In the room that had been set apart for him abovestairs, Monmouth still sat at table. He had just supped, with but an indifferent appetite, so fevered was he by the events of his landing. He was excited with hope – inspired by the readiness with which the men of Lyme and its neighbourhood had flocked to his banner – and fretted by anxiety that none of the gentry of the vicinity should yet have followed the example of the meaner folk, in answer to the messages dispatched at dawn from Seaton. The board at which he sat was still cumbered with some glasses and platters and vestiges of his repast. Below him on his right sat Ferguson – that prince of plotters – very busy with pen and ink, his keen face almost hidden by his great periwig; opposite were Lord Grey, of Werke, and Andrew Fletcher, of Saltoun, whilst, standing at the foot of the table barely within the circle of candlelight from the branch on he polished oak, was Nathaniel Wade, the lawyer, who had fled to Holland on account of his alleged complicity in the Rye House plot and was now returned a major in the Duke’s service. Erect and soldierly of figure, girt with a great sword and with the butt of a pistol protruding from his belt, he had little the air of a man whose methods of contention were forensic.
“You understand, then, Major Wade,” His Grace was saying, his voice pleasant and musical. “It is decided that the guns had best be got ashore forthwith and mounted.”
Wade bowed. “I shall set about it at once, Your Grace. I shall not want for help. Have I Your Grace’s leave to go?”
Monmouth nodded, and as Wade passed out, Ensign Cragg entered to announce Mr. Wilding and Mr. Trenchard. The Duke rose to his feet, his glance suddenly brightening. Fletcher and Grey rose with him; Ferguson paid no heed, absorbed in his task, which he industriously continued.
“At last!” exclaimed the Duke. “Admit them, sir.”
When they entered, Wilding coming first, his hat under his arm, the Duke sprang to meet him, a tall young figure, lithe and slender as a blade of steel, and of a steely strength for all his slimness. He was dressed in a suit of purple that became him marvellously well, and on his breast a star of diamonds flashed and smouldered like a thing of fire. He was of an exceeding beauty of face, wherein he mainly favoured that “bold, handsome woman” that was his mother, without, however, any of his mother’s insipidity; fine eyes, a good nose, straight and slender, and a mouth which, if sensual and indicating a lack of strength, was beautifully shaped. His chin was slightly cleft, the shape of his face a delicate oval, framed now in the waving masses of his brown wig. Some likeness to his late Majesty was also discernible, in spite of the wart, out of which his uncle James made so much capital.
There was a slight flush on his cheeks, an added lustre in his eye, as he took Wilding’s hand and shook it heartily before Wilding had time to kiss His Grace’s.
“You are late,” he said, but there was no reproach in his voice. “We had looked to find you here when we came ashore. You had my letter?”
“I had not, Your Grace,” answered Wilding, very grave. “It was stolen.”
“Stolen?” cried the Duke, and behind him Grey pressed forward, whilst even Ferguson paused in his writing to raise his piercing eyes and listen.
“It is no matter,” Wilding reassured him. “Although stolen, it has but gone to Whitehall to-day, when it can add little to the news that is already on its way there.”
The Duke laughed softly, with a flash of white teeth, and looked past Wilding at Trenchard. Some of the light faded out of his eyes. “They told me Mr. Trenchard… ” he began, when Wilding, half turning to his friend, explained.
“This is Mr. Nicholas Trenchard – John Trenchard’s cousin.
“I bid you welcome, sir,” said the Duke, very agreeably, “and I trust your cousin follows you.”
“Alas,” said Trenchard, “my cousin is in France,” and in a few brief words he related the matter of John Trenchard’s home-coming on his acquittal and the trouble there had been connected with it.
The Duke received the news in silence. He had expected good support from old Speke’s son-in-law. Indeed, there was a promise that when he came, John Trenchard would bring fifteen hundred men from Taunton. He took a turn in the room deep in thought, and there was a pause until Ferguson, rubbing his great Roman nose, asked suddenly had Mr. Wilding seen the Declaration. Mr. Wilding had not, and thereupon the plotting parson, who was proud of his composition, would have read it to him there and then, but that Grey sourly told him the matter would keep, and that they had other things to discuss with Mr. Wilding.
