Читать книгу Mary of Carisbrooke - Margaret Campbell Barnes - Страница 4

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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 gettin’ 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 Londoner, 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.

“And how make up four beds with only six good pairs of sheets?” demanded Mistress Wheeler, looking round desperately at the half-sorted contents of her poorly stocked linen cupboard. “And the bedroom needs fresh tapestries and hangings.”

Sergeant Floyd picked up his helmet and set it in the crook of his arm. Domestic arrangements, thank God, were no concern of his. He had all the military detail to attend to, and twenty men to drill into the performance of some kind of reception parade fit for royalty, of which performance he was none too sure himself.

“If it’s a matter of moving things or nailing hangings, I can spare you a couple of men to help,” he offered. “I shall be in charge until they return with his Majesty.”

“And when, in the name of a merciful God, will that be?” asked Mistress Wheeler, facing him squarely.

“Sometime to-morrow, I imagine, if the tide serves.”

“To-morrow!”

“If you were the King wouldn’t you be anxious to put three miles of Solent and the good will of us islanders between yourself and such pestilential enemies?” asked Floyd, from the doorway. But when he had drawn back the bolt he turned to enquire more sympathetically, “You will be able to have the place ready, Druscilla?”

His sister took a grip on herself and regarded him from across the room with a mixture of pride and affection. Even her social and housekeeping experiences as chatelaine of a small manor on the mainland were not going to help her much now, so she guessed that her brother, who had never been off the island, must be as scared as she was at the thought of preparing a reception for a king. “Have we Floyds ever failed to do our duty when the time comes, Silas?” she asked, drawing herself up to her full height. “I pray you, have someone go to the chandlers for six gross more candles. The best tallow kind. And send Brett and Libby and the rest of the maids to me as you go past the kitchens.”

“We could get extra help perhaps from the village?” suggested Mary, gathering up a pile of folded sheets in her strong young arms as soon as he was gone.

“I make no doubt we could. Wouldn’t every lily-fingered, gossip-lapping woman among them give her eyes to come up here now?” sniffed the competent housekeeper of Carisbrooke. “But we will manage very well with such wenches as we have. At least I’ve trained them myself.”

The excellence of her training was to be severely tested during the next twenty-four hours. For the rest of the day the castle household ate cold viands picked from the buttery at odd moments. The cook and his underlings prepared dishes which they had not made since Lord Portland’s day, the scullions scoured every pot and the best silver dinner set was brought out. Maids scurried about making up beds, and a couple of stalwart troopers got in their way moving furniture. Mary stood with her aunt in the middle of the best bedroom considering what to do. Somehow the four-poster did not look so grand now, only rather shabby and faded. “There are those red velvet hangings milady Portland was wont to use in the winter,” Mary remembered suddenly.

“Red velvet?” In the ferment of the afternoon’s work aunt and niece had each come to respect the other’s ability, so that much of the authoritative manner and the meekness were gone.

“Yes, Aunt Druscilla, do you not remember? They had little silver stags embroidered on them, which I adored. They may be in one of the attics. I know they were all packed up ready to take to France but milady had to leave so much behind when the Parliamentarians turned her out of the castle.”

The material had been as brave and beautiful as the Governor’s wife who had owned it. So the attics were searched and the four-poster rehung with crimson velvet, which looked quite suitable for a king. By nightfall the Colonel’s businesslike writing desk had been removed and a prie-dieu put in its place because everyone knew the King was pious. Real wax candles, borrowed from the chapel, stood upon his table because it was said he liked to read. The best chair in the castle had been placed beside the wide hearth and the fire which old Brett had laid burned cheerily, throwing kindly, dancing shadows upon the faded tapestry on the wall facing the window. “The servants will have to walk quietly along the backstairs passage behind that partition wall, with no courting and no tittering,” decreed Mistress Wheeler, surveying the main scene of their labours with a critical but not unsatisfied eye. “And you and I will have to make the bed.”

Terror seized shy Mary. “You mean—come in here—with the King of England sitting maybe in that chair?” she asked with bated breath.

With a rare demonstration of affection Aunt Druscilla pushed her down upon the carved chest set for the accommodation of the King’s clothes at the bottom of the bed. “You are tired, child,” she said. “To-morrow it will not seem so alarming. And who else is there to do it? We could not have Libby in here, and in any case she will have the other beds to do.”

So Libby would not be sent away. There would be no need to plead for her after all. Having been on her feet since before noon, Mary sank down on the chest, digesting that unexpected fact with thankfulness. The ways of the Almighty were indeed exceeding strange. For instance, who would have dreamed this time yesterday that she would be making a bed for a king? And once his Majesty came here what would life be like? Would he be allowed to live in peace or would all the harrying and disturbances from the mainland follow him?

She was still sitting there before the fire almost too tired for thought when she heard her father’s deep, cheerful voice. By the sound of it she knew that his part of the preparations must have gone well. And now he was inspecting his sister’s handiwork and commending her with the same warmth which encouraged his men.

“And how goes the State bedroom?” he was asking laughingly. “And my tired little daughter?”

“Do you suppose the King will think it all very strange and simple after Hampton Court?” she asked sleepily.

Floyd smiled down at her. “He has been here before, you know.”

“Why, of course. When I was quite small, you used to tell me at bedtime about the day Prince Charles came. But I have almost forgotten.”

Floyd had had a worrying day himself and was glad to sit down on the carved chest beside her and gather her drooping form to his side. “He came across to review the militia and watched them having a practice battle, the same as they’re practising for now up on Brighstone Down. Except that he was King James’s son he wasn’t very important then because his elder brother, Prince Henry, was still alive. And after the review Prince Charles came up to the castle to dine.”

Mary leaned in weary comfort against her father’s side. She could scarcely keep her eyes open. “And what was he like?” she asked.

“A rather frail-looking lad with a limp. Though he sat a horse well. He’d a shy way with him but he took everything in. And when he went round the battlements after dinner he asked Sir John Oglander, who was Deputy Governor here then, if he might touch off one of our biggest guns. He was but an eager lad and ’twas I who primed it for him. ’Twas my first year with the garrison and I mind how proud I was.”

For the first time the King for whom all this preparation had been going on began to take on a human personality, and to awaken pity. He had been young and shy and eager. “And now he comes back to us an escaped prisoner,” murmured Mary compassionately. And because she had worked far too hard and was dearer to him than anyone else in the world, the Sergeant of the garrison picked her up in his strong arms and carried her, already sleeping, to her bed.