The Project Gutenberg eBook of Beauvallet
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.
Title: Beauvallet
Author: Georgette Heyer
Release date: March 7, 2025 [eBook #75547]
Language: English
Original publication: London: William Heinemann Ltd, 1929
Credits: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BEAUVALLET ***
BEAUVALLET
By GEORGETTE HEYER
London
WILLIAM HEINEMANN LTD
_First published September 1929_
_New Impression November 1929_
_Popular (3s. 6d.) Edition 1931_
_Reprinted 1932_
_Printed in Great Britain at
The Windmill Press, Kingswood
Surrey_
TO
F. D. H.
BEAUVALLET
CHAPTER I
The deck was a shambles. Men lay dead and dying; there was split
woodwork, a welter of broken mizzen and sagging sail, dust and grime,
and the reek of powder. A ball screamed through the rigging overhead;
another tore the sea into wild foam beneath the galleon's stern.
She seemed to stagger, to reel, to list heavily to port. From his
quarterdeck Don Juan de Narvaez gave a sharp order; his lieutenant went
running down the companion into the waist of the ship.
Soldiers crowded there in steel breastplates and chased morions. They
had halberds and pikes, and some held long double-edged swords. They
looked out to sea, to where the smaller ship came steadily on, the
Red Cross of Saint George flying at her mainmast head. They were sure
now that it would end in a hand to hand fight; they were even glad of
it: they knew themselves to be the finest soldiers in Christendom.
What chance could these bold English have against them at close
quarters? The English ship had held off beyond reach of the Spanish
guns this past hour, ceaselessly bombarding the _Santa Maria_ with
her longer-reached cannons. The soldiers in the waist did not know
how serious was the damage she had wreaked, but they were fretting
and nervous from their impotence, and their forced inaction. Now the
English ship drew nearer, the wind filling her white sails, and
bearing her on like a bird through the scudding waves.
Don Juan watched her come, and saw his guns belch fire upon her.
But she was close, and there was little damage done, full half of
the Spanish guns shooting above her from the over-tall sides of the
galleon. The _Venture_--and he knew now beyond all doubt that it was
the _Venture_ herself--bore down upon them undaunted.
She came up alongside, discharging her fire into the galleon's waist,
and passed on unscathed. Drawing a little ahead of the Spaniard she
wore suddenly, came sailing across the galleon's bows, and raked her
cruelly fore and aft.
The _Santa Maria_ was riddled and groaning; there was panic aboard, and
a hopeless confusion. Don Juan knew his ship was crippled, and cursed
softly in his beard. But he had cool courage enough, and he knew how to
rally his men. The _Venture_ was coming round, and it was evident that
she meant to grapple the larger galleon now. Well, therein lay hope.
Let her come: the _Santa Maria_ was doomed, but aboard the _Venture_
was El Beauvallet--Beauvallet the mocker of Spain, the freebooter, the
madman! His capture would be worth even the loss of so noble a galleon
as the _Santa Maria_: ay, and more than that! There was not a Spanish
admiral who had not that capture for his ambition. Don Juan drew in his
breath on the thought. El Beauvallet who bit his thumb at Spain! If it
should fall to his lot to take this man of a charmed life prisoner for
King Philip he thought he would ask no more of life.
It had been with this in mind that Don Juan had challenged the ship
when she hove into sight that afternoon. He had known that El
Beauvallet was sailing in these waters; at Santiago he had seen Perinat
who had sailed forth to punish the _Venture_ not a fortnight ago.
Perinat had come back to Santiago in his own long boat, biting his
nails, a beaten man. He had talked wildly of witchcraft, of a devil
of a man who threw back his head and laughed. Don Juan had sneered at
that. The bungler Perinat!
Now it seemed that he too stood in danger of having bungled. He had
thrown down the gauntlet to Beauvallet, who never refused a challenge,
and Beauvallet had picked it up, and flirted his dainty craft forward
through the sparkling sea.
There had been some desire to show a lady what a Narvaez could
accomplish. Don Juan chewed his lip, and knew a pang of remorse. Below,
in the panelled stateroom, was no less a personage than Don Manuel de
Rada y Sylva, late Governor of Santiago, with his daughter Dominica.
Don Juan knew only too well in what peril they now stood. But when it
came to hand to hand fighting the tables might still be turned.
The soldiers were armed and ready in the waist and on the forecastle.
There were gunners, grimed and stained with sweat, standing by their
culverins; the brief panic had been swiftly quelled. Let the _Venture_
come!
She was near, standing the fire from the long basiliscos; she drew
nearer, and through the smoke one might see the men on her with
boarding axes and swords, ready for the order to board the Spaniard.
Then, suddenly, there was a crack and a roar, the bursting flame and
the black smoke of a score of swivel-guns on her decks, all trained
upon the waist of the _Santa Maria_. There was havoc wrought amongst
the Spanish soldiery; cries, groans, and oaths rent the air, and
swiftly, while havoc lasted, the _Venture_ crept up, and grappled the
tall galleon.
Men swarmed up the sides, using their boarding axes to form scaling
ladders. From the spritsail yard they sprang down upon the deck of the
_Santa Maria_, daggers between their teeth, and long swords in hand. No
might of Spanish soldiery, maimed as it was by the wicked fire, could
stop them. They came on, and the fight was desperate over the slippery
decks: sword to sword, slash and cut, and the quick stab of daggers.
Don Juan stood at the head of the companion, sword in hand, a tall
figure in breastplate and tassets of fluted steel. He sought in the
press for a leader amongst the boarders, but could see none in that
hurly-burly.
It was hard fighting, frenzied fighting, over wounded and dead, with
ever and again the crack of a dag fired at close range. The pandemonium
was intense; no single voice could be distinguished amongst the hubbub
of groans, shouted orders, sharp cries, and clash of arms. One could
not tell for a while who had the advantage: the fight swayed and
eddied, and the _Santa Maria_ lay helpless under all.
A man seemed to spring up out of the mob below, and gained the
companion. A moment he stood with his foot upon the first step, looking
up at Don Juan, a red sword in his hand, a cloak twisted about his
left arm, and a black pointed beard upthrust. A chased morion shaded
the upper part of his face, but Don Juan saw white teeth agleam, and
crouched for the stroke that should send this stranger to perdition.
"Down, _perro_!" he snarled.
The stranger laughed, and answered him in pure Castilian. "Nay, señor,
the dog comes up."
Don Juan peered to see more closely into the upturned face. "Come up
and die, dog," he said softly, "for I think you are he whom I seek."
"All Spain seems to seek me, señor," answered the stranger merrily.
"But who shall slay Nick Beauvallet? Will you try?"
He came up the first steps in a bound, and his sword took Don Juan's in
a strong parry that beat it aside for a moment. He brought his cloak
swirling into swift play, and entangled Don Juan's sword in it. He was
up on the quarterdeck in a flash, even as Don Juan, livid, shook his
sword free of the cloak. The two blades rang together, but Don Juan
knew that he had met his master. He was forced back and back across the
deck to the bulwarks, fighting grimly every inch of the way.
Cruzada, his lieutenant, came running from the poop-deck. Beauvallet
saw, and made a quick end. His great sword whirled aloft, cleaved
downwards, hissing through the air, and shattered the pauldron over
Don Juan's shoulder. Don Juan sank, half-stunned, to his knees, and
his sword clattered to the deck. Beauvallet turned, panting, to meet
Cruzada.
But there were Englishmen on the quarterdeck now, hard upon the heels
of their leader, and from all sides came cries from the Spaniards for
quarter. Beauvallet's sword held Cruzada in check. "Yield, señor,
yield," he said. "I hold your general prisoner."
"But yet I may slay you, pirate!" gasped Cruzada.
"Curb ambition, child," Beauvallet said. "Here Daw, Russet, Curlew!
Overpower me this springald. Softly, lads, softly!"
Cruzada found himself surrounded, and cried out in fury. Rough hands
seized him from behind, and dragged him back; he saw Beauvallet leaning
on his sword, and cursed him wildly for a coward and a poltroon.
Beauvallet chuckled at that. "Grow a beard, child, and meet me when
it's grown. Mr. Dangerfield!" His lieutenant was at hand. "Have a
guard about the worthy señor," said Beauvallet, and indicated Don Juan
by a brief nod. He bent, picked up Don Juan's sword, and was off,
light-footed, down the companion into the waist of the ship.
Don Juan recovered his senses to find himself unarmed, and El
Beauvallet gone. He came staggering to his feet, an English hand at
his elbow, and was aware of a fair boy confronting him. "You are my
prisoner, señor," said Richard Dangerfield, in halting Spanish. "The
day is lost."
The sweat was in Don Juan's eyes; he brushed it away, and could see
the truth of this statement. All over the galleon his men were laying
down their arms. The rage and the anguish that convulsed him were wiped
suddenly from his face. By a supreme effort he recovered his _sosiego_,
and stood straight and looked impassively as should befit his breeding.
He achieved a bow. "I am in your hands, señor."
Over the quarterdeck towards the poop men were hurrying already in
search of plunder. Some three or four stout fellows went clattering
down the companion that led to the staterooms. They came upon a sight
to astonish them. Backed against the wall, with hands laid along the
panelling to either side of her stood a lady, a lady all cream and
rose and ebony. Cream her skin, and rose her lips, ebony the lustrous
hair confined under a net of gold. Her eyes were dark and large under
languorous lids, the brows delicately marked, the nose short and proud,
the full lips curved and ripe. She wore a gown of purple camlet, worked
cunningly with a pattern of gold thread, with a kirtle of armazine to
fall from the veriest hint of a farthingale. Behind her head reared up
a high ruff of lace sewn with crystals. It framed a face piquant and
lovely. The square of her bodice was cut low across her breast; a jewel
lay upon the white skin, rising and falling with her quickened breath.
The foremost of the invaders stood in an amazed stare, but recovered
before those behind him might push forward. "A wench!" he cried on a
coarse laugh. "A rare wench, as I live!"
His fellows came crowding to get a sight of this miracle. There were
sparks of anger in the lady's eyes, and, at the back of them, fear.
A man rose from a high-backed chair by the table, a man of middle age,
enfeebled by the West Indian climate. Latent fever had him in its grip;
it might be seen in his overbright eyes, and in the intermittent ague
that shook him. He wore a long furred gown, and a close cap, and he
leaned heavily upon a stick. There was a priest of the Franciscan order
beside him, cowled darkly, but the holy man paid no heed to anything
but his beads, over which he muttered ceaselessly. The other man went
with an infirm step to stand before his daughter, shielding her from
curious eyes. "I demand to be taken before your commander!" he said in
the Spanish tongue. "I am Don Manuel de Rada y Sylva, late Governor of
the island of Santiago."
It is doubtful whether much of this was intelligible to the English
seamen. A couple advanced into the stateroom and put Don Manuel aside.
"Hold off, old greybeard!" William Hick advised him, and put a dirty
hand under the lady's chin. "The pretty chuck! Buss me, sweeting!"
There came instead the sound of a ringing slap. William Hick started
back with a rueful hand clapped to his cheek. "Oh, a shrew!"
John Daw caught the lady about her trim waist, clipping one of her arms
to her side. The other fighting hand was imprisoned in his huge paw.
"Softly, my cosset, softly!" he chuckled, and gave her a hearty kiss.
"That's the way to use, lads!"
Don Manuel, held between two men, cried out. "Unhand her, fellow! Your
commander! I demand to see your commander!"
They caught at the last word, and it sobered them a little. "Ay, hail
'em before the General. It's safer." John Daw pushed Hick aside, who
was fingering the jewel about the girl's neck. "Let be! Do you want Mad
Nick after you? Come lass, on deck with you!"
The lady was forced, resisting to the door. She did not know what they
were going to do with her, and struggled wildly, throwing herself back
against their pulling hands. It did not serve. "The curst wench!"
growled Hick, still smarting from the blow she had dealt him. He
snatched her up into his arms and bore her up the companion to the
poop-deck.
There were others gathered there, others who greeted the appearance
of this frightened, wrathful lady with amazement and some ribaldry.
She was set on her feet, and straightway fell upon Hick like a young
wild-cat. She ignored a warning cry from her father, brought under ward
on to the deck, and hit out at Hick, stamped with her heel on a large
foot, scratched at a bearded face. She was seized and held fast, each
wrist in custody of a grinning sailor. One of them chucked her under
the chin, and laughed hugely to see her throw up her head. "Little
turtle-dove, pretty love-bird!" said John Daw, essaying satire.
There were men crowded all about her, wondering, jesting, feasting
their eyes. A lip was smacked; there was a knowing wink and a bawdy
joke. The lady shrank.
Then, all at once, a ringing voice spoke authoritatively from beyond
the group that encircled her. "God's death! What's this? Give way
there!"
Two men went staggering aside, spun apart by an iron hand on the
shoulder of each. The lady looked fearfully into the face of El
Beauvallet.
He had cast aside his morion, and his close black hair showed, curling
neatly over his head. Under straight brows she saw fine eyes, the
blue of the sea with the sunlight on the water. They were bright eyes
and keen, vivid under the black lashes; laughing eyes, watchful yet
careless.
The laugh was stayed in them now as he checked in his impatient stride.
He stood staring; a mobile eyebrow flew up comically; Sir Nicholas
Beauvallet appeared incredulous, and blinked at this unexpected vision.
His glance, quick moving, took in next the lady's captors, and the
stilled laughter went right out of his eyes. He was swift in action,
too swift for Hick, still stupidly grasping one of the lady's wrists. A
clenched fist shot out and took Master Hick neatly on the point of the
jaw. Master Hick fell a-sprawl on the deck. "Cullions! Dawcocks!" said
Beauvallet terribly, and swung round to deal in kind with John Daw.
But Master Daw had hurriedly released the wrist he held, and was making
off as quickly as he could. He was sped on his way by a shrewd kick
to the rearward. Beauvallet turned to the lady. "A million pardons,
señora!" he said, as though here were no great matter.
The lady was forced to admit him to be a personable fellow, and she
found his smile irresistible. She bit back an answering gleam: one
would not smile friendly upon an English freebooter. "Unhand my father,
señor!" she commanded, mighty haughty.
The tone seemed to amuse Beauvallet; his shoulders shook
appreciatively. He looked round for sign of my lady's parent, and saw
him standing between guards who straightway let him go, and stepped
back in something of a hurry.
Don Manuel was shaken, and ashen pale. He spoke breathlessly. "I demand
instantly to see the commander!"
"A million more pardons!" Beauvallet responded. "Behold the commander,
Nicholas Beauvallet, at your service!"
The lady exclaimed at that. "I knew it! You are El Beauvallet!"
Beauvallet turned to her, the eyebrow was raised again, and the eyes
themselves were twinkling. "Himself, señora. Wholly at your feet."
"I," said Don Manuel stiffly, "am Don Manuel de Rada y Sylva. You
address my daughter, Doña Dominica. I demand to know the meaning of
this outrage."
"Outrage?" said Beauvallet, honestly puzzled. "What outrage, señor?"
Don Manuel flushed, and pointed a shaking finger to the shambles
forward. "You need ask, señor?"
"The fight! Why, to say truth, noble señor, I had thought that this
ship opened fire upon me," said Beauvallet pleasantly. "And I was never
one to refuse a challenge."
"Where," demanded Doña Dominica, "is Don Juan de Narvaez?"
"Under guard, señora, until he goes aboard his own long boat."
"You beat him! You, with that little ship!"
Beauvallet laughed out at that. "I, with that little ship," he bowed.
"What of us?" Don Manuel interrupted.
Sir Nicholas looked rueful, ran a hand through his crisp hair. "You
have me there, señor," he confessed. "What a-plague are you doing
aboard this vessel?"
"I conceive that to be none of your business, señor. If you must know I
am on my way home from Santiago to Spain."
"Why, an evil chance," said Beauvallet sympathetically. "What folly
possessed that numskull of a commander of yours to open fire on me?"
"Don Juan did his duty, señor," said Don Manuel haughtily.
"Alack then, that virtue has not been better rewarded," said Sir
Nicholas lightly. "And what am I to do with you?" He bit his finger,
pondering the question. "There is of course the long boat. She puts off
as soon as may be for the island of Dominica. It lies some three miles
to the north of us. Do you choose to go aboard her?"
Doña Dominica took a quick step forward. Since her fears were lulled
her temper rose. This careless manner was not to be borne. She broke
into impassioned speech, shooting her words at Beauvallet. "Is that all
you can say? Sea-robber! Hateful pirate! Is it nothing to you that we
must put back to the Indies and wait perhaps months for another ship?
Oh nothing, nothing! You see where my father stands, a sick man, and
you care nothing that you expose him to such rough usage. Base, wicked
robber! What do you care! Nothing! I could spit on you for a vile
English freebooter!" She ended on a sob of rage, and stamped her foot
at him.
"Good lack!" said Beauvallet, staring down into that exquisite face of
fury. A smile of amusement and of admiration crept into his eyes. It
caused Doña Dominica to lose the last shreds of her temper. What would
you? She was a maid all fire and spirit. She struck at him, and he
caught her hand and held it, pulled her closer, and looked down into
her face with eyes a-twinkle. "I cry pardon, señora. We will amend
all." He turned his head and sent a shout ringing for his lieutenant.
"Loose me!" Dominica said, and tried to pull her hand away. "Loose me!"
"Why, you would scratch me if I did," Beauvallet said, teasing.
It was not to be borne. The lady's eyes fell, and encountered the hilt
of a dagger in Beauvallet's belt. She raised them again, held his in a
defiant stare, and stole her hand to the dagger's hilt.
Sir Nicholas looked quickly down, saw what she would be at, and
laughed. "Brave lass!" He let her go, let her draw out his dagger, and
flung wide his arms. "Come then! Have at me!"
She stepped back, uncertain and bewildered, wondering what manner of
man was this who could mock at death itself. "If you touch me I will
kill you," she said through her teeth.
Still he came on, twinkling, daring her. She drew back until the
bulwarks stayed her.
"Now strike!" invited Beauvallet. "I'll swear you have the stomach for
it!"
"My daughter!" Don Manuel was aghast. "Give back that knife! I command
you! Señor, be good enough to stand back."
Beauvallet turned away from the lady. It seemed he gave no second
thought to the dangerous weapon she held. He waited for Dangerfield to
come up, standing with his hands tucked negligently into his belt.
"Sir, you called me?"
Beauvallet indicated Don Manuel and his daughter with a comprehensive
sweep of his hand. "Convey Don Manuel de Rada y Sylva and his daughter
aboard the _Venture_," he said, in Spanish.
Don Manuel started; Dominica gave a gasp. "Is it a jest, señor?" Don
Manuel demanded.
"I' God's Name, why should I jest?"
"You make us prisoners?"
"Nay, I bid you be my guests, señor. I said I would amend all."
The lady broke out again. "You mock us! You shall not take us aboard
your ship. We will not go!"
Beauvallet set his hands on his hips. The mobile eyebrow went up again.
"How now? First you will and then you will not. You tell me I am a dog
to hinder your return to Spain, and curse me roundly for a rogue. Well,
I have said I will amend the fault: I will convey you to Spain with all
speed. What ails you then?"
"Take us to Spain?" said Don Manuel uncomprehendingly.
"You cannot!" cried Dominica, incredulous. "You dare not!"
"Dare not? God's Son, I am Nick Beauvallet!" said Sir Nicholas, amazed.
"Dared I sail into Vigo a year back, and lay all waste? What should
stop me?"
She flung up her hands, and the dagger flashed in the sunlight. "Oh,
now I know that they named you well who named you Mad Beauvallet!"
"You have it wrong," Beauvallet said, jesting. "Mad Nicholas is the
name they call me. I make you free of it, señora."
Don Manuel interposed. "Señor, I do not understand you. I cannot
believe you speak in good faith."
"The best in the world, señor. Is an Englishman's word good enough?"
Don Manuel knew not how to answer. It was left for his daughter to say
No, very hotly. All she got by that was a quick look, and a slight
laugh.
Across the deck came Don Juan de Narvaez, stately even in defeat. He
bowed low to Don Manuel, lower still to Doña Dominica, and ignored
Beauvallet. "Señor, the boat waits. Permit me to escort you."
"Get you aboard, Señor Punctilio," said Sir Nicholas. "Don Manuel sails
with me."
"No!" said Dominica. But it is very certain that she meant yes.
"I have no desire to jest with you, señor," Don Juan said coldly. "Don
Manuel de Rada naturally sails with me."
A long finger beckoned to Don Juan's guard. "Escort Don Juan to the
long boat," said Sir Nicholas.
"I do not stir from here without Don Manuel and his daughter," said
Narvaez, and struck an attitude.
"Take him away," said Sir Nicholas, bored. "God speed you, señor."
Narvaez was led away, protesting. "Señora, be pleased to go aboard the
_Venture_. Diccon, have their traps conveyed at once."
Dominica braved him, to see what might come of it. "I will not go!" She
clenched the dagger. "Constrain me at your peril!"
"A challenge?" inquired Beauvallet. "Oh, rash! I told you that I never
refused a challenge." He bore down upon her, and dodged, laughing,
the dagger's point. He caught her wrist, and had his other arm firmly
clipped about her waist. "Cry peace, sweetheart," he said, and took the
dagger from her, and restored it to its sheath. "Come!" he said, tossed
her up in his arms, and strode off with her to the quarterdeck.
Dominica forbore resistance. It would be useless, she knew, and her
dignity would suffer. She permitted herself to be carried off, and
liked the manner of it. They did not use such ready methods in Spain.
There was great strength in the arm that upheld her, and the very
carelessness of the man intrigued one. A strange, mad fellow, with an
odd directness. One would know more of him.
She was carried down the companion into the waist, where the men were
busy with the treasure--China silks, and linen-cloths, ingots of gold,
bars of silver, and spices from the islands. "Robber!" said Dominica
softly.
He chuckled. It was annoying. To the bulwarks he went, and she wondered
how he would manage now. But he did it easily enough, with a hand on
the shrouds, and a leap up. He stood poised a moment. "Welcome aboard
the _Venture_, sweetheart!" he said audaciously, and climbed down with
her safe tucked in his arm to his own poop-deck below.
She was set on her feet, ruffled and speechless, and saw her father
being helped carefully down the side of the tall galleon. Don Manuel
appeared to be both bewildered and amused.
"See them well bestowed, Diccon," Beauvallet bade the fair youth, and
went back the way he had come.
"Will it please you to come below, señora?" Dangerfield said shyly, and
bowed to them both. "Your chests will be here anon."
Don Manuel smiled a little wryly. "I think the man is either mad--or
else--an odd, whimsical fellow, my daughter," he remarked. "We shall
doubtless learn which in time."
CHAPTER II
Doña Dominica was escorted below decks, and led to a fair cabin which
she guessed to be the home of Master Dangerfield, hurriedly evicted.
She was left there alone, while Master Dangerfield took her father
on to yet another cabin. She took stock of her surroundings, and was
pleased to approve. There were mellow walls, oak-panelled, a cushioned
seat under the porthole, a table with carved legs, a joint-stool, a
fine Flanders chest, a cupboard against the bulkhead, and the bunk.
There was presently a discreet scratching on the door. She bade enter,
and a small man with an inquisitive nose and very bravely curling
mustachios insinuated his head into the room. Doña Dominica regarded
him in silence. A pair of shrewd grey eyes smiled deprecatingly.
"Permit that I bring your chests, señora," said the newcomer in perfect
Spanish. "Also your ladyship's woman."
