Bella Poldark

by Winston Graham

  Bella coughed, and winced with the pain. ‘Did Uncle Dwight say that?’

  ‘Yes . . .’

  ‘It has been nearly a week!’

  ‘D’you remember Mrs Kemp’s first lessons in French? Avec de la patience on arrive à tout.’

  ‘Prendre son mal en patience,’ said Bella. ‘I fear I have little of it. Nor have I any patience to eat food. Nor much appetite for life.’

  ‘A little while, dearest,’ said Clowance, choking a sudden impulse to burst into tears. ‘Never fear. In a couple more weeks you will be as right as rain.’

  ‘Did Uncle Dwight say that?’

  ‘. . . Yes.’

  When she came out of the room, leaving the nursing to one of the Martins, she found Edward talking to her father and mother.

  They looked at her, and she pulled a grieved face. ‘I had no idea. You should have written earlier, Mama.’

  ‘I did not want to trouble you. She has become much worse these last two days.’

  Ross said: ‘Dwight thinks it is coming to the crisis now. It may be tonight.’

  Edward said: ‘I have come to Cornwall at the worst possible moment for you all. When I received the letter from Clowance I was so delighted that I lost no time in thinking of anything else.’

  ‘Natural enough,’ said Ross.

  ‘Caroline Enys, as I expect you know, has invited me to spend a few days with them. That I should be glad to do, but I feel I am entering on – on a family crisis here. You cannot want me here at such an anxious time. A stranger – any stranger – is de trop. Yet – I am deeply concerned for Isabella-Rose’s recovery. To go back to London would be very hard. If I stay with the Enyses . . .’ He paused.

  ‘I thought you had already agreed to,’ Demelza said.

  ‘How far is their house from here?’

  ‘About four miles.’

  Edward looked at Clowance for guidance. She said: ‘I should not wish you to go back to London.’

  ‘That is really all I want to know. You have asked me to sup here. After it I will leave you until the morning.’

  ‘I think Dwight is coming back here after supper,’ said Demelza. ‘He may spend the night here. Clowance . . . would you like to go to Killewarren and show his driver the way?’

  Clowance said: ‘I don’t think Edward will mind if I say no. If this is likely to be the crisis I must stay up with her. You may not sleep, Mama, but you must lie down. What is the good of me coming if I cannot be allowed to do that?’

  Dwight returned at eleven. He had left a draught of white poppy syrup for Demelza, and Ross had stood over her while she swallowed it.

  He helped her to bed and sat holding her hand until she went to sleep. After that he took a book and smoked a pipe in the library, where he could not hear Bella coughing. The trouble with many of these old farmhouses was that sound echoed everywhere.

  In the bedroom Bella was watched over by Dwight Enys, Jane Gimlett and Clowance. Clowance wanted to be more active, where such minor action was possible, in painting Bella’s throat or getting her to sip diluted blackcurrant juice; but Dwight had priority and after a while he passed these duties over to Jane. Clowance wondered if he were trying to keep her at a distance from the closest infection.

  It was near the longest day, so darkness only lasted a few hours. Ross had dozed off, but woke slightly chilled in the first ghostly streaks of dawn. He remembered all too well, even though it was thirty years ago, when the dawn had broken at a late hour in the very depths of winter when a gale was raging, and he had roused himself from a similar troubled doze to learn that his first daughter was dead.

  The whole picture was abominably reminiscent of that earlier time. The Gimletts were new arrived, young and active; now they were grey-haired and stooping. Dwight Enys was a young doctor, only just qualified. Demelza . . . well, she was older but little changed; and, as then, in the centre of it all. In that earlier time she too was ill and had nearly died. This time not so – or not so yet. (Dwight had urged Ross to keep her out of the sickroom; in his experience, he said, a former attack of this dread disease did not make one less likely to catch it again at a later date.)

  It was all happening again, Ross told himself, but thirty years later. And then it was black and wild midwinter, now it was high summer and calm seas. And the person at risk was his daughter again, his youngest daughter, and she was seventeen years older than Julia was when she had died in this house, tended by the same doctor and the same maid. It could not be. The repetition was obscene.

