With infinite tenderness the older man laid his hand upon the younger’s shoulder. ‘ My son, take care, take care indeed for I fear for the dear child’s safety.’
Helplessly, Sir Geoffrey and Campbell Denholm were obliged to stand and watch whilst Joseph Radley and the Deanes bore Charmian away. She gave one last despairing, anguished cry, ‘Campbell!’ which tore the young man’s heart to shreds, but he dared give no sign, make no gesture towards her, lest her father should carry out his terrible threat.
So Charmian was carried away believing that Campbell could not forgive her, did not even wish to help her.
Charmian Radley bowed her head and wept.
Chapter Eight
They returned to Boston, but it was to a very different place from what they had believed their home town to be. With the promise of the restoration of the monarch, the Parliamentarians had been utterly routed. Alderman Radley was a powerful voice in the affairs of the town no longer and General Radley now had no troops at his command. All his one time friends and colleagues had either fled or had been arrested.
It could only be a matter of time before the Royalists came looking for Joseph Radley for he was regarded as one of the regicides. For him there would be no royal pardon, not even exile. For him there would only be death at the block.
Even their own home was no longer safe. The servants who had remained behind had now gone and the place had been broken into and looted. The furniture had been smashed, their belongings scattered, their Puritan garments ripped to shreds and hung grotesquely from the walls as an ominous threat of what treatment their owners might expect. As they walked through the echoing chambers, the vein in Joseph Radley’s temple throbbed.
‘Cowards! Traitors all! Is there no one left we can trust?’ He swung round to face William Deane. ‘If we can but get to Holland, we would be safe. I have business associates in Leiden amongst the cloth-makers there. They might help us to escape, eventually to the New World.’
Deane’s eyes glinted. ‘A good notion, Radley. I have heard tell that Holland is a haven for all manner of refugees. Among the Calvanists we may find sanctuary for the time being, at least.’
Charmian and Timothy Deane stood close beside each other listening to their elders discuss what was to become of them.
‘Holland it is, then. But how to get there?’
‘Boat?’ suggested Deane. ‘If there is Dutch shipping in the port of Boston, might we not find help there?’
‘ ’Tis a chance we will have to take.’
They found a sailing boat to take them to Holland though evidently it took all the money that Joseph Radley and William Deane possessed between them to bribe the master to take the fleeing Puritans aboard his vessel.
The wind howled along the deserted quay. The night was black and hid the four stealthy figures as they embarked. Behind them Charmian heard a movement and turned see the black-coated figure of a man step back and merge into the shadows. Was it a King’s man come to arrest them at the very moment of their escape? The poor confused girl did not know what to hope for. Capture now would mean certain death for her father and the Deanes. And yet—she longed with all her heart to be safe back with her mother, to have the time to beg forgiveness from Sir Geoffrey and—if he would listen to her—from Campbell too.
But the shadows remained still and silent as her father pulled her aboard the foreign boat and Charmian believed that perhaps she had imagined that she had seen someone standing there.
They landed on the west coast of Holland on a lonely stretch of beach and made their way on foot to The Hague and thence to Leiden. Footsore and weary, their clothes stained by salt water, cold and hungry, they reached the outskirts of the town.
‘Where do these friends of yours live?’ William Deane asked of Joseph Radley.
‘How should I know? I have never been here before. All I do know is that Johan Vermeer is a burgomaster of Leiden besides being a clothier.’
William Deane said, ‘It should not be difficult to find his home then. Why do we not ask someone?’
Joseph Radley turned upon him. ‘Ask someone? Ask someone?’ he almost shouted. ‘And risk being found out.’
‘We are safe in Holland now, Radley. There are not Cavaliers lurking behind every tree here.’
Joseph Radley cast a wary glance behind him. ‘Perhaps not, perhaps not. And yet I have the strangest feeling …’ Brusquely he shook himself and said, ‘Come along, if we are to find shelter before another nightfall.’
