Mary of Carisbrooke (2 page)

Being an obstinate old man, he only patted his hostess’s plump white hands as she fastened his cloak. “You spoil me, all the lot of you,” he chuckled. “But if those Parliamentary fools who retired me think I’m too old to do things myself, at least I know how they ought to be done. Which is more than you can say of some of those landlubbers they’ve put in charge of our lookouts.”

“Well, if you must go sweltering up on to the hills—”

“And this pretty poppet of yours has been plaguing me to let her and Mary come along too, though no doubt ’tis only to make eyes at the young militia officers.”

Because of increasing puritanical prejudices. Agnes Trattle thought often of the youthful fun she had enjoyed in her father’s palmier days. “I think you had better both go along if only to see that the Captain remembers to eat some of those pasties you have packed,” she agreed indulgently.

So the two girls set off on their ponies, one on either side of the Captain on his big black horse, climbing up and up along the chalky hill paths, exclaiming with admiration at the gold and russet of the wooded slopes and listening to Burley’s hair-raising stories about sea battles with the Spaniards. When they reached the summit of Brighstone Down they let their tired beasts crop the short, sweet turf, while Mary unpacked the saddle bags and saw to it that the vigorous old man really ate something before inspecting the look-out station. From where they sat he could point out to them several others strategically placed on the highest points of the island from which approaching enemy ships could be sighted, and from which messages could be sent to raise a militia two thousand men strong. He took delight in explaining the whole system of defence which had served the island so well in the past, and outlined the mock battle which was to take place when all the companies, each under the command of its local squire, were to meet upon Brighstone Down for their next exercise.

“But what is the use of it all when we are not at war?” asked Frances, biting into a succulent pasty.

To Mary, a soldier’s daughter, the whole scheme was familiar. “All successful attacks come suddenly,” she said, quoting words she had often heard her father growl at some slack sentry. “When the French landed unexpectedly and pillaged Newport the whole island might have been taken if the castle’s garrison hadn’t been prepared. They ambushed scores of them in Noddies Lane.”

“And before that the Frenchies had slipped into the creeks along the north shore and occupied Shalfleet for months,” corroborated Captain Burley. “They sacked Yarmouth harbour in the west and burned down the church. Out in the Channel you can hear our Yarmouth bells ringing out from some church steeple in Cherbourg.”

“But that was a hundred years ago and more,” yawned Frances, for whom life was mostly glittering daydreams of the future. “Nothing exciting ever happens here now.” The old Captain had stumped off to greet a little group of militia captains, and she was disappointed because Sir Henry Worsley’s good-looking son was not among them.

“There are fairs and summer days down on the beaches, and the big ships coming in at Cowes, and sometimes the militia march through Newport with their band,” enumerated Mary, feeding Blanche, her pony, with an apple. “And days when all the gentry come up to dine at the castle,” she added, hearing her friend sniff at such rustic pleasures.

“My father says they don’t go as often as they used. Doesn’t the new Governor invite them?”

“Yes, I think so,” answered Mary, gathering up the remains of their meal. “But so many of them seem to make excuses.”

“One could scarcely blame the Oglanders!” said Frances, whose mother was an out-spoken Royalist. Since all the militia captains had moved away, and were interested only in field-pieces and demi-culverins anyway, she pulled off her new plumed hat and lay sulkily watching a little brig tack out of the mouth of the Medina river towards Southampton. “I wish I were going over to the Main.”

“Not to
live
!” protested Mary, scarcely less surprised than if her friend had proposed crossing the Atlantic to Virginia.

“Why not? My mother lived there before she was married and a right good time she had. There was music and dancing at my grandfather’s manor, and sometimes fashionably dressed young men came who could pay a pretty compliment and who had been to Court. I should like to meet some men who had really been to Court.”

“But, Frances, there is Mr. Newland. I thought it was all arranged that you and he—”

“Just because he is one of the wealthiest merchants in Newport! But he is old—forty at least—and thinks only about his trade on the Medina and his money.”

