Cate of the Lost Colony - Lisa Klein [91]
Here at Myrtle Grove I lick my wounds and bay at the cold, unfeeling moon while Essex, the queen’s lapdog, pants to be petted. None lament my absence, for everyone loves whom the queen favors and hates whom she disdains.
I find my castle at Lismore in disrepair, my agents careless, and the tenants unruly. With better management they might have yielded enough to fund a voyage to Roanoke this year. My melancholy deepens when I consider the perilous lives, many perhaps lost, of those hopeful, enterprising folk. Lady Catherine—she of the dancing gray eyes and sleek black hair—deserved better than what poor Sir Walter Ralegh has done. They all did.
Poem
If all the world and love were young
And truth in every courtier’s tongue,
Then hopes of pleasure might me move,
To come to thee and claim thy love.
But flowers fade and wanton fields
To winter’s harsh reckoning yield,
The fruit in hand has fall’n, forgotten;
My folly is ripe; my reason rotten.
15 August 1589. I signed 150 new tenancy agreements, including one for Thomas Harriot, who has chosen to settle in Ireland. He is planting the root he brought back from the New World, “openauk,” which he calls “potato,” curious to see if it will grow in this climate and whether people will consent to eat it.
If Virginia were less remote, sea travel less perilous, and Her Majesty less thrifty, I might have had better success there. While it seems likely that Ireland, however wayward her inhabitants, may be brought to a civil state with far less trouble and expense.
3 September 1589. Visited the secretary to the queen’s deputy, one Edmund Spenser, at Kilcolman Castle. He is writing an epic poem in praise of the queen that will comprise twelve books. I advised him to be very careful, for if he should write a single offensive couplet out of many thousand, Elizabeth would be sure to note it. He replied that his epic poem will be an allegory, in which the meaning is partly hidden. He read me a passage in which Belphoebe, a beautiful virgin, takes pity upon a wounded squire and heals him with cordials and tobacco. This, he said, was meant to show my ill usage and move the queen to forgive me. I urged him to offer his work to the queen without delay. Because he is a stranger to her presence, I said I would write a sonnet to commend it.
12 December 1589. Spenser presented his Faerie Queene to the delight of Her Majesty. She was not so pleased with his person, however, for he is a little man and almost forty years old, but she showed him respect, which is to be preferred over wanton affection.
When Spenser had finished reading from his poem, I reminded her of my sonnet comparing her to Petrarch’s Laura. She smiled, which I took for encouragement and offered her a pipe, a symbol of peace. “This is the most profitable plant in all of Virginia,” I said.
“It turns to smoke, from what I can see,” she said after sucking on the pipe. “What value is in that?”
Oh, she was clever but I was no lackwit. “I’ll wager that I can weigh the smoke and prove to you that it is not nothing.”
She said she would grant me £25 if I succeeded. So I called for a scale, a sheaf of tobacco leaves, and a metal basin. I weighed the leaves, then set them aflame in the basin. When the leaves had burned and pungent smoke filled the air, I weighed the ashes.
“Subtracting the weight of the ashes from that of the leaves, the difference must be the weight of the smoke,” I said, showing my smile that used to please her so.
Elizabeth folded her hands and pressed her forefingers to her lips. I could not tell whether she appreciated my wit or was displeased at losing the wager.
“I have heard of gold turning into smoke”—was she rebuking me for failing to find precious metals in Virginia?—“but you are the first to turn smoke into gold.”
Then turning to Lord Burghley, she bade him give me £25.
She leaned close and spoke in my ear. “Your sonnet did please me, Sir Warter.”
My heart sprang up like