To Serve a Queen

by Josephine Bell

  Bello:

  hidden talent rediscovered!

  Bello is a digital only imprint of Pan Macmillan, established to breathe life into previously published classic books.

  At Bello we believe in the timeless power of the imagination, of good story, narrative and entertainment and we want to use digital technology to ensure that many more readers can enjoy these books into the future.

  We publish in ebook and Print on Demand formats to bring these wonderful books to new audiences.

  About Bello:

  www.panmacmillan.com/imprints/bello

  About the author:

  www.panmacmillan.com/author/josephinebell

  Contents

  Josephine Bell

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Josephine Bell

  To Serve a Queen

  Josephine Bell

  Josephine Bell was born Doris Bell Collier in Manchester, England. Between 1910 and 1916 she studied at Godolphin School, then trained at Newnham College, Cambridge until 1919. At the University College Hospital in London she was granted M.R.C.S. and L.R.C.P. in 1922, and a M.B.B. S. in 1924.

  Bell was a prolific author, writing forty-three novels and numerous uncollected short stories during a forty-five year period.

  Many of her short stories appeared in the London Evening Standard. Using her pen name she wrote numerous detective novels beginning in 1936, and she was well-known for her medical mysteries. Her early books featured the fictional character Dr. David Wintringham who worked at Research Hospital in London as a junior assistant physician. She helped found the Crime Writers’ Association in 1953 and served as chair during 1959–60.

  Chapter One

  One bright spring morning in the year 1625 a coach drew up outside Denmark House on the Strand by Aldwych, in the City of Westminster. The footman leaped down to open the door and adjusted the steps; four passengers, all in the deepest mourning clothes, descended.

  The coach itself was in mourning: little black curtains at the windows, a black bow on the coachman’s whip, black facings added to his livery and that of the footman. The horses were black, groomed to polished ebony, the broad surfaces of their coats winking in the April sun. Their harness had been treated with soot in oil, the reins, rubbed to their usual brown, well covered by the coachman’s black gloves.

  This total compendium of grief had no domestic origin. All London, all England, was in mourning. For King James, First of England and Sixth of Scotland, was dead, had died at his well-loved house, Theobald’s, just outside the capital, and was now lying-in-state at his late wife’s former palace, whose grounds led down to the river not far from Strand Stairs.

  England mourned a king whose faults were for this time forgotten, whose deep learning and quick wit in argument were just now reverenced far beyond their due. A Solomon had been taken from them, the people lamented, not quite knowing what they meant by that, but soothed in their increasingly puritan souls by the biblical sound of it. Besides, the new king, little delicate Charles as he had been known to them for so long, might well not survive for much longer the rigours of his seat on the throne. So it pleased the people more at this time to lament whole-heartedly ‘Solomon’, than rejoice in their new, perhaps temporary, ruler.

  Denmark House, where the late monarch lay embalmed to receive the respects of his Court, his nobility and the upper social layers of his gentry, was plunged into a perfectly complete gloom more suggestive of eternal darkness than of any hoped for welcome to the light of Heaven. Guards in long black capes over their uniforms stood at the gates and beyond at the doors. A black carpet had been unrolled for the visitors to walk upon which continued within and covered the floors of the two state rooms, in the further of which the dead king lay. The walls of these rooms were also hung with black. The people, moving forward guided by a meagre display of candles, formed no company of ghosts but a solid inky block, strange, formidable, even menacing, the movement being tense and jerky from fear of tripping and falling down: a progression of the nearly blind.

  Of the four men who had got down from the coach, the first was elderly and square rather than stout, in a long gown, belted, with a pork-pie hat on his white head and a small neat white ruff below his short well-trimmed white beard. He was followed by two men of middle age in sober well-cut black suits and scholars’ gowns and caps. Behind them, the last to appear, was a tall youth, slim and angular, whose large feet and hands promised even greater size when he would be full grown. His black doublet and breeches looked over-large for him, which indeed they were, since they had been borrowed for the occasion. His thick auburn curls hung to his shoulders, but his face was smooth, not even a suspicion of hair on cheek or lip. He carried a wide felt hat which he clapped on his head as he stood upright and stared about him.

  Young Francis Leslie, in London for the first time, saw his three companions approach the gates and pause to speak to the guards there. It flashed through his mind that he could, while they were so engaged, run quickly across the road and, in cover of the coach, dive down a little alley he had noticed as they drew up, he at that time sitting at the side of the coach opposite to the door from which they were to descend. He could leave them, those three kind men, guardian, relative and friend, whose presence he felt he could never again, since yesternight, endure without bitter anger, grief and shame.

  Doctor Richard Ogilvy, turning, called, ‘Francis! Nephew! We enter! You will have time enough later to admire the great city of Westminster. Come!’

  The moment was lost. With the impulse fading, young Francis walked quickly forward, already cursing himself for a fool. For he noticed that old Thomas, the coachman, had watched his hesitation – which he must have taken for wonderment – with amusement and would surely have seen his feeble movement to escape had he attempted it.

