The Twisted Sword by Winston Graham
This sounded to Demelza like a diplomatic evasion. She said: ‘D’you think the – the Prince Regent might help?’ When Liverpool stared she stumbled on: ‘I mean by letter. Ross said he was very interested in his mission when they met, when Ross was knighted.’
Liverpool fingered the back of his chair, frowned, then half smiled at his visitor.
‘I don’t think at the present time it would be diplomatically possible, my dear. All the crowned heads of Europe have taken this united stand not to enter into any correspondence with the usurper. It would be impossible to ask his Royal Highness to break that undertaking, however worthy the object.’
Chapter Four
I
The first week living under the threat of imminent bankruptcy had almost gone, and Stephen was no farther out of the wood. Over the last year he had made a number of business friends in the area and a host of acquaintances, and he had tried them all out; but although he was liked by most people it went no farther than that.
A difficulty was that he did not dare to state that Warleggan’s Bank was withdrawing all credit at short notice, for, once the news got around, his creditors – of whom there were not a few – would be waiting on his doorstep. His approach was to say that he found the Warleggan banking methods too restrictive and he was looking for alternative finance. Whether that convinced his hearers or not, it did not open their purses. Clowance had had the idea of approaching Valentine – he had always been friendly with Stephen and so hated his father that he might take on the loan to spite him – but no sooner did the idea occur to her than she met Tom Guildford in Falmouth, who told her that the young Warleggans had left for Cambridge yesterday.
The only constructive move was from a man called Jack Pender – the son of the Mayor – who, being told by Stephen that he was thinking of selling one of his fleet, offered four hundred guineas for Chasse Marée. It was a poor price but better than it might have been. Pender had a couple of three-masted tuggers that fished and trawled in the Channel, and he was looking for something a bit bigger and faster. Chasse Marée had originally been designed for fishing and would fit well into his plans for expansion. The vessel in question was at present somewhere in the North Sea, but after a token show of reluctance to try to get the price up, Stephen shook hands on the sale. Unfortunately the money would not be paid over until the brig returned.
Nor could the Adolphus sail next week with a third cargo of slate for Dieppe while its captain struggled for solvency. More than half of the cargo was already loaded and by Saturday she would be ready to leave. An excuse could be found for the delay, but such delay would cost him half his profit, and if she had to be unloaded in Penryn it would be another stone round his neck to sink him.
During this period Clowance had not seen Harriet at all, but a month ago Harriet had lent them two books on architecture belonging to George. (George had come by them accidentally at a sale while buying some mining books, and although he had no intention of ever reading them he was too thrifty to throw them away.) It was when the new house was being planned and the two books had been the subject of much study and discussion over the table in the Carrington home with the candlelight flickering. It was time to return them. In any case building on the new house had to come to a stop.
Stephen was in Falmouth. He had contrived a meeting with the manager of the Cornish Naval Bank. After all, what purpose, he said to Clowance, could a Cornish Naval Bank have other than to finance respectable seagoing ventures such as his own?
Clowance decided to ride to Cardew and leave the books with a footman. The sooner they were out of her possession the better. Nero was headstrong for lack of exercise and she galloped and trotted and galloped again until at length, climbing the steep hill to Cardew, he consented to fall into a dignified snorting walk.
Harriet was on the steps. It was the last thing Clowance wanted. Harriet raised an arm and smiled.
‘Welcome. I am just about to feed the hounds. Come in and join me.’
‘I was only returning these books,’ said Clowance, not dismounting. ‘I ought to get back.’
Harriet raised her eyebrows. ‘Something amiss?’
Faced with the blunt challenge, Clowance said: ‘Oh? . . . Er – no. I just thought I would bring these books back. We have – no further use for them.’
‘You weren’t out with us yesterday. It was very good for the last day of the season.’
‘Yes,’ said Clowance. ‘Well, we really could not manage it.’
Harriet pushed her hair away from her face. ‘My dear, are you coming or going?’
‘Going,’ said Clowance.
