‘Andrew, I will keep my promise but . . .’
He mounted his horse, and the animal adjusting to his weight, took a few steps away.
‘Will you write?’ she said. ‘Try to if you can. You know we shall all be – waiting to hear.’
‘If I can,’ he said. ‘We’re hoping not to put into port more than we can help betwixt St Mary’s and Genoa . . . I’ll do my best. By the way – d’you know what my new vessel has been called? I give you two guesses.’
‘Of course not. I’ve no idea.’
‘Stephen has called her the Lady Clowance.’
Andrew took off his hat, dug his heels into the horse and they went clattering off down the drive.
II
Looking back, Jeremy could not quite decide at what moment the evening began to go downhill.
At first, having got over the initial unpleasant surprise of discovering that Valentine had somehow become one of the Trevanion party, he had been delighted with everything about Cuby: her looks, her elegant pride, her attitude towards him, the ease and grace with which she came forward to meet his father and mother. Cuby had joined in the fun with him, had danced with him, had even agreed to essay the waltz with him, which was a delicious experience. In all their intermittent, restricted associations stretching now for two and a half years, it was a pitiable commentary that except for the short meeting at the races a year ago he had never held her so close as this before. Now while they danced he just breathed in the joy of it all, her lips, her smile, her body close to his, the feel of her hair brushing his face, the scented violet gloves, the rounded forearms, the curve of her cheek, the long dark eyelashes, her smile, her lips.
Another pleasure of the moment was that Valentine was dancing with Mrs Pope and, inevitably for a womanizer like him, was making a great fuss of her. It was at least a couple of dances after this that Valentine, with a for him singularly purposeful approach, claimed Cuby, and thereafter monopolized her. The fact that it looked a little as if he had received such instructions from his father in no way sugared the pill. That was what was expected of him – of them both. Again this could be no impediment for Valentine: he adored all pretty women and it could be no hardship at all to admire and lust after Cuby tonight. What turned the evening sour was that Cuby for her part behaved with just the same sparkle and animation and zest towards Valentine as she had towards Jeremy.
Jeremy in turn paired himself with Mrs Selina Pope.
It was a country dance, and there were other pretty girls on the floor, including Daisy Kellow, whose bright looks had slightly faded this year, as if she saw her chances of marrying Jeremy receding. Also Davida Treneglos, John and Ruth’s second daughter, the one after the problem child Agneta; she had suddenly blossomed with auburn hair and a peach skin which so seldom went with that colouring. And there was his sister Clowance, blonde and lovely: not for him of course but representing all the other girls in the world he might find and court and learn to love. And little minx Bella dancing with the best. And tall handsome Caroline Enys and his own delightful mother. And all – all of them were as nothing because one girl would not have him.
He watched Cuby and Valentine move off together towards the larger parlour; no doubt to drink canary and to laugh and joke between themselves, partners, not just for now but for life. This was what was ordained. This was what had been financially and legally arranged between Sir George Warleggan and Major John Trevanion. It was sealed. It was settled.
He excused himself and strode out into the garden, his mood being not improved by discovering Horrie Treneglos cuddling Letitia Pope, and another couple in the garden he could not recognise. So he saw nothing of the brush between Valentine and Geoffrey Charles.
Only a half-dozen people noticed the extra tightness of Geoffrey Charles’s face as, at the end of a dance, he requested a word with Valentine in private.
They met in the parlour where Morwenna had met her son.
There had been a little incident earlier in the evening when Amadora, being greeted by Valentine for the first time, had been offended and frightened by his amorous familiarity. To tell the truth Amadora, born into a family of Spanish hidalgos and raised in a convent, had found English society and Cornish society clumsy and unpolished and brusque. They were noisy, overt, a trifle discourteous by the standards she had been brought up to know. But such was her admiration for the English in other ways, and such was her love for Geoffrey Charles, that these little buffetings were taken in her stride. When you went into another country you did not expect it to be exactly like your own. She looked on it as a challenge.
But when a young man came suddenly upon you, terribly good looking but in a narrow, long nosed, bent sort of way, and kissed you at once on the lips, not quite content that your lips should remain closed, and stroked your elbow and arm and put a hand familiarly on your knee and said that he was your one and only brother-in-law, and they must get to know each other instantly and intimately, and looked as if he meant it, Amadora took affront. It was really more shock and indignation than fright, she explained to Geoffrey Charles afterwards; she was not one to be easily intimidated; but in the momentary shock she had passed on the message to her husband that she did not approve of this step-brother of his.
So that had not endeared Geoffrey Charles to Valentine at the beginning of the event.
But the later thing . . .
‘Yes?’ said Valentine lazily when they got in the room and found it empty. He had drunk more than most, but it scarcely showed. ‘What can I do for you, brother?’
‘What in Hell,’ said Geoffrey Charles, ‘do you mean by bringing that God damned boy here?’
‘What?’ Valentine dabbed the end of his nose with a lace handkerchief. ‘What boy? Oh, you mean Conan Whitworth. Did it matter? He asked to come. Is he offensive to you?’
