Georgette Heyer (30 page)

  'But, Harry, Pope can discover no vessel sailing for France or Spain from Bristol within the next month,' objected the King.

  'Oh, pooh! Nonsense!' Wilmot said. 'What does he know about it? I shall go myself into Bristol tomorrow, with my good host, John Winter, who knows how to set about such things. Meanwhile, are you comfortably bestowed here? Do they take good care of you? Does anyone suspect you of being the King?'

  'Oddsfish, I don't know! Pope recognized me, though he had not seen me for eight years; yet a fellow who served in my regiment of guards at Worcester knew me not.'

  'I wish you will take heed how you expose yourself!' Wilmot exclaimed.

  'I will, I will!' said the King, yawning. 'But find me a vessel, Harry, for I cannot, nor I will not, remain in this house a month.'

  'Oh, don't bother your head, sir! I shall certainly find a vessel, and return here tomorrow night to tell you of it.'

  This airy promise was destined to remain unfulfilled. The following day was a Sunday, and when Wilmot was once more taken up the backstairs to the King's bedchamber his florid countenance was overcast, and there was a pronounced look of strain in his eyes. He bowed over the King's hand, which was carelessly held out to him, but said without any preamble: 'Sire, I can hear of no vessel bound for France. We are utterly undone!'

  'Why, what are these strange tidings that you bring us, my lord?' mocked the King.

  'It is as this fellow told you, sir,' Wilmot said, indicting Pope with a jerk of his head.

'Ay, so I knew. What now, my Life? Instruct me!'

  Jane, who was standing by the window, turned, and said with her grave smile: 'Nay, how can I, sir? I have no skill in instructing princes.'

  'But we will obey you, sir!' Lassels said. 'Here are four of us ready to serve you. It cannot be but we shall yet bring you off !'

  Wilmot turned his harassed gaze upon him. 'Very prettily said, young man. Four of us against the world!'

  Amusement rippled in the King's voice. 'No, faith, you do me less than justice, Harry! I am not as much hated as that, I swear!'

  'Good God, sir!' said Wilmot, aghast at his own words. 'What have I said? Nay, but this is no time for laughter! We are in a damned parlous coil, if you would but realize it!'

  'Oh, I do!' the King assured him. He held out his hand to Jane, and when she moved across the room to stand beside his chair, took her hand, and began to play with her fingers. 'What say you, Jane? I think I must not stay in this house.'

  'No,' she agreed. 'That at least is sure. But there are other sea-ports.'

  'There are many. But how to reach them?' He appeared to be intent on the foolish task of doubling her fingers one by one, but the smile had faded from his face, leaving it harsh and brooding. He raised his eyes after a moment, and turned them towards Pope. 'Rehearse me the names of any honest gentlemen that are known to you in Somerset, or Devonshire,' he said. 'I had friends once in the west.'

  The butler hesitated. 'My liege, those that wished your Majesty well have suffered greatly, in the west as elsewhere.'

  'I know it. But cudgel your brain a little! Have I no friends left there? Did you ever know Colonel Frank Wyndham?'

  Pope's face brightened. 'The same as was Governor of Dunster Castle in the time of the late Wars, sir? Ay, very well!'

  'What has become of him?'

  'Why, sir, he was married to Mrs Anne Gerrard, that was daughter and heiress to Mr Thomas Gerrard, of Trent, in Somerset, and is gone there to live, as I hear.'

  'Where is this Trent?'

  ''Tis midway betwixt Yeovil and Sherborne, my liege, and lies south of Castle Cary. You might reach it in two days, and less.'

  'That is very good hearing,' said the King briskly. 'I will go there.'

  'Wyndham?' said Wilmot. 'Well! I have nothing against him; indeed, I believe him to be an honest man; but we know not how he may be situated in these days, after all.'

  'Odso, snugly, if he is married to an heiress!'

  'Ay, very like, but of what political complexion may she be? I do beg of you, sir, not to hazard your person unadvisedly! If you will go to Trent, I must go before you to learn Wyndham's mind.'

  'Content you, I know Frank Wyndham's mind as I know mine own. But he must certainly have notice of my coming to his house.'

