The Four Swans

by Winston Graham

  ‘I’m pleased to hear it.’

  ‘No, you are not; but no matter. What I want to say is I came away from that meeting with the renewed conviction that she no longer meant anything to me – that is, in the way you do. I loved her once – as you know too well – and idealized her. I shall always think of her with admiration and affection. But . . . she won’t ever be central to me as you are – preoccupying, all-important, indispensable, both as a person and a woman . . .’

  He was aware as he spoke that he had hesitated too long to say this and now had chosen the worst possible moment, when there was a half-animosity stirring between them. The circumstances of her affection for Hugh Armitage left him off balance, and his suppressed resentment had made him say the true, the reassuring things in a stiff manner that made them sound pompous and without warmth. It seemed like the beginning of a repeat of that Christmas Eve when, in trying to tell her much the same thing, he had touched off such a spring of perversity in her that she had turned all his reasonings upside down and inside out, every kindness into a condescension, every compliment into an insult, every proof a disproof and every assertion an assertion of its opposite. He had never known such gifted malevolence. Now he waited angrily for its return.

  But instead she sighed and said in a muffled voice: ‘Oh, Ross, it is a strange world.’

  ‘I’d not argue with that.’

  ‘Words never say quite what we want them to say, do they?’

  ‘Mine certainly never do. I’m glad you appreciate it.’

  ‘No, I didn’t mean that. Not you – not just what you say – but all. Everyone. And even where there is love there is misunderstanding. We try to speak to each other like through a glass, all of us. But think you, Ross . . . How can I answer what you’ve just said?’

  ‘Can you not?’

  ‘Not quite. I think to speak now wouldn’t help – it would – it might create more misdeeming than it cleared away.’

  ‘On whose side?’

  ‘Maybe on both . . . My dear, I have no reply just at present. D’you mind?’

  ‘Should I?’

  ‘I think I must lie quiet,’ she said. ‘I feel rather alone.’

  He put his hand on her hair and felt it between his fingers. So the battle was not to be. His explanation of his own feelings was to be accepted without question. Even his meeting with Elizabeth. It was good that she took this attitude. But how good? And for what reason? He felt, perhaps illogically, no happier for her quiet reply. It seemed to him that it boded less well for their marriage than an outburst would have done.

  II

  They were at Tregothnan at twelve, and were greeted at the door by Lieutenant Armitage looking no different at all. He kissed Demelza’s hand and stared searchingly and lovingly into her face with eyes that seemed to have no shadow on them. He dismissed his recent illness lightly and said he was quite better and that it had all been a ruse on his part to entice them over to relieve the monotony of civilian life. Lord Falmouth did not appear, and while Dwight and Hugh went upstairs to his bedroom the girls were left to be entertained by Mrs Gower and her own three children, who showed them a walk down to the river and a view of the tall ships anchored in the pool.

  At dinner Lord Falmouth joined them, accompanied by Frances Gower’s husband, Captain the Hon. John Leveson Gower, who was the other Member for Truro and who, because of the electoral upset of last year, had been the uneasy yoke-fellow of George Warleggan since. Not that they had apparently seen much of each other except in the House, and that little had been unfavourable. Anything else was hardly to be expected, though the policies of the two gentlemen had seldom been greatly at odds. No mention was made for a while about the medical enquiry which had been going on upstairs until Lord Falmouth said:

  ‘I trust you’re going to have my nephew back in perfect health by the time of the election, Dr Enys. I need a young and vigorous candidate to support my brother-in-law and bring the constituency back to its proper interest.’

  Dwight’s thin face showed no positive expression. ‘Perfect health, my Lord, is hard for any of us to attain and I don’t think Hugh is likely to achieve it. We must make do with second best, which I hope will be good enough for the electors of Truro.’

  ‘I am not sure whether anything will be good enough for the electors of Truro,’ said Captain Gower. ‘With de Dunstanville drawing so much water I’m more likely to lose my seat than Hugh gain his. Have you heard yet who they are putting up to link with Warleggan?’

  ‘Henry Thomas Trengrouse, I believe.’

