Lark (Sally Watson Family Tree Series)

by Sally Watson

  If men loved us, they ought to realize how awful it is to be left behind!” retorted Lark. “After all, if we’re the weaker sex and need to be cherished and cared for, why can’t we just explain that it’s really much harder—”

  “Fiddlesticks!” interrupted Lady Valerie briskly. “Most men think that, poor dears, and even a good many women, I dare say. But I know better, and I think you do, too. Women, my dear Lark, are a great deal stronger in some ways than men.”

  Lark looked surprised at this, and her grandmother laughed.

  “Oh, not in size or weight or muscle, of course. But we can endure better—both physical pain and things like fear and uncertainty and worry. And since God has given us this special sort of strength, presumably He expects us to use it.”

  Lark considered this for a moment, in high disapproval. It really seemed most unfair of God . . . and just when she was beginning to get on with Him so well, too. She sighed impatiently. Then she remembered that she had already made quite a start in training James. With any luck, he was already so addicted to having Lark along on adventures that she would be able to share them more often than not, just as Grandmother did, now that she came to think of it. Feeling considerably more cheerful, she put her mind once more on the matter of what might be happening on shore.

  Midnight drew near. The sea was growing more restless. Waves were both higher and choppier, and odd, cold, menacing little gusts of wind began to blow from the west. Helier faced into it, frowning and sniffing, and a perfectly awful fear clutched more and more firmly at Lark. Grandfather and James had almost certainly been captured by the Roundheads! Perhaps they had been shot as well! It was all she could do not to burst into sobs, but she didn’t, because Grandmother would be very much ashamed of her if she did, and Grandmother herself must be feeling sick with worry.

  So Lark managed somehow to keep her face in the shadow and her voice steady as midnight came and passed. Her conversation with God became more and more urgent. Then there was a bumping sound at the side of the boat, and a cheerful hail announced that everything had gone beautifully.

  Lark sat down suddenly on the deck, dizzy with relief. For a moment she wanted to burst into wild tears. Then she wanted to explode into a violent temper tantrum. How could they be so nonchalant? Selfish beasts! Didn’t they—

  Lark heard James’s voice as he climbed over the rail just behind the rescued Cavaliers, and she decided against the tantrum, or even the tears. For one thing, it was enough that he was safe, and for another, there was a certain note in his voice that caused her to forget about her grievance.

  She moved forward quickly, picking out James in the white moonlight. He was staring at the tallest refugee with a look of suppressed excitement. Lark stared, too. He was an exceedingly tall young man, with a long, swarthy, knobbly face, and dark cropped hair.

  “Mercy!” said Lark uncertainly. Was it possible?

  It was. James’s manner showed it, and Grandmother recognized him at once, even before Grandfather climbed briskly over the rail and told them to pay their respects to His Majesty King Charles II.

  “Mercy!” said Lark again, thinking in confusion that he had not really changed, except to grow even larger, since he used to visit her brother and sister in Oxford. And oh, dear! How awful if no one had seen the signal from shore and stopped to rescue him!

  “I think Charles will forgive us if we postpone our respects,” suggested Grandmother practically. “Helier says we should get under way at once if we want to reach Ravenhurst in one piece, and I rather think Charles could use a bite to eat and a glass of wine, and possibly even a bit of sleep.”

  “Madam, I’d give a kingdom for them if I had a kingdom to give,” said Charles with wry humor.

  22

  Charles

  By daylight the little boat was running under a full gale, with Helier cheerfully predicting worse to come. The king’s loyal companion, Lord Wilmot, failed to appear for breakfast, the storm not agreeing with him at all. But Lark and James both found it extremely stimulating and exactly to their taste, and King Charles seemed to have a very seagoing nature too.

  All three of them wanted to know if they could help handle the boat, but the crew merely smiled at them with kindly contempt for landlubbers, and indicated that they would be of most use safely inside. Even Grandfather, looking rather like Prospero from The Tempest this morning, was not allowed to do much more than stand on deck.

  “Helier will shoo him back in presently,” said Grandmother.

  It was too rough for a fire in the galley, so they were having a cold breakfast in the small and crowded cabin “drawing room,” feeling altogether satisfied with themselves, while Charles told of his hair-raising escapes. He had hidden in an oak tree while Roundheads searching for him walked directly beneath. He had been chased and almost caught at the Welsh border. He had ridden to Bristol as a groom behind the most remarkable lady named Jane Lane. He had, like James and Lark, stayed at Heale House; and what with one thing and another he had managed to get nearly to Southampton without ever a chance to cross the Channel.

  “Until now,” he added. “I’m extremely grateful. Also, I might add, most impressed with your rescue operations . . . complete with pretty girls!” And he smiled warmly at Lark, who blushed and smiled back.

