The Four Swans Read online

  ‘Ais, sur,’ she said, and ‘no, sur,’ and ‘I’ll see to’n tomorrow, sur.’ She never failed to call him sir, even when he followed her into her bedroom; and this was the basis of their relationship. There was an unspoken quid pro quo between them. So she took his reprimands seriously but not too seriously; and when he had done she began quietly to tidy up the parlour while he stood by the window, hands under his coat tails, thinking of what had passed.

  ‘Miss May’ll be wanting for to see ee, sur.’

  ‘Presently.’

  She tried to gather up all the slippers, and dropped two. Her hair ballooned over her face. ‘Reckon tis rare for the gentry to call on ee, like that, sur. Was he wanting for something medical?’

  ‘Something medical.’

  ‘Reckon he could’ve sent one of ’is men for to fetch something medical, don’t ee reckon, sur?’

  Behenna did not answer. She went out with the slippers and returned for the frock.

  ‘Reckon I never seen Mr Warleggan come here afore like that. P’raps twas private like, not wanting his household to know?’

  Behenna turned from the window. ‘I think it was Cato who said: “Nam nulli tacuisse nocet, nocet esse locutum.” Always bear that in mind, Mrs Childs. It should be a guiding principle of yours. As of many others.’

  ‘Mebbe so, but I don’t know what it d’mean, so I cann’t say, can I?’

  ‘For your benefit I will translate. “It is harmful to no one to have been silent, but it is often harmful to have spoken.”’

  II

  George Tabb was sixty-eight and worked at the Fighting Cocks Inn as a horse keeper and porter. He earned 9s. a week, and sometimes received an extra shilling for helping with the cocking. He lived in a lean-to beside the inn, and there his wife, still an industrious woman in spite of ill-health, made about an extra £2 a year taking in washing. With the occasional pickings that come to a porter he therefore earned just enough to live on; but in the nine years since his friend and employer Charles William Poldark had died he had become too fond of the bottle, and now often drank himself below subsistence level. Emily Tabb tried to keep a tight hold on the purse strings, but with 5s. a week for bread, 6d. a week for meat, 9d. for half a pound each of butter and cheese, a shilling for two pecks of potatoes, and a weekly rental of 2s., there was no room for manoeuvre. Mrs Tabb endlessly regretted – as indeed did her husband in his soberer moments – the circumstances in which they had left Trenwith two and a half years ago. The widowed and impoverished Elizabeth Poldark had had to let her servants go one by one, until only the faithful Tabbs were left; but Tabb in his cups had presumed too much on his indispensability and when Mrs Poldark suddenly remarried they had had to leave.

  One afternoon in early October George Tabb was brushing out the cockpit behind the inn to make ready for a match that was to take place the following day, when the innkeeper whistled to him and told him there was someone to see him. Tabb went out and found an emaciated man in black, whose eyes were so close-set that they appeared to be crossed.

  ‘Tabb? George Tabb? Someone want a word with you. Tell your master. You’ll be the half-hour.’

  Tabb eyed his visitor and asked what it was all about, and who wanted him and why; but he was told no more. There was another man outside in the street, so he put away his broom and went with them.

  It was no distance. A few yards down an alley, along the river bank where another full tide glimmered and brimmed, up a street to a door in a wall, across a yard. The back of a tall house.

  ‘In here.’ He went in. A room that might have been a lawyer’s office. ‘Wait here.’ The door was shut behind him. He was left alone.

  He blinked warily, uneasy, wondering what ill this summons foreshadowed. He had not long to wait. A gentleman came in through another door. Tabb stared in surprise.

  ‘Mr Warleggan!’ He had no forelock to touch, but he touched his wrinkled head.

  The other George, the infinitely important George, nodded to him and went to sit down at the desk. He studied some papers while Tabb’s unease grew. It was on Mr Warleggan’s orders when he married Mrs Poldark that the Tabbs had been dismissed from her service, and his greeting today had shown no amiability.

  ‘Tabb,’ said George, without looking up. ‘I want to ask you a few questions.’

  ‘Sur?’

