Beauvallet (7 page)

There was silence. Don Manuel turned his head away on the pillow and brushed the sheet with one restless hand. ‘Señor,’ he said at last, ‘if you were not an enemy and a heretic, I would choose to give my daughter to just such a one as you.’ He smiled faintly at the quick surprise in Beauvallet's face. ‘Ay, señor, but you are both these things, and it is impossible. Impossible!’

‘Señor, a word I do not know. I have warned you. Take what precaution you will, but whether you are quick or dead, I shall have your daughter, in spite of anything you may do.’

‘Sir Nicholas, you have a brave spirit, and that I like in you. I have no need to take precautions, for you could never penetrate into Spain.’

‘God be my witness, señor, I shall penetrate.’

‘You must needs be foresworn, señor. At sea you may be a match for us, but how might you dare face all Spain in Spain itself ?’

‘I shall certainly dare, señor,’ said Sir Nicholas calmly.

Don Manuel seemed to shrug his shoulders. ‘I see, señor, there is to be no ho with you. You may be but an idle boaster, or a madman, as they say – I know not. I could wish you were a Spaniard. There is no more to say.’

Five

D
on manuel took an early opportunity of finding out, as he imagined, what were his daughter's feelings. He asked her without preamble how she liked Sir Nicholas. God knows what the poor gentleman thought to get from her.

‘Very ill, señor,’ said she.

‘I fear me,’ said Don Manuel, closely watching her, ‘that he likes you too well, child.’

Dominica perceived that she was being tested, and achieved a scornful laugh. ‘Unhappy man! But it's an impertinence.’

Don Manuel was entirely satisfied. Liking Beauvallet well enough himself he could even be sorry that his daughter had conceived so vehement a distaste for him. ‘I am sorry that he is what he is,’ he said. ‘I could find it in me to like a man of his mettle.’

‘A boaster,’ said Dominica, softly scornful.

‘One would say so indeed. But before we set sail, Dominica, methought you made some sort of a hero of him in your mind. You were always eager to hear tell of his deeds.’

‘I had not met him then, señor,’ Dominica answered primly.

Don Manuel smiled. ‘Well, he is a wild fellow. I am glad you have sense enough to see it. But use him gently, child, for we stand somewhat beholden to him. He swears to set us ashore
in Spain, and
madre de dios!
I believe he will do it, though how I know not.’

The upshot of all this was to make Dominica curious to know Beauvallet's plans. She tackled Master Dangerfield about it that very evening as he played cards with her in the stateroom, and demanded to know what his general had in mind. Master Dangerfield professed ignorance, and was not believed. ‘What!’ said my lady, incredulous. ‘I am not to suppose you are not in his confidence, señor, surely! It is just that you will not tell me.’

‘Upon my oath, señora, no!’ Dangerfield assured her. ‘Sir Nicholas keeps his counsel. Ask your question of him: he will tell you, I doubt not.’

‘Oh, I desire to have no traffic with him,’ said my lady, and applied herself to the cards again.

There came soon enough what she had hoped to hear: a bluff voice, a brisk tread, a laugh echoing along the alleyway. The door was flung open; Beauvallet came in, with a word tossed over his shoulder for someone outside. ‘Save you, lady!’ quoth he. ‘Diccon, there is a trifle of business calls you. Give me your cards; I will endeavour.’

Dangerfield gave up his cards at once, and bowed excuses to the lady. As always, Beauvallet left her without a word to say. Truth to tell she was glad to have him in Dangerfield's stead, but why could he not ask her permission?

He sat down in Dangerfield's chair; Dangerfield, with his hand on the door, paused to say, smiling: ‘Dona Dominica hath all the luck, sir, as you shall find.’

‘And you none, Diccon. I may believe it. But I will back myself against her. Away with you.’ He flicked a card out from his hand, and smiled across the table at Dominica. ‘To the death, lady!’

Dona Dominica played to his lead in silence. He won the encounter at length. She bit her lip, but took it with a good grace.
‘Yes, señor, you win.’ She watched him playing with the cards, and folded her hands. ‘I shall not pit my skill against yours.’

Sir Nicholas put down the pack. ‘Then let us talk a little,’ he said. ‘It likes me much better. How does Don Manuel find himself ?’

A shadow crossed her face. ‘I think him very sick, señor. I have to thank you for sending your surgeon to visit him.’

‘No need of that.’

‘My father tells me,’ Dominica said, ‘that you have sworn to set us ashore in Spain. Pray, how may you accomplish that?’

