Lady in Waiting

by Rosemary Sutcliff

  ‘Aye mon, are ye no unreasonable?’ James protested in his turn, on one such occasion; almost tearfully confronting the furious Spanish Ambassador across his littered study table. ‘This Ralegh is commissioned juist to seek out the mine, and naething more. He has ma orders that he s’all na’ lift a finger against Spain. And gin he disobey me, it s’all cost him his haed; that I promise ye.’

  But Gondomar was not mollified. ‘I think Sir, you forget that my Master, His Most Catholic Majesty, claims not a part, but the whole of the Indies for a dominion of Spain. How then shall this Don Ralegh cross Spanish territory and suck the richness of a Spanish mine, without lifting the finger against Spain?’ He thrust his dark face forward across the King’s writing table. ‘Is it, you think, that those who hold Guiana for my Master shall stand by to see it done?’

  James, having no argument, took refuge in half intelligible mutterings and a close search for something non-existent among his papers. He wanted to be alone. It was very hot and he wanted to go to sleep. ‘Gin he disobey ma orders, it s’all cost him his haed,’ he said again after a few moments. ‘Aye, it s’all cost him his haed,’ and his flurried face, as he blinked up at the Spaniard, held a queer sliding gleam.

  *

  June 1617, and in Plymouth Sound a squadron lay at single anchor, waiting for the evening tide.

  On the flagship’s quarter-deck, the whole ship’s company with the Captain and Senior officers of the squadron were gathered to hear Divine Service before sailing, and in their midst, Bess stood between her husband and her son, between the squadron’s Admiral and the Destiny’s Captain; trying desperately to keep her wandering attention on the dark-gowned Chaplain and the altar of piled drums against the break of the poop; trying desperately to keep her heart on her prayers. But between her and them came her too-sharp awareness of all the sights and sounds around her, making a barrier that she could not pierce.

  Around her lay the rest of the squadron, twelve ships in all, waiting for the tide. Here on the flagship’s quarter-deck their Captains stood with bowed bare heads. Wollaston of the Thunder, Whitney of the Star, King of the Flying Joan, Lawrence Kemys who commanded the Encounter; young Cosmer, a kindred spirit of Watt’s, from one of the pinnaces. There were young kinsmen of Ralegh’s here too, and the sons of old friends. As for the rest, Bess’s heart misgave her every time she thought of them. Impressment was no longer open to Ralegh, and owing to the doubtful attitude of the King, and the shadow that lay over the Admiral himself, volunteers had been few and far between; and he had been forced to gather his crews by issuing broadsides signed by himself and Kemys, promising a share in the gain to all who would throw in their lot with him. The result was a rabble of rogues and cut-throats, down-at-heel gentlemen and ne’er-do-wells whose families had seen in the venture a chance to be cheaply rid of them. Close on a thousand men, and out of them, perhaps a hundred, perhaps less, whose loyalty could be relied on.

  But there were the faithful few. Her mind dwelt on them for comfort; those kinsmen and sons of old friends, and hardy seamen who had served with him at Cadiz and Fayal; John Talbot, Kemys and King and Little Watt ... Carew, now in his first term at Wadham had no particular leanings to adventure, but if he had been two or three years older, the number of the faithful few would have been increased by one. Suddenly Bess thanked God that Carew was not three years older, and the moment after, prayed forgiveness for having thanked Him.

  The water lay very still, the brightness of it greening as it went shoreward. The roofs and chimneys of Plymouth huddled under the steep protecting shoulder of the Hoe, the tall warehouses clustering along the Cattewater and Sutton Pool, glimpsed through the crowded masts of the shipping were bathed in run-honey evening light. It was all very peaceful.

  Last night Plymouth had entertained Ralegh and his venturers to a banquet with long and eulogistic speeches. Earlier today, there had been shouting crowds; all Plymouth, all his own West Country, it seemed, crowding down to the waterside to see him off as he embarked for the last time; to throng round him and cheer him and bid him God speed; they who had been his liegemen in the days when the rest of England loathed him. Boats packed with sightseers had hung round the squadron for days; there were still a few, still little groups watching from the shore; but the shouting and jostling of leave-taking were over. Only the gulls wheeling among the topsail spars, their thin regretful crying sounding behind the Chaplain’s words and the deep responses of the men at prayer on the Destiny’s quarter-deck; only the light off-shore wind plucking at the dark folds of Bess’s cloak.

