Jeremy Poldark Read online

  They went into the bank, and Pascoe opened one of the great black books, dusted a little stale snuff off a page and coughed.

  “The position in a nutshell is this. You have a credit balance of a little over a hundred and eighty pounds. You have a permanent mortgage on your property with the bank of two thousand three hundred pounds, bearing seven per cent interest. You have a further indebtedness outside, I understand, of—of one thousand pounds, is it?—b-bearing interest at forty p-per cent—repayable when?”

  “This December or next.”

  “This December or next. And your income—in round figures, as it were?”

  “Not more than three hundred a year net.”

  Harris winced again. “Er—yes. That’s after living expenses are paid, I suppose?”

  “Ordinary expenses of food, yes.”

  “Well, it just won’t go, will it? You’ll remember when you c-contemplated taking out that second bill I advised you instead to sell the mine shares. However, I’m not here to say I told you so. Any other substantial debts?”

  “No.”

  A bluebottle had entered through an open window and was exploring the room with great vigour. The banker pushed the ledger along the desk, and Ross signed his name against the last entry in his account.

  “I am concerned,” he said, “to see some sort of security for my wife. I try not to take a pessimistic view of this trial, but no good comes of being an ostrich.” He raised his deceptively sleepy eyes, and there was a touch of irony in them again. “There are various ways in which the law can deprive her of my support—so if she comes to widowhood or grass widowhood before her time I should take some comfort in knowing she would not be without a home.”

  “I think you can be assured of that,” the banker said quietly. “Your liquid assets will meet the second mortgage. If they do not quite I will make up the difference.”

  They walked back into the private room. “You have the disadvantage of being my friend,” Ross said.

  “Not all d-disadvantage.”

  “I’ve a long memory—if the law will allow me to keep it.”

  “I’m sure it will.” In some embarrassment, since the conversation seemed to be becoming emotionally charged, he went on in a different tone. “There is one thing I should t-tell you, Poldark, though it’s not yet public property. I am enlarging the scope of my business and taking partners into it.”

  Ross had his glass filled. It was not good news to him, who at the moment felt himself dependent on the personal good will of the banker, but he could not show that.

  “A considerable step, but naturally you wouldn’t take it without good reason.”

  “No. I think I have good reason. Of course, when my father began his tin discounting it was a d-different matter. Business was simple and straightforward thirty years ago, and we did not issue bank notes until I was married. We have always held a high r-reputation, and so long as such a trust existed there was no need for complicated systems of finance. But things have changed and we must move with the times. Nowadays a bank is subject to all k-kinds of new responsibilities and stresses—and they are more, I think, than one man—or one family—should shoulder.”

  “Who are to be your new partners?”

  “St. Aubyn Tresize, whom you know. He has money and prestige and wide interests. The second is Annery, the solicitor. A warm man. The third is Spry.”

  “I don’t know him.”

  “From Come-to-Good. A quaker. I shall be managing partner and we shall be known as P-Pascoe, Tresize, Annery & Spry. I think the meal will be ready now. A drop more brandy just to top up your glass?”

  “Thank you.”

  As they moved towards the stairs which led up to the living rooms of the house, Pascoe added:

  “In fact it was our experience of last autumn which finally decided me to take this action.”

  “You mean the failure of the Carnmore Copper Company?”

  “Yes…No doubt, fighting it out as you fought it out—in the arena all the time—you could feel the pressure of the hostile interests, the other copper companies and the banks concerned, plainly enough. But sitting here—you know I hardly ever go out—sitting here in this quiet bank one was aware of s-subtle stresses too.”

  “Also hostile.”

  “Also hostile. I was not, as you know, directly interested in the copper venture. It is not my business as a custodian of other people’s money to take speculative risks. But I was aware that if I had been so concerned I should not have been strong enough to stand the strains that could have been put on me. Credit is an unpredictable thing—as unstable as quicksilver. One cannot box it up. One can only give it away—and once given it is elastic up to the very point of breakage. Last autumn I realized that the days of the one-man bank are over. It—disturbed me—shook me out of a comfortable rut in wh-which I had been for many years. All this year I have been feeling my way towards some broader organization.”

