THE KING’S FRIEND
Overfield Court was mildly stirred at the news that Master Christopher
would stay there a few days on his way back from London to Lewes. It was
not so exciting as when Master Ralph was to come, as the latter made
more demands than a mere monk; for the one the horses must be in the
pink of condition, the game neither too wild nor too tame, his rooms
must be speckless, neither too full nor too empty of furniture; for the
other it did not matter so much, for he was now not only a younger
brother, but a monk, and therefore accustomed to contradiction and
desirous to acquiesce in arrangements.
Lady Torridon indeed took no steps at all when she heard that Chris was
coming, beyond expressing a desire that she might not be called upon to
discuss the ecclesiastical situation at every meal; and when Chris
finally arrived a week after Bishop Fisher’s execution, having parted
with the Prior at Cuckfield, she was walking in her private garden
beyond the moat.
Sir James was in a very different state. He had caused two rooms to be
prepared, that his son might take his choice, one next to Mr. Carleton’s
and therefore close to the chapel, and the other the old chamber that
Chris had occupied before he went to Lewes; and when the monk at last
rode up on alone on his tired mule with his little bag strapped to the
crupper, an hour before sunset, his father was out at the gatehouse to
meet him, and walked up beside him to the house, with his hand laid on
his son’s knee.
They hardly spoke a word as they went; Sir James had looked up at
Chris’s white strained face, and had put one question; and the other had
nodded; and the hearts of both were full as they went together to the
house.
The father and son supped together alone that night in the private
parlour, for no one had dared to ask Lady Torridon to postpone her usual
supper hour; and as soon as that was over and Chris had told what he had
seen, with many silences, they went into the oak-room where Lady
Torridon and Mr. Carleton were awaiting them by the hearth with the
Flemish tiles.
The mother was sitting as usual in her tall chair, with her beautiful
hands on her lap, and smiled with a genial contempt as she ran her eyes
up and down her son’s figure.
“The habit suits you very well, my son--in every way,” she added,
looking at him curiously.
Chris had greeted her an hour before at his arrival, so there was no
ceremony of salute to be gone through now. He sat down by his father.
“You have seen Ralph, I hear,” observed Lady Torridon.
Chris did not know how much she knew, and simply assented. He had told
his father everything.
“I have some news,” she went on in an unusually talkative mood, “for you
both. Ralph is to marry Beatrice Atherton--the girl you saw in his
rooms, Christopher.”
Sir James gave an exclamation and leant forward; and Chris tightened his
lips.
“She is a friend of Mr. More’s,” went on Lady Torridon, apparently
unconscious of the sensation she was making, “but that is Ralph’s
business, I suppose.”
“Why did Ralph not write to me?” asked his father, with a touch of
sternness.
Lady Torridon answered him by a short pregnant silence, and then went
on--
“I suppose he wished me to break it to you. It will not be for two or
three years. She says she cannot leave Mrs. More for the present.”
Chris’s brain was confused by the news, and yet it all seemed external
to him. As he had ridden up to the house in the evening he had
recognised for the first time how he no longer belonged to the place;
his two years at Lewes had done their work, and he came to his home now
not as a son but as a guest. He had even begun to perceive the
difference after his quarrel with Ralph, for he had not been conscious
of the same personal sting at his brother’s sins that he would have felt
five years ago. And now this news, while it affected him, did not
penetrate to the still sanctuary that he had hewn out of his heart
during those months of discipline.
But his father was roused.
“He should have written to me,” he said sternly. “And, my wife, I will
beg you to remember that I have a right to my son’s business.”
Lady Torridon did not move or answer. He leaned back again, and passed
his hand tenderly through Chris’s arm.
* * * * *
It was very strange to the younger son to find himself a few minutes
later up again in the west gallery of the chapel, where he had knelt two
years before; and for a few moments he almost felt himself at home. But
the mechanical shifting of his scapular aside as he sat down for the
psalms, recalled facts. Then he had been in his silk suit, his hands had
been rough with his cross-bow, his beard had been soft on his chin, and
the blood hot in his cheeks. Now he was in his habit, smooth-faced and
shaven, tired and oppressed, still weak from the pangs of soul-birth. He
was further from human love, but nearer the Divine, he thought.
He sat with his father a few minutes after compline; and Sir James spoke
more frankly of the news that they had heard.
“If she is really a friend of Mr. More’s,” he said, “she may be his
salvation. I am sorely disappointed in him. I did not know Master
Cromwell when I sent him to him, as I do now. Is it my fault, Chris?”
* * * * *
Chris told his father presently of what the Prior had said as to Ralph’s
assistance in the matter of the visit that the two monks had paid to the
Tower; and asked an interpretation.
Sir James sat quiet a minute or two, stroking his pointed grey beard
softly, and looking into the hearth.
“God forgive me if I am wrong, my son,” he said at last, “but I wonder
whether they let the my Lord Prior go to the Tower in order to shake the
confidence of both. Do you think so, Chris?”
Chris too was silent a moment; he knew he must not speak evil of
dignities.
“It may be so. I know that my Lord Prior--”
“Well, my son?”
“My Lord Prior has been very anxious--”
Sir James patted his son on the knee, and reassured him.
“Prior Crowham is a very holy man, I think; but--but somewhat delicate.
However their designs have come to nothing. The bishop is in glory; and
the other more courageous than he was.”
Chris also had a few words with Mr. Carleton before he went to bed,
sitting where he had sat in the moonlight two years before.
“If they have done so much,” said the priest, “they will do more. When a
man has slipped over a precipice he cannot save his fall. Master More
will be the next to go; I make no doubt of that. You are to be a priest
soon, Chris?”
“They have applied for leave,” said the monk shortly. “In two years I
shall be a priest, no doubt, if God wills.”
“You are happy?” asked the other.
Chris made a little gesture.
“I do not know what that means,” he said, “but I know I have done right.
I feel nothing. God’s ways and His world are too strange.”
The priest looked at him oddly, without speaking.
“Well, father?” asked Chris, smiling.
“You are right,” said the chaplain brusquely. “You have done well. You
have crossed the border.”
Chris felt the blood surge in his temples.
“The border?” he asked.
“The border of dreams. They surround the Religious Life; and you have
passed through them.”
Chris still looked at him with parted lips. This praise was sweet, after
the bitterness of his failure with Ralph. The priest seemed to know what
was passing in his mind.
“Oh! you will fail sometimes,” he said, “but not finally. You are a
monk, my son, and a man.”
* * * * *
Lady Torridon retired into her impregnable silence again after her
sallies of speech on the previous evening; but as the few days went on
that Chris had been allowed to spend with his parents he was none the
less aware that her attitude towards him was one of contempt. She
showed it in a hundred ways--by not appearing to see him, by refusing to
modify her habits in the smallest particular for his convenience, by a
rigid silence on the subject that was in the hearts of both him and his
father. She performed her duties as punctually and efficiently as ever,
dealt dispassionately and justly with an old servant who had been
troublesome, and with regard to whom her husband was both afraid and
tender; but never asked for confidences or manifested the minutest
detail of her own accord.
* * * * *
On the fourth day after Chris’s arrival news came that Sir Thomas More
had been condemned, but it roused no more excitement than the fall of a
threatening rod. It had been known to be inevitable. And then on Chris’s
last evening at home came the last details.
* * * * *
Sir James and Chris had been out for a long ride up the estate, talking
but little, for each knew what was in the heart of the other; and they
were just dismounting at the terrace-steps when there was a sound of
furious galloping; and a couple of riders burst through the gateway a
hundred yards away.
Chris felt his heart leap and hammer in his throat, but stood passively
awaiting what he knew was coming; and a few seconds later, Nicholas
Maxwell checked his horse passionately at the steps.
“God damn them!” he cried, with a crimson quivering face.
Sir James stepped up at once and took him by the arm.
“Nick,” he said, and glanced at the staring grooms.
Nicholas showed his teeth like a dog.
“God damn them!” he said again.
The other rider had come up by now; he was dusty and seemed spent. He
was a stranger to the father and son who waited on the steps; but he
looked like a groom, and slipped off his horse deftly and took Sir
Nicholas’s bridle.
“Come in Nick,” said Sir James. “We can talk in the house.”
As the three went up together, with the strange rider at a respectful
distance behind, Nicholas broke out again in one sentence.
“They have done it,” he said, “he is dead. Mother of God!”
His whip twitched in his clenching hand. He turned and jerked his head
beckoningly to the man who followed; and the four went on together,
through the hall and into Sir James’s parlour. Sir James shut the door.
“Tell us, Nick.”
Nicholas stood at the hearth, glaring and shifting.
“This fellow knows--he saw it; tell them, Dick.”
The man gave his account. He was one of the servants of Sir Nicholas’
younger brother, who lived in town, and had been sent down to Great
Keynes immediately after the execution that had taken place that
morning. He was a man of tolerable education, and told his story well.
Sir James sat as he listened, with his hand shading his eyes; Nicholas
was fidgetting at the hearth, interrupting the servant now and again
with questions and reminders; and Chris leaned in the dark corner by the
window. There floated vividly before his mind as he listened the setting
of the scene that he had looked upon a few days ago, though there were
new actors in it now.
“It was this morning, sir, on Tower Hill. There was a great company
there long before the time. He came out bravely enough, walking with
the Lieutenant that was his friend, and with a red cross in his hand.”
“You were close by,” put in Nicholas
“Yes, sir; I was beside the stairs. They shook as he went up; they were
crazy steps, and he told the Lieutenant to have a care to him.”
“The words, man, the words!”
“I am not sure, sir; but they were after this fashion: ‘See me safe up,
Master Lieutenant; I will shift for myself at the coming down.’ So he
got up safe, and stamped once or twice merrily to see if all were firm.
Then he made a speech, sir, and begged all there to pray for him. He
told them that he was to die for the faith of the Catholic Church, as my
Lord of Rochester did.”
“Have you heard of my lord’s head being taken to Nan Boleyn?” put in
Nicholas fiercely.
Sir James looked up.
“Presently, Nick,” he said.
The man went on.
