Lion Triumphant

At the Hacienda

ON THE SHORE A party of men with mules were awaiting us. We were clearly expected. I suppose our ship would have been sighted a day before it arrived. We had seen the conical snow-topped mountain jutting out from the ocean; very soon after they must have seen the galleon from the land.

The Captain, Richard Rackell and John Gregory were among the small party which accompanied us; and as I looked back at the galleon and thought of those days when we had lain becalmed and the terrible fear which had come to me then I could not suppress a feeling of relief and an immense curiosity and excitement. I believed that soon we would discover what our abduction was all about.

As usual I scanned the horizon for the sight of a sail, but there was nothing but an expanse of blue ocean.

The sun was warm, though it was only February. I looked at the others; Honey was within two months of her confinement; she had, in spite of everything, retained a certain serenity. Jennet had that bewildered look on her face; I supposed she was wondering whether her sailor would come ashore. He was not with the party but had remained on board ship. It was no doubt due to this that she felt this anxiety.

The Captain asked us to mount the mules. “We have some short distance to go,” he said.

We obeyed and we set out from the shore.

The animal’s progress was slow and it took us some two hours to cover what could not have been more than six or seven miles. The Captain called a halt at the top of an incline and from there we were able to look down on the town. On the edge of this he pointed out a large white building which appeared to be surrounded by parkland.

He said: “This is the residence of the Governor of this island, Don Felipe Gonzáles. The house is known as the Hacienda and it is there we are going.”

“For what purpose?” I asked.

“You will discover,” he answered.

Our mules carried on down the slope toward the town and the white house and at length we came to iron gates. These were opened by a man who bowed to us and we went through them into a drive on either side of which grew tall flowering shrubs, pink, white and red. Their heavy perfume hung in the air.

We came at length to the portico; three white steps led to a door, which was opened by a servant in yellow and black livery. We went into a hall which was dark after the brilliance of the sun outside.

We were taken to a small room and there we were left—the three of us—almost in the dark, for the tinted windows and heavy drapes shut out the sun.

We did not speak; our tension was too great. I had gathered this much: that I had been the object of the abducting. Jennet had become the mistress of one of the sailors and because he was a strong man and carried a knife she had had but one master; Honey would have been ravished but for the Agnus Dei at her neck and perhaps that aura of divinity or maybe her own witchcraft; but I had been guarded; the man who had dared touch me had suffered violent lashing because of it. So it was clear that the purpose of this mission concerned me.

The Captain returned. He spoke to Honey: “Have no fear. You will be looked after until such time as the child is born.” His voice was tender; there was a sadness about him. They smiled at each other. I knew there was a bond of love between them, a love that would never be fulfilled but which had touched their lives briefly and had meant something to them.

“Jennet shall be your maid while you need her,” he said. “Remain here.” Then to me: “Come.”

I followed him up a staircase. There was a strange brooding silence about this house. It was dark everywhere; it was full of shadows. I knew that something strange and dramatic was about to happen to me.

I followed the Captain along a corridor. The tinted windows threw a faint yellowish color into the gloom and I had the impression that the owner of this house wanted to shut out the light because he could not bear it to show what went on within these walls.

I had a desire then to turn and run. Where could I run to? How could I leave Honey and Jennet behind? But it was because of me that we had been brought here.

The Captain had paused before a door. He rapped lightly on it, someone spoke from within and we entered.

At first I could see little in that darkened room and then I was aware of the man. This was my first glimpse of Don Felipe Gonzáles. I felt the cold shiver run through my body. Perhaps it was a premonition, perhaps it was that there was something so forbidding, almost awe-inspiring about the man. He was not tall, compared with Jake Pennlyon, for instance, nor was he small for a Spaniard. He was dressed in a black doublet which was trimmed with fine white lace, his breeches were of padded satin, at his side was a short sword in a velvet scabbard, and never had I been aware of dignity such as he possessed, never had I seen eyes so cold. He would terrify by a look, this Don Felipe Gonzáles. His skin was of olive color; his nose large aquiline, lips thin, a straight line, cruel, ruthless lips.

He said: “So this is the woman, Captain.”

I knew enough Spanish to understand that.

The Captain answered in the affirmative.

He came forward and bowed to me, coldly, yet politely. I acknowledged his greeting.

“Welcome to Tenerife,” he said in English.

Because I was afraid I must answer boldly. “Not well come,” I said, “since I am brought here against my will.”

“I rejoice in your safe arrival,” he replied.

He clapped his hands and a woman came in. She was young—about my own age—considerably smaller, with dark skin and big dark eyes.

He nodded to her and she came toward me.

“Maria will attend you,” he said. “Go with her. We shall meet later.”

It was bewildering. The girl took me along the silent corridor. We came to a big room, dark as the others in spite of the big window. The heavy embroidered hangings shut out the light although they were not fully drawn. In the room was a large four-poster bed, about which hung embroidered curtains; the posts and canopy were finely carved; the coverlet of silk. The chairs were finely carved too, and there was a massive oak chest on one side of the room. On the wooden floor were two large mats of unusual designs. I had never seen such beautiful rugs.

I quickly discovered that Maria knew no English and that I could learn little from her. She drew me through a door which led from the bedroom and there was a toilet room such as I had never seen before. A sunken bath was in the floor and there were Venetian mirrors on the wall.

Maria pointed to the bath and to me; she pulled at my clothes and I could see that she was suggesting I should take a bath.

I was nothing loath. I felt I needed it; and I had a great desire to be cleansed of the all-pervading odors of the ship.

She disappeared and I unbound my hair and let it fall about me. She came back shortly with cans of water, with which she filled the bath. She pointed to me and I indicated that I wished her to leave me. She did. I locked the door, threw off my clothes and got into the sunken bath. It was a delicious sensation. I lay full length and let my hair fall into the water. Then I washed it and my body too and as I stepped up onto the tiled floor Maria was there holding out towels for me. I could not understand how she had come in, for I had locked the door; she saw my surprise and pointed to the curtains behind her. I realized there was another door behind them which led into the toilet room.

I dried my body and she brought scented oils, with which she massaged me. The scent was pungent, overpoweringly sweet like the flowers I had noticed in the drive.

She wrapped a toweled robe about me and spread my hair around me. She giggled and drew back and, throwing back the curtains, opened the door through which she had come.

The bedroom window opened onto a balcony and she beckoned me. I went out; it was small and there was just room for two or three people. I looked over the wrought-iron balustrade onto a patio in which grew highly colored flowers. There was a seat on the balcony. Maria turned it so that my back was to the sun; I could see the purpose was to dry my hair.

She hunched her shoulders as though amused and disappeared. I sat still shaking out my damp hair, in spite of everything enjoying the luxury of being clean again. It gave me courage. I had ceased to speculate as to my fate, for I was aware that I would know very soon why I had been brought here. I wondered what was happening to Honey and Jennet and whether the Captain had returned to his ship.

The warm sun was pleasant; I felt my spirits rising a little because I could not associate violence with the dignified man whom I had seen so briefly and who I knew was the master of everything here.

Maria came out; she felt my hair; she brought a comb and combed it, holding the strands of hair up to the sun’s warmth. I tried to ask what she knew, but it was impossible.

I was on the balcony for what must have been more than an hour. The sun was lower in the sky. It would be almost sunset. I calculated that it would be about six of the clock.

Maria beckoned me into the bedroom. There was a polished metal mirror and a chair before it. I sat down and she dressed my hair. She piled it high on my head and placed in it a comb very similar to the one I had bought from the peddler; and I felt it was symbolic in a way. That had been at the very beginning. Now we were at the climax.

She took a velvet robe from a cupboard. It was a deep mulberry shade and edged with miniver. There was something regal about it. She put it about me.

I said, “Whose is this, Maria?”

She giggled. She pointed to me.

“But whose before?” I asked. There was a faint perfume about it. The same as that of the oil with which I had been anointed.

She kept on pointing to me and I gave up the interrogation as hopeless.

There was a knock on the door. Maria scuttled to it; there was a hurried exchange of words. Then she came back and beckoned to me.

I followed her out of the bedroom along the dim corridor into a room. It was dark now; the sun had disappeared below the horizon and there was not the twilight we had at home.

Maria pushed me into the room and shut the door. I saw the table laid for a meal. There were flowers on it. Candles flickered in their sconces on the walls.

I advanced and I knew as I did so that I was being watched.

Don Felipe Gonzáles rose from a chair in the shadows and bowed to me.

I said: “Where is my sister?”

He replied: “We dine alone.” He took my hand and with a graceful gesture led me to the table.

I sat in the chair at one end of the table; he took one at the other end.

“We shall converse in your barbaric tongue,” he said, “for I am acquainted with it.”

“That will be an advantage,” I replied, “for I know only a few words of your savage one.”

“You will not indulge in useless vituperation. It will serve you ill.”

“I am a prisoner here. I know that. You can hold me here I have no doubt, but you cannot force me to silence or to speech.”

“You will learn grace and courtliness here. You will learn that pointless badinage will help you not at all.”

I was irritated by his habit of saying, “You will do this and that.” He made it sound like a command. I had the impression that he was stressing the fact that I was in his power and would be forced to obey him. It frightened me. There was something cold and implacable about him.

“We will eat now, and afterward we will talk. I will then explain what is expected of you.”

He clapped his hands and servants appeared.

They carried hot dishes, which they placed on the table. We were served with some sort of fish.

It smelled good after salt meat and beans and biscuits in which there were very often weevils.

“We call this calamares en su tinta,” he told me. “You will enjoy it.”

I did, marveling that I could eat with such enjoyment in such a situation and strange company.

He talked of the food of the countryside. “You will enjoy it when you have grown accustomed to it. Taste is a matter of cultivation. Custom plays a large part in what we enjoy.”

A kind of pork followed, served with tiny green vegetables which I had not seen before. “Garbanzos con patas de cerdo,” he told me. “You will repeat it.”

I obeyed.

“Your accent shocks me,” he said. “It is unharmonious.”

“You could not expect one of my barbaric tongue to speak yours well,” I retorted.

“You speak with wisdom,” he said.

“Then I have at last won your approval.”

“You will learn that words can be wasteful. You will eat and after that we will talk and you will learn the reason for your coming.”

I said nothing and ate the food. There were fruits afterward—dates and little yellow fruit which I learned were called bananas. They were delicious.

“You will want to know where you are. There is no reason why you should not. You are on one of the chief of a group of islands once known as the Fortunate Isles.”

“And were they?” I asked.

“You will not speak unless asked to do so,” he said. “These islands were in the far-off days called Canaria because when the Romans came here there were many dogs. They called them the Islands of Dogs. Now you will hear them spoken of as the Canaries and you will understand why. The dogs have disappeared. The islands were inhabited by a race known as the Guanches—a warlike people. There are some left. They are savages and stain their bodies with the dark red resin of the dragon trees. We have subdued them. The flag of Spain now flies over these islands. The French settled here first, but they were unable to keep order. We understood how important they were to our navigation. We did not fight for them; we bought them from the French and since then we have settled here and are subduing the Guanches.”

“At least I know where I am.”

“We are on the outskirts of the town of La Laguna, which we built when we settled here. You may be allowed to go into the town. It will depend on your behavior.”

While he had been talking the food had been cleared away; but the silver jug containing a kind of mead which we had been drinking was left on the table.

The door shut; we were alone.

“You will hear now why you are here and why your path has crossed mine. You are necessary to a plan.”

“How could that be?”

“You will not be impetuous. You must be silent. You would not wish to play your part without knowing why. Nor would I wish you to. I would not have you think that I resemble the barbarians of your island home. You will be quiet therefore and learn the reason for your abduction. You will be reasonable, pliable, do what is expected of you and therefore save yourself much trouble and degradation. I am no rough pirate. I am a man of breeding. I come from a noble family; I am distantly connected with the royal house of Spain. I am a man of taste and sensibility. What I must do is distasteful to me. I trust you will make it as tolerable as possible. I will continue.”

I bowed my head submissively.

“I am the Governor of these islands, which I hold in the name of Spain. I have told you how they came into our possession. They belong to Spain, as the whole world should and shall one day. But there are marauding pirates on the seas; and there is one nation which is particularly offensive to us. They have bold seamen, adventurers without grace, crude men who raid and pillage our coastal towns and ravish our women.”

“It is not only one nation who is guilty of these practices,” I said. “I speak from personal experience.”

“You will learn to curb your tongue while you are here. It is not seemly for women to use that organ so constantly. They should be gentle and gracious in the presence of their masters.”

“I have yet to learn that you are my master.”

“You have yet much to learn and the first lesson will be just that. You are here to obey me and that you will do. But silence, or you will rob me of my patience and you shall not know why but only that you must do as bidden.”

That did silence me.

“Let us to the point,” he said. “Five years ago I came here. I was betrothed to a lady of a noble family. Isabella was carefully nurtured and when I left Madrid she was a child of thirteen, too young for marriage, but we were betrothed. She would come out to me when she was fifteen. There were therefore two years to wait. Those two years passed and she was fifteen. She and I were married in Madrid by proxy. The King himself attended the ceremony. Then she set out on the journey from Spain. We prepared to receive her. Our true wedding would take place in the Cathedral of La Laguna within two days of her arrival. We were ready to receive her. The journey was long, for the ship had been becalmed for a week. You will know what that can mean. I waited eagerly and while I was waiting a message was brought to me that the Guanches were rising in another of our islands. It was imperative for me to leave La Laguna to sail across to the troubled island. I was there for three weeks; and in the meantime Isabella arrived. I was not there to greet her, but my household was in readiness. My young bride was received with honors; she was a bewildered child of fifteen, delicately nurtured, ignorant of life. I knew that it would be my task to teach her gradually and with care. But that did not happen. It was two nights after Isabella and her duenna arrived with their retinue that the pirates came. I was not there to defend her—my poor ravished Isabella—humiliated, degraded, terrified.”

