The Stranger From The Sea (37 page)

Stephen was at his best at dinner, talking enough to be polite but not monopolizing the conversation. He answered Ross's questions about the
Philippe
in such detail as seemed necessary. He explained that his ship's fight with the two French warships had taken place during a storm. Captain Fraser had been killed by a direct hit from one of the French vessels and the rest of the crew had at once decided to surrender. But the cannon shot that killed Captain Fraser had wrecked their foremast, and before the French could help them they took the ground in high seas on what he supposed were the Western Rocks of the Scillies. He supposed the rest of the crew drowned, for there had only been himself and Harrison and Mordu to get away on the raft.

He also took a lively interest in Wheal Leisure, the mine itself, the probable disposition of the lodes, the way the lodes were worked, the problem of water and the process by which it was pumped away. He showed a quick intelligence and a grasp of what he was told.

Ross thought him probably the sort of young man who would bring an intense concentration to a subject that suddenly interested him, absorbing more, and more quickly, than someone who had studied for a long time. But he thought possibly the interest might, on occasion, as suddenly die.

Jeremy's long fingers, he noticed, were not so artistic as they had once been, and in replying to Stephen and explaining things to him there was a flicker of passion in his face. What had John Treneglos said? 'Horrie says your boy's a genius.' Horrie, not being the brightest of young men, would be easily impressed, of course. Yet it meant something. Why hadn't he, Ross, perceived more to his son than his apparent carelessness, his seemingly detached, feckless, facile attitude to life? Surely since his return home Jeremy's conversations with him might have given him a hint of what was going on in the young man's mind. He'd been short-sighted. Short-sighted in a way fathers so often were short-sighted, falling into the sort of trap Ross had prided himself he was immune from.

Sitting there listening to the two young men, he admitted the fault in himself, yet he could not suppress his resentment with Jeremy for being so damned secretive about everything and leading him into such a false position.

Ross had not told Demelza yet about the 'fishing'. He must first tackle Jeremy on his own
...

Altogether the dinner was quite a success, except for Stephen. Clowance claimed a bilious attack and begged to be excused putting in an appearance. Half an hour before dinner-time she had told her mother she would accept the invitation to spend a holiday at Bowood with the Lansdownes.

^{Chapter Five}

The building of the engine house for Wheal Leisure began in early July. Much thought had gone into the positioning of the engine, for, although up to now all the buildings of the mine were situated at the top of the cliff, if the engine could be built at a lower level, some of the natural drainage could still take place and the engine would have a shorter distance to operate its main pump-rods. So a lower piece of cliff had been chosen some 100 yards from the mine, and a platform created by digging and blasting. There would be little enough room for everything, but it would do. Having then worked out and measured out the exact position of the engine and the boiler, a cellar was dug some nine feet deep, and thereafter another three feet dug round the cellar's edge for the foundation of the house itself.

An old quarry behind Jonas's Mill was reopened, and for three weeks before the first stone was laid a succession of mule carts traversed the moors and the scrubland and the sand dunes in continuous train all the daylight hours. What they carried was killas or clay-slate, which was the most reliable and the most workable stone to hand. Even so, the last of the Wheal Maiden walls disappeared, for some part of them was of granite; Ross was also in negotiation with a granite quarry near St Michael to obtain more, for they would probably need 400 tons of the better stone to build the bob-wall which took most of the vibration and the strain. The difficulty with opening a mine which required an engine and an engine house was that it all had to be built strong enough to last and large enough to accommodate success. There had been occasions of engine houses collapsing because the foundations were not upon an adequate base or because the beat of the engine imposed too great a strain. Nobody knew whether in two years Wheal Leisure might again be derelict; but when building one had to prepare for the best.

So having taken care to provide adequate drainage, they laid the first walls on the broad foundations, course by course, interspersing them with thin lime mortar, the largest and longest granite stones placed at the base and resting always on their broadest sides, with bars of iron running through it all to lend additional strength. When the walls were higher, high enough to accommodate the lintel of the door, more iron bars
10
or
12
feet long would be used, reaching through the thickness of the wall and bolted together at their ends so that they held the walls in their metallic grasp. At the level of the upper cylinder beams, holes had to be left in the walls for their ends, with room to move them laterally so that the cylinder could be got in. Later would come the larger aperture for the fitting of the bob-stools to accommodate the great balance beam. Above this would come the third floor, the slated roof and the tall brick-built chimney stack.

