“Yet I feel about him as I ever did. If he wants me, I’m his man.”
She made a little gesture of distaste. “What has he ever offered you, Maugan? A post as a junior secretary. An opportunity to die in battle or rot in a Spanish prison.”
“What will Henry Howard offer me?”
“I don’t know. But at least you might go and see.”
My last question was a mistake because her answer put me in a position where I must seem unreasonable.
She went on: “When we marry we must have some position. How else can we live? If you wanted to remain unmarried, then you could stay on as Ralegh’s under-secretary or sail to Guiana or do whatever he asked you to do. But we may have a family. There has to be a home.”
I got up and stared across at the books of devotion on the desk, I felt I was still on enemy territory.
She said: “When I married Philip I did not look for money, except the security from want that he offered. But he was a man of some property. In case you wonder “
“I won’t touch his money. “
“In case you wonder, most of his property was entailed by his father, and as he died without issue it now passes to his younger brother. I shall have some money, enough to live on quietly, but no estate.”
“That’s not important “
“Oh, it is, for I would have liked “
“Sue, I don’t know what to say to make you see how I feel. I may have said it last time; I don’t know. I have spent nine months or more in Ralegh’s service, and it leaves a mark. Over and above that there is a question of loyalty. Sir Walter and the Howards, although they tolerate each other, are fundamentally opposed. If I now took service with one of the Howards I should feel I was was moving into an enemy camp.”
She was hearing but not accepting. “But you want to marry met “
“… It’s the one thing above all other.”
“Then don’t you feel any loyalty to me?”
“Loyalty! You have all my “
“Yes, then. Well, if we marry next April, perhaps. I have a small competence. It win be helpful. But as a scrivener to Ralegh “
“He may offer me something more.”
“He may. But he’s not rich. And what will happen to him when the Queen dies? He owes everything to her. The Howards are perhaps the most powerful family in the country, and with both Protestants and Catholics in their numbers they can hardly fail to prosper, whoever succeeds.”
I was watching her. “This is a very practical point of view.”
“I am practical. I’ve had to be.”
“Yes, but I think you’ve been a pupil of others.”
“I have talked of it with Henry Arundell. He’s very wise on worldly matters, and I seek help where it is most freely offered.”
I sat down-again near her. “Sue, take care for him, won’t you? I think he always envied Philip Reskymer his wife.”
She thoughtfully moved the ornate wedding ring round on her finger. “Yes, ~ think so.”
“Then you should see less of him.”
Her eyes were black fringed against the delicate skin of cheek and temple. “Ever since my father died, I’ve had to take care for myself. Accepting the company of someone who wants me honourably is not the worst risk I’ve run.”
“The risk is that he may think you’ll take him seriously.”
“He’s a wise and willing friend. I have few enough.”
Jealousy began to claw at me. “Perhaps if I hadn’t returned he would have had more to hope for.”
She shook her head. “If you hadn’t returned I don’t know what then.”
“Oh, Sue,” I said, “forgive me. Whenever I see you I’m torn all ways. The only happiness will be in possessing you.”
She smiled slightly. “Are you sure? Perhaps possession is never what we expect it to be.”
“My dear, you’ve lived too long in the company of old men … When can I see you again?”
“When you please. So long as it’s not unreasonably often until the new year. Come on Monday, can you?”
“Gladly … Sue, I still can’t get over it. No one can rejoice that such a good man as Philip Reskymer has died, but the outcome is there and I’m still hardly able to sit here and talk with you soberly of it. That you are free again this for me is like coming into sudden sunshine after so many dark years J “
She put her hand on mine. “And I can rejoice with you with a whole heart. Now we can start together for the first time.”
One day I walked up with Belemus to the castle, but a sentry would not allow us in. The soldiers had dug trenches and thrown up rough parapets all round the hillside on which the castle stood. Captain Alexander, while paying lip service to the Governor of the castle, continued to take much on himself. The soldiers cut down twelve fine elms; on complaint it was claimed that they obstructed the view landward; in effect they needed wood for their fires and this was the easy way. Except for occasional visits to the house for official reasons, the officers now quartered themselves entirely at the castle.
On the Saturday we younger ones had a party of farewell for Belemus who was to leave on the following day. There were twelve of us at it, and in the absence of John, Thomas was the eldest true Killigrew present. At 17 he was a highly accomplished player on the lute, his touch not so golden as Victor Hardwicke’s but his range wider. His greatest pleasure was to wander off from the house with his lute and pick up songs and casual dances from the villages round; sometimes he was away for three days. He claimed he knew sixty different tunes in his head. He had grown little and was only an inch or so over five feet, yet good looking in a square-set way. Affected in his manner, quick tempered but generous, he had no interest in girls and had reacted violently to my father’s attempts to pair him off in the county. He was in no way interested in this house or the estate or its prosperity or continuance. He was awaiting a summons from his uncle William to go up to the Court, and lived only for that day.
Odelia at 16 was already quite a beauty, slender and tall with clear blue eyes like a mermaid’s, sloping shoulders, and vigorous slightly ungraceful movements. Somewhere in her growing up she had lost the warm impulsive ways of childhood and not found anything as good in its place. She no longer confided.
Henry already looked the miser he was going to become. His thin face was like a bird’s that watched the earth and the sky for food or bright things. He had a sharp tongue and could lash some of the younger children into screaming frenzies of rage. Yet he adored animals and was never without some wounded mongrel at his heels.
Below him the gap. Maria was 9, her fat face reddening with an early adolescence, her fat strong legs bruising together when she ran, her voice never silent, crowing and caressing or raised in high-pitched angry protest. Peter was 6 but a fair match for Maria in everything except brute strength; and in adroitness and quickness of mind he outdid them all. Elizabeth was 5 and Simon 3, and only Dorothy grizzling in her cradle was absent from the party. The others here today were Oliver Gwyther, who was now betrothed to Annora Job, and two of the younger Knyvetts from Rosemerryn.
After it was over I said to Belemus: “This is a bad parting the break up of an old association; I don’t like it.”
“No more a break up than your flying off to be Ralegh’s scrivener. It’s just the boot on the other foot, that’s all.”
“Is it because of Jane you’re going?”
“No woman ever made me run away nor ever will. But T confess I would have been happier these twelve months with her out of the house. It goes against the grain to refuse invitations of that nature, and following the refusal an air blows around one as if one had left the window open on a winter’s night … No, witless, I’ve been here too long and go to make my fortune or to wield a blow or two in search of it. I hope you don’t liken me to the rat deserting the sinking ship.”