It was just a small party at Nampara House: Francis and Elizabeth and Andrew Blamey and Verity—and Dwight Enys, who was now almost one of the family. Not a christening party for Jeremy, because it was natural to shrink from repeating anything that had happened in Julia’s life. This marked the opening of Wheal Grace—the first men engaged, the first sods broken. Demelza, handicapped by weakness and a delicate baby, had left all the catering to the Gimletts, and they’d done well enough. Boiled cod with oyster sauce, a piece of boiled beef, roast neck of pork, two small turkeys with ham, fried rabbits, a plum pudding, tartlets, and pies—with apples and olives and almonds and raisins for dessert. Demelza looked around and thought, This is much more than we can afford, but of course it’s quite right not to skimp for such an occasion.
It was nearly a month since she’d reached the house that day, soaked and exhausted—to find no one about, the surveillance she’d disliked gone when it was most needed, the house terrifying in its emptiness, the garden and the trees rustling and the nearest help half a mile away. It seemed a year since she had fought her way from kitchen to parlor, her hands full of paper and shavings to start a fire. Minutes later, Jane Gimlett had found her crouched in a chair, unable to move in a room full of smoke. Cobbledick was sent flying on his long legs for Dr. Enys and had the luck to find him home. Ross returned at seven to find Jeremy just born and Dwight despairing of them both.
Well, all that time was over and they had both survived, though Jeremy still did not seem oversecure. Very different from Julia, who from her earliest moments had put forward all the claims she could to be considered a permanency. Perhaps it was an omen, Demelza thought, that this frail one would survive where the lusty one died.
Over the meal the men had been talking of a book called The Rights of Man in which an atheist, Thomas Paine, advocated a parliament of nations to prevent war, and many other sweeping reforms, but Demelza had only been indifferently attending. She thought, So Francis and Andrew Blamey are sitting at the same table at last; it isn’t complete reconciliation, but that will follow as they have time in each other’s company—in the way Ross’s and Francis’s has followed. And Verity will no longer be shut off from Trenwith and there will no longer be the strain of ill feeling.
And Elizabeth…Elizabeth blooms like a painting. She has had a better year. By contrast, I’m dowdy and untidy, pale as a sheet from being indoors, no good as a hostess, and unattractive to any man. No wonder Ross looks at her with interest. She doesn’t love Francis, but she’s more content.
And Dwight? He looks happy to be here. A good thing Caroline Penvenen has gone, because there was something between them. He ought to marry Joan Pascoe, who will have lots of money and yet wouldn’t consider herself too good for him.
And me…?
They drank a toast to the new mine, and when they sat down again, silence fell. On the fortunes of Wheal Grace the financial survival of all the Poldarks would now depend. It was a sobering thought. Well, at least, thought Demelza, we are all together this time. And Jeremy is in the next room waiting for me, already knowing me. And Ross is at least temporarily content in knowing the venture started. Was it time now, she wondered, to lead the way out, leaving the men to their usual talking and drinking? And if so, should she get up and then speak, or speak before she got up?
Forestalling her, Francis rose instead.
“Toasts,” he said, “are a plaguey nuisance at the best of times. But I’ve a fancy to propose one more now, and I was never one not to indulge a fancy. I want to drink to our hostess, Demelza.”
Taken completely by surprise, Demelza for once in her life blushed to the roots of her hair. “Oh, no!” she said. “’Twould be most uncalled for.”
In a confusion of voices she heard Andrew Blamey, siding with his old enemy, say, “It’s the very thing,” and the others concur, Elizabeth a second later than the rest. Then they seemed all to be looking at Ross, and Ross looked up and smiled.
“Demelza is wrong. It has been long called for. Thank you, Francis.”
Francis, thus encouraged, fiddled with his glass and looked across the table at her, embarrassed but determined. “I was never one for speechmaking, but there it is. She came to live among us almost while we were unaware of it. But we’ve all come aware of it in time. There’s not one among us—unless it’s young Enys here—who has not had some special benefit from her coming. That’s no more than the truth, and there’s little more I can say! But if it wasn’t for her there’d be none of us gathering here together today—and if there’s any merit in being a united family, then the merit’s not the family’s but hers. It isn’t where you’re born in this world, it’s what you do. She is proper that proper doth. So I say we should drink to Demelza, a lady of the first quality…”
It was a lot for Francis to say. Horribly affected, Demelza sat there while they drank the toast. When it was done, a silence fell more difficult than the last, because they were all waiting for her to say something.
She blinked the mist out of her eyes and stared at the magenta-colored wine in her glass. She said in a low voice, “If I’ve done anything good for the family, look what you’ve done for me.”
Outside Garrick was barking, chasing a seagull off the lawn. It might wake Jeremy. They seemed to be waiting for her to say something more. In desperation a few words of the church service she’d attended in Bodmin came to her mind. She added, “I’ve only followed the devices and desires of my own heart.”