“Master More kneeled down presently at his prayers; and all the folk
kept very quiet. There was not one that cried against him. Then he stood
up again, put off his gown, so that his neck was bare; and passed his
hand over it smiling. Then he told the headsman that it was but a short
one, and bade him be brave and strike straight, lest his good name
should suffer. Then he laid himself down to the block, and put his neck
on it; but he moved again before he gave the sign, and put his beard out
in front--for he had grown one in prison”--
“Give us the words,” snarled Nicholas.
“He said, sir, that his beard had done no treason, and need not
therefore suffer as he had to do. And then he thrust out his hand for a
sign--and ’twas done at a stroke.”
“God damn them!” hissed Nicholas again as a kind of Amen, turning
swiftly to the fire-place so that his face could not be seen.
There was complete silence for a few seconds. The groom had his eyes
cast down, and stood there--then again he spoke.
“As to my Lord of Rochester’s head, that was taken off to the--the
Queen, they say, in a white bag, and she struck it on the mouth.”
Nicholas dropped his head against his hand that rested on the wood-work.
“And the body rested naked all day on the scaffold, with the halberd-men
drinking round about; and ’twas tumbled into a hole in Barking
Churchyard that night.”
“At whose orders?”
“At Master Cromwell’s, sir.”
Again there was silence; and again the groom broke it.
“There was more said, sir--” and hesitated.
The old man signed to him to go on.
“They say that my lord’s head shone with light each night on the
bridge,” said the man reverently; “there was a great press there, I
know, all day, so that the streets were blocked, and none could come or
go. And so they tumbled that into the river at last; at least ’tis
supposed so--for ’twas gone when I looked.”
Nicholas turned round; and his eyes were bright and his face fiery and
discoloured.
Sir James stood up, and his voice was broken as he spoke.
“Thank you, my man. You have told your story well.”
* * * * *
As the groom turned to go out, Sir Nicholas wheeled round swiftly to the
hearth, and buried his face on his arm; and Chris saw a great heaving
begin to shake his broad shoulders.
THE KING’S TRIUMPH--BOOK II
PART I--THE SMALLER HOUSES
CHAPTER I
AN ACT OF FAITH
Towards the end of August Beatrice Atherton was walking up the north
bank of the river from Charing to Westminster to announce to Ralph her
arrival in town on the previous night.
* * * * *
She had gone through horrors since the June day on which she had seen
the two brothers together. With Margaret beside her she had watched
Master More in court, in his frieze gown, leaning on his stick, bent and
grey with imprisonment, had heard his clear answers, his searching
questions, and his merry conclusion after sentence had been pronounced;
she had stayed at home with the stricken family on the morning of the
sixth of July, kneeling with them at her prayers in the chapel of the
New Building, during the hours until Mr. Roper looked in grey-faced and
trembling, and they knew that all was over. She went with them to the
burial in St. Peter’s Chapel in the Tower; and last, which was the most
dreadful ordeal of all, she had stood in the summer darkness by the
wicket-gate, had heard the cautious stroke of oars, and the footsteps
coming up the path, and had let Margaret in bearing her precious burden
robbed from the spike on London Bridge.
Then for a while she had gone down to the country with Mrs. More and
her daughters; and now she was back once more, in a kind of psychical
convalescence, at her aunt’s new house on the river-bank at Charing.
* * * * *
Her face was a little paler than it used to be, but there was a
quickening brightness in her eyes as she swept along in her blue mantle,
with her maid beside her, in the rear of the liveried servant, who
carried a silver-headed wand a few yards in front.
She was rehearsing to herself the scene in which Ralph had asked her to
be his wife.
Where Chris had left the room the two had remained perfectly still until
the street-door had closed; and then Ralph had turned to her with a
question in his steady eyes.
She had told him then that she did not believe one word of what the monk
had insinuated; but she had been conscious even at the time that she was
making what theologians call an act of faith. It was not that there were
not difficulties to her in Ralph’s position--there were plenty--but she
had determined by a final and swift decision to disregard them and
believe in him. It was a last step in a process that continued ever
since she had become interested by this strong brusque man; and it had
been precipitated by the fanatical attack to which she had just been a
witness. The discord, as she thought it, of Ralph’s character and
actions had not been resolved; yet she had decided in that moment that
it need not be; that her data as concerned those actions were
insufficient; and that if she could not explain, at least she could
trust.
Ralph had been very honest, she told herself now. He had reminded her
that he was a servant of Cromwell’s whom many believed to be an enemy
of Church and State. She had nodded back to him steadily and silently,
knowing what would follow from the paleness of his face, and his bright
eyes beneath their wide lids. She had felt her own breast rise and fall
and a pulse begin to hammer at the spring of her throat. Even now as she
thought of it her heart quickened, and her hands clenched themselves.
And then in one swift moment it had come. She had found her hands caught
fiercely, and her eyes imprisoned by his; and then all was over, and she
had given him an answer in a word.
It had not been easy even after that. Cecily had questioned her more
than once. Mrs. More had said a few indiscreet things that had been hard
to bear; her own aunt had received the news in silence.
But that was over now. The necessary consent on both sides had been
given; and here she was once more walking up the road to Westminster
with Ralph’s image before her eyes, and Ralph himself a hundred yards
away.
* * * * *
She turned the last corner from the alley, passed up the little street,
and turned again across the little cobbled yard that lay before the
house.
Mr. Morris was at the door as she came up, and he now stood aside. He
seemed doubtful.
“Mr. Torridon has gentlemen with him, madam.”
“Then I will wait,” said Beatrice serenely, and made a motion to come
in. The servant still half-hesitating opened the door wider; and
Beatrice and her maid went through into the little parlour on the right.
As she passed in she heard voices from the other door. Mr. Morris’s
footsteps went down the passage.
She had not very long to wait. There was the sound of a carriage
driving up to the door presently, and her maid who sat in view of the
window glanced out. Her face grew solemn.
“It is Master Cromwell’s carriage,” she said.
Beatrice was conscious of a vague discomfort; Master Cromwell, in spite
of her efforts, was the shadowed side of Ralph’s life.
“Is he coming in?” she said.
The maid peeped again.
“No, madam.”
The door of the room they were in was not quite shut, and there was
still a faint murmur of voices from across the hall; but almost
immediately there was the sound of a lifted latch, and then Ralph’s
voice clear and distinct.
“I will see to it, my lord.”
Beatrice stood up, feeling a little uneasy. She fancied that perhaps she
ought not to be here; she remembered now the servant’s slight air of
unwillingness to let her in. There was a footfall in the hall, and the
sound of talking; and as Mr. Morris’s hasty step came up the passage,
the door was pushed abruptly open, and Ralph was looking into the room,
with one or two others beyond him.
“I did not know,” he began, and flushed a little, smiling and making as
if to close the door. But Cromwell’s face, with its long upper lip and
close-set grey eyes, appeared over his shoulder, and Ralph turned round,
almost deprecatingly.
“I beg your pardon, sir; this is Mistress Atherton, and her woman.”
Cromwell came forward into the room, with a kind of keen smile, in his
rich dress and chain.
“Mistress Beatrice Atherton?” he said with a questioning deference; and
Ralph introduced them to one another. Beatrice was conscious of a good
deal of awkwardness. It was uncomfortable to be caught here, as if she
had come to spy out something. She felt herself flushing as she
explained that she had had no idea who was there.
Cromwell looked at her very pleasantly.
“There is nothing to ask pardon for, Mistress,” he said. “I knew you
were a friend of Mr. Torridon. He has told me everything.”
Ralph seemed strangely ill-at-ease, Beatrice thought, as Cromwell
congratulated them both with a very kindly air, and then turned towards
the hall again.
“My lord,” he called, “my lord--”
Then Beatrice saw a tall ecclesiastic, clean-shaven, with a strangely
insignificant but kindly face, with square drooping lip and narrow hazel
eyes, come forward in his prelate’s dress; and at the sight of him her
eyes grew hard and her lips tight.
“My lord,” said Cromwell, “this is Mistress Beatrice Torridon.”
The prelate put out his hand, smiling faintly, with the ring uppermost
to be kissed. Beatrice stood perfectly still. She could see Ralph at an
angle looking at her imploringly.
“You know my Lord of Canterbury,” said Cromwell, in an explanatory
voice.
“I know my Lord of Canterbury,” said Beatrice.
There was a dead silence for a moment, and then a faint whimper from the
maid.
Cranmer dropped his hand, but still smiled, turning to Ralph.
“We must be gone, Mr. Torridon. Master Cromwell has very kindly--”
Cromwell, who had stood amazed for a moment, turned round at his name.
“Yes,” he said to Ralph, “my lord is to come with me. And you will be
at my house to-morrow.”
He said good-day to the girl, looking at her with an amused interest
that made her flush; and as Dr. Cranmer passed out of the street-door to
the carriage with Ralph bare-headed beside him, he spoke very softly.
“You are like the others, mistress,” he said; and shook his heavy head
at her like an indulgent father. Then he too turned and went out.
* * * * *
Beatrice went across at once to the other room, leaving her maid behind,
and stood by the hearth as Ralph came in. She heard the door close and
his footstep come across the floor beside her.
“Beatrice,” said Ralph.
She turned round and looked at him.
“You must not scold me,” she said with great serenity. “You must leave
me my conscience.” Ralph’s face cleared instantly.
“No, no,” he said. “I feared it would be the other way.”
“A married priest, they say!” remarked the girl, but without bitterness.
“I daresay, my darling,--but--but I have more tenderness for marriage
than I had.”
Beatrice’s black eyes just flickered with amusement.
“Yes; but priests!” she said.
“Yes--even priests--” said Ralph, smiling back.
Beatrice turned to a chair and sat down.
“I suppose I must not ask any questions,” she said, glancing up for a
moment at Ralph’s steady eyes. She thought he looked a little uneasy
still.
“Oh! I scarcely know,” said Ralph; and he took a turn across the room
and came back. She waited, knowing that she had already put her
question, and secretly pleased that he knew it, and was perplexed by it.
“I scarcely know,” he said again, standing opposite her.
“Well,--yes--all will know it soon.”
“Oh! I can wait till then,” said Beatrice quickly, not sure whether she
were annoyed or not by being told a secret of such a common nature.
Ralph glanced at her, not sure either.
“I am afraid--” he began.