  She realised that Ralegh and Watt were kneeling down, and sank to her knees between them. Suddenly the fine web of distracting thought and sight and sound that had come between her and her prayers, seemed to part and let her through into sanctuary; the quiet at the heart of the storm. Walter’s scallop shell of quiet.

  ‘The Peace of God and the Fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us all, ever more, Amen,’ said the Chaplain.

  ‘Amen,’ came the deep echo of the congregation.

  ‘Amen,’ Bess said.

  Then it was over, and the stress of the storm was upon her again.

  The Captains were departing to their own ships, boat after boat ordered away, the crew was springing into the ordered activity of a great ship making ready to sail, and already the tide was on the turn.

  There were hurried leave-takings, while the boat that was to carry Bess ashore, waited. Watt was kneeling at her feet for her blessing, laughing up at her. ‘What shall I bring you from the New World, Sweet?’ then leaping up and hugging her. ‘God be with you, Mother Darling, and with us! Pray for us — I do love you —’ and his cold young kiss on her face. Then the arms round her were Ralegh’s, the vital warmth of him enfolding her ... And then she was going down the ladder, taking the impersonal hand of the man standing to steady her into the boat.

  She settled herself in the stern, the desolation rising within her as they pushed off from the Destiny’s side, and emptiness seeped coldly into the place that had been warm with beloved companionship a few moments ago. Looking up and back as the gap widened, she saw her menfolk still standing uncovered at the head of the ladder. Watt was gazing after her, and as she watched, he began to flourish his buckled hat in wide and joyous circles. She put up her hand and waved in return, smiling, though it was too far now for him to see her face. His father, standing beside him, was already looking out beyond Rame Head, out to sea. The years in the Tower had made of Ralegh an old man, and a very sick one; but all that was forgotten now, and standing there was the Queen’s Captain, leading his fleet to sea.

  His wife’s eyes were on him, pleading, as the distance lengthened, while still she waved and waved to Watt. ‘Look round once, just once, Beloved, before it is too late.’

  But Ralegh did not look round. He had forgotten her, and once again, Bess accepted without bitterness the knowledge that he was away after his dream, and she herself left behind, in spirit as surely as in body.

  There were ships between her and the Destiny now. The Encounter’s cutwater swung across her sight as they passed under the bowsprit. In the confusion of departure she had somehow missed saying goodbye to Lawrence Kemys; dear, constant Lawrence Kemys, who had been a part of her life almost as long as Ralegh had. She wished she had said goodbye to him.

  A little while more; there was open water widening between her and the last of the squadron now; and she ceased to look back. Then she was among more shipping. The boat grated gently against some weed-grown steps, and Mr. Harris, the old friend of Ralegh’s in whose house she was to spend the night, was descending to meet her. She rose in the rocking boat, and setting her hand on his wrist, stepped ashore.

  Chapter 20 - The Scarlet Feather

  BESS went back to the little house in Broad Street, to make a home for Carew in his holidays, and wait until the Destiny returned. She made the usual summer conserves; she boiled candles and dried marigold petals for winter soups; and worked with her need
le in the evenings while once again Joan kept her company. She had leisure for her lute now, but the music was gone from her fingers since she had no one to share it with her.

  At first there was frequent word of the expedition, in letters from Ralegh himself, and through friends who brought her the news from the Court: for the squadron had run into gales almost at once, and been forced to take refuge in Kinsale Harbour. There they had to remain, waiting for favourable winds while the good days of summer were lost, sickness and discontent began to break out among the crew, and provisions to run low.