‘Of course he’s offensive! Didn’t you know his mother was to be here? Didn’t you appreciate the shock it would be to her!’
‘’Fraid I didn’t. Should I have? Sons and mothers are not usually so antipathetic to each other.’
‘For God’s sake you could have written and asked me! Jeremy had the manners to do that when he wanted to invite someone I did not know!’
‘Oh, Cuby and the Trevanions!’ Valentine beamed. ‘That was a truly excellent idea, wasn’t it.’
‘To hell with that! I want to know why you brought that boy here!’
Valentine’s smile was wearing thin, but he did not relinquish it.
‘My dear step-brother, I have told you. He wanted to come. I brought him. Why should I not? I was a babe in arms almost when his father was killed and his mother married again. You were but a lad yourself. How am I to know all the ins and outs of the affairs of your tedious friends?’
Geoffrey Charles’s anger was blunted on the realization that probably Valentine spoke the partial truth. But the anger did not go away.
He said: ‘I suppose you have always felt you owned this house!’
‘Not at all, brother. Merely a residual interest, as it were. Do you wish to make an issue of it?’
‘Only to the extent of ensuring you do not become over-familiar in the uses to which you put your relationship.’
Valentine’s temper was rising, but he was the junior by ten years and authority was not on his side.
He said: ‘Are the royal toes sore with being trodden on? You have only to say.’
‘I’ve said all I have to say.’ It was impossible to bring up Amadora’s name without making her seem over-careful of her dignity.
‘Then may I rejoin the ladies? Or do you wish me to leave?’
‘Do whichever you damned please,’ said Geoffrey Charles, turning away. ‘Leave by all means if you have neither the wit nor the manners to offer an apology.’
‘Apology?’ said a voice from the door. ‘Between brothers?’ It was, of all people, Sir George, his voice even colder than usual. Although his black silk suit had been cut by the best tailor in London it sat uneasi
ly on him; his sturdy bull-necked body would not adapt to its elegance. ‘I came to tell you, Valentine, that we shall be leaving shortly . . . Is your wife not here, Geoffrey Charles?’
‘No, she’s upstairs,’ said Geoffrey Charles woodenly. Amadora was with Morwenna.
‘An apology?’ said Valentine. His confidence had come back with another person in the room, and he resented his brief loss of it. ‘Between brothers? Between half-brothers anyway. Will a half apology do?’
‘Make it what you will,’ said Geoffrey Charles. ‘So long as you understand what I have said.’
‘And what has he said?’ asked George.
No one spoke. George walked across the room, eyeing it, for he had not been in here before tonight.
He said: ‘This spinning wheel belonged to your mother. Perhaps if you don’t treasure it you could give it to Valentine.’
‘I do treasure it,’ said Geoffrey Charles.
‘It is in very poor condition. It needs attention.’
‘It has been neglected for a great number of years – like the rest of the house.’
‘Just so. The Harry brothers were never very satisfactory.’
‘I have discharged them.’
George raised his eyebrows and put his fingers on the spinning wheel, as if sampling it for dust.
‘And what has Valentine said?’
‘What?’
‘What has Valentine said that you expect him to understand?’
‘Oh, a mere trifle,’ volunteered Valentine. ‘That I must mind my Ps and Qs while in this house and take care whom I invite to it without the permission of the owner.’
‘I do not think you need to put yourself in such a situation again,’ said George. ‘You will have your own inheritance soon enough.’
‘I wish him good fortune with it!’ said Geoffrey Charles.
‘What do you know about it?’ George snarled.
‘Nothing. Should I? I have been away far too long to have any idea what damned plans you have in mind! So long as they do not involve me, I don’t care.’
‘I can promise they do not involve you in any way. You are at full liberty to spend your wife’s money restoring this place to its former glory – such as it ever was.’
It seemed that even George had been drinking more than his norm.
‘I won’t detain you,’ said Geoffrey Charles, ‘a moment longer than you wish to stay.’
‘Come, Valentine.’ George turned back towards the door as Amadora came in followed by Ross.
‘Oh,’ said Amadora. ‘Geoffrey, I shall be just here to tell you that Morwenna is gone to sleep . . .’
She paused and looked from one to the other.
‘Ah, Ross,’ said George.
‘Ah, George,’ said Ross. It was the encounter neither of them had been seeking.
Geoffrey Charles said: ‘Is Drake with her still?’
‘Yes. I think it shall have been some shock she has received.’
‘That’s what it was.’
George said to Ross: ‘I have been observing the repairs that have been wrought in this house. It must have cost Geoffrey Charles a pretty penny. Or I suppose I should say Mrs Geoffrey Charles.’
‘Oh, a great deal of it has been done cheaply,’ Ross said. ‘There has been tremendous good will in the villages.’
George sneered. ‘No doubt.’
‘And relief.’
‘Relief?’
Ross said: ‘That the house is to come alive again in the way most proper and suitable to it.’
George said: ‘Are you suggesting that my occupancy of the house was im-proper?’
‘Most people think so.’
