Mary of Carisbrooke

by Margaret Campbell Barnes

  Robert Hammond, who could just remember seeing the Stuarts gay, happy, and secure at Whitehall, was glad that he had not. “All his family have a kind of charm, you know,” he explained. But when Edmund Rolph made the rude kind of noise he had learned in the backstreets of his boyhood, Hammond clutched firmly at the safeguard of common sense. “A good thing for Cromwell that you and I, Rolph, are not susceptible to it,” he commented, with his thin smile. He leaned back in his chair and stretched his long legs more comfortably under the table. “Life here is going to be very different,” he went on. “Carisbrooke will become a miniature Hampton Court. I see that Parliament has very generously voted five thousand a year for the upkeep of his Majesty’s household.”

  “Five thousand! Why, a hundred poor families could live on that!”

  “Too true. But it is to be expected that his Majesty will keep up something of his accustomed state.”

  Edmund Rolph muttered something about his Majesty being cheaper dead.

  “Thirty of his attendants from Hampton are being sent here,” added Hammond, consulting the Speaker’s letter.

  “And the attendants’ servants, no doubt,” sneered Rolph. “How do they expect you to house them all?”

  “God knows!” sighed the harassed Governor. “You had better send Mistress Wheeler to me when you go.”

  For a moment or two they sat in silence, each considering his particular part of a mutual problem. “Everything has gone well in the guardroom while I have been gone?” asked the garrison Captain, rousing himself.

  “Floyd has done excellently.”

  “A fine sergeant. Has the confidence of his men,” allowed Rolph. “A pity he isn’t twenty years younger with some knowledge of New Model Army methods!”

  Hammond looked round the old stone walls of his room, and with his mind’s eye saw the much older keep and fortifications outside. “Imagine this great place being held for years by a mere score of men!” he said.

  “Most of them nearly as old as their muskets!” grinned Rolph.

  “All the same, in a tough place I would not mind being with them. There is something about these people of the Wight,” mused their new Governor. “They are trustworthy and ingenious. I suppose they need to be, since every man among them is half-sailor, half-farmer. And they have a natural courtesy.” His glance flickered with momentary distaste over the thick-set figure facing him. “They quarrel among themselves, no doubt. But to you or me no islander would ever give another away. At a word from this Sir John Oglander, because he is one of them, they would slaughter their best cattle or launch a boat when the sea around their treacherous coast is like a cauldron. But I sometimes wonder if a lifetime of just ruling would be enough for an overner like me to be accepted by them.”

  “You have been here but a bare two months, sir,” Rolph reminded him. “And, anyhow, why should you care?”

  “Except that at times it makes one feel like an exile,” smiled Hammond, marvelling at his own loneliness. Perhaps if he were to unbend to people more or give them more encouragement. “I appreciate the speed and secrecy with which you carried out this important mission. I trust that Parliament—er—appreciated it too,” he began, embarrassed at seeming to pry into the private affairs of a subordinate.

  “To the tune of five hundred pounds!” Rolph told him, without any embarrassment at all. And as his boastful frankness elicited no response he gave rein to his curiosity, unconscious of offence, “I hope they have treated you as generously, sir.”

  “With the future of the country pushed into my hands I shall have much added responsibility,” Hammond said stiffly. He had been even more overcome by the generosity of Parliament than his messenger, but he preferred to think of the thousand pounds and the annuity they had promised him as an increase in salary rather as a reward for betrayal. Receiving it had started the old argument in his conscientious mind. “The King put himself voluntarily into my hands,” he thought, “or rather he sent Ashburnham and Berkeley to sound me and I said I would do what I could, and I forced his hand by insisting upon going back with them and taking Baskett with me. Before ever I met him at Southampton I had betrayed him by giving Rolph secret orders. But it was not betrayal. It was my duty to Parliament. As a paid soldier on a battlefield, sure of my convictions, I have been fighting against him for years. Why must it seem different here? Why must their thousand pounds feel like thirty pieces of silver?” Hammond pulled his mind back to his companion and rose. “You must have had a hard journey. Have you eaten?” he enquired, in order to terminate the interview.

