An Introduction To The Eternal Collection Jubilee Edition (28 page)

Lizbeth knew what she was going to say and interrupted her.

“Rodney is a wonderful person, Phillida,” she said. “You must make up your mind to marry him. I have been with him these past few months and I know there is no one like him in the whole world.”

She could not help the throb which came into her voice as she spoke but she hoped that Phillida, sunk in her misery, had not noticed it.

“And what of Francis?” Phillida asked suddenly. “Has the voyage made a man of him?”

Just for a moment Lizbeth hesitated. Then she told Phillida, as she had told her father, that Francis had died in action against the Spaniards.

“May his soul and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace,” Phillida prayed, and added: “I know you loved your brother, Lizbeth. His death must have been a great sorrow to you.”

Lizbeth rose to her feet. She felt as if she could bear no further talk of Francis. It was hard enough to know the ache within herself without having other people speak of it.

“I must go and bathe,” she said, “and change my clothes.”

“I am thankful you are home, Lizbeth,” Phillida said, “But in a way, it makes things worse – it brings nearer – ”

Her voice broke. She could not bring herself to say the word “marriage”.

Lizbeth suddenly felt impatient with her half-sister’s tears and shrinking. If only she herself could marry Rodney, instead of the reluctant Phillida, yearning for the cold loneliness of a convent cell.

“I must go,” Lizbeth said. “Father is waiting for me.”

She was free at last, running swiftly to her room to find her Nanna awaiting her but perhaps because she was tired and because her heart seemed to be torn in a thousand different ways, instead of greeting her with a smile, she flung her arms round the old woman and burst into tears.

“There, there, dearie,” Nanna said, “’tis the excitement of coming home. And you’ve had a deal to put up with, I’ll be bound. Not but what you deserve – a-rushing off like that and giving us all a turn when we heard as how you’d sailed with Master Francis.”

“Was everyone very surprised?” Lizbeth asked, smiling in spite of herself through her tears.

“We were all agape,” Nanna answered. “Sir Harry was bellowing downstairs like a bull and her Ladyship trying to soothe him down, and as for Mistress Phillida, she went white as a sheet when she heard you wasn’t coming back. It may be that which made her take to her bed, I wouldn’t be surprised. But there, she always was a deep one and you never can be sure of what she’s thinking.”

Lizbeth sat down in a chair and Nanna began to take off her riding-boots.

“Now, tell me all about it, dearie,” she said as she worked, “and how did Master Francis get along with all those rough sailors?”

It was then Lizbeth realised that her ordeal was not over. Nanna had to be told about Francis, and the old nurse wept bitterly to think that her baby was dead and she would never see him again.

It was easy to tell a lie, Lizbeth thought, but hard to sustain one. So many people would want to talk of Francis, and having made him into a hero, she had got to support the picture with tales of heroism that must go on for ever.

She realised suddenly that she was tired to the point of exhaustion. It had been a long, hard ride from Plymouth and with the restlessness of her own thoughts she had not spared herself or the servants who accompanied her. Now her body was beginning to take revenge on her. She wanted more than anything else to slip between the cool linen sheets of her bed and be alone with her own thoughts.

But she knew that tonight that was impossible. Her father would be bitterly disappointed if she did not go downstairs to tell him more of the voyage and sit up, perhaps until the early hours of the morning, chatting, about the cargo, the battle against the Spaniards, and of Francis’ death.

Lizbeth thought of Elita then – alone with her terror in the darkness of the empty house, yet try as she would, she could not feel sorry for her. She had seen and heard what the Queen meant to such men as Rodney. They were ready to die for England and for Gloriana, and it was not to be endured that people like Dr. Keen and his daughter should plot and scheme to destroy that which they valued so highly.

Lizbeth went slowly downstairs in a dress of green velvet trailing over the polished boards behind her. It felt strange to be a woman again, to feel the softness of the velvet against her skin, and the nakedness of her low-cut dress seemed indecent after months of wearing a ruff. Nanna had exclaimed at the shortness of her hair, but Lizbeth had made the excuse that it was too hot in the Caribbean Sea to wear her hair longer, and now that it was braided and held with pearl-headed pins, it was hard to realise that it had ever been cut to make her look like a boy.

