Free Bella Poldark by Winston Graham Page B

Harriet is out.'
    'So I have discovered. I should have known. You are not hunting this morning, Mr Prideaux?'
    'No. I thought to stay in and read. Sometimes I think I have had rather too much to do with horses in my life.'
    He wore the usual stiff collar, a silk stock, a fine white cambric shirt under a bottle green jacket, tight black trousers. He had just put his glasses on. The footman who had let her in was waiting by the door. Clowance said: 'I am going to see my father on the north coast, so I must make haste.'
    Prideaux said: 'I will see Mrs Carrington out, Parker.'
    'Very good, sir.'
    As the footman left Philip said: 'I wrote to you, Mrs Carrington.'
    'Did you? I did not receive it.'
    'No. I put it in the fire.'
    'Oh? Why?'
    'I could not - I did not feel my apology was well expressed.'
    'Apology?'
    'For taking you to meet Mrs Poldark, your sister-in-law. I had no idea of course that there was a coldness between you.'
    'I am sure,' Clowance said, 'that the apology should be mine. To ask you to leave in that way was quite unpardonable. Your intention was perfectly civil and proper.'
    He smiled stiffly. 'Someone wrote the other day that "It is more wittily than charitably said that the road to hell is paved with good intentions." That was why I destroyed the letter I wrote.'
    'I don't understand you.'
    He took his glasses off and stuffed them in his pocket. His eyes were always a darker brown than she expected. They looked temporarily absentminded as they adjusted to a new focus.
    'I thought the letter, read in cold blood, might compound the offence I had given you. I seem far too often in our short acquaintance to have done or said something that you deemed inappropriate. I did not wish to add to my sins when trying to expiate them.'
    'I think we should excuse each other,' said Clowance, smiling too. 'Waterloo - I suppose Waterloo still casts a long shadow. It must answer for a lot, mustn't it. Perhaps I
    should say that my meeting with my sister-in-law helped to clear the air.'
    'I'm so very glad. I think young Mrs Poldark is a charming lady. I confess I do not so much take to her family.'
    'Oh?' Clowance looked up with interest. 'Why do you say that? She is very attached to them.'
    "I know. Her brothers are too hubristic'
    'I scarcely know either of them. A third was killed in Holland.'
    'That great castle they have built. I am told they do not have sufficient funds to complete it.'
    'No, that has been the trouble all along,' said Clowance, remembering afresh Cuby's duplicity.
    'My cousin has an over-large house at Padstow,' said Philip Prideaux. 'But he inherited it. Perhaps I am splitting hairs in thinking that ostentatiousness in one's ancestors is more excusable than in oneself.'
    Clowance said: 'And perhaps your ancestors could pay the builders?'
    'Quite so. Quite so.' He extended his hand and bowed over hers. 'May I write to you again sometime?'
    'Of course,' said Clowance, and went down the steps. He followed her and helped her to mount.
    Nampara was uncannily quiet without the presence of its two most ebullient inhabitants. (Even though Demelza was not as talkative as she used to be, she was still the centre of the house and in her absence a hollow existed.) Little Harry seemed to grow every time Clowance saw him. He would be six in a week's time, and Mama would be returning specially for his birthday. He was the sturdiest and most easy-going of all the Poldark children. He had the same flashing smile as his second sister and used it more frequently. In fact Ross and Demelza had come to the joint conclusion that he had already discovered it to be his handiest weapon -- to charm, to excuse, to avoid blame and to get his own way -- and he would probably be able when adult to use it in a finer-honed form to make his way in life. He had already shown himself to be lazy when learning to read and write and not at all studious or thoughtful; but in no way lacking in intelligence or the ability to use his brain when he