Beauvallet Page 3

  She had no quarrel with Dangerfield; she smiled upon him, enslaved him straightway, and sat her down at the table, unconcernedly fanning herself.

  There was a cheerful voice uplifted without, a strong masculine voice that had a ringing quality. One might always know when Sir Nicholas Beauvallet approached.

  He came in, apparently cracking some jest, escorting Don Manuel.

  Dominica surveyed him through her lashes. Even in dinted armour, with his hair damp with sweat, and his hands grimed with powder he had appeared to her personable. She saw him now transformed.

  He wore a purple doublet, slashed and paned, with great sleeves slit to show stitched linen beneath. A high collar clipped his throat about, and had a little starched ruff atop. Over it jutted his beard: none of your spade beards this, but a rare stiletto, black as his close hair. He affected the round French hosen, puffed about the thighs, and the nether-stocks known in England as Lord Leicester's since only a man with as good a leg as his might reasonably wear them. There were rosettes upon his shoon, and knotted garters, rich with silver lace, below his knees. Starched handruffs were turned back from his wrists; he wore a jewel on one long finger, and about his neck a golden chain with a scented pomander hanging from it.

  He entered, and his quick glance took in Dominica at the table. He swept her a bow, and showed his even white teeth in a smile that was boyish and swift, and curiously infectious. ‘Well, met, señora! Has my rogue seen to your comfort? A chair for Don Manuel, Diccon!’ The room seemed to be full of Sir Nicholas Beauvallet, a forceful presence.

  ‘I am ashamed to have stolen Señor Dangerfield's cabin from him,’ Dominica said, with a pretty smile bestowed upon Richard.

  He stammered a disclaimer. It was an honour, a privilege. Dominica, choosing to ignore Beauvallet at the head of the table, pursued a halting conversation with Dangerfield, exerting herself to captivate. No difficult task this: the lad looked with eyes of shy admiration already.

  ‘A strange, whimsical fellow ordered everything señor,’ she said. ‘I cry pardon: it was not I threw your traps out on to the alleyway! I hope the master was not so incensed as was the man?’

  Dangerfield smiled. ‘Ay, that would be Joshua, señora. My man's a fool, a dolt. He is greatly enraged against Joshua. You must understand, señora, that Joshua is an original. I dare say he boasted to you of Sir Nicholas’ exploits – always coupling himself with his master?’

  Dominica had nothing to say to this. Dangerfield plodded on. ‘It is his way, but I believe he is the only one of our company who takes it upon himself to censure his master. To the world he says that Sir Nicholas is second only to God; to Sir Nicholas’ self he says –’ he broke off, and turned a laughing, quizzical look on his chief.

  Sir Nicholas turned his head; Dominica had not thought that he was attending. ‘Ah, to Sir Nicholas’ self he says what Sir Nicholas’ dignity will not permit him to repeat,’ said Beauvallet, smiling. He turned back to Don Manuel, who had broken off in the middle of a sentence.

  ‘Your servant did not seem to hold him in so great esteem as he holds himself, señor,’ said Dominica.

  ‘Ah, no, señora, but then he threw my clothes out into the alley.’

  ‘I doubt it was dusty,’ Dominica said demurely.

  ‘Do not let Sir Nicholas hear you say that, señora,’ Dangerfield answered gaily.

  By a half smile that was certainly not conjured up by her father's conversation Dominica saw that Sir Nicholas was still attending.

  Meat was set before the lady, breast of mutton served with a sauce flavoured with saffron. There was a pasty beside, and a compost of quinces. She fell to, and continued to talk to Master Dangerfield.

  Don Manuel tried more than once to catch his daughter's eye, but he failed, and was forced to pursue his conversation with Sir Nicholas. ‘You have a well-found vessel, señor,’ he remarked courteously.

  ‘My own, señor.’ Beauvallet picked up a flagon of wine. ‘I have here an Alicante wine, señor, or a Burgundy, if you should prefer it. Or there is Rhenish. Say but the word!’

  ‘You are too good, señor. The Alicante wine, I thank you.’ He observed that his cup was of Moorish ware, much used in Spain, and raised his brows at it. Delicately he forebore comment.

  ‘You remark my cups, señor?’ said Beauvallet, lacking a like delicacy. ‘They come out of Andalusia.’ He saw a slight stiffening on the part of his guest, and his eyes twinkled. ‘Nay, nay, señor, they never were upon a Spanish galleon. I bought them upon my travels, years ago.’

  He threw Don Manuel into some discomfort. Don Manuel made haste to turn the subject. ‘You know my country, señor?’

