‘Ben Jonson furnished you that pretty string, did he not?’ Ralegh said with a flash of amusement. ‘But I shall confine myself to more mundane experiments. In my lighter moments I shall make cordials of strawberry water, and possibly sticks of perfume for my most honoured friends. More seriously, I have long wished to turn such skill as I possess to devising some means of obtaining fresh water from salt.’
‘So? That would be a gr-reat good thing for seamen, would it not?’
‘It would be a great good thing for seamen,’ Ralegh agreed.
‘It is time that I go.’ The Queen said after a moment’s silence: ‘I came today, to see how the new tapestries look in the Royal apartments — and behold, I have found the old Queen’s Captain, building a laboratory from a hen-house. So I shall come again, and next time, I think that I bring my Henry with me. He is but twelve years old, but like you, a so great one for ships and for seamen.’
‘I remember Prince Henry,’ Ralegh said. ‘But — forgive me, Madam — will the King allow it?’
‘I — think so. Henry, when I tell him, he will wish very much to come; and when Henry wishes, often his father yields.’ She cast about her smile which embraced Little Watt and Lawrence Kemys, as well as Bess and Ralegh; then in the act of turning away, she paused. ‘Sir Walter, pray you tell me, is there anything — but anything, that I can do?’
After a moment Ralegh said: ‘His Majesty has seen fit to cancel my patent to colonise Virginia, and issued it as a fresh charter to the London and Plymouth companies; and doubtless in due course there will be an expedition sailing to plant a new colony where mine failed. You can intercede for me with the King, Most Gracious Lady, that he allow me to sail with it.’
‘I will try, my friend,’ the Queen said, with the sparkle fading from her face. ‘But you mistake the case. I have no power with the King. I am only his wife.’
She gave her hand to him again, then to Bess; then turned and set two fingers on Sir George’s arm, and walked on.
*
The hen-house laboratory was finished, and Ralegh spent a large part of every day there. His days were becoming as full as ever they had been, and if their fullness was in some sort artificial, a drug, at least that was better than the wild revolt of those first empty months. Every day he walked on the ramparts, partly for exercise and the wide views that were to be had from them, partly because it amused him to know that people came from far and wide to stand on Tower Hill and watch him, and that James was powerless to stop it because of the outcry that an end to his public appearances would raise throughout the country. He and Kemys tutored Little Watt between them, and before long, Prince Henry was added to his circle, for having won his father’s leave to come once, he came again and yet again.
‘Only my father could keep such a bird in a cage!’ Prince Henry had declared indignantly, after their first meeting, laying down a quick devotion at Ralegh’s feet. They discussed many things together, Ralegh puffing at his pipe, and the two small boys frequently coming to blows. They had all three of them revolutionary ideas on shipbuilding, and that summer, with much eager advice from his youthful helpers, Ralegh began to work out the specification for a warship of a kind unknown in English shipyards before; a three-decker.
He continued to have more and yet more visitors, and in the evenings, when Bess had gone back to her lodging, there were many gatherings of old friends. The Wizard Earl of Northumberland had joined the company in the Tower, following the Gunpowder Plot; Hariot and Jonson were constant visitors, and the School of Night, or something very like it, was in being again. Many a long evening they spent, seeking, in a cloud of tobacco smoke, the answers to questions which more orthodox souls did not realise existed. But occasionally the purpose of the evening would be purely social.
It was on one such evening that Little Watt made his entrance into the world of men. In October, the Earl of Northumberland asked Ralegh to bring the boy to supper in his lodging, to celebrate the laying down, at Deptford, of the keel of the Prince Royal — none other than the three-decker of Ralegh’s specification. It was to be a small gathering — of prisoners for the main part, and most of them, like Ralegh, under the indefinite threat of the axe. But at such gatherings the usages of gentle society were kept up with a rather especial care, for they were all men of a type who preferred to go to the block in clean linen. Ralegh spoke seriously to his son beforehand, for the boy had grown suddenly wilder than ever in the past few months; begging him at least to try to behave himself. ‘I suppose that I must take you, for it would be discourtesy to Northumberland to refuse; but I tell you frankly that I am ashamed to be seen with such a bear in my company!’
