The voices grew temporarily quiet as the King appeared, strolling through the door with his dogs and sycophants behind him. He was freshly shaved and his smooth brown skin had a healthy glow; he gave them a smile and a nod of his head and started on out. The jostling for place began immediately as they streamed along in his wake, but Buckingham already had one elbow and Lauderdale the other.
“I suppose,” said Charles to the Duke, “that by tomorrow it will be running up the galleries and through the town I’m a confirmed Catholic.”
“I’ve heard those rumors already, Sire.”
“Well—” Charles shrugged. “If that’s the worst rumour that goes abroad about me I think it’s no great matter for concern.” Charles was not inclined to worry about what anyone said of him, and he knew his people well enough to know that grumbling was a national sport, not much more subversive than football or wrestling. He had been home almost five years now, and the honeymoon with his subjects was over.
Leaving his own apartments he crossed the Stone Gallery and started down a maze of narrow hallways which led along the Privy Garden, over the Holbein Gateway and into St. James’s Park. He walked so rapidly that the shorter men had to half run, or be left behind, and since most of them had a favour to ask they did not intend to let that happen.
“I think there’s time,” said Charles, “for a turn through the Park before Chapel. I hope the air’s cold enough to make me sleepy.”
They had reached the old stairway which led down into the Park when suddenly one of the doors up the corridor to the left burst open and Monmouth came out in a rush. The men stopped and while his father laughed heartily the Duke ran toward them; he arrived breathless, swept off his hat and made a low bow. Charles dropped an arm about the boy’s shoulders and gave him an affectionate pat.
“I overslept, Sire! I was just going to attend you to Chapel.”
“Come along, James. I’ve been wanting to talk to you.”
James, who was now walking between the King and Lauderdale, gave his father an apprehensive glance. “What about, Sire?”
“You must know, or you wouldn’t have such a guilty face. Everyone’s been telling me about you. Your behaviour’s a favourite subject of conversation.” James hung his head and Charles, with a smile he could not wholly conceal lurking at the corners of his mouth, went on. “They say you’ve taken to keeping a wench—at fifteen, James—that you’ve run deep into debt, that you scour about the streets at night disturbing peaceful citizens and breaking their windows. In short, son, they say you lead a very gay life.”
Monmouth looked swiftly up at his father, and his handsome face broke into an appealing smile. “If I’m gay, Sire, it’s only to help me forget my troubles.”
Several of the others burst into laughter but Charles looked at the boy solemnly, his black eyes shining. “You must have a great many troubles, James. Come along—and tell me about them.”
The morning was cold and frosty and the wind blew their periwigs about, as it did the spaniels’ ears. Charles clamped his hat firmly onto his head, but the others had to hold to their wigs—for they carried their hats beneath their arms—or lose them. The grass was hard-matted and slippery, and there was a thin sheet of ice over the canal; it had been an unusually cold dry winter, and there had been no thaw since before Christmas. The other men looked at one another sourly, annoyed that they must go walking in such weather, but the King strode along as unconcernedly as if it were a fine summer day.
Charles walked in the Park because he liked the exercise and the fresh-air. He enjoyed strolling along the canal to see how his birds, in cages hung in the trees on either side, were standing the cold weather. Some of the smaller ones he had had removed indoors until the frost should break. He wanted to know if the cold had hurt the row of new elms he had had set out the year before and whether his pet crane was learning to walk with the wooden leg he had had made for it when its own had been lost in an accident.
But he did not walk only for amusement and exercise; it was a part of the morning’s business. Charles had always preferred that his unpleasant tasks be done under pleasant conditions—and there were few duties he disliked more than hearing petitions and begging for favours. If it had been possible he would gladly have granted every request that was made him, not so much from the boundless generosity of his nature as to buy his own peace from whining voices and pleading eyes. He hated the sound and the sight of them, but it was the one thing from which there never could be escape.
