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company he usually gathered round him when he was home, so she had taken to inviting a number of Valentine's friends, such as Anthony Trefusis and Ben Sampson and Percy and Angela Hill and Ruth Smith, to stay on after the hunt and sup and gamble until the early hours. Clowance and Stephen were of this party. George himself sometimes supped with them, but more often than not had a quiet meal in his study, or ate before them with his daughter Ursula. He never stayed for the cards. Gambling for pleasure was something he totally failed to understand. But he was always reasonably pleasant to Stephen and to Clowance, even though Clowance sensed a steely reserve at the back of it. Stephen was not aware of any such reservations. He believed he was on good terms with one of the most important men in Cornwall, in a small way was becoming a valuable customer of the bank and as such could look forward to a future of continuing prosperity. He acted on this assumption. Penryn, where Stephen and Clowance lived, was an ancient free borough at the head of the Penryn Creek; a clustering hilly town of about a thousand people. It considered itself far more dignified and mature than its larger upstart neighbour, Falmouth. A charter of privileges had been granted to its burgesses in 1236, four hundred years before Falmouth became a town at all. A fierce rivalry existed between the two, for Falmouth with its deeper harbours and its larger docks had stolen much of Penryn's trade.
    Clowance had never lived in a town before, and she found it a strange, secretive little port. Everybody she met was, on the surface, extremely polite, some ingratiating. But she was a stranger - they were both strangers - and didn't belong. Clowance had been too busy for twenty years enjoying life, and taking circumstances and people as they came, to bother about the oddities of class distinction. One of the reasons for her success at Bowood, the Lansdowne seat in Wiltshire, had been her unawareness of having any position in the world to maintain, her absence of pretence, her natural unaffected manner. At Nampara too she treated everyone she met as her equal, and, because everyone there knew who she was, no one had presumed on it. Penryn was different. They liked their people in recognizable categories, and she didn't quite fit in anywhere. The Poldark name was hardly known as far as this, but she was obviously a lady, and her father, apart from being a mine owner, was a Member of Parliament. Stephen, they reckoned, was not quite up to her snuff - and he wasn't even Cornish - but he was jolly, outgoing, generous and prospering. They rented this small house, one of the few overlooking the creek, stabled their horses at the Cambrons', who ran the Pig & Tinker, and they were related to the Blarneys of Flushing. They also rode to hounds, which put them on a different footing from their neighbours. During this winter she had thought often about her beloved brother Jeremy and wondered how he was faring in Brussels with his new and pretty wife, who had been so hard to get and had indeed been willing to reject him and fit in with her family's plans in a most mercenary way that Clowance would not forget. Perhaps it was going to be all right now, but Clowance more than anyone knew something of Jeremy's infatuation for this girl, his moods of utter depression, his vain attempts to seem cheerful and natural when his passion for Cuby was driving him to despair. It had been a kind of madness. Clowance hoped it was over. She thought Cuby might be a difficult person to live with, once the first excitement was past. Certainly Jeremy's letters gave an impression, a real impression of happiness. But not until she saw him again was she prepared to be sure. It was raining when she clattered into the stables and the nice stable boy, Kimber, came out to take Nero. It had been raining for the best part of a week, but this morning there had been a break and the sun had slanted across the creek. The