The Angry Tide

by Winston Graham

  ‘Separation?’ Demelza said. ‘But she is going to have another baby!’

  Caroline shrugged. ‘Something has happened this last week or so, I know not what. They were happy enough at my aunt’s reception: I saw them laughing together.’

  ‘Who did you hear it from?’

  ‘Mrs Tracey called on them on Tuesday and she said Elizabeth was looking very ill, and that the feeling in the house was most unpleasant.’

  ‘Can it be because of Monk Adderley’s death?’

  ‘I would doubt it. I would think it must be something much more personal.’

  In the middle of the soirée a good-looking man of about forty called Harry Winthrop, who was a relative of the Marquis of Bute, came across and was attentive to Demelza. She was almost rude to him. That evening she came to a decision.

  III

  It was two days later that Ross saw George in the passageway leading to St Stephen’s Chapel. He was with another member, but there were few other people about. It was now or never. There couldn’t be a less unsuitable time to discharge his unpleasant duty.

  ‘George!’ he called, and quickened his pace to catch up; and even as he moved he thought: I should have sent it; I should have sent it round.

  George Warleggan turned, and Ross was startled by the look that came on the other’s face when he saw who had addressed him. It was a look of such hatred that it stopped Ross in his tracks. If there were purer venom he had never seen it.

  Had George cared so much, then, for Monk Adderley.

  ‘Pardon me,’ George said to his companion. ‘It seems that I am being solicited in some way. I will join you in a moment.’

  ‘Of course.’ The other man glanced quickly at George’s terrible expression and at Ross’s slinged arm and the scar on his face. Then he moved on.

  ‘Well?’

  Ross said: ‘As you know, I had a meeting with your friend, Captain Adderley. What occurred at it is not for me to say; but before he died he left a message with me through his friend John Craven. It is not a message I gladly pass on, since I have no wish to talk to you on the subject, but the last request of a dead man is something I can’t ignore.’

  ‘Well?’ George seemed to have difficulty in speaking at all.

  ‘He commanded me to give you ten guineas.’ Ross fumbled with his left hand and got the ten pieces out of his fob.

  ‘What – for?’

  ‘I understand he made some wager with you and he lost. I have no idea whether it concerned me, and am not interested to know. I would suppose, since he employed me to do this, that it did. It would fit his sense of the appropriate.’

  Ross extended the money. George looked at it, then he looked at Ross. The glare in his eyes had not changed.

  George put out his hand and Ross gave him the money. George counted it.

  Then he flung the ten coins full in Ross’s face and turned away.

  Perhaps fortunately for all concerned John Bullock, the member for Essex, had just come up to speak to Ross, and he saw the occurrence and was able to grasp him by the arm.

  ‘Steady on, boy, steady on. One quarrel is enough in a session. Let’s not have another just yet.’

  Although nearing seventy, Bullock was a very strong old man, and the grip he had on Ross’s arm did not relax.

  ‘You – saw what happened,’ Ross said, wincing as he moved his bad arm to wipe some spots of blood off his face. ‘You – saw what happened!’

  ‘Yes, indeed I did. And a very sorry waste of good gold it all seemed. If you will permit me I’ll pick some of it up for you.’

  ‘I could . . .’ Ross stopped. He had been going to say ‘call him out for this,’ but he realized what Bullock had instantly perceived. Whatever the provocation, a second duel now would finish Ross.

  Another member had come up and was picking up the gold which had rolled in various directions. Both members offered it to Ross, who was now standing in a dazed fashion staring up the long corridor and dabbing at his face. But he refused to accept the coins.

  ‘The money belongs to Warleggan,’ he said. ‘I cannot take it. Pray give it to him. I could not trust myself near him at this time.’

  ‘I think,’ said Bullock peaceably, ‘it had better go in the Poor Box. I fancy not the task of distributing it to either of you.’

  IV

  Ross said nothing to Demelza when he got home, and when she asked him what had bruised his face he said some apprentices had been fighting as he came through the notorious district of Petty France, and that stones had hit him.

  A quiet evening, each busy with private thoughts, neither wishing to share them. All the splendid intimacy and happiness of the first week of the London stay was as if it had not been.

  As she was getting into bed, Demelza said: ‘Do you feel safe now, Ross?’

  ‘Safe?’

  ‘From the police, I mean. It’s three weeks. If they had been going to charge you, would they not have done so by now?’

  ‘I imagine so.’

  ‘Caroline was saying so today.’

  ‘I’m indebted to her for the reassurance.’

  ‘Ross, you must not be sarcastic with me.’

  ‘I’m sorry. No, I should not.’

  ‘Well, I too was “indebted for the reassurance” which, it seems, comes not just from Caroline but from St Andrew St John, who is a barrister and should know a little as to how the law works. He said he thought the worst risks were over.’

  ‘I’m glad.’

  ‘I’m glad. And your arm is mending?’

  ‘That too.’ He did not at the time notice her special need of reassurance.

