The Loving Cup (20 page)

It remained for Cal Trevail to see the thing in its true colours. He gave a screech of laughter and pointed to the beer, which seemed to be frothing over the top, as if it were fermenting.

'Ho, Music, you've done for yerself this time! You-was always a one for jokes! My blessed Parliament, that were a tease, that were!'

Music, wiping the beer off his face, strove to protest, but clearly no one believed him. The beer was there as witness. The younger ones were laughing at the joke, which to them was very funny, the older ones were half frowning, chiefly because it should not have been perpetrated in someone else's house. The mouse in the soup, the frog in the pie, the dog-dirt in the pasty: these were routine jokes in a community that liked its humour broad and obvious.

'Katie!' Music said, ‘I
tell ee as God is my witness
—'

He did not get any further. With all the strength that fury could give to a very strong right arm, Katie slapped his face. It knocked him over, and staggering back he upset a chair and fell to the floor. More laughter.

'Ssh,' said Jane Gimlett disapprovingly. 'Remember where you be!
Quiet,
all of you. How
dare
you, Music! Katie
But Katie had already disappeared into the scullery to try to make herself sick over again, just in case whatever it was that doltish man had fed her might be poison.

IV

Although the two bottles were very similar, Music would not admit even to himself, in this tragedy for him, that he might have made a mistake. Only three months later, towards Christmas time when Widow Permewan had occasion to use the chilblain cure, did he admit his total fault.

Then it seemed perfectly reasonable to him that two weeks after first using the mixture on her feet, Edie Permewan should at last give way to Art Thomas's blandishments and agree to marry him.

I

At eleven the dancing stopped and Isabella-Rose sang. They had carried Demelza's old spinet from Nampara, and this they now brought into the room and Mrs Kemp played the accompaniment. It seemed to have no effect upon Isabella-Rose that she was being listened to by a group of grown-up and relatively sophisticated people.

First she sang:
Ripe Sparergrass.
Her voice, so strong in one so young, did not sound quite so harsh or discordant in the bigger room, and the song was like a 'cry of London'; if the voice didn't keep on key it didn't really matter. Demelza remembered that when she herself had first begun to sing she had been off the note. Perhaps it came from her. Ross had sung as a boy, but seldom did now; certainly he didn't wobble like Bella.

There was polite applause at the end. The second song was called
The Frog and the Mouse,
and was one Jeremy had bought. It had strange choruses of mock Latin and bits of old Cornish, making a remarkable jumble of nonsense, which no one supposed Bella would learn in time. But she had.

'There was a mouse lived in a mill.

With a ring-num, bulladimmy, coy-me.

A merry frog lived in a well

With a ring-num, bulladimmy, coy-me.

Coy-menaro, kilto-caro, coy-menaro,

Coy-me, prim-strim, stramadiddle,

Larrabong, ringting, bulladimmy, coy-me.

The frog he would a-wooing ride

To my ring-dom, somminary, ky-me

And on a snail he got astride.

To my ring-dom, somminary, ky-me.

Kymenare, gildecare, kymenare, ky-me.

String-strang, dan-a-dilla, lana-pana,

Rag-tag, rig-dom, bomminary, ky-me.

When he was on his high-horse set

His boots they shone as bright as jet
...'

And so it went on for another four verses. The tune, such as it was, showed up the harshness of Bella's voice, but the audience did not seem to notice this. They saw a black-haired, black-eyed little girl, singing vigorously - almost as if she were a man - and giving to the world all the enthusiasm for life and living that she possessed.

Enormous applause.

The plan was that she should sing two songs and then, if really pressed, one - quieter - encore,
Cherry Ripe.
(Bella had badly wanted to sing
The Highwayman
but had been bullied out of it, for it was really a baritone song.) There was no question: an encore was demanded. Everyone called for it. Bella put impatient hands up to her curls. Eyes agleam, she cleared
her throat, Mrs Kemp turned ov
er the music, and then a loud, strongly Cornish voice shouted:
'Sing
The Barley Mow,
Bella!'

Isabella-Rose had won much popularity by singing
The Barley Mow
to the farm hands and the miners this last August and September. It was a rousing, catchy song, and no one before in the Nampara area had ever done it as well as she had.