"Maria!" called out Dominica joyfully.
The door was opened further to admit a plump creature who flew to her,
and sobbed, and laughed. "Señorita! They have not harmed you!" She fell
to patting Dominica's hands, and kissing them.
"But where were you all this time?" Dominica asked.
"They locked me in the cabin, señorita! Miguel de Vasso it was! Serve
him right that he took a grievous knock on the head! But you?"
"I am safe," Dominica answered. "But what will happen to us I know not.
The world's upside down, I believe."
The man with the mustachios came into the room and revealed a spare
figure garbed in sober brown fustian. "Have no fear, señora," said this
worthy cheerfully. "You sail upon the _Venture_, and we do not harm
women. Faith of an Englishman!"
"Who are you?" Dominica asked.
"I," said the thin man, puffing out his chest, "am no less a person,
señora, than Sir Nicholas Beauvallet's own familiar servant, Joshua
Dimmock, at your orders. Ho, there! bring on the baggage!" This was
addressed to someone without. In a moment two younkers appeared laden,
and dumped down their burdens upon the floor. They lingered, gaping
at the lady, but Joshua waved his hands at them. "Hence, get hence,
numskulls!" He hustled them out, and shut the door upon them. "Please
you, noble lady, I will dispose." He looked upon the mountain of
baggage, laid a finger to his nose, skipped to the cupboard, and flung
it open. The raiment of Master Dangerfield was exposed to Maria's
titters. Joshua swooped, came away with an armful of doublets and hose,
and cast them into the alleyway outside the cabin. "Ho there! Avoid
me these trappings!" he commanded, and the two women heard footsteps
coming quickly in obedience to the summons. Joshua returned to the
cupboard and swept it bare, flung out the boots and the pantoffles that
stood ranged upon its floor, and stepped back to observe with pride the
barrenness of his creating. "So!" The chest caught his eye; he went to
it in a rush, lifted the lid, and clicked his tongue in impatience. He
seemed to dive into it head first.
Dominica sat down on the cushioned seat to watch the surprising
gyrations of Master Dimmock. Maria knelt by her, clasping a hand still
in both of hers, and giggled under her breath. An indignant voice was
uplifted in the alleyway. "Who cast them here? That coystrill! Dimmock,
Joshua Dimmock, may the black vomit seize you! Master Dangerfield's
fine Venice hosen to lie in the dust! Come out, ye skinny rogue!"
Joshua emerged from the chest with an armful of shirts and
netherstocks. The door was rudely opened; Master Dangerfield's servant
sought to make a hasty entrance, but was met on the threshold by
Joshua, who thrust the pile of linen into his arms, and drove him
out. "Avoid them! Avoid, fool! The noble lady hath this cabin. By the
General's orders, mark you! Hold your peace, wastrel! The Venice hose!
What's that to me? Make order there! Pick up that handruff, that boot,
those stocks! There are more shirts to come. Await me!" He came back,
spread his hands, and shrugged expressive shoulders. "Heed naught,
señora. A hapless fool. Master Dangerfield's man. We shall have all in
order presently."
"I should not wish to turn Master Dangerfield from his cabin," Dominica
said. "Is there none other might house me?"
"Most noble lady! Waste no moment's thought upon it!" Joshua said,
shocked. "Master Dangerfield, forsooth! A likely gentleman, I allow,
but a mere lad from the nursery. This mountain of raiment! Ho, the
young men! all alike! I dare swear a full score of shirts. Sir Nicholas
himself owns not so many." He threw the rest of Master Dangerfield's
wardrobe out of the cabin, and shut the door smartly upon the protests
of Master Dangerfield's man.
Dominica watched the disposal of her baggage about the room. "I must
suppose you a man of worth," she said, gently satirical.
"You may say so, indeed, señora. I am the servant of Sir Nicholas. I
have the ear. I am obeyed. Thus it is to be the lackey of a great man,
lady," Joshua answered complacently.
"Oh, is this Sir Nicholas a great man by your reckoning?"
"None greater, lady," said Joshua promptly. "I have served him these
fifteen years, and seen none to equal him. And I have been about the
world, mark you! Ay, we have done some junketting to and fro. I allow
you Sir Francis Drake to be a man well enough, but lacking in some
small matters wherein we have the advantage of him. His birth, for
example, will not rank with ours. By no means! Raleigh? Pshaw! he lacks
our ready wit: we laugh in his sour countenance! Howard? A fig for
him! I say no more, and leave you to judge. That popinjay, Leicester?
Bah! A man of no weight. We, and we alone have never failed in our
undertakings. And why, you ask? Very simply, señora: we reck not!
The Queen's grace said it with her own august lips. 'God's death,'
quoth she--her favourite oath, mark you!--'God's Death, Sir Nicholas,
you should take _Reck Not_ to be your watchword!' With reason, most
gracious lady! Certain, we reck not. We bite our glove in challenge to
whomsoever ye will. We take what we will: Beauvallet's way!"
Maria sniffed, and cocked up her pert nose. Joshua looked severely.
"Mark it, mistress! I speak for both: we reck not."
"He is a bold man," Dominica said, half to herself.
Joshua beamed upon her. "You speak sooth, señora. Bold! Ay, a very
panther. We laugh at fear. That's for lesser men. I shall uncord these
bundles, gracious lady, so it please you."
"What is he? What is his birth?" Dominica asked. "Is he base or noble?"
Joshua bent a frown of some dignity upon her. "Would I serve one who
was of base birth, señora? No! We are very nobly born. The knighthood
was not needed to mark our degree. An honour granted upon our return
from Drake's voyage round the world. I allow it to have been due, but
we needed it not. Sir Nicholas stands heir to a barony, no less!"
"So!" said Dominica with interest.
"Ay, and indeed. He is own brother to Lord Beauvallet. A solid man,
señora, lacking our wits, maybe, but a comfortable wise lord. He looks
askance at all this trafficking upon the high seas." Joshua forgot
for a moment his rôle of admiring and faithful servant. "Well he may!
Rolling up and down the world, never at rest--it is not fit! We are no
longer boys to delight in hare-brained schemes and chancy ventures. But
what would you? A madness is in us; we must always be up and about,
nosing out danger." He rolled up the cords he had untied. "I leave
you, señora, Ha! we cast off!" He hopped to the porthole, and peered
out. "In good time: that hulk is done. I go now to see the noble señor
safely housed. By your leave, señora!"
"Where is my father?" Dominica asked.
"Hard by, señora. You may rap on this bulkhead, and he will hear.
Mistress----" he looked austerely at Maria--"see to the noble lady!"
"Impudence!" Maria cried. But the door had shut behind Joshua Dimmock.
"An oddity," said Dominica. "Well--like master, like man." She went
to the port, and stood on tiptoe to look out. The waves were hissing
round the sides of the _Venture_. "I cannot see our ship. That man said
she was done." She came away from the port. "And so here we are, upon
an English ship, and in an enemy's power. What shall come of it, I
wonder?" She did not seem to be disturbed.
"Let them dare to touch you!" Maria said, arms akimbo. "I am not locked
in my cabin twice, señorita!" She abandoned the fierce attitude, and
began to unpack my lady's baggage. She shook out a gown of stiff
crimson brocade, and sighed over it. "Alas, the broidered taffety that
I had in my mind for you to wear this night!" she lamented.
Dominica smiled secretly. "I will wear it," she said.
Maria stared. "Your finest gown to be wasted on a party of English
pirates! Now if it were Don Juan----"
Dominica was impatient suddenly. "Don Juan! A fool! A beaten braggart!
He strutted, and swore he would sink this ship to the bottom of the
sea, and take the great Beauvallet a prisoner to Spain! I hate a man to
be beaten! Lay out the gown, girl. I will wear it, and the rubies too."
"Never say so, señorita!" cried Maria in genuine horror. "I have your
jewels safe hid in my bosom. They would tear them from your neck!"
"The rubies!" Dominica repeated. "We are here as the guests of El
Beauvallet, and I vow we will play the part right royally!"
There was a soft scratching on the door, and Don Manuel came in. "Well,
my child?" he said, and looked around him with approval.
Doña Dominica waved her hand. "As you see, señor, I am very well. And
you?"
He nodded, and came to sit beside her. "They house us snugly enough.
There is a strange creature giving orders to my man at this moment. He
says he is El Beauvallet's lackey. I do not understand these English
servants, and the license they have. The creature talks without pause."
He drew his gown about his knees. "We labour with the unexpected," he
complained, and looked gravely at his daughter. "The commander bids us
to supper. We shall not forget, Dominica, that we sail as guests upon
this ship."
"No," said Dominica doubtfully.
"We shall use Sir Nicholas with courtesy," added Don Manuel.
"Yes, señor," said Dominica, more doubtfully still.
An hour later Joshua came once more to her door. Supper awaited her,
he said, and bowed her down the alleyway to the stateroom. She went
regally, and rubies glowed on her bosom. The dull red of her stiff gown
made her skin appear the whiter; she carried a fan of feathers in her
hand, and had a wired ruff of lace sewn over with jewels behind her
head.
The stateroom was low-pitched, lit by two lamps hung on chains from
the thick beams above. On the bulkhead opposite the door arms were
emblazoned, arms crossed with the bar sinister, and with a scroll
round the base, bearing the legend _Sans Peur_. A table was spread in
the middle of the room, and there were high-backed chairs of Spanish
make set round it. Beside one of these was standing Master Dangerfield,
point-de-vice in a bombasted doublet of grograine, and the famous
Venice hosen. He bowed and blushed when he saw Dominica, and was eager
to set a chair for her.
She had no quarrel with Dangerfield; she smiled upon him, enslaved
him straightway, and sat her down at the table, unconcernedly fanning
herself.
There was a cheerful voice uplifted without, a strong masculine voice
that had a ringing quality. One might always know when Sir Nicholas
Beauvallet approached.
He came in, apparently cracking some jest, escorting Don Manuel.
Dominica surveyed him through her lashes. Even in dinted armour, with
his hair damp with sweat, and his hands grimed with powder he had
appeared to her personable. She saw him now transformed.
He wore a purple doublet, slashed and paned, with great sleeves slit to
show stitched linen beneath. A high collar clipped his throat about,
and had a little starched ruff atop. Over it jutted his beard: none
of your spade beards, this, but a rare stiletto, black as his close
hair. He affected the round French hosen, puffed about the thighs, and
the netherstocks known in England as Lord Leicester's, since only a
man with as good a leg as his might reasonably wear them. There were
rosettes upon his shoon, and knotted garters, rich with silver lace,
below his knees. Starched handruffs were turned back from his wrists;
he wore a jewel on one long finger, and about his neck a golden chain
with a scented pomander hanging from it.
He entered, and his quick glance took in Dominica at the table. He
swept her a bow, and showed his even white teeth in a smile that was
boyish and swift, and curiously infectious. "Well, met, señora! Has my
rogue seen to your comfort? A chair for Don Manuel, Diccon!" The room
seemed to be full of Sir Nicholas Beauvallet, a forceful presence.
"I am ashamed to have stolen Señor Dangerfield's cabin from him,"
Dominica said, with a pretty smile bestowed upon Richard.
He stammered a disclaimer. It was an honour, a privilege. Dominica,
choosing to ignore Beauvallet at the head of the table, pursued a
halting conversation with Dangerfield, exerting herself to captivate.
No difficult task this: the lad looked with eyes of shy admiration
already.
"A strange, whimsical fellow ordered everything, señor," she said. "I
cry pardon: it was not I threw your traps out on to the alleyway! I
hope the master was not so incensed as was the man?"
Dangerfield smiled. "Ay, that would be Joshua, señora. My man's a fool,
a dolt. He is greatly enraged against Joshua. You must understand,
señora, that Joshua is an original. I dare say he boasted to you of Sir
Nicholas' exploits--always coupling himself with his master?"
Dominica had nothing to say to this. Dangerfield plodded on. "It is his
way, but I believe he is the only one of our company who takes it upon
himself to censure his master. To the world he says that Sir Nicholas
is second only to God; to Sir Nicholas' self he says----" he broke
off, and turned a laughing, quizzical look on his chief.
Sir Nicholas turned his head; Dominica had not thought that he was
attending. "Ah, to Sir Nicholas' self he says what Sir Nicholas'
dignity will not permit him to repeat," said Beauvallet, smiling.
He turned back to Don Manuel, who had broken off in the middle of a
sentence.
"Your servant did not seem to hold him in so great esteem as he holds
himself, señor," said Dominica.
"Ah, no, señora, but then he threw my clothes out into the alley."
"I doubt it was dusty," Dominica said demurely.
"Do not let Sir Nicholas hear you say that, señora," Dangerfield
answered gaily.
By a half smile that was certainly not conjured up by her father's
conversation Dominica saw that Sir Nicholas was still attending.
Meat was set before the lady, breast of mutton served with a sauce
flavoured with saffron. There was a pasty beside, and a compost of
quinces. She fell to, and continued to talk to Master Dangerfield.
Don Manuel tried more than once to catch his daughter's eye, but he
failed, and was forced to pursue his conversation with Sir Nicholas.
"You have a well-found vessel, señor," he remarked courteously.
"My own, señor." Beauvallet picked up a flagon of wine. "I have here an
Alicante wine, señor, or a Burgundy, if you should prefer it. Or there
is Rhenish. Say but the word!"
"You are too good, señor. The Alicante wine, I thank you." He observed
that his cup was of Moorish ware, much used in Spain, and raised his
brows at it. Delicately he forbore comment.
"You remark my cups, señor?" said Beauvallet, lacking a like delicacy.
"They come out of Andalusia." He saw a slight stiffening on the part of
his guest, and his eyes twinkled. "Nay, nay señor, they never were upon
a Spanish galleon. I bought them upon my travels, years ago."
He threw Don Manuel into some discomfort. Don Manuel made haste to turn
the subject. "You know my country, señor?"
"Why yes, a little," Beauvallet acknowledged. He looked at Dominica's
averted face. "May I give you wine, señora?"
So rapt in conversation with Dangerfield was the lady that it seemed
she did not hear. Beauvallet watched her a moment in some amusement,
then turned to Don Manuel. "Do you suppose, señor, that your daughter
will take wine from my hands?"
"Dominica, you are addressed!" Don Manuel said sharply.
She gave an admirable start, and turned. "Señor?" She encountered
Beauvallet's eyes, brimful with laughter. "Your pardon, señor?" He held
out a cup in his long fingers. She took it from him, and turned it in
her hand. "Ah, did this come from the _Santa Maria_?" she asked, mighty
innocent.
Don Manuel blushed for his daughter's manners, and made a deprecatory
sound. But Beauvallet's shoulders shook. "I had these quite honestly,
señora."
Dominica appeared surprised.
Supper wore on its way. Don Manuel, shocked at the perversity of his
daughter in bestowing all her attention on Dangerfield, began to talk
to the young man himself, and successfully ousted Dominica from the
conversation. She bit her lip with vexation, and became absorbed in the
contemplation of a dish of marchpane. At her left hand Beauvallet lay
back in his chair, and played idly with his pomander. Dominica stole
a sidelong glance at him, found his eyes upon her, wickedly teasing
under the down-dropped lids, and flushed hotly. She began to nibble at
a piece of marchpane.
Sir Nicholas let fall his pomander, and sat straight in his chair. His
hand went to his belt; he drew his dagger from the sheath. It was a
rich piece, with a hilt of wrought gold and a thin, flashing blade.
He leaned forward, and presented the hilt to the lady. "I make you a
present of it, señora," he said in a humble voice.
Dominica flung up her head at that, and tried to push the dagger away.
"I do not want it."
"Oh, but surely!"
"You are pleased to mock me, señor. I have no need of your dagger."
"But you would like so much to kill me," Sir Nicholas said softly.
Dominica looked at him indignantly. He was abominable, and to make
matters the more insupportable he had a smile that set a poor maid's
heart in a flutter. "You laugh at me. Take your fill of it, señor: I
shall not heed your sneers," she said.
"I?" Beauvallet said, and shot out a hand to grasp her wrist. "Now look
me boldly in the face and tell me if I sneer at you!"
Dominica looked instead toward her father, but he had turned his
shoulder, and was descanting to Master Dangerfield upon the works of
Livy.
"Come!" insisted the tormentor. "What, afraid?"
Stung, she looked up. Defiance gleamed in her eyes. Sir Nicholas
kept his steadily upon her, raised her hand to his lips, kissed it
fleetingly, and held it still. "You will know me better one day," he
said.
"I've no ambition for it," Dominica answered, but without truth.
"Have you not? Have you not indeed?" His fingers tightened about her
wrist; there was a brilliant look of inquiry before he let her go. It
disturbed her oddly; the man had no right to such bright, challenging
eyes.
A silence fell between them. Don Manuel, absorbed in his topic, had
passed on to the poet Horace, and was inflicting quotations upon Master
Dangerfield.
"What came to Don Juan, señor?" asked Dominica, finding the silence
oppressive.
"I suppose him to be steering for the island of your name, señora,"
Sir Nicholas replied, and cracked a nut between finger and thumb. The
problems besetting Don Juan seemed to hold no interest for him.
"And Señor Cruzada? And the rest?"
"I did not send him alone, señora," said Beauvallet, one eyebrow
lifting humorously. "I suppose Señor Cruzada, whomsoever he may be, to
be of his company."
The lady selected another fragment of marchpane from the dish, and
refused an offer of Hippocras to drink with it. She looked pensive.
"You give quarter then, you English?"
"God's Life, did you suppose otherwise?"
"I did not know, señor. They tell strange tales of you in the Indies."
"It seems so indeed." He looked amused. "Am I said to burn, torture,
and slay, señora?"
She met his gaze gravely. "You are a hardy man, señor. There are those
who say you use witchcraft."
He flung back his head and laughed out at that. Don Manuel was
startled, and broke off in the middle of a line, to the relief of
Master Dangerfield, a-nod over his wine. "The only craft I use is
seacraft, señora," Beauvallet said. "I wear no charms, but I was born,
so they tell me, when Venus and Jupiter were in conjunction. A happy
omen! All honour to them!" He raised his cup to these planets, and
drank to them.
"Alchemy is a snare, as also astrology," said Don Manuel sternly. "I
regard the tenets of Paracelsus as pernicious, señor, but I believe
they are much studied and thought of in England. A creed both absurd
and heretical! Why, I have heard a man doubt but that his neighbour
was born under the sign of Sagittarius for no better reason than that
he had a ruddy cheek, or a chestnut beard. Likewise you will meet
those who will not stir beyond their doors without they have a piece
of coral about them, or a sapphire to give them courage, or some other
such toys, fit only for children or infidels. Then you will hear talk
of the sky's division into Houses, this one governing such-and-such a
thing, and that some other. A silly conceit, obtaining credulity of the
foolish." Thus Don Manuel disposed of Paracelsus, very summarily.
CHAPTER III
The second day was very bright, with a hot sun beating down upon the
sea, and a stiff breeze blowing to fill the sails. Don Manuel remained
below on his bunk, worn and shaken by the agitations and exertions of
the previous day. He made a poor breakfast of sops dipped in wine, and
sent his daughter from him. He shook with fever, and complained of the
headache. Hovering assiduously about him was his own man, Bartolomeo,
but he had also Joshua Dimmock to attend to his wants. This was done
mighty expertly. Joshua discoursed learnedly on several fevers, and,
not sharing Don Manuel's views on the Chaldean creed, prescribed the
wearing of some chips from a gallows as a certain cure. These he
produced from somewhere about his person, and expatiated fervently
upon their magical properties. Don Manuel waved them testily aside,
but consented to drink a strong cordial, which, he was assured, came
straight from the stillroom of my Lady Beauvallet herself, a dame
well-versed in these mysteries.
"A sure potion, señor, as I have proved," Joshua told him, "containing
julep and angelica, a handful of juniper-berries, and betony, as also
mithridate (so I believe), not to mention wormwood, which the world
knows to be very potent against all manner of fevers. The whole, noble
señor, steeped in a spirit of wine by my lady's own hands, and sealed
up tightly, as you perceive. Deign only to test of its values!"
Don Manuel drank off the cordial, and was assured of a speedy
recovery. But Joshua shook his head secretly over the case, and told
Sir Nicholas, in his private ear, that he carried a dying man aboard
the _Venture_.
"I know it," Beauvallet said briefly. "If I read well the signs the
_cameras de sangre_ is in him."
"I observed it, sir. At a glance, you would say. His man--a lank,
melancholic fool if ever I saw one!--stands prating of quotidian
fevers, but no, quoth I, say rather the _cameras de sangre_, dolt. I
shall poke out the folds of the ruff, please you, sir." He performed
this office for Sir Nicholas, and stood back to regard his handiwork.
The poking-stick was levelled at Sir Nicholas next by way of emphasis.
"Moreover, master, and mark you well! it is not to be considered a
favourable omen. By no means! A death portends disaster. I do not
speak of such willy-nilly deaths as might chance in battle. That is
understood. A lingering sickness is another and quite different matter.
We must set the worthy señor ashore with all speed."
"How now! What's this, rogue?" demanded Beauvallet, lying back in his
chair. "Set him ashore where and for what?"
"I judge the Canaries to be a convenient spot, sir. The reason is made
clear: he must die upon land--or at least upon another ship than ours.
We need not concern ourselves with that." He ducked quickly to avoid a
boot hurled at his head.
"Cullion!" Beauvallet apostrophised him. "Curb that prattling cheat of
yours! We set the gentleman ashore in Spain. Mark that!"
Joshua picked up the boot, and knelt to help Sir Nicholas put it on, no
whit abashed. "I shall take leave to say, master, that this is to put
our heads in a noose again."
"Be sure yours will end there one day," said Sir Nicholas cheerfully.
"As to that, sir, _I_ do not go roystering up and down the world,
sacking and plundering," replied Joshua, entirely without venom. "A
gentle thrust, sir, and we have the boot on. So!" He smoothed a wrinkle
from the soft Cordovan leather, and held ready the second boot. "You
are to understand, sir, that it is no matter to me, for it was clearly
proved in the reading of my horoscope that I should die snug in my bed.
It would be well to have your horoscope cast, master, that we may know
what to beware of."
"Beware your bed, dizzard, and get you hence!" Beauvallet recommended.
"You tempt me overmuch." He made a short, suggestive movement of his
arched foot.
"That, master," said Joshua philosophically, "is as may be, and at your
worship's pleasure. I do not gainsay you have the right. But I shall
take leave to say withal that this junketting upon the high seas with a
wench aboard--nay two----"
"What?" Beauvallet roared, and jerked himself upright in his chair.
Joshua's shrewd grey eyes widened. "Oho! Pardon, sir, a lady was the
word. But it's all the same, by your good leave, or rather worse, if
the wind sits in that quarter with you. However, I say nothing. But
it's against all custom and proper usage, and I misdoubt me an evil
chance may befall."
Beauvallet fell to stroking his pointed beard, seeing him at which
significant trick Joshua backed strategically to the door. "An evil
chance will without any doubt at all shortly befall you, my friend,"
said Sir Nicholas, and came to his feet, "At the toe of my boot!"
"If that is your humour, sir, I withdraw with all speed," said Joshua
promptly, and retired nimbly.
Beauvallet swung out in his wake, and went up on deck to oversee an
inventory of the _Santa Maria's_ cargo in the waist.
