‘Both invited by you!’
‘Yes, I know!’ Memory of his last clash with Ross welled up in him like lust. ‘Well let me point out, Harriet, that there is a limit to my tolerance of that clan! I have warned you, and we have agreed. After that overcrowded and noisy party at Trenwith you may feel a greater degree of amity for the Poldarks in general. Let it not go too far! There can never be any form of toleration, let alone friendship, between Ross Poldark and myself. And as for his wife . . .’
Harriet got up. ‘It is of the utmost indifference to me who comes to your tedious little party. Forget my suggestion.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘To sit in a corner and acknowledge my place in this household.’
‘What nonsense you do talk at times—’
‘Possibly we both do.’
The door that Harriet had opened was pushed wider and Ursula Warleggan came in. She was in a primrose yellow velvet frock that in the three months since it had been made had tightened across the bust. Her dark hair was in twin pigtails with yellow bows, her feet in yellow moccasins. At fourteen and a half she was large for her age. Next September she was being sent to Mrs Hemple’s school in Truro. George, at first, had been much against it; however, he had come to realize that if she did not go somewhere soon she would get out of hand. She had mastered every governess they had hired. George’s pride in her was intense.
‘Papa,’ she said, directly addressing her father across Lady Harriet, ‘what is the meaning of this, what it says here in the paper? “Even a shopkeeper can begin to be a banker, by accepting deposits and discounting bills of exchange. The one stip-stipulation he makes is that he need not return the deposits immediately.” I do not understand. Can you please explain?’
Naturally nothing more for a while about the coming party, but at supper George said:
‘I have been thinking of your suggestion that we should invite Jeremy Poldark. I will raise no objection if it will please you.’
‘Please me?’ said Harriet, who was not in a good mood. ‘For blood and hounds, I care nothing either way! I had forgot all about it.’
George uneasily sipped his hare soup. ‘Well, it is also a matter of indifference to me. But I thought you wished him to come.’
‘This is your party. Pray suit yourself.’
The soup was finished and taken away. A saddle of spring lamb was brought in, with two chickens and an array of vegetables and sauces.
‘How long is Jeremy Poldark staying? Or is he home for good?’
‘About ten days. His regiment is billeted in Brussels.’
‘Some young men enjoy themselves.’
‘Some young men get killed.’
‘Not now,’ said George. ‘He was – fortunate in the time of his enlistment.’
Supper proceeded.
‘In fact,’ said George, ‘we should all have been prepared for peace far more than we really were. As you know, I hazarded large sums of money in 1810 and 1811 expecting, preparing for peace then – a negotiated peace; as it certainly would have been at that time, had the Prince Regent not betrayed the political party he had belonged to for the whole of his adult life. When peace did not come I lost something like half my fortune.’
Harriet looked round to see that all the servants were temporarily out of the room. ‘All to get me,’ she said harshly. ‘Good God, I have been a constant source of expense to you, even before we were wed!’
‘Never mind about that,’ George said testily. ‘What I am saying is that, had I had the financial backing and stability to hold on to all my purchases then, I should be a much richer man today than I am. Even six months ago, had I read the signs of Napoleon’s imminent collapse aright, I could have recouped most of my losses by buying the same sort of textile and engineering firms all over again. Or even possibly by buying in the metal markets . . . I must confess to you that it scarcely crossed my mind to do so. Having suffered such losses once . . .’
‘A burnt child.’
‘What?’
‘Dreads the fire,’ said Harriet.
‘Ah, well, there is an old wives’ saying for almost any situation.’
‘I am indeed an old wife,’ said Harriet. ‘Thank you for the compliment. But in any event, though you may not be nearly as rich as you were before you met me, first, because of your unwise speculation, second, because I cost so much to keep; yet you are in a sound financial position, are you not?’
‘Well, yes.’
‘So does it matter a tinker’s curse that we are not twice as wealthy? If we have an income of X guineas a year and it costs us X guineas a year to live, does it matter that our income is not 2X guineas a year?’
‘With the children growing up there will be increasing costs,’ said George defensively.
‘Such, no doubt, as all these damned arrangements, whatever they may be, with John Trevanion. Oh, pray do not tell me, I am not anxious to know. Well, I shall be happy to see Valentine settled – so long as it does not mean my economizing on the style we maintain and the hunters I keep . . .’
She broke off as a manservant and two maids re-entered the room with the second course. Thereafter there was silence for quite a while on subjects which mattered. Harriet of course had not the least objection to discussing anything in front of the servants; she had been brought up to believe that as human beings they did not count. But she had soon observed that George was abnormally sensitive about such things. If one of the servants was ill, it was another matter; she was far more likely to have concern for the welfare of the sick person than George was; almost as much so as if one of her horses was ailing.
Towards the end of the meal George said: ‘So I shall invite Jeremy Poldark?’
‘If it pleases you.’
‘It pleases me to please you, Harriet. It cannot make any difference to the outcome.’
‘What outcome?’ asked Harriet.
‘Oh . . . the outcome of a pleasant evening.’
II
Jeremy told his mother of the invitation as soon as he received it.
‘And shall you go?’ asked Demelza.
