The Loving Cup (16 page)

Clowance coo-eed, but when the men turned back she said: .'This is Kellow's Ladder. Has Geoffrey Charles ever seen it? Can we not go down?'

'No,' said Jeremy, it is dangerous. I tried last month, and the rungs were insecure.'

‘I
t was well enough last year,' said Clowance.

'Well, it is not well enough now, for I almost fell.'

'Oh, surely we can be careful. It is such an elegant little cove.'

'No,' said Jeremy. 'The ladder is quite unsafe
...
Look, let us turn back here and cut across the fields. Isn't it time for tea? Let us ask Amadora for some Spanish tea.'

II

They took tea in the summer parlour. It was a pleasant room, clean now, with a few pieces of velvet, cut down from the curtains in two of the bedrooms and draped over damp-stained chair-backs and moth-eaten seats. A lazy wind, the first of the day, stirred the tendrils of ivy growing over the windows; two chaffinches argued and chirruped outside. Drake and Morwenna had gone to see Sam and his wife; it did not appear to be creating too much embarrassment that Drake at one stage of
his
life
had
promised
himsel
f in marriage to Sam's wife. Rosina had been the injured party, but it was all so long ago, or she was sufficiently imbued with Sam's teaching of Christian forgiveness that she let it pass her by.

Later, while Amadora and Clowance chatted, Geoffrey Charles took Jeremy out and they examined the great table in the hall. Since being placed there three hundred years ago it had resisted all attempts at re
moval - even George Warleggan's
attempts - but Geoffrey Charles was determined that it must come up for their party. He could not bear the thought of sawing off the central legs, which were of the finest and most imperishable oak; instead the flags of the floor must be dug up, the legs uprooted and the entire table either carried outside, or, if there was no way of getting it through the door, then it must be laid alongside one wall to take up the least possible space. It was the only room
in the house big enough for a proper dance, and it was overlooked by the minstrel gallery. So for this occasion it had to be so used. Geoffrey Charles remembered an evening during his step-father's day when they had danced
round
the table; but it just would not do.

Jeremy said: 'What are the office
rs mainly like in the army? Mostl
y from the great schools, I suppose?'

‘
Not at all. I think I have only met six or seven I knew from my time at Harrow. And not so many tided as you would suppose from reading the newspapers, where of course they always attract the news. The vast majority of the officers are grammar school boys or the like. Such that is as I know and have casually learned from! One does not make it a major topic of conversation
...
You see here - these flags
-I
think they will lever up. If they crack it would not be difficult to replace them.'

'The table could stand on its end,' said Jeremy. 'The room is high enough and it would be less in the way. I can tell without your trying that you'll never get it through the door because of the other door beyond. You'd have to take the window out.'

Geoffrey Charles eyed him. 'Far be it from me, cousin, to deter you from joining the army if you feel you cannot bear to continue to live in Cornwall. But I assure you it is a dangerous and dirty life. Men are dying or being maimed all the time. And you are killing other men - or trying to - all the time. And it is constantly boring as well as dangerous. A fresh young man came out the week of our little fracas at Vittoria; he was attached to the 43rd. Called Thompson. Smartly turned out, good uniform, mighty keen to get into action. Son of a farmer, as it happens. He'd built up little affectations to make him seem more genteel than he was. Wanted to transfer to the cavalry as soon as he could. Was telling me of his amorous adventures in Portsmouth the night before he sailed. Next morning he went out—nothing had really begun - just a little sporadic firing. Stray bullet -couldn't have been aimed. It killed him just the same.'

‘I
'm under no illusions,' said Jeremy,
I
don't believe I am essentially soldier material
..
But were you?'

Geoffrey Charles smiled, his tight mouth a little tighter. 'No. But I believe I went in with greater reason. I understand you designed the new engine for Wheal Leisure, that you are highly gifted to take advantage of this new era of steam, that you have been working on a horseless carriage. As I said just now, the army will not help you in this pursuit. It seems a pity to set that all aside.'

A long pause followed. They heard laughter. Jeremy said: 'I'm glad Clowance and Amadora get on so excellently well together.' 'Indeed.'

'What sort of an orchestra shall you hire ?'

'There is one, they say, in Truro; plays at the Assembly Balls. But I shall make sure that they are not too staid. In the army I have become used to many jigs and country dances.'

After a moment Jeremy said: 'There is another reason which prompts me to go.'

'May I hear it?'

'If we are somewhere private. This room is a
little large for
confidences.'

'Will the garden do?'

'If there are no gardeners about.'

'None comes today until six, when they finish their other work.'

So they went into the garden, and Jeremy told him.

III

They walked beside the pool and Geoffrey Charles said: 'My God! I don't believe you! I
can't
believe you!' ‘
No?
’

'Well
...
No!'

'I assure you that's what happened.' 'Just as you have said?' 'Just as I have said.' 'It's - out of all reason!' 'Possibly.'

'Well,
why?
What reason could you have had?' 'The obvious one. I wanted money.' 'And you got some?' 'Yes, quite a lot.'

'And - and how hav
e you used it?' 'So far I have n
ot.' . Geoffrey Charles thrust his hands deep into the pockets of his jacket. 'You are telling me the truth?'

'Why should I not? It is not a thing one admits to lightly.'

'Jeremy, you must have been
mad!’

'A little, no doubt.'

'And the others too.'

