The Four Swans Read Free Page A

emaciated man in black, whose eyes were so close-set that they appeared to be crossed.
    `Tabb? George Tabb? Someone-want a word with you. Tell your master. You’ll be the half-four.
    Tabb eyed his visitor and asked what it was all about, and who wanted him and why; but he was told no more. There was another man outside in the street, so he put away his broom and went with them.
    It was no distance. A few yards down an alley, along the river bank; where another full tide glimmered and brimmed, up a street to a door in a wall, across a yard. The back of a tall house.
    `In here.’ He went in. A room that might have been a lawyer’s office. `Wait here.’ The door was shut behind him. He was left alone.
    He blinked warily, uneasy, wondering what ill this summons foreshadowed. He had not long to wait. A gentleman came in through another door. Tabb stared in surprise.
    `Mr Warleggan!’ He had no forelock to touch, but he touched his wrinkled head.
    The other George, the infinitely important George, nodded to him and went to sit down at the desk. He studied some papers while Tabb’s unease grew. It was on Mr Warleggan’s orders when he married Mrs Poldark that the Tabbs had been dismissed from her service, and his greeting today had shown no amiability.
    `Tabb,” said George, without looking up. I want to ask you a few questions.’
     
    `These questions are questions that I’ll put to you in confidence, and I shall expect you to treat them as such.’ `Yes, sur.’
    `I see that you left the employment I obtained for you at Mrs Warleggan’s request when you left her service.’ `Yes, sur. Mrs Tabb wasn’t up to the work and..’
    `On the contrary, I understand from Miss Agar that it was you who were unsatisfactory, and that she offered to retain Mrs Tabb if she would stay on alone.’
    Tabb’s eyes wandered uneasily about the room.
    `So now you eke out a miserable living as a pot boy. Very well, it is your own choice. Those who will not be helped must take the consequences!’
    Tabbb cleared his throat.
    Mr Warleggan put fingers in his fob pocket and took out two coins. They were gold. ‘Nevertheless I am prepared to offer you some temporary easement of your lot. - These guineas. They are yours, on certain conditions.’
    Tabb stared at the money as at a, snake. `Sur?’
    `I want to ask you some questions about the last months of your employment at Trenwith. Can you remember them? It’s little more than two years since you left.’
    `Oh, yes, sur. I mind it all well.’
    `Only you and I are in this room, Tabb. Only you will. know the questions I have asked. If in the future therefore ‘I hear that the nature of these questions is known to others - I shall know who has spoken of them, shall I not?’
    `Oh, I wouldn’t do that, sir’
    `Would you not? I’m far from sure. A man in his cups has an unreliable tongue. So listen, Tabb.’
    `Sur?’
    `If ever. I hear word spoken of anything I ask you this afternoon, you will be driven out of this town, and I’ll see that you starve. Starve. In the gutter. It is a promise. Will you in your cups remember that?’
    `Well, sur, I promise faithful. I can’t say more’n that. I’ll-‘
    ‘As you say, you can’t say more. So keep your promise and I will keep mine.’
    Tabb licked his lips in the ensuing silence. `I mind those times well, sur. I mind well all that time at Trenwith when we was trying; me and Mrs Tabb, to keep the ‘ouse and the farm together. There was no more’n the two of us for all there was to be done–-?
    ‘I know - I know. And you traded on your position. So you lost your employment. But in recognition of your long service another position was found for you and you lost that. Now, Tabb, certain legal matters bearing on the estate wait to be settled and you may be able to help me to settle’ them. I first want you too remember everyone who called at the house. Everyone you saw, that is. From about April 1793 until June of that year when you left