`My
conscience is all right. But I'm
sorry
to hear of your
condition.!
'I'll tell you more later. I have been trying to raise money, all day, and
it's a
subject
that can only
decently be spoken of on a full belly.!
'I hope you've not sold Darkie,' Demelzaa said, `for that
would spoil my supper before it began.'
'No.... She cast a shoe near Stickler's Wood, and I was
offered a lift in a private coach to Killewarren
and so
came home
on a loaned horse.'
There was a sudden silence. Demelza raised her eyebrows. `Killewarren? It was Mr. Penvenen's private coach?'
'Mr. Penvenen doesn't own a private coach,' said Dwight.
'It
was Caroline Penvenen,' said, Ross. `She'd driven down
from London -
or Oxford, is it? Her uncle wasn't expecting her. Were you, Dwight?'
`Yes.
To
fill the
succeeding pause Demelza said : `I expect she wanted to surprise her uncle, When was she last here, was it May or June? It must be strange to have two homes.' When neither man spoke, she leaned forward and snuffed one of the candles. `Will they send Darkie over tomorrow, Ross?'
Ross said: `There's no ned to discuss it if you choose not, Dwight. But we're old friends, and sometimes it's good to have things out. She asked me how you were and said she hoped to see you before long.'
`How did her uncle receive her?'
`Not
graciously. I think she was glad of me as a foil. But she's hard to withstand when she lays herself, out to please
-
as perhaps you know
-
and ,he looked to be coming round ,
when I left
Dwight's long
slight hands fumbled with his doily napkin. 'You'
re not merely old friends but
my oldest and best. If good would come of discussing this
-
this between
myself and
Caroline
-
I'd gladly discuss it. But I see none. . . . Perhaps I owe you some explanation,
and in that case
-'
`You owe us nothing,' said Ross. `But I'd be sorry to see a situation grow half-realised. You know how it is sometimes.'
`You mean; I know how it was last time. The dangers are different here, though, aren't they?, Well, I confess I'm in love with Caroline, and we've written; and now she's here again, and for better or for
worse,
we shall be seeing each
other soon. I have no money and she has a great deal, so the
attachment .. Do you dislike her very much?'
This was said to Demelza, and she was taken aback by it.
`No, Dwight. I don't know her except to exchange a few words, and you can't not like a person you don't know. I am not the best one to judge.'
`Nor I,' said Ross. `But I believe she's altered my opinion of her today
-
and I'm at a loss to say why'. Certainly not for the favour of a lift. . .
”
`There's a hardness to her,' said Dwight slowly. `I'd be a fool to deny it. It's like a
-
a brittle shiny armour, and its use has been the same. There is so much else behind it. . . . In any case these things do not go by measure. The alchemy's too subtle to be weighed up.'
`Yes,' said Ross, thinking suddenly of Elizabeth, and, as if there were telepathy between them, Demelza looked at him and knew what he was thinking.
Dwight said: `The attachment's bad, no doubt; but I can't shake of break myself of it. Perhaps she will be wiser. It's a discreditable situation which could come only to a weak man; a strong one would break the dilemma somehow.'
`The longer I live,' Ross said, pulling his brows together painfully, `the more I distrust these distinctions between strong men and weak. Events do what they like with us, and such
-
such temporar
y freedom as we
have only fosters an illusion. Look at Francis. Was
there ever a sorrier or more
useless end or one less deserved or dictated by himself, or more unfitted to the minimum decencies and dignity of a human being? To drown like a dog in a w
ell, and for nothing - to
mi
ss help by the space of an hour
to go out from this room and walk over to the mine and within a short while to slip on a greasy floor and be dead, and for nothing.' Ross pushed back his chair in sudden vehemence. `It is what I have always resented most in life: the wantonness, the useless waste, the sudden ends that make fools of us, that make nonsense of all our striving and contriving. . . . You've been with me in most of the worst of it, Dwight : Julia's death and much else. If you see a difference in result between any strength or weakness that's been shown, I confess you're cleverer than I am.'
Dwight did not speak, but after a minute Demelza said 'Oh, yes, that's true, Ross, But is it all the truth? I feel that
there are some things good which have come to us for our own striving. And though, for the whole, luck has been against us, sometimes it has moved for us and may yet do again. Wheal Grace is failing, but Wheal Leisure has prospered
-
and, if there was Julia, there is also Jeremy
-
and there was your acquittal from the trial; and-and much else besides.' She stared into the candle flame for a moment with a curiously blind stare, then blinked and was herself again. `It may be
that if
on balance,
we have been unlucky, Dwight will not be so. There may be some happy way for him and Caroline, and a little patience will find it.'
In spite of a matter-of-fact tone, she spoke, Dwight thought, with a curious sense of fatality, as if she knew things had gone wrong for herself and could not now be righted. It was the first time he realised what Francis's death had meant to her, to them both, in terms of their own relationship.