‘Very simply,’ Sir Nicholas replied. He held his pomander to his nose, and over it his eyes twinkled at her.

‘Well, señor, and how?’ She was impatient. ‘I’ve no desire to witness another fight at sea.’

‘Nor shall you, fondling. What, do you suppose that Nick Beauvallet would expose you to the risks Narvaez courted? Shame on you!’

‘Señor, are you so mad as to suppose that you can sail into a Spanish port without a shot being fired?’

‘By no means, child. If I did so foolish a thing I might expect a veritable hailstorm of shot about my head.’ He threw one leg over the other, and continued to sniff at his pomander.

‘I see, señor, you have no mind to confide in me,’ said Dominica stiffly.

His shoulders shook. ‘Do I not answer your questions? You would know more? Then ask me prettily, O my Lady Disdain!’

Her eyes fell; she tried a change of front to see what might come of it. ‘You have the right to flout me, señor. I am aware that I stand beholden to you. Yet I think you might use me kindlier.’

The pomander fell. ‘Good lack!’ said Beauvallet, startled. ‘What's this?’ He uncrossed his legs and stretched a hand to her across the table. ‘Let there be no such talk betwixt us two, child. Yet stand in no way beholden to me. Say that I do what
I do to please myself, and cry a truce!’ The smile crept into his eyes. ‘Do I flout you? Now I had thought that was your part.’

‘I am helpless in your hands, señor,’ said Dominica mournfully. ‘If it pleases you to make a mock of me you may do so without hindrance.’

This failed somewhat of its purpose. ‘Child, in a little I shall be constrained to set you on my knee and kiss you,’ said Beauvallet.

‘I am helpless,’ she repeated, and would not look up.

A quick frown came. He rose from his chair and came to kneel beside hers. ‘Now what's your meaning, Dominica? Are you so cowed, so submissive?’ He caught a glimpse of the flash in her eyes, and laughed. ‘Oh, pretty cheat!’ he said softly. ‘If I dared to touch you you would be swift to strike.’

Her lip quivered irrepressibly; she looked through her lashes. He took her hand and kissed it. ‘Well, what is it you would have me tell you?’ he asked.

‘If you please,’ she said meekly, ‘where will you set us ashore?’

‘Some few miles to the west of Santander, sweetheart. There is a smuggling village there will receive us peaceably.’

‘Smugglers!’ She looked up. ‘Oh, so you are that, too? I might have known.’

‘Nay, nay, acquit me,’ he smiled. ‘Look scorn instead upon my fat boatswain. He is the blame. He was for many years in the trade, and I believe knows every smuggling port in Europe. We may sail softly in under cover of night, set you ashore, and be gone again before dawn.’

There was a pause. Dominica looked up at the arms on the wall, and said slowly: ‘And so ends the adventure.’

Sir Nicholas rose to his feet again. ‘Do you think so, indeed?’

She was grave. ‘In spite of brave words, señor, I think so. Once in Spain I shall be free – free of you!’

He set his hand on his hip; his other hand played with his beard. She should have been wary, but she did not know
him so well as did his men. ‘Lady,’ said Beauvallet, and she jumped at the note of strong purpose in his voice, ‘the first of my name, the founder of my house, had, so we read, another watchword than that.’ His hand flew out and pointed to the scroll beneath his arms. ‘There is an old chronicle writ by one Alan, afterwards Earl of Montlice, wherein we learn that Simon, the first Baron of Beauvallet, took as his motto these words: “
I have not, but still I hold
”.’ His voice rang out, and died again.

‘Well, señor?’ faltered Dominica.

‘I have you not yet, but be sure I hold you,’ said Beauvallet.

She rallied. ‘This is folly.’

‘Sweet folly.’

‘I do not believe that you would dare set foot in Spain.’

‘God's Death, do you not? But if I dare, indeed?’

She looked down at her clasped hands.

‘Come! If I dare? If I reach you in Spain, and claim you then? What answer shall I have?’

She was flushed, and her breast rose and fell fast. ‘Ah, if there were a man brave enough to dare so much for love – !’

‘He stands before you. What will you give him?’

She got up, a hand at her bosom. ‘If he dared so much – I should have to give – myself, señor.’

‘Remember that promise!’ he warned her. ‘You shall be called upon to redeem it before a year is out.’

She looked fearfully at him. ‘But how? how?’

