Mary looked up into his confident young face and a new, warm hope of happier days began to stir in her. “King Charles the Second,” she said softly, testing the sound of the new, unfamiliar title.
“I am to go to Holland with whatever information I have gleaned.”
“And you should have a very good reception, for his late Majesty wrote commending you to his son because you had been in trouble for his sake. He showed me that part of his letter, and bade me tell you if I should ever see you again.”
“That was better than any keepsake,” said Osborne, well pleased. “But everything here must be done with so much secrecy that it may be weeks or months before I am ready to sail. And until young Charles gets back his crown mine will be a poor, hazardous life. With little money and much fighting, I imagine. I have no right to ask any girl to marry me.”
“But I seem to remember you already have.”
“And you said no. You did not love me.”
“There were other things then—”
“I know.”
“Now you have made it more difficult to refuse—”
“A man fights for what he wants.”
“I am not afraid of being poor and have grown used to hazards. And I think I could no longer say with truth ‘I do not love you’,” she said softly, consideringly.
He kissed her again with triumphant passion, then forced himself to patience. “It is utterly unlike me, I know; but I care for you so much, Mary, that I want you to take time and think—to be sure. If it is humanly possible I will come back to the island for your answer.”
“Before you go to Holland?”
“At least I shall write to you.”
He held her tenderly, his cheek pressed down upon her curling hair. Remembering his reputation, she wondered how many other women he had held like that. “Richard, what did you mean about that Briot woman?” she asked suddenly, fidgeting with a button of his coat.
“Merely that if you were picturing someone motherly in attendance on the King’s daughter you were mistaken. She is fond of the Princess, as who would not be? Judith is too frivolous to be ill-natured. But being an artist’s daughter, she is more conscious of her beauty than of her duties. Her father is that clever designer of our coins, and she told me that is how she came by the appointment.”
“You seem to know her well.”
“Quite well. Most men do who have been about the Court. She has lovely breasts and hair like a red-gold sunset fresh from her father’s palette.”
“And a mind like a conceited pea-hen’s?”
He swung Mary round so that he caught the feline glint in her eyes, and laughed delightedly. “Now, you could not possibly be jealous?” he enquired.
“I was concerned only for the Princess,” she lied with dignified aplomb.
And then the boat was ready and it was time to part.
The weeks passed and the island settled back into its quiet ways. News came of the private funeral at Windsor, with snow making a white pall for the King’s coffin. “White for innocence,” the people said, when out of hearing of their new rulers. Herbert and Mildmay had been two of the bearers and Harry Firebrace one of the twelve gentlemen allowed to follow. Young Elizabeth had nearly died of grief, the Trattles heard; but Cromwell, who had always liked the Princess for her piety, had shown pity. He had arranged for the two fatherless children to be put in the care of Lady Sydney at Penshurst, where it was hoped that the country air and the gentle atmosphere of that cultured home would restore her.
England was now a Commonwealth.
Frances Newland grumbled because country fairs and May-day revels were forbidden, and her prettiest dresses frowned upon as being devices of the devil. The severe deep linen collars and quiet colours which a Puritan world deemed suitable did not suit her.
To Mary, living quietly at the inn, these things scarcely mattered. For a whole year her youth had been robbed of normal gaiety by the violent dissensions of her elders, but she had had her fill of excitement. Now for the first time she had peace in which to sort out her own affairs. To school herself to accept the frustration of her first love and to attune her future to the proposals in Osborne’s promised letter. As the months slipped by and spring spilled beauty over bays and meadows, the sight of lovers walking in the sweet glow of evening when fishing and farm work were done gave her, for the first time, a sense of sadness. Visits to Frances, blooming radiantly and reluctantly into motherhood, reminded her of her own physical loneliness.
By early summer a purple blue sea lapped lazily at golden sands, hedgerows were bridal white with ladies’ laces again, and a whole year had passed since her father’s tragic death.
