(1/3) Go Saddle the Sea

by Joan Aiken

  "Young persons are easily imposed upon," agreed Mr. Bendigo, a dusty little man with red-rimmed watery eyes. "The man in Truro jail may well be a character of the lowest order,"

  "I think it would certainly be our duty to look most closely into the credentials of the fellow in the jail before we disburse any money," said Mr. Dinsdale.

  "Five hundred pounds, your lordship, cannot be laid out as if it were half a guinea," said Mr. ffanshawe.

  I began to feel my temper going, as I thought of Sammy Pollard lying in Truro jail—which I imagined like the calabozo in Oviedo—while these old roosters ate their dinner off gold plate and pecked my patience to pieces.

  Then I noticed that Mr. Burden was smiling at me sympathetically, so I made a great effort at control, and said, "Mr. ffanshawe, you spoke just now of pur chasing a horse for me; how much would such an animal cost?"

  "Why," he said, "I suppose one might be procured for a couple of hundred guineas."

  "And my clothes and furnishings—how much will they cost?"

  "About the same, I daresay—a little more."

  "Very well. Pray give me that money in cash, Mr. ffanshawe, and I will undertake to buy my own clothes, very much more cheaply, and my own mount. I am accustomed to ride a mule, which I can obtain for a twentieth of that sum, and I will send the rest to my friend."

  Their faces lengthened, their mouths opened, and they looked at one another in utter dismay.

  "Ride a mule? Lord St. Winnow ride a mule? said the foxy Mr. Tyler in tones of strong disgust. "That is quite out of the question!"

  "But it is not out of the question that I should neglect the friend who saved my life at the risk of his own?" I said with some heat.

  They all looked at one another again, and Dr. Larpent, a well-set-up, good-natured, clever-looking man, said, "Perhaps if Lord St. Winnow were to step aside into the library a moment, the Trustees might convene a formal meeting and discuss the matter quietly. I am sure they can find some means of settling this affair to everybody's satisfaction."

  Glancing at him, I was surprised when he gave me a friendly wink. Thawing a little, I replied in a dignified manner, "Certainly; I will be glad to retire to the library."

  "Lynton will show you the way," said Mr. Burden, smiling at me, and the stately buder did so.

  The library seemed much more promising than that of my grandfather at Villaverde. Many of the volumes in the well-stocked shelves were plays, novels, or poetry. I wondered if they had belonged to my father or my uncle Charles, and if I might get permission to take some of these books away with me to school.

  Then, in a glass-fronted case, I discovered a number of musical instruments—flutes, pipes, a fiddle, a viol, a rebec. Full of delight at this welcome sight, I opened the case, pulled out a set of pipes, and began softly to play one of the tunes that Sam and I had composed, which we had called "An Air for the Bad-Tempered Mule, with Various Variations."

  The ripple of the notes soothed my anger and filled me with a calm, steadfast resolve to see that Sam received the money somehow. My first indignant notions—of taking one of the gold dinner plates, riding off with it to Bath, and pawning it—died away; I thought to myself: Come, Felix! You have made your way here, you escaped from Oviedo jail and from the shipwreck and the Comprachicos—by God's help; do not lose trust in Him now.

  Sure enough, after ten minutes or so, Dr. Larpent came into the library. I was playing away and did not hear him at first until he said, "Ahem!"'

  I looked up to see him smiling at me. He said, "I have always been told that your father was a very gifted musician, and now I believe it."

  This statement gave me a complicated pain, which I did not wish to examine, so I said, "Did they decide about the money?"

  He began laughing. "Yes, they have it all arranged! Poor fellows, you must make allowance for them. They are only just beginning to realize what has happened to them. They have run everything in their own way for so long—since your grandfather fell into his dotage—five or six years now—but do not worry, they will come around in time! They are really a set of good fellows, only a little stiff in their notions."

  "So what is to be done?" said I, a little stiffly myself.

  "There is an agent for your grandfather's estate in Exeter, since the Duke owns considerable properties in the West Country. This agent will be instructed to travel to Truro and assign the necessary funds to your friend."