  James frowned. It was well known that Charles was excessively fond of pretty girls, who, in turn, usually found him altogether fascinating.

  “I’m not sure you really deserved rescuing at all,” remarked Lady Valerie briskly. “You have been making a pretty fool of yourself this last year or so, haven’t you?” Charles, not really used to this sort of plain speaking except from the Scots, turned in considerable astonishment and stared at Lady Valerie, who returned his gaze calmly. Then he began to grin.

  “It’s been a long time, but I remember you very well!” he said. “You used to drop in now and then to say that sort of thing to Father.”

  “And his father before him,” agreed Lady Valerie equably. “And now you. I dare say idiocy must run in the family.”

  Charles shouted with laughter and then sobered. “Possibly you’re right,” he mused. “Father used to be upset after your visits, and Mam was always furious—but perhaps if Father had listened to you, he might be alive today.”

  “Don’t try to rearrange the past,” advised Lady Valerie gently. “It’s not too late for you to begin acting intelligently, though. Who knows, if you’ll take my advice you might even sit on that throne of yours some day, and not by conquest, either. . . . Lark, pour His Majesty some more ale, poppet.”

  “Lark?” Charles looked at her again, to James’s increasing disapproval. “Of course! Cecily’s baby sister! How very pretty you’ve grown, sweet Lark!”

  At that moment James could cheerfully have pitched his King overboard. Sweet Lark, indeed! That was his name for her! He had, he decided, put up with quite enough.

  “Excuse me!” he said, standing up suddenly. “There’s something very urgent that I have to tell Lark. This minute.”

  He seized her by the arm in a grip that would ordinarily have caused her to box his ears. Instead, she gave him a melting smile and permitted herself to be marched to the door like a perfect lamb.

  James had every intention of hurling the door open and sweeping Lark across the deck to the bow, where he could propose in the teeth of the howling storm, with spray flying before them. This was less romantic than moonlight and balconies, but James was really more in the mood for a dramatic setting, anyway. He pushed furiously at the door.

  It opened a full two inches, admitted a blast of wind and drenching spray, and slammed shut again.

  James and Lark regarded it with amazement. They had never been in a storm at sea before, and had quite underestimated the violence of this one. As if to make sure that they appreciated it now, the boat gave a particularly boisterous heave, jerk, and roll, which caused them to clutch each other and stagger against the bulkhead.

  James perceived at on
ce that the bow would never do for intimate conversation—nor, for that matter would anywhere else on deck. On the other hand, he was not going to retreat now, especially with Lady Valerie and the king sitting there watching him with interest. There was only one thing to do.

  James abandoned his dramatic setting along with the romantic one, turned on his heel, and marched himself and Lark a full six steps to the opposite side of the cabin, where a smaller door led into dark and narrow passages. They vanished down one of them.

  There was a moment of silence behind them. The king turned to Lady Valerie. “I take it he has something extremely important to discuss with her,” he suggested mildly but with a twinkle in his warm brown eyes.

  “Extremely,” agreed Lady Valerie complacently. “I dare say they’ll come tell us about it presently.” She picked up a bit of embroidery, just as her husband came in through the door that James and Lark had gone out of. He was looking less like Prospero now, and more like an elderly Puck.

  “My crew has ordered me off the decks,” he said cheerfully. “No place for a landlubber, they tell me. Val, my love, I have just seen young James having a most fervent conversation with our granddaughter in the galley.”

  “Yes, I rather thought that’s where he’d go,” said Lady Valerie. “I do hope the pots and pans are not falling about their heads,” she added, as the small craft gave another violent lurch.

  Sir Nicholas was not particularly interested in pots and pans. “It is my belief,” he told his wife, “that James is proposing to Lark.”

  She nodded. “I should be extremely surprised if he were not.”

  Sir Nicholas looked pleased. “A fine boy,” he remarked, sitting down on the nearest bit of bench. “But of course Lark must be much older before the matter can be considered seriously.”

  Lady Valerie’s green eyes gleamed wickedly. “Jeremiah Talbot will be furious,” she murmured with relish. “I shall write and tell him myself. As for Lark and James, there will be time and leisure—”

  Something seemed to occur to her. She turned suddenly to the startled king. “In the meantime, Charles Stewart, I have a considerable number of things to say to you, and I don’t suppose I shall ever have a better chance to say them, so you may as well make yourself comfortable.”

  Author’s Comments:

  This one took the most revision of any! The last two-thirds of it turned out to be a totally different story, with the help of Ann Durrell, my super editor in those days.

