The Four Swans (24 page)

Suitably, they talked of the crops. Ross reflected that they might have talked on almost any subject to do with the county: mining, shipping, boat building, quarrying, fishing, smelting, or that new industry of the south-east, digging up clay to make pottery, and Falmouth would be likely to be involved. Not on any such down-to-earth basis as the Warleggans, not a question of becoming personally involved; but an interest looked after, by managers, by stewards, by lawyers, whose livelihood it was to see their employer’s business done and well done; or by possession of the land on which industry or mining stood.

Presently Lord Falmouth said: `I suspect I am indebted to you, Captain Poldark.’

`Oh? I was unaware of it.’

`Well, yes, doubly so, I think. But for you my sister’s son was likely to be still languishing in a foul prison in Brittany. If by now he had not been already dead.’

`I’m happy to seem to possess merit in your eyes. But I must point out that I went to Quimper solely to try to release Dr Enys - who is here tonight - and the rest was accidental.’

`No matter. No matter. It was a brave enterprise. My soldiering days are not so far behind me that I can’t appreciate the courage of the conception and the overwhelming risks you ran.’

Ross inclined his head and waited. Falmouth spat some pips into his hand and put three more grapes in his mouth. Having waited long enough, Ross said:

`I’m happy to have given Hugh Armitage the opportunity to escape. But I cannot imagine what second obligation you may feel you have towards me.’

Falmouth disposed of the rest of the pips. `I gather that you refused the nomination to oppose my candidate at the by-election in Truro.’

`Oh, dear God in Heaven!’ `Why do you say that?’

`I say it because apparently it is impossible to have any conversation, however private, without the substance of it being disseminated throughout the county.’

Falmouth looked down his nose. `I don’t suppose it widely known. But the information reached me. I take it, it is true.’

‘Oh true enough. But my reasons, I must tell you again, were wholly selfish and in no way concerned with obliging or disobliging other people.’

`Others, it seems; are not at all unwilling to disoblige me.’

`Some people have one ambition, my Lord, others another.’ `And what may yours be, Captain Poldark?’

Faced with the sudden sharp question, Ross was not sure how to answer.

`To live as I want,’ he said eventually; `to raise a family. To make the people round me happy - to be unencumbered of debt.’

`Admirable objectives but of a limited nature.’

`Whose are less limited?’

`I think those with some ideal of public service - especially when the nation is at war …But I suspect from your adventure of last year that you understate your aims - or possibly lack, a. channel to direct them.’

`At least they don’t tend towards parliamentary life.’ `Whereas Mr George Warleggan’s did.’ `Presumably.’

Falmouth chewed another grape. `It would give .me pleasure one day to obstruct Mr George Warleggan’s parliamentary life.’ ‘I think there is only one way you may do that.’ `How?’

`By composing your differences with Sir Francis Basset.’

`That’ will never be!’

Ross shrugged and said no more.

Lord Falmouth went on `Basset forces himself, into my boroughs, buys influence and favours, contests rights that have been in my family for generations. He is no more to be commended than his lackey!’

`Is not all borough mongering - a matter of buying influence and favours?’

`At its most cynical, yes. But it’s a system which works adequately for the maintenance and transaction of government. It breaks down when brash and thrusting young landowners with too much money interfere in the long-established rights of the older, aristocracy.’

`I’m not sure,’ Ross said, `that the maintenance and transaction of government is at all well served by the present system of representation and election. Of course it’s better than anything that went before because neither king nor lords nor commoners may rule without consent of the other. It may save us from another 1649, or even, if one looks to France, from a 1789. But since Sir Francis invited me to contest the seat in Truro I have been taking more notice of the system as it exists in England today, and it’s - it’s like some old ramshackle coach of which the springs and swingle bar are long broke and there are holes in the floor from bumping over, rutted roads. It should be thrown away and a new one built.’

Ross did not bother to mince his words, but Falmouth would not be ruffled.

‘In what way do you suggest there should be improvement in construction of the new coach?’

