The Stranger from the Sea: A Novel of Cornwall, 1810-1811

by Winston Graham

  Soon after this Whitehead Scoble had returned to his wife, suitably chastened after a spell in gaol himself, and since then they had worked together amicably and made a quiet but comfortable living. The lime-ash floor had been replaced with planking, wooden shelves put up, a clean lace curtain to the window, a bell to ring when you came in, scales renewed telling the correct weight, and the shop restocked with better goods. Now sometimes people even walked over from St Ann’s because their own shop was not so well supplied.

  Once again Whitehead had been childless; it was something he felt strongly about and had motivated his absences and his hard drinking; but as he passed fifty he had become reconciled to his own shortcomings. And he could be father to Jinny’s three children even though they would never bear his name. The elder daughter, Mary, was now married and gone. Katie, the younger, was in service at Trevaunance House. The son, Benjy Ross, or Ben as he was now called, still lived at home.

  He was an eccentric. Past his twenty-fifth birthday and not yet wed. Bearded in a community which looked on beards as proper only to beggars and destitute old men. Musical but he didn’t sing or play in the choir which would be the conventional way of expressing such leanings; instead he had constructed a pipe organ of his own in the back bedroom upstairs and played tunes for himself when he felt in the mood. He had also got his own oneman mine a mile inland from Grambler; here he had found a few pockets of alluvial tin, and he would pursue them underground either until they petered out or the digging filled with water. Sometimes, since the ground was sloping, he could go quite deep. He made little enough out of it but he was astute with money and saved enough on good months to tide him over barren ones.

  This also enabled him to take a day off when he chose and go fishing with Jeremy Poldark. Jinny was as mystified by these aimless trips as Demelza Poldark was. Jinny was also against his spending so much time at Nampara, though her quiet discouragement made no difference.

  Her opposition rose in part from the scabrous old rumour – first spoken of in her presence by Jud Paynter that Ben was really Ross’s son and that the similar sort of scar on his cheek was a judgment, a stamp of the devil, to mark their Kinship. As time passed most people forgot the rumour, especially now Ben had grown a beard and the scar was not too noticeable. But there was always, she knew, some withered old crone, sitting before her cottage door, who would still whisper: ‘Don’t ee know why he growed a beard? We-ell, tis plain ‘nough, I tell ee.’ All through the years it had made Jinny defensive in her relationship with the Nampara household, sometimes hostile in her defensiveness, so that she would not accept help from Ross which might lend new life to the evil lie.

  The other reason she did not want Ben to be at Nampara too much was because she knew of his obsession for Clowance. That, she knew, was doomed. Though there was no barrier of blood relationship there was the equally insuperable barrier of class. Mrs Poldark had originally, of course, been a miner’s daughter and no better than any other, but that fact would not make Mrs Poldark look any more favourably on a union between her daughter and a miner’s son. Nor Captain Poldark neither. Besides, it was the wrong way round. If a poor girl married a gentleman she stood a good chance of being lifted to his estate. If a rich girl married a workman she descended to his. It was the way of the world.

  Of course the friendship was as much of Master Jeremy Poldark’s seeking as Ben’s. They had an affinity which owed nothing to shared tastes, the tall slim genteel young man reared in semi-luxury and the thin bearded hard and wiry young miner who, if he had never been short of food, had lived hard as soon as he was out of the cradle.

  It was on an early March afternoon when, contrary to the reputation both of the month and the county, there was little or no wind, that Jeremy slid off his pony about half a mile from Jonas’s Mill and tethered him to the stump of an old hawthorn tree. The ground ahead of him looked like a lawn that a mole has been working on, except that the lawn here was not green, being rough grassy ground with heather and a few patches of gorse. And the soil turned up by this mole was not the fine tilth of a potting shed but ugly yellow stone and the mud and mixed rubble of moorland.

  Jeremy whistled a couple of times and presently Ben emerged from one of the holes, shading his eyes against the hazy sun. Together they examined the latest ground Ben had turned up with his spade. At the moment, after the rains of winter, most of the deeper diggings were waterlogged.

