An Introduction To The Eternal Collection Jubilee Edition (4 page)

Such doubts and problems were enough to bring him from his bed to the open window. He drew back the curtains and looked out. For a moment he did not see the garden below him, the great trees bursting into bud and the birds twittering from bush to bush, but instead he saw a grey, empty horizon and fixed his eyes on that indefinable point where the sea meets the sky.

How often had he watched for hours, days and weeks, longing for the first sign of an approaching ship which might prove a prize. The lowing of a cow recalled him to the knowledge that he was not yet at sea but in a rich guest-chamber where the silk curtains were embroidered by hand and the furniture polished until it shone almost as brilliantly as the mirror of burnished metal.

He dressed then and, creeping silently from his room, let himself out of the house before there was any sign of anyone else stirring. As he walked across the park, his mind was already busy with calculations of what he would require to provision his ship and, what was more important still, how he should man her.

It was not going to be easy to find the right crew with Drake and a dozen other redoubtable commanders laying hands on all the best men, especially those with experience. But somehow, now that the night was past, Rodney could not be cast down for long by the thought of the difficulties which lay ahead.

It was in itself such a miracle that the most difficult part of his task was achieved – the raising of the money for the ship itself. He might have appeared confident enough of his success, but underneath there had always lain with him the fear of failure. His god-father, Sir Francis Walsingham, had been kinder than he had dared to hope. Rodney had not realised until he arrived at Whitehall that every adventurous sailor could count on the Secretary of State’s backing and support. Ill-health kept Sir Francis at his desk, but there, tortured by recurring attacks of the stone, he had, as so often happens with sick people, an insatiable desire for war and violence. The prudence of Burleigh and the unceasing manoeuvres of the Queen to keep peace with Spain troubled and distressed him.

He believed that the only way to deal with Spain was to fight and conquer her. He had helped Drake with all the influence that lay within his power and he was equally ready to help Rodney, although he had decided at that particular moment to do no more than put his hand in his pocket towards the cost of the ship.

Drake was in favour again with the Queen and although publicly she still held out the hand of peace towards Philip of Spain, she was giving to the man whom the Spanish Ambassador had called “The Master Thief of the World” a fleet of ships with which he could challenge the growing might of the Armada.

It was not the moment, Sir Francis Walsingham knew, to introduce another interest in the shape of a good looking, attractive young man. The Queen, however much she tried to close her eyes to the truth, had her hands full with the preparation for war.

There was time enough for Rodney to come to Court when things were not so tense or so turbulent as they were at the moment. Accordingly, Sir Francis gave his god-son two thousand pounds, his blessing, and an introduction to Sir Harry Gillingham.

Six thousand pounds in all – Rodney wondered with a sudden, piercing anxiety whether it would be enough. Had he under-estimated what he would require? And then swiftly the worry that had come to him disappeared again. What did anything matter – provisions, hardship, even hunger, so long as he could know that the ship was his and he could be at sea, sailing across the white-topped waves of the Atlantic Ocean?

“Are you dreaming of a woman or your ship?” a gay voice asked him.

He started violently as he turned to see behind him Lizbeth perched upon the saddle of a white horse. She was in the shadow of a chestnut tree and so intent had he been on his thoughts that he would have walked right past her had she not spoken to him.

“My ship!” he replied and found himself smiling in response to the smile on her lips.

“I thought so,” she answered. “Poor Phillida!”

There was something mocking in her voice which made him flush almost angrily.

“The two are indivisible,” he said quickly, “for on the success of my sailing depends the comfort and luxury of Phillida’s future.

Even as he spoke he cursed himself for being so weak as to explain himself to this girl. And as if she sensed his irritation, she laughed softly, then with a quickness he had not anticipated she dismounted from her horse’s back.

She was dressed for riding like a boy, in a doublet, short breeches, and long brown boots fitting close to the legs and reaching up to her thighs. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes sparkling, and her hair was like a fiery halo above her white forehead.

“Come,” she said gaily, “I will show you a wild duck’s nest. The chicks have just hatched out. Everything is very early this year, but that is to be expected.”

