Mary of Carisbrooke by Margaret Campbell Barnes Read Free Book Online

servants was carrying, she heard Colonel Hammond saying very politely that he trusted his Majesty would not find island hospitality too inadequate after the luxury of Hampton Court, and then, before the door shut again, that quiet voice which she now knew to be the King’s assuring him that it was a comfort indeed after the inn at Cowes where they had been obliged to spend the previous night.
    The momentous November day darkened early and after attending evensong his Majesty was pleased to retire to the room which had been so carefully prepared for him. All three of his gentlemen went in, too, to undress him. To Mary, so completely ignorant of the complicated etiquette of courts, it seemed strange that one man—even a king—could need the services of three people to prepare him for bed. But perhaps, she thought, they wanted to talk among themselves without their host. She could not know how near the truth she was. All she knew was that most of the servants would have given anything to go to bed, too. But there was the royal supper table to clear as well as the ordinary tables for the household in the hall below, the fires to be damped down and the best silver to be put away. Relieved at last of his formal duties the Governor himself was standing looking uncertainly at the closed door of the King’s room when he found himself waylaid by Mistress Wheeler and the head cook wanting their orders for the morrow.
    “Must we prepare for any more guests?” asked the housekeeper.
    “I suppose that all the island gentry will expect to come up and pay their respects,” said the Governor, passing a hand over his high forehead. “Certainly Sir John Oglander. His Majesty had been asking for him. He seems to have expected to find him here.”
    “Whether he comes or not we shall need more poultry,” announced Cheke, the cook, firmly.
    “To-morrow I will see what I can do,” promised the harassed Colonel, heading for his hastily arranged quarters in the officers’ wing.
    “If he would just give one word of praise for all our work!” sighed Druscilla Wheeler. At any other time she would not have demeaned herself by discussing even a Parliamentarian governor with any save her own intimate friends; but she was nearing sixty and had been on her feet since dawn.
    “When Lord Portland gave a dinner party he drove us much harder,” recalled Cheke, looking disapprovingly after the tall departing figure of his present master. “But he always let us know afterwards what he thought of the sweets and the sauces, and often came down and drank a glass of wine with us afterwards.”
    “The trouble with this one is that no one knows what he thinks about anything!” agreed Mistress Wheeler.
    Aunt and niece began to mount the backstairs to their well-earned rest. This day, so utterly different from all others in their lives, would soon be done. But as they tiptoed past the best bedroom the door opened quietly. To their surprise, Mr. Ashburnham stood tall and solemn in the lamplit passage with something white held across his extended arms. “There will be his Majesty’s shirt to wash, madam,” he said, holding it towards the castle housekeeper as reverently as though it were the Holy Grail.
    “To-night?” stammered that weary lady, taken aback.
    Ashburnham’s features relaxed into a sad, propitiating smile. “Having left Hampton so hurriedly, he has no other,” he explained simply.
    It was a plight they had not thought of. “Perhaps Colonel Hammond could lend—” she began; but one glance at the exquisitely stitched garment and the recollection of the Governor’s severely starched linen dried up the words. “But how could we get it laundered and aired before his Majesty rises?” she asked instead.
    “And his Majesty’s collar,” insisted Ashburnham imperturbably. “We rode hard from Hampton and he has already been obliged to wear it two days.”
    “The servants are at last gone to their beds,” objected Mistress Wheeler,