  Jeremy said: ‘There’s a trace of tin, I see, but will it even pay for washing?’

  ‘I don’t need it to, for you see I’m but shodeing. You sink these here small pits around this hill and watch the way the stones lie when you come ‘pon them. If you have the eye you can see what direction they d’come from. The flow of the tin stones spreads out like a turkey’s tail, see, and if you trace ’em back to the root you’ll come ‘pon a single line which lights your way to the parent lode.’

  They sat on their haunches looking up the hill.

  Jeremy said: ‘Ben, I want you to try something else with me.’

  ‘What’s that, boy?’

  ‘Sometime soon – today or tomorrow, maybe, I’d like to go down Wheal Leisure, look her over. Will you come? You’ve the miner’s eye and I have not.’

  Ben shook some of the rubble in his hand, testing it for weight. ‘On Treneglos land? Owned by the Warleggans?’

  ‘The Trenegloses will raise no objection. Young Horrie is a friend of mine and his father cares nothing for it.’

  ‘An’ the Warleggans?’

  ‘There’s not a man of theirs been around in years. It’s six miles from their nearest mine at St Ann’s, and they sold every stick and stone there was to sell when they closed down.’

  ‘I mind when she closed,’ said Ben. ‘I was a tacker at the time. We was in straits then, for Father worked there. Mr Scoble, I mean, not my real father. I was going to work there myself, fetching and carrying for him. I was to be paid three shullun a week. Twas all fixed, and I was real looking forward to’n – my first real work for real money. Then the news came she was all to shut down.’

  He stood up, wiped the mud off the square spade, untied his loose fustian jacket. ‘So what do ye seek?’

  ‘What we all seek.’

  ‘Twill be all derelict. Likely a full house of water.’

  ‘Not on that cliff.’

  ‘Tomorra, then. In the morning?’

  ‘Ben, you know at Grace these floors of tin – they’ve made the Poldarks – made us rich – and the villages around have done well enough; there’s been money, wages, always coming in to them. But they’re on the way down; no one yet says so openly but everyone whispers it. The south floor is finished, we all know. The north has yielded for nearly eighteen years. You can’t ask more than that. It is no fault of my father; for as long as I remember £100 a month has shown on the cost books for paying men to seek other and different bearing ground. We’ve driven shafts deeper, we’ve cross cut, we’ve linked up with old workings – you remember what happened when we unwatered Wheal Maiden by accident and two men were drowned – we’ve done all possible by way of exploration. So how long shall we be in profit at Grace now? A year maybe, maybe two if the tin price bears up. Then I know my father will go on losing money for another year or two. But I think it is high time we looked altogether elsewhere.’

  ‘Elsewhere being Leisure?’

  ‘Well, we could start something quite new, I suppose. There’s some kindly ground at the back of Reath Cottage, but the Viguses tried there and the Baragwanaths. And you’ve found nothing here that would justify making it a big operation, have you?’

  ‘You can’t be sure without the equipment, the money spent,’ Ben said cautiously.

  ‘Apart from that in this area,’ Jeremy said, ‘there’s only Grambler, which would take a fortune to reopen, and Wheal Penrose, here beyond Jonas’s, which failed in a year.’

  ‘What do Cap’n Poldark think of Wheal Leisure?’

  ‘Well, she was his first ventur
e, wasn’t she – before I was born. He believed in her then and for a while she paid handsomely. But when the Warleggans gained control he shut her out of his mind, concentrated on Grace, which then was as derelict as Leisure is now. I was asking him about it yesterday. D’you know Leisure never went deeper than thirty fathoms?’

  ‘I know she never had no proper engine.’

  ‘What sort of a yield should we ever have gained from Wheal Grace if we’d never gone deeper in her than that?’

  Jeremy’s pony was whinnying, so Ben went across and patted his nose. ‘An’ the Warleggans?’ he said again.

