“As if honest islanders would poison him!” muttered Burley.
“Poor Cheke could not if he would,” laughed Mary. “He is like to burst himself with fury, poor man, because a Roundhead cook from Hampton has been put over him. Though in fact, with so many to feed, there must be work enough for both.”
“I hear from the ‘Bull’ that all their rooms are full up with Parliamentary Commissioners from London,” said Trattle, who had come into the parlour with Master Newland to hear the Carisbrooke news.
“Aye, and some from Scotland as well. You’ll be having some of them along here to-night, Mistress Trattle,” added John Newland. “They came over in my brig Vectis. It seems that as soon as his Majesty found Colonel Hammond had given away his whereabouts, he wrote openly to Parliament, urging some further negotiations by which he hoped to come to terms with them. And now, so my skipper tells me, both these Scots and our own Commissioners have brought Bills for the King to sign.”
“Does he owe them a great deal of money?” asked Frances, and flushed with annoyance when her father laughed and said, “Not that kind of bill, my pretty.”
“Terms of agreement, Frances, in exchange for which they will give him their support,” explained Newland, who was no mean driver of bargains himself.
“And if his Majesty signs them perhaps we shall have peace at last, and they will let him go back to Whitehall,” sighed Agnes Trattle.
“Anything that comes from Cromwell now is more likely to be in the nature of a victor’s ultimatum,” said her husband less hopefully.
“What right have such scum to dictate terms to an anointed king?” burst forth the irascible Burley.
“We should not forget that he did levy taxes without consulting them,” pointed out Newland.
His words started off a heated discussion, and Mary remembered that her aunt would be needing her and kissed Mistress Trattle good-bye. “I wish I could stay over Christmas,” she said, looking round the hospitable room already decked with holly. “The castle is so full of strangers. We used to roam about wherever we liked, but now it does not seem at all like home.”
“But it must be much more exciting. More exciting than anything we ever dreamed of,” said Frances, going with her to the street door. With a glance over her shoulder to make sure that John Newland was still talking too heatedly to overhear her, she asked eagerly, “What are they like, these courtiers?”
“I scarcely know them apart as yet,” confessed Mary. “They all bow a lot and wear huge plumes in their hats and talk differently from us. But truly, Frances, I do not think that you are missing much; for all of them are appointed by Parliament and most of them are middle-aged.”
But that evening Mary encountered one who was young. In his early twenties, at most. He was tall and slender and almost red-headed. And he was laughing as he called back some bantering remarks to someone in the King’s ante-room. Everyone had been so worried that there had been little laughter in the castle for weeks, and Mary’s unusual depression lifted suddenly at the sound of it.
The cheerful young man came into the deserted hall where she had supped carrying a pile of papers with an inkhorn poised precariously on top. And suddenly all was confusion. A servant, carrying out the last of the dishes, let the opposite door slam and a draught blew the papers all over the floor and sent the inkhorn flying. “Devil take all clerking!” yelled the young man, diving after them. In trying to save the inkhorn from upsetting over a chair he trod on Floyd’s bitch Patters, who lay suckling her latest litter before the hearth. The bitch yelped and flew at his ankles. And Mary noticed with approval that instead of kicking at her as Captain Rolph had done he gathered her up and felt each of her paws with dog-wise hands, seeming more concerned lest he had injured her than because a black splash of ink was spreading over the seat of the chair. “I doubt if she is really hurt. She always flies out like that,” said Mary, crossing to the hearth. A week or two ago she would have been too shy to address anyone in so modish a coat, but her world had enlarged since then.
Together they examined the foolish little animal, who was already struggling to lick the young man’s face. He put Patters down and they considered the chair. “We Parliament people will be less popular than ever,” he said ruefully.
“Perhaps I can embroider over the stain,” suggested Mary. “It is the chair my aunt sits in at meals.”
He took the empty inkhorn from her and threw it into the fire and, in spite of her protests, began wiping her ink-stained fingers with a flamboyant silk handkerchief. “Your aunt is Mistress Wheeler, isn’t she?” he asked. “And you are Mary?”
“How did you know?”
“Colonel Ashburnham told me. He said how beautifully you laundered the King’s shirts.”
“He is very kind. I did not know he was a Colonel.”
“He commanded a regiment in the King’s army. But that is all over now.” Having wiped each of her fingers very carefully, he tucked the handkerchief back into his cuff. They were standing very close together and, being young, took stock of each other. “My name is Firebrace,” he said. “Harry Firebrace.”
Mary smothered a little spurt of laughter. “It is rather an odd name,” she said apologetically.
“A very good name,” he countered. “Obviously of Norman vintage. Bras de Feu, you know. Or Strong Arm.”
“Your arm could not have been particularly strong when you dropped all those papers,” smiled Mary. “Where were you taking them?”
