The Rider of the White Horse Read online

  William’s mouth seemed made of iron. ‘If there is one thing made clear in this most sorry affair it is that the very existence of the two Houses — of any kind of constitutional government in this country — depends now on the control of the militia.’

  Again it was Frances who broke the silence, looking to William as though he, and he alone, could answer her question. ‘What — will the King do now?’

  ‘God knows,’ William said. ‘But whatever else he does, I think that he will no longer dare to remain at Whitehall.’ Then, flinging off the gravity of the moment with a kind of defiance, he reached out and caught her hand. ‘You are for ever crying out for a wind to rise ... Maybe you will see the King here in the north, sweetheart — the magazine at Hull has a value now that might well draw him — and feel the wind blowing high enough even for you, before the bairn is born!’

  And suddenly, hand in hand, they were caught into laughter; shared laughter on the edge of the world’s end, the man’s swift and reckless, the girl’s edged with fear.

  ‘Is’t not fine to dance and sing

  When the bells of death do ring?’

  Anne wished that Slingsby had not chosen that particular song ... The harsh two-edged gallantry was too apt to that laughter.

  *

  Later that evening, when the horses and Frances’s litter (not the jolting family coach for a woman so far in child) had clattered away, Sir Thomas Fairfax and his wife stood together before the fire. The candles had burned low and Anne had pinched them out; and the window end of the room was lost in shadows beyond the reach of the firelight. It was warm here in the fireglow, for there was no wind tonight to set the draughts stirring; so warm that the chill honey scent had woken among the snowdrops on the table. To her dying day, the thin scent of snowdrops was to bring back to Anne Fairfax that night, and another that was as yet three Februaries away, and so much that lay between.

  ‘How sweet the snowdrops smell,’ Fairfax said, reaching out to touch a pointed white petal. ‘One does not think of them as scented flowers.’

  ‘They are like apple blossom,’ Anne said. ‘They only have their scent in some years.’ She looked up at him. ‘Thomas, how much does it mean, this action of the King’s? Oh, I see how all too clearly it shows the deepness of the rift between him and Parliament, but does it in truth bring war — war between the King and his people?’

  ‘God knows. But I believe so.’ Fairfax turned, his arm along the mantel, to look into the fire. ‘It is the King’s misfortune to be served by men too much of his own type,’ he said at last. ‘And it is a type unable to see reason or to profit by experience. He and the Archbishop Laud have tried to force a growing nation into the mould of a rigid formula that leaves no room for growth... If England rises against him as Scotland has done, it won’t be for political reasons, nor even because of illegal taxation — but in defence of deeper and more nameless liberties. So there will be much confused thinking, and many of us will be scarcely able to give a name to the thing that we are prepared to die for.’

  ‘Thomas,’ Anne said after a few moments. ‘If it comes to war — you will take your stand with Parliament and the people?’

  Fairfax rubbed a hand across his forehead. ‘I do not know yet, Nan. I have been trained in loyalty, and I must be sure where my first loyalty lies. When the time comes — if it comes — I shall know. For God’s sake leave it until then.’

  He turned his head to smile at her, apologetically; and his face was haggard in the firelight, so that suddenly she cared nothing for kings and wars, nor bishops nor the soul of man, nor for what Thomas did, only for what Thomas was; and she longed to fling her arms round him and hold him close because he was like a lute that was strung too tight.

  Once, she would have done it; but that was five years ago, in the early days, when she had been very young, and had hoped, that if she showed him all her heart, somehow it must make him love her in return.

  She had learned wisdom now; she had learned to accept the fact that he had nothing to give her but gentleness and unfailing courtesy. At the very outset she had been no more eager for the marriage than Thomas himself; it had been a family arrangement, a matter for lawyers and nothing more. She had even felt a little resentful that she was to be tied to a man who was so often ill — for even when he served under her father before Boi le Duc, a boy scarce through his schooling, he had been sickly and often ailing, though his ills had never held him when the guns began to speak.

