“All the same, if I might suggest it, sir, I would try to cut down the size of this make-believe court. And in so doing you could get rid of any of them whom you felt might be suspected of Royalist sympathy.”
Although Hammond knew that party spite prompted the words, they clothed sound advice. “Sympathy is not incompatible with duty,” he said, almost as though he were speaking to himself. “Thomas Herbert and Anthony Mildmay know how to combine the two. They must often be torn as I am.”
Rolph looked at him with momentary alarm. “But you will tell the King his friends are to go?”
“Set your mind at rest, my good democrat. I will tell him to-morrow. Immediately after I have arranged for their dismissal. Though I admit there are few duties I would not sooner perform.”
“It is the Lord’s judgment on him, and I am quite willing to deputise for you,” offered Rolph.
“I make no doubt you are,” said Hammond, regarding him with ill-conceived distaste. By the nature of their appointments it was inevitable that there should be a certain amount of confidence between them. He himself had been so much harassed of late that, contrary to his normal habit, he had felt the need to consult someone; and at least Rolph was an efficient officer, incorruptible in the cause. For that one should be more thankful, Hammond supposed. “I hope for your sake that the reinforcements arrive soon. I myself will relieve you with the night watch,” he promised stiffly. “And to-morrow morning you had better send Sergeant Floyd to ask the five gentlemen in question to come here as soon as they have broken their fast.” Floyd, he knew, could be counted upon to deliver the message with courtesy.
Dismissed, Rolph went willingly to his duties, but stopped before reaching the door. His fingers had touched the cold smoothness of beads in his pocket. He was not accustomed to being thwarted. His manner became aggressive as he clumsily seized the occasion to make a bid for the impossible. “From something that was touched on when I was in London,” he said. “I am hoping that Fairfax may send us my own company of foot. I take it that my sergeants, with their modern training and equipment, will rank senior to Floyd?”
But, as Mistress Wheeler had once told Mary, the new Governor was at least just. He met the irrelevant query with a look of cold surprise. “Floyd has been Sergeant of the Guard here for ten years or more,” he said, “and has, to the best of my knowledge, always carried out his duties satisfactorily.”
The following morning was one of wild excitement and conjecture throughout the castle. The servants were surprised to find the gates shut and to see baggage being piled into a cart before the royal lodgings. The Governor absented himself from dinner, scarcely anyone spoke throughout the meal, and most of the dishes were carried down to the kitchen untouched. In view of the impending parting, constraint between men of opposite parties was inevitable. And immediately afterwards it was the King who sent for the Governor. He was whitely furious. “Why do you use me thus, sending away my friends? Where are your orders for it?” he demanded. And having as yet received none, Hammond had no answer.
“When I came here it was of my own free will,” went on the King, facing him across the uncleared table and dispensing with all formality. “And did you not promise me that you would not take advantage of my predicament?”
“I promised only that I would do what I could,” said Hammond.
Angry colour flooded into the King’s pale cheeks. It was so unusual for him to raise his voice that his gentlemen in the ante-room kept complete silence, straining to hear. “You equivocate, Hammond,” he accused. “You pretended to a very different spirit then. And immediately betrayed me.”
Before that slight figure so assured of divine right, the Governor of the Wight felt—and looked—like a prisoner at the bar. “My spirit towards your Majesty is no different now,” he defended himself. “But I am the servant of Parliament.”
“You are my subject,” snapped Charles. “Your father received every kindness from me, yet you presume to shut your gates upon me and dismiss your betters!”
Irritation rose hotly in Robert Hammond, dissipating his unwilling awe. “Your Majesty knows very well why I am now forced to do so—since yesterday,” he said firmly.
It was Charles Stuart’s turn to have nothing to say. Since Ashburnham and the others had been summoned to the Governor’s room, he had been allowed no opportunity to speak with them in private. He could only guess at how much Hammond knew of their plans, but he could not doubt the reason for their dismissal. Nor could he really expect that any Governor in his senses would allow them to stay. “Will you not at least allow my chaplains to remain?” he brought himself to ask, reluctantly admitting his custodian’s power if not his authority.
