The day of the christening broke fine, and inside Sawle Church the ceremony passed off well before thirty guests, Julia squinting self-consciously when her second cousin, the Reverend William-Alfred Johns, dripped water on her forehead. Afterward everyone began to trek back to Nampara, some on horseback, others walking in twos and threes, chatting and enjoying the sun, a colorful procession straggling across the scarred countryside, gazed at with curiosity and some awe by the tinners and cottagers as they passed. They were, indeed, visitors from another world.
The parlor, large and accommodating as it was, was none too spacious for feeding a company of thirty, some of them with hoop skirts and none of them used to being overcrowded.
Elizabeth and Francis had both come, and with them Geoffrey Charles, three and a half years old. Aunt Agatha, who had not been outside Trenwith grounds for ten years and not on a horse for twenty-six, had come over looking disgusted on a very old and docile mare. She’d never ridden sidesaddle before in forty-seven years of hunting and she thought it an indignity to begin. Ross got her settled in a comfortable chair and brought her a charcoal foot warmer, then he put some rum in her tea, and she soon brightened up and started looking for omens.
George Warleggan had come, chiefly because Elizabeth had persuaded him. Mrs. Teague and three of her unmarried daughters were there to see what was to be seen, and Patience Teague, the fourth, because she hoped to meet George Warleggan. John Treneglos and Ruth and old Horace Treneglos were there, variously out of interest in Demelza, spite, and neighborliness.
They had also asked Joan Pascoe, daughter of the banker, and with her was a young man named Dwight Enys, who spoke little but looked earnest and likable.
Ross watched his young wife doing the honors. He could not but compare Demelza with Elizabeth, who was twenty-four and certainly no less lovely than she had ever been. At Christmas she had been a little piqued by the young Demelza’s success, but she had taken pains to see if she could rebuild her ascendancy over Ross, a matter that was becoming more important to her than it had once been. She was wearing a brocaded dress of crimson velvet, with broad ribbons around the waist and tiers of lace on the sleeves. To anyone with a sense of color the rich crimson made her fairness mesmeric.
Hers was the loveliness of gracious, aristocratic womanhood, used to leisure and bred to refinement. She came from uncounted generations of small landed gentlefolk. There had been a Chynoweth before Edward the Confessor, and, as well as the grace and breeding, she seemed to have in her a susceptibility to fatigue, as if the fine pure blood was flowing a little thin. Against her Demelza was the upstart: bred in drunkenness and filth, a waif in a parlor, an urchin climbing on the shoulders of chance to peer into the drawing rooms of her betters; lusty, crude, unsubtle, all her actions and feelings were a stage nearer nature. But each of them had something the other lacked.
The Reverend Clarence Odgers, curate of Sawle-with-Grambler, was present in his horsehair wig; Mrs. Odgers, a tiny anxious woman who had somehow found room for ten children and spread not an inch in the doing, was talking humbly over the boiled pike on parish problems with William-Alfred’s wife, Dorothy Johns. A group of the younger people at the far end of the table were laughing together at Francis’s account of how John Treneglos for a bet had the previous week ridden his horse up the steps of Werry House and had fallen off into Lady Bodrugan’s lap, all among the dogs.
“It’s a lie,” said John Treneglos robustly above the laughter, and glancing at Demelza to see if she had some attention for the story. “A brave and wicked lie. True I came unseated for a moment and Connie Bodrugan was there to offer me accommodation, but I was back on the nag in half a minute and was off down the steps before she’d time to finish her swearing.”
“And a round cursing you’d get, if I know her ladyship,” said George Warleggan, fingering his beautiful stock, which failed to hide the shortness of his neck. “I’d not be astonished if you heard some new ones.”
“Really, my dear,” said Patience Teague, pretending to be shocked, and looking up at George slantwise through her lashes. “Isn’t Lady Bodrugan rather an indelicate subject for such a pretty party?”
There was laughter again, and Ruth Treneglos, from farther along the table, eyed her older sister keenly. Patience was coming out, breaking away as she had done from the dreary autocracy of their mother. Faith and Hope, the two eldest, were hopeless old maids, echoing Mrs. Teague like a Greek chorus; Joan, the middle sister, was going the same way.
