Georgette Heyer (20 page)

  The King slept far into the morning, Mr Whitgreave making it his business to watch over him, continually creeping into his room in case he should have awak ened, making up the fire, once softly drawing back the curtains lest a passer-by should see them closed and wonder at it. With the departure of the servants, upon various errands, and the withdrawal of the boys to the top floor, the house had become very quiet. A log falling out of the fire on to the hearth at last woke the King. As Whitgreave knelt down to place the log, he heard the bed creak, and Charles give a mighty yawn. He rose to his feet, anxious to reassure the King if he should be momentarily startled by his sudden awak ening, and found that Charles was lying with his hands linked behind his head, placidly regarding him.

  Mr Whitgreave was himself a man of calm tempera ment, but he found the King's unconcern with any thought of possible danger remarkable. As he looked, hesitating whether to approach the bedside or to wait until he was summoned, Charles smiled, and said: 'Is it late? I have not slept so well since I lay at Worcester.'

  'That is very good hearing, sire,' replied Whitgreave. 'Would your Majesty be pleased to get up now? I do not anticipate any sudden surprise, yet if soldiers did come to the house it would be better that this bed should not seem to have been too lately slept in.'

  The King sat up. 'Indeed you will find me very biddable, Mr Whitgreave,' he said. 'I will get up at once. But I should like some water to wash with, and a razor, if you please!'

  'I will bring it to your Majesty immediately. May – would your Majesty permit me, or Mr Huddleston, to shave you?'

  The King looked suspiciously at him. 'Have you ever shaved a man before?' he demanded.

  'Well, no sire!' confessed Whitgreave, with a smile.

  'Then I will shave myself, and so preserve you from the fate that awaits those who cut their King's throat,' said Charles, throwing back the quilt, and swinging his long legs to the ground.

  By the time he had washed and shaved himself, Mr Whitgreave standing by all the time, holding the bowl of water, Huddleston had come up from the buttery with some breakfast for him. The King fell upon this with avidity, conversing so cheerfully and easily with his two attendants that Whitgreave was emboldened to ask whether his mother might have the great honour to be presented to him.

  'Why certainly, if she will not turn from such a shabby figure in disgust!' responded the King, with a grimace.

  But Mrs Whitgreave, ushered presently into the room by her son, showed no sign of doing any such thing. She was a little over-awed, and made the King a very low curtsey, scarcely daring to look up into his face. But by the time the King, who never failed to captivate old ladies, had saluted her, placed her in a chair by the fire, and sat himself down on a joint-stool beside her, and confided to her the great discomfort of his feet, she had almost forgotten his exalted station, and began to treat him very much as she would have treated any young man for whom she felt a marked liking. No housewife worthy of the name could fail to possess a cupboard bursting with salves, ointments, and cordials, all of her own distilling, and the King had no sooner spoken of blisters, than Mrs Whitgreave was up on her feet and bustling out of the room to bring out from her store of pots and bottles a certain remedy for every kind of gall, blister or open sore, which, she assured the King, was infallible, the recipe having been handed down from her great-grandmother. Could any clothes have been found in the house to fit the King, she would have followed up the anointing of his feet by insisting upon his exchanging Richard Penderel's doublet for a more seemly garment. He told her that he would not dare to put off his mean clothes for fear of being surprised by his enemies, but it was evident that she set very little store by any Parliamentarian.

  'A pack of ignorant rebels!' she said, scornfully disposing of all Cromwell's forces. 'I warrant you, my son will know how to send
them
about their business, dear sir!'

  When the dinner hour came, the King insisted that she should sit down at the table with him, while Whitgreave and Huddleston waited on them. She was a chatty old lady, and she made the King laugh a great deal, particularly when she told him that a rumour was flying about amongst the country-people that he had not only beaten his enemies at Warrington Bridge, upon his retreat, but that no less than three Kings had come to his assistance.

