And with his face set he braced himself to the interview.
The ground for it was quickly prepared for him; he had a glimpse of two of his pretty cousins leaving at the other end of the room as he entered it, and the Queen with heroic self-denial forbore to stay and direct the talk into the channels she hoped for. His aunt’s influence over Charles was not as strong as his mother’s, but it was much more pleasant, and she would use it unscrupulously on behalf of this man who she had long felt certain was the only one to save the royal cause in Scotland. But she was wiser than her wishes and at once realized that here was the perfect opportunity for a private unofficial meeting as if by chance between Montrose and his King.
So with the bare minimum of greeting and excuse she swept off General Hurry with her to the stables to give his opinion as an expert on horseflesh on the poor remnant of her stud. There was a roan mare that might be worth breeding from, came of a good stock, she said, swinging the cloak round her that had slipped from her shoulders in the warm room and catching and tearing it on Hurry’s spur, but she laughed it off with the glee of a schoolboy who has torn his breeches, and prevented Hurry’s apologies by instant questions of his service under Gustavus Adolphus (thereby showing her swift tact, since talk of his part in the Scottish wars would so clearly be fraught with embarrassment). She would have given her eyes to have seen King Gustavus go off to a carnival disguised as a waiter, with her husband as a Jesuit friar! And had not Sir John come across her greatest friend Will Craven in the earlier campaigns!
Dazzled by her royal air that could so quickly become one of gay camaraderie, Hurry had been carefully silent, but now prayed to Heaven for the right answer and told her, ‘I saw Lord Craven fighting like a wild cat, Your Majesty, when the Swedish King asked the name of the little man who was in such a mighty hurry to die.’
It was certainly the right answer, for she laughed delightedly as she went down the stair beside that lean figure with the massive shoulders. The tough imperturbability of his bearing belied his thoughts, which were leaping and singing in his head, ‘Here have I been drinking with the King of England and been in the same room with him and my general and left it with the most famous and beautiful queen in the world, and eh but if Maggie could see me now!’
Charles found himself alone, face to face with Montrose. The candles had been lit in the great bronze chandelier, the faded stamped velvet curtains drawn across the shuttered windows. Their pattern, now spread out, showed itself heavily encrusted with darns, and Charles stared at the long centipede shape of one of them in the instant’s pause that followed the Queen’s departure with Hurry. Those clear grey eyes before him seemed to be scanning every one of his carefully prepared thoughts, driving them shamefacedly to hide behind each other and anxiously wonder how best to express themselves.
Montrose saved him the trouble by striking at the root of them.
‘I have disobeyed Your Majesty’s commands in coming here.’
Charles’ quick flush made him look very young, uncomfortable and rather indignant.
‘Those commands were not my wishes. There is no one I would rather have had by me at this juncture than you, my lord, the truest and bravest friend my father ever had. But when I wrote to you and asked your help I dared not have you here, and that’s the plain truth of it. Your old enemies from Scotland have been pestering me for weeks not to let you come near me – but you know that.’
‘I know it, sir, too well. They are still my enemies – and yours sir, if you do not do all they ask.’
‘I’ll never do that. But I’ll get them to do what I ask.’ He had settled himself in the big chair where his beautiful aunt had sat, and his dark face, ugly as it was, had a great look of hers there in the softening firelight. He waited for Montrose’s answer, but as none came he went on with increasing confidence, ‘The whole of the Covenanters are coming round to me now. These Lords of the Covenant, why shouldn’t their money and influence with the Kirk help your enterprise in Scotland?’
‘Sir, how should they help it? To them I am a dead man. In all their Government’s papers I am referred to only as ‘the late Marquis’, since I stand condemned by them to be hanged, drawn, and quartered.’
Charles looked up at the ‘dead man’ who was telling him this so quietly as he stood in front of him, erect, alert, but very still.
‘Of all monstrous insanities! But this foul murder of my father is bound to bring them to their senses.’
‘I doubt it.’ said Montrose.
‘But Argyll himself is sending Commissioners to me here to offer me the Crown of Scotland. He wants nothing better than to crown me at Scone with his own hands.’
‘Two years ago, sir, Argyll sold your father to Cromwell’s army. On the day he handed over the King to his butchers, the carts of English gold trundled into Argyll’s camp. There is no refuting that. If Your Majesty puts your head too under his hands, he will keep it his prisoner and his pawn, whether he puts a crown on it or not.’
‘Not if I shackle them first,’ said Charles. ‘This game will have to be played with finesse as well as strength,’
The word struck an unpleasant chord in Montrose’s memory. It was the belief in his own finesse, in his ability to outwit his enemies even when he was their prisoner, that had helped to knot the noose round the neck of Charles I.
He thought of Argyll, that ‘bottled spider’, whose delight it had always been to keep himself in the background and weave the intricate net of the Covenant’s power that now bound the whole of Scotland – and he looked at this boy of eighteen with the sad eyes and the charming smile, who hoped to outwit him.
When he spoke, his voice was more grave.
‘In this tangle,’ he said, ‘the direct method has the best chance to win through.’
