The Twisted Sword: A Novel of Cornwall 1815

by Winston Graham

  ‘Well, me dear, maybe I should just say I’m gratified to find ye out walking.’

  ‘I shall be out walking for some time yet. Being in whelp is not so disabling as I supposed it was going to be. But do not be concerned: Nankivell is at the edge of the wood, holding Dundee for me. Also Castor and Pollux. I am well mounted and well escorted.’

  It was not in Stephen’s nature ever to feel awkward – it was one of his charms – and he explained his presence here and what he had been doing this morning and asked her what she was seeking in the wood.

  ‘Foxes,’ she said simply. ‘We cannot hunt ’em for two months yet, and by then, God dammit, I shall be too far on to participate. But I can still keep an eye on ’em, see what cubs they have. Even if you can’t catch ’em at play you can usually tell by the billet they leave. You’ve spoiled my quest, Master Carrington.’

  ‘I’m not sure I follow.’

  ‘Simple enough. Why else do I leave my escort a quarter of a mile away? It is not the exercise of walking that I so much enjoy. But I had hopes I might see one or two of my little friends and gauge their health and numbers. That is not best done in the company of two clumping horses and a brace of boarhounds.’

  Stephen laughed. ‘Well, since I’ve spoiled a part of your quest, can I not help ye with the other part of it?’

  ‘What is that?’

  ‘Counting the droppings.’

  She smiled at this. He tethered Moses to a suitable tree.

  ‘A fine horse,’ she said.

  ‘Aye,’ said Stephen, bridling. ‘I wished for ye to see him. Something I bought last week in St Erme. He is quite a special animal.’

  ‘A bit heavy in the hindquarters, do you not think?’

  ‘Nay, ’tis the breed, Harriet. And he has a fair weight to carry.’

  They moved towards the hut, but Harriet turned off sharply to where there was a rift in the ground and a couple of gorse bushes, still in semi-flower.

  ‘You see, there’s an earth here. Badgers have made it but foxes are living in it. I’ll lay a curse there’s a handsome lot of cubs in there. I was hoping to catch ’em at play.’

  ‘I’m in disgrace, eh?’

  ‘No matter.’ She allowed the gorse bush to fall back into place and brushed some prickles off her gloves. ‘We’ll look in this hut and then be done.’

  They walked across the clearing.

  ‘How is Clowance?’

  ‘Well and fine, thank ee.’

  ‘She must have been much upset by her brother’s death.’

  ‘Oh she was. So was I. Jeremy was a sterling fellow.’

  ‘I gather that while he was fighting Napoleon you were fighting the French in a more profitable way.’

  He glanced at her and laughed. ‘You speak the truth. I had me narrow escapes, I can vow. But, thanks to you, I got the opportunity to make the venture.’

  ‘Thanks to me?’

  ‘Well, ye must know that Sir George and I fell out – or maybe it is more true to say that he soured of me for some reason and threatened to withdraw all credit. I was as good as a ruined man. Then, for some other reason, he changed his mind and allowed me to continue to function on restricted credit. ’Twas that that brought me to a situation where I had to go for all or nothing as a privateer.’

  ‘Indeed,’ said Harriet at the entrance of the hut, ‘so that’s how it was.’

  ‘That’s how it was. And I have you to thank for it.’

  ‘I am at a loss to know why you should think so.’

  ‘I b’lieve Clowance told ye something of our straits and that ye intervened with Sir George on my behalf.’

  ‘What a quaint thought!’ She led the way into the hut.

  It was a wooden structure, with part of the roof gone and the door fallen in. Inside there was a lot of etiolated grass, a few brambles, some small bones, ashes from a fire.

  Harriet stirred the grass with her foot. ‘Some tramp has been sharing it with the foxes.’

  ‘Foxes?’

  ‘Oh, they’ll come in places like this, especially if their earths have been stopped. We have been led this way more than once and the scent has gone cold. I wonder…’

  ‘I mind once last year,’ said Stephen, ‘last December, we came this way, dashing through the wood. I nearly came off! As usual, you was in the front.’

  ‘Dundee is very sure-footed. And we’ve been together a long time; since before I married George. We don’t often make mistakes in the field.’

