They went down to the second floor. Here for a few minutes they watched in silence while the sword-coloured piston rod slid up and down, steam rising round it as it moved. Grunt, pause, breath; grunt, pause, breath; so for eighteen months it had been working, working all the time except for the occasional regular halts, and except for the stoppage last week. It had been well designed, and he had designed it, with some outside advice. This at least was something to be proud of. Thirty tons of rods to lift; then down, down, pushing the water so that it was forced up to the tanks to gush away down the surface adit. There were beads of sweat on the piston, like those on the brow of a working man.
He, Jeremy, had made this. He and the engineers and craftsmen working under him. He still felt as if he had created something alive, out of iron and brick and water and fire. Something of great power, of sentience, of mood and temperament, of character. He was leaving this behind.
He said: ‘I expect the war to be over within the year. Napoleon is tottering. Once he has gone I don’t believe the Americans will be unwilling to make peace. I should be back within two years – perhaps less than that. When I do come back, there are all sorts of improvements I would like to try. There is a roll-crusher I have seen written of. And there is a mechanical buddle for processing slimes. These and other things. And I’d like to make some experiments into why iron castings containing gunmetal inserts sometimes collapse. Is it because they have been in contact with impure water? There is much to do here . . . But, I suppose, for the moment there is much to do elsewhere. Peace of mind. Is that what I seek? Peace of mind? In war? It is an odd question.’
They went down to the ground floor where the grey-haired, balding Peter Curnow had the fire door open and was shovelling in coal. They watched in silence, as the ashes fell glowing and the new coal sent clouds of grey smoke up the chimney. Presently the door clanged shut and Peter picked up his oil can and began to drip oil on the levers which automatically opened and shut the valves. He grinned as he went up the stairs.
‘Just going put a drop on the gudgeon pins. You don’t want me, do ee?’
‘No, Peter. Thank you.’
A great grey striped cat raised his head and looked at them from his chair, eyes narrowing to slits as if the light had become suddenly brighter; then turned luxuriously and tucked his head under his paws. Vlow, as he was called after an extinct mine further along the beach. Cats always appeared out of nowhere to adopt or be adopted by a working mine. They knew a warm place.
‘It’s passing odd,’ said Jeremy, ‘that when you and I first prospected this old mine and I persuaded my father and Mr Treneglos to put up the money, though we all knew about Trevorgie and the possibility of linking up with her, I never really believed we should – or if we did that the old ground would be much worth the working. But it’s Trevorgie now that is keeping us going and showing a profit. If you had not made that discovery that day the whole mine would have been shut down six months ago.’
‘I suppose. Though we might’ve gone deeper and found something. The beauty o’ the Trevorgie workings is that they’re more or less shallow and don’t impose extra strain on your engine.’
‘The beauty also of going into old tin workings and finding copper. D’you still get complaints?’
‘What about?’
‘It being haunted.’
‘Yes. A dozen or more ’ve given up their better pitches and gone into the newer work. But there’s enough’ll brave the knockers for the sake of profit.’
‘What do they complain of – Roman soldiers?’
‘Just noises. Tis a superstition. Knockers are supposed to be three feet tall with legs like sticks and big ugly heads and hook noses; but no one never sees ’em. They just ’ear ’em on the other side of the wall.’
Jeremy put a finger under Vlow’s chin and tickled him. The cat grunted and buried his chin deeper.
‘What do they fear – is it supposed to predict a fall of rock?’
‘Gracious knows. Bad luck, I reckon.’
‘What’s our profit likely to be next quarter?’
‘Zacky’ll know for sure, but eight or nine hundred, maybe. You know that black tin we sold from the east workings of the 40 fathom level? When twas put into the burning house a great part of what was thought to be tin turned out to be iron. So twas only half a ton ’stead of a ton.’
‘Well . . . not riches yet, but a fair return on capital.’
‘Your share’ll pay for your uniform no doubt,’ said Ben with a hint of bitterness.
‘Ben . . .’
‘Yes?’