Thus Doña Dominica, when she came up on deck to take the air, chanced
upon a sight that made her curl her lip, and lift her chin. She
wandered to the quarterdeck and stood looking down into the waist,
where bales of cloth were lying, and where ingots were being weighed
upon a rough scale. Master Dangerfield had a sheet of paper and an
inkhorn upon an upturned cask, and wrote carefully thereon while a
stout, hairy fellow called weights and numbers. Near him, upon another
cask, lounged Beauvallet, with a hand on his hip, and a booted leg
swinging. His attention was held by what was going forward about him;
he did not observe my lady upon the deck above.
You are to know that this seeming piracy was a sort of licensed affair,
a guerilla warfare waged upon King Philip II of Spain, who certainly
provoked it. Englishmen had a lively hatred of Spain, induced by a
variety of causes. There was, many years ago, the affair of Sir John
Hawkins at San Juan de Ulloa, an instance of Spanish treachery that
would not soon be forgot; there was grim persecution at work in the
Low Countries which must make any honest man's blood boil; and a Holy
Inquisition in Spain that had swallowed up in hideous manner many
stout sailormen captured on English vessels. If you wished to seek
farther you had only to observe the way Spain used towards the natives
of the Indies. It should suffice you. On top of all there was the
abundant pride of Spain, who chose to think herself mistress of the
Old World and the New. It remained for Elizabeth, Queen of England by
God's Grace, to abate this overweening conceit. In this she was ably
assisted by such men as Drake, bluff, roaring man, and Beauvallet, his
friend; Frobisher and Gilbert; Davis and the Hawkins, father, sons, and
grandson. They put forth into Spanish waters without misgiving, and
harried King Philip mightily. They laboured under a belief--and you
could not rid them of it--that one Englishman was worth a round dozen
of Spaniards. Events proved them to be justified in their belief.
Nicholas Beauvallet, a younger son, spent the restlessness of his youth
in wanderings upon the Continent, as befitted his station. He left his
England a boy overflowing with such a spirit of dare-devilry that his
father and his elder brother prophesied it would lead him to disaster.
He came back to it a man seasoned and tried, but it was not to be seen
that the dare-devilry had departed from him. His brother, succeeding
to their father's room, shook a grave head, and called him Italianate,
a ruffler, a veritable swashbuckler, and wondered that he would not be
still. Nicholas refused to fulfil his family's expectations. He must be
off on his adventures again. He went to sea; he made some little noise
about the New World, and in due course accompanied Drake on his voyage
round the world. With that master mariner he passed the Straits of
Magellan, saw the sack of Valparaiso, reached the far Pelew Islands,
and Mindanao, and came home round the perilous Cape of Storms, bronzed
of face, and hard of muscle, and rich beyond the dreams of man.
This was well enough, no doubt, but Gerard Beauvallet, a sober man,
judged it time to be done with such traffickings. Nicholas had won
an honourable knighthood; let him settle down now, choose a suitable
bride, and provide the heirs that came not to my Lady Beauvallet.
Instead of this, incorrigible Nicholas had sailed away, after the
briefest of intervals, this time in a ship of his own. So far from
conducting himself like a respectable landowner, such as his brother
wished him to be, he seemed to be concerned only to make a strong noise
about the world. This he did with complete success. There was only one
Drake, but also there was only one Beauvallet. The Spaniards coupled
the two names together, but made of Beauvallet a kind of devil. Drake
performed the impossible in the only possible way; the Spaniards said
that El Beauvallet performed it in an impossible way, and feared him
accordingly. As for his own men, they held him in some affection, and
believed firmly in his luck and in his genius. They thought him clearly
mad, but his madness was profitable, and they had long ceased to wonder
at anything he might take it into his head to do. They might be trusted
to follow where he led, knowing by experience that he would not lead
them to disaster. His master, Patrick Howe, of bearded mien, would wag
a solemn finger. "Look you, we win because our Nick cannot fail. He is
bird-eyed for opportunity, and blind to danger, and he laughs his way
out of every peril we come to. Mad? Ay, you may say so."
The truth was that Sir Nicholas would swoop lightning-swift into some
hare-brained emprise and be off again victorious while you stood a-gape
at his hardihood.
Thus with his sweeping off of Doña Dominica, before she had time to
fetch her breath. And all with no more than a careless snap of the
fingers, as it were. Oh, a hardy fellow, God wot!
Dominica thought of all this as she stood looking down at him now,
and since Beauvallet paid no heed to her, nor ever looked up towards
the deck where she stood she presently gave vent to a scornful little
laugh, and remarked to the chasing clouds:--"A merchant, counting
stolen goods!"
Beauvallet looked quickly up. The sun was on his uncovered head, and in
his blue eyes; he put up a hand to shade them. "My Lady Disdain! Give
you a thousand good-morrows!"
"The morrow will not be good while I am upon such a ship as this," she
said provocatively.
"Now what's amiss?" demanded Sir Nicholas, and sprang down from the
cask. "What ails the ship?"
He was halfway up the companion, which was maybe what she wanted, but
she would not have him know that. "Pray you, stay below amongst your
gains, señor."
He was beside her on the deck now, swung a leg over the rail, and sat
there like some careless boy. "What's amiss?" he repeated. "More dust
in the alleyway?"
She gave the smallest of sniffs. "There is this amiss, señor, that this
is a pirate vessel, and you are mine enemy!"
"That in your teeth, my lass!" he said gaily. "I am no enemy of yours."
She tried to look witheringly upon him, but it seemed to have no
effect. "You are the declared enemy of all Spaniards, señor, and well I
know it."
"But I have it in mind, sweetheart, to make an Englishwoman of you,"
said Beauvallet frankly.
She was fairly taken aback. She gasped, flushed, and clenched her
little hands.
"Now where's that dagger?" said Beauvallet, watching her in some
amusement.
She flounced round on her heel, and swept away to the poop. She was
outraged and speechless, but she could still wonder whether he would
follow. She need have been in no doubt. He let her gain the poop, out
of sight of his men, and came up with her there. He set his hands on
her shoulders, and twisted her round to face him. The teasing light
went out of his eyes, and his voice was softened. "Lady, you called
me a mocker, but for once I do not jest. Hear my solemn promise! I
will make you an Englishwoman before a year is gone by. And so seal my
bond." He bent his handsome head quickly, and kissed her lips before
she could stop him.
She cried out indignantly, and her hands flew to avenge the insult. But
he had her measure, and was ready for the swift reprisal. She found her
hands caught and imprisoned, and his face close above hers, smiling
down into her angry eyes. "Will you rate me for a knave, or pity me for
a poor mad fellow?" said Sir Nicholas, teasing again.
"I hate you!" she said, and spoke with some passion "I despise you, and
I hate you!"
He let her go. "Hate me? But why?"
She brushed her hand across her lips, as though she would brush his
kiss away. "How dared you----!" she choked. "Hold me--kiss me! Oh,
base! It's to insult me!" She fled towards the companion leading down
to the staterooms.
He was before her, barring the way. "Hold, child! Here's some tangle. I
would wed you. Did I not say it?"
She stamped, tried to push past him, and failed. "You will never wed
me!" she defied him. "You are ungenerous, base! You hold me prisoner,
and do as you will with me!"
He had her fast indeed, with his hands gripping her arms above the
elbows. He shook her slightly. "Nay nay, there's no talk of prisoners
or of goalers, Dominica, but only of a man and a maid. What harm have I
done you?"
"You forced me! You dared to kiss me, and held me powerless!"
"I cry pardon. But you may stab me with mine own dagger, sweeting. See,
it is ready to your hand. A swift, sure revenge! No? What will you have
me do, then?" His hands slid down her arms to her wrists; he bent, and
kissed her fingers. "There! let it be forgot--until I kiss you again."
That was said with a quick whimsical glance, daringly irrepressible.
"That will be never, señor."
"And so she flings down her gauntlet. I pick it up, my lady, and will
give you a Spanish proverb for answer:--_Vivir para ver!_"
"You will scarcely wed me by force," she retorted. "Even you!"
He considered the point. "True, child, that were too easy a course."
"I warrant you would not find it so!"
"Marry, is it yet another challenge?" he inquired.
She drew back a pace. "You would not!"
"Nay, have I not said I will not? Be at ease, ye shall have a royal
wooing."
"And where will you woo me?" she asked scornfully. "My home is in the
very heart of Spain, I'd have you know."
"Be sure I shall follow you there," he promised, and laughed to see her
face of incredulous wonder.
"Braggart! Oh, idle boaster! How should you dare?"
"Look for me in Spain before a year is out," he answered. "My hand upon
it."
"There is a Holy Inquisition in Spain, señor," she reminded him.
"There is, señora," he said rather grimly, and produced from out his
doublet a book bound in leather. "And it is like to have you in its
clutches if you keep such dangerous stuff as this about you, my lass,"
he said.
She turned pale, and clasped her hands nervously at her bosom. "Where
found you that?" The breath caught in her throat.
"In your cabin aboard the _Santa Maria_, child. If that is the mind you
are in the sooner I have you safe out of Spain the better for you."
He gave the book into her hands. "Hide it close, or sail with me to
England."
"Do not tell my father!" she said urgently.
"Why, can you not trust me? Oh, unkind!"
"I suppose it is no affair of yours, señor," she said, recovering her
dignity. "I thank you for my book. Now let me pass."
"I have a name, child. I believe I made you free of it."
She swept a curtsey. "Oh, I thank you--Sir Nicholas Beauvallet!" she
mocked, and fled past him down the companion.
CHAPTER IV
Doña Dominica thought it imperative that Beauvallet's impudence should
be suitably punished, and took it upon herself to perform this pious
office. Master Dangerfield was a tool ready to her hand; she sought
him out, cast a thrall about that susceptible lad, and flirted with
him, somewhat to his embarrassment. She brought her long eyelashes into
play, the minx, was all honey to him, and flattered the vanity of the
youthful male. She used a distant courtesy towards Beauvallet, listened
when he spoke to her, folded meek hands in her lap, and turned back to
Master Dangerfield at the first chance. Beauvallet had stately curtseys
and cool impersonalities from her; she let it be clearly seen that
Dangerfield could have if he chose a hand to kiss, her smiles, and her
chatter. Master Dangerfield was duly grateful, but showed a lamentable
tendency to set her high upon a pedestal. At another time this might
have pleased her, but she had now no mind to play the goddess. She was
at pains to show Master Dangerfield that he might dare to venture a
little further.
But all this strategy failed of its object. Doña Dominica, out of
the tail of her eye, saw with indignation the frank amusement of Sir
Nicholas. Beauvallet stood back and watched the play with a laughing,
an appreciative eye. The lady redoubled her efforts.
She was forced to admit Dangerfield dull sport, and chid herself for
hankering after the livelier company of his General. With him one
met the unexpected; there was a spice of risk to savour the game, an
element of adventure to whet the appetite. She would come up with
Dangerfield on the deck, stand at his side and ask him questions
innumerable upon the sailing of a ship, and appear to listen rapt to
his conscientious answers. But all the time she had a quick ear and a
vigilant eye for Sir Nicholas, and when she heard his ringing voice, or
saw him come with his quick light step across the deck she would feel
her pulses beat the faster, and dread a rising blush. Nor could she
ever withstand the force in him that compelled her to meet his look.
She might fight against it, but soon or late she must steal a glance
towards him, and find his eyes, brimful of laughter, upon her, his
hands lightly laid on his hips, his feet firmly planted and wide apart,
mockery in his every line.
Since pride forbade her to give him her company she found a certain
solace in talking of him to his lieutenant. Master Dangerfield was
willing enough, but he was shocked to hear what an ill opinion she had
of the hero. He could allow that Sir Nicholas had maybe too boisterous
and reckless a way to suit a lady's taste, but when Dominica poured
more scorn upon Beauvallet the boy was moved to protest. It was likely
that she wanted this.
"I marvel that you breed such ruffling bullies in England, señor," she
said, nose in air.
"A bully?" Dangerfield echoed. "Sir Nicholas? Why, I believe you must
not say so aboard this ship, señora."
"Oh, I am not afraid!" Dominica declared.
"You have little need to be, señora. But you speak to Sir Nicholas'
lieutenant. Maybe we who serve under him know him better."
At that she opened her eyes very wide indeed. "What, are you all
besotted then? Do you like the man so well?"
He smiled down at her. "Most men like him, señora. He is very much--a
man, you see."
"Very much a braggart," she corrected, curling her lip.
"No, señora, indeed. I allow he has the manner. But I have never known
him promise what he has not performed. If you knew him better----"
"Oh, spare me, señor! Wish me no better knowledge of your bully."
"Maybe he is too swift for you. He goes too straight towards his goal
for a lady's taste, and uses no subtleties."
She pounced on that, and put the question that had long hovered on her
tongue. "I take it your English ladies think as I think, señor?"
"Nay, I believe they like him very well," Dangerfield replied, smiling
a little. "Too well for his desires."
Dominica saw the smile. "I make no doubt he is a great trifler."
Dangerfield shook his head. "Nay, he is merry in his dealings, but I
believe he will stay for no woman."
Dominica spent a moment pondering that. Dangerfield plodded on
painstakingly. "I would not have you think though that he holds women
in poor esteem, señora. Indeed, I think he is gentle with your sex."
"Gentle!" the lady ejaculated. "I marvel you can say so! A rough fellow
I have found him! A boisterous, rough fellow!"
"You have naught to fear from him, señora," Dangerfield said seriously.
"On my honour, he would not offer hurt to one weaker than himself."
Dominica was affronted. "I fear him? Señor, know that I do not fear him
or anyone!" she announced fiercely.
"Brave lass!" applauded a voice behind her. Dominica jumped, and turned
to see Beauvallet lounging against the bulwarks. He held out his hand
invitingly. "Then since you have no fear of him, come and talk with the
boisterous, rough fellow."
Master Dangerfield beat a discreet retreat, and basely left the lady
alone. She tapped a slender foot on the deck. "I do not wish to talk
with you, señor."
"I am not a señor, child."
"True, Sir Nicholas."
"Come!" he insisted, and his eyes were bright and searching.
"Not at your bidding, Sir Nicholas," said Dominica haughtily.
"At my most humble prayer!" But his look belied the words.
"I thank you, I am very well where I am," Dominica said, and turned her
shoulder.
"The mountain would not. Well, there was a sequel." He was at her side
in two steps, and instinctively she drew back in some kind of enjoyable
alarm. He frowned quickly at that, and set his hands on her shoulders.
"Why do you shrink? Do you think I would offer you hurt indeed?"
"No--that is, I do not know at all, señor, and nor do I care!"
"Brave words, but still you shrank. What, do you know so little of me
even now? You shall be better acquainted with me, I promise you."
"You are hurting me! Let me go!"
He held her slightly away from him, and seemed to puzzle over her. "How
do I hurt you? By holding you thus?"
"Your fingers grip me well-nigh to the bone," said Dominica crossly.
He smiled. "I am not gripping you at all, sweetheart, and well you know
it."
"Let me go!"
"But if I do you will run away," he pointed out.
"I wonder that you desire to talk to one who--who hates you!"
"Not I, child. But you do not hate me."
"I do! I do!"
"God's Death, then, why do you play poor Diccon on your line to tease
me?"
That was too much for the lady. She hit him, full across his smiling
mouth.
It was no sooner done that she knew a frightened leap of the heart, an
instant regret, for he swooped quickly, caught her hands fast in his,
and locked them behind her back. She looked up, in part afraid, in part
defiant, and saw him laughing still.
"Now what do you think you deserve of me?" Beauvallet asked.
She had recourse to her strongest weapon, and burst into tears. She was
set free on the instant.
"Sweetheart, sweetheart!" Beauvallet said remorsefully. "Here's no
matter for tears! What, am I so grim an ogre? I did but tease you,
child. Look up! Nay, but smile! See, I will kiss the very hem of your
gown! Only do not weep!" He was on his knee before her; she looked
down through her tears at his bent head, more shaken still, and heard
footsteps coming up the companion leading from the waist of the ship.
She touched Beauvallet's crisp hair fleetingly. "Oh, do not! One
comes--get up, get up!"
He sprang up as his Master appeared at the head of the companion, and
stepped quickly forward to shield Dominica from this worthy's notice.
It was easily possible now for her to escape below decks. Sir Nicholas'
attention was held by his Master; the way lay open to her. Doña
Dominica walked to the bulwarks, and carefully dried her eyes, and
stood looking out to sea.
In a minute or two the Master's retreating steps sounded, and a lighter
footfall, nearer at hand. Beauvallet's fingers covered hers as they lay
on the rail. "Forgive the rough, boisterous fellow!" he begged.
The tone won her; a dimple peeped, and was gone. "You use me
monstrously," complained Dominica.
"But you do not hate me?"
She left that unanswered. "I cannot find it in me to envy the lady you
take to wife," she said.
"Nay, how should you?"
She looked sharply up at that, blushed, and turned her face away. "I do
not know how the English ladies can bear with you, señor."
He looked merrily down at her. "Why, I have not called upon them to
bear with me, señora."
She faced him suddenly. "You will scarce have me believe you have not
trifled often and often!" she said hotly. "No doubt ye deem women of
small account!"
"I do not deem you of small account, child."
She smiled disdainfully. "You are mightily apt. Do you use this manner
with the English ladies, pray?"
"Nay, sweetheart, this is the manner I use," Sir Nicholas answered, and
promptly kissed her.
Dominica choked, pushed him violently away, and fled down the companion
to her cabin. She found her woman there, and was at once conscious of
a heightened colour, and ruffled hair. Maria, noting these portents
and the storm in her mistress' eyes, set her arms akimbo and looked
fiercely. "That bully!" she said darkly. "He has insulted you,
señorita? He dared to lay his hands on you?"
Dominica was biting her handkerchief; her eyes looked this way and
that, and at the end she laughed uneasily. "He kissed me," she said.
"I will tear the eyes from his head!" vowed Maria, and made for the
door.
"Silly wench! Fond fool! Stay still!" Dominica commanded.
"You shall not again stir forth without me to be your duenna,
señorita," promised Maria.
Dominica stamped her foot. "Oh, blind! I wanted him to kiss me!"
Maria's jaw dropped. "Señorita!"
Dominica gave a tiny laugh. "He swears he will come into Spain to seek
me. If he but dared!"
"Not even an Englishman would be fool enough, señorita."
"Alack, no!" Dominica sighed. "But if he did--oh, I become infected
with his madness!" She lifted the tiny mirror that hung at her girdle,
and frowned at her own reflection. A pat here and a twist there, and
she had her curls demure again under the net. She let fall the mirror,
blushed to see Maria still wondering at her, and was off to visit her
father.
She found Joshua Dimmock in the cabin, vociferous in defence of his
gallows' chips, which he believed, privately, might serve at least to
stave off Don Manuel's death until he was set safe ashore.
Don Manuel looked wearily at his daughter. "Is there none to rid me of
this fool?" he said.
Joshua tried the effect of coaxing. "See, señor, I have them safe tied
in a sachet. I bought them of a very holy man, versed in these matters.
If you would but wear them about your neck I might vouch for a certain
cure."
"Bartolomeo, set wide that door," commanded Don Manuel. "Now, fellow,
depart from me!"
"Most gracious señor----"
Bartolomeo fell back from the open doorway, bowing. A voice that to
Dominica's fancy seemed to hold all the sunshine and the salt wind of
fine days at sea smote her ears. "What's this?"
Sir Nicholas stood on the threshold.
Don Manuel raised himself on his elbow. "Señor, in good time! Rid me of
your knave there, and his damnable chips from a gallows!"
Beauvallet came quickly in, saw Joshua standing aggrieved by the side
of the bunk, and caught him by the nape of the neck, and with no more
ado hurled him forth. He kicked the door to behind him, and stood
looking down at Don Manuel. "Is there aught else I may do for you,
señor? You have but to name it."
Don Manuel lay back against the pillows and smiled wrily. "You are
short in your dealings, señor."
"But to the point, you'll allow. I am come to see how you do this
morning. The fever still hath you in its hold?"
"A little." Don Manuel frowned a warning. Beauvallet turned his head to
observe the reason of this. Dominica was standing stiffly by the table.
It seemed this abominable man must be everywhere at once. One's own
cabin was the only safe retreat. She moved stately to the door.
Bartolomeo went to open it, but was put aside by a careless hand. Sir
Nicholas held the door wide, and my lady went out with a quickened step.
"You, too, Bartolomeo," Don Manuel said, and lay watching Beauvallet.
He fetched a stifled sigh. This handsome man with his springing step
and alert carriage seemed to the sick gentleman the very embodiment of
life and health.
Beauvallet came to the bunk, and pulled a joint-stool forward, and sat
down upon it. "You want to speak with me, señor?"
"I want to speak with you." Don Manuel plucked at the sheet that
covered him. "Señor, since first you brought us aboard this ship you
have not again spoken of our disposal."
Beauvallet raised his brows quickly. "I thought I had made myself
plain, señor. I shall set you ashore on the northern coast of Spain."
Don Manuel tried to read the face before him; the blue eyes looked
straightly; under the neat mustachio the mouth was firm and humorous.
If Beauvallet had secrets he hid them well under a frank exterior. "Am
I to believe you serious, señor?"
"Never more so, upon my honour. Wherefore all this pother over a very
simple matter?"
"Is it, then, so simple to put into a Spanish port, señor?"
"To say truth, señor, your countrymen have not yet learned the trick of
capturing Nick Beauvallet. God send them a better education, cry you!"
Don Manuel spoke gravely. "Señor, you are an enemy--a dangerous
enemy--to my country, yet, believe me, I should be sorry to see you
taken."
"A thousand thanks, señor. You will certainly not see it. I was born in
a fortunate hour."
"I have had enough of portents and omens, señor, from your servant. I
make bold to say that if you set us ashore in Spain you place your life
in jeopardy. And for what? It is madness! I can find no other name for
it."
The firm lips parted; there was a gleam of white teeth. "Call it
Beauvallet's way, señor."
Don Manuel said nothing, but lay still, watching his captor and host.
After a minute he spoke again. "You are a strange man, señor. For many
years I have heard wild tales of you, and believed, perhaps, a quarter
of them. You constrain me to lend ear to the wildest of them." He
paused, but Beauvallet only smiled again. "If, indeed, you speak in
good faith I stand infinitely beholden to you. Yet you might act in the
best of faith and fail of such a foolhardy endeavour."
Sir Nicholas swung his pomander on the end of its chain. "God rest you,
señor: I shall not fail."
"I pray in this instance you may not. It does not need for me to tell
you that my days are numbered. I would end them in Spain, señor."
Beauvallet held up his hand. "My oath on it, señor. You shall end them
there," he said gently.
Don Manuel stirred restlessly. "I must set my house in order, I leave
my daughter alone in the world. There is my sister. But the child had
traffickings with Lutherans, and I misdoubt me----" He broke off,
sighing.
Beauvallet came to his feet. "Señor, give me ear a minute!"
Don Manuel looked up at him, and saw him serious for once. "I attend,
señor."
"When I approach my chosen goal, señor, I march straight. That you may
have heard of me. Let it go. I make you privy now to a new goal I have
sworn to reach, a fair prize. The day will come, Don Manuel, when I
shall take your daughter to wife."
Don Manuel's eyelids fluttered a moment. "Do you tell me, señor, that
you love my daughter?" he asked sternly.
"Madly, señor, I make no doubt you would say."
Don Manuel looked more sternly still. "And she? No, it is not possible!"
"Why, as to that, señor, I do not know. I am not over-apt with maids.
She will love me one day."
"Señor, be plain with me. What is this riddle you propound?"
