Georgette Heyer (14 page)

The rest of the day passed uneventfully, soldiers being occasionally seen, but never near enough to the tree to cause the two in it any great anxiety. The worst the King had to bear were the discomforts of a hard perch, a rough shirt, and limbs aching from being for so many hours in a variety of cramped positions. He was very patient, making no complaint, but beguiling the time with cheerful conversation, and sometimes dozing a little, with Carlis's arm round him. Once he said, passing his hand over the black stubble that adorned his chin: 'I believe if my own mother were to see me now she would not know me!'

  Carlis returned a jesting answer, but he thought that Charles spoke more truly than he knew. Those who had waved farewell to the youth who had set forth to try his fortune in Scotland, would see very little of that shy, slightly stammering boy in the taciturn young King who, in eighteen bitter months, had found his manhood, and had learnt to trust no man beyond his own interest.

  When he slept, the lines of his face were softened; he looked younger, and strangely defenceless. Carlis watched him, trying sometimes to see a likeness to the little stately King, his father; at others, wondering what the future held for him. An ugly young man, Carlis thought, smiling under his moustache. He was swarthy, harsh-featured, his countenance melancholy, his full underlip inclined to pout. Almost a repellent young man, one would have thought; yet with such a magic in his smile, in the very look in his dark eyes, that even a hardened soldier felt his heart warm to him.

  It was not until the daylight had quite gone that William Penderel came with his ladder to the tree, and told the King that it was at last safe for him to come into the house. The King and Carlis descended some what stiffly, Charles discovering as soon as he stood upon them, that his feet, instead of having benefited by his rest, were rather more painful than before, having swollen a little. He was glad to lean on William's arm, and had not covered more than half the distance to the house when he announced that come what might he would go no farther upon his journey that night.

  Being arrived at the house, he was escorted imme diately to the parlour, where a fire burned, and a brave number of tallow candles cast their light on to the oak wainscoting and made the plaster mouldings of the ceiling assume grotesque, mask-like shapes. The King sat down in a chair by the fire, saying that he had not dreamed of such entertainment; but after he had rested for a few minutes, and warmed himself, listening lazily to the low-voiced discussion that was being held between William Penderel and Carlis, he pulled himself up and asked to be shown the secret place in the house.

  There were, in fact, two hiding-places; one approached through a sliding panel in the best bedchamber, which was above the parlour, and having a way of escape down the wide chimney and into the garden through a door hidden by a thick creeper; the other, a square hole under the floor of the cheese-room upon the top floor. This one, Carlis and William considered to be the safer of the two, the priest-catchers being more likely to suspect the wainscoting than the floor; and after the King had descended into it and found that by drawing up his legs he could lie in it without too much discom fort, he declared himself to be so well satisfied with its security that he was resolved to spend the night there.

  He was then conducted down the two flights of stairs again to the parlour, where Joan Penderel had by this time spread supper upon the table.

  'Roast chicken, as I live!' the King said, sniffing the air. 'My Dame Joan, I warrant you, I think William a lucky man!'

  'Oh, my liege,' she said, smiling and blushing, 'it is all I have to offer your Majesty, and little enough, alas!'

  He sat down in the chair at the head of the table, telling her that it was a very ample supper, though he would engage to leave nothing of it but the bones; and picking up the carving-knife, commanded Carlis to sit down with him, and fall to.

  'I will wait first on your Majesty,' Carlis replied.

  'Sit down, man, sit down!' said the King. 'Oddsblood, have you perched all day on the same tree-branch with me only to stand upon ceremony now?'

  'Please your Majesty, I will wait upon you,' said William. 'And if your Majesty is wishful for to see my brother John, he is in the kitchen, and I will fetch him in to you.'

  'Have him in,' said the King. 'Where is my Trusty Dick?'

  'Dick and George do both be on guard, watching the highway,' replied William. 'And Humphrey has gone to Shifnal for to get news, and will be back anon.'

  'Why, it seems I have a bodyguard!' said the King, digging his teeth into the flesh of the drumstick.

  'It's best some of us should be on the watch,' William said.

