In all prospering human affairs there is a streak of hazard, a blending of good fortune with good judgment which gives the lucky man a sense of having earned his deserts and gives the deserving, if he is modest, an awareness of his luck.
That urge Warleggan was able to break such startling news to his family came in part from events over which he had no control and in part from that sharp sense of timing, which had stood him in good stead before as a man of affairs.
They met at Cusgarne on the Thursday afternoon, and Thursday was the last and most trying day of four which had been trying for Elizabeth.
First there had
been the unpleasant scene with
George Tabb, who had been a faithful servant of the Poldarks all, his life. As the last manservant, he had felt himself able to claim certain privileges even
before
Francis died; and since then he had become subtly less easy to handle. On Monday a trial of strength, and Elizabeth came out of it bitterly aware that she had let things slide too long. Now she must either accept his defiance or
discharge
her two remaining s
ervants and take new ones who would not possibly get through
the same amount of work.
The choice was temporar
ily but uneasily shelved. Then
Mr. Nathaniel Pearce arrived fresh from his gout, with new problems to face, the results of negotiations to report, and stew decisions to be made for which only Elizabeth cou
ld be responsible. A tithe of £1.
6s. 8d. per year on the seines of certain of the fishing boats in Sawle was payable to the Poldarks, and in the case of most boats this was long overdue. For the last four
years catches had been
poor. Should the fishermen be pressed for the money? Whose was the greater need
now? A long standing; complaint from Gart
h, Mr. Penvenen's agent, on
the condition
of the bridge over the stream behind Grambler village, where the two estates ran together. Repair was Poldark responsibility, but now Mr.
Penvenen, newly returned from London, offered to pay one quarter of the
cost
of a new bridge if Mrs. Poldark would meet the rest. Would she meet the rest? What about the pastureland to the west of the house? Ross
advised
her to have it ploughed; for now that w
ar had come, corn growing would
be likely to pay handsome dividends. But already it was late to do anything thi
s year, and it would mean engag
ing and paying, farm hands. Finally there wa
s, the making of a complicated dispute with some t
inners who were. claiming the
ir age-old right under the Stan
nary Law to enter enclosed ground and prospect for tin.
She slept badly that night, and so in the morning in the very first light was the less strong to meet the n
ews that it brought. A man from
Cusgarne to say her mother had had an apoplexy and would she come at once. Elizabeth was in Kenwyn by eleven and found her mother paralysed in one arm and hardly able to speak. Over a silent meal with her father she, faced up to the inescapable. There was now no choice for her., Already there was one bedridden woman at Trenwith, tended on unsatisfactorily by the village girl Elizabeth had been able to engage. The Chynoweths would bring a little money but trouble and difficulties out of proportion. Elizabeth looked into the future and saw it as one in which sickness and age and responsibility were her only companions.
Into this picture came George Warleggan, saying he had only just heard of her mother's illness and that he had come straight up: from the bank, apologising that he should be
a little
untidy, solicitous for Mr. and 'Mrs. Chynoweth, and more
than
solicitous for Mrs. Poldark.
She told him all there was to tell, and
without emotion
told
him
what she proposed to do. While they were talkin
g
her father shuffled out of the room,
a man who for thirty years had
accepted his directive
s from his wife and now with
out her was helmless, drifting as the first wind took him.
'They talked on for a time. George seemed reluctant to go. He was watching Elizabeth with his at
tentive eyes. At length he said
;
`Do you know what I wish?'
`No
’
'I wish, my dear Elizabeth, that you would allow me
to
make all the arrangements necessary, and that you would permit
me to engage a separate establishment for your mother at Trenwith, so that
no
furt
her burden would fall on you.'
`I couldn't let you do that.'
`
Why not? You're so frail,' Elizabeth. I fear for you. One does not expect t
he
lily to stand the storms of winter. It needs protection. You need protection. I can o
nly offer it you in this way.'
She glanced at him through her lashes, her face pale and withdrawn but not unfriendly.
`You're truly kind. But I'm stronger than I look. Now
’
Just now
and perhaps for a
few years, I shall have to be.
I regret it
-you don't know - how much. I regret it
-
but it has to be
. One must take what life sends
!
"But one must not take what I send, eh? Is that it?'
She
smiled at him. 'I have already taken so much.'
'Oh,' he made a gesture, 'a little for my godson, and that
very reluctantly
certain concessions in the matter of Francis's debts. But nothing for yourself. And now nothing for your mother.
I should like to do
it for your mother's sake.'
Always in the past he had found this the surest avenue to Elizabeth's sympathies, and it was so now.
`'Oh, you know how very deeply I have appreciated what you've done for her in the past, George. Your ki
ndness makes
me ashamed to refuse you anything. But what you suggest
..’
He said
: `If there was o
ne thing you did not refuse me,
it would solve everything.'
`What is that?' she asked, looking at him; and instantly knew.
`Yourself,' he said.
She turned a little away from him, with a sudden sensation of finding herself on th
e edge of a precipice. It was a
precipice she had quietly known of
for a long time but disregarded
because she felt her balanc
e so sure. There was no danger
except perhaps in allowing him to think there might be. Now suddenly the equilibrium was changed.
