The Twisted Sword (42 page)

'Ye gurt fool,' said Katie again. 'What d' ye want to go get drunk for? Sit down!' she commanded. 'I'll get ee a dish of water to bathe off your face. And I'll boil a pan - make ee some tay. Not as I'd not be above one myself!' Her own hands were trembling with the spent anger. She brought him a bowl and then while he dabbed at himself she lit the fire with some shavings and pieces of driftwood.

She sat back on her heels, looking at the fire. 'My, don't it draw!'

When she had come back from the pump for a second time with water to make the tea, she glanced at Music who had finished dabbing and was drying his face on a duster.

'That won't do! That's a halfy job. 'Ere, take yer shirt off. And yer breeches. You're all caked and cabby.'

He reluctantly removed his shirt and she looked at the muscles rippling in his arms.

'My, what a gurt man ye are! Look, I reckon Surgeon Enys should tend this wound in yer 'ead. 'Tis gaping like a little mouth.'

"Tis narthing, Katie. Reelly. I'll go Irby's and he'll put some salve on it.'

'We'll see 'bout that. Now yer breeches.'

Music looked at her sidelong. 'Cain't do tha-at. I got no slights on.'

'Well, land sakes, 'fraid o' me seeing something, are ee? Giss along. 'Ere -- this cloth'll do. Draw off yer breeches and wrap'n round like a skirt. 'Ere, I'll tak yer boots off. If ye bend too far 'twill open up the bleeding.'

So presently he was sitting with a piece of old tablecloth round his middle and a potato sack over his shoulders while she made the tea. There were two clean cups he'd bought for the wedding and a half jug of milk the cats had not been able to get at. They sat there in silence for a few minutes, drinking the hot tea. It was raining heavily now and a rising wind beat the rain against the coloured window panes. . 'Them Bices, them Billings,' said Katie, 'they should be learned a lesson.'

'Reckon they 'ave been,' said Music with a half-giggle.

'An' Joe Stevens. He's always one in the lead.'

'Ah. Well, I've give 'im a sore 'ead.'

'I'll mind it fur a long time,' said Music, sipping at his tea. 'I'll mind it fur a long time. You thur striking of 'em, this way, that way, they went down like ninepins.' He relished the phrase. 'Just like ninepins.'

Katie poured out more tea, stirred each cup with the one wooden spoon. 'I'd best be getting back. Else they'll think I've fell down a shaft. I'll tell 'em ye met wi' an accident. Mind you come first thing tomorrow.'

'Ais. Oh ais, I will that. I will that, Katie.'

'Not that Mrs Treffrey will scold. She'm easy-going for time so long as the work d'get done.'

'I'll be there, Katie, sure 'nough.'

Katie looked at him. You're a fine figure, ain't you? Gotten more clothes upstairs, 'ave ee?'

'No. Well . . . I've a jacket and breeches 'anging on the wall, but that's for Sunday.'

Katie went up and fetched them. She held them up for inspection and dropped them on the table. 'Let's look at yer 'ead.'

She examined him again. 'You should see Surgeon for that. It d'keep welling up. Aside from that. . .'

'Ais, Katie.' He smiled at her. She stared at him again. 'Reckon if I'd wed you you'd've drove me mad.'

'Stay a space longer,' urged Music. 'Look at'n. 'Tis enting down.'

'Put yer clothes on, then,' said Katie. 'You'll catch yer death.'

He dragged off into the scullery and presently emerged in his Sunday best. His face was a mess, three bruises and two cuts, but his eyes clear again, at their most dazed blue.

'Reckon ye need someone to look for you,' said Katie contemptuously. 'You're as fazy as yer cats.'

'No,' said Music. The firmness of his voice surprised her. It was the first time he had contradicted her.

'I want to look for you,' said Music. 'All the time - from daystrike to nightgleam. Tha's what I allus wanted for to do. All the time. 'Tis still what I want for to do.' An extra flurry of rain lashed on the glass.

'You reckon that, do you?' said Katie.

'Yes, I do.'

