An Introduction To The Eternal Collection Jubilee Edition (3 page)

He had a sudden urge to see the young woman again, to find out if he were mistaken and she was just a merry wanton. No – he was sure of one thing – she was pure, and still a virgin. He could feel the quiver of her mouth, bear the quick intake of her breath, smell the fragrance of lilac – the perfume of spring.

Sir Harry was talking about his horses, his voice booming out monotonously so that there was no need for Rodney to answer him or even to follow what he was saying. As they reached the end of the path, he glanced back, but there was no one in sight and he wondered to himself if the girl with the red hair was still watching him.

Actually, she was waiting till the two men reached the end of the path and then, as they disappeared in the direction of the stables, she turned to the boy lying on the smooth grass of the bowling green which lay hidden behind the lilac bushes.

“They have gone now,” she said. “Do you think I can get into the house without being seen?”

“You had best be careful. If m’lady Catherine sees you looking like that, there’ll be the devil to pay.”

The boy spoke languidly, his eyes closed against the sun, his head supported on his crossed arms, while the girl stood hesitating.

It was obvious that they were brother and sister; they had the same red hair, the same fine bones and clear-cut features; but there the resemblance ended, for what was lovely and feminine in the girl was weak and effeminate in the boy.

“You might go ahead of me and see if there is anyone about,” the girl suggested.

“I might,” he agreed, “but I am going to lie here and think about my new poem – you know visitors always bore me.”

“What has he come for anyway?” she asked.

She spoke almost fiercely, and then one small hand touched her mouth and her green eyes looking straight ahead of her, were suddenly wide and apprehensive, as if she were remembering and savouring again that kiss, the first she had ever known.

The sun coming through the branches of the tree glinted on her hair and made it seem alive, a glory of riotous curls. It was red and yet it held in it the burning gold of the heart of a fire. She was not exactly beautiful but, although she did not know it yet, her face would torment and haunt a man so that he could not forget her.

Suddenly she sat down on the grass beside her brother.

“Francis,” she said in the imperative tone of one who wishes to be attended to, “I am restless. If only we could go away, if only we could get to London.”

“You know Catherine won’t allow that,” he answered.

“Catherine! Catherine! Everything revolves round Catherine.”

“You are jealous of her,” he said. “She is not too unpleasant at times.”

“You say that because you are a man. She is always nice to men. Heaven knows why Father does not see through the way she makes eyes and postures at them. Not that I care, but when I remember how gentle and dignified our mother was and I see Catherine sitting in her chair, lying in her bed and running her house, it makes me sick.”

The girl’s voice broke suddenly. She put up her hands to her eyes.

“Poor Lizbeth,” Francis commiserated. “Do you still miss Mother so much? “’Tis four years now since she died.”

“Yes, four years, and Catherine has been with us for two of them,” Lizbeth answered in a bitter voice, then she took her fingers away from her eyes and wiped away the tears that hung on her long dark lashes.

“It is no use crying, I know that,” she said. “What can’t be cured must be endured. Wasn’t it Nanna who used to say that when we were children? ’Tis true enough. One can fight and struggle for things which are obtainable, but it is no use doing any of those things when people are dead. Nothing we can do can bring them back.”

“Oh, Lizbeth, you torture yourself,” Francis said. “You have always been the same. You feel things too much. Let life take its course. It is no use fighting Catherine and it is no use fighting Father. Not openly, anyway. Just take things as they come. That’s what I try to do.”

He sighed as if he confessed his failure.

“Yes, I know,” Lizbeth exclaimed impatiently, “but where does it get you? Mother always used to say you ought to have been a girl and I ought to have been a boy. That is why she asked me to look after you before she died. She didn’t ask you to look after me.”

“She knew you could do it very well for yourself. I’m lazy, Lizbeth, and I hate rows. I do everything I can to avoid them. And at the moment I don’t want to do anything except lie in the sun and enjoy myself.”

“Yes, dear Francis, you are lazy,” Lizbeth said fondly, “and if you were not, I dare say I should not be so energetic. ’Tis your fault that I have shot an arrow through our guest’s hat. If you had been practising your archery, as Father told you, instead of lying on the grass, I should not have put up your bow and been tempted by that bobbing red plume going down the drive.”

