The King's General (37 page)

He read slowly, with deadly emphasis and scorn, and then tore the document to I tiny shreds and threw the pieces in the fire.

"This is my answer to them," he said; "they may do as they please. Tomorrow you, and I will return to shoot duck at Menabilly." He pulled the bell beside the fire, and i his new aide-de-camp appeared. "Bid the servants bring some supper," he said. | "Mistress Harris has travelled long and has not dined."

When the officer had gone I put out my hand to Richard.

"You can't do this," I said. "You must do as they tell you."

He turned round on me in anger.

"Must?" he said. "There is no must. Do you think that I shall truckle to that damned lawyer at this juncture? It is he who is at the bottom of this, he who is to blame. I can see him, with his bland attorney's manner, talking to the members of the council.

'This man is dangerous,' he says to them, 'this soldier, this Grenvile. If we give him the supreme command he will take precedence of us and send us about our business.

We will give Hopton the command; Hopton will not dare to disobey. And when the enemy cross the Tamar, Hopton will withstand them just long enough for us to slip across to Guernsey with the prince. ' That is how the lawyer talks; that is what he has in mind. The traitor, the damned disloyal coward."

He faced me, white with anger.

"But, Richard," I persisted, "don't you understand, my love, my dear, that it is you they will call disloyal at this moment? To refuse to serve under another man, with the enemy in Devon? It is you who will be pointed at, reviled? You, and not Hyde?"

He would not listen; he brushed me away with his hand.

"This is not a question of pride, but concerns my honour," he said. "They do not trust me. Therefore, I resign. Now for God's sake let us dine and say no more. Tell me, was it snowing still at Menabilly?"

I failed him that last evening. Failed him miserably. I made no effort to enter into his mood that switched now so suddenly from black anger to forced jollity. I wanted to talk about the future, about what he proposed to do, but he would have none of it. I asked what his officers thought, what Colonel Roscarrick had said, and Colonel Arundell, and Fortescue? Did they, too, uphold him in his grave, unorthodox decision? But he would not speak of it. He bade the servants open another bottle of wine, and with a smile he drained it all, as he had done seven months before at Ottery St. Mary. It was nearly midnight when the new aide-de-camp knocked upon the door, bearing a letter in his hand.

Richard took it and read the message, then with a laugh threw it in the fire.

"A summons from the council," he said, "to appear before them at ten tomorrow in the Castle Court at Launceston. Perchance they plan some simple ceremony and will dub me earl. That is the customary reward for soldiers who have failed."

"Will you go?" I asked.

"I shall go," he said, "and then proceed with you to Menabilly."

"You will not relent," I asked, "not swallow your pride--or honour, as you call it--and consent to do as they demand of you?"

He looked at me a moment and he did not smile.

"No," he said slowly, "I shall not relent."

I went to bed, to my old room next to his, and left the door open between our chambers, should he be restless and wish to come to me. But at past three in the morning I heard his footstep on the stair.

I slept one hour, perhaps, or two; I do not remember. It was still snowing when I woke, and dull and grey. I bade Matty dress me in great haste and sent word to Richard, asking if he would see me.

He came instead to my room and with great tenderness told me to stay abed, at any rate until he should return from Launceston.

"I will be gone an hour," he said, "two at the utmost. I shall but delay to tell the council what I think of them and then come back to breakfast with you. My anger is all spent. This morning I feel free and light of heart. It is an odd sensation, you know, to °e, at long last, without responsibility."

He kissed my two hands and then went away. I heard the sound of his horse trotting across the park. There was a single drum and then a silence. Nothing but the footsteps °f the sentry pacing up and down before the house .I went and sat in my chair beside the window, with a rug under my knees. It was snowing steadily. There would be a white carpet in the Castle Green at Launceston. Here at Werrington the wind was desolate. The deer stood huddled under the trees down by the river. At midday Matty brought me meat, but I did not fancy it. I went on sitting at the window, gazing out across the park, and presently the snow had covered all trace of the horses, where they had passed, and the soft white flakes began to freeze upon the glass of the casement, clouding my view.

