The Grove of Eagles

  “Jael Job brought me here. When it is dark jog his memory or I may be forgot for the night.”

  She promised. I was glad of her being somewhere by for a few minutes.

  “What should you be doing now, Meg?”

  “Peeling rushes for the candle wicks.”

  “Have a care you’re not put in with me for disobedience.”

  “I shouldn’t mind; twould be a welcome rest.”

  The three maids carrying the apples clattered across the yard. When they were gone I said: “ What news is there today?”

  “News?”

  “I’ve been here since early morning. Is my father in or out?”

  “In. They be all in … There was trouble in the river the night afore last.”

  “What sort of trouble?”

  I had to listen to the crunch of her teeth on the apple while she chewed it and swallowed.

  “Harold Tregwin came over from Gluvias. You know what a gossip he be. Thursday night off Trefusis Point a fishing hoy was boarded and robbed, and one of the crew falls overboard in the commotion and is drowned. Yester eve his body floats up by St Thomas’s Bridge.”

  I let out a slow breath. “Why should anyone wish to rob a poor fishing hoy?”

  “That’s what Harold d’ say. By his account the captain have put in a complaint to the justices o’ the county and asked that the murderers be traced. Twas quite a tale he told, but you d’ know Harold, how he love to make a plaguey long history of it. Here, can you catch? I’d best be going.”

  On the next day, which was Sunday, we all walked as was customary to Budock Church, my father and mother leading the way followed by the other members of the family, then the children, with our servants in a long crocodile behind. Mr Garrock, the vicar, by mischance chose as the text of his sermon St Mark, Chapter 3, Verse 27: “No man can enter into a strong man’s house, and spoil his goods, except he will first bind the strong man; and then he will spoil his house.”

  My father slept through most of it, but I knew I dared not because we should be examined on the content of the sermon by Parson Merther that evening and whipped if we could not give a fair outline, and I was in no position to court further trouble.

  When the sermon was over my father yawned and said in s loud voice to Uncle Simon: “Let us not tarry for the prayers,” and so elbowed his way out.

  Perhaps he had not slept so soundly after all, for over dinner he was downright in his criticism of the state of the clergy. Will Garrock, he said, was an ignorant unlettered scoundrel better suited to keep a taproom than a church. Hawken of Philleigh, he knew for a fact, spent all his days and nights dicing and wenching; it was said that the parson at St Issey had been burnt in the hand for felony; and Arscott of Cubert was a drunkard and kept a whore and six bastards. It was time there was a clean sweep in the church of pluralists, felons and ignorant rogues.

  I do not know how or in what way it came to be understood in the house that our part in the affray of Thursday night was not an innocent one; but it crept up like cold in the bones. Perhaps it is not possible for five or six men, some of them with wives, to go out after dark and to come back unquestioned.

  On the Tuesday Sir Francis Godolphin called.

  Sir Francis, who lived near Helston, was Vice Warden of the Stannaries and lately Sheriff of Cornwall. His first wife Margaret had been a Killigrew and my father’s aunt. Sir Francis was nearing sixty at this time, a grey-bearded man, short of stature and quiet of manner, temperate and sober; he and Ralegh between them, so it was said, had done much to improve the lot of the tinners in the country, and through it Sir Francis had become rich.

  With him tonight was our neighbour, Mr John Trefusis, a sharp-voiced man with a skin as brown as snuff. My father was up at the Castle when they came, so Mrs Killigrew, in a fluster and with babies and needlework to be rid of, had to greet them in the withdrawing-room, and I and young John and Odelia were permitted to stay on unnoticed. By the time my father came in, close followed by Lady Killigrew, our guests were sipping white Rhenish wine and eating sweet almond biscuits.

  Since Mr Killigrew and Mr Trefusis did not at all esteem each other there was a stiffness about their greeting which left an awkward silence when they sat down. To fill it Mrs Killigrew began to ask about Sir Francis’s eldest son who was fighting in Ireland; but the exchange of polite talk was brief before Sir Francis with less than his usual smoothness said:

  “You will have heard, John, of the boarding and robbery of the Buckfast last Thursday night?”