‘The best chance,’ said Charles eagerly, ‘is in your military genius and power to win men to your side. Turenne, Conde, the greatest foreign captains, say how you beat them all there – that you bind men to you with a chain to follow wherever you wish.’
Montrose did not seem to hear the flattery.
‘Where do you wish them to follow me?’
‘Why, to raise Scotland yet again.’
‘And how am I to do this in secret, without Your Majesty’s sanction?’
This was awkward.
‘It is only the preparations that should be secret. I would of course acknowledge the expedition once it was launched.’
He wished Montrose would move; he himself seemed to have crossed and uncrossed his legs half a dozen times as he sprawled in that chair,
‘And in the meantime,’ asked that deliberate voice, ‘does Your Majesty mean to receive the Commissioners from Argyll?’
‘I shall hear what they have to say, certainly. I should be mad if I refused to consider any possible way out of this desperate situation.’
Here he was actually excusing himself, when he had meant to tax Montrose for his insubordination in marching to The Hague against his orders.
And Montrose’s next words took him completely by surprise.
‘The Earl of Huntly, chief of the Gordon clan,’ he said, ‘has been executed within this week by Argyll’s Government for his attempt last year to rise on behalf of the late King.’
Now why should he have told him that? He could have no reason to regret Huntly, who in his jealousy of Montrose had refused ever to join with him in his campaigns in Scotland. Charles answered contemptuously in his annoyance at having had to undergo those last difficult moments:
‘Why do you speak of Huntly? If the old Cock o’ the North has crowed his last, that’s about all his loyalty ever amounted to – some mighty loyal speeches.’
‘He never made a better than on the scaffold,’ said Montrose, ‘when he “wished his life had been more use to his royal master, for whom he was at least content to die”. But I am asking Your Majesty to consider this – why was he made to die, now, at the very moment when Scotland has proclaimed you as Charles II, King o
f Great Britain? For this reason: to show that that proclamation need not be taken seriously.’
‘Show whom?’
‘Cromwell himself. Words are only so much breath wasted, but the chop of an axe is a definite and substantial proof to Cromwell that Argyll is still Cromwell’s ally.’
‘But your country,’ cried Charles, ‘is dead against Cromwell.’
‘They know little of Cromwell, sir. To rise for the King means in Scotland to rise against the tyranny of Argyll. The country is groaning under it, as in a nightmare. But if Your Majesty enters into treaties with him, of what use is it for me to try and raise the country against him?’
Charles pushed a worried hand up over his forehead, rumpling his black hair. ‘If only Scotland could sometimes forget!’ he exclaimed with the petulance of a boy. ‘Why can’t they forget their differences and unite together?’
They were almost the very words his mother had used in writing to Montrose. But this unthinking echo of them encouraged their hearer; it showed that Charles’ reason had practically given up the contest and admitted Montrose’s argument. What he needed now was conviction.
‘I tell you,’ Charles was saying, ‘I am sick and tired of it all. Lauderdale gives me no rest, nor anyone else. He prods everyone to do as he wants, and he’s got the force of a mad bull. There’s never a moment’s peace to be had among them all.’
‘You had it once, sir, of late.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Did you have any doubts, sir, of what you were doing when you gave your enemies “carte blanche”, as people are now calling it, to do what they would with yourself if they would spare your father?’
A dark painful flush came slowly up over the young man’s face. Had Montrose read even that inner secret thought of his that had hovered at the back of his mind ever since he had faced those eyes – the wish that this man could know that he too had done what he could to save his father?
He had done it by sending a blank sheet of paper signed with his name for the Parliament to fill in their own terms, for he was willing to resign his right to the throne or give himself up as their prisoner if they would spare his father’s life. He had felt that moment of nobility wasted – more humiliating still, utterly ignored, for the Parliament never even troubled to answer him.
But Montrose knew of it, and the grave admiration in his voice as he spoke of it made Charles feel as though he had been knighted on the field of battle.
His head went up, his hands gripped the arms of his chair. ‘You are right,’ he said. ‘There were no doubts then.’
How he envied this man before him who stood free as on an open heath, seeing only the thing that he knew he must do.
But himself, Charles, was standing at the cross-roads. He could see this way and that: the political advantages of an alliance with Argyll, of being crowned King of Scots by him, of making friends with at least the half of his enemies – and against that, the help, to the death, of this man who was almost single-handed.
If only he could have them both!
He flung himself out of his chair to stride through the room on long restless uneven steps.
‘I had no choice then,’ he said.
‘Nor have you now, sir.’
A new confidence came to Charles at the sound of that deep voice behind him. The man who stood there so still, while he himself drifted up and down, was saying nothing that could comfort him – rather, it made his situation the more desperate. Yet it gave him hope as nothing else had done through this bleak winter.
He turned sharply on his heel and came back to him.
‘What shall I do?’ he said, and his voice had a new ring in it.
‘Give me a free hand in Scotland. Do not send me there with one hand bound behind my back. Commit yourself to nothing with these men, or you destroy my venture before I start.’
‘I’ll never do that. How would you start’
‘Land in the Highlands and raise the country in Your Majesty’s name.’
‘With no help from its rulers?’
‘They did not help me before,’ said Montrose grimly.
