The Miller's Dance by Winston Graham
There was a sudden sharp snap. ‘By the Lord!’ said Jeremy. ‘I believe it is giving!’ He withdrew the bar and looked at the padlock.
‘Here, let me try now,’ said Stephen, but Jeremy would not move out of the way. He thrust the bar in from the other side and tugged and strained. Nothing gave. He returned the bar to where it had originally been. The coach wheels suddenly took on a deeper, more resonant sound.
‘What’s that?’
‘A bridge,’ said Paul; ‘over a valley, not a river. I recognize it: we’re about twelve minutes from Lostwithiel.’
The lock cracked again. Jeremy put the crowbar on the seat beside him, fumbled with the steel loop of the lock. It came out of its socket . . .
They pass through a hamlet: dogs barking, children shouting and running alongside, shawled women in doorways. Put the lock on the seat, open the safe-box. In it are four heavy bags of coin, a bunch of keys, a large ruby tie-pin, a double ring with diamonds, two gold signet rings, and a seal stamp with the scorpion sign of Warleggan’s Bank.
It had been agreed that, as Stephen would be on the coach for another stage, no incriminating evidence should be carried by him; so the bags of coin Jeremy thrust into the inner pockets of his long black coat. The smaller pieces of jewellery he put in his waistcoat pockets. The keys went in his trouser pocket.
Another hamlet.
‘This is Sandylake,’ Paul whispered. ‘We’re almost there.’ Shut the safe-box, carefully transfer it through the hole into the driver’s compartment. The great clock face gaped.
Jeremy picked up the circle, tried to edge it back into the driver’s compartment as the coach again slowed to a walk. The circle of wood stuck. It was smaller than the hole, but the circle was slightly oval and the two ends got wedged.
A shrill blast on the horn. Paul was busy on the tools, wrapping them in their soft linen container, slipping them into his skirt.
They were almost in. Jeremy shoved the wood violently and it went through so sharply that he dropped it. It clattered on one of the safe-boxes.
‘Out of the way,’ snarled Stephen. Jeremy fell back in the small space almost on top of Paul: Stephen pushed up the thick felt, fumbled one screw between his fingers, put it in its hole but it dropped out. With oaths he scrabbled among the cushions, found it again, put it back, carefully, his fingers trembling as with ague, screwed it tight. Now the other.
‘We’re here,’ said Paul. The coach was going over cobbles, the horn brayed again, the horses were flicked into a last-minute trot to give a smart impression.
Stephen got the second screw fixed, passed the screwdriver to Paul, who pocketed it. They were all feverishly taking stock of the interior. One thing definitely to show was a pronounced crease, amounting almost to a crack, in the lining where the felt material had been persistently bent back throughout the journey. Part of it could be covered by the cushions and the seat, but the rest of the crease must show. So long as Stephen occupied that corner his bulk would almost hide it. But the coachman would have to be very alert to notice it and draw an inference. He was most likely to see it when he came in to light the lantern, but by then they would all be gone.
The coach lurched like a ship at sea as it turned into the yard of the Talbot Inn. Now again all the clatter and bustle of the Liskeard stage. Horses whinnying, ostlers shouting, outside passengers being handed down, two men stamping their feet with the cold, a market woman selling oranges, a twisted idiot boy trying to help with the cases, the smell of horse dung and coffee and dried hay and wood smoke.
It was Stevens, the second coachman, who came to the door. Lieutenant Morgan Lean was the first to get down.
He said: ‘I think the lady is serious unwell.’ He stretched his big frame and walked slowly into the inn.
The Reverend Arthur May came next. He looked very serious and frowned at Stevens with his lop-sided shortsighted stare. ‘I much regret. My wife is feeling very poorly. I think we shall have to complete our journey tomorrow.’
‘Oh,’ said Stevens. ‘Sorry ’bout that, sur. She’m looking some slight at ’Skeard. I’ll tell Bob.’
