Georgiana, on the other hand, couldn’t have been happier. She was excited to bear the admiral’s child and took the pain of pregnancy in stride. She knew of the admiral’s reservations about the child but had convinced herself that once the child was born, he would change his mind.
Some women are not equipped to bear children, and Georgiana was one of these. Her pregnancy was difficult from the start. As the months passed, her sunny countenance faded. At the time of birth, Georgiana was weak and sickly.
For over eighteen hours Georgiana labored to deliver her baby. She writhed and screamed and clutched the hand of her midwife and gritted her teeth in agony. The baby wouldn’t come. Twice her wet bedding had to be replaced with fresh sheets. She was exhausted. As one attendant described it, “She was more worn out than a bar of soap after a hard day’s wash.” Even so, Georgiana refused to give up. Nothing was going to stop her from delivering her child.
The attending midwife described the birth as an exchange of life. Throughout the ordeal it was clear that there would be only one survivor—either mother or child. When the moment of birth came, to hear the midwife tell the story, it was as if Georgiana willed her life into the body of her infant son, for the moment the baby was born, Georgiana died.
If Amos Morgan had known no greater joy than when he met Georgiana, he knew no greater sorrow than when she died. His life was shipwrecked.
To take his mind off his sorrow, he retreated into the bosom of his first love—the sea. He hired nannies and tutors to raise his son in his absence. From the time Percy was two months old until he came of age, he and his father were together for little more than occasional holidays and a few special days each year. As a result, the two were not close. This was never more evident than when Percy chose a bride and brought her home to Morgan Hall.
Percy Morgan married Evelyn North—one of the Norths. He didn’t marry her because he loved her. In fact, there was no romance between them at all; their marriage was a meticulously negotiated alliance designed to benefit both sides. But it was a marriage the romantic admiral never understood, let alone approved. Both the groom and bride were ambitious opportunists, and each had something the other wanted. Although the Norths were quite wealthy, their empire was endangered by an insufficient cash flow. That’s where the Morgans came in. The admiral was flush with cash. On the other hand, the Norths had what Percy coveted most—a higher level of nobility. Queen Elizabeth was dead, and the king on the throne knew not Amos Morgan. It’s true, the admiral was still respected by the court, but at a polite distance; he could move among them, but he wasn’t one of them. In the marriage negotiations, Percy Morgan bargained with his father’s cash for the Norths’ nobility.
From the moment Evelyn Morgan became the lady of the house, she set out to change things. The admiral, feeling his age and no longer able to sail, spent his days in his library retreat. He had no great love for his new daughter-in-law but tried his best to tolerate her. When she spoke of making changes in Morgan Hall, he politely but dogmatically refused every proposal. And that, in the admiral’s opinion, was the end of it. However, he underestimated his daughter-in-law’s determination and guile.
When it came to getting her way, Evelyn was a bloodhound; she never let up until she had what she wanted, and when it came to her new house, she wasn’t about to back down to some washed-up sailor. On every opportunity that presented itself, and in many she created, Lady Morgan voiced her displeasure over room colors, paintings, and furniture. Whenever guests came to Morgan Hall, she would rail about the complaint du jour. She nagged her husband every night in bed until Percy started sleeping in another room. During the day she indoctrinated the servants about everything that was wrong with Morgan Hall. In short, whoever had ears to hear heard how much Evelyn Morgan despised the house Amos Morgan built.
Her favorite target was the dark wood paneling of the drawing room.
“It makes me absolutely depressed!” she would rail.
Evelyn’s opinions were always stated in the absolute; there were no gray areas in her tastes.
“It’s absolutely as dark as a dungeon in here. I swear I can’t live another day with this room like this!”
When guests arrived, she would always show them the drawing room first, to set the tone and subject for the evening.
“Isn’t this absolutely ghastly?” she would ask. “Don’t you think this room would look more attractive in light oak or ash?”
