The Miller's Dance (21 page)

He offered Mr Kellow a loan of
£500
for two years interest free. It represented something like three weeks less . for Wheal Grace to work if the decision was finally taken to close her down.

Mr Kellow accepted the loan with no sign of hesitation, though with a certain dignity of manner that hitherto had been lacking. Ross also suspected there was a gleam of regret in his eyes because he was thinking that as the request had been met in full he should initially have asked for more.

III

On May
11
Jeremy received a short note from Valentine, writing from Eton,
I
have just heard from Geoffrey Charles, a note writ with his left hand. He has asked me to let you know he is alive and recovering. He was wounded thrice at Badajoz but is hoping to rejoin his regiment in a matter of weeks. His right arm was pierced and he says he was lucky to retain it, but at present it makes writing tedious so he asks to be excused. He sends his most faithful
love to you all...'

IV

About five o'clock that afternoon when entering the lobby of the House of Commons to make a speech on the industrial unrest in the North, Mr Spencer Perceval, barrister-at-law, Prime Minister of Great Britain, was shot dead by a man called Bellingham, a Liverpool broker who had been ruined by the recession.

I

The Bounders' Arms was a small inn not far from Sawle Church on the lane leading to Fernmore, where the Kellows lived. In the 'seventies and 'eighties of last century, under old Joe Tresidder, brother of
the
Jonathan Tresidder who had once been chief shareholder in Wheal Radiant, the inn had done good business and been a popular meeting place for miners. But the closing of Grambler Mine in November
'88
had been a mortal blow from which it had never recovered. The proliferati
on of casual ale-houses and kid
dleys, where much smuggled liquor was drunk, had made matters worse, and when Joe died there was no one to carry on. So the old tavern had lapsed. For a while it had been occupied by two prolific but unstable families called Hoskin and Barde. (The best of the last had worked at Trenwith for a time.) Then epidemics and poverty had carried them all off either to churchyards or to poorhouses and the place had remained in the possession of a cousin o
f the Tresidders. She had recentl
y sold it to Ned and Emma Harwell, who had opened it again as an inn and were hoping to live there with their two children and to attract enough custom to make ends meet.

In the last few months it had done well. There was an opening for
the
slightl
y superior drinking place, and the Bounders' Arms, though very shabby, was big enough to offer two private rooms where the better-off could drink and talk in privacy and a degree of comfort. This was what had first attracted Jeremy Poldark, Stephen Carrington and Paul Kellow, and they met there now and again.

Jeremy had complained angrily to Stephen about being omitted from his scheme to buy the Penzance lifeboat. Stephen had said: 'Don't you see I am already depending on
the Poldarks enough?... Because I'm to be your brother-in-law I could not ask for your help just as if you already were that. Could I now? Don't you see?
’
'No, I don't.'

The loan Clowance had made him was still a secret between them, in any case, could ye have been so long absent from your home and from your mine?'

'The mine could well dispense with my attentions. I believe now that my cousin Valentine Warleggan has the right idea when he supposes that his father never sells anything of value...'

'Well, maybe another time we could do something together.'

'Will there be another time?'

'There's always things turning up - believe me. It's a matter of keeping your eyes open, being ready to take a chance.'

Jeremy looked) at his watch. 'Paul is late. D'you think he's coming?'

I
haven't seen him for a week. He's been away.'

I
know. Stephen, I've been seriously thinking...'

'Of what? Some other way of making money?'

'Of taking a part in the war. I'm twenty-one. My father went when he was eighteen. His father bought him a commission as Ensign in the Duke of Edinburgh's Wiltshire Regiment-'

'Why?'

'Why? ... Why did he go? I think he was in trouble on some smuggling charge and -'

'Ah! That is interesting. He was not above breaking the law when he was young.'

'Everyone
breaks that law, Stephen... We have just had news of Geoffrey Charles — that's my cousin who owns
Trenwith. He has been wounded three times at Badajoz; and here I stay making ill use of my time.'

'Do you want my opinion, Jeremy?'

