The Miller's Dance

by Winston Graham

  Stephen raised his eyebrows at the bitterness of Jeremy’s tone. ‘You have your shares in Wheal Leisure – like me.’

  ‘Yes, my father gave me them, for what they are worth: in any event I could not attempt to realize on them.’

  Stephen said: ‘I think maybe I should’ve kept me money for investing in things I understood. But at the time I was thinking too much of Clowance, thinking maybe of standing well in your family’s favour.’

  Paul came in. The bruises on his face were now mere discolorations; if his cut head was sore he gave no indication of it; though he looked worried and self-important. He carried in a tankard of ale he had already bought at the counter. He had a newspaper under his arm.

  ‘Have you seen this?’ He spread out the newspaper on the table. Without elaborating he proceeded to read it out: ‘“Bitter fight in Plymouth Dock. Naval rating stabbed to death in struggle. Armed Pressmen from HMS Arethusa entered the Ring o’ Bells Inn, Plymouth Dock, last Monday Eve, looking to press recruits for His Majesty’s Navy. Although a number of likely seamen were collected, some put up a sturdy resistance, and in the struggle which ensued one of the press gang, Seaman William Morrison, aged twenty-six, received knife wounds in his abdomen from which he has since died. The miscreants escaped, and those enlisted for the Navy have not been charged.”’

  Stephen read it through a second time. ‘Well, well, a surprising likeness to our little affair. And the same inn!’

  ‘It was our affair,’ said Paul.

  ‘Stuff and nonsense! All that happened two weeks ago.’

  ‘This paper is a week old.’

  Stephen picked up the paper and looked at it, as if suspecting it a forgery. Then he took a long drink of his ale.

  ‘I never used my knife enough to cause nobody a fatal injury. This is altogether another affray.’

  Paul looked expressively at Jeremy. His face was rather grey.

  ‘Funny,’ added Stephen softly. ‘I always read the news-papers. They’re worth the sixpence ha’penny just for the local news. Funny I never saw that.’

  ‘It will not be funny if they ever trace us,’ said Paul. ‘There were people a-plenty in that tavern took a fair view of us before the pressgang came in. You remember, you were leading the singing. That shanty – how does it go? “A leaky ship with her anchor down, Her anchor down, her anchor down! A leaky ship with her anchor down, Hurrah, me boys, Hurrah!”’

  ‘Ah, well,’ said Stephen, ruffling through his hair, ‘if it be truth, which I doubt – they exaggerate these things to sell the paper – if it be true, then we are a long way from Plymouth Dock; and maybe for the next few months we should stay a long way from Plymouth Dock, just to be on the safe side. I suspect he died of something else, this sailor, and they put it down to a pinprick in the belly. There’s no accounting for how cunning these Navy folk can be. Trying to make out . . . But even suppose . . . Well, just suppose . . . What would you have had me do, Paul?’

  The question was suddenly as hard as a bullet.

  ‘What?’ said Paul.

  ‘What would you have had me do, eh? Give at the knees like a seasick calf? Would you better prefer it if you was afloat now in some naval frigate with a cat o’ nine tails as the only yea or nay? Would you? Just tell me that.’

  ‘No,’ said Paul sulkily, withdrawing from what had been an accusation. ‘It was the only thing to do – what you did. But I thought to warn you to keep quiet about this venture. The fewer know of it, the less the risk. The news spreads, you know. Many people have seen you limping about, and me with my bandaged head. We’ve made little effort so far to keep it quiet. Escaping from the press gang is like escaping the preventive men – something to brag of. But not when you kill an able seaman of the British Navy.’

  In the silence they could hear noisy drinkers in the main bar joking with Mrs Hartnell. Jeremy put his forefinger on the table and rubbed over the damp circle where his mug had been.

  ‘Since I’m not in this – though wishing until five minutes ago that I had been – I’d say you were nearly half safe. This paper’s more than a week old. No one round here seems to have noticed the connection. I don’t suppose you ever mentioned the Ring o’ Bells to anyone, did you? No, well, the chances are no one else will think of it. Paul is right, though: say no more now to anyone.’

