The Stranger From The Sea (38 page)

...
Caroline said to Jeremy: 'So they are off tomorrow.'

'Yes. Yes, we leave at six, and will ride in with them, to see them take the coach and bring their horses back.'

'I believe it will be of benefit to them both. You know, of course, I love them dearly.'

‘
Yes. I do.'

'Especially your mother, whom I have known the longer! Would you believe that when we first met, and for quite a while, we looked on each other with the gravest suspicion and an element of distrust.'

'I didn't know.'

'We came of such different worlds. I from an artificial, elegant and social existence in Oxfordshire and in London. She, in the most delightful way, was of the earth, earthy. When our friendship grew it was the stronger for having roots in both worlds. That is why I badly wanted them to accept this invitation.'

'I don't follow.'

'Clowance is in common sense as earthy as your mother, though in a somewhat different way. Edward Fitzmaurice, who seems to have taken this fancy to her, is elegant, sophisticated, lives in a world of convention and fashion. Whether they will like each other more or less from longer contact I cannot prophesy. But they will do each other
good.
Each will have an eye opened to another view of life. I do not suppose Edward will ever before have met a girl like Clowance, who says what she
thinks.
And she has just glimpsed his style of life in London and will benefit by seeing more. As for your mother
...
She went into society quite often when she was younger — never without the greatest of a success. Of late years your father has been often away and her visits to London rare. She still has doubts about herself sometimes, especially without Ross.'

'But you have none?'

'Do you?'

Jeremy considered and then smiled. 'No,' he said.

^{Chapter Six}

Mrs Pelham, who was sitting next to Colonel Webb but found him temporarily occupied with the beguiling, willowy Mrs Selina Pope, turned to her other neighbour, placed there naughtily by Caroline because she knew her aunt adored the company of handsome young men.

'And pray, Mr Kellow, what is your profession? I take it you are not in the Services?'

'No, ma'am, not yet. Though I have a promise of a commission next year. For the present I help my father. He owns and runs most of the coaches in Cornwall.' Paul was never above a little exaggeration.

'Do you mean public coaches?'

'Yes, ma'am, in the main. He operates three coaches a week each way from Falmouth to Plymouth. And others from Helston, Truro and St Austell. .We hope shortly to begin a service to and from Penzance, but there are difficulties with the road across th
e ti
dal estuary.'

'All
the roads are difficult,' said Mrs Pelham with feeling.

'Did you come by stage coach, ma'am?' 'No, by post-chaise.'

'Then you may have used some of our horses.' 'The horses, so far as I was able to observe, were excellent.'

'But not the roads? No, ma'am, but I assure you they are improved even from five years ago. Of course what I hope someday
...'

'Yes?'

'You must find this a tedious conversation after London.'

'You were saying you hoped someday
...
It is never tedious to hear a young man's hopes.'

Paul smiled. 'Even though his hopes may seem dull in the telling?... What I hope is that before long we may be able to dispense with many of the horses - thus enabling the coaches to go three and four times the distance before stopping, and thus making the distances seem half as far -by introducing the steam-propelled carriage.'

Sarah Pelham suppressed a shudder. 'You really believe that that would someday be practical?'

'I'm sure of it.'

She looked at his slim, dark, feline face, composed in the confident planes of youth. 'You think people will accept the greater discomfort and the greater danger?'

'I should not suppose there would be an increase of either, ma'am. The saving in time will be very substantial.'

'When there is all the added risk of overturning? And the dangers of being scalded by escaping steam!'

"The roads must be improved, of a certainty. But that will have to happen in any case so soon as the war is over. In Ayrshire there is a man called Macadam using new methods. As for the dangers of steam,
they are exaggerated. I have,’
Paul said casually, 'been working on an engine recently, and you will see I am suffering no scalds.'

'And your father is a believer in all this too? He is hoping to introduce steam carriages on the roads of Cornwall?'

'My father is not privy to it as yet. He comes of an old family and does not perhaps see commerce as younger men do. Nor innovations. I am working, planning, for ten years ahead. In five years it will be time enough to show him the advantage of steam and how the business of Royal Mail coaches and land transport should be run.'

