The Twisted Sword

  ‘I am glad you will do it that way because—’

  ‘Well, because of Harriet, in the main, who helped me survive. And also – well, look you, we might still go to Cardew sometime. I reckon if George can go in for being a hypocrite, so can I!’

  Coming in towards the quay, they had to row between a couple of rotting hulks long since grounded in the mud. It was half tide and the barnacled ribs stuck up into the warm sunlight, glinting green and black and orange.

  ‘And from now it will be legitimate trading again?’

  ‘Oh yes. No choice anyhow. The war is over. It all just worked in time for us.’

  ‘For us, yes.’

  This time he did notice her shiver. ‘Sorry, sorry, it will be a sore place for a long while.’

  After a minute she said: ‘And Jason?’

  ‘Jason?’

  ‘He will – stay on with you?’

  ‘For sure . . .’ He allowed the slight current to carry them in. ‘D’ye know, it was the greatest moment when I broke into the fish cellar and rescued him. I think then I really came up to his expectations of me as a father! . . . And then to steal away with the Revenant right from under their noses! It was Nelson stuff! D’ye know, I’ve got me quite a reputation, Clowance.’

  ‘Yes?’ She smiled at him.

  ‘Yes. When I took me prize into Bristol – that was a brave moment too! We worked into the harbour no more than five minutes ahead of Revenant, which, as is the custom, was flying the British flag atop the French flag flown upside down. Lord, when we got to the quay there was a crowd cheering! And the crews cheered too, you stake your life, knowing the pickings that were going to be theirs! . . . And though I took me prize to Bristol all those sailors were Cornishmen, from Penryn and Falmouth mainly, and they haven’t been slow to tell folk of the success of the voyage and the way we took out the Frenchman. Why, if I asked for another crew today I should be swamped wi’ volunteers!’

  The dinghy slid slowly in beside the quay. Stephen hooked the painter over a bollard and jumped out to give Clowance a hand.

  ‘We’ll get the house being built again right away. And this time I shall buy meself a good hunter, as good as Nero. We’ll have the stables built first so that they’ll be well housed . . . Then we’ll ride and hunt together on equal terms!’

  ‘Even when the hunt meets at Cardew?’

  ‘Even then. That’s what I said. Another good reason not to fall out with Harriet!’ He laughed infectiously and they began to walk up to their cottage hand in hand.

  Just below them a half-dozen naked urchins were taking it in turns to leap into the harbour, holding their noses as they jumped and squealing with delight when they came to the surface among the floating seaweed and the apple cores and the driftwood.

  ‘And I have a mind too,’ he said, ‘to buy me another ship when the right one comes along at the right price. Three’s the proper number, increases the profit, not too many to look after.’

  ‘Andrew will be back from New York any time now,’ said Clowance. ‘But if this voyage has been a success I do not suppose he will want to leave the Packet Service again.’

  ‘I was not thinking of Andrew,’ Stephen said. ‘I was thinking of Jason.’

  When she looked surprised he added: ‘Oh, I know he is young yet. And he must learn more navigation. I can tell you I’m none too clear on some points meself, but he knows nothing. Yet in a year or two he’ll be ready for his own ship. Nothing so big as Adolphus but maybe the size of the Lady Clowance. There was good men on this trip, dear heart, that I’d not employed before. Carter handled the ship real well and Hodge was a godsend. Hodge I must keep in with. Both of ’em I’ve given special bonuses to. If I buy another vessel one or both of ’em would be ideal to be with Jason on his first voyages, to keep him on course, so to say.’

  At the entrance to their house she paused, took off her straw hat and let the sunlight and the breezes play with her blonde hair. He looked at her appreciatively. Pity about Jeremy, of course, but you couldn’t grieve for ever, and here he was, with a small fortune in the bank – the reward of a daring and dangerous exploit – and with a very peach of a wife who, by her independence and intelligence and refusal to conform to an accepted pattern, intrigued him the more. He wanted her and knew she wanted him. Life was wonderful and he felt wonderful. No one could blame him for that.

