Bella Poldark

by Winston Graham

  Lord Falmouth sent a friendly letter to Ross asking him to explain to his cousin that he had ‘almost a full house’ himself and, much as he would like to, he could not desert them. Knowing Falmouth’s rigid opposition to any form of Catholic emancipation, Ross wondered if this might be a tactical excuse. He had heard a rumour that when the old King died the Viscount might be made an Earl.

  Two days before the party Drake arrived with his beloved wife Morwenna and their daughter Loveday, bearing a present for Amadora: one of Drake’s special rocking chairs, skilfully fashioned by him on winter evenings, of beech and stripped willow. He had first made one for Morwenna, and then, when it was much admired, one for Demelza. Next day he headed an expedition into the more wooded hinterland of the north coast, near Werry House and beyond, in search of holly – especially berried holly – and ivy – especially variegated ivy – to bring back to decorate the house.

  All these woods were stunted in growth, sheltering from the savage winds by flourishing only in shallow valleys or on slopes slanting down to desolate streams. But there was much to be found here even in midwinter: pockets of primroses already flowering, the sharp, spiked, grey promise of daffodils thrusting through a cushion of fallen leaves and hart’s tongue ferns – once an ungainly apple tree hung with the remains of wild clematis and looking like an elderly lady in Russian sables. And here and there, especially in the Idless Valley, they found a few sprigs of mistletoe! This was brought home with special care lest the berries should drop off. Demelza, who could not be kept away from this expedition, said she had been told in Illuggan as a little girl that once upon a time the mistletoe had been a fine tree, but because its wood had been used to make the Cross it had ever after been condemned to live only as a parasite.

  Christopher and Isabella-Rose arrived too late for this adventure, but took part in decorating the dining hall. A small band which had been hired to play in the minstrel gallery had called in a day early to test the acoustics of the hall and to see to the general arrangements. Once and again Bella could be heard raising her voice in a pure gentle trill, but she was careful not to impose herself on the scene.

  Among those on the hunt for greenery were Paul and Mary Kellow and Daisy. Daisy now had a deep loose cough, which sounded menacing, but she made little of it and tramped with the best. Paul’s wife, it seemed, had quite recovered from the scrofulous tumour, so the Kellow family was in a good mood.

  The party began at one p.m. and dinner was at two-thirty. Among the other guests were Dwight and Caroline Enys, with their two tall daughters, Sophie, aged sixteen, and Meliora, fifteen; Philip Prideaux, who had wanted to accompany Clowance, but Clowance had crossed the county two days before; Cuby Poldark, with Noelle, and Clemency Trevanion to keep them company; and Emmeline Treneglos, representing her parents, who preferred to nurse their bereavement and resentment against anyone with the Poldark name.

  Señor de Bertendona, now fortunately recovered, stood with his plump little wife in the smaller entrance hall to welcome the guests, and Geoffrey Charles was there to make the introductions, with Amadora beside him to translate for her mother.

  Slowly the big drawing room on the first floor filled up, and some guests drifted into the great hall, where the table was set for dinner. Chairs had been a problem, and – with Place House and Mingoose House more or less out of bounds because of Agneta – Nampara, Killewarren and Fernmore had been stripped of their dining chairs, and even of chairs which one could make believe were dining chairs only for a special occasion.

  ‘There has never been so large a party in this house,’ Ross told Geoffrey Charles, ‘not even the wedding party when your father and mother were married.’

  Because of de Bertendona’s indisposition, Ross had not met them before, and Demelza had met only the Señora. They bowed to each other, clasped hands, murmured greetings in two languages, while Geoffrey Charles went into flattering details of his relationship with his cousins. They all smiled and bowed again and were about to pass on when Ross bent and kissed Señora de Bertendona.

  It seemed to surprise everyone present, not least Demelza, who had never suspected her husband of extravagant gestures.