Mary often saw John Newland up at the castle, of course, when he came to discuss supplies of corn and coal for the garrison and the Governor’s household. Both there and at the inn he always spoke to her pleasantly. But certainly he was neither young nor fashionably dressed—not the exciting sort of lover she would have wished for her friend. Mary could scarcely imagine a sober-looking merchant like Master Newland being passionate. From him her thoughts shifted involuntarily to Tom Rudy, the plausible young Londoner with the persuasive smile. “Our Libby is going to have a baby,” she said, with apparent irrelevance.

Frances sat up at once, displaying mild interest. “Will they send her away?” she asked.

“The poor thing’s father was drowned at sea and her mother was a drab.”

“And so I suppose your silly tender heart will drive you to champion her?”

“I promised her I would do what I could. You see, she has absolutely nowhere to go.”

“She should have thought of that before,” said Frances, with a toss of her sleek, dark head.

Mary tugged thoughtfully at a tuft of grass. “Do people stop to think? Would we, do you suppose?” she asked with shyly averted eyes, remembering what Libby had said. “Supposing, I mean, the man was young—and very persuasive—”

Frances, who met so many personable young men coming and going at the inn, leant forward impulsively to kiss the serious fair-skinned face so near her own. “Oh, Mary Floyd, what a dear innocent you are!” she laughed, between affection and exasperation.

To hide her embarrassment, Mary got up and stood watching the group of men gathered about the little stone look-out station. The afternoon sun was warm upon her bare head and a fresh sea breeze was tugging at her skirts. From the top of Brighstone Down the whole lozenge-shaped outline of the Wight was visible. Eastward stood the imposing mound of the castle, below steep cliffs to the south stretched the Channel in a blue expanse of white-capped waves towards France, while westward the long spine of hills tapered to the thin peninsula of the treacherous Needles’ rocks. Down in the valley the Medina flowed like a silver streak from Newport out to Cowes and beyond the smooth waters of the Solent lay the southern coast of England, so clear and close some days that Mary could see the houses at Portsmouth and shipping coming out from Southampton Water. One hand shading her eyes, she stood and gazed, all smaller issues forgotten. Strange to think that over there civil war had been raging, with the King detained in one of his palaces, and people hating and killing each other because of their politics or their religion. Whereas here, as Frances said, nothing ever happened. Here the farms were folded peacefully into the sheltered hollows of the downland, only the cloud shadows chased each other across the green slopes of the hills and the white gulls screamed overhead or swooped hungrily upon the rich, red earth of newly furrowed fields. Here was beauty, security and home. The only known land, the place that held a beloved father and good friends. Unlike Frances, she had no desire to be anywhere else.

To-day, she thought, rousing herself at the sound of the returning Captain’s blustering voice, has been another ordinary, happy day.

Next morning, Libby being fit to work again, Mary went to the well-house as usual taking tid-bits for the donkeys who took turns at treading the great draught wheel to raise the water, a task in peacetime no longer performed by prisoners. It had needed infinite kindness and patience, but the men knew that she had a way with animals. “Get in, Jacob! ” she said quietly, and at sound of her clear young voice the waiting donkey pricked his ears. His small hoofs clattered across the stone floor and then thudded softly into the wooden wheel. “March!” she ordered; and obediently Jacob began to march, moving forward not at all, but effortlessly turning the mighty wheel until old Brett, leaning over the well top, called to him to stop.

Mary was always well content to be in the company of Brett, whose back was bent by humble, cheerfully accomplished tasks. She loved to stand in the cool shadows of the well-house and watch his gnarled hands guide the pulley rope until each bucket came to rest upon the stone coping, and then detach it from the iron hook and fix an empty bucket in its place. And since childhood she had listened with delight for the delayed, far-off splash as some of the water slopped back down the thirty-fathom shaft. One of the young soldiers, with bare brown arms and leathern jerkin, would come striding in to heave two freshly filled buckets on to the yoke across his shoulders and then tramp off with them towards the kitchens. Then another empty bucket would be swung down and either she or Brett would call to Jacob to tread the wheel again, until the morning’s task was done and the wheel finally creaked to rest.

