He leaped out of the boat and seized me. I was laughing. Yes, truly glad that he was safely back. Carlos and Jacko were jumping madly around us.
“The Captain’s home,” sang out Carlos.
He turned to them and shook them by the shoulders.
“Lord, how they’ve grown!”
He was looking around. There should have been one other to greet him. The child who had been on the way when he left.
I said nothing. I did not wish to spoil these first minutes.
“So you’re glad to see me, eh? So you’ve missed me?”
“We had begun to feel you had been away a long time. You’ve had a good voyage, doubtless.”
“A profitable one. You shall hear. But all in good time. Let me look at you, Cat. I’ve thought of you … day and night I’ve thought of you.”
I was gratified, yet I felt the old need to do battle. It was like coming alive again. There was no doubt that I had missed him.
Carlos was leaping up. “Captain, a good voyage was it? How many Spaniards did you kill?”
Oh, Carlos, I thought, have you forgotten that you are half Spaniard!
“Too many to count, boy.”
“Enough of killing,” I said. “The Captain has come home. He wants to talk of home.”
He gripped my arm. “Indeed I do,” he said. “I want to be with my wife. I want to think of home.”
He looked at the house and I could see that he was moved. So must it be after an absence of two years.
“I believe,” I said, “that one of the most exciting things about going to sea is coming home.”
“Home,” he said. “Yes—home.” And I knew he meant me.
Being Jake, the first thing he needed was the physical satisfaction of our union. He came straight up to our bedroom holding me firmly as though he feared I would try to escape him.
“Cat,” he said. “Still the same. I’ve wanted you so much I’ve almost turned the Lion around and come back to you.”
I wondered with how many women he had soothed his needs for one, but I did not ask.
The house was filled with the smell of cooking food—that delicious odor of hot crusty bread, the savory one of pasties and cooking meats.
I knew that he would be hungry for such food after the kind of fare he would have had so long at sea.
He said: “And the boy? I want to see the boy.”
He stared at me, for he had seen the sorrow in my face.
“There was no boy,” I told him. “I miscarried.”
“My God, not again.”
I was silent.
His disappointment was bitter. He turned on me: “How is it that you could get a boy from that poxy Spaniard and not from me?”
Still I did not speak. He shook me. “What happened? You did not take care. You were stupid … careless. …”
“I was neither. It just happened. There was no reason.”
He bit his lips, his heavy brows drawn together.
“Am I to have no son?”
I retorted: “No doubt you have many scattered about the world. You have two under this roof.”
Then he looked at me and his anger faded. “Cat, how I’ve longed for you!”
I was sorry for him suddenly and I said with more tenderness than I had shown him before: “We’ll have sons. Of course we’ll have sons.”
Then he was gay again. Remembering that he was home after two years away.
In the great dining hall the tables were loaded with food. We were seated as at a banquet. At the table on the dais I sat beside Jake. The children were there too—Roberto on my left, Carlos on Jake’s right, and Jacko beside him. On the other side of Roberto sat Romilly. Jake had said she should be one of the family. In two years she had grown a good deal; she was tall, still willowy, and she was attractive because of her wonderful green eyes.
Jake had greeted her warmly and asked how she fared. She had bobbed a curtsy and raised respectful and admiring eyes to his face. As Captain Girling’s daughter no doubt she would have heard stirring stories of Captain Jake Pennlyon.
The servants filled the center table and there was much drinking and revelry.
It had been difficult to keep Carlos and Jacko interested in their lessons since the Captain had returned, Mr. Merrimet complained. Romilly used to go and help him in the schoolroom and as she was growing into an attractive young girl with a quiet demeanor I did wonder whether they might make a match of it. She must be nearly fifteen years of age and it would sooner or later be necessary to find a husband for her.
Roberto studied with a fervor greater than before. I think he was very anxious to do well at what he was good at; and I knew that he lived in terror of Jake.
When the Ennises came there was always a good deal of talk about affairs of state and these all seemed to center around the Queen of Scots.
She was at this time in England, having escaped from Lochleven, where she had been incarcerated, and had lost the battle of Langside. She had, foolishly it was said, come over the border to escape the Scottish lairds and so placed herself in the hands of Elizabeth.
“Our Sovereign Lady’s prisoner,” Jake said with satisfaction. “That will take care of her.”
But it seemed she was as dangerous in England as she had been in Scotland. A casket had been found in which were letters said to have been written by her to Bothwell. Some were of the opinion that they were forgeries; if they were not and had indeed been written by her, then she was a guilty woman, adulteress and murderess.
There were arguments at our table about the authenticity of these casket letters. I grew rather apprehensive. Aubrey Ennis was cautious, but Alice declared hotly that they were forgeries. Jake, who saw all Papists as criminals of the worst degree, was certain that Mary had written the letters, that she had committed adultery with Bothwell while married to Darnley and that she had had a hand in the murder.
“She’s an enemy of our Queen and country,” he declared. “The sooner her head parts company with her body, the better.”
I used to try to change the subject. I had heard that a strange gamble had been introduced into the country. It was called a lottery.
“People get a number,” explained Ennis. “Or so I’ve heard. If that is one of the lucky numbers there’s a prize.”
“They say,” I went on, “that the sale of tickets went on day and night from January to May.”
“A great number of people must take part if the prizes are to be worthwhile.”
“A lottery,” I said. “How I should have loved to see them at the door of St. Paul’s.”
But we could not talk long of the lottery, novel though it might be, and the conversation drifted back to that lady who seemed to have an ability to attract trouble and supporters and to cause friction in families.
The Earls of Northumberland and Westmorland had raised a rebellion in the North, but this had come to nothing. Heads had fallen in the affair. More would doubtless follow in the years to come, for trouble there would always be while Queen Mary lived.
After such conversation Jake would often express his suspicion that our neighbors were secret Papists and I was always afraid there would be trouble.
I had become pregnant again.
“If you don’t give me a son this time,” said Jake, “I’ll clap you in irons and make you walk the plank.”
I laughed. I had a feeling that this time I could not fail.
Jake was going on a brief voyage to Southampton in connection with his next venture and proposed to take the boys. He said nothing to me but went into the schoolroom where they were at their lessons and told them of the proposition. Carlos and Jacko were wild with joy. I did not have to imagine Roberto’s reaction.
I tackled Jake when he came to our bedroom.
I said: “What is this voyage I hear about?”
“A short one. I want to give the boys a taste of the sea.”
“Take Carlos and Jacko by all means.”