DON PEDRO’S LETTER
/Don Pedro/ was treated at Trevanion Chase with all the consideration
due to an honoured guest, and this in a house famed for its
hospitality despite the apparently inhospitable character of its
master.
Lord Garth’s revenues were by far the greatest of any nobleman in the
West of England; his personal expenditure was insignificant; and he
gave little thought or care to the manner in which his considerable
wealth was laid out by his steward Francis Trevanion, an impoverished
cousin upon whom he had bestowed the office, and Howard Martin, the
chamberlain grown old in his service. He trusted these men implicitly,
not so much because they were trustworthy or because his own nature
was trustful, as because by trusting them he was relieved of those
economic cares and minor domestic details which he regarded as the
troublesome necessary futilities of life. His wealth was more than
abundant for all that his station might require of him in his
household, and whilst of an intense personal frugality, he had no
desire that any economy should be practised, regarding such practices,
indeed, as an irritating waste of things infinitely more valuable than
money.
What the Lady Margaret required for herself or considered should be
provided for another, she had merely to signify either to Francis
Trevanion or to Martin, according to the nature of the requirement.
She was invariably obeyed without question.
By her orders now a servant was appointed to minister to the personal
wants of Don Pedro; their guest was provided with fresh linen and what
else he lacked for his bodily comfort, and he was afforded a spacious
chamber in the southwest wing of the mansion, whence he had a fine
view of the downs and the sea, that accursed sea which had played the
traitor to him and his fellow countrymen.
To this chamber Don Pedro was confined for a week by a fever which
attacked him on the very evening of his arrival, as a very natural
result of all that lately he had undergone. This fever raged so
furiously in the course of the next two days that a doctor was fetched
from Truro to attend him.
Thus the fact of his presence at Trevanion Chase became bruited abroad
and afforded presently matter for sensational discussion in every
hamlet between Truro and Smithwick. Soon there were rumours--false
rumours--of other Spaniards who had come ashore alive from that
galleon, whose wreckage had supplied active and in some instances
profitable occupation to the locality, and extravagant stories went up
and down the countryside.
The constable came from Truro to pay Lord Garth a visit. He accounted
it his duty to inquire into this affair and to suggest to his lordship
that it behoved him to lay the matter before the justices.
His lordship was contemptuous of the justices, and arrogantly unable
to perceive how anything that happened at Trevanion Chase could be the
concern of any but himself. In some respects his outlook was almost
feudal. Certainly nothing could have been more remote from his
intentions than to seek the justices in this or any other matter.
He expressed himself in some such terms. He adopted a judicial tone.
He admitted the presence at Trevanion Chase of a Spanish gentleman who
had come ashore from the wreck. But as this coming ashore could not be
regarded in the light of an invasion or as a hostile act against the
peace of the realm, he was not aware of any statutory enactments under
which the justices might take proceedings against Don Pedro. In any
case, however, Don Pedro had formally surrendered himself to the Lady
Margaret; he was virtually a prisoner at Trevanion Chase, and his
lordship accepted whatever responsibility this might entail, and
denied the right of anyone to demand of him an account of his actions
in this or any other matter.
He was by no means certain that the right did not exist; but he
thought that the surest way of saving himself trouble was to deny its
existence. To clinch his arguments he presented the constable with a
crown and sent him to the kitchen to get drunk.
No sooner was he rid of the constable than he was plagued by Sir John
Killigrew, who came to express the unsolicited opinion that this
Spanish gentleman should be sent to the Tower to join there his
distinguished compatriot Don Pedro Valdez.
His lordship began to experience exasperation. If he refrained from
heat, it was because manifestations of heat were foreign to his
nature. But he did not mince matters in pointing out to Sir John that
he considered the subject of the visit an unwarrantable intrusion, and
that he was well able to take order about Don Pedro without advice or
assistance from his neighbours. He condescended, however, to explain
that Don Pedro’s case was rather exceptional; he deserved some
consideration out of regard for his father’s attitude towards the
Queen in the old days. In this, his lordship asserted confidently,
there were at least a score of gentlemen still in England who would
support him. Sir John withdrew defeated, to face his kinsman Gervase,
who had inspired the visit, and to explain to him its failure.