When her guests politely agreed, she would make it a point to bring it to the admiral’s attention in their presence.
“Now see, dear,” she would say, touching his arm in the same way an adult would touch a child, “Margaret agrees with me. All that dark wood in the drawing room is absolutely impossible. Something has to be done about it.”
Like the steady drip, drip, drip of water against rock, Evelyn Morgan began to wear away the admiral’s resolve.
It was late spring of 1625 when Lady Evelyn Morgan won the battle of the drawing room and had it re-paneled with oak. For the admiral it was a tactical blunder. He thought that by allowing her a victory, he could have some peace; but just the opposite was true. The bloodhound was on the scent and forged ahead with greater intensity. Her next target was the sea paintings in the great hall.
“All these pictures of heaving waves and silly boats make me absolutely nauseous,” she would say, holding a dainty white hand across her midriff. “Why, I turn green every time I look at them. Don’t they affect you that way too? Something must be done about them.”
She replaced the seascapes with paintings typical of the period—plump, pink naked women lounging on sofas or being abducted by satyrs while horrified cherubs hovered overhead.
“It looks like a brothel,” the admiral spit disgustedly.
Picture by picture, panel by panel, room by room, Lady Evelyn Morgan stole Morgan Hall from Amos until all he had left was his library. It was there he took his stand.
Drew was fourteen at the time. He remembered his grandfather arming himself with his cutlass, the one that had tasted the blood of Spaniards at San Juan de Ulua, and threatening Lady Morgan with bodily harm should she ever attempt to enter his library without his permission. Flush with victory, Lady Morgan responded one evening barging into the room uninvited and unannounced. Amos went wild. There were several moments when Drew thought for sure his mother was going to be run through as the admiral’s blade slashed within inches of her. That night the admiral drove Lady Morgan out of the library just as he had driven his enemies off the deck of his ship. She never ventured into the room again in his lifetime.
For the rest of his life the admiral spent his days in seclusion. His health was too frail to fight the sea or to sustain an extended battle with his daughter-in-law. He withdrew to his world of books.
Drew often spent whole days in the library with his grandfather, sometimes to escape his mother’s moods, sometimes to hear his grandfather’s sea stories. A special kinship developed between grandfather and grandson. They provided each other a balance in life. With his sea tales Admiral Morgan brought adventure to Drew’s otherwise drab life; and Drew brought hope to the admiral that with the next generation Morgan Hall would be back in the possession of someone who shared his values and priorities. Their special relationship made life bearable.
Drew was still brooding when the family entourage arrived home from its Windsor Castle excursion. Philip was the first out of the carriage, with Lady Morgan close behind. Lord Morgan, anxious to check on his expensive ponds of tropical fish, went directly to the garden without going into the house.
Drew eased himself down from Pirate, who had plodded all the way from Basingstoke, matching his rider’s depressed state of mind. He loaded himself down with his bags from the carriage, the bishop’s wounded book, the thieves’ dagger, and, of course, Geoffrey Berber’s The Days of the Knights. Even from out here he could hear his mother and brother yelling inside, something about windows and servants and a drunk, or was that a t
runk? How could I ever think of leaving my happy home? Drew mumbled.
The massive oak door hit something and stopped midway when he pushed it with his hip. He poked his head through the opening and saw an old sea chest blocking the door. What’s that doing there? Drew pushed harder. The chest moved with surprising ease. Must be empty, he thought as he squeezed by it.
To his right in the great hall his mother was screaming and banging on the closed double doors that led to the admiral’s library.
“You’ve been swinging that sword again, haven’t you, you old dog!” She pounded the doors with her fists. “It’s freezing in here, thanks to you!”
“Leave Grandpa alone!” Drew shouted at her. “It’s his house!”
“Don’t talk to me like that!” Lady Morgan turned on him, her face flushed with anger. “You’re in more trouble than he is,” she screamed. “Go to your room!” Turning back to the door, she shouted, “And if you think you can barricade the door with your stupid sea chest, you’re sadly mistaken! It was a feeble attempt, old man!”
