The Angry Tide (46 page)

She hesitated a long moment, then nodded again. 'But -'

'Then be that not the most important thing of all? Being together. Working together. Talking together. Walking together. There's so
much
to love - even if it be not the love you mean. The sunrise, and the rain and the wind and the cloud, and the roaring of the sea and the cry of birds and the - the lowing of cows and the glow of corn and the smells of spring. And food and fresh water. New-laid eggs, warm milk, fresh-dug potatoes, home-made jams. Wood smoke, a baby robin, bluebells, a warm fire
...
I could go on and on and on. But if you enjoy them wi' the one you love, then it is enjoyment
fourfold!
D'you think I would not give all my life to
see
ye sitting smiling in that chair? What is life if you live it alone?'

'Oh, Drake,' she said, tears suddenly running down her face and over the hand across her mouth and on to
the
other hand. They splashed on to her frock where it was already wet with the rain. 'Oh, dear - I was - I was - afraid of this
...'

'Ye cann't be afraid of having what you most want in life.'

'No
...
Afraid of my own weakness. Afraid I should never convince you. I love you, of course. I have said it so often to myself in
the
night. Often it has been like an anthem - giving mc strength. But that doesn't mean I am a whole woman any longer. Drake, I am - damaged - and crippled
...
inside
...
in my
mind’

'There now,' he said. 'See, I'm not going to come nigh you, not even to wipe away your tears.'

Parliament adjourned on the 20th November, and was not to reassemble until the 21st January. Those members who returned for the next session would come back into a new life, a new century.

With two months to kill, the Warleggans decided to return to Cornwall after all. Elizabeth was set on it now, and George made no objection. At the moment he seemed to have little interest in her, or the disputed child who travelled with them. Nor did he seem to care much about the child she now so obviously bore. Although dicir return was not hurried, there was none of the leisurely, triumphant progress of the journey up. If the coach jogged her, it jogged her; if the length of the stages tired her, they tired her; if the bedrooms were draughty, they were draughty. They reached Truro on Sunday the 1st of December, but there was so much sickness in the town that Elizabeth said she would prefer to move to Trcnwith. George said she must do as she pleased, he had business to attend to. (He had indeed, for some of the tenants at St Michael were being obstinate and refusing to move.) Elizabeth drove to Trcnwith on the 5th, taking Valentine with her.

Ross saw Caroline on the 21st, and she said could he wait a few days for her and they would travel down together? Her maid would be with her, she pointed out, so they would be fully chaperoned, unlike
his
wife and
her
husband. Ross had been helping John Craven tidy
up
Monk Adderle
y's estate and to settle up some of the debts he had left, so he agreed. If he were yet to be visited and questioned, well, it would happen - another day or two would not make the difference - he had become fatalistic about it. But as each day followed the other there was still no summons, no knock upon the door from anyone representing the Crown. Once he called on Andromeda Page, but she had already taken up with a young earl recently down from Cambridge and had little time to waste on a lost lover. Thus passes away the glory of the world
...

On Saturday the 30th November on the same coach, departing from the Crown and Anchor in the Strand at seven o'clock in the morning, Ross and Caroline and her maid left for Cornwall. In spite of the pretence to the contrary that he kept up even with himself, he was relieved to be away
...
When he came back,
if he
came back, the thing would surely be too far in the past.

On the 6th of December
Demelza
received a message delivered by one of the Trcwinnard twins, and she
at
once rode to Pally's Shop. Drake met her at the gate. His face told her everything.

'Is she
...
?'

'Inside. I said I'd asked ee
to come.'

As he helped her off her horse he held her hand a moment longer than necessary. 'Sister
...
treat her kind.'
Demelza
smiled. 'Do you think I should not do?' 'No .
..
That's why I sent. But I think -' 'Think what?
’

'That if anything goes amiss she'll just flee again. Just go
...'

Morwenna was in the upper room peeling potatoes. She stood
up
at once and took off her glasses. Demelza smiled at her and she half smiled back and smoothed down her apron, looking tall and uncertain and out of place.

'Mrs Poldark
...'

'Mrs Whitworth.'

'Please - sit down.'

'I think,'
Demelza
said, 'it would be better if we used our first names.'

