In the King's Absence

by Josephine Bell

  Mistress Cynthia, however, paid little attention to her husband’s misgivings. The house in Paternoster Row had been her grandfather’s property, she had a perfect right to visit there as her father did, however infrequently now in his old age. Mistress Leslie had warned her of George Leslie’s increasingly frequent appearance. She wanted to know more of this.

  ‘He is insolent,’ Mistress Leslie said. ‘He speaks as if he owns this house, because it belonged to his grandfather.’

  ‘Through his mother,’ Mistress Phillips answered. ‘I through my father, though I make no claim, for old Doctor Ogilvy left it to his elder son, my uncle Arthur, and it passed from him to his own adopted son, Colonel Ogilvy.’

  Mistress Leslie sighed.

  ‘Another part, that, of this private war Master George wages.’

  Susan Phillips, who had heard all this too many times to keep any interest in it, now lifted from the table in the parlour a new minted book with a title, she did not understand, but her mother did, for Master Phillips had told her of its unfortunate popularity.

  ‘Put it down, child,’ she ordered. ‘That is no fit reading for you.’

  ‘But what does its name mean?’ the girl asked,

  ‘It means “Image of a King” and purports to have been written by Charles Stuart, the convicted betrayer of his country.’

  Mistress Leslie flushed deeply and was about to retort when Alan Ogilvy was announced. He was surprised by the sudden hush that fell upon the room, for he had heard raised voices as he mounted the stairs behind Hannah. But when the door closed behind him, Mistress Leslie, obviously relieved by the interruption, explained his presence to her visitors and asked him how he had fared with Sir Thomas.

  ‘Exceeding well, madam,’ he said. ‘I may return to Oxford forthwith and have every prospect of employment there.’

  Congratulations and compliments followed, the conversation became general. By skilful movement Alan managed to reach Susan’s side. She still held the disputed book, so he begged to be shown it, and having seen, told her he knew of its provenance.

  ‘I think it will be proscribed,’ he said, ‘as lying, traitorous matter. Already I hear the great writer Milton hath been ordered to write a pamphlet, refuting it and the authorship. He will have to comply, but few will read his work. Besides, he is for freedom of speech in his defence of the Press.’

  ‘And liberty of conscience as our Lord Protector declares,’ said Mistress Phillips firmly.

  Again the growing argument was interrupted, but this time more alarmingly. For George Leslie, eager, aggressive, his face twisted into a mask of spite, burst unannounced into the room, followed by two helmeted guards of the New Model Army.

  Alan, sharing the general astonishment, still held the Eikon Basilike in his hand. But he felt it taken swiftly from him and heard Susan’s gentle voice whisper, ‘Deny you have it or have seen it!’

  He let it go and did not at once turn to look at her. When he did so, the book had disappeared, but she was holding one full sleeve against the waist of her wide gown.

  ‘You have a traitor in your house, madam!’ George said fiercely, addressing Mistress Leslie. ‘This young man, son of my mother’s bastard, hath brought subversive matter, a scurrilous libel of a book, into your house. I am here to arrest him in the name of the Commonwealth!’

  Of all the faces in the room the whitest, the most shocked, was that of Mistress Phillips, but Leslie ignored her presence completely for the whole time he was there. Alan moved a hand to his sword hilt on hearing the insult to his father, but dropped it when the soldiers took a step towards him.

  Mistress Leslie, pale-lipped, said quickly, ‘I have no book –’

  ‘You engage in plotting with this young scoundrel, who is in the pay of the exiled Charles Stuart’

  ‘I deny it’

  ‘The magistrate shall decide.’

  Clearly there was nothing to be done, Alan knew, until he was before a magistrate, to whom he might show his letter from Sir Thomas Hobbes. He had recovered from the shock of George’s appearance, so he bowed the women a polite farewell and left between the two guards.

  As they reached the gate upon the street, just beyond the door, Alan caught sight of a large passing figure. He called, ‘Master Carver! Master Richard Carver!’