  I didn’t really intend to make my family so Royalist. My own opinion always came out very similar to that expressed in 1066 And All That: that the Royalists were Wrong but Romantic and the Parliamentarians were Right but Repulsive, and bad cess to the lot of them. But every time any of my characters fell foul of the self-righteous, bigoted godliness of Cromwell’s lot, their repulsiveness always felt worse than the arrogant privilege of the Royalists, whose religious convictions seem to have been rather less brutal.

  I had planned to show the other side, in the stories of Lark’s siblings, but those books never did get written. I know Cecily married a Highlander–a Cameron–starting that branch of the family tree. Her brother Peregrine, already a cynic about Charles II and the Divine Right of Kings and the semi-divine rights of nobles, found himself in at the siege of Corfe Castle. There, too, was Verity, a tart and intelligent girl with her own brand of logic who, having made life an intellectual hell for her Parliamentarian family, was now doing the same for Lady Barnes. I really liked that story. But it refused to finish itself, and so I never learned how it turned out.

  That’s the problem of having (or belonging to?) a Muse. Guess who’s boss?

  About the Author

  Sally Watson: Born January 1924 in Seattle, Washington. Picked up phonics from Mother’s kindergarten before I was two; the next thing anyone knew I was reading independently–which I went on doing for 12 years of public school–under my desk instead of arithmetic or geography. Rotten grades, didn’t know how to study–I just read and wrote. Mum said I wrote my first book when I was four. Four pages, lavishly illustrated, begun with total phonic accuracy: “The sun roze up.” From that, she decided that I should grow up to write books for children. Well, it was true I loved words and had a collection–just for fun–of synonyms for “said” and adverbs to accompany it. But when Mum suggested that I might write books for children, I sneered. For one thing, I’d read a book that convinced me one had to be a total genius and collect rejections for ten years. For another, I was going to travel all over Europe and study Highland Dancing and Judo and be a Prima Ballerina, I was.

  At 16 or so, I discovered that I wasn’t. Not a Prima Ballerina anyhow, and darned if I was going to settle for the corps de ballet. Disgruntled, I further realized that alone among my peers I hadn’t the least interest in marriage and families. Nor in office work–the only thing going for women in the ’30’s.

  Joined the Navy in 1944 and after that mess was over, I decided to go to college–and applied to Reed without knowing enough not to. They took me, it turned out, on “possible potential,” and I waltzed innocently in . . .and by the time I realized that I would have to commit several major and sustained miracles to stay there, it was too late to do anything else. I was hooked by the intellectual excitement. (An astrologer once told me I had “a jack-ass determination that never knew when it was beaten–and consequently seldom was.” True, I guess. A useful–albeit sometimes uncomfortable–quality.) At any rate, it was there I learned the discipline to write–but still had no idea of doing it. That childhood conviction was still with me.

  But what to do? I still wanted neither marriage nor the office work I was temporarily stuck with. Moved to San Francisco, and then L.A., where (on Hollywood and Vine, true to cliché) I ran into an old high school friend who had just had a children’s story published in a real magazine! Mental barriers collapsed all around me with almost audible crashes. I rushed home and started Highland Rebel that night.

  I must have had a lot of writing dammed up in me. The first draft wrote itself in three weeks, the final in another three. It was accepted by the first place I submitted it–Henry Holt–without revision! And I was such a novice I didn’t even know this was remarkable luck. (Needless to say, it never happened again.)

  After three books, I had enough money to go to Europe for five months. Three more books, and I went back to England for a year and studied Highland dancing and wrote some more books. Passport and money ran out, so back to California for five years, helping Mother put out the first-ever audio-visual phonics course (which I now see duplicated virtually everywhere I turn. Never mind, Mother had good material, and the more who use it, the better.) Once it was accepted for publication, I realized I could now live in England on royalties, whereas I couldn’t begin to in the U.S. So I went there and did that, and joined in Mensa, and went on writing books, and took up Judo at age 45, and I reckon I’m the only woman ever to do that and make Black Belt. Third Dan, at that.

  Then, in a bout 1972, the bottom fell out. Up until then, my books were selling slowly but steadily, mostly to schools and libraries; and every time stocks got low, they just printed up a new edition. Now tax laws, it seems, were changed so that it was now uneconomical for publishers to keep books in stock over the turn of the year. So all twelve of my books went out of print almost simultaneously. And I was engrossed in Judo and also in copper enameling, and gardening my English country garden, and raising cats. So I stopped writing. And old fans kept writing and asking for copies of my books–and there weren’t any.

  After 24 years in England, I came back to America–the Sonoma County (not Napa) wine country, and joined a cat-rescue-and-adoption group and helped form another; and old fans kept on pleading for copies, and I discovered that feisty heroines are more needed now than in the ’50s and ’60s...so...

 

 
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