Geoffrey Charles leaned back in his chair and frowned. ‘Thank you, Uncle. That’s very handsomely said. I hope I shall not need your help. Though God knows, my tastes already outrun my allowance. What a degrading subject money is! And how disagreeable that Step-Father George has so much of it! Can we not change the subject to something more savoury? Would you care, indeed – if it’s not too delicate a subject – to tell me a little more of how you came to be shot in the hand?’
‘No,’ said Ross.
‘Ah. So that is not more savoury neither . . . Aunt, you look nice enough to eat. On the whole London girls are prettier than Cornish girls. But just once in a while, you see one in our county that really takes the biscuit.’
‘Talking of biscuits,’ said Demelza, smiling at him again, ‘I think this is tea.’
III
He left about seven, scorning Demelza’s concern about his being safe in the streets of London. He had been given permission to spend the night at Grosvenor Gate, so there was no hurry. He walked up the street as far as the Strand, pushing his way through a group of prostitutes who plucked at his clothes and his body as he went past, and soon found a hackney chair.
When he reached home he found a pleasant family scene. George was home, and turning over a book – it looked like an accounts book – in front of a bright fire. Elizabeth was sitting on the other side looking as beautiful as ever, though Geoffrey Charles thought she was putting on weight. They had not told him yet. In a corner of the room Valentine Warleggan, not quite six years old, dark-haired, sallow-complexioned but good-looking in a thin angular way, was playing with his rocking-horse. Elizabeth asked him how he had enjoyed the Zoo, and surely he had stayed too late? He replied that reptiles only wakened when night fell, and he had spent the last hour in the snake house. Lies came easily to him, he found, since he went to Harrow.
George welcomed him with amiability. To give George his due, he had always tried to treat his step-son with consideration. It was his step-son who refused to unbend. It was his step-son who refused to let bygones be bygones. Their relationship now was as good as it had ever been: a sort of polite toleration existed between them, which was about as much as Elizabeth dared to hope for.
In spite of the half-meant, half-malicious wager with Monk Adderley which had gone so badly awry, George was in a fair mood tonight. True, the man he had set to make inquiries had turned up yesterday with two chairmen who claimed to have been the men who bore the wounded Adderley to his lodgings; but a little close questioning of them soon proved they were lying and had only come forward to gain the reward George was offering: any lawyer in a court would have split them open in five minutes. So they had been sent about their business, and George’s men too, with instructions to be more careful as to the quality of the fish they netted.
George was philosophical about it. With the death of Monk he had lost one of his most valuable social assets; but Monk while he was alive had been a heavy financial liability. He had had no care for money at all, and, since he became intimate with George, had tended to look on George as an inexhaustible supplier. One loan had followed another. Sometimes he had repaid a little, and then had borrowed all over again. So, though it was sad to lose him, it was not all loss. George fancied he could get along quite well enough on his own.
And even if the guilt for the killing were never laid firmly on Ross Poldark’s shoulders, the result was still a fair one. Ross was at present laid up with a wound that they said would likely result in the loss of an arm; and in any event such an affray could do his career considerable disservice. The Boscawen’s, if George judged them aright, were law-abiding above everything else, and they certainly would not want to be represented in Parliament by a firebrand who killed another member clandestinely, in a common duel, fought without even the proper formalities. As for the newly founded bank; news of the affray would travel swiftly to Cornwall; bankers too lived close within the law; it would likely damage him there also.
George’s own affairs in other ways were prospering. Mr Tankard, his personal lawyer and factor, had arrived in London yesterday with numerous documents and legal information. Now that he virtually owned the borough of St Michael, George sought ways to render its possessions less expensive.
There were in the borough about forty householders with sufficient of a dwelling to pay the poor rate. The fact that some of these dwellings were in such a bad state that they were almost falling down over their occupiers’ heads did not prevent the householders from thus possessing a vote and capitalizing on it. Such men would vote for whomever they were told, provided they received enough favours from the landlord. George was now the landlord. And he found that the voters, though servile to a degree, were not easily satisfied in their requests. Getting oneself elected was of course the most expensive procedure, but it was by no means the only time at which they expected to benefit.
