Mary of Carisbrooke (33 page)

They would all be at supper now, she thought, as she looked steadfastly at the road ahead through a blur of tears. And Judith, who was leaving for London in the morning, would be making eyes at Edmund Rolph. Judith, whose lovely body had been held in the arms of Richard Osborne…the man to whom she was going—alone, unwed, with little money and no shame.

Swiftly changing events had left her no time in which to think. For better or for worse, she had had to lay hold of destiny. She had chosen instinctively. Putting behind her all her known way of life, all assured comfort and security, for a man whose kindness had never failed her. She remembered that her father had liked him. And clearly from the past came the comfort of the late King’s words, “Richard Osborne may be a reckless young man, but I should never hesitate to trust him.”

In the wide mouth of the Medina river the little merchantman lay at her moorings, her sails already being unfurled. Mary left her horse at the little “Sloop Inn” where the late King had slept when he first landed on the island. The proprietor was related to Edward Trattle, and when she did not return he would see that the animal was sent back to him. She went down to the shore, but there was no sign of Osborne. At least she could get away from Edmund Rolph. And she must find the new King Charles and give him the messages which Elizabeth had entrusted to her. But what should she do—she who had never so much as been to the mainland of England—alone in a foreign land where people spoke some incomprehensible language? If Osborne had failed her, she would have landed herself into a yet more difficult life. But nothing would matter so much as the disillusionment of finding that he
had
failed her.

Resolutely she stepped into a boat which was just being pushed off with some other passengers, slipping a piece of silver into the longshoreman’s ready hand. The stretch of calm water between boat and island widened. Already the “Sloop,” with the lamps in its friendly windows, looked a long way off. A moment of panic seized her. She half-rose from the thwart on which she was sitting and would have given anything to be able to swim ashore again. Then there came a shout from somewhere high above her, a rope was thrown and caught, around her people began to stand up. The little boat swayed precariously, and she felt strong hands guiding her toward a rope ladder. There was nothing to do but climb up the tall, tarry side of the ship. One arm was encumbered by the struggling spaniel. The basket with her last remaining possessions slipped from her grasp into the sea and floated away. At the top of the ladder she stumbled and a tall sailor in a red woollen cap with a freshly healed scar on his cheek caught her and lifted her on board. “Well done, my brave lass!” his deep voice said encouragingly and to her glad surprise, she found herself in Richard Osborne’s arms.

All anxiety ended then. “Did you think that I should fail you?” he chided tenderly, finding a sheltered place for her upon a locker on the fo’c’sle. “Sit here until we are under way, and I can come to you. Since Parliament countermanded the passages of the Duke of Gloucester’s party my only means was to bribe the Captain to take me on as one of the crew.”

“What will they do if they find me?” she asked anxiously.

“I bargained for a passage for my wife,” grinned Osborne.

One of the ship’s officers was shouting for him and he had to hurry away. Through all the bustle of weighing anchor and setting sail Mary was thankful to obey him and sit quietly by the fo’c’sle rail. She was well placed, out of the way of passengers and crew alike. Once, looking up, she was horrified to see Osborne, barefoot, aloft in the swaying rigging; but remembered that, like young Charles Stuart, he had learned his seamanship as a lad in the Channel Islands. She was not sorry to be alone to take her last sight of the Wight. Already the friendly “Sloop” down on the waterfront was receding. In the gathering dusk the lighted windows of Cowes began to look like a necklace of jewels thrown carelessly down the steep cliff side. And gradually even the beacon lamps of the two castles, one on either side of the river mouth, began to fade, until finally the familiar outline of the Wight was only an irregular hump against the darkening sky. As night drew on activities on board ceased, passengers sought their rest and Rogue curled his small body comfortably on a coil of rope. The ship sped forward on a calm sea under gently bellying canvas, with the swish of water along her bows and the rhythmic creaking of her timbers only adding to the peacefulness of the night. The stars came out and Mary felt a man’s arms, warm from exertion, fold about her as she leant against the rail. “So you love me enough to leave that enchanted island,” he exalted softly. “It will be my main aim in life to see that you never regret it, sweet.”

“It is only through Anthony Mildmay’s goodness that I am here.”

“He warned me, too.”

“I know.” Mary leaned back against her lover’s shoulder. “He saw us that day when you were so kind to me in Carisbrooke churchyard.”

“And never told!”

“When I heard Rolph shouting around the castle this afternoon and knew that you would be on this ship I came away just as I was, without anything but my dog.”

Osborne turned her about and kissed her with all the gratitude that was in him. “And even he is not yours,” he teased, laughingly to hide his deep emotion. “Did you not know that the late King left all his favourite animals to the Queen? But do not worry, my little love, for you may be sure that when her Majesty hears all that you have done she will let you keep him.”

But a more strictly feminine concern had recurred to Mary’s mind. “Even the few clothes I brought fell into the sea,” she told him.

“We will buy some new ones in The Hague.”

“Is the new King there?”