  ‘He’ll be a popular candidate and has the advantage of being well known in the town.’

  Caroline said: ‘To think that I near wed a Member of Parliament once. If I have to belong to a two-Member constituency I believe I prefer my partner to be a doctor.’

  There was a laugh.

  ‘I do not know how Hugh will take to a parliamentary life after a life at sea,’ said Mrs Gower, ‘even if he’s lucky enough to attain it.’

  ‘I’m lucky enough to have attained a lot,’ said Hugh, glancing at Demelza. ‘I shall make the best now of whatever is in store.’

  Demelza said, cutting across any possible implications in the remark: ‘Why do you not make it up with Lord de Dunstanville, Lord Falmouth? Could not a – a friendship be come to instead of all this rivalry?’

  Falmouth looked at her in some surprise, not altogether pleased, as if politics were not for serious discussion with women.

  Gower said: ‘It would be a good thing if it were possible, ma’am. Unfortunately the thrusting new peer is bent on his own arrogant schemes and has the money to indulge them.’

  ‘Nor would I compromise with such as he,’ said Falmouth shortly.

  ‘Well, he said to me only this spring,’ said Demelza, a little short of breath. ‘Lord de Dunstanville said to me only this spring that he would be quite willing, he said, to come to an accommodation with your – your Lordship over control of the Cornish seats.’

  ‘The devil he did?’ said Hugh. ‘When was this?’

  ‘They came to dinner with us. Walking on the cliff after, he said that his – that the situation had changed since he became a peer and that he had no wish to – continue the battle, he said.’

  There was silence while the company digested more than their meal.

  Falmouth said impatiently: ‘Oh, the man was talking! He was always a big talker. We meet – or pass each other by – now and again in London. My cousin serves with him in the Fencibles. If he wished to make any move towards compromise he has ample opportunity of doing so, without . . .’

  ‘Without passing on his opinions through a lady,’ Caroline said. ‘That was what you meant, wasn’t it? But it’s precisely because he did not suppose his opinions would ever be passed on that he was so frank with Mrs Poldark. With all your prejudice against women you have to see that!’

  Good-humouredly, since it was difficult to be anything but good-humoured with Caroline, Lord Falmouth began to protest the complete absence in him of any such prejudice; but conversation at the table did not end there. After all, the feud, the contest over this seat and that, had been going on for years; it had cost a great deal of money and had consumed time and labour. Gower summed it up by saying:

  ‘Well, George, for my part I would be glad to see some sort of an electoral agreement. It is essential for my career in the Admiralty that I should not be unseated now, and although no doubt another seat could be found it would be deuced difficult to go looking for one. Why do you not let it be known that you too would be willing to come to some sort of accommodation?’

  ‘And what sort do you imagine he would propose?’ Falmouth said. ‘Not even a quid pro quo would satisfy him! He would want two seats for one!’

  ‘It might be worth discovering what his exact thoughts were.’

  ‘And risk a rebuff? Besides, there is no one who would act as a mediator.’

  ‘I would do so,’ said Hugh.

  ‘How coul
d you? As a prospective candidate your position would be at once suspect.’

  ‘Hugh is not fit to go out yet,’ said Dwight. ‘Nor is likely to be for another two weeks.’

  ‘Oh, rubbish, I’m not going to fight a dragon—’

  ‘Who knows?—’

  ‘Wait,’ said Caroline, and because she said so they did wait. The sunflower was blooming again today. ‘I am much against mediators – they misunderstand inflections of the voice and garble messages – besides the time is short. My Lord, are you too proud to dine with Dwight and me?’

  ‘Proud?’ said Falmouth stiffly.

  ‘Well, our acreage is extensive but our house is in disrepair. Since I married I have been so concerned with looking after a husband who was in some disrepair himself that the house has hardly been touched yet. But we eat normal food and our cook is modestly competent. Come to dinner one day next week.’

  ‘With what purpose?’

  ‘Do not ask the purpose and then you will not need to refuse.’

