For the musical evening the other guests were a young married couple – he on leave from his regiment: a Captain and Mrs Octavius Temple, from Carvossa in Truro; also a Lady Whitworth with her fifteen-year-old grandson, Conan. Then came the Hon. John-Evelyn Boscawen, and with him was Nicholas Carveth, brother of Mrs Temple, and making up the party Sir Christopher Hawkins and Sir George Warleggan with Valentine his son.
Clemency played the harpsichord, Joanna Bird the English guitar, Nicholas Carveth the clarinet, in its improved form just introduced by Iwan Muller, John Evelyn Boscawen sang a little, and accompanied Cuby when she sang. It was all a trifle high-society for Jeremy who, with an aching ankle carefully and delightfully bound up by Cuby, was content to sit and applaud and shake his head and smile when anyone looked expectantly towards him for some musical excellence.
He observed then very distinctly what a man of humours Major Trevanion was; from the grim and silent mood of dinner he had swung to become talkative, charming and jolly; the good host intent on seeing that his guests were comfortable and well fed and well wined. He made a great fuss of everyone, including his own sisters.
Although nominal neighbours, and distantly related by marriage to Valentine Warleggan, Jeremy had not set eyes on the other for three years and they had not spoken for six. Valentine was now a tall young man of seventeen with one slightly bowed leg, broad of shoulder but spindly of ankle and wrist, dark-haired with strong features and a narrowness of eye that marred his good looks. He seemed always to be looking down his long slim nose. He was elegantly dressed for one so young, and clearly no expense was grudged to enable him to turn himself out like this.
Jeremy and Sir George had seen one another even less, and each eyed the other askance. George, with devious aims in view, was irritated to see this gangling young man, the first of the next generation of the obtrusive Poldarks, at such a gathering – and Jeremy had none of the sexual charm of Clowance to soften George’s rancour. As for Jeremy’s view of Sir George, he thought him aged, and stouter in an unhealthy way. Jeremy was just old enough to have overheard and innocently participated in his parents’ references to the Warleggans and therefore to have an inbuilt aversion for the breed. He saw him now as the owner of the mine he wished to acquire, the obstacle who must be placated or surmounted before Wheal Leisure could become a working property again.
George’s irritation increased as the evening went on because he became convinced he recognized this young man from some occasion when they had been together and he had not known the other’s name. George prided himself on his memory for faces, but this time the link escaped him.
Jeremy was differently perplexed about Lady Whitworth; he certainly had never seen her before but the name was familiar in the back of his memory. She was a very old woman and very stout, with a curly wig of chocolate-coloured hair, eyes like fire-blackened walnuts, sagging cheeks so crusted in powder that one supposed if she shook her head her gown would be covered in dust; a powerful voice, a fan. The last created difficulty, for she so wielded it throughout the music that John-Evelyn Boscawen had to ask her to stop, for he was losing the beat. Had this request been made by any other than the brother of a viscount, one’s imagination shrank from the thought of what its reception would have been, but in the circumstances she reluctantly lowered her false baton.
As for her grandson, he was big for his age, and thicklipped and clumsy and generally orotund. He had dark brown hair, growing very fine and close to his scalp like mouse fur; his short-sighted hazel eyes were small and made smaller by the fat around them. His whole face was pale and fat as if it had recently been modelled out of pastry and not yet put in the oven. All through the music he bit his nails, possibly because there was nothing else to eat.
However, Jeremy only took all this in absent-mindedly, for he had more disturbing matters to observe. Not only did young Boscawen accompany Cuby when she sang, he accompanied her during the refreshments by sitting beside her on a window-seat not large enough for three. And clearly he was not finding the proximity unpleasing. As for Cuby, she was in pale green tonight, a simple frock of sprig muslin with flat bows of emerald green ribbon on the shoulders, a little circlet of brilliants in her dark straight hair, green velvet shoes. Her face which in repose suggested sulkiness or arrogance was brilliantly illumined when she smiled. It was like a conjuring trick, a miracle; everything about her lit up and sparkled. Once or twice she met Jeremy’s anxious gaze and lifted an amused eyebrow; but whether her amusement was at the attentions of young Boscawen or at Jeremy’s obvious concern he could not tell.
