I
Dwight found the cottage at the third attempt. Like its upstart relative Falmouth, Penryn climbed the hill beside its river, steps and cottages reproducing themselves up and down steep slopes, with narrow lanes and passages bisecting the slopes laterally to allow of the carriage of produce and to make room for short lines of washing between the first and second floors.
Stephen had found a landlady at the end of a row. It was a not unpleasant room except that the roof enabled one to stand upright only in the centre space. Low windows, hung with threadbare curtains of faded pink cotton, and longer laterally than they were high, looked out both ways, down towards the tidal river and up towards the rampant woods that surrounded the turn-pike road to Truro. The entrance to the house was dingy, with an open drain trickling over cobbles towards a ditch, and tattered, half-naked children with scabrous lips and running nasal mucus playing on the door step. Upstairs was moderately clean, if the air could and should have been fresher.
Stephen was lying on a sort of truckle-bed – except that the castors had long since broken off. He was conscious, very flushed, breathing fast. Clowance was on a low chair beside him, still in the frock she had been wearing at the celebration, her blonde hair caught in a trim blue ribbon. She looked very pale, and suddenly much older.
‘Oh, Uncle Dwight, how good of you to come!’ She got up, kissed him on the cheek.
‘Good day to you, Stephen,’ Dwight said, having squeezed Clowance’s hand.
‘Good – ur . . .’ His voice was choked by a cough, and a grimace of pain narrowed his eyebrows.
They exchanged glances over him. Clowance said: ‘Mr Wheeling was here this morning. He says there is no change and nothing more he can do.’
Dwight took his time examining the sick man. Then he went through the remedies Mr Wheeling had left, raising his eyebrows at one or two of them.
‘Who is looking after him?’
‘I am,’ said Clowance.
‘But before you came?’
‘Andrew did his best. And Mrs Nye, the landlady, came up when she could.’
‘You cannot do it all yourself. Did you have any sleep last night?’
‘Andrew is coming in tonight. And Aunt Verity will take a turn when she can.’
‘How often is he bled?’
‘Every time Mr Wheeling calls. Which is three times a day.’
‘Well, that must only be once a day – if you accept my decision on these matters.’
‘Of course.’
‘It is difficult for me to come and issue these commands and then go away again. But clearly I cannot stay for long, with my own patients to see to . . .’ Dwight picked up another bottle and stared at it. ‘Tincture of mercury . . . Yes, well. Where does Mr Wheeling live? Perhaps I could see him . . .’
‘Tell me what to do,’ said Clowance, ‘and I’ll tell him.’
Dwight smiled at her. ‘I believe you will . . . But, my dear, please don’t think I have any miracle I can perform . . . How often does he expectorate?’
‘Scarcely at all.’
The smile faded. ‘But when he coughs?’
‘No. Nothing comes up.’
‘And what did Mr Wheeling leave him for that?’
‘I have to give him this twice a day.’
Dwight took the bottle. ‘I think I can improve on that. Clowance, it is vital he shall spit freely, otherwise the congestion will not clear away. It is of the essence of the disease . . . Stephen . . .’
‘Yes?’
‘When you cough, why do you not spit?’
He lay there as if he had been running a race. ‘Don’t know. Nothing comes.’
Dwight rubbed his chin. ‘Can you try. Now.’
Stephen tried. After a bout of horrible coughing his head went back on the pillow. Clowance dabbed gently at his face and forehead with a cloth.
Dwight sat on the bed. ‘Can you hear me, Stephen?’
‘Yes.’
‘I am going to change some of your medicines. Little bleeding. But something to agitate the cough. And a teaspoonful of brandy every four hours.’
A tired grin came to his face. ‘Like that.’
‘But no more. Only that much. Stephen, I expect you know that we doctors can only lend a little outside aid. You are the one who is attacked. You must fight. D’you understand that?’
‘Yes.’
‘And spit. Force yourself if you possibly can – even if it hurts – however much it hurts – spit out the sputum. For that is the disease you are spitting away from yourself. No help I can give, no help Clowance can give, is half as important as that. D’you understand?’
