The Four Swans

by Winston Graham

  ‘You should have voted for George.’

  Pascoe shut the ledger in irritation. ‘For you, of all people, to tell me that!’

  Ross smiled. ‘I’m sorry, dear friend, I shouldn’t have said so much. But you have always asserted that it is no business of a bank to take sides in any family feud. Your friendship with me is, alas, too well known to deny; but your dislike of George has always been concealed behind the diplomacy of commerce. I grieve that it should have come out now when it might affect your association with Basset. If it does that, your loyalty to me may prove expensive.’

  Harris Pascoe opened the ledger again and impatiently turned the pages. ‘Look, sign this now, else I shall forget.’

  Ross signed at the bottom of his account. It showed a credit balance of nearly two thousand pounds.

  Pascoe said: ‘For once you esteem yourself too high, Ross.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘My vote was not cast out of loyalty to you but out of loyalty, if that is the w-word, to my own conscience. Happily for yourself, you see a good deal less of the Warleggans than I do. Over the last few years I have developed an antipathy for them that can be second only to yours. They are not dishonest men – not at all – but they exemplify the new style of commercial adventurer who has emerged in England this last decade or so. To them business and profit is all, and humanity nothing. A man who works for them is of exactly the same value as a figure on their ledger sheet. And there is something extra dangerous about them in that their only contentment is in their lack of contentment with their present size. To be healthy they must ever expand like a m-multiplying toadstool. They grasp and grow and grow and grasp . . .’ Pascoe stopped for breath. ‘Perhaps we who dislike them are old-fashioned. Perhaps this is to be the new way of the world; but I do not wish to change and I could not bring myself to cast my vote for such a one whatever good or harm it might do me!’

  Ross put a hand on his friend’s shoulder. ‘I beg your pardon again. That’s a line of reasoning I find altogether more respectable . . . I wonder how well Basset and George know each other.’

  ‘They must know each other well.’

  ‘Oh, in a business way, yes. But that is not all there is to friendship.’

  ‘Don’t go yet,’ Harris said. ‘You must stay a while until this rain is over.’

  ‘In that event you’d have a lodger: I don’t think it will stop today. No . . . Rain never hurt no one. But thank you.’

  II

  When Ross got outside the rain was fairly jumping off the cobbles, and the rivulet down the side of the street was in spate. Yellow puddles among the mud bubbled like boiling water. There were few people about, and in Powder Street the blocks of tin glistened unattended. The coinage was due to begin tomorrow, but no one worried about theft since the blocks, though of a value of ten or twelve guineas each, weighed over 300lb. and were not likely to be carried away unnoticed.

  More weight of tin left Truro for overseas than from any other port in the land. Its wharves were big and convenient and the river comfortably took vessels of 100 tons. Just at the moment Powder Street and its neighbour were in greater disorder than usual because the block of houses known as Middle Row was being pulled down, and a large new street was soon to be opened which would give space and air to the huddled buildings surrounding it.

  Tomorrow at noon the controller and receiver would begin to weigh and assay the blocks of tin as they were brought into the coinage hall, and if their quality was up to standard they would have the Duchy arms stamped on them as a guarantee of their purity and having paid the toll. The coinage might last a week and would be attended by the tinners, by London and foreign traders, by middlemen and pewterers and all the necessary officials of the occasion. The coinages were held quarterly, which was far too seldom, for it meant that tin could not be sold before it was stamped, and the mines, particularly the small ones, had to run up credit in the intervals to pay their working expenses. So they borrowed money from the tin merchants at high rates of interest; and the larger mines obtained similar expensive credits from the banks, particularly from Warleggan’s, who were prepared to take more risks than the others. Hence when a mine failed, whatever was saleable of land, stores or property fell in to these creditors.

  It was a system that needed to be changed. Cromwell had abolished the coinages, to the great benefit of the industry, but when Charles II was restored to his throne the coinage system had been restored with him and it had remained ever since. Ross had sometimes been tempted to begin a campaign for its alteration; but he had painful memories of his attempt to break the stranglehold of the copper smelters, a campaign that had resulted in near bankruptcy for himself and disaster for many of his friends; so once bitten twice shy.