In all the people at Trenwith that night there was no one, except in the kitchen, with so strong a Cornish accent, but Demelza, knowing her son, instantly suspected Jeremy. Whoever it was, he only had to say it three times, which he proceeded to do, and all the guests, knowing the tune and the frolic, began to shout too.

Miss Isabella-Rose Poldark glanced towards where her mother was sitting, then looked at Mrs Kemp, who was so flustered she couldn't offer advice in time. So,

'The Barley Mow,'
announced Bella.

Mrs Kemp trembled in her case and eventually produced the music. She whispered with Bella, and Bella adjusted the bow of her frock. Then, with spinet accompaniment, she began to sing, and, at appropriate intervals, the audience sang with her.

'Oh, I will drink out of the nipperkin, boys.'

'So here's a good health,'
the audience sang, 'to
the barley mow.'

'The nipperkin and the brown bowl,' shouted Bella.
'So here's a good health,'
came the reply, 'to
the barley mow.'

'Oh, I will drink out of the pint, my boys.'

'So here's a good health to the barley mow.'

'The pint, the nipperkin and the brown bowl.'

'So here's a good health to the barley mow.'

'Oh, I will drink out of the quart, my boys.'

'So here's a good health to the barley mow.'

'The quart, the pint, the nipperkin and the brown bowl.'
‘

'So here's a good health to the barley mow.'

The point, as in all these cumulative songs, was that the singer always added something else to the list of the things he intended to drink out of. The responses, though identical each time as to words, varied considerably in tune, and it was about four verses before the audience got the hang of it. Then it went really with a will.

At the fourteenth and last verse Bella sang:

'Oh, I will drink out of the clouds, my boys;'

'So here's a good health to the barley mow.'

'The clouds, the ocean, the sea, the river,' sa
ng Bella; 'the well, the tub, th
e bath, the hogshead, the keg, the gallon, the quart, the pint, the nipperkin
and
the brown bowl.'

'So here's a good HEALTH to the barley mow!!!'

There was a tremendous yell of delight when it was over, and people broke the circle to cluster round the little girl to kiss and congratulate her. Oh, dear life, thought Demelza, she'll be
impossible
now! Yet she could not but feel a surge of pleasure at her daughter's success.

George Warleggan had watched this with the observant distaste he had brought to the rest of the evening. He was parti
cularly annoyed the de Dunstanvil
les were not here, and it made it worse to see this precocious Poldark child making an exhibition of herself. If the evening anyway was to be intolerable he had at least hoped to take the opportunity of mending a few bridges between himself and Francis Basset, Baron de Dunstanville. After all it was five years since all that banking business; and George felt Francis could hardly blame him for having been drawn in as Sir Christopher Hawkins's second in the duel they had fought. Francis was more than ever the richest and most active man in public affairs in Cornwall, and it served no good purpose not to be on terms with such a personage. But he was not here, so one had to make do with such few other people as were worth speaking to.

He and Harriet were separated, for she had gone to dance. Rather against his wishes she had gone to dance with Dr Enys. Her black hair was down to her shoulders and shone like patent leather in the candlelight. The new pearl earrings with their diamond setting glinted through the heavy strands of her hair.

He had questioned her, of course. Tactfully but thoroughly. It was not her custom, she amiably admitted, to pay money
into
the bank, into th
e account which as a special favour - she being a married woman - Warleggan & Willyams Bank had opened for her. On the contrary, it was her regular custom to take money
out.
But this time - well, this time the only source of the tainted money, the suspect banknote, seemed to be the Faro table.

