The Stranger From The Sea (26 page)

For the musical evening the other guests were a young married couple - he on leave from his regiment: a Captain and Mrs Octavius Temple, from Carvossa in Truro; also a Lady Whitworth with her fifteen-year-old grandson, Conan. Then came the Hon. John-Evelyn Boscawen, and with him was Nicholas Carveth, brother of Mrs Temple, and making up the party Sir Christopher Hawkins and Sir George Warleggan with Valentine his son.

Clemency played the harpsichord, Joanna Bird the English guitar, Nicholas Carveth the clarinet, in its improved form just introduced by I w
an Muller, John-Evelyn Boscawen
sang a little, and accompanied Cuby when she sang. It was all a trifle high-society for Jeremy who, with an aching ankle carefully and delightfully bound up by Cuby, was content to sit and applaud and shake his head and smile when anyone looked expectantly towards him for some musical excellence.

He observed then very distinctly what a man of humour
s Major Trevanion was
from the grim and silent mood of dinner he had swung to become talkative, charming and jolly; the good host intent on seeing that his guests were comfortable and well fed and well wined. He made a great fuss of everyone, including his own sisters.

Although nominal neighbours, and distantly related by marriage to Valentine Warleggan, Jeremy had not set eyes on the other for three years and they had not spoken for six. Valentine was now a tall young man of seventeen with one slightly bowed leg, broad of shoulder but spindly of ankle and wrist, dark-haired with strong features and a narrowness of eye that marred his good looks. He seemed always to be looking down his long slim nose. He was elegantly dressed for one so young, and clearly no expense was grudged to enable him to turn himself out like this.

Jeremy and Sir George had seen one another even less, and each eyed the other askance. George, with devious aims in view, was irritated to see this gangling young man, the first of the next generation of the obtrusive Poldarks, at such a gathering - and Jeremy had none of the sexual charm of Clowance to soften George's rancour. As for Jeremy's view of Sir George, he thought him aged, and stouter in an unhealthy way. Jeremy was just old enough to have overheard and innocently participated in his parents' references to the Warleggans and therefore to have an inbuilt aversion for the breed. He saw him now as the owner of the mine he wished to acquire, the obstacle who must be placated or surmounted before Wheal Leisure could become a working property again.

George's irritation increased as the evening went on because he became convinced he recognized this young man from some occasion when they had been together and he had not known the other's name. George prided himself on his memory for faces, but this time the link escaped him.

Jeremy was differently perplexed about Lady Whitworth; he certainly had never seen her before but the name was familiar in the back of his memory. She was a very old woman and very stout, with a curly wig of chocolate-coloured hair, eyes like fire-blackened walnuts, sagging cheeks so crusted in powder that one supposed if she shook her head her gown would be covered in dust; a powerful voice, a fan. The last created difficulty, for she so wielded it throughout the music that John-Evelyn Boscawen had to ask her to stop, for he was losing the beat. Had this request been made by any other than the brother of a viscount, one's imagination shrank from the thought of what its reception would have been, but in the circumstances she reluctantly lowered her false baton.

As for her grandson, he was big for his age, and thick-lipped and clumsy and generally orotund. He had dark brown hair, growing very fine and close to his scalp like mouse fur; his short-sighted hazel eyes were small and made smaller by the fat around them. His whole face was pale and fat as if it had recently been modelled out of pastry and not yet put in the oven. All through the music he bit his nails, possibly because there was nothing else to eat.

However, Jeremy only took all this in absent-mindedly, for he had more disturbing matters to observe. Not only did young Boscawen accompany Cuby when she sang, he accompanied her during the refreshments by sitting beside her on a window-seat not large enough for three. And clearly he was not finding the proximity unpleasing. As for Cuby, she was in pale green tonight, a simple frock of sprig muslin with flat bows of emerald green ribbon on the shoulders, a little circlet of brilliants in her dark straight hair, green velvet shoes. Her face which in repose suggested sulkiness or arrogance was brilliantly illumined when she smiled. It was like a conjuring trick, a miracle; everything about her lit up and sparkled. Once or twice she met Jeremy's anxious gaze and lifted an amused eyebrow; but whether her amusement was at the attentions of young Boscawen or at Jeremy's obvious concern he could not tell.

Valentine sauntered up to Jeremy with a pastry cake in one hand and a glass of madeira in the other.

'Well, Jeremy, not out fighting the Frenchies yet?'

'No
...
So far I have left it to Geoffrey Charles.'

'I conceit he's still in Portugal or somewhere. More fool he. No one will thank him for it when it's over.'

'I don't suppose he really wants to be thanked . . . Shouldn't you be at Eton?'

'Yes; I've been rusticated for a term. Got me tutor's favourite chambermaid with child. I don't believe
‘
twould have been hel
d so much against me if she had
not so obviously preferred me to him.'

'When d'you go to Cambridge?'