  Stephen grunted. ‘I gave the man the merest dig with the point. If it is true, his guts must have been ready to spill. But I still believe it be half invention.’

  They sat for a while, sipping their drinks, chatting about other things, though with the memory of the newspaper item lying between them, just as if the paper had not been crumpled up and thrust back into Paul’s pocket.

  Paul said: ‘How is the milling, Miller?’

  ‘Well enough.’

  ‘I don’t see flour in your hair yet.’

  ‘Soap and water’s cheap.’

  ‘You were due to start that Monday.’

  ‘I was.’

  ‘Wilf would not be pleased.’

  ‘Nor was he. Said I’d be paid only half a week for half a week’s work.’

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘Said I’d never expected more.’

  ‘All the same,’ said Paul, ‘you won’t be free to take time off whenever you fancy, not from now on. Not even when you become Captain Poldark’s son-in-law.’

  ‘I’ll take no favour that I can’t pay for.’

  Paul had a waspish side to his nature. It was seldom allowed to show in his dealings with Jeremy, but quite often where Stephen was concerned. Though Paul had never really made up to Clowance, he would have liked the prestige he now saw coming to Stephen. This gibing was a form of jealousy perhaps, or it could derive simply from anxiety about the dead sailor. However much Stephen might have saved the day by his ruthless act, the consequences would be obvious if they were ever traced.

  After a while Stephen pulled the bell to summon Mrs Hartnell.

  Paul said: ‘One thing that night in Plymouth I did see. Though it is useless knowledge, or knowledge that cannot be taken advantage of.’

  ‘Share it with me,’ said Jeremy, ‘since I’m party to most of your secrets.’

  ‘Oh, it is not at all a secret. It is in the line of observing, what I observed that night and on the following day. With my head and cheek split open and my wrist sprained I was not in the best condition for sleep. No doubt the Miller fared better.’

  ‘I doused meself wi’ brandy,’ said Stephen. ‘When you have a flesh wound it is better to be in a drunken stupor than to stay feeling pain all night.’

  ‘You snored, I know that. God, how you snored! Well, I finished your bottle and still did not sleep. You see, I never was a pirate, used to thrusting with his cutlass . . .’

  ‘Hold your gab,’ said Stephen.

  ‘. . . and even then I felt more than a little miscomfortable about the prospect of pursuit. So when dawn came I got up and sat in a chair by the window. This looked out of the back on to the yard, where the coach was stationed that we were to join at eight. There were three coaches there, but I knew the Self-Defence we’d booked on by its gold trim. At seven the ostlers were out seeing to the horses. At seven thirty the messengers came carrying two steel boxes. These were put into the safe box under the guard’s seat and padlocked in. After they’d got their receipt the messengers left and the coach was harnessed and driven round to the front door of the hotel for the passengers to begin boarding.’

  Jeremy said: ‘What is especial about that?’

  Paul grunted. ‘Well, that’s all it is, really.’

  Emma Hartnell came in.

  ‘Like to wet the other eye, would ee? Come ’long, Mr Poldark, not keeping up wi’ your friends, eh?’

  Jeremy drained his mug. ‘There we are. That satisfactory?’

  She laughed and went out, the three glasses clinking.

  ‘What do you suppose was in the boxes?’ Stephen asked.

  ‘Money, of course.’

&nb
sp; ‘Why of course?’

  ‘The shape and size of ’em. The way they were carried. And they were both marked Devon & Cornwall Bank.’

  ‘Did you see how far they came?’

  ‘Truro.’

  ‘You never spoke of it at the time.’

  ‘Most of the journey I conjected that my head was about to lift off. It is only since I have been thinking back on it . . .’

  ‘What for?’ Jeremy asked ironically. ‘Going to turn highwayman?’

  Paul shrugged. ‘Of course . . . No, I was just surprised, that’s all, thinking of all that money – and not in a mail coach either.’

  ‘Why was it not being sent by mail coach?’ Stephen asked.

  ‘That puzzled me at first. One of the two men who met the coach at Pearce’s Hotel I know by sight. I’ve seen him in Warleggan’s Bank. He’s called Blencowe.’