Katie thought for a long time. You'd drive me mad,' she eventually said. A smile cracked his battered face. 'Nay, Katie, I wouldn't. Honest I wouldn't.'

Chapter Twelve

On Friday, the 13th October Stephen was brighter than he had been for several days, and he seemed no longer in pain. He talked a lot to Clowance, though it was not always coherent.

'I've come a long way with you already,' he said, 'and there's big plans for next year and the year after. I been thinking them over all this time I've been laid up. For you and Jason and the Carrington line. I shall build another vessel, that's what I shall do, one to me own specifications, give the Lady Clowance over to Jason. Now the war's really over it looks as if we shall have peace in our lifetime, so we must bend our ways to make the best of peace. Peaceful trade's profitable if you get in when the tide's making, before your rivals. Great thing is not to work for other folk but to work for yourself. Then ye don't get paid per week - per month - ye get what ye've earned and it goes into no one else's pocket. I'm thinking to start a Joint Stock Company.'

'What is that?'

"Tis a more modern way of adventuring as in a mine. Or taking shares in a privateer. You establish a Joint Stock Company of say five thousand pounds and you keep three thousand of the stock in your own hands. Others invest in the shares and take a share of the profit, but you always keep control. That way you have the use of two thousand pounds of their money at no cost to yourself. It was the same sort of idea I thought on when I was in hock to Warleggan's. Then no one wanted a share. It will be different now.'

He licked his lips, and she wiped his face and gave him a sip of lemonade. He chuckled. 'I've been clever in me life, y'know. Clever this last year or so. I reckon you've brought me luck, dear heart. All along, you've brought me luck.'

When did your first wife die? she wanted to ask, and was she dead in 1813, when you were first going to marry me, or were you just resolved to take a chance on not being found out? She wanted harshly, desperately to ask, but instead she wiped his brow again and moistened his dry lips.

He said: 'I've been in one or two scrapes, as ye well know. And some ye know not of. That first time when we were at the races and Andrew recognized me as the man in the bar at Plymouth Dock ... It was a nasty moment. I've never been too sure of Andrew, y'know. He means well, most of the time, but he talks too much and is leaky in his liquor. Let him drop the wrong word when George Warleggan or one of his creatures is around .. . But now I no longer fear his indiscretions. He's sobering up with Tamsin, and it is all disappearing into the distant past. Like - like something else that happened that he was not concerned in. Others were. Ye'd be surprised if I told you who the others were. Someone quite close to you. But I never will, never can now..."

Jason put his head round the door. 'I'll spell you while you take your dinner, ma'am.'

Clowance went to the door. 'I cannot come yet. And - I think you should go for Dr Mather.'

'Why? Is he ...?'

'Tell him I would like him to come.'

When she returned to the bed Stephen was smiling again.

Ye're real good to me, dear heart. I don't know what I did to deserve a wife like you. What was I saying?'

'It does not matter, Stephen. Try to rest.'

'Oh, I know. About me old luck. Look you, there was Plymouth Dock, and I was well out of that. Then there was the stage - the other thing, and I was well out of that. Then George Warleggan and his toadies tried to bankrupt me and drew back at the very last, and I was well out of that. Then there was the privateering adventure, which has made our fortune. And a Frenchie discharged his musket full in me face, and the charge was wet ... Now I have fallen off a damned, cursed horse and hurt me back, but that is over now and I will soon be well out of that. We're turning up the aces, dear heart, aren't we now?'

'Yes,' said Clowance, sitting quietly down again.

'A leaky ship and the anchor's down. Hurrah me lads, hurrah.' Stephen was trying to sing.

'Hush, my dear, do not tire yourself.'

He was quiet for a minute or so, then he said: 'I reckon twelve pounds for a spring be too much. Why I can take it Plymouth and get it done for less. I reckon 'is always the way; your local port'll try to charge too much. In dry dock, ye say? I'm poxed if she needs dry dock.' Then a little later:

'Swedish pitch at eleven shillings a hundredweight and Russian tar at twenty shillings a barrel. Can ye match that?'