  ‘You are too kind, ma’am. But it would be—’

  ‘Uncle,’ said Hugh, ‘I think you should go. What is there to lose? Not even face, for if the meeting fails no one else would know.’

  ‘Everyone would know,’ said Falmouth. ‘No secrets of any sort are possible in this county!’

  ‘I think, my Lord,’ said Caroline, showing rare tact for her, ‘that we are pressing you unduly. Let us say no more now. But towards the end of the week I will send my man to you with an invitation, and it shall be left entirely open to you at the time whether you accept or not.’

  ‘An excellent idea,’ said Mrs Gower. ‘Now, ladies, perhaps we should leave the gentlemen to their port . . .’

  III

  ‘Well?’ said Demelza, as they left the house behind.

  ‘The fever has not been severe,’ said Dwight, ‘and if that were all I should say there was small cause for concern. But the fever is symptomatic of some other condition, as is the pain, the headache. I have given him a paregoric to take sparingly and some salt of wormwood and Peruvian bark. It should help to prevent a nightly return of the fever, but, if there is some other underlying cause, it will not cure. We may know more in two or three weeks.’

  ‘And his eyes?’

  Dwight held his reins carefully while they went over a rough piece of track. ‘No cataract. Or none that I can see. I think there is something behind the eye but it’s impossible to say what. A blood vessel damaged, a nerve losing its optic power.’

  ‘You think then – you agree with the London doctors?’

  ‘I cannot disagree with them. But in such matters we’re still so ignorant. I think they were at fault in telling him.’

  ‘Why? Why should they not?’

  ‘Because in Quimper I so often saw men triumph over disease by the sheer determination to live. I believe the mind governs the health more than we know, and it helps no one to be told an absolute when the absolute is never true until it happens.’

  Caroline edged up to them. ‘Did Lord Falmouth ask you about Hugh?’

  ‘Of course. I could tell him little for I know little. I did not discourage him in the belief that Hugh would be fit to enter parliament. He may still be. He’s young. One eye is better than the other. If it doesn’t deteriorate further he will be able to manage well enough with a glass.’

  Demelza shivered. ‘As yet – as yet you can’t tell.’

  ‘We must get him into parliament,’ said Caroline. ‘It will give him more to think of and more to do.’

  They rode on towards the ferry.

  Chapter Four

  I

  Sam Carne and Peter Hoskin left Reath Cottage soon after dusk on the Monday. They had packed bread and cheese and each took a skin of water. They cut across country through Marasanvose and Treledra to St Michael, and joined the coach road from Truro to Bodmin. Sam had never been this way before and Peter but once, so it was easy enough to lose your way in the starlight. They both carried strong sticks, but there was little enough about them to tempt the footpad or the roving cutpurse. They skirted St Enoder, and a single candle in a window in Indian Queen Inn winked and shone and appeared and disappeared like Eddystone miles before they reached it. Here they sat for half an hour, eating some of their bread and cheese, not talking much.

  Sam had little sympathy with the riots for which John Hoskin was to be executed. The law to him was the law, and one worked within it for the betterment of mankind and for the souls of all men. However cold and desolate for lack of work, however empty one’s belly, one did not assemble and use threatening behaviour, still less seize the smallest piece of property belonging to someone else. If one assembled it was to transmit from one to another the priceless cleansing gift of the Holy Spirit. But, though he could not condone the offence, he felt deep pity for the offender, especially that he should be going to die without any light in his soul. And he felt more pity for the wife and children, and his warming if silent sympathy went out to his partner with whom he was altogether willing to keep company on this twenty-four-mile trek.

  They set off again across the moors, and by the time they reached the wooded valley of Lanivet there was a lightening of the sky ahead of them, and a faint drizzle was falling.

  ‘I ’ope twill be fine,’ said Peter Hoskin. ‘Brother ’as a rare misliking for the rain.’

  After a day’s work and a night’s walk they were tired, and the climb up the hill to Bodmin was a long pull. It was full day before they came to the first street, which was a rutted way between a few huts with dogs rooting in the dust and some offal hanging from a butcher’s hook and already beginning to stink. They found an alehouse and ate the rest of the food they had brought, Peter drinking a mug of burnt ale and Sam finishing his water. Then they went to find John’s wife and two children and a half dozen others who were waiting outside the jail. John’s mother had come, and his next nearest relatives were allowed into the prison to see him.

