Mrs Pelham patted her hand. ‘Believe me, it has all been such a pleasure.’
‘And now,’ Demelza said, ‘I am planning this Christmas party. It would give us all such pleasure – in return. Ross and I and Bella are leaving for home next Thursday. Christopher will come down with Edward and Clowance on Saturday. Dwight and Caroline will certainly join in with their children. Then my daughter-in-law Cuby – who I think you have never met – with my granddaughter, will certainly be there . . .’
Mrs Pelham was still holding Demelza’s hand. She gave it a little squeeze.
‘You know, my dear, you must know how often Caroline has pressed me to stay with her in Cornwall. I have always pleaded that I belong in city life. I have always said that I have never travelled further west than Staines! It is true! Now, now, aside from preference, I am too old to travel. I am seventy-eight – though pray do not tell my friends! I shall see much more of you in the next few years; you must come more to London – with one of your daughters married to a Fitzmaurice and the other destined to be famous on the stage! . . . I think I must pray to be excused the journey and be allowed to look forward to your next visit here.’
Demelza sighed and then smiled. ‘For me this will be a very important party. It will be quite small, but I did want all my friends, and you, dear Mrs Pelham, I count as one of the dearest.’
Demelza was in fact giving voice to an idea that until then had been no more than a few whispered sentences exchanged between Ross and herself last night. Bella had told her that she would like to come home for Christmas. Ross had booked seats on the Royal London Mail for Thursday because he had a meeting with the lawyers in Truro on the Monday following. Now it fitted in perfectly because Bella could return with them. Christopher could not get away from Rothschild’s until Saturday. This suited Edward and Clowance, who were leaving on the Saturday afternoon. Demelza was very flattered that both her daughters wanted to spend Christmas at Nampara. ‘One for pleasure, two for joy,’ she said to Ross when they heard of Edward and Clowance’s intention.
‘Will you mind Bella travelling with us, Christopher?’ she asked.
‘I shall be hard on your heels,’ he said. ‘And if Bella is engaged to play in Othello she will need to be back by the fourth of January at the latest. It will give her two weeks at home.’
‘Do you – do you believe that she will get the part?’
Christopher said: ‘I always expect the impossible of Bella, and she always exceeds my expectations.’
Three more days of the Two Lovers of Verona and then it was all goodbyes to one’s fellow actors, to the stagehands, to Frederick McArdle and Joseph Glossop. Bella seemed to be kissed by everyone – only perhaps Henry Davidson, who had played Mercutio, was a little grudging; no doubt he felt that an experienced actor of twenty-eight should have been given preference over an untried girl ten years his junior. And who could blame him? The others were typically theatrical in their warmth. ‘I’ll be back!’ Bella said over and over again. ‘And thank you, thank you. I’ll be back,’ she said to Frederick McArdle. ‘I shall expect you,’ he replied with equal warmth, while nearby Joseph Glossop smiled benignly, knowing that if she continued as she had begun he would have to compete for her with people like Charles Kemble, who would have the greater pull.
It was a rush to catch the mail coach on the Thursday, for it left at seven-thirty and Bella was rubbing the sleep out of her eyes as she climbed aboard. There were two other inside passengers, so personal conversation was not possible. But Ross had heard Basingstoke given as their destination, so perhaps with luck no one else would join it there.
For a little while after leaving London and going through the brickworks and the market gardens Ross stared out and felt a slow malaise creeping upon him: it was the malaise connected with Valentine’s death, and while he had been in London, particularly while caught up in the delights of his daughter’s success, he had been free of it. Now, for once, he did not relish returning home and resuming the responsibilities of the life he had left behind. The useless, pointless loss of Valentine hung about him like a threadbare coat which was waiting to be put on again. The strange hallucination he had suffered when about to be dragged back from the burning house still plagued him in moments just waking or near sleeping.
