Once I said to him: “Now that you are home and safe perhaps you will never want to go to sea again.”
He looked at me in astonishment and burst into laughter. “Are you mad? When I am building my fine ship. How could a sailor give up the sea? I’m going out to kill many more Spaniards yet. I’ve a score to settle…”
He had changed little.
He talked often of the boy we would have. “Our boy,” he said. “He’ll be the best of the bunch. We’ll call him Jake after his father.”
I said I would not call him anything else.
He had a name for his new ship. A Lion of course. The Triumphant Lion because this young Lion was going to avenge the old one. This one would be mightier, his claws would be sharper, his teeth stronger. She was going to sweep the Spaniards off the sea.
Everything was ready for my confinement. The midwife had been in residence for a week before the child was born. We were taking no chances.
And so my child was born.
I lay in my bed experiencing that strange mingling of exhaustion and triumph which will be familiar to every mother. Then I knew the truth. My child was alive and perfect in every way—except that it was a girl.
Jake came in. I saw his face puckered and distorted.
“A girl!” he said. “Another girl!”
I felt the tears on my eyes; they were running down my cheeks. I felt so weak from my ordeal and the sight of him there angrily bitter was more than I could endure.
Linnet was at my bedside. “Mother, it is wonderful,” she cried. “I have a sister … a dear little sister. Get well soon, dearest Mother.”
She stooped and kissed me, and when Jake strode out of the room she went after him.
I heard her voice. “You wicked man! You cruel man! She has suffered and you do not care. All you care for is to have a boy. I hate you!”
I heard the sound of a resounding slap and I thought: He has struck her.
I tried to get up but I could not. The midwife was holding me.
She said: “I will bring the baby to you. A dear little girl.”
She was laid in my arms and I loved her.
I decided to call her Damask after my mother.
Jake was penitent afterward. He, a man who had never disguised his feelings, had been unable to control his bitter disappointment at my bedside.
He came to see the baby and could not hide his distaste as he looked at the crumpled pink face of my second daughter.
He said: “It seems you and I were not intended to have boys.”
“It would seem so,” I answered. “You made the mistake. You said that you had chosen me to be the mother of your sons. It is your fault. You should not have chosen me.”
He laughed suddenly.
“’Tis no use crying over what’s done.”
“Nay,” I agreed, “we make our mistakes and must needs suffer for them.”
“Ah, Cat, we are in agreement at last. So I have got another girl who doubtless will grow up like her sister.” He touched his cheek. “The young devil,” he went on. “She struck me. Upbraided me for my treatment of you and then quick as lightning she upped with her hand and hit me across the cheek. That young woman will have to be taught a lesson or two.”
“Take care that she does not teach you one.”
“Not only have I got me a wife who cannot give me sons, but I’ve begotten a virago of a daughter. By God, my household is turning against me.” He clenched his right fist suddenly and beat his left palm with it. “I wanted a boy,” he said. “More than anything on earth I wanted a boy.”
There was a boy in the house, Romilly’s Penn, and from the time of Damask’s birth Jake’s interest in him increased. Penn was a bright lad, fearless and showing a great interest in ships and the sea. Jake had a model of the Rampant Lion and the boy had been discovered taking it apart, a fact which might have earned him a severe punishment. But Jake took a lenient view of the offense and showed the boy how the ship was operated. I was amused to see them trying out this precious model on the pond in the garden.
Romilly was pink with pleasure. I came upon her standing by the pool, her hands clasped in a kind of ecstasy as she watched Jake and the adventurous Penn together. I was sure she hoped Jake would do for her son what he had done for Carlos and Jacko. I was certain that he would. Penn had the sea in his blood, for his grandfather had been, as Jake had said often, one of the best captains who had sailed with him.
As each month passed there was more and more talk of the growing strength of Spain. The captive Queen of Scots was a perpetual menace. There were constant rumors of plots to set her on the throne and bring the Catholic Faith back to England.
The Queen honored her sailors. The news of the great fleet of ships which Philip of Spain was building was constantly discussed. People cheered the English ships when they came into the Hoe as though they looked to them to save us from the terrors which the Spaniards would thrust upon us.
Old sailors on the Hoe chatted together about the Spaniards. One or two of them had been captured by them. There was one man who had been taken before the Inquisition, tortured and somehow escaped before they had been able to burn him at the stake. He had many a tale to tell. The people had to understand that the ships of the Spanish Armada would bring not only guns and fighting men but instruments of torture which would make the rack and thumbscrews and even the Scavenger’s Daughter look like children’s toys.
John Gregory, who was still with us, was clearly afraid. I wondered what would happen to him if he were taken by the Spaniards a second time.
It was almost open war between England and Spain at this time. Philip declared that he would seize all ships found in Spanish waters. Elizabeth replied that reprisals would be taken. She equipped twenty-five ships to avenge the wrongs done to her and her brave seamen. Who should be in charge of this venture but the great Sir Francis and he set forth in the Elizabeth Bonaventure with vengeance in his heart?