  ‘These questions are questions that I’ll put to you in confidence, and I shall expect you to treat them as such.’

  ‘Yes, sur.’

  ‘I see that you left the employment I obtained for you at Mrs Warleggan’s request when you left her service.’

  ‘Yes, sur. Mrs Tabb wasn’t up to the work and—’

  ‘On the contrary, I understand from Miss Agar that it was you who were unsatisfactory, and that she offered to retain Mrs Tabb if she would stay on alone.’

  Tabb’s eyes wandered uneasily about the room.

  ‘So now you eke out a miserable living as a pot boy. Very well, it is your own choice. Those who will not be helped must take the consequences!’

  Tabb cleared his throat.

  Mr Warleggan put fingers in his fob pocket and took out two coins. They were gold. ‘Nevertheless I am prepared to offer you some temporary easement of your lot. These guineas. They are yours, on certain conditions.’

  Tabb stared at the money as at a snake. ‘Sur?’

  ‘I want to ask you some questions about the last months of your employment at Trenwith. Can you remember them? It’s little more than two years since you left.’

  ‘Oh, yes, sur. I mind it all well.’

  ‘Only you and I are in this room, Tabb. Only you will know the questions I have asked. If in the future therefore I hear that the nature of these questions is known to others I shall know who has spoken of them, shall I not?’

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t do that, sur—’

  ‘Would you not? I’m far from sure. A man in his cups has an unreliable tongue. So listen, Tabb.’

  ‘Sur?’

  ‘If ever I hear word spoken of anything I ask you this afternoon, you will be driven out of this town, and I’ll see that you starve. Starve. In the gutter. It is a promise. Will you in your cups remember that?’

  ‘Well, sur, I promise faithful. I can’t say more’n that. I’ll—’

  ‘As you say, you can’t say more. So keep your promise and I will keep mine.’

  Tabb licked his lips in the ensuing silence. ‘I mind those times well, sur. I mind well all that time at Trenwith when we was trying, me and Mrs Tabb, to keep the ’ouse and the farm together. There was no more’n the two of us for all there was to be done—’

  ‘I know – I know. And you traded on your position. So you lost your employment. But in recognition of your long service another position was found for you and you lost that. Now, Tabb, certain legal matters bearing on the estate wait to be settled and you may be able to help me to settle them. I first want you to remember everyone who called at the house. Everyone you saw, that is. From about April 1793 until June of that year when you left.’

  ‘What called? To see Mistress Elizabeth, d’ye mean? Or Miss Agatha? There was few what called, sur. The house was real bye . . . Mind, there was village folk. Betty Coad wi’ pilchards. Lobb the Sherborner once weekly. Aaron Nanfan—’

  George waved him into silence. ‘For the Poldarks. Socially. Who called?’

  Tabb thought a few moments and rasped his chin. ‘Why you, sur. You more’n anyone! An’ for the rest, Dr Choake to see Miss Agatha, Parson Odgers once a week, Cap’n Henshawe, the churchwarden, Cap’n Poldark over from Nampara, Sir John Trevaunance maybe twice; I believe Mrs Ruth Treneglos once. Mrs Teague I seen once. Mind I was in the fields half the time and couldn’t hardly—’

  ‘How often did Captain Poldark come from Nampara?’

  ‘Oh . . . once a week. There or thereabouts.’

  ‘Often in the evening?’

  ‘Nay, sur, twas always avnoon he come. Thursday avnoon. Took tea and then off he’d go.�
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  ‘Who came in the evening, then?’

  ‘Why no one, sur. Twas quiet – quiet as the dead. One widow lady, one young gentleman scarce ten years old, one rare old lady. Now if you was to ask me ’bout Mr Francis’s time; thur was times then—’

  ‘And Mistress Elizabeth – no doubt she went out in the evening?’

  Tabb blinked. ‘Went out? Not so’s I know, sur.’

  ‘But in the light evenings of that summer – April, May and June, she must have ridden abroad.’

  ‘Nay, she scarce rode at all. We’d sold all the ’orses, save two which was too old to be rid.’

  George fingered the two guineas, and Tabb stared at them, hoping that this was all.