‘In that case something is amiss. Are you willing to come with me to meat the hounds and make me a party to it? Or do you wish to go away and sulk in silence?’
Their eyes clashed. Clowance hesitated. She had no quarrel with Harriet, except for the company she kept.
She said: ‘I’ll come and help you feed the hounds.’
II
Harriet said: ‘You have to watch ’em. Some are greedy, some pick and choose. It is no good offering them a free for all.’
The oatmeal pudding had been made in huge coppers, with the grooms stirring the mixture for the best part of an hour over the fire. Once it was stiff enough the fire was kicked out and the pudding taken in buckets and turned out on a slate slab to cool. Volcanoes of oatmeal stood smoking until they were ready for the hounds to eat them. Then the hounds were released by the grooms by name, so that the greedy ones should not gobble up more than their share.
‘Well,’ said Harriet presently. ‘I do not suppose you to be the sort of young woman to get some bee in your bonnet without good reason. If you are, then I think less of you, and you can be gone.’
Clowance told her.
For a while Harriet watched the hounds in silence. ‘I know nothing of this.’
Clowance smiled in a wintry way. ‘I did not suppose you would.’
‘And what has Stephen done so far?’
‘All he can. He is trying the Cornish Naval Bank this morning, but I do not suppose their answer will be any different from the others. If Warleggan’s are withdrawing credit, who wants to take their place?’
‘True, I suppose, so far as Cornwall goes.’
‘Carne’s, whom he was with before, are not interested. My father’s bank have offered to step in if there’s a risk of Stephen going to prison. That at least we have to be thankful for. But of course it would only be a – a salvage operation. Recently he’s been trying to organize a joint stock company: but there’s simply no time! If Sir George keeps to his threat we have eight days more only.’
Harriet scratched inelegantly under her arm. ‘And in your view Stephen has done nothing to deserve this disgrace?’
Clowance said: ‘I try to take an impartial view of Stephen. He is a strange man, and because I love him I may be blind to some of his failings. But . . . I do not believe him to be dishonest deliberate. I do not think he has in any way attempted to cheat Warleggan’s Bank. When he came home, only six or seven months ago, saying that your husband was prepared to finance him to buy the Adolphus, he was so full of pleasure and pride that I cannot believe he would – would do anything to destroy his own position, to risk destroying his new relationship with Warleggan’s Bank for some petty small profit! I just do not, Harriet, and therefore I take his part.’
There was silence for a while, except for the salivatory noises of the hounds.
‘They like fish,’ said Harriet. ‘It seems to suit ’em, though we mix it with a good proportion of old cow. These damned beasts run a long way in seven months and they need good food. Now of course they are just beginning their hols. Not that they’ll be allowed to slack, you know. They’ve trotted a couple of miles this morning, and will go another half-mile now before being allowed to snore off their dinner in the straw. Forty couple of ’em need a lot of feeding. And three huntsmen and nine horses. Although John Devoran is the official master, George foots almost al
Clowance smiled wryly. ‘I couldn’t, Harriet. How could I?’
‘George is in Truro,’ said Harriet. ‘Still, I see what you mean. Very well, go home and nurse your grievance. But when I see George, which should be Friday, I will ask for his side of the story. Very difficult for me to judge until I hear what he has to say. It is a pity it has come to this.’
‘Yes,’ said Clowance, ‘a great pity.’
III
George said: ‘Who has told you this?’
‘Clowance, of course. Who else? She came on Wednesday, clearly with some disturbance on her mind. I persuaded her to disburse it.’
‘No doubt Carrington sent her.’
‘I do not suppose so. Anyway, open my mind to what it is that you have discovered against him.’
‘It is chiefly my head clerk, Lander,’ said George, and blew his nose. ‘He finds Carrington’s devious book-keeping impossible to deal with. Carrington is incapable, it seems, of making an honest entry. We cannot continue to conduct business with or for such a person.’
‘Why did Lander not find this out at an earlier stage before Stephen had so much committed himself?’