  The harbour below them was glimmering, iridescent in the sunshine. Beyond it the bay of the Fal, surrounded by cornfields, looked like a majestic garden. Tall masts swung at anchor; towards Trefusis Point a four-masted full-rigged ship was just shaking out her sails. She fired her signal gun to show she was leaving. Small boats were everywhere. People sat on the wall higher up, gossiping in the summer sun.

  ‘I must go to Flushing first thing tomorrow,’ said Clowance. ‘Mother tells me Uncle Andrew is serious ill.’

  ‘I’ll row you,’ said Stephen, happily conscious that for him all the pressure was off.

  II

  Andrew Blamey senior had had some sort of a heart seizure, with a fast heart-beat and respiratory trouble. He was sixty-seven, and the apothecary took a grave view of the matter. However, a second man, a physician called Mather, recently arrived from Bath, prescribed Dr Withering’s new drug digitalis, with mercury pills, and this produced such a remarkable improvement that when Clowance and Stephen went to see the invalid he was downstairs in his favourite chair by the window watching the movements of shipping through his spyglass.

  Stephen was a rare visitor in this house, but was now much more welcome, its being known that, although he had aided young Andrew to leave the Packet Service and embark on some far from respectable adventures, he had now contrived to help Andrew return to the Service with no apparent loss of seniority. Stephen too was very much on his best behaviour today, deferring to Captain Blamey in seagoing matters and answering modestly when Verity questioned him about his exploits. Looking at her second cousin – whom she always regarded as an aunt – Clowance remembered something her father had once said: ‘Verity was never good-looking but she has the prettiest mouth in Great Britain.’ Clowance had also heard garbled accounts of how her own mother, defying Poldark hostility to the match, had contrived to bring Captain Blamey and Miss Verity together.

  Anyway, it had been a famous match, and it was only a pity that their one child, thoroughly taking and agreeable though he was, could not quite overcome his weakness for gambling and drink.

  Clowance was proud of Stephen today. When he set out to subdue his animal spirits and to attune himself to the people he was visiting it was hard to fault his manners or his behaviour. She was grateful to him. It just showed what success could do.

  III

  Someone of about Blamey’s age on the north coast also happened to be ill at this time, but in spite of having the attention of the best physician in the West Country, he refused wilfully to get better. Old Tholly Tregirls, one-armed reprobate and adventurer, having suffered fiercely from asthma all his life, was now dying of something quite different. Ross had just time to call and see him. Tholly died, as he had lived for the last twenty years, at Sally Chill-Off’s. When Ross called he raised himself from his bed and said: ‘Well, Young Cap’n, I hear tell as you’ve had some ill-luck yourself, eh? Sapling cut off in its prime, eh? Master Jeremy gone. Poor jawb. I reckon ’twas very poor jawb.’

  Ross noticed that so far people in the neighbourhood had not changed their form of address to him. He was still ‘Cap’n Poldark’, or just ‘Cap’n’. That at least was a blessing. But after Tholly had gone there would be no one left to call him ‘Young Cap’n’ to distinguish him from his father.

  ‘’Tis all these ’ere wars,’ said Tholly, rubbing his scarred and wasted face with a dirty hand. ‘Public wars, I call ’em. Reckon you was lucky ever to come safe ’ome from that one in ’Merica. Public wars is no good. Public wars don’t bring no good to no one. Small wars, private wars, they’re different, can profit you upon times.’

 
‘Like privateering,’ said Ross, ‘or ditching a Preventive man.’

  Tholly showed his black and broken teeth in a grimace. ‘That’s correct, Young Cap’n, that correct. You know this surgeon – him we rescued from the prison camp all them years agone; that were a great adventure, that were – you’d think he’d do better for me than ’e ’as – out of gratitude. Gratitude, you’d think. But he don’t put me on me feet. D’ye know after all these years me asthma have gone. Cough too. Couldn’t cough now if I wished for it. Gone these last six weeks or more. But I can’t eat. Can’t seem t’eat. Sally bring up good soup. But it don’t lie.’

