“Two gentlemen wanting to see the Governor, but they could not wait,” explained Mary.
“You should have called Captain Rolph, child.”
“Brett did go for him.”
“Pah! Brett is as slow as a wet week.”
“He is getting old,” defended Mary.
“Well, he and his donkeys seem to have wasted enough of your morning. Better come up here and help with some of this mending.”
Mary found the housekeeper’s room strewn with sheets. Her aunt had been going through the linen presses. “No more than half a dozen pairs fit to use in the best bedroom,” she was lamenting. “And two of those need some of your darning. Your very finest, mind. Sit you down by the window where the light is good, while I cut out patches for the rest.”
It was warm and pleasant in the top-floor room and they worked in companionable silence. Thanks to her aunt’s training Mary was an excellent needlewoman and as she drew the thread back and forth her thoughts roamed easily. The crackling of the fire and the homely sound of scissors grating against the table were but a lulling accompaniment. But when less than an hour had passed and in imagination she was living over again yesterday’s happy hours on Brighstone Down she became aware of hurried footsteps on the stairs. The door opened quickly and to the astonishment of both of them her father stood there.
“Why, Silas, what brings you back from Newport so soon?” exclaimed Mistress Wheeler, turning from the table with the big scissors in her hand.
Silas Floyd shot the bolt behind him and leaned against the door. He was a man renowned for calmness in any emergency, but his breath came quickly and he looked almost bemused.
“Have you had some bad news?” asked Mary quickly.
“God knows whether it be good or bad. To me it is just—unbelievable.” By an effort his abstracted gaze returned to them as if seeing them again as familiar individuals. “Colonel Hammond sent me back to tell you that the King is coming,” he said.
His sister dropped the scissors with a clatter and the sheet spread across his daughter’s lap slid to the floor. “Coming here—to the island?” they cried in unison.
“Here, to Carisbrooke.” Although he had ridden back from Newport with the news, he seemed scarcely to have had time to credit it himself. “King Charles is just across the Solent, at Lady Southampton’s house,” he added, setting his steel helmet on the table and crossing to a cupboard to find himself a drink. His sister poured it for him with an unsteady hand. “You mean they have let him leave Hampton?” she said.
“He escaped. It seems there was some plot against his life and his friends thought he would be safer here.” Floyd emptied his tankard at a draught. “Two gentlemen came to me when I was settling our weekly account with Trattle. They said you sent them, Mary.”
“I understand now why they were in such a state. Who were they?”
“A Master Ashburnham and Sir John Berkeley, both formerly officers in the King’s disbanded army. Seems they were sent over in advance to sound the Governor as to whether he would keep him safe.”
“And you found the Governor?”
“I’d seen him go into the Mayor’s house. Couldn’t have been a worse place. This Master Ashburnham seemed confident that if he could get the King to Carisbrooke before nightfall their troubles would be over. But the less a Puritan fanatic like his Worship Moses Read knows about the King’s movements, the better, say I!”
Mary came and refilled his tankard. “How did King Charles escape from Hampton Court?” she asked.
“My dear child, how should I know? There never has been such hustle and commotion on the island since the French came. I could hear them conferring in Master Read’s best parlour while I kicked my heels outside along with that Roundhead fellow Captain Rolph brought from London. All I know is what the Colonel told me when he came outside to give me my orders. And by the way he drew me aside I reckon he didn’t want the two Court gentlemen to hear. I’d a feeling he was as fair stunned as I was, and none too pleased to be drawn into the matter. ‘Hurry back to the castle, Sergeant,’ he said, ‘and tell them to prepare for the King’s coming. And tell Captain Rolph I am going over to Southampton with these gentlemen. I want him to ride straight to Cowes Castle and meet me there so that I can take him and the Cowes Captain along with me. To ensure the safe conduct of the King, of course.’ ”
“Captain Rolph is mounting his horse already,” said Mary, looking down from the window. For her the jumped-up Parliamentarian Captain’s departure always brought a vague sense of relief, for of all the men in the place only he, with his bold apprising glance, made her feel vaguely afraid.
