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

by Winston Graham

  ‘Which days?’

  ‘Of the Civil War. I think the estate belonged to a man called Bridgeman. Our family has only been here about sixty years. The house was then unfinished. My father really made it what it is today.’

  ‘Are you Irish?’ she asked.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘The name of Fitzmaurice sounds…’

  ‘The Pettys were drapers in Hampshire. But a clever one became a professor at Oxford and he went to Ireland and acquired an estate there. His son married the daughter of the Earl of Kerry and their son inherited, and so the two names became linked and have not since been separated … But tell me of your own.’

  ‘My own name? Poldark? I do not quite know. Someone came over with the Huguenots and married into a Cornish family called Trenwith. And then…’

  ‘So we are very much the same, Miss Poldark.’

  ‘Are we?’

  ‘Are we not?’

  ‘Well, no; for you have great properties and great possessions. We have little of either.’

  ‘I meant in that the families are blended in rather the same way. But I would point out, Miss Poldark, that the properties and possessions belong to my brother. I am relatively poor. My own house, Bremhill, you must come and see tomorrow –’

  ‘Har – hum!’ Colonel Powys cleared his throat. ‘We are waiting for you, Fitzmaurice.’

  ‘I beg your pardon.’ Lord Edward whispered to Clowance: ‘Have you ever practised archery?’

  ‘No. Never.’

  ‘We have a range. No distance from here. I wonder…’

  ‘What?’

  ‘If they would excuse us from this longer trip … Colonel Powys-Jones.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘I wonder if you might excuse us from coming with you to Roundway. I had thought –’

  ‘Gladly, dear boy –’

  ‘What is this?’ asked Demelza alertly.

  ‘Mrs Poldark, it happens we are very near the archery range, and I thought your daughter might like to try an arrow or two. I confess I am merely a beginner myself and could very well instruct myself as well as her. But you and Colonel Powys-Jones could proceed to Roundway as arranged and pick us up on the way back…’

  ‘Archery,’ said Powys-Jones, rubbing his chin. ‘Ah yes, archery. Where is it?’

  ‘Just over the next hill. My brother Henry is proficient at it, and it is, I believe, a skilful sport, but I have had little time to play.’

  ‘You have a lawn or something?’

  ‘Oh yes, we have a special lawn. It is all set up. If you would care to take Mrs Poldark as planned to Roundway…’

  Machinery worked for a moment or two inside the Colonel’s shaven head.

  ‘Then we shall all go,’ he announced in his usual military way, commanding the expedition.

  ‘Go where?’ asked Demelza.

  ‘To try our hand at archery. Damned good idea, I would say.’

  ‘Sir, there is simply no reason for you and Mrs Poldark to alter your arrangements,’ said Edward, clearly put out. ‘I had only thought that for myself and Miss Poldark…’

  ‘Nonsense,’ said the Colonel. ‘Very interested in archery myself. Very agreeable exercise. How about you, ma’am?’

  ‘Well,’ said Demelza, astonished at the Colonel’s change of front, for she had thought this division would have suited his purpose, and feeling some sympathy for Edward’s wishing to have Clowance to himself for a few minutes, ‘Well … I confess I had hoped to see Roundway. You have told me yourself, Colonel, of this battle, and I had been much looking forward to seeing the site and hearing your further description…’

  ‘Go tomorrow,’ said Colonel Powys-Jones.

  ‘But, Colonel, today is a delightful day for a drive.’

  ‘Nonsense … Beg pardon, ma’am, but look at those clouds. Any moment now, might be heavy rain. Then where should we be? No … Archery. Agreeable exercise. Ever tried it, ma’am?’

  ‘No. I know nothing of it.’

  ‘Then you shall be instructed too. Very simple sport, shooting an arrow. Little or no skill required.’

  In curious disarray they proceeded to stroll up the hill, Edward biting his thumbnail in chagrin, Clowance walking sedately beside him, fanning her face gently with a pink glove, Powys-Jones extending an arm like an angle iron for Demelza to lay her finger-tips on, and the coachman and the barouche making a detour up a narrow track to be ready for them when they next had need of him.

