In the King's Absence

by Josephine Bell

  Bello:

  hidden talent rediscovered!

  Bello is a digital only imprint of Pan Macmillan, established to breathe life into previously published classic books.

  At Bello we believe in the timeless power of the imagination, of good story, narrative and entertainment and we want to use digital technology to ensure that many more readers can enjoy these books into the future.

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  Contents

  Josephine Bell

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Josephine Bell

  In the King's Absence

  Josephine Bell

  Josephine Bell was born Doris Bell Collier in Manchester, England. Between 1910 and 1916 she studied at Godolphin School, then trained at Newnham College, Cambridge until 1919. At the University College Hospital in London she was granted M.R.C.S. and L.R.C.P. in 1922, and a M.B.B. S. in 1924.

  Bell was a prolific author, writing forty-three novels and numerous uncollected short stories during a forty-five year period.

  Many of her short stories appeared in the London Evening Standard. Using her pen name she wrote numerous detective novels beginning in 1936, and she was well-known for her medical mysteries. Her early books featured the fictional character Dr. David Wintringham who worked at Research Hospital in London as a junior assistant physician. She helped found the Crime Writers’ Association in 1953 and served as chair during 1959–60.

  Chapter One

  At dusk one evening in October of 1651, the lamps were lit in three rooms of the ‘George Inn.’ at the small fishing village of Brighthelmston lying to the west of Beachy Head on the Channel coast of England. The fishermen tramping in from the beach, where they had drawn up and secured their boats, saw the cheerful glow from the inn windows as a welcome, encouraging them to drive their weary, salt-sprayed limbs across the sliding shingle at a good pace to reach their own glowing firesides and the suppers their goodwives were, they hoped, they expected, at this moment preparing for them.

  At the ‘George’ there were two suppers in progress in two separate rooms, which accounted for the abundance of light and bustle there. In the larger of the two downstairs rooms Colonel Gunter, who had arrived alone in the early afternoon, was entertaining two merchants who had arrived some three hours later than himself. Master Barlow, fair-haired, loquacious, apologized at considerable length for their later arrival. His friend, very tall, dark, reserved in manner, added little to the conversation.

  Supper was served to these three gentlemen, and they had scarcely begun to eat when a second party arrived: two men; a Master Mansell, known to the innkeeper, and with him the skipper of a coaster called Surprise, also known at Brighthelmston, for she sometimes came to the wharves at Shoreham nearby, where he filled his vessel with coal from the Kentish minefields, in order to carry it to Poole Harbour, west of the Isle of Wight.

  These two were also expected by Colonel Gunter and though late in starting their meal, settled down to it as soon as Master Smith the landlord and his kitchen staff were able to serve it up. They made such good progress, their appetites being vastly superior to those of Colonel Gimter’s earlier guests, that all five gentlemen finished the meal at about the same time. Whereupon Mansell and the skipper of Surprise retired to the second room, smaller and very snug, with a good fire to keep away the autumn chill that had grown with nightfall.

  In the supper room, having called for warm drinks, Colonel Gunter explained the situation. Master Barlow and his friends were merchants who had business across the water. Master Mansell was bargaining with Captain Tettersal for his price to take them across the Channel at the start of his next voyage and in the course of it. Master Smith must show discretion because trade abroad was frowned upon by Cromwell’s Council of State and he had seen himself, that day, an unusual number of the New Model Army in Arundel, guarding the castle and bridge over the Arun river. Also ships lying offshore.

  ‘They say the Lord Protector sends his army to seize the Channel Island of Jersey, where –’ he paused and went on in a whisper – ‘our murdered King did send his Queen and the two Princes, as they were at the time.’

  ‘You know this?’

  ‘From Carisbrooke –’ the man began, but Colonel Gunter stopped him with a gesture and a look in which anger and anxious fear intermingled.

  But in the next few seconds these looks changed to one of open horror. For Smith, seeing the taller of the colonel’s visitors rise from his chair near the fire, where he had been sitting with his back to the table, and begin to move towards the uncurtained window of the room, moved quickly towards him, dropped on one knee, seized his hand and kissed it.

  ‘My house is honoured, sir, by Your Majesty – by your presence. May God prosper this voyage.’

  As Colonel Gunter sprang to his feet, exclaiming aloud, the landlord went rapidly from the room, closing the door carefully and silently behind him.

  Charles, for it was indeed the King, lifted his hand to check the Colonel. He was perfectly calm, quite in control of the situation.

  ‘He knows me and I know him. He was at one time in my father’s employ. He is faithful. He will not betray us. But we should perhaps draw the curtains in this room, now darkness has fallen. My Lord Wilmot will help you, Colonel.’ He laughed gently, lazily. ‘I’ll see to this small casement myself and take a breath of sea air in the doing.’

  He pushed open the small window at the side of the inn parlour and stuck his head outside, only to withdraw it in an instant, all lassitude gone.

  ‘I’ faith, the wind hath gone round while we were wasting our time at table. We have an off-shore breeze. We should be gone!’