  The fact that he had such a balance to his credit at Pascoe’s just before a coinage was proof enough of the extraordinary richness of the lodes he had uncovered at Wheal Grace. But he was not staying for the coinage. Zacky Martin, who had been ill for eighteen months but had been brought back to health by Dwight Enys since his return, was staying instead.

  Splashing through the mud and the rain, Ross reached the Red Lion Inn – which would benefit considerably from the new light and space that was going to be given to its back door. He found it crowded. The heavy rain had driven everyone indoors, and a lot of hard drinking was in progress. Almost the first person he saw in the crowded tap room was the innkeeper, Blight, with his pigtail and his red waistcoat. The little man bustled anxiously across and Ross, shaking the water from his hat, said:

  ‘I’m looking for my manager, Martin.’

  ‘Oh, sur. I haven’t seen sight nor sound of Mr Martin all day. Maybe he’s over to the King’s Head.’

  ‘But you have seen him today. We were in together this morning. And he has a room here.’

  ‘Ah, yes, sur, I misremember. Well, he’s not in just now. I reckon he’s over to the King’s Head. Or maybe the Seven Stars.’

  There was a note of unwelcome in the innkeeper’s voice that Ross did not quite comprehend. The fracas he had had in this inn with George Warleggan was years ago, and Ross had been in and out many times since.

  ‘I’ll see if he’s in his room. What is the number?’

  ‘Oh, I’ll send a boy.’

  ‘No, I prefer to go myself.’

  ‘Er – it’s number nine, then. But I assure you he’s not in.’

  Ross pushed through the crowd, exchanging a word of greeting here and there. In the lobby of the hotel it was very dark and still very crowded. On the way to the stairs were two private rooms used for personal meetings, and the door of one of these was ajar and he saw several men in the room drinking and talking. He passed on to the stairs, but after he had mounted the first half dozen a voice said:

  ‘Captain Poldark.’

  A small grey man wearing a clerk’s bob-wig. Thomas Kevill, Basset’s steward.

  ‘Pardon me, sir, Sir Francis is in the private room and would esteem it a favour if you joined him.’

  Ross turned and came down. He was not sure that he wanted conversation with Sir Francis just at this time, but it would be churlish to refuse. Maybe, he thought, as he went into the room, it would be an opportunity to try to straighten out any resentment Basset might feel towards Harris Pascoe. Then as he got in he stopped. Basset had three companions, Lord Devoran; a middle-aged well-dressed man whom he did not know; and George Warleggan. It was small wonder that Innkeeper Blight had been nervous.

  ‘Captain Poldark,’ Basset said. ‘I caught sight of you as you passed the door, and thought you might drink with us.’ It was half a pleasant invitation, half a command.

  ‘Thank you, I must return home this evening,’ Ross said. ‘But gladly for a brief space.’

  ‘You know Lord Devoran, I imagine. Perhaps not Sir William Molesworth of Pencarrow. And Mr George Warleggan.’

  ‘Lord Devoran, yes.’ Ross bowed slightly. ‘Sir William I do not, I think. Sir.’ Another bow. ‘And Mr Warleggan, yes. We w
ent to school together.’

  ‘Indeed, I didn’t know you were such old friends.’ Had nobody ever bothered to tell Basset, or did he feel himself important enough to sweep aside such petty quarrels between underlings? ‘We are drinking Geneva, but if you have a different taste . . .’

  ‘Thank you, no. That’s what I’d choose to keep the rain out.’

  Ross seated himself between George and Sir William Molesworth – there was no other chair – and accepted the glass that Kevill passed him.

  ‘We were talking of the projected hospital, the infirmary that we hope to site near Truro, and I have been attempting to convert both Lord Devoran and Sir William Molesworth to my views.’

  So that was it. Sir Francis was not a man to let an idea rest once it had taken hold of him. Sir William, whose estate was near Wadebridge, thought a hospital so far west would be useless to the eastern half of the county; Lord Devoran took the view that centralization was wrong and what they needed were a half dozen small but efficient dispensaries in different parts of the county.