‘You cannot suppose I leave you with a light heart. It has been – a hard decision for me to come by. For more than a year now . . . Oh, except for my cowardice I would have been away at the beginning of this year instead of the end of it. It leaves us, as you say, thin on the ground for men . . .’
‘Men who take responsibility,’ said Ben. ‘Men who make decisions. There’s plenty of others around.’
‘My father expects to be back from Westminster in a few weeks. Because of my not being here he will be home well before Christmas.’
‘Does he like you going?’
‘Like? That is not the word. At least he has not stood in the way. We had a family council – with Geoffrey Charles before he left. It was not an easy meeting, but in the end we all agreed.’
Ben stirred the coal dust with his foot. ‘Have you seen Zacky yet?’
‘No, I shall call in there now. Good that he’s better.’
‘Yes . . . he’s better. But he’s old, Jeremy. My grandfather, ye know.’
Peter Curnow trotted down again, can in hand; put it on the shelf, rubbed his hands on a rag. ‘She’s going proper now, Mr Jeremy.’
They talked mining for a while. All these good-byes, Jeremy thought; it would be better when they were over and he was at last away. Last night he had seen Paul Kellow . . .
Paul had said: ‘How much have you taken?’
‘Four hundred. That’s for my uniform etc.’
‘Stephen’s had all of his.’
‘And you?’
‘Some left. But I’ve had most of it from the cave.’
‘Why?’
‘It feels safer. Why don’t you take more?’
‘Some day. When next I’m back.’
Paul sipped his beer.
‘What I have will about see us through next year. That’s if I can continue to deceive my father as to how it is come by.’
Jeremy did not suppose Mr Kellow would bother to enquire too closely so long as the supply did not dry up. But he did not say so. Paul, apart from buying a few extravagant items of clothing, had behaved far the best of any of them by putting most of his ill-gotten gains towards the preservation of his family. Being the sort of young man he was, fond of display, it must have needed considerable restraint not to break out in some more obvious manner himself. Or fear . . .
Paul said: ‘And it was hard come by, by God! All the time in that coach I felt as if the rope was tightening around my neck. I dream still at night sometimes of the back of the coach broken open and the two strong boxes on the seats for any to see if the coach stopped, and none of us able to break into the cursed things! I wake up in a fever, sweat pouring off me as if I were taken with the ague! Then I am afraid to fall asleep again lest the nightmare shall re-start.’
‘No doubt,’ said Jeremy.
‘I asked Stephen once if thoughts of it ever disturbed his sleep. He said, no, and he never dreamed, he said. Yet at the time I’ll swear he was just as worked upon, as anxious, yes, and as scared as we were! I recall him cursing and swearing with that crowbar, and his face all running with sweat.’
‘I recall it all,’ said Jeremy.
They finished their beer.
Paul said: ‘The success of the coaching business depends on the ending of the war. With luck we can survive another year. Then we are expecting an expansion of travel. Sooner or later it is bound to come. People scarcely stir i
n Cornwall from one place to the next unless driven by some dire necessity . . . Are you going to say good-bye to Daisy?’
‘I think so. Later tomorrow.’ Which was now today . . .
(Early this morning, just before daybreak he had been out to Kellow’s Ladder and had taken the money he needed. It was all in his purse now, some of it paper, some of it clinking; in a purse about his waist where it must never leave him . . .)
After parting from Ben Carter, Jeremy went to take leave of Zacky Martin, who was the official purser to both mines but who now was mainly confined to his chair; and there were few easeful breaths he took in a day; then on to a few of his many other friends in and around Mellin and Grambler.
These preparations to go did not so much matter; it was leaving early tomorrow morning that was going to be emotionally charged. His mother, he knew, would be full up, but was unlikely to give way. Isabella-Rose, of course, looked on it all as a prime lark, only envious that she could not go with him, comically bitter that she could never be a soldier. Clowance he was not so sure of. She might unexpectedly burst into tears, and the awful, humiliating thing was that when they had been children he had never been able to keep his eyes dry if she once started crying. It had happened once when he was eighteen and she fifteen. It had been humiliating enough then. Tomorrow morning if it happened it would be quite intolerable. A soldier going to the wars in tears. Somehow he must get at Clowance tonight to warn her, even threaten her, that nothing must be emotional in the morning.
