It was a young party, for apart from the host and hostess and Sir John Trevaunance, everyone was under forty. Lord Valletort was about Ross’s age, and his wife a year or two younger. She was very pretty but quite the thinnest young woman Demelza had ever seen. Yet she contrived not to look frail. It was as if she had been specially bred tall and thin-boned to mother aristocrats. The four French people were a little overdressed for a country dinner-party – although in Demelza’s opinion underdressed would have better fitted Mme Guise. She had startling black hair and wore a gown of white lace over an astonishingly décolleté under-bodice. It was very hard for the men not to look through the lace. Mlle de la Blache was about twenty years old and altogether more dignified.
As for the two Frenchmen, Demelza thought they were probably the handsomest men she had ever seen. De Sombreuil was in his middle twenties, tall, slim, dashing, with a presence and a manner that impressed without any sense of display. De Maresi, whom she had the ordeal of sitting next to all through the long dinner, was about ten years older, short, slim, dashing, if anything even more handsome, but altogether more aware of his looks. The ordeal for Demelza lay in the fact that de Maresi spoke English fluently but with so strong a French accent that often it was just as if he were talking in his own language. He smelt so strongly of scent that he spoiled the flavours of the dinner, and had an arrogance which might, Demelza thought, go some way to explaining the French Revolution.
Her other companion at the meal was Sir John Trevaunance, an old friend ever since she had cured his cow, redfaced and of a jovial disposition so long as money wasn’t involved.
They ate and they drank and they ate. Boiled cod with fried soles and oyster sauce; roast beef and orange pudding; wild duck with asparagus and mushrooms; fricandeau of veal with sage stuffing and high sauce. After this there were syllabubs, jellies, apricot tarts, lemon puddings and sweet pies. And madeira and claret and Rhine wine and port and brandy. The French count addressed most of his early conversations to his other partner, Mrs Daniell, leaving Demelza free to talk to Sir John about his cattle. A nice homely unexacting conversation which suited her well. But presently de Maresi turned his brilliant eyes on her and made a speech that she found completely unintelligible.
‘Please?’ she said.
He began again, ending: ‘. . . and vy is ver burtiful.’
‘Yes,’ said Demelza experimentally, passing a tip of tongue over her lips.
This agreement pleased him and he continued speaking. In the next sentences she caught words that sounded like: ‘English fass, Cornish fass, rainy vezzer, complexeeon.’
She did not answer this but, assuming some compliment, smiled at him brilliantly.
He said: ‘Assfor zis sayings sat ser English vomens is cold, eaten my experiences sat all. Ivor deenform you, M’dame – I haf not catch your nom – satin twelerfth mont my experiences hafperswarded me to serve you oak ontraire. Tooser mans français ser womens anglaise is hart to begin puteesy after. Toonot lie to me, M’dame, I beg you, vortis no good.’
‘What we use,’ said Demelza, ‘as I have been saying to Sir John, is tar water, for it is good for anaemia and the consumptions both in animals and in human folk. Where I lived when I was little there was a man who, when he felt the consumptions coming on, would jump in a cold pond up to his neck; then he would take a half-pint of gin and sleep for three hours and be greatly recovered.’
‘M’dame,’ said de Maresi, ‘pressey no more. A woman hoodisombles vis so grandsharm riv-eels so clear where her tort sardir-ected, so pressey no more. Allas, I leave vis ser Valletorts of terdinay. So ser rendezvous vilbyard to orange today. Put latter in ser vick I haf ser two day clear, anve could learn more feach osser in ser ways most delicieuse.’
‘Talking of the things,’ said Demelza, ‘that I think you are talking of, is it true or but a rumour that the Prince of Wales is tiring of Mrs Fitzherbert and that he is being pressed into a marriage with a princess from Brunswick? Do you know any of these things, sir?’
