Jeremy Poldark

by Winston Graham

  “Trouble with some people—when they don’t remember, they invent. That’s often the defence’s opportunity. Sharp-witted man?”

  “I wouldn’t say so.”

  “Ah. No doubt you could shake him. Though some of these dullards are wickedly obstinate in the box. Bull-headed, that’s what you’d call ’em.”

  Ross handed the list back. “Wednesday morning, do you think?”

  “Wednesday morning.” Clymer stood up and folded his gown about him. “Don’t know why I’m troubling. If you want to hang it’s your own affair.” The gaoler had come forward but he waved him away. “Remember seeing a man strung up at Tyburn once. They cut him down for dead but he grimaced and twitched for quite five minutes after.”

  “I’ve seen that happen when a man’s head was shot off by a cannon ball,” Ross said. “It’s a still more peculiar sight when the head and the body are some paces apart.”

  Clymer stared. “Yes?…”

  “Ha, well…I’ll leave this draft defence with you. Think it over. But don’t regret you didn’t use it after the verdict. There’s nothing to be done then. The prosecution will have plenty of harsh things to say about you without your helping ’em in any way out of a mistaken sense of pride. Pride’s all right in its place. Got plenty myself. Couldn’t get along without it. But a court of law’s not the place for a display of it.”

  ***

  Dwight Enys put up at a little inn in Honey Street. A sudden illness in Mellin Cottages had delayed him so that he did not reach Bodmin until Monday afternoon. At the assize court he saw that Ross’s name was not on the list for Tuesday; then he called at the George and Grown, but found only Verity there.

  He left soon and dined quietly at the inn. Having hurried, he now found himself with one day to kill. In the morning he thought he would visit the lazar house he had passed a mile or so out of the town. He had never seen a leper and it might add to his knowledge to observe them.

  The tiny dining room of this inn was separated from the taproom only by half-height swing doors, and as he was finishing the cold pigeon pie there was some little commotion and he heard the word “surgeon” mentioned. It was not, however, his business and he helped himself to the apricot jellies and the cream. After a minute the owner of the inn pushed through the door and, seeing Dwight, came perspiring over to him.

  “Begging your pardon, sur, but be you a surgeon or an apothecary or some such like?”

  “I am.”

  “Well, sur, a footman has this minute run over from the Priory House to say there’s someone taken tedious sick, and was there a physician to be had? Tis urgent, so I’m told. Twould be obliging to the Daniells and a keenly act as you might say…”

  In the taproom was a liveried footman looking breathless and a shade anxious. A Miss Penvenen was the lady who was took ill, a Miss Caroline Penvenen; a guest staying in the house. No, he hadn’t seen her himself and didn’t know what was amiss except that it was urgent and their own apothecary lived at the far end of the town.

  “Very well. I’ll be with you in a minute.” Dwight ran up the stairs and picked up the small bag of medicines and surgical instruments he seldom travelled without.

  It was a fine night and only a few yards to the Church Square and up the hill at the other side. They turned in at a gate and came to a big, square, gentleman’s residence overlooking a small park. Water glimmered through the ornamental trees.

  The footman led the way into a square hall lit by massive candles which flickered and bobbed like servant girls as they went by. Through a half-opened door Dwight saw a table set for supper, gleaming knives, polished fruit, flowers. A man’s voice talking in a measured even tone, used to being listened to. Up the stairs. Good wrought-iron work and plenty of white paint. Two Opies and a Zoffany.

  Along a red-carpeted passage and a turn. The footman knocked at a door.

  “Come in.”

  Dwight was ushered in and the footman withdrew. Sitting on a low couch was a tall slender, strikingly handsome girl in a richly patterned dressing gown of white lawn.

  “Oh, are you an apothecary?” she demanded.

  “A physician, ma’am. Can I be of help to you?”

  “Yes. That’s if you know the use of drugs the way an apothecary does.”

  “Of course. What is the matter?”

  “You attend on the Daniells regular?”

