The Loving Cup (38 page)

George got up, stoppered the decanter and put it away in a glass cupboard. He locked the cupboard.

'That the matter has been hanging fire for twelve months is reason enough - and a very cogent reason - why it should be postponed no longer. It is all settled between Trevanion and myself. There can be no possible reason for further delay.'

Valentine s
aid: 'You have not asked me if I
love
Cuby.'
George breathed out.

'Good God, why should I ? She is a personable, intelligent,
p
retty girl! Young and healthy and well bred!' With a hint of oldness in his voice that could never have been there before his marriage to Harriet, he said: 'Many men would consider you a lucky dog. Why, if I were in your shoes I should not at all
misfancy-
‘

'Oh, I fancy her well enough,' Valentine admitted, if she
is
untouched, as I suspect, I fancy deflowering her very much indeed. But then I fancy so many women. That's the fun of it. I'm not
sure
I wish to be tied to Cuby for life. Of course she is all the things you say, and I grant you that. I grant
her
that. But for marriage you want something more. I think it would be much better if we had six months longer to make sure.'

George looked at his sprawling son with an impatience that hid a growing anger,
I
do not agree that it would be better, Valentine. It has been a long and difficult negotiation which further delay might well put out of joint. Once we break or stretch any condition, John Trevanion will feel free to do the same.' He made a great effort to be reasonable, conciliatory, even fraternal, it cannot have come as much of a surprise to you, my dear boy. You have known it all for over a year! You must have accustomed yourself to the prospect. As I have said, and as you have admitted, it cannot be too disagreeable a prospect. To be master of so fine an estate and so fine a woman at less than twenty-one years old! Do you appreciate how much
financially
it will cost me, this wedding? I am doing it for you, my only son, to set you up in this splendid style. The home that has been the Trevanion home for five hundred years will become yours. The Warleggan name, through you, may well become established there for another five hundred years to come! It is a great and inspiring thought! But the time for hesitation, for delay, is long over. You
must
accept my advice on this. The wedding must take place not later t
han September. I trust you will’
George swallowed,
‘
I
trust you will excuse me for being adamant on the point. But I am. The choice is now only yours in the matter of a week or two one way or the other.'

Valentine climbed to his feet, rubbed a hand over his hair.

'Do you mind if I take another drink?' George fumbled in his pocket, handed him the key. 'Help yourself.'

There was silence for a few minutes except for the squeak of the cupboard door, the clink of decanter on glass. Somewhere downstairs one of Harriet's dogs was barking: a great gruff sound, hollow and breathy and deep.

Tell me, father. Tell me what you would do if I said no to your
proposition?'

'What on earth do you mean, boy? Said no? You couldn't say no. This is decided!'

Valentine was sitting straight in his chair how, knees together, moving the glass slowly round in his fingers. 'But I surely have to be a willing party! Blood and bones, it is
my
life you are directing!'

'And I am directing it! Remember that! I am your father. You do as I say. There is no choice for you. You do as I
say!’

Valentine gulped his canary. 'Ah, yes. I see. But if
...'
'If nothing!'

Valentine filled his glass again.

'Don't make yourself
drunk
!' snapped George. 'That will do you no good.'

'On the contrary it may. Have you heard of Dutch courage, father? Perhaps I am seeking Dutch courage.'

George took several deep breaths to steady his temper. This show of reluctance on Valentine's part, he was convinced, simply grew out of perverseness and a desire to show off, to demonstrate his apparent independence. Valentine depended for his first and last penny on what his father gave him. He was unfitted for any form of work except the most menial, and his whole approach to life was so pleasure-loving that there was virtually no alternative but to obey.
This streak of obstinacy, of sophistical wrong-headedness, of cynical rejection of homely virtues, was something George had long ago come to detest in his son. Normally one could make a deliberate effort and ignore the poses and the posturings. But why, over so important and so benevolent an issue as this, where an ordinary son would only,
could
only, accept and be enormously grateful, did he have to put on this show of reluctance, make this sardonic attempt at rejection? George was convinced that if he were now to say: 'Very well, Valentine, if that is your decision, the marriage is off, and I will cancel all my arrangements with Trevanion,' the one who would ultimately feel the bitterest disappointment at having his bluff called would be Valentine himself.

