Daughter of Satan (21 page)

Annis, smiling gladly with that simplicity which always touched Tamar, went out, but in a little while she was back.

‘The master says it is Mr Cavill returned from the sea, and he thinks that will make you change your mind.'

‘Go and tell him that that does not make me change my mind.'

She stayed in her room for more than an hour and it was only when she had seen Bartle leave that she went downstairs.

Richard was there, sitting thoughtfully in the window-seat of the big room, looking idly out of the window. He raised his eyebrows when he saw her.

‘That was most discourteous of you!' he said.

‘I had no wish to see him.'

‘He is our neighbour and there is a friendship between our families. He has been away a long time . . . two years, I believe; and when he comes to see us you send down such a message!'

She shrugged her shoulders.

‘Tamar,' he went on, ‘why do you continue to hate that young man so vehemently? Can you not forgive him for what he tried to do to you so long ago?'

‘No, I cannot.'

‘But it is so long ago and he was but a wild boy then!'

‘He is a wild man now.'

‘I wish you would marry. You are twenty years old, and that is a marriageable age. You see the happiness of Annis and her John. You are fond of little Christian. Have you no desire to have children of your own?'

‘I think when the time comes for me to marry, I shall know. If it does not come' – she shrugged her shoulders again – ‘well, then I shall not marry.' She turned on him fiercely. ‘Why do you always think about my marrying when Bartle is here?'

‘Perhaps because I feel he would make a suitable husband.'

‘How can you think that? What is your opinion of me, that you think him a match for me? He is nothing but a buccaneer, a pirate! Oh . . . all very legal, because it is only Spanish ships that he robs, Spanish towns that he fires, only Spanish virgins whom he violates! Or are there others who suffer at his hands?'

‘I fear you are determined to hate him. It is that pride of yours, which will always be your biggest enemy. You are so sure that you are right when you set yourself to judge such as Bartle, to protect such as Humility Brown; but, do you know, your sense of right and wrong is governed by your emotions? Bartle is a buccaneer; therefore to be despised. Myself, Annis, John Tyler, have all been guilty of sin, but us you fiercely defend. I wish very much that you would try to be a little more reasonable with Bartle.'

‘He does not need my kindness!' she said.

The next day she was riding on the moors, thinking of him – as she had not ceased to do for one moment since his return – when she heard the sound of thudding hoofs behind her; and there was Bartle himself.

She drew up and faced him. He had aged a little. He was nearly twenty-seven years old – a man in years. There were more lines about his eyes; his skin was more deeply bronzed; the scar on his cheek seemed less prominent than it had; but his eyes were the same brilliant blue that she remembered. They mocked her now, and she felt the old excited hatred rising within her.

‘Well met, Tamar.'

‘I doubt that it is well.'

‘What a greeting for your lover!'

‘You are no lover of mine!'

‘Have you forgotten that night we spent together?'

‘I have done my best to wipe the shame of it from my mind.'

‘At least,' he said, ‘you speak too vehemently for indifference.' He smiled. ‘And that gives me hope.'

‘Hope? Of what? That you may trick me as you did before?'

‘Come, Tamar. Be true to yourself. You saw through the trick. I was merely being generous . . . giving you a chance to surrender, not for your own sake – for that you were determined not to do in spite of the fact that you found me irresistible – but for the sake of another.'

‘Your conversation tires me. I am riding back now.'

‘No,' he said. ‘You will stay awhile and talk with me. Shall we dismount? Let us tie our horses to yonder bush. Then we can make plans more easily.'

‘I have no plans to make with you.'

‘That's a pity, for I have plans, and it would be as well for you to know of them.'

‘I shall not join in them. Nor shall I discount.'

He leaned over and, catching her bridle, laughed up into her face. ‘You are afraid to dismount. You are afraid that I shall seize you as I almost did that day . . . do you remember when you saw me go to Richard's and were so beside yourself with your desire for me that you stripped and lay in wait to seduce me?'

She looked at him haughtily. ‘Why do you do everything to increase my hatred for you?'

‘Because your hatred is the measure of your love.'

