Mary of Carisbrooke (19 page)

There, as she had hoped, she found her father. He had been present at the friendly send-off given to the popular young Groom of the Bedchamber, and had hurried to be with her as soon as he was off duty. He had expected to find her tearful, but not so tempestuous. “What are Downer and the rest of them doing on the escarpment immediately outside the King’s bedroom window?” she asked brusquely.

Floyd was slow in answering. He was watching her stricken face. “They are building a platform,” he said.

His sister swung round from the inventory of royal chattels she was checking. “A platform?” On that slope? What in the world for?”

“To mount a guard on.”

“You mean—all day?”

“And all night. Three sentries, I heard one of those cocksure lieutenants say.”

Aunt and niece exchanged glances and the older woman sank down on the edge of a chair. For once she was shaken out of her habitual composure. “Oh, Hammond is clever! How clever the man is! ” she wailed, her deep voice husky with tiredness.

“Unless that fox Rolph suggested it,” said her brother.

“Then everything that Harry worked for—” began Mary, forgetting that she must protect her father from participating in their plans. She stopped short, met his understanding smile, and ran sobbing into his arms.

Although it was a May evening the King was arranging his personal possessions in his new quarters instead of taking the air. The weather had turned cloudy and there were few people on the bowling green. Osborne and Dowcett, hoping for an opportunity to be alone, were engaged in a desultory game of singles; while on the next rink Anthony Mildmay, finding himself odd man out, was fulfilling a friendly promise to teach Mary to play.

“How is she doing?” called Dowcett, as they passed each other halfway down the green.

“She has a marvellously straight eye,” encouraged Mildmay, who had always been particularly kind to her.

“My father taught me to shoot when I was twelve,” laughed Mary, “but a pistol is not weighed more on one side than the other!” She was evidently finding it difficult to control the bias, but Osborne was glad to hear her laugh again. She had often watched her father and his friends playing nine-pins and could not fail to feel flattered that a middle-aged friend of the King’s should spare time to teach her a game traditionally reserved for the gentry. But then Mildmay always called her Mistress Mary, meticulously remembering that although she was a sergeant’s daughter she was niece by marriage of the late Sir William Wheeler.

As the sun moved westward beyond the gatehouse tower a chilly wind blew up, and people who had been strolling about or watching the play drifted back to the castle. Soon Mildmay himself had to go in to wash and change before carving the King’s meat at supper. Mary would have put away the woods and followed him, but the two men on the next rink stopped playing as soon as they were alone and Dowcett called to her to stay. “It becomes still more impossible to talk indoors now that this Cromwell watchdog has been appointed Groom of the Bedchamber in Harry Firebrace’s place,” he complained.

“One cannot help admiring Hammond’s cleverness there,” remarked Osborne, stooping to pick up the jack.

“Yet even that fresh difficulty is not insurmountable. After all, the man must eat and sleep
sometimes
. But there is nothing we can do about this accursed platform.”

“Except wine or bribe the sentries,” said Osborne.

Mary looked at him in surprise, a bowl poised on either palm. Like Dowcett, she had supposed that the guarded platform finished all chance of carrying on with Firebrace’s plan. “You mean that in spite of all these new precautions you would risk another attempt?”

“Only because I have recently learned of an even graver risk.” A few drops of rain were beginning to fall and Osborne, who usually seemed to regard himself as immune from suspicion, drew them both into the privacy of the little pavilion. He relieved Mary of her two woods, then loped swiftly back across the green to gather up the rest so that if they were interrupted they might appear to be wiping them and putting them back on their racks. “The boredom of my hours with Rolph has at last borne fruit,” he told them. “Believe me, it’s hard work trying to drag information from a Puritan who gives nothing away in his cups. But since Harry was sent away Rolph has taken me closer into his confidence. With genuine intent to console me, no doubt, as well as to gain his own ends. The man has his points, oddly enough, in spite of his murderous mind.”

“Murderous?” echoed Mary.

Osborne stood there carelessly throwing up the jack and catching it, but there was a grim set to his jaw. “He has invited me to join him in a pleasant little plot to kill the King.”

“
Nom d’un chien
!” Dowcett stayed poised, horrified, in the act of swinging his short Parisian cape about his shoulders; and Mary felt befouled because she had more than once been held in the would-be murderer’s arms. “But surely the Governor—”

“The Governor is not to know,” explained Osborne. “Rolph excuses his villainy by telling me that some of the more rabid elements in the army have already offered Hammond a bribe if he will put the King out of their way by having his food poisoned. And that Hammond has not even deigned to answer.”

