“Although he was huddled in a patched coat with a hat over his eyes, I could have sworn he was Captain Bosvile who was sometimes at Hampton,” said Berkeley.
“And you would have been right,” smiled Charles. “Humphrey Bosvile has a rare aptitude for disguise, and has smuggled me many a private letter under the very noses of our enemies. This particular one is from my wife.”
“From the Queen!” exclaimed the two younger men, drawing closer.
“Straitened as her Majesty is and living on the charity of her relatives at the Louvre, she has managed to send a French ship, with a skipper bribed to do our bidding. Since he dare not weigh anchor here he is making a show of unloading a cargo of French wines at Southampton.” Involuntarily, six heads turned to consult the chapel weathervane. “And the wind is set fair for France,” breathed Charles, as though he were offering up a Te Deum.
“And the name of the ship, sir?” asked Firebrace eagerly.
“’Tis in code, but we can work it out. You found means to get me across the Solent, Jack?”
“Firebrace has found a man—”
“’Twas Christmas Day and the wassail bowl had gone round before I met him,” admitted Firebrace. “But I judge him to be the type of person who will risk much for money and who, once sworn, will stick to his bond.”
“There is the purse of gold Sir John Oglander gave me for just such an emergency,” said Charles.
“I persuaded this man Newland to leave one of his smaller craft in a little creek below those meadows they call Fair Lea.”
“Is he to be trusted, Harry?” asked Ashburnham anxiously.
“He is betrothed to the girl who greeted his Majesty with a red rose.”
“Heaven send her happiness with him!” murmured the King.
“Sir, I made it my business to visit her father’s inn,” went on Firebrace. “Captain Burley, who waited upon your Majesty, lodges there, and the whole family appears to be hotly Royalist. They are friends of Mistress Wheeler and her niece. So I told some of my best war stories to the menfolk, and from there it was only a step to talking about ships.”
“In spite of all my political misfortunes, few monarchs were ever so fortunate in their friends,” said Charles, smiling at the capable young red-head. He tucked the Queen’s letter back within his coat, and sat thinking. He had not intended to leave England. It meant drawing up the last stake he had in his kingdom. And now that it came to the point he felt an emptiness at the prospect of parting with this handful of men whose lives had been disrupted in his cause, and who had for months past provided all the sense of home and security he had. But beyond their pleasant company, freedom beckoned. His mind conjured up a picture of the dark, vivacious wife whom he had not seen for four years. He was beset by a desire to look upon the baby daughter, born to her during her flight, whom he had never seen at all. And torn by memories of his tall, affectionate eldest son. What a life for a lad—dragged from battlefield to battlefield, then sent hurriedly to Jersey away from all home influence, and now, in his earliest manhood, an exile in France! The elder Charles roused himself to the urgent present. “Bring me my riding boots, Harry,” he ordered.
“What if Captain Rolph should have been told that nothing was signed?” demurred Ashburnham, grown cautious as the great moment approached.
“He will suspect nothing. It is his Majesty’s usual hour for riding,” Berkeley reassured him.
“Would it not be as well, sir, to borrow the Governor’s pack of hounds quite openly and set out for Parkhurst forest before doubling back to the river?” suggested Firebrace, kneeling to pull on his master’s boots. “At first, when your Majesty does not return, Rolph will only suppose that the hounds were a long time finding.”
“It is well thought of,” agreed the King, with rising spirits. “And your cozening tongue is just the one to ask the favour. We will wait here until we hear from you that all is well.”
“I will go and make love to the Governor’s adorable mother,” said Firebrace, rising nimbly to the occasion.
“He could probably wheedle the keys of heaven out of Saint Peter!” grinned Berkeley as the door closed behind him; and his feeble jest was greeted with the gusty, over-easy laughter which cloaks men’s nervous tension.
“We must seem to saunter—” decided Charles, beginning to pace up and down. But in the midst of drawing on his gloves he stopped abruptly before the window and gripped painfully at Ashburnham’s arm. “The vane!” he exclaimed aghast. “Look! It has swung right round.”