It must have been past three when I heard the sentry standing to attention, and once again the muffled tattoo of a drum. Some horses were coming to the house by the northern entrance, and because my window did not face that way I could not see them. I waited. Richard might not come at once; there would be many matters to see to in that room downstairs. At a quarter to four there came a knock upon my door, and a servant demanded in a hushed tone if Colonel Roscarrick could wait on Mistress Harris. I told him certainly, and sat there with my hands clasped on my lap, filled with that apprehension that I knew too well. He came and stood before the door, disaster written plainly on his face.

"Tell me," I said. "I would know the worst at once."

"They have arrested him," he said slowly, "on a charge of disloyalty to his prince and to His Majesty. They seized him there before us, his staff, and all his officers."

"Where have they imprisoned him?"

"There in Launceston Castle. The governor and an escort of men were waiting to take him. I rode to his side and begged him to give fight. His staff, his command, the whole Army, I told him, would stand by him if he would but give the word. But he refused. 'The prince,' he said, 'must be obeyed.' He smiled at us there on the Castle Green and bade us be of good cheer. Then he handed his sword to the governor, and they took him away."

"Nothing else?" I asked. "No other word, no message of farewell?"

"Nothing else," he said, "except he bade me take good care of you and see you safely to your sister."

I sat quite still, my heart numb, all feeling and all passion spent.

"This is the end," said Colonel Roscarrick. "There is no other man in the Army fit to lead us but Richard Grenvile. When Fairfax chooses to strike he will find no opposition. This is the end."

Yes, I thought. This is the end. Many had fought and died, and all in vain. The bridges would not be blown now; the roads would not be guarded, nor the defences held. When Fairfax gave the word to march the word would be obeyed, and his troops would cross the Tamar, never to depart. The end of liberty in Cornwall, for many months, for many years, perhaps for generations. And Richard Grenvile, who might have saved his country, was now a prisoner of his own side in Launceston Castle.

"If we only had time," Colonel Roscarrick was saying, "we could have a petition signed by every man in the duchy, seeking for his release. We could send messengers, in some way, to His Majesty himself, imploring pardon, insisting that the sentence of the council is unjust. If we only had time."

If we only had time, when the thaw broke, when the spring came... But it was that day, the nineteenth of January, and the snow was falling still.

27

My first action was to leave Werrington, which I did that evening before Sir Charles Trevannion, on Lord Hopton's staff, came to take over for his commander. I no longer had any claim to be there and I had no wish to embarrass Charles Trevannion, who had known my father well .I went, therefore, to the hostelry in Broad Street, Launceston, near to the castle; and Colonel Roscarrick, having installed me there, took a letter for me to the governor, requesting an interview with Richard for the following morning. He returned at nine o'clock with a courteous but firm refusal. No one, said the governor, was to be permitted to see Sir Richard Grenvile, by the strict order of the prince's council.

"We intend," said Colonel Roscarrick to me, "sending a deputation to the prince himself at Truro. Jack Grenvile, I know, will speak for his uncle, and many more besides. Already, since the news has gone abroad, the troops are murmuring and have been confined to their quarters for twenty-four hours, in consequence. I can tell by what the governor said that rioting is feared."

There was no more I could ask him to do that day--I had trespassed too greatly on his time already--so I bade him a good night and went to bed, to pass a wretched night, wondering all the while in what dungeon they had lodged Richard, or if he had been given lodging according to his rank.

The next day, the twentieth, driving sleet came to dispel the snow, and I think, because of this and because of my unhappiness, I have never hated any place so much as Launceston. The very name sounds like a jail. Just before noon Colonel Roscarrick called on me with the news that there were proclamations everywhere about the town that Sir Richard Grenvile had been cashiered from every regiment he had commanded and was dismissed from His Majesty's Army--and all without court-martial.