The trouble was George could not bring himself to call the bluff.

Perhaps Valentine's m
ind had been running along some
what
parallel lines for he said: 'What
would
you do if I said no, then ?' 'Do you need such a detailed answer?'

The Dutch courage was working. 'Well, father, yes, I think I do. I suppose I might be permitted to return to Cambridge?...'

I
regret you would not.'

'Then I would continue to live here as a — as a sort of pensioner?'

'No, you would not,'
said George.

'But I am your
son,'
said Valentine.

‘
indeed. A son for whom I have the greatest affection and the greatest regard. For whom I have been striving to provide a noble and a settled future. As you must admit.'

'But does this mean so much to you - this arrangement— that
if
I wreck it you will attempt to wreck me?'

I
should
not
attempt
to wreck you,' said George. 'But
you cannot avoid the consequences of your own acts. And these consequences would be such that I should
...'
He paused.

'Disown me?'

'Come, Valentine, why are we talking like this? I do not know what has got into you to take this perverse and deeply objectionable line. It is all arranged. You have never before raised a single word against it—

‘
was not consulted!'

'But you
knew
of it and tactily accepted it! This late objection does credit neither to your honour nor your common sense. Come, take another drink and let us go down to supper. Sleep on it. It will look different in the morning.'

Valenti
ne got up and stood v
ery still, the decanter firm in
his hand,
I
do not think it will, father.'

George stared at his lean, patrician, dark eyed, narrow eyed, long nosed son. 'Just what does that mean?'

‘I
t means that I will not marry Cuby Trevanion. Indeed cannot.'

'Cannot?'
George spoke the word, his jaws opening widely as if about to bite on something. 'What in God's name are you talking about?'

‘
in God's name,' said Valentine. And then sardonically:

'Yes, I suppose it is in God's name, if you care to look on it that way. God has forbidden it
...
You see, father, I am already married.'

Ursula had been playing with her mine when she heard the raised voices. At first she thought it was someone calling
her for supper; this someti
mes happened in spite of her father's insistence that a servant should be sent up to her room if she did not respond to the gong.

Ursula spent a lot of time alone in her room; more than her step-mother thought healthy, but in spite of her stolid appearance she had a keen imagination and enjoyed little plays and stories that she made up to fit her models.

That, of course, of the mine was the most elaborate. Built by a man called Angove who had lost a leg in an accident at Wheal Spinster, it filled one side of her playroom, being seven feet long and three and a half high, and worked almost to scale and almost exactly like a real mine. Little miners made of tin picked in caverns and stooped in tunnels, with one side of the model cut away so that they could be moved at will. The engine worked, though so far only by turning a handle. Ingenious trays and catchpots had been built at floor level so that real water might be used without damage to the room. For this mine Ursula now had her own cost books and account books and lists of bargains struck by
p
airs of miners working on tribute. Recently Angove had
b
een brought back to extend the workings round the corner of the room, with overhand stopes and whyms and adits and ladders and planks leading across shafts and genuine bits of ore, tin and copper, let into the tunnels here and there.

One rather errant game Ursula played, and was playing today, related to her mother's first husband. Some years ago Grandmother, who had now herself left them to join the angels, told her that her mother's first husband, father of that handsome soldier who had come to lunch here with his
foreign wife,
had
met
his
death by going down a mine called Wheal Grace near Nampara. He had gone down on his own, not telling anybody, and started exploring in the old workings where nobody had ever been for years. He had tried to cross a plank over a shaft full of water, the plank had been rotten and he had fallen in. 'They found him,' old Grandmother Warleggan whispered, 'just too late by an hour. No more'n an hour. And d'you know what was in his hand? A rusty nail. He'd been clinging to it, holding himself up by it, till it came out of the wall!'