  ‘Was your first husband a great hunter?’

  ‘Oh yes, he lived for it. He was Master for a time, not of this pack, of course, but in North Devon. Nearly ruined himself – and in the end broke his neck at a gate. Well, God rest his soul, it was as good a way as any to go.’

  Stephen had not been alone with this cool, articulate, downright woman in quite this way before. She was physically very attractive; pregnancy had given her an extra bloom. She had never spoken so openly and personally. It excited him.

  She was stooping, stirring over the bones with her crop. He bent beside her, aware of her perfume, of her queue of black hair, of the flush in her normally sallow cheek.

  ‘Do you see anything?’

  ‘These rabbit bones are new. And these are chicken bones and something bigger. Mme Vixen has been sharing her vittles with someone else.’ She straightened up, and he straightened up beside her.

  ‘Harriet.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘’Twas your doing, was it not, keeping George from bankrupting me? Don’t deny it. I have to thank ye.’

  ‘Is it not better to forget it all? Or why do you not give George the credit?’

  ‘Because it is yours and I have to thank ye.’

  She had her back near the wall, and he put a hand on the wall each side of her, imprisoning her. The wooden shack creaked under the weight of his hands.

  She looked at him coldly, great eyes very calm.

  He kissed her, first on the cheek and then on the lips. It was a long kiss. Then she put hands on both his shoulders and pushed him away. It was slow but firm; she had strong arms.

  She took out a handkerchief and dabbed her lips. Then she picked up her crop, which she had dropped and stooped to turn over the bones again.

  ‘I heard a parson once in the pulpit,’ she said, ‘state that man was the only creature that killed for pleasure. Damned nonsense. A fox will kill anything that moves, that flutters, that shows signs of life. So will a cat. So will a leopard. Foxes are nasty little brutes, but I love ’em.’

  ‘I can kill things that flutter,’ said Stephen.

  He followed her out of the hut.

  ‘I think we will rejoin Nankivell.’

  Stephen unhitched Moses and followed the tall smart woman through the trees. They came out into the field beyond, where the little groom was waiting with two horses and two dogs. Nankivell got to his feet, taking off his hat; the two big boarhounds rose and stretched and made whining noises. Harriet did not have to bend in order to rub their ears.

  ‘Nankivell, take the dogs back by the road. It will do them good to trot with you. Mr Carrington and I will canter back across country.’

  ‘’S, m’lady.’

  Harriet put out a hand and Nankivell helped her mount. The two horses, Dundee and Moses, eyed each other. Harriet gathered her reins, adjusted her cap. She had not looked at Stephen since they came out of the hut.

  ‘Well, be off with you.’

  ‘’S, m’lady. Beg pardon, m’lady, but Sir George did tell me to see as ee did not go cross-country galloping. He says to me, Sir George he says, mind you see her leddyship don’t do any jumping or galloping—’

  ‘Never mind what Sir George said. It is what I say. Mr Carrington will see me home.’

  ‘Willingly,’ said Stephen.

  ‘That’s if he can keep up with me.’

  In silence they watched Nankivell mount and trot reluctantly off, with Castor and Pollux on long leads behind. It was obviously a routine
the dogs were used to. Stephen was still standing beside his horse, but now he essayed to mount. Harriet watched with a critical eye as he struggled into the saddle.

  It was not so warm out here. The wind was picking up from the east, and they were not sheltered by the trees. But Stephen was warm.

  Harriet said: ‘If you wish to know, I did influence Sir George in his decision not to withdraw banking credit from you. But I did it for Clowance, not for you. To suppose that I am in any way interested in you as a man is an unwarranted assumption. I have a debt of friendship and gratitude towards Clowance, which I discharged. That is all.’

  Stephen patted his horse’s neck. ‘Maybe I’ve a debt of friendship and gratitude towards you just the same. Maybe once in a while you’ll let me show it.’

  Harriet said: ‘Your horse is heavy in the haunches. If you’re not careful he’ll grow fat. I know the type.’

  ‘I reckon he’s a wonderful horse,’ said Stephen stiffly. ‘Every bit so good as yours.’

