From being a captive one had become a guest. With all the grace and courtesy which came natural to him Enrico Caldes was making me welcome. I was quite bathed, and though I tried to get him to talk, on that subject he would not.
On the second of June Enrico said: “Can you be ready to leave for Cadiz tomorrow?”
“Does this mean I’m to be sent back to England!”
“I know no more than you, my friend. Let us go together and see.”
We left at six in the morning and reached Cadiz the following night. Even by the quickly fading light one could see that much of the town was in ruins. Enrico said that although it had apparently been the intention of the English to spare the churches, when they left they had fired the houses and most of the churches had gone up in the blaze.
The harbour had more quickly recovered, and all signs of the struggle for the Puntal narrows had disappeared. Some blackened hulks remained in the mud below Port Royal where the treasure fleet had burned.
We stayed at an inn on the edge of the town, and at seven breakfasted off fresh flounders and spiced mutton and small beer. At eight we went on foot to Fort St Philip and there were led to a room overlooking the bay. In the room were three men. One was Andres Prada, Mariana’s uncle, another was Don Juan de Idiaquez, that high dignitary of the junta de Noche who had been present when I was charged with the message at the palace in Madrid. The third was Captain Elliot.
I knew then almost instantly whose decision it had been which had so drastically altered the attitude of the Spaniards towards me. And what that decision was.
I hardly needed to see the ring Captain Elliot was wearing and to recognise it as the one with the Spanish royal arms upon it which had been sent to my father to be given in due course to the bearer of his reply.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Within a week I sailed for El Ferrol.
Expediency I have heard described as a consideration of what is politic as a rule of action as distinct from what is just and right. It is a word with which the idealist has small patience. My idealism tarnished young.
Or perhaps it was all involved in some complex manner with the twoheaded eagle of the Killigrews which could look both ways.
In any event I found that the acceptance of Catholicism could not be made as an empty gesture and left there. I had been too deeply probed by the priests in the church of San Pedro. And this went with me into the confessional. It was impossible to confer with these solemn, patient, understanding priests and speak of petty sins tongue in cheek; it was impossible not to feel that in withholding from them the fundamental lie one was in a sense giving God the lie too.
The deception was no more palatable on the material plane; for it seemed to stem from the spiritual. The welcome the men gave me in the fort of St Philip was far more open because of this change of religion: it marched with Mr Killigrew’s change of allegiance and made my concurrence in it so much more plausible.
Here I had had three courses open. One, to have rejected my father and all that his betrayal stood for. Two, to have accepted it but with amazement and lack of understanding and unspoken hostility. Three to have welcomed it as if already half expected and to have offered to further his and their plans in any way possible. The first course would have rendered the change of religion pointless and would at best have seen a return to the dungeon. The second was a compromise which might have saved my life but done no other good. The third was a hypocrisy no greater than the greatest already undertaken, and it meant a likely freedom within Spain and perhaps some future chance of escape.
When I did go to sleep I would often wake sweating sometimes for myself and sometimes for what my father, to save himself from a debtors’ prison, was prepared to do.
One could see the scene so welclass="underline" Mr Killigrew in his study in despair after bringing himself to do what he would so seldom do, add up the extent of his debts. Always before there had been another manor to sell or mortgage, or some rich person he could turn to for a helping hand. Always there had been tomorrow to look forward to; there would be a windfall from Elliot or Burley, or some old bond would be extended at the last moment: it always had happened before, and meantime it was a pity to miss such good hawking weather … But not today. A debtors’ prison is not a pretty place; my father had already sampled it.
But Captain Elliot was there. “Ten thousand pounds, Mr Killigrew. Not more than your deserts, Mr Killigrew, but where will you get them else? Not from the Privy Council. Not from the Queen. From her you have not even received the knighthood which all the eldest sons of your house have been given as they reached suitable age. Every man’s hand is against you, Mr Killigrew: Godolphin, Trefusis, Trelawny, Mohun, they will be the first to trample you down. But there is a way, quite handy to your hand, by which you may triumph over them, and thereby come by your knighthood, together with the ownership of Godolphin, Trelowarren, Erisey, Enys and Trefusis. It is not as if you had to organise an army, lead a revolt, go out in war. No, no. You need do nothing except perhaps rid yourself of one or two of your followers who might be difficult in a crisis. Then wait that is all just wait until these ships appear off your coast. All this is a trifle better than a debtors’ prison, which is all you will get otherwise. And what does the war really mean to you? Don’t tell me you have very strong feelings on religion. And Philip has already once been virtually King of England. There will be a little trouble, of course, some adjustments. But they will come in any case when Elizabeth dies, and she is old and not likely to last overmuch longer. This is your great chance of fame and fortune.
It is really only what Stanley and others did when Elizabeth’s grandfather landed … Think it over, Mr Killigrew. But don’t think it over too long. I leave on tomorrow’s tide …”
It was a strange meeting, that one in the gun room of the castle of St Philip. With my father’s answer in their hand they were sounding out Mr Killigrew’s base son. He already showed signs of being of the same mind as his father. He had been in Spain before, he spoke the language, he had borne the original message, he had recently become a Catholic: it all pointed one way, and Mr Killigrew’s base son had the quickness of wit or the baseness to see how their thoughts were leading them and to follow.
It was a strange meeting in other ways because, although by the end of it I had been examined thoroughly and much was implied, the speakers had been both secretive and vague. I could see that Enrico Caldes had no clear idea as to the object of the meeting; he knew far more than I about a gathering fleet, but he knew nothing of the offer to my father.
Enrico Caldes sailed to Ferrol with me. Captain Elliot had already left for Cartagena, and Don Juan de Idiaquez was returning to Madrid. Prada still had business to conclude in Cadiz; but before I left he sent for me.
“Sehor,” I said, “I have to thank you and Mariana for consideration last autumn when I was retaken after escaping.”
He smiled his tight walnut-brown smile. “Your escape is a matter we have forgotten, for reasons of state … I have a final word or two I wish to say to you, Killigrew, now that we are alone. It is in fact a warning.”
I waited.
“When we invade England we are assured of the support of many people in all walks of life. But your father’s help, as you’ll need no telling, will be of great value to our cause. He was worth buying. However, I like to believe his adherence to us is not solely a matter of gold. Nor, I trust, is yours solely a matter of preserving your life.”