SIR GERVASE
/On/ a fair August day, Mr. Crosby made one of a numerous company
assembled in a spacious panelled chamber of the Palace of Whitehall.
It was a day of calm, and of blue skies, delusive interlude in the
fury of the weather which had lately turned stormy, with frequent
tempests that shook the earth and the heavens and made seamen thankful
that they had turned back when they did from the pursuit of the
Spaniards, and so had brought their ships in safety to the Thames
before the change set in.
The sun shone radiantly through the leaded panes of the tall windows
overlooking the river and the palace steps, where the barges were now
moored which had brought the Admiral and his numerous company to
answer the summons of the Queen of England.
Mr. Crosby, in mingled pride and awe to find himself in so
considerable and distinguished an assembly, looked about him with
interest. The room was hung with pictures, all of which were veiled;
there was an Eastern carpet of brilliant variegated colouring on a
square table by which he was standing in the room’s middle; against
the panelling were ranged some chairs, tall-backed and carved, each
bearing upon its scarlet velvet an escutcheon whereon the leopards of
England, or on gules, were quartered with the lilies of France, or on
azure.
These chairs were empty, all save one, which was taller and ampler
than the rest and equipped with arms which ended in carved and gilded
leonine heads.
In this chair, placed between two of the windows with its back to the
light, sat a woman whom at first glance you might have supposed an
Eastern idol, so bejewelled and bedizened was she. Her leanness was
dissembled by a bulging farthingale. Her red-raddled face was lean and
sharp, with a thin, aquiline nose and a very pointed, ill-tempered
chin. The darkness of her eyebrows had been supplied by a pencil, and
her lips were of a startling scarlet, in which Nature had no hand.
Above the brow, which was almost masculine in its loftiness and
breadth, towered a monstrous head-tire of false yellow hair in which a
bushel of strung pearls were interwoven. Rows upon rows of pearls
covered her neck and breast as if to supply again the pearly beauty
long since faded from her skin. From the summit of her gown a collar
of lace of the proportions of an enormous fan spread itself upright
behind her head. Pearls were slung from it; jewels blazed in it; more
jewels smouldered in her gown, a cloth-of-gold wrought with an uncanny
embroidery of green lizards. She made some play with a handkerchief
that was edged with gold lace, and this served two purposes: to
display a hand which, spared as yet by time, was extremely beautiful,
and to conceal her teeth whose ageing darkness no art could yet
dissemble for her.
Behind her and to right and left of her chair were ranged in line her
ladies-in-waiting, a dozen women of the noblest and loveliest in
England.
Mr. Crosby had heard the Queen described more than once by Lord Garth.
In painting the portrait of the lady whom his ill-fated friend had
loved, Roger Trevanion yielded to one of his few remaining
enthusiasms, and out of this it may be that he coloured the picture
overgenerously. Hence, and forgetting that forty years were sped since
the Earl of Garth had last beheld her, Mr. Crosby had entered the
august presence in expectation of a radiant vision of feminine beauty.
What he beheld dismayed him by its disparity with his mental portrait.
Her immediate supporters, too, added to the incongruity of the
picture. The one upon her left was a tall, lean gentleman all in
black. His sharp-featured countenance ended in a long white beard
which entirely failed to lend that crafty face a patriarchal air. This
was Sir Francis Walsingham. In ludicrous contrast with him stood the
Earl of Leicester on her right. Once reputed the handsomest man in
England, he was now corpulent and ungainly of body, inflamed and
blotchy of countenance. His gorgeous raiment and the arrogance with
which he carried his head served only to heighten the absurdity of his
aspect.
That the Queen did not find him absurd was instanced by the place he
occupied, and still more by the fact that the land forces of England
which were to have resisted Parma’s landing had been placed under the
Earl of Leicester’s supreme command. As a deviser and leader of
pageants, it is probable that he had not his equal in England, if,
indeed, in Europe. But it was fortunate for England and for Leicester
that English seamen had made it unnecessary for him to exercise those
talents in attempting to withstand the Prince of Parma.