  “Who has not? They have trumpeted it abroad sufficient for all to hear.”

  “And should they not,” said Mr Trefusis sharply, “ when they are robbed of sixty pounds in gold and when one of their number is hit on the head and dropped overboard? Should they not complain? You cannot be unmindful of your responsibility.”

  “I?” My father crossed his legs and squinted down at a stain on his stocking. “I suppose you mean because it happened in my waters? Well, I regret it, but I do not see what I can do beyond taking depositions if they wish to make them.”

  “They have already made depositions, John,” Sir Francis said. “Yesterday, before they left.”

  “They have? Then they made them improperly. They should have come to me.”

  “They preferred otherwise.”

  “One has not always the good fortune to be able to please oneself. In any event I should have thought the captain on very shaky ground for complaint if it’s true what is rumoured, that the money was stolen from this Portuguese carrack which has been brought in and which is the Queen’s prize.”

  “According to the captain,” said Sir Francis, “they brought goods here which they had purchased in fair trade at the quay at Plymouth. They spent the afternoon and evening of Thursday visiting Mr Trefusis, Mr Thomas Enys, and divers traders of Penryn, to whom they sold most of these goods and received payment in money and in bills. At about four of the clock on Friday morning seven armed men boarded and took possession of Buckfast, and in the struggle one of the crew, Ezekiel Penwethers, was struck on the head and fell overboard to his death. The ship was searched from prow to poop and everything of value taken, including of course the gold.”

  My father had not listened patiently to this. He had closed his eyes and sighed and opened them to look again at the stain. “So I’ve heard, Francis. So I’ve been told. For my own part I doubt very much if the captain’s story will bear a close quizzing. But if it is true I am sorry he has suffered this misfortune—though not overly surprised. Vagrants and thieves roam the countryside committing all manner of outrages; and they are on the increase. Who is to check them?”

  “If the captain’s story were true I’m sure you would not be overly surprised,” stuttered Mr Trefusis, “ since one of the robbers was seen to be wearing Killigrew livery under his cloak!”

  Into the stretched silence came a sudden burst of shrill weeping; little Odelia had slipped from her chair, and she rushed to her mother for comfort. By the time Mrs Killigrew had carried her from the room the flush had faded from my father’s face.

  “The spleenful thoughts of my neighbour never surprise me. But I trust that you, Francis, don’t cradle such suspicions?”

  “Well, I should be glad to have—”

  “A reassurance? Are you saying that I did it? Do you think if I had committed this robbery I should have been such a fool as to take men aboard dressed in my own livery? But in fact on Thursday night last I was ill.”

  “Ill?”

  “A seizure in the stomach. I had to rouse my chaplain, and I think he can reassure you that I was not out of my bed that night.”

  Mr Trefusis grunted his doubts. “Then if it was not you in person … This has—”

  It was a mischance that at that moment Simon Killigrew should enter the room. He looked curiously from one to another of the tautened faces. “ Welcome, Uncle. And you too, Trefusis. Is this private business?”

  “Oh,” said Trefusis, “I did no
t know you were here! That might well explain it all!”

  “Explain what?” asked Simon.

  “They’re all the same, the Killigrews,” said our neighbour. “ They all have morals as accommodating as a Greyfriar’s sleeve.”

  “You came to this house uninvited, Trefusis,” said my father. “ If you don’t leave under your own sail you are likely to be helped to go.”

  “A moment, John,” Sir Francis said quietly. “ You may put Mr Trefusis out; but these depositions have been taken and will presently find their way to the appropriate quarters. Whether they are true or not, I’m afraid they will have to be sifted. Therefore—”

  “Then sift them, Francis! But I thought I had enough jealous ill-wishers in the county without supposing one of my own kinsmen to be among them. What is your interest in this? With all your broad acres and prospering tin-works, what can you covet of mine?”