Verity patted her hand. “That’s what we love you for.”
• • •
When the party broke up, Ross went a little way up the valley to see his guests off. Demelza, being convalescent, stayed behind, and when they had crossed the river in the slanting sun, she walked back into the house and peered down at the sleeping Jeremy.
A small baby, unlike Julia, and dark, active, thin-featured, and delicate. Strange the difference. Perhaps in some way he reflected the changed circumstances in which he had been conceived and born. Demelza thought, I am content. Perhaps not the rich happiness of two years ago, because Ross is still an uncertain quality, but content. Could one expect more? They had all come through many hazards. Of course, the future was uncertain, full of dangers of its own.
The mine might fail, Jeremy might die in a teething convulsion like the last of the Martin children, Ross might go off with Elizabeth, or the next “run” into Nampara Cove might be surprised by the gaugers. But was any future, anyone’s future, unfraught by hazards of some sort? The only security was death. So long as one wanted to go on living one had to accept the risks. Well, she accepted them…
Outside Ross saw the visitors on their way and then walked slowly back alone. The stream bubbled and whispered down the valley beside him, adding its satirical commentary to his evening thoughts.
The gamble was on. The fight was on. They were setting out on this tenure in the teeth of unfavorable circumstances and all the opposition the Warleggans could muster. George had been indoors for a week after his fall, and there had been talk of a summons for assault. But nothing had come of it. George had not cut a sufficiently dignified figure to want it all thrashed out in public. Nor was the cause of the quarrel so much common property as Ross had imagined it might become. What he hadn’t at first realized was that the Warleggans would show up in a very bad moral light if they accused Francis of any such transaction, and for the sake of their business reputation they wouldn’t want that. George too had evidently lost his temper that day, had tried to poison the new friendship between the cousins with the most venomous accusation he could call up. (And had nearly succeeded!)
Francis certainly knew nothing as yet of the cause of the brawl, though last week he had complained of a peculiar coldness on the part of several people he had had dealings with in Truro. The evil rumor, once let loose, wouldn’t easily die. It would be liable to smolder underground and flicker up again where least expected. If it ever came to Francis’s ears it might yet prove a menace to their new partnership.
Ross glanced across at the first signs of activity around the ruins of Wheal Grace: a few ugly sheds, a heap of stones, a mountain of cut gorse, a cart, a new track across the hillside. Nothing of beauty. In twelve months the whole hill would be disfigured. But the disfigurement would have its own appeal to a man with mining in his blood. The question was, what would a further twelve months show? Another smokeless chimney stack, silent sheds, grass growing in the mule tracks, an engine rusty and derelict? Everything seemed to point to it.
Two things could save them, could save the Poldarks and their houses. The first was rich copper at an easily workable level. The second was that the market price of the ore should not merely show its present upward tendency but should leap thirty or forty pounds a ton. Ross had gambled on both. For the first he relied largely on Mark Daniel’s comments on that August night two years ago. Mark could not have been so impressed—and in such circumstances—without good cause.
For the second, Ross had gambled much more dangerously. Across the Channel a neighboring country was in the grip of a revolutionary fervor. How long would it keep its energy within the confines of its own territory? If war came in Europe, England might well stay out. The Channel was the surest wall. But it could not stay out unarmed. A defenseless country was an impotent country. A rearming country needed copper for its arms.
That was the other chance.
The air was hazy, heavy in the evening light. All the smells of the earth were strong. A blackbird twittered endlessly on a fallen stump, and the smoke from a chimney of the house grew like a slow worm, for once unhurried by the wind. In the distance a gray multitude of seagulls were wheeling and crying over Hendrawna Beach.
That was the other chance.
He came more slowly to the garden in front of the house. At the door he stopped to sniff the lilac that in a day or two would be in full bloom. Human beings were blind, crazy creatures, he thought, forever walking the tightrope of the present condemned to ever changing shifts and expedients to maintain the balance of existence, not knowing even as far ahead as tomorrow what the actions of today would bring. How could one plan a year ahead, how influence the imponderables?
A butterfly settled on the lilac and stayed a moment with poised, trembling wings. Not by a hairbreadth would a single external circumstance move to accommodate him and his schemes—he knew that. As well ask, on the butterfly’s behalf, for the postponement of sunset or tomorrow’s gale. That was as it might be. Within the scope of his own endeavor he accepted the challenge. He might at some later date look back on this day as marking the beginning of his prosperity or the last move toward his ultimate ruin. The tightrope was there. No one could see beyond the next step.
Within the house there were movements, and from where he stood he saw Demelza come into the parlor carrying some things of Jeremy’s that she spread before the fire. Her face was preoccupied, thoughtful, intent, but not on what she was doing. He realized that all the struggle and anxiety of the next few months would not be his alone. She would bear her share of the burden. She was bearing it already.
He went in to join her.