‘So you think you might serve another term?’ said Caroline.
‘No. But I could have wished to leave it all at a better time.’
‘Well, there is nothing to stop you from changing your mind and carrying on.’
There was a pattering of feet in the corridor and the cries of little girls. Caroline frowned, but not with much rancour.
‘Do you ever wish’, she said to Demelza, ‘that you could harness your children to a horse whim or some other useful machine so that their energies should not be altogether wasted?’
‘Frequently,’ said Demelza.
Dwight said: ‘If you didn’t stand this time in the Boscawen interest you could do so in the Basset. De Dunstanville would find you a seat.’
Ross took a sip of tea, which had just been served. ‘Unfortunately, my views and Francis’s are totally opposed on the subject of rotten boroughs! I could hardly accept his patronage and then advocate the abolition of the parliamentary seats he controls!’
‘That is what you do for Lord Falmouth.’
‘Yes. But in the first place I stood in his interest to serve his ends – or his father’s ends – which were to get rid of George Warleggan. At least twice since I have offered to resign, and he has refused; so one can assume, I conject, that he found some advantage in the situation – though it has clearly not been a material one. And just as clearly, because of this, I have never felt muzzled or constrained in what I did or said. If I took a Basset seat I should feel constrained. Indeed, de Dunstanville feels more strongly against the need for reform than the Boscawens do. Our friendship, his and mine, was clouded three years ago when there was so much agitation in the country and I supported Colman Rashleigh and the others.’
‘I remember,’ said Caroline. ‘Dwight was very hot for your cause.’
‘Still am,’ said Dwight, ‘Though no doubt any change will have to wait for the end of the war, like so many other things – especially those of advantage to the North.’
‘Not only to the North,’ Ross said. ‘When one thinks that any four of our Cornish boroughs – take, say, four of the rottenest: East Looe, St Michael, Bossiney and St Mawes – that any such four return as many members to Parliament as the cities of London and Westminster together and the whole county of Middlesex, which have something like a million inhabitants between them and contribute about a sixth of the total revenue of the country . . . well, it turns representation of the people into a sorry farce.’
‘Francis de Dunstanville, bless his little heart,’ said Caroline, ‘would argue that representation of the people is best carried out by those educated for the task, that government by the mob would end in the loss of more civil and religious liberties than we have at present, and that bare-faced impudence joined to ignorance always outweighs and triumphs over modest truth.’ She turned swiftly to Demelza: ‘Save me. Spare me from the crushing retorts of my husband and my best friend. You know how tender I am when severity is shown me, so easily bruised. Pray think of some other subject to bring up quickly before they have drawn breath.’
‘But this is such an interesting subject,’ Demelza said. ‘I am listening to Ross making up his mind!’
Eventually Ross said: ‘My mind and my wish is not to stand again, and that is how it will be. It’s only among friends that I admit to taking a backward glance.’
Caroline said: ‘And when is Clowance’s wedding to be?’
‘Oh . . .’ Demelza exchanged a glance with Ross. ‘In October sometime. We haven’t fixed a date yet – or they haven’t. But I should think Saturday the twenty-fourth.’
‘And you? Will you be about eight months by then?’
‘A little less if your husband is to be believed.’
‘It will be a Christmas present, then!’
‘I’m arranging for the mistletoe,’ said Ross.
‘Old Meggy Dawes always insisted on rowan berries. In fact,’ said Demelza, ‘I shall be not a small amount embarrassed at Clowance’s wedding lest some onlooker mistakes me for the bride.’
The others laughed.
‘It’s a well-established Cornish custom,’ said Dwight.
‘Seriously,’ said Demelza, ‘I wish I was further away from my children – my grown-up children – while this is happening to me. They are both being engagingly sweet about it; but I would better prefer them to go off to some retreat until it is over. I shall not endure to have either of them near the house while I am in labour.’