Of course any one of the players might have paid it in, and any one of them might have handled the note innocently enough. It could have been through a half-dozen pairs of hands since January. Nevertheless there was always the possibility that it had not, and George had made a list of the people playing at his house on the evening two days before the banknote was identified. There was Anthony Trefusis and Ben Sampson and Stephen Carrington and Andrew
Blamey
and Percy Hill and George Trevethan and Michael Smith. According to Harriet the chief losers had been Anthony Trefusis and Stephen Carrington and Andrew
Blamey
, so these were most obviously suspect. George had his sources of information and his creatures who could obtain more. Earlier today, before setting out to this party, he had ordered further inquiries to be made. Was Andrew
Blamey
in England or at sea wh
en the robbery took place? Wher
e were Carrington and Trefusis? Even if the inquiry
p
romised no definite conclusion, it was worth putting in and. It was the very first lead they had had in all this time. Trefusis was a younger brother and a bit of a wastrel -
perpetually short of money, quarrelling with his father and elder brother for the lack of it, exactly the sort of young man Valentine seemed to attract. Andrew
Blamey
was half Poldark, the son of a packet capta
in and himself in the service.
But when ashore he was always drinking and gaming and no doubt companioning Valentine in his pursuit of the light girls of Falmouth and Penryn. Carrington was the unknown quantity, rescued from the sea, someone said; had caught a Poldark and then lost her, always in and out of Cornwall since he first arrived, picking up trade or business here and there, turning a presumably honest penny. But recently buying a French prize in St Ives, according to Valentine.
With whose money
?

In addition to the heavy loss sustained by the banks as a result of the robbery, there had been other irritating after
effects. Harriet's aunt, Miss Darcy, had lost her father's signet ring, and a loving cup that had been in the family for years; they had been in care of the Devon
8c
Cornwall Bank, now partners of Warleggan & Willyams, and were being sent down to Godolphin. Miss Darcy, who did not care for George, appeared to hold him personally responsible that her property had been lost with everything else.

It was clear from the start that the thieves had been gentlemen, or people of at least sufficient education to play the gentleman. Your ordinary highwayman or cut-purse could never put on the airs or the accent of a clergyman or a naval lieutenant. (The woman, they said, had spoken little, so she could have been any doxy they picked up to play the part.) The woman would be impossible to find; but not perhaps the two men. At least there was a lead now, and Stephen Carrington possibly the likeliest suspect.

But George's native caution warned him that, of all the gamblers at his house that night, Carrington was the most likely to have received the note from someone else, being in and out of trade so much, and himself innocent. One must simply pursue the lead for a little while and see what .happened.

Something was happening, now the tedious singing was over in the great hall. His enemy and old rival was making a speech. George edged towards the door where he could listen and sneer. It was, Ross said, a few words of hail and farewell. It had been of the extremest pleasure to him -
indeed to everyone - to see his cousin return to claim the family home that was his; and the pleasure had been doubled by the presence at his side of a lovely and gracious Spanish wife. In less than three months they had together repaired the ravages of almost ten years' neglect. This was the way Trenwith had been when he, Ross, was a boy; it was the way it had been, he guessed, through several centuries before; it was the way it was going to be, he earnestly trusted, for many years to come. But the war with France still raged, and Geoffrey Charles felt himself obligated to return to his regiment. So two weeks from today they had arranged to take ship for San Sebastian. (There was a groan from the company.) From there young Mrs Poldark would return to her own family, who were themselves shortly returning to Madrid, and her husband would travel to take command of his company of the Light Brigade, the
43rd
Monmouthshires. Indeed, Ross said, although his cousin had requested that he should keep the information private, he felt it his duty to inform the company that Geoffrey Charles Poldark had been promoted to the rank of Acting Major, as from the date of his return. (There were cries of congratulations.) So, Ross said, it only remained for him to ask the company to charge their glasses and drink to the love, happiness, safety and eventual return to this old family house or Major and Mrs Geoffrey Charles Poldark.

Everyone drank. 'You're not drinking, sir!' said some strange man, glaring at George. 'Lost my glass,' said George austerely, staring him down. The strange man ducked out of sight and reappeared almost immediately with a glass full, it turned out, of neat brandy and thrust it into George's hand. 'Drink now, sir!'

-After everyone had toasted them, Geoffrey Charles took Amadora's hand, she being reluctant to come forward, and said how grateful he was for the welcome, the love and the warmth which had been extended to them both for their all-too-brief stay. He felt, as probably many here tonight felt, that the long war was at last at a turning point, that at last it was nearly won. Having himself been through so many of the difficult times, militarily, most particularly the defeat and death, in impossible circumstances, of Sir John Moore, he was really looking forward to participating in a campaign which, for once, promised victory. (There was a laugh.) But when the final victory was won, he hoped and believed that he and his beloved wife would return to settle down here in their house, as his forbears had done for centuries before him. Not, he added, amid more laughter, that he would be at all unwilling to spend a part of each year in Spain!