(1/3) Go Saddle the Sea

by Joan Aiken

  "She wanted her own grandson to inherit Villaverde," said I. "My cousin Manuel. And I suppose she feared that, as soon as Don Francisco knew that I was legitimate, he would wish to keep me."

  "Disgraceful," murmured Mr. Burden to himself. "Disgraceful behavior. However, she has gone to her rest now and made her peace with God; it is not for us to condemn her."

  I did not really see why she should not be condemned. She had caused much harm and unhappiness.

  "If she has made her peace with God?" I inquired. "Does that mean she has gone to heaven?"

  It did not seem at all fair to me that one deathbed repentance should cancel a whole life of deceit and malice; and if Great-aunt Isadora were now in heaven, I was not at all certain that I wished to go there. However, I decided to discuss that with God at a later time.

  Mr. Burden said it was all a matter for debate; and then he smiled and said, "Ah, you are so like your father!"

  I was still pondering over his tale, in which there seemed to be many gaps.

  "I wonder how my grandfather Cabezada knew that I intended to come here and search for my English family.—I had said so to Pedro, but I had not told him where I intended to go."

  I wondered if Great-aunt Isadora, on her deathbed confession, had mentioned bribing the Comprachicos to decoy me on board the Guipuzcoa and transform me by their terrible arts. If she had not confessed that, then she was still doomed to damnation. It made me shiver to think of her launching this hateful plot after me like a poisoned arrow, and then being overtaken by her own death before it had even been carried out.

  I thought I would not mention this matter to Mr. Burden.

  He said, "It seems that your grandfather the Conde received some intelligence about your journey. He had caused inquiries to be made after your departure, and had traced your progress part of the way. Then he had a letter from a priest in a village called Santillana, commending your bravery, and from that place he was able to follow your track backward to a smith in Llanes, and a miller in San Antonio." Mr. Burden smiled, and added, "There are probably not so many yellow-headed boys riding about northern Spain, after all!"

  I was quite surprised that my grandfather had taken such pains to trace me. But hoped, on reflection, that the reports he received of me on my journey would not have been too unfavorable.

  Bringing my thoughts back to the present, I asked, "Where are we going, senor?"

  The chaise was now traveling along a smooth graveled road between rough walls crowned with a curious iron-dark stone. Over to our left I saw a large and fantastic building, built of the same dark-colored stone, and all crowned with cupolas and battlements, like a castle.

  "Those are your grandfather's stables," said Mr. Burden, to my considerable surprise. They did not look in the least like stables.

  "The way to them passes in a tunnel underneath this road," he explained. "And here are the park lodges." He gestured at two small buildings with similar turretwork on the right-hand side of the road.

  "Now we shan't be long, your lordship!" called back Merriwether, through an opening in the glass pane.

  Your lordship! I wondered at this mode of address.

  "Señor Burden—who am I? Please tell me about my English family."

  "But—" He seemed astonished. "Did your father, then, never tell you?"

  The carriage turned to the right, passed through a gate between the two lodges, and began bowling along toward a dark mass of leafless oakwoods.

  "My father?" I said. "But I never knew my father!"

  "Good heavens!" Mr. Burden stared at me, wholly taken aback, it seemed. "In all those years then—even at the last—he never divulged his identity? He was with you all through your childhood, and yet never revealed himself? Eh, well—poor fellow—poor fellow! Doubtless he thought it best. He would always go his own way—there was no ruling him, or advising him!"

  Utterly astounded at these words, I pondered over them, while their meaning slowly shook and dissolved and settled into my understanding.

  Who had been with me all through my childhood?

  The carriage rattled through the belt of woodland, then emerged on the other side. Ahead of us rose a high, green, grassy hillside, and at its foot, set between clumps of huge chestnut trees with massive twisted trunks, lay an enormous gray house—so long, so big, that it seemed like a whole village in itself.

  "Do you mean," I said slowly, "do you mean, Senor Burden, that Bob was my father? Is that what you mean? Did he write this letter?"