‘I think so. If you will permit it.’
‘I permit it! You are being very gracious.’
‘Well . . . my stay here will be all too short. One day I have promised to spend with Clowance and Stephen. One day I shall see Goldsworthy Gurney. This will take a third – or the half of a day. I can ride back of course the same evening. If I leave them at midnight . . .’
‘Do as you fancy,’ said Demelza. ‘Your ten days will fly anyhow.’
‘Dear Mother, do I try you hard?’
‘All sons do.’
‘And daughters?’
‘And daughters.’
They were standing on the bluff of cliff just below Wheal Leisure. Jeremy had wanted to inspect the small whym engine which drew the kibbles of ore out of the earth and, though it had been installed last year, he had never seemed to find the suitable time when his mother was free as well, to take her over and show her how it worked, detail by detail. This he had now just done.
Demelza drew a deep breath. Even though one lived by the sea all the time, there were periods during a hard winter when one lived just within the near neighbourhood of one’s house, more indoors than out, and forgot – or overlooked – the pleasure of breathing salt air. The distant sea was turning over in a big way this morning, chewing the sand like a coffee grinder, biding its time to come in and rush at its eternal enemy, the cliffs.
She said: ‘I pray it will work out well for her.’
‘Clowance? Yes. I think we’ve all done the right thing.’
‘What do you mean, Jeremy?’
‘Nobody can pretend it’s an ideal match, but this time she has gone into it with her eyes open. You and father also behaved as I hope I shall have the wit to behave if I ever have a daughter and see her in such a difficulty. Never afterwards in all her life will she be able to say, “if they hadn’t stepped in” or “if they
had advised me different”. That’s what I mean.’
Demelza inclined her head. ‘I only hope he also knows her faults.’
‘Her faults?’
‘Well, they may rate as faults in a marriage, though many would call them virtues. She is so very clear-sighted, Jeremy, sometimes I tremble for myself . . . And, until recently, she has hardly known what compromise means. I only hope and pray she – when the first passion wears off – she will not be so clear-sighted about Stephen, and willing to go on making the sort of compromise she has done in marrying him.’
Jeremy put his arm round his mother’s shoulders. ‘You married Father for love. Isn’t that so?’
‘Oh, yes.’
‘Then when did the first passion wear off and you begin to observe his faults?’
Demelza laughed. ‘We’re talking close home now, Jeremy, but, since you ask me, I suppose twould be true to say that it never has worn off – or not yet anyway.’
‘That, from close observation of the objects under review, is what I thought. So when did you begin to observe his faults?’
‘Well, he hasn’t any really bad ones! And those he has – they are part of him and therefore mean nothing to me.’
‘Which is why you do not bicker?’
‘I suppose. There is a way that you come to love a person when blemishes are part of him and therefore don’t count for much in the whole picture.’
‘If you could find the recipe for that and could put it on sale like a tincture or a bolus, you would make a fortune! . . . But tell me, Mother mine, if you have achieved a rare kind of union with Father, why do you suppose that your elder son and daughter, being of the same blood, should not be able to make an equal success of their marriages?’
‘I hope to believe it. I pray it may be so.’
‘So do I,’ he said. ‘So do I. Stephen had a rough start in life. It could hardly have been rougher. Maybe marriage to Clowance will set him up.’ After a moment he added: ‘Ben, of course, is greatly upset.’
‘. . . I saw him in the distance on Monday but I think he tried to avoid me.’
‘He’s asked for a week’s leave. He says it’s while I am home, but in the ordinary way he would never take time off. It isn’t in his nature.’
‘I’m very sorry for him, Jeremy. We’re all that sorry for him. But it was Clowance’s choice. What could anybody do?’
Jeremy cocked an eye – or more properly an ear – back at the larger engine whose suck and beat he had thought hesitated for a moment in sympathy. But it was a false alarm. Girls were working in the washing sheds. The water gushed continuously from the main adit at the foot of the cliffs.
‘There is another reason why I think I shall go to the Warleggans,’ Jeremy said. ‘Cuby may be there.’
He said it so openly and so lightly that for a moment Demelza was deceived and supposed him over it.
‘Have you been writing to her?’
‘No.’
‘Valentine . . .’
‘Should not be home, it being term time, but I would not put it past him to take French leave. Perhaps he will be there to announce their engagement.’
‘But if you believe this even to be likely, why do you wish to meet her again?’
‘I have a fancy,’ said Jeremy. He did not, or could not, explain to his mother that he was sleeping with a Belgian girl in Brussels and felt the stronger to resist Cuby for it.
‘A fancy for someone else?’ Demelza asked.
He laughed. ‘Dear mother, you should not ask these things! It makes me suspect you of second sight.’
‘Maybe I have a sort of second sight where my children are concerned. For instance, I know you have had a special unhappiness, an unease, since January of last year. Is this explained because of what you have told me of Cuby and Valentine? It was then that you learned of it, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes. Oh yes. That and other things. I rather fancy I lost my sense of proportion. That’s all I can say, even to you.’
She waited but nothing more came; so she turned to lead the way down the cliff path. He insisted on trying to help her, though she was as sure footed as he. At the bottom she jumped into his arms, and he regarded her gravely for a second or two before he released her.