  ‘Well,’ said Jeremy. ‘Warleggan’s Bank and the Devon & Cornwall Bank are now in partnership. It was in the paper last year. I expect now and then they send money back and forth. Though why by that coach . . . I mean why by the Self-Defence . . .’

  ‘Ah,’ said Paul, ‘that is not so hard to explain. Warleggan’s have put money into it. Didn’t you know? Into the company, I mean. The Self-Defence and three other coaches were started a couple of years ago by Fagg, Whitmarsh, Fromont, Weakley & Co., but last November they ran into difficulties when the recession grew worse, and Warleggan’s bailed them out. So all the Warleggans are doing is patronizing their own firm.’

  ‘Well, I don’t see much edge to your story,’ said Stephen. ’Mail coach or private firm, there’s surely little risk. Is that what you’re thinking about, the risk? This is a law-abiding county, ain’t it? Highwaymen keep to the prosperous lanes. And there were three men aboard: two coachmen and an armed guard! A light post coach no doubt travels faster than the mail coach – and by day at that.’

  ‘All the same,’ Paul said, ‘to Hell with the Warleggans. It is since they breathed money into the concern that it has been undercutting us. You know the results. Or you do, Jeremy, for not long ago I told you of them. That line, that service, we abandoned in February.’

  Emma came back, carrying the three glasses on a tray. The noise in the taproom had died down, and she looked as if she might be willing to stand and gossip; but seeing the preoccupation on the faces of the three young men she put the glasses down, winked cheerfully at Jeremy and went out again.

  There was a pause while all of them drank deeply, and when conversation resumed it was about local matters.

  But presently, almost absently, Stephen said: ‘Any idea how much cash there might be in the boxes?’

  ‘On the coach, you mean? Oh . . . some of it would probably be paper. As for the rest, it depends whether it was silver or gold, doesn’t it. But the size of the boxes and the way the men were carrying them . . . It must have been an amount. One thousand, two thousand, who knows?’

  Stephen whistled. ‘Phew . . .’

  ‘It’s no good, Stephen,’ Jeremy said with bitter amusement. ‘Don’t forget you’re marrying into a respectable family. You can’t do any of this privateering on land, you know. Else you might find yourself accidentally swinging from a tree.’

  ‘A risk he already runs,’ Paul pointed out.

  ‘And you. And you,’ said Stephen. ‘I have read somewhere that it is the law that if one man commits a crime in the company of another, the other is held equal in blame.’ He turned to Jeremy. ‘You may have your jest, Rat’s bane. All the same, if there was a way, I do not think I should turn it down out of a sense o’ piety. Would you? Would you, now. We could all do with money. You’ve told me yourself—’

  ‘I know what I’ve told you,’ said Jeremy sharply, for he had not said anything to Paul about Cuby, lest he spread it to his sister.

  ‘Well, then.’

  ‘Well, then,’ mocked Jeremy. ‘I could do with money. But not on those terms.’

  ‘Nay,’ said Stephen. ‘You’re right. Not on those terms.’

  ‘What terms?’ asked Paul. ‘D’you mean moral terms? Would you argue that taking money from a bank is as wicked as robbing widows and orphans?’

  They both looked at him.

  ‘No,’ said Jeremy eventually. ‘There may be many degrees of wrongdoing. But it doesn’t make any of ’em right.’

  The conversation from being barely more than casual had shifted its ground. More responsible than anything said was Paul’s dark face.

  ‘You’d do something if you could?’ Jeremy asked incredulously. ‘Is that it, Paul? D’you mean it?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe. There’s so much injustice in the world, inequality. Money is always in the wrong hands. Fortunately the opportunity does not arise. At least I suppose it is fortunate. I cannot pretend I would not be tempted.’

  ‘Oh, so would I,’ said Stephen. ‘Two thousand pounds! For half that I could buy a privateer, equip her, crew her. There’s so much to be picked up off the French coast. I know.’

  Jeremy said: ‘This whole discussion is witless . . . Let’s drink to some practical idea.’