Watt went to his supper with a face like a fledgling arch-angel’s. Bess had washed it herself, and done her best to flatten the rebellious tuft of hair that always sprang jauntily erect from the back of his head, and watched him depart with Ralegh and Kemys, before she went back to her own lodging and the baby. Afterwards she heard the story of that supper party from a very worried Ralegh.
Watt, it seemed, had behaved himself almost too well through the first part of the meal, and then, becoming either bored or possessed of a devil, had taken advantage of a lull in the conversation to use loudly and deliberately, the foulest word in his deplorable stock. Ralegh, shamed and furious, had turned and cuffed him across the mouth; whereupon Watt, not quite daring to return the blow, had hit the man who sat on his left, saying, ‘Pass it along, and ‘twill come back to my father directly.’
All this, Ralegh retailed to his wife, but neither he nor Watt mentioned to her the subsequent reckoning that there had been between them; and Bess, though she saw the weals on Watt’s back, was too wise to comment. It was a matter between men, and she knew her place.
Ralegh was certainly very worried.
‘I am sure that Northumberland will understand,’ said Bess.
‘To speak truth, I do not care whether he understands or not, though he is one of my oldest friends,’ Ralegh said. ‘It is Watt that I am concerned about. Why should he do such a thing? Why, Bess?’
‘It is a strange training-ground for a boy, this. He will do better when he goes to Oxford next year and mingles more with his own kind. Also — Walter, have you thought that he may be jealous?’
‘Jealous?’ Ralegh had been looking out of his window, but he swung round to face her. ‘Who under Heaven should he be jealous of?’
‘Of Prince Henry.’
‘Why?’ Ralegh demanded.
Bess got up from her chair and crossed over to him. ‘Walter, all these months since Henry came — you sometimes seem so near to him; you are never angry with him — but you are very often angry with Watt.’
‘Henry behaves himself,’ Ralegh said tersely. ‘Would you have me not discipline the cub at all?’
‘Yes, yes, of course.’ Bess was pleading with him to understand. ‘But Walter, cannot you see? — You call him a bear, and he behaves as one. He thinks that Henry has first place with you, and so he behaves badly to show himself that he does not care. He is only twelve, remember, and he is a very loving child; and you have been to him his God.’
‘I am deeply fond of Henry,’ Ralegh said slowly, as though thinking the thing out as he went along. ‘He has a better brain than Watt, and his character is more formed, though less — vivid. But given my choice of sons, I would keep my wild young falcon against all comers — even Henry.’
‘Then let him see that it is so.’
‘I have never stinted him my praise, when he deserves it.’
‘Praise when he deserves it has a somewhat bleak sound. Let him see that it is pleasant to you to have him with you, let him feel secure in his place with you, as he did in the old days before all this happened, and he will do better.’
Ralegh looked at her for a moment in silence, his eyes gravely considering. ‘Very well,’ he said at last. ‘You understand people better than I do, Bess; I will try to do as you say.’ Suddenly he smiled. ‘What a pother it i
s, this manning of the human eyas — and presently there will be Carew, and all to do again.’
Bess shook her head. ‘Carew will take little breaking, he is no haggard hawk, nor ever will be.’
‘What is he then?’
She began to laugh. ‘A barley loaf; a plump, wholesome, dependable, rather dull little barley loaf!’
*
Ralegh had perfected his Balsam of Guiana, warranted to cure any sickness not caused by poison. He was writing a history of the world. He received visits from foreign notables rather as though he were royalty. Almost, he seemed to be content, as though the things he had were all the things he needed. If it was a hard-won serenity, hardly held, nothing but his eyes betrayed the fact.
And then, one grey and bitter afternoon of late December, Bess found him pacing his room as he had paced the cell of his first year’s imprisonment, his writing lying scattered on the table, broken off between one word and the next. He checked his restless prowling by an obvious effort of will when she entered, and sat down again to his work, while she took out his best doublet, the sleeve of which was in need of mending, and seated herself by the low fire.