The house would take at least two months to complete, even if there were no serious hitches and the weather stayed un-foul. A large shed also had to be built for coal, and Jeremy was trying to pick a suitable declivity in the sand dunes behind the house which he could have beaten down and laid with a mixture of lime, sand, water and pebbles to form a rain-water reservoir to supply the mine; otherwise it meant carrying barrels from the Mellingey stream which at its nearest was more than a mile away. In the blown sand and rock of the cliff and dunes they had so far been unable to find any spring, and there was no possibility of cutting a leat from the Mellingey unless one started miles back, for they were on higher ground here. The unfortunate paradox existed that, while all this trouble and expense was being gone to to drain water out of the earth, the water they brought up could not be used to create the steam to work the engine, for the minerals in it would quickly corrode the boiler. Such water of course could be used for the washing floors or buddies, or to work any stamp which might be required if some quantity of tin were mined. The original mine out-buildings could be utilized for the remaining offices.

In order to increase his work force as little as possible Ross withdrew twenty tut-workers and masons from Wheal Grace. The tut-workers were the less skilled and the less well paid of the underground men, most of their work being the sinking and linking of shafts, the opening of new ground, binding, and the general maintenance of the mine. They were the worker ants of the mining world.

As soon as news of the reopening got about, Nampara was besieged by miners looking for work. Ross took on a few but explained to them all that any sort of full recruitment would have to wait for the installation of the engine and the proving of the mine. Apart from constructing the house the main work at the moment was labourers' work, sinking the shaft which was to drain the rest of the mine.

The day after it all began Stephen said to Jeremy he would like to lend a hand. He didn't mind, he said, what he did - lead a mule, mix cement, lay a course of stone, dig a drain; it was just something to occupy himself while he looked for permanent work. As Jeremy was hesitating he added:
'I don't want pay, of course.' 'Why ever not?'

'You at Nampara were all very good to me. I'd like to give a trifle of something in return. I have good muscles — don't concern yourself for that.'

Jeremy stared at the workers, who were busy on the plateau below them. 'There's no reason to repay anything.'

Stephen said: 'You do a fair measure of rough work yourself, helping here, helpi
ng there. Do you take wages for it
?'
·No...
But-'

‘
But you're the owner's son. Eh? Well, I'm the owner's son's friend. Does that not seem reasonable? Besides
...'
'Besides what?'

'Well, to tell the truth of it I do not think I wish to be bound six days a week. I want time to look around, borrow a pony from you, see if there be anything promising in the neighbourhood. I want a bit of freedom, like, maybe two days a week to go off, perhaps local, perhaps to Falmouth, who knows. But when I'm here I'm here and I don't like to be idle. So what could be better than helping with the new mine and assisting you?'

Jeremy still thought of it. ‘
Come when you wish, then,' he said. 'I'll tell Ben and Zacky Martin, so if I'm not here they'll know. Wages - they're poor enough, God knows -but you shall get paid by the day. It will be a few shillings. I think it is right that way. I think we should all want it.'

Stephen hesitated and then shrugged. 'If that's how you wish it, then I give way. Can I start tomorrow? Six in the morning like the rest?'

Sir George Warleggan was surprised to receive an invitation from Dr and Mrs Dwight Enys to dinner on Tuesday the 23rd of July at 4 p.m. Since calling on them in January in London he had nourished a bitter resentment against Dwight for giving him the advice that he did. He had included Dwight in the curses he heaped upon everyone connected with his disastrous speculations. It was only after some months that his sense of objectivity reasserted itself and he had to admit to himself that Dwight had in fact been entirely correct in what he said. The old King, though still very much alive, had
not
recovered his sanity, he was
not
able to resume his rightful authority as monarch; Dwight's answers to his questions had been borne out by events. The use to which he put those answers was his own affair, his own fault. But that made it all the more galling, and a resentment remained.

It was only after he had read the letter and pondered on the best excuse he could make to refuse that he turned the paper over and saw that Caroline had written on the back: 'If Valentine is home, pray bring him with you. My Aunt, Mrs Pelham, is staying with us for two weeks. Hence this party to welcome in the Dog Days.'

He rode up to Killewarren a little before four accompanied by his son and a groom, and noted that for all her wealth and youth and enterprise Caroline had done little to improve the building since that old skinflint her Uncle Ray had lived there. Strange that Dwight Enys, so forward-looking in his physical theories, still young and energetic and in contact with many of the best medical and scientific brains in the country, should not have torn down that wing and put up something more modern or even razed the place and started over again. It did not occur to George that anyone might really like it that way.

The first persons he saw when he went into the big parlour were two Poldarks. Not, thank God, Ross and Demelza - even Caroline Enys would be beyond such a fox paw, as old Hugh Bodrugan used to call it - but the son and daughter, which was bad enough. And whom were they talking to? George was a man of composed character and there were few emotions which could stir him deeply. But now it was as if the book of his feelings was laid open and a wind were riffling the pages.