Friday the 13th. Clowance was not superstitious but the day had the lowering look of the end of summer, the end of hope. From this window she could see a corner of the cottage roof next door, a piece of sky with clouds as dark as coal smoke shredding across it, and a lip of the harbour curling with spiteful little waves. She was filled with dread for the future; all the warm hopes of last year were gone and she lived in a spider's web of sadness and suspicion. Everywhere where there had been certainty there were shifting sands. She had never felt so much alone in an alien world.

'What I want,' said Stephen, addressing someone outside the room, 'is a smart little cabin for the master, bulkheads half panelled in maple and teak. And then in the corner a fine settee upholstered in crimson plush, see? A neat fireplace and maybe a tiled surround wi' a brass mantelshelf.'

Now he turned his head suddenly: 'That suit ye, Clowance? Care to come wi' me across to Brittany? What shall we name her, eh? Now we've got a Lady Clowance, maybe we could call her the Lady Carrington? The flagship of the Carrington line!'

'I'd love to come,' said Clowance, 'when she's built. Get well first.'

'Oh, I'm coming along fine. Where's Jason?'

'Just gone out to fetch me something.'

'Reckon she'll carry a crew of eight, the Lady Carrington. That is about the style ... Frame shall be of English oak planks; deck, I reckon, of Quebec yellow pine. Very even and hard wearing. The oak can be got from the Tamar River and shipped from Plymouth. Masts of Canadian red pine; yards, topmasts, jib-boom the same. Diameter? I can't tell ye that till we've got the full plan! Where's Jason?'

'He'll be back soon.'

Stephen looked at her with a strange expression in his eyes. 'Tell him to hurry.'

'I will, I will.'

'She shall be laid down in Falmouth,' he said. 'Bennett's is a better yard than Carne's in Looe, bigger. Sorry, for your father has a money share in Carne's.'

'No matter.'

'Will ye hold my hand,' he said. She drew her chair nearer to the bed and took his hand, which was moist and had no strength in the grip.

"That Frenchie,' he said, with a chuckle that rustled in his throat. Te should've seen his face when the musket did not fire. I stabbed him through the chest. Blade went in so far I could not withdraw the knife. Biggest killing I've ever done, yet folk praise me for that. Don't make sense. Clowance, ye're a rare good wife. Where's . .. young . .. Jason?'

His head sank back on the pillows and his breathing became heavy and irregular. When Jason came back with Dr Mather, Stephen was unconscious. It was a long fight then; a man, still young, whose powerful body struggled against the forces of disintegration that attacked it. The hours passed and the night passed in this tremendous contest while the passionate need to live was slowly eroded by a relentless escape of blood. Dawn broke before it was over.

Letter from Jeremy Poldark to his mother, handed to her by Cuby Poldark the day Cuby returned to Caerhays.

Brussels, 1st June 1815 Dearest Mother, I do not suppose you will ever receive this letter certainly I trust you shall not! - but just in case I thought to leave it in safer hands than mine. In January 1812 I indulged in an adventurous caper that I feel by some alchemy of your own you have already partly apprehended. I will not go into details, for whatever I said your apprehension would never become comprehension. For I do not altogether understand it myself. A serious law was broke by three persons, of whom I was one. I will say no more except to make it clear - and this is one of the purposes of this letter - that I was not unduly influenced by the other two. If anything I was rather the motivating force, and I worked out the plan that was carried out. If you suspect who the others might be, do not consider them more to blame than I and indeed rather the less. Nor should adverse circumstances be held to carry any more than a small load of responsibility. Of course I was disturbed and restless and unhappy.

But that was only a scattering of gunpowder on the floor: there was no need to scrape it together and light a fuse! I wish I were able to explain it better than that -I cannot. Did I have an ancestor who ended up as a highwayman dangling at the end of a rope? One thing is certain. You are in no way at all to blame, nor is my father. I had a splendid childhood and a carefree youth-time. Any worm in the bud existed before the fruit was set. That is all - let us not be pompous about it. If, as I trust, I return with Cuby to set up house together near you, you will never see this -- though perhaps it assuages something in me merely to write it down, believing that it will never be read by the Person to whom it is addressed. But then, on my return to Nampara, and at an early stage, I shall reclaim from you a little Loving Cup that you say you found one day on the beach; and I shall look on it as a cup of good fortune and keep it somewhere safe in my own home. If you should read this letter, then perhaps it has rather been a cup of Ill-Fortune, and, since you say you picked it from the sea, to the sea it should be returned.