‘After all, it is his own affair. The responsibility lies with him,’
said Killigrew, with an airy tolerance very different from the
patriotic indignation in which he had set out. ‘One Spaniard more or
less is no great matter when all is said, and there’s no mischief for
the fellow’s hands here in Cornwall.’
Sir Gervase did not at all agree with him. He denounced the whole
thing as outrageous. At best it was an untidy business, and the young
seaman liked things shipshape and in their proper places. The proper
place for Don Pedro de Mendoza y Luna in his opinion was the Tower.
His hostility to the Spaniard was increased, if not indeed entirely
begotten by the attitude towards himself which her ladyship had taken
up concerning the fellow. He failed entirely to perceive that it was
his own rather boyish self-sufficiency and almost arrogant assumption
of authority which had piqued her into this attitude.
Considering himself affronted by her disregard, he allowed the days to
pass without attempting to approach her. But he had news of her--of
her and her prisoner--which did not at all lessen his indignation.
The neighbouring gentry accepted the fact of the Spaniard’s presence
at Trevanion Chase with an equanimity that appalled him. From the
Godolphins, the Tregarths, and the younger Tressilian he actually
heard the man’s graces, wit, and accomplishments extolled. This when
Don Pedro’s fever had abated and he was once more abroad, and being
treated--as the reports showed--as an honoured guest. What Sir Gervase
overlooked in permitting himself to be fretted by these reports was
the fact that the aim of those fribbles was deliberately to stab him
by them, and so avenge the hurt to their mean selves proceeding from
the honours which had given him an ascendancy over them.
So Gervase sulked at Arwenack and gave his mind ostensibly to matters
concerned with the fitting of his ship as if no Lady Margaret existed,
until one morning, some twelve days after Don Pedro’s coming, a groom
rode over from the Chase with a note from her ladyship in which she
inquired the reason of Sir Gervase’s protracted absence and required
him to come in person that very day and explain it to her. That he had
registered the irrevocable resolve of sailing for the Indies without
seeing her again did not prevent him from instantly obeying the
summons of that note, little suspecting that it was in the interest of
Don Pedro that his presence and services were required.
The fact was that with the recovery of his strength Don Pedro’s mind
turned naturally enough to the recovery of his liberty and to his
repatriation. He approached the matter skilfully and delicately as he
did all things.
‘There is,’ he informed her ladyship, ‘a matter of some urgency to be
discussed between us, which only my condition has suffered me to
postpone until now.’
They had lingered at the breakfast-table when the meal was over and
after his lordship and Francis Trevanion had withdrawn. The latticed
windows stood open, for the weather was still warm. Don Pedro, facing
them, could look out from his seat at the table upon the long stretch
of smooth green lawn, brilliant as enamel in the morning sunshine, to
the cluster of larches which cast a black shadow along its farther
edge.
The Lady Margaret looked up quickly, her attention arrested by the
unusual gravity of his tone. He answered the question of that glance.
‘It becomes necessary that as my captor your ladyship should settle
the ransom that is due.’
‘The ransom?’ She frowned a little in surprise and perplexity. Then
she laughed. ‘I don’t perceive the necessity.’
‘It exists, my lady, none the less, and it is for you to state the
sum. And let me add that to state a light one were to pay me a poor
compliment.’
Her perplexity increased. Her thoughtful eyes seemed to be pondering
the table of dark oak with its strip of white napery and the crystal
and silver glistening upon it. This, she thought, was to push the
comedy a little far. At last she said so.
‘Though I accepted your surrender when you made it, because… because,
forsooth, it seemed a pretty thing to do, yet in reality you are to
account yourself no more than our guest.’
A smile flickered over the narrow, handsome face. ‘Ah, no!’ he cried.
