The King's General Part 7

I had no wish to run the gauntlet of the long windows in the gallery, where the company would be a.s.sembled, and bade Joan wheel me to the entrance in front of the house, which was usually deserted at this time of the day, no one being within the dining chamber. Once indoors, one of the servants could carry me to my apartment in the gatehouse, and later I could send for Peter, always a favourite with me, and have his news of Robin. We pa.s.sed in then through the door, little Jonathan running in front, and at once we heard laughter and talk coming from the gallery, and, the wide arched door to the inner courtyard being open, we could see some half dozen troopers with their horses watering at the well beneath the belfry. There was much bustle and clatter, a pleasant lively sound, and I saw one of the troopers look up to a cas.e.m.e.nt in the attic and wave his hand in greeting to a blushing kitchen girl. He was a big strong-looking fellow with a broad grin on his face, and then he turned and signalled to his companions to follow him, which they did, each one leading his horse away from the well and following him through the archway beneath my gatehouse to the outer courtyard and the stables.

It was when they turned thus and clattered through the court that I noticed how each fellow wore upon his shoulder a scarlet shield with three gold rests upon it....

For a moment I thought my heart would stop beating, and I was seized with sudden panic.

"Find one of the servants quickly," I said to Joan. "I wish to be carried straightway to my room."

But it was too late. Even as she sent little Jonathan scampering hurriedly towards the servants' quarters Peter Courtney came out into the hall, his arm about his Alice, in company with two or three brother officers.

"Why, Honor," he cried, "this is a joy indeed. Knowing your habits, I feared to find you hiding in your apartment, with Matty standing like a dragon at the door.

Gentlemen, I present to you Mistress Honor Harris, who has not the slightest desire to make your acquaintance."

I could have slain him for his lack of discretion, but he was one of those gay, lighthearted creatures with a love of jesting and poking fun, and no more true perception than a b.u.mblebee. In a moment his friends were bowing before my chair and exchanging introductions, and Peter, still laughing and talking in his haphazard strident way, was pushing my chair through to the gallery. Alice, who made up in intuition all he lacked, would have stopped him had I caught her eye, but she was too glad to have a glimpse of him to do anything else but smile and hold his arm. The gallery seemed full of people, Sawles and Sparkes and Rashleighs, all chatting at the top of their voices, and at the far end by the window I caught sight of Mary in conversation with someone whose tall back and broad shoulders were painfully, almost terrifyingly, familiar.

Mary's expression, preoccupied and distrait, told me that she was at that moment wondering if I had returned yet from my promenade, for I saw her eyes search the gardens; and then she saw me, and her brow wrinkled in a well-known way and she began talking sixteen to the dozen. Her loss of composure gave me back my own, and what in h.e.l.l's name do I care, after fifteen years? I told myself. There is no need to swoon at an encounter; G.o.d knows I have breeding enough to be mistress of the situation, here in Mary's house at Menabilly, with nigh a score of people in the room.

Peter, impervious to any doubtful atmosphere, propelled me slowly towards the window, and out of the corner of my eye I saw my sister Mary, overcome by cowardice, do something I dare swear I might have done myself had I been she, and that was to murmur a hasty excuse to her companion about summoning the servants to bring further refreshment, and she fled from the gallery without looking once in my direction. Richard turned and saw me. And as he looked at me it was as if my whole heart moved over in my body and was mine no longer.

"Sir," said Peter, "I am pleased to present to you my dearly loved kinswoman, Mistress Honor Harris of Lanrest."

"My kinswoman also," said Richard, and then he bent forward and kissed my hand.

"Oh, is that so, sir?" said Peter vaguely, looking from one to the other of us. "I suppose all we Cornish families are in some way near related. Let me fill your gla.s.s, sir. Honor, will you drink with us?'

"I will," I answered.

In truth, a gla.s.s of wine seemed to me my only salvation at the moment. While Peter filled the gla.s.ses I had my first long look at Richard. He had altered. There was no doubt of it. He had grown much broader, for one thing, not only in the body, but about the neck and shoulders. His face was somehow heavier than it had been. There was a brown weather-beaten air about him that was not there before, and lines beneath his eyes. It was, after all, fifteen years....

