The Loving Cup Read Free Page A

beauty? Tck, tck - Tck,
    tck..:
    He put a gentle hand forward to stroke the horse's neck and instantly there was a galvanic movement: everything shook and jerked and rattled and after a few moments the horse resumed his cropping twenty yards away. A flying hoof had just missed Jeremy's face.
    'Like that, is it? Well, well, old boy. What a fuss to make! A little show of temper? Too much corn I suspicion.'Jeremy looked round. The sun was two hands' breadth from the sea. Crow s were circling the high sky.
    f Hello, there, is anyone about?'
    A group of cows raised their heads and watched him with bovine disinterest from the other side of the field. Probably, since there was no one at Trenwith, the horse had come from Place House. Jeremy thought now he had seen him before, but not recentl y.
    A distant cry. He scrambled over a he dge, which was tall and riotous with foxgloves. At the other side of the next field a young woman was half-sitting, half-lying on the grass. She was in grey, with a grey tricorn hat near-by. As he trotted towards her he saw it was Mrs Selina Pope.
    She also recognized him as he came up and gave him a painful smile.
    'Jeremy..-.'
    'Mrs Pope. You've come a cropper?' "Fraid so. It's my ankle. I fell awkwardly.' Her blonde hair, dressed in a chignon, had partly fallen loose, and two locks hung across her shoulder. He knelt beside her. 'This one?' ‘ Yes.'
    'Have you been lying here long ?' 'Twenty minutes. Perhaps half an hour. I don't know.' 'It was lucky I was passing. Otherwise you might have been here a long time.' 'Yes. Yes, I might. Until some alarm was raised.' 'Are you hurt otherwise, do you suppose?' 'My shoulder.' She felt it.
    'Bad?'
    'No, I think not.'
    ‘I think we should take this boot off.'
    'Could you not get help from Place House?'
    'Of course. But it would be better to relieve the ankle before it swells.'
    She pulled her skirt up a few inches, I believe it is already swollen.'
    A calf-length boot of fine grey kid with six buttons down the side. He began slowly to undo these, taking care not to put any strain on the leg inside.
    After Sir John Trevaunance died in 1808, his heir and brother Unwin had sold Place House to a Mr Clement Pope, reputedly a rich merchant who had come from America bringing with him a very pretty blonde second wife, called Selina, and two daughters in their late teens by his first wife. Mr Pope, an unamiable character of sixty with a long thin neck, had a fastidious manner and a voice like an unoiled hinge. His ambition had been to launch himself and his family into Cornish society, particularly to obtain good marriages for his daughters, but this attempt had not been successful. It was largely his own fault, for he had an unequalled blend of austerity and unction which offended those he most wished to impress and which made old Sir Hugh Bodrugan say he was 'like a damned draper'.
    The Poldarks had met the family on a number of occasions and were on moderately friendly terms, chiefly with the daughters, Letitia and Maud, because they were of an age with Clowance. Horrie Treneglos had for a while flirted outrageously with Letitia, who was a plain girl; but was now more seriously pursuing Angela Nankivell of Lam-bourne. Jeremy quite liked the pretty Maud, but had cheerfully avoided any commitment. As for the stepmother ...
    As for the step-mother, she looked about twenty-six ..: 'I tried to catch your horse, Mrs Pope. He was having no truck with me at all. Generally I can manage horses. He seemed a thought wild.' ' Amboy is my husband's horse. But Mr Pope has not been well enough to take him out, so I thought to exercise him.' 'You would have been wiser to have left it to a groom,' 'Oh, I have been on him often befo re,' she said stiffly. 'Ho w is Mr Pope?'
    'Not at all himself. It seems that exercise or undue excitement brings on these gouty pains.' 'Dr Enys is your doctor, I suppose.' 'Yes. Of late.'
    'I'm sure you could find no better.'
    'So I have been told.' She