Mary of Carisbrooke (20 page)

“Of course I know about the war, but how did it all
begin
!” she asked, laying down the ewer. “I am not clever like Frances, and can only read the simplest things. We scarcely ever see the London news-sheets here, and when we do they are so violently for one side or the other that I can make little sense of them.”

“Oh, my precious Mary, which of us can? I suspect that if some of us pretend to understand all the forces which have brought England to this bitter pass it is only because we lack your refreshing honesty.”

He was not laughing at her at all. There was no jibling on that wide, reckless mouth of his and she had noticed, when she first met him, the kindness of his eyes. Womanlike, she was more interested in the protagonists than in the facts. “It seems so strange that a king who beheaded his wives should have been allowed to go on reigning, and yet all this cruelty should have been shown to a good man like King Charles.”

“A good man does not always make the best kind of king. For instance, the late King Jamie’s ways may have been coarse, but he was a realist. He knew just how far he could push his subjects, both here and in Scotland. Whereas King Charles has always been so hedged about by ideals and dignity that he does not understand when he is pushing them too far. It is only fair, of course, to remember that he was not trained for kingship.”

“You mean until his elder brother died?”

“Yes. I have heard my father say that before then Charles was left up in Scotland with his tutor. He stammered and his leg always dragged a bit. But when he became Prince of Wales and came down to London he made valiant efforts to conquer both disabilities. By sheer determination he made himself the best horseman in the two kingdoms, so that seeing him mounted one forgets that he is a little lame or small. That is the kind of courage he has. The kind that draws out the devotion of men in personal touch with him like Harry. And yet his Majesty can be so painfully irresolute over some things.”

This was the sort of thing Mary wanted to hear—the personal aspect of the struggle rather than the political. “He has never loved any woman but the Queen, they say. Is she so very beautiful?”

“Not beautiful. But charming and vivacious and—a little too capable.”

“Then why do people hate her so?”

“Because she is French and a Catholic—both obviously unfair reasons. But also because she was always meddling and trying to get the best appointments for her friends. Parliamentarians like Hampden who really had the good of the country at heart deplored her influence at Court.”

“Then was it she who caused most of the trouble?”

“I would say that money and religion were the two main causes. I am sure no sovereign ever wanted more earnestly to rule well than King Charles, but he believed so firmly in his divine right that everything had to be cut to his pattern and kept under his personal authority. So he tried to rule without Parliament, with the result that he was never voted adequate money to carry through his reforms, and the still more dangerous result that he began levying taxes in all manner of arbitrary and unpopular ways. There was all that trouble, for instance, about Ship Money being levied on inland towns.”

“I remember the outcry about Tonnage and Poundage. The Customs men were always talking about it.”

“Yes. But the bitterest quarrels always seem to grow out of differences in religion. He and Archbishop Laud tried to force everyone—in Scotland, Ireland, and Wales as well—to worship according to the rubric of the Church of England. They wanted the churches to have dignity and beauty—candles and vestments and the altar in the sanctuary instead of the Communion being taken from a table in the middle of the church as many people wanted it. The Puritans accused his Majesty—quite unjustly—of favouring Rome because he was civil to his wife’s Catholic friends. And so God-fearing families, sooner than attend the Established Church, began holding prayer meetings of their own. Laud interfered and the bitterness grew.”

“We heard about the Presbyterian women up in Scotland throwing the kirk stools at the Anglican preacher’s head.”

“Of course there were many more issues after that. And then we had all those years of civil war.”

“With so many young men killed! And even now—”

“Now, as we all know, the whole thing has rolled beyond the control of those who began it, and the power is often in the hands of men who either want it only for revenge or at best are not sufficiently accustomed to it to use it without cruelty.”

Mary sat thinking over what he had said while outside the sound of marching feet from barracks to guardroom seemed to emphasize the King of England’s sorry plight. She got up from the bench with a sigh, remembering that she had still the altar plate to clean. From where she stood she could see inside the little chapel which had remained so peacefully outside the worst of such stormy arguments, and thinking of the kind of sermon that Osborne had had to listen to she was thankful that here, at least outwardly, things had been left unchanged. Things which the King stood for and which the Governor, whatever his personal preferences, had not suffered his chaplain to alter very much. Then her gaze came back speculatively to her companion. “You do not regard the King with the same devotion as Harry does,” she said.

Since they were alone, he answered without caution. “Not with the kind of devotion which blinds me.”