‘Luckit zese ands,’ said the count, spreading them among his lace cuffs. ‘Vorkas not been a part. Put many vomens. Seez are smooth for ser smoothness say car-ess. For your smoothness, M’dame. I sink you are ver smooth. I see ser skeen vyor preasts’s like satin. You af serlong slim legs; sat I op-serve ven you climb ser steps. Sis vilbe sermost appy momen ven I am free to deescofer you.’
‘I think, sir,’ said Demelza, ‘that your apricot tart is about to be laced viz cream and rum, and you would do well to discover wezzer you can attempt zat. For my part I am full up and can do no more. Nor can I talk no more the way you talk, for I trust it means nothing at all.’
‘Hoho! I shall show you sat! Pressey veshall meet in Friday, so I shall show you sat!’
So the conversation ran on and so dinner ran on until four-thirty. When at last it was over the ladies left the men to their brandy and port.
Talk at the littered table was desultory and sleepy now, for everyone had eaten and drunk too much. But after a while it sparked into life again, and the subject, inevitably, was the war. Charles, Viscomte de Sombreuil, had lost his father and his elder brother two months ago on the guillotine, and now was head of the family. Charles had been out of France for two years, fighting the Revolutionaries in Germany and Holland, but now he was in England to press for a British-aided French landing in Brittany to raise the Royalist flag. A Breton called the Comte de Puisaye had also arrived in England, and by telling of the sufferings of the Bretons and the passionate Royalist feeling that existed there, had caught the ear of the British government. Thousands of Bretons (or Chouans, as they were called when in revolt) were only waiting for a landing. Indeed, the whole country was sick of murder and excess, and it would rise tomorrow if there were half a chance of overthrowing the Jacobins.
De Maresi, however fascinated he might be by a woman’s skin, was equally fervent for such a counter-revolt. What they wanted, he said, was not British soldiers but British armaments, British gold and British sea-power to help to land a French force and so put the next surviving Bourbon back upon the throne of France. This, he said, was no charity they were asking. A successful counter-revolution now, while the forces of the Jacobins were in such disarray, would in the long run save countless British lives and hundreds of millions of British pounds. It would bring the war to an end not by conquest, which might take a decade, if it occurred at all, but by an internal uprising which could see peace within the year.
Lord Valletort strongly agreed with this, as indeed did most of the others, and talk hinged not so much on the desirability of restoring the Royalists as on its practicability and what force, what expenditure of arms and money, would launch it with a fair chance of success. At one point Ross wondered if perhaps those present were to be canvassed as to what contribution they could make in money or help, but this speculation proved unfounded. He agreed with most of what had been said and only wondered whether the difficulties of establishing such a counter-revolution were not being minimized.
Presently, when they rose and were going out to join the ladies, Ross had his first chance of conversation with his foppish, good-looking cousin, who had been the most silent during the recent discussion; not, Ross was sure, from being in any sense overawed but because he was too tipsy to keep awake.
‘It’s a year or more since we met. How are your parents, St John?’
‘Oh, Ross! Ho, Ross! Well, Ross! Mother puts a bold front upon a timid disposition, that she does. I believe she is always waiting for some fell disease to strike her, d’you know. Like an old ewe with neck meekly bowed waiting for the axe. Father. As for my saintly father, Ross, well. Father is lame with a gouty ulcer on the ankle that won’t heal and makes him deuced tetchy, d’you know . . .’ St John yawned enormously. ‘And you, Cousin Ross? I hear your mine prospers at last. Damn me.’
‘Everyone hears it. Fortunately it is true.’
‘I was at the old home early this month – stayed the night. They have done big thi
ngs. Big things. If you give Smelter George his due, Ross, he is never tight with his money and he knows how to use it. Elizabeth looks well, considering her narrow squeak of February.’
‘Narrow squeak?’
‘Well, this falling downstairs while she was in pup. Not the most excellent of . . .’ St John yawned again. ‘What did you say?’
‘I said nothing.’