Charles stood still, gazing at this man, remembering the strange things he had heard of him.
‘Yes,’ he said thoughtfully, ‘you did it once before.’
He swung himself back into the chair, a long black leg dangling over one of its carved arms, but too intent to notice his uncomfortable position.
‘Didn’t you,’ he asked, ‘walk over the moor with only one companion to find Alasdair Macdonald and his handful of Highlanders?’
‘Alasdair is dead,’ said Montrose, ‘killed last year in Ireland. I’ll never find a better ally. But I’ll find others. From all over the country I hear from men begging me to return.’
‘Oh for one hour of Montrose!’ From all over the country that cry had gone up last summer after the blundering campaign of Lauderdale and the ‘Moderate Covenanters’. Charles had heard of that. But Montrose did not mention it, he was counting up his most likely allies.
‘There’s Seaforth and his Mackenzies in the far north. There are the Gordons, though, scattered now for lack of a leader – they’d help from the east. There are the Macdonalds whom the Campbells drove over to Ireland.’
‘Rupert’s ships would come in handy there! He’s grown an absolute old sea-dog now, though they say he still gives the order to “charge”! God, how I wanted to sail with him to Ireland! And now I long to go to Scotland with you.’
Montrose did not speak at once. He was looking at that eager face leaning towards him in the firelight; he was considering it, and his answer. For once it came unwillingly.
‘Wait,’ he said at last, ‘till you can come – I will not even say “as a king”, but at least as a free man. Wait till I have got Scotland for you. I have done it once, when the country had not half the reason to rise against Argyll that it has now.’
‘Let me come with you! What does it matter what happens? It would be better to lose my life in action with you than waste it here among these squabblers.’
Once again that day Charles was afire with the longing to prove himself a man beside this man.
It was the desire that Montrose had seen burn in the eyes of many men, but now in the eyes of the man he hoped to make king.
‘Take me with you,’ Charles urged. ‘Am I to go on kicking my heels here, eating my brother-in-law’s meals, even wearing the clothes he gives me, while you and Rupert go off on your adventures? I’ve seen fighting as a boy, it’s time I saw it once more.’
He was moving restlessly about the room again, picking things up and laying them down, Eliza’s dreary knitting, a thick stocking nearly finished, his aunt’s embroidery-frame with scarcely a stitch on it, and even, behind a chair, one of the girl’s shoes, – all women’s things in a house full of women, and here he was left behind as though he were one of them.
He burst out in a sudden fury, ‘God, how I hate women! For two years now my mother’s been worrying me to marry that French heiress with the Bourbon nose, pestered me to pay her compliments – that’s the best way, she thinks, for me to win my throne. And the Dowager Princess Amelia here, she is scheming for me to marry one of her stupid daughters; she dangles an alliance with Holland and all other Calvinist countries before me as reward, and she’ll intrigue for that with Argyll’s Commissioners. I’m sick to death of their schemes – and I’m in a mess here, I don’t suppose it will amount to much, but it might – I wish to God I were out of this place and away from all women.’
Yes, he was right enough there. It would do him no harm to get him away from the women and toughen him a bit in camp or at sea. There were already lines of dissipation engraved round the eyes and the mouth that fell so easily into the lazy cynical smile of a much older man – and he had endured enough without that to make him older than his age. Yet now, with all his defences broken down, quite off that careful guard he had laid on himself at the beginning, and longing only to do what Montrose adv
ised, he seemed no more than a boy.
‘What shall I do?’ he said, thinking evidently of his last words, this scrape he had got into with some woman, but Montrose did not trouble himself with that.
It was his turn now to have to choose, and never did so strong a temptation look so like the right choice. Here was his chance to take this youth with him and influence him as he wished and as he knew he could. To have the King in person would of course strengthen his hand enormously against both his rivals and his enemies. But the chief temptation lay in the King himself, still impressionable and enthusiastic in spite of being dragged about for the last half-dozen years through England and Europe with a ‘Court’ that for the most part had become a mere pack of needy adventurers.
It lay now in Montrose’s power to retrieve him from that pack, to train him to his own ideal of kingship, an ideal not merely of soldiering, but of government in all its aspects as he had worked it out in his masterly treatise on ‘Sovereign Power’.
But he had no right to hurl the King’s life, and through it his country, into such danger. Waste his life here as Charles might, it was not for Montrose to risk throwing it away or handing it over to his enemies.
‘Your life is not your own now, sir,’ he said at last.
Charles’ face that had been watching him so anxiously fell in disappointment. He was growing too well accustomed to disappointment. No doubt he would make it up to himself somehow, he thought with a faint disillusioned grin.
Montrose saw it, saw all that he feared growing more clear before his eyes, but did not swerve from his decision. The King’s life was not his, any more than it was his own.
‘I wish for your sake it were,’ he said gravely, ‘for I shall leave you here to a harder and more distasteful task than mine – one that will require a greater courage if you give me your whole-hearted support.’
‘You shall have that, I swear.’ The heavy eyes had opened full again, almost begging the older man to trust him. ‘I will back you against them all,’ he said, ‘though not openly as yet. I must see the Commissioners first, now they are on their way here.’
The Bride Page 13
