The Angry Tide (30 page)

'Not your patron?' The question was asked with a hint of quiet malice.

'No, he is still in London.'

'You'll get no help from him
...
Well, and what was the outcome?' A reluctance, a great reluctance, Ross said, to see Pascoe's Bank go under.

'Yes, yes, a reluctance no doubt, but what offer of practical help?'

Ross said: 'The practical help of their complete trust in Harris Pascoe, their willingness to allow balances still in abeyance to remain in his hands, and an eagerness to see him trading again and to entrust him with their deposits.'

Lord dc Dunstanville
chewed slowly. He was a moderate man in everything and had only allowed himself four glasses of wine.

'It's all very well, Captain Poldark. I appreciate precisely your wishes and the wishes of your friends. What they
are
saying is, put the bank back where it was, set Mr Pascoe in charge of it, open the doors and we shall be happy to trade with
it as usual. Exactl
y. They want a restoration of the
status quo ante helium.
They want the clock put back. But who is going to pay for the clock being
put back, who is to finance th
is restoration? They are not.'

‘I
have had some offers. They
are
not enough, but with your co-operation
...'

'With our
finance,
and it would cost a mortal lot. The eggs have been scrambled. No doubt we could advance a large loan, and this Pascoe, over a number of years, might be able to repay. It has always been a good little bank. But Pascoe is not a young man, and he has no son ready to succeed him. We could advance a large loan - perhaps twenty thousand pounds - but we could make much better use of the money in
other
ways. No
...
I'm sorry, Poldark, I know how you must feel, bu
t it seems to me
that the amalgamation that is already in process of being achieved is the only common-sense, the only practical solution. But it could be worse. I understand Tresidder
King has already offered Mr Pascoe a position in our bank -' 'As a clerk!'

'As chief clerk. I appreciate that that is not quite the style to which Mr Pascoe is accustomed, but it
would be something. Possibly we
shall be able to offer him something better at a short remove
. King is a young man, but there
could be some other situation available.'

Ross drew breath. It looked as if he were to be defeated in his primary objective. Should he try any further, or now abandon that and go for the secondary one? A difficult decision. So far the interview had been surprisingly equable. It might not remain so if he pressed it the more. And how could you press a man if he were not willing? To make it a challenge to his honour might well be something that Basset would resent as well as reject, and then all would be lost. You could no more
demand
a reprieve
from this man for Harris Pascoe
than you could for 'Wildcat' Hoskin. Only negotiation, only diplomacy was left.

'You spoke of amalgamation, my lord.'

'Yes. Amalgamation and absorption.'

'You did use the former word first. And if you are willing to give it that name, then surely the proprietor of the second and smaller bank might be offered a partnership in the new concern?'

Basset raised his eyebrows. 'More cheese?
If we were to do that, Mr Pascoe
would bring with him
the
aura of misjudgmcnt and failure that many people will remember.'

'Most people will remember - all men of goodwill will remember -that his only real misjudgmcnt was
to cross swords with the Warleg
gans.'

'Shall wc go into
the
drawing-room? It faces west and the sun is such a shy visitor
...'

Ross followed his host, who paused to sneeze and dab his nose. Three spaniels who had been sleeping rose to greet him and fell about his feet as he sat down.

Ross said: 'Not many men of goodwill, with the interests of the whole community at heart, can view with complacency the idea of the Warleggans completely dominating the commercial affairs of the county.'

'We
are
a long way from that situation yet.'

'Well
...
again, I hate to bring the matter too much to a point of principle, but every victory they gain over a smaller man makes
the
next small man less willing to fight. T
hey - it is in their nature to e
at up what they can and destroy what they can't. Beginning of course with their enem
ies. But moving on. And constantl
y making new enemies as they go.'

'D'you take snuff? No
...
I'll give what you say consideration. But it's
only fair to point out to you th
at, though I am senior partner in the bank, Captain Poldark, I have three partners. There is my brother-in-law, Mr John Rogers, and there is
Mr Mackworth Prae
d and Mr Edward Eliot. They must be consulted on all significant points. I cann
ot take arbitrary decisions with
out their consent.'

'Am I to understand, my lord, that your Mr Tresidder King, who is not a partner, was able to take arbitrary decisions without
your
consent?'

He thought he had gone too far. Basset flushed and glanced at him with a flicker of anger.