  “At Cowes, while Rudy was getting us horses. A useful fellow, Rudy.” Rolph lingered for a moment, smiling reminiscently. “Too promising to throw himself away on a rustic chambermaid.”

  “One of our servants?”

  “He spoke of marriage. But I should imagine he has had all he wants of her.”

  “Then see that he does marry her,” ordered the Governor sharply. “We do not want our Puritan army to get a Godless reputation for pilfering and raping.”

  “No, sir.”

  Captain Rolph went down the stairs and out into the courtyard, intending to send one of his men to tell Mistress Wheeler that the Governor wanted her. Seeing no one about, he strolled towards the barracks. Some of the lights in the castle had already been put out. The Solent had been smooth and the sky was starlit. He paused by the well-house, struck by the stillness of the evening. After the bustle of mainland towns the quality of the silence on the island seemed tangible, and was almost disconcerting to a town-bred man. He was glad when it was broken by the occasional rhythmic tramp of a guard on the battlements, or by a sudden burst of rough laughter from the barracks. And then by quick footsteps, much lighter than the sentry’s. Peering through the darkness he was able to discern the figure of a girl hurrying towards him from the direction of the chapel. The hood of her cloak was thrown back, and he knew by the starlight on her short mop of curls that it must be Mary Floyd. With quickened interest he calculated that whether she were bound for her aunt’s room or merely going to bed she must pass him. He stepped back into the shadow of the well-house and waited, so that she ran almost into his arms before being aware that anyone was there. When she shrank back with a startled cry, he caught hold of her, pretending to steady her; for even in his wenching Edmund Rolph tried to cover his sensuality with the moral hypocrisy of his kind. “What tryst have you been keeping so late, my pretty one?” he asked almost sternly.

  “I have been to see the parson.”

  “That for a likely tale, with a score of lustier men about the place!” he laughed coarsely, still holding her.

  “About Libby and Tom Rudy,” she explained, sounding almost stupid in her confusion.

  “That fellow Rudy has all the good fortune. At least I warrant she gave him a warm welcome. I, too, have been gone a week. Have you not missed me?”

  It was the first time Mary had been held close against a man. Fear set her heart racing, and she hoped he could not hear it. “I—I scarcely noticed—” she stammered.

  He threw back his cropped black head and laughed. “Scarcely noticed!” he mocked, sure of his masculine power. “Then what reddens your cheeks every time I look at you across the supper table?”

  “Let me go,” she begged. “Please, Captain Rolph!”

  “’Twas you who put yourself into bondage,” he teased. “What if I make the ransom a kiss?”

  She had the sense not to struggle. Either a belated recollection of the Governor’s parting words or the preacher’s reiterated talk about hellfire restrained his lustfulness, and to Mary’s surprise he released her. “You are only a foolish child,” he said, hiding behind the age-old pretence that his feelings were paternal. “But I did not forget you. See, I bought you something when I was on the mainland.” He reached down into one of the capacious pockets of his buff army coat and pulled forth a string of beautifully carved amber beads. Drawing her towards the light of a lantern hanging above a doorway, he held th
em out to her; and Mary gave a little gasp of admiration, for they were even finer than the ones which Master Newland, the merchant, had given to Frances. “Such things breed vanity, but I overheard you admiring your friend’s,” Rolph said.

  She had done more than admire them. She had sighed with envy because they were just the colour which suited her best. And because she had never possessed any jewellery. It had been clever of him to choose them, but Mary called to mind her aunt’s warnings and tried to avert her gaze. “I cannot possibly accept anything so expensive,” she excused herself.

  “I can well afford it,” he bragged. “And other trinkets. And maybe perhaps a visit to the mainland—if you will be kind to me.”

  She knew that he was talking to her as Rudy must have talked to Libby. “My father would not let me wear them,” she protested.

  “Your father takes his orders from me.”

  Although her aunt had married into a titled family, it was true. Since the civil war the social life of the country had become muddled up like that. She must do nothing to prejudice her beloved father. Reluctantly, almost as though he had placed a snake in her hands, Mary let the cool beads slide through her fingers.

