‘Why do I ask?’ Monck interrupted. ‘Well, because I have need of a confidential secretary. I was compelled to lose my military secretary who, having accompanied me to London was obliged to return to Scotland and take-up his post at Dundee.’
‘William Clarke?’
‘The same. By Heaven, sir, it seems you know enough about me already to take up your duties without delay if, of course, you wish to accept the post.’
‘On two conditions, sir.’
‘Two conditions? My, my, sir, is that not a little forward?’
‘Well, three then,’ Clarges said, rising to his feet with a smile.
‘Three? Damn it, sir, you had better name them.’
‘One, that I do so as your brother-in-law; two, that I am free to speak my mind,’ Clarges struck his demands off on his fingers, ‘and three, that you call me Tom.’
Monck considered a moment then rose himself, again leaning forward, his hands upon the table. ‘I have a condition of my own, Tom, and that is that what work you undertake for me is always to be done in utmost confidence. Utmost confidence. Do you understand?’
‘Absolutely, General Monck. You have both my word and my hand upon it.’
Monck took Clarges’ outstretched hand. ‘Then we shall get along very well,’ Monck said, his blue eyes now a-twinkle and beguiling the younger man almost as much as they had his sister. ‘But what do we do with Harbottle’s affidavit?’
‘Take it at face value, but do not marry immediately. Anne will not like the delay. She has already miscarried…’
‘What is that you say?’
‘I did not think you knew. That was one reason she wished to attend you in Scotland, but she is well and would tell you not to worry…’
‘The child…was it…?’ Monck felt a surge of unexpected emotion.
‘I cannot really say, sir. ’Tis a woman’s prerogative…’ Clarges paused then went on, ‘you may speak of it to her, surely. As to your nuptials, delay a little while more. It will look less suspicious should you ever come to rely publicly upon Harbottle’s affidavit.’
‘Delay? How can I delay? I am no longer young; the damned spotted-fever has affected me and, in any case, Anne may conceive again before…’
‘Not if your return home is deferred.’
Monck frowned. ‘Why the devil should it be deferred?’
‘It would be wise to do so, politically. You have estates in Ireland, have you not?’
‘I was granted land for my service there, yes. It does not amount to much.’
‘Then take yourself thither for a month or two. I can tell Anne why and join you there if you wish it. Your affairs in Devon are in good hands; Anne is no fool and, as it appears to me that Will Morice is a good friend and a competent land-agent. You were wise to entrust your affairs to him for he is a rising man in the land.’
‘You are damnably well informed,’ Monck observed.
‘You agreed to allow me to speak my mind, General.’
‘True, but it is somewhat disconcerting to discover one’s private affairs are so well known. I had already thought of Ireland.’
Clarges smiled. ‘Your affairs are not well known, sir. Anne has confided in me and I have undertaken a confidentiality as binding as any oath – both with her and you.’ Clarges paused, as if weighing up whether to say something more, as Monck had observed.
‘Well, Tom? There is more on your mind, I can see.’
Clarges shook his head. ‘I do not think, General Monck, you comprehend your own standing, sir.’
‘My standing?’ Monck exclaimed, laughing. ‘Why, sir, there is nothing very remarkable in my standing. I am a broken military officer who wishes for nothing more than to retire to his impoverished acres, wed his betrothed and attempt to raise a son or daughter on land that, God willing, might prove more fruitful for me than my poor father!’ An almost solemn silence followed this outburst and the smile faded from Monck’s face as he regarded that of Tom Clarges.
‘I do not think the future will prove so simple, sir. Nor should I have agreed to become your confidential secretary if I thought I was to rusticate.’
‘Then you may feel free to tender your resignation after I have fulfilled my obligation to you to marry your sister and made you my brother-in-law,’ Monck said merrily, turning the future aside with a jest. The onset of depression occasioned by Clarges’ intelligence about the dubiety of Harbottle’s affidavit had passed as quickly as it had come on. If he took Clarges’ advice it would prove a trial to delay seeing Anne, but it behove him to attend to his affairs in Ireland, if only because he would need to nurture his assets if he was to become a married man.