Presently she looked up from threading her needle. ‘Where is Watt away to, this afternoon?’
Ralegh shook his head a little absently. ‘Somewhere. The whole Tower is his hunting ground. Maybe he has gone to visit the lioness; I believe she has lately whelped, and he grows as interested in her affairs as My Lord Salisbury himself. Or like as not he is down on the quay, watching the shipping. Kemys is with him.’
‘Then he is not like to get into serious mischief,’ said Bess.
Ralegh took up a fresh sheet of paper from the pile beside him. ‘You were right, concerning Watt,’ he said. ‘He begins to come to hand.’
‘I am glad.’ Something was the matter, but it was not the boy, as she had at first feared.
Ralegh dipped his quill into the ink-horn, and Bess ran her needle into the dark taffeta. For a while both of them worked in silence. Bess was waiting for him to tell her the trouble.
It was cold in the room, for the draughts blew away the warmth of the fire; cold and very dark. Sleet spattered against the glass.
At last Ralegh laid down his pen, and getting up, limped restlessly to the window. His limp, which used to become noticeable only when he was tired, was increasing on him these days, and often Bess knew that he was in pain. It was the dampness and the chill of his prison, she thought. He stood silent a few moments, one arm resting along the transom, looking out. Then he spoke to her without turning. ‘The ships of the new Virginia settlement sailed from Tilbury on this morning’s tide.’
‘Yes, Walter.’ She had stopped sewing.
‘If the Queen’s good offices for me had taken effect, I should have sailed with them.’
‘Yes, Walter.’
‘“This dear strand of Virginia, Earth’s only Paradise”.’ He quoted the words of the charter with a note of raw and naked longing in his voice. And then, after another long pause, ‘If they succeed where I failed, Jamestown will be the first English settlement on the mainland of the New World ... Bess, would you have been sad to leave England, and all that you know, and come with me into the unknown?’
‘Not very, I think I am like the Honeysuckle Queen of Scots, who would follow Bothwell to the world’s end in her shift — a shameless confession for a woman fifteen years wed, to make to her husband.’
‘It is a shamelessness not hard to forgive.’ He was silent a moment, watching the sleet blow down the wind. Then he said, ‘Well. there’s no good purpose served by thinking of it. The Queen failed.’
‘Maybe one day, when Henry is older, he will succeed where his mother could not.’
‘One day — one day ... “Hope deferred maketh the heart sick”.’
‘“But when the desire cometh it is a tree of life”.’ She finished the quotation swiftly. But he did not seem to hear her. He bowed his forehead on to his wrist against the splattered window, with a gesture that was unutterably weary.
He said hoarsely: ‘Dear God, thy pity upon all prisoners. Thy pity upon all prisoners!’
Chapter 17 - The Wind Goeth Over
SUMMER of 1612: Watt eighteen years old, and coming down from Oxford for good at Christmas. Carew seven, and almost ready for his father’s tutoring. Ralegh himself, with many more bids for freedom and as many failures behind him, still caged in the Tower; still eating out his heart under the serene and faintly insolent exterior that the world knew. The world, his world, had had no chance to forget him; his converted henhouse was become one of the most famous spots in Europe, since his Balsam of Guiana had saved the Queen’s life, and she dying of a fever; his writings on subjects ranging from political philosophy to ship-building were widely used authorities, and the whole Kingdom knew that his word was law to their beloved Prince of Wales. A thing had happened to him that happens to few men; he was become a legend, in his lifetime.
On a morning in early summer, when the midges danced over the scummy moat, and the smell of the City sewage that drained into it was almost unendurable, Bess passed, as she had passed so many times before, in under the arch of the Byward Tower. It was some days since she had seen her husband, for since his old enemy Sir William Waad had succeeded Sir George Harvey as Lieutenant, even his little measure of freedom had been curtailed; he must retire to his own room at five each evening to be locked in for the night, and he was allowed few visitors. Sir William had even tried to deprive him of the hen-house, saying that he needed it to keep hens in, but Prince Henry had dealt with that situation with a firm hand, and Ralegh still had his laboratory.
