Georgette Heyer (18 page)

  'I care nothing for my reception, so you bring me to my lord,' the King replied.

  He sounded exhausted and leaned heavily upon the staff he had taken from Richard. Huddleston said with swift compassion: 'Sire, you shall be with my lord in an instant. John, where are your wits? Lend the King your arm, and bring him in! We have been sadly anxious, sire, fearing some mischance had befallen you.'

  The house lay only a few hundred yards from the Pit Leasow, and was soon reached. A door gave on to a kitchen-yard and, being opened, disclosed a short flight of narrow, steep stairs immediately within the house.

  'Straight up, sire, and softly!' whispered Huddleston, holding the lantern on high. 'We must not wake the servants.'

  A door creaked on the landing above, and a shaft of light shone across the floor. A bulky figure appeared at the head of the stairs, and, seeing it, the King went quickly up. A pair of warm hands caught his; Wilmot's voice whispered with a break in it: 'My dear master! Safe! Safe!'

  'Harry, thank God I have found you!'

  Wilmot flung an arm round him, and swept him across the landing to the open door and through it into a panelled bedchamber in the front of the house. The curtains were drawn close across the window, a fire burned in the grate at the foot of the bed, and a number of candles lit the room.

  The King pulled off his battered hat, throwing it aside. Wilmot, seeing the ravage of his face, gave a choked exclamation, and knelt down, embracing his knees, ready tears springing to his eyes.

  The King bent, and pulled him to his feet, and kissed his cheek. 'Harry, what of Buckingham, Cleveland and the others?' he asked urgently.

  'I know not – I have heard nothing. But
you
are safe! What else signifies? Alas, alas, what you have suffered, my dearest liege!'

  The King managed to smile. 'Nay, 'tis only the walnut juice staining my face that makes you think so. I am well – very well.'

  He heard footsteps on the landing, and turned his head as the priest, followed by Mr Whitgreave, came into the room, and paused diffidently upon the threshold.

  No two men could have been more dissimilar. Father Huddleston, who was dressed very simply as a private gentleman, was a sparely built man, with a hatchet-face that had humorous lines carved in it, a pair of lively brilliant eyes deeply set under rather over-hanging brows, and a coarse pugnacious nose. He was over forty years old, but seemed less, having a certain impetuosity of manner, and a quick way of moving. He wore his clothes carelessly, and his grey hair waved loosely back from his face. Beside him, Thomas Whitgreave looked neat to the point of primness. He was a younger man, but more sedate than the priest, moving and speaking with deliberation, his hair brushed smoothly into ordered curls that just reached his shoulders, and every detail of his dress arranged with precision. His nose was slightly aquiline, the firm mouth under it rather small, and his eyes very calm and direct.

  Wilmot, on whose cheeks the tears still glistened, said in a moved voice: 'My good friends, though I have not disclosed the truth to you, yet I think you know it. This is my master – your master – the master of us all!'

  'Yes, my lord we did know it,' Whitgreave said. 'Sire, the honour your Majesty does me in trusting your sacred person to my care makes me barren of speech.'

  'We are your Majesty's humble servants to command!' the priest said.

  The King gave them his hand to kiss, saying: 'Indeed, gentlemen, I have received such an account of your fidelity to my lord that I shall never forget it.'

  'It is very true, sir; I owe them a debt I can never repay,' said Wilmot. 'You must know that Mr Whit greave fought throughout the late wars in Captain Giffard's troop, which formed a part of my brigade.'

  'Is it so? I am indeed come amongst friends,' the King replied. 'I need not ask whether you who fought for my father are willing to conceal his son.'

  'Sire, I am very willing.'

  'Mr Whitgreave knows how earnestly I desired, whilst I lay here, that my friends were with me. I never saw so secure a hiding-place, I do assure you, sir.'

  'Yes, the hiding-place!' said the King. 'Where is it?'

