“Instead,” said Jane, recovering, “I will grant Clicket Hall to you and the land that goes with it. That will give you some status and a chance of a good match, I trust. You, Blanche, have forfeited Clicket Hall. You must accept that. Oh!” Her voice was exasperated. “I did my best, but…well, yes, I know what it’s like to fall in love.”
Astonished, Tobias said, “Mother, I am sure you were a good wife to my father. Peggy told me that. But she also told me how you came to marry him and surely…”
“I did my best by your father, yes,” Jane said. “But there was someone I’d rather have married.”
“Who was it?” asked Stephen inquisitively.
“That,” said Jane, “I shall keep to myself. It’s all in the past now.”
They went about their various tasks and in the end, it was a moderately pleasant day. It wasn’t until she was once more in bed that it occurred to Jane that last night, Toby and Blanche had behaved very oddly. They were both so conventional and well behaved. That they should kiss for the first time in the morning and fall into bed together the very same night was out of character.
Thinking about it, she remembered that they had been lying side by side but not embracing, and there had been that conspiratorial glance between them and Stephen. Was it possible that Blanche and Tobias had only pretended to be lovers that night, and at Stephen’s suggestion? That they had laughed and talked noisily on purpose, and if she hadn’t woken, Stephen would have roused her, claiming that he had caught them in the same bed? All so that he could take a virtuous stand on I can’t possibly marry Blanche now even to please you, Aunt Jane, and she may be already with child by him, for all we know!
It was entirely possible. He didn’t love Blanche, but he was probably fond enough of her, in his careless way, not to stand in her light.
It was something else that she would never know.
Not too bad, Stephen thought as he mounted his horse—a sixteen-hand dapple grey which he had bought in London—and rode out for a morning’s hawking. He, too, had brought a goshawk home. Not bad at all, he repeated to himself as he cantered across the moor. He had gained property without the encumbrance of a wife, and it was best this way.
He unhooded his hawk so that she could rouse and look at her surroundings. He had never seen himself as a family man. He wanted to see the world. Had he married Blanche, he would probably just have got her with child and then left her to look after her baby and the property, and gone off adventuring. He wouldn’t have made her very happy.
Or been happy himself, come to that. She was pretty and sweet, but dull. So, to his mind, was Toby. Toby was tediously interested in religion and Blanche was biddable to boredom point. When he’d set out to persuade them into being found in bed together, Toby had talked about mortal sin, while Blanche seemed as horrified as though he had urged her to stow away on a ship bound for Cathay. He didn’t care either way but he was sure that the two of them had merely staged their scene, as though it were something in a masque, and not actually done anything.
Stephen laughed. His hawk was ready now to fly, and seeing a rabbit in the distance, crouching nervously at the sight of the approaching rider and about to flee, he loosed her. It was pleasant to think that he would soon be master of Clicket Hall, but he had his own plans and they didn’t include staying anywhere for long. Sometimes, at night, he dreamed of the sea and of sailing the Atlantic, crossing it, perhaps, to see the strange lands on the other side. One day, soon, he would make that dream reality.
“We are grateful, Mistress Allerbrook. We promise you will never regret letting us marry,” Blanche said timidly to Jane. Stephen had gone hawking; Tobias was out on the farm. Blanche and Jane were in the parlour, sewing.
“I hope not. I don’t want you to be unhappy, but I shall have a difficult letter now to write to the Lanyons,” Jane said.
Blanche said, “This morning Tobias and I were talking and we thought, if you would let us, there was something we’d like to do for you.”
“Yes, Blanche?”
“I still have the miniature portrait that Dr. Spenlove made of me. It’s so good. We think Dr. Spenlove could vie with any court painter. Why shouldn’t we ask him to paint a proper portrait of you, Mistress Allerbrook—something to hang in the gallery upstairs? It could be beautiful because you’re beautiful, Mistress Allerbrook, and it would be a way for us to say thank you.”