They sat down, Morwenna employing the bowl and the knife and the basket almost as a line of defence.

Demelza looked round the shabby little room. After a moment she said: 'Drake badly needs someone to look after him.'

'Yes
...'

'He says he wants you to look after him.' 'Yes.'

'Do you want that, Morwenna?'

'I think so
...
It is just that I don't know if I am fit.'

'Are you ill?'

'Oh, no. I'm strong. Physically I'm strong.' 'Then
...
?'

Drake came in with the inevitable tea and for a few minutes they sat drinking it and not talking much. Then Drake, with considerable tact, edged Morwenna round to repeating some of the conversation that had passed last night.

At the end of it Demelza said quietly: 'Drake has been very miserable, Morwenna, ever since you left - all these years. He's only been half a person. Now you have come back to him, do you not think
it a pity to separate again?' ‘
Yes
...
But -'

"You have told him how you feel about marriage, and he fully accepts that if you marry him now his marriage shall not be a full one -unless you should ever change. He swears he will respect your wishes.'

‘Ye
s, he does.'

'Do you believe him?'

Morwenna looked at Drake.

‘
Yes
...'

'So will you marry him?'

Morwenna
looked round the room, her eyes half seeking some escape. At length she licked her lips and said: 'I know I only want to be with him for
the
rest of my life
...'

'I don't think,'
Demelza
said, 'that there can be a much better reason for marriage than that.'

Morwenna said desperately: 'So long as he
understands.
I'm not
normal
any longer. I'm not! I'm not!'

Drake said to
Demelza
: T explained to her last night. Just being with h
er is bcttcr'n anything else th
at could be.'

Demelza
said: 'You'll excuse mc for mentioning this, but being a blacksmith's wife is that different from being a vicar's wife. There's no social position, like, and there may be work - hard work with the hands. Drake could not afford to keep a servant. You
have
thought on that?'

'That!' said Morwenna contemptuously. 'I was the eldest of a family of girls. And my mother was never strong. I was the strong one. So I learned to cook and to look after a house. Of course we had servants, but they didn't do all
...
These last years I've lived the life of a lady - cooked for, waited on, treated as a person of importance. So litde have I had physically to work. But in my mind and soul I have envied the tween maid, the gardener's daughter, the beggar at the door; I would rather have swept the streets than been in my position! Do you think I would not work now?'

'To be with Drake?'

She hesitated again. 'Yes.'

'You could wash his clothes - scrub his floors?'

'No need for
that
,' said Drake.

‘
Of
course,'
said Morwenna. 'It's nothing - nothing.'

Demelza
nodded. 'And you will not mind if your mother is upset?'

'I'm near twenty-four,' said Morwenna harshly. 'It is not anything any relative would say that would make the difference.'

So young,
Demelza
thought, and glanced from one to the other. Morwenna looked much older than that, much older than Drake. That was what suffering did. But who knew what happiness might do?
Demelza
had been against this match almost from the first. Not on personal grounds but on the grounds of Morwenna's unsuitability, her genteel upbringing, her connection with the Warleggans. Yet
...
Drake's eyes. A difference here from yesterday.

'So you'll marry him, Morwenna?'

'I thought I had answered.'

'Not yes.'

'Then
...
yes.'

It had taken a time to reach this word, as if Morwenna had had to plough through fields of reservations and restraints to reach it. Drake stirred and let out a low breath.

Demelza said: 'I'm that glad for you both."

'How soon can we be wed?' Drake asked.

'It will take a while. Morwenna, why do you not come and stay with us
at
Nampara? We should be happy to have you.'

'I'd better prefer she stayed here,' said Drake.

Demelza
smiled. 'It's for Morwenna to say. If you
are
going to go on living in this district, maybe you should consider what people will say.'

'I don't care,' Morwenna said.

'I can get Mrs Trewinnard to come in and sleep,' said Drake. 'If need be I can sleep in the Trewinnards' cottage.'

'Whatever you say, Drake,' Morwenna said.

'It
should
be Morwenna's decision,'
Demelza
insisted.

Morwenna hesitated. 'I'm sorry. Sometimes I have difficulty in concentrating
...
I'll stay,
Demelza
. Thank you. I'll stay here.'

