In the King's Absence

by Josephine Bell

  So James got rid of the incompetent and mildly fraudulent housekeeper and in addition to Doctor Richard’s former man had engaged a new one, also a fresh gardener to attend to the growing of vegetables, while he engaged such daily help in the house as they considered necessary. In a very short time the establishment settled into a modest, comfortable regime. The stables, too, under James’s direct rule, were put into order, the Doctor’s old coach repainted and once more fit to take him and Thomas, who no longer rode a horse, for drives in the countryside or to Luscombe, or into Oxford to see Doctor Richard’s other old friends.

  The only discontented member of the household was poor Sarah. Her father had welcomed her back without much show of feeling either way. He had always accepted her mental disability with fortitude, without rancour, nor with sentimental pity. He had expected her to succumb during early childhood to one or other of the fevers that usually afflicted the young. This would have been greeted as God’s will, as was her whole condition, and considered a merciful release. Without hypocrisy such an event was usually welcomed as the return to its Blessed Maker of an innocent, pure spirit unsullied by the sinful world.

  But Sarah had not succumbed; she had grown up into a plain, rather stunted young woman, given to long sulks or sudden fits of violent temper. But on the whole able to manage her own life moderately well, so long as someone gave her a little affection and directed her daily routine in useful directions. Useful, that is, to the guardian who looked after her welfare.

  Doctor Richard knew there was no chance of finding a husband for this daughter. Nor did he think it right to attempt to do so. In the old days she might have been placed in a convent. But that, as a Protestant and a scholar, he found immoral, if not cruel. Fortunately, Cynthia had been willing to look after her sister when their mother died. She would have been willing to look after her still, but Sarah had refused to go abroad. So, Doctor Ogilvy regretted to himself, she was back in Oxford, but fortunately James, Sir James, bless the boy, would see she prospered and did not saddle him with a bastard grandchild, always a danger in the case of these afflicted women.

  He did not know of Sarah’s obsessive infatuation for George Leslie, nor her part in ruining the Phillips family by stoking his malice with fuel he could use to that purpose. Cynthia, had, however, confided it to James, who unfortunately had not thought it possible. He was wrong, as it appeared, alas, at the end.

  Meanwhile happiness on the whole prevailed at the ageing scholar’s house and spread to Luscombe. Sir Francis Leslie rode over to welcome his old friend’s sons directly after their arrival and when the Ogilvy family coach was restored to use it brought Doctor Richard and Thomas and his sister to pay their respects in a return visit.

  Sarah was indifferent to the visit until she recognized Lady Leslie’s mother as the former mistress of the house in Paternoster Row. Her beloved George had won it for his services to the Protector. Malice shone in her little eyes as she remembered the old lady’s expulsion that had followed immediately upon Master Phillips’s disgrace and flight. As she had been returned to Oxford by her sister before she learned any more or had now forgotten it, she felt considerable satisfaction in finding Mistress Leslie was now wholly dependent upon her son-in-law.

  Mistress Leslie, however, showed no sign of discomfort. She had no need to. The alderman had left her very comfortably off, with funds invested where they could scarcely be touched. She greeted Sarah kindly and then paid her no more attention, a kind of treatment so very familiar to the afflicted one that she took it for granted. So the general reunion of the two families was altogether a happy one.

  ‘I think we have seen the end of all this sad strife,’ Sir Francis said. ‘If only those loyal souls who have plotted and planned for so many years can be patient at the last.’

  James said, ‘I fear they will not. His Majesty expects to have their support for his coming back. He knows there will be an army at his disposal – but I should not speak of this, perhaps –’

  Sir Francis smiled.

  ‘We do nothing but discuss it in the town, in the colleges. Loyalists and parliamentarians alike. We hear the ports are guarded by government troops. We are told that lists are made of all available horses and they will be impounded at the first sign of rebellion.’

  ‘So!’ Thomas exclaimed. ‘That is why a fellow came to our stable last week to know if we had a horse for sale, I showed him our four, but denied he should buy any one of them and he went away.’

  On the whole James was right. ‘The Trust’, urged on by John Mordaunt, had demanded action more than once, but the Army was still paramount and the various branches of ‘The Trust’ were not fully prepared nor all agreed. In Wales they were willing, but hung back, fearful of Ireland, obedient to the iron fist that had destroyed disobedience. In the Midlands there was a small force under Lord Byron; in Staffordshire under Sir Charles Wolseley. In Kent Sir Thomas Peyton longed to rise, in Sussex Willoughby of Parham, in Surrey Mordaunt himself.

  As the weeks passed without incident, the Government ordered certain precautions to be put into practice. Many of the listed horses were in fact impounded. The English ports were more closely guarded still. Some important people were arrested, some of them held, others released on parole. The Navy patrolled the Flanders coast and the northern Channel and North Sea. Secretary Thurloe’s knowledge and powers of anticipation seemed to be endless.

  Not that he expected to succeed. He knew too much for that. He knew that General Monck held the future of the country in his capable hands; the general had full control of his Ironsides, he had a clear view of his country’s need for the return of the King. And the Government knew that Monck had seen and approved the man who could fill that post. Not perfect, in fact in some ways most scandalous; but possessed of a keen brain, a tolerant outlook, a most royal manner and an iron determination to take back the throne.