  It was only when they came upon the archery lawn that the mystery of the Colonel’s change of mood was solved. Edward took out the bows and arrows from the pavilion and proceeded to fire a few practice shots at the target and then invited them to try. Instruction, it seemed, was a very intimate affair. Demelza could see that Edward, while touching Clowance frequently in the course of his teaching, was indeed behaving impeccably. Colonel Powys-Jones was not. His object clearly was to hold Demelza altogether within his arms while one hand held hers in the bow guard and the other guided her to pull back the string of the bow. Since the instructor was an inch shorter than the instructed the attempt was not a great success, except for the Colonel himself. The first of Demelza’s arrows went winging up into the air and missed the target by some forty feet. Starlings rose.

  Having her hat pushed out of place, Demelza took it off and dropped it on the grass.

  ‘Really, Colonel, I think twould be better –’

  ‘Nay, hold still, look you. You almost got it then. Allow me.’

  The lesson went on, with Demelza taking what evasive action she could. Clowance’s second arrow was dead on target but died and took the ground ten feet short.

  ‘Bravo!’ said Edward. ‘A truly splendid attempt! If we can get the bow a little higher…’

  ‘Let Mama have another try.’

  ‘Demelza’s second arrow went off in quite the opposite direction from the first. This time some sheep scattered. Colonel Powys-Jones licked dry lips with satisfaction and squeezed her arm.

  ‘Once more, m’ dear…’

  Demelza said: ‘I wonder why all the sheep round here wear black leggings.’

  ‘Oh, they’re not leggings, ma’am,’ Lord Edward said. ‘It is the breed –’ He stopped.

  Clowance bubbled with laughter.

  ‘I beg your pardon,’ Edward said to her. ‘Your mother … I never know quite when she is serious.’

  ‘It has long been a trouble for us all,’ Clowance said.

  ‘The trouble for me at this moment,’ said Demelza, ‘is that the next arrow is entangled with my skirt, and unless the Colonel allows me I will have to tear the stuff or shoot my own foot.’

  ‘Nay, ma’am, I am simply attempting to aid the general direction of your aim! … Have a care! See, have a care or the arrow head will scratch your pretty arm. Pray do not remove the guard!’

  Given a half chance, Demelza stepped delicately out of his grasp. ‘Do you show us, Colonel. There is nothing better for instruction than a good example. Every church commends it.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ said Clowance, coming to her rescue. ‘Please, Edward. It is very warm this morning. Let you two gentlemen hold a contest first, while we learn and admire.’ So in the middle of the green midday, among the hum of bees and with a few lazy birds twittering in the sultry bushes, the two men took off their jackets just as if they were preparing for fisticuffs and shot twenty arrows each for a purse of ten guineas.

  In spite of Lord Edward’s disclaimer he had the better eye and won by eleven to five, the other four arrows having missed the targets.

  Then, money having changed hands, they all sat together on a stone bench, talking and gossiping until it was time to return to the house for the new meal of luncheon.

  While they tidied their hair, Enid having been rapidly dispensed with, Clowance said to her mother: ‘Aunt Caroline warned me of this.’

  ‘Of what?’

  ‘She said, have a care, Clowance, have a care lest your mother does not cut you out from all the be
st attentions by all the best men. It is not her fault, poor woman, she cannot help it.’

  ‘Your Aunt Caroline might have thought of some better advice than that,’ Demelza said breathlessly. ‘Best, indeed! Would you include Colonel Powys-Jones among the best men? And I request you, have I for one moment encouraged him?’

  ‘I should need thought and time to answer that, Mama. But it is not only the Colonel. Look at Mr Magnus on the first night. And Sir John Egerton. And that other man, that young French aristocat, de Flahault.’

  ‘Dear life, he’s young enough to be my son! Or nearly,’ Demelza conceded.

  ‘But old enough to be something else.’

  ‘Oh, he’s French. Many of them are like that.’ Demelza thought of two beautiful Frenchmen she had known sixteen or so years ago, dead long since in an abortive landing on the Biscayan coast, a landing in which her husband had risked his life and her brother nearly lost his.

  ‘All the same,’ said Clowance, ‘I fully realize for the first time why Papa has to keep you hidden away in Nampara.’

  ‘I conceive you realize,’ said Demelza, ‘how unbecoming it is in a daughter to offer such remarks to her mother. Far better to consider your own situation.’

  ‘But I am doing so! I am sure you have only to look at Edward in the right way and he will be following you instead of me. Oh, how this tangles!

  Demelza put her comb down. ‘Serious, Clowance. Just for a moment. Does it prosper?’