He had not written to Cuby since the party. There was no point. Let her find out in whatever way she would. At least he hoped to be far away at the time of her wedding. There was no risk of his being able to accept an invitation to attend.
Now that the time had come for him to leave, he welcomed it. Or a part of his complex nature welcomed it. All his life, he told himself, he had had it soft. All his life, except for the self-imposed dangers of the coach robbery, he had been cosseted and protected, a privileged member of the Poldark clan, of a Cornish county family, his only revolt against parental discipline being a daring decision to learn the principles of high pressure steam without their knowledge or consent. If he had slept rough or lived rough or gone hungry it had been with the sure knowledge of the open door of comfort awaiting his return. Well, now he was going out into the real world of hardship, privation and adventure. There were to be no easy escapes any more. Life – real life – was on his doorstep. So was death. His childhood and his youth were over. Now he was to come of age.
III
In the week that Jeremy left Sir George Warleggan sent his lawyer, Hector Trembath, to call on another lawyer, Mr Arthur Williams Rose, who lived and practised in Liskeard. Always a man to proceed with circumspection – and careful never to allow any one of his employees to see the whole of his mind – George had engaged two of his other clerkly servants to make the preliminary inquiries on another front. These had been slow in coming in. Now they were complete. Of the seven young men playing Faro with Harriet on the significant date, two had satisfactory alibis for Monday the 25th January. Of the remaining five, it seemed improbable that Andrew Blamey should have been involved. His packet ship was indeed in Falmouth on the 25th but had left on the dawn tide of Tuesday. This made his physical presence possible on the coach, but the Countess of Leicester had only arrived on the Saturday afternoon, and it seemed unlikely that young Blamey could ever have got to Plymouth and played his part as Lieutenant Morgan Lean in an enterprise that must have needed careful planning in advance of the robbery. Still, George was reluctant to strike him off altogether, for it would be so gratifying to accuse a Poldark.
In January Stephen Carrington had been in employment as an assistant to Wilf Jonas, the miller, of Bargus Crosslanes, not very far from Nampara, and had still been more or less officially living at an old Tudor cottage called the Gatehouse on the edge of Poldark land. But inquiries showed that Carrington had taken a day off from the mill whenever he fancied. Jonas, even when offered money for the information, had said gruffly he had no idea and no record of Carrington’s attendances in January. All that was known was that three weeks afterwards Carrington had left for his home town, Bristol, and had not returned until July, when he had spoken of an inheritance and spent money freely.
Anthony Trefusis had been living at home at Trefusis with his parents and elder brother at the time, but his appearances and his departures were always so erratic that he could well have absented himself for a couple of days and scarcely any remark made on it. Nothing could be obtained from the servants. But the week following he had been to the races at Newton Abbot, and apparently had been lucky. Although not paying all his debts, he had seemed more flush than usual.
George Trevethan, whose father ran a gunpowder mill in Penryn, was seldom short of money, and therefore not a likely suspect. But he had been away visiting friends in Exeter in late January, so he could not be altogether excluded. The remaining suspect was Michael Smith who came of a wealthy but drunken family near Kea. A witty young man, with a fine voice when sober, he readily volunteered, when asked, that he had been indoors for the last two weeks in January with a severe attack of influenza. Too readily volunteered? But there seemed no later special access of affluence to make him a prime suspect.
George, of course, never lost sight of the fact that this at present was all supposition, that the note might have passed through half a dozen hands before coming to light in Harriet’s winnings. That was why he sent Mr Trembath to see Mr Rose.
He had been, Mr Trembath reported in his effeminate, high-pitched voice, to call on Mr Rose at his office in Liskeard, but Mr Rose was confined to his room with an attack of gout, and only consented to see him after some insistence and after mentioning his client’s name.
