Bella Poldark

by Winston Graham

  ‘So you might, for we could give you no notice and alas we hear you are leaving tomorrow. And my darling Bella! What joy!’

  Presently the young man was introduced. He was Maurice Valéry, whose home was in Lyons, but who was at present living in Paris.

  ‘How did you know?’ Demelza asked.

  ‘I saw Christopher this morning in a coffee house. He said you were here on a fleeting visit, and if I wanted to see you I must make haste.’

  ‘Yes, we leave at seven. It will take at least two and a half days before we are home. Ross will be some sorry not to have seen you.’

  ‘He is – well? You are well? I heard of course of your great loss. And of course I wrote. My darling, you have suffered much. War is vile and terrible. Your loss is – still raw and fresh. Peace has come at last and the usurper is locked away. Far away, where I pray he may do no more harm . . .’

  Maurice Valéry was looking about the room, appreciating its elegance.

  ‘Are you a Bonapartist, young man?’ Mrs Pelham asked abruptly.

  He smiled and shook his head.

  ‘There is still much Republicanism in France,’ said Jodie, ‘but very few want Bonaparte back. This time the Bourbons seem to be securely in place, and it may be that the forces of occupation may be persuaded to leave France before 1820, as it was agreed in the treaty. That can only help us the more.’ She leaned forward towards Mrs Pelham. ‘Did you know, Madame, how Lady Poldark helped in my escape from Paris? And little Bella – not so little, ma petite, not even then – risked her life by diverting attention from the man Sieur Menieres who was escaping with us.’

  ‘For me it was just a prank,’ said Bella, blushing. It was not like her to blush, and Demelza wondered if the presence of the handsome young Frenchman had brought on this unusual display of modesty.

  ‘Perhaps you will stay and sup with us, Madame de la Blache?’ said Mrs Pelham. ‘Christopher Havergal will be here. And also my niece, Mrs Enys, whom I would like you to meet.’

  Jodie glanced at the young man, who smiled in acquiescence.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘We shall be enchanted.’

  Ross said: ‘So you decided it was right for her to go?’

  ‘I wish you had been there.’

  ‘I did not want to – overload the delegation, so to say. You are her mother, with perhaps the greatest interest of us all in keeping her home. Caroline has a wise and sophisticated head. If you have decided, I am not in a position to criticize it. And Havergal’s recommendation was the one you finally chose?’

  ‘When we got there, after we had been there two days, it seemed I was on a slope. You know I do not really like London – I am a little afraid of it – but it was at its best this time. And things seemed to move in only one direction once we were there. Mrs Pelham was that warm and welcoming, and she took the greatest of a fancy to Bella – and Bella to her . . .’ Demelza sighed. ‘But the most important part is that there don’t – doesn’t seem any doubt that all three teachers think highly of Bella’s voice. Dr Fredericks said it was one of the best he had heard for years. Mr Reumann said he would be happy to have her, and so did Madame Schneider. I thought much of Madame Schneider, for she was a tip-top singer herself. But we chose Dr Fredericks because twas the nearest to a normal school, and he is very – what is the word? – dedicated. She will get full tuition there, and it is much nearer Mrs Pelham’s house.’

  They were lying in bed and talking by the light of a single candle. A half gale was booming, and the windows rattled as usual at each particular gust. A wearisome ride back from Truro, where Matthew Mark Martin had been waiting for them. The end of a long day in a jolting coach. It was nine when they reached Nampara, and they had supped lightly – Bella passing on the glowing news to her father between bites at a rabbit pie – and then she had shot off with Farquahar at her heels, no doubt taken him to bed to tell him the story all over again.

  Demelza said: ‘This business of Mrs Pelham wanting Bella to live with her. It was some nice of her, for I could see she really truly meant it and it made all the difference to my feelings. It made all the difference, Ross. She will be in a home not in a cheap rooming house, and Mrs Pelham even says she will send one of her footmen to take her and fetch her each day. It is such a lovely house.’

  ‘I remember,’ said Ross. ‘And of course coming from such a house gives her an added importance in the scheme of things. One side of us may deplore that, but it is a fact.’