Valentine sauntered up to Jeremy with a pastry cake in one hand and a glass of madeira in the other.
‘Well, Jeremy, not out fighting the Frenchies yet?’
‘No … So far I have left it to Geoffrey Charles.’
‘I conceit he’s still in Portugal or somewhere. More fool he. No one will thank him for it when it’s over.’
‘I don’t suppose he really wants to be thanked … Shouldn’t you be at Eton?’
‘Yes; I’ve been rusticated for a half. Got me tutor’s favourite chambermaid with child. I don’t believe twould have been held so much against me if she had not so obviously preferred me to him.’
‘When d’you go to Cambridge?’
‘Next year. St John’s. I wonder what the chambermaids are like there.’
‘They’re mostly men.’
‘God forbid. Incidentally, that Cuby girl over there is of a very good colour and shape. I wouldn’t at all object to having her after the refreshments.’
‘That I think to be unlikely.’
Valentine squinted across at his cousin. ‘A little feeling there? Have a taking for her yourself, do you?’ Jeremy picked up his glass and sipped it.
‘Watch the way she breathes,’ said Valentine. ‘Doesn’t it give one pretty fancies? Just a pull at that ribbon…’
Cuby was smiling brilliantly at something John-Evelyn had said.
‘Ever read history?’ Valentine asked.
‘Why?’
‘Soon as a prince or princess comes to marriageable age – and often before – the king tries to pair off the son or daughter with some other son or daughter, to cement an alliance, to join land and property, to heal a feud; some such nonsense. Well, my father – that man over there – finding his beloved son already seventeen and ripe for conquest among the women of the world, now begins to calculate how this son may take or be given in marriage with precisely those ends. Too bad if the son has other ideas!’
‘And have you?’
Valentine fingered his stock. ‘I have ideas not to be caught yet for a number of years. However much the gold ring and the marriage bed may be a matter of convention lightly to be set aside, it does cramp one’s best endeavours to have a sour little Mrs Warleggan waiting at home or watching one from across the room. And a good girl – some of them are attractive in spite of being good – will not take so kindly to a little amorous exploration if they know a fellow is married. Don’t you agree?’
‘I agree,’ said Jeremy. ‘It’s a millstone.’
‘And tell me about yourself, cousin. Do you have a woman, and does your father have a beneficial marriage in mind for you too? You’re a pretty fellow, and I should think most of the girls of Sawle and Mellin will willingly fall down on their backs before you.’
‘Haytime is the best,’ said Jeremy. ‘It makes the most comfortable cushion.’
‘Aren’t the local girls a bit short and thick in the leg, eh? I reckon. Well, I suppose you get your oats elsewhere. The Poldarks always were secretive about that kind of thing. Oh God, the music is about to begin again. I wonder if I can devise a seat next to Miss Cuby.’
Jeremy left the next day after church but before dinner. In the hour before he left Cuby showed him the rest of the house and grounds. The west wing of the castle was as yet unfinished, and as a contrast with the elegant and dignified lay-out in front, the back was a sea of mud and stone and timber, carts and wheelbarrows and hods and piles of slate. Not only was no one working, which was to be expected on a Sunday, but it did not look as if anyone had been there recently. Nothing looked newly dug or newly deposited, and some of the iron was rusty.
‘Do the workmen come every day?’ Jeremy asked, looking at the pools of yellow water.
‘They have not been this winter. My brother thinks they waste their time in the bad weather. It will start again in May.’
‘How long has the castle been building?’
‘Four years. There was, of course, a house here before.’
‘Your brother was very young to start such a venture.’
‘I believe sometimes he has wished he had not begun! Yet it is an elegant house now.’
‘Magnificent.’
‘Mr Nash has made several mistakes in the design, which have added to the expense. As you will see, the castle was built on a slope, and Mr Nash designed the great wall on which one can stroll in the summer after dinner and survey the lake and the park – and also to act as a retaining wall for the foundations of the house. Alas, in the rains of last spring there were not enough drainage holes, and the pressure of the waterlogged ground caused the whole wall to collapse! I remember waking in the night to such a thunderous sound I thought it had been an earthquake! The very walls of the castle shook, and in the morning we beheld a ruin. Thereafter it has all had to be rebuilt twice as thick as before!’