“Don’t some of our young people dress extravagant these days,” said Dorothy Johns in an undertone, breaking off her more substantial conversation to look at Ruth. “I’m sure young Mrs. Treneglos must cost her husband a handsome penny in silks. Fortunate that he is able to gratify her taste.”
“Yes, ma’am. I entirely agree, ma’am,” Mrs. Odgers breathed anxiously, fingering her borrowed necklace. Mrs. Odgers spent all her time agreeing with someone. It was her mission in life. “And not as if she had been accustomed to such luxury at home, like. It seems no time at all since my husband christened her. My first came just after.”
“She’s grown quite fat since I saw her last,” whispered Mrs. Teague to Faith Teague, while Prudie clattered the gooseberry pies behind her. “And I don’t like her dress, do you? Unbecoming for one so recently a matron. Worn with an eye for the men. You can see it.”
“One can understand, of course,” said Faith Teague to Hope Teague, passing the ball obediently a step down table, “how she appeals to a certain type. She has that sort of full bloom that soon fades. Though I must say I’m quite surprised at Captain Poldark. But no doubt they were thrown together…”
“What did Faith say?” said Joan Teague to Hope Teague, waiting her turn.
“Well, she’s a fine little monkey,” said Aunt Agatha, who was near the head, to Demelza. “Let me hold her, bud. Ye’re not afraid I’ll drop her, are you? I’ve held and dandled many that’s dead and gone afore ever you was thought of. Chibby, chibby, chibby! There now, she’s smiling at me. Unless it’s wind. Reg’lar little Poldark she is. The very daps of her father.”
“Mind,” said Demelza, “she may dribble on your fine gown.”
“It will be a good omen if she do. Here, I have something for you, bud. Hold the brat a moment. Ah! I’ve got the screws today, and the damned jolting that old nag gave me didn’t help… There. That’s for the child.”
“What is it?” Demelza asked after a moment.
“Dried rowanberries. Hang ’em on the cradle. Keep the fairies away…”
“He hasn’t had the smallpox yet,” said Elizabeth to Dwight Enys, rubbing her hand gently over the curls of her small son, who was sitting so quietly on his chair beside her. “I have often wondered whether there is anything in this inoculation, whether it is injurious to a young child.”
“No, not if it is carefully done,” said Enys, who had been put beside Elizabeth and was taking in little except her beauty. “But don’t employ a farmer to give the cowpox. Some reliable apothecary.”
“Oh, we are fortunate to have a good one in the district. He’s not here today,” Elizabeth said.
The meal came to an end at last, and since the day was so fine people strolled into the garden. As the company spread out Demelza edged her way toward Joan Pascoe.
“Did you say you came from Falmouth, did I hear you say that, Miss Pascoe?”
“Well, I was brought up there, Mrs. Poldark. But I live in Truro now.”
Demelza moved her eyes to see if anyone was within hearing.
“Do you chance to know a Captain Andrew Blamey, Miss Pascoe?”
Joan Pascoe cooed to the baby.
“I know of him, Mrs. Poldark. I have seen him once or twice.”
“Is he still in Falmouth, I wonder?”
“I believe he puts in there from time to time. He’s a seafaring man, you know.”
“I’ve often thought I’d dearly like to go to Falmouth on a visit,” Demelza said dreamily. “It’s a handsome place they say. I wonder when is a good time to see all the ships in the harbor.”
“Oh, after a gale, that is the best, when the vessels have run in for shelter. There is room enough for all to ride out the greatest storm.”
“Yes, but I s’pose the packet service runs regular, in and out, just like clockwork. The Lisbon packet they say goes every Tuesday.”
“Oh, no, I think you’re misinformed, ma’am. The Lisbon packet leaves from St. Just’s Pool every Friday evening in the winter and every Saturday morning in the summer months. The week’s end is the best time to see the regular services.”
“Chibby, chibby, chibby,” said Demelza to Julia, copying Aunt Agatha and watching the effect. “Thank you, Miss Pascoe, for the information.”