With these same valiant English seamen was this assembly now
concerned. Lord Howard of Effingham, the Lord Admiral towering
straight and tall before the Queen, was rendering her a first-hand
account of those actions in the Channel which had delivered England
from the awful menace of Spain. His lordship was brisk and succinct in
his narrative. At moments too succinct to please Her Grace, who now
and again would arrest him to crave more details of this or a closer
explanation of that. This occurred when the Lord Admiral spoke of the
difficulty in which they found themselves when Medina Sidonia was at
anchor in French waters, and related that having made a close survey
of his position they sent in fire-ships to burn him out. He would have
swept on, with no more than that, to relate the morrow’s action, but
the Queen checked him in terms of his own trade.
‘God’s death, man! Haul down some of your sail. You drive so fast
before the wind that we cannot follow. This survey at close quarters,
how was it made? You have not told us that.’
He supplied the details in a silence of intense attention which may
have inspired him to a certain liveliness of phrase. The Queen
laughed. So did others, thrilled by the narrative of personal valour.
‘Faith,’ she told him, ‘you’re better as a sailor than a story-teller;
you leave out the choicest morsels.’ Then came a question that sent a
quiver through Mr. Crosby. ‘What was the name of the man who sailed
that pinnace?’
Gervase heard his own name. It terrified him. It seemed to his
straining ears that Lord Howard rolled it out in tones of thunder upon
the silence. He blushed like a girl, shifting uncomfortably on his
feet, and saw as if through a mist the faces of some of those of his
acquaintance who stood about him, as they now turned their heads to
give him a smile of friendly satisfaction. Then his thoughts flew to
Margaret. If only she could have been there to hear him named, she
must have accounted herself justified of her faith in him and her
promise to become his wife.
The Lord Admiral’s narrative drew to a close. The Queen pronounced it,
in a voice made sonorous by the depth of her emotion, as brave a tale
as the world had ever heard, and alluded to her thankfulness to God
for this good and prosperous success to those who had fought this
battle against the enemies of His Gospel. Not Spain alone, but England
too--and, from the results, with better justification--might account
herself the instrument of divine justice.
Followed the presentation by the Lord Admiral of the captains of the
fleet under his command and other officers who had distinguished
themselves in that great battle in the Channel. To each the Queen
spoke some words of commendation, whilst upon three of them she
bestowed the accolade with a sword supplied by the Earl of Leicester.
After that, Lord Howard’s place was taken by the Vice-Admiral Sir
Francis Drake upon whom devolved the duty of presenting the captains
and some other officers of the privateers, nearly all of them
West-Country gentlemen of family, many of whom had fitted ships at
their own charges. The sturdy seaman rolled forward on his short thick
legs as if a heaving poop were under his feet. He was resplendent in a
suit of white satin which gave his bulk the appearance of having been
suddenly increased. His beard was newly trimmed, his crisp brown hair
sedulously combed and oiled, and there were rings of pure gold in the
lobes of his close-set ears.
He bowed low, announced his purpose in a voice that was like a
trumpet-call, and began his presentations.
The first was a neighbour of Mr. Crosby’s, Oliver Tressilian of
Penarrow. He was half-brother to that Lionel Tressilian who came too
much to Trevanion Chase for Mr. Crosby’s peace of mind. But you would
have looked at the men in vain for evidence of relationship. Where
Lionel was fair and mincing, elegant, soft, and sleek as a woman, this
Oliver, tall, resolute, and swarthy, was of an almost overwhelming
maleness. His mien was commanding, his bearing proud to the point of
arrogance. To behold him as he made now his leisurely advance was to
recognize him for one born to mastership. And although still young,
his deeds already bore out the promise of his person. He had been
schooled in seamanship at the hands of Frobisher; he had come to the
support of Drake with a strong ship of his own, and to his audacity
and resource as much as to any other cause had been due the capture of
the Andalusian flagship, an event which early in the fight had put
such heart into the English seamen.