By the way, last Christmas Valentine was asking me about installing an engine for his new mine, Wheal Elizabeth. If I am not about, tell him to approach Arthur Wolff, who is really the first man nowadays. Tell Valentine on no account to put in a plunger poll engine; they work excellent to begin but the exposure of the whole piston to the atmosphere at every stroke is unsound practice and will lead to excessive wear. Well, this is about all I have to say! It is my usual custom to end my letters on a jolly note, but clearly this cannot be so in a letter which, if jollity prevail, you will never see! So may I just end with a charge to you and Father to care for Cuby and for our child? I know you will do this without any request from me, so pray take any more as said. Cuby is a wonderful girl and a wonderful wife - there could be no better - who is only just coming into her own. I would not want her to regress under any Influence her elder brother might exert. You, Mama, I think, would be the greatest influence - after me! - in inducing her not to do so. Love, love, love to you all. Jeremy

II

Letter to Sir Ross Poldark from George Canning.

Caldas, Portugal, 25th September 1815 My dear Friend, Thank you for your letter in reply to mine of the 8th July. In expressing our sympathy to you and your wife and family over your grievous loss we were only joining in the chorus of loving friends who must have written in the same vein to try to support and comfort you all. Though I have met none of your family -- except briefly your beautiful daughter at the Duchess of Gordon's Ball - I feel that you have always been a close and loving entity, and the loss of your eldest son will be a sword thrust that will wound you to the heart.

But my dear friend, this second letter of yours grieves me in another way because it speaks of your intended withdrawal from public life and your decision to live henceforward in your Cornish home seeing to your own affairs. In large - at least in part - I can only commend such a decision - for what else have I done? - and I know of your long formulated intention to leave Parliament at the successful conclusion of the French wars. That is as it should be. You are not the political animal I am.

But you have so much to bring to public life in some form -- a strength of character, a rare integrity, a thinking brain which does not allow itself to be diverted from its true concerns, a passionate belief in freedom and justice, a resolution in all good things: these are in such rare supply today that they cannot, shall not, I hope, be altogether lost to those of us who inhabit the world of affairs. Peace, I have no more to say, except to ask you in due time, in God's good time, to think carefully on what I write. As for myself, what you may imagine am I doing with my own life to preach to a better man? The answer is little enough. At the end of June I wrote to the Government offering my resignation as Ambassador here, and a month later they accepted it. Now that the menace of Napoleon has finally been removed there is no need to keep such a large embassy in being in Lisbon, so they are going to scale it down and leave it to a charge d'affaires. And I have become a private citizen! One of my main reasons for accepting the post in Portugal in the first place was on account of George's delicate health, and in the hope that the warmth should suit him. It does. So I have brought him to Caldas to the warm baths. You will understand - and forgive me for - such a preoccupation with our eldest son. Here it is even hotter than Lisbon, and Joan and the little ones have fled to Cintra where the sea breezes blow. But George prospers in the heat, so I shall stay as long as he is happy here. For the future? Of course I must return to England, temporarily or permanently, in the new year, if only to assuage my Liverpool constituents, who have seen nothing of me all this time! I do not yet feel ready to resume my political career (nor is there any inducement to do so), so probably I shall return to Portugal and then we shall travel into other parts of Europe - Madrid, Rome, Naples, Florence. Do you know you are luckier in one respect than I am, for I have never been to Paris. But one day early next year I may of a sudden arrive in Falmouth -- on my own, the family will stay here - and I do not know how far your home is from that port but in so narrow a county it can hardly be farther than a day's ride. By then, my dear friend, I trust you and your wife will have come through the worst of your tragic bereavement. At least let us talk, and if you are adamant in your decision I shall henceforward hold my peace. Believe me, with all sympathy and much admiration,

your Sincere Friend, George Canning

PS I am sure you will take great satisfaction from the news that Fouche has now fallen -- disgraced, I hear - and Tallien with him. So the stables are being cleaned at last!