‘Carrington came one day last autumn blustering into my office, and I allowed myself to be taken in by his self-confident manner. He agreed to hand over the financial conduct of his affairs to us, and he has not done so.’
‘Clowance tells me that since he was taken on by your bank he has virtually done nothing without Mr Lander’s approval. Surely Lander is also to blame. In any event I would have thought this an occasion for a severe reprimand, not a withdrawal of credit and a calling in of bills which will force him into bankruptcy!’
George said irritably: ‘My dear, you do not understand these things. Kindly change the subject. Ursula will be home this weekend, and her pony is sick. I want your advice as to the horse we should mount her on tomorrow. She’s tall enough now to merit a sensible horse, but not a wayward one. There’s no need to take risks.’
Harriet was brushing her shoulder-length hair. Her brilliant dark eyes watched George through the mirror.
‘Is this – this change of mind towards Stephen – has it anything to do with the old feud?’
‘What old feud? You mean, because Clowance is a Poldark? Certainly not.’
‘Do you mean it never entered your head?’
‘Certainly not. I do not run the most prosperous bank in Cornwall by allowing such petty quarrels to influence me.’
Harriet resumed her brushing. Her hair gleamed like patent leather. When she had done she put down her brush.
‘I think it was more than a petty quarrel, wasn’t it? From all one hears; even what one hears from you. And it was not improved by the abrasive meeting last summer at Trenwith, was it? I am relieved to know that this is not at all in your mind, for it will be much easier to reconsider your decision.’
George put on his coat. The collar did not fit as it should. After years of having been dressed by a London tailor he had recently gone to a local man of good repute – he was so much less expensive. But it did not do. It would have to go back.
‘Reconsider what decision, my dear?’
‘Your decision to bankrupt Carrington.’
George looked at his wife sharply. She shook her head at him. ‘It won’t do, George. It won’t do.’
‘What on earth are you talking about?’
‘This cannot be allowed to happen, on what is really a very small excuse. I find Stephen Carrington an interesting man, and in some ways I rather admire his – roughness, his maleness, his self-confidence. Yes, I admire all those qualities. But I would not care a button really for Stephen. It is Clowance I will not see dragged down in such a degrading fashion. I am fond of her and wish to keep her as my friend.’
‘This no doubt you will be able to do.’
‘No, I shall not. And I have to remind you that she saved Castor’s life when he became caught in that devilish mantrap in February.’
George finished criticizing the set of his coat and looked at Harriet.
‘You cannot be serious that I should change the board’s decision.’
‘Never more so, my dear.’
George took out his watch. ‘The Vivians will be here in ten minutes. They are never late. As you know I want to talk business with him after dinner, so—’
‘So I shall be saddled with the tedious Betsey, who at heart, I am sure, has the instincts and interests of a washerwoman . . . Then let this matter lie until this evening – or even tomorrow, so long as you will admit to second thoughts on the matter.’
‘Second thoughts?’
‘On the matter of bankrupting Stephen Carrington.’
‘Quite out of the question! The matter has been decided. There is nothing more to say.’
‘There is only one thing more to say, dear George,’ said Harriet, ‘and that is that it cannot be.’
IV
The argument was resumed in her bedroom late that night. The Vivians had been and gone – he the impoverished younger son of a peer with certain land and mining rights he could be persuaded to sell. Ursula had come and gone, arriving from school an inch taller in six months, still too fat but shedding the worst of it, bursting with talk of school and other irrelevances, unlike most girls not really interested in horses but trooping dutifully after her step-mother – at her father’s behest – to choose a mount for tomorrow’s ride; then staying on, staying up much too late, indulging herself and being indulged by George because it was the weekend.
Harriet had various ways of managing George, but this was not an occasion when any of the usual methods would serve. Usually she avoided a confrontation: after the terrible storms of her marriage to Toby Carter it had amused her lazy good temper to get her own way with George by elegant manoeuvre and a bare-faced tolerant insolence. The success of these methods she knew stemmed equally from her good looks and her blue blood. Not to mention her ability to bemuse and excite him sexually when she was in the mood. In business she knew him to be a hard and sometimes vindictive man; as a husband he was not half bad. She had never had so much money and so much freedom to spend it. But there were limits to her good temper.
