One rather errant game Ursula played, and was playing today, related to her mother’s first husband. Some years ago Grandmother, who had now herself left them to join the angels, told her that her mother’s first husband, father of that handsome soldier who had come to lunch here with his foreign wife, had met his death by going down a mine called Wheal Grace near Nampara. He had gone down on his own, not telling anybody, and started exploring in the old workings where nobody had ever been for years. He had tried to cross a plank over a shaft full of water, the plank had been rotten and he had fallen in. ‘They found him,’ old Grandmother Warleggan whispered, ‘just too late by an hour. No more’n an hour. And d’you know what was in his hand? A rusty nail. He’d been clinging to it, holding himself up by it, till it came out of the wall!’
The story had made a great impression on Ursula, and she got a frisson out of replaying it. One of her little tin men was Francis Poldark. She walked him over to the mine, persuaded him to crawl down one of the narrow tunnels, brought him to the plank over the flooded shaft. She could not break the plank every time, so she had him slip and plunge into the water; then cling to the nail. That was the best part of it. In inky darkness and up to his neck in water, he clung to the nail. Then the rescue party started searching for him; but too late . . .
The raised voices were on this floor and coming from her father’s study. She had never heard anything quite like this before. Twice to her knowledge since his marriage to Harriet there had been angry scenes, with both of them on the verge of shouting, but it had never actually happened. Now it was happening. Ursula took more than an average girl’s glee in trouble in the house so long as she was not concerned in it; so she slipped out of her room and along the passage to the door of her father’s study.
Then she realized that this was not a quarrel involving her step-mother at all. The voices were both male, and she knew them both.
‘. . . by God, sir, I shall put a stop to this!’
‘To what? It has happened!’
‘I shall see that it is annulled! You are not twenty-one! It is simply a form you have gone through to persuade some wretched girl—’
‘No wretched girl, Father. And it is legal. I made doubly sure of that!’
Something slipped and fell to the floor. Ursula skipped back expecting someone to come bursting out, but they did not. She did not much care for her brother, who was often supercilious at her expense, so this was a special pleasure to hear him being hauled over the coals for something; and something that sounded quite dreadful.
‘And who is this girl?’
‘Never mind that for the moment. The ceremony took place in St Benedict’s—’
‘Where’s that?’
‘Cambridge, Father. It was performed by the Reverend Arthur Chisholm and was quite conventional and legal and public, and it took place on Wednesday, May the fourth last—’
‘By God, this is insufferable! You knew very well what my plans were for you! By God, you shall not go unpunished for this! What got into you? – some insanity – some snivelling wench you’d got with child! I suppose her father and her brother—’
‘She has neither! Nor is she with child. It was a perfectly deliberate choice on my part—’
‘Deliberate in order to frustrate everything I had planned for you! Wasn’t it! Tell me that! Wasn’t it absolutely deliberate – an act on your part undertaken solely to bring down in ruins all the plans I had for you. Wasn’t it! Wasn’t it!’
‘Only partly, my dear Father. I confess I did not like to continue so wholly dependent on you as I have been until now. And, since you corner me, I have never much fancied being your lapdog. But my reasons for what I have done are altogether more complex than that – than a simple desire to thwart your arrangements and set them at naught. I can tell you . . . but I won’t!’
‘Tell me what you fancy! Explain to me exactly what I have bred, what simpering, scheming, sarcastic, good-for-nothing fop! What ungrateful, ungracious, greedy, drunken, malapert, lazy wastrel! From the moment I bred you you have accepted everything I have lavished on you with a smirk and a sneer. Never so much as a thank you! Never so much as a by-your-leave! Everything you have taken for granted as if by right. Well I will show you that it is not yours by right at all! I’ll show you that, my boy; from now on! I’ll show you!’
A glass shattered on the floor and Ursula again sprang away, but the quarrel was too absorbing to take her far.
Valentine’s voice. It was cooler now but more bitter.
‘And what have I received from you, dear Father? For the first six or seven years of my life I remember nothing but harsh words and cold looks. Then after Mother died I became a sort of symbol to you, and that is what I have remained! The money you spent on me – on my clothes, my education, was really money you spent on self-aggrandisement. That you had a son who went to Eton was more your pleasure than mine. That he mixed with the sons of peers and had a baronet as his “fag”, was something to talk about among your friends. That you fixed him up with a nice young virgin and a great house and just enough money to live on; it was all a part of the same pattern: the aggrandisement of Sir George Warleggan, the blacksmith’s grandson!’
‘You insolent puppy!’ There was the thump of furniture and someone stumbling.
‘Why do you take that as an insult, Father? I am a blacksmith’s great grandson. I cannot see that it matters. We all come from some humble beginnings, whether they be near or far. What I am complaining about is that you should be complaining about me! . . .’
‘Leave the chair, damn you! . . . I shall not touch you again . . .’
‘Had I married Cuby, your plans would have worked out well; but I’ll lay a curse that you would have kept me on a short allowance, just so that I should continue to dance when you pulled the string. That was your intention, wasn’t it! Blood and bones, I’ll swear it was!’