  "Why, of course—who else?" said Mr. Burden. "He wanted to watch over you as long as he could, poor dear fellow.—But now, here we are." He added, more formally, "Welcome to your grandfather's house, my lord St. Winnow. Welcome to Asshe."

  "But who is my grandfather, Senor Burden?"

  "His name, like yours and your father's, is Charles Felix Robert Lewis Carisbroke. He is the Duke of Wells and Taunton."

  The chaise rolled to a halt at the foot of a great flight of stone steps while I was still digesting this information.

  11. In which I meet my Trustees, and Mr. Burden reads my father's Letter

  I hardly noticed my surroundings as Mr. Burden assisted me to alight from the chaise and led me up the great curving flight of stairs toward the main entrance of the house. I was still utterly stunned and perplexed by this news of my father.

  If my father was Bob—why had he never revealed himself? If Bob was my father—why was my English grandfather a Duke? If Bob was my father—why had he not told me about my English connections, instead of leaving me an illegible letter?

  All these questions jostled together in my mind. I stumbled along, hardly looking where I put my feet.

  At the top of the steps a wide terrace, with a stone balustrade, extended on either hand, running along the front of the house. Mr. Burden glanced, in a somewhat harassed way, to our right, where two people were strolling, not far away. He said, in a hurried, anxious manner, "Ah—there is your grandfather. But perhaps it will be" best if you do not meet him just yet—"

  He made as if to lead me into the house, but we had delayed a moment too long, and the couple on the terrace came up to us. I saw a tallish, handsome man, with rather bulging eyes and curling brown hair— he could not be my grandfather—who carefully held the arm of a short, spare little personage, slightly bowlegged but elegantly dressed in a black silk jacket and pantaloons, with ruffles of the whitest lace at his neck and wrists; he wore an immense, comical, old-fashioned wig, out of which poked forth a sharp, wrinkled, suspicious old countenance, with a nose curved as sharply as an eagle's beak, and two bright, angry blue eyes. The eyes raked back and forth as if searching for enemies. They rested on me, darted away, came back again, left me once more ... I saw with sorrow that they had no sense in them. They were the eyes of a child.

  "Your grandfather is very old," said Mr. Burden in a hasty undertone. "Do not allow yourself to be distressed by anything he may say. He is not quite in his right wits any more—"

  My English grandfather stumped up to me, his buckled shoes and his black cane clacking impatiently on the pavement.

  "Well, Felix!" he said sharply. "I hear you have been playing truant, as usual! And your appearance is disgraceful, sir—disgraceful! What kind of garments do you call those—?" With his cane he jerked at my jacket—which was stained and threadbare enough, in all conscience. "You look like a stableboy—like a stableboy, sirrah! Go and get changed immediately. How dare you appear like this before me! Take a bath! And mind you are in time for dinner." Then he turned on his heel, adding over his shoulder, "You may send your brother Charles to me."

  "Y-y-y-yes, sir!" I said, angry because my stammer had come back—and very sad, also, because, if I had at any time framed hopes of what my father's father might be like, they certainly had not been anything like this.

  "Lord St. Winnow—this is Mr. ffanshawe—your grandfather's man of business," Mr. Burden said, in the same hurried undertone, and the tall man made me a low bow, r
apidly saying, "Happy to make your lordship's acquaintance, I am sure!" before hastening away after his charge.

  "Of course he took you for your father," said Mr. Burden quietly, piloting me indoors, into a great black-and-white marble tiled hall with statues set about on plinths. "And indeed, the likeness is remarkable. Poor man, his mind is all in the past."

  "Where is my father's brother Charles? The one he mentioned?"

  "Your father's elder brother? He died at the battle of Waterloo."

  Just at that moment the sun came out, and a great shaft of light poured through a wide, high-up window, brilliantly illuminating the great marble hall. I stared about—at the brocade hangings, the suits of armor, the statues, the grand white staircase—feeling as trapped as ever I had at Villaverde. Here, it seemed, was the same thing all over again. Old people grieving for young ones who had been sent to their death.

  "Why do men fight wars, Señor Burden?"

