Jeremy Poldark (10 page)

Caroline's smooth young face, which had been so
taut a few minutes ago, flashed its own answering smile, though there was
still, a glint of disappearing hostility at its edge.

"What is your name?" she said.

Tuesday dawned with heavy showers which made the
dry mud into wet mud but didn't affect the spirits of those who were determined
to make the most of election day. Dwight went first to the assize building, but
there was no notice yet of the following day's list so he felt entitled to
introduce himself to Mr. Jeffery Clymer to find out.

Mr. Clymer was at breakfast, his mauve chin
paler for the morning's shave, and in a great confusion and hurry; but he
allowed Dwight a seat at the table and a glimpse of Wednesday's cause list. The
cases which were to come before the Hon. Mr. Justice Lister were briefly
stated.

R. v. Smith for misdemeanour

R. v. Bovnton for larceny

R. v. Polkinghorne and Norton for vagrancy

R. v. Poldark for riot and assault

R. v. Inhabitants of the township of Liskeard
for non repair of highway

R. v. Corydon for receiving stolen goods

R. v. Inhabitants of the Parish of St. Erth for
obstruction of estuary

Dwight put the paper back on the table.
"How can all those be possibly got through tomorrow?"

"Have to be, my dear man," said
Clymer, chewing. "Crowded list. Don't want to be here all month. Due in
Exeter the sixteenth. But don't worry; they'll be run through all right: A lot
of 'em are simple cases."

Including that of Rex. v. Poldark?"

"' Oh no, hum. " Mr. Clymer paused to
pick his teeth with his little finger. "Far from it. But we shall get
through. Could only wish for a different attitude on the part of my client.
Stiff-necked, that's what you'd call it. Doesn't understand the law. And still
unrelenting. Perhaps the look of the judge will make him change his tune.
Wentworth Lister's no milksop. Well, well, I must be off. Got a case at eleven.
Old woman accused of poisoning her grandson with ground glass. She's
seventy-two and not a penny piece. Better all round if she was hanged to make
an easy passing, but we must see what the judge says."

As Dwight got up to go a servant tapped at the
door.

If you please, sir, a Mr. Francis Poldark to see
you."

Mr. Clymer gulped at his coffee. " Another
Poldark? What does this mean? Do you know him, sir?" When Dwight had
briefly answered, "Another witness, d'ye think?

This fellow Pearce doesn't know his business if
he allows people to come in with their stories five minutes before the trial.
No mention of him in the brief at all!"

"He was ill at the time of the wrecks. But
he may have called to make general, inquiries about his cousin."

Mr. Clymer irritably unbuttoned his morning
gown. " Not Captain Poldark's wet nurse, y'know. Have other business to attend
to. Foster!"

" Sir?" The clerk put his head round
the door. "Bring me R. v. Penrose and R. v. Tredinnick. " Yes,
Sir."'

" All this election farce. Most untimely
and unsettling:

Place overcrowded with drunken rogues and
pickpockets.

No service in the hotels. Bedbugs. Disgraceful;
that's what you'd call it." The barrister turned to the gaping servant.

"Well, show him up if you must. Show Mr..
Poldark up ! "

" I'll take my leave before he comes,"
Dwight said. "That will be, one less in your way. We shall meet tomorrow."

" Be there by ten. The early cases may be
run through very quick."

On the way down the stairs Dwight met Francis
conningup. Francis said

"I came in great haste, but hear the case
isn't until tomorrow." He was dusty and unkempt.

" That's true."

" Do you know where, I can get a room for
tonight? The town is fermenting with people."

"'I think you may have to go some distance
out."

Which inn is Ross's wife staying at?"

"The George and Dragon. But your sister was
saying they were crowded too"

Francis looked up quickly. "My
sister?"

They're staying together." Dwight's
professional eye could not help registering that Francis looked pallid and out of
condition. The stamina had gone, with the flesh he had lost. "Your wife isn't
with you?"

“The court is no place for a woman. What are,
all these damned flags and banners waving in the breeze?"

Dwight explained. "Oh, of course, I had
forgot. Cornwall abounds in rotten boroughs and suitable people to fill 'em
Think you this man upstairs has any forensic ability? So many of them are
braggarty, pot-bellied old roues, caring only for their fees and a handy wench
when it's over."

Dwight smiled. "I found him irritable but alert.
I shall judge better tomorrow." They passed on, and then Dwight turned
again. "If you should be out of a, place to sleep tonight and nothing at
all in view, you may share my room, though there's only one bed in it. The
London Inn, near the church."

"You may be held to that. If there's floor
space I can use a rug and lie easy enough. Thank you."

Dwight left the hotel and turned up' the street.
It was fine now and a walk would do him good. Just out of the town a carriage
drawn by four grey horses, with a driver and a postilion in green and white
livery, passed him on the way in. As it lurched along, going slowly because of
the appalling state of the road, Dwight saw George Warleggan alone inside.

When Dwight got back from his visit to the lazar
house where he had found only seven resident lepers, most of them drunk, and
the building nearly falling down for want of elementary repair-he was only just
in time to squeeze into the Guildhall to watch the election.

The platform at the end was filled with the
town's notables, and Dwight was surprised to see the tall red-haired girl as
the only woman among them. Outside was a good deal of noise, for the hundreds
of people who could not get in were jammed in the street shouting rival
slogans. Proceedings began with the usual sheriff's precept; then a fat man
called Fox, who was a county magistrate, got up to administer the oath to the
returning officer. Here was the crux of the matter. The two mayors, Michell
from one end of the platform, and Lawson from the other, jumped forward and
claimed their right to be that man. A long legal, argument followed. Both sides
had brought barristers to put their claim, but neither convinced the other, and
tempers grew frayed. People in the hall began to shout and stamp their feet,
and the floor shook.