“No--no,” she said, ashamed of her doubt. “I do not wish to know; I can
wait.”
“I will tell you,” said Ralph. He went and sat down in the chair
opposite, crossing his legs.
“It is about the Visitation of the Religious Houses. I am to go with the
Visitors in September.”
Beatrice felt a sudden and rather distressed interest; but she showed no
sign of it.
“Ah, yes!” she said softly, “and what will be your work?”
Ralph was reassured by her tone.
“We are to go to the southern province. I am with Dr. Layton’s party. We
shall make enquiries of the state of Religion, how it is observed and so
forth; and report to Master Cromwell.”
Beatrice looked down in a slightly side-long way.
“I know what you are thinking,” said Ralph, his tone a mixture of
amusement and pride. She looked up silently.
“Yes I knew it was so,” he went on, smiling straight at her. “You are
wondering what in the world I know about Religious Houses. But I have a
brother--”
A shadow went over her face; Ralph saw she did not like the allusion.
“Besides,” he went on again, “they need intelligent men, not
ecclesiastics, for this business.”
“But Dr. Layton?” questioned Beatrice.
“Well, you might call him an ecclesiastic; but you would scarcely guess
it from himself. And no man could call him a partisan on that side.”
“He would do better in one of his rectories, I should think,” said
Beatrice.
“Well, that is not my business,” observed Ralph.
“And what is your business?”
“Well, to ride round the country; examine the Religious, and make
enquiries of the country folk.”
Beatrice began to tap her foot very softly. Ralph glanced down at the
bright buckle and smiled in spite of himself.
The girl went on.
“And by whose authority?”
“By his Grace’s authority.”
“And Dr. Cranmer’s?”
“Well, yes; so far as he has any.”
“I see,” said Beatrice; and cast her eyes down again.
There was silence for a moment or two.
“You see too that I cannot withdraw,” explained Ralph, a little
distressed at her air. “It is part of my duty.”
“Oh! I understand that,” said Beatrice.
“And so long as I act justly, there is no harm done.”
The girl was silent.
“You understand that?” he asked.
“I suppose I do,” said Beatrice slowly.
Ralph made a slight impatient movement.
“No--wait,” said the girl, “I do understand. If I cannot trust you, I
had better never have known you. I do understand that I can trust you;
though I cannot understand how you can do such work.”
She raised her eyes slowly to his; and Ralph as he looked into them saw
that she was perfectly sincere, and speaking without bitterness.
“Sweetheart,” he said. “I could not have taken that from any but you;
but I know that you are true, and mean no more nor less than your words.
You do trust me?”
“Why, yes,” said the girl; and smiled at him as he took her in his arms.
* * * * *
When she had gone again Ralph had a difficult quarter of an hour.
He knew that she trusted him, but was it not simply because she did not
know? He sat and pondered the talk he had had with Cromwell and the
Archbishop. Neither had expressly said that what was wanted was adverse
testimony against the Religious Houses; but that, Ralph knew very well,
was what was asked of him. They had talked a great deal about the
corruptions that the Visitors would no doubt find, and Cranmer had told
a story or two, with an appearance of great distress, of scandalous
cases that had come under his own notice. Cromwell too had pointed out
that such corruptions did incalculable evil; and that an immoral monk
did far more harm in a countryside than his holy brethren could do of
good. Both had said a word too about the luxury and riches to be found
in the houses of those who professed poverty, and of the injury done to
Christ’s holy religion by such insincere pretences.
Ralph knew too, from previous meetings with the other Visitors, the kind
of work for which such men would be likely to be selected.
There was Dr. Richard Layton first, whom Ralph was to join in Sussex at
the end of September, a priest who had two or three preferments and
notoriously neglected them; Ralph had taken a serious dislike to him. He
was a coarse man who knew how to cringe effectively; and Ralph had
listened to him talking to Cromwell, with some dismay. But he would be
to a large extent independent of him, and only in his company at some of
the larger houses that needed more than one Visitor. Thomas Legh, too, a
young doctor of civil law, was scarcely more attractive. He was a man of
an extraordinary arrogance, carrying his head high, and looking about
him with insolently drooping eyes. Ralph had been at once amused and
angry to see him go out into the street after his interview with
Cromwell, where his horse and half-a-dozen footmen awaited him, and to
watch him ride off with the airs of a vulgar prince. The Welshman Ap
Rice too, and the red-faced bully, Dr. London, were hardly persons whom
he desired as associates, and the others were not much better; and Ralph
found himself feeling a little thankful that none of these men had been
in his house just now, when Cromwell and the Archbishop had called in
the former’s carriage, and when Beatrice had met them there.
* * * * *
Ralph had a moment, ten minutes after Beatrice had left, when he was
inclined to snatch up his hat and go after Cromwell to tell him to do
his own dirty work; but his training had told, and he had laughed at the
folly of the thought. Why, of course, the work had to be done! England
was rotten with dreams and superstition. Ecclesiasticism had corrupted
genuine human life, and national sanity could not be restored except by
a violent process. Innocent persons would no doubt suffer--innocent
according to conscience, but guilty against the commonwealth. Every
great movement towards good was bound to be attended by individual
catastrophes; but it was the part of a strong man to carry out
principles and despise details.
The work had to be done; it was better then that there should be at
least one respectable workman. Of course such a work needed coarse men
to carry it out; it was bound to be accompanied by some brutality; and
his own presence there might do something to keep the brutality within
limits.
* * * * *
And as for Beatrice--well, Beatrice did not yet understand. If she
understood all as he did, she would sympathise, for she was strong too.
Besides--he had held her in his arms just now, and he knew that love was
king.
But he sat for ten minutes more in silence, staring with unseeing eyes
at the huddled roofs opposite and the clear sky over them; and the point
of the quill in his fingers was split and cracked when Mr. Morris looked
in to see if his master wanted anything.
CHAPTER II
THE BEGINNING OF THE VISITATION
It was on a wet foggy morning in October that Ralph set out with Mr.
Morris and a couple more servants to join Dr. Layton in the Sussex
visitation. He rode alone in front; and considered as he went.
* * * * *
The Visitation itself, Cromwell had told him almost explicitly, was in
pursuance of the King’s policy to get the Religious Houses, which were
considered to be the strongholds of the papal power in England, under
the authority of the Crown; and also to obtain from them reinforcements
of the royal funds which were running sorely low. The crops were most
disappointing this year, and the King’s tenants were wholly unable to
pay their rents; and it had been thought wiser to make up the deficit
from ecclesiastical wealth rather than to exasperate the Commons by a
direct call upon their resources.
So far, he knew very well, the attempt to get the Religious Houses into
the King’s power had only partially succeeded. Bishop Fisher’s influence
had availed to stave off the fulfilment of the royal intentions up to
the present; and the oath of supremacy, in which to a large extent the
key of the situation lay, had been by no means universally accepted.
Now, however, the scheme was to be pushed forward; and as a preparation
for it, it was proposed to visit every monastery and convent in the
kingdom, and to render account first of the temporal wealth of each,
and then of the submissiveness of its inmates; and, as Cromwell had
hinted to Ralph, anything that could damage the character of the
Religious would not be unacceptable evidence.
Ralph was aware that the scheme in which he was engaged was supported in
two ways; first, by the suspension of episcopal authority during the
course of the visitation, and secondly by the vast powers committed to
the visitors. In one of the saddle-bags strapped on to Mr. Morris’s
horse was a sheaf of papers, containing eighty-six articles of enquiry,
and twenty-five injunctions, as well as certificates from the King
endowing Ralph with what was practically papal jurisdiction. He was
authorised to release from their vows all Religious who desired it, and
ordered to dismiss all who had been professed under twenty years of age,
or who were at the present date under twenty-four years old. Besides
this he was commissioned to enforce the enclosure with the utmost
rigour, to set porters at the doors to see that it was observed, and to
encourage all who had any grievance against their superiors to forward
complaints through himself to Cromwell.
Ralph understood well enough the first object of these regulations,
namely to make monastic life impossible. It was pretty evident that a
rigorous confinement would breed discontent; which in its turn would be
bound to escape through the vent-hole which the power of appeal
provided; thus bringing about a state of anarchy within the house, and
the tightening of the hold of the civil authority upon the Religious.
Lastly the Visitors were authorised to seize any church furniture or
jewels that they might judge would be better in secular custody.
Once more, he had learned both from Cromwell, and from his own
experience at Paul’s Cross, how the laity itself was being carefully
prepared for the blow that was impending, by an army of selected
preachers who could be trusted to say what they were told. Only a few
days before Ralph had halted his horse at the outskirts of a huge crowd
gathered round Paul’s Cross, and had listened to a torrent of
vituperation poured out by a famous orator against the mendicant friars;
and from the faces and exclamations of the people round him he had
learned once more that greed was awake in England.
* * * * *
It was a somewhat dismal ride that he had this day. The sky was heavy
and overcast, it rained constantly, and the roads were in a more dreary
condition even than usual. He splashed along through the mud with his
servants behind him, wrapped in his cloak; and his own thoughts were not
of a sufficient cheerfulness to compensate for the external discomforts.
His political plane of thought was shot by a personal idea. He guessed
that he would have to commit himself in a manner that he had never done
before; and was not wholly confident that he would be able to explain
matters satisfactorily to Beatrice. Besides, the particular district to
which he was appointed included first Lewes, where Chris would have an
eye on his doings, and secondly the little Benedictine house of Rusper,
where his sister Margaret had been lately professed; and he wondered
what exactly would be his relation with his own family when his work was
done.
But for the main object of his visitation he had little but sympathy. It
was good, he thought, that a scouring should be made of these idle
houses, and their inmates made more profitable to the commonwealth. And
lastly, whether or no he sympathised, it would be fatal to his career
to refuse the work offered to him.
As he did not feel very confident at first, he had arranged to meet with
Dr. Layton’s party at the Premonstratension Abbey of Durford, situated
at the borders of Sussex and Hampshire, and there learn the exact
methods to be employed in the visitation; but it was a long ride, and he
took two days over it, sleeping on the way at Waverly in the Cistercian
House. This had not yet been visited, as Dr. Layton was riding up
gradually from the west country, but the rumour of his intentions had
already reached there, and Ralph was received with a pathetic deference
as one of the representatives of the Royal Commission.
