Rebels and Traitors (49 page)

‘He does not deserve you,’ said Owen. ‘Though as my dearest Nerissa would say — what man is there alive who deserves the woman who puts up with him?’

They had spent their memories of Nerissa, however. The night was over. Next morning McIlwaine took his leave, Grania riding on a pack-horse behind him. Men had appeared from nowhere to join him. A small party set off towards Wales, which had always been hot in support of the King. The colonel had once hoped to go north-west, if the roads were clear, and try to reach Holyhead where they could take a boat direct across the Irish Sea. Now it was thought too dangerous, so they were riding into South Wales and somehow onwards from there.

Juliana waved them off. She went indoors before the clatter of hooves had vanished, closing the door on a silent house. As soon as she was alone she remembered the sword Orlando had once given her to protect herself. She hated it and could have passed it on to the colonel to hang on his empty baldric. But she had lost her chance and was stuck with it. The weapon must remain under her mattress, where Orlando had insisted on placing it when they first came to St Aldate’s.

Shortly she would break down in grief for Nerissa. After that, she must try to plan ahead.

For the time being she would only be weeping for her friend. She had no other sense of bereavement. She did not suppose for a moment that Orlando Lovell, her cavalier husband, had died at Naseby.

That would have been too easy.

For almost a fortnight Juliana was stuck in the house, alone with a boisterous child not yet two years of age, coping with her fears of giving birth. She had warned the midwife who, being a decent woman, sent a maid to check on progress every day. On the 5th of July, three weeks after Naseby the maid ran home to fetch the midwife who was fortunately free to attend. Under her supervision Juliana gave birth to her second son after a blessedly swift labour. The baby was small, which helped, despite which he seemed healthy. He looked like his father, much more than his brother Tom had done. The mother survived, without any infection setting in, though in the emotional aftermath of birth, she collapsed in wild torrents of tears. She refused to give the child a name, saying hysterically that his missing father must do that.

The concerned midwife stayed overnight, then took it upon herself to hire a nurse — As is so often necessary, not for the child, who thrives lustily, but the poor demented mother who is quite beside herself…’

The nurse was a fat, evil-smelling, elderly body who soon found what was left of Colonel McIlwaine’s wine cellar. Thomas Lovell toddled to alert his mother that debauchery was taking place in the parlour. Aged twenty-one months and barely talking, Tom Lovell was, the nurse then swore, ‘a spy and sneak as wicked as any Roundhead!’

‘She whacked me!’ accused Tom, who had until then known only gentle treatment and favouritism at the centre of the household. He already suspected that having a new little brother might threaten his position. However, he could still command attention. To preserve him from being beaten by a stranger, Juliana did what she had to: she stopped crying, wiped her wet face on a pillowcase, crawled out of bed, paid off the nurse and forced herself to take charge. Tom watched her avidly, looking after his own interests. Just as single-minded, the unnamed baby demanded milk voraciously. Nobody could doubt, Juliana thought bitterly, these two man-children were Lovell’s.

When the midwife, Mrs Flewitt, learned the circumstances of the nurse’s dismissal she was probably not surprised, yet rushed to apologise with her bonnet flapping. Mrs Flewitt was a good woman and better businesswoman. She did not know Nerissa McIlwaine had died, nor that Lovell was missing in action and Juliana facing penury. Juliana had lied by omission in keeping these details to herself; she glumly accepted that falsification must now become part of her lifestyle. Mrs Flewitt thought the handsome, pleasant-natured wife of a vigorous cavalier was a client to treasure since she might confidently be expected to become pregnant once a year, giving her midwife a secure income. She offered to lend Juliana her own maid, Mercy Tulk. No fool, Juliana snapped up the offer.

