Bella Poldark (35 page)

Philip was staring at Valentine. 'I know nothing of this at all.'

'Why should you? You were playing soldiers.'

'And what went wrong?'

Valentine laughed. 'I married someone else without my father's permission.'

'That is your present wife? - the one who left you?'

'Just so. I have managed only one wife so far. Though she has partly come back.'

Ross looked his enquiry. 'I have been away two weeks.'

'Selina arrived back two weeks before that, accompanied by my son and a dragon of a cousin. Not, of course, here. For some nefarious purposes of his own George has installed her in a little house called Rayle Farm near Tehidy. I have not seen her, nor do I propose to see her. But I am thinking of taking her to law and claiming custody of the child.'

'I must see Cuby,' Ross said, half to himself.

'They too are looking for a smaller home,' Philip said.

'That is, for herself and her mother and her sister and Noelle. I'm hoping my cousin may be able to find something for them. Apparently, now that John has finally given up the fight, there are bailiffs already in the Castle.'

The following morning, Bella having been persuaded to take a cup of beef tea and been able to keep it down, Clowance felt at liberty to steal a few hours off to pursue her own life. When Edward arrived at eleven she proposed they should walk the length of Hendrawna Beach. The weather remained set fair, windless, pellucid, warm. Dwight had lent Edward two light blue shirts with open necks, and yesterday Edward had ridden into Truro and had had a pair of cotton breeches stitched up for himself while he sat and waited.

'This is not true Cornish weather,' Clowance told him.

'Maybe it is specially for us.'

They set off, through the gate, across the few yards of stony sand covered with marram grass, onto the soft sand seldom reached by the sea, felt it harden under their feet, then they were on the great three-mile stretch of pale gold, bordered on the left by the sleepy sea and on the right by hairy sandhills that soon grew into black granite cliffs, on the first of which Wheal Leisure muttered and smoked. For a while they walked in silence. Then she said: 'D'you mind if I take off my shoes?'

'I'll carry them.'

'No. Thank you.'

He said: 'Do you mind if I take my shoes off?'

She giggled. 'Not at all.'

She had been able to kick her shoes off and pick them up while standing; he had to unlace his, so squatted on the sand. While he was doing this he recounted to her his visit to Mr Norris the tailor, who seemed to spend all his life with his mouth full of pins. Then they were off again, squelching into the occasional puddle, talking in a companionable way.

'The sea is a long way out,' he said.

'All right. I'll race you to it.'

She was off before him, fleet of foot, fair hair flying. He set off in pursuit, pounding through the sand which now seemed treacherously soft. He tried to catch her, but her feet just splashed into the creamy curl of surf a second before his. He caught her by the arm, pulled her laughing and breathless against him. He bent his head and found her face with his lips, began to kiss her. She turned her lips to him.

Presently they waded back to dry sand, began to walk arm in arm, the high sun casting shadows like dogs at their feet.

They were still both a little more out of breath than the chase warranted. This was the first time in all their association that they had ever embraced. Yet they were engaged to be married. It was a courtship in reverse. A little archipelago of cloud had come up to make the hot sun temporarily less fierce. He said: 'Those cliffs are growing bigger and blacker as we near them.'

'They are called the Dark Cliffs! But you are not very near yet. At least a mile. A mile and a half.'

'Distances are deceptive.'

'Not only distances.' 'What, for instance?' he asked.

'You, for instance.'

'Explain, please.'

'Need I?'

'Yes.'

'Well, I thought you were more formal.'

'Not always.'

'Perhaps it is the sea air.'

'Not just that.'

'What, then?'

'You, for instance,' he said. She laughed again. She had almost forgotten how to.

'Let's go to the Holy Well. That's less than a mile. Over there. In that cleft where the green comes nearly down to the sea.'

'Why is it holy?'

'It was on the pilgrims' way. I don't know where they were walking to - it may have been St Ives. But they used to shelter there. It is a sort of wishing well.'

'Good. We'll go. Are secular wishes permitted?'

'I think so.'

When they got there it was not an easy climb, though only about thirty feet. The rocks were jagged, mussel-grown and slippery with vivid seaweed.

'Are your feet sore?'

'No,' he lied.

'I'll lead the way.'

They got up without a mistake and stood on a moss green platform of rock, with a raised circle of rock in the middle enclosing a small pool. Edward put some fingers in the pool and licked one.

'It is only faintly brackish.'

