Jeremy Poldark Page 4

  Theirs was no large-scale business like Mr. Trencrom’s; but by means of four or five runs a year they were able to make enough to help things along. They had left last Saturday and returned Wednesday, putting in to Vaughan’s Cove, a strip of beach connecting at times with Sawle Cove, to find Vercoe and two other excise men waiting ready to lay hands on them. There had been a scuffle, their boat had sunk, drifting on the rocks in the confusion, and Ted Carkeek had been shot in the shoulder. A disagreeable affair, and one which might have repercussions.

  “Twasn’t as if we was doin’ wrong,” Ted said indignantly. “Tis only turning a penny like other folk—and now we’ve to start again from naught, if so be as we’re left be. Like as not we’ll have soldiers in searching the houses, like what they did in St. Ann’s!”

  Betty said: “What we all d’want to know is, how the gaugers knowed where they was going to land. Tisn’t natural. Someone’s been talking.”

  Dwight fastened the clasps of his leather bag, giving a last uneasy glance in the direction of the child. There was little he could do for so young a baby; in any case Mrs. Coad would certainly make her daughter disobey him and give it some witch’s brew of her own. The child would survive or not according to its constitution. He said: “The excise men have long ears. You’ll need to rest that shoulder, Ted.”

  “It edn the first time that’s happened,” said Ted. “Old man Pendarves and Foster Pendarves was caught in April. Red-handed. It’s not natural, I’ll lay.”

  “Did many in the village know of your trip?”

  “Oh…yes, I s’pose. Tis hard for ’em not to guess when you’re gone half the week. But not where we was going to bring the stuff in. That were knowed by only six or seven. If I could lay me hands on the one that couldn’t make to hold his tongue—or, still more, give us away on purpose…”

  It was dark and stuffy in the room, and Dwight had a sudden urge to put his hands up to the slanting beams and push them away. These people might as well live in a cave, shut off from light and sun.

  “Are others of your family ill, Betty?”

  “Well, not ill as you’d say. Joan and Nancy has fever too, but they’re sweating nicely and on the mend.”

  “Have they been nursing your baby?”

  Betty stared at him, more anxious to say the right thing than the truthful. “No, sur,” she got out at last.

  Dwight picked up his bag. “Well, I should not let them.” He turned to leave. “Don’t be too free with your suspicions, Ted. I know it is easy to advise, but once you get suspecting people it’s hard to know where to stop.”

  As he left the cottage and crossed the square towards the fish cellars where several families eked out an existence, he was frowning at the problems the outbreak of fever had brought him. All this summer he had been troubled by a new virulence in this seasonal complaint—not merely by the virulence of taking it bad the way Mrs. Hoblyn had done, but by the emergence of new symptoms when people should have been on the mend. Discolorations of the skin developed, and swellings, and then a new loss of strength. Two children had recently died—apparently from this—and several adults were much more ill than they ought to have been. Even the children who got better were feeble and yellow, with tumid bellies and weak legs. If measles came they would go off like flies. He had tried all his favourite weapons but none of them seemed to do any good. Dwight sometimes wondered if he ought to invent a new complaint called privation disease to cover the ills he found.

  Chapter Three

  Ross rode in to Truro on the following Monday. Demelza would have gone with him had she not sensed that he preferred the journey alone. He was like that at present.

  When he got in he called at once on Mr. Nathaniel Pearce.

  Last February, when the law had so suddenly and unexpectedly moved in the matter, Ross had still been feeling the worst effects of his bereavement and his several failures, and he had endured the justice’s examination in an angry and resentful mood. It had early been clear that he must employ some lawyer to act for him—and who more natural than his own and his father’s, Mr. Notary Pearce, who also was his co-partner in Wheal Leisure and his creditor to the sum of fourteen hundred pounds?