George breathed down his nose. ‘It is a Poldark house, I know. And that makes it sacrosanct. At least I did not commit the vandalism of having the great table torn up to accommodate a mere dance.’
‘It will go back unchanged,’ snapped Geoffrey Charles. ‘Have no fear.’
‘Oh, I have no fear, for the property is out of my hands. It is no longer my concern.’
‘Was it ever?’ asked Ross.
‘That’s as maybe. I will leave you to your parochial triumphs. Come, Valentine.’
In the last few minutes Valentine had discovered two glasses half full of claret left by someone on the bookshelf and had finished them off.
‘Tell me, Father,’ he said, ‘there was this great fight you once had with Cousin Ross, and you threw him out of the window. Was it in this room?’
There was a gaping silence. Geoffrey Charles broke it by saying:
‘Get out, you stupid fool! Go home!’
‘He’s but a little drunk,’ said Ross. And then to Valentine: ‘No, it was not. In here we should have had no room to fight, should we, George?’
Geoffrey Charles said incredulously to Ross: ‘And Sir George threw you out? I don’t believe that!’
Valentine dabbed at a spot of wine on his lace cuff. ‘Oh, but it was told me often when I was a little boy. The servants all talked. Polly Odgers used to tell me of it when I was recovering from the rickets. It used to make me laugh. I used to wonder how it came about that my father should ever have been able to throw Uncle Ross through the window!’
‘As I remember it,’ said Ross, ‘three servants threw me out.’
There was a gust of half controlled laughter.
‘And I remember,’ said George suddenly, contemptuously, ‘the cause of the quarrel. Perhaps you have forgotten, Uncle Ross. You were at that time in the process of defrauding your nephew, Geoffrey Charles, of a substantial share in your successful mine by having persuaded his mother to sell the shares to you at a knock-down price. Do you remember that?’
Ross tried to think of his age and the age of the man opposite him.
He said: ‘I remember the ridiculous story you told. Perhaps the woman you’d then just married began to realize her mistake when she heard all the fabrications that you invented.’
‘Don’t ever speak her name in my presence!’ said George.
‘Why, does it upset you?’
‘It upsets me to think that you ever touched her!’
The little parlour was suddenly full of terrible portents and terrible memories, portents and memories which concerned very gravely the interests of the two young men – particularly of Valentine. ‘Touched’, the word that George had accidentally used, could mean anything to them. This was a moment nearer to a clash between George and Ross – on the most important subject to them both – than there had been for many years – perhaps ever been. Another step, and there could be no withdrawing. Cheerfully they would have killed each other.
Ross said: ‘In fact, I threw a servant through the window first. It made an unattractive mess of wood and glass on the lawn. When I followed I was quite cut about the hands. However . . .’ He broke off, conscious that only he could defuse the situation. ‘However, Mrs Geoffrey Charles, may I assure you that it will never happen in your presence, and only old men could boast of what they did then. Sir George is about to leave. And Valentine, having no other glasses to drain in this room, will no doubt accompany his father. It has been an enchanting evening, Amadora, and you have graced it as perhaps no Englishwoman could have done. We’re all grateful to you for coming here and bringing Geoffrey Charles back.’
‘You have already said this once in your tiresome speech,’ observed George, still playing with fire.
‘Yes,’ said Ross. ‘Good things are always worth repeating. Evil things should be strangled at birth.’
‘Or live on the other side of the county, eh?’ said Valentine. ‘Amadora, delicious one, allow me a good-night kiss, and then I shall not darken your door for many a long day.’
Amadora glanced swiftly at Geoffrey Charles but his face was without expression. She allowed herself to receive a considerable hug and a lingering kiss from Valentine, and when they had separated she tried not to put a handkerchief to her lips.
‘And a half kiss for a half-brother,’ said Valentine, b
lowing one. ‘Is there more wine outside?’
‘You have had enough,’ snapped George.
‘Yes, Father. But the difficulty is my party may not be leaving yet, so all these adieus may be premature. You know how I hate to be without a glass in my hand.’
The relative smallness of the room had made the tension greater; no one could get far enough away except by leaving; and for a few more seconds not a person stirred. Far more than enough had been said for a challenge to be issued by either of the older men, for one to call the other out; and neither in the presence of the younger generation would have felt able to refuse. And the danger was still present. Only one more wrong word needed to be said.
Acutely aware of this, Geoffrey Charles made a great effort to swallow his own annoyance.
‘We have all become over-serious, talking of old times that were best forgot . . .’
Again there was silence.
Geoffrey Charles went on: ‘At least there are many things which may pleasantly be remembered about this evening, and when I am back on the Pyrenees, those are what I shall think of.’
Valentine, who had provoked everything, said: ‘Avoid the Frenchie bullets, brother. Amadora is too pretty to become a widow. For my part . . .’ He did not finish.
Geoffrey Charles gave a cynical smile, which was not really a relenting of his former expression.
‘I’m sure you have better things to do.’
‘Of course,’ said Sir George, brusquely turning away. ‘He has better things to do.’
III
The Loving Cup Page 19
