"From Hythe, your majesty."
The Queen smiled. "You are a brave lad indeed, and we are well pleased with you. God's teeth, there is little of you, but that is well-favoured. There is no doubt, Captain Danyell, there are the makings of a brave sailor in the lad."
Beth and the Captain assiduously avoided each other's eyes as the Queen beckoned to a courtier who handed over a small purse of coins to Beth. "Take this," said the Queen, "Elizabeth of England's gratitude for saving the finest of her Captains." Beth knelt to kiss the claw-like hand and was smilingly dismissed.
"As for you, Captain Danyell, it is our pleasure that you attend us within the week—or sooner, when our troubles are at an end. We have a special audience at Greenwich, where the brave men of England will gather to receive recognition of the service they have done our realm in the late hostilities with the Spaniard."
"Your majesty does me great honour."
"No more than you deserve, James Danyell." She smiled. "Since you appear sufficiently restored, you may accompany us to Tilbury where we go to address our brave troops." Voice low, she added: "We know that victory is not certain sure, although it is rumoured that the Armada of Spain drifts north in some disorder to seek sanctuary in the realm of my kinsman, King James of Scotland." Extending her hand to James Danyell, she motioned that she return to the barge.
As the assembly, Beth included, bowed low in homage to their Queen, Beth heard her say: "From Hythe, did you say, Captain? Is he by any chance kin to my lord Admiral Howard?"
"I do not believe so, your majesty."
"Remarkable. For he bears a strong likeness to the Howards about the eyes and forehead."
Mistress Pyck, hovering by the shrubbery, was beside herself with excitement at having a visit from the Queen, although she was careful to pretend she had not noticed any favour bestowed upon Master Perkins. She sniffed and contented herself with statements that the Queen was a frequent visitor to Millefleur and doubtless would come more often once the Captain was remarried and the house open to guests, with a proper household of servants chosen by the mistress.
"Is the Captain then to marry again soon?"
"I believe all to be already arranged. By Michaelmas there will be a new mistress at Millefleur."
Beth would have enjoyed receiving answers to several more questions but Master Pyck, a long thin grey man with a perpetual drip at his nose, thrust a large basket into her hands. "The lad might as well be busy gathering fruit for your preserves, wife, since I have more than enough to keep ten pair of hands occupied in this garden," he grumbled.
Beth looked at the purse of coins she had received from the Queen. Never would she spend them, never. And as she picked the ripe fruit, she thought of the magic Elizabeth of England could weave. How easy it was to forget that under the paint, the elaborate gowns, there was a woman with a body like all other womankind, subject to the same ills and weaknesses, often frail and ailing. Yet she had to put on a good face to meet her subjects whatever she felt within, whatever grief of body or spirit laid her low. Even from the brief meeting, Beth could tell that the Queen was endowed with strange magic, magic to charm men, men of all ages -she guessed there were few who could resist her, for she knew the subtle game of womanhood, of feminine wiles and when to play or to withdraw from them. It was a game she would play excellently well to her dying breath, for she would never grow old as other women aged.
All day Beth awaited the Captain's return. At dusk she saw torches and heard lute music from the bend in the river. The Royal Barge glided past, but James Danyell did not alight at Millefleur as she had hoped. She wondered if he remained at Tilbury, as the voices calling to one another and the singer's song faded down the river.
When the Pycks retired to their cottage, she went upstairs to change into her saffron gown in the frail hope that the Captain would ride in from the Dover Road, but another night and a day were to pass by without him. Suddenly time began to drag, and her eager offer to help in the kitchen was somewhat scornfully rejected as were all her attempts to strike up a friendly conversation with Mistress Pyck. The old man, however, was quick to thrust the empty fruit baskets into her hands, and returning to the kitchen with her small harvest, she heard a man's footsteps and thinking the Captain had returned, dashed to the door.
The visitor was Will Robb.
"Why, Will, what do you here?"