Ill

Stephen Carrington was buried at St Gluvias Parish Church on the 19th October, the Reverend John Francis Howell officiating. A great many people turned out. In his short time in Penryn Stephen had become widely known, and on the whole well liked. Falmouth and Penryn, being ports, were more used to the abrupt arrival and departure of strangers and therefore were less clannish, at least on a superficial level. Stephen had had a 'way' with him, had been free with his money, talked with high and low alike, had put business in the way of the towns, and most recently had achieved a remarkable privateering success which had enriched both those who had put money into his adventure and the men who sailed with him. There were also mourners from Truro, and Andrew and Verity Blarney, and a large north-coast contingent which included Ross and Demelza and IsabellaRose, Dwight and Caroline Enys, Will and Char Nanfan. There were a few of his gambling and hunting friends - Anthony Trefusis and Percy Hill and George and Thomasine Trevethan. His nephew, Jason Carrington, stood beside Clowance all the time, tears running unchecked down his cheeks. On the edge of things, sidling into a corner of the church and keeping her distance at the graveside, was Lottie Kempthorne. Neither George nor Harriet was there, but a slim nervous lawyer called Hector Trembath had come to represent them. Clowance went through it all with a white, drawn face but tearless eyes. When it was over the Trevethans, whose large house was near the church, invited relatives and friends to a light meal, then everyone dispersed. Clowance had been staying with Verity: she said she would ride back with her father and mother that night and stay two or three days at Nampara, then she would return to Penryn where there was much to see to. Demelza said: 'Let your father do it; he will willingly do it; there is no reason for you to return at all, except to pack a few belongings.'

'I want to see to things myself, Mama. There is so much to think about; I haven't decided what to do about anything yet. Anything.'

She stayed three nights and then rode home. She had an open invitation from Verity but she decided for the time being to live at the cottage at Penryn. Demelza persuaded her to take Betsy Maria Martin with her, a solution Clowance said she willingly accepted of. She liked Betsy Maria, and another woman for company was welcome. She told her mother that she would stay at Penryn at least until after Christmas.

Demelza said to Ross: 'I think she may be stopping away because of Cuby.' Cuby was returning to Nampara in November.

'It is not so simple as that,' Ross said. 'I know there is this little bitterness on Clowance's part. But Clowance has suffered two of the hardest blows a woman can receive the loss of a brother and the loss of a husband - within a bare four months. She's a very brave, honest person, and I think she just wishes to face it alone.'

'Cuby too has lost a brother and a husband,' said Demelza. 'She is more hurt than she shows, Ross.'

'The child may help her-it must help her.'

Demelza sighed. 'We are a sorry lot. Thank God for our children - what is left of 'em ... Bella continues to bubble - she has quite recovered her spirits. And little Henry is a joy. One day, maybe, we shall learn to be happy with the blessings that are left.'