The red-nosed flatulent seedy man who overdrank and was always in debt would no doubt have been flattered to have been described as coming of an old family, but Paul, speaking to a stranger who would soon return to London, felt he could allow himself a little licence even beyond the usual.

Breast of veal in white wine was served, with young carrots and fresh raspberries.

...
Valentine said: 'Mrs Pope, you have been neglecting me.'

Selina Pope turned: 'On the contrary, I think, Mr - er -Warleggan. You have been so engaged with Miss Poldark that I have hardly got a look in.'

'Miss Poldark is a sort of cousin of mine - though the relationship is very complex.'

'Pray explain it to me.'

'Well, her father's cousin was married to my mother. Then he was killed in an accident and my mother married Sir George, and eventually I came along.'

Mrs Pope said: 'I wouldn't call that a relationship at all.'

'That is what I was telling Miss Poldark.'

Selina Pope was blonde and slender, with small, elegant features, a high forehead and little wisps of curl falling down over her face. For a sudden startled moment Valentine was reminded of his own mother. He blinked.

'What is it?' said Mrs Pope. 'Do I distress you in some way?'

'Indeed you do,' said Valentine, recovering. 'That I should ever be accused, even in jest, of neglecting such charm and beauty.'

'Oh, thank you,' said Mrs Pope. 'But my accusation was not in jest, it was in earnest!'

When she smiled the resemblance disappeared. The mouth was more wilful, the eyes a little aslant, the expression less composed.

'Well,' said Valentine, 'since I am accused, committed and condemned without a trial, what is my sentence?'

'Oh, sir, I'm not the judge; I'm the victim.'

'Then if I may pass sentence on myself it is to be in constant attendance on you for the rest of the evening.'

Selina Pope delicately passed the tip of her tongue over her lips. This young man was so mature and so forward of manner that the dozen-od
d years that she was his senior
hardly seemed to count.

He said innocentl
y: 'Is that your father-in-law?'

'No, my husband.'

'Oh, I'm sorry. And the two young ladies?'

'His daughters by a former wife.'

'And do you live in this neighbourhood, Mrs Pope?'

'At Place House. It used to belong to the Trevaunances.'

'Oh, I know it. Do you come into society much?'

'We are seldom invited,' said Mrs Pope candidly.

'Then should I be permitted to call?'

'On my two stepdaughters?'
Valentine looked her un-innocently in the eye. 'Of course
...'

The low sun was coming round into the dining-room: motes floated in the sunbeams as the noise of conversation rose and fell
...

Lady Harriet said: 'I do not know whether to take your confession to me as a great compliment, Sir George, or as a greater insult.'

'Insult? How could that be?'

"That your feelings towards me must have been most sincere I fully acknowledge. Since you must be aware of what people say of you, it cannot offend you to know that I am the more impressed that you should risk your fortune for me, having in mind the reputation that you bear. For caution. For mercantile shrewdness. For-even -sometimes - parsimony.'

George stared at the food put before him but did not touch it.

'Well?'

'Well?'
she said.

'Is that reason for insult?'

'No, for an acknowledgment of the compliment. What insults me, dear Sir George, is that you suppose I am like so many other things in your life and may be
bought’

'Not sol That was not my intention at all!'

'Then pray how do you interpret it?'

Like a goaded bull George glowered round the table, but everyone seemed preoccupied with their own food and conversations.

'I have already explained, Lady Harriet. I did not think your brother, the Duke, approved of my addressing my attentions to you. I felt that with greater wealth I would merit more serious consideration. I have already done my best to explain this
...'

'Indeed you have. So far as money is concerned, much would have more and lost all. Is that the truth of it?'

'Not
all.
I am now just solvent; it will be the work of some considerable time before the situation is fully repaired. But I am not
better
off; I am, I must confess, much
worse
off; in other words I have not improved my position or circumstances in
any
way which would stand me in better stead either with you or with your brother, the Duke. Hence my predicament, hence my reluctance to impose myself on you in any way during the last six months
...'

'Sir George, I wish you would not call him my brother, the Duke. The former is true and has some relevance. The latter, though true, none at all. This is all very interesting
...'
Lady Harriet went on with her food for a moment. 'All very interesting. Do you know how old I am?'