They finished their walk at the church where they had recently heard prayers read and a short sermon. Now it was empty.
Cuby said: ‘Explain something to me. Last night you spoke ardently of steam.’
‘Did I?’ he said, remembering the laughter.
‘You know you did. You answered most warmly when Augustus challenged you about it.’
‘Well, yes. With the latest developments it is surely one of the most exciting discoveries ever made. Isn’t it.’
‘I don’t know. You tell me so. But what is it to you?’
‘What it will be to all of us! In time it will transform our lives.’
‘In what way?’
He looked at the girl. The dimples beside her mouth were mournful crescents in repose, as now. But give the mouth cause to change, to smile … He lost his mind in looking at her.
‘In what way?’ she said again. ‘Instruct me.’
‘Well…’ He swallowed and recollected himself. ‘It is the power that steam will give us. Until now we have had to depend on horses and oxen and wind and water – all things not totally under our control. And not created artificially by us, as steam is. When this power is properly developed we can have steam to heat our houses, to propel carts along the roads, to thresh our corn, perhaps to sail our ships. It may even come to be used in war in place of gunpowder.’
‘But steam has been used for years…’
‘Not strong steam with high pressure boilers. This will make all the difference.’
‘But as Augustus was saying last night, is there not a great danger?’
‘There is risk – as in many new inventions. It has already been almost overcome.’
‘Will all these things happen in our lifetime?’
‘I believe they could. Also I think it will help the poor and needy by assisting in the cheap manufactures of many things they cannot now afford…’
They moved on round the church. Jeremy stopped at one of the monuments.
CHARLOTTE TREVANION, obit 20
February, 1810, aged 27 years.
To the memory of a beloved wife whose remains are deposited in the family vault; this tribute of a husband’s affection is erected by John Bettesworth Trevanion Esqr. From the protracted sufferings of a lingering disease; from the admiration of all who knew her; from children who loved; from a husband who adored; it pleased the Almighty disposer of events to call her.
Sacred also to the memory of Charlotte Agnes, infant and only daughter of Charlotte and J. B. Trevanion, who died 8 May, 1809; aged 2 years 8 months.
Jeremy said: ‘That was your brother’s wife and child?’
‘Yes.’
‘So young. What did she die of?’
‘The surgeon called it fungus haematoides. It was – not pretty to see her die in that way.’
Cuby moved on as if glad to do so.
‘Little wonder your brother is sad – or sad at times.’
‘Before Charlotte’s death he was always optimistic, ambitious, high-spirited. Now his high spirits – that you saw last night – do not seem to me ever to come from the heart. There is something overwrought, hectic about them. As if he is grasping at that which now always eludes him.’
‘Do you think he will marry again?’
‘No. Never.’
‘With two children to bring up?’
‘We can do it.’
‘You are a close-knit family.’
‘That I cannot say. I suppose it is true … Perhaps in adversity.’
‘You seem very fond of each other.’
‘Oh yes. Oh yes, that, of a certainty.’
They moved a few paces.
‘Cuby…’
‘Yes?’
‘Talking of fondness … What you said to me last evening…’
‘What was that?’
‘You must remember. Or does it mean so little to you?’
‘On the beach?’
‘Yes.’
‘I said, “I think I like you, boy.” Does that mean so much?’
‘It means so much to me.’
‘Oh, tut, boy.’ She glanced up at him and then moved on. He followed.
‘Did you –’
‘You must not take on so.’
‘Did you not mean it?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I meant it.’
‘I do not believe you have said that to many men.’
She laughed lightly. ‘How well you think you know me!’
Jeremy swallowed. ‘How well I think I love you.’ They had stopped in the nave. She looked up towards one of the stained-glass windows.
After a while she said: ‘That would be a dangerous thing to think, Jeremy.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I might be tempted to believe you.’
He touched her hand. ‘Whatever else you doubt – don’t doubt that.’
She withdrew her hand. ‘Look, there are other ancestors over here. Here’s another John Trevanion. And William Trevanion. And Anne Trevanion –’
‘The only Trevanion I’m concerned for is Cuby.’
