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

by Winston Graham

  They climbed the stile from the beach and made for the house. Stephen was in the garden examining Demelza’s flowers.

  ‘Stephen!’ Jeremy said.

  ‘Ah,’ Stephen nodded. ‘Good evening to you, sir. I trust I’m not intruding, like.’

  Ross nodded back. ‘Not at all. Pray come in.’

  ‘These tall flowers, sir; these spikes with little roses. I don’t recall having seen ’em before.’

  ‘Hollyhocks,’ said Ross. ‘My wife has a weakness for them, but they get badly treated by the wind.’ Stephen bent to sniff them. ‘No smell.’

  ‘Little enough. You wanted to talk to Jeremy?’

  ‘Well, no, not exactly. I wanted a word with you, Captain Poldark, sir. With Jeremy too, if he’s the mind to stay. It is just a matter of business, like. I thought to come and have a word wi’ you.’

  Ross glanced in at the window of Nampara. Mrs Gimlett was just lighting the candles. Isabella-Rose, not yet having seen her father’s approach, was dancing round Jane Gimlett. What vitality the child had! Far more even than the other two at that age.

  ‘Business?’

  ‘Well, sir, it is this way. No doubt you know I have been working at Wheal Leisure.’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  Stephen pushed a hand through his mane of hair. ‘As you know, Captain Poldark, your son and I, we got well acquainted while you was away; and since I returned to these parts he has told me about Wheal Leisure and what he has planned to do. Well, I’ve faith in that, Cap’n Poldark, I’ve faith in that.’

  There was a pause.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘A few weeks ago I went down the mine with Jeremy, and working in a mine is not for me! I’ve never in me life wished meself out of a hole in the ground so quick! But I’ve been thinking of the venture, as a venture; and I’m a bit of a gambling man. You know how it is when you’ve a feel that something is going to do well? I think Wheal Leisure is going to do well.’

  Ross said: ‘And the matter of business is…’

  Stephen came closer. He was carrying a small leather bag.

  ‘The business is I’d like to invest in the mine. No doubt Jeremy will have told you that I sold me prize in Bristol. Not that I got what I should’ve, but I got a share. Well … Jeremy has told me you have shares to sell in Wheal Leisure. At £20 a share. I’d like two, if you please.’

  The two Poldarks looked at each other. Jeremy made a slight lift of the eyebrows to indicate to his father that this was as much a surprise to him as anyone.

  Ross said: ‘The shares that are being offered to the public were advertised in the Royal Cornwall Gazette of July 13. As stated in the advertisement you would have to apply to a Mr Barrington Burdett of 7, Pydar Street, Truro. I do not know whether they will yet have gone. Of course I should have no objections to your investing, but I must tell you of the pitfalls. You look a young man of experience, Carrington, and worldly wise. But sinking money in a mine carries with it unique risks, and it wouldn’t be fair to let you take those risks unwarned. It is all a little safer than staking your money on a horse or on the throw of a card, but not much.’

  Stephen looked him in the eye. ‘You’re doing that, Captain Poldark.’

  Ross smiled. ‘I have been lucky once, but nearly came to bankruptcy first. Just say it’s in my blood.’

  ‘I’m a trifle of a gambler meself,’ said Stephen. ‘Life, I reckon, is not worth living if you don’t take a risk. And working at the mine like I have been has got me interested. I happen to be down here. One way or another I’ve the hope to work around here. It’s a feeling, like. If tweren’t for your son I’d not be alive, so I’ve the feeling he’s me lucky mascot. So I’d like to take the gamble with me friends.’

  Ross said: ‘Perhaps Jeremy will have told you how this system is operated. Those who put money into a mine are called the venturers, and each deposits into the purser’s fund in accordance with the number of shares he has taken up. If each share is provisionally valued at £20, then I must put in £100, and Mr Treneglos, Jeremy and Horace Treneglos the same. You if you bought two shares would of course pay £40. Wait … that is not the end of it. Every three months a meeting is held at which the purser accounts in his cost book for the money spent. When opening a new mine such as this it will be necessary to call for another similar amount to be put in at the first quarterly meeting. That doubles one’s investment. There might well be another later. When a venturer can no longer find the money to pay in his share, or is no longer willing to, he puts his holding up for sale. If the mine by then has not been proved he may well have to sell at a very big discount. When enough of the venturers are unable or unwilling to answer further calls then the mine closes down. You understand this?’