  'It is here, sir,' Whitgreave replied, going to the wall beside the fireplace. The panelling slid open under his fingers, disclosing a cupboard. A trap-door in the floor of this gave access to a small brick chamber, into which the King immediately lowered himself, to test its dimensions. Being informed by Whitgreave that the cavity in one corner was a portion of a chimney that led down to the brewhouse, rude steps being cut in the bricks to afford footholds, he expressed himself well content with the place.

  'But I trust I may not be obliged to seek refuge there, for it is very dank and stuffy, I think,' he remarked, climbing out of it, and coming back into the room. 'You must know, Harry, that I spent a very damnable night in the priest's hole at Boscobel, and was like to have died of cramp there.' He found that his nose was beginning to bleed again, and pulled out his already bloodstained handkerchief, saying as he sat down on the edge of the bed: 'A pox on this plaguey nose of mine that will not give me any peace!'

  Father Huddleston went to him, trying to make him lie down upon the bed. When he observed the condi tion of the wretched clout the King held to his nose, he was a good deal concerned, and said in his quick way: 'Your Majesty is absolutely spent! Such persistent nose bleeding is very bad, and must be stopped. My lord, the King must rest, ay, and he must eat! Mr Whitgreave, we are sadly remiss to stand gaping here!'

  Mr Whitgreave, however, was not gaping. He had, in fact, upon closing the cupboard in the wall, told Wilmot quietly that he would go down to the buttery to fetch refreshment for the King, and had left the room. Huddleston went after him, returning in a few minutes with one of his own handkerchiefs, which he gave to the King, removing the stained clout from his grasp.

  While the King sat still upon the bed, waiting for his nose to stop bleeding, Huddleston, whose keen eyes had not missed one detail of his deplorable costume, busied himself with the preparation of warm water for the bathing of his feet, and fetched into the room clean stockings, and a fine flaxen shirt to take the place of the noggen one which continually fretted the King's skin. As soon as the King was able to remove his handkerchief from his nose, Huddleston requested Wilmot to bring him to the fire, where a comfortable chair awaited him. The King sank into it and while Wilmot hovered beside him, Huddleston knelt down before him to strip off his shoes and his mudsoaked stirrup-stockings.

  The sight of the King's feet, which were still very swollen, and in some places raw, affected Wilmot profoundly. He dared not trust his voice, but wetted the King's hand with his tears. Huddleston, not less moved, but by far more practical, bathed and dried the feet. He found that the paper which had been put into the King's shoes to give him greater ease had rolled itself between and under his toes, and was responsible for more than one blister. He exclaimed wrathfully at the folly of Richard's wife, when the King explained how the paper came to be there, and was careful to remove every scrap of it before putting clean stockings on to the King.

  'And now if your Majesty will stand up, we may remove these wet clothes, and put you into a softer shirt. Ay, it irks you sadly, that rough noggen, does it not? The Penderels should think shame on themselves to suppose you could be comfortable in such coarse stuff!'

  'Nay, how should they bring me better? They gave me what they had, and I was grateful.' He let Wilmot tie the strings of the shirt at his throat, and added: 'Where are they? I do not desire them to leave this place until I have seen them, and thanked them for their great care of me.'

  'No, no, they will not do so, I promise your Majesty! Mr Whitgreave took them to the buttery, and will give them a good supper. Do not trouble your head over them!' replied Huddleston.

  He spread the King's jump-coat before the fire to dry as he spoke; hung the greasy leather doublet over a chair near by; and began to remove the bowl of water and the clothes. The King sat down again in his shirt and breeches, and shut his eyes, and in a few moments Mr Whitgreave came in with some sack for him, and biscuits.

  The King roused himself at a beseeching word from Wilmot, and smiled at his host. 'I thank you, I thank you! I am very hungry indeed.'

  The food and the wine revived him. His face began to look less haggard under its stain, and when Wilmot asked him tenderly how he did, he replied in a stronger, more cheerful voice: 'Why, so well that I am now ready for another march. And if it should please God once more to place me at the head of but eight or ten thousand good men – of one mind, and resolved to fight,' he added with a flash of mordant humour, 'I shall not doubt to drive these rogues out of my Kingdoms!'