  “You can wear the thing when you go into Newport—or when you are alone with me. Let me put them on for you,” he urged. He was a long time fumbling with the clasp and she could feel his hands exploring the smooth whiteness of her neck.

  “I do not want to go to the mainland,” she said, jerking herself away. “And why should you, the Captain of the Guard, need kindness?”

  The ingenuousness of the words drew something of the truth from him. “It is not only my men who miss their home life. You do not suppose, do you, that I wanted to leave London and be stuck on this God-forsaken island?”

  “Do you suppose we wanted any of you?” she flashed back at him, stung to local loyalty.

  She was a lovely young thing when the colour came into her cheeks, and the sparkle into her golden-brown eyes. Rolph decided to take the Governor’s message himself, and walked close behind her as she began to mount the stairs. “At least we liven things up,” he chuckled, clutching at her in the darkness.

  But Mary was too fleet for him. “Why are you following me?” she demanded breathlessly, having reached the security of her aunt’s doorway.

  He straightened his belt and resumed his normal air of authority. “Because I, too, have occasion to see Mistress Wheeler.”

  Inside the housekeeper’s room they found Silas Floyd, tunic unbuttoned, taking his ease before the fire, while his sister stood by the table fashioning some garment. Both occupants of the room looked surprised to see the overner, and Floyd, off duty, rose to his feet just deliberately enough to convey the impression that his presence was an intrusion. “Do you want something of me, Captain?” asked Mistress Wheeler.

  “It is Colonel Hammond who wants you, Mistress,” said Rolph, with cheerful civility. “It seems that all the trouble royalty has caused you is as nothing compared with what is yet to come.”

  “You are pleased to speak in riddles, Captain.”

  “To be more explicit, a batch of courtiers are coming from Hampton.”

  The sorely tried housekeeper laid down her measuring tape and stared at him across the table. “How do you know this?” she asked.

  “The Governor himself told me just now, and I thought it only kind to prepare you before you see him. Moreover, I myself have just come from London.”

  “From London?” exclaimed Floyd. “Then they know that the King—”

  “Sooner or later they had to know. In my opinion, the man who advised him to come here was a fool.”

  “But surely having his own people sent here means that his Majesty will be properly treated, sir?”

  “If you ask me, Sergeant, it means that the trap is closed,” grinned Rolph, lifting Mary’s cloak from her shoulders with an exaggerated air of gallantry. “An island twenty-four miles long by fourteen wide can be very effectively patrolled.”

  Druscilla Wheeler sank into a chair and Mary went as far from her admirer as she could and sat upon the window seat. Edmund Rolph would have liked to sit down among them, but no one invited him to do so. Thick-skinned as he was, he was uncomfortably aware that although these islanders always spoke to him politely, they never did anything to make him feel welcome.

  “How many are coming?” asked Mistress Wheeler, averse from showing him their anxiety for the King.

  “About thirty, I understand. But do not fear that you and Mary will be over-worked. Most of them will bring their own servants.”

  “We are not afraid of work, but where shall we sleep them all?”

  “I imagine that is what the Governor wants to talk with you about.”

  “I will go down now. We shall have to turn some of the servants’ quarters into guest rooms, I suppose.”

  “The barracks are half empty. I could let you have the top floor for the men servants.”

  Silas Floyd was looking thoughtfully at his daughter. He could wager she had not heard a word they had been saying, and he noticed her heightened colour. When the Captain had taken her cloak her hand had gone quickly to her throat, and now the firelight was sparkling on a string of expensive-looking beads. “There is also Mary’s room,” he said. “She had better come in here, Druscilla, and sleep with you.” The words sounded like an order. They were addressed to his sister, but as he said them he turned and looked straight at the Captain of the Guard.

  Rolph reddened angrily and moved towards the door. “You might remind the Governor,” he said to Mistress Wheeler, “that accommodation in the barracks will be available only until General Fairfax sends our reinforcements.”

  “Reinforcements?” Mary spoke for the first time as soon as he was gone.