‘Damn me, I thought you did. When one yawns one’s ears block up. Not the most excellent of behaviour when eight months forward. Howbeit, the new babe is none the worse – no cross eyes or spavin legs. We saw him and he looked none the worse for his unceremonious arrival. None the worse at all. By the bye, cousin, I think that that damned Frenchie has his eye on Demelza, so you had best watch out for her. Before ever you know it he’ll be boarding her. You watch.’
‘Oh?’ said Ross. ‘I think Demelza knows what to do with grappling irons . . . But I believe we should congratulate you – on your engagement. Joan is not here today?’
St John hiccupped. ‘Damn me, no. She was not asked.’ He shrugged. ‘She will be when she is married to me. She will be.’ He moved off.
Ross stared after the handsome young man, the mop of fair hair, the stooping figure. It was all very well, but somehow he never quite got on with the fellow. Today the bluntness of those last few sentences irritated him. If one were about to marry a banker’s daughter, one might well be aware of her inferior status, but presumably one loved the girl, or her money made up. In either event one did not accept invitations without her or, if questioned, reply in that fashion. Maybe it was a mistake to take too seriously what was said in one’s cups. But in vino veritas.
After tea there was music. Lord Valletort, it seemed, was fond of opera, and to please him Ralph-Allen Daniell had brought together three musicians who sang arias from Mozart and Monteverdi. Having considerably over-eaten, been stripped naked by de Maresi’s knowing stares, and made moderately intelligent conversation while the women were alone, Demelza sat in some discomfort, enjoying the music but longing to walk in the garden and praying to God that no one would ask her to perform today.
They did not. This was a professional entertainment, if not a very good one, and it stopped prompt at seven, when the Valletorts and the four French aristocrats rose to leave. Demelza thought they should be going too, but most of the others stayed on, and Mrs Daniell invited her and Miss Robartes to walk down as far as the river with her. Ross had disappeared indoors again, Lieutenant Carruthers and St John Peter were practising archery, Sir John Trevaunance had not yet wakened from the sleep into which the music had lulled him, so she picked up a scarf to put round her hair and followed Mrs Daniell.
Ross was in fact in Ralph-Allen Daniell’s study, having been invited there to examine the plans of the house and some of the building and decorating costs which Daniell thought might be helpful to him in his reconstruction of Nampara.
They studied them together for ten minutes, and then Daniell said: ‘There is one other small matter that I would like to raise with you, Captain Poldark, while we have a minute alone. It is something that I and one or two of my colleagues have been considering during the last few months. That is the matter of your becoming a Justice of the Peace.’
Ross had felt that the invitation to see the plans had been a little contrived, but he had not supposed this was at the end of it.
‘Oh, indeed?’
They looked at each other across the table. Ralph-Allen Daniell was a big man and stout, dressed even today almost as plainly as a Quaker, and sober in his manner. When he smiled, as he did now, it expressed friendship but not levity.
‘Ever since your cousin Francis died there has been a vacancy in that district for a magistrate. When your uncle died Mr Francis Poldark wanted to refuse the office, saying he was too poor, but we prevailed on him that it was his duty to serve. There has been a Poldark in such a position for more than a hundred years. It seems a pity to break the tradition.’
Ross sat down and crossed his legs. Wine and food always paled his face instead of flushing it.
Daniell said: ‘There is in fact a shortage of a first-rate man in that district. Old Horace Treneglos is really too infirm and too deaf to serve, but we know he does not wish his son to be made a Justice while he lives. Hugh Bodrugan is erratic in his appearances and in his judgments. Ray Penvenen, we understand, is dying. Trevaunance, of course, is good.’
‘It’s a sorry lot, I agree,’ Ross said.
‘Now that you have become captain of the Volunteers in your area, now that you have more freedom and more leisure from the daily routines of the mine, particularly now that the French war is entering on a more bitter phase, we badly need someone of your name and position and character to hold a responsible place and discharge a justice’s duty.’
Ross was silent. He knew of the suggestions which had been in the air when Francis died. But he had hardly taken them seriously, had not responded to them and they had soon died away. Like Mr Odgers’s expectations of a Sunday meal. He said: ‘Nowadays there is of course this unrest in England too. The spread of revolutionary ideas.’
