The Stranger From the Sea

  ‘I’d like to see the house. Will you stay here, wait for me ten minutes while I look around?’

  She was quite decided. ‘No. But if you want I’ll come with you.’

  ‘What will Mrs Poldark say?’

  ‘Perhaps she need not know.’

  III

  They went into Trenwith House. There was no lock or bolt on the door. The air inside was sour with damp. In the great hall wood ash from an uncleared fire had blown across the stone flags and lay thick on the table. Stephen admired the huge window with its hundreds of separate panes of glass. They moved into the winter parlour, which was also furnished. There were fewer cobwebs here, as if the Harrys had made an effort to keep one room clean.

  He said: ‘Where is your cousin?’

  ‘With the army in Portugal.’

  ‘And when it is over – if he survives – this is his inheritance . . . Some people have the luck, by God!’

  She had slipped off her cloak. Under it she was wearing a primrose frock, only a shade different from the colour of her hair. She sat in one of the armchairs and picked at a thorn which had got into her sandal. Do you – did you have no inheritance?’

  ‘No . . . Nothing. Miss Clowance . . .’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘You know maybe . . . maybe you can guess why I took the liberty of inquiring for your feelings for Ben Carter.’

  ‘Do I?’

  ‘I hoped you did. It’s because I have a great fondness for you meself.’

  She stared at the lattice of winter sunlight falling on the worn carpet. There were still two pictures on the walls.

  ‘You heard . . . ?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, I heard.’

  He said: ‘I have been telling a lie to your mother.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘If I tell you me feelings for you, then I cannot do it under the shadow of a lie. I must tell you the truth. I told Mrs Poldark that I was in some way of business in Bristol, that my ship – my ship, note – was struck by a storm, that it went down and that the mate and me and Budi Halim, took to the raft and were as you found us when Jeremy picked us up. That’s not true.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No. It was not my ship. I’d no interest in her. I come from Bristol, sure enough, but as a seaman, see, just with an education better than most, thanks to the Elwyns, who adopted me. The Unique was not carrying a cargo to Ireland and struck by a storm. There was no storm. She were a privateer, fitted out in Bristol by a half-dozen merchants, and I was a gunner aboard her. We sailed to the French coast looking for plunder. We found some but before we could turn with it we ran foul of two French naval ships – like sloops only smaller . . . We have the heels of most men-of-war. Had. Not of those. They gave chase and sunk us off the Scillies. No mercy given. We were destroyed.’

  She re-fastened the buckle of her shoe.

  ‘Why did you tell my mother different?’

  He shrugged. ‘I was none too proud of me trade. I sought for something more, giving the impression of being something more. That’s not a thing to be proud of neither, is it? But that’s the way I thought, on impulse so to say, on the spur of the first meeting. And then of course I had to keep up the story . . .’ He looked at her. ‘I’m sorry, Clowance. I could not lie to you.’

  ‘I’m glad.’

  She stood up, trying her weight on the shoe, went to the window, frowned out at the rank weeds in the courtyard.

  ‘I’m glad,’ she said.

  He came up behind her, put a hand on her arm. Her hair was hanging across her face, and he kissed her hair where it lay on her cheek. Then he turned her towards him and kissed her on the mouth. They stood together and then she quietly released herself.

  ‘That was nice,’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ she agreed simply.

  He laughed and caught her to him again, smiling as they kissed but soon losing his smile. His hands began to move up and down her frock, lightly but informingly, touching her thighs, her waist, her arms, her breasts, like someone exploring with quiet anticipation a fine and beautiful land shortly to be conquered.

  She freed her mouth and said: ‘I think it’s time we went home.’

  ‘Dinner will be two hours yet.’

  ‘It was not dinner I was thinking of.’

  ‘No. Nor I . . .’

  Her frock had a wide neckline, and with two light fingers he slid it off one shoulder, began to kiss that shoulder and the soft part between shoulder and neck. He felt her give a deep sigh. Slipping the frock an inch further exposed the top part of her breast, that part that had suddenly lifted and filled with her breath. He began to kiss it.

