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Prologue: Ross
Ross stopped at the stile and shaded his eyes against the late afternoon sun as he stared out over the glittering swell of the ocean. He would have continued on if he could, right out into the rushing waves, just to feel the cool sand under his feet once more, the water breaking against his legs. But for the last three months he had been unable to get past this point and not only because he'd been slowed by the passage of ninety-four years.
It had been borne in on him, more than a lifetime ago, in the dying days of the old century, that this time was always going to come. Now that it had it was every bit as intolerable, as unthinkable, as he had imagined it would be. Beyond bearing too though how or why he still drew breath, he didn't know. He might have been ready for his grave a long time ago except that she had not wanted to ever be without him and so from the moment she'd uttered the words, he had been bound to do as she wished. And now, perversely, when he had done this one last thing for her and had no other reason to stay, it seemed his grave was not ready for him.
Tedn't fair. Tedn't fit. Tedn't proper.
His lips flattened in a mirthless smile. Over the years, he'd had little enough patience for the refrain whenever it, or some variant of it, had been trotted out by its grizzled author. There was a certain irony in resorting to it now. She would have teased him for it. Her dark eyes would have lit up with amusement. But she was gone, they were all gone, and there was no one to appreciate the absurdity of it all…
He pulled himself up short. Was he really so mired in self-pity that he was taking on the foibles of the long-deceased Jud Paynter now? There were those still alive who remembered the old reprobate and his unending string of grievances, and who would see the dark humour if he chose to share his lapse: Clowance and Bella, for a start. Henry too, possibly.
It wasn't the same though. They were all gone, all those of his generation: Verity and Andrew, Dwight and Caroline. Francis, Elizabeth... long gone they. Even his old nemesis, George Warleggan, whom Ross had fully expected to be the last one standing: not even George had hung on for the final word. Instead, he, Ross Poldark – a risk-taker and adventurer with a sense of fair play and community that had worked as much against him as for him over the years – he was the last of them. He hadn't expected that. Hadn't especially wanted it…