'King has authority to act as he thinks best when we
are
not present. May I make a suggestion to you, Poldark? It is a mistake to press too hard from a position of weakness.'

'That is precisely what I was thinking myself, my lord.'

Basset looked at him and then laughed. 'At least you're candid.'

'It's all I can be. But,' Ross said, 'if I may continue in the same vein, although my position is weak, it is not entirely without a negotiating basis. If Mr Pascoe joins your bank as a full partner he will bring all his clients with him. If he does not, then some, many indeed, will be tempted to look elsewhere.'

'Elsewhere? To
Warleggan
's?' Again the malice.

'No
...
but there is
Carne
& Co. of Falmouth. To many people I spoke to Falmouth is little les
s convenient than Truro. Lord De
voran, Mr Daniell, Mr Trefusis. Even I would go there if Carne & Co. became
Carne
& Pascoe.'

'Ah
...
you have been canvassing.'

'Only opinion. But I think, if I may say so, that if Basset, Roger
s became Basset, Rogers & Pascoe
it would be a move which would greatly enhance the popularity and prestige of those who made it possible.'

'Well, that is quite out of
the
question - the name, I mean. And I don't like being blackmailed, sir.'

'Nothing was further from my thoughts. I can only appeal to you and to your generosity.'

A long silence.

'Have Carne
's invited Pascoc to joint them?'

'They will do so if I offer them the clients that I can.'

'And you say that is not blackmail?'

'No, my lord. Only business. And really I am a beginner at it. I only attempt this on behalf of an old friend.'

'You have a certain aptitude for your new role. Or does that insult you?'

'I'm greatl
y flattered.'

Lord dc Dunstanville bent to one of his spaniels. 'Poor Trix has a canker in her car. I must ask your wife som
etime. She has a reputation with
animals. Now look
you here, Poldark, I can do noth
ing, I can promise
nothing, nothing at all. I'll thi
nk about it, think it all over. I'll consult with John, my brother-in-law. I'll consult with the others. Can I keep this - this letter? There'll be a meeting sometime next week. If it takes place before the hospital opening, and if there is anything useful I can pass on to you, I'll do so at the ceremony.'

'I'm greatly obliged, my lord.'

'Don't be greatly obliged
at all. I have promised you noth
ing.'

It was on the day of the opening ceremony that Elizabeth
Warleggan
knew she was with child again. She had wondered yesterday and had not been certain. Now, together with the failure of her period, the sudden faintness, the nausea. For a woman of superficially delicate health she had a strong constitution, and she had only felt like this twice before in her life: early in 1784 and in the midsummer of
'93. After her first child was born she had been subject to fainting fits for a while, but while they might have been similar in appearance they were entirely different to the person suffering them.

She was startled, a little shocked at first, apprehensive, and then pleased. So, if all went well, she would now have three children. When this one was born Geoffrey Charles would be almost grown up, Valentine nearly six. Another boy? She would dearly like a girl. Another child when she was thirty-five, rising thirty-six. His (its) birthday would be likely to be the same month as Valentine's.

One person who would most certainly be delighted would be George. She knew how much he still prized her, and nowadays it was more as a husband should, not as
a
n
object he had unexpectedly won. He confided his plans - some of them - aware that she was his friend. She felt she deserved this. It had been a hard five years.

So, this new child was likely to put the final seal on their marriage as nothing else would. She would tell him this evening. Or perhaps wait a little while until she was even more sure.

But wait a littie while? How long? And with what purpose? Suppose this were another boy
...
?

In that terrible time following Aunt Agatha's death when George's suspicions - that Valentine was not a seven-or eight-month baby and therefore not his - had reached explosion point, her oath on the Bible had convinced him - or nearly convinced him. But even then, even after that, his jealous dioughts had taken months to
the
. Sup
posing this were another boy? This one
must
be his. Would any of that old lingering suspicion lead him gradually to withdraw his favour from Valentine and give it more and more to his new son?

There would always be more likelihood of an alienation between Valentine and George if there were a younger and undisputed child to take the father's affections.

Elizabeth was a woman with very strong maternal instincts - her obsessive love for Geoffrey Charles had produced the first breach between herself and Francis long ago - and though Valentine, for various reasons, had taken longer to establish his position in her heart, he was there now, and she was deeply concerned for his future. It was more for his sake than her own that she had fought George and bested him.