  Then at last the wind blew from the right quarter, and no more news came to the little house in Broad Street, until, towards the end of March, Henry Herbert returned with one of the pinnaces, bringing home letters and dispatches. The first that Bess knew of his coming was the arrival of a thick packet, with a covering note begging leave to wait upon her shortly. The packet contained a letter from Ralegh and one from Watt. Bess took them out to the bench in the little sunny garden. There was a whitethroat singing his small liquid song in the ilex tree; his nest was in the churchyard of Allhallows-by-the-Wall, but he sang in the ilex tree on most fine mornings, now that the spring was here. Bess opened her son’s letter first, like a child saving the finest cherry till last, because much as a letter from Watt meant to her, a letter from his father meant more.

  Watt’s letter was very short, only a few lines, beginning very dutifully ‘Honoured and most beloved mother,’ and ending with a burst of affection in which duty was quite forgotten. ‘Darling, your graceless but most loving Watt.’ It was badly written, as though in violent haste, and told her practically nothing; but all the warmth and laughter, the vivid eagerness that were Watt’s seemed to flash up at her from the scrawled pages, remaining with her even when she had refolded it and turned to the second packet.

  Ralegh’s letter was of a length to make up for the shortness of his son’s, and Bess settled herself with a sigh of contentment to read it. ‘Sweetheart,’ he began, ‘I can yet write unto you but with a weak hand, for I have suffered the most violent calenture, fifteen days.’ Her contentment went out like a pinched candle, and she hurried on anxiously. But as she read, her anxiety quietened, for he was better, much better, and Little Watt was thriving on the intense heat as though born to it. There followed an account of the voyage, which seemed to have been one long saga of storms and fever — forty-two men in the Destiny alone had died of fever, and among them, she would grieve to hear, was John Talbot. She did grieve to hear it; grieved for an old and trusted friend; but she could find only limited room, just now, for any feeling save relief that as yet Walter and Little Watt were safe. She returned to her letter. It was written from the mouth of the Caliana, she found, but soon they were sailing for their old anchorage near Punto Gallo in Trinidad, and then the enterprise would go forward in good earnest. There followed details of the bird life along the shores of their present anchorage, details of some new plants that Ralegh had found; very much love, and that was all.

  Bess sat with her letter between her hands, and smiled at the whitethroat still singing in the ilex tree.

  But many things had happened since Henry Herbert sailed from Caliana to carry home the mails.

  Only a few days after the pinnace sailed, Ralegh had a relapse, and for a while seemed very like to die; but at last the sickness spent itself, and he began once more to mend. As soon as he was strong enough to be carried aboard from the branch-woven cabin ashore where he had lain sick, the squadron sailed for Punto Gallo according to plan. But it was obvious that unless they waited several weeks, he would not be fit to lead the expedition himself, and such a delay was out of the question. So the command fell on Lawrence Kemys with Watt under him, an unfortunate combination, since Watt was a fire-eater, and Kemys too long a second-in-command to be a sound commander, too good a follower to be a good leader.

  In the Great Cabin of the Destiny, Ralegh, still swaying on his feet, gave them their orders. They were to land opposite the Mount Aio mine, and march the fifteen miles or so through the jungle. They were to avoid a fight if that might be; and if they found the mine impossible to hold until a relief force could reach them, they were to bring back a basketful of the gold to prove its existence to the King.

  Early in December they set out, and Ralegh was left with a strong force to guard against their surprise by a Spanish fleet; left to wait through the long empty weeks, just as Bess was waiting in the little house in Broad Street, half the world away. He superintended the building of cabins ashore to ease the chronic over-crowding on ship-board; he fished, he made a study of the medicinal herbs of Trinidad; anything to hold off the fever of anxiety that possessed him.

  The up-river voyage went ill from the first. All along the Orinoco, the Spaniards had clearly been warned of their coming, and were prepared and hostile; so much so that Kemys in Council with his officers, determined to disobey his orders, and rather than face the long march through jungle swarming with enemies, to a mine whose exact whereabouts had yet to be discovered, to continue up river, land a little below San Thome, and make for the other mine, whose position, much nearer the river, was known to him. This seemed at the time a wise decision. Events proved it to be a fatal one.