‘Yes, well. But Jeremy, we – we do not live in isolation … any of us. We are not hermits. Would that we might be!’ She looked at him and then away, but he had caught the glint of emotion in her eyes. ‘No,’ she said. ‘We have said all that can be said – just yet. Yet awhile … Look, the sun is coming out. You will have a pleasant ride home.’
‘I don’t wish to ride home at all. I … have an apprehension.’
‘Tut, there are few footpads these days.’
‘It’s not footpads on the way home I’m afraid of. It is footpads here. And I’m frightened for what they may steal.’
‘What might they steal?’
‘Last night I was in agony half the time because of the greatest of a fuss young Boscawen was making of you! It drove me to a pretty pass of jealousy and despair!’
‘… Would you have him hanged, then, for looking at me?’
‘If his looks meant what I thought they meant. Yes.’
‘Oh, my dear … you confuse me.’ The dimples lost a little of their mournfulness. ‘And flatter me. And we have already met three times! You and I must know each other extremely well, must we not!’
‘Well enough.’
‘You do not know my family nor I yours. Nothing of them. It is not straightforward. Nothing is straightforward. Let us go by little and by little. No more now.’
‘And Boscawen?’
She fingered the silver buckle on her cloak.
‘I do not think you have to fear for him.’
‘Give me some proof.’
‘What can I give you?’
He bent to kiss her. She turned her cheek to him, and for a moment his lips brushed her sweet-smelling skin. Then, as he was about to lift his head, she turned her head and kissed him on the mouth. A second or two later she was walking away.
He caught her at the door of the church.
‘No more now,’ she said again, brusquely, having flushed in spite of herself.
‘Cuby, Cuby, Cuby, Cuby, Cuby, Cuby…’
‘Soon you will know my name.’
‘It will be the first thing I think of every morning. And the last one at night.’
They went out into the churchyard.
Cuby said: ‘Look how the sun is breaking through. Are we not so much luckier than the people lying here? Spring’s coming and we’re young! Young! Ride home, dear Jeremy, and never think hard of me.’
‘Why should I – how could I ever?’
‘Not ever please. And come again one day.’
Some weeks later a group of gentlemen were dining at Pearce’s Hotel in Truro. At the head of the table was Lord de Dunstanville of Tehidy, formerly Sir Francis Basset, one of the richest men in the county – particularly since the reopening of Dolcoath Mine – and also one of the most enlightened. Present also were his brother-in-law, Mr John Rogers, of Penrose, and Mr Mackworth Praed, Mr Ephraim Tweedy, Mr Edward Stackhouse, Mr Arthur Nankivell, Captain Ross Poldark.
The meal was being taken in the upstairs dining-room, which was private and looked out upon the tongue of the Truro river that licked up at high tide past the Town Quay and the backs of the large private houses of Prince’s Street. It was a dusty room and always smelt of camphor. Heavy crimson flock wallpaper was hung with faded watercolours of stag-hunting.
Dinner was over and the port circulating.
Lord de Dunstanville said: ‘Only one matter remains outstanding, gentlemen, as it did at the end of the meeting. I said, let us leave it until dinner is over so that we should all have a little further time for reflection. Well, that time is spent. Shall I go round the table for your thoughts?’
Nobody spoke. Stackhouse, who was holding the roundbased port bottle, filled his glass and passed it on.
‘Don’t look at me, Francis,’ John Rogers said. He was a short fat man with a paunch that made sitting close to the table difficult. He was also deaf and generally spoke loud enough to hear himself. ‘I have nothing to add. I am, as you know, no friend of people like the Warleggans, but fortunately they have never been in a position to hurt me, so I feel possibly less involved in the outcome.’
‘Well, I don’t know that there has been much personal conflict between them and me,’ said Tweedy, a Falmouth solicitor who had become wealthy acting for wealthier clients. ‘But their name is always cropping up. This small business man or that goes to the wall because the Warleggans come to hold too many of his bills and it will advantage them to close him down. And if he says too much against them they’ll see he doesn’t open up again, scarce anywhere else in Cornwall! Also I believe – or it is strongly held – that they have been behind this move of the Cornish Copper Company to block Harvey & Co’s access to the estuary at Hayle. And the litigation betwixt the two mines at Scorrier – United Partners and Wheal Tolgus – is part their doing. I don’t know. There is always something. They seem to have a finger in every pie, and it’s a dirty finger at that!’
