The King's General (20 page)

"Never mind Sir Richard, I will take care of him," I said, "when--and if--we ever clap eyes on him again. That boy must return to the house with me and be shifted into dry clothes before anything else be done with him."

Now the causeway at Menabilly is set high, as I have said, commanding a fine view both to east and west, and at this moment--I know not why--I turned my head towards the coast road that descended down to Pridmouth from Coombe and Fowey, and I saw, silhouetted on the sky line above the valley, a single horseman. In a moment he was joined by others who paused an instant on the hill and then, following their leader, plunged down the narrow roadway to the cove.

John saw them, too, for our eyes met and we looked at each other long and silently, while Dick stood between us, his eyes downcast, his teeth chattering.

Richard in the old days was wont to tease me for my southcoast blood, so sluggish, he averred to that which ran through his own north-coast veins, but I swear I thought, in the next few seconds, as rapidly as he had ever done or was likely yet to do.

"Have you your father's keys?" I said to John.

"Yes," he said.

"All of them?"

"All of them."

"On your person now?"

"Yes."

"Open, then, the door of the summerhouse."

He obeyed me without question--thank God his stern father had taught him discipline--and in an instant we stood at the threshold with the door flung open.

"Lift the mat from beneath the desk there," I said, "and raise the flagstone."

He looked at me then in wonder but went without a word to do as I had bidden him.

In a moment the mat was lifted and the flagstone, too, and the flight of steps betrayed to view.

"Don't ask me any questions, John," I said; "there is no time. A passage runs underground from those steps to the house. Take Dick with you now, first replacing the flagstone above your heads, and crawl with him along the passage to the farther end. You will come then to a small room like a cell, and another flight of steps. At the top of the steps is a door which opens, I believe, from the passage end. But do not try to open it until I give you warning from the house."

I could read the sense of what I had said go slowly to his mind and a dawn of comprehension come into his eyes.

"The chamber next to yours?" he said. "My uncle John--"

"Yes," I said. "Give me the keys. Go quickly."

There was no trouble now with Dick. He had gathered from my manner that danger was deadly near and the time for truancy was over. He bolted down into the hole like a frightened rabbit .I watched John settle the mat over the flagstone and, descending after Dick, he lowered the stone above his head and disappeared.

The summerhouse was as it had been, empty and untouched. I leant over in my chair and turned the key in the lock and then put the keys inside my gown. I looked out to the eastward and saw that the sky line was empty. The troopers would have reached the cove by now and after watering their horses at the mill would climb up the farther side and be at Menabilly within ten minutes.

The sweat was running down my forehead clammy cold, and as I waited for Matty to fetch me--and God only knew how much longer she would be--I thought how I would give all I possessed in the world at that moment for but one good swig of brandy.

Far out on the beacon hills I could see Frank Penrose still searching hopelessly for Dick, while in the meadows to the west one of the women from the farm went calling to the cows, all oblivious of the troopers who were riding up the lane.

And at that moment my godchild Joan came hurrying along the causeway to fetch me, her pretty face all strained and anxious, her soft dark hair blowing in the wind.

"They are coming," she said. "We have seen them from the windows. Scores of them, on horseback, riding now across the park."

Her breath caught in a sob, and she began running with me along the causeway, so that I, too, was suddenly caught in panic and could think of nothing but the wide door of Menabilly still open to enfold me. "I have searched everywhere for John," she faltered, "but I cannot find him. One of the servants said they saw him walking out towards the Gribbin. Oh, Honor--the children--what will become of us? What is going to happen?"

I could hear shouting from the park, and out on the hard ground beyond the gates came the steady rhythmic beat of horses trotting; not the light clatter of a company, but line upon line of them, the relentless measure of a regiment, the jingle of harness, the thin alien sound of a bugle.

