It was righteous anger, she had to admit it. She’d come back from the dead. She’d turfed his mistress and son out of his house. She’d smuggled guns to the Irish. She’d endangered the good name of this great man.
‘Where’s Helen, you bitch?’
Her spirit came back. Who said he was right? What gave him the right to say what was right? Who’d asked him to marry her? His own gain, that’s what. If she didn’t suit him, that was his fault. She was sick of being hurt by men she didn’t suit.
‘Where’s Helen, you bitch?’ The beating didn’t give her time to answer. He was going to kill her. Terrifying. Stupid. She would not be killed by a stupid man.
She pulled away from him and ran for the press where she’d put the snaphaunce.
For the second time in his life Rob found himself staring down the wrong end of the Clampett. ‘I’ll shoot you, Rob, I swear.’ And she would. He knew. She kept it primed. Whether it would fire after all these years she didn’t know. He didn’t either.
He managed to drag back his anger, though it took as much effort as hauling a saker. They were both panting. In a minute she’d drop. ‘Let’s sit down.’ She lowered herself into a chair at one end of the table and gestured with the Clampett for him to sit at the other end. He was calmer now.
‘What have you done with Helen?’
That, to do him justice, was his greatest worry. Helen obviously meant more to him than she, Barbary, ever had. Helen was his sort of woman, adoring, dependent and helpless. He’d thickened. He was the successful venturer and courtier, but something had gone out of him. He was still handsome, but his jowl and belly were fleshy and he’d acquired the brutal air which came to self-made men.
‘Now then,’ she said, ‘Helen’s at Kerswell. She’s all right. I sent her to Kerswell. Her and Henry.’ Keep talking, she was as powerful as he was if they could talk. ‘She’s a nice lady.’
‘You bitch.’ He couldn’t think of anything else to call her.
She kept talking, she was still in danger. ‘I know it’s a shock, Rob, when you thought I was dead. But circumstances…’ God, what an inadequate word, ‘…circumstances brought me back to England.’ She tossed great names at him to show how official and respected she was, that she had done his reputation no harm. ‘I’ve been working with Mr Secretary Cecil, and staying with his aunt. I sent Helen away because the queen expects me to live here. She’s fond of me.’ Tiredly, she added, ‘The queen, not Helen.’
‘But you’re still prepared to betray her, you bitch. You Papist spy.’
She opened her mouth to argue what was and was not betrayal, but she didn’t have the energy. ‘Not any more,’ she said wearily. ‘I’m too tired.’ Too tired, too old, too betrayed in her turn. ‘All I want now is peace.’
‘By smuggling guns?’
‘Timber, Rob. It was timber.’ He knew what he’d seen, but timber was her story and he was stuck with it. ‘First and last time.’
‘You’re a traitor, you bitch.’
How they used the word. Their assumption that Ireland was theirs because they said it was. ‘I’m Irish,’ she said wearily. ‘I didn’t think it mattered when we married, but it turned out it did.’
‘Irish bitch.’
She was prepared to be reasonable but she was getting to the limit. ‘You’re married to this Irish bitch. I’m official. You can’t Amy Robsart me.’
He lifted his head and she saw, despite everything, he hadn’t even thought of it. Ponderous, a bully, a self-seeker, within those limits he was still a decent man. He’d never fitted into the Order. Beneath the fleshing face she saw an honest, sullen boy. ‘I’m sorry, Rob,’ she said, ‘I’m so sorry. I’ll get out of your life. I’m going back to Ireland. I’ll disappear. You can marry Helen and become Lord Rob. Do whatever you like. I won’t bother you again.’
He’d started to think. Rage was ebbing. He was probably as tired as she was. No, there was nobody as tired as she was.
The big shape at the other end of the table became Tibbot ne Long. Tibbot of the Ships. Uncle Tibbot, the bastard, bless him. Even that terrible meal she’d eaten in that tower on the edge of Clew Bay was bathed in gentle starlight because it had been on the edge of Clew Bay. The next day the ship had come floating in on insect wings to take her into the cherubims. She was crying as she dozed. Oro and Welcome Home, sang the oarsmen. Take me home.