“The only way to treat such an insult!” declared Dowcett, particularly appalled because catering for the royal table was his responsibility.

“But you cannot expect a man of Rolph’s mentality to appreciate that. He thinks Hammond ignored them because he is afraid of losing a well-paid appointment which he himself covets.”

“And you think the story of the bribe is true?”

“Probably, because Rolph seems confident that the army will make him a colonel at least if he outwits Hammond and does the gruesome deed for them. So he has asked me to try to persuade the King to escape. Imagine being asked to do that by our precious Captain of the Guard and having to keep a straight face!”

In spite of their repugnance the other two had to smile.

“How easy it could be with his connivance!” sighed Dowcett.

“He will connive at nothing until he is sure. In fact, he will watch more closely than ever because he is afraid his Majesty might get away before he can arrange it. His idea is to lure him into some hiding place under pretext of taking him to a ship for France, and then—as he so self-righteously expresses it—to ‘root the evil man out of the land of the living’.”

“But surely, however much you may have hoodwinked him, he does not seriously think that
you
would do
that
?” exclaimed Mary, horrified by such wickedness.

“It is scarcely flattering, I admit,” grinned Osborne. “But it seems he has already found someone who will. He has not yet trusted me with our fellow-conspirator’s name; but there are to be three of us, I understand.”

“Heaven defend us, have we another murderer in our midst?” said Dowcett.

“I wonder if it could be Thomas Rudy, whom he brought over with him and who so cheerfully runs all his errands?” speculated Mary. “My father says that although the man is popular he stirs up more trouble than anyone else in the barracks and is never short of money—though the plausible wretch seldom gives a groat to his wife!”

“If so, you should be in fine company, Osborne!” Dowcett went to the door of the pavilion to make sure that no one was about. “What did you tell Rolph?”

“That I would do my utmost to encourage his Majesty’s escape and that he would hear more about it later. He wanted me to take an oath on it.”

“And did you?” asked Mary; and for a moment had a glimpse of his contemptuous anger.

“I told him that for centuries his betters had accepted the bare word of an Osborne. Whereat he became disgustingly servile. Ah well,” he went on, recapturing his usual debonair manner, “Titus will be ready at any time with horses on the other side, and Harry knows of our new dilemma and will be working from London, so we ought to bring off an escape, and Rolph will certainly hear of it—although too late for him to interfere, please God!”

They could see Major Cromwell’s square-shouldered figure descending the long flight of steps from the keep, and dared stay no longer. With Gallic politeness Dowcett transferred his cloak to Mary’s shoulders and they went out into the rain. “We should like you to tell Mistress Wheeler of this,” he said, as they walked back towards the castle. “And I am sure she will be relieved to know that the ship Mistress Whorwood has chartered lies ready in the Medway. Explain to her that since the Prince of Wales left Jersey for France in accordance with the King’s wishes, the hospitality of my country is more strained; and it is thought best to convey his Majesty to his eldest daughter’s court in Holland.”

“What is this energetic Mistress Whorwood like?” asked Mary, finding herself more able to take an interest in the lady than she had been when Harry Firebrace first mentioned her.

“A tall, forthright, dependable sort of woman. Everything, in fact, that the treacherous Lady Carlisle is not. In riding breeches, Jane Whorwood might well pass for a man. Not unhandsome either, though unfortunately her face is covered with—how do you say them?—
taches de rousseur
.”

“Freckles.” Osborne supplied the word absently, his mind evidently on his plans; and before reaching the postern gate they parted company and went their separate ways.

Several days passed before Mary saw either of them to speak to again, and still fresh difficulties presented themselves. The darkest night and the most likely guard never seemed to synchronize. Jane Whorwood had been obliged to change the berth of the ship when suspicion fell on her skipper because of the length of time he had spent unloading; but Firebrace sent word that he would meet the King’s party at a certain point on the road and direct them to the new and more secluded mooring. Trattle had managed to convey the reassuring message to the housekeeper along with his account for yeast delivered to the castle bakery.

News of Firebrace’s doings, however impersonal, was precious to Mary. News that he was working in conjunction with Jane Whorwood meant that he had not yet returned to his wife—and that, to her shame, she found doubly precious. When all the bustle of the King’s moving was over, she was able to return to her normal occupations with a better heart. Seeing the Reverend Troughton in earnest theological discussion with the King reminded her that it was days since she had cleaned the altar plate, a duty of which she had lately relieved her aunt. And because she had a longing to be alone she gathered up some soft linen rags and went across the courtyard to the old chapel of St. Nicholas.

