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

by Winston Graham

  With some sort of hell in his heart Jeremy knelt suddenly beside the girl, took her in his arms and began to kiss her. Her lips, after a first surprised gasp, were yielding, her body was yielding; her fine black hair came unloosed and tumbled down. It was the most delicious sexual experience.

  After about a minute she part pushed him away, he part released her; but they continued holding each other lightly at half arm’s length.

  ‘Jeremy!’ she said. ‘Well, Jeremy! You surprised me! I had no thought of any such thing! I did not think you thought of it! You are so surprising – so startling!’

  ‘Midsummer Eve,’ said Jeremy. ‘Why leave it all to the ghosts?’

  She looked up at the sky. ‘Midsummer Day now. It must have been for an hour or more.’

  Her arms were soft and comfortable in his hands. The little breeze had dropped and it was very quiet.

  She whispered: ‘You startled me, Jeremy. So – so passionate. You almost bruised my lips.’

  ‘Oh, I trust not.’

  ‘You quite frightened me. My heart is still beating fast. Feel my heart beating.’

  She took his hand and put it against her frock. By judicious misdirection it rested and closed upon her breast.

  She laughed quietly. ‘No, lower than that. I believe you mistake where my heart is.’

  ‘I believe I catch the beat,’ said Jeremy, ‘but it is very faint.’

  She was gently moving against him again, her lips reaching up for his. In the utter silence it was as if a cold air stirred beside them. They both noticed it and paused. Her eyes went beyond his shoulder and fixed themselves and glazed over with fear. He turned slowly to look. Although there was now only the stars and the light from the sea, their night-accustomed eyes could make out details of the churchyard.

  Coming towards them – almost floating – walking silently on the grass beside the path, was Violet Kellow, the sick sister. Unlike Daisy she was in something dark, with a dark cloak over it. But her walk, her face, the long slim hand at her throat, were unmistakable. She passed them by, ten yards away, walking towards the church porch.

  Following her, just as silently, his big tawny head silhouetted against the stars, was Stephen Carrington.

  Chapter Four

  I

  There were many thick heads in Sawle and Grambler the following day. Some men wished they hadn’t and some girls wished they hadn’t, and the older people were disgruntled with life for more mundane reasons; but in spite of this everyone agreed it had been a proper job, best St john’s Eve ever they had spent.

  Stephen Carrington’s return to Sawle became the talk of the villages. He had turned up at Widow Tregothnan’s kiddley about eight on the evening of the 23rd. Talking to the widow and Tholly Tregirls and to their customers, he had learned all the news, and in answer to their questions had told them he had landed at St Ives a couple of days ago and was hoping he might again lodge at Will Nanfan’s until he could find something more permanent. Learning that there was to be a bonfire feast, he had asked if he might watch it. At Sally ‘Chill-Offs’ he had as usual been free with his money. Whatever flaws there might be in his character, he was not ungenerous.

  Unfortunately for his suit – if he intended to pursue it – Clowance had also seen his appearance in the churchyard. And however eerie and premonitory that appearance had been, Clowance did not believe that it was only his ghost she had seen following Violet to the church door.

  It had been a great shock to Clowance; not so much morally, however severe that had been; not so much supernaturally, for the horrid chill of the moment had been superseded by burning anger; but physically. Her body and spirit had leapt at the sight of him. It was a revelation to her, and in view of his apparent misbehaviour, a frightening revelation. If you fancy you may be in love with someone and he turns up and his appearance confirms it, that, whatever the obstacles and complications, is not unwelcome. If however he is clearly in pursuit of another woman and may or may not care a button for you at all, and still your whole being leaps and comes alive when you see him again, then you are in the valley of the shadow. Tormented, you loathe and detest his very existence, you can’t bear to hear him spoken of, you will not see him; all your love is turned inside out like some eviscerated animal, and your life is scarcely to be borne.