  ‘Captain Tettersal spoke of tomorrow morning, sire. I – we – Mansell at least was careful to avoid an appearance of haste, any kind of desperation.’

  But Charles was already at the door, striding across the narrow passage outside, to that other room where Mansell and the captain, who by now was uncertain of the wisdom of his proposed venture, were making very heavy weather of the bargain.

  When the King flung open the door, both men started to their feet, in alarm rather than reverence. Charles waved them to their seats but himself remained standing.

  ‘Captain,’ he said, controlled but forceful. ‘We have a fair wind to clear the land. Should we not sail tonight?’

  ‘Not possible, sir,’ answered the seaman bluntly. ‘Fair wind, maybe. ’Tis usual to have an off – shore breeze of an evening. But the tide does not serve. The ebb is running fast. Surprise is berthed in a creek by Shoreham. She is ready loaded and will sit pretty on the mud as she dries out. I had a mind to go off with the start of the next ebb, when I may warp out if the wind falls.’

  Charles did his own calculations, having always taken a great interest in navigation and looked for practical experience in boats when he was in the Isle of Wight and again
in Jersey.

  ‘I would prefer we go aboard tonight if that is still possible.

  Then we may sail at high water or even before if the wind be still in the north.’

  ‘As I hope and expect it may,’ said Tettersal. But he looked at Master Mansell as he spoke and added, ‘My crew have come into the town here to sleep. Also I have my own gear and certain stores at the other inn. I think the price cannot remain at the figure –’

  ‘Enough,’ Charles said, seeing Colonel Gunter had now joined them and was looking so angry at this confusion of times and prices he might at any moment attempt to switch, the business to some other ship, a dangerous move to attempt.

  Captain Tettersal thought so too and with a few halfhearted mutterrags and complaints of being treated less as a ship’s master than a peasant farmer, he agreed to Master Mansell’s latest figure for conveying the gentlemen, from thence.

  ‘My companion, Master Barlow, will be much relieved,’ the King said gravely. ‘His business in France is urgent, but not looked upon here with any great favour.’

  A loud laugh from the door of the room brought all heads round to it again. Lord Wilmot or Master Barlow as he called himself was, as so often during the last month, on the point of spoiling the current plan with his ill-timed mirth. There was a very dangerous pause in the room.

  ‘Henry,’ the King said, with a careless laugh but no mirth at all in the glance he directed at his friend, ‘You are an incorrigible clown and knave! Go pack your bag again. I’ll come with you. We leave here just as soon as Colonel Gunter and Master Mansell have brought up the horses and the good captain has mustered his crew men.’

  Colonel Gunter and his servant took the horses down to the beach where they and the travellers mounted and began to move off along the shore, above the tide mark where the shingle was soft and filled the dents of their passage almost at once as they moved. They reached Shoreham before the captain and his crew joined them, but there was still time for all to go on board, except Colonel Gunter and his man who waited, with the horses, in a little sparse wood just above the shore proper.

  When they had climbed on board, Charles and Henry Wilmot went aft at once, to stretch themselves on the bunks in a very small, damp, smelly cabin beside the captain’s own hardly more spacious quarters.

  They had not been there long when Tettersal knocked at the cabin door and entered. He went straight to Charles’s bunk, knelt beside it, took the King’s hand and kissing it said fervently, as the landlord of the ‘George’ had done earlier, ‘Forgive me, Your Majesty, I dare not disclose my knowledge before. But I recognized you, sir, from seeing Your Majesty with the Prince Rupert on board that brig of the Dutch fleet he brought in to Harwich, but put out again when Cromwell’s men rushed through the town to seize you both.’

  ‘Where were you then, captain?’

  ‘Mate on a coaster, like this one, but not exactly a sister ship. Oh, sir, I swear I’ll bring you safe out of this country or sink my ship in the endeavour.’

  ‘Safe over to France, captain, if you please. I swim better than my friend here, but not so far as to Normandy.’ Captain Tettersall grinned at this sally, but said no more.

  Charles slept peacefully until seven o’clock the next morning, when the sounds of action on deck roused him, though he stayed in the cabin when he had dressed and forbade Wilmot, too, to show himself.

  In the coppice above the beach Colonel Gunter watched and waited all night with the horses, growing more anxious as the preparations seemed to take so long. He began to fear an interruption or even the arrival of soldiers.

  But all went well. The little coaster’s sails flew out at last, taking the light breeze that still held from the north, and when the anchor came up and the ship began to move, the colonel raised an arm in salute to her and her good fortune.

  When Surprise left the mainland behind the northerly breeze grew firmer and she sped along at a good pace. But at the same time the farther she passed from the lee of the land, the larger the swell grew under her though the waves were scarcely white-tipped as yet. And still the King remained hidden in the cabin, eating now a hearty breakfast while Lord Wilmot, who had risen and dressed at the same time as his master, left the table to return to his bunk, unable to face the sight and smell of food.

  ‘You are no sailor, Henry,’ Charles said. ‘With a sea so little troubled as this I marvel at your condition.’

