The Grove of Eagles by Winston Graham
An embarrassed silence fell. She hunched her cloak against the cold airs and looked like an old white cormorant waiting for the fish to rise.
“Mary, I think you will upset yourself,” said old Mistress Wolverstone. “You should retire to bed.”
“Retire? I will retire to my grave soon enough to rest beside my husband, who was perhaps the best of a poor litter. Not that his brothers haven’t done better than he did. They have stuck close to the Queen and forever said: ‘ Yes, your majesty.’ ‘No, your majesty,’ and run at her beck and call. So they have big houses in London and are excused their debts.”
“Ah, perhaps soon she will forbear towards your son, ma’am. No doubt she has been ill advised—”
“Killigrew,” said my grandmother broodingly. “Know you what the name means, Mr Vyvyan? The Grove of Eagles. A two-headed eagle is our crest. Where are the eagles, I ask you! My son has bred as fertile as a parson, but I see no eagles among his breed. This bastard of his has more spread of wing than any of the true ones.”
It might have been appropriate to thank her for this compliment had she not been looking at me with such obvious dislike.
I said: “ I think you expect too much too soon, grandmother. Because I am not true born I have had more liberty. Give them time.”
“Time is a commodity in which I am getting low. Deeds are of today. Promises are as fickle as next year’s harvest.” She crooked a finger like a talon at the parson down the table. “ Merther, I will go up now. Give me your hand …”
When she had gone and the others had risen I walked out on my own for a breath of air before bed.
An unfair estimate, that of an old and sick woman whose temperament for years had leaned towards the melancholic. Killigrews had fought for the Lancastrian cause; they had had difficult times under Mary and one at least had lived in exile during her reign. Yet there was a ring of truth about a part of her accusation. Most of them lived on the surface of life, like fish snapping at passing flies. And when they got hooked they were deeply injured men, harshly done to by the world.
Illegitimacy had not saved me from this prevailing flaw.
On the steps below the gate-tower leading to our quay a man was fishing; it was Dick Stable. I sat with him for a while. It was a chill night but my cloak was proof against the light easterly wind. Dick had caught five mackerel and an eel. He told me he and Meg were thinking of looking for something in Penryn. There was a vacancy in the granite quarries, and she might work on a farm nearby.
“Quarry work is heavy work, Dick, Go slow on your decisions. Why must you leave here?”
“We may well get turned off, Master Maugan. We b’lieve the new Mrs Killigrew have no taking for the old servants; she d’ want new ones like the two she brought, see.”
“It’s not nice to feel you might go. Enough of my old friends have already left.”
“Well, you be leavin’ yourself, Master Maugan. There’ll be few enough to care whether we stay or go.”
I had no answer for that, so we sat a while in silence.
“You be leavin’ to marry, I’m told?”
There had always been a slight constraint between us, ever since he had challenged me about Meg, and although they seemed happy enough now I fancied there were little glances of anxiety from Dick whenever he saw me talking to his wife.
“Yes … Next month. Then for a while at least we shall live in London. It is Mistress Susanna Reskymer—Farnaby that was. She came here once; I don’t suppose you will remember her.”
“Oh, yes, but I rightly do! Twas the Christmas of all the festivities, when I was Lord of Misrule.” He sighed. “Dear life, that seem a long time past! How many year? Yes, I remember Mistress Farnaby—slim she is, wi’ black hair and bright eyes. I trust, sur, you’ll be very ’ appy.”
“Thank you, Dick, I pray so.”
He put his line down and gathered the mackerel together. They glinted in the faint starlight like serpentine rock.
“Yes, I remember, twas the July twelvemonth following that I seen Mistress Farnaby in Truro. Twas the day after you come back from Spain when we’d all give ee up for dead. She were that glad to know different; that’s the last time I seen her. What year’d that be? Twould be ’94. Dear life, tis nigh on four years I been married to Meg!”