  'Then I will set out tomorrow to go there,' said Wilmot. 'When I have discovered whether it may be safe for you to trust yourself to Wyndham, I will send Swan back to you with a message.'

  'I thank you, I shall be upon the road by that time. I will give you a day's grace, Harry, and set out myself on Tuesday.'

  'You will not go alone, sire!'

  The King glanced up at Jane, still standing with her hand lightly held in his. 'Nay, I think not. Will you go along with me, my Life?'

  She saw her journey's end taking gradual shape through the mist of the future. 'I will go with you, while I may. You will not need me long.'

  He did not deny it; he had turned his head towards Pope, and began to enquire the way to Trent. Presently Jane drew her hand away; it slipped from the clasp of his long fingers as easily as the thought of her from his brain.

  Wilmot took his leave a little while later. His mind misliked the uncertainty of this new plan. He professed a profound ignorance of the country lying between Bristol and Trent, but his objection was met by a suggestion from Pope that he should take Mr Winter's servant, Harry Rogers, with him as guide, Rogers (Pope said) being a very honest man. A little more discussion revealed to his lordship that a man who was well known to him was living at Castle Cary Manor House, as steward to the Marquis of Hertford. These tidings had the effect of dissipating some of the fretful gloom that had settled on his lordship's fair countenance. He sighed, and supposed that the King might lie at Mr Edward Kirton's with as much safety as could anywhere be found in a country bristling with danger.

  'Ay, but will this Kirton be willing to receive such a perilous guest as I am?' demanded the King.

  Wilmot looked blankly at him. 'Be willing?' he repeated. 'My dear sir, naturally he will be willing! How should he be otherwise! I assure you, he is perfectly loyal. I shall instruct him to prepare against your Majesty's arrival at Castle Cary upon Tuesday. If by some ill-chance he should be away from home, I will despatch Swan to inform you of it.'

  'Why, this is such devotion to my person as I did not dream of, Harry! What would become of you without Swan?'

  'My dear master, do not give that a thought! You forget that I shall have John Winter's man, Rogers, with me,' Wilmot said earnestly.

  The King's shoulders began to shake. 'Oh, Harry!'

  Wilmot accorded him a rather absent smile, but was feeling too careworn either to appreciate the cause of his mirth or to wonder at it. He turned from the King to draw Lassels aside, and having laid his instructions upon that young man, kissed the King's hand, and went away, escorted by Pope.

  The King turned his head. 'Well, Jane, my affairs seem to be in good train. Tell me now how we may beguile the time until we set forth again upon our travels.'

  'I had rather tell you how to remain safely hid from curious eyes, sir,' she replied, smiling.

  'That is a lesson I have by heart. You would have me keep my bed. But I had never a liking for a lonely bed, look you!'

  She shook her head. 'No, I would but have you keep away from the bowling-green, and such places, sir. My cousin told me that you walked out there, and were accosted by a man who asked you to play.'

  'But I said I had no skill in it,' pleaded the King. 'You are too fearful, my Life. Think, if you were a man playing at bowls in such a little village as this, would you look to see the King at your elbow?'

  'I should not, indeed, but you know full well, sir, you are above the common height, and very dark, which are circumstances the Parliamentarians have warned all men to look for most particularly. Be patient, sire! In one more day we shall leave this house.'

  But upon the following day, the 15th September, very early in the morning, the household was stirred into sudden commotion. Footsteps scurrying along the passages; voices raised in urgency, or hushed to shocked whispers, roused the King and Lassels from sleep. The same thought leapt to both their minds. It made the King turn a little pale under the walnut-stain, but he remained rigidly still, raised in his bed on his elbow, his eyes fixed upon the door. Lassels got up with scrambling haste, and could scarcely wait to pull on his breeches before assuring himself that his pistols were ready to his hand.

  'If there were danger, Pope would have found the means to warn me of it,' the King said. 'Go out, and see what's toward, but leave those pistols here.'

  Lassels laid his pistols down on the table within the King's reach, and went over to the door. The King propped his head on his hand, and waited for his excit able henchman to return.

  This Lassels soon did. One glance at his countenance was enough to make the King stretch himself out upon his pillows again, saying with a yawn: 'Well, what is it?'