“Why in particular?” Rodney asked.

“Surely you know the prophecies that this year of 1588 is to be a year of wonders! Old Amos, who will be ninety next birthday, says local people have talked of it since he was a boy, and Widow Bellew, who lives in a cottage on the other side of the wood and who everyone says is a witch, prophesies that great marvels will come to pass and England will prove herself the greatest country in the world.”

“Let us pray such tales come true,” Rodney said, and he was not laughing, for like all seafaring men he was incurably superstitious.

“They say, too, that Her Majesty’s astrologer, Dr. Dee, has told of these things to the Queen’s Grace,” Lizbeth went on.

They had reached the edge of the lake by now and she pulled back some rushes to point to the wild duck’s nest of which she had spoken. There were a dozen chicks, bright-eyed and open-beaked precariously near the water’s edge.

“Are they not sweet?” Lizbeth asked.

But Rodney was thinking of something else. He was wondering how the prophecies of which Lizbeth had spoken would affect him personally. He had known, when he sailed with Drake, how tremendously luck, either good or bad, could affect a ship’s company, how fanatically the men believed in good omens; how even the strongest of them shivered at the thought of witchcraft. He had half a mind to ask Elizabeth where this woman who was reported to be a witch lived, and then, as he thought of it, she turned from contemplation of the wild duck’s nest to look straight into his face.

She was much smaller than he was so that she must look up to him, and yet as her eyes met his he had the impression that she was taller and stronger than he had imagined her to be. It was not a mischievous or teasing child who looked at him, but a woman who, in her glance, held some eternal wisdom at which he could only guess.

“You will succeed,” she said quietly. “Why are you so troubled?”

“I am not – ” he began blusteringly, and then his voice died away beneath the honesty of her eyes.

“You will succeed,” she said again. “I am sure of it. I have seen many men come here to talk to my father and somehow I have always known those who would return successful or empty-handed. Last year someone came who, I was sure, would not come again. I was right!

“But how do you know this?” Rodney asked.

“I cannot answer that question,” Lizbeth replied, “but I have always known things about people since I was a little child. I used to be whipped for telling lies until I learned to keep my mouth shut and say nothing. I only know that what I see about people comes true.”

“And you are sure I shall be successful?” Rodney asked earnestly.

“With your ship, yes,” Lizbeth answered, “but perhaps not in other ways”

“What do you mean by that?” he asked quickly, impressed despite himself.

But Lizbeth had turned away and was walking back to where she had left her horse cropping the grass. She walked quickly so that he had to hasten to catch her up. As he reached her, he put out his hand and taking her by the shoulder, swung her round to face him, and then, as be looked at her, the words died on his lips.

She was only a child. He was making himself ridiculous in taking her seriously. Her hat had fallen from her head and hung down her back, secured round her neck by a brown ribbon which should have been tied demurely under her chin. Her hair was curling rebelliously round her forehead and it had escaped the nape of her neck from the pins which secured it.

She was only a child – an untidy child who should be at home studying her lessons rather than roaming unattended through the woods at this early hour of the morning. Rodney released her shoulder and put his hand under her chin, tipping her face up to his.

“You almost deceived me into taking your predictions seriously,” he said. “Come, it is time we went back to the house.”

Her chin was smooth and soft beneath his fingers. For one moment she looked at him and then her lashes veiled her green eyes and she twisted from his hold.

“Breakfast and Phillida will be waiting,” she said.

“Yes, of course, and I am hungry,” Rodney replied with a false heartiness.

Lizbeth turned to her horse and then, as she took the bridle reins between her fingers, Rodney set his hands on either side of her small waist and swung her up into the saddle.

“You are light enough,” he said, looking up at her. “How old are you, Lizbeth?”

“I shall be eighteen next Christmas,” she replied, and he looked surprised, for he thought she was younger.

She wheeled her horse round and before Rodney had time to say more she galloped away across the park in what he knew to be the direction of the stables.