  "I suppose they want to make certain that my friend is not a character of the lowest order,'" I said hotly. "Well, they will find that my story was true in every particular and my friend is a very good, honest man, who has been villainously ill-used."

  "Then you have no cause for anxiety," said Dr. Larpent cheerfully.

  Mr. ffanshawe soon came in to confirm this, and to ask if I wished to dispatch a note to my friend in Truro. I noticed that he now treated me more seriously than he had done before, and looked at me directly, when addressing me, with a certain respect in his manner.

  I said I should indeed like to write a letter to my friend, and, as there were pens, ink, and paper in the library, I sat down to do so at once. With my heart in my pen, I wrote Sam that I had succeeded in finding my kin, that they were rich and powerful, and that I was therefore able to send him means to free himself from debt, which I was happy to do, as it was only a tiny and partial payment for all he had done to help me. I begged him to apply to me here, or to my grandfather's agent, should more help be needed. And I wrote: "I know that you will be anxious to return to Spain with all possible speed, for Juana will be so anxious about you. Any money left over is for your passage. I do not ask you to delay your departure. But still—if you should require to stay in England for any reason—I hope you will come to see your Friend."

  I folded the paper and sealed it with my grandfather's seal (a fountain springing from the turrets of a castle), then gave it to the messenger who was waiting to ride with it to Exeter.

  Having achieved this filled me with relief. Mounted on a good horse, the man could easily reach Exeter within the day; by next day the money would be in Truro, and Sam released from prison. I would not be quite free of anxiety until I heard from Sam himself that this was so, but meantime I felt much eased, and in a mood to learn more of this great domain where I found myself.

  Looking through the library window and seeing Mr. Burden strolling on the terrace, I went out to walk with him.

  "Is it all arranged?" he said kindly. "Is the money on its way to your friend?"

  "I hope so!" said I. "Señor Burden, are you at leisure? Can I ask a kindness of you?"

  "Of course, my dear boy! I am entirely at your disposal."

  Accordingly, I pulled out my father's papers, which I had transferred to the pockets of the striped coat that had once been his, and said, "Señor Burden, will you read these to me now? For I cannot—I cannot understand why my f-f-fa—" I stopped, took a breath, and began again, as Mr. Burden quietly waited. "I don't understand why he pretended to me all those years! It gives me a pain to think about it. And I am hoping that this paper explains why he did it."

  "I think I can understand why he did it," said Mr. Burden quietly. "But let us see." He looked about us and said, "At the end of this terrace there is a little loggia which receives the afternoon sun. I think we shall be warm enough there for half an hour."

  So we settled ourselves in the small stone shelter, which looked out onto the grassy rolling park, with its grazing sheep and deer.

  Mr. Burden took the papers and studied them in silence for some considerable time. I did not ask him questions or try to hurry him; I waited.

  At last, very slowly, he read out the contents of the letter:

  "My dearest boy: I shall be gone when you read these words. Forgive me for not speaking them to you aloud.—I will try to explain how it all fell out. You see, when I was young, I was a wild, impatient boy. Charles is fourteen years older—he was always well-behaved and I was always in trouble. Many, many times, Felix,
you remind me of myself! When I was sent home from Oxford University my father was so angry that we had a terrible quarrel—he said he never wished to see me again. So I left home and enlisted in the -th under the name of Ensign Brooke. I was happy in the army and soon won promotion. Then, when I was with General Moore's army in Astorga, I met your mother—she was being educated at a convent there—I loved her at first sight, she loved me, and we made a runaway match of it. This was in 1808. Oh, she was beautiful! It cheers me to think of her. Strange that I write this letter in the house where she lived. I wrote to my father that I had married her, but had no answer from him. I supposed he was still too angry to reply. I planned to take Luisa to England—I was sure when he saw her he would forgive us. But then she became ill—she was expecting you—and had to return to Villaverde, for General Moore's army was retreating; she could not accompany me. Little did we think that we would not meet again in this life. Then I was wounded, so badly that for months I lay like a dead man in a mountain shepherd's hut, cared for by kind people who said I reminded them of their lost son.

