I remain, sir, your respectful and obedient servant and Sister-in-law,
Rowella Solway.
‘What’s that you say?’ snapped Ossie.
‘You have not told me,’ said Morwenna, ‘whether you wish to eat now or would prefer to wait until supper-time.’
Ossie stared at her as if he were confronting Rowella. What impertinence, what impudence, what presumption! The girl was outrageous, mentally as deformed as her elder sister, to write such a letter. And morally depraved and spiritually lost. And physically repulsive. She was a worm, as voluptuous as some slimy thing crawling from under a stone, a serpent to be bruised beneath the heel. That she should dare to write to him!
‘Are you not well?’ Morwenna asked. ‘Perhaps you have a summer fever.’
‘Nonsense!’ With an effort Ossie turned away and stalked to the mirror, adjusted his stock. His hands were unsteady with anger. ‘Tell Harry I will eat at once.’
II
Dinner was a little later at the Great House in Truro, indeed had only just finished and Elizabeth, graceful as a wand, had just risen to leave the two gentlemen to their port.
It had been a polite threesome, conventionally polite throughout a meal carefully chosen and designed to impress. Indeed Elizabeth, with her deep-rooted knowledge of what was done and not done, had dropped a hint to her husband that, where no large dinner-party was intended, this meal was too elaborate and too obvious in its design. But George had chosen to ignore her. His new friend must be impressed at this, their first dinner-party together, by the wealth, the taste, the epicurean knowledge of his host. It was all very well if you were a gentleman sprung from generations of other gentlemen, perhaps you could afford a sloppy meal in untidy surroundings. Many of George’s so-called social superiors ate like that: Hugh Bodrugan, John Trevaunance, Horace Treneglos; and he despised them for it. He chose to eat differently, to behave differently, to have other standards than theirs, and if he entertained an important guest he chose to demonstrate what money could buy.
In any case his guest knew him and knew his origins. The show was not put on to deceive anyone. You could not pretend in the town and the county in which you carried on all your business activities. Besides, this friendship might lead to big things, and it was necessary to do all honour to it in the beginning.
Elizabeth had yielded.
Their guest had celebrated his fortieth birthday a few days ago. He was a tallish man with his own greying hair brushed back in wings behind his ears; a plump-faced man, good-humoured, but with small eyes that were both sophisticated and acquisitive. Christopher Hawkins of Trewithen, lawyer, member of Parliament, one time High Sheriff of Cornwall. Fellow of the Royal Society, baronet and bachelor and boroughmonger.
After Elizabeth left and a manservant had poured the first glass of crusted port a short silence fell and endured while the two men sipped appreciatively,
George said: ‘I’m glad this opportunity has arisen for you to visit us in our own house. We’d be happy if you would stay the night.’
‘I’m obliged,’ said Hawkins, ‘but I’m two hours from my own home now and there is business I want to attend to in the morning. This is admirable port, Mr Warleggan.’
‘Thank you.’ George forbore to say how much it had cost. ‘However, another time I hope you will be able to arrange your business so that you can spend a night or two with us, either at Cardew, where my father lives, or at Trenwith on the north coast.’
‘The old Poldark home . . .’
‘Yes. And Trenwith before that.’
Hawkins took another sip. ‘A long time before, surely. Didn’t the last Trenwith marry a Poldark about a century ago?’
‘I believe so,’ George said shortly.
‘Of course that’s not an unusual progression. The Boscawens married a Joan de Tregothnan and made their home there. The Killigrews married an Arwenack. Let me see, there is a Poldark left, isn’t there?’
‘Geoffrey Charles. Yes. He’s at Harrow.’
‘Francis’s son, yes. Not to mention, of course, Ross Poldark, a few miles to your east. And he also has a son.’
George regarded his guest carefully, to try to fathom whether the name of Ross Poldark had been introduced into the conversation from malice or inadvertence. But Sir Christopher’s face was not an easy one to read.