She thought about this all morning while she was dressing for the 'occasion'. So long as George was convinced that Valentine was a premature child the danger could be contained. Ross, in the one strained, emotional meeting
she had had with him outside Tre
nwith three years ago, had suggested something which now might make sense. He had said: if your marriage to George means something to you - or even if not, then for your son's sake - should you ever give George another child try to contrive a mistake in the month of conception. Let your confusion be deliberate and unconfessed. It shouldn't be difficult. Another premature child would convince George as nothing else would.

Was it difficult? Hardly, at this time. Nothing was lost by her withholding her news until next month, or even the month after. This faintness usually passed quickly enough, and she was hardly ever sick in the mornings. Nor, as the months progressed, did she ever get very big, in spite of her slight frame. She carried her children high, and was agile to the last. It would be easy to deceive George. She would tell him she was expecting a child in April. Then if she had it in February as before
...

Nor should
the
doctor be an unsurmountable difficulty. She would call him in on some trifling ailment in July, and in the course of his visit tell him she believed herself pregnant. Her last period, she would say, had been in June. He would have no reason to disbelieve her, for she had nothing to gain. George would accept her statement for the same reason. When the child was born in February, it might look like a full-term child - as Valentine had - but they would both be likely to jump to the conclusion that this was a repetition of the peculiarity of last time. And in no way to be questioned.

The hospital was due to be opened at ten. George, to please her, had subscribed a hundred guineas in her name, so she would be one of the few women present. At nine forty-five the Warleggan coach arrived outside t
he house, rattl
ing over the cobbles, with four greys tossing their small heads and the postilions looking spruce and fresh in their yellow jackets. It was a very short distance to go, but George had insisted they should ride. Elizabeth was wearing a full white satin skirt with a pad at the back to expand it and make the waist look smaller, a tight bodice of azure satin and a paler blue toque. George, elegant in a new black
coat much cut away, with wide reve
rs
e
on both coat and waistcoat and two rows of silver buttons, handed her into the coach, and they lurched
up
the hill to where many other carriages were arriving.

The Cornwall General Infirmary was an oblong building of a grey stone well suited to the exposed position it occupied. As guests arrived they were shown over it; the two long wards one above the other, each containing ten beds placed end to end parallel with the walls, the lower ward for men, the upper for women; the small side rooms leading off, for the occupancy of the nurses; the dispensary, the mortuary, the kitchen, the living-rooms for the house surgeon and his wife. Friends greeted each other as they walked around, for many of the best of the county were here: the Earl of Mount Edgcumbe, Lord and Lady dc Du
nstanvillc, Mr Ralph-Allen Danie
ll, Mr and Mrs George
Warleggan
, Mr Trcfusis, Mr Andrew, Mr Mackworth Pracd, Mr
Rogers, Captain Poldark, Mr Mole
sworth, Mr Stackhouse. Dr Enys was there, reluctantly representing his wife, who was a notable subscriber but unavoidably absent; Dr Bull, the house surgeon, a youngster of twenty-nine, who had been brought down from London to take up this position; Dr
Behenna
, who had been appointed a visiting physician; the Reverend Dr Halse. There were eight ladies to thirty-odd men.

It was not quite a large enough gathering to be able to avoid those one wished to avoid, and Elizabeth's heart thumped as she twice came near enough to Ross Poldark to speak to him. Of course she did not, and of course he did not, since George was not far away. Happy with the discovery she had made about herself, Elizabeth had no wish
at
all to mar the day. George, though ignorant of her news, was also well satisfied with the way things were going - especially with the complete success of Uncle Cary's schemes, since the objective seemed to have been attained without loss of reputation on their side - and he had no desire to cross swords with his rival in public. As for Ross, his feelings were so explosive that if something started he had no idea where it would end. But he was still playing for high stakes, and his cause with Francis Basset would not be advanced if he became involved in a brawl - even of words - at the official opening of Basset's hospital.

So the meeting was held, add
ressed by the Earl of Mount Edgcumbe, by Lord de
Dunstanville and by Dr Hector Bull, and the infirmary was declared open. That done, they all trooped out into the warm sunshine and got into their carriages to rattle down the hill again for the service at S
t Mary's church. It was a brightl
y coloured group, and the townsfolk stood agape to watch them pass.

Dwight said cheerfully to Ross: 'Well, it's a beginning. We could do with a hundred beds, but twenty is better than nothing. Dr Bull seems a likely man. I hope admission will be by need and not by patronage
...'