  Escape from what? He had no time to answer before he was moving into that darkest night where the dead king lay in state.

  More words passed with the guards at the door. Coin clinked as the four moved on again. But this time another barely visible form, a dim pale face above a dark mass, leaned towards them to ask, ‘With my Lord Aldborough’s favour? Follow me, sirs. My lord is here present and will receive you.’

  In the first spacious, shrouded, candlelit room they all moved slowly until they were brought to one who stood back against the wall draperies away from the solemn procession going on to the catafalque. Here my lord’s man bowed to his master and to the newcomers and, stepping aside, vanished into the gloom, though not at any great distance, as young Francis, peering into the murk, was able to distinguish.

  ‘Alderman Angus Leslie, said Lord Aldborough, taking a step away from the wall and bowing minimally. ‘I am very pleased to see you again and appearing in such excellent health.’

  ‘I do very well for my years, my lord,’ answered the alderman, bowing in his turn and as deeply as he was able. ‘I thank your lordship heartily for making this privilege available to us, for without it we should none of us been able to pay our respects to His late Majesty.’

  ‘Present me to these others, m
y good man.’

  ‘Sir Francis Leslie, my kinsman, of Oxford University. Doctor Richard Ogilvy, also of Oxford. Doctor Ogilvy’s nephew, Master Francis Leslie.’

  Lord Aldborough stared with quickened interest at the tall young man, whose bow was made with a lithe grace that concealed his unfamiliarity with such ceremonial.

  Alderman Leslie’s shrewd eyes did not miss the nobleman’s interest. He marked it as a matter for caution, but also for possible profit. Young Francis was in London as a first step to promote his fortune in some useful employment. But not, please God, the alderman told himself, about a corrupt and dissolute Court, notorious in all England, but especially at its central point, the Palace of Whitehall, so very near to where they now were.

  Lord Aldborough stepped away between the two scholars as Master Angus drew back to support the boy, whose diffidence he understood very well. They joined the thin line that had not ceased to move towards the second door at the far end of the room. When they reached it a doorkeeper motioned them into single file and they saw before them a raised platform, a pair of trestles, the whole draped in black, upon the trestles a coffin and upon the coffin an effigy of the dead king, covered in flowing purple, only the head and face laid bare.

  At first sight of those small, lined, wizened features, thin greying hair and beard, ill-defined mouth and bulging eyes, young Francis recoiled in strong revulsion, followed by amazement. Had this ill-favoured, insignificant countenance ruled, ordered, guided and persuaded the cleverest men in the kingdom, exacted obedience, loyalty, admiration, even love? He shuddered when he remembered all that the word implied. But reminded himself that the King had died old. As the old Laird of Kilessie had died not twelve months since and his old wife four years before. Those good, kind, much-loved grandparents who he now learned were no relations, but at whose modest funerals he had wept with true feeling.

  King James had died old. He had begun his reign at the end of a spoiled and dangerous youth, in constant stress and real poverty. Later he had neglected his native land. There was little love and much criticism of the dead king in Scotland. They knew nothing encouraging of his successor, who had been a sickly child and might die young.

  Trying to remember these things and command his thoughts away from a sick loathing to a proper grief for bereaved England, young Francis found with a jolt of improper mirth that he cared nothing for England, but grieved only for the Scotland ‘Jamie’ had so signally neglected and from whose much-loved hills and valleys he himself had now been expelled.

  The alderman was familar with the late king’s appearance, so the effigy had no particular effect upon him. On the whole he was glad the reign had come to its long-expected end. The poor old man had not reigned in fact for several years. The Prince of Wales and George Villiers, the favourite of both Prince and King, now Duke of Buckingham, had ruled and that as unhandily as the king, not to mention their absurd venture into Spain to secure the Infanta in marriage to the Prince. A comic, tragic attempt, for the two young men were in plain fact hostages for the King’s compliance with terms that suited neither him nor Charles nor England and brought about, by a treacherous progression of failed treaties and terms, the ruin of James’s daughter and son-in-law, the ill-fated King and Queen of Bohemia, now in exile in Holland. King Charles might show his people a more subdued, better mannered Court, but Master Leslie, in common with his brothers of the City of London, feared little change in the handling of money or rather its extortion by the Crown.

  Only the two scholars mourned with sincerity and deep respect a man whose aspirations to learning had been true and wide ranging. Sir Francis owed the dead king much, in fortune and opportunity. His present happiness had assuaged the bitterness of his first marriage, softened his memory of its repeated dangers and final catastrophe. He now remembered chiefly his delight in the London of his early days there, the new translation of Holy Writ in which he had been permitted to assist, the great plays of Shakespeare, the fresh discoveries of science. He looked forward with hope to the new reign. King Charles had respect for learning too, if no great ability. And a true love of the arts, particularly that of painting. Besides, he was not extravagant. When the money affairs of the sovereign had been put right by a less disapproving Parliament, surely the needs of scholarship, of learning and of those engaged in such matters, would be fulfilled.

