For Peter Latham
Contents
BOOK ONE
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
BOOK TWO
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
BOOK THREE
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
BOOK FOUR
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
BOOK ONE
Chapter One
In that coastal triangle of Cornwall lying between Truro, St Ann’s, and St Michael, social life did not extend far in the 1790s. There were six big houses – or six inhabited by gentlefolk – but circumstances did not encourage intercourse between them.
Into one of these, Mingoose House, the oldest and most easterly, Ruth Treneglos, née Teague, had done her utmost to bring a new social zest; but childbearing had cramped her style of late; her rough-booted husband John was interested only in hunting, and her father-in-law was too deaf and scholarly to care who came and went in his front rooms. In Werry House, the largest and most disreputable, Sir Hugh Bodrugan sprawled and belched like a lecherous volcano while Constance Lady Bodrugan, his stepmother, who was young enough to be his daughter, bred dogs and fed dogs and talked dogs most of her waking hours.
On the other and western side of the triangle Place House, an unbecoming Palladian residence put up in the early years of the century, was occupied by Sir John Trevaunance, a widowed and childless baronet; and Killewarren, which was not much more than a glorified farmhouse, by Mr Ray Penvenen, who was richer and even more cautious than his neighbour.
To the two houses in between, one actually on the coast, the other near it, it would have come natural to look for more enterprise, not only because they were where they were but because each was occupied by a young married couple of whom social occasions might have been expected. Unfortunately, neither household had any money.
Between Sawle and St Ann’s, on high ground but protected by trees, Trenwith House, Elizabethan and mellow and beautiful, was occupied by Francis Poldark and his wife Elizabeth and their son, who was nearly eight years old, and Francis’s great-aunt, Agatha, who was so old that everyone had forgotten to count. Three miles to the east was the sixth and smallest of the houses, Nampara, Georgian and utilitarian and never properly completed but not without a certain individuality and charm, which was characteristic too perhaps of its owners. Ross Poldark lived here and his wife Demelza; and their son Jeremy had just passed his first birthday.
So of the six houses, the first two were preoccupied with dogs and babies; the second two had the means to entertain but not the will; the last two the will only. Therefore some surprise and speculation were caused when, in May 1792, five of the households received an invitation from the owner of the sixth to a supper party on the twenty-fourth of the month. Sir John Trevaunance wrote that he was taking the opportunity while his sister was staying with him and while his brother Unwin, a Member of Parliament for Bodmin, also was down.
This seemed such a poor reason for breaking with the habit of years that everyone cast about for a stronger motive. Demelza Poldark at least had no difficulty in finding one.
When the letter was delivered, Ross was up at the mine, the new mine where he spent nearly all his time nowadays, and Demelza waited impatiently for his return.
As she laid things for the light meal they would have – supper was not until eight – Demelza wondered what the outcome would be of this latest and probably last gamble. Wheal Leisure, the mine on the cliff, which Ross had started in company with six other venturers in ’87, continued to prosper; but last year he had sold half his holding in it and had sunk the money in this much more speculative enterprise.
The result so far had been failure. The fine new pumping engine, designed by two young engineers from Redruth, had been set up and all the claims made out for it had been confirmed. But the thirty-fathom level, which was as deep as the old men had gone, offered nothing but worked-out gunnies; and the new forty- and fifty-fathom levels they were driving to strike the lodes again had been most unproductive, yielding poor stuff where there was any yield at all. The engine might work with the greatest possible efficiency; it still used coal; and while things stayed as they were, every day brought nearer the day when silence would fall on the valley and the engine begin to rust.
As she glanced up through the window, she saw Ross coming across the garden in company with his cousin and partner Francis. They were talking attentively, but Demelza could see that it was over no sudden discovery. Often she watched Ross’s face as he came in.
She picked up Jeremy, who in his efforts to walk was threatening to pull the cloth off the table, and with him in her arms went to the front door to meet them. The wind billowed the skirt of her green-striped dimity frock.
When they were near enough, Francis said:
‘Demelza, you never grow up; you look seventeen. I hadn’t intended to come today, but damn it, I feel revived for the air; I think tea with you might complete the cure.’
She said: ‘Is this your first time out of doors? I hope you haven’t been down the mine.’
‘My second. And I have not. Ross has been exploring on his own again, with the usual measure of success. Jeremy boasts another tooth, I believe. I fancy there were only three last time I looked.’
‘Seven!’ said Ross. ‘You’re on dangerous ground.’
They laughed and went indoors. The early part of tea Jeremy made sure was devoted to him; but presently Mrs Gimlett came in to bear him away, and the adults were allowed some peace. Demelza, a little breathless and with a curl rakishly over one eye, poured herself a second cup of tea.
‘And are you truly better, Francis? The fever is quite gone?’
‘It was just the influenza,’ said Francis. ‘We all had it, but I the worst. Choake bled me and gave me Peruvian bark, but I recovered nevertheless.’