‘Yes. And thank ee.’
In the claustrophobic passage outside, where even Clowance had to bend her head, Dwight said:
‘I won’t pretend to you that it is a good prognosis. Both lungs are affected, the right more than the left, and the lower part in each case more than the upper. There is scarcely any air getting into the affected lung tissue. I suspect that a certain amount of red hepatization has already taken place But he is essentially a very strong man. Not that I . . .’ He stopped. He had been going to say that a peculiarity of pneumonia was that it often killed the strong and spared the weak. ‘Every day that passes is a day in his favour. If he can reach the crisis he may yet pull through. It is perfectly true what I told him in there: he is fighting this disease. We are the spectators. One other thing.’
‘Yes.’
‘Get one of the windows to open if you can. Not to let the air fall directly on him but to keep it stirred in the room. Let’s see, you have a fireplace; a small coal fire will help to clean the air, though do not get the room too warm. Keep a kettle boiling. And change that poultice on his chest. It smells as if Wheeling has used tincture of cantharides last time; but I think enough is enough. Anyway the value of blistering is doubtful. Something to soothe now. Goose grease on brown paper, with the singlet over to keep in the warmth.’
‘I am so grateful that you came.’
‘I will come tomorrow evening if . . .’ Again he stopped what he was going to say. ‘. . . if I can. How long did Andrew say he had been ill?’
‘Like this? About four days.’
‘Yes, well, the disease should be nearing the crisis. How long is it since he had typhus?’
‘Andrew said he had been better a week before this came on.’
‘Well . . . avoid his breath. Try to keep the sputum, if it comes, out of contact with other things, and have it emptied quickly away. Our knowledge of these fevers is rudimentary even today, but these are elementary precautions. When is Andrew coming to relieve you?’
‘About two he said.’
‘And how far is your aunt’s house from here?’
‘Oh . . . three and a half, four miles.’
‘You must get food and sleep, you know.’
She smiled. ‘I dozed off last night in the chair. I think he wants me near him.’
II
Most of the second night she was there he was lightheaded, rambling. The guttering candle threw monstrous shadows of his head against the unrendered bricks of the bedroom wall, as if the ugly silhouettes as he tossed and turned were reflections of the nightmares going on in his mind. In the end Clowance moved the candle to kill the images and then, having given him his sip of brandy, fell into a doze herself.
When she woke he was struggling to get out of bed. She put her arm about his shoulders to restrain him. He didn’t know her and began to talk about some box he wanted to open, for which he had no key. He was using a lever and attempting to force the lock of the box, but the lever kept slipping in his hands. She tried again to wake him and he half woke, stared at her with glazed eyes and called her Jeremy. ‘It’s no good, Jeremy,’ he kept saying. ‘Got to leave it, get away, else they’ll catch us. Red-handed, eh? Holy Mary, let me try again! Jeremy, let me try again!’
It was as much as she could do to stop him rolling out of the bed, for he was a heavy man, and his shirt and arms were slippery with sweat. Then he began to gasp, taking in each breath as if it were his last, drawn up like deep water from some drying well. She took a damp sponge and wiped his face and forehead with it, but this gave him no ease. Though only two hours had passed since the last dose she poured out another spoonful of brandy and tried to get him to swallow it, but what with her trembling hands and his wavering head most of it ran down his chin.
It was the darkest part of the night, when there seemed no end to her striving and no end to his distress except death. She poked at the sulky fire but it seemed as lifeless as her thoughts and hopes.
He was rambling on again now. Once he brought up Violet’s name; twice he mentioned Lottie – presumably Lottie Kempthorne; then he began to talk to Clowance, though as if she were not there, his blue eyes bloodshot and glazed. He told her he had to confess, he had never been a privateer. He began to persuade her to go away with him on some sort of a stage coach which was – to his horror – already approaching Liskeard. She held him down as he again tried to climb out of bed.
