The Angry Tide (36 page)

It was not until there was a brief interval at one o'clock that Monk, noticing her briefly alone, came across to her.

'When may I
see
you again, Mrs Poldark?'

'But you are seeing me now, Captain Adderlcy.'

'Is this your very first visit to London?'

'You know it is.'

'Well, if I may say so, ma'am, I see you as a person of great undeveloped potentiality. My dear, you've scarce lived yet, believe me!'

'I've lived very well, thank you, Captain Addcrley.'

‘
You have not tasted the sophisticated pleasures.'

'I always think they are only for folk who have tired of the simple ones.'

'I'll wait upon you. When will your husband be out?' 'When I am.'

'Then I'll wait upon you when he is in.'

'You're most kind.'

'I hope you will be also.' His eyes went up along the lines of her peach-coloured gown, noting where it clung, to her bare arms and shoulders and low neck, the pale olive swelling of her breasts; at last up to her face and eyes, and his expression conveyed exactly what he would like to do to her. She found herself flushing, an unusual occurrence for her at any time.

Then she felt a hand put into her gloved hand. It was Ross, come up behind her.

'Adderley, you must return to your Miss Page. She is greatly lacking your attentions.'

'Do you know, Poldark,' Monk said gently, 'there is only one person I ever take instructions from, and that is myself.'

Demelza
squeezed Ross's hand to stop his reply.

'Ross,' she said, 'Captain Adderlcy has paid us the compliment of saying he would wait upon us. While that would be - quite delightful, I was suggesting instead that we should all meet at the play on Thursday. You were telling me that we should go, Captain Adderley.'

She could sense the hesitation on both sides. Since Adderley had told her nothing of the sort, it represented to him a small deception of her husband and therefore progress along the road he wished to pursue. Ross had indeed talked of going to the play, and a blank refusal at this point could only have been seen as an affront.

Addcrley said: 'That would be amusing, my dear. The play I have seen twice and it's tedious. But the women are interesting.'

And so it was settled.

Chapter
Four

By three in the morning people were beginning to depart. Caroline had seen what had been happening to
Demelza
, and took Monk Adderley off on her own and away from the danger zone.

Later she said to
Demelza
: 'Sometimes I think him a litde crazed.
Not
because he has taken a fancy to you! But because he is at times
...
ungovcrncd in his behaviour. Treat it lightly - as a joke.'

'That's all very well, but -'

'I know. But
explain
to Ross
...
I'll suggest to Dwight that wc also go on Thursday. And in the meantime I will see what else there is in
the
pool of young women who might be dandled in front of Monk's nose to divert him.'

...
As they were waiting for their carriages to draw up George said:

'So you burned your fingers, Monk.'

'Not at all, my dear,
Rome n'a
ete bati tout en u
n jour.
One has to make the preliminary - clearances.'

'And you have made those? I don't believe it! She is a virtuous woman!'

'You told mc not.'

'Well, who knows about any one of us? I said she was probably not. Perhaps later you will be able to inform mc for sure'

'Of course. I can inform you now. Within a month she will not be a virtuous woman - if by virtue you mean faithfulness to her husband. I shall consider her virtuous if she is faithful to mc, for as long as I want her.'

'It's a big claim. I would be tempted to wager on it.'

'My dear, by all means. Nothing would give me greater satisfaction. What odds will you offer?'

George licked his lips, and glanced across to see that Elizabeth was not within hearing. 'A hundred guineas to ten. I am not prepared to make longer odds than that, for, after all, if you win you get all the fun.'

'No,' said Monk, looking at his friend with his cold eyes. 'I perceive that if I w
in you will be more satisfied th
an I.'

The Poldark coach was called soon after, and Demelza was handed in, and they moved crealdngly away. There was silence and then Ross said:

'Monk Adderle
y is a freakish fellow.'

'Freakish
...
yes. I am a little scared at him.'

'It did not seem so. You asked him to join us at supper and have invited him to the theatre on Thursday.'

