“Go on.” Osborne got up as if the better to bear some blow.
“I went down to him.”
“And he took you instead of the King? I know the bestial hypocrite!”
“No—I promise you! The Governor came to his quarters and by the mercy of God I was saved from that.”
“But he meant to seduce you?”
“It is true that he has been pestering me for months, but this time the blame was not his. He said he had some important duty to attend to and I—I enticed him from it. I let him take me back to his room. You and Harry were not there and someone had to keep him away from the King’s window. Oh, say you understand!”
Osborne understood only too well. “I will half kill him,” he said.
“Oh no! For then you will never escape.”
“Leave that between him and me.” He stood staring out over the churchyard wall, his hands thrust deep into his pockets as though to keep them from violence.
“The Governor came for him and he hid me behind the bed-hangings. He could not prevent me from hearing all they said.”
“So that was how you came to be so remarkably well informed—and why you were not with your aunt,” said Osborne bitterly.
“Oh, Richard, what else could I have done?”
Her voice and eyes implored him. Without his friendship she would be utterly bereft. He turned at last, but not before he had fought down his fury and forced his features into some semblance of a smile. Instead of answering her question he asked another. “When I am no longer hunted like this, will you marry me?”
It was surely the most abrupt offer of marriage a girl ever had, but few suitors, she supposed, were so cruelly pressed for time. “Marry you?” she repeated, almost as surprised as if the Governor himself had asked her.
“You have no man to care for you now.”
Colour came into her cheeks and a tremulous smile to her lips. “I always said you were kind, Master Osborne.”
“No, you disliked me at first. But I am not asking you out of kindness and my name is Richard,” he answered gruffly. “It is true you are bereaved, but God knows I am in trouble too! I suppose no woman would choose to marry a man who is on the run, and who will almost certainly be exiled or imprisoned if he is caught? A man who is on the losing side anyway, and whose life has been anything but blameless.” He came and looked down into her grief-marred face and took her hands in his. “I am not good enough to touch you, sweet, let alone marry you,” he went on, with rare tenderness. “But now it seems that we two can give each other all that we most need.”
She looked up into those kind brown eyes of his, and saw that his mouth looked neither reckless nor cynical. “But I do not love you.”
“Not as you loved Harry, perhaps.”
“You knew—about that?”
“I cared so much that I could not help knowing. But it need not make marriage impossible. I would try to be patient.”
“I do not think you are a very patient kind of person,” she told him, managing a small smile.
“But then I have never been in love before,” he said, smiling back at her. “And you on your side would have plenty to forgive.”
Mary slid slowly down from the wall. “It is a wonderful thing to know, in my grief, that any man can care for me like this—”
He took her in his arms and for a brief and blessed moment the rest of the world seemed to be blotted out. “Isn’t it time that someone cared for you—you who are always making crazy sacrifices for other people?” he said, tenderly smoothing back her disordered curls. “And, besides, I am not any man. One day I hope to be your husband.” He kissed her again as if indeed he were. “When I am able to come back for you—”
“Oh, but you must not take the risk!”
“I shall manage it somehow—even if life drives us apart again for a time. I should know then that at least I left you with some money and the protection of my name.”
“And you would have nothing.”
“This very day I shall have something sweet and lovely to live for if you will promise to wait for me.”
The comforting thought of his protection tempted her, and she was too tired to resist. She knew that all her life long unbidden thoughts of a slender, auburn-haired young man, of the shining warmth of his enthusiasms, or the sound of his sudden laughter, would catch her unawares, quickening memories which would make all other men look slow and drab. But one had to live. If one was young one’s senses must be taught to forget. One’s heart could not go on aching all the time, until one came to die.
“I cannot promise what is already spent—” she began, with reluctant honesty.
“I am not asking you for that. Perhaps I am not good enough to want the kind of love you gave Harry. But if you will give yourself to me, my little love, I shall know how to make you happy.”
In the end it was she who clung to him when he would have let her go. “How shall I hear from you if you go abroad?”
“I have changed my mind. I shall not go now. I shall stay and try to justify myself and your father and all of you, and bring that lecherous murderer to book.”
They could both hear a company of horsemen approaching from the direction of the castle, and Osborne picked up the battered steeple hat he was wearing and pulled it down over his bandaged forehead. At the last minute Mary caught at his sleeve. “Richard.”
“My love?”
“When I was behind that man’s bed curtains—”
He put a hand over her mouth. “I forbid you to speak or think of it.”
“Only this once. Because there is something you should know—something which might strengthen your case. While the Governor and Rolph were talking I emptied the powder from his pistol. It did nothing to save my father, but could it have—made any difference?”
Though the sound of horsemen was coming closer he stood looking down at her with admiration and surprised attention. “It could have saved the King’s life,” he said, remembering Rolph’s intentions. But he dared no longer. He vaulted over the wall and strode swiftly towards the cover of the forest. Mary walked slowly back to her father’s grave. She remembered how he had once said that he liked Osborne, and now, at the far end of the dark tunnel of her loneliness, a light glimmered steadily.