  Just before his hands reached up to the frock again she put her own fingers on his face, smoothed it lightly and then pushed it away.

  ‘Enough.’

  Satisfied with his success, aware of the dangers of going too fast and too far, he released her.

  ‘Sorry if I’ve offended.’

  ‘You have not offended.’

  ‘Then glad I am not to have to be sorry.’

  She shivered as she pulled up the shoulder of her frock, as if the chill of the house had suddenly affected her. She took up her cloak and he helped her on with it, putting his face close to hers as he did so. Then he kissed her neck again.

  She moved away. ‘What was that?’

  They listened. ‘Maybe a rat,’ he said. ‘In no time they’ll make such a house as this their own.’

  ‘I should not wish to meet the Harrys. They would not dare touch me but they could be rough with a stranger.’

  ‘Let ’em try . . . Clowance.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Can we come here again?’

  ‘It depends.’ They moved back into the hall.

  He opened the outer door and peered out. ‘On what?’

  ‘All sorts of things.’

  They went out. The heavy latch clicked as he closed the door behind them.

  ‘When Mrs Poldark tires of me,’ he said, ‘which must be soon, I have thoughts to stay on a while in the village – perhaps try to find work. There’s naught taking me home. Me mother cares nothing. Me father I never knew, though surprising as tis, they were proper wed. He died at sea. I am just happy to be here – on solid ground for a change, and among such – such delicious people.’ He moved his tongue across his lips.

  ‘You cannot eat us all,’ said Clowance.

  He laughed. ‘M’ambition is strictly limited.’

  There was still no one about. Long pale shadows moved with them over the fields.

  They reached the cliffs again. Three fishing boats had appeared, punctuating the misty sea.

  ‘Let us stay here a while,’ she said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Never mind.’ She knew that her face still gave away the emotions she’d been feeling, and had no relish for arriving at Nampara until she had quite recovered.

  ‘Shall you care,’ he said, ‘whether I go or stay?’

  ‘So many questions, Stephen, so many questions . . . Now may I ask you one?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘How many girls have you left pining for you in Bristol?’

  He laughed, pleased with the question. ‘How can I answer that? There are girls – have been girls – I’m twenty-eight, Clowance – how could there not have been? Only one was important, and that ended five years gone. That was the only one that was important – until now.’

  She looked at him very candidly. ‘Are you telling me the truth?’

  ‘You must know I am. Me dear. Me love. Me beautiful. I wouldn’t – couldn’t deceive you in this.’

  She turned away from him, aware that the emotions she had sought to subdue were returning.

  ‘Then,’ she said, ‘if you would be so kind, Stephen, would you walk on ahead of me? I will follow you . . . in a little while.’

  Chapter Seven

  I

  Ross reached Chatham early on Saturday morning, the 12th January, 1811. He had survived the b
loody encounter at Bussaco with no more than a scratch on his shoulder, but had caught the influenza which was raging in Lisbon when he got there and so had missed the early ships home. He posted at once to London, and his first act when he arrived was to send off the letter to Demelza he had written while lurching in the wind-blown waters of Biscay.

  Having slept nine hours in a comfortable bed, he breakfasted and went through drifting snowflakes to see George Canning at Brompton Lodge, Canning’s new house. It was in the village of Old Brompton, less than half an hour’s walk from Hyde Park Corner and set among orchards and market gardens; though the fields and lonely lanes in between were much infested by footpads and highwaymen. Canning was in and received him eagerly, listened to his report, and at once asked Ross to repeat his account to the Foreign Secretary, Lord Wellesley, and to other members of the Cabinet. This Ross agreed to so long as it was done quick; his only wish now was to rejoin his family.