‘Well, at least by then Clowance will have a home of her own. And Jeremy, I am sure, is not above taking a hint. Still seriously,’ Caroline added, ‘is it going well between Clowance and Stephen?’ There had already been a sharing of confidences.
Ross said: ‘He’s working hard, both at the mill and on the cottage. I confess I would like the young man if he did not wish to become my son-in-law.’
Demelza said: ‘There seems just too little ease between them – at least when they are in company. There doesn’t seem enough companionship. They are deeply in love but it is a prickly love. There is much of that about, of course; I see it in many couples all through their married lives. An edginess. I never understand it. But before marriage it is less frequent. I wonder if marriage will help to cure it for Stephen and Clowance or if, in time, when the passion is burning less brightly, they will find each other intolerable. I wake at nights and think about it.’
Caroline said: ‘My dear, you can only live one life, and that’s your own. Leave them be.’
‘That’s what I tell her,’ said Ross. ‘But it does not prevent me from feeling the same.’
Demelza said: ‘I know how you blame us about Edward Petty-Fitzmaurice . . .’
‘Nonsense. Forget that I ever spoke reprovingly. It was not so meant . . . As I grow older I think we must all learn to become fatalists about our children. Errors of omission are always easier to forgive oneself than errors of commission. You have done less than normal to direct your children’s lives. So you bear less responsibility, less blame if things go wrong . . . Was it the Spartans who relinquished charge of their children at an early age? Possibly that is the best solution of all.’
The long evening light was dying.
Caroline said: ‘Shall you be at the races next week?’
‘Where, at Truro? I fancy not.’
‘I think I shall go. If I can persuade Dwight to take me. It will be interesting to see what they make of it.’
‘Jeremy is going,’ said Demelza. ‘One of the younger Boscawens is making up a party.’
‘Oh?’ said Ross. ‘I didn’t know. Where did he meet him?’
‘I think it was at Caerhays.’
Myners came in. ‘Dr Enys, sir. There is a messenger from Place House. Mr Pope is sick again, and his wife has sent for you. Do you wish to go, sir? Shall I have your horse saddled?’
Dwight rose. Over the years, from the gentle young physician Demelza had first known, he had become lean-faced, rather austere. The time in the French prisoner-of-war camp still left its indelible mark. ‘It seems we cannot eat together without my being called out. Believe me, there are many evenings when Caroline and I are beautifully undisturbed.’
‘Take a brandy before you go,’ said Caroline; ‘it will be more sustaining than tea; and if I know the Popes’ hospitality, you are not likely to be offered anything supportive there.’
So presently the three were left alone, and Dwight’s horse crunched over the pebbles down the drive and out into the darkling twilight.
II
The Truro races were held on the last Tuesday in September. It was a new venture. This year the Bodmin autumn meeting, normally held in the first week of the month, had been cancelled because of litigation pending over the land on which the races were held, so some worthy citizens of Truro, not to be denied their sport, had decided to hold a scratch meeting three weeks later. A piece of flat land had been rented from a farmer near Penair, temporary fences set up, a course marked out, two stands erected. Most of the
competitors who would have appeared at Bodmin had agreed to come to Truro.
Driving rain throughout the previous week was enough to damp anyone’s ardour, and the constant traffic of preparation turned all the lanes into liquid mud, but when the day came a mass of vehicles of all sorts and condition were to be observed struggling up the various hills towards the venue.
The morning weather looked like turning the day into a disaster. A pall of cloud, the colour of coal and sulphur, loured over the scene, threatening torrential rainfall if not thunder. Although there was little wind, the clouds kept sidling around and breaking and filling like warships shifting their ground to take better aim. Now and then a spot as big as a six-shilling piece would fall, splitting and spreading into a drying star.
But then, about eleven, as if an appeal from Ossie Whitworth’s old church had found a miraculous way through, a shaft of sunlight broke up one of the clouds, bits of cerulean blue showed through the rents, and the whole monstrous company shuffled off. By noon, when the first race was due to begin, the crowd basked in high summer.