The boat which had brought Hannibal Vyvyan across was bobbing gently at the jetty below us. The water made little sibilant sounds like fish whispering.
I said: “You have your dates wrong there. It was July ’94 when I came back.”
“Yes, sur, that’s what I said.”
“Then it could not have been July 1594 when you saw Mistress Farnaby.”
“Yes. Yes, twas. See. You came back on a Sunday eve. I mind it well. I been sharpening the scythes for the hay-making on the morrow. Then I went bed and twas Meg woke me to tell me you was in the ’all safe and sound. Then the next day twas wet again—you mind what a summer that was—so Thomas Rosewarne he says, go you into Truro along wi’ Rose and get the axle pins for the old cart that broke down Saturday. So we went for the axle pins and in the end for a pile of other things the ladies wished for. When we come Truro the rain were lifting off a bit and I seen Mistress Farnaby stepping out o’ that little mercer’s there used to be alongside of the church. She were by herself, so, presumin’ as you might say, I takes off me cap and tells her you come home safe and well the night afore!”
The last light went out in the fort across the river mouth. All the coastline opposite was black. A cloud had moved up and only a faintest glimmer showed on the water.
“What did she say?”
“Oh, she were fair pleased. Quite overcome at first, I mind well, she was that startled, like. Then she were fair joyful to ’ear you was back.”
“Why didn’t you tell me you’d met her?”
“Why, sur, I never thought. We was telling everyone!”
“Yes. I suppose you were.” I got up. There were lights in the house behind me, but I did not count them. “I think you must have made a mistake, Dick.”
“Please?”
“A mistake in identity …” I licked my lips. “Or someone has made a mistake. Let us not talk about it any more.”
Chapter Ten
I went by river to Tolverne but she had just left for London. I did not see Thomas, who was out hunting.
Gertrude said: “ She’ll be sorry to have missed you, Maugan, but you did not say you were coming, did you? I thought the understanding was that you were to meet in London.”
“Yes. Yes it was.”
“Is something wrong? Can I help in any way?”
“No … No, nothing’s wrong, Gertrude, thank you. I just—came to see her.”
“Maugan, dear, I’m very happy for you both. She told me in confidence before she left.”
“Oh, she told you.”
“Yes. Should she not have?”
“No … But I thought she might not have.”
“You know—did you know?—that Thomas also asked her to marry him.”
“Yes.”
“I’m glad she chose as she did. But I don’t think there was any doubt, was there?”
“Who can say? Thomas has property and an assured position.”
“Oh, I think he’ll do big things; but he has not made an ideal brother-in-law and I would not wish to be his wife.”
“What shall you do now, Gertrude?”
“Stay here with Lady Arundell and Elizabeth until the spring. Then I shall go home for the summer. After that …” She shrugged.
“You’ll marry again, no doubt.”
“Oh … perhaps, some day. Marriage is such a lottery, Maugan.”
“Yes,” I said.
At Arwenack preparations now to leave quickly while there was still no room for second thoughts. To leave before the clash occurred between Jane and Lady Killigrew, before more creditors came with more legal sanctions, before the dogs were drowned. I was ready by the 10th but Odelia delayed and it was the 13t
I was glad of the preoccupation of having Odelia to look after. In leaving home she seemed as cool as the easterly wind that blew, but later in the day I saw tears on her cheeks. So at Totnes I spent an extra day with the Billingsleys in order that she should not feel too strange with them.
Thence to Sherborne no company but my own, no thoughts but my own. Grey thoughts they were, with a thread of scarlet.
I had come to see Sir Walter, but he was in London on some committee in Parliament. I supped and slept there, uncomfortable in answering Elizabeth Ralegh’s questions. George Chapman was there and Carew Ralegh and Lawrence Keymis. Keymis told me that although his voyage to Guiana in ’96 had not yielded what he had hoped, he now had better information as to the whereabouts of the great city of Manoa and Lake Parima with its extensive gold mines. Unfortunately, now that Sir Walter had been re-appointed to his old position as Captain of the Queen’s Guard, it seemed unlikely that he would be able to get away. It was even possible that Sir Walter might be appointed Lord Deputy of Ireland in succession to Lord Borough.
