The King's General (6 page)

"Now what have you to tell me?" he said, for all the world as though it were I who had demanded the interview and not he.

I then recounted my disgrace, and how my brother and sister-in-law had sent me packing home from Plymouth, and it seemed as if I must now be treated as a prisoner in my own home.

"And it is no use your coming here again," I added, "for my mother will never let me see you. It seems you are a person of ill repute."

"How so?" he demanded.

"You are constantly in debt; those were her words."

"The Grenviles are never not in debt. It is the great failing of the family. Even Bevil has to borrow from the Jews."

"You are a sore trial to him and to all your relatives."

"On the contrary, it is they who are a sore trial to me. I can seldom get a penny out of them. What else did your mother say?"

"That it showed want of delicacy to come here asking to see me when my brothers are from home."

"She is wrong. It showed great cunning, born of long experience."

"And as for your gallantry in the field, she knows nothing about that."

"I hardly suppose she does. Like all mothers, it is my gallantry in other spheres that concerns her at the present."

"I don't know what you mean," I said.

"Then you have less perception than I thought," he answered, and, loosening his hold upon the branch, he flicked at the collar of my gown. "You have an earwig running down your bosom," he said.

I drew back, disconcerted, the abrupt change from the romantic to the prosaic putting me out of countenance.

"I believe my mother to be right," I said stiffly. "I think there is very little to be gained from our further acquaintance, and it would be best to put an end to it now." It was difficult to show dignity in my cramped position, but I made some show to sitting upright and braced back my shoulders.

"You cannot descend unless I let you," he said, and in truth I was locked there, with his legs across the branch.

"The moment is opportune to teach you Spanish," he murmured.

"I have no wish to learn it," I answered.

Then he laughed and, taking my face in his hands, he kissed me very suddenly, which, being a novelty to me and strangely pleasant, rendered me for a few moments incapable of speech or action. I turned away my head and began to play with the blossoms.

"You can go now if you desire it," he said.

I did not desire it but had too much pride to tell him so. He swung himself to the ground and lifted me down beside him.

"It is not easy," he said, "to be gallant in an apple tree. Perhaps you will tell your mother." He wore upon his face that same sardonic smile that I had first seen in Plymouth.

"I shall tell my mother nothing," I said, hurt by this abrupt dismissal.

He looked down on me for a moment in silence, and then he said, "If you bid your gardener trim that upper branch we would do better another time."

"I am not certain," I answered, "that I wish for another time."

"Ah, but you do," he said, "and so do I. Besides, my horse needs exercise." He turned through the trees, making for the gate where he had left his horse, and I followed him silently through the long grass. He reached for the bridle and climbed into the saddle.

"Ten miles between Lanrest and Killigarth," he said. "If I did this twice a week Daniel would be in fine condition by the summer. I will come again on Tuesday.

Remember those instructions to the gardener." He waved his gauntlet at me and was gone.

I stood staring after him, telling myself that he was quite as detestable as Gartred and that I would never see him more; but for all my resolutions I was at the apple tree again on Tuesday....

There followed then as strange and, to my mind, as sweet a wooing as ever maiden of my generation had. Looking back on it now, after a quarter of a century, when the sequel to it fills my mind with greater clarity, it has become the hazy unreality of an elusive dream. Once a week, and sometimes twice, he would ride over to Lanrest from Killigarth, and there, cradled in the apple tree--with the offending branch lopped as he demanded--he tutored me in love, and I responded. He was but twenty-eight, and I eighteen. Those March and April afternoons, with the bees humming above our heads and the little blackcap singing, and the grass in the orchard growing longer day by day, there seemed no end to them and no beginning.

Of what we discoursed, when we did not kiss, I have forgotten. He must have told me much about himself, for Richard's thoughts were ever centred about his person, more then than latterly, and I had a picture of a red-haired lad rebellious of authority, flaunting his elders, staring out across the storm-tossed Atlantic from the towering craggy cliffs of his north Cornish coast, so different from our southern shore, with its coves and valleys.

