An Introduction To The Eternal Collection Jubilee Edition (10 page)

“What else could I say? I had to make some explanation for my disappearance. It was not for the servants to argue.”

“But your father, what will he say?” Rodney asked.

“What can he say? The ship has sailed. He will swear and curse, but perhaps Catherine will persuade him that it is for the best. She will hope that the sharks will eat me or that you will throw me overboard in sheer exasperation.”

Lizbeth was laughing now and Rodney was glowering at her, his rage making him almost tremble with the violence of his feelings.

“God’s death! You dare to laugh! Can you imagine what my reputation will be? Why, I shall be the laughingstock of every ship that sails from Plymouth!”

“No! I thought of that,” Lizbeth replied, “and in my letter I bound the servants to strict secrecy and told them to speak of it to no one until they returned home. I also wrote a letter to Father, saying that Francis will not to sail without me and suggesting that he told no one where I had gone and merely said I was staying with friends. Few people at Canfield will worry whether I am there or not, I assure you.”

“And Francis?”

“He swears he can take care of himself,” Lizbeth answered. “He will not go home until I return.”

“If you think I am going to lie to your father about his precious son, you are mistaken. When we return, he shall know the truth.”

“When we return, it will not matter much,” Lizbeth said.

“In the meantime, what am I to do with you?” Rodney enquired. “God’s pity, was there ever such a situation?”

“I suggest there is very little you can do about it,” Lizbeth answered. “I do not know whether you have told anyone about the age of Master Gillingham, but when I looked at myself in Francis’ clothes with my hair done like a boy, I thought I looked a not unpleasant lad of say fourteen or fifteen.”

“You look what you are, a girl disguised as a boy.”

“Is not that because you know the truth?” Lizbeth asked. “You will notice that your officers never took a second glance at me. I introduced myself as Master Gillingham and they accepted me as such. People believe what they are told, and who would believe that you brought a woman aboard?”

“Who indeed?” Rodney said grimly. “There are captains who take women with them, but I am not one of them and I do not intend to sink to that level.”

“Then you had best throw me overboard,” Lizbeth said quietly.

Rodney brought both his clenched fists down on the table this time, and then he rose to his feet, striking his head against the beam as he forgot how low the cabin was. He let forth an oath and made no apology for it. He wanted to walk backwards and forwards across the cabin, but there was no room. He sat down again.

“You realise that you will doubtless die anyway on this voyage?” he began. “Men suffer from many strange and diverse illnesses at sea, provided that it is not fire from a Spaniard’s gun that takes their lives from them.”

“I am not afraid,” Lizbeth said simply, “and frankly, I think I am no more likely to die than Francis. I am far stronger than he has ever been.”

“It is intolerable,” Rodney said, “and to think that I must lower myself to lie and prevaricate to my officers and to the men who trust me. If you should be discovered, what then?”

“You must swear that you had no idea of my sex,” Lizbeth said. “I am sorry I have angered you and I appreciate the difficulty in which you find yourself, but my brother’s honour and his life were in the balance.”

“If your brother were here, I should like to give him what I ought to give you – a good beating,” Rodney said grimly.

Lizbeth’s laugh, infectious and untrammelled, seemed to echo round the cabin, and now Rodney realised that darkness had come. He could no longer see her face. He could only hear her and hate her because she could laugh while he longed only to do her physical violence. He was defeated and he knew it.

Lizbeth had come aboard, and there was nothing he could do but accept her pretence to be her brother, and pray that no one would discover the trick which had been played on him. Too late he cursed himself for not having behaved as he should have done and met the son of his benefactor as he came aboard. If he had seen Lizbeth then, he could have sent her away and he realised too late how he had fallen into the trap of his own ill-humour.

He could see all too clearly how cleverly her plan had worked. When the servants had brought the luggage, they must have asked if Mister Gillingham was aboard, and on being told he was they had gone away contented that the task of getting Francis to sea had been completed.

