Winston Graham - Ross Poldark

ROSS POLDARK: A Novel of Cornwall

by

Winston Graham

Prologue.

JOSHUA POLDARK DIED in March 1783. In February of that year, feeling

that his tenure was becoming short, he sent for his brother from Trenwith.

Charles came lolloping over on his great roan horse one cold grey

afternoon, and Prudie Paynter, lank-haired and dark-faced and fat, showed

him straight into the bedroom where JoshUa lay possed up with pillows and

cushions in the big box bed. Charles looked askance round the room with

his small watery blue eyes, at the disorder and the dirt, then lifted his

coattails and subsided upon a wicker chair which creaked under his weight.

'Well, Joshua.'

'Well, Charles.'

'This is a bad business.'

'Bad indeed.'

'When will you be about again, d'you think?'

'There's no telling. I fancy the churchyard will have a strong pull.'

Charles thrust out his bottom lip. He would have discounted the remark

if he had not had word to the contrary. He hiccupped a little - riding always

gave him indigestion these days - and was heartily reassuring.

'Nonsense, man. The gout in the legs never killed nobody. It is when it

gets up to the head that it is dangerous.'

'Choake tells me different, that there is other cause for the swelling. For

once I misdoubt if the old fool is not right. Though in God's truth, by all

appearance it is you that should be lying here, since I am but half your size.'

Charles glanced down at the landscape of black embroidered waistcoat

spreading away from under his chin.

'Mine is healthy flesh. Every man puts on weight in his middle years. I

would not wish to be a yard of pump water like Cousin William-Alfred.'

Joshua lifted an ironical eyebrow but said no more, and there was

silence. The brothers had had little to say to each other for many years, and

at this their last meeting small talk was not easy to find. Charles, the elder

and more prosperous, who had come in for the family house and lands and

most of the mining interests, head of the family and a respected figure in

the county, had never quite been able to get away from a suspicion that his

younger brother despised him. Joshua had always been a thorn in his flesh.

Joshua had never been content to do the things expected of him: enter the

Church or the Army or marry property and leave Charles to run the district

himself.

Not that Charles minded a few lapses, but there were limits, and Joshua

had overstepped them. The fact that he had been behaving himself for the

last few years did not score out old grievances.

As for Joshua, a man with a cynical mind and few illusions, he had no

complaint against life or against his brother. He had lived one to the limit

and ignored the other. There was some truth in his reply to Charles's next

comment of, 'Why, man, you're young enough yet. Two years junior to me,

and I'm fit and well. Aarf!'

Joshua said: 'Two years in age, maybe, but you've only lived half as fast.'

Charles sucked the ebony tip of his cane and looked sidelong about the

room from under heavy lids. 'This damned war not settled yet. Prices

soaring. Wheat seven and eight shillings a bushel. Butter ninepence a

pound. Eh, well, it's no hurt to us. Wish the copper prices was the same.

We're thinking of cutting a new level at Grambler. Eighty fathom. Maybe it

will defray the initial outlay, though I doubt it. Been doing much with your

fields this year?'

'It was about the war that I wanted to see you,' said Joshua, struggling a

little farther up the pillows and gasping for breath. 'It must be only a matter

of months now before the provisional peace is confirmed. Then Ross will

be home and maybe I shall not be here to greet him. You're me brother,

though we've never hit it off sowell. I want to tell you how things are and to

leave you to look after things till he gets back.'

Charles took the cane from his mouth and smiled defensively. He looked

as if he had been asked for a loan.

'I've not much time, y' know.'

'It won't take much of your time. I've little or nothing to leave. There's a

copy of my will on the table beside you. Read it at your leisure. Pearce has

the original.'

Charles groped with his clumsy swollen hand and picked up a piece of

parchment from the rickety three-legged table behind him.

'When did you last hear from him?' he asked. 'What's to be done if he

don't come back?'

'The estate will go to Verity. Sell if there are any purchasers; it will fetch

little. That's down in the will. Verity will have my share in Grambler too,

since she is the only one of your family who has been over since Ross left.'

Joshua wiped his nose on the soiled sheet. 'But Ross will come back. I've

heard from him since the fighting ceased.'

'There's many hazards yet.'

'I've a feeling,' said Joshua. 'A conviction. Care to take a wager? Settle

when we meet. There'll be some sort of currency in the next world.'

Charles stared again at the sallow lined face which had once been so

handsome. He was a little relieved that Joshua's request was no more than

this, but slow to relax his caution. And irreverence on a deathbed struck

him as reckless and uncalled-for.

'Cousin William-Alfred was visiting us the other day. He enquired for

you.'

Joshua pulled a face.

'I told him how ill you was,' Charles went on. 'He suggested that though

you might not wish to call in the Rev Mr Odgers, maybe you would like

spiritual consolation from one of your own family.'

'Meaning him.'

'Well, he's the only one in orders now Betty's husband's gone.'

'I want none of them,' said Joshua. 'Though no doubt it was kindly

meant. But if he thought it would do me good to confess my sins, did he

think I should rather tell secrets to one of my own blood? No, I'd rather talk

to Odgers, half starved little hornywink though he is. But I want none of

them.

'If you change your mind,' said Charles, 'send Jud over with a message.

Aarf!

Joshua grunted. 'I shall know soon enough. But even if there was

something in it with all their pomp and praying, should I ask 'em in at this

hour? I've lived my life, and by God I've enjoyed it! There's no merit to go

snivelling now. I'm not sorry for myself and I don't want anyone else to be.

What's coming I'll take. That's all.'

There was silence in the room. Outside the wind thrust and stirred

about the slate and stone.

'Time I was off,' said Charles. 'These Paynters are letting your place get

into a rare mess. Why don't you get someone reliable?'

'I'm too old to swap donkeys. Leave that to Ross. He'll soon put things to

rights.'

Charles belched disbelievingly. He had no high opinion of Ross's abilities.

'He's in New York now,' said Joshua. 'Part of the garrison. He's quite

recovered from his wound. It was lucky he escaped the Yorktown siege. A

captain now, you know. Still in the 62nd Foot. I've mislaid his letter, else

I'd show it you.'

'Francis is a great help to me these days,' said Charles. 'So would Ross

have been to you if he was home instead of coosing around after French

men and Colonials.'

'There was one other thing,' said Joshua. 'D'you see or hear anything of

Elizabeth Chynoweth these days?'

After a heavy meal questions took time to transmit themselves to Charles's