In the King's Absence Read online

  But again his command of the Dutch language served his purpose in the end, but not before his presence in London became known in City circles.

  This came about on the third day of his stay in Paternoster Row. Arriving back with his good news, he found a coach drawn up at the door, the door open, attended by Hannah, with a sober-suited gentleman ushering two very quietly-dressed ladies into the house.

  Hannah, curtseying to these latter, put out a hand to hold him back until they had entered. But the gentleman, noticing her action, stared long and hard at the young man before asking, ‘Mistress Leslie in her invitation, hath told us of our relative, a visitor in her house. If this be he, pray inform me that we may make ourselves known to one another.’

  Hannah looked quite overcome by this request so Alan stepped forward saying, ‘Indeed, sir, I am Alan Ogilvy, second son of Colonel Francis Ogilvy, whose father by adoption was Colonel Arthur Ogilvy, former owner of this house.’

  The stranger bowed and answered, ‘So you are great-nephew of Doctor Richard Ogilvy, who is my father-in-law.’

  Alan bowed in return, they shook hands with marked reserve but neither said anything of the rift in the family relationship and they walked upstairs in silence to join the ladies, by now seated in Mistress Leslie’s parlour. More introductions followed, but the awkwardness Alan feared was dissipated entirely by their hostess, who gathered their whole attention together to explain her action.

  ‘It is no accident that you be all here together,’ she said, with quiet authority. ‘In times such as these we are divided as families should not be divided, by faults in high places. Be that as it may, honest men hold honest opinions, and rightly so –’

  ‘The Lord Cromwell denies to no man an honest opinion,’ said Master Phillips quietly. ‘It is the small groups of fanatical persons –’

  ‘We shall not discuss them,’ Mistress Leslie said firmly. ‘But there is one causing distress in this family, not by any fanatical beliefs, but from thwarted desires, gross envy, hatred, malice and all uncharitableness as the Book has it. And it hath come to my knowledge that he seeks to bring harm to you, sir, and to Master Ogilvy here, who is son to his half-brother.’

  Mistress Leslie looked round at them all, perfectly aware of having indelicately thrown into the open a number of matters that had lain like rotting wood, slowly moving to destroy the house beam.

  The Phillips family was both shocked and distressed, each in his own fashion. Alan, glancing quickly at each in turn, saw pale anger set in the father’s face, a hot flush of distress on Mistress Cynthia’s cheek and both alarm and curiosity widen their pretty daughter Susan’s eyes.

  Alan’s own glance caught this look and stayed with it, both attraction and pity making his usually well-controlled heart beat faster. He had not hitherto taken much interest in girls, though he had met plenty both in Holland and France. The former he found too solid in their figures, too slow in their wits, the latter too acid, too critical of his poor command of the French language, with features too sharp and sallow for beauty. Susan Phillips was the reverse of all these deficiencies, he decided. Though neither he nor the girl ventured to join the formal exchange of their elders they did manage, when Mistress Leslie took her guests into the garden to enjoy the air and sunshine before re-entering their coach, to move together away from the others. In a short stilted exchange they learned the addresses of their respective homes, the number and names of their brothers and sisters, the principal occupations of the men of the families. Those of the women and girls they did not discuss, it being taken for granted that all females behaved alike, at least in public.

  When the visitors had gone Mistress Leslie retired to her own room to rest, while Alan, after considering his plans and putting together his small collection of personal belongings, sat down in the library to write a letter to his great-uncle in Oxford. It seemed to him to be of great importance to keep in touch with his new-found, if distant relatives. He described their good qualities, Master Phillips’s polite tolerance, the sober virtues of their manner and appearance, the merchant’s comfortable success that had nothing to do with politics, in fact all that recommended them as socially desirable. He suppressed any mention of Susan, except to say that they had come with a daughter of sixteen who was as beautiful as her mother. Old Doctor Richard must have his heart pricked by that description, Alan thought. Without presuming to recommend a reconciliation he hoped his letter might at least lessen the gap between father and daughter. He was well aware that his own desires, moving towards that end, had prompted the letter in the first place.