  On the night Daisy had almost fainted. Created in less sceptical mould than Clowance, she had at first seen her sister as the apparition predicting her early death; and even after it was over she could not rid herself of the superstition that, however much the beings walking in the churchyard were three-dimensional and of warm flesh and blood, the prophecy of their appearance might still be fulfilled in the year to come. Keenly as she wanted to secure Jeremy, the two people gliding among the starlit graves had, for her, wrecked the opportunity for enticing him to declare himself. Partly perceiving this, Jeremy, who was no fool where girls were concerned (apart from Cuby), had liked Daisy all the better for it. Looking back, he saw well enough that his own mood might have led him into indiscretion from which it would have been difficult to withdraw. Now the moment had passed. But he felt sorry for Daisy and warmed to her.

  On June 24th, late night or not, Jeremy rode with his father into Truro where they met John and Horrie Treneglos and drew up the legal deed whereby Wheal Leisure became a working mine again. Over the last month and more, while the weather had been dry, they had cleared out the deads of the mine and gone deeper in it, deeper by ten fathoms than ever before and had used makeshift mule-driven pumps to keep the water down. There were definite signs of good copper, but it was impossible to expose the ore in depth without blocking out the lodes section by section.

  Before it was finally decided to go ahead there had been several meetings between the two young men and their fathers, with others such as Zacky Martin and Ben Carter called in for consultation – though Ross once or twice superstitiously wondered if, in spite of his apparent caution, he had not set his mind on the venture almost as soon as the proposition was put to him. The sight of the derelict mine on the cliff across the beach from Nampara had subconsciously irked him only a little less than when it had been in full production under the Warleggans. So now the die was cast.

  The notary, a young man called Barrington Burdett, had only recently put up his brass plate in Pydar Street, but Ross had met him and liked the look of him, so they went to him. The adventuring money in Wheal Leisure was to be divided into thirty-six parts. Ross and John Treneglos were taking up five parts each; Jeremy and Horrie the same; the remaining sixteen parts would be open to investment from outside. John had been for throwing a larger number on the open market, but Ross had uneasy memories of when he had found himself in a minority before, and insisted they should keep full control. For the moment they would advertise the parts at £20 a share, with another £20 payable in three months’ time. Since neither Jeremy nor Horrie had money of their own it meant a big outlay for the two fathers. Warleggans had finally parted with their rights for £400. The prosy Mr King of the Cornish Bank had pointed out that the bank would have to carry Mr John Treneglos’s investment, since John, though landed, was always broke, but with Ross a partner in the bank it was hard for Mr King to be as prosy as he would have wished.

  They had dinner at the White Hart, during which Jeremy and Horrie tried not to go to sleep and John drank too much. Ross enjoyed his wines and his brandy, but generally restrained his indulgences when out, with a twohour ride home. Ross did not in fact much like John. In the early days he and Francis had fought John and his brothers; it had been a boys’ feud that had gone on a long time. The old man, Horace, John’s father, had been a cheerful kindly soul and something of a Greek scholar; but he had bred an uncouth, hard-riding, hard-drinking lot. Then twenty-four-odd years ago the clumsy John, who had always had an eye for Demelza, had married Ruth Teague, who had always had an eye for Ross, and this did not make for an easy relationship. Ruth had tended to be spiteful towards Demelza, and John, at a long-remembered ball a
t the Bodrugans, had once come, he swore, within an ace of getting Demelza into bed with him, being frustrated at the last by old Hugh Bodrugan himself and that damned Scotsman, McNeil, both on the same scent.

  There was also a notable occasion in 1802 when they had been dining at the same house and staying the night, when John had put it to Ross that they should swap wives for the night. After all, he said, it was hard in the country to get anything fresh except the occasional village girl or a guinea hen in Truro; and it stood to reason however much one stood by one’s dear wife in a crisis – and no one, no one, could ever say he’d ever let little Ruthie down – a bit of a change, a different sort of a ride, did nobody any harm. As for Ruth, he’d wager there’d be no objection there; because once years ago when there’d been a quarrel between them, a real set-to, all on account of him having got into bed in his riding breeches, Ruthie had let out that she didn’t care if she never saw him again, so long as Ross was only a couple of miles away over the fields and the sand-dunes. And concerning Mrs Poldark, she had more than once made it clear that she thought him, John, a handsome, randy sort of fellow, and he could guarantee he’d give her the greatest of satisfaction. Some women had said, well, I can tell you, old friend, what some women had said about me being like a red hot poker …

  Ross had declined, then climbed the stairs to break the news to Demelza. Demelza was highly indignant. ‘But you know how I’ve always fancied him, Ross. How could you refuse? Think of the conversations we might have tomorrow, comparing notes!’

