Bella Poldark by Winston Graham Read Free Book Online Page A

Harry to be a companion to (apart from the monthly visit from Cuby and Noelle to break the pattern of the days). But all this, Demelza knew, was often the lot of the mother: to lose her children, by illness, by the tragedy of war, or the lottery of marriage. She could not, she said passionately to herself, deprive Bella of an opportunity that she was overwhelmingly eager to take. Safeguards, all sorts of safeguards, must be written in to ensure that this was not some romantic scheme of Christopher's, aimed chiefly at marriage to the girl he loved. Bella must be given a fair chance. As for marriage, it had been a principle of hers and Ross's, that their children should have free choice, but it was really like a lottery ticket whom their children would draw. Clowance had sincerely loved Stephen - obstinately, passionately - and still mourned him, though something sour seemed to have crept into her memory after his death.
    But although most of the family, including Jeremy, had come to have an appreciation of Stephen's many good points, it could not be said that anyone except Clowance had become genuinely attached to him. This was not true of Christopher; everyone in Nampara liked him. Then there was Cuby, of whom everyone was fond except Clowance. To Demelza she was of course a poor substitute for Jeremy - even with little Noelle thrown in - and on dark windy hollow nights, of which there were many for Demelza, no more than Clowance could she forget the sequence of events that had led Jeremy to join the Army. Yet Demelza from the first had felt a kind of affinity with Cuby, and no one, Demelza reasoned, could estimate the pressures which had existed on Cuby to do what she did. As for Bella, she would soon be seventeen! Demelza had known long before she was seventeen whom she loved and would always love. (It wasn't the same, the other side of her argued. She and Ross had been living in the same house and seen much of each other, albeit as master and servant. Was Bella being enchanted by the glamorous ex-soldier without having any chance of seeing whatever obverse side of the coin might exist?)
    Ross did not tell Demelza about Valentine's proposition. He had intended to mention it amusedly, but the conversation with Christopher the same night had rendered his encounter unimportant. His wife at the moment only had the problem of Bella in her head and heart. Once or twice his thoughts roamed over the proposition Valentine had put to him. No one but a perverse, slightly unstable character like Valentine would ever have suggested it. It was true that since Jeremy's death Ross had lived quietly, but at no time had he considered it 'tedious'. His chief aim had been to bring Demelza back to normality, and in this to a large extent he thought he had succeeded. Her long spells of silence had gone. He had tried to take her out to supper parties or for weekends in the county. With that he was content in making her content. Had he had ideas of resuming a more publicly active life, it would certainly not have led him to the illegalities of tin smuggling. If there was one disturbing aspect to his present retirement, it was the thought of unfinished business at Westminster. When the war ended he had felt that, whatever the value of his activities over the previous ten years, they had now been justified by the defeat of France. It had been his only reason for remaining Lord Falmouth's representative in the Commons. That and Jeremy's death had led him to resign his seat. He had no further use for it. He had expected -- as had many - that the end of the war would bring not merely peace to Britain but a wave of prosperity. It had not happened. The fall in government spending from its wartime levels had meant a drastic drop in the demand for British manufactures. Then the sudden demobilization of soldiers and sailors had thrown thousands of extra men upon the labour market. Many factories in the north and Midlands had closed down, and agriculture too