Chapter One I On a grey day early in February, 1812, a convoy was anchored off Hendrawna Beach on the north-west coast of Cornwall. One of the vessels was a brig called Henry, and another a sloop Elizabeth. Between them floated a lighter with a massive piece of metal lying upon it and protruding over each end like a stranded whale. There were also half a dozen row-boats and a couple of gigs, one of them Nampara Girl. The beach was black with helpers and spectators. February was no safe time normally for any master to hazard his vessel so close upon an inhospitable stretch of tidal sand; but after gales and half-gales succeeding each other through November, December and January, a frost had fallen on the land. It was a light frost, disappearing each midday and coming down again at night – which was the norm for this area – but it meant that the wind had at last dropped and the sea was quiet. For a time it had even been feared they were to be frustrated by the sudden lack of that element of which they had for so long had too much; but after a couple of days the lightest of breezes had sprung up from the north-east and before dawn this Monday morning the convoy had set out from Hayle. It had taken them until noon to get here, which was full tide – though a neap tide, leaving a wide expanse of beach uncovered and much of the sand soft and yielding. The sea was very slight, its hair at the edge in little rolls of curlers hardly big enough to disturb a child. The distance overland from Hayle, where the parts of the engine had been built, to Nampara was no greater than by sea; but to transport this heavy equipment through the miry lanes and over the rutted moorlands would have taken three times as long and with every possibility of getting bogged down. By sea was quicker and easier – always supposing the right moment was chosen. The brig had been the first to discharge; since she drew the most water she had to be unloaded into rowing-boats and on to rafts well out; mostly this was the smaller stuff: the brasses, the safety-valves, the piston and piston rod, the cylinder covers, the eduction valves, the catch-pins, the flange bolts and all the working gear of a 45-inch steam engine. The sloop Elizabeth had been brought along mainly to carry the boiler, with which she could come closer inshore. Indeed she deliberately ran aground, even on a tide just beginning to turn, confident that when she was the lighter by seven tons she would refloat herself easily. Ross Poldark, pausing a moment to bite a fish pie that his wife had brought him, stared at the scene and said: ‘I have never seen so many people on the beach since the wrecks after Julia died.’ ‘Don’t speak of it,’ said Demelza. ‘That time . . .’ ‘Well, then we were young. Now we are not so young. But I wouldn’t have it back.’ ‘Not that. Nor all that followed. But I’d like to be twenty again.’ ‘Well, now we have a son older than that. And working like one demented today.’ Demelza said: ‘Julia would have been twenty-two? No, twenty-one. Twenty-two this May.’ Ross swallowed his pie. Since the sloop came in, a broad pathway of sleepers consisting of old pit props had been laid from the bottom of the cliff out to the sloop – not separated as in a tramway, but one sleeper touching the next. The great boiler had been winched down until it rested on a timber frame, which itself stood on eight or nine smooth wooden rollers laid over the sleepers. Immediately it came to rest men had leapt upon the frame and flung ropes over the boiler, securing it to prevent lateral swaying; then they were off and away, manhandling it up the pathway, four men a side while others constantly rescued the rollers from the back and inserted them at the front again. It was not just a question of strength but of delicate balance, for if the rollers were not replaced exactly parallel the whole thing could slew off course and go tumbling into the sand. Ross looked at the sky. It was leaden and would give them no stars tonight. The sea of course was unpredictable; a heavy swell might develop at any time, presaging wind, not succeeding it. But there were two hours of daylight yet, and once the stuff was unloaded and brought to the foot of the cliff there was no haste. It would be at least two days more before the rising tides reached their piece of cliff. They had all that time to haul it up to its destined site. ‘Before you run away, drink this ale,’ said Demelza, observing him already fidgeting to be gone. ‘Where is Clowance?’ ‘Down among the others. You could not keep her out of it today. There . . . see her fair head.’ ‘I see another fair head beside her.’ ‘Yes, they are often together again these days . . .’ For the moment Ross’s mind and memory was still back in that day and night of the 7th January, 1790, when two vessels had been blown in on this beach in a storm and when almost a thousand people, most of them miners, had stripped them in a single tide. The seamen, washed ashore, had barely escaped with their lives, and preventive men and a platoon of soldiers had not been sufficient to halt the wrecking. Desperate with hunger and crazed with the drink they had found, the miners carried all before them, and those who got in the way of their loot did so at their own peril. Great bonfires raged on the beach and drunken figures danced round them like demons from a pit. The sea had been awash with rigging, sails, spars, bales of silk and kegs of brandy, and fighting, struggling men and women. Was it the same people – or some of the same people – who were peacefully unloading an engine for the mine Wheal Leisure which was being re-started on the edge of the cliff? And the hundreds of others who had drifted down from little hamlets around to watch? Ross himself that night so long ago had been half crazed with grief at the death of his only child; and his wife, herself sick to death’s point, a waif with wasted cheeks watching him hollow-eyed from her bed. Now, more than two decades later, instead of being a near bankrupt and a soul bereft, he was fifty-two years of age, no fatter (if anything a little more gaunt), troubled with a painful recurring lameness from a ball wound he had received long ago in America, but otherwise well enough and to a small degree prosperous; a Member of Parliament, who had never distinguished himself in the House but who had established a reputation out of it, so that – for instance – George Canning had written to him a letter received only Friday last; a banker – with very little to contribute as a personal stake but an acknowledged partner in the Cornish Bank of Truro, and gradually profiting from the greater prosperity of the other partners; a mine-owner – of one mine, Wheal Grace, which had been fairy godmother to the Poldarks for nearly twenty years but was now slowly dying on them, and another, Wheal Leisure, in the process of being opened; the part-owner of a small shipyard in Looe, managed by his brother-in-law, Drake Carne; a shareholder other little irons in a few other little fires. It all added up to a comfortable existence, except that the dying Wheal Grace accounted for three-quarters of his income. And beside him, her dark hair lifting and trembling in the breeze, was his wife, his helpmeet, and still, against all probabilities, his love, ten years his junior in everything except wit and wisdom, little changed in looks or figure, but greying at the temples: a sign post she carefully obscured every week with some dye she bought in St Ann’s and which Ross pretended not to notice. On the beach, in the charge of a distraught Mrs Kemp, was their youngest and noisiest, a black-haired ten-year-old of inexhaustible voice and vitality called Isabella-Rose. Near her, momentarily, was their seventeen-year-old daughter Clowance, dressed like a ragamuffin today in a blue fustian jacket and blue trousers rolled up above the knee, fair pigtail swinging as she moved swiftly from one knot of helpers to another. Their eldest child Jeremy, nearly twenty-one, was at present on board the lighter discussing, it seemed from his gestures, the strength and seatings of the windlasses with young Simon Pole from Harvey’s Foundry. In charge of the trolley which was to receive the giant cast-iron beam was Ben Carter, grandson of Zacky and potential underground captain of the mine. Beside Clowance the other fair head Ross had remarked was that of the Viking-like Stephen Carrington. Picked up out of the sea, destitute and half drowned, some sixteen-odd months ago, this sailor had settled among them and had become a notable figure in the villages around. What was more, he had taken a great fancy to Clowance, and Clowance, it seemed, returned the interest. Last year, following an unexpected visit to London and a later visit to Bowood in Wiltshire, Clowance had turned down an offer of marriage from Lord Edward Fitzmaurice, younger brother of the Marquis of Lansdowne. That she had been allowed to refuse such an offer was clear evidence among those who heard of it of the incurable and inexcusable insanity of her parents. As Mrs Pelham said to Caroline Enys, her niece: ‘It’s not as if he were a gouty old man with a paunch and a weak bladder; he’s but twenty-six or seven, with a seat in parliament and the highest connections, and – wonder of wonders in our aristocracy – clean living. Not the greatest conversationalist, nor the wittiest, but not at all ill-looking, and strong and healthy. That the girl should be so ineffably stupid one may set down to childish ignorance, but that your friends, her parents, put no apparent pressure on her to accept him is nothing short of an indictable offence!’ ‘My dear Aunt,’ Caroline had said, ‘you must know that my two dearest friends are to me above criticism; but there are occasions, and this is not the first, when I have an unladylike desire to crash their heads together. Pray let the subject drop.’ However much she might rationally resent some of his behaviour, it seemed probable that Stephen Carrington, the unpredictable, tawny-haired man of action and stranger from the sea, helping to build the engine house for Wheal Leisure mine far away in Cornwall, had been the most important factor behind Clowance’s personal refusal of Edward Fitzmaurice. No doubt there were other considerations to be taken into account, principally the realization of her special love of Cornwall and of the outdoor life she had lived since she was a child. She would have had to exchange the wild rides on the beach, the bathing and swimming, the barefoot walks over the cliffs, the whole carefree existence of a child of nature for the artificiality of London life and polite society, overheated drawing-rooms and insincere conversation; a young titled lady far away from all her family and friends. It was on all these matters that Mrs Pelham, and to a lesser degree Caroline, would have had Demelza instruct and reason with her daughter, pointing out that one could not live the life of a gypsy all one’s life even in Cornwall; that one had to grow up, and probably, eventually, marry and have children, that the possession of wealth, position, influence and a distinguished husband made a difference out of all computation in the world as it was at present constituted, that even for the sake of her future children if not for herself the opportunity to place oneself in such a position could not be rejected. But Demelza had not so pressed her daughter and the opportunity was gone for ever. Instead remained this young man, Stephen Carrington, enterprising, intelligent, virile and unreliable. His very presence made Clowance’s blood run thick, her heart beat to a different rhythm. It had not been so with Edward Fitzmaurice. But who was to say in the end which would make the better husband? The lighter was aground and had been nearly three hours, having run herself into the sand head-on. (She would be refloated about midnight.) The purpose of the long delay was to allow the sand to harden as much as possible before a similar sleeper track was laid from the cliffs – otherwise the sleepers were likely to sink into the sand under their own weight. This was the really difficult job. The giant cast-iron beam weighed eighteen tons – two and a half times as much as the boiler. A larger timber frame was now being brought along this second pathway of sleepers, with rollers to lay over the sleepers as before. This was altogether too heavy a job for men, and a double team of twelve horses – six a side – waited in harness to pull the makeshift trolley back along the track. Trolley and frame had been left until the last moment so that the minimum weight rested on the sleepers. A score of extra men with sacks, shovels and levers waited alongside to help in case of mishap. While Ross and Demelza watched, the ropes round the beam began to tighten to near breaking-point as men strove to turn the handles of the low-geared winches. Presently the beam was hanging clear of the deck, which it over-reached at either end. Then the booms swung slowly out while men guarded the chocks hammered into the side of the lighter to prevent it from swaying. On such a foundation there was bound to be movement, but it was slow movement, and as the barge swayed and sank a few inches more to the left so the beam was lowered until it rested fully upon the frame. All was haste then: men lashed the beam into position – though being flat it was less likely to roll than the boiler – then leapt off the trolley as the teams of horses took up the strain and moved the load bumping over the pathway. There had been a good deal of discussion beforehand about how best to transport the beam, and this way had been chosen as the least likely to run into serious trouble; as Ross approached the straining teams it looked as if there would be no hitch at all. It was slow, exhausting but satisfactory progress, the horses hock deep in sand and difficult to control, with Cobbledick leading one team and Jeremy the other. Then while still about thirty yards from the cliff, a patch of treacherous sand let them down. It often happened on this beach; there was no such thing as quicksands, but here and there a soft patch would be left, created by a current of the retreating sea and not hardening as it dried like the rest. Here the track dipped a little, and as soon as the weight of the trolley came upon it the sleepers sank too deep for the rollers to have anything solid under them. The horses were halted by the sudden immovability of their load, and a total confusion immediately reigned; the horses backed and reared, Jeremy and Cobbledick clinging on to but not quite controlling the leaders; the trolley slewed and nearly came off the track altogether. It was Ross’s instinct to take charge, but he checked himself. Ben Carter was already making the necessary moves. With eight men behind him armed with pinch bars, he ran forward and they levered the great load on course again while the horses resumed their orderly tugging. Slowly the whole thing began to move, while watchers standing near by cheered; but the rhythm had gone and the forward progression. Now each step was a violent lurch from one slithering roller and one sinking prop to the next. So it went on, with the cliffs getting slowly but agonizingly nearer. Foot by foot, levered and dragged, the beam was drawn towards the towering cliff, while the wooden sleepers dipped and twisted all ways. In the ebb and flow of people on the beach Stephen Carrington had caught Clowance’s hand. ‘Where were you yesterday?’ ‘In church. I do go now and then. And where were you?’ ‘Looking for you.’ ‘Not too hard, I’m sure.’ ‘Why not?’ ‘Else you might have guessed.’ ‘What would’ve been the good if I’d come there? All your family around you.’ ‘You speak as if they’re a plague.’ ‘So they are when I want you to meself.’ ‘Well, now you’ve got me,’ she said, looking at her captive hand. ‘To little use, I reckon. With half a hundred folk crowdin’ around us!’ ‘And all observing the claim you are putting upon me.’ ‘Should I not? Must I not?’ ‘Not in public. Not just yet.’ ‘Clowance, I’m tired of waiting. We see little or naught of each other—’ ‘Oh, Friday you came to sup with us. Thursday we talked for time enough at the mine. Tuesday—’ ‘But that’s among people. It is not among people that I wish to meet you, as you well know. Why, last year, afore ever I went away, we was more alone than this!’ She wriggled her hand out of his grasp. ‘Yes, I suppose.’ ‘You know well. When can we meet in Trenwith again?’ ‘Ah. I don’t know . . .’ A portly gentleman in a white stock and a black tail-coat but with leather boots over his stockings and knee-breeches came up to Ross. They had spoken earlier in the day when Ross had boarded the Henry from Nampara Girl. Mr Harvey. Mr Henry Harvey, after whom the brig was named. At thirty-seven, chief partner in the firm of Blewett, Harvey, Vivian & Co. of Hayle, where the mine engine had been built. He was the driving power behind the foundry’s rapid expansion. Indeed, soon to be the sole owner, if litigation went well. He did not personally superintend the delivery of all such engines built by his firm, but this commission had special areas of interest. Firstly Captain Poldark was not just an ordinary mining venturer. Secondly his son, Jeremy, had dented the social traditions of the time by becoming more than half way to practical engineer and by being responsible for the final design of the engine they had built. ‘I think all is well now, Captain Poldark. Safely gathered in, if one might say so without irreverence.’ ‘Yes. We’ll get it up the cliff tomorrow.’ At the very last the trolley had slid off the track at one side and was quite immovable. But it had done its work. For the last few yards the beam could be levered forward on its own. ‘So . . . If I should now take my leave . . .’ ‘You’d be welcome to sup with us, Mr Harvey. We have all been on a starvation diet today. Indeed, stay the night, if you wish. It would be a pleasure.’ ‘It would be a pleasure to me, sir. And an honour. But I should neither eat nor sleep peaceable with my three vessels off this dangerous shore. Perhaps another time.’ ‘Indeed. Your brother Francis stayed with us once before his – his accident.’ ‘He would have been forty-four this year. I have lost two other brothers and a sister since then. Natural causes with them, of course, natural causes . . . Yes, but strong steam has to come in spite of the risks, as your talented son recognizes. I shall watch the performance and duty of this engine with most particular interest.’ Ross looked at the darkening sky. It was like a mourning card. ‘I think you’re wise to go. There’ll be no trouble tonight. But one can’t be sure of tomorrow.’ They shook hands. A part of the purchase price of the engine had already been paid over; the balance was due on delivery, but it was not between gentlemen that this should be discussed. As the sweating horses were relieved of their harness, men at the sea’s edge were already beginning to lift the sleeper track. Ross walked with Mr Harvey down to the sea as far as his dinghy, where two men waited to push him out through the frothy little surf to join his brig and return to Hayle. ‘. . . Tomorrow?’ asked Stephen Carrington. ‘What?’ said Clowance. ‘For Trenwith.’ ‘It is dangerous. People will see us.’ ‘Let ’em.’ ‘No. You have not lived here long, Stephen. I would hate the whispering, the dirty rumours. It would – contaminate what . . . what I don’t wish to have contaminated.’ ‘Where, then? Where, then?’ ‘Trenwith maybe. But it would be better about dusk.’ ‘That suits me.’ ‘Yes, well . . . But it means . . . more deceit . . . more lying.’ ‘Not my choice. I would shout it out in the open for all to hear.’ Clowance gave a little irritable shrug. It was impossible to explain to him her own mixed feelings, the overwhelming lure of his physical attraction warring with all her loyalties to upbringing, family and friends – with the added weight of little doubts about his attitude towards other women that could not altogether be set aside. She said: ‘Perhaps next week.’ ‘Too far off. I want to see you tomorrow.’ ‘No.’ ‘Then Wednesday.’ ‘No . . . Friday I might, perhaps. I could go and see the Paynters, come on from there.’ ‘What time would it be?’ ‘About five.’ ‘I’ll be waiting. Don’t fail me, will you.’ ‘I’ll try to be there,’ said Clowance, knowing well that she would. II The winter had been a draughty comfortless one but without severe cold. Its relative mildness had prevented some of the worst privations in the stricken English north; and even in the Iberian peninsula, where each side had gone into winter quarters exhausted after the bloody fights and sieges of the last year, the weather was not so icy as usual. Throughout a long campaign of desperate battles for hills and bridges and towns in Spain and Portugal one theme had predominated. Wherever Wellington was there victory was. Each of Napoleon’s great marshals had taken him on in turn and each in turn had given way, having got the worst of it. Not yet had the ennobled general come into direct conflict with the greatest soldier of them all, but that