Dwight had had a busy week. As well as riding with Caroline, he had had a crop of sudden ailments to face; and it was from the last of these, a case of bilious fever in Sawle, that he was returning when he decided on the impulse of the moment to call in at the Hoblyns’ cottage.
The evening was well on, and he found all the Hoblyns indoors and with them Charlie Kempthorne, who had got Rosina in a corner and was making up to her under the lowering gaze of Jacka her father. Not that Jacka particularly disapproved of Charlie, except for his age; it was rather that courting in any shape or form was one of the great number of things he didn’t hold with. He couldn’t complain that it was happening under his own nose, because he had refused Charlie permission to take Rosina for a walk.
Dwight apologized for the intrusion, said he had come to see Rosina; Rosina said hastily her knee was quite better thank you; Dwight ignored this and said would she and Mrs Hoblyn come into the next room. This left the two men alone, for Parthesia was in bed.
Charlie hadn’t liked the interruption. He fancied he had been making some progress, and now it was all set back. But perhaps this could be turned to account. After a minute he scratched his short-cropped head and said: ‘Reckon Rosina’s coming round t’our way of thinking, Jacka. ‘Twill soon be a question of naming the day, like.’
‘It isn’t to my way of thinking,’ Jacka said. ‘I’m thinkin’ nothin’ yet awhile.’
‘But you’re not saying me nay,’ said Charlie. ‘An’ Rosina’ll see that for herself. She’s always been a good obeying kind of girl—’
‘She better be,’ said Jacka.
‘An’ ’tis plain to she that with ‘er crooked pinbone she’ll be lucky to get a good steady man who’s maybe a bit olderer than she but all the better for that. An’ got a tidy nest egg, what’s more. And adding on every day. You should mind that, Jacka Hoblyn.’
‘I’ll mind what I’ve the wish to mind.’
‘Let ‘er go get forced put by some farmer’s boy, an’ what’s the end to it? A ‘ovel no betterer than a pigsty. I can give ‘er a home, with cloam cups to drink out of like she was a lady. And I’ll tell ee another thing. That field that’s to rent from Surgeon Choake’s house. Corner of it runs down nigh to the top of the lane, back o’ my yard. Next year I thought to take it. ’Tis just what I d’need to—’
‘I can’t conceit where you get all your money,’ said Jacka.
Charlie looked at him keenly for a moment. ‘Ah, but that’s just it. Money d’add to money all the while. Start with just a little and treat it right, an’ it’ll go on growing while you’re asleep. Mind, it need a steady ‘and. But that’s what I got. And sail-making’s different from bal work. There’s more profit to it. Reckon my consumptives was a blessed dressed up, else I’d still have been down mine and no better off at forty than thirty!’
Jacka knitted his black brows. ‘Wonder what surgeon’s about, coming this time of night. ’Tis no concern of his to visit when he’s not asked.’
‘D’you pay ‘im for every time?’
‘Nay, give him his due, he’s no great one for that.’
Kempthorne spat on the sanded floor. ‘Well, I shouldn’t like it ef ’twas my house. It don’t seem right, ‘im coming round any hour of the day, fingering a girl’s knee. That’s ‘ow bad things d’start.’
Jacka stared at Charlie. ‘I thought you was a friend of his. I thought ’twas he cured you of the miner’s cough.’
‘So ‘twas. I’ve nought against him. I’m only saying as it ‘pears to me. When all’s said, he’s only a youngster – and you know what happened with Daniel’s wife.’
There was a moment’s silence. Jacka’s eyebrows were like a scar. He stared at Charlie without pleasure and then strode into the next room.
He found Rosina sitting on the end of the bed, and Dwight was putting a bandage round her knee. Mrs Hoblyn glanced up nervously.
Dwight was cheerful, having at last discovered the cause of their reluctance to let him treat Rosina. ‘Oh, Hoblyn, glad you came in. Mrs Hoblyn has been explaining about Mr Nye.’