‘Well, I can promise you this: you’ll dance to another tune from now on! You’ll find a difference when you’re a pauper! Most of your precious drinking and gaming friends will no longer wish to know you! And as for your lascivious habits, you’ll find women’s bodies less easy to come by when there is no gold in the hand!’
‘One woman’s body I have for quite a time now come by, and that is my wife’s. I’m sure that a man of your moral attitudes would applaud our decision to make the union legal. Also, I am not in love with Cuby but I am in love with my wife. Indeed I worship the very ground she walks on!’
Ursula tittered, but not the man hearing it inside the room.
‘I presume I do not know this paragon. Perhaps she has enough money to keep you as her pet lap dog. I trust so, for you will leave this house tomorrow with the clothes you stand up in and a couple of trunks to take your personal belongings. After that you will not receive a penny from me. You may go and rot in Hell!’
‘Call it Hell if you like, Father. In fact my wife has £30,000 in three per cents, so – although I hope to improve on that as time goes on – I do not suppose my life will alter for the worse in comfort or convenience. It will be very much better in one way for I shall enjoy the freedom of seeing nothing of you. You poisoned my mother’s life with your insane suspicions and jealousies; and I am only happy and relieved that you will have no further opportunity to poison mine!’
The gong was being rung for supper. Quite out of the blue, Ursula suddenly wished it was louder so that it would stop them quarrelling. The most terrible things were now being said, and her father, whom she greatly admired, was getting the worst of it. Things were being said now that would never be forgotten, searing accusations, horrible insults, words that could never be unspoken. From taking a gleeful interest in a rumpus she had become very frightened. What was being said now was probably for ever. Her family life would not be the same again.
Silence had fallen inside the room. At least they were not fighting, as had seemed likely a couple of minutes ago.
Her father said: ‘For saying those evi
l and ignorant things about my relationship with your mother I shall never forgive you. Pray leave this room and do not come in to supper. Leave the house as early as you can in the morning so that I shall have the least possible opportunity of seeing you again. Return to your woman in Cambridge and stay there. Cornwall is well rid of you.’
‘I fear Cornwall is not rid of me,’ said Valentine. ‘I shall stay here. My wife has a house here. I could have wished to delay the announcement of our marriage by another six months, or so, but you have forced it into the open with your ill-considered pressure. My wife was Mrs Selina Pope. Now she is Mrs Selina Warleggan, and we shall live at Place House, barely fifteen miles distant from here. Before you have an opportunity for any more envenomed comments, she is thirty-two years of age, and I have two step-daughters. They are attractive young ladies and I shall do my best to marry them off in due course. Perhaps you will tell Harriet all this over supper, will you? I would like her to know the truth as soon as possible. I am sure she will be amused. But her amusement may possibly be more directed against you than against me . . .’
Ursula only just had time to flatten herself against the wall as Valentine swept out. She did not know if he saw her, but if he did he took no notice. His black hair fell across a darkening bruise on his forehead; his eyes glistened, his mouth was set, his nose hawk-like. He looked ten years older and, far from being fop-like or languorous, he looked a very dangerous young man.
BOOK THREE
Chapter One
I
A cool and unkempt summer, with scarcely enough sun to ripen the hay or enough rain to lengthen the corn. May had expended the benevolence of the year.
The war in America was increasingly bitter, a victory for American forces near Niagara in July, and the capture of a British naval squadron on Lake Champlain in September, being sandwiched between the battle of Bladensberg which the British won and the burning of Washington in retaliation for the burning by the Americans of the capital of upper Canada a few months before. This reprisal was much deplored by the Prince Regent.
Geoffrey Charles’s old regiment, the 43rd Monmouthshires, reached England on the 23rd July, were not disbanded like many of the others but given two months’ leave. On the 10th October they embarked on transports to take part in the new conflict across the Atlantic.
American privateers were active off Bristol, capturing some ships and burning others and generally disrupting trade. The Times thundered against the iniquity and perfidy of the Americans. President Madison thundered against the iniquity and perfidy of those of his own countrymen who ran the British blockade in order to continue traffic with Britain.
It was suggested at the Congress of Ghent that the Russians should mediate between the British and the Americans in an effort to end the war.
In France two attempts on King Louis the Eighteenth’s life were frustrated, and in September the French introduced a budget in which an effort was made to establish a solid public credit against ‘the robberies and gross deceptions of the previous Impostor’. The English flocked to Paris and were generally shocked by its run-down appearance.
In August came the centenary of the accession of the House of Hanover. Although a large part of the population of Great Britain saw nothing about the House of Hanover to admire, everyone seized on the opportunity for another junketing. Indeed, Ross sardonically observed that in Cornwall more celebrations were held to commemorate the perpetration of an unpopular monarchy than there had been over the liberation of Europe and the deposition of a fearsome enemy.
