Winsor, Kathleen (73 page)

Eyebrows
went up, mouths twisted, and sly secret smiles were exchanged as the old man
passed.

Clarendon
was rapidly becoming the most hated man in England—not only at Court but
everywhere. He had been in power too long and the people blamed him for
whatever went amiss, no matter how little he might have had to do with it. He
would accept no advice, allow no opposition; whatever he did was right. Even
those faults might have been overlooked but that he had others which were
unforgivable. He was inflexibly honest and would neither take nor give bribes,
and not even his friends profited by his favour. Though he had lived most of
his life at courts he was contemptuous of courtiers and scorned to become one.

And
so they watched, and waited. If his hold on Parliament should once slip they
would be at his throat like a pack of starving jackals.

"Have
you been out Piccadilly to see the Chancellor's new house?" asked someone,
when he had gone.

"Judging
by the foundations I'd say he'll have to sell England to finish it. What he got
from Dunkirk won't build the stables."

"How
many more times does the old devil think he
can
sell England? Our value
won't hold up much longer at the present rate of exchange."

The
door into the King's private chambers opened again and Buckhurst strolled out
with another young man. Two or three others crossed over to speak to them.

"What's
the delay? I've been waiting here half-an-hour. Nothing but the hope of
speaking to his Majesty about a place for my cousin could have induced me to
get out of bed on a morning like this one. Now I suppose he's gone by way of
the Privy Stairs and left us all to shift for ourselves."

"He'll
be along presently. He's dickering with a Jesuit priest over the price of a
recipe for Spirit of Human Skull. Have you got a tailor's bill in your pocket,
Tom? If it's illegible enough sell it to Old Rowley for a universal panacea and
your fortune's made. He's giving that mangy old Jesuit five thousand pound for
his scrap of paper."

"Five
thousand! Good God! What can an old man have to spend five thousand on?"

"What
do you think? On a remedy for impotence, of course."

"The
best remedy for impotence is a pretty wench—" The voices grew temporarily
quiet as the King appeared, strolling through the door with his dogs and
sycophants behind him. He was freshly shaved and his smooth brown skin had a
healthy glow;
he gave them a smile and a nod of his head and started on out. The jostling for
place began immediately as they streamed along in his wake, but Buckingham
already had one elbow and Lauderdale the other.

"I
suppose," said Charles to the Duke, "that by tomorrow it will be
running up the galleries and through the town I'm a confirmed Catholic."

"I've
heard those rumours already, Sire."

"Well—"
Charles shrugged. "If that's the worst rumour that goes abroad about me I
think it's no great matter for concern." Charles was not inclined to worry
about what anyone said of him, and he knew his people well enough to know that
grumbling was a national sport, not much more subversive than football or
wrestling. He had been home almost five years now, and the honeymoon with his
subjects was over.

Leaving
his own apartments he crossed the Stone Gallery and started down a maze of
narrow hallways which led along the Privy Garden, over the Holbein Gateway and
into St. James's Park. He walked so rapidly that the shorter men had to half
run, or be left behind, and since most of them had a favour to ask they did not
intend to let that happen.

"I
think there's time," said Charles, "for a turn through the Park
before Chapel. I hope the air's cold enough to make me sleepy."

They
had reached the old stairway which led down into the Park when suddenly one of
the doors up the corridor to the left burst open and Monmouth came out in a
rush. The men stopped and while his father laughed heartily the Duke ran toward
them; he arrived breathless, swept off his hat and made a low bow. Charles
dropped an arm about the boy's shoulders and gave him an affectionate pat.

"I
overslept, Sire! I was just going to attend you to Chapel."

"Come
along, James. I've been wanting to talk to you."

James,
who was now walking between the King and Lauderdale, gave his father an
apprehensive glance. "What about, Sire?"

"You
must know, or you wouldn't have such a guilty face. Everyone's been telling me
about you. Your behaviour's a favorite subject of conversation." James
hung his head and Charles, with a smile he could not wholly conceal lurking at
the corners of his mouth, went on. "They say you've taken to keeping a
wench—at fifteen, James—that you've run deep into debt, that you scour about
the streets at night disturbing peaceful citizens and breaking their windows.
In short, son, they say you lead a very gay life."

Monmouth
looked swiftly up at his father, and his handsome face broke into an appealing
smile. "If I'm gay, Sire, it's only to help me forget my troubles."

Several
of the others burst into laughter but Charles looked at the boy solemnly, his
black eyes shining. "You must have a
great many troubles, James. Come
along—and tell me about them."

The
morning was cold and frosty and the wind blew their periwigs about, as it did
the spaniels' ears. Charles clamped his hat firmly onto his head, but the
others had to hold to their wigs—for they carried their hats beneath their
arms—or lose them. The grass was hard-matted and slippery, and there was a thin
sheet of ice over the canal; it had been an unusually cold dry winter, and
there had been no thaw since before Christmas. The other men looked at one
another sourly, annoyed that they must go walking in such weather, but the King
strode along as unconcernedly as if it were a fine summer day.

Charles
walked in the Park because he liked the exercise and the fresh-air. He enjoyed
strolling along the canal to see how his birds, in cages hung in the trees on
either side, were standing the cold weather. Some of the smaller ones he had
had removed indoors until the frost should break. He wanted to know if the cold
had hurt the row of new elms he had had set out the year before and whether his
pet crane was learning to walk with the wooden leg he had had made for it when
its own had been lost in an accident.

But
he did not walk only for amusement and exercise; it was a part of the morning's
business. Charles had always preferred that his unpleasant tasks be done under
pleasant conditions— and there were few duties he disliked more than hearing
petitions and begging for favours. If it had been possible he would gladly have
granted every request that was made him, not so much from the boundless
generosity of his nature as to buy his own peace from whining voices and
pleading eyes. He hated the sound and the sight of them, but it was the one
thing from which there never could be escape.

