The King's General

by Daphne Du Maurier

  "My daughters are grown up," she said. "Orley Court becomes a burden. Perhaps I would like a third husband and security."

  Which my brother could not give her, I thought, but which a man some fifteen years younger than herself, with lands and fortune, might be pleased to do. Mrs. Harris... Mrs. Denys... Mrs. Manaton? "You broke one man in my family," I said. "Take care that you do not seek to break another."

  "You think you can prevent me?"

  "Not I. You may do as you please. I only give you warning."

  "Warning of what?"

  "You will never play fast and loose with Robin, as you did with Kit. Robin would be capable of murder."

  She stared at me a moment, uncomprehending. And then my brother came into the room.

  I thought that night of the Royalist rising which had planned to kindle Cornwall from east to west, while all the time there was enough material for explosive purposes gathered beneath the roof of Menabilly to set light to the whole country.

  We made strange company for dinner. Gartred, her silver hair bejeweled, at the head of the table, and those two men on either side of her, my brother with hand ever reaching to the decanter, his eyes feasting on her face, while Ambrose Manaton, cool and self-possessed, kept up a flow of conversation in her right ear, excluding Robin, about the corrupt practices of Parliament--which made me suspect he must have a share in it, from knowing so much detail. On my left sat Peter Courtney, who from time to time caught Gartred's eye and smiled in knowing fashion. But as he did the same to the serving maid who passed his plate, and to me when I chanced to glance his way, I guessed it to be habit rather than conspiracy. I knew my Peter. Dick glowered in the center, throwing black looks towards his cousin opposite as he rattled on about the letters he had received from his brother Jack, who was grown so high in favor with the Prince of Wales in France that they were never parted. And as I looked at each in turn, seeing they were served with food and wine, playing the hostess in this house that was not mine, frowned upon, no doubt, by the ghost of old John Rashleigh, I thought, with some misgiving, that had Richard sought his hardest in the county he could not have found six people more likely to fall out and disagree than those who sat around the table now.

  Gartred, his sister, had never wished him well. Robin, my brother, had disobeyed his orders in the past. Peter Courtney was one of those who had muttered at his leadership. Dick, his son, feared and hated him. Ambrose Manaton was an unknown quantity, and Bunny, his nephew, a pawn who could read a map. Were these to be the leaders of the rising? If so, God help poor Cornwall and the Prince of Wales.

  "My uncle," Bunny was saying, arranging the salt cellars in the fashion of a fort, "never forgets an injury. He told me once, if a man does him an ill turn, he will serve him with a worse one."

  He went on to describe some battle of the past, to which no one listened, I think, except Peter, who did so from good nature. But the words Bunny had spoken so lightly rang strangely in my head. "My uncle never forgets an injury."

  He must have been injured by all of us at one time or other, seated at the table now at Menabilly. What a time to choose to pay old scores, Richard, my lover, mocking and malevolent. The eve of a rising, and these six people in it to the hilt.

  There was something symbolic in the empty chair beside me.

  Then we fell silent, for the door suddenly opened and he stood there, watching us, his hat upon his head, his long cloak hanging from his shoulders. Gone was the auburn hair I loved so well, and the curled wig that fell below his ears gave him a dark, satanic look that matched his smile.

  "What a bunch of prizes," he said, "for the Sheriff of the Duchy if he chose to call. Each one of you a traitor."

  They stared at him, blankly--even Gartred, for once, slow to follow his swift mind. But I saw Dick start and gnaw his fingernails. Then Richard tossed his hat and cloak to the waiting servant in the hall and came to the empty chair at my right side.

  "Have you been waiting long?" he said to me.

  "Two years and three months," I answered him.

  He filled the glass from the decanter at his side.

  "In January '46," he said to the company, "I broke a promise to our hostess here. I left her one morning at Werrington, saying I would be back again to breakfast with her. Unfortunately, the Prince of Wales willed otherwise. And I breakfasted instead in Launceston Castle. I propose to make amends for this tomorrow."

  He lifted his glass, draining it in one measure, then put out his hand to mine, and held it on the table.

  "Thank God," he said, "for a woman who does not give a damn for punctuality."