  They went up the stairs to dinner.

  Chapter Four

  When Francis got home it was just after six. He had had to ride into the teeth of the wind all the way, and there had been a half dozen torrential showers, some of them with more than a suggestion of hail, to stream off his horse’s head and his cape and to strike at his face under the insecure hat, to trickle down his neck and soak his riding breeches above the leather leggings. Twice too he had nearly come off when his horse slipped in mud-filled ruts more than a foot deep. So he was not in a good temper.

  Tabb, last of the two remaining house servants, came to take his horse and began to say something; but a gust of wind and another flurry of rain bore it away and Francis went into the house.

  It was a silent house these days; and already it showed signs of poverty and neglect: wild weather and salt air is hard on man’s work and there were damp stains on the ceiling of this fine hall and a smell of mildew. Portraits of the Poldarks and the Trenwiths stared coldly across the unfrequented room.

  Francis tramped to the stairs, intending to go up and change, but the door of the winter parlour flew open and Geoffrey Charles came galloping down the hall.

  “Daddy! Daddy! Uncle George is here and has brought me a toy horse! A lovely one! With brown eyes and brown hair and stirrups I can put my feet in!”

  Francis saw Elizabeth had come to the door of the winter parlour; so now there was no escape from greeting an unexpected visitor.

  As Francis went in George Warleggan was standing by the fireplace. He was wearing a snuff-coloured coat, silk waistcoat, and black cravat, with fawn breeches and new brown riding boots. Elizabeth looked a little flushed, as if the surprise call had pleased her. George came seldom these days, being not too sure of his welcome here. Francis had queer moods and resented his indebtedness.

  Elizabeth said: “George has been here an hour. We were hoping you would be back before he had to leave.”

  “Quite an honour these days.” Francis bent to satisfy Geoffrey Charles with admiration for his new toy. “Now I am here you’d best stay till this shower is over. I’ve been anointed many times on the way home.”

  George said evenly: “You’ve lost weight, Francis. So have I. We shall all look like sans-culottes before the century is out.”

  Francis’s eyes travelled over George’s broad frame. “I notice no change for the better.”

  The cream curtains in this room were inches farther across the windows than Francis liked them; they diffused the light, giving it a tactful and opaque quality which irritated him. He went across and pulled them sharply back. When he turned he saw that Elizabeth had flushed at his last remark as if it were her responsibility.

  “We ordinary people,” George said, “are affected by the vagaries of fortune. Our faces, our figures are marked and warped by all the storms that blow. But your wife, my dear Francis, has a beauty which is untouched by ill luck or indif
ferent health and only grows more radiant when the tide turns.”

  Francis threw off his coat. “I think we all need drink. We can still afford drink, George. Some of the old instincts remain.”

  “I have been pressing him to sup with us,” Elizabeth said. “But he will not.”

  “Cannot,” said George. “I must be back at Cardew before dark. I had been as far as St. Ann’s this afternoon on mining business and could not resist calling on you when so near. You come so little to town these days.”

  George was right, Francis thought cynically as his wife took a wineglass from him, Elizabeth’s beauty was too pure to be affected by everyday circumstance. George still envied him one thing.

  “And how’s mining?” he asked. “One advantage of being out of it is that one can take a purely academic interest in its vagaries. Are you thinking of closing Wheal Plenty?”

  “Far from it.” George poked the carpet with his long malacca stick and then stopped because just there the pattern of the carpet was wearing thin. “Tin and copper are both rising. If it goes on we may be able to restart Grambler one day.”

  “If that was possible!” said Elizabeth.