Because in common humanity he wished to do so—because he realized the comfort a chaplain could be to a cornered man—Hammond stood in silence, merely making a small, helpless gesture with his hands.
His attitude seemed to infuriate the king more than anything which had gone before. “You—who broke away from the traditions of your family because you pretend to stand for liberty of conscience!” he cried, his voice rising so that the very servants crowded outside the door waiting to draw the cloths could catch some of his words. “Am I to have none?”
“It is not for religious reasons,” said Hammond, ignoring the personal jibe. “But I cannot—I sincerely regret that I cannot—allow them to remain.”
Charles banged down the tasselled walking stick he was holding upon the table and turned away to the window. “Then you use me neither as a Christian nor a gentleman,” he complained.
Although Hammond felt him to be unreasonable, the accusation hurt. “May we not talk of this when—”
“When they are gone, and it is useless?” interrupted Charles.
“I was about to say when your Majesty is in a better temper,” concluded the Governor evenly.
Realizing the disadvantage under which his rare loss of temper placed him, Charles made a great effort to control all outward signs of it. “My conscience being clear, I slept well last night,” he said almost banteringly, sitting down on the window seat. “I would remind you that it was not I who fumed round the battlements half the night for fear the King’s friends would get him out or his loyal island subjects rise up in indignation and come into fetch him.”
The recaptured dignity and cool smile did more to humble Hammond than any previous anger. “Have I not always used you civilly?” he demanded earnestly.
“Then why do you not do so now?” enquired Charles, unable to deny it. As the Governor would not argue with him, he picked up a book that was lying on the window seat and drew it on to his knees, as though the matter were of small account. But the littleness of his world seemed to be closing in upon him. And there was one thing which still mattered supremely. “Under this new regime,” he asked, making a show of turning over the pages, “shall I have liberty to ride out and take the air?”
Both men realized that to do so was the only possible gateway to a larger liberty. There was a weighty silence while it seemed that Robert Hammond still struggled with his conscience. “No, sir. I regret I cannot grant it,” he said at last.
“Then am I a prisoner indeed!” sighed Charles.
“Your Majesty will always be free to walk upon the walls or in the extensive place-of-arms,” Hammond reminded him tentatively.
But the King was not listening. With the book open before him he sat staring across the courtyard at the sad dripping trees against the herb garden and at the fast-closed gates. “The prisoner of Carisbrooke,” he murmured, trying the words over as if wondering how they would sound to the outside world, or perhaps to posterity.
Seeing him so downcast and withdrawn, Hammond went quickly from the Presence Chamber. It had not been easy to exert his authority over such exalted personages. His morning had been made up of painful interviews and he had had enough. He did not wish to witness the farewell for which he would feel responsible. In the ante-room he found Captain Rolph with the
five gentlemen who had received their dismissal, and drew him aside. From now on the ordering of the affair would be his, and no doubt he would enjoy it. “Let them go in and bid his Majesty good-bye, but stay with them until they are outside the castle,” he said. “Show them every courtesy, but see to it that no one speaks to him in private lest they hatch some further plot.
When everyone streamed back into the Presence Chamber, Rolph took up his stand near the King. Not only did he keep well within earshot of the sad little group by the window, but he tormented them by bringing various servants into the room upon unnecessary errands concerned with their departure. Seeing Mary hesitating by the serving screens with a pile of freshly laundered napkins for the King’s table he called to her to come in and set them down. Besides wishing to show his authority, he seemed intent upon allowing the King and his friends as little privacy as possible.