‘Ah?’ said Jacka.
‘Mr Nye said it might be better to amputate the leg. Of course there’s no fear of that. A ridiculous suggestion. I want you to keep your knee bound for a week until I come again.’ He finished his work and stood up.
‘Yes, sur,’ said Rosina.
‘I don’t see as ’tis necessary for you to be calling, surgeon,’ said Jacka, not quite confident of himself. ‘Rosina d’get along well and fine as she is. She been like it too long now for a cure. When she’s sick, that’s different like.’
‘Rosina gets along,’ said Dwight. ‘But it isn’t a happy or a healthy way to live. I can promise no improvement, but I intend to try.’
‘Sometimes more ‘arm than good comes of probing at things.’
Dwight flushed. ‘Have no fear: she’ll not die of it.’
‘Well, I believe in leaving well alone.’
‘But you have hardly the right to deny your daughter the chance of proper treatment.’
This was treading on Jacka’s corns. ‘Who’s no right?’ he shouted. ‘I’ve a right to do what I will with my own. Don’t forget that, surgeon.’
‘Jacka, please!’ said Mrs Hoblyn.
‘Hold your clack, woman!’
‘I’ll not!’ said Polly, standing up to him for once. ‘Dr Enys is doing his best, and takin’ pains, and that’s more’n have ever been done for my girl before. You ought to be shamed, turning on him like this!’
Dwight caught sight of Charlie at the door, and some expression on his face made Dwight feel that the little sailmaker was enjoying the scene. For some reason he didn’t want Rosina cured. Was it because his own suit would then be less hopeful?
Dwight was in time to step in front of Jacka as he made a movement towards his wife. It looked as if there might be a scuffle, but Jacka gave way. As usual his anger was shortlived, and suddenly it changed its direction, towards the man who had primed it.
‘Get out of the room,’ he bawled at Charlie. ‘’Twill be time enough to come in ‘ere when you’re wed to my daughter and not before!’
Nevertheless, as Dwight took his leave he knew that his next visit would be very much on sufferance, and he would have to produce some result soon or admit failure.
The next Tuesday was the first warm day of the delayed summer. The toe of England, eddying along through cold and cheerless days, had suddenly and at last reached warmer water. Even at seven, which was the hour he had agreed to meet Caroline, the air was gentle and mild.
She always kept him waiting, but this time less long than usual. They cantered away from the gates of Killewarren in the early sun, and she suggested they should turn south, among trees long held in bud but now a sudden full brilliant green. She seemed to know her way.
When they had gone about four miles, she turned up a lane which petered out into a clearing azure with bluebells and she said: ‘Let’s get down, shall we, Dwight. I want to talk, and it’s not easy on a nag.’
He dismounted at once and tried to help her, but she slid off as nimbly as a boy and laughed at him.
‘Let’s sit over here. It’s good to be idle sometimes. Or I think so. Perhaps you feel always you should be tending someone.’
‘Not always. Not now.’
They sat on a green mound punctured with rabbit holes, and Caroline picked a bluebell and swung it idly to make the bells quiver.
‘I’m returning to Oxfordshire, Dwight.’
Something lurched inside him. ‘When?’
‘On Friday’s coach. I shall be in Uncle William’s bosom by Monday.’
‘What has made you decide to go?’
‘Oh, I didn’t decide. Uncle Ray is very angry with me about my treatment of Unwin, and he thinks I shall be better banished from this place altogether.’
Dwight looked at her. Her wide eyes were contemplative, narrowed with the sunshine; the bright light brought extra colours to them, greys and flecks of hazel and deeper greens.
‘I don’t know what to say. I thought – I hoped you’d be staying.’
‘I hoped I’d be staying too.’
Overhead a blackbird was chattering. ‘When d’you expect to come again?’
‘At Uncle Ray’s invitation? Oh, that’s very doubtful. He no longer approves of me or of my doings. And I suspect that someone has told him of my morning rides with his physician.’