Lady Morgan paused, expecting a response. There was none. The admiral had never been shy about cursing back at Lady Morgan before. Drew moved toward the doors, listening for any sound from behind them. Still nothing.
“Maybe he’s sick,” Drew said.
“Maybe he’s dead,” Lady Morgan replied. Then, liking the sound of her words, a grin lit up her face then quickly faded. “Not possible. I’m not that lucky.”
“Grandpa?” Drew shouted.
No answer.
He tried the doors. They were locked.
“Grandpa!”
Drew glanced at his mother with mounting horror. Her expression sickened him. The grin was back, accented by the heavy paint on her face. It was a grin of triumph.
Dropping his armload of things on the floor, Drew yanked at the doors with both hands. They wouldn’t open.
Running out of the hall, he circled around toward the library’s glass doors through the domed entryway, between the twin stairways, and out the back door. He could see his father on his hands and knees bending over his fishpond, his face inches from the water. Drew sprinted toward the library doors. They were open— every one of them. Drew’s momentum carried him past the doors; he smashed against a doorjamb trying to make the turn into the library.
“Grandpa!” he yelled.
Drew scanned the room. Over the back of his grandfather’s favorite chair, situated in front of the fireplace, Drew could see the old man’s head. Single strands of gray hair arched up from a smooth surface, much like grass poking through cracks in granite rock. And just like a rock, his grandfather was motionless. The only movement Drew could see was the dance of the flames in the fireplace.
Drew approached the unmoving form of his grandfather.
“Grandpa?”
No answer.
He hesitated. If his grandfather was dead, he didn’t want to know it. But what if he needed help? Slowly, Drew peeked around the edge of the chair. Admiral Morgan’s eyes were closed. A big grin covered the rest of his face.
“Have a good trip, boy?” Admiral Morgan asked.
The news that the admiral was still alive ruined the rest of Lady Morgan’s day. Drew remained in the library with his grandfather, the only place where he felt safe from his mother’s needling gibes.
“Disgusting!”
Propping himself up with his cutlass, the admiral stood by an open glass door, watching his son, Lord Morgan, peer into the fishponds. Drew slouched idly in a chair, with one leg draped over the side, flipping through the pages of a book.
“Is he kissing those fish?”
Drew glanced up. “He talks to them.”
The admiral shook his head. “He’s kissing them!”
With a lazy groan Drew got up and wandered over by his grandfather. Lord Morgan was still on his hands and knees, his face less than an inch from the water. His lips were moving. On the other side of the surface there was a wavy splash of bright orange color.
“He’s kissing them,” Drew agreed.
The gardens were Lord Percy Morgan’s addition to Morgan Hall. He had personally directed a staff of gardeners in transforming a lazy meadow into a maze of hedges, walkways, and waterfalls.
Lord Morgan divided his magnificent garden into what he called “lands.” There was a land of fruit where oranges, apples, and a half-dozen different kinds of berries grew. There was a wooded land that featured a miniature forest patterned after the fabled Sherwood Forest. A valley of grass featuring a covered table with benches was called the land of the spring meadow. All of this was impressive even by nobility’s standards, but Lord Morgan’s most ambitious and impressive project was his land of tropical fish.
Throughout this land was a series of cascading saltwater ponds. It took Lord Morgan and his gardeners over three years to devise a system that would sustain saltwater tropical fish. The system had to be replenished twice a month with fresh saltwater carted by wagon from the sea. To populate the water, Lord Morgan had standing orders with several ships’ captains for tropical fish from the Caribbean. This was profitable for the owners of the ships: it gave them return cargo after unloading their cargo of African slaves in the West Indies. The fish loving lord of Morgan Hall was known to spend as much for a rare fish as the merchant could get for a sturdy young male slave.