They were waiting for us by the windows of the gallery, Alice and Mary, the Sawles, the Sparkes, a little tremulous gathering of frightened people, united now in danger, and two other faces that I did not know, the peeky, startled faces of strange children with lace caps upon their heads and wide lace collars. I remembered then the unknown lady who had flung herself upon my sister's mercy, and as we turned into the hall, slamming the door behind us, I saw the horses that had drawn the litter still standing untended in the courtyard, save that the grooms had thrown blankets upon them, coloured white and crimson, and the corners of the blankets were stamped with a dragon's head.... A dragon's head... But even as my memory swung back into the past I heard her voice, cold and clear, rising above the others in the gallery: "If only it can be Lord Robartes I can assure you all no harm will come to us. I have known him well these many years and am quite prepared to speak on your behalf."

"I forgot to tell you," whispered Joan, "she came with her two daughters scarce an hour ago. The road was held; they could not pass St. Blazey. It is Mrs. Denysof Orley Court."

Her eyes swung round to me. Those same eyes, narrow, heavy-lidded, that I had seen often in my more troubled dreams, and her gold hair, golder than it had been in the past, for art had taken council with nature and outstripped it. She stared at sight of me, and for one second only I caught a flash of odd discomfiture run in a flicker through her eyes, and then she smiled her slow, false, well-remembered smile, and, stretching out her hands, she said, "Why, Honor, this is indeed a pleasure. Mary did not tell me that you, too, were here at Menabilly."

I ignored the proffered hand, for a cripple in a chair can be as ill mannered as she pleases, and as I stared back at her in my own fashion, with suspicion and foreboding in my heart, we heard the horses ride into the courtyard and the bugles blow. Poor Temperance Sawle went down upon her knees, the children whimpered, and my sister Mary, with her arm about Joan and Alice, stood very white and still. Only Gartred watched with cool eyes, her hands playing gently with her girdle.

"Pray hard and pray fast, Mrs. Sawle," I said; "the vultures are gathering...."

And there being no brandy in the room, I poured myself some water from a jug and raised my glass to Gartred.

16

It was will Sparke, I remember, who went to unbar the door, having been the first to bolt it earlier, and as he did so excused himself in his high-pitched shaking voice, saying, "It is useless to start by offending them. Our only hope lies in placating them."

We could see through the windows how the troopers dismounted, staring about them with confident hard faces beneath their close-fitting skull helmets, and it seemed to me that one and all they looked the same, with their cropped heads, their drab brown leather jerkins, and this ruthless similarity was both startling and grim. There were more of them on the eastward side now, in the gardens, the horses' hoofs trampling the green lawns and the little yew trees as a first symbol of destruction, and all the while the thin high note of the bugle, like a huntsman summoning his hounds to slaughter. In a moment we heard their heavy footsteps in the house, clamping through the dining chamber and up the stairs, and into the gallery returned Will Sparke, a nervous smile on his face which was drained of all colour, and behind him three officers, the first a big burly man with a long nose and heavy jaw, wearing a green sash about his waist. I recognised him at once as Lord Robartes, the owner of Lanhydrock, a big estate on the Bodmin road, and who in days gone by had gone riding and hawking with my brother Kit, but was not much known to the rest of us. He was now our enemy and could dispose of us as he wished.

"Where is the owner of the house?" he asked, and looked toward old Nick Sawle, who turned his back.

"My husband is from home," said Mary, coming forward, "and my stepson somewhere in the grounds."

"Is everyone living in the place assembled here?"

"All except the servants."

"You have no malignants in hiding?"

"None."

Lord Robartes turned to the staff officer at his side. "Make a thorough search of the house and grounds," he said. "Break down any door you find locked and test the panelling for places of concealment. Give orders to the farm people to round up all sheep and cattle and other livestock, and place men in charge of them and the granaries. We will take over this gallery and all other rooms on the ground floor for our personal use. Troops to bivouac in the park."

"Very good, sir." The officer stood to attention and then departed about his business.

Lord Robartes drew up a chair to the table, and the remaining officer gave him paper and a quill.

"Now, madam," he said to Mary, "give me your full name and the name and occupation of each member of your household."