IV

In November the weather turned foul; there were storms up and down the coast, accompanied by the usual shipwrecks. A barque was wrecked off the Lizard with a loss of eight lives; she carried woollens and worsteds and refined sugar. Another vessel foundered near Padstow, with Indian spices, ivory, tea and sandalwood. A third with timber ran on the rocks at Basset's Cove. Hendrawna, wide open though it was to accept suitable offerings, only received some of the flotsam from ships lost elsewhere. Katie and Music were to be married on Saturday the 11th November, which was Martinmas. When the news leaked out that Katie had relented and was taking Music from choice and not from necessity, the neighbourhood heard it first with derision and then with resignation. Sentiment is as changeable as the wind, and apart from a few of the girls and youths who had taunted Music, the general feeling swung in his support. The lad must have something about him for Katie to show him this favour. Maybe he'd proved a thing or two to Katie that we don't know nothing about. Maybe she'd best make sure of her man this time before something really turns up! The only actual resentment came from Bradley Stevens, Joe Stevens's father, and some of the girls. Joe Stevens still had dizzy spells and Bert Bice's ribs were mending slowly. The week before the wedding, when the banns had been called for the third time, they got together in a group after church and thought out how best they might disrupt the wedding. They could create a disturbance in church, but Parson Odgers was so much in his dotage he would hardly notice, and anyway Music would only grin feebly and Katie glower; the ceremony would be carried on even in a pandemonium. Also it was rumoured that Dr Enys was going to be present, and although he was not a magistrate he knew all the magistrates. You didn't if possible tangle with the gentry. After the ceremony as they came out of church you could pelt them with mud, of which there was plenty after last week's storms, but again Dr Enys might be there and receive an ill-directed volley. Before the ceremony offered the better chances. Katie had to walk up from Sawle with her mother and her step-father (supposing they agreed to accompany her - Ben would certainly not be there); Music had a much shorter distance to come and might come alone (it was rumoured he'd had hard words with his brothers). They could get some liquid manure ready in pails and swamp him as he came up the hill. Then when he'd gone into church all sodden and stinking they'd barrow in a dozen loads of pig shit and dump it all over his cottage. This plan, the brain-child of Mary Billing, was acclaimed by all. The day before, Ross had ridden over to the Blowing House near Truro, in which he had a substantial share. He had dinner with two of the other partners and then met Dwight Enys at the Red Lion and they rode home together. Dwight said: 'From the beginning there was nothing any surgeon could do for Stephen except wait. If a man is injured in the head, one may attempt a trepan, if one of the limbs, at worst one can amputate; for the spine there is virtually nothing. In his case - though neither Mather nor I thought it suitable to ask that we might open the body we were both certain it was internal bleeding which led to his death.'

'Clowance was devoted to him,' Ross said, 'and they were happy together. He was a brave man and was becoming a successful one. After all his adventures and risky enterprises it is a cynical tragedy he should die in this useless and silly way.'

'I understand from Caroline that Harriet was much upset by the accident and has been more or less confined to the house since, not by infirmity but by George's edict. He is putting much store on the birth of this new baby.'

'They tell me he made a fortune out of Waterloo,' Ross said drily.

' "Dost thou laugh to see how fools are vex'd to add to golden numbers golden numbers?"'

'What is that?'

'Something I was reading last night.'

'Isn't there a verse in the Bible about the ungodly flourishing like a green bay tree?'

Dwight smiled. 'We all must learn to flourish as best we can, I suppose. And it's good to be able to survive, even in a more modest fashion, as we both do, with somewhat clearer consciences than George must have.'

'I do not suppose that George's conscience ever caused him the loss of a moment's sleep. What would cause him loss of sleep would be if he felt he had paid half a guinea too much for a horse he was buying from a starving farmer.'

The track separated them. The mid-afternoon was frowning towards evening, and it would be dark before they reached home. When they came together again Dwight said: 'You will have heard that Music Thomas is to marry Katie Carter tomorrow.'

'Yes.'

'I hope it may turn out well. I think it might. For Katie to marry Music willingly makes an altogether better prospect of it'

'Ben does not feel so.'

'It was about that that I wanted to speak to you, Ross. I know you've long had an interest in the Carter family, as indeed I have. We both remember our visit to Launceston gaol.'

'I often think', said Ross, 'it is due to your ministrations that Zacky is still alive.'

'Zacky is alive because he has a constitution which will not give way; my medicaments are no more than a useful prop. But I think Katie will be grieved if no one of her family - except her mother, and she reluctantly - comes to the church ... I suppose Ben is unrelenting ... and I doubt if Zacky could walk that distance. But Mrs Zacky is a devout Wesleyan and goes regularly to church. Do you have any leverage you could exercise?'

'Only persuasion. Which I will exercise since it is you that asks. Betsy Maria is in Penryn with Clowance, but there are a half-dozen uncles and aunts - some of them younger than Katie - who might be willing to go. And of course there are the Nanfans. I'll see what I can do.'

"Thank you.'

'I don't recall having seen Music for a couple of years, and then he was still very much the village fool.'