  (Later, just as they were about to go in to dinner, Amadora exchanged a private word with her mother. The plump little lady was still looking slightly flustered. She said: ‘What a grand party you are giving for us, Dora! . . . But that man! . . . Sir Ross, did you say? When he bent towards me, I thought, he is taking the greatest liberty! What an oaf ! How ill-mannered! How typical of a clumsy Englishman to behave so! And then I looked up. And up. And I thought, what a man, how handsome! And oooh! My toes twisted and curled! And he speaks Portuguese . . . !’)

  Before they went in to dinner, Demelza whispered: ‘Well, my dear, that was the first shock of the evening!’

  ‘What was?’

  ‘You embracing the important lady.’

  ‘I did not embrace her. I implanted a gentle welcoming kiss on her powdered cheek.’

  ‘Cheek? It didn’t look like that to me. She was aghast. So was he. You might have started a war!’

  ‘Perhaps I have now,’ Ross said, squeezing her hand.

  ‘If you behave like this when I am present, I tremble to think what you do when I am not!’

  ‘I just felt like it,’ said Ross. ‘The poor woman is in a strange land, surrounded by foreigners. She can scarcely speak a word of English and does not much like us as a race. Would you begrudge her a friendly salutation?’

  ‘And you were chattering away! I did not know you knew Spanish!’

  ‘I don’t. Or very little. That was Portuguese.’

  ‘Judas!’ said Demelza. ‘What next?’

  ‘You forget,’ he said, ‘that I was part of the delegation to escort the Portuguese royal family from Lisbon to Brazil in ’07. On the voyage I used to play backgammon with the Prince Regent almost every night . . . He called it trictrac.’

  In fact Ross’s sudden impulse had grown out of a sensation of cheerful rebelliousness which had come upon him during the last few days. There was no obvious cause for it, but it had never been in his nature to abide by the courtesies of strict good behaviour, and the life he was at present leading – as Valentine had once perceptively pointed out – was slightly humdrum – pleasantly so – but humdrum all the same. He felt he wanted to kick free from the many tiny restraints that beset him, agreeable though they usually were.

  He missed his contacts with George Canning – and sometimes with those dissidents and known Radicals. (It was perverse and odd and perplexing, he thought, that although his sympathies were with Major Cartwright, Samuel Bamford, Robert Owen and the rest, circumstances had as often as not pushed him into the opposite camp and he had acted to preserve the stability of the status quo.)

  Almost last to arrive at the party were Sam and Rosina, and with them was Ben Carter. Demelza by her choice of clothes, and Jinny by her cuts and hasty stitchings, had made a very presentable job of dressing this fierce young man. A cream-coloured muslin cravat tied so loosely that it was not greatly different from the knotted red scarf he usually affected, a blue velvet jacket with brass buttons, a cream-coloured waistcoat and black buckskin breeches, with his own best boots. The brass buttons would not comfortably fasten at the waist, for Ross, for all his age and height, was of the lean kind. And the mine barber, Parsons, had been called in to trim Ben’s beard very short, so that it narrowed almost to an imperial.

  When they finally sat down Demelza thought he looked in no way different from anyone else. It being almost Christmas, some of the other guests had arrived wearing what might be described as a jolly approach to fancy dress. In this great hall, with its enormous window, the whole festooned with holly and ivy and a dab here and there of mistletoe, sixty candles wavering in the warm and errant air, the long table fairly groaning under its weight of enticing food. Wine bottles, silver dishes, decanters, knives and forks in serried array, chicken and turkey and goose and lobster, and soups and a ha
shed calf’s head and boiled bacon, and whole cauliflowers decorated with sprigs of holly, and baked and fried potatoes, and pigeon and rabbit pie and mackerel pie, and syllabubs and fruit and lashings of cream.

  Esther Carne had told Amadora that she was astonished to be at the dinner party and that she would far, far rather work in the kitchen or even – horror of horrors – wait at table, than be treated as a ‘guest’. Amadora told her that as a newly joined member of the staff and principal nurse to Juana she must take her proper place and be available to be called on at a moment’s notice if she, Amadora, required anything during the meal. Since Amadora had long since grown out of her morning sickness, Esther was perplexed as to what use she might be at the dinner, but she did not argue. Even when Ben Carter took the seat next to her she did not suspect any contrivance.

