The King's General (18 page)

"My father."

"Yes, he has ridden away to Launceston with your cousin."

He considered this a moment.

"When will he be back?" he asked.

"He will not be back. He has to attend a meeting at Okehampton tomorrow or the following day. You are to stay here for the present. Did he not tell you who I am?"

"I think you must be Honor. He said I was to be with a lady who was beautiful.

Why do you sit in that chair?"

"Because I cannot walk. I am a cripple."

"Does it hurt?"

"No, not very much. I am used to it. Does your head hurt you?"

He touched the bandage warily. "It bled," he said. "There is blood under the bandage."

"Never mind, it will soon heal."

"I will keep the bandage on or it will bleed afresh," he said. "You must tell the servant who washes it not to move the bandage."

"Very well," I said, "I will tell her."

I took a piece of tapestry and began to work on it so he should not think I watched him and would grow accustomed to my presence.

"My mother used to work at tapestry," he said after a lengthy pause. "She worked a forest scene with stags running."

"That was pretty," I said.

"She made three covers for her chairs," he went on. "They were much admired at Fitzford. You never came to Fitzford, I believe?"

"No, Dick."

"My mother had many friends, but I did not hear her speak of you."

"I do not know your mother, Dick. I only know your father."

"Do you like him?" The question was suspicious, sharply put.

"Why do you ask?" I said, evading it.

"Because I don't. I hate him. I wish he would be killed in battle."

The tone was savage, venomous. I stole a glance at him and saw him once more biting at the back of his hand.

"Why do you hate him?" I asked quietly.

"He is a devil, that's why. He tried to kill my mother. He tried to steal her house and money and then kill her."

"Why do you think that?"

"My mother told me."

"Do you love her very much?"

"I don't know. I think so. She was beautiful. More beautiful than you. She is in London now with my sister. I wish I could be with her."

"Perhaps," I said, "when the war is finished with, you will go back to her."

"I would run away," he said, "but for London being so far, and I might get caught in the fighting. There is fighting everywhere. There is no talk of anything at Buckland but the fighting. I will tell you something."

"What is that?"

"Last week I saw a wounded man brought into the house upon a stretcher. There was blood upon him."

The way he said this puzzled me. His manner was so shrinking.

"Why," I asked, "are you so much afraid of blood?"

The colour flamed into his pale face.

"I did not say I was afraid," he answered quickly.

"No, but you do not like it. Neither do I. It is most unpleasant. But I am not fearful if I see it spilt.

"I cannot bear to see it spilt at all," he said after a moment. "I have always been thus since a little child. It is not my fault."

"Perhaps you were frightened as a baby."

"That's what my mother brought me up to understand. She told me that when she had me in her arms once my father came into the room and quarrelled violently with her upon some matter and that he struck her on the face and she bled. The blood ran onto my hands. I cannot remember it, but that is how it was."

I began to feel very sick at heart and despondent but was careful that he should not notice it.

"We won't talk about it any more then, Dick, unless you want to. What shall we discuss instead?"

"Tell me what you did when you were my age, how you looked, and what you said, and had you brothers, and had you sisters?"

And so I wove him a tale about the past, thus making him forget his own, while he sat watching me; and by the time Matty came, bringing us refreshment, he had lost so much of his nervousness as to chat with her, too, and make big eyes at the pasties which soon disappeared, while I sat and looked at his little chiselled features, so unlike his father's, and the close black curls upon his head. Afterwards I read to him for a while, and he left his chair and came and curled on the floor beside my chair, like a small dog that would make friends in a strange house, and when I closed the book he looked up at me and smiled--and the smile for the first time was Richard's smile and not his mother's.

14

From that day forward Dick became my shadow. He arrived early with my breakfast, never my best moment of the day, but because he was Richard's son I suffered him. He then left to do his lessons with the sallow Mr. Ashley while I made my toilet, and later in the morning came to walk beside my chair upon the causeway.

