Beauvallet Page 5

  She found Joshua Dimmock in the cabin, vociferous in defence of his gallow's chips, which he believed, privately, might serve at least to stave off Don Manuel's death until he was set safe ashore.

  Don Manuel looked wearily at his daughter. ‘Is there none to rid me of this fool?’ he said.

  Joshua tried the effect of coaxing. ‘See, señor, I have them safe tied in a sachet. I bought them of a very holy man, versed in these matters. If you would but wear them about your neck I might vouch for a certain cure.’

  ‘Bartolomeo, set wide that door,’ commanded Don Manuel. ‘Now, fellow, depart from me!’

  ‘Most gracious señor –’

  Bartolomeo fell back from the open doorway, bowing. A voice that to Dominica's fancy seemed to hold all the sunshine and the salt wind of fine days at sea smote her ears. ‘What's this?’

  Sir Nicholas stood on the threshold.

  Don Manuel raised himself on his elbow. ‘Señor, in good time! Rid me of your knave there, and his damnable chips from a gallows!’

  Beauvallet came quickly in, saw Joshua standing aggrieved by the side of the bunk, and caught him by the nape of the neck, and with no more ado hurled him forth. He kicked the door to behind him, and stood looking down at Don Manuel. ‘Is there aught else I may do for you, señor? You have but to name it.’

  Don Manuel lay back against the pillows and smiled wrily. ‘You are short in your dealings, señor.’

  ‘But to the point, you’ll allow. I am come to see how you do this morning. The fever still hath you in its hold?’

  ‘A little.’ Don Manuel frowned a warning. Beauvallet turned his head to observe the reason of this. Dominica was standing stiffly by the table.

  It seemed this abominable man must be everywhere at once. One's own cabin was the only safe retreat. She moved stately to the door. Bartolomeo went to open it, but was put aside by a careless hand. Sir Nicholas held the door wide, and my lady went out with a quickened step.

  ‘You, too, Bartolomeo,’ Don Manuel said, and lay watching Beauvallet. He fetched a stifled sigh. This handsome man with his springing step and alert carriage seemed to the sick gentle man the very embodiment of life and health.

  Beauvallet came to the bunk, and pulled a joint-stool forward, and sat down upon it. ‘You want to speak with me, señor?’

  ‘I want to speak with you.’ Don Manuel plucked at the sheet that covered him. ‘Señor, since first you brought us aboard this ship you have not again spoken of our disposal.’

  Beauvallet raised his brows quickly. ‘I thought I had made my self plain, señor. I shall set you ashore on the northern coast of Spain.’

  Don Manuel tried to read the face before him; the blue eyes looked straightly; under the neat mustachio the mouth was firm and humorous. If Beauvallet had secrets he hid them well under a frank exterior. ‘Am I to believe you serious, señor?’

  ‘Never more so, upon my honour. Wherefore all this pother over a very simple matter?’

  ‘Is it, then, so simple to put into a Spanish port, señor?’

  ‘To say truth, señor, your countrymen have not yet learned the trick of capturing Nick Beauvallet. God send them a better education, cry you!’

  Don Manuel spoke gravely. ‘Señor, you are an enemy – a dangerous enemy – to my country, yet, believe me, I should be sorry to see you taken.’

  ‘A thousand thanks, señor. You will certainly not see it. I was born in a fortunate hour.’

  ‘I have had enough of portents and omens, señor, from your servant. I make bold to say that if you set us ashore in Spain you place your life in jeopardy. And for what? It is madness! I can find no other name for it.’

  The firm lips parted; there was a gleam of white teeth. ‘Call it Beauvallet's way, señor.’

  Don Manuel said nothing, but lay still, watching his captor and host. After a minute he spoke again. ‘You are a strange man, señor. For many years I have heard wild tales of you, and believed, perhaps, a quarter of them. You constrain me to lend ear to the wildest of them.’ He paused, but Beauvallet only smiled again. ‘If, indeed, you speak in good faith I stand infinitely beholden to you. Yet you might act in the best of faith and fail of such a foolhardy endeavour.’

  Sir Nicholas swung his pomander on the end of its chain. ‘God rest you, señor: I shall not fail.’

  ‘I pray in this instance you may not. It does not need for me to tell you that my days are numbered. I would end them in Spain, señor.’

  Beauvallet held up his hand. ‘My oath on it, señor. You shall end them there,’ he said gently.

