‘I might if I could persuade her to sell up and come back here.’
‘She seems – as I say – committed.’
‘She made a loss last year.’
‘That was chiefly because of the weather.’
‘Hm.’ He pulled on the short nightshirt that Demelza had made for him and then slipped into bed beside her. She blew out two of the candles and put her book on the floor beside the bed.
‘I heard the first cricket tonight,’ she said. ‘Did you? Yes, I suppose it’s about time.’ ‘Do you want to talk?’ she asked.
‘You choose.’
‘Then I think I’m ready for sleep.’
He kissed her and snuffed out the final candle. Except when there was temporary war between them – and the last time was years gone – theirs was never a perfunctory goodnight kiss: it was the resealing of a partnership, a restatement of a sexual friendship.
Ross lay back on his pillow and took a deep breath of something not far from satisfaction. Despite the tragedies and traumas of life – far away the greatest among them the death of his elder son at Waterloo – he felt he had a deal to be thankful for. It was of course his nature to be restive; but he often found when an attack of what Demelza called the lurgies was pending, a long fast walk, preferably across the beach at low tide, and preferably alone, helped to drive it away. This had happened tonight – temporarily at least.
He put his hands behind his head and tried to think about his mines and his farm and his interests in boat-building, rolling mills and banking. He was close to becoming a warm man – though if the truth be told it was Wheal Leisure that made him warm. Wheal Grace kept going mainly as an act of social conscience – and the other interests were peripheral.
The curtains were drawn, but as his eyes got used to the total darkness he found it as usual not to be total. The curtains were stirring from an inch-open window and allowed a faint slit of light to creep into the room. One of the sash windows was trembling slightly as the wind too tried to get in. It had in fact been trembling for years, and he always meant to have it seen to. But perhaps if it was stopped now they would both miss it. The sound had become part of their sleeping lives.
Demelza said: ‘Carla May.’
‘What?’
‘Carla May.’
‘What of it? I thought you were asleep.’
‘I don’t know any May family in this district, do you, Ross?’
‘Come to think of it, no. I knew a Captain May in America. He came from the south-west, but I think it was Devon.’
Silence fell. Ross decided that the sash window should be attended to. He would tell Gimlett in the morning.
He touched Demelza’s shoulder. ‘Why suddenly ask me this when we were just going to sleep? What’s in your mind?’
‘I was just thinking, Ross. Why should Valentine volunteer the name of the maid he was – was visiting at Mingoose?’
‘I suppose he thought it added a little verisimilitude.’
‘That’s a silly word. But exactly…’
‘What?’
‘Do you really think if Valentine had been paying a love call on a maid in the Treneglos household he would have bothered to tell you her name? He might not even know it himself! To me it does not add very – whatever you call it – to the story. Is it not more likely that he invented the name just to convince you that there was such a person?’
‘I’m not sure that I – oh, yes, I see what you mean, but can you think of any other possible reason why Valentine should be making an illicit entry into a neighbour’s house? Especially being Valentine. He’s hardly likely to be stealing the silver!’
‘I was wondering if perhaps – just maybe – he was perhaps visiting someone else and – and told you, invented a name, to put you off.’
‘Visiting? With the same purpose?’
‘Tis possible.’
Ross’s mind travelled quickly over the known inhabitants of Mingoose and which inhabitant could be the object of his desire.
‘I don’t see there is any possibility among the Trene-gloses…’
‘There’s Agneta.’
‘What? Agneta? Never! Why should he – how could he? She’s – she’s peculiar, to say the least!’
‘Not that peculiar. I saw him eyeing her at the Summer Races.’
‘She has fits!’
‘Dwight says she has grown out of them.’
‘All the same, she is not like the rest of us. Ruth was very worried about her at one time. If you were to have said Davida…’
‘I know. But we were all at Davida’s wedding, and she is safely living in Okehampton. And Emmeline has recently joined the Methodists.’
Ross struggled with his thoughts. As sometimes happened, he remembered with a sense of grievance, Demelza was capable of pricking him with a little thorn of disquiet just when he was preparing to compose himself for sleep. That this was his own fault for breaking his word to Valentine did not disperse his displeasure.
‘Do you always think the worst of Valentine?’
‘Not think the worst, Ross; fear the worst perhaps.’
‘God, if he fathers a brat on her there’ll be Hell to pay!’
‘Something Ruth said to me once makes me think that is unlikely … But I may be altogether in the wrong – I mean about Valentine and Agneta. Twas a speculation I should maybe have kept to myself.’
‘Maybe you should.’
Ross seldom saw Agneta Treneglos, but he remembered she was the only dark one of the family: tall and sallow and a good figure but with errant eyes and lips that told you she had too many teeth waiting to be exposed.
His irritation moved from Demelza to Valentine, where it more properly belonged. Confound the boy. (Boy indeed: he was twenty-four.) Valentine was the unquiet spirit of the neighbourhood, one who could become regarded as the scourge if he continued on his present way. Ross uncomfortably remembered that his own father had had somewhat similar characteristics.
He did not notice any such wildness in the Warleggan family, to whom Valentine technically belonged. And Selina six months forward, producing a child after three years … There were rumours, which Dwight refused to confirm, that she had slit her wrists after one of her husband’s love affairs.
Ross could tell that Demelza had gone to sleep. You could hear the regular tick-tick of her breathing.
He was peevishly tempted to dig her in the ribs and demand that she continue the conversation.
But, on the whole, he decided not.
ALSO BY WINSTON GRAHAM
The Poldark series
Ross Poldark • Demelza • Jeremy Poldark • Warleggan • The Black Moon • The Four Swans • The Angry Tide • The Stranger from the Sea • The Miller’s Dance • The Loving Cup • Bella Poldark
Night Journey • Cordelia • The Forgotten Story • The Merciless Ladies • Night Without Stars • Take My Life • Fortune Is a Woman • The Little Walls • The Sleeping Partner • Greek Fire • The Tumbled House • Marnie • The Grove of Eagles • After the Act • The Walking Stick • Angell, Pearl and Little God • The Japanese Girl (short stories) • Woman in the Mirror • The Green Flash • Cameo • Stephanie • Tremor
The Spanish Armadas • Poldark’s Cornwall • Memoirs of a Private Man
About the Author
Winston Graham was the author of more than forty novels, including Cordelia, Marnie, The Walking Stick and Stephanie, as well as the highly successful Poldark series. His novels have been translated into seventeen languages. Many of Winston Graham’s books have been filmed for the big screen, the most notable being Marnie, directed by Alfred Hitchcock. The BBC television series of the Poldark novels have been broadcast in twenty-two countries and star Aidan Turner and Eleanor Tomlinson. Winston Graham was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and in 1983 was awarded an OBE. He died in July 2003. You can sign up for email updates here.
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Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Epigraph
Family Tree
Book One
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Book Two
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Book Three
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Book Four
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Excerpt: Bella Poldark
Also by Winston Graham
About the Author
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
First published in the United States by St. Martin’s Griffin, an imprint of St. Martin’s Publishing Group
THE TWISTED SWORD. Copyright © 1990 by Winston Graham. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Publishing Group, 120 Broadway, New York, NY 10271.
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Poldark is a Mammoth Screen production for BBC.
Co-Produced with Masterpiece.
© Mammoth Screen Limited MMXIX. All rights reserved.
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Originally published by Chapmans
Previously published in Great Britain by Pan Books, an imprint of Pan Macmillan
First U.S. Edition: October 2019
eISBN 9781250244772
First eBook edition: September 2019
The Twisted Sword: A Novel of Cornwall 1815 Page 55