‘Well, yes. Yes indeed. We need strong leaders at a time such as this.’
‘Mr Daniell, I wonder if you have not forgotten that – let us see, how long is it? – that only four years ago I was on trial in Bodmin before Mr Justice Lister and a jury of twelve on a charge of inciting peaceable citizens to riot and furthermore did commit riot contrary to the laws of the land. That, I believe, was the beginning of the indictment, but there were other charges to follow.’
Daniell had coloured. ‘On all of which charges you were acquitted.’
‘True. Though if I remember aright the judge in discharging me said the jury’s verdict owed little to logic and much to mercy.’
‘I do not know anything of that, Captain Poldark, but the fact remains that you left the court without a stain on your character.’
‘Yes. I suppose you could say that.’
‘You suppose you could say that. Such charges therefore could hardly be held against you.’
‘No. But I would also remind you that two years before that I forced my way into Launceston gaol and took out a servant of mine who was serving a sentence there.’
‘I had heard something of it. Was not the man dying?’
‘As it happens, yes. But it can hardly commend me to my own class as a suitable person to enforce the law.’
Daniell took out his tortoiseshell snuff-box and offered it to Ross. Ross smiled and shook his head. Daniell said: ‘If you look about you, Captain Poldark, you will find scarce anyone who has not at some time kicked over the traces when he was young. It is not a condition peculiar to yourself. Look into the behaviour of most of your neighbours and you will find few who do not have some youthful misdeed to account for.’
‘Oh, indeed. And not only youthful. But you would urge me to take this position on the principle that a reformed sinner makes the best parson?’
‘I would not have put it that way.’
Ross nursed his knee and stared out at the bright day. ‘What is the name of these windows? Venetian, is it?’
‘Yes.’
‘The house is quite notably light. One of the lightest I have ever been in.’
‘You have an ancient name, very much respected in the county. Until your nephew and your own son grow up there is no one at all to represent it except yourself.’
‘My father was never a justice.’
‘No. But then his elder brother Charles was alive.’
It was not only that, thought Ross.
‘Education and experience are also of particular value in administering the country,’ said Daniell. ‘This was where old Horace Treneglos was valuable, being a Greek scholar, and where John Trevaunance is especially useful, having read some law at Cambridge when a young man. Your wide experience will contribute to the efficiency and competence of the bench.’
‘This is an idea put forward by you personally,
Mr Daniell?’
‘No, no, by a number of us. It was agreed. There will be no obstacle, I can assure you. People thought it was time.’
Ross uncrossed his legs and stood up. He said: ‘I envy you all these books. I see you have Tom Paine’s The Rights of Man. A forbidden book?’
‘Not when I bought it. I should incur a penalty if I sold it today. Have you read it?’
‘Yes. I do not find it quite as revolutionary as some would make out.’
‘Well . . . It depends how one views it. Pensions for the old at fifty? Education of the poor? A tax on incomes amounting to confiscation of all above £23,000? Some would call that revolutionary enough.’
‘As you say, it depends how one views it. Of course it is outrageously radical. But Paine to me is a visionary who has set his sights too high, not a revolutionary in the most aggressive sense, not a true admirer – though he affects to be – of what the French Revolution has done. It is not the possession of private property that he is decrying but the unrestricted use of it for selfish ends. I am told that Pitt sympathizes secretly with much that he has written.’
‘The essence being that at this time one’s sympathies should remain secret,’ said Daniel dryly. ‘Do you know if he is still alive?’
‘Who, Paine? God knows. No one knows who is alive or dead in France today.’
There was silence.
Ross said: ‘I fear I must refuse.’
Daniell closed the snuff-box and dabbled his nose with a fine but plain cambric handkerchief. Outside some doves were cooing. It was a pleasant sound coming through the open window on the warm August afternoon.
The Black Moon Page 12