  But several times during the months of waiting Ross had wished himself sufficiently of one mind to make a change before it was too late. Pearce was a good negotiator, adept in conveyances, a sharp and adroit enough man where money was concerned; but there were younger and keener men to prepare briefs for the assizes. Also in this bitter cleavage which had broken out between two factions in the county during the last few years, Pearce was one of the few men with a foot still in each camp. He was a friend of Ross’s and a friend of the Warleggans. A shareholder in Wheal Leisure, he nevertheless banked with the Warleggans—although he sometimes did legal business for Pascoe’s. He was a personal friend of Dr. Choake’s, but had loaned money to Dwight Enys. In principle it was all very good; detachment and impartiality were to be admired. But lately, with ruin and broken homes following in the wake of the struggle, it just wasn’t wholesome any more.

  Ross found him in better spirits than usual. The chronic gout that was settling on him had eased, and he was using his new mobility in a furious attack on boxfuls of ancient legal papers that filled the room. A clerk and an apprentice were helping in the orgy, carrying boxes to his desk and then bearing away the crackling yellow parchments which Mr. Pearce weeded out and flung upon the floor.

  When he saw Ross he said: “There now, Captain Poldark; what a pleasant surprise; do take a chair if there is one—Noakes, clear a chair for Captain Poldark—I am just sorting a little of the older stuff; nothing modern, you follow, selecting a little of the older stuff for disposal. You’re keeping well, I hope; this uncertain weather suits some people.” He scattered a dozen mothy letters on the floor and set his bob wig straight. “My daughter was saying only yesterday—Noakes, take these boxes with you: all this Basset and Tresize stuff has to remain intacta…A little joke there, Captain Poldark, if one knows the subject of the 1705 files…The older families naturally expect their lawyers to preserve all correspondence relating; but space is the obstacle; one needs cellars. My daughter was saying wet summers are healthy summers, do you agree?”

  “I’ll not keep you long,” said Ross.

  Pearce glanced at him and set down the bundle of papers he had grasped. “No. Quite so. But I have a free morning. There are one or two things. Noakes—and you, Biddle—you can leave us. Never mind the boxes. Dear, dear, not in front of the desk. That’s right…Now, Captain Poldark. We’re quite cosy. One minute, just to poke the fire…”

  So they settled to be cosy in the hot, paper-littered room, and Mr. Pearce scratched himself and informed Ross what arrangements had so far been made for his downfall. The assizes would be formally opened on Saturday the fourth, prox., though no business would be transacted until the Monday. Ross would be required to present himself to the Governor of the Prison not later than Thursday the second. The Hon. Mr. Wentworth Lister and the Hon. Mr. H. C. Thornton, two of His Majesty’s Judges out of the Court of Common Pleas, were to hold the commission. Probably H. C. Thornton would deal with the nisi prius side, and Wentworth Lister would handle the Crown cases. The lists were very crowded because when the winter assizes had been due to take place there had been so much fever in Launceston that the lawyers had refused to come down, and nearly all the cases had been postponed until the summer. It was likely, however, that Ross’s trial, being considered an important one, would be put forward to the Tuesday or the Wednesday.

  “Who is leading for the Crown?”

  “Henry Bull, I believe. I could have wished for someone different—though, mind you, I’ve never seen him, don’t know him, except by repute; and by repute he’s a trifle hard-hitting, shall we say. No great lawyer, one understands, but keen to get his verdict. Still that’s as may be. You’ve a great deal of good will, Captain Poldark; it all h
elps; dear me, it’s of high importance where a jury is concerned.” Pearce reached forward with his curtain rod and jabbed at the fire again.

  “Good will and ill will,” said Ross, watching the other’s face.

  “Indeed, one doesn’t hear of it. Naturally, there may be some; we all have enemies; it’s hard to come through life without them. But not many, I’m thinking, being committed in a magistrate’s court as you were, can have had their bail money paid in by two of the magistrates on the bench. And after the things you said it was, I declare, a considerable tribute. You were a thought—hrr—hrr—reckless, to say the least, as I’ve suggested before.”