  He went away to summon John to the parlour, and presently came back with him, giving him a thrust towards the King, and saying: 'Go on, and speak up; there's naught to scare ye, man!'

  John, the second of the brothers, was a sturdy woodman, with a pair of serious grey eyes, which he kept fixed on the King's face. He looked a little bashful, but upon the King's beckoning him with a movement of the half-eaten drumstick in his hand, a grin dispelled some of his gravity, and he stepped forward.

  'John, where is my Lord Wilmot?' demanded the King.

  'If he's not gone, he should ought to be at Moseley, your honour,' responded John. 'But, 'deed, there's no foretelling but what he may have gone off somewheres, for he's as fidgety as a maggot – saving your Majesty's presence.'

  'Did you tell him I was gone with Richard to Madeley?'

  'I did so, and right glad his lordship was to hear it. But what he might take it into his head to do is more than I can tell your honour. His horses was sent over to Colonel Lane, at Bentley Hall, which, seemingly, is a gentleman which served under my lord in the late wars. Maybe he would help my lord to escape – for all Moseley Hall is a very safe hiding-place.'

  'Will you go once more to Moseley with a message for my lord?' asked the King.

  'Ay, I'll be off first thing in the morning, and gladly. Not but what it's not me would be trusting your Majesty to that one,' he said disparagingly.

  'Fie, John, his lordship is a very faithful friend of mine.'

  'Ay,' said John. 'He do be mighty anxious to get tidings of your Majesty, I'll allow. But the way it takes him, jumping about as wanton as a calf with two dams, puts me in fear he'll yet be the cause of your Majesty's being caught by them rebels.'

  'I'll take good care of my skin,' replied the King. 'I must prevail upon my lord to put on him a disguise.'

  'He'll not to do it,' said John. 'Nor he'll not budge without he has his horses, which put Mr Whitgreave in a taking to know where to hide them, the stables at Moseley Hall being hard by the road.'

  The King laughed. 'My lord is too fat a man to go a-walking, friend John. He never does so.' He pushed his chair back from the table, and stretched his long legs out before him. 'Dame Joan, my stomach is now so well-lined that I am in a mood to defy all my enemies. But I should like to be rid of this beard,' he added, stroking his bristly chin.

  'Well, and there's not a bit of need for your Majesty to go unshaven,' said Dame Penderel. 'Will'am, you could shave his Majesty.'

  'Ay,' William agreed. 'I could.'

  'Will you let him, sir?' Carlis asked, bending over the King's chair.

  'Why not?' said Charles. 'William, I desire you to shave me.'

  'Ay,' said William, and went off to get his razor.

  John followed him, remarking when the parlour door was shut behind him: 'You'm right, Will: he's not like my lord, not he! Lordy, to think of him a-sitting in the parlour as cool as you please, and the whole pack of them rebel soldiers a-hunting him to have off his head, like they had his blessed father's! But as for my lord being the one to go along with him – well he's not worthy to carry guts to a bear, and that's the truth!'

  When the Penderels had withdrawn from the parlour, the King leaned his head against the back of his chair, the smile fading from his face, and leaving it drawn and rather desolate. Carlis, watching him, was impelled to take one of his hands, and to hold it in both his own strong, square ones, for comfort. The King's drooping eyelids lifted, and the eyes themselves faintly questioned.

  Carlis smiled at him: 'One day you will look back upon these adventures of yours, and laugh, sir.'

  'If I live to look back on them I shall certainly laugh,' agreed the King.

  In the tree, slipping into sleep, his reserve had been lowered, but he was awake now, and hidden from Carlis behind the fence of his charm. He smiled and jested, made light of his troubles, and set his hosts at their ease by his own ease of manner; but what thoughts struggled in his brain, what sick despair, or crushing loneliness, made his eyes so sombre, were secrets known only to himself. Carlis could only kiss his hand, saying: 'You must have rest. After, the world will not look so grey.'

  The King replied with a gleam of amusement: 'I doubt I seem to you a poor creature.'

  'No,' Carlis said.