  “No. I’m a stranger to the town. Your footman came to the inn where I was staying and said you were urgently ill.”

  “Yes, I see. I only wanted to be sure.” She got up. “I am not ill, though. It’s my little dog, Horace. Look. He has had two fits and now’s half awake only, as if faint. I’m greatly concerned about him. Will you attend to him at once, please.”

  Dwight saw that beside her on the sofa was a small black pug curled on a silk cushion. He looked at the pug and then he looked at the girl.

  “Your dog, ma’am?”

  “Yes,” she said impatiently. “I’ve been worried out of my life for half an hour. He’ll not drink and scarcely knows me. It’s all this commotion and excitement there’s been, I’ll swear. I shouldn’t have brought him; I have only myself to blame.”

  It was a beautiful room, decorated in scarlet and gold. Candles on the dressing table reflected in endless multiples through double mirrors. No doubt the chief guest room. A lady of consequence. He said gently: “Your footman made a mistake. It would be a farrier you really sent him for.”

  He caught the flicker in her eyes before she bent her head. “It’s not my custom to employ a horse doctor for Horace.”

  “Oh, some of them are skilful enough.”

  “That may be. I don’t choose to employ them.”

  He didn’t move.

  She said sharply: “I want the best advice. I’ll pay for it. I’ll pay your ordinary fee. Come, what is it? You can have it in advance.”

  “That can wait until I have the honour of attending you.”

  Their glances clashed. Something in her attitude had irritated him even more than the nature of the call.

  “Well,” she said, “are you going to treat the dog, or do you not know your trade well enough? If you’re a beginner, perhaps you had better go and we’ll call someone else.”

  “It was what I was about to suggest,” he said.

  As he reached the door she said: “Wait.”

  He turned. He noticed that there were faint freckles across the bridge of her nose.

  She said: “Have you never had a dog of your own?” The tone of her voice was different.

  “Yes, I had once.”

  “Would you have let him die on a point of—formality?”

  “No…”

  “Then will you let mine?”

  “I imagine it’s not as serious as that.”

  “I hope not myself.”

  There was a moment’s hesitation. He came back into the room. “How old is he?”

  “Twelve months.”

  “Fits are not uncommon at that age. An aunt of mine had a spaniel…”

  He bent to examine Horace. There didn’t seem much wrong with the animal except that its breathing was stertorous. Pulse was fairly steady and there was no sign of fever. At the best of times, he thought, it would be a miserable little beast. For one thing it was much too fat and pampered. Dwight was aware that its graceful arrogant young mistress was closely watching him.

  He looked up. “I see no cause for anxiety. There’s an excess of some of the vital humours, and I’d advise you to follow a lowering system of treatment. Keep him very short of sweetmeats and pastries. And let one of the servants give him regular exercise each day. Real exercise. Running and jumping. He’s got to get rid of the poisons causing these convulsions. In the meantime I’ll write you a preparation that you can get a druggist to make up.”

  “Thank you.”<
br />
  He took out his notebook; she meekly fetched him a pen and ink and he wrote out a prescription for a paregoric of black cherry water and Theban opium.

  “Thank you,” she said, taking the slip. “You were saying?”

  “What?”

  “About your aunt.”

  His mind had moved on beyond that. He suddenly smiled, the last anger going. “Oh, my aunt had a spaniel, but that was many years ago. He used to have fits when she played the spinet. One hesitates to say whether he was musical or the opposite.”

  Caroline’s smooth young face, which had been so taut a few minutes ago, flashed its own answering smile, though there was still a glint of disappearing hostility at its edge.

  “What is your name?” she said.

  ***

  Tuesday dawned with heavy showers which made the dry mud into wet mud but didn’t affect the spirits of those who were determined to make the most of election day. Dwight went first to the assize building, but there was no notice yet of the following day’s list so he felt entitled to introduce himself to Mr. Jeffery Clymer to find out.

