The Four Swans Read Online Free PDF Page A

for country travel.
    It was a big wedding after all. Dwight had objected from the start, but she had over-ridden his protests while he was still too feeble to be emphatic about anything. Indeed his recovery from his long imprisonment was not yet sure. He had long spells of listlessness and inertia and he could not get rid of a troublesome cough and a breathlessness at night. His personal inclination had been to postpone the wedding until the spring, but she had said
    `Darling, I’ve been an old maid long enough. Besides, you must consider my good name. Already the county is scandalized because we’re living in the same house without the benefit of chaperone during your convalescence. The grannies are insisting that you hasten to make an honest woman of me.’
    So the date had been agreed, and then the nature of the wedding. `It is no good being ashamed of me,’ Caroline had said. `It’s embarrassing that I have so much money, but you knew that all along, and a big wedding is one of the consequences.’
    As Elizabeth had predicted, most of the county, or that part of the county within reasonable travelling distance, was there. Heavy rain in the night had been followed by a bright day with the puddles in the streets glinting like eyes where they reflected the sky. Caroline wore a gown of white satin with the petticoat and facings covered with a rich gold net, her hair held with a coronet of seed pearls. Her uncle from Oxfordshire gave her away, and after the wedding a reception was held at the Assembly Rooms in High Cross,
    Elizabeth’s persuasions had finally resulted in George’s agreement to go with her, and he very quickly spied his old enemy standing with his wife near to the bride and groom. In his present mood it was almost more than he could bear, to go up and pass close beside them, but only Elizabeth noticed his hesitation as they went on.
    Ross Vennor Poldark, owner of 100 acres of rather barren and unproductive farmland on the north coast, sole proprietor of a small but highly profitable tin mine, one-time soldier and perpetual nonconformer, was dressed in a black velvet coat cut away at the front to show the grey suede waistcoat and the tight grey nankeen trousers. The waistcoat and the trousers were new but the coat was the one his father had bought him for his twenty-first birthday and which he refused to replace, even though he could now well afford to. Perhaps there was a subtle pride behind his refusal, pride that in fourteen years he had, neither fattened nor grown more lean. Of course the cut was out of date, but those who observed that, Ross thought, had no claim on his opinion or consideration.
    Nevertheless he had insisted that his wife, Demelza, should have a new gown, even though she herself protested it unnecessary. Demelza Poldark was now twenty-five, a young woman who had never been a raving beauty but whose eyes and smile and walk and general exuberance of spirit always drew men’s attention like a magnet among iron filings. Childbearing had not yet coarsened her figure, so she was still able to wear a tight-waisted frock of green damask embroidered with. silver trimmings. It had cost more than she could bear to think, but which she still constantly thought about. In it she looked as slight as Elizabeth, though not as, virginal. But then she never had.
    The two neighbours and cousins by marriage bowed slightly to each other but did not speak. Then the Warleggans passed on to the bride and groom to shake their hands and wish them a happiness which George at least begrudged. Enys had always been a protege and a creature of Ross Poldark, and while still a struggling . and impecunious mine surgeon; had turned away from the rich patronage of the Warleggans and made it plain where his loyalties lay. George observed today how sick Dwight was still looking. He stood beside his tall radiant red-haired wife, who topped him by an inch and who looked the picture of youth and sophisticated happiness, but