Georgette Heyer (23 page)

  She said simply: 'I thank you, sir,' and took the lantern again from her brother. 'Will your Majesty be pleased to follow me?'

  She went out of the stables before him, flitting across the yard like a spirit. He followed with his long stride, and reached the side door into the house almost on her heels. It stood open, and she stood aside for him to pass in.

  'Go in, sir: my lord is awaiting you,' said Lane's deep voice behind the King.

  Charles stepped over the threshold. The Colonel led him down a long passage to a door that opened from it into the main hall. It was lit only by one branch of candles, which cast their light in a dwindling circle in the centre of the room. In the dimness beyond, a shadowy staircase rose in broad, shallow flights to an upper floor.

  Jane Lane moved across the hall to set her lantern down upon the table. Her gown whispered over the black oak boards like autumn leaves drifting across the ground. Her voice was muted, but very clear. 'My lord went upstairs to see all in readiness for his Majesty's arrival. I will fetch him.'

  Her brother stayed her with a gesture. 'No, it will be well if I escort his Majesty immediately to the privacy of his chamber. Go you to bed, Jane: you must be up betimes. His Majesty will excuse you.'

  The King had pulled off his hat, and Jane was able to see his face more distinctly. She curtseyed again. 'I will bid your Majesty goodnight, then.'

  'Goodnight, Mistress Jane Lane,' he responded.

  'This way, sire!' whispered the Colonel.

  The King went up the stairs in his wake. My Lord Wilmot was discovered in the Colonel's bedchamber, which had been prepared for the King, that none should know that any other guest than his lordship had slept at Bentley that night. As Lane ushered the King in, Wilmot heaved himself out of a chair by the fire, and started forward with his hands held out. 'My dear sir! God be praised you are come, and safely!'

  The King embraced him, and stood warming himself by the fire, looking round with a quizzical expression on his face at the size and style of the apartment. It was a large room, with a sparver-bed of crimson velvet, a fine carpet on the floor, carved cupboards, chairs, and chests, and a suit of crimson hangings embellished with Venice twists, and lined with taffeta.

  Wilmot, watching him, held one of his hands, and patted it, saying fondly: 'There, sir: now at last I can see you housed as befits your state! You may be comfortable again, who have fared so ill throughout this unhappy week.'

  'I think I sort very damnably with such state,' said the King somewhat ruefully. 'My dear Colonel, you do me too much honour, indeed you do!'

  'That is not possible, sire. Let me assure your Majesty that you may lie here in perfect safety. We do not boast secret priest-holes, but it will go hard with any upstart knave of a Puritan who dares force his way into Bentley Hall. If your Majesty would be pleased to cast off those clothes, my lord's servant will be here presently with water, and a bed-gown, which I hope you will conde scend to put on you.'

  'There is nothing I desire so much as to be rid of these clothes,' said the King. 'I have not put them off the whole week. I think I must stink as much as they do.'

  The Colonel's eyes started with horror, but Wilmot burst out laughing. 'You
would
assume that low disguise, my dear master! Now you must own that I was wiser than you! But the suit my good Lane has procured for you is at least clean, though very mean, alas!'

  As he spoke, his fingers were busy unbuttoning the King's jump-coat. He pulled it off Charles, and cast it into a corner of the room. The leather doublet followed it; and as soon as Swan, having stabled the horses, came into the room with a silver ewer and bowl full of hot water, the patched, ill-fitting breeches were also discarded.

  The King let them draw Huddleston's shirt off over his head, and stood stark naked before a mirror, laughing at the sharp line round the base of his throat where the walnut stain ended, and the natural white ness of his skin began.