  The English, making camp below San Thome, were attacked in the night by a strong Spanish force, and, taken by surprise and low in morale as they were, would have been utterly routed but for the courage of Kemys and a few officers who somehow contrived to rally them, to steady them into a semblance of discipline, and even, when the first pressure slackened, to sweep them forward into a counter-attack.

  That counter-attack developed beyond all that had been intended, into a full-scale assault on the town. It was Little Watt, with a handful of yelling English gaol-birds behind him, who made the first breach. In the fiery darkness and the tumult nobody saw him fall. They heard him cheering them on ‘Go on, my Hearts! The Lord have mercy on me — the Lord prosper you — Go on!’ but it was another wave of the attack, thrusting after, that found him lying within the breach, his head on his arm as though he slept, and a red hole below his breastbone.

  Next day, in the captured town, Lawrence Kemys buried his dead under the floor of the Romish Church, the only means he had of making sure their graves would be safe from desecration. Little Watt he buried before the High Altar, with full Captain’s panoply of muffled drums and trailed pikes, and Colours borne before him to his grave.

  The taking of San Thome was disastrous in more ways than one, for the Spaniards gathered in the surrounding jungle so that the English were virtually besieged; prospecting parties in search of the up-river mine were ambushed and cut off, and no trace of the Mount Aio mine could be discovered. Provisions began to run low, and the whole force were growing mutinous, finally demanding of their officers an immediate return to Punto Gallo.

  For Lawrence Kemys, there was no choice. Almost a month after taking the town, they fired what was left of San Thome, and leaving the church a red pyre over Little Watt’s grave, began the journey back.

  Ralegh received a letter from his Lieutenant in mid-February, telling him of all that had happened: and for him, the light went out. No one, not even Bess, had ever been as near to him as Watt, and his world was left empty by the boy’s going. To that was added the probable ruin of every hope that he had had of the enterprise, for with the King’s orders disobeyed and San Thome sacked, he realised that unless the mine proved to be rich indeed, his last chance was gone. His last chance, not only of life — he cared very little for that now — but of realising his dream of an English Empire in the New World.

  And then a fortnight later, the expeditionary force, or the ragged remains of it, returned, having failed to find the mine. The last slim chance was gone, and Little Watt had died for nothing.

  Ralegh and Kemys met with constrained quiet, and Ralegh took his Lieutenant’s full report of the disastrous expedition without any outward sign of disturbance. A little later that evening, they actually suppe
d together in Ralegh’s branch-woven cabin. But the consciousness of all that had happened hung between them like the still oppression of approaching thunder. Ralegh was not aware of holding himself in restraint, indeed, what he felt was a kind of suspension of all emotion, an utter weariness, and nothing more. It could not last, this quiet, stretching into electric tension between them. Presently it must snap, but not just yet.

  Not until, supper being ended, Lawrence Kemys went to the adjoining cabin, which had been made over to him, and returned with a little bundle folded in a kerchief, which he set down on the table with a marked hesitation. ‘The boy’s gear is still on board,’ he said heavily. ‘These were on his — These were on him.’

  Ralegh, who had been glancing through the papers, turned from them without a word, and taking up the little bundle, tumbled out the contents with a hasty, almost harsh gesture. Little Watt’s small personal possessions spilled upon the table; and among them, a small scarlet feather that must have caught his idle fancy by its sheer perfection. ‘What of the quartz mask?’ Ralegh demanded levelly.

  ‘We buried it with him. I thought that you would have it so.’

  ‘Aye, I’d have it so,’ Ralegh said. ‘You might have buried the rest of this tussy-mussy with him, for all I care.’

  ‘I had thought that Lady Ralegh —’ Lawrence Kemys began.

  Ralegh was staring down at the scatter of objects on the table; so very unremarkable, save for that small scarlet feather, which somehow spoke more clearly and tragically of Watt, the laughter and the courage and the bright unruly flame of Watt, than did all the other familiar objects that his father had seen in his hands a thousand times. That small scarlet feather suddenly pierced the protective vacuum in Ralegh, filling him with the overwhelming realisation that Watt was dead, and had died for nothing.