  ‘Why yes, a little,’ Beauvallet acknowledged. He looked at Dominica's averted face. ‘May I give you wine, señora?’

  So rapt in conversation with Dangerfield was the lady that it seemed she did not hear. Beauvallet watched her a moment in some amusement, then turned to Don Manuel. ‘Do you suppose, señor, that your daughter will take wine from my hands?’

  ‘Dominica, you are addressed!’ Don Manuel said sharply.

  She gave an admirable start, and turned. ‘Señor?’ She encoun tered Beauvallet's eyes, brimful with laughter. ‘Your pardon, señor?’ He held out a cup in his long fingers. She took it from him, and turned it in her hand. ‘Ah, did this come from the Santa Maria ?’ she asked, mighty innocent.

  Don Manuel blushed for his daughter's manners, and made a deprecatory sound. But Beauvallet's shoulders shook. ‘I had these quite honestly, señora.’

  Dominica appeared surprised.

  Supper wore on its way. Don Manuel, shocked at the perversity of his daughter in bestowing all her attention on Dangerfield, began to talk to the young man himself, and success fully ousted Dominica from the conversation. She bit her lip with vexation, and became absorbed in the contemplation of a dish of marchpane. At her left hand Beauvallet lay back in his chair, and played idly with his pomander. Dominica stole a sidelong glance at him, found his eyes upon her, wickedly teasing under the down-dropped lids, and flushed hotly. She began to nibble at a piece of marchpane.

  Sir Nicholas let fall his pomander, and sat straight in his chair. His hand went to his belt; he drew his dagger from the sheath. It was a rich piece, with a hilt of wrought gold and a thin, flashing blade. He leaned forward, and presented the hilt to the lady. ‘I make you a present of it, señora,’ he said in a humble voice.

  Dominica flung up her head at that, and tried to push the dagger away. ‘I do not want it.’

  ‘Oh, but surely!’

  ‘You are pleased to mock me, señor. I have no need of your dagger.’

  ‘But you would like so much to kill me,’ Sir Nicholas said softly.

  Dominica looked at him indignantly. He was abominable, and to make matters the more insupportable he had a smile that set a poor maid's heart in a flutter. ‘You laugh at me. Take your fill of it, señor: I shall not heed your sneers,’ she said.

  ‘I?’ Beauvallet said, and shot out a hand to grasp her wrist. ‘Now look me boldly in the face and tell me if I sneer at you!’

  Dominica looked instead toward her father, but he had turned his shoulder, and was descanting to Master Dangerfield upon the works of Livy.

  ‘Come!’ insisted the tormentor. ‘What, afraid?’

  Stung, she looked up. Defiance gleamed in her eyes. Sir Nicholas kept his steadily upon her, raised her hand to his lips, kissed it fleetingly, and held it still. ‘You will know me better some day,’ he said.

  ‘I’ve no ambition for it,’ Dominica answered, but without truth.

  ‘Have you not? Have you not indeed?’ His fingers tightened about her wrist; there was a brilliant look of inquiry before he let her go. It disturbed her oddly; the man had no right to such bright, challenging eyes.

  A silence fell between them. Don Manuel, absorbed in his topic, had passed on to the poet Horace, and was inflicting quotations upon Master Dangerfield.

  ‘What came to Don Juan, señor
?’ asked Dominica, finding the silence oppressive.

  ‘I suppose him to be steering for the island of your name, señora,’ Sir Nicholas replied, and cracked a nut between finger and thumb. The problems besetting Don Juan seemed to hold no interest for him.

  ‘And Señor Cruzada? And the rest?’

  ‘I did not send him alone, señora,’ said Beauvallet, one eyebrow lifting humorously. ‘I suppose Señor Cruzada, whomsoever he may be, to be of his company.’

  The lady selected another fragment of marchpane from the dish, and refused an offer of Hippocras to drink with it. She looked pensive. ‘You give quarter, you English?’

  ‘God's Life, did you suppose otherwise?’

  ‘I did not know, señor. They tell strange tales of you in the Indies.’

  ‘It seems so indeed.’ He looked amused. ‘Am I said to burn, torture, and slay, señora?’

  She met his gaze gravely. ‘You are a hardy man, señor. There are those who say you use witchcraft.’

  He flung back his head and laughed out at that. Don Manuel was startled, and broke off in the middle of a line, to the relief of Master Dangerfield, a-nod over his wine. ‘The only craft I use is sea-craft, señora,’ Beauvallet said. ‘I wear no charms, but I was born, so they tell me, when Venus and Jupiter were in conjunction. A happy omen! All honour to them!’ He raised his cup to these planets, and drank to them.

