“What is the cause?”
“No one knows. Some put it down to a mephitic quality of the air, especially when near water. All our views are much in the melting pot since Cavendish proved there was both dephlogisticated and inflammable air.”
“I wish you could get to see them, Dwight.” Ross was thinking of Elizabeth.
The younger man shook his head. “Unless I am called in… Besides, I lay no claim to a cure. The results are always unpredictable. Sometimes the strong will go and the weak survive. Choake knows as much as I do.”
“Don’t belittle yourself.” Ross hesitated, wondering whether he should obey his impulse to ride at once and see Elizabeth. It was the Christian thing to do, to forget all the old bitterness. Almost impossible with the copper company dying before his eyes. And the ticketing would not wait. He had only just time to get there.
As he was hesitating, Dr. Choake himself topped the hill out of Sawle riding toward them…
“You’ll pardon me,” Dwight said. “This man has tried to make every sort of trouble for me. I don’t wish to meet him now.” He took off his hat and moved away.
Ross stood his ground until Choake was fairly up with him. The physician would have ridden by without a word if he could have gotten past.
“Good day to you, Dr. Choake.”
Choake looked at him from under his eye thatches.
“We’ll trouble you to move aside, Mister Poldark. We are on urgent business.”
“I’ll not detain you. But I hear that my cousin is gravely ill.”
“Gravely ill?” Choake bent his eyebrows after the departing figure of his rival. “Dear me, I should not be inclined to lend an ear to every story if I were you.”
Ross said curtly, “Is it true that Francis has the malignant sore throat?”
“I isolated the symptoms yesterday. But he is on the mend.”
“So soon?”
“The fever was checked in time. I emptied the stomach with fever powder and gave him strong doses of Peruvian bark. It is all a question of competent treatment. You are fully at liberty to inquire at the house.” Choake moved to edge his horse past. Darkie blew through her nostrils and stamped.
“And Geoffrey Charles?”
“Not the throat at all. A mild attack of quartan fever. And the other cases in the house are the ulcerous throat, which is quite a different thing. And now good day to you, sir.”
When Choake was past, Ross sat a moment gazing after him. Then he turned and followed Zacky. The ticketing was over and the feast about to begin.
Everything had gone according to plan, someone else’s plan. The usual care had been taken to see that the Carnmore Copper Company did not get any of the copper. The mines did well out of it—so long as the Carnmore was in existence as a threat. As soon as Zacky ceased to put in his bids the prices would drop into the ruck again.
Ross wondered if the mines—the remaining mines—were really as powerless as the Warleggans had shown them up to be. They had not been able to stay together so they had fallen by the way. It was a dismal, sordid, disheartening business.
Ross sat down at the long dinner table with Zacky on his one hand and Captain Henshawe, representing Wheal Leisure, on his other. It wasn’t until he was served that he noticed George Warleggan.
Ross had never seen him before at a ticketing dinner. He had no plain business there, for although he owned the controlling interest in a number of ventures he always acted through an agent or a manager. Strange that he had condescended, for as George grew more powerful he grew more exclusive. A brief silence had fallen on the men gathered there. They knew all about Mr. Warleggan. They knew he could make or break a good many if he chose. Then George Warleggan looked up and caught Ross’s eye. He briefly raised a well-groomed hand in salute.
It was a sign for the dinner to begin.
• • •
Ross had arranged to meet Richard Tonkin at the Seven Stars Tavern before the others arrived. As he came out of the Red Lion Inn he found George Warleggan beside him. He fell into step.
“Well, Ross,” he said in a friendly fashion, as if nothing had happened between them. “We see little of you in Truro these days. Margaret Vosper was saying only last night that you had not been to our little gaming parties recently.”
“Margaret Vosper?”
“Did you not know? The Cartland has been Margaret Vosper these four months, and already poor Luke is beginning to fade. I do not know what there is fatal about her, but her husbands seem unable to stand the pace. She is climbing the ladder and will marry a title before she’s done.”
“There is nothing fatal in her,” Ross said, “except a greed for life. Greed is always a dangerous thing.”
“So she sucks the life out of her lovers, eh? Well, you should know. She told me she’d once had the fancy to marry you. It would have been an interesting experiment, egad! I imagine she would have found you a hard nut.”
Ross glanced at his companion as they crossed the street. They had not met for eight months, and George, Ross thought, was becoming more and more a “figure.” In his early days he had striven to hide his peculiarities, tried to become polished and bland and impersonal, aping the conventional aristocrat. But with success and power firmly held, he was finding a new pleasure in allowing those characteristics their freedom. He had always tried to disguise his bull neck in elaborate neckcloths, but he seemed to be accentuating it slightly, walking with his head thrust forward and carrying a long stick. Once he had raised his naturally deep voice but was letting it go so that the refinements of speech he had learned and clung to seemed to take on a bizarre quality. Everything about his face was big: the heavy nose, the pursed mouth, the wide eyes. Having as much money as he wanted, he lived for power. He loved to see himself pointed out. He delighted that men should fear him.
“How is your wife?” George asked. “You do not bring her out enough. She was much remarked on at the celebration ball, and has not been seen since.”