“My dear,” said Ruth Treneglos to her sister Patience, “who is this coming down the valley? Can it be a funeral procession? Old Agatha will certainly smell a bad omen here.”
One or two of the others noticed that fresh visitors were on the way. Headed by a middle-aged man in a shiny black coat, the newcomers threaded their way through the trees on the other side of the stream.
“My blessed parliament!” said Prudie, from the second parlor window. “It’s the maid’s father. ’E’s come on the wrong day. Didn’ ’ee tell him Wednesday, you black worm?”
Jud looked startled and swallowed a big piece of currant tart. He coughed in annoyance. “Wednesday? O’ course I says Wednesday. What for should I tell him Tuesday when I was told to tell Wednesday? Tedn my doing. Tedn me you can blame. Shake yer broom ’andle in yer own face!”
With a sick sensation in the pit of her stomach Demelza too had recognized the new arrivals. Her brain and her tongue froze. She could see disaster and could do nothing to meet it. Even Ross was not beside her at the moment but was tending to Great-Aunt Agatha’s comfort, opening the french windows for her to sit and view the scene.
But Ross had not missed the procession.
They had come in force: Tom Carne himself, big and profoundly solid in his newfound respectability; Aunt Chegwidden Carne, his second wife, bonneted and small-mouthed like a little black hen, and behind them four tall gangling youths, a selection from among Demelza’s brothers.
A silence had fallen on the company. Only the stream bubbled and a bullfinch chirped. The cavalcade reached the plank bridge and came across it with a clomp of hobnailed boots.
Verity guessed the identity of the new arrivals and she left old Mrs. Treneglos and moved to Demelza’s side. She did not know how she could help Demelza unless it was merely by being there, but in so far as she could give a lead to Francis and Elizabeth, that she meant to do.
Ross came quickly out of the house, and without appearing to hurry reached the bridge as Tom Carne came over.
“How d’you do, Mr. Carne,” he said, holding out his hand. “I am grateful you were able to come.”
Carne eyed him for a second. It was more than four years since they had met, and then they had smashed up a room before one of them ended in the stream. Two years of reformation had changed the older man; his eyes were clearer and his clothing good and respectable. But he still had the same intolerant stare. Ross too had changed in the interval, grown away from his disappointment; the content and happiness he had found with Demelza had softened his intolerance, had cloaked his restless spirit in a new restraint.
Carne, finding no sarcasm, let his hand be taken. Aunt Chegwidden Carne, not in the least overawed, came next, shook his hand, moved on to greet Demelza. As Carne made no attempt to introduce the four gangling youths, Ross bowed gravely to them and they, taking their cue from the eldest, touched their forelocks in response. He found a strange comfort in the fact that none of them was the least like Demelza.
“We been waiting at the church, maid,” Carne said grimly to his daughter. “Ye said four o’clock and we was there by then. Ye’d no manner of right to do it afore. We was besting whether to go ’ome again.”
“I said tomorrow at four,” Demelza answered him sharply.
“Aye. So yer man said. But ’twas our right to be ’ere the day of the baptizing, an’ he said the baptizing was for today. Yer own flesh an’ blood ’as more call to be beside you at a baptizing than all these ’ere dandical folk.”
A terrific bitterness welled up in Demelza’s heart. That man, who had beaten all affection out of her in the old days, to whom she had sent a forgiving invitation, had deliberately come on another day and was going to shatter her party. All her efforts were in vain, and Ross would be the laughingstock of the district. Already, without looking, she could see the laughter on the faces of Ruth Treneglos and Mrs. Teague. She could have torn tufts from his thick black beard (showing streaks of gray beneath the nose and under the curve of the bottom lip); she could have clawed at his sober, too-respectable jacket or plastered his thick red-veined nose with earth from her flower beds. With a fixed smile hiding the desolation of her heart, she greeted her stepmother and her four brothers: Luke, Samuel, William, and Bobby, names and faces she had loved in that far-off nightmare life that no longer belonged to her.