He sat beside me in the dining chamber and brought a stool to the gallery when I went there after dinner; seldom speaking, always watchful, he hovered continually about me like a small phantom.

"Why do you not run and play in the gardens," I asked, "or desire Mr. Ashley to take you down to Pridmouth? There are fine shells there on the beach and, the weather being warm, you could swim if you had the mind. There's a young cob, too, in the stables you could ride across the park."

"I would rather stay with you," he said.

And he was firm on this and would not be dissuaded. Even Alice, who had the warmest way with children I ever saw, failed with him, for he would shake his head and take his stool behind my chair.

"He has certainly taken a fancy to you, madam," said the tutor, relieved, I am sure, to find his charge so little trouble. "I have found it very hard to interest him."

"He is your conquest," said Joan, "and you will never more be rid of him. Poor Honor. What a burden to the end of your days!"

But it did not worry me. If Dick was happy with me that was all that mattered, and if I could bring some feeling of security to his poor lonely little heart and puzzled mind I should not feel my days were wasted. Meanwhile, the news worsened, and some five days after Dick's arrival word came from Fowey that Essex had reached Tavistock, and the siege of Plymouth had been raised, with Richard withdrawing his; troops from Saltash, Mount Stampford, and Plympton, and retreating to the Tamar bridges.

That evening a council was held in Tywardreath amongst the gentry in the district, at which my brother-in-law presided, and one and all decided to muster what men and arms and ammunition they could and ride to Launceston to help defend the county.

We were at once in a state of consternation and the following morning saw the preparations for departure. All those on the estate who were able-bodied and fit to carry arms paraded before my brother-in-law with their horses and their kits packed on the saddles, and amongst them were the youngest of the house servants who could be spared and all the grooms. Jonathan and his son-in-law, John Rashleigh of Coombe, and Oliver Sawle from Penrice--brother to old Nick Sawle--and many other gentlemen from round about Fowey and St. Austell gathered at Menabilly before setting forth, while my poor sister Mary went from one to the other with her face set in a smile I knew was sadly forced, handing them cake and fruit and pasties to cheer them on their way. John was left with many long instructions, which I could swear he would never carry in his head, and then we watched them set off across the park, a strange, pathetic little band full of ignorance and high courage, the tenants wielding their muskets as though they were hay forks, and with considerably more danger to themselves than to the enemy they might encounter. It was '43 all over again, with the rebels not thirty miles away, and although Richard might declare that Essex and his army were running into a trap, I was disloyal enough to wish they might keep out of it.

Those last days of July were clammy and warm, a sticky breeze blowing from the southwest that threatened rain and never brought it, while a tumbled sea rolled past the Gribbin white and grey. At Menabilly we made a pretence of continuing as though all were as usual, and nothing untoward likely to happen, and even forced a little gaiety when dining that we must wait upon ourselves, now that there were none but womenfolk to serve us. But for all this deception, intended to convey a sense of courage, we were tense and watchful--our ears always pricked for the rumble of cannon or the sound of horses. I can remember how we all sat beside the long table in the dining chamber, the portrait of His Majesty gazing calmly down upon us from the dark panelling above the open hearth, and how at the end of a strained, tedious meal Nick Sawle, who was the eldest amongst us, conquered his rheumatics and rose to his feet in great solemnity, saying, "It were well that in this time of stress and trouble we should give a toast unto His Majesty. Let us drink to our beloved King and may God protect him and all who have gone forth from this house to fight for him."

They all then rose to their feet, too, except myself, and looked up at his portrait-- those melancholy eyes, that small, obstinate mouth--and I saw the tears run down Alice's cheeks--she was thinking of Peter--and sad resignation come to Mary's face, her thoughts with Jonathan, yet none of them gazing at the King's portrait thought to blame him for the trouble that had come upon them. God knows I had no sympathy for the rebels, who each one of them was out for feathering his own nest and building up a fortune, caring nothing for the common people whose lot they pretended would be bettered by their victory; but nor could I, in my heart, recognise the King as the fountain of all truth, but thought of him always as a stiff, proud man, small in intelligence as he was in stature, yet commanding by his grace of manner, his dignity, and his moral virtue a wild devotion in his followers that sprang from their warm hearts and not their reason.

