Cordelia Read online

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  Contents

  Winston Graham

  Preface

  BOOK ONE

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  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

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  BOOK THREE

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  BOOK FOUR

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Winston Graham

  Cordelia

  Winston Mawdsley Graham OBE was an English novelist, best known for the series of historical novels about the Poldarks. Graham was born in Manchester in 1908, but moved to Perranporth, Cornwall when he was seventeen. His first novel, The House with the Stained Glass Windows was published in 1933. His first ‘Poldark’ novel, Ross Poldark, was published in 1945, and was followed by eleven further titles, the last of which, Bella Poldark, came out in 2002. The novels were set in Cornwall, especially in and around Perranporth, where Graham spent much of his life, and were made into a BBC television series in the 1970s. It was so successful that vicars moved or cancelled church services rather than try to hold them when Poldark was showing.

  Aside from the Poldark series, Graham’s most successful work was Marnie, a thriller which was filmed by Alfred Hitchcock in 1964. Hitchcock had originally hoped that Grace Kelly would return to films to play the lead and she had agreed in principle, but the plan failed when the principality of Monaco realised that the heroine was a thief and sexually repressed. The leads were eventually taken by Tippi Hedren and Sean Connery. Five of Graham’s other books were filmed, including The Walking Stick, Night Without Stars and Take My Life. Graham wrote a history of the Spanish Armadas and an historical novel, The Grove of Eagles, based in that period. He was also an accomplished writer of suspense novels. His autobiography, Memoirs of a Private Man, was published by Macmillan in 2003. He had completed work on it just weeks before he died. Graham was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and in 1983 was honoured with the OBE.

  It is there on the mantelpiece still, about two feet from the base, carved with a small sharp knife or a fretwork tool: CORDELIA, 1869. The letters are plain and regular and level, except for the A, which slants away from the rest, and the date has a wavy careless look as if the carver tired of the task.

  The house is dusty and old now, given over to uses it was not designed for, but the name persists, faded and dirt-smeared, in that upper room. Two notes echoing like notes on a tuning-fork, losing themselves far back in the passages of yesterday. Cordelia, 1869. The lettering is not quite the lettering of a child. Then why was it carved there? As a girlish prank, as an act of defiance, as a gesture before the hands began to tremble into senility?

  It has been a pleasant room, square and lofty, facing south, with a dressing-room leading off. A venetian blind in good condition is still fitted to one of the windows, and the brass gas brackets are firm in the peeling walls. The doors and the shutters are of bird’s-eye maple, and the ceiling is heavily moulded with a centrepiece from which an unshaded electric light now hangs.

  One can picture it furnished in the fashion of the time, one can try to peer in, as through one of the wide sash windows, at people living and loving and talking inside, moving in the familiar friendly rhythms of custom and habit, like us but not us, links in the eternal chain. One sees them now as through a glass darkly, conscious of deep differences of outlook misting the scene but unsure whether the idiosyncrasies are all theirs or partly our own.

  Well, here is the Victorian house already fallen from its distinguished usage, and here is the name, symbol of a time past, of a personality, of a woman, maintaining its own dignity, its own reserve among the shabby humiliations of today. And that woman? Is all the intimate personal detail of her life already blown away, lost for ever in the dust? Not quite, for when the name was carved Cordelia was young …

  BOOK ONE

  Chapter One

  On the fourteenth of March, 1866, Brook Ferguson’s first wife died. On the fifth of April he started looking for his second.

  If he had been left to himself he might have stayed inert for years, thinking idly what would happen if he did this or that, biting the skin round his fingers, and dreaming his own dreams. There were, too, all the usual obstacles to any early move: the frowning brows and whispering voices of convention, the raw new memories like railway cuttings, bitterness, and some grief. Yes, grief, for one did not live with a woman for six years without gathering ties of memory and association.

  But he was not left to himself.

  ‘Brook,’ said his father, after Monday night’s supper, when the maids had cleared away and Aunt Letitia had gone to find her sewing and Uncle Pridey to feed his shrews. ‘Brook, I hope you won’t allow yourself to brood over poor Margaret’s death.’

  ‘No, Father, I’ll try not,’ Brook said, tapping with his long thin fingers on the arm of his chair.

  ‘When your mother died,’ said Mr Ferguson, ‘only the consolation of religion saved me from serious illness. Twenty-eight years. The break-up of a life companionship is the greatest tragedy that can happen to a man. You were only nineteen at the time, and perhaps you didn’t realize all that it meant …’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Brook, his eyes filling with tears. ‘I realized exactly what it meant.’ There was no one like her. She understood me. She knew how I felt, what I hoped for.

