A Question of Loyalties

by Josephine Bell

  A message came to John as he sat at cards with Sidney Godolphin and two other pages. The Duke wished to speak with him. His Highness was out walking in the Park. Mr. Churchill would do him the favour of joining him there.

  ‘Now what does he want of you?’ Sidney grumbled. ‘Your master is more importunate than mine. The King rarely demands of me more than the usual duties of the bedchamber.’

  ‘More elaborate, far, than mine,’ John answered. ‘As befits the monarch. But I must not delay. You will excuse me?’

  He was already on his feet. There was no direct response from the others. Clearly he did not exepct any, for he moved away and was gone, while they still sat watching him.

  Godolphin gathered the cards together with a sweep of the hand.

  ‘No argument,’ he said. ‘John assumes too much and yet we feel no enmity. Or do we?’

  ‘None,’ the other two told him with a laugh. One of them added, pulling a pair of dice from his pocket, ‘Now he is gone we may give up a pretence of play, may we not? This promises more amusement for less effort, I swear.’

  ‘Churchill would never risk losing his cash for the luck of the throw. He reckons to take ours from us by his own sheer skill.’

  ‘And often succeeds, God rot him!’

  So they fell to pure gaming of the most primitive kind, where the fall of the dice sent their money travelling back and forth among them until the overall loser pleaded he could go on no longer. John did not return, so after a while they agreed to end their play for that day.

  Young Churchill found the Duke with his gentlemen watching the water fowl on one of the ornamental ponds in the Park. Fat, brightly-coloured ducks of several different breeds swam about picking up the crumbs some visitors had thrown into the water. Occasionally a sleek white swan drove among them to rob them of their feast and send them scuttering away in alarm. But for most of the time they moved with self-confident complacence, like prosperous City worthies had used to do before the fire, John thought, and remembered that week of fear. He had shunned the ruined City since those days, unwilling to be reminded further.

  As he approached the group about the Duke he was overtaken by a party on horseback. It was the Queen, with all her ladies about her. She had dressed them alike in scarlet riding coats and doublets buttoned up to the neck, periwigs, the curls of which fell each side of their necks, and flat black beaver hats above. Only their black or deep brown skirts proved they were not men riding side-saddle; also the absence of beards or the shaved marks of them.

  The courtiers stood back to let them pass, not concealing their admiration nor their outspoken expression of it. The Duchess of York was there too, with her maids of honour, dressed in similar fashion. Altogether it was a very charming sight.

  The Queen herself with the Duchess of York behind her, drew in beside the Duke just as John reached him. He heard the compliments flow, he saw James, hatless, bow deeply to the Queen and acknowledge his wife in less formal manner.

  The cavalcade moved on until they were well out of hearing, when the Duke turned to his page and said unexpectedly, ‘Your sister, sir, hath a devil of a bad seat on a horse. How comes it? Ye were country folk, were ye not?’

  ‘Aye, your Highness. Dorset folk.’

  ‘Brought up, I do not doubt, on horseback? Though your sister tells me you had no stable.’

  ‘We had one horse for my father until the usurper’s death, your Highness. Still but two at the Restoration. Arabella could never bring herself to care for a horse.’

  ‘Unlike you, I hear.’

  John reddened. His father had bought him a mount when he took service with the Duke. Since Sir Winston was now established in his office at Whitehall and lived in a house on the outskirts of Westminster, John had placed his beast in his father’s stable, thus saving himself considerable expense. His duty, however, directed him to live in the pages’ apartments at the Palace.

  The Duke saw his embarrassment, but put it down to his youth and did not remark upon it.

  ‘We sent for you,’ he said, in a colder, more official voice, ‘because we have watched you for some months since you came into our service and particularly your behaviour during the recent disaster to the City. It hath struck us that your talents, such as they be, declare themselves far more in violent action than in the life about the Court. We have recently spoken to your father to discover if your family history can account for this.’

