Georgette Heyer (29 page)
Authors: Royal Escape
'A tall, black man,' responded the soldier. 'He rode a great grey charger at Worcester fight, and put on him a steel corselet over his coat, which was of buff leather. Ay, and he had a blue ribbon 'cross his chest, and a great jewel beside!' He added, critically looking the King over: 'If you be wishful to know, he's not so unlike yourself, which is to say, remarkable ill favoured. But he's a matter of four fingers taller than what you be.'
'A big fellow,' said the King, and, turning, walked away from the group to set down his empty tankard on the table. The rest of the company became absorbed again in the soldier's conversation, and the King sauntered out of the buttery into the main hall of the house.
There, by ill-luck, he came upon Mrs Norton, who, with Lassels, and a gentleman whom the King did not know, was walking towards the open front door. The King was forced to stand aside to let her pass, and to pull off his hat. As he did so, he became aware of Pope standing quite close to him, and realized that the man must have followed him out of the buttery.
Mrs Norton nodded kindly to him, and hoped he was better of his disorder. He answered her civilly, aware all the time of Pope's gaze, which remained fixed on his face. As soon as Mrs Norton passed on, he put on his hat again, and went up the stairs to his bedchamber.
It was a little while before Lassels could escape from
his hostess, for she took him into the gardens, and led him all over them; but presently they were joined by Jane and Mr Norton, and he was able to withdraw unobtrusively towards the house.
There was no one in the hall but the butler, and Lassels was about to go up the stairs when he saw that Pope was coming towards him.
'Sir!'
Lassels stood still, one foot upon the first stair, his hand grasping the baluster. 'Ay, what is it?' he asked.
'I am wishful to speak to your honour.' Pope cast a glance up the stairs; there was no one in sight, but he lowered his voice. 'How long has William Jackson been in your service, sir?'
'Jackson?' Lassels repeated. 'He is a tenant of Colonel Lane, my good fellow.'
'Sir, I know it is my liege,' Pope said earnestly.
Lassels burst out laughing. 'You are mad to think so. I assure you, you're quite out!'
'I served under Colonel Bagot at Lichfield, in the late Wars, and I know this man for the King, sir.'
'You know more than I do then, fellow, for I tell you it is not so.'
Pope looked at him in silence for a moment, and then said: 'I am an honest man, sir, and one that fought for the late King. You need not fear me. But I know full well it is my liege, and I would like to do him a service.'
'You have taken a silly fancy into your head, and had best forget it,' replied Lassels.
Pope said no more, but drew back with a bow. Lassels went on up the stairs, and along the passage to his bedchamber.
The King, who was reading by the window, looked up, and, seeing Lassels's face of concern, laid down his book. 'Now what's amiss?' he enquired.
'Sire, what shall we do?' Lassels said. 'I am afraid Pope knows you, for he says very positively to me that it is you, though I have denied it.'
'I thought he looked very hard at me,' remarked the King. 'What kind of a man is he? Is he honest, or no?'
'Indeed, sir, I believe him to be a very honest fellow, and one that was always upon our side. I would trust him with
my
life, but –'
my
life, but –'
'Well,' interrupted the King, 'if he is honest I think we had better trust him with mine too, than go away leaving him with that suspicion upon him. Bring him up to me.'
'Yes, sir, I will, and at once,' said Lassels, more cheer fully. 'For I do think him anxious to serve you.'
He went off downstairs again, and came back in a few moments with the butler at his heels. As soon as Pope saw the King he knelt down in the middle of the floor, saying in a much moved tone: 'God bless and preserve your Majesty, sire, and forgive me that I misdoubted your Majesty!'
'So I look like a Roundhead to you, do I?' said the King, with a smile.
'Your Majesty's hair!' stammered Pope. 'Indeed, I ask your Majesty's pardon!'
'Nay, I trust others may think the same. How came you to know me in the end? That fellow that was in my regiment of Guards did not, though he described me very exactly.'