The Abbot was a kindly nervous man, and welcomed Ralph with every sign
of respect at the gate of the abbey, giving contradictory orders about
the horses and the entertainment of the guests to his servants who
seemed in very little awe of him.
After mass and breakfast on the following morning the Abbot came into
the guest-house and begged for a short interview.
* * * * *
He apologised first for the poorness of the entertainment, saying that
he had done his best. Ralph answered courteously; and the other went on
immediately, standing deferentially before the chair where Ralph was
seated, and fingering his cross.
“I hope, Mr. Torridon, that it will be you who will visit us; you have
found us all unprepared, and you know that we are doing our best to keep
our Rule. I hope you found nothing that was not to your liking.”
Ralph bowed and smiled.
“I would sooner that it were you,” went on the Abbot, “and not another
that visited us. Dr. Layton--”
He stopped abruptly, embarrassed.
“You have heard something of him?” questioned Ralph.
“I know nothing against him,” said the other hastily, “except that they
say that he is sharp with us poor monks. I fear he would find a great
deal here not to his taste. My authority has been so much weakened of
late; I have some discontented brethren--not more than one or two, Mr.
Torridon--and they have learned that they will be able to appeal now to
the King’s Grace, and get themselves set free; and they have ruined the
discipline of the house. I do not wish to hide anything, sir, you see;
but I am terribly afraid that Dr. Layton may be displeased.”
“I am very sorry, my lord,” said Ralph, “but I fear I shall not be
coming here again.”
The Abbot’s face fell.
“But you will speak for us, sir, to Dr. Layton? I heard you say you
would be seeing him to-night.”
Ralph promised to do his best, and was overwhelmed with thanks.
He could not help realising some of the pathos of the situation as he
rode on through the rain to Durford. It was plain that a wave of terror
and apprehensiveness was running through the Religious Houses, and that
it brought with it inevitable disorder. Lives that would have been
serene and contented under other circumstances were thrown off their
balance by the rumours of disturbance, and authority was weakened. If
the Rule was hard of observance in tranquil times, it was infinitely
harder when doors of escape presented themselves on all sides.
And yet he was impatient too. Passive or wavering characters irritated
his own strong temperament, and he felt a kind of anger against the
Abbot and his feeble appeal. Surely men who had nothing else to do might
manage to keep their own subjects in order, and a weak crying for pity
was in itself an argument against their competence. And meanwhile, if he
had known it, he would have been still more incensed, for as he rode on
down towards the south west, the Abbot and his monks in the house he had
left were prostrate before the high altar in the dark church, each in
his stall, praying for mercy.
“O God, the heathens are come into thine inheritance,” they murmured,
“they have defiled thy holy temple.”
* * * * *
It was not until the sun was going down in the stormy west that Ralph
rode up to Durford abbey. The rain had ceased an hour before sunset, and
the wet roofs shone in the evening light.
There were certain signs of stir as he came up. One or two idlers were
standing outside the gate-house; the door was wide open, and a couple of
horses were being led away round the corner.
Inside the court as he rode through he saw further signs of confusion.
Half a dozen packhorses were waiting with hanging heads outside the
stable door, and an agitated lay brother was explaining to a canon in
his white habit, rochet and cap, that there was no more room. He threw
out his hands with a gesture of despair towards Ralph as he came in.
“Mother of God!” he said, “here is another of them.”
The priest frowned at him, and hurried up to Ralph.
“Yes, father,” said Ralph, “I am another of them.”
The canon explained that the stable was full, that they were
exceedingly sorry, but that they were but a poor house; and that he was
glad to say there was an outhouse round the corner outside where the
beasts could be lodged.
“But as for yourself, sir,” he said, “I know not what to do. We have
every room full. You are a friend of Dr. Layton’s, sir?”
“I am one of the Visitors,” said Ralph. “You must make room.”
The priest sucked his lips in.
“I see nothing for it,” he said, “Dr. Layton and you, sir, must share a
room.”
Ralph threw a leg over the saddle and slipped to the ground.
“Where is he?” he asked.
“He is with my Lord Abbot, sir,” he said. “Will you come with me?”
The canon led the way across the court, his white fur tails swinging as
he went, and took Ralph through the cloister into one of the parlours.
There was a sound of a high scolding voice as he threw open the door.
“What in God’s name are ye for then, if ye have not hospitality?”
Dr. Layton turned round as Ralph came in. He was flushed with passion;
his mouth worked, and his eyes were brutal.
“See this, Mr. Torridon,” he said. “There is neither room for man or
beast in this damned abbey. The guest house has no more than half a
dozen rooms, and the stable--why, it is not fit for pigs, let alone the
horses of the King’s Visitors.”
The Abbot, a young man with a delicate face, very pale now and
trembling, broke in deprecatingly.
“I am very sorry, gentlemen,” he said, looking from one to the other,
“but it is not my fault. It is in better repair than when I came to it.
I have done my best with my Lord Abbot of Welbeck; but we are very poor,
and he can give me no more.”
Layton growled at him.
“I don’t say it’s you, man; we shall know better when we have looked
into your accounts; but I’ll have a word to say at Welbeck.”
“We are to share a room, Dr. Layton,” put in Ralph. “At least--”
The doctor turned round again at that, and stormed once more.
“I cannot help it, gentlemen,” retorted the Abbot desperately. “I have
given up my own chamber already. I can but do my best.”
Ralph hastened to interpose. His mind revolted at this coarse bullying,
in spite of his contempt at this patient tolerance on the part of the
Abbot.
“I shall do very well, my Lord Abbot,” he said. “I shall give no
trouble. You may put me where you please.”
The young prelate looked at him gratefully.
“We will do our best, sir,” he said. “Will you come, gentlemen, and see
your chambers?”
Layton explained to Ralph as they went along the poor little cloister
that he himself had only arrived an hour before.
“I had a rare time among the monks,” he whispered, “and have some tales
to make you laugh.”
* * * * *
He grew impatient again presently at the poor furnishing of the rooms,
and kicked over a broken chair.
“I will have something better than that,” he said. “Get me one from the
church.”
The young Abbot faced him.
“What do you want of us, Dr. Layton? Is it riches or poverty? Which
think you that Religious ought to have?”
The priest gave a bark of laughter.
“You have me there, my lord,” he said; and nudged Ralph.
They sat down to supper presently in the parlour downstairs, a couple of
dishes of meat, and a bottle of Spanish wine. Dr. Layton grew voluble.
“I have a deal to tell you, Mr. Torridon,” he said, “and not a few
things to show you,--silver crosses and such like; but those we will
look at to-morrow. I doubt whether we shall add much to it here, though
there is a relic-case that would look well on Master Cromwell’s table;
it is all set with agates. But the tales you shall have now. My servant
will be here directly with the papers.”
A man came in presently with a bag of documents, and Layton seized them
eagerly.
“See here, Mr. Torridon,” he said, shaking the papers on to the table,
“here is a story-box for the ladies. Draw your chair to the fire.”
Ralph felt an increasing repugnance for the man; but he said nothing;
and brought up his seat to the wide hearth on which the logs burned
pleasantly in the cold little room.
The priest lifted the bundle on to his lap, crossed his legs
comfortably, with a glass of wine at his elbow, and began to read.
* * * * *
For a while Ralph wondered how the man could have the effrontery to call
his notes by the name of evidence. They consisted of a string of obscene
guesses, founded upon circumstances that were certainly compatible with
guilt, but no less compatible with innocence. There was a quantity of
gossip gathered from country-people and coloured by the most flagrant
animus, and even so the witnesses did not agree. Such sentences as “It
is reported in the country round that the prior is a lewd man” were
frequent in the course of the reading, and were often the chief evidence
offered in a case.
In one of the most categorical stories, Ralph leaned forward and
interrupted.
“Forgive me, Master Layton,” he said, “but who is Master What’s-his-name
who says all this?”
The priest waved the paper in the air.
“A monk himself,” he said, “a monk himself! That is the cream of it.”
“A monk!” exclaimed Ralph.
“He was one till last year,” explained the priest.
“And then?” said the other.
“He was expelled the monastery. He knew too much, you see.”
Ralph leaned back.
* * * * *
Half an hour later there was a change in his attitude: his doubts were
almost gone; the flood of detail was too vast to be dismissed as wholly
irrelevant; his imagination was affected by the evidence from without
and his will from within, and he listened without hostility, telling
himself that he desired only truth and justice.
There were at least half a dozen stories in the mass of filthy suspicion
that the priest exultingly poured out which appeared convincing;
particularly one about which Ralph put a number of questions.
In this there was first a quantity of vague evidence gathered from the
country-folk, who were, unless Layton lied quite unrestrainedly,
convinced of the immoral life of a certain monk. The report of his sin
had penetrated ten miles from the house where he lived. There was
besides definite testimony from one of his fellows, precise and
detailed; and there was lastly a half admission from the culprit
himself. All this was worked up with great skill--suggestive epithets
were plastered over the weak spots in the evidence; clever theories put
forward to account for certain incompatibilities; and to Ralph at least
it was convincing.
He found himself growing hot with anger at the thought of the hypocrisy
of this monk’s life. Here the fellow had been living in gross sin month
after month, and all the while standing at the altar morning by morning,
and going about in the habit of a professed servant of Jesus Christ!
“But I have kept the cream till the last,” put in Dr. Layton. And he
read out a few more hideous sentences, that set Ralph’s heart heaving
with disgust.
He began now to feel the beginnings of that fury against white-washed
vice with which worldly souls are so quick to burn. He would have said
that he himself professed no holiness beyond the average, and would have
acknowledged privately at least that he was at any rate uncertain of the
whole dogmatic scheme of religion; but that he could not tolerate a man
whose whole life was on the outside confessedly devoted to both sides of
religion, faith and morals, and who claimed the world’s reverence for
himself on the score of it. He knit his forehead in a righteous fury,
and his fingers began to drum softly on his chair-arms.
Dr. Layton now began to recur to some of the first stories he had told,
and to build up their weak places; and now that Ralph was roused his
critical faculty subsided. They appeared more convincing than before in
the light of this later evidence. _Ex pede Herculem_--from the fellow
who had confessed he interpreted the guilt of those who had not. The
seed of suspicion sprang quickly in the soil that hungered for it.