“The wind must have changed with the tide,” said Ashburnham in a choked sort of voice, staring over his shoulder.
They all crowded to the window and stared. It was as though they could not credit their misfortune. Although nearly a quarter of an hour must have passed they were still standing there, motionless and silent, when Harry Firebrace came back. “The old lady says your Majesty is more than welcome to take the hounds. The horses are being brought round—” he began exultantly.
“The wind has veered to south-south-west,” cut in Berkeley flatly, without turning. “Until it changes again it will be impossible to make France.”
Even Firebrace stood silent and deflated. “Then shall I tell them at the kennels—” he began, when the first bitterness of the moment was past.
It was at such times that Charles Stuart showed himself supremely royal. Keyed up at last to go, he accepted disappointment. Although the others would have waited, hoping for yet another change, he counted upon no miracle. Turning from the window, he walked towards the door with complete composure, pausing only for Richard Osborne to place his riding cloak across his shoulders. “While the sun still shines we will go hunting as arranged,” he said, “for God alone knows how long it may be before I hunt again.”
And however little his friends’ hearts may have been in it, there was nothing for it but to follow him and try to borrow something of his unruffled dignity.
It was almost dusk and raining hard before the Governor returned from Newport, followed by Tom Rudy. His black horse was flecked with sweat, and his own temper vile. “Sergeant!” he shouted, before he was well out of the saddle. Having heard how hard he was putting the animal at the steep rise to the drawbridge, his groom sprang to take his horse and Floyd appeared from the gatehouse almost on the instant.
“Rub him down well and give him a hot mash,” Hammond barked at the groom.
“Has the King ridden out to-day?” he demanded of the Sergeant.
“He went hunting an hour or so after you left, sir.”
“And he is back?” The Governor’s glance had gone immediately to the lighted window of the state room.
“Well before sundown, sir. And all his gentlemen with him.”
“Ah!” The ejaculation held all the relief of one who has been enduring a torment of anxiety, and orders followed in premeditated spate. “Bolt the gates for the night, and keep them bolted. No one is to go out even during daylight without a pass from Captain Rolph or myself. No one, save members of my own household. Double the guard and make half-hourly inspection of the battlements. Ask Captain Rolph to report to my room immediately. And have a couple of men stand by at the windlass of the outer portcullis.”
“Now, by Heaven, what foul fiend has bitten him?” demanded a hirsute giant of a trooper, poking a cautious head out of the guardroom as soon as the Governor was out of earshot.
“It seems the royal bird meant to fly the cage,” Rudy told him, sliding from his saddle. “There’s been a French ship hanging around Southampton, very suspicious like. Colonel got wind of it somehow just after the Commissioners had left, so me and him went cantering down to the quay to see if there was any sign of a strange ship on this side waiting to take the Stuart over. Else we’d ha’ been back before now.”
“And did you find any strange craft?”
“Not a smell of one. Only the usual barges being unloaded for local merchants. Two of ’em offered to help us. Said they knew every craft that h
ad a right to tie up in Medina river. And a long-winded pair they was, wasting the Colonel’s time and he fair sweatin’ with impatience.”
“Which merchants were they?” asked Floyd, from the foot of the winding stone stairs which led up to the portcullis chamber.
Rudy took off his helmet and scratched the damp hair on his forehead. “Newland and Trattle, or some such outlandish names, so far as I can remember. Why did you want to know, Sergeant?”
But Sergeant Floyd did not satisfy his curiosity. “Bring me half a dozen more muskets from the armoury and see that all the guardroom lanterns are replenished before you go off duty,” he ordered curtly.
He had been about to go off duty himself. He would have liked a word with his sister and had been looking forward to spending a quiet hour with his daughter; but with this new development and the Governor behaving as though some foul fiend had indeed bitten him, he would be lucky if he got to bed this night.
