An Introduction To The Eternal Collection Jubilee Edition (29 page)

How much there was to remember! The movement of the wheel beneath his hands and the wind that carried them out to sea! That moment when morning came and they saw the sails of the
Sea Hawk
coming to meet them! Lizbeth climbing aboard! He could see her face now, her eyes shining like stars, her lips parted in excitement. How lovely she was at such a time! And then with a sudden pain like the stab of a dagger, Rodney remembered her face, white and stained with tears as she shrank from the brutality of his kisses. He could feel her struggle against him, the efforts she made weak and ineffectual against his superior strength.

Now he could hear her voice pleading with him, crying for mercy. Rodney kicked savagely at an oak stool which lay in his path. Why did he have to remember such things now? She had been afraid of him after that. He had known it in the way she started a little when he came upon her unexpectedly, by the anxiety in her eyes and the way the colour rose in her cheeks.

And yet she had not been afraid to release Don Miguel from a locked cabin, to trick the guard, to remain behind and face his anger. Again Rodney kicked at the oak stool, and this time it turned over, its short, carved legs pointing in the air. He hated the Spaniard, Rodney decided, hated him. He had been too suave and good-looking, too elegant and civilised to be tolerated by a man of action such as he was himself.

And yet in justice he must recall the times when he had found Don Miguel a genial companion, when it had been almost impossible to remember his nationality. They had laughed together, yet now he hated him. He could feel again that sudden constriction within himself that he had felt when he came into the aft cabin and found Lizbeth in Don Miguel’s arms.

There had been something in the Spaniard’s attitude, the strained intensity of his bent head and encircling arms, which had robbed Rodney for the moment of the power to speak or even to move. It had not been only Don Miguel’s need for a woman or the spur of passion which had driven him to kiss Lizbeth – he loved her. Rodney was sure of that – not then, but later. Yes, Don Miguel loved Lizbeth.

It had been obvious in the way he looked at her and the caressing tone of his voice when he addressed her. Rodney had hated Don Miguel then. He had longed not once but a hundred times to challenge him to a duel, to clap him into irons, to send him below decks where Lizbeth could never see him, or to throw him overboard into some dangerous, shark-infested part of the ocean.

Yes, he had hated Don Miguel then and still did with a bitterness and a fury which he felt now could be relieved only by the news that the Spaniard was dead. Striding up and down, Rodney recaptured his fury as he had seen Don Miguel and Lizbeth together talking, laughing and whispering.

Then as he felt his anger and his hatred rise within him in a crimson flood, he suddenly knew the truth, knew why he felt like this, knew why at the thought of Don Miguel his whole body was a-tremble with the desire for revenge – it was because he himself loved Lizbeth.

He had not known it till this moment. He had not realised it until she was gone and the loss of her brought home to him what she had meant to him these past few months. He had grown so used to having her there that he had taken her presence for granted. Now he could curse himself for having been so blind, so obtuse.

It was easy to look back and see that so much of the pleasure he had experienced in capturing the
Santa
Perpetua,
in plundering the Spanish settlement, in boarding the pearling lugger, was because Lizbeth could see his success and praise his victories. He knew now that she had been at the back of his thoughts almost the whole time. On the surface he had told himself that he was annoyed with her for having tricked him in coming on the voyage, that he had no use for women on a ship and never for a moment would he waver in his determination to treat her as a boy.

But the femininity of her crept under his guard and into his consciousness. Without meaning to do so and without admitting it to himself he thought of her as Lizbeth and a woman, and it was only with the arrival of Don Miguel aboard that his hypocrisy had been shattered. He saw now that the emotion which had been aroused within him at the sight of Lizbeth in Don Miguel’s arms had been one of the oldest in the world.

It had been jealousy-sheer, unbridled jealousy – and it had driven him into being brutal to Lizbeth and imagining that he hated her as bitterly as he hated Don Miguel. How wrong and blind and idiotic he had been! He saw it all now, as, quite humbly, he acknowledged to himself the truth, that he loved her.

