The King's General (5 page)

He marched me back into the castle, and to my consternation I found that the guests were already seated at the long tables in the banqueting hall, and the servants were bearing in the dishes. We were conspicuous as we entered, and my usual composure fled from me. It was, it may be remembered, my first venture in the social world. "Let us go back," I pleaded, tugging at his arm. "See, there is no place for us; the seats are all filled."

"Go back? Not on your life. I want my dinner," he replied.

He pushed his way past the servants, nearly lifting me from my feet. I could see hundreds of faces stare up at us amidst a hum of conversation, and for one brief moment I caught a glimpse of my sister Mary, seated next to Robin, 'way down in the centre of the hall. I saw the look of horror and astonishment in her eyes and her mouth frame the word "Honor" as she whispered hurriedly to my brother. I could do nothing but hurry forward, tripping over my gown, borne on the relentless arm of Richard Grenvile to the high table at the far end of the hall where the Duke of Buckingham sat beside the Countess of Mount Edgcumbe, and the nobility of Cornwall and Devon, such as they were, feasted with decorum, above the common herd.

"You are taking me to the high table," I protested, dragging at his arm with all my force.

"What of it?" he asked, looking down at me in astonishment. "I'm damned if I'm going to dine anywhere else. Way there, please, for Sir Richard Grenvile." At his voice the servants flattened themselves against the wall, and heads were turned, and I saw the Duke of Buckingham break off from his conversation with the countess.

Chairs were pulled forward, people were squeezed aside, and somehow we were seated at the table a hand's stretch from the duke himself, while the Lady Mount Edgcumbe peered round at me with stony eyes. Richard Grenvile leaned forward with a smile. "You are perhaps acquainted with Honor Harris, Countess," he said, "my sister-in-law. This is her eighteenth birthday." The countess bowed and appeared unmoved. "You can disregard her," said Richard Grenvile to me. "She's as deaf as a post. But for God's sake smile and take that glassy stare out of your eyes."

I prayed for death, but it did not come to me. Instead I took the roast swan that was heaped upon my platter. The Duke of Buckingham turned to me, his glass in his hand.

"I wish you many many happy returns of the day," he said. I murmured my thanks and shook my curls to hide my flaming cheeks.

"Merely a formality," said Richard Grenvile in my ear. "Don't let it go to your head. George has a dozen mistresses already and is in love with the Queen of France. "

He ate with evident enjoyment, villifying his neighbours with every mouthful, and because he did not trouble to lower his voice I could swear that his words were heard.

I tasted nothing of what I ate or drank, but sat like a bewildered fish throughout the long repast. At length the ordeal was over, and I felt myself pulled to my feet by my companion. The wine, which I had swallowed as though it were water, had made jelly of my legs, and I was obliged to lean upon him for support. I have scant memory indeed of what followed next. There were music and singing, and some Sicilian dancers, strung about with ribbons, performed a tarantella, but their final dizzy whirling was my undoing, and I have shaming recollection of being assisted to some inner apartment of the castle, suitably darkened and discreet, where nature took her toll of me and the roast swan knew me no more. I opened my eyes and found myself upon a couch, with Richard Grenvile holding my hand and dabbing my forehead with his kerchief.

"You must learn to carry your wine," he said severely. I felt very ill and very shamed, and tears were near the surface. "Ah, no," he said, and his voice, hitherto so clipped and harsh, was oddly tender, "you must not cry. Not on your birthday." He continued dabbing at my forehead with the kerchief.

"I have n-never eaten roast swan b-before," I stammered, closing my eyes in agony at the memory.

"It was not so much the swan as the burgundy," he murmured. "Lie still now, you will be easier by and by."

In truth, my head was still reeling, and I was as grateful for his strong hand as I would have been for my mother's. It seemed to me in no wise strange that I should be lying sick in a darkened unknown room with Richard Grenvile tending me, proving himself so comforting a nurse.

"I hated you at first. I like you better now," I told him.

"It's hard that I had to make you vomit before I won your approval," he answered.