  His friendship with George Canning had ripened through the years, until Ross now accounted him his best friend in London; and he knew it was Canning who had been behind most of the later missions he had been invited to undertake. At present Canning was in the wilderness, out of office and out of favour both with his own party and with the opposition; but no lack of immediate popularity could prevent him being a power in the land, both as an orator and as a statesman. Ten years younger than Ross and coming from a quite different background, he had a political genius that Ross could not hope to match but none of Ross’s military training (when fighting a duel with Lord Castlereagh recently his second had had to cock the pistol for him because he had never fired one before).

  Yet they had much in common; the nonconforming, scarred, bony Cornishman and the part-Irish, witty, sharp-tongued statesman. They each had a certain arrogance – neither suffered fools gladly or even silently, so they made enemies; they both had an intense, almost obsessive loyalty to friends that persisted through all vicissitudes; they were both reforming radicals by temperament yet Tories of necessity. They had both been staunch followers of Pitt; they both believed in Catholic Emancipation and both had rejoiced when three years ago slavery had been abolished throughout the British colonies. Particularly and absolutely, they both had a great sympathy for the lot of the common people but a conviction that the active prosecution of the war must for the time being take precedence over all.

  That was Sunday. Canning’s beautiful wife was at their country home in Hinckley with their ailing son, so he insisted that Ross should spend the day with him. He told Ross of the King’s insanity, of the fact that on December 19th – over a month ago – Spencer Perceval had at last been forced to introduce a Regency Bill. Although people always said the King was improving, the fact remained that the government could not pass a single measure without his consent, and it was difficult to get a rational signature from a man who fancied himself an animal out of Noah’s Ark.

  Since then there had been bitter disputes and wrangling both in and out of the House because the Tories wished to restrict the Prince’s powers, at least for two years. It all confirmed the Prince’s bitter hostility to his father’s government, and he had been heard to say after receiving one communication from them: ‘By God, once I am Regent they shall not remain an hour!’ So the Whig party was coming in on a four-fold platform: peace with France; the surrender of the dispute with America; the Emancipation of Ireland; and the abolition of tithes. Samuel Whitbread, the brewer’s son turned statesman, was likely to become Foreign Secretary, with powers to negotiate the peace, and Lord Grenville was almost certain to be Prime Minister.

  So would come peace, said Canning bitterly, another patched-up peace like the peace of Amiens ten years ago, a pact which had given the French back half their colonial empire and allowed Buonaparte just the breathing space he needed before setting out on his next round of conquests. So must come the withdrawal of a discredited Wellington from Portugal and the abandonment of that country to the French.

  ‘It must not happen,’ Canning said. ‘But I do not know how it may be stopped from happening . . . I saw Perceval only yesterday. He still puts on a brave face about the King, but, in confidence . . . well . . .’

  ‘D’you think the Prince immovable?’ Ross said.

  ‘Immovable in his detestation of the present government, yes. I had hopes for a while of Lady Hertford. She is, I believe, leading him to a soberer way of life. As you know, I am persona non grata with the Prince; but I took an opportunity and spoke to Lady Hertford on this subject. She feels there is nothing she can do for the present government, for it has been denounced past recall.’

  ‘And the Prince is in favour of all the policies the Whigs are in favour of? Even peace?’

  ‘So it would seem. Apart from the Whig party itself, all his personal advisers, Adams, Moira, the Duke of Cumberland, Sheridan, Tyrwhitt . . .’

  ‘Sheridan?’

  ‘There perhaps lies a faint hope. As you know, he is one of my oldest friends, but of late we have seen little of each other. He is the Prince’s most intimate friend, but he is not popular with the Hertfords and they may well have influenced the Prince against him. Also, of course, he is now seldom sober . . .’

  There was a pause. Ross eased his ankle.

  Canning said: ‘You must not go home yet, Ross.’

  ‘It is past time.’

  ‘Not, at least, until this crisis is past. It has been the very devil keeping members of all persuasions in London this fine frosty winter when hunting conditions have been so good. The severer weather that you see today has but now struck us. If – during the next few weeks – I can count on your vote in the House, this will bring those I can absolutely rely on to fifteen. Where many issues are delicately balanced, such a group can wield a deal of influence.’