  He showed it to Mistress Leslie when they met again at supper that day. The old lady was delighted. This was exactly what she had hoped to achieve. She was sorry the boy must leave England again so soon, but she had been fully aware he had been less than open over his recent adventures, so it was as well she had nothing she could be forced to reveal.

  She soon realized the wisdom of her conclusion, though the family reunion still filled her with a kind of euphoria that made her more garrulous than usual with Hannah. Unfortunate indeed when George Leslie called upon her the day after Alan sailed from England.

  She recognized him, though she had not seen him for many years. Not indeed since the funeral of Colonel Arthur Ogilvy, which he had attended with his father, Sir Francis Leslie. Chiefly, she had felt at the time, to ensure that Mistress Cynthia Phillips should not meet her father again upon an occasion of softened feelings.

  Mistress Leslie greeted him now without pleasure but with an enhanced sense of duty and with that euphoria that proved so dangerous.

  ‘You are welcome, sir,’ she said, smiling, ‘though almost a stranger.’

  ‘I live outside the City,’ George answered, ‘since my home is closed to me.’

  ‘By your own choice, I think. Certainly not my daughter’s.’

  ‘By the circumstance of your daughter’s marriage to my father, madam,’ he answered. His bitter feeling was unchanged, even now, in his middle-age, she realized.

  She was determined not to quarrel with him. Besides, she did not yet know why he was there. She waited for him to tell her, which he did at once.

  ‘It hath come to my knowledge that the late Colonel Ogilvy’s adopted grandson has been seen at this house two days since. I would speak with him.’

  ‘You are blunt, sir. Pray upon whose authority do you convey such an order?’ She was angry, but she caught back a counter order for him to leave the Ogilvy house immediately and went on smoothly, ‘Yes. Alan Ogilvy was here to call upon me on his way, at his father’s request, to join the family in France.’

  ‘In France, say you? I was informed the young man studied in Oxford.’

  ‘So he did, but now he is gone to France. As I am sure you know, your brother, his father, hath always served the House of Orange, but now the Princess Mary is widowed, her son a young child and their future uncertain.’

  ‘It is not the House of Orange, nor the late Charles Stuart’s daughter is our concern, but Englishmen that should serve their native country.’

  Mistress Leslie made no answer to this, though her anger boiled anew. She looked at George Leslie, sitting upright and stiff and self-righteous in front of her and spoke now with passion.

  ‘And who are you, George Leslie, son of a loving and most patient scholar and gentleman, to speak of service to his country? What have you ever done but seek to sow ill-feeling in your family and in that of your poor misguided mother? Well, you may know I never have and never will take part in such deep mischief, such jealousy, such wickedness. On the contrary, you may know that I count Master Phillips a member of our family for his wife’s sake. They were here to visit me quite recently while Alan was here. We were all friends together and so we shall remain. And now, sir, since the object of your visit hath eluded you, there can be no need of your continued presence in Colonel Ogilvy’s house.’

  George left Paternoster Row in a furious rage, not relieved by a wait of two hou
rs before he was granted admittance to Master Thurloe, who directed under Cromwell’s orders, that very extensive intelligence service to discover and arrest active Royalists.

  ‘I have little of interest from you, Master Leslie,’ Thurloe said coldly, when George was before him at last. ‘A sad confusion at Oxford and a contemptible charade at Lord Aldborough’s place near Banbury.’

  Restraining himself with difficulty George bowed his head, murmuring something about untrained militia pitted against the trained and seasoned experience of a veteran of the Thirty Years War.

  ‘Nevertheless when you did eventually trace that young son of the veteran you were too late,’ Thurloe went on. ‘You have no information, nor can you now secure it.’

  ‘Except this,’ George said, leaning forward. ‘I know and I can prove it, young Alan Ogilvy hath been, in touch with Master Phillips, the clothier of Cheapside and Highgate Hill.’

  ‘In touch?’

  ‘They have met in Paternoster Row. Perhaps elsewhere.’