Charmian followed, clinging to Timothy Deane’s arm. The two youngsters had drawn closer in the fear they shared and Timothy had found a new strength in his role as protector of Charmian.
‘Courage, Charmian,’ he whispered as his brother and Joseph Radley strode on ahead. ‘It cannot be far now.’
‘Oh Timothy,’ Charmian said, tears ever close. ‘I scarcely think I can go another step. May I not rest awhile?’
‘Come along, come along,’ her father’s voice commanded making any respite impossible.
As they approached Leiden, they saw that the town still had a deep moat, but the walls and ramparts which had once been its protection had fallen into neglect and had become grassy banks with bushes and shrubs growing amongst the brickwork. Even the gate in the ramparts through which they passed to enter the town itself was no longer the guardian of the town it had once been.
The town of Leiden had been carefully planned with its almost circular street-plan and near the centre a tower housing the clock rose above the other buildings proclaiming the place which was the centre of the commerce of the town.
‘That’s where we should go,’ Joseph Radley pointed to the clock. ‘That is where we are likely to find Vermeer.’
They passed through the main streets, recently paved by the commercially minded Dutch municipality, still feeling as if they walked in circles, every so often passing a hump-back bridge across the canal which was an integral part of every Dutch town. They came at last to the market-place—the centre of the town life. Here people hurried about their daily work, and cries from the vendors filled the air, and scarcely a glance was directed at the four bedraggled strangers who moved slowly in bewilderment through their midst.
They were directed to the home of Johan Vermeer just off the market-place. It was a newly-built house in brick with four storeys proclaiming the wealth and importance of the owner. They entered directly from the street. Above them, at first-floor level, a canopy ran across the front of the house. Then came a series of windows, the surrounding casements decorated with light sandstone. On the third storey there were fewer windows and then above that the roof commenced and the much smaller fourth storey was set into the eaves.
They entered the house through a heavy oak door and found themselves in a well-lit entrance hall which led into a corridor with ante-rooms leading off it. They followed the house-servant as he led them towards a spiral staircase and into a reception room above. The room was furnished with walnut tables and chairs which shone, but dominating everything was a massive carved cupboard, the symbol that the home was that of a prosperous clothing merchant and burgomaster of Leiden for it displayed plates and pots and dishes—such possessions that would be unknown in a poorer household.
‘Joseph Radley! This is a surprise. It is usually I who visit you, is it not, in Boston?’ Johan Vermeer was a huge, beaming, welcoming man who scarcely showed surprise at their sudden arrival in his home or at their dishevelled appearance. He bade them join him at his meal and only then did he gently probe as to how and why they came to be here in Holland, in Leiden.
The burgomaster’s house was elegant and charming, the dark wood of the doors and stairs shone rich and warm, whilst tapestries covered the cold walls. The floor of this reception room was paved with marble and the leaded windows sparkled.
The mistress of the house came into the room to greet her husband’s guests with a quiet courtesy and stayed to listen to the story Joseph Radley had to tell. She was dressed in a
dark violet gown over several petticoats. She wore a broad white collar and cuffs—a style so like her own puritan dress that Charmian almost gasped aloud in surprise, but as the burgomaster’s wife came closer, Charmian could see that the quality of the cloth and the lace trimming on the collar and cuffs was very different to the coarse cloth Joseph Radley had obliged his wife and daughter to wear.
At the thought of her dear mother, tears welled in the girl’s eyes, but no one seemed to notice for they were intent upon Joseph Radley’s story.
‘We have been driven from our homes by the Royalists,’ Charmian heard her father begin. ‘Our leader—our Protector—is dead, but you know that, of course. Since his death our cause has crumbled and the Royalists have brought back their King.’ He thumped the table making the fine tableware jump and clatter.
‘My enemy—one Geoffrey Denholm, God rot his soul—held me captive and sought to— to defile my wife and daughter while he kept me prisoner.’
Charmian gasped and turned white, but warningly Timothy put his hand upon her arm and she remained silent listening with growing terror to the lies her father was telling these good people.