‘Geoffrey Charles will naturally inherit Trenwith when he is of age,’ said George. ‘Though he’ll have little or no money to maintain it. When my father – if anything happens to my father Elizabeth and I will move to Cardew, which is a much more considerable house and has perhaps something the same aspect as your own, being set among fine trees and looking towards the south coast.’
‘I did not know you knew my house.’
‘I know it by repute.’
‘That must be altered,’ Hawkins said courteously.
‘Thank you.’ George decided that Ross Poldark’s name might have been introduced into the conversation for a third reason and decided to turn it to account. ‘Of course I envy you one thing more than any other, Sir Christopher.’
Hawkins raised his eyebrows. ‘Do you? You surprise me. I thought you had all that a reasonable man could possibly want.’
‘Perhaps a man is not reasonable when he has once possessed something and then lost it.’
‘What? Oh . . .’
George nodded his formidable head. ‘As you know, I was a member of Parliament for more than twelve months.’
The manservant came in again but George waved him out and poured the second glass of port himself. The two men sat in silence beside the littered table, which glinted with silver and glass in the subdued light from the window. Although they were much of an age they were so different, in appearance, in clothes, in expression, in build, that a consideration of age hardly seemed to be relevant. Hawkins plump, shrewd, sophisticated, cynical, greying, looked a gentleman through and through but one who knew all the ways and the wickedness of men. Human nature, you felt, would never surprise him. Beside him George, in spite of everything, looked heavy and a little uncouth. The pale lemon silk neckcloth seemed inappropriate around the strong bull neck. The finely tailored velvet coat did not hide the strong muscles of arm and back. The clean, well-kept hands, though not over-large, had a breadth about them that suggested manual labour. (Not that he had ever done any.) He too wore his own hair, and there was not a trace of grey in it; but the first inch or so grew up vertically from the scalp instead of lying along it.
Hawkins said: ‘You came in at Truro under the wing of Francis Basset, Lord de Dunstanville. When Basset composed his differences with Lord Falmouth you lost the seat narrowly to Poldark. It was natural enough. Finding another seat in a parliament as yet six months old presents difficulties. But, if you are anxious to return, has Basset no suggestions to offer?’
‘Basset has no suggestions to offer.’
‘Has there been some area of disagreement between you?’
‘Sir Christopher, there is little in this county that can remain private. To such a public personage as yourself, with so many avenues of information open to you, it can hardly be a secret that Lord de Dunstanville does not offer me the patronage he did. We are still on civil terms but co-operation, at least on a parliamentary level, has ceased.’
‘May I ask why?’
‘There were – as you say – areas of disagreement. May I ask if you always find yourself in accord with Francis Basset?’
Hawkins smiled thinly. ‘Scarcely ever . . . But if you have lost the patronage of de Dunstanville, and made, I imagine, an enemy, at least for the time being, of Lord Falmouth, your choice is limited.’
‘Not in a county returning forty-four members.’
Sir Christopher stretched his legs. They were dining on the first floor but the sound of carts rattling over the cobbles outside sometimes impeded conversation. ‘As you know, Mr Warleggan, I have three seats myself, but they are all notably occupied.’
‘Yet I’d appreciate
your advice.’
‘Anything I can do I will do.’
‘As you know, Sir Christopher, I am a wealthy man, and I have a fancy to indulge my wealth. Do you know what Lord de Dunstanville is reported to have said at a recent dinner-party at his house?’
‘Reliably?’
‘I have it from a guest who was present. He said: “Mr George Warleggan’s grandfather was a blacksmith who worked a forge in Hayle and hadn’t a shilling to his name. But Mr George Warleggan, by industry and good luck, has acquired a fortune of £200,000.”’
Hawkins eyed his host with a narrow assessing gaze but did not speak. George looked up and met his eyes. ‘The only misinformation in that remark, Sir Christopher, is that my grandfather’s forge was not in Hayle.’