  Thurloe questioned, George Leslie repeated Mistress Leslie’s family indiscretions, adding a slant of his own that suggested intrigue and disloyalty upon one or other side, perhaps both. He left much later, satisfied he had broken up, destroyed entirely, the reunion and understanding so proudly devised, so disastrously betrayed, by the late alderman’s loving and faithful wife.

  Chapter Six

  Alan had been back in Paris with his family for three weeks before he and his father were summoned to an audience with King Charles.

  The young King had set up his Court not far from that of the Queen, his mother, but had shown clearly from the start that he would not be ruled by her as he had formerly been when he and his brother James left England for Jersey, before the Martyr King’s final defeat and betrayal by one faction of the Scots.

  Being only sixteen at that time he had no other choice than to obey her. Now, however, he had both friends and councillors, led by the Lord Chancellor, Sir Edward Hyde, and the companion of his escape, Lord Wilmot. He was able to summon the Marquis of Ormonde, who had been driven out of Ireland, the Earl of Southampton, Sir Edmund Nicholas and others.

  ‘His Majesty’s court is laudably gay, considering their dire needs,’ Colonel Ogilvy explained as they arrived outside the State rooms. ‘He hath no money, but his credit at present is remarkable and he is not thrifty, though I believe him to be an honest man.’

  Alan, who had cherished a romantic idea of the King since his service to him on board Surprise, was shocked by this casual description and showed it. His father laughed.

  ‘You will find a difference, my son,’ he said, as they continued to wait. ‘Be careful to show nothing but loyal respect. It is very likely he will not remember you, though I was commanded to bring you here today.’

  This seemed very probable, for the Ogilvys were not at once taken into the presence of the King, but instead were led into a small room where Sir Edward Hyde was sitting, with a clerk at a desk behind him. He greeted the colonel warmly, bade him be seated and leaving Alan standing, said, ‘So this is your son, Colonel?’

  ‘My second son, sir.’

  ‘Your heir is already a soldier like yourself and your father, I believe.’

  Colonel Ogilvy bowed and said, ‘While Alan here hath more talent for scholarship and would be studying in Oxford were the times more suitable for it.’

  ‘Ah.’ The Lord Chancellor stared for a few moments at Alan, then turned back to the colonel.

  ‘There have been strange reports from England over the activities at Lord Aldborough’s house near Banbury. Also in London at your own dwelling in Paternoster Row. A present of books to the usurper’s brother-in-law, a visit from a follower of the regicide. And both of you here in some measure mixed up in these activities. I trust I have my information wrongly slanted, sir – misunderstood.’

  Alan felt his cheeks bum with indignation; not so much at the vague accusation, but rather because a slur had been cast on Master Phillips, and therefore upon Mistress Susan, whose bright face had been present in his mind both by day and night since he reached Paris again.

  Colonel Ogilvy, however remained perfectly calm and gave a clear, convincing story of his visits to his friends and relations, the true story of the present of books to the Bodleian, the separate return of himself to Holland first, by way of Harwich and of Alan to France from London.

  ‘And as to this Master Phillips, the cloth merchant,’ Sir Edward Hyde persisted, turning to Alan. ‘You did truly meet the fellow?’

  ‘I did, sir,’ Alan said coldly. ‘He being a family connection by marriage of the Ogilvys. The meeting was none of my making, but rather of the late Alderman Leslie’s widow’s wish. A formal meeting.’

  He finished lamely, for he did not want to harm Mistress Leslie, nor suggest that he could have an interest in these distant relations. He rather overdid the casual manner, which the Chancellor put down to general shyness, but Colonel Ogilvy found surprising, since Alan was not shy as a rule but took a keen interest in the people he met and showed a humanity that put aside shyness.

  Sir Edward Hyde guessed rightly that both the Ogilvys were keeping family matters secret to themselves and perhaps from one another, so after a little more consideration in silence, tapping his fingers on the table beside him, he got up, beckoned to his clerk and saying, ‘I thank you for your patience and information, gentlemen,’ led the way out of the room with his man, leaving the visitors behind, while he went forward to advise his Master.