  He got up sharply and went towards the stairs. Slits of grey light coming through curtains warred with the guttering candles, one smoking and another out. Something moved against his legs, Moses wanting to greet the dawn. Ross lifted the latch of the front door and let the cat out, then went up the creaking stairs.

  Demelza was still asleep. Evidently Dwight had given her a fair dose of laudanum. He retreated, closing the door behind him and holding the latch with his finger so that it should not click.

  A shadow moved on the landing. It was Dwight, just come out of Bella’s room. He put his hand on Ross’s arm.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘She’s sleeping. It is the first natural sleep for a long time.’

  Ross listened. All was quiet. ‘Is that . . . ?’

  ‘A good sign, yes. Don’t build too much on it. But I think the crisis was between two and three a.m. this morning.’

  ‘So you may not have to use your instrument?’

  That meant tracheotomy.

  ‘I pray not. I believe not.’

  Tears welled into Ross’s throat and he tried to swallow them. ‘Thank God for that.’

  ‘Amen. I must go now. I have two other cases I should see. I hope to be with you straight after breakfast.’

  ‘Shall I go in?’

  ‘I think not. Two of the Martins are with her and it’s better she should not be disturbed. Is there a spare room in the house?’

  ‘Jeremy’s.’

  ‘Lie down yourself for a couple of hours. Tell John Gimlett where you are in case of need.’

  ‘Thank you, Dwight.’

  Dwight looked down. ‘You’re still a strong man, Ross. I shall need that arm again.’

  ‘Apologies.’ He released Dwight and they crept down the stairs.

  Two days later Ross rode over to Wheal Elizabeth at Trevaunance. It was not that there was any urgent need to go, but while Bella had been so ill he had felt unable to stir from the house. Now that there was just a suggestion of convalescence about her, some action outside the confines of the farm and his own mines was a way of releasing his still current anxieties.

  The North Coast Mining Company had officially taken possession of Wheal Elizabeth last month, a new mine captain called Trebethick had been appointed, and after a general survey of the present workings three of the current shafts had been abandoned; the other two were to be developed and renamed (for luck) and a third new excavation begun about fifty yards nearer the house. Valentine had been allowed twenty-five per cent of the promised investment, and was the third largest shareholder after Warleggan’s Bank and the Cornish Bank.

  There had been little time yet to make appreciable progress; a small pumping engine had been ordered, costing £600 from Perran Foundry, and when installed would be used chiefly to drain the new shaft, which was further from the cliff and had less natural drainage. Almost at once Trebethick came out of the purser’s shed to greet the unexpected visitor, and almost at once he told Ross that Captain Prideaux was below ground in the Margaret shaft and they could quickly send down for him.

  Ross told him not to bother. He was interested in the other shaft, Sunshine, which had been more recently developed from an early adit dug many years ago to drain some long ignored and forgotten excavation. Ross’s instinct, grown from long years of dealing with mines, picked on this one as a more promising spot to prospect. It had been Trebethick’s first interest when he came to manage the mine.

  The work at t
he moment involved renewing the timber setts, which had largely rotted, then shoring up and capping the roof by joining one sett to another. Lagging boards were also being fitted, so that the miners could explore into the chilly, draughty cavern beyond.

  It was an hour later, when he was about to untether his horse, that he saw Captain Prideaux bearing down on him.

  They greeted each other cordially and for a few minutes discussed the future welfare of Wheal Elizabeth. Then Philip said: ‘I understand your younger daughter has been unwell. I hope it was nothing serious?’

  ‘Afraid it was,’ Ross said. ‘She is making progress now, but it is not forgone and will take weeks yet.’

  ‘Did she contract this in France?’

  ‘It seems so. But Dr Enys says the infection may have been latent for some time.’

  ‘And Clowance?’ Philip asked.

  Ross stared out at the pellucid sea, which was as flat as a plate.

  ‘She made her own choice. I’m sorry.’

  ‘It destroyed my hopes.’

  ‘I understand how you must feel.’