He was looking much older, Ross thought. He had suffered in fact two losses - of his child and his wife; and though the latter might be temporary it hit him nearly as hard. He was a dedicated man, one not given to wearing his heart on his sleeve; but his
sympath
y for the plight of others did not detract from his personal affections, and Ross wondered if Caroline realized what her leaving him so long was doing to him.

By the time they had stabled their horses St Mary's church was nearly full, for the ordinary populace were allowed in at
the back, but they found two se
ats together and kne
lt in prayer. Ross wondered if e
ither
of them was really saying anyth
ing: Dwight, he thought, had perhaps more faith than he had, but neither of them had much room for orthodoxy, particularly in the person of the Reverend Dr
Halse
, who was to preach the sermon. Ross knew plenty of clerics who were admirable men, but the two who had occupied the Truro livings were two of his aversions. Even this hard-visaged, ambitious man was to be preferred to the late vicar of St Margaret's. Ross wondered if there were pluralities in Heaven; if so
Ossie
had by now no doubt put in an application.

Dr Halse chose as his text
Job,
Chapter 7, verse 13: 'My bed shall comfort mc, my couch shall ease my complaint,' and proceeded to wring the withers of his audience by describing the conditions that the new hospital was designed to alleviate.

'It is beyond the power of language,' he went on, 'to describe a more afflicting scene of human misery than that which too often presents itself in the wretched hand of some indigent creature who lies languishing on the hard and uneasy pallet of sickness and drags out his wearisome life, cither wasted by slow and intermittent fevers or racked by excruciating pains, or writhing under the anguish of festering wounds - devoid of all medical skill and assistance, wanting even the necessaries of life, much more the comforts; unfriended, unaided, unpitied; they feel the pinching gripe of poverty under its most frightful form, and at last expire with the heartrending reflection that a wife and helpless children, now robbed of their only prop,
are
left heirs to this misery, destined in due time for a similar fate! And will justice, will gratitude, will any consideration that ought to influence social beings, suffer us to be careless spectators of such pitiable distress?'

It was splendid powerful stuff, and Ross, who disliked the old man for his harshness, acknowledged that on occasion he could pull out the right stops. It was
the
sort of thing that would go well in the House.

But, he wondered,
were
these exactly the right stops? To be good to the poor, to be benevolent to
the
poor, to be generous to the poor, to build them a fine new hospital where they might be treated free under the most modern conditions: all these were admirable aims and deserving of high commendation. Now abideth Faith, Hope and Charity, and the greatest of these is Charity. But what about Hope? All these people gathered here today were kindly people bent on alleviating distress. But how many thought of trying to
prevent
the distress? Not to give money to the poor but to create conditions in which the poor could cam money for themselves. Was that asking something altogether different?

In the congregation, listening to this powerful sermon, it so happened that there were three Chynoweths, though all now bore different names, and for other and more personal reasons they sat in different parts of the church. Elizabeth Warleggan was in the front row with her husband. On the left side of the main aisle, towards the back,
Rowella
Solway also sat beside her husband. Her bruised and beaten face and body had now quite healed, and except for a missing tooth which only showed when she smiled broadly - a rare occurrence - she looked as good as new. Hers was always a difficult face to read, and had been more so of late; but Arthur's discovery of her perfidy, and his utterly violent reaction, seemed to have cowed her, to have made her realize the error of her ways. Indeed, once she had finally decided to speak to him again, once she had forgiven him for the terrible assault upon her inviolate body, she had assumed her old intellectual supremacy - without claiming as yet a return to a moral one. Once in the night - two weeks after that terrible night -when there had been the first shift towards a reconciliation between them, she had explained to him the evil way in which Mr Whitworth had first seduced her while she was living at the vicarage and had drawn a graphic picture of the way in which he had since pestered her - almost blackmailed her - into resuming their association. All the same, Rowella had ardently declared, it was only Arthur's neglect of her, his
physical
neglect of her, his failure to be a husband to her in
the
most absolute sense, that had finally driven her to give way. Arthur was flabbergasted, angry over again, and as ardent in his own declaration that, far from lacking in the physical and sensuous virtues, he had often restrained himself out of consideration for her. Since then he had done much better. Sometimes these days, he had to admit, he found the long hours at the
library more tiring; but recentl
y he had been taking a medicine called
Balsamic Corroborant or Restorer of Nature,
and it had benefited him a great deal.