“It is perfectly palatable to me,” said Cary. “If you do not like it you need not drink it.”
George glanced at his father. “What have we done but exert pressure which would assist the law? Of course we shall drop it, for there is nothing more to do. Is there, Cary?”
“I shall not relax my efforts in any way,” said Cary, scarcely opening his mouth. “Poldark is in deep water financially. We can yet see him in prison or drive him out of the county.”
“In other words,” said George, “there are more ways than one of killing a cat. You cannot blame us, Father, if we take an interest in his mine.”
“I have no objection whatever to any proper business move,” said Nicholas, padding across the room. “I have no love for any of the Poldarks—arrogant, overbred, indolent squireens. If you can purchase the outside shares in his mine, by all means do so: it is one of the most profitable for its size in the county. But retain a sense of proportion. In a few years, George, with my prestige and your ability we shall be in a position where the Poldarks will not be worth our notice—they are not in fact even now. It’s not becoming to our position or dignity—this feud—”
“You have no thought for Matthew,” said Gary sharply.
“No, in that respect I have not. He was morally at fault and brought his troubles on himself.”
“Did you see Pearce yesterday?” asked George.
Cary sniffed. “Yes. He says Mrs. Jacqueline Trenwith is not prepared at present to dispose of the shares. I don’t like Pearce. He quibbles. He thinks he can run with the hare and hunt with the hounds.”
“We can cure him of that. His convictions wear away very easily. Sit down, Father; you walk about as if the house were on fire.”
“No, I’ll go to bed,” said Nicholas. “I must rise early in the morning.”
“While I was in Bodmin,” George said, “I also had a brush with Francis Poldark. We chanced to meet, and he being then sober but anxious to amend the condition, I invited him to an inn where we drank together. But once in the inn he grew offensive and tried to pick a quarrel with me.”
“What did he say?”
“He accused me quite openly of being behind this charge against his cousin, of trying to ruin his family in any underhand way I could, of behaving in the ill-bred manner he would expect of the grandson of a blacksmith—who still lived in a hovel near St. Day because the family of Warleggan was ashamed to own him.”
There was silence in the room except for Cary’s breathing. Nicholas Warleggan’s neck had gone a dull red.
Cary said: “And you sat there and allowed that to pass?”
George looked at his hands. “With these I could have broken his back. But I’ve had better things to do with my life than learning to be a pistol shot, and I had no intention of allowing a weakling like Francis to dictate my behaviour.”
“Quite right,” muttered Nicholas. “It was the only way to act. But I’m perplexed that he should have done this. Only last year he was at bitter loggerheads with his cousin…”
“That, I think, is what troubles him,” George said pleasantly. “It doesn’t lie easy on his conscience.”
“And how did you leave him?” said Cary.
“In polite enmity.”
Cary made an angry gesture, shutting one of his account books with a snap. “All his finances are in our hands. We can break him tomorrow—financially, which is the better way…”
George hunched his shoulders. “No…We can’t do that. At least not so obviously. For the moment I intend to make no move at all.”
“Why not? You care nothing now for his good will.”
“Not his good will,” said George, getting up. “But there is another person to consider.”
Book Two
Chapter One
As the autumn lengthened and winter came in Ross made a determined effort to set aside the troubles and anxieties that were past and accept in earnest the life of a small farmer squire with a mining interest—the life he had abandoned with regret only two years ago. But although he had left the happy routine with reluctance, he couldn’t recapture the pleasure by simple means of a return to it.
Also some chill had come upon his relations with Demelza. Her thoughts were not as open to him. Dating strangely from his acquittal, the laughter had gone, and the instant understanding. He tried more than once to break down this new reserve but failed, and the failure left its mark on his own responses.
Although he was thankful enough to be free of the menace of the assizes, the lesser but still serious danger of his own approaching bankruptcy kept him company most days. Even a sale of all his shares in Wheal Leisure would not balance his debt. A proud man, he hated indebtedness of any sort. He still hated the memory of the trial. Although he had probably gone free as a result of his change of front at the last moment, he constantly despised himself for having made it.