'It is God's mercy that he did not, sire!' said Pope gravely. 'He is a bragging, untrustworthy rogue. When I looked more closely at your Majesty, I thought I did recognize you, for I did once see your Majesty every day, when you dwelt at Richmond, and I was falconer to Sir Thomas Jermyn, that was a gentleman of your Majesty's Bedchamber.'
'What, were you a servant of Tom Jermyn?' said the King. 'Why, then, I am very glad to meet you here, for it seems we are old acquaintances. Get up from your knees, man! I think I may well trust my life to you.'
'Ay, my liege, and I am happy I know you, for other ways you might run great danger in this house.'
'I knew it!' Lassels exclaimed.
The King lifted a finger at him, but said, with his eyes on Pope's face: 'How so? Is not your master honest?'
'Yes, my liege, he is so, and my mistress too; but there are one or two in the house that are very great rogues, and would sell your Majesty for half the sum the rebels have offered for your apprehension. But I think I can be useful to you, if you would condescend to tell me of your gracious intentions.'
'My design is to get a ship at Bristol to carry me to France, if that be possible,' replied the King. 'If you will serve me, go into Bristol, and discover what ships are bound for that country, and whether any of their masters would be willing to carry two Cavaliers thither.'
Pope said at once that he would do so, but upon the King's next mentioning to him that he expected my Lord Wilmot to come to Abbotsleigh that day, he looked perturbed, and said it would not do, since there were several persons in the house who would certainly recognize him.
But after all it was not Wilmot who came to Abbot sleigh that morning, but Robert Swan, his servant, who arrived, while Pope was still with the King, to discover whether it would be safe for his master to visit Charles.
From him they learned that Wilmot had parted from Colonel Lane, and was at the house of one John Winter, at the village of Dirham, a few miles distant from Abbotsleigh. It was then arranged that Swan should go back to Dirham, and bring Wilmot to meet Pope at an honest man's house, not far from Abbotsleigh, there to stay until nightfall, when Pope engaged to conduct him to the King.
Neither Jane nor the King could imagine why the Colonel and Wilmot had parted company, but as Robert Swan was unable to tell them where or why the Colonel had gone, they had to be content to wonder at his departure until Wilmot should arrive to elucidate the matter.
The King did not see Pope again until much later in the day, when he returned from Bristol with the news that he could discover there no vessel sailing for France for at least a month. These were gloomy tidings, and made the King thrust out his underlip a little.
'I was thinking maybe your Majesty would have better fortune at one of the southern sea-ports,' suggested Pope.
'How the devil am I to reach a southern sea-port?' demanded the King.
Jane spoke out of the shadows that were deepening in the room. 'We reached Bristol, sir.'
'Yes, my Life, for we had this house to come to, where you are known. Without some sure hiding-place at my journey's end, I must be undone.'
'There must be surer hiding-places than this, I think, for although Pope is faithful, I do not count this house safe.'
'No, mistress,' Pope said in a worried voice. 'You are in the right of it: it is not safe.'
'Very well, then,' said the King, with a shrug of his shoulders, 'I
am
undone.'
am
undone.'
Jane got up and went across the room to where the King was seated, and knelt beside his chair. 'How should that be, while we are here to serve you, sir? Something we will yet contrive.'
He glanced down at her, but for a moment did not answer her. She saw how harsh his face had grown, how sombre his eyes. His thoughts, which he would let no one share, seemed to creep between them like a chill, intangible barrier. She bowed her head, clasping her hands tightly before her upon the arm of his chair, for her heart yearned towards him, yet could not reach him, and it made her throat ache with unhappiness to meet that look of his that rested on her face without seeing it.
Suddenly his hand was laid over her clasped ones, lightly yet strongly emprisoning them. He said cheer fully: 'I don't doubt I shall come safe off. But I must take counsel with my lord before I can decide what were best to do next.'
'Please your Majesty, I will bring my lord to you by the back way as soon as it is dark,' Pope said.
The King nodded. He still kept his hand over Jane's, and when Pope had left the room, he said with a note of caress in his voice: 'Troubled, my Life? Do you fear for me? You need not, for I am very sure God has not preserved me for so many days, only to let me fall at last into the hands of mine enemies.'
