The Angry Tide (38 page)

About two hours later a Mr John Craven arrived at George Street and delivered a letter. It said:

Dear Poldark,

The Insult you paid me in the House was of a nature that brooks no apology. I know you to be an infamous braggart, and believe all your display of courage to be the mask for a cowardly disposition. I therefore desire to give you the opportunity of showing me whether this Epithet is rightly applied or not.

I desire
that
you meet me in Hyde Park on Wednesday at 6 a.m. with a brace of pistols each, to determine our differences. My second, Mr John Craven, carries this Letter and I desire you to tell him whom you will appoint to represent you.

I desire
that
this Meeting be kept a dead secret, for reasons which must be plain to you.

I am, Si
r, your humble servant Monk Adde
rl
e
y.

Chapter
Five

Demelza
was out when the letter came. He said nothing to her when she came back. That evening he walked round and had a talk with Dwight.

Dwight said: 'But this is monstrous! A brief scuffle in the House? They're always happening! The man's
mad!
That injury to his hea
d. I should ignore the whole th
ing.'

'I have already written accepting.'

Dwight stared at Ross as if unable to believe what he heard. 'You have what
...?'
'I have accepted.'

'But, Ross! You should
not
have done! The whole t
h
ing must be stopped at once!' 'It can't be.'

'But - but there's nothing at
stake!
The merest storm in a teacup
...
In any event, the fellow's a noted duellist. He's killed two or three men!'

'So have I.
’

'In duels?'

'Well, no. But I'm accustomed to using a gun. As the rooks know when they raid my crops.'

'That's not a pistol, Ross! How long since you used one of those?'

'I'll take some practice tomorrow. You know why I came here? To ask you to be my second. Indeed, presuming on our friendship, I've already given your name.'

Dwight bit at his glove. They were pacing the street outside Caroline's house, and it was beginning to rain.

'Well?' said Ross.

'Yes, I'll be your second,' Dwight said abrupdy, 'because then I have the right to interfere and see what may be done to have the whole scandalous nonsense called off.'

'Small chance of that. Also - it is of advantage that you should be there, because in the event of cither of us being wounded we shall need to look no further for a surgeon.'

Dwight frowned at the letter by the low light of one of the street lamps. 'What is the meaning of this emphasis on secrecy? I know of course -

'John Craven explai
ned it. If Adderley should be
accurate with his ball it is essential that it should not be known that he is responsible. If he stood a
third
trial he would be likely to go to prison for some years.'

'As he deserves anyhow. But good God, he is the
challenger
Are
we to accept
hi
s
conditions? I never heard of anything more outrageous!'

'It will suit me well,' Ross said. 'If I should kill Adderley it will not suit me to stand trial either. Once is enough.'

Dwight looked at his friend's dark face. 'It will get about. This sort of thing can never be altogether hushed up.'

'Well, that is something we shall both have to risk.'

They stopped where a cellar trap-door was open and two men like black dwarfs were unloading casks of ale from a dray. Beside it someone had tipped a load of bricks, making passage along the uneven pavement impossible.

'Does Demelza know aught of this?'

'No, and must not! Nor Caroline. Fortunately there is only a day to wait. Remember this, Dwight; you are sworn to secrecy.
No one
must be told.'

'And
are
you proposing that we
should go to Strawberry Hill tomorrow as arranged?' 'Of course. Otherwise they will guess something is in the wind.' Dwight shook his head in despair. 'And when will you get your pistol practice?' 'First thing. We don't leave until ten.'

'So I must also be about early on my efforts at a reconciliation. Ross, what
are
the grounds on which you would agree to withdraw?'

'I have nothing to withdraw, Dwight. I have only accepted the challenge.'

Dwight gestured irritably. 'To say that you meant no offence in the House?'

'I apologized to him at the time.'

'Did he hear it?'

'He should have done.'

'Did you mean it?'

'No.'

They turned back, towards the top of the Garden and the better houses.

'So
...
I never thought when I came to London that I should be involved in such a childish,
wicked
affair as this. Because it is
both,
Ross. When there is so much suffering and pain in the world already
...
And when we are at war. There is enough killing to be done without fighting among ourselves.'

'You must tell Addcrley that. If he wishes to withdraw his challenge on those grounds - or on any other honourable grounds - I'll be willing to let the matter drop.'

