“Yes … Next month. Then for a while at least we shall live in London. It is Mistress Susanna Reskymer Farnaby that was. She came here once. I don’t suppose you will remember her.”
“Oh, yes, but I rightly do! Twas the Christmas of all the festivities, when I was Lord of Misrule.” He sighed. “Dear life, that seem a long time pastl How many year? Yes, I remember Mistress Farnaby slim she is, wi’ black hair and bright eyes. I trust, sur, you’ll be very ‘appy.”
“Thank you, Dick, I pray so.”
He put his line down and gathered the mackerel together. They glinted in the faint starlight like serpentine rock.
“Yes, I remember, twas the July twelvemonth following that I seen Mistress Farnaby in Truro. Twas the day after you come back from Spain when we’d all give ee up for dead. She were that glad to know different; that’s the last time I seer her. What year’d that be? Twould be ‘94. Dear life, tis nigl on four years I been married to Meg!”
The boat which had brought Hannibal Vyvyan across we. bobbing gently at the jetty below us. The water made little sibilant sounds like fish whispering.
I said: “You have your dates wrong there. It was July ‘94 when I came back.”
“Yes, sur, that’s what I said.”
“Then it could not have been July 1594 when you saw Mistress Farnaby.”
“Yes. Yes, twas. See. You came back on a Sunday eve. I mind it well. I been sharpening the scythes for the hay-making on the morrow. Then I went bed and twas Meg woke me to tell me you was in the ‘all safe and sound. Then the next day twas wet again you mind what a summer that was so Thomas Rosewarne he says, go you into Truro along wi’ Rose and get the axle pins for the old cart that broke down Saturday. So we went for the axle pins and in the end for a pile of other things the ladies wished for. When we come Truro the rain were lifting off a bit and I seen Mistress Farnaby stepping out o’ that little mercer’s there used to be alongside of the church. She were by herself, so, presumin’ as you might say, I takes off me cap and tells her you come horde safe and well the night aforel”
The last light went out in the fort across the river mouth.
All the coastline opposite was black. A cloud had moved up and only a faintest glimmer showed on the water.
“What did she say?”
“Oh, she were fair pleased. Quite overcome at first, I mind well, she was that startled, like. Then she were fair joyful to ‘ear you was back.”
“Why didn’t you tell me you’d met her?”
“Why, sir, I never thought. We was telling everyone! “
“Yes. I suppose you were.” I got up. There were lights in the house behind me, but I did not count them. “I think you must have made a mistake, Dick.”
“Please? “
“A mistake in identity …” I licked my lips. “Or someone has made a mistake. Let us not talk about it any more.”
CHAPTER TEN
I went by river to Tolverne but she had just left for London. I did not see Thomas, who was out hunting.
Gertrude said: “She’ll be sorry to have missed you, Maugan, but you did not say you were coming, did you? I thought the understanding was that you were to meet in London.”
“Yes. Yes it was.”
“Is something wrong? Can I help in any way?”
“No … No, nothing’s wrong, Gertrude, thank you. I just came to see her.”
“Maugan, dear, I’m very happy for you both. She told me in confidence before she left.”
“Oh, she told you.”
“Yes. Should she not have?”
“No … But I thought she might not have.”
“You know did you know? that Thomas also asked her to marry him.”
“Yes.”
“I’m glad she chose as she did. But I don’t think there was any doubt, was there?”
“Who can say? Thomas has property and an assured position.”
“Oh. I think he’ll do big things; but he has not made an ideal brotherin-law and I would not wish to be his wife.”
“What shall you do now, Gertrude?”
“Stay here with Lady Arundell and Elizabeth until the spring. Then I shall go home for the summer. After that …” She shrugged.
“You’ll marry again, no doubt.”
“Oh … perhaps, some day. Marriage is such a lottery, Maugan.”
“Yes,” I said.
At Arwenack preparations now to leave quickly while there was still no room for second thoughts. To leave before the clash occurred between Jane and Lady Killigrew, before more creditors came with more legal sanctions, before the dogs were drowned. I was ready by the 10th but Odelia delayed and it was the 13th before we left.
I was glad of the preoccupation of having Odelia to look after. In leaving home she seemed as cool as the easterly wind that blew, but later in the day I saw tears on her cheeks. So at Totnes I spent an extra day with the Billingsleys in order that she should not feel too strange with them.
Thence to Sherborne no company but my own, no thoughts but my own. Grey thoughts they were, with a thread of scarlet.
I had come to see Sir Walter, but he was in London on some committee in Parliament. I supped and slept there, uncomfortable in answering Elizabeth Ralegh’s questions. George Chapman was there and Carew Ralegh and Lawrence Keymis. Keymis told me that although his voyage to Guiana in ‘96 had not yielded what he had hoped, he now had better information as to the whereabouts of the great city of Manoa and Lake Parima with its extensive gold mines. Unfortunately, now that Sir Walter had been re-appointed to his old position as Captain of the Queen’s Guard, it seemed unlikely that he would be able to get away. It was even possible that Sir Walter might be appointed Lord Deputy of Ireland in succession to Lord Borough.
This is the man, I thought, Sue will not let me follow because he is a waning star. (Or one of such magnitude that hers is outshone? )
I stayed with my uncle Sir Henry, and the first morning went to see my father. He was still in the same cell though his companions had changed; he was thinner and his clothes were torn and infested with vermin; his hair and moustache had not been cut; he stank foully. He complained bitterly of his treatment and the closeness of his confinement. The cold and cough he had brought with him from Cornwall was still troubling him and he was convinced he was developing his mother’s asthma. He had written to the Queen and six times to Cecil but so far without response.
The faithful Rosewarne came each day bringing a few pence and perhaps an item or two of food; but Mr Killigrew was bitter that his two sons Thomas and Henry had only been to see him twice since November.
He eagerly read the letter that I brought from his wife and expressed a sudden desire to see her again. Could it not be arranged that Mrs Killigrew should come to London?
Before I left I saw Thomas Rosewarne, and tried to understand and help unravel the tangled skein of my father’s financial affairs. Rosewarne had drawn up an account of his present position, but all was now so involved with cross claims and petitions that I could see no way out of it all. His largest creditor after the Queen was Henry Lok, the mercer, who had advanced Mr Killigrew several thousand pounds on the flimsiest security. Now Henry Lok had himself been attached by other creditors for having underwritten bonds issued by Mr Killigrew. Lok, for his part, was petitioning for some land in Devonshire belonging to my father which the Queen had now seized, and a Nicholas Athol was cross-petitioning and applying for a lease. Other land and property was the subject of suits in the Court of Wards. In all it seemed likely that my father’s true indebtedness would be upward of œ20,000.
Years after so many that it is hard to think of them all I came across some old papers of that time; among them letters of my father to Sir Robert Cecil complaining grievously of his treatment; and one from my stepmother to Mr Killigrew written in April of that year. Since then through many vicissitudes I have kept this letter by me, wrinkled and yellow with age and stained and almost falling apart.