“We have no time for a social round,” Ross said. “And I don’t imagine we should be the more wholesome for it.”
George refused to be ruffled. “Of course you will be busy. This copper-smelting project takes a good portion of your time.” A pretty answer.
“That and Wheal Leisure.”
“At Wheal Leisure you are fortunate in the grade of your ore and the easy drainage. One of the few mines that still offers prospects for the investor. I believe some of the shares are shortly coming on the market.”
“Indeed. Whose are they?”
“I understood,” said George delicately, “that they were your own.”
They had just reached the door of the Seven Stars, and Ross stopped and faced the other man. Those two had been inimical since their school days but had never come to an outright clash. Seeds of enmity had been sown time and again but never reached fruit. It seemed that the whole weight of years was coming to bear at once.
Then George quickly said in a cool voice, “Forgive me if I am misinformed. There was some talk of it.”
The remark just turned away the edge of the response that was coming. George was not physically afraid of a rough-and-tumble, but he could not afford the loss to his dignity. Besides, when quarreling with a gentleman, it might not end in fisticuffs even in those civilized days.
“You have been misinformed,” Ross said, looking at him with his bleak, pale eyes.
George humped his shoulders over his stick. “Disappointing; I am always out for a good speculation, you know. If you ever do hear of any coming on the market, let me know. I’ll pay thirteen pound fifteen a share for ’em, which is more than you—more than anyone would get at present in the open market.” He glanced spitefully up at the taller man.
Ross said, “I have no control over my partners. You had best approach one of them. For my part I would sooner burn the shar
es.”
George stared across the street. “There is only one trouble with the Poldarks,” he said after a moment. “They cannot take a beating.”
“And only one trouble with the Warleggans,” said Ross. “They never know when they are not wanted.”
George’s color deepened. “But they can appreciate and remember an insult.”
“Well, I trust you will remember this one.” Ross turned his back and went down the steps into the tavern.
Chapter Forty-Four
It was afternoon before Demelza heard the bad news of Trenwith. All three of the younger Poldarks had it, said Betty Prowse, with only Aunt Agatha well, and three out of the four servants had taken it. Geoffrey Charles was near to death, they said, and no one knew which way to turn. Demelza asked for particulars, but Betty knew nothing more. Demelza went on with her baking.
But not for long. She picked up Julia, who was crawling about on the floor under her feet and carried her into the parlor. There she sat on the rug and played with the child before the fire while she wrestled with her torment.
She owed them nothing. Francis had told her never to come near the house again. Francis had betrayed them to the Warleggans. A despicable, horrible thing to do.
They would have called in others to help, perhaps some of the Teague family or one of the Tremenheere cousins from farther west. Dr. Choake would have seen to that for them. They were well able to look after themselves.
She threw the linen ball back to Julia who, having rolled on it to stop it, forgot her mother and began to try to pull the ball apart.
There was no reason for her to call. It would look as if she were trying to curry favor and patch up the quarrel. Why should she patch it up when Elizabeth was her rival? Elizabeth had not appeared so much in that light the previous year, but she was always a danger. Once Ross saw that fair fragile loveliness… She was the unknown, the unattainable, the mysterious. His wife he knew would be there always, like a faithful sheepdog. No mystery, no remoteness; they slept in the same bed every night. They gained in intimacy, lost in excitement. Or that was how she felt it must be with him. No, leave well alone. She had done enough interfering.
“Ah—ah!” Demelza said. “Naughty girl. Don’t tear it abroad. Throw it back to Mummy. Go to! Push with your hand. Push!”
But it was her interference that put her in an obligation deep down. If she had not contrived Verity’s marriage, Verity would have been there to take charge. And if she had not so contrived Francis would never have quarreled with Ross or betrayed them. Was it really all her fault? Sometimes she thought Ross thought so. In the night—when she woke up in the night—she felt that sense of guilt. She glanced out of the window. Two hours of daylight. The ticketing would be over. He would not be home that night, so she could not have his advice. But she did not want his advice. She knew what she knew.
Julia was crowing on the rug as she went to the bell. But she did not pull it. She could never get used to having servants at call.
She went through to the kitchen. “Jane, I am going out for a while: I expect to be back before dark. If not, could you see to put Julia to bed? See the milk be boiled an’ see she takes all her food.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Demelza went upstairs for her hood and cloak.
• • •
The company had assembled in the private room of the Seven Stars. They were a depleted and a subdued party. Lord Devoran was in the chair. He was a fat, dusty man in snuff brown, and he had a cold in the head from leaving off his wig.
“Well, gentlemen,” he said stuffily. “You have heard Mr. Johnson’s statement of accounts. It is all very disappointing, I aver, for the company was started in such high hopes not fourteen months ago. It has cost me a pretty penny and I suspicion most of us are a good degree poorer for our interest. But the truth is we bit off more’n we could chew, and we’ve got to face the fact. Some of us I know feel sore about the tactics of those who have fought us, and I can’t say myself that I’m any too satisfied. But it has all been legal, so there’s no redress. We just haven’t the resources to carry on.” Devoran paused and took a pinch of snuff.