'Yes, it's a genuine fresh-water well.'

'And how do you make a wish?'

'Drake says -- my mother's brother, who is now a boat builder in Looe but lived near Nampara for some years oh, but it is a long story. Drake says you wet your finger and wish. There is something you have to say -- he told me, but I have long forgotten - Oh, you . . . !'

Edward had put two of his damp cold fingers on her neck. She thumped him on the chest. He took a step backwards but pulled her with him. He kissed her where her neck was wet and she ruffled his hair, pulling it gently. He said: 'My wish is to be with you always.'

Bella said: 'My voice ..."

'Do not think of that yet, my lover,' Demelza said. 'Just be grateful that you are on the mend.'

'It still hurts to cough.'

'Don't talk if you do not wish to.'

'I wish to -- a little. I have hardly said anything since I came home!'

'That was not your fault.'

'I wanted to ask you: did you send Papa to Rouen to bring me home?'

'It was not like that. We talked about it and talked about it and then your father said: "I would like to see this opera. It's not every man who has a daughter who, before she is twenty, is playing the lead in a professional musical production in a foreign country." He said: "Why do we not go?"'

'He asked you to go?'

'Yes. And I would dearly have liked to come with him, but I - I am at sea with the language and I felt we must not look like jealous parents come to seize you and return with you to lock you up in Cornwall.'Bella gave a wry smile. 'I must write to Mrs Pelham so soon as ever I can.'

'You must. But your father did write to her so soon as you were home.'

Bella said: 'Mama, you had this terrible disease - when Julia died - was your voice husky when you recovered?'

'I don't recall.'

'But ever since I can remember your voice is clear in speaking but has a little huskiness when you sing.'

'Has it? Maybe so. But my voice is as nothing compared to yours. Nothing at all. I don't believe you should think one thing would follow on the other like that.'

'How long was it before you were yourself again?'

'Oh, I have forgot. Anyway, it was not at all the same. I had lost Julia. And your father was in danger of arrest for something he did not do. That would make anyone slow to mend!'

Bella settled down into her bed. 'I am a small matter anxious. Where is Papa today?'

'He has gone Padstow to see Cuby. It seems that John Trevanion is in deep water and has fled the country.'

'Oh yes, you did tell me yesterday, but I wasn't greatly attending.'

Prideaux Place was a long castellated mansion situated just above the town of Padstow, with an extensive view over its own deer park to the sea. When Ross reached it and turned his horse up the short drive he found the house en fete. Or as near that degree of jollity as its owner, the Reverend Charles PrideauxBrune, would sanction. It was the twenty first birthday of his second daughter, Dorothea, and apart from the Trevanions there were six other guests.

. Charles PrideauxBrune was a man in his early fifties, strongly built, with an incipient paunch, a stern expression but a kindly twinkle in his eye. Dorothea was tiny, slight of figure, pretty in a discreet way, played the piano, the violin, the oboe. She had a number of suitors, two of them present today, but Frances, her mother, was keeping them at bay until she made up her own mind. Ross had come to see Cuby, privately to counsel and console her, but this cheerful conversational company was not suited to personal exchanges and advice. Noelle, a chubby little girl of four and a half, galloped quickly up and shouted for a kiss. Ross obliged and shook hands with his hosts, whom he knew only slightly, apologizing for his unannounced arrival and explaining that he had heard Cuby was here and wished to see her on a personal matter. As he was speaking Philip Prideaux, whom Ross had seen only the day before at the mine, came down the stairs, adjusting his glasses and smiling a welcome. Then out of another door, a billiard cue in her hand, Harriet Warleggan.

The PrideauxBrunes insisted that Ross must stay to supper and spend the night. Ross smilingly dissented and then allowed himself to be persuaded when it became clear that George was not here. He knew that Philip and Harriet were old friends. Most of them strolled on the terrace in the balmy evening light before supper was taken. Ross was a little put out by the presence of Mrs Bettesworth, Cuby's mother, a lady he had had some dealings with since Jeremy's death, but someone whom he never personally could bring himself to like. It was probably true that she had suffered a great deal coping with a spendthrift husband and then a spendthrift son; it could not have been a happy life attending race meetings at which their horses always seemed to come in fourth, or being dunned by creditors outside your back door while your son talked to the builders and planned some grandiose addition to a mansion which was already too big for them to keep up. But Ross found it hard to warm towards someone who had so strongly supported, indeed, perhaps was the stronger party in urging her pretty daughter to marry into the Warleggan fortune for the sake of the preservation of the family name and the family seat. Whenever Ross saw her she had a faintly injured expression, as if the world and life had dealt with her too harshly. He did not have an opportunity until Mrs Bettesworth, pleading a headache, had retired early to bed, to get Cuby on her own. (The kind, gentle Clemency had taken Noelle, protesting, in her wake.)