I laughed and then fell to groaning again, for the swan was not entirely dissipated.

"Lean against my shoulder so," he said to me. "Poor little one, what an ending to an eighteenth birthday." I could feel him shake with silent laughter, and yet his voice and hands were strangely tender, and I was happy with him.

"You are like your brother Bevil after all," I said.

"Not I," he answered. "Bevil is a gentleman, and I a scoundrel. I have always been the black sheep of the family."

"What of Gartred?" I asked.

"Gartred is a law unto herself," he replied. "You must have learnt that when you were a little child and she wedded to your brother."

"I hated her with all my heart," I told him.

"Small blame to you for that," he answered me.

"And is she content, now that she is wed again?" I asked him.

"Gartred will never be content," he said. "She was born greedy, not only for money, but for men too. She had an eye to Antony Deny s, her husband now, long before your brother died."

"And not only Antony Denys," I said.

"You had long ears for a little maid," he answered.

I sat up, rearranging my curls, while he helped me with my gown. "You have been kind to me," I said, grown suddenly prim and conscious of my eighteen years. "I shall not forget this evening."

"Nor I either," he replied.

"Perhaps," I said, "you had better take me to my brothers."

"Perhaps I had," he said.

I stumbled out of the little dark chamber to the lighted corridor.

"Where were we all this while?" I asked in doubt, glancing over my shoulder.

He laughed and shook his head. "The good God only knows," he answered, "but I wager it is the closet where Mount Edgcumbe combs his hair." He looked down at me, smiling, and for one instant touched my curls with his hands. "I will tell you one thing," he said, "I have never sat with a woman before while she vomited."

"Nor I so disgraced myself before a man," I said with dignity.

Then he bent suddenly and lifted me in his arms like a child. "Nor have I ever lay hidden in a darkened room with anyone so fair as you, Honor, and not made love to her," he told me, and, holding me for a moment against his heart, he set me on my feet again.

"And now if you permit it, I will take you home," he said.

5

That is, I think, a very clear and truthful account of my first meeting with Richard Grenvile. within a week of the encounter just recorded I was sent back to my mother at Lanrest, supposedly in disgrace for my ill behaviour, and once home I had to be admonished all over again and hear for the twentieth time how a maid of my age and breeding should conduct herself. It seemed that I had done mischief to everyone. I had shamed my brother Jo by that foolish curtsey to the Duke of Buckingham and, further to this, had offended his wife Elizabeth by taking precedence of her and dining at the high table, to which she had not been invited .I had neglected to remain with my sister Mary during the evening, had been observed by sundry persons cavorting oddly on the battlements with an officer, and had finally appeared sometime after midnight from the private rooms within the castle in a sad state of disarray.

Such conduct would, my mother said severely, condemn me possibly for all time in the eyes of the world, and had my father been alive he would more than likely have packed me off to the nuns for two or three years, in the hope that my absence for a space of time would cause the incident to be forgotten. As it was.... And here invention failed her, and she was left lamenting that, as both my married sisters Cecilia and Bridget were expecting to lie-in again and could not receive me, I would be obliged to stay at home.

It seemed to me very dull after Radford, for Robin had remained there, and my young brother Percy was still at Oxford. I was therefore alone in my disgrace.

I remember it was some weeks after I returned, a day in early spring, and I had gone out to sulk by the apple tree, that favourite hiding place of childhood, when I observed a horseman riding up the valley. The trees hid him for a space, and then the sound of horse's hoofs drew nearer, and I realised that he was coming to Lanrest. Thinking it was Robin, I scrambled down from my apple tree and went to the stables, but when I arrived there I found the servant leading a strange horse to the stall--a fine grey--and I caught a glimpse of a tall figure passing into the house. I was for following my old trick of eavesdropping at the parlour door, but just as I was about to do so I observed my mother on the stairs.

"You will please to go to your chamber, Honor, and remain there until my visitor has gone," she said gravely.