November is a bad month for secret assignments out of doors; but Caroline had hunted, the country too often to be at a loss
, and she sent a note to Dwight
to meet her at the old mine at the edge of the wood near Bargus. When Dwight got there, his pulse quickened at the sight of a horse already tethered to a. tree. He slid off his own horse, looped the reins over a stump, and went quickly into the old stone, house. Caroline was crouching beside the open shaft; and as - he entered, she throw a stone down and listened to its
echoing fall.
She straightened up quite casually. `No wonder there are so many illegitimate babies in. Cornwall, it's so easy to be rid of them. I suspect that the
se old shafts are kept open for
the purpose, Dwight.'
It was very shadowy in here and he could not see her expression., but he came over to her determined not to be put out of countenance, determined this time to play her at her own game,
'Not only babies but women, who
spoil one's sleep,
who interrupt one's work, who send unprincipled; letters, who flirt and have no heart. It's a good and easy way of disposal, and who should be the wiser? Does anyone know where you've come?'
She stood balanced on the edge of the shaft as if challenging
,
`No
one knows, Dwight; but I don't
tremble with fear, Were
my
letters unprincipled? Did they spoil your sleep? Were they not a source of pleasure also? Be honest. Confess
”
Dwight put his hand
on her elbow, drew her away from the edge, turned her
towards
him. They looked at each other, unfamiliars but friends. She lifted
one
eyebrow slightly and smiled. He bent forward and kissed her. Then they stood for a while in each other's arms while a gleam of sunshine fell through the ruined doorway and the only, sound was the movement of their horses outside! It
was a
reunion from which obvious passion
was absent.
`Your letters were pleasure and pain in equal halves, as no doubt they were meant to be. Do you like to torment; those who love you?'
She lacked at him closely, searchingly, renewing her own acquaintance. `No. . . . Perhaps I like to torment myself. I don't know. I can't say. All I know is that I'm back,
that
my uncle
s are furious, that I'm my own
mistress, that I've made an
appointment with you, and that
you have come. Just now it's uncomplicated
-
clear in my mind. Don't expect too much of me, Dwight. Don't press me too hard.'
'I love you,' he said. `That's uncomplicated too. Whether for, you this is just a sample of life to be taken and then conveniently forgotten---..?
`N
o, it is not; and you know it is not. And that was only in a half of my letters or a third, and the nice parts you've wilfully overlooked. Anyway, I'm not used to writing love letters any more than I am used to being made love to. It is-'
`I hope
your experiments in Oxfordshire were satisfactory.'
`Yes, y
es. Delectable. Quite enchanting. So much so that I've hurried down here as soon as th
e lawyers agreed to release my
money.
They talked on, awa
re of their temporary isolation
and making
the most of it, yet both knowing that secret meetings could not be secret for long. Convinced now of all that he needed to be convinced of, Dwight would have liked
to face up
to their difficulties at this very first encounter; but he sensed that Caroline was still groping her way towards an understanding of her o
wn feelings. Until
then one could only live for the day.
As the weather was
lifting, they
went out of the old ruin and she perched on a stone wall while he stood beside her.
'I met your Captain Poldark again,' she said. But of course, he told you. The more I see of him the more I like him. I
must confess that, if you want
me to be honest.'
`You'll not make me jealous of him. I only wish his circumstances were happier'
`Circumstances? Is it his cousin's widow who is the circumstance, or has he some other trouble?'
''Financial,' said Dwight, and hesitated.' He'd no wish to betray a confidence; but some desire to
turn her off the scent, to
steer her away from asking him about the Elizabeth
-
Ross relationship, made him say more than he intended.
`I
thought he looked a shade
down in-the-mouth when we met.
And so you were having supper with his wife when he returned. Perhaps that's cause
for jealousy
on my part. Te
ll me, what's the hold she has
on men? She's pretty enough, I grant, but so are others who get far less attention. Do you know the secret?'
`It's' not a question of knowing a secret. It's just a question of knowing Demelza'
'Is, she the sort of woman that all men desire -
except her husband? It so often happens. What an advocacy for married'
life ,
Don't you think I should be very ill-advised to marry,
Dwight?'
'No, I don't think you would be ill-advised to marry,, if you
marry
the right man,'
'Ah, the right man,
of course'
She picked up two stones from the crumbling wall, weighed them in her palm, like subjects for discussion. 'But tell me what you have been doing yourself. ' I hear you've perfo
rmed a miracle upon your little
fisher girl and that she can now dance the cotillion. Is it really so?'
Remembering her earler
derision he glanced quickly at her;
but
her face was serious enough. Then she met his gaze and
laughed.-'No, no, I mean it. Tell me. Why should I not be
interested?
'Well, it w
as all greatly talked up, and I suspect
you of pretending a polite attachment for
the subject.”