  31

  It was like Werrington once more. The old routine. The old haphazard sharing of our days and nights. He would burst into my chamber as I breakfasted, my toilet undone, my hair in curl rags, while he paced about the room talking incessantly, touching my brushes, my combs, my bracelets on the table, cursing all the while at some delay in the plans he was proposing. Trevanion was too slow. Trelawney the elder too cautious. And those who were to lead the insurrection farther west had none of them big names--they were all small fry, lacking the right qualities for leadership. "Grose of St. Buryan, Maddern of Penzance, Keigwin of Mousehole," said Richard; "none of them held a higher rank than captain in '46, and have never led troops into action. But we have to use them now. It is a case of faute de mieux. The trouble is that I can't be in fifty places at the same time."

  Like Werrington once more. A log fire in the dining chamber. A heap of papers scattered on the table, and a large map in the center. Richard seated in his chair, with Bunny, instead of Jack, at his elbow. The red crosses on the beaches where the invading troops should land. Crinnis... Pentewan... Veryan... The beacons on the headlands to warn the ships at sea. The Gribben... The Dodman... The Nare... My brother Robin standing by the door, where Colonel Roscarrock would have stood. And Peter Courtney riding into the courtyard, bearing messages from Jonathan Trelawney.

  "What news from Talland?"

  "All well. They will wait upon our signal. Looe can easily be held. There will be no opposition there to matter."

  The messages sifted, one by one. Like all defeated peoples, those who had crumbled first in '46 were now the most eager to rebel. Helston... Penzance... St. Ives... The confidence was supreme. Grenvile, as commander in chief, had but to give the word.

  I sat in my chair by the fireside, listening to it all, and I was no longer in the dining chamber at Menabilly, but back at Werrington, at Ottery St. Mary, at Exeter... The same problems, the same arguments, the same doubting of the commanders, the same swift decisions. Richard's pen pointing to the Scillies. "This will be the main base for the Prince's army. No trouble about seizing the islands. Your brother Jack can do it with two men and a boy." And Bunny, grinning, nodded his auburn head.

  "Then the main landings to be where we have our strongest hold. A line between here and Falmouth, I should fancy, with St. Mawes the main objective. Hopton has sent me obstructive messages from Guernsey, tearing my proposals to pieces. He can swallow them, for all I care. If he would have his way he would send a driblet here, a driblet there, some score of pissing landings scattered round the whole of Cornwall, in order, so he says, to confuse the enemy. Confuse my arse. One big punch at a given center, with us here holding it in strength, and Hopton can land his whole army in four-and-twenty hours..."

  The big conferences would be held at night. It was easier then to move about the roads. The Trelawneys from Trelawne, Sir Charles Trevanion from Caerhayes, the Arundells from Trerice, Sir Arthur Bassett from Tehidy. I would lie in my chamber overhead and hear the drone of voices from the drawing room below, and always that clear tone of Richard's, overtopping them all. Was it certain that the French would play? This was the universal doubt, expressed by the whole assembly, that Richard would brush impatiently aside. "God damn the French. What the hell does it matter if they don't? We can do without them. Never a Frenchman yet but was not a liability to his own side."


  "But," murmured Sir Charles Trevanion, "if we at least had the promise of their support, and a token force to assist the Prince in landing, the moral effect upon Parliament would be as valuable as ten divisions put against them."

  "Don't you believe it," said Richard. "The French hate fighting on any soil but their own. Show a Frog an English pike, and he will show you his backside. Leave the French alone. We won't need them once we hold the Scillies and the Cornish forts. The Mount... Pendennis... St. Mawes... Bunny, where are my notes giving the present disposition of the enemy troops? Now, gentlemen..."

  And so it would continue. Midnight, one, two, three o'clock. What hour they went, and what hour he came to bed, I would not know, for exhaustion would lay claim on me long since.

  Robin, who had proved his worth in those five weeks at Pendennis, had much responsibility upon his shoulders. The episode of the bridge had been forgotten. Or had it? I would wonder sometimes, when I watched Richard's eye upon him. Saw him smile for no reason. Saw him tap his pen upon his chin.

  "Have you the latest news from Helston?"

  "Here, sir. To hand."