  “A sensible precaution—for the King’s safety,” said her father quietly. It would mean more overners. Other Sergeants, poking about contemptuously among his outdated cannon. Cromwell’s Model Army types, out to teach old dogs new tricks. And he himself was not so young. All the same he took up the Captain’s half-spoken challenge. He crossed the room and laid a hand on his daughter’s shoulder. “How did you come by the fine necklace, Mary?”

  Her clear eyes looked up straightly into his. “Captain Rolph gave it to me just now. He bought it for me in London. I think he and Tom Rudy must have had some sort of reward, because Rudy is going to marry Libby, Aunt Druscilla. I—I did try not to take it, father,” she added. “But the Captain reminded me that you were under his command.”

  “The swine!” He swung away with an oath and began pacing the floor, but soon came back to her. “And so you thought you had to obey him—for my sake.” Very gently he cupped her troubled face in his hands. “My little tenderheart! But you must give them to me.”

  Reluctantly Mary unclasped her first piece of jewellery. “They are very beautiful,” murmured her aunt, with womanly understanding.

  “But very dangerous,” said Floyd, still holding out his hand.

  “What will you do with them?” asked Mary, laying them upon his open palm.

  “Give them back to him, of course. And tell him that if my daughter wants for trinkets before she gets herself a good husband, I will give them to her. To me you seem still a child…I blame myself for not thinking of it before.”

  Mary was on her feet immediately, her arms about him. “It is not the beads I am thinking of, but you. I saw him kick Patters once because she snarled at him for treading on one of her pups. Such men can be vengeful.”

  “Do not worry, my dear,” said her aunt. “At least the Governor is a just man and your father knows his trade.”

  “And how to look after my own!” laughed the Sergeant, pulling his daughter against him in a rough embrace. “But I must get back to the barracks. Now go and bring your gear down here and get you to bed.”

  They watched her go and then, before parting, turned back to their own urgent thoughts. “God help his Majesty, they lost no time in betraying
him!” cried Druscilla Wheeler.

  Sergeant Floyd crunched the beads almost absently in his muscular hand. He had been in a Stuart’s army since he was a lad, but he had never been so consciously a Royalist before. “If Rudy came back with money enough to make an honest woman of that Libby of yours, and this lechering bootmaker can buy amber in the hopes of raping my daughter, how much did the Governor get?” he demanded savagely.

  Chapter Six

  The King’s Laundress!” repeated Agnes Trattle, her amused voice lending warmth to the comfortable inn parlour. “Little did I think, when we were learning our lessons together, that prim little Druscilla Floyd would ever be called anything so imposing!”

  For the first time since the King’s return from Nunwell Mary had found time to visit her friend’s family, and she was enjoying an unaccustomed sense of importance because they were all agog to hear news from the castle.

  “And what do they call you?” teased Frances, fluttering round her with offers of refreshment.

  “The King’s Laundress’s Assistant, I suppose,” laughed Mary. “At least I do all his Majesty’s washing and mending.”

  “And do all the important people from Hampton have fancy titles like that?” asked Mistress Trattle.

  Mary nodded as her strong white teeth bit into a tempting apple. “There is a list of them hanging in the great hall.” She began checking them off on her fingers. “Master Mildmay, Carver—Master Murray, Groom of the Bedchamber—Master Cressett, Treasurer—oh, I cannot remember the half of them!”

  “Then his Majesty is treated properly in spite of all his attendants having been chosen by Parliament?” concluded Captain Burley, from his place beside the fire.

  “Indeed, yes, Captain,” Mary assured him. “The Parliament people have even sent over some of his furniture. You never saw such changes, Mistress Trattle! The best bedroom is now the State room and has fine rugs on the floor and a new red-and-blue tapestry against the serving passage wall, and when I take in his Majesty’s clean nightshirt of an evening Master Ashburnham himself takes it from me and warms it before the fire. His Majesty’s meals are served in the great hall and we have to call it the Presence Chamber. And one of the gentlemen who is called a Sewer tastes each dish before the King touches it!”