In the King's Absence

by Josephine Bell

  Master Phillips groaned aloud. The tone of the discussion sickened him. Either they considered Alan to be an obvious spy and himself a fool to be taken in by him, or they thought he made light of Alan’s activities because he was himself partly involved in subversion. In either case he was in great danger of losing their confidence.

  He returned to his place at his desk and sat down. Before he had time to speak the venomous colleague said, ‘We still have no satisfactory answer to how Master Phillips learned about the whore, Lucy Walter. May we know now the source of that information?’

  Boldness was the only means, Phillips decided.

  ‘The information came through Paternoster Row,’ he answered steadily. ‘I would imagine from Holland, because the woman is known widely to have been living there for several years under the protection of a rapid succession of lovers.’

  ‘From Alan Ogilvy, then?’

  ‘Mistress Leslie has many connections with France and the Low Countries. The alderman was in the fish trade, you may remember.’

  ‘And so have we,’ said the youngest and hitherto most silent of the group. ‘We have our own sources of information, I think.’

  There was silence in the room after this. Until a fresh subject of discussion was put forward that concerned only their home affairs and did not lead to unhappy problems of intention or development.

  But the group broke up soon after this and significantly refused both refreshment and any sort of social gathering. Hugh spoke sadly and seriously to his wife afterwards.

  ‘There is a net drawing round me again,’ he said and explained the suspicions and hints that had been voiced at the meeting.

  ‘There is nothing secret about that Lucy Walter,’ Cynthia said, scornfully. ‘But naturally those old sour puritans among you resent her notoriety, while delighting in the cause of it.’

  ‘I think you wrong them,’ her husband answered. ‘But right or wrong I am in danger from them and I must demand of you that you avoid both Leslies and Ogilvys until this demand for investigation has been dispelled or overcome.’

  Cynthia was inclined to rebel at this firm order from her usually mild husband and she carried her complaint to her sister, who carried it in turn to George Leslie. For Sarah, too, had spent much of her childhood in the company of the Luscombe family. Her poor limited feelings and understanding, while making her difficult to train as a child and later to engage in normal adult interests, nevertheless built her into the devoted slave of the man who had used her when he was a boy to secure access to her elder sister Cynthia, at the time he was seriously paying court to her.

  Sarah it had been all the time who had provided George with his material for Thurloe and who now, like the maggot in the fruit, was spoiling and eating away the centre of the Phillips family affections, their faith in Hugh, their trust in Cynthia. Also, in fresh spite, Susan’s young love and hope for the future Alan Ogilvy.

  Alan duly received the message from Charles to renew his acquaintance with Mistress Walter if she came to England, to bring the King’s knowledge of his son up to date and if the woman was not expelled from London immediately to try to secure this or at any rate prevent an unwelcome outburst of gossip about Charles’s personal affairs.

  George Leslie had made his plan to convey Lucy from Holland to where she could work more active mischief for him. He had acted with some care that the detail of his plan would not be discovered by the other side. He had wormed himself into old Mother Schik’s confidence as fully as he had into Lucy’s own, though there were times when she still feared and tried to avoid him. He assured them both he did all to right Lucy’s wrongs and those of her children and so they must give wrong dates for her leaving for England and settle the children and the housekeeper with the wine merchant Hans in Dordrecht while she was away. But he had reckoned without Tom Howard.

  While Alan was considering how best to obey the King’s command without drawing undue attention to himself he met, outside the College gates and seemingly quite by accident, a person who brought at once to his mind the most ludicrous adventure of his life up to this moment

  ‘Master Howard!’ he exclaimed. ‘What make you here in Oxford?’

  ‘I think you know that already,’ the tall man answered, taking Alan’s arm familiarly, ‘but let us walk on together as friends until we can speak further.’

  This they did and when they could conveniently they sat on the bank of the Cherwell in sight, but out of hearing, of any who passed on the towpath some yards away. At first they exchanged casual news of unnamed places and persons, until they were quite sure they were unheeded. Then Tom gave him further, more serious information.