I shivered. “Poor child,” I murmured.

“Poor child indeed, and you have not realized all. The effect on her has been terrible.”

There was silence—a great moth fluttered up suddenly from the curtains and flew to the candlelight; it flew madly around, singeing its wings until it fell. We both watched it.

“She had to be nursed back to health,” he said. “But that was something beyond our powers.”

“She died?” I asked.

He looked beyond me. “Perhaps it would have been better so.”

We were silent for a second or so. I was thinking of the leering faces of men during the calm; and I saw the poor little girl of fifteen in their power.

“I am not a man to accept insult and injury,” he said. “I seek revenge … nothing will satisfy me but revenge. I want an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. No more. But that I want and that I will have. Tell me that you understand.”

“I do.”

“You would feel as I if so wronged?”

“I believe I should.”

“There is anger in you. I sense that. It is good. It will make you pliant.”

“Explain to me more.”

“It is simple. I know the name of the ship which raided our coast on that night. I know the name of Isabella’s ravisher. The ship was the Rampant Lion. The man who ruined her life Captain Jake Pennlyon.”

I had caught my breath; I felt the color rushing into my face. I stared at him. I know my lips formed the name Jake Pennlyon although I did not speak.

“Now you begin to understand. My affianced bride was cruelly treated by this brigand. His affianced bride is in my hands. You are not a fool. You understand.”

“I begin to.”

“I shall tell you of Isabella, beautiful Isabella, an untutored child. Our brides are young … younger than yours perhaps. Fifteen years old. She knew nothing of life, what marriage would be. I should have led her gently to understanding … tenderly. You are made of stronger stuff. You are no child. You have knowledge of the world. It may be that you are not a virgin. But I shall take my revenge. He took my woman, so shall I take his. You are not, I trust, carrying his child already?”

“You are insulting.”

“Nay. I respect your pride; but I know his kind. I would not wish to insult you. We are not brigands here. We live graciously and in a becoming manner I shall secure my revenge if you permit this. I know that you were not his mistress. My spies kept me informed.”

“The false Rackell, the falser Gregory.”

“Faithful to me,” he said, “as they should be. I have vowed to take my revenge and shall do so whatever the cost. I shall rejoice if you are a virgin, for that will make my revenge complete.”

“That is your purpose then?”

“Our wedding took place as arranged. She was demented. She would awaken screaming from her sleep; her dreams terrified her. None but her duenna could comfort her. When I approached her she shrank from me. She associated me with him, you see. We discovered that she was with child … that brigand’s child. You cannot realize this tragedy until you have seen it. I vowed revenge. I have sworn before all the saints that I shall not rest until that revenge is complete.”

“A strange vow to take in holy places,” I said.

“I have sworn,” he said, “in the name of God the Father and the Holy Virgin; I have sworn on my family’s honor, and I know that I have divine help in this, for now you are delivered into my hands.”

“And so the drama is to be reenacted. I take the part of Isabella and you Pennlyon.” I recoiled from him—this strange cold man. “Do you think you could ever be like him? You could not be more unlike…”

“And you like her. It matters not. You are here by God’s grace. We have brought you out of your island. You have come safely through the perils of the sea. And I swear by my ancestors and all the saints that you shall not leave this island until you carry my child in your womb. You shall take my child to him as he has left his to me.”

“So you think that I will submit with docility?”

“I think that you have no choice but to submit.”

“And allow myself to be treated as of no consequence as merely a means of giving you your revenge!”

“As Isabella was a means of satisfying that man’s lust.”

“You call yourself courteous, sensitive! I call you a rogue, a pirate, for although you are too fastidious to sail the seas and capture women for yourself you have your servants bring them to you. You are as bad as he is.”

“I have vowed a vow. I intend it to be carried out. I am indeed different from the man who was to have been your husband. I offer you a choice. Gracious submission or force.”

“I’ve no doubt he offered her that.”

I stood up and moved to the door. He was beside me.

“This is distasteful to me,” he said. “Do not imagine I lust for your body.”

“Can I hope that I am as repulsive to you as you are to me?”

“You can believe that I have as little pleasure in what must be done as you have. But it shall be done and whether our encounter is to be conducted with seemly discretion or in a manner which will be humiliating and degrading to you is for you to decide.”

I looked at him; he was slender and he did not give the impression of great strength, as Jake Pennlyon had. A woman would know at once that she had no chance against him. I could fight this man. And if I escaped him where should I go?

He followed my thoughts. “I have many servants here. I have but to summon them. Strong men who would truss you up as a chicken for the pot. But I do not wish for that. I want the matter to be conducted expeditiously and with as little discomfort to you and myself as possible. I do not blame you for what happened. But you are a necessary instrument of my revenge.”

I thought I could like him better if he were goaded by that lust—anything would be better than this coldly scheming approach.

He said: “I will send for Maria; she shall conduct you to the bedchamber; she will prepare you. I will visit you there. I beg of you consider. You know you are here and powerless to resist. This shall come to pass. How depends on you.”

He went to the door. Maria must have been waiting. She came in and knew what to do. I followed her back to the bedroom.

I suppose always before I had acted on impulse. I had forcefully expressed my agreement or refusal to do anything. I had rarely been undecided. “Count ten before speaking,” my mother had said. I could go on counting day and night now and I should not know what to do. I was going to be this man’s mistress. It was as inevitable as the rise and setting of the sun. I could see nothing that would prevent it. I was a prisoner on this island and there was nothing that could save me. If I attempted to resist him he would resort to force as he had said; and he was not the man to apply force himself, any more than he was to take part in the actual abduction. Others did that for him.

Maria slipped off my clothes; over my head was put a night shift of silk. It had that pungent odor about it.

Maria turned down the sheet. She indicated that I was to get into the bed. I did so shivering. I was fighting with myself. I saw men tying my ankles together. I saw myself forcibly taken as Jake Pennlyon had taken Isabella. I could not endure that—just to reach the same end.

Maria was blowing out the candles. The room was in darkness. She went out and shut the door.

I leaped out of bed. I tried the door. It was locked. I went to the window. I drew back the curtains so that a little starlight penetrated. I opened the window and stepped out onto the balcony. I wondered if I could climb down into the patio. I could find Honey, run to her for shelter.

I pictured rough hands on me. He was right, I had to make a choice. Would I make a pretense of submission or would I wait to be degradingly forced?

It was too late. I could hear the key in the lock. I ran back to the bed and lay there, my heart beating quietly.

He came into the room. I saw him in the starlight standing by the bed. He was wrapped in a robe, which he took off. I closed my eyes tightly.

Then I was aware of his body, his hands on me, his face close to mine.

I tried to calm myself and I thought: Oh, God, I saved myself from Jake Pennlyon, from the lustful men on the galleon … for this.

A week had passed. I could not believe that this was happening to me. I saw little of him during the day, but each night he came to me. He never stayed. “The matter,” as he called it, was as distasteful to him as to me. I had never thought it possible to have such a cold-blooded lover—but he was not a lover; this had nothing to do with love; it was revenge.

There was a certain passion—the passion of revenge—and for me the passion of hatred. I hated him for this humiliating use of me. He had robbed me of my dignity as a human being. I was not a woman to be loved or to be hated; I was a means to give him the revenge he needed. My hatred grew when I considered that. He was trying to create a life; he would bring a child into the world to satisfy his revenge and make me the instrument of reproduction. Could anything be more humiliating than that?

Only a man of extreme arrogance could dream of using others for such a purpose. He was every bit as bad as Jake Pennlyon. I hated them both. How dared they treat women in such a way!

When this man came to me I thought of Jake Pennlyon and I could not shut out of my mind the thought of his coming to this house and finding Isabella and in my imagination I was Isabella and the man who was humiliating me was Jake Pennlyon.

I was treated with respect during the day. There were servants to wait on me. During that first week I was not allowed beyond the house. But I did see Honey. The very first day I was taken to her. I was very shocked on that day by what had happened on the previous night; and as the days passed I was shocked in another way to discover how quickly I had grown accustomed to his visits.

The first encounter had horrified me—after all, I had been a virgin and, although not ignorant of sexual relationships, had never experienced such. It was at this stage that I talked to Honey.

She had been well received and had been given a pleasant room with Jennet to act as a kind of maid to her. She was bewildered as to why we had been brought there until I told her what had happened to me.

She listened incredulously. “It is too fantastic. It can’t be true.”

“This Felipe is a vindictive man. He is cold and cruel. He would go to any lengths to gain his revenge. When I carry his child we shall be taken back to England … and not till then.”

“So it was all planned.”

“What sort of mind would make such a plan? You can guess the sort of man he is. An eye for an eye. He has to pay back in exactly the same manner. It is Jake Pennlyon who has ruined my life, Honey. I knew it from the moment I saw him.”

“His young wife taken like that! It’s horrible, Catharine.”

“What became of her I don’t know. All I know is that he must have been heartbroken when he came back and found her … a child of fifteen, think of that, Honey; and Jake Pennlyon.”

Then I began to laugh hysterically. “I have been raped. As surely as anyone I have been violated, and in this most courteous manner.” I covered my face with my hands.

Honey shook me. “Don’t, Catharine,” she said. “Don’t laugh like that. It’s happened. Let us think on from there. This man…”

“He will visit me each night. He has said so. Oh Honey, when I think of it…”

“Don’t think of it. It is happening and nothing can change it. We are prisoners here and we know now for what purpose. At least he has not ill-treated you.”

“He has only misused my body,” I said fiercely.

“Catharine, we have come through violent adventures. This has happened. Edward is dead. My baby will soon be born. We are far from home. This man has taken you against your will, but not roughly as he might well have done.”

“As Jake Pennlyon must have taken Isabella. But perhaps she had a chance of passivity or the consequences. I chose passivity. I wish I’d fought him now.”

Honey said: “Be calm. Let us wait and see what happens. We don’t know from one moment to another. This man has had his will of you. It has happened to girls before. Let us try to bear what is in store for us.”

All that day I was with Honey and I could not get out of my mind what had happened to me. I thought of it all day—myself and this cold strange man—Isabella and Jake Pennlyon. And the evening came and Maria came for me and I bathed and was anointed with the perfumed oil—he was such a fastidious gentleman—and again that night he came to me.

Everyone in the household knew I was the Governor’s mistress. He did not wish to see me during the days, but at night he visited me. He did not stay. His visits were brief—only long enough to achieve the purpose.

I was treated with respect. So was Honey. The hushed household was far more comfortable than the galleon and Honey was getting to the stage when she needed comfort. Jennet slipped into the new life with ease; she mourned Alfonso for a day or so, but I knew it would not be long before she took up with someone. There were menservants and I had seen the looks that came her way. Such looks would always come Jennet’s way.

I was too deeply concerned with myself to think much of them during that first week. Often I could not believe that it was truly happening. I must wake up and find it all a dream—from the night the galleon had been in the bay and the men had called.

Then what astonished me was that I was beginning to accept everything. The quiet daily life; the house; the beautiful gardens with flowers such as we did not grow in England; the warmth of the sun; the fruits growing in the enclosed gardens. We were free to walk about, but there were guards at the gate who prevented us leaving the house and the gardens. There was a sewing room in which were frames and canvases to be embroidered. Honey was allowed to make clothes, but I was not. I was to draw what I wanted from the cupboards in the bedroom. Clothes were put there for me to choose from. I was allowed freedom in that. They were beautiful clothes, feminine clothes, and most of them were scented with the perfume of the oil which Maria rubbed into me at the end of each day.

Where did these clothes come from? I demanded to know. But Maria only shook her head.

I saw him now and then. He would ride out on a fine white horse. He looked magnificent mounted. He would often be away the whole day, but he always came back at night. He always came into my bedroom at the appointed time and rarely did he speak to me.

My moods varied—sometimes I would try to convey to him my contempt for a man who could behave so, sometimes I wanted him to know how I hated him. I wanted to shout: “Get me with child quickly that I may be rid of you.” At others: “I will be barren to spite you. What then, my revengeful lord?”

But I never spoke either and so that first strange week passed.

I had ceased to look for the ship on the horizon. I had accepted my fate. I had fought for myself and lost. I had been taken, ill-used; and I began to wonder how I could take my revenge on men such as Don Felipe and Jake Pennlyon, who believed that women were there for their pleasure whether it be to satisfy lust or revenge, it mattered not.

I hated Don Felipe Gonzáles as I had hated Jake Pennlyon.

We had made a kind of pattern of our days, Honey and I. It was March of the year 1560, and her baby was due in a few weeks’ time. I suppose impending childbirth makes everything else seem insignificant. Honey’s thoughts were all for the child. She was constantly making clothes from the materials she found in the sewing room. I was not much use with my needle, but I improved a little during those first days merely because I had to do something. I used to wonder that in a house such as this one there should be a sewing room; Honey took it for granted and was grateful for it. I supposed that these rooms had been prepared for the bride Isabella. Had she ever used them?

I would sit making idle speculations, but Honey scarcely listened; she was absorbed by her child.

It was a week after we had arrived at the Hacienda that we ventured into the Casa Azul. This was a small house standing in the grounds surrounded by a high wall. We had seen it from a distance and wondered what it was and on this particular morning I made up my mind to find out.

I insisted on Honey’s accompanying me and when she saw that I was leading her to the Casa Azul she wanted to turn back.

“Why?” I demanded.

“There is something repellent about it.”

“You are fanciful.”

“I don’t want to do anything that would harm the child.”

“Why, Honey, what’s come over you? What more can happen? Any child who could survive the last months will manage the next few weeks.”