As she had expected, her father and stepmother were sitting waiting for her in the Great Chamber.

“Your skin is freckled,” Catherine remarked critically, as Lizbeth sat down beside them in front of the big log fire.

“I am ashamed of both my nose and my hands,” she answered laughingly.

“We will prepare a lotion of cucumbers and calamine flowers tomorrow,” Catherine promised. “You cannot go to Whitehall looking like a kitchen wench.”

“I have spoken with Phillida, Father, Lizbeth said, “and I will take her place but I cannot leave before Rodney has returned. He will be here very shortly and I wish to see him again before I go to London.”

“Have you not seen enough of him these past months?” Sir Harry asked cheerfully.

“It is not a matter of that,” Lizbeth answered coolly, well aware that Catherine was looking at her suspiciously. “There were certain arrangements made during the voyage regarding some of the crew which he asked me to keep in mind. I had no chance to remind him of these before I left Plymouth, but I thought it of little consequence as I was certain to be seeing him here in a very short time. Now you tell me I am to go to London. I am ready to go, only after I have seen Rodney Hawkhurst.”

“Very well, very well, I have already sent a message saying that Phillida is indisposed, and a few days more will not matter one way or another,” Sir Harry conceded.

“And we shall need time to make Lizbeth some gowns,” Catherine said.

“ Gowns! That’s all you women think about,” Sir Harry roared. “But have it your own way. The day after Hawkhurst arrives Lizbeth can leave for Whitehall.”

“Thank you, Father,” Lizbeth said, “and now what else shall I tell you about the voyage?”

She had got her own way. Francis’ memory was saved so long as she could speak to Rodney Hawkhurst before he saw the others and yet to be honest with herself, she knew that her relief and joy at having gained this concession from her father was not only because she revered the memory of her brother. She wanted, too, to see Rodney.

All the way from Plymouth her heart had ached with the thought of him and she had missed his presence more than she believed possible. Child-like she had thought that the ache would pass when she got home. It was almost as if she ran to Camfield as she might have run to a mother’s arms for healing and for comfort.

But now she was here, she knew that she still yearned agonisingly for the man she had left behind. She knew then, as she had known really all the time, that nothing and nobody could help her to forget her love. It was an indivisible part of her, she lived and breathed, dreamed and woke to nothing else.

Love, love for Rodney, love for her future brother-in-law . It was in some ways a painful joy to be able to talk of him, to sit in the Great Chamber holding both Sir Harry and Catherine spellbound with her tales of the Caribbean Sea and of the voyage there and back.

She could hear her own voice talking on and on as the hours passed; and now she was no longer tired, but lost in a world of her own, a world in which Rodney was the Captain and she a part of his ship’s company. She spoke of Don Miguel and followed him into the darkness of the Canary Islands. It was easy to gloss over the reasons why he had escaped, more difficult to wrench her own thoughts from that moment when Rodney had accused her of loving him.

She could see again the anger in his eyes, the fury of his square chin and tightened lips. She wondered sometimes as she talked whether Catherine and her father would notice discrepancies in her story, the sudden gaps when she dared tell no more, the moments when she must shy away from the personal dramas which loomed up now as big and important in her mind as the ships they had captured and the battles they had fought.

But Sir Harry and Catherine were as entranced as children listening to a fairy story. Sir Harry’s eyes were bright and he rubbed his hands at the thought of the dividends that would soon be paid him. Catherine wanted to be told again and again about the silks and perfumes aboard the
Santa Perpetua
and the pearls which Rodney had taken from the Spanish lugger.

“I must go to bed,” Lizbeth sighed at length.

It was no use denying the tiredness of her body any further. It was nearly two o’clock and she knew that she could talk no more, but must sleep even though her life depended on keeping awake.

“Be off with you, then.” Sir Harry cried. “I am glad to have you back, my child, and I am proud of you – as proud as if you had been my son.”