  "I shall want you to act as deputy for me tomorrow at Penrose. You can be away two nights; no more. I must have the exact number of men they can put upon the roads between Helston and Penryn."

  "Sir..." And I would see Robin hesitate a moment, his eyes drift towards the door leading to the gallery, where Gartred's laugh would suddenly ring loud and clear. Later his flushed face and bloodshot eye told its own tale.

  "Come, Robin," Richard would say curtly, after supper, "we must burn the midnight candle once again. Peter has brought me messages in cypher from Penzance, and you are my expert. If I can do with four hours' sleep, so can the rest of you."

  Richard, Robin, Peter, Bunny, crowded round the table in the dining room, with Dick standing sentinel at the door, watching them wearily, resentfully. Ambrose Manaton by the fire, consulting a great sheaf of figures. "All right, Ambrose," Richard would say, "I shan't need your assistance over this problem. Go and talk high finance to the women in the gallery."

  And Ambrose Manaton, smiling, bowing his thanks. Walking from the room with a shade too much confidence, humming under his breath.

  "Will you be late?" I said to Richard.

  "H'm... H'm...," he answered absently. "Fetch me that file of papers, Bunny." Then of a sudden, looking up at Dick, "Stand straight, can't you? Don't slop over your feet," he said harshly.

  Dick's black eyes blinking, his slim hands clutching at his coat. He would open the door for me to pass through in my chair, and all I could do to give him confidence was to smile and touch his hand. No gallery for me. Three makes poor company. But upstairs to my chamber, knowing that the voices underneath would drone for four hours more. An hour, perhaps, would pass, while I read on my bed, and then the swish of a skirt upon the landing as Gartred passed into her room. Silence. Then that telltale creaking stair. The soft closing of a door. But beneath me in the dining room the voices would drone on till after midnight.

  One evening, when the conference broke early and Richard sat with me awhile before retiring, I told him bluntly what I heard.

  He laughed, trimming his fingernails by the open window.

  "Have you turned prude, sweetheart, in your middle years?" he said.

  "Prudery be damned," I answered. "But my brother hopes to marry her. I know it, from his hints and shy allusions about rebuilding the property at Lanrest."

  "Then hope will fail him," replied Richard. "Gartred will never throw herself away upon a penniless soldier. She has other fish to fry, and small blame to her."

  "You mean," I asked, "the fish she is in the process of frying at this moment?"

  "Why, yes, I suppose so," he answered, with a shrug. "Ambrose has a pretty inheritance from his Trefusis mother, besides what he will come into when his father dies. Gartred would be a fool if she let him slip from her."

  How calmly the Grenviles seized fortunes for themselves.

  "What exactly," I asked, "does he contribute to your present business?" He cocked an eye at me, and grinned.

  "Don't poke your snub nose into my affairs," he said. "I know what I'm about. I'll tell you one thing, though: we'd have difficulty in paying for this affair without him."

  "So I thought," I answered.

  "Taking me all round," he said, "I'm a pretty cunning fellow."

  "If you call it cunning," I said, "to play one member of your staff against another. For my part, I would call it knavery."

  "Good generalship," he said.

  "Gerrymandering," I answered.

  "A ruse de guerre," he countered.

  "Pawky politics," I argued.

  "Ah, well," he said, "if the maneuver serves my purpose it matters not how many lives be broken in the process."

  "Take care they're broken afterwards, and not before," I said.

  He came and sat beside me on the bed.

  "I think you mislike me much, now my hair is black," he suggested.

  "It becomes your beauty, but not your disposition."

  "Dark foxes leave no trails behind them."

  "Red ones are more lovable."

  "When the whole future of a country is at stake, emotions are thrown overboard."

  "Emotions, but not honor."

  "Is that a pun upon your name?"

  "If you like to take it so."

  He took my hands in his and pressed them backwards on the pillow, smiling. "Your resistance was stronger at eighteen," he said.

  "And your approach more subtle."

  "It had to be, in that confounded apple tree."

  He laid his head upon my shoulder, and turned my face to his.

  "I can swear in Italian now, as well as Spanish," he said to me.

  "Turkish also?"

  "A word or two. The bare necessity."