We heard stories of his exploits; how he had raided Spanish harbors and carried off treasure. Drake sailed on to Virginia, where he had a conference with the colonists who had been sent there by Sir Walter Raleigh.
Very soon after that two very interesting products were brought to England. The potato, which we found very good to eat and which we began to serve with meats to great advantage. The other was tobacco, a weed, the leaves of which were rolled and smoked, and from these, oddly enough, many people began to find a certain solace.
These were uneasy times. We could never be sure when we would look from our windows and see the Spanish Armada bearing down on us. Jake said this was nonsense. We should have warning of their coming. Sir Francis Drake and men like himself were ever watchful. We need have no fear. The Spaniards were not ready yet and when they did come, by God’s Death, we would be ready for them. He had decided that he would not go far away until the matter was resolved. He was putting his ships at the disposal of the Queen. He would make forays into Spanish harbors, but he was going to be at hand when the great confrontation took place.
Jake had changed a little. He seemed to enjoy being at home. He was becoming more domesticated. He took no notice of Damask, but he was very watchful of Linnet and the fact that she scorned him seemed to amuse him. He was Penn’s hero and the boy would follow him about at a discreet distance until Jake either roared at him to be off or had a few words with him.
Jake was mellowed, I believed; there seemed a certain contentment about him. He had accepted the fact that we were not going to have a son.
On my birthday he gave me a cross studded with rubies. It was a beautiful piece. I wondered whether he had taken it from some Spanish home, but I did not ask him because I did not wish to question a birthday gift.
He liked to see me wearing it so I did often.
A few weeks after he had given me the cross I began to suffer from an occasional headache and when this was so I used to take my food in my room. Jennet would bring it to me because in spite of our differenc
es I had always wanted her to be my personal maid.
Jake had little sympathy for physical ailments. He never suffered from any himself and his lack of imagination made it impossible for him to understand other people’s feelings.
When I was not feeling entirely well I liked to be by myself and these were the occasions when I remained in my room. Linnet would come and talk to me. She was always tender toward me and had taken up a protective attitude, which amused me, because I had always been well able to look after myself.
On this occasion Jennet brought me a kind of soup dish which contained that novelty, the potato, and some kind of mushrooms and meat.
It was tasty and I enjoyed it, but in the night I began to feel ill. I was very sick and feverish and I wondered whether there had been something in the dish which had not agreed with me.
I went to see the cook who told me that others had had the dish and suffered no ill. They were fearful, I could see, lest I had contracted the sweat after all.
I said it contained mushrooms and there were toadstools which looked very like mushrooms. Could it be that one of these had been used?
The cook was indignant. Had she not been cooking for twenty years and if she didn’t know a toadstool from a mushroom she ought to be hung, drawn and quartered, that she did.
It took me some days to recover my health, but in a week or so I had forgotten the incident until it happened again.
I had eaten in my room half a chicken with a loaf which I had washed down with a tankard of ale, and as I was drinking the ale I was aware of a strange odor about it. I had drunk little of it but was determined to drink no more, for it was at precisely this time that a horrifying notion came to me.
I had eaten of the soup dish. So had others. I had been ill. Mine had been brought to me in my room. What had happened to it on the way up?
I smelled the ale. I was becoming more and more convinced that something was wrong with it.
Somebody had tampered with it on its way to my room. Who?
I found a bottle and poured some of the ale into it. I threw the rest out of the window.
I felt mildly ill and I was certain that the ale had been poisoned.
Could it possibly be that someone in this house was trying to poison me?
I took the bottle out of the drawer in which I had hidden it. I smelled it. There was a sediment.
Oh, God, I thought. Someone is trying to kill me. Someone in this house. Who would want to do this?
Jake!
Why should he immediately come to mind? Was it because when someone wished a woman out of the way it was usually her husband? Jake had chosen me. Yes, to be the mother of his sons. Could it be that he wanted sons so much that… I would not believe it.
Life was cheap to men like Jake. I saw a vivid picture in my mind of that scene when he had run his sword through Felipe’s body. How many men had he killed? And did his conscience ever worry him? But they were enemies. Spaniards! I was his wife.
Yet if he wanted me out of the way…
I sat at my window looking out. I could not face him. For the first time I felt unable to stand up to him. Always before I had been conscious of his great need for me. Now I doubted it.
I went to the mirror and looked at myself. I was no longer young. I was in my mid-forties and getting too old to bear sons. One does not notice one is growing old. One feels as one did at twenty … twenty-five, say, and imagines one is still that age. But the years leave their marks. The anxieties of life etched lines around the eyes and mouth.
I was not a young woman anymore. Nor was he a young man. But men such as Jake never feel their age. They still desire young women and think they should be theirs by right.
I went back to the window and sat down.
The door opened softly and Linnet was there.
“Mother,” she said, “what are you doing here?”
“I was looking out of the window.”
“You are not well.”
She came and looked at me searchingly.
“Are you ill?”
