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admit I had thought of him a great deal—the more unpleasant the encounter seemed. He was crude; he was bold; and he had dared awaken me and bring me to the window. Had he really thrown a kiss to me or had I imagined that? Had he really been suggesting that I come down to him? Surely he must have known that was impossible. No, he had merely wished to disturb me. He had certainly done that.
    Fennimore went on talking about the boom in shipbuilding which must follow the defeat of the Armada. “The Spaniards were only half aware of what prospects there were,” he was saying. “They were obsessed by making the people of the world conform to their religious doctrines. Therein lay their weakness. Their King is a fanatic. What misery he must be enduring now. I could almost feel it in my heart to be sorry for him.”
    “Do not let my father hear you say that.”
    “Nor shall I,” said Fennimore. “He would not understand, but I believe it to be a fact that even the most cruel, the most misguided of mankind have some spark of humanity in them and if we could but ignite it … who knows?”
    I realized then that he was a very different man from my father. He was gentle and tolerant. A faint misgiving came to me then and I wondered whether the quality needed to succeed in this rough world was that ruthlessness which men like my father possessed, that single-mindedness which could only see one side of a problem. I was aware that Fennimore’s nature made him see many.
    But Fennimore certainly talked like a man inspired. He made me see our ports alive with peaceful trading vessels. I could picture the unloading on the Hoe—spices, gold and ivory because he planned that his ships should travel not only in the Baltic and Mediterranean ports but right out to the East Indies.
    It was very pleasant on that damp November day to walk through the garden with Fennimore, to listen to his plans, to learn about the estate on which he lived when he was not at sea.
    I found his parents delightful and so did my mother. His father was undoubtedly a man of the sea and that meant that he shared certain characteristics with my own father. He was not the roaring ranting man that Jake Pennlyon was. In any case there could only be one Jake Pennlyon; but he had clearly had bloodthirsty adventures on the high seas and they must have left their mark on him. Fennimore had inherited something of his mother’s more gentle nature. It had made him more thoughtful and introspective than most men of his profession. He was rather studious; more logical than most and with that ability—which I was not sure was an asset—of being able to see many facets to one problem.
    I suppose when two families are of a similar kind and each has a young member of it and these are of the opposite sex there must inevitably be some speculation as to whether or not they might marry. I knew this was in the minds of my mother and Fennimore’s parents. Every mother wants to see her son or daughter married; grandparents long for the marriage of their children to be fruitful. I knew what was going on in my mother’s mind. She liked Fennimore and would welcome him as a son-in-law. I became certain that the Landors would have offered me an equally warm welcome.
    And Fennimore? Was it in his mind too? I believe it was. He was not an impulsive man, however; he would wish us both to grow accustomed to each other and the idea of marriage. To him there would be many sides to marriage, and of course he was right.
    It seemed to me in those first few days at Trystan Priory that there was a very good chance that one day I would be mistress of it.
    Fennimore’s mother was eager to talk about the household and during the second day she asked me to come to her room. She wanted to show me the tapestry on which she was working. She showed me the design which was to depict the glorious victory over the Armada and she herself had composed it. It would take her years to complete, she told me.
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