‘Do not commit the error of assuming that I am no more than that, nor
the imprudence of announcing it. You must bethink you that, if I am
your guest, you are guilty of harbouring me, of affording me shelter.
You are surely aware that there are heavy penalties already for
harbouring Catholics, and no doubt there will be added ones for
harbouring Spaniards who have been in arms against England. For your
own sake as much as for mine, then, let it be quite clear that I am
your prisoner, and that it is as your prisoner that I abide here. You
will remember, too, that you are committed to it by what you told Sir
Gervase on the morning of my surrender to you. Without that assurance
from you and from his lordship, Sir Gervase would have taken me, and I
do not care to think how it might have fared with me. I know that
sooner than be dragged into some public place, I must have withstood
arrest by him; and since he was armed on that occasion with a
fowling-piece, it is more than likely he would have shot me. You will
see, then, when all this is considered, that honour will not permit me
to owe my life and safety to a subterfuge.’
It was, of course, a piece of sophistry; for none was more aware than
himself that the very nature of his arrest was in itself a subterfuge.
The argument, however, sufficed to deceive her, and she confessed to
herself that it was unassailably sound.
‘I understand,’ she said. ‘All this being so, and since you insist,
yourself you shall name your ransom.’
He smiled mysteriously, thoughtfully fingering the long pearl-drop in
his right ear.
‘Be it so,’ he said at length. ‘Depend upon it, my lady, that I shall
do myself the fullest justice. It remains now for you to lend me your
aid so that I may procure this ransom.’
‘Ah, yes?’ She laughed now, thinking that here surely he must find
himself completely baffled.
But he was to reveal the unfailing quality of his resource which
already had found a way. He leaned forward across the board. ‘I will
write a letter, and it will be for you to see that it is carried.’
‘For me?’
He explained himself. ‘From the estuary below, from Smithwick and
elsewhere fishing yawls and other such craft are daily putting out to
sea. It is amongst these that we must find a messenger to bear my
letter. It is in this that of necessity I must depend upon your
ladyship.’
‘You think I could prevail upon an English seaman to make a Spanish
port at such a time as this?’
‘That were, of course, a ludicrous suggestion, and I am not being
ludicrous. I am earnest. All is well between England and France, and
my letter shall be addressed to one who is known to me in the port of
Nantes. The rest we may leave to him. He will forward it to its
ultimate destination.’
‘You have it all thought out!’ said she, eyeing him almost
mistrustfully.
He rose, slim and very elegant in his Spanish clothes, which the care
of the efficient Martin had restored to their pristine quiet
splendour. ‘Could I suffer myself to remain indefinitely a burden upon
your noble hospitality?’ he protested, his attitude one of dismay at a
thought that did him wrong: but his eyes very watchful of her.
She laughed quite freely at that, and rose in her turn. On the gravel
outside she had caught the approaching crunch of hooves, and knew the
sound to herald the approach of groom and falconer. They were to ride
that morning on the open moorland, and Don Pedro was to see for
himself how hawks are trained in England.
‘A courtly dissimulation of your haste to leave us,’ she rallied him.
‘Ah, not that!’ he exclaimed with a sudden fervour. ‘It is not
charitable to think so of me, who am so little master of my
destinies.’
She turned her shoulder to him, and looked out of the window. ‘Here is
Ned with the horses, Don Pedro.’
A slow smile lifted a little his black moustaches as he considered the
back of her neat head. He thought he detected annoyance in her when
she discovered how maturely he had considered his plans for removing
himself. Her manner had turned frosty, and her subsequent laughing
indifference had been so much feminine dissimulation to cover her
self-betrayal. Thus reasoned Don Pedro and took satisfaction in this
reasoning. It received a check when, as they rode that morning, she
told him that, if he would write his letter, she thought she knew of a
channel by which it could be set upon its journey. After her flash of
resentment at his intentions, he had hardly expected such ready
acquiescence in measures which were to lead to his ultimate departure.
Thus it fell out that on the morrow, when he had written his
letter--couched in Latin so that it might baffle any vulgar person who
might be tempted to investigate its contents--she despatched her
little note to Sir Gervase.