In the end almost all the Poldarks went. Jeremy joined John-Evelyn Boscawen’s party. Boscawen had hired a wagonette for the occasion, and all nine of his guests were young.
Ross decided to ride in, but nothing would persuade Demelza to accompany him. ‘You must know by now how I mislike myself when I look like Sir John Trevaunance. It is the only part of having children that I detest. It will soon be over now. Have patience.’
‘I could well take a vow of abstinence when I see you put to so much strain and inconvenience just to satisfy my appetites.’
‘Don’t take a vow that I shall persuade you to break. For abstinence is not in me yet.’
‘It would be a good name, wouldn’t it,’ Ross said. ‘Abstinence. Abstinence Poldark. But would it be for a girl or a boy?’
Demelza said: ‘Don’t you think Indulgence would be better?’
‘Or Incontinence,’ said Ross.
‘That might be too near the truth!’ Demelza put her hand on his arm. ‘Serious, Ross, why don’t you take Isabella-Rose?’
‘Bella? Would she enjoy it?’
‘She would adore it. Take Mrs Kemp too. There are likely to be ponies for sale and Bella has been promised one for her birthday.’
Ross thought if the occasion offered he might also buy himself a new horse, as Sheridan was failing. At this stage Clowance said she had no intention of being left out and went to see Wilf Jonas to beg a day off for Stephen.
Jeremy had half expected to find Cuby one of the party, and indeed she was there, together with Clemency and Augustus. Most of the others he knew slightly or well. Nicholas Carveth and Joanna Bird were among them, as was John-Evelyn’s sister, the Hon. Elizabeth Boscawen. Valentine Warleggan seemed of the party and not of the party, since he was riding a horse himself today and was in the company of two or three other young men, among them Jeremy’s cousin Andrew Blamey.
When the invitation came Jeremy had written a refusal, thinking to avoid another hurtful confrontation. Then he had torn it up and spent a restless night and written an acceptance. Until he made the decision to leave Cornwall, or came to some conclusion about his arid and frustrated future, was he to avoid all contact with society or his fellow men just for fear it might involve him in this dread encounter? Why should he dread it? He knew that he loved Cuby and only Cuby, and that there would never be anyone else like her; but already he felt as if his soul had been ground into the mud because of it. Would he feel any worse, could he feel any worse as a result of meeting her again?
It also occurred to him that in the disastrous encounter of Easter he might have been guilty of serious tactical error. Precisely because he felt so deeply about her, as if his very life were at stake, he had glared at her, bullied her into tears, showed his heartbreak and his bitterness and anger. Might there not be another way to treat this young lady? After all, she was wed to no one yet. Affianced to no one. Major Trevanion could hardly keep her under lock and key all her life, releasing her, a willing victim to his cupidity, only when the right suitor broke cover.
So when he came to the wagonette and saw her sitting there in a plum-coloured velvet frock (which didn’t in the least suit her black hair but in a wicked perverse way only enhanced her beauty) he bowed over her hand with his best and most ingenuous smile, as if he were an old friend who really liked her, rather than a spurned lover who wished her either in his bed or in hell. Her troubled look changed to one of slight surprise, as he was challenged by Augustus, who immediately fell into easy conversation with him about London and the progress of the war, and the odds that were being offered today. With tact Jeremy drew her into the conversation, and he made a special set at Clemency, whom he dearly loved and admired except in the one way that mattered. So the initial embarrassment was lifted. Jeremy even went so far as to enquire if Major Trevanion were here today, to be told that he was sharing a barouche with Sir George and Lady Harriet Warleggan and Miss Maria Agar.
It was indeed a remarkable scene that stretched before them in the burgeoning sunshine. It seemed that every form of vehicle known to man had been utilized. There were carriages filled with elegant ladies, a fine smattering of the Brecon and Monmouth militia in their black and scarlet, farmers in respectable carts, tradesmen with their wives and daughters in gigs and broughams, sporting gentlemen on high-mettled mounts, boys on cart-horses, decorated wagonettes, dung-carts with plough boys, donkeys and mules carrying miners and buddle boys, and a great concourse moving about on foot. The brilliant day turned what would have been a sodden quagmire into a scene of joviality and colour.