  Sam wandered off up the hill towards the common where the execution was to take place.

  A crowd had already gathered, some three or four hundred, drawn from the town and the villages round. The gibbet had been erected and the platform, and one workman was still lazily knocking nails into a supporting prop, pausing for a chat with his neighbours between each nail. Opposite the gibbet was a small stand where the gentry could pay for admission and sit in comfort to watch the ceremony. This was almost empty, but while Sam waited a number of carriages arrived and well-dressed people were escorted through the crowd to take their seats. About half of them were women. In favoured positions near the gallows were two parties of school children who had been brought by their masters and mistresses for the salutary effect the ceremony would have on their minds. To gain a good position they had been assembled before dawn.

  Many of those who waited, squatted or sat or lay upon the black heather of the common; vendors moved among them selling pies and cakes and lemonade. Some diced to pass the time. Two groups sang; one lot drunken and bawdy, the other sober and religious. Here and there men and women lay together too close to be respectable, the women with coarse laughs and painted faces. Dogs barked and horses neighed and children shrieked and men shouted. More people drifted up. The sun was shining brilliantly now, but over towards the sea a great cloud lay, as black as the wrath of God.

  Some way away in the distance the prison clock began to strike nine. By the time it had finished an expectant silence had fallen on the crowd. For a few moments after it had stopped the only sound was the stirring of the wind. Then the prison bell began to toll, and people got up from where they had been sitting and pushed forward into a tight mass around the gibbet.

  For a while nothing happened; people breathed and elbowed against each other.

  ‘False alarm,’ said one woman to Sam, with a giggle.

  ‘Giss along,’ said another. ‘Great fradge.’

  ‘Mebbe tes a reprieve,’ a man near said. ‘My uncle d’say a man ’e knew were cut
daown just after he bin strung up. Reprieve come . . .’

  ‘Nay . . . not wi’ the bell tolling . . .’

  Although the day was cool, it was hot and smelly in the crowd. Sam thought: all these souls unsaved, all deep in the carnal pit of unholiness. So many to care for, so many to lead to penitence and redemption. If the Spirit would but move among them as it had done at Gwennap two years ago . . .

  ‘Yur they be!’

  A procession was winding its way up the slope. The chief jailer was in the lead followed by four others. Then came the cart bearing the chaplain, the condemned man, the executioner and two other guards. After that six more guards on foot preceded the governor’s coach, in which sat the governor and the sheriff. Following the coach on foot were the wand bearers, the gaol surgeon and his assistant; then the six chief mourners, with a motley crowd trailing behind of some fifty-odd sightseers who had waited at the jail. The prisoner, short and stocky and in his mid-twenties, looked very little changed from when Sam had last seen him at the Hoskin cottage, hot from the success of his protest meeting.

  The guards cleared a way for the procession, and the cart, an old one with rasping wooden wheels, creaked to a stop before the platform, and its occupants climbed off. John Hoskin had his hands tied in front of him, but he responded with a half grin to cries of encouragement from friends in the crowd. He might have been coming to take part in a prize fight.

  Sam felt breath on his neck, and elbows and knees in his ribs and calves, as he was pressed on from all sides. The guards, armed with staves, kept the crowd back from the small arena which had been formed. The governor was making a short proclamation, declaring the nature of the crime and the decreed punishment. Most of it was drowned in the cries of the crowd who were now being pushed back. Sam had his feet trodden on, and a woman half collapsed against him, having been winded by someone in the front.

  Presently there were shouts of ‘Quiet, quiet!’ and it was seen that John Hoskin, alias Wildcat, was kneeling with the chaplain and saying a prayer. His face had paled and he was sweating, but he still looked composed. After the prayer was done the executioner took out the rope and coiled it on the end of the platform; and Hoskin took a step forward to the edge of the planking and began to address the crowd.