She paused for a moment.

“Do you think he will tell Father?”

“If he does, he’s a babbling knave,” Francis replied, “but then you can never tell with these rough, savage men who sail the sea.”

“A lot you know about them,” Lizbeth laughed scornfully. “Why don’t you take a ship and go out and plunder the Spanish Main? That is what I would do if I were a man!”

“And a bloodthirsty sailor you would be,” Francis retorted. “Hadn’t you better be getting back to the house?”

“Yes, I suppose I must,” Lizbeth said. “It means a scolding anyway. Catherine told me not to wash my hair and I washed it. She told me I was to stay in the store cupboard and put away her saffrons and cinnamon, and of course I did not do so, and she is certain to be furious.”

“Well, don’t let her see you with your hair all over the place,” Francis continued. “Remember what a lecture she gave you last week for not looking ladylike.”

“The foul fiend seize all ladies!” Lizbeth exclaimed. “I want to be a man and ride away from here. I want to sail with Drake and go to Court and fight in the Netherlands and kill the Spaniards.”

“A delightful programme for a young lady of quality,” Francis teased.

Lizbeth stamped her foot, but only for a moment, and then throwing herself on her knees beside him, she ruffled his hair.

“And I hate you at times,” she said, “and yet I really love you. You are the nicest brother in the world when you are nice, but when you rile me I want to fight you.”

“Keep that for our guest,” Francis answered. “If, as you say, you ruined his best hat, he has every reason to be annoyed with you.”

“And yet he was not annoyed with me,” Lizbeth replied; “ . . . he kissed me!”

She spoke the last words so low that Francis did not hear them.

He had closed his eyes languidly and when he opened them again he was alone, and Lizbeth, creeping from bush to bush, was making her way towards the house.

She reached it without being observed and ran upstairs to her own bedchamber. She opened the door expecting an empty room, but instead, her nurse was there, laying out a dress and muttering to herself as she did so. Nanna was old and her once rosy cheeks were wrinkled now like a shrivelled apple.

“Oh, there you are, Mistress Mischief!” she exclaimed as Lizbeth entered. “Where have you been, I should like to know? Her Ladyship was crying your name all over the house and exceedingly vexed she was when you could not be found. And a good thing for you she didn’t find you like that. What have you done to yourself?”

“I ran out of the store cupboard, washed my hair and went outside. It was a lovely day. Why should I be kept indoors looking at ginger, cloves, raisins, almonds, spices and figs, and all the other dull things which Catherine keeps in the store cupboard?”

“Her Ladyship’s a good housekeeper, I’ll say that for her,” Nanna replied.

“Not as good as my mother,” Lizbeth said quickly.

“Now, dearie, you know as well as I do that your sainted mother was ill for three years before she died, and there was a lot to be seen to in the house when her Ladyship came here. She’s got her faults, I’m not saying she hasn’t, but she’s house-proud and that’s a virtue in any woman, and well you know it.”

“I hate her,” Lizbeth said.

“Hush Hush!” Nanna looked over her shoulder as though she feared someone might be listening.

“I hate her and she hates me,” Lizbeth cried.

“Why you can’t be more like your half-sister I don’t know,” Nanna grumbled, unlacing Lizbeth’s dress as she spoke. “Now Mistress Phillida gets on happily with her Ladyship. Never a cross word between them.”

“Oh, Phillida ! Phillida would get on with anyone,” Lizbeth said. “You know that as well as I do. Why, she lives in a world of her own. And she doesn’t care what happens to any of us. If the house fell down, I believe she would just walk quietly out and sit among the ruins. She doesn’t like anything, she doesn’t hate anything, she just exists. If I were like that, I would throw myself in the lake.”

“’Tis a pity you are not a little more like it,” Nanna answered severely. “But there, you were always the same as a baby – screamed yourself into a fit if you didn’t get what you wanted the moment you wanted it. Many a time I have told your mother, ‘That child will take a lot of rearing, she will’, and sure enough, you were the difficult one. Master Francis was as placid and happy a baby as ever there was, Mistress Phillida as good as gold, and you a little limb of Satan himself.”

