Read Online Demelza by Winston Graham - Free Book Online

listened half in scepticism, half seriously. His own suggestions had become more clearly defined as he made them. But he certainly did not see himself in the role of leader of the Cornish mining interests. Knowing his men, their independence, their obstinate resistance to all new ideas, he could see what a tremendous effort would be needed to get anything started at all.
    They sipped brandy over it for some time, Blewett seeming to find some comfort in the idle talk. His fears were the less for having been aired. Ross listened with an ear and an eye for Andrew Blamey.
    It was nearly time to leave - Demelza, sorely stricken, having been persuaded overnight to go on with her second party. Blewett brought another man to the table, William Aukett, manager of a mine in the Ponsanooth Valley. Eagerly Blewett explained the idea to him. Aukett, a canny man with a cast in one eye, said there was no question but that it might save the industry 'but where was the capital coming from except through the banks, which were tied up with the copper companies?' Ross, driven a little to defend his own idea, said well, there were influential people outside the copper companies. But of course this was no seeking venture that could be floated for five or six hundred. Thirty thousand pounds might be nearer the figure before it was ended - with huge profits or a complete loss as the outcome. One had to see it on the right scale before one could begin to see it at all.
    These comments, far from depressing Blewett, seemed to increase his eagerness; but just as he had taken out a sheet of soiled paper and was going to call for pen and ink a crash shook the pewter on the walls of the room and stilled the murmur of voices throughout the inn.
    Out of the silence came the sound of someone scrambling on the floor in the next parlour. There was a scurry of feet and the flash of a red waistcoat as the innkeeper went quickly into the room.
    'This is no place for brawling, sir. There's always trouble when you come in. I'll have no more of it. I'll . . I'll…'
    The voice gave out. Another's took its place, Andrew Blamey's, in anger. He came out, ploughing his way through those who had crowded to the door. He was not drunk. Ross wondered if drink ever had been his real trouble. Blamey knew a stronger master: his own temper.
    Francis and Charles and his own early judgment had been right after all. To give the generous softhearted Verity to such a man…
    Demelza must be told of this. It would put a stop to her pestering.
    'I know him,' Aukett said. 'He's master of the Caroline, a brig on Falmouth-Lisbon packet service. He drives his men; they say too he murdered his wife and children, though in that case how it comes that he is at large I do not know.'
    'He quarrelled with his wife and knocked her down when she was with child,' Ross said. 'She died. His two children were not concerned in it, so far as I am informed.'
    They stared at him a moment.
    'It's said he has quarrelled with everyone in Falmouth,' Aukett observed. 'For my part I avoid the man. I think he has a tormented look.'
    Ross went to get his mare, which he had left today at the Fighting Cocks Inn. He saw nothing more of Blamey, but his way took him past the Warleggans' town house and he was held up for a moment by the sight of the Warleggan carriage drawing up outside their door. It was a magnificent vehicle made of rich polished wood with green and white wheels and drawn by four fine grey horses. There was a postillion, a driver and a footman, all in green and white livery, smarter than any owned by a Boscawen or a de Dunstanville.
    The footman leapt down to open the door. Out of the carriage stepped George's mother, fat and middle-aged, wreathed in lace and silks but personally overshadowed by all the finery. The door of the big house came open and more footmen stood there to welcome her in. Passers-by stopped to stare. The house swallowed her. The magnificent carriage drove on. Ross was not a man