‘I
f you want to give it.'

I
think you'd be crazed.'

‘
Maybe.'

Mrs Hartnell came into the private room with two tankards of ale. She was a tall handsome youngish woman with brilliant black eyes and fine dark gypsy-like hair. She was twenty years younger than her husband who, until he inherited a little money from an aunt, had been head footman at Tehidy. The young men liked her because she was always gay and cheerful of manner and would chat to them, leaning with a forearm against the door-jamb, or exit discreetly if she felt they wanted to be alone. Jeremy reflected whimsically sometimes that, but for a quirk of fate, she might have become his aunt.

When she had gone Stephen said: 'Fighting on land is a loon's game. Even if you don't get cut apart by a cannon ball or lose an arm or leg, you end up with
nothing,
no money, no reward, scarcely a thank-you. You see 'em stumping around everywhere, raddled, ruined men with nothing to show for all their hero's talk. If you were to fight at all - which I wouldn't advise - the Navy would at least give you an outside chance of prize money. Mind, fighting at sea is maybe bloodiest of all; but there's the chance you'd not be penniless at the end. All the same...'

'What were you going to say?'

‘I
f you have to go to the war, why not in a privateer?'

'That's not going to war in the right sense.'

'Well, I tell you you've just as much of a chance of fighting the French as you'll find in Wellington's army; but there's some money to it.'

I
think there's something more to this than money. Anyway, I have none to invest.'

Stephen said: 'Only last month the
Percuil,
a privateer out of Falmouth, recaptured a rich silk ship from Valencia that a French privateer was taking in to Cherbourg. A sharp fight and she was theirs - they brought her in to Falmouth. They say the value is eighteen thousand. Think of the prize money on that!'

'I've no idea what it would be.'

'Well, three thousand at the very least. Maybe twice that if they played their cards proper.'

I
have no
money,'
said Jeremy again.

'None at all?'

'After Trafalgar, to celebrate the victory, my father gave fifty pounds each to Clowance and myself to do with as we wished. I kept my little nest-egg in the bank in Truro, having no need for it, since we were given everything we wanted and generous pocket money as well. But last year, by arrangement with Harvey's, I bought a Trevithick boiler from them and other parts - at half price because they were building the Wheal Leisure engine. Most of the fifty pounds went then... But that has now all come to nothing. I could as well have thrown the money in the sea.'

Stephen raised his eyebrows at
the
bitterness of Jeremy's tone. 'You have your shares in Wheal Leisure—like me.'

'Yes, my father gave me them, for what they are worth: in any event I could not attempt to realize
on them.'

Stephen said: 'I think maybe I
should've kept me money for investing in things I understood. But at the time I was thinking too much of Clowance, thinking maybe of standing well
in your family's favour.'

Paul came in. The bruises on h
is face were now mere discolorati
ons; if his cut head was sore he gave no indication of it; though he looked worried and self-important. He carried in a tankard of ale he had already bought at the counter. He had a newspaper under his arm.

'Have you seen this?' He spread out the newspaper on the table. Without elaborating he proceeded to read it out: "'Bitter fight in Plymouth Dock. Naval rating stabbed to death in struggle. Armed Pressmen from HMS
Arethusa
entered the Ring o' Bells Inn, Plymouth Dock, last Monday Eve, looking to press recruits for His Majesty's Navy. Although a number of likely seamen were collected, some put up a sturdy resistance, and in the struggle which ensued one'd
o
f the press gang, Seaman William Morrison, aged
26,
received knife wounds in his abdomen from which he has since died. The miscreants escaped, and those enlisted for the Navy have not been charged."'

Stephen read it through a second time. 'Well, well, a surprising likeness to our little affair. And the same inn!' -

'It
was
our affair,' said Paul.

'Stuff and nonsense! All that happened two weeks ago.' 'This paper is a week old.'

Stephen picked up the paper and looked at it, as if suspecting it a forgery. Then he took a long drink of his ale.

‘
I
never used my knife enough to cause nobody a fatal injury. This is altogether another affray.'