  "Ah," he sighed, "if I could answer that, my dear boy, I should be the wisest man in the world!—But come, you are tired after your travels: Watchett, here, who is your grandfather's valet, will take you to your chamber. It is probable that there are still some clothes of your father's—or your uncle Charles's—which may fit you; and if you have been on the road since dawn I expect you may be glad of a bath; and then I daresay you could eat a nuncheon!"

  He smiled at me very kindly, as he offered me these remedies, and then moved away, saying, "I will leave you in Watchett's care, and shall await you in the morning room in half an hour's time."

  I thought what a piece of good fortune it was for me that he should be my English grandfather's chaplain. Suppose he had been like Father Tomás! What an arrival I should have had then!

  I had not particularly taken to Mr. ffanshawe.

  Watchett, a stout, white-haired man, seemed friendly, however; he led me to a handsome chamber and there prepared me a bath in front of a great blazing fire of earth coal. I was not used to so much attention and felt somewhat embarrassed by his services but he left the room while I bathed, and presently returned with an armful of clothes, saying, "I daresay these of your father's may fit you tolerably well, my lord," and then put me at my ease, while he helped me dress, by telling stories of my father's wild ways, how, as a boy, he spent all the time he could in the stables, and rode in horse races at Newmarket, learned boxing of two great experts called Jackson and Mendoza, acted as whipper-in for his fathers huntsman, and was rusticated from the university of Oxford for introducing a giraffe into the chapel of Christ Church College.

  "Ah, he were a wild one, Master Felix were," said Watchett fondly, helping me into gray breeches and a striped gray fustian coat with cut steel buttons—not in the first stare of fashion, I could see, but certainly far superior to my own damp and salty garments. "But not an ounce of vice in him—heart of gold, Master Felix had."

  "There," said Watchett, arranging a white stock round my neck "Now you're as fine as fivepence, my lord! I daresay Mr. ffanshawe will be taking you off to His Grace's tailor in Bath presently, but for a nuncheon at home, you will do very well. May I say how glad we are to have you among us! It's like a ray of sunshine to have a young face in the house again." He gave me a warm smile and I felt that I had found another friend.

  Mr. Burden was waiting for me downstairs. I was relieved to learn that my grandfather would not be present at the meal; he, it seemed, ate by himself in his own apartments. Mr. Burden led me to a dining room where cold meat, fruit, cakes, and wine were laid out in golden dishes and crystal vessels. Mr. ffanshawe was there, and a group of other men, who were introduced by Mr. Burden.

  "This is Mr. Willowes, your grandfather's secretary; and Mr. Tyler, who looks after the estate; and Mr. Bendigo, your grandfather's librarian; and Dr. Larpent, your grandfather's medical adviser; and Mr, Dinsdale, who oversees the affairs of the house and garden; and Mr. Tweedy the archivist."

  These men all acknowledged my introduction to them with perfect politeness; and glanced at me briefly, as if estimating me to be too young to be of any interest or importance. Mr. ffanshawe, indeed, remarked that presently he and I must have a short conversation about business affairs; he was furnished, he said, with a copy of my parents' marriage lines, which had come to hand with my father's long-delayed letter; but he would be obliged if I could give him details of my age, place of birth, etc., for his records. That seemed to be his sole interest in me.

  We sat down around a large table, were served by a stately butler, and all the men proceeded to eat a hearty meal, talking among themselves about the affairs of the estate, and quite ignoring me. When they referred to my grandfather, as they did from time to time, they alluded to him as "His G," in slightly contemptuous, indulgent tones.—"No use asking His G about that—better do as you think fit, Tyler. Sell off the bullocks and buy black-faced ewes."

  It soon became plain to me, listening, that my grandfather had nothing to do with the running of his affairs, that these men constituted the real power in the house.

  Toward the end of the meal they began talking about me, however.