  “I covet nothing of yours, as you should know. This accusation is no doubt false, but it shows the reputation you bear.”

  “My reputation, by God!—”

  “Yes! If you think because I speak you words of warning I am your ill-wisher, then you misread me. But comes to a pretty pass when mariners shun the river you command and only put in here under extremity of storm and stress, when armed retainers rule the countryside instead of the Queen’s law. Things cannot go on like this. I speak as your kinsman and your friend! Good night.”

  On the Thursday after this Uncle Simon said he must leave on the morrow for Greenwich where the court then was. My father said he had been thinking it over and had decided he would ride with him; then my grandmother decided to go too. This caused harsh words. My father said Lady Killigrew was not strong enough to sit a horse with them for ten days. She answered that if she tired she would hire a coach. My father said that in their present beggared state they could not afford it; best if she waited and took a passage by sea. My grandmother said she was an indifferent sailor and the autumn gales were due; she wanted to go now; she was sick and tired of a country bumpkin’s existence; if he wished to go chasing Lady Betty again she would not stand in his way, all she wanted was to see for herself what they were wearing in London and in Westminster; she wanted to meet all her relatives and friends; besides, she had a little money now.

  When Friday morning came Lady Killigrew was ready at sun-up with the others, her two bags packed, her little black mare saddled, and no one dared say no.

  The house was very different without them. Rosewarne the steward did his best, but he was given such scant authority when the two ruling Killigrews were at home that he did not have the way of it when they were gone. Then my stepmother took to her bed with an attack of jaundice, and just at this time Henry Knyvett chose to pay one of his rare visits to his wife at Rosemerryn, so the ordering of the servants fell upon Bethia Wolverstone, my grandmother’s unmarried sister, and upon Mary Killigrew, my father’s unmarried sister. But Mistress Wolverstone spent much of her day reading and praying and my aunt Mary lived only for her hawks and her falcons, so discipline relaxed, meals were late and work went forward at half-speed. Even when Mr Knyvett came back there was no improvement, for he went into one of his drunken spells.

  All this slackness was aided by the great storms which blew up as October came in. There were ever more excuses for not going out, for postponing work in the yards and on the roofs of the barns. It had been a good year for apples, and the cider presses were much in use. Catching Henry Knyvett’s complaint, servants were found drunk about the house, and one was thrashed for trying to force a kitchen maid. One day the webster came and bargained for our surplus wool but I do not think my grandmother would have let it go at so low a price.

  One evening, having been helping with some hides, I went up to say good night to Mrs Killigrew later than her own children; and she told me to sit and talk with her for a while; then she read me a chapter from the Bible.

  There was no malice toward me in her such as I found now in my grandmother; indeed Mrs Killigrew was too gentle and too absent-thoughted to feel malice for anyone. She spent much time in reading and meditation. The books beside her bed were Latimer’s Sermons and A Treatise on the Resurrection of the Dead. Yet she did fine wrought-stitch work, was skilled in gardening and in preserving fruit, and if one of the servants was ill or hurt she would tend on them herself. I thought my eldest half-brother John would grow up to be like her.

  When she paused to take a sip of water I could hear the rats scuttering behind the wainscot and the bang of a loose shutter in the wind. I stared curiously at the wire hoop of a farthingale with a pair of silk stockings hung over it, at a purple taffeta nightgown behind the door. I thought: what if my mother had been here instead; would she have been content always to take second place? Mrs Killigrew said: “ Tell me, Maugan, are you happy here?” When I looked up startled, she added: “ Of late you have been in trouble more often than out of it.”

  “Perhaps it is a Killigrew shortcoming.”

  She lifted her head. “You’re growing old before your time, Maugan.”

  “Do you want me to go away?”

  “Away?”

  “To leave Arwenack.”

  She smiled. “ No. You are good company for my own children. They would miss you greatly. We all should.”

  “It’s a big family now.”