  ‘Charles will be back,’ Thurloe told himself. ‘And if he do not hang me for my work since Worcester, he may find that work so valuable to him I may barter my life for my files.’

  Which in some sort he managed to bring off, for he did not suffer, but did indeed survive the change.

  There was only one rising, in the north-west, led by Sir George Booth, who had kept all his plans secret, especially from Willis. Being unexpected it was at first successful as other attempts had been, with in this case a published appeal against tyranny, a reminder of Magna Carta and the Petition of Rights.

  But the general response was poor. The ‘Rump’ Parliament, governing shakily, sent General Lambert against Booth. With easy trained competence the government troops defeated an amateur force and Sir George Booth was captured and put in the Tower. But events were moving fast. The rebel was never brought to trial and suffered no punishment.

  Events were indeed moving fast. In Calais, in Holland, in London, Thurloe’s agents were being recalled, sent upon new missions or discharged. Among the latter was George Leslie, who, though unemployed for some time, had never been formally discharged.

  His failure to kill the entire Phillips family had only increased his murderous intention, which soon became obvious to Secretary Thurloe when he made his next report and which prompted that astute manipulator to end his services for good. The man was now become mad, he judged. If a restoration was on the way and who, other than himself, was in a better position to know the detail of it, then assassination must not appear anywhere in his recent files. Particularly such blatant family quarrels as this affair must not seem to have been fostered, even promoted from his office.

  So George found himself out of employment, out of friends, out of funds, except for a rather meagre gratuity. But with his occupation of the house in Paternoster Row to solace him for what he continued to think were his eternal wrongs and frustrations. His thirst for revenge was unquenchable.

  General Monck had already begun his march south to establish the Restoration when George Leslie took horse for Oxford. He knew by then the whole situation
at Doctor Richard’s house there.

  Sarah, who could not write nor read, had given him all the detail by word of mouth she had sent by the regular messenger her family shared with Sir Francis Leslie’s establishment. The messenger, who knew of her affliction, was ready enough to indulge the poor creature, seeing her message was to Master Leslie, Sir Francis’s son. It made little sense, but Master George would understand it. He made no inquiry about it, though the young lady had delivered it to him herself with a degree of secrecy he might have questioned had he not been so long acquainted with her state.

  George came a few days later, rode into the Ogilvy stable yard, dismounted and flung his reins to the boy who came forward to greet him.

  He said arrogantly, ‘My uncle is at home, I suppose?’

  It was dusk, the boy did not remember him, but to save himself the trouble of inquiry answered, ‘Doctor Richard is at home, sir.’

  ‘See to my horse. Give it drink but leave it saddled. I shall not be staying long.’

  ‘This time,’ he told himself, ‘I shall not argue as I did so mistakenly with the Phillips women. This time my argument will be death.’

  He had forgotten his cousins; Sarah he totally disregarded. It was the uncle who had given his Cynthia to the cloth merchant, Uncle Richard, the old villain who had destroyed the hope of his youth, who must die now, at last. Die with his sins upon him.

  But he had forgotten his cousins. He had not even remembered the servants, though Sarah had tried to describe all the new staff in her muddled, excited message. He found the heavy door of the house fastened; he had to knock. It was opened by a young maidservant, by which time his patience was ended so that he pushed past her as he had done in Amsterdam, drawing his sword as he did so.

  She screamed and when he turned and threatened her screamed again and called for help so lustily the sound echoed through the quiet house.

  Doctor Richard heard it, sitting dozing in his library, with an open book on his knee.

  Thomas heard it, sitting in the ground-floor parlour, trying to amuse Sarah with a game of backgammon. He leaped up, made for the door, pulling out a dagger from its sheath at his waist. He had given up wearing a sword because he knew he would never be challenged to a duel. But George, plunging forward from the house door, was beyond such considerations.

  ‘The old miscreant!’ he yelled, seeing Thomas but not recognizing him. ‘The old villain!’

  Thomas knew him and knew what he had already done. He backed towards the parlour door he had left, hoping to draw the madman away from the library, but Doctor Richard had been roused by the screams and shouts. He got up quickly and went to the door of the library in time to hear the single clash of steel as Thomas leaped aside from George’s first thrust and tried to disarm him as they clinched.

  ‘You first then!’ George yelled, twisting away.

  But James was on the stairs, hurling himself down, drawing his sword as he came. He pushed his father back into the library with a sweep of his arm at the moment George’s sword drove into Thomas’s side.

  ‘Down, murderer!’ he shouted and before George could withdraw his weapon and turn James had driven his blade into the assassin’s chest.

  The servants came running, but too late. Sarah came, adding her demented screams to those of the other women. Disregarding George, except to kick his sword from his hand, he went to Thomas, who had pulled himself to his knees and was trying to stand.

  ‘Where?’ James asked.

  ‘My side.’ The voice was faint and as a manservant came forward quickly Thomas collapsed again on the floor.

