Most Secret (23 page)

“Nay, now!” protested Bygones, repressing hard his inclination towards oratory. “We dined very late, and are not hungry.”

“So be it, then. If you will give yourselves the trouble of following me?”

The tall man in the fair periwig led them across the withdrawing room; and, through a doorway covered only by a black velvet curtain, into the Great Bedchamber beyond.

For all its spaciousness it was a stuffy place. Curtains had been closely drawn across the windows; another fire of Scotch coal burned under the chimneypiece’s hood. On the hearth drowsed several spaniels, whose wet coats were odorous; they stiffened with a growl as the newcomers entered, but a word from the guide quietened them.

Looking round him, Kinsmere saw an enormous bedstead whose curtains bore the royal arms. On the carpet lay a rolled-up mattress: this mattress, Bygones whispered, was used at night by a Gentleman of the Bedchamber or a Groom of the Bedchamber, each appointed man doing duty a month at a time. But most of all, in the Great Bedchamber, you marked a noise of clocks. There were eight of them, all sizes and constructions, ticking and whirring away together, matching their beats against each other’s. One asthmatic clock, far behind the others, was just striking nine.

The man in the fair periwig led them to another door, and up an enclosed flight of stairs to another room whose air was better, though it had a chemical sort of breath. One window faced southeast above the Volary Garden; the other window, in the west wall, looked across a huddle of roof tops towards the Banqueting House. So still had the night become that, though both windows were set wide open, the flames scarcely stirred on the tapers in two candelabra of six branches each.

“By your leave, gentlemen,” said their guide, “you will await His Majesty here. He will be short. And I need hardly counsel you: touch nothing!”

Then he was gone down the stairs.

“Oh, ah!” said Kinsmere, who had been staring round. “That was …?”

“Rab Butterworth, Second Page of the Back-Stairs.”

“He was as pale as those candles. Is the fellow ill?”

“Who can say? He is known as a great student of government. Much unlike Will Chiffinch, who troubles his head only with drink and the wenches.”

“This is the king’s private cabinet?”

“It is.”

“His chymical laboratory too?”

“No, no! The chymical laboratory, under Dr. Williams, is in another part of the palace. Yet no doubt he tries experiment here, with whatever comes to hand.”

No doubt he did. An open cupboard in one wall showed shelves of pills and physic powders. Underneath this, on a very narrow table, were retorts and beakers and packets of chemical salts, side by side with sheets of paper so very thin as to seem transparent: perhaps serving for some other experiment in chemistry. A ship model of a yawl decorated the top of a carved cabinet. Against the wall near this hung a large clock of curious design, having a spiral of brass tubing above it.
Pêle-mêle
mallets had been stacked into a corner. There were several comfortable chairs, as well as one straight chair which stood before an inlaid writing desk. On this desk rested one of the candelabra, above inkwell, sand caster, sealing wax, seals, and a tray of fine-quill pens.

Kinsmere wandered round examining each object in turn. Then he went to the open window above the Volary Garden, breathing deeply of warm, moist air.

“Bygones! Who would lurk in the Volary Garden, at nine of an evening and moonrise?”

“Come!” the other derided him. “None would lurk there: where would be need or reason? Yet anyone might
be
in the garden; there are four doors. Why d’ye ask?”

“I could have sworn I saw the flicker of a face, and one in a hooded cloak who drew back.”

“Oh, ecod! You are not seeing ghosts, it’s to be hoped?”

“
I
hope not. This is a rare old rookery, the very place for ’em. Forgive me, though; I was wool-gathering.”

He had little time for more wool-gathering. They heard voices from below in the Great Bedchamber: the light tones of Robert Butterworth mingled with the bass growl of a well-known great voice. Up the stairs came Butterworth, walking backwards and holding the candelabrum. Following him, in old black-velvet coat and breeches, black-and-white stockings, dull-red waistcoat, and black periwig, strode the man of whom Kinsmere had heard so much.

“If it please Your Majesty …”

“Stay, Mr. Butterworth. Have we not another visitor?”

“Waiting in the Volary Garden, Your Majesty. I—I scarce thought it fitting or proper to … to …”

“Pray allow
me
to be the judge of propriety, notorious though I am for lacking it. Escort the visitor up.”

“As Your Majesty shall direct.”

