Bella Poldark

by Winston Graham

  Prideaux said: ‘I will see Mrs Carrington out, Parker.’

  ‘Very good, sir.’

  As the footman left Philip said: ‘I wrote to you, Mrs Carrington.’

  ‘Did you? I did not receive it.’

  ‘No. I put it in the fire.’

  ‘Oh? Why?’

  ‘I could not – I did not feel my apology was well expressed.’

  ‘Apology?’

  ‘For taking you to meet Mrs Poldark, your sister-in-law. I had no idea of course that there was a coldness between you.’

  ‘I am sure,’ Clowance said, ‘that the apology should be mine. To ask you to leave in that way was quite unpardonable. Your intention was perfectly civil and proper.’

  He smiled stiffly. ‘Someone wrote the other day that “It is more wittily than charitably said that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.” That was why I destroyed the letter I wrote.’

  ‘I don’t understand you.’

  He took his glasses off and stuffed them in his pocket. His eyes were always a darker brown than she expected. They looked temporarily absent-minded as they adjusted to a new focus.

  ‘I thought the letter, read in cold blood, might compound the offence I had given you. I seem far too often in our short acquaintance to have done or said something that you deemed inappropriate. I did not wish to add to my sins when trying to expiate them.’

  ‘I think we should excuse each other,’ said Clowance, smiling too. ‘Waterloo – I suppose Waterloo still casts a long shadow. It must answer for a lot, mustn’t it. Perhaps I should say that my meeting with my sister-in-law helped to clear the air.’

  ‘I’m so very glad. I think young Mrs Poldark is a charming lady. I confess I do not so much take to her family.’

  ‘Oh?’ Clowance looked up with interest. ‘Why do you say that? She is very attached to them.’

  ‘I know. Her brothers are too hubristic.’

  ‘I scarcely know either of them. A third was killed in Holland.’

  ‘That great castle they have built. I am told they do not have sufficient funds to complete it.’

  ‘No, that has been the trouble all along,’ said Clowance, remembering afresh Cuby’s duplicity.

  ‘My cousin has an over-large house at Padstow,’ said Philip Prideaux. ‘But he inherited it. Perhaps I am splitting hairs in thinking that ostentatiousness in one’s ancestors is more excusable than in oneself.’

  Clowance said: ‘And perhaps your ancestors could pay the builders?’

  ‘Quite so. Quite so.’ He extended his hand and bowed over hers. ‘May I write to you again sometime?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Clowance, and went down the steps. He followed her and helped her to mount.

  Nampara was uncannily quiet without the presence of its two most ebullient inhabitants. (Even though Demelza was not as talkative as she used to be, she was still the centre of the house and in her absence a hollow existed.) Little Harry seemed to grow every time Clowance saw him. He would be six in a week’s time, and Mama would be returning specially for his birthday. He was the sturdiest and most easy-going of all the Poldark children. He had the same flashing smile as his second sister and used it more frequently. In fact Ross and Demelza had come to the joint conclusion that he had already discovered it to be his handiest weapon – to charm, to excuse, to avoid blame and to get his own way – and he would probably be able when adult to use it in a finer-honed form to make his way in life. He had already shown himself to be lazy when learning to read and write and not at all studious or thoughtful; but in no way lacking in intelligence or the ability to use his brain when he felt like it.

  They decided not to worry. He was young yet and easy company and good to be with. Ross instanced as an example not to be followed that of a professor he met in London whose son could not read the Morning Post at the age of three, so he took the child to a brain specialist.

  Clowance saw Ben Carter a couple of times. He was still unmarried and greeted her with a mixture of admiration and respect on his black-browed, black-bearded face. She knew she was very fond of him, but it never amounted to more. She wondered if she would ever again feel that deep personal involvement with anyone else now Stephen was gone. Why did her memory still gag at the deception he had practised on her? He had lied to her to get her. What was so unforgivable in that? He had not deserted her. Not for the first time she wondered if she was becoming a widow with a ‘grievance’. But it is hard to argue with your heart.

