Ross Poldark by Winston Graham Page B

into supper with him and leave Joan to her own devices.”
    “He has not asked me.”
    “You’re very free with your answers, child. I think his attentions must have gone to your head. Perhaps I shall have a word with him after supper.”
    “No, no, Mama, you mustn’t do that!”
    “Well, we shall see,” said Mrs. Teague, who really hadn’t the slightest intention of discouraging an eligible man. Hers was a token protest to satisfy her sense of what was right and proper, of how she would behave if she had only one daughter and that one with a fortune of ten thousand pounds. With five on the books and no dowry for any of them, it deprived one of scope.
    But they need not have concerned themselves. By the time the supper interval came, Ross had unaccountably disappeared. In his last dance with Ruth he had been stiff and preoccupied, and she wondered furiously whether in some manner her mother's criticisms had reached his ears.
    As soon as the dance was over, he left the ballroom and walked out into the mild cloudy night. At the unexpected sight of Elizabeth his make-believe enjoyment had crumbled away. He wished more than anything to get out of her view. He forgot his obligations as Verity's escort and as a member of Miss Pascoe's party.
    There were two or three carriages with footmen out side, and also a sedan chair. Lights from the bow windows of the houses in the square lit up the uneven cobbles and the trees of St Mary's churchyard. He turned in that direction. Elizabeth's beauty struck him afresh. The fact that another man should be in full enjoyment of her was like the torture of damnation. To continue to flirt with a plain little pleasant schoolgirl was out of the question.
    As his hand closed about the cold railings under the trees, he fought to overcome his jealousy and pain, as one will to overcome a fainting fit. This time he must destroy it once and for all. Either he must do that or leave the county again. He had his own life to live, his own way to go; there were other women in the world, common clay perhaps, but charming enough with their pretty ways and soft bodies. Either break his infatuation for Elizabeth or remove himself to some part of the country where comparisons could not be made. A plain choice.
    He walked on, waving away a beggar who followed him with a tale of poverty and want. He found himself before the Bear Inn. He pushed open the door and went down the three steps into the crowded taproom with its brass-bound barrels piled to the ceiling and its low wooden tables and benches. This night being Easter Monday, the room was very full, and the flickering smoky light of the candles in their iron sconces did not at first show him where a seat was to be found. He took one in a corner and ordered some brandy. The potman touched his forelock and took down a clean glass in honour of his unexpected patron. Ross became aware that at his coming a silence had fallen. His suit and linen were conspicuous in this company of ragged underfed drinkers.
    “I’ll have no more of such talk in ’ere,” said the bartender uneasily, “so you’d best get down off of your perch, Jack Tripp.”
    “I’ll stay where I am,” said a tall thin man, better dressed than most of the others in a tattered suit sizes too big for him.
    “Leave ’im stay,” said a fat man in a chair below. “Even a crow's not denied its chimney pot.”
    There was a laugh, for the simile was apt enough.
    Conversation broke out again when it became clear that the newcomer was too deeply set in his own thoughts to spare time for other people's. His only signof life was to motion to the tapster from time to time to refill his glass. Jack Tripp was allowed to stay on his perch.
    “It is all very well to say that, friend, but aren’t we all men born of women? Does it alter our entry into the world or our exit out of it that we are a corn-factor or a beggar? Talk of it bein’ God's devising that some should wallow in riches and others