And then he turned to me, giving me my gla.s.s, and I saw that there was only one white streak in his auburn hair, high above the temple, and the eyes that looked at me were quite unchanged.

"Your health and fortune," he said quietly, and, draining his gla.s.s, he held it out with mine to be refilled. I saw the little telltale pulse beating in his right temple, and I knew then that the encounter was as startling and as moving to him as it was to me.

"I did not know," he said, "that you were at Menabilly."

I saw Peter glance at him curiously, and I wondered if this was the first time he had ever seen his commanding officer show any sign of nervousness or strain. The hand that held the gla.s.s trembled very slightly, and the voice that spoke was hard, queerly abrupt.

"I came here a few days since from Lanrest," I answered, my voice perhaps as oddly flat as his. "My brothers said I must not live alone, not while the war continues."

They showed wisdom," he replied. "Ess.e.x is moving westward all the time. It is very probable we shall see fighting once again this side the Tamar."

At this moment Peter's small daughters came running to his knees, shrieking with Joy to see their father, and Peter, laughing an apology, was swept into family life upon the instant, taking one apiece upon his shoulders and moving down the gallery >n triumph. Richard and I were thus left alone beside the window. I looked out on to le garden, noting the trim yew hedges and the smooth lawns, while a score of trivial observations ran insanely through my head.

"How green the gra.s.s is after the morning rain" and "It is something chilly for the tune of year" were phrases I had never yet used in my life, even to a stranger, but they seemed, at that moment, to be what was needed to the occasion. Yet though they rose unbidden to my tongue I did not frame them, but continued looking out upon the garden in silence, with Richard as dumb as myself. And then in a low voice, clipped and hard, he said: "If I am silent you must forgive me. I had not thought, after fifteen years, to find you so d.a.m.nably unchanged."

This streak back to the intimate past from the indifferent present was a new shock to be borne, but a curiously exciting one.

"Why d.a.m.nably?" I said, watching him over the rim of my gla.s.s.

"I had become used, over a long period, to a very different picture," he said. "I thought of you as an invalid, wan and pale, a sort of shadow without substance, hedged about with doctors and attendants. And instead I find--this." He looked me then full in the face, with a directness and a lack of reserve that I remembered well.

"I am sorry," I answered, "to disappoint you."

"You misinterpret me," he said. "I have not said I was disappointed. I am merely speechless." He drained his gla.s.s once more and put it back upon the table. "I shall recover," he said, "in a moment or two. Where can we talk?"

"Talk?" I asked. "Why, we can talk here, I suppose, if you wish to."

"Amidst a host of babbling fools and screaming children? Not on your life," he answered. "Have you not your own apartment?"

"I have," I replied with some small attempt at dignity, "but it would be considered somewhat odd if we retired there." .

"You were not used to quibble at similar suggestions in the past," he replied.

This was something of a blow beneath the belt, and I had no answer for him.

"I would have you remember," I said with lameness, "that we have been strangers to each other for fifteen years."

"Do you think," he said, "that I forget it for a moment?"

At this juncture we were interrupted by Temperance Sawle, who with baleful eyes had been watching us from a distance and now moved within our orbit.

"Sir Richard Grenvile, I believe," she said.

"Your servant, ma'am," replied Richard with a look that would have slain anyone less soul-absorbed than Temperance.

"The Evil One seeks you for his own," she announced. "Even at this moment I see his talons at your throat and his jaws open to devour you. Repent, repent, before it is too late."

"What the devil does she mean?" said Richard.

I shook my head and pointed to the heavens, but Temperance, warming to her theme, continued: "The mark of the Beast is on your forehead," she declared; "the men you lead are become as ravening wolves. You will all perish, every one of you, in the bottomless pit."

"Tell the old fool to go to h.e.l.l," said Richard.