His scheme was simply to pull down some of the oldest and most derelict of the houses. It would take time, and perhaps a degree of firmness, but it could be done. For instance, the loss of ten houses would reduce his future costs by a quarter. Of course the inhabitants would vehemently object, but he had already bought a row of derelict cottages near a dead mine about two miles away and was having them repaired. No one could accuse him of inhumanity. The creatures he was moving were so indigent and the houses he was moving them from were so poor, that he could even claim to be improving their lot. The only difference was that they would no longer be ratepayers in the parliamentary borough of St Michael, and therefore their main livelihood would be gone. They might, George thought, even have to work.
He was at present examining the book that Tankard had given him, which gave in detail the nature of the properties to be pulled down, the occupiers, their ages, and the dates by which each one, with his family or dependants, might be expected to get out.
Elizabeth said: ‘Valentine, it is time for your supper. I think Mrs Wantage has forgotten you.’
‘Yes, Ma-ma. In two or three minutes, Ma-ma.’ Valentine was riding his rocking-horse, whip in hand, a dark lock of hair dangling over his face. He was clearly engaged on some dangerous mission that must not be interrupted.
Geoffrey Charles was amused at him. ‘Ecod, I think Valentine’s going to fight a duel.’
‘Thomas Trevethan, shoemaker,’ George read to himself. ‘Aged 57, lives with widowed sister, Susan Hicks, aged 59.’ Already Trevethan had had a note sent to George asking for his patronage in the matter of boots and shoes. He would be well rid of. ‘Tom Oliver. Dairyman, aged 40, wife and four children.’ Dairyman for whom? No doubt he kept one emaciated cow. ‘Arthur Pearson, maltster.’ What professions these parasites thought of!
Geoffrey Charles was laughing aloud. He laughed his high half-broken laugh, so that Elizabeth, smiling, lowered her needlepoint and George his book. Even Valentine lost his concentration and his horse began to rock less violently.
‘What is it?’ Elizabeth said. ‘What is it, Geoffrey Charles? What is amusing you so?’
‘It’s – it’s Valentine!’ Geoffrey Charles choked with amusement. ‘Just look at him! Ecod! Is he not the very spit and living image of Uncle Ross!’
Chapter Eight
I
On the 9th of November Dwight gingerly unwrapped the bandages again, sniffing at them as they came away. They revealed an arm still inflamed, but only around the area of the wound. The swelling had gone down.
He said: ‘You’re more lucky than you know, Ross.’
‘How so?’
‘Three days ago I thought to amputate the arm above the elbow. There is a stage, as I’m sure you know, when the blood poisoning travels fast. Then it’s a question of losing a limb to save a life.’
‘Don’t tell Demelza.’
‘She already knows. I could not take the gamble without her permission.’
Ross looked at his arm. ‘And now?’
Dwight was folding the bandage. ‘It must have been dye from the sleeve that was c
arried in . . . Now? Oh, it should be good enough for most purposes in a month or so. Demelza will have to cut up your meat a while yet.’
‘I can scarce move my fingers.’
‘Don’t try too hard. A little gentle exercise each morning. Ross, I’m returning to Cornwall next week. I only stayed this long because of you.’
‘Caroline is going with you?’
‘No . . . There are some events she wishes to attend at the end of this month. She will return in early December.’
‘For longer this time, I hope.’
Dwight put the bandage away and shut his bag. The morning light showed up his face as unexpectedly youthful under the greying hair.
‘I think so. She says so.’
Ross said: ‘At least, whatever value your visit has been to Caroline, it has very near saved my life.’
‘Your own body saved your life, Ross, because it was strong enough in the end to reject the infection.’
‘Stronger at least than my mind, which could not resist the infection of Monk Adderley.’
‘It’s over and done with; all that. You must think of the future, not of the past.’