Royal formality was ironically forced upon the King when all he wanted was to say good-bye to the dismissed courtiers as well-tried friends. Each of them knelt and kissed his hand, but Charles himself was too full of emotion to say more than a few words. Master Mildmay and Master Herbert, loyal servants of Parliament as they were, moved to the far end of the room, unwilling to pry upon their mutual grief. Mary, embarrassed at being there at all, stood as near the door as she could, the pile of laundry still outspread upon her arms. After one curious and pitying glance she looked away from the King, and noting with what a vigilant and scoffing eye Captain Rolph stared at him she loathed the man more than ever. She could not imagine how she had ever wished to keep his necklace.
She knew that kind Master Ashburnham and some of the others were being sent away, and that perhaps it was merciful that the time allowed them for farewells was short. Someone said something about the tide, and a servant came hurrying in to whisper to the Captain that the horses had been brought round. The King stood with quiet dignity watching his friends and chaplains depart. They came down the long room towards Mary and in the silence there was only their reluctant tread and the smothered sound of Master John Ashburnham’s shamed weeping.
And suddenly into the saddened hush came the shocking sound of approaching laughter. The cheerful, chaffing laughter of high-spirited young men. She recognized the voices of Harry Firebrace and Richard Osborne. They were coming round the serving screens. They must both be off duty, and usually at this hour the King would be out taking the air. How appalling that they should know what was happening! “They will be utterly disgraced. The King will never forgive them. I must slip out and warn them,” thought Mary.
But it was not easy for a laundry maid to turn and walk out before a procession of such important people; and before she dared to do so worse befell.
The two young men burst into the hushed room and Richard Osborne, coming up from behind, caught her teasingly round the waist and kissed her. Mary had heard that he had a reputation for levity. Still clutching the pile of clean linen, she stood crimson-faced and helpless. Rolph, coming down the room close behind the dismissed courtiers, glared at him; and Firebrace pulled up within a yard of them. Apparently becoming aware, to his horror, that they were in the King’s presence, he made a frantic effort to suppress his friend’s exuberance, pulling at his arm in order to distract his attention from Mary. He was not usually clumsy, but in doing so he bumped into Sir John Berkeley, knocking the plumed hat from his hand. He apologised profusely and bent down to retrieve the hat. As Ashburnham and the others went out through the door, Berkeley and Firebrace were very close together, while Osborne—seemingly stricken with embarrassment—stood blocking the Captain’s way with his broad shoulders. Firebrace prolonged the confused moment still more by dusting the ill-used headgear with his sleeve, and insisting upon smoothing out the sweeping plume. Mary stood watching the odd scene, fascinated. She was marvelling that she, quiet Mary Floyd, should have been drawn into the circle of such colourful people and dramatic events. She saw Sir Charles Berkeley, with his back to Rolph, say something quickly to Firebrace, and it had nothing to do with the hat. He spoke in a whisper, but he was so close to her that she overheard. “Tell his Majesty that Edward Worsley of Gatcombe will act in our stead,” he said; and added something about “despairing of an opportunity to speak” and “horses on the other side.”
When Sir John Berkeley and the impatient Captain had gone out to their waiting horses she was still thinking what an extraordinary thing it was for an ardent Royalist to say to an attendant appointed by Parliament.
Forgetting Osborne’s boldness and her own embarrassment, she stood staring at Harry Firebrace; but she was seeing him in an entirely new light. She began trying to fit into the puzzle the memory of various things which he had done and said. Realizing that she must have overheard, he turned and met her searching gaze. And as though divining her thoughts, he shrugged his shoulders almost imperceptibly and smiled. He seemed confident that she would not betray him. And Mary felt suddenly elated, as though some strange, secret bond had been tied between them.
When Richard Osborne set the pile of linen down for her and asked her pardon she forgave him absently because she supposed it had all been part of the purposeful play-acting.
“I ask no pardon for kissing you, only for choosing so public a moment,” he was careful to explain.
He smiled down at her, and she thought his voice singularly attractive. With the mild, preoccupied appreciation of a girl already in love, she noticed that his mouth was reckless and his brown eyes kind.