“To the Court room.” Together they began gathering them up and between grovelling under benches and agile dives beneath the empty supper tables he tried to explain. “The Parliamentary Commissioners are to wait upon his Majesty to-morrow, and they will need a room where they can hold their private discussions and write their reports. Colonel Hammond asked me to see that it is in readiness for them. I was to have got one of the servants to help me, but they all seem to have gone to their suppers.” As Mary handed him a bunch of quill pens she had retrieved he scratched his smoothly shaven cheek doubtfully with the feathered ends of them. “Come to think about it, I do not even know where the Court room is.”
“I will show you,” offered Mary.
She led him down a flight of stairs to a large room on the ground floor. “The Governor holds sessions here and people come from all over the island,” she told him. “As it is not often used between times, I had better have someone light a fire.”
Harry Firebrace regarded the room with interest. It was barely furnished with old chairs and a long table but coats of arms carved round the fireplace gave it an air of official importance. “This would be exactly under the King’s bedroom, would it not?” he asked. “And where does that outer door lead?”
“To the back of the castle, by the old keep. The people come in that way. It saves their muddy feet traipsing all through the house. This stone floor can easily be scrubbed.”
His mind seemed to be upon less domestic considerations. He crossed the room, unbolted the outer door, and looked out into the darkness. He appeared to be a very inquisitive young man. “Do you find our island God-forsaken?” she asked, still sore from the slighting way in which the Captain of the Guard had spoken of it.
“God-forsaken? Lord save us, no! ” He had bolted the door again and come back to her all in what seemed to be one swift movement, and she supposed that anyone with such unbounded vitality would scarcely find a desert dull. “But then,” he added reasonably, “I have only just arrived. My friend Osborne and I came over with the Scottish Commissioners.”
“Aboard the Vectis?”
“How did you know?”
“She belongs to Master Newland, and he said that she was in.”
He seemed to be readily interested in the affairs of others. “Is he a particular friend of yours?” he asked.
“Oh no. But he is betrothed to my best friend, Frances Trattle. It was she,” added Mary proudly, “who stepped out of the crowd the day the King arrived and gave him a rose.”
He gave her a swift searching look, then began doling out some of his papers along the table. “The Vectis was a trim little craft. Built for speed,” he remarked casually. “I suppose this Newland would have others?”
“Oh yes. There are usually several being laden or unladen in Medina river. He is one of the busiest merchants in Newport.”
“Then I suppose your friend lives in Newport too?”
“Her father keeps the ‘Rose and Crown’.”
“And you often go to see her there?”
“About once a week. But no one has had time for visiting lately.”
He jerked forward a stool for her and perched himself on the edge of the table. It was as if he threw off some preoccupation of his own in order to offer her a more personal and sympathetic interest. “One forgets that this is your home and we have invaded it,” he said more gently. “Have you hated our coming very much?”
Mary found herself answering him as though he were a friend of long standing. “Everything is so formal and different,” she said. “To-morrow will be Christmas Eve. Other years we have had the men bringing in a yule log and the maids and I have been decorating the hall with holly. The last Governor used to let us get up a masque. Everybody would have been joking and laughing. That was why when I heard you laughing just now—”
He leaned forward and took one of her hands. “You poor disappointed child!” he said.
“I am seventeen,” she told him with dignity.
Immediately he let go her hand with a friendly pat. “And now everybody seems to have forgotten it is Christmas time and instead of masques we shall have only a posse of solemn lawyers and Elders of the Kirk making a lot of long speeches. Though I daresay they will manage to be quite as amusing.”
For a custodian sent by Parliament he was remarkably irreverent. “I daresay you Puritans would not have permitted the masque anyway,” she sighed.
“Everybody who works for Oliver Cromwell is not a kill-joy,” he said, and because he sounded really hurt and had been concerned for Patters she made him the most friendly overture she could think of. “Would you care to come and watch the well-house donkeys one morning?”
“The donkeys?”
“They work the great wheel. Old Brett and I trained them.”
“Is he the bent old man who brought in the logs for the Presence Chamber this evening?”
Mary nodded, thinking how observant he was.
“I will come to-morrow,” he said. “Or rather, the next day. To-morrow, being Christmas Eve, we will go gathering holly and you must take me to the ‘Rose and Crown’ to meet your friend.”
“But you will not have time,” objected Mary, although her eyes were bright with anticipation.
“Even a royal attendant has some hours off duty. Or perhaps Richard Osborne will take my place and help us decorate the hall.”
A sudden thought sobered the happiness of her face. “No, I think not,” she said quietly. “It would be too sad for the poor King.”
“The contrast with other Christmases, you mean?”
“He will be thinking of his children.”
He looked at her with very real liking. “Mary, how sweet you are!” he said. “We will just go and drink a Christmas wassail at the ‘Rose and Crown’.”
Perhaps he was missing his home life, she thought. “I suppose everything here must seem very strange to you, too,” she said. “I know the soldiers who came over with the new Governor feel as if they were in exile.”
Harry Firebrace stood up and took a final look at the table where matters of such vast importance to the King would be argued out. “It is not so strange to me as you would think,” he said. “You see, I have been his Majesty’s page of the backstairs before—at Holmby and at Hampton.”
