The Twisted Sword (25 page)

The two men left the hotel together. The southeaster met them, whistling round the corner. It was one of those relentless winds that do not take off even at night. Stephen put his hand on Jason's shoulder, a feeling of warmth and comradeship coming over him. 'I've a difficult time coming, lad. That's why I was wanting you to sign up with Captain Buller. But no matter; I expect we'll get along somehow. Carringtons usually do.'

Jeremy had been away five days on manoeuvres and returned on the Friday afternoon to kiss Cuby repeatedly and to tell her he had planned a picnic for the Saturday.

'Have I spoken of Captain Mercer? I forget. He has invited us to a picnic in Strytem, where he is stationed. It's about twelve miles from Brussels. I have hired a carriage and if we leave at nine we shall be able to spend most of the day with them. Do you mind?'

'I'd greatly like it. Is he in your regiment?'

'No, the Horse Artillery under Sir Augustus Fraser. I met him at the Forties Club.'

'Ah yes. I see.'

There was a brief silence. Jeremy's membership of the Forties Club was virtually the only bone of contention between them. It was a gaming club open only to officers under the age of forty. They played faro, whist and lansquenet, for low stakes or high according to the whim of the players. The principle of the club was that money never changed hands: it was all done by IOU. Once a month there was a dinner and a reckoning. On one occasion Jeremy had shocked her by saying he was two hundred and fifty guineas in debt. Two weeks later, just before the dinner, he had reduced it to forty guineas, but that was not to say he could have been sure of any such outcome. Cuby's father had died when she was three months old and thereafter her life had been ruled by her brother who was nine years the elder and who - well set up to begin - had nearly bankrupted himself building a magnificent Nash-designed crenellated mansion overlooking Porthluney Beach, and then compounded his error by trying to recoup his losses on the race course. His plan to marry Cuby into the rich Warleggan family had come to nothing, and it was very doubtful now whether he would be able to survive as a Cornish landowner. When, rarely, a sleepless night came to Cuby she would lie quiet beside Jeremy, hands behind her head, staring up at the ceiling and wondering what would happen to her family now. So, reacting to the sort of life in which she had lived all her youth, when outgoings were always greater than incomings, where essential building or repairs were stopped because no one could pay the bricklayers' wages, where the footmen in the house looked down at heel for lack of a shoe repair or wore a coat splitting at the seams because it had been made for someone else, where the marvellous horse that was going to win the Derby came in fourth or the run of amazing good luck at faro unfortunately changed to an amazing run of ill luck before the winnings could be pocketed, Cuby had, for the first and only time in their married life, exploded at Jeremy. Afterwards there had been a wildly rewarding reconciliation, when they had kissed and made up, when he had brushed her damp lids with his own and stroked her breasts and kissed her eyelids, and had promised fervently that his gambling and his extravagances should be strictly curtailed.

'Do you mind, my sweetheart?' he asked, mistaking, or choosing to mistake, her hesitation. 'It will not be too much for you?'

'Of course it will not be too much for me, boy,' she said, using as she sometimes did out of deep affection the name she had first given him. 'Except for this nasty sickness, which your mother assures me will go away soon, I am very well. I must not be treated as if made of porcelain! For months and months and months yet it will make no difference to my activities. It is natural for a woman to have a baby. There is nothing peculiar about it. It is not an illness, a complaint, a disease. It is just a natural outcome of - of loving.'

'I am delighted', said Jeremy, 'that it will make no difference to your activities,' kissing her in the small of the neck and then on her hair and then blowing gently into her ear. His fingers stroked her face. 'The natural outcome of loving. What a good expression. Do you not think we should break our five-day fast?'

'Gladly, but it is still daylight.'

'I have no objection to the daylight.'

'And you have not eaten.'

"There are other hungers I would rather satisfy.'

The doorbell rang.

'Oh, curse!' said Jeremy, rising from beside her. 'Do not stir. Do not flicker an eyelid, my sweetheart, until I come back. I will send this savage intruder away.'

But when he opened the door a young man in civilian clothes stood there, in the company of a tall young woman. The young man was sturdily built, full lipped, dark haired and browed.

'Goldsworthy!'

'My dear Jeremy! What a pleasure! I trust that we don't call on you at an inappropriate moment? We have but an hour since arrived in Brussels. You have never met my wife; Bess? Bess, this is Jeremy Poldark; how happy I am that we have run you to earth!'