'Cuby,' he said, 'tell me how it is.'

She looked up at him with her velvety eyes, pulled a face of disquiet.

'John has gone and will not be back until he can clear some of his debt. And that is not very likely. He is, I believe, going to Brussels. We all put together what money we had, to give him a chance of escape and of a few weeks of subsistence there. Perhaps you will pardon me for using some of the allowance you so kindly give me--'

Ross pursed his lips. 'What little I give you--'

'It is not little, my dear--'

'What little I give you is for your maintenance and to help Noelle. But the gift has no conditions. When there is an emergency

'I think this was an emergency. The bailiffs have taken possession of the house, and some of the furniture has been seized. My mother has laid claim to it, and I hope to go with her on Wednesday to put a stop to such seizures. The servants have all gone, most of them unpaid, the horses and the carriage, even the gardening implements .. .'

'Philip Prideaux told me you were thinking you might have enough to move into a small house somewhere - was it near Bodmin?'

"We went to see it this morning. It has three bedrooms, good water, two nice living rooms, a tiny kitchen, stables. We can manage.'

*Your mother would go with you?'

'I think she would have to.'

'Well, keep in touch with me, please. It might be worth my seeing this house; to look over it; even perhaps take a builder who could go over it for possible faults.'

'That would be very helpful. But I do not like to take up your time. With Bella being so ill, and Clowance and her new fiance, you will be busy.'

'I see too little of you both.'

'It is my fault; but I have been trying to help my brother keep his head above water.'

Still later he saw Harriet and Philip standing on the terrace deep in conversation. He exchanged a few words with Charles PrideauxBrune and then, as his host was called away, he saw the other two coming in off the terrace. Harriet was in a pale lemon-yellow dress inched at the throat and cuffs. As Philip Prideaux turned away, she looked at Ross ironically.

'Well, Ross, glad to learn your daughter is on the mend.'

'Thank you. It's early days yet, but so far so good.'

'And Clowance is to marry Lord Edward?'

'It seems so.' 'Never met him ... I tried to make a match for her with Philip Prideaux, but did not know she had other arrows in her quiver.'

They had drifted out onto the terrace again. The last blue streaks of the evening were still showing light over the sea. A cool air wafted across. The trembling stars were growing brighter.

'Nor, I believe, did Clowance. Although Edward had asked her to marry him before she married Stephen Carrington . . . How is George?'

'A little grumpy. He's half well, but prefers not to seek social pleasures yet... I hear Caerhays is for sale.'

'I had not heard that, but it is only, I suppose, a question of time. Does George want it?'

'Not now. All those plans, as you know, fell through years ago.'

'I hear he has brought Selina and the child back to Cornwall.'

'Yes, they are near Tehidy. Some farm.'

'Anyway, he went along with me - or you persuaded him to go along with me in the formation of the North Coast Mining Company. Does that mean he is hoping to bring Selina and Valentine together again?'

'No, I think one of the conditions he has made is that Selina should not take little Georgie back to his father.'

'Strange.'

'Not very. I believe George does not want his grandson to come under the influence of his sardonic, dissipated father.' Harriet pulled her dress more closely around her.

'Are you cold?'

'No . . . Nothing.'

Ross put his arm round her shoulders. They were not quite like anyone else's shoulders he had ever touched, stronger, broader, but still very feminine. They stood in silence. A shooting star slid across the sky. Two small boats were heading in for Padstow harbour. He said: 'I have never been able to understand why you came to marry George.'

'Well,' she said, 'you were not available.'

'I was trying to be serious.'

'How do you know I am not serious?'

He waved his free hand. 'Try again!'

She was silent. 'Can't you guess?'

'No.'

'It must be perfectly obvious to you. I was a moderately attractive widow with no money to speak of.'

"You were a very attractive widow, and there are many rich men in the world.'

'I did not descry them.'

'So you married him for his money?'

'So everyone thinks. And everyone would be right - or partly right.'