This then was the fair religious system that was dispersed over England;
and this the interior life of those holy looking roofs and buildings
surmounted by the sign of the Crucified, visible in every town to point
men to God. When he saw a serene monk’s face again he would know what
kind of soul it covered; he would understand as never before how vice
could wear a mask of virtue.
The whole of that flimsy evidence that he had heard before took a new
colour; those hints and suspicions and guesses grew from shadow to
substance. Those dark spots were not casual filth dropped from above,
they were the symptoms of a deep internal infection.
As Dr. Layton went on with his tales, gathered and garnered with
devilish adroitness, and presented as convincingly as a clever brain
could do it, the black certainty fell deeper and deeper on Ralph’s soul,
and by the time that the priest chuckled for the last time that evening,
and gathered up his papers from the boards where they had fallen one by
one, he had done his work in another soul.
CHAPTER III
A HOUSE OF LADIES
They parted the next day, Dr. Layton to Waverly, where he proposed to
sleep on Saturday night, and Ralph to the convent at Rusper.
He had learnt now how the work was to be done; and he had been equipped
for it in a way that not even Dr. Layton himself suspected; for he had
been set aflame with that filth-fed fire with which so many hearts were
burning at this time. He had all the saint’s passion for purity, without
the charity of his holiness.
He had learnt too the technical details of his work--those rough methods
by which men might be coerced, and the high-sounding phrases with which
to gild the coercion. All that morning he had sat side by side with Dr.
Layton in the chapter-house, inspecting the books, comparing the
possessions of the monastery with the inventories of them, examining
witnesses as to the credibility of the lists offered, and making
searching enquiries as to whether any land or plate had been sold. After
that, when a silver relic-case had been added to Dr. Layton’s
collection, the Religious and servants and all else who cared to offer
evidence on other matters, were questioned one by one and their answers
entered in a book. Lastly, when the fees for the Visitation had been
collected, arrangements had been made, which in the Visitors’ opinion,
would be most serviceable to the carrying out of the injunctions; fresh
officials were appointed to various posts, and the Abbot himself
ordered to go up to London and present himself to Master Cromwell; but
he was furnished with a letter commending his zeal and discretion, for
the Visitors had found that he had done his duty to the buildings and
lands; and stated that they had nothing to complain of except the
poverty of the house.
“And so much for Durford,” said Layton genially, as he closed the last
book just before dinner-time, “though it had been better called
Dirtyford.” And he chuckled at his humour.
After dinner he had gone out with Ralph to see him mount; had thanked
him for his assistance, and had reminded him that they would meet again
at Lewes in the course of a month or so.
“God speed you!” he cried as the party rode off.
* * * * *
Ralph’s fury had died to a glow, but it was red within him; the reading
last night had done its work well, driven home by the shrewd conviction
of a man of the world, experienced in the ways of vice. It had not died
with the dark. He could not say that he was attracted to Dr. Layton; the
priest’s shocking familiarity with the more revolting forms of sin, as
well as his under-breeding and brutality, made him a disagreeable
character; but Ralph had very little doubt now that his judgment on the
religious houses was a right one. Even the nunneries, it seemed, were
not free from taint; there had been one or two terrible tales on the
previous evening; and Ralph was determined to spare them nothing, and at
any rate to remove his sister from their power. He remembered with
satisfaction that she was below the age specified, and that he would
have authority to dismiss her from the home.
He knew very little of Margaret; and had scarcely seen her once in two
years. He had been already out in the world before she had ceased to be
a child, and from what little he had seen of her he had thought of her
but as little more than a milk-and-water creature, very delicate and
shy, always at her prayers, or trailing about after nuns with a pale
radiant face. She had been sent to Rusper for her education, and he
never saw her except now and then when they chanced to be at home
together for a few days. She used to look at him, he remembered, with
awe-stricken eyes and parted lips, hardly daring to speak when he was in
the room, continually to be met with going from or to the tall quiet
chapel.
He had always supposed that she would be a nun, and had acquiesced in it
in a cynical sort of way; but he was going to acquiesce no longer now.
Of course she would sob, but equally of course she would not dare to
resist.
He called Morris up to him presently as they emerged from one of the
bridle paths on to a kind of lane where two could ride abreast. The
servant had seemed oddly silent that morning.
“We are going to Rusper,” said Ralph.
“Yes, sir.”
“Mistress Margaret is there.”
“Yes, sir.”
“She will come away with us. I may have to send you on to Overfield with
her. You must find a horse for her somehow.”
“Yes, sir.”
There was silence between the two for a minute or two. Mr. Morris had
answered with as much composure as if he had been told to brush a coat.
Ralph began to wonder what he really felt.
“What do you think of all this, Morris?” he asked in a moment or two.
The servant was silent, till Ralph glanced at him impatiently.
“It is not for me to have an opinion, sir,” said Mr. Morris.
Ralph gave a very short laugh.
“You haven’t heard what I have,” he said, “or you would soon have an
opinion.”
“Yes, sir,” said Morris as impassively as before.
“I tell you--” and then Ralph broke off, and rode on silent and moody.
Mr. Morris gradually let his horse fall back behind his master.
* * * * *
They began to come towards Rusper as the evening drew in, by a bridle
path that led from the west, and on arriving at the village found that
they had overshot their mark, and ought to have turned sooner. The
nunnery, a man told them, was a mile away to the south-west. Ralph made
a few enquiries, and learnt that it was a smallish house, and that it
was scarcely likely that room could be found for his party of four; so
he left Morris to make enquiries for lodgings in the village, and
himself rode on alone to the nunnery, past the church and the
timberhouses.
It was a bad road, and his tired horse had to pick his way very slowly,
so that it was nearly dark before he came to his destination, and the
pointed roofs rose before him against the faintly luminous western sky.
There were lights in one or two windows as he came up that looked warm
and homely in the chill darkness; and as he sat on his horse listening
to the jangle of the bell within, just a breath of doubtfulness touched
his heart for a moment as he thought of the peaceful home-life that lay
packed within those walls, and of the errand on which he had come.
But the memory of the tales he had heard, haunted him still; and he
spoke in a harsh voice as the shutter slid back, and a little
criss-crossed square of light appeared in the black doorway.
“I am one of the King’s Visitors,” he said. “Let my Lady Abbess know I
am here. I must speak with her.”
There was a stifled sound behind the grating; and Ralph caught a glimpse
of a pair of eyes looking at him. Then the square grew dark again. It
was a minute or two before anything further happened, and Ralph as he
sat cold and hungry on his horse, began to grow impatient. His hand was
on the twisted iron handle to ring again fiercely, when there was a step
within, and a light once more shone out.
“Who is it?” said an old woman’s voice, with a note of anxiety in it.
“I have sent word in,” said Ralph peevishly, “that I am one of the
King’s Visitors. I should be obliged if I might not be kept here all
night.”
There was a moment’s silence; the horse sighed sonorously.
“How am I to know, sir?” said the voice again.
“Because I tell you so,” snapped Ralph. “And if more is wanted, my name
is Torridon. You have a sister of mine in there.”
There was an exclamation from within; and the sound of whispering; and
then hasty footsteps went softly across the paved court inside.
The voice spoke again.
“I ask your pardon, sir; but have you any paper--or--”
Ralph snatched out a document of identification, and leaned forward
from his horse to pass it through the opening. He felt trembling fingers
take it from him; and a moment later heard returning footsteps.
There was a rustle of paper, and then a whisper within.
“Well, my dear?”
Something shifted in the bright square, and it grew gloomy as a face
pressed up against the bars. Then again it shifted and the light shone
out, and a flutter of whispers followed.
“Really, madam--” began Ralph; but there was the jingle of keys, and the
sound of panting, and almost immediately a bolt shot back, followed by
the noise of a key turning. A chorus of whispers broke out and a scurry
of footsteps, and then the door opened inwards and a little old woman
stood there in a black habit, her face swathed in white above and below.
The others had vanished.
“I am very sorry, Mr. Torridon, to have kept you at the door; but we
have to be very careful. Will you bring your horse in, sir?”
Ralph was a little abashed by the sudden development of the situation,
and explained that he had only come to announce his arrival; he had
supposed that there would not be room at the nunnery.
“But we have a little guest-house here,” announced the old lady with a
dignified air, “and room for your horse.”
Ralph hesitated; but he was tired and hungry.
“Come in, Mr. Torridon. You had better dismount and lead your horse in.
Sister Anne will see to it.”
“Well, if you are sure--” began Ralph again, slipping a foot out of the
stirrup.
“I am sure,” said the Abbess; and stood aside for him and his beast to
pass.
There was a little court, lighted by a single lamp burning within a
window, with the nunnery itself on one side, and a small cottage on the
other. Beyond the latter rose the roofs of an outhouse.
As Ralph came in, the door from the nunnery opened again, and a lay
sister came out hastily; she moved straight across and took the horse by
the bridle.
“Give him a good meal, sister,” said the Abbess; and went past Ralph to
the door of the guest-house.
“Come in, Mr. Torridon; there will be lights immediately.”
* * * * *
In half an hour Ralph found himself at supper in the guest-parlour; a
bright fire crackled on the hearth, a couple of candles burned on the
table, and a pair of old darned green curtains hung across the low
window.
The Abbess came in when he had finished, dismissed the lay-sister who
had waited on him, and sat down herself.
“You shall see your sister to-morrow, Mr. Torridon,” she said, “it is a
little late now. I have sent the boy up to the village for your servant;
he can sleep in this room if you wish. I fear we have no room for more.”
Ralph watched her as she talked. She was very old, with hanging cheeks,
and solemn little short-sighted eyes, for she peered at him now and
again across the candles. Her upper lip was covered with a slight growth
of dark hair. She seemed strangely harmless; and Ralph had another prick
of compunction as he thought of the news he had to give her on the
morrow. He wondered how much she knew.
“We are so glad it is you, Mr. Torridon, that have come to visit us. We
feared it might be Dr. Layton; we have heard sad stories of him.”
Ralph hardened his heart.