  As usual she blushed to the roots of her hair – combed and brushed and dressed pleasantly but unpretentiously for the party – and glanced in fright at him, then was relieved to see him half smile, and she curled up her lips tremulously in return. She was wearing a simple dress of cerise-coloured cotton that Amadora had lent her, and it did no harm to her looks or her complexion.

  ‘I didn’t expect to see you here then,’ lied Ben.

  ‘Nor me you neither,’ said Essie, more truthfully, plucking nervously at the shoulder of her dress.

  Looking down the table Ross saw that George had been placed next to Mrs Harry Beauchamp of Pengreep. It was a safe pairing: the Beauchamps were unmistakeably county, and Mrs B could chatter with the best. On George’s other side was Faith, the eldest of three unmarried Teague sisters, whose youngest sister was the bereaved Ruth Treneglos. Another safe placing: George and Faith had known each other in a casual way for thirty years. Ross counted that he was seven places south-west of George and on the other side. They had nodded on seeing each other, and that was all that was necessary.

  He turned to his own dining companions and wondered if Geoffrey Charles was exhibiting an unexpected sense of mischief.

  ‘Lady Harriet,’ he said. ‘I need not ask you if you are well.’

  She was wearing yellow silk tonight, which did not quite suit her.

  ‘Sir Ross,’ she said in her husky voice. ‘You need not. I am never ill. Are you?’

  ‘Seldom.’

  ‘And you are now leading a retired life?’

  ‘Yes. But occupied.’

  ‘All retired lives are occupied; it is a form of frittering.’

  ‘What is not?’ Ross returned. ‘Hunting, fighting, cubbing, loving?’

  She was silent at this, then said: ‘Is Valentine here tonight?’

  ‘I don’t think he was invited.’

  ‘Ah. Perhaps as well. Is he ostracized?’

  ‘Not really. He is busy with this enterprise he has begun, shipping goods to Ireland.’

  ‘Legitimate?’

  ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘Diplomatic as ever.’

  ‘I did not know I had that reputation.’

  ‘You do not with George . . . You did not with me the first time we met.’

  ‘First time?’

  ‘You do not remember. We quarrelled over a horse. And the second time we met we quarrelled over a dance.’

  Ross examined her thoughtfully for a few moments. ‘At the risk of being thought undiplomatic, madam, my memory of these events is quite different.’

  They were served with French pâté, brought from Brittany that morning.

  Harriet said: ‘Pray go on.’

  ‘Quarrel seems rather over-dramatic a word for our encounter at the horse sale. And if there was a substantial difference of opinion it was between myself and George, not between myself and you.’

  ‘It was my horse!’

  ‘Not at all! It only became yours in the end.’

  ‘You are splitting hairs.’

  ‘And as for quarrelling over a dance, Lady Harriet, my memory is that you were trying to teach me the waltz and I was rather a clumsy learner.’

  ‘Quarrel I suppose was meant as a tease. Your first attempts at an entirely new sort of dance were quite admirable. You never stumbled, fell, trod on my toes, kicked my shins, tore my dress or damned my eyes.’

  ‘You have very beautiful eyes,’ Ross said, ‘and that I would never dare to do.’

  Harriet laughed lazily. ‘Is there to be a dance tonight, do you know? I see we have the fiddlers. But this great table . . .’

  ‘That other party Geoffrey Charles gave – it must be six years ago – he took up the table, turned it against the back wall, under the window. But it meant breaking the slate floor. Possibly, if the room were cleared of everything else it might be possible to dance round it.’

  ‘I would like to dance around it,’ said Harriet. ‘Perhaps you will invite me . . .’

  Chapter Seven

  Philip Prideaux said: ‘I am grateful to Geoffrey Charles for arranging the table so that I may have the privilege of sitting next to you, Mrs Carrington. Shall you be staying with your family for some time after the party?’

  ‘Probably until Sunday. I should be back in Penryn on Monday morning . . . Captain Prideaux.’

  He adjusted his glasses. ‘Yes?’

  ‘We do not know each other very well, but I have been your guest at two concerts and there have been numerous – encounters. In these circumstances, do you think it might be appropriate to stop calling me Mrs Carrington?’

