George’s relationship with the Enyses had been fairly good but never close over the years. He had disliked Dwight thoroughly in the early days when the young man, without a practice or money, had unhesitatingly taken the poverty-stricken Ross Poldark as his personal friend when the Warleggans had made it clear to him that he must choose between them. But Caroline had always been friendly with Elizabeth, and after her marriage to Dwight the couples had often met. Caroline, with her usual charming arrogance, had completely failed to accept that her loving friendship with Ross and Demelza should in any way constrict her social visits to Trenwith, and it was Dwight who had been summoned to Elizabeth’s bedside on her premature confinement, had delivered Ursula, and later, along with Dr Behenna, had watched helplessly while Elizabeth slipped away.
In the intervening years George had occasionally been invited to dinner at Killewarren. Now and then they met in Truro. Once, when Ursula broke her pattern of abounding good health, Dr Enys attended her in the absence of Dr Behenna. It was the sort of relationship which in no way inhibited George from calling at Mrs Pelham’s house. If the fact that it had never in all these years happened before made the visit unusual, that was a small point to set beside his need.
By a fortunate chance as George clopped into Hatton Garden a chair was drawing up outside the house, and Caroline got out with her eldest child, Sophie. George quickly dismounted and flung the reins of his horse over a hitching post. The street was crowded and for a moment Caroline did not notice the caller.
When she turned and saw him she raised an eyebrow and said: ‘Sir George, what a surprise! To what do we owe the honour? Is there an R in the month?’
‘My dear Caroline, I called to see if Dwight were in; but it is the more pleasure to find you and looking so charming. And your daughter . . . She’s well, I have no need to ask.’
‘Well, thank you. As are we all. But can it be your visit means you are not? Otherwise . . . ?’
Once again he avoided the irony. ‘No, no. Passing. Just passing by.’
They went in. Dwight was in a small study off the main parlour and was reading a medical pamphlet. They all talked for a while, and Caroline ordered tea. She also invited George to sup with them, which he accepted. Over tea they discussed the constitutional crisis, the progress of the war, the latest plays, the iniquities of recruiting sergeants, the heavy frosts of the last two days, and the need for increased cleanliness in London’s streets.
Caroline’s invitation gave George time, and he was grateful not to have to bring up too soon the real object of his visit. But when they went into supper, there was a horrid complication. Not only Caroline’s aunt, Mrs Pelham, was there but another man, tall and ramshackle, called Webb, and two young soldiers (whose names George instantly forgot) yellow-skinned as Chinamen from their fevers in the Indies. And also there was a girl . . . the last time he had seen her . . .
‘Have you met Miss Clowance Poldark?’ Caroline asked him. ‘Ross’s daughter. She came up with us for a few days.’
‘I – er—’ George said. ‘Yes, briefly, once.’
‘We almost quarrelled over some foxgloves,’ said the girl, smiling.
‘Indeed.’ He bowed stiffly and went to his place at the table.
Over supper conversation was casual, and he wondered by what pretext he might afterwards get Dwight alone. The girl was in grey, looked paler than he remembered her; but the long fair hair was the same, the grey eyes, the young high bosom. She was not unlike in build, though better looking than, that other girl he had once had suppressed feelings for: Morwenna Chynoweth – then Whitworth – now Carne.
‘Do you know the Duke of Leeds?’ he asked Caroline in an undertone, while his other partner, Mrs Pelham, was talking to Colonel Webb. It was a sudden impulse of his to ask this; though contrary to his nature to betray his inclinations on any subject to more people than was vitally necessary, it did seem to him that disclosing the one interest might cleverly mask the other and real reason for his coming.
‘I would not claim to know him,’ said Caroline, in a louder voice than he would have liked. ‘I’ve met him once or twice. My aunt probably does.’
‘I met his sister in Cornwall recently.’
Caroline looked at him over the top of her wineglass.
‘Harriet Carter, d’you mean?’
‘Ah . . . so you know her?’
‘Oh yes. Passing well. We’ve hunted together.’
‘She’s living near Helston now, since her husband died.’
‘I didn’t know that. I knew she’d been left badly off.’
‘Yes,’ said George.
A footman refilled their glasses, and then Mrs Pelham broke with her neighbour and conversation became general – chiefly on how Prinny would measure up to his responsibilities when he became Regent. But later Caroline returned to the subject herself.
‘Is Harriet Carter the Duke of Leeds’s sister or half-sister? I never remember.’
‘Nor I,’ said George, knowing nothing about it.
‘Oh, I expect they’re of the same marriage. Willy’s only about thirty-five. But there are younger ones about.’
‘Indeed,’ said George.
Caroline considered the heavy, formidable man beside her. It was quite difficult actively to like George, but she found him interesting; and there was sufficient of her uncle in her to appreciate what he had done, how far he had climbed, the extent of his achievement. She had never actually witnessed that side of his nature which could be ruthless and vindictive; and sometimes she thought there was a better man inside him struggling to get out. Even when Elizabeth was alive he had seemed to her a lonely man, though no doubt it was a loneliness brought about by the sourness of his own humours.