And they, at any rate, were overawed, not least by their sister, whom they remembered a managing drudge and found a well-dressed young woman with a new way of looking and speaking. They grouped around her at a respectful distance, answering gruffly her metallic little questions, while Ross, with all that grace and dignity of which he was capable when he chose, was escorting Tom Carne and Aunt Chegwidden around the garden, inexorably introducing them to the others. There was a steely politeness in his manner that bolted down the reactions of those who were not used to exchanging compliments with the vulgar classes.
As they went, Tom Carne’s eyes grew no more respectful at the show of fashion but harder and more wrathful at the levity those people seemed to consider suitable for a solemn day, and Aunt Chegwidden’s mouth pinched itself in like a darned buttonhole as she took in Elizabeth’s flamboyant crimson, Ruth Treneglos’s tight low-cut bodice, and Mrs. Teague’s rows of pearls and richly frizzed wig.
At last it was over and talk broke out again, though on a subdued note. A tiny wind was getting up, moving among the guests and lifting a ribbon here and a tailcoat there.
Ross motioned to Jinny to carry around port and brandy.
The more everyone drank the more they would talk, and the more they talked the less of a fiasco it would all be.
Carne waved away the tray.
“I have no truck wi’ such things,” he said. “Woe unto them that rise up early in the morning that they follow strong drink, that continue until night till wine do inflame them! I’ve finished wi’ wickedness and bottledom and set my feet ’pon a rock of righteousness and salvation. Let me see the child, dattur.”
Stiffly, grimly, Demelza held Julia out for inspection.
“My first was bigger than this,” said Mrs. Chegwidden Carne, breathing hard over the baby. “Warn’t he, Tom? Twelve month old he’ll be in August. A ’andsome little fellow he be, though ’tis my own.”
“What’s amiss wi’ ’er forehead?” Carne asked. “Have ’ee dropped ’ur?”
“It was in the birth,” Demelza said angrily.
Julia began to cry.
Carne rasped his chin. “I trust ye picked her godparents safe and sure. ’Twas my notion to be one myself.”
Near the stream the Teague girls tittered among themselves, but Mrs. Teague was on her dignity, drawing down her eyelids in their side-slant shutter fashion.
“A calculated insult,” she said, “to bring in a man and a woman of that type and to introduce them. It is an affront set upon us by Ross and his kitchen slut. It was against my judgment that I ever came!”
But her youngest daughter knew better. It was no part of any plan but was a mischance she might put to good use. She took a glass from Jinny’s tray and sidled behind her sister’s back up to George Warleggan.
“Do you not think,” she whispered, “that we are remiss in straying so far from our host and hostess? I have been to few christenings so I do not know the etiquette, but manners would suggest…”
George glanced into the slightly oriental green eyes. He had always held the Teagues in private contempt, an exaggerated form of the mixed respect and patronage he felt for the Poldarks and the Chynoweths and all those gentlefolk whose talent for commerce was in inverse rate to the length of their pedigrees. They might affect to despise him, but he knew that some of them in their hearts already feared him. The Teagues were almost beneath his notice, maleless, twittering, living on three percents and a few acres of land. But since her marriage Ruth had developed so rapidly that he knew he must reassess her. She, like Ross among the Poldarks, was of harder metal.
“Such modesty is to be expected in one so charming, ma’am,” he said, “but I know no more of christenings than you. Do you not think it safest to consult one’s own interests and follow where they lead?”
A burst of laughter behind them greeted the end of an anecdote Francis had been telling John Treneglos and Patience Teague.
Ruth said in an exaggerated whisper, “I think you should behave more seemly, Francis, if we are not to have a reprimand. The old man is looking our way.”
Francis said, “We are safe yet. The wild boar always raises its hackles before it comes to the charge.” There was another laugh. “You, girl,” he said to Jinny as she passed near. “Is that more of the canary you have? I will take another glass. You’re a nice little thing; where did Captain Poldark find you?”
The stress was almost unconscious, but Ruth’s laugh left no doubt of the way she took it. Jinny flushed up to the roots of her hair.
“I’m Jinny Carter, sur. Jinny Martin that was.”
“Yes, yes.” Francis’s expression changed slightly. “I remember now. You worked at Grambler for a time. How is your husband?”