  Oddly, it had been his illness, striking him down only a few days after their wedding, that had woken the fierce protective love for him that had hurt her ever since. Thomas, wretched and ashamed at being ill before a girl he scarcely knew, with the black sweat of agony running down his face — Thomas a blue and shivering wreck when the sharpness of the attack was spent, and the old fever he had brought back with him from the Low Countries laid hold of him in its stead. And with nursing him day and night Anne had caught the first bad cold of her life. Not a very happy start to their marriage; but the most unhappy thing about it had been that when it was over, Anne had been in love with Thomas, and Thomas had only been grateful to Anne. It was past and done with now; she was no longer a girl in love, she was a woman five years married and mistress of a great house. She was contented, even happy. She had Thomas’s unvarying kindness and his dependence on her for his physical well being; she had the children and Nun Appleton to love and be loved by. It was only sometimes that the old longings rose to hurt her; sometimes — tonight.

  Tonight when suddenly everything that was in her was crying out to have what Frances had; Frances laughing with William on the edge of the dark. Blindly, scarcely aware that she did so, she held out her hands to Thomas. He took them in a light clasp, and stood looking down at her. ‘You’re tired, Nan. Time that you were away to bed.’

  She smiled at him. There were other things she had that were lovely. ‘I must look in on the babies first,’ she said. ‘Come with me, Thomas.’

  Chapter 2 - The Parting of the Ways

  The long gallery of the Manor House at York was crowded and murmurous with a shifting, rustling, expectant throng. Almost every face there was well known to Sir Thomas Fairfax, but for the moment, standing in one of the long windows, he had turned to look out into the garden, seeing how the shadows of the cedar trees lay across the quiet lawns, and beyond them, how the great squat tower of the Minster stood passent regardent against the sky. The shape of every blotted shadow on the turf, the scent of the ragged brown wallflowers that had always grown beneath the window, the dry smell of the faded yellow damask hanging at his shoulder, all part of his own childhood, of long holidays spent here when his mother’s father, Lord Sheffield, had been President of the North. But he had never thought in those days, that when England was teetering on the verge of Civil War, he would come back here, summoned with so many of his fellows — Ingrams, Slingsbys, Vavasours, Chumleys — to wait upon the King.

  He spoke over his shoulder to his cousin standing beside him. ‘How does it feel to be a true prophet, Will?’

  ‘A true prophet?’ William leaned one arm in a silken sleeve along the transom of the window, and looked out also.

  ‘D-do you not remember how, on the night we heard of the King’s attempt on Hampton and the rest, you said to Frances that His Majesty would not dare to stay in Westminster, and that the Hull magazine might well draw him north?’

  ‘Aye, I remember,’ William said, gazing down moodily into the garden. ‘The King north to seize the Hull magazine; the Queen to the Low Countries to trade the Crown Jewels for guns. Pretty.’

  A step sounded behind them, and a hand came on the shoulder of each; and they swung round to find Sir John Bellasis, a distant kinsman, beaming up at them. Sir John was a small man, and a cheerful one. ‘Two conspirators, as I live! William, my warmest felicitations; I have been hearing that it is a boy. How does your wife?’

  William shook his small kinsman by the hand. ‘Thanks, John. Frances and the
bairn both thrive, thank God!’

  There was no time for more, for at that moment there came a sudden hush more potent in its way than a fanfare of trumpets could have been. And Sir Thomas Fairfax, turning in the direction in which the crowd turned, saw the King standing in the doorway.

  Feathered hats were swept off, the whole room was bowing, undulating as a field of barley when the wind blows over. Charles Stuart made a swift gesture of acceptance, and moved forward, followed by the twelve-year-old Prince of Wales and a group of nobles in attendance. Now the Earl of Newcastle, lately appointed Governor of Hull by his royal Master but rejected like a bad smell by the garrison, was bringing up the favoured among the great names of Yorkshire to be presented; one after another to kneel before the slight commanding figure and kiss the oddly lifeless hand.

  And then Fairfax in his turn was kneeling, with head bent to kiss the slender ringless hand that was held out to him. The last time he had knelt before this man had been after the earlier of those two mad Scottish campaigns; and he had knelt down plain Thomas Fairfax, Gentleman, and felt the light shining touch of a sword blade on his shoulders, and risen Sir Thomas Fairfax, Knight. He looked up into the sensitive, stupid, weakly stubborn, dedicated face, perfectly oval and framed in shining brown hair, and found the full sombre eyes resting on him in recognition.