“No. In Breda. Come to think of it, I shall need some new clothes myself,” added Osborne, glancing down ruefully at his own strange attire. “But I have something more important to do first.”

“For the King, I suppose?”

He turned her face up so that she must look at him, and kissed the pout from her lips. “No. For Richard Osborne, this time. I must find a parson to marry us.”

His quick ears caught her involuntary sigh of relief, and he shook her gently. “I suppose that Briot girl was at the castle and had to tell you about her conquests?” he demanded.

“One gathered things,” Mary admitted, wondering out of her present happiness how she could ever have minded so much.

“Well, do not gather them any more. From anyone. That part of my life is finished and my lonely heart has come into port. From to-night you and I begin a new life together.”

She reached up her arms and kissed him passionately of her own accord and their long embrace was a mutual dedication.

“Had I come to the castle I had intended to ask Guy Lovall to marry us,” he said.

“But I came to you shamelessly unwed.”

“I shall always be proud of the way you trusted me.”

“And now,” laughed Mary softly, “we shall not understand a word of our wedding ceremony in Dutch.”

“We shall understand it in our hearts, beloved.”

When she looked up again the island that held all her memories of the past was lost to sight. But, pressing closer into her lover’s arms, she saw the future in the ardour of his eyes.

Master and Mistress Richard Osborne,” announced the exiled King’s servant; and the words were as music in Mary’s ears.

He was showing them into a house in Breda where Charles Stuart and his small travesty of a Court had lodgings. It was an ordinary, unimportant-looking house and they had had some difficulty in finding it; but, like all Dutch buildings, it was kept scrupulously clean. Mary had not wanted to leave The Hague, where she had spent three rapturous days alone with her new husband, but she realized that he must make his report to the exiled King, and she herself had promised to deliver those messages entrusted to her by the Princess Elizabeth.

Both of them were shocked to find how poorly their fellow Royalists lived. “Are his Majesty’s resources so low?” Osborne was asking with concern of an elderly courtier who came forward to receive them.

The man’s scholarly face was as contented as his coat was shabby. “So low that sometimes we are forced to eat once a day like dogs,” he chuckled. “But his Majesty is of such a cheerful disposition that I would sooner live with him on a couple of guelder a week than anywhere in the world without him! Your coming will make up to him in some measure for his disappointment about his young brother, Master Osborne, so I will tell him straightaway that you and your lady are here.”

He passed through a door into a room where people were laughing and talking, and while it was open Mary caught sight of a middle-aged, apple-cheeked man sitting rather pompously at a table with some papers before him, and heard another man with a particularly pleasant voice arguing with affectionate exasperation. “Oddfish, Ned, why must you be so mulish? If Cromwell does not let young Henry come—” And then the door was closed behind the old courtier who, however hungry, seemed to find life tolerable with a penniless master.

Too agitated to sit still, Mary went to the window.

“I love these Dutch houses, with their little courtyards and tiled floors and their gables squared-up like steps,” she said. “Do you know, Richard, they wash them outside as well as in!”

“You
would
notice that, my love!” he laughed, having eyes for little but the new radiance which happiness had brought her. As she leaned down to look into the street he followed her and kissed the nape of her neck where it showed beneath her curls. “Surely, not
here
!” she whispered in confusion, pushing him away and straightening his cravat with wifely concern. “I wonder you are not too nervous to be thinking of such things!”

“Why should I be?”

“At meeting the King.”

“But I have met him several times before—when he was a lanky lad far too young to be on a battlefield.”

“I remember how my knees shook under me when King Charles the First came to Carisbrooke and I had to go into his room to make his bed.”

“You will find King Charles the Second very different.”

“How is he different?” she asked, smoothing the lovely rose-pink gown which Osborne had bought for her wedding, and dreading having to make an entrance into that room full of exiled gentlemen.

But she need not have worried because, before Osborne could answer, the door opened and a tall young man of nineteen or so came in. He came in so unobtrusively and his black suit was so worn that until her husband went down on one knee and kissed his hand, she had no idea he was the King. And certainly no son could have looked less like his father.

“Why, Richard Osborne, it is good to see you again!” he was saying—and it was the same pleasant voice which she had heard through the open door. “My father wrote me of your good services and I knew you were the very man to sound the prospects of a good landing for us. I trust you bring good news?”

“Reasonably good, sir. I have much to tell you.”

“Then we will talk of it after supper with milord Clarendon and those others who have thrown in their lot with me so loyally.”

“Besides good news I have brought my wife,” said Osborne, and Mary, having had plenty of practice, achieved a far more graceful curtsy than she had managed on being presented to his father.

“Fortunate man!” smiled Charles, assessing her as favourably as Elizabeth had said he would. “I did not know you were married.”

“Only three days ago, in The Hague.”

“Then nothing shall hold me from my happy privilege of kissing the bride,” vowed Charles, striding across the room to do so with considerable enjoyment. “I would I could offer you better entertainment, Mistress Osborne.”

“It is enough to see your Majesty,” said Mary, finding her tongue as he bent down to fondle Rogue.