This is the man, I thought, Sue will not let me follow because he is a waning star. (Or one of such magnitude that hers is outshone?)
I stayed with my uncle Sir Henry, and the first morning went to see my father. He was still in the same cell though his companions, had changed; he was thinner and his clothes were torn and infested with vermin; his hair and moustache had not been cut; he stank foully. He complained bitterly of his treatment and the closeness of his confinement. The cold and cough he had brought with him from Cornwall was still troubling him and he was convinced he was developing his mother’s asthma. He had written to the Queen and six times to Cecil but so far without response.
The faithful Rosewarne came each day bringing a few pence and perhaps an item or two of food; but Mr Killigrew was bitter that his two sons Thomas and Henry had only been to see him twice since November.
He eagerly read the letter that I brought from his wife and expressed a sudden desire to see her again. Could it not be arranged that Mrs Killigrew should come to London?
Before I left I saw Thomas Rosewarne, and tried to understand and help unravel the tangled skein of my father’s financial affairs. Rosewarne had drawn up an account of his present position, but all was now so involved with cross claims and petitions that I could see no way out of it all. His largest creditor after the Queen was Henry Lok, the mercer, who had advanced Mr Killigrew several thousand pounds on the flimsiest security. Now Henry Lok had himself been attached by other creditors for having underwritten bonds issued by Mr Killigrew. Lok, for his part, was petitioning for some land in Devonshire belonging to my father which the Queen had now seized, and a Nicholas Athol was cross-petitioning and applying for a lease. Other land and property was the subject of suits in the Court of Wards. In all it seemed likely that my father’s true indebtedness would be upward of £20,000.
Years after—so many that it is hard to think of them all—I came across some old papers of that time; among them letters of my father to Sir Robert Cecil complaining grievously of his treatment; and one from my stepmother to Mr Killigrew written in April of that year. Since then through many vicissitudes I have kept this letter by me, wrinkled and yellow with age and stained and almost falling apart.
“Dear Husband,
I received your letters by Thomas Rosewarne, wherein you spoke of your want of money. Sorry indeed I am, but help you more I cannot. I have sent to your tenants according to your directions, but none will come near me, neither do I know by what means to get you any money. For I have passed all that I ever had or can make shift for. Good Mr Killigrew, know how poor you left me.
But nevertheless I have taken order by this bearer that you shall receive ten pounds. My extremities are many, but I will use the best means I may and send you what I can glean—I have written to you of all your business, and now, as for my coming, I am not able because of my greatness with child; therefore I must content myself with my misfortunes. I pray for your early release.
From Arwenack, 18th April, 1598.
Dorothy Kylygreue.”
Old letters always have a pathos; seeing these after so many years brings back that time with poignancy. Perhaps not so much for my father whose fate was not exceeded by his deserts, but for poor Dorothy Killigrew and for all that time of youth and striving and the stress of a life now gone for ever.
I had Sue’s address in Pancras but at first could not bring myself to go. I spent most of each day with Thomas, who had found other lute players to his taste, and often they would meet in the upper room of an inn and talk and play together. I went with him there and closed my mind.
After a week I addressed a letter to Mistress Amelia Reskymer, asking if I might call. I felt this the moment for formality. Then at last I waited on Lord Henry Howard.
He received me in the same room as before. With him was another man, younger but pale and thin with a long face and narrow clever mouth turning down to meet declivities in the shaven cheeks. No page boy with a lute, but the room was again heavy with scent.
“Ah,” said Lord Henry, “this is the young Killigrew I spoke of. I think I may come to employ him.”
“Why?” said the other, and began to polish his nails. He wore soft Spanish leather boots and more jewels on his hands than the Queen.