‘I’m not so sure it’s all over yet. An act like that carries its own consequences with it.’
Dwight fumbled with the catch of his bag.
‘Why do you not come home with me when I go?’
‘No. Not yet. There are some things I must still do.’
‘You can’t undo what’s been done, Ross. It’s a question of adjusting oneself to a new situation.’
‘Well, that we shall see . . .’
The following day fog was rising from the river as Ross waited upon his patron. He found Lord Falmouth at home and willing to receive him. They talked in a back parlour, since Mrs Boscawen was entertaining ladies to tea in the drawing-room.
Lord Falmouth had shaken Ross by the left hand and drily suggested they should take a glass of canary. He was wearing a skullcap, a plum-coloured coat shiny at the elbows, and black silk knee breeches and stockings.
‘I trust your . . . self-inflicted wound is healing.’
‘Thank you, my lord. It is. Though it has been long enough about it. Dr Enys tells me that only time stands between me and my ability to sign my name again.’
‘That will be of use to you when you return to your banking friends.’
‘Always supposing they still wish to retain me.’
Falmouth handed the glass to his guest. ‘You were fortunate to bring your own surgeon with you. It is a refinement even I have not yet felt able to afford.’
Ross smiled. ‘He’s returning at the beginning of next week. After which I shall have to fend for myself or call in some mere London man.’ He sipped the wine, and there was a pause. ‘A lot has happened since I dined with you last, Lord Falmouth.’
‘So I have observed.’
It was difficult to read the Viscount’s expression. Never a man given to a show of feeling, he seemed now to be carefully avoiding it. His voice, apart from the little turn of sarcasm, was neutral, as if he waited for his visitor to declare his intent before committing himself to show his own.
‘The story of what really happened is, I believe, well known by now,’ Ross said. ‘Yet it may be that the precise truth has not yet emerged in the telling; and I thought you should know it from me as soon as I was able to get out.’
‘If you’re sure you wish to tell me.’
‘Why should I not be?’
‘Because rumour is one thing, confession another. Some things are better left unsaid, Captain Poldark.’
‘I can assure you, my lord, that, except for this occasion, they will remain unsaid. But I represent Truro in your interest, and that interest, though I pay small heed to it sometimes, entitles you in this matter to know what was done.’
‘Very well.’ Falmouth went to the french windows, which looked out on to a conservatory, and shut them. ‘Say what you wish to say.’
Ross told him the story of the duel. When it was done the other man refilled the glasses, frowning to see that none was spilled.
‘So what do you want from me?’
‘Possibly some advice.’
‘Of what sort?’
‘I am known in Cornwall as a man of some temper. Now I am so known in London. The duel, of course, was fairly fought, but the mere fact that it was fought in a clandestine manner and that the law is not able to move against me – or seems not able to – gives it a shadier implication than if I were properly tried and served a sentence. You want someone to represent you in Westminster who is a parliamentarian, not a quarrelsome hothead. This stigma will linger in London for a while. I would have thought my proper course would be to resign my seat and for you to appoint someone more suitable in my place. After all, Truro is perfectly safe now and is entirely in your possession. There would be no need for an election. The matter could go through in a couple of months.’
Lord Falmouth got up and pulled the bell. A manservant came.
‘Bring me a bottle of the older canary.’
‘Yes, m’lord.’
‘And take this empty one.’
‘Yes, m’lord.’
Silence prevailed until the new wine came.
‘This is better,’ Falmouth said. ‘It has a smoky flavour on the tongue. Alas, there’s little more of it. My mother got it last year.’
‘Yes,’ Ross said. ‘It has more body.’
‘As for your problem, Poldark, are you telling me you are tired of Westminster and wish to leave anyway?’
‘That was not what I said. But I think it may be, in the year or so I have sat in Parliament, that you have tired of me.’
His lordship nodded his head. ‘That may be. We have not infrequently been at variance. But only in one or two matters – such as the Catholic Emancipation Bill – has there been a difference on an important issue. Where our differences really occur are not on issues but on principles.’