Ross stretched himself, easing his long legs. ‘Why do you not have Dwight Enys? He’s keen and up-to-date and has a knowledge of the latest physical ideas.’
Francis grunted. ‘Tom Choake has always looked after us. Personally I think these medical jockeys are much the same. Anyway, our friend Enys is in a little trouble himself over old John Ellery, I understand.’
‘What’s the matter with him?’
‘It seems he had a toothache and Enys took out three teeth but dug for the roots, as is his fashion. Choake contents himself with twisting off the crowns, as you know. But this time something has gone wrong with Dwight’s methods and Ellery has not been out of pain since.’
Demelza said: ‘I thought Dwight looked a small matter worried when he called yesterday.’
‘He takes his failures too much to heart,’ said Ross. ‘I should think it a great disadvantage in his profession,’
‘It is a great disadvantage in any profession,’ said Demelza, carefully not looking at him.
Francis raised an ironical eyebrow. In the brief silence th
at followed, and to cover it, Demelza took down her envelope from the mantelshelf.
‘We have an invitation, Ross! Just think of it in these bad times. Have you had one, Francis? I suppose it will be quite a big affair. I wonder if we should dress. What does Elizabeth say of it?’
‘From the Trevaunances?’ said Francis while Ross read it. ‘Yes, we had a note today. The old man has grown extravagant with his grey hairs. I feel there’s some motive in his madness, though, knowing Sir John.’
‘Ah,’ said Demelza, ‘’twas much the same thought came to me.’
‘What motive?’ asked Ross, looking up from the letter.
Francis glanced at Demelza, but she was waiting for him. He laughed. ‘We’re uncharitable, Ross, your wife and I. Ray Penvenen’s niece, Caroline, is an heiress in her own right. Unwin Trevaunance has been stalking her for two years. This may well be to announce the kill.’
‘I did not know the girl was back again.’
‘She returned from Oxfordshire, I believe, last week.’
‘But then,’ said Demelza, ‘should it not be – if it were to announce an engagement – should it not be Mr Penvenen who give the party? I thought that was the way. Ross, you promised once to buy me a book on etiquette, but you never did so.’
‘You behave better without it. I like a wife who is natural and not stiffened up with all manner of artificial observances.’
Francis said: ‘Anyway, Ray Penvenen would never give a party even to celebrate his own engagement, so that need not discourage us from the speculation.’
‘You will go of course?’ asked Demelza.
‘I think Elizabeth had her visiting look on when I left her this afternoon.’
Ross said: ‘I hope if they intend to join up, those two, they’ll be sharp about it. If Caroline Penvenen is to be in the neighbourhood for long, it is likely to unsettle Dwight. I’d be glad to see her safely tied to Unwin.’
‘I heard there was something between her and Enys last time she was down, but I should think he’s wise enough not to get himself entangled there.’
Demelza said: ‘It seems to me no man is wise enough if the woman is not wise enough.’
Ross glanced up good-humouredly. ‘That’s an acute remark. D’you speak it from personal experience?’
She met his eyes. ‘Yes, Ross, from personal experience. Think how foolish Sir Hugh Bodrugan would be over me if I let him.’
Not until he spoke had he seen the latency of what he said, which might even refer to their own marriage; and he was glad that – she had taken it in the right way. He did not reflect that two years ago he would never have any doubts on the point.
At about the time Francis and Ross walked down from the mine to tea, George Warleggan was dismounting from his horse outside Trenwith House.
To look at him one would not have thought him the grandson of a blacksmith, the first generation of his family to be genteelly educated – unless the clothes he wore told the tale they were intended to disguise. No country squire would have dressed so well for an afternoon call, even had he wanted to impress the lady of the house, as George did.
When Mrs Tabb showed him in and, rather in a flurry, went to look for Mrs Poldark, George strolled about the hall tapping his boot with his crop and staring up at the ancestral pictures. This was a different poverty from the poverty he might have seen at Nampara House three miles away. Francis and Elizabeth might be no better off than their cousins; but you do not reduce a mellow Elizabethan house to dilapidation in a few years. George was staring at the magnificent window with its hundreds of small panes of glass when he heard footsteps and turned to see Elizabeth skimming down the stairs.
She slowed as soon as she saw him and came down the last steps hesitantly.
‘Why, George . . . when Mrs Tabb said – I couldn’t quite believe . . .’
‘That I had really ventured to come.’ He bowed over her hand politely. ‘I was passing near, so brought my godson a birthday present. I thought perhaps I might be permitted that much.’
Still uncertain, she took something that he handed her. ‘But it isn’t Geoffrey Charles’s birthday for months.’
‘Last year. I’m late, not early.’
‘Does Francis . . .’
‘Know I’m here? No. But if he does? Surely this rather childish enmity has gone on too long. Really, Elizabeth, it gives me such pleasure to see you again. Such pleasure . . .’