"None, señor. Here is only the plain truth. I might bear Dominica away
to England, and thus constrain her----"
"You would not!" Don Manuel cried out sharply.
"Nay, I constrain no maid against her will, be assured. But you will
allow it to be clearly within my power." He paused, and his eyes
questioned.
Don Manuel watched the swing of the golden pomander from long fingers,
looked higher, and met the imperative gaze. "We are in your hands I
know full well," he said evenly.
Beauvallet nodded. "But that easy course is not the one I will take,
señor. Nor am I one to enact the part of ravisher, of betrayer. I will
take you to Spain, and there leave you. But, señor--and mark me well!
for what I swear I will do that I shall certainly do, though the sun
die and the moon fall, and the earth be wholly overset!--I shall come
later into Spain, and seek out your daughter, and ride away with her on
my saddle-bow!" His voice seemed to fill the room, vibrating with some
leaping passion. A moment he looked down at Don Manuel with a glint in
his eyes, and his beard jutting outwards with his lifted chin. Then the
fire left him as suddenly as it had sprung up, and he laughed softly,
and the glitter went out of his eyes. "Judge you by this, señor, if I
do truly love her as you would have her loved!"
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 forsworn, 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."
CHAPTER V
Don 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 at 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: "Doña 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!"
Doña 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. Ye 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. His 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 to 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 so soon as he set foot on English soil.
Doña 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. Doña 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. Doña Dominica listened in growing horror, and
escaped from her father's cabin to the free air above.
"Oh!" cried she, "are English ladies so hedged about, and guarded, and
confined, as we poor Spaniards?"
They were in colder latitudes, and the wind bit shrewdly. Beauvallet
loosened the cloak about his shoulders, and clipped it fast about my
lady, so that it fell all about her. "Nay, I'll not confine you, sweet,
but I shall know how to guard my treasure, don't doubt it."
She drew the cloak about her, and looked up, wide-eyed. "Do you in
England set vile duennas to watch your wives?" she asked.
He shook his head. "We trust them, rather!"
Her dimples quivered. "Oh, almost you persuade me, Sir Nicholas!" She
frowned a warning as his hand flew out towards her. "Fie, before your
men? I said 'almost,' señor. Know that my father plans my marriage."
"A careful gentleman," said Beauvallet. "So, faith, do I."
"If you came, indeed, into Spain you might haply find me wed, señor."
A gleam came into his eyes, like a sword, she thought. "Might I so?" he
said, and the words demanded an answer.
She looked away, trembled a little, smiled, frowned, and blushed.
"N-no," she said.
Too soon the day came that saw Spanish shores to the southward. Don
Manuel braved the cold air on deck for a while, and followed the
direction of Beauvallet's pointing finger. "Thereabouts lies Santander,
señor. I shall set you ashore to-night."
The day wore swiftly to its close. Dusk came, and my lady watched
Maria pack her chests. Maria stowed jewels away in a gold-bound box,
and jealously counted each trinket. She could never be at ease amongst
these English, but must always suspect darkly.
My lady was seized by an odd fancy, and demanded to stow her jewels
with her own hands. She took the casket to the light, and laid its
contents out on the table, and debated over them with a look half
rueful, half tender. In the end she chose a thumb ring of gold, too
large for her little hand, too heavy for a lady's taste. She hid it in
her handkerchief and quickly locked up the case that Maria might not
discover the loss of one significant piece.
In the soft darkness of the evening she flitted up on deck, a cloak
wrapped about her, and her oval face pale in the dim lamplight. The
ship made slow way now, the dark water lapping gently at her oaken
sides. There was a little bustle on the deck; she heard the Master's
voice raised: "Steady your helm!" She saw Beauvallet standing under the
light of a swinging lamp, with his boatswain beside him. The boatswain
held a lantern, and was peering into the darkness. Far away to the
south Dominica could see the little glow of lights, and knew that Spain
was reached at last.
She stole up to Beauvallet unseen and laid a timid hand on his arm. He
looked quickly round, and at once his hand covered hers where it lay on
his latticed sleeve. "Why, child!"
"I came--I wanted--I came to speak with you a minute," she said
uncertainly.
He drew her apart, and stood looking down at her quizzically. "Speak,
child, I am listening."
Her hand came out from the shelter of her cloak; in it she held the
golden ring. "Señor, you gave me a ring of yours to keep. I--I think
you will never see me again, and so--and so I would have you take this
ring of mine in memory of me."
The ring and the hand that held it were alike caught in a strong hold.
She was swept out of the circle of light cast by the lamp above, and
stood face to face with Beauvallet in the friendly darkness. She felt
his arms go round her, and stood still, with her hands clasped at her
breast. He held her in a tight embrace, laid his cheek against her
curls, and murmured: "Sweetheart! Fondling!" Madness, madness, but it
was sweet to be mad just once in one's life! She lifted her face, put
up a hand to touch his bronzed cheek, and gave him back kisses that
were shy and very fugitive. Her senses swam; she thought she would
never forget how an Englishman's arms felt, iron barriers holding one
hard against a leaping heart. A shiver of ecstasy ran through her; she
whispered: "_Querido!_ Dear one! Do not quite forget!"
"Forget!" he said. "Oh, little unbeliever! Feel how I hold you: shall I
ever let you go?"
She came back to earth; she was blushing and shaken. "Oh, loose me!"
she begged, and seemed to flutter in his arms. "How may I believe that
you could do the impossible?"
"There is naught impossible that I have found," he said. "You shall
leave me for a space, since to that I pledged my word, but not for
long, my little love, not for long! Look for me before the year is out;
I shall surely come."
A rich voice sounded close at hand. "Where are you, sir? They answer
the signal right enough."
Beauvallet put the lady quickly behind him; the boatswain came to them,
peering through the darkness.
What followed passed as a dream for Dominica. There was a furtive light
dipping and shining on the mainland; she escaped below decks, and saw
her baggage borne away, and heard the bustle of a boat being prepared.
Don Manuel sat ready, wrapped about in a fur-lined cloak, but shivering
always. "He hath compassed it," Don Manuel said in quiet satisfaction.
"He is a brave man."
Master Dangerfield came to fetch them in a little while; he gave an arm
to Don Manuel, spoke words of cheer, but cast a regretful eye towards
my lady. They came up on deck and found Beauvallet by a rope-ladder.
Below, bobbing on the ink-black water, a boat waited, manned by the
boatswain and some of his men, and with the baggage stowed safely in it.
Sir Nicholas came forward. "Don Manuel, have you strength to descend
yon ladder?"
"I can essay, señor," Don Manuel said. "Bartolomeo, go before me." He
faced Beauvallet in the shaded lamplight. "Señor, this is farewell. You
will let me say----"
"No need, señor. Let it be said anon. I shall see you safely ashore."
"Yourself, señor? Nay, that is too much to ask of you."
"Be at ease, ye did not ask it. It is my pleasure," Beauvallet said,
and put out a strong hand to help him down the ladder.
Don Manuel went painfully down the side with Bartolomeo watchful
below him. Beauvallet turned to Dominica, and opened his arms. "Trust
yourself to me yet again, sweetheart," he said.
Without a word she went to him and let him swing her up to his
shoulder. He went lightly down the side with her, let her slip to her
feet in the boat below, and held her still with one supporting hand.
She found a seat beside Maria, crouched in the stern, and nestled
beside her. Beauvallet left the ladder and gained the boat, stepped
past the two women to the tiller behind them, and called a low order
to his men. There was a casting off, long oars dipped into the heaving
water; silently the boat cleaved forward towards the land.
A crescent moon gleamed suddenly through a rift in the clouds above;
Dominica looked round and saw Beauvallet behind her, holding the
tiller. He was looking frowningly ahead, but as she turned he glanced
down at her and smiled. She said suddenly on a sharp note of fear: "Ah,
if there should be soldiers! A trap!"
His white teeth shone between the black of beard and mustachio. "Never
fear."
"Foolhardy!" she whispered. "I would you had not come."
"What, and send my men into a danger I dare not face?" he rallied her.
She looked at him, so straight and handsome in the pale moonlight. "No,
that is not your way," she said. "I cry pardon."
The clouds covered the moon's face again; Beauvallet was a dark shadow
against the night. "I have a sword, child. Fear not."
"Rather, Reck Not," she said in a low voice.
She heard the ripple of his gay laugh.
Soon, too soon, the boat's keel grated on the beach. There were men
running down to meet them now, men who caught at the boat, and held
her, and questioned eagerly, in low, rough Spanish. Sir Nicholas picked
his way across the baggage, and between the rowers to the nose of the
boat, and sprang ashore, closely followed by his boatswain. There was
the quick give and take of question and answer, a sharp exclamation, a
subdued babel of voices in a long parley. Then Beauvallet came back to
the boat, with the sea washing about his ankles, and gave his hand to
Don Manuel. "All is well, señor; these worthy fellows will give you a
lodging for the night, and your man may ride into Santander to-morrow
to find a coach to bear you hence."
A burly sailor lifted Don Manuel on to dry land; his daughter lay in
tenderer arms. She was carried up the beach, held closer still for a
moment. Beauvallet bent his head and kissed her. "Till I come again!"
he said, and set her on her feet. "Trust me!"
CHAPTER VI
The _Venture_ was left in Plymouth Sound, under charge of Master
Culpepper, and her treasure safely stored. She was docked, and would
be clean careened before she could put to sea again. Beauvallet stayed
some three nights in Plymouth, where he found a sea-faring crony or
two, heard what news was abroad, and saw to the bestowal of his ship.
He took horse then, with Joshua Dimmock in attendance, and a hired man
following hard upon them with led sumpters, and made for Alreston, in
Hampshire, where he might reasonably expect to find his brother.
My Lord Beauvallet had other dwellings beside this, but of all
this manor of Alreston saw him the most. There was a grim hold in
Cambridgeshire, built nearly two hundred years ago by the founder
of the house, Simon, First Baron Beauvallet. A left-handed scion of
the old house of Malvallet, Simon cleaved for himself a new name
and a new title. Under King Henry V he saw much fighting in France,
and when those wars were done, came riding back into Cambridgeshire
with a French bride, a countess in her own right, holding lands and
a stronghold in Normandy. You might read of this first Beauvallet's
mighty deeds in the dreamy chronicles of his close friend, Alan, Earl
of Montlice, who occupied the latter years of his life with the writing
of his reminiscences. It is a diffuse work, something poetical in tone,
but contains much of interest.
Since the days of the Iron Baron the family fortunes had fluctuated.
The French County was lost to the English branch very early, for
Simon, finding himself continually at loggerheads with his first-born,
bestowed it upon his second son, Henry, who was thus the founder of the
present French house.
Geoffrey, the second baron, survived the Wars of the Roses, but left
the barony considerably impoverished by his vacillations. His heir,
Henry, took to wife Margaret, heiress of Malvallet, by which wise
alliance the two families were made one. His successors all laid
schemes for the family's advancement, but the times were troublous, and
it was not always possible to steer a safe course through the varying
politics of the day. Thus in this year, 1586, although the house of
Beauvallet had by dint of careful marriages planted its roots in many
great houses, and become one of the wealthiest in the land, the present
holder of the title was still only a baron, as his ancestor had been
before him.
This Seventh Baron, Gerard, a solid man, had built the new house
at Alreston, a noble mansion of red brick, with oak timberings. My
lady, a frail dame, complained of the cruel temper of the climate in
Cambridgeshire, and was urgent in her gentle way, to be gone from an
ancient castle full of draughts and damp and gloomy corners. My lord,
inheriting much of his great ancestor's rugged nature, had a fondness
for this mediæval hold, and saw in the use of oak for house-building
a sign of the decadence of the age. He was, so they said, a hard man,
with a will of iron, but there was a joint in his armour. My lady had
her way, and there arose in milder Hampshire, on lands that had come as
part of the dowry of Gerard's grandmother, a stately Tudor mansion, set
in fair gardens, surrounded by its stables, its farmsteads, and its
rolling acres of pasturage. It was seen that my lord for all his hardy
notions had pride in the magnificence of the building. He might speak
slightingly of an age of luxury, but he adorned his house with every
trapping of wealth, used the despised oak for his panelling, and had
all carved and painted to the admiration of his neighbours.
Thither rode Nicholas, on a bright spring day, and came in sight of
the square gatehouse, after an absence of over a year. The gates stood
wide, and showed a broad avenue stretching ahead, with rolling lawns to
flank it, and the high gables of the manor beyond. Sir Nicholas reined
in, and sent a shout echoing through the archway. The gate-keeper
came out, no sooner saw who called than he hurried forward, beaming a
welcome. "Eh, but it could be none other! Master Nick!"
Beauvallet stretched down a hand in careless good nature. "Well, old
Samson? How does my brother?"
"Well, master, well, and my lady too," Samson told him, and bent the
knee to kiss his hand. "Are you come home for aye at last, sir? The
place misses you!"
There was a shrug of the shoulder and a shake of the head. "Nay, nay,
the place needs but my brother."
"A just lord," Samson agreed. "But there is never a man on Beauvallet
land would not be glad to welcome Sir Nicholas home."
"Oh, flatterer!" Beauvallet mocked. "What have I ever done for the
land?"
"It is not that, master." Samson shook his head, and would have said
more.
But Sir Nicholas laughed it aside, waved his hand, and rode on under
the arch.
A flight of broad stone steps led up from the neat drive to the terrace
and the great doorway. There were clipped yews in tubs, and in the
stonework above the door the Beauvallet arms were set in a stone
shield. Leaded windows reared up slim and stately to either side, built
out in rounded bays, with scrolls beneath them of stonework set against
the warmer brick. The roof was tiled red, with tall chimney-stacks to
either end, and round attic windows set between the many gables. The
door stood open to let in the spring sunshine.
Sir Nicholas swung himself lightly down from the saddle, tossed the
bridle to Joshua, and went bounding up the steps. Like a boy he set
his hollowed hands to form a trumpet for his mouth, and called: "Holà,
there! What, none to cry Nick welcome?"
In a moment heads peeped from upper windows. There was a stir amongst
the serving maids, a whisper of: "Sir Nicholas is home!" and much
preening of stuff gowns and patting of prim coifs. Sir Nicholas might
be counted on to give a hearty buss to the prettiest, ignoring my
lady's murmured protests.
Portly Master Dawson, steward for many years, heard the shout in his
buttery, and made haste to come out into the sunlight. A couple of
lackeys hurried at his heels, and Dame Margery, urgent to be the first
to greet her nursling. She pushed past Master Dawson as he reached the
door, dived under his arm without ceremony, a little wrinkled woman in
a close white cap. "My cosset!" cried Dame Margery. "My lamb! Is it my
babe indeed?"
"Indeed and indeed!" Sir Nicholas said, laughing, and opened his arms
to her. He caught her up in a great hug while she fondled and scolded
all in one breath. He was a good-for-naught, a rough, sudden fellow
to snatch up an old woman thus! Eh, but he was brown! She dared swear
he was grown; but his cheek was thin: she misgave her he was in poor
health. Ah, he was a sad wastrel to be so long gone, and to come home
but to laugh at his poor nurse! She must pat him, stroke his hands,
feel the thickness of his short cloak. A fine cloth, by her faith! all
tricked out with points and tassels of gold! Oh, spendthrift! Take
heed, take heed! Could he not see my lord coming to greet him?
My lord came sedately out from the house in a gown of camlet trimmed
with vair, with a close cap set upon his head, and a gold chain about
his neck. My lord wore a cathedral beard like a churchman. He was fair
where Nicholas was dark; his eyes were blue, but lacked the sparkle
that was in his brother's eyes. He was a tall man of imposing mien, had
a grave countenance and a stately gait. "Well, Nick!" he said, with
the glimmer of a smile. "My lady heard a shouting and commotion, and
straightway saith Nick must be home. How is it with you, lad?"
The brothers embraced. "As you see me, Gerard. And you?"
"Well, enough. A tertian fever troubled me in February, but it is
happily passed."
"He must needs go into Cambridgeshire to that damp, unhealthy castle,"
sighed a mournful voice. "I knew what would come of it. I foretold an
ague from the start. Dear Nicholas, give you good den."
Nicholas turned to greet my Lady Beauvallet, kissed her hand right
dutifully, and so came to her lips. "Do I see you well, sister?"
"Nick!" She blushed faintly and shook her finger at him. "Ever the
same swift way! Nay, the hard winter--harder than any I remember,
was it not, my lord?--tried me sorely. At the New Year I had the
sweating-sickness. Then, at Candlemas, an ague seized me, and was like
to have carried me off, methought."
"But the spring comes, and you grow strong with it," suggested Nicholas.
She looked doubtful. "Indeed, Nicholas, I trust it may be found so, but
I have the frailest health, as you know."
Gerard broke in upon this lamentation. "I see you bring home that
ruffler," he said, and nodded to where Joshua stood in parley with the
lackeys. "Have ye schooled him yet?"
"Devil a bit, brother. Joshua! Here, rogue, come pay your duty to my
lord!" He put an arm round my lady's waist and swept her into the
house. "Have in with you, Kate. The snip of the wind is like to lay you
low of a second ague."
My lady went with him protesting. "Nick, Nick, so hardy still? Not a
second ague, I assure you, but more like the seventh, for, indeed, no
sooner am I raised from one than another comes to strike me down. Come
into the hall, brother. There should be a fire there, and they will
bring wine for you. Or there is some March beer of two years tunning.
Dawson! Dawson, bring--oh, he is gone! Well, come in, Nicholas; you
will be chilled from your ride."
They went through the screens to the Great Hall. This was a noble
apartment with the roof high over their heads crossed and re-crossed
with oaken timbers. Tall windows were set all round the walls at a
height above a man's head. Between them the walls were covered with
panels of linen-fold. A dais was set at one end, in the bay of the
front windows, with a long table upon it and benches around. A great
fireplace stood in one wall, with logs burning in it. Above the lofty
mantelpiece, supported by pilasters, my lord's quarterings hung.
Rushes, with rosemary strewed amongst them, covered the floor; there
was a settle on either side of the fireplace, and some carved and
panel-backed chairs ranged neatly along the wall.
My lady sat down on one side of the fire, and since her monstrous
farthingale seemed to occupy most of the settle, Sir Nicholas went to
the other. "Yes, sit down, dear Nicholas," she said. "Dawson will be
here anon, and my lord too, I dare swear."
Sir Nicholas loosed the cloak from about his shoulders and tossed it
aside. It fell over one of the chairs against the wall, and Margery,
peeping round a corner of the screens, frowned to see the fine thing
so rudely used. My lady caught sight of that puckered face and smiled
kindly. "Come you in, Margery. You will say it is a good day that sees
Sir Nicholas come riding home."
"Good indeed, my lady." Margery dropped a curtsey. "But a feckless,
heedless boy! Ah, is there never one to school him?" She picked up the
cloak and folded it carefully. "Tut, the brave hat upon the floor!
Two feathers in it, i'faith!" She looked a fond reproof at such
extravagance. "Heed old Margery, my cosset, and get ye a wife!"
"What need?" Sir Nicholas asked, and disposed his graceful limbs at
ease along the settle. "What need while I still have Margery to scold,
and a fair sister to shake her head at me?"
"Oh, Nicholas, for shame!" my lady said. "I shake my head? Though,
indeed, ye often deserve that I should. Ah, my lord, in good time! Here
is your brother says we scold, poor Margery and I."
My lord came to sit beside Nicholas on the settle. "Dawson is gone to
fetch the March beer for you, Nick. He is sure it is what you need." He
smiled. "It is a rare thing, faith, to see the house turned upside down
for a graceless rogue that heeds naught that concerns it."
Sir Nicholas threw back his head, and laughed. "The old tale! I irk you
sorely, Gerard, alack!"
"Nay, nay." My lord looked on him with some kindness. "So ye be come
home now to stay...."
"Patience, Gerard, patience!" Nicholas said mischievously.
Dawson came in preceding a lackey, bearing the famous beer upon a
salver. "Sir, at your pleasure!"
"In good sooth!" Sir Nicholas stretched out a hand for the tankard.
"Give you my word I have yearned often for this. My lady, I drink to
your better health."
"Ah!" sighed my lady, and shook her head.
My lord took the second tankard. "You will wish to hear news of my Lady
Stanbury," he said. "I had a letter from her lord last Friday se'n
night, telling me she had been brought to bed of a fair son."
"What, a son at last?" quoth Sir Nicholas, tossing off the rest of
his beer. "Marry, I lost count of poor Adela's daughters long since!
Dawson, another tankard, man, to drink my nephew's health!" He looked
at Gerard. "How doth my sister? Who stands sponsor?"
"Well, very well. I am asked to stand, with my lady, and another. Ye
should journey into Worcester to visit them; Adela would be glad of it.
You will not have heard that our cousin Arnold is wedded to Groshawk's
second daughter? A fair match, no more than fair. The elder girl
favoured her mother too much for Arnold, so I heard."
Talk ran awhile on family matters; my lady went away presently to see
to the preparation of the heir's chamber, and Nicholas must needs be
off to the stables to greet old servants, and inspect new horses. My
lord went with him, willingly enough.
"There's a Barbary horse might suit you," said he. "Ye shall try his
paces. I bought him last Michaelmas, but he is scarce up to my weight,
I believe. He should please you: a fiery, impatient brute." He linked
arms with Nicholas, and made his brother curb his hasty steps to match
his own. "Gently, lad! What's your hurry?"
"None. What hawks do you keep now? What sport?"
"Fair, fair. I was out with my neighbour Selby last Thursday. I let
fly my tassel-gentle at a pheasant, discovered in a brake. A rare bird
that! I had her from Stanbury when he was here over Twelfth Night; ye
shall see her anon. Selby found a mallard, whistled off his falcon.
Down she came, twice missed, but recovered it at a long flight...."
They talked of hawking, and of venery, and of the management of the
estate. When they came slowly back to the house the sun was sinking
behind it in a red glow. Master Dawson met them with a warning of
supper. Sir Nicholas' baggage had arrived, and was safely bestowed in
his chamber. Sir Nicholas went up the wide stairs two at a time, and
found Joshua laying out a doublet and hose of slashed mochado, with
netherstocks of carnation silk, and a clean stiff ruff.
A great bed with a canopy of carved wood supported at all four corners
by pillars in the form of caryatides, stood out into the room. It had
hangings of worked damask, and a Venice-valance. A bow-fronted chest
of walnut inlaid with cherrywood stood at the foot of it; there was an
armoire in one corner, a second chest bearing upon it a basin and ewer
of pewter ware, painted cloths upon the walls, and a thrown-chair by
the window. Sir Nicholas flung himself down in this, and stretched his
legs out before him. "Off with my boots, Joshua. Where's the casket I
bade ye cherish?"
"Safe, master; I will bring it on the instant." Joshua knelt, and
tugged at the muddied boots. "All goeth merrily at home, sir, as we
see. 'What now,' quoth Master Dawson--he grows somewhat fat on good
living, mark you--'What now, do ye stay in England, Master Dimmock?'
This is to pry into our affairs, master. I made him a short answer,
never fear me. 'It's not for me,' quoth I, 'to divulge what plans Sir
Nicholas hath in mind.' He stood abashed."
"I warrant me!" Sir Nicholas said mockingly. "A rare, politic answer,
my Joshua. Pray, what are my plans?"
Joshua arose with the second boot in his hand. "Nay, sir, ye have
not favoured me with them yet," he said with unabated cheerfulness.