  “Which it is not.” Francis drained his glass at a draught. “George is romancing for your benefit. Copper would have to double its price to justify a new outlay on Grambler now it is closed and derelict. Had it been saved from closing there might have been another story. It will not reopen in our lifetime. I am fully resigned to spending the rest of my days as an impoverished farmer.”

  George humped his shoulders. “I’m sure you are making a mistake. You’re both making a mistake of remaining shut up here. There is plenty to be had of life even in these depressed days. Poldark is still a good name, Francis, and if you moved in society more opportunity would come of bettering yourself. There are patronages to be had, if nothing better, paid offices which carry no obligation and no loss of prestige: indeed, the reverse. I could become a burgess any day if it pleased me, but at present it pleases me to keep out of the political field. As for you…”

  “As for me,” said Francis, “I am a gentleman and want no patronage—either from gentlemen or others.”

  He said it without emphasis, but the sting was there. George smiled, but it was not the sort of observation he would be likely to forget. Few people had the courage to make such remarks to him nowadays.

  Elizabeth made an impatient movement. “It’s surely not reasonable to quarrel when there is friendship—when there are friendships to be had. Pride can go too far.”

  “Talking of the Poldarks,” Francis went on, taking no notice of her. “I saw that other representative of the name in Truro today. He didn’t seem unduly depressed by his forthcoming trial, though he was not anxious to discuss it with me. One can hardly blame him.”

  Francis bent again to speak to his son and the others were silent.

  George eventually said: “I wish him an acquittal at his trial, of course. But I don’t think the outcome will affect your good name, Francis. Am I my brother’s keeper? Still less so, then, of a cousin.”

  Elizabeth said: “What chance is there of an acquittal, do you think?”

  “A lovely horse,” said Francis gently to Geoffrey Charles. “A lovely horse.”

  “I don’t see how there can be a clear acquittal,” George said, dabbing his lips with a lace handkerchief and watching Elizabeth’s expression. “Ross was a free agent at the time of the wrecks. No one coerced him into doing what he did.”

  “If one believes he did it!”

  “Naturally. That will be for the court to find. But the fact that he has treated the law with contempt on a number of previous occasions will be inclined to weigh to his detriment.”

  “What previous occasions? I know of no others.”

  “Nor is the court supposed to,” Francis said, straightening up. “But it will not be left in ignorance. I came on this pretty little sheet in Truro today. There are sure to be others in Bodmin before next week.”

  He took a crumpled paper out of his pocket, straightened it, and, avoiding Geoffrey Charles’s outstretched fingers, passed it to Elizabeth.

  “I thought of showing it to Ross,” Francis added, “but decided it was discreeter to leave him in ignorance.”

  Elizabeth stared at the paper. It was a typical broadsheet, run off a cheap press, the ink blurred and unevenly spread.

  True and Sensational Facts in the life of Captain R-s-P—d—k, bold adventurer, seducer, and suspected murderer, shortly to stand his trial on Criminal Charges at B—m-n Assizes next. Price One Penny. Written by an Intimate Friend.

  After a minute she put the paper down and looked at Francis. Francis looked steadily, interestedly, back at her. The thing was written in the form of a biography, and none of the salacious rumours of the last two years was missing—all set out as if the facts were beyond dispute.

  Francis offered it to George, but he waved it away. “I have seen them about. One of our coachmen was caught reading a similar thing yesterday. They are not important.”

  “Not important,” said Francis gently, “except to Ross.”

  “Come here, boy,” George said to his godson, “you have the reins entangled with the saddle. Look, this is the way it goes.”

  Elizabeth said: “But if all this is believed it will prejudice the jury, will prejudice everyone! They talk of a fair trial…”

  “Don’t distress yourself, my dear Elizabeth,” George said. “These scurrilous broadsheets are always going about regarding someone or other. No one takes account of ’em. Why, only last month there was some sheet issued purporting to show in the most lurid and circumstantial detail that feeble-mindedness and insanity runs all through the Royal Family and that the King’s father, Frederick, was a pervert and a degenerate beyond recall.”