might occur any time in the next campaign. Although Napoleon still ruled Europe, Englishmen everywhere held their heads higher. Splendid news had come in from the Far East too, where an expeditionary force of 3,500 men under General Auchmuchty had defeated 10,000 Dutch, French and Javanese troops and conquered Java – almost the last and certainly the richest French possession overseas. The picture was changing, for the Czar Alexander was at his most enigmatic and unyielding and Buonaparte was threatening that dire punishments should fall upon the Russians. At home the King was sunk in his senility and the Prince Regent persisted in his folly of reposing his confidence in his old enemies the Tories and the government of the inefficient and ineffectual Spencer Perceval. Or so the Whigs felt. A year ago when he first became Regent the Prince had abruptly stated that he did not wish to risk making the change of government because his father might recover his sanity any day and be infinitely distressed and wrathful to find his own ministers dismissed. But as time wore on this showed up more and more for the miserable excuse most of his thwarted friends had all along supposed it to be. Having supported the opposition Whigs against his father’s Tories all his adult life, the Prince, on the very brink of his accession, had had second thoughts, had held back, trembled on the brink of seeing Grey and Grenville and Whitbread and Brougham in office with the prospect of much-needed reform in England but a patched-up peace with France to go with it. Many straws in the wind might have swayed him at the last moment – even, however minimally, an interview with a certain Cornish soldier – only he knew how far one consideration and another had weighed. Of course the Opposition, being patriots at heart, had changed their tune about the prospects of Wellington in the Peninsula, and most of them took a more optimistic attitude towards the war than they had done twelve months ago. Yet there were many among them still who pointed out that Buonaparte’s set-backs were pinpricks when one observed the extent of his empire. In all Europe only Russia, sulkily obstinate, and Portugal, newly liberated, were not under Napoleon’s heel. Half the countries of Europe were at war with England, and none of her manufactured products was allowed to be landed at any port. Ten thousand customs officers existed to see the law observed. Discovered contraband was seized, and often the ships that brought it burned as a lesson to all that the Emperor’s edicts must be obeyed. To make matters worse England was now in trouble with the United States as well. Because of her naval blockade of Europe – preventing the raw materials of war reaching Napoleon – England had claimed the right to intercept and search any ship she found on the high seas. This the Americans both resented and rejected; so, in retaliation, and smarting under old grievances, the Government of the United States had issued a decree forbidding any commercial trade with England at all. This was a killing blow to what was left of Lancashire’s trade, for it deprived the mills of their raw cotton; and George Warleggan was glad he had liquidated his unwise investments in the North, even at so cruel a sacrifice. With food double the price it had been twenty years ago, the wages of the weavers of Glasgow were now a quarter of what they had been then. So would not the Whigs, if allowed to take over now, still see the only realistic way of ending the war in a compromise peace? There had been feelers from Paris not so long ago. Now with a little more with which to bargain . . . France might have Java back in return for guaranteeing the independence of Spain and Portugal. England would recognize France’s inalienable rights in the Mediterranean in return for a reopening of the Baltic ports. And so on. It was Ross’s recurring nightmare. And not only Ross’s . . . In the letter received recently from George Canning: We miss you [it had said], and need you, Ross. Not just for your vote – though that also – but for some Starch you provide. And military knowledge. You would think the Government inundated with military Information – and so it is. But you speak and argue from a kind of experience – and you have no Axe to grind. You are listened to – if not in the House then outside it in private meetings where decisions of Policy are made. And that is where it is most Important. Do you read the News sheets? How long do you suppose we may be able to sustain the War, with Revolution pending in the North? Only six of Manchester’s thirty-eight mills are left working. The situation is similar throughout urban Lancashire; and these riots in Nottinghamshire where they call themselves Luddites – where will it lead? They gather together openly, these rioters, in towns and villages and ignorantly proceed to destroy the machines they believe have robbed them of work. Of course they must be stopped; but there are already over twelve thousand frame-workers on Poor Relief in Nottinghamshire alone; how can we truly blame them? From what I gather, Perceval and his ministers are bent only on Repression. They are sending a whole brigade of Dragoons up there to bring the county to book, but how shall we fight Napoleon if our troops are needed to fight at home? We must give some sort of Help to these starving men and women while yet maintaining a respect for the Law and punishment for those who break it. I intend to press for this, and have my usual support in the House; but an added vote, an added voice, is of the greatest importance. We need you, Ross. Demelza said dismally: ‘Shall you go?’ ‘Of course not. Certainly not yet. I cannot in fairness leave the opening and management of Wheal Leisure entirely to Jeremy. I’ve been too often away, so that my own affairs have been neglected. I shall not easily forget the situation I found at Wheal Grace when I came back – was it nine years ago? God, the time has passed! All that organized theft . . .’ ‘It was chiefly Bragg and Nancarrow. It couldn’t happen again.’ ‘Also,’ said Ross. ‘Also?’ ‘Conditions are bad enough here. There won’t be enough grain to go round. By next month people will be starving in Cornwall too. It’s not a pretty prospect.’ ‘But Mr Canning is very – persuasive. I know how much you feel for him.’ ‘Oh yes. Oh yes. He would not be so great a man if he were not persuasive. You should hear him in the House – that bearpit! – how, in two minutes after he stands up, all the noise goes and they listen! But this time my duty lies here.’ Demelza wriggled in her seat, not convinced. ‘Promise me one thing, Ross.’ ‘I’ll try.’ ‘Promise that you will not be inveigled into another trip overseas. It is not right that you should be asked to undertake any more. However much you may enjoy it.’ ‘What conceivably makes you think I enjoy it?’ ‘Reading that old letter from Geoffrey Charles is what makes me think you enjoy it,’ she said. ‘I looked at it again only the other day. You behaved at that battle – that battle of Bussaco – without a single thought for your wife and family! What did Geoffrey Charles say about you? “Biting at the cartridges, leaping like a boy over boulders and dead Frenchmen alike, shooting and stabbing with the best.” What a way to act for a man of your dignity and responsibilities! I’ll wager Mr Canning would not have done it!’ ‘Canning is not a soldier . . . When you are in a charge like that you lose the sense of being old and sere and bent with rheumatism. One becomes – uplifted.’ ‘You’re hardly old and sere and, as far as I know except for your ankle, you suffer no rheumatism. But if that is the only way you can be uplifted – by killing people . . .’ He rubbed her ear. ‘We’ve had that letter nine months if we’ve had it a day; you’re a little slow to bring the charge!’ ‘I’ve been saving it up,’ said Demelza. ‘Well, have you, now.’ They were sitting together on the sofa in the parlour, each having come from different tasks and each taking ten minutes of the other’s company. The great engine beam had just been successfully winched up the cliff, and tomorrow the assembling of the engine would begin. ‘Very well,’ said Ross, ‘I have to admit that I was . . . uplifted. It happened. I dislike – hate – killing as much as most civilized human beings; perhaps more than most for I little enjoy shooting or hunting. I do not for a second believe Geoffrey Charles really enjoys it either. But look at that last letter; read it again. There is some strange sense of comradeship that for the moment at least transcends one’s better self. Whoever thought that that little boy who was so doted on by Elizabeth (indeed one thought she spoiled him); who would have thought of him engaging in these desperate battles, with all the attendant hardships that he hardly mentions: the hunger, the damp, the fatigue, the loss and mutilation of one’s friends . . . and yet seem actually to be enjoying himself! There is something rare about the Peninsular army now which adds a dimension to ordinary war.’ Isabella-Rose came into the house shouting at the top of her voice; she did not sound at all angry, just vehement. Mrs Kemp’s lower tones followed her up the stairs. ‘Just hear that child,’ Ross said. ‘Is she going to be a singer or a fish jouster?’ ‘I believe it’s just good lungs. Certainly she is the noisiest of the three, and yet born when our life was at its calmest.’ ‘Anyway,’ said Ross. ‘I promise faithfully not to go fighting in Portugal ever again. Or anywhere else.’ ‘Not even in Nottingham?’ ‘Certainly not in Nottingham! I played my part once in putting down a riot here, as you may remember, and the memory still sticks like a bloodstain that won’t come out in the wash.’ Demelza moodily licked her lips. ‘I think I have a tooth going bad. It hurt last night when I was eating an apple and it has not been comfortable since. I think it has gone poor.’ ‘Let me see.’ She opened her mouth and pointed. He prodded and she made a statement that sounded like: ‘Ee – ah – ose – ah – ee – ah – ink – ah – all – ee – ike – an – ay – ogers.’ He took his finger out. ‘That’s a good language but I’ll learn it some other time.’ ‘I was only saying that if I lose my teeth I shall begin to look like Aunt Mary Rogers.’ ‘Have you finished chattering for a moment?’ ‘Yes. I have now.’ ‘Restrain any further thoughts that come to your mind. Just while I look.’ She opened her mouth again. He prodded. ‘Is that it?’ ‘Eth.’ ‘You’ve made the gum sore. A piece of the apple skin must have gone into the gum. The tooth is perfectly sound.’ She closed her teeth on his finger, but not hard. ‘Anyway,’ he said, having recovered his finger, ‘if you look as well as Aunt Mary Rogers at her age you’ll be coming along pretty nice. Now you mention it, I do see a resemblance.’ ‘Would you like to put your finger in again?’ she asked. There was a knock on the door and Jane Gimlett entered. ‘Oh, beg pardon, sur . . . ma’am. I thought to see if the fire wanted looking to.’ ‘It does.’ They sat side by side on the settee while Jane built up the fire. Jane’s hair is almost white, thought Ross. How long have they been serving us faithfully, she and John? Ever since he had thrown the Paynters out, and that was upwards of twenty-two years. John too had aged. He’d been a journeyman shoemaker before. Presumably they were content to serve the Poldarks for ever, so long as their own strength and health remained. If he, Ross, suggested they should retire on a pension they would be utterly downcast, cut to the quick, supposing that their service and attention had been falling off. Which it had not. So one accepted their service, their loyalty, their wholehearted commitment . . . ‘Thank you, Jane,’ he said as she went out, and she looked up surprised at his tone of voice. So did Demelza, but said nothing. Ross said: ‘If I feel I have to go to London again in the spring, will you come with me?’ ‘That I could not. Dare not. Not, that is, unless I take Clowance; and I know she will not leave Nampara again at present. In any case, as Stephen seems settled here, it would only be running away from her problem – to be faced once again when she returned.’ ‘We can’t order our children’s lives, Demelza.’ ‘That is most especially what we have tried not to do!’ she said indignantly. ‘Maybe a little more interference would have been to her benefit!’ He let this pass, aware that he had imposed his own double standards on her and on her children. ‘They seem to meet quite rarely, Clowance and Stephen.’ ‘But when they do you can see that she is moved. Even the way she appears not to notice him.’ ‘D’you think she regrets refusing Fitzmaurice?’ ‘No . . . She cried a little that first night. I’ve told you, haven’t I! I felt much for her. It’s some dreadful decision for a girl of her age to have to make. A young man so eligible I could have wept myself . . . I don’t know if she quite realized what she was turning down. I fear she has inherited from us the expectation that marriages are all-loving and all-successful. We were able to hide our troubles from her when we had them, and she has only seen the bright side – of which there has been a wondrous lot. We have never bickered or quarrelled or been teasy over small things; and when she marries she wants the same!’ ‘Does she think she will get it with Stephen? He has a strange reputation in the village.’ ‘I know. It may be just rumour about a man who is easy in his ways . . . At least she has the sense to hold back. But she’s half in love with him – or more than half – and she wasn’t at all with Edward Fitzmaurice.’ There was a pause, each wanting to say more but each deciding to leave it there. Presently Ross got up and went to the top drawer in the bureau, took out the last letter they had received from Geoffrey Charles Poldark, came and sat beside her again. ‘It’s time he was home,’ she said. ‘I wish he’d take leave. He could stay with us and visit Trenwith at his leisure. It needs him.’ ‘We have told him all that.’ ‘Read it to me, Ross. I’ve forgot the half of it.’ He frowned at the letter, aware that only vanity prevented him from buying spectacles for close work. ‘Sabugal, the third of November, 1811,’ he read. My dear Uncle Ross and Aunt Demelza. I have been tardy in answering your letter of the 12th August, but things of varying interest and moment have been occurring in these parts. Now we are back in our Winter Quarters, as they may be glowingly described, and time will be on our hands until the open season for shooting Frenchies begins again in the New Year. You ask me to apply for Leave and visit you at Nampara. When I return to England and Cornwall no house shall see me before Yours, and if you are still generous enough to be of the same mind I shall stay with you as long as your Patience lasts. Thank you for that invitation; for Trenwith, I feel, will be draughty with ghosts. I would love to see you all, and have so much to talk of; for it is more than a year now since that happy Meeting before Bussaco. In military ways for me it has been a wonderful year, a year in which after all the retreats and disappointments – even the retreat after Bussaco! – a change has taken place at last and we have been constantly, gradually advancing with great tactical skill. No one in the history of war, I believe, has so brilliantly demonstrated the virtues of reculer pour mieux sauter as Wellington. I am reminded of the tide advancing on Hendrawna Beach, as Morwenna and I used to watch it; by little forward and by little back, yet ever irresistible. I could obtain leave now and spend Easter with you – a splendid idea – yet will not; for such camaraderie and kinship has built up here among those officers and men who have survived, that I should feel ill at ease with my Conscience to leave them now, even if only for six or eight weeks. You would not believe