The Four Swans (2 page)

`On the thirteenth of February of last year. My wife fell on the stairs at Trenwith. It was a Thursday evening about six o’clock. I sent a man for you at once and you came about midnight.’

`Ah, yes, I remember. It was the week I treated Lady Hawkins for broken costae which she had sustained in the hunting field, and when I heard of yours wife’s-accident I hoped she had not been a horse; for such a fall.’

`So you came,’ George said.

` .. I came. I attended on your wife throughout that night and into the next day. I believe the child presented itself that following evening.’

‘At a quarter after eight Valentine was born.’

`Yes … Well, I can only tell you on first recollection, Mr Warleggan, that there was nothing that appeared as strange in the circumstances of your son’s birth. It did not, of course, occur to me to wonder, to speculate, or to observe closely. Why should it? I didn’t suppose there would ever come a time when it would be necessary to pronounce one way or the other on such a matter. On the mere matter of a month. In view of your wife’s unfortunate fall, I was happy to be able to deliver her of a live and healthy boy. Have you asked your midwife?’

George too got up. `You must remember the child you delivered. Did it have fully-formed nails?’

`I believe so, but I cannot tell if ‘ `And hair?’

`A little dark hair.’

`And was the skin wrinkled? I saw it within the hour and I remember only a slight wrinkling.’

Behenna sighed. ‘Mr Warleggan, you are one of my wealthiest clients, and I have no wish to offend you. But may I be entirely ‘frank?’

`That’s what I have just asked you to be.’

`Well, may I suggest, in all deference, that you return home and think no more of this matter. Your reasons for this inquiry I’ll not venture to ask. But if you expect to receive from me at this date - or indeed from any other person - a plain statement that your son was or was not a full-term child, you are asking, sir, for the impossible. Nature is not so to be categorized. The normal is only the norm - on which there are wide variations.’

`So you will not tell me.’

`I cannot tell you. Had you asked me at the time I would have ventured a firmer opinion, that is all. Naturalia non sunt turpia, as the saying is.’

George picked up his stick and prodded at the carpet. `Dr Enys is back, I understand, and will soon be riding his rounds.’.

Behenna stiffened. `He is still ill and will shortly marry his heiress.’

`Some people think well of him.’

`That is their concern, not mine, Mr. Warleggan. For my part I have only contempt for the majority of his practices, which show a weakness of disposition and a lack of conviction. A man without a lucid and well-proven medical system is a man without hope.’

`Just so. Just so. I have always heard, of course, that medical men do not speak well of their rivals.’

Nor perhaps bankers of their rivals, Behenna thought.

‘Well…’ George got up. `I’ll wish you good day, Behenna.’

The surgeon said: `I trust that Mrs Warleggan and Master Valentine continue in good health.’

`Thank you, yes.’

`It’s time almost that I called to see them. Perhaps early next week.’

There was a moment’s pause, during which it seemed - possible that George was considering whether to say, `Pray do not call again.’

Behenna added: ‘I have tried not to speculate, Mr Warleggan, on your reason for inquiring into the matter you have raised with me. But I would not be human if I did not appreciate how important my answer might be to you. Therefore, sir, appreciate how difficult that answer is. I could not, and indeed assuredly would not make; a statement which, for all I know might be considered to impugn the honour of a noble and virtuous woman - that’s to say, I could not and would not without a certainty in my mind which I emphatically do not possess. Did I possess it, I would feel; it my duty to tell you. I do not possess it. That is all.’

George regarded him with cold eyes. His whole expression was one of distaste and dislike - which might have conveyed his opinion of the surgeon or only what he felt of a necessity which forced him to betray so much to a stranger.

`You will remember how this conversation began, Dr Behenna.’ ‘I am pledged to secrecy.’

`Pray see that you keep it.’ He went to the door. ‘My family is well, but you may call if you wish.’

After he had gone Behenna went through into the kitchen. ‘Nellie this house is a disgrace ! ‘You idle away your time gossiping and dreaming and observing the traffic. The parlour is not fit to receive a distinguished patient ! See, have that frock taken away! And the shoes. Have a care for your position here!’