Marshall was summoned. The Reverend Mr May repeated his statement to him. ‘I very much fear,’ he said, ‘I very much fear we shall not be able to proceed today. It is quite possible that a long rest may put my wife in fair enough condition to continue the journey tomorrow. Do you know the innkeeper here?’
‘Ais. Mr Roberts you d’mean, sur. Shall I go ask ’im now if ’e would have suitable accommodation?’
‘For one of the cloth,’ said Mr May. ‘Accommodation for one of the cloth. I should consider it a favour if you would do so.’
Marshall bustled off.
‘Come, my dear,’ said Mr May, extending his hand into the coach, careful not to bang his coat on any projection, ‘I trust you will be much recovered by a night’s rest. If you are better we can go on tomorrow.’
Chapter Nine
I
Tuesday, January 26th was much like Monday the 25th, except that the cold north-westerly breeze had altogether dropped. The weather, Demelza said, was making up its mind whether to be fair or foul. Anything might occur tomorrow, from a tempestuous westerly gale to a return to northerly airstreams, with snow or hail showers and shivering temperatures. In the meantime Tuesday was halcyon. The sun streamed out of a remote pale aniline sky, so different from the peacock blues of yesterday, the sea had settled, the Dark Cliffs looked pale as bread in the afternoon sun, primroses peeped in the hedgerows and little bristly tufts of future bluebells thrust out among the worn undergrowth of winter. Birds, not totally deceived, nevertheless chirped and twittered and pinked around the house and the stream.
She decided the family should go for a walk. There was nothing but good news everywhere, particularly from Geoffrey Charles. Ever since Christmas her health and energy had been coming back like fresh water irrigating dry ground. She had not had a single night of fever and only one day of uncertain malaise.
They went across the beach. Clowance and Isabella-Rose led the way. Clowance would have been perfectly happy to keep pace with the brisk progress of her parents, but Bella inevitably had to be first. All her life was taken at the run. So they were half a mile ahead on the enormous smoothly rolled expanse of Hendrawna Beach, Bella skipping sideways and urging Clowance along. Jeremy was still away. He had been gone two nights but had said he would be home sometime today.
‘It’s a year,’ said Demelza, ‘just about a year since all the machinery was landed for Wheal Leisure. What was the date, I can’t remember, no matter, it was a fine day though dull; only a year ago Henry was not even thought of! So life changes. Isn’t it wonderful to feel we have another son, another child! And so like you! What was the word Aunt Agatha used to use? The very daps of his mother. She said that about Julia. Well, Henry is the very daps of his father, don’t you agree?’
‘We’ll have to scratch his cheek with a pin,’ said Ross. ‘Then there’ll be no knowing us apart.’
‘But aren’t you happy about it, Ross? Aren’t you content?’
‘I don’t know where one ends and another begins! I think I’m happy; I know I’m content; and I’m vastly relieved.’
‘That’s the opposite way round from me. But you were always of a contrary nature. Relief is such a small thing . . .’
‘Not for me it is not. When you were so mopish. And so irritable . . .’
‘Was I irritable? Yes, of course. I know I was. I don’t imagine what got into me. I could not help myself. Well, it is gone now. Now I feel like Bella!’ She began to skip sideways like her younger daughter, prancing ahead of Ross, eyes aglint, hair blowing.
‘D’you remember one day coming back from Trenwith – that first Christmas when I was expecting Julia – and we walked home singing Jud’s song?
“There was an old couple and they was poor,
Tweedle, tweedle, go twee.”
‘Dear life, it seems a long time since – are we the same people, you a
‘If you proclaim it so loud,’ Ross said, ‘the gulls will hear you.’
‘There was an old couple!’ Demelza shouted at the top of her voice. ‘Tweedle, tweedle, go twee-ee-ee!’
The girls heard her and turned and waved. She waved with both hands held aloft. They stopped, thinking she wanted them, but she gestured to them to go on.