“He has only done his duty, Reverend Mother,” he said.
“Oh! but you cannot have heard,” exclaimed the old lady. “He has robbed
several of our houses we hear--even the altar itself. And he has turned
away some of our nuns.”
Ralph was silent; he thought he would at least leave the old lady in
peace for this last night. She seemed to want no answer; but went on
expatiating on the horrors that were happening round them, the wicked
accusations brought against the Religious, and the Divine vengeance that
would surely fall on those who were responsible.
Finally she turned and questioned him, with a mingling of deference and
dignity.
“What do you wish from us, Mr. Torridon? You must tell me, that I may
see that everything is in order.”
Ralph was secretly amused by her air of innocent assurance.
“That is my business, Reverend Mother. I must ask for all the books of
the house, with the account of any sales you may have effected, properly
recorded. I must have a list of the inmates of the house, with a
statement of any corrodies attached; and the names and ages and dates of
profession of all the Religious.”
The Abbess blinked for a moment.
“Yes, Mr. Torridon. You will allow me of course to see all your papers
to-morrow; it is necessary for me to be certified that all your part is
in order.”
Ralph smiled a little grimly.
“You shall see all that,” he said. “And then there is more that I must
ask; but that will do for a beginning. When I have shown you my papers
you will see what it is that I want.”
There was a peal at the bell outside; the Abbess turned her head and
waited till there was a noise of bolts and unlocking.
“That will be your man, sir. Will you have him in now, Mr. Torridon?”
Ralph assented.
“And then he must look at the horses to see that all is as you wish.”
Mr. Morris came in a moment later, and bowed with great deference to the
little old lady, who enquired his name.
“When you have finished with your man, Mr. Torridon, perhaps you will
allow him to ring for me at the door opposite. I will go with him to see
the horses.”
Mr. Morris had brought with him the mass of his master’s papers, and
when he had set these out and prepared the bedroom that opened out of
the guest-parlour, he asked leave to go across and fetch the Abbess.
Ralph busied himself for half-an-hour or so in running over the Articles
and Injunctions once more, and satisfying himself that he was perfect in
his business; and he was just beginning to wonder why his servant had
not reappeared when the door opened once more, and Mr. Morris slipped
in.
“My horse is a little lame, sir,” he said. “I have been putting on a
poultice.”
Ralph glanced up.
“He will be fit to travel, I suppose?”
“In a day or two, Mr. Ralph.”
“Well; that will do. We shall be here till Monday at least.”
* * * * *
Ralph could not sleep very well that night. The thought of his business
troubled him a little. It would have been easier if the Abbess had been
either more submissive or more defiant; but her air of mingled courtesy
and dignity affected him. Her innocence too had something touching in
it, and her apparent ignorance of what his visit meant. He had supped
excellently at her expense, waited on by a cheerful sister, and well
served from the kitchen and cellar; and the Reverend Mother herself had
come in and talked sensibly and bravely. He pictured to himself what
life must be like through the nunnery wall opposite--how brisk and
punctual it must be, and at the same time homely and caressing.
And it was his hand that was to pull down the first prop. There would no
doubt be three or four nuns below age who must be dismissed, and
probably there would be a few treasures to be carried off, a
processional crucifix perhaps, such as he had seen in Dr. Layton’s
collection, and a rich chalice or two, used on great days. His own
sister too must be one of those who must go. How would the little old
Abbess behave herself then? What would she say? Yet he comforted
himself, as he lay there in the clean, low-ceilinged room, staring at
the tiny crockery stoup gleaming against the door-post, by recollecting
the principle on which he had come. Possibly a few innocents would have
to suffer, a few old hearts be broken; but it was for a man to take such
things in his day’s work.
And then as he remembered Dr. Layton’s tales, his heart grew hot and
hard again.
CHAPTER IV
AN UNEXPECTED MEETING
The enquiry was to be made in the guest-parlour on the next morning.
* * * * *
Ralph went to mass first at nine o’clock, which was said by a priest
from the parish church who acted as chaplain to the convent; and had a
chair set for him outside the nuns’ choir from which he could see the
altar and the tall pointed window; and then, after some refreshment in
the guest-parlour, spread out his papers, and sat enthroned behind a
couple of tables, as at a tribunal. Mr. Morris stood deferentially by
his chair as the examination was conducted.
Ralph was a little taken aback by the bearing of the Abbess. In the
course of the enquiry, when he was perplexed by one or two of the
records, she rose from her chair before the table, and came round to his
side, drawing up a seat as she did so; Ralph could hardly tell her to go
back, but his magisterial air was a little affected by having one whom
he almost considered as a culprit sitting judicially beside him.
“It is better for me to be here,” she said. “I can explain more easily
so.”
* * * * *
There was a little orchard that the nuns had sold in the previous year;
and Ralph asked for an explanation.
“It came from the Kingsford family,” she said serenely; “it was useless
to us.”
“But--” began the inquisitor.
“We needed some new vestments,” she went on. “You will understand, Mr.
Torridon, that it was necessary for us to sell it. We are not rich
at all.”
There was nothing else that called for comment; except the manner in
which the books were kept. Ralph suggested some other method.
“Dame Agnes has her own ways,” said the old lady. “We must not disturb
her.”
And Dame Agnes assumed a profound and financial air on the other side of
the table.
Presently Ralph put a mark in the inventory against a “cope of gold
bawdekin,” and requested that it might be brought.
The sister-sacristan rose at a word from the Abbess and went out,
returning presently with the vestment. She unfolded the coverings and
spread it out on the table before Ralph.
It was a magnificent piece of work, of shimmering gold, with orphreys
embroidered with arms; and she stroked out its folds with obvious pride.
“These are Warham’s arms,” observed the Abbess. “You know them, Mr.
Torridon? We worked these the month before his death.”
Ralph nodded briskly.
“Will you kindly leave it here, Reverend Mother,” he said. “I wish to
see it again presently.”
The Abbess gave no hint of discomposure, but signed to the sacristan to
place it over a chair at one side.
There were a couple of other things that Ralph presently caused to be
fetched and laid aside--a precious mitre with a couple of cameos in
front, and bordered with emeralds, and a censer with silver filigree
work.
Then came a more difficult business.
“I wish to see the nuns one by one, Reverend Mother,” he said. “I must
ask you to withdraw.”
The Abbess gave him a quick look, and then rose.
“Very well, sir, I will send them in.” And she went out with Mr. Morris
behind her.
They came in one by one, and sat down before the table, with downcast
eyes, and hands hidden beneath their scapulars; and all told the same
tale, except one. They had nothing to complain of; they were happy; the
Rule was carefully observed; there were no scandals to be revealed; they
asked nothing but to be left in peace. But there was one who came in
nervously and anxiously towards the end, a woman with quick black eyes,
who glanced up and down and at the door as she sat down. Ralph put the
usual questions.
“I wish to be released, sir,” she said. “I am weary of the life, and
the--” she stopped and glanced swiftly up again at the commissioner.
“Well?” said Ralph.
“The papistical ways,” she said.
Ralph felt a sudden distrust of the woman; but he hardened his heart. He
set a mark opposite her name; she had been professed ten years, he saw
by the list.
“Very well,” he said; “I will tell my Lady Abbess.” She still hesitated
a moment.
“There will be a provision for me?” she asked
“There will be a provision,” said Ralph a little grimly. He was
authorised to offer in such cases a secular dress and a sum of five
shillings.
Lastly came in Margaret herself.
Ralph hardly knew her. He had been unable to distinguish her at mass,
and even now as she faced him in her black habit and white head-dress it
was hard to be certain of her identity. But memory and sight were
gradually reconciled; he remembered her delicate eyebrows and thin
straight lips; and when she spoke he knew her voice.
They talked a minute or two about their home; but Ralph did not dare to
say too much, considering what he had yet to say.
“I must ask you the questions,” he said at last, smiling at her.
She looked up at him nervously, and dropped her eyes once more.
She nodded or shook her head in silence at each enquiry, until at last
one bearing upon the morals of the house came up; then she looked
swiftly up once more, and Ralph saw that her grey eyes were terrified.
“You must tell me,” he said; and put the question again.
“I do not know what you mean,” she answered, staring at him bewildered.
Ralph went on immediately to the next.
At last he reached the crisis.
“Margaret,” he said, “I have something to tell you.” He stopped and
began to play with his pen. He had seldom felt so embarrassed as now in
the presence of this shy sister of his of whom he knew so little. He
could not look at her.
“Margaret, you know, you--you are under age. The King’s Grace has
ordered that all under twenty years of age are to leave their convents.”
There was a dead silence.
Ralph was enraged with his own weakness. He had begun the morning’s work
with such determination; but the strange sweet atmosphere of the house,
the file of women coming in one by one with their air of innocence and
defencelessness had affected him. In spite of himself his religious side
had asserted itself, and he found himself almost tremulous now.
He made a great effort at self-repression, and looked up with hard
bright eyes at his sister.
“There must be no crying or rebellion,” he said. “You must come with me
to-morrow. I shall send you to Overfield.”
Still Margaret said nothing. She was staring at him now, white-faced
with parted lips.
“You are the last?” he said with a touch of harshness, standing up with
his hands on the table. “Tell the Reverend Mother I have done.”
Then she rose too.
“Ralph,” she cried, “my brother! For Jesu’s sake--”
“Tell the Reverend Mother,” he said again, his eyes hard with decision.
She turned and went out without a word.
* * * * *
Ralph found the interview with the Abbess even more difficult than he
had expected.
Once her face twitched with tears; but she drove them back bravely and
faced him again.
“Do you mean to tell me, Mr. Torridon, that you intend to take your
sister away?”
Ralph bowed.
“And that Dame Martha has asked to be released?”
Again he bowed.
“Are you not afraid, sir, to do such work?”
Ralph smiled bitterly.
“I am not, Reverend Mother,” he said. “I know too much.”
“From whom?”
“Oh! not from your nuns,” he said sharply, “they of course know nothing,
or at least will tell me nothing. It was from Dr. Layton.”
“And what did Dr. Layton tell you?”
“I can hardly tell you that, Reverend Mother; it is not fit for your
ears.”
She looked at him steadily.
“And you believe it?”
Ralph smiled.
