The Stranger from the Sea: A Novel of Cornwall, 1810-1811

by Winston Graham

  So for a while Pally’s Shop remained empty and its fields fallow.

  But whatever the joyous certainty of salvation and glory in the life to come, this life has to be lived, and Sam, though doggedly sustained by his convictions, suffered from his loss more than people realized, and often felt his loneliness in the cheerlessness of Reath Cottage. And one day, walking to Sawle on a mission of hope, he fell into step with Rosina Hoblyn and her married sister Parthesia, and could not help noticing the great difference between the two sisters. Parthesia younger, noisy, tooth-gapped and laughing, clutching two dirty children and followed by a third, while Rosina was so quiet, so well-mannered, and yet capable-seeming, with a certainty and a strength of mind that much impressed him. He already knew that Rosina was not of his religious persuasion but was nevertheless a steady attender at church. Almost as an after-observation, he took in the fact that the girl was attractive, dark-eyed, small-featured, soft-cheeked, with clean tidy black hair and a slow but winning smile.

  So, very gradually, with Demelza holding her breath and crossing her fingers but scrupulously doing nothing to help, an attachment had built up. Rosina, twice jilted through no fault of her own, thirty years old in 1803, too refined to be a common miner’s wife but not well-bred enough to attract a gentleman, was the ideal wife for a Methodist preacher who himself was low born but through his sister related to the Poldarks. Not to mention his special relationship with God. But for all his high-flown language which verged on the pretentious, a truly good man in the absolute sense of the word. And in the autumn of 1805, a month before Trafalgar, and after a two years’ courtship, they married.

  As a wedding present Ross had again offered Sam the now dilapidated Pally’s Shop, and this time it was accepted. So in the end Demelza came to have a sister-in-law living there as she had once planned. It was all very strange and strangely very satisfying. Since then, in five and a half years, Sam had re-established the business – though it was never the skilled trade it had been in Drake’s hands – and Rosina, her true character and energies released at last, had transformed the house and turned the six acres into a small-holding crammed with corn, vegetables and livestock.

  Hence the present procession. Although they had no children – a sad disappointment for them both – a bull calf had recently been born into their establishment and Ross had offered to buy it from them. It was now on the way.

  A bull calf is a naturally perverse animal and progress was made in stops and starts. It seemed from a distance that Rosina, the gentler of the two young women, was less determined in pulling at his head than Clowance was in shoving at his hindquarters. As they came up the rise towards the pine trees Demelza could see them exchanging pleasantries and laughing. She wondered with a twinge whether this was not the life most suitable for Clowance as well as Rosina: simple, hard-working, uncomplicated, close to the earth and the sea, ruled by daylight and the dark, the wind and the weather, the crop and the harvest, the cycles of the seasons. Was there any better life than this, if in partnership with the man you loved? But the last was the qualifying factor. Rosina had had a hard life before she came safely to this harbour. Perhaps Clowance would be luckier. Pray Clowance would be luckier.

  ‘Mama!’ Clowance said. ‘I thought you were baking today! Not a headache?’

  ‘Not a headache,’ said Demelza smiling, and kissed Rosina. ‘How are you? Are you bringing Eddie or is Eddie bringing you?’

  ‘So you remember his name!’ said Rosina. ‘Reckon I shall be glad to get’n off my hands, he’s so thrustful, gracious knows what he’ll be up to next!’

  Rosina was not at all fat, but contentment and rewarding work had given her slender body a compactness and solidity. Her limp was only just detectable, her skin glowed with health and her beautiful eyes had become less expressive, and more mundane with the achievement of marriage and position. Demelza did not think it had ever been a love-match between her and Sam but it had worked for them both.

  ‘How’s Sam?’ she asked.

  ‘Handsome ‘andsome. He was to’ve brought Eddie, but Clowance called in just in time, so I said we’d come, her and me, Sam being wrought with other things.’

