Ross Poldark
Authors: Winston Graham
Tags: #Fiction, #Historical, #Sagas, #Media Tie-In, #Romance, #General
ALSO BY WINSTON GRAHAM
The Poldark series
Demelza · Jeremy Poldark · Warleggan · The Black Moon ·
The Four Swans · The Angry Tide · The Stranger from the Sea ·
The Miller's Dance · The Loving Cup · The Twisted Sword ·
Bella Poldark
Night Journey · Cordelia · The Forgotten Story ·
The Merciless Ladies · Night Without Stars · Take My Life ·
Fortune Is a Woman · The Little Walls · The Sleeping Partner ·
Greek Fire · The Tumbled House · Mamie · The Grove of Eagles ·
After the Act · The Walking Stick · Angell, Pearl and Little God ·
The Japanese Girl
(short stories)
· Woman in the Mirror ·
The Green Flash · Cameo · Stephanie · Tremor
The Spanish Armada · Poldark's Cornwall · Memoirs of a Private Man
Copyright © 1945, 2009 by Winston Graham
Cover and internal design © 2009 by Sourcebooks, Inc.
Cover design by Kirk DouPonce/Dog Earred Design
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iStockphoto.com; duncan1890/iStockphoto.com
Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems— except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks, Inc.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
Published by Sourcebooks Landmark, an imprint of Sourcebooks, Inc.
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Originally published in London by Werner Laurie Ltd., 1945
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Graham, Winston.
Ross Poldark : a novel of Cornwall, 1783 1787 / Winston Graham.
p. cm.
1. Poldark, Ross (Fictitious character) Fiction. 2. Cornwall (England : County) Fiction. I. Title.
PR6013.R24R67 2009
823’.914 dc22
2009029763
Printed and bound in the United States of America
VP 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
BOOK ONE:
October 1783–April 1785
J
OSHUA POLDARK DIED IN MARCH 1783. IN FEBRUARY OF THAT YEAR, FEELING that his tenure was becoming short, he sent for his brother from Trenwith.
Charles came lolloping over on his great roan horse one cold grey afternoon, and Prudie Paynter, lank-haired and dark-faced and fat, showed him straight into the bedroom where Joshua lay possed up with pillows and cushions in the big box bed. Charles looked askance round the room with his small watery blue eyes at the disorder and the dirt, then lifted his coat-tails and subsided upon a wicker chair, which creaked under his weight.
“Well, Joshua.”
“Well, Charles.”
“This is a bad business.”
“Bad indeed.”
“When will you be about again, d’you think?”
“There's no telling. I fancy the churchyard will have a strong pull.”
Charles thrust out his bottom lip. He would have discounted the remark if he had not had word to the contrary. He hiccupped a little—riding always gave him the wind these days—and was heartily reassuring.
“Nonsense, man. The gout in the legs never killed nobody. It is when it gets up to the head that it is dangerous.”
“Choake tells me different, that there is other cause for the swelling. For once I misdoubt if the old fool is not right. Though in God's truth, by all appearance it is you that should be lying here, since I am but half your size.”
Charles glanced down at the landscape of black embroidered waistcoat spreading away from under his chin.
“Mine is healthy flesh. Every man puts on weight in his middle years. I would not wish to be a yard of pump water like Cousin William-Alfred.”
Joshua lifted an ironical eyebrow but said no more, and there was silence. The brothers had had little to say to each other for many years, and at this, their last meeting, small talk was not easy to find. Charles, the elder and more prosperous, who had come in for the family house and lands and most of the mining interests, head of the family and a respected figure in the county, had never quite been able to get away from a suspicion that his younger brother despised him. Joshua had always been a thorn in his flesh. Joshua had never been content to do the things expected of him: enter the Church or the Army or marry properly and leave Charles to run the district himself.
Not that Charles minded a few lapses, but there were limits and Joshua had overstepped them. The fact that he had been behaving himself for the last few years did not score out old grievances.
As for Joshua, a man with a cynical mind and few illusions, he had no complaint against life or against his brother. He had lived one to the limit and ignored the other. There was some truth in his reply to Charles's next comment of, “Why man, you’re young enough yet. Two years junior to me, and I’m fit and well. Aarf!”