  He found King Charles listening to a long account of their escape from Scotland, through Berwick, of two former followers of Montrose, after the latter’s dreadful and undeserved death. Charles had heard many stories of a similar kind. This was neither new nor well told. It went on and on, in detailed, slow-moving deliberate Scottish accents. The King, nevertheless, kept his interested gaze upon the pair, while he bent his mind upon the remaining session of his audience, one he had already determined to keep hidden from his Chancellor, who would not approve of it.

  At last the loyal pair of Scots came to the end of their story, finishing with a plea to the King to return as soon as possible to his kingdom of Scotland where his subjects longer to rise for him.

  ‘In good time, we promise you,’ Charles told them graciously. ‘Be assured your support finds both comfort and praise from us and our growing band of followers.’

  He bowed to them from where he sat; he stretched out a hand for them to kiss. When they had left the audience chamber he turned to Lord Wilmot who stood beside him and said, ‘Now for our gallant colonel and his son. We can use the boy privately while placing the father upon that very necessary guard he must raise over our envoys for aid to this and that country among our desired allies.’

  ‘The colonel is no fool, sire,’ Wilmot suggested. ‘He will suspect the truth, when you see young Alan apart from him, that Your Majesty doth not wish to risk a sermon from Hyde. He will winkle the truth from me if not from the boy himself.’

  ‘Then you shall not hear it either, Henry,’ Charles said, lowering his voice as the Ogilvys were shown into the room.

  Alan did indeed find a considerable change in the King, whom he had not seen in audience for nearly half a year. He looked in better health; though nothing could change his dark complexion his face no longer wore the old haggard hunted look, his cheek, still lean, was a little rounder as befitted his youth; his hair, long, curled, abundant, was again his own, no longer the wig he had worn when he first reached Paris in his servant’s suit of grey worsted, with his locks shorn to his ears.

  Colonel Ogilvy, in warning Alan that the King was changed, had meant in his behaviour not in his appearance. For he had served royal persons all his grown-up life and was well accustomed to the manners of the audience chamber. However, he did not expect Alan to receive any attention beyond a mild acknowledgment of his existence. He knew that as far as he was concerned he was there to receive orders, not the details of time and place but the char
acters it would be his business to guard and the situations he must avoid or overcome.

  The colonel was also there to report upon his visit to England and what he found there.

  ‘Alas, sire,’ Ogilvy said. ‘I found much true emotion, much loyal steadfastness, but little will to act. Pockets of men, planning, hoping, seeking to enlarge their enclaves of political rebellion, but all hesitant, confused, distrustful. I saw no movement anywhere that gave promise of any possibility of success.’

  ‘In other words,’ said Charles bitterly, ‘we have heroes, we have swordsmen, horsemen, willing martyrs, but no generals, no soldiery.’

  ‘That is how I saw it, sire.’

  ‘The fellow Cromwell hath generals and soldiery. And ships too, I hear.’

  ‘Master Cromwell is a great general himself, sire.’

  The King looked very glum on hearing this, but Chancellor Hyde clearly did not want him to be too discouraged.

  ‘There is good news from the ocean, however,’ he said importantly. ‘The Prince Rupert still takes prizes on the high seas –’

  ‘With his unfailing impetuosity that wins fights and loses battles,’ Charles answered. ‘We wish our cousin well, but would encourage him to take his unlucky aid farther from England.’

  He laughed up at Wilmot as he spoke. His friend laughed back as was fitting and also because he understood that his Master very often considered him reckless himself and also for that reason to have put the King in some danger during his long escape from England.

  Colonel Ogilvy watched them, avoiding the Chancellor’s eye because he knew he would catch agreement there. But the rest of the courtiers present, some of them Frenchmen who understood very little English, brightened as Charles’s mood grew more cheerful. This was the young King they admired, while faintly despising. The poverty-stricken young rake, never satisfied with a single mistress but passing from one to another with astonishing speed and success while at the same time courting the highest in the land for a wife.