In Truro ornamental arches were erected all the way down Boscawen Street from Coinagehall to King Street, decorated with laurel, fir, oak and red flags. Under these arches two rows of tables 300 feet long were set up for a public open-air dinner with a band of musicians, and sides of beef, legs of mutton, mountains of vegetables and an alpine range of plum puddings. Tea and cakes were distributed to 1700 children, who later took part in a Furry Dance. Among the elders there was a mock Coronation of Louis the Eighteenth, and he was drawn in triumph through the streets on a dray.
There were fireworks and balls at Callington, and at Helston a dinner for 90 at the Angel Inn, followed by a distribution of 15 cwt of beef and mutton and a thousand 4 lb loaves to the poor. Processions, fireworks, dinner parties continued for a week. At United Mines, Chacewater, 1200 people sat down to dinner, and at Fowey, after the fireworks and bonfires, two boats on makeshift wheels were drawn through the streets, one containing musicians, the other a selection of the town beauties handsomely dressed and suitably garnished with flowers.
In London huge set pieces were arranged in the Royal parks: fireworks, processions, brass bands; the celebrations went on for ten days with great drunkenness, much gambling and general immorality. In the end notices had to be posted in the parks to get the populace to move off.
The sensation of Valentine Warleggan’s unexpected marriage swept mid Cornwall for a day or two; but people quickly accepted it. There was nothing particularly unusual about a young man marrying a woman twelve years older than himself, especially when the woman was a rich and pretty widow. That she was non-Cornish and did not come out of the top drawer were small matters, for Valentine’s claim to breeding derived only from his mother’s side. True he was still only an undergraduate, and he had already made for himself a reputation as a rake. Paul Kellow’s comment that, ‘I’ll wager it’ll not be long before he tumbles his step-daughters,’ may have been echoed elsewhere. But Selina Warleggan, they felt, must have known what she was about and was by no means born yesterday. It was going to be a new ménage on the north coast at Trevaunance, and, if and when Geoffrey Charles returned, there would be two half-brothers with their new wives as resident neighbours. But on bad terms if their last meeting was anything to go by.
Some sympathy was felt for Cuby Trevanion, for she had missed a good match, and, although the conditions of her marriage were not known outside a restricted circle, it was generally assumed that the linking of her family with the Warleggans would have put the Trevanions on their feet again. Major Trevanion had never been a popular figure, but the sisters were well liked.
The first meeting between Sir George and the major after Valentine’s marriage was also the last. Shortly after it Major Trevanion left for London, officially to take part in the celebrations, unofficially to try to raise new money to keep him out of a debtor’s court. At the same time Cuby and Clemency left for a prolonged stay with their great aunt Bettesworth, relative of the Trenegloses, at Callington.
The situation was embarrassing to begin with at Place House, since the marriage had been kept as much a secret there as anywhere. Valentine arrived unexpectedly for dinner on the Tuesday, nursing a bruise on his forehead. Selina went scarlet when she heard his news, but after dinner, having recovered her composure, she called together all her indoor servants and announced that two months ago in Cambridge she had married Mr Warleggan. They had kept it secret until Mr Warleggan had had an opportunity to inform his parents, which he had now done. Henceforward they had a new master in the house, and would of course take orders from him in exactly the way they had formerly taken orders from Mr Pope. Selina carefully avoided meeting the eye of her parlourmaid Katie Carter, who rather less than twelve months ago had surprised her in bed with Valentine Warleggan while her husband lay empurpled on the floor of the landing. Katie, on fire with embarrassment and sweating with anxiety, simply did not know where to look. She was afraid that she might now lose her job, since the dread secret was now cloaked with respectability; but she need not have been concerned. So long as she continued to be discreet the new Mrs Warleggan would give her no extra excuse to talk of the past.
When Music was told he put a great hand in front of his mouth to stifle a guffaw; then his eyes grew round with apprehension, rather as Katie’s had. A young master might be none too tolerant of one who was slow to pick up new instructions. And Saul Grieves and all, ready to say or do anything to confuse him the more. He began t
o fear for his job, with more reason than Katie.
When the news reached Nampara it explained a good deal about Selina Pope’s call on them. Even so, she could hardly claim a relationship – at least so far as the world knew. That Ross and Demelza suspected different was something they could never speak of even between themselves.
Ross said: ‘He’s the strangest young man. There seems no harm in him. Yet there was harm enough in his bringing that boy to confront Morwenna.’
‘I was afraid for a time,’ Demelza said, ‘that he was going to become too fond of Clowance.’
‘At least now he’s free of George,’ said Ross. ‘It will be strange to have another—’ he baulked at the word – ‘to have him so close: but he has bought his freedom with a marriage that he may find constraining in other ways. Of course not only Valentine is affected by this marriage . . .’
‘I was thinking the same thing.’
‘No doubt Miss Cuby will be seeking out some other rich young man to marry. It may not be so easy.’
‘Someone will have to write and tell Jeremy,’ Demelza said. ‘I think perhaps you should, Ross.’
‘Why me?’
‘I think if I wrote it I would make it seem like I was giving him good news. You would be – more detached – as is proper. The fact that she is not going to marry Valentine does not mean she is not going to seek another rich man – as you have just said. In fact when she first refused Jeremy I do not think the Warleggans had come on the scene at all!’