The family coach was as big as a small parlour, and afforded ample room for the convalescent to recline at his ease on one seat, while Angela and the steward, a confidential servant with the manners of a courtier, sat side by side upon the other.
They had the two spaniels with them, Puck and Ganymede, silky-haired little beasts, black and tan, with bulging foreheads, crowded with intellect, pug noses so short as hardly to count for noses, goggle eyes that expressed shrewdness, greediness, and affection. Puck snuggled cosily in the soft lace of his lordship’s shirt; Ganymede sat and blinked at the sunshine from Angela’s lap. Both snarled at Mr. Manningtree, the steward, and resented the slightest familiarity on his part.
Lord Fareham’s thoughtful face brightened with its rare smile—half amused, half cynical—as he watched Angela’s eager looks, devouring every object on the road.
“Those grave eyes look at our London grandeurs with a meek wonder, something as thy namesake an angel might look upon the splendours of Babylon. You can remember nothing of yonder palace, or senate house, or Abbey, I think, child?”
“Yes, I remember the Abbey, though it looked different then. I saw it through a cloud of falling snow. It was all faint and dim there. There were soldiers in the streets, and it was bitter cold; and my father sat in the coach with his elbows on his knees and his face hidden in his hands. And when I spoke to him, and tried to pull his hands away—for I was afraid of that hidden face—he shook me off and groaned aloud. Oh, such a harrowing groan! I should have thought him mad had I known what madness meant; but I know not what I thought. I remember only that I was frightened. And later, when I asked him why he was sorry, he said it was for the King.”
“Ay, poor King! We have all supped full of sorrow for his sake. We have cursed and hated his enemies, and drawn and quartered their vile carcases, and have dug them out of the darkness where the worms were eating them. We have been distraught with indignation, cruel in our fury; and I look back to-day, after fifteen years, and see but too clearly now that Charles Stuart’s death lies at one man’s door.”
“At Cromwell’s? At Bradshaw’s?”
“No, child; at his own. Cromwell would have never been heard of, save in Huntingdon Market-place, as a God-fearing yeoman, had Charles been strong and true. The King’s weakness was Cromwell’s opportunity. He dug his own grave with false promises, with shilly-shally, with an inimitable talent for always doing the wrong thing and choosing the wrong road. Open not so wide those reproachful eyes. Oh, I grant you, he was a noble king, a king of kings to walk in a royal procession, to sit upon a daïs under a velvet and gold canopy, to receive ambassadors, and patronise foreign painters, and fulfil all that is splendid and stately in ideal kingship. He was an adoring husband—confiding to simplicity—a kind father, a fond friend, though never a firm one.”
“Oh, surely, surely you loved him?”
“Not as your father loved him, for I never suffered with him. It was those who sacrificed the most who loved him best, those who were with him to the end, long after common sense told them his cause was hopeless; indeed, I believe my father knew as much at Nottingham, when that luckless standard was blown down in the tempest. Those who starved for him, and lay out on barren moors through the cold English nights for him, and wore their clothes threadbare and their shoes into holes for him, and left wife and children, and melted their silver and squandered their gold for him—those are the men who love his memory dearest, and for whose poor sakes we of the younger generation must make believe to think him a saint and a martyr.”