Demelza
kissed her. 'When you
are
married, and Drake knows you're safe caught, then I hope he'll bring you to Nampara and you can meet Ross - properly and to get to know - and we can have -
other happy times together.'

She went out. After a moment Drake came after her and laid his check against hers.

'Bless you, sister. Bless you, and can ye do something more this morning?

'What is that?'

'Come with me to Parson Odgers. Tis some awful to think we must wait three weeks! Is there no way to cut the waiting short?' 'Does it matter?'

'I'm scared for her,' he said. 'It's just the way you said - safe caught. She's
not
yet safe caught - not till we're wed. I'm scared something may happen. I'm scared she may just change her mind and move on.'

Mr Odgers said: 'Well, Mrs Poldark, ma'am, I would be happy to oblige you if there were a way within
the
canon laws of the church, but as you know, ma'am, there is none. It is Friday now. In order to convenience you I can call the banns for the first time on Sunday, though strictly speaking one needs more notice. But beyond that
...'

The little clergyman had been flushed from the kitchen where he had been helping his wife salt a piece of pork. His manner was ingratiating but his feelings mixed. In fact he was deeply shocked. Being a fair man, he would if pressed have been willing to admit that it did not amount exactly to blasphemy that this dean
's daughter, the relict of his e
x-vicar, on whom he had been accustomed to lavish all the courtesy and deference her station deserved, should now be about to thr
ow the whole of her position aw
ay and marry a common smith, and a dissenter
at
that, but in his view it came very near.

Had
that
been all, Drake's welcome would have been of the coldest. However, that was not all. Accompanying him was Captain Poldark's wife, and Captain Poldark was a member of Parliament with the 'ear' of Viscount Falmouth, and now that the living had again, unexpectedly, even providentially, become vacant, there was still just one more chance, one very last chance, that it might be offered to Mr Odgers. So he could not afford to offend in the smallest way Captain Poldark's wife.

Captain Poldark's wife wrinkl
ed her brows and said: 'Isn't th
ere something, Mr Odgcrs, I've heard about or read about called a special licence?'

'Ah, yes, ma'am. That is only obtainable from the Archbishop of Canterbury. But a licence, ma'am, a licence as distinct from a special licence, can be obtained from the Archdeacon of Cornwall, or from his representative, his officer in the county.'

'And who would that be?'

Mr Odgcrs scratched under his horsehair wig. 'The Archdeacon normally, I believe, lives in Exeter, except when he is on one of his -er - visitations. But his court is in Bodmin. I believe if you were to go there, if the young man were to go there -' He couldn't bear to address him by name - 'and someone were to go with him to swear a bond, then, I believe, ma'am, a licence might be granted, and then I could perform the wedding soon after receiving it.'

Demelza
looked at Drake. 'That would be about five-and-twenty miles. Fifty there and back. Would you wish to go so far?'

Drake nodded.

'What do you have to do?' she asked.

'You would have to swear an affidavit that there are no lawful impediments. Or
he
would, ma'am. And take a witness that he is resident in this parish. He
is
in this parish, is he? Yes, just.' Mr Odgcrs admitted this resentfully. 'He would need money. I think it is two guineas, but I am not sure. And the person accompanying him would have to be prepared to be jointly bonded with him in some considerable sum.'

'Can a woman act in such a way?'

'Oh, yes. But not his - not his intended
...'

'I was thinking of myself.'

'Mind,' said Mr Odgcrs, 'you had best wait dll Monday, to make sure of finding him in. The clergyman, I mean, who acts as the archdeacon's surrogate. Week-ends and Sundays are busy dmes, and he might be away.'

Outside again in the windy morning
Demelza
said: 'Well, that's the best wc can do.'

'You'd lend me a horse?'

'Oh, yes.'

'And come yourself?'

'I think I'd be better than Sam. Being married to Ross gives mc a sort of
...'

'I know.' He kissed her. 'I'll not forget this.'

It would be good to get away for a day; it would be some activity. This waiting for Ross was pulling unbearably at her nerves.

'By the way,' she said, 'docs Sam know yet?'

'Not yet. Could you tell him?
I think I reckon you'd do un better'n me

'