  ‘I gather she has known this – this Lord Edward Fitzmaurice for several years.’

  ‘Quite a time. I am not sure how long, but it was well before she married Stephen Carrington.’

  ‘But they met infrequently?’

  ‘Yes . . . Philip, I do not think much advantage will be gained by discussing this with me. I am, as it were, on the outside. I could not see, cannot see, into Clowance’s heart.’

  ‘Possibly he could offer her more than I could.’

  ‘That was for her to decide. But if you mean more in a material sense, I think I can speak for Clowance with complete authority in saying it would not have made the slightest difference.’

  ‘I’m sorry. That remark was not worthy of me.’

  ‘She wrote you?’

  ‘Most charmingly, and at length. It did not affect the – the bitter disappointment to me of the message.’

  ‘Of course not. Have you seen her since?’

  ‘No. I understand she is staying at Nampara looking after her sister.’

  ‘Yes. But Lord Edward is also here, staying with the Enyses. Probably it would be better, when you see her again, if you saw her alone.’

  Philip inclined his head. ‘I agree, though perhaps it is good for the modesty of one’s immortal soul that one should meet the man who has been preferred by the girl one loves.’

  Ross looked over the sea again. ‘My dear chap, I do not believe virtue enters into it at all. The mysteries of physical attraction are an enigma that no one has ever quite solved.’

  Just then another tall thin figure approached them.

  ‘Well, well,’ said Valentine. ‘I was about to go to bed for a snooze when I was told that Wheal Elizabeth had visitors. So I came to greet you – if briefly – before I retire.’

  ‘Bed,’ said Ross, ‘on such an afternoon?’

  ‘Am just back from Ireland. We was becalmed in the St George’s Channel – becalmed! When the Irish Sea is short of wind one wonders what the world is coming to. And I could not sleep in that pesky cabin for the bugs. I have rid all the way home. They tell me Bella is unwell?’

  Ross explained. ‘How did you know?’

  ‘I breakfasted at Prideaux Place. Cuby was there with Noelle, stopping a few days. She told me they had been advised not to come to Nampara for fear of the infection.’

  ‘I was at Prideaux Place yesterday,’ Philip said.

  ‘Did Cuby tell you about John?’

  ‘Her brother? Yes.’

  ‘What about him?’ Ross asked.

  ‘She tells me he has fled abroad.’

  ‘Fled?’

  ‘From his creditors. They have been hunting him for weeks.’

  ‘She said nothing of this when she was over last.’

  Philip said: ‘Perhaps she did not like to worry you and Lady Poldark, as you might feel some responsibility for her welfare.’

  ‘Of course we do! I wish she had told us.’

  Valentine stifled a yawn. ‘Maybe the greatest responsibility, if one goes back far enough, is mine. You will remember Smelter George had come to an agreement with John Trevanion that I should marry Cuby and in return Cuby and I should live in the Castle and George would pay all John’s debts. I never knew all the details or how many t’s had to be crossed and i’s dotted, but if I know George he would have had it all writ on paper and legally binding.’

  Philip was staring at Valentine. ‘I know nothing of this at all.’

  ‘Why should you? You were playing soldiers.’

  ‘And what went wrong?’

  Valentine laughed. ‘I married someone else without my father’s permission.’

  ‘That is your present wife? – the one who left you?’

  ‘Just so. I have managed only one wife so far. Though she has partly come back.’

  Ross looked his enquiry. ‘I have been away two weeks.’

  ‘Selina arrived back two weeks before that, accompanied by my son and a dragon of a cousin. Not, of course, here. For some nefarious purposes of his own George has installed her in a little house called Rayle Farm near Tehidy. I have not seen her, nor do I propose to see her. But I am thinking of taking her to law and claiming custody of the child.’

  ‘I must see Cuby,’ Ross said, half to himself.

  ‘They too are looking for a smaller home,’ Philip said. ‘That is, for herself and her mother and her sister and Noelle. I’m hoping my cousin may be able to find something for them. Apparently, now that John has finally given up the fight, there are bailiffs already in the Castle.’