Bowing, solemn-faced, he took her hands. "I came by the river and Captain Danyell told me I would find you here, that all has been revealed to him concerning your true identity—and your disguise," he added reproachfully surveying cambric shirt and breeches.
"I did not intend that the Captain should ever know—"
"I am surprised to learn that you have agreed to stay at Millefleur as a servant," he interrupted, "instead of returning to Craighall."
Before she could protest her reasons, he continued: "Think carefully, Beth. Is such behaviour wise or in your best interests? You were never intended to be a servant—"
"Was I not? Then I played the part with remarkable success at Craighall."
"You had certain privileges as your guardians' ward—"
"Did I indeed? Then I wish you would name some of them, for in all truth, I know of none."
"You had protection. Nay, hear me out! Why do you continue to deceive Captain Danyell? Surely if you told him the truth, all would not be lost. He might perhaps take pity and marry you in spite of your unseemly behaviour." He made it sound a forlorn hope, said only to cheer her.
"I do not want marriage with any man, out of pity."
"But surely you have heard the news—that he is to be knighted at Greenwich by the Queen?" Will continued excitedly, "Think of that—he will be Sir James Danyell. Why, you could never have found a better husband anywhere."
Listening to him, she was astonished that her dear friend and companion could have changed so in these passing months, and could be so dense. Surely it was obvious to him also that she had, by her unseemly behaviour as he called it, put herself for ever out of the Captain's matrimonial considerations?
"Is that what you came to tell me?" she asked sadly.
"Nay. Captain Danyell sought me at Tilbury. He remembered me from my visit to the Sea Queen," he added importantly, "And knowing that he would not return immediately, he asked if I would oblige him with a message to Millefleur, seeing I was bound for Southwark on my lord Admiral's business."
Kind indeed, thought Beth, of the Captain to play Cupid so industriously on her behalf.
"I am now serving my lord Admiral personally," he said proudly. "Since I write a modest good hand, my lord thought I was of more use in his household than wasting my various talents in apprenticeship on the Ark Royal."
"I am glad for you, Will." And she looked at him as if upon a stranger, as every sentence threw a greater barrier between them.
But he did not notice. He was not interested in her problems, as he continued anxiously: "You will appreciate the importance of my new situation. I took full advantage of Captain Danyell's offer to come to Millefleur, since I wished to speak with you on certain other matters. Since last we met," he continued rapidly, "it has been heavy upon my mind that it might be thought—mistakenly - that I had encouraged you to flee Craighall and follow me to sea. I trust in your discretion," he said sternly, "to do all in your power to discourage any such rumour, since it would go ill with my future should such breath of scandal reach my Lord Admiral's ears. My position is one of trust and responsibility—"
"I will not bring any scandal upon you," she interrupted. "You may rely on it."
At last he smiled, regarding her with obvious relief. "And I hope you will not forget there was never the smallest suggestion of marriage between us. Nor did I take advantage of you in any manner by indicating that my feelings toward you were of a serious nature. Such suggestions could be disastrous to my future advancement."
"You need have no fears that any action of mine will affect your advancement, Will," she said in
a small voice.
His face brightened again. "Then I am glad, Beth, for I have always been fond of you."
"Fond, Will?" she whispered softly, remembering the kisses, the laughing and teasing. His promise to be her knight upon a white charger—
"Ay, as a brother." His handsome face hardened. "I am afraid that your discontent at Craighall led you to mistake such brotherly regard for a deeper, more lasting emotion." He cleared his throat, "I hope some day to advance my prospects further by an alliance with some heiress—of quality and breeding—"
Beth remembered sadly how his mother, Mistress Robb, had also known of her son's ambitions. How she had tried to warn her not to grow too fond or dependent upon Will. Fool—fool, she had been! For that vain first love, that fantasy, had encouraged her to reject James Danyell in the first place, throwing away unseen, untried, the life that might have been hers. Fool, but no more.