  Frederick Ferguson went on: ‘I came to realize – in time, thank God – that it was wrong of me to grieve or to rail against His will. My responsibility remained to the living. I realized that in good time I should rejoin her. Until that appointed time I must go my lonely way alone.’

  Brook got up and thrust his hands into his pockets.

  ‘My lonely way alone,’ said Mr Ferguson, and lowered his fine head. It was a good phrase. Then he said: ‘But your case is different, Brook.’

  ‘Oh, yes, in degrees,’ said Brook. ‘I know. I know that. I was fond of Margaret. She h
ad her faults, but–’

  ‘You are young,’ said Mr Ferguson, puffing out his lips and staring at his son’s thin, round-shouldered figure. ‘With all your life still before you. You should grieve. That is natural. But not to the detriment of the life you have yet to live. Margaret would not wish it. Nobody would wish it.’

  ‘I don’t suppose I shall,’ said Brook. ‘I never said I would.’ On the defensive, he added: ‘Haven’t I been down to the works just the same, carried on much as usual? I don’t really see there’s anything to complain of. After all …’

  He was going to say, ‘After all, Margaret’s only been buried a fortnight, I think I’ve stood it damned well.’ But, as often, the sentence slid away.

  Frederick Ferguson got up.

  ‘My dearest boy, I never for a moment suggested there was anything to complain of. Your fortitude has been admirable, and I deeply respect you for it. But your interests, so close to my heart, as you must know they are …’

  He waited.

  ‘Yes,’ said Brook.

  ‘With your interests so close to my heart, out of my greater experience, I offer you this advice. You have a sensitive and affectionate nature. I thought it necessary to have this talk with you.’

  ‘Oh, that’s all right,’ said Brook, mollified.

  Mr Ferguson went over to the port table and poured our two more glasses.

  ‘I am an old man now, Brook; I expect you realize that.’

  ‘Oh, no.’

  ‘Well, an old man for the kind of active life I lead. At sixty-four life is very uncertain.’

  ‘It’s uncertain at any time,’ said Brook, thinking of Margaret – who had shared his bed, for whose footsteps and voice and nervous throat cough one still listened.

  ‘I know; but more than ever so at my time of life. And when I am gone, responsibility will fall on you, Brook.’

  He brought the port back and stared into his son’s soft inward-looking brown eyes.

  Brook turned away, avoiding the direct gaze. ‘Oh, a certain amount, I suppose.’

  ‘A great deal. The direction of the works; its welfare and continuity. All the other interests. The maintenance of this fine house. The well-being of your aunt and uncle, if they outlive me. All this. I’d hoped that Margaret would be at your side to help you.’

  ‘Oh, I shall get along somehow.’

  ‘I don’t want you to ‘‘ get along somehow’’. I want to feel assured of your future and the future of all the things I care about. You should be firmly established. As you know – there was one circumstance of your marriage to Margaret that I found disappointing …’

  The port was warming Brook. It comforted his mind, covering over the qualifications and hesitancies, the defeats and the humiliations.

  ‘I know. You weren’t the only one who was disappointed. We were too.’

  Mr Ferguson walked with his glass across to the large sash window. The curtains had not been drawn and the gaslight glimmered upon the sallow wintry lawn and on the wet leaves of laurel and rhododendron.

  He said: ‘Much as I liked and admired Margaret,’ and brushed a crumb or two from his waistcoat. He was a man who conveyed a lot by implication. ‘ Oh, she was a lady and brought a gentility to this house it’s not quite had before. Why pretend? We are an educated and intelligent family but we haven’t yet the background, the connections. It’s only a question of time. Indeed, we’re accepted and esteemed everywhere it’s worth being accepted.’ He turned and met his son’s sombre eyes. ‘But when I first saw your interest in her I thought it an admirable match. An old Cheshire family with county connections. Your son, I thought …’

  ‘Her brother was damned rude the other day,’ said Brook. ‘He made all sorts of sneering remarks and pretended to think … Oh, well, you know the sort of things he pretends to think.’

  ‘You need not worry your head about Dan. He’ll drink his way into the poor-house. With an ordinary man one would perhaps expect a little gratitude … Ignore him, Brook, he’ll forget his grievance when the flat racing starts.’

  ‘Even her mother pretended to think Margaret had been unhappy here. I mean, I know you and Margaret got at loggerheads at times, but she meant permanently unhappy, suggesting–’

  ‘Well, it would be too much to expect them to admit that Margaret had been a sickly woman all her life, should never have married, wouldn’t it? I believe Maud will be the same in another ten years.’

  Brook stared round the large sombre dining-room. From here he could see himself in the mirror above the fireplace, the mirror framed in plush with the heavy carved mahogany overmantel. From here, too, he could see Margaret’s chair, and for a moment pictured her there with her tightly drawn hair and black eyes and soft moist hands.

