The Four Swans

by Winston Graham

  Presently, while the other two were chatting, she rose and went to the window. Darkness had almost fallen, but light still glimmered on the river, which shone like a peeled grape among the stark trees.

  The servant came in with candles and drove the last of the retreating daylight away.

  Seeing Rowella so silent, Morwenna got up and went to the window and put her arm round her.

  ‘Well, darling, do you think you will like it here?’

  ‘Thank you, sister, I shall be near you.’

  ‘But far from Mama and your home. We shall need each other.’

  Garlanda watched her two tall sisters but said nothing.

  Presently Rowella said: ‘The vicar dresses his hair in a very pretty manner. Who is his operator?’

  ‘Oh . . . Alfred, our manservant, looks after him.’

  ‘He is not at all like Papa, is he?’

  ‘No . . . no, he is not.’

  ‘Nor is he at all like the new dean.’

  ‘The new dean is from Saltash,’ Garlanda volunteered. ‘Such a little bird of a man.’

  Silence fell.

  Rowella said: ‘I do not suppose we are so near revolution as the vicar suggests. But there were bad riots at Flushing last week . . . How far are we here from Truro?’

  ‘About a mile. A little more if one goes by the carriage road.’

  ‘There are some shops there?’

  ‘Oh, yes, in Kenwyn Street.’

  A pause. ‘Your garden looked pretty. It runs right to the river?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ Morwenna made an effort. ‘We have great fun, Sarah and Anne and I. When the tide is half in there is a little island that we stand on and pretend we are marooned and waiting for a boat. But if we don’t choose just the right time to escape, our feet sink in the mud and we get wet . . . And we feed the swans. There are just four of them and they are quite tame. One of them has a damaged wing. We call her Leda. We steal scraps from the kitchen. Anne is terrified, but Sarah and I – they will feed out of our hand . . .’

  The darkness was now so complete that they could see only the reflections of themselves in the glass.

  Rowella said: ‘I have brought a pincushion to stick for you. It is of white satin and quilted curiously, the upper and undersides to be of different patterns. I think you will like it.’

  ‘I’m sure I shall. Show it me when you unpack.’

  Rowella stretched herself. ‘I think I should like to do that now, Wenna. My shoes are pinching and I long to change them. They belonged to Carenza, who outgrew them and so they were passed on. But I believe they are now too small for me.’

  II

  Ross Poldark had known the Bassets more or less all his life but it had been the acquaintance that all landed people in Cornwall had of each other rather than friendship. Sir Francis Basset was too big a man to consort familiarly with the small squires of the county. He owned the Tehidy estate about eleven miles west of Nampara and his vast mining interests gave him a greater spendable income than any other man in the county. He had written and issued papers on political theory, on practical agriculture and on safety in the mines. He was a patron of the arts and sciences and spent half of each year in London.

  It was therefore a surprise to the Poldarks to receive a letter from him in March inviting them to dinner at Tehidy; though not so much of a surprise as it would have been a year ago. To Ross’s great irritation he found himself a hero in the county since his Quimper adventure, people knew his name who had never heard of him before, and this was not the first unexpected invitation they had received. To some of them he had successfully negotiated a refusal – the negotiation being with Demelza, who on principle never refused an invitation anywhere. During the winter Clowance had been out of sorts with teething troubles and this had given him a lever to get his own way, for Julia’s death was still vivid in Demelza’s mind, and the fact that their new child was a girl seemed to make her specially vulnerable. But now Clowance was better, so there was no excuse.

  ‘Oh, I like him well enough,’ said Ross, driven into a corner. ‘He’s a different mould from my more immediate neighbours; a man of sensibility, though a trifle ruthless in his own affairs. It is just that I don’t relish an invitation which so clearly arises from my new notoriety.’

  ‘Notoriety is not a good word,’ said Demelza. ‘Is it? I thought notoriety meant a kind of ill fame.’

  ‘I imagine it can mean all kinds of fame. It certainly applies to undeserved fame, such as mine is.’