Jinny’s face cleared. “Nicely, sur, thank you, so far as…so far as…”
“So far as you know. I trust the time will pass quickly for you both.”
“Thank you, sur.” Jinny curtsied, still red, and moved on.
“You are taking small interest in your goddaughter, Francis,” Ruth said, anxious to turn him away from his squirish mood. “The infant is getting well quizzed in your absence. I’m sure she would appreciate a sup of canary.”
“They say all the vulgars are brought up on gin,” said Patience Teague. “And look no worse for it. I was reading but the other day how many, I forget how many, million gallons of gin was drunk last year.”
“Not all by babies, Sister,” said Treneglos.
“Well, no doubt they will sometimes take ale for a change,” said Patience.
That had all been watched, though not heard, by Tom Carne. He turned his sharp obstinate eyes on Mrs. Carne.
“Thur’s ungodliness ’ere, Wife,” he said through his beard. “’Tis no proper place for a cheeil. ’Tis no fitty company to attend on a baptizing. I suspicioned no less. Women wi’ their wanton clothes and young princox strutting between ’em, drinkin’ and jesting. ’Tis worse’n ye see in Truro.”
His wife hunched up her shoulders. Her conviction was of longer standing and was by nature less belligerent. “We must pray for ’em, Tom. Pray for ’em all, and your own darter among ’em. Maybe there’ll come a day when they’ll see the light.”
Julia would not be quieted, so Demelza seized the excuse to take her indoors. She was in a despairing mood.
She knew that however the day might turn, it was a black failure to her. Full-flavored meat for the gossips. Well, let it come. There was nothing more she could do. She had tried to be one of them and failed. She would never try again. Let them all go home, ride off at once, so that she might have done with everything. Only that she might be left alone.
A few moments after she had gone, Ruth succeeded in edging her friends within earshot of Tom Carne.
“For my part,” she said, “I have no care for liquor unless it be brandy or port; I like a good heavy drink, soft to the taste and no bite until it is well down. Don’t you agree, Francis?”
“You remind me of Aunt Agatha,” he said. “The conceits of a woman of discretion.”
There was another laugh, against Ruth that time.
They were passing by Tom Carne and he stepped forward, playing exactly into Ruth’s hands.
“One of ye be the cheeil’s godfather?”
Francis bowed slightly. Viewed from behind there seemed a hint of satire in the way the rising wind twisted his coattails.
“I am.”
Tom Carne stared at him.
“By what right?”
“Eh?”
“By what right do ye stand for the cheeil at the seat of righteousness?”
Francis had won heavily at the faro tables the previous night and he felt indulgent.
“Because I was so invited.”
“Invited?” said Carne. “Aye, mebbe you were invited. But are ’ee saved?”
“Saved?”
“Aye, saved.”
“Saved from what?”
“From the Devil and damnation.”
“I haven’t had any communication on the point.”
John Treneglos guffawed.
“Well, that’s where ye’re at fault, mister,” said Carne. “Them as has paid no heed to God’s call has no doubt hearkened to the Devil’s. Tes one or the other for all of we. There’s no betwixt an’ between. Tes heaven an’ all the angels or hellfire an’ the brimstone pit!”
“We have a preacher among us,” said George Warleggan.
Mrs. Carne pulled at her husband’s sleeve. Although she professed to despise the gentry she had not Carne’s genuine contempt for them. She knew that, outside the small circle of their own meetinghouse, people like that ruled the material world. “Come away, Tom,” she said. “Leave ’em be. They’re in the valley o’ the shadow, and nought will move ’em.”
Ross, who had gone with Demelza into the house to try to encourage her to face it out, came again to the front door. The wind was gusty. He saw the argument and at once moved toward it.
Carne had thrown off his wife’s arm.
“Four years ago,” he proclaimed in a voice that carried all over the garden, “I was a sinner against God and served the Devil in fornication an’ drunkenness. Nay, there was the smell of sulfur ’pon me an’ I was nigh to hell. But the Lord showed me a great light and turned me to salvation, an’ joy an’ glory. But them as has not laid hold o’ the blessing and is living in wickedness an’ unrighteousness has no call or sanction to stand before the Lord to answer for a puking cheeil.”
