Bella Poldark (46 page)

'He deserves her.'

'People don't always get their deserts.'

'Do you know more about this than you have told me? Did something more happen in Rouen?'

He took a few breaths to light his pipe, to shake the spill out and throw it into the fire. He did not often lie to Demelza.

'Nothing I have been told of. Quite clearly there was more between her and Maurice than just a normal conductor soprano relationship. But that was clear to anyone seeing them together. I have no more idea than you whether it is a trivial flirtation or something deeper. Certainly he has proposed marriage - but for that he was late in the field. Apart from a question of "deserts", I rather hope if she takes either she will take Christopher. Maurice does not look as if he would always be a faithful husband.'

'How do we know Christopher would?'

'We don't,' said Ross.

Next day Ross went to see Ralph Allen Daniell at Trelissick; they had a few business interests in common, including the reverbatory furnaces just outside Truro, and Daniell had been laid up for a month with gout. The main drive of Trelissick emerges halfway up the steep hill leading from King Harry Ferry and on his return, as he came out onto the grass-grown, rutted, pot-holed lane, Ross glanced down and perceived the ferry must just have arrived, for a group of people were toiling up the hill, including one horseman and two pony-drawn traps, all being led up by their owners. Ross saw that the solitary horseman wore one arm in a sling and was instantly recognizable for his black cloak and erect figure.

He stopped, his head on his horse's muzzle. 'Philip! I see you are giving yourself no rest.'

'Sir Ross.' Philip took off his hat. 'I have rest enough. My arm is nearly healed. D'you know your Dwight Enys put eleven or twelve stitches in it, and so delicately that it felt like pinpricks. Your average Army surgeon -- and I should know -- might as well be a saddler for all the care he takes!'

'You came over on the ferry?'

'Yes, I had cause to go to Menabilly.'

'Along ride.'

'Fairish. How is your wife?' 'Has recovered well, I think. My obligation to you remains.'

'Thank God I was there. I travel a lot for the Duchy and on my own concerns, and I could as well have been on the other side of the county.'

'But you say you suspected Paul Kellow?'

'After a fashion, but of course no proof. As I went round to the sites of the murders and to meet the relatives of those who had died, a vague picture of the murderer came to form itself. A gentleman of thin build, wanting to appear taller and more frightening than he really was, someone at a loose end who could travel about the county as I could, a Cornishman who knew his districts, a man who liked to talk about the murders; three times in my company Paul brought the subject up; Agneta Treneglos slept two nights in the Kellows' shed; the killer seemed to have a special interest in your wife. He had tried to kill her - or tried to frighten her - once before.'

Ross shivered. 'Have you seen him since the night, since he was arrested?'

'No. He is safe in Bodmin. They say he is giving no trouble.'

'You were asked by the Duchy of Cornwall to make some investigations?'

'No, no. By Sir Charles Graves-Sawle, the then Sheriff. He and one or two others were becoming anxious about these unsolved murders and seemed to believe I might be of use. And in the end I suppose I was.'

'God's my life, you were!'

They had passed the steepest part of the hill and paused to mount their horses.

'In fact,' said Philip, 'I lay at Menabilly. William Rashleigh is the new High Sheriff, and after supper last night I gave him - him and others - an account of Paul Kellow's arrest. That was the purpose of my visit.'

'I should expect them to be very appreciative of what you had done.'

'Unduly so. So much of it was good fortune. Especially that I should have been staying with Geoffrey Charles on Bonfire Night!'

'Amen. Shall you continue in this vein?'

'What vein?'

'Taking at least some interest in the law and order of the county.'

'No. Oh, no. I told them so last night.'

Ross looked at the younger man.

'You speak with a certain amount of -- well, of vehemence. Did you not enjoy the experience?'

'I certainly felt a real sense of satisfaction at the outcome. But I do not want to develop that attitude of mind.'

'I'm not quite sure what you mean.'

Philip touched his horse and the two men began to move up the lane.

'I sometimes think,' Philip said, 'that maybe I lost Clowance because of it.'

Ross stared. 'Now I certainly do not know what you mean.'