  ‘It is a long time since we last met, Sir Thomas,’ said the King, in his pleasant, halting voice whose faint hesitation only added to its attractiveness. ‘It is good to see again, here in the north, so many friendly faces that I have known before.’

  Aware of the Stuart charm turned full upon him, aware of the swift physical sympathy of one stammering man for another, Fairfax said, ‘I am your Majesty’s most faithful subject.’

  ‘But not, it seems, Lord Fairfax your father,’ said the King who could not let well alone.

  Fairfax rose to his feet and gave him back look for look, level and unwavering; and the sympathy died. ‘My father is a Member of Your Majesty’s House of Commons. As such he does what he c-conceives to be his duty towards Your Majesty and towards Your Majesty’s realm.’

  For a moment longer the sombre gaze rested on his face. ‘Then God preserve me from men who do their duty,’ the King said, yet with a half-smile that robbed the words of much of their insult; and made the faint gesture with one hand whereby Royalty signified that an audience was at an end.

  When all the presentations were over, the King moved forward again, and took up his stand before the empty hearth — an unfortunate choice of stance, for the cavernous fireplace and towering heraldic overmantel would have dwarfed a taller man than Charles. Yet somehow the small slight figure standing there, one hand on the cut silver hilt of his rapier, to face this gathering of Yorkshire landowners, came near to dominating the whole room, and every man present felt upon him the spell of those brilliant brooding eyes.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ the King began, not plunging, but stepping deliberately with neither hurry nor delay into the thing that he had to say. ‘Gentlemen, I have summoned you here today for two reasons. And the foremost of these is my desire to speak to you upon certain matters, and personally acquaint you with certain facts, which undoubtedly you will have already heard, but maybe in somewhat twisted forms, from other sources. My chief concern in coming north has been to take back into my own hands the great store of war supplies yet remaining in Kingston-upon-Hull from the Scottish campaigns of two and three years ago. You will know, all of you, how the traitor Sir John Hotham, appointed by the two Houses as Governor of the town in place of the Governor I had already appointed, refused to yield up to me that which is mine by truth and right, claiming that the Houses had ordered its return to the arsenal of the Tower.’ There was a faint stir at the far end of the chamber; among men who were not convinced that the war supplies of a country were the private property of its King. But Charles seemed unaware of this, as he kindled to his theme. ‘I therefore communicated with my Parliament, stating my case and my complaint — I, the King! Their reply — their deeply unsatisfactory reply — was brought to me a few days since, by a committee composed of Lord Fairfax, Sir Hugh and Sir Henry Cholmley, and Sir Philip Stapleton, who have since refused my orders to return to Westminster, preferring to remain beside myself and my Court, presumably as watch dogs... Gentlemen, it amounts to this: in defiance of their King, in defiance of their God, Parliament has seized the magazine at Hull, and by the terms of the Militia Bill intends to call out the militia without my leave. In these circumstances I have this day issued a Commission of Array for the raising of troops in Leicestershire and the neighbouring counties, and I intend also, since I now feel it to be needful, to have a bodyguard for my own safety.’ He paused, and looked round him at the assembled company, and again the Stuart charm seemed to warm the room about him. ‘The belief that you, my Gentlemen of Yorkshire, would wish to serve me in this capacity, is the second of my reasons for summoning you here today.’

  A burst of voices answered him, eager voices, many of them young. ‘I’m your man, Sire! and I — and I!’

  The King stood looking round at them, clearly moved by their swift response; not seeing, maybe, that it came from only part of the assembly. ‘My friends, I thank you. In these days, loyalty has its value, and I — am warmed by yours as though I held my hands to a fire.’ He paused, had nothing more to say to them. ‘I am somewhat weary, therefore I say “God keep you”, and leave you now.’