“But what are we to do? Where are we to house the King? And how feed him?” demanded Druscilla Wheeler, momentarily distraught.
“I’ve the Governor’s orders for you too,” said Floyd. “You are to prepare the best bedroom for King Charles, and the Colonel will move into the officers’ quarters in the old wing. His Majesty will take his meals in the long parlour over the great hall. And rooms will have to be prepared for Sir John Berkeley and Master Ashburnham, of course, and for a Colonel Legge, I think he said, who rode from Hampton with the King and is waiting with him now. And a meal must be ready upon his Majesty’s arrival.”
“But how should we know what royalty eats?” asked Mary.
“And how make up four beds with only six good pairs of sheets?” demanded Mistress Wheeler, looking round desperately at the half-sorted contents of her poorly stocked linen cupboard. “And the bedroom needs fresh tapestries and hangings.”
Sergeant Floyd picked up his helmet and set it in the crook of his arm. Domestic arrangements, thank God, were no concern of his. He had all the military detail to attend to, and twenty men to drill into the performance of some kind of reception parade fit for royalty, of which performance he was none too sure himself.
“If it’s a matter of moving things or nailing hangings, I can spare you a couple of men to help,” he offered. “I shall be in charge until they return with his Majesty.”
“And when, in the name of a merciful God, will that be?” asked Mistress Wheeler, facing him squarely.
“Sometime to-morrow, I imagine, if the tide serves.”
“To-morrow!”
“If you were the King wouldn’t you be anxious to put three miles of Solent and the good will of us islanders between yourself and such pestilential enemies?” asked Floyd, from the doorway. But when he had drawn back the bolt he turned to enquire more sympathetically, “You will be able to have the place ready, Druscilla?”
His sister took a grip on herself and regarded him from across the room with a mixture of pride and affection. Even her social and housekeeping experiences as chatelaine of a small manor on the mainland were not going to help her much now, so she guessed that her brother, who had never been off the island, must be as scared as she was at the thought of preparing a reception for a king. “Have we Floyds ever failed to do our duty when the time comes, Silas?” she asked, drawing herself up to her full height. “I pray you, have someone go to the chandlers for six gross more candles. The best tallow kind. And send Brett and Libby and the rest of the maids to me as you go past the kitchens.”
“We could get extra help perhaps from the village?” suggested Mary, gathering up a pile of folded sheets in her strong young arms as soon as he was gone.
“I make no doubt we could. Wouldn’t every lily-fingered, gossip-lapping woman among them give her eyes to come up here now?” sniffed the competent housekeeper of Carisbrooke. “But we will manage very well with such wenches as we have. At least I’ve trained them myself.”
The excellence of her training was to be severely tested during the next twenty-four hours. For the rest of the day the castle household ate cold viands picked from the buttery at odd moments. The cook and his underlings prepared dishes which they had not made since Lord Portland’s day, the scullions scoured every pot and the best silver dinner set was brought out. Maids scurried about making
up beds, and a couple of stalwart troopers got in their way moving furniture. Mary stood with her aunt in the middle of the best bedroom considering what to do. Somehow the four poster did not look so grand now, only rather shabby and faded. “There are those red velvet hangings milady Portland was wont to use in the winter,” Mary remembered suddenly.
“Red velvet?” In the ferment of the afternoon’s work aunt and niece had each come to respect the other’s ability, so that much of the authoritative manner and the meekness were gone.
“Yes, Aunt Druscilla, do you not remember? They had little silver stags embroidered on them, which I adored. They may be in one of the attics. I know they were all packed up ready to take to France but milady had to leave so much behind when the Parliamentarians turned her out of the castle.”
The material had been as brave and beautiful as the Governor’s wife who had owned it. So the attics were searched and the four-poster rehung with crimson velvet, which looked quite suitable for a king. By nightfall the Colonel’s business-like writing desk had been removed and a prie-dieu put in its place because everyone knew the King was pious. Real wax candles, borrowed from the chapel, stood upon his table because it was said he liked to read. The best chair in the castle had been placed beside the wide hearth and the fire which old Brett had laid burned cheerily, throwing kindly, dancing shadows upon the faded tapestry on the wall facing the window. “The servants will have to walk quietly along the backstairs passage behind that partition wall, with no courting and no tittering,” decreed Mistress Wheeler, surveying the main scene of their labours with a critical but not unsatisfied eye. “And you and I will have to make the bed.”