  'No danger, sir! It is very shocking, however, for they say Mrs Norton is taken ill, and is very bad. Jane is with her, and Margaret Rider too.'

  'I wish her a fair son,' said the King, preparing to go to sleep again.

  'Ay, but she has not gone her full time, and they greatly fear a mischance, sir.'

  A little while later he was back again with the news that his hostess had miscarried of a dead child, and was very ill.

  'Poor woman!' said the King, who was shaving himself. 'Have they called in a physician to her?'

  'Ay, and Jane is continually with her. I do not know how it will end. George Norton is sadly distracted.'

  'I am sorry for him: it is an ill thing to be a husband when women lie-in.' He began to wipe his razor, adding as he did so: 'Discover for me who is in the buttery, for my stomach cries out for breakfast.'

  'Everyone is quite overset by this trouble,' said Lassels. 'But I will find Pope immediately, sir.'

  Throughout the morning, the King kept his room, enquiring from time to time of Pope or of Lassels how Mrs Norton did, and, indeed, showing an easy sympathy that endeared him more than ever to them. But at noon Jane Lane contrived to slip out of the sickroom, and to visit the King, and what she had to say caused him to forget Mrs Norton's perilous condition. For Jane, who was looking pale and anxious, raised her troubled eyes to his face, and said: 'She is very ill, but that is not the worst. I do not know how I may leave her to-morrow, sir, as we had planned.'

  His brows went up. 'Sweetheart, are you so skilled a mid-wife?'

  'No, sir, indeed, but I am her friend, and how may I desert her now?'

  'On my business!'

  There was a faint stress laid upon the pronoun. The shadow of a smile touched Jane's lips. 'She knows not that, sir. If I leave, it must be for no apparent cause. How may I do so?'

  He said: 'You must do so. Since I came here in the guise of your servant I cannot go hence except in atten dance upon you without occasioning some suspicion in the minds of all these people.'

  'I will obey you in everything, sir,' she responded, faltering a little. 'Yet will it not seem strange to Mr Norton that I should go away thus, without good reason, who call his wife my dear friend?'

  The logic of this appealed to him as Mrs Norton's plight did not. He said, frowning: 'We must use some stratagem to lull suspicion. If a letter were brought you from Bentley summoning you to return instantly because your father, say, was ill, would you not be bound to go?'

'Yes, sir, but who will bring me such a letter?'

  'Trust me for that!' he answered. 'Lassels, procure me ink and paper! Who writes, Jane? – Your mother? Nay, I think I cannot counterfeit a woman's hand.'

  'The steward,' she said, as though against her will. 'Poor Nell! Oh, poor Nell!'

  'It will be poor Charles if I escape not from this coil,' retorted the King. 'Mistake me not, my Life: I am sorry for Nell, but your duty is to me.'

  'Yes,' she said, clasping her hands together. 'Indeed, I do know it, sir, and would not have it otherwise. I will do as you bid me.'

  She lingered only until he sat down at the table to write, and then, seeing that Lassels was well able to instruct him in what language to use in this supposed steward's letter, stole away again to Mrs Norton's room.

  The letter was delivered to her at supper-time by Pope, who told her that it had been brought by a serving-man from Bentley. Nervousness made her hand shake as she broke the seal, and her voice fail a little. 'Why, what can this mean?' she said. 'I do trust – oh, Harry! My father!'

  'No ill-tidings, Jane?' exclaimed Lassels, jumping up from his chair, and coming round the table to her side.

  She held out the letter to him, saying faintly: 'Read!'

  He took it from her, and perused it. She saw from the light in his eyes that he was enjoying himself; certainly he played his part very well, enacting so much concern over the false tidings in the letter that George Norton was roused from his own anxious reflections, and began to ask a great many questions about old Mr Lane's seizure. When Jane said that she felt herself bound to return to Bentley, Norton agreed without hesitation, and entered at once into her plans for departure early on the following morning. The thought of her own duplicity made her blush, but when, later, she told the King how uncomfortable she felt, he only laughed, and said teasingly: 'Fie, would it make you less so to see my head upon a charger? Moreover, if I reach not Trent on Wednesday, my Lord Wilmot will certainly believe me a prisoner.'