Lizbeth laughed.

“Oh, Nanna, you would have hated me to be any different. You know you would.”

“I’m not saying I don’t love you as you are,” Nanna answered, “but I’m not so old that I’m blind to your faults, and there’s plenty of them for those who look for them. Now hurry or you will be late for supper. ’Tis ten minutes to six and you know what your father says if people are late.”

“I will not be late,” Lizbeth said confidently. “Why have you brought me my best dress? I thought that was to be kept for very special occasions.”

“This is a special occasion,” Nanna replied. “With Sir Francis Walsingham’s god-son staying in the house and as fine set-up a young man as ever I did see, too. You should be thinking of your appearance instead of complaining about her Ladyship.

“Thinking of my appearance?” Lizbeth asked. “Why particularly?”

“Because there is a handsome young man to look at you. It’s time you were thinking of such things and not ramping about like a veritable tomboy.”

“Handsome?” Lizbeth repeated. “Yes, I suppose he is handsome, but strong and cruel I should think, if he wants to be.”

“You have seen him then?” Nanna enquired, and then gave a sudden cry. “And you like you were just now, with your hair all over your shoulders and that dirty apron over your gown? Heavens, child, what must he have thought?”

“I care not what he thought,” Lizbeth answered.

But she did! He had kissed her! She could still feel the sense of shock, the surprise and indignation which she had felt as his arms enfolded her. She had known the strength of him and then, before she could cry out or, it seemed to her, even breath, his lips possessed hers.

Never before had she known the nearness of a man and suffered his touch. She would have had her mouth like iron to defy him, but her lips betrayed her. He was like a conqueror and she could not resist him.

His kiss was unlike anything she had imagined or dreamed. It seemed in some indefinable way to strip away all her pretences and leave her vulnerable and at his mercy. It was not only physically he conquered her, but spiritually, for he took something that had never been given before. She had been kissed! She was no longer an innocent, or as young as she had been this morning.

A kiss from a stranger and a veil was wrenched away from her eyes! She saw herself not as a wild, irresponsible girl, but as a woman – a woman with a depth of feeling she had hitherto never even suspected.

Lizbeth was silent as Nanna finished arranging her hair so that it was drawn back from her forehead and set demurely under a small velvet cap. Her dress of green velvet seemed to echo the colour of her eyes and made her skin very white as it was revealed by the low-cut bodice.

She looked demure and not without dignity as she came slowly into the Great Chamber where her father, stepmother, Phillida and Rodney Hawkhurst were assembled before supper. Rodney was looking at Phillida and did not at first notice Lizbeth’s entrance and then, as Sir Harry turned towards her, he glanced up and recognised instantly the girl he caught hiding in the lilac bushes and whom he had kissed light-heartedly for spoiling his hat.

She walked towards him and he felt both embarrassed and amused.

“This is my daughter, Elizabeth,” Sir Harry announced, and two green eyes were raised to Rodney’s face.

He had the strangest feeling that this moment was important to him, though why and how he had not the slightest idea.

2

The dew was still heavy on the grass as Rodney walked from the house through the formal gardens and down towards the lakes. The cows were busy grazing the fresh spring grass and the deer lay under the trees watching him with suspicious brown eyes as he strode past them, too intent on his thoughts even to notice their presence.

He had been awake long before the first pale fingers of the dawn crept between the curtains which shrouded his windows. He had, though he was ashamed to acknowledge it to himself, been too excited to sleep well last night. It was not the excellent wines at Sir Harry’s table, nor the rich abundance of courses which had made him restless, but the knowledge that he had succeeded in his quest and what he had longed for so ardently and for so long was within his grasp.

A ship of his own! He could hardly believe that it was true. Tomorrow he would go post haste to Plymouth and set down the money which was required for the purchase of the
Sea Hawk.
So thrilled was Rodney by the thought that he had with difficulty prevented himself from springing out of his bed and then and there leaving for the coast.

Already fears were beginning to torture him. Suppose the Merchants did not keep their word and sold the
Sea Hawk
to some richer and more influential purchaser? Suppose the reports on her were not as satisfactory as he believed them to be? Suppose she was not as swift or as easily navigable as he anticipated?