A waiter came in to take some of the used plates. After a few moments Lord de Dunstanville waved him away. A squeaky shoe was followed by the click of the closing latch.
‘So you would be in favour of our making some move?’
Tweedy shifted uncomfortably. Largely for business reasons, he had made himself a leader of the church community in the Falmouth district, and a great charity organizer. ‘I – if it may be done honourably, without reflection on our own good name.’
‘It is difficult to determine what may be done “honourably” these days in the mercantile world,’ de Dunstanville said drily. ‘Moral values are sadly changing … And you, Stackhouse?’
‘I don’t like them,’ said Stackhouse. ‘But I don’t like the expedients which might help to get rid of ’em. I would do nothing; allow commercial and financial forces to have their way.’
The port decanter came to rest in the table hollow designed to contain it. Because the decanter would not stand up anywhere else, no one could forget to pass it on. From where he sat Ross could see a sail being raised on a mast, the mast angling as the breeze caught it. He wanted to be out there with it. He had felt more at home at Bussaco than he did in this room.
‘All this moral business,’ said Mackworth Praed, sniffing through his long, bent, aristocratic nose. ‘I see nothing to trouble our sleep in this. The proposal as I see it simply involves removing a competitor. Or hoping to remove him. It is what many do – in smaller ways; probably in larger too if we consider dynasties and nations. I’ll lay a crown there was no insomnia among the Warleggans when they brought Pascoe’s Bank down.’
‘So you would vote for it.’
‘Certainly. Of course. A simple commercial step. Without any sort of heart-searching. Amen. Pass the port.’
Arthur Nankivell, who had married a Scobell and so come into lands and property near Redruth, was a brisk, pale little man much pock-marked about the mouth and chin. It was not his turn to speak but he said:
‘A great pity Harris Pascoe is not still alive. Twould be informative, my lord, to have his feelings … Captain Poldark, you were Pascoe’s closest friend – and the most deeply affected by his bank’s failure. At the meeting you were – seemed, at least, not anxious to commit yourself. Can you not tell us your views?’
Ross turned his glass round and round. Because he had poured clumsily last time, a semi-circle marked the table where his glass had been.
‘Perhaps I am a little too close, a little too deeply involved. This should be a business matter, not a means of paying off old scores.’
‘They are not above it,’ said Tweedy.
‘Indeed not. I believe it was for malice as much as for commercial gain that they brought Pascoe down.’
Lord de Dunstanville rang the bell. When the waiter came he said: ‘Have the goodness to bring me writing materials.’
‘Very good, my lord.’
When these came and his lordship had wrinkled his nose distastefully at the soiled feather of the pen, he said:
‘Let it be informally recorded. John?’
Mr Rogers put both hands on his stomach and moved it.
‘Yea or nay?’
‘Yea or nay.’
‘Then nay. Conditions are bleak enough in the county this year. If the Warleggans come down it might bring others too.’
‘Tweedy?’
‘If it can be done discreetly, then yea.’
‘Praed?’
‘Yea, of a surety. Conditions are certainly bad, which gives us a better chance of success. For my part I think there’d be a sigh of relief throughout the whole county, just to be rid of ’em.’
‘Nankivell?’
‘How do you propose to vote, my lord?’
‘As I am no longer an active partner in the Cornish Bank I shall not feel called upon to vote at all – unless without me there is an even split of three a side.’
The little man scratched his pitted chin. ‘Then nay. I have met Sir George Warleggan on several occasions and have found him agreeable enough. No doubt if we had crossed swords over some venture I might feel different and judge different.’
Francis de Dunstanville made a mark. ‘I think you would, Mr Nankivell, I think you would.’
Knowing it was his turn, Ross made an excuse and got up, went to the window. The tide was almost full. Cattle were standing knee deep in water at the edge of the river. Water almost surrounded the old bridge leading out of the town. A new one was projected, would, they said, be built soon, making the coaching road to Falmouth easier of access; also the houses that were beginning to go up, good, handsome houses, square built, made to last, and spaced out across a wide street ascending the hill. Half way up the hill were the officers’ quarters of the Brecon and Monmouth Militia who were at present stationed here and in Falmouth to keep the peace.