Hawkins nodded. ‘Well, your fortune is a matter for some congratulation, then, isn’t it. Francis Basset must have thought so too. No one even as rich as he is can afford to despise wealth in another.’
‘. . . That’s as maybe.’ George leaned forward to fill the glasses again. ‘But since I have money and wish to use it I would be very much in your debt if you would advise me how I might best re-enter Parliament.’ He paused. ‘Naturally, any favour I might do in return . . .’
Upstairs a child was crying. (Valentine, as if saddled with some incubus at an early age, often had bad dreams.)
‘Had you approached me before the election of last September, Mr Warleggan, your question would not have been a difficult one to answer. The government usually has seats to sell at £3,000 to £4,000.’
‘Then I was member for Truro.’
‘Yes, yes, I understand. But at the moment—’
‘I am not,’ George said, ‘so much concerned to buy a seat as a borough. I don’t wish to be at the beck and call of some other patron. I want to be the patron myself.’
‘That would be much more expensive. And of course it is by no means a straightforward operation. One has the voters to consider.’
‘Oh, the voters . . . Not in some of the boroughs. Which do you control, Sir Christopher?’
‘I have an interest in Grampound and St Michael. Voting powers there are vested in those inhabitants who pay scot and lot.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘Roughly, those who pay a rate towards the maintenance of parish affairs.’
‘And how many such are there in each borough?’
‘Officially it is supposed to be fifty in each borough but in effect it is fewer than that.’
‘And how does the patron influence the voters, if that is not too crude a way to put it?’
‘He owns the properties they occupy,’ said Sir Christopher drily.
‘Ah . . .’
‘But one has to have a care, Mr Warleggan. Where overt bribery is seen to exist elections are frequently declared void on appeal to Parliament, and the offending member or his patron can be sent to prison.’
George turned a couple of guineas in his fob. ‘No doubt you would instruct me in the niceties of such matters. In return, if there should be any way in which I could assist you, either in banking or in furthering such interests as you may have in smelting, mining or shipping, pray let me know. It would give me pleasure if I were able to assist you.’
Hawkins stared at the dark red eye of his port. ‘I’ll inquire for you, Mr Warleggan. Circumstances are always changing – there may be a chance at any time to purchase such controlling interests – or there may not. It is very much a matter of luck, of foresight, of opportunity. But most of all, of money. That will open many doors.’
‘Money I have,’ said George, ‘and will lay it out as you advise.’
Chapter Three
I
The other weary traveller had arrived home. He had dismounted and they had walked home together while dusk accompanied them and then overtook them like a rising tide. The children were just abed and Ross said not to wake them; it would be a surprise for them in the morning. He had been to see them sleeping and had accepted his wife’s assurances that they were in health. Downstairs again and all bustle and pattering feet and the clink of knives and plates while supper was brought in and they ate it together.
Through the meal they talked of the casual homely things: Jinny Scoble had another daughter whom she had called Betty. Jack Cobbledick had hurt his foot on a harrow and was laid up in bed. The two pigs, Ebb and Flow, in the normal progression of nature, had had to be disposed of, but two more, from Flow’s first litter, had taken their place, had been given the same names, and the children were becoming reconciled. Jud Paynter had got so drunk last week that he had fallen into one of his own graves and had had to be hauled out. Ezekiel Scawen had passed his eighty-fourth birthday and claimed not to have had a tooth in his head for sixty years; the Daniels had made him a cake. Tholly Tregirls had had a brush with the preventive men but had got away without being recognized. Verity had written last week and said the measles were very bad in Falmouth—
‘Dwight,’ said Ross, who had been doing most of the eating and little of the talking. ‘Caroline’s baby. What is wrong with it?’
‘Sarah? What d’you mean?’
‘Is that what she’s called? Of course, I remember now, you wrote me. Is she deficient? Mentally, I mean.’
‘No, Ross, no! There is no reason to suppose so! But Caroline had a bad time and the baby was small. She is still small and rather frail. But why did you suppose . . .?’
