and in my last year at Jesus. I have one brother – older – and three sisters – younger. My family is not rich, neither is it poor. My parents live in Hampshire, but have property in Falmouth, also in Penzance. I am already reading law because I expect to go into that profession. But my ultimate aim is to live in Cornwall and possibly become agent for one or more of the big estates . . .’ He broke off. ‘Of course I should be saying all this to your father – and will in due course, with the slightest encouragement from you. But if I judge your family aright, their daughter is given exceptional liberty and freedom of choice; and what you personally decide will overcome everything else.’
They walked on. Two groups of birds, disturbed by their approach, stirred, moving reluctantly out of their path.
‘What are those?’ asked Tom.
‘What? The birds? Those are sanderlings.’
‘Sanderlings?’
‘Mixed with a few plovers. They often come at this time of year. The other group, those keeping their own company, are scoter ducks.’
‘And that is your mine we have passed on the cliffs?’
‘Yes.’
‘Isabella-Rose was telling me about it.’
They walked on in silence.
‘And me?’ said Clowance presently.
‘What?’
‘What do you want to know about me?’
He scrutinized her until she became restive under his glance.
‘You?’ he said. ‘I want to know everything. But need to know nothing.’
IV
Jeremy had gone with Paul to the Bounders’ Arms. After a while they were joined by Stephen. There the three young men sat talking and drinking and expressing their personal views of the world. None of them realized what a watershed in their lives the evening was to be.
‘It looks now as if the end of the war may come soon,’ Jeremy said. ‘There must be an end somewhere to Buonaparte’s manpower.’
‘However early it comes it’s not likely to come early enough to save our firm,’ said Paul.
Stephen said: ‘I’m going away in a couple of weeks. I’m going back to Bristol, see if I can find a ship that suits me. I’ll throw me Leisure shares on the market – they may fetch what I put in. Twill be small enough capital; but it is only while the war lasts that a privateer can operate.’
‘Even if the French collapse,’ Paul said, ‘which I doubt, we’ve still got the United States to fight.’
Emma came in with three fresh tankards. ‘I didn’t wait to be asked,’ she said. ‘I know now with you bonny swells that you keep time with the clock! Just regular, eh?’
‘Where’s Ned?’ Stephen said in a stage whisper. ‘Out of sight? Time to give me a kiss, have you?’
She pulled her skirt out of his hands and laughed. ‘Don’t you make free. He’s a hard man when he’s roused!’
‘I’ll wager,’ said Stephen significantly. ‘I’ll wager.’
She left the room to more laughter, but they sobered when the latch clicked. There was little to cause any of them amusement. Stephen and he, Jeremy thought, were in like condition now: equally deprived, equally cheated, equally putting on the clown’s mask. Of course there were vast differences in their circumstances, vast differences in their chance of yet getting what they most wanted. Stephen, he knew, was still more than half convinced that Clowance would come round in the end. He had rehearsed to Jeremy – who absolutely refused to be drawn as to his own opinion – the many things he might say to her when she called at the Gatehouse or accidentally contrived a meeting. Absence would eventually make the heart grow fonder. Although he did not say so openly, Jeremy could tell, by reading the hints and the silences, that Stephen cursed himself for having been such a fool as to have accepted the sexual half-measures Clowance had imposed upon him. He should, he believed now, have over-ridden them, taken her by semiforce if necessary. Women never fundamentally disliked a little rough treatment. (More than one had told him it was their secret dream.) Clowance might be different but she was not that different. And, once he had taken her, marriage would have swiftly followed. And, once they were married, quarrels took place within the marriage. They might shout at each other, even come to blows; but they would have been bound then, living together; her mettlesome independence would have been forfeit.
Since October Stephen’s name had been linked with one girl after another, but mainly with Lottie Kempthorne, the lanky daughter of Charlie Kempthorne who had come to a bad end a good many years ago by betraying the local smugglers. His two scrawny little daughters had been taken in by an aunt in St Ann’s and brought up with her own children. May had married a patten-maker and gone to live away; but Lottie at twenty-five or six was still unmarried and a year ago had been turned out of her aunt’s cottage for her loose behaviour. More recently she had been reluctantly allowed in again, but her reputation remained unredeemed. She was pretty in a rather limp way, and there were rumours that she had been seen coming out of the Gatehouse during the recent moonlit nights, an occurrence which would not commend itself to the Poldarks generally i
Stephen still worked part time for Wilf Jonas. They had come to an arrangement whereby he could take a day off when he chose. So long as Stephen had any expectations of regaining Clowance he could count on some consideration from Wilf, and he’d agreed a cut in wages to ease the way.
Privately Jeremy could see Clowance’s point of view and could have spent some time explaining it to Stephen; but what was happening in Clowance’s heart he had no idea at all, and he was pretty sure that that would decide it in the end. The intervention of a third party, with whatever good intentions, would be a useless exercise and make him unpopular with both.
So they were two of a kind, he and Stephen – except that he had no hope at all. Two of a kind. Restless, deprived, unable to come to terms with what had happened to them.
Stephen began talking about the captured vessels that were for sale again in Plymouth and at other, smaller, ports around the coasts: a beautiful American brig, for instance; a fine fir-built French cutter; vessels of that sort could well be bought at knock-down prices; they were ready for sea, could be victualled and crewed within a matter of weeks and soon enough be cruising off the French or Irish coasts looking for the sort of prizes they had recently become. Did one have the money. Did one but have the money!
Paul yawned. ‘You are becoming a thought tedious on the subject, Miller. You bring it up not less than once a week, I’ll wager, and all to no end. If wishes were butter-cakes, beggars might bite.’
‘Well,’ Stephen said sardonically, ‘there is another proverb: nothing stake, nothing draw. I am still the richer by not a few guineas – as you should be – from the Penzance lifeboat.’
‘And observe by what a narrow margin we survived that!’ exclaimed Paul. ‘I would still be reluctant to exhibit my face in Plymouth even now.’
‘I would exhibit me face in Plymouth tomorrow,’ Stephen said, ‘if twould profit me. But to buy one of those vessels you’d need maybe four or five hundred pounds; then there’d be the expense of fitting her out and getting her to sea. You’d need seven hundred to be on the safe side.’ He took a gulp of beer. ‘Lot of use me Leisure shares would be to meet that. No . . . twill mean me trying me luck in Bristol once more – going as a paid hand but with a small share. God’s wounds, I don’t want a small share, I want the lion’s share, so’s I can go where I like, do what I like! Once you get started on your own, once you get launched . . . And as soon as this war’s over the opportunity’s lost!’