“That makes no difference,” he said. “I am acting by his Grace’s
orders.”
There was silence for a moment.
“Then may our Lord have mercy on you!” she said.
She turned to where the gold cope gleamed over the chair, with the mitre
and censer lying on its folds.
“And those too?” she asked.
“Those too,” said Ralph.
She turned towards the door without a word.
“There are the fees as well,” remarked Ralph. “We can arrange those this
evening, Reverend Mother.”
The little stiff figure turned and waited at the door. “And at what time
will you dine, sir?”
“Immediately,” said Ralph.
* * * * *
He was served at dinner with the same courtesy as before; but the lay
sister’s eyes were red, and her hands shook as she shifted the plates.
Neither spoke a word till towards the end of the meal.
“Where is my man?” asked Ralph, who had not seen him since he had gone
out with the Abbess a couple of hours before.
The sister shook her head.
“Where is the Reverend Mother?”
Again she shook her head.
Ralph enquired the hour of Vespers, and when he had learnt it, took his
cap and went out to look for Mr. Morris. He went first to the little
dark outhouse, and peered in over the bottom half of the door, but there
was no sign of him there. He could see a horse standing in a stall
opposite, and tried to make out the second horse that he knew was there;
but it was too dark, and he turned away.
It was a warm October afternoon as he went out through the gatehouse,
still and bright, with the mellow smell of dying leaves in the air; the
fields stretched away beyond the road into the blue distance as he went
along, and were backed by the thinning woods, still ruddy with the last
flames of autumn. Overhead the blue sky, washed with recent rains,
arched itself in a great transparent vault, and a stream of birds
crossed it from east to west.
He went round the corner of the convent buildings and turned up into a
meadow beside a thick privet hedge that divided it from the garden, and
as he moved along he heard a low humming noise sounding from the other
side.
There was a door in the hedge at the point, and at either side the
growth was a little thin, and he could look through without being
himself seen.
The grass was trim and smooth inside; there was a mass of autumn
flowers, grown no doubt for the altar, running in a broad bed across the
nearer side of the garden, and beyond it rose a grey dial, round which
sat a circle of nuns.
Ralph pressed his face to the hedge and watched.
There they were, each with her wheel before her, spinning in silence.
The Abbess sat in the centre, immediately below the dial, with a book in
her hand, and was turning the pages.
He could see a nun’s face steadily bent on her wheel--that was Dame
Agnes who had fetched the cope for him in the morning. She seemed
perfectly quiet and unaffected, watching her thread, and putting out a
deft hand now and again to the machinery. Beside her sat another, whose
face he remembered well; she had stammered a little as she gave her
answers in the morning, and even as he looked the face twitched
suddenly, and broke into tears. He saw the Abbess turn from her book and
lay her hand, with a kind of tender decision on the nun’s arm, and saw
her lips move, but the hum and rattle of the spinning-wheels was too
loud to let him hear what she said; he saw now the other nun lift her
face again from her hands, and wink away her tears as she laid hold of
the thread once more.
* * * * *
Ralph had a strange struggle with himself that afternoon as he walked on
in the pleasant autumn weather through meadow and copse. The sight of
the patient women had touched him profoundly. Surely it was almost too
much to ask him to turn away his own sister from the place she loved! If
he relented, it was certain that no other Visitor would come that way
for the present; she might at least have another year or two of peace.
Was it too late?
He reminded himself again how such things were bound to happen; how
every change, however beneficial, must bring sorrow with it, and that to
turn back on such work because a few women suffered was not worthy of a
man. It was long before he could come to any decision, and the evening
was drawing on, and the time for Vespers come and gone before he turned
at last into the village to enquire for his servant.
The other men had seen nothing of Mr. Morris that day; he had not been
back to the village.
A group or two stared awefully at the fine gentleman with the strong
face and steady intolerant eyes, as he strode down the tiny street in
his rich dress, swinging his long silver-headed cane. They had learnt
who he was now, but were so overcome by seeing the King’s Commissioner
that they forgot to salute him. As he turned the corner again he looked
round once more, and there they were still watching him. A few women had
come to the doors as well, and dropped their arched hands hastily and
disappeared as he turned.
The convent seemed all as he had left it earlier in the afternoon, as he
came in sight of it again. The high chapel roof rose clear against the
reddening sky, with the bell framed in its turret distinct as if carved
out of cardboard against the splendour.
He was admitted instantly when he rang on the bell, but the portress
seemed to look at him with a strange air of expectancy, and stood
looking after him as he went across the paved court to the door of the
guest-house.
There was a murmur of voices in the parlour as he paused in the entry,
and he wondered who was within, but as his foot rang out the sound
ceased.
He opened the door and went in; and then stopped bewildered.
In the dim light that passed through the window stood his father and
Mary Maxwell, his sister.
CHAPTER V
FATHER AND SON
None of the three spoke for a moment.
Then Mary drew her breath sharply as she saw Ralph’s face, for it had
hardened during that moment into a kind of blind obstinacy which she had
only seen once or twice in her life before.
As he stood there he seemed to stiffen into resistance. His eyelids
drooped, and little lines showed themselves suddenly at either side of
his thin mouth. His father saw it too, for the hand that he had lifted
entreatingly sank again, and his voice was tremulous as he spoke.
“Ralph--Ralph, my son!” he said.
Still the man said nothing; but stood frozen, his face half-turned to
the windows.
“Ralph, my son,” said the other again, “you know why we have come.”
“You have come to hinder my business.”
His voice was thin and metallic, as rigid as steel.
“We have come to hinder a great sin against God,” said Sir James.
Ralph opened his eyes wide with a sort of fury, and thrust his chin out.
“She should pack a thousand times more now than before,” he said.
The father’s face too deepened into strength now, and he drew himself
up.
“Do you know what you are doing?” he said.
“I do, sir.”
There was an extraordinary insolence in his voice, and Mary took a step
forward.
“Oh! Ralph,” she said, “at least do it like a gentleman!”
Ralph turned on her sharply, and the obstinacy vanished in anger.
“I will not be pushed like this,” he snarled. “What right is it of yours
to come between me and my work?”
Sir James made a quick imperious gesture, and his air of entreaty fell
from him like a cloak.
“Sit down, sir,” he said, and his voice rang strongly. “We have a right
in Margaret’s affairs. We will say what we wish.”
Mary glanced at him: she had never seen her father like this before as
he stood in three quarter profile, rigid with decision. When she looked
at Ralph again, his face had tightened once more into obstinacy. He
answered Sir James with a kind of silky deference.
“Of course, I will sit down, sir, and you shall say what you will.”
He went across the room and drew out a couple of chairs before the cold
hearth where the white ashes and logs of last night’s fire still rested.
Sir James sat down with his back to the window so that Mary could not
see his face, and Ralph stood by the other chair a moment, facing her.
“Sit down, Mary,” he said. “Wait, I will have candles.”
He stepped back to the door and called to the portress, and then
returned, and seated himself deliberately, setting his cane in the
corner beside him.
None of the three spoke again until the nun had come in with a couple of
candles that she set in the stands and lighted; then she went out
without glancing at anyone. Mary was sitting in the window seat, so the
curtains remained undrawn, and there was a mystical compound of twilight
and candle-light in the room.
She had a flash of metaphor, and saw in it the meeting of the old and
new religions; the type of these two men, of whom the light of one was
fading, and the other waxing. The candlelight fell full on Ralph’s face
that stood out against the whitewashed wall behind.
Then she listened and watched with an intent interest.
* * * * *
“It is this,” said Sir James, “we heard you were here--”
Ralph smiled with one side of his mouth, so that his father could see
it.
“I do not wish to do anything I should not,” went on the old man, “or to
meddle in his Grace’s matters--”
“And you wish me not to meddle either, sir,” put in Ralph.
“Yes,” said his father. “I am very willing to receive you and your wife
at home; to make any suitable provision; to give you half the house if
you wish for it; if you will only give up this accursed work.”
He was speaking with a tranquil deliberation; all the emotion and
passion seemed to have left his voice; but Mary, from behind, could see
his right hand clenched like a vice upon the knob of his chair-arm. It
seemed to her as if the two men had suddenly frozen into
self-repression. Their air was one of two acquaintances talking, not of
father and son.
“And if not, sir?” asked Ralph with the same courtesy.
“Wait,” said his father, and he lifted his hand a moment and dropped it
again. He was speaking in short, sharp sentences. “I know that you have
great things before you, and that I am asking much from you. I do not
wish you to think that I am ignorant of that. If nothing else will do I
am willing to give up the house altogether to you and your wife. I do
not know about your mother.”
Mary drew her breath hard. The words were like an explosion in her soul,
and opened up unsuspected gulfs. Things must be desperate if her father
could speak like that. He had not hinted a word of this during that
silent strenuous ride they had had together when he had called for her
suddenly at Great Keynes earlier in the afternoon. She saw Ralph give a
quick stare at his father, and drop his eyes again.
“You are very generous, sir,” he said almost immediately, “but I do not
ask for a bribe.”
“You--you are unlike your master in that, then,” said Sir James by an
irresistible impulse.
Ralph’s face stiffened yet more.
“Then that is all, sir?” he asked.
“I beg your pardon for saying that,” added his father courteously. “It
should not have been said. It is not a bribe, however; it is an offer to
compensate for any loss you may incur.”
“Have you finished, sir?”
“That is all I have to say on that point,” said Sir James, “except--”
“Well, sir?”
“Except that I do not know how Mistress Atherton will take this story.”
Ralph’s face grew a shade paler yet. But his lips snapped together,
though his eyes flinched.
“That is a threat, sir.”
“That is as you please.”
A little pulse beat sharply in Ralph’s cheek. He was looking with a
kind of steady fury at his father. But Mary thought she saw indecision
too in his eye-lids, which were quivering almost imperceptibly.
“You have offered me a bribe and a threat, sir. Two insults. Have you a
third ready?”
Mary heard a swift-drawn breath from her father, but he spoke quietly.
“I have no more to say on that point,” he said.
“Then I must refuse,” said Ralph instantly. “I see no reason to give up
my work. I have very hearty sympathy with it.”