  Clowance stopped and stared out of the window. ‘Do you want it to prosper?’

  ‘I want you to prosper.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘And is that different?’

  ‘I wish I knew. I am … not in love with him.

  ‘Are you in love with someone else?’

  A shadow crossed her face. ‘No-o…’

  ‘And is he – Lord Edward, I mean – do you think him serious?’

  ‘The way he looks, I suspect he is.’

  ‘I suspect that also … What were you whispering about just before we came in?’

  ‘He was simply saying that he was glad I had at last called him Edward instead of Lord Edward.’

  ‘I don’t know the niceties of these things.’

  ‘Well, it was really all your fault,’ said Clowance. ‘I was so concerned to rescue you from the clutches of your Welsh colonel that the name slipped out unthinking!’

  ‘I see I am to be blamed for everything.’

  ‘He has also asked me to visit his own house. It is quite near here, it seems, and was owned by the Lansdowne family before they bought this estate.’

  Demelza put her fingers down the side of her frock to be sure it was straight and in order. ‘Clowance…’

  ‘Yes, Mama?’

  ‘I don’t know how to say this. Or perhaps it is not necessary. Perhaps it is already understood.’

  ‘Well, I do not mind if you put it into words…’

  Demelza still hesitated, looking at her daughter. ‘Clowance, if it should come to some decision that you have to make, don’t be influenced…’

  ‘By what?’

  ‘I don’t want you to be influenced in his favour by the knowledge that Lord Edward is a nobleman and rich and possessed of many things that you would not otherwise ever have.’

  ‘No, Mama.’

  ‘So that means also do not either be prejudiced against him because he is the possessor of these things. You have so much of your father in you, and you know well the feeling he has about such matters as wealth and privilege. I – I do not suppose he married me just because I was a miner’s daughter, but I believe the irony must have pleased him … Yet he is as stiff-backed as the rest in some ways, as you well know … It seems that he approves of Lord Lansdowne because they pursue the same ends in Parliament. Therefore…’ She stopped and looked at Clowance for a long moment. ‘Try to judge this as best you may – by your own thoughts and feelings and likings and by the feeling of warmth in your heart and the perception of such warmth in his. Love may grow. But above all try to think of nothing but Edward…’ She shrugged. ‘Impossible, I know.’

  ‘But such a marriage – if it came to that – it would make you happy?’

  Demelza hesitated. ‘I should be happy for the circumstances. But not, Clowance, if they did not please you. I should be happy in the circumstances, yes. What mother would not?’

  Clowance began to pull again at a knot in her hair.

  ‘Anyway, I am certain it is all fanciful, Mama. Edward, I am sure, has young ladies here by the score – and teaches them all to shoot arrows. Tomorrow when I go and see his house it will be part of a tour arranged for all the guests at the same time. We shall go home happily together next week having had nothing more important to decide than which hat to wear for the journey!’

  ‘Are you looking forward to going home?’

  Clowance thought a moment. ‘No. I believe I am enjoying it here.’

  ‘So I think am I.’

  Clowance said: ‘I saw you invited to play billiards last night. Was it Sir John Egerton?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How did you refuse?’

  ‘I told him I should surely tear the table.’

  ‘Do you suppose, Mama, that instruction in billiards involves such intimacies as instruction at archery?’

  ‘Not with the other ladies looking on.’

  III

  Demelza had never played whist until Jeremy grew up and developed a temporary passion for it; then both she and Clowance were persuaded to take a hand in order to set up a table at home. Thereafter she had played occasionally when Ross was home. So neither she nor Clowance was able to deny all knowledge of the game and they were drawn in to play on one or two evenings. Clowance, who generally feared nothing, was thrown into a panic by these games and was fairly trembling as she played the cards. Demelza was twice partnered by Powys-Jones and hoped her occasional gaffes would spoil a beautiful friendship; but nothing seemed to injure his high opinion of her. Two evenings there was music, and two evenings music for dancing. These were the least constrained, although, since there were never at the most more than nine or ten couples on the floor, those who danced were not exactly lost in the throng. Clowance for once was grateful for the tuition she had received at Mrs Gratton’s, and Demelza, though she did not know the best steps, was light enough of foot to get by. They were pleasant evenings on which one was conscious of being observed but not conscious of being weighed up or criticized. A great deal of the credit for this went to Lady Lansdowne, who, although herself the daughter of an earl, wafted around with an unstudied and absent-minded charm that somehow prevented the starch and stiffness which would have ruined the occasions. The visit to Bremhill passed off with two other guests, happily but noncommittally. Thursday was another open day; and Friday brought a further visit to the races; on the Saturday, amateur theatricals in which Clowance was persuaded to take a part.