II

The Gurneys were in Brussels just for a week and had taken rooms in the rue du Musee. They had brought their young baby and a nurse and two servants. Brussels at the moment was the social capital of Europe, with Wellington giving repeated balls and much of the British aristocracy there to frequent them and to give soirees and luncheon parties and suppers themselves. Jeremy, used to regarding Goldsworthy as a juvenile and eccentric innovator and surgeon before his time - he was only twenty-two - was surprised that he had come to savour this hectic scene. Probably his new wife, Elizabeth, who was ten years his senior, was the instigator of the trip; though Gurney was no blushing violet. He was, he announced, thinking of moving to London, where all the important men of science congregated.

'Cornwall is a backwater,' he said, 'for what I want to do. Trevithick is there still, but there's talk of him going to South America. Woolf is active and there are a few other good men about, but I believe if you want to make the impact you have to go to London. I can practise as a surgeon there just as well as in Padstow. Not,' he added,

'that I shall lose touch with Cornwall. Once you have lived there, nowhere else is quite the same ... And you, Jeremy, how long will you stay in the army? How long before we can go into partnership, constructing the next horseless carriage?'

They stayed to supper, with Cuby and Jeremy occasionally exchanging sweetly lustful glances when the others were not looking. Jeremy invited them for the picnic the following day, and they accepted. At nine the following morning they set off in an open landau and rumbled over the cobbles and out of the city onto the country lane leading to Ninove. Swallows flew high as they passed through rich farmland, patched with woods in which the leaves were brilliandy bursting, a luxurious countryside, unscarred by war. But a countryside preparing for war. Villages were full of cavalry or horse artillery or men marching behind gun carriages. 'Ninove is Lord Uxbridge's headquarters,' said Jeremy. 'He's the commander of Wellington's cavalry. It's only three or four miles from here.'

All the same, undeterred by thoughts of battle, undistracted by - or uninterested in - the sights of a rich and fertile land, Goldsworthy Gurney spent the trip talking to Jeremy of his plans for a horseless carriage. He was still concerned about adhesion wheel grip on the roads. From his earlier ideas of levers or propellers which acted on the ground like horses' feet to get the carriage moving, he had turned to the introduction of revolving chains fitted with projections which by moving round, as in launching a dinghy, would help the carriage on its way. He had also been experimenting with a new piano which would, he hoped, harmonize with the organ he had built, and which many people said had a specially fine tone. Eventually they could be played together by a single performer. The two ladies got on as best they might, which on the whole was pretty well. Mrs Gurney had been a Miss Symons of Launcells, and was suitably impressed that Mrs Poldark had been a Miss Trevanion. Cuby was relieved that her new friend knew of John Trevanion only as an ex-Sheriff of Cornwall and not as someone hopelessly in debt. The carriage turned off the more acceptable road and jolted and lurched among the muddy ruts of a Flemish country lane. Three perilous streams were crossed by bridges on which the plankings were loose. The horses did not like it at all and had to be led. When they reached Strytem, which was no more than a hamlet buried in tall elms, the moustached Captain Mercer was there to greet them. Two extra made no difference, and he led the way into a large ruined chateau where his troop was billeted. Inside it was handsome but dark, and soon the party set off followed by a cart containing the food and wine, and tablecloths were laid on the green sward by the banks of a slow-flowing river. There were fourteen of them, including four ladies, and they sat in the sun and laughed and talked and ate and drank in the greatest accord. Ghent, said Captain Mercer, was crowded with Bourbons, from servants and hangers-on to princes of the blood. It was also a mustering point for British regiments arriving from England and then passing on to new camps and billets. No one, he said, had any idea what was happening as far as a strategy of war was concerned, but all the Belgians, and most of the French royalist officers attending on the King, were convinced that these splendid troops passing through to fight Bonaparte would, if it came to a battle, be thrown back into the sea. Jeremy, in fact, knew a little more than Mercer, having been out all week on manoeuvres and having seen the Duke at close quarters. This had been just east of the village of Waterloo, and at Halle where the roads from Ath and Mons united.

'I do not suppose for a moment', he said, 'that the Duke will fight unless he has to. At present we are such a miscellaneous crew! There's maybe twenty-five thousand British troops in Belgium but less than a quarter are veterans. Most of 'em are less qualified than I! We're desperately short of cannon and cannot match the French cavalry. Of course we've got the Hanoverians, and the Brunswickers, who are good; but who can rely on the Belgians, most of whom are Bonapartists at heart?'

They left at seven after a day spent in the green heart of spring, making their way back across the bridges until they reached the main road. Here they had twice to draw in to me side while a troop of cavalry clattered past. Then they went through a village in which the Life Guards were taking their ease. Their tall lanky figures in brilliant scarlet tight-fitting jackets contrasted with the brown smock-frocks of the peasants moving among them in the evening light. In Brussels they dropped the Gurneys off at their rooms, and Cuby made an appointment to meet Bess in the morning to go shopping. Then they drove home.