  George said: ‘Come, come, you have earned nothing yet. Think, man. There must have been others about at that time.’

  Tabb racked his brains. ‘Village folk . . . Uncle Ben would be there wi’ his rabbits. Thur were no outlanders nor—’

  ‘How often did Mistress Elizabeth go to Nampara?’

  ‘To Nampara?’

  ‘That’s what I said. To visit the Ross Poldarks.’

  ‘Never. Not ever. Not’s I know. No, not ever.’

  ‘Why did she not go? They were neighbours.’

  ‘I reckon – I reckon mebbe she never got on so well with Cap’n Poldark’s wife. But tis merest guessingwork fur me to say.’

  There was a long silence.

  ‘Try to remember particularly the month of May. The middle or early part of May. Who called? Who called in the evening?’

  ‘Why . . . why no one, sur. Not a soul ever seen. I said so.’

  ‘What time did you go to bed?’

  ‘Oh . . . nine or ten. Soon as it went dark. We was out and about from cocklight to cockshut and—’

  ‘What time did Mistress Elizabeth retire?’

  ‘Oh . . . ’bout the same. We was all spent.’

  ‘Who locked up?’

  ‘I done that, last thing. Time was when we never locked, but wi’ no other servants and all these vagrants about . . .’

  ‘Well, you have earned nothing, I fear,’ said George, moving to put the money away.

  ‘Oh, sur, I’d tell ee if I knew what twas ye wanted for me to say!’

  ‘No doubt you would. So tell me this. If someone called after you went to bed, would you hear the bell?’

  ‘At night, d’ye mean?’

  ‘When else?’

  Tabb thought. ‘I doubt. I doubt there’d be anyone t’hear. Twas in the lower kitchen, the bell was, and we all slep’ well above.’

  ‘Never? Would you have known?’

  ‘Why – yes, I reckon. What would anyone want t’enter for except to steal? – and there was little enough to steal.’

  ‘But is there any secret way into the house that you know of – one that would be known perhaps to a member of the family?’

  ‘Nay . . . None’s I know. An’ I been there five and twenty year.’

  George Warleggan got up. ‘Very well, Tabb.’ He dropped the coins on the table. ‘Take your guineas and go. I enjoin you to say nothing to anyone – not even to Mrs Tabb.’

  ‘Shan’t tell she,’ said Tabb. Else . . . well, sur, you know how tis. She’d want for to put this money away.’

  ‘Take your guineas,’ said George. ‘And go.’

  III

  Elizabeth Warleggan was thirty-one, and had two children. Her eldest, Geoffrey Charles Poldark, would soon be eleven and was in his first term at Harrow. She had so far received three grubby letters which told her that he was at least alive and apparently well and getting into the routines of the school. Her heart ached every time she looked at them, folded carefully in a corner of her desk; in imagination she read so much between the lines. Her younger son, Valentine Warleggan, was not yet two years old and making a slow recovery from a severe attack of rickets he had suffered last winter.

  She had been out to a card party with three old friends – it was one of her pleasures in spending each winter again in Truro; everyone played cards in Truro, and it was so different from those dull and lonely winters at Trenwith with Francis, and after Francis died. Life with her new husband had its trials, particularly of late, but there was so much more stimulus in it, and she was a woman who responded to stimulus.

  She was wrapping a small parcel in the parlour when George came upon her. He did not speak for a moment but went across to a drawer and began to look through the papers there. Then he said: ‘You should let a servant do that.’

  Elizabeth said lightly: ‘I have little enough to employ my time. It’s a present for Geoffrey Charles. His birthday comes at the end of next week and the London coach leaves tomorrow.’

  ‘Yes, well, you may include a small present from me. I had not altogether forgot.’

  George went to another drawer and took out a small box. In it were six mother-of-pearl buttons.

  ‘Oh, George, they’re very pretty! It is good of you to remember . . . But d’you think he should have them at school? May they not get lost?’

  ‘No matter if they do. He is rather the dandy – a tailor there will be able to make use of them for him.’

  ‘Thank you. I’ll include them with my present, then. And I will add a note to my birthday wishes telling him they are from you.’