Druscilla Wheeler had written from Oxford, where she appeared to derive vast satisfaction from being a guest of Sir Brome and Lady Whorwood. She had evidently settled back into the more sophisticated life of the mainland. There had even been mention of an admirer, a hint that she might marry again. Although there was no suggestion of her returning to the Wight, she invited her niece to join her. But that Mary could not do even if she had wished, for she had no means of letting Richard Osborne know, and might miss him if he came.
At last, on a hot midsummer evening, another letter came for her which she felt sure must concern him. Hearing a clattering in the Square below her dormer window she looked out to see two soldiers before the door, and one of them dismounting with a letter in his hand. She heard Agnes calling up the attic stairs to her, and for the moment felt faint with fear. “It is something official. They must have arrested him. Do I care as much as this?” she asked herself, finding herself trembling as she ran swiftly down to the parlour.
The letter was for her, but neither from Richard Osborne nor about him. The Cromwellian corporal who handed it to her made a stiff little bow as though she were a person of some importance and then withdrew.
Having called both men into the taproom for a drink, Edward Trattle came quickly to join his wife while Mary read her letter. They all sensed that it must be something of moment. “It is from Master Mildmay. He wants me to go back to the castle—as housekeeper in Aunt Druscilla’s place,” she told them, flattered and incredulous. “He has orders to bring Princess Elizabeth and her brother to Carisbrooke.”
“Oh, no, even the Army Council could not be so cruel!” cried Agnes, aghast. “Imagine what that poor girl’s feelings will be!”
“They are coming almost immediately.”
“But why take them from the care of good Lady Sydney?”
“It is probably because of that rising in Scotland,” said Trattle. “Young Charles is clear-headed and vigorous and since his father was murdered more and more Royalists have sneaked out of the country to join him, so that ever since the Scots proclaimed him King of Scotland, Cromwell and his crew must have been in a dither lest he should land. The presence of those two poor fatherless children is bound to create a lot of Stuart sympathy. They want them out of the way, I’ll be bound.”
“I think you should go,” said Agnes, turning anxiously to Mary. “After all Major Rolph is away on the mainland and likely to stay there for a while.”
“But I am so young.”
“You always said that Master Mildmay was kind, and he says specially that for the Princess’s sake there should be some sympathetic woman in charge of the domestic arrangements,” pointed out Agnes, to whom Mary had handed the letter.
“Only a very simple establishment…The Prince’s tutor, a gentlewoman for the Princess and an equerry’,” quoted Mary, reading it through again over her shoulder. “‘Henry of Gloucester to have the same bedroom as his late father first had, and the lady Elizabeth that ante-room leading off the original Presence Chamber, which was once my own room,’ he says. I’m thinking that all the rooms will need a world of scouring after being occupied by half Cromwell’s army!”
“He says you can have whatever help you like.”
“But you might need me.”
“Not nearly so much as that poor
child Elizabeth will need you.”
“No,” agreed Mary, thinking of frivolous Judith Briot and of what Osborne had said about helping those whom the late King had loved; and of the word-picture the late King himself had made, sitting unshaven by the fire, of his beloved, misfortunate Bess.
Chapter Thirty-One
Mary stood at the door of the Governor’s house ready to welcome the travellers from Kent. Her Puritan grey gown had a wide linen collar and she had hidden her curls beneath a severe white cap. She was trying to look older than eighteen and to conceal her nervousness.
Brett, overjoyed at having her back, grinned proudly at the pleasing sight of her as he crossed the courtyard on some last-minute errand. Libby, whose husband had not taken her with him to London, remarked that “those Stuart children” might not arrive for hours, and brought Mary a stool to sit on.
It had been a busy week getting the rooms back to the point of cleanliness which Mistress Wheeler would have exacted, and clearing out as far as possible all trace of military occupation. But to Mary’s relief nothing in the housekeeper’s room had been tampered with.
“Directly you left I locked it and lost the key,” Libby had told her with a grin, producing it from her pocket.