One by one he had us documented, looking at each victim keenly, as though the very admission of name and age betrayed some sign of guilt. Only when he came to Gartred did his manner relax something of its hard suspicion. "A foolish time to journey, Mrs. Denys," he said. "You would have done better to remain at Orley Court."

"There are so many soldiery abroad of little discipline and small respect," said Gartred languidly; "it is not very pleasant for a widow with young daughters to live alone, as I do. I hoped by travelling South to escape the fighting."

"You thought wrong," he answered, "and, I am afraid, must abide by the consequences of such an error. You will have to remain here in custody with Mrs.

Rashleigh and her household."

Gartred bowed and did not answer. Lord Robartes rose to his feet. "When the apartments above have been searched you may go to them," he said, addressing Mary and the rest of us, "and I must request you to remain in them until further orders.

Exercise once a day will be permitted in the garden here under close escort. You must prepare your food as, and how, you are able. We shall take command of the kitchens, and certain stores will be allotted to you. Your keys, madam."

I saw Mary falter and then, slowly and reluctantly, she unfastened the string from her girdle. "Can I not have entry there myself?" she asked.

"No, madam. The stores are no longer yours but the possession of the Parliament, likewise everything pertaining to this estate."

I thought of the jars of preserves upon Mary's shelves, the honeys and the jams and the salted pilchards in the larders and the smoked hams and the sides of salted mutton.

I thought of the bread in the bakeries, the flour in the bins, the grain in the granaries, the young fruit setting in the orchards. And all the while I thought of this the sound of heavy feet came tramping from above and out in the grounds came the bugle's cry.

"I thank you, madam. And I must warn you and the rest of the company that any attempt at escape, any contravention of my orders will be punished with extreme severity."

"What about milk for the children?" said Joan, her cheeks very flushed, her head high. "We must have milk and butter and eggs. My little son is delicate and inclined to croup."

"Certain stores will be given you daily, madam. I have already said so," said Lord Robartes. "If the children need more nourishment you must do without yourselves. I have some five hundred men to quarter here, and their needs come before yours or your children. Now you may go to your apartments."

This was the moment I had waited for and, catching Joan's eye, I summoned her to my side. "You must give up your apartment to Mrs. Denys," I murmured, "and come to me in the gatehouse. I shall move my bed into the adjoining chamber."

Her lips framed a question, but I shook my head. She had sense enough to accept it, tor all her agitation, and went at once to Mary with the proposition, who was so bewildered by the loss of her keys that her natural hospitality had deserted her.

"I beg of you, make no move because of me," said Gartred, smiling, her arms about her children. "May and Gertie and I can fit in anywhere. The house is something like a warren; I remember it of old."

I looked at her thoughtfully and remembered then how Kit had been at Oxford the same time as my brother-in-law, when old Mr. Rashleigh was still alive, and during the days of Jonathan's first marriage Kit had ridden over to Menabilly often from Lanrest.

"You have been here then before?" I said to Gartred, speaking to her for the first time since I had come into the gallery.

"Why, bless me, yes." She yawned. "Some five and twenty years ago Kit and I came for a harvest supper and lost ourselves about the passages." But at this moment Lord Robartes, who had been conferring with his officer, turned from the door.

"You will now please," he said, "retire to your apartments."

We went out of the farther door where the servants were huddled like a flock of startled sheep, and Matty and two others seized the arms of my chair. Already the troopers were in the kitchens, in full command, and the round of beef that had been roasting for our dinner was being cut into great slices and served out amongst them while down the stairs came three more of them, two fellows and a noncommissioned officer, bearing loads of Mary ' s precious stores in their arms. Another had a great pile of blankets and a rich embroidered cover that had been put aside until winter in the linen room.

"Oh, but they cannot have that," said Mary. "Where is an officer? I must speak to someone of authority."

"I have authority," replied the sergeant, "to remove all linen, blankets, and covers that we find. So keep a cool temper, lady, for you'll find no redress." They stared us coolly in the face, and one of them favoured Alice with a bold familiar stare and then whispered something in the ear of his companion.