Poldark Saga - Winston Graham discussion
On Topic
>
DELETED PAGES DEMELZA PART TWO
date
newest »
newest »
Mod
THANKS ANN, I thought that this was appropriate for the group since we are always reading between the lines and even the most intense reader of the Poldark Saga loves additional information...
Victoria wrote: "I thought that this was appropriate for the group since we are always reading between the lines and even the most intense reader of the Poldark Saga loves additional information..."I am so glad to have this window into Frances' & Elizabeth's life especially since this passage reveals each of their attitudes, at this early stage, toward both Ross and Demelza more clearly than anywhere else in the book that I can recall.
It's a gem. Thanks, Victoria!
MARA- thanks I am "that glad" that I found it on POWER OF POLDARK blog and re-posted it. Some time during the past few months, I read a comment by Debbie Horsfield who said she had to rewrite Elizabeth's dialog a number of times to make her warmer and more appealing to the audience. DH felt tat she was not coming off as someone that Ross would have loved for so long. At the time I didn't take much notice and then I realized that Ms. Horsfield MUST have been working from the first edition books. Elizabeth is seemingly a different character.
I didn't find Elizabeth less appealing in this scene. In fact, she came off as very emotional and weary of dealing with Francis' mercurial behavior. And I do get sick and tired of people demanding that she be "warmer and more appealing". Elizabeth is a reserved woman. Which is not a sin. Unfortunately, society - back then and today - tend to look down upon reserved women and immediately judge them as "cold", when the reality is that they . . . or I should say, we tend to keep our feelings to ourselves.
I'm not saying that Elizabeth is perfect or ideal. She is not. But neither are the other characters - including the much revered Demelza. But I don't expect her to be, or did I ever want her to be. I simply found her interesting. Why many of the readers of this series did demand her to be more "warm and appealing" says a lot about the lack of tolerance of our society.
And who cares whether or not Ross would have loved her? I don't. I have never harbored that high of an opinion of Ross in the first place.
Victoria wrote: "HERE ARE THE SECOND GROUP OF PAGES FROM THE POWER OF POLDARK FB PAGE THIS MORNING: ELIZABETH'S THOUGHTS ABOUT DEMELZA HAVE A GREAT DEAL OF INSIGHT TO HER FEELINGS...Elizabeth came down the stairs...."
Continuing the missing chapter 6 "Elizabeth continues - "I have done everything possible to cut down our expense in these difficult times, while you have thrown money on the card tables and drunk yourself into a--stupor. I have never known your thanks or your praise. You keep your thanks for--what I know not what strumpet and your praise for the beggar girl Ross has married!"..... There is more but I think this bit is very important for its revelation of Elizabeth's true feelings towards Demelza. This is such a crucial chapter and i am certain WG would not have edited this out.
I agree that this missing passage really tells us about Elizabeth. I always thought that she should have given Francis a piece of her mind a long time ago. He is so selfish and she called him on it. It really pleases me. I can't believe that such an important passage would have been cut out in later editions. It shakes me up! What other scenes have I missed?
I was fortunate to have discovered the first editions of the first four books some while ago and this half of an entire missing chapter was particularly enlightening as it shows a very unpleasant side of Elizabeth and her true feelings towards Demelza. She refers to her as a "the beggar girl" and makes spiteful remarks such as "Perhaps his little wife would not welcome new servants less she be mistaken for one of them." Although Francis acknowledges all Elizabeth says about her virtues and his faults, Francis fails to point out to her that her coldness towards him led to him spending time elsewhere and to his infidelity. By taking this half a chapter out of the book 'Demleza' we lose a lot of information about Elizabeth's character. So Chris, I do not agree with your assessment of Elizabeth who, by her inability to to choose the man she really wanted, messed up others' lives.
Elizabeth came down the stairs. She knew the meeting had been over more than fifteen minutes, and she had listened with her acute ears as one by one the shareholders left. But Geoffrey Charles had wakened fretfully and needed attention; and she had sat by his bedside when he slept again, looking anxiously at his flushed fore-
head and small clenched hands.
As she came to the turn of the stairs she glanced at herself in the long mirror and put fluttering slender fingers over her skirt, straightening and patting her dress before the last eight steps. Years ago she remembered doing the same thing that first night when she had supped here and her betrothal to Francis was announced and Ross had suddenly come in upon them, travel-dusty and scarred, appearing without warning, from America, from
Winchester, from Truro to remind her of her childish promise, like the re-emergence of someone dead. She had done it six weeks later, on the day of her wedding, when half the countryside had been here and they had had cockfighting after the wedding breakfast and Old Charles had belched and blown and won a hundred guineas from George Warleggan's father. She had not done it at Geoffrey Charles's christening, when Old Charles had been taken ill, for that day she had been too weak to walk, and Francis had carried her and put her regally on the couch in the hall before a great leaping log fire, and all her friends and relations had gathered round to pay their respects and to admire Geoffrey Charles.