She began almost as she had left off, quite casually, asking him if he were not really deceiving her and that this decision to jettison the Carringtons did not spring from the old feud, as she had suggested before dinner.
‘Not at all. Not in any way at all!’
‘Then I fear, dear George, that you will have to produce some better reason for your decision than you have already given! After all, they have been to this house many times – and two or three times at least at your invitation! They are more than casual acquaintances. You cannot tip them into the ditch and walk away as casually as you propose! Has Stephen insulted you in some way? Or Clowance? I seek an explanation that I can believe.’
George’s bull neck showed as he lowered his head, much as if someone had held up a red flag. ‘Harriet, it is no business of yours!’
‘Of course it is business of mine! Don’t be so silly.’
‘I have told you my reasons!’
‘And I don’t believe them.’
‘Accept that I have good reasons!’
‘Certainly I shall not unless you tell me them.’
George took a handkerchief out of his pocket and blew his nose.
‘I think I am developing a cold.’
‘Don’t change the subject.’
‘I shall take some tisane tonight. It is a good opening medicine.’
‘And what of the Carringtons?’
‘They are to be jettisoned, as you put it. Or he is. I am sorry if his wife has to be included, but there you are. It is not my fault that she married him. No doubt they will make out. A scoundrel like him will turn a penny somewhere.’
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‘Tell me the truth.’
George shook his arm free. It was not often they were in physical contact with each other except in their rare sexual encounters. A contact which represented hostility was unknown.
‘Very well,’ he said roughly, ‘if you will have the whole truth, sit down and listen.’
She moved a pace away from him, sat on the end of the bed, pushing the curtains aside and holding them against her cheek.
He sat astride a chair, looking more than ever like the Emperor Vespasian. ‘Do you recall – perhaps you do not – that in the year after our wedding, in the following January to be exact, there was a coach robbery and a large amount of securities, bank notes, bullion and jewellery were stolen from the Self Reliance coach?’
‘Of course I remember. You were very angry. And did not my Aunt Darcy lose some trinket? A loving cup?’
‘Yes, a loving cup. It was of small value, I remember, but she seemed to hold me responsible for having allowed it to be stolen! However, the total loss was indeed considerable – near on six thousand pounds when all was added up. Listen to me!’ he said sharply when she was about to interrupt. ‘The scheme was a very clever one, carried out with audacity and cool nerve which only educated people could have achieved. All four inside seats were booked ahead from Plymouth to Truro, and three were occupied. Whether a fourth ever intended to join them we do not know; he did not turn up. Somewhere on that journey from Plymouth to Truro they pulled back the felt lining and cut a hole by drilling through the mahogany framework of the coach into the box seat where the two bank boxes were stowed; they pulled these down into the coach, broke them open, put the contents into some receptacles of their own and replaced the empty boxes in the box seat. They then roughly replaced the large piece they had taken out of the woodwork of the coach and tacked the lining back into place. We have reason to suppose the thieves made good their escape at Lostwithiel.
‘Now,’ said George, ‘we have some description of the three thieves. Two people pretended to be the Revd and Mrs Arthur May. No such persons exist. The third was a Lieutenant Morgan Lean, who claimed to be in His Majesty’s navy. No such person exists. The false clergyman and his wife were both tall, he with greying hair and heavy steel spectacles; she was dark-skinned, had little to say to anyone, and pretended she was ill, so that they might draw the blinds. Lieutenant Morgan Lean was not so tall but broadly built and younger, with a white wig and heavy black eyebrows. They were all to some extent disguised, but clearly could not wear anything too obvious, or they would have drawn attention to themselves. Neither the coachmen nor the guards were observant enough to give anything more than the vaguest of descriptions. We offered a reward, as you know, of a thousand pounds but no one came forward. It seemed that the thieves had got away.’