  ‘And also,’ said Demelza, ‘being the daughter of a baronet.’

  ‘Faugh! I suppose so.’

  She stretched. ‘Oh, I’m glad to be home. That coach jolted and lurched so much.’

  He put his hand in hers. ‘No more now, then. Go to sleep.’

  ‘Just a little more, Ross. Who do you think came to sup with us the night before we left? You will never guess. Jodie de la Blache!’

  ‘My God. How is she? And what is she doing in London?’

  ‘She said just a holiday. Of course she has many friends in England. But you never know with Jodie, do you?’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘What is the word she used so often about herself? Une espionne. She was so long a conspirator that now you have to wonder . . .’

  ‘Happily there is little to conspire about now the wars are over.’

  ‘She had a young man with her. Much younger than she was. I do not think . . . But he was handsome and he said he played the fiddle in an orchestra in Paris.’

  ‘It seems we cannot get away from music.’

  ‘Do you want to?’

  ‘I like the sort of music you play.’

  Her hand closed on his. ‘That is not music proper. That is tunes. Anyway I have invited Jodie to come and stay with us.’

  ‘The Devil you have.’

  ‘The Devil I have. Oh, not now. They are off back to Paris on Monday. But sometime. If she is over again.’

  ‘I hope you told her we did not have a house like Trelissick, where she stayed years ago.’

  ‘I told her we lived in a farmhouse which had had some improvements.’

  He yawned. ‘Shall I douse the candle?’

  ‘Please.’

  He did so, and there was silence between them, though there was no silence in the room. Hail struck the windows like fistfuls of gravel hurled by a petulant child.

  ‘It is growing worse. You were just home in time.’

  ‘Have you finished the Long Field?’

  ‘Yesterday. We ended by moonlight. The sea was so heavy we knew bad weather was on the way.’

  ‘So all is safely gathered in.’

  ‘You are. That is rather important, you know. As for the seed, some of it will be washed or blown away . . . Even Sam and Rosina called.’

  ‘That is uncommon good of them. Was they both well?’

  ‘I think so. They stayed to help but, I imagine, Brother Sam thought you would be home yesterday. He asked me if we had come to any decision about Isabella-Rose.’

  ‘He – being of his persuasion – will think we are casting our daughter to the Beast by considering she might go on the stage.’

  ‘Not sure I don’t think that myself.’

  ‘Oh, Ross.’

  ‘I swear the jest be laughable.’

  After a minute Demelza said: ‘Well, there is still time to withdraw.’

  ‘That time is not yet. We must play fair with Bella.’

  ‘I am glad you feel that.’

  They had a house party for Christmas at Cardew, but it was of Harriet’s arranging, not George’s, so he suffered it but did not too actively participate. Parties that he arranged were not undertaken solely for the pleasure of laying out large sums of money to give his friends entertainment; they always in some greater or lesser degree had a purpose, an end, a reason, in view. If the guests he invited did not actually give anything in return, they contributed to his plans: either to impress an important guest with the extent of his own possessions, or because his
guest’s profession or business was interesting to George, or because the guest was a large investor in Warleggan’s Bank or might be persuaded to become one. People like Sir Christopher Hawkins of Trewithen, who had put the pieces together to enable him to buy the rotten parliamentary borough of St Michael, were always welcome, as were a few other such scattered about the county.

  Harriet, on the other hand, had a disappointing habit of having people to stay for whom, without regard to their standing, she had developed a sudden liking – like this young fellow Prideaux who always seemed to be staying, or if not staying, visiting, or if not visiting, appearing and disappearing at unexpected moments. Of course he seemed a decent enough fellow, and well connected in the county, and there was no personal reason to object to him; but one wished for and had expected something different. Her brother, the sixth Duke of Leeds, for instance, had never yet been down, and when they were staying in London he always seemed to be abroad. Harriet, with a lazy chuckle, said she had never got on too well with George William; they were too much alike, she supposed, and rubbed each other up the wrong way. Besides, his wife was ineffably tedious and never hunted.