‘Since you know so much Tom,’ Monck asked, ‘how would your sister view my sudden disappearance in Ireland?’
‘Since I must be honest, if you were not long away and came home with some news of profitable land, or money to hand, I think ’twould assuage a lonely heart.’
Monck looked shrewdly at the young man regarding him from his perch on the portmanteau, then smiled. ‘Ah yes, money… But what of your own wife?’
Clarges shrugged. ‘’Tis much the same with all women,’ he remarked cynically. ‘Mary is a good woman, she will tolerate what is best for us.’
‘Very well then, let us be gone.’ Monck’s tone was decisive. ‘Do you go down to Devon and tell Anne I shall be gone two months more, then hie thee to me. I shall see you in Chester in – what? – ten days.’
Clarges rose quickly to his feet, a broad smile upon his face. ‘Chester, in ten days, sir.’
POTHERIDGE
Summer 1652
‘I winged him!’
‘Aye but ’twas not a sure shot. Send the dog!’
Monck plunged into the bracken that filled the clearing in the small dell, following the hound unleashed by Dick Cann and waving Clarges after him. The stag, a handsome young buck, had been galled, but how badly it was impossible to tell. Cann, a young man Monck’s agent Will Morice had appointed game-keeper some six months earlier, thrust past Monck who was struggling up the farther side of the dell out of the bracken and into the trees, his enfeebled legs less agile than the younger man’s. From above the canopy of leaves shafts of sunlight pierced the trees, dappling the woodland and striking an increasingly breathless Monck with its homely beauty. Clarges had come up with him now and half-turned enquiringly.
‘Go on; get after them.’ Monck urged, nodding his head and then, as Clarges ran forward, pausing to wipe his brow. He blew his cheeks out, cursed the spotted-fever, and moved off again. For a few moments he could hear nothing but the rustle of the hunters’ forward progress, then the hound started baying, after which he heard Cann holloa.
After some minutes more, a sweating Monck emerged from the trees and found himself on the edge of a small clearing. Ahead of him an outcrop of rock rose lichen-covered from the forest floor. Little but scrubby grass, sprinkled with tiny white flowers, and some ferns grew in its shadow. He knew the spot; so did the stag, for it had turned at bay.
‘Careful, sir…’ Cann held a restraining hand out towards Clarges, who was reloading his matchlock. A soldier would have already done this, Monck thought irrelevantly as he watched Clarges struggle with the piece. It was a fine, new gun that Clarges had recently bought in Exeter in anticipation of hunting on Monck’s land. The stag stood its ground, blood oozing from wound high-up on its left shoulder, lowering its head and hooking impotently at the air in an act of defiant deterrence. Cann was watching the beast, awaiting his moment but as Monck arrived on the scene he turned to his master.
‘Shall I…?’ Cann asked.
Catching his breath, Monck shook his head and gestured towards Clarges. Cann nodded as Clarges brought the matchlock up to his shoulder and fired. The report of the discharge hit the rock and flung itself back at the three men, setting their ears ringing. The stag fell onto its front knees and kicked pitifully with its hind quarters. Even at close-range Clarges had failed to end its torment and Cann
clicked his disapproval as Clarges lowered his gun. The stag’s movement had frustrated the inexpert Clarges and he had merely emptied the contents of his cartridge into the wretched animal’s withers, tearing at its entrails so that its terrified eyes blazed with the horror of its end.
Cann drew his knife but Monck intervened. ‘No! Let Mr Clarges despatch him.’
Monck held out his hand for Tom Clarge’s gun. ‘Take Dick’s knife, Tom, and finish the business.’
‘This is not much to my liking, George.’
‘What? A knife in the hand of a surgeon?’
‘I was an apothecary…’
‘Well you certainly were not an arquebusier,’ Monck remarked with a laugh. ‘Go to it, but mind his antlers now.’
Clarges looked apprehensive, then Dick Cann stepped forward and, with a swift movement, kneeled on the stag’s shoulders, grasped the tortured animal’s antlers and gave a vicious twist with his strong forearms. The beast kicked violently but was bleeding copiously from its riven belly.