'Well... I have spent all my life as a soldier, have I not? I know I ride and stand like a soldier. A soldier, an officer; it is part of his duty to enforce the law. Discipline becomes second nature. This - this pursuit of a murderer, this helping to enforce the law, it is all part and parcel of the same attitude of mind - is it not? Justice. Discipline. Order - these are all a necessary ingredient of life. But there are other ingredients too. There are music and scholarship, laughter, love, the enjoyment of the seasons. Since – since I proposed marriage to Clowance - and especially when she said no -- I have thought there is enough of the censorious in my nature, too much discipline, not enough appreciation of the gentler sides of life, and this, although I know she is fond of me, may have been enough to turn the scales against me--'

'Oh, I don't think you should blame yourself--'

'I do not know that it is blame, but it is an awareness that many of these attributes I have listed may not altogether look like attributes to a woman . . . All right, she might still have preferred Edward Fitzmaurice to me; but you will still see that I do not wish to pursue the role of a soldier in civilian life if by doing so I develop those characteristics even further.'

Ross said: 'I follow your meaning now. But I think you are being hard on yourself.'

They reached the main toll road from Falmouth to Truro. This too was grass-grown and rutted, but wider.

'You are not wearing your spectacles, Philip.'

'They were shattered in the struggle with Kellow. I shall not bother to replace them. I think perhaps they were a sort of symbol.'

'Of what?'

'D'you know, since I had that breakdown in the West Indies I have struggled with a very wayward temperament. When I confronted Kellow in your hall and he stabbed me in the arm, and I knew that he intended to kill your wife, I struck him down with joy - and was in a great temptation to go on smashing him about the head until there was no life left in him at all. Perhaps I should have done so, but the fact that I did not was a sort of victory. It is hard to explain to you.'

'I think I understand.'

The two horses ambled along side by side, neither of them in a hurry, and the riders gave them their head.

'Are you still staying with Geoffrey Charles?'

'No. I shall go straight back to Prideaux Place. I shall see how Cuby and Clemency are faring.'

'Cuby was saying how much she owed to your help.'

'It has been a pleasure.'

'I wonder you don't ask her to marry you.'

Philip did not answer. Ross said: 'I'm sorry. I should not have said that. But it would be another and - I would have thought -- most agreeable way of becoming a part of our family.'

'A sort of guard dog?' Philip shook his head angrily, then laughed. 'It is my turn to apologize. It was perhaps meant to be a joke. If so, it was a bad one, an unworthy remark.'

'In suggesting what I did I was not confusing gratitude with friendship.'

'I'm sorry. But no.'

'You do not care for her?'

'Very much. But she would refuse me. And one refusal is enough for any man's self-respect.'

'And why do you think she would refuse you?'

'Because she would inevitably think I was looking on her as second-best.'

'I don't think self-esteem would enter into it. In marrying Jeremy's widow - if that had come to pass - you might have had reason to think that you yourself were being regarded as second-best.'

'You argue well, Sir Ross.'

'In a good cause.'

'Thank you.'

'Do not forget,' Ross said, 'that there are other men about. Cuby is a very attractive young widow. In the eyes of most men, no doubt, she has two serious flaws. She has a child and she has no money.'

'That would make no difference to me,' said Philip, almost inadvertently. Then he caught Ross's eye and laughed again. 'Shall we change the subject?'

It had been a pleasant enough day, but dusk was not far away. As they neared Truro the first lights were glimmering in the town. At the top of the long hill Philip said: 'There is one other subject I should raise with you. I have had some doubt about it since we first met today. The group I supped with last night -- insofar as there is any modern law in Cornwall, I suppose they represent it. The present Sheriff, William Rashleigh, Charles Graves-Sawle, a Boscawen, a St Aubyn, and so on. In the course of the evening clearly other matters were discussed apart from the capture of Kellow. But what was said there was totally confidential. So for a time I have hesitated

'Pray do not break your confidentiality on my account.'

'I have strict reservations about becoming a member of your family - at least on the grounds now open - yet I warmly appreciate the wish you have expressed, and I - I should fail ..."

'Come, come, man, stop wrestling with your conscience! I cannot imagine that anything said between these gentlemen can involve me!'

'Only in an indirect way.' Philip swallowed and pulled his horse to a halt. Ross did likewise.

'Do you know a man called Paulton?'

'No.'

