Bella Poldark

by Winston Graham

  Jud sucked his pipe, making a noise like a choked drain. ‘Reckon your young don’t take no account of we. Why, that Bella-Rose ’asn’t been nigh us, not once since she come home wi’ her flipperty dandical young man. Reckon she’ll be off t’London ’gain afore ye know it.’

  ‘She’s staying until the New Year.’

  ‘Reckon she’ll come to no good up in that there town. She’d do betterer for herself if she done her scholaring in Truro. I’ve allus said that, ’aven’ I, Prudie?’

  ‘Hold thy clack,’ said Prudie. ‘Tesn’t no business of ourn what the Cap’n and the mistress d’ do wi their childer—’

  ‘And that there Clarence,’ said Jud. Having wilfully misheard the name at her christening twenty-five years ago, he had ever after been impervious to correction. ‘That there Clarence. She don’t show ’er age, do ’er? She be mopping wi’ some other man now, eh?’ He screwed up his eyes and examined Demelza’s expression for evidence of guilt or conspiracy.

  ‘Miss Clowance is doing very well on her own,’ said Demelza. ‘She has been a widow only four years. She is in no haste to marry again. When she wishes to do so no doubt she will tell us.’

  So the time wore on, and eventually she decided she had done her duty and could leave.

  Prudie, the only moderately mobile of the two, waddled out in Demelza’s wake and gratefully pocketed the guinea she usually received privately on these occasions.

  So to walk home. Demelza calculated she had been at the Paynters’ about an hour, so it would now be around seven of the clock. She wondered whether to make the detour and call in for Clowance, but decided she would rather go straight home to see if Henry had settled after his fretful day. It was pitch black now and even the most familiar path had the odd loose stone. Better to have brought a lantern after all. Although there is usually some light in a Cornish night sky, it can at times be ineffably dark. ‘Black as a bloody sack,’ as Jud was fond of saying.

  Demelza began to think about Harry. With Jeremy taken from them, he was their only son, to whom the inheritance of the baronetcy would eventually pass. One daughter dead, two daughters alive, one son. Much the youngest and probably the last of the Poldarks – unless Amadora’s second child should be a son. It was fortunate, Demelza thought, that Henry was such a robust little boy. One had to be careful not to spoil him, and if he had been like Jeremy, an excitable child with endless minor ailments, the pressure would have been great. Even disciplining Harry, in the small ways one has to do with any child, took on a greater significance. Like the heir to the throne. Except that all Harry would inherit was a part-converted farmhouse, a hundred acres of shallow, windswept farming land, a couple of mines, a few external assets which Ross had, almost against his better nature, allowed to aggregate around him, and on one side of the farmhouse a part sandy, part shingly cove and on the other side an unmatched vista of one of the most beautiful beaches in the world.

  Henry, she suspected, had somehow come to comprehend that his family looked on him as someone special. He knew when to take liberties, how far he could go with his parents, when to test his will against theirs.

  Or am I imagining this? she asked herself. Am I imagining it and has it had no influence on him at all? Was he just one of those people who knew as soon as they saw the light that they were special, and expected, with the greatest charm, to be so regarded?

  Thinking of light, she found that as her eyes grew accustomed to the intense darkness after the ochre yellow candle flame in the Paynters’ cottage, she could just pick out the familiar delineations of the track.

  She reached the church. There was nothing living round here, only the dead. The vicarage was hidden by fir trees. So it was not the best place to hear footsteps.

  She still had the animal faculties of her youth, otherwise she would not have detected the faint crunch or separated it from the normal noises of the night. Even then she thought she might be mistaken. The sound came from behind her, and she went on for about twenty paces more before her ears caught it again.

  Without interrupting her pace she turned her head and peered behind into the night. The spire of the old church was an extra pyramid of darkness against ink-blue plumes of cloud, but nothing was visible at ground level. Having turned her attention from her walking, she tripped and caught the sole of one shoe more heavily on the ground.

  She went on.