‘Now!’ he said through clenched teeth as he wrenched the stag’s head back, exposing its throat. Clarges was quick enough with the knife. There was a brief flurry, then a long, whistling exhalation before the beast subsided.
Clarges stood and offered Cann his knife before looking at Monck. ‘I botched it twice,’ he said.
Monck patted him on the shoulder. ‘You’ll forget that soon enough when you enjoy the venison.’
‘I think not.’ Clarges paused a moment, then added as he stared down at the dead animal, ‘I think I’d sooner kill a man.’
‘That though wouldst not,’ Monck said with such a vehemence that both Clarges and Cann looked at him. Monck shook his head. ‘Thou might kill a man without a thought in the heat of battle, but to do so in cold-blood is not like this…’
Suddenly Monck turned and walked away. A moment later he was lost in the trees, leaving Clarges to look wonderingly at Cann who merely shrugged. ‘I’ll bring him in, Mr Clarges.’
‘Very well.’ Clarges paused a moment and then followed after Monck.
He caught sight of him a little later. If his legs troubled Monck, it was less apparent than earlier, and something in his headlong and determined stride back towards Potheridge Manor told Clarges not to close the distance between them. Clarges paused a moment to watch the strong, stocky figure in its plain leather jerkin and battered, broad-brimmed hat. There was something undeniably attractive about the man and Clarges keenly regretted what he felt in that instant was a slight. But beyond knowing that his rather foolish remark, born out of his embarrassment at making such a mess of the kill rather than anything else, had touched a raw nerve, Clarges had no idea why Monck had reacted as he had. Until that moment he had seen nothing rattle the General’s composure. Such was his regard for the older man that he would have said nothing could disturb the tranquillity of his mind, for he thought of Monck much as his sister Nan did, as some kind of rock amid the turbulent torrent of an uncertain life.
It was only when Monck reached the open ground before the house that Clarges thought he should seek to make amends before Monck disappeared indoors. He hurried forward.
‘Sir! Sir! Forgive me… I make a pitiful shot…’
Monck stopped and turned round. Clarges had expected to see blue-ice in the General’s eyes and, although he saw something, he could not quite fathom it, for Monck wore no expression of dislike or disapproval. Perhaps, Clarges thought intuitively, it was hurt.
‘’Twas not your shooting, Tom,’ Monck said kindly. ‘That was to be expected since thou art not a man of experience with a matchlock. ’Twas a pity, though, that the buck suffered… But you will improve, be assured of that.’ Monck patted him on the shoulder.
‘But then I said something about the killing of a man.’
‘Aye.’ Monck removed his hand and looked away, elevating his gaze so that he stared up at the clouds that were building across the western sky. ‘’Twill rain afore nightfall,’ he remarked incidentally.
Clarges hesitated before saying anything else, but then asked: ‘And that troubled you?’
Monck returned his regard to the younger man, looking him straight in the eye. ‘Aye, it did.’ Then he turned and walked towards the house, disappearing within, leaving a still strangely discomfited Clarges staring after him.
They dined on pork that night, not venison, but the legacy of the afternoon’s hunt hung like the dead buck after Cann had got it home – faintly disquieting and awaiting its final fate. Anne sensed something was wrong as soon as the two men returned, not as successful and cheery companions, but as friends separated by some incident. Monck retired to his private closet and did not emerge until dinner was served, by which time Clarges had confided in his sister.
She had shaken her head when Clarges asked her if she knew what it was that had upset his host, saying only ‘that there was something in his past,’ she thought, that had something to do with his father and which touched him closely.
‘’Twas not the fever, then?’ Clarges had added, ‘for I notice his legs trouble him’.
‘No. There is some past event…’ She shook her head, then touched her brother’s arm. ‘It is not your fault, Thomas. You were not to know.’
‘’Twas a silly and unnecessary remark, and better had I been to keep my mouth shut.’
‘Well, we shall see how he is at dinner.’ She smiled at her brother and realised the light was fading fast. ‘I think it begins to rain,’ she said, adding, ‘I am reluctant to light candles this early, the expense…’
‘You are a thrifty house-keeper, Sister.’