But when the King retired to the State Room and beckoned to his auburn-haired Groom of the Bedchamber to attend him, showing no sign of annoyance at the disturbance he had created, Mary’s exultation was mixed with fear. “Now he will give him Sir John Berkeley’s message,” she thought. “There is something real which is going on, and from now on there will be real danger.”
But it was of Harry Firebrace’s danger she thought, not the King’s.
Chapter Nine
They arrested him and took him away. Our kind old Captain Burley—handcuffed as though he were a felon!” sobbed Frances Trattle, burying her frightened white face in her arms as she huddled over the parlour table at the “Rose and Crown.”
“And there were not enough of us to save him from the Governor’s soldiers,” confirmed her mother, wiping her eyes by the inn window.
“It was a hopeless venture anyway,” said Edward Trattle sombrely, from the hearth.
Although most of the excitement of an abortive rising had died down, people were still standing about in the streets outside, or gaping from their doorways, and at that moment a couple of patrolling troopers trotted briskly past.
“What really happened?” asked Mary, who had been sent by her aunt to get a first-hand account of things. They had both seen Captain Burley being brought into the castle. At first it had been supposed that all Newport was marching furiously to Carisbrooke to set the King free, but from the escort which had arrested him on the road to Carisbrooke they had been able to elicit only garbled stories.
Seeing that his wife and daughter were still too agitated for coherency, Trattle drew Mary to the settle and sat down beside her. “It all began with Master Ashburnham and his two friends coming here while they waited for a boat,” he explained. “Rumour’d already got around that they were being sent away, and people kept crowding about the door, sympathizing and shouting out what they’d like to do to the Governor. I served the three gentlemen with drinks myself, and I’ll say no one ever looked more in need of them. But presently two of them went off—to say good-bye to a friend, they said.”
“And I asked poor Master Ashburnham to rest awhile in here,” said Agnes, coming to warm her hands at the fire. “But it seems it was the worst thing I could have done.”
Mary, who loved her, hated to see her so distressed. “Why, surely ’twas only human, Mistress Trattle!” she said.
“Yes. But you see, child, Captain Burley was in here too. He’d been taking his afternoon nap by the fire. And seeing
they’d met up at the castle, the two of them fell to talking. Master Ashburnham began telling him all that’s been going on up there, and you know how excitable the poor dear Captain is—”
“Seems he got it into his head that as soon as his Majesty’s friends had been got rid of, these Parliament folk meant to do the King some mischief. ‘I’ve served him all these years,’ he said, ‘and retired or not, I’m not going to stand by now when his Majesty’s life is in danger!’ And out he rushes into the street and starts haranguing the crowd.”
Agnes Trattle sat down and put a shaky hand on Mary’s knee. “He sent a lad for the town drum and had him beat it in the Square and up and down the town; while he himself called on everyone to rise up and rescue the King—”
“‘For God and King Charles!’ he kept shouting in that great quarter-deck voice of his,” sniffed Frances, beginning to dry her eyes and rearrange her disordered hair.
“As if he could have taken the castle, poor old gamecock!” smiled Trattle, the realist, sadly regarding his lodger’s empty chair.
“There’s no more than a dozen or so in the garrison, Mary always says,” argued Frances defiantly, coming to join them. “If only people would have rallied round as they said they would, and old Mayor Moses had not interfered—seizing his drum back and sending to warn the Governor!”
“’Twas but a poor following anyway,” said Trattle. “Many of ’em women and children like yourself, and only the Captain’s sword and one musket between the lot of you.”
Now that Frances was standing up, Mary could see that her skirts were mudstained and torn. “Did you go, Frances?” she exclaimed admiringly. For it seemed almost as spectacular a thing to do as presenting the King of England with a rose. So much more splendid than anything which she herself would ever dare to do.
“He was always so fond of her,” murmured Agnes. “I was for following myself—”
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