She smiled at him, not flushing as she would have done a few years ago, but warming all the same to his admiration. She did not know how much of George was genuine, but she knew this was. She thought he had grown more stocky since they had last met, so that one saw in his greater bulk the shadow of the middle-aged man he would become. But however he had behaved to Ross – and that she certainly resented – he had never been anything but scrupulously fair with Francis and unfailingly charming to her.
In the winter parlour she unwrapped the small parcel he had brought, and found it was a gold watch. She tried to return it to him, troubled and feeling him overgenerous, but he would have nothing to do with that.
‘Drop it in a drawer for a while if you feel he’s too young. The quarrel surely doesn’t include him. By the time he’s old enough to carry it, perhaps we shall all be friends again.’
She said: ‘The quarrel was not of my seeking. We are very quiet here nowadays, and I should be glad of all my friends. But you know Francis as well as I do. He is wholehearted in his feelings, and if he were to come in now the – our friendship might come to worse hurt than ever before.’
‘In other words he would try to kick me out,’ George said pleasantly. ‘Well, no doubt you’ll think me overdeliberate in all things, but I have posted my manservant on the rising ground near Sawle Church. If he sees Francis coming, he can give me good warning, so you needn’t fear a brawl.’ He hunched his shoulders. ‘I should have hesitated to do so if I believed there was risk of your thinking me a coward.’
Elizabeth sat down on the window seat and looked out over the herb garden. George watched her carefully, like a business deal to be negotiated.
Elizabeth said: ‘Before anything else I want to thank you for your kindness to my mother and father. My mother is still so unwell, and to ask them to your home . . .’
‘I told them especially not to tell you.’
‘I know; Father said so. But he wrote of it all the same, and of all your kindness while they were there.’
‘It’s of no moment. I have always admired your mother, and think her so brave in her eye trouble. I wonder they don’t sell their house and live with you here.’
‘I have – thought of it myself sometimes. But Francis does not believe it would be a good arrangement—’ She checked herself.
George sat down and put the silver end of his riding crop against his teeth. ‘Elizabeth, I don’t expect you to be in any way disloyal to Francis’s views of me and this quarrel, but don’t you personally think it time it was forgot? What good is it doing any of us? Francis is cutting off his own hand. You know as well as I do that, were there any malice on my side, I could bankrupt him tomorrow. To you it’s not a pleasant thing to say, but can you doubt it?’
‘I don’t doubt it,’ Elizabeth said, flushing now.
‘I only wish it were different. I should like to help to make it different. But while this feud continues . . . I should like you to help me heal it.’
She unloosed the catch of the window and opened it a few inches to let in a gentle breeze. Her profile was clear-cut like a cameo against the brown of the curtain.
‘You say you’ll not ask me to be disloyal and then press me to take sides—’
‘No. Not at all. To mediate.’
‘Do you think my mediation would have so much effect? George, you know Francis’s mind just as well as I do. He believes you to have been behind the prosecution of Ross, to have—’
‘Oh, Ross . . .’
As soon as he spoke, he saw he had said the wrong thing; but he w
ent on, keeping the resentment out of his voice.
‘I know you have a vast affection for Ross, Elizabeth. I wish I could enjoy the favour in your eyes that he does. But let me put this clearly to you. Ross and I have never seen eye to eye since we were at school. It is – something fundamental. We do not like each other overwell. But on my side it is no more than that. On his it is a disease. He plunges headlong from one misfortune to another and blames me for them all as they come upon him!’
Elizabeth had got up. ‘I wish you wouldn’t say this. It isn’t fair to ask me to listen.’
She might have walked away across the room, but he didn’t move aside and she found herself at close quarters with him and not quite able to get out of the window bay.
‘Don’t you hear Ross’s side? Why is it unfair to hear mine? Let me tell you of his position and what he has done to extricate himself.’
She said nothing more. Aware that he had overcome the first hurdle, George went on: ‘Ross is impulsive, over stiff-necked, rash. You can’t blame me for that. It is the fault of being born with money, coming from generations of people who have always had money. But no one need behave as he has behaved. Four years ago he began this ill-conceived plan for smelting copper in Cornwall. He blames me for its failure, but it was doomed to failure from the start. Then, when he was hard set as a result, he was too proud to go to his friends for assistance; and so, added to his other debts, he signed a bill for a thousand pounds at a usurer’s rate of interest – it has but now come into my uncle’s hands, that is how I know – and Ross has been paying this interest on it ever since. Nor is he satisfied with this, but he last year sold the half of his interest in a profitable mine and induced Francis to go into partnership with him in this white elephant, Wheal Grace, which his father exhausted twenty years ago! When he ultimately beggars himself and you as well, no doubt he’ll blame me for having stolen the copper out of his ground overnight!’
At last she escaped and walked across the room. He was overstating his case, but the truth might lie somewhere midway between his argument and Francis’s. Her feeling for Ross had never quite been definable to herself, and there was some grain of perverseness which took pleasure in seeing the other side.