Dwight stared over the bobbing heads and
wondered how Horace was faring. He glanced at the people crushed around him,
some in wigs, some with their own hair tied in bows at the back, others, labourers
and workingmen, with lank uncut hair falling to their: shoulders. Two near. him
had got skin diseases and a third was far gone in consumption and spat blood
into the straw underfoot. In the corner was a woman who had lost her nose with
the French disease.

Suddenly-a compromise of sorts was struck on
the platform, though it was come to more because of the noise of the mob
outside than from any will to make concessions. The mayors were to be joint
returning officers and would be jointly sworn in, as such. Anyone could see
that this would lead to further trouble when the election proper began, but at
least it allowed progress of a sort.

Growing tired of it all, Dwight edged a step or
two nearer the door, though he did not see much prospect of getting out until
it was all over. Silence fell on the people around him and he saw that the
first voter had stepped up. This was Alderman Harris, a man with a stomach
equal to his great reputation, and he recorded his vote-for Trevaunance and
Chenhalls - amid a burst of cheering and only a few catcalls. Then came
Roberts, a Whig Quaker, who was also allowed to pass unchallenged. Another,
Whig followed and, acting as warily as his rival, Michell passed him without
comment. A third Whig, however, was too much to swallow. The barrister acting
for the Basset interests objected on the grounds that Joseph Lander had, long
been invalidated from, membership of the corporation on the grounds of insanity
and that he had been three times put in the stocks for indecent behaviour.

This
caused an uproar, and two men near Dwight started fighting. One of them shoved
Dwight against the woman, who had lost her nose, and she opened a mouth like a
door and screamed as if she were being murdered. When she was at last quieted,
Dwight saw that a doctor was standing up giving evidence that Joseph Lander's
mother and father were incestuously related and both had died insane - but
before he could follow the argument the two men were fighting again; and when
one of them was hauled insensible from under the other's feet Joseph Lander had
passed from the scene.

The young physician began to wish he hadn't
come. Every other man who came up to vote was challenged, and the argument
lasted interminably. One man, obviously at death's door, was carried up on a
stretcher and put on the floor while they quarrelled over him like seagulls
over a strip of offal. Sir Hugh Bodrugan, stocky and hairy and authoritative,
was allowed to pass unchallenged, just because, Dwight thought, no one dared
face him out. What he was doing on the corporation was a mystery; but there
were several like him, men who lived miles away and had no connection whatever
with the town.

The girl was looking hot and bored and suddenly
she leaned towards Unwin Trevaunance and began to whisper in his ear.
Trevaunance in some obvious irritation argued with her, but she rose and
slipped out of a side door. Dwight began to fight his own way out.

It was a long struggle, much resented and
resisted, but he got there in the end and found himself hot and bruised and
breathless in the passage. This passage was choked with people, and the stairs
leading to the street were worse. He turned towards the back, knowing that
Caroline Penvenen could not have gone out by the front door.

At the end of the passage the crowd thinned a
bit, and two special constables were guarding the door which led to the
platform.. They stared at him with suspicion' as he came up.

"Which way did' Miss Penvenen go?"

One of them nodded. "Down thur, sur"

Dwight
saw a door in the opposite wall, and pushed his way through to it. It led into
the back room of the shop next door and thence to the main street. When he came
out he thought she had gone, for the crowds were shouting and dancing about the
ale-houses opposite, and the porticoes made it hard to get a view down the
street. Then he turned and saw her standing-against the wall beside the shop
door, watching him.

She was hatless, evidently caring nothing for
convention; her rich auburn hair, rather coarse in texture, curled to her
shoulders. The pearls about her neck were worth any footpad's risk

Dr.
Enys;" she said as he bowed. "Why are you following me?"

Again
he felt that prick of irritation. "I saw you leave and thought you might
need my help."

"Should I be likely to?"

“Election day is not the quietest of
times."

"I found it all very dull."

"Naturally. But there are those who do
not."

The
shop door burst open and a servant came out. He stopped at sight of them and
touched his forelock

"Oh, Mistress Penvenen, ma'am, the master
asked me to see ee home safe. He couldn't leave his self, not just now.
Tis-"

I need no foster mother to escort me home,"
she said impatiently. " Go back to Mr. Unwin and look after him. He'll
need it maybe. Go on! Go on! " she added as the man hesitated. " I
don't want you."

A section of the crowd was chanting the marching
song again, but others were booing derisively. Someone aimed a brick, at the
Guildhall window,
but. it
missed and broke to pieces on the
wall, scattering a shower of smaller stones on the people underneath.

"Rabble," said Caroline. "Like
the shirtless beggars and thieves who pretend to hold France. England would be
happier for a few thousand less of them."

The shopkeeper behind them was busy putting up
his shutters. There was a clatter of heels as someone clambered across his
portico, and he pushed his way out into the street and began swearing and
shouting at him to come down.

In a mass," said Dwight, "a rabble,
yes. And a drunken rabble's a dangerous thing; I wouldn't trust its behaviour a
yard. But take each man to himself and he's likeable enough. A weak creature,
as we all are, liable to jealousies and petty spites, as we allure, selfish and
afraid, as we all are.' But often generous and kind and peaceable and
hard-working and good to his family. At least as much all those things as the
average gentleman."

Caroline looked at him. "Are you a Jacobin,
like your friend Ross Poldark?

So she had been making inquiries about him.
"It's clear you don't know Ross Poldark.''