There was also an additional reason for joviality and rejoicing today; for news of yet another military victory had just come in, not this time from Wellington or the Peninsula but from far-off Canada. There the Americans had pushed a strong expeditionary force into Canada under General Hull, and in mid-July Hull had crossed the narrow channel between Lakes Huron and Erie, and led a strong force of militia into upper Canada, intending to take possession of the whole country in the name of the United States. But failing to maintain his momentum and surrounded by an unfriendly wilderness, he had decided to return to his base at Detroit. There that genial mountain of a Channel Islander, Major General Isaac Brock, having a thousand miles of frontier to defend for Britain and only fourteen hundred men to do it with – of which two-thirds were Indians or untrained volunteers – had decided to seek out the would-be invader, had himself entered United States territory, laid siege to Detroit and then captured it, together with 2,500 troops, a number of officers, and 25 guns.
When at last Jeremy could get a word really alone with Cuby he said: ‘I have made a new resolution.’
She did not look at him. ‘But it is not the New Year.’
‘Does that matter?’
‘It depends upon the resolution.’
‘My resolution is to continue always to admire you but never to rebuke.’
She put up a finger and carefully looped a strand of hair behind her ear. ‘That would be a welcome change.’
‘It has happened. I assure you.’
‘Pray how has it come about?’
‘I have grown older – and less earnest.’
‘And no doubt have found some other young lady better tempered than myself.’
‘On the contrary. Without bringing into question the matter of tempers, good or not good, I can assure you that it is not so. No other lady, young or otherwise.
Her eyes transferred themselves briefly to his face, searching it for a few quick seconds for evidence of sarcasm, double meaning, hidden bitterness. She found none and looked away.
After a silence she said: ‘What is your fancy for the one o’clock?’
‘Pretty Lady.’
‘I don’t believe there is any such—’ She looked down at her card. ‘Oh yes, there is. I – hadn’t noticed.’ A half-apologetic smile flickered around her face. ‘Do you know the jockey?’
&nbs
p; ‘No, but it is entered by Lady Bodrugan, so I think it will have some good blood.’
‘Your cousin Valentine is riding in the two-forty-five. Larkspur. We ought to put a guinea or two on him.
He was very pleased by the ‘we’. ‘Let’s put a guinea or two on him. Let’s share five between us.’
The boy in charge of the wagonette was summoned and asked to go round among the more fashionable of the other coaches to see if any lady or gentleman would accept such a bet, against a horse of their own choosing, the bet to be void if neither won.
After that young Boscawen came up, and conversation became general again. But later Jeremy talked to Clemency and then, gradually, to Cuby again.
‘That is my father over there, crossing in front of the yellow coach now.’
‘The tall dark man, with the older woman and the little girl? Who are they?’
‘My youngest sister and her governess. Isabella-Rose. And not so little! She is ten years of age.’
‘She’s vastly pretty. I consider her quite charming.’
‘You would not think her so charming if you heard her sing. She sounds like a choirboy whose voice is breaking!’
‘Your mother is not here?’
‘No . . .’
‘Nor is mine. I think she is becoming a little mopish. We should have persuaded her to come, Clemency.’
‘She swore it would be wet. And far too many of the lower class.’
‘Whereas the sun is positively tropical! And the lower orders are keeping their distance beautifully!’
Except this one, thought Jeremy, but just bit off the words in time.
‘Do you not also have another sister?’ Clemency asked.
‘Oh yes. But she is almost eighteen. She is here today too, with her future husband. I cannot at the moment see them. I expect they are off on their own.’
III
Stephen said, ‘In a month now, me beauty. Less than a month. Less than four weeks. Less than twenty-eight days. How many hours? I can’t count. But one has almost gone already since we came to this affair.’
‘Are you not enjoying it?’