  ‘I shouldn’t be surprised if we see nothing at all of the Massingtons from now on. All that unpleasantness.’ He began to bite the skin round his fingers. ‘And at heart they’re snobs, every one of them.’

  ‘Well, let them go. It’s better that than the other way. When you marry again you’ll not want them calling here at all times.’

  ‘When I marry again,’ said Brook, with a half-nervous laugh, startled at the thought – or at the blunt expression of it. ‘If I marry again.’

  Frederick Ferguson turned from the window. ‘I should like you to marry again, Brook. And soon.’

  ‘Why?’ The port had given defiance as well as comfort.

  ‘For the reasons I’ve told you.’

  ‘Oh, perhaps I may some time. I don’t see the hurry.’

  ‘It should be perfectly plain to you. I think you should remarry.’

  ‘I know no girls.’

  ‘You can’t be expected to. But there will be plenty willing to marry you – given the opportunity.’

  ‘You think so?’ said Brook, with a little unbidden interest.

  ‘Well, of course. What girl wouldn’t accept money and position and an agreeable and indulgent husband? Indeed, an over-indulgent husband.’

  There was the echo of old strife in this, but Brook allowed it to pass.

  ‘Perhaps. I don’t know.’

  ‘There’s no perhaps about it, my dear boy. You can pick and choose – and I hope you will.’

  No more was said that night. The seed was sown. But on Easter Sunday Mr Ferguson found himself unoccupied – a rare and unpalatable state – and his energy, which had helped him to double his fortune twice in ten years, his desire for progress, which had put him among the leading Liberals of the city, the need that was always in him to fill every passing hour, forced him to come to the subject again.

  They were all there. Brook was playing some of Field’s Nocturnes, Aunt Letitia was dozing inanely over her crochet work, and Uncle Pridey was turning the pages of some notes he had made that morning. At midday dinner they had all eaten too much, and they were feeling slothful all except Frederick Ferguson, who had eaten the most of all and whose food, as well as turning ultimately to fat, seemed like a child’s to turn at once into consumable energy.

  For a few minutes he stood by the piano, watching Brook’s fingers move over the keys. He knew nothing about music, but Brook, he felt, played the piano as he did most things, with insufficient zest. It was not a technical failure but an attitude of mind.

  When the piece was finished he said: ‘ Have you thought any more about our discussion of the other evening?’

  Brook glanced uneasily round the room at his uncle and aunt.

  ‘Not a lot, Father.’

  ‘I think you should. It’s important to your happiness – and indirectly to mine.’

  Brook moodily turned over the music. ‘Surely, it can wait.’

  ‘Anything definite can wait. But consideration. It’s a step that needs active and early consideration.’

  ‘I don’t see how one can begin when there’s no one to consider.’

  ‘You have no friends?’

  His father knew very well what friends he had and had not. Was he to make an inventory of
the few young people who came to this house, or the sisters of the men he met at the Athenaeum, or the clogged and shawled daughters of poverty he saw each morning at the works?

  He was saved from answering by Aunt Letitia, who looked up and said: ‘ Eh, Frederick, let the lad play. Don’t stop the lad playing. It soothes me.’

  Frederick, as usual, ignored his sister. He had long since found that there was nothing to be gained from carrying on a conversation with her.

  ‘On Wednesday evening,’ he said, ‘St James’s Choir will be giving the Messiah. You’ll come, Brook?’

  ‘Oh, yes, I think so.’ Margaret had been buried at Alderley. No bar to visiting St James’s.

  ‘More than I will,’ said Uncle Pridey, wagging his head. ‘The tenors are always metallic and the contraltos low like cows. I know. The thing should never be attempted except by professionals.’

  ‘The choir will be augmented,’ said Frederick, half to Pridey but half, significantly, to his son.

  ‘I didn’t know you were that interested in music, Frederick. Next time we have a Gentlemen’s Concert, come along, and Karl Hallé will teach you what music really is.’

  ‘Walk with me to the door, Brook.’

  The young man got up, and they went together out into the over-furnished hall.

  ‘On Wednesday,’ said his father. ‘ Look along the choir stalls. We shall be able to see them from where we sit. A family. There are two or three daughters. It is just a thought. Naturally no more.’

  Brook stared. All his instincts were to shy away from such a suggestion. This was nothing to do with bereavement, it was something born or grown in him, a backing away from any positive act.

  ‘Do I know them?’ he said at last.

  ‘Not socially. You may have seen them in church.’

  ‘What are they called?’

  ‘Blake, I believe. There’s a large family of them.’

  ‘No, I don’t know the name.’ He said this with a sense of relief, as if it was an added barrier. ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘Just a walk. So should you. It would improve your health if you took more exercise instead of crouching over the fire.’