He and Ross, of course, could never mix; even with the abrasive element of Elizabeth gone, they were oil and water. Sometime, she thought ironically, when she was far gone in drink to give her courage, she would chide Ross on his dismissive attitude to money, which went in her view too far the other way.
She said: ‘So you wish to meet the Duke, is that it?’
A faint flush showed on George’s neck. ‘Oh? Well . . . You think your aunt knows him?’
‘Yes, I believe she does.’
‘Then I should be honoured . . .’
Caroline waved away a plate of sweetmeats that had been offered her. ‘You like Harriet?’
‘I find her agreeable.’
‘She rides like the devil, George. Did you know that?’
‘Yes.’
‘Are you serious?’
‘Serious? I don’t know what you mean.’
‘Never mind. It was a light-hearted question. You have other reasons for wishing to meet the Duke?’
‘No,’ said George.
‘I admire honest answers,’ said Caroline.
Supper ended and the ladies retired. Clowance had been very quiet, answering only with quiet modesty the gallantries of one of the anonymous young soldiers, but occasionally she glanced across at George, as if assessing his person and his presence there. In return he looked at her but in such a way that he hoped she did not notice, taking in her fresh young looks, the roundness of her arms, golden in the candlelight, the heavy, firmly shaped lips that some young man no doubt was already tasting, the ripe young body.
The men drank port and talked about the wagers that were being laid at Brooks’s as to the constitution of the new government. After a long time they rose to join the ladies. George let the other three men move off and then called Dwight back.
‘That Clowance is with you – does it mean something has happened to Ross?’
‘No, he is on a mission to Portugal.’
‘That I know. But not back yet?’
‘Not back yet. There can be many reasons for a delay. Caroline thought it would be good for Clowance to see a little society.’
‘Is her mother or brother not here?’
‘No. She came with us.’
‘And are you staying lo
ng?’
‘Perhaps two weeks.’
George said: ‘Is it true, Dwight, that you came to London to see the King?’
Dwight raised his eyebrows but for a moment did not speak. ‘I cannot imagine what may have given you that idea.’
‘My informant said he had it on good authority.’
‘You must know, George, that London is a hot-bed of rumour. Especially at a time like this.’
‘All the same I was surprised to hear you were in Town, knowing how you dislike it – and January is not your usual month.’
‘True.’
‘Well,’ George said, ‘it is none of my business, but if you have seen his Majesty I hope you receive due recognition. It could help towards setting up your Cornish mental hospital, if it were to be known.’
‘If it were to be known and if it ever happened.’
‘Of course. My friend told me the Willises are close friends of yours.’
‘Close friends? Hardly. Colleagues at the most. I don’t approve of their methods.’
‘But you may have discussed the King’s condition with them?’
‘I have discussed the King’s condition with some of my colleagues. That would not be putting it too high.’
‘And are they as optimistic of his recovery as the reports suggest?’
‘I hardly knew that the reports were so optimistic. Certainly everyone hopes the King will recover.’
‘Amen,’ said George.
‘But . . .’
‘But what?’
‘It was not important,’ said Dwight.
They moved towards the door. George said: ‘I must take my leave now. I don’t wish to disturb the others, so pray thank Caroline for her gracious hospitality, and Mrs Pelham too. And thank Caroline also, if you please, for the generous offer she made me at the supper table. I shall be delighted to accept it.’
‘What that is I don’t know; but of course . . .’
Dwight rang for George’s cloak and hat.
George said: ‘What do you personally consider are the chances of the King’s recovery, Dwight?’
Dwight turned the doorknob between his fingers. ‘Why are you so interested?’
‘It may determine the future of England.’
‘The war, you mean.’
‘The war. The conditions in the north. Even the future of Europe.’
Dwight said: ‘My own opinion is that the King will not recover.’
George licked his lips. ‘Even though he has regained his reason thrice before.’
‘Then he was younger. Each time the chances of a full recovery are less.’
‘And a partial recovery would not enable him to stop the Regency Bill?’
‘Parliament must judge that.’
‘They say he has periods of lucidity still.’
‘Oh yes. Has had from the beginning. But they don’t last. Naturally I may be quite mistaken but I shall be much surprised if they ever do last long enough for him to be able to resume his conduct of the affairs of state.’
George heard the footsteps of the manservant.
‘You judge from the reports of the other doctors or from personal observation?’
Dwight said: ‘I believe it to be a complaint of the blood. Various symptoms suggest it. It is more common among men, though it can, I suspect, be carried, dormantly, as it were, through the female side. Ah, Chambers, will you see Sir George to his horse.’
Chapter Eight
I
George left next day for Manchester. If while he was away Mrs Pelham arranged some introduction for him to the Duke of Leeds, that was unfortunate. Financial affairs must come before affairs of the heart. Especially since one might influence the other.
It was necessary to move fast. Although he resented Dwight Enys’s closeness of professional manner – and quietly resolved in return that, if or when it came time for a subscription list to be opened for the proposed mental hospital in Cornwall, a similar closeness – of his, George’s, pocket – should be the order of the day; nevertheless Dwight had been proven right so often in medical matters that he was prepared to be influenced by what Dwight had said at this meeting. He was absolutely convinced that Enys had seen the King – however he appeared to dissimulate. Without such personal contact he would never have been so definite.