  'Three Kings!' he exclaimed with a droll lift of his brows. 'Surely they are the three Kings of Cologne come down from heaven, for I can imagine none else!'

  'Yes, and I will tell your Majesty another thing,' she nodded. 'When Mr Huddleston called the boys down to their dinner just now, and they not having the smallest notion of your being within twenty miles of us, my great-nephew, John Preston, claps his hands, and sings out to the others: "Eat hard, lads, for we have been on life-guard, and hard duty this day!" I warrant you I was near to dropping where I stood!'

  'It was said in innocence,' Huddleston interposed, from behind the King's chair. 'Sir John will be a proud man when he learns – as one day I hope he may – how truly he spoke.'

  The rest of the day passed without incident. The King had arrears of sleep still to make up, and went early to bed, his host and Father Huddleston standing guard as before. The following morning, which was Tuesday, September 9th, he arose betimes, and found his feet so much easier that he was no longer content, as he had been on the previous day, to sit quietly in his own chamber. Mr Whitgreave had scarcely had time to despatch all the servants but the cook-maid out of the house before the King came out of his chamber, pleading that he must stretch his legs a little. The door into the room adjoining his being open, he went in, and began to wander about it, picking up a Latin Grammar that belonged to one of Huddleston's pupils, and looking through it with a comical grimace of distaste. He was not, he confessed, at all skilled in Latin. 'But I learned mathematics of Mr Hobbes,' he added. 'Also Dr Harvey instructed me in physics. I have more aptitude for science, I think, than for clas sics.'

  The door, curiously placed between the windows, that led into Mr Whitgreave's study, next attracted his notice, and he desired to be told what lay beyond it. Whitgreave at once opened it, and he stepped into the tiny room, and was so charmed by it that he declared his intention of remaining in it, and from its commanding window watching the traffic along the road. Both Whitgreave and Huddleston remained with him, taking care that he did not draw close enough to the window to be seen by any passer-by.

  Of these there were many, a great number of them being Scottish soldiers who, escaping from the shambles at Worcester, were painfully making their way north wards in the forlorn hope of winning to safety across the border. There were many pitiable sights amongst them, and more than one wounded Highlander came up the neat garden-path to the front-door to beg for food, or a plaister for his hurt. Some were so hungry that they had been reduced to eating cabbage-stalks, and even leaves that they had picked up by the wayside. None of those who summoned up the courage to knock on the door of Moseley Hall was sent away without relief. Mrs Whitgreave cared nothing for Cromwell or the Parliament; she knew her duty as a Christian; and spent the entire morning distributing food, and binding up festering wounds.

  The King watched the sad procession in silence for a time, and with a lowering brow; but presently he said in a harsh voice, as though the words forced themselves from him: 'It need not have been! No, it need not have been!'

  'Such sights are inevitable in time of war, sire,' Huddleston said gently.

  'Could I but have prevailed upon Leslie's Horse to follow me – the Scots have dealt very ill with me – very ill!' the King said, his face sombre and glooming.

  After a little pause, Whitgreave ventured to ask: 'Did the Scots fail your Majesty at Worcester fight?'

  The King gave a crack of sardonic laughter. 'The Scots' Horse would not budge, even though we had broken through Cromwell's lines! The foot-soldiers were fighting with the butt-ends of their muskets at the end, waiting, waiting for the Cavalry to finish what they had so well begun! But Leslie and Middleton –' He broke off, shutting his lips tightly on further confi dences, but when Huddleston begged him presently to tell them a little about the battle, if it would not be too painful to him, he com plied with his usual good humour, greatly praising amongst the Scots the Duke of Hamilton, and Lord Lauderdale; and all those English Cavaliers who had rallied so gallantly to cover his retreat from the town. When he came to the account of his own adventures, the brooding look quite vanished from his face, for he was always very quick to perceive the ridiculous, even when it related to himself. His audience might be aghast at the tale of his hardships, but his inimitable way of describing all the unpleasant circumstances of the past week made them laugh in spite of themselves.