‘I’m not quite sure what you mean.’
‘Well, let us instance a single matter. You dislike what the French Revolution has become and are prepared to fight it with all means in your power. But at heart I think you believe in the fundamentals of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity yourself, though you do not see it in those terms or say it in those words. Your humanity, your sentiment, respond to it and they are not sufficiently governed by your head, which would tell you that the achievement of those aims is impossible!’
Ross was silent for a while. ‘But if you take the emotion – the republicanism – the sense of violent revolution – out of them, do you not feel drawn to such ideals yourself?’
Falmouth smiled, tight-lipped. ‘Perhaps I have better trained myself, always to be governed by my head. Shall I say that I believe greatly in Fraternity, something in Liberty, and not at all in Equality.’
‘Which is precisely the opposite of what the French have now done,’ Ross said. ‘They have insisted so much on Equality, that there is no room left for Liberty and little for Fraternity. But you haven’t answered my question.’
‘Then I’ll answer it now.’ His lordship paced about the room for a few moments, and took off his skullcap to scratch his head. ‘When I want you to resign I will tell you so. And when you wish to resign pray tell me. I like some character in a member, you know. But a stupid and unfortunately fatal affair of honour, much as it should be deplored, is not the grounds for such a decision. We all learn by our mistakes. I try to. I trust you will, Captain Poldark.’
Ross put down his glass. ‘Thank you. That’s what I wished to know.’
‘But go home,’ said Falmouth. ‘Go home at once. There’s nothing important you can do here. And you know what the ancients said: “When a man shall have been taken from sight he quickly goes also out of the mind.” This applies equally to the law. If they think of questioning you they may well do so if you are in George Street, but certainly will not travel three hundred miles to interview you on your estate in Cornwall.’
‘I
see that.’
‘Then go tomorrow, or as soon as you can decently dispose of your affairs here.’
Ross thought for a long moment. ‘My lord, I appreciate your thoughts for my welfare. It’s considerate of you . . . But I couldn’t absent myself at this stage. I couldn’t skulk away.’
Viscount Falmouth shrugged. ‘There it is, Poldark. Once again we disagree. And once again on a matter of principle. You must be logical in life – not emotional.’
III
So it was time to go out and about again, into the public eye, in the Commons, into society. This in a way was the acid test. Adderley had few friends but many acquaintances. He was a ‘figure’ who had been seen everywhere. Now he was seen nowhere. In his place, as it were, was the tall Cornishman with arm in a sling, sometimes, when appropriate, accompanied by his pretty wife. Newcomers, strangers. Of course Mrs Pelham had them under her wing, but . . . Adderley was missed. There were side glances, whisperings in the background, conversations that dried up when certain people approached.
To Ross’s surprise, the Commons was easier. The members seemed to take it as a matter of course that an inveterate duellist would sooner or later come to his end by the means he himself employed. Their chief reaction was increased respect for the man who had killed him. Either Poldark was a demmed good shot, as the member for Bridgnorth put it, or else he had been demmed lucky.
During all that very tense and disagreeable week the Hoddy-Doddy song kept repeating itself in Demelza’s head, ‘Shepherd, I have lost my waist, Have you seen my body?’ Unforgettable in spite of its complete, inane irrelevance to all her thoughts and fears.
Once they caught sight of George and Elizabeth at a soirée, and Ross bethought himself of Adderley’s strange request. It was something that had to be fulfilled, however difficult and embarrassing the action was going to be. Yet it must be inappropriate to hand George ten guineas in view of a roomful of people, and George might well think an insult intended. Also both Ross – who was not at his most observant when in company – and Demelza noticed how bitter they were both looking. Nor could it have been anything to do with the Poldark presence, for they had not been seen. Demelza had the impression that they did not speak to each other all night, and this was later confirmed by Caroline, who told her she had heard a rumour that they were on the point of separation.
The Angry Tide Page 39