  He paused, inviting comment.

  John said, ‘My father himself, your Highness, fought all through the civil wars. His late Majesty commended him for it, as his present Majesty most graciously hath done also.’

  ‘I am well aware of my brother’s bounty,’ the Duke said drily, but in more familiar fashion. ‘Well, sir, whether it be an inheritance or an original gift of God, you have some of the makings of a soldier and none whatever of a courtier. Would you be willing to drop your present employment in favour of a post in the King’s army?’

  ‘Oh, your Highness!’ John cried, quite overcome. He dropped on one knee and seizing the Duke’s hand, kissed it fervently. ‘Willing! It is my dearest hope, my sole ambition—’

  ‘Enough, enough!’ James told him, stepping away. His cold nature disliked any strong expression of feeling other than the normal passion he chose to call love. ‘I will see you made ensign. You will be told when and where to start your service. Work hard and you will do well.’

  Dismissed thus abruptly John bowed and turned away. He did not feel like rejoining his gambling friends. Play, supremely fashionable at both Courts, rather disgusted him than gave him pleasure. The chances of winning were in the long run negligible. And he was fully determined never to get into debt. He understood poverty too well. On thinking over the whole of his conversation with the Duke it occurred to him that his Master knew much about his family he did not expect. He wondered at it and its possible source. Arabella? He put the thought from him as incredible.

  Soon after this the Duchess of York set out on another riding expedition with her ladies, all in their pretty new riding suits. The Duke, also on horseback with a few of his gentlemen, proposed to watch them muster and then perhaps go hunting in a different direction.

  His acquaintanceship with Arabella Churchill had continued to grow gently since his first encounter with her. Her face called for little or no praise, but her manner as she became used to speaking to him was grown much less awkward and her voice never failed to please him.

  On this occasion, however, her appearance roused him to anger rather than admiration. There she was, slouched upon her mount, her seat patently insecure, her reins quite dangerously slack, her face turning this way and that, while her fellow maids of honour moved among their mounted and unmounted friends and admirers, laughing, smiling, exchanging wit and charm, all fully in control of their beasts.

  James urged his horse forward until he drew rein at her side.

  ‘Madam,’ he said in his most harsh, dry voice. ‘I do implore you to take lessons in the art of horsemanship. I have said this to you before, but seemingly to no purpose whatever.’

  Poor Arabella, startled by his sudden attack, by finding him so close to her and so angry, gave a frightened cry and snatched at her reins. It was a fatal move.

  The horse was even more startled than the maid. The sudden drag on its mouth, the rough signal to move, brought an equally abrupt and violent response. In the next moment it was off, bounding away with Arabella still snatching at reins and saddle, tossed to and fro, screaming at the top of her voice. She lost her stirrup before she was gone twenty yards. Struck by the swaying iron the horse broke into a full gallop. In another fifty yards she fell from its back, struck her head on the ground and lay there unconscious, quite oblivious to the fact that her skirts, her petticoats, her shift, had all been tossed over her shoulders as she landed on the ground.

  When the horse bolted the Duke followed at once, his irritation turned to alarm by the girl’s quite astounding helplessness. The Du
chess had not noticed the event until made aware of it by the sudden cries of alarm. But she took no action, so her ladies did not move either. Over the last few weeks her Highness’s opinion of Arabella Churchill had suffered a decline.

  So the Duke was alone when he reached the scene of the accident. Arabella’s horse, puzzled when its rider fell, had moved a little distance away and stood quietly. By good fortune it had not stepped on the drooping rein, though this hung nearly to the ground.

  The girl herself lay motionless while the Duke, who had leaped down at once when he reached her, stood staring in amazement at a vision of beauty he had seldom before encountered, so silently and fully displayed as it were by a carved statue. Her features, hidden now as she lay face down, might be plain, but her form was entrancing. A perfect figure, limbs tapering in gentle, lovely curves, all the proportions of a goddess, he thought, as he stood there.