'I've no doubt that if you were to call to see him now,

he would be so overcome with embarrassment that you'd think him no better. And I rather fear that the excitement of the wedding may tip his balance tomorrow. But not only has he improved, he is still improving. Rather than being mentally retarded, as we all thought, I am convinced he is just a very slow developer, whose development has been much held back by the part he learned to play and what the village expected of him. I think with Katie's understanding and companionship he may become at least as normal and intelligent as most of those who taunt him.'

By the time they separated the night's cloak had been drawn over the sky with just a scarf of daylight reaching into the sea. Ross made a short detour to Mellin and knocked at the Martin cottage. So he had come one morning thirty years ago in search of cheap labour to work his neglected fields, and so had met Jinny for the first time and become involved in the fortunes of the whole, Martin family.

All those years ago Zacky Martin had been a small, tough, wrinkled man - wrinkled far before his time; now with real age and the long struggle against miners' tissick he had become tiny: a cashew nut instead of a brazil. Somehow Dwight kept him alive, mixing hot vapours for him to inhale at bad times, or potions of nux vomica and strychnine as a tonic for good ones. This was a good one, and Ross, stooping into the small living room, greeted them both and sat down. Mrs Zacky, who had delivered Demelza of Julia and helped at the births of Jeremy and Clowance, and who had had eight children of her own, had not shrivelled with the years: she was a stout, white-haired, bespectacled, flat-faced, rubicund, vigorous seventy-one. In the room, as it happened, were Gabby and Thomas, now both married and living at Marasanvose. They had been collecting driftwood (which Ross had stumbled over in the dark outside). The wrecks around the coast were breaking up and distributing their flotsam. Fortunately - from their point of view - old Vercoe, the Customs Officer at St Ann's, was known to be laid up with an ulcer on his leg. Mrs Zacky said: 'Well, I 'ad thought to go, an' then I thought not. Katie be very wilful; always 'ave been, will not be told. She've never even brought 'im round to see us. I mind 'im in church, o' course but he never come to no prayer meetings.'

'She'm shamed of 'im,' said Thomas. 'That be the truth and no two ways o' looking 'pon it.'

'I aren't so sartin he's so dead'n alive,' said Gabby. 'He's a treat wi' horses. An' I seen him quick 'nough 'pon times.'

Zacky said: 'Katie be wilful but she have her head screwed on. Maybe 'twill turn for the best.'

There had been many improvements in the cottage since those early days: a good smooth planchen laid over the earth floor, and rugs on that; three comfortable upholstered chairs, a dark oak table, a mirror, a new fireplace; the ovens moved into the scullery. Zacky had prospered with his master. Ross had pressed him to move into a place less cramped for size, but as their family had grown and gone and his own active life became restricted Zacky had been less and less inclined to move. Gabby relit his pipe. 'I 'ear tell there's like to be trouble.'

'Trouble?'

"Twas only a whisper I picked up but they d'say them lads that was always baiting Music, they d'plan to upset the wedden.'

'Upset it? How?'

'Dunno. There's three or four lads, half a dozen girls, mischief bent, ye might say.'

'What time is the wedding?'

'Nine o'clock,' said Zacky. 'After it they go back to work at Place House.'

Mrs Zacky clicked her knitting needles. 'Reckon I'll maybe go up to the church, if 'tis your wish, Cap'n Ross.'

'Maybe I'll come along wi' ee, mam,' said Gabby. "Tis slack time an' I can steal a hour.'

'We'd best not be late leaving this eve,' said Thomas.

'There's a couple loads wood outside. If we can have the lend of your handcart, Father?'

'Anything of value come in?' Ross asked.

'Two spars o' good timber, sur, looks like black spruce or some such. Naught else you'd say of value.'

'Think you they've come from the Kinseale?

'They're small pieces, ten foot long, but there may be better on the morning tide.'

'What time is high water? Ten or a little after? Well, it's worth keeping an eye open.'

His mission accomplished, Ross led his horse home. He found Demelza seated before the fire reading to Henry; Bella and Cuby heads together over a piece of needlework; their latest cat, Hebe, licking a delicate back leg at Demelza's feet and Farquhar, nose in paws, drowsing in the steady candlelight.