“Well,” said Jane, startled. “It’s a very kind thought. If Dr. Spenlove agrees…well, yes. Perhaps.”
“I’m sure that Jane Allerbrook is telling the truth when she writes that she had no idea of what was going on,” Frances Lanyon said, once more scanning the letter that Idwal had handed to her.
It had been delivered by a grave-faced Tim Snowe, and it said, apologetically but plainly, that it would not after all be possible for Tobias to marry Gwyneth because, without Jane’s knowledge, he had betrothed himself to Blanche Palmer.
“I daresay you’re right,” Idwal agreed. “She is probably most embarrassed. We can be glad that Gwyneth is so well behaved and wouldn’t dream of going behind our backs as Blanche and Tobias have apparently done to Jane.”
“Well, it may be best after all for Gwyneth to marry into a merchant family,” Frances said. “It was a pity that our first choice didn’t live to marry her. But surely—isn’t there a younger brother?”
“Well, yes. And he’s still single. I saw the family on my last visit to Bristol.” Idwal considered. “The younger one’s only about five years older than Gwyneth. In fact, it crossed my mind just before Mistress Allerbrook arrived with her proposal. He’s a handsome young fellow and he has a share in the business. He won’t be pushed out to make his way as best he can. Yes, Frances. You may have a good idea there.”
“I should be delighted to paint a portrait of Mistress Allerbrook,” said Dr. Spenlove, entranced at the suggestion. “I only hope my ability is equal to it. It will be a pleasure.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Unexpected Events
1562
The Lincolnshire house that Peter Carew shared with his wife, Margaret, had once been splendid, but nowadays the dining hall had woodworm, the fine tapestries were fading and there were loose slates on the roof. And no spare cash to deal with any of it.
“I’ve given Her Majesty good service,” he said to Margaret. “I’ve done a survey of the Tower of London for her and chased pirates out of the Irish Sea for her. I am loyal to her, as well she knows. Yet she’s paid me the minimum possible for my work, while you nearly beggared yourself campaigning to get me forgiven by her sister—or rather, her sister’s husband, Prince Philip—and allowed to come home.”
“She has promised a formal reversal of the attainder on you,” Margaret said soothingly. “Perhaps she sees that as making up for the lack of financial reward!”
“You are philosophical, my love, considering how much you’ve lost for my sake. I’m grateful to you,” Peter said. “You used your wealth and your family’s influence and stopped the Crown from seizing my property when I was in exile. Elizabeth is mean and you are generous.” He shook his head worriedly. “We shall have to raise money somehow,” he said.
His lady set her round embroidery frame down on her knees and looked gravely at him across the parlour hearth. Margaret Carew was no longer young but, perhaps because she was childless, her waist was still slim. Her brown hair, neatly packed into a gold net (a memento of more affluent days) was not yet greying. She was still an attractive woman.
“You are Deputy Lieutenant of Devon but you work mainly through agents,” she said. “I saved Mohuns Ottery for you, but you rarely go there. Would you consider selling it?”
Her voice was perfectly tranquil. She smiled at him and resumed her embroidery. And he wondered, not for the first time, what the thoughts behind that smile really were. Margaret was a good wife: dignified, well dressed, competent, amiable. She had worked indefatigably to get him home from exile and when at last he returned, sh
e asked no awkward questions. Nor did she reveal her inmost thoughts.
Or knowledge. How much did she guess? While he was overseas, living as best he could, as a guest of friends first in this country, then in that, he had often—in fact, usually—had to share bedchambers and even beds with his companions, and they had warned him that he sometimes talked in his sleep. As far as he knew, the habit had faded out before he returned to Margaret. As far as he knew.
She was aware that Jane Allerbrook had helped him to escape. Since several of his men had been there, he had felt it best to be open. He had represented Jane as a respectable widow from a Protestant family which had long been friendly with his own.
But just occasionally, when some reference to his escape from Weymouth was made, usually by guests intrigued by his past, she would glance at him and look away and then try, gently, to turn the talk into other channels.