Terror seized shy Mary. “You mean—come in here—with the King of England sitting maybe in that chair?” she asked with bated breath.
With a rare demonstration of affection Aunt Druscilla pushed her down upon the carved chest set for the accommodation of the King’s clothes at the bottom of the bed. “You are tired, child,” she said. “To-morrow it will not seem so alarming. And who else is there to do it? We could not have Libby in here, and in any case she will have the other beds to do.”
So Libby would not be sent away. There would be no need to plead for her after all. Having been on her feet since before noon, Mary sank down on the chest, digesting that unexpected fact with thankfulness. The ways of the Almighty were indeed exceeding strange. For instance, who would have dreamed this time yesterday that she would be making a bed for a king? And once his Majesty came here what would life be like? Would he be allowed to live in peace or would all the harrying and disturbances from the mainland follow him?
She was still sitting there before the fire almost too tired for thought when she heard her father’s deep, cheerful voice. By the sound of it she knew that his part of the preparations must have gone well. And now he was inspecting his sister’s handiwork and commending her with the same warmth which encouraged his men.
“And how goes the State bedroom?” he was asking laughingly. “And my tired little daughter?”
“Do you suppose the King will think it all very strange and simple after Hampton Court?” she asked sleepily.
Floyd smiled down at her. “He has been here before, you know.”
“Why, of course. When I was quite small, you used to tell me at bedtime about the day Prince Charles came. But I have almost forgotten.”
Floyd had had a worrying day himself and was glad to sit down on the carved chest beside her and gather her drooping form to his side. “He came across to review the militia and watched them having a practice battle, the same as they’re practising for now up on Brighstone Down. Except that he was King James’s son he wasn’t very important then because his elder brother, Prince Henry, was still alive. And after the review Prince Charles came up to the castle to dine.”
Mary leaned in weary comfort against her father’s side. She could scarcely keep her eyes open. “And what was he like?” she asked.
“A rather frail-looking lad with a limp. Though he sat a horse well. He’d a shy way with him but he took everything in. And when he went round the battlements after dinner he asked Sir John Oglander, who was Deputy Governor here then, if he might touch off one of our biggest guns. He was but an eager lad and ’twas I who primed it for him. ’Twas my first year with the garrison and I mind how proud I was.”
For the first time the King for whom all this preparation had been going on began to take on a human personality, and to awaken pity. He had been young and shy and eager. “And now he comes back to us an escaped prisoner,” murmured Mary compassionately. And because she had worked far too hard and was dearer to him than anyone else in the world, the Sergeant of the garrison picked her up in his strong arms and carried her, already sleeping, to her bed.
Chapter Three
Although it was Sunday and the chapel bell was ringing, few people up at the castle had time to attend morning service. In the long room above the great hall the table was being laid with the best napery and silver, and down in the kitchen everyone from cook to turnspit was in a state of nervous tension. No one knew when the King would arrive. “The wind should serve,” said Mistress Wheeler, glancing out across the courtyard at the chapel weathervane. “So even though they were not able to cross to Cowes last night, they may still be here in time for dinner.” So close a contingency shook even her determined semblance of composure. Being uncertain how people ought to sit at table with royalty and fearing that her arrangements might not be sufficiently formal, at the last minute she sent her niece down to the “Rose and Crown” to beg the loan of an imposing salt cellar which had been part of Agnes Trattle’s dowry.
“How strange it seems that we had the news this time yesterday and have not yet had time to tell even our best friends!” said Mary, hastily pulling on her cloak.