My first impulse was to demand the visitor's name, but I remembered my manners in time and, afire with curiosity, went silently upstairs. Once there I rang for Matty, the maid who had served me and my sisters for some years now and was become my special ally. Her ears were nearly as long as mine, and her nose as keen, and her round plain face was now alight with mischief. She guessed what I wanted her for before I asked her.

"I'll bide in the hallway when he comes out and get his name for you," she said; "a tall, big gentleman he was, a fine man."

"Not the prior from Bodmin," I said with sudden misgiving, for fear my mother should, after all, intend to send me to the nuns.

"Why, bless you, no," she answered. "This is a young master, wearing a blue cloak slashed with silver."

Blue and silver. The Grenvile colours.

"Was his hair red, Matty?" I asked in some excitement.

"You could warm your hands at it," she answered.

This was an adventure then, and no more dullness to the day. I sent Matty below, and myself paced up and down my chamber in great impatience. The interview must have been a short one, for very soon I heard the door of the parlour open and the clear, clipped voice that I remembered well taking leave of my mother, and I heard his footsteps pass away through the hallway to the courtyard. My chamber window looked out on to the garden, and I thus had no glimpse of him, and it seemed eternity before Matty reappeared, her eyes bright with information. She brought forth a screwed-up piece of paper from beneath her apron, and with it a silver piece.

"He told me to give you the note and keep the crown," she said.

I unfolded the note, furtive as a criminal, and read: Dear Sister, although Gartred has exchanged a Harris for a Denys, I count myself still your brother, and reserve for myself the right of calling upon you. Your good mother, it seems, thinks otherwise, tells me you are indisposed, and has bidden me good day in no uncertain terms. It is not my custom to ride some ten miles or so to no purpose, therefore, you will direct your maid forthwith to conduct me to some part of your domain where we can converse together unobserved, for I dare swear you are no more indisposed than is your brother and servant Richard Grenvile.

My first thought was to send no answer, for he took my compliance so much for granted, but curiosity and a beating heart got the better of my pride, and I bade Matty show the visitor the orchard, but that he should not go too directly for fear of being seen from the house. When she had gone I listened for my mother's footsteps, and sure enough they sounded up the stairs, and she came into the room. She found me I sitting by the window with a book of prayers open on my knee.

"I am happy to see you so devout, Honor," she said.

I did not answer, but kept my eyes meekly upon the page.

"Sir Richard Grenvile, with whom you conducted yourself in so unseemly a fashion in Plymouth, has just departed," she continued. "It seems he has left the Army for a while and intends to reside near to us at Killigarth, standing as member of Parliament for Fowey. A somewhat sudden decision."

Still I did not answer.

"I have never heard any good of him," said my mother. "He has always caused his family concern and been a sore trial to his brother Bevil, being constantly in debt. He will hardly make us a pleasant neighbour."

"He is, at least, a very gallant soldier," I said warmly.

"I know nothing about that," she answered, "but I have no wish for him to ride over here, demanding to see you, when your brothers are from home. It shows great want of delicacy on his part."

With that she left me, and I heard her pass into her chamber and close the door. In a few moments I had my shoes in my hands and was tiptoeing down the stairs into the garden. I then flew like the wind to the orchard and was safe in the apple tree before many minutes had passed. Presently I heard someone moving about under the trees and, parting the blossoms in my hiding place, I saw Richard Grenvile stooping under the low branches. I broke off a piece of twig and threw it at him. He shook his head and looked about him. I threw another, and this one hit him a sharp crack upon the nose. "Damn it " he began, and, looking up, he saw me laughing at him from the apple tree. In a moment he had swung himself up beside me and with one arm around my waist had me pinned against the trunk. The branch cracked most ominously.

"Descend at once; the branch will not hold us both," I said.

"It will if you keep still," he told me.

One false move would have seen us both upon the ground, some ten feet below, but to remain still meant that I must continue to lie crushed against his chest, with his arm around me, and his face not six inches away from mine.

"We cannot possibly converse in such a fashion," I protested.

"Why not? I find it very pleasant," he answered. Cautiously he stretched his legs along the full length of the branch to give himself more ease and pulled me closer.