“Anyways, they gurt overnors was prid near scared to pass the door once I’d told ’un our last housekeeper had died o’ the plague!” old Brett had chuckled.
It was such old familiar loyalties that made Mary glad to be back. Although there were new faces among the garrison, the place was home. It was full of heartache at times, but she had wanted to see it once more as it used to be, with the courtyard sleepy in the sun and long silences broken only by island voices, before having to leave it perhaps for ever.
Waiting in the doorway, she thought how tired the travellers would be, and wondered anxiously if there were anything else she could have prepared for their comfort. She thought too how pleasant it would be to see Master Mildmay again, and how proud her father would have been that her services had been chosen to ease the Princess’s stay.
At the sound of approaching wheels she stood up and tucked back the last recalcitrant curl, and Libby, hovering in the background to get a glimpse of the proceedings, hastily took away the stool. A couple of guards stood to attention under the gateway arch, but there was to be no military or ceremonial pother. Parliament had sent strict instructions that the royal visitors were to be called plain Elizabeth and Henry.
Anthony Mildmay rode first into the courtyard, middle-aged, comely, and quietly assured. Then came the coach, rumbling and swaying over the flagstones. Apart from a small escort sent from Cowes, it was accompanied only by a well-mounted young man who must by the equerry, and a small sickly-looking person on a spiritless horse who might be the Duke’s valet. The equerry dismounted and opened the coach door with a flourish and a lively boy of nine or so scrambled out, full of interest in his new surroundings. Castles and guns, thought Mary, were probably more to his mind than quiet country houses. He was followed by Lovall, a youngish-looking tutor in holy orders, and then—like a flash of colour among the old grey walls—out stepped a young woman who could be no one but Judith Briot. She sprang down lightly with a laugh, landing almost in the handsome equerry’s waiting arms. Then both of them, with the tutor, turned solicitously to help someone still inside. Obviously, they expected to have to lift the Princess out, but a small hand waved them aside and a frail, black-clad little figure stepped down with shaky dignity. The vigorous health of her companions and their lack of all signs of travel strain emphasized her sickly pallor, but she took Anthony Mildmay’s proffered arm and followed her young brother into the Governor’s house. Mary curtsied as she passed and Mildmay presented her. The Princess managed a small, gracious smile, but her dark eyes looked blind with weariness or weeping. Only when she came to the high-backed chair by the empty hearth did she pause as though her attention were really caught by something. “Is this the chair my father used?” she asked. And when she was told it was she sank down in it, leaned her fair head against the worn red velvet and closed her eyes. Her ringless hands, flaccid and outstretched, came to rest caressingly on the arms of it.
The effort of the journey had been too great for her to take any part in the polite exchanges of arrival.
“Your Highness must be hungry with so much sea air,” said Judith, forgetting her instructions to omit a title. “I am ravenous. Are you not, Master Lovall?”
“I am,” declared Henry Stuart. “I climbed part way up the rigging to get a better view of all those big ships in the Solent.”
But whether his tutor was hungry or not, his shrewd, kind eyes rested as anxiously as Mary’s on Elizabeth’s exhausted face. And when at last her blue eyes opened it was to look fastidiously at her travel-soiled hands. “I should like to wash first,” she said.
“I have had hot water sent to your Highness’s room,” said Mary, repeating Judith’s absent-minded error, unrebuked by Mildmay. With an impulsive gesture of compassion Judith threw an arm about the girl, and Mary showed them the way to the Princess’s bedroom. But after a quick glance round to make sure the servants had brought in the clothes chest she departed. Her thoughts were already on the first meal she had had prepared for them on her own responsibility, and her anxious mind outran her footsteps to the kitchen. But she need not have worried. The party from Penshurst ate together informally in the Presence Chamber, with Mildmay at one end of the table and the young Duke of Gloucester at the other and they seemed pleasantly surprised to find such good fare at Carisbrooke, and all but the Princess did full justice to it. But afterwards when Mildmay, who had not been without some anxious qualms himself, came in his kindly way to congratulate her, Mary, although flushed and triumphant, remembered Elizabeth’s almost untouched plate. “She should have been put straight to bed,” she could not forbear from saying.