  As for Lord Aldborough, this was the third time he had given entrance to persons who might, his patron told him, be useful in one way or another to the State. This patron being His Grace the Duke of Buckingham meant, first and foremost, useful to the furthering of His Grace’s plans and purposes for himself and his own family. For Aldborough, lacking means, or rather sufficient means to attract the attention of a father anxious to dispose of a comely daughter to a man of birth and substance, or of a wealthy widow eager to increase her fortune, had seen opportunity in alliance with the Villiers connection. By bringing another title into the undistinguished ranks of Buckingham’s distant female relatives he had already profited by a small monopoly in the great man’s control and looked to serve him further with increased advantage in those opportunities the new reign could not fail to provide.

  The party emerged at last into the spring sunshine, much to the relief of young Francis. He stood politely behind the older men while they began to take elaborate leave of the Lord Aldborough, who had done them this unforgettable service, an occasion they would surely have missed had he not of his great kindness and condescension rendered it to their humble and unworthy selves.

  ‘Do not speak of service, my good alderman.’ Lord Aldborough said with an artificial laugh. ‘You represent the City of London and though your Lord Mayor came to take his leave of His late Majesty, too few of the great merchants and magnates have been encouraged to find admittance to that compelling scene we have just witnessed.’

  This called for further speeches of thanks, while Aldborough looked about for his coach which his man was striving to guide in his direction.

  As the nobleman moved to show himself more plainly he came close to Francis. The boy retreated quickly, but Aldborough, seeing his coachman made but slow progress, laid a hand on Francis’s arm and said, ‘I believe you are a Leslie. Your speech is Scottish. Have you come lately from the north?’

  ‘Aye, my lord,’ the boy said. ‘I have been staying with my uncle, Doctor Richard Ogilvy, in Oxford. We both stay at present with Master Angus Leslie.’

  ‘Your kinsman, then?’

  ‘My mother was sister to Doctor Ogilvy.’

  ‘Was?’

  ‘She died, my lord, ten years ago.’

  Lord Aldborough was puzzled but persistent.

  ‘She was Lady Leslie, wife to Sir Francis Leslie, here?’

  ‘Yes, my lord.’

  ‘So you, poor child, were …’

  ‘Eight years of age, my lord. Living at the house of the Laird of Kilessie, by Falkland in Fife.’

  A vague memory came back to Lord Aldborough, a little scandal, part of a far greater one, more than a scandal, a catastrophe, in his youth, half-heard, a quarter understood. He stared at the tall young man, so slim in his black clothes, so grave, so reticent, with the sun glinting on his auburn curls below his wide black hat. The look in those deep blue, almost violet eyes, was sullen, withdrawn. Not a happy face for such youth and vigour to present. A history behind it. But what?

  ‘Your lordship’s coach!’ Francis spoke suddenly, breaking from the fear, confusion and depression into which Aldborough’s difficult questions had thrown him. He had seen from his superior height their patron’s man dive between two groups of onlookers and beckon on the postilion who had hold on the bridle of the near leading coach horse. He stepped forward himself, gesturing back the citizens with lively waving and wide smiles, to which they responded good-naturedly, especially when a small child, springing round in a circle like a frightened hen, came near to the approaching hooves, and Francis, snatching her up to his shoulder, brought her safety, crowing wi
th pleasure, to her terrified parent.

  ‘Nimble work, boy,’ said Lord Aldborough, his hand on the open door of his coach, while the alderman and the dons gathered to say farewell. ‘What calling do you follow, or intend to follow? Will you be a merchant or a scholar?’

  ‘Neither, my lord,’ answered Francis, reddening. ‘Mayhap a soldier.’

  ‘I have a brother in that trade,’ Richard Ogilvy explained quickly, and stopped because Francis had gone pale with a stiff face, afraid of what his so-called father might say at this point.

  But Sir Francis Leslie kept silent, and Lord Aldborough, after a quick glance in his direction, got into the coach and his man closed the door and put up the steps.

  But before the coachman and the postilion succeeded in making the horses move on his lordship put his head out of the window and beckoned to young Francis.

  ‘Soldiers will be needed, young sir,’ he said. ‘For service against Spain and that not far distant. I will speak of your ambition to His Grace, who plans an expedition by sea. Hold yourself prepared, for you may find a summons come to you for an audience. His Grace seeks young gentlemen of parts and that without delay.’

  The watching crowd, some of whom had been near enough to hear this exchange, raised a cheer as the coach drew away. They had heard the noble lord mention Spain and the Duke of Buckingham. The great man wanted war and so did Londoners. So they cheered.

  Lord Aldborough took their voices as a tribute to himself and his rank. But he had meant what he told Francis and he did not forget it.

  The party from the City reassembled and made their way to the side street where Thomas was waiting with the alderman’s coach. In a sober silence, each considering all he had seen and heard, they returned to Master Leslie’s house in Gracious Street, where Doctor Ogilvy remained to take refreshment.

  ‘But I must not stay long,’ he told the alderman. ‘I have had news from my brother Arthur that he returns for a while from his service abroad. So I must see that my father’s house is properly prepared for him.’