‘Dear heart,’ said Beauvallet frankly, ‘I do not know, but I shall certainly find a way.’

‘Oh, an idle boast!’ she cried, and went quickly to the door. His voice stayed her; she paused and looked back over her shoulder. ‘Well, señor, what more?’

‘My pledge,’ Beauvallet said, and slipped a ring from his finger. ‘Keep Beauvallet's ring until Beauvallet comes to claim it.’

She took it, half unwilling. ‘What need of this?’

‘No need, but to remind you, maybe. Keep it close.’

It had his arms engraven upon it, a gold piece, heavy and cunningly wrought. ‘I will keep it always,’ she said, ‘to remind me of – a madman.’

He smiled. ‘Oh, not always, sweetheart! A pledge is sometimes redeemed – even by a madman.’

‘Not this one,’ she said on a sigh, and went out.

It seemed to her in the days that followed that Spain drew near all too soon. They had fair weather, and for the most part a favourable wind to bear them home. The Canaries were reached in good time, and Dominica saw adventure's end in sight. She was gentler now with her impetuous wooer, but aloof still, refusing to believe him. She let him teach her English words, and lisped them after him prettily. She forbore to entangle Master Dangerfield in her wiles: time was too short and romance too sweet. Maybe she would have been glad enough, saving only her father's presence, to be borne off to England, a conqueror's prize, but if she had doubted Beauvallet's good faith at first these doubts were soon lulled. He meant certainly to take her to Spain. She had both a sigh and a smile for that, but it is certain that she honoured him for it. For the rest she might not know what to believe. The man talked in a heroic vein, and seemed to be undisturbed by any doubt of his own omnipotence. He would have a poor maid believe him little less than God. Well, one was not so poor a maid as that. Maybe it pleased his strange, braggart fancy to cut a fine figure; surely he would forget just as soon as he set foot on English soil.

Dona Dominica had to admit her heart assailed dangerously. A certain smile haunted her dreams, and would not be banished. Yet he was a hardy rogue, surely. She could not say what there was in him to seize her fancy; he used no courtier tricks, no
elegant subtleties. You would have no dropped knee, no sighs, no fashionable languishings from Beauvallet. He would have an arm about a maid's waist before she was aware, snatch a kiss, and be off again on his adventures. Oh, merry ruffler! He was too direct, thought my lady, too swift, employed no gentle arts in his wooing. She played with the idea that he was like a strong wind, vigorous, salt-tanged. He had no repose; he must be here and there, restless, so charged with vitality that it almost seemed to brim over. See, too, his challenging eyes, wickedly inviting under the down-dropped lids! Shame! Shame that one should know an answering leap of the heart! He would swing past along the deck, a hand on his hip, careless, heedless; one was bound to watch him, willy-nilly. He might stop beside his Master a brief while; his quick, gay speech would be borne back to one in snatches on the wind; one would see him fling out a pointing hand, give a decisive shake to his neat black head, crack some jest to set the Master chuckling, and be off down the companion to mingle amongst his men.

It seemed they held him in some esteem, no little awe. No good came of an attempt to trifle with Sir Nicholas Beauvallet. He was a leader to love, but one to fear withal. Dona Dominica, catching at new-learned English words, heard stray comments, enough to show her what Beauvallet's men thought of him. They thought him a rare jest, she gathered, and pondered over the strange mentality of these English, who spent their time in laughing. They did not behave thus in Spain.

And Spain, with its courtly propriety, its etiquette, and its solemn grandeur, grew nearer and ever nearer. Mad days at sea were nearly done now, and adventure was coming to an end. Don Manuel, reclining on his pillows, spoke of duennas; my lady hid a shudder and turned wistful eyes towards Beauvallet. To one reared in the freedom of the New World trammels of the Old would not be welcome. Don Manuel said severely that
he had permitted his daughter too great a license. Faith, the girl thought for herself, was pert, he doubted, and certainly head-strong. As witness her behaviour on board the
Santa Maria.
A maid surprised by piratical marauders should have stood passive, a frozen statue of martyrdom. A daughter of Spain had no business to kick, and bite, and scratch, or to brandish daggers and spit venom upon her captors. Don Manuel had been shocked indeed, but knew her well enough to forbear comment. He trusted that his sister would find a strict duenna to govern her. He had marriage plans in mind, too, and hinted as much to her. He would see her safely bestowed, he said, and drew a fine picture of her future life. Dona Dominica listened in growing horror, and escaped from her father's cabin to the free air above.