He wanted at that moment to go down on his knees before her and lay his face in her cool hands and ask her forgiveness. He thought of her with a tenderness and a sweetness that had never come before into their relationship with one another.

And then, as he remembered the softness of her lips, the smooth white column of her throat, the soft curves of her body and the seduction of her flaming hair, he felt the blood rise within his veins. He wanted her, he wanted her passionately and possessively as a man wants a woman. He wanted to conquer her as he had conquered so many other things, he wanted to take her into his arms and tell her fiercely that she belonged to him and to no one else.

He wished at that moment that he could cry aloud his love, his joy, his happiness. Lizbeth was his, and he would claim her before the whole world. And then as suddenly as it had arisen his elation passed. He remembered that Lizbeth was not his and never could be, for he was betrothed to Phillida.

With something suspiciously like a groan Rodney flung himself down on the chair, his brows drawn to a frown. He wondered how he could ever have contemplated marriage with a woman whom he did not love and who he was certain did not love him.

It had seemed sensible and expedient when first his godfather suggested it. It had seemed the obvious thing to do when he suggested it to her father and Sir Harry had agreed that he and Phillida should be married. Now every nerve in his body cried out against it.

Phillida would be waiting for him at Camfield and Lizbeth was her half-sister. Drumming with his fingers on the arm of the chair, Rodney sat staring into space until the twitter of the bo’sun’s pipes told him that distinguished visitors were coming aboard.

Then he had to bring his thoughts back to the present and to all that had to be done regarding the ships and their cargoes. This was no time for him to sit brooding in the cabin. Lizbeth had gone and for the moment he must put her out of his mind.

It seemed to Rodney as he rose to his feet that the glory of his return was already tarnished. It was as if the sun had gone from the sky and he felt instead the chill wind of loneliness sweep round him.

It was hard to make haste when the whole of officialdom was against it. Rodney, fretting and fuming at Plymouth, could not hurry matters more quickly than clerks could make an inventory in their spidery writing with their squeaking quill pens.

Lizbeth, waiting for him at Camfield, felt as if the delay of his arrival grew more and more intolerable as the days passed. She found it hard to concentrate on the clothes that were being made for her on her stepmother’s instructions. There were gowns of satin, brocades and velvet and embroidery finer than anything she had ever owned in the whole of her life, but somehow they seemed as shadowy as everything else that existed either in the present or in the future.

It was the past that was real, the past that she was remembering every moment of the day and night, hugging it close in her heart as if it were some secret no one could share with her. Even Phillida’s pale, frightened face and her, whispered terror of being married seemed somehow insubstantial beside her own memories of Rodney.

That he who was so virile, so endowed with vigour and enthusiasm, should have anything in common with the limp, miserable Phillida was not to be credited. Her half sister had never seemed a very strong personality to Lizbeth, and now she took on a ghost-like air as she lay weeping in the shadows of her curtained bed or knelt beseechingly at her
prie-dieu –
praying, Lizbeth knew, for deliverance from Rodney.

Even though Lizbeth was aware that her love was hopeless, she could not mope and moan as Phillida did. Love, even frustrated love, seemed to vitalise her so that she wanted to shout and laugh and clap her hands and tell the world that she loved Rodney. She knew now that one of the things they had in common was that they were both so thrillingly alive. They were both young in an age when there was adventure, excitement, fine deeds to be done and great victories to be won.

She felt that if only she could see Rodney she could tell him this, but she knew that, when he did come, she must stand aside and watch him take Phillida in his arms.

She persuaded her half-sister to rise from her bed, to come downstairs and sit by the log fire in the Great Chamber. Weak with weeping and apprehension, frail with fear, Phillida was still beautiful, Lizbeth thought with a pang. Her eyes, vividly blue against the transparency of her white skin, seemed to shine with the intensity of her feelings and the yearning of her soul for things that were of the spirit. Her hair, pale gold as the sunshine after rain, framed her face, which was pale and thin but had not lost its exquisite contours.

Yes, Phillida was beautiful, Lizbeth thought, more beautiful than when Rodney had last seen her.