  Rosina had been ‘saved’ six years ago, and though her language never matched Sam’s, her phrases had taken on some of the same colour. The three women turned together to escort Eddie back to Nampara. As they did so the little calf came snuffling up to Demelza and licked her hand and arm with its soft wet mouth. For a moment she felt very queer, faint; for she was taken back a quarter of a century to the night when she had come to the conclusion that her only way of remaining at Nampara when her father wanted her home was to induce Ross to take her into his bed. It had been in the evening, and she was out meating the calves for Prudie, and there in the back of the byre with the calves tumbling around her and their wet mealy mouths plucking at her frock and hands she had had the idea. He had been away, in Truro, trying to save Jim Carter from a prison sentence, and when he came home she had gone into him and made pretty plain to him what she had in mind.

  So it had happened, and a few months later he had married her, and they had had four children – one lost – and now the middle two were in the grip of the same overpowering emotion she had felt that night. Perhaps it was only just stirring in them, a sea dragon moving as yet sluggishly in the depths of the pool. But once roused it would not sleep again. It would not sleep until old age – sometimes, from what she’d heard people say, not altogether even then. But in youth an over-mastering impulse which knew no barrier of reason. An emotion causing half the trouble of the world, and half the joy.

  ‘Are you sure you’re well, Mama?’ Clowance asked. ‘You don’t look well?’

  ‘I’m very well, thank you,’ said Demelza. ‘Just something walking over my grave.’

  III

  It was, to begin, a small party at Caerhays: just the family and Jeremy and Joanna Bird, a friend of Clemency’s, who was staying for some time. Jeremy was flattered.

  Not that it was such a very great house when one got inside; it was shallow, the impressive ramparts deceptive. Nor was it quite like home, where everyone talked incessantly at meals and joked with each other and passed the food round and everyone behaved, within reasonably polite limits, according to how they felt at that moment. Here, it seemed, the mood was decided by Major Trevanion, whose position at the head of the table was no nominal one. A florid-faced man, though still in his early thirties, with blue eyes gone bloodshot and fair starched hair growing thin at the front, he wore a plain black silk coat and tight fawn-coloured ankle-button trousers. He seemed untalkative, or was temporarily in an untalkative mood, and this was the cue for the rest of them, all except Cuby, the youngest, who wasn’t quite so altogether subdued. Old Mrs Bettesworth, his mother, though she didn’t look very old, was tight-lipped and made no effort to brighten the meal. Food was different: pea soup, a codfish with cucumber and shrimp sauce, grilled oysters, a green goose roasted and for dessert apples and oranges and nuts and raisins.

  After dinner there was still a little daylight and Jeremy daringly suggested Cuby might accompany him in a walk to the seashore.

  She said: ‘It’s raining.’

  ‘I believe it has almost stopped.’

  ‘Well, I have a fancy for the rain.’ Mrs Bettesworth looked up from her sampler. ‘Joanna and Clemency will go with you. The air will do them both good.’

  The other girls were none too willing, but when Augustus Bettesworth said he would go too there was a change of heart. Presently the five young people left the castle and began to walk down the muddy garden path beside the lake towards the sea. Jeremy had been right, the brief flurry of rain had moved on, leaving pools luminous in the early twilight. A half moon was veiled in gauzy cloud. After the north coast the sea seemed docile, unobtrusive.

  ‘What do you do, Poldark?’ Augustus asked. He was about twenty-eight. A good-looking young man with a fine head of fair hair tied in a queue, boots that creaked even
in the damp; flat feet.

  ‘I help my father,’ said Jeremy. ‘Chiefly in the mine.’

  ‘Your father had a big reputation in Cornwall a few years ago. Still has, I s’pose. Members of Parliament are two a penny, but few enough live in the damn county. It says in the Gazette he’s just back from a mission. What’s a mission? Where has he been?’

  ‘It was government business,’ said Jeremy shortly. ‘Portugal, I believe.’

  ‘Well, thank God we’re still fighting the Froggies. I thought when Prinny took over it would all change. Wish we had a few good generals, though.’

  ‘My father speaks highly of Wellington.’

  ‘That Sepoy general! I doubt if he understands British troops! As for Chatham: he’s no more a leader of men than a stone statue on a plinth covered with pigeon droppings! Look at the mess he made at Walcheren, where my brother died! We’ll never beat Boney till we breed a few Marlboroughs again.’

