Philippa Carr - Lion Triumphant

But I could not see the Rampant Lion. The two ships which had accompanied the Rampant Lion were home, but where was their leader?

The story Carlos and Jacko had to tell filled me with apprehension. Attacked by four Spanish ships, they had given a good account of themselves and driven them off. Jake in the Rampant Lion had ordered the others to stay and fight while he pursued the biggest of the galleons which was attempting to escape. That was the last they had seen of him and the ship.

They had been unable to search for her, suffering much damage themselves, and so they had returned to Plymouth, expecting to find the Rampant Lion already there.

After that we watched continuously, but she did not come.

TWO YEARS HAD PASSED, yet still we looked for the Rampant Lion. Day after day I would awaken with a feeling of expectancy upon me and each day when the sun went down I would feel a heavy despondency.

Not today, I would ask myself. Perhaps tomorrow.

And still he did not come back.

Every day we talked of him. We speculated where he might be. When ships came in we would go down to the Hoe to discover if there was any news of the Rampant Lion.

And gradually as the months slipped by, I was afraid.

What could have happened to Jake? It was impossible to imagine him as captive in enemy hands. Yet nothing but that would keep him away so long. Unless he was dead. That was even more impossible. I couldn’t believe that. I had never known anyone so alive as Jake.

Sometimes a terrible sadness settled on me. I used to think: If he is dead, is my life over? Can it really be that I shall never see him again?

Then some certainty would remind me that he was indestructible and I would watch the horizon with new hope.

“Let him come back,” I prayed. “Let us fight as we did. Even let him try to kill me. But let him come back.”

Had it taken this to teach me what he meant to me? For years I had let myself brood on Carey. Oh, yes, I had loved Carey with a girlish passion, but had I loved him more when he was lost to me than I had when I believed he was mine? I knew that I had loved Felipe more after he was dead than when he lived. Was it my nature to do this?

And now Jake!

There is no one for me but Jake, I thought. Oh, Jake, come back.

But the months passed and still he did not come.

Linnet was my great solace. She was lively and remarkably like Jake. She had the same startling blue eyes and coloring; more than that there was the same stubborn line to her jaw when she was crossed. I used to think: If Jake could see her now—he who so longed to see himself reproduced would realize that this had taken place in his daughter. She was more like him than either Carlos or Jacko.

We were constantly hearing tales of the rich treasures which our seamen were bringing to England—captured Spanish gold—so much of it. The rivalries between the two countries were being intensified as the years passed.

Every time I heard these stories I thought of Jake. I imagined him in all kinds of adventures. But I knew something terrible must have happened. Otherwise he would have been home.

There seemed now to be a general feeling in the household that we should never see Jake again, but I refused to accept this. So did Carlos and Jacko, Jennet too.

“Whatever has happened to him,” Carlos constantly said, “he’ll be back.”

There was a great deal of talk about Francis Drake, a Devon man born not far from Plymouth, in Tavistock, it was said. The Spaniards regarded him as a supernatural being, the Devil incarnate, who sailed the seas with the purpose of destroying those of the Catholic Faith and stealing their treasure. They called him El Draque, the Dragon.

It was on a December day in the year 1577 when we had the great excitement of seeing him sail from Plymouth. What a glorious sight it was. For some time Drake had been preparing for this expedition. We did not know then that he was to circumnavigate the world.

His own ship, the Pelican, was not unlike our Lion. (He was later to change its name from Pelican to Golden Hind.) With him sailed the Elizabeth, the Marigold, Swan and Christopher; and in addition to the ships there were pinnaces, some of them in pieces, the better to store them; they would be put together when needed. We were all amazed at the provisions which had been carried ashore and some of the plate for his table was of silver. He took with him too his band of musicians. It had been discovered how important music could be to men who were far from home and weary for it. A concert could turn men’s mind from the boredom in which are the seeds of mutiny.

I was caught up to some extent in the general excitement, but it reminded me poignantly of the occasions when Jake had left for his voyages.

“Jake, Jake,” I murmured, “when are you coming home?” I refused to consider the possibility of his death.

Carlos came in one day full of excitement. He had been talking to some of the seamen as he often did and had met the great man himself. Drake had been interested to learn that he was the son of Jake Pennlyon.

He was allowed to help load the stores and Jacko who was overcome by envy went with him and begged to be allowed to help. The outcome was, because of their enthusiasm and the fact that they were Jake Pennlyon’s sons, Drake himself came to the house to see me.

Such a man must always remain in the memory forever. He was not tall, but there was about him a sense of power. His limbs were strong and he was broad in the chest; he was a merry-looking man and his large clear blue eyes had what I called “the sailor’s look”—so marked in Jake—penetrating as though they could see farther than most. His full beard was fair as was his hair and there was about him a human quality. I was deeply moved that a man who had so much on his mind at this time could spare a few hours to come to comfort me. For that was what he was trying to do.

“I have met Captain Pennlyon once or twice,” he said. “A great seaman. England has need of such as he is.”

I glowed with pride and my eyes filled with tears, which he noticed.

“Many of us go off for years,” he said, “and most people give us up for lost. But some of us are not easily disposed of, Ma’am. Captain Pennlyon is one of them.”