The Queen’s dark, short-sighted eyes conned him with unmistakable
admiration as he knelt at her footstool.
The sword flashed up and descended smartly upon his shoulder. ‘Such
men as you, Sir Oliver, are to be considered as persons born for the
preservation of the country.’ Those were the terms in which she dubbed
him knight.
None grudged him the honour. He was one for whom a great future was
predicted, and it was not to be foreseen that, by the wickedness of
men, the apparent inconstancy of his mistress, and finally the
operations of the Holy Office, the fame for which he was reserved was
to be won under the banner of Islam. As a Moslem corsair he was
destined to become one of the scourges of Christianity. It was a
destiny none could have prophesied as he rose proudly from his knees
that day, honoured and commended.
After him, one by one, came the other privateers. First the captains,
and then those lesser officers who had served with more than ordinary
distinction. And the first of these whom Sir Francis named was Gervase
Crosby.
He stood forth, tall and supple. He had dressed himself--or rather,
Killigrew had seen to it that he was dressed--in a brave suit of
murrey velvet, with slashed canions to his trunks and rosettes to his
shoes. He wore a short cloak in the Italian fashion, and a narrow
white ruff sharpened the outline of his face. Excessively young for a
man of his deeds he looked in his shaven beardlessness; for never
since Margaret’s condemnation of beards nearly a year ago had he
suffered the hair to grow upon his face.
The Queen’s dark eyes seemed to soften a little as they watched his
approach, and they were not the only feminine eyes that pondered him
with admiration. More than one of her maids-of-honour considered him
with interest.
He went down on his knees to kiss her hand, and she frowned almost in
perplexity as she surveyed the top of his head with its rippling
auburn hair worn close. Having kissed her beautiful hand, he would
have got to his feet again.
‘Here’s haste!’ said she in her gruff voice. ‘Kneel, child, kneel! Who
bade thee rise?’
Realizing his fault, he blushed to the nape of his neck and continued
kneeling. She turned to Sir Francis.
‘Is this he who went sailing in the pinnace among the Spanish ships in
Calais Roads?’
‘The same, Your Grace.’
She looked at Gervase again. ‘God’s death! Why, it’s a child!’
‘His age is older than his looks; and his deeds are older than his
age.’
‘They are so,’ she agreed. ‘By God, they are!’
Mr. Crosby was increasingly ill-at-ease and wished from his heart that
she would make an end of this. But she was not minded to make an end
just yet. His young comeliness gave his exploit a special heroism in
her feminine eyes, stirred a little enthusiasm in her intensely
feminine soul.
‘That was a brave thing you did,’ she told him gently, to be gruff
with him the next moment. ‘God’s death, child, look at me when I speak
to you.’ I suspect that she desired to see the colour of his eyes. ‘It
was as brave a thing as I’ve heard this day, and God knows a feast of
valour has been spread before me. Don’t you agree, Sir Francis?’
Sir Francis drew himself up a little from his deferentially bending
attitude.
‘He was schooled by me in seamanship, Madam,’ he replied, as who would
say: ‘What else do you expect from a pupil of that academy?’
‘It deserves, I think, some special mark of favour, both to reward it
and to encourage others to the like.’
And then, a bolt from the blue to him who had been very far from
expecting any guerdon, the flat of the sword smote him on the
shoulder, and the command to arise, so long delayed to his discomfort,
came in terms which made him realize that a man may be in too great
haste to rise from kneeling to a sovereign.
Standing, he marvelled that he had not earlier observed her singular
beauty; that upon his first glimpse of her he had wanted to laugh.
What, he wondered, could have ailed him?
‘God bless Your Majesty,’ he blurted out in his intoxication.
She smiled at him, and there was something wistful in the lines of her
ageing mouth and reddened lips. She was unusually gracious that day.
‘He has blessed me richly already, lad, in giving me subjects such as
these.’