Slowly he walked back the way he had come. So Lizbeth was nearly eighteen, he thought, and her brother Francis was a year or two older. He remembered Sir Harry telling him that last night, which meant that Phillida was twenty-one or twenty-two. He did not know why, but the idea annoyed him. She was old for an unmarried girl and he wondered why, with her exquisite beauty, she had not been married before.

It was one of those questions to which he realised he would not get an answer because there was no one to whom he could put it, and yet it troubled him persistently, like the buzzing of a mosquito. A lovely girl, with a rich father, near enough to London to be assured of the company of many young men – it was extraordinary, whatever way one looked at it, that someone like Phillida had not been betrothed before.

Then he remembered the glances that Lady Gillingham had given him and the manner in which she had shown all too clearly that she was not particularly interested in either of her step-daughters. That, of course, was the explanation! Rodney felt the frown easing from between his eyes. Catherine Gillingham had kept both Phillida and Lizbeth in the background and had done nothing to help their chances of matrimony.

Something that had happened at supper came to Rodney’s mind. He had turned to Lizbeth who was sitting silent at the other side of the table and asked.

“Why are you called Lizbeth?”

“I was christened Elizabeth,” she said, “but found it a difficult name to pronounce as soon as I could talk. My mother had the same name and it was thought to be too complicated to have two of us answering when somebody called “Elizabeth” Now it does not matter, I am the only one left.”

As she spoke, she looked up the table at her stepmother as if she challenged Catherine, and the older woman must answer her.

“One Lizbeth is, I assure you, quite enough to bear with.”

The words were spoken lightly, but there was a touch of steel behind them and Rodney saw that in response Lizbeth was smiling that mischievous, mocking smile which he knew had been directed at him when she came into the Great Chamber earlier in the evening.

It was as if she had known that he was embarrassed at finding her a daughter of the house rather than the lodge keeper’s daughter. At the same time she had made it a bond between them, a secret bond, so that instead of saying openly they had met before they greeted each other formally as if they were strangers.

Phillida’s beauty delighted him, and yet, again and again during supper, he found himself watching Lizbeth. Her face was unexpected. It was pretty and yet there was so much more in it than mere prettiness. Her voice, too, was engaging. He found himself listening while she was talking with her brother, a languid youth to whom Rodney took an instantaneous dislike.

He was not alone in this, he discovered, for later Sir Harry spoke disparagingly and almost apologetically of his son.

“He likes writing poems! Poems! God’s truth, at his age I was full-blooded – either chasing a woman or seeking an opportunity for a fight. I know not what the young men of today are coming to, but an ode to a bullfinch was never my idea of amusement!”

“Nor mine, sir,” Rodney agreed.

He could detect anger and a sense of frustration behind Sir Harry’s voice. He could understand what a bitter disappointment such a son must be to a man who had always lived rapaciously and to a great degree gluttonously; yet there was a vitality and strength about Sir Harry which made Rodney understand why so many people compared him with the late monarch.

He had a vast sense of humour and when something amused him his laughter would seem to come from the very depths of his protruding stomach. He would stand with his legs apart, his hands resting where his hips had once been, and he would throw back his head and the roar of his laughter would go echoing round the room. One would understand then that he enjoyed life, that living was to him a continuous feast of experience and interest.

Little wonder then that he found it difficult to understand a son languid and effeminate, whose interest was in scribbling on parchment with a quill pen.

There was another side to Sir Harry too. He was shrewd where money was concerned and with regard to obtaining an advantage for himself. Just before they retired for the night Rodney had caught a gleam in his host’s eye as he spoke of the marriage settlement which must be made upon Phillida before the actual ceremony took place.

It was then, for a fleeting second, that Rodney had regretted that he had been so precipitate. There had been no reluctance on Sir Harry’s part to give his daughter’s hand to a man of whom he knew nothing save that he was the god-son of an old friend. Rodney had a sense of disappointment that it had not been difficult. He would like to have fought for Phillida as he had fought all his life for something he desired, and while he told himself he had still to gain her love, he was conscious of feeling cheated and also of being suspicious of Sir Harry’s motives, whereas before he had believed him to be overwhelmingly generous.