We have, I think, a more happy disposition here in southeast Cornwall, for the very softness of the air, come rain or sun, and the gentle contour of the land make for a lazy feeling of content. Whereas in the Grenvile country, bare of hedgerow, bereft of I trees, exposed to all four winds of heaven, and those winds laden as it were with surf and spray, the mind develops with a quick perception, with more fire to it, more anger, and life itself is hazardous and cruel. Here we have few tragedies at sea, but there the coast is strewn with the bleached bones of vessels wrecked without hope of haven, and about the torn, unburied bodies of the drowned the seals do play and the falcons hover. It holds us more than we ever reckon, the few square miles of territory where we are born and bred, and I understand what devils of unrest surged in the blood of Richard Grenvile.

These thoughts of mine came at a later date, but then, when we were young, they concerned me not, nor he either, and whether he talked to me of soldiering or Stowe, of fighting the French or battling with his own family, it sounded happy in my ears, and all his bitter jests were forgotten when he kissed me and held me close. It seems odd that our hiding place was not discovered. Maybe in his careless, lavish fashion he showered gold pieces on the servants; certainly my mother passed her days in placid ignorance.

And then, one day in early April, my brothers rode from Radford, bringing with them young Edward Champernowne, a younger brother of Elizabeth's. I was happy to see Jo and Robin, but in no mood to exchange courtesies with a stranger--besides, his teeth protruded, which seemed to me unpardonable--and also I was filled with furtive fear that my secret meetings would be discovered. After we had dined Jo and Robin and my mother, with Edward Champernowne, withdrew to the bookroom that had been my father's, and I was left alone to entertain Elizabeth. She made no mention of my discourtesy at Plymouth, for which I was grateful, but proceeded to lavish great praise upon her brother Edward, who, she told me, was but a year older than myself and recently left Oxford. I listened with but half an ear, my thoughts full of Richard, who, in debt as usual, had talked at our last meeting of selling lands in Killigarth and Tywardreath that he had inherited from his mother, and bearing me off with him to Spain or Naples, where we would live like princes and turn bandit.

Later in the evening I was summoned to my mother's room. Jo was with her, and Robin, too, but Edward Champernowne had gone to join his sister. All three of them wore an air of well-being.

My mother drew me to her and kissed me fondly and said at once that great happiness was in store for me, that Edward Champernowne had asked for my hand in marriage, that she and my brothers had accepted, the formalities had been settled, my portion agreed to with Jo adding to it most handsomely, and nothing remained now but to determine upon the date. I believe I stared at them all a moment, stupefied, and then broke out wildly in a torrent of protestation, declaring that I would not wed him, that I would wed no man who was not of my own choice, and that sooner than do it I would throw myself from the roof. In vain my mother argued with me; in vain Jo enthused upon the virtues of young Champernowne, of his steadiness, of his noble bearing, and of how my conduct had been such, a few months back, that it was amazing he should have asked for my hand at all. "You have come to the age, Honor," he said, "when we believe marriage to be the only means to settle you, and in this matter Mother and myself are the best judges." I shook my head; I dug my nails into my hands.

"I tell you I will not marry him," I said.

Robin had not taken part in the conversation; he sat a space away, but now he rose and stood beside me.

"I told you, Jo, it would be little use to drive Honor if she had not the inclination," he said. "Give her time to accustom herself to the project, and she will think better of it."

"Edward Champernowne might think better of it too," replied Jo.

"It were best to settle it now while he is here," said my mother.