  She closed the Bible, though she had not finished the chapter. “I too come of a large family, Maugan, with many sisters. My father ruined himself in providing dowries for us all, so lack of money is no new problem to me. There are many greater misfortunes.”

  I said: “ I wish I knew who my mother was.”

  “I wish I could tell you.”

  “Does Father ever speak of her?”

  “No, Maugan, never. Or not to me. Perhaps it is not surprising that he does not speak of her to me.”

  There was something on the bed on which Mrs Killigrew had been working when I came into the room: a piece of fine purple cloth enriched with gold and silver lace. There was a short length of pleated silk cord dangling from it over the side of the table.

  “Have you often been to London, ma’am?”

  “Once only.” She put a coriander seed in her mouth and chewed slowly. “To Whitehall, when your father’s uncle, Sir Henry Killigrew, presented me to the Queen.”

  “Is my great-uncle high in favour still? How comes it that he stays constantly in the Queen’s favour when others go so much by ups and downs?”

  “I think the Queen has two kinds of servants, those who are her favourites … and those whom she trusts. Those whom she trusts are those to whom she gives her most laborious and responsible positions of state; their lives and careers are not so subject to change—if they serve her well. Your great-uncle Henry has served her well for thirty-five years, and your great-uncle William for scarcely ten less.”

  The wind leaned and pushed against the house, and the loose shutter slammed in the next room.

  “And,” she added, “your great-uncle Henry married well. His new wife is French and I do not know her; but his first wife’s sister is married to Lord Burghley and is the mother of Robert Cecil, whom everybody supposed Lord Burghley is bringing on to succeed him as Chief Secretary. And a second sister, Lady Bacon, is the mother of Anthony and Francis Bacon, both young men of gifts, I’m told.”

  I got up to go. “I’ll tie that shutter. Do you lack anything for the night?”

  “Your aunt Mary will be in soon, thank you.”

  I fingered the material on the bed. “ What is this, a new canopy for the cradle?”

  She seemed to hesitate. “It’s a Spanish cloak belonging to your father. I’m repairing it.”

  “The material is fine. I don’t remember him wearing it.”

  “No …”

  I picked up a string of corals that had been dropped by one of the babies and put it on the carved chest beside the bed.

  “Good night, madam. I hope you sleep well.” I kissed her cheek which smelt of some herba
l tincture.

  “Maugan,” she said as I got to the door. “Do not mention this cloak. Mr Killigrew would be angry.”

  Chapter Four

  The evening of the full moon was the second Thursday in October, and my father and uncle and grandmother had been gone three weeks. It had been a windy day, but as night fell the wind fell and left only the high white clouds moving across the sky like afterthoughts. By the time ten o’clock had come and the house was asleep, the moon was riding high and the harbour water was greying and whitening with the passage of every cloud.

  Almost as soon as I was out of the house Charon found me and growled his suspicion, but he soon stopped to eat the pieces of meat I brought. But away from the house it was not the hounds that had to be feared. I could appease them and shake them off but could never lose the shadow that followed at my feet or dodge the giant imprints of the trees that cut across the drive with silhouette images of witches and skeletons, of blood feasts, of human sacrifices and of damned souls.

  Once over the palisade I ran for some way along the rutted muddy lane, before breaking through a tangle of bramble and bracken to the more open land beyond. From here the river mouth lay like a forked quicksilver tongue thrust into the dark flesh of the land.

  Near the mill a stop for breath. There was a light. I went on through the brambles and then more slowly across the open ground. The door could not properly close because of its lost hinge, and the light inside was cut off briefly as a figure moved across it.

  The light came from a small open lamp like an early Christian lamp with oil in the shell and a wick burning from the lip. There was a brazier near the centre of the room with a pot simmering on it.

  “So you have come, lad.”

  The lamp though dim spread a more uniform light over the room than the bright sun had done. On a shelf against one wall was a pile of books, and on the millstones behind the brazier were rows of bottles and jars arid tins. The roof of the floor above had given way in one place and the wooden steps led to a hole which had been nailed across with old sacks to keep out the draught.