  When Alan fully understood George Leslie’s plan regarding Lucy Walter, he nodded with a face of disgust.

  ‘I have had a letter to this effect,’ he said, ‘disguised and without names, but the meaning is clear. So they have come, have they?’

  ‘They have come. Leslie has forced himself upon good Mistress Leslie in Paternoster Row, but Mistress Walter is already carried off to the Tower by Thurloe’s orders, so I think the villain does not succeed over well.’

  ‘The Tower!’

  ‘From which she will doubtless disappear, but whether back across the sea or forward into her grave we cannot know immediately.’

  Alan swore furiously.

  ‘My orders are to discover from her any useful news of the King’s son,’ he groaned, ‘Am I to brave the Tower for that? What construction can our present nest of stinging serpents put on such a request, such an action, even if granted?’

  ‘I think you would have to take her back to Holland if she be released.’

  Alan stared at him.

  ‘Why not you, sir? Are you not her friend, her sometime protector? Could you not indeed have saved her from the whole distress and danger of this enterprise?’

  Howard laughed.

  ‘Have you forgot the plight we were in at Dordrecht when the lady feared to have our presence discovered by this same Leslie? I work for His Majesty too, my lad. And I have been instructed to see you perform this task and none other. But I dare not appear in public, Thurloe’s public.’

  Alan argued a little longer, but it was no use. He gave in, with a very ill grace, for it meant leaving his work again, making another poor excuse to join his family abroad, with yet more likelihood that he would never be allowed back to continue his studies in natural philosophy and the art of medicine.

  Presently he and Tom Howard walked back into the town, to the sample lodging to which Alan had moved from Luscombe on his last return from Spa. The Leslies had been touched by the young man’s careful thought for their safety. His recent long absence had been duly noted in all quarters of power, both university and governmental, and though the apparent protection of the Warden of Wadham was very powerful, the new severity of the law, as administered by the hated major-generals, had been devised to bite. And bite it did, so the Leslies approved while they regretted the need for Alan’s departure. They had seen very little of him of late. He did not now warn them of his fresh going.

  Tom had put up for the previous night at a small inn on the outskirts of the town. He had his own horse there and when Alan came to him carrying a bundle of clothes and a couple of precious notebooks of his experiments, he found another horse waiting as well and the two rode off together.

  Mistress Leslie was thrown into a great flutter by their arrival at the Ogilvy house. Master George had commandeered it in the name of the Lord Protector, she told than. He had produced a paper from Master Secretary Thurloe to that effect. But thank the good Lord he had not brought that brazen whore to the house, for she had been seized as soon as landed at Tilbury and thrown at once into the Tower, from whence all decent folk hoped her next journey would be to Tyburn and good riddance to a false Welsh fornicator –

  ‘I believe the sin was equal in the first instance, madam,’ Tom could not help interrupting and Mistress Leslie blushed and stopped a tirade that was quite
out of keeping with her usual good temper and kindliness.

  But Alan understood her sense of outrage, which was his kinsman’s fault rather than poor Lucy’s. He said so, where upon she turned to him and said with tears in her eyes, ‘You are right, Alan. Moreover by his evil presence here he has driven away our excellent friends and your good cousins the Phillipses. I have not seen Mistress Cynthia, nor Master Hugh these many weeks.’

  ‘And Susan?’ Alan asked, trying to control the fear in his voice.

  ‘Nothing. The whole family, I hear, is in danger now from that devil’s hints and lies.’

  Tom Howard interrupted again.

  ‘Where is Master Leslie now? Does he still lodge here?’

  Mistress Leslie gave a short bitter laugh.

  ‘Think you I would have taken you in had he been like to appear? I am old, I need not fear the future, which spells death before long in any case. But I am not yet so tired of this world I would spring on for death with eagerness. No, he took his things away, looking part angry, part anxious. He gave me no word of thanks nor any explanation, so I cannot tell you if he be still in London or gone from hence. Only I judge he hath not wholly succeeded in his present wickedness.’