“Yet you risk so much for him.”

“For the monarchy—the Stuart cause—for the civilized order of existence to which my kind is accustomed. You must remember that I was never a Parliamentarian like Harry. They say that converts to any cause outrun the rest.” Osborne stopped being serious and went on speaking with a kind of exasperated amusement. “I could wish sometimes that his Majesty did not complicate our efforts by writing so many letters and instructions—or that he had the common touch as well as the Stuart charm. Like the younger Charles—”

Like any other girl, Mary was full of curiosity about the young Prince of Wales whose adolescence and young manhood had been so full of unfortunate adventures. “Did you know him?” she asked.

“I fought with him when he was a lanky lad of sixteen—before he was sent to Jersey. He was dragged from battlefield to battlefield, but he never lost his cheerful sense of the ridiculous.”

There was a warmth in Osborne’s voice which made her look up quickly. His smile showed reminiscent affection for a fellow human being rather than any blind devotion. “And now as an exile I suppose he will be dragged from country to country,” he said regretfully. “It will probably mar him much as I was marred.”

On the last Sunday in May Osborne left the castle early. He was supping with the Leighs at Thorley Manor, so he had told all and sundry, and he had leave to spend the night. And before going he made as much commotion as possible. Just as he reached the gatehouse he remembered that he had a long ride before him and sent his servant back for his thickest riding cloak. Captain Rolph sauntered over from his quarters to twit him about forsaking gay colours for an elegant new suit tailored in black like his royal master’s, and the two of them stood talking and laughing familiarly. Islanders on guard pricked up their ears hopefully when they overheard Osborne remind their Captain facetiously that he ought to allow them an extra pint of liquor next day because it would be the Prince of Wales’ birthday, and some of the Model Army men looked sourly disapproving when he went on to describe the luscious charms of Barnabas Leigh’s young sister. Before the cloak could be found the new horse Osborne had bought was plunging and rearing impatiently. So after all he rode off by himself, calling to the guard that he would not need the cloak and that his man could have the evening off.

Once at the bottom of the lane and on the road to Thorley, he branched off left in the direction of Gatcombe and rode leisurely to sup with Edward Worsley. And as he went his expression sobered and he looked to his brace of pistols.

He hated having to leave the two women and Dowcett to see through the first part of the scheme, but there were only the four of them left now. “Keep about as late as possible in case there should be anything you can do to hearten Dowcett,” he had advised Mistress Wheeler and her niece. And already he regretted having said that because if any heartening were needed it should have been for them. He had almost quarrelled with Harry once because of the risks he had allowed Mary to run. But she was so quick and calm and sensible, whereas Dowcett, for all his zeal and courage, was excitable and highly strung.

Well, there was nothing she would be likely to be called upon to do during this momentous night, he supposed; nor anything more he himself could do for that matter, until he and Worsley should find themselves actually helping the King up the far side of the escarpment into freedom. Apart from the fact that the escape would be carried out from the north wall instead of the south, and that there would be no courtyard to cross, everything was to be carried out so much in accordance with Harry Firebrace’s original plans that playing one’s individual part in it had become almost routine. Walking his horse along a narrow woodland path which Worsley had shown him, he went over the stages of the plan much as Harry must have done. John Newland down at the creek with a boat. Titus on the Hampshire coast with horses. A safe night’s lodging arranged for him and the King at Arundel. Harry waiting on the road somewhere in Kent, and Jane Whorwood’s ship all set for Holland. And this time the bar of the window had been successfully loosened, so that the King would only need to lift it. The only other difference was the matter of the sentries. He and Dowcett had decided that, since their co-operation was needed rather than their negligence, to fuddle them would be useless. Most reluctantly they had been obliged to take the three men into their confidence.

This time they had to use money instead of wine. A hundred pounds apiece, raised by Sir John Oglander, the Worsleys, and himself. Worsley had it in safe keeping at the manor. It would mean a fortune to such men—particularly to an islander. And two of the men whom they had persuaded to it were islanders—the same two pikemen, Wenshall and Featherstone, whom Harry had made so drunk before. They were Sergeant Floyd’s men, of the original garrison, and had no liking for Puritan ways. If only he could have had Floyd himself for their third man! He liked him and the King had suggested him as being a man with initiative whom they could thoroughly trust; and now, having come so close to the climax of the adventure, Osborne felt that he should have insisted upon approaching him. But the man was Mary’s father; and Mistress Wheeler, who had helped them so loyally, had stipulated that he should not be drawn into the affair. And so he had persuaded instead a recently recruited young Londoner whose father had been killed fighting on the Royalist side at Nazeby, and who was baited and wretched in the Cromwellian army. A thin, sandy-haired young man called Tilling, whose ambition was to buy a mercery business in Cheapside, and whose eyes had lighted up like pale agates at thought of the money.