We were a quiet, subdued party who sat in the long gallery that evening. Even the sharp tongue of Temperance Sawle was stilled, her thin features were pinched and anxious, while the Sparkes forewent their usual game of cribbage and sat talking in low voices, Will, the rumour-monger, without much heart now for his hobby.

"Have the rebels crossed the Tamar?" This was, I think, the thought in all our minds, and while Mary, Alice, and Joan worked at their tapestry and I read in a soft voice to Dick, my brain, busy all the while, was reckoning the shortest distance that the enemy would take and whether they would cross by Saltash or by Gunnislake.

John had left the dining chamber as soon as the King's health had been drunk, saying he could stand this waiting about no longer but must ride to Fowey for news. He returned about nine o'clock, saying that the town was well-nigh empty, with so many ridden north to join the Army, but those who were left were standing at their doors, glum and despondent, saying that word had come that Grenvile and his troops had been defeated at Newbridge below Gunnislake, while Essex and some ten thousand men were riding toward Launceston.

I remember Will Sparke leaping to his feet at hearing this and breaking out into a tirade against Richard, his shrill voice sharp and nervous. "What have I been saying all along?" he cried. "When it comes to a test like this the fellow is no commander.

The pass at Gunnislake should be easy to defend, no matter the strength of the opponent, and here is Grenvile pulled out and in full retreat without having struck a blow to defend Cornwall. Heaven, what a contrast to his brother."

"It is only rumour, Cousin Will," said John with an uncomfortable glance in my direction. "There was no one in Fowey able to swear to the truth of it."

"I tell you, everything is lost," said Will. "Cornwall will be ruined and overrun, even as Sir Francis Bassett said the other day. And if it is so, then Richard Grenvile will be to blame for it."

I watched young Dick swallow the words with eager eyes and, pulling at my arm, he whispered, "What is it he says? What has happened?"

"John Rashleigh hears that the Earl of Essex has passed into Cornwall," I told him softly, "finding little opposition. We must wait until the tale be verified."

"Then my father has been slain in battle?"

"No, Dick, nothing has been said of that. Do you wish me to continue reading?"

"Yes, please, if you will do so."

And I went on with the tale, taking no notice of his biting of his hand, for my anxiety was such that I could have done the same myself. Anything might have happened during these past eight and forty hours. Richard left for slain upon the steep road down from Gunnislake and his men fled in all directions, or taken prisoner, perhaps, and at this moment being put to torture in Launceston Castle that he might betray the plan of battle.

It was always my fault to let imagination do its worst, and although I guessed enough of Richard's strategy to know that a retreat on the Tamar bank was probably his intention from the first, in order to lure Essex into Cornwall, yet I longed to hear the opposite and that a victory had been gained that day and the rebels pushed back into Devon.

I slept ill that night, for to be ignorant of the truth is, I shall always believe, the worst sort of mental torture, and for a powerless woman who cannot forget her fears in taking action there is no remedy.

The next day was as hot and airless as the one preceding, and when I came down after breakfast I wondered if I looked as haggard and as careworn to the rest of the company as they looked to me. And still no news. But everything strangely silent, even the jackdaws that usually clustered in the trees down in the warren had flown and settled elsewhere.

Shortly before noon, when some of us were assembled in the dining chamber to take cold meat, Mary, coming from her sun parlour across the hall, cried, "There is a horseman riding across the park towards the house."

Everyone began talking at once and pushing to the windows, and John, something white about the lips, went to the courtyard to receive whoever it should be.

The rider clattered into the inner court, with all of us watching from the windows, and though he was covered from head to foot with dust and had a great slash across his boot I recognised him at once as young Joe Grenvile.