When he came in all was commotion, movement, talk. Demelza went off immediately to see that supper should soon be served. She still hadn't learned the ability to delegate.

Against the probabilities, her relationship with Cuby had ripened into an easy friendship. There had been some moment of crisis, Ross sensed, soon after Cuby arrived, but that had passed. This peculiarly fraught, uneasy situation could so easily have failed because of the special tensions that operated within both women; and it was a testimony to Cuby, he thought, as well as to Demelza, that they spoke understanding and affectionately to each other, considerate but not over-polite; they even sometimes differed on things, even shared a joke. Next Monday Demelza was to go to Penryn to spend a few days with Clowance, and he knew she would try to persuade her to spend Christmas with them. Ross's instinct was against it, but he did not utter a word. The second loss, coming so hard on the heels of the first, had left a raw edge that couldn't yet begin to heal. It was twisting the sword in the wound to attempt to keep up Christmas in any way whatever. If Clowance came she might find it hard to reconcile herself to the prospect of a new baby in the house and a sister-in-law about whom she still had resentful reservations. Dwight said he thought Cuby's child would be likely to be born in mid-January. As soon as possible then Cuby would want to show the baby to her mother. That would be the time to press Clowance to come to Nampara. The longer the girls were kept apart while the first wounds healed, the better chance there was of their finding harmony and understanding.

V

Day came up about seven, with angry clouds which seemed to be a residue of some quarrel of the night. Ross took his spyglass to the window of his bedroom but the sea and beach were calm and unencumbered.

They breakfasted at 7.30, when Bella was full of some rhyme or jingle she had learned, supposing it to be the sounds a nightingale made when in full song. At eight Ross strolled out of the house as if going to Wheal Leisure, but instead walked up the Long Field and its promontory of rocks at Damsel Point which divided Hendrawna Beach from Nampara Cove. The unbroken sand of Hendrawna Beach was a creamy white as the sun broke through, the placid sea, so wild a few days ago, turning gently over at its edge, playful wavelets bearing no visible cargo. The two Martin men had got the best last night. He wondered how Katie's wedding would go. He hoped the village lads, who could be spiteful enough, would not interrupt the ceremony, or turn the evening into some sort of a noisy riot. He turned to go back to the house and then stopped to stare into Nampara Cove. By the freak of the tides practically all wreckage was washed up along the great beach, the cove scarcely ever gathered anything of note. Today the position was reversed. The cove was choked with wood.

He clambered down the side of the gorse-grown cliff and came out on the small beach, part sand, part pebbles, bisected by the Mellingey Stream. It took no time to recognize the wood as being good quality timber, more black spruce, red and yellow pine, oak and probably beech. There were also tar barrels and bales of rope and oakum floating around. He touched nothing but began to limp quickly up the narrow green valley to the house. There were a half-dozen able-bodied men about the farm. They would be mainly in the fields by now. And Sephus Billing. Sephus Billing was this morning repairing the fowl house. He was a fair carpenter but his intellectual attainments would not have put Music to shame. And he was a member of the Billing clan who pullulated in one of the larger cottages of Grambler village.

'Sephus!' Ross called as he came into the yard.

'Ais, sur?'

'There's a lot of good timber washing in in Nampara Cove. Go and tell the other men, I want them to stop work and go down to see what they can salvage.'

A gleam lit up Sephus's dull eyes. He wiped his nose with the back of his hand. 'Ais, sur, that I'll do.' He put down his hammer. You never had to tell a Cornishman twice to down tools if there was booty to be had.

'And Sephus!' as he made for the gate.

'Sur?'

'When you have told the men you may go on to Grambler and tell your family of it. There should be a little bounty for all.'

Ross walked to the gate and shut it after the fleeing man. With an ironical gaze he saw Sephus running in the direction of Cal Trevail, who was pulling carrots in the field beyond Demelza's garden. Soon there would be plenty of willing helpers. All Sephus had to do then was alert the village of Grambler.

VI