The Forest - Edward Rutherfurd [230]
But even so … The truth was that Charles winced inwardly whenever the name Penruddock was mentioned. Penruddock’s Rising had been a bungled affair and that was partly his own fault. He’d been able to do nothing at first for the widow; but after that he’d felt so embarrassed that he’d tried to pretend they didn’t exist. He’d behaved shabbily and he knew it. And now, here was this handsome, saturnine young man, like an angel of conscience, arriving to ruin his sunny afternoon. Inwardly, he squirmed.
But that was not what young Penruddock saw. For as he glanced round the group, wondering what was in the royal mind to cause it such embarrassment, his eyes fell upon a quiet figure sitting at one side. And his mouth fell open.
He recognized her at once. The years had passed, her red hair was greying now, but how could he ever forget that face? It was graven on his memory. The face of the woman who, with her husband, had deliberately set out to kill his father. In a single sudden rush, the agony of those days came upon him like a searing wind. For a moment he was a boy again. He stared at her, unable to comprehend; and then, as he thought, understanding. She was the friend of the king. He, a Penruddock, was scorned; while she, a rich regicide, a murderess, was sitting at the king’s right hand.
He realized that he had started to shake. With a huge effort he controlled himself. In so doing, his saturnine face assumed a look of cold contempt.
Howard, seeing this, and ever the courtier, quickly called out: ‘His Majesty is hunting, Mr Penruddock. Have you come to request an audience?’
‘I, Sir?’ Penruddock collected himself. ‘Why, Sir, should a Penruddock wish to speak to the king?’ He indicated Alice Lisle. ‘The king, I see, has other kinds of friends.’
This was too much.
‘Have a care, Penruddock,’ cried the king himself. ‘You must not be insolent.’
But Penruddock’s bitterness had overcome him. ‘I had come to ask a favour, it is true. But that was foolish, I plainly see. For after my father laid down his life for this king’ – he was addressing them all now – ‘we had neither favour nor even thanks.’ Turning to Alice Lisle, he directed his years of suffering and loathing straight towards her. ‘No doubt we should have done better to be traitors, thieves of other men’s lands and common murderers.’
Then, in a fit of anguish, he turned his horse’s head and a moment later was cantering away.
‘By God, Sire,’ cried Howard, ‘I’ll bring him back. I’ll horsewhip him!’
But Charles II raised his hand. ‘No. Let him go. Did you not see his pain?’ For a while he gazed silently after the retreating figure; not even Nellie attempted to interrupt his thoughts. Then he shook his head. ‘The fault is mine, Howard. He is right. I am ashamed.’ Then, turning to Alice, with a bitterness of his own, he exclaimed: ‘Ask no favours of me, Madam, who are still my enemy, when you see how I treat my friends.’ And the nod that followed told Alice plainly that it was time for her and her daughter to be gone.
So she was in some distress when she arrived back at Albion House to find Furzey sitting in a corner of the hall and John Hancock, with a large sheet of paper over which he was poring carefully, in the parlour. Anxious to get rid of the Oakley man so that she could discuss her meeting with the king, she demanded that Hancock deal with Furzey at once. Closing the parlour door, the lawyer explained Furzey’s predicament in a few words and then showed her the paper. ‘I found it all in the rental records. You see? This cottage, which is the one Furzey occupies, shows its first rent here, in the reign of James I, just a few years before you were born. It was clearly built