  ‘Pretty well,’ said Stephen. He swung his little bag against his thigh. ‘I reckon I can meet a second call. After that, twould depend on what I have done since. But –’

  ‘My father,’ said Jeremy, ‘rightly points out the dangers. There is of course the happier side – when the venturers meet quarterly and it is the business of the purser only to distribute the profits. This he does on the spot: in gold, in notes, in bank post bills. I have often thought a successful venturers’ meeting would be a suitable target for a highwayman, Father, for many of the venturers on such an occasion get as drunk as a Piraner.’

  Ross was going to say something more but he was suddenly overwhelmed as Isabella-Rose came hurtling out of the house in a flurry of curls and ribbons and petticoats and threw herself at her father in great distress. ‘Bella, Bella, Bella!’ He lifted her in his arms and swung her round.

  ‘Papa-a-a,’ she bleated. ‘Mrs Kemp says I may not stay up to supper because I have been r-r-rude to her! She says I pinched her, when I did not! I merely tweaked her skirt, and she says that was r-r-rude too! She wouldn’t let me light the candles because she said I dropped grease on the carpet. Have you ever seen me drop grease on the carpet? Have you, Papa – have you?’

  Ross kissed the delicate cheek, which he noticed was not at all tear-stained.

  ‘My little Bella, Mrs Kemp is a very kind person who, while your mother is away, has charge of you, do you understand? Mama cannot be here, so Mrs Kemp is in – authority. Do you know what that means?’

  ‘Yes, Papa, how strange of you to think I should not! But she says I pinched her, when I did not, and –’

  ‘Bella, would it not be a nice thing to do: to say you are sorry to Mrs Kemp – oh no, I didn’t say you pinched her – sorry for tweaking her skirt; and then, perhaps, if you said you were sorry for that, she might be persuaded to let you stay up to supper. See, we have Mr Stephen Carrington to supper, so do you not think you should run in at this minute and make your peace with Mrs Kemp?’

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ said Stephen Carrington, as the little girl, after an initial hesitation, went flying in.

  ‘I cannot promise about the shares,’ Ross said. ‘Food we can guarantee.’

  He went in ahead of the two young men. He thought while Clowance was away it would be a good time to see more of one of her suitors and to make up his own mind about him.

  Chapter Eight

  I

  Mrs Poldark and Miss Poldark had been a week at Bowood. Having left Truro early on the Tuesday morning, they arrived at the great house when tea was being taken on Thursday evening.

  Mrs Poldark had never been so nervous. There had been many occasions when she had had to face the landed, the rich and the noble, but nothing quite like this. Though far better equipped now than ever in the past in knowledge of the way to behave and the way things were done, this time, for almost the first time ever, she was without Ross. (She excepted in her mind the wild Bodrugan party of the early nineties because then she had been so angry and hurt she didn’t care what the devil happened.) On all other occasions Ross had been at her side. Now he was endless miles away, and she was going to meet people she had never seen yet in her life and did not particularly ever want to see. Further, she was
going to stay, which made it all much more difficult, and was accompanied by a lady’s maid who, however sweet and courteous, was an oppressive complement to the party.

  Nevertheless, hard as all this was, it could have been shrugged off but for one thing. This time it was not herself she might let down but her daughter.

  A matter that concerned her more than a little was the question of accent. Almost as soon as she met Ross, long before he married her and while she was still his kitchen maid, she had listened attentively to how he spoke and had tried to copy his grammar. After they were married she had taught herself to read and write and her quick brain had assimilated everything he said. But while trying to speak correctly, and presently quite succeeding, she had taken less care for her accent. Living in the country where she did, and among countryfolk who knew all about her origins, it had seemed pretentious to assume an accent that was not her own. Of course over the years it had inevitably faded, by small degrees and by small degrees so that now there was comparatively little left. It was scarcely noticeable in Cornwall. Only on her occasional visits to London was she aware of the ‘burrs’ in her voice still. Even Ross, she suspected, had some. But his was the best of all accents, a resonant, educated voice with a faint regional intonation. Jeremy had more of a Cornish voice than Ross. Clowance’s had an apparently unconscious habit of changing with the company she was in. But daughters, she suspected, were more often than not judged by their mothers. (Could it be, a hideous suspicion whispered, that this was precisely why she had been invited?)