  This was just moorland, interspersed with a few old diggings and some wind-stunted bushes as the path climbed towards the higher ground where Wheal Maiden had once been. Built out of the fallen stones of the mine was Sam’s Meeting House. Until she got to the top she would not be able to see if there was a light in the window. It was a matter of two hundred yards. A little way beyond that was Wheal Grace – not yet entirely closed. Then down to the house. In all not much more than half a mile. No distance. She could do it comfortably in ten minutes. So why hurry? This was probably one of the miners walking to Wheal Grace to take up his evening core. (Except that Grace had very few miners left and the time for changing cores was eight o’clock.)

  As a country person accustomed to walking about from place to place in the dark, she would hardly have given two thoughts to there being any danger in being followed. The obvious thing was to stop and let this unknown person catch up with her, and they could go on together. So it would have been with her if a month or two ago Agneta Treneglos had not had her throat cut nearby. And had there not been others, other women attacked?

  Rubbish. These things didn’t happen on Nampara land, even on the darkest night. She stopped.

  She listened and narrowed her eyes to stare behind her. There was no sound now. No untoward sound or movement. Even the light wind had dropped. She waited. Then she went on.

  It was a minute or so before she heard the footsteps following.

  She stopped again. ‘Who’s there?’

  She detected, or fancied she detected, a man’s tall figure. Her heart was thumping now. Perhaps those things did happen, could happen, on Nampara land.

  ‘What do you want?’

  There was no answer. Her throat tightened.

  ‘Tell me what you want? Who are you? Say something or you’ll spend a night in jail!’

  The only answer was a puff of gentle breeze wafting against her cheek. This brought a whiff, a hint of cigar smoke.

  She turned and walked on, her pace quickening at every step. When she reached the top of the hill she was breathless, but not from exertion.

  There was no light in Sam’s chapel.

  Sam had told her that he never locked the door. In fifty paces she could reach it.

  But if she went inside, there was only the one door. Supposing the person behind her followed her in?

  She broke into a run. Having come up to the chapel she fled straight past it. On her right the buildings of Wheal Grace loomed up.

  The footsteps were running behind her, catching her up. He was making a sort of noise as he almost came up with her. It was a chuckling noise, or a gobbling. She burst into the engine room of Wheal Grace.

  The younger of the two elderly Curnows was there; he worked at Leisure but was gossiping with the Grace engineer, a man called Watford.

  They stared at her arrival, then looked alarmed at her white face and laboured breathing.

  ‘Mistress Poldark!’ said Curnow. ‘What’s amiss?’

  ‘I . . . er . . .’ Demelza blinked in the lantern light and took a deep breath, and swallowed. ‘It is nothing. But – are you free, Tom?’

  ‘Free, ma’am? Yes, ma’am. I just called ’ere on me way ’ome. What be amiss?’

  ‘I – thought someone was following me. I – I’d like you to walk with me just down so far as Nampara.’

  ‘Gladly, ma’am. Now, ma’am? Yes, gladly.’

  ‘And Watford.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am?’

  ‘Have you a spare workman, someone you could spare for an hour?’

  ‘Ais, I reckon.’

  ‘Would you
ask him to go over at once to the Kellows and ask him to wait there until he can escort Miss Clowance home. Tell them you are acting on my instructions.’

  Chapter Ten

  Lieutenant Christopher Havergal took coach for London on the second of January 1820. Before he left he asked Demelza if she could persuade Ross to let him marry Isabella-Rose at Easter. By then Bella would be eighteen. Christopher said that, apart from their love for each other, there were other reasons why their association would be easier if they were married.

  As Mrs Pelham’s goddaughter – which was the ‘relationship’ they had agreed on – Bella was in a favoured position, but he, Christopher, lacked any status; and Bella was frequently attracting attentions from young men who presumed too much.

  Demelza said: ‘I do not think Bella would encourage another young man. She is completely committed to you.’

  ‘Your daughter is a very striking young lady. She does not need to show an interest in some young man for him to show an interest in her.’

  Something made Demelza ask: ‘Is there one or another particularly?’

  He stroked his moustache. ‘Five or six, I suspect. But one, yes, one is a slightly greater danger than the rest. You will remember the young Frenchman who visited Mrs Pelham’s house when you were in London. Maurice Valéry.’