  On the second night Dwight, who had also become a temporary bachelor in the furtherance of Bella’s career, invited them to sup at Killewarren, and Clowance was surprised and pleased to find Geoffrey Charles and Amadora there. Geoffrey Charles was still enamoured of his pretty Spanish wife and she with him. The religious difficulty had been accepted, though not ignored, and Amadora’s wish to have Juana brought up in the Catholic faith was an extra stumbling block. Neither Geoffrey Charles nor Ross, now the senior member of the family, had very strong feelings on the subject, so Amadora was having her way. But at Ross’s suggestion they were keeping quiet about it, for there would be strong feelings in the neighbourhood if it came out. Demelza’s brothers, Sam and Drake, were deeply shocked, though sworn to secrecy. Most of Ross’s aristocratic friends would also look askance, having been brought up to hate and fear Catholicism.

  Amadora and Clowance had a long talk about Juana; though Clowance had no children of her own she was interested in them, and her emotional clash with Cuby in Truro had ended on a much more peaceable note after they had begun to discuss Noelle.

  While they were so talking Clowance heard the name Prideaux mentioned by Geoffrey Charles, and after supper she brought the name up herself.

  ‘Captain Prideaux?’ said Geoffrey Charles. ‘Philip Prideaux? I do not know him well, for we were in different regiments. But he’s well thought of. Interesting fellow. Wonder he’s alive.’

  ‘D’you mean at Waterloo?’

  ‘Yes. He was in the King’s Dragoon Guards. One of the crack Household Cavalry regiments. It was on the Sunday morning of Waterloo when the bloody skirmishing was almost over and the real battle about to begin. Some of our infantry got into trouble and were losing ground and losing men. Lord Uxbridge saw what was happening and ordered six brigades of Dragoons and Inniskillings and Scots Greys to charge.’ Geoffrey Charles paused a moment to exercise his part-crippled left hand. ‘Uxbridge led the charge himself. But you will have heard all about this? There have been pictures painted, ballads sung.’

  ‘I do not believe I have.’ Clowance had not been interested in the heroics of a battle that had cost her her brother.

  ‘Well, they totally routed the French, scattered them like chaff, running for their lives, cleared the whole valley. I saw a part of it: it was magnificent. But no one took any notice of commands to rein in and regroup. They drove on and on deep into the French lines, and when the wild charge finally came to a stop and they could hear the bugles still blowing for the retreat they had no reserves to cover them. So they were cut to pieces. Only about a quarter returned.’

  They listened for a moment to Horace III yapping at the door to come in.

  ‘And Captain Prideaux was in that?’

  ‘Very much so. Quite the hero. He rescued Colonel Fisher, brought him back across the saddle of his horse. He was wounded himself four or five times.’

  Horace III was allowed in, and went snuffling round the room looking discontentedly for his mistress.

  Geoffrey Charles said: ‘I lost sight of him for a while then. I believe he was in hospital for six months. Then they sent him to the West Indies. He had some sort of a breakdown there.’

  ‘So he has resigned from the Army?’

  ‘Did he tell you that?’

  ‘I think he did. I assumed it.’

  ‘Well, yes. But it was not voluntary. He was discharged for killing a man.’

  ‘I did not know that.’

  ‘Perhaps I should not have told you. Clearly
he would prefer it not to be known.’

  ‘How did it happen?’

  ‘I have no details – or at least reliable details that I would pass on – but it was during the period of his breakdown. That’s all I know.’

  ‘Did he go to prison then? For killing someone . . . Or was it a duel?’

  ‘It was not a duel. I think he was considered of unsound mind. These black fevers can very quickly have that effect.’ Geoffrey Charles studied his cousin. ‘Those glasses he wears nowadays. I believe he can see well enough without them. They may be a symptom of some sort. Probably he will be better now he is out of the Army altogether.’

  The shadow of Waterloo, Clowance thought again; even after three years, it lay over them all. Jeremy killed, leaving his family bereft, and a widow and an unborn daughter, Christopher Havergal, with an artificial foot, Philip Prideaux apparently a nervous wreck, Geoffrey Charles with a part-paralysed left hand (though that in truth was a relic of the Peninsular War). Four young men. All over England people would still be licking their wounds. And in France too. And in many other countries. All because of one great man’s vaunting ambition.