  ‘Is she dead?’ a voice asked behind him.

  He was wrenched from his dream, his contemplation of beauty. His groom of the bedchamber, dismounting hurriedly, stepped forward, pulled down Arabella’s clothes to cover her, at the same time feeling her legs and spine for any sign of a break. Finding none he very gently turned her over on to her back, propping her head to one side to allow her to breathe more freely.

  Her face was as pale as ever, her lips white, the eyes closed. But she took one or two deep breaths and moaned feebly.

  ‘Send for a stretcher and helpers,’ said the Duke, preparing to re-mount. ‘I will go tell her Highness of this mishap.’

  He rode away to report the accident to his wife and to berate her for not going to help the injured girl.

  The Duchess accepted his chiding. She had not realised, she said, how very awkward this maid of honour showed herself on horseback. She had assumed a country-bred girl would be familiar with horses. She had shown her favour on account of her loyal parents and in spite of her ugly countenance.

  The Duke smiled. On account of it, he decided, as the Duchess had done before in her attempts to prevent his raids upon her household. She did not know of his discovery, nor would he ever tell her of it.

  Arabella regained consciousness very rapidly after she had been carried back to the maids’ apartments at St. James’s. She found herself alone, however, no longer sharing a room with one of her fellows. Mrs. Wise explained that she had been moved to give her quiet and peace for her recovery. She was grateful for this consideration, and said so. It was not until a few days later that she realised her new room was very near the Duke’s own apartments.

  At the next ball given by the Duchess she was directed to attend, by the governess, but not by the Duchess. In the meantime the Duke had made several occasions to speak to her and she knew, she could not help knowing, his unconcealed intentions.

  She was profoundly flattered by the royal pursuit. She was congratulated by her well-wishers and triumphed over her rivals. She was only nineteen, romantic, still ignorant of the gross ways of the Court. Lady Churchill had always understood her daughter’s reckless eagerness with regard to men, but she had not anticipated the present situation and was helpless to prevent its development.

  The Duke of York danced three times with Arabella at the Duchess’s ball, in a minuet where her graceful movements quite wiped out his recollection of her clumsy fall from her horse; in a sarabande and in two country dances where her lively steps and close proximity inflamed him to the point of action.

  In her excitement, her overwhelming curiosity, her gratitude, Arabella made only the feeblest resistance when James arrived in her room in the middle of that night. The Duchess had made some attempt to stop the intrigue by dismissing all the maids of honour from the ball at midnight. But this move had only helped the Duke to achieve his purpose in a reasonably dignified manner.

  Shortly after his success with Arabella the Duke relieved John Churchill of his position as page in his service. John was presented with a commission as ensign in a regiment of foot guards.

  Chapter Seven

  The news was brought to him at Whitehall, so he took it at once to Sidney Godolphin.

  ‘His Highness hath kept his word!’ he cried joyfully.

  ‘Did you ever doubt it?’

  ‘Well, no,’ John said, answering the deeper look in Godolphin’s eyes. ‘He must have planned it already, that first time he sent for me to talk of the Army.’

  ‘He must have wished you away to spare an embarrassment.’

  John nodded, grinning. ‘The baggage gives herself airs, already.’

  ‘So she may. So they all do, except the prudes like my Lady Falmouth and the seekers after fortunes, who also hold out for marriage.’

  John laughed. ‘And one whom I think you would not call prude so disparagingly.’

  ‘And who be that, pray?’

  ‘Pray is the word! Why, Mary Blagge, of course, whom you always make sure to mention when we speak of the Duchess.’

  Godolphin blushed, but said nothing.

  John nodded again, becoming serious. ‘I must go to my mother and father. They have shock enough already, with Arabella turned royal whore and young George, I hear, gone to sea against the Dutch. And now myself to fight, please God, as soon as I see an opening for action.’