Then, whereas before he had been as hot as fire, he began to shiver, so that she had to keep the blanket close up to his chin. Again and again she wiped his face, until the towel she was now using was wet through. In and out went the lungs, like a mining engine fighting against loss of fuel. The hands grasped at the air, found hers, but as soon as they had found them released them, groping for something more. Groping in fact, she thought, for life; and that was escaping him.
For another hour this went on, and she scarcely had time to light one candle from the guttering end of another to keep away the dreadful and intolerable blackness that would follow. Then he was sick, a sort of black vomit emerging from a corner of his mouth, which she tried to wipe away as it came.
Thereafter the breathing was a little easier and he seemed to have reached the limits of exhaustion, which led either to sleep or to coma. Exhausted herself, she released her hold of him and lay back in her chair, slowly dozing off to sleep . . .
She woke with a start to see a faint smear of light showing through the splits in the stirring curtains. She stared at him anxiously. Either his breathing was quieter or it was not there at all. She jumped up and pulled aside the curtains, glimpsed the creeping greys of dawn, turned back into the tallow yellows of the sick and heavy room.
He was watching her.
‘Clowance . . .’ He tried to moisten his lips.
She came to the bedside, trembling, questioning, staring for signs of good or ill.
‘You’ve . . . been here all night?’ he whispered.
‘Of course.’
‘Dreams . . . nightmares . . .’
‘Yes.’
‘I dreamt . . . Holy Mary . . . dreams.’
‘Do you feel – how do you feel?’
‘I’ve – I don’t know.’
She wiped his forehead for the fiftieth time; it was wetter than ever, his mane of tawny hair was as lifeless and bedraggled as if it had been out in a storm. But wasn’t the sweat cooler?
He said: ‘You stayed. This . . . the second night you stayed.’
‘Don’t talk now.’
She tried to make the greasy poultice easier on his chest; and then they were quiet together. As the dark room lightened with the reluctant day he stirred again.
‘You came – to look after me.’
‘Rest now.’
‘Want to talk – a little. Sit here.’
She sat on the chair. His hand came wandering out and she took it.
‘Clowance. Don’t know how this will end.’ He made an effort. ‘Still can’t spit, ye see.’
‘Never mind.’
‘Can’t say all I want to say yet – mebbe never. But – I love you. Ye know that, don’t you.’
‘Yes.’
‘You coming like this – does it mean you care a little?’
‘I care a little.’
His hand tightened on hers. ‘You don’t know how much that means . . .’ The hand was definitely cooler.
‘Can you sleep again now?’
‘Eighteen months I been – like a man bereft. Didn’t know – couldn’t believe that you . . .’
‘Don’t go into it now.’
He was still just as much out of breath. ‘That sort of thing. Losing you like that. It makes a man humble.’
‘Don’t say that. That was not what I wanted.’
‘I know. I know. But it does . . . Makes ye do strange things . . . Did Andrew go for you?’
‘He came over and told me. Otherwise I should not have known.’
‘God bless him. And you for coming.’
The daylight crept in like a thief, picking out the other chair, the home-made wardrobe, the tumbled bed, the soiled linen, the foul bucket and the pitcher and the bottles of medicine, last almost it seemed the colours of her face and hair. Pink was in the sky now, staining the hillside above the trees.
He said: ‘If I die . . . if I live . . . I’ll be happier either way knowing that you care a little.’
He fell into a deep sleep that Clowance was afraid was too much like unconsciousness.
At eight Andrew came and wanted her to leave but she would not. She dozed uncomfortably in the other chair while he brought fresh coal and re-lit the fire, carried out the bucket and the other soiled stuff, made her a cup of tea. She sipped it and they stared together at the man on the bed.
‘It is time for his brandy,’ said Andrew.
‘Let him sleep. I – I think he is sleeping.’
Dwight Enys turned up at eleven, in spite of his having said he would not be able to come until the evening. By then Stephen was just stirring again and beginning to cough.
Dwight felt his pulse, his forehead, looking at his tongue, not very much more.
‘This crisis is past,’ he said. ‘The fever has gone. Now it remains to be seen . . . But with reasonable care. Care such as he has had these last two days . . .’ He smiled at Clowance. ‘With reasonable care he should recover.’