  ‘Amen,’ said Stephen, leaning back with a sigh. ‘You can set your mind at rest so far as one thing goes, Jeremy. I’ll not turn highwayman. I might have done to gain Clowance. But that’s all gained. I made a little money this month legitimate. There’s naught illegal about buying and selling. I’m sorry about the pressgang, but who was to know that that would happen? Anything legitimate I’ll be glad to try . . .’

  Paul took a long draught of his ale. ‘Damme, one can’t help wondering, though.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Of course I agree with Stephen. No black masks for me. But ideas, once they’ve started, they won’t leave you alone.’

  ‘What ideas?’

  ‘I know coachmen. I’ve been dealing with them for years. I know how they like their liquor. Some of ’em can hardly sit their seats by the time the journey is half done. I can’t help wondering, just wondering if the coachmen and the guard of the Self-Defence ever get down together – at Torpoint, or at Liskeard, or at St Austell. If they ever go in to the inn together. And if so, who guards the coach.’

  BOOK TWO

  Chapter One

  I

  Ross left for London on May 23. George Canning had written:

  This has been a great tragedy. As you know, Perceval and I have for some time been estranged and I confess to have had bitter disagreements with his policy; but in truth he was a man with whom one could not be at variance personally; and our rivalry has been a rivalry of Circumstances which neither of us could command – certainly not one of choice, still less of enmity. His greatness lay perhaps not in his breadth of Mind but in his shining Integrity; and I doubt if any other politician of our generation would have been so sincerely mourned. Not one of the speakers, and I was among them, could give a dry utterance to our sentiments in the House the following day.

  As you may by now have heard, the grief of his colleagues has not been matched in the North. The starving Mobs everywhere have rejoiced at his death, blaming him for all the bitter Privations they have been suffering, and his Assassin is exalted as a hero. The drums and revolutionary flags have been out, and only a strong show of troops and militia can hope to prevent a general Rising.

  In the same month, ignoring the advice of Cambacérès and Talleyrand that he should not fight Russia while ‘the Spanish Ulcer’ was still festering, Napoleon Buonaparte turned his back on the smaller and unimportant problems provided by Wellington, and travelled to Dresden where, with Marie Louise, he held court and obtained the submission of the various kings and princes of Europe. Then with 600,000 men, he marched on Russia. Four weeks later, when he was approaching the River Niemen, the United States declared war on England, not knowing that the British Government had just revoked the Orders-in-Council which provoked the war. After a pause to regroup, the French crossed the Niemen, and four days after that occupied Vilna, from which the Russians had alr
eady fled. How much further would they go?

  Meanwhile the delicate contre-danse in the English House of Commons was taking its course with due ceremony and total lack of urgency. The acting Prime Minister, Lord Liverpool, had got nowhere with all his days of negotiation and consultation, so after a defeat in the House he resigned, whereupon the Prince Regent sent for Lord Wellesley. Wellington’s elder brother had had the idea of inviting some of the simmering and disgruntled Whigs to join him in another ‘Government of all the Talents’, but since they were of the view that all the talents reposed in their own ranks and anyhow now thoroughly distrusted any administration which did not give them authority over the Prince, they refused. Then Lord Moira had a shot, with equal lack of success; though for a few brief days it looked as if he would succeed not only in forming a government but in offering Canning a position in it that he considered worthy of his gifts.

  But at the last all was frustration and failure again; and in weakly desperation the Regent invited Lord Liverpool back to try once more. The Lords Grey and Granville and other leading Whigs suspected this was not desperation at all but part of a wickedly calculated manoeuvre of the Prince’s to get what he had really wanted all the time – a continuation of Perceval’s ailing and ramshackle administration which would contrive to dodge the Catholic question and yet pursue the war with some show of vigour.

  In the middle of all this consultation and hedging and backing Ross found himself more and more uncomfortable yet more and more involved.

  It seems, love [he wrote to Demelza], I must always be making an excuse not to return; yet it is no excuse, for I truthfully feel I cannot desert George at this juncture. Now that he has failed to accept Liverpool’s offer he justifies his refusal, in private, so endlessly that I perceive he is already regretting it. Much as I regard him, I confess an impatience with him now. Even the Prince Regent, who once so much disliked him, appealed to him to sink his differences with Castlereagh and others and accept Liverpool’s offer – but all to no avail.