“When you were with the Spanish fleet?”
“When I was with the Spanish fleet.”
“You must tell me all about that sometime … You were ill-treated? “
“No. Had favours. They expected me to be of use to them when they reached England.”
“Ah … They did, eh? Never got over the idea that they might be able to buy us. These Spaniards don’t understand the Killigrews.”
“I could not appear unwilling to help or I should not have survived. It was a matter of life and death.”
“Ah, a matter of life and death. People outside do not realise the stresses they have no idea. It is necessary to to trim one’s sails to the storm. I quite agree, son, with what you did. Now, praise Christ, you are restored to us and no one the worse for your little deception.”
“I trust no one will be the worse at all for any deception.”
My father stared with despondent bloodshot eyes out of the window.
I said: “It was thought in some parts of the Spanish fleet it was thought that when they landed this castle might be favourably disposed towards them. What they thought, or think, is not important if, as seems possible now, they do not attempt to land at all … But it would be a serious matter if the rumour spread further and was believed in any English quarters.”
“Why should it be? Why should it be? No one woula dare “
“I was only thinking, father,” I interrupted something I would not have dared to do a year ago “that I trust there has been no loose talk in this house, no action which could be falsely construed, no letters written or received, which would give any substance to such a rumour …”
I stopped and waited. I think at last my father understood what I was trying to do to help if it became necessary without demanding dangerous confidences in return.
“For instance,” I said, “I hope there’s no one here Carminow or Foster, for example who could testify in any way if called on to do so that “
“There is nothing to testify.”
“Nor letters received which have not been burned.”
“Nor no letters have been received.” He sneezed. “I caught this cold, I believe, through washing my legs and feet last Friday. It is a bad thing to do in the winter, but it was the first time since August, and the weather was unusual mild … Look, Maugan …”
“Yes? “
“You are more inward in this matter than anyone else. You were a party to it to begin and, it seems, have been so to the end. Well, if this is the end then let it be so and no more said. No more will be said by me, I assure you. We’ve all to gain and nothing to lose by silence. Sometimes there’s a virtue in it, as you’ll appreciate when you grow older.”
“I appreciate it now, father. I was concerned only to know whether silence could be preserved.”
I got up to go, but he waved me back to my seat. “Now that we have agreed, there’s no haste to be gone, is there? Bring the table over, and we can dice for a while.”
I stayed close by the house all that week and the next. If the Spanish still came I wanted to be here. With such forces camped about the castle they would surely be thrown back, and in any event there was no risk of my father attempting to fulfil his promises; but I felt he might yet come to some sort of quarrel with the military over his rights, and I wanted to be on hand to restrain him. Accepting their authority when they arrived was one of the few sensible things he had done.
But as November advanced all England began to breathe again. Mobilisation at Chatham was stopped, the recall of overseas troops suspended, Essex and Ralegh and Howard were summoned to Court to give an account of their mistakes Parliament met again, the emergency was seen to be over. Two hundred of the musters at Pendennis were allowed to go home, but the trained soldiers stayed and Captain Alexander showed no signs of relinquishing his authority.
I did not know then or for some years after any true or certain facts from the Spanish side. But seven years later, in 1604, peace having been signed and Killigrew fortunes being still at a low ebb, arrangements were made that my halfbrother Peter ever the favoured one should complete his education in Spain under the care of the Earl of Bristol, and I was sent to escort him and so saw some whom I knew, and heard what had happened to the rest of the fleet in that October storm.
The advance force had suffered the most, and of the twenty ships that sailed under Captain Quesada only nine returned to Spain. The second part of this squadron under Admiral Brochero had been struck scarcely less severely, and the galleon San Pedro with Don Diego Brochero himself on board had been dismasted and blown back into a Biscayan port where it needed five weeks’ repair to render it seaworthy again. Admiral Brochero had at once transferred to a flyboat and put to sea again, but at the vital moment the most aggressive spirit in the fleet was absent and his exclusively Spanish squadron scattered far and wide. In the meantime the Adelantado, a half day behind with the bulk of the fleet, had been met by the storm a little east of the Scillies. There he had fought it out for three days while first one and then another of his great ships was broken and had to run before the storm. When at length it abated his fleet as such no longer existed. He had beside him four other ships only, two of them damaged and his own leaking. He put back to Spain.
In the meantime the remnants of Brochero’s squadron, a dozen assorted vessels, had rendezvoused off Falmouth, but being without further orders and themselves exhausted by the storm, they waited only twelve hours and then put back to Brittany. Except for individual vessels which turned up here and there and gave fight or caused alarm over the next several weeks, that was the end. By the middle of November all the Armada which survived was back in El Perrol.
I was through Penzance by one o’clock and took the coast track, skirting the edge of the cliff. Much was already rebuilding. Up the hill to the church. Copley was tired and I got off and led him, almost pulled him.
The church was still far from complete but the house had been rebuilt. Two horses were standing in the garden in charge of a liveried groom.
The servant who came to the door knew me. As I was shown in I heard a self-important male voice issuing from the principal chamber, and I knew it at once for that of Mr Henry Arundell of Truthall. By chance we had coincided again. I could tell from the way of speaking that his words were addressed to Sue. Then I heard her exclaim at the news the servant brought. I was not shown in: Sue came out.
She was in widow’s weeds.
CHAPTER TWO
She came two steps, held out her hands, ran and then stopped, moved up to me more slowly. “Maugan! Oh, this is a blessed day! Thank God! I hardly dared to hope that for a second time …” “I should come back? There have been doubts from time to time. This meeting…”
She kissed me, but withdrew slightly because of a footstep in the room behind.
“Oh, Maugan, your letter reached me … I have prayed … You are changed, older you’ve been through so much?”
“It’s already a dream. This is the reality … Tell me, I didn’t know your husband?”
“In September.” She took a deep breath. “Died as he lived, nobly …” She turned. “You remember Mr Henry Arundell? I think once before …”
The stout man had come out of the room and nodded to me. “Of course. This is a pleasant chance. We had almost given you up, Killigrew.”
They led me into the room they had come from and plied me with questions. Black suited Sue, as in truth almost everything did. She looked well, a little less thin and pale, warm towards me but constrained in Arundell’s presence. I thought he, though superficially affable, welcomed me less than he seemed. I was myself distrait, stunned by the news that Sue was a widow; I had thought it a matter of years. I asked about him, and was told. Afterwards I remembered nothing of it; it was perhaps something in my mind trying to fence off and separate pleasure at Sue’s freedom from pleasure at a man’s death.