  Alan and Howard exchanged glances. The latter said, ‘Madam, if we may trespass upon your hospitality a few hours longer, so that Master Ogilvy here may rest with you, I will go out and discover if I can how matters lie with regard to Mistress Walter. She came here under Master Leslie’s protection, I have been told, to set in order some monetary affairs in her family. In this she was independent of her protector.’

  As Mistress Leslie looked from one to the other of the young men Alan added, ‘My business is from the King to Mistress Walter about his son. Only that. If I can see her it will be soon and I can return to Oxford.’

  She looked relieved and recovered her spirits somewhat. While Tom was away she gave Alan a good dinner and spent a pleasant hour hearing news of his family. But on Howard’s return he was thrown again into a deep depression. For there was no comfort for any of them. Lucy Walter was not allowed to pursue any kind of business with her lawyers, family or otherwise. She would not be punished for returning to England without permission. But she would be deported again this very night.

  ‘Alone?’ Alan asked, in an agony of doubt, fear and distaste.

  ‘Apparently. I cannot work direct, you understand. If you must see her I could perhaps help you to do so. Whether that contents you and she can give you what you seek must be your own business.’

  ‘By seeing her I fulfil my mission,’ Alan argued.

  ‘By seeing her you bring yourself and your family before the authorities,’ warned Mistress Leslie.

  ‘And thereby please this vicious kinsman of yours,’ added Tom, ‘by adding to the sum of errors your family is piling up in serving the Exile.’

  ‘I cannot help it,’ Alan decided in the end.

  He gathered his things together again, thanked Mistress Leslie and kissed her very tenderly. Whereupon she wept and blessed him for his generous heart and said she would pray for him every day until she heard he was safely away from their suffering land.

  ‘You had best keep over there until the people rise in earnest,’ she whispered as she kissed him in return, ‘Which they surely will if the present laws prevail.’

  ‘Hush!’ said Howard, guarding the door, ‘or you will not live to see that happy day.’

  Alan, instructed by his friend, presented himself at the Tower as an acquaintance of Mistress Walter, sent to speak to her before her imminent departure. He gave his correct name, clearly familiar.

  ‘You last saw the lady in Dordrecht, sir?’

  ‘That is correct.’

  This must be Tom’s work, he thought.

  ‘Also connected in kinship with the gentleman who escorted her from Amsterdam, I believe?’

  Alan nodded: he could not bring himself to do more. Papers were compared, be added his name to a list. Then he was allowed in and conducted up a narrow staircase to a small room, where Lucy Walter sat, very subdued by her present surroundings.

  She jumped up eagerly when the door was unlocked but sat down again immediately, for she had quite forgotten Alan, which was not surprising, seeing she had met him only once and then for a short, interrupted interview.

  The jailer shut the door upon him. He foresaw a fee for a private interview and since the lady was to be such a temporary charge upon him, her value was likely to be small and this opportunity of profit must be secured.

  Alan soon learned all he came for. The King’s little son was, as he had expected, lodged with old Mother Schik at the wine-merchant’s store in Dordrecht. Mistress Walter would be taken by water that night down river to the Pool and despatched back to Amsterdam.

  ‘If I am able to find your ship I will accompany you,’ Alan told her.

  ‘I do not know the name of it’ she answered.

  ‘Does Master Leslie go with you?’

  ‘That traitor! That betrayer! They threatened me with the rack! With hanging!’

  ‘Have a care, madam. The jailer is but just outside the door.’

  She cried a little. Alan felt no sympathy for her, but only confirmation of his anger and contempt for Thurloe’s spy, his cousin. He repeated that he would try to find her ship. His duty was to bring true news of the young duke to Charles.

  So he left very shortly after, handing over several small sums to sweeten his path from that grim prison and ensure the lady’s way thence as well. He found Tom Howard at the wharves by the Pool not far below London Bridge. The latter gave him the name of Lucy’s ship and waited until both were safely on board. She had been provided with a cabin and was guarded there by a Commonwealth man until the vessel was about to sail.