  ‘What else might I call you?’ His Adam’s apple moved as he swallowed. ‘By your first name? Clowance? I should esteem it the highest privilege.’

  ‘I don’t believe it is such a privilege as all that, Philip. But in these country districts in which we live I do not feel we need to preserve the formalities of high society.’

  ‘I am honoured indeed! You give me the courage to ask another favour.’ She looked at him enquiringly. He smiled at her. ‘Allow me on Sunday to escort you home.’

  ‘But shall you not be leaving tomorrow?’

  ‘Geoffrey Charles will not, I’m sure, object to my staying two more nights. However good his servants, there will be much tidying up to do.’

  At the other end of the table Essie whispered: ‘I cannot begin to guess which fork to use.’

  ‘Nor me neether,’ said Ben. ‘That young woman opposite is using the little one.’

  ‘ ’s, I see.’

  There was plenty of talk going on around them but none between them. Essie was overawed, Ben tongue-tied, wanting to talk but lacking trivial conversation. He knew what he wanted but he couldn’t say it out loud in this company.

  ‘Tes some hot in ’ere,’ he adventured.

  ‘I never thought I should come and sit here like this,’ Essie said. ‘Like a guest. Like a high-up guest. I’ve the notion that Aunt Demelza have put the mistress up to it, but gracious knows why.’

  Ben stared across the table. It seemed to him that Essie had put her finger accidentally on the truth. But she didn’t seem to have the least idea in the world about the purpose. As she had just said: ‘Gracious knows why.’

  He found he was staring far too long at the lady on the opposite side of the table, Miss Daisy Kellow. Daisy smiled at him, as she would smile at any good-looking man of eligible age, and he dropped his gaze in embarrassment. He realized she had not recognized him.

  Perhaps others had not. Perhaps the lady on his left had not, Miss Hope Teague, because his beard was shorter than it had ever been before in all his adult life, until it was really a Van Dyke, the corner of the scar just showing. Anyhow, was it likely that Miss Hope, the most desiccated of Ruth’s unmarried sisters, would see any resemblance between this trimly dressed if rough-spoken gentleman and the uncommunicative, sullen man who strode past their house, head down against the wind, on his way to work at Wheal Leisure?

  At the top of the table Señor de Bertendona sat flanked by his wife: on her right was Geoffrey Charles, with Demelza beside him; on the Señor’s left was Amadora, and beyond her Dwight Enys.

/>   ‘Philip.’

  ‘Yes, Clowance?’

  ‘May I make an enquiry of you? Perhaps it may seem an impertinence, an intrusion upon a – a personal matter which should not concern me . . .’

  ‘I’m sure you may ask anything of me you wish.’

  ‘Well,’ said Clowance, ‘I wonder why you have just put on those eye glasses?’

  Philip’s expression changed. He stared in front of him. ‘You must know why people wear glasses – it is to see the better.’

  ‘Of course. Is it at short distance or at long that you need them?’

  ‘Short.’

  ‘Yet – excuse me – you were able to see your name on the plate to know where you shall sit.’

  ‘That is not writ very small. Perhaps,’ he looked up, ‘my wish guided me to the right seat.’

  ‘Oh, come.’ She took out her little gold watch. ‘What is the time by this?’

  ‘Twenty minutes after four.’

  ‘The face and figures are quite small.’

  ‘Yes, they are quite small.’

  The plates were being cleared away and new ones laid for the dessert.

  ‘Sometimes eye glasses, Miss Clowance, serve an extra purpose.’

  ‘Can you instruct me?’

  ‘Of course.’ But he made no attempt to do so.

  Christopher Havergal said to Demelza: ‘Lady Poldark, I have had little opportunity since we arrived of bringing you up to date with happenings in London. Of course Bella has written you regularly, I know, and she will have told you the more important things. Also, since we came home you will have seen much of her.’

  ‘That I have,’ said Demelza. ‘But it has been a trifle come and go, so to say, with so many people in the house and much talk of this party. I take it you will stay over the New Year?’