‘I have need to be, Brother, for we are not rich.’
‘Ireland should yield you a pretty penny. His estates there…’
‘In due course, perhaps,’ Anne responded acidly, ‘but it would be better if Parliament paid him his rightful due.’
‘They have made him a grant,’ Clarges expostulated gently, for he knew a good deal of the state of the General’s household.
‘Aye but there are those they have paid greater. Besides,’ she said looking her brother straight in the eyes, ‘I myself have no settlement as…’
‘As you are presently circumstanced?’
‘Yes. Just so.’
‘He has promised to marry you, has he not? And you believe him?’
‘As I believe my own heart. But suppose him to be taken…’
‘You fear that?’
‘Do not you? You spoke of his legs troubling him.’
Clarges shrugged. ‘I had not thought on it as being fatal.’
‘God grant it is not.’
‘Well, amen to that,’ said Clarges pausing before asking, ‘forgive me, Nan, but are you expecting again?’
‘No! Would that I was!’ And with that she left her brother staring after her.
Monck remained withdrawn during dinner, though he made no reference to the afternoon’s mishap. He left Clarges and Anne to their own desultory conversation and only as they concluded the meal and lingered over their wine did he brighten, apologising for his black mood.
He leaned forward at the head of the table and, in a gesture of reconciliation, extended a hand out to each of them as they sat on his either side. ‘I am a curmudgeon,’ he said. ‘You must forgive me, but I have had much on my mind.’
‘Sir, I am most sorry that I caused you distress…’
Monck gave a solemn laugh and shook his head, even as he shook both their hands before letting them go. ‘Oh, it is not you, Tom, not you at all. You happened to act as my whipping boy. The raw nerve was mine; you were not to know of it.’ Monck relinquished his grip and sat back with a profound sigh, looking from one to the other. ‘We are a family, I hope, even though we lack God’s blessing our souls are as one in these trying times, are they not?’ They both murmured assent and Monck went on. ‘I beat a man once. He had dishonoured my poor father. He died some time afterwards.’ Monck raised his eyes from the table, as if seeking something.
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‘Then you did not kill him, sir,’ Clarges said.
‘There were those who said I did.’
‘But you did not.’ Clarges insisted.
Monck shrugged. ‘True. But sometimes…’ Monck paused, then sat up, as if ending the confidence. ‘’Tis no matter.’
‘Sometimes he haunts you.’ Anne accurately articulated conviction, prompting her to reach out and place her hand over Monck’s. He smiled at her.
‘Well, let it lie. There is nothing that can be done. Anyhap, Tom, today is past but tomorrow I have further need of you.’ Monck changed the subject.
‘Not, I hope, to fill your larder,’ Clarges’ flippancy did not hide his relief at the change of mood.
‘No,’ replied Monck, ‘but you might have found such employment more agreeable for I wish you to go to London.’
‘London?’
‘Aye, I think we should consider taking permanent lodgings there…’
‘Can we afford such a thing?’ Anne broke in sharply.
‘Of course,’ Monck said soothing her but turning his attention back to Clarges. ‘I have letters for the Parliament and the Army Council. And for Oliver; you have not yet met him, have you?’
‘I am not sure that I want to. Does he know of my service with the King?’
Monck grinned. ‘He knows of mine. Of yours – I have no idea. Perhaps Thurloe has told him.’
‘Thurloe?’
‘His Intelligencer.’
‘And what are these letters, George? Are they about this war with the Dutch?’ Anne asked later as they undressed for bed. ‘You are surely not sending him away because you are displeased with him, for that is what he may think?’
Monck neatly side-stepped Anne’s query about the Dutch war. ‘Have I not reassured him upon that point? He is entrusted with these documents because he is my personal secretary and I would have him my agent, and in London if it is necessary to the betterment of our affairs. ’
‘Our affairs?’
‘Of course, our affairs, Anne.’
‘But the letters? What is their significance?’
Sword of State: The Remarkable Story of George Monck Page 21