Dwight said: 'You speak as if you would not
really
be willing.'

After a moment Ross said: 'You know me too well, Dwight. Anyway, I leave it in your hands.'

At ten next morning the quartet set out for Strawberry Hill. The house, built by the great Sir Horace Walpole, was one of the sights Caroline had planned they should see. It was fine again, after the cold rain of yesterday, with balustrades of white cloud arranging themselves in the west; a good day to clear the smells of London; a good day for riding; and the distance little more than ten miles.

In a few minutes alone before they left Dwight was able to gesture his disgust and say: 'If it were possible, he is more intransigent than you. But while perhaps he has some excuse, being unstable, you have none.'

'What would you have me do?' Ross asked. 'Go to his lodgings and knock on his door and when he comes kneel and offer him an abject apology? An apology that I became annoyed at his insult to my wife?'

'Arc you sure it was intended as such?'

'Of course. Nothing else.'

'In any event a challenge like this is not important coming from such as him. I would suggest you go to
see
him this evening and tell him you have no interest in his false heroics. You are a veteran of the American war. If he calls you a coward people will only laugh - at him.'

Ross smiled but did not reply.

They reached Twickenham at midday. Walpole had now been dead a couple of years, but the Hon. Mrs Damcr, the daughter of Walpole's great friend, General Conway, was in residence and was maintaining the tradition of allowing only four people to visit the house daily.

Demelza
found the gardens inspiring. Flowers she had never seen, trees and shrubs she had not imagined. 'And, Ross, if we could have a
lawn
like this - or just a little like this - at Nampara. It is so smooth,
so
green.'
More indulgent towards her than he had been of late, Ross explained that grass would never grow so lush in the sandy soil of the north coast, and that this was all scythed to an inch in height by apprentices learning to be gardeners. Well,
Demelza
said, when she got home she would do
something.
She could have a lawn of a
sort,
not just tufts of grass pitted with rabbit scratchings and Garrick diggings. Think how much better her hollyhocks would look if you saw them across an expanse of neat, tidy, green lawn! And she saw a shrub like the one Hugh Armitage had given her, and it was called a magnolia. As soon as she saw the name she remembered it.

There was much of interest, too, in the eccentric house with its differing styles; and inside it was a treasure trove; one complete room full of Italian cameos, another with snuff-boxes and miniatures. There were water-colours and oil-paintings and rosaries and bronzes and French glass and Brussels lace and porcelain figures from Dresden and Chinese masks and Turkish swords, and ivory figurines, and fans and clocks, and in a library so many books it was impossible to guess at the number.

After dinner, on the way home,
Demelza
suggested that perhaps sometimes it was possible to be
too
rich and so accumulate too much of everything. Nothing, she thought, could be more exciting than to have a passion for something, whether it was fans, or ivory or glass, and then, if you could afford it, to build up a collection, precious piece by precious piece, so that you could put it on your shelves and take pleasure in it every time you saw it. But Sir Horatio, even though he had lived to be old, must have made some of his collections in great
quantities
at the same
time.
How, then, could you find the same pleasure? Six lovely things would always be six lovely things. Six thousand and you'd lose appreciation.

'It's like wives,' said Ross. 'Enough is enough.'

'That cuts both ways,' said Caroline 'Though I'm told there is a maharajah in India who lives in his palace,
the
only man among a thousand women.'

'From what I hear,' Dwight said, 'women were one of the few treasures Walpole did not collect. But I agree with
Demelza
; a man of the most exquisite taste can still lack taste if he indulges it too freely.'

'Like a man
of courage?' Ross asked. 'Exactl
y.'

As they drew near London Caroline said: 'Why don't you two sup with us? My aunt always has more on her table than she knows what to do with.'

'I had thought,' Ross said, 'of visiting the theatre again. There is a change of programme. It is a comic play by Goldsmith.' They all looked at him in surprise.

'We'll scarcely be b
ack in time,' Caroline said. 'We
should have no time to change.'

'Then go as we
are
,' said Ross. 'Or miss the first act. It will be easy to pick up the story.'

'Let's go as we
are
,' said
Demelza
immediately. 'What is the hour now? Oh, yes, we could do that! And then, perhaps, we could sup afterwards.'