  “And isn’t it so?” Francis asked.

  George shrugged. “I suppose there is some sludge of truth in the basest slander.”

  His meaning was obvious.

  “It states,” said Elizabeth, “that Ross served in the American war only to escape charges of this sort being brought against him before. But he was only a boy at the time—there was some boyish escapade, I know, but nothing serious. And this—about Demelza…And this—”

  Francis read: “Furthermore, there are numerous brats scattered throughout the countryside whose parentage might be in doubt did there not exist the strange Circumstance of the scar wherewith the Devil hath cursed all the Captain’s offspring—this scar being so like unto his own that the same branding iron might have been Employed. Here in good earnest we find—”

  “What does that mean?” Elizabeth asked.

  “Jinny Carter’s child has a scar,” said Francis. “Jinny Scoble, as she now is. The pamphleteer has been to some trouble to scrape up all the—er—what did you call it?—all the sludge. ‘By an Intimate Friend.’ I wonder who it could be. Not you, George, I suppose?”

  George smiled. “I earn my bread in a more orthodox manner. Only a bankrupt would sell his services that way.”

  “Money is not always the strongest inducement,” said Francis, his gibe turned against him.

  George bent his head to rest his chin on the knob of his stick. “No, perhaps spite could play its part…Anyway, the matter is unimportant, isn’t it? If the stories are all untrue they can be refuted.”

  But he had touched Francis on a raw spot and his characteristic turning of the point when he had made it did not quite come off. It had long been George’s practise to swallow insults and to pay them back at leisure. Francis had been brought up to no such self-control. It was fortunate that just then Geoffrey Charles fell off his horse and pulled the animal over on top of him, for when the clamour had subsided the worst moment was past. For two reasons Elizabeth exerted herself to prevent a recurrence of it. First, George almost owned the things they stood in. Second, o
n personal grounds, she did not want to lose his friendship. Admiration such as he brought was rare enough in the life she led. She knew it was her due, and the knowledge made it all the harder to be without.

  Chapter Five

  Bodmin at the time of the summer assizes of 1790 was a town with three thousand inhabitants and twenty-nine public houses.

  A historian passing through two centuries before had noted the unhealthiness of the situation, the houses in the mile-long main street being, he pointed out, so shut off from sun by the hill behind that no light could have entrance to their stairs nor open air in their rooms. When it rained, he added, all the filth of the outbuildings and stables was washed down through these houses into the street; and, further, the main water supply ran openly through the churchyard, which was the ordinary place of burial for town and parish.

  The intervening years had not changed the situation, but there was nothing so far as Ross could see in the hard-bitten look of the inhabitants to suggest they suffered any unusual apprehensions from sickness or pestilence. Indeed in the previous summer, while cholera raged in the districts around, the town had escaped.

  He presented himself at the gaol on Thursday the second of September, and Demelza followed on the Saturday. He had been opposed to her being at the trial at all, but she had insisted so vehemently that for once he gave way. He reserved a room for her at the George and Crown, and a place for her on the midday coach, but unknown to him she had been making extra arrangements of her own. Bailey’s Flyer began its long ran from the West Country at Falmouth, and when she met it at Truro at eleven forty-five Verity was travelling in it.

  They greeted each other like old lovers, kissing with a depth of affection that trouble brought to the surface, each aware of the other’s love for Ross and of a uniting purpose.

  “Verity! Oh, I’m that glad to see you; it’s been an age—and no one to talk to as I talk to you.” Demelza wanted to board the stage at once, but Verity knew they had a quarter of an hour’s wait, so steered her cousin-in-law into the inn. They sat in a corner by the door and talked in earnest confidential tones. Verity thought Demelza looked years older than at their last meeting, and thinner and paler, but somehow it all suited her dark hair and brows and wayward eyes.