  ‘Influence to what end?’ Ross asked impatiently. ‘It cannot turn an issue which will be decided entirely by the King’s illness and the Prince’s whim. If I could see a way where, by staying at Westminster, I could influence the question of peace or war, I would stay. But it is out of our hands.’

  ‘Well, stay a week. Two weeks. Stay here with us. Joan would wish it if she were here. To see the Bill through. And to tell your story to those in high office. Please. It is your duty. Otherwise the purpose of your mission is unfulfilled.’

  II

  George Warleggan had agonized his way through Christmas and the New Year. It was not in his nature to gamble – except on near certainties – and this was the problem. Yet if he waited much longer the opportunity must surely be lost. Others could see as clearly as he, others would step in and snap up the Manchester properties if he did not. They might already be gone. In London there was no way of knowing one day from the next what might be happening in the northern cities.

  The official reports of the doctors were still hopeful. Spencer Perceval had announced only that week in Parliament that he had just been to see the King himself and that they had conducted a perfectly normal conversation with no sign of mental alienation or confusion on the King’s part. Yet the Regency Bill was making slow but inevitable progress; the politicians could not wrangle for ever. Nor could they wait. Nor could George.

  And then by chance one day he heard of someone who might help him to decide, who might be induced to advise him without knowing he was doing so; a Cornishman – very unexpectedly in London at this time. Even that unexpectedness was significant.

  Ever since his imprisonment in a French prisoner-of-war camp soon after the outbreak of war Dr Dwight Enys had made a particular study of mental ailments. Having seen the effect of starvation and vile conditions on many types of healthy men, he had been struck by the wide differences of stamina between them, the strange ability some had to rise above their privations and the equally strange incapacity of others. Many apparently of the strongest went under; others of greater obvious frailty lived through it all. And he had come to the conclusion that it was the mental approach that made the difference: the essential determination of t
he mind to dominate the body. When he had been rescued Dwight Enys had practised this discipline on himself, much to his new wife’s indignation, since she saw him constantly over-taxing his strength.

  All that was now past, but in 1802, during the brief peace, he had gone to France with his great friend Ross Poldark, who was trying to trace any surviving relatives of Charles, Comte de Sombreuil, who had been killed in the abortive landing at Quiberon in 1795; and while over there Dwight had met a Dr Pinel, the director of an asylum called Bicêtre. Dr Pinel told him that in 1793, being then strongly imbued with the new principles of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity, he had decided to release a dozen madmen from their filthy cells and see what happened to them. Two died because before they were released their feet had been gangrened by frost, the other ten gave no trouble at all and six of these finally went back into the world quite cured. Since those days Dr Pinel had given the inmates as much freedom as possible and nowadays regularly dined with them. It was a new approach to the treatment of lunacy, and when he returned to England Dwight published a paper on his experiences and what might be learned from them.

  As a result of this publication, he learned of the existence of Mr William Tuke, a Quaker merchant of York, who had opened a mental home ten or more years ago and, though pursuing a different and more Christian path than Dr Pinel, had arrived, as it were, at the same door. Restraint was reduced to a minimum, the patients were given work to do and healthy outdoor exercise. Dwight went up to see him and toured the madhouse. He was enormously impressed. Two years later he met the Doctors Willis and inspected their asylum. He was now pressing, as George very well knew, for some reasonable hospital for the mentally deranged to be built in Cornwall, perhaps in Truro next to the Royal Cornwall Hospital which had been opened in 1799.

  But why was he in London now? That was what George wanted to know. Dr Enys was notorious for the reluctance with which he left Cornwall and his village patients. It might be he was here in deference to his wife’s wishes, since Caroline always spent a part of the autumn in London staying with her aunt, Mrs Pelham. But this was January. Unless he was doing something in some medical capacity Dwight was always a fish out of water.