The Angry Tide (40 page)

By nine Dwight was round. He found Ross in bed but unattended, since he had refused to
see
any other physician.
Demelza
was doing what she could for him. She was looking more sick than Dwight had ever seen her since she had had the morbid sore throat.

'We
ll,' said Ross. 'What of Adderle
y?' and gritted his teeth while Dwight cut away the bandage.

'I've extracted the ball which had lodged almost in the groin. Lead is sterile and I have taken what precautions I can.'

There was silence while he examined the wound.

'Well?'

'This could be worse. The ball has split a splinter off the radius. I'll have to take that piece of bone out. The ulna is sound.'

'Damned if I know whether I hit him with the first or the second shot.'

'The second. The blow on your arm deflected your aim fractionally down.
Demelza
, have you a bowl?' 'Here.
’

'A bigger one. And brandy. This will be more painful than it should be, Ross, because if it had been done at once the shocked arm would still have been partly insensitive.'

'I don't want brandy,' Ross said. 'Just do what you have to do.'

So Dwight did what he had to do, and there was a lot of blood, and a moment when he had to saw the edge of the splintered bone. And sweat ran down Ross's face and he gripped the bed with his good hand until the rail bent, and there were sweat and tears on
Demelza
's face, and then presendy the bandages were going back, and
Demelza
, anxious to keep everything as secret as possible, was carrying the bloody bowls out herself, and Dwight was closing his bag. And then they all sat and did drink brandy. And there was a long silence between them. The few words that were dropped into the silence did not keep it at bay. They had all retreated into their own thoughts: wry, bitter, anxious, recollectivc. Outside London was fully awake, and the customary noises in the street were temporarily joined by the lowing of a cow. Upstairs two maids were busy: you could hear their footsteps on the floor.

At length
Dwight tried to break the sour spell.

'Have you ever heard of a man called Davy?'

Ross looked up. 'Who?'

'Davy. Humphrey Davy, I think he's called.'

'No.' He made an effort. 'Who is he?'

'A Cornish youth working in some laboratory in Bristol. He claims to have discovered - or invented - some new gas called nitrous oxide which he says induces insensibility when the fumes
are
breathed. The man is not yet twenty-one, but has already published his findings. He claims that, as the gas is capable of destroying pain, it may probably be used to advantage in surgical operations. I could have wished for some now.'

'So could I have,' said Ross.

Dwight got up.

'No doubt even if his claims be true it will be years before my pr
ofession puts it to the test. We
are
nothing if not conservative in our ideas.'

There was a further oppressive silence.

'Is the pain easier?'
Demelza
asked.

'A little
,' said Ross. 'Do you know, I have been co
nsidering. However much Adderle
y may have wished to keep this secret, it seems very likely to come out, now wc are both in this condition.'

Demelza
looked
at
Ross, his drawn face, the blood already seeping through the new bandage. And she thought: I shall never forgive him for this.

And she thought it all the following days. To her it seemed like a blasphemy against life, to risk so much for so little. It showed a newer, darker side of Ross than even she had ever known. But also it showed a person bound by a foolish tradition of his class that he of all people should have been clear-sighted enough to disavow.

He was so introspective, and anyway so ill for a few days, that she could not bring herself to say anything to him, and the only person she could unburden herself to was Caroline.

Caroline said: 'I was surprised myself - and yet, looking
at
it now, I am not so surprised. It was always - on the cards.'

'I don't know what you mean.'

Caroline steered away from explai
ning. 'Monk Adderle
y's a fighter. He will be all his days. It was just misfortune
that
he chose Ross.'

Demelza
's dark eyebrows wrinkled and contracted painfully. "That is not what you meant at all, Caroline. And it is not what I mean. They speak of honour. Honour having to be satisfied. What is honour?'

'A code of conduct. A long tradition. Ross would have lost respect if he had not fought.'

'Respect? Whose respect? Not mine. And what else might he not have lost which is a small matter more important? His life? His health? Wc don't know even yet if those
are
safe. His wife, his children, his home, his career? What
are
those compared to respect?'

'Men are like that.'

'I don't want men who are like that! Four years ago, Caroline, Ross risked all this before - to recover Dwight from Quimpcr prison in France.
That
is what
I call honour. This I call dis
honour!'

