I
In early March Wellington’s army including the 43rd Monmouthshires penetrated further into Aquitaine. Word had gone ahead of them that the men did not rape and pillage but behaved under a strict if brutally imposed discipline. It was told that Wellington even invited the mayors of the towns and villages through which he passed to dine at his table, something a French general, for all his ideas of equality, would never have done. What was more the British paid for what they took. By the time they entered St Sever, and Brinquet, they were greeted almost as a relieving army. Bunting was hung from windows, and here and there a Union Jack. The army basked in its popularity and brief rest.
Luckier than his cousin, who was to be in the forefront of the last bloody battle for Toulouse, Jeremy’s battalion was not involved in the attack on Antwerp and Bergen-op-Zoom, which was a disastrous and costly failure. The 52nd were kept in reserve all through the 8th March and on the 9th they were deployed to cover the retreating troops when the attack was abandoned. Jeremy was sickened by the procession of wounded soldiers, groaning in carts, limping along the frozen tracks, leaving stains of blood behind like little signatures in the snow.
So April dawned, and in Cornwall the daffodils, the primroses, the snowdrops flowered, all late because of the bitter winter. The sun seemed like a stranger, and for a whole week persisted before its warmth could be felt through the cold grip of the dying frosts. In very bad winters such as this Demelza felt a little anxious lest – who knew? – the miracle of spring wouldn’t happen. It seemed to her that whoever controlled the weather was absent-minded, busy perhaps with some other world; he turned his back and forgot about it; then, at the last moment he remembered and turned round and pulled a lever like those which started the engine of a mine, and behold there was a gentler beginning to the next day, and a bird sang, and softer rain fell, and the daffodils lifted their wrapped heads looking for the warmth from the sun, and it was going to be spring after all. Henry now was sixteen months old and most like Clowance of all her children, except that his was a darkness which was likely to last: she had begun with some dark redness in her hair which had soon changed to blonde.
And Isabella-Rose was just twelve and becoming a handful in a way none of the other children quite had been. She was cheerfully disobedient and took any mild punishment meted out in such a vociferous but good tempered way that one did not know quite what to do about her.
And Clowance was not yet twenty: still so young for all the marriage proposals she had already received. And Jeremy – the only one of her children who had been delicate as a child – was nearly twenty-three and enduring, she was certain, agonies of discomfort in the intense cold of Holland, if not every moment of the day in danger of his life.
And this month, in spite of the absence of its proprietor for part of the time, Wheal Leisure showed a startling increase in profits. The quantity of good ore raised had doubled and with it the money available for distribution. When he came home Ross gave a dinner for the shareholders, at which were the two Trenegloses, father and son, who were keenly delighted at the turn of events, and six of the smaller shareholders who held between them twelve of the outside shares. Notably missing was Stephen Carrington, who stood now to benefit materially – by in fact two-fifths of the amount that Jeremy did.
On the same day in the evening Jeremy was in Mechelen, on the road to Brussels, eating broiled kidneys in a farmhouse with four other officers and speculating on the wild rumours that were flying about, that Napoleon was defeated, that he was dead, that he was on his way with a new army to attack Wellington on his flank, that the Russians were on the outskirts of Paris.
The young men drank noisily to the end of the war. Contrary to what Demelza pictured, it was a jolly, comfortable supper, during which they toasted the end of the war so often that only two out of the four remained upright, and all of them had to be helped waveringly to bed.
That night at Gunwalloe the Lady Clowance and the Chasse Marée discharged their cargoes of contraband, having hovered out of sight of land for a day while two men they had put ashore the previous night made contact with the people Stephen had arranged to meet there. In the weeks before sailing he had done some speculative travelling along the south coast, and at Gunwalloe he had come across a man called Nancarrow who owned a brickyard and had possibly the best distributive centre for contraband goods in West Cornwall.
It had not been a good trip home. Although they had been doing their best to close their eyes to the fact, the two men who had been so ill on the outward journey were suffering from typhus fever, and on the return journey four others had developed it and one had died.
Among the four was Stephen himself. For thirteen days he lay in his berth with terrible pains in his head and limbs and back, and skin so sensitive that he could not bear to have it touched, then becoming delirious with a fit of shivering, and a mulberry coloured rash grew round his mouth and spread across his face and chest.