“Why?” said Lord Henry, seeming a trifle nonplussed by the inquiry.
“Yes. I always believe in asking myself that question. It sharpens the reason … Killigrew. We may be distantly related. My formidable but saintly mother is the sister of Sir Henry Killigrew’s first wife.”
“Indeed, sir.” For a moment I had looked into pale hazel eyes quite like a snake’s. Not unfriendly, not unlively, but slightly unhuman.
“Why may I employ him?” said Lord Henry. “Because he has a knowledge of Spanish and war and diplomacy. And he has a sharp and ready wit.”
“Wit Lord Henry says you have. Is that true?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
“Wit, Killigrew, is like a surgeon’s knife: it cuts away ill-humours, but a shade heavy handed and the patient bleeds to death.”
Lord Henry chuckled and offered snuff; the other refused. “ I believe,” said Lord Henry, “that I took some fancy to employ this young man because I detect in him qualities I find in myself. I had your letter, Killigrew. I take it you can attend on me if need be from now on?”
“Yes, my lord. I have some business to see to, but that can be adjusted to your demands.”
“Well, leave your address. You have rooms?”
“I am staying with my uncle this month but I shall be seeking other accommodation as I am shortly to be married.”
The younger man winced fastidiously.
Lord Henry said: “Does the word offend you, Francis?”
“Only in retrospect, my dear friend. Last year as you know, by a margin as narrow as a bootlace, I missed that El Dorado of all men’s dreams. Since when regret and relief have walked constantly beside me, the first by day and the second by night … Dolor decrescit ubi quo crescat non habet.”
Lord Henry snickered. “ I had not thought you so full of sentiment.”
“Well, marriage would have cured my greatest illness, which is a deep consumption of the purse.” The snake eyes glanced a second time at me, not to see if I were amused but to search suddenly into my brain and thoughts. “ But, then, I have resolved not to regret, for the sting and remorse of a mind accusing itself of failure doubles all adversity. Even penury has its compensations.”
“My lord,” I said, “ I’ll not intrude further. Will you give me a time to wait on you, or will you send a message to Lothbury?”
“Monday,” said Lord Henry. “Next Monday there is an opportunity to write some letters for me. After that daily unless warned otherwise. Pull the cord beside you. Claude will see you out.”
As I went down the stairs in the company of the insolent Claude I said: “ He who was with Lord He
“Mr Bacon. A member of Parliament and a lawyer.” The boy gave his hair a toss in a way I have only seen women do before. “If you come to this house you will see him much. Are you coming to this house?”
“Daily I think.”
“For what purpose?”
“That has to be decided.”
“Oh, among the secrets, eh? There are all manner of secrets here, but one by one I split them open. It is a hobby I have.”
“I wish you fortune,” I said as I left.
At home was a letter.
“My beloved,
I send this by your returning messenger so that no more time be lost. My sister-in-law asks me to invite you for tomorrow at ten in the morning. If we do not hear to the contrary we shall expect you. I long to see you.
All my love, Sue.”
Pancras is a hamlet about three miles from London and straddles the road to Northampton where it runs beside the Fleet Ditch. Miss Reskymer owned a farm and was a small active person unlike her brother. She greeted me and then discreetly left me alone with Sue.
Well, the desire for a woman is not altered by one’s suspicions of a kind of betrayal, by discoveries about her character, by reservations as to the sort of marriage one may be going into. Desire for a particular woman is a fundamental physical sensation, born of one’s animal nature, and so—the Puritans would tell us—to be despised; but it is no less potent for that, no less alluring for that. After I had kissed her I looked at her closely thinking, why these eyes?—I have seen more beautiful, though none brighter—why these lips?—Mariana’s were fuller, Meg’s more innocent—why this hair, lank and uncurling?; the bone structure of cheek and neck?—there are better. But to me these are infinitely, carnally desirable. If men are admired for risking their lives for a woman, why should they not risk the imponderables of principle and conscience?