  Twenty minutes later, washed from head to foot, dressed in a bed-gown with a cloak over it, and with his damp, short ringlets combed free of tangles, he stood in front of the fire, sipping a glass of wine, and discussing with Wilmot and Lane the details of his projected journey. Robert Swan had withdrawn, taking with him, to be burned, all the discarded raiment. It seemed that nothing could shake Swan's lofty calm. That his master and his sovereign should both be escaping by stealth from the country offended his sense of propriety, but he contrived to bear the humiliation by ignoring it. He was not in the least afraid of the Parliamentarians, for that would have been beneath his dignity, since he considered them to be a set of vulgar, ill-conditioned rogues; but the thought of the King's riding all the way to Bristol in the guise of a yeoman-tenant came as near to disturbing his peace of mind as anything could. He wished to know who would wait upon his Majesty, and upon being told that his Majesty would wait upon himself said simply: 'That, my lord, is not possible.'

  The King, overhearing, laughed at him. Swan said gravely: 'Please your Majesty, I will make what provi sion I can, but I fear if neither my lord nor I are to go with you, your Majesty will be very uncomfortable.'

  The King had said a very shocking thing. He had said: 'My good fellow, if I cannot contrive to shave and dress myself without aid, I must be less of a man than I knew.'

  Swan had bowed, and withdrawn, because he knew his duty too well to point out to this disturbing young giant that he was not a man, but a King. After a little consideration, he betook himself to Mr Lassels's bedchamber. That young gentleman, roused out of a deep sleep, found that he was being given very precise instructions how to wait upon the Royal traveller. He sat up, blear-eyed amongst his pillows, and listened in a kind of fog to Swan's monotonous voice, initiating him into every detail of etiquette.

  It all sounded extremely complicated, and Mr Lassels could not help wondering, in his bemused state, how the King's disguise was to be preserved if he must never be permitted to do anything without assistance. When morning came, and Colonel Lane took him to be presented to the King, he felt so nervous that he dared not raise his eyes to Charles's face. He went down on to one knee, upon the Colonel's announcing him, and stayed so with bowed head until a lazy voice startled him by saying: 'Mr Lassels, if you and I are not to quarrel, kneel not to me!'

  This, after Swan's nocturnal discourse, was so unex pected that Mr Lassels looked up in quick surprise. What picture of Royalty he had nourished in his brain he did not quite know, but he certainly had not thought to find himself confronting a tall, brown-faced young man in a plain grey suit, with a cropped head, and an ugly mouth curled in irresistible laughter. He rose to his feet, and stood staring at the King.

  Charles was eating his breakfast. He favoured his new escort with one of his lazy yet penetrating looks, enquiring after a moment: 'Well, Mr Lassels, are you willing to take charge of me?'

  'Yes, sir, I am very willing,' responded Lassels promptly.

  'I thank you. I am now very hopeful of reaching Bristol, and think it will be an odd thing if between us we cannot contrive to cheat my enemies.'

  'We pray to God you may do so, sir,' said the Colonel, but in a rather grave voice. 'It is more hazardous than I like, depending upon your Majesty's being able to enact a part which, alas, is wholly beneath your dignity.'

  'But I am a shocking low fellow at heart,' said the King.

  Mr Henry Lassels caught the gleam in his eye, and realized that the heavy charge laid upon him was going to be no care-ridden duty, but the greatest adventure of his life. He gave a spontaneous laugh, which brought his kinsman's frown to bear upon him.

  'It must never be forgotten, Henry,' said the Colonel, 'that though harsh necessity compels us in public to treat his Majesty as though he were indeed a man of inferior degree, in the privacy of his chamber he is the King of this realm.'

  The King's eyes rolled expressively towards Lassels. 'So there's for you, Mr Lassels,' he observed.

  Wild visions of dying heroically in defence of this King swirled across Lassels's imagination. He stam mered: 'I c-could never forget that, sir!'

  The King drained his tankard, and got up. 'I am much obliged to you. See you do not forget in public that I am one William Jackson. I shall be a very unhandy servant, I fear. I look to you to instruct me. What must I do?'