Paul looked expressively at Jeremy. His face was rather grey.

'Funny,' added Stephen softl
y.
I
always read the newspapers. They're worth the sixpence ha'penny just for the local news. Funny I never saw that.'

‘I
t will not be funny if they ever trace us,' said Paul. 'There were people a-plenty in that tavern took a fair view of us before the pressgang came in. You remember, you were leading the singing. That shanty - how does it go? 'A leaky ship with her anchor down, Her anchor down, her anchor down! A leaky ship with her anchor down, Hurrah, me boys, Hurrah!'

'Ah, well,' said Stephen, ruffling through his hair, 'if it be truth, which I doubt — they exaggerate these things to sell the paper - if it be true, then we are a long way from Plymouth Dock; and maybe for the next few months we should stay a long way from Plymouth Dock, just to be on the safe side. I suspect he died of something else, this sailor, and they put it down to a pinprick in the belly. There's no accounting for how cunning these Navy folk can be. Trying to make out... But even suppose... Well, just suppose... What would you have had me do, Paul?'

The question was suddenly as hard as a bullet.

'What?
’
said Paul.

'What would you have had me
do,
eh
? Give at the knees like a seasick calf?
‘
Would you better prefer it if you was afloat now in some naval frigate with a cat o' nine tails as the only yea or nay? Would you? Just tell me that.'

'No,' said Paul sulkily, withdrawing from what had been an accusation, it was the only thing to do - what you did. But I thought to warn you to keep quiet about this venture. The fewer know of it, the less the risk. The news spreads, you know. Many people have seen you limping about, and me with my bandaged head. We've made little effort so far to keep it quiet. Escaping from the pressgang is like escaping the preventive men - something to brag of. But not when you kill an able seaman of the British Navy.'

In the silence they could hear noisy drinkers in
the
main bar joking with Mrs Hartnell. Jeremy put his forefinger on
the
table and rubbed over the damp circle where his mug had been.

'Since I'm not in this - though wishing until five minutes ago that I had been - I'd say you were nearly half safe. This
p
aper's more than a week old. No one round here seems to
h
ave noticed the connection. I don't suppose you ever mentioned the Ring o' Bells to anyone, did you? No, well, the chances are no one else will think of it. Paul is right, though: say no more now to anyone.'

Stephen grunted. 'I gave the man the merest dig with the point. If it is true, his guts must have been ready to spill. But I still believe it be half invention.'

They sat for a while, sipping their drinks, chatting about other things, though with the memo
ry of the newspaper item lying b
etween them, just as if the paper had not been crumpled up and thrust back into Paul's pocket. Paul said: 'How is the milling, Miller?' 'Well enough.'

I
don't see flour in your hair yet.'

'Soap and water's cheap.'

'You were due to start that Monday.'

‘I
was.'

'Wilf would not be pleased.'

'Nor was he. Said I'd be paid only half a week for half a week's work.'

'What did you say?'

'Said I'd never expected more.'

'All the same,' said Paul, 'you won't be free to take time off whenever you fancy, not from now on. Not even when you become Captain Poldark's son-in-law.'

'I'll take no favour that I can't pay for.'

Paul had a waspish side to his nature. It was seldom allowed to show in his dealings with Jeremy, but quite often where Stephen was concerned. Though Paul had never really made up to Clowance, he would have liked
the
prestige he now saw coming to Stephen. This gibing was a form of jealousy perhaps, or it could derive simply from anxiety about the dead sailor. However much Stephen might have saved the day by his ruthless act, the consequences would be obvious if they were ever traced.

After a while Stephen pulled the bell to summon Mrs Hartnell.

Paul said: 'One thing that night in Plymouth I did see. Though it is useless knowledge, or knowledge that cannot be taken advantage of.'

'Share it with me,' said Jeremy; 'since I'm party to most of your secrets.'

'Oh, it is not at all a secret. It is in the line of observing, what I observed that night and on the following day. With my head and cheek split open and my wrist sprained I was not in the best condition for sleep. No doubt the Miller fared better.
’