Her head jerked up. She’d drifted off for a second, but he hadn’t moved; she couldn’t be sure because he was on the edge of the candlelight’s range, but some change had taken place in him. Waves of aggression had stopped coming at her down the table’s length. In her exhaustion just then she’d displayed vulnerability, and that had always disarmed him. She’d forgotten. He was looking at her without hatred now; not much liking, but without hatred.
‘Is there any wine?’ he asked.
It was a relief to hear a sentence without ‘bitch’ in it. Was there wine? Had the Order boys drunk it all? She went to look, taking the Clampett with her – she wasn’t sorry enough for him to leave that behind. She’d gone out of the door before she realised she hadn’t got a candle and went back to light one from the candle on the table. ‘Wine,’ she said. If she didn’t concentrate, her brain would splinter and lose her purpose. She found the kitchen and looked around the debris, stumbling against a pot that spilled porridge onto the tiles. The place stank. No wine. ‘Wine.’ Could she sit down and sleep? How far had the ship gone by now? She was so lonely. The only people she loved were on a ship edging out to sea. O’Hagan didn’t love her. He wouldn’t have left her. She’d left Ireland. Ireland was leaving her. ‘Wine.’
There were barrels in the cellar, one of them still containing some wine. She got a jug, filled it. Needed tankards, but the Clampett was in one hand, jug in the other. ‘Tray,’ she said and found one. She went back to the hall. ‘Wine.’
He didn’t look up. She poured him wine and some for herself. She went back to her place, realised she’d left the Clampett on the tray by his elbow, went to get it and at last sat down. He didn’t notice. He seemed to be calculating. He’d drawn Helen’s bowl of roses near him and was gently rubbing a dry petal between finger and thumb. If she wasn’t so damned tired, she’d be touched.
‘I don’t mind about Helen, Rob,’ she said. Who was she to mind? But she wanted him to know she didn’t.
Still holding the Clampett she drifted back to Tibbot’s tower on the edge of the bay and waited for the cherubim ship to come and take her home.
‘I don’t want you to go,’ said Uncle Tibbot. She looked up. Rob sat in Tibbot’s chair, thought given, decisions taken. ‘I want you to stay here.’ He’d gone mad, poor man, like Tibbot.
‘What?’
‘Do you mean it? You’ve finished with all this Irish chicanery? Do you promise?’
Chicanery. Perhaps it was. At least she and Grace had managed to free Connaught of Bingham. She’d supplied the O’Neill with the guns she’d promised him and, through Will Clampett, the means to making others. He could kill more than enough people with those, and she couldn’t be responsible for killing any more. She’d come to the end. ‘Yes, I’m telling the truth.’
‘Does anyone know you are childless?’
‘Eh?’ The question was extraordinary in this situation. He really had gone mad.
‘Does the queen know, does anybody know you’ve not had a child of mine?’
Obedient in its fatigue, her brain tried to think it through. ‘I don’t think so. The question’s never come up.’ Her court appearances had been at formal occasions where there’d been little gossiping. Certainly the courtiers had shown curiosity about her, as they did about everybody who ventured into their circle, but Cecil had told her not to talk too much about her past, and discouraged questions, even from Lady Russell. As far as most people were concerned, she was Sir Rob’s wife with a mysterious Irish past.
‘You know I can still get that ship brought back, don’t you?’
She nodded.
The sweeps could only take her so far before the rowers needed to rest. The revenue launches could overtake her without trouble.
‘If I let her go, you must stay. You promise. Now. On the Papist Bible if necessary.’ His mouth went into disgust as if he’d mentioned the Koran. ‘Swear on your life.’
‘Swear what?’
‘That you stay. As my wife.’
‘What?’ Definitely mad. She made her words soothing. ‘You’re tired, Rob. It’s been a bad night. You don’t want me. You don’t love me. You love Helen. A nice lady. You let me go and let Grace go and I’ll disappear and you can marry Helen and you’ll have ever such a nice life. You see.’ Her words were so soporific she almost nodded herself off.