‘You appear to think you have learned much subtlety from your Spanish conquests. Let me tell you that you are completely ignorant of me and my feelings.'

‘A Spanish woman and an English one are much the same under the skin, you know. One can divide them into types . . . the clinging types, the meek types. Then there is your own type, Tamar. The wild ones needing to be tamed.'

‘Your stupid talk sickens me. I am not a horse to be broken in.'

‘No indeed. As I told you once before, you are a woman who must be wooed . . . now that she has been won.'

‘Do you think that, because you once handled me shamefully, it gives you the right to speak to me thus?'

‘Ah, Tamar, how I wish that you could see your face. You are excited . . . You are hoping that I will take you now as I did before. Even while you are just a little afraid . . . you hope. Look into your mind, my beauty, and tell me what you see there. Tell the truth. Tell how every detail of our love is cherished in your heart. You have remembered . . . all the time I have been away you have remembered, as I have.'

She let her whip cut across her horse's flanks so that it reared and broke away from his hold on the bridle. It galloped off, but Bartle was soon beside her.

He shouted: ‘I thought the child in the garden was ours.'

She looked straight ahead.

‘I was disappointed,' he continued to shout.

She slowed down her horse to fling at him: ‘I should have killed myself before I would have borne a child of yours.'

‘You talk too lightly of death, just as you talk too fervently of hate.'

‘Go away! Leave me alone.'

‘I must talk to you.'

‘You could have nothing to say which could be of the slightest interest to me.'

‘You are afraid of me.'

‘I know you so well. You are a brute, a raper of women, a buccaneer, a robber. All that you are I loathe and despise. And I do not trust you. You have more physical strength than I have, and I would not care to be alone with you in lonely places.'

She heard his guffaw.

‘Oh, Tamar,' he cried, ‘have I ever forced you? Did you not receive me into your bed without a protest?'

She felt hot tears of shame pricking her eyes and she angrily whipped up her horse.

‘Come!' she whispered. ‘Gallop faster. Let us put a great distance between him and us.'

But the sweating horses kept level.

Bartle shouted: ‘Tamar, never fear! It is going to be you and I together . . . for as long as we live.'

When they had left the open country behind them and were in the narrow, hilly lanes, it was necessary to walk their horses, and he talked to her with seriousness.

‘Tamar, listen to me. I grow old and I must marry. My father is anxious to see my children before he dies. I have thought of this matter while I have been away. I love the sea; but I love you more. You are like the sea, Tamar . . . uncertain . . . beautiful and tender to some, wild and stormy to others. I want you, Tamar.'

‘You waste your words. And if you would ask my advice I would say this: Yes, you should marry and produce children. There are many girls in this countryside, as well-born as yourself, who would make excellent wives. One of them would doubtless be glad to put up with your crude manners and infidelities, for the sake of one day becoming Lady Cavill.'

‘I want none but you.'

‘That may be so, because it would be characteristic of you to want what you cannot have.'

‘I should not be continually at sea,' he said. ‘We could watch our children grow up. What say you, Tamar?'

‘I say you are a fool. In the opinion of your family, I should not be considered worthy of you, and in my opinion you are not worthy of myself. So much unworthiness could not make for happiness, I feel sure.'

‘My family would forget all those strange stories of your birth once you married me.'

‘They will never be forgotten.'

‘Only because you give yourself such airs. You ride about with flying hair so that you may look like a witch, apart from all other witches, with a beauty that fires the blood of men and sickens the hearts of women with envy.'

‘So you would marry me, knowing me different from other women?'

‘I want to marry you,' he said firmly.

‘Bartle.' Her voice softened slightly. ‘You believe, do you not, that I am no ordinary mortal woman? You believe that I have a power which is not of this Earth. Do you believe that the Devil forced me on my mother that night twenty-one years ago?'

He avoided her eyes. ‘How should I know what to believe?'

‘And yet . . . you would marry me. You would ask me to be the mother of your children!'