Demelza struggled with the difficulty of explaining. 'In the first instance he had just asked me to go in to supper with him
alone.
I'm not sure of the courtesies in London, but I thought it might be insulting to refuse. So I suggested we should all go together.'

'And in the second instance?'

'I thought he and you were going to start growling at each other like a couple of tomcats, so I said the first diing
that
came into my head to stop it.'

They were crossing Oxford Road, and even at this late hour there were people about, drunks lying in the shelter of overhanging houses, drays and butchers' carts rattling over the cobbles on late or early errands, beggars picking among the refuse and the droppings.

Ross said: 'It's strange that people who affect to find life endlessly tedious are themselves so tedious to know. Well, I suppose we must endure him on Thursday.'

'Ross.'
Demelza
turned her head and the light from a passing fink-boy showed up her intent expression. 'Caroline had a word with mc about him during the evening. She told us not to take him serious. Not me. Not you. Especially not you. She said you must always treat him as a joke.'

Ross pursed his lips. 'Adderle
y. Yes. He is a joke. But I think we must watch him lest the joke turn sour.'

They took a box at Drury Lane, which cost Ross t
wenty shillings and held four se
ats, and there saw Mr John Kemble, Mr William Barrymore and Mrs Powell in
Th
e Revenge,
a tragedy in five acts by Edward Young.
Demelza
had not seen a play since the one performed in their library more than ten years ago, and that was a mere charade compared to this. She forgot the pale man, taut as a wire, in the chair beside her, who took what opportunities he could to put his face against hers to whisper comments and to touch her bare forearm with his thin cool fingers. She was far more annoyed by the noise from the pit; the scrambles that took place, the flying oranges, the shouts at the actors if something was displeasing. The light from the three hundred flickering tallow candles was so disposed behind the scenes that the stage was clearly but subdy lit. The brilliance of the costumes and the scenery, the resonance and drama of
the
actors' voices, all cast a spell on her. Between the acts there was music to keep the audience entertained, and when
The Revenge
was over in a welter of blood and tragedy, two more short pieces were staged, as comic as the main piece had been sad. A wonderful evening.

Dwight and Caroline were in the next box, and in one interval Dwight was able to say to Ross:

‘I met Dr J
enner today.'

Ross looked vague. He had been more than a little preoccupied with angers that were swirling up in him and then dispersing in waves of self-mockery.

'Jenner? Oh? This book you were reading
...'

T believe it may be one of the great discoveries of our time. Of course there have been inoculations against the smallpox for some years, but this is different. There has not yet, in my view, been sufficient experiment. But I am hoping to see him again before I leave.'

'You are off home?'

Dwight smiled. 'Not yet.'

Half joking, Ross said: 'Perhaps I shall have to take
Demelza
home soon. She is not going to be safe here.' 'I believe she's safe, Ross. She can look to herself.' 'That,' said Ross, 'was what I used to think.' The last short play was nothing but a musical lampoon, a satire on the new fashions, all of them grossly exaggerated on the stage. The song that caught the public fancy was sung by a Miss Fanny Thompson and went:
'Shepherd, I have lost my waist,

Have you seen my body?

Sacrificed to modern taste,

I'm quite a Hoddy-Doddy.

Tis gone, and I have not the nook

For cheese cake, tart or jelly.

For fashion I that part forsook

Where sages place the belly!'

Everyone joined in
the
second and third choruses. It became a great roar of sound.

As the two thousand people were streaming out of the theatre Monk Adderley said: 'Will you visit Vauxhall with me on Monday next, Mrs Poldark? I believe there is likely to be a late sitting of the House.'

'Should you not be present, then?' 'God forbid. But your husband will.'

'Tell mc,' she said. 'Why did they call you Monk? It seems - not apt.'

The eyes crinkled again. In a less sinister face it would have been attractive. 'Not apt, as you observe, my dear. My father was so called and so liked his name that he has given it to all my brothers, to make sure it should be perpetuated.'

She raised her eyebro
ws. 'Dear life! Do you mean the
re
are
several more Monk Adderle
ys walking the streets of London?'