  However, the passage of time, the cooling of passion, the growing up of the children, good-neighbourliness in a district where neighbours were few, had brought them more often into each other’s company. John’s sandy hair had turned grey, he had given up some of the more active outdoor sports, his deep-set eyes were seldom properly open, as if he had spent too much of his life squinting into the sun looking for foxes. Ruth, surrounded by her children, had occasionally called on Demelza and sometimes even invited her back to tea to ask her advice about Agneta, who was a problem child.

  So now Wheal Leisure, the mine Ross had started more than a quarter of a century ago, was in being again, the company and its shares and its capital properly incorporated in a legal document, and the four men were riding home on a draughty, cloudy afternoon not at all foreshadowed by the beautiful sunrise. Two and two they rode, Horrie and Jeremy a hundred yards in the van.

  After a substantial dinner and a fair amount of ale the two young men, though well satisfied with the morning’s work, had nothing whatever to say to each other. They rode by instinct, blinking their lids to prevent sleep. Behind them there was more talk, chiefly from John, though he occasionally swayed in his saddle and twice nearly lost his hat.

  ‘Damn me,’ he said, ‘these upstarts. That fellow King in your bank! I wonder you keep him. It might be his money he was advancing, out of his own store hid under the bed. I’d ha’ thought you’d have employed some manager of better address and breeding in your bank.’

  Ross said: ‘It is not precisely my bank, John. Indeed if it were my fortunes on which our clients depended for their confidence and reassurance, there would be an instant run and we would be putting up our shutters tomorrow.’

  John grunted and swayed. ‘What was this gossip I heard about Warleggan’s? God’s blood! Them in straits! Seems not possible. Stone me, I only wish they was, damage they’ve done to the small man.’

  ‘George plunged recklessly on the expectation of an early end to the war. So I believe it has been touch and go. Banking is confidence as much as anything else, and in the end the run did not quite sufficiently develop in time. But their linking themselves with this Plymouth bank is the outcome. They’re safe enough now.’

  ‘Well, I suppose that’s how we got the mine cheap. I never thought twould work. I only went because Ruth and Horrie plagued me so.’

  They jogged on a way in silence.

  ‘D’you have any trouble with your boy?’ John asked, nodding his dead at the figures in front. His hat fell over his eyes.

  ‘Trouble?’

  ‘Getting entangled. I never got entangled until I picked on Ruth. Horrie goes about the county getting himself entangled.’ John straightened his hat. ‘Hope he doesn’t take up seriously with this damned Pope girl. They’re no class and their father’s so full of himself I wonder he don’t burst. Horrie was with her last night, wasn’t he?’

  ‘I don’t know. They were all together at the bonfire. I think Jeremy was chiefly with Daisy Kellow.’

  ‘Huh. Well, she’s no catch neither, is she. Though at least she’s good to look at and would squeeze nicely.’

  Ross looked at his companion and new partner. Such a pity that it could not have been Cousin Francis. Wheal Grace had claimed Francis so many years ago and thus precipitated all the trouble between himself and George Warleggan.

  On impulse he said: ‘Jeremy was recently much taken with one of the Trevanion girls but it fell through.’

  ‘Trevanion? You mean those at Caerhays?’

  ‘Yes.’

  John stared up at the sky. ‘Damn me, it’s going to rain. Never can tell in this damn county. Weather’s as fickle as any woman … What went wrong?’

  ‘With Jeremy? Nothing. But the girl’s brother said no to it. You know, Major Trevanion.’

  ‘Course I know him. We’re related.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Well, sort of. My cousin Betty married his uncle. They’ve a place near Callington. Betty Bettesworth. Silly name, ain’t it!’ John laughed heartily, and his hat wobbled again.