  Don Manuel stirred restlessly. ‘I must set my house in order. I leave my daughter alone in the world. There is my sister. But the child had traffickings with Lutherans, and I misdoubt me –’ He broke off, sighing.

  Beauvallet came to his feet. ‘Señor, give me ear a minute!’

  Don Manuel looked up at him, and saw him serious for once. ‘I attend, señor.’

  ‘When I approach my chosen goal, señor, I march straight. That you may have heard of me. Let it go. I make you privy now to a new goal I have sworn to reach, a fair prize. The day will come, Don Manuel, when I shall take your daughter to wife.’

  Don Manuel's eyes fluttered a moment. ‘Do you tell me, señor, that you love my daughter?’ he asked sternly.

  ‘Madly, señor, I make no doubt you would say.’

  Don Manuel looked more sternly still. ‘And she? No, it is not possible!’

  ‘Why, as to that, señor. I do not know. I am not over-apt with maids. She will love me one day.’

  ‘Señor, be plain with me. What is this riddle you propound?’

  ‘None, señor. Here is only the plain truth. I might bear Dominica away to England, and thus constrain her –’

  ‘You would not!’ Don Manuel cried out sharply.

  ‘Nay, I constrain no maid against her will, be assured. But you will allow it to be clearly within my power.’ He paused, and his eyes questioned.

  Don Manuel watched the swing of the golden pomander from long fingers, looked higher, and met the imperative gaze. ‘We are in your hands I know full well,’ he said evenly.

  Beauvallet nodded. ‘But that easy course is not the one I will take, señor. Nor am I one to enact the part of ravisher, of betrayer. I will take you to Spain, and there leave you. But, señor – and mark me well! for what I swear I will do that I shall certainly do, though the sun die and the moon fall, and the earth be wholly overset! – I shall come later into Spain, and seek out your daughter, and ride away with her on my saddlebow!’ His voice seemed to fill the room, vibrating with some leaping passion. A moment he looked down at Don Manuel with a glint in his eyes, and his beard jutting outwards with his lifted chin. Then the fire left him as suddenly as it had sprung up, and he laughed softly, and the glitter went out of his eyes. ‘Judge you by this, señor, if I do truly love her as you would have her loved!’

  There was silence. Don Manuel turned his head away on the pillow and brushed the sheet with one restless hand. ‘Señor,’ he said at last, ‘if you were not an enemy and a heretic, I would choose to give my daughter to just such a one as you.’ He smiled faintly at the quick surprise in Beauvallet's face. ‘Ay, señor, but you are both these things, and it is impossible. Impossible!’

  ‘Señor, a word I do not know. I have warned you. Take what precaution you will, but whether you are quick or dead, I shall have your daughter, in spite of anything you may do.’

  ‘Sir Nicholas, you have a brave spirit, and that I like in you. I have no need to take precautions, for you could never penetrate into Spain.’

  ‘God be my witness, señor, I shall penetrate.’

  ‘You must needs be foresworn, señor. At sea you may be a match for us, but how might you dare face all Spain in Spain itself ?’

  ‘I shall certainly dare, señor,’ said Sir Nicholas calmly.

  Don Manuel seemed to shrug his shoulders. ‘I see, señor, there is to be no ho with you. You may be but an idle boaster, or a
madman, as they say – I know not. I could wish you were a Spaniard. There is no more to say.’

  Five

  Don manuel took an early opportunity of finding out, as he imagined, what were his daughter's feelings. He asked her without preamble how she liked Sir Nicholas. God knows what the poor gentleman thought to get from her.

  ‘Very ill, señor,’ said she.

  ‘I fear me,’ said Don Manuel, closely watching her, ‘that he likes you too well, child.’

  Dominica perceived that she was being tested, and achieved a scornful laugh. ‘Unhappy man! But it's an impertinence.’

  Don Manuel was entirely satisfied. Liking Beauvallet well enough himself he could even be sorry that his daughter had conceived so vehement a distaste for him. ‘I am sorry that he is what he is,’ he said. ‘I could find it in me to like a man of his mettle.’

  ‘A boaster,’ said Dominica, softly scornful.

  ‘One would say so indeed. But before we set sail, Dominica, methought you made some sort of a hero of him in your mind. You were always eager to hear tell of his deeds.’

  ‘I had not met him then, señor,’ Dominica answered primly.