As she left the churchyard and crossed the village street the search-party, headed by Rolph, trotted briskly past in the direction of Ashey Down, and Anthony Mildmay was coming casually out of the smithy. With his usual courtesy he fell into step beside her and accompanied her up the lane to the castle gates. He had carried out the Governor’s orders, and if in the execution of them he had happened to see Richard Osborne he deemed it no part of his duty to report the fact.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Save for the changing of the guard and the sharp sound of routine orders a new quietness seemed to have settled on the castle. Men of the original garrison were shocked by their Sergeant’s death. The excitement and tense expectancy of the last few weeks had given place to gloom and boredom. There seemed to be no further likelihood of the King trying to escape, and everyone felt certain that Osborne and Worsley had got away to the mainland. The daily manhunts had been given up and discipline was partially relaxed because Rolph lay sick in his quarters. No one quite knew what had happened to him. One evening when his zeal had driven him to follow some trail ahead of his men he had been picked up bruised and semi-conscious in the Gatcombe woods. Some said that a wild animal had attacked him, others that he had slipped and cut himself on the stones of a disused quarry. Only Mary guessed that the man whom he stalked had lain in wait and half-killed him. Rolph himself would say nothing, feigning not to remember. He bore his painful bruises stoically and although Doctor Bagnell from Newport was attending Mistress Wheeler he refused to see him. Only Rudy was allowed in his room, and even he reported that the Captain’s temper was unbearable.
There had been yet more dismissals and the King’s apartments seemed almost deserted. Since the exposure and f
ailure of his plans only two or three of his gentlemen were allowed to remain with him. He and the Governor avoided each other, and because of the awkwardness between them Charles no longer passed a part of his time in theological argument with the castle chaplain. Dowcett was still under arrest, and Major Cromwell had been recalled to attend some military conference. Mistress Wheeler kept to her bed and her niece never seemed to come into the State Room when his Majesty was there. Libby had been allowed to come back because of her husband’s appeal to Captain Rolph, so Brett told him, and it was she who for the last few days had brought his clean linen. Indeed on wet days it was only through the bent old servant that the King received any news at all; and it was Brett, with tears in his eyes, who told him that Sergeant Floyd had been shot—a piece of sad information which his Majesty’s gentlemen had been carefully keeping from him.
Since the disappointment of that Sunday night Charles would stand silently looking out of the Presence Chamber window. From his former apartments he had been accustomed to see all that was going on in the courtyard, and who came in and out through the gates, so that here he felt still more caged. Yet the old rooms that faced northwards had a far more beautiful view. Nostalgically beautiful to him because he could see across open country to the Solent, and beyond that the mainland of his kingdom. On a clear day he could pick out the hills and houses on the Hampshire coast, and even the ships, like tiny black dots upon the blue, passing in and out of Southampton water.
He would stand there for half an hour or more at a time unheeding the presence of his attendants, and they, guessing at what his thought must be, did not like to interrupt him. With the long eye of memory he looked much farther than the Hampshire coast, imagining what a crowd of republican vandals might have done to his carefully collected art treasures, or trying to get the feel of the grassy rides of Windsor. How long would it be, he wondered, before he rode there again? Or enjoyed the company of his wife, whom he liked to remember as gay and vivacious, not ill and worn as he had last seen her. How long before he would see his children? In spite of so much loyal help, was he destined never to get free?
At least Osborne and Worsley had got safely away in spite of that murderous fusillade. And Hammond seemed to have turned a blind-eye towards the merchant Newland, against whom nothing could actually be proved and without whom the castle would get no sea coal. Charles roused himself from the melancholia which had begun to enwrap him since he moved into these duller rooms. He reminded himself that no monarch ever had been more blessed in his personal servants. He turned and smiled at Herbert who was looking up some passage for him in a book. “How one misses Harry Firebrace and his irrepressible cheerfulness!” he said.
Mary, who was bringing the warming-pan into his bedroom, looked up at mention of that name and saw him through the open door. She thought how much his Majesty had aged. Woman-like, she noticed that his clothes were not quite so immaculate as when he first came, and that his rich brown hair was greying, and his little pointed beard unkempt. It seemed to her both pitiful and foolish that since his own two barbers had been sent away he should have refused the services of any other. Probably it irritated the Governor too, because he had sent his Majesty an expensive set of razors which were still there on a shelf unused. In a man as fastidious as Charles, such slovenliness looked like a deliberate gesture designed to underline his wrongs.
Moving the warming-pan up and down between the sheets, Mary put the hard thought from her. It might well be that sheer weariness of spirit made the poor King negligent, and he too was missing Harry—and his family, of course, and all his interests and pleasures. “His Majesty seems very low-spirited to-night,” she remarked to Mildmay, who in the absence of a Groom of the Bedchamber was laying out the royal nightshirt.
“I have been trying to persuade him to let me ask the Governor once more if he can have a morning’s hunting. Though I am afraid it will be useless,” Mildmay told her. “His Majesty does so miss his dogs and horses.”