Mr Rose, Mr Trembath explained, was a very stout elderly man who distinctly reminded him of drawings he had seen of Dr Samuel Johnson; with a high colour and thick white hair, all his own—
‘Yes, yes,’ said George testily. ‘What was the outcome?’ Hector Trembath, although a good and serviceable friend in law, was not George’s ideal of a grave and laconic solicitor. He always wished to embroider his conversation with inessentials.
‘The outcome, Sir George? Why, very different from when we put the questions to the coachmen, Marshall and Stevens. Mr Rose says he remembers his fellow passengers perfectly. He says that the lady wore a veil the whole time and he would be in some difficulty in recognizing her instantly again. He says he did notice that she had a small mole on her chin and that she was left handed; but little more. However, as to the clergyman and the naval lieutenant, he declares he would know them anywhere.’
‘Ah,’ said George, turning the money in his fob. ‘So?’
‘At first he seemed to have the wrong impression, that some suspects had been arrested and needed identifying. I explained that such was not the case. But I did put to him the fact, significantly, if I may say so, that you would like him to visit you at Cardew in the not too distant future, and to spend a few days there as your guest. He pulled a face at the thought of travelling so far in the bad weather; but when I explained it would likely not be until the early spring he brightened up. I also said you would like him to do some business for you.’
‘Did you mention that the reward of £400 would be paid instantly for the identification of one or more of the criminals?’
‘I did, sir. I fancy I left him in a much more cheerful mood than when I called.’
BOOK TWO
Chapter One
I
In November Wellington again defeated Soult and began to invest Bayonne. On 11 November, Dresden fell, on 21 November, Stettin, on 5 December, Lübeck. The Allied Sovereigns entered Frankfurt. Everywhere Napoleon was reeling, but defeat, submission, were not words in his vocabulary as applied to himself. The Allies offered him peace, with France uninvaded and allowed to keep her natural frontiers – even to the Rhine – and with almost all British conquests overseas returned to the F
rench. Buonaparte returned evasive answers, proclaiming publicly his utter commitment to peace while threatening in private that if he lost his throne he would bury the world in its ruins.
In late December Aunt Edie Permewan was finally edged into church and became Mrs Art Thomas. She gave her age as 41, which was a lie by more than ten years. Art told the truth; he was 23. He didn’t mind the sniggers, the digs in the ribs, the bawdy jokes. By the marriage he entered into his promised land, a languishing tannery business. Music did not like to claim his share in the successful wooing. After all, his mistake had cost him dear: the friendship of the girl he cared for more than all the world. Despite his stuttering efforts to explain, Katie still refused to speak to him.
In November Geoffrey Charles wrote a brief note saying Amadora was now safely back with her parents in Madrid, and that he was on the way to rejoin his regiment in France. He thanked all his cousins for their warmth and kindness, especially to a little Spanish girl who had come as a stranger among them and become so quickly their friend. Jeremy eventually wrote his first letter home.
My dear family,
Here I am at Willemstad, billeted on a farmer and his wife just on the outskirts of the town. The long story is that we landed at Chatham on the afternoon of the 9th December and I proceeded at once to report to my depot and then to provide myself with a uniform and a greatcoat and all the other paraphernalia and utensils of an officer of the British Army. This took me several days and a visit to Rochester, but in the end I was equipped and spent two more days idly observing the scene – among it a ship being loaded with cannon balls, the sailors and the dock workers throwing the balls from one pair of hands to another as if they were building bricks, which when I lifted one, they certainly are not! – before I was called again and reported to a Captain John Sheddon, who was to be in charge of us. It seems that I have been unfortunate in that all the rest of the 52nd are in France under Wellington, but the 2nd battalion has been detached for service in Holland, and we – those who sailed in the Mary Morris – were a small reinforcement. Apart from Captain Sheddon and myself – captain and ensign – there were four sergeants, one bugler, and 69 rank and file.