“Had you, by God,” said Keymis. “I had not realised you was so young at that time, Walter.”
“I wish I was so young again and purged of the accretions of the world … Why d’you suppose, Killigrew, that I am in need of fellows such as you?”
“I do not suppose it, sir, but I hope it.”
“Which with most of us is the same thing. Listen. There’s two kinds of men who hunger for adventure overseas. One goes for what he can get, what he can steal, what he can destroy. Are you such a one?”
“I do not think so.”
“Even though there’s a suspicion you put unwanted fingers into the hold of the Irish boat and pulled out the best of the cargo? What’s the truth of that?”
“I think it has all been greatly exaggerated, sir.”
Sir Walter put the end of his long pipe in his mouth and drew on it. “You have the Killigrew tongue, I see. The other type of adventurer is he who goes as friend and settler to make a home and marry and raise a family and till the soil and draw richness not by rapine and the sword but from the fruits of the land he farms. Are you such a one?”
“I think so. I hope so.”
“The second time you have used the word hope, which is one I distrust, for it lacks a sense of individual purpose. If I go out next year I shall choose 200 volunteers as I did in Virginia and apportion a piece of land perhaps 500 acres to each. For that it will be necessary for each to share towards the cost of the voyage. Have you money for that?”
I looked out across the bay. “No, sir.”
“Not even from the proceeds of your robbery?”
“I do not admit to robbery, sir, and I have no money from that or any other source.” I knew now he was jibing at me.
“Ah, well, then your chances of becoming a settler are small. As to being a sailor, I need trained men.”
The gulls were taking advantage of our stillness.
Keymis said: “The boy can write. Maybe we could make some use of him as a clerk.”
“He does not look the clerkly type. More the pirate I would say. All Killigrews are pirates or poets at heart, and this generation has run to the former. I’ll think of your request, boy. Next year when I am recruiting men remind me of it.”
“Thank you, sir.” I turned away, repelled by his sour and arrogant tone. There was little hope of anything now. Next year when Sir Walter was recruiting men he would be at Chatham or at Portsmouth.
I stood out after they had gone in, long after the light left and the glinting silks of the river estuaries had faded and become threadbare. I felt lost and alone, without future and without hope. Two days ago I had had another quarrel with Meg in which she had accused me of caring nothing for her any more. I had told her of my talk with Dick and used this as an excuse; but whereas a few months ago such a revelation of Dick’s suspicions would have horrified her, now she was willing to take the risk almost casually, almost coldly.
Whatever I did I could not get Sue out of my mind and so was no company for anyone. Perhaps Belemus guessed something of this, for yesterday he had drawn my attention to a book of poems Ralegh had brought and pointed out a verse which ran: “To love and to be wise, To rage with good advice; Now thus, now then, so goes the game, Uncertain is the dice. There is no man, I say, that can Both love and to be wise.”
But wisdom was not what I sought, only release from the pain …
I wandered into the house. As darkness did not come until well on in the evening only a solitary candle was lighted in the great hall. Distantly one could hear laughter and talk in the kitchens. There was a light under the withdrawing chamber door and another under that of Mr Killigrew’s private study, but I sat on the stool by the great empty fireplace of the hall feeding a halfdozen mixed dogs which had followed me in.
Presently the door of my father’s study opened and Sir Walter and Laurence Keymis came out, talking together. They did not see me as they passed but went upstairs to bed. Keymis carried a candle, Ralegh a book and a pen and horn of ink.
I went into the kitchens. Most of the servants would normally have been abed, but instead a round dozen of them were laughing and joking and drinking ale with an equal number of Ralegh’s sailors. A brief silence fell when I came in, so I walked on not wishing to dampen their fun. In the closet off the hall Kate Penruddock was dusting the shelves with wormwood. Here spare bedding was kept, and when it was taken out for Ralegh and his officers it had been found to be infested with fleas. Not, as Kate said, that anyone minded a few, but it would ill-flatter the house if great men were unduly bitten during their stay.
I found myself back in the hall and suddenly confronted with Thomas Rosewarne.
“Ah, I was looking for you, Mr Maugan. Your father wants you in his chamber.”
I went along and tapped at the door, speculating whether some minor misdeed had come home to roost. There seemed none. Since parting from Sue I had not even had the incentive to break out.
My father said: “I have news for you, boy. Ralegh wishes you to ride with him tomorrow. He has offered you a post as a secretary in his household.”
BOOK FOUR
CHAPTER ONE
Life sometimes is like the phases of the moon: one dwells in deep shadow without expectation of change, rootless and motiveless; then in the term of a day the shadow has gone and one is startled and quickened by the unsheltered rays of a new sun.
The environment into which Walter Ralegh took me, besides offering me a partial escape from the cold and barren futility of my passion for Sue, was as foreign to life at Arwenack as the de Prada house in Madrid. At Arwenack there was a constant coming and going of important folk, and a thin layer of culture was laid over the bare exigencies of life like a linen cloth on a dining board. But it went no deeper and it had little or no substance. At Sherborne the demands of material forces were no less present and no less urgent, but here culture existed as a separate and independent unit, and intellect for the first time came into its own. Doors of the mind were opened looking upon new and exciting country as vivid and as unexplored as anything in Guiana or the colony of Virginia.
Here were books treating of every subject from astrology to campaigns of war, from botany to Greek history, from chemistry and experiments in alchemy to poetry and philosophical speculation.
Nor were they ranged along the walls of a single room they proliferated about the house, left open on tables and settles, dropped where they had been temporarily abandoned and where they would be most convenient picked up. Globes and maps abounded and musical instruments and paintings and busts, and old parchments and vivid tapestries, and boxes and tables made of strange spice-smelling wood.
The Raleghs’ house was just new built, and they had barely moved in. Unlike the low design of Arwenack, this stretched out tall into the sky, supported by slender turrets at the four corners. No floor was of great expanse, but their being five gave much more space overall than at first seemed.
The kitchens were in the basement. Above them a splendid blue dining chamber looked through tall stone-mullioned windows across the formal walled gardens to the stables. Two of the turrets were incoporated in this room like ears, the others being utilised for the staircases. Here also was a narrow but handsome hall and two smaller rooms.
On the next floor was the green withdrawing chamber with the Ralegh coat of arms the shield with the five lozenges on the ceiling and over the wide fireplace. Behind was Ralegh’s study and a ladies’ withdrawing room with closet and close stool. Above this again was the Raleghs’ bedroom, but here the turrets were separate rooms, and behind on this floor were two guest chambers, one now given over to little Wat and his nurse. On the fourth floor were the principal guest chambers, while above was a warren in which slept and lived the indoor servants.