He came at once, arriving at eleven, just as they were sitting down to
dine, for they kept country hours at Trevanion Chase. At table he had
leisure to observe for himself the courtly grace, the urbane charm,
and ready, easy wit which had been reported to him of Don Pedro. And
as if perceiving the tactical error of his earlier downrightness where
the Spaniard was concerned and seeking to make amends, he employed
towards him a studied courtesy which Don Pedro returned with interest.
When dinner was done, and the Earl had withdrawn in strict accordance
with his inveterate habit, her ladyship desired Sir Gervase to come
and admire with her the last of the year’s roses. Sir Gervase, asking
nothing better, departed with her, leaving Don Pedro and Francis
Trevanion alone at table.
There were certain harsh truths she was to hear from Sir Gervase by
way of chastisement upon which forgiveness would follow the more
sweetly. But as they paced her rose-garden, enclosed within tall and
trimly cut hedges of yew to shelter the blooms from the sea gales, she
adopted towards him so distracting and unusual an air of shyness that
the remnants of his ill-humour were dissipated unuttered, and all the
ill things he had rehearsed to tell her were forgotten.
‘Where have you tarried all these days, Gervase?’ she asked him
presently, and by this question, for which once he had hoped so that
he might return one of the dozen scathing answers he had prepared,
flung him into some slight confusion.
‘I have had affairs,’ he excused himself. ‘The fitting of my ship has
engaged me closely with Sir John. And then… I did not think that you
would be needing me.’
‘Do you come only when you think you are needed?’
‘Only when I think I am welcome, which is much the same thing.’
She gasped. ‘The unkind imputation!’ she cried. ‘You are welcome,
then, only when you are needed? Fie!’
His confusion increased. As usual, she was putting him in the wrong
where he knew that he was right.
‘There was your Spaniard here to beguile your leisures,’ he said
gruffly, angling for a contradiction.
‘A courtly person, is he not, Gervase?’
‘Oh, courtly enough!’ he growled impatiently.
‘I find him vastly diverting. There is a man who has seen the world.’
‘Why, so have I. Was I not with Drake when he sailed…?’
‘Yes, yes. But the world I mean, the world of his knowledge, is
different from yours, Gervase.’
‘The world is the world,’ said Gervase sententiously. ‘And if it comes
to that, I’ve seen a deal more of it than ever has he.’
‘Of the savage world, yes, Gervase. His knowledge is of the civilized,
cultured world, as his person shows. He has been to all the courts of
Europe and is learned in their ways and in many other ways. He speaks
all the languages of the world, and plays the lute like an angel, and
sings… Shouldst hear him sing, Gervase! And he…’
But Gervase had heard enough, and interrupted her. ‘How long does he
abide here, this marvel of the ages?’
‘Only a little while longer, I fear.’
‘You fear?’ Disgust ineffable rang in his voice.
‘What have I said?’ she wondered. ‘Have I angered you, Gervase?’
He snorted impatiently and strode on, planting his feet with ferocity.
For all that he had sailed with Drake, seen much of the world and
learnt many things, there had been few opportunities upon that voyage
to study the tortuous ways of woman.
‘What are you going to do with him?’ he asked. ‘Has your father
reached a resolve?’
‘It is no concern of my father’s. Don Pedro is my prisoner. I am
holding him to ransom, and he shall go home so soon as the ransom
comes.’
This first took him by surprise, then afforded him some slight matter
for mirth.
‘If you are waiting for that, there’s no ground for your fears that
he’ll soon be leaving you.’
‘You make too sure. He has writ a letter to a man in Nantes, who will
proceed to Spain to obtain the ransom.’
Sir Gervase was utterly discourteous. ‘Bah!’ he sneered. ‘It would
become you better to send to Truro for the constable and deliver Don
Pedro up to the law of the land.’
‘And is that all you’ve learnt of the usages of chivalry in your
sailings with Sir Francis Drake? I think you had better sail again and
travel farther.’