  So Alan fulfilled his mission. He delivered a full account of it, first to Lord Clarendon, then in private audience to the King, who was graciously pleased to commend him.

  ‘You have shaped well, sir,’ Charles said. ‘Well, successfully, modestly. We are pleased with this performance and look to employ you again soon. Therefore do not leave us too readily for those learned studies in Oxford Moreover we fear you may not be welcome in that university after your recent escapade, which seems to have caused no little stir of notoriety.

  Alan felt a cold air engulf him as the King spoke, renewing all those misgivings he had known at the house in Paternoster Row.

  His tears were inevitably fulfilled. After some weeks a letter came, brought to him by special messenger from his father, who had been delivered it direct from London. It had passed from Mistress Leslie to a Dutch friend of the dead alderman and from him to the colonel. It was from Susan Phillips. It was addressed coldly to Master Alan Ogilvy and began in her well-formed writing, for all the cloth merchant’s children had attended school, ‘Sir, I have been made aware of your lying treachery and betrayal, not only of my tenderest feelings but of my family’s safety, since you have encompassed our ruin. I must demand that you trouble me no more and I wish I may never see you again.’

  The ending was abrupt, but correct. It was signed ‘Susan Phillips.’ It struck upon Alan’s heart like a thunderbolt hurled from heaven.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Alan was not too shocked and horrified by Susan’s accusation not to wonder immediately what she meant by it. What dire mischance had misfallen the Phillips family and how had it come about? Some more of George Leslie’s mischief, no doubt. But how could it possibly be linked with his own behaviour in any way? All of those pleasant sensible people with their various gifts and abilities had been fully aware that his political views differed from theirs. He was no cavalier like Mistress Cynthia’s brothers, no rabid royalist like her old father. He stood on middle ground as far as Cromwell’s government was concerned, for there was much he saw as improved and in no way more unpleasantly autocratic than Charles the First’s ways of attempting to raise money. They knew this and they knew Colonel Ogilvy had always served the Stuart dynasty, th
ough abroad, and had brought up his own children in a like persuasion.

  So what could they possibly hold against him? His only services to the King had been of a strictly personal nature. Though he had gone to Devon, the rebellion there had already failed when he arrived. He had then simply helped his own kinsmen, those unfortunate cavaliers, the Mistress Cynthia’s brothers. Again a totally personal matter. He was determined to find out the truth of this horrible and shocking letter.

  The truth was harsher than he had imagined possible. It came to him without any effort of his own, in the person of a secretary from Lord Clarendon’s office.

  ‘My lord would know how much you can inform him of a certain Master Hugh Phillips, a cloth maker and merchant of the City of London, until lately a member of the restored Parliament, that so-called Lord Protector hath called together.’

  Alan was reluctant to speak in any way about a man who was father to the girl he loved. But there was news, perhaps of exactly the kind be needed, so he said, ‘Master Phillips is married to the daughter of a great-uncle of mine, the learned Doctor Richard Ogilvy of Oxford.’

  ‘Ah, this is what my Lord Clarendon hath been informed. Can you tell me more?’

  ‘If it concerns my family I will try,’ Alan said boldly. ‘But first with what purpose?’

  The Chancellor’s secretary smiled but answered amiably enough, ‘I see you are ignorant of the position of that family. The worthy clothier has been purged from the parliament and proscribed. But he was forewarned by his well-wishers and left the country a week ago. He is now in Amsterdam, with those of his profession, his family perhaps in hiding, perhaps in prison. But they are not with him in the Low Countries.’

  Alan burst into loud cursing of the Commonwealth, its narrow puritan superstitions and prejudices, its crass stupidity of putting any trust in an evil liar and blasphemer, who deserved a criminal’s fate if one of his victims did not provide it first. When he had calmed himself a little he explained who he meant and why he had spoken so of him. He begged leave to see my lord, as he thought it possible the whole matter might have to come before the King.