  Harriet tightened her reins and looked across the smiling summer countryside.

  She said after a long pause: ‘When you married Clowance, it was a big thing for you, Stephen. Be content with it. I do not think it time for you to consider moving farther up-stream. Good-day to you.’

  She turned and went off at a fair pace, which soon turned into a gallop.

  ‘C’mon, me lad,’ said Stephen angrily. ‘We’ll catch her.’

  He set Moses to the task, and for a short period gained on her. It was uphill and the bigger horse made ground. Then Harriet took a low hedge very gracefully and Stephen followed. Now it was level ground and the two horses galloped at about the same rate, Moses some three lengths behind.

  Another hedge, a Cornish wall this, not higher but much broader. Over went Dundee. Moses dislodged a stone as he followed. Harriet looked behind and laughed. Stephen dug in his heels and whacked the hindquarters of his horse with his crop. It was lovely open country, between wooded slopes and tall individual trees. They were galloping now at a thunderous pace.

  He knew she should not be galloping like this, and knew that if he halted she would probably slow down. But he could not bring himself to check his horse. Harriet’s words had bitten into him like a serpent, the poison seeping and spreading. She had even sneered at his horse.

  He knew he must overtake her soon and then, having caught her, he could slow her down and be magnanimous. His horse was bigger than hers and must have more staying power; besides, a woman, unless she is a dare-devil, cannot ride side-saddle at the speed of a man. Harriet was a daredevil. She bobbed up and down, her queue of hair streaming behind her. Now for the first time she used her whip.

  They were coming to the next obstacle. Woods on either side narrowed to a gap protected by a high fence. Beyond it was a deep ditch. Harriet half checked, then slapped Dundee’s neck; the horse took a sort of double stammer of hooves and took the obstacle in huge style. He just landed in the rubble and stones on the far side, stumbled and came to his feet as Stephen prepared to take off.

  Stephen had been nearer Harriet than he thought; their hesitation, which had really been only a gathering of muscle and determination for the leap, became in him a real hesitation; then he forced Moses forward with a stinging crack of his whip and the great horse took off half a stride early. He made a tremendous effort, cleared the fence by the narrowest margin. But both front feet landed just in the ditch and he fell. It was a great weight of animal to fall, and Stephen was flung off him, clear off him, and landed with a heavy crunch among the rubble and stones. Thereafter the world went black.

  Chapter Eight

  I

  It was on the Wednesday that Ross called on Dwight. It was the first showery day after a long fine spell, and the wind was getting up. Dwight was writing a letter to a Doctor Sutleffe, who had recently been called in to see if he could help the aged King. Dwight and Sutleffe had met in London and had kept up a sporadic correspondence. Sutleffe was prescribing a herbaceous tranquillizer, which he had found successful with many patients far gone in mania, but Dwight, though he did not say so in the letter, was not optimistic of its success when given to a blind man suffering from advanced dementia and now becoming deaf too. The only treatment Dwight would have prescribed was a far greater freedom for the harmless old King to move or be moved around his castle. He could do no damage to the realm.

  When Ross was shown in Dwight got up, pen still in hand but smiling his welcome.

  ‘I find you alone?’ Ross said.

  ‘Yes, they are all out – I believe on your beach. I think Caroline has gone rather against her will, as she is not fond of sandy feet. You’re better?’

  ‘Oh yes. Thank you. We both are. It’s – something we shall learn to live with. Or live without.’

  ‘Demelza may be with Caroline. Have you come from the house? They are sure to have called.’

  ‘No, Demelza is away. She has gone to see Clowance. Troubles do not come singly. Stephen Carrington has met with a riding accident.’

  ‘I am very sorry. When did this happen?’

  ‘Yesterday morning. He has recently bought a new horse and, it seems, was putting it through its paces when it fell at a fence and he with it. He was flung clear, but he has hurt his back, possibly broken it. At present he cannot move from the waist down.’

  Dwight made a face. ‘Where is he now?’

  ‘At his house – his cottage. That is where Demelza has gone. Matthew Mark Martin has gone with her. They—’

  ‘Was Clowance with him at the time?’