  ‘Oh? Oh, yes.’

  ‘He has recently been appointed as conductor to the Académie Orchestre de Rouen, and this I think has gone greatly to his head. But there is no doubt he is an accomplished musician, and that attracts Bella.’

  Demelza was thoughtful. ‘Yes. I know – we all know – that you have been very patient.’

  ‘Mrs Pelham’s generosity towards Bella is boundless. Though she clearly is enjoying all she does for us, this does not make it less worthy; but in some ways – soon now – we shall be better on our own. By Easter I shall be able to afford a nice new house for us to live in. Bella’s progress as a singer is startling, and it may be good sometime for us to go to Hamburg or Paris, and this we can only do comfortably if we are man and wife.’

  Demelza had not told Ross about her scare in the dark, but had had to explain to Clowance why she had sent a miner from Grace to accompany her home. Clowance was indignant that she must not tell her father lest it should ‘worry him’, but reluctantly promised. While the murderer of Agneta was still at large any follower in the dark had to be taken seriously, whether in fact he was sinister or innocent.

  The following day, in the rush of Clowance’s departure, with Philip Prideaux to escort her, Demelza began to wonder if she might have dreamed or imagined the whole thing. (She knew of course she had not, but wondered how she would have behaved if Agneta had not just been murdered. Would she not have stopped and confronted her follower, and might it not have been Music Thomas with some request to make or a drunken miner on his way home and not wanting to be recognized?)

  But did such men smoke cigars?

  Was it a cigar? Might it not have been something that Jud smoked, some cheap scented tobacco out of a clay pipe? Pigtail? Or Thick Twist? She had never smoked. She knew well the smell of Ross’s tobacco. Could she be sure of any other?

  At this, still the darkest time of the year, it was an uncomfortable feeling to have in the back of one’s mind, the idea that some evil person might just be lurking. For Heaven’s sake, this was a peaceable district where everyone knew everyone else, and the biggest crime in a year might amount to the theft of a dozen eggs.

  Perhaps it was as well that Clowance had an escort home. Perhaps Bella might be safer in London after all!

  On the fifth of January there were signs of a change in the weather: a strong wind blew the heavy cloud away and brought a new shifting canopy of its own, which threatened blistering rain. The sea, which had been talking in its sleep for a day and a half, suddenly woke and frothed at the mouth.

  One afternoon Demelza spent an hour in her garden. At this time of year there was little that a storm could hurt, but one or two of the roses had sent up tall shoots which might crack at the root if they swayed about too much. A stick in support would be a good thing. Also that foreign tree from the Carolinas, which Hugh Armitage had brought and they had planted against the protection of the house wall, still clung obstinately to life though making little progress in this unsuitable soil. Its evergreen leaves were like spaniel’s ears that flopped about in the wind.

  The hour was almost up, and for a while the wind had paused for breath as darkness pended. The last distorted rim of the sun, pale and cold, looked like a great luminous iceberg sinking into the sea. She wrapped the thick string into a ball and moved to go in. As she did so she saw a tall man in black peering at her over the wall. She dropped the string.

  ‘Lady Poldark, excuse me.’

  ‘Who on – oh, Captain Prideaux! I did not expect – to see you again so soon.’

  ‘I trust I did not startle you.’

  ‘I did not, was not quite expecting someone to come on me from the beach side.’

  ‘Is this gate open? May I come in?’

  He came in, tall and gaunt, not at present wearing his eye glasses. That perhaps was why she had not instantly recognized him.

  He picked up the ball of string, gave it to her. She thanked him.

  He said: ‘I left my horse on the rough ground by the fence. Excuse this unorthodox arrival. I saw someone in the garden, and thought at first it was just a member of the household.’

  ‘So it was,’ she said. ‘Will you come in? The wind will soon be picking up again.’

  ‘Thank you. But may I ask if Sir Ross is indoors?’

  ‘Did you want to see him? I believe he is at the mine. If—’

  ‘No, Lady Poldark, I wanted to see you.’