  The opening came for him a few weeks later when he had joined his regiment, ordered his uniform as an ensign and met some of his superior officers. There was to be a muster of volunteers from among them to go to Tangier to relieve, support and restore the garrison, much in need of assistance, both physical and moral.

  It was an old tale that John had heard often enough without really trying to understand or remember it. Part of the Queen’s dowry from Portugal, but more of a liability than a profitable acquisition. Now it had become a real danger, very urgent. Also at the same time a wonderful opportunity for him to begin at last to see the world beyond England. He had not yet even travelled across the Channel to France.

  ‘That is where you will serve later, I am sure,’ Sir Winston told him. ‘For France was our friend in the exile, far more so than the House of Orange. The Dutch fight us now for our trade because we rival theirs and because our Princess Royal is Regent for the young Prince and the sour merchants of the republic do not like her.’

  ‘The French are ready to fight us too.’

  ‘The French pirates as well, I am told. A sad mixed state of things,’ said Sir Winston, heavily. ‘For the people in general hate and fear both the Dutch and the French. Nevertheless our own Princess Royal and her son, Orange William, belong here in their religion and their close ties, whereas Louis of France, though a first cousin of the King, is a Papist and does not. And yet on account of his mother and his best-beloved sister Charles himself clings to Louis more, much more.’

  ‘I think it is not only for love,’ John said. ‘I think it is necessity.’

  Without daring to be more explicit John meant to convey, what he had heard as rumour, that the King received money from his wealthy cousin of France. Upon this dire conclusion John and his father could agree without danger, without the least treasonable thought, because they both loved the King and both reverenced money as the necessary means to power. The King must be preserved in power. Neither saw moral turpitude in this, though the gold must be coming secretly from France.

  But the House of Commons would see treason in it: precisely that. In his attendances at Westminster, as member for Weymouth, Sir Winston was made aware of the strength of that middle-of-the-road, Protestant feeling, expressed best in the Anglican church. Not every man in the chamber of the House approved of episcopacy, for the bishops had rushed in again all too readily after the Restoration to secure the plums of the profession without much thought for the cure of souls and the provision of humble parish shepherds for the large neglected flocks. But it was generally agreed by now that the Anglican church was the true Church of England. Presbyterians and all the odd sects were to be discouraged in spite of freedom of conscience, all but Papists, who must be put down.<
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  In spite of his apparent laziness over the forms of State business, Charles knew these facts and accepted them as the very foundation of his throne. His Court must rival that of his French cousin in brilliance and luxury, nor did it fall behind over the arts and sciences. In fact the names of the early Fellows of the Royal Society, set up by Charles himself, became as widely, if not more successfully, known than those in the forefront of French thought and discovery. Experiments continued to be made at Oxford and elsewhere, sometimes upon living animals. For instance the blood of a dog had been transferred to another dog, which had survived and thrived upon it. This opened hopeful speculation upon the success of a like operation between men.

  Encouraged by his father’s understanding and confidence young Churchill met Godolphin again the following day. There was to be an outing in barges upon the river in order to go down below the Bridge to Greenwich. Those nervous of the water held back. Since these journeys were made on the ebb, any venture below the Bridge meant that hair-raising drive through the arches, where an unskilful boatman had upon occasion been known to wreck his barge on one of the sixteen stone piers with little hope of rescue for the passengers.

  On this afternoon John went with Sidney Godolphin as his companion. The former now being discharged from the Duke’s service necessarily avoided his former colleagues. He had made no particular intimate among them and had no wish to hear their gossip about his sister.

  The King came down to the river as the two friends stood together. They saw him in good time to dispose themselves correctly as he arrived and passed. Perhaps he remembered seeing these two young fresh faces together upon a former occasion. At any rate he paused for a second, decided to make no more of it and moved on. Lady Castlemaine, for once superceding Miss Stewart, who had gone into the country, said, ‘You noticed those two boys, sire? You know them?’

  ‘Should I?’ Charles asked, scarcely interested.