  Don Manuel smiled. ‘Well, he is a wild fellow. I am glad you have sense enough to see it. But use him gently, child, for we stand somewhat beholden to him. He swears to set us ashore in Spain, and madre de dios! I believe he will do it, though how I know not.’

  The upshot of all this was to make Dominica curious to know Beauvallet's plans. She tackled Master Dangerfield about it that very evening as he played cards with her in the stateroom, and demanded to know what his general had in mind. Master Dangerfield professed ignorance, and was not believed. ‘What!’ said my lady, incredulous. ‘I am not to suppose you are not in his confidence, señor, surely! It is just that you will not tell me.’

  ‘Upon my oath, señora, no!’ Dangerfield assured her. ‘Sir Nicholas keeps his counsel. Ask your question of him: he will tell you, I doubt not.’

  ‘Oh, I desire to have no traffic with him,’ said my lady, and applied herself to the cards again.

  There came soon enough what she had hoped to hear: a bluff voice, a brisk tread, a laugh echoing along the alleyway. The door was flung open; Beauvallet came in, with a word tossed over his shoulder for someone outside. ‘Save you, lady!’ quoth he. ‘Diccon, there is a trifle of business calls you. Give me your cards; I will endeavour.’

  Dangerfield gave up his cards at once, and bowed excuses to the lady. As always, Beauvallet left her without a word to say. Truth to tell she was glad to have him in Dangerfield's stead, but why could he not ask her permission?

  He sat down in Dangerfield's chair; Dangerfield, with his hand on the door, paused to say, smiling: ‘Dona Dominica hath all the luck, sir, as you shall find.’

  ‘And you none, Diccon. I may believe it. But I will back myself against her. Away with you.’ He flicked a card out from his hand, and smiled across the table at Dominica. ‘To the death, lady!’

  Dona Dominica played to his lead in silence. He won the encounter at length. She bit her lip, but took it with a good grace. ‘Yes, señor, you win.’ She watched him playing with the cards, and folded her hands. ‘I shall not pit my skill against yours.’

  Sir Nicholas put down the pack. ‘Then let us talk a little,’ he said. ‘It likes me much better. How does Don Manuel find himself ?’

  A shadow crossed her face. ‘I think him very sick, señor. I have to thank you for sending your surgeon to visit him.’

  ‘No need of that.’

  ‘My father tells me,’ Dominica said, ‘that you have sworn to set us ashore in Spain. Pray, how may you accomplish that?’

  ‘Very simply,’ Sir Nicholas replied. He held his pomander to his nose, and over it his eyes twinkled at her.

  ‘Well, señor, and how?’ She was impatient. ‘I’ve no desire to witness another fight at sea.’

  ‘Nor shall you, fondling. What, do you suppose that Nick Beauvallet would expose you to the risks Narvaez courted? Shame on you!’

  ‘Señor, are you so mad as to suppose that you can sail into a Spanish port without a shot being fired?’

  ‘By no means, child. If I did so foolish a thing I might expect a veritable hailstorm of shot about my head.’ He threw one leg over the other, and continued to sniff at his pomander.

  ‘I see, señor, you have no mind to confide in me,’ said Dominica stiffly.

  His shoulders shook. ‘Do I not answer your questions? You would know more? Then ask me prettily, O my Lady Disdain!’

  Her eyes fell; she tried a change of front to see what might come of it. ‘You have the right to flout me, señor. I am aware that I stand beholden to you. Yet I think you might use me kindlier.’

  The pomander fell. ‘Good lack!’ said Beauvallet, startled. ‘What's this?’ He uncrossed his legs and stretched a hand to her across the table. ‘Let there be no such talk betwixt us two, child. Yet stand in no way beholden to me. Say that I do what I do to please myself, and cry a truce!’ The smile crept into his eyes. ‘Do I flout you? Now I had thought that was your part.’

  ‘I am helpless in your hands, señor,’ said Dominica mournfully. ‘If it pleases you to make a mock of me you may do so without hindrance.’

  This failed somewhat of its purpose. ‘Child, in a little I shall be constrained to set you on my knee and kiss you,’ said Beauvallet.

  ‘I am helpless,’ she repeated, and would not look up.

  A quick frown came. He rose from his chair and came to kneel beside hers. ‘Now what's your meaning, Dominica? Are you so cowed, so submissive?’ He caught a glimpse of the flash in her eyes, and laughed. ‘Oh, pretty cheat!’ he said softly. ‘If I dared to touch you you would be swift to strike.’