All the illness was on the Chasse Marée; and when it looked as if Stephen might follow the man who had just died, Andrew transferred from the Lady Clowance to take charge, leaving Blount in command of the Lady Clowance.
The weather turned bad in the Atlantic and they became separated. Only by the sheerest luck were they able to keep to their original plan and rendezvous in the Scillies. With three men sick at one time the Chasse Marée was badly undermanned and could have foundered.
By the time they reached St Mary’s Stephen was past the crisis. He was like a ghost and could hardly walk, but his appetite, which had not existed for two weeks, was ravenous. They would have stayed there longer, for everyone, particularly in the French ship, was exhausted; but they were afraid of being boarded by the excise men. One official vessel approached them as soon as it was light, but the word typhus was enough to scare it off for the time being. By the following morning they were gone.
So the landing at Gunwalloe. A gusty night but no sea. No moon either. (Stephen had planned to be back a month earlier during the previous lack of moon.) A few remote stars hiding themselves behind racks of cloud scarcely disturbed the shadows. The unloading went without a hitch. Although still very weak, Stephen insisted on superintending it all and in going ashore to see Nancarrow and to arrange the settlement.
He was back just before daylight, when Andrew was anxiously waiting to put out to a safe distance. The Lady Clowance had already gone. Stephen grinned, his teeth looking ghastly in his drawn, bearded face.
‘All is well. Weigh anchor. If this breeze holds we shall be in Falmouth today.’
II
One of the lieutenants under Major Geoffrey Charles Poldark was a young man called Christopher Havergal, who had a reputation for wildness and eccentricity – a reputation which took some earning in an army where singularities ran high. He had only recently been transferred into the 43rd, and he arrived on a black charger, in a blue frock coat and green silk waistcoat, with two servants, a Portuguese mistress on a donkey and his own silver eating utensils. He was just 21, rich and related to titles, though none was his, nor, he said, ever likely to become his.
Newly in command of a company, Geoffrey Charles’s first instinct was to distrust him. He wanted officers who lived happily and high-spiritedly together but he did not want insubordination or stupid pranks. However, he perceived that under his somewhat pretentious mannerisms Havergal had a cool and astute brain and was not afraid to use it. Indeed he was not afraid of anything, either bullets or reprimands. And it seemed as if, working in the back of his mind, was an awareness that the war would soon be over and that he wished to savour every moment of danger while it lasted. If in the process he could in some way distinguish himself, so much the better.
The battle for Toulouse was undertaken by Wellington after the rest of the war had ended. He knew that Paris had surrendered, but not what had happened to the Emperor, and he feared that if he left Soult in possession of Toulouse Napoleon might join him there and, together with Suchet, form a large enough army to counter-attack and perhaps regain his capital. So while the news was spreading throughout England that Napoleon had at last been forced to abdicate and that the Senate had decreed his deposition and the return of the Bourbon king, the Peninsular army set about one of its most daunting tasks. Protected on three sides by flood water and dominated by a ridge to the east from which Soult outgunned the British by two to one, Toulouse and its defences withstood and repelled three fierce attacks. In the second of these the Monmouthshires were deeply involved, for the two Spanish divisions, having proudly demanded that they should be given a share in the glory of the occasion, as proudly disobeyed orders and attacked too soon, whereupon they suffered a devastating repulse and the British light division was thrown into the battle to plug the gaping hole their retreat left. Geoffrey Charles had his horse killed under him and two bullet scratches that he did not notice until afterwards. Six of his company were killed and sixteen wounded.
It was after the cannonade had finished and while they were re-grouping and awaiting fresh orders that a horseman was seen galloping wildly across the flank of the hill immediately under the enemy guns. It did not take exceptional eyesight to see that he was wearing the uniform of an officer of the 43rd, nor more than a moment or two longer to recognize the long blond hair of Lieutenant Havergal. He was riding at full speed, but twisting and turning and bending in his saddle as if unable to control his movements.
‘Poor devil’s half mad wi’ pain!’ a man grunted near Geoffrey Charles.
This wild riding went on for a full two minutes. The French did not fire, assuming him to be in his death throes. And so indeed it seemed; for at last the black horse came to a sudden stop, so sharply that the rider was flung out of the saddle and on to the ground, where he twitched once or twice and then lay still.