A few weeks after the trial Verity wrote:
My dear Cousin Ross,
I am writing you this time instead of Demelza because what I have to say is perhaps a little more to you than to her, though of course you may let her read this if you wish.
First may I say again, thank God for your deliverance— and in that prayer Andrew truly and sincerely joins. I know how wicked it was that the charge was ever brought against you, and in that respect acquittal was no more than your right. Yet there is the deepest cause for thankfulness in each one of your friends that there was no miscarriage of Justice—and the true hope that any embitterment which the arrest caused in you has been salved by this happy Outcome.
While I was in Bodmin I saw Francis twice. The first time he called at the inn and, although he was somewhat the worse for drink, I felt that he had come to see me in the intention making up the Quarrel between us; but when it came to the Point he had not the words and so went away unsatisfied. Therefore after the trial I sought him out and spoke to him again.
This second meeting confirmed the other opinion formed at the first: that something is gravely wrong with him. He is frighteningly bitter—in the way you are sometimes, Ross. Yet not like you, because I think he is more likely to do a mischief to himself than to others.
I know you and Francis have quarrelled, but have very strongly the Feeling that he wishes to be reconciled. I don’t know what was the full cause of the quarrel except that of course it began as a result of my elopement with Andrew—so I feel doubly concerned for the outcome. If he makes some further approach to you I beg you to be accommodating if not for his sake then for mine, who still love him in spite of all his faults. It may be that you could help him back to a proper balance.
I don’t like developments in France. It is unwholesome for a King to be led into Paris as if he were a prisoner, and there is much Feeling here about it. Try not to speak too openly in favour of liberty and freedom, Ross, for one can be so misunderstood. One is snapped up at the first mention of such things—by people who only twelve months ago were all in favour of reform. You will think this letter is quite a Lecture.
We went to Gwennap yesterday at the invitation of one of Andrew’s friends. A dreadful place and bleak as a desert with hillocks of cinders and large engines creaking and groaning. All the whims are worked by mules, and poor impish, half-starved children hang over them flogging them round without respite. Steam and vapour hung over the scene like a pall. One wonders how Wesley dared to go there. Being even halfway home gave me a decided twinge.
I hear my stepson may be back in England this summer—a mere twelve months after his ship was due. I hope to meet him then.
My dearest love to you both,
Verity
***
In December Demelza was making rushlights with Mrs. Gimlett, an employment that needed some practice and skill. The rushes had been cut in October and put in water so as to prevent drying or shrinkage. After they were stripped they ha
d been laid out on the grass to whiten and “take the dew” for a week, and then dried in the sun. The last treatment was to dip the rushes in scalding fat so that when withdrawn it congealed about the stem. Last year she had bought six pounds of grease from Aunt Mary Rogers for two shillings, but this year, in the desperate need for the smallest economy, she had saved her own fat, even the scummings of her bacon pot, and was hoping it would do as well.
These small economies were the only way she could make some contribution to the general need. Sometimes, too, in this quiet December she had got Ross’s dinghy out and rowed twenty or thirty yards offshore where she had been able to catch mackerel and skate enough for the whole household. Ross did not know of this, and Gimlett was impressed to help her and sworn to secrecy. Today the kitchen was full of the sputterings of the grease, and some of the smoke and steam of the process, when there came a ran-tan on the front door which she knew to be the knock of a stranger.
Jane Gimlett went to the door and reappeared after a minute hastily wiping her greasy hands.
“If you please, mistress, it is Sir Hugh Bodrugan. I asked him into the parlour. I hope twas the right thing to do.”
Sir Hugh had been calling irregularly for the last eighteen months but she had not seen him since the trial. The thought came to her that if she went in to him like this with spots of grease on her face it might cure him of his interest. But vanity and a sense of her own low beginnings were too strong. She flew upstairs and made quick repairs.
