He himself sat down with his back to the window and instantly the little spaniel, who was normally nervous of strangers, ran to him and sprang up on to his knees. “It seems as if he must know,” exclaimed Mary, losing the last of her own shyness. “Rogue was the late King’s pet during those last months at Carisbrooke.”
“We have a whole history of that dog to tell you, sir,” said Osborne.
“And the true details of all those attempts at escape, I hope, and all that happened to my father. No one has been able to give me personal inside information since Titus came—but I will not steal a march on him and the others. We must share your news. Though there is some which concerns me closely and which I cannot wait for.” With the spaniel lying beneath his caressing hand, he turned to Mary. “Were you still in the castle when those callous murderers sent my sister there?”
“All the time, sir. And I had the great good fortune to be able to look after her—and nurse her.”
“She was never strong, our little Temperance. It was cruel to send her there!”
“But your Majesty must not think of her as being ailing and unhappy all the time. We played bowls sometimes. And she had a gentlewoman, Judith Briot, who was beautiful and gay. She encouraged her Highness to dance and make music.” Mary had spoken spontaneously, forgetting that she had ever held rancour against the woman and only grateful for the fleeting kind of joy she brought; and, looking up, saw her husband’s eyes fixed adoringly upon her. She rose from the chair the King had set for her and knelt beside him, conscious only of her desire to comfort him. While well aware that no one would take a liberty with this shabby young man and go unscathed, she felt in him that intense humanity which had drawn her husband to his service. A humanity born of ordinary experiences and contrivances which do not normally fall to the lot of kings, and which would for ever make him more approachable. In that room in a foreign city with her mind back in the familiar rooms of Carisbrooke, she told him of small, everyday happenings which would be of interest only to himself and to members of his family. She told him of his father in captivity and of his young sister’s last days and of her love and longing for him; and in a low, awed voice she gave him those last messages from his father which Elizabeth had not lived to bring him.
“To forgive our enemies,” he repeated, his long fingers shielding the emotion on his face. “When I come into my own again please God I shall be merciful to men of other persuasions than my own. But to forgive his murderers—”
He sat for a while in silence trying to assimilate the magnitude of such a thought, then shrugged as though the matter were as yet beyond him. “No doubt these same enemies will see fit to send me dear Bess’s written record of these heart-breaking messages in their own good time, but this has been the kindest way to hear them,” he said, his hand dropping gratefully from his forehead to Mary’s shoulder. “And in the meantime we must prepare to welcome young Henry and help him to forget such sad beginnings to his life.” He stood up, strong and clear-thinking and unbeaten. “Well, I am still King of Scotland, and we must plan a landing there. Osborne.”
“My sword and I are at your service.”
The words sounded like a dedication, and as Mary looked from one to the other of them a shiver ran through her at the thought of what lay before them. They were of the same height and build, and the same deceptive air of indolence hid the purposeful courage of both of them.
As if sensing her fear, Charles turned and pulled her gently to her feet. “But you two are newly wed and it is like my clumsiness to talk of fighting,” he apologised. “We have months of preparation to make yet and when the time comes, Osborne, I promise you that my sister, the Princess of Orange, who is the merriest soul alive, will take care of her charming namesake here. For dear Bess’s sake and for all your Mary has done for my father, we must keep her in the family.” The door opened and the same serving man appeared. “There is Toby come to tell us supper is served. Come and eat, man,” invited Charles. “You must both be famished. Travelling and love-making are hungry work!”
“Oh, but sir—my husband and I could eat in the town. It is wonderful what tavern wives will do for his smile and our few halting words of Dutch,” faltered Mary, thinking how lean he looked.
“She is looking at the way my clothes hang on my long bones, and, womanlike, fearing I am half starved!” laughed Charles. But as long as I can come by a chicken and a loaf of bread I hope I may share it with my friends.”
“And I hope my news may hearten them,” said Osborne, with his arm about his wife.
“We shall get back to London, never fear,” said Charles, as his man held wide the door. “You will find that fine-looking husband of yours peacocking it as royal Usher again. And as for you, my sweet Mary, I must appoint you royal Laundress at Whitehall.”
“I shall hold you to that, sirs,” laughed Osborne, as they followed him in to supper.
“With all my heart. But we Stuarts do not forget,” said Charles, pausing in the doorway to take Mary’s hand and lead her forward to meet his little group of friends, “Though God knows you may have to wait a long time for your appointment, Mary of Carisbrooke. For at the moment I have but one spare shirt, and that is borrowed!”
Bibliography
Allan Fea. Memoirs of the Martyr King. John Lane, The Bodley Head.
Burchell. The Prisoner of Carisbrooke. Macmillan.
Burton. England’s Eden. Littlebury.
C. Aspinall-Oglander. Nunwell Symphony. Constable & Co. Ltd.
C. W. Firebrace. Honest Harry. John Murray.
Carola Oman. Henrietta Maria. Hodder & Stoughton.
Davenport Adams. History and Antiquities of the Isle of Wight. Nelson & Sons.
David Mathew. The Age of Charles I. Eyre & Spottiswoode.
Dorothy Hartley. Food in England. Macdonald.
Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon. The History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England. Oxford University Press.
Esme Wingfield Stratfield. King Charles the Martyr. Hollis & Carter.
Eva Scott. The Travels of the King. Constable.
G. W. Nichol. Herbert’s Memoirs. W. Bulmer.
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Letters of Dorothy Osborne. Dent & Sons Ltd.
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About the Author
Margaret Campbell Barnes lived from 1891 to 1962. She was the youngest of ten children born into a happy, loving family in Victorian England. She grew up in the Sussex countryside and was educated at small private schools in London and Paris.
Margaret was already a published writer when she married Peter, a furniture salesman, in 1917. Over the next twenty years, a steady stream of short stories and verse appeared under her name (and several noms de plume) in leading English periodicals of the time, including Windsor, London, Quiver, and others. Later, Margaret’s agents, Curtis Brown Ltd., encouraged her to try her hand at historical novels. Between 1944 and 1962, Margaret wrote ten historical novels. Many of these were bestsellers, book club selections, and translated into foreign editions.
Between World Wars I and II, Margaret and Peter brought up two sons, Michael and John. In August 1944, Michael, a lieutenant in the Royal Armoured Corps, was killed in his tank in the Allied advance from Caen to Falaise in Normandy. Margaret and Peter grieved terribly the rest of their lives. Glimpses of Michael shine through in each of Margaret’s later novels.
In 1945 Margaret bought a small thatched cottage on the Isle of Wight, off England’s south coast. It had at one time been a smuggler’s cottage, but to Margaret it was a special pl
ace in which to recover the spirit and carry on writing. And write she did. All together, over two million copies of Margaret Campbell Barnes’s historical novels have been sold worldwide.
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