  It was Doctor Richard who gave the orders to the staff. Thomas was carried to his bed where James undressed him and bound up his wound. It looked small on the surface and bled little. But they both knew it had gone deep.

  ‘It will be the end of me,’ Thomas whispered. His face was grey and pinched, but he was not in much pain. ‘Better so, brother. I shall not have to wait so long as I feared.’

  They both knew this was true and accepted it. They had been ready for many years to die in battle; had hoped for it. It had come so now for Thomas and he was glad.

  Doctor Richard directed that the murderer, who still lived, should be taken to another bedroom and laid upon the bed. At the same time one stable boy was sent into Oxford with a message to the family physician to bring a surgeon at once and the other to Luscombe to bring Sir Francis to his dying son.

  The men of healing arrived first, but there was little they could do. They attended Thomas at once, until they were disturbed by the arrival in his room of Sarah, wild-eyed and distraught, demanding succour for George Leslie, who would not answer, she said, when she asked him how he fared.

  Her cries were so frantic and so insistent that the surgeon went with her, but came back almost at once to report he could do nothing, the man was unconscious and dying. James then went to take his sister downstairs to the female servants, but he found she had locked the door against all comers and refused to unbar it, telling him to leave her with her beloved, who had fallen into a healing sleep.

  Leaving her to her sad delusion and his brother to the men from Oxford, James went downstairs where he found his father still in a state of unnatural agitation and energy, refusing to rest, refusing all sustenance, though clearly needing both.

  It was several hours later when Sir Francis Leslie rode into the yard. He dismounted quickly and made his way at once towards the house, whose great door stood open, while candles seemed to shine from every window.

  As he reached the porch another, angrier name shone in one of the upper windows and through the open door a great billowing cloud of smoke poured over him, while through it he heard cries and shouts as those in the bedroom with Thomas became aware that fire had seized upon the house, coming from the room where Sarah had shut herself.

  The former pandemonium broke out more strongly than before, but this time it was Sir Francis who gave the orders, and began the rescues, for Doctor Richard was no longer capable. He had given way at last to his son’s pleading and had allowed himself to be seated in his big chair in the library, with his feet up on a footstool. He had sipped a little wine, he had given way to his utter exhaustion and raging anxiety for Thomas; he was not able to rouse himself again.

  But his friend of a lifetime was with him, helping some of the servants to carry him out of the house and lay him upon a long garden seat. They brought rugs to cover him and when James with the physician and surgeon carried Thomas from the now blazing upper storey, they laid the injured man beside his father.

  Only then Sir Francis demanded, ‘And George? Where is George?’ His voice grew to a shout as his fear mounted.

  James heard him, turned and fled into the hall. Useless to bring the villain out, for he must be dead by now, but Sarah?

  He began to climb the stairs, wrapping his waist sash about his mouth. The staircase creaked ominously, as the whole upper part of the house began to sway from the loosening of the great tie beams.

  ‘Sarah!’ he yelled again and again, but the sound did not carry far through the muffling about his face and head. He could see that the door of the room where she was with George was still shut. He managed to reach it, still calling to her to come out, he would save her, to open, to come out! But either she was already overcome by smoke or obstinately determined to die with her beloved, there was no telling. All was silent inside that locked door.

  James heard a voice behind him. Sir Francis from the stairs ordered him back. He gave up the hopeless struggle. Useless to be killed. Sir Francis told him again and again, as they stood together on the edge of the grass, coughing and wiping their eyes and shaking away the burning sparks that showered upon them after the roof fell in.

  All round them servants and neighbours poured and pumped water from the well, made chains with buckets, beat down flames. Farther back lay a pile of furniture, books and objects from the ground-floor rooms that these same servants had run in and fetched out while t
he feeble inmates had been rescued.

  At the edge of the lawn, when James and Sir Francis had recovered their breath, the latter said, ‘You must come to Luscombe – all of you. Nay, James, my son’s death he brought upon himself. He has wrought a great evil and now paid for it. But Thomas – and your dear father, who hath suffered –’

  He could not go on; he was blinded by his tears as well as by the smoke. In fact James had to guide him towards the spot where Doctor Richard and his son lay upon the bench, hand clasped in hand.

  The coach was ordered to be got ready, but in the end it was not needed. Thomas’s wish was fulfilled. He had died in a fight – a true fight. He died quietly, rejoicing at the end of pain, clasping his father’s hand.

  But the old man had seen James dash back into the burning house. He had concluded that he too, together with the poor feeble daughter, had perished. Shock, together with despair, brought the final hammer blow to break a heart that had endured too much.

  ‘But James lives!’ Sir Francis whispered, as he knelt beside his friend. ‘See, he is here! He lives!’

  Doctor Richard heard his friend’s voice, tried to open his tired eyes, but could only manage a smile to show he understood. Sir Francis tried again to rouse him, but the overwrought heart had stopped: the tormented spirit was free.

  ‘God rest them both,’ Sir Francis said, kneeling, deeply moved.

  James Ogilvy, soldier of the King’s Army, stood staring before him, while the fire-fighters, continuing their task, poured water and beat flames to contain the ruin of his once, happy, carefree home.