'Do you find him tiresome?' asked Jeremy. On the way home Goldsworthy had talked of the properties of lime as a manure and had told the sad story of a farmer friend who had burned lime in kilns built with stones containing manganese. Then he had spoken of the dangers of brewing cider in lead vats, this in his view being a common cause of colic.

Cuby smiled. 'I would not say so.'

'Well, I do sometimes. But I also cannot get away from the originality of his mind.'

'Would you go into a partnership with him on the horseless carriage?'

'I think mere might be a better future for the steam ship - rivalling the packet ships by carrying mails.. . But yes, I'd go in with Goldsworthy if he put up a reasonable proposition.' Jeremy was thoughtful. 'But the opportunity for me may not be yet. This could well be a long war.'

They reached their apartment and Jeremy paid off the driver. They climbed the stairs, his arm round her waist. Cuby said: 'It has been a lovely day.'

They went in. In their absence an official letter had been delivered. Jeremy broke the seal and went pink.

'Dear Heaven!' he said. 'A tragedy! I have been promoted to captain.'

Clowance was in her back garden pricking out lettuce seedlings. She was part sheltered here from the relentless wind, but still it blew uncomfortably about her; the two weeks of it had dried the light soil almost to powder and she had given the plants a good watering last night so that those she pulled up to discard would not disturb the others. Stephen had been out since nine; he had said he would be home to dinner but had not turned up. If he was going to change his plans he usually sent a boy with a message; but not this time. It was the last day -- though, being a Friday, probably the bank would not make a move until Monday. Stephen was as taut as a wire under strain. He had done everything he could: there was no other lever within his reach; but being the man he was it was not natural to sit down to await the blow. He had said he was going down to the Adolphus, which, fully laden but still unvictualled, lay in the Penryn River waiting orders. Clowance could not imagine he was still there. Probably he had gone to the Royal Standard, was drowning his sorrows in a conventional way. But she was anxious. Being a man of action, and she well knew sometimes of violence, he might be venting his anger and frustration in some dangerous way. So when a footstep sounded she turned eagerly, apprehensively, but relieved to see him.

'Stephen! I waited - a long time.'

There was an expression on his face she could not read, grim but with a different light in his eyes.

'What're ye doing, dear heart?'

It was the first time he had used that expression for two weeks.

'You can see,' she said. 'This wind is drying everything, but I think they'll come on now.'

'I didn't get back to dinner,' he said. 'I was called away.'

'Oh? Where?'

He came over and stood beside her, looking down at the ground she had been working on. 'Are they far enough apart?'

'No, but the next time I thin them we can eat the thinnings . .. What is it, Stephen?'

He put his hand on her shoulder. 'What do you call it when a man is due to be hanged by the neck and then at the last moment he is told it is not so?'

'Not so? Do you mean reprieved?'

'Reprieved. That's it. At least, that's what I reckon it is.'

She turned to him. 'How? Tell me what has happened? Is it good news?'

He said: 'This morning. When I was working on the Adolphus this morning and reckoning how she could be cheapest unloaded, a man came, a message from Truro. I was requested to make my appearance at Warleggan's Bank at three this afternoon.' His hand tightened on her shoulder. 'It was on my tongue to curse him and tell him and his employer to go to hell; but no, I thought to meself, if this is the last act I'll go see just how they wish to proceed about it; I'll go discover if there is any other mischief planned for me. So I took horse - hired from Greenbank Stables - and rode into Truro, to the bank, was there by soon after two.'

'Is it good news?' she said again.

'Only Lander was there - no sign of George, but he said - and I took care to make double sure what he said - that on due consideration it had been decided to continue to fund me - to a limited extent, on a reduced scale. There's a strict upper limit, a new system of accounting, no this, no that--'

'But Stephen!' she interrupted him, grasping his arms,

'does it mean - does that mean we are saved?'

'In a fashion, yes--'

She hugged him. 'But that - that is the most wonderful thing! You can keep your ships, go on with your trading? Even perhaps build our house?'