Osborne found it was good to be in a private household again with the kindly family at Gatcombe Manor. But relaxation in that homely atmosphere was all too short. After supper the spare horse was saddled, and boots and a pistol brought for the King; and as soon as it was dusk Worsley led him through his own woods and by various sequestered field paths back to Carisbrooke, where they took up their appointed place beside the lane.

“It is not nearly so dark as we had hoped,” whispered Worsley, looking up in the direction of the King’s unlighted window. “I could almost see anyone climbing out.”

“We decided not to use the rope after all. It is only a ten-foot drop and his Majesty can easily let himself down on to one of the sentries’ shoulders.”

“Hammond will not expect any activity to-night since he has heard so much about your courting Barnabas’s sister at Thorley!”

“Everything should work out well this time,” whispered back Osborne cheerfully.

But in spite of an eventuality important enough to change history, the ordinary events of everyday life went on.

In the early hours of that Sunday morning, Libby’s baby had been born, and Rudy had been allowed to go down to the village to see her. The child was lusty and a boy. So in his parental pride Tom Rudy had called in at the “Castle Inn” and brought back enough wine for his comrades on night-watch to celebrate the event The barracks had become even noisier than they usually were on a Sunday night, when disputes over the day’s sermons invariably ended in a brawl; and although Wenshall, Featherstone, and Tilling saw no particular cause for rejoicing over the reproduction of a Rudy, they were only too glad to avail themselves of his generosity. All three drank deeply in order to keep up their spirits for a night’s adventure which each of them secretly feared. Meanwhile Rudy, more full of himself than of wine, mounted a table in order to harangue his fellows. He excelled himself in exposing all the shortcomings, real and imaginary, of the King, and kept the barrack-room in an uproar with all manner of amusing anecdotes which had been going the rounds of London taverns about the defeated cavaliers. It was the personal kind of propaganda which men who would not listen to the preachers’ violent sermons lapped up with a drink and an easy laugh. “What does any man, just because he happens to be borne a Stuart, need with a Gentleman Carver, a Gentleman Usher, and a Groom of the Bedchamber to draw on his breeches for him? And why should all these royal minions bring servants of their own, when we who are trained soldiers have to clean out the stables?” demanded the glib orator. “Look at that idle, feather-brained fop, milord Rakehell Osborne! Allowed out any night he feels like wenching. Apes his master in a new black suit, and then sends his servant back for his best cloak to dazzle some innocent island girl he was boasting about seducing. And in the end is too impatient to get to his lechery to wait for the poor fellow!”

Because they were drinking his wine the three sentries due for platform duty had to listen. By sheer chance Rudy had picked upon the very man who had offered them their bribes. And had they not all heard tales of the Gentleman Usher’s levity?

“You reckon this Osborne is to be depended on?” whispered Wenshall behind his hand, huddling closer to his two comrades on a corner bench.

“Real gentleman, he be. Not the new, blusterin’ sort. Didn’t his uncle hold that gurt Guernsey fortress for the longest siege in the war?” Featherstone reassured him, with more certainty than he really felt.

“Don’t seem right ter me, his goin’ out wenchin’ and leavin’ us to do his dangerous work,” grumbled Tilling.

“Anyways, he b’aint here to know whether we does it or not,” muttered Wenshall.

Rudy, still astride the table, was well launched upon his usual tirade against the privileged classes whose lives were all pleasure and no work because they had the money, and for a time the three men in the corner exchanged congratulatory winks, for would not they soon find themselves in that felicitous company? They would be able to buy themselves all the boats and cattle and wine and wenches they wanted. And a trip to London to see some of the fine sights Rudy was always bragging about, maybe, the two islanders thought. Featherstone’s ideas of pleasure could go no further, but Wenshall’s livelier imagination had begun to work in a more sombre and immediate direction. “Master Osborne did say as how they would bear us out if we was to swear we saw nothin’; but come to think on’t, even a hundred pounds b’aint much good to a man once he be a noddy,” he remarked, with the gloomy kind of prognostication which drink always engendered in him.