  ‘Perhaps others are a better judge than you are, Ross. It is no shame to be known as a brave and daring person.’

  ‘Daring and foolhardy. Losing as many men as I saved.’

  ‘Not unless you guess at those that may have died trying to escape on their own.’

  ‘Well,’ Ross said restively, ‘the objection holds. I have no love for being thought highly of for the wrong reasons. But I give in, I give way, I surrender; we’ll go and beard Sir Francis in his den. His wife is Frances too, you know. And his daughter. So it will become very confusing for you if you take too much port.’

  ‘I know when some ill word is coming from you,’ Demelza said. ‘Your ears twitch, like Garrick’s when he has seen a rabbit.’

  ‘Perhaps it is the same impulse,’ said Ross.

  Nevertheless Demelza would have been happier if this had been an evening party and she could in fact have fortified herself with a glass or two as soon as she arrived. To Ross it meant nothing that she had been born within a mile or so of Tehidy Park and that her father had worked all his life in a mine of which Sir Francis Basset owned the mineral rights. Four of her brothers had at times worked on mines in which he had a controlling interest. The name of Sir Francis Basset carried as much weight in Illuggan and Camborne as the name of King George, and it had been daunting even to be introduced to him at the wedding. Did Sir Francis know, or did he not, that Mrs Ross Poldark had been a miner’s brat dragged up in a hovel with six brothers, and a drunken father who belted her at the least excuse? And if he did not, might not her accent – in spite of her greatly improved English – inform him? To a trained ear there were very noticeable differences of tone between one district and another.

  But she said nothing of this to Ross because it might have given him another lever to refuse, and she did not feel that he ought to refuse, and she knew he would not go without her.

  It was a Thursday they had been asked for, and the time one o’clock, so they left soon after eleven in light rain.

  Tehidy Park was by far the largest and most affluent seat anywhere along the north Cornish coast from Crackington to Penzance. Although surrounded at a short distance by moorland and all the scars of mining, it was pleasantly wooded, with a fine deer park and a pretty lake overlooked by the house. Seven hundred acres insulated it from the industry that brought its owner an income of above £12,000 a year. The house itself was an enormous square Palladian mansion sentinelled at each of its corners by a ‘pavilion’ or smaller house, one of which was a chapel, another a huge conservatory, and the other two accommodation for the servants.

  They went in and were greeted by their hosts. If they knew anything of Demelza’s origins they did not betray it by so much as the flicker of an eyelid. All the same, Demelza was greatly relieved to see Dwight and Caroline Enys among the guests.

  Among others there was a Mr Rogers, a plump middle-aged man from the south coast, who was Sir Francis’s brother-in-law, two of Sir Francis’s sisters, his fourteen-year-old daughter, and of course Lady Basset, an attractive, elegant little woman whose diminutive size nicely matched her husband’s. Making up the company was a florid gentleman called General William Macarmick and a young man called Armitage, in naval uniform, with the epaulet of a lieutenant on his left shoulder.

  Before dinner they strolled about the house, which inside was so luxurious as to make the big houses round the Fal seem modest by comparison. Handsome pictures hung on the walls and over the marble chimney-pieces, and names
like Rubens, Lanfranc, Van Dyke and Rembrandt were bandied about. On introduction Lieutenant Armitage had not meant anything to Demelza, until she saw him greet Ross, and then she realized that this was the kinsman of the Boscawens whom Ross had liberated from the prison camp of Quimper. He was a striking young man whose pallor, still possibly the result of his long imprisonment, accentuated his large dark eyes, with lashes that any woman would envy. But there was nothing girlish about his keen sharp-featured face and quiet brooding manner, and Demelza caught a gleam of something in his eye when he looked at her.