‘I
cannot answer for them.'

'Were they similarly - bereft?'

'Geoffrey Charles, tell me, if you love Amadora as I love this girl, and you knew she was to marry another man only because he had sufficient money, which you had not, how would you feel? Just tell me that!'

‘I
should feel - if it is the way you describe it - that the girl is worthless.'

'But would it stop you loving her?'

'God knows! God Almighty knows! My dear cousin, how can anyone know what another feels? I am sorry if I called you mad. And yet
...'

'A little mad,' said Jeremy, ‘I
accept that. For I know that what
1
stole could never be enough to win the girl from the man she is promised to. That is my chief madness. Even if we were lucky with the amount we got—as we were—I would have had to take a further risk by putting it to immediate use - indeed gambling with it in some way - for it to produce the sort of sum I needed. Instead of which - once done - once accomplished -
I
found the - the protest over-sufficient of itself. For the time being. So far I have done nothing with the money at all!'

'But the others have?'

'The others have. Cautiously. They no more wish to suffer the consequences than I do.'

'That's the great danger now. These are local young men?'

‘I
cannot tell you that.'

Geoffrey Charles grunted. 'But the risk of recognition
..’

'We were all disguised after a fashion.'

'But how did you
do
it? You say it was in no way a — a stand and deliver?'

'The coaches only seat four inside. We booked our seats and booked the fourth for a fictitious man, who of course did not turn up. Once inside we drew up the blinds and cut through the back of the coach into the safe box under the coachman's seat. It nearly all went to plan.' 'Nearly all?'

'Well, there was one hitch that almost ruined it. A fat elderly lawyer called Rose insisted on taking the empty place inside from Liskeard to Dobwalls. However hard we tried to put him off, he would sit there; so for that length of time we were held up - part done but the work hidden -
until he left.'

‘I
wonder you kept your nerve. And it was all your plan, you say?'

'Months before, my - er - one of the others brought in a London newspaper telling of a robbery on a Brighton coach. No one could imagine how it could have been done. I worked out one way in which it could be done.'

'Well, my God!...' Geoffrey Charles blew out a breath. 'This takes the biscuit! I have never
...
And whose money was it you stole? Did that ever come out?'

'Oh, yes, we knew that from the beginning. It all belonged to Warleggan's Bank.'

'War
...'
Geoffrey Charles stared at his cousin, it belonged to - to my step-father?'

'Yes.'

There was a pause and
then Geoffrey Charles let out a
great explosive shout of lau
ghter. Startled birds rose from the other side of the pond.

'You stole it from - from Step-father George? From Smelter George? But how
appropriate
- how singularly, excellently, divinely funny! Do you not see it as funny, Jeremy?'

They had stopped and were standing facing each other. 'Not funny.' Jeremy was wooden faced. 'Maybe appropriate.'

Geoffrey Charles took out a handkerchief and ble
w his nose and wiped his eyes, ‘I
'm
sorry. I should not have been
amused. It is no matter for amusement.
A Dieu ne plaise!
But I have to confess I am relieved that no widows or orphans are suffering for your crime!'

He took Jeremy's arm and they walked on.

Geoffrey Charles said: 'This is the place where Drake planted the frogs night after night, just to annoy my stepfather. I laughed hysterically then. But it nearly cost Drake his life. So in a sense, though in many ways vastly different, there is a similarly personal note in my amusement. And this might have cost you
your
life! Still might.' The grip on the arm tightened.
‘
Why have you told me this?
’

Jeremy shrugged. 'It seemed
necessary.'

'Like the robbery?'

'No. I think a better reason.'

'Confession being good for the
...'

'Maybe. Certainly I wo
uld never have spoken to anyone
else. When I came this afterno
on I had no intention of saying
anything even to you!' .

'You nave told
no one
else?'

'Of course not.'

'Well, I counsel you to Trappist silence. I am embarrassed in a sense that you have asked me to share this secret with you. Of course you can rest assured your confidence will never be abused
...
But do you see this act—you clearly do -as another reason for gettin
g away? Is it because of some
thing in yourself or because of the risk of discovery?'

'Something in myself, I suppose. Not the latter. I think now we are reasonably safe.'

'You will never be reasonably safe, Jeremy - not at least while the money is unspent - not for years. But the fact that you have spent nothing of it and now wish - or are considering - joining the army suggests to me that you are looking on this crime as something that needs to be expiated.'

'I wouldn't go so far as that.' Jeremy did not like th
e q
uestion. It was too close to the truth, yet in some way
d
eparted from it. He couldn't
simplify
his feelings to that extent. He did not feel exactly remorseful for what he had done; he didn't actually regret having done it. It was not expiation he needed so much as escape - escape from the circumstances which had provoked it - to be no longer surrounded,
stifled
by them. For a while in astonishment and self-disgust he had no longer had any desire for Cuby at all. That had not lasted; the action, the crime had killed feeling, killed sensation; but after a while the insensibility had worn off. His latest meeting with her in the music shop, and his contriving a future meeting at the Trenwith party was totally in accord with his old behaviour, as if the robbery had never taken place, as if he were still the stupid gangling boy, following her, hoping for the kind word, the light flirtation, and knowing all along its utter uselessness. It was in his acute consciousness of this return to an old situation, and his vehement rejection of it, which had prompted everything he had said to Geoffrey Charles today.