'Next year. St John's. I wonder what the chambermaids are like there.'

'They're mostly men.'

'God forbid. Incidentally, that Cuby girl over there is of a very good colour and shape. I wouldn't at all object to having her after the refreshments.'

'That I think to be unlikely.'

Valentine squinted across at his cousin. 'A little feeling there? Have a taking for her yourself, do you?'

Jeremy picked up his glass and sipped it.

'Watch the way she breathes,' said Valentine. 'Doesn't it give one pretty fancies? Just a pull at that ribbon
...'

Cuby was smiling brilliantly at something John-Evelyn had said.

'Ever read history?' Valentine asked. 'Why?'

'Soon as a prince or princess comes to marriageable age - and often before — the king tries to pair off the son or daughter with some other son or daughter, to cement an alliance, to join land and property, to heal a feud; some such nonsense. Well, my father - that man over there -finding his beloved son already seventeen and ripe for conquest among the women of the world, now begins to calculate how this son may take or be given in marriage with precisely those ends. Too bad if the son has other ideas!'

'And have you?'

Valentine fingered his stock. 'I have ideas not to be caught yet for a number of years. However much the gold ring and the marriage bed may be a matter of convention lightly to be set aside, it does cramp one's best endeavours to have a sour little Mrs Warleggan waiting at home or watching one from across the room. And a good girl some of them are attractive in spite of being good - will not take so kindly to a little amorous exploration if they know a fellow is married. Don't you agree?'

'
I
agree,' said Jeremy. 'It's a millstone.'

'And tell me about yourself, cousin. Do you have a woman, and docs your father have a beneficial marriage in mind for you too? You're a pretty fellow, and I should think most of the girls of Sawle and Mellin will willingly fall down on their backs before you.'

'Haytime is the best,' said Jeremy. 'It makes the most comfortable cushion.'

'Aren't the local girls a b
it short and thick in the leg, e
h? I reckon. Well, I suppose you get your oats elsewhere. The Poldarks always were secretive about that kind of thing. Oh God, the music is about to begin again. I wonder if I can devise a seat next to Miss Cuby.'

Jeremy left the next day after church but before dinner. In the hour before he left Cuby showed him the rest of the house and grounds. The west wing of the castle was as yet unfinished, and as a contrast with the elegant and dignified lay-out in front, the back was a sea of mud and stone and timber, carts and wheelbarrows and hods and piles of slate. Not only was no one working, which was to be expected on a Sunday, but it did not look as if anyone ha
d been there recentl
y. Nothing looked newly dug or newly deposited, and some of the iron was rusty.

'Do the workmen come every day?' Jeremy asked, looking at the pools of yellow water.

'They have not been this winter. My brother thinks they waste their time in the bad weather. It will start again in May.'

'How long has the castle been building?'

'Four years. There was, of course, a house here before.*

'Your brother was very young to start such a venture.'

'I believe sometimes he has wished he had not begun! Yet it is an elegant house now.' 'Magnificent.'

'Mr Nash has made several mistakes in the design, which have added to the expense. As you will see, the castle was built on a slope, and Mr Nash designed the great wall on which one can stroll in the summer after dinner and survey the lake and the park - and also to act as a retaining wall for the foundations of the house. Alas, in the rains of last spring there were not enough drainage holes, and the pressure of the waterlogged ground caused the whole wall to collapse! I remember waking in the night to such a thunderous sound I thought it had been an earthquake! The very walls of the castle shook, and in the morning we beheld a
ruin.
Thereafter it has all had to be rebuilt twice as thick as before!'

They finished their walk at the church where they had recently heard prayers read and a short sermon. Now it was empty.

Cuby said: 'Explain something to me. Last night you spoke ardently of steam.'

'Did I?' he said, remembering the laughter.

'You know you did. You answered most warmly when Augustus challenged you about it.'

'Well, yes. With the latest developments it
is surely one of the most exciti
ng discoveries ever made. Isn't it.'

'I don't know. You tell me so. But what is it to you?'

'What it will be to all of us
! In ti
me it will transform our lives.'

'In what way?'

He looked at the girl. The dimples beside her mouth were mournful crescents in repose, as now. But give the mouth cause to change, to smile
...
He lost his mind in looking at her.

'In what way?' she said again. 'Instruct me.'

'Well
...'
He swallowed and recollected himself. 'It is the power that steam will give us. Until now we have had

to depend on horses and oxen and wind and water - all things not totally under our control. And not created artificially by us, as steam is. When this power is properly developed we can have steam to heat our houses, to propel carts along the roads, to thresh our corn, perhaps to sail our ships. It may even come to be used in war in place of gunpowder.'

'But steam has been used for years
...'

'Not strong steam with high pressure boilers. This will make all the difference.'

'But as Augustus was saying last night, is there not a great danger?'

'There is risk - as in many new inventions. It has already been almost overcome.'

