The Twisted Sword: A Novel of Cornwall 1815

by Winston Graham

  ‘Drake and Morwenna and Loveday have come and will stay until I return. Pray go over and see her.’

  ‘Of course! As soon as ever possible! For I long to meet Juana.’

  ‘You will greatly admire her. She is so much like her mother.’

  She made him a cup of chocolate, and as the sloop was leaving tomorrow in the forenoon, she pressed him to lie here tonight. He said he had first to call on Aunt Verity, but if he could persuade her to let him go, he would return. They talked of the Blameys and how the younger Andrew was faring, then of Jeremy and Cuby, and she gave him Jeremy’s latest letter to read, and also her mother’s.

  ‘I will try to look him up as soon as I get to Flanders. I am not sure how difficult or how easy that may be. From what reports I have received there is great activity but also great confusion.’

  ‘Do you think there will be war – a battle of some sort?’

  ‘Oh yes.’ He spoke without hesitation.

  After a moment Clowance said: ‘I shall be anxious. But many people think there may yet be a compromise peace. Even Jeremy in his letter, you see.’

  Geoffrey Charles shook his head. ‘Bonaparte says he wants only to live in peace with his neighbours; Wellington says there will be an agreed formula without conflict; but in fact they are both preparing furiously for war. Wellington, from what I hear, has such a makeshift army, and Bonaparte is likely to be so concerned to consolidate his rear, that they may hesitate and crawl around each other for a month or two yet; but a trial of strength is inevitable. And when it comes it will be the irresistible force against the immovable object.’

  Clowance shivered. ‘Do you like fighting, Geoffrey Charles?’

  He flexed his injured hand. ‘As a boy I hated it, was terrified of any sort of violence. But in Spain and Portugal, after a time, one hardened up. And there was such camaraderie, such tests of courage and personal endurance, such a fusion of men into a single splendid fighting force … the stimulus of conflict was enormous. I seemed for years to have forgotten how to be afraid. Now I am afraid again.’

  ‘Because…’

  ‘Because of Amadora and Juana, of course. I have too much to lose.’

  ‘Yet – you need not have come now.’

  He sighed. ‘I would not have stirred a foot to go to America or India, or wherever the next conflict showed. But this – this is unfinished business.’

  V

  After Brigadier Rougiet’s visit, Ross found the closeness of his confinement relaxed. He was allowed an hour’s extra liberty a day, walking in the garden, with an armed guard a pace behind. The food improved, and he suspected he was enjoying the same vittles as General Wirion. The wine also improved. Twice he even received outdated copies of The Times, from the second of which he was very angry to see that the Corn Bill had passed through the House of Lords.

  He had one meeting with Wirion, who was pleasant enough, discussed life in France in general terms and asked if there were any specially irksome features to his imprisonment which might be put right. Ross replied, only the imprisonment itself.

  He saw no more of Tallien and was not questioned further. Occasionally he caught glimpses of fellow prisoners, but only one, as far as he could tell, was English, an unkempt man of considerable age called Sloper, who the guard said had been arrested as a spy three years ago. Ross never got a chance of speaking to him.

  The early summer was advancing and Ross was glad of the fresh air and the extra exercise. To his surprise, the long periods of enforced idleness had done his ankle good, and he was able to walk almost without a limp.

  What interested him most about his extra liberty was that he got a much better idea of the layout of the prison, its guards, its wires and its walls. Towards the end of May he discovered where the stables were.

  Chapter Nine

  I

  George had never forgiven The Times for announcing the baronetcy of Ross Poldark, especially in the Court column, so of late he had been taking the Morning Post instead. It didn’t much matter – the London papers were all a week late when they reached him and sometimes the local papers cried the news first. There was the particular case when the Royal Cornwall Gazette had issued the communiqué announcing the victory at Trafalgar and Nelson’s death two days before its London rivals.

  But one piece of information which amused him in the paper he was at present reading was an account of an event which had rocked the financial world of London the day before. On the Wednesday a post-chaise decorated with laurels and flags had dashed up the Dover road announcing that Napoleon had been assassinated and that Carnot was forming an interim government for the purpose of inviting Louis the Eighteenth to return to the throne. On the Exchange government stocks which had been very low – three per cent Consols at 57 – had shot up six points, only to fall again when the news had proved to be false. In the meantime the instigators of the ruse, having bought heavily on the Tuesday and sold at the peak on the Wednesday, had made a fortune.

  People were such fools, George thought, even bankers and financiers: they rushed like sheep to greet good news, panicked so easily at bad. It was a wonder no one had ever thought of such a simple trick before. Communication was the bugbear. No one knew. The owner of a system of fast communication, especially if it were a private system, could make a mint of money any time. The semaphore, which had been installed by the Admiralty in a few towns, should be greatly extended. While it was not, everyone lived at the mercy of rumour.

  In London last year George had met a Mr Nathan Rothschild, a Jewish banker who had gained a high reputation in the city and with the Government, and Rothschild always, George thought, seemed to have better information about events in Europe than anyone else – and usually quicker. Perhaps it was because he had brothers in similar influential positions in a number of the capitals of Europe. Presumably he depended on couriers like everyone else. They must just be better couriers.