He effaced himself after that, and went to join Oliver Tressilian, who
offered to carry him back to the Fal in his ship. Gervase was in haste
to return, to carry to the lady, whom he pictured waiting there, this
dazzling, bewildering news of his advancement. Drake permitting it,
and excusing him from the great thanksgiving service that was to be
held in Saint Paul’s, he departed on the morrow with Tressilian. Sir
John Killigrew, who had been in London during the past ten days, went
with them. Of the bitter feud that was later to mar the good relations
between Killigrew and Tressilian there was as yet no sign. Sir John,
moreover, was elated by the achievement of his young kinsman.
‘You shall have a ship of your own, boy, if I have to sell a farm to
fit it,’ he had promised him. ‘All I ask,’ he added, for with all his
generosity there was a practical mercenary streak in him, ‘is a
quarter share in the ventures you will undertake.’
That ventures were to be undertaken was readily assumed, as also that
they would be more than usually profitable now that the might of Spain
upon the seas had been so signally impaired. And this was the subject
of most of their talk during that voyage to the Fal on Sir Oliver’s
ship, the Rose of the World. He had named her so, it is to be
supposed, in honour of Rosamund Godolphin, whom he loved, and upon the
assumption--erroneous, I believe--that her name was a contraction of
Rosa Mundi.
On the last day of August, the Rose of the World rounded Zoze Point
and came to anchor in Carrick Roads.
Sir John and his kinsman took their leave of Tressilian and went
ashore at Smithwick to climb the heights to stately Arwenack, whence
on a clear day the view extended to the Lizard, fifteen miles away.
No sooner did they reach it than Gervase was away again. He would not
even stay to dine, although it was already past the hour of dinner.
Now that Tressilian was home, the news of events in London might reach
Trevanion Chase at any moment, and this was dangerous to the
satisfaction which Gervase hoped to derive from being the first to
announce to Margaret those details which concerned himself. Killigrew,
perceiving the reason of his haste, rallied him upon it, but let him
go, and sat down to dine alone.
Although the distance from door to door was less than two miles, the
properties adjoining, yet such was Gervase’s haste that he must call
for a horse, and ride it at the gallop.
In the avenue approaching the big red house with its tall, twisted
chimneys he found a groom in the blue livery of the Godolphins waiting
with three horses, and learned that Peter Godolphin and his sister
Rosamund, together with Lionel Tressilian, were at the Chase having
stayed to dine there. As it was already close upon three o’clock, they
would soon be leaving. Gervase was relieved. The sight of the waiting
horses had led him almost to fear that despite the haste he had made
he might have been forestalled.
He found them in the garden, even as on that day, two years ago, when
he had gone to the Chase to take his leave of Margaret. Then, however,
he had been an aspirant for fame. To-day he returned in the effulgence
of achievement. Success had crowned him, the Queen had knighted him.
His name would be repeated among Englishmen; it would be inscribed
upon the scroll of history. The memory of that accolade at Whitehall
invested Sir Gervase with a new assurance. The dignity of knighthood
had entered into his blood, was reflected in his bearing.
He sent ahead the servant who received him, to announce him.
‘Sir Gervase Crosby, may it please your ladyship.’
Thus did he break his news to them as he came briskly, in his brave
murrey suit, his head high, in the servant’s wake.
For a moment Margaret was breathless. The colour ebbed from her face
to come surging back on a flood tide. Amazement smote similarly her
three companions, those two gallants and the sister of one of them,
the gentle, fair-headed, saintly-looking Rosamund Godolphin, still a
child of not more than sixteen years, but already woman enough to have
fired the heart of the masterful elder Tressilian.
Gervase and Margaret looked at each other, and for a heartbeat may
have seen naught but each other. Had he found her alone, there can be
no doubt he would have taken her in his arms, as he accounted his
right by virtue of her last words to him at parting two years ago. The
unwelcome presence of those others compelled some measure of
circumspection. He must confine himself to taking her hand and,
bending low, content his lips with that as an earnest of more to come
anon when he should have driven out those intruders.