“My great fear is that he has fallen into the hands of the Spaniards.”

“He’ll give a good account of himself, I’ll tell you that.”

“I firmly believe he will come back.”

“There’s a bond between you and you would know. That’s how it often is with sailors’ wives.”

He would find places, he said, for Carlos and Jacko in his expedition if I so wished. He had, in truth, come to ask me first.

The thought of their going off into danger sickened me, but I knew I must not stop their going.

And when he left Carlos and Jacko sailed with him.

It was a glorious sight to see them sail away—exhilarating but sobering.

Jennet stood beside me.

“To think that my boy Jacko should sail with mighty Drake,” she cried. “But I’d liefer it had been with the Captain.”

Then she turned away to wipe her eyes, but they were bright again almost immediately.

“Think what he’ll say when he comes back!”

Undoubtedly she, like myself, believed in the indestructibility of Jake.

The days passed and still no news.

The following spring Edwina came to Trewynd Grange. She was seventeen years old and was to come into her inheritance on her eighteenth birthday. Alice Ennis called at Lyon Court to tell me that she was expected.

“We shall stay here with her,” she said. “It is what her mother wishes. A young girl should not live as mistress of such a large house.”

She arrived with a band of servants, whom she had chosen from Remus Castle, the home of her stepfather. I was eager to see her and as soon as the news was brought to me that she had arrived I went to Trewynd.

I could never enter the hall there without memories flooding into my mind. I looked up at the peep and long practice told me from the shadow there that someone was watching me. I remembered how Honey and I had looked down and seen Jake come into the hall; I remembered the night when I had been taken away to the galleon. But that was a long time ago and now Edwina, Honey’s daughter, was here.

As she came into the hall I held out my hands to her.

She clasped them and smiled.

I think we loved each other from that moment.

Edwina was a frequent visitor at the Court; she had become as a daughter to me and she and Linnet were good friends.

I could never forget Jake. I dreamed of him often and when I awoke and found he was not beside me that overwhelming emptiness would sweep over me.

On a November day in the year 1580, Francis Drake sailed into the harbor.

What excitement there was! He had brought with him a marvelous quantity of treasure such as none had ever brought before. There was gold and silver, precious stones, and pearls as well as silks, cloves and spices.

He had also brought back Carlos and Jacko.

How they had changed! They were men now—experienced sailors.

The first one they looked for when they stepped ashore was their father. I shook my head sadly, but he was uppermost in our thoughts during the celebrations for their homecoming. We were all so much aware of the missing head of the house—even Linnet, who could scarcely remember him.

Carlos and Jacko talked a great deal of their adventures. There had been storm and calm; they had visited strange lands and come near to death. They had grown up and the sea was in their blood.

The expedition would be remembered throughout the years to come because although Drake was not the first man to discover that the Earth was a sphere, he had actually been the first to encircle it, whereas Magellan, who had known this was possible, had been prevented from completing the circle by his death in the Philippines.

Drake was the great hero of the West Country and very soon after his return he sailed the Golden Hind up the Thames and there at Deptford the Queen herself came to knight him.

Such men as Drake, Carlos and Jacko had become the heroes of our time because they would be the leaders when the time came to face the Spaniards.

Jake Pennlyon was such a man.

He had now been away so long that it was only because he was Jake that I could continue to hope. Carlos, Jacko, Jennet, everyone who had known him intimately, refused to believe that he was dead. Such was that magic aura he had always conveyed to us.

Sometimes I used to open the cupboard in which his clothes were kept and touch the cloth of a coat. Then I would imagine I heard his laughter. “Don’t dispose of them, Cat. I’ll need them yet.”

Once I opened a drawer and a moth flew out. I was concerned at once. I must care for his clothes and I did not want anyone else to do this. I decided I would therefore take them out, fold them afresh and put among them a powder made from herbs which my grandmother had given me and which she was convinced would preserve cloth forever against moth and insects.

It was then that I made the horrifying discovery. In the pocket of one of his jackets was a figure. As my fingers closed around it I was transported back in my mind to that occasion when I had found the image of Isabella in my drawer.

There was no doubt who this was meant to be. Myself! I could see the pinhead, a little rusty—where it had entered the cloth of my gown.

And in Jake’s pocket!

It could not be. I remembered how on more than one occasion he had raged against witches. But why? Because he believed in the evil they could create, because he believed that could kill, because he feared them?

And why should this image be in his pocket?

I studied it. The likeness was there. My thick straight hair, and the eyes were painted a vivid green. There could be no doubt who it was meant to be.

Had he consulted a witch? Had he been carrying out her orders? Not Jake! Yet this thing was in his pocket. It must have been lying there for years. Why had he left it there and gone away? Had he hoped that when he came back the witch’s work would be done?

I was going to destroy that figure.

I put it into the pocket of my gown and went out into the garden. There was a hut on the outskirts of the grounds. Few people went there. I buried the doll beneath some braken and set it alight. The grass was dry, as was the braken, and I had not thought there would be such a blaze. As the wax of the image spluttered, Jennet and Manuela, who must have seen the smoke, came running out to the hut.