I felt secure then, but when I began to get better my anxieties about Roberto returned. What would have happened to him if I had died? I asked myself.
It was in this mood that I sent for Manuela.
Manuela had been unobtrusive since her arrival in England; if she was homesick for Spain she had never shown it; and she and Roberto had something in common because they were both of Spanish blood.
So while I lay weakly in my bed, I summoned her and bade her sit beside me and assure me that there was no one in earshot.
“Manuela,” I said, “tell me, are you happy in England?”
She answered: “It has become my home.”
“You have been good to Roberto. He trusts you more than he does the others.”
“We speak Spanish together. It is pleasant to speak as though one is at home.”
“I have thought a great deal about him while I have been lying here. He is young yet, Manuela, and not able to take care of himself.”
“The Captain hates him, Señora. It is because he is the son of Don Felipe and you are his mother.”
“I have come close to death, Manuela. I clung to life because I feared for Roberto.”
“Your passing would be in the hands of Almighty God, Señora,” she said reproachfully.
“I am still here, but weak. I want you to make me a promise. If I should die I wish you to leave here at once with Roberto. I wish you to take him to my mother. You will tell her that I asked that she should care for him. She must love him because he is my son.”
“And the Captain, Señora?”
“The Captain does not love Roberto, as you know.”
“He hates him because he is a Spaniard.”
“He is a little impatient with him,” I prevaricated. “Roberto is not like Carlos and Jacko. I know you once loved Carlos dearly. I remember when you came to the nursery at the Hacienda…”
My voice faltered and she said vehemently: “Carlos has become the Captain’s boy. He shouts. He boasts he will slit the throats of Spaniards. He is no longer of his mother’s faith.”
“He is his father’s boy now, Manuela.”
I saw angry tears in her eyes. I knew that she was fiercely true to her faith and that she practiced it regularly but in secrecy.
“And Roberto,” she said softly, “he is different. Roberto would stay true. He will never forget that his father was a gentleman of Spain.”
“You love the boy, don’t you, Manuela? Carlos can take care of himself now, but if anything should ever happen to me look to my little Roberto.”
“I will do anything to save him,” she said vehemently, and as she spoke I knew that she was sincere.
I awoke to find my mother sitting by my bed.
“Is it really you?” I asked.
“My dearest Cat. Jake sent for me. I came at once and I shall stay until you are well again. Your grandmother has sent you many remedies and you know her cures always work.”
I took her hand and would not release it. I wanted to be absolutely sure that I had not dreamed she was there.
From the moment she arrived my recovery was rapid. I felt that I must get well with her to nurse me. I had always felt this when she nursed me through my childish ailments. She used to say: “All’s well now. Mother is here.” And I believed it now as I had then.
She and my grandmother had made garments for my child. “We shall leave them with you for the next,” she told me.
I felt wonderfully optimistic then. The next! I thought. Of course! What had happened to me was a disaster which befell many women during the course of their childbearing years. I had had one son. I could have another.
She brought into the house a sense of peace. I liked to hear her talking to the servants.
I told her of my interview with Manuela.
“My darling Cat,” she soothed me, “you need have had no fear. If this terrible tragedy had befallen us I should have come here and taken Roberto away with me. But, God willing, his mother will live long into his manhood.”
She asked me earnestly whether I was happy in my marriage and I did not know how to answer her truthfully.
“I doubt there was ever a marriage like ours,” I told her.
“He sent another man out with his ship, I hear, because he could not leave you.”
I laughed. “Dearest Mother, do not attempt to understand what my marriage is. It could never happen to one as gentle as you are. There is a wildness in me which matches that in him. Yet there is a good deal of hate in us.”
“But you love each other?”
“I would not call it love. He was determined that I should bear his sons. He selected me for that purpose. I have failed him now … and at the time when he all but lost his ship! I can find it in my heart to be sorry for him, which surprises me. Mother dear, do not look so put about. You could not understand us. You are too good, too kind.”
“My dear daughter, I have lived and loved and life has seemed strange to me often.”
“But now you have Rupert and everything is as you always longed for it to be.”
“Yet I could have taken Rupert years ago and did not. You see nothing is simple for any of us.”
“I used to think it would have been wonderful for me,” I said, “if I could have married Carey.”
She was a little impatient with me. “You delude yourself,” she answered. “All that is past. You have one child and you will have others. You are still living with an obsession of Carey, when you have Jake. You love him. You know you do. Stop thinking of the past. You loved your Spaniard, too, but now you have Jake. Face reality, Cat.”
Was she right, this wise mother of mine?
Jake came in and sat with me.
“You will soon be well,” he said, “now you have the best possible nurse.”
“Thank you for sending for her.”
“Now she is here I am going away for a short time. I have been thinking a great deal about Girling’s family.”
“What family has he?”
“His wife died recently—the sweat, I think. He has children who may be in need. He served me well. I must not fail him.”
“You must make sure that they are not in want,” I said.
“So thought I. I shall go to St. Austell and see for myself what is happening there. I know I shall leave you in good hands.”
He left the next day.
The house seemed peaceful without him. I was able to get up. I sat at the window and looked out over the Hoe. I could see the Rampant Lion there. Men were working on her. Her canvases and rigging were being overhauled. The shipwrights were going back and forth in the little boats; they would be busy repairing her faulty timbers.
I wondered how long before she would sail again and when she did I knew Jake would go with her.
I drank the broth my mother prepared for me; I swallowed my grandmother’s special remedies and I was soon taking my first steps into the fresh air. It was the end of April and the daffodils were in bloom. My mother, who delighted in flowers and who was herself named after the damask rose, gathered them and arranged them in pots to fill my bedroom. We walked under the pleached alley together with the sun glinting through because there were only buds and tiny leaves on the entwined branches at this time; we sat in the pond garden and talked.
It was while we sat there that she gave me the news which must have lain heavily upon her. I knew that she had been awaiting the time when I should be well enough to receive it.
We had taken our seats near the pond when she said to me: “Cat, there is something I have to tell you. You must be brave. You must understand. You will have to know.”
“What is wrong, Mother?”’
“It’s Honey,” she said.
“Honey? She is ill?”
“Nay. You love her well, do you not, Cat?”
“You know I do. She is as my sister.”
“It is how I always wished you to be.”
I knew that she was even now delaying the moment of telling.
“Please, tell me quickly,” I begged. “What has happened to Honey?”