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Ross’ housegirl, when he is introduced, keeps her face turned down and bobs something like a curtsy before fleeing once more to the back kitchen.
“Her name is Demelza,” Ross says, sounding fond but also hugely exasperated. “She’s an odd thing, but she works hard enough to make up for even Jud and Prudie’s lack.”
“Her family?” Dwight asks, because Ross puts such high esteem on family. Particularly on his cousin’s pretty, too-polite wife, but that’s none of Dwight’s business. Dwight has not enough family to consider such things, and the name of Enys does not ring in any lofty halls, so he isn’t sure he’d consider it even if he did. He has never understood how a man so egalitarian in his friends as Ross could also be so absolutely snobbish in unexpected, utterly typical ways.
“Her mother is dead, I’m told, and her father a drunk,” Ross says. “And she has six brothers. I’ve heard her mention them to Prudie, but I couldn’t say how old or any names. I believe she places more value on her dog than any man, truthfully.”
Dwight might have asked about these mysterious brothers, but Ross is not Dwight and never has been. He is a good man, this Dwight firmly believes, but is much better at being good from a careful distance than he is from close at hand. No doubt he knows the name of every child in every family among his tenants, but God forbid he know the name of his own servant girl’s brothers!
But then, it might be that Ross’ taciturn and broody nature has been spoiled by Jud and Prudie, who ask much and give little, thereby providing Ross with an outlet for his always considerable spleen. A polite, industrious servant is not something he’s used to, and he’s probably confused by her.
“So that is how you’ve occupied your time since your homecoming,” Dwight says. “Tidying up your affairs, hiring a strikingly pretty girl to keep your house, and pining a little. A pleasant change from all that sulking you did while we were in America.”
“ Sulking!” Ross cries, and Dwight would concern himself with having given insult had he not leveled this accusation at Ross a hundred times before. “Might I remind you which of us was bleeding from the head, Doctor Enys?”
“You might, Captain Poldark,” Dwight says agreeably, “had the other of us not had to put up with your grumbling until the bleeding stopped.”
Dwight thinks no more of Ross’ pretty serving girl after that except to thank her for the exceptionally fine mutton stew and hearty bread she serves up to them, alongside a pot of tea brewed so strong you could dance on it and a jug of creamy milk, the appearance of which seems to take Ross by surprise.
Or perhaps it would be more correct to say he thinks of her no more for now.
The miners are sceptical in the extreme of Dwight’s prescriptions, which would be a great deal more frustrating if it weren’t something he’d been expecting from the moment Ross gave him permission to attend Wheal Leisure. He might have faced a less wary crew had he waited longer than a month beyond the mine’s reopening to offer his services, but he supposes that no good deed goes unpunished.
As it stands, perhaps one in ten of them accepts his doctoring with good will, and those same one in ten speak well of him and his methods when Doctor Choake condescends to walk among the lowly poor. Dwight knows himself to be only a step above the miners in Choake’s mind, and perhaps even below them because he’s too educated for the old man’s tastes, so he carefully ignores Choake and his cronies and ambles along among the tenant families with Ross, accepting thanks and complaints in equal measure.
“Will you dance, Doctor Enys?” Demelza asks, appearing at his elbow as though she’d only disappeared for a moment, rather than having broken away from his and Ross’ company the moment they reached the green. The wedding is a fine sort of a festival, and while Ross has been occupied with the reverend and with his tenants, Dwight has been a polite onlooker, drawn away only by this sprain and that sniffle, and he’s had a marvelous time overall.
Demelza’s request might just make a finer time of it.
“I’ve asked Cap’n Poldark and he won’t, not at all, but you’ve higher spirits than his and a body with such good humour ought to dance, I thought.”
Ross has the good grace to look a little shamed by that, because while Dwight knows that it’s Ross’ knee as much as anything that keeps him from dancing, he also knows that Ross mostly has himself to blame for his consistent low spirits. Dwight has spent more time at Nampara than he maybe should have done since his arrival here in Cornwall, and Demelza has been as polite and efficient and shyly smiling every time as she was on that first day. Ross grouses and grumps and yes, sulks his way around the house, but Demelza carries on being sensible and practical all around him, even with Jud and Prudie standing in her way.