She came with me to the wrought-iron gates; we looked through them to a courtyard which had been made with stones of varying shades of blue which had no doubt given the house its name. There were flowering shrubs of all kinds—brilliant colors among the green foliage.

“It’s beautiful,” I said.

“It’s gloomy,” insisted Honey.

I pushed open the wrought-iron gate and beckoned Honey. Rather reluctantly she followed me.

There was an air of silent mystery in the courtyard. Windows looked down at us, all with their balconies shut in by wrought iron. They were picturesque and one imagined girls wearing red petticoats and black lace mantillas seated there. Against the wall was a wooden seat with a trellis back. I tiptoed into the courtyard and sat down.

Honey followed me reluctantly. “Has it occurred to you that we might be trespassing?”

I said: “This is part of his estate. I will see all I can of it.”

Honey looked distressed as she did when I talked of him, and I did not wish to talk of him either. By day I wanted to forget those furtive visits.

As we sat there I was aware of a movement at one of the windows and a child stepped onto the balcony. She was like a doll, I thought; she wore black velvet with a white lace frill at her neck and wrists; her long dark hair hung about her shoulders. I guessed her to be about eleven or twelve years old.

She called out something in Spanish which I gathered to be “Who are you?”

I answered in English. “We are at the Hacienda.”

She put her fingers to her lips as though warning me to silence; she said something else and disappeared.

“What a beautiful little girl!” said Honey. “I wonder who she is.”

The girl had come into the courtyard. She was holding a doll in a red satin petticoat and a black mantilla. It was rather like herself.

She held the doll out to us and made it bow; I curtsied and she laughed aloud. There was something arresting about her besides her beauty, for there was a strangeness about her enormous dark eyes.

She held out her hand and took mine. We all sat down together on the seat. Then she noticed that Honey was pregnant, or so it seemed; her face puckered suddenly and she began to cry out: “No. No.” She hid her face in her hands on which several rings sparkled; I noticed gold bracelets on her wrists. Then she turned her back on Honey as though she were determined to forget she was there and when she looked at me she was smiling happily.

She muttered something in which I caught the words bella and muñeca and as I thought she was talking about her doll I replied in stumbling Spanish that the doll was a very beautiful one. She started to rock it as one would a child and I thought then that she looked too old for this kind of play.

Then at the door from which she had emerged a figure appeared.

“Isabella!” said a voice shrill and commanding.

Although I had begun to guess, the shock was none the less great. This was his wife then. This was the girl who had suffered at the hands of Jake Pennlyon.

Isabella rose obediently and went to the woman. She put her arms about her, the doll held by one arm dangling down as she did so. A flood of words came from the woman, scolding and tender, I judged from the tones. Over the girl’s head the woman studied us. Her eyes were sharp, piercing under straggling black brows in which the occasional white hair was visible.

She took the girl’s hand and drew her toward the door, but Isabella suddenly became petulant, crying, “No. No,” and turned to stare at us. She extricated herself from the woman’s arms and came over to stand before us. I was aware then of a scent which was familiar to me; it was the same as that which was in the toilet room and of which the clothes I wore smelled faintly. It was in the bedroom where I suffered my nightly humiliations. I wondered what it was.

The girl spoke to us, but as it was in Spanish I could not understand; then the woman came and took her by the hand and led her firmly away.

She turned to us at the door and spat out a word which I assumed meant “Go away.”

The door shut and we were alone in the courtyard.

“What a strange scene,” I said.

“We deserved all we got. We had no right to be here. I wonder who the girl was.”

“She must be his Isabella,” I said.

“You mean … his wife? But she was a child.”

The door into the courtyard had opened and Richard Rackell stood there.

“Come away,” he said quickly. “You should not have gone there.”

“Is it forbidden?” I asked coldly. I could never forget the part he had played in betraying us.

“There have been no express orders,” he said holding open the door. He went on: “Please.”

As we walked away he went on: “It was a terrible tragedy.”

“Whatever happened,” I said fiercely, “does not excuse what has been done to us, nor those who helped to do it.”

“You have seen the Lady Isabella,” he said. “She is as a child. She became so after the Rampant Lion came here. It affected her mind. She lives like a child with her duenna.”

I said: “She is beautiful.”

“You see a beautiful shell which holds nothing. Her mind is incapable of retaining anything; she has reverted to her childhood. Her interest is in her dolls. It is a great tragedy. You understand.”

I wanted to be alone. I could not get out of my mind the memory of that beautiful face which was devoid of the light of understanding.

The perfume too. I began to understand more. He tried to imagine that I was Isabella. I had to wear her clothes; use her perfume; he wanted to delude himself that the woman to whom he came each night was Isabella.

My attitude toward him had changed. I was sorry for him. I pictured his returning from his expedition expecting to find his beautiful bride waiting for him; the marriage ceremony would have been fixed; he and his lovely highborn Isabella were to be husband and wife. Isabella may have been a child of fifteen, but they married young in Spain; and Felipe Gonzáles was a gentleman; with great courteousness he would have wooed his wife and initiated her into the bedchamber rituals in such a manner as would have been acceptable to her. Instead of which Jake Pennlyon had come with his crude buccaneering ways and he had taken this delicately nurtured creature and crushed her, for crushed she was, poor little bud who had been cruelly deflowered before the blossoms came. And her mind had become unhinged.

I hate you, Jake Pennlyon, I thought; and my feelings against that man were intense while I could only feel pity for Felipe Gonzáles.

Jake Pennlyon! How I wished I had never seen him. He had brought me nothing but disaster. Here I was a prisoner, each night submitted to an intolerable humiliation—because of Jake Pennlyon. My pride was ignored; my body was used to satisfy revenge. I was a substitute for a beautiful young girl whose mind had been destroyed by Jake Pennlyon and my seducer had to imagine that I was this girl in order to make love—if one could use such a word in this connection—to me.

In addition to my humbled pride I was getting anxious about Honey. Her time was near. In the first year of her marriage she had had a miscarriage and I remembered my mother’s saying that the next time she must take the greatest care. In a few weeks now her child would be born; and what would happen if it came before its time? Who would care for her?

I decided to see Felipe Gonzáles. I had seen very little of him really. I wondered whether he avoided me by day. Ours must have been one of the strangest relationships which ever existed.

I knew that at certain times of the day he was often in the room which was called his escritorio and I decided that I would see him there. When I considered my feelings I realized that they had changed since I had seen Isabella. I was piqued because of what was implied in the fact that I had to wear Isabella’s clothes and use her scent; at the same time I felt a certain sympathy for him. I could imagine so much of what must have taken place: his arranged marriage which would have been ideal; his return to find his beautiful wife reduced to a shell. I imagined the ceremony of marriage which had followed and Isabella’s screaming terror when he approached her; and then the knowledge that she was to bear a child—Jake Pennlyon’s child. It was a tragedy and I understood how he must have called forth the wrath of heaven on the man who was responsible. I even understood his vow of vengeance.

I was also angry that I, so desired by Jake Pennlyon and others, should have to be tricked out as someone else before this man could be sufficiently aroused to carry out his purpose. It was a vain and stupid emotion, I suppose, but I felt it.

I had to see him and it was a fact that I was anxious about Honey.

He was seated at a table with papers before him. He rose as I entered.

“I gave orders that no one was to disturb me,” he said.

“I have to see you,” I replied. “There is something of importance that I must say to you.”

He bowed again—always courteous. I was glad of the darkened room. I felt embarrassed; I could have sworn he did too. Here we were two strangers by day but who by night shared the ultimate intimacy.

I said: “I have come to see you on behalf of my sister.”

He looked relieved. I sat down and he resumed his seat.

“As you know she is shortly to have a child. At any moment her time may come. I should like to know what can be done for her.”

“We have many servants,” he said.

“She will need a midwife.”

“There is a midwife in La Laguna.”

“Then she must be brought here. It was no fault of my sister’s that she was taken away.”

He conceded this. “Nor of any of us,” I went on angrily, hating his cold manner and thinking of his deluding himself that I was Isabella. “We have been dragged from our home to suit your evil purpose.”

He held up his hand. “Enough,” he said. “The midwife shall be sent for.”

“I suppose you would like me to thank you, but I find it difficult to thank you for anything.”

“It is not necessary. Suffice it that the midwife shall come.”

He half rose in his chair—a gesture of dismissal. But I did not wish to be dismissed. I was angry to be used in this manner and seeing him there in his elegant clothes, his cold face expressionless, his manner so precise, and thinking again of those nightly encounters and the way in which I had been used, robbed of my dignity, my will, everything to serve his revengeful purpose, my anger was so intense that I wanted to hurt him.

I said: “I can only pray that ere long I shall be free of you.”

“It is too soon yet,” he said. “But I pray with you that we shall both soon be relieved of this irksome duty.”

My anger was so great that I could have struck him.

I cried: “You appear to have no great difficulty in performing this irksome duty.”

“It is good of you to concern yourself on my behalf. May I assure you that we have substances which if taken judiciously arouse desire in the most reluctant.”

“And how long am I expected to submit to this distasteful duty of yours?”

“Rest assured that as soon as I am certain that my efforts have borne fruit I shall with the utmost pleasure and relief abandon my visits to you.”

“I think I may well by this time be with child.”

“We must be sure,” he said.

“It is such an effort for you. I thought but to spare you.”

“I have no wish to be spared from my revenge. The sooner I can effect it, the better.”

“And when you are certain that your loathsome seed is growing within me I shall be taken back to my home?”

“You will be returned to your affianced husband in the same condition that Isabella was left to me.”

“You are indeed a vengeful man,” I said. “Others must be trampled underfoot for the sake of your revenge.”

“It is often so.”

“I despise you for your cruelty, your indifference to others, for your cold and calculating revengeful nature. But I suppose that is of no importance to you.”

“None whatever,” he replied; and this time he stood up and bowed.

So I left him. But I kept thinking about him all day and wondering how I could be revenged on him.

Later that day the midwife rode into the courtyard on a mule and was brought to Honey. To our delight the woman could speak a little English. She was middle-aged and had been with a family in Cádiz which had had two English servants. Her English was of course limited, but it was a great relief to find she could understand a little.

She told us that Honey’s condition was good and that the child was due in the next week or so. She would ask that she might stay at the Hacienda so that they would not have to send for her in the night.

Jennet was present and suddenly the woman asked her when she was expecting.

Jennet blushed scarlet. I looked at her in astonishment. Now that I knew it seemed clear, but she had certainly successfully hidden it from us.

Jennet said she thought she was five months gone. The woman prodded her and said she would examine her. They went off together into the room leading from Honey’s where Jennet slept.

“I’m not surprised,” said Honey. “It had to happen sooner or later. It will be Alfonso’s.”

“I thought at first it might have been Rackell’s. What a strange affair that was. I’ll swear she has scarce been near him since we left.”

“She couldn’t bear him after Alfonso.”

“I think Jennet would be able to bear any man rather than none.”

“You are often a little hard on her, Catharine. It can hardly be called her fault if that Spanish sailor has got her with child.”

“I don’t think she was very reluctant.”

“It would have been no good if she had been. She submitted, that was all.”

“With a very good grace.”

I began to laugh suddenly. “The three of us, Honey … think of it! All to have children. For I shall soon be in like case, I doubt not. And I am the only one who has had a child forced on me. How does one feel, I wonder, toward one’s bastard when rape has been the cause of his arrival? Of course it was a very courteous rape. I never thought it would be like that.” I started to laugh and suddenly the tears were on my cheeks. “I’m crying,” I said, “for the first time. I’m sorry for myself. There is so much hate in me, Honey … for him and for Jake Pennlyon. Between them they have done this. But for them I should be at home in the Abbey with my mother.”

I covered my face with my hands and Honey was soothing me.

“It was to have been so different. The way Carey and I planned our life together. It was going to be so wonderful.”

“The things we plan rarely happen as we plan them, Catharine.”

Her face was sad and wistful and I thought of Edward, her kind husband, lying in his own blood on the cobbles.

“What is going to become of us all?” I asked.

“Only the future can tell,” she replied.

Jennet came back to us, her face flushed, a certain demureness in her expression.

Yes, she was with child.

“And knew it and kept it secret,” I accused.

“I couldn’t bring myself to tell you,” said Jennet bashfully.

“So you concealed it. You’ve been letting out your petticoats.”

“Well, the need were there, Mistress.”

“And you are five months with child.”

“’Twas six in truth, Mistress,” said Jennet.

I narrowed my eyes and looked at her.

“Why,” I said, “it was before you left England.”

“These midwives they can be mistaken, Mistress.”

I said: “Jennet, will you go to my bedroom? I have just thought of something I wanted to say to you.”

She went out and left us.

Honey was saying what a relief it was to know that the midwife was near. I let her go on talking. I was thinking of what I would say to Jennet.

Jennet looked at me shamefaced.

“The truth, Jennet,” I said.

“Oh, Mistress, you know.”

I was not sure, but I said: “Don’t think you can deceive me, Jennet.”

“I knew it’ud come out,” she said distressed. “But he were such a man. Why, not even Alfonso…”

I took her by the shoulders and looked into her face. “Go on, Jennet,” I commanded.

“’Tis his all right,” she murmured. “No mistake ’tis his. I wonder if my son ’ull be another like the Captain.”

“Captain Jake Pennlyon, of course.” I spoke of him as I would speak of a loathsome snake.

“Mistress, there were no saying no to him. He wouldn’t take it. He were the master and who could say him nay?”

“Not you, Jennet,” I said angrily.

“No, Mistress. You see he’d had his eye on me, and I knew ’twould come sooner or later. And I was helpless like. ’Twouldn’t have been no good, so I said what’s to be will be.”