  George had not been to London at all this year, having settled down to enjoy the comforts and stimuli of pursuing his many interests in Cornwall. The journey to London was either bone-jolting and exhausting or – if you suffered from sea-sickness, as he did – only to be undertaken in the height of summer. But he thought he would go soon. There were pickings to be had, he was sure. In 1810 he had lost half his fortune while trying to double it in order to improve his chances of persuading Lady Harriet Carter to marry him. It had taken several years to recoup his losses. But he had learned a lot since then. Look at the way these rogues had hoodwinked the market. There were safer and more legitimate ways of making money in the present volatile state of the world, and he was convinced Nathan Rothschild knew of them.

  In the last three weeks George had been in a very perplexed state of mind. Or more properly of the emotions. The news that he was to be a father again had taken him utterly by surprise, and perhaps because of the surprise it had shaken him all the more. The total break with Valentine had left him virtually without a son. His beloved little Ursula was the apple of his eye, but she was only a girl. This quite astonishing news that Harriet had conceived meant that he had at least a fifty-fifty chance – he liked to think it more – of having another son. Someone else, someone worthy of him to carry on the name of Warleggan. And a Warleggan with noble blood! Although the Osborne family had never really taken to him, his son would be a part of it. His son would be not only Sir George Warleggan’s son but the nephew of the Duke of Leeds. It added a new stimulus in life.

  If he went to London and played his cards properly he was sure he would increase his fortune. If he went to London and made more use of his membership of the House and his ownership of the pocket borough of St Michael he could well earn himself the extra reward that Ross Poldark had so undeservingly been given. He might even, with judicious expenditure of money and the political pressure he could exert, become a real baron. Lord Warleggan. While Valentine was alive that could not be passed on to a new son, but he was himself only just fifty-six and might have twenty ye
ars of active life ahead of him in which to enjoy such a title!

  He had given way over Carrington in order to humour Harriet. Humour, yes, that was the damned word. But suddenly this strange exotic, aristocratic, eccentric woman he had married had become much more precious to him. She carried his child! And if she made as a stern condition to her good behaviour that Stephen’s wife, the Poldark girl, should not suffer inconvenience, well, he would accept it – for the time being. That mattered nothing compared to the central fact. From now on Harriet must be ‘humoured’. He had lost his last wife in childbirth, and not long before Ursula was born he had engaged in very angry scenes with Elizabeth. It shouldn’t happen so this time. Whatever the outcome, he would have nothing ever to reproach himself with. Let Harriet have her way. Nothing mattered but that.

  Over the longer term, of course, George had no intention whatever of giving up his pursuit and prosecution of Stephen Carrington. It would have been foreign to his nature even to consider such a thing. After all, there was no great hurry. Once the child was safely delivered. Once Harriet no longer needed to be humoured. In the meantime, if it pleased her to have Clowance at the house, or even Stephen, he would raise no objection. His manner towards Clowance would not alter at all. The less he saw of Stephen the better, but when they met he would be impassively polite.

  In the meantime he could console himself by considering other plans. Without ever resorting again to the dramatic act of closing Stephen’s account with the bank – for that, he could see, by its blatancy would offend Harriet afresh – he could make Carrington’s life a burden – an unsuccessful burden – in more devious ways. There were a number of men who had offended George at one time or another, and with only one notable exception they had not prospered after. They had had to leave Cornwall to obtain work or had sunk out of sight doing some menial job. George could make his influence felt almost anywhere. And none had offended him half – one tenth – so deeply as Stephen Carrington.

  II

  George would not, of course, have considered for a moment using any illegal means for bringing Carrington down. Only once in his life had he sanctioned violence against a man – that was Jud Paynter who had betrayed him after taking money from him at the trial of Ross Poldark – and he had afterwards regretted it. He might have a fearsome reputation in some quarters – and he was proud of it – but it was not the reputation of a man who broke – or even bent – the law.

  To ‘assist’ the law was quite a different matter. He had often assisted the law, and there was no reason on this occasion to give up the attempt because there was no real evidence for what he knew to be the truth. Besides, a man who risked his neck to steal money from a stage-coach might well have committed other criminal acts in the past for which he could more easily be brought to book. If the fox escaped from one lair you might trap him in another. Carrington’s past life was shrouded in mystery. Mr Trembath had been instructed to write to a fellow lawyer in Bristol who was to be invited to make inquiries.

  Also there was still the question of Stephen’s accomplices in the raid: two at least, one a woman. Who were his closest associates, or had been at that time? Clowance could not have been the woman, for she had been thin and dark. Andrew Blamey (another Poldark!) had been very thick with Carrington for some while and was notorious for being in debt. Inquiries had shown that it was impossible for him to have taken part in the robbery, but he might know something about it and George had noticed that he talked very freely when the wine was in him. He must be encouraged to come to Cardew more frequently, however distasteful it might be to entertain yet another Poldark.

  III

  On the 30th May Andrew Blamey returned to Penryn in the Chasse Marée, to be told that it had been sold in his absence and that he was out of a job. There was the offer of his acting as mate on the Lady Clowance under Sid Bunt, or second in command on a voyage Stephen Carrington was planning for the Adolphus; but with conditions which he found unacceptable.