When she went in he was sprawling in Ross’s best chair examining the silver duelling pistols which he had taken down from the wall; he was wearing a red hunting coat and brown corduroy breeches and, since she had last seen him, a new wig. He got up and bowed over her hand.
“Yr servant, ma’am. Thought I’d call and refresh our friendship. Pleasant time we had in Bodmin, but a shade inconclusive.” The bawdy twinkling black eyes met her own as he straightened up. They were almost on a level, she slightly the taller.
“Maybe you looked on it different from me, Sir Hugh. I found it exhausting.”
He laughed. “Well, ye’ve got a husband no one expected you to have. I trust he appreciates the escape. And I trust he appreciates you.”
“Oh, we appreciate each other, Sir Hugh. We are very happy, I assure you.”
A shadow of discontent passed across his face. “But not above helping a neighbour in distress, eh?”
“In distress,” she said, looking away from his bold glance. “I didn’t know baronets was ever in distress.”
“Oh yes,” he said with a thick chuckle. “They are mortal like other men. Liable to all the ills and disappointments—and all the temptations, as you must know.”
She went to the table at the side. “Can I offer you port, sir, or is brandy more to your fancy?”
“Brandy, please. It lies easier on the stomach.”
As she poured out the drink she knew he was watching her and was sorry that her frock was a cheap one, though she knew well enough that he was not really interested in her frock.
He came over for the glass and took it with his left hand, putting his arm round her waist as he did so. After a moment they were seated again, he gulping at his glass, she on the edge of a chair at a discreet distance and gently sipping.
“Tis not that sort of distress, I trust?” she said gravely.
“It well could be, ma’am, it well could be.”
“Then I fear I have no cure for you.”
“You have it, miss, but withhold it, being hard of heart. However at this instant that’s not the distress I seek your aid for. It’s my mare Sheba.”
She stared at him over the rim of her glass, the dark wine making some added glimmer in the dark of her eyes. “Sheba? What is wrong and what can I do for you?”
“She’s sick, with some infernal fever that she can’t throw off. Her eyelids are swollen and she has a racking cough. She can barely walk, and her knee joints crack at every movement as if they were dry sticks.”
“I’m sorry to hear it,” she said, putting out one slipper and then, as he glanced down, withdrawing it. “But why do you come to me?”
Sir Hugh blew through his lips. “Why do I come to you? Because I was consulting Trevaunance on the problem this morning, and he says you cured a pedigree cow of his when all the farriers had failed! That’s why. Is that not a good reason?”
Demelza blushed and finished her port. As she did so she heard a horse outside and Ross dismounted at the door. Gimlett ran past the window to lead Darkie to the stables.
“It was mostly a matter of good fortune, Sir Hugh. It so happened—”
“All cures are good fortune one way or another, but everyone hasn’t the honesty to acknowledge it. Trevaunance was telling me that you’re learned on herbs and gypsy lore. If yo—”
“Oh no,” Demelza began. At that juncture Ross came in.
He looked surprised and not too pleased to see the thickset hairy baronet sprawling in his chair and talking to Demelza in such a familiar manner. He had never quarrelled with Sir Hugh, but had never liked him. Also, as a result of his visit to Truro, he had his own affairs very much on his mind, and he had only half his attention to spare for an unexpected visitor.
“Sir Hugh has called—” Demelza began.
“My mare Sheba is ill, Poldark, and I’ve called to solicit your wife’s good offices. She’s been ailing for more than two weeks—Sheba, I mean—and Connie’s in the greatest of a passion over it; she swears it is the groom’s fault. Anyway, it ain’t natural for the mare to be ill so long and she but six years old. Treneglos was saying one of his had it and died of it! We can’t afford to lose her. It ain’t natural at all.”
Ross dropped his riding gloves on a chair and poured himself some brandy. “How can Demelza help you?”