This the Duke himself confirmed, stating that there were matters on which he would be glad to have their opinion.
He invited the newcomers to draw chairs to the table; glasses were called for, and a couple of fresh bottles of Canary went round the board. The talk was desultory for a few moments, whilst Wilding and Trenchard washed the dust from their throats; then Monmouth broke the ice by asking them bluntly what they thought of his coming thus, earlier than was at first agreed.
Wilding never hesitated in his reply. “Frankly, Your Grace,” said he, “I like it not at all.”
Fletcher looked up sharply, his clear intelligent eyes full upon Wilding’s calm face, his countenance expressing as little as did Wilding’s. Ferguson seemed slightly taken aback. Grey’s thick lips were twisted in a sneering smile.
“Faith,” said the latter with elaborate sarcasm, “in that case it only remains for us to ship again, heave anchor, and back to Holland.”
“It is what I should advise,” said Wilding slowly and quietly, “if I thought there was a chance of my advice being taken.” He had a calm, almost apathetic way of uttering startling things which rendered them doubly startling. The sneer seemed to freeze on Lord Grey’s lips; Fletcher continued to stare, but his eyes had grown more round; Ferguson scowled darkly. The Duke’s boyish face – it was still very youthful despite his six-and-thirty years – expressed a wondering consternation. He looked at Wilding, and from Wilding to the others, and his glance seemed to entreat them to suggest an answer to him. It was Grey at last who took the matter up.
“You shall explain your meaning, sir, or we must hold you a traitor,” he exclaimed.
“King James does that already,” answered Wilding with a quiet smile.
“D’ye mean the Duke of York?” rumbled Ferguson’s Scottish accent with startling suddenness, and Monmouth nodded approval of the correction. “If ye mean that bloody papist and fratricide, it were well so to speak of him. Had ye read the Declaration…”
But Fletcher cropped his speech in mid-growth. He was ever a short-tempered man, intolerant of irrelevancies.
“It were well, perhaps,” said he, his accent abundantly proclaiming him a fellow countryman of Ferguson’s, “to keep to the matter before us. Mr. Wilding, no doubt, will state the reasons that exist, or that he fancies may exist, for giving advice which is hardly worthy of the cause to which he stands committed.”
“Aye, Fletcher,” said Monmouth, “there is sense in you. Tell us what is in your mind, Mr. Wilding.”
“It is in my mind, Your Grace, that this invasion is rash, premature, and ill-advised.”
“Odds life!” cried Grey, and he swung angrily round fully to face the Duke, the nostrils of his heavy nose dilating. “Are we to listen to this milksop prattle?”
Nick Trenchard, who had hitherto been silent, cleared his throat so noisily that he drew all eyes to himself.
“Your Grace,” Mr. Wilding pursued, his air calm and dignified, and gathering more dignity from the circumstance that he proceeded as if there had been no interruption, “when I had the honour of conferring with you at The Hague two months ago, it was agreed that you should spend the summer in Sweden – away from politics and scheming, leaving the work of preparation to your accredited agents here. That work I have been slowly but surely pushing forward. It was not to be hurried; men of position are not to be won over in a day; men with anything to lose need some guarantee that they are not wantonly casting their possessions to the winds. By next spring, as was agreed, all would have been ready. Delay could not have hurt you. Indeed, with every day by which you delayed your coming you did good service to your cause, you strengthened its prospects of success; for every day the people’s burden of oppression and persecution grows more heavy, and the people’s temper more short; every day, by the methods that he is pursuing, King James brings himself into deeper hatred. This hatred is spreading. It was the business of myself and those others to help it on, until from the cottage of the ploughman the infection of anger should have spread to the mansion of the squire. Had Your Grace but given me time, as I entreated you, and as you promised me, you might have marched to Whitehall with scarce the shedding of a drop of blood; had Your Grace but waited until we were ready, England would have so trembled at your landing that your uncle’s throne would have toppled over `neath the shock. As it is…” He shrugged his shoulders, sighed and spread his hands, leaving his sentence uncompleted.