Lady Harriet Carter was smiling at something that Clowance had said, and her brill
iant teeth were just hinted at
between the upcurved lips. She was in a saffron-coloured frock with cream lace at the throat and cuffs. A topaz brooch and earrings. Her hair gleamed, as always; as black as Elizabeth's had once been fair. George just noticed the other people in the room, greeted Mrs Pelham, Colonel Webb; someone with a long neck and a face like Robespierre whose name was Pope, with a pretty blonde young wife who seemed scarcely older than the two simpering girls who seemed also to be his. And a dark smooth slim young man called Kellow or some such.

He was bowing over Harriet's hand. Momentarily she was by herself.

'Sir George.' She was cold but not at all put out. 'The last time we met was at the Duchess of Gordon's, when you were about to take me to see Admiral Pellew's white lion.'

'True, ma'am. I
-'

'Alas, then, all of a sudden, as if you'd seen a ghost, an apparition, a spectre, an
affrite,
you made your excuses and left. Business, you said. Business. Which has taken six months.'

'That must have seemed grossly impolite on my part
-'
'Well, yes, it did. Yes, it has. Naturally, since I am a clear-sighted person, a simple explanation presents itself.'

'Lady Harriet, I can assure you that would be very far from the truth. Indeed, the contrary.'

'What contrary applies? Pray enlighten me.'

George took a breath. T sincerely wish I could explain in a few words, all that has* passed. Alas, it would take an hour, perhaps more. Perhaps I could never
quite
explain how it came about
-'

He stopped. She raised her eyebrows. 'How it came about
5
'

He glanced at Clowance, but she was talking to Valentine. Jeremy had turned away.

'Explain,' he said, 'that my agitation that evening was the outcome of negotiations I had entered into - nay, completed - because of my wish to stand more — more substantially in the eyes of your family
...'

'My
family?
What the pox have they to do with it?'

A hint of caution crossed his mind. She had been a little disingenuous there. 'You must understand.' 'Indeed, I do not.' 'Then one day I will explain.' 'Why not now?'

'Because the time isn't ripe. Because this moment is hardly the most propitious moment
...
surrounded as we are
...'

She looked around, eyes taking in the company, a hint of humour at the back.

'Well, Sir George, you write the most diverting letters
...
Unless by chance you should sit next to me this afternoon
...'

Ill

They were at dinner, and Harriet, by Caroline's design, did sit next to George. Clowance sat next to his son. She'd seen Valentine twice in ten years. He was enormously changed; good-looking in a decadent way. A lock of hair constantly fell across his brow; his eyes were too knowledgeable in one so young; but he had great charm.

'I met Jeremy at the Trevanions'. But not little Clowance. When last I saw you you really
were
little Clowance. Not so any longer.'

His eyes lingered on her, and she felt that he had already known other women and had a fair idea of what she would look like without her clothes on. It was not totally an unpleasant feeling. Something about his cheerful grin robbed it of its offence, made it friendly, sexual, but unashamed.

'Are you home from Eton?'

'Yes, m'dear. We're much of an age, aren't we? One or other of us scrambled to get out into the world before the world used up all its fun! I b'lieve I was first by a few months, wasn't I? Born under a "black moon", they say. Very unlucky, they say. How's your luck been of late?'

He might have been asking her some intimate questions about her personal life. She said: 'Are you staying at Cardew?'

'Betwixt there and Truro. I must confess to you, dear cousin, I must confess the local scene seems a little barren of lively young people. Why don't you trot over? You and Jeremy. I believe we should find interests in common.'

'I don't know if we should be welcome —'

'This stupid feud. It's best dead and buried, isn't it. Is that why your parents aren't here tonight?'

'They came last night. Aunt Caroline thought
...'

'I know exactly what she thought. Your father and my father, always swearing at each other like two alley cats. Yet they've never fought a duel. Why not, I wonder?
‘
Twould clear the air. Indeed it might clear one or t'other out of the way and make for a friendlier life altogether. I expect my father has been the slow coach. Not a one for firearms, is Papa. One rather for the heavy hand in which the money-bags are barely concealed. Whereas I always picture your father riding to the wars with a gun on his shoulder.'