Dwight greatly admires stubborn hard work, almost as much as he disdains Ross’ stubborn stubbornness. It ill suits a man with so many dependents as Ross has tenants and employees, and there are a great many more ways for Ross to better the lives of the people of Nampara than by lugging wood and stone with his own two hands. Well and good that he eschews lowering himself deeper into debt, for that is indeed a noble aim, but there is no hope on this road.
He takes Demelza’s outstretched hand and lets her lead him into the dance, laughing away his concern for Ross in favour of stumbling along through the almost-familiar rounds with Demelza’s careworn fingers in his. He hasn’t danced like this in a long while, that he can remember, but the others don’t seem to mind when he turns the wrong way or claps a beat ahead of time. If anything, it seems to amuse them all the more when he missteps. Demelza’s laughter is encouragement enough to cause him to stumble where he would otherwise step sure, not that he would ever admit to such a thing.
“Tell me, Demelza Carne,” he says, turning her by one hand and accepting a cup of ale for her with the other. “What keeps you at Nampara? Is it the easy work? The scintillating company?”
“Don’t know ‘bout scintillatin’, sir, but the visitors are right pleasant,” she says, flashing him the most daring grin he’s ever seen. “A body does love to see Verity coming up the meadow.”
He laughs at that, because he knows full well that he is a far more frequent visitor than anyone from Trenwith. She’s teasing him. From what little Ross says of her, he might not have thought her capable of such a thing, but here she is, sipping ale with her hand still in his and smiling at him from under a fallen tangle of bright curls.
“Miss Verity Poldark is a lady worth knowing, I agree,” he teases right back. He’s rewarded with a sunny smile and the offer of the cup of ale, and finds himself smiling more and more by the moment. The ale is cheap and weak, but no drink has ever tasted finer than this cup offered by Demelza in the midst of the dancing.
Perhaps he’s drunk. He must remember to never tell Ross of how much he blushed when Demelza gave him those looks.
“A moment, Dwight,” Ross says, as Dwight prepares to walk out the door at Nampara long, long after night has fallen the evening after the wedding. Ross had asked him back for a nightcap, had laughed to see him dancing Demelza up the meadow, but the letter from Trenwith announcing the birth of a new Poldark had darkened his mood beyond what Dwight had seen of him yet in Cornwall. “If I may?”
“You have been a most generous host, my friend,” Dwight says. “You may ask for two moments, if you wish.”
Ross’ smile is troubled, but not in the usual cousin’s-wife sense. Odd, considering that damnable letter and the worse mood it has caused.
“Demelza speaks well of you,” he says, “and often. I had wondered if you had given her cause to, ah, expect. Anything.”
Dwight has never seen Ross embarrassed, but he is deeply and obviously so just now. Dwight is not far behind him.
“I like Demelza very much,” Dwight admits, unsure of how much he is giving away. “She is a very bright young woman.”
“She is that, I suspect,” Ross concedes, “although she shows me only half as much spirit as she does you. I’ve never had even half as many smiles out of her as you do.”
“Well, that might be because you offer so few smiles in return.”
Ross favours him with a withering sort of a look, but it fades quickly enough. Ross’ distemper usually does, when he’s actually putting any thought into what he’s doing.
“I’m being serious, Dwight,” he says. “She’s not so worldly as many other ladies, and never had a mother to tell her what to expect from men. I would not have you misleading her.”
“Ross,” Dwight says, “I never thought to hear you sound so paternal. ”
Ross’ affront is much less embarrassed and much more surly this time.
“I am not so old as to have such accusations put to me,” he says warningly. “And I remain serious, Dwight. What interest have you in Demelza?”
“I would be her friend, if she’ll have me,” Dwight says. “I truly do admire her greatly, Ross. There is nothing untoward in it.”
Maybe something a little untoward, but Ross does not need to know that. Demelza doesn’t even know it yet, and Dwight would much rather be having this conversation with her than with Ross. He won’t admit a word of it to anyone but himself unless he has Demelza’s blessing to have any sort of feelings toward her, never mind the untoward sort.
“Doctor Enys? Sir?”
Demelza’s appearance at his door is not unique - she’s been sent to fetch him on behalf of more than one miner who’d rather not trouble their beloved Cap’n Ross, but still feels the need of Nampara’s authority when sending for a physic. Still, having her here is always a pleasure, particularly on a day when Dwight has no patients to see to, so he can offer her more than just a cup of water and a chance to catch her breath out of the sun.