‘Oh no. I’m not having you run off only to bob up again and ruin me. You’re my legal wife and you will be my legal wife. Lady Betty. Margaret Betty. You will bring up my son as your own. No more Ireland. No treachery. If you swear it, and if I believe you, I’ll let the ship go. If not, the whole stinking crew, grandmother and all, can hang in chains.’
She was confounded. So that’s what he’d lacked in his wonderful life, a lawful spouse to give him the final respectability, the start of a line of Bettys. If he could have proved her death, Helen would have taken the role, even if the queen didn’t like it. He’d achieved great power, only to find, as other men had, that it was ashes if it could not be passed on to his son.
Raleigh, Leicester, Essex, and now Rob, all prepared to risk losing their position at court to achieve that most primitive right, an heir. Raleigh had gone to the Tower in order to marry and gain his, even if he had managed at last to charm his way out. And Rob was one up on Raleigh; he had a wife and, moreover, one who was in better odour with the queen than poor Elizabeth Throckmorton Raleigh.
‘But if I disappear, you can marry Helen, and she’s more your type.’ Oh God, why couldn’t she forget O’Hagan that night when he’d told her his type of woman? She couldn’t stay here, in this loveless place with this unloving, calculating man.
‘No.’ He was quite firm. He’d thought it all out. ‘I’d have to slide down the ladder of the queen’s favour and begin again. Somebody might find out, you might reappear, even if you didn’t intend to. I’m not risking a charge of bigamy and having Henry declared bastard.’
‘Suppose somebody finds out he is anyway?’
‘Margaret.’ The word brought back an old suffocation. ‘How can he be declared bastard if you say he isn’t?’ He leaned over so that his face was in the candlelight. ‘I’m offering you your grandmother’s life, Margaret, in return for your promise that you will take up your position as Lady Betty, wife of a famous husband, mother to a fine son. Is it so bad a bargain? You’ve acquitted yourself well in society for your own ends. Acquit yourself well for mine, and your grandmother’s. We got on well enough before, we can again. You’ll live in luxury. Is it a bargain?’
He was brutal, she’d been right when she’d seen it in his face; the self-made man who bought and sold, offered this one a bribe, that one a threat to get what he wanted. He was prepared to put away a woman he loved to gain from a woman he didn’t. And he was capable of handing Grace O’Malley to the hangman.
‘I’m not taking that child away from Helen,’ she said.
‘If it’s for his advancement she’ll want you to. And it is.’
How strange men were. She leaned back in her chair with fatigue. What in hell made him think he could trust her once Grace O’Malley was safe? She almost smiled. ‘Are you putting me on my honour, Rob?’
He scented weakness and became charming. He still could be. ‘No. I want you to say dibs.’
‘Dibs?’ It was Order cant for bargain. He was condescending to speak in a language she understood. The Order broke oaths, but no member, ever, had betrayed a dibs. What a stupid man. Give in, say you’ll do it, save Grace, get some sleep, then run away when his back is turned, and oh God, she couldn’t. Grace O’Malley’s life meant too much to her to purchase it with a promise she intended to break. She had, in truth, come to the end of herself.
‘I couldn’t be your wife in bed,’ she said.
He shook his head. He didn’t want her to be. ‘It won’t be that sort of marriage.’
Christ, this was ridiculous. But perhaps, after all, she owed him, for their childhood together, and the words that she’d said to the preacher when they married, for Grace O’Malley.
‘Rob,’ she said, ‘I really don’t want to.’
‘Can’t you see I’m saving you from yourself? How long can you run with Irish trash? I’m offering you a chance to live in the best society. You can take it, or I ride for Rochester this minute. Is it dibs or isn’t it?’
‘It’s dibs.’ She felt nothing momentous as she said it, just fatigue. She’d sort it all out tomorrow when her brain worked.
‘Then give me the snaphaunce, Margaret.’
She could have laughed if she’d had the energy. He wanted a symbolic capitulation. She looked at the beautiful lines of the Clampett and he was right; it was a symbol. It was the key to freedom and independence; without it she was locked away from Barbary Clampett O’Flaherty O’Malley of the cherubims, and into Margaret Betty of English court society, housewife and mother.
‘Please, Margaret, bring me the snaphaunce.’