‘Come here,’ said Ross. ‘Sober down. Walk beside me. Take my hand.’
So she did as she was told.
II
They had turned back, leaving Clowance and Bella to go further and further on until they were two dots almost out of sight.
Ross thought: sometimes one speaks the truth on impulse. I did then. I think I am happy, I know I am content. Everything in the end has moved for us well. (The end? Well, so far.) Thanks to the discovery of the Trevorgie workings the mine will pay out a good dividend next quarter. Not riches like Grace, but a fair enough beginning considering. (Grace is failing, but no matter; perhaps somehow the two may be profitably propped up together.) Must get Ben back soon. He, after all, discovered Trevorgie. His resignation can only be accepted as token. In a week or so, when his grandfather is better, he and I will tackle Ben together. It seems even more stupid of him to refuse to come back now that Clowance and Stephen have not been reconciled. Their separation must have arisen from something deeper, some more fundamental disaffection than a crude quarrel and a fight outside Wheal Leisure.
The new young man: does he mean anything in Clowance’s life? Is he just a charming, eligible, comforting figure she is, almost without realizing it, using as a reassurance to herself that she is now finally over her infatuation for Stephen? Or by this time next year will he be our new son-in-law?
And Jeremy? Jeremy is more of a problem because he is so much harder to read. Everything seems to be going well for him. The opening of the mine is now justified, a new small whim-engine is building, some sort of a reconciliation has occurred between him and the Trevanion girl. And with the total defeat of the French army in the snows of Poland, there is literally far less inducement for him to go to fight. That will make Demelza happy. And now Geoffrey Charles . . .
And for myself? Ross thought. Perhaps I am doomed in some way (or blessed, who knows which it is?) to find a large part of my own pleasure or otherwise in the pleasure or otherwise of my family. I believe I reflect more happiness than I generate. This is especially so where Demelza is concerned. But to some extent with all of them. It is not so much that I do not seek happiness, as come upon it most often at second hand. Yet I am as selfish as the next man. Poldark is perhaps not a breed to live high and free. How fortunate that I have this woman whose nature is devoted to loving all life, appreciating the small things, seeking them out like a collector seeking a new butterfly, and never allowing any of them to stale. I follow behind her, knowing of my happiness through her.
As selfish as the next man. True enough. For in spite of my total involvement with my wife and children I know that next month I shall go to London, and when that comes I shall know a perverse distress at leaving them, yet a perverse sense of relish at returning to the scene I consciously despise. In spite of being no use in the House I shall be interested in its new composition. It is said that Liverpool has increased his majority by forty. It is also said that five or six of Canning’s most loyal supporters have lost their seats because of their devoted allegiance to him. There will be a shifting and a realignment. That will not be without pleasure to observe by one who seeks nothing.
Except the prosecution of the war. If Napoleon is temporarily down we cannot lean back and think our greatest efforts are past. That way we shall lose all our gains . . .
‘Who is that coming down the cliff from Leisure?’ Demelza asked.
As selfish as the next man. ‘What?’ Ross asked.
‘It’s Jeremy. I can tell by his lanky legs. He’s back, then. I told them to lay for him for dinner.’
Jeremy waved and they waved back. They approached each other at a rate of about eight miles an hour. They came together and he kissed his mother, shook hands with his father, and they turned for home.
‘How long will dinner be? I’m ravenous!’
‘Oh, twenty minutes. How was Mr Harvey?’
‘Harvey?’
‘Yes, you were—’
‘Of course. Well enough. Still in straits for money, you know. Until he can pay off his late partners . . .’
‘Does he have much to pay?’
‘Oh yes . . . Yes, there are considerable sums outstanding. But he will survive and prosper, I believe, for it is his nature . . .’ Jeremy frowned across the beach. ‘Is that Clowance and Bella?’
‘Yes. I think they are just turning back.’
‘Did you see Trevithick?’ Ross asked.