  "At last I was well enough to crawl, and I crawled over the mountains to Villaverde. That took many more months.

  "Arrived there, I found that you had been born, and that Luisa had died. Receiving that news was like my death knell; I did not think I had very much longer to live myself. I discovered that no letter had ever come from my father. Nevertheless, I swallowed my pride and wrote again, sending our wedding lines and telling of your birth. That letter, too, remained unanswered. Meanwhile I could not bear to reveal myself as Captain Brooke, as Luisa's husband, and ask for the charity of the Cabezadas. They did not even believe that we had been married—or that I came of good family—how would they receive me, penniless, crippled, cast off by my father? But as Bob the groom they were prepared to receive me and give me house room. And thus I could be near you, Felix, and see that you were healthy and thriving, even if treated somewhat harshly. My poor boy! Many a time I have longed to reveal myself, but that would be to involve you, a child of four or five, in a daily deceit—or to shame you before all—I could not do it. All I could do was to pour my love on you in small ways, see you grow strong and active, rejoice in your good spirit.

  "I shall ask Bernardina to give this to you when you are grown, as I do not think I shall last much longer, and death may take me suddenly when it comes. Dear boy, when you are a man, I think you should make an attempt to be reconciled to my family. Perhaps my letters to my father miscarried—or perhaps he will have died by this time and Charles come into the tide. Charles is a good fellow and he would take you in—he always had a kind spot for me. He is clever—not like me—all I wanted was horses and music and fighting. And your mother! I shall soon be with her.

  "So, Felix, when you are grown, go to England, go to the town of Bath, take the road that runs westwards to Bristol past the Rose and Ring-Dove Inn, and that will lead you to Asshe. And there, I am sure, for my sake, the family will welcome you.

  "My dear boy, I have been a simple fellow all my life, but you, with your mother's spirit in you, have the makings of something more, I am sure. Do well—live bravely—choose the best things—be happy! And you will spare a kindly feeling for your loving Father."

  MR. BURDEN'S voice shook as he read aloud the last lines. I looked up with blurred eyes, and saw that his face was working. Silently, he handed me back the pages, and I bent my head over them.

  Now that I knew what the contents were, I found myself just about able to make out a word here and a word there.

  Mr. Burden presently said, "Now do you understand why he did not tell you?"

  "Yes, I do," said I slowly. "He felt unable. But oh, I wish he had not! It is as if he had been playacting to me, all my life."

  Mr. Burden reflected a while, then said, "Try to think of it in this way.—You speak English very well. But perhaps you are more fluent in Spanish? Perhaps that is the language in which you do your thinking?"

  I did some thinking, found that it was in Spanish, and said yes.

  "And yet," he said, "you are able to hold a conversation with me in English—luckily for me! Since, I blush to confess it, I haye no Spanish."

  "Yes, sir—but what has that to say to anything?"

  "Your father made use of the only language in which he could speak to you—that of Bob the groom. Do you see? But because a person is speaking in a tongue not his own, that does not make what he ex-^ presses in it any less true, or less loving."

  I thought I understood a little of what he meant, and said that I would try to think of it in that way. But I still felt a sore sadness within me, which would take long to heal.

  Then I asked, "Señor Burden?"

  "Yes, my dear boy?"

  "How did you know that I would be coming to the Rose and Ring-Dove? And giving the name of Brooke?"

  "Because the priest at Santillana wrote of your intentions to the Conde your grandfather. And he wrote to us."

  "I see." I felt somewhat awestruck at the workings of Providence, which, it seemed, playing back and forth like a shuttle on some great loom, had woven this web between England and Spain without my being in the least aware of it.

  "What could be the purpose of this mysterious pattern? And what part had I in it?

  Just then a clock somewhere overhead chimed the hour of three, and Mr. Burden, glancing at me kindly, said, "You have much to think about, my dear boy. And I, too, have work to which I must apply myself. I am writing a history of the Carisbroke family.—I began it for your grandfather but since he, poor man, is no longer able to profit by it—since he has given up reading—it will be my pleasure to finish it for you."