Somehow that day had marked the peak of her happiness: from that day, from that evening, contentment had slowly receded, been grasped at, yet even while seeming to be held had slipped away. Old Charles had been carried like a mountain to bed, and the superstitious had thought it an omen. She had quarrelled with Francis over something, and, however much one might pretend, there had never been quite a reconciliation because at the bottom of the trivial split lay something immovable and bedded in their temperaments.
In those early years she had been young and tremulous, quick to relish happiness, quick to plunge into sorrow; all her feelings had lived so near the surface of everyday life that they were open to the lightest tread of circumstance. She remembered how sick in heart she had felt on that early spring morning when Ross had called in and suddenly taxed her with faithlessness and broken promises. They were both very young then, both very much in earnest, both rather naive.
Now, now, she was so mature, mistress of this house and the property that went with it. The squire's wife, used to her position and the responsibilities. Used to controlling her feelings and masking her disappointments. How she had changed! Not outwardly; there was very little, she thought, to see outwardly (after all, twenty-four was not a great age and she had only had one child) but inwardly the difference was great.
She went down into the big hall, lit now only by a single candelabra, walked across the rugs and the polished oak and entered the big parlour.
The rest of the candles had been brought in here. Francis stood by the uncurtained window, staring out at his shadow thrown across the candle-lit shrubbery. Verity was not here; she was glad Verity was not here.
He was holding his long pipe in one hand, but it had gone out. The smell of his tobacco made her wrinkle her nose. He was as neat as always, fair hair shining above the tall collar of his wide-skirted red velvet coat. He had broadened a good deal in these few years, and it made him look older than he was.
She clicked the handle of the door, but he did not turn. She went and stood beside him at the window. Three great moths were beating against the uneven panes. A faint scent of bergamot--relic of Mrs. Trenwith--now came to her nostrils and sent her mind swiftly back to another concern.
"Geoffrey Charles is feverish," she said. "I hope and pray he has not taken the infection."
She knew by his slightly stiffened shoulders that she had said the wrong thing.
"You have hoped and prayed that for the better part of four days and he has not taken it yet. You know he is always up and down."
"Yes, but to-night he vomited after his supper. Verity was not there so I had to help Mrs. Tabb with his clothes."
"Where could he have got it? You have not let him out of the grounds in four weeks."
"Mary Bartle's brother has taken it, and Mary Bartle was home on Sunday. Had I known she should not have come back!"
"My dear, we can't proscribe the movements of all the servants," he said irritably. "Since we do not live on a desert island, we are obliged-----"
Verity came in.
"Is it good news, Francis?" she said. "I fancied by what I heard Mr. Trencrom say as he mounted his horse..."
Elizabeth bit her lip.
Francis said: "We are to continue for at least another three months. The eighty fathom level is to go, but that has been disappointing for some time and will not matter."
Verity's sallow face glowed. "Thank God for it! That may yet see us beyond Christmas, and conditions must surely better themselves by then. I could not think of those many hundreds destitute. "
"To say nothing of ourselves," Francis observed.
"What a triumph for you, Francis!" she said. "How did you ever persuade them?"
"The Warleggans are advancing no more; but they have agreed to accept suspension of interest payments. As for the rest, Mr. Trencrom--who I fancy by reason of his smuggling concerns is the richest of the rest of us--Mr. Trencrom, Mr. Sugden and Mrs. Trenwith will bear the risk between them."
"That is splendid. Is it not, Elizabeth?"
"Yes, indeed." Elizabeth was glad and relieved, but the gladness was not in her voice. Verity's enthusiasm, however innocent, had forestalled her own, therefore her own would be suspect. She had missed her opportunity to say the right thing at the right time.
Francis relit his pipe. "Geoffrey Charles has vomited his supper; and Elizabeth fears he has the smallpox, a quartan ague and the summer fever."
Verity glanced from one to the other, aware now that something had arisen between them.
"You should have called me. Does he sweat? I gave Aunt Agatha a Dr. James's powder and she will soon sweat her cold out. Perhaps Geoffrey Charles has taken her chill."