Wilmot, who was unable to shake off the dismay with which the King's appearance had filled him, was anxious to put him at once to bed, but Charles, revived by his supper, and very much more comfortable now that he had shed his shoes, and had exchanged his noggen-shirt for Father Huddleston's flaxen one, said that he felt no extraordinary fatigue, but was desirous of talking over the plans for his escape. Mr Whitgreave made a sign to Huddleston, and they were both about to withdraw when Wilmot called sharply after them that provision must be made for keeping a strict watch about the house while the King lay in it. Whitgreave replied that it had been already arranged that he himself would stand guard within the house, while Huddleston remained outside to warn him of anyone's approach.

  'We should take it in turns to keep watch outside, but Mr Huddleston is very obdurate,' he said, with a slight smile.

  'Obdurate! Ay!' exclaimed Huddleston. 'Your Majesty must know that Mr Whitgreave is only just risen from a sickbed. He would not tell you so, but it is right you should be informed of the cause that kept him from joining your Majesty's army at Worcester.'

'Indeed, I am sorry,' the King said.

  'I thank your Majesty, but I am quite well now – very well,' Whitgreave replied. 'My lord, you need to be under no apprehension. If you should desire to speak with me, I shall be in my study: you know the way.'

  He bowed and went out, closing the door softly behind him. The King said: 'I wonder to find so many people well-disposed towards me that never before set eyes on me. It would have amazed you, Harry, to have seen the exceeding great care that was taken of me by these poor Penderels.'

  'That I could have left you in their hands! I knew, I
knew
that I should not do so! I begged you not to bid me leave you!'

  'Why, yes,' Charles interrupted. 'But I am still of the same mind, Harry, and if you think I mean to ride about the country with you, while you go so proudly, looking as my friend Humphrey informed me, as fine as a lord's bastard, you are much mistaken.'

  'But my dear sir, you would not have me put on a disguise!' Wilmot protested. 'No, no, I assure you I could not do it! I am too old for such masquerades, and should certainly betray myself. But you shall not again persuade me to leave you.'

  'The truth is we acted a trifle hastily,' remarked the King. 'For the future, I will have you stay within my reach. But go with me I swear you shall not! I never saw so palpable a Cavalier in my life. Tell me about these people: I am safe in this house?'

  'I would stake my life on Whitgreave's fidelity. I fancy, besides, that Huddleston is a Catholic priest – though it is not admitted. He is here in the guise of a tutor to Whitgreave's nephew, young Sir John Preston, who has been sent here to keep him hidden from the Puritans, they having sequestrated all his father's property. There are two other lads also staying in the house, to share his studies. Besides these, there are the servants and Whitgreave's mother, a very honest dame, as I believe.'

  'So many?' the King looked a little startled. 'I wonder the house will hold them all, and me besides. I must not linger here.'

  'No,' Wilmot agreed. 'Not above a day or two, I trust. I have been concerting with Lane, sir, and we think we have a plan to carry you safe to Bristol. Would you consent to counterfeit a servant? Colonel Lane – a good, honest soldier, and one who served under me: I know him well – mislikes the notion of asking you to perform so mean a rôle – yet can hit upon no better plan. I said I was very sure you would not disdain it.'

  'If
you
did not, how indeed should I?' murmured Charles.

  'Now you are laughing at me! Be serious, my dear master, I do beseech you! Your task would be to convey Mrs Jane Lane to Bristol. She must ride behind you upon a double-gelding, of course. A kinsman of Lane, one Henry Lassels that was his Cornet in the late wars, would go with you. I know your Majesty will be pleased with Mrs Jane, for she is a most beautiful young woman, and entirely devoted to you.'

  'Is she so indeed?' said the King. 'Then I am sure I stand in no need of Cornet Lassels's escort. In fact, I shall do very much better without it.'

  Wilmot laughed. 'No, no, that will not answer at all! You will have, besides, Mrs Jane's sister and her husband, who mean to ride as far as Stratford-upon Avon with her. They are at present upon a visit to Bentley Hall, but we have not disclosed the truth to them, nor shall not do so. Will you go, sir?'