She said: ‘Shall you stay in the Army?’
‘God forbid. There are so many things that offend me. It is a brutal life, for all its comradeship. The floggings sicken me.’
‘Are they frequent?’
‘In my regiment, no, thank God. The Fifty-second, though I did not know it when I joined them, was one of the elite regiments trained as part of the Light Brigade by Sir John Moore. But in many of the other regiments flogging is as common an event as sunrise. The very bones of their back are laid bare! It is brutalizing and outrageous.’
Demelza shivered.
He said: ‘You are cold?’
‘Yes. With what you tell me. So how long shall you stay away from Nampara?’
They began to plough their way across the soft sand towards the house.
‘Perhaps until some murky cobwebs have been blown out of my mind.’
‘And the steam engines?’
‘As I said, I shall see Gurney. There are movements afoot in the north of England. When I am free again I shall go up to Darlington, where an experimental railway is operating.’
‘Where is Darlington?’
‘I haven’t the least idea! Except that it is in the far north. Anyway, I cannot go there so long as I remain in the army. And out of decency I must stay in the army for another six months.’
‘What has decency got to do with it? Would they say you could not if you asked to leave?’
‘No, I don’t think so. Now that peace has come there will be many an old soldier begging in the streets before long.’
Chapter Six
I
On the Sunday about mid-day Sir Unwin Trevaunance arrived at Cardew. He was not expected and had not been invited. That was Unwin’s way. Since he sold his residence in Cornwall to the Popes he had considered it natural that he should be put up by any of his friends he cared to call on, whether it was Chenhalls in Bodmin, or Sir Christopher Hawkins at Trewithen, or the de Dunstanvilles at Tehidy, or George at Cardew.
He had spent last night with Michael Chenhalls and would like to stop two or three days at Cardew, he bluntly said. This would cover the period of the card party but it could not be helped. How does one say no to a fellow MP of roughly the same political views, when one has a huge house with so many unused bedrooms?
He was not backward in declaring his business in Cornwall.
‘I’ve really come to take a last look at this widow. You know, Selina Pope. This mine we were projecting, West Wheal Plenty, as we were thinking of calling it. Near Place House. The one old Clement Pope was objecting to.’
‘You missed your chance of buying those surplus materials from Wheal Spinster,’ said George. ‘We sold them at knock down prices to the people at Tolgus. Too bad.’
Unwin, a man now approaching sixty, had only become more gaunt with the years. He thrust a hand through his long grey hair.
‘Michael Chenhalls has been blowing hot and cold over this venture for best part of two years. The original assays were highly favourable, but then they can be deceptive, don’t you know. You say Wheal Plenty was high grade ore and then ran poor, I remember?’
‘Not exactly ran poor,’ said George. ‘But some of the lodes were thinning, and the ground was hard and wet. My advisers felt that the best ore had been raised, and with the price of copper falling it simply did not appear a financial proposition spending more money on exploration.’
‘Well, that was Chenhalls’ view last year, and we more or less abandoned the idea of trying to open a new mine on the Popes’ land in the face of their opposition. Our lawyers advised us that if the Popes were really litigious they might contest rights of way and other matters in the courts. All things considered, we decided the scheme wasn’t worth the candle.’
‘And then?’
Unwin narrowed his brows. ‘Then Clement Pope died! So we thought – or I thought – let us see if the hounds are chiming different now! First we must flush out the pretty widow and find if she is intent on staying, and then we must discover if she is as much against the proposition, especially if we were to offer her a small percentage of any profits we raised.’
‘I saw her last October,’ said George. ‘She was then in deepest black but was not, I thought, the picture of sorrow.’
‘Ah, no. Damned handsome woman, but not out of the top drawer. I expect that’s how that skrimshanked old fellow got her. Well, I made inquiries six months or more ago through a Truro lawyer called Trembath. Took over Pearce’s practice. Know him?’
‘Very well,’ said George.
‘Trustworthy?’
‘Oh, yes.’
‘Well, her reply came through another lawyer, Barrington something—’
‘Burdett.’
‘Yes. To say that she had no intention of leaving the property and that she was as opposed as ever to the idea of a mine being opened on her land. What was more – and here came the surprise, dammit – she said she would like to purchase the mineral rights herself so that she need never be exposed to a similar threat in the future!’
‘Ah,’ said George, and hunched his shoulders. ‘Tell me, did your brother never attempt any exploratory workings on his land himself – nor permit any venturers to try?’
‘John was funny about things like that. He felt his property was not for such affrays. He liked his cattle and his sheep and his rolling fields. Didn’t want ’em disturbed with industry. Oddly enough the one time he did try anything was when he took on smelting copper for the Carnmore Copper Co. back in, when was it?; it disfigured the hillside and lost him a lot of money. Ross Poldark burned his fingers on that.’
‘So did I, in the end,’ said George. ‘Copper needs three times the fuel that tin does; it was never practical in Cornwall.’
‘Well, that taught John a lesson, if he hadn’t learned it before. His cove had been disfigured, and to no purpose . . . His real money was all upcounty, y’know.’