  Her lip quivered irrepressibly; she looked through her lashes. He took her hand and kissed it. ‘Well, what is it you would have me tell you?’ he asked.

  ‘If you please,’ she said meekly, ‘where will you set us ashore?’

  ‘Some few miles to the west of Santander, sweetheart. There is a smuggling village there will receive us peaceably.’

  ‘Smugglers!’ She looked up. ‘Oh, so you are that, too? I might have known.’

  ‘Nay, nay, acquit me,’ he smiled. ‘Look scorn instead upon my fat boatswain. He is the blame. He was for many years in the trade, and I believe knows every smuggling port in Europe. We may sail softly in under cover of night, set you ashore, and be gone again before dawn.’

  There was a pause. Dominica looked up at the arms on the wall, and said slowly: ‘And so ends the adventure.’

  Sir Nicholas rose to his feet again. ‘Do you think so, indeed?’

  She was grave. ‘In spite of brave words, señor, I think so. Once in Spain I shall be free – free of you!’

  He set his hand on his hip; his other hand played with his beard. She should have been wary, but she did not know him so well as did his men. ‘Lady,’ said Beauvallet, and she jumped at the note of strong purpose in his voice, ‘the first of my name, the founder of my house, had, so we read, another watchword than that.’ His hand flew out and pointed to the scroll beneath his arms. ‘There is an old chronicle writ by one Alan, afterwards Earl of Montlice, wherein we learn that Simon, the first Baron of Beauvallet, took as his motto these words: “I have not, but still I hold ”.’ His voice rang out, and died again.

  ‘Well, señor?’ faltered Dominica.

  ‘I have you not yet, but be sure I hold you,’ said Beauvallet.

  She rallied. ‘This is folly.’

  ‘Sweet folly.’

  ‘I do not believe that you would dare set foot in Spain.’

  ‘God's Death, do you not? But if I dare, indeed?’

  She looked down at her clasped hands.

  ‘Come! If I dare? If I reach you in Spain, and claim you then? What answer shall I have?’

  She was flushed, and her breast rose and fell fast. ‘Ah, if there were a man brave enough to dare so much for love – !’

 
; ‘He stands before you. What will you give him?’

  She got up, a hand at her bosom. ‘If he dared so much – I should have to give – myself, señor.’

  ‘Remember that promise!’ he warned her. ‘You shall be called upon to redeem it before a year is out.’

  She looked fearfully at him. ‘But how? how?’

  ‘Dear heart,’ said Beauvallet frankly, ‘I do not know, but I shall certainly find a way.’

  ‘Oh, an idle boast!’ she cried, and went quickly to the door. His voice stayed her; she paused and looked back over her shoulder. ‘Well, señor, what more?’

  ‘My pledge,’ Beauvallet said, and slipped a ring from his finger. ‘Keep Beauvallet's ring until Beauvallet comes to claim it.’

  She took it, half unwilling. ‘What need of this?’

  ‘No need, but to remind you, maybe. Keep it close.’

  It had his arms engraven upon it, a gold piece, heavy and cunningly wrought. ‘I will keep it always,’ she said, ‘to remind me of – a madman.’

  He smiled. ‘Oh, not always, sweetheart! A pledge is sometimes redeemed – even by a madman.’

  ‘Not this one,’ she said on a sigh, and went out.

  It seemed to her in the days that followed that Spain drew near all too soon. They had fair weather, and for the most part a favourable wind to bear them home. The Canaries were reached in good time, and Dominica saw adventure's end in sight. She was gentler now with her impetuous wooer, but aloof still, refusing to believe him. She let him teach her English words, and lisped them after him prettily. She forbore to entangle Master Dangerfield in her wiles: time was too short and romance too sweet. Maybe she would have been glad enough, saving only her father's presence, to be borne off to England, a conqueror's prize, but if she had doubted Beauvallet's good faith at first these doubts were soon lulled. He meant certainly to take her to Spain. She had both a sigh and a smile for that, but it is certain that she honoured him for it. For the rest she might not know what to believe. The man talked in a heroic vein, and seemed to be undisturbed by any doubt of his own omnipotence. He would have a poor maid believe him little less than God. Well, one was not so poor a maid as that. Maybe it pleased his strange, braggart fancy to cut a fine figure; surely he would forget just as soon as he set foot on English soil.