Jeremy Poldark (14 page)

" Yes, I do."

Francis made the facial movements of a laughter
which was more bitter for its silence. "There are times when it may be the
only means of restoring one's self-respect. Can you conceive that, or, is it
outside your scope?"

It's not, outside my scope to imagine such a
situation. But I'm not able to imagine why you should feel yourself in
it."

Let's see, what were those gracious words you
used young, propertied, respected? But young by what standards? And propertied,
did you say? The question is; who owns property in these bankrupt days? Usually
some upstart sneering moneylender with a smooth voice and the ethical code of
a cuttlefish.... And respect?" Francis said the word savagely.
"Respected by whom? We are back at the same old gate, respect of oneself,
which is the impasse. Drink loosens the disillusion but sharpens the paradox. A
pistol ball has no morning after."

Dwight went across and lit another couple of
candles on the mantelpiece. The shadows at the end of the room lifted, showing
the faded flock paper, the dusty antlers of the stag. The light was like a
creeping sanity, moving over the dark pbaces of the mind. "A pistol ball
is very dramatic," he said slowly.

" Sudden solutions usually are. You ought
to know that - in your profession. But you can't rule them out because they
offend your sense of propriety.”

"Oh, I don't. All the same, I prefer
things; on a more homely level.' Let's have a drink and talk it over. What's
the hurry? We've all night before us."

" Dear God :.." Francis let out a slow
breath and turned away. "My tongue's like burnt paper."

In the street outside someone was laughing
inanely. Dwight went to the cupboard:

"I've brandy here. We can sample
that." He heard Francis folding the papers and stuffing them into a
pocket. When he turned Francis had picked up the pistol again, but was taking
out the bullet. Half done, he hesitated and the glitter came back into his
eyes.

Drink this," said Dwight quickly. "Cheap
gin will poison you and bring up all sorts of unhealthy thoughts."

The thoughts were there without the gin.

" Well, you can tell me about them if it
pleases you. I don't mind."

"Thank you, but I'll keep my sorrows to
myself." He accepted the glass and looked at it. "Well, here's to the
devil. I don't know whose side he has been on tonight."

Dwight drank-without comment. The emotional
storm was blowing itself out. Chance had prevented Francis, from making his
gesture. In exhaustion he would now wish to talk of anything but tonight's
motives. But that was just why it was important that he should do so. Only by getting
him to talk it out of himself could one make reasonably sure that the crisis
should not happen again.

Chapter,
Ten

Before the Reformation the Franciscans had been
a power in the town, owning much of the property at its heart; and although the
monks no longer walked the streets in their grey habits or cared for the sick
and poor, the property remained as their monument, turned to secular, use but:
unmistakably ecclesiastical in design. Of such was the Refectory of the Grey
Friars, where the assizes were held.

Its Great Hall, a hundred and fifty-.odd feet
long and sixty in height, with its east window of stained glass, was an
impressive chamber; but it bore its age - a matter of five hundred years - with
increasing uncertainty, and there were other drawbacks to its use as a Court of
justice.

The weather turned from warm to sultry
overnight, and when dawn broke a thick mist had fallen over the town. It did
not clear much; as the sun gained power, and when, the judges walked across
from their lodgings in their wigs and ermine the fog drifted about them like
wet smoke.

Demelza had had a terrible night, dozing to find
nightmares round every corner and starting into a wakeful reality which was no
escape. She felt that she had failed utterly last evening, that the outcome of
all her efforts had been a futile conversation without issue and without point,
that she had failed Ross in every way.

It was not until last night that she had
realised how much she had been privately and foolishly building on her own
efforts; all these weeks of waiting she had fed on the hope of being able to
give crucial help. Yet it was some native good sense which had prevented her
from pressing her overtures with the judge when they at last met. She bitterly
blamed herself now for not casting herself and her story on his mercy; but, if
she had been confronted with the opportunity again she would have done just the
same. Ill judgment might have conceived the meeting, but good judgment had
saved it from the worst disaster.