“I hope you find yourself rebuked, Francis,” said Ruth.
Francis refused to be provoked.
“For my part,” he said, eyeing Carne, “I am a little perplexed at this sharp division of the sheep and the goats, though I know it is often done by people of your complexion. What is the hallmark of the change? Are we of different flesh, you and I, that death should bring you a golden crown and me a seat in hell’s cockpit? Who’s to say that you are a better keeper of the brat’s religion than I? I ask you that in genuine inquiry. You say you are saved. You say it. But what’s to prove it? What is to hinder me from saying that I am Grand Vizier and Keeper of the Seven Seals? What is to prevent me from running around and announcing I am saved, mine is the kingdom and yours the damnation: I’m going to heaven, you go to hell!”
John Treneglos broke into a huge gust of laughter. Carne’s fleshy dogmatic face was purpled up and spotty with anger.
“Leave un be,” said Mrs. Carne sharply, dragging at him again. “’Tis the Devil himself temptin’ of ’ee, to vain argument.”
The christening guests, as if under the pull of a magnet, had all drawn in toward the noisy focal point.
Ross came up behind the group.
“The wind is rising,” he said. “The ladies would be better indoors. Perhaps you would help Aunt Agatha, Francis?” He made a gesture toward the old lady who, with an ancient instinct for trouble, had left her window seat and was tottering unaided across the lawn.
“Nay,” said Carne. “I’ll not be under the same roof wi’ such evil thoughts.” He stared sharply at Ruth. “Cover yer breast, woman, ’tis shameful an’ sinful. Women ha’ been whipped in the streets for less.”
There was an awful pause.
“Damn your insolence!” Ruth snapped back, flushing. “If—if there’s whipping to be done it’s you that’ll get it. John! Did you hear what he said!”
Her husband, whose mind was not agile and, being set to see the funny side, had at first seen no further, swallowed a guffaw.
“You impudent, splatty old pig!” he said. “D’you know who you’re speaking to? Make an apology to Mrs. Treneglos at once, or, damn, I’ll have your coat off your back!”
Carne spat on the grass. “If the truth do offend then tedn the truth that’s at fault. Woman’s place is to be clothed modest an’ decent, not putting out lures for men, shameless an’ brazen. If she was my wife, by Jakes—”
Ross stepped sharply between them and caught Treneglos’s arm. For a moment he stared into the flushed angry face of his neighbor.
“My dear John. A common brawl! With all these ladies present!”
“Look to your own business, Ross! The fellow is insufferable—”
“Let him come,” said Carne. “Tes two year since I was in the ring, but I’ve a mind to show ’im a trick or two. If the Lord—”
“Come away, Tom,” said Mrs. Carne. “Come away, Tom.”
“But it is my business, John,” said Ross, still staring at Treneglos. “You are both my guests, never forget. And I couldn’t permit you to strike my father-in-law.”
There was a moment’s stunned silence, as if, although they knew the truth, the mere statement of it had shocked and quieted them all.
John tried to wrench his arm out of Ross’s grip. He didn’t succeed. His face got still pinker.
“Naturally,” said Ruth, “Ross would wish to support one who has connived at all his schemes all along.”
“Naturally,” said Ross, releasing the arm, “I would wish to be on agreeable terms with my neighbors, but not at the price of allowing a brawl before my front door. The ladies don’t like torn shirts and bloody noses.” He looked at Ruth and at the little pink spots showing through her makeup. “At least, some of ’em do not.”
Ruth said, “It is quite strange, Ross, how you look upon things since you married. I don’t think you were lacking in all courtesy before. I hesitate to think what influence can have been at work to turn you out so boorish.”