  'I am not used to this life I find myself leading,' the King said, not in complaint, but matter-of-factly. 'The people are strange to me. But they seem to wish me very well.'

  'Well enough, I daresay, to give their lives for you, sir.'

  'I do not know why they should,' the King said, yawning. 'They know nothing of me, after all.'

  Just then William came back to shave him. He took great pains over it, but was unskilful enough to provoke Carlis into saying with a twinkle: 'I am afraid William is but a mean barber, sir.'

  'I was never shaved by any barber before,' remarked the King.

  When the stubble had been removed, he said that he felt more like himself; and upon William's asking him respectfully if he would permit him to trim his hair, he said that he was very willing.

  William, accordingly, cut his hair short on the top of his head with a pair of scissors, leaving it longer, however, about the ears, which was, he assured the King, more after the country-fashion. When he had finished, he knelt down to pick up the fallen black locks, gathering them into a handkerchief. The King, observing this, and perhaps guessing that William meant to keep the hair, said warningly: 'It must all be burned.'

  One of the short wiry ringlets had curled itself round William's finger. He did not look up when the King spoke, nor did he answer him, but when Charles repeated: 'It must be burned. Throw it on the fire, man!' he said gruffly that it would make a nasty reek in the room, and would be better disposed of in the kitchen. He removed the lingering hairs from about his finger, adding, ' 'Tis strong – like it was alive.'

  'Yes, strong enough to hang you,' said Charles.

  Before he could insist upon his command being obeyed, John Penderel came into the room bringing Humphrey, the miller, who had that instant arrived from Shifnal. The King's attention being thus diverted, William discreetly withdrew with his relics.

  Humphrey grinned broadly at the King. 'I don't know whether to be glad or sorry to see your honour again,' he confessed. 'That was a rare misfortunate journey you had, and us thinking you safe into Wales! Ay, and there's a mort of news hereabouts. Wait while I tell your Majesty: I warrant you'll get a good laugh!'

  'Tell me then,' the King said. 'I shall be glad to laugh.'

  'Well, I went off to Shifnal, like it was agreed betwixt me and Will. There's a Captain of the Rump there, which was used to be a heel-maker, and, thinks I to myself, that's the man for my need. So I up and took twenty shillings with me for the pay of a man in this new militia, which was all right and tight, it being for my mistress, and honest business, true enough. And being come to this Captain Broadway, I got to talking with some of the men there, but without much good got from it.'

  'Get on, man, get on!' said Carlis. 'Tell this story with a better grace!'

  'Why, so I will, master,' Humphrey said, rather reproachfully. 'For now's the marrow, mark you! Whiles I was there, there comes in a Colonel of the rebels for Captain Broadway, being wishful to know what search had been made at White-Ladies for the King, which the Captain said he knew no more than was rumour.'

  'They traced me there?' the King interpolated.

  'Ay, sure enough, for the Colonel told Broadway the story of your honour's coming there with a great, great company. But 'twas mostly lies, him not having the full sum of it – nor like to, I says to myself. So then the Captain bethinks him of me, and calls me up to tell what I knew to the Colonel.'

  'What said you?'

  'Why, that your honour had been to White-Ladies, which was nothing, seeing they knew it before; but the Colonel took it kindly, saying I was an honest man, and should be rewarded for my pains. Then he asked me where was your Majesty now – misnaming you, which made me mad. But I said how would I know the like of that, me being but a poor man, and not one your Majesty would be speaking to? And you talking to me so free in Spring Coppice, and eating your supper in Dick's house! Laugh! I could ha' split my sides! But when the Colonel said to me, was not your honour hid at White Ladies still, I stood a-gaping at him like I was amazed. "Nay, how should that be?" I says, in a seeming puzzle. "There's three families living there and all at difference one with the other. There's no likelihood for him to stay there." That made him glum, I warrant you. However, he says he doubts not within a day or two to have your honour delivered into his hands, him having had tidings from London that there was a great reward to be got by any who could catch your honour, ay, or would tell where you lie hid. "The sum of One thousand pounds", he says to me, mighty solemn; which fair took me aback for 'tis a mort of money, so 'tis.'