“No, no. A little headache.”
I took the bottle of ale to the apothecary in one of the little streets close to the Hoe.
I knew him well. He mixed scents for me and I often bought his herb concoctions.
I asked if I might speak to him in private and he conducted me into a little room behind the shop. Drying herbs hung on the beams and there were pleasant smells which were intensified during simple time.
“I wonder if you could tell me what this ale contains?” I said to him.
He looked astonished.
“I fancied that it was not as it should be and I thought you might be able to tell me why.”
He took the bottle from me and smelled it.
“Who is your brewer?” he asked.
“I do not think this has anything to do with the brewer. The rest in the cask was well enough.”
“Something has been added,” he said. “Could you give me a little time and I might be able to discover what?”
“Please do,” I said. “I will call in two days’ time.”
“I think I shall have an answer for you then,” he replied.
I went back to Lyon Court and there seemed to be a sudden menace about it. The lions which guarded the porch looked sly as well as fierce, sinister as well as handsome. I felt that I was being watched from one of the windows, though through which I could not say.
The thought kept recurring: Someone in that house wants me out of the way.
I was sure now that my soup had been poisoned. And now the ale.
So much depended on what the apothecary would have to tell me in two days’ time.
I was sleeping badly; I was pale and there were dark shadows under my eyes. I would lie in bed with Jake beside me and say: Does he want to be rid of me?
I thought of life without him and I felt wretched and lonely. I wanted him there; I wanted him to go on desiring me more than I desired him. I wanted to quarrel with him. In short, I wanted to return to the old relationship.
But he had changed. I had thought it was because he had become preoccupied with the coming war with Spain. But was this so?
Strange things began to happen.
Carrying a candle, I was mounting after dusk the stairs to the turret whither I had been earlier that day. I had discovered that I had lost a bow of ribbon from my gown and wondered if it was there. It was lonely in that wing of the house. Normally I should not have thought of this, but of late I had become nervous and was startled at the least sound. And as I mounted the spiral staircase I thought I heard a noise above me. I paused. The candle in my hand cast an elongated shadow on the wall. I noticed what looked like a grotesque face there—but it was only the shadow caused by the shape of the candlestick.
I stood very still. I was sure I could hear someone’s breathing above me. The turn of the staircase made it impossible to see more than a few steps ahead and I felt a cold shiver run down my spine. All my instincts were warning me that I was in danger.
“Who is there?” I cried.
There was no answer, but I fancied I heard a quick intake of breath.
“Come down, whoever is there,” I called.
There was still no answer.
I felt as though I were rooted to the staircase. For some seconds I could not move. Someone was waiting for me up there … someone who had sent me to Mary Lee’s cottage, someone who had poisoned my soup and my ale.
Good sense was saying: Don’t go up there. Don’t attempt to find out now. This is not the time. It could be fatal if you took another step.
I thought I heard a board creak. And turning, I ran down the stairs as fast as I could.
I went to my room. I lay on my bed. My heart was beating madly. I was frightened. This was unlike me, but recent events had shaken me more than I had realized and I was not in my usual good health.
I must be strong, I thought. I must find out what was happening. I must know if someone was in fact
threatening me.
You know, said a voice within me.
I don’t believe it, I answered myself. He couldn’t. I know he has killed many times. He has taken what he wanted … always. Oh, no, it can’t be.
But why not, if he no longer wanted me? Why not, if I stood between him and something he wanted? Perhaps a young woman who could give him sons.
The door of my room opened suddenly. I knew it was Jake who had come in.
Had he come straight here from the turret? What would he do now?
Could it really be that he wished to be rid of me? Fiercely he had wanted me once; now did he as fiercely want someone else. Jake allowed nothing and no one to stand in the way of his desires. The lives of others, what were they? I kept thinking of Felipe lying dead on the floor of the Hacienda.
Jake had never shown any remorse about killing him.
He was standing by my bed looking down at me. He whispered my name quietly, not roaring it as he did so often.
I did not answer. I could not face him now with these dreadful suspicions in my mind. I could not say to him, “Jake, are you going to kill me?”
I was afraid.
So I pretended to sleep and after a few minutes he went away.
I went to the apothecary’s shop.
He bowed when he saw me and invited me into the room where the herbs were drying on the oak beams.
“I have found traces of Ergot in your ale,” he said.
“Ergot?”
“It’s a parasite which grows on grass, very often on rye. It contains poisons known as ergotoxine, ergometrine and ergotamine. It is very poisonous.”
“How could it get into the ale?”
“It could be put in.”
“How could it be?”
“The leaves could be boiled and the liquid added. I believe people have died through eating bread which had been made from rye which had this parasite growing on it.”
“I see. Then the ale I brought you was poisoned?”
“It contained Ergot.”
I thanked him and paid him well for his trouble. I intimated that I did not wish him to discuss this matter with anyone at the moment and he tactfully gave me to understand that he realized my wishes and would respect them.
Lion Triumphant Page 36