  ‘That we’ll have to find out, but likely as not they settled up with the Trenegloses and have no further interest. It would be a strange county if every mine that was started belonged to the venturers for ever.’

  ‘Let’s hope they’ve gone, then. For it would be good riddance.’

  II

  While this conversation was taking place Ross was visiting Tregothnan and informing his patron that when the country next went to the polls he would not seek reelection. Edward, fourth Viscount Falmouth, accepted this statement without comment and bent to sniff at a magnolia that was just showing colour in the bud. When he straightened up Ross met his eye and smiled grimly.

  ‘Your family has put up with me too long, my lord.’

  ‘Isn’t that a matter of our opinion rather than of yours?’

  ‘There must have been many times when I furiously irritated your father and I’m sure he could have wished me to the devil.’

  ‘Few associations are unmarred by differences of opinion. Or few associations which have any value.’

  Ross had known the new viscount since he was ten years old, but since his succession two or more years ago they had not had much to do with each other. Edward Boscawen was an altogether taller, heavier built man than his father, fresh complexioned, recently married, still very young in manner. But in their brief meetings Ross had sensed a strong sense of purpose and ambition, a sense of ardent adherence to the strictest principles of Toryism which did not run with his own beliefs. He liked the boy – the young man (he was now twenty-four) – but he did not think when it came to the point that it would be as easy to agree to differ with him as with his father. The third viscount had only been a couple of years older than Ross when he died; their relationship over the years had grown in mutual respect; this clearly would be different.

  ‘Fifteen years as a member,’ said Ross, ‘is long enough. Also I’m not, as you know, a man of substance, and my constant absences from Cornwall have led me to a neglect of my own affairs.’

  ‘In what respect?’

  ‘Chiefly the mine on which most of my prosperity still rests. But other things too…’

  ‘Do you not have an efficient steward or factor?’

  Ross half smiled. ‘I have tried to be my own. But it has not always worked in absentia.’

  There was a pause. It seemed to him that Falmouth was waiting for him to explain further.

  He said: ‘The worst example was in 1802 and 1803. But there have been others.’

  ‘Pray go on. I am interested.’

  ‘Just after my last daughter was born I was away on and off for a long period – first with Dr Dwight Enys in France during the peace, seeking friends there – or the relatives of friends who had died – and later, when I saw that the peace – Napoleon’s peace – was false, in London trying with others to persuade Pitt to return before it was too late … while I was away a good deal of villainy was going on at Wheal Grace. With my wife preoccupied with her baby, my son barely twelve years old, and my mine manager ill with phthisis, a group of miners concocted a scheme to rob the mine of tin as they brought it up.’

  ‘But did it not have to be smelted?’

  ‘No, they shipped it as tin stuff to France by way of the vessels that went to bring back silks and brandies. The men in the Trade often carry cargoes both ways.’

  Falmouth gave a brief grim laugh. ‘I never heard of the miscreants being brought to trial. Perhaps I was too young.’

  ‘No. I did not prefer charges.’

  ‘Why not? It’s a mistake to allow anyone to feel he can break the law with impunity.’

  ‘I agree – in principle. But it was a period of distress, you’ll remember. I got rid of four, who were the ringleaders. The rest – they settled down. Some men are easily led – and not all of them … well, do you know what one of them said to me? “We didn’t think twas quite so bad, sur, now we’re at peace wi’ France.”’

  The younger man laughed again, more freely.

  ‘Well, Captain Poldark, so far as all this goes, your absences from Cornwall have always been of your own choosing. They have gone far beyond the needs of your parliamentary membership. I need hardly point out to you that many of your associates at Westminster are country gentlemen who get themselves elected to Parliament just as they are elected to White’s or Boodle’s and who treat it in much the same way – dropping in when they fancy and staying in the shires when they do not.’

  ‘Oh, I agree. It so happens that these opportunities to travel have come up and they have seemed a worthier contribution to the country while it was at war than –’

  ‘As they have been. No question at all … Let’s go indoors. This wind blows cold.’