'Vic Paulton. Captain Paulton, as he likes to be known. As you will know, Valentine Warleggan began to employ a small vessel for service between Padstow and Rosslare, and after it was wrecked, and he bought from Clowance the half-finished brig that Carrington had laid down, he engaged this Paulton and another man called Mabe to be in charge of this new vessel. But sometime at the end of last year Valentine quarrelled with the two men and sacked them and resorted, with two other seamen as his crew, to taking the vessel across to Ireland himself. This he has done ever since. It seems that he had caught Paulton and Mabe red-handed in defrauding him of his profits. Had it been a legitimate trade they would have gone to prison, but Valentine could only afford to kick them out and carry on on his own.'

'So?'

'Earlier this year apparently Paulton and Mabe were able to rent a vessel and start up on their own. Last month they were caught in Looe River loading illicit tin. They cast off and made sail, but the coastguard cutter overtook them. Shots were exchanged before they were captured.'

'And they have involved Valentine?'

You'll know that firing at a coastguard is a hanging matter. They are lodged in Liskeard jail, and Gawen Carew, who was there last night, says they are offering to turn King's Evidence in return for their lives.'

Ross stroked the head of his horse, who was getting restive.

'D'you think the Crown will take the bait?'

'It seems so. You see - you must know - that this is not ordinary smuggling on which three-quarters of the county turns a blind eye. This is a matter of stealing barefaced from the Coinage Hall and from the Counting House, in which many of the gentry have an interest. The name of Warleggan, though somewhat to be feared, is also heartily disliked among many of the older families. The fact that this is Valentine, who lives on the north coast and is, apparently, at odds with his father, does not carry the weight it might. There are many in the county who are quite independent of Warleggan's Bank and who would welcome seeing a criminal of that name brought to book and on such a charge.'

Ross hesitated. 'I'll come into the town with you - we can stop for a drink before we separate.'

'Gladly.'

The steep cobbled hill was not to the liking of their mounts, but they reached the bottom successfully. Ross said: 'You leave me with an entirely free hand?'

'Of course'

'Have you any idea when there may be a move on Valentine?'

'I should not, if I were in his shoes, want to delay more than a week.'

'Delay doing what?'

'Leaving the country. Going to France. Or Belgium, like John Trevanion. To be out of reach for a while. But this of course is not, like John's, a simple bankruptcy. I confess I do not know what I should advise him to do. I am sorry to - to burden you with this information, but I thought you would wish to have it -- in the greatest confidence. Please, you must repeat this to no one - except of course to Valentine, if so be as you think fit.'

'I promise.'

'You have saved him once, I know. But this is a very different matter.'

'Let's stop here,' said Ross. 'I would appreciate a drink now.'

When Ross returned to Nampara it was getting on for four and half dark. They had kept dinner for him, and while he chatted to Demelza in the hall he saw a letter addressed to him lying on the only table which had not been battered in the fight.

'Post?' he said.

'No. David Lake brought it. He did not stop or say anything to Gimlett, but it looks like Valentine's handwriting.'

He opened the letter as a bowl of soup was put before him.

Dear Cousin Ross (the letter began)

There is a familiar saying about 'stewing in one's own juice', and after reading these lines you may well decide that that is precisely what you would like me to do in the situation as it has now developed. In spite of owing a lot of money I am moderately solvent, I am the master in my own home, my son trots at my heels, my great ape bellows his joy whenever he sees me. What have I to complain of? Only that Smelter George is proposing to call to see me tomorrow. Is that not gloom enough to make the sun fall out of the sky? He says not what he comes for, but one need not be a soothsayer to guess it must concern the custody of Little Georgie. He has taken Selina's side of the quarrel to his heart -- nay, pocket -- and is determined to wrest possession from me. At his age, when a cautious mercantile eye becomes steadily more cautious, I would guess he would eschew brute force and use some sort of blackmail,
i.e.
financial, foreclosing on the bills I have out, or even cutting off his own nose to spite his face by closing down Wheal Elizabeth with its promising new shaft waiting to be explored. So I wondered if you would care to come and take biscuits and Canary with us at about eleven? I would not expect you to take my side, but you might be able to act as arbiter or referee? You could make this the occasion of your weekly visit to Wheal Elizabeth and coincidentally be there when he comes? Possibly you might not show this letter to Cousin Demelza.

Yours filially, Valentine

Ross at once showed the letter to Demelza. She said: 'More soup?'

'No, thank you. I'll just take the lamb pie.'