"It cannot be done," he said with vehemence; "it is against every military code and tradition. There will be a mutiny in all ranks at such gross injustice. We are to hold a meeting of protest today, and I will let you know, directly it is over, what is decided."

Meetings and conferences, somehow I had no faith in them. Yet how I cursed my impotence, sitting in my hired room above the cobbled street in Launceston.

Matty, too, fed me with tales of optimism.

"There is no other talk about the town," she said, "but Sir Richard's imprisonment.

Those who grumbled at his severity before are now clamouring for his release. This afternoon a thousand people went before the castle and shouted for the governor. He is bound to let him go, unless he wants the castle burnt about his ears."

"The governor is only acting under orders," I said. "He can do nothing. It is to Sir Edward Hyde and the council that they should direct their appeals."

"They say, in the town," she answered, "that the council have gone back to Truro, so fearful they are of mutiny."

That evening, when darkness fell, I could hear the tramping of many feet in the market square, and distant shouting, while flares and torches were tossed into the sky.

Stones were thrown at the windows of the Town Hall, and the landlord of my hostelry, fearing for his own, barred the shutters early, and the doors.

"They've put a double guard at the castle," he told Matty, "and the troops are still confined to their quarters."

How typical it was, I thought with bitterness, that now, in his adversity, my Richard should become so popular a figure. Fear was the whip that drove the people on. They had no faith in Lord Hopton or any other commander. Only a Grenvile, they believed, could keep the enemy from crossing the Tamar.

When Colonel Roscarrick came at last to see me I could tell from his weary countenance that nothing much had been accomplished.

"The general has sent word to us," he said, "that he will be no party to release by force. He asked for a court-martial and a chance to defend himself before the prince and to be heard. As to us and to his army, he bids us serve under Lord Hopton."

Why, in God's name, I wondered, could he not do the same himself but twelve hours since?

^So there will be no mutiny," I said, "no storming of the castle?"

"Not by the Army," said Colonel Roscarrick in dejection. "We have taken an oath to remain loyal to Lord Hopton. You have heard the latest news?"

'No."

"Dartmouth has fallen. The governor, Sir Hugh Pollard, and over a thousand men ^ taken prisoner. Fairfax has a line across Devon now from north to south."

This would be no time, then, to hold courts-martial.

"What orders have you," I asked wearily, "from your new commander?"

"None as yet. He is at Stratton, you know, in the process of taking over and assembling his command. We expect to hear nothing for a day or two. Therefore, I am at your disposal. And I think--forgive me--there is little purpose in your remaining here at Launceston."

Poor Colonel Roscarrick. He felt me to be a burden, and small blame to him. But the thought of leaving Richard a prisoner in Launceston Castle was more than I could bear.

"Perhaps," I said, "if I saw the governor myself?"

But he gave me little hope. The governor, he said, was not the type of man to melt before a woman.

"I will go again," he assured me, "tomorrow morning, and ascertain at least that the general's health is good and that he lacks for nothing."

And with that assurance he left me to pass another lonely night, but in the morning I woke to the sound of distant drums and then heard the clattering of horses and troopers pass my window, and I wondered whether orders had come from Lord Hopton at Stratton during the night and the Army was on the march again. I sent Matty below for news, and the landlord told her that the troops had been on the move since before daybreak.

All the horse, he said, had ridden away north already.

I had just finished breakfast when a runner brought me a hurried word, full of apology, from Colonel Roscarrick, saying that he had received orders to proceed at once to Stratton, as Lord Hopton intended marching north to Torrington, and that if I had any friend or relative in the district it would be best for me to go to them immediately. I had no friend or relative, nor would I seek them if I had, and summoning the landlord, I told him to have me carried to Launceston Castle, for I! wished to see the governor .I set forth, therefore, well wrapped against the weather, with Matty walking by my side and four fellows bearing my litter, and when I came to: the castle gate I demanded to see the captain of the guard. He came from his room, unshaven, buckling his sword, and I thought how Richard would have dealt with him.; "I would be grateful," I said to him, "if you would give a message from me to the; governor."