'I reckon so, wi' safeguards, and a sort of going slow. I have yet to work it all out. He put it all in writing Lander did - and I have read it through thrice. The upper limit of the loan is rigid and must be reduced by twenty per cent after twelve months. No more accommodation bills but a renewal of those out. I reckon I shall be acting all the time under George's thumb. I don't altogether care for it--'

'But that does not matter. Who cares if we have to proceed more carefully? We are safe! Safe! Safe! Stephen, I have nothing in the house to drink but ale--'

He permitted himself his first smile. 'I reckon I've got a lot of your lettuce soil on my sleeves ... I can tell you this is the biggest relief off my mind. Even now it is a rare puzzle to me. I had wild and drastic thoughts. We'll go out tonight to celebrate. We'll go to the King's Arms. Mary Commins is a friend of mine and she'll put on a good meal and drink for us ...'

She rubbed her hands and brushed his sleeves. 'There, it is nearly all gone! ... You say you did not see Sir George?'

'Not a sign of him. I could not credit it when Lander began to speak. What made him change his mind?'

'Perhaps he meant to all along and--'

'Never. Not from George's looks that day ... I've been wondering - will we go to their house again and be received as friends? Ye see--'

'Does it matter? We are safe - and in a little while can reduce our indebtedness! Even what we are getting from Wheal Grace will help! And soon enough you'll be altogether your own master again!'

He kissed her. 'You're wise, Clowance. Always was. Always will be. 'Twas you who warned me not to get tangled with George Warleggan in the first place. I wonder, d'ye think Lady Harriet would have some finger in this?'

'Does it matter?' Clowance said again.

'Have you seen her lately? Since this happened?'

'I had to go over one day last week. To return those books on architecture. I wanted to give them to a servant but she was on the steps.'

'Did you tell her?'

'She asked why I had not been to the last day of the hunt, so I just mentioned our changed situation.'

Stephen was thoughtful, combing his hair with his strong fingers.

'I reckon it maybe was something Harriet said to George. She has always been specially friendly to me.'

II

Katie Carter, made more clumsy even than usual, if not by her condition at least by her agitation at being in such a condition, upset a pan of boiling water and in trying to save it got a substantial burn on her arm. Cook sliced up a cold potato, slapped it on her arm and tied it in position with a handy strip of duster. Thereafter work as usual.

After a couple of days they took it off and found the arm reddened and bleeding, so she was sent to see Dr Enys. She would have much preferred Mr Irby in St Ann's but Mrs Warleggan caught sight of it and said she must see Dr Enys and she would pay. This was such an exceptional sign of favour in her current disgrace that Katie did not dare to disobey.

Not that she minded Dr Enys: ever since he attended her as a child she had thought him wonderful; but it was precisely because of this that she did not want to see him and exhibit her coming shame. He was likely to know of it - most people had passed the whisper on by now - but it was the face to face encounter she dreaded. When it came it was not too bad. He had such a handsome way of being impersonal: he was surgeon and she was the patient; there was nothing more between them than that. But then, after he had bathed the burn and dusted it with healing powder and given it a proper light bandage, he spoiled it all by feeling her pulse and saying:

'Is your pregnancy quite normal, Katie?'

She flushed and broke into a sweat. 'Please?'

You are carrying a child, I understand. Do you feel well?'

'Oh, yes ... Bit sick in the mornings, like.'

'Are you about four months?'

'Ais.'

'That should be clearing up now then. Let me know if I can be of any help to you.'

Katie fumbled a shilling out of her purse. 'Mrs says I was to pay you this.'

'Thank you. Don't touch the bandage for five days, unless it becomes painful. Try to keep it dry. I'll give you some of this powder to use if you need it.'

Katie put on her cloak, anxious to be gone. Dwight considered her for a moment, uncertain whether to say more. These people were part of the family of Sawle-with Grambler whom he had made it his business to care for over the last twenty-odd years. He said: 'They have not found Saul Grieves?'

Katie's flush went darker as she stared out of the window.

Dwight said: Tour mother thinks he should be sought out.'

'I wouldn't marry 'im,' said Katie, 'no, not if 'e was the last man on earth.'

Dwight walked to the door with her. 'Perhaps there is some other man you will marry.'

'Fine chance o' that, I reckon. Not many'd want me wi'

a bastard child. And there's not many I'd 'ave!'

She opened the door, and the sun fell in on her shabby clothes, her heavy Spanish hair, her fine skin.

'I hope this wind will stop soon,' Dwight said. 'It is drying everything up.'

'Ais. Fishing boats put out, they're 'ard set to get 'ome.'

'There's one man would gladly marry you,' said Dwight.

'If you would have him. And make a good father ... Music Thomas.'

She half stopped, then snorted like a horse. 'Music? That gurt lump. He was put in wi' the bread and took out wi' the cakes, if ever there was!... That's a fine jest, Surgeon. Why, 'e's only 'alf a man!'

You'd be surprised,' said Dwight. 'As you know, I have been helping him, and he has made great progress. He can tell the time now and the days of the week. But you see him yourself quite often. Do you not notice any difference?'