  The man turned and at once came back, staring until he recognized the caller, when he smiled and held out a hand. But George Leslie behind cried, ‘Out of the way there! I have this fellow under arrest! Out of the way in the name of the Commonwealth!’

  Carver paid no attention to this order. He clasped Alan’s hand, while his bulk prevented the soldiers from moving through the gate.

  ‘And how be thee, young sir?’ the seaman asked, ‘since thee crewed with me in that crisis we met on our way to Holland?’

  He laid emphasis on the last word and smiled again. Leslie repeated his order in a still more furious voice. People in the street began to stop and stare. The bells of Saint Paul’s rang out the hour, but still Master Carver, mate of Surprise, held Alan’s hand and asked in his great voice above the noise around, ‘Be thee in trouble then, young sir?’

  ‘They are making a grave mistake, master mate,’ Alan yelled back. ‘But they take me to a magistrate, none the less.’

  ‘Then I will come with thee, friend,’ said Quaker Carver. ‘And we will lead the way.’

  Chapter Ten

  George Leslie was speechless with rage, but he saw that he was rapidly becoming a figure of fun to the growing crowd in Paternoster Row. His intended victim was walking calmly forward, still in pleasant conversation with the burly seaman who appeared to be a friend of his. The soldiers had moved on also, to keep in touch with the man they had been ordered to arrest. This left George to bring up the rear, a position he had never dreamed of holding.

  However, both Carver and the soldiers seemed to know the way to the local court, for they stopped when they reached the outside of a guarded building and turned about to wait for Master Leslie, who arrived scarlet-faced and panting, his temper imperfectly controlled.

  ‘Of what are thee accused?’ Carver asked, seeing that Alan was not afraid, but calm and confident.

  ‘It is rooted in a family quarrel, I think,’ the young man answered, ‘Which doth in no way concern me, as I think I can prove readily.’

  ‘You remain in England?’

  ‘I study in Oxford.’

  ‘He lies,’ George broke in. ‘Begone, sir, whoever you are. I see by your speech you are a Quaker. Take care I do not arrest you too, for presuming to speak to my prisoner, a traitor, as I shall prove.’

  Master Carver turned his back upon the angry man, but as he was on his way to visit others of his sect and had no intention of rousing action against himself or them, he took leave of Alan and walked away towards Cheapside.

  ‘The magistrate was less than sympathetic to what he saw at once was a trumped-up charge against Alan. Too many of these private feuds were coming his way now and being a conscientious man with a feeling for justice, he was sickened by them. Also he recognized the man, George Leslie, as an active member of the parliament, a warped scholar, very eager in defence of the new government, probably one of Thurloe’s spies, always on the track of improbable plots. Or real treacheries? Magistrate Stringer did not want to know which. His business lay with theft and fraud and petty violence and street crimes of every kind.

  The young man before him now did not appear to be criminal in any way. He was not affected by Master Leslie’s bitter accusations, merely waiting, it seemed, for his own turn to answer them.

  Which he did very effectively by producing his letter from the well-known and much-respected Sir Thomas Hobbes, mathematician and philosopher. Since the letter was addressed to no less a person than the Protector’s brother-in-law. Master James Wilkins of Wadham College at Oxford, recommending this youth –

  What is your name, young man?’ he asked, keeping his hand on the letter and looking up at Alan.


  ‘Alan Ogilvy,’ the accused said calmly, holding out his hand for his property.

  George Leslie stepped forward to snatch the document, but one of the soldiers put out a stout arm to bar his way.

  ‘I think this is none of your business, sir,’ the magistrate said, moving the letter still nearer to himself.

  He turned to Alan and began to question him closely about his parentage, his relationship with the Ogilvys, past and present, his upbringing, his early studies in Oxford, his visits to his parents abroad.

  Alan was never more thankful than now that his father’s career had been so little mixed with the Civil War in England. And even now was not directly involved in the exiled King’s movements, nor the latter’s plans for the future. The magistrate failed altogether to ask Alan if he himself was, or had been, employed by Charles Stuart, the older or the younger, though George Leslie intervened several times with hints that he knew of some secret activities that proved exactly the opposite of what his half-nephew was saying.