  By the time they sat down it was three o’clock. Demelza was opposite Lieutenant Armitage and between Dwight and General Macarmick. The latter, in spite of being elderly, was cheerful and outgoing, a man with a lot of opinions and no lack of the will to voice them. He had at one time been Member of Parliament for Truro, had raised a regiment for the West Indies and had made a fortune for himself in the wine trade. He was polite and charming to everyone, but in between courses when his hands were not engaged he repeatedly felt Demelza’s leg above the knee.

  She sometimes wondered what there was about herself that made men so forthcoming. In those early days when she had gone to various receptions and balls she had always had them two or three deep asking for the next dance – and often for more besides. Sir Hugh Bodrugan still lumbered over to Nampara hopefully a couple of times a year, presumably expecting that sooner or later persistence would have its reward. Tvo years ago at that dinner party at Trelissick there had been that Frenchman who had larded his entire dinner conversation with improper suggestions. It didn’t seem right.

  If she had known herself to be supremely beautiful or striking – as beautiful, for instance, as Elizabeth Warleggan, or as striking as Caroline Enys – it might have been more acceptable. Instead of that she was just friendly, and they took it the wrong way. Or else they sensed something particularly female about her that set them off. Or else because of her lack of breeding they thought she would be easy game. Or else it happened to everybody. She must ask Ross how often he squeezed women’s legs under the dinner table.

  Talk was much of the war. Mr Rogers had had the most recent dealings with French émigrés and was of the opinion that the newly formed Directory was on the point of collapse, and with it the whole republic.

  ‘Not only,’ said Rogers, ‘is there moral and religious decay, this has become a decay of will-power, of a desire to accept any duty or responsibility whatever, of a willingness to take any action on behalf of the few Godless fanatics who cling to power. You, sir – ’ to Ross ‘ – will I am sure bear me out in this.’

  Ross’s nod was one of politeness rather than agreement. ‘My contact with the French republicans has been slight – except for the very few I met in – in what I suppose could be called combat. Alas, my experience of the French counter-revolutionaries has been such that I would apply most of your description to them also.’

  ‘Nevertheless,’ Rogers was undeterred, ‘the collapse of the present regime in France can’t be long delayed. What’s your view, Armitage?’

  The young lieutenant took his eyes off Demelza and said: ‘D’you know, although I was nine months in France, I saw no more of it than the first nine days when I was moved from prison to prison. Did you, Enys?’

  ‘Once inside Quimper,’ Dwight said, ‘and you could as well have been in purgatory. True, one heard the guards talking from time to time. The cost of many things had multiplied twelve times in a year.’

  Rogers said: ‘In 1790 you could buy a hat in Paris – a good one, mind you – for fourteen livres; now, I’m told, it is near on six hundred. Farmers will not bring their produce to market, for the paper money they are paid for it has lost value by the following week. A country cannot wage war without a sound financial basis to support it.’

  ‘That’s Pitt’s view too,’ said Sir Francis Basset.

  In the silence that followed Ross said: ‘This young general who crushed the counter-revolutionaries in Paris, has he not now been put in charge of the French Army to Italy? This month. Some time this month. I always forget his name.’

  ‘Buonaparte,’ said Hugh Armitage. ‘It was he who captured Toulon at the end of ’93.’

  ‘There’s a whole group of young generals,’ Ross said, ‘Hoche the most gifted of them. But while they live and command troops and are undefeated in battle it’s hard to believe that the dynamic of the Revolution is altogether dead. There’s a risk that, by ignoring the orthodox view of war and finance, they may keep up the momentum a while longer. For years the army has been paid only from the pickings of conquered countries.’

  Basset said: ‘This Buonaparte put down the counterrevolutionaries by firing cannon at them – he cleared the streets of Paris with grapeshot, killing and maiming hundreds of his own countrymen! Obviously such men have to be reckoned with. And their Directory of Five, who deposed those other blood-stained tyrants, these five are criminals in any sense of the word. They cannot allow the war machine to stop. In them, as much as for the young generals, it is conquer or die.’

  ‘I’m relieved to hear you say so much, sir,’ said Lieutenant Armitage. ‘My uncle speculated that in dining with so prominent and distinguished a Whig I might hear talk of peace and references favourable to the Revolution.’