“As you did with Alfonso. You’d never be the victim of rape, Jennet. You’d be only too eager to submit. That was it, wasn’t it?”

She did not answer. She kept her eyes downcast and once again I was amazed by her innocent looks.

“When?” I demanded. For some reason I wanted to know in detail. I told myself I hated what had happened but I had to know.

“’Twas on the night of the betrothal, Mistress. Oh, I was not to blame. I was took like … in place of you, it were.”

“What nonsense you are talking, Jennet.”

“Well, Mistress, ’twas the betrothal and I came to your room though I’d heard you say you were spending the night with the mistress, for he’d ridden over with you. I went in. The window was open wide and as I closed the door he stepped out from behind it and caught me. I was holding a candle and it dropped to the ground and went out. Then I heard him laugh.”

She giggled a little and I shook her and said: “Go on.”

“He took my chin in his hand and jerked my face up; he was roughlike. He were always roughlike in his ways. He said: ‘So it’s you. Where’s your mistress?’ And I said, ‘She bain’t here, Master.’ He said, ‘I can see that. Where is she?’ And I said, ‘She won’t be here tonight. She be with the other mistress.’ And he got it out of me what I’d heard that because he was here and you didn’t trust him to stay away you were staying with the mistress. He was angry and I was frightened. He cursed and swore and it was against you. He was wanting you, Mistress, bad he was. He was wild he were because when he’d heard my footsteps he’d thought they were yours.”

I laughed aloud. “So he was cheated, was he?”

“He reckoned so. And he was angry. And I said I’d go and tell you he were here and he said: ‘You little fool, do you think that will bring her?’ And I believe he was in two minds to come and get you. But even he couldn’t do that in his neighbor’s house, could he? So he made me stay and he said, ‘We’ll make believe, Jennet. You’ll be your mistress tonight.’ And then it happened, Mistress. I was powerless. There never was such a time.”

“In my bed!”

“I’d meant to straighten up, Mistress. But there weren’t time. He went at dawn; and I fell into such a sleep. Well, Mistress, it had been such a night … and when I woke it was late and I went to my room to get myself looking shipshape like … and by the time I came back you’d seen the room and the bed and…”

“The scene of your triumph, Jennet.”

“What’s that, Mistress?”

“And because of that he got you with child.”

She was again bashful. “There were other times. When you had the sweat he used to come over … and he’d command me to go to Lyon Court, he would.”

“And you did of course.”

“I dursn’t disobey him.”

“Jennet,” I said, “you are a false servant. This is the second time you have betrayed me.”

“I wouldn’t have, Mistress. It was just that it were beyond my power.”

“From him to Alfonso and I’ll warrant you sneak into someone’s bed in this place!”

“’Tis into the stables, Mistress. One of the grooms.”

“Spare me your disgusting details.” I kept thinking of Jake Pennlyon waiting in that room for me and taking Jennet. And I thought of the similarity of my own affair with Felipe Gonzáles, who pretended that the woman he visited each night was Isabella instead of me.

“And it did not occur to you that because of your lust you might bring some unfortunate infant into the world?”

“Oh, it did, Mistress, but then Sir Penn have had many such, but he always looked after ’em. They always had a good place somewhere and I said to myself ’twill be the same with Captain Jake.”

“You were mistaken.”

“It changed, though, Mistress. Who could have known that we’d be on the high seas and in this place? Who could have foretold that?”

She stood before me forlorn, yet her eyes were alight with the memories of her liaison with that man.

I wondered why I had failed to notice that she was pregnant. It seemed so obvious now.

Jake Pennlyon, I thought. Everything comes back to Jake Pennlyon. I wished that I could shut out from my mind memories of him and Jennet together.

I said: “Get out of my sight. You disgust me.”

She crept away.

I hated Jake Pennlyon. I hated Felipe Gonzáles. I hated my father and Kate for spoiling my life. So much hatred was like a sickness of the body. There was a tight feeling in my throat which was like a pain; I wanted to relieve it which I could only do by taking some action. I wanted revenge chiefly on Jake Pennlyon; but he was out of my reach. By comparison I almost felt a sympathy for Felipe Gonzáles. At least he was revenging himself on Jake Pennlyon. A feeble revenge perhaps. He did not understand that Jake was a different kind of man from himself. Jake could content himself with Jennet when he could not get me. Jake would never understand the devotion Felipe felt for his Isabella.

But I hated Felipe for humiliating me and I hated him for not desiring me, for forcing himself to do what he did and tricking me out so that he could delude himself into thinking I was Isabella.

Everything came back to Jake Pennlyon; but he was out of my reach and I could not revenge myself on him.

I wanted to hurt someone. To beat Jennet was of no avail. Besides, she was pregnant and I had no wish to harm an innocent child even though it was the fruit of Jake Pennlyon’s lust. I thought of Felipe and wondering about this strange, silent man took my thoughts from my bedroom in Trewynd and Jake Pennlyon’s waiting there behind the door to seize Jennet.

I began to consider those dark nights when Felipe Gonzáles came to me. I would not admit it, but they no longer shocked me. I had become accustomed to his visits. I received him passively and since I had seen Isabella my sympathy for him had grown.

But a desire began to grow in me—perhaps I wished for my revenge on him, perhaps my feminine vanity was affronted. I was not sure, but I began to think of him more than I had and my attitude toward him was changing.

Once when he came in I pretended to be asleep. I lay quite still. The room was always dark, but there was faint light from a crescent moon and the brilliant stars. I kept my eyes closed, but I was aware of his standing by the bed looking at me.

He always left his candle outside the door. I fancied that he was ashamed and did not wish to be embarrassed by the light.

Still keeping my eyes closed, I felt him get into the bed. I lay still. I knew that he was watching me. On impulse I put out a hand and touched his face. I let my fingers linger on his lips and I could swear he kissed them.

I made no sign. I just lay there as though sleeping. He watched me for some minutes. Then silently he went away.

I lay listening to his receding footsteps. My heart was beating wildly. I felt a certain exultation. Our relationship was beginning to change. Faint stirrings of a desire was in me—not for love but for revenge.

Honey’s time was near and the midwife came to settle in.

I went to Felipe’s escritorio ostensibly to thank him for what he had done for Honey, but in fact to speak to him and see if I could sense any change in his attitude toward me.

He had returned on other nights, but not every night. I would never know when he was coming and would lie awake listening for his steps. I was angry when he came and angry when he did not. I could not understand myself.

He rose from his desk as I entered and stood courteously.

Then he indicated a chair.

I sat down. “I have come to thank you. The midwife is here. My sister will have need of her shortly.”

He bowed his head.

“It is good of you to treat us as human beings.” I injected a little sarcasm into my voice, but he did not seem to notice it.

“It is no fault of hers that she is here. Certainly she must have attention. She will bring a good Catholic into the world.”

“I have a strong suspicion that I am with child.”

“Suspicion is not enough. I must have certainty.”

“How soon shall I leave when it is known?”

“That is a matter which will have my consideration. Your sister will not wish to travel for a while. Your maid, I hear, is also soon to give birth.”

I was not going to tell him who the father of Jennet’s child was.

I said: “She was raped by one of your sailors.”

“That is deplorable,” he said.

He half rose in his chair, the gesture of dismissal.

I went on: “We are kept as prisoners here. Are you afraid that we will find our way to the coast and swim home?”

“There is no reason why you should be kept prisoners. Once you are with child you will have more freedom. You are kept in seclusion because the child must be of my giving.”

I flushed hotly. “And you think I am a woman to take lovers here and there from your Spaniards of La Laguna? You are offensive, sir.”

“I ask your pardon. I meant no such thing. Your serving woman was taken against her will. There is a strangeness about you … a foreign look … which might put you in danger. I might not be at hand to protect you.”

“I trust soon that I shall be beyond your protection.”

“You cannot wish for that more than I do.”

I thought of his coming to me and how he had watched me and how he responded when I laid my fingers on his lips.

I had imagined the whole thing. There was no moving this strange silent man.

Honey had a long labor and it was day and night before her child was born—a puny girl, small but living.

It was not to be wondered at after all she had endured.

She lay back in her bed, looking unbelievably beautiful with her dark hair flowing loose and the maternal look in her lovely violet eyes.

She said: “I shall call her Edwina. It’s the nearest to Edward. What do you think of that, Catharine?”

I liked the name, but I was so relieved that Honey had come through the ordeal safely that anything would have sounded good. There had been times when I had begun to fear for her and then I realized how much she meant to me. I had gone over our childhood together in the Abbey and wondered what my mother was doing and whether she was thinking of us—her two daughters lost to the Spaniards.

The baby occupied our time and our thoughts. Its arrival was a turning point, I think. I had to rejoice when I looked at those miniature fingers and toes, and the child became the center of our lives. We ceased to think of revenge and home while we asked ourselves how much the baby had grown since yesterday.

A week or so after the birth of Edwina I was sure that I was pregnant.

Triumphantly, I faced him in the escritorio.

“There is no doubt,” I said. “I have seen the midwife. Your unpleasant duty is finished.”

He lowered his head.

“Now is the time for us to return home.”

“You shall do so at a convenient time.”

“You said this is all you wanted of me. You have defiled me, humiliated me, impregnated me with your seed. Is that not enough? Am I not free now?”

“You are free,” he said.

“Then I wish to go home.”

“You will need a ship.”

“You have ships. You sent for me, now take me home.”

“There is no ship in the harbor at this time.”

“Yet you sent the galleon.”

“It was convenient to do so.”

“Then pray find it convenient to keep your bargain.”

“I made no bargain with you. I made a vow to the saints.”

“You have promised that I shall go home.”

“In due course you will sail for your barbaric land and you can tell your pirate lover what you have seen here. You can tell him of what happened to a noble lady and what has happened to you. You can tell him that he ruined her life and that I have had my revenge on him. You will take your bastard to him as he left his here with me.”

I stood up. “So when a ship comes, I shall go?”

“It shall be arranged,” he said. “But I want to be sure that there is a child.”

“He never saw his. Why should you see yours? Is that in the vow?”

“His child was born,” he said. “I must be sure that mine is.”

“You have not gained your revenge completely,” I said. “I am not as Isabella. You have insulted and humiliated me, but you have not robbed me of my reason. Your revenge is incomplete.”

“You will have this child,” he said. “You will not leave this island until that child is born. I will make sure that there is a child and then you shall be taken back.”

I walked out of the escritorio. I thought: He said that I might leave when I was with child. But he does not wish me to go. I laughed exultantly and I thought: He is vulnerable. When I can discover how vulnerable I can have my revenge.

Revenge is sweet, there is no doubt. It gives one a reason for living when life becomes too tragic.

I was beginning to understand Felipe.

Our lives had undergone a change; it was due mainly to the fact that he no longer came to me; I felt as though I was in complete possession of myself again. And the fact that there was a baby in the household was not without its effect.

A certain normality had come upon us. Strangely enough we had settled down, which was something I now and then marveled at. But such is human nature that it can become accustomed to anything however extraordinary. One adjusts oneself—or at least we seemed to.

I now had the bedroom to myself—and a pleasant room it was. Since it was no longer the scene of my nightly humiliation my feelings changed toward it. I could enjoy the tasteful, yet somber decorations: the tapestry which hung on one of the walls; the heavy arras which shut out the light; the arch with the curtains across it which led to the toilet room with its sunken bath. There was an Eastern touch about it and I learned later that Felipe’s family had lived in that part of Spain which was dominated by the Moorish influence.

Perhaps it was because I was pregnant that a certain serenity had come to me. I had noticed this in both Honey and Jennet though with Jennet it was a constant attitude. I was surprised that I was excited by the thought of bearing this child which had been forced on me. But already I was forgetting the means of its begetting and was conscious only that a new life was stirring inside me and that I should be a mother.

I would dream of my child and be eager for its arrival … not only because it meant that when I had it I should go home, but because I longed to hold it in my arms.

We were allowed to go into the town. Honey left the baby in Jennet’s care and she and I set out riding on mules, accompanied by Richard Rackell and John Gregory, who, because they spoke English perhaps, had been made our guards.

They rode one in front and one behind and I felt my spirits lift as we saw the town lying in the valley. The sun was brilliant and it shone on the white houses and the Cathedral, which John Gregory told us had been built at the beginning of the century. We could not see the great mountain peak from this spot, but we had seen it at sea when we had approached the island—the great Pico de Teide which the ancients had believed supported the sky and that the world ended just beyond it. Perhaps one day, he suggested, we should be permitted to go farther inland and there we should see this miraculous mountain.

We left our mules at a stable and we went on foot into the cobbled streets, closely guarded by the two men. The women mostly wore black, but on the balconies of some of the houses there were ladies who leaned on the wrought-iron balustrades to take a close look at us, and some of those wore colored skirts and mantillas.

“They are interested in us,” said Honey.

“They know you are foreigners and come from the Hacienda,” said John Gregory.

“Do they know,” I asked, “how we were brought here?”

John Gregory replied: “They know you have come from a foreign land.”

He took us into the Cathedral. The three of them crossed themselves before the magnificent altar while I looked at the sculptures and the fine ornaments that decorated it. I had never seen such a great cathedral. The smell of incense hung heavy on the air. The figure of the Madonna was the most startling object, though; she was in an enclosure of wrought iron and wore a dress of some silken material on which sparkling gems had been sewn. On her head was a crown of jewels and on her fingers diamonds and brilliantly colored stones of all kinds.

John Gregory was beside me. He said: “People give their wealth to the Madonna. Even the poorest will give what they have. She refuses nothing.”

As I turned away he whispered: “It would be better if you acted as a good Catholic. It would not be wise for it to be seen that you are what would be called a heretic.”

I said: “I have had enough of the Cathedral. I will wait outside.”