III
Clowance stayed nearly two weeks, having sent Andrew with a long letter to her parents on the third day, and thereafter writing them regularly by the common post.
After the intense fever Stephen was still a very sick man, still plagued with a racking cough and pains in both lungs. Andrew took the third night, and Stephen would not allow Clowance to return on the fourth. Thereafter she spent each day with him, sleeping at Verity’s, and as he recovered taking a little more time off to buy delicacies for him to eat and books and magazines for him to read.
It was a fine month, and the retarded spring was all the more lush for having been kept waiting. There came a day when, walking with a stick, and gingerly like an old man, Stephen took a turn about the town. That really marked the end of his invalidism, though it was four days after that before he risked himself on a horse. It was, he explained apologetically to Clowance, the two fevers, one atop the other, that had brought him so low. Clowance needed no apology; she was only happy to see the life returning to his step.
By the time it came time for her to leave, much had been said between them, much explained. Yet much remained to be said. In all their conversation they had never really got round to the subject of their final quarrel, the cause of their parting. For himself he could still scarcely understand it, for her part she could scarcely explain it. By a common instinct to preserve their newfound accord they sheered away from the danger spot, content that at least for the moment it could be ignored.
A little late in being aware of the proprieties, she now tried each day to leave his lodgings before dark.
He said: ‘M’love, I’m not much of a fatalist. I believe on the whole a man makes his own fate, don’t wait for it to come to him. But I’ve had three great strokes of fortune in me life so far, and they were all nothing to do with me as an active party. First was when I was a starving urchin runaway of eight and I happened upon the Elwyns’ farm, who were a childless couple and Mrs Elwyn just needing me in place of a son. Second was when I was drifting with a dead man on that raft and Jeremy picked me up. Third was when I was near dead with the peripneumonia and you heard and rode over and spent two nights and three days without break nursing me through it. For I should never have recovered wi’out your nursing, you can be sure of that!’
‘Oh, I don’t know—’
‘Oh, I do know. So three times my life has been preserved and two out of the three times it has been a Poldark that has done it. D’you not think there is some fate in that?’
‘Perhaps.’
He was sitting down so she kissed his forehead, now healthily dry with the hair upgrowing again. He quickly put his arms around her knees, half pinioning her.
He said: ‘What will they say when you tell them?’
‘I’ve no idea.’
‘Do you care?’
‘Very much.’
‘Yes.’ He sighed. ‘That’s what I have to get used to.’
‘What?’
‘That you owe them a love and affection that don’t belong to me, that I’m no part of. I think that’s mebbe what I shall get used to now.’
‘I hope so.’
‘D’ye know,’ he said. ‘To tell the sober honest truth, I’m a bit of an egotist. Except for those two times being rescued before this, I’ve always relied on meself and, most times, not been disappointed. So it’s led to me being reliant on meself and confident of what I am and what I think and what I stand for. You’ve taught me a lesson in that.’
‘Believe me, Stephen, that wasn’t what I wanted or intended—’
‘Well, that’s what you got. And if I’m self-sure about anything now, it is that I can learn from experience. Experience has taught me never to take anything about you for granted, f’ instance. And I promise you I never shall.’
‘Not even my legs?’ she said.
He released her instantly, and gave a little gurgle of laughter, which ended in a cough. ‘Oh, Clowance, we’ll make a good pair, I swear it! Promise you will always be like this – loving, warm; but always, always one on your own, quick as me or quicker, and ready to hit back if I take liberties!’
‘I’ll do my best.’
‘I’m sure you will. My dear . . .’ He cleared his throat and waited for his breath. ‘Don’t come back again. Send me a letter – quite short – just saying what they say and telling me when I can come to Nampara – or if I can come. Take a week. There’s no hurry now. I’ve business to do with my two vessels – d’ye realize I’m a ship-owner!’
‘You’ve said so before.’