Too many had been killed for this to be an exceptional event, and eyes were straying off towards the horse and wondering if he could be safely caught and brought in; when the figure on the ground came sharply to its feet and leapt into the saddle again. Then with his back to the enemy and paying no regard for them at all, he trotted amiably back to his own lines. As he came nearer they saw he was holding a dead hare by its long ears.
‘Caught him, by God,’ he said as he came up. ‘I thought he was going to get away.’
Nothing could be said then, because an order for a resumed barrage and slow advance came through, to coincide with and cover Cole’s 4th Division on their left; but in the evening when, after a series of bloody battles, the British captured the whole ridge and had Toulouse at their mercy and were settling down to tend their wounded and bury their dead, a message came through from the Commander-in-Chief.
‘Major Poldark. You led your men well, but in the middle of a battle it is the French who are our prey. Your officers should not chase the wrong hare.’
As usual, nothing had escaped his eye. Geoffrey Charles sent for Lieutenant Havergal.
‘Sir?’ He came in casually, with an affected stroll, but straightened up well enough to salute.
‘Havergal, your behaviour this afternoon did not please me, nor my superior officers who witnessed it.’
‘Have they said so, sir?’
‘Yes, they have. He has.’
‘Oh . . .’ He was a grey-eyed, good looking blond young man with something of the narrowness of countenance of Valentine. In age it might become vulpine, but at present it was in the full glow of youth.
‘Sir?’
‘Yes?’
‘Might I make a suggestion?’
‘What is it?’
‘With respect, sir.’
‘Well, go on.’
‘That we send him over some of the soup?’
Geoffrey Charles did not allow any alteration of his own expression. ‘On practical grounds I would discourage the idea. The soup would get cold.’
Lieutenant Havergal stifled a little smile.
‘Might I make a suggestion?’ Geoffrey Charles said.
‘Sir? But of course.’
‘I believe our casualties are about six hundred dead today. And about three thousand wounded. The war is almost over. Perhaps this battle need never have been fought. If tomorrow there is more fighting let your heroics be on behalf of some better cause.’
Havergal flushed. ‘Sir.’
‘Courage, Havergal, comes in a variety of forms, but should not be confused with bravado.’
‘No, sir.’
‘You understand?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Very well, then.’
As he was turning to leave Geoffrey Charles said: ‘Oh, and Lieutenant Havergal.’
‘Yes, sir?’
‘I will have some of the soup.’
III
England was en fête. The ‘dreadful scourge’ of Napoleon ‘was at last removed’. No more war – except some trouble 3,000 miles away which did not really count. Church bells rang. Bonfires blazed. Crowds danced in the streets. Twenty years of menace had finally gone. Peace would soon be formally signed. Louis XVIII restored to his throne, the Prince of Orange, after nearly two generations in exile, established in his new capital of Brussels, the conquering forces of Russia, Prussia and the rest concerned only with the end of all hostilities. Brotherhood would reign.
Cornwall rejoiced with the rest. Truro, Falmouth, St Austell, Penzance, each vied with the other in their jubilations. The weather just after Easter had finally relented, and spring came with a sudden rush, more like some subtropical country than the graduations of England.
Ross gave a celebration dinner out of doors, on the wasteland on which the attle from Wheal Grace had encroached; just above Demelza’s garden. The 2 p.m.-10 p.m. and the 10 p.m.-6 a.m. cores were excused attendance at the two mines. Flushed with the success of Wheal Leisure, he ordered no expense to be spared, at least so far as food was concerned. (Nothing stronger than ale lest the party ran into trouble.)
The afternoon was fine with nothing worse than a stiff south-easterly breeze, from which this land was partly sheltered by the rising ground beyond Mellin, and the party – over a hundred and twenty people turned up – was at its height when a young man rode down the valley. He was in semi-naval uniform which had obviously had much hard wear, his hair was bushy under his flat peaked cap and of a reddish tinge. Mostly screened by the hawthorn and the nut trees, which were only just showing traces of green, he had almost reached Nampara, before Ena Daniel on her way back to the feast with jugs in hand, smiled and bobbed at him; and when she had reached the feast told her mistress.
By the time Demelza arrived at the house he had dismounted.
‘Andrew!’ she said, smiling her pleasure and being kissed on the cheek. ‘But that’s some lovely! I didn’t know you were home! Look, we are giving a feast to celebrate the end of the war; why do you not join us? Everyone is here! Everyone, that is, except Jeremy whom I heard from yesterday and is safe and well, thank God. When did you return?’