“Wot’s a noddy?” asked the pale-faced Cockney.

“A dead ’un,” said Featherstone.

Tilling took a deeper swig at his tankard, hoping to imbibe some much-needed courage. He was young and, unlike Featherstone, suffered from a surplus of imagination. Moreover, he stood in vast awe of the keen-eyed Captain of the Guard, who had frequently sharpened his wits on the subject of his inadequacy with a musket. He wanted that mercer’s shop and a girl he knew in Barking. He wanted to see his mother again. And he definitely did not want to be a noddy. He passed his tankard to be refilled. Seen through a haze of Burgundy this Rudy fellow was a good sort and free with his money. He was also a fellow-Londoner and probably knew what he was talking about better than a lot of outlandish yokels whose speech he could scarcely understand. That fine big gentleman and his fellow sentries had talked as if letting your prisoner escape were an easy way to get all that money, but now he was not so sure. He would give anything not to go on duty to-night. Perhaps if he could go sick or have some sort of accident—something that would incapacitate him, but nothing serious, of course. Drawing his knife and screwing up his courage, he made a slash at his trigger finger, but his hands were unsteady and the knife slipped, cutting deeper than he had intended. The blood gushed out and someone guffawed at his clumsiness. And because he was not accustomed to the expensive kind of French wine which was smuggled into the Wight he was soon lying prone along the bench with red blood and red Burgundy dripping unheeded to the floor. His two mates were in no state to consider the consequences, and in any case were now too deeply engaged in some earnest half-whispered discussion to heed him.

He was still lying there when Sergeant Floyd came in to quell the noise. Mistress Hammond had complained of it and the Reverend Troughton had added his opinion that such an uproar was a disgrace to a Christian castle on the Sabbath. ‘‘That trouble-maker Rudy again!” thought Floyd, weary of this new, contentious world. But remembering that the girl Libby had given birth to a son he was as lenient as possible. He made sure that all of them would be sober enough to turn out for night duty—all except one young fool in the corner who was too far gone even to come to attention. “What’s the matter with him?” he asked, seeing that pool of blood.

“He’s cut hisself,” volunteered the fool who had guffawed.

“Any road, Sergeant, he be too drunk to go on duty,” said one of his own men more helpfully.

“An’ what now if us gets a tale-bearing Roundhead posted along o’ us this night?” thought Wenshall and Featherstone. And the hideous probability became a deciding factor in their whispered discussion.

“Put the fellow in the guardroom lock-up,” ordered Sergeant Floyd.

Seeing the cut was more serious than he had thought, he followed them and bound it up himself, and before he had finished, the young man, still maudlin and weak from loss of blood, sat up and begged to be kept in the lock-up until morning. Floyd had no intention of doing anything else, but he brought his lantern and looked at him more closely. Tilling was not one of his men but his experience of all types told him that here was a weak but decent lad, with a spot of real trouble on his mind. He asked a leading question or two and because his manner was less bullying than the recently arrived sergeants’ he soon had the whole amazing story. “You’d certainly be better selling silk than playing at soldiering!” he told Tilling brusquely, wondering whether Osborne had picked on him because of the account the lad had to square with Parliament for his loss at Nazeby or merely because he and Dowcett had been unable to find anyone else. He locked the door and walked up and down outside for a while digesting the information which had come to him so fortuitously.

So there was to be another bid for the King’s escape to-night? He had always suspected that some of the royal household discussed their plans in his sister’s room, but had half hoped that with Firebrace’s dismissal their enthusiasm would have waned. His own private opinion, based upon his knowledge of the Captain of the Guard’s efficiency, was that the time had passed when such an escape might have been safely effected. The Governor knew too much about their previous efforts. But since they meant to try again to-night his first thought was for Mary, and how far she might be involved. He guessed why Osborne had gone out, and hoped with all his heart that the King would get away this time. Going about his duties, Floyd had heard enough to know how bitterly some of the propaganda-ridden soldiery blamed King Charles for the state of the country and for their own long exile from home, and how willingly a small minority of them, inflamed by such leaders as Rolph and Rudy, would treat his Majesty with violence.

He wished that Firebrace and Osborne had taken him into their confidence in the first place and asked him to help. There were so many ways in which he could have done so. But he suspected with a glow of gratitude why they had not. And now, with a part of their scheme come by accident into his hands, it rested with him to decide for himself how much he would swerve from his immediate and apparent duty, how much he would risk.