An idea came to Mary—one of those impulsive ideas which endeared her to so many different kinds of people. For the first time, moved by compassion, she wanted to do something for the royal prisoner for his own sake. “Master Mildmay—” she ventured, a little breathless at her own presumption.
“What, Mistress Mary?”
“Do you suppose the King would like to have one of my father’s—of my—young spaniels? They have no pedigree, of course, but the mother came from the Oglander kennels.” She remembered how often she had held Pride of the Litter’s warm body close during the misery of the past few days. “It would be company—” she urged.
“I think it is an excellent idea,” said Mildmay, wondering why none of them had thought to get the King a dog before.
Mary withdrew the warming-pan from the bed, emptied the cooling coals on the fire, and prepared to go. “Then if I bring one of them will you give it to his Majesty?”
Like most courtiers, Anthony Mildmay seldom missed an opportunity of presenting personally anything likely to please his master. But there was something about this girl which brought out his better nature. He had often thought how pleasant it would be to have such a daughter. “Bring the dog and give it to his Majesty yourself. Bring it one rainy day when he cannot get out to play bowls,” he said.
So the next afternoon Mary stood hesitantly just inside the door of the Presence Chamber. The weather had broken completely and the day had turned so chilly that a small fire had been kindled, and the King was sitting by the hearth reading. Master Mildmay, who was in attendance, had—rather meanly, she thought—gone out of the room as soon as he had admitted her.
Her courage nearly failed her, but in her nervousness she unwittingly clutched the little dog so tightly that he yelped. The King looked up and saw her standing there in her sad black gown and having now learned the cause for it, he rose and went to her as if she had been a queen, and led her to the fire. “They have just told me about your father,” he said. “He was a friend of mine and now I shall always be his debtor—and yours. God grant I may be worthy of such sacrifice!”
Because of the real kindness in his voice her eyes suffused with tears. She could think of no adequate words and as soon as he had seated himself again she held out Pride of the Litter. However much she hated to part with him, being Mary, she had brought the best. “I thought perhaps your Majesty might deign to accept him,” she said. “Your Majesty must often be lonely too.”
“Very often, Mary.”
He snapped his fingers invitingly and without the smallest respect for royalty Pride of the Litter leapt onto his knee, licking his hands and sweeping aside his bookmarker with one eager wag of a freshly brushed tail. “Little rogue!” laughed the King, as Mary retrieved it from beneath the bookrest.
“He is not very obedient yet, sir,” she apologised. “But he is so affectionate that he can be a great comfort.”
“Do you not need the comfort yourself?”
“There are three others in the litter.”
“Then he shall be called Rogue and come for walks with me,” said Charles.
“And if it should please your Majesty I will come and fetch him for his exercise when it is wet.”
Mary would have curtsied herself out, but he motioned to her to stay and enquired after her aunt. “And I have to thank you for the letter you managed to convey to me after Harry Firebrace left. It contained news of the Duke of York’s escape from St. James’s Palace to Holland, which was of great comfort to me. Firebrace has spoken very highly of you, and I have no doubt you too miss that volatile young man.”
“I do indeed, sir,” admitted Mary. “But I interrupt your Majesty’s reading.”
Charles smiled at her and for a brief span she, like Harry, was to come beneath the spell of his charm. “I have a great deal of time in which to read, but few fresh people to talk to. And as you stand there you remind me that I have a daughter not much younger than yourself, whom I love very dearly.”
“The Princes
s Elizabeth?”
“The Queen thinks she is cleverer than any of our children. Like me, she loves books and pictures; whereas her elder brothers and sister are more practical outdoor sort of people. Although she is only fourteen, it has made a bond between us.”
Evidently he liked to talk about her and while he sat there caressing Rogue, Mary knelt on the hearth before him. “I am here by the Presence Chamber fire talking with the King of England!” she thought incredulously, and wished that her father could see her. But having always been interested in the younger princess, she was soon completely absorbed in what he was saying.
“When my little Bess was quite a child she slipped and hurt her leg while running across the floor at play, and although Sir Thomas Meyherne, the celebrated physician, has done all he can, she has never been over strong. She has not always been able to play with the others and it has made her more serious. Little Temperance, her big brother Charles calls her. Like yourself she is always caring for other people.”
“Perhaps because she has known suffering and loneliness herself,” suggested Mary.
“Her elder sister Mary, who is now Princess of Orange, tells a story of how, when Bess was quite small and fidgeting in church, they gave her a prayer book with pictures to keep her quiet. But soon everyone in the royal pew was distracted from their devotions by the sound of heart-rending sobs, and there was my little lass passionately kissing a picture of the crucified Christ and crying over and over again ‘Oh, the poor man! Oh, the poor man!”
“I wish I could see her!” said Mary.
“Perhaps you may some day. Who knows? Perhaps you may even come to London.”
“It is scarcely likely, sir. And still less likely that her Highness would ever come here.”
Mary of Carisbrooke Page 24