He went on rebuking in his strong, resonant voice for three or four minutes. She stood observing him patiently from under her hearth rug of brown hair, waiting for the storm to pass, sensing that he needed to restore his authority after having; it briefly encroached on. It was rare for him ever to have it encroached on, for even when he visited his richest patients they were in distress and seeking his help. So he pronounced, and they waited on his words. He had never attended on George Warleggan himself, - since the man enjoyed abnormally good health. But today, as always when meeting him, he had had to defer. It. did not please him - it had made him sweat; and he took it out on Nellie Childs.

‘Ais, sur,’ she said,. and ‘no, sur,’ and `I’ll see to’n tomorrow, sur.’ She never failed to call him sir, even when he followed her into her bedroom; and this was the basis of their relationship. There was an unspoken; quid pro quo between them. So she took his reprimands seriously but not too seriously; and when he had done she began quietly to tidy up the parlour while he stood by the window, hands under his coat tails, thinking of what had passed.

‘Miss May’ll be wanting for to see ee, sur.’

‘Presently.’

She tried to gather up all the slippers, and dropped two. Her hair ballooned over her face. `Reckon tis rare for the gentry to call on ee,’ like that, sur. Was he wanting for something medical?’

`Something medical.’

`Reckon he could’ve sent one of ‘is men for to fetch something medical, don’t ee reckon, sur?’

Behenna did not answer.- She went out with the slippers and returned for the frock.

`Reckon I never seen Mr Warleggan come here, afore like that. Praps twas private like, not wanting his household to know?’

Behenna turned from the window. ‘I think it was Cato who said : ‘Nam nulli tacuisse nocet, nocet esse locutum.’ Always bear that in mind, Mrs Childs. It` should be a guiding principle of yours. As of many others.’

‘Mebbe so, but I don’t know what it d’mean, so I cann’t say, can I?’

`For your benefit I will translate. “It is, harmful to no one to have been silent, but it is often harmful to have spoken.”’

II

George Tabb was sixty-eight and worked at the Fighting Cocks Inn as a horse keeper and porter. He earned 9s. a week, and sometimes received an extra shilling for helping with the cocking. He lived in a lean-to beside the inn, and there his wife, still an industrious woman in spite of ill-health, made about an extra Ł2, a year taking in washing. With the occasional pickings that come to a porter he therefore earned just enough to live on; but in the nine years since his friend and employer Charles William Poldark had died he had become too fond of the bottle, and now often drank himself below subsistence level. Emily Tabb tried to keep a tight hold on the purse strings, but with 5s. a week for bread, 6d. a week for meat, 9d. for half a pound each of butter and cheese, a shilling for two pecks of potatoes, and a weekly rental of 2s. there was no room for manoeuvre. Mrs Tabb endlessly regretted - as indeed did her husband in his soberer moments - the circumstances in which they had left Trenwith two and a half years ago. The widowed and impoverished Elizabeth Poldark had had to let her servants go gone by one; until only, the faithful Tabbs were left; but Tabb in his cups had presumed too much on his indispensability and when Mrs Poldark suddenly remarried - they had had to leave:

One afternoon in early October George Tabb was brushing out the cockpit behind the inn to make ready for, a match that was, to take place the following day, when the innkeeper whistled to him and told him there was someone to see him. Tabb went out and found an emaciated man in black, whose eyes were so close-set that they appeared to be crossed.

`Tabb? George Tabb? Someone-want a word with you. Tell your master. You’ll be the half-four.

Tabb eyed his visitor and asked what it was all about, and who wanted him and why; but he was told no more. There was another man outside in the street, so he put away his broom and went with them.

It was no distance. A few yards down an alley, along the river bank; where another full tide glimmered and brimmed, up a street to a door in a wall, across a yard. The back of a tall house.

`In here.’ He went in. A room that might have been a lawyer’s office. `Wait here.’ The door was shut behind him. He was left alone.

He blinked warily, uneasy, wondering what ill this summons foreshadowed. He had not long to wait. A gentleman came in through another door. Tabb stared in surprise.

`Mr Warleggan!’ He had no forelock to touch, but he touched his wrinkled head.

The other George, the infinitely important George, nodded to him and went to sit down at the desk. He studied some papers while Tabb’s unease grew. It was on Mr Warleggan’s orders when he married Mrs Poldark that the Tabbs had been dismissed from her service, and his greeting today had shown no amiability.

`Tabb,” said George, without looking up. I want to ask you a few questions.’

