Bella Poldark (41 page)

raise an alarm - when they had constantly to be rebuilt because of the wet climate -- had been moved much nearer Nampara, on a piece of flat moorland just beyond Wheal Grace. It was the highest place around and could easily be seen from St Ann's Beacon and Trencrom Hall, linking up with a chain around the coast. The bonfires celebrating Trafalgar and Waterloo had been lit here, and since then, because alarm lights to rouse folk to meet an invasion or to inform them of some great feat of arms were no longer necessary, no one had suggested that the fifth of November bonfire should be returned to its former place. An advantage too was that this was much further from any house or thatched roof which might catch a flying spark. The only place in mild proximity was Sam's new chapel, built out of the fallen granite from Wheal Maiden, but this had a roof of Delabole slate, and the wind was scarcely ever in that direction. On the third of November also a letter from Christopher for Miss Poldark.

Dearest Bella,

I have some news for you that I trust will give you pleasure. I called on your new brother-in-law about the beginning of last month and in the course of conversation, which needless to say included your career and your illness, he brought up his interest and influence in the Royal Coburg Theatre. You will remember we went to it a couple of times soon alter you came to live with Mrs Pelham - it is just across the river by the new bridge. We saw a spectacle and melodrama called Trial by Battle, which we both enjoyed. Well, of late, Lord Edward and some of his friends, including the producer Frederick McArdle, have been introducing some plays of greater quality and interspersing them among burlesque and ordinary melodrama to see if the audience will accept and appreciate them. There have to be a few alterations in the text of the plays, to evade the law that restricts the plays of Shakespeare to the patent theatres; but apparently they played to almost full houses with Macbeth in August, with Frederick McArdle producing. There is now a plan afoot to produce Romeo and Juliet for some time in December. Dates not yet settled, nor cast. But they hope to get a young actor called Arthur Scales for Romeo. Edward has spoken about you to McArdle, and McArdle would be willing to interview you with the idea of offering you one of the smaller speaking parts. What do you think of that? The theatre may not be the most fashionable and the part not a big one, but it would enable you to return to the theatre, and if they like you and you like them this could lead to better things. If your voice fully recovers you can resume your singing career at will. But this can do you no harm professionally and it will get you into the theatrical swim again. As you know, I have always felt you could act and you have a presence which a lot of young women would give their ears for. If you are willing to come to London at some agreed date in December, I will make no claims upon you that you do not invite, but I will do all in my power to put you back into the world where you truly belong.

And I will come to Cornwall for you. Christopher

'What shall you do?' Demelza asked.

'Oh, I would go! Without hesitation I would go. But for one thing.'

'What is that?'

'I am fond of Edward. I feel for Clowance. I so long for them to be happy, as I think they will be. But she has married above her. I do not want him to think, or her to think, that almost before they have finished their honeymoon the Poldarks are asking favours of him. Making use of him, in fact'

'He mentioned the idea to me before they left,' Ross said. 'I don't know him well, but he did not give me the impression that he looked on it that we were taking a liberty - or that Christopher Havergal was presuming on a possible relationship by asking him.'

After a moment Demelza said: 'Clowance is anything but an angel, but at the moment Edward thinks her one. He has also fallen in love with Cornwall, and appears to include all his new relatives in a general sort of affectionate view. At present my feeling is he cannot do enough for us, his only regret that he cannot do more. Look at the great supply of fireworks he has sent to the village! I still understand your sort of reluctance, Bella, to seem to take advantage of a new relationship. But my own feeling in my heart, in my judgement, is that you should take this chance. You agree, Ross?'

'I do. If something comes of it, I believe Edward would take pleasure in feeling he had helped so much.'

Bella gave a little nervous cough. 'My voice is quite satisfactory - I talk just so much as I want and suffer no inconvenience. But I suspect at times I speak a little rough. I wonder if in a play I had to raise my voice in making a long speech it might become husky.'

Ross said: 'Dear Bella, why do you not face that difficulty when you come to it, eh? You do not know what part you will be assigned to play. It seems likely that you may have only few sentences to speak, such as, "Here is the wine, Lady Capulet."'

Demelza said: 'I thought she was called Juliet.'

'So she is. Lady Capulet is her mother.' 'So your father knows all about it!'

'I wish I did,' Bella said. 'It is a classic. Do you think Mrs Hemple's Academy might have a copy they could lend me? Do you think if I went in and called on them they might be able to help?'