  George’s face had set into rigid lines when he saw Ross enter, but now he was behaving as if there were nothing unusual in the encounter. Ross thought he had lost a good deal of weight – it had been noticeable at Dwight’s wedding – but it did not look a particularly healthy loss. George did not so much look leaner as older. Lord Devoran was a fussy little man who had been associated with Ross in the copper smelting venture and had lost money over it. At the time he had seemed to resent this, but later he had been sufficiently generous to stand bail for Ross when he was to be tried for his life at Bodmin. He had a notorious daughter called Betty. Sir William Molesworth, a plump man with a grey moustache and a healthy outdoor complexion, was a person of altogether more importance than Devoran, and his opposition to Basset’s proposal would count for a good deal in the county.

  ‘What is your opinion, Poldark?’ Basset said. ‘I know you favour the scheme in a general way but you have not expressed yourself as to detail.’

  Ross had no particular views of his own on this, but he knew Dwight’s.

  The ideal would be to have the central hospital and the dispensaries. That being unlikely of achievement, I would say the hospital must come first and must be sited somewhere in this area. We are equidistant from Bodmin, Wadebridge and Penzance.’

  Basset nodded approval for the opinion he had expected, and general discussion broke out. Ross noticed some difference in George, in the way he spoke. Never in his life had he lacked confidence; and he had always been careful in his actual speech to exclude the accents of his childhood, to avoid the long R’s, the vowels becoming diphthongs, the lifted cadences; but equally he had been careful not to assume an accent which might seem that he was trying with only partial success to ape his betters. He had kept his speech as carefully neutral as he knew how. Now it had moved on. Now it came distinctly nearer to the accent of Basset or Molesworth, and was more refined than Devoran’s. Already. It had happened in only a few weeks. He had become a Member of Parliament.

  Ross said to him: ‘I believe we have to congratulate you, George.’

  George smiled thinly, in case the others had heard, but he did not reply.

  ‘When do you take your seat?’

  ‘Next week.’

  ‘You’ll rent a house in London?’

  ‘Possibly. In part of each year.’

  ‘We shall not be neighbours on the coast this year, then?’

  ‘Oh, for August and September, no doubt.’

  ‘I presume you do not intend to sell Trenwith?’

  ‘I do not.’

  ‘If ever you thought of selling it I might be interested.’

  ‘It will not come on the market – ever – to you.’

  ‘We have been thinking, Captain Poldark,’ Basset interposed, ‘that those of us who are of like mind in this matter might put our names to a subscription. I do not think the time is yet ripe actually to subscribe money – we have far too much to do; for instance – ’ with a smile – ‘to convince those who think the project should begin otherwise. But the names of fifty influential men, with a promise of assistance when the scheme is moving forward, would I believe be a help at this stage to convince many who at present waver and hesitate. Do you agree?’

  ‘Certainly, I agree.’

  ‘Sir Francis,’ said George, licking his lips, ‘has put his name for a hundred guineas to start the subscription off, and I have done the same.’

  A flicker of annoyance crossed Basset’s face. ‘I am specifically not asking for a figure, Poldark, not at this stage. It’s your name I want.’

  ‘And can have,’ Ross said. ‘And a hundred guineas with it.’

  ‘That’s very good of you. I hope you don’t feel that you are being Impressed into Service at a difficult time.’

  ‘The metaphor does you an injustice, Sir Francis. I am not too drunk to refuse the King’s shilling. I’ll give you a draft on Pascoe’s Bank.’

  Basset raised his eyebrows, not liking the abrasiveness that had come into the conversation. ‘That will not be necessary, as I have already said. But thank you, I’m grateful. I take it that you two gentlemen are not sufficiently convinced yet of the rightness of our cause?’

  Devoran was hedging, but Sir William Molesworth remained unconvinced. Ross looked at George: it was the first time they had been together like this for years, when they could not quarrel openly and could not move away.

  He said: ‘I hear nothing of Geoffrey Charles these days. I trust he’s doing well at school?’

  ‘It is too early to say. I think he has some of his father’s idle habits.’