'No, madam.'

'I am thirty. And a widow. The widow of a hard-drinking, hard-riding, hard-swearing
oaf.
Yes, dear Sir George, oaf, even though his pedigree was impeccable. I am not a docile gentle girl, Sir George. I was not to him. I never would be to any man. Still less would I be so to my brother, who has his own life to live, and may good
fortune attend on him. For what he believes or thinks I care not a snap of the ringers. If he found me some rich and aristocratic husband I would consider the matter entirely on its merits without regard to my brother's feelings. Similarly, if I should ever contemplate taking a husband without first informing "my brother the Duke", it would not matter a curse whether he approved of it or not
...
So, Sir George, if you are at present in straitened circumstances, take heed that you have done yourself no good by speculating in order to
impress
me, nor special harm by losing a fortune in the
attempt
to impress me. That is all I can say now. Pray turn to the lady on your left. She is anxious to speak to you about something. No doubt she wants your opinion on her stocks and shares.'

...
Colonel Webb was telling Caroline that in spite of the cheerful newspapers he was of the opinion that the Peninsular Army was bogged down and deadlocked in front of Badajoz and the River Guadiana. Wellington could not move safely fore or back. Neither indeed could Marmont. Personally he felt sorry for troops pinned down in such a pestilential part of the world.

'God help them all,' said Webb, wiping his moustache. 'What with the heat and the flies and the fevers - not to mention the snakes - there'll be no need for fighting to fill the
hospitals and the graves.'.

'So long as the French are in like position
...'

'Oh, worse, for they are subject always to those cutthroat brigands who infest every inaccessible corner of the countryside and, calling themselves the Spanish army, descend on any French outpost with the utmost ferocity. They say the French lose on average a couple of hundred men a week - and have done so for years - by these tactics. There is one man, I forget his name - nay, it's Sanchez -who whenever he catches a courier sends his head and his dispatches to Wellington by special messenger.'

'I have never met a Spaniard. No doubt they are a cruel race.'

'Alas, they have good reason, ma'am. The atrocities of the French upon
them
shall be nameless. Sometimes one thinks God sleeps.'

Colonel Webb was addressed across the table by Dwight, and Caroline turned again to Jeremy.

'Has
Clowance
seen much of Stephen Carrington, do you know?'

'Not to my knowledge. Only twice when I have been there, and I have seen a lot of Stephen
...'
'You like him?'

Jeremy wrinkled his eyebrows. 'Yes. But my parents have also asked me this. That it should be necessary to ask seems to put the answer in doubt.'

'What do you like about him?'

'Oh, pooh, what does one like about a man? His company. One doesn't fall asleep when he's about.'

Caroline forked at a piece of flimsy-light pastry. 'D'you know there's an old Cornish saying; Dwight was reminding me of it yesterday on another matter. It goes:

"Save a stranger from the sea And he will turn your enemee."'

Jeremy said: 'I can't imagine that ever happening with Stephen. He's a warm-hearted fellow, and I think he would do a lot
not
to become my enemy.'

'Does Clowance like him?'

'Oh yes.'

'A little bit more than that?'

'You must ask her yourself, Aunt Caroline.'

'I wouldn't dare!'

Jeremy laughed, and Clowance, as if sensing some mention of herself, looked up the table at them.

'What a very handsome woman Mrs Enys is,' said Valentine to her. 'Thin for my preference, but I fancy her colouring. And of course her arrogance. Are you arrogant, Clowance? It gives a girl an added sparkle.'

'I'll remember.'

'But don't approve?' 'Oh, it is not for me to say
...'
'You think my tastes too catholic?' 'I have not thought about it.'

'Well, it is such a pleasure to come to a dinner-party at which there are so
many
good-looking women. I seldom remember a better. Not counting Mrs Pelham because she is elderly, there are: one, two, three, four, fivel Do you realize how many thousands of depressingly plain women there are in the world? And hundreds downright
ugly.
Pretty ones stand out like - like beacons . . .' Valentine waved his fork extravagantly and then said in a newer, quieter voice: 'Your mother is pretty, isn't she.'