‘It’s understandable then that he wants to send you away.’
‘Why?’ she asked provokingly.
‘If you lower yourself by being seen about with Dr Enys, and not even a groom in attendance, it will be Mr Penvenen’s first duty to come between you and your indiscretion.’
Caroline threw away her bluebells. ‘So you agree with Uncle Ray. You think I should better be kept out of harm’s way until I am safely married.’
‘If I were your uncle …’
‘But since you’re not my uncle?’
Dwight got up. ‘What do you expect me to say?’
She leaned back on her elbows. ‘I should have expected you to say no.’
‘And so should I like to. You know, Caroline, without the need of words to colour it or make it more explicit, that I – that I …’
After a minute Caroline said: ‘Sit down, Dwight. We can’t talk if you stride about.’
He stopped and sat again, his knees in his hands, a little away from her, frowning, ill at ease, deliberately not looking at her.
She said: ‘Tell me, Dwight, I never know; there are two men in you: the strong, confident, impatient one, that so often goes with you in a sick-room; and the oh-so-much younger, nervous, susceptible one that often rides with me. Which of them is it, do you suppose, that cares for Caroline Penvenen and grieves she goes and thinks of her in her absence?’
A rabbit scampered across the greensward and ducked quickly into a hole. Dwight said: ‘Questions are always directed at me. Perhaps I’ll face yours if you face mine. How much are you concerned for the answer?’
‘You ask a great deal.’
‘No more than you ask of me.’
‘Oh, yes, I think it is.’
Dwight watched her fingers stroking the fold of her skirt. ‘Very well, then. I’ll answer yours first. There are no two men in me but only one – and that one thinks of you continuously so that the image of you is never absent. But … what you complain of is not to be wondered at. Money was never plentiful for me, and studying took all I had. There was no time for drawing-rooms or polite talk. I was not brought up to know the right addresses to pay beautiful women. I hardly ever met women – except as cases. As cases I know them well. So when I have dealings with people now, I differ with the dealings. If you come to me with a sore throat or a bad knee, you are a patient and I know you well. I know what to do and I do it. And you think, that man has confidence. But if I meet you in a drawing-room, you’re not a patient but a woman, someone whose moods and manners I’ve never learned to understand. I don’t know the right prescription for gallantry: I never had leisure to learn it. I don’t know how to flatter you, and if you laugh at me – as you not seldom do – I grow more tongue-tied each minute; and when you sharpen your wits on me, I feel a dullard and a clod. There’s the explanation of it all. What I feel for you as a person doesn’t waver between strength and weakness, it only wavers between hope and despair!’
She had stopped looking at him and was staring across at the other edge of the glade. The curve of her throat gave him pleasure and pain. As he explained himself he had gained in confidence.
He said at last: ‘And you?’
She smiled a little and shrugged. ‘You want me to answer your question now?’
‘Yes.’
‘Perhaps this is our last meeting, so perhaps I can. Poor Dwight, have I laughed at you so often? Have I shown such perfect confidence and poise? You flatter me, you truly do. What elegance I must display! How graciously I’ve been taught …’
‘I wasn’t criticizing you.’
‘I’m sure you would not dare. But let me explain myself. You say you spent all your time learning to be a physician, and so had no time for the formal courtesies. I’m sorry for you. Dear, dear, I am. But do you know what I have spent my time learning to be? Why, an heiress, of course.’
She leaned over on her elbow and looked at him. Her auburn hair, tied with a ribbon at the back, lay on her shoulder.
