The Goose Girl and Other Stories (19 page)

Three

In the Master of Stair's room, in Kensington Palace, the Earl of Breadalbane sat alone.

The Master—King William's Secretary for Scotland—had received him with a cordiality somewhat straitened by annoyance with his sovereign. He had been promised an audience an hour before, and found the King so closely engaged with the Queen and a pair of architects that he had neither time nor wish to speak of Scotland. The Master had hoped for some conversation with William before they met Breadalbane, and heard from him the latest news of their strategy in the Highlands: not because he still distrusted Breadalbane—that he now resolutely denied—but because, with a statesman's simple faith in his own judgment, he had thought it best, for the King's sake, not his own, that he should be the first to inform William of their plans, and explain the significance of their troop-movements; after which Breadalbane, without confusing intelligence, could add what details were necessary.

But the Master's purpose had been spoiled by the King's determination, suddenly ripened, to re-build Kensington Palace in a style better suited to the Queen's pleasure and his own dignity. It was a plain, uncomely building that he had bought from the Earl of Nottingham, and the need for alteration and extension was manifest. He wanted, moreover, to gratify the Queen—whose first request had been for a formal garden—but he was not inclined to spend so lavishly as she anticipated. He had engaged the interest of Sir Christopher Wren and Mr Grinling Gibbons, who were now preparing plans for the enlargement of his house.

When the Master waited on him, he found both their Majesties closely intent on the drawings that Sir Christopher and Mr Gibbons were explaining. The King held up a warning hand, and remaining some distance apart from them the Master obediently waited. The Queen, seated, showed clearly her admiration of the scroll that Sir Christopher held for her inspection. He was a short, slightly built man of sixty or so, whose features declared a simple happiness, a sweetness of temper, that consorted a little oddly with the well-known strength of his intellect and its many abilities. In spite of his mild, unassuming look he appeared, for the moment, to dominate the scene, and on the long roll of paper that the Queen was examining he had drawn the elevation of a Palladian building of vast size and great magnificence. The Queen was a modest and retiring woman, but enthusiasm had broken down her shyness, and with an almost girlish excitement—she was barely thirty, and since girlhood her occasions of happiness
had not been many—she exclaimed with delight as her finger pointed to colonnades and gracious doorways. Sir Christopher, accepting with innocent pleasure her approval of his design, leaned over to explain a detail of his drawing, and the King, behind her, asked sharply some question about the size of the building. The temper of discussion changed. Sir Christopher was on the defence, and the King attacking. Presently, as it seemed, he dismissed the whole project.

He had raised his voice, and at the other end of the room the Master had heard his question. The Master, conspicuously detaching himself from business that did not concern him, was slowly walking to and fro. The small noise of his footfall prevented him from overhearing the royal conversation—and the King, he hoped, would observe his discretion—but his eyes, in sidelong glancing, missed no movement or change of expression. He saw the King's sudden displeasure, Sir Christopher's discomfiture, and the Queen's ingenuous revelation of disappointment. The King, it was manifest, was complaining that the new palace would cost too much. Sir Christopher, with the sad hope of saving something from the ruin of his splendid plan, was improvising a new proposal, new estimates. And the Queen was silent, looking like a girl who had been robbed of her birthday necklace.

While the King argued with Sir Christopher, Mr Gibbons approached to show her a sheaf of his drawings. These she studied closely, and gradually her look of pleasure returned. She grew animated, compared one with another, and pointing to the dull chimney-piece of the long dull room in which they were talking, exclaimed with audible delight, in her small invalid's voice, to see how Mr Gibbons could improve it. She called to the King, who was watching Sir Christopher as, quickly and with increasing confidence, he scribbled in outline the elevation of a smaller, plainer building; and the King, taking from her two or three of Mr Gibbons' drawings, went to a window to examine them in a better light.

He seemed puzzled, or surprised, by what he saw; and asking a question, caught sight of the Master, whose presence he had forgotten. He came, impatiently, to tell him, ‘I shall be with you—with you and Breadalbane—as soon as I can. A quarter of an hour, not more. But I cannot leave the Queen now, or she will command a new palace fit for
le Roi Soleil;
and I am not
le Roi Soleil
.'