  Although they were in bed early Ross slept late. He dreamt horrible dreams of Monk Adderley – that he was a great snake and lay along the floor of the House wriggling and spitting venom. He heard someone screaming, and it was Elizabeth. Then he saw that she and Demelza were going to fight a duel and that he must stand between them to prevent it. And they discharged their shots and showers of coins hit him about the face and head. And then George was saying in a sneering voice: ‘Thirty pieces of silver. Thirty pieces of silver.’

  He woke from heavy sleep when it was full day. The curtains were still drawn but the rattle of the carts and the shouting outside told him it must be late. Demelza was already up, for her place was empty.

  He raised his head and peered at the clock. Ten minutes past nine.

  There was such a row outside that he drew the curtain aside to see what was about. A fight was in progress between two rabbit-sellers and some ragged Irish labourers, who had tried to barter some not very fresh and probably stolen fish for the rabbits. That failing, they had tried to help themselves. A crowd of spectators, pedlars, barrow women, servants, apprentices had formed round the struggting, cursing men. Whatever the outcome, neither the fish nor the rabbits were going to be saleable after.

  Ross pulled the curtain further back and wondered where Demelza was. Then he saw the letter.

  It just said:

  Ross,

  I am going home. Dwight is leaving this morning at seven o’clock from the Crown and Anchor, and I have asked him if I can go with him.

  Ross, I do not feel I can stay in London any longer. Whether it be right or wrong I do not know, but I was the cause of the Duel between you and Monk Adderley. For aught I know it might happen again. And again.

  I should not have come, for I am out of my Depth in London society, and my wish to be friendly and polite to everyone was taken to mean something more. It was even taken by you to mean something more.

  Ross, I am going home – to your home and your farm and your children. When you return I shall be there, and we can see then what is best to be done.

  Love

  Demelza.

  Chapter Nine

  I

  The hackney chairman said: ‘What number did ye say, my Lady?’

  ‘Fourteen,’ said Elizabeth.

  ‘Fourteen. That be down at the other hend o’ the street, my la
dy. ’Ave no doubt. Hi’ll take ye there.’

  They jogged down the uneven pavement, thrusting their way among pedestrians with a ‘By yer leave, sir! By yer leave!’

  Pool Lane was a narrow twisting street making its way tortuously northwards from the Oxford Road and growing ever narrower as it proceeded, until, as they reached No. 14, a green door fresh painted among many that were peeling, Elizabeth almost gave up and told the chairmen to carry her home. Only the memory of the last ten days drove her on.

  Since Geoffrey Charles’s innocent remark George had been insufferable. The terrible thing about the observation was that, although not strictly true – Valentine was a boy who seemed to change his appearance like a chameleon with his moods – once made, it seemed to hang incontrovertibly in the air. It was as if it were a curse rather than a comment. As if the words spoken by Francis’s son had been those of a Poldark recognizing another Poldark. Something out of the grave. Of course this was wholly untrue – and would have been seen as such in a rational situation. But this was not a rational situation and never had been.

  She was even more sick at heart because she saw that under his evil temper George too was sick at heart. Until the moment of Geoffrey Charles’s declaration they had been happier together than ever before. Elizabeth was a woman who blossomed in society: though she had had little enough of it in her life, it was her natural element. Years ago when Francis was still alive and she was living a cloistered and poverty-stricken existence at Trenwith, while Francis gambled away what little money the estate brought in – George had visited her one day and said to her in his deferential voice how much it grieved him to see all her beauty wasted on a few relatives and the empty rooms of a decaying house, when she deserved, and would receive, the acclaim of society if it were ever permitted to see her. He had even ventured to hint that beauty did not last for ever.

  Well, all these years later he had been as good as his word. Once before, when he had been member for Truro, she had been up with him for a short time, and that had been pleasant enough: but then he had been unsure of himself, defensive in society, jealous – or at least envious – of the way in which she moved in it as if it were her rightful place. This time had been different. Not only was he assured of his seat for just as long as he cared to occupy it: he owed it to no one but himself, and owed no one allegiance. Indeed, he brought to the Commons the vote of a second member. About a month ago, against his more cautious judgment, he had told Elizabeth of his plans and of the letter he had written under Mr Robinson’s direction to the First Lord of the Treasury, Mr William Pitt. He had even showed Elizabeth a copy of it, and phrases still echoed in her mind: ‘. . . that I have settled and composed those matters in the county of Cornwall which in my conversations with Mr John Robinson I have explained can be used as a means of supporting Government and your Administration. This I shall now uniformly do, as indeed shall be seen henceforth. And such Interests as I may take up will be those which you will call upon me to Support. I wish therefore before Parliament rises to have the honour of an audience at your earliest Conveniency, that closer arrangements may be made . . .’

  The ‘audience’ had not yet taken place, but Robinson had assured George that it would, and George had told Elizabeth that while the vulgar notion of a direct quid pro quo would not be raised, nevertheless it would be made known to Pitt that a knighthood for Mr Warleggan would perpetuate the allegiance as no other form of favour was likely to do.

  They had both been excited at the thought. To George it would be the accolade both in a literal and in a psychological sense. Once he was Sir George his cup would be full. He might even get a baronetcy in a year or two more, so that the title could be perpetuated. Elizabeth was full of satisfaction at the thought of being Lady Warleggan. Of course her birth assured her more firmly of her position than any mere title. Indeed it had been a tradition in the Chynoweth family – even a proud one – that they had been a line of landowners and distinguished gentlemen for a thousand years with never a title among them. But Elizabeth had been conscious ever since she married George of having lowered herself in the eyes of the county; this would make up.

