The Loving Cup (22 page)

'What?' Valentine dabbed the end of his nose with a lace handkerchief. 'What boy? Oh, you mean
Conan Whit
worth. Did it matter? He asked to come. Is he offensive to you?'

'Of
course
he's offensive! Didn't you know his mother was to be here? Didn't you appreciate the shock it would be to her!'

"Fraid I didn't. Should I have? Sons and mothers are not usually so antipathetic to each other.'

'For God's sake you could have written and asked me! Jeremy had the manners to do that when he wanted to invite someone I did not know!'

'Oh, C
uby and the Trevanions!'Valentine beamed.
'That was a truly excellent idea, wasn't it.'

'To hell with that! I want to know why you brought that boy here!'

Valentine's smile was wearing thin, but he did not relinquish it.

'My dear step-brother, I have told you. He wanted to come. I brought him. Why should I not? I was a babe in arms almost when his father was killed and his mother married again. You were but a lad yourself. How am I to know all the ins and outs of the affairs of your tedious friends?'

Geoffrey Charles's anger was blunted on the realization that probably Valentine spoke the partial truth. But the anger did not go away.

He said: ‘I
suppose you have always felt you owned this house!'

'Not at all, brother. Merely a residual interest, as it were. Do you wish to make an issue of it?'

'Only to
the extent of ensuring you do not become over-familiar in the uses to which you put your relationship.'

Valentine's temper was rising, but he was the junior by ten years and authority was not on his side.

He said: 'Are the royal toes sore with being trodden on? You have only to say.'

'I've said all I have to say.' It was impossible to bring up Amadora's name without making her seem over-careful of her dignity.

'Then may I rejoin the ladies? Or do you wish me to leave?'

'Do whichever you damned please,' said Geoffrey Charles, turning away. 'Leave by all means if you have neither the wit nor the manners to offer an apology.'

'Apology?' said a voice from the door. 'Between brothers?' It was, of all people, Sir George, his voice even colder than usual. Although his black silk suit had been cut by the best tailor in London it sat uneasily on him; his sturdy bull-necked body wo
uld not adapt to its elegance, ‘I
came to tell you, Valentine, that we shall be leaving shortly
...
Is your wife not here; Geoffrey Charles?'

'No, she's upstairs,' said Geoffrey Charles woodenly. Amadora was with Morwenna.

'An apology?' said Valentine. His confidence had come back with another person in the room, and he resented his brief loss of it. 'Between brothers? Between half-brothers anyway. Will a half apology do ?'

'Make it what you will,' said Geoffrey Charles. 'So long as you understand what I have said.'

'And what has he said ?' asked George.

No one spoke. George walked across the room, eyeing it, for he had not been in here before tonight.

He said: 'This spinning wheel belonged to your mother. Perhaps if you don't treasure
it you could give it to Valen
tine.'

'I do treasure it,'said Geoffrey Charles. 'It is in very poor condition. It needs attention.' 'It has been neglected for a great number of years - like t
he rest of the house.'
Just so. The Harry brothers were never very satisfactory.' 'I have discharged them.'

George raised his eyebrows and put his fingers on the spinning wheel, as if sampling it for dust. 'And what has Valentine said?' 'What?'

'What has Valentine said that you expect him to understand?'

'Oh, a mere trifle,' volunteered Valentine. 'That I must mind my Ps and Qs while in this house and take care whom I invite to it without the permission of the owner.'

'I do not think you need to put yourself in such a situation again,' said George. 'You will have your own inheritance soon enough.'

'I wish him good fortune with it!' said Geoffrey Charles.

'What do you know about it?' George snarled.

'Nothing.
Should I? I have been away far too long to have any idea what damned plans you have in mind! So long as they do not involve me, I don't care.'

'I can promise they do not involve you in any way. You are at full liberty to spend your wife's money restoring this place to its former glory - such as it ever was.'

It seemed that even George had been drinking more than his norm.

‘I
won't detain you,' said Geoffrey Charles, 'a moment longer than you wish to stay.'

'Come, Valentine.' George turned back towards the door as Amadora came in followed by Ross.

'Oh,' said Amadora. 'Geoffrey, I shall be just here to tell you that Morwenna is gone to sleep
...'

She paused and looked from one to the other.

'Ah, Ross,' said George.

'Ah, George,
’
said Ross. It was the encounter neither of them had been seeking.

Geoffrey Charles said: is Drake with her still?'

'Yes. I think it shall have been some shock she has received.'

'That's what it was.'

George said to Ross: ‘I
have been observing the repairs that have been wrought in this house. It must have cost Geoffrey Charles a pretty penny. Or I suppose I should say
Mrs
Geoffrey Charles.'

'Oh, a great deal of it has been done cheaply,' Ross said. 'There has been tremendous good will in the villages.'

George sneered.'No doubt.'

'And relief.'

'Relief?'

Ross said: 'That the house is to come alive again in the way most proper and suitable to it.'

George said: 'Are you suggesting that my occupancy of the house was
im
proper?'

'Most people think so.'

George breathed down his nose, it is a Poldark house, I know. And that makes it sacrosanct. At least I did not commit the vandalism of having the great table torn up to accommodate a mere dance.'

‘I
t will go back unchanged,' snapped Geoffrey Charles. 'Have no fear.'

'Oh, I have no fear, for the property is out of my hands. It is no longer my concern.'