  Mr. Clymer was at breakfast, his mauve chin paler for the morning’s shave, and in a great confusion and hurry; but he allowed Dwight a seat at the table and a glimpse of Wednesday’s case list. The cases which were to come before the Hon. Mr. Justice Lister were briefly stated.

  R. v. Smith for misdemeanour

  R. v. Boynton for larceny

  R. v. Polkinghorne and Norton for vagrancy

  R. v. Poldark for riot and assault

  R. v. Inhabitants of the township of Liskeard for nonrepair of highway

  R. v. Corydon for receiving stolen goods

  R. v. Inhabitants of the Parish of St. Erth for obstruction of estuary

  Dwight put the paper back on the table. “How can all those be possibly got through tomorrow?”

  “Have to be, my dear man,” said Clymer, chewing. “Crowded list. Don’t want to be here all month. Due in Exeter the sixteenth. But don’t worry; they’ll be run through all right. A lot of ’em are simple cases.”

  “Including that of Rex v. Poldark?”

  “Oh no, hum…” Mr. Clymer paused to pick his teeth with his little finger. “Far from it. But we shall get through. Could only wish for a different attitude on the part of my client. Stiff-necked, that’s what you’d call it. Doesn’t understand the law. And still unrelenting. Perhaps the look of the judge will make him change his tune. Wentworth Lister’s no milksop. Well, well, I must be off. Got a case at eleven. Old woman accused of poisoning her grandson with ground glass. She’s seventy-two and not a penny piece. Better all round if she was hanged to make an easy passing, but we must see what the judge says.”

  As Dwight got up to go a servant tapped at the door.

  “If you please, sir, a Mr. Francis Poldark to see you.”

  Mr. Clymer gulped at his coffee. “Another Poldark? What does this mean? Do you know him, sir?” When Dwight had briefly answered, “Another witness, d’ye think? This fellow Pearce doesn’t know his business if he allows people to come in with their stories five minutes before the trial. No mention of him in the brief at all!”

  “He was ill at the time of the wrecks. But he may have called to make general inquiries about his cousin.”

  Mr. Clymer irritably unbuttoned his morning gown. “Not Captain Poldark’s wet nurse, y’know. Have other business to attend to Foster!”

  “Sir?” The clerk put his head round the door.

  “Bring me R. v. Penrose and R. v. Tredinnick.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “All this election farce. Most untimely and unsettling. Place overcrowded with drunken rogues and pickpockets. No service in the hotels. Bedbugs. Disgraceful: that’s what you’d call it.” The barrister turned to the gaping servant. “Well, show him up if you must. Show Mr. Poldark up!”

  “I’ll take my leave before he comes,” Dwight said. “That will be one less in your way. We shall meet tomorrow.”

  “Be there by ten. The early cases may be run through very quick.”

  On the way down the stairs Dwight met Francis coming up. Francis said:

  “I came in great haste, but hear the case isn’t until tomorrow.” He was dusty and unkempt.

  “That’s true.”

  “Do you know where I can get a room for tonight? The town is fermenting with people.”

  “I think you may have to go some distance out.”

  “Which inn is Ross’s wife staying at?”

  “The George and Crown. But your sister was saying they were crowded too.”

  Francis looked up quickly. “My sister?”

  “They’re staying together.” Dwight’s professional eye could not help registering that Francis looked pallid and out of condition. The stamina had gone with the flesh he had lost. “Your wife isn’t with you?”

  “…The court is no place for a woman. What are all these damned flags and banners waving in the breeze?” Dwight explained. “Oh, of course, I had forgot. Cornwall abounds in rotten boroughs and suitable people to fill ’em. Think you this man upstairs has any forensic ability? So many of them are braggarty, pot-bellied old roués caring only for their fees and a handy wench when it’s over.”

  Dwight smiled. “I found him irritable but alert. I shall judge better tomorrow.” They passed on, and then Dwight turned again. “If you should be out of a place to sleep tonight and nothing at all in view, you may share my room, though there’s only one bed in it. The London Inn near the church.”

  “You may be held to that. If there’s floor space I can use a rug and lie easy enough. Thank you.”