‘That dangerous donkey in cleric’s clothes, Osborne Whitworth, said as much in the coach from St Austell today. He suggested the child was witless and dribbled from its mouth all day.’
‘All babies dribble, Ross. Like old men. But I don’t think Sarah is worse than any other. It must have been spoken out of malice.’
‘Thank God for that. And the marriage between those two – does it prosper?’
Demelza raised her eyebrows. ‘Should it not?’
‘Well, I have had fears sometimes. They are such total opposites in everything they think and do.’
‘They love each other, Ross.’
‘Yes. One hopes it is a sufficient cement.’
After that Jane Gimlett came in to take away the supper things and they moved into the old parlour, which looked and smelt the same to Ross as it had done since childhood. He noted, however, the re-covered chair, the two new vases, with flowers in them: bluebells, tulips, wallflowers. In those years when Demelza had been growing out of servitude and childhood to become his companion and then his wife, almost the first evidence of the changing relationship had been the appearance of flowers in this room. He remembered with great vividness the day after he had first slept with her Elizabeth had called, and Demelza had come in in the middle of the conversation, barelegged, rough clothed, unkempt, with a sheaf of bluebells on her arm. And she had offered them to Elizabeth, and Elizabeth, probably sensing something, had refused them. She had said they would fade on the way home. And after she had gone Demelza had come to sit at his feet, an instinctive movement as it were to claim him.
Well . . . life had changed a little since then. Demelza had changed since then.
He lit his pipe with some difficulty from the small smouldering fire; drew at the smoke, sat back.
‘You’re thinner,’ he said.
‘I am? Maybe a little.’
‘Are you fretting for Hugh?’
She stared at the fire. ‘No, Ross. But perhaps a little for my husband.’
‘I’m sorry. I should not have said that.’
‘You should have said it if it was in your thoughts.’
‘Then it should not have been in my thoughts.’
‘Perhaps sometimes we can’t help those. But I hope all this time in London you have not been thinking I have been grieving for someone else.’
‘No . . . No.’
‘You don’t sound very certain.’
‘No. What I have thought, ever since last September, is how difficult it is to fight a shade.’
The candlelight flickered
with air from the open window.
‘You don’t need to fight anyone, Ross.’
He looked down at his pipe. ‘Compete with.’
‘Nor compete with. For a time . . . Hugh came into my life! I can’t tell you why – and into my heart, where before there had only ever been you. But it is over. That is all I can say.’
‘Because he is dead?’
‘It is over, Ross.’ She blinked as if removing mental tears. ‘It is over.’
‘Yes . . .’
‘After all . . .’ She got up, dark eyes glinting, and moved to poke the fire.
‘Yes?’
‘It was not a worthy thought.’
‘But say it – as I did.’
‘Is this the difference between a woman and a man, Ross? For after all, all my life with you I have had to fight – not a shade but an ideal – Elizabeth. I – have always had to compete.’
‘Not for a long time now. But perhaps you’re right. What’s sauce for the goose . . .’
‘No, no, no, no, no! D’you b’lieve I allowed myself to feel a heartache for Hugh out of retaliation? You surely could not! What I mean is, because it happened you say you have to compete with some memory. This I have to do and have had to do all my married life. It shouldn’t be allowed to wreck all that we still have.’
His pipe was not drawing properly. He laid it on the mantelshelf and stood up. He seemed to have grown bigger since he had been away.
‘Should it be allowed to wreck what we still have? No. We decided that last September. But this parliamentary frippery in which I am engaged came at a fortunate time. We have been apart, we’ve had time to think, and I believe time to re-order our thoughts, and to some extent our lives.’
She took a breath. ‘And what has been your conclusion?’
‘What has been yours?’
‘No, I made mine last September. There is no difference. There can be no difference – for me.’
‘Well, as for me,’ said Ross. ‘As for me – well, of course I have seen all these beautiful women in London.’
The Angry Tide Page 3