The Master bowed and withdrew. He returned to his own room and said to Breadalbane, ‘The road is blocked by a new palace.'

‘Our road? And whose palace?'

‘He and the Queen are still talking to Christopher Wren and Grinling Gibbons, in a litter of plans and diagrams. They are going
to rebuild this dull and inadequate house—and indeed, as you can see, it's no place to roof a king and house a court.'

‘But Wren can wait an hour, can't he?'

‘He could; but the Queen is waiting for immediate fulfilment of her wishes; and the King daren't leave her alone for fear that she and Wren, between them, design too much for the exchequer.'

‘How long, then, are we to wait?'

‘A quarter of an hour, he said. But we'll be lucky if he comes within the hour.'

‘I've told you all I know, and all that has been done. There's nothing more we need discuss.'

‘No, nothing. All we need now is his knowledge and approval.'

‘And till we get it, we can cool our heels.'

‘A man who is building a new house, whether he's a London tradesman or a Roman emperor, has no thought for anything else.—But give him an hour.'

They waited forty minutes, and then the King, unannounced and unattended, came in through the curtained doorway, still carrying in his left hand a little sheaf of drawings. ‘Well,' he asked, ‘what are you doing in Scotland? Can you promise me peace there now?'

‘That is the purpose of our coming, Sir. My Lord of Breadalbane—'

‘You have made a good arrangement?'

Breadalbane, bowing, spread on a table—smoothing its creases flat—a map of Glencoe and the neighbouring country. ‘There, Sir,' he said, ‘is the home of the robber-clan that must be rooted out. As Your Majesty will see—you, Sir, who know more of the art of war than I shall ever learn—there are few roads of access to the glen, and few roads of escape. My own people will keep the Glenorchy passes, while Menzies of Weem watches the roads to Perthshire. My lord of Argyll prevents escape through Appin, and Colonel Hamilton will come down into the upper end of the glen by the Devil's Staircase.'

‘Who,' asked the King, ‘will be the executioner?'

‘Glenlyon, Sir. Captain Robert Campbell of Glenlyon, a kinsman of mine.'

‘When will he go in?'

Breadalbane, with a question in his eyes, looked to the Master, who nodded slightly.

‘He should be there today, Sir.'

‘In what strength?'

‘With a hundred and twenty.'

‘Is that enough?'

‘Colonel Hamilton will send four hundred on the day of execution—
in the darkness of a very early day—and with those watching the passes there will be, in all, some nine hundred soldiers.'

‘Against how many? I forget.'

‘Maclan can put fifty men in the field.'

‘You should be enough,' said the King drily, and taking the map went to a chair by the window to study it more closely. He sat down and looked, from one to another, at the several papers he held: in the one hand the map of Glencoe, in the other a batch of drawings by Grinling Gibbons.

Breadalbane repeated, with more detail and particularity, the troop-movements that had been planned to prevent escape from the glen, and pledged his faith in the zeal and purpose of Hamilton and Glenlyon, whose hands would be executive.

The Master waited, and when Breadalbane had finished, said quietly, ‘This is the proper season of the year to take and exterminate them. It means a rigid climate for the soldiers to march in, but it's the only time these rebels cannot escape; for now, in these weeks of winter, no human constitution can endure to be long out of doors. All that's necessary and possible can now be done in a few days. Now in the winter-time, in the long cold nights, is the time to maul them: the only season when we can be sure that a Highland clan cannot escape us and carry their wives, bairns, and cattle into the mountains. This is the time when fire and sword will make sure of all.
Delenda est Carthago,
and winter will do what escapes us. They deserve no kindness, Sir.'

The King made no reply, and the Master, looking more closely, saw that he had dropped the map of Glencoe and was studying the drawings of Grinling Gibbons. Offended and irate, he stood still and silent; and presently the King said, ‘Do observe these drawings by Mr Gibbons. They are very clever, aren't they? You see how they imitate the good Dutch painting of Brouwer, Jacob Ruisdael, and Pieter de Hooch. Those grapes, these flowers and pomegranates, apples and pears and flowing ribbons—they are like reality and like Dutch painting. And when he carves them in wood—limewood is his favourite—they will be cut out, whole and entire, and show their roundness, their perfection. I like the work of Grinling Gibbons. What do you say, Mr Secretary?'