‘Chivalry!’ said he. ‘Moonshine!’ Then from futile contempt he turned
again to more practical considerations. ‘He has writ a letter, you
say. And who’s to carry the letter?’
‘That is a difficulty, of course. He perceives it himself.’
‘Oh, he does, does he? He must, indeed, be a man of perceptions. He
can actually see an object when it stands before him. There’s
discernment!’ And Sir Gervase laughed, well pleased to have found this
weakness in the Spaniard’s equipment.
He was less pleased when Margaret pointed out the consequence. They
had come to the end of the enclosed garden, to a semi-circular stone
seat that was half-recessed into the thick yew hedge. With a sigh of
resignation, she seated herself.
‘He bides here for ever, then, it seems!’ She sighed again. ‘A pity! I
am sorry for him, poor gentleman. To be a prisoner in a foreign land
can be no enviable fate. It is like being a thrush in a cage. But
there! We will ease his condition all we can, and for myself I am well
content that he should remain. I like his company.’
‘Oh, you like his company? You confess to that?’
‘What woman would not? He is a man whom most women would find
adorable. I was lonely until he came, with my father always at his
books, and no one to bear me company but such foolish fellows as
Lionel Tressilian, Peter Godolphin, or Ned Tregarth. And if you are
going a-sailing again, as you say you are, I shall soon be lonely once
more.’
‘Margaret!’ He was leaning over her, in his eyes all the ardour
aroused by that unusual confession.
She looked up at him, and smiled with some tenderness. ‘There! I’ve
said it! I didn’t mean to say so much.’
He slipped into the seat beside her and put his arm about her
shoulders.
‘You understand, Gervase, don’t you, that I should desire to keep so
welcome a companion as Don Pedro by me?’ His arm fell away as if it
had been water. ‘I mean when you are gone, Gervase. You wouldn’t have
me lonely. Not if you love me.’
‘This is to consider,’ said he.
‘What is to consider?’
He sat forward now, his elbows on his knees. ‘This letter that he has
written: what exactly did he hope from it?’
‘Why, his ransom and the means to return to Spain.’
‘And he had no thought of how it might be got to Nantes?’
‘Oh, yes. He thought the skipper of some yawl or fishing boat might
carry it. His difficulty lay in inducing such a skipper to do him this
service. But no doubt Don Pedro’s wits will find a way. He’s very
shrewd and resourceful, Gervase, and he…’
‘Yes, yes,’ said Gervase. ‘Perhaps I can save him trouble.’
‘You, Gervase? What trouble can you save him?’
He got to his feet abruptly. ‘Where is this letter?’
She considered him round-eyed. ‘Why, what now? What is the letter to
you, Gervase?’
‘I’ll find a skipper to carry it to Nantes. It shall be there within a
week at most. Another week or two to get his ransom here, and he may
go his ways again to Spain or to the devil.’
‘Would you really do so much for him, Gervase?’ said her innocent
ladyship.
Gervase smiled grimly. ‘Get me the letter. I know of a boat that sails
with the tide to-night, and if the price will warrant it her skipper
will even run to the Loire.’
She rose. ‘Oh, the price will warrant it. Fifty ducats for the bearer,
to be delivered to him against the letter by the person to whom it is
addressed.’
‘Fifty ducats! ’Sdeath! He’s a wealthy man, this Spaniard!’
‘Wealthy? His wealth is incalculable. He is a Grande of Spain. The
half of the Asturias are his property and he has vast vineyards in
Andalusia. He is a nephew of the Cardinal-Archbishop of Toledo, he
possesses the close friendship of the King of Spain, and…’
‘To be sure, to be sure,’ said Gervase. ‘Get me this letter, and leave
the rest to me.’
He could be depended upon to act zealously in the matter, for by now
no one could have been more completely persuaded than Sir Gervase
Crosby of the propriety of speeding so illustrious, wealthy,
accomplished, highly connected, and attractive a gentleman from
Trevanion Chase.