  ‘Alchemy is a snare, as also astrology,’ said Don Manuel sternly. ‘I regard the tenets of Paracelsus as pernicious, señor, but I believe they are much studied and thought of in England. A creed both absurd and heretical! Why, I have heard a man doubt that his neighbour was born under the sign of Sagittarius for no better reason than that he had a ruddy cheek, or a chestnut beard. Likewise you will meet those who will not stir beyond their doors without they have a piece of coral about them, or a sapphire to give them courage, or some other such toys, fit only for children or infidels. Then you will hear talk of the sky's division into Houses, this one governing such-and-such a thing, and that some other. A silly conceit, obtaining credulity of the foolish.’ Thus Don Manuel disposed of Paracelsus, very summarily.

  Three

  The second day was very bright, with a hot sun beating down upon the sea, and a stiff breeze blowing to fill the sails. Don Manuel remained below on his bunk, worn and shaken by the agitations and exertions of the previous day. He made a poor breakfast of sops dipped in wine, and sent his daughter from him. He shook with fever, and complained of the headache. Hovering assiduously about him was his own man, Bartolomeo, but he had also Joshua Dimmock to attend to his wants. This was done mighty expertly. Joshua discoursed learnedly on several fevers, and, not sharing Don Manuel's views on the Chaldean creed, prescribed the wearing of some chips from a gallows as a certain cure. These he produced from somewhere about his person, and expatiated fervently upon their magical properties. Don Manuel waved them testily aside, but consented to drink a strong cordial, which, he was assured, came straight from the stillroom of my Lady Beauvallet herself, a dame well-versed in these mysteries.

  ‘A sure potion, señor, as I have proved,’ Joshua told him, ‘containing julep and angelica, a handful of juniper berries, and betony, as also mithridate (so I believe), not to mention wormwood, which the world knows to be very potent against all manner of fevers. The whole, noble señor, steeped in a spirit of wine by my lady's own hands, and sealed up tightly, as you perceive. Deign only to test of its values!’

  Don Manuel drank off the cordial, and was assured of a speedy recovery. But Joshua shook his head secretly over the case, and told Sir Nicholas, in his private ear, that he carried a dying man aboard the Venture.

  ‘I know it,’ Beauvallet said briefly. ‘If I read well the signs the cameras de sangre is in him.’

  ‘I observed it, sir. A glance, you would say. His man – a lank, melancholic fool if ever I saw one! – stands prating of quotidian fevers, but no, quoth I, say rather the cameras de sangre, dolt. I shall poke out the folds of the ruff, please you, sir.’ He performed this office for Sir Nicholas, and stood back to regard his handiwork. The poking-stick was levelled at Sir Nicholas next by way of emphasis. ‘Moreover, master, and mark you well! it is not to be considered a favourable omen. By no means! A death portends disaster. I do not speak of such willy-nilly deaths as might chance in battle. That is understood. A lingering sickness is another and quite different matter. We must set the worthy señor ashore with all speed.’

  ‘How now! What's this, rogue?’ demanded Beauvallet, lying back in his chair. ‘Set him ashore where and for what?’

  ‘I judge the Canaries to be a convenient spot, sir. The reason is made clear: he must die upon land – or at least upon another ship than ours. We need not concern ourselves with that.’ He ducked quickly to avoid a boot hurled at his head.

  ‘Cullion!’ Beauvallet apostrophised him. ‘Curb that prattling cheat of yours! We set the gentleman ashore in Spain. Mark that!’

  Joshua picked up the boot, and knelt to help Sir Nicholas put it on, no whit abashed. ‘I shall take leave to say, master, that this is to put our heads in a noose again.’

  ‘Be sure yours will end there one day,’ said Sir Nicholas cheerfully.

  ‘As to that, sir, I do not go roystering up and down the world, sacking and plundering,’ replied Joshua, entirely without venom. ‘A gentle thrust, sir, and we have the boot on. So!’ He smoothed a wrinkle from the soft Cordovan leather, and held ready the second boot. ‘You are to understand, sir, that it is no matter to me, for it was clearly proved in the reading of my horoscope that I should die snug in my bed. It would be well to have your horoscope cast, master, that we may know what to beware of.’

  ‘Beware your bed, dizzard, and get you hence!’ Beauvallet recommended. ‘You tempt me overmuch.’ He made a short, suggestive movement of his arched foot.

  ‘That, master,’ said Joshua philosophically, ‘is as may be, and at your worship's pleasure. I do not gainsay you have the right. But I shall take leave to say withal that this junketting upon the high seas with a wench aboard – nay two –’

  ‘What?’ Beauvallet roared, and jerked himself upright in his chair.