"But it was not fit that I should say as much to that fat steward. A
swag-bellied, pompous ass, I make bold to say. Yet, master, and I do
not speak without reflection, it might suit us well to remain snug at
home now."
Sir Nicholas stood up, his fingers busy with the untying of his points.
"Further, rogue, it might suit us better to be gone again just so soon
as the _Venture_ is ready to put to sea."
Joshua's face fell. "Is it so indeed, master?"
The glancing blue eyes looked down at him a moment. "Rest you snug at
home. Do I constrain you? I am off on a wild adventure this time."
"The more reason to take me along," said Joshua severely. "If you are
to be off again I shall certainly accompany you." He picked up the
doublet from the bed, and frowned a stern reproof. "This is to jest,
sir. I shall be at hand to keep a watch over our interests. I do not
say that I had not as lief be at home, but I shall without doubt go
where you go, for that is clearly my fate."
"Like Ruth," said Sir Nicholas flippantly.
In a little while he was descending the stairs again, very brave in
his doublet of the French cut, with the high wings to the shoulders,
and the embroidered sleeves. He had a fine leg, set off to advantage
in stockings of carnation silk, with rosettes to the garters below his
knees. The little neat ruff made no more than a stiff cup for his face;
my Lord Beauvallet, favouring a wider fashion, called it Italianate,
and looked severely.
My lord and his lady were found in the winter-parlour, where supper
was spread upon a draw-table. Sir Nicholas came in upon them, splendid
in his rich trappings, and set a small casket before my lady. "Spain
pays toll to beauty, Kate," he said, and looked wickedly under his
lashes at Gerard's disapproving countenance.
My lady knew very well what she might expect to find in the casket,
but chose to dissemble. "Why, Nicholas, what do you bring me?" she
wondered, raising her watchett-blue eyes to his face.
"A poor gewgaw, no more. There is a length of China silk in my baggage
you might make into a gown, or some such thing."
My lady had opened the casket, and clasped her hands in breathless
ecstasy. "Oh, Nick! Rubies!" she gasped, and almost reverently drew
forth a long chain set with the precious stones. She held it in her
hands, and looked doubtfully at Gerard. "See, my lord! Nicholas makes
me a noble present."
"Ay," said my lord glumly. "Jewels filched from some Spanish hold."
My lady sighed, and put the chain down. "Should I not wear it, dear
sir?"
"Tush!" Nicholas said bracingly, and caught up the chain from the
table, and cast it about my lady's thin neck. "I've other such toys for
the Queen. I warrant you she will wear them. Heed him not."
"I am sure," said my lady, plucking up courage, "that what the Queen's
Grace does not disdain to wear I need not."
Gerard sat down in the high-backed chair at the head of the table. "You
will do as you please, madam," he said deeply.
Supper was eaten in silence, as was customary, but when the green goose
had been taken away, and sweetmeats were on the table, and Hippocras
set before my lord, conversation began again. My lord dipped his
fingers in a gilt basin handed to him by a lackey liveried in blue, and
spoke more genially. "Well, Nick, ye say naught of your designs. Have
you come home to stay?"
"Confess, brother, you are more at ease when I am abroad!" Nicholas
rallied him, and poured Hippocras into the delicate glass of Venetian
ware before him.
Gerard permitted a smile to break his gravity. "Nay, acquit me, I do
not gainsay, though, ye are a mad, roystering lad."
"Swashbuckler, ye were wont to call me."
"Well." My lord smiled more broadly.
"Oh no, I am sure he is sober enough now!" my lady said in a flutter.
"No hard words, I beg! Why he numbers some thirty-four--thirty-five
summers, surely?"
"God 'a mercy, do I so?" Sir Nicholas said, startled. He lifted his
glass, and held it up to see the light through the wine in it. He
seemed to be pondering some quaint thought; my lord saw the corners of
his mouth lift a little.
"Time to be done with all this ruffling on the high seas," my lord said.
Beauvallet shot him a quick look; there was a hidden jest in his eyes.
He returned to the contemplation of his wine.
My lady rose. "You will have much to say to one another," she said. "Ye
will find me in the gallery anon."
Beauvallet went to hold the door for her. As she passed him she put out
a hand, and smiled vaguely. "Indeed, I hope you will listen to my lord,
Nick. We should be glad to have you at home."
He carried her fingers to his lips, but would give her neither yea nor
nay. She went out, and he closed the door behind her.
My lord pushed back his chair a little way from the table, sat more at
his ease, and poured another glass of wine. "Sit ye down, Nick, sit ye
down! Let me know your mind." He observed the secret jest still in his
brother's face, and knew a feeling of some slight alarm. There was no
knowing what folly Nick might be planning.
Sir Nicholas pulled his chair round a little, sank into it, with one
leg thrown over the arm. His fingers closed round the stem of his
glass, twisting it this way and that. His other hand played gently with
his pomander.
My lord nodded and smiled. "I see you still have that trick of swinging
your pomander. As I remember it never boded good. My memory serves,
eh?" He drank his wine, and set down the glass. "Thirty-five summers!
Ay, my lady is in the right of it. Thirty-five summers and still
roaming the world. Now to what purpose, Nick?"
Beauvallet shrugged his shoulders. "Oh, to bring rubies home for Kate,"
he parried.
"It's what I don't like. I'll not conceal it from you. It's very well
for such men as Hawkins or Drake, but I would remind you, Nick, that
you stand next to me in the succession. To make the Grand Tour is well
enough--though what good ye came by from it, God knoweth!"
"Nay, brother," Sir Nicholas protested. "I learned to foin with the
point from the great Carranza himself in Toledo! Grant me that."
My lord was roused to an expression of strenuous disapproval. "A pretty
ambition, God wot! All this pricking and poking with a barbarous rapier
is an invention of the devil himself. An honest sword-and-buckler was
good enough for our fathers."
"But not good enough for us," said Beauvallet. "Yet I will engage
to worst you in an encounter with your sword-and-buckler, Gerard. I
believe I have not altogether lost the trick of it. But for delicacy,
for finesse, let me have the rapier!" He made an imaginary pass in the
air. "What, you say I learned no good upon my travels? Did I not sit at
the feet of Carranza, and after find out Marozzo himself in Venice? Ay,
he was old, I grant you, but he had some tricks still to show. Alack,
ye have no Italian! Ye should else read his _Opera Nova_, in the which
book he carefully explains the uses of the _falso_ and the _dritto
filo_. No good, ye say? Produce me the man who can worst me with the
rapier and the dagger!"
My lord maintained an unyielding front. "Do you count such foreign
tricks a gain? What else have you to show for these years of junketting
abroad?"
"A rare Toledo blade, brother," returned Nicholas, unabashed. "A blade
tempered in the waters of the Tagus, and inscribed with the name of
Andrea Ferrara between eight crowns. Yet another such blade, from the
hand of Sahagom. What, more? Why, then, a suit of Jacobi armour you
yourself did not despise; an acquaintance with our cousins in France;
an intimate knowledge of the French, the Spanish, and the Italian
tongues--which I think ye lack----"
"The English of my forefathers sufficeth me," said my lord grimly.
"You've no ambition, Gerard," mourned Beauvallet.
"I've no vagrant spirit," said my lord tartly. "Will you never be
still? I pass over the Grand Tour; I may pass over even that mad
emprise ye set forth on with Drake----"
"A thousand thanks!" Beauvallet's eyes were alight.
"I grant you it was worth the doing," said my lord grudgingly. "Ay, a
rare feat, and all honour to you for compassing it."
"Give honour to Drake, where it is due," said Beauvallet, and lifted
his glass. "We drink his health! To Drake, the master-mariner!"
My lord drank the toast, but without enthusiasm. "It's very well, but
why ye must needs cleave so fast to this same Sir Francis passeth my
comprehension."
"Does it so?" Beauvallet said. "But then, brother, you have not sailed
the world round in his company, nor learned seacraft of him, nor faced
sack, battle and wreck at his side."
"Ye have imbibed unfit notions from him. A voyage round the world! Very
well, very well, a feat indeed, and duly we honoured it. Ye brought
home a store of riches, moreover, enough for any man. Then was the time
to call an end to this wandering fever. But did ye? Nay, ye built your
fine ship, and must needs be off again. A madness! A most damnable
folly, Nick, give me leave to say!"
Sir Nicholas bowed his raven head in mock contrition. "I cry your
pardon, good my lord!"
"Ay, and sit there as graceless as the day ye were first breeched,"
said my lord, a hint of humour in his deep voice. "Nay, Nick, I speak
advisedly. Ye have laid up a goodly treasure, as I know who husband it
for you. Treasure come by in a way I like not, but let it go. There is
the manor of Basing waiting for you any time you choose to go to it. My
lady brings me no heirs, nor is not like to. I look to you. What comes
to our house if you be slain or drowned? Get a wife, and be done with
this roystering!"
Sir Nicholas lifted his pomander to his nose. "Give me joy, brother, I
am about to get me a wife."
My lord was momentarily surprised, but he hid it quickly. "In good
time. My lady hath her eye upon a likely maid for you. We had thought
on the Lady Alison, daughter of Lord Gervais of Alfreston, but there
are others beside. Ye might go into Worcestershire for a bride. My
sister writes sundry names might please you."
Beauvallet held up his hand. His eyes were fairly brimful now with that
secret jest. "Hold, hold, Gerard! I am going to look in Spain for my
bride."
My lord set down his glass with a snap that came near to breaking it.
He stared under his projecting brows. "What's this? What new folly?"
"None, I swear. My choice is made. Give me joy, brother! I shall bring
home a bride before a year is out."
My lord sat back in his chair. "Expound me this riddle," he said
quietly. "Ye jest, I think."
"Never less. I give you a new toast." He came to his feet and lifted
his glass on high. "Doña Dominica de Rada y Sylva!"
My lord did not drink it. "A Spanish Papist?" he asked. "Do you ask me
to believe that?"
"No Papist, but a dear heretic." Sir Nicholas leaned on the
goffered-leather back of his chair. With a sinking heart my lord noted
the scarce curbed energy of him, the exultant look in his face. He
feared the worst. The worst came. "I took her and her father aboard the
_Venture_ after the sack of the _Santa Maria_. More of that anon. Since
she would have it so, and since to that I pledged my word, I set them
ashore on the northern coast of Spain. But I swore I would ride into
Spain to seek her, and so I shall do, brother, never doubt me."
My lord sat still in his chair, looking up at Nicholas. His face was
set. "Nick, if this be indeed no jest----"
"God's my pity, wherefor should I jest?" Beauvallet cried impatiently.
"I am in earnest, in deadly earnest!"
"Then ye are mad indeed!" my lord said, and struck the table with his
open palm. "Mad, and should be clapped up! Fool, do ye think to ride
scatheless into Spain in these days?"
The smile flashed out; Sir Nicholas nodded. "Ay, I think to come out of
Spain with a whole skin."
My lord got up out of his chair. "Nick, Nick, what devil rides you? We
have no ambassador in Spain to-day. How should you fare?"
"Alone. The stars always fight for me, Gerard. Will you take a wager
that I do not come home with a bride on my arm?"
"Nay, have done with laughing! To what a pass has this senseless love
of danger led you? Lad, heed what I say! If ye go into Spain ye will
never come out again. The Inquisition will have you in its damnable
toils, and there is no power under the sun can save you then!"
Sir Nicholas snapped finger and thumb in the air. "A fig for the
Inquisition! Gerard, my careful Gerard, I give you _Reck Not_!"
CHAPTER VII
To my Lady Beauvallet, discovered in the Long Gallery, Gerard exposed
the folly of his brother. He sat him down heavily in a chair covered
with gilded leather, and spoke bitterly and long. My lady listened
in amazement and distress, but Nicholas wandered down the gallery
inspecting such new pieces as my lord had lately acquired, and gave no
ear to the discourse.
"If you have more influence than I have, Kate, I pray you use it now,"
Gerard said. "I grant you he lives but to plague me, but I should
desire him to continue to live."
Nicholas raised his head from a close scrutiny of a piece from one of
the cabinets. "Whence had you this Majolica ware, Gerard?" he inquired.
"But Nicholas cannot mean it!" my lady said hopefully.
"Prevail upon him to admit as much, madam, and call me your debtor.
Prevail on him only to pay heed to sager counsel!"
She turned her head, and saw Nicholas at the other end of the gallery,
intent upon Majolica ware. "Good my brother! Nicholas! Will you not
tell me what you have in mind?"
Nicholas put back the piece, and came sauntering towards her. "Pottery,
Kate, but Gerard denies me an answer. What's your will?"
"God sain you, Nick, can you not be serious even now?" my lord said
sharply.
Nicholas stood before them, swinging gently on his toes, with his hands
tucked into his belt. A smile lilted at the corners of his mouth.
"Here's heat! I've said my say, Gerard, and mighty ill you liked it.
What would you have now?"
"Nick, put by this mad humour, and give me a sober answer! Tell me ye
did but jest."
"Soberly I tell you, brother, I did not jest."
My lord's hand clenched on the arm of his chair, and he spoke with some
force. "It's to throw away your life for a whim. Are you tired of it?
Does the thought of death please you so well? Or are ye besotted with
success and now think even to succeed in this?"
Nicholas nodded.
"Oh, but Nicholas, this is not like you!" fluttered my lady.
"It's very like him, madam!" Gerard retorted. "Any wild scheme is meat
for Nick! I might have known what would come of it! But to think to
snatch a wench out of Spain, to bring her home, a foreigner and an
enemy, to be my lady one day passes all bounds!"
"Does it so indeed?" Nicholas interposed swiftly. "You're at fault,
Gerard. I do but follow the example of the first baron, who also
brought home a foreigner and an enemy to be his bride."
My lord glared; my lady stirred restlessly, and hurried into speech.
"Of what like is she, Nicholas?"
"Tush!" said my lord awfully.
Nicholas looked down at my lady; a gentler light was in his eyes.
"Kate, she is a little lady all fire and spirit, with great brown eyes,
and two dimples set on either side the sweetest mouth in Christendom."
"But a Spaniard!" my lady protested.
"Trust me to amend that," he said lightly.
She liked the savour of romance, smiled, and sighed. My lord brought
her down to earth again very speedily. "What boots it to ask of what
like she may be? Ye will never see her. Nor will ye see Nick again if
he goes on this mad quest. That is certain."
Nicholas laughed out. "Marry, only one thing is certain, Gerard, and
that is that ye will never be rid of me. I always come back to be your
bane."
"Lad, you know well I've no wish to be rid of you. Can I not prevail
with you? For the sake of the house?"
Nicholas held up his hand, and showed the lady's thumb-ring upon his
little finger. "See my lady's token. I swore on it to reach to her. Are
you answered?"
My lord made a gesture of despair. "I see there is once more to be no
ho with you. When do you look to go?"
"Some three months hence," Nicholas answered. "The _Venture_ lies in
dock, and will take some time refitting. I must to London within the
week to pay my duty to the Queen. I have appointed young Dangerfield to
meet me there. I might go thence into Worcestershire to see how Adela
does. You will see me home again in a month, never doubt it."
He left Alreston two days later upon the Barbary horse from my lord's
stables, with Joshua Dimmock riding sedately behind him, and travelled
'cross country at his leisure until the post road was reached.
"Never at quiet!" Joshua remarked to the heavens. "Court drowning at
sea, court foundering in mire upon land: it's all one."
"Peace, froth!" Beauvallet said, and made his horse curvet on the green.
They came within sight of the city late one evening as the gates were
closing. "What, the good-year!" Joshua cried, roused to wrath. "Shut
Beauvallet out, is it? Now see how I will use these churlish Londoners!"
"No swashbuckling here, crack-hemp; we rest at the Tabard."
The great inn showed welcoming lights, and placed her best at
Beauvallet's disposal. He stayed only one night, and was gone in the
morning over London Bridge to the Devil Tavern in East Chepe, where he
had reason to think he might find Sir Francis Drake.
The host, who knew him well, accorded him a deferential welcome, and
bustled about to prepare a chamber for his honour. Sir Francis lay at
the inn indeed, but was gone forth that morning, mine host knew not
where. But there was a dinner bespoke for eleven o'clock, and Master
Hawkins would be there--nay, not Master John, but his brother--and Sir
William Cavendish, so mine host believed, with some others.
"Lay a place for me, Wadloe," Sir Nicholas said, and went out in search
of Sir Francis, or any other friend who might chance to be abroad.
Paul's Walk was the likeliest place to find Sir Francis; he would be
sure to go there to learn what news might be current. Sir Nicholas
strode off westwards through the crowded streets, came in good time to
the great cathedral, and ran with the clank of spurred heels up the
steps.
Merchants and moneychangers no longer congregated in the church, as
they had done only twenty years ago, but Paul's Walk was still the
meeting ground for every court gallant who wished to show himself
abroad. If a man desired to see a friend, or hear the latest news, to
Paul's Walk he must go, where he would be bound to meet, sooner or
later, most of the notables of town.
Beauvallet came up with a score of young gallants, exchanging Court
gossip. His glance swept over these; he clove a way through them, and
looked keenly round. Over the heads of two foppish gentlemen who eyed
him with disfavour, he saw a bluff, square-set man, with a fierce
golden beard, and long grey eyes set slightly slanting in a broad face.
This man stood with feet planted wide, and arms akimbo, talking to an
elderly gentleman in a long cloak. He wore a peascod doublet, hugely
bombasted, and a jewel in one ear.
Sir Nicholas pushed through the crowd, and raised his hand in greeting.
The square man saw; his narrow eyes opened wider; he waved, and came
to meet Beauvallet through the press. "What, my Nick!" he rumbled. His
voice had some strength, as if he were accustomed to make himself heard
above wind and cannon-shot. "Why, my bully!" He grasped Beauvallet's
hand, and clapped him on the shoulder. "Whence do ye spring? God's
light, I am glad to see you, lad!"
Some heads were turned. A gentleman pushed forward,
saying:--"Beauvallet, as I live! Save you, Nicholas!"
Beauvallet greeted this friend, and others who drew near. With Drake's
hand on his shoulder he stood bandying idle talk some little while,
answering eager questions. But soon Drake bore him off, and they walked
back together towards the Devil Tavern.
"What news?" Drake said. "I had word of you in the Main, ruffling
still. What chance?"
"Good," Sir Nicholas answered, and recounted briefly some of his
adventures.
Drake nodded. "No mishaps?"
"Some few deaths, no more. Perinat came out from Santiago to teach me a
lesson." He chuckled, and flung out a hand on which a single ruby ring
glowed. "Oho! I took that from Perinat for dear remembrance's sake."
Drake laughed, and pressed his arm. "Proud bantam! What else?"
"A galleon bound for Vigo laden with silks and spices, and some gold.
More of that anon. Tell your tale."
Drake had Virginian news, being but just returned from the little
colony. He had brought back the colonists, and had much to tell. Talk
ran freely, and footsteps lagged. It was after eleven when they reached
the Devil, and in an upper room were gathered some half a dozen guests
awaiting their host.
Drake rolled in with an arm flung across Beauvallet's shoulders. "Cry
you pardon!" he said. "Look what I bring!"
There was some little stir, a cry of "Mad Nicholas, by God!" and a
babel of welcome.
There was Frobisher, ready with a quiet greeting; Master William
Hawkins, solid, frieze-clad man; young Richard, his nephew, standing
beside Cavendish, a courtier among the sea-dogs; Master John Davys,
rugged man, and a scattering of others, most of them known to Sir
Nicholas. The rafters rang soon with wild tales tossed to and fro,
laughter, and the clink of tankards. Drake sat fatherly at the head
of his table and had Sir Nicholas upon his right hand, Frobisher on
his left. Frobisher bent his brows at Beauvallet, and said: "I heard
of your coming; there were some men of yours met some of mine at the
Gallant Howard. Fine doings! I am avised you sail with women aboard.
How now, Beauvallet?"
Drake cocked a wise eyebrow in Beauvallet's direction; young Cavendish
looked as though he would like to hear more, yet hardly liked to raise
his voice in this august gathering.
"True enough," Sir Nicholas said lightly.
"Rare work for a sailor," Frobisher said ironically. "A new cantrip, I
doubt?"
"You're jealous, Martin," Drake cut in with a deep laugh. "What's the
reason, Nick?"
"Simple enough," Beauvallet said, and told it, very briefly.
Drake dipped a sop in his wine, and looked sideways a moment. Frobisher
said grimly:--"Beauvallet looks for romance upon the high seas, and
makes his fine gesture. I would not sail with you, Beauvallet, for a
thousand pound."
"No stomach for it, Frobisher?" Sir Nicholas said sweetly.
"None, beshrew me. What fresh devilment this voyage?"
"Some fine prizes," Drake said. "And a ring from Perinat--for
remembrance's sake, Nick, eh?"
"I am a plain man," Frobisher remarked. "Too plain for such doings.
Drake and you, Drake and you!" He shook his head over them.
Master Davys let a sudden laugh at this, and began at once to speak of
a mooted expedition in search of the North-West passage he so fervently
believed in. "Ay, you're a mad runagate, Nick, but there's a place for
you with me if you care to venture forth."
At that there broke out a general discussion, some ribaldry, and a
gentle twitting of Master Davys' earnestness.
Cavendish, listening bright-eyed to all this discourse, ventured a word
here and there, and presently spoke of his own plans. He had three
ships fitting out for a West Indian expedition, and was agog to follow
brave examples set him. Sir Nicholas wished him God-speed, and drank
success to his venture. He found the grave, considering grey eyes of
young Richard Hawkins upon him. He threw him a gay word, and young
Richard blushed, and laughed.
"This babe sails with you, Drake?" Sir Nicholas said. "Well-a-day! I
left him scarce out of his swaddling-bands!"
"Ay, ay," Drake said. "All alike, these Hawkins--born to the sea. Did
you have speech with old Master Hawkins at Plymouth?"
"Long speech, over a tankard of rare beer. I hear the great John grows
greater still, Richard."
"My father talks of war with Spain," Richard said. "He says Walsingham
looks keenly for it."
"A cup to the happy day!" Beauvallet said.
Frobisher struck in to inquire of Beauvallet's plans; Master Davys,
aroused from a dish of eels, struck the table with his clenched fist,
and loudly bade Beauvallet sail with him to the North-West passage.
Beauvallet turned it off with a laugh, and gave Frobisher an evasive
answer. Drake looked sideways again.
But it was not until much later, when these two sat alone in the empty
room, over a fire of sea-coal, that Drake put his question. Then he
puffed at his long pipe, and stretched his massive legs out before him,
and looked up at Beauvallet out of his narrow, all-seeing eyes. "What
devilment, Nick? Let me have it."
Beauvallet brought his quick gaze up from the red heart of the fire,
and looked challengingly. "Why must I needs have devilment in mind?"
Drake pointed the stem of his pipe. "I know you, Nick, d'ye see? You've
not given me the full sum of it, but Martin jumped your fine secret for
you."
So he had it then, in a few graphic words. It made his jaw drop a
little, but it made him twinkle too. "Pretty, very pretty!" he said.
"But what now?"
"I shall go to Spain to fetch her," answered Sir Nicholas, in much the
same tone as he would have said he would go to Westminster.
At that Drake let out a mighty echoing laugh. "God amend all!" He
sobered suddenly, and leaning forward took Beauvallet's arm in a strong
hold. "Look you. Nick, ha' done. Art too good a man to be lost."
The gleaming blue eyes met those long grey ones for an instant. "Do you
think I shall be lost then?"