'There is the library in Truro too,' said Ross, 'where Arthur Solway used to work. We might try them.'

That afternoon, soon after lunch when the rain, which had been threatening all morning with low scurrying coal-edged clouds, was about to begin, Valentine kidnapped little Georgie Warleggan and took him back to Place House, Trevaunance, where he had been born.

Valentine refused to use the word 'kidnapped'. He claimed that he had simply resumed possession of his own son. Kidnapping one's son was like raping one's wife, a contradiction in terms. After some prospective visits to examine what might be termed the defences of Rayle Farm, they had established that these would not be difficult to breach. Selina had only three servants and her cousin Henrietta; and Valentine, for all the hard words between them when he made the formal call, had not actually threatened to take the child away from her against her will. Valentine said to David, 'In times of open warfare surprise is all.'

Usually Henrietta took the child for a walk directly after dinner, while Selina rested. It was noticed that, being no energetic walker herself, Henrietta would frequently allow Georgie to run on ahead and then come back to her. She seemed quite arbitrary as to the direction she took, but they were keen not to snatch the boy under the eyes of those few miners who hacked and picked above ground. This afternoon the threat of rain was enough to deter Henrietta from stirring far from home, and sure enough they made off behind the house in the direction of the woods surrounding Tehidy. Halfway to the first bank of arbutus trees Henrietta stopped, presumably to get her breath, and Georgie ran on. Presently he was confronted by his father, who tried to stop the squeal of delight the little boy uttered, and gathered him up in his arms, and made, as if it were all a great joke, towards the woods, while David Lake, who was unknown to Henrietta, accosted her and asked her the way to Basset's Cove. After a brief, pleasant conversation David turned away in the direction she pointed and, once out of view, made a quick detour to where they had left their horses, to find Valentine already mounted, with his son in front of him on the saddle, waiting for his friend. They made for home. The worst of the rain mercifully held off, though for the last five miles it spattered into their faces in vicious spurts before the driving wind. At Place House preparations had been made to receive the honoured guest. Polly Stevens, nee Odgers, at one time a nursemaid to Valentine himself, had been engaged. Georgie, who at first had seen the joke in this clandestine escape from his mother, had begun to get fretful as the saddle chafed his legs, and when he tottered into the front hall of Place House his eyes were red with rubbing them, and he looked ready to go to sleep. The motherly approach of the ex-clergyman's daughter -- who had been anything but motherly when she was young - was enough to soothe his fretfulness, and a bowl of warm bread and milk, fed him by his father, revived him. Like a fire that has had fresh dry faggots thrown on it, he was suddenly all energy and interest. When he saw Butto he momentarily cringed, seeking his father's protection, so Valentine picked him up, opened the door of the pen and went in.

'Butto,' Valentine said, 'this is my one and only son. Georgie, reach out and touch his muzzle. He could as well eat you as kiss you, but I know that only the second is in his thoughts.'

The little boy began to stroke Butto's great ruff. Butto sneezed as if pepper had been thrown on him, shook his great head, sniffed a couple of times and then put out his gloved hand.

Demelza's occasional attacks of migraine had become much less frequent as her reproductive cycle ceased, but on the morning of the fifth she woke hardly able to get her head off the pillow. It improved by dinnertime, but as darkness fell she decided not to go to the bonfire. The thought of standing about in the chill breeze while men fumbled with flint and tinder or waved torches defiantly to the happy sound of joking and laughter, did not appeal to her as much as it normally would. But being Demelza, who always hated to miss anything more cheerful than a funeral, she said she might walk up a little later. The bonfire was due to be lit at six and the fireworks would begin at seven. Until then she would flick over the pages of the Spectator, which Dwight faithfully delivered after he had read it - or even a fashion magazine which Clowance had left behind. Ross was expected to be there to put a torch to the bonfire, but deputed Bella to do it instead, and he said he would companion Demelza until seven, when she might be persuaded to turn out - or not, as the weather promised. After the downpour last night, which had lasted until midnight, the day had been fine, with only a rare flurry of rain, and even a few rags of sky appearing in faded blue among the grey clouds that for the most part hid it. That other Poldark - Geoffrey Charles - would be expected at the bonfire; as would the Enys family, minus Caroline. She said: 'They know I love them dearly - why else should I allow my husband to risk his health moving among their dirt and feverish infections - but I can do no good to or for them by standing about watching their squibs.'