But there was no need to tell the Trattles or anyone else. She soon found that the amazing news had already seeped through the little village at the foot of the castle and spread to the town of Newport. People coming out of St. Thomas’s church were all discussing what the parson had told them, and others stood about the streets in animated groups or ran in and out of each other’s houses asking if it could possibly be true that King Charles was coming to Carisbrooke. At the “Rose and Crown” Agnes and Frances had donned their best gowns, and Captain Burley was pacing up and down their parlour as though it were a quarter-deck. “I’d train my guns on all those houses with shuttered windows and the scum who listen to that fanatic preacher and deny our King a welcome!” he kept muttering. Only Edward Trattle, unwillingly observing the new Puritanical ruling that customers should not be served upon the Sabbath, kept outwardly calm.
As soon as Mary arrived everyone crowded round her because she had come from the castle. With proud heart and willing hands Agnes wrapped up the cherished salt cellar. “What a pother you must all have had to get the rooms and table prepared!” she sympathized, half enviously. “And now your poor harassed Aunt will have to work like this every day. When she came back to the island mourning her lot as a war-impoverished widow little did she think she would soon be housekeeping for a king!”
“She says that you and Frances must come up soon and get a sight of him,” said Mary.
“I should like to come back with you now and help,” offered Frances, her eyes alight with excitement. “I would work my fingers to the bone for him!”
“It is an idea, Frances. I am sure that Mistress Wheeler can do with more help,” agreed her mother, feeling that once some fine gentleman from Court set eyes upon her pretty daughter, a fine match could be arranged for her. Something more suitable for a girl of Langdale blood than her husband’s idea of marriage with a local merchant.
“Oh, do ask her, Mary!” urged Frances.
Although Mary felt dubious of the value of her friend’s domestic services, she would readily have promised to do so had not the innkeeper himself intervened. “You’ll bide here, my girl,” he told his daughter with unusual firmness.
“Probably for the moment we can all serve him best by going about our own work as usual and keeping a quiet tongue in our heads,” said Trattle, with an anxious eye on the excitable old Captain who was stamping restlessly out into the street.
“But it would be such a chance for Frances,” persisted her mother. “Other Royalists are bound to gather here and it would be like living at Court.”
“For a time, perhaps. But don’t forget that even over here there are some who wish him ill,” answered Trattle, watching the furtive movements of a sour-looking, tall-hatted Puritan on the opposite side of the street.
Further argument was stopped by the sudden appearance of Captain Burley’s grizzled head at the open window. “Frances, child! All of you! Come out quickly!” he called. “There is a party of horsemen coming along the road from Cowes. And I can hear cheering. I believe it is the King himself.”
They all crowded through the door and out into the street to find everyone gazing in the direction of Cowes. Certainly there was cheering and it was coming nearer; but it sounded spasmodic and half-hearted. People still refused to believe the fantastic rumour that the King was coming. Some of the older folk assumed importance because, like Silas Floyd, they remembered his coming as a young prince; but as most of them had never seen so much as a painting of him they would not know him even if he did come. The more soberly dressed men and women of Cromwellian persuasion stared in silence and even the majority of loyal islanders seemed uncertain what to do.
Mary, lined up among the Trattle family and servants, stared wonderingly too. She had taken it for granted that when the King arrived she would be up at the castle, under the direction of her father or her aunt. Here, in the capital of the island, there was a feeling of being caught unawares. After a stormy night, thin sunshine was making a wet radiance of the rain-washed cobbles. Shading her eyes against it she could see a little cavalcade of six trotting smartly towards her. Two of them, she supposed, must be the gentlemen whom she had directed the day before. Colonel Hammond, of course, was easily distinguishable on his tall roan, and bluff Captain Baskett from Cowes she knew by sight. And riding between the two of them but a pace or two ahead was a man of much slighter build with a pale, thoughtful face and small, pointed brown beard. His clothes were neither militarily severe like Hammond’s nor flamboyant in the cavalier style, but in such quiet good taste that all eyes were drawn to him. And each time he rose in the saddle the glittering insignia of some order showed beneath the plain dark cloak he wore. “Is he the King? That little man in front?” Mary asked involuntarily.
Mary of Carisbrooke Page 3