  ‘Nor do I,’ said George.

  ‘Oh, come. I sometimes see you bringing up the rear.’

  ‘It is a matter of courtesy, as my wife always leads the field.’

  ‘You stand my teasing better than you used to, George. Anyway, George William is not at his best on a horse. Dear God, why are there so many Georges in the world?’

  ‘Another George has recently been added to it.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Valentine has christened his new brat George.’

  ‘No! . . . How do you know? Has—’

  ‘I heard before Christmas, but there has been such a to-ing and fro-ing, and looking to my own extensive affairs and observing the haunches of your horse as you ride away . . . And then this party . . .’

  Harriet took a small gold watch from her jacket pocket. ‘Ursula should be home soon.’

  ‘They said six. It wants fifteen minutes.’

  ‘Did you see Valentine?’

  George hesitated. ‘Yes. He came to the Bank.’

  ‘Has he changed?’

  ‘As usual very self-possessed. No hint of apology for the way he behaved.’

  ‘As you know, my dear, I have always had a feeling that we reacted too ferociously at the time.’

  ‘You mean I did.’

  ‘Yes, if you put it that way. Valentine, whether we like it or not, is a young man of spirit. You arranged a marriage for him. He clearly did not fancy Miss Trevanion as much as you supposed. It upset your plans. But did you ever think you may have driven him into Mrs Pope’s arms?’

  ‘What on earth d’you mean?’

  ‘He was about twenty at the time, wasn’t he? You are rather an intimidating man for Valentine to tell to his face that he won’t fall in with your plans. You might even have over-drove him, over-drove him trying to marry him to Cuby. His one security was to do what he did do – seek the protection of the law by marrying someone else – in this case Selina Pope. Once he had done that you were powerless.’

  ‘And does it please you to reflect that Valentine rendered me – powerless in this way?’

  ‘Oh, la, George, do not put it into such dramatic terms. I am merely suggesting to you that the unfortunate event should not be looked on as the end of the world.’

  He stirred restlessly. ‘So you think it is some small matter that had best be ignored and ordinary relations between us should be resumed.’

  ‘My dear, he’s your son, not mine. Do whatever you have the fancy to. I rest easy in this either way.’

  George picked irritably at a few bristles under his chin which Hingston had missed when shaving him that morning. Feller was getting careless: it was the second time this month.

  ‘And the insufferable insults he paid me during the last quarrel, when I turned him out of the house?’

  ‘I was not privy to them. But most insults, I believe, go curled and yellow at the edges after a number of years.’

  George eyed his distinguished but irritating wife. Still only thirty-nine, she had lost few of her looks, her skin still very good, her hair still shiny and raven-black. (No white hairs.) If she would only take more care for her dress during the hunting season. Striding about like a man, dropping mud on the carpets, smelling of dogs.

  He had never mentioned or even hinted to her of the jealous thoughts that had constantly poisoned his first marriage, and the vile doubts as to whether Valentine was his true son. It had all turned upon whether Valentine had been an eight-month child; and when Elizabeth lay dying after giving birth to an eight-month daughter he had sworn to himself that never, never again (even though so far as Elizabeth was concerned it was too late) would he doubt that Valentine was his son. And so it had been. The doubts were gone – or had been locked like poisonous snakes in some dark cellar of the subconscious – and he had come to regard Valentine as truly his. He had planned everything, disregarding Valentine’s looks, his sarcasms, his casual misdeeds, and arranging a fine marriage to a fine young woman of aristocratic but moneyless family, a fine castle – the most beautiful in Cornwall – all, all, all would have been Valentine’s, Valentine Warleggan of Caerhays – and the young puppy had thrown it all back in his face, with insolence, abuse and – one suspected – naked dislike. It was the expression on Valentine’s face more than his words which remained most vividly in George’s memory.

  Then, only then, had that dark cellar been opened an inch or two and some of the malodorous suspicions resurfaced. Valentine was very unlike Elizabeth or himself. Not that he was particularly like Ross Poldark, except for his height and colouring. But, although George did not remember him, one or two ill-intentioned people had whispered that he was like Joshua, Ross’s infamous father.