  ‘Your uncle should have known better,’ said Sir Francis coldly. ‘The true Whig is as patriotic an Englishman as anyone in the land. No one loathes the Revolutionaries more than I, for they have broken every law of God and man.’

  ‘As a lifelong Tory,’ observed General Macarmick, ‘I could not have expressed it better myself!’

  Demelza moved her knee.

  ‘A whiff of grapeshot,’ he went on, cheerfully finding it again, ‘a whiff of grapeshot would not come amiss in this country from time to time. To fire at the King’s coach when he went to open Parliament! Outrageous!’

  ‘I believe it was but stones they aimed,’ Dwight said. ‘And someone discharged an airgun . . .’

  ‘And then they overturned the coach on its way back empty – and near wrecked it! They should be taught a lesson, such ruffians and miscreants!’

  Demelza looked at the boiled codfish with shrimp sauce that had been set before her, and then glanced at Lady Basset to see which fork she was picking up. Despite the austerity of the times, when the consumption of food was being voluntarily restricted and it was patriotic to reduce one’s style, this was still a handsome meal. Soup, fish, venison, beef, mutton, with damson tarts, syllabubs and lemon pudding; and burgundy, champagne, Madeira, sherry and port.

  For a time talk was the gossip of the county: of the sudden death of Sir Piers Arthur, one of the Members of Parliament for Truro, which would require a by-election there, and whether the Falmouths would choose their new MP from inside the county to companion Captain Gower in the House. When they looked at him Lieutenant Armitage smiled and shook his head. ‘Don’t ask me. I’m no candidate, nor have I any idea who may be. My uncle does not use me as his confidant. What of you, General?’

  ‘Nay, nay,’ said Macarmick. ‘I am past all that. Your uncle will be looking for a younger man.’

  And of the earnest discussion in the county as to the need for a central hospital to deal with the widespread sickness among miners; and of the argument put forward among others by Sir Francis Basset and Dr Dwight Enys that such a central hospital should be sited near Truro.

  And of how Ruth and John Treneglos’s eldest, Jonathan, had taken the smallpox, and that Dr Choake had pronounced them of a good sort; and of his three sisters who had been brought into the sickroom at a proper stage in the disease and had all received the infection and were doing very favourably.

  Demelza was relieved when dinner broke up. Not that she so much minded General Macarmick’s intimacies, but his hand was growing progressively hotter, and she was afraid for her frock. Sure enough when she was able to look at herself upstairs there were grease stains.

  While they dined the clouds had altogeth
er cleared, the wind had dropped and a warm yellow sun was low in the sky, so the Bassets suggested they should take a stroll in the gardens and walk up through the woods to a terrace from which one could see all the North Cliffs and the sea.

  The women took cloaks or light wraps and the party started off, to begin with in a strolling crocodile, led by Lady Basset and General Macarmick, but splintering up as this or that person stopped to admire a plant or a view or wandered down a side way as the fancy took him.

  From the beginning Demelza found herself partnered by Lieutenant Armitage. It was not deliberate on her part, but she knew it was on his. He was silent for the first few minutes, then he said:

  ‘I am under a great obligation to your husband, ma’am.’

  ‘Yes? I’m that happy that it turned out so.’

  ‘It was a noble adventure on his part.’

  ‘He does not think so.’

  ‘I believe it is his nature to deprecate the value of his own acts.’

  ‘You must tell him so, Lieutenant Armitage.’

  ‘Oh, I have.’

  They walked on a few paces. Ahead of them some of the others were discussing the birth of a child to the Prince and Princess of Wales.

  Armitage said: ‘This is a delightful prospect. Almost as beautiful as that from my uncle’s house. Have you ever seen Tregothnan, Mrs Poldark?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Oh, you must. I hope you both will soon. While I’m staying there. This house, of course, is much finer. My uncle speaks sometimes of rebuilding his.’