'Will all these things happen in our lifetime?'

'I believe they could. Also I think it will help the poor and needy by assisting in the cheap manufactures of many things they cannot now afford
...'

They moved on round the church. Jeremy stopped at one of the monuments

Charlotte
Trevanion
, obit 20 February, 1810, aged 27 years.

To the memory of a beloved wife whose remains are deposited in the family vault; this tribute of a husband's affection is erected by John Bettesworth Trevanion Esq'. From the protracted sufferings of a lingering disease; from the admiration of all who knew her; from children who loved; from a husband who adored; it pleased the Almighty disposer of events to call her.

Sacred also to the memory of Charlotte Agnes, infant and only daughter of Charlotte and J. B. Trevanion, who died 8 May, 1809; aged 2 years 8 months.

Jeremv said: "That was your brother's wife and child?' 'Yes.''

'So young. What did she die of?'

'The surgeon called it fungus haematoides. It was - not pretty to see her die in that way.'

Cuby moved on as if glad to do so.

'Little wonder your brother is sad - or sad at times.'

'Before Charlotte's death he was always optimistic, ambitious, high-spirited. Now his high spirits - that you saw last night - do not seem to me ever to come from the heart. There is something overwrought, hectic about them. As if he is grasping at that which now always eludes him.'

'Do you think he will marry again?' 'No.
Never'

'Wi
th two children to bring up?' 'We
can do it.'

'You are a close-knit family.'

'That I cannot say. I suppose it is true
..
. Perhaps in adversity.'

'You seem very fond of each other.' 'Oh yes. Oh yes, that, of a certainty.' Thev moved a few paces. 'Cuby
...'
'Yes?’

'Talking of fondness . . . What you said to me last evening
...'
'What was that?'

'You must remember. Or does it mean so little to you?'

'On the beach?'

'Yes.’

'I said, "I think I like you, boy." Does that mean so much?'

'It means so much to me.'

'Oh, tut, boy.' She glanced up at him a
nd then moved on. He followed. ‘
Did you
-'

'You must not take on so.' 'Did you not mean it?' 'Yes,' she said. 'I meant it.' 'I do not believe you have said that to many men.'
She laughed lightlv. 'How well you think y
ou know me!'

Jeremy swallowed. 'How well I think I love you.'

They had stopped in the nave. She looked up towards one of the stained-glass windows.

After a while she said: 'That would b
e a dangerous thing to think, Je
remv.'

'Why?'

'Because I might be tempted to believe you.' He touched her hand. 'Whatever else you doubt - don't doubt that.'

She withdrew her hand.' Look, there are other ancestors over here. Here's another John Trevanion. And William Trevanion. And Anne Trevanion - '

'The only Trevanion I'm concerned for is Cuby.'

'Yes, well. But Jeremy, we - we do not live in isolation
...
any
of us. We are not hermits. Would that we might be!' She looked at him and then away, but he had caught the glint of emotion in her eyes.
'No,'
she said. 'We have said all that can be said - just yet. Yet awhile
...
Look, the sun is coming out. You will have a pleasant ride home.'

'I don't wish to ride home at all. I . . . have an apprehension.'

'Tut, there are few footpads these days.'

'It's not footpads on the way home I'm afraid of. It is footpads here. And I'm frightened for what they may steal.'

'What might they steal?'

'Last night
I
was in agony half the time because of the greatest of a fuss young Boscawen was making of you! It drove me to a pretty pass of jealousy and despair!'

'. . . Would you have him h
anged, then, for looking at me?’

'If his looks meant what I thought they meant. Yes.'

'Oh, my dear
...
you confuse me.' The dimples lost a little of their mournfulness.
'And
flatter me. And we have already met
three
times\
You and I must know each other
extremely
well, must we not!'

‘
Well enough.'

'You do not know my family nor I yours. Nothing of them. It is not straightforward. Nothing is straightforward. Let us go by little and by little. No more now.'

'And Boscawen?'

She Angered the silver buckle on her cloak. 'I do not think you have to fear for him.' 'Give me some proof.' 'What can I give you?'

He bent to kiss her. She turned her cheek to him, and for a moment his lips brushed her sweet-smelling skin. Then, as he was about to lift his head, she turned her head and kissed him on the mouth. A second or two later she was walking away.

He caught her at the door of the church.

'No more now,' she said again, brusquely, having flushed in spite of herself.

'Cuby, Cuby, Cuby, Cuby, Cuby, Cuby
...'

'Soon you will know my name.'

'It will be the first thing I think of every morning. And the last one at night.'

They went out into the churchyard.

Cuby said: 'Look how the sun is breaking through. Are we not so much luckier than the people lying here? Spring's coming and we're young!
Young!
Ride home, dear Jeremy, and never think hard of me.'

'Why should I - how could I ever?'

'Not ever please. And come again one day.'