“I want an apology,” Treneglos shouted. “My wife was grossly insulted by that man, father-in-law or no! Damn, if he was of my own status, I’d call him out for what he said! Would you swallow such impudence, Ross? Lord save us, you’d be the last! Rot an’ perish me if I’ll be content—”
“The truth’s the truth!” Carne snapped. “An’ blasphemy don’t aid un to be anything other—”
“Hold your tongue, man!” Ross turned on him. “If we want your opinions we’ll invite ’em at a proper time.” While Carne was speechless, he turned back to Treneglos. “Modes and manners vary with the breed, John; those with the same code can speak the same language. Will you allow me as host to apologize for such offense as this may have given you or your wife?”
Hesitating, a little mollified, John flexed his arm and grunted and glanced at the girl at his side. “Well, Ross, you spit it out well enough. I have no wish to go against that. If Ruth feels—”
Outmaneuvered, Ruth said, “I confess I should have taken it better at an earlier stage. Naturally if Ross wishes to protect his new relative… Some allowance must be made for those who know no better by those who do.”
A sudden wail from nearby caused them all to turn. Aunt Agatha, neglected in the quarrel, had made fair speed across the grass, but just when she was nearing her quarry, a mischievous gust had caught her. They saw a barely recognizable old lady crowned with a scum of gray hair, while a purple bonnet and a wig bowled along toward the stream. Francis and one or two of the others at once went in pursuit. Following them, floating down the wind, came a stream of curses from a Carolinian world none of the others had known. Even the Dowager Lady Bodrugan could not have done better.
• • •
An hour later Ross went upstairs to find Demelza lying in a sort of dry-eyed grief on the bed. All the guests had amiably gone, by foot or on horseback, clinging to hats, skirts and coattails flying in the wind.
Demelza had helped to see them off, smiling with fixed politeness until the last had turned his back. Then she had muttered an excuse and fled.
Ross said, “Prudie is looking for you. We didn’t know where you were. She wants to know what is to be done with some of the foodstuffs.”
She did not answer.
“Demelza.”
“Oh, Ross,” she said, “I am in a sore state.”
He sat on the edge of the bed. “Never worry about it, my dear.”
“It will be the talk of the district. Ruth Treneglos an’ all the other Teagues will see to that.”
“What is there to fret about? Tittle tattle. If they have nothing better to do than prate…”
“I am that grieved. I thought I would show ’em that I was a fit wife for you, that I could wear fine clothes and behave genteel an’ not disgrace you. An’ instead, they will all ride home snickering behind their hands. ‘Have you not heard about Cap’n Poldark’s wife, the kitchen wench…’ Oh, I could die!”
“Which would displease us all much more than a brush with John Treneglos.” He put his hand on her ankle. “This is but the first fence, child. We have had a check. Well, we can try again. Only a faint heart would give up the race so soon.”
“So you think I am a faint heart.” Demelza withdrew her foot, feeling irrationally irritated with him. She knew that, of all the people that afternoon, Ross had come out best. She faintly resented it because she felt that no one who cared could have been so unruffled, and because of that, she resented his manner, seeing in it more patronage than sympathy, disliking for the first time his use of the word child, as if it spoke more of condescension than love.
And at the back of everything was Elizabeth. Elizabeth had scored. She had looked so beautiful, so poised and graceful, standing in the background, taking no part in the squabble. She had been content to be there. Her existence was enough, just her as a contrast, as an example of all Ross’s wife was not. All the time he was sitting there, patting her foot and idly consoling her, he would be thinking of Elizabeth.
“The old man’s Methodism,” said Ross, “was grafted on a well-established tree. Moderation is not in him. I wonder what Wesley would say.”
“Jud was at fault for ever telling ’em there was to be two parties,” Demelza cried. “I could kill ’im for that!”
“My dear, in a week it will all be forgotten and no one the worse. And tomorrow we have the Martins and the Daniels and Joe and Betsy Triggs and Will Nanfan and all the others. They will need no prompting to enjoy themselves and will jig on the lawns, and do not forget the traveling players are coming to give a play.”
Demelza turned over on her face.
“I cannot go on, Ross,” she said, her voice remote and muffled. “Send ’em all back word. I have done my most, and that is not enough. Maybe it’s my own fault for takin’ pride in pretending to be what I never can be. Well, it’s over now. I cannot face any more. I ha’n’t the heart.”