Inspecting Mercy Tulk, she found a short, undernourished young girl of perhaps sixteen, a horn-worker’s daughter. She lived in a dream, unable to apply herself to any task without energetic encouragement, but she accepted direction. Soon she preferred helping Juliana to the more arduous existence she had had before, running errands and assisting Mrs Flewitt. Despite her other-worldly air, the wench knew enough to pipe up and suggest Juliana should poach her — which she claimed would be acceptable all round since her sister Alice ‘had been taken on as a temporary in her old place and could easily become a permanent’. Juliana found herself suddenly ruthless. She brushed aside Mrs Flewitt’s weak protestations of deserving more loyalty and having trained Mercy Tulk at her own expense. ‘With less success than you may have supposed, Mrs Flewitt!’ Juliana snatched Mercy Tulk for herself. So long as she could pretend there would be wages at the end of the year, she would now have someone to share domestic work and help care for the children.

She had scrutinised Mercy Tulk on the two counts a housewife most needed to check: whether the new maid would make doe-eyes at Lovell, if he ever reappeared, and whether Lovell himself would be susceptible to chasing Mercy up the back stairs. Juliana decided not.

It might be false confidence: ‘Is Captain Lovell coming home soon?’ asked Mercy Tulk, rather too hopefully.

‘I doubt it!’ snapped Juliana. ‘Captain Lovell has to be found first.’

Her new maid assumed her husband had absconded with his mistress. Juliana let her think it.

There were procedures to follow and Juliana doggedly discovered what they were. She was a fast learner. That did not really help much, because most of the procedures were uncertain and all were extremely slow.

Finding out what had happened to her husband would have been easier if he had not fought on the losing side. As she nursed her baby Juliana was racked with frustration and fear.

She scoured all the news-sheets she could get her hands on. There were wild reports at first, one even declaring that Prince Rupert had been captured. More reliable pamphlets informed her that when the battle at Naseby ended, four thousand Royalist prisoners had been taken overnight to Market Harborough. Then they were marched to London, via Newport Pagnell where Sir Samuel Luke was asked to assist with conveying them. In London, they were paraded through the streets as a spectacle for cheering crowds. Common soldiers were penned like sheep at market in the Artillery Ground or, depending on which story you read, in Tothill Fields. Either way, it was an outdoor billet, with no conveniences, where they were harangued with sermons and encouraged to transfer their allegiance to Parliament. Officers were initially lodged in Lord Peters’s house in Aldersgate Street — presumably somewhat squashed, given the large number of prisoners. Since an officer was a gentleman and a gentleman’s word was his bond, parole would be granted in due course and conditions meanwhile might be bearable. Colonels, lieutenant-colonels and majors would take precedence in the allocation of fair quarters. Captains came next, but once a published list of captured Royalist officers was printed, it included well over fifty captains, none called Lovell. Juliana supposed they would be jostling for good treatment. Extremely senior men were imprisoned in the Tower, or held in other grim London prisons; Lovell could not be regarded in that category. His survival strategy had always been to lie low, never looking dangerous.

For all these prisoners, the desirable route to freedom was through an exchange. Soldiers from the ranks would never achieve it; they must either become turncoats, enlisting in the New Model Army, or languish. Jail fever would carry them off rapidly; if they had been wounded in battle, they were probably dead already. Officers might feel more hopeful, so long as they had not come to Parliament’s notice as particularly virulent Royalists. To arrange to be exchanged with Parliamentary officers held by the King, Royalists needed either parole passes, so they could go out and organise the matter themselves, or somebody on the outside working for them. For Orlando Lovell, that would have to be his wife.

First, he would have to tell her where he was.

Maybe she was wrong. Maybe Lovell had been killed.

If so, there was no sure way now to learn of it. Juliana had heard what happened after an action. Dead soldiers were quickly stripped. Cadavers on the field were piled into burial pits unceremoniously, probably the same day as the battle, especially at Naseby, which only took a morning. Nobody would bother to identify them. Although she read that Oliver Cromwell had given orders afterwards that his pursuing cavalry were not to stop to plunder the men they cut down, there were always two versions. Reports from the Royalist side complained about the New Model Army taking as much plunder as they could — clothes and armour, weapons and money, lockets and finger rings. Afterwards, one naked man sprawled among the cow parsley in a hedge was little different from another.