“Well I hear she’s a rare hand with herbs and spells and suchlike. Trevaunance only told me this morning, or I should have been over before. Damn it, the farriers have no more idea than the man in the moon!”
“The farriers—” Ross began.
“I was just saying to Sir Hugh,” Demelza said hastily, “that Sir John was putting too much store on a little advice I gave him back in August month. It was no more’n a word I dropped about his sick cow, and she grew better by accident.”
“Well, come over and drop a word about my sick mare, and see if she gets better by accident. Cod, it will do no harm surely.”
Demelza hesitated, opened her mouth to speak.
“After all,” said Sir Hugh, “it is no more than repaying one good turn with another. We’re neighbours and should do what we can to be neighbourly: that’s what I thought at Bodmin. Come yourself, Poldark, if you’ve the mind. Connie’ll victual you well enough, I’ll say that for her. We dine at three. I shall expect you tomorrow, what?”
“I’m sorry,” Ross said. “I have business which will keep me at the mine all day. Perhaps we can arrange one day next week.”
Demelza got up to refill Sir Hugh’s glass. “Maybe I could go, Ross?” she said gently. “Not to dine, but just for half an hour to see the mare. I can do naught, of course, but if Sir Hugh really wants it and nothing less will satisfy him…”
Bodrugan took the drink. “That suits me fine. I’ll expect you any time after eleven. And anything you want—medicines, plasters, clysters, herbs—just say the word. I have a groom ready to ride to Truro.”
After a few more sentences Ross went upstairs, but Sir Hugh was not hurrying. He finished his brandy and took a third, while Demelza wondered how Jane was managing the rushlights. At length he left, stocky, authoritative, and vigorous—squeezed Demelza’s hand lengthily, climbed on his big horse, and cantered across the bridge and up the valley.
She went into the kitchen and found Jane had finished the job and was cleaning up the mess. After about ten minutes she heard Ross come down again, an
d she followed him back into the parlour.
“Did you eat in Truro? We’ve some pie left.”
“I ate in Truro.”
She glanced at him, took in his bleak expression, thought it a criticism of her attitude towards Sir Hugh.
“We’re neighbours, Ross. You couldn’t expect for me not to receive him.”
“Who? Oh, Bodrugan.” Ross lifted an eyebrow. “I suppose you will not go tomorrow.”
“Of course I’ll go,” she said, a faint edge on her voice. “I promised, didn’t I?”
He said with irony: “D’you really suppose he wants you to cure his mare? I had a greater regard for your intelligence than that.”
“You mean you’ve no regard for my intelligence at all.”
“I’ve a great respect for it—sometimes. But you must realize what Bodrugan is after. He makes it very plain.”
Because it was three-quarters true she resented it the more.
“I think I ought to be able to judge that for myself.”
“No doubt you think so. But be careful that his tide doesn’t dazzle your eyes. It has that effect with some people.”
“Especially,” she said, “a common miner’s daughter who doesn’t know any better.”
He looked at her a moment. “That’s for you to demonstrate.”
He turned to go, but she was at the door first.
“You’re detestable—saying things like that!”
“I’m sure I didn’t start this argument.”
“No, you never do start arguments, do you, with your cold looks an’ your bitter tongue! You just freeze everyone up an’—an’ despise everything that isn’t up to your standard. It’s—it’s unfair and horrible! Perhaps that’s what you want me always to feel. Perhaps you’re sorry you ever bothered to marry me!”
She turned and was out of the door, slamming it behind her, and he heard her running up the stairs.
…Supper was late that evening.
Mrs. Gimlett said her mistress had a headache and would not be down, so Ross ate the meal alone. It was a dish of boiled rabbits with savoury garnishings, but he imagined that it had not quite the flavour as when Demelza cooked it. Afterwards there was apple tart and cream and hot scones. When he had finished he put some tart and cream in a dish and a couple of the scones and took it upstairs.
Jeremy Poldark Page 16