He also knew that now and then he dreamed of Jane Allerbrook.
He could not fault Margaret and he had no wish to hurt her. He knew there had been no awkward results from the episode with Jane. During his rare visits to Devon he had avoided Exmoor, but he had made discreet enquiries. Margaret could not have been alerted by scandal.
And yet, now that there was a question of raising money, she wanted him to sell his west country property.
“Well, what do you think?” she enquired gently.
He owed it to her.
“It’s worth considering,” he said. “As a matter of fact, I believe there’s some land in Ireland which belongs to my family, although it has never been claimed. We might journey there and see if we can trace it. I may have a title to it.” He paused, and added, “If I’m to sell Mohuns, I’d better see what order it’s in. Before we go to Ireland, I must visit Devon.”
He would so like to see Jane, just once more.
In a tavern in Plymouth, Stephen Sweetwater was sitting in the company of a sea captain by the name of John Hawkins and discussing slavery.
“We’re on quite good terms with the Spaniards at the moment. There was even talk for a time of King Philip marrying Queen Elizabeth,” Hawkins was saying. He was a small, flaxen-bearded man with humourless stone-coloured eyes. “The Spanish have sugar plantations in the New World and they need men to work them.”
“Isn’t there a local population of savages?” Stephen asked, sipping strong cider. “Won’t the Spaniards use them?”
“There aren’t many left, it seems,” said Hawkins. “Where the Spaniards have settled, they’ve wiped most of the native population off the face of the earth.”
“Careless,” Stephen remarked.
“You could say so, but it was to my father’s advantage and I trust will be to mine. My father has left me his trade connections and his capital. I intend to use them. I’m sailing in the late summer, collecting some Spanish seamen who know the route across the Atlantic, and going on to Africa to gather up a cargo of strong slaves, with some women, so that they can perpetuate themselves. We sail west in the autumn to land our goods. You say that when you were being educated away from your home, your mentor took you to sea and that you know something of the business?”
“I know one rope from another. I’ve learned navigation and I’ve been working as a sailor on a coastal trader for nearly two years,” Stephen said. “And, as I said, I have a little money to invest. I leased my house and farmland out before I went to sea, and I’ve been saving my money and building up capital to invest in real adventuring when the chance arrives. This sounds like the opportunity I want. I’ll leave my property in the hands of the agent who arranged the leases, let him go on gathering capital for me while I’m gone and then I’m your man.”
“I’m taking a good fleet. I’ve leased my flagship, the Jesus of Lubeck, from the queen. But I haven’t got all the men I need yet. If your captain gives you a good reference, I could do with a first mate for the smallest ship—the Sweet Promise. A little joke of mine,” said Master Hawkins, to Stephen’s surprise, as he had already decided that John Hawkins didn’t know what a joke was. “Sugar is sweet,” Hawkins explained laboriously, as though Stephen wouldn’t see the point without help, “and the rewards that this expedition promises should be just as sweet, in a financial sense.”
Dutifully Stephen laughed. He was relieved to think that he and Master Hawkins wouldn’t be on the same ship, though. Stephen Sweetwater—his own name seemed to fit in well with Hawkins’s clumsy jest—gazed out the small and grimy window beside him at the glitter of the spring sunshine on the waters of Plymouth Sound. In the distance, there were hills.
The hills of England, where the man who had fathered him had died so horribly. Soon he would be gone, sailing for strange places where there would be trees and flowers and birds and animals that were never seen here, monsters maybe, and mountains and jungle forests and mighty plains.
His spirit was reaching out for them already.
It was the spring of 1562 when Sir Peter Carew first considered selling Mohuns Ottery, but he didn’t actually set about it until a rainstorm brought water pouring into the top floor of his Lincolnshire house. Only the alternatives of costly repairs or keeping buckets in rows in two useless bedchambers for the foreseeable future finally clinched his decision.
Once in Devon, he launched the business of surveying and valuing Mohuns Ottery, and then set out, alone, for Clicket.