He must, he knew, never allow it ever again to come between him and Demelza. He shared totally her exuberance over Bella’s astonishing success. But Demelza had acute perceptions. He must hide all darker thoughts from her. He must put on a brave face, a good-tempered face, which should not be difficult because the happy face was the true one; there should be no need to pretend feelings which his common sense told him were entirely genuine.
He thought again of George, and then of Harriet. Perhaps her influence had helped to tone down George’s jealousies, his malevolences. Why had she ever married him? She had attempted to explain that evening they had met at Prideaux Place. They had been talking about absolutes, and she had said: ‘Of course I married George for his money. But something else besides. I was physically attracted – sexually attracted by him – not by his looks – though he is not all that bad looking. Shall we say I am a self-willed woman and relish challenge?’
There she had paused for a moment and added: ‘Let us say that I was sexually attracted to him by the transparent ugliness of his moral character.’
It was a sentence Ross would not forget. Although half-humorous in intent, it showed a deep insight into her nature. It explained a lot.
In the coach he thought of his liking for Harriet. It was truly a physical – a sexual – attraction. But the sexual appeal was short of lust, the liking not near enough to love. He knew that but for the existence of George they could become fast friends.
It stood to reason that George would still contrive, or make the attempt, to gain control, custody, influence over little Georgie. But limping to the theatre across the bridge one day it had occurred to Ross to think that maybe his own fears had been exaggerated. Even if somehow in the years ahead George contrived to exercise control or influence over Georgie, it need not follow that he would be able to re-create the boy after his own image. George had made earnest attempts to make friends and acolytes of two young men, Valentine and Geoffrey Charles, and they had both ended up by hating him.
After Basingstoke their luck held and no one else joined the coach inside. It had been a substantial dinner, if stodgy, and once they were off again Bella went to sleep, making up for an accumulation of short nights.
Near Andover they were halted because of a broken trace, and Bella woke up, smiled sleepy-eyed at them both, and took to reading a thin green book, on the spine of which Demelza was able to discern, in small gold letters, Othello.
Presently she put the book down. Demelza said: ‘You haven’t told us much about your interview.’
‘With Mr Kemble? I’m sorry. I gave Christopher all the details, and then when you came in I just sort of told you the outcome. After that it has been all rush, rush. Sorry.’
‘Did you like him?’
‘Oh, yes. He’s an actor, of course. An actor-manager. Very charming and agreeable, light-hearted. The only moment when he was not light-hearted was when we spoke about money. He offered me three hundred pounds for the ten performances. Christopher had told me to ask five hundred pounds. Mr Kemble was very shocked, hinted at my inexperience, the risks they were taking, spoke of something he called “overheads”. He gave me a glass of lemonade. Then he said he had heard I could sing, had sung in opera. I told him what had happened. He excused himself and went out to consult someone else. When he came back he said the most the theatre could offer was four hundred pounds, so I accepted that.’
The coach rattled disconcertingly. Demelza let out a deep breath. ‘At this rate, you will soon be rich, my lover.’
‘Well, it is very nice to earn so much. But Mr Kemble is quite right. I am inexperienced. I am learning something new every day. Dr Fredericks, I know now, was such a good teacher.’
>
‘Working with high talent,’ Ross said. Bella dimpled. ‘Christopher did not go with you to see Mr Kemble?’
‘I asked him to. He said he thought I ought not to shelter behind him. He did not think I ought to seem to be his protégé.’
Ross nodded approval. ‘Which in a sense you are. How did you come to fence so well?’
She smiled again. ‘Every morning before he left for the bank he came to Mrs Pelham’s and we fenced for an hour. Then there were evenings too. As you say, I am his protégé.’
‘Are you going to marry him?’ Demelza asked suddenly.
‘Yes.’ The reply came without hesitation.
‘Oh, I’m glad,’ Demelza said.
‘You have a date?’ Ross asked.
‘No. It seems that he had to sell the house he bought for us earlier this year. He is a bit mysterious about such things . . . But he’s – very clever, I am sure he will arrange something else.’