“He do obey ’ee better ’n me,” allowed Brett handsomely.

“Only because I bribe him better,” laughed Mary, giving the donkey his reward. “Do you know where my father is, Brett?”

“I zeed ’un ridin’ out to Nippert afore you come in, Mistress Mary. Don’t ’ee allus go in after the stores and such come Zaturday?”

“Yes, Brett, but not as early as this. And I specially wanted to speak to him.”

The old man went on coiling up the slack of the rope, sensing her disappointment. “Was it zummat you wanted special like?” he asked, as he always had since she was a baby, in the hope that it might be something he could get for her.

“Oh, no, not for myself. It was just that I promised someone—”

“Not that minx Libby?”

Mary turned in surprise. “Why, how could you guess?”

“She come to me cryin’ soon as she knowed. An’ last night when I was bankin’ up the kitchen fires she told me how kind you bin, doin’ her work an’ all.”

“It was nothing. I’m stronger than she is. And I don’t want my aunt to turn her out as if she were really a wanton. I thought perhaps if my father would speak for her.”

“I reckon her never had a chance—not with the glib type o’ Roundhead us be getting’ in garrison now. Fair dazzled, like a coney with a stoat, a girl’d be.” He nodded his grizzled head in the direction of the kitchens whither Tom Rudy, who happened to be on well-house duty, was carrying the buckets. “I bin thinkin’, little Mistress,” he added, “if you was to talk Mistress Wheeler into keepin’ the wench, maybe I could talk my sister down in village into takin’ her in when her time comes—”

Mary turned to him with shining eyes and laid a hand upon his bare, wet arm. He might be only the castle odd-job man but she valued his shrewd kindliness and counted him her friend. “There be someone in a terbul hurry clatterin’ over the drawbridge now,” he said, uncomfortably staving off her gratitude. “But it could scarce be Sergeant yet.”

Sergeant Floyd’s daughter stepped out into the sunshine to make sure. The well-house doorway faced the main gates of the castle and she could see two horsemen talking to the sentry and some of the guard gathering round to listen. A sudden unusual stir seemed to have broken the morning’s peaceful routine. With one arm still resting upon the donkey’s neck she waited to hear what it was all about. Old Brett stood watching in the doorway behind her; and Tom Rudy, coming round the corner from the kitchens, pulled up short beside them, the chains hanging empty from his yoke.

The two horsemen and the sentry were coming across the courtyard, the taller of the two strangers still gesticulating.

“Who can they be?” asked Mary, who knew the island gentry by sight.

“Overners,” snorted Brett. “An’ in a fair firk ’bout zummat! Look how blown their poor beasts be.”

“I’ll wager they’re from Court with those fancy clothes,” put in Rudy. Although no one had asked for his opinion, he spoke with assured experience and with a Cromwellian’s contempt for Royalist laces.

“A pity Frances is not here!” thought Mary, remembering her friend’s desire; but even if these visitors had really come from Court they were no younger than Master Newland and seemed far too hurried for any romantic dalliance.

“Anyone seen Captain Rolph?” the sentry was bawling through cupped hands.

“I’ll go seek him,” offered Brett, ambling off towards the officers’ quarters.

“Our business is with the Governor, not your Captain,” fumed the taller, more excitable of the two gentlemen.

“But I tell ’ee, sir, Colonel Hammond be gone into Newport,” repeated the worried sentry. “If you will but go in and rest, sirs, I am sure that Mistress Wheeler will—”

“When will he be back?”

“This afternoon, like as not.”