Sir Harry was pressing Lizbeth to leave for London, but she dared not go from Camfield until Rodney arrived. He must know of her lies about Francis before he shattered them by a careless or unconsidered word.

From the night she had arrived she had not gone near the Keens’ house nor made any enquiries about Elita. Sometimes she wondered if the girl was starving to death behind the shutters or whether her friends had come to rescue her and had smuggled her away to Spain. Cruel though it might be, she did not care what happened. She was concerned now with preserving the honour of the family and her father’s illusions about Francis’ death.

Rodney would help her in this, she was certain of that and yet the days were passing and he did not come, while Sir Harry was afraid lest the post of Maid of Honour at Whitehall should be filled.

Lizbeth had little time to think of what awaited her when she arrived in London. She could think only of Rodney and the moment when she must see him again.

It was evening when he came – a blustering, cold night with a hint of snow in the wind. Lizbeth had been hoping that he would arrive in the daytime. She had arranged that the servants on the estate should be continually on the look-out for him, promising that they should be rewarded should they inform her before anyone else that the visitor was approaching the house, but it was impossible to arrange for them to watch at night.

They were at supper when Sir Harry was informed of Rodney’s arrival. They all hurried then from the Banqueting Hall into the Great Chamber to find Rodney already in the house, standing with his back to the fire waiting to greet them.

Lizbeth felt her heart turn over at the sight of him. She felt that she had forgotten how handsome he was, how broad of shoulder, how graceful in his movements. She watched him shake hands with her father, saw him bend over Catherine’s hand and then, as he turned towards Phillida, she shut her eyes. She could not bear to see the expression in Rodney’s face as he beheld Phillida’s pale beauty again.

She heard him say something she did not catch, and then she heard his voice, alive, gay and compelling, cry her own name,

“Lizbeth! Little Lizbeth, have you forgotten me already?”

Both her hands were in his and she was smiling up into his face, a sudden ridiculous and overwhelming joy making her oblivious of everything and everybody save that he was there.

“Rodney! Oh, Rodney!”

She found herself whispering his name; and then, even as her lips echoed the smile on his and she wondered if they all could hear the quick beating of her heart, she remembered what she had to say to him. Still holding tightly to his hands, her fingers digging into his warningly, she said,

“I have told Father about Francis!”

She saw the surprise in his face, and added quickly, “I have told how he died aboard the
Santa Perpetua
in our fight with the Spanish galleons. I have told them all how brave Francis was and how proud we were of him.”

She saw Rodney’s expression change and knew that he understood. She felt his fingers tighten on hers comfortingly, reassuringly, and then easily he turned to Sir Harry.

“ I am sorry, sir, that we had to bring you bad news as well as good.”

Sir Harry put a heavy hand on Rodney’s shoulder.

“I am proud to have given my son in such a cause.” he said. “We will speak further of it another time. We must not let our personal sadness dim the gladness you feel on your arrival here.”

Lizbeth drew a deep breath of relief, the awkward moment was passed over. Wine and fresh dishes were brought to the Banqueting Hall. It seemed to Lizbeth for a moment as she listened to Rodney talking to her father that they might once again be seated round the table in the aft cabin.

But Phillida was there listening too. There was a faint colour in her cheeks and her lips were smiling as they had not smiled for a long time.

“She will learn to love him.” Lizbeth said to herself, and was startled by the pain she experienced at the thought. Rodney was talking in the way she knew so well, gesticulating occasionally with his hands, but needing no gesture to underline the fire and purpose behind his words. Lizbeth, who had heard him so often, could see now the effect of his words on the other members of her family.

Sir Harry was leaning back in his chair, comfortably at his ease, yet attentive to everything that was said. Catherine, with her arms on the table, her chin cupped in her hands, was watching Rodney’s lips as he spoke, her eyes narrowed a little, her own mouth twisted enticingly; and Phillida was listening, While Lizbeth, watching her half-sister, saw that she was entranced by Rodney’s stories. She was leaning forward a little in her chair, the exquisite poised grace of her neck and shoulders was never shown to greater advantage. Lizbeth knew suddenly that she could bear it no more.