‘No, Father. He was in – in Bridgnorth.’
‘Bridgnorth?’
‘Some – er – castings that were to have been done for him in Hayle have now had to be transferred there because of the injunction . . . And you, Mama,’ said Jeremy with an effort. ‘You look brave!’
‘I feel brave,’ said Demelza, ‘and believe I shall eat just so much as you for dinner.’
All the same she did not think Jeremy looked brave. From seeming younger than his twenty-one years he had of a sudden come to look much older. His complexion was sallow, and his eyes dark, as if from worry or lack of sleep. A woman of eccentric perceptions where her own family was concerned, she had a sudden moment of unease, of panic, an awareness of crisis, as if something less tangible than the sensory was warning her of a looming danger, either shortly to come or just past. She looked again at Jeremy, assuring herself, trying to reassure herself that it was only a recurrence of the fever disturbing her blood.
‘Reports from Leisure are encouraging,’ Ross said.
‘I’m glad. I – went up there as soon as I came home.’
‘Manny Bice and Toby Martin have had a new find. It should bring them a small fortune before the pitches are agreed again.’
‘So – we are in profit.’
‘Distinctly so.’
So . . . we are in profit, Jeremy thought, still staring at the sea. In profit two ways – only one legitimate. It had come off. After the early hitches it had all gone according to plan. They were safe. Reasonably safe, anyway. All clothes, wigs, disguises had been burned before dawn broke. What they had brought away with them from the two steel boxes had been assessed, counted, carefully hidden. So long as they all behaved with circumspection and intelligence the risks were now small. There was nothing to identify them. Descriptions were bound to be vague and unreliable. They had ridden away into the night. How could anyone know where they had come from, where they had gone to?
In profit. Yet it didn’t feel in profit. The bitter rage that had driven him to organize this thing had burnt itself out in the performance of the act. His anger, his frustration, had blinkered him to normal considerations of right and wrong and risk. Now it was over, and successfully over; yet all that was left in his heart was ashes. It was as if his love for Cuby had been purged by the robbery, had apparently died in the coach. Maybe at some future time it would revive, but at the moment he no longer cared anything for her and only asked himself how he could have been so obsessed, so stupidly obsessed as to
Perhaps in a day or two – a month or two – the feeling would wear away; the self-disgust would weaken into some more easily containable emotion. At present he felt he had wakened from a nightmare – to find that the nightmare was true. But all things pass. With time one would no doubt begin to feel and think normally again.
He wondered how his father and mother would react if he said something to them now. The Poldarks, it seemed to him, had often been against the law. But not in this way. They had contrived to pick some sort of a fine line among the ‘thou shalt nots’ of English and Hebraic decree. Yet Jeremy was aware that the basic emotions which had driven him to do this thing had been stronger than his own common sense. And the angry resolution had never faltered, not even in the long hours of the night before the coach ride. That it had now relaxed its grip in no way minimized the power it had exerted while it lasted. Through what wilder generations had his blood come down? But did that inheritance explain anything, excuse anything? Was not one the possessor of one’s own soul?
Oh, nonsense. It would all pass. He gave his shoulders a shake as if to dispossess himself of ugly thoughts.
‘Oh!’ exclaimed Demelza. ‘Seeing you, I had almost forgot! Yesterday we received a letter from Geoffrey Charles! It gave us – well, see for yourself! Do you have it, Ross?’
Ross took a sheet of paper from his pocket, the broken red seal attached. He handed it to Jeremy who read:
Ciudad Rodrigo
29th December, 1812.
My dearest Cousins All,
Do you know what has happened to me? Something quite Spectacular and entirely without Precedent! Can you guess? Certainly you cannot!
No, I have not been made Adjutant General of the Forces Overseas, I have not been knighted for my valour at Salamanca, I have not been singled out by Lord Wellington for promotion to the Chief of his General Staff. Nothing of the sort. But, by a single deliciously Happy Accident, I have become a Married Man!