  There was therefore this other enormous obstacle, of which Harriet knew nothing, to any sort of reconciliation. And Valentine’s manner when he came to the Bank was anything but contrite. He had lounged in a chair, his long, elegant bent leg over the arm, casually asking George’s permission to name this so-called grandson after him. The strangest move on Valentine’s part. Inexplicable except as a move towards a reconciliation. But to what end? There seemed to George to be only one answer: money.

  He said: ‘I shall take no notice of his visit. If he expects to be invited here with his wife and son he will be much mistaken.’

  ‘I have never once seen him in Falmouth or Truro,’ Harriet said. ‘He has become very much of a north-coast man. I wonder how his marriage is making out.’

  ‘His marriage? Why?’

  ‘Well, I would think him far too free with his favours to be content to bestow them on only one woman.’

  George eyed her suspiciously. ‘Has he – did he ever . . .’

  She laughed. ‘Make approaches to me? Think again. But a woman does not need to be seduced by a man to know how he feels about women in general.’

  George was about to say more, but was prevented by the arrival of Ursula, his daughter by Elizabeth. She had been spending Christmas with the Rashleighs of Luxulyan. George had willingly sanctioned this, as he knew Sir Colman Rashleigh was an important man in the county.

  Ursula was now just nineteen. She was still stoutly built with thick legs and a noticeable bust. But because of the alchemy which begins to work on girls of this age she was less dumpy, less unattractive than she had been earlier. Her skin was good and mercifully unmarked by pox, her grey eyes, though frequently masked by sullen lids, very sharp when seen. Her straight flaxen hair was curled and dressed.

  Not a vivacious girl, and when asked how she had enjoyed Christmas her appreciation was expressed in short sentences and simple monosyllables. George had early taken her away from Mrs Hemple’s School in Truro – partly because Isabella-Rose Poldark had arrived – and sent her to Madame Blick’s Finishing School for Young Ladies at Penzance. He was now about to move her on somewhere else – Ex
eter or London – where she could be taught the niceties of society life and behaviour. But he hadn’t decided where. In truth, he was a little baffled by her attitude. Was no child of his ever going to conform to expectations? She was only mildly interested in clothes; (Harriet, when she could find the time, would give advice to her dressmaker). She was only mildly interested in boys. She was only mildly interested in horses and foxes and the countryside. What she was interested in was metals and mines: tin stamps, copper smelting; the side products of Cornish mining such as gold, silver, zinc, iron, lead. George sometimes blamed himself for ever buying her that clever reconstruction of a Cornish mine, built by an out-of-work and crippled miner, which she had played with endlessly as a child. True it was not an inappropriate or unwelcome hobby for one living in the centre of the Cornish mining areas, but not quite the thing for a woman, a young girl of quality.

  ‘Oh,’ said Ursula at supper that evening. ‘Erica Rashleigh knows Bella Poldark.’

  We all live too close together, George thought between his mental teeth, Cornwall is just a big village.

  ‘Indeed,’ he said discouragingly.

  ‘I hardly knew her,’ said Ursula; ‘she was among the juniors. I know you don’t like them, but she seemed to have sufficient agreeableness. They say she sings.’

  ‘Walter, you may bring the port.’

  ‘Very good, sur.’

  ‘Bring the ’87,’ said Harriet. ‘Last night’s was over the top.’

  ‘Very good, m’lady.’

  ‘I thought it was well enough,’ said George snappily, after the butler had gone.

  ‘Uh-huh,’ said Harriet. ‘Did they give you port at the Rashleighs, Ursula?’

  ‘No, Mama. Erica is only eighteen, and not treated yet as if she were quite grown up.’

  ‘Well, taste this tonight. I’m sure your father will not mind.’

  ‘Bella Poldark,’ said Ursula, ‘is going to London to school.’

  Harriet raised her eyebrows. ‘Who told you that?’

  ‘Erica.’

  ‘Where is she going?’ asked George after a moment.