‘This week I shall take it easy – just going down for a few hours a day – and eating . . . and, when I can, sitting in the sun. Andrew’s been a real help to me, on this voyage and while I been ill. I hope he’ll stay along with me as me second-in-command. Then by the time your summons comes I’ll be total fit and well again and ready to ride over and face the music.’
‘It’s I who will have to face the music first.’
‘I know. But surely by now they will have guessed.’
‘I think Mama did before I left. It is my father I am in doubt of.’ She tied a scarf about her head. ‘But not so much in doubt of. All his life he has been far too indulgent to me.’
‘I don’t blame him. What time will you leave in the morning?’
‘About eight.’
He took her hand. ‘There are some things I reckon I still ought to say to you, me darling. But twill not be easy.’
‘Then don’t try. If we quarrelled—’
‘No, tis not altogether that. There’s things still not quite straight between us, you and me. If I’m to marry you, as I hope and pray, I’d wish you to come to me knowing all me faults, all the things I’ve done in life that don’t lie altogether easy on the conscience.’
‘While you were delirious you were anxious to tell me that you had never been a privateer.’
He sighed. ‘Quite true. I never have. Else I should not ’ve been so scared of the press-gang when I was at sea, as I once told you. Crews of privateers don’t often get pressed – should not at all! I went – adventuring with Captain Fraser, Budi Halim, Stevenson, and one other, Hawker, but we did not have letters of marque. Twas a sordid expedition, I can tell you, to seize what we could find; but all the rest was true – we were cornered by a French sloop, shipwrecked, sunk. From there on, until Jeremy and the others picked me up, twas all true . . .’
‘And should I be shocked by that?’
‘Nay, there are worse things about me, Clowance, as you may guess. God knows whether I shall gather the courage to tell you it all before we marry. I should. But I couldn’t bear to lose you again.’
‘You’re not married to someone else, are you?’
‘Holy Mary, no! What made you say that?’
‘That’s the only reason I can think of why I shouldn’t marry you.’
He kissed her hand.
‘Ride safe and ride careful. I’ll come for you soon.’
IV
Clowance said: ‘You must think me an impossible daughter.’
‘Not impossible,’ said Ross; ‘people have been known to change their minds. But I am concerned to learn the reasons.’
It had been a frustrating day. She had got home about twelve to find her father gone to Truro for a bank meeting and not expected back till dark. Instead of being able to explain to them both together, so that both had the same information at the same time – and she was not appearing to persuade one in the other’s absence – she had sat down to a noisy dinner at which Isabella-Rose was particularly exasperating by wanting to know all about Clowance’s two weeks away, being relentless in her questions and refusing even to accept her mother’s veto on the subject; while young Henry, newly promoted to a baby chair at the table, syncopated the meal by beating on his table top with a spoon. Eventually about four Clowance had disentangled her mother from the claims of the household and had walked her on the beach for an hour, pouring out her heart.
Now, belatedly, she had to do the same all over again while her father ate his supper. (She had said she would prefer to wait until he finished but he said, no, he’d like to hear at once.) And speaking to her father with her mother listening was, she found, quite different, in spite of all her effort not to let it be so. It seemed to centre on the practical rather than the emotional, even though the latter at the final resort must be the one that counted most.
‘Stephen now owns these two boats and has made money out of the one voyage to Italy and back. He says that, though the outward trip was perfectly legal, he took a deliberate risk bringing home wine and silks. These have all been safely landed – were landed before he was taken ill a second time – and he has been paid for most of them. He says that now the war is over he knows he can never make this sort of money again, so he intends to use the vessels for coastal trading and at pilchard time to take the fish wherever they are most wanted; it might be Italy again; but if so he will probably not go himself. He says that with the end of the war there must be an enormous expansion of trade with Europe, and he is hoping to buy a third vessel to take advantage of this situation.’
Ross thought: these are his words; I can hear him saying them.
‘And the smuggling?’
‘He wants to avoid it if he can. He says that with the end of the war – except the war in America – there will be many more resources available in England to put smuggling down. He believes there is plenty of money to be made out of legitimate trade.’
Ross waved Demelza to stay where she was and took another piece of pigeon pie.