  Ross stared round the small untidy room. Tholly followed his glance. ‘I took it off, see? ’Twas irksome.’ He waved the stub of his arm towards where the hook and its sheath and leather straps stood upon an old chest of drawers pointing menacingly towards the blackened rafters. ‘When I’m gone, Young Cap’n, I want you t’ave it, see? Remind you o’ me, see. Maybe missus won’t like it so well, but put it in your own room, somewhere where she don’t go.’

  Ross went to the open window, where the air was sweeter. ‘Thank you, Tholly.’ He could say nothing else.

  Silence fell. Ross thought of Jeremy.

  Tholly said: ‘Reckon I’ll never sell you another ’orse.’

  ‘Oh maybe, maybe. While there’s life.’

  ‘I got a long memory for these parts, Young Cap’n. I were born at St Ann’s. I mind the time afore ever your ’ouse, afore Nampara was ever builded. Used to be a little pond there, I recollect. There was ducks in it, kept by an old man living in Mellin cottages. Sometimes when ’twas dry weather, folks in Carnmore – afore Surgeon Choake’s time – would send their men with their two cows to drink.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Ross. ‘How old are you, Tholly?’

  ‘God knows. Or maybe He’s forgot too. I mind the two brothers at Trenwith, Charles and Joshua, your papa. Charles were always jealous o’ his younger brother. Charles might be comin’ in for the big ’ouse and the property, but Joshua were the good-looking one, all the women was attracted to him; then ’e wed the prettiest girl and he came ’ere to live ’s own carefree life regardless of the county. I remember Joshua building Nampara. Up it went, block by block.’

  ‘What year was that, Tholly?’

  ‘God knows . . . I were about eleven year old. Ten or eleven. Miners builded it mostly, Young Cap’n, them as worked at Wheal Grace and all around. That’s why ’tis crude built – not like Trenwith. Reckon Charles’s great-great-grandfather had proper masons, brought from upcountry. Old Cap’n never cared. I mind he said to me once: “The longer I live, Tholly, but more God-cursed certain sure I am that the Wise Men never came from the East!” Made me laff, that. He just wanted a place of his own, see? Built near the cove, convenient for him to fish or smuggle, overlooking the beach where he could line-fish and bathe and walk and gallop on the sands. ’E began a line you’ve kept up, Young Cap’n. Master Jeremy should’ve stayed home, kept his house. But he didn’t, did ’e. More’s the pity . . . Well, mebbe the little tacker will – what’s his name? – Henry – ’twill be a pity if the house don’t go on, if it all fall to ruin. Old Cap’n started something you shouldn’t neglect. Why, who’d be a king in London if he could be a squire in Cornwall?’

  It was late afternoon and Ross could see a few people, mainly ragged village folk making their way towards the inn. Sally was a big-bosomed, generous, now elderly woman who had earned her nickname by being willing to let her customers have a little something on credit. ‘Just to take the chill off.’ They paid her back when they could, most often after a successful ‘run’. Tholly had scraped a living as a horse coper and general picker-up of unconsidered trifles and had lived with Sally Tregothnan – some said sponged on her – ever since he returned from the sea. It seemed, if Dwight were correct, that his tenure was coming to an end.

  Tholly coughed, but compared to the old days it was a mere genteel clearing of the throat. ‘I mind them old times well,’ he said. ‘Mebbe I remember your mother better than what you do, Young Cap’n. How old was you when she went around land? Nine? Ten? . . . She didn’t take to me, thought I were a bad influence. That’s a laff. Whoever thought of influencing the Old Cap’n? He went his way . . . Mind, he took heed of she. Good-looking wench. Handsome handsome long black hair. Upon times I seen her brushing it when I weren’t supposed to. She ’ad a fine temper. It’d flash out like a sword out of a sheath, silver and sharp and glistening – cut anyone down. O’ course it was agin his nature.’

  ‘What was?’