  When he grew tired of looking out of the window, he got up and began to inspect the books upon the shelves, greatly delighting his hosts by pulling out Turberville's Catechism, and reading a little of it. 'This is a very pretty book,' he said decidedly. 'If I may, I will take it with me.'

'Indeed, sir, I should be glad!' Whitgreave said.

  The King put the book in his pocket, and finding next a manuscript, written by one Richard Huddleston, and entitled
A Short and Plain Way to the Faith and
Church
, he asked if this Richard were a relative of Mr Huddleston? Upon Huddleston's bowing, he said that he should like to read the manuscript.

  Huddleston was too shrewd a man not to suspect the King of a little graceful duplicity, but he smiled, and put the manuscript into his hand. Charles read it through very attentively, remarking when he came to the end that he had never seen anything more plain and clear on the subject. 'Indeed,' he added, 'the arguments are so conclusive, I do not conceive how they can be denied.'

  'Your Majesty is a theologian?' said Huddleston, with a lurking smile.

  The King looked up at him sharply. What he saw in the priest's face brought a twinkle into his eyes. 'Nay, not I!' he confessed. 'But indeed I found the manuscript very interesting.'

  'Your Majesty is not prejudiced against our faith?'

  'I am only prejudiced against the Covenant!' retorted Charles. 'If ever I come to my Crown, I shall use my endeavour to procure liberty of conscience for my subjects, which I think a thing most necessary.' He saw Huddleston give his head a quick little shake, and said: 'You are a priest – you need not fear to own it to me, I do assure you – so I must not look to have you agree with me.'

  'With submission, sir, I must say that your Majesty is young yet, and has not thought deeply enough on this question. By prayer, and by –'

  'Mr Huddleston,' interrupted the King demurely, 'my first Governor, who was, I think a wise man, bade me beware of too much devotion for a King; for (said he) one may be a good man, but a bad King.'

  The priest could not help laughing, but said: 'Ah, sir, I think you twist those words to mean something your Governor did not intend. But I am not here to lecture you! Indeed,' he added, 'if it were my duty to look for faults in you, I could not find any. I have seen only a very gracious prince, with a sweetness of temper and an infinite patience which is an example to us all.'

  'Alas, how little you know me!' said the King, amused, but having the grace to blush under his tan. 'I fear I have a number of shocking faults, Mr Huddleston, but I will not destroy your good opinion of me by telling you what they are.'

  He went back soon after to his own chamber, and during the afternoon lay down upon the bed with a book in his hand. He was sliding softly into sleep when he was jerked wide awake by hearing the gate on to the road clap to, and a woman's scared voice call out: 'Master, soldiers! Soldiers are coming!'

  It was the cook-maid, returning from the village, whither she had gone to buy provisions. Whitgreave met her at the door, and pulled her into the house, bidding her be calm, and tell him exactly where she had seen the soldiers. She answered him in gasps, for she had run all the way home. A troop of rebels had ridden into the village, but for what purpose she had not stayed to discover. 'And oh, master, they do say that one Southall, which is a notorious priest-catcher, is amongst them, and has been questioning the blacksmith very strictly what Catholic houses there be hereabouts! I do be afraid for the good Father's life!'

  Whitgreave consigned her to his mother's care, bidding both women go and busy themselves in the stillroom, and himself went swiftly up to the King's chamber.

  He found Huddleston already there, and the hidden door of the wall-cupboard standing open. The King, having caught up his jump-coat, and his hat, stepped into the cupboard, and dropped down through the trap-door into the brick chamber. Whitgreave quickly replaced the trap, and, having shut the cupboard, helped Huddleston to straighten the bedclothes.

  'Father, do you set every door in the house wide!' he ordered. 'Let there be no appearance of concealment. And do you keep out of sight! I am going out to meet these soldiers.'