To this task he addressed himself from the outset.
‘I landed less than an hour ago on Pendennis Point,’ he announced,
that Margaret might judge for herself with what eager speed he had
sought her. He turned to the younger Tressilian. ‘Your brother brought
us back from London in his ship.’
Rosamund broke in with startled eagerness.
‘Oliver is home?’ It was the tall, slim girl’s turn to go pale and
breathless, whereat her handsome brother frowned. Although prudence
and expediency made him maintain a pretence of friendliness with the
Tressilians, there was no real love lost between him and them. He
found them in rivalry with him on every hand. His interests were
beginning to clash with theirs in the countryside, and he viewed with
anything but favour the affection which had sprung up between his
sister and the elder of them. There was an unpleasant surprise in
store for him from Gervase.
‘The Rose of the World,’ he said, answering the lady, ‘is anchored in
Carrick Roads, and Sir Oliver will be home by now.’
‘Sir Oliver!’ both men echoed in a breath. And Lionel repeated the
questioning exclamation: ‘Sir Oliver?’
Gervase smiled, almost with condescension, and hung upon his answer an
account of how he had received his own honours.
‘He was knighted by the Queen in the same hour as myself at Whitehall
on Monday last.’
Margaret stood with her arm about the waist of the willowy Rosamund.
Her own eyes sparkled, whilst Rosamund’s looked oddly moist. Lionel
frankly laughed his pleasure at his brother’s advancement. Peter
Godolphin alone saw here no cause for satisfaction. This thing would
make these Tressilians more insufferable than ever; it gave them an
unquestionable advantage over him in local influence. He sneered. He
was very ready always with his sneers.
‘Faith! Honours must have fallen thick as hail.’
Sir Gervase caught the sneer, but kept his temper. He met it by
assuming a still loftier condescension. He looked down his nose at Mr.
Godolphin.
‘Not quite so thickly, sir, and only where the Queen’s discernment
perceived them to be deserved.’ He might have let the matter lie upon
that reminder that to sneer at honours is to sneer at who bestows
them. But he pursued the matter a little farther. Pride in the
advancement which had come upon him so unexpectedly may have
intoxicated him a little, considering his youth. ‘I quote, I think,
Her Majesty, or if not Her Majesty at least Sir Francis Walsingham. I
will not swear which of them it was who said--but I know that it was
one of them--that England’s best made up the twenty thousand that
sailed out to meet and break the might of Spain. A score of
knighthoods, sir, comes to but one for every thousand. None so thick a
shower when all is said. Had every man been knighted, it would still
have been foolish to sneer at a measure which could but serve to
distinguish them hereafter from those who stayed at home and sheltered
themselves behind their valour.’
It made an awkward silence, and a little frown of perplexed annoyance
descended upon the brow of the Lady Margaret. Then Peter stiffly
answered him.
‘You use a deal of words, sir, to say a little, and your meaning is
obscured in verbiage.’
‘Will you have the marrow of it?’ wondered Sir Gervase.
‘In Heaven’s name, no!’ It was Margaret who spoke, a determined,
resolute Margaret. ‘We’ll have no more of this. My father, Gervase,
will be glad to see you. You’ll find him in the library.’
It was a dismissal, and deeming it unjust it made him angry. But still
he veiled his annoyance. He smiled quite pleasantly. ‘I’ll stay until
you are free to take me to him.’
Upon that, in secret resentment, and with the curtest of nods to
Gervase, the men took their leave, and Godolphin carried off his
sister with him.
When they had gone, the Lady Margaret looked at her lover with gloom
in her eyes and a wry little smile on her lips. Slowly she shook her
head at him. ‘It was ill done, Gervase.’