'Was it ever?' asked Ross.

'That's as maybe. I will leave you to your parochial triumphs. Come, Valentine.'

In the last few minutes Valentine had discovered two g
lasses half full of claret left
by someone on the bookshelf and had finished them off.

'Tell me, father,' he said, 'there was this great fight you once had with Cousin Ross, and you threw him out of the window. Was it in this room ?'

There was a gaping silence. Geoffrey Charles broke it by saying:

'Get o
ut, you stupid fool! Go home!'

'He's but a little drunk,' said Ross. And then to Valentine: 'No, it was not. In here we should have had no room to fight, should we, George?'

Geoffrey Charles said incredulously to Ross: 'And Sir George threw you out? I don't believe that!'

Valentine dabbed at a spot of wine on his lace cuff. 'Oh, but it was told me often when I was a little boy. The servants all talked. Polly Odgers used to tell me of it when I was recovering from the rickets. It used to make me laugh. I used to wonder how it came about that my. father should ever have been able to throw Uncle Ross through the window!
’

'As I remember it,' said Ross, 'three servants threw me out'

There was a gust of half controlled laughter.

'And I remember,' said George suddenly, contemptuously, 'the cause of the quarrel. Perhaps you have forgotten, Uncle Ross. You were at that t
ime in the process of defraud
ing your nephew, Geoffrey Charles, of a substantial share in your successful mine by having persuaded his mother to sell the shares to you at a knock-down price. Do
you
remember that?'

Ross tried to think of his age and the age of the man opposite him.

He said: ‘I
remember the ridiculous story you told. Perhaps the woman you'd then just married began to realize her mistake when she heard all the fabrications that you invented.'

'Don't ever speak her name in my presence!' said George.

'Why, does it upset you?'

it upsets me to think that you ever touched her!'

The little parlour was suddenly full of terrible portents and terrible memories, portents and memories which concerned very gravely the interests of the two young men -particularly of Valentine. Touched', the word that George had accidentally used, could mean anything to them. This was a moment nearer to a clash between George and Ross -on the most important subject to them both - than there had been for many years - perhaps ever been. Another step, and there could be no withdrawing. Cheerfully they would have killed each other.

Ross said: in fact, I threw a servant through the window first. It made an unattractive mess of wood and glass on the lawn. When I followed I was quite cut about the hands. However
...'
He broke off, conscious that only he could defuse the situation. 'However,
Mrs
Geoffrey Charles, may I assure you that it will never happen in your presence, and only old men could boast of what they did then. Sir George is about to leave. And Valentine, having no other glasses to drain in this room, will no doubt accompany his father. It has been an enchanting evening, Amadora, and you have graced it as perhaps no Englishwoman could have done. We're all grateful to you for coming here and bringing Geoffrey Charles back.'

'You have already said this once in your tiresome speech,' observed George, still playing with fire.

'Yes,' said Ross. 'Good things are always worth repeating. Evil things should be strangled at birth.'

'Or live on the other side of the county, eh?' said Valentine. 'Amadora, delicious one, allow me a good-night kiss, and then I shall not darken your door for many a long day.'

Amadora glanced swiftly at Geoffrey Charles but his face was without expression. She allowed herself to receive a considerable hug and a lingering kiss from Valentine, and when they had separated she tried not to put a handkerchief to her lips.

'And a half kiss for a half-brother,
' said Valentine, blowing one ‘
is there more wine outside?' 'You have had enough,' snapped George.

'Yes, Father. But the difficulty is my party may not be leaving yet, so all these adieus may be premature. You know how I hate to be without a glass in my hand.'

The relative smallness of the room had made the tension greater; no one could get far enough away except by leaving; and for a few more seconds not a person stirred. Far more than enough had been said for a challenge to be issued by either of the older men, for one to call the other out; and neither in the presence of the younger generation would have felt able to refuse. And the danger was still present. Only one more wrong word needed to be said.

Acutely aware of this, Geoffrey Charles made a great effort to swallow his own annoyance.

'We have all become over—
serious, talking of old times that were best forgot...'

Again there was silence.

Geoffrey Charles went on: 'At least there are
many
things which may pleasantly be remembered about this evening, and when I am back on the Pyrenees, those are what I shall think of.'

Valentine, who had provoked everything, said: 'Avoid the Frenchie bullets, brother. Amadora is too pretty to become a widow. For my part
...'
He did not finish.

Geoffrey Charles gave a cynical smile, which was not really a relenting of his former expression.

I'm sure you h
ave better things to do.'

'Of course,' said Sir George, brusquely turning away. 'He has better things to do.'

III

Ross and Demelza rode home about an hour later following the shadowy figures of Andrew and Verity
Blamey
who were a hundred yards ahead, and followed by Isabella-Rose in the charge of Mrs Kemp.

'Why were you so long?' Ross asked, ‘I
was waiting around
...'

‘I
went up to see Morwenna.'

'Oh, I didn't know.'

‘I
thought she was sleeping and began to steal out, but she called me back. I said sorry, sorry, but she said she
wanted
company - at least company who understood.'

‘I
think Geoffrey Charles was nearly ready to kill his half-brother.'

‘I
t was a
wicked
mistake the boy ever came. I haven't seen him before. He
is
like Ossie. There's no resemblance to his mother in him at all!'