Drake twisted his beard upwards, and chewed the end of it. "Well,
you're human." His shoulders began to shake again. "Ho, pull me
Philip's long nose, Nick, if ye see his Satanic Majesty! You would
come safe out of hell, I dare swear. But how to come into Spain? Your
smuggling port?"
"Nay, I had thought of it, but it's to court exposure. I must have
papers to show at need. The plague is on it we have no ambassador in
Madrid to-day."
"English papers would never serve," Drake said. "You're frustrated at
the very outset. Go to, put the folly aside."
"Not I, by God! I shall try my fortune with my French kinsmen."
"God's Death, have you any?"
"A-many. One in particular would be glad to serve me for old times
sake, I believe. The Marquis de Belrémy, with whom I travelled many
leagues on the Continent, years ago. Ay, and we saw some scrapes
together, God wot!" He laughed softly, remembering. "If he can put me
in the way to get French papers, well. If not--I shall still find a
way."
Drake puffed in silence for a moment. "And a license to travel over
seas, Master Madman. Letters of Marque won't serve for this emprise.
It's in my mind the Queen may have other plans for you than to lose you
in a hare-brained venture to Spain."
"Trust me to get a license. If the Queen will not, think you Walsingham
would be so nice?"
Drake pulled a grimace. "Ay, marry, we know he'd be glad enough to send
a spy into Spain. Beshrew your heart, Nick, it's madness! Do you hold
your life of so mean account?"
"Nay, but it's charmed. Yourself said so, Drake. Where lies the Court?"
"At Westminster."
"Then I'm for Westminster to-morrow," said Sir Nicholas.
He came to the palace in the forenoon of the next day, very bravely
tricked out in a slashed doublet, scented with musk, and his beard
fresh trimmed. He had a cloak of the Burgundian cut aswirl from his
shoulders, and caught up carelessly over one arm. It was not difficult
to gain access to the palace, especially for Sir Nicholas Beauvallet,
who was known to be a favourite with the Queen's Grace. She had always
a soft corner in her heart for a handsome dare-devil.
Sir Nicholas reached, without difficulty, one of the Long Galleries to
which he had been directed. Some of the Queen's ladies were gathered
here, and many of the court gallants. He learned that the Queen was
closeted with the French Ambassador, Sir Francis Walsingham and Sir
James Crofts in attendance. This he had from the Vice-Chancellor, Sir
Christopher Hatton, strutting in the gallery. Hatton gave him a cool,
polite greeting, and two fingers to do what he willed with. Beauvallet
let them fall soon enough, and fell into talk with the elegant and
grave Raleigh, also waiting for her Grace to come into the gallery. Sir
Christopher rolled a fiery eye, and seemed to withdraw the hem of his
garment from Raleigh's vicinity. At that Sir Nicholas grinned openly.
Sir Christopher's jealousies seemed to him absurd.
He had to wait perhaps half an hour, but he employed his time
pleasantly enough, and very soon drew a shocked titter from one of
the Maids of Honour, who rated him for a bold, saucy fellow. This he
certainly was.
There came a stir at the far end of the gallery; a curtain was held
back, and four people came slowly into the gallery. First of these
was the Queen, a thin lady of no more than middle-height, but mounted
on very high heels. A huge ruff, spangled with gems, rose behind
her head, which was of fiery colour, much crimped and curled, and
elaborately dressed with jewelled combs, and the like. Still more
monstrous loomed her farthingale, and her sleeves were puffed out
from her arms, and sewn over with jewels. She was dazzling to behold,
arrayed in the richest stuffs, glinting with precious stones. She drew
all eyes, but she would still have done so had she been dressed in the
simplest fustian. Her face might have been a mask for the paint that
covered it, but her eyes were very much alive: strange, dark eyes, not
large, but very bright, and oddly piercing.
A little behind her, his hand upon the curtain, De Mauvissière bent
his stately head to listen deferentially to some word she had flung at
him over her shoulder. Behind him Sir Francis Walsingham was folding
a scrap of paper, which anon he handed to Crofts, frowning in the
background. Sir Francis' unfathomable, rather sad eyes, seemed to
embrace everyone in the gallery. They rested thoughtfully on Beauvallet
for a moment, but he made no sign.
De Mauvissière bent to kiss the Queen's hand. She was tapping her foot,
and her eyes snapped dangerously. Her ladies, being familiar with the
signs, knew some misgivings.
De Mauvissière went out backwards, bowing; the Queen nodded, and still
tapped with one foot. She was out of temper, flashed an angry glance at
her two ministers, and hunched a pettish shoulder.
Walsingham crooked a long finger. His royal mistress must be diverted:
not Hatton, not Raleigh, whom she might see every day, would serve. Sir
Nicholas Beauvallet was come in a good hour.
"God's Death!" swore her Grace, "It seems I am right well entreated!"
There was a quick step; a gentleman was on his knee before her, and
dared to look up, twinkling, into her face.
"God's Death!" swore her Grace again, hugely delighted. "Beauvallet!"
Well, he had her hand to kiss, got a rap over the knuckles from her
fan, and was bidden rise up. The storm had passed over; her Grace was
happily diverted. Walsingham might hide a quiet smile in his beard; Sir
James Crofts could banish his worried frown.
"Ha, rogue!" said her Grace, showing teeth a little discoloured in a
smile of great good-humour. "So you return again!"
"As a needle to the magnet, madam," Sir Nicholas said promptly.
She leaned on his arm, and took a few steps with him down the gallery.
"What news do ye bring me of my good cousin of Spain?"
"Alack, madam, to my sure knowledge he hath lost three good ships: a
carrack, and two tall galleons."
Her bright eyes looked sidelong at him. "So! So! To whom fell they a
prey?"
"To a rogue, madam. One named Beauvallet."
She burst out laughing. "I swear I love thee well, my merry ruffler!"
She beckoned up Walsingham, and gave him the news. "What must we do
with him, Sir Francis?" she demanded. "Ask of me, my rogue, and ye
shall have." She awaited his answer without misgiving for well she
knew that he was in need of naught, but was come instead to enrich her
coffers.
"Two boons, madam, I crave on my knees."
"God's Son! This is churlish-sounding, by my faith! Name 'em then."
"The first is that your Grace will accept of a New Year's gift I am
come so tardily to offer--a trifle of rubies, no more. The second is
that your Grace will give me leave to travel into France for a space."
That did not please her so well. She frowned over it, and would know
more. "I vow I'll give you a place about the Court," she said.
It was his turn to frown. Your true courtier would have smiled, and
murmured his eternal devotion. This Mad Nicholas must needs twitch his
black brows together, and give a quick unmannerly shake of his head.
"By God, you're a saucy knave!" her Grace said stridently. But she
sounded more amused than angered. "What's this? You'll none?"
"Give me leave to travel awhile, madam," begged Sir Nicholas.
"I'm minded to box your ears, sirrah!" said her Grace.
"Oh, madam, forgive a tongue unused to speak softly! I had rather serve
you with the strong arm abroad than lie idle at your Court."
"Well! well! That's prettily spoken, eh, Walsingham? But I don't need
your strong arm in France. Nay, I grant no licence to you. Be plain
with me, sirrah!" She saw his blue eyes dancing, and struck him lightly
on the arm with her fan. "Ha, you laugh? God's Death, you are a daring
rogue! Let me hear it. Speak, Beauvallet: the Queen listens."
"Madam, I'll not deceive you." Beauvallet dropped to his knee. "Give
me leave to go into Spain awhile."
This startling request fell into an amazed silence. Then her Grace
burst out again into her loud laugh, and those at the far end of the
gallery envied Mad Nicholas who could so amuse the Queen. "A jest! An
idle jest!" the Queen rapped out. But her piercing gaze was intent upon
him. "Wherefor, then?"
"Madam, to perform a vow. Grant me so small a boon."
"Grant you leave to throw away your life? What shall that profit me? Do
you hear this, Walsingham? Is the man mad in good sooth, think you?"
Walsingham was stroking his beard. He too watched Sir Nicholas, but
there was no reading what was in his mind. "Sir Nicholas might haply
bring news out of Spain," he said slowly.
The Queen turned an impatient shoulder. "Oh, get some other to do your
spies' work, sir! Well, and if I grant this boon, Sir Nicholas? What
then?"
"Why, madam, only tell me what you would have me bring you out of
Spain?"
Maybe the swift rejoinder pleased her; maybe she was curious to know
what he would do. She said gaily:--"Marry, the best that Spain holds,
sir. Mind you that!"
Then Walsingham spoke in his soft, cold voice, leading the talk away
from this request. Beauvallet was content to have it so. The Queen gave
neither yea nor nay, but Sir Francis Walsingham would certainly give
a licence to Sir Nicholas Beauvallet for the good intelligence he saw
might come of it.
CHAPTER VIII
It was over three months later that Sir Nicholas Beauvallet went riding
southwards from Paris towards the Spanish border. There had been
some necessary delay at home: treasure to be bestowed at the Queen's
pleasure, and his own affairs to look to. He had also to visit his
sister in Worcestershire, and she would not soon let him go. He made
a merry month of it there, but told Adela nothing of his plans, and
trifled shamelessly with the ladies she brought forward to tempt him
into matrimony.
The licence to travel was obtained from Walsingham easily enough.
Beauvallet was closeted with this enigmatic man for a full hour, and
protested afterwards that the Secretary made him shiver. But it is
believed that they were much of a mind in that both would welcome war
with Spain.
With Joshua Dimmock, and a fair stock of money against his needs Sir
Nicholas came at last to Paris, and inquired for his distant kinsman,
Eustache de Beauvallet, Marquis de Belrémy. This nobleman, whom
Nicholas had not met since certain riotous days in Italy, when both
were in the early twenties, was not to be found at his town house. His
servants reported him to be at Belrémy, in Normandy, but Beauvallet
heard other news that placed the Marquis further south, on a visit
to a friend. There was nothing to be gained from seeking the elusive
Marquis through France; Beauvallet swore genially at the delay, and
sat him down to await his kinsman's return. He did not visit either
the English ambassador, or the Court of Henri III. For the one, he
preferred his presence in France to be unknown; for the other, the
fopperies of the French Court were not at all to his taste. He found
the means to amuse himself outside the Court, and passed the time very
pleasantly.
At the end of a month the Marquis returned to Paris, and hearing of
Beauvallet's visit, straightway kicked his major-domo for allowing his
so dear kinsman to lodge otherwhere than in his house, and set forth at
once in a horse-litter to find Sir Nicholas.
Beauvallet had a comfortable lodging near the Seine. It suited him
very well, but Joshua muttered darkly, and saw a Catholic murderer in
every convivial guest who came there. Saint Bartholomew's Day was fresh
enough yet in a plain Englishman's mind, said he.
The Marquis, a wiry, resplendent personage, no more than a year older
than Beauvallet, came tempestuously into his room, and clasped his
kinsman in an ecstatic embrace with many suitable exclamations and
reproaches. It was long before Beauvallet could come to his business,
for the Marquis had much to say, and much to ask, and many mad memories
to recall. But at length the reason for this visit was asked, and then
they came to grips. When the Marquis heard that Sir Nicholas wanted
a French pass into Spain he at first threw up hands of despair, and
cried "Impossible!" At the end of half an hour he said:--"Well, well,
perhaps! But it is madness, and it will be a forgery, and you are
a good-for-naught to ask it of me!" Within the week he brought the
pass, and said only "Aha!" when Beauvallet asked how he had managed
to procure it. It gave leave for a M. Gaston de Beauvallet to travel
abroad. Beauvallet learned that this Gaston was a cousin of the
Marquis, and chuckled.
"But look you, my friend!" the Marquis cautioned him. "Do not stumble
upon our Ambassador, for he knows Gaston well, and us all. I caution
you, be wary! Ah, but to travel into Spain at all! And with that name!
Madness! Unutterable folly!"
"_Basta, basta!_" said Sir Nicholas, and frowned upon the pass.
Now as he rode south it was in his mind that this pass, though it would
safely carry him across the Frontier was likely to lead him to exposure
at Madrid. He rode in silence, pondering it rather ruefully, but
presently he twitched his shoulders as though to cast off these cares,
and spurred his horse to a gallop. Joshua, following at a soberer pace
with a led sumpter, watched his master disappear down the road in a
cloud of dust, and shook his head. "Our last venture," said Joshua, and
kicked his horse to a brisker pace. "A plague on all women! Come up,
jade!"
They made no great haste on the journey, for Sir Nicholas was loth to
part with the horse he had bought in Paris. It bore him nobly, and he
cherished it well. They went south by degrees, resting at the inns
along the post road, and came at last to a lonely tavern within half a
day's ride of the Frontier.
It lay in a squalid village, and was obviously unfrequented by
travellers. The last great inn they had passed housed a sick man, whom
Joshua was quick to nose out. He got wind of a pestilent fever, and was
urgent with his master not to remain. The afternoon was young yet, and
the sun warm. Beauvallet consented to ride on.
So they came at dusk to this rude inn, lying a little way off the post
road. None came forth to welcome them, so Joshua went to kick the door,
and raised a shout. Mine host came out, surly-seeming, but when he saw
so richly caparisoned a gentleman he lost his scowl, and bowed to the
ground. There was a room for the gentleman to be sure, if monseigneur
would condescend to this poor abode.
"I condescend," said Sir Nicholas. "Have you a truckle-bed, my man?
Then set it up in my chamber for my servant." He swung himself down
from the saddle, and fondled his mare a moment. "Eh, my beauty!" He had
had her through the Marquis' advice, a fine, fleet black, with powerful
quarters, and a mouth of velvet. "Take her, Joshua." He stretched
himself, and swore at his stiffness. The landlord set open the door,
and bowed him into the low-pitched taproom.
Beauvallet sent him to fetch wine, and seemed to snuff the air.
"Faugh!" It was squalid in the taproom, of a piece with the untidy yard
without. He went to the window and forced it open to let in the clean
air.
The landlord came back with the wine, looked askance at the open
window, and muttered a little under his breath. Sir Nicholas drank
deeply, and upon the shuffling entrance of an out-at-elbows servant,
stretched out his legs to have the high boots pulled off.
He was at supper--a meagre collation which drew sundry pungent remarks
from Joshua--when there came the sound of a led horse on the cobbles
outside. A moment later the door was thrust open, and a young
gentleman came in, very out of temper.
He was dressed richly, but dust lay on his fine clothes. He scowled
at Beauvallet, seated at the table, and shouted for the landlord.
Upon this worthy's coming the young gentleman burst into a flood of
angry talk. His woes seemed to be many. There was, to start with, the
excessive dust upon the road which had well-nigh choked him; to go on,
there was a sick man at the regular inn some miles back; to crown his
troubles his horse had gone lame, the jade, and another must be brought
him on the instant.
Having delivered himself of this demand my fine gentleman flung off his
cloak, bespoke supper, and sat down on the settle with the air of a
thwarted school-boy.
The problem of horse-flesh was beyond the landlord's solving. He gave
his new guest to understand that he had no riding horse in his stables,
nor could he tell where any might be found in this hamlet. Monsieur
must send to the nearest town, back along the road.
At this monsieur let forth an oath, and declared that he had no time to
waste, but must be gone over the Frontier first thing in the morning.
Mine host had nothing to say to this, but shrugged sullenly, and turned
away. His ear was seized between a finger and thumb. "Look you! a
horse, and swiftly!" snarled monsieur.
"I keep no horse," reiterated the landlord. He rubbed his ear,
aggrieved. "There are but two horses in my barn, and they belong to
this gentleman."
Upon this monsieur became aware of Beauvallet, struggling with a tough
fowl. He bowed slightly. Sir Nicholas raised an eyebrow, and nodded in
return, wasting little ceremony.
"Give you good-evening, monsieur." The young gentleman tried to conceal
his ill-temper. "You will have heard that I have suffered a misfortune."
"Ay, faith, the whole house will have heard it," said Sir Nicholas, and
poured more wine.
Monsieur bit his lip. "I have urgent need of a horse," he announced. "I
shall be happy to buy one or other of your nags, if you will sell."
"A thousand thanks," Sir Nicholas answered.
Monsieur brightened. "You will oblige me?"
"Desolated, sir! I cannot oblige you," said Sir Nicholas, who had small
mind to part with his horses.
This seemed final, to be sure. A rich colour mounted to monsieur's
cheeks; he choked back his spleen, and condescended to plead, though
stiffly.
Sir Nicholas tilted back his chair, and tucked his hands in his belt.
He looked mockingly at the young Frenchman. "My good young sir, I
counsel you to be patient," he said, "You may send to the town in the
morning, and procure a horse against your needs. I do not part with
mine."
"One of these nags!" Monsieur snorted. "I do not think that would suit
me, sir."
"And I am quite sure it would not suit me, sir," said Sir Nicholas.
The Frenchman looked at him with evident dislike. "I have informed you,
sir, that my need is instant."
Sir Nicholas yawned.
For a moment the Frenchman seemed inclined to burst forth into fresh
vituperations. He bit his nails, glaring, and took a quick turn about
the room. "You use me ungraciously!" he flung over his shoulder.
"Well-a-day!" said Sir Nicholas ironically.
Monsieur took yet another turn, seemed again to choke back some hasty
utterance, and at length forced a smile. "Well, I will not quarrel with
you," he said,
"You would find it very difficult," nodded Sir Nicholas.
Monsieur opened his mouth, shut it again, and swallowed hard. "Permit
me to share your board," he said at last.
"With all my heart, youngling," Sir Nicholas answered, but there had
come a watchful gleam into his eyes.
But the Frenchman seemed to cast aside his evil-humours in good sooth.
True, he railed a little at ill-fortune, but was forward with plans for
the acquisition of a horse upon the morrow. The plague was on it he
could scarce hope to get across the Frontier now for two days. As he
remembered the town lay many leagues behind--but he would not complain.
He pledged Beauvallet in a brimming cup.
Supper being at an end, monsieur grew restless, complained of the
ill-entertainment, pished at the poor light afforded by two tallow
candles, and at length proposed an encounter with the dice, if such
might chance to jump with monsieur's humour.
"Excellent well," said Beauvallet, and banged on the table with his
empty cup to summon back the landlord. Dice were brought, more wine was
set upon the table, and the evening bade fair to be merry.
The dice rattled in the box. "A main!" said monsieur.
Beauvallet called it, and cast the dice. Monsieur rattled the bones,
and threw a nick. Coins were pushed across the greasy boards; fresh
wine was poured; the two men bent over the table, absorbed in the game.
It was a merry evening enough. The candles burned low in their sockets;
the wine passed freely, and more freely yet; money changed hands, back
and forth. At last one of the candles guttered dismally, and went
out. Beauvallet thrust back his chair, and passed a hand across his
brow. "Enough!" he said, somewhat thickly. "God's me, after midnight
already?" He rose unsteadily, and stretched his arms above his head.
This made for a slight stagger. He laughed. "Cup-shotten!" he said, and
laughed again, and swayed a little on his toes.
The Frenchman sprang up, steady enough upon his feet, but flushed, and
somewhat wild-eyed. He had not drunk as much as Beauvallet. "A last
toast!" he cried, and slopped more wine into the empty cups. "To a
speedy journey, say I!"
"God save you!" said Beauvallet. He drank deep, and sent the empty cup
spinning over his shoulder to crash against the wall behind him. "One
candle between the two of us." He picked it up, and the hot tallow
dripped on to the floor. "Up with you, youngling." He stood at the
foot of the rickety stairs, holding the candle unsteadily aloft. The
dim light flickered over the steps; the Frenchman went up, with a hand
against the wall.
Upstairs a lantern, burning low, was discovered. The Frenchman took it,
called a good-night, and went into his chamber. Sir Nicholas, yawning
prodigiously, sought his own, and stumbled over the low truckle-bed on
which Joshua lay peacefully asleep. "God's Death!" swore Sir Nicholas.
Joshua was awakened by a drop of tallow alighting on his nose, and
started up, rubbing the afflicted member.
Beauvallet set down the candle, laughing. "My poor Joshua!"
"Master, you are in your cups," Joshua said severely.
"None so deep," said Sir Nicholas cheerfully, and found the basin and
ewer that stood upon a rude chest. There was a great splashing of
water, and a spluttering. "Pouf!" said Sir Nicholas, towelling his
head. "Go to sleep, starveling. What are you at?"
Joshua was for rising. "You've need to come out of those clothes, sir,"
said he.
"Oh, let be!" said Beauvallet, and flung himself down as he was upon
the bed.
The candle went out, but the moonlight shone in at the uncurtained
window. It lit Beauvallet's face, but could not keep him awake. Soon a
snore disturbed the stillness, and then another.
He was awakened out of a deep sleep by a hand shaking his shoulder, and
a hissing whisper in his ear. He came groping out of the mists, felt
the clutch upon his shoulder, and of instinct shot out a pair of hands
to grasp the unknown's throat. "Ha, dog!"
Joshua choked, and tried to tear apart the gripping fingers. "'Tis
I--Joshua!" he gasped.
The grip slackened at once. Sir Nicholas sat up, and was shaken with
laughter. "Ye were nigh sped that time, chewet! What a-plague ails you
to come pawing me?"
"Matter enough," Joshua said. "Ha' done with your laughter, sir! Yon
Frenchman's crept below stairs to steal the mare."
"What!" Beauvallet swung his legs off the bed, and felt for his shoon.
"Cock's passion, that whey-faced maltworm! How learned you this?"
Joshua was groping for his breeches. "I waked to hear one go creeping
down the stairs. A step creaked. Be sure I was alert upon the instant!
_I_ do not fall cup-shotten into a stupor."
"Peace, you elf-skin! What then?"
"Then might I hear the door open stealthily below, and in a moment a
cloaked fellow with a lantern crosses the yard to the barn. Ho, thinks
I----"
"Give me my sword," Beauvallet interrupted, and made for the door.
"I shall be with you on the instant!" Joshua hissed after him. "A
plague on these points!"
Sir Nicholas went swiftly down the stairs, sword in hand, and crossed
the taproom in two bounds to the door. Outside in the yard was bright
moonlight, and to the right the barn cast a great black shadow. Through
the door came the glimmer of a lantern, and the muffled sound of
movement.
Beauvallet gave his head a little shake, as though to cast off the
lingering fumes of the wine he had drunk, and went forward, cat-like,
over the cobbles.
Inside the barn the Frenchman was hurriedly buckling saddle-girths.
Beauvallet's mare was bridled already. A lantern stood upon the baked
mud floor, and the Frenchman's cloak and hat were flung down beside it.
His fingers trembled a little as he tugged at the straps; his back was
turned towards the door.
There came a sound to make him jump well-nigh out of his skin, and spin
round to face the door. Sir Nicholas stood there with a naked sword in
his hand, laughing at him.
"Oho, my young iniquity!" said Sir Nicholas, and laughed again. "Now I
think you are shent!"
For an instant the Frenchman stood at gaze, his face all twisted with
fury. And Beauvallet set his sword point to the ground, and laughed at
his discomfiture. Then, suddenly, the Frenchman sprang forward, tearing
his sword from the scabbard, and in his leap contrived to kick over the
lantern, and put out its frail light. Sir Nicholas stood in the shaft
of moonlight in the open doorway, but all else in the barn was pitch
dark.
Beauvallet's sword flashed out before him; he sprang lightly to one
side, felt a blade thrust within a hair's breadth of his shoulder, and
lunged swiftly forward. His point went home; there was a choked gurgle,
the clatter of a sword falling to earth, and a dull thud.