  So she had been convinced that the title if it came, and the new baby when it came, would cement their marriage as nothing before. And she was still beautiful – especially when her hair was done as it had been done at the party on the night of the opening of Parliament. Time might be shorter for her now than that day when George had spoken to her in the winter parlour of Trenwith; but there was still some left.

  So everything had been pleasant and satisfactory to contemplate, and one woke in the morning with a good day ahead, one lay in bed before rising, making complicated and agreeable plans for the future.

  And in a flash nothing. Nothing was satisfactory, nothing was pleasant any more. A thoughtless exclamation by her own son had poisoned the very well of their lives. They were back to the situation of three years ago when all the suspicion and distrust had festered and burst into a great quarrel between them. They were back only worse, with more to lose and more already lost. Everything they did now, every breath they drew, was contaminated.

  Hence her visit today. One minute she thought herself insane to contemplate it; the next it seemed the only possible way out.

  She had paid the chairmen and, with a veil over her face, was greeted by a thin Jewish boy in black silk coat and breeches. She gave her name – Mrs Tabb – and was ushered in. Three minutes in a waiting-room; then she was shown into the room beyond, and Dr Anselm rose to greet her.

  Franz Anselm, born in the ghettoes of Vienna, had arrived in England in 1770, a penniless young man of twenty-two, bringing with him a few guineas stitched into his shirt, and a case of medicines which was confiscated by the Excise officers at Dover. He walked to London – as he had walked across Europe – and after a year of near-starvation had found employment as a ward assistant in the recently established Westminster Lying-in Hospital. After five years there he had become assistant to a man-midwife called Lazarus, who worked in Cloth Lane, near Golden Square; and when Lazarus unfortunately cut his finger while dissecting a woman who had died of the childbed fever, Anselm came in for the practice. There, with no qualifications, but armed with a tremendous belief in himself, five years of pragmatic observation, an instinct for humanity he had got from his mother, and a copy of William Smellie’s Set of Anatomical Tables, he had established a reputation.

  He had moved to rooms at his present address fifteen years ago, and five years after that had bought the freehold of the house. From the poor women of the city he had made his way to the rich. Although he still had no letters after his name, more and more women came to him, or called him in. They liked him, were impressed by him, often just because he was not as other doctors. He had a new approach, a flexible conscience, an intimate understanding of and tolerance for the ways of the world, and a wide knowledge of Continental medicine. Most valuable of all, still, was his mother’s instinct for sick people.

  At close quarters he looked even more ugly and intimidating than he had done at Mrs Tracey’s reception. His eyes were dewy black sloes peering out from the untrimmed, unkempt hedgerows of immense eyebrows. His upper lip and heavy jowls would not have looked out of place on an ape. The hairs of his head might have been judged too woolly, too artificial, if they had been seen on a doll.

  ‘Mrs – er – Tabb,’ said Dr Anselm in a very gentle, attractive voice that surprised coming from so big a man. ‘Have we met before?’

  ‘No,’ said Elizabeth. ‘I have had you recommended to me.’

  ‘May I ask by whom?’

  ‘I’d prefer – she’d prefer not to say.’

  ‘Very well. How may I be of service to you?’

  Elizabeth licked her lips. She found she couldn’t begin. He waited a few moments and then lifted his eyebrows.

  ‘Perhaps I may get you something to drink, Mrs – er – Tabb. A cordial, some orange juice? I don’t keep spirits.’

  ‘No
. . . thank you. What I have to say, Dr Anselm, is – in the greatest confidence . . . you’ll appreciate . . .’

  ‘My dear madam, many titled people, including two duchesses and two princesses, have done me the favour of giving me their confidence. If I could not keep it I could not keep my practice, nor should I wish to.’

  It was a strange room she was in – too luxuriously furnished for good taste. It was as if Dr Anselm had compensated not only his body for those thin hard years, but his senses also. The carpet was Arabian, of the most brilliant red and yellow, with an intricate geometric design. The curtains were French: heavily worked silk from Lyon. Tapestries covering the walls were French also, with scenes of the Old Testament. The chair in which she sat was of a luxury hardly met with in the furniture of the day. The chandeliers were Venetian. The only evidence of the use to which the room might sometimes be put was a long flat couch with a coverlet of pale yellow silk. She suppressed a shiver and hoped she might not be asked to lie on it.

  ‘I am thirty-five,’ she said abruptly. ‘I married quite young. Then my husband died. I have re-married. Now I am with child.’

  Dr Anselm’s thick lips parted in a gentle smile. ‘So.’

  ‘Let me say at once that it is not illegitimate.’

  ‘Ah, so . . .’

  ‘Also that I do not wish to lose the baby.’

  ‘I’m glad to know that. In any case, Mrs – er – Tabb, if I observe you correctly, you are now – what – five months forward?’

  ‘Six.’

  ‘Good. Good.’ He nodded his head and waited.