Ross said: ‘I remember it was thought when he joined Rothschild’s that he might not make much progress because he was not a Jew. But the Jews are never above recognizing a man of parts when they find one.’
It had hardly stopped raining while they were in London, and the trip to Cornwall was no exception. This led to pools of mud on the road, the horses struggling against a wet wind, and inevitable delays. Demelza speculated that the Lansdowne coach leaving London two days later might eventually catch up.
When they reached Yeovil it was late, and they were content to take a light supper and stumble off to bed. But when dawn came and a lifting of the clouds presaged a clearer day, Demelza was bright-eyed with plans for the Christmas party. Nampara was very uncommodious, but she was determined this time to house all her visitors, not depend upon the generosity of the Enyses or the Geoffrey Charleses. On a sheet of paper and with a black crayon she had purloined from somewhere, she drew up a sleeping plan. Edward and Clowance should have the larger of the two new bedrooms over the library, Cuby and Noelle should have the next one. After that it was not so easy. Bella should have her own bedroom, Christopher could take Jeremy’s, Henry for a night or two would perhaps be found a bed in his parents’ room. As for Philip Prideaux . . .
‘You are going to ask him?’ Bella said.
‘If he will come.’
‘He must come. He saved your life.’
‘He may feel uncomfortable if Clowance is there.’
‘So may she, but they will get over it.’
Demelza said: ‘There is that back bedroom over the kitchen. There is a deal of lumber in it. We could have it cleared out, buy a new bed – specially long for him – and new cretonne curtains.’
‘We shall have barely a week,’ said Ross.
‘Bella and I can go into Truro on Monday. That man Jenkins has a yard near the old Cavalry Barracks. He makes furniture.’
After a few more jogging miles Bella said: ‘Cuby has been seeing much of Philip Prideaux, from what I hear. Do you think sometime they might hit it off ?’
Ross looked at Demelza, and they both laughed.
‘Is that funny?’ Bella asked. ‘I merely thought . . .’
‘What do you mean by “hit it off”?’ Ross said.
‘Well . . . read it as you will. I thought possibly they might even marry.’
‘The only reason that what you said strikes us as funny is that the same thought has occurred to us both – but individually.’
‘Well, that is good, isn’t it? If three Poldarks are of the same mind, who can stand before them?’
‘Don’t forget,’ Ross said, ‘that we are not dealing with Poldarks.’
Demelza said: ‘Don’t forget also that because this idea has occurred to us all separately, that it may have been the thought of others too. It is not hard to see it, see the suitability. She is – is the widow of an army officer killed at Waterloo. He is a cavalry officer who has had his nerves grievously harmed by the same battle. He is unattached. She is unattached. They are seeing a lot of each other. But – but if too many folk put two and two together, this may come to be known between Cuby and Philip and produce a wrong feeling, a contrarious feeling which might bar it from coming to pass. And even if that is not so, there is a lot to be overcome. She will not want to appear in his eyes as second best to Clowance. He will not want to appear in her eyes as second best to – to – to Jeremy.’
‘A pity,’ said Bella, after a moment. She gave a little trill of song. ‘For I am in a match-making mood.’
‘Tell me, Bella,’ Demelza said. ‘How ever did you come to remember all those lines? I think you were good at school, but not quite brilliant.’
‘It wasn’t that hard. It is easier to remember something that interests you. And there’s a sort of rhythm to it. You learn it all a small matter like music. You could almost sing it.’
‘But you did not. There was nothing sing-song about it.’
‘That was not quite what I meant.’ Bella rubbed her fingers over a suddenly furrowed forehead. ‘D’you know what I often thought of when I was playing Romeo? I thought of Jeremy.’
‘Jeremy?’
‘I used to admire him so much, sometimes I used to copy him, what he said, the way he walked, his – his own elaborate view of things! After all, he was my hero, my eldest brother. So when I came to play Romeo I said to myself, “You’re not just Romeo – you’re Jeremy too!” ’
‘Jeremy too,’ said Ross. ‘Well . . .’