His voice sounded quite different, as if all the laughter had gone out of it—almost as if he were worshipping in church. She looked up and saw his face serious and dedicated in the candlelight, and an odd little pulse of excitement stirred in her. “And now?” she whispered, scarcely knowing what she meant.
“Now I have been promoted to be groom of the bedchamber,” he said. Suddenly he smiled at her gaily. “So since my royal master is here, I do not feel at all as if I were in exile, little tender-heart,” he assured her, unconsciously using the name by which her father so often called her.
He insisted upon seeing her to the household entrance and as they crossed the courtyard they passed Captain Rolph going his nightly rounds. She expected him to be surly because she was with another man, but her companion called out something flippant and both men laughed. Firebrace seemed already to be on good terms with him.
Mary found the housekeeper’s room deserted, and when she had blown out the candle and climbed into her side of her aunt’s big bed she parted the curtains so that she could see the stars. There was one just above the chapel roof which seemed to be winking at her very merrily. “Perhaps Frances was right after all,” she thought, “and life here before the King came had been a little dull.”
Chapter Seven
What a Christmas! Do none of those Commissioners have homes of their own in which to spend it?” sighed Sir John Berkeley, closing the state room door against the very memory of them.
“God knows they did not bring much peace and good will here—arguing and haranguing for their own ends for days on end!” exclaimed John Ashburnham, sick with disappointment.
“Well, at least they are gone at last!” said Colonel Legge, setting the King’s chair closer to the cheer of a good fire.
But Charles remained standing, still torn by the wordy conflict which would have worsted any man of less unwavering principles. “They would have had me sign away the last vestige of my power to Parliament for the next twenty years. The country would have been ruled by laws made without authority. The Church of England would have been left defenceless. Nothing in the world—not even force—would have persuaded me to it.” Hands resting on the carved stone chimneypiece, he stood for a moment or two gazing down into the red heart of the crackling logs; then, squaring his slight shoulders, turned to face his three loyal friends. “And now it is done,” he said. “And they must be already halfway across the Solent bearing my refusal.”
“Yes, now it is done,” repeated Ashburnham, seeing only too clearly what must come of it.
“Would that I, too, could be riding back to Westminster! With Whitehall as it was five years ago, and my family about me. But, gentlemen, you too have homes—abandoned for my sake.” With that charming smile which made men willingly do such things he seated himself and began to speak more crisply. “You feel that this new usher Osborne is to be trusted? When he handed me my gloves the other day I found a note inside assuring me of his loyalty, but with Cromwell’s creatures all around us who knows whether it be a ruse?”
“He is related to Sir Peter Osborne who governed Guernsey and is a friend of Harry Firebrace, who long ago came over to your Majesty’s side,” Berkeley reminded him.
“Then that should be enough. Let us have them both in,” decided Charles; and while the two young men who had come in from the ante-room were bowing he looked searchingly at the darker, more strongly built of the two. “You gave the Commissioners my sealed reply as near to the last moment of their departure as possible, Osborne?”
“As you bade me, sir,” said Richard Osborne. “But they insisted upon unsealing it.”
“Insisted? Is there no courtesy left in England?” The red of anger dyed the King’s cheeks, but remembering the helplessness of his circumstances and reading fresh anxiety in the faces around him, he added more mildly, “Then Hammond already knows that I refused to sign?”
“Yes, sir.”
“It would have given us a few days’ valuable time had he been kept in ignorance as your Majesty planned,” said Berkeley.
“He has ridden with them as far as Newport,” volunteered Osborne.
“No doubt discussing the matter as they go,” growled Legge.
> There was a tenseness about them all.
Ashburnham came and stood before his master. “Since there is no longer any chance of agreement, your Majesty’s safety lies only in escape. And now is all the time we have. An hour or two at most—” he said, in a voice that shook.
“When Hammond comes back, knowing that all this week’s negotiations have been wasted—and how those curs at Westminster are likely to reply—he may take more precautions,” warned Berkeley.
Ashburnham went down upon his knees. “Your Majesty, it must be now—while you are still free to ride abroad. I beseech you—”
“My dear Jack—”
Feeling a hand upon his greying hair, the King’s confidential adviser nearly broke down. “It was I who urged your Majesty to come hither, but I fear we are fallen into a cunning trap,” he admitted humbly. “Since that day when Hammond came to Titchfield House and you exclaimed, ‘Why, Jack, you have undone me!’ you have never once reproached me. I counted on Oglander still having influence here and thought that Robert Hammond, because he was your favourite chaplain’s son, must be at heart upon our side. But he is a true servant of Parliament. Again and again I have tried to win him over, but now that I know it to be useless the burden of my ill-advising is more than I can bear.”
“We all bear the burden of mistakes,” said Charles very gently. “I, too, thought that this might be a good place to bargain from—without leaving the country. But, as you know, I have here that which may help me to do so.” Pulling his friend gently to his feet, Charles produced a much-folded paper so that the others might see it too. “The letter which that man fishing in the mill stream slipped into my boot as we rode to Yafford yesterday.”
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