“Her gentlewoman should know,” he excused himself. “Perhaps a good night’s sleep will make all the difference.”
But what with her exhaustion and the strange room and her horror of the place, the Princess scarcely slept at all. Next morning found her hot and listless, and she had a hacking little cough. For all her determination of the day before she did not attempt to get up, nor could she touch the peaches and milk which Mary brought for her breakfast.
“Do you not think we should call in the doctor from Newport?” suggested Mary, following Judith Briot from Elizabeth’s room to her own. “He is very kind and quite clever.”
But the Princess’s gentlewoman did not seem to think it necessary. “She is just tired out from the journey, poor sweet,” she said negligently, intent upon polishing her finger nails with a wad of rose petals. “And she has not really recovered from the shock yet. Of the execution, I mean.”
“But she looks so peaked and ill.”
“She often looks like that. She is delicate, of course. But she changes so. She is absurdly sensitive and for some reason or other dreaded coming here, though I personally find it quite amusing.” Judith went to her mirror and tried the effect of a rose tucked into the comb that held up her luxuriant ringlets. “In a day or two Bess will be quite different. You will see.”
“I will try to make something tempting for her dinner and try to coax her to eat then.”
“That will be very kind. I am afraid I am not very good at sick nursing. Are you the housekeeper?”
“I am only taking the place of my aunt, Mistress Wheeler, who is away on the mainland.”
“You are very young.”
“I suppose Master Mildmay chose me because I have always lived here and was assistant laundress to the late King.”
“Oh, then you must be one of those people who helped with smuggling in letters and all those amazing attempts at escape?” For the first time Judith looked at her with personal interest.
“I must be going. I have so much to do. I hope you did not mind my following you in here,” Mary tried to excuse herself. But Judith was suddenly disposed to gossip. She
threw down the rose and sat down on the bed. “Are you married?” she asked.
“No.”
“You surprise me, living in a castle full of men. It must be most entertaining. And during the late King’s captivity there must have been quite a number of personable young gentlemen here. Did you have a lover?”
“I had very little time for love affairs,” said Mary crisply.
“But you could have,” persisted Judith. “You are quite pretty and some of those young gallants are so persistent.” She laughed reminiscently and wandered over to the window, so that Mary thought how blind those pleasure-hating Puritans must have been who had put her in charge of a strictly brought up Protestant princess. Casually, with her back to Mary, she asked, “Richard Osborne was here, wasn’t he, mixed up with all that escape business?”
Mary stared at the beautifully gowned figure with high, rounded breasts and hair like a flaming sunset. “Yes,” she said, envying and hating her.
“Probably you would not have seen much of him,” decided Judith. “But he is very attractive.” She turned from the window with an amorous sigh and her gown went swishing deliciously across the floor. “I have often wished—but, there, we were both of us too inconstant. A gallant young sea captain came along—”
Mary went out and closed the door upon any further confidences. The mug of untasted milk she was still carrying shook in her hand. If she were to be fool enough to marry Osborne would bits of his past always be being brought up before her like this? Would she often have to look at the bodies of women he had held? “But at least he never denied it,” she told herself savagely.
“How beautiful and exciting she is!” exclaimed Libby, meeting her at the top of the backstairs.
“Who?” asked Mary, still wondering if Osborne’s complete candour would make it any easier.
“Mistress Judith. That handsome equerry, Master Barmiston, cannot take his eyes off her.”
Naturally, she would be just the kind of woman whom Libby would admire and emulate; and she would probably prove an easy-going, generous mistress to anyone who adored her. Libby would soon be decked with discarded ribbons and trinkets, no doubt, which would make up for all her husband did not give her. “I should like you to look after Mistress Briot and take charge of her room entirely,” she said, in a voice that sounded remarkably like her Aunt Druscilla’s. “It will give me more time to do things for the ailing Princess.”
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