His conscience wasn’t easy. You shouldn’t be doing this, it said to him sternly as he rode across Exmoor. But it was always exhilarating to ride across hilltops. It raised the heart, this feeling that one was up on the roof of the world. The moorland was golden with moor grass and rust-patched with autumn bracken; the sky was close overhead and the distant sea was a haziness with a trace of sparkle. It made him happy, and the happiness coloured everything around, including his intended destination.
Jane.
It was only a social call, of course. But she might ask him to stay for a few days.
She might even…
What did she look like now?
He used the tracks he knew best, and came into Clicket from the western end, becoming at once aware of a mild stir near the church of St. Anne’s. Some ponies were tethered near the gate and there was a litter, which had been set on the ground while the two ponies that carried it, fore and aft, had been released from its shafts and were enjoying nosebags.
He drew to a halt just as the church door opened and a young priest came out. Behind him came a young woman, pale but smiling happily and leaning on the arm of a young man, perhaps her husband. Next came an elderly priest and an older woman, carrying a baby in her arms. A straggle of others followed.
There were people near enough to speak to. “What’s afoot?” Carew enquired of a man with a leather apron and a blacksmith’s build.
“Ah, it’s the christening. Stranger here, be you? Master Tobias and his wife, Mistress Blanche—their first baby. Wed over two years they’ve been, so it’s about time.”
“But she had a bad childbed,” said a woman on Carew’s other side. “They had to bring her by litter. That’s Tobias’s mother, carryin’ the baby and walkin’ with their chaplain.”
The little procession was out in the street by now. The elderly priest and the woman with the child were at this moment passing close to him, though neither looked his way. The woman was a step or two ahead and Carew saw both their profiles clearly. The priest was Dr. Spenlove, though the years had taken away his rosy chubbiness. The woman was Jane.
Like Spenlove, she had changed. Peter had last seen her when she was only in her mid-thirties, still with a bloom on her. Now she was in her forties and celebrating the birth of a grandchild. Her new status had settled on her like a rich but not a youthful mantle. He was experienced enough to know that he was seeing a woman whose world was complete.
The ponies were being put back into the shafts of the litter and the pale girl was being helped into it. Jane had gone over to her and the girl was holding out her arms for her child.
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br /> “She and Master Tobias married for love, folk say,” the woman beside him remarked, “and they were so grateful to Mistress Allerbrook for allowin’ it that they had her portrait painted, as a thank-you gift. The chaplain, Dr. Spenlove, he’s clever at such things and he did it. I’ve not seen the picture, but it’s said it’s a fine likeness of Mistress Allerbrook. But the lass almost got her death, bearin’ that first child. Still, here she be after all, and the child’s healthy, so I hear.”
Carew cleared his throat and said, “What name has he been given?”
“Robert. Robert Allerbrook,” said the man. “Vicar told me that.”
“I used to know the Allerbrook family slightly,” said Carew with caution.
“You on your way to visit them, sir? Well, you’ve timed it right. There’s to be a feast now up at Allerbrook House.”
“No,” said Peter Carew. “I’m just passing through on my way to…to Withypool. I don’t intend to intrude. I don’t know the family now, not really. It was all so long ago.”
“Land ho!” croaked the exhausted man at the tiller, and added, “Dunno where it is, but God be thanked anyhow.”
God be thanked indeed. Stephen and the two men who were the only survivors of the storm in which the Sweet Promise had foundered, stared longingly ahead at the hazy outline of land on the horizon. Stephen was so grateful that he could have cried, and actually did pass a hand across his face, to wipe this enfeebling impulse away. His skin was peeling where sun and wind had left their marks, and under his palm he felt the stiffness of his untended, salt-caked beard. His gums were swollen and bleeding from scurvy. They had been at sea for what felt like eternity. It was a week since the storm had separated the Sweet Promise from the rest of Master Hawkins’s fleet, and two days since she had finally ploughed her bows under the wave and never recovered herself.
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