Butterworth opened an all-but-invisible door in the wall towards the Volary Garden, disclosing a very long staircase, or perhaps two staircases, descending between the shell of the walls. He went into the aperture, closing the door behind him. And the other man turned round.

King Charles wore no orders or decorations, no jewels, and only one plain ring. But there was a good deal of lace at his throat and wrists. The expression of his countenance, in repose, seemed severe or even forbidding. Yet when he smiled, as he did now, with the long red-brown eyes lighting up, all the charm of the Stuarts flowed out and was made manifest.

“Your servant, gentlemen,” said the King of England.

“Sire!”

Bygones Abraham went down on one knee, pressing the other’s hand to his forehead. This was the form of a first salutation, and no hand-kissing, as my grandfather bad been taught years before. The king lifted up Bygones by raising his hand.

“And you, young sir—”

Kinsmere dropped on one knee for the same greeting.

“Nay, enough of these genuflections!” said the king. “I will be used with respect, and according to the Rules of Civility. But am I my cousin Louis of France, that men must pretend the sun shines in my presence or retires to cloud when I am no longer seen? Rise up, now! Grasp my hand in friendship, man,”—Kinsmere did so; it was a powerful grip,—“and know that a thoughtless fellow may be grateful.”

“Sire,” began Bygones, sweeping a great bow, “the agglomerations of honour high-stacked on this auspicious occasion …”

“Indeed, yes. Indeed, yes! At the one side, God’s fish, we have my old friend Bygones Abraham, who rode with the cavalry in Worcester fight twenty years ago. At the other side … you, I think, must be Mr. Kinsmere the younger. Is your name Alan too?”

“Nay, sire, it is Roderick or even Rowdy. But—but, under favour, sire,” cries my grandfather, beginning to stammer and then made easy by the other’s ease, “I had thought you unacquainted with me. That letter of a while gone—”

“Oh, that! The letter was not writ in my hand, which is a vile one; amid so many listening ears, I deemed it best to use caution. Nor did I in fact know your name until early this night. Howbeit! Immediately after the play, as you must be aware, Mistress Dolly Landis comes to me with a tale I could not disregard.”

“Sire, Captain Harker—”

“In the matter of Captain Harker, bear up and be easy! He will be reported as having died while honourably engaged about his duties. Saving a great noise of scandal, what else would you have me do?”

“Ecod, Your Majesty,” interposed Bygones, “but this is good hearing for both of us! Still, touching the question of this lad’s identity …”

“Yes, let’s consider it,” said the king, looking Kinsmere in the eyes. “You visited the palace this morning, I believe?”

“I did, sire.”

“Well! Let any man walk for five minutes through this gossip mart, in particular a stranger, and his postures are observed by all. He need but drink a cup of wine, ogle a servant maid, or do nothing whatever: report of it flies to every nook and corner.

“I was at public dinner in the Gallery,” King Charles nodded towards the west window and the Banqueting House, “when they told me of a young man, a stranger, seen in company with Bygones Abraham. I did not heed this or indeed think on it until, much later in the day, comes Mistress Landis with
her
account.”

He paused. The door to the hidden staircase opened; Butterworth entered. Butterworth, holding up the candelabrum, stood to one side and admitted a woman, in a hooded grey cloak and vizard mask.

It was Dolly herself, as Kinsmere had thought when he caught a glimpse of her unmasked in the garden. His pulses jumped as usual. Under the grey cloak of that afternoon she was now resplendent in a low-cut gown of dark-blue velvet slashed with white, and a string of pearls round her neck. She threw back the hood of her cloak, whipped off the mask, and gave the king a deep curtsy, to which he replied with a bow.

“Give you good evening, Madam Landis. It was kind of you to join us. You are well, I hope?”

“I am well indeed and much honoured to be here, though a thought fearful. Oh, dear! Oh, damme!”

“Nay, madam, it is we who are honoured. Nor need you have any cause for fear.—Mr. Butterworth!”

“Your Majesty?”

“Be good enough to take Madam Landis’s mask and cloak. Good; thank you. Put them on the chair there. Then you had better go to the Gallery. In the Gallery tonight,” King Charles continued to Dolly, nodding again in the direction where chinks of light glimmered through closed curtains on the long windows of the Banqueting House, “they play at basset and listen to string music. Music with cards makes an excellent good diversion; we can pretend to take no notice when the ladies cheat. Bid them begin without me, Mr. Butterworth! Say I am unavoidably detained, but will be there presently. And—Mr. Butterworth!”