He accompanied me and I left Honey on her knees with Richard Rackell beside her. I wondered what she was thanking the Virgin for—the death of her good husband; her abduction; the safe arrival of her child?

Outside the sun was brilliant.

I said to John Gregory: “So you are a devout Catholic. I wonder have you confessed what harm you have done to two women who did nothing to hurt you?”

He flinched slightly. He was always uncomfortable when I upbraided him, which I did often. He folded his hands together and as he did so I noticed again the scars on his wrists and wondered how he had acquired them.

“I did what I was obliged to do,” he said. “I had no wish to harm you.”

“So you thought we could be dragged away from our homes, ravished and humiliated and no harm done?”

He did not answer and we were joined by the other two.

There was such a sense of freedom in walking in those streets; there was an air of excitement in the town too. The shops enchanted us. It was long since we had seen shops. They were open onto the streets, like enchanted caverns. There was spicy food and hot bread, different from the variety we had at home; but what fascinated us most were the bales of various sorts of cloth which we saw in one shop.

We could not resist handling them. Honey ran her hands over them ecstatically, and a dark-eyed woman in black came to us and showed us materials—one was velvet, deep midnight blue.

Honey said: “Why, Catharine, that would become you. What a gown that would make you!”

She held it up against me and the woman in black nodded her head sagely.

Honey draped the material around me. I said: “What are you doing, Honey? We have no money.” I was conscious then of wearing Isabella’s gown and I determined that I would do so no longer. Honey had made gowns for herself. So should I, but how I should have enjoyed wearing the velvet!

“Come away, Honey,” I said, “this is absurd.”

And I insisted on walking away.

At the inn we were given a beverage which had a strange flavor of mint. We were thirsty and drank it eagerly and after that we mounted our mules and returned to the Hacienda.

It was later that day when going to my room I found a package on my bed. I opened it and there was a roll of velvet. It was the material I had seen in the shop.

I stared at it in amazement. I held it against me. It was beautiful. But what did it mean? Did the woman in the shop think we had bought it! It would have to be returned at once.

I went to find Honey. She was as surprised as I was and we decided that the woman had misunderstood and thought we had purchased the material.

We must find John Gregory at once and explain to him. When we did so he said: “It is no mistake. The material is for you.”

“How can we pay for it?”

“It will be arranged.”

“Who will arrange it?”

“The shop woman knows you come from the Hacienda. There will be no difficulty.”

“Does it mean that Don Felipe will pay for this?”

“It would amount to that.”

“I shall certainly not accept it.”

“You must.”

“I have been forced to come here. I have been forced to submit, but I will not take gifts from him.”

“It would be impossible to return it. The woman believes you to be under the protection of Don Felipe. He is the first gentleman of the island. It would be a slight to him if you returned the velvet. That would not be allowed.”

“It can be taken to him then, for I shall not use it.”

John Gregory bowed and took the material which I thrust into his arms.

Honey said: “It’s a pity. It would have made a most becoming gown.”

“Would you have me accept gifts from my seducer? It would be tantamount to giving him my approval of what has taken place. I shall never forgive him for what he has done to me.”

“Never, Catharine? That is a word one should use with care. It could have been so much worse. He has at least treated you with some respect.”

“Respect! Were you present? Did you witness my humiliation?”

“At least it was not what Isabella suffered at the hands of Jake Pennlyon.”

“It was the same … the method may have been slightly different. She bore Jake Pennlyon’s child and I am to bear his. It nauseates me, Honey, to think of it.”

“Still,” said Honey, “it’s a pity about the velvet.”

A summons came for me to dine with Don Felipe. It was the first time since that other occasion when he had told me for what purpose I had been brought here.

I wondered what it meant.

I dressed myself with care. Honey and I had made a gown for me from the material we had found in the sewing room. As I put it on I thought how illogical it was to accept that material and haughtily decline the velvet which had come from the shop. Everything in this house belonged to him, so naturally did anything in the sewing room. We lived on his bounty.

But the velvet was a kind of gift direct from him and that I would refuse.

He was waiting for me in the cool dark salon in which we had dined before, and as on that other occasion I sat at one end of the table, he at the other. In his black doublet trimmed with that dazzlingly white lace he looked every bit the fastidious gentleman. When we had last dined thus, none of those embarrassing encounters had taken place; now they stood between us—memories which I imagined he no more than I could efface.

He was aloof in his manner but courteous, and we were served as before by silent-footed servants with the food with which I had now become familiar. I was aware of a certain excitement which I had not known before. I was very much conscious of him. I wondered about him and I kept thinking of that night when I had touched his face gently and tenderly and pretended to sleep.

He talked of the island while the servants were there. He spoke without enthusiasm for it nor any great show of interest, but beneath that cold manner I sensed that he had a great feeling for it. He commanded it. He was holding it for his master, Philip the Second, a strange silent man such as himself. They were different these Spaniards; they did not laugh aloud as we did; they thought us barbarians.

He told me then how the Guanches who were the natives of the island stained their skins the dark-red resin of the dragon trees and how they mummified their dead.

It was interesting and I wanted to know more and more of the island. He said that Pico de Teide was regarded by the Guanches as a kind of god who must be placated, and a fine sight it was towering above the plains with its snowcapped top which never changed even where there was burning heat below.

It was when the meal had been finished and we were alone that I realized the reason he had invited me to sup with him.

He said: “You went into La Laguna and saw the Cathedral.”

“Yes,” I said.

“You must not act as a heretic in La Laguna.”

“I shall act as I please and as I am doubtless what you will call a heretic I shall perforce act as one.”

“When you visit the Cathedral you must show Catholic respect for the Virgin and the altar; you must kneel and pray as others do.”

“Would you have me a hypocrite?”

“I am determined that you shall bear the child. I would not wish aught to happen to you that would prevent it.”

I put my hands on my body. I used to delude myself into fancying that I could feel the child. It was absurd, it was much too soon; but I was already so much aware of it.

“What should prevent it?” I demanded.

“You could be taken before the Inquisition. You could be questioned.”

“I! What have I to do with the Inquisition?”

“This is Spain. Oh, I know we are an island far from Spain; but Spain is wherever we settle and that will be in every part of the globe.”

“Never in England,” I said proudly.

“There too. I assure you it will be so in due course of time.”

“Then I assure you it will never be so.” I had a vision of Jake Pennlyon, his eyes flashing scorn, brandishing his cutlass and crying out to the Spanish Dons to come and see what they would find.

“Listen to me,” he said, “’ere long the whole world will be ours. We shall bring the Holy Inquisition to your land … as it is here and in every place on earth where Spain has laid its hand. No one can escape from it. If you were taken, even I could not save you. The Inquisition stands above all … even above our Most High King, Philip.”

“I am no Spaniard. They would not dare touch me.”

“They have touched many of your countrymen. Be wise. Listen to me. You will start instruction in the True Faith tomorrow.”

“I will do no such thing.”

“You are more foolish than I thought. You must be shown what happens to those who defy the truth.”

“Whose truth? Yours? You who trample over the innocent to gain your revenge. You have taken three women from their homes; you have submitted them to degradation and pain; you have killed a good man because he tried to protect his wife. And you talk to me about your faith, the True Faith, the only faith.”

“Be silent.” For the first time I saw him moved. “Know you not that servants may hear?”

“They do not speak my barbarian language, remember, except the two villains whom you employed to bring us here.”

“I will be tolerant. I will beg of you to be calm. I ask you to listen in a civilized manner.”

“You talk to me of civilized behavior. It is as funny as speaking of your religious virtues.”

“I speak for your good. I speak for you and the child.”

“Your bastard which was forced on me.” Yet even as I said those words I murmured a reassurance to the child. “Nay, nay, little one, I want you. I’m glad you are there. Wait until I hold you in my arms.”

My voice must have faltered, for he said gently, “That is past and done. Nor can it be undone. It was your misfortune that you were the betrothed of this brigand. You have the child. Bear it and accept your fate. I swear to you that from now on I mean no harm to you. Will you accept that?”

I did, but I said: “Having harmed me in such a manner that must leave its mark on me forever, perhaps you do mean that.”

“I assure you it is so. I never meant harm to you. You were necessary to the fulfillment of my vow. Now I would give you the comfort you will need until the child is born.”

“You promised I should go home when the child was conceived.”

“I have said I must see the child is born. For that reason you will stay here; but while you are here I wish you to live securely and in peace. And for that reason you will listen to me.”

I cried: “Do not think I can be placated with gifts of velvet.”

“It was no gift of mine. The shop woman sent it for you.”

“Why should she?”

“Because we buy much cloth from her and she wishes to please me by offering you this gift.”

“Why should it please you?”

“Surely you understand. She believes, as many will, that you are my mistress. That you have been brought here to live with me and in such case what pleased you will please me and put the donor in favor.”

“Your mistress! How dare she.”

“It is what you are in a sense. Let us face the facts. And in these circumstances you will have some protection. But as I told you even I cannot protect you from the mighty Inquisition. That is why I wish you to be instructed in the True Faith. John Gregory, who is indeed a priest, will instruct you. You must listen. I do not want you to be taken away … before the child is born.”

“I refuse,” I said.

He sighed. “You are unwise,” he answered. “I will tell you what has happened in your country while you have been away. Your Queen is a foolish woman. She might have married Philip when her sister died. It would have been an opportunity to have united our countries. It would have saved much trouble.”

“She could not take her sister’s husband. Moreover, he did not give a very good account of himself as a husband, I fancy.”

“The fault lay in that poor barren woman. And now her foolish half sister, the bastard Elizabeth, has the throne.”

“In which her country rejoices,” I said. “Long may she live.”

“It is long since you left home. Her throne is shaking now. She will not long occupy it. The true Queen Mary of France and Scotland shall take it and when that has been done the True Faith will be restored to England.”

“With the accompaniment of your Holy Inquisition?”

“It will be necessary. There will be a great purge of heretics in your island.”

“God forbid,” I said. “We have had enough. We remember the Smithfield fires. We’ll have no more of them.”

“The faith will be restored,” he said. “It is imminent.”

“The people are firmly behind the Queen.” I was remembering her accession, how nobly she had spoken as she entered the Tower. “I must bear myself to God thankful and to men merciful…” And my heart swelled with loyalty toward her and hatred toward all her enemies.

“They will no longer be so,” he told me. “Certain events have changed the people’s feelings for the Queen.”

“I do not believe it.”

He studied me coolly in the light of the candles.

“The Queen made Robert Dudley her Master of Horse. Rumor has it that she wished to marry him. He had a wife. He had married earlier, impulsively, some said, for as events turned out he could have been destined for a high place. King no less—though mayhap in name only—for the Queen doted on him. She is a coquette, a frivolous woman; she is coy toward all men, but we hear that the feeling she has for Robert Dudley goes deeper. Now his wife, Amy Robsart, has died somewhat mysteriously. Her body was found at the bottom of a staircase. Who shall know how she died? Some say she threw herself from the top of the staircase because she could no longer bear the neglect of her husband; those who would placate your Queen and Lord Robert will tell you that she suffered an accident. But there are many who will say she was murdered.”

“And the Queen will marry this man?”

“She will marry him and there is an end of her. On the day she marries Lord Robert she stands a self-confessed accomplice to murder. She will lose her kingdom, and who will take her crown? The Queen of France and Scotland, who is the true Queen of England. We shall support her claim. She will become our vassal. I command that you take instruction from John Gregory. I insist on this for your own welfare.”

“You cannot make a Catholic of me if I will not have it.”

“You foolish one,” he said quietly. “I tell you this to save you.”

Over the candles I looked into his face. He was moved in some way; and I knew that he feared for me.

After that began my daily sessions with John Gregory. At first I refused to listen to him. He said I must learn the Credo in Latin. He used to chant it again and again.

He said: “If you could not do that, you would be condemned as a heretic without further ado.”

I turned away from him, but I could not keep up my silence; I was not silent by nature.

“You are an Englishman, are you not?” I demanded.

He nodded.

“And you have sold yourself to these Spanish dogs.” I jeered inwardly at myself for talking like Jake Pennlyon.

“There is much I could tell you,” he said. “Perhaps then you would not despise me so much.”

“I shall always despise you. You took me from my home, you submitted me to this, you came to us, accepted our hospitality and lied, that is something I shall never forget.”

“The Virgin will plead for me,” he said.

“Her prayers would have no effect on me,” I retorted grimly.

Later I said to him, “You will never convert me. I was never eager to take one side against another, but the more you force me, the more I shall turn away. Do you think I can ever forget the reign of her whom they called Bloody Mary? Let me tell you this, John Gregory: My grandfather lost his life because he sheltered a friend—a priest like you, of your faith, for that was my grandfather’s faith. My mother’s stepfather was burned at Smithfield because books concerning the Reformed Faith were found in his house. Someone informed on him, as my grandfather was informed against. And all this in the name of religion. Does it surprise you that I want none of it?”

He spoke vehemently: “No, it does not surprise me. But you should listen. You should prepare yourself lest danger should come.”

“Then I am preparing to save my body, not my soul.”

“There is no reason why you should not save both.”

We talked a great deal and I wondered about him; and during the weeks that followed my attitude toward this man began to change. Everything was changing. It was almost as though a mist were clearing before my eyes.

Days passed and became weeks. I surprised myself. I was becoming happy in this alien land. I understood the serenity of Honey, her preoccupation with Edwina. Jennet was growing near her time. She would sit with us sometimes in the Spanish garden which Don Felipe had had made by a gardener come from Spain. During the hot days there was a sense of peace in the gardens. We would sew together, for fine linens and lace had appeared in the sewing room; and although I hated to take these things for myself I would accept anything for my child.