  “I only said what I thought.”

  “Oh, I’ve not doubt of that; indeed not. But if one may venture the suggestion—it doesn’t always do, Captain Poldark, to say exactly what one thinks without regard to one’s circumstances—that’s if one wishes to—er—In this case, with Lord Devoran and Mr. Boscoigne sympathetic towards you, some—some formula might have been found if you had not committed yourself so willingly. I hope, when the opportunity comes for you to speak in court, you will have greater regard for your safety. In my view—humble as it is—a lot will hang on your attitude then.”

  “Hang is the word.” Ross got up and made his way among the papers to the window.

  “Let us hope not. Dear me, no. But, remember, you will have a jury to consider—always very susceptible to good and bad impressions. You can do a great deal for yourself, believe me. Of course, counsel will advise you when you see him—and I do trust you’ll accept his advice.”

  Ross watched a spider crawling up into its web in a corner of the windowpane. “Look, Pearce, there is one thing I have not done and must do—that is, make a will. Can you have it done—drawn up now so that it may be signed before I leave?”

  “Why, yes, it’s not impossible so long as the testamentary conditions are not involved. Noakes can be got in when you please.”

  “It should not be involved at all. A simple straightforward statement that I leave all my debts to my wife.”

  Pearce picked up a book and allowed a fat finger to travel experimentally along its edge for dust. “Not so bad as that, surely, ha, ha! Things are somewhat tight for the moment, but no doubt they’ll ease.”

  “They’ll ease if they’re allowed to ease. If things go wrong at Bodmin, you’ll barely see your money back. So it’s self-interest as well as common justice to get me my freedom.” There was a faint ironical spark in Ross’s eyes.

  “Just so. Just so. We shall all work for it, believe me. A great deal depends on the jury. I confess I should feel a small matter more settled if there had not been so much trouble in France. We have to face it. That disturbance in Redruth in the autumn; ten years ago it would have been a case for the petty sessions—now one hanged and two transported…” Mr. Pearce scratched under his wig. “Shall I call in Noakes again now?”

  “Please do.”

  The lawyer levered himself out of his chair and pulled the bell. “We still have the defence statement to complete. It’s essential if you’re to plead not guilty that…”

  Ross turned from the window. “Leave it today. I don’t think I’m in the mood. When the gaol is waiting I may bring my mind to a better grip of the affair…”

  ***

  He had a standing invitation to dinner with the Pascoes, and when he left Mr. Pearce’s office, as it was by then two o’clock, he walked at a leisurely pace towards the bank, which was in Pydar Street. Another bad day; August was refusing to relent. A cold northwest wind was bringing heavy showers, and the hot sun that broke between had no time to dry the streets before the clouds blew up again for the next storm. In this town where little rivulets ran down the side of the streets even in the dryest of summers, and half-hidden streams bubbled in every side alley, a town that one could not leave except by bridge or ford, one got a sense of saturation. In low-lying places the muddy pools were slowly submerging the cobbles and joining to become lakes.

  To avoid one stretching half across Powder Street, Ross turned up the slit of Church Lane, and the wind, suddenly finding new venom, blew at his coattails and tried to snatch his hat. Another man behind him was not so lucky, and a black felt with a wide brim came hobbling along the wet cobbles to finish up at Ross’s feet. He picked it up. As its owner came along he saw that it was Francis. So much had happened in their relationship since the angry scene of last August that they met like strangers, remembering the old emotions but no longer feeling them.

  “God’s my life,” said Francis. “What a pesky wind. One is blown down this alley like a pea down a pipe.” He accepted the hat but did not put it back on his head. His hair continued to blow about. “Thank you, Cousin.”

  Ross nodded briefly and moved to pass on.

  “Ross…”

  He turned. Francis was thinner, he noticed. The threat of stoutness had gone; but he looked no better for it. “Well?”