Verity had been nearly as upset as she when she
returned. Francis had called, in a strange drunken mood, and had departed in a
stranger, which left her in a state of increasing anxiety. Worried almost
equally for both the Poldarks, she too had hardly slept, and when she saw
Francis ahead of her going into the assize courts she felt sudden relief, as if
she had not expected to see him safe and well to-day. But the other care
remained, and when she got inside, the anxiety was doubled by what she saw of
the earlier cases that came on.

Places had been saved for them near the front of
the hall, which was already crowded when they took their seats. Guards and,
turnkeys, jurors and witnesses, barristers and notaries filled the front of the
hall, and behind were the public places. The few front rows here had been saved
for people of note, and many who were in town for the elections had come to see
the fun. Verity saw Unwin Trevaunance with a red-haired girl, and Sir Hugh
Bodrugan and several ladies and gentlemen of quality with fans and snuffboxes.
In a corner by himself, holding a long malacca stick, was George Warleggan.
Behind these rows were the rabble.

The hall, though high, was ill ventilated and
stuffy, and one could tell that it would soon grow hot with the press. There
were men at the, door and inside selling, hot-pasties and chestnuts and
lemonade, but they were driven out just before ten o'clock. Then the clerk of
the court rapped with his hammer and everyone„ stood up, and the Hon. Mr.
Justice Lister, connoisseur of church music, came in, bowed solemnly to the
court, and sat down with the sheriffs and aldermen. He pulled the great bunch
of aromatic herbs nearer to him and put a vinegar-soaked-handkerchief on the
top of his papers. Another heavy day was begun.

The first case was soon disposed of. Demelza
could not follow the matter at all. The counsel speaking had such a plummy
voice that she only caught one word in three, but she gathered it was something
to do with what were called the prisoner's recognisances. These being
discharged, the man was marched out of the dock again. Then there was a hum of
interest as three men and two women, were ushered in together. One of the men
was Ross Poldark. His dark coppery hair was well combed, the scar, as always at
times of stress, noticeable on his cheek. He looked paler from his week's
imprisonment. She remembered Jim Carter's fate.

They were swearing in a jury, but she heard
nothing of it. She was thinking of Ross as she had seen him for the first time,
that day, years ago at Redruth Fair. To her it seemed a century - yet though
she had grown older, changed beyond recognition or imagining, he had become
curiously younger to her while remaining in essence the same. He was a man of
moods, yet he was her constant, something unchanging, infinitely reliable, the
pivot of her life. There, could never be anyone else. Without him she would not
be more than half alive.

Mr. Justice Lister looked hollow-eyed and
inhuman this morning, capable of any enormity. The jury were sworn in and there
were no objections. Now to Demelza's surprise, all but one of the prisoners
were led out again, Ross among them.

The trial of the Crown versus Boynton, F.R., for
larceny had begun.

She didn't listen to it. It passed over her head
in a sickly haze which would be remembered more vividly than it was
experienced. Only some time later she heard the jury find the prisoner guilty
of stealing a pair of knit-thread lady's stockings, value two shillings and sixpence,
and a packet containing half-a-thousand pins, value, sixpence, from a
haberdasher's shop. She heard Mr. Justice Lister take into account that this
was a first offence and sentence him to be burnt in the hand and discharged.
Hardly had he been led away than the two women came in and the next case was on.
She realised with a dreadful sinking apprehension that Ross was next.

The two women were vagrants. They had been
caught flagrantly begging. They had no visible means of support. It was a plain
case and the jury speedily found them guilty. But this was a crime on which the
Hon. Mr. Justice Lister felt rather strongly and he delivered a long and
damning homily on the evils of such a life. Looking at him, Demelza realised
there was no mercy here. His diction was beautiful, his phrases as elegantly
rounded as if they had been written out the night before. But the substance was
to condemn. Abruptly without any raising of the voice or change of expression,
he sentenced the two women to be whipped and the case was over.

At this there was 'a good deal of stirring in
the court, for some of the men wanted to push their way out to see the women
stripped and flogged in the church square, and others were as anxious to take
the vacant places; so it was in the midst of this confusion that Ross was led
in. This time as he passed to the dock he glanced a moment aside and his eyes
caught Demelza. A faint encouraging smile flickered across his face and was
gone.