I looked at their worried, indecisive faces--for they all loved me well and were distressed at my obduracy--but "No" I told them, "I would sooner die," and I flounced from the room in feverish anger and, going to my chamber, thrust the bolt through the door. To my imagination, strained and overwrought, it seemed to me that my brother and my mother had become the wicked parents in a fairy tale and I the luckless princess whom they were bent on wedding to an ogre, though I believe the inoffensive Edward Champernowne would not have dared lay a finger upon me. I waited till the whole brood of them were abed, and then, changing my gown and wrapping a cloak about me, I stole from the house. For I was bent upon a harebrained scheme, which was no less than walking through the night to Killigarth, and so to Richard. The thunder had passed, and the night was clear enough, and I set off with beating heart down the roadway to the river, which I forded a mile or so below Lanrest. Then I struck westward on the road to Pelynt, but the way was rough and crossed with intersecting lanes, and my mind misgave me for the fool I was, for without star lore I had no knowledge of direction. I was ill used to walking any distance, and my shoes were thin. The night seemed endless and the road interminable, and the sounds and murmurs of the countryside filled me with apprehension, though I pretended to myself I did not care. Dawn found me stranded by another stream and encompassed about by woods; and, weary and bedraggled, I climbed a farther hill and saw at last my first glimpse of the sea and the hump of Looe Island away to the eastward.

I knew then that some inner sense had led me to the coast, and I was not walking north as I had feared, but the curl of smoke through the trees and the sound of barking dogs warned me that I was trespassing, and I had no wish to be caught by keepers.

About six o'clock I met a ploughman tramping along the highway, who stared at me amazed and took me for a witch, for I saw him cross his fingers and spit when I had passed, but he pointed out the lane that led to Killigarth. The sun was high now above the sea, and the fishing vessels strung out in a line in Talland Bay. I saw the tall chimneys of the house of Killigarth, and once again my heart misgave me for the sorry figure I should make before Richard. If he were there alone it would not matter, but what if Bevil were at home, and Grace his wife, and a whole tribe of Grenviles whom I did not know? I came to the house then like a thief and stood before the windows, uncertain what to do. It wore the brisk air of early morning. Servants were astir. I heard a clatter in the kitchens and the murmur of voices, and I could smell the fatty smell of bacon and smoky ham. Windows were open to the sun, and the sound of laughter came, and men talking.

I wished with all my heart that I were back in my bedchamber in Lanrest, but there was no returning. I pulled the bell and heard the clanging echo through the house.

Then I drew back as a servant came into the hall. He wore the Grenvile livery and had a stern, forbidding air.

"What do you want?" he asked of me.

"I wish to see Sir Richard," I said.

"Sir Richard and the rest of the gentlemen are at breakfast," he answered. "Away with you now, he won't be troubled with you."

The door of the dining room was open, and I heard more sound of talk and laughter, and Richard's voice topping the rest.

"I must see Sir Richard," I insisted, desperate now and near to tears, and then, as the fellow was about to lay his hands upon me and thrust me from the door, Richard himself came out into the hall. He was laughing, calling something over his shoulder to the gentlemen within. He was eating still and had a napkin in his hand.

"Richard," I called, "Richard, it is I, Honor." And he came forward, amazement on his face, and "What the devil " he began; then, cursing his servant to be gone, who vanished instantly, he drew me into a little anteroom beside the hall.

"What is it, what is the matter?" he said swiftly, and I, weak and utterly worn out, fell into his arms and wept upon his shoulder.

"Softly, my little love, be easy then," he murmured, and held me close and stroked my hair, until I was calm enough to tell my story.

"They want to marry me to Edward Champernowne," I stammered--how foolish it sounded to be blurted thus--"and I have told them I will not do so, and I have wandered all night on the roads to tell you of it."

I felt him shake with laughter as he had done that first evening weeks ago when I had sickened of the swan.

"Is that all?" he asked. "And did you tramp ten miles or more to tell me that? Oh, Honor, my little love, my dear."

I looked up at him, bewildered that he found so serious a matter food for laughter.

"What am I to do then?" I said.

"Why, tell them to go to the devil, of course," he answered, "and if you dare not say it, then I will say it for you. Come in to breakfast."

I tugged at his hand in consternation, for if the ploughman had taken me for a witch, and the servants for a beggar, God only knew what his friends would say to me. He would not listen to my protests, but dragged me into the dining room where the gentlemen were breakfasting, and there was I, with my bedraggled gown and cloak and my torn slippers, faced with Ranald Mohun and young Trelawney, Tom Treffry and Jonathan Rashleigh, and some half dozen others whom I did not know.