Ross had heard that the Burgesses had only just been successful in turning down a proposition to call this handsome new road Warleggan Street.
‘Poldark?’ said de Dunstanville.
George, the parvenu, coming almost to own Francis Poldark, and later, on Francis’s death, marrying Elizabeth, Francis’s beautiful widow, once promised to Ross; George sneering in the Red Lion Inn at the time of the failure of the Carnmore Copper Co., and the fight they had had, Ross gripping his neckcloth, till George fell over the stairs, breaking a table in his fall and damned near breaking his neck. George, elected as a member of parliament for Truro on a majority of one vote – their meeting with Basset and Lord Devoran and Sir William Molesworth, again in the Red Lion, and the bitter enmity almost leading to another fight. George’s persecution of Drake Carne, Demelza’s brother, so that his bullies beat him up and left him for dead. George and Monk Adderley sneering at the London reception, George, one suspected, egging Monk Adderley on to make an attempt on Demelza’s virtue and the duel following that resulted in Adderley’s death.
His greatest enemy. His only enemy. Always George had been here, in Cornwall, at receptions, at meetings, his neighbour, always too powerful, too rich. By the strangest turn of events it seemed now as if George were in his hands.
What had Demelza said? What George and his kinsfolk have done they have to live with. What we do we have to live with. I should have no part in it.
Yet Mackworth Praed looked on it as a simple commercial transaction – nothing to be ashamed of, nothing to have to live with.
Rogers had said: Conditions are bad in the county (which was true enough). If the Warleggans come down it might bring others too (which might also be true).
‘Poldark?’ said de Dunstanville.
The brig was moving off, luffing away from the quay, making for the wider expanses of the river beyond. Swans moved lazily out of its way.
People mellow, don’t they?
Ross turned and frowned. ‘I feel convinced, my lord, that the proper thing for me is not to vote at all.’
Ross spent the night in Truro, so it was eleven the following morning before he returned home. He found Demelza alone in the kitchen.
‘My, Ross. I didn’t expect you so soon! Have you broken your fast?’
‘Oh yes. I was up betimes … What are you doing?’
Demelza sneezed. ‘We have lice in our poultry. It doesn’t at all please me.’
‘It’s a common condition.’
‘Well, I’m beating up these black peppercorns. When they are small enough I shall mix ’em with warm water and wash the hens with it. It’ll kill all kinds of vermin.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I don’t remember. It came to me this morning.’
‘I sometimes wonder if you’ve lived another life apart from being first a miner’s brat and then the lady of Nampara. Else, how do you know these things? What with curing cows of “tail-shot”; and you seem often to know as much as Dwight about the treatment of the homelier ills.’ Demelza wiped her nose. ‘Doesn’t this stand to reason, what I’m doing now? The lice won’t like it.’
‘Will the chickens?’
‘It won’t kill ’em.’
‘One thing you haven’t learned after all these years, and that is getting your servants to do the dirty jobs for you.’
She smiled. ‘If I didn’t do this, what else should I do? Besides, I like it. How did your meeting go yesterday?’
‘Like most of ’em. I was not born to be a banker, Demelza. Talk of canal shares and accommodation bills and India stock soon sets me yawning, though out of politeness I swallow the yawns at birth and don’t let them see the light.’
‘Ah yes. But what else?’
‘The Warleggans, you mean.’
‘Of course.’
‘Well, they all knew about it. It’s whispered knowledge in the banking world. Whether in the world of commerce I don’t know; but I’d guess it is hard to stop the rumours spreading.’
‘And what did your partners think?’
‘We discussed it first at the meeting – then broke off at Francis de Dunstanville’s suggestion and left it for decision until after dinner. Some were for doing something, others not.’
‘What sort of something?’
‘More or less what Lord Falmouth hinted at. Instructions to our clerks as to what to say when being offered Warleggan bills or when paying money out. A few comments in indiscreet quarters about the increase in their note issue and the fact that they hold a vast quantity of pawned stock … Followed if need be by anonymous handbills, as was done in the crisis over Pascoe’s Bank…’
‘And Lord de Dunstanville? Did he approve of all that?’