"Go you to Southwark now?" She longed for his departure, fearing there was no longer any matter worth while talking about between them, and before God, she thought, unconsciously using James Danyell's expression, she was wearied beyond endurance of his self-importance.
"Ay. But the Captain said I might stay overnight at Millefleur, if I wished."
Beth reflected bitterly that the Captain could not have been kinder or more industrious on behalf of her happiness. Did he expect that if the somewhat reluctant suitor slept under the roof with her, she might try wiles upon him in desperation, to compromise him into marriage? She felt a moment's fury with the absent James Danyell for his bungling of the situation.
"There is no need, Will, for there are still many barges going to Southwark and beyond at this hour of the day. And I should not like to keep you from your important business."
He nodded in agreement.
"Besides," she could not resist, "what if you should be compromised by staying in the same house as a known wanton, for there is none here but myself. Mistress Pyck returns to her cottage when the day's work is done."
"Nay, Beth," said Will, "you are not to say such things. Nor did I mean to imply that you were wanton, for I know you to be a virtuous maid."
"Do you indeed? Then I wonder if others will also share your touching faith in my virtue."
She watched him go eagerly, conscious that she had fully outgrown Will Robb, and seeing very clearly that she had never meant to him aught but a small companion, eyes bright with hero-worship. Even the warm friendship, the kisses they had shared, had turned sour in her memory.
She no longer wished to have a knight in shining armour, and would settle for James Danyell even if he were but the humble captain of a merchantman, striving to make a living and knowing full well that if she took such a man to husband, then she would spend many years of their marriage alone while he traded across strange exotic seas to places whose names were fantasy, whose inhabitants' lives were unimaginable. She closed her eyes. Ay, if James Danyell would return then she would rather have one long unsullied day at Millefleur shared with him, than a whole lifetime of any other man.
And when he walked in next day, it was as if he had never been away. He came over and took her hands, smiling warmly into her eyes. There was none of Will Robb's fear and evasion here, she thought proudly, as he put an arm about her shoulders and they walked across the lawns.
She had never seen the Captain in such excellent spirits, for when she asked him about Tilbury, he told her of the Queen's speech to her men and how it would likely go down in English history.
"She told them: 'I myself will be your General', and took her stand for a march past of the troops, then she left her ladies and her guard and rode like some Amazonian empress through the army. Wherever she appeared, the pikes, lances, colours, all were lowered."
"Did she wear the cloth of silver?"
He laughed. "Nay, Mistress Bess, a farthingale is not fit garment to ride upon a horse, not even for a General. She was clad all in white velvet with a silver cuirass—to protect her like a man's armour—and embossed with a mythological design, and she bore in her right hand a silver truncheon chased in gold. She sat upon a white gelding, on her right Robin Dudley, Earl of Leicester, on her left, Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex."
Beth's eyes widened. Only the Queen of England was capable of such audacious behaviour without censure; to ride between her old love of thirty years and her new love of little more than thirty months.
"Like them, she also was bare-headed—a tuft of plumes, the sheen of pearls and glitter of diamonds in her hair. As she passed up and down the lines the men fell on their knees and prayed for her, ay, and drove themselves hoarse with cheering their dearly beloved Queen Bess. But the moment she held up her hand, there was silence so complete that each fellow could hear his neighbour breathing. What a speech was that! She called them 'My loving people', and assured them that although she had been warned against coming to this multitude for fear of treachery, she had no fear of her faithful loving people. Let tyrants fear, she told them, for she had so behaved as to place her chiefest strength and safeguard in the loyal hearts and good will of her subjects. Then she said: 'I am come amongst you at this time, not for my recreation and disport, but being resolved in the midst and heat of the battle to live or die amongst you all, to lay down for my God, and for my kingdom, and for my people, my honour and my blood, even in the dust. I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too, and think foul scorn that any prince of Europe should dare to invade the borders of my realm, to which, rather than any dishonour shall grow by me, I will myself take up arms, I myself will be your general, judge and rewarder of every one of your virtues in the fields—' "
Beth felt her eyes sting with tears. The Captain smiled. "I saw grown men, heavy with years, their eyes bright with tears as are yours now. There was not a man or woman present that day, who would not have laid down their lives without question for our dear sweet Queen. And I am proud to include myself in their number."