  Joshua's shrewd grey eyes widened. ‘Oho! Pardon, sir, a lady was the word. But it's all the same, by your leave, or rather worse, if the wind sits in that quarter with you. However, I say nothing. But it's against all custom and proper usage, and I misdoubt me an evil chance may befall.’

  Beauvallet fell to stroking his pointed beard, seeing him at which significant trick Joshua backed strategically to the door. ‘An evil chance will without any doubt at all shortly befall you, my friend,’ said Sir Nicholas, and came to his feet, ‘At the toe of my boot!’

  ‘If that is your humour, sir, I withdraw with all speed,’ said Joshua promptly, and retired nimbly.

  Beauvallet swung out in his wake, and went up on deck to oversee an inventory of the Santa Maria's cargo in the waist.

  Thus Dona Dominica, when she came up on deck to take the air, chanced upon a sight that made her curl her lip, and lift her chin. She wandered to the quarter-deck and stood looking down into the waist, where bales of cloth were lying, and where ingots were being weighed upon a rough scale. Master Dangerfield had a sheet of paper and an inkhorn upon an upturned cask, and wrote carefully thereon while a stout, hairy fellow called weights and numbers. Near him, upon another cask, lounged Beauvallet with a hand on his hip, and a booted leg swinging. His attention was held by what was going forward about him; he did not observe my lady upon the deck above.

  You are to know that this seeming piracy was a sort of licensed affair, a guerilla warfare waged upon King Philip II of Spain, who certainly provoked it. Englishmen had a lively hatred of Spain, induced by a variety of causes. There was, many years ago, the affair of Sir John Hawkins at San Juan de Ulloa, an instance of Spanish treachery that would not soon be forgot; there was grim persecution at work in the Low Countries which must make any honest man's blood boil; and a Holy Inquisi
tion in Spain that had swallowed up in hideous manner many stout sailormen captured on English vessels. If you wished to seek farther you had only to observe the way Spain used towards the natives of the Indies. It should suffice you. On top of all there was the abundant pride of Spain, who chose to think herself mistress of the Old World and the New. It remained for Elizabeth, Queen of England by God's Grace, to abate this overweening conceit. In this she was ably assisted by such men as Drake, bluff, roaring man, and Beauvallet, his friend; Frobisher and Gilbert; Davis and the Hawkins, father, sons, and grandson. They put forth into Spanish waters without misgiving and harried King Philip mightily. They laboured under a belief – and you could not rid them of it – that one Englishman was worth a round dozen of Spaniards. Events proved them to be justified in their belief.

  Nicholas Beauvallet, a younger son, spent the restlessness of his youth in wanderings upon the Continent, as befitted his station. He left his England a boy overflowing with such a spirit of dare-devilry that his father and his elder brother prophesied it would lead him to disaster. He came back to it a man seasoned and tried, but it was not to be seen that the dare-devilry had departed from him. His brother, succeeding to their father's room, shook a grave head and called him Italianate, a ruffler, a veritable swashbuckler, and wondered that he would not be still. Nicholas refused to fulfil his family's expectations. He must be off on his adventures again. He went to sea; he made some little noise about the New World, and in due course accompanied Drake on his voyage round the world. With that master mariner he passed the Straits of Magellan, saw the sack of Valparaiso, reached the far Pelew Islands, and Mindanao, and came home round the perilous Cape of Storms, bronzed of face, and hard of muscle, and rich beyond the dreams of man. This was well enough, no doubt, but Gerard Beauvallet, a sober man, judged it time to be done with such traffickings. Nicholas had won an honourable knighthood; let him settle down now, choose a suitable bride, and provide the heirs that came not to my Lady Beauvallet. Instead of this, incorrigible Nicholas had sailed away, after the briefest of intervals, this time in a ship of his own. So far from conducting himself like a respectable landowner, such as his brother wished him to be, he seemed to be concerned only to make a strong noise about the world. This he did with complete success. There was only one Drake, but also there was only one Beauvallet. The Spaniards coupled the two names together, but made of Beauvallet a kind of devil. Drake performed the impossible in the only possible way; the Spaniards said that El Beauvallet performed it in an impossible way, and feared him accordingly. As for his own men, they held him in some affection, and believed firmly in his luck and his genius. They thought him clearly mad, but his madness was profitable, and they had long ceased to wonder at anything he might take it into his head to do. They might be trusted to follow where he led, knowing by experience that he would not lead them to disaster. His master, Patrick Howe, of bearded mien, would wag a solemn finger. ‘Look you, we win because our Nick cannot fail. He is bird-eyed for opportunity, and blind to danger, and he laughs his way out of every peril we come to. Mad? Ay, you may say so.’