  ‘I should like to meet him,’ said Ross.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘This Prideaux man. I heard much of the cavalry charge but never saw it. I was on a mission to carry a message to Prince Frederick of Halle. It was well on in the afternoon before I . . . returned . . .’

  Deliberately changing the subject, Dwight Enys said: ‘Was anyone invited to the Warleggan christening yesterday? Were you, Ross?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Katie said there were only a dozen there; just servants from the household. He’s a healthy boy of eight pounds. I advised Selina not to go. Whether she did go I know not. But she is not of robust constitution, and one would not want her to risk a prolapse.’

  ‘A strange household altogether,’ said Geoffrey Charles. ‘It was a mystery what induced her ever to marry that Pope fellow in the first place. Now I wonder why she married Valentine.’

  ‘She ’as two daughters already?’ asked Amadora. ‘I ’ave never seen them.’

  ‘They’re her stepdaughters by Mr Pope’s earlier marriage. They seem to have been more or less permanently farmed out somewhere in London – Finsbury, I believe. Is it true that they have christened the new baby George?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Dwight shortly. ‘I heard so, but it may be only a rumour. Or one of Valentine’s sick jokes.’

  Everyone waited for Ross to speak, but he said nothing, and his expression gave nothing away. Clowance wondered whether her mother would be so self-contained at the news.

  Mingoose House was part medieval. Built shortly before Trenwith, it had few of Trenwith’s airs and graces, and like Werry House, six miles inland, it had large gloomy rooms, a multiplicity of corridors and staircases and doors that opened unexpectedly into smaller rooms and cupboards. The Trenegloses had lived there since the early 1550s when one Edward Treneglos with a group of camp followers had spoiled two Spanish ships with cargoes of velvets laden for Antwerp. This was off Mount’s Bay, and they had landed at Ilfracombe with their spoils. Some months later, with a doxy of his choosing, he had settled on this desolate area of the north coast and begun to build.

  The house was half-finished when he died of drink, but his son, having found some tin deposits on the newly acquired land, had completed the house after his own fancy. Since then generations of Trenegloses had lived out their lives there, on the whole noisily but minding their own business and taking no part in the religious and political traumas which had racked the county. The fifth-generation eldest son had married a Joan Trevanion, who had brought them land and property in Plymouth Dock which had cushioned the family against the worst economic winds ever since. Their mines were long since played out – except for Wheal Leisure, in which, thanks to Ross and Jeremy, they had shares, and from which they regularly had, as owners of the land, a ‘dish’ or percentage on the ore raised. For the rest they hunted madly on all possible occasions, went shooting with friends on the more bird-prolific south coast, got drunk when they had the mind to, and played interminable hands of whist. Old Horace, a contemporary of Ross’s father, had been something of a Greek scholar, but none of his family had picked up this disagreeable habit. What fields they troubled to cultivate yielded amazingly well, considering the ranting winds and the shallowness of the soil.

  It was here that Valentine Warleggan found himself at the time he was being discussed by Dwight Enys and Ross Poldark.

  The gaunt house was quiet and almost empty, except for the servants. John and Ruth had gone to visit Horrie, their newly married son, at Minehead. Emmeline was away, and the youngest daughter Paula was in bed with a light fever. So Valentine was in bed with Agneta. Early in the evening was not without risk. He could have met a maid in one of the corridors, or might do still when he left. But an element of risk added an element of spice to the adventure.

  And he was beginning to need a little spice to sustain him. One of the joys of his life was discovering a new woman. Although the cynical streak in his mind told him that in the end all women were alike, his constant need was for conquest. Nothing matched the savoury sweetness of the courtship and the first consummations. Alas, it did not last.

  Agneta had first taken his interest because of her utter innocence. At twenty-nine life had passed her by. Because she was what the Cornish called ‘half-saved’, her father and mother had kept a closer watch over her than over her sisters. All through her adolescence and early twenties she had had a maid-companion to keep her company, so even if she had had the normal impulses of a girl to kick over the traces, the opportunity had not been allowed to exist.