Mary, hoping that he would come, had been sitting alone in the housekeeper’s room, stitching by candlelight. She was making a belated wedding-dress for Libby, who was to be married as soon as the Commissioners were gone and the Governor’s young chaplain, Troughton, was freed from the additional duty of helping to entertain them. As her needle moved in and out of the soft homespun material a small, secret smile curved her mouth—but it was not of Libby’s happiness that she was thinking. She was going over again the happy hours of Christmas afternoon when Harry Firebrace had walked down with her into Newport. It had been his suggestion that they should walk, and she recalled with pleasure how delicately the bare branches of the beech trees had been etched against a pale sky and how the frosty fields had sparkled as the great red ball of a wintry sun went down. And with a special secret delight she remembered how, when she had slipped a little on a frozen patch going down the steep lane, he had pulled her arm through his to steady her.
True, her happiness had faded a little as they approached the “Rose and Crown.” Although political opinions had not seemed to matter before the coming of the King, feeling now ran as high as upon the mainland, and she had been afraid that Mistress Trattle would not welcome one of “Cromwell’s minions” as she termed them. And she had been afraid, too, of Frances Trattle’s charms. For had not Firebrace suggested the visit in the first place because he wanted to meet the girl who had had the lovely thought to give the King a rose? And was he not the kind of young man for whom Frances would use her lures to the utmost? But her fears had been groundless. Their visit had proved a vast success. She had been so proud to bring him, and Firebrace himself had known just how to please his hostess, kissing her hand and paying her intelligent compliments. Because John Newland was present he had shown Frances only the respectful admiration due to any pretty girl, and although he had a way of making all women feel precious, he had spent most of the afternoon deep in congenial conversation with the lucky merchant and his host.
Coming home through the early darkness had been even best of all, decided Mary, living it all over again. Just at first Firebrace had seemed preoccupied, and she had walked beside him in contented silence, thinking of the care with which he had wrapped her cloak about her, and of how he had smiled into her eyes as he pulled the hood up over her curls. And as they climbed the hill to the castle the church bells had begun to ring, and he had taken her arm to help her over the frozen patches again, and they had laughed together at the everyday absurdities of their strangely altered lives. And although she had been alone with him in the darkness and tingling with a new excitement, she had felt safe; so that the ugly memory of Edmund Rolph’s exploring hands and the fear of his hungry staring were quite wiped out.
In spite of there being neither masque nor decorations, it had been the happiest Christmas Mary had ever known. The exquisite thrill of it remained so vividly that, though stitching the hem of some other girl’s wedding-gown, her cheeks glowed softly pink as though it were her own. But it was then that her happy dreams were rudely shattered by the sudden clamour of the Governor’s return down in the courtyard. She heard shouting, a sharp clatter of hooves, and her father’s voice giving a string of sharply rapped-out orders. Then the sound of a horse being led past to the stables.
“The Governor has come back,” she thought. Though why with such an unusual commotion she could not imagine.
She laid aside her work and hurried to the window. But the weather had changed. Rain dashed across the panes, running in rivulets down the glass so that, peer as she would, she could make out nothing save the bobbing lights of lanterns going to and fro. She heard the Governor’s quick footsteps cross the courtyard towards the officers’ quarters. And although it was barely four by her aunt’s cherished clock, the great doors beneath the barbican banged shut, the iron bolts slammed home. And then she was aware of a strange rumble from the gatehouse, and the groan of heavy chains.
“Listen, Aunt Druscilla!” she called out, as Mistress Wheeler came into the room. “Surely that is the portcullis going down?”
Her aunt came swiftly to stand beside her, listening. “What times we live in!” she exclaimed. “Never once since milady Portland defied Mayor Moses and his mob has that portcullis been lowered.”
“It is like being in prison,” whispered Mary, apprehensively.