  They drove that first evening, it seemed endlessly, through a great deer park; and when at last they arrived, wheels crunching on the gravel, before a pillared mansion which itself seemed to go on for ever, she thought some big reception or ball was in progress. People in evening dress thronged the gardens in front of the house and milled about in the hall. It was still light, and somewhere music was playing, strings reedy and lilting in the distance among the conversation and the laughter.

  They had hired a post-chaise from Bath, which Demelza had had the presence of mind to pay for in advance, so there was no embarrassment about settling for the conveyance while liveried footmen waited to take down the luggage. The three ladies alighted, Enid standing respectfully in the background with one of the smaller cases. An icy horrid two minutes followed while the luggage was unloaded and a few quizzing-glasses raised and some whispered asides behind fans. Then a tall, rather cumbersome young man ran down the steps.

  ‘My dear Miss Poldark. Mrs Poldark, I assume. A privilege to us, ma’am, that you were able to come. Pray excuse the number of our guests. Thursday is a special day. Pray come in; I trust the journey was not too tedious; my aunt is inside and most anxious to welcome you; did you have rain on the journey? Hawkes, Harris, please see to Mrs Poldark’s maid. Let me relieve you of that vanity case, Mrs Poldark. The servants will see to it all. What good fortune that you will be here for tomorrow. Miss Poldark, allow me…’

  In the hall a stout, homely little woman was emerging from a group of people. Purple silk; a pince-nez dangled on the end of a gold chain and she carried an ear-trumpet. Lady Isabel Petty-Fitzmaurice.

  ‘My dear Mrs Poldark. Miss Poldark. How good of you to travel all this way to see us! You must be fatigued. Eh? Alas, dinner has been over an hour. But you must have something to sustain you. Eh? Chivers, pray take Mrs Poldark and Miss Poldark to their rooms and see that a light meal is served to them there. Eh? Thursday is such a busy day here. But in one manner or another we contrive to be occupied most of the time!’

  A pretty young woman dressed in shimmering white lace floated across to them from another group and absent mindedly took their hands. But her welcoming smile encompassed them both as Lord Edward introduced them to his sister-in-law, the Marchioness of Lansdowne. In a chatter they were led upstairs and shown into a large bedroom looking over a lake with a smaller bedroomdressing room leading off. Since the house was rather full, Lady Isabel trusted that they would find the two connecting rooms adequate.

  Demelza, the ice all thawed, and instantly taken by the fat little woman, who reminded her of Aunt Betsy Triggs, found the words to offer their appreciation and graceful admiration of the rooms and the view from the rooms; and in what seemed no time, though it was probably half an hour, Enid and another maid had unpacked and disappeared somewhere to eat downstairs while Demelza and Clowance took comfortable small semi-circular arm chairs and faced each other across a table on which were set half a salmon, a roast capon, an uncut ham, a syllabub, a bowl of fruit, a cheddar cheese, and three bottles of Rhenish wine.

  ‘So we are here!’ Demelza said, and smiled brilliantly at her daughter over the top of her wineglass.

  Clowance, whose expression up to now had remained calm and rather impassive, gave a little ironical grimace of pleasure. ‘It seems we shall not starve! Would it not be lovely if we could have all our meals up here!’

  ‘First impressions,’ said Demelza. ‘Is it bad to take too much heed of first impressions?’

  ‘Not if they are good.’

  ‘Are not yours?’

  Clowance laughed. ‘Yes.’

  ‘But so many people. Is this a house or a town?’

  ‘Lord Edward explained it was open house on a Thursday. I don’t quite understand what that means, except that tomorrow the crowds will be gone. It – it seems to be like a garden party to which almost everyone may come. The Lansdownes are here so small a part of the year, that when they are here this is what they do.’