‘Last Wednesday,’ said Andrew. There was an awkwardness in his manner, which Demelza took to be uncertainty on his part as to the reception he would receive, having upset his father and mother so much in October.
‘Are you well? You look well. Thinner, but some brown!’
‘Yes, thank you, aunt, I am. I came just to see you and . . .’ He trailed off, gazing at the crowd on the common.
‘Are you at Flushing? . . . I mean, are you staying with your father and mother?’
‘Yes . . .’
‘I hope all is well between you again.’
Andrew half smiled. ‘My father has not spoken to me yet, but my mother has welcomed me in her usual warm, loving way. I am living at home at the moment, for – a particular reason.’
Demelza glanced at his clothes. ‘And – has it been a success, what you went out to do?’
‘The shipments of pilchards? Oh, yes. I have made far more money, we have all made money. So far as money is concerned . . .’
He still seemed ill at ease, fumbled a finger round his neckband.
‘Then do come and join us. Everyone will be so delighted to see you. Oh, here is—’
Clowance came running across the lawn, sleeves rolled up, hat clinging to the back of her neck by a ribbon.
‘Andrew!’
There were the usual kisses and exchange of greetings. Clowance’s questions ran on identical lines with those of her mother, and they half led him across the lawn towards the feast. But then he stopped.
Red-faced he said: ‘I have to tell you about Stephen.’
There was a brief silence. ‘What is it?’ said Clowance.
‘Make no mistake,’ Andrew said, ‘the venture has been a grand success. I can hardly believe it could have been so profitable. But on the way out two of the crew of the Chasse Marée were sick with spotted typhus. On the return four others took it. One of them was Stephen. One of them, Cyrus Pagen, died. The others recovered. But soon after we berthed in Penryn Stephen was taken poorly again. I believe he caught a chill being up all night the day before we dropped anchor. He is ill in Penryn now. The apothecary says it is the putrid peripneumonia. I felt I had to tell you.’
Why, said Demelza in her heart, but did not speak.
‘How ill?’ asked Clowance.
‘The apothecary does not think he will live. Both lungs are choked, he says. It is a matter of a day or so.’
In the field they were laughing at something. The women were laughing, coarse, hearty, likeable shrieks.
Andrew said: ‘Believe me, I didn’t know what to do. He keeps asking for Clowance. I was – pulled both ways. I know well enough that you have broken up. It is none of my business to ask why. It is none of my business to try to bring you together again. But when a shipmate of yours, who you’ve been on terms with for all of five months, seems about to die and says all the time, Clowance, where is Clowance? I want to see her before it is too late . . . what do you say, what do you do? If I have done wrong, forgive me – both of you . . .’
After a long pause Demelza said: ‘Pray come indoors, Andrew. Probably this is not an occasion just at once to – to join our party.’
They went in. In the parlour Demelza poured Verity’s son a glass of port. Andrew swore he was not hungry, but when some cake was brought he ate three pieces of it. Clowance had been helping him, but suddenly she disappeared.
Demelza and Andrew talked. Stephen, it seemed, had taken a room in Penryn. In the first few days ashore he had been busy with his two vessels, arranging for their anchorage, for tackle and trim to be made good, for future contracts to be considered, for paying off the crew and giving them their agreed share of the profit. Andrew had gone home, had received the sort of welcome he anticipated but had decided to stick it out for his mother’s sake and because, when he let it be known he would be able to pay off all his debts, he believed his father would come round. He had called to see Stephen – what was today? Wednesday – he had called to see Stephen on Sunday evening and found him lying in his bed with what he called a feverish chill. But it was clearly more than that. On the Monday, when Andrew insisted on calling the local apothecary, the man had said that both lungs were inflamed and that it would be touch and go whether Stephen pulled through. Since then he had been losing ground all the time. This morning . . .
After a couple more minutes Demelza excused herself and went upstairs, found Clowance in her room, sitting on the bed, a valise half full at her feet. She looked at her mother with full eyes, then blinked out at the bright day.
Demelza said: ‘Can I help you pack?’
Clowance choked. ‘Oh, Mama, you are so kind! I thought you might . . . What else can I do?’