  ‘Well, your Major Trevanion said no to it, and he apparently rules the house.’

  ‘Oh, he rules it, sure enough. But he’s not my Major Trevanion. Only see him about twice a year. Used to see more of his brother when I was in the Militia. You was never in the Militia, was you. His brother was in it, so I used to see him. Damned farce, most of it.’

  In a few minutes they would come to the parting of the ways. Probably if he were invited John would come in to tea, but really, in his present state …

  ‘Well, of course,’ Treneglos said, losing his stirrup and finding it again, ‘I can see what John was on about.’

  ‘What? What d’you mean?’

  Treneglos raised an eyebrow at Ross’s tone.

  ‘Well – nothing wrong with the boy, Ross. But they wouldn’t want a Poldark.’

  Ross said icily: ‘I gather the gentleman reminded my son that there had been Trevanions there since 1313. Fortunately Jeremy had the wit –’

  He was interrupted by Treneglos’s harsh bark. ‘Tisn’t that, man … You know me – know my family. Traces back to Robert of Mortain and Sir Henry de Tyes. Can’t go much further than that. Can’t go much further than that! But d’you think Trevanion’d welcome Horrie as a son-inlaw? He’d spit in his face! He don’t want breeding now, he wants money.’

  ‘Well, no doubt some of each does not come amiss –’

  ‘Nay, nay, tisn’t that. The madman’s nigh on bankrupt. He’s spent his fortune on that damned castle – can’t finish it, can’t pay the men’s wages nor buy the materials. And he gambles on the nags. Why, he’s been selling land for years. Two or three years ago my brother-in-law, that banker fellow from St Austell, bought three pieces off him, near Tregony, and at St Erme and Veryan. He’s raised mortgages right and left, parted with stuff the family’s had since Bosworth. Now he’s at his wits’ end. If he could get one of his sisters wed off to a rich man who would lend him a helping hand he wouldn’t care where he came from. Give Jeremy twenty thousand pounds and he’d be the most welcome suitor in Great Britain!’

  Ahead the two young men had stopped at the fork in the track. Left you turned for Killewarren where Dwight and Caroline Enys lived, right and you skirted Bodrugan land before taking a wide semi-circle behind Mellin to come to Mingoose House.

  John Treneglos fumbled with his reins and laughed. ‘Anyhow, there’s plenty more about for Jeremy to pick. D
on’t do to get fixed up too young. I was near thirty afore Ruth hooked me. Any time you think one of my brood is good enough – Agneta or Faith or Paula, just leave me know! And maybe Jeremy will make money in time, eh? They say he’s quite the genius.’

  ‘Who, Jeremy?’

  ‘Yes. So Horrie says. Goes over couple of times a week to the Hayle Foundry learning about strong steam. So Horrie says. He’s offered to set up this engine, hasn’t he? Design it, more or less. Full of ideas, Horrie says. What have you or I done? D’you know one end of a boiler from t’other? Curse me if I do. Doubt if Horrie knows much, but he’s been over with Jeremy and that Paul Kellow and young Ben Carter – been over four times now in your damned fishing-boat. Seems Jeremy’s been doing it for more’n a year.’ But you’ll know all about it. And – and tell the lad – tell the lad from me there’s plenty of frilly petticoats to lift in the world without having to mope around Trevanion’s sallow sisters.’

  II

  There was no road or track from this fork heading directly to Nampara, but by jumping a couple of low hedges and fording a bubbling brook one came on rough moorland that led to the Gatehouse and thence to Poldark land.

  Jeremy had temporarily ridden his sleep out of him and was feeling a little less deathly. His grief about Cuby was just the other side of a wall he had laboriously built for himself; it was flimsy and could break under the least pressure, but for the moment he concentrated on the mine and the interest and the work that was entailed as an outcome of the document signed in the presence of Barrington Burdett this morning. And when his mind turned to more personal issues he thought of last night and the extreme excitement he had got out of kissing and fondling another girl. And he knew he could do this again any time he wanted. And maybe next time there would be no apparition to stop them from going a little further. And a little further. And a little further. There was the whole of a young pretty female body to explore.