“Carisbrooke Castle is Mary’s home,” Osborne told him. “Her father was shot for trying to help the King your father to escape, and she herself, being the royal Laundress’s niece, was instrumental in getting many of your letters in and out of his Majesty’s room.”

Charles looked at her with deep gratitude, and she observed that although there was frequent laughter on his full young lips, his dark eyes held the melancholy of a much older man—a man who has already known danger and suffering. “God send you be as happy with this good comrade of mine as you deserve!” he said gravely, and with his own capable hands set a chair for her.

He himself sat down with his back to the window and instantly the little spaniel, who was normally nervous of strangers, ran to him and sprang up on to his knees. “It seems as if he must know,” exclaimed Mary, losing the last of her own shyness. “Rogue was the late King’s pet during those last months at Carisbrooke.”

“We have a whole history of that dog to tell you, sir,” said Osborne.

“And the true details of all those attempts at escape, I hope, and all that happened to my father. No one has been able to give me personal inside information since Titus came—but I will not steal a march on him and the others. We must share your news. Though there is some which concerns me closely and which I cannot wait for.” With the spaniel lying beneath his caressing hand, he turned to Mary. “Were you still in the castle when those callous murderers sent my sister there?”

“All the time, sir. And I had the great good fortune to be able to look after her—and nurse her.”

“She was never strong, our little Temperance. It was cruel to send her there!”

“But your Majesty must not think of her as being ailing and unhappy all the time. We played bowls sometimes. And she had a gentlewoman, Judith Briot, who was beautiful and gay. She encouraged her Highness to dance and make music.” Mary had spoken spontaneously, forgetting that she had ever held rancour against the woman and only grateful for the fleeting kind of joy she brought; and, looking up, saw her husband’s eyes fixed adoringly upon her. She rose from the chair the King had set for her and knelt beside him, conscious only of her desire to comfort him. While well aware that no one would take a liberty with this shabby young man and go unscathed, she felt in him that intense humanity which had drawn her husband to his service. A humanity born of ordinary experiences and contrivances which do not normally fall to the lot of kings, and which would for ever make him more approachable. In that room in a foreign city with her mind back in the familiar rooms of Carisbrooke, she told him of small, everyday happenings which would be of interest only to himself and to members of his family. She told him of his father in captivity and of his young sister’s last days and of her love and longing for him; and in a low, awed voice she gave him those last messages from his father which Elizabeth had not lived to bring him.

“To forgive our enemies,” he repeated, his long fingers shielding the emotion on his face. “When I come into my own again please God I shall be merciful to men of other persuasions than my own. But to forgive his murderers—”

He sat for a while in silence trying to assimilate the magnitude of such a thought, then shrugged as though the matter were as yet beyond him. “No doubt these same enemies will see fit to send me dear Bess’s written record of these heart-breaking messages in their own good time, but this has been the kindest way to hear them,” he said, his hand dropping gratefully from his forehead to Mary’s shoulder. “And in the meantime we must prepare to welcome young Henry and help him to forget such sad beginnings to his life.” He stood up, strong and clear-thinking and unbeaten. “Well, I am still King of Scotland, and we must plan a landing there. Osborne.”

“My sword and I are at your service.”

The words sounded like a dedication, and as Mary looked from one to the other of them a shiver ran through her at the thought of what lay before them. They were of the same height and build, and the same deceptive air of indolence hid the purposeful courage of both of them.

As if sensing her fear, Charles turned and pulled her gently to her feet. “But you two are newly wed and it is like my clumsiness to talk of fighting,” he apologised. “We have months of preparation to make yet and when the time comes, Osborne, I promise you that my sister, the Princess of Orange, who is the merriest soul alive, will take care of her charming namesake here. For dear Bess’s sake and for all your Mary has done for my father, we must keep her in the family.” The door opened and the same serving man appeared. “There is Toby come to tell us supper is served. Come and eat, man,” invited Charles. “You must both be famished. Travelling and love-making are hungry work!”

“Oh, but sir—my husband and I could eat in the town. It is wonderful what tavern wives will do for his smile and our few halting words of Dutch,” faltered Mary, thinking how lean he looked.

“She is looking at the way my clothes hang on my long bones, and, womanlike, fearing I am half starved!” laughed Charles. But as long as I can come by a chicken and a loaf of bread I hope I may share it with my friends.”

“And I hope my news may hearten them,” said Osborne, with his arm about his wife.

“We shall get back to London, never fear,” said Charles, as his man held wide the door. “You will find that fine-looking husband of yours peacocking it as royal Usher again. And as for you, my sweet Mary, I must appoint you royal Laundress at Whitehall.”

“I shall hold you to that, sirs,” laughed Osborne, as they followed him in to supper.

“With all my heart. But we Stuarts do not forget,” said Charles, pausing in the doorway to take Mary’s hand and lead her forward to meet his little group of friends, “Though God knows you may have to wait a long time for your appointment, Mary of Carisbrooke. For at the moment I have but one spare shirt, and that is borrowed!”