The Second Page of the Back-Stairs, on his way down to the Great Bedchamber, halted and looked up.

“Your Majesty?”

“Have you by chance seen the key to my writing desk?”

“No, sire; I had thought Your Majesty kept it always by him.”

“It is lost or mislaid, then; I have not got it. Come, we’ll make no great noise of this! ’Tis a trivial thing, and I an idle fellow who deserve the loss. That is all, Rab. You may go.”

Butterworth disappeared, closing the door at the foot of the Great Bedchamber stairs.

For a moment the king’s eyes, in a long face almost the colour of a red Indian’s, seemed hooded and far away. Then he sauntered towards the writing desk, set the tips of his fingers on top of it, and looked round.

“What was I saying? Ah, yes. God’s fish, gentlemen! At the play this afternoon Madam Landis conveyed a note to me by most ingenious means, and would see me in my glass-coach
*
ere I departed. The tale she poured out, though something lacking in coherence, was a heart-felt one. For the most part in hymned praise of an impoverished young man, a very hero out of Homer, with a taste for fighting noted swordsmen in dark rooms. His name or quality she did not know; but gave me a description of such lyricism, sir, that I spare you the embarrassment of hearing it. God’s fish, we have a young lady fairly smitten!”

Dolly, pink in the face, looked across at the ship model on the cabinet with an air of not being there at all.

“Bethinking me,” pursued the king, “bethinking me of the young man earlier seen with Bygones Abraham, I put certain questions when I returned home. By some strangeness it was my Lord Arlington—that monument of dignity, that seeming mock-astrologer to look at!—who made answer. ‘
I
saw the youth,’ says my Lord Arlington, ‘on my way to the council office at past eleven this morning. He was a stranger, yet bore striking resemblance to the late Alan Kinsmere: who flung away a fortune in your father’s cause and your own, if you recall this?’ Indeed, I recalled it; Alan Kinsmere was with me on my travels. ‘A son?’ ‘Most probably.’ ‘Since how long is he in London? Where does he lodge?’ ‘I can’t say,’ replies my Lord Arlington, ‘yet Alan Kinsmere was used to favour the Grapes near Charing Cross.’ Whereat, after dispatching Ensign Westcott to deal with the business of Pembroke Harker, I caused inquiries to be made at the Grapes. For already I was in a great quandary.”

“A quandary, sire?” blurted out Bygones.

“If I have not dealt in entire frankness either with you, Madam Landis, or with you, Mr. Abraham, I ask your pardon. I will now deal with you all as frankly as I dare.”

The king walked over and looked down the stairs towards the Great Bedchamber, as though to make sure the door was closed. To Kinsmere it seemed imperfectly latched, but he made no comment.

“Two halves of a certain document must go to France this night. I cannot delay or I am undone. Mr. Abraham will carry one half. Since I had already determined Captain Harker must not have the other, to whom should I give it?

“I put my trust in few people, having small cause to do so. But I would trust a Kinsmere. I would trust the man who carried himself as you did this day at the Devil. Though so many hazards attend it, and the rewards at best must be poor, will you render me this great service?”

“By God, I will!”

(“Lad, lad,” whispered Bygones, “mind your language!”)

“Will you render this service, sir, without asking what it is you carry? Or what I myself am about in my designs?”

“Sire, I will.”

“Well! So sure was I of having my humour met that, once your identity was established, I did command your belongings removed from the Grapes to a set of rooms off the Shield Gallery here at Whitehall. It was an unwarranted liberty, I know. Do you pardon it?”

“‘Pardon’ it, for God’s sake!”

(“Lad! Lad!”)

“Come!” said the king, with a look of sleepy affability. He sauntered back to the desk, sat down in the straight chair, and stretched out his long legs. “I would not embarrass a needy gentleman with too much talk of reward. And Parliament contrive, as I have warned you, that my service shall be a poor one. But enter it, I beg of you! Be employed by me; and, difficult or dubious though the employment may be, we can find you a thousand or two a year to lighten the burden, with other preferments in good times. But perhaps this had already occurred to you? I see you took the precaution to remove Captain Harker’s ring and wear it on your own finger.”

“No, sire, I did not.”