  “We meet irregularly, and that no doubt’s too often for you. It’s not a view I’d criticize; but there’s a thing or two I want to say in case another year passes before the opportunity occurs again.”

  “Well?” Ross’s unquiet eyes stared past the other man.

  Francis hunched up the high velvet collar of his coat. “Talking in this funnel’s trying on the temper. I’ll walk with you a few paces.”

  They fell into step. Francis did not speak until they reached St. Mary’s Church and turned along beside the railings of the churchyard.

  “Two things, I think, in the main. You cannot want my good wishes or be in a mood to appreciate them, but when you go to Bodmin next month you may know that you have them just the same.”

  “Thanks.”

  “The second is that should my help be of any use you may have that also.”

  “I don’t think it can be.”

  “Nor I, in the main concern, or I’d proffer it with greater eagerness. But in one eventuality…”

  He hesitated and stopped, both in speech and in motion. Ross waited. Francis was rapping at the railings with his stick.

  “Gravestones are a good place for confidences, no doubt. Supposing things should go wrong with you next month, how is Demelza fixed?”

  Ross raised his head as if conscious of some challenge—not from Francis, but from this circumstance which was rearing itself in other people’s minds as well as his own. “She’ll survive. What is it to you?”

  “Only that help may be offered in a variety of ways. I’m no doubt as nearly bankrupt as you, or nearer; but if after next month you are in prison and I out, she can turn to me if she needs help or advice. I have a name still in the county and happen to have a little hard money put by. She may have that if she needs it, or anything else I own.”

  It was Ross’s impulse to say, What, turn to a traitor and a sneak thief like you, who betrayed and ruined a dozen good men and a fine project for the sake of petty spite; but he had no proof, and anyway it was over and gone. Resentment and bitterness and old grudges were dead things which rotted the hands that grasped them. Something Demelza said last winter just after Julia’s death: “All our quarrels seem small and petty. Oughtn’t we to find all the friendship we can—while there’s still time?”

  He said: “Is that Elizabeth’s view too?”

  “I haven’t consulted her. But I’m sure it would be.”

  The sun had gone in for the next shower. The light was hard and metallic, the street still and colourless as in a steel engraving.

  “Thank you. I hope the offer will not be necessary.”

  “That’s my hope too, of course.”

  The thought welled up suddenly in Ross that but for this man none of the rest might have happened. The copper company on its feet, his child alive. No stopping it this time. Yet here he was, soberly talking as if nothing had happened. A blow in the face.

  He said in
a changed voice: “I have just made my will. Pearce has it. No doubt he’ll be capable of discharging his duties if the worst comes to the worst.” He raised his crop in a half salute, not meeting his cousin’s eyes, and turned on his heel to continue to the Pascoes’.

  ***

  Harris Pascoe was behind the counter when he went in; but the banker at once beckoned him to come to the side, and they entered the private room together. Over a glass of brandy Pascoe said:

  “We have young Enys to dinner—the first time for several months. Joan is pleased, but I am a little doubtful of the attachment. It has run on so long that I don’t think it will come to anything. Especially after Dwight’s affair with that w-woman last year.”

  “The girl threw herself at him,” Ross said. “…I hope I shall not be the skeleton at the feast today.”

  “No indeed. Your visits are as rare as Enys’s. Come along in. I can join you in a minute.”

  “There was business in my visit as well,” said Ross. “To do with my approaching assize call.”

  He found a certain detached interest in watching the responses of various people when he mentioned his coming trial. In some people’s eyes a morbid speculative gleam would betray itself behind the show of sympathy—others would shy away as if they had been told you were going to have your leg off. Harris Pascoe wrinkled his mouth in distaste and made a show of fixing his spectacles more firmly behind his ears.

  “We hope for a happy outcome of that.”

  “But in the meantime a prudent man puts his affairs in order.”

  “There’s very little more to do at present, I think.”

  “Except become solvent.”

  “Ye-es. Q-quite so. Quite so. Would you like to look at your account while you are here?”