Daisy Kellow was not well enough to come out, and Paul had gone to St Ives to bring his parents back. Demelza felt that if she was recovered sufficiently to go to the fire herself she might call in at Fernmore on her way. Edward and Clowance had spent part of their last day with Daisy and Paul, but Demelza had not been for more than three weeks -for reasons that she was disinclined to face. Most of the servants at Nampara had gone to see the lighting of the bonfire, and just before seven Ross left. Demelza was very comfortable, toasting her feet before the fire. She said: 'I'll come in an hour.'

'If you are not there by eight-thirty,' Ross said, 'I will come back for you.'

'No. Don't bother. I can find it, you know.'

'Just follow the lights,' said Ross. 'But I'll come for you just the same.' Left to herself, Demelza poured a second glass of port and settled into Drake's rocking chair. Port neither cured nor made worse the light-headedness that followed her migraine, but it was comforting to have it at her elbow, and she adored the taste. It was so pleasant to have the house entirely to oneself. Although usually a gregarious person, she found her privacy so rare that she valued it. Now that Ross was more or less permanently at home, she had almost forgotten the empty periods of her life when she had ached for the sight of him -- a long hollow ache that the presence of nobody else, not even her children, could assuage. With a poker she rearranged the coal on the fire, hitting one piece until it split and burst into a new flame. Good sea coal, recently arrived from Wales. One result of keeping open two moderately successful mines was that one could have the pick when it was delivered at Basset's Cove or in Truro River. She must have dozed off for a few minutes because she woke still staring into the fire. She looked at the clock by the door. It still wanted five minutes until half-past seven, so Ross had been gone only fifteen minutes. In a wide range of thoughts before she dozed off her mind had gone fleetingly to Paul and Daisy Kellow and Philip Prideaux. She was very uneasy about Paul. Another woman had died: was it coincidence that Paul had been visiting his parents in St Ives at that time? Was she justified in breathing her suspicions, even breathing them, to Ross on the strength of one of her famous -- or infamous forefeelings and the smell of a cigar? She was a little afraid of Paul; there was something unnatural about him, and something unhealthy about his preoccupation with her. It was not precisely sexual. It was not merely because she was Jeremy's mother. But the two were facts somehow related to the way he looked at her - detached, as if he hardly knew her or she him, yet deeply engaged. His eyes seemed to say that they understood each other's secrets. Two or three times he had wanted to involve her in some personal confession; always she had put him off, not wanting at all to hear what he had to say, sensing that it was to Jeremy's detriment, wanting to hurt her, wanting to penetrate to something in her motherhood, something in her femininity. It was an uneasy situation. She had been relieved when he married and went away. But now he had come back, more or less permanently it seemed, leaving his wife alone to fight her losing battle with tuberculosis, instead looking after his sister, who was herself fighting the same battle. She had hoped when his parents went away to stay in St Ives that this might herald a move for the entire family. Nampara was exceptionally quiet. She wondered if there were a single soul left in it except herself. Even old Jack Cobbledick had hobbled out on his two sticks, and they had hoisted him onto a donkey for a ride up the combe. The only sound in the house was the rattle of an upstairs window, in Jeremy's room, and the creak, creak, creak of a door. Which one? She ought to know every sound, but this one she could not identify. Fortunately for the fireworks, the wind had taken off and only a gentle breeze was pushing against that window in Jeremy's room. When Ross left there were even a few smeary stars in the sky. She should be moving. She stretched her legs towards the fire, luxuriating like a cat in the warmth. Philip Prideaux had been on her mind of late too. He had only once been to Nampara since Clowance made her choice. Ross had seen him, she knew, and, according to Ross, he was taking his disappointment pretty well. For the last few days he had been staying with Geoffrey Charles and Amadora at Trenwith. She must get them over for supper before he left. She specially wanted to see him privately in order to impress on him, if that were possible, that Clowance's choice had been entirely her own, without her parents attempting to influence it any way whatever. Ross said he had emphasized this when they met and Philip said he understood. That might be all right so far as Ross was concerned, but Philip might still harbour suspicions about Clowance's mother. Women, most women it had to be said, had an eye to the main chance where their daughters were concerned. In marrying the brother of a marquess Clowance was taking an enormous step up in the world. The fact that Demelza, herself sprung from nothing, should not try to influence her daughter would be hard to believe. She hoped to make it clear to Philip, when she had the chance, that at an early age she had caught from Ross the doctrine of egalitarianism and had consistently put it into practice in her attitude even towards her own children.