The Black Moon Read Online Free PDF Page B

g'n play with Garrick?'
    `Yes. But mind for yourself. No mor e walls; till that has healed.'
    When he had gone Sam said: `You 'ave others, sister?'
    'No, the only one. We lost a girl.' Demelza smoothed her skirt. 'And Father and the widow? They have others, I recollect?'
    `A little cheeil rising five, named Flotina. Three others was all called to God.'
    'God has a lot to answer for,' said Ross,
    There was an embarrassed silence. In the end neither boy rose to the bait, as their father would certainly have done.
    Demelza said: `What time did you leave home this morning?'
    `Left home? Soon after cocklight. We took but one-wrong turn and was sent back by gamekeepers. I was in the error for I thought, twas the way we had come last time"
    `You possibly had,' Ross said. 'But there are new owners at Trenwith wh o are blocking paths that have been rights of way for generations.'
    'It is too far to, walk back today,' Demelza said. 'You must stay over.'
    Well, thank ye, sister.' Samuel cleare d his throat. 'I' fact, sister and brother too w e was come to ask a favour of you . In Illuggan there's many as has not tasted flesh meat in three months. We d'li ve on barley bread and weak tea and pilchards when they can be got. That's not to complain, mind. Merciful Jesus saves us from any hunger of .the soul. We are refreshed by the clear fount of His eternal love. But many die of want and disease, and have fallen asleep in their sins.'
    He dried up and grimaced. 'Go on,' Ross said quietly.
    `Well, here, brother, we hear tell, there's work.' Word reached us last month t hat your mine was doing bravely. It was said as you'd took on twenty new hands last month and twenty the month afore. Me and Drake. I'm so good a t ributer as you'll find, though I says it myself. Drake's a handy man, handy at all manner of things, aside from the turning of a wheel. We come to see if there's work for us here.'
    Jere my had just taken Garrick, into the garden, and Garrick was bouncing around him and barking. Jeremy was the only one now who could make Garrick behave like a puppy. Ross bit a t his finger and looked' across at Demelza. She had her hands folded in her lap, her eyes demurely down. This did not at all disguise from him the fact that a lot would be going on in her head and that she would have a number of precise and coherent views on the subject of this request. But she was giving him no inclination of what they were. This presumably meant that she wanted him to make up his mind.
    All very well, but it directly concerned her. This was a difficult request for him to refuse: relationship, need on their part, prosperity on his. But Demelza had had to fight to get away from her family - chiefly her father. She was still remembered everywhere, no doubt, as a miner's daughter; but as his wife she had been accepted in most society over these last four years. Now that they had money they could progress further. Good clothes, some jewellery, a renovated home. They could entertain and be entertained. She would not be human if, after years of near poverty, she did not now have ambition. Did she at th is stage want, to be trammelled wilth two brothers living near-by, working men, poorly spoken, claiming relationship and privileges which would embarrass her and everyone else? Not merely would this raise contacts with the people who. worked for them the miners, the engine men, the streamers, the blowers, the bal-boys and bal-maidens,, the farm labourers, the cottagers, the house servants., At the moment, although it was known she was one of them, it was accepted that she was Mistress Poldark. The present relationship with everyone was a singularly good, one; there was real liking and fr iendship but also real respect. How might it be altered by t he arrival of the two Carn es? And these two might be followed by three or four others. What if they married round here? Would it suit Demel za to have a brood of mining in laws, necessarily poor, necessarily ill-found,