`These questions are questions that I’ll put to you in confidence, and I shall expect you to treat them as such.’ `Yes, sur.’

`I see that you left the employment I obtained for you at Mrs Warleggan’s request when you left her service.’ `Yes, sur. Mrs Tabb wasn’t up to the work and..’

`On the contrary, I understand from Miss Agar that it was you who were unsatisfactory, and that she offered to retain Mrs Tabb if she would stay on alone.’

Tabb’s eyes wandered uneasily about the room.

`So now you eke out a miserable living as a pot boy. Very well, it is your own choice. Those who will not be helped must take the consequences!’

Tabbb cleared his throat.

Mr Warleggan put fingers in his fob pocket and took out two coins. They were gold. ‘Nevertheless I am prepared to offer you some temporary easement of your lot. - These guineas. They are yours, on certain conditions.’

Tabb stared at the money as at a, snake. `Sur?’

`I want to ask you some questions about the last months of your employment at Trenwith. Can you remember them? It’s little more than two years since you left.’

`Oh, yes, sur. I mind it all well.’

`Only you and I are in this room, Tabb. Only you will. know the questions I have asked. If in the future therefore ‘I hear that the nature of these questions is known to others - I shall know who has spoken of them, shall I not?’

`Oh, I wouldn’t do that, sir’

`Would you not? I’m far from sure. A man in his cups has an unreliable tongue. So listen, Tabb.’

`Sur?’

`If ever. I hear word spoken of anything I ask you this afternoon, you will be driven out of this town, and I’ll see that you starve. Starve. In the gutter. It is a promise. Will you in your cups remember that?’

`Well, sur, I promise faithful. I can’t say more’n that. I’ll-‘

‘As you say, you can’t say more. So keep your promise and I will keep mine.’

Tabb licked his lips in the ensuing silence. `I mind those times well, sur. I mind well all that time at Trenwith when we was trying; me and Mrs Tabb, to keep the ‘ouse and the farm together. There was no more’n the two of us for all there was to be done–-?

‘I know - I know. And you traded on your position. So you lost your employment. But in recognition of your long service another position was found for you and you lost that. Now, Tabb, certain legal matters bearing on the estate wait to be settled and you may be able to help me to settle’ them. I first want you too remember everyone who called at the house. Everyone you saw, that is. From about April 1793 until June of that year when you left –‘

‘What called? To see Mistress Elizabeth, d’ye mean? Or Miss Agatha? There was few what called, sur. The house was real bye … Mind, there was village folk. Betty Coad wi’ pilchards. Lobb the

Sherborner once weekly. Aaron Nanfan - George waved him into silence. `For the Poldarks. Socially. Who called?’

Tabb thought a few moments and rasped his chin. `Why you, sur. You more’n anyone! An’ for the rest, Dr Choake to see Miss Agatha, Parson Odgers once a week, Cap’n, Henshawe, the churchwarden, Cap’n Poldark over from Nampara, Sir John Trevaunance maybe twice; I believe Mrs Ruth Treneglos once. Mrs Teague I seen once. Mind I was in the fields half the time and couldn’t hardly.

`How often did Captain Poldark come from Nampara?’ ‘Oh … once a week. There or thereabouts.’ `Often in the evening?’

`Nay, sur, twas always avnoon he. come. Thursday avnoon. Took tea and then off he’d go.’

`Who came in the evening, then?’

`Why no one, sur. Twas quiet - quiet as the dead. One widow lady, one young gentleman scarce ten years old, one rare old lady. Now if you was to ask me ‘bout Mr Francis’s time; thur was times then: ‘

`And Mistress Elizabeth no doubt she went out in the evening?’ Tabb blinked. `Went out? Not so’s I know, sur.’

`But in the light evenings of that summer -April,-May and June, she must have ridden abroad.’

`Nay, she scarce rode at all. We’d sold all the ‘orses, save two which was too old to be rid.’

George fingered the two guineas, and Tabb stared at them, hoping that this was all.

George. said : `Come, come, you have earned nothing yet. Think, man. There must have been others about at that time.’

Tabb racked his brains.: `Village folk … Uncle Ben would be there wi’ his rabbits. Thur were no outlanders nor–, ‘How often did Mistress Elizabeth go to Nampara?’ `To Nampara?’

`That’s what I said. To visit the Ross Poldarks.’