‘Even now I may have left my dear wife dying at the hands of that evil blackguard. Vermeer, I knew of nowhere to go save here, to Holland, in the hope that you may help us to escape eventually to America to follow in the footsteps of the first Pilgrims. Vermeer, we are at your mercy.’ Joseph Radley spread his hands wide imploring his friend to aid them in their desperate situation. Never in her young life had Charmian seen her father put on such an act. Or had she? Had he not gulled her in exactly the same way into helping them to escape from the dungeons of Gartree Castle.
Charmian’s head dropped forward and she closed her eyes. She was filled with shame and remorse and disillusionment as she listened to her father’s lies and deceit. She was now as much his prisoner in this strange land as he had been in Sir Geoffrey Denholm’s keeping, and, it seemed, in as much danger.
The burgomaster was speaking. ‘Though you and I have enjoyed a good business friendship, Radley, over the years, and during the rule of the Commonwealth there was peace between our nations, yet there are many who still remember the Anglo-Dutch War of seven years ago, and believe that the present peace is now very uncertain. To please the new King of England they may feel it their duty to hand you over …’ He paused whilst Radley began to bluster again. ‘Are you saying that you …?’
‘No, no, indeed not.’ The Dutchman spoke English with perfect ease. ‘But I think a long term stay here inadvisable. I think you should seek passage to the Americas as soon as it may be arranged. Meanwhile, I think the young ones,’ he smiled briefly towards Charmian and Timothy Deane, ‘would be better hidden if they lived with some of my workers, and perhaps we could even find them employment at a loom.’
Radley nodded. He would agree to anything the burgomaster suggested if it would save his own life.
‘Possibly,’ Vermeer added, ‘the girl would be better protected dressed as a boy. But enough for this day. Tonight, you shall rest and tomorrow we shall make plans. Now, let us eat.’
They were shown into a room at the rear of the house where the entire household sat down to the meal. Johan Vermeer at the head and at the opposite end the children and the servants. Hesitantly, Charmian seated herself next to Timothy, quite unsure whether she was to be treated as an adult or as a child.
The table seemed laden with a vast variety of pots and dishes, sugar bowls, tureens, glasses and tall pewter mugs—such a rich variety which Charmian had never before seen. The midday meal was the most important of the four meals of a Dutch household: vegetable soup, fish and meat with a salad and then a dessert of pancakes which Charmian refused feeling she could not eat another mouthful. No wonder the burgomaster and his wife were rotund. Yet they were kindly and the warm, merry atmosphere of their family life enveloped Charmian, showing stark comparison to the harsh, stern life in her father’s household.
Yet another light meal was enjoyed mid-afternoon and then the evening meal again resembled the midday, comprising several courses.
‘Now, my little one.’ The burgomaster was speaking to Charmian directly in his well-pronounced English. You look so tired. The girl will show you to your room and, tomorrow, we will plan your new life.’
He spoke with great compassion as if he was thinking he was about to help this pretty English maid to escape the clutches of the wicked Cavaliers when in truth all Charmian longed for was to be back with her mother and Sir Geoffrey Denholm.
And with Campbell.
Chapter Nine
Charmian followed the Dutch maidservant up the twisting staircase to the upper floor. As she stepped into the bedroom she almost cried out aloud with surprise. After the sparsely furnished bedchambers she had occupied in her father’s house and then the cold, forbidding vastness of Gartree Castle, this guest-room in the home of these kindly Dutch folk seemed luxury indeed.
Charmian felt the tears prick her eyelids. If only her dear, gentle mother were here safe and well, to share this comfort, to lie on the vast four-poster bed, so high that it needed a set of steps to climb into it and so broad that it took up a quarter of the space of the whole room. The damask bedspread had been folded back invitingly to reveal delicate embroidery upon the top sheet and the whole bed was surrounded by a green damask curtain. The walls of the bedroom were decorated with porcelain plaques and here and there a picture. A washstand was set at one side of the room with a basin and a jug of water upon its flat slab. Two low chairs and a linen cupboard completed the furnishings.