  Demelza helped Clowance to the salmon, and took some herself. ‘How strange to have so much property that one must spread oneself so thinly! Your father, I fear, would say that it is not quite suitable that one family should own so much. Yet I confess they impress me more favourably than I had ever thought possible on so short an acquaintance.’

  Clowance raised her glass. ‘It may be all different tomorrow, Mama. So I think we must just drink to first impressions.’

  ‘That I’ll gladly do.’

  They did it.

  Clowance said: ‘For the first time – or almost for the first time – I believe I am finding myself somewhat nervous!’

  II

  The good fortune Lord Edward referred to in their ‘arriving in time for tomorrow’ was that on Friday the house party went to the Races at Chippenham. They left at midday in dog-carts and chaises and a few more sober barouches, picnicked on the way and spent four hours on the course. Horses were inspected – three running from the Lansdowne stable – bets laid, races watched and cheered, more canary wine was drunk. Demelza was loaned a spy-glass the better to perceive which horse was coming first round the corner, and Lord Edward was assiduous in lending his own glass to Clowance.

  The alfresco nature of the picnic and the general atmosphere of the racecourse was well suited for everyone to become acquainted with everyone else; no one was too much concerned to quiz his or her neighbour while there was unimpeachable bloodstock to take the attention. Demelza early confided into Lady Isabel Petty-Fitzmaurice’s ear-trumpet that she had never been to a race meeting before, but this evidence of a neglected youth was later somewhat overborne by the fact that she seemed to know a good deal about horses, and animals in general, particularly their complaints. Clowance found two of the young ladies, the Hon. Helena Fairborne and Miss Florence Hastings, a little distant and patronizing; but otherwise it was a very pleasant and informal day.

  Twenty made up the party to the races, and by the occasional reference to those left behind it seemed that there were another half-dozen or so guests at home. It was going to be difficult to make sure in a short time the exact position of various people who had been seen wandering around the house after breakfast, whether they ranked as guests or residents, as gentlefolk or as a superior echelon of servant. No attempt was made to divide the race party by sex or age; and indeed with the Marchioness herself only twenty-six and making herself the focus of attention there was little chance to do so. Lady Lansdowne was ta
ll and fair and pretty and flittered vaguely about in loose flowing garments; but when she had occasion to approach you or speak to you direct she looked you in the eye with uncommon straightness and lack of affected dissimulation.

  So, for that matter, did Edward. Clowance wished her father, might have been here as well as her mother, for where Demelza’s judgments were native and intuitive, his refreshing prejudices added another dimension to the scene. If he said something that was clearly wrong, it gave Clowance a sounding board on which to try out her own judgments.

  Demelza thought it probably a deliberate arrangement on the part of the Fitzmaurices to begin their house party with such an outing. Everybody entered into the day with considerable gusto, with some money won – Clowance eight guineas – and some money lost – Demelza four – and everybody warmed and eased with canary wine, and talkative, without regard to the precise social position of their neighbour, and tired on the way home – tired with wine and sun – and eating a comfortable dinner at Bowood without the need to dress, and very soon the ladies were yawning behind their fans and everyone went early to bed.

  This, however, was not a typical day, and the typical day which followed conformed more nearly to Demelza’s apprehensions.

  Breakfast was at about nine-thirty – some two hours later than the normal hour at which the Poldarks sat down. At ten-thirty prayers were read in the hall by the chaplain, Mr Magnus, after which everyone drifted into the magnificent library to discuss plans for the day, or to listen to announced suggestions as to how the time should be spent. This day being Saturday, all the gentlemen went off shooting or fishing and did not return until five. With the custom of dinner growing ever later and supper ceasing to be important, a new meal called luncheon had been introduced at about one, to bridge the gap between breakfast and the formal meal of the day at six-thirty, for which everyone was expected to dress.

  So Saturday, when sixteen ladies were left to their own devices, was the testing time. The day fortunately was fine and warm, so there was no need to sit indoors and play cards or work embroidery and make polite conversation. It was indicated that there were certain walks and certain drives which were more or less part of the ritual of a visit to Bowood, the walks describing an inner circle of the park, the drives a much wider circle when various follies and sights were inspected. The suggestion that these should be visited today was greeted with feminine cries of enthusiasm.