‘His lordship said that, because he was no longer an active partner in the bank, he would not take sides. Or, at least, he said he would give a casting vote only if the six active partners were to be equally divided.’
‘And were they?’
‘No.’
Demelza waited. ‘And so?’
‘Rogers said no. He felt that the fall of Warleggan’s Bank, if it were accomplished, would have a bad effect on the whole banking and industrial world – especially at a time of depression such as this – ‘ Ross sat on the edge of the table. ‘Praed said yes. We should put all the weight of the Cornish Bank behind an attempt to tip the scales against them. Stackhouse – to my surprise – said no. Nankivell not at all to my surprise, because he has interests in some of the Warleggan projects – said no. Tweedy said yes. It was then left to me.’
‘And what did you say?’
‘I spoke exactly as you had instructed me.’
‘Instructed you!’
‘Suggested, then. That, since we – that is the Poldarks – were far too closely involved, even having a sort of relationship by marriage, I would absolutely refuse to vote on such an issue. Pilate, as you suggested, could do no more.’
‘So … So nothing was decided?’
‘Of course, everything was decided. The active partners had voted three to two against any move – with me abstaining. I know de Dunstanville was greatly relieved not to have to make the casting vote.’
There was silence.
Ross sneezed. ‘That damned pepper!’
Demelza said: ‘You are the most lamentable of husbands!’
‘What? What have I done now?’
‘You have so contrived it – or so contrived your story – that you have somehow placed the whole responsibility for the survival of Warleggan’s Bank upon my shoulders! If anything goes wrong now betwixt him and you – if he wields his power and money in some wicked way in the future it will all be my fault!’
‘No, no. But that was what we agreed!’
Demelza banged the peppercorns. ‘You asked my advice. I gave it to you. But what you do – how you choose to act – that is your doing, not mine! I will not accept to have this all thrust upon me!’
He moved to put his arm round her. ‘Then it shall not be so.’
She shrugged his arm away. ‘Be sure it is not so.’
‘I have told you.’
‘Promise.’
‘I promise.’ Ross sneezed.
‘Do you not have a handkerchief?’
‘I’ll use my sleeve.’
‘How you provoke me! Here’s mine.’
He took it. ‘I must have lost the one you gave me.’
‘You always do.’
‘Well, for me what is the purpose of ‘em? I never sneeze from one year’s end to the next. And I don’t expect this sort of assault in my own house.’
‘It will soon be over.’ Demelza sneezed again. ‘Go and sit in the parlour. I’ll join you for tea.’
Ross eased himself off the table but made no other move to go. In spite of the half jocular exchange counterpointing Demelza’s indignation, Ross knew that she was right. A decision had been taken in Truro yesterday which might have no consequences for them at all; or the consequences might in some way yet unforeseen be of vital importance. The shadow of George Warleggan had lain across them so heavily in the past, and for so long a time, that no one could lightly dismiss the opportunity of removing it for ever. It was true that for the last ten years they had succeeded in avoiding each other and so avoiding conflict. It was true that they were all growing older. It was true that revenge was un-Christian and uncomfortable to live with. Perhaps in a few months Ross would feel happy and relieved that he had not seized this chance of repayment in kind. At the moment he was full of doubt, and Demelza’s reaction had shown that she was having doubts too.
Of course it would be all right. Since Elizabeth’s death there had really been no cause for open conflict. Spite – yes, there was always spite on George’s side and a hackleraising hostility on Ross’s. But even these instinctive reactions had become a little weary with the passing of the years. Live and let live – just so long as they never met …
‘Demelza,’ he said.
‘Yes, Ross?’
‘Of course, we’ve made the right decision.’
‘And if we have made the wrong?’ she asked starkly.
‘Then no regrets.’
She half smiled at him. ‘It’s the only way to live.’
He stood by the door and watched her. She began to spoon up the crushed pepper and put it into the bucket.
‘One other thing,’ Ross said, glad he could change the subject. ‘Coming by Grace I met Horrie Treneglos. He’d been to see Jeremy but apparently Jeremy has gone fishing again.’
‘Yes. I told him.’