  He said to Clowance: ‘He wants young Jason to be second mate, with special concern for hostile navigation. Where does that leave me? We should be running athwart each other at every turn! I have reached the conclusion that Stephen does not want me aboard and never had any intention except to have his nephew in a position of complete authority under him.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Andrew,’ Clowance said.

  ‘You know what Stephen is about, of course. It can’t be unknown to you.’

  ‘He is going to use the brig as a privateer.’ Clowance got up. ‘He told me this when he returned from France. Now we are again at war with France he sees a chance of – of making money. He is going to Plymouth tomorrow to get his Letter of Marque … I don’t like it at all, and I have told him so. I don’t want to become a widow…’ She turned. ‘But, Andrew, we have just gone through a very bad two weeks when it seemed as if we were to be bankrupted; I cannot give you more details than that, perhaps I am already saying too much; but it has pushed him into a corner where he prefers to take this chance. I hate it and I have told him so! He took the decision while he was at sea and as I am his wife I must stand by it.’

  Such a long speech was quite out of character for Clowance and reflected a three-hour argument she had had with Stephen when he returned with the news of his decision. She had attacked both the decision and the manner of it, saying he had broken his promise of discussing it with her first, and that to go on a dangerous hunt of this sort was no longer necessary as the threat of bankruptcy had been withdrawn. He had tried to draw her to him, but she had refused to be touched by him, knowing that he hoped his physical appeal would qualify her judgement. He had admitted that he had taken the decision without consulting her but said that he had to move quickly if he was going to strike while the iron was hot. War between England and France might last for years, or it might all be over in a few months. Two or three such voyages as he proposed, lasting perhaps only a month or so each, might be enough to make their fortune. With a good-sized vessel like Adolphus, properly equipped and manned, there should be pickings a-plenty. Fully armed with four six-pounders, a lively crew, and special high bulwarks of elm planking fitted up for protection, they could hardly come to much harm and should bring back a couple of prizes each voyage. The rewards were enormous …

  ‘Why do we need rewards? Those kind of rewards?’ she had asked. ‘If Warleggan’s Bank had truly foreclosed—’

  ‘If they had truly foreclosed we should not have been able to mount this! Let’s be thankful for small mercies. But we can’t count on ’em. You didn’t see his face, Clowance, that day he told me his bank wasn’t going to trade wi’ me any more. From now on, I wouldn’t trust him farther than I could throw him. He’s got it in for us, even if Harriet put in a good word.’

  ‘And what if he knows you have been privateering? Won’t this just confirm him in all his prejudices and give him the opportunity to close you down again?’

  ‘Not if he doesn’t know in time to stop me. When I’ve been and brought back a prize or two I can snap me fingers at him and tell him I’m banking elsewhere!’

  Clowance had been silent then, knowing that Stephen’s mind was made up and that not even she could change it. She also knew his dangerous ability to think that because he wanted a thing to happen it would happen. What was to say that he would not cruise in the chops of the Channel for a month and find nothing – or that he might not encounter a French cruiser and himself be captured? Absolutely nothing except his belief in himself.

  Yet often enough, she knew, he had pulled things off; his confidence had not been misplaced. And his eyes were alight with purpose; she shivered a little to think that equipping one of his ships to go on a privateering cruise came more pleasurably to him than organizing legitimate trade. In the end he had silenced her by saying: ‘Well and good, I’m going to take some pickings from the French. What’s the difference? Your brother and your cousin are going to fight them. Your father’s held prisoner of war without just cause. You can’t
surely be thinking too well of ’em yourself.’

  She could not explain all this to Andrew who had dropped in to exchange news. But she did tell him that Stephen had said he had ideas for Andrew if he would but contain his soul in patience.

  ‘It is not my soul that is growing impatient, little cousin, it is my body with its material wants! Incidentally, let me say I haven’t got any moral scruples about privateering; it is only a little different from the prize money that all our naval captains seek. Nor do I mind risking the odd flying bullet. After all, ’twas only the mercy of the Lord, and a little skilful seamanship last month, that saved the Chasse Marée from capsizing while she was tender, sailing from Oslo to Drammen to pick up the timber. No, let’s say it is just that I cannot get along with young Jason Carrington and his uncle’s determination to push him into an authority he isn’t yet entitled to! … By the way, will you be at Cardew tomorrow evening?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I have been invited, somewhat to my surprise. But as Thomasine will be there I shall be happy to go along. I have a guinea or two to risk at the tables but at Tamsin’s behest will not go into deeper water than I can swim out of. She does not know yet that I am without work. I rather fear her father offering me some position in his gunpowder factory. Though if he did I suppose it would be a sign that he was beginning to accept me.’

  ‘Andrew.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘If you go, when you go, I pray you not to discover to Sir George any of Stephen’s plans. There have been words between them on financial matters – you know Stephen banks with him – I do not know if he knows of Stephen’s plans to use the Adolphus as a privateer, but I would especially not want him to know it from you.’

  ‘Have no fear, little cousin. I shall be the soul of discretion.’