  He settled himself against me in contentment. One eye drooped. The other regarded me malevolently from the pillow.

  "There was a woman I encountered once in Naples..."

  "With whom you passed an hour?"

  "Three to be exact."

  "Tell the tale to Peter," I yawned. "It doesn't interest me."

  He lifted his hands to my hair and took the curlers from it.

  "If you placed these rags upon you in the day, it would be more to your advantage and to mine," he mused. "Where was I, though? Ah, yes, the Neapolitan."

  "Let her sleep, Richard, and me also."

  "I only wished to tell you her remark to me on leaving. 'So it is true, what I have always heard,' she said to me, 'that you Cornishmen are famed for one thing only, which is wrestling?' 'Signorina,' I replied, 'there is a lady waiting for me in Cornwall who would give me credit for something else besides.' " He stretched and yawned and, propping himself on his elbow, blew the candle. "But there," he said, "those southern women were as dull as milk. My vulpine methods were too much for them."

  The nights passed thus, and the days as I have described them. Little by little the plans fell into line, the schemes were tabulated. The final message came from the Prince in France that the French fleet had been put at his disposal, and an army, under the command of Lord Hopton, would land in force in Cornwall while the Prince, with Sir John Grenvile, seized the Scillies. The landing was to coincide with the insurrection of the Royalists under Sir Richard Grenvile, who would take and hold the key points in the Duchy.

  Saturday, the thirteenth of May, was the date chosen for the Cornish rising... The daffodils had bloomed, the blossom was all blown, and the first hot days of summer came without warning on the first of May. The sea below the Gribben was glassy calm, the sky deep blue, without a single cloud. The laborers worked in the fields, and the fishing boats put to sea from Gorran and Polperro. In Fowey all was quiet. The townsfolk went about their business, the Parliamentary agents scribbled their roll upon roll of useless records to be filed in dusty piles up in Whitehall, and the sentries at the castle stared yawning out to sea. I sat out on the cau
seway, watching the young lambs, and thinking, as the hot sun shone upon my bare head, how in a bare week now the whole peaceful countryside would be in an uproar once again. Men shouting, fighting, dying... The sheep scattered, the cattle driven, the people running homeless on the roads. Gunfire once again, the rattle of musketry. The galloping of horses, the tramp of marching feet. Wounded men dragging themselves into the hedges, there to die untended. The young corn trampled, the cottage thatch in flames. All the old anxiety, the old strain and terror. The enemy are advancing. The enemy are in retreat. Hopton has landed in force. Hopton has been repulsed. The Cornish are triumphant. The Cornish have been driven back. Rumors, counter-rumors. The bloody stench of war...

  The planning was all over now, and the long wait had begun. A week of nerves, sitting at Menabilly with our eyes upon the clock. Richard, in high spirits as always before battle, played bowls with Bunny in the little walled green beside the steward's empty lodge. Peter, in sudden realization of his flabby stomach muscles, rode furiously up and down the sands at Par to reduce his weight. Robin was very silent. He took long walks alone, down in the woods, and on returning went first to the dining room, where the wine decanter stood. I would find him there sometimes, glass in hand, brooding; and when I questioned him he would answer me evasively, his eyes strangely watchful, like a dog listening for the footstep of a stranger. Gartred, usually so cool and indifferent when she had the whip hand in a love affair, showed herself, for the first time, less certain and less sure. Whether it was because Ambrose Manaton was fifteen years her junior, and the possibility of marriage with him hung upon a thread, I do not know, but a new carelessness had come upon her which was, to my mind, the symbol of a losing touch. That she was heavily in debt at Orley Court I knew for certain. Richard had told me as much. Youth lay behind her. And a future without a third husband to support her would be hard going, once her beauty went. A dowager, living in retirement with her married daughters, dependent on the charity of a son-in-law? What an end for Gartred Grenvile! So she became careless. She smiled too openly at Ambrose Manaton. She put her hand on his at the dining table. She watched him, over the rim of her glass, with the same greed I had noticed years before when, peeping through her chamber door, I had seen her stuff the trinkets in her gown. And Ambrose Manaton, flattered, confident, raised his glass to her in return.