In Manchester he found the position scarcely changed since his visit of September. With the West Indies and South America as their only outlets, manufactured goods were piled in warehouses, unable to find buyers in a saturated market, while all embattled Europe cried out for them. Last month, December, there had been 273 bankruptcies, as against 65 four years ago. Weavers’ earnings were less than half that of agricultural labourers. Skilled cotton operators were working a ninety-hour week for 8s.
Of course there was hope of a change. But nobody had the money to invest in a hope.
Except George.
At a knock-down price he bought a firm of fine cotton spinners called Flemings. Two other firms – Ormrod’s – who were calico printers – and Fraser, Greenhow – builders and engineers – he arranged should receive large credits through Warleggan’s Bank to enable them to keep afloat – this not by a straightforward loan but by the purchase of a substantial interest in his own name so that he owned a big share of the stock. He made three other smaller investments, and bought, at far below cost, commodities which could only rise when peace came. Altogether he invested seventy-two thousand, three hundred and forty-four pounds, which was almost every penny of realizable capital he possessed.
He returned to London in bitter weather after a week, satisfied that he had made the necessary provisions just in time.
Unfortunately his meeting with the Duke of Leeds, which occurred three days after his return, did not come off so auspiciously. His lordship clearly looked on Sir George as a middle-aged parvenu. Mention of Lady Harriet’s name made his intentions obviously clearer than he had intended, and they were as clearly resented. The Duchess was more gracious, but only perhaps because it wasn’t her sister or because she was too absent-minded to care. A pretty young woman, she kept wandering in and out of the room followed by two servants searching for a key she had lost.
But George, while setting a black mark against the Duke for his haughty manner – a mark incidentally which would never be forgotten – was not too put down by it. He knew that money talked even in the highest circles, and if and when the Manchester investments brought their proper return, which must be within the year, he would altogether be worth probably half a million pounds. Even the Leeds family, for all their great connections, could not ignore that. Harriet would not, he dared swear. With or without the Duke’s ungracious permission, she should marry him in the end.
II
With politeness but with increasing impatience Ross stayed on in London. He had of course written again to Demelza. He was not only anxious to be home but bored with his days at Westminster, where everyone seemed far more concerned with what they could get out of the constitutional crisis than either the prosecution of the war or the starving weavers of the north. That all three problems were interrelated he fully admitted, but that the last two should be half submerged in the scramble for political power disgusted him.
A meeting was arranged for him with the Foreign Secretary, but this in itself was a difficult and delicate encounter. In the first place he did not care for Wellesley. His brother, the recently ennobled Viscount Wellington, was stiff-backed, austere, lacking in warmth, but he had the magic of a soldier of the very highest gifts. Wellesley, by ten years the elder, might well have done fine work in India but was far too authoritarian for England, and some thought him lazy as well as pompous. A wit had said that you couldn’t see Wellesley out walking without feeling that he expected to be preceded by the tramp of elephants.
Foreign Secretary, most people thought, was the position Canning should have held, but he had been excluded from it by factional jealousies and his own misjudgements.
A delic
ate meeting therefore on two counts, for Ross had gone to Portugal only in a semi-official capacity as an ‘observer’, with the sanction of the government but not at its behest. Canning, Dundas and Rose were at the back of it, and Wellesley had at first tried to obstruct the visit on the grounds that there was ample official information available about Portugal without sending out spies.
Fortunately Ross had not heard this word as applied to himself, but he knew of Wellesley’s general reluctance, and he could be as stiff-backed as the next. However, the nature of the report he had brought back showed so clearly his admiration for the disposition and behaviour of the British forces in the field that Lord Wellesley expressed his appreciation and promised that the whole Cabinet should have copies of it before the week was out.
Perceval also was complimentary and sent a note to say so, but Canning was still not satisfied.
‘We’re preaching to the converted, old friend. You must speak in the House on it.’
‘I could not,’ said Ross, ‘or would not.’
‘Why not?’
‘Until the Regency Bill is through no one is in the least interested. Anyway, if you were to circulate this report to every member of the House, do you seriously believe it would alter their thinking? Or convince those who were not already of that mind? They wouldn’t bother to read it. If I stood up and caught the Speaker’s eye, how many would stay to listen? D’you suppose that Whitbread or Wilberforce or Northumberland would be one whit influenced by anything I said – one whit less certain that England is going to lose the Peninsular war?’
Canning bit his thumb. ‘It is a point that has been pricking at my mind all week. The question is, what to do about it.’
‘Call it a day and let me go home.’
Canning said: ‘Preaching to the unconvertible is little more use than preaching to the converted. It is the waverers who matter. And then only the waverers with influence. I have been thinking, I have been thinking for some time that you should tell this story to Lady Hertford who no doubt could be prevailed upon to repeat it to the Prince. But I am not at all sure. It’s possible that this is an error on my part. Nothing is one half so convincing at second hand, is it. Well, is it?’