  When he was gone, the Gentlemen of Yorkshire looked at each other with a sudden sense of stillness upon them, each waiting for someone else to move. Then young Sir Francis Wortley sprang on to a table topped with gilded Spanish leather, and stood poised above them, his eyes blazing in his flushed and eager face. ‘I’ll take the lead then, for want of a better! Here, to me, the best horsemen among you — Slingsby, Vavasour, Tom Fairfax and you, too, William —’

  Men began to gather round him; feathered hats were tossed up, and a babel of voices broke out. Someone shouted, ‘I can vouch for my brother, too!’ and a white-haired man with the features of a humorous eagle called out, ‘I’m too old for you young Chevaliers, but my three lads will be wild to join you, that I know!’ And a tall man with a face of blazing eloquence took a flying leap on to the table beside Francis Wortley. ‘Why should we guard His Majesty with horsemen alone? Let’s gather a body of Foot as well and show ‘em that Cavalry isn’t everything!’

  A roar greeted him. ‘Sa ha! Robin Strickland! Wortley’s Horse and Strickland’s Foot! So be it, Robin lad!’

  There was a clearly defined breach appearing now; two groups forming in the long chamber, one growing larger and the other smaller as the moments passed, and between them the dividing gulf of empty floor — broad floor beams of amber oak on which the evening sunlight lay in bars from the high windows. There was heraldic stained glass in some of the windows, and the light streaming down through the leopards of England on their field gules cast a stain on to the floor that was like blood. Bellasis had already crossed over; Sir Henry Slingsby paused, not with any uncertainty, but looking to the Fairfaxes to cross with him. ‘Tom, you’ll not hang back? God’s Life, man, you’ve served under His Majesty like the rest of us! You’ve received Knighthood at his hands!’

  Tom Fairfax looked down into the square steady face of his friend, and shook his head. ‘God keep you, old lad, however things fall out,’ he said, and watched the other man cross over, stepping as he went in that ominous crimson stain.

  Young Wortley seemed to wake to the breach that was forming. ‘Hi Tom! Black Tom Fairfax! Wake up, man!’

  ‘I cannot feel that it is a bodyguard, that His Majesty needs at this time,’ Thomas said, and heard the words hanging in the air, against the murmur of agreement that rose around him.

  ‘In God’s name, man, is this the time for your Presbyterian and Parliamentary crotchets?’

  ‘I believe it to be a time to think carefully in what the safety and well-being of the King and the Kingdom best lies!’ Fairfax ret
orted.

  Saville of Lupset growled behind him. ‘Aye, and you’re not alone in that, among those of us that have heads to think at all!’

  Hutton the Sheriff stepped forward to take command of the small opposition party, cutting across the high words in his deep grumbling tones. ‘Gentlemen, this is a sorry business, and will not be helped by making a garboil! There are matters that we cannot well discuss here. I suggest that those of us whose minds are not with the King in this, adjourn now to the Deanery.’

  And so the breach was complete.

  *

  At the same time of evening, something over a fortnight later, Anne was sitting under the walnut tree in the little walled garden of the Fairfax house in Bishophill, listening to the beehive hum of York on market day, and watching Mary and Elizabeth, in the intervals of copying into her household book the pattern for pillow lace that Lady Bellasis had lent her. It was not easy to do such work in the garden, but after a grey and gusty day, a dazzle of sunshine filling the world all at once with summer, and the scent of the white, rose and crimson peonies under the wall, had made it hard to stay indoors. She had come out to join Christian and the children, bringing the lace pattern with her because there was within her a feeling, scarcely conscious, that time was growing short for the lending and returning of lace patterns.

  Christian in her grey stuff gown sat at a respectful distance, busy with some sewing, and the children were busy about their own affairs. Mary — Little Moll — brown and bunchy and almost four years old, sat on the edge of the sunlight. She was deep in private conversation with Bathsheba, her doll, who lay, stiff and rigid on the grass before her, smirking fixedly heavenward from the midst of a tumble of skirts that had once been striped crimson and white like the petals of a York and Lancaster rose, before they became grey with much loving. Anne wondered with a touch of exasperation whether Moll would be as rumpled when she grew up as she invariably was now. A little beyond her, Elizabeth the baby, just two, and shaped in her stiff pink petticoats like an outsize Canterbury bell on small unsteady feet, was working her way systematically and with complete absorption along the sunlit border, poking a gently exploring finger into the heart of each flower as she came to it. Both, in their different ways, were children who gave their whole hearts to whatever they were doing, with no wandering awareness left over for anything else.