Beauvallet swore beneath his breath, and stood listening, backed
against the wall, with a shortened sword. Only the uneasy snorting and
pawing of the horses broke the silence. He moved forward cautiously,
and stumbled against something that lay on the ground at his feet.
"God's Body, have I killed the boy?" he muttered, and bent over the
still figure.
Across the yard Joshua came running at full-tilt, and bounded into the
barn. "'Swounds! What's here? Master? Sir Nicholas!"
"A plague on your screechings! Help me with this carcass."
"What, dead?" gasped Joshua, feeling in the darkness.
"I know not." Sir Nicholas spoke curtly. "Take you his legs, and help
me to bear him out. So!"
They carried their burden out into the moonlight, and laid it down on
the cobbles. Beauvallet knelt, and stripped open the elegant doublet,
feeling for the heart. A clean-edged wound was there, deep and true.
"Peste, I thrust better than I knew," Beauvallet muttered. "The devil!
But the young traitor sought to murder me. What's this?"
A silken packet was in his hand, attached to a riband about the dead
man's neck.
"Open," said Joshua, shivering. "Perchance you might learn his name."
"What should that benefit me, fool?" But Sir Nicholas took the packet,
and thrust it into his doublet. "This is to ruin all. We must bury him,
Joshua, and that speedily. No noise mind!"
"Bury! With your sword?" Joshua said. "The evil hour! Nay, wait! As I
remember there are tools within the barn."
An hour later, the grim work done, Sir Nicholas, thoroughly sobered
now, came softly back to the inn. He was frowning a little. This was
an ill happening, and had gone otherwise than he had planned. Yet who
would have thought that the young fool would play the traitor so? He
mounted silently to his chamber again, and sat down on the bed, while
Joshua relit the lantern.
It was set upon the chest. Beauvallet slowly wiped his sword, and
returned it to its scabbard. He drew forth the packet from his breast,
and slit open the silk with his dagger. Crackling sheets of paper
were inside. Beauvallet bent towards the lamp. His eyes ran over the
first sheet frowningly, and came to rest on the signature. A short
exclamation broke from him, and he pulled the lantern nearer yet. He
held a letter from the Guise to King Philip in his hand, but the bulk
of it was writ in cypher.
Joshua, inquisitively hovering at hand, ventured a question. "What is
it, master? Doth the writing give his name, perchance?"
Beauvallet was looking now at a fair-inscribed pass. "It seems, my
Joshua," he said, "that I have slain a scion of the house of Guise."
"God mend my soul!" quoth Joshua. "Shall it serve, master? Shall we
turn it to good account?"
"Since these purport to be papers writ to his Catholic Majesty it seems
we may turn it to very good account," Sir Nicholas said, poring over
the first paper again. "Now, I have some knowledge of cyphers, as I
believe...." He looked up. "Get you to bed, rogue, get you to bed!"
An hour later Joshua, waking as he turned on his bed, saw Sir Nicholas
seated still by the chest, with a soaked cloth bound about a head which
Joshua judged had good cause to ache, and his brows close-knit over the
papers. Joshua closed his eyes again, and sank back into slumber.
He woke again to broad daylight. Sir Nicholas lay asleep in the big
bed; there was no sign of the papers. Joshua dressed softly, and stole
away downstairs. He found there a perplexed landlord who was loud in
abuse of the young gentleman who had stolen away in the night without
paying his shot. Joshua's casual interest in this was well acted. He
asked the proper questions, exclaimed piously at such behaviour, and
thought privately of the night's work.
In a little while the voice of Sir Nicholas was heard, calling for his
man. Joshua skipped upstairs with a tray bearing his master's breakfast.
Sir Nicholas was wide awake, and as brisk as though he had not sat up
through the night puzzling over a cypher. His eyes were bright and
unclouded; only a damp cloth on the floor bore witness of the night's
labours.
Joshua set down the tray, and shook out a clean shirt for Sir Nicholas.
"Look you, master, there is a deal of pother below, on account of
we-know-what. Where is the man gone? why is he gone? I do not presume
to answer, me, but I consider it meet we should make all speed over the
Frontier."
"Just as soon as I have broken my fast," said Beauvallet. "See that
door well-shut. Now, rogue, give ear a minute." He drank some wine, and
broke off a piece of rye bread. "I am become overnight the Chevalier
Claude de Guise, do ye mark me?"
"Well, master. I said we might turn all to good account."
"The best. I don't fathom all these papers, and one is sealed fast. But
enough to serve, I judge. Matters too high for you, but ye may know
that we travel henceforth as a secret messenger from the Guise to King
Philip. Hey, but I have meat for Walsingham in this!" He stretched, and
reached out a hand for his shirt. "A great venture, rogue--the greatest
I have been on."
"Like to end in nasty wise," Joshua grumbled. "Secret messengers,
forsooth! Ay, we shall be so secret there's none will hear of us again."
"An ill jest. This as mad a quest as I have ever known. Does your
courage fail? Turn back then, you have still time."
Joshua threw out his chest. "Ho, pretty speaking! I follow to the end.
Moreover, it has been foretold that I shall die in my bed. What have I
to fear?"
"On then," said Sir Nicholas, and laughed. "On, and reck not!"
CHAPTER IX
It was an easy matter to cross the Frontier, armed with the Chevalier
de Guise's credentials. From as much of the despatch to Philip as
he could read, or was not sealed, Beauvallet had learned that the
youthful Frenchman was some sort of a cousin to the Duc de Guise, and
it seemed probable from so particular a mention of him that he had not
been employed on an errand into Spain before. Beauvallet did not doubt
that he could brave out the imposture, but he knew that he carried his
life in his hand. One evil chance, one Frenchman in Madrid to whom the
Chevalier was known, and he might expect to find himself sped. The
knowledge made him set his horse caracolling on the road, never so
keenly enjoying life as when he stood in danger of losing it. He tossed
his sword up in the air, and caught it deftly as it fell. The sunlight
glinted all along the shimmering blade. Between eight crowns the name
Andrea Ferrara was inscribed, and beneath it a pungent motto:--_My bite
is sure_. "A sword and my wits against all Spain!" sang out Beauvallet,
and whistled a catch between his teeth. Then he fell to thinking of her
whom he went to seek, and the leagues passed uncounted.
There was time enough for meditation during these long days upon the
road, for it took them close on two weeks to come within sight of
Madrid, a white town perched on a spur above a vast plateau, looking
north over many windy leagues to the Guadarrama Mountains, and south to
the grand chain that guarded Toledo.
The roads called forth curses from Joshua, struggling with the led
sumpter. Years ago he had journeyed into Spain with Beauvallet, but
he protested that he had forgotten long since how incomparably bad
were the roads. He rode to the rear, and observed all with bright,
calculating eyes. "Naught but sheep!" he grunted. "Enough to ravage
the land. God's Life, but this is a poor country! Ruin stares us in
the face, master, from all sides. Here are no crops, no snug farmers.
Naught but bare rocks, and dust. And sheep--I forget the sheep, which
you would have thought hardly possible. Why, call you this a road? Ho,
we Englishmen can still teach the Spaniards some few matters, it seems!"
"Set a guard on that tongue of yours," Beauvallet said sharply. "Let me
hear no talk of Englishmen. Ay, this is a waste country. Now, how might
a runner go at speed, to the Frontier, let us say?"
"He might not, master, on these roads, without foundering. It's a land
of the Dark Ages, one would say. Bethink you of the fair manor my lord
has built him in Alreston, and look on these grim fortresses!" He spoke
of a gloomy castle seen some miles back along the road, and shuddered.
"Nay, I like not this land. It frowns, master! Mark what I say, it
frowns!"
Over the Guadarrama Mountains they climbed, and dropped on to the
great, parched plateau. They rode league upon weary league, and at last
saw Madrid ahead, and came to it in the cold of the evening. Joshua
shivered on his horse, and muttered against a climate so extreme. He
was roasted by day, he swore, but when evening fell Arctic winds arose
that were like to lay him low of a fever.
Beauvallet knew Madrid of old, but found it grown since his day. He
made his way to the inn of the Rising Sun, lying some paces off the
Puerta del Sol. It was not necessary to caution Joshua again. That
wiry individual ceased complaining as they climbed the steep streets
into the heart of the town, and might be trusted to carry all off with
a bold front. Beauvallet had no fear of unwitting betrayal from him.
French he spoke fluently, if roughly, and Spanish very fairly. He was
not likely to slip into his own tongue through inability to find words
in a foreign language.
Sir Nicholas bespoke a private room at the inn, and supped there that
evening, waited on by Joshua. "Since it is very certain that the French
Ambassador is not privy to this correspondence I carry, you will say,
Joshua, that I am travelling for my pleasure. You know naught of secret
documents."
"Master, what will you do with those papers?" Joshua asked uneasily.
The corners of Sir Nicholas' mouth lifted under the trim moustachio.
"Why, present them to his Catholic Majesty! What else?"
"'S death, sir, will you go into the lion's den?" quaked Joshua.
"I know of only one lion, sirrah, and that one is not to be found in
Spain!" Beauvallet said. "I am bound on the morrow for the Alcazar. Lay
me out a rich suit of the French cut." He brought out the stolen papers
from his bosom, and laid them on the table. "And stitch me these safe
in a length of silk." His eyes twinkled. "What, do you tremble still?
Cross yourself, and say Jesu! It's in the part."
Access to the Alcazar was not found to be so easy as access to any of
Queen Elizabeth's palaces. There was a long delay, many questions, and
the pseudo-Chevalier's credentials were taken from him while he was
left to cool his heels in the great austere hall.
He sat down on a carved chair of cypress wood, and looked about him
with interest. There was much sombre marble, much rich brocade, and
hangings of Flanders tapestry depicting the martyrdoms of various
saints. A statue in bronze stood at the foot of the wide stairway;
there were Turkey carpets on the floor, strange sight to an English
eye, so that footsteps fell muffled. Certain, there was no sound in the
Alcazar. Lackeys stood graven on either side the great door; sundry
personages passed across the hall from time to time, but they spoke
no word. There was a courtier, all in silk and velvet; a soberly clad
individual whom Beauvallet took to be a secretary; a priest of the
Dominican order with his cowl shading his face, and his hands hidden in
the wide sleeves of his habit; an elderly man who looked curiously at
Beauvallet; an officer of the guard, a hurrying woman who might be a
maid of honour.
It was oppressive in the lofty hall; the very hush of the place might
have preyed on nerves less hardy than Beauvallet's. Here, to an
Englishman, was a place of grim foreboding, of lurking terror. It did
not need the sight of that dark priest to conjure up hideous pictures
to the mind.
But Sir Nicholas saw no hideous pictures, and his pulse beat as
steadily as ever. A false step, and he would never again see England:
with a kind of brazen dare-devilry he was confident there would be no
false step. In Paris, a month ago, the Marquis de Belrémy had said
aghast:--"_Mon Dieu, quel sang-froid!_" Could he have set eyes on
his kinsman now he would have been still more aghast, and might have
repeated with even more conviction, that Nicholas would sit jesting in
hell's mouth itself.
After a full half-hour's wait the lackey came back with a long-gowned,
close shaven secretary who looked keenly at Beauvallet. "You are the
Chevalier de Guise?" he asked in French.
Sir Nicholas was swinging his golden pomander. He did not think, from
his knowledge of them, that the Guise would rise out of their seats for
a mere scrivener. Gravely he bowed his head.
"You have letters for his Majesty?" pursued the secretary.
Again Beauvallet bowed, and knew that he was creating a good
impression. Privately he thought: "Our sovereign keeps men of better
blood than this about her, God wot!" He was very quick to nose out the
parvenu.
The secretary bowed in his turn, and held out his hand. "I will deliver
them to his Majesty, señor."
At that Beauvallet raised his black brows delicately. Maybe he thought
it more in the part, maybe it was the audacity of the man, or a mere
curiosity to see this far-famed Philip, but he said gently: "My orders,
señor, are to deliver these letters into his Majesty's own hands."
The secretary bowed again. "All goes very well," thought Beauvallet,
watching him like a lynx, in spite of his careless demeanour.
"Follow me, señor, if you please," said the secretary, and led the way
up the stairs to a long gallery above.
Down a labyrinth of corridors they seemed to walk, until they came to
a curtained doorway. Beauvallet went through into a severely furnished
chamber, and was left there to wait again.
More martyrdoms hung on the walls. Sir Nicholas grimaced at them, and
deplored his Catholic Majesty's taste. Another half-hour passed; King
Philip was in no hurry, it seemed. Sir Nicholas looked out of the
window on to a paved court, and yawned from time to time.
Back came the secretary at last. "His Majesty will receive you, señor,"
he said, and gave back the Chevalier's credentials into his keeping.
"This way, if you please." He held back the curtain for Beauvallet to
pass out, and led him across the corridor to double doors. These opened
at his scratch upon the solid panels; Sir Nicholas found himself in
an ante-chamber where two men sat writing at a table, and two guards
stood beside the doors. He followed the secretary across the room to a
curtained archway; the curtain was swung back by a guard there, and the
secretary went through. "The Chevalier de Guise, sire," he said, bowing
very low, and drew back a little against the wall.
Sir Nicholas came coolly in, paused a moment as the curtain fell back
into place behind him, and in one swift glance noted the contents of
this bare, cell-like apartment. There was little enough to note. A
chest, an escritoire, a priest by the window, a table in the middle of
the room, and behind it, seated in a high-backed chair with arms, with
his foot upon a velvet stool, a pallid man with sparse yellow locks,
flecked with grey; and a yellow beard, scant as his meagre thatch; and
hooded eyes, sombre and vulturine under the puckered lids.
Sir Nicholas sank gracefully down on to his knee; the plumes in his
hat swept the ground before him. "God's my life!" was his irrepressible
thought. "The two of us in one small room, and he does not know it!"
"The Chevalier de Guise," repeated Philip in a slow, harsh voice. "We
bid you welcome, señor."
But there was no kindliness in the expressionless tone, nor any life in
those dull eyes. "There would be less kindliness if he knew how he bade
Nick Beauvallet welcome," thought Sir Nicholas, as he rose to his feet.
Philip, sitting so still in his chair, seemed to study him for a
moment. It was tense, that moment, fraught with peril. Sir Nicholas
stood calmly under the scrutiny; they were not to know how ready to be
out was the sword at his side. The moment passed. "You have letters for
us," said the slow voice.
Beauvallet brought the silken packet out from the breast of his
doublet, came to the table, knelt again, and so offered it.
The King's hand touched his as he took the packet; the fingers felt
cold and slightly damp. He gave the packet to the secretary, and made a
movement to Beauvallet to rise. "Your first visit to Spain, señor?"
"My first, sire."
Philip inclined his head. The secretary had slit the silken wrapper,
and now spread crackling sheets before his master. Philip's eyes
travelled slowly over the first page, but never changed in their
lack-lustre expression. "I see you are cousin to the Duc de Guise,
señor," he remarked, and pushed the sheets away from him on the table's
polished surface. "We will look over these matters, and have an answer
for you in a week or so." Haste was a word not in his Majesty's
vocabulary. He spoke to the secretary. "Vasquez, if Don Diaz de Losa
is in the palace you will send to fetch him." He brought his gaze back
to Beauvallet. "Don Diaz will look to your entertainment, señor. Your
lodging?"
Beauvallet gave the name of his inn. Philip seemed to consider it.
"Yes, it is best," he said. "You are not here officially."
"I give out, sire, that I am travelling for my pleasure."
"That is well," said Philip. "You will contrive to pass the time
pleasantly, I trust. Madrid has much to show."
"I have promised myself a ride out to see the great Escorial, sire,"
said Sir Nicholas, assuming reverential tones.
Some spark of life entered Philip's eyes, enthusiasm into his dead
voice. He began to talk of his vast palace, nearing its completion, he
said. He talked as one absorbed in his theme, as in a holy matter, and
was still talking when Matteo de Vasquez came back into the room. He
was accompanied by a stately gentleman of middle years, dressed very
magnificently, in contrast to the black-garbed King.
The brief enthusiasm left Philip. He presented Don Diaz de Losa, and
consigned the Chevalier to his care. In the wake of this nobleman
Beauvallet bowed himself out of the King's cabinet.
It seemed that Don Diaz was in the King's confidence, for he asked none
but the most trivial questions. He had a grave Castilian courtesy, and
begged that the Chevalier would call on him for any needs he might
have. He escorted him through the corridors to a gallery, where a fair
sprinkling of gentlemen were gathered, and presented him punctiliously
to all who were present. The Chevalier was a gentleman from the
French Court, travelling to enlarge his knowledge of the world. Thus
Beauvallet was sponsored into society. Don Diaz requested his company
at a party at his house that evening, Beauvallet accepted without
hesitation. He stayed some while in the gallery talking to these
grandees of Spain, and presently took his leave. Don Diaz went with him
to the hall, and they parted with great politeness.
Joshua was anxiously awaiting his master's return, and heaved a large
sigh of relief upon seeing him come in, Sir Nicholas flung himself
into a chair. "God's Death, what a court!" he said. Then he began to
laugh. "What a king! what a graven king! If one had but whispered _El
Beauvallet_ in his ear! Only to see him start!"
"God forbid!" said Joshua devoutly. "Hey, but this likes me not at
all!" He looked anxiously. "How long do we remain, master?"
"Who knows? What a tale for Drake! God send I win through to tell it
him!"
"God send so indeed, sir," said Joshua glumly.
"Comfort you, knave: in three short weeks the _Venture_ will cruise
off that smuggling port we wot of, and every night she will creep in
towards the coast, and watch for my signal."
"What use if you be clapped up?" said Joshua rather tartly.
"I shall win free, don't doubt it. Hearken, my man, a moment! This
plot grows thicker still, and there are pitfalls. If I should fall
into one...." He paused, and sniffed at his pomander, eyes narrowed
and meditative. "Ay. If I be taken, Joshua, remove on the instant from
this place, with all my traps. Go look for an obscure tavern against
our needs. I shall then know where to find you. When you hear of my
death--or if I come not inside ten days--make all speed to that port,
and signal with a lantern after dark, as you know how. That's in case
of need. Trust yet awhile in Beauvallet's luck. Go now, and nose me out
the house of Don Diaz de Losa. I visit there this evening. If you can
get news of Don Manuel de Rada, call me your debtor."
"A plague on all women!" Joshua said. But he said it on the other side
of the door.
Don Diaz de Losa's apartments were crowded when Beauvallet arrived that
evening. There was dicing going forward in one room, where a great
many young caballeros were gathered, but the function seemed to have
more the nature of a cold reception. Magnificent gentlemen strolled
from group to group; there were ladies amongst them, not so discreet
as had been the ladies of Spain in a bygone age. Serving men in the
de Losa livery, each one bearing his master's cognizance offered
refreshments on heavy silver trays to the guests. There was wine in
glasses of Venetian ware: Valdepeñas from Morena, red wine of Vinaroz
and Benicarlo; Manzanilla, lightest of sherris-wines from San Lucar.
With these went sweetmeats and fruit: Asturian pomegranates and grapes
from Malaga, but other refreshment there was none. To an English taste
this might seem meagre, to be sure, in the face of so much ostentatious
display. Don Diaz's house had carpets to tread upon, chairs lined
with cut velvet, candelabras of wrought silver, a Toledo clock of rare
design, hangings of silk and tapestry, but it did not seem to be the
Spanish custom to entertain guests with banquets, as would have been
done in kindlier England.
There was an oppressive grandeur over all, as though each man, were
mindful of his high degree, and the canons of polite behaviour.
No voice was raised light-heartedly; all talk was measured and
punctilious, so that Beauvallet's laugh sounded strangely in this
sedate gathering, and men turned their heads to see whence came the
care-free sound.
It had been provoked by a gentleman from Andalusia, to whom Don Diaz
had made the Chevalier known. This Southerner had a gaiety lacking in
the grave Castilians, or the proud Aragonese, and had cracked some joke
for the Chevalier's delectation. They stood chatting easily enough, so
easily that Don Juan was moved to congratulate the Chevalier on the
excellence of his Spanish. No doubt the señor had been in Spain before,
or had at least Spanish friends?
Beauvallet owned to a Spanish friend, and said that this one had
enjoyed the acquaintance of Don Manuel de Rada y Sylva. Had he the name
aright?
"Ah, the late Governor of Santiago!" Don Juan said, and shook his head.
The golden pomander was held to the Chevalier's nose. Over it his eyes
were watchful. "I had thought to present myself to him," Beauvallet
said.
"You have not heard, señor: Don Manuel is dead these three months. A
strange tale!"
"Dead!" Beauvallet said. "How is that?"
"The West Indian climate, señor. Treacherous! ah, but treacherous! But
there was more to it: a tale to take one's breath away!"
"But let me hear it, señor, of your kindness!"
The Southerner spread out his hands. "Have you in France heard of a
certain English pirate? One named El Beauvallet?"
"Assuredly!" Sir Nicholas' eyes danced. "Who has not heard of him? The
Scourge of Spain I have heard him called. Am I right?"
"Very right, señor. Alas! They say the man uses witchcraft." Don Juan
crossed himself, and was swiftly imitated. Sir Nicholas' black lashes
hid the laughter in his down-cast eyes. When he raised them again they
were grave, if you could discount the merriness that must always lurk
at the back of them. Don Juan, absorbed in his tale, did not notice
it. "He sacked and sank the ship that bore Don Manuel home, and--you
will scarce credit it--took Don Manuel and his daughter aboard his own
vessel."
"So!" Beauvallet raised politely surprised eyebrows. "But wherefor?"
"Who shall say, señor? A mad whim one would suppose, for one can hardly
credit such a man with chivalrous intent. They say he is mad, who have
had traffic with him. But he had the effrontery, señor, to put into a
port of Spain, and there to set Don Manuel ashore!"
"You astonish me, señor," said Sir Nicholas. "I suppose he bore off the
daughter to England, this famous freebooter?"
"One might have expected it, but no. Doña Dominica took no hurt,
though her father died soon after his landing. She is under the
guardianship of her good aunt, Doña Beatrice de Carvalho."
"Thank you for that information," thought Sir Nicholas, and made a
mental note of the name. Aloud he said: "But this is a wonder that you
recount, señor! To escape unhurt from the clutches of so desperate a
villain as this Beauvallet!" His shoulders shook ever so slightly.
A gentleman standing close to them turned his head and looked keenly.
He bowed to Don Juan, and again to the Chevalier. "Your pardon, señor,
but you spoke a certain name. Has that freebooter been taken at last?"
Don Juan made the introduction, but it was Beauvallet who answered.
"Nay, nay, señor! Surely he bears a charmed life? I have heard men say
so."
"As to that, we shall see, señor," said the newcomer. "You have set
eyes on him, maybe?"
"I have seen him, yes," Sir Nicholas answered. The long fingers that
swung his pomander gently to and fro never quivered. "In Paris, where
he sometimes visits."
Don Juan displayed a lively curiosity. "Is it so indeed? And is he as
mad as they say? They tell us, who have had dealings with him, that he
is a man with black hair who laughs."
White teeth gleamed for a moment. "Yes, he laughs, señor," said Sir
Nicholas. A chuckle came, they little knew how audacious. "I dare swear
if he stood in this room surrounded by his enemies at this moment, he
would still laugh. It is a habit with him."
"One hardly credits it, señor," the stately gentleman replied. "There
would very soon be an end to his laughter." He bowed slightly, and
passed on.
Don Diaz came up at that moment, and laid his hand on Beauvallet's arm.