So it was agreed. They stabled their horses at an ostler's in Stanhope Street and found scats in a box only five minutes after the curtain had gone up.

Thereafter for two hours they were brilliantly amused by the play. Sometimes Dwight glanced across at Ross. He knew that neither Ross's nor his own enjoyment could be anything but assumed. It was a remarkable effort of controlled behaviour on Ross's part, and Dwight now and then wondered if the other man, in one of his moods of dark fatalism, had almost totally accepted whatever the future had to bring.

They did not stay for the later plays, but just remained long enough to hear the orchestra in: 'Shepherd, I have lost my waist, Have you seen my body? Sacrificed to modern taste, I'm quite the Hoddy-Doddy.'
Demelza
humming it in her slightiy husky sweet voice, they were at Hatton Garden by nine o'clock.

Mrs Pelham was out so they supped alone. It had just been announced that both Houses of Parliament would adjourn early and would not be likely to reassemble before the third week in January; so this set
Demelza
off - in high spirits after the play - with dioughts of Christmas. Last year had been such
a success that she wished exactl
y to repeat it. Caroline said it was always a mistake to attempt to repeat anything, and anyway
Demelza
could not, for she, Caroline, intended to spend Christmas in Cornwall this year, and that would break the pattern.
Demelza
said it would only improve the pattern, whereupon Caroline replied not at all so, and in fact, although personally she would look on it with some misgiving, she intended to command an attendance at Killcwarrcn of
all
the Poldarks she could muster, not excluding the Blarneys, however many of them happened to be not afloat at that particular season. She had heard what a ravishing young man James Blarney was, and she hoped to see for herself. And as for the children, well, she said, Killewarren's bigger than Nampara, so let us hear
some
little feet pattering about it, even if they are not Sarah's.

In a half-wry, half-jolly wrangling supper proceeded, until Mrs Pelham arrived back with three guests, the first being
that
tall dark man of forty, the Hon. St Andrew St John, who was at present her 'special friend'. This devoted adherent of Fox was a bachelor, a landowner and a barrister and had been undcr-secrctary of state for foreign affairs under Fox when only twenty-four. Since then he had been in the wilderness with him; but he enjoyed London social life and most of all, it seemed, Mrs Pelham. The second was Mr Edward Coke of Longford, Derbyshire, a man of about the same age, who had made no mark in the House but had much so say out of it, anodicr adherent of Fox; and the third, a rich, sour, sardonic old bachelor called Jeremiah Crutchley, who was member for St Mawes and had been a friend of Samuel Johnson.

More seats were drawn up round the table, servants scurried with napkins and glasses and wine and dishes of food
, and general chatter began. Presentl
y Ross heard St Andrew St John mutter something in an undertone to Dwight, and he immediately said:
'May I ask you to repeat that, sir?'

St John said: 'Supper, I think, is a time for
bavarderie,
not serious talk. But I mendoncd to your friend that it is reported General Buonaparte has given the blockading squadrons the slip and reached France.'

'When?'

'Early this month,' Coke put in. 'They say the great man was at sea six weeks and scarcely escaped capture! He landed at Frdjus with a bare dozen of an escort, and was greeted like a king. Fox was thinking of sending him a message of congratulation.'

There was silence. Ross held his tongue.

Prcsendy he said: 'Certainly, since Hoche died, Buonaparte stands alone. The French armies no doubt will look on him as their saviour.'

'Which it's doubtful if he can be,' said Crutchley, who, like Ross, supported Pitt and the war effort. 'While he's been bottled up in Egypt, all his conquests
in Europe have been lost. Now we
have a firm foothold in Holland it will be no time before Russia joins us there. Nearly all the French possessions overseas
are
in our hands: Ceylon, all of Southern India, the Cape of Good Hope, Minorca,
Trinidad. The best that their "saviour" can do is to rally the defeated armies and sue for peace.'

'There's been a great b
ungling of our efforts in the He
lder,' said Coke, with some satisfaction. 'More determination would have given us the whole of Holland by now.'

'If Abe
rcrombie had not been forced to use his raw militia last week -'

'Gentlemen,' Caroline said. 'Mr St John is right. The supper table is for light talk, however weighty the platters we put on it. This
soiree
you have been to: was it an interesting evening?'