“I made bread this morning,” he says, proud to a silly degree of his efforts. No doubt they’re not a patch on the crusty, nutty bread Demelza favours Ross’ table with, but he’s had a slice to test it and hidden under butter it isn’t so bad. “Would you like some?”
She grins, wide and bright, and sits at his well-scrubbed table without ceremony.
“I’d be right pleased, Doctor Enys,” she says. “Didn’t take thee for a baker, I didn’t, but I’ll taste your wares all the same. Any butter in your cupboard?”
“Wrapped up in cheesecloth, gifted as payment just yesterday,” he tells her, unveiling it like a prize - it feels it, for he hasn’t had such fine butter in months, but Mark Daniel’s cow must give the creamiest milk in Cornwall. “But you mustn’t laugh if the bread is not up to your high standards, Miss Carne.”
“I’d never laugh, Doctor Enys,” she says, laughing. She keeps on laughing right up until she’s biting down into his bread, and then her eyes widen in surprise. “Judas, sir, this isn’t as bad as I expected at all!”
“High praise indeed,” Dwight says dryly, settling opposite her and pouring her a cup of tea. “But it was not to sample my wares that you visited, Demelza - Mingoose Cottage is always open to you, although you do not often take advantage of my hospitality without reason.”
“Well, I have reason enough today, I think,” she says, licking buttery fingers before turning the full force of her bright gaze on him. “Though I can’t be thinking of how I’m supposed to put it, sir, truly I can’t.”
“Try starting at the beginning, then,” he suggests, slicing more bread for her. She’s generous with the butter, and he’s pleased to see it - he always wonders how often she forgets to eat up at Nampara, doing the work of three. “Have you been ill?”
“Oh, no sir!” she insists. “T’ain’t me that has the problem, sir, but Cap’n Ross!”
“Is it his knee?” Dwight dares not ask if it’s Ross’ head, because if that old wound is flaring up, there’s nothing to be done. Of course, it could be his head, but only because he’s been battering it against the impossibilities of keeping Leisure open and making it profitable. “Or some injury taken in the mine?”
“Nay, sir, no injury,” she says, “although I don’t think he be well, sir.”
Oh, God. What has the fool done now?
“It’s only, sir, that, well, I’ve been thinking that he ought to think less of Mistress Poldark up at Trenwith, and sought to cheer him, but I do think it’s gone awry.”
“Ross hasn’t been untoward with you, has he?”
She blushes like a flowering rose, if a touch ruddier.
“Well, no,” she says, “but he has been very friendly, sir, much friendlier than he’s ever been before, and I did begin to worry that I’d made my intentions unclear. I do love him dearly, don’t mistake me, but not in such a way as that!”
Dwight is relieved, but he’s also thrilled that Demelza has come to him with this. Ross will absolutely die of mortification when he hears of it, and Dwight will make certain that he does.
“Let me assure you, Miss Carne,” he says, reaching over to take her hand, “that Captain Ross Poldark hasn’t fallen in love with you.”
“You’re sure?” she asks, sounding relieved. “Because Prudie did warn me against it, but I thought she was no example to follow-”
“She isn’t, Demelza,” Dwight promises, squeezing her fingers. “If I were you, I should never follow Prudie in anything at all. Ross seems happier because he is happier, Demelza, now that they’ve struck copper at the mine, and he’s friendlier to you because you’ve ordered his home so that he needn’t fight with Jud and Prudie at all hours.”
“So I’ve not given him… ideas?”
She’s squeezing back, and that simple little gesture is enough to distract Dwight a moment.
“No,” he says, without thinking, “but there are others who might wish to share an idea or two with you.”
It’s said and he can’t take it back, and he can tell by Demelza’s dropped jaw that she’s picked up his meaning a good deal more accurately than he’d like. Well. That’s it, then, he supposes. If she walked out his door without looking back, he wouldn’t blame her - of all the clumsy, forward, stupid-
“A body’d like a little courting before sharing any ideas,” she says, “but she mightn’t mind sharing them at some point.”
She’s smiling wide and warm, and holding on tight to his hand. Well. That went better than expected.
“I thought you told me you had no untoward intentions with Demelza,” Ross says out the side of his mouth as they walk with the wedding toward Mark Daniel’s new house. It’s a solid enough cottage just over the rise from Dwight’s own, lacking a view but making up for it by being sheltered from the fantastic storms and swells that batter Dwight’s front door.