‘Also – also of Romeo and Juliet I thought of Jeremy and Cuby. No one could have felt more for a girl than he did for Cuby. And in the end I believe she for him. And that too had a sad ending . . .’
The rain had stopped, but great clouds swollen and pendulous as cows’ udders drifted overhead; the whole landscape dripped. Isabella-Rose had a gift for sleeping during travel and she was curled up again in her corner of the coach, breathing peacefully and by now so used to the lurching and jogging that she was undisturbed by it.
Ross looked across at his daughter from time to time and was overcome with wonderment that in that slim, well-formed, sturdy body, that fair-skinned, firmly etched, attractive face, that brain altogether hidden from view, that all these features should in some way contain and contribute to what was a unique talent not given to lesser men or women. Whatever her attempts to explain it away to her parents, this was uncontrovertibly so.
She had sung or hummed a little once or twice today. It had hardly been heard since her illness of the summer – not spontaneous singing, that was. In June everything had been concentrated on one end; in December suddenly quite another. A crowning incongruity.
Was that ability returning? Would she one day become a prima of the opera as well as of the stage? He wondered if her prospective marriage to Christopher would be a success. Under his light-hearted happy-go-lucky manner there was a steely determination, a dedication to match her own.
As he looked at her he could not know that she would never sing opera again; singing for pleasure, yes, in character on the stage, yes, in a singularly sweet tone and reasonably effortless range, but the power and reliability in the top notes had gone for ever. Nor could he know, nor could she know, that she would quickly become the most popular English actress of two generations. A constant stream of successes would follow Othello: The Country Wife, The Merchant of Venice, Love for Love, The Plain Dealer, Twelfth Night. Prints, paintings, engravings would be sold in shops, and her face was to become one of the best known in London. And she was to be fêted and praised by the rich and famous: Wellington, Palmerston, Hazlitt, Coleridge, Southey, Wordsworth.
She knew nothing of this now. She had been dreaming that Dr Fredericks and Madame Lotti Schneider were giving her a cup of chocolate and persuading her that Romeo and Juliet set to music would be perfect for her to undertake with her new voice. ‘It is an entirely different transcription,’ Dr Fredericks, his cravat awry as usual, was saying. ‘It is only when Romeo dies that Juliet has to sing top C and that can be taken over by the flute! No one w
ill detect anything amiss.’ ‘But,’ she was saying, ‘I play Romeo and I cannot sing baritone!’
She woke suddenly at an extra lurch and saw with relief her mother and father in their respective corners and normality holding sway over nightmare. Her mother was asleep, her father fingering the pages of a book but making only a half-hearted attempt to read it.
‘Papa,’ she said in a low voice.
He looked up, smiled, glanced warningly at his wife.
‘Do you think it will wake Mama if we talk?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘How are your injuries after the fire? I know you do not mention them.’
‘Very light.’
‘That great bruise on your forehead.’
‘It has mended much. In another week it will be gone.’
‘And the burn on your foot?’
‘Seems to be healing in spite of the walking I have done. Give that another week too.’
She looked at him carefully. ‘Nothing else?’
‘Nothing else.’ He did not mention the occasional dizziness.
She settled back. ‘It must have been a tragic time. Can you tell me a little more about Valentine’s death?’
He told her exactly how it had happened but omitted the hallucination he had suffered. She asked a few questions, but to Ross’s relief did not bring up the subject of Valentine’s parentage. He hoped to God she was young enough to have escaped the whispers.
‘And Sir George?’ she presently said.
Ross answered this too.
She said: ‘When I was about ten I was always terrified by him and by his name, and the awful feud you had. I was always terrified that you and Sir George would come to blows sometime, that maybe you and he would fight out a terrible duel somewhere, perhaps on the cliffs, and only one of you coming back alive. I would picture you both with flailing swords or smoking pistols. I was really affrighted, and used to worry.’
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