"Then you don't understand me yet, Dwight. When last I was here I had to defend you against some supposed failure. Why shouldn't I be told of your triumphs?'
Perhaps it was something in one of her letters that still left him reluctant. `The m
atter
was made overmuch of, as I say. The girl had been lame for eight years from sorry disease of the knee. At least, one assumed disease.
After some futile attempts to
do good wit
h blisters and the like, I Made
an effort to study the structure of the knee-first the bone formation, and then in other ways.',
'What other
ways?'
'Las
t month a dead sailor was washed up on Hendrawna Beach and buried in the sand by the miners. I
went
down in the night and took part of one leg away and so was able to study the ligaments as they are in a living person.'
`You did?' she said, watching him, interested in this new light on his character.
`Yes. Th
en one day ,' '
'Did you not find it unpleasant?'
`Well, it wasn't pleasure I was looking for'
`You may think it unfeminine,'
said Caroline, 'but do you know
, I believe I should be interested to watch such work.'
`Would you?'
`Yes, I would. I see it shocks you. Go on.'
'It does not shock me at all. Then one day at the beginning of this mouth I was able to put the girls knee right with my hands. It was nothing more
than a displacement., But the
years have caused atrophy, of the muscles and some local inflammation. At present she is about with a bandage on it, but I think she can discard that when she has the confidence.'
Caroline put her hand over his. 'So now you are a miracle worker and h
ave people waiting outside your
house ever
y morning. Bravo. I will tell my uncle. It will
irritate him.'
'It i
rritates me,' said Dwight, 'but
I can make use of it
'And no doubt your little girl looks on you with the most adoring eyes.'
'No doubt she does,' said Dwight shortly.
'And so she should. There are not
many
physicians of your accomplishments using all their energies to help
the poor. H
ow do you live, Dwight? Tell me that.'
He glanced at her. As always she
asked questions
fran
kly, bluntly, with no apparent
awareness that she might be on delicate ground. Yet surely she, if anyone, had the right to know,
`I've an income of a few pounds a month, and this is supplemented by about £40 a year from the two mines and by those of my other patients who can afford to pay. Often I get gifts in kind from those who have no money
to spare. In the main
I
keep out of debt. That's all I
care for
-
or it's all I have cared
for.'
'Will the Hoblyns pay you?'
'In some way. And not all the gentry on my list are, as healthy as
your uncle.- Old Mr
Treneglos, who would never have a surgeon near him, regularly calls
me in-
' .
`That's what I mean,' said Caroline. "Have you not t
hought
of setting up in a town, especially a fashionable town
-
such as Bath or Oxford
-
where you would be able to work among people of your,
own
kind? It is nice to
help the poor, but charity -
some charity
-
begins at home; and I believe, you would be well received anywhere, not just among fisher
-
folk. Although you may not believe it, your manner at the bedside is an impressive one; and, you have qualifications, Captain Poldark says, rar
ely met with outside of London.’
Although she did not think, he noticed, he had seen the glance she gave his clothes when th
ey came out into the daylight.
But much that she implied by what she didn't say was salved by its obvious purpose.
He said: `When I came back to Cornwall, I'd no
thought but to open a
business in a town; it was Captain Poldark who invited me here.
But to
help poor people was part of my own purpose
-
still is. And in
a town -
even in Bath and Oxford -
the poor are in greater need of attention than the well off. I don't want to become a society pet.'
She slipped off the wall and went over to her horse, made some pretence of fumbling with the saddle. The wind stirred her tawny hair, lifting it away from her ear and letting it fall. He was at once angry with himself for sounding pompous, for
having irritated her. Yet what
he said was the truth! Would she have disguised her own feelings for has benefit?
He went over to
her: `Caroline, you may think-‘
She turned and smiled. `What should I think, Dwight? That you're the most noble of men? Or does it even matter? The sun has gone in and I'm
chilly. That's of the chiefest
moment. Let us ride.'
Before
he could help her, she had pulled
herself into the saddle, and
her horse stepped spiritedly across the soft turf. She checked it while he mounted and came up with her.
"It matters everything what you think,
Caroline;
but because it matters so much, I can't pretend to you to gain an easy favour-'
`I'll race you. As far as Jonas's
Mill, eh? You know, the way?'
She swung her horse round
and headed it fo
r the rough common beyond the ruined min
e. To gallop across this stone—
strewn ground was asking f
or a fall; but she set off at a pace
- which Dwight with his inferior mount couldn't hope to equal.
But if Caroline knew the neighbourhood well, Dwight; knew lit better. He cantered along the track beside the common until she was safely across and had taken the stone wall at the other side. Then he spurred his
horse forward down the track. A
minute or t
wo later a hamlet of
four cottages was surprised to see the black-coated figure of their surgeon, who normally rode at a discreet trot,, flying through as if for his life. Behind him in the settling dust children gathered and stared.