'Not that,' she answered, keeping her eyes lowered. 'I have foolish thoughts, sire, nothing worth. I know your Majesty will win free.'
'What are these thoughts?' he asked.
She shook her head, but looked up, and managed to smile. 'Ah no, they are mine, sir, as yours are yours alone. Must I not be cast down when your Majesty frowns?'
'Did I so? But not at you, I swear.'
'Not at me, but at your troubles, which now you make light of that I may not suspect they irk you,' she said wistfully.
He did not tell her what was in his mind, that women were made for loving, not for counsel. He said instead: 'The truth is, I am an impatient fellow, that cannot stomach the least check.'
She rose from her knees. 'Nay, for you are a prince, sir, and all unused to the checks that fall in common men's paths.'
That amused him. 'Oddsfish, am I so indeed? I thought my path had been all checks!'
'Great checks, sir, not little. For princes there is always someone to prepare the way. But you have no one to depend upon, save only yourself.'
'Fie, Jane, I have you, and Lassels, and John Pope, upon whom I do depend absolutely.'
'A woman, a boy, and a serving-man!' she said.
'Also my Lord Wilmot,' he added.
'My Lord Wilmot!' she repeated. 'Do you look to him to save you from your enemies, sir?'
'Faith, no! I look to my own wits, Mistress Disdain.'
'It is as I said: you have only yourself. And you are weary, with great cares upon you, as well as the little ones of this strange, rough journey you are forced to go upon.'
'My Life,' said the King, with a droll look in his eye, 'care and I are never bed-fellows for long, I fear me!'
Twelve
'Frank, Frank, How Dost Thou?'
Lord Wilmot was brought into the house soon after nightfall, and led up the backstairs to the King's bedchamber. He was very glad to see his Royal master, but having embraced him he began at once, in his light, bored voice, to complain of the exigencies of travelling about England in disguise. No one, listening to his frivo lous speech, could have guessed that under his façade of insouciance my lord was deeply, coldly afraid. His nerves had been on the stretch for ten days; and, not being by nature an intrepid man, he was obliged to hide his haunting fears under a studied nonchalance, and to court absurd risks merely to prove to himself that he was not afraid. The King, being seventeen years younger than his lordship, endowed with strong nerves and a lusty constitution, and concerned only with his own safety, suffered only from a healthy young man's normal desire to escape imprisonment and death. Wilmot, who could lead a cavalry brigade into battle with dash and gallantry, felt his soul shudder at the thought of death upon a scaffold, and faint within him when he envis aged the possibility of the King's capture. Sometimes, with a burning sense of wrong, he thought that no one, not even Thomas Whitgreave, realized the horror of his position. When he looked down at the King, sprawling in a chair by the window, heedless of his danger, a little storm of anger shook him. It was so obvious that Charles spared not one thought for the hideous weight of care upon his shoulders. Charles could face death with his cynical smile; but Charles did not realize that if he died his chosen companion must die too, or live out the rest of his life in shameful seclusion, because never again could he dare to face his world.
He managed to overcome his irritation, and to say with a flutter of his expressive hands, and an absurd air of ill-usage: 'But, my dear sir, how can you say I do not wear a disguise when I have taken such pains to ride with a hawk upon my wrist, besides calling myself Mr Morton, which is a name, I assure you, I do not easily answer to?'
'Wilmot, what have you done with Colonel Lane?' demanded the King, broadly grinning.
Wilmot cast a look round the room, but Jane and Lassels had left him alone with the King. He said confi dentially: 'My dear, it would not do! A worthy fellow, and one that is a very good soldier, but I could not – no, I could not spend any more days in his company! I sent him to London to try whether he could procure a pass for two gentlemen to go out of England into France. Now you are laughing again! Will you be still?
You
have the sister to go with you, but I can tell you the brother is another matter.'
You
have the sister to go with you, but I can tell you the brother is another matter.'
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