Sometimes the incongruity of it all came over me; and I thought of my mother in her gardens or visiting my grandmother. They would talk of us. My poor mother would be sad, for she had lost both her girls. Did they think of us as dead now? Then I was mournful, for she had suffered much and loved us both dearly—particularly me, her own daughter.

But that was far away, like another life; and here we were in the Spanish garden, my baby stirring within me, reminding me that each day it grew and that the happy moment when I should hold it in my arms was coming nearer.

Jennet was complacent—very large, completely undisturbed, accepting life as I supposed I never would. Now that she had rid herself of the burden of her secret, she seemed to have cast off her cares. She had a habit of humming to herself, which I found mildly irritating because they were the tunes which I remembered from home.

As we sat in the shade out of the sun, which was warmer than ours at home, Honey was playing with her baby, Jennet was humming over her sewing and I sat there stitching. Suddenly I began to laugh. It was so incongruous—three women—one a mother and two soon to be—who had gone through violent adventures and were now serene.

Honey looked at me and smiled. This laughter did not frighten her. It was not hysteria. There was an element of happiness in it. We had come to terms with life.

I loved Honey’s child; she was small and delicately made; I doubted she would be as beautiful as her mother; at this time her eyes were china blue, her skin delicate. I liked to have her on my own and I would take her to the Spanish garden and rock her gently. She would watch me with great wondering eyes. I believed she knew me. She was very good with me. I used to sing to her songs that my mother used to sing to me. “The King’s Hunt’s Up” and “Greensleeves,” which were said to have been composed by our great King Henry himself.

One day I was seated in the trellised arbor in the Spanish garden rocking the baby when I was aware of being watched.

I looked up and Don Felipe was standing a few yards from me.

I flushed hotly; he continued to regard me in the detached manner to which I was accustomed. I looked down at the baby, pretending to ignore him; but he continued to stand there. The baby began to whimper as though she were aware of some alien presence.

I murmured: “Hushaby, ’Wina. You are safe. Catharine is here, darling.”

When I looked up he had gone. I had not known that he was at the Hacienda because I had heard that he had gone to another part of the island.

I was always disturbed when he was in the house. It was not that he forced his presence on me, but I was aware of him. The household changed when he was there. The servants went about their duties with renewed vigor; there was a sense of tension everywhere.

I had a fright in that night, for as I lay in my bed I heard steps in the corridor, slow, stealthy steps. I started up in bed and listened. Slowly they came nearer and nearer. They paused outside my door.

I thought: He is coming to me, and I remembered how he had stood in the garden watching me.

My heart was beating so wildly that I thought it would choke me. Instinct made me lie back and feign sleep.

Through half-closed eyes I saw the candlelight; I saw the shadow on the wall.

It was his shadow.

I lay very still, my eyes shut. He was at the bedside, the candle wavering slightly in his hand. Keeping my lips lowered and pretending to be in a deep sleep, I waited for what would happen next.

I knew that he was at the bedside watching me.

It seemed a long time that he stood there; then the candlelight disappeared; I heard my door close gently. I dared not open my eyes for some time because I was afraid that he was in the room; but when I heard his footsteps slowly receding, I looked and saw that I was alone.

Jennet’s time had come. The midwife came to the Hacienda and Jennet’s labor, unlike Honey’s, was brief; a few hours after her pains started we heard the lusty bawling of the child.

It was a boy and I’ll swear that from the first it had a look of Jake Pennlyon.

I said to Honey: “Shall we ever escape from the man? Now there will be Jennet’s bastard to remind us.”

I thought I should dislike the child, but how could I do that? In the first weeks he was bigger than Edwina. He showed his temperament too. I had never believed a child could bawl so lustily for what he wanted.

Jennet was overcome with pride. He was not only her baby; he was Captain Pennlyon’s too. She was sure there never had been such a child.

“That’s what all mothers think,” I said.

“’Tis so, Mistress, but this be true. Only a man like that could make a baby like this ’un.”

Each day he grew more like his father.

Jake Pennlyon would indeed be with us forever.

“As soon as my child is born,” I said to Honey, “there will be no excuse for keeping us here. We shall go home. I shall go back to the Abbey. I long to be with my mother. There is so much I want to say to her. Before, I was so ignorant of everything. I often think of her life with my father. Children never know their parents, I suppose; but because of what has happened to me and those violent adventures that she has endured we shall be closer than ever when we meet.”

I could see in Honey’s eyes that she too longed for home.

We talked as we sat in the gardens of the old days at the Abbey and how my grandmother used to come over with her basket laden with ointments and goodies and flowers; and how she used to talk of her twin sons, who came with her sometimes.

And when we spoke of the old days Honey began to confide in me.

“I was always jealous of you, Catharine,” she said. “What I wanted always came to you.”

“You jealous of me! But you were the beauty.”

“I was the daughter of a serving girl and the man who despoiled the Abbey. My great-grandmother was a witch.”

“But you did very well, Honey. After all, you married a rich man who doted on you. You were happy then.”

“I was always happy in my fashion. It was a makeshift sort of way. I was the adopted daughter, not received by the master of the house…”

“But your beauty freed you from that. Edward Ennis would have been Lord Calperton and you a lady of high rank.”

“I took Edward because he was a good match.”

“I should think he was. Mother was delighted.”

“Yes, everyone was delighted. The orphan had climbed out of her poverty; she had made a good match, she had the kindest and most tolerant of husbands. Is that being happy, Catharine?”

“If you loved him.”

“I came to love him. He was so kind and good. I had affection for him. He was the best I could hope for.”

“What are you telling me, Honey?”

“That I loved … even as you loved, but he was not for me. I made my plans. But he did not love me. He loved someone else. That was apparent for a long time before he or she realized it. I saw it and I hated you, Catharine, as I had never in my childish jealousy hated you before.”

“You hated me?”

“Yes, I did. Our mother loved you as she could never love me. You were her own child. And Carey loved you. He always looked for you. He teased you, he bullied you, you used to fight together … but he always looked for you; he was only gay and happy when you were there. I knew. I used to cry at night.”

“You loved Carey?”

“Of course I loved Carey. Who could help loving Carey?”

“Oh, Honey,” I said. “You too.”

We were silent thinking of him—Carey, beloved Carey, who was to have been my very own. But I lost him and Honey lost him.

“Our love was doomed,” I said. “There is no reason why yours should have been.”

She laughed. “Because the loved one is denied that does not mean that anyone else will do.”

“But he was fond of you.”

“As a sister. And I knew that he loved you. So I accepted Edward. It was only after we married that I knew the truth.”

I turned away from her. I looked at the dazzling sky, at the palm trees on the horizon; and I thought of the tragic twists and turns in our lives which had led us to this moment.

We had come closer through this confession. Once we had both loved and lost Carey.

Jennet’s baby, like Honey’s Edwina, was baptized in the Catholic ritual. Honey had been a Catholic before she had left England and Jennet was quite ready to adopt any religion that she was asked to. Alfonso had started her on the road; John Gregory had prodded her along. I wondered what Jake Pennlyon would say if he knew his son—bastard albeit—was being baptized in the Catholic Faith; and the thought gave me a certain pleasure.

Jennet called him Jack, which was as near to his father as she dared go, and he quickly became known as Jacko.

Our lives were now dominated by the two children; and then another came into them.

It was I who discovered Carlos. Poor little Carlos, he was enough to wring any woman’s heart, the more so because there was something jaunty about him, something gay and adventurous.

I had been thinking more of Don Felipe than I cared to admit. He was away a great deal even if he only went to La Laguna. When he was in the house I would take great pains to avoid him; but I liked to watch him when he was unaware of me. Sometimes I would see him from my window and stand in the shadows looking out. Often he would glance up so that I felt he was aware of me there.

I wondered a great deal about his relationship with Isabella. She was his wife. Did he visit her often? Of what did they speak when he did? Was she aware of my presence at the Hacienda? And if so, what did she think of that? Did she know I was to bear her husband’s child?

I often walked past the Casa Azul; I would look through the wrought-iron gate onto the patio where the oleanders threw shadows on the cobbles and I would think of the beautiful face of the girl who played with dolls, and wonder what her life was like with her sour-faced duenna.

The house had become a kind of obsession with me. I found my footsteps leading me there every time I was alone. I would peer through the wrought-iron gate and wonder about Isabella and what happened when Don Felipe visited her.

One day the gate was open and I stepped inside. It was afternoon siesta hour. The house looked as though it were sleeping, as I supposed most of its inhabitants were. I enjoyed walking out at this time; I liked the stillness of everything, the silence, and in spite of the heat I came back refreshed in my mind. On my lonely walks I would think about my home and my mother and I would hope that she was not grieving too much for me. I was beginning to feel that the old life was over and I had to make a new one here, for I wondered whether Don Felipe would ever let us go.

It was because that strange man was dominating my thoughts that I had to come to this house. I wanted to know more about him. What had his life been in Spain before he came here? Had he in truth loved Isabella passionately? This must have been so since he had gone to such lengths to be revenged. Yet that could be due to his pride.

The stillness in the patio enveloped me. I looked up at the balcony on which I had seen Isabella. The doors were shut; there was no sign of life. I went quietly around to the side of the house; there was a pergola shady and made cool because the plants were trained over the trelliswork. I was facing a gate—wrought iron like that other—and beyond this lay a patch of land and a small hutlike dwelling.

As I stood looking through this gate a child emerged from the house; I judged him to be about two years old; he was dirty and barefooted, and he was dressed in a shapeless garment which came to his knees. He was rubbing his eye with his fist and he was obviously in distress because every few seconds a sob shook his body.

I had become passionately interested in children and his misery touched me deeply and made me want to alleviate it if possible.

He saw me suddenly and stopped; he stared at me and I thought for a moment he was going to run. I called out to him: “Good day, little boy.” He looked bewildered and I repeated my greeting in Spanish. My voice must have reassured him, for he came toward the gate and stood there. A pair of brown eyes were raised to me; his hair which was thick and straight was of a medium brown, his skin olive. He was an attractive little boy in spite of the grime; and the jauntiness was there in spite of his misery.

I smiled at him and knelt down so that our faces were on a level. I asked in rather stumbling Spanish what was wrong. His lips quivered and he showed me his arm. I was shocked by the bruises. He sensed my sympathy and held out the arm to me. I touched it gently with my lips and he smiled. His smile was dazzling, like but one other, and I knew at once who he was. He was Jake Pennlyon’s son, the result of the rape of Isabella.

With all my heart I hated Jake Pennlyon then, who spread his bastards around and never thought of what became of them. In this remote place there were two of them. And because I hated Jake Pennlyon my sympathy for this unfortunate child was intensified. But I should have been angry at the sight of any neglected child.

Through the bars I laid my lips on the bruises.

I heard a voice call: “Carlos! Carlos.” And a string of words I could not understand. Some patois, I supposed. The child turned and ran away. There was a bush in this patch of land; he scuttled behind it and hid. I backed from the gate as a woman came out. Her hair hung around her face; her mouth was cruel; her black eyes fierce; her flaccid breasts nearly fell out of her loose low-necked dress.

I heard her repeat the name “Carlos.” And I watched, wondering what I should do if she found the child, for I knew she was responsible for those bruises.

I wanted to open the gate and go through. I wanted to remonstrate with her, but I knew that would only make things worse for the child.

She seemed to content herself with shouting and after a while went back into the cottage. I waited for the child to come out, but he did not do so and I wondered whether he had fallen asleep in the bushes.

I went back thoughtfully to the Hacienda.

I talked to Honey. “I think I have seen Jake Pennlyon’s child,” I said, and told her about the boy Carlos.

“You shouldn’t have gone there. You were shown clearly that you weren’t wanted.”

“What a strange ménage this is, Honey,” I said. “What do you think happens in that house? Does Don Felipe go there often?”

“What is it to you?”

“Nothing, of course. Oh, Honey, when my child is born we shall go home.”

I could not get Carlos out of my mind. Those great brown eyes and the look in them when I had kissed his bruises, and the show of fear at the sound of that voice. I pictured his cowering before her blows. The next day I took with me a little rag doll which Honey had made for Edwina. The child had ignored it. She was no doubt too young to know what it was.

Strangely he was waiting at the gate and I knew that he had hoped that I would come again. When he saw me he grasped the bars and started jumping up and down. I knelt down and he held out his arm for me to kiss. The gesture brought tears into my eyes.

I gave him the rag doll. He seized it and laughed. He held it against him and then held it out to me. I realized it was for me to kiss.

“Carlos,” I said. He nodded.

“Catalina,” I said, the Spanish version of my name.

“Catalina,” he repeated.

Then he ran away looking around all the time, which I knew meant that he wanted me to stay. He came back with a flower—an oleander—which he gave to me. I took it and tucked it into my bodice. He laughed. We were friends.

I wanted to ask him questions, but the language barrier was difficult, and suddenly I heard the sound of voices and once again the little boy scuttled away and hid behind the bush. I drew back into the shelter of the oleanders and watched. Two children came out of the house, one of about eight I should say, the other about six. They ran to the bush and dragged Carlos out. I heard him scream. They took the rag doll and the elder of the boys started to pull it apart. Carlos screamed his rage; but he was powerless and the mutilated rag doll lay in pieces on the grass.

Carlos lay on the ground and lamented miserably. The elder of the boys came up and kicked him. Carlos sprang to his feet. The two boys rolled on the grass; then the woman appeared. The elder of the boys ran away. Carlos was struggling to his feet when the woman kicked him.

This was too much for me. I pushed the gate with all my might and to my amazement it opened. I ran through. Her attention turned from the child; the woman stared at me and let forth a stream of abuse.

Carlos had stopped screaming and moved behind me; I could feel his hands clutching my skirt.