“That’s the difference between us,” Admiral Morgan said to Drew, his cutlass poking the air toward his son beside the fishponds. “In my day Englishmen battled Spanish aggression. Today’s Englishman battles fish fungus.”
With a loud snort, the admiral hobbled back to his chair in front of the fire, using his cutlass as a cane. Drew watched him with concern. Am I overreacting to the recent scare, or is Grandpa moving more slowly than usual? Upon reaching the chair, the admiral navigated his backside toward the seat, much like a ship approaching a dock. His bottom hovered for a moment over its target.
Then, with a “humph” he plopped into his chair. Seventy-one years old and ancient by the world’s standards he sat with his eyes closed, catching his breath.
“You see before you the ruins of time,” he said with tired, raspy voice. “My boy, my day is fast coming to a close. And I’m glad it is. I don’t want to live any longer in this miserable age.”
Drew said nothing. It wasn’t the first time the admiral had spoken like this. The fact that he was talking about death didn’t disturb Drew; sometimes he was most alive when he was talking about it. That’s why Drew remained silent, hoping his grandfather would leap into a tale of the past and take him along.
The admiral continued, “Drake is dead. Hawkins is dead. The days of English glory are dead and buried.” He sighed a deep, long sigh. “Dead is best. It’s a curse to live too long. At least Drake and Hawkins aren’t forced to watch their beloved England rot before their very eyes.”
Well, Drew thought, it’s a start. At least he’s talking about John Hawkins and Sir Francis Drake. Maybe he just needs a little help.
“Grandpa, why didn’t some people like Sir Francis Drake?”
The admiral opened one eye and peered through it suspiciously. He recognized Drew’s attempt for what it was. Nonetheless, he smirked, closed his eye, and laid his head back against the chair.
Success! This was his grandfather’s standard storytelling posture. Drew waited while the admiral conjured up images of the past; he would have given anything to be able to see the things his grandfather could see on the other side of those wrinkled eyelids.
“Most men hated Drake,” the admiral said. “Parvenu they called him.” He pronounced the word with an exaggerated French accent.
“Parvenu?”
“Upstart. Bounder. Drake was never known for his social graces. Always had that West Country accent.” The admiral smiled. “If he hadn’t been kin to Hawkins, the great Drake would have lived and died a penniless dirt farmer.” Amos let out a laugh that sent him into a coughing spasm, then wiped his mouth with a handkerchief bef
ore continuing. “But didn’t he have the gall! That parvenu got us out of more scrapes because he would do things that no sane man would think of doing.”
Another coughing spasm, this one more violent. When it passed, the admiral slumped back into his chair, weak and sweaty.
“But now Drake’s dead,” he murmured breathlessly. “Hawkins too.” A pause. “So why am I still here?”
“Maybe,” Drew said hesitantly, “because I need you.”
Amos smiled at that. He reached over and patted his grandson’s hand. “We’ve been good for each other, haven’t we?” he said. “But your time has come. It’s time for you to go and live your own adventures.”
Drew was reminded of his recent encounter with thieves outside London.
“I almost forgot! I did have an adventure!”
Drew leaped up and retrieved the bishop’s book and the dagger from the other side of the double doors. Displaying them with pride, he narrated the adventure to his grandfather who listened intently. The admiral held the knife close to his failing eyes and meticulously examined the book, asking questions and congratulating Drew on his ingenuity of using the book as a weapon. Drew also related Bishop Laud’s invitation for him to come to London.
“The bishop of London?” The admiral winced. “Never had much use for those religious types myself. What exactly would you be doing for him?”
“The bishop says I’ll be protecting England against internal enemies. I’ll report to him, and he reports directly to King Charles.”
“Internal enemies, huh?”
The admiral leafed through the pages of the wounded book, looking to see how deep the dagger had pierced.
“Good book,” he announced. “I like Layfield. Gives you plenty of facts, but doesn’t let ’em get in the way of the story.”
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