‘An heiress must learn all the courtesies. She must learn to draw and paint and play a musical instrument even if she’s tone-deaf and only makes horrid noises. She must know French and perhaps a little Latin; she must understand how to carry herself and how to dress and how to ride and how to receive the compliments of her suitors. The one thing she never learns is anything about the successful marriage she is being prepared for. So you see, dear Dr Enys, it would not be surprising if she also gave the impression of being two persons and with some higher justification than you. You say you don’t know how to pay compliments to women or how to behave in the best manner. But at heart you must know women very well. How different in my case. I don’t know men at all. I’m expected to be in love at the touch of a hand or at a prettily turned compliment. But until I marry – if my dear uncles have their way – I shall know nothing of what a man is really like.’ She paused and straightened up. ‘From hearsay, I know what happens when people sleep together. It does not sound excessively genteel. One can take a risk in the gavotte and come to no harm. One should be a little more careful, I fancy, before choosing a bed partner for the rest of one’s days.’
There was a long silence. The confession had moved Dwight in a new way. It was a new Caroline he suddenly saw – not supremely sure of herself and contemptuous of his efforts to please, but as unsure in her own way as he was, and hiding her unsureness behind a mask of laughter and ridicule. He was suddenly no longer infatuated but deeply in love.
‘And Unwin?’
‘Unwin was a suitor ready made. He came with all the possible recommendations. And there was no lack of confidence within him, Dwight. He seemed to think I should be flattered at the idea of marrying a seat in Parliament. Sometimes I caught him looking at me, and then I knew that he was interested in my money first, my body second, but myself, for myself, little at all.’
‘And I?’
Caroline smiled at him queerly. ‘It is not very easy to say this to your face, is it? When we first met in Bodmin and quarrelled, I thought, there is a man who … And again when you came to examine my throat. It was not that I liked you, it was that I felt—’ She sat up. ‘No I can’t tell you. Let’s go.’
‘Tell me.’
‘I don’t know what I feel for you – there that’s the truth. Now go away.’
She got to her feet and moved a step towards her horse, but he jumped up and barred her way. ‘You must tell me, Caroline.’
She flared at him, but he caught her wrist and held it. She said: ‘Well, you should know without being told. I wondered what it would be like to be kissed by you, whether I should like it or hate it, whether it would feed or kill my interest in you. But I didn’t know and I haven’t known and I shan’t ever know – and now it does not matter, because I’m going away. Oh, there have been other men who’ve attracted and plenty more who will! But I shall not marry the first of them nor the second. In October—’
But she said no more. He put his hands on her elbows and pulled her against him and kissed her on the cheek and then on the mouth. After a moment her hands gripped his shoulders tight, not pulling him closer but slightly pushing him away, as a woman will whose critical mind is aware that she has got only what she asked for. They stood there so long that a chaffinch fluttered down and stayed pecking at the grass until one of the horses shuffled and frightened it off.
At last a flight of rooks cawing and settling in the trees separated them. There was a curious strained silence when they broke. Dwight was out of breath and he thought Caroline was too.
He said: ‘And now no doubt you hate me.’
‘No doubt I hate you.’
‘And will be glad to go, cured of your curiosity.’
‘You’d best,’ she said, ‘you’d best help me on my horse – if we’re to get back.’
He moved to bend to make a step for her foot, but at the first contact of her skirt he straightened and she was in his arms again. They reeled against the horse, which shied and whinnied; a tree came up against them, and she leaned her back against it as he kissed her again, more deliberately this time.
Already the sun was higher than it should have been. This time he really helped her to mount, and then he climbed up on to his own horse, and the soft morning breeze wafted on their faces.
Their horses were ready to move off, but neither of the riders made any sign.
‘When will you be back?’ said Dwight.
‘When I choose.’
‘You’ll write?’
‘If you wish me to.’
He made a gesture of hopelessness. Did she want reassurance of that? ‘If you come back …’ he began.
‘It will be the same over again? But in October there will be one change.’
‘What is it?’
‘I shall be twenty-one. Uncle Ray can do nothing to prevent me from returning to this district after October the twenty-sixth.’
They moved off slowly out of the glade, and nothing was left but some hoof prints and a few broken bluebells to mark the emotion which had flared there.