Bella Poldark by Winston Graham

looking to my own extensive affairs and observing the haunches of your horse as you ride away . . . And then this party ..."
    Harriet took a small gold watch from her jacket pocket.
    'Ursula should be home soon.'
    'They said six. It wants fifteen minutes.'
    'Did you see Valentine?'
    George hesitated. 'Yes. He came to the Bank.'
    'Has he changed?'
    'As usual very self-possessed. No hint of apology for the way he behaved.'
    'As you know, my dear, I have always had a feeling that we reacted too ferociously at the time.'
    'You mean I did.'
    'Yes, if you put it that way. Valentine, whether we like it or not, is a young man of spirit. You arranged a marriage for him. He clearly did not fancy Miss Trevanion as much as you supposed. It upset your plans. But did you ever think you may have driven him into Mrs Pope's arms?'
    'What on earth d'you mean?'
    'He was about twenty at the time, wasn't he? You are rather an intimidating man for Valentine to tell to his face that he won't fall in with your plans. You might even have over-drove him, over-drove him trying to marry him to Cuby. His one security was to do what he did do -- seek the protection of the law by marrying someone else - in this case Selina Pope. Once he had done that you were powerless.'
    'And does it please you to reflect that Valentine rendered me -- powerless in this way?'
    'Oh, la, George, do not put it into such dramatic terms. I am merely suggesting to you that the unfortunate event should not be looked on as the end of the world.'
    He stirred restlessly. 'So you think it is some small matter that had best be ignored and ordinary relations between us should be resumed.'
    'My dear, he's your son, not mine. Do whatever you have the fancy to. I rest easy in this either way.'
    George picked irritably at a few bristles under his chin which Kingston had missed when shaving him that morning. Feller was getting careless: it was the second time this month.
    'And the insufferable insults he paid me during the last quarrel, when I turned him out of the house?'
    'I was not privy to them. But most insults, I believe, go curled and yellow at the edges after a number of years.'
    George eyed his distinguished but irritating wife. Still only thirty-nine, she had lost few of her looks, her skin still very good, her hair still shiny and raven-black. (No white hairs.) If she would only take more care for her dress during the hunting season. Striding about like a man, dropping mud on the carpets, smelling of dogs. He had never mentioned or even hinted to her of the jealous thoughts that had constantly poisoned his first marriage, and the vile doubts as to whether Valentine was his true son. It had all turned upon whether Valentine had been an eight-month child; and when Elizabeth lay dying after giving birth to an eight-month daughter he had sworn to himself that never, never again (even though so far as Elizabeth was concerned it was too late) would he doubt that Valentine was his son. And so it had been. The doubts were gone - or had been locked like poisonous snakes in some dark cellar of the subconscious - and he had come to regard Valentine as truly his. He had planned everything, disregarding Valentine's looks, his sarcasms, his casual misdeeds, and arranging a fine marriage to a fine young woman of aristocratic but moneyless family, a fine castle the most beautiful in Cornwall - all, all, all would have been Valentine's, Valentine Warleggan of Caerhays - and the young puppy had thrown it all back in his face, with insolence, abuse and - one suspected - naked dislike. It was the expression on Valentine's face more than his words which remained most vividly in George's memory. Then, only then, had that dark cellar been opened an inch or two and some of the malodorous suspicions resurfaced. Valentine was very unlike Elizabeth or himself. Not that he was particularly like Ross Poldark, except for his height and colouring. But, although George did not remember him, one or two