He hated all the Gillingham family, Rodney thought suddenly – Sir Harry who had decided to send him his son Francis, a weakling and a coward; Lizbeth, who was clever and wily enough to place him in this predicament from which there was no possible escape; Catherine Gillingham with her hungry eyes and promiscuous body and Phillida ... no, she alone was different!

Rodney sat at the table in the darkness, feeling impotent and frustrated. He could hear Lizbeth’s soft breathing and was conscious of her close beside him.

She had spoiled everything, the elation he felt at taking command, the joy and sense of freedom that had been his as the
Sea Hawk
sailed out of harbour. All were gone, to be replaced by a feeling of apprehension, of fury and of utter incompetence to cope with it.

“Get out of here, damn you, get out of here !” he cried suddenly.

He heard Lizbeth rise from the table, heard her light footsteps as she walked across the heaving floor. He heard the door open and saw her silhouetted for a moment against the light outside; and then he was alone in the darkness, and his fingers drumming on the table made the only sound in the cabin.

5

Lizbeth, walking on deck in the sunshine, heard the lookout on the masthead hail the deck with a sudden excited cry which brought everyone to attention.

“Land ho!” he yelled. “Deck there! Land three points on the larboard bow, Sir.”

Lizbeth stared out to sea. She could see nothing but the water, shading from emerald green to sapphire beneath an endless expanse of blue sky, but she knew that the information was what Rodney was waiting for and the mountains which would soon come into view should be of Dominica or Guadeloupe, while the Channel between these islands was the gateway of the pirates into the Caribbean Sea.

It was the thirty-seventh day since they had left Plymouth. On the twelfth day they had sited the Canary Islands and watered the ship. Rodney was not disposed to linger there, as the Spaniards were well aware that the Canaries were a convenient calling place for the English ships and it would be easy for a fleet of their great galleons to take them unawares.

So they hurried onwards, seeing on the way nothing more formidable than a whale and a school of porpoises, but they were all of them continually alert for a sight of the enemy.

Lizbeth had gradually adjusted herself to life aboard ship. At first it was a continuous chain of surprises. She had imagined, listening to tales of the adventures of Hawkins and Drake, that she had learnt a little of what life at sea could be like.

But here, aboard the
Sea Hawk,
reality had nothing in common with her romantic dreams. The life was hard, and as soon as the fresh food was finished she found it difficult to endure the eternal diet of salt beef, salt pork, weevily biscuits and a glass of lemon juice twice a week to keep off scurvy.

It was hard to accustom herself to the rough food, but it was harder still not to reveal how surprising she found those to whom it was ordinary fare. For the first time in her life she saw men at close quarters behave as men and not as gallants. She had never before realised or even anticipated what masculine company would be like without the social veneer which had been so very apparent in all her previous encounters with them.

It was not that the men were over-coarse or in any way repellent because she saw them off their guard. The officers, with whom she associated daily, were all of them decent, cleaning-living men and not in the least lewd or repulsive in their conversation.

It was to be expected that their sense of humour was sometimes a good deal broader than it would have been had they realised her sex, and it amused her on these occasions to know that Rodney was far more embarrassed than she was herself. No, she was not shocked by anything that happened aboard; she was only surprised and even astounded by the strictness of the discipline, the exhausting, unending work there was to be done, and the stern, rigid segregation of the Captain from the rest of his crew.

He sat, it seemed, upon almost Olympian heights, and the officers as well as the men looked upon him with awe and respect. Lizbeth told herself not once but many times a day that this was no superhuman figure, but Rodney Hawkhurst who was here by the grace of her father’s money and who believed himself betrothed to her half sister, Phillida. Even so, as she echoed the “Aye, aye, Sir” of the others aboard and waited, as the others did, for orders which must be obeyed promptly, she found herself moved by a deferential respect which she had never before accorded to a man.