I offered Mistress Sawle a gla.s.s of wine, but she flinched as if it had been boiling oil. "There shall be a weeping and a gnashing of teeth," she continued.

"My G.o.d, you're right," said Richard, and, taking her by the shoulders, he twisted her round like a top and walked her across the room to the fireplace and her husband.

"Keep this woman under control," he ordered, and there was an immediate silence, followed by a little flutter of embarra.s.sed conversation. Peter Courtney, very red about the neck, hurried forward with a br.i.m.m.i.n.g decanter.

"Some more wine, sir?" he said.

"Thank you, no, I've had about as much as I can stand," said Richard.

I noticed the young officers, all their backs turned, examining the portraits on the walls with amazing interest. Will Sparkes was one of the little crowd about the fireplace, staring hard at the King's general, his mouth wide open.

"A good day for catching flies, sir," said Richard pleasantly.

A little ripple of laughter came from Joan, hastily suppressed as Richard turned his eyes upon her.

Will Sparkes pressed forward.

"I have a young kinsman under your command," he said, "an ensign of the twenty-third regiment of foot--"

"Very probably," said Richard. "I never speak to ensigns." He beckoned to John Rashleigh, who had returned but a few moments ago from his day's ride and was now hovering at the entrance to the gallery, somewhat mudstained and splashed, bewildered by the unexpected company.

"Hi, you," called Richard, "will you summon one of your fellow servants and carry Mistress Harris's chair to her apartment? She has had enough of the company downstairs."

"That is John Rashleigh, sir," whispered Peter hurriedly, "the son of the house, and your host in his father's absence."

"Ha! My apologies," said Richard, walking forward with a smile. "Your dress being somewhat in disorder, I mistook you for a menial. My own young officers lose their rank if they appear so before me. How is your father?"

"Well, sir, I believe," stammered John in great nervousness.

"I am delighted to hear it," said Richard. "Tell him so when you see him. And tell him, too, that now I am come into the West I propose to visit here very frequently-- the course of the war permitting it."

"Yes sir."

"You have accommodation for my officers, I suppose, and for a number of my men out in the park, should we wish to bivouac at any time?"

"Yes indeed, sir."

"Excellent. And now I propose to dine upstairs with Mistress Harris, who is a close kinswoman of mine, a fact of which you may not be aware. What is the usual method with her chair?"

"We carry it, sir. It is quite a simple matter."

John gave a nod to Peter, who, astonishingly subdued for him, came forward, and the pair of them each seized an arm of my chair on either side.

"It were an easier matter," said Richard, "if the occupant were bodily removed and carried separately." And before I could protest he had placed his arms about me and had lifted me from the chair.

"Lead on, gentlemen," commanded Richard.

The strange procession proceeded up the stairs, watched by the company in the gallery and by some of the servants, too, who, with their backs straight against the wall and their eyes lowered, permitted us to pa.s.s. John and Peter tramped on ahead with the chair between them, step by step, and both of them red about the neck, while I, with my head on Richard's shoulder and my arms tight about him for fear of falling, thought the way seemed overlong.

"I was in error just now," said Richard in my ear. "You have changed after all."

"In what way?" I asked.

"You are two stone heavier," he answered.

And so we came to my chamber in the gatehouse.

10.

I can recollect that supper as if it were yesterday: I lying on my bed with the pillows packed behind me, and Richard seated on the end of it, with a low table in front of us both.

It might have been a day since we had parted instead of fifteen years. When Matty came into the room bearing the platters, her mouth pursed and disapproving, for she had never understood how we came to lose each other but imagined he had deserted me because of my crippled state, Richard burst out laughing on the instant, calling her "old go-between," which had been his nickname for her in those distant days, and asked her how many hearts she had broken since he saw her last. She was for replying to him shortly, but it was no use--he would have none of it--and, taking the platters from her and putting them on the table, he soon had her reconciled--blushing from head to toe--while he poked fun at her broadening figure and the frizzed curl on her forehead.