Valenti
ne looked across at Sir George, who was talking to the dark handsome woman on his right. They had had a right-down set-to before they came out, he and his father. He had spent a week in London on his way home from Eton and had added greatly to his debts; this news he had allowed to leak out slowly, and the worst of it had only broken today. Sir George had been furious - perhaps more angry than he had ever seen him before. Some casual remark of Valentine's near the end, some casual reference to the bullion in the bank, had set Sir George off and he had called Valentine an indolent, lecherous, good-for-nothing who'd be better off taking the King's shilling and plodding it out in the ranks of the
army than acti
ng the posturing, simpering roue, a disgrace to his family and his name.

It had been harshl
y said and harshly meant. Most ti
mes

Valentine was able to trade upon his father's natural pride in him to soften the anger at his dissolute behaviour. Not this time. Something had gone wrong in his calculations and the alarm he felt disguised itself as reciprocal anger. When he answered back the third time he thought Sir George was going to strike him. So his remark to Clowance about the duel and its possible consequences was not unmeant. He would not have been at all grieved at this moment to see his distinguished and powerful father stretched in a pool of blood on some lonely heath while a . surgeon knelt over him and gravely shook his head.

Instead he was seated across the table talking earnestly to this woman. Who was she, and what was his-father being so zealous about? Had the lady rolling mills to sell? Or a foundry? Or a blowing house? Did she represent some banking interest he was anxious to acquire? Nothing else surely could ever engage his attention so completely. (Valentine knew so well his father's social manner when, although engaged in conversation with one person, his eyes would roam about the room seeing if there were better pastures to graze in.)
And then Valentine caught a look in his father's eye and realized with a shock that there was one other interest which could invoke earnest conversation, though it was an utter revelation to discover that his father was likely to be so caught up. Valentine had long since concluded that nothing could be further from his father's thoughts than any interest in any woman at any time. For herself, that was. But unless he had totally and crassly misread Sir George's look of a moment ago, this was for herself.

She was very handsome, certainly; mature but very handsome. But his father was so
old...

'Shall you?' said Clowance, eyeing him candidly.

'Shall I what?' He coughed to hide his own expression.

'You were speaking just now of riding to the wars.'

'Like my half-brother? It depends. I frequently go shooting, you know; but then, the birds don't shoot back, do they. I think at the moment I have too much of a fancy to enjoy life to put it wantonly at risk. Though my father was suggesting tonight that I might like to join a line regiment.' 'Seriously?'

'I'm not sure. It was not intended as an inducement but as a sort of a threat.'

'Why should he threaten you?'

'Because I have been living above my means.'

‘
At Eton?'

'And in London. I have friends in London and we know how to make merry. I am not to be allowed to return there at the end of this vacation, but must post straight back to school. In truth, Clowance
...'

'What?'

'I was serious j ust now. Why should you and Jeremy not come and spend a day or two with me next week? It will greatly alleviate my feeling of imprisonment, and Father will be away then so you need have no fear of embarrassment.'

'I'm sorry. Jeremy will be here, but I leave for Wiltshire tomorrow.'

'For a visit? To see friends?'

'Yes.'

'For long?'

, 'It will be three weeks, I suppose, there and back.' 'Do you have a sweetheart in Wiltshire, then?' 'Yes.'

"There I think you deceive me. For if it were true, wouldn't there have been a moment's hesitation, some mantling of the girlish cheeks?'

'My cheeks don't mantle.'

'I wager we might try someday.' Valentine laughed. 'You have to remember you're not really my cousin, Cousin
...
By the way
-'
he lowered his voice - 'what is the name of my other neighbour?'

'Mrs Pope. Mrs Selina Pope.'

'Is she the daughter-in-law of that tall thin old feller?' 'No, his wife.' 'God's wounds.'

...
Further up the table his father said: 'Well, madam, you ask an explanation, and it is your right. But how to begin it here?
...'

'You may have noticed, Sir George, that confessions at the dinner table are seldom overheard by anyone except the person for whom they are intended, since everyone else talks so loud anyhow. But pray do not let me press you.'

George took a gulp of wine. Normally he drank with caution, as if fearing someone might be going to take advantage of him.

'Since you are clear-sighted, Lady Harriet, it cannot have escaped your notice that I had thoughts about you of a warmer nature than mere friendship. When I called to see your brother, the Duke, he made it clear that he did not think me of a birth or breeding suitably elevated to entertain such thoughts. After due consideration I persuaded myself that ri
ch commoners are not infrequentl
y admitted as equals in the highest society, if their wealth is but of sufficient extent and substance.'

A servant put a new plate in front of him, and he was helped to poached turbot.

'So far I have followed you quite clearly, Sir George. Am I right in supposing that the business you are now involved in
...
?'

'Was involved in. For it proved a business of a disastrous nature. My lack of communication with you since then has been because of a knowledge that, far from improving my claims, this speculation has reduced them to almost nothing.'