  Dwight left the hotel and turned up the street. It was fine now and a walk would do him good. Just out of the town a carriage drawn by four grey horses, with a driver and a postilion in green and white livery, passed him on the way in. As it lurched along, going slowly because of the appalling state of the road, Dwight saw George Warleggan alone inside.

  ***

  When Dwight got back from his visit to the lazar house—where he had found only seven resident lepers, most of them drunk, and the building nearly falling down for want of elementary repair—he was only just in time to squeeze into the Guildhall to watch the election.

  The platform at the end was filled with the town’s notables, and Dwight was surprised to see the tall red-haired girl as the only woman among them. Outside was a good deal of noise, for the hundreds of people who could not get in were jammed in the street shouting rival slogans. Proceedings began with the usual sheriff’s precept; then a fat man called Fox, who was a county magistrate, got up to administer the oath to the returning officer. Here was the crux of the matter. The two mayors, Michell from one end of the platform, and Lawson from the other, jumped forward and claimed their right to be that man. A long legal argument followed. Both sides had brought barristers to put their claim, but neither convinced the other, and tempers grew frayed. People in the hall began to shout and stamp their feet, and the floor shook.

  Dwight stared over the bobbing heads and wondered how Horace was faring. He glanced at the people crushed around him, some in wigs, some with their own hair tied in bows at the back, others, labourers and workingmen, with lank uncut hair falling to their shoulders. Two near him had got skin diseases and a third was far gone in consumption and spat blood into the straw underfoot. In the corner was a woman who had lost her nose with the French disease.

  Suddenly a compromise—of sorts—was struck on the platform, though it was come to more because of the noise of the mob outside than from any will to make concessions. The mayors were to be joint returning officers and would be jointly sworn in as such. Anyone could see that this would lead to further trouble when the election proper began, but at least it allowed progress of a sort.

  Growing tired of it all, Dwight edged a step or two nearer the door, tho
ugh he did not see much prospect of getting out until it was all over. Silence fell on the people around him and he saw that the first voter had stepped up. This was Alderman Harris, a man with a stomach equal to his great reputation, and he recorded his vote—for Trevaunance and Chenhalls—amid a burst of cheering and only a few catcalls. Then came Roberts, a Whig Quaker, who was also allowed to pass unchallenged. Another Whig followed and, acting as warily as his rival, Michell passed him without comment. A third Whig, however, was too much to swallow. The barrister acting for the Basset interests objected on the grounds that Joseph Lander had long been invalidated from membership of the corporation on the grounds of insanity and that he had been three times put in the stocks for indecent behaviour.

  This caused an uproar, and two men near Dwight started fighting. One of them shoved Dwight against the woman who had lost her nose, and she opened a mouth like a door and screamed as if she were being murdered. When she was at last quieted, Dwight saw that a doctor was standing up giving evidence that Joseph Lander’s mother and father were incestuously related and both had died insane—but before he could follow the argument the two men were fighting again; and when one of them was hauled insensible from under the other’s feet Joseph Lander had passed from the scene.

  The young physician began to wish he hadn’t come. Every other man who came up to vote was challenged, and the argument lasted interminably. One man, obviously at death’s door, was carried up on a stretcher and put on the floor while they quarrelled over him like seagulls over a strip of offal. Sir Hugh Bodrugan, stocky and hairy and authoritative, was allowed to pass just because, Dwight thought, no one dared face him out. What he was doing on the corporation was a mystery; but there were several like him, men who lived miles away and had no connection whatever with the town.

  The girl was looking hot and bored; and suddenly she leaned towards Unwin Trevaunance and began to whisper in his ear. Trevaunance in some obvious irritation argued with her, but she rose and slipped out of a side door. Dwight began to fight his own way out.

  It was a long struggle, much resented and resisted, but he got there in the end and found himself hot and bruised and breathless in the passage. This passage was choked with people, and the stairs leading to the street were worse. He turned towards the back, knowing that Caroline Penvenen could not have gone out by the front door.