‘What else can you do?’ said Demelza with a degree of bitterness in her heart but none in her voice.
‘You see . . . I still care something for him.’
‘I know.’
‘But even if I did not . . . If he is dying . . .’
‘Andrew will go back with you. He must, of course. Shall I get someone to saddle Nero?’
‘Thank you, Mama.’ As she reached the door. ‘Please, don’t go for a moment.’
Demelza waited.
‘I shall not come back tonight. Or perhaps tomorrow unless he – unless he . . . I shall stay with Aunt Verity.’
‘Of course.’
‘Will you tell Papa, please? Explain. Tell him how it is. And tell him I couldn’t bear to come out among all those people and try to explain to him! I wouldn’t want him to feel I had gone without his permission.’
‘Yes, I’ll tell him.’
‘Do you think he will mind?’
‘I think we both mind.’
‘But if Stephen is so ill . . . if he is dying . . . perhaps I shall not get there in time . . .’
‘We can only hope . . .’
‘And Mama.’
‘Yes?’
‘Do you think there would be any way – any way at all – of Uncle Dwight travelling as far as Penryn? I know it is a lot to ask . . .’
‘I will go and see him myself this evening.’
Tears were now streaming down Clowance’s face. She wiped them away impatiently.
‘I am such a fool. But this has come so sudden. Like a stab in the back. Thank you. Thank you again for being so good about it . . . I wish I were as strong as you.’
‘I’m older,’ said Demelza. ‘But as for being stronger . . . I’m not so sure.’
IV
‘So you let her go,’ said Ross. ‘Without telling me.’
‘She asked me not to. She was afraid of what you’d say.’
‘No wonder.’
‘And do you think if I had refused her permission to go she would have heeded me?’
‘Yes!’
‘And if he dies tomorrow?’
They were standing in the dark amid the ruins of the feast while their servants and willing helpers from the villages were clearing up by the light of storm lanterns and a quarter moon striped with cloud.
Though neither of them had mentioned it and under no circumstances would ever have considered mentioning it, their thoughts had individually slid away to an occasion when a young naval lieutenant had lain dying of some brain fever at Tregothnan eighteen odd years ago. His passion for Demelza had kindled some corresponding spark of sympathy and love in her which briefly she had been unable to withstand. She had not been at his side when he died; Ross wondered, had her sympathy for Clowance been the greater for her own memory of that time?
At least the two young men could hardly have been more different, and most of the advantages of comparison lay on Hugh Armitage’s side; Ross had to admit this – and could admit it to himself more freely now with the passage of the years. In fact he would much have preferred the competition of someone like Carrington – in the very unlikely event of Demelza’s ever falling in love with anyone so bold and obvious as Stephen. Armitage had been artistic, well-educated, intellectual, thoughtful, sensitive; infinitely difficult qualities to compete with. And he had died before there was any resolution of the test.
Ross’s hand on his wife’s shoulder was heavier than usual, and she glanced up at him quietly, trying to see his expression.
‘What would you have done?’
Ross sighed. ‘Damned Andrew.’
‘For coming to tell us?’
‘Yes, if viewed in a cold-blooded fashion. If Stephen dies tomorrow Clowance would have known nothing about it till too late. If he recovers, she is thrown into his lap again.’
‘She has never been free of him,’ Demelza said. ‘Especially these last few months. Since she refused Tom. I believe Tom forced her to face up to something she hadn’t faced before.’
There was an uneasy pause. As if their minds worked in accord, each was now thinking of another occasion still further back, when Francis Poldark and Geoffrey Charles had lain dangerously ill of the morbid sore throat, and Demelza had gone over to help Elizabeth and had caught the infection herself.
Eventually Ross said: ‘Do you think Dwight will go to Penryn?’
‘I said I would see Dwight and ask him myself; but it was impossible with Henry so teasy. I wrote him a long letter – long for me! – telling him all about it; sent it with Music Thomas who said he would take it on his way home.’
Ross put his arm round Demelza. ‘Life is like a gaming table, isn’t it. One has so many pieces on the board. With them one gains a little, loses a little.’
‘We are still gaining,’ said Demelza. ‘With peace Jeremy is safe – or as safe as is reasonable. With Wheal Leisure we are almost rich again. But I’m sorry, sorry, sorry for Clowance. My heart aches for her. And because of her. And I am anxious . . .’