Some
of them wanted a place at Court for a friend or relative, and there were always
a hundred askers for each place that fell vacant. However he chose he left many
disgruntled and jealous and the one who got it was seldom as well pleased as he
had expected to be. Another would want a grant for a Plate Lottery—royal
permission to sell tickets at whatever price he could command for a lottery of
some crown plate. Others were there to beg an estate: it was common practice to
bear the expense of arrest and prosecution of other persons in the hope that a
cash-fine or confiscated property could be begged from the King. Another man
wanted to go to sea to fight the Dutch, and he wanted to go as a captain or a
commander, though his sea experience had been limited to a crossing from France
in one of the packet-boats.

Charles
listened to them patiently, tried when he could to refer the supplicant to
someone else, and when he could not usually granted the request, though well
aware that it might be impossible of fulfillment. And as he walked and listened
to the petitions of his courtiers he was often approached by a sick old man or
woman, sometimes a
young mother with her child, who begged him to touch and heal them. The
courtiers resented the intrusion, but Charles did not.

He
liked his people and, though he had lived so long out of the country, he
understood them. They grumbled about his mistresses and the extravagance of the
Court, but when he smiled and stopped to talk to them and laugh with them in
his deep booming voice they loved him in spite of everything. His charm and
accessibility were potent political weapons and he knew it.

They
walked along the Canal that crossed the Park from one end to another and back
along Pall Mall, turning down King Street into the Palace grounds. The chapel
bells began to ring and Charles increased his rapid pace, relieved that soon he
would be where they could pester him no longer. Monmouth was far ahead of them.
All along the way he had been running and leaping, calling the spaniels to
follow him until now their long ears were soggy and wet and their paws clotted
with mud.

Ah!
thought Charles, and drew a deep breath as they came into the courtyard which
led to the chapel. Another hundred yards and I'm safe!

At
that moment Buckingham, who had given his place to others, caught up with him
again. "Sire," he began. "May I present—"

Charles
threw a quick comical glance at Lauderdale. "How is it," he murmured,
"that every one of my friends keeps a tame knave?"

But
he turned back with a smile to hear the man out, and stopped just at the chapel
doors with the courtiers clustered around him. But the ladies were going in,
and his eyes wandered. Frances Stewart came along with her waiting-woman and
gave him a wave of her hand. Charles grinned broadly and made a quick move to
follow her, but remembered that he was listening to a petition and checked
himself.

"Yes,"
he interrupted. "I appreciate your position, sir. Believe me, I'll give it
serious thought."

"But,
Sire—" protested the man, holding out his hands. "As I told you, it's
most urgent! I must know soon or—"

"Oh,
yes," said Charles, who had not been listening at all. "So it is.
Very well, then. I think you may."

Gratefully
the man started to drop to his knees, but the King gave
him
an impatient
signal not to, for he was eager to get away. And then, just before he entered
the great carved oak doors he turned and said over his shoulder, "As far
as I'm concerned, you may have your wish. But you'd best make sure the
Chancellor has no other plans on that score."

The
man opened his mouth again, the smile disappearing in a sudden look of dismay,
but it was too late. The King was gone. "Catch him as he comes out,"
whispered Buckingham, and went on himself.

The
chapel was already well filled and the music of the great organ thundered in
the walls. Charles did not like going to
church and sermons bored him, but he
did contrive to please himself while there with some of the finest music to be
had. And, much to the scandal of the conservative, he had introduced violins,
which he loved better than any other instrument.

He
sat alone in the Royal Closet in the gallery—Catherine attended her own
Catholic mass—looking down over the chapel. Curtains at either side closed off
the portion of the gallery where the ladies sat, though he knew that Frances
was there just beside him, so close that he could whisper to her. The young
clergyman who was to speak for the day had taken his place and was mopping his
perspiring cheeks and forehead with his black-gloved hands, until as the dye
came off he looked more like a chimney-sweep than a divine. Titters went up here
and there and the young man looked more wretchedly uncomfortable than ever,
wondering why they had begun to laugh before he had spoken so much as one word.

It
was almost as difficult to preach to the Court as it was to act to it. The King
invariably went to sleep, sitting bolt upright and facing the pulpit, as soon
as the subject of the sermon had been announced. The Maids of Honor whispered
among themselves, waving their fans at the men below, giggled and tried on one
another's jewellery and ribbons. The gallants craned their necks back up at the
ladies' gallery and compared notes on the previous night's activities or
pointed out the pretty women present. The politicians leaned their heads
together and murmured in undertones, keeping their eyes ahead as though no one
could guess what they were doing. Most of the older ladies and gentlemen,
relics of the Court of the first Charles, sat soberly in their pews and
listened with satisfaction to the warnings repeatedly given by the pulpit to a
careless age; but even their good intentions often ended in noisy snores.

At
last the young chaplain, newly preferred to his place by an influential
relative, proclaimed the subject of his first sermon before the King and Court.
"Behold!" he announced, giving another swipe of his black glove along
his cheek, "I am fearfully and wonderfully made!"

Instantly
the chapel was filled with laughter, and while the bewildered frightened young
man looked out over his congregation, tears started into his eyes, even the
King had to clear his throat and bend over to examine his shoe-lace to conceal
a smile. A finger poked him gleefully through the curtains, and Charles knew
that it was Frances whom he could hear gasping with laughter. But the chapel
finally grew quiet again, the terrified clergyman forced himself to go on, and
Charles composed himself to sleep.