The older cavalier made a gesture of exasperated fury and the younger one said more reasonably. “Had we not better ride back into Newport, Jack, and try to find him?”

“But the dolts say they don’t know where he is.”

They sat their sweating horses irresolutely, staring up with frustration at the front of the Governor’s lodgings. There was no sign of old Brett having found the Captain, who might at least have preserved the castle’s hospitality by receiving them with some show of authority. And seeing the annoyance on their faces change to deep concern, Mary overcame her shyness sufficiently to step forward. “Colonel Hammond rode out about half an hour ago on private business,” she told them, bobbing a countrified curtsy and uncomfortably aware that Jacob was clopping at her heels. “But my father went with him to order stores for the garrison, and he may well have seen which way the Governor went. And you would almost surely find my father with the corn merchant, Master John Newland, down by the quay, or else at Master Trattle’s malthouse in Lugley Street.”

The two men’s tired faces lit up with relief. They raised their be-plumed hats at the pretty sight of her. “And what is your father’s name?” one of them asked.

“Silas Floyd, Sergeant of the garrison here,” said Mary. “But will you not, as our sentry suggests, let us give you some refreshment before you go?”

They thanked her but excused themselves, saying that their business brooked not a moment’s delay, and wheeled their weary horses immediately. But in passing her the tall man bent from his saddle and kissed her hand as if she were some fine lady. “It would be difficult to tell you how grateful we are,” he said, his voice unsteady with emotion. And, looking up, she saw that there were actually tears in his eyes.

As she stood watching them depart she was surprised to see Tom Rudy approach them. He was leading a horse and buttoning his hastily donned tunic. “If I might show you gentlemen the way about Newport, sirs, it would save time,” he suggested, with his ingratiating smile.

They accepted his offer readily enough. It was common sense, of course; but only the quick-witted Londonder, for some reason of his own, had thought of it.

“Heaven help you when Captain Rolph hears of it—leaving the castle without orders!” jeered the passing trooper whose horse he had borrowed.

But as Rudy vaulted into the saddle, he grinned down at him. “I wager you Captain’ll not be too grieved!” he said, and galloped after the departing visitors with so much assurance that both the inner and outer sentries supposed he had been sent.

“Well, of all the impudence!” exclaimed Mary, goaded beyond prudence. “A stranger scarcely come into the island taking it upon himself to play guide when there’s twenty of you here, mostly Newport born!”

The trooper, who had been standing open-mouthed, laughed ruefully at her vehemence. “Your father’d have zummat to zay, Mistress. But ’twould be like a slimy Puritan’s luck to get back before ’un. And with a silver pound in his pocket for his pains as like as not.”

He offered to lead Jacob back to his stall for her, and Mary stood wondering what business could have been so urgent as to bring tears of gratitude to a fashionably dressed middle-aged man’s eyes. For a moment she had seemed to stand on the brink of some exciting happenings, and felt oddly frustrated now the courtyard was quiet and deserted again; but was soon brought back to the everyday level of life by a casement being pushed open sharply behind her. “Who were those people making such a to-do down there?” Mistress Wheeler called to her.

“Two gentlemen wanting to see the Governor, but they could not wait,” explained Mary.

“You should have called Captain Rolph, child.”

“Brett did go for him.”

“Pah! Brett is as slow as a wet week.”

“He is getting old,” defended Mary.

“Well, he and his donkeys seem to have wasted enough of your morning. Better come up here and help with some of this mending.”

Mary found the housekeeper’s room strewn with sheets. Her aunt had been going through the linen presses. “No more than half a dozen pairs fit to use in the best bedroom,” she was lamenting. “And two of those need some of your darning. Your very finest, mind. Sit you down by the window where the light is good, while I cut out patches for the rest.”