At first Rodney’s anger allowed him to speak to her only when other people were present and then in the most formal manner possible, but as the voyage advanced, he eventually found it impossible not to become more friendly. She alone ate at the Captain’s table, as was the custom with an honoured guest. She breakfasted in her cabin off a tray that was carried to her by Hapley, but dinner and supper were taken alone with Rodney, unless he invited one of the other officers to join them.

At first they sat in silence and then gradually, because there was no one else to whom he could talk, Rodney talked to her. She realised all too clearly that it was no particular compliment that she should receive his confidences – he was more often than not thinking out loud and the subject chosen was seldom anything but plans for the future, all related to the daily running of the ship, and yet she was thankful for this small mercy.

She was aware that he was in a continual state of fear lest her identity should be discovered and therefore she made no effort to mix with the officers or even to be seen more than was absolutely necessary. She walked on the quarter-deck and even sat there in the sunshine when she felt she would not be in the way. Her obvious desire to be alone made the other officers avoid her, although when she did unavoidably come into contact with them they were friendly and, as far as she could ascertain, completely unsuspicious.

At first she allowed herself to appear cowed and suitably repentant beneath the silence of Rodney’s anger, but when later he began to talk and she was allowed to answer him, she found it hard to keep in check her sense of fun or to control the mischievous twinkle in her eye. It was a pity, she thought more than once, that he was so incensed with her, because they might have enjoyed being together. They could have talked quite happily, as they had talked that first morning at Camfield when she watched him stride towards her across the park, preoccupied with his own thoughts.

Once she forgot herself so far as to flirt with him in the soft light of the cabin’s lantern, after they had dined.

“Would you rather tame a ship to your will, or a woman?” she asked daringly.

He smiled at the question and his eyes rested on her with the expression in them that had half-frightened and half-delighted her at Camfield. It was the same as that which had been there that morning by the lake when she had known he had contemplated kissing her.

“Both are exciting,” Rodney answered, “but of course, the joy one experiences depends both on the ship – and on the woman!”

“Yet you are confident of your ability to conquer both?” She was teasing him.

“Yes, very confident – do you doubt me?”

“And if I do?”

“Perhaps I could prove myself to you – one day.”

For a moment their eyes met and were held by something they both saw within the other. Then with an effort and a muttered curse, Rodney broke free and rang the bell violently for more wine.

As the voyage progressed, she began to realise the strain under which he was living and she knew it was good for him for a short while to forget his responsibilities, for always it seemed as if he must act a part, the part of an omnipotent commander, dauntless and assured, sailing his ship ever onwards to success.

It was part of his act, Lizbeth realised, for him to come on the quarter-deck now, slowly and without any sign of excitement while everyone else was staring straight ahead for the first sight of land and the rigging swarmed with Petty Officers and ratings.

“There it is, there, sir!” Gadstone cried in a voice that rose shrill as a boy’s in his excitement.

This was his first voyage and every moment of it seemed to be one of sheer delight.

“What you see is Dominica, Master Gadstone,” Rodney said coldly; “but even so, I imagine there is quite a lot to be done before we reach there. I will trouble you to make arrangements for the filling of the water casks. Get her into the wind, Master Baxter, if you have finished straining your eyes at the sight of that quite ordinary island.”

Rodney’s sarcasm was enough to make everyone bustle into activity. But Lizbeth looked at him out of the corner of her eye. A little pulse was throbbing in his neck and there was a glint in his eyes which was at variance with the deliberate calmness of his voice. He, too, was excited, she knew that. Ahead was the gateway to adventure which must make or break him.

She had a sudden impulse to slide her hand through his arm to tell him she understood and let him knew she sympathised with the effort he made to appear calm and natural. Instead she moved away a little so that he should not see her and remember how much her presence irked him. Besides, at this moment he was incensed with her over yet another matter.

This morning she had come on deck earlier than usual. It had been a very hot night and she had found it impossible to sleep, so instead of waiting until Hapley brought her breakfast she had come from her cabin before eight bells sounded and arrived on the quarter-deck just a few minutes in advance of Rodney himself.