  Chapter Five

  The following morning, Bella having been persuaded to take a cup of beef tea and been able to keep it down, Clowance felt at liberty to steal a few hours off to pursue her own life. When Edward arrived at eleven she proposed they should walk the length of Hendrawna Beach.

  The weather remained set fair, windless, pellucid, warm. Dwight had lent Edward two light blue shirts with open necks, and yesterday Edward had ridden into Truro and had had a pair of cotton breeches stitched up for himself while he sat and waited.

  ‘This is not true Cornish weather,’ Clowance told him.

  ‘Maybe it is specially for us.’

  They set off, through the gate, across the few yards of stony sand covered with marram grass, onto the soft sand seldom reached by the sea, felt it harden under their feet, then they were on the great three-mile stretch of pale gold, bordered on the left by the sleepy sea and on the right by hairy sandhills that soon grew into black granite cliffs, on the first of which Wheal Leisure muttered and smoked.

  For a while they walked in silence. Then she said: ‘D’you mind if I take off my shoes?’

  ‘I’ll carry them.’

  ‘No. Thank you.’

  He said: ‘Do you mind if I take my shoes off?’

  She giggled. ‘Not at all.’

  She had been able to kick her shoes off and pick them up while standing; he had to unlace his, so squatted on the sand. While he was doing this he recounted to her his visit to Mr Norris the tailor, who seemed to spend all his life with his mouth full of pins.

  Then they were off again, squelching into the occasional puddle, talking in a companionable way.

  ‘The sea is a long way out,’ he said.

  ‘All right. I’ll race you to it.’

  She was off before him, fleet of foot, fair hair flying. He set off in pursuit, pounding through the sand which now seemed treacherously soft. He tried to catch her, but her feet just splashed into the creamy curl of surf a second before his.

  He caught her by the arm, pulled her laughing and breathless against him. He bent his head and found her face with his lips, began to kiss her. She turned her lips to him.

  Presently they waded back to dry sand, began to walk arm in arm, the high sun casting shadows like dogs at their feet.

  They were still both a little more out of breath than the chase warr
anted. This was the first time in all their association that they had ever embraced. Yet they were engaged to be married. It was a courtship in reverse.

  A little archipelago of cloud had come up to make the hot sun temporarily less fierce.

  He said: ‘Those cliffs are growing bigger and blacker as we near them.’

  ‘They are called the Dark Cliffs! But you are not very near yet. At least a mile. A mile and a half.’

  ‘Distances are deceptive.’

  ‘Not only distances.’

  ‘What, for instance?’ he asked.

  ‘You, for instance.’

  ‘Explain, please.’

  ‘Need I?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, I thought you were more formal.’

  ‘Not always.’

  ‘Perhaps it is the sea air.’

  ‘Not just that.’

  ‘What, then?’

  ‘You, for instance,’ he said.

  She laughed again. She had almost forgotten how to.

  ‘Let’s go to the Holy Well. That’s less than a mile. Over there. In that cleft where the green comes nearly down to the sea.’

  ‘Why is it holy?’

  ‘It was on the pilgrims’ way. I don’t know where they were walking to – it may have been St Ives. But they used to shelter there. It is a sort of wishing well.’

  ‘Good. We’ll go. Are secular wishes permitted?’

  ‘I think so.’

  When they got there it was not an easy climb, though only about thirty feet. The rocks were jagged, mussel-grown and slippery with vivid seaweed.

  ‘Are your feet sore?’

  ‘No,’ he lied.

  ‘I’ll lead the way.’

  They got up without a mistake and stood on a moss-green platform of rock, with a raised circle of rock in the middle enclosing a small pool. Edward put some fingers in the pool and licked one.

  ‘It is only faintly brackish.’

  ‘Yes, it’s a genuine fresh-water well.’

  ‘And how do you make a wish?’

  ‘Drake says – my mother’s brother, who is now a boat builder in Looe but lived near Nampara for some years – oh, but it is a long story. Drake says you wet your finger and wish. There is something you have to say – he told me, but I have long forgotten – Oh, you . . . !’