‘And where does he intend to operate this business?’
‘Penryn. It has good facilities for small trading vessels. He also thinks we should live in Penryn, where he can be near all the furnishings of his trade. The Gatehouse . . . would be too far away.’
Ross nodded and ate quietly, reflectively.
‘I should be near Aunt Verity,’ Clowance said quickly.
‘Yes . . . yes. Bear with me if I go back a little, Clowance. Perhaps you have already explained it to your mother . . . But you parted from Stephen eighteen months ago after a – a quarrel, a difference between you that seemed to be final. Do you suppose it is likely to occur again? – for once you are married it is much harder to separate, indeed you are bound irrevocably together. You may separate physically but neither of you may marry anyone else.’
Clowance glanced from one parent to the other. ‘I think we have both learned from that. What I have learned is that there is nobody who can take his place.’
‘And what has he learned?’
She hesitated. ‘I think a good deal. So he says. And he has spoken in a way that has made me entirely believe him. I think . . .’
‘Yes?’
‘I think, whatever else, that he loves me. He’s not a saint. He has never pretended to be. We quarrelled and separated, and I thought I was right. Now I know I was wrong.’
‘You mean you were in the wrong?’
‘No, no, no. We have not – to be truthful we’ve not gone back over it word for word; but I think he believes he was in the wrong. Where I was wrong was in supposing that such a quarrel was a sufficient reason for parting. If you – love someone – it doesn’t happen – that way.’
‘And you are sure you love him that way now?’
‘Yes, Papa. Quite sure.’
‘Then there is nothing more to be said.’
Silence fell again. Demelza rose and poured out some wine for him, a glass of port for herself. Clowance had already shaken her head.
‘And what part has Andrew played in all this?’ Ross asked.
‘He and Stephen have grown to a firm friendship. He has done well out of the voyage and is now Stephen’s junior partner. He came to tell me about Stephen, as you know. He had been nursing Stephen himself . . . He is living at home, is reconciled with Aunt Verity . . . He has exchanged a few words with his father, but Uncle Andrew finds it hard to forgive him for abandoning his position in the Packet Service.’
‘Well, it’s understandable,’ Ross said. ‘Andrew Blamey made his life in the Packet Service, and he expected his son to do the same. I hope this new venture works.’
‘So do I,’ said Clowance. ‘Oh, one thing I should say. Stephen is trying to persuade Andrew to drink less. He says he is no use to him unless he can hold his drink. That at least should please Uncle Andrew.’
Ross glanced at his wife. ‘And does Stephen believe he can support you?’
‘Oh, yes. This last week, when he was feeling so much better, we looked at one or two places in Penryn. There is a half house to let just outside the town; quite small and it looks towards the river. The rent is not high. We should have to furnish it, of course. But apart from the capital Stephen now has – and a good chance of a reasonable income from his trading vessels – there are his shares in Wheal Leisure, which at present are bringing in an extra income.’
‘And have you talked it over with him or with your mother, when you think of getting married?’
‘We thought the middle of next month, Papa. But that would depend entirely on your approval.’
‘Entirely?’ Ross said with a little smile.
‘Well . . . yes. Or almost entirely. I desperately want – we both want – your approval. And we couldn’t marry if you were in Westminster.’
‘I doubt if you will encounter any obstacle in the latter,’ said Ross. ‘Europe is going mad with joy, and so is London, and I better prefer to sit at home and read about it in comfort.’
‘And the former?’
He looked at her for a long moment. ‘You tell us you’re sure. You told us that two years ago. Do you remember?’
She flushed. ‘Yes, I remember.’
‘But you’re more sure now?’
‘I’m more sure now. I have learned a lot about myself since then.’
‘And about him?’
‘No. Not much more about him. But I have learned to accept him, the way he is, not the way I presumed he ought to be. Whether I shall be happy all the time I am married I don’t know. But I know I don’t want to face my life unmarried to him.’ She got up and put her hand on her father’s arm. ‘I am sorry to give you so much worry, Papa. I am indeed sorry if I disappoint you. But please will you give us your approval?’