how we Esteem each other – even though little is said! But do not suppose, after the spartan life of this last summer’s campaign – and that was spartan indeed! – that we now shall lack all creature Comforts and Entertainment over the winter time. We have in prospect at this moment a series of dances, of festivities, of the new sport of steeple-chasing and the old sport of fox-hunting, of boxing contests and donkey races, and hunting for wolf and wild boar, of amateur concerts and ‘professional’ suppers which may lack the elegance of the London that I once knew but need fear no comparison in the Zest with which they are performed and enjoyed. Also, my dears, the ladies here are very sweet and warm and welcoming. There is a fine line drawn betwixt those whose warmth is restrained by considerations of chaste behaviour and those not. But all are equally gracious – even the nuns! Before I came to the Peninsula I used to expect the Portuguese ladies to be less attractive than the Spanish, but upon my soul, I believe there is little to choose. Perhaps when next you hear from me I shall be wed to one or another of them! I wish they did not have this Popish religion. Before we retired here for the winter, we had one last splendid brush with Marshal Marmont at a place called El Bodon. I have no doubt that long before you receive this letter your News Sheets will have brought this village and plateau to your attention. But I can only say that, although we were ourselves a little late in the field, through no fault of our own, this was one of the most satisfactory Encounters ever to have been engaged in. It was the usual bloody affair, of course, but an Object Lesson in the way to fight battles when apparently outnumbered. I do believe in future manuals of war El Bodon will have an honoured place. I have been keeping singularly well, and in a whole year of fighting have not so much as suffered a bellyache or earned a scratch. More of my good friends have gone, but, as I say, a sufficiency remain to continue to sustain me in comradeship and accord. Again my love to you all. Ever most sincerely Geoffrey Charles. PS. Any news of stepfather George? When we last met, you mentioned that he might be thinking of remarrying, but I have heard Nothing of it. My only correspondent, short of Yourselves, is Valentine, who sometimes sends a note. I received one from him last month, in which he was full of a flirtation he was conducting with someone else’s pretty young wife, but he said nothing of acquiring a Step Mother. So I assume George’s suit was unsuccessful, or is it still on the Boil? PPS. Odds heart, I tell an untruth! A Letter from Drake in June. They are happy. That is such a splendid thing. Him and Morwenna I must see when I come home. Demelza took the letter from Ross and held it crackling in her fingers. Then she got up and put it back in the drawer. ‘Perhaps if George remarried, Geoffrey Charles would be more willing to come home, make his home among us again.’ ‘I doubt if that would make so much difference. Not, that is, while the war lasts.’ ‘Well, at least thank God Jeremy has not gone.’ ‘No . . .’ Demelza came back, noticing his tone. ‘You do not surely wish him to go? . . . Do you?’ Ross scowled his discomfort at the question. ‘Of course not! Not my only son. But mixed feelings, as you must realize. This is not a colonial war – not a war such as I fought in, which was a mistake from the beginning. This is a war for survival – our survival; and as such must be . . . fought out. If I were younger – as you know . . .’ ‘Yes, I know. But Jeremy’s not a fighter – at least not in that way.’ ‘No, not in that way.’ ‘But he is working, is he not, for the mine?’ ‘Oh, indeed! I cannot fault him. He takes more than his fair share of any work that is going. I must admire him greatly for all of it.’ ‘Must?’ Demelza said gently. Ross shifted. ‘We have been well enough together these last months. Since he discovered to me his passion for the properties of strong steam – since we had it out together as to why he had concealed it so long, and all the foolish subterfuge of his going fishing – since then we have been in good accord. Really, my love, I mean it.’ ‘I’m glad. I still think sometimes he feels . . .’ ‘That he cannot escape from being the owner’s son? That I understand. Perhaps if I went away again . . .’ ‘No.’ Ross put his hand over hers. ‘At first, of course, I was so angry with him for putting me in a false position . . . And yet, after a time, I felt that more than half the fault was mine. If there is not the communication there should be between a father and a son, surely it is the father who mostly lacks the insight and the understanding.’ ‘Not always,’ said Demelza. ‘I have seen you make the effort. But anyway let it be. Forget it – if it is over.’ ‘It is over. But should not be forgotten, as an object lesson for us both. I mean for him and me.’ Demelza said: ‘Even Mr Harvey was telling me what a talented son we have.’ ‘It is good to know he is so regarded.’ Ross added: ‘Thank God he seems to have grown out of his disappointment over Cuby Trevanion.’ She turned. ‘He hasn’t, Ross. I’m certain sure of that. More’s the pity. If Clowance is in two minds, Jeremy is not. It’s something I know. He grieves for that girl all the time.’