  ‘Which will be worse before very long,’ Wilmot told him, groaning as Surprise rolled gently and ran on through growing waves, whose hissing as they struck her sides could be heard plainly in the cabin.

  ‘How wonderful it is,’ Charles said, with calm interest in his voice, ‘to remember we have but a row of timbers between us and the restless waters. Was it not our great Shakespeare that said somewhere “Trust not the rotten planks!”? The character who spoke those words was a landsman like you, Henry.’

  ‘He spoke good sense,’ Wilmot gasped. His face had grown very green, with drops of cold sweat beading his forehead.

  Charles, who was both observant and far from callous, got up, opened the cabin door and called for that member of the crew who had brought in the breakfast tray.

  ‘A basin, my man, for my friend, Master Barlow here, who is not accustomed to sea travel.’

  ‘At once, sir,’ answered the young man disappearing but returning with a receptacle just in time to receive Lord Wilmot’s first vomit.

  Charles waited until the spasm, was over, the exhausted victim temporarily relieved, lying quiet again, the basin’s contents removed and the basin returned to the sufferer’s side. Then he left his seat, beckoning to the crew-man to go outside the door with him.

  ‘I think you were not with Captain Tettersal when he mustered his crew upon the beach at Shoreham,’ he said gravely.

  ‘No, sir. I joined ship later.’

  ‘How much later? I was given to understand we should be on the mud very shortly with no danger of any boarding during the rest of the night?’

  ‘I came off in a coracle used for fowling. Flat-bottomed, sir. They push them over the mud with poles, where they know there is shingle underneath.’

  ‘They! Who be they?’

  ‘The natives hereabouts, sir.’

  ‘Of whom you are not one? So wherefore did you come secretly and for what purpose?’

  As with the innkeeper and the captain the young man broke down in the presence of such high authority, so keenly and forcefully bearing upon him. He went down on his knees, took the King’s hand and kissed it, but dared not speak or raise his eyes to the royal face, so high above him and so lately dark, frowning, understandably suspicious.

  ‘You know me,’ Charles said, withdrawing his hand, but making no move towards his waist, where, under his coat, he had both a pistol and a dagger ready for use. ‘Tell me your name and who employs you and for what purpose? I think I know your face. Where have I seen you before?’

  ‘I am Alan Ogilvy, Your Majesty,’ the youth said, standing up again, as straight as he could, but still wanting two inches of the King’s height. ‘They say I am like my father, Colonel Francis Ogilvy, who was at one time presented to Your Majesty in Holland.’

  ‘That’s it!’ cried Charles. ‘He was commanding in the army of the Prince of Orange, my brother-in-law. My late brother-in-law, alas.’

  Young Alan bowed his head, not knowing how to answer these remarks. But he saw he was not expected to offer any but answers to direct questions and he saw too that Charles, with his quick wits and instant grasp of a situation that concerned him personally, had no need of further information.

  ‘So the captain of this vessel has been in touch with your father, the colonel, to develop any possible plans to aid my safety,’ Charles reflected aloud. ‘I think this was not known to Colonel Gunter or to Master Mansell. But I take it you are here to act as cabin boy for my needs.’ He smiled and added, ‘Or shall we promote you to equerry?’

  Alan ventured a smile, but the King had
already become grave again.

  ‘Is there any further plan prepared? Where is Colonel Ogilvy, your father, at this present time?’

  ‘In France, sir. Waiting to assist Your Majesty when we arrive.’

  ‘But where? The coast of France is long and there are many enemies waiting, patrolling those coastal waters.’

  ‘I have my orders to serve you, sir. They have told me nothing more.’

  Charles clapped him on the shoulder.

  ‘Rightly so, my lad. Go find me Captain Tettersal. Tell him I would speak with him. The merchant, poor sick Master Barlow’s friend would speak with him. I will go on deck now,, for air, tell him. I will meet him there. Alan, did you say your name is? Then take up the breakfast tray, Alan, and go find the captain afterwards.’

  Alan went back into the cabin. Through the open door Charles heard poor Wilmot retching and gasping and the boy trying to comfort him. He hesitated, but with a shrug of his wide shoulders turned away and made his way to the starboard side of the deck where he moved to the wooden rail, looking back with interest at the fast-disappearing mainland, the wide horizon ahead and on their starboard hand the nearer contours of the eastern coast of the Isle of Wight.

  When Captain Tettersal appeared beside him the King turned, lifting a hand to prevent formal greetings between them.

  ‘We are fortunate in our wind, captain,’ he said, smiling. ‘I think it may hold for the rest of today, but fall light towards evening. I have seen you use it to the best advantage, but should, we not alter course for France now we have the Island well on the beam?’

  ‘That was a thing I had in mind, sir,’ Tettersal answered. ‘My crew expect me to round away to the west. I carry a cargo of coal to deliver to Poole. Already they have wondered I did not make into Spithead when we were past the Owers.

  But my mate agreed we should do best to have the Island to wind’ ard and work in the lee of those steep hills rather than beat through the Solent. But I gave no hint we planned to cross the Channel before ever we made for Poole.’