  'But it is so difficult!' complained Wilmot. 'One has never been a serving-man! You will have to stable the horses, I am sure. My dear master, bear it in mind, and do not –
do not
betray yourself by waiting upon every occasion for someone else to do the task to your hand! Mr Lassels, if you find the King backward in unstrapping the baggage from your saddle, or some such like thing, do not fail to nudge him! It were better by far that you should forget his Kingship in private than remember it in public!'

  Colonel Lane agreed to this, but with a sigh. The King having finished his breakfast, he thought it advis able to conduct him immediately to the stables, and there to instruct him in the duties of a serving-man. Charles took an affectionate leave of Wilmot, drew a grin from Lassels by commanding him to be very high stomached with him when next they met, and went off with the Colonel.

  An hour later, mounted on a double-gelding, and leading Lassels's horse by the bridle, he rode up in the wake of a groom with another double-gelding for Mr and Mrs Petre to the front of the house, where Lassels, the Colonel, and old Mrs Lane were already awaiting him. He touched his hat, which he wore pulled low over his brow. The Colonel said in the bluff, authorita tive tone he used towards his servants: 'Good-morrow to you, Will. Now, mind that you have a care to my sister upon this journey!'

  'Yes, master,' said the King.

  His voice made old Mrs Lane peer sharply up at him, but her brain was too much preoccupied with the details of her daughter's journey, and with the messages she desired Lassels to convey to Mr Tomes, of Long Marston, to permit of her wasting more than a moment's curiosity upon him. She turned back to Lassels, and a few minutes later Jane Lane came out of the house, followed by her sister and Mr Petre.

  All three were dressed for travel, the ladies in long cloaks with hoods held close round their heads by draw strings, and Mr Petre in a drab suit, with heavy boots, and a formidable brace of pistols stuck into them.

  John Petre, a small man, seemed to be possessed of a fussy, nervous disposition. He bustled about, issuing a great many orders to the groom, insisting that his pormanteau should be more securely strapped, and saying repeatedly that he trusted they might not encounter soldiers upon the road. Of these he stood in not uncommon awe, having once suffered at their rude, predatory hands. While he created all the stir of which he was capable, Jane Lane stepped up to the King's knee. She raised her eyes to his, and smiled in her sweet, calm fashion, saying in a low voice: 'I am ready, Will.'

  Here an unforeseen difficulty presented itself, the King never having taken up a lady to ride pillion behind him. The Colonel, who, while seeming to attend to his brother-in-law's discourse, had never ceased to keep an eye upon Charles, said instantly: 'You must give my sister your hand, Will.'

  But the King gave her the wrong hand, which made Mrs Lane burst into a cackle of laughter, and demand shrilly of her son what goodly horseman her daughter had got to ride with her.

  Withy Petre's coming up to the old lady at the moment to take leave fortunately distracted her atten tion. By the time she had kissed and embraced Withy, and had seen her safely up behind her husband, Jane had mounted into her pillion, and the King's sudden flush of discomfiture had faded.

  After Jane had had her skirts rearranged by her mother, and had promised not to forget to give all the old lady's messages to Mrs Norton, to whose house at Abbotsleigh, by Bristol, she was bound, the whole party set forward upon the journey.

  The road being narrow, Henry Lassels fell behind to let the sisters ride abreast. Withy Petre, a placid woman, too much taken up with home-interests to spare much thought for anything outside them, paid no heed at all to the King. Her pleasant, unimaginative voice was upraised in a gentle mono logue for some miles, as she recounted for Jane's edification numerous details of her children's health and precocity. Her husband from time to time interrupted her, expressing his misgivings that they had not started soon enough, had chosen the wrong road, would not reach Horton within six hours of the appointed time. To all such complaints, Withy responded with unruffled good-humour. Jane said little, but the few remarks which she did make seemed to the King to be distinguished by their good sense. Once, when the road dwindled to a narrow causeway between great pools of stagnant water, and obliged the party to ride for some distance in single file, Charles was able to exchange a few words with her. He said softly: 'I have only one complaint to make.'

'Is it something I can put right, sir?' she asked.