It was warm and pleasant in the top-floor room and they worked in companionable silence. Thanks to her aunt’s training Mary was an excellent needlewoman and as she drew the thread back and forth her thoughts roamed easily. The crackling of the fire and the homely sound of scissors grating against the table were but a lulling accompaniment. But when less than an hour had passed and in imagination she was living over again yesterday’s happy hours on Brighstone Down she became aware of hurried footsteps on the stairs. The door opened quickly and to the astonishment of both of them her father stood there.

“Why, Silas, what brings you back from Newport so soon?” exclaimed Mistress Wheeler, turning from the table with the big scissors in her hand.

Silas Floyd shot the bolt behind him and leaned against the door. He was a man renowned for calmness in any emergency, but his breath came quickly and he looked almost bemused.

“Have you had some bad news?” asked Mary quickly.

“God knows whether it be good or bad. To me it is just—unbelievable.” By an effort his abstracted gaze returned to them as if seeing them again as familiar individuals. “Colonel Hammond sent me back to tell you that the King is coming,” he said.

His sister dropped the scissors with a clatter and the sheet spread across his daughter’s lap slid to the floor. “Coming
here
—to the island?” they cried in unison.

“Here, to Carisbrooke.” Although he had ridden back from Newport with the news, he seemed scarcely to have had time to credit it himself. “King Charles is just across the Solent, at Lady Southampton’s house,” he added, setting his steel helmet on the table and crossing to a cupboard to find himself a drink. His sister poured it for him with an unsteady hand. “You mean they have let him leave Hampton?” she said.

“He escaped. It seems there was some plot against his life and his friends thought he would be safer here.” Floyd emptied his tankard at a draught. “Two gentlemen came to me when I was settling our weekly account with Trattle. They said you sent them, Mary.”

“I understand now why they were in such a state. Who were they?”

“A Master Ashburnham and Sir John Berkeley, both formerly officers in the King’s disbanded army. Seems they were sent over in advance to sound the Governor as to whether he would keep him safe.”

“And you found the Governor?”

“I’d seen him go into the Mayor’s house. Couldn’t have been a worse place. This Master Ashburnham seemed confident that if he could get the King to Carisbrooke before nightfall their troubles would be over. But the less a Puritan fanatic like his Worship Moses Read knows about the King’s movements, the better, say I!”

Mary came and refilled his tankard. “How did King Charles escape from Hampton Court?” she asked.

“My dear child, how should I know? There never has been such hustle and commotion on the island since the French came. I could hear them conferring in Master Read’s best parlour while I kicked my heels outside along with that Roundhead fellow Captain Rolph brought from London. All I know is what the Colonel told me when he came outside to give me my orders. And by the way he drew me aside I reckon he didn’t want the two Court gentlemen to hear. I’d a feeling he was as fair stunned as I was, and none too pleased to be drawn into the matter. ‘Hurry back to the castle, Sergeant,’ he said, ‘and tell them to prepare for the King’s coming. And tell Captain Rolph I am going over to Southampton with these gentlemen. I want him to ride straight to Cowes Castle and meet me there so that I can take him and the Cowes Captain along with me. To ensure the safe conduct of the King, of course.’ ”

“Captain Rolph is mounting his horse already,” said Mary, looking down from the window. For her the jumped-up Parliamentarian Captain’s departure always brought a vague sense of relief, for of all the men in the place only he, with his bold apprising glance, made her feel vaguely afraid.

“But what are we to do? Where are we to house the King? And how feed him?” demanded Druscilla Wheeler, momentarily distraught.

“I’ve the Governor’s orders for you too,” said Floyd. “You are to prepare the best bedroom for King Charles, and the Colonel will move into the officers’ quarters in the old wing. His Majesty will take his meals in the long parlour over the great hall. And rooms will have to be prepared for Sir John Berkeley and Master Ashburnham, of course, and for a Colonel Legge, I think he said, who rode from Hampton with the King and is waiting with him now. And a meal must be ready upon his Majesty’s arrival.”

“But how should we know what royalty eats?” asked Mary.