But it seemed she was not to be alone. As her eyes accustomed themselves to dim light after sunshine she became aware of a man kneeling in the quiet shadow of a pillar, and glancing a second time at the tall figure with the reverently bent brown head she saw to her surprise that it was Richard Osborne. It seemed difficult to connect his usual careless pose with devoutness; but she supposed that he might be asking a blessing on their coming enterprise. Not wishing to disturb him she picked up the ewer from the font and withdrew to a narrow bench in the porch. She could feel the warmth of the sun and hear the birds singing as she worked, and before long Osborne joined her there.

“So my being here has driven you outside?” he said, as taken aback as she.

“No, no. It was just that—I was surprised to see you.”

“To see me praying?”

I suppose so.”

“Though who should need more desperately than I to seek a better way of life?” he said. So perhaps it had not been the King’s escape that he had been praying about after all. He stood bareheaded, watching her with that quizzical lift of an eyebrow. “I suppose people have warned you that my reputation is dangerous?”

Mary breathed upon the ewer and gave its fat sides a final rub. Though other women might fear for their virtue in his company, she herself had always felt remarkably safe. “Perhaps it is mostly their invention,” she suggested.

“They do not underestimate my vices, of course.”

“Neither do you encourage the world to do so.”

“Touché,” he admitted with a smile, and sat down beside her. “For their sins my forebears have always held important positions at Court, and like most young men in that sort of family I was sent far too young on a tour of Europe with a tutor who had little control over me. And then—like most younger sons—I was placed in a nobleman’s household with a view to a position at Court. My father persuaded that fabulously rich old libertine, Lord Wharton, to take me. It was considered a very good move socially, but my mother begged almost with her dying breath that I should not be sent there.” He stopped short, as though aghast at his own garrulity. “I assure you I have never before tried to excuse myself to anyone—”

Mary sat with bent head, compassion and understanding in her heart. Compassion had always flourished there, but a measure of understanding had seeded itself from her own new suffering. Even if God had denied her the lover of her choice, she thought, He had been generous in allowing her to inspire liking in a variety of people. “Did you adore her?” she asked, not knowing what else to say.

“My mother?”

“Yes.”

“She was the only woman who has ever really meant anything to me. She had a tender-hearted goodness which I have been seeking ever since—until now.” He added the last two words so softly that Mary was not quite sure whether she had heard aright. For the first time she wondered half incredulously whether he had sought her out of late for his own sake and not, as she had supposed, because he was sorry for her for vicariously accepting a situation which was in some sort his friend’s responsibility. Osborne sat silent a while and then, as if to contradict the serious mood which lingered with him from his prayers, he challenged her flippantly. “Surprised as you may have been to find me in church on a Monday morning, you cannot accuse me of being altogether godless. Consider how patiently I sat last Sunday through one of those denunciatory sermons Rolph delights in, and how edified they all were when I commended the preacher afterwards! His text, if I remember rightly, was ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord.’ If God is really as vindictive as they make out there can be little chance for sinners like me!”

“Are you so great a sinner?” smiled Mary, comparing him with her hateful recollections of Rolph. “Surely kindness and tolerance count for something? Frances and I were once reprimanded by the vicar of Newport for dancing in the Square, and she was brave enough to remind him that Miriam danced before the Lord. I thought it clever of her, but he only told her not to be pert. These Puritans are so certain they are right!”

“But so, for that matter, is the King,” pointed out Osborne. “There might have been no civil war had he not tried to force the Church of England Prayer Book on the Presbyterian Scots.”

Mary had heard the same opinion expressed far more crudely in courtyard and kitchen of late, but she was surprised and not a little shocked to hear it from the lips of a Royal cavalier. Her aunt and the Trattles never had criticized the King, nor would they ever say a good word for the Parliamentarians, and until recently she had accepted their opinions unquestioningly. Before the King came the whole rebellion had seemed so remote—just something that was happening over on the mainland. But now, having seen the extremes of hatred and fervour and danger to which men were driven by the strength of opposing convictions, she felt that it was something which a grown woman should understand. She had heard people discussing the Long Parliament and the Rump Parliament, and the removal of the Court to Oxford, and the battles at Marston Moor and Nazeby, of course; but even her father, who admired certain aspects of Cromwell’s discipline, had not really been able to explain to her the rights of it all. Whenever she had ventured to discuss the King with Harry that dedicated look had come into his face. For him the King could do no wrong; or if he could, it was one’s duty to defend it. But here beside her was Richard Osborne, a man who must have heard other people’s views in London and in foreign countries and who always spoke with cool detachment. Perhaps he could explain what had always puzzled her—how one side or the other could be completely wrong when each felt so passionately. If only he did not laugh at her, and had the patience to put things simply…