Tonkin said, “You can form a company like this with fair enough prospects and find many people willing to invest a little. But it is altogether a different matter to find people willing to buttress up a shaky concern or to buy shares suddenly flung on the market. They see that the company is in difficulty and aren’t agreeable to risk their money then.”
Sir John Trevaunance said, “The company would have stood twice the chance if we had restricted it to people with unassailable credit.”
Tonkin said, “You can’t hold an inquiry into people’s finances when they wish you well. And of course it was not thought that the exact composition of the company should ever become publicly known.”
“Oh, you know what it is in these parts,” Sir John remarked. “No man can keep a secret for five minutes. I do believe it is something in the air; it is moist and humid and breeds confidences.”
“Well, somebody’s confidences have cost us dear,” said Tonkin. “I have lost my position and best part of my life’s savings.”
“And I am for bankruptcy,” said Harry Blewett. “Wheal Maid must close this month. It is doubtful if I will stay out of prison.”
“Where is Penvenen tonight?” Ross asked.
There was silence.
Sir John said, “Well, don’t look at me. I am not his keeper.”
“He has lost interest in the sinking ship,” Tonkin said rather bitterly.
“He is more interested in his rolling mill than in the copper company,” Johnson said.
“As for a sinking ship,” Sir John said, “I think in truth the ship may be considered sunk. There is no question of desertion. When one is left struggling in the water, it is but natural to make what provision one can to reach dry land.”
Ross had been watching the faces of his companions. There was the barest touch of complacency about Sir John that he had not noticed before Christmas. In that venture Sir John stood to lose the most—though not proportionately the most. The great smelting furnaces stood on his land. During the company’s brief life he had been the only one to receive a return for his larger investment—in the shape of port dues, increased profit from his coal ships, ground rent, and other items. The change was therefore surprising. Had he during Christmas caught sight of some dry land not visible to the others?
All the time Ross had been striving to sense the mood of the other men. He had been hoping for signs of a greater resilience in some of them. But even Tonkin was resigned. Yet he was determined to make a last effort to bring them around.
“I don’t altogether agree that the ship is sunk yet,” he said. “I have one suggestion to make. It might just see us through the difficult months until the spring.”
• • •
Trenwith House looked chill and gray. Perhaps it was only her imagination harking back to the last visit. Or perhaps it was knowing what the house held.
She pulled at the front doorbell and fancied she heard it jangling somewhere away in the kitchens right across the inner court. The garden was overgrown, and the lawn falling away to the stream and the pond was green and unkempt. Two curlews ran across it, dipping their tufted heads and sheering away as they saw her.
She pulled the bell again. Silence.
She tried the door. The big ring handle lifted the latch easily and the heavy door swung back with a creak.
There was nobody in the big hall. Although the tall mullioned window faced south, the shadows of the winter afternoon were already heavy in the house. The rows of family pictures at the end and going up the stairs were all dark except for one. A shaft of pale light from the window fell on the portrait of the red-haired Anna-Maria Trenwith, who had been born, said Aunt Agatha, when Old Rowley was on the throne, whoever he might be. Her ova
l face and the fixed blue eyes stared out through the window and over the lawn.
Demelza shivered. Her finger touching the long table came away dusty. There was an herby smell. She would have done better to follow her old custom and go around the back. At that moment a door banged somewhere upstairs.
She went across to the big parlor and tapped. The door was ajar and she pushed it open. The room was empty and cold, and the furniture was hung in dust sheets.
So that was the part they were not using. Only two years before, she had come to the house for the first time, when Julia was on the way, had been sick and drunk five glasses of port and sung to a lot of ladies and gentlemen she had never seen before. John Treneglos had been there, merry with wine, and Ruth his spiteful wife, and George Warleggan. And dear Verity. The house had been glittering and candlelit then, enormous and as impressive to her as a palace in a fairy tale. Since then she had seen the Warleggans’ town house, the Assembly Rooms, Werry House. She was experienced, adult, and grown-up. But she had been happier then.
She heard a footstep on the stairs and slipped back quickly into the hall.
In the half-light an old woman was tottering down them clutching anxiously at the banister. She was in faded black satin and wore a white shawl over her wig.
Demelza went quickly forward.
Aunt Agatha’s ancient tremblings came to a stop. She peered at the girl, her eyes interred before their time in a mass of folds and wrinkles.
“What—eh? Is it you, Verity? Come back, have ye? And about time too—”
“No, it’s Demelza.” She raised her voice. “Demelza, Ross’s wife. I came to inquire.”
“You what? Oh, yes, ’tis Ross’s little bud. Well, this be no time for calling. They’re all sick, every last jack of them. All except me and Mary Bartle. And she be so busy attending on them that she’s no time to bother with a old woman. Let me starve! I b’lieve she would! Lord damn, don’t an old body need just so much attention as a young?” She clung precariously to the banister, and a tear tried to trickle down her cheek but got diverted by a wrinkle. “’Tis all bad managing, and that’s a fact. Everything has gone amiss since Verity left. She never ought to have left, d’you hear. ’Twas selfish in her to go running after that man. Her duty was to stay. Her father always said so. She’d take no notice of me. Always headstrong, she was. I bring to mind when she was but five—”