`Well … first some re-distribution of the seats so that the interests of the country as a whole are more evenly represented. I don’t know what the population of Cornwall is - I’ll wager less than 200,000 - and it returns forty-four Members. The great new towns of Manchester and Birmingham, whose populations can be little short of 70,000 each, have no parliamentary representation at all.

‘

‘You are an advocate of democracy, Captain Poldark?’

`Basset asked the same question, and the answer’s no. But it cannot be healthy that the big new populations of the north have no voice in the nation’s affairs.’

‘We all speak for the nation,’ said Falmouth. `That is one of the purposes of becoming a Member. And one of the privileges.’

Ross did not reply, and his host poked the fire. It burst into a reluctant blaze.

‘I suppose you know that there’s a rumour that your friend Basset may soon be ennobled.’

`No, I didn’t.’

`He may well become one of Pitt’s ‘Money-bag peers’. A barony or some such in return for money and support from the Members he controls.’

‘As I said, it’s not a pretty system.’ ,

`You will never eradicate; venality and greed and ambition.’ ‘No, but you may control them.’ There was a pause.

`And your other reforms?’ There was a hint of irony in the voice.

`These may offend you more.’

`I did not say that the other had offended me.’

`Well, clearly some change in the method of election. Seats should not be bought and sold as if they were private property. Electors should not be bribed, either with feasts or direct payments. In many cases the election is a mere sham. Truro, at least, has some ablebodied men who affect to be voters, however they may or may not be influenced. Others in the country are far worse. Many in Cornwall. And they say that in Midhurst in Sussex there is only one effective voter, who elects two Members on the instructions of his patron.’

Falmouth said ‘Oh, true enough. At Old Sarum, near Salisbury, there is nothing but a ruined castle, not a house nor an inhabitant; but it . returns two Members.’ He chewed reflectively. `So.’ How would you build your new coach?’

`With a broadened franchise to begin. There cannot..’

`Franchise?’

‘Electorate, if you prefer. Until you broaden that you can get nowhere. And the electorate must be free, even if there were only twenty-five voters to a seat. And the seats must be free - free of patronage, free of influence from outside. That maybe, is why franchise is becoming the word used in this respect - for it means freedom. Neither the vote nor the seat must be up for sale.’

‘And annual parliaments and pensions at fifty and the rest of that rubbish?

`I see you’re well read, my lord.’

‘It’s a mistake not to know what the enemy thinks.’

`Is that why you invited me here tonight?’

For the first time in the interview Falmouth smiled. ‘I don’t look on you as an enemy, Captain Poldark. I thought I had made it clear that I considered you a man of undirected potential. But in truth, though you disown the worst extremes of the Corresponding Societies, do you believe that seats in parliament can possibly be made free of patronage, that electors can be free of any sort of payment?’

‘I believe so.’

`You spoke of electors being bribed. You spoke contemptuously of them being bribed by money or influence. Is it any worse to pay a reward at the time of voting than to promise a reward, a promise which you know you may afterwards easily break? Come, which is the more honest: to pay a man twenty guineas down to vote for your candidate or to promise him the passing of a law which may put twenty guineas in his pocket when you have been elected?’

`I don’t believe it would have to be like that.’

`You take a kinder view of human-nature than I do.’

`Man is never perfectable,’ Ross said, ‘so he fails always in his ideals. Whichever way, he directs his aims, Original Sin is there to confound him.’

`Who said that?’

‘A friend of mine who is here tonight.’

‘A wise man.’

`But not a cynic. I think he would agree with me that it is better to climb three rungs and slip back two than to make no move at all.’

Falmouth rose and stood with his back to the, fire warming his hands.

`Well, we are on opposite sides on this, and I imagine will remain so. Of course, you see in me a man in possession of hereditary power, and with no intention at all of giving it up. I buy and sell as I can in the world of government. Soldiers, sailors, parsons, customs officers, mayors, clerks and the like depend upon my word for their appointment or advancement. Nepotism is rife. What would you put in its place? Power is not an endlessly divisible thing. Yet it must exist. Someone must possess it and since man is not perfectable; as you admit, it must at times be misused. Who is likely, to misuse it more: the demagogue who finds it suddenly in his possession, like a man with a heady wine who has never tasted liquor before; or a man who by heredity has learned - and been taught - how to use it, a man who, having known liquor all his life, may taste the heady wine without becoming drunk upon it?’