  As indeed he did, Alan thought, laughing inwardly, as he remembered escaping from Lucy Walter’s house in Dordrecht just in time to avoid the pursuer.

  But the magistrate ignored Master Leslie. He found Alan truthful, straightforward, serious, well behaved. He folded the letter from Sir Thomas Hobbes and gave it back to the young man. He dismissed the soldiers, he told George he was mistaken about young Master Ogilvy. He advised him in a cold voice to take more care in forming his accusations. This was not the first time. He remembered a certain occasion when even that worthy cloth manufacturer and merchant, Master Hugh Phillips, had been mentioned as less than loyal to the Commonwealth.

  Alan, his letter securely stowed inside his jacket, had been turning away after bowing his thanks politely to the magistrate, when he heard Master Phillips’s name mentioned. So he did not hurry away from the court, but waited for Master Leslie to join him at the door. When the latter did so he bowed very politely again and said, ‘I trust you are now convinced of my innocence, Uncle George. I go at once with my recommendation to Oxford, where I look to stay with my great-uncle Richard.’

  ‘Where you go does not concern me, impudent puppy that you are,’ George hissed at him. ‘I neither trust your word nor your intention.’

  He checked himself as he was about to say something of his own intentions, muttered a brief curse on the whole tribe of Ogilvy and began to move away, at first slowly, then at a good pace.

  Alan started to go off in the opposite direction, his mind much troubled by Leslie’s hatred. He had not gone more than a few steps when Richard Carver’s large figure joined him and his deep gentle voice said, ‘I see thee hath thy liberty, friend.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Alan answered. ‘But I never had much fear of losing it.’

  He explained everything that had been said after Carver had left the courthouse door and added, ‘I am indeed much beholdened to you, sir, for giving me such aid and comfort in my distress.’

  As the seaman made no answer to this he went on, ‘I was inclined to let my anger rule me under the fellow’s continued abuse and had I done so and attacked him it might well have been the end of me. My father hath complained often of our family quickness of temper and how it betrayed him in his own youth. You showed me how it might be ruled.’

  ‘Read thy bible, friend,’ Carver said after a pause. ‘Learn the rule of God and of his son, Jesus Christ our Lord. It is simple, it is the Way, but hard to follow.’

  Alan bowed his head but found no answer. He had heard this sort of thing before, but found it cant of an embarrassing kind. In Carver’s mouth and in these circumstances he did not find it cant, but he still had nothing to say.

  Presently, the seaman stopped and said, ‘We part here. I go to visit some of my people who suffer for their Faith because they preach peace and goodwill, and pure faith.’

  Alan, looking up, saw they had come outside the prison.

  ‘Is it safe for you to go in to see them?’ he asked awkwardly.

  ‘I take them the wherewithal to feed them. The turnkey does not object to share the bodily sustenance and so does not withhold the spiritual.’

  They shook hands and Alan turned away to go back to Paternoster Row, much impressed by his whole experience and particularly by the Quaker’s deep assurance.

  He found Mistress Leslie still much shaken by George Leslie’s rude invasion. She burst into tears when Alan arrived, unhurt and unhindered in his plans. She kept exclaiming, ‘That wicked man! That cruel wretch! Poor Cynthia! Poor lamb! To wish such evil to her when it was he himself put her in touch with his friend, Master Phillips!’

  ‘So that was the way of it?’ Alan said. ‘No wonder her preference has driven him mad with jealousy he has never conquered!’

  ‘Jealousy is his second name! He hates my Lucy, too, because she found the happiness with his father the poor man was robbed of by his mother.’

  ‘I would I had met my grandmother!’ Alan cried, half laughing.

  ‘Scurrilous rascal!’ Mistress Leslie told him, raising a hand to smack his cheek, but kissing it instead.