But he was not there today, he was in his own room, John Talbot told her, when she turned in from Water Lane to the familiar stairway beside the entrance to the Inner Ward. And there she found him, hard at work on his great History of the World, books and papers scattered around him on the table, the window-sill, the foot of the bed; and Lawrence Kemys leaning against the table beside him, thumbing through the pages of a small calf-bound volume, in search of some reference. When the History was given to the world, Bess had often thought, much of the credit would belong to Lawrence Kemys, and Dr. Hariot, and Ben Jonson. The creative flame of the book would be Ralegh’s — it was a poet’s history, rather than a scientist’s — but the patient gathering and verifying of facts were theirs.
Lawrence Kemys straightened himself at her entrance, making her the small stiff bow with which he invariably greeted her, his face lighting with the grave smile which had never, in all the years she had known him, ceased to be rather diffident. ‘God den, Lady Ralegh.’
‘God den to you, Captain Kemys.’ She returned his smile warmly but a little absently, and turned to Ralegh who had pushed back his chair. ‘Walter.’
He kissed her. ‘Sweetheart, five whole days, and my eyes grown sore with looking for you. Waad shall roast in hell.’
‘Yes, my dear,’ Bess agreed. But she had something else to think of just then, than the afterlife of Sir William Waad. ‘Walter, have you heard?’
‘A truly feminine question! Have I heard what?’
‘Robin Cecil is dead.’
There was a long silence. Then Ralegh said, ‘He has been a dying man this year and more. Did he die at Bath?’
‘No. It seems the waters did him more harm than good, and he was on his way back to London. He died on Sunday — at Marlborough, I believe. Will was with him.’
‘So it is over. He was ten years younger than I am,’ Ralegh said reflectively.
‘Yes; and I am wondering — Walter, listen. Could it be that his death will make any difference?’
‘Difference?’
‘To you — to us. He has scarcely been a friend, these last years.’ Out of the tail of her eye she saw Lawrence Kemys’ head go up with a quickened attention, and she turned to him almost pleadingly. ‘Captain Kemys, you think so too?’
‘It seems a possibility, Lady Ralegh.’
But Ralegh s
hook his head. ‘With Henry Howard still flourishing like a green bay tree, and far more my enemy than ever Cecil was? With Robert Carr leaning more to the Spanish party with every day that passes? No, it will make no difference. My freedom is not yet, good people.’
Bess sighed, and let the small hope go, as so many had gone before it. The process scarcely hurt her now.
Ralegh had sat down again, and taken up his pen. He reached out his free hand to brush hers with a bent finger, while she stood beside him, looking down through the open window into the Lieutenant’s apple trees. ‘Robin Cecil is dead,’ she thought, and for the first time it came home to her. It was so long since she had thought of him other than as Lord Salisbury, an enemy. ‘Lord Salisbury is dead.’ That was how the news had come to her this morning, and that was how she had thought of it as she carried it to Walter; and yet when she came to tell it, it was ‘Robin Cecil is dead.’ And her mind went piercing back through Lord Salisbury the Secretary of State, seeking Robin Cecil. For a moment she could not find him, and then suddenly he was there, clear in her memory, a young man with a coppery casque of shining hair, his nature already a little twisted, reaching out to laughter and happy things, reaching out to beauty with a sensitive half-shrinking born of his morbid awareness of his own deformity. Poor Robin Cecil, marred, body and soul, from the potter’s wheel.
‘There must have been something to love in him, even to the last,’ Ralegh said suddenly, looking up from his writing, and she realised that his thoughts had taken the same road as hers; ‘for even to the last, there were people — a few — who loved him.’
‘He had a very light touch,’ Bess said.
But the people who loved Robert Cecil were not many; and within a few days the prentice lads were chanting in the streets:
Here lies Robin Crook-back,
Unjustly reckoned
A Richard the Third;
He was Judas the Second.