‘Did he tell you why he came?’
‘No.’
‘It seems that John, his father, has called on George in Truro and has put the proposition to him that they should reopen Wheal Leisure. George, as expected, declined to have any part in the project, saying conditions were unfavourable and that he couldn’t see his way to advancing any money, so John made him an offer for the mine as it stands. George pretended reluctance and then, after some haggling, said he could probably accept five hundred pounds. Mr Treneglos offered three hundred and fifty, and there the matter stands.’
‘Until?’
‘Well, John’s astuter than I thought. It clearly doesn’t do to look too eager, otherwise George would smell a rat and raise his price – or decide to hang on.’
‘What I’m still not so sure of is what rat there is to smell?’
‘Nor I for certain. Of course I have a sentimental attachment for Wheal Leisure. Jeremy’s proposal touched a chord.’
‘Zacky Martin thought well of the idea?’
‘So far as he went. But his breathing was troubling him so I did not press him to go too far. Some of the old lodes are certainly alive, but squeezed and compressed between hard strata so that they run barely an inch wide. By following a rib down one might soon come into better ground. Others lie flat or horizontal, so they don’t bear so good an aspect. There’s little more we can do until the dry weather sets in.’
‘But if John gets the Warleggan share for, say, four hundred pounds, you will open then?’
‘Not certainly.’
‘It is a lot to spend if you don’t proceed.’
‘There’s no other way.’
Demelza put the kettle on the fire.
Ross said: ‘It’s a fair risk in my view. We’ll be guided by events. If we did open we might save considerably by buying a second-hand engine, if one should be available of the right size and price.’
‘Jeremy would be very disappointed over that.’
‘I know.’
‘This idea of opening Wheal Leisure and his work on the engine has given him a new purpose in life, Ross.’
‘I know that too.’
‘I think it is that and something else also,’ Demelza said. ‘Both happening together.’
Ross looked up. ‘You mean you really think he has fallen in love?’
‘I told you.’
‘And you believe it to be serious?’
‘Yes, I do.’
‘In that case, good luck to him. When are we to see the girl?’
‘I wrote to her mother last Wednesday. Jeremy wants to give a little party in Easter week.’
The kettle was boiling. As she took it off, Ross said:
‘I hope and trust you’re not intending to wash the chickens all by yourself. Even if you hesitate to trouble the servants, you might get Clowance to help you.’
‘Sarcasm never becomes you, Ross. Perhaps you’d like to hold the chickens for me?’
‘Gladly. If you’ll explain to me why my son wastes at least a day a week on these fishing expeditions – especially in this weather.’
‘Why don’t you ask him?’
‘I have. He’s as evasive as a pilchard. I have even offered to accompany him, but he has indicated that he prefers to go with Ben or Paul.’
Ena Daniel came into the kitchen.
‘Oh, beg pardon, sir. Mum. I didn’t know you was both ‘ere. Post’s just come, mum. And the paper. Shall I bring’n in ‘ere?’
‘No, Captain Poldark is just returning to the parlour. No doubt all the letters are for him.’
‘No, mum. Leastwise, I think not. The top letter says “Mrs Poldark”, I do b’lave.’
Demelza rubbed her hands on her apron. ‘Then you may bring that one in here, Ena.’
When she had gone, Ross said: ‘Don’t let her escape.’
‘What d’you mean?’
‘Do your servants a kindness and allow them a little of the pleasure of catching and washing the hens.’
It was too late to reply as she wanted. She turned her back as Ena came in.
‘Ena.’
‘Sur?’
‘Your mistress needs help.’
‘Yes, sur.’
Ross sneezed as he went out.
A large flowing hand on the outside of the letter. Demelza broke the seal. The letter was signed Frances Bettesworth.
My dear Mrs Poldark,
Your gracious Invitation to my daughter, Miss Cuby Trevanion, to visit you at your home in Nampara and to spend two nights, has been kindly received.
Unfortunately, at the present time, she has so many other engagements – and Commitments towards her recently widowed brother that I feel I must refuse on her behalf; much as I understand the Disappointment this will give to all consarned.
I remain, my dear Mrs Poldark, with most respectful compliments, yours ever Sincerely,
Frances Bettesworth.