The story had made a great impression on Ursula, and she got a
frisson
out of replaying it. One of her little tin men was Francis. Poldark. She walked him o
ver to the mine, persuaded him
to crawl down one of the narrow tunnels, brought him to the plank over the flooded shaft. She could not break the plank every
time
, so she had him slip and plunge into the water; then cling to the nail. That was the best part of it. In inky darkness and up to his neck in water, he clung to the nail. Then the rescue party started searching for him; but too late
...

The raised voices were on this floor and coming from her father's study. She had never heard anything quite like this before.
Twice
to her knowledge since his marriage to Harriet there had been angry scenes, with both of them on the
verge of shouti
ng but it had never actually
happened.
Now it was happening. Ursula took more than an average
girl's glee in trouble in the
house so long as she was not concerned in it; so she slipped out of her room and along the passage to the door of her father's study.

Then she realized that this was not a quarrel involving her step-mother at all. The voices were both male, and she knew them both.

'...
by God, sir, I shall put a stop to this!'

'To
what
?
It has
happened’

I
shall see that it is annulled! You are not twenty-one! It is simply a form you have gone through to persuade some wretched girl
—'

'No wretched girl, father. And it is
legal.
I made doubly sure of that!'

Something slipped and fell to the floor. Ursula skipped back expecting someone to come bursting out, but they did not. She did not much care for her brother, who was often supercilious at her expense, so this was a special pleasure to hear him being hauled over the coals for something; and something that sounded quite dreadful.

'And who is this girl?'

'Never mind that for the moment. The ceremony took place in St Benedict's
—'
‘
Where's
that?'

'Cambridge, father. It was performed by the Reverend Arthu
r Chisholm and was quite conventi
onal and legal and public, and it took place on Wednesday, May the fourth last-'

'By God, this is
insufferabl
¹
.
You knew
very
well
what my plans were for you! By God, you shall not go unpunished for this! What got into you? - some insanity - some snivelling wench you'd got with child! I suppose her father and her brother-''

'She has
neither
’
.
Nor is she with child. It
was a perfectly
deliberate choice on my part-'

'Deliberate in order to frustrate everything I had planned for you!
Wasn't
it! Tell me that! Wasn't it absolutely deliberate — an act on your part undertaken solely to bring down in ruins all the plans I had for you. Wasn't it!
Wasn't
it!'

'Only partly, my dear father. I confess I did not like to continue so wholly dependent on you as I have been until now. And, since you corner me, I have never much fancied being your lapdog. But my reasons for what I have done are altogether more complex than that-than a simple desire to thwart your arrangements and set them at naught. I can tell you
...
but I won't!'

'Tell me what you fancy! Explain to me
exactly
what I have bred, what simpering, scheming, sarcastic, good-for-nothing fop! What ungrateful, ungracious, greedy, drunken, malapert, lazy wastrel! From the moment I bred you
,
you have accepted
everything
I have lavished on you with a smirk and a sneer. Never so much as a thank you! Never so much as a by-your-leave!
Everything
you have taken for granted as if by right. Well I will show you that it is not
yours by right at all! I'll show you that, my boy; from now on! I'll show you!'

A glass shattered on the floor and Ursula again sprang away, but the quarrel was too absorbing to take her far.

Valentine's voice. It was cooler now but more bitter.

'And what have I received from you, dear father? For the first six or seven years of my life I remember nothing but harsh words and cold looks. Then after Mother died I became a sort of symbol to you, and that is what I have remained! The money you spent on me - on my clothes, my education, was really money you spent on self-aggrandisement. That you had a son who went to Eton was more your pleasure than mine. That he mixed with the sons of peers
and had a baronet as his "fag"
was something to talk about among your friends. That you fixed him up with a nice young virgin and a great house and just enough money to live on; it was all a part of the same pattern: the aggrandisement of Sir George Warleggan, the blacksmith's grandson!'