The woman attempted to seize him, but I held her off, protecting the child. She was ugly that woman—low, atavistic; there was no intelligence in her face, only cunning; and there was cruelty there too—horrible unreasoning cruelty, and this was the woman who had charge of Jake Pennlyon’s son.

Her eyes flashed with sadistic delight. I knew she was planning what she would do to the child. A trickle of saliva dribbled from her mouth. I drew back. She was repulsive and horrible and I would not leave any child to her mercy.

Without thinking what I would do, I picked up Carlos in my arms and walked through the gate. I felt his hands clutching me tightly, his hot dirty face close to mine.

The woman ran after us. I tried to shut the gate in her face, but I was too late, so I hurried with the child into the patio.

I saw then that there was someone there. It was the duenna whom I had heard called Pilar.

Pilar stared at me with those sharp eyes under the straggling brows. I said: “This child is in need of care.”

Pilar came to me and tried to take Carlos from me. He screamed and clutched to me more tightly.

“It’s clear,” I said, “that he is terrified of you all, which is an indication to me of the ill treatment he has received from you. I shall take him to the Hacienda with me.”

Pilar could evidently understand one or two words. “To the Hacienda,” she cried. “No, no.” She screamed something about Don Felipe.

I said: “I care not for Don Felipe!” which was a foolish thing to say when he was the master of us all.

Isabella came into the patio. She took one look at the child and she ran to us. She tried to take him from me.

Carlos began to scream in real terror.

Pilar cried: “Isabella, Isabella favorita.”

I knew that I must protect the child. I knew that I must not let his mother lay hands on him. She was mad. I had never seen a madwoman before. Some would say that she was possessed by devils and if ever I saw possession it was then. She started to scream; Pilar was beside her or she would have dropped to the ground; I saw her lying there and Pilar was forcing something between her lips; she was writhing as though tormented.

I ran out through the gate across the grass back to the Hacienda.

I said: “It’s all right, Carlos. You are with me now.”

Don Felipe was away, which was perhaps well. I knew that everyone in the household was astounded by the enormity of what I had done. I could not have done anything which would have been more outrageous. The terrible tragedy of this house had begun on the day the Rampant Lion came to Tenerife; the shadow of those events had hung across the house for three years; they had changed the way of life of everyone there. And in true Spanish fashion this matter which had changed everything was to be ignored; they were to behave as though it had not happened; even though Don Felipe’s bride lived in a house apart because she was mad, and he had taken an alien woman to complete his revenge. And I—that alien woman—had now brought into his house the result of this disaster. I did not care. I was to have a child of my own and I loved all children. I would not stand by and see them ill-treated to save any Spanish Don’s pride.

It was pathetic to see the manner in which Carlos regarded me. I was clearly a kind of goddess who could do anything. I was the one who had kissed his bruises, who had carried him out of squalor to a beautiful house. I bathed him in my sunken bath and treated his bruises and there were many on his little body and the sight of them aroused my fury to such an extent that I was ready to inflict the same punishment on that evil-faced woman. I soothed him with lotions and wrapped him in a cotton shift; and he slept in my bed. When I awoke next morning he was lying close to me and his hand gripped my nightgown firmly. I believed he had held it while he slept, so terrified was he that he was going to lose me. I knew then I could never fail him.

Oh, Jake Pennlyon, I thought. I am going to fight for your son.

Jennet couldn’t make enough of him. The likeness between her child and this boy was apparent. Though one was fair and the other dark … they were half brothers.

No one in the Hacienda protested, although there was a tension all about us.

“They are waiting,” said Honey, “for Don Felipe to return.”

He came back three days after I had brought Carlos to the Hacienda. By that time the child had ceased to be afraid; he followed me but no longer appeared to feel it necessary to cling to my skirts. Under my treatment the bruises were beginning to disappear from his body and also from his mind. In a short time I hoped those miserable days of his early life would become like a bad dream that disappears with the light of day. That was what I intended should be.

Everyone was waiting for what would happen now. I sensed they believed that my brief show of authority was over.

Nothing happened all day. I was tense, starting every time a servant approached me, waiting for the summons. The one who was least perturbed was the one most concerned: Carlos. He had complete faith in me. Moreover, he had no idea of who he was.

It was early evening when Don Felipe sent for me. I was to go to the escritorio.

He rose as I entered; he looked impassive as ever; there was no sign of anger on his face; but then I had never seen any emotion there.

He said: “Pray be seated.” So I sat down.

I looked about the escritorio at the paneled walls and the emblem of Spain above his chair.

“You show great temerity in bringing the child into the Hacienda. You know full well who he is.”

“It is obvious.”

“Then you will know too that he is an embarrassment to me.”

I laughed angrily. “And do you know that you are diabolically cruel to him? For the last three days that child has been happy for the first time in his life.”

“Is that reason to flout my orders?”

“It is the best of reasons,” I said unflinchingly.

“Because he is your lover’s child?”

“Because he is a child. He is not my lover’s child. Jake Pennlyon was never my lover. I hate that man as much as you hate him. But I will not stand aside and see a child ill-treated.” I stood up, my eyes blazing. I was determined to keep Carlos as I had rarely been determined before. Someone had said of my mother—I think it was Kate—that when my mother had a child she became a mother to all children. Well, I was about to have a child. I had always been fond of children, but now I was ready to lead a fervent crusade on their behalf. Carlos had turned his appealing gaze on me—and even though I was aware of his resemblance to Jake Pennlyon every time I saw him I was going to save him from misery. I was going to make him a happy child no matter what the cost.

Don Felipe said: “You were betrothed to Captain Pennlyon. You would marry him.”

“I would never have done it. You see your plans for revenge have failed. I was betrothed to him because he forced me to it. He would have betrayed my sister and her husband if I had not agreed to it.”

“You are a defender of others,” he said, and I was not sure whether he spoke with a touch of irony.

“He has no compassion, that man. He would have forced me as he forced your Isabella. I eluded him although the betrothal was necessary. Later I feigned to be suffering from the sweating sickness until his ship had sailed. That is what I felt for Jake Pennlyon.”

He was looking at me strangely.

“How vehement you are! How fierce!”

“I have found it necessary to be so. But know this: You have no call to judge Jake Pennlyon. He has ruined lives through his lust; you will do so through your pride, and I believe one sin to be as deadly as the other.”

“Be silent.”

“I will not be silent. Don Felipe, your pride is so great that you have taken a woman from her home. You are guilty of rape. You have given her a child. Moreover, you have inflicted torture on the innocent result of another man’s lust. And all this to appease your pride. The devil take your pride … and you too.”

“Take care. You forget…”

“I forget nothing. Nor ever shall I forget what you and Jake Pennlyon have done to women and children. You great men! So powerful, so strong. Yes! When suppressing the weak and those who are not in a position to fight you.”

“I see little weakness in you,” he said.

“Do you not when I was forced to submit to your evil motives?”

“Tell me, were you not quickly reconciled?”

I felt a slow flush creeping over my face. “I do not understand you, Don Felipe Gonzáles.”

“Then we will dismiss the subject and return to the reason for my summoning you here. The child must go back. I cannot allow him to be here.”

“You cannot send him back … not now. It would be worse for him than before.”

“There! You see what you have done.”

I went to him and I felt the tears in my eyes because I was thinking of Carlos back in that compound with the evil woman waiting for him. I would humiliate myself a thousand times to save him from that.

I laid a hand on his arm. He looked down at me.

“You have wronged me … deeply. I ask you now. Give me this child.”

“You will have a child of your own.”

“I want this one.”

“You should never have brought him here.”

“Please,” I said. “You have ill used me. I ask you this. It is the only thing I have ever asked of you. Give me the child.”

He took my hand which I had placed on his arm; he held it for a moment and then dropped it.

He turned back to his desk. I went out of the room. I knew that I had won.

It was indeed victory. Everyone was expecting the child to be sent back. That night I was still fearful as I lay with him in my bed; but in the morning he was still with me. For two days I was anxious, but my fears were without grounds. Don Felipe had decided to let the child stay.

I warmed toward him. Once I saw him in the gardens and I spoke to him. I had the child with me, for he still hated to let me out of his sight.

I said: “Thank you, Don Felipe.”

“I hope you will keep the child away from me,” he said.

“I will,” I promised. “But thank you for him.”

I felt Carlos’ hand on my skirt and I took it firmly in mine and we walked away.

I sensed that Don Felipe watched us as we did so.

A few weeks passed. I was noticeably pregnant now. Edwina was taking on a personality of her own—she was a contented baby. I used to look at her in her cradle sometimes and think: Dear little Edwina, chuckling there, who has no notion that her father was murdered by marauding pirates and that her mother carried her precariously through terrifying adventures.

Carlos was already settling into the nursery as though he had lived there all his life. I had had a little pallet brought for him and it was placed in my room beside my bed. He was happy there although he would still come into my bed in the morning and I believed that at first it was to reassure himself that I was still there.

Don Felipe went away again and we resumed our normal life, but before he left he sent for me. I was afraid that he was going to rescind his decision to let the child stay, but I was mistaken. It was another matter of which he wanted to speak.

“I learn from John Gregory that you are not progressing well with your instruction.”

“My heart is not in it,” I told him.

“You are foolish. I tell you it is necessary that you become a good Catholic.”

“Does one ever become good at anything against one’s will?”

He looked at the door. He said: “Keep your voice low. People listen. There are some here who understand English. It would go ill with you if it were known that you were a heretic.”

I made an impatient gesture.

“I do not think you realize what benefit you enjoy under my protection.”

“I have no desire for your protection.”

“Nevertheless, you have it. I have told you before that there are certain forces over which I have no power. I would ask you for your sake and for the child you will have and that other whom you have taken under your protection to be careful of yourself.”

“What do you mean?”

“That you could be in acute danger if you do not profit from John Gregory’s instructions. You have enemies. You have made more in the last few weeks. You will be watched, spied on; and as I tell you, it might not be in my power to save you. Think about this. You are impetuous. Have a care. That is what I would say to you.”

I smiled at him and he avoided my smile. It was as though he feared it as something evil.

“I suppose I should thank you,” I said. “You speak for my good.”

“I am anxious that you should bear this child.”

“And when I have borne it you have promised that you will return me to my home.”

He did not answer. Then he said: “There are some months before the birth. In the meantime it will be necessary to take care.” I was dismissed.

It was two days later when John Gregory said that I was to go into La Laguna. It was on the instructions of Don Felipe.

“Why should he wish me to go?” I asked.

“There is to be a spectacle which he wishes you to see.”

“And my sister?”

“You only, I believe. You are to go with me and with Richard Rackell.”

I was puzzled.

It was a warm day and the sun beat down on us as we rode our mules into the town. There were crowds coming in from the countryside, all making their way into the city.

I said: “I have never seen so many people here. It must be a great festival.”

“You will see,” said John Gregory quietly.

I studied him; I had come to know since our sessions together that he was a man with secrets. For one thing he was English. Why then should he have Spanish masters? I had already noted the marks on his cheek and wrists. I had seen another on his neck. Sometimes in his instruction he seemed overfervent, at others almost languid. I had tried to ask him questions about himself, but he was always evasive.

Now I realized that he was deeply moved.

I said: “Has something happened to disturb you, John Gregory?”

He shook his head.

There were crowds of people in the square. Several stands had been erected; I was led to one of these most ornately decorated with an emblem blazoned on it.

I mounted to the platform. There was a bench on which I sat. John Gregory was on one side and other members from the household on the other.

“What is going to happen?” I asked Gregory.

He whispered: “Do not speak in English. Speak Spanish and quietly. ’Tis better that it were not known you are alien.”

A sense of horror then began to take hold of me. I guessed now that what I was about to witness was something so horrifying that I had only visualized such happenings in my nightmares. I recalled those days when the smell of smoke had come drifting down the river from Smithfield. I had now seen the piles of fagots and I knew what they meant. Recalling my last conversation with Don Felipe, I realized now why he had wished me to come here.

I said to John Gregory, “I feel ill. I want to go back.”

“It is too late,” he said.

“This will be bad for my child.”

He only repeated: “It is too late now.”

Never shall I forget that afternoon. The heat, the square, the chanting of voices, the tolling of Cathedral bells; the figures in their robes, their hoods covering their faces and their eyes looking out through the slits, menacing and terrifying. None could have been unaware that something horrifying was about to be enacted.

I wanted to shut out the scene. I longed to get up and go. As I half rose in my seat John Gregory’s arm was firm around me, holding me in my place.

“I can’t bear this,” I whispered.

He whispered back: “You must. You dare not go. You would be seen.”

I half closed my eyes, but something within me forced me to open them.

Even now it is vivid in my memory; it is like a kaleidoscope changing first here, first there, until the complete horror was before me.

People had crowded into the square; only the center was left clear for the hideous tragedy to be played out. I looked into that sea of faces and I wondered if any among them had come to look on the dying agonies of a loved one. Were they all “good Catholics”? Did their faith in their religion which was said to be based on the love of their fellowmen blind them to the misery they were about to behold? Could they reconcile themselves to this cruel intolerance because they believed that men and women who thought differently from them should die? I wanted to get up and shout to these people, to rise up against cruelty and intolerance.

And then they came—the wretched victims in the tragic sanbenito—that shapeless gown with flames and devils painted on it—their faces gray from long incarceration in dank foul cells; some had been so cruelly tortured that they could not walk. I was about to cover my face with my hands when John Gregory whispered: “No. Remember you will be watched.”

So I sat there, my eyes lowered that I might not look on this fearful scene.

Suddenly all had risen; they were chanting words which I realized was the Oath of Allegiance to the Inquisition. John Gregory had moved in front of me so that I was hidden from view. I felt sick and ready to faint. My child stirred then as though to remind me that for its sake I must feign to be one of these people and pretend to accept their beliefs. This was why I had come here. It was Don Felipe’s way of telling me in what danger I stood. I could so easily be one of those people below in the yellow sanbenito; I could be led to my pile of fagots to be bound there while they crackled into flame below me.