"He has quite a little fever on him," Elizabeth said. "I thought to do what Dr. Choake says and light a fire and wrap him in a blanket before it."
"Is he awake?"
"He was sleeping when I came down."
"Then would it not be better to leave him? He may have slept it away by the morning."
"I thought there should be a fire."
Verity pushed back her hair. "Yes. Perhaps you're right, Elizabeth. I will go and tell Mrs. Tabb."
She went off, glad of an excuse to escape.
There was silence for a minute in the parlour, then Elizabeth took up the snuffers and began snuffing the candles.
Francis gathered some papers and sat in a chair.
She said: "The meeting was a long one. I suppose there were many for closing down the mine?"
"All the small fry, the little buzzing beetles with twenty guineas to lose. I do not know why Great Aunt Tremenheere had so many progeny. They have bred like rabbits and they chatter like monkeys."
"We should have put them up for the night," she said. "They think ill of us because you will not entertain them."
"Nor would I if I were bankrupt to-morrow. Little yappers, one and all. Mr. Farthing, that red-eyed ferret Cousin Ellen married --he never was a Poldark nor never even a Trenwith--had the impudence to lecture me on gaming pleasures. As if that would help the price of copper!"
Elizabeth was silent. Francis glanced at her.
"No doubt you find yourself in agreement with Mr. Farthing."
She bent her graceful head over a candle guttering low; a faint monstrous cloud shadow moved on the fine plaster ceiling. Sometimes of late he had challenged her like this, as if preferring her downright opposition to unspoken disapproval. She might have thought it a good sign, showing as it did that her opinion was still of importance to him; but the best of the situation she was inclined to take for granted, and the worst roused some latent obduracy in her spirit which went curiously with her delicate form.
"No," she said. "But is not gaming for good times and not for bad?"
Her aloofness--which he had helped to create--as always irritated him. He could not reach her in her ivory tower of poised unspotted delicacy.
"Gaming is for all times, my love. With eating, drinking, hunting and loving, it makes one of the five primaries." He reached for a decanter glimmering red with port. "As Cousin Ross has recently rediscovered, thanks to his visits to the Warleggans. I must ask George how much he won on his last visit. I was a thought preoccupied myself and did not take note; but he has been splashing money at a lavish rate ever since."
"What do you mean?" she asked.
Francis raised an eyebrow. As always, mention Ross and her interest quickened.
"Well, his two christening parties, you know. And but the other day he squeezed Tom Choake out of his precious mine by paying a monstrous price for Choake's shares. I wish someone would offer half the price per share for ours in Grambler."
"Perhaps it is rumour. Who told you?"
"Notary Pearce. And Tom Choake confirmed it to-night when I tackled him. That was why they were not at the party. Tom has refused to continue as bal-surgeon, and they are hard set to find a man in his place."
"Well, Ross is making money at Wheal Leisure."
"There is a modest profit, nothing spectacular. For my part, if I was in his place and had a little money for the first time in years, I should get me a few new servants to supplant those Paynters, who slop about as if the place was their own by deed of gift. After all, he owes something to his station."
"Perhaps his little wife would not welcome new servants," Elizabeth said, "lest she should be mistaken for one of them."
"She'll learn quick enough," said Francis irritatingly. "I confess I found her entertaining enough at Christmas time. As for Tuesday, well, one cannot be blamed too harsh for one's relatives."
"That is what people will be saying of us if Demelza tries to play the great lady before she has even learned to play the small one."
Francis puffed at his pipe. He had not looked at it that way before. Then he laughed.
"My dear, when I think of some of the people who are accepted into our society I do not fear for Demelza."
Elizabeth stiffened.
"Whom do you mean?"
"Well, what is Polly Choake but a brewer's daughter. What is George Warleggan but a smith's grandson? What is Odgers but a half-starved little lackey with a horse collar and a horse wig? Damn me, I'm a good Cornishman and should rather mix with a sumpman's daughter any day of the month!"
Coming down into the arena, Elizabeth said suddenly, whitely:
"I wonder you did not marry one."
The attack was unexpected.
Francis took his pipe from his mouth and stared at the bole for some moments.
"I don't question your sincerity in saying that. But I doubt your wisdom."
"How dare you!" She turned on him tremulously. "Do you suggest that all the obligation of the marriage has been on my side--!"
"No, but it would be unwise to assume it has been all on mine."
"--How can you say that I haven't done everything to help you ! You would find no one who could have done better. I have had as my only thought the care of yourself and your father, your house and your child. I have sat here alone in this parlour night after night, week after week, while you have been gaming away your inheritance and your son's inheritance!