Joshua said: “Two years in age, maybe, but you’ve only lived half as fast.”
Charles sucked the ebony tip of his cane and looked sidelong about the room from under heavy lids. “This damned war not settled yet. Prices soaring. Wheat seven and eight shillings a bushel. Butter ninepence a pound. Wish the copper price was the same. We’re thinking of cutting a new level at Grambler. Eighty fathom. Maybe it will defray the initial outlay, though I doubt it. Been doing much with your fields this year?”
“It was about the war that I wanted to see you,” said Joshua, struggling a little farther up the pillows and gasping for breath. “It must be only a matter of months now before the provisional peace is confirmed. Then Ross will be home and maybe I shall not be here to greet him. You’re me brother, though we’ve never hit it off so well. I want to tell you how things are and to leave you to look after things till he gets back.”
Charles took the cane from his mouth and smiled defensively. He looked as if he had been asked for a loan.
“I’ve not much time, y’ know.”
‘It won’t take much of your time. I’ve little or nothing to leave. There's a copy of my will on the table beside you. Read it at your leisure. Pearce has the original.”
Charles groped with his clumsy swollen hand and picked up a piece of parchment from the rickety three-legged table behind him.
“When did you last hear from him?” he asked. “What's to be done if he doesn’t come back?”
“The estate will go to Verity. Sell if there are any purchasers; it will fetch little. That's down in the will. Verity will have my share in Grambler too, since she is the only one of your family who has been over since Ross left.”
Joshua wiped his nose on the soiled sheet. “But Ross will come back. I’ve heard from him since the fighting ceased.”
“There's many hazards yet.”
“I’ve a feeling,” said Joshua. “A conviction. Care to take a wager? Settle when we meet. There’ll be some sort of currency in the next world.”
Charles stared again at the sallow lined face which had once been so handsome. He was a little relieved that Joshua's request was no more than this, but slow to relax his caution. And irreverence on a deathbed struck him as reckless and uncalled for.
“Cousin William-Alfred was visiting us the other day. He enquired for you.”
Joshua pulled a face.
“I told him how ill you was,” Charles went on. “He suggested that though you might not wish to call in the Revd. Mr. Odgers, maybe you would like a spiritual consolation from one of your own family.”
“Meaning him.”
“Well, he's the only one in orders now Betty's husband's gone.”
“I want none of them,” said Joshua. “Though no doubt it was kindly meant. But if he thought it would do me good to confess my sins, did he think I should rather tell secrets to one of my own blood? No, I’d rather talk to Odgers, half-starved little hornywink though he is. But I want none of them.”
“If you change your mind,” said Charles, “send Jud over with a message. Aarf!”
Joshua grunted. “I shall know soon enough. But even if there was something in it with all their pomp and praying, should I ask ’em in at this hour? I’ve lived my life, and by God I’ve enjoyed it! There's no merit to go snivelling now.
“I’m not sorry for myself and I don’t want anyone else to be. What's coming I’ll take. That's all.”
There was silence in the room. Outside the wind thrust and stirred about the slate and stone.
“Time I was off,” said Charles. “These Paynters are letting your place get into a rare mess. Why don’t you get someone reliable?”
“I’m too old to swap donkeys. Leave that to Ross. He’ll soon put things to rights.”
Charles belched disbelievingly. He had no high opinion of Ross's abilities.
“He's in New York now,” said Joshua. “Tart of the garrison. He's quite recovered from his wound. It was lucky he escaped the Yorktown siege. A captain now, you know. Still in the 62nd Foot. I’ve mislaid his letter, else I’d show it you.”
“Francis is a great help to me these days,” said Charles. “So would Ross have been to you if he was home instead of coosing around after Frenchmen and Colonials.”
“There was one other thing,” said Joshua. “D’you see or hear anything of Elizabeth Chynoweth these days?”
After a heavy meal questions took time to transmit themselves to Charles's brain, and where his brother was concerned they needed an examination for hidden motives. “Who is that?” he said clumsily.
“Jonathan Chynoweth's daughter. You know her. A thin, fair child.”