'Can't say's I do.'

They stood then in awkward silence.

'Get along with you, then.'

Katie said: 'Oh, 'e's always grizzling at me like 'e likes me; but - but I'd be 'ard put before I wed that loon!'

Dwight smiled. 'Well, Katie, you are a free woman and I am no matchmaker. It occurred to me that it would be better if your child had a foster father. Sometimes--'

'Oh yes, Surgeon, I'm sure you be right. But, begging your pardon, not a father all the village would snigger at.'

Ill

The weather at last abating, Stephen decided to take the Adolphus across himself on the Sunday. He did not invite Clowance to go with him. Ye don't mind, dear heart? It takes a time to get over the shock, to feel things are mebbe going to come right after all. It's like when your leg goes to sleep, the pain begins when the circulation comes back.'

'How long will you be away?'

'I'll be back so quick as I can. But the weather's wayward. While I'm away I want to think things out.'

'What things?'

'How I shall live my life with George Warleggan breathing over my shoulder. Oh, I know he always has been after a fashion, ever since I went to his bank; but I connected it was a friendly breathing, if you follow me. Now I don't know what it is. I feel I'm living - we're both living - on the end of a lifeline, and who knows when he's going to take out his scissors and cut it?'

'He may have done what he did just to shock you, Stephen. So long as you keep to the agreement you've signed there'll be no more trouble.'

'Mebbe yes. And mebbe no. I haven't seen him since he changed his mind. I don't know what he's going to look like. I only know he looked very nasty when I was told they were going to bankrupt me. Harriet may have persuaded him to change his mind, but what's to stop him changing it back? The sooner I'm out of his reach, the happier I shall be.'

'But how can you be?'

'Not yet. Not this year. But if I can't get out of his hands it will not be for want of trying.'

Stephen was filling his pipe. He looked a big formidable young man, capable in his own mind of taking on the world.

He said suddenly: 'The Chasse Marie is due any day. You know I got an offer for her? Well, I shall still sell her; concentrate on the other two. With the money I get from that..." He hesitated. She said: 'What?'

'I have not decided. But 'tis not going into Warleggan's Bank, that's for sure. Nor is the money from Wheal Leisure. Don't worry, I'll keep to the contract, see Warleggan's are just satisfied. But if I sell Chasse Marie I shall have money in hand. Out in the Channel I'll have time to think what to do.'

'You have some ideas?'

Yes, I have. But I'd better prefer not to say what they are.'

'Until they're decided?' she asked stonily.

'Until they're firmer. I can't be sure yet. Don't worry, I'll talk with you then.' He put his arm round her. 'After all, ye're my partner, are ye not?'

She said: 'If you sell Chasse Marie Andrew will lose his ship.'

'That has to be thought of too. I'll try not to let him down. He can always sail wi' me. Or mebbe take the Adolphus when I want to be home.'

You know he wants to get married?'

'What, Andrew? No. Who to?'

'Thomasine Trevethan. George Trevethan's sister.'

'My oh my. So that's the way the wind's setting. Well, good luck to him. Though I doubt he'll be able to set up house with her on what I pay him.'

'He knows that. Before this happened - before Sir George threatened to withdraw his credit - I was going to ask you if you could promote Andrew - somehow -- so that he was in a better position to marry.'

'Ah yes, well, we must think around it somehow, mustn't we. If there's some way I can work him into any scheme I launch, then be sure I'll do it. We want to keep him happy, don't we.'

IV

The Adolphus left at dawn on the Sunday, following, by a single tide, the West Indian fleet and all the other casual vessels which had been embayed by the relentless wind. Although little above a half-gale in Falmouth it had been more severe in other parts, and there had been wrecks up and down the coast. The sloop Dolphin foundered near Padstow, the Concord off Trevose Head, the Active, Captain Dodridge, on passage from Cork to London, was driven ashore at Hendrawna; he was drowned along with two of his crew, the other three were saved. The wrecking was done politely and the survivors well looked after. There was a great shoal of pilchards around the Cornish coast, brought in perhaps by the contrary weather. It was a bumper catch. Clowance was worried about Andrew in the Chasse Marie. On Tuesday Geoffrey Charles called. Clowance was startled half out of her life to see him, for she had thought him still in Spain. He laughed at her.

'I could not stay there with the wolf of Europe again at large! Why, if he were to win Flanders he might soon again establish a hegemony in Europe and be knocking at the gates of Madrid before we knew where we were! I have come to offer my solitary musket if the thinking in England is that we should try to stop him.'