  They went in and sipped canary in the gaunt parlour among the coats of armour and the battle flags.

  ‘The scaffolding outside,’ Ross said presently, ‘and the bricks and stones. Are you building something extra?’

  ‘What will almost amount to a new house,’ said Falmouth. ‘This has become small and inconvenient. Mr Wilkins is to be the architect.’

  Ross raised his eyebrows. The present house, though excessively gloomy, could by any standards hardly be called small – unless one considered it as a small mansion. Clearly house-building was in the air among the richer of his neighbours. And among the young and newly-married, too. Trevanion had been in his early twenties when he began his castle.

  ‘How is Lady Falmouth?’

  ‘Very well, thank you. I shall be joining her at Woolhampton House next week. You know she is expecting her first child?’

  Ross did not, and murmured his congratulations.

  They talked of Portugal; then Ross said: ‘I’ve also been aware over the years that my occupying this seat has been a financial loss to your father. Owners of boroughs expect to profit from the members they choose.’

  ‘It is part of the existing system. A system I believe you’d like to change.’

  ‘Yes. Especially when it comes to the point of Sir Christopher Hawkins turning Davies Gilbert out of his seat because John Shelley offered him more money down.’

  The young man wrinkled his nose. ‘Hawkins brings the system into disrepute. We – that is my father and I and others like us – make a distinction between patronage and corruption. We are not subverting honest men but giving them whatever has been considered their right and proper due over the generations. We do not go around trying to buy votes by offering larger benefits or more money than someone else.’

  Ross remembered certain occasions in 1796 and 1797, but forbore to comment. ‘It’s a fine distinction. I suppose it can even be argued that if you do not pay men with money to vote, you must pay them with promises.’

  ‘However,’ said Lord Falmouth, ‘I don’t think you need to be concerned about our losses, what it may have cost us as a family, that is, to retain you in one of our seats. Since you became a member, and more particularly in these last years, you have earned something of a name at Westminster – oh, I know, not by your performances in the House – and it gave my father satisfaction to feel that you represented his borough, and that it was through this that you were able to take part in the affairs of the nation. So it was not an association without advantages to him of a sort. Nor would I say it is to me.’

  ‘That’s very considerate of you,’ said Ross.

  ‘However,’ said the other. ‘However,
there were times, I agree, when my father strongly disapproved of the attitudes you took up on certain issues – chiefly, I suppose, when you were so clearly in favour of Catholic Emancipation.’

  ‘Which I still am,’ said Ross.

  Lord Falmouth sipped his canary and stared at the tattered banners.

  ‘Do you have any family affiliations with the Catholics? A marriage somewhere…’

  ‘None at all.’

  ‘And are you not of Huguenot extraction yourself? Someone told me.’

  ‘That was a long time ago,’ said Ross with a smile.

  ‘Even so, it makes it the more strange.’

  ‘No … I simply feel that today the present laws partly disfranchise and emasculate a large group of talented Englishmen who are as loyal to the Crown as you or I.’

  ‘The remedy is in their own hands!’

  ‘It is not how they see it, my lord. It is not, I’d venture to suggest, how many Protestant Englishmen now see it.’

  ‘Well … I have to tell you, Captain Poldark, that I am as unalterably opposed to any relaxation of the present laws as my father was. If anything, more so. I believe that to admit these people to full citizenship – who in the last resort owe their allegiance to a foreign power – would be a national blunder and a national disaster.’

  Ross smiled again. ‘It’s perhaps as well, then, that I offer to resign while the choice is in my hands.’

  ‘It should not, I hope, come to that. Take your time. No election at the moment appears to be pending, so I suggest you allow this parliament to run its term and I will make new arrangements when the time comes.’

  There was a pause.

  ‘More canary?’

  ‘Thank you, no, I’d like to be home before dark.’

  The young peer got up. ‘Talking of elections, what do you make of this duel between Sir Christopher Hawkins and Lord de Dunstanville?’