'No ma'am. Two died in infancy. One had his throat cut in India. One is in Bristol still with my parents, but he is a tedious provincial boy who will grow up into a country squire
...
But tell me
of
your
name. What docs it mean in that bizarre Celtic language you have?'

'I don't know,' said
Demelza
, knowing well, but feeling it was a bad thing to give him a further lead.

'Well, it is a passably provoking name. Ecod it is
...
Demelza
...
Demelza
...
It needs to be peeled off - like a cloak, like clothes, like a skin
...'

'Like a banana?' she suggested.

'Listen, satin-arms,' he said, 'I will take so much from you and no more. You have a sharp tongue, which I find very entertaining in due course. And shall know what to do with. On Monday, then. At nine.'

Before Demelza could speak Caroline said: 'There's room for two in our coach. We'll take you home. Can you find a chair, Monk?'

Addcrlcy said: 'I shall go to White's for an hour. Would you care to accompany me, Poldark? You can go in as my guest'

Ross hesitated, and then said amiably: 'Thank you, no, I think not. I'm not rich enough to be able to lose money nor poor enough to wish to gain it.'

'What a tedious thought,' said Adderley. "The importance of money is that it should always be treated as of no importance.'

Later that night, just as Demelza was dozing off to sleep, Ross said: 'D'you
know for once I believe Adderle
y was right.' 'What? What about? What d'you mean?'

'That money should always be looked on as unimportant. Now that I run a tin mine and have interests in rolling mills and the rest I am becoming too attached to the stuff.'

'I have never been unattached to the stuff,' she said. 'Maybe it's because I was born a miner's daughter. Maybe it's because I've never had so very much. All I know is that having coins in my purse makes me happy, and having no coins makes mc sad. I can't work it out different.'

'All the same,' Ross said, 'Adderley may be right in that, but he is wrong in all else. Wrong especially if he supposes I shall stand by and watch him attempting to cuckold me.'

'And do you serious think he has the slightest chance?'

Ross did not answer.

Demelza sat sharply up in bed, wide awake now.

'Ross, what are you
thinking
of? You are not serious in supposing
...
Because - because
once
something happened, because once I felt deeply about another man; do you think, do you suppose I am like to do that again - with the first such who comes along? Am I condemned
- because of - of Hugh Armitage
- to be suspected of feeling the same for every man who pays me some special attention?' When he still didn't speak she said:
'Ross!'

'No,' he said judicially.

'It could not happen again - certainly not with a man like Captain Adderley.'

'Then you should make it clearer to me that it can't.' 'How?'

'By not encouraging him.'

'I do
not
encourage him! I have to be polite!'

'Why?'

She made a despairing gesture. 'Sometimes, Ross, you try me hard. You really do. I am - I am in London for the first time. It is a new society. I am your wife - truly, truly in more than name again, in more than mere
act
again, after so long. I am
happy,
excited, living in a new way. A man comes up to mc and starts paying mc compliments. He is a - he is educated, well bred, a member of Parliament. Do I turn my back on him to please you? Do I smack his face to satisfy you? Do I sit in a corner and refuse to answer him? Better that I should never have come!'

'Better that you should never have come than that he should contrive to paw you. He must know every bone in your left arm from wrist to shoulder.'

There was silence.

'Then tell me what I must do,'
Demelza
said. 'Do you wish mc to go home?' 'Of course not!'

'Tell me how I must behave then.' 'You know very well how to behave.'

'That's not fair! Anyway,' Demelza said mutinously, 'he won't take no for an answer. He says he is coming to take mc to Vauxhall next Monday when you are in the House.'

'And shall you go?'

'Certainly not! I shall be out - or unwell. A fever might be most likely to cool his ardour
...
Perhaps I could paint some spots on my face and squint through the window at him
...
Ross, do not let tiiis spoil our time here
...'

'No,' he said, 'no,' and put an arm about her shoulders, 'but one cannot always contain or order one's feelings, and when I
see
you in the company of another man - being touched and pressed by h
im -my mind - or something in me
- turns up old feelings, old thoughts, old resentments. Which aren't so very old.'

She lay against him, saying nothing for a long time, but not so sleepy now.