  ‘I’m also interested in the development of steam,’ said Jeremy.

  ‘Steam? What d’you mean, man? The sort you make in a kettle?’

  The girls laughed.

  ‘Very much like that,’ said Jeremy, refusing to be provoked. ‘Only it can be put to better use. As it is in our mine engines. As I believe it will be in time on our roads.’

  Augustus stopped and stirred a puddle with his stick. Because he was in the lead and the path narrow, the others had to stop too.

  ‘My dear Poldark, you can’t be serious. You mean a road carriage of some sort with a big kettle in the middle and a fire under it.’

  ‘That sort of thing.’

  ‘Driving the wheels?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It couldn’t be done. You’d have to build so big a kettle that the wheels would collapse under the weight!’ More laughter.

  ‘If you used atmospheric pressure only,’ said Jeremy, ‘what you say would be true. It was true twenty years ago. But if you increase the strength of your kettle so that instead of its bearing 4 lbs pressure per square inch it can bear 100 lbs, then you increase its power against its size beyond all belief.’

  ‘Ha!’ said Augustus. ‘Beyond all belief! Beyond my belief of a certainty.’ He went on, marching towards the sea.

  ‘It already has been done,’ said Jeremy to Cuby. ‘Ten years ago.’

  ‘Hey, what’s that you say?’ Augustus stopped again. ‘Has been done, d’you say? Only by that lunatic – what’s his damn name? – Trevithick. I heard tell of that. Nigh on blew himself up, didn’t he? Killed people right and left. It’s what you’d expect, isn’t it. Let your kettle – or boiler, or whatever you like to call it – let your kettle be subjected to that sort of pressure and zonk! it explodes like a charge of gunpowder someone’s dropped a spark in! Stands to reason, unless you’re an unreasonable man.’

  ‘A safety-valve is built in,’ said Jeremy. ‘Then if the pressure rises too high, this blows out to let off the excess of steam.’

  ‘But it killed people, didn’t it. Didn’t it?’

  ‘In London, yes. The engine was neglected by the man looking after it and he left the valves closed. After that Mr Trevithick added a second safety-valve, and there was no more trouble.’

  ‘But folk have been killed in Cornwall by it! It’s a lunatic business, suitable only for lunatics!’

  ‘I’m obliged to you for the compliment,’ said Jeremy, touching his forelock.

  ‘Augustus means nothing,’ said Cuby. She lifted her cowl against the wind. ‘Augustus would have the half of England confined to Bedlam for the smallest of offences against his prejudices.’

  ‘And a larger proportion of Cornwall,’ said Augustus. They had at last reached the gate where Jeremy had first hidden. Now they crossed onto the beach. In the soft damp twilight Cuby hopped, skipped and broke into a run towards the sea. It soon became a race, with Jeremy’s long legs making him a clear winner. Panting they turned to walk towards the low cliffs on their right and went by two and three.

  ‘It’s so different from the north coast,’ said Jeremy. ‘The fields are greener, the cattle fatter, the trees … well, we have no trees such as these.’

  ‘Last year I was going to Padstow,’ said Cuby, ‘but it rained and blew so hard we abandoned the visit.’

  ‘You must come and see our piece of coast. My mother said she would like to meet you. If we gave a little party, would you come?’

  ‘What, on my own?’

  ‘I would fetch you.’

  ‘I’m not sure that my mother would approve of that.’

  ‘Perhaps Clemency would come with you? Or even Augustus.’

  Cuby laughed. ‘He barks easily, Augustus. Even growls sometimes. But his teeth are not so very sharp. I’m sorry if he offended you.’

  ‘I’m too content to be here,’ said Jeremy; ‘and too happy to be here. I believe no one could offend me.’

  ‘I’m glad you shaved this morning. Your looks are improved by it.’

  ‘Do you think Gauger Parsons would recognize me?’

  ‘Dear soul, I hadn’t thought of that! Shall we turn for home at once?’

  ‘It will soon be dark. The risk is worth it.’

  ‘Mr Poldark, do we have to take such long strides? I do not believe myself to be short in the leg or disproportionately built but –’

  He slowed immediately. ‘Forgive me. It was no more than following my natural instinct.’