  ‘At school, you may remember, his father was cleverer than either of us.’

  ‘It was a promise he did not fulfil.’

  Silence fell between them while Molesworth spoke.

  George said: ‘I pay, of course, the whole considerable costs of Geoffrey Charles’s schooling. When he should by rights have a sufficient income of his own.’

  ‘From what?’

  ‘From the shares in your mine.’

  ‘Elizabeth sold the shares in my mine.’

  ‘Back to you, at a fraction of what they were worth. You were able to over-persuade her.’

  Ross said: ‘I wouldn’t advise you to promulgate that twisted version of events. Even your wife would call you a liar for it.’

  Lord Devoran said: ‘. . . and the whole question of finding suitable patients would be sifted through the dispensaries instead of depending upon the patronage of individuals. If . . .’

  ‘And necessarily,’ said Sir William Molesworth, ‘if the central hospital were sited farther east . . .’

  Ross said: ‘What of Aunt Agatha’s grave?’

  ‘What of it?’

  ‘I presume you have a stone on order.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Surely, although you resented her existence, you can hardly deny the old lady some record of her having existed.’

  ‘It is for Elizabeth to decide.’

  ‘Perhaps I could call and see Elizabeth and we could discuss it.’

  ‘That would not be desirable.’

  ‘On whose part?’

  ‘On hers. And on mine.’

  ‘Can you answer for her on such a family matter?’

  ‘Elizabeth is not a Poldark.’

  ‘But she was, George, she was.’

  ‘It is something she has long since had cause to regret.’

  ‘Who knows what she will have cause to regret before our lives are ended—’

  ‘Damn you and God damn your blood to all eternity—’

  ‘Gentlemen,’ Basset said, having heard only the last part, ‘this does not become either of you—’

  ‘It does not become us,’ Ross said, ‘but we do it. We bicker from time to time like playmates who see too much of each other. Pray excuse it and take no notice.’

  ‘I am happy to take no notice of what does not occur in my presence. But ill will is not prope
rly vented when we are here to discuss a charity.’

  ‘Unfortunately,’ Ross said, ‘they both begin at home.’

  There was a silence. Sir Francis cleared his throat irritably. ‘Sir William, as I was about to say, the question of the hospital site is one that could be reviewed in committee . . .’

  III

  Ross was late reaching Nampara that night. It had been a head wind all the way, and he was drenched.

  ‘My dear, that’s not clever!’ Demelza said. ‘Have you supped? Let me have your boots. You should have stayed the night with Harris!’

  ‘And knowing you imagining me drowned in a ditch or set on by footpads? How is Jeremy?’

  Jeremy was recovering from his inoculation against smallpox. They had given him a book to read so that he should not see any of the preparations, but all the same he had let out a piercing scream when Dwight made the deep incision. Demelza had felt as if the knife were in her own guts.

  ‘The fever has gone and he has eaten today. Thank God Clowance can be spared the ordeal for a while. I doubt even if I shall ever consent. I am – what is the word? – immune; so why should not she be?’

  Ross stripped off his shirt and bent to peer out of the bedroom window towards the sea. It had been so dark all day that the long evening was only just beginning to show the fall of night. The gusty wind was spinning webs of rain, weaving them in and out of each other across the wide and darkening stretches of sand. The sea had not been blown up by the wind, it had been deadened by the rain, and it curled over at the edge in listless green caterpillars.

  They talked the gossip of the day while he changed. Then she went down to tell Jane to bring on the roasted neck of mutton, though he protested he wasn’t hungry.

  ‘We have another invitation, Ross! They fall thick now you are famous.’

  He took the letter. It was headed Tregothnan, and ran:

  Dear Mrs Poldark,

  My brother and I would consider it a pleasure if you and your husband could visit us on Tuesday the twenty sixth of July, dine and sup with us and spend the night. My nephew, Hugh, will be leaving the following day to rejoin his ship and would like to have the opportunity of seeing you both again before be leaves. I too should enjoy the opportunity of making your acquaintance and of thanking Captain Poldark for bringing my nephew safely away from the dreadful camp where he was imprisoned.