"There are some half dozen troopers in the court," he told her, "waiting to make your acquaintance. Go and prove to them that Cornish women are better than the frousts in Devon." And she went off, closing the door behind her, guessing, no doubt, that for the first time in fifteen years I had no need of her services. He fell to eating right away, being always a good trencherman, and soon clearing all that had been put before us, while I--still weak with the shock of seeing him--toyed with the wishbone of a chicken. He started walking about the chamber before he had finished, a habit I remembered well, with a great bone in one hand and a pie in the other, talking all the while about the defences at Plymouth which his predecessor had allowed to become formidable instead of razing them to the ground on first setting siege to the place.

"You'd hardly credit it, Honor," he said, "but there's that fat idiot Digby been sitting on his a.r.s.e nine months before the walls of Plymouth, allowing the garrison to sortie as they please, fetch food and firewood, build up barricades, while he played cards with his junior officers. Thank G.o.d a bullet in his head will keep him to his bed for a month or two and allow me to conduct the siege instead."

"And what do you propose to do?" I asked.

"My first two tasks were simple," he replied, "and should have been done last October. I threw up a new earthwork at Mount Batten, and the guns I have placed there so damage the shipping that endeavours to pa.s.s through the Sound that the garrison are hard put to it for supplies. Secondly, I have cut off their water power, and the mills within the city can no longer grind flour for the inhabitants. Give me a month or two to play with, and I'll have 'em starved."

He took a great bite out of his pie and winked at me.

"And the blockade by land, is that effective now?" I questioned.

"It will be when I've had time to organise it," he answered. "The trouble is that I've arrived to find most of the officers in my command are worse than useless--I've sacked more than half of them already. I have a good fellow in charge at Saltash, who sent the rebels flying back to Plymouth with several fleas in their ears when they tried a sortie a week or two back--a sharp engagement in which my nephew Jack, Bevil's eldest boy--you remember him--did very well. Last week we sprang a little surprise on one of their outposts close to Maudlyn. We beat them out of their position there and took a hundred prisoners .I rather think the gentlemen of Plymouth sleep not entirely easy in their beds."

"Prisoners must be something of a problem," I said, "it being hard enough to find forage in the country for your own men. You are obliged to feed them, I suppose?"

"Feed them be d.a.m.ned," he answered. "I send the lot to Lydford Castle, where they are hanged without trial for high treason." He threw his drumstick out of the window and tore the other from the carca.s.s.

"But, Richard," I said, hesitating, "that is hardly justice, is it? I mean--they are only fighting for what they believe to be a better cause than ours."

"I don't give a fig for justice," he replied. "The method is effective, and that's the only thing that matters."

"I am told the Parliament has put a price upon your head already," I said. "I am told you are much feared and hated by the rebels."

"What would you have them do, kiss my backside?" he asked. He smiled and came and sat beside me on the bed.

"The war is too much with us. Let us talk about ourselves," he said.

I had not wished for that but hoped to keep him busy with the siege of Plymouth.

"Where are you living at the moment?" I parried. "In tents about the fields?"

"What would I be doing in a tent," he mocked, "with the best houses in Devon at my disposal? Nay, my headquarters are at Buckland Abbey, which my grandfather sold to Francis Drake half a century ago, and I do not mind telling you that I live there very well. I have seized all the sheep and cattle upon the estate, and the tenants pay their rents to me or else are hanged. They call me the Red Fox behind my back, and the women, I understand, use the name as a threat to their children when they misbehave, saying, 'Grenvile is coming; the Red Fox will have you.'"

He laughed as if this were a fine jest, but I was watching the line of his jaw that was heavier than before, and the curve of his mouth that narrowed at the corners.

"It was not thus," I said softly, "that your brother Bevil's reputation spread throughout the West."

"No," he said, "and I have not a wife like Bevil had, nor a home I love, nor a great brood of happy children."

His voice was harsh suddenly and strangely bitter. I turned my face away and lay back on my pillows.

"Do you have your son with you at Buckland?" I asked quietly.

"My sp.a.w.n?" he said. "Yes, he is somewhere about the place with his tutor."