‘Ill done? God lack!’ To remind her of the cause, he mimicked Peter
Godolphin with an exaggerated simper. ‘“Faith! Honours must have
fallen thick as hail!” Was that well done? Am I to be rallied by any
popinjay for what my merits have earned me? Am I to kiss the rod of
his providing and turn the other cheek? Is that how you would have
your husband behave?’
‘My husband!’ said she, and stared at him. Then she laughed. ‘Remind
me, pray, of when it was I married you. I vow that I’ve forgot.’
‘You’ll not have forgot that you promised to marry me?’
‘I remember no such promise,’ said she in the same light tone.
He weighed the words rather than the manner. They set him breathing
hard, caused him to pale under his tan. ‘Will you go back on your
word, Margaret?’
‘And now you are unmannerly.’
‘I am concerned with more than pretty manners, madam.’ He was growing
vehement, overbearing, and she ever calm and cool, disliking vehemence
either in herself or others, began to be seriously annoyed. He
hectored on. ‘There was a promise you gave me in the hall, there, as I
was leaving: a promise that you would marry me.’
She shook her head. ‘As I remember it, my promise was that I would
marry no man but you.’
‘Why, what’s the difference?’
‘It lies in that I may keep that promise and yet keep to my intention
of following the Queen’s example and continuing all my days in my
maiden estate if I so choose.’
He turned it over in his mind. ‘And do you so choose?’
‘I must until I am persuaded to choose otherwise.’
‘How may you be persuaded?’ he demanded, almost challengingly, wounded
in his tenderest sensibilities and simmering with indignation at what
he must account an unworthy quibble. ‘How may you be persuaded?’
She looked him between the eyes, standing straight and tense.
‘Certainly not in any way that you’ve yet chosen to pursue,’ said she,
quite calm and cool and mistress of herself.
The elation in which he had come, the pride in his knightly rank so
newly attained, the swagger it had lent him, all fell from him now. He
had thought to dazzle her--and, indeed, to dazzle all the world--with
his honours and the echo of the deeds that had earned them.
Realization was so vastly different from his exalted expectations that
his heart turned to lead in his breast. The auburn head which he had
carried so proudly even at Whitehall was lowered at last. He
contemplated the ground. He became humble.
‘I’ll choose any way that you may desire for me,’ he said, ‘for I love
you, Margaret. To you I owe my knighthood, for the deeds that won it
me were inspired by you. In all I bore myself as if your eyes had been
upon me, with no thought save to do that which should give you pride
in me could you behold it. The reward I have won and all that may
follow upon this are naught to me unless you share them with me.’
He looked up, and saw that he had touched her, melted her a little
from the smooth hardness of her mood. She was smiling now with a hint
of tenderness. He set himself to follow up the advantage.
‘I vow you use me ill,’ he protested, and thus introduced again
contentious matters. ‘You give a chilly welcome to the eager haste in
which I seek you.’
‘You chose to be quarrelsome,’ she reminded him.
‘Was I not provoked? Was I not sneered at by that Godolphin whelp?’
Again he became impatient. ‘Is all that I do wrong and all that he
does right in your eyes? What is Mr. Godolphin to you that you espouse
his quarrels?’
‘He is my kinsman, Gervase.’
‘Which gives him licence to affront me. Is that your meaning?’
‘Shall we forget Mr. Godolphin?’ said she.
‘With all my heart!’ he cried; whereupon she laughed and took his arm.
‘Come and pay your duty to my father. You shall tell him of your fine
deeds upon the sea, and I will listen. I may be so beglamoured by the
tale as to forgive you everything.’
It did not seem to him in justice that he had need of forgiveness. But
he desired no more disputes.
‘And then, Margaret?’ he asked her eagerly.
She laughed again. ‘Lord, what a man it is for outracing time! Can you
not await the future in patience without ever seeking to foretell it?’
He looked at her in doubt a moment. Then he thought he read a
challenge in her eyes. He took the risk of acting upon it. He caught
her in his arms, and kissed her. And since she suffered it this time
without resentment, it would seem that he had read aright the
challenge.
They went in to disturb the studies of the Earl.