  For she was thankful to see he had come to no harm, which she had feared all the time he was away. She had not seen his protector join the party at the gate.

  Alan now told her about Carver’s action and she in her turn described how Mistress Phillips had called for her coach immediately and left with Susan, saying she dared not come again until the young man had left London, if he was fortunate enough to avoid punishment. But Susan had lingered behind and then come quickly back to give her the book she had hidden all this time in, her wide sleeve.

  ‘Brave girl!’ Alan exclaimed. ‘Brave and quick-witted!’

  ‘That she hath always been. She should have been a boy and a soldier, her father says.’

  ‘I would rather she remained as she is, a maiden and beautiful.

  Seeing the look in his eyes Mistress Leslie said, ‘The book was meant for you, lad, though she did not speak your name. So take it. I cannot keep it in this house for fear George Leslie may pounce again. As I am sure he fully intends.’

  ‘Why so?’

  ‘Because he is trying to secure this house for himself and the rules of sequestration are beyond any ordinary understanding.’

  Alan did not press her to explain because he wanted to go to his room and handle the book and think about Susan and press his lips to the cover where if had rested in the crook of her arm. Besides, he must pack his clothes and make arrangements for his journey to Oxford the next day. Having no groom with him or other companion he must find and arrange to join others in like case or a party of coaches with attendants. The roads had never been safe from robbers, but now with many destitute sometime soldiers at large, as well as dissenters of strange sects, groups of loyalists and other desperate beings, a single rider took his life in his hands if he passed even a mile or two from the city, or at night even within its bounds.

  In this he was successful, though he had to wait another full day and night before the cavalcade he had news of was ready to leave.

  The journey went smoothly, the weather was kind, the roads dry, and with little wind the dust lay quiet even under the hoofs of eight horses, for no one was in a great hurry, so the pace was subdued.

  As Alan rode over the bridge at Wallingford a man cutting reeds by the river’s edge quite near the ancient stonework looked up at the party of riders. His eyes met Alan’s and both stared, for they recognized one another. The reed-cutter was the poacher whom Alan had rescued from the trap in the woods by Goring.

  Neither spoke, but Alan held back his horse until his companions had passed on, then reined in and looked back. The man had climbed the river bank and after seeing that his former deliverer had stopped, came forward. He limped a little still but clearly got no pain from the ankle and was not gravely handicapped by its deformity. One wrist was stiff, but served.

  As he came near Alan said, ‘So your leg recovered from your accident?’

&nbs
p; ‘And the arm. Thanks to you, master. My life as well as my limbs.’

  ‘For your life you should thank God. The ankle too.’

  ‘God did not loose the trap, nor carry me home, though I prayed to Him for help all those hours of pain.’

  ‘You blaspheme, fellow,’ Alan said; ‘I think it was God sent me to find you.’ He was smiling and the man laughed on a warm impulse he said, ‘What is your name, friend?’

  ‘Will Cutler,’ the man answered, staring. ‘Be you one of ’em, sir?’

  Alan saw that he meant was he a Quaker, so he answered, ‘I know a seaman who is one of the fellowship. And you?’

  ‘Nay, but there’s a parcel of such in town,’ he nodded back at Wallingford, ‘and they do serve the sick hereabouts – Only –’

  ‘Only they are too godly for such as thou, rascal.’

  ‘They both laughed again and Alan gathered up his reins and rode on, while Will Cutler slid carefully down the river bank again to attack the reeds with more vigour than ever after such a pleasant unexpected encounter with one whom he would always admire and respect as his life’s hero.

  Alan caught up the rest of his train very soon and the remainder of his journey was uneventful, indeed so dull he found it wearisome and was glad when he parted from his companions to reach his Uncle Richard’s house.

  He had not been there since his visit with his father nearly two years ago, when they had been shocked by its state of neglect. This was now worse, far worse, Alan decided. The same old servant opened the door to him, but failed at first to know him. When she did so, she greeted him sourly, saying that the doctor would no longer receive visitors.