'You insolent
puppy
!’
There was the thump of furniture and someone stumbling.

'Why do you take that as an insult, father? I am a blacksmith's
great
grandson. I cannot see that it
matters.
We all come from some humble beginnings, whether they be near or far. What I am complaining about is that you should be complaining about
me!...'

'Leave the chair, damn you!
...
I shall not touch you again
...'

'Had I married Cuby, your plans would have worked out well; but I'll lay a curse that you would have kept me on a short allowance, just so that I should continue to dance when you pulled the string. That was your intention, wasn't it! Blood and bones, I'll swear it was!'

'Well, I can promise you this: you'll dance to another tune from now on! You'll find a difference when you're a pauper! Most of your precious drinking and gaming friends will no longer wish to know you! And as for your lascivious habits, you'll find women's bodies less easy to come by when there is no gold in the hand!'

'One w
oman's body I have for quite a t
ime now come by, and that is my wife's. I'm sure that a man of your moral attitudes would applaud our decision to make the union legal. Also, I am not in love with Cuby but I
am
in love with my wife. Indeed I worship the very ground she walks on!'

Ursula tittered, but not the man hearing it inside the room.

‘I
presume I do not know this paragon. Perhaps she has enough money to keep you as
her
pet lap dog. I trust so, for you will leave this house tomorrow with the clothes you stand up in and a couple of trunks to take your personal belongings. After that you will not receive a penny from me. You may go and rot in Hell!'

'Call it Hell if you like, father. In fact my wife has
£30,000
in three per cents, so - although I hope to improve on that as time goes on - I do not suppose my life will alter for the worse in comfort or convenience. It will be very much better in one way for I shall enjoy the freedom of seeing nothing of you. You poisoned my mother's life with your insane suspicions and jealousies; and I am only happy and relieved that you will have no further opportunity to poison mine!'

The gong was being rung for supper. Quite out of the blue, Ursula suddenly wished it was
louder
so that it would stop them quarrelling. The most
terrible
things were now being said, and her father, whom she greatly admired, was getting the
worst
of it. Things were being said now that would never be forgotten, searing accusations, horrible insults, words that could never be unspoken. From taking a gleeful interest in a rumpus she had become very frightened. What was being said now was probably for ever. Her family life would not be the same again.

Silence had fallen inside the room. At least they were not fighting, as had seemed likely a couple of minutes ago.

Her father said: 'For saying those evil and ignorant things about my relationship with your mother I shall never forgive you. Pray leave this room and do not come in to supper. Leave the house as early as you can in the morning so that I shall have the least possible opportunity of seeing you again. Return to your woman in Cambridge and stay there. Cornwall is well rid of you.'

'I
fear Cornwall is not rid of me,' said Valentine,
I
shall stay here. My wife has a house here. I could have wished to delay the announcemen
t of our marriage by another six
months, or so, but you have forced it into the open with your ill-considered pressure. My wife was Mrs Selina Pope. Now she is Mrs Selina Warleggan, and we shall live at Pl
ace
House, barely fifteen miles distant from here. Before you have an opportunity for any more envenomed comments, she is thirty-two years of age, and I have two step-daughters. They are attractive young ladies and I shall do my best to marry them off in due course. Perhaps you will tell Harriet all this over supper, will you? I would like her to know the truth as soon as possible. I am sure she will be amused. But her amusement may possibly be more directed against you than against me
...'

Ursula only just
had t
ime to flatten herself against the wall as Valentine swept out. She did not know if he saw her, but if he did he took no notice. His black hair fell across a darkening bruise on his forehead; his eyes glistened, his mouth was set, his nose hawk-like. He looked ten years older and, far from being fop-like or languorous, he looked a very dangerous young man.

_Book
Three