  "Now that Lord St. Winnow has returned, he had best be sent to school," said Mr. Willowes, a thin, dry, gray-haired man with gold spectacles halfway down his nose, glancing at me over the top of the spectacles in a severe manner, as if I were a bit of grit that had lodged in the works of a smooth-running machine. He went on, "It is to be presumed that, as he has spent all his life in Spain, he is far behind in his studies. Mr. ffanshawe, I leave it to you to select a suitable establishment where his lordship may be prepared for Eton and Oxford."

  Mr. ffanshawe said, "I had already been considering that point myself; I think Pulteney's Academy in Bath will do very well. Mr. Burden, I am sure, will be good enough to examine his lordship and discover his capabilities and attainments; and, Mr. Tyler, if you will charge yourself with outfitting him, I fancy he may be dispatched to school within a week or so. I will communicate with the headmaster of the Pulteney immediately. Let us see—he will need clothes—> books—a box for his things—a horse—furnishings for his room—"

  I felt rather astonished at being thus briskly disposed of; they seemed to be dealing with me as if I were a parcel. I could not complain that they bore me any ill-will or behaved unkindly; indeed, as I presently discovered, they were all men of honor and discharged their duties with the utmost diligence and regard for the good of the estate. It just had not occurred to them that my wishes need be considered.

  But then, I acknowledged to myself, I was not at all sure what my wishes were. How could I decide whether it was better to be sent away to school, and meet some English boys, or to remain here and be snapped at by my mad grandfather?

  Then a thought came to me which made the blood run quick in my veins.

  I said, "Mr. ffanshawe, have I any money?"

  He stared at me rather blankly, as if the great gold ornament in the center of the table had suddenly piped up and asked him a question.

  "Eh? I beg your pardon, Lord St. Winnow? Money?"

  His expression was so comical that I almost laughed.

  "Er—I believe Lord St. Winnow wishes to ascertain whether he is possessed of funds," remarked Mr. Tyler, a red-haired man who looked like a foxy horse, or a horsey fox.

  "Eh—well—well—I could advance your lordship half a guinea," Mr. ffanshawe conceded.

  "No, thank you; I don't mean that," I said civilly. "I meant, is there any money here that belongs to me?"

  "Why—why, yes," said Mr. ffanshawe, looking as if all this were most improper. "A sum was laid aside for your lordship, by the terms of your late father's Will, to be administered by Trust, er—invested in the Funds—bringing in an income of some three thousand pounds a year—"

  "So, as I haven't spent any of it since I was born, there must be a great deal of it by now?"

  "I wouldn't say a great deal," said Mr. ffanshawe fastidiously, "not a great deal, but a reasonable sum, yes, my lord, to be administered on your beh
alf at the discretion of the Trust, until you are of age."

  "And what is the Trust?"

  "The Trust? Why, that is the persons designated to administer the Funds."

  I felt as if we were going round and round in circles.

  "Yes, but who are these persons?"

  "Why, Mr. Willowes, Mr. Tyler, Mr. Bendigo, Mr. Burden, Mr. Dinsdale, and myself."

  "Very good," sad I. "Then, if you please, Señor ffanshawe, I wish you will have five hundred pounds from my monies dispatched to Truro jail, for Mr. Sam Pollard, who is imprisoned there unjustly for debt, part of the sum to pay off his debt, and the rest to be used by him as he chooses."

  "Five hundred pounds?—I trust your lordship is speaking in jest?" said Mr. ffanshawe after a pause. "Five hundred pounds, I would have you know, is a very considerable sum of money."

  "I am quite aware of that, Mr. ffanshawe," said I. "Sam Pollard is a friend of mine who risked his life to help me, traveling in a ship full of dangerous criminals, and he accompanied me to England, where he knew that he might expect to be flung into jail. I wish you will send the five hundred pounds to Truro at once, if you please."

  The eight men all stared at one another.

  "This is very untoward," said Mr. ffanshawe.

  "Unprecedented," said Mr. Willowes.

  "Exceptional," said Mr. Dinsdale.

  "If the boy really owes his life to this person—" said Mr. Tyler.

  "But how can we be sure of that?" said Mr. Willowes. "A young person cannot possibly judge of such a case. The boy may well have imagined the danger."