"Quiet," said Verity. "Quiet, my
dear. We must try to keep calm." She put her arias round Demelza and held
her tight:

It was clear now that this was the important
case of the day. More barristers-at-law came in, and the bench on which they
sat was full. Demelza tried to see some change in the judge's expression, some
flicker of interest, but, there was none. He might never have met Mrs. Ross
Poldark the night before. Mr. Jeffery Clymer sat just below the dock, where he
could maintain contact with his client. Henry Bull, K.C., leading counsel for
the Crown, had left the preceding cases to his junior, but this one he was
handling himself. A dark-man and handsome in a coarse way, with skin so olive
and eyes so amber as to suggest a touch of the tar brush. It had been to his
disadvantage all his life; he had had to struggle hard against the whispering
voices of his colleagues and rivals - and the struggle had left its mark.

The clerk of arraigns began proceedings by
saying:

Ross Vennor Poldark, hold up thy hand. Gentlemen
of the jury, look upon the prisoner. He stands indicted by the name of Ross
Vennor Poldark, of Nampara, of the County of Cornwall, Esquire, who, on the
seventh of January in the year of our Lord seventeen hundred and ninety, not having
the fear of God before his eyes but being moved and seduced by the instigation
of the devil, did incite divers; peaceable citizens to riot, and furthermore
did commit riot contrary to the laws of the land. And furthermore that the said
Ross Vennor Poldark feloniously, wilfully and with malice aforethought, with
force and arms, did plunder, steal, destroy and take away divers goods
belonging to two ships in distress. And furthermore

The voice went on, it seemed to Demelza for
hours, saying the. same things over and over again in different words. She felt
really faint now, but tried to hide it. Eventually the voice stopped. Then Ross
said: "Not guilty, and the clerk said: " Culprit, how will thou be tried"
and Ross said: “By God and my country." Then the dark foreign man got up
and began to say it all over again.

But here was a difference. The clerk had droned
his words -legal phrases dry and brittle as seed husks which didn't seem to
have any life in them. Mr. Henry Bull, K .C. breathed on them and brought them,
to life with a vengeance. He was telling a simple story, to the jury - no
official stuff in this just a simple story which anyone could follow.

It seemed that in the great gale of January
last, which they would all no doubt remember, a ship - a Cornish-owned ship,
mark you - got into distress and was driven ashore on Hendrawna Beach, just
below the house of the prisoner, a man comfortably circumstanced, a mine owner
and a landowner with an ancient-name. The jury might have expected that such a
man's fast thought he being the first to see the ship would have been for the safety
of those on board. Instead, as evidence would be brought to prove, his only
concern had been to rouse the lawless spirits of the neighbourhood in great
numbers, so that when the wreck came in it should be plundered with the utmost dispatch.
And that it was plundered, in a matter of a few hours, and without a thought
for the safety of the crew or any attempt to help them ashore, witnesses would
be called to show. The man who stood in the dock had personally swum out to the
wreck before anyone else and personally directed operations for the dismemberment
of the ship. At this time there had been one passenger still left on board. No
one knew whether prompt help could have saved him. It was only known that no
such help was given and that the man lost his life.

Counsel further suggested that the prisoner-had
had watchers posted all along the cliffs keeping a. lookout for further prey,
for when yet another ship, the Pride of Madras, was driven ashore a few hours
later, all the dissident and lawless sweepings from five parishes were waiting
to welcome her in - and it was doubtful if, even supposing the crew could have
got her off again with the flood tide, she could not have been held ashore by
sheer weight of numbers. All this at the instigation of the prisoner, who must
bear the perfidy of the acts of his followers. Some of the crew of this ship
had been severely beaten as they struggled ashore and robbed even of their
clothes. They had been left insensible and naked in the freezing cold, and it
was virtually certain that among those who lost their lives there were several
who should be alive to-day had they received the Christian treatment any
distressed sailor was entitled to expect. Their ship had been torn to pieces in
a single tide. The ship's master, Captain A. V. Clark, would be called to
testify that he had not been so barbarously used when cast ashore among the
savages of Patagonia two years earlier.