  Barefoot Clowance, Demelza thought, thundering across the beach on her black horse at a breakneck pace, blonde hair flying; tomboyish, frank of speech, running away from school simply because she found the curriculum tedious, incapable it seemed of the frivolous chatter in which elegant young ladies were expected to indulge, now preparing to appear before this sophisticated audience playing some character called Maria out of a play named The School for Scandal.

  Her part, when it came to it, was the most difficult to sustain because the others could make themselves into caricatures, while she had to appear almost as herself. She was loaned an old-fashioned frock of cream and yellow satin, flounced, tight-waisted and of low decolletage, which reminded Demelza of her own first ball frock of nearly a quarter of a century ago. Little powder or paint, but her hair and skin were striking. And she sustained her part better than the others, moving and speaking with ease and only having to be prompted once.

  Oh dear, thought Demelza, how strange it all is! Me, sitting here, a mother, like a middle-aged dowager, moving in the best circles, behaving wit
h prim propriety, hands folded on reticule, feet politely together, smiling graciously when spoken to, inclining the head this way and that, the perfect lady; when I’ve still got two scars on my back from my father’s leather strap, and I learned to swear and curse and spit before I was seven, and I crawled with lice and ate what food I could find lying in the gutter, and had six dirty undernourished brothers all younger than me to look after. And although one has died, there are still five: one a blacksmith and Methodist preacher, one a manager of a boat yard, three miners eking out a bare living working under the earth like blind worms. And thank God for gloves, for my hands are not as lily-white as those around me. Indeed it is not two weeks since they were scouring a preserving pan that Ena had not got properly clean. And before that they have had years and years of wear.

  I am not of the same breed as these women, she thought; I should be different in colour or shape. But except for a few rough edges which they graciously ignore … Lady Isabel is a dear sweet sight, though I wish one had not to howl everything into her trumpet. And who would have thought Lady Lansdowne was three months forward? I wish I were. I wish Jeremy was three again like her son. I wish I was twenty-six like her and it was all to come again. Life … it slips away like sand out of a torn envelope. Well, I’m still not exactly old. But it worries me to see Ross limp, and the lines about his jaw, and many of my friends sick or old or dead.

  What was Clowance’s future, she wondered? Children in their youth blossomed and bloomed; then chance, inclination, heredity all played their part in deciding how that blossom would fruit. A hot sun? A savage wind? A frost? Clearly Clowance did not feel herself out of place among these high gentlefolk, not overawed. There was no folk memory; she had never known Illuggan and the dirt, the disease, the drink. If she married here she would fit in. But had not any of his relatives tried to influence Edward against such a poor match? Perhaps they were doing so every day. As a younger brother he ought to marry money. Perhaps the family was so well founded it did not matter either way.

  Edward was playing Charles Surface, better-looking for his handsome white wig. He seemed everything that was admirable in a young man: a little clumsy but kind, just as aware of his responsibilities as his more brilliant brother; automatically in Parliament, Whig in the best sense of favouring a paternal liberalism; now that his brother had gone to the Upper House his own talents might be more quickly appreciated … a thoughtful husband and a loving one. Could one ask more? Demelza looked back at Nampara, and suddenly the outlook was bleak and cold. Not for her, thank God. For her Ross was everything; and by some miraculous chance she seemed to represent the same to him. But for her children. Jeremy had fallen deep in love with Cuby Trevanion – and while there should not have been any let to his suit, there clearly was. Although prepared to bury himself in his mining engine and his belief in the revolutionary power of steam, he was in fact a hollow man lacking the very sap of life because a young woman with a pretty face had for monetary reasons been denied the privilege of promising herself to him. Here, now here, in this room, was her daughter, just finishing amid considerable applause, a short extract from a play in which the hero was being played by a young man who apparently was interested in her. The let here, if there was one, existed only in her daughter’s feelings, Home, back home, in that warm lovely home she had made for herself, was no happy or lovely alternative for Clowance, any more than there was for Jeremy.