"I have been searching for you, Chevalier. I would present you to a
countryman of yours: your ambassador, M. de Lauvinière."
Not by the flicker of an eyelash did Beauvallet betray how unwelcome
this courtesy was to him. Danger crouched before him; he went smiling
towards it: Beauvallet's way!
Don Diaz led him across the room, and spoke in a soft undertone. "It
is judged best, señor, that no secret should be made of your visit to
Madrid. M. de Lauvinière might then suspect. I need not warn you to be
on your guard with him. There he stands, near the door."
The Frenchman was a man with grey hair and a hook nose. His eyes were
deep-set, and he looked piercingly. Upon Don Diaz's presentation of the
Chevalier he bowed, and looked with a keenness that probed deep. "A
cousin of the Duc de Guise?" he said. "I do not think...." He frowned a
little, and his eyes never wavered from Beauvallet's face. "But I claim
the very slightest acquaintance with the Guises."
Therein lay a certain safeguard, thought Beauvallet. It was not to
be expected that a member of the Court party would be on terms of
friendship with the great Guise family.
"I am a distant cousin of the Duc's, monsieur," said Sir Nicholas.
"So?" De Lauvinière looked still more searchingly. "Of what branch of
the family, monsieur, if one may ask?"
It would not do to hesitate. "Of the junior branch, monsieur. The Duc
is my cousin in the second degree."
"I have heard of you, monsieur," the ambassador said. "I had thought
you a younger man. Do you make a long stay in Madrid?"
"Why no, monsieur, I believe not. I have a desire to visit Sevilla and
Toledo."
"Ah yes, you should certainly journey south," nodded de Lauvinière.
A lady came up on the arm of her husband to claim his attention.
Beauvallet drew back thankfully. Had he been vouchsafed a glimpse of a
postscript added to de Lauvinière's letter home, and despatched upon
the morrow, it might have shaken his nerve.
"_I should be glad_," wrote his excellency, "_if you would discover
what age man is the Chevalier Claude de Guise, cousin to the present
Duc. Let me have what news you can hear of him, in especial of what
like he is, of what height, and of what lineaments. Your assured
friend, Henri de Lauvinière._"
CHAPTER X
In bed next morning Sir Nicholas sipped a cup of chocolate and gave
ear to his servant. Joshua had the news he wanted, and imparted it
after his own fashion as he laid out his master's dress. A bottle of
wine with the landlord of the Rising Sun had loosened a tongue that
dealt much in gossip. Who so clever as Joshua Dimmock at finding out
information? Let Sir Nicholas be at ease: the lady was found.
"In the guardianship of her aunt. I know," Sir Nicholas said.
Joshua was put out. "Ay, so it is, and Don Manuel dead these three
months. The lady inherits all--all!"
"That does not concern us," said Beauvallet. "She cannot carry her
lands to England."
"True, master, very true. But here is somewhat you may not have heard.
Her espousals are talked of."
Sir Nicholas yawned. "They will be more talked of yet," said he.
"Master, the tale runs that she will wed her cousin, one Diego de
Carvalho."
"So-so!" said Beauvallet. "Early days to talk of betrothals yet.
Cousin, eh? That means a dispensation, or I'm much at fault."
"You mistake me, sir: nothing is yet done. These are rumours." He
laid a finger against his nose. "This gives to think, master. I learn
that the Carvalhos are as poor as may be. Nothing to gape at there,
you say. True; there seem few enough nobles here with coins to rub
together. Curious, curious! And yet so much pomp! We do not use that
way in England. Under my breath I say it; have no fear of me. Perpend
then, master. What if this aunt--her name is Beatrice, for your better
information--hath made a little plot to possess herself of all this
wealth?"
"Very possible," nodded Sir Nicholas. "And a bribe to the Church to
hasten the dispensation."
"Certain, I think, master. These priests! If what one hears be true!"
"What do you learn of Don Diego?" demanded Sir Nicholas.
"Little to the point, sir. A creature of no weight, as it seems to me.
These Spanish caballeros! Foh, match me a young Englishman, say I!
Well, he is prodigal: all young men are so. It's to say nothing. He
does what all springalds do in ruffling it about the town. For the rest
I learn that he is accounted well-looking, rides comely, knows how to
handle a bilbo, hath elegant accomplishments by the score. You nose
out a fop. I do not gainsay it, for so it appears to me. He need not
concern us."
"He might concern us very nearly," said Sir Nicholas. "What else? Is
the father of this fine sprig alive?"
"Surely, master, but here again I would say, a creature of no account.
As I read our host's talk--in his cups he waxes a thought garrulous.
Strange sight in one so prim!--he lies beneath his good lady's thumb."
He made a descriptive gesture. "So! By all I can understand that is a
lady of odd manners, sir. You would say an original. We shall doubtless
know more anon. They have estates somewhere to the north of Burgos, as
I apprehend, but at this present, sir, they stay, all four, at their
house in Madrid. This I have found, off the Plaza de Oriente. While
you slept, master, I have been about the town a little. Some fine
buildings, to be sure, and a quantity of Popish Churches--enough to
turn a man's stomach. The house of the Carvalho you may find easily.
There is a wall grown with a vine at the back, and, as I judge, a
garden upon the inner side." He rolled a knowing eye. "Thought I, we
may find a use for that. Further, master, there is to be a ball given
this day week at that house, in honour of our Diego's birthday. This is
much talked of, for it seems these Spaniards do not give them often.
All the world will be there."
"Then so must I," said Beauvallet, and sprang out of bed. "Now how to
make the acquaintance of the Carvalhos?"
"Walk on the Mentidero, master," Joshua advised. "It is still the
haunt of your Court gallant, as I hear. You might compare it with Duke
Humphrey's Walk at home--to its disadvantage, mark you!"
"A happy thought," said Beauvallet, pulling on his netherstocks. "I
might perchance come up with my friend of last night."
The Mentidero was a raised walk along the wall of the Church of San
Felipe el Real, which stood at the entrance to the Calle Mayor. Here
came the wits of the day, and the courtiers, to exchange gossip, to
talk the latest scandal, to exhibit a new fashion in cloaks, or a new
way of tying a garter. Under it were a score of little booths, where
one might buy such trifles as a pair of embroidered gloves for a lady,
a love-knot, or an ouch of wrought silver. Across the Calle Mayor lay
the Oñate Palace, with the rough side-walk beneath where painters
showed their pictures to attract the Court. The market lay in the
centre of the Calle; there were water-carriers gathered there, and the
scene was busy and noisy. Round about were shops, and here and there a
coffee-house, where one might meet one's cronies.
The gentleman from Andalusia was found upon the Mentidero, and
professed himself charmed to meet the Chevalier again. Sir Nicholas
joined him in his strolling up and down, and came at length to his
business with him. In default of Don Manuel, whom he had hoped to
meet, he would desire to present himself to Don Manuel's worthy
brother-in-law. Yet he was uncertain how this project might be
effected, since he could claim no acquaintance with the Carvalhos.
The matter was very easily arranged. Don Juan de Aranda would himself
present the Chevalier any time he should choose. He might meet Don
Diego de Carvalho this very morning, if he wished, since Don Diego was
abroad, after his usual custom, upon the Mentidero. They had passed him
a while back, talking to de Lara and young Vasquez.
They turned, therefore, and began to walk slowly back the way they had
come.
"I understand Don Diego to be a very proper caballero," Beauvallet
remarked. "The only offspring, I believe?"
"True, señor." Don Juan was a little reticent, and it struck Beauvallet
that he had no great admiration for Don Diego. Presently he nodded, and
spoke again. "There is Don Diego, señor: the smaller of the two."
A slight young gentleman was lounging gracefully ahead of them,
exchanging languid conversation with another, just as elegant. Don
Diego was very dark, with black brows, almost meeting over the bridge
of his nose, and full, curved lips. He wore a jewel in the lobe of his
left ear, was very generously scented with musk, and twirled a rose
between one very white finger and thumb. A flat velvet hat with a plume
in it was set on his curled head at an angle; his ruff was large and
edged with lace, and his short cloak was lined with carnation silk.
Sir Nicholas looked, and said afterwards that he had an instant itching
in his toe. Be that as it may, he went forward very pleasantly, and
upon Don Juan's introduction, made his best bow.
The bow was returned. As Don Diego straightened his back he found a
pair of very bright blue eyes looking into his. The two men seemed
to measure each other; it is probable that each conceived an instant
dislike for the other, but each hid the uncharitable emotion.
"The Chevalier is travelling amongst us for his pleasure," said Don
Juan. "We are all resolved to show him the true Spanish hospitality
that he may carry a good tale of us home with him to Paris."
Don Diego smiled politely. "I hope so, señor. But the Chevalier comes
at a bad season; the amusements draw to a close, and we all think of
the country, just so soon as the Court moves to Valladolid." He looked
at Beauvallet. "A pity you did not come a month ago, señor. There was
a bull-fight might have interested you: I believe you do not have them
in France. And an _auto da fé_ as well. There was a great press of
people," he said pensively. "One turned faint at the heat and the smell
of the common people."
"Did you indeed?" said Beauvallet sarcastically. For the life of him
he could not control that disdainful curl of the lip. "What I have
missed!"
"Yes, I fear we shall see no more such sights yet awhile," said Don
Diego regretfully. His wandering gaze came back to Beauvallet. "I
regret I was not at de Losa's house last night, where I was told I
might have had the felicity of meeting you." He bowed again.
"My loss, señor," said Sir Nicholas. "I looked for Don Manuel de Rada,
known to me through hearsay, and--alas!--heard the sad news of his
death."
"Alas indeed," Don Diego answered. But it did not seem to Beauvallet
that this sentiment came from the heart.
"I shall do myself the honour of waiting upon your father, señor," said
Beauvallet.
"My father will count himself honoured, señor. Do you stay long in
Madrid?"
"Some few weeks, perhaps. No more, I believe. But I detain you." He
stepped back, doffed his cap again, and bowed. "I shall hope to see
more of you, señor."
"The pleasure will be mine, señor," returned Don Diego.
On that they parted. Later in the day Sir Nicholas sought out his
sponsor, Don Diaz de Losa, and had no difficulty in getting from him a
letter of introduction to Don Rodriguez de Carvalho.
"All goes merrily," he said to himself, as he walked back to the Rising
Sun. "Enough for one day, I think. Patience, Nick!"
Upon the morrow he made his way to the Casa Carvalho, and was fortunate
enough to find Don Rodriguez at home. If he had hoped to see Dominica
he was disappointed. No glimpse of her could be obtained, though he
sharply scrutinised the windows that gave on to the _patio_ as he
crossed it behind the lackey.
He was ushered into a dusky library that looked out on to the walled
garden Joshua had discovered. Volumes in tooled leather lined the room;
there were several chairs of walnut, tortuously carved, a Catalan
chest, with flat pilasters upon its front and sides, and an escabeau
over against the window.
Don Rodriguez came in presently with de Losa's letter open in his
hand. He was a lean man of middle age, with eyes rather too close-set
to be trusted, Beauvallet thought. They shifted here and there, never
resting for long on any one object. His mouth bore some resemblance to
his son's, but there was weakness in the lines about it, and a kind of
petulant uncertainty in the slightly pouting underlip.
He received the Chevalier kindly, and said a great deal that was proper
on the sad subject of his brother-in-law's death. His sighs were gusty,
he shook his head, cast down his eyes to the floor, and meandered on in
his talk of the exigencies of the West Indian climate.
Beauvallet was becoming impatient of this tedious exchange of
futilities when they were interrupted by a sound on the gravel walk
outside. The long window was darkened, and there was the gentle hush of
a lady's skirts.
Sir Nicholas turned quickly, but the lady who stood looking in was not
Dominica. She was a large woman, built on flowing lines, and dressed
very richly in an embroidered gown of purple mochado. Her hair was
extravagantly coiffed, her farthingale brushed the window-frame on
either side as she came through, and her ruff stood up high behind her
head. She was certainly handsome, and must have been lovely before
increasing years made her stout. Her mouth was faintly smiling, and her
eyes, almond-shaped under weary eyelids, smiled too. The hinted smile
betokened a sort of compassionate amusement, as though the lady looked
cynically upon her world, and found it foolish. She moved as one who
would never hurry, and in spite of her ungainly farthingale she walked
with a certain lazy grace.
"Ah, Chevalier! My wife--Doña Beatrice," Don Rodriguez said. He
addressed the lady with a hint of fluster in his voice as though he
stood in lively awe of her. "My love, permit me to present to you a
noble stranger to Madrid--M. le Chevalier de Guise."
The disillusioned eyes ran over Sir Nicholas; the smile seemed to
deepen. Doña Beatrice held out a passive hand, and appeared to approve
Beauvallet as he bent over it. Her voice was as languid as her
carriage. "A Frenchman," she remarked. "I had ever a kindness for a
Frenchman. Now, what do you make here, Chevalier?"
"Nothing but my pleasure, señora."
It seemed an effort to her to raise her brows. "Do you find pleasure in
Madrid?" she inquired. She went to a chair and sank into it, and began
slowly to fan herself. "I find it unbearably fatiguing."
"Why, señora, I find much pleasure here," Beauvallet answered.
"You are young," she said, in extenuation. "And French. So much vigour!
So much enthusiasm!"
"Plenty of food for enthusiasm in Madrid, madam," said Sir Nicholas
politely.
"Ah! But when you attain to my years, señor, you will realize that
there is nothing in the world to feed enthusiasm."
"I shall hope to preserve my illusions, madame."
"It is far better to have none," drawled the lady.
Don Rodriguez, hovering solicitously about his spouse, smiled
deprecatingly. He found himself in constant need to temper her oddities
by this fidgetty, excusing smile.
"Let us talk in your own tongue, Chevalier. I speak it very
indifferently, but it is a polite language." She spoke it very well.
"My love, the Chevalier had hoped to find your poor brother. We have
been speaking of his sad death."
She answered without taking the trouble to look at him. "Why sad,
señor? One must hope he has found repose. So you were acquainted with
my brother, Chevalier?"
"No madame, but I knew a friend of his once, and I had hoped to present
myself to his notice upon that score."
"You would not have found him at all entertaining," said Doña Beatrice.
"It is far better to know me."
Sir Nicholas bowed. "I am sure of it, madame," he said, and was
inclined to think he spoke sooth.
"I must have you come to my ball on Friday evening," she announced. "It
will be very painstaking and very dull. You shall solace my boredom. I
suppose you must meet my son." She sighed and addressed Don Rodriguez.
"Señor, Don Diego is somewhere at hand. Pray send for him."
"I have already had that pleasure, madame. I met your son upon the
Mentidero yesterday."
"Ah, then you will not want to see him again," she said, as though she
perfectly understood. "You need not send, señor."
Sir Nicholas bit his lip. "On the contrary, I shall be charmed, madame."
Her eyelids lifted for a moment. He thought he had never seen eyes so
curiously cold, so cynical, yet so good-humoured. "Señor, send for Don
Diego," she sighed.
In a minute or two Don Diego came in, and with him the scent of musk.
He was very punctilious in his manner towards Sir Nicholas, and while
the two men spoke together his mother lay back in her chair watching
them with her omniscient smile.
"You will see the Chevalier at your ball, my son," she said. "My dear
Chevalier, how remiss I am! I did not tell you that it is in my son's
honour. His anniversary. I forget which, but no doubt he will tell you."
"It can be of no interest to the Chevalier, señora," said Don Diego,
annoyed.
"I shall hope to have the felicity of meeting your niece, madame," said
Beauvallet. "Or perhaps she does not go into public yet?"
Don Diego looked cross; Doña Beatrice continued to fan herself. "She
will be present," she said placidly.
It struck Beauvallet that both father and son looked sharply at her,
but she gave no sign. He rose to take his leave, kissed her hand, and
was ushered forth.
When the door had closed behind him Don Diego gave a pettish shrug of
the shoulder, and flung over to the window. "Why must you invite him
for Friday?" he asked. "Are you so enamoured of him? He walks abroad
as though he had bought Madrid."
"I thought he might amuse me," his mother replied. "A very personable
man. It is most entertaining to see you at such a disadvantage, my son."
Don Rodriguez expostulated at this. "My love, how can you say so? Diego
is a proper caballero--the properest in Madrid, I dare swear. His air,
his carriage----"
"Very exquisite, señor. I have never seen him otherwise, and I fear I
never shall."
"I do not profess to understand what you would be at, señora," said Don
Diego, with a half-laugh.
She got up out of her chair. "How should you? You should live in a
painting, Diego; a painting of soft lines and graceful attitudes.
I doubt the Chevalier would never stay still in it." She went out,
chuckling to herself.
Father and son looked at each other. "Your mother has a--has an odd
twist in her humour," said Don Rodriguez weakly.
"My mother, señor," said Don Diego tartly, "likes to be thought
enigmatic. She said that Dominica would be present, but will she?" He
opened the little comfit box that he carried, and put a sweetmeat into
his mouth. "If she consents it will be for the first time."
"Leave her to your mother. She--she is a very remarkable woman, Diego."
"Likewise is my cousin a very remarkable self-willed chit," said Don
Diego. He licked his fingers and shut up the box. "She is as cold as
ice," he said impatiently. "Bewitched. A scornful piece that wants
schooling."
"Bethink you, it is very soon after Don Manuel's death for her to be
thinking of bridals," Don Rodriguez said excusingly. "You would maybe
do well to deal gently."
"Do I not deal gently?" The sneer was clearly marked now. "And while I
stay supplicating she but grows the colder, and every caballero in the
town is eager to hazard his luck. She is like to be off with another if
this continues. Or her uncle de Tobar will take a hand in the game, and
try to get her for that overgrown fool, Miguel. Oh yes, she hinted she
might write to him! A vixen!"
Don Rodriguez murmured a vague expostulation. "I don't think it, I
don't think it. She has no mind to wed yet, and your mother hath an eye
to her. Belike you do not go well to work with her."
"I will use her more hardly if this coldness endures," said Don Diego.
His eyes glinted, and Don Rodriguez looked away.
"Leave it to your mother," he advised feebly. "It is early yet to
despair."
There was some excuse for Don Diego's ill-humour. He had a very pretty
cousin, heiress to great wealth, marked clearly by heaven to be a
bride for him, and the devil was in it that the girl must needs flout
him. Such a thing had never happened to him before. He was at first
incredulous, then sullen.
As for Dominica, there was a good reason for her refusal to fall in
with the wishes of her family, had they but known it. How should a maid
think of Diego who had lain trembling in Beauvallet's arms?
Since those mad days at sea much had happened in her life. She found
herself bewildered, undaunted, certainly, but wary. Her father came
home only to die, and he left her in the ward of his sister Beatrice.
She discovered that she was wealthy, mistress of large estates in the
south: a rare matrimonial prize, in effect. She was gathered under her
aunt's ample wing, and knew not what to make of that lady.
There was no gainsaying Doña Beatrice's kindness, but there was more to
her than mere indolent good humour. Dominica had not been long under
her roof before she discovered that her uncle, even her cousin too,
were puppets, whose strings were pulled by Doña Beatrice. She suspected
that she also was to be a puppet, and lifted her chin at the thought.
Doña Dominica, accustomed for many years to be mistress, did not take
kindly to a subordinate position, nor could she stomach the strict
rule under which well-born maidens lived in Spain. She let it be seen
that she had a will of her own, and tossed up her head to face wrath.
None came; no one had ever seen Doña Beatrice put out. She blinked her
sleepy eyelids, and continued to smile. "Charming, my dear, charming!
It suits you admirably," she said.
Nonplussed, Dominica stammered: "What suits me, aunt?"
Doña Beatrice made a little gesture with her fan. "This display of
spirit, my dear. But it is wasted, quite wasted. Show my poor son these
flashing looks: I am much too old to be moved, and far too lazy."
Dominica, aware even then of the family's designs, chose to come into
the open. "Señora, if you mean me for my cousin's bride, I think it
only fair to tell you that I will have none of him, so please you."
"Of course I mean you for his bride," her aunt said calmly. "My dear,
pray sit down. You fatigue me sadly."
"I had guessed it!" Dominica said indignantly.
"It was not very difficult to guess," said Doña Beatrice. "But we shall
not talk of bridals yet. Decency must be observed. I have often thought
how absurd is this to do we make over death, but it is the way of the
world, and I never go against custom."
"Señora--I do not like my cousin enough!"
Doña Beatrice was not at all disturbed. "No, my love, I had not
supposed you did. I find him very lamentable myself, and I bore him.
But what has that to do with marriage? Do not make that singular error
of confusing liking with marriage. It has nothing to do with it."
"I choose to think it has, aunt. I could not marry where I did not
love."
Her aunt yawned behind her fan; she looked amused, tolerant. "Be
advised by me, my dear, and be rid of such notions. Marry for
convenience and love at discretion. I assure you, these things smoothe
themselves when one is married. As a maid you are bound to be prim. It
is all very different when you are comfortably established."
Dominica stared, and could not forbear a giggle. "Do you advise me to
wed my cousin, señora, for the sake of taking a lover afterwards?" she
asked, half-shocked, half-entertained.
"Certainly, child, if you wish. Only pray use discretion. Scandal is
very odious, and there is never the least need to incur it if you
observe care in these little affairs. You have only to look at me."
Dominica did look at her, almost aghast. "Aunt!"
"What is it now?" inquired Doña Beatrice, lifting her eyes for a
moment. "You did not suppose that I married your uncle for love, did
you?"
Dominica felt herself to be young and foolish, at a disadvantage. "I
did not know, señora, but for myself I do not mean to wed my cousin. He
is--he is--in short, señora, I do not care for him."
Her aunt only looked at her with the tolerant amusement she found so
galling, and would say no more.
But the matter was not to be so easily allowed to slide. Don Diego's
attentions became more marked; he was impervious to rebuffs, just as
his mother was impervious to argument. Dominica felt Beauvallet's
signet ring lying snug in her bosom, and turned a shoulder on Don
Diego's advances.
She would look at the ring sometimes when she was alone and remember
how it had been given to her, and what words had gone with it. She had
been induced to believe then, under the influence of that dominant
personality. Even now when she conjured up Beauvallet's image before
her mind's eye, and saw again his laughing face, and the turn of his
dark head, a little of that belief would come stealing back to her. It
could not long endure. There, upon the high seas, anything had seemed
possible; here in grave Spain it was as though that swift romance had
only existed in her imagination. She had only a ring to remind her of
its reality; if her heart still cherished its secret hope, her brain
rejected it, and knew Beauvallet's coming to be an impossibility.
Perhaps he had forgotten; perhaps he was even now teasing some English
lady in the way he had used to her. Yet he had said: "I shall not
forget," and he had not been jesting then.
She wondered what her aunt would say if she knew but the half of it.
Anyone else, Dominica thought, would be horrified, but she could not
imagine Doña Beatrice roused to so strenuous an emotion. Probably she
would laugh at the romance; she who had had lovers enough in her day
might even sympathise with her niece, but it was very certain that she
would not see in the brief idyll a bar to marriage with Diego.
Dominica had been careful from the outset to hide that piece of the
past from her aunt. She showed an admirable indifference to Beauvallet,
knowing that such an attitude would be the least suspicious. She said
that she thought his powers overrated: he was nothing beyond the
ordinary, to be sure. It was not caution made her so reticent, for she
could not think that she would ever see Sir Nicholas again, but she had
a dread of letting her aunt into her confidence. Doña Beatrice was like
a snail, she thought, trailing