He put his hand over hers. ‘Have we ever denied you anything that you set your heart on?’
V
On the beach Clowance had said: ‘There is all the difference, isn’t there, between friendship and love. I am sure you must know far more about all this than I do, Mama . . . But – but friendship is almost a matter of choice, isn’t it. The other person is nice to you and you like him and you find you have the same tastes in common and you welcome his companionship and you become attached. It is half in the mind – perhaps more than half. It is reasonable, always subject to reason. Almost everything about a friendship you can explain . . . That I can find with Tom Guildford. Perhaps even could have with Lord Edward Fitzmaurice . . .’ She stopped and pushed back her hair. ‘Love is different. Is it not? Love is something that grows in your heart and in your stomach – and lower down – and it is lucky if you find you even have tastes in common with the person, for it makes no manner of difference. If you love, then you’re in deep water, struggling. Perhaps you don’t even struggle – you just go under, drown. You and Papa were wise in insisting that we should wait till the October to marry, for that gave me time to see things in Stephen I didn’t like; and in the end I came to the surface and drew back from where I was going. My mind, my loyalties, my judgements, all told me to draw back and I obeyed them.’ She paused for a long time. ‘And then,’ she added in a small voice, ‘I found it was no good.’
‘I see,’ said Demelza.
‘I believe you have had one or two bitter quarrels with Papa in your earlier life. Did they stop you loving him?’
‘No,’ said Demelza, then corrected herself. ‘Once or twice, yes. For a while. Once at least I hated him.’
‘That’s easier, isn’t it. Love and hate – they aren’t that far apart. I don’t know if I ever hated Stephen, or even thought I did. It was more a terrible indignation! But nothing’s any good, is it, to break the – the tie.’
‘Sometimes it happens,’ said Demelza. ‘It depends.’
‘I don’t think I shall ever be as much in harmony with Stephen as you are with Papa. There will be more quarrels; but the fact that we have already had one – and a bitter one at that – shows that they don’t alter the inner feeling. We’ve both learned from it. I sincerely believe that.’
They walked on a way in silence. Then Clowance said:
‘It is a terrible thing, isn’t it.’
‘What? Love?’
‘Of this sort, yes. Other loves, other loyalties don’t count . . . I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that. You know what I mean.’
‘I believe so. Yes, for sure.’
‘One man’s voice . . . one man’s eyes . . . one man’s lips . . . why are they like electric charges when you hear them, see them, feel them? And another man, perhaps just as good looking, perhaps far more worthy . . . his don’t connect, cause any current at all! Is there only one such person born into the world to satisfy and electrify one other person? Or are there a number such, floating about like particles of dust in the sunshine and it is all a matter of luck – good or ill – which you meet?’
‘That’s nearer the truth, I suspect,’ said Demelza. ‘Yet if you believe the Bible, no one man – or woman – is just like another. Each one of us is unique. So one grain of dust is not just like another. There may be five – or fifty – which will create the spark in you – the electric spark – but twould not be quite the same spark in each case, never altogether the same. Yet . . .’
‘Yet?’
‘You may go through life only seeing and feeling that electric charge in one man. Or at the most two.’
‘Have you felt it in two?’
‘I have felt it in two.’
Clowance took her mother’s arm companionably. She knew better than to ask more.
‘Well, it is a terrible thing,’ she said again, as if by repeating it she took some of the wildness of it away, domesticated it. ‘That women – and men – should be so helpless to guide their own fate! A chance meeting, and that is it! I feel so sorry for Jeremy and Cuby Trevanion. I do not believe her to be the sweetest of young women. But with him it has happened too . . . Perhaps he will find one of his other – his other sparks of electricity in Holland or in France! Like Geoffrey Charles and his little prickly rose.’
‘I am so relieved the war is over – the main war, I mean.’
‘Yes . . . yes. I would dearly love for Jeremy to be here for my wedding. I’ll write him as soon as Papa has given his consent to the date. Surely in time of peace there is not much for young officers to do! I shall ask him to apply for leave.’