  ‘Being like ’e was when he was wed to she. It never come natural to him to toe the line. It was always ’is way to break the laws, break the rules, break the standards, see. And ’e carried it off in such a style – laughing and joking and devil take it – few folk cared. He was some caution, was Old Cap’n. Yet for twelve year – twelve year, mark ee, I never seen ’im chase another woman. Course he did other things – running goods, sailing ’ere and there on this and that, wrecking if the chance came his way, feuding with landlords and gaugers. But for twelve year she kept ’im faithful.’

  ‘Maybe he wanted to be.’

  ‘Oh, stand on that, ’e wanted to be, else ’e wouldn’t ’ve been! My grandfather’s ghost! Not Joshua Poldark. But when she died, ’e went back to ’is old games. Chasing women – it came natural to him. Great man was old Joshua. ’Ard as nails. But a great man, Young Cap’n. He started a line at Nampara that mustn’t die out.’

  IV

  Two days later Tholly died. Although having a pretty good idea of the cause of death, Dwight still wanted to make sure. Tholly’s only son, Lobb, the ailing, ruptured, anaemic father of five, had died last year, so Tholly’s closest blood relative was his daughter, Emma Hartnell, who kept The Bounders’ Arms between Sawle Church and Fernmore. Thither Dwight went to express condolences and to ask hesitantly whether he might be allowed to open the body. Cornish folk, with religious leanings and a belief in The Last Trump, generally had the strongest objection to having any relative of theirs interfered with after death by the surgeons. It came too close to the idea of the Body Snatchers. But Dwight need not have been hesitant this time. ‘You can have his head off for all I care,’ was the reply. Emma, though a nice woman and a kind one, had never forgiven her father for having deserted them when they were young and left them to the Poor House.

  So Dwight opened up the corpse and took out the cancerous tumour and carried it home in a jar, where he could dissect it and examine its structure under a slide in his microscope. It was that part of the profession of medicine which Caroline most detested, but she had been unable to cure him of it.

  He was reaching some interesting conclusions on the nature of malignancy when to his annoyance Bone tapped on the door and said Music Thomas was here with the request that he should go urgently to Place House where his mistress, Mrs Valentine Warleggan, had met with a serious accident.

  While Mr Pope was alive Dwight had been called not infrequently to emergencies in which the old man played the leading role, but since the young Warleggans came to live here there had been no such alarms. He went out to find Music standing on one foot and then on the other and looking anxious. Being an outdoor servant, he had no knowledge of the emergency except that he’d been told Mrs Warleggan had fallen and cut herself.

  Since this might be a matter of life and death, Dwight grabbed up his case and swung into the saddle of the horse that had brought Music and galloped off, leaving Music to return as best he could.

  He was met by Katie, who, more incoherent than usual, led him upstairs to that bedroom he knew so well, where Valentine was sitting beside Selina, who lay palely in bed, improvised bandages wrapped round both wrists.

  ‘Ecod, it was in the bathroom,’ said Valentine stiffly. ‘I found her there. She has lost a lot of blood.’

  Selina was fainting, but when Dwight touched her arm she opened her Siamese-blue eyes and looked her recognition – then she closed th
em again.

  Her wrists had been thinly cut, just where the veins were most prominent, and blood still welled from the wounds.

  Dwight sent for warm water, bathed the cuts, put a healing salve on – at which she winced – and gently bandaged both wrists, then gave her a light draught of Theban opium.

  ‘I don’t think it is very serious,’ he said reassuringly to Valentine, and to Selina who had sufficiently come round to swallow the draught. ‘Have you hurt yourself in any other way?’

  She moved her lips sufficiently to say, ‘No.’

  ‘Did she fall?’ Dwight asked Valentine, though he had a fairly good idea of the truth.

  ‘No idea,’ said Valentine. ‘Damn me, she must have. The maid found her – Katie found her.’

  Dwight stayed for another ten minutes talking to Valentine and watching his client; then he rose to leave.

  ‘I’ll come down with you,’ said Valentine. ‘Martha will sit with her.’

  They went in to the summer parlour – which also had hardly changed since the tenure of the old man – and drank a glass of canary together. Dwight was anxious to get back to his microscope but he could not leave yet. As Valentine continued a casual conversation about Cambridge he was forced to broach the subject himself.