  In his letters home Geoffrey Charles had omitted any reference to or message for his stepfather. They had both noticed this but avoided mentioning it.

  George said: ‘You’ve been out?’

  ‘To Maria Agar’s. I told you.’

  ‘Oh, yes. I had forgot.’

  ‘I so much enjoy Maria’s company. She’s so light and jolly.’

  Silence fell. It was not a restful silence.

  Elizabeth said: ‘Valentine was asking for you today.’

  ‘Oh? Valentine?’

  ‘Well, he said repeatedly: “Papa! Papa! Papa!” You haven’t seen him for some days and he misses you.’

  ‘Yes, well . . . tomorrow perhaps.’ George shut the drawer. ‘I saw your old servant today. I chanced upon him at the Fighting Cocks.’

  ‘Who? What servant?’

  ‘George Tabb.’

  ‘Oh . . . Did he seem well?’

  ‘He tried to talk about the old times.’

  Elizabeth re-folded the end of the parcel. ‘I confess I have felt a little conscience-stricken about him since he left.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘Well, he worked for us – I mean for my father-in-law and for Francis for so many years. It’s hard that he should lose everything because he grew above himself in the end.’

  ‘I gave him two guineas.’

  ‘Two guineas! That was more than generous!’ Elizabeth stared at her husband, trying to read his unreadable expression. ‘I’ve sometimes wondered, though, if we should not take him back. He has learned his lesson.’

  ‘A drunkard? Drunkards talk too much.’

  ‘What could he have to talk about? I did not know we had any secrets from the world.’

  George moved to the door. ‘Who has no secrets? We are all vulnerable, aren’t we, to the whispered calumny and the scandalmonger.’ He went out.

  Later they supped alone. Elizabeth’s father and mother had remained at Trenwith, and his father and mother were at Cardew. Recently they had been silent meals. George was an unfailingly polite man with narrow variables of behaviour. Her first husband, Francis, she had known high-spirited, moody, cynical, witty, urbane, coarse, punctilious and untidy. George was seldom any of these things; always his emotions were under a rein. But within those limits she had come to read much, and she knew that over the last two months his attitude had greatly changed towards her. Always he had watched her, as if striving to see if she were really happy in her marriage to him; but of late his watching had become hard to tolerate. And whereas in the old days if she looked up and met his glance his eyes would remain steady, openly brooding on her but in a way that caused no offence; now if she looked up he quickly looked away,
taking his thoughts out of her reach before she could comprehend them.

  Sometimes too she thought the servants watched her. Once or twice letters had reached her which looked as if they might have been opened and re-sealed. It was very unpleasant, but often she wondered how much her imagination was at fault.

  When the servants had gone Elizabeth said: ‘We still have not replied to our invitation to Caroline Penvenen’s wedding. We must soon.’

  ‘I’ve no desire to go. Dr Enys has airs above his station.’

  ‘I suppose all the county will be there.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘I imagine he will have quite a hero’s wedding, having been just rescued from the French and barely survived the ordeal.’

  ‘And no doubt his rescuer will be there too, receiving all the admiring plaudits for an act which was criminally rash and lost the lives of more men than he saved.’

  ‘Well, people love the romantic gesture, as we all know.’

  ‘And the romantic figure too.’ George rose and turned away from her. She noticed how much weight he had lost, and wondered if his changed attitude was a result of some changed condition of health. ‘Tell me, Elizabeth, what do you think of Ross Poldark these days?’

  It was a startling question. For a year after their marriage his name had not been mentioned.

  ‘What do I think of him, George? What do you mean, what do I think of him?’

  ‘What I say. Just what I say. You’ve known him for what – fifteen years? You were – to state the least of it – his friend. When I first knew you you used to defend him against all criticism. When I made overtures of friendship to him and he rebuffed them, you took his side.’

  She stayed at the table, nervously fingering the hem of a napkin. ‘I don’t know that I took his side. But the rest of what you say is true. However . . . in the last years my feelings for him have changed. Surely you must know that. Surely after all this time. Heavens! . . .’