“I don’t,” Dwight says cheerfully, winking to Demelza as she walks with young Jinny. “We’re courting. I’ve never done it before, and it’s enormous fun.”
Demelza brings Jinny their way, looping her other arm with Dwight’s and grinning unabashadley to Ross, who looks a little affronted.
“You can wipe that look right off your face, Cap’n Ross, you ain’t paying me and Jinny today so we can disrespect you all we like,” she says. “And I should like to disrespect you just enough to show a preference for Doctor Enys, I think.”
Dwight lifts her hand to kiss her knuckles, just because he can, and she turns that grin to him as a reward.
“I am honoured by your consideration, Miss Carne,” he says, because he is. Demelza could have her pick of the miners and their sons, but she has deigned to give him her favour. Not because of his elevated station - it is not as though he has the sort of income likely to tempt a fortune-hunter - which he sometimes thinks makes her shy, nor because of his fine cottage overlooking the sea. “And hope my attention is ample reward.”
“More than ample,” Demelza assures him, which has Ross harrumphing and Jinny giggling. “But I could be tempted by a more tangible sort of a reward, I think.”
Ross halts altogether at that, and Dwight keeps right on walking, with Demelza and Jinny laughing beyond him and the wedding party merry all ahead of him.
Life could be a great deal worse, he thinks, and is certain of it when Demelza leans up and kisses the corner of his mouth right in front of everyone.
“The thing is, Dwight,” Demelza says, swinging their hands between them as they make their way up along the clifftop walk. “My father’s not the sort of man I’d like for you to meet.”
“Is that so?” he asks, tugging her closer so that he can wrap his arm over her shoulders. She’s had the run of Nampara for a day or two now, since the narrowly-averted disaster at the Warleggan ball - Ross sought solace for their failure to save Jim in a bottle, and Dwight pities him that. He had no Demelza to help shoulder his burden, no gentle touch to ease his pain - and she’s made use of
But then, given Ross’ usual proclivities, perhaps it isn’t so surprising that he went as wild as he did. He never was one for handling disappointment in any sort of respectable manner.
“Aye,” Demelza says, drawing him back to her and only her. “I only mention him at all because I can’t help but wondering how you’d like to never have to meet him, the great lump.”
She’s not quite looking at him, which means she’s genuinely concerned about his reaction to whatever it is she’s talking around. Maybe it’s Kerin Daniels, trying so very hard to become overfamiliar, or Verity Poldark’s disappearance. He isn’t sure how her father might feature in either discussion, but Demelza often talks in circles to soften him up.
“Why should I seek to meet your father in the first place, Miss Carne?” he asks, although that blush in her cheeks is giving him some kind of an idea. He’s been prodding her with the notion of marriage for weeks now, and she’s been avoiding it every time he tries to bring it up. He thinks she’d make a fine Mistress Enys, and he can’t understand why she’s working so hard to resist.
“Well, Doctor Enys,” she says, nudging her hip to his. “‘Tis only that I should much rather present him with our marriage as a matter of fact, rather than something for which he can withhold his permission.”
“Demelza Carne,” Dwight says, pulling her to an almighty stop. “Are you proposing marriage to me? How dare you! I had a very nice speech planned!”
“I ain’t proposing marriage, Dwight Enys,” Demelza says, nudging her hip to his once more. “I’m proposing eloping.”
Mercifully, Ross predicted their whimsy, and he has already been in touch with Reverend Odgers to have the banns read. It feels completely ridiculous to have Ross being the responsible one, but Dwight supposes that there must be a first time for everything.
Kerin Daniels is the only person in the parish disappointed by the sight of Demelza with a posy of green willow and trailing ivy and bright purple bellflowers coming out of the church on Dwight’s arm. Her Mark seems thrilled, as if he thinks Demelza’s presence at Mingoose Cottage will deter Kerin, and Dwight wishes he might be so sure of the same.
“Tell me, Mistress Enys,” he says, leading her out along the clifftop path toward their home. How wonderful that sounds! Mistress Enys will remain as Captain Poldark’s housekeeper, but she’ll return home to Doctor Enys every evening, and wish him a fond farewell every morning at the door. “How do you like your new home?”
“As well as I liked it when I visited the day before yesterday,” she says, “although perhaps I like it a little better, now that I can call it mine.”
Well, he can’t say fairer than that.