Again there was that strange expression in his eyes, but Lizbeth was too tired to worry about it. She curtsied to him, kissed Catherine perfunctorily as women who really dislike each other manage to do with a superficial show of affection. Then at last she reached the sanctuary of her own room and Nanna was there to undress her.

With her eyes half-closed, she crept into bed; but perversely, when the candles were out, sleep eluded her. She could only see Elita shaking and chattering in her terror and hear her voice saying over and over again that Francis was dead. Yes, Francis whom she had promised to protect and care for, was dead. He had died the death of a traitor, having been hanged, drawn and quartered.

13

It was some hours after the
Santa Perpetua
and the
Sea Hawk
had arrived at Plymouth before Rodney realised that Lizbeth had gone.

He saw to the mooring of the ship, interviewed numerous officials, told the story of his voyage a dozen times, and had his hand shaken again and again by people he had never seen before and whom he felt would have had little interest in him had his voyage not proved successful.

Finally the tumult and excitement died down a little and when Hapley told him that dinner was served he walked into the aft cabin expecting to find Lizbeth waiting for him. He had refused several invitations to eat ashore, saying that first he must make arrangements for the removal of the cargo.

Feasting and celebration banquets lay ahead of him, and for the moment he wanted nothing more elaborate than a meal of the salt pork he had found so monotonous on the voyage.

He was feeling depressed as he came into the aft cabin, for he realised that this was perhaps his last meal aboard the
Santa Perpetua.
Ungainly, over-ornamented and hard to handle after the
Sea Hawk,
he had yet grown fond of her and now as a prize ship she would doubtless be taken into the Queen’s service or bought by some rich company of merchants.

It was sad to think that he would never sail in her again and he wondered if Lizbeth would feel the same about her. Even as he thought of Lizbeth, he realised that she was not there, and at the same time he saw that the table was laid with only one place and that was his own.

“Where is Master Gillingham?” he asked Hapley. “Master Gillingham left several hours ago, sir.”

“Left, where for?”

“I’ve no idea, sir. He went ashore. He said good-bye to me!”

There was a reminiscent smile on Hapley’s face which told Rodney that Lizbeth had tipped him well. Suddenly angry, he seated himself in the big armchair that Hapley held out for him and drummed his fingers on the table.

So Lizbeth had gone without a word, without a farewell. He felt incensed at the way she had slipped away. He thought now he wanted to talk to her, to plan what they should say to Sir Harry. It was inconsiderate, Rodney decided; and then quite unexpectedly his anger and irritation changed into a sense of loss.

It was not surprising that he should miss her, he thought to himself. He had grown used to seeing her small oval face on his right at meals, her red hair brilliant against the dark walls of the cabin, her eyes, bright and vivid in their unexpected colour as some precious jewel, raised to his.

He thought now that the many meals they had had together had been extremely pleasant ones. He could remember how Lizbeth’s laugh had rung out clear and musical when something which had been said amused her.

Petulantly Rodney pushed his plate away from him. He was not hungry, eating alone had a corrective effect on his appetite. He wanted to ask Lizbeth what she thought of their reception at Plymouth. He wanted to tell her of the compliments which had been paid him by the officials who had hurried down to welcome the ships. There were so many things that he would have liked to recount to her, to see her reaction by the expression on her face.

He drank down a glass of wine and waved Hapley away when he would have brought him more to eat. He walked across the cabin and thought again how loath he was to leave the
Santa Perpetua.
It was not only the luxury and comfort of her. It was something deeper and more fundamental, as if in the short time he had commanded her she had become a part of his life.

Perhaps that would be true of every voyage and of every ship he commanded, but this was his first experience of the nostalgia which more experienced Captains would have told him was an inevitable reaction on reaching port.

Rodney walked across the cabin again. He was remembering that moment of excitement when he and his men had climbed on board the
Santa Perpetua.
He could experience once more the exertion of his strength as he struck his dagger into the back of the Spanish sentry watching the festivities ashore. He could feel the man’s breath hot against his hand as he closed it hard over his mouth.