  ‘Oh.’ They went in. She noticed he was almost as tall as Ross, had to bend his head in the same places.

  In the old parlour he waited for her to sit down, then put his hat on a chair and his cloak over it.

  ‘You must forgive me, Lady Poldark, for a slight subterfuge. I promised Clowance.’

  Oh dear, Demelza thought, another suitor.

  ‘What did you promise Clowance?’

  ‘She told me that a man, an unknown man, had followed you home last Sunday evening and that you felt at some risk because of the unfortunate death of Agneta Treneglos. You told Clowance but made her promise not to tell her father because you thought this would worry him unduly. Am I right?’

  ‘You are perfectly right.’ So he had not come to declare his love. It made a change.

  ‘But she told me. On the ride home. She said she felt she must tell someone. And she asked me not to give anything away to your husband.’

  ‘Did she ask you to come and see me?’

  He found his glasses in a pocket, fiddled with them nervously, put them on. ‘Oh, no. Not at all. I wondered if you could kindly tell me exactly how it happened. Where you first noticed that you were being followed, whether you have any idea how this man was dressed, whether anything like it has ever happened to you before.’

  Demelza was not quite at ease with Captain Prideaux. She wondered why he was so concerned, why he was personally pursuing the matter.

  He heard her story out in silence. ‘You believe this man was dressed all in black?’

  ‘I think so. Rather as you are now, Captain Prideaux.’

  He smiled coldly. ‘But you did not see his face?’

  ‘No. Oh, no.’

  ‘Was he tall or short?’

  ‘Tall. He may have had something across his face.’

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘There was a chink of light coming through the door of the engine house. I could see no face.’ She shivered.

  ‘A very distressing experience,’ he said, in that stiff voice he sometimes used. ‘But why, if I may ask, did you not tell Sir Ross?’

  ‘What could he do? Except worry for me. What can you do, Captain Prideaux?’

  ‘Would you do me the honour of calling me Philip
.’

  ‘It’s kind of you to take this interest, Philip. Do you think you can help?’

  ‘Last year, when I had just returned to Cornwall – oh dear, it will be the year before last – a parlourmaid at Cardew was murdered one night on her way home. It was while I was staying at Cardew that it happened, and out of idle curiosity I went to see the dead woman. She had been stabbed and her throat cut in exactly the same way as Agneta Treneglos.’

  Demelza moistened her lips. ‘And was there not some other girl killed more recent? Somewhere betwixt Indian Queens and Padstow.’

  ‘Yes, but she was strangled.’ Philip glanced up quickly and took off his glasses. ‘I remember reading that.’

  ‘And do you feel there may be a connection?’

  ‘Someone has asked me to find out. I tell you this in confidence.’

  Demelza took a spill, lighted it at the fire and went to the candlesticks on the sideboard. ‘Is it someone round here who has asked you to do this?’

  ‘I’m not at liberty to tell you, Lady Poldark. But I can tell you that this morning I did actually make some progress.’

  The third candle was guttering and the flame stayed small.

  He said: ‘As you know, ma’am, Agneta ran away from home, and no one seemed to have the least idea where she had spent the time. It was four days before the body was found, and Dr Enys said she had probably been dead for about two days. That left two nights unaccounted for, as well as two days. No one had seen her. Isn’t that so?’

  ‘I believe tis so.’

  ‘Which suggests to me that she hid for most of the time – or was hidden. Well, I know now where she was.’

  Demelza turned. ‘You do?’

  ‘She was at Fernmore.’

  ‘Fernmore?’ She dropped some candle grease on the mantelshelf. ‘The Kellows? How could that be?’

  ‘I called to see Miss Daisy Kellow and asked her questions. She told me in the end that she thought Miss Treneglos had been there both nights. You will of course remember – though I did not know – that Fernmore was originally occupied by a Dr Choake. It seems that Dr Choake utilized a large shed at the rear of the house for his surgery. Since he left, this shed has been neglected and used only as a lumber room. It should have been kept locked, but was not. From what she found in the shed Miss Kellow could tell that someone had occupied it.’