I owed it to the child to live. Nor did I wish to die. Once again I knew that I would cling to life no matter what it held for me.

I was there when the fires were lighted. I saw that the authorities were merciful to some because they strangled them before committing their bodies to the flames. The unrepentent, those who declared they would cling to their beliefs, were not given that benefit; the flames were lighted under them while they still lived.

I sat there and I remembered the fires of Smithfield and the day when my mother’s stepfather was taken away. I remembered that my grandfather had died by the ax for sheltering a priest and my mother’s stepfather had burned at the stake for following the Reformed Religion; and a fierce hatred was born in me for all abuse of religion, Catholic or Protestant.

We must never have the Inquisition set up in England. I would tell them of this day when I reached home. We must fight against it with all our might.

And as I sat there I felt a great desire to crush all intolerance, to fight all cruelty.

I heard the cries of agony as the flames licked already mutilated mangled bodies.

“Oh, God,” I prayed, “take me away from this. Take me home.”

I lay on the bed in my darkened room. I had felt faint on the way home and found it difficult to sit my mule. As soon as I was in the house I went to my bedroom and lay on the bed.

I could not get the sight of what I had seen out of my mind.

Don Felipe came in and sat by the bed. He was in riding habit, so he had evidently just returned to the Hacienda. It was significant that he had come first to me.

“You attended the auto-da-fé,” he said.

“I hope never to witness such a spectacle again,” I cried. “And most of all I marvel that this is done in the name of Christ.”

“I wished you to see for yourself, to realize the danger,” he said gently. “It was to warn you.”

“Would you not be glad to see me among those poor creatures? It would be a new turn to your revenge.”

“It does not come into my plan,” he said.

I lay very still looking up at that ceiling carved with angels ascending to heaven and I said: “Don Felipe, I hate what I have seen today. I hate your country. I hate your cold and calculating cruelty. You believe yourself to be a religious man. You say your prayers with regularity. You thank God daily that you are not as other men. You have influence and riches and, chief of all, you have pride. Is this goodness, think you? Those men who were murdered today, do you think they are so much more sinful than you are?”

“They are heretics,” he said.

“They dared to think differently from you. They worship the same God but with a difference; therefore, they are condemned to the flames. Did not Jesus Christ tell you to love your neighbor and is this not your neighbor?”

“You have seen today what happens to heretics. I ask you to take care.”

“Because I am a heretic. Must I change my faith because I fear the cruelty of wicked men?”

“Be silent. You are foolish. I have told you there may be those to overhear. What you have seen today is a warning. I want you to understand the danger in which you could be placed. You waste your sympathy on these heretics. They are doomed to burn for eternity in hell. What can twenty minutes on earth matter?”

“They will not go to hell—those martyrs. It is the cruel men who have gloated on their misery who will go to eternal damnation.”

“I have tried to save you.”

“Why?”

“Because I wish to see the child born.”

“And when he is born he and I shall leave your hateful land. I shall go home. I long for that day.”

“You are overwrought,” he said. “Rest awhile. I will send them up with a soothing draft for you.”

When he had gone I lay there thinking of him; it was relief to stop brooding on that terrible scene; and I marveled at his tolerance toward me. I had said enough to condemn me to the questioning and the torture by the Inquisition; yet he was gentle with me. He had given me little Carlos … and when I thought of that child and the one not yet born I despised myself for giving vent to my feelings. I must be careful. I must preserve myself … for them. I must do nothing to imperil my position. I should be grateful to Don Felipe for showing me the danger into which I could so quickly fall.

I listened to John Gregory. I could say the Credo. I could answer the questions he put to me. I was making progress.

We talked a little now and then. He was a sad and haunted man and I was certain he regretted having taken part in that operation which had brought me here.

One day after the instruction I said: “You would have a story to tell if you would but tell it.”

“Aye,” he agreed.

“You are sad sometimes, are you not?”

He did not answer and I went on: “You, an Englishman, to sell yourself to Spanish masters!”

“It came about in such a way that I could have done no other than I did.”

And gradually he told me his story.

“I was an English seaman,” he said. “I sailed under Captain Pennlyon.”

“So you did know him?”

“I was fearful when we came face to face that he would recognize me; and he did know me. I was terrified that he would realize who I was when he saw me in Devon.”

“He said that he believed he had seen you before.”

“Aye, he had, but in different garb. He knew me as an English seaman, a member of his crew. This I was and this doubtless I should have been to this day, but I was captured. We had come through a storm, great seas lashed about us. Nor should we have expected to live through it but for our Captain, Jake Pennlyon. To see him roaring up and down the deck, giving orders, promising those who disobeyed him that damnation in hell would be preferable to the punishment he would give them, was a grand sight to weary frightened sailors. There is a legend among sailors that the Pennlyons are invincible.”

They were not wrecked, which seemed somehow due to the skill of Jake Pennlyon. They needed to limp into port though to refit and while they were there John Gregory with others of the crew set off in a pinnace to explore the seas to discover what manner of place they were laid up in.

“We were boarded by a Spaniard,” said John Gregory, “and we were taken back to Spain.”

“And there?”

“Handed over to the Inquisition.”

“There are scars on your cheek and wrists … on your neck … and there are doubtless others.”

“There are. I have been tortured as I never thought to be. I have been condemned to the flames.”

“You have come near to terrible death, John Gregory. What brought you back from it?”

“They realized that they could make good use of me. I was an Englishman who had embraced their religion under duress. I asked that I might become a priest. They had tortured me, remember. I knew what it meant to die a horrible death. I recanted. And I was given my freedom. I could not understand why. They were rarely so lenient; and then I realized that I was to be used as a spy. I made several trips to England during the last Queen’s reign. And then I was put into service with Don Felipe and he sent me on this mission.”

“Why did you not stay in England when you had the opportunity?”

“I had become a Catholic and I feared what would happen to me if I ever fell into their hands again.”

“What if you had been caught spying in England?”

He raised his shoulders and lifted his eyes.

I went on: “And Richard Rackell?”

“He is an English Catholic working for Spain.”

“And Don Felipe sent you over to help him complete his revenge. And you were willing to come!”

“Not willing, but knowing no alternative. For the sake of your child you will forget your pride and your principles. So it is with the others. My life is precious to me. Remember that I suffered torture at the hands of the Inquisition. Because of that I changed my faith. I worked against my own countrymen to save my body from further torture and that I might go on living.”

“The temptation was great,” I said.

“I trust you will think a little less hardly of me.”

“Suffice it that I understand your dilemma. It was your body to be saved from torture, your life from extinction.”

He breathed freely.

“I have wanted to tell you for so long and as we sat there on that afternoon in the plaza I determined that I would.”

I nodded and he rested his chin on his hands and looked back … far into the past, I imagined, before he had entered the prison of the Spanish Inquisition, before he had come to England and abducted three innocent women; long before, when he was an innocent sailor under Captain Jake Pennlyon.

I went to the Cathedral; I confessed my sins to the priest who was in residence at the Hacienda; I lit my candles to the saints and sprinkled myself with Holy Water.

I would feign to do what was expected of me until my child was born.

I longed for the day. I talked of little else. I yearned now for the long months of waiting to be over.

Don Felipe now and then invited me to sup with him. I looked forward to these encounters. I knew that he was not as indifferent to me as he would have me believe, or why invite me to sup with him?

I was now heavy with child. The summer months had passed and I expected my confinement to be in January. The midwife visited me regularly. It was on the orders of Don Felipe that she did so. She used to laugh and shake her head. “This child is to have everything of the best,” she said. “Don Felipe’s orders … none less.” She was proud of her English and liked to air it. “It was a different matter when that other poor infant came into the world.”

She meant Carlos and I wondered what had happened when the poor mad Isabella was expecting her son. And it seemed ironical that the child of his wife should have been so ill received while mine was to be ushered into the world with everything to ease his coming.

His pride again, I thought, for after all, this child is his.

A new relationship had sprung up between us.

He told me now and then what was happening at home, always with a biased flavor which I learned to ignore. Our suppers were an escape from the company of Honey and Jennet. Not that I sought to avoid that. Honey’s serenity, Jennet’s delight in her situation were a continual solace to me. Carlos had taken to them too. Jennet adored him. He was only second to her own Jacko; and indeed the two boys were growing more alike every day. It made me laugh for the very incongruity of it. Two sons of Jake Pennlyon were here with us and he did not know of their existence.

Don Felipe clearly had an immense interest in England, and so it seemed had others in Spain, for it was through Spain and the visitors who called at the Hacienda from that land that he received his information.

He was chagrined to admit that events had not turned out as he had prophesied. He had believed that the end of Elizabeth’s reign was in sight when the wife of Robert Dudley, the man on whom she had set her heart, was found dead at the bottom of a staircase. But Elizabeth had come through that affair with an unquestionable ease. There might have been rumors, but nothing was proved against her, and there was no marriage with Dudley.

“She is cleverer than so many of us thought,” ruminated Don Felipe as we sat at the table together. “To have taken Dudley as her husband could only have been done at the cost of her crown and she knew it. She has made her decision clear. Dudley is not worth a crown.”

“So you admire her cleverness?”

“She has shown a certain wisdom in this matter,” he said.

On another occasion he talked of the death of the young King of France, François Deux, which took place in December of the last year although it was only now that we heard of it.

Don Felipe was excited by this news because of the effect it had on the Queen of Scotland.

François had died of an imposthume of the ear; and his young Queen, Mary of Scotland, had found there was no place for her in France. So she must return to her kingdom of Scotland.

“She will be less powerful now,” I said.

He answered: “She will be more of a threat to the woman who calls herself Queen of England.”

“I doubt our Queen cares overmuch for the people beyond the border.”

“She will have supporters everywhere, not only in Scotland but in France; and I am of the opinion that there are many Catholic gentlemen in England who would rally to her standard if she were to travel south.”

“So you wish for a civil war in my country?”

He did not answer; there was no need.

Life passed by smoothly; the days of my pregnancy were drawing to a close and I longed for my child to be born. I was shut into a little cocoon of contentment.

The preparations for the birth were almost ceremonious. The midwife was already installed in the house when my labor began; I went to the bedroom—that room of many memories—and it was there that my child was born.

I shall never forget the moment when he was laid in my arms. He was small … much smaller than Jacko had been, he had dark eyes and there was a down of dark hairs on his head.

I thought as soon as I saw him: My little Spaniard!

I delighted in him. I held him against me and I felt love overwhelm me, love such as I had never known for any other living being—except perhaps once for Carey. But there was no barrier between me and this child. He was my very own.

And as I held him in my arms Don Felipe came into the room. He stood by the bed and momentarily I remembered his standing there with the candle in his hand when I had feigned to be asleep.

I held the baby out for him to see and he looked at him in wonder and I saw the faintest color in his olive cheeks. Then his eyes met mine; they glowed with a luminosity I had never seen in them before.

I thought: It is the fulfillment of revenge.

Then he was looking at me; his gaze embraced us both and I was not sure what was in his thoughts.

Don Felipe ordained that the child should be called Roberto. I said that for me he should be Robert; but somehow I was soon calling him Roberto. It suited him better.

He was baptized in the chapel of the Hacienda with all the pomp that would have been given to the son of the house.

During the first weeks after his birth I thought of nothing beyond his welfare. Remembering how Honey used to feel because she had come before me and was not my mother’s own, I wanted no such heartaches for little Carlos. I tried to make him interested in the child, and he was; he took a protective attitude toward him because he was mine and was gentle with him. We were a happy little nursery. Jennet was in her element with babies; the fact that hers and mine were illegitimate worried her not in the least.

“Law bless us,” she said on one occasion, “they’m babies … little ’uns. That be good enough for the likes of I.”

Don Felipe often came to the nursery to see the child. I had seen him, bending over the cradle, staring at him. I knew that it satisfied his pride to have such a son.

One day I went into the escritorio and said to Don Felipe: “Your plan is complete. I have your child. Is it not time for you to keep to your promise? You have said we should go back to our homes.”

“The child is too young to travel,” he said. “You must wait until he is a little older.”

“How much older?” I asked.

“Would you take a child of a few months on the high seas?”

I hesitated. I thought of the storms and calms; I thought of the faces of sailors driven a little crazy by long days at sea. I said: “We should have gone before the child was born.”

“Wait awhile,” he said. “Wait until he is older.”

I went back to my room and brooded on what he had said. I laughed inwardly. He loves his son and does not want to lose him. Love! What does such a man know of love? He is proud of his son. Who would not be of Roberto? And he doesn’t want to lose him.

We lacked nothing. Anything we wanted we had. The only condition that was asked of us was that we show ourselves to be good Catholics. That was easy for Honey and Jennet because they were. As for myself: I had my children, Roberto and Carlos, to think of, and children were more important to me than my faith. I was not of the stuff that martyrs were made.

Don Felipe’s attitude changed toward me. He wished me to dine with him frequently. He would come into the garden where I sat with the children; and he even spoke now and then to Carlos, who began to lose his fear of him. But it was Roberto who enchanted him. There could be little doubt that the child was his. Already Roberto had a look of him. Strangely enough it did not repel me, only amuse me; and I loved Roberto nonetheless for that. In the same way I could see Jake Pennlyon clearly in Carlos and that somehow endeared the child to me.

And the months began to slip away without incident. Roberto was six months old and the winter was almost upon us.

I said to Don Felipe: “He is older now. We shall be going soon.”

“Wait for the winter to pass,” said Don Felipe.

And then the spring came and Roberto was one year old.