  ‘Which is what, may I ask?’

  ‘The instinct to outpace your brother and sister, so that I may speak to you alone.’

  ‘Well, they are well back. Shall we wait for them?’

  ‘Not willingly.’

  They had reached the cliffs at the side of the narrow bay and now turned back towards the castle in an arc, their footsteps showing blacker against the darkening sand.

  ‘Now that you have me alone,’ she said after a glance, ‘why do you not say anything?’

  ‘Because I’m tongue-tied.’

  ‘That always has seemed to me a stupid expression. Have you ever tried to tie up anyone’s tongue, Mr Poldark? With a piece of string, or elastic, or a ribbon? It really isn’t possible.’

  ‘To begin, then, may I ask you not to call me Mr Poldark?’

  ‘I used to call you “boy”, didn’t I? But that would be discourteous now that I know you to be a gentleman. Mr Jeremy?’

  ‘Jeremy, please.’

  ‘My mother would think that very forward of me.’

  ‘Then in private?’

  She looked at him. ‘Do you suppose we are going to have many conversations in private?’

  ‘I pray so.’

  ‘To whom do you pray, boy?’

  ‘I think it must be Eros.’

  They came to the rocks. In the half-light Cuby sprang ahead of him, clambering, long-skirted but fleet-footed, over the boulders. He tried to keep up with her, to overtake her; his foot slipped on a seaweedy rock and he blundered into the water. He laughed and limped splashing out of the pool, sat on a boulder and held his foot, rubbing it.

  She came back and looked down at him accusingly. ‘You’ve hurt your foot again! You are always doing it!’

  ‘I’m always, it seems, running away from someone or running after someone.’

  ‘Which is it this time?’

  ‘Running after.’

  The light from the sky, reflected in the pool, was reflected again in her eyes.

  ‘I think I like you, boy,’ she said.

  Chapter Eight

  I

  For the musical evening the other guests were a young married couple – he on leave from his regiment: a Captain and Mrs Octavius Temple, from Carvossa in Truro; also a Lady Whitworth with her fifteen-year-old grandson, Conan. Then came the Hon. John-Evelyn Boscawen, and with him was Nicholas Carveth, brother of Mrs Temple, and making up the party Sir Christopher Hawkins and Sir George Warleggan with Valentine his son.

  Clemency played the harpsichord, Joanna Bird the English guitar, Nicholas Carveth the
clarinet, in its improved form just introduced by Iwan Muller, John Evelyn Boscawen sang a little, and accompanied Cuby when she sang. It was all a trifle high-society for Jeremy who, with an aching ankle carefully and delightfully bound up by Cuby, was content to sit and applaud and shake his head and smile when anyone looked expectantly towards him for some musical excellence.

  He observed then very distinctly what a man of humours Major Trevanion was; from the grim and silent mood of dinner he had swung to become talkative, charming and jolly; the good host intent on seeing that his guests were comfortable and well fed and well wined. He made a great fuss of everyone, including his own sisters.

  Although nominal neighbours, and distantly related by marriage to Valentine Warleggan, Jeremy had not set eyes on the other for three years and they had not spoken for six. Valentine was now a tall young man of seventeen with one slightly bowed leg, broad of shoulder but spindly of ankle and wrist, dark-haired with strong features and a narrowness of eye that marred his good looks. He seemed always to be looking down his long slim nose. He was elegantly dressed for one so young, and clearly no expense was grudged to enable him to turn himself out like this.

  Jeremy and Sir George had seen one another even less, and each eyed the other askance. George, with devious aims in view, was irritated to see this gangling young man, the first of the next generation of the obtrusive Poldarks, at such a gathering – and Jeremy had none of the sexual charm of Clowance to soften George’s rancour. As for Jeremy’s view of Sir George, he thought him aged, and stouter in an unhealthy way. Jeremy was just old enough to have overheard and innocently participated in his parents’ references to the Warleggans and therefore to have an inbuilt aversion for the breed. He saw him now as the owner of the mine he wished to acquire, the obstacle who must be placated or surmounted before Wheal Leisure could become a working property again.