  ‘No. Harriet was. I mean Harriet Warleggan. She fetched help from Cardew and he was carried home on a stretcher.’

  Dwight stroked his chin with the quill of his pen. ‘Who is attending him?’

  ‘A man called Mather. Recently arrived from Bath. He did wonders for Andrew Blamey – old Andrew – when he was ill.’

  ‘Stephen may be better in a few days. Sometimes the shock paralyses as much as a real breakage ‘But if it is a real breakage?’

  ‘Can heal well enough in a few weeks or months. There is always the risk, of course.’

  ‘I’m sure.’

  ‘It depends very much where the injury is … Ill luck for him after such a triumphant voyage.’

  A shower of rain beat on the windows. Soon over, but it couldn’t be the best day for a romp on the beach.

  Ross said: ‘It does not seem so very long since Stephen was ill before, and you went across to advise and prescribe, and Clowance nursed him back to health.’

  ‘It is not so long.’

  Ross said: ‘Of course Clowance thinks there is only one doctor in Cornwall.’

  ‘I was afraid you might be intending to say that.’

  ‘I have the unenviable task of passing on her message to you. She said: “Do please implore Uncle Dwight to come.”’

  Dwight stroked his chin again.

  ‘Of course I’ll go. It is too late today, but perhaps tomorrow.’

  ‘Thank you. I know how grateful she would be.’

  ‘But I do not know how grateful this Dr Mather is likely to be! To preserve medical etiquette, it should be he who invites me to see his patient. Last time it was just an apothecary.’

  ‘If you were intending to go tomorrow, I would send someone over to tell them. I am sure that Clowance, helped by Demelza, would be able to convince any surgeon of the rightness of this course.’

  Dwight laughed. ‘I’ll try to be there by eleven. Mind you, Ross, in the case of an injury of the sort you describe – if it is such an injury, there’s precious little anyone can do – surgeon or otherwise – except tell the patient to keep quiet and wait. Is he in much pain?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Shall you be going to Penryn also?’

  ‘I think not, at least until I have heard what you say. It is a small place and I don’t want to overcrowd them. Also, Demelza must not be away too long.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Cuby
is coming to stay.’

  II

  When Dwight saw Ross out he saw Katie moving rapidly away among the trees of the drive, as if not wanting to be noticed. The shower had gone and Dwight was reluctant to return immediately to his letter, so he strolled towards the gates, enjoying the sun and the wind in his hair.

  It occurred to him to think that perhaps Katie had brought another summons from Place House, but if that had been the case Bone would have come hurrying. In any event when he had last seen Selina she had seemed to have recovered her health and at least a degree of her spirits. Dwight guessed there had been a part reconciliation between husband and wife. However complex a character Valentine might be, and however mixed up in his own life, he had a great way with women, and there was no reason to suppose that Selina had become immune.

  Suddenly Katie was in front of him. She must have dodged round the corner of the drive, and it was as if she came upon him unexpectedly.

  ‘Dr Enys … I was nearby and then I seen Cap’n Poldark.’

  ‘He’s just gone,’ Dwight said. ‘Did you wish to see him?’

  ‘Nay, ’twas you, sur, as I ’ad thoughts to see. But then I thought I’d no right nor reason to come’n bother ee.’

  ‘What is it? Are you unwell?’

  ‘Nay, sur, I’m not unwell. Leastwise, not as no one could say so.’

  ‘I’m glad of that. What is it then?’

  Katie’s face was down, but he could see enough of it to observe the hot flush colouring all her visible skin.

  ‘I don’t hardly know ’ow to tell ee.’

  Dwight waited. ‘Would you like to come inside?’

  ‘Oh, nay, sur, tedn that. But mebbe yes, maybe yes, I did oughter come in, not bawl’n out in the middle of the garden for everyone to ’ear.’

  ‘Good. Well, come in, then.’

  He led the way and she followed for a few paces and then stopped again. He waited.

  She looked up and looped a tangle of hair away from one eye.

  ‘I don’t reckon ’tis proper, but maybe ’tis proper and right. I thinks only Surgeon d’know, so only he can tell me.’

  ‘Tell you what, Katie?’