Caroline looked at her friend. 'Go kindly with him,
Demelza
. You know him better than I; but if I read him right he will not escape his own self-criticism over this affair.'

'So he should not!
...
But, Caroline, I feel so much of it is my fault.'

'Your fault!'

'Well, my responsibility, like. It was over mc. The quarrel was
really
over me
. You know that, don't you.'

'I know it was
partly
over you. But I do not believe it would have got so far on that alone. Ross and Monk detested each other from the moment they laid eyes on each other, and that is something in the blood, not a matter of behaviour.'

Demelza
got up.
'Was
my behaviour at fault?'

'None that I saw.'

'You see, I was - happy. Ross and
I were happier together than we
had been since - since before Hugh; and I was excited,
enjoying
myself in a new society. Perhaps I was freer with Monk Addcrley than I ought to have been. Maybe Pm too
free
for London society. Maybe men - anywhere - take too much encouragement from my manner, even in Cornwall. But it's the way I was
born.
Of course in all these years I've learned a lot, but maybe I haven't learned enough. Ross should never have brought me!'

'My dear, you can't make a general principle out of a single mishap. You could have come to London twenty times without this happening! Take heart that it's no worse. One or both of them might have been dead.'

Demelza said: 'That's what I dunk every minute of the day.'

And then Monk Adderley died.

Ross's fever was abating by the third day, and he was just making plans to get up, much against Demelza's wishes, to call on his adversary when John Craven arrived with the news.

Ross stared at him in grey silence, lying back on the pillows from which he had just part risen. Demelza, by the window, bit the back of her hand.

Craven said: 'His own doctor was with him two hours before, and Dr Enys visited him last eve, but there was nothing to be done. There appeared, Dr Enys said, to have been some blockage in a blood vessel.'

'When ...?'

'This forenoon.' John Craven brushed a hand across the arm of his tidy jacket, glanced at Demelza and then away. 'I came to tell you because that was what he wished. And to warn you.'

'Yes. I see that.'

'He has given it out that he was practising with his pistols in the Park, when one of them was accidentally discharged into his stomach. This I will confirm.'

'Thank you, Mr Craven.'

'Don't thank me, Captain Poldark. It comes distasteful in me to condone a lie and indeed to call in question my own honour in so doing.' 'Then do not do it'

'Dr Enys and myself were both sworn to this before the duel began. As it turned out, it may be necessary to go further than we had ever expected; but that is not your fault but the fault of the undertaking.'

'Then I'll release you from it.' 'Ross -'

Mr Craven looked again at
Demelza
. 'Have no fear, ma'am. I don't think he can release us from it, even if he so chooses. The man who could do that is dead.'

No one spoke.

Craven said: 'Captain Addcrley also told me to tell you - and here I simply pass on his message, sir - that you were a damned fool to stay in the Park until the chairmen came; so there could be two witnesses that another man, also wounded, was in the vicinity. You
are
obviously, sir, in no position yet to hide your
own wound. However, Captain Adde
rley instructed me to pay each of the chairmen five guineas to stop his mouth, and I think this will be sufficient.'

Ross swallowed and licked his lips. 'I was this moment about to come and
see
him. I wished to go yesterday but Dr Enys said I must not move for another day. Now ...'

Craven coughed. 'Captain Adde
rley said I must point out to you that you now owed him ten guineas.'

Ross stared. 'Well, of course; do you wish mc to -'

'He said it was not to go into his estate but requested that it be paid to Mr George Warleggan in sctdemcnt of a wager.'

Demelza
turned sharply from the window, but decided to say nodiing.

Ross said: 'A wager in which I was involved?'
‘
Not necessarily, sir. I have no idea what the subject of the wager was.'

Two women were screaming at each other in the street outside, and further down hand-bells were being rung by a variety of hawkers.

Ro
ss said: 'I take it Captain Adde
rley had no dependants, Mr Craven?'

'None. He left a oneline will in which he left everything he owed to Miss Andromeda Page.' Ross grimaced as he moved his bad arm.

'I'm much indebted to you, Mr Craven. Can we offer you a brandy? There's little else.'

'Thank you, no. I must be on my way. I have to tell Dr Enys. There will be an inquest tomorrow.'

'Of course I must be present.'