  I thanked Mr. Burden for this thought, and looked about me rather dismally, wondering what to do with myself in the house of Asshe.

  Here I am, I thought, at the end of my journey, and what do I find? An angry old madman, a house even more silent than Villaverde, an estate that is conducted like a merchant's counting house by a group of lawyers and businessmen; I am neither wanted nor needed. Asshe, indeed!

  But then I thought: I had better wait patiently and see what God has in store for me.

  Mr. Burden, as if divining my thought, said, "Believing that you might like to see over some of your estate, I told Jem Merriwether to bring round one of your grandfather's riding horses and escort you wher ever you care to go. Your grandfather (who, like your father, was a famous horseman) still has some fine mounts in his stable.—And I know that Jem has a longing to talk to you of your father."

  We returned to the main entrance, where, sure enough, Jem awaited me, riding a black mare and leading a most beautiful fiery little chestnut, not large, but so graceful and spirited that he looked ready to bound clean up the great flight of steps, did Jem let go of his bridle.

  So I thanked Mr. Burden, and rode off with Jem across the park.

  "Eh, I thowt as much!" said Jem after a few minutes. "Ye've your father's seat an' your granfer's hands—proper owd wizard 'e be in the saddle to this day, though 'e be flown in 'is wits. Now what manner o' mounts would you have had in Spain, then, Master Felix?"

  In no time I was telling him all about Villaverde, and he was telling me all about my father's pranks when a boy; and soon my soreness was somewhat healed. For I saw, firstly, that Jem had loved my father and grieved for him when he left—and now, too, I knew where my father had learned the "language" in which he had spoken to me in my childhood. It was from Jem! And perhaps, I pondered, even as I told Jem about the bad-tempered mule, and how she had saved me from the morass ("Arr!" said Jem. "Wunnerful clever beasts, mules be!"), perhaps it was because my father had received more love from Jem than from the Duke, his own father, that he had chosen Jem's language in which to speak to me.

  We rode through great russet drifts of dead leaves in the beechwoods, and along by the river, and then up, along a grassy crest of hill from which, Jem said, we could see five counties and the hills of Wales in the distance, across the Bristol Channel.<
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  "I'll be putting up some jumps for 'ee tomorrow, Master Felix," said Jem hopefully, "and then we'll have 'ee out hunting, come Christmas!"

  His face fell when I told him that I was being sent to school in Bath, but he sighed and said, "True 'tis, there bain't enough young company for 'ee here. Still, 'ee'll be home for the holidays, I dessay."

  I said I hoped so, and thanked Jem for the ride.

  Back at the house I found my way to my chamber, where Watchett had laid out more clothes for me, and then I dined with Mr. Burden and the rest of my Trustees—Dr. Larpent, Mr. Dinsdale, and Mr. Tweedy had retired to their respective homes. During the meal Mr. Burden told me something of the history of the Carisbroke family—how they had come to England with the Normans in 1066, and how they had been granted this manor by the Norman king, William the First, and how, since the house owned by the previous Saxon lord was but a smoking ruin, it had by its new owner been given the name of Asshe. And he had married the Saxon landholder's daughter, whose name was Aelfrida, and from that day on, four out of six in the Carisbroke family had her small stature, flax-fair hair, and bright blue eyes.

  Indeed there were many portraits of them hanging round the walls, as I soon saw—short, fair-haired, blue-eyed men astride of their horses or with hawks on their wrists—a great number of them as like to my grandfather as one pea is to another.

  And like to myself also.

  Is it not strange then, that, remembering how alien I had felt to the portraits of the lanky, black-haired Cabezadas, I should now feel so homesick for Villaverde?

  After the meal I asked Mr. Burden if I should visit my grandfather again for a while, and he said yes. But the Duke was playing with a box full of shoe buckles, sorting them and stirring them, picking out one, looking at it, and putting it back. He glanced up at me and said irritably, "Go away, boy, go away! I have never cared to have boys about me—tiresome, noisy, fidgety, ill-conditioned pests, all of them!" And back he went to his buckles.