And in the room immediately below the King of England heard it too. Sitting at his writing table, alone, he heard it with far more apprehension than did his little laundry maid. He pulled a sheet of paper towards him and, laboriously consulting his code, began to pen an answer to his wife.
“Dear Heart” he wrote, “By the mischance which always dogs me the wind changed even as I drew on my boots to come to you. Though it should veer again the ship your devotion provided may well have to sail without me. To delay over long at Southampton may provoke suspicion. I know not at the moment by what means this poor letter can reach you, but by reason that my circumstances here have veered also I fear that it must reach you in my stead.”
Chapter Eight
A guard must be set at each door of the State Room and Presence Chamber,” decided the Governor, sitting down to a hasty meal which had been brought to his room.
It was a precaution which the Captain of the Guard had been wanting to take for days, but he realized well enough the reason for the Colonel’s worried agitation. “With only twenty-two men and one sergeant?” he said derisively.
“The master gunner can relieve Floyd. And, as you know, I have asked for reinforcements. Several of the Commissioners have promised to support my request.”
“How aptly was the end of the Long Parliament dubbed the Rump!” grumbled Rolph, warming himself before the fire. “If General Fairfax were free to act without consulting them, we should have had a well-trained company of foot by now.”
Hurriedly picking at a chicken leg, Hammond spoke of the thing which had been worrying him most. “This morning we have seen what may happen so long as the King is allowed to ride abroad, yet can I risk keeping him in close custody until these reinforcements come? If the islanders never see him outside the castle they may imagine that we are keeping him in the dungeon or trying to murder him, in which case they will probably raise some kind of revolt; and—as you say—what have we but twenty-two men and a sergeant?”
“There is the militia,” said Rolph, who had made it his business to watch one of their exercises. “Adequately manned and remarkably well organized.”
“But captained for the most part by gentlemen of old island families who have always been for the King.” Pushing aside his plate, Hammond brought himself to appeal for advice to the stockily built parvena standing over-familiarly before his hearth. “You go about among them more than I do, Rolph. How would you say the majority of the ordinary people here feel about this matter?”
Rolph thrust out a full lower lip and shrugged contemptuously. “I would say they have always been too remote from what goes on on the mainland to care much either way. Of course, things may be different now, with most of th
em all worked up by so much unheard-of excitement. But in any case they lack a leader.”
“At the moment, yes.” It was a comforting thought, particularly to a man who was beginning to have a very high idea of their intelligence and resourcefulness. Warmed by a good draught of wine, their Governor rose from the table and reached for his sword belt. “But if there should be any trouble all demonstration must be suppressed before it spreads, and the ringleader dealt with ruthlessly.”
“Meaning that the velvet glove may now be exchanged for the mailed fist?” grinned the Captain, slapping the buckle of his own belt.
“Hardly that, I hope. But Ashburnham, Berkeley, and Legge must go immediately.”
“And those two bishop-ridden chaplains?”
The Governor stood absently fingering some papers, then turned away from the table with a sigh. “Parliament would probably wish it, but I should have liked to leave him that much consolation. Probably,” he added, with his wry, thin smile, “because my own father happens to be a bishop-ridden chaplain, as you call it.”
“Do you suppose that these household gentry sent from Hampton are to be trusted, sir?” asked Rolph hurriedly, to cover his tactlessness.
“Most of them are strangers to me. Master Herbert and Master Mildmay are, of course, beyond doubt. And the two young men who have just joined us—Firebrace and Osborne—seem sound enough.”
“They certainly brighten up our exiled lives!” laughed Rolph. “But there are too many ushers and servers and such. What does a throneless monarch need with so much state? Besides—”
“Besides what, Captain?”
Edmund Rolph gave a short, embarrassed laugh. “I was only remembering what you once said about the Stuart charm, and thinking that men exposed to it for any length of time have been known to change their coats. And that one unrecognized enemy can be more dangerous than a dozen in the open.”
“You are very right. But at least their opinions are not my responsibility, since they have been selected by Parliament.”
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