In but a few moments Charmian was sinking into the soft down of the feather-bag and, exhausted, she slept. Not even the night-watchman’s whirling rattle and his lilting voice chanting the darkness away every hour disturbed her.
Yet the household was astir early and all the burgomaster’s family were awake and dressed by the time the milkman cried, ‘Warm milk! Sweet milk!’ outside the windows.
Charmian opened her eyes, loath to leave the warm safety of the bed but at that moment the burgomaster’s wife appeared, smiling and chattering to Charmian even though the girl could not understand a word she said. The Dutchwoman held a bundle of clothing in her arms, boy’s clothing, and she gestured that Charmian should rise and dress herself. Amid these strange people, this unfamiliar language, for of the whole household only the burgomaster himself spoke good English, Charmian was obliged to submit to having her golden hair cut short, and her gown—drab though it might be—exchanged for the clothing worn by a young Dutch boy: trousers reaching just below her knees, a rough shirt and a jerkin.
‘Shoes?’ she asked the burgomaster’s wife and pointed to her bare feet. The Dutchwoman smiled but shook her head and said something in Dutch and then gave Charmian a little push towards the door. Obviously, no shoes.
Charmian looked down at herself and tugged wistfully at her shorn hair. She looked just like a ragamuffin boy. The loose shirt and jerkin concealed her womanly shape and denied her femininity and when she found Timothy Deane waiting outside for her, dressed in a similar manner, Charmian felt fear wash over her. What was to happen to them? Tears welled in her eyes and she clung to Timothy’s arm for support and comfort.
‘I will take care of you, Charmian, I promise. I will not let them part us.’
‘Oh Timothy,’ she whispered. ‘I am so afraid.’
They left the home of the burgomaster without even a farewell from Chairmian’s father or William Deane. As they went beyond the gate and into the street and turned towards the town where the workers’ cottages stood, close-packed together, Charmian glanced over her shoulder back towards the house they were being forced to leave. Although it was the home of strangers, she had felt safe, almost welcome, within its walls.
Beside one of the trees near the gate, half-hidden beneath the low branches stood a man in a black cloak. Charmian gasped and turned to Timothy. ‘Look, oh look, there he is again.’
But by the time she
looked back yet again, there was no black-cloaked figure beneath the tree. Charmian felt a stab of disappointment and once more wondered if her imagination were playing fanciful tricks upon her.
Sadly, she followed Timothy and the manservant who was guiding them to their new lodgings. Once more she glanced back, hoping to see the man again. He had seemed like a guardian angel to the frightened girl, not—strangely—a figure of menace.
But the vision had disappeared and Charmian felt more alone than ever.
They were passing into a poorer part of the otherwise thriving town. Here the streets were not paved. The ancient wooden houses overhung the roadway, the upper storeys leaning, almost drunkenly, towards each other.
They entered one of the houses, Charmian clinging to Timothy’s arm. The inside was dark and musty and reeked of stale food, and human sweat. Seven families occupied the dwelling, each crowding into their own small allotted area for the house had been partitioned into as many apartments as the landlord could create. The place swarmed with children. Their voices filled the air, crying babes, yelling infants and shouting youngsters. Never had Charmian seen so many children. They scuttled from every corner to stare at her, to touch her boyish garments, whilst amidst it all the mother of the brood calmly spooned curds into the open mouth of her youngest offspring.
The woman nodded towards them and smiled and spoke in her own tongue, not a word of which Charmian could understand, though Timothy replied a little uncertainly in Flemish and pushed Charmian forward. He continued to speak to the woman and Charmian caught the mention of her new name, ‘Pieter’. The woman finished her task and laid the infant in a wicker cradle.
A small, barefoot boy pushed past Charmian carrying a basket of wood. It seemed as if all the living was done in this one space, for in one corner, curtained off was a double bed—if bed it could be called for it was little more than a straw litter. In the opposite corner was a rough ladder leading to a loft above. No doubt that would be where she and Timothy would have to sleep alongside all these children.
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