`Before you say anything,' he went on, `let me add something
to that one word. Although I've
never spoken of it, you will
be aware, I dare suppose, that I have loved
y
ou for ten years, ever since
we first met. In that time I have served you only as I could, by paying back half Francis's card debts with my cousin Sanson, by waiving the interest on his ordinary
debts to our bank, by allowing, no thought of retaliation to be considered when
he
persistently insulted me. All this I did willingly and would have done twice as much if the opportunity'd been present
-
as you also know. Since Francis's death I have served you in any way you would allow me, and will continue to without thought of
anything I
may—
gain
by it.'
`Yes,' she said. `I'm more than grateful
-
more than grateful
'But
now I ask you to marry me. As I said, I love you. I don't think you love me. But I think you like and respect me; and
I think -
indeed I'm sure
-
that in time such liking would become something more than liking, something closer than a common
interest.' He hunched
his shoulders and stared at her. She
had not moved any farther away,
and he could see her face. He thought there was a slight flush under her pale composure. He flattered himself that, considering all that hung on the outcome, he was putting his case
well `
I can't bring you breeding, my dear. But I can bring you a certain kind of gentility which is the more punctilious because it is only one generation deep
.
And so far as material considerations go-'
`Please,' she said. ,
`Oh, I know you would not marry me for my money or my possessions. If you did that, you wouldn't be the person I know, you to be. But at the risk of offending you I want to tell you what I can offer.'
She tightened her lips, a little more tense, as if ready for another protest. The window through which she looked was' full of trees and hedges, overgrown, overbranched, blowing in the wind.
He said : `When I marry, my father has promised that he and my mother will vacate Cardew, That means I shall be able to take my wife to a house four times as big as Trenwith, everything in it almost new, t
wenty
servants, in a park of five hundred acres. You've seen it. You know. If you marry me, Trenwith could be repaired and refurnished, kept as a second home where
your father and mother could li
ve with adequate servants, and where we could visit them as often as you chose. I already have my own carriage, you could have one also .if you wanted it, or two or six if it pleased you. I could take you to London and Bath and introduce you into society here. Local society is already a thought provincial for me.
I have undertaken to educate Geoffrey Charles. But as my son he would be differently placed from what he is, now. I am heir to all Warleggan interests. So would he be. We're still young, Elizabeth, you and I. There's very little we could not achieve if we put our minds to it. For ten years you've lived in a cage. Give me permission to turn the key.'
`And the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain and showeth him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them, and saith unto him : "All these thing
s will I give thee . . ." ' It h
ad been one o
f the lessons read last Sunday
in Sawle Church, wher
e Elizabeth sat alone with Geoff
rey, Charles in the family pew.
She picked up her bag from the table, fumbled in it without knowing what she wanted. She hadn't spoken and now he was waiting. The light w
as already poor in the room, as
poor in its way as the worn furniture; but some reflection from the mirror above the sofa lit up his heavy, intent, constrained face. She knew that every moment he waited his hopes of a favourable answer would rise. To her, own astonishment, she realise
d that a favourable answer was
no longer impossible for her. It was as if life were mesme
rising her into acceptance of a
situatio
n which at one time, and not so
long ago, would never have b
een allowed to come into being.
There was still enough critical detachment in her to notice the occasional gaucheries of his proposal; yet reason told her there was not one single statement he had made which was exaggerated or untrue. He could offer her all that. He, George Warleggan,
very close to her now, known so long t
hat easy familiarity led to an
underrating of his achievements and his charm;
but in fact formidable, wealthy
powerful in the county
for good or ill, still young, n
ot bad-looking, a person already become a personage, one of the few who counted and who would count still more as tune went by; he was offering her all this as the price of marriage: her son lacking for nothing, all her problems solved.
All except one, a new one, the
problem of George,
`Elizabeth,' he said. `Can I suppose that
–‘
She stopped him with a gesture, instantly, suddenly flushing into a rare colour and brilliance of expression. 'No, please
,' I don't want you to think …
'
And there in her refusal she halted. Upstairs was her mother, crippled and fretful, and 'her father, indecisive and
endlessly, complaining. She had ridden over in the rain and tonight or tomorrow she must ride
back. to
Trenwith, which would greet her unlighted and unheated and with all its problems' still to solve. And years of loneliness and sicknursing lay ahead. And on the other side was light and warmth and companionship and care.
,'Oh,
George,-‘
she said, and put up her hands to her flushed face. `I don't know what to say.'
Instantly he was beside her,
one arm gently round her shoulders, aware of a startling triumph that he'd not dared to expect, but aware of how nearly; it still trembled in the balance.
`'Say nothing more now, my dear,' he urged. `Nothing at all,
please.!
'I am so depressed. Please don't ask for an answer now.' 'I ask you for nothing. Only give me permission
to give.! 'But if you give----'
`Don't say any more, Elizabeth.'
`But I must. It's the
loneli
ness.... What I'd not imagined
the lack of a person, a partner. But to pret
end now, or to let you think.’
`I think nothing for the present. But I hope. Loneliness is not one-sided, Elizabeth. A man can feel it too, especially when he has loved anyone as long and as hopelessly as I have
you’
, So they stayed for a time. And while she held her head down as if in defeat, he held his high in victory, and looked over her bright hair at the wild, untended garden and the rain. He watched the water, trickling in grey loops down the glass.
Though intention had not been in it, he suddenly found the prospect before him dazzlingly good
-first because it, gave him this woman whom he had loved and wanted for so long, second because by the same stroke it dealt what he knew would be the deadliest of blows at his bitterest enemy. It was not given to many men, he felt, to achieve so much by a single coup.