  And she was not unattractive. With her lank shiny hair and startling brown eyes and dark skin, she might have been a half-caste. There was a legend in the family that when Edward Treneglos had settled here all those centuries ago the woman he had brought with him and bred from had been a Creole. If so, a slight touch of the blood continued to exist, as some of the portraits in the hall seemed to bear out.

  At the moment Valentine, having had his satisfaction with her, was stroking her long, pale, fawn-coloured back, and she was giggling. He knew that she was expecting him to come again, and he might well do so soon, but he was recognizing the feelings of satiety within himself which told him that this affair was nearing its end. Not quite the end. He had no one else in view. He wished she did not giggle so much.

  She rolled over on her back and folded her arms to conceal her fine breasts.

  She said: ‘Do you love Neta?’

  After a few moments he nodded his head. ‘Yes, I think I do. Quite a little bit.’

  She displayed a huddle of front teeth as her full lips parted. ‘Neta wants to know what is a little bit?’

  He pinched her nose. ‘Neta should know it is improper to ask too many questions.’

  ‘What is proper?’

  ‘Not what we are doing now.’

  ‘When will Vally see me again?’

  ‘I am not sure. I have been having a new ship built in Falmouth, a lugger, a small brig. Do you understand that?’

  ‘Up and down, up and down. Yes.’

  ‘Well, it is ready and I shall be taking delivery of it with three men I know, and we shall sail it from Falmouth to Padstow. That is perhaps tomorrow or Tuesday.’

  ‘What?’

  He repeated his statement slowly. ‘So I shall not be back for several days.’

  The teeth disappeared. ‘You come again?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘You come again now?’

  ‘Soon.’

  ‘My Mama and Papa come again too.’

  ‘What do you mean? You said tomorrow.’

  ‘That is right. Tomorrow, Sunday.’

  ‘Today is Sunday!’

  ‘Oh? Yes. Perhaps it is Monday. Perhaps Mama said Monday.’

  Valentine listened. The house was deadly silent. Of course he had often been h
ere when all the family was here. But if they returned this evening it would be natural for Ruth to come upstairs to see her daughter. He looked at the door. It was of solid oak, and he had himself turned the great key.

  Oh, well. An element of risk added pleasure to any pleasure.

  ‘Agneta.’

  ‘Yes, Vally?’

  ‘If I have you again tonight I do not want you to cry out.’

  ‘Neta wants to cry out.’

  ‘But you know I have told you—’

  ‘They will think she is dreaming. She often cries out in her dreams!’

  ‘Agneta, it is only eight o’clock. You should not be a-bed at eight o’clock. If you cry out, someone will come knocking thinking you are having one of your – thinking you are not well.’

  She giggled. ‘You locked the door. Agneta will tell them to go away.’

  The rain was pattering on the lattice windows. It would be a dreary ride home for him. His horse was hidden in a coppice nearby, so he could hardly return by way of the cliffs and the beach. He wondered why he went to all this trouble. And a sulky wife to greet him when he reached home. Would Agneta be difficult to uncolonize? That was always the tricky part of any affair, the tears, the anger, the recriminations. In this case perhaps just absence would be sufficient. Over six miles separated the houses. He could, in fact, with his new ship to play with, have a genuine reason to absent himself. He looked at Agneta and wondered if because of her simpler reactions she would be easier or more difficult to shake off. The latter probably. Maybe he would dally about her for a time, let his visits become slowly less frequent. He did not want to break the girl’s heart.

  Chapter Seven

  The day before they left London for their long trek back to Cornwall, a red-haired lady in her late forties called at Mrs Pelham’s house in Hatton Garden. With her was a tawny young man, clean-shaven but with fine wavy hair escaping from under his silk hat. When Demelza came into the upstairs drawing room they were already talking to Mrs Pelham.

  On seeing Demelza the red-haired lady sprang up: ‘Ma cherie!’

  ‘Jodie!’ They embraced. ‘What a surprise! Judas God, I thought I was seeing a ghost!’