"Would I had been there, sir."
"Would you had, Mistress Bess, for Master Ben Perkins had courage equal to any man." He took her hand, looking into her eyes as if he searched for answer to a question as yet unasked. Fascinated but afraid of that penetrating gaze, she said: "It is good to have you back, sir."
"And what have you done while I was away?" The Captain too sounded relieved, she thought, at the change of subject, as of some danger passed.
"I picked fruit for Master Pyck—and offered my services in the kitchen."
"Were they accepted?" He frowned. "I do not wish you to toil while I am absent."
"Mistress Pyck would have none of me. I fear she imagines Master Perkins will have ten thumbs if he is let loose in her domain."
They walked in silence. "Have any called at the house while I was absent?" he asked idly, plucking a rose from the tree.
"I had forgotten, sir. A gentleman arrived to tell us that you would not be returning immediately from Tilbury. It was kind of you to send a message thus to me."
He looked away hastily. "And what became of my messenger? Did he stay at Millefleur? I offered him the hospitality of my house."
"Nay, he did not. I sent him to Southwark on the next barge." She paused. "I did not wish him to stay."
He stopped, leaning against the stone wall which offered a perfect view across the lawns to the house. "Why so, Bess? I thought to do you a kindness with Master Robb. Now by your face, it seems that I have offended you."
"You have not offended me in the least, sir. I am most grateful to you for your good services upon my behalf." She sighed and looked away from him. "In all truth, I fear that I have outgrown my feelings for Master Robb."
"You would not run away to sea for him any longer?" he asked teasingly.
"I never did run away from him — only to escape marriage. When I saw Master Robb he was a familiar face, a friend I remembered. I hoped only that he might have some plan to rescue me from the life of Maste
r Perkins—"
"You do not then love Master Robb?"
"Nay, sir. I do not."
"What of him? Does he love you still?"
Once it would have been humiliating to admit such a truth. "Nay, sir, and never did, except as companion of his young days. I was lonely and foolish to believe otherwise, deluded into regarding Master Robb as an escape from my miseries."
"And you have now observed that your place in his life would always be but a poor second to his ambitions."
Beth's eyes widened. She had not realised that Captain James Danyell was also a shrewd observer of character.
"You think it strange that I should so assess Master Robb? Such assessments are sometimes a necessary part of survival, Bess. Not only the captain's life, but that of his crew—and his ship—may depend upon the correct appraisal."
"His true character seems to have been obvious to all who encountered him, except myself," she said sadly. "Even his own mother warned me of his ambition."
They walked towards the house in silence, then the Captain asked: "Are you happy then, to remain at Millefleur?"
"Ay, sir. I will be happy to remain with you—to serve you as a loyal servant to the best of my ability." As she curtseyed, he raised her to face him, frowning.
"Be not so humble, dear child. I need no such assurances of your devotion." And laughing he seized her by the waist and swung her up into the air, as if she were indeed but a child. Then gently setting her feet back upon the grass, he leaned over and kissed her cheek.
"If all is now settled, then rejoice with me, Bess, for I have news this day which makes me the happiest of men."
She remembered that Will had told her about the forthcoming knighthood and tried not to think about that gentle kiss which still burned her cheek.
"Can you not guess what it is?"
"That you are to be made knight, perhaps?"
He laughed. "That—and much more, that concerns me greater than any knighthood." He put his hand under her chin. "A far greater honour comes my way," he said soberly. When she did not reply, he frowned. "Come, Mistress Bess, I find you oddly lacking—"
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