She got up, the Clampett in her right hand, her left helping her to edge along the table. It seemed a long walk. At the end of it she stood before him. He reached over and took the Clampett away from her.
Chapter Twenty-Three
She’d sold out. Never mind that she’d done it to save Grace O’Malley and her crew, to say nothing of Cuckold Dick and the others; in doing it she’d given up Ireland, traded her birthright. She was bereft, and she grieved for her loss. The shapes of the dead who had hung in the Deer Park at Spenser Castle returned to haunt her.
But in her bereavement were to come compensations which, to begin with, made her more guilty than ever. Rob had promised her luxury, and, like the excellent merchant-venturer he’d become, he would make an honest trade.
She resisted it at first and stayed down at Tilsend, working to clear the place up. It salved her conscience to be busy and uncomfortable.
Nan Nevet arrived one day to tell her that Cuckold Dick, Walles and Winchard were safely back in the Bermudas and that Grace had got away. Barbary was grateful for their safe deliverance, but with the going of Grace she felt marooned. She’d lost touch with Ireland, Connaught, O’Hagan.
But gradually the relief of not being involved became restful, silence after a lifetime’s clatter. She’d done what she could. She had nothing left for trickery and subterfuge.
There was no responsibility. There was time. She went for walks without having any other object than to enjoy walking. Rob, who’d shown his trust in the dibs by going back to London, sent servants to help her put the manor into shape, and she began to enjoy letting them wait on her.
Whenever she felt trapped, she told herself that she could go any time she liked. Grace was safe, no longer hostage to a dibs. Anyway, it was childish of Rob to think he could bind her by a dibs. She could go. If she wanted. Cuckold Dick was still in the whiskey trade, she could board one of his ships to Ireland any time. But Ireland didn’t have O’Hagan. Ireland had the O’Neill.
She might stay on here for a while and rest. Hadn’t she earned some rest, for God’s sake? So she stayed, made free to do so by the thought that she was also free to go.
Then Rob came down to see how she was getting on and take her back to London with him. He was awkward and stilted, but trying hard. ‘You have done well here, Margaret. But it is time for you to see your new home. I have sent for Henry.’
‘Can’t I look after him here?’
His face set heavily. ‘He must be introduced into society. I should prefer it if you would accompany me to Betty House.’
In London she would be nearer Cuckold Dick and her means of escape when she wanted it. ‘Very well, Rob.’
&
nbsp; Standing at the Strand entrance, the magnificence of Betty House took her breath away. She’d known Rob was doing well – he was now a gentleman of the Privy Chamber – but not as well as this. Betty House stood on the site of the old Abbey of St Mary, Rounceval, which had decayed after its suppression into messuages and allotments.
‘The queen granted me the land for the house,’ said Rob.
‘Did she grant you the ruddock to build it?’
For the first time since they’d made their bargain he smiled. ‘No.’ He didn’t even correct her use of Order cant.
It must have cost thousands, tens of thousands. They passed through gates surmounted by armorial stone lions carrying shields on which were entwined the letters RB and into a courtyard some eighty feet square. She cricked her neck staring at towers and turrets and an oriel window, three storeys high. It took the entire morning to show her both house and gardens. Despite everything, she was touched that he wanted to impress her.
‘You see, Margaret. All the way down to Scotland Yard in that direction. Lean out, you can glimpse Whitehall. And down there to the old Lady Wharf. Betty Wharf now.’
The furnishing was not completed. ‘There’ll be tapestry here, of course.’ But the bare rooms were lovely with their gracious dimensions and their carved foliated friezes with the entwined RB medallions. Even the cisterns were leaden works of art into which were impressed Tudor roses and more RBs.
‘And this will be your room.’ A private staircase led to it, high in one of the towers, circular, panelled, with a great bay window overlooking the river. She fought against being overwhelmed. ‘Oatmeal this is, Rob.’
She’d gone too far. ‘Will you help me or not? I’ll not have my son speaking cant or being shamed by a mother who talks it.’
A mother. She would be a mother. She would be mistress of all this. She supposed she could put up with it for a while at least, just to keep her bargain. ‘My dear Sir Rob,’ she drawled beautifully, ‘I can most certainly try.’
The Pirate Queen Page 55