‘I would,' he said solemnly. ‘There are two loves in my life,' he went on slowly, ‘and I understand myself sufficiently to know that there always will be. One is the sea. You know I ran away to sea when I was fourteen. That was against my father's wishes. I knew that he might disinherit me for this, as he had threatened to do, but I did not care. I had to go to sea. I did not care that for a time I should live the life of a common sailor. I knew my life was in danger; I knew I faced death; but that was what I wanted. And you are my other love, Tamar. Untamed as the sea . . . and as dangerous. I know it, but I must have you. I faced continual dangers on the sea, and I will face them in union with you . . . woman . . . witch . . . devil . . . whatever you be.'

She was moved, for she had never before known him speak with such seriousness. Moreover, she could not help feeling proud to see him so humble before her. In some measure that made up for the shame he had inflicted upon her.

She said, and her voice was more gentle than it had ever been when she was addressing him: ‘If what you say is true, then I am sorry for you. But I will never marry you. You must content yourself with your other love, the sea. You are a fool, Bartle, and I could never love a fool. If you had been kind to me, I might have felt some friendliness towards you; and if you had continued to be kind I might even have married you. Violence . . . shameful violence . . . such as you have dared to show towards me, would never win anything but my contempt.'

‘So you continue to hate me?'

‘I can never love you.'

‘You forget I have felt you tremble in my arms.'

‘With hate.'

‘No,' he said, ‘with passion.'

‘If that were so, why should I not take advantage of what must seem to you this great and magnanimous offer to make me your wife?'

‘Because you do not know yourself. You are determined to hate me, and you cling to hatred as a drowning man clings to a raft, knowing it will soon be swept away from him.'

‘Know this,' she answered. ‘You have done to me that for which you will never have my forgiveness. You know that I am not like other women. You have said yourself that I have the Devil in me.'

He smiled at her – his eyes blazing with that sudden heat of desire which seemed to scorch her, so that for one wild moment she thought it might melt her repulsion and turn it into a fierce capitulation.

Alarmed, she said: ‘There is nothing more I have to say to you.'

And she rode on ahead of him.

All through that autumn and winter Bartle haunted Pennicomquick. Richard and Tamar were entertained by his family at Stoke. Sir Humphrey had grown very feeble now and watched, with impatience, what he thought to be the courtship of his son and Richard's daughter. He did not like the fact of the girl's illegitimacy, but he was by no means insensible to her charms. She was tall and finely built; he could imagine her producing fine sons; and since Bartle seemed set on having her, Sir Humphrey wished they would not delay in marrying, for if he were to see his grandchildren before he died, there was not much time to be lost.

Tamar, studying the old man, thought: That is what Bartle will be like in thirty years' time. Too much good wine: too much rich food; too many women; a wound or two from a Spaniard's sword, which had seemed to heal, but which left their mark; lecherous eyes for a pretty maid; a wistful eye for the gap between her youth and his age; quick temper; legs swollen with gout. Yes, Bartle would be just like that in thirty years' time. They were of a kind – country gentlemen and buccaneers!

Yet her feelings towards Bartle changed during those months. There were times when he ceased to mock, when he talked of his adventures; often this would be when she sat with him and his family and Richard in the panelled hall with the Cavill ancestry looking down from the pictures in the gallery above. Then he would make vivid the life at sea which he had so enjoyed, the hundred dangers he had faced, the stories of boarding the Spanish quarry and looting her hold of its treasure. Sir Humphrey would join in with anecdotes from his own adventures, and between them they would turn the hall into a ship for Tamar, and she would feel that she sailed with them upon an ocean. She saw, through their eyes, the Spaniard on the horizon, heard the shout aboard, ‘A sail! A sail!' She could hear Bartle's voice, his eyes flashing: ‘Dowse your topsail! Salute him for the sea. Whence is your ship?' And the dreaded yet longed-for answer: ‘Of Spain. Whence is yours?' She saw the ship shot through and through; the fire that had started in the hold. She saw the surgeon looking to the wounded when the darkness fell. Bartle's voice again: ‘Keep your berth to windward and see that we lose her not in the night!' She saw the resumption of the fight next day and heard the sound of drums and trumpets, the cry of ‘St George for England!'