Ross got up too. `I believe there may be some between the peer and the demagogue who may do better than either; but no matter. I realize there’s always danger in change but would not shun it for that reason … I think I should be getting back to the dance.’

`You have a pretty wife and a worthy one,’ Falmouth said. ‘Appreciate her while you still have her. Life is uncertain.’

At the door Ross said : `There’s one favour you might do me. And it would be by the exercise of that hereditary power which I have - at your invitation - ventured to deplore. Do you know the living of Sawle-with-Grambler?’

`I know it, yes. I have land in the parish.’

`I believe the living is in the gift of the Dean and Chapter in Exeter. The incumbent has died, and the present curate, an overburdened underpaid little man who has struggled to maintain services there for nearly twenty years, would be transported with joy if he were granted it. I do not know if there are other applicants but, while; there will be many with better connections, there will be few who would more fully deserve it,’

`What is your curate’s name?’

`Odgers. Clarence Odgers.’

`I will make a note of it.’

I

As he came down the passage Ross heard laughter, and thought he could detect Demelza’s voice. He began to feel irritable. This visit seemed to him to be becoming a peculiar and undesirable repetition of the visit to Tehidy. He had been taken aside and engaged in stiff and sober conversation about the country’s and the county’s affairs by his stiff and sober host, as befitted his rapidly advancing years and considerable status, while his young wife enjoyed herself with people of her own age and flirted with a naval lieutenant. By rights he should be developing a pot belly and be taking snuff and having twinges of the gout. To hell with that.

He crossed the hall, a, man half looking for trouble but restrained by his inherent good sense. He at once saw that Demelza was not among the group who were laughing: Caroline was the centre of it; and his hostess, Mrs Gower, came across to him.

`Oh, Captain Poldark, your wife has gone upstairs with a group of others to see the view from our cupola while the light lasts. Would you permit me to show you the way?’

They climbed two flights and then a narrow stair which brought them into a glass dome looking over the roofs of the house. Demelza was there with Armitage and Dwight and St John Peter, Ross’s cousin. Ross emerged into the small glass room with no pleasure in his soul; but Demelza’s welcoming glance salved his, annoyance.

He dutifully admired the view, and Mrs Gower pointed out the landmarks. The day had cleared with the sunset, and already a few stars glinted in the nacreous sky. The river, lying among its wooded banks, looked like molten lead. In a `pool’ nearby a half dozen tall ships were anchored and had their sails hung out drying after the rain. In the distance was Falmouth harbour and lights winking. Three herons creaked across the sky.

‘We were talking of seals, Ross,’ Demelza said, `and I was speaking of those we have in Great Seal Hole betwixt ourselves and St Ann’s. Great families of them. In and out of the caves.’

‘D’you know I’ve been a sailor for ten years,’ Hugh Armitage said, ‘and have never seen a seal - believe it or not!’

`Nor I, for that matter,’ said Dwight.

`Why, God’s my life!’ said St John Peter, `you get ‘em on this coast too. You can see ‘em any day round Mevagissey, and the mouth of the Helford. Cavortin’ on the rocks. But who wants to? I wouldn’t walk a yard for the privilege of seeing ‘em!’

`I remember when I was a girl,’ said Mrs Gower, `we took an expedition from St Ives. We were. staying with the St Aubyns, I and my brother and sister, and we set out one sunny morning but the weather turned stormy and we were near shipwrecked.’

`Wouldn’t trust that damn’ coast,’ said St John Peter, his voice slurring. `Treacherous! Wouldn’t get me in a boat large or small. It is all too, much like sailin’ in and out of the teeth of an alligator!’

‘We go fishing now and again,’ Demelza said. `It is all right so long as you know the looks of the weather. Pilchard men do and they come to no harm. Well, hardly ever.’

`It would be agreeable to have a little adventure tomorrow if the day were fine,’ said Mrs Gower. `It’s no, great distance to the Helford, and I know my children would love, it. You could not delay your departure, Hugh?’