Juliana could only wait. Silence from Lovell and silence about him from everyone else continued.

She still corresponded occasionally with her guardian Mr Gadd, if she could find a carrier going into Somerset where he lived in retirement. When she wrote with the good news that she was safely delivered of another healthy child, she mentioned that Lovell was missing. She put a brave face on it. Mr Gadd was now extremely old and frail; she thought there was nothing he could do to help and she did not want to cause him anxiety.

The New Model Army stormed across Royalist territory, bombarding castles and great houses into submission. Now essentially mopping up, Fairfax set out to subdue the West Country; on the 10th of July he and Cromwell defeated Lord Goring at the battle of Langport. On the same day, Archbishop Laud, whose recalcitrance had helped to cause the conflict, was executed on Tower Hill in London. Prince Rupert was attempting to rally Royalist spirits in the west; after Langport he was sent to Bristol. Was Lovell there? Fairfax took Bridgwater, acquiring Royalist provisions and ammunition. For the King, there was better news from Scotland where the brilliant campaign by the Marquis of Montrose continued so bravely that King Charles toyed with marching north to meet up with him.

Parliamentary troops were making so much headway in South Wales, Juliana feared for Colonel McIlwaine. He had promised to write to her once he reached Ireland. In an odd way she hoped never to hear from him. She chided herself, but she was uneasy. The plain fact was that friendly correspondence from an Irish Catholic, if it were intercepted, might do her harm in a world ruled by Parliament. Owen McIlwaine would be a very dangerous friend.

While the New Model Army knocked out one Royalist base after another, the King hopped ahead of them as it was said like a hunted quail’. He spent three dreamy weeks at Raglan Castle, squandering precious time in entertainments and sports. Once Charles was shaken out of his inertia by news of Goring’s defeat at Langport, he moved around indecisively until, at the end of August, he arrived for a brief visit to Oxford. Fairfax was preparing to besiege Prince Rupert at Bristol.

Juliana was astonished by the King’s return, though it brought her hope. Lovell was not among the ragged band who limped back, though someone else she knew was: Edmund Treves. The sight of the familiar, red-haired figure, always a little more rugged physically than she expected and always so kindly disposed towards her, reduced Juliana to momentary tears.

Edmund was horrified. He chose to view Juliana as a lighthouse, firm-based on stalwart rocks in the storms of life (as one of his poems had it). He quickly discovered the source of her misery: ‘Edmund, I do not know if Orlando is dead or alive!’

‘God in heaven! You may assume he is alive. He was seen, Juliana, seen in the rout towards Leicester; his horse tripped and flipped him over its ears. He was last noticed being marched off as a prisoner.’

‘I thought everyone was killed in the pursuit.’

Edmund was terse. ‘Enough. Not all.’

‘Did
you
see him taken?’

‘No, but I had it from a man I trust. The Ironsides were champing at our heels. But you know Lovell…’

Edmund’s ill-concealed shudder as he mentioned Cromwell’s horsemen was felt by Juliana as she flung her arms around him gratefully. Thinner in the face now, and matured by defeat, her one-time suitor never had jealousy in his nature. He was simply thrilled to be of assistance.

‘Oh but what of you, Edmund? My dear, how did you escape, and where have you been since the battle?’

‘I rode from the field with Prince Rupert. The broken remnants of our army spent a despondent, sleepless night at Ashby-de-la-Zouch — Leicester was unsafe for us, and indeed Fairfax retook it only two days later. For us it was Lichfield, then on to Bewdley, where we were finally rested. I had been shot in the back of the neck and after I managed to be seen by a surgeon, his efforts to clean my wound of rags and dirt and powder made me so weak and infected, I had to be left behind.’