‘It is most ingenious. But, Sir—'

‘Wren is a great man, though small in body, just as I am. But he is unreasonable. He thinks the world was made as a platform for architects to build upon. He thinks all England is only a foundation for his palaces. After the Fire he wanted to rebuild London to make fine views: no concern for value of the land and commerce, but a radiation
and fine views and St Paul's in the middle. Well, you cannot trust him, can you? But Gibbons is different. Gibbons will decorate what you tell him to decorate. I like Gibbons, he doesn't take money out of your pocket till you tell him what you want to spend. These are truly pretty, are they not? He was born in Amsterdam.'

‘Very pretty,' said the Master. ‘But in the matter of Glencoe—'

‘I thought we had dealt with that.'

‘So we have, Sir, if you will approve what my lord of Breadalbane and I have devised.'

‘I approve in principle. It is only you who know in detail what must be done.'

‘Then will you, Sir, sign this further letter to Livingstone—' ‘Livingstone?'

‘Who commands in chief at Inverness, Sir.'

‘Yes. Yes, of course. I knew that.'

‘A letter, Sir, that exhorts him—and through him, his sub-ordinate officers—to trouble the Government with no prisoners.'

‘Is that advisable?'

‘It is necessary, Sir.'

‘Is that all you want me to do?'

‘That is all, Sir.'

‘Well, the Queen is waiting for me. The Queen and Sir Christopher and Mr Gibbons. God knows what mischief they'll be up to, if I'm not there. Where is the letter, and where do I sign?'

‘Here, Sir.'

‘They're to take no prisoners?'

‘They would only be an encumbrance, Sir.'

‘And mean more expense, I suppose.'

‘A lot more expense, Sir.'

‘Well, I suppose you know best.'

A little grudgingly, as it seemed, the King signed the letter, and picked up the drawings by Grinling Gibbons. ‘They're very pretty, aren't they?' he said.

‘Very pretty indeed, Sir,' said the Master. And he and Breadalbane bowed deeply as the King went out.

Four

Go north and a little west of north from London—go all the length of England and half the length of Scotland—and five hundred miles from Kensington, as a carrier-pigeon might fly, you will come to Fort
William at the south-western end of the Great Glen that almost cuts Scotland in two and lies like a gutter between the snow-capped mountains of Inverness and the silver-tipped heights of the northern Highlands. A chain of narrow lochs divides them, and near their Atlantic entrance, under the vast and gloomy shadow of Ben Nevis, George Monk had built a fort, in 1655, to hold in subjection, under Cromwell's discipline, the clans who roosted in the woods and hills of wild Lochaber. It was still, in 1692, a very rude and simple fort, though it had been strengthened and enlarged, but its strategic importance far exceeded the height of its walls; and now, to keep the peace, it housed a garrison of Argyll's Regiment.

Its Governor and Commanding Officer was an old soldier in his sixties, an Englishman, a Colonel Hill who had served his country for forty years and more, and got little reward but pay in arrears, promotion deferred, the distrust of his superior officers, and endless service under the wettest hills in Scotland. He had learnt his trade under Monk, and in the way of a good soldier he had acquired love and a half-understanding of the people he had conquered and disabled; and a whole desire to serve them, so far as he knew how. He had made friends among the Highlanders, and continued to serve his Government. With a shrug of his shoulders he had proclaimed Richard Cromwell—that shadow of a discredited name—with Lochiel and Glengarry beside him to substantiate the shadow; but when the King came into his own again—the second Charles, with French whores and monstrous wigs to enhance his royalty—he had surrendered his fort to Lochiel with perfect geniality. He was a soldier and a gentleman; and while infinitely despising politicians, felt an almost superstitious fear of them.

He had helped Lochiel, when Lochiel came at the last moment to take his oath. He had tried to help Maclan, though he knew all Maclan's ill deeds and disaffection. And now, when he knew something of the Government's final purpose, he knew also that the Government and his Commander-in-Chief no longer trusted him, but were sending instructions behind his back to his Lieutenant-Colonel, his second-in-command at the fort, a man called Hamilton.