Sir Walter said: “Well for my part I wish him no ill. He’s a man who has matured and sobered greatly since the days of our quarrels. I would happily talk with him at some friend’s house. But I find it hard to suggest such a meeting since I stand to gain so much more than he.”
“Let’s not be too sure of that,” said Northumberland. “At any event I think this is the time to make the approach. And I can do it direct, without the knowledge of Anthony Bacon or any of his cronies. He’s a truly generous man, Wat; but he is surrounded by mean advisers.”
“I could wish for nothing better,” said Lady Ralegh, looking at her husband. “Lord Essex was my friend before we married, and he stood by me in trouble when some others did not. But there is one thing I do not like, which is that this reconciliation would seem to be aimed at Robert Cecil, who is also our friend. I would not wish him to feel we were changing sides against him. There is a matter of loyalty to be considered.”
“Oh, loyalty from Cecil!” said CarewRalegh.
Sir Walter was at his walking again. “I don’t think it need be aimed at anyone, Bess. Anyway, Henry’s is a pretty notion and we must not reject it. As for his wife, having realised my great error in so short a time, I cannot believe that any brother of hers could but be worthy of the highest esteem. I’ll meet him wherever or whenever you say.”
“As soon as it can be done,” said Lady Northumberland. To Lady Ralegh she said: “We have come a long way. Let us go on in friendship. I think my brother will want it too.”
They met for a parley in London, though I do not know where, just at the turn of the year. Sir Walter’s book on Guiana had been delayed at the printer’s, but a proof copy of it was put in Essex’s hands and he declared himself greatly impressed. The meeting went well, for Sir Walter came home to Sherborne alive with enthusiasm for the future. He was certain now that friendship with Essex would not shake his accord with Cecil. Why, he asked, should they not all three be on good terms? They had nothing to lose except enmity and outworn divisions. At that I heard Carew Ralegh mutter: “Get Essex and Cecil to lie in the same bed? Get a peacock to lie with a snake.”
Essex, said Ralegh, had told him he had some great project on hand for the coming summer together with Howard, the Lord Admiral, which gave some clue as to its nature but he was not permitted to divulge more. Ralegh, if not too deeply engaged in Guiana, might be invited to play some major role. This was the greatest of temptations, for it appeared to be putting into effect the very urgings that Sir Walter had been sending in to the Privy Council all winter. And glory close at hand always weighed heavier with the Queen than glory at a remove of four thousand miles. In the meantime Sir Walter had invited Essex to visit him at Sherborne; by then the book would be out and its effects known. All the same he flung himself with his usual feverish impatience into immediate preparations for a new visit to Guiana. Even if only on a reduced scale, smaller much than last summer, it must be undertaken to fuffil his promise to the natives and keep their interest in England alive.
From my knowledge of what went on, it win have been guessed that I was treated all through the winter more like a member of the family than a servant, far more like a cousin than a secretary. I shared their board and was as often as not at their private talk. This was done so naturally, almost, one thought, in absence of mind, that I was quite won over.
Sir Walter was a man with high standards for his helpers and a biting tongue when they fell short, and it took me time to get to know him. But he had disarming qualities which would take the sting out of his arrogance. For a man capable, as I saw sometimes, of dubious stratagems of business and the most tortuous approaches to statecraft, he yet had a profound candour among his friends, and a frankness and a capacity for trust that I have not seen bettered.
I looked at no girl while at Sherborne, though one or two looked at me, but I made a friend of Victor Hardwicke, a kinsman of Lady Ralegh who acted as an assistant steward on the estate. When Sir Walter was away we would borrow two of his nags and go riding together; he was 24 and a great change from the raffish Belemus, being a serious young man with an infection of the lungs, who coughed much and played the lute and wrote poetry and was in love with a married woman at Cerne Abbas, the young wife of the hosier who sold Sir Walter his gloves and his jerking.
He told me that Sir Walter, in spite of his great incoming from the wine and broadcloth business, was in debt from his expeditions to Guiana to the amount of œ30,000. He had lost also œ40,000 on his adventures in trying to found the colony in Virginia, and this had never been properly recouped.
“The taking of the Madre de Dios two years ago should have enriched him permanently but he gave all his profit to the Queen œ80,000 or more to buy his liberty. So he is in straits.”
“Like others,” I said, thinking of my father.
“Yes, but while out of favour he has little opportunity to recover his losses. That’s why he must go with Essex. It’s his great chance. Unless the Queen relents, Guiana must wait.”
At least, I thought, my father has a marriageable son …
Nothing all this while of Drake and Hawkins. Then in the new year came word that they had taken Havana. This set aside all Sir Walter’s fears for them. The genius of the old sea-dogs had triumphed over the new organisation of Spain, for Havana was the key to the West Indies.
It was in this mood that he first went down the steps of Sherborne to welcome the Earl of Essex from his carriage. I watched them from a window.
My master always loved to dress magnificently, was fond of diamonds and big pearls and grey silks, and this was an occasion when every magnificence was justified. As they walked up the steps together there was little to choose between them for brilliance and for dignity. They were both big men but Essex, fourteen years the younger, topped his host by perhaps two inches; brown bearded in a fuller fashion but with a clean shaven front chin, dark haired, big boned, slim waisted, vital. One saw the magnetism even at a distance.
I saw little else at that meeting, for they dined six only together: the Raleghs, with Carew, Essex and the Northumberlands. At ten the coach drove away. In spite of all protestations to the contrary, a meeting such as this between the two greatest contenders for the Queen’s favour was fraught with significance for all who ruled England and therefore the more secret the better. I wondered if Sir Robert Cecil would hear of it. Some said that a pin dropped in the royal bedchamber at Greenwich would always be heard in Theobalds.
For the next days Sir Walter was thoughtful and moody not depressed nor yet exalted, as if the meeting had gone but moderate well. In fact, though I did not know it then, he was wrestling with his great decision. Essex had offered him a command in the venture which he and Lord Admiral Howard were planning.
The only comment Sir Walter made in my hearing was: “I wish such power as they are being granted had been put in Francis Drake’s hands. If he has captured Havana with his meagre force, with what Essex is mounting he could have won the war.”
That month was published by Robert Robinson a book entitled The Discovery of the Large, Rich and Beautiful Empire of Guiana, with a relation of the Great and Golden City of Manoa (which the Spaniards call El Dorado). Performed in the year 1595 by Sir Walter Ralegh, Knight, Captain of Her Majesty’s Guard, Lord Warden of the Stannaries and Her Highness’s Lieutenant General of the County of Cornwall.