'Of course you must not. That would defeat the whole object of the conditions for the duel laid down by Captain Addcrley from the beginning. As I have said, I do not fancy any part in this affair -
certainly not my own.'

'The fact that I did not see him before he died, to make this matter up, is something I shall regret for the rest of my life.'

Craven shrugged. 'Well, Captain Poldark, it was a fair fight, fairly conducted. I can vouch for that. You have nothing to reproach yourself with. Monk Addcrley was a strange man, given to excess. I have to tell you that though he bore you not the slightest ill will for the mortal wound you inflicted on him, one of his last remarks to mc was, "I wish I'd killed that man."'

The coroner's inquest was held in the upper room of the Star and Garter Inn, Pall Mall.
Demelza
had wanted to go and listen but Dwight said no. The less sign of any connection with Captain Adderley the better it would be. So she stayed with Ross at home and waited to be told what happened.

It took about an hour. The first witness was a Mrs Osmonde, Adderley's landlady, who testified to his arrival home at seven-thirty one morning with a severe wound in the groin. He was brought in by two chairmen and was accompanied by Mr Craven and Dr Enys. Captain Addcrley then retired to his bed, she said, having told her that he had shot himself accidentally while practising with his pistol in Hyde Park. He had also made a sworn statement to this effect and she had been one of the witnesses to his signature. Mr Craven was then called to the witness-box and said that he had been out riding in the early morning and had heard a shot. He had ridden in the direction of the sound and found his friend, Captain Adderley, lying on the ground bleeding from a body wound. He had at once gone for two chairmen, and on the way had met Dr Enys, who had come back with him to the injured man, and had given him temporary treatment until they could get him home. He confirmed Mrs Osmonde's further testimony, and had been
the
other witness to Adderley's statement. Answering the coroner, he agreed that Captain Adderley was a noted duellist but denied that he knew of any assignation that morning. Further questioned, he stated that t
here was no one else but Adderle
y on the scene when he arrived.

Dr Enys was then called, and testified that he had been brought into Hyde Park by Mr Craven and had attended on the wounded man on the spot, and later at his lodgings until the time of his death. 'Was there no one else about when you arrived to attend to the wounded man?' the coroner asked. Dr Enys hesitated fractionally, licked his hps, and then said: 'No, sir.' Dr Corcoran followed him into the box and confirmed Dr Enys's report that Captain Adderley had died from the effects of a pistol ball which had wounded him in the groin and later caused a seizure of the blood vessels and cardiac failure. 'Could this wound have been self-inflicted?' the coroner asked, a question he had failed to put to Dwight. Dr Corcoran said he considered it unlikely but not impossible. Dr Enys was then recalled and asked the same question. Dr Enys said he thought it was possible.

The coroner then asked if the two chairmen had been traced; but they had not; indeed, it seemed that they had vanished, and none knew their names. The jury retired and were out ten minutes. They brought in a verdict of 'Death by Misadventure'.

Yet almost by the time the inquest was taking place it had become common knowledge in parliamentary and social circles as to what had happened. No one knew how it had leaked out. There was of course the brief frac
as in the House. Perhaps Adderle
y had said something to Andromeda Page. It then just remained a moot point as to whether the authorities would decide to move against the survivor, whether if they did there was any sort of proof more substantial than 'common' knowledge. Ross was determined to go to Adderley's funeral, and it took Dwight's brute force to prevent him. To go to
the
funeral might invite an insult or an outburst from one of Monk's friends; it would in any event certainly invite comment.

Fortunately, from this point of view, he was still very unwell, and only sat in his chamber for an hour or two each day. His wounds in America, while in a way more serious, had scarcely incommoded him more. Dwight watched the arm with anxiety. It was refusing to heal.

Demelza
forced herself to catechize Ross on what his attitude would be if a constable or some other representative of the law called on them. At first he had said that he could only answer the questions. When she had asked him if he would answer truthfully or untruthfully he had replied that it depended on what he was asked. This did not sadsfy her, and she put question after question to him to see what he would say. It wasn't very satisfactory until she asked him what was the point of two honourable men perjuring themselves on his behalf if at the end of it he was going to despise their help?

So one day slowly followed another, and they both sat indoors waiting for the official knock.

Chapter
Seven