The old man’s hand twitched uncontrollably on his chair-arm for a
moment; he half lifted his hand, but he dropped it again.
“Then as to Margaret,” he went on in a moment. “I understand you had
intended to dismiss her from the convent?”
Ralph bowed.
“And where do you suggest that she should go?”
“She must go home,” said Ralph.
“To Overfield?”
Ralph assented.
“Then I will not receive her,” said Sir James.
Mary started up.
“Nor will Mary receive her,” he added, half turning towards her.
Mary Maxwell sat back at once. She thought she understood what he meant
now.
Ralph stared at his father a moment before he too understood. Then he
saw the point, and riposted deftly. He shrugged his shoulders
ostentatiously as if to shake off responsibility.
“Well, then, that is not my business; I shall give her a gown and five
shillings to-morrow, with the other one.”
The extraordinary brutality of the words struck Mary like a whip, but
Sir James met it.
“That is for you to settle then,” he said. “Only you need not send her
to Overfield or Great Keynes, for she will be sent back here at once.”
Ralph smiled with an air of tolerant incredulity. Sir James rose
briskly.
“Come, Mary,” he said, and turned his back abruptly on Ralph, “we must
find lodgings for to-night. The good nuns will not have room.”
As Mary looked at his face in the candlelight she was astonished by its
decision; there was not the smallest hint of yielding. It was very pale
but absolutely determined, and for the last time in her life she noticed
how like it was to Ralph’s. The line of the lips was identical, and his
eyelids drooped now like his son’s.
Ralph too rose and then on a sudden she saw the resolute obstinacy fade
from his eyes and mouth. It was as if the spirit of one man had passed
into the other.
“Father--” he said.
She expected a rush of emotion into the old man’s face, but there was
not a ripple. He paused a moment, but Ralph was silent.
“I have no more to say to you, sir. And I beg that you will not come
home again.”
As they passed out into the entrance passage she turned again and saw
Ralph dazed and trembling at the table. Then they were out in the road
through the open gate and a long moan broke from her father.
“Oh! God forgive me,” he said, “have I failed?”
CHAPTER VI
A NUN’S DEFIANCE
It was a very strange evening that Mary and her father passed in the
little upstairs room looking on to the street at Rusper.
Sir James had hardly spoken, and after supper had sat near the window,
with a curious alertness in his face. Mary knew that Chris was expected,
and that Mr. Morris had ridden on to fetch him after he had called at
Overfield, but from her short interview with Margaret she had seen that
his presence would not be required. The young nun, though bewildered and
stunned by the news that she must go, had not wavered for a moment as
regards her intention to follow out her Religious vocation in some
manner; and it was to confirm her in it, in case she hesitated, that Sir
James had sent on the servant to fetch Chris.
It was all like a dreadful dream to Mary.
She had gone out from dinner at her own house into the pleasant October
sunshine with her cheerful husband beside her, when her father had come
out through the house with his riding-whip in his hand; and in a few
seconds she had found herself plunged into new and passionate relations,
first with him, for she had never seen him so stirred, and then with her
brothers and sister. Ralph, that dignified man of affairs, suddenly
stepped into her mind as a formidable enemy of God and man; Chris
appeared as a spiritual power, and the quiet Margaret as the very centre
of the sudden storm.
She sat here now by the fire, shading her face with her hand and
watching that familiar face set in hard and undreamed lines of passion
and resolution and expectancy.
Once as footsteps came up the street he had started up and sat down
trembling.
She waited till the steps went past, and then spoke.
“Chris will be riding, father.”
He nodded abruptly, and she saw by his manner that it was not Chris he
was expecting. She understood then that he still had hopes of his other
son, but they sat on into the night in the deep stillness, till the fire
burned low and red, and the stars she had seen at the horizon wheeled up
and out of sight above the window-frame.
Then he suddenly turned to her.
“You must go to bed, Mary,” he said. “I will wait for Chris.”
She lay long awake in the tiny cupboard-room that the labourer and his
wife had given up to her, hearing the horses stamp in the cold shed at
the back of the house, and the faces moved and turned like the colours
of a kaleidoscope. Now her father’s eyes and mouth hung like a mask
before her, with that terrible look that had been on them as he faced
Ralph at the end; now Ralph’s own face, defiant, icy, melting in turns;
now Margaret’s with wide terrified eyes, as she had seen it in the
parlour that afternoon; now her own husband’s. And the sweet autumn
woods and meadows lay before her as she had seen them during that silent
ride; the convent, the village, her own home with its square windows and
yew hedge--a hundred images.
* * * * *
There was a talking when she awoke for the last time and through the
crazy door glimmered a crack of grey dawn, and as she listened she knew
that Chris was come.
It was a strange meeting when she came out a few minutes later. There
was the monk, unshaven and pale under the eyes, with his thinned face
that gave no smile as she came in; her father desperately white and
resolved; Mr. Morris, spruce and grave as usual sitting with his hat
between his knees behind the others;--he rose deferentially as she came
in and remained standing.
Her father began abruptly as she appeared.
“He can do nothing,” he said, “he can but turn her on to the road. And I
do not think he will dare.”
“Ah! Beatrice Atherton?” questioned Mary, who had a clearer view of the
situation now.
“Yes--Beatrice Atherton. He fears that we shall tell her. He cannot send
Margaret to Overfield or Great Keynes now.”
“And if he turns her out after all?”
Sir James looked at her keenly.
“We must leave the rest to God,” he said.
The village was well awake by the time that they had finished their talk
and had had something to eat. The drama at the convent had leaked out
through the boy who served the altar there, and a little group was
assembled opposite the windows of the cottage to which the monk had been
seen to ride up an hour or two before. It seemed strange that no priest
had been near them, but it was fairly evident that the terror was too
great.
As the four came out on to the road, a clerical cap peeped for a moment
from the churchyard wall and disappeared again.
They went down towards the convent along the grey road, in the pale
autumn morning air. Mary still seemed to herself to walk in a dream,
with her father and brother on either side masquerading in strange
character; the familiar atmosphere had been swept from them, the
background of association was gone, and they moved now in a new scene
with new parts to play that were bringing out powers which she had never
suspected in them. It seemed as if their essential souls had been laid
bare by a catastrophe, and that she had never known them before.
For herself, she felt helpless and dazed; her own independence seemed
gone, and she was aware that her soul was leaning on those of the two
who walked beside her, and who were masculine and capable beyond all her
previous knowledge of them.
Behind she heard a murmur of voices and footsteps of three or four
villagers who followed to see what would happen.
She had no idea of what her father meant to do; it was incredible that
he should leave Margaret in the road with her gown and five shillings;
but it was yet more incredible that all his threats should be idle. Only
one thing emerged clearly, that he had thrown a heavier responsibility
upon Ralph than the latter had foreseen. Perhaps the rest must indeed be
left to God. She did not even know what he meant to do now, whether to
make one last effort with Ralph, or to leave him to himself; and she had
not dared to ask.
They passed straight down together in silence to the convent-gate; and
were admitted immediately by the portress whose face was convulsed and
swollen.
“They are to go,” she sobbed.
Sir James made a gesture, and passed in to the tiny lodge on the left
where the portress usually sat; Chris and Mary followed him in, and Mr.
Morris went across to the guest-house.
The bell sounded out overhead for mass as they sat there in the dim
morning light, twenty or thirty strokes, and ceased; but there was no
movement from the little door of the guest-house across the court. The
portress had disappeared through the second door that led from the tiny
room in which they sat, into the precincts of the convent itself.
Mary looked distractedly round her; at the little hatch that gave on to
the entrance gate, and the chain hanging by it that communicated with
one of the bolts, at the little crucifix that hung beside it, the
devotional book that lay on the shelf, the door into the convent with
the title “_Clausura_” inscribed above it. She glanced at her father and
brother.
Sir James was sitting with his grey head in his hands, motionless and
soundless; Chris was standing upright and rigid, staring steadily out
through the window into the court.
Then through the window she too saw Mr. Morris come out from the
guest-house and pass along to the stable.
Again there was silence.
The minutes went by, and the Saunce bell sounded three strokes from the
turret. Chris sank on to his knees, and a moment later Mary and her
father followed his example, and so the three remained in the dark
silent lodge, with no sound but their breathing, and once a sharp
whispered word of prayer from the old man.
As the sacring bell sounded there was a sudden noise in the court, and
Mary lifted her head.
From where she knelt she could see the two doors across the court, those
of the guest-house and the stable beyond, and simultaneously, out of the
one came Ralph, gloved and booted, with his cap on his head, and Mr.
Morris leading his horse out of the other.
The servant lifted his cap at the sound of the bell, and dropped on to
his knees, still holding the bridle; his master stood as he was, and
looked at him. Mary could only see the latter’s profile, but even that
was scornful and hard.
Again the bell sounded; the mystery was done; and the servant stood up.
As her father and Chris rose, Mary rose with them; and the three
remained in complete silence, watching the little scene in the court.
Ralph made a sign; and the servant attached the bridle of the horse to a
ring beside the stable-door, and went past his master into the
guest-house with a deferential stoop of the shoulders. Ralph stood a
moment longer, and then followed him in.
Then again the minutes went by.
There was a sound of horse-hoofs on the road presently, and of talking
that grew louder. The hoofs ceased; there was a sharp peal on the bell;
and the talking began again.
Chris glanced across at his father; but the old man shook his head; and
the three remained as they were, watching and listening. As the bell
rang out again impatiently, the door behind opened, and the portress
came swiftly through, followed by the Abbess.
“Come quickly,” the old lady whispered. “Sister Susan is going to let
them in.”
She stood aside, and made a motion to them to come through, and a moment
late the four were in the convent, and the door was shut behind them.
“They are Mr. Torridon’s men,” whispered the Abbess, her eyes round with
excitement; “they are come to pack the things.”
She led them on through the narrow passage, up a stone flight of stairs
to the corridor that ran over the little cloister, and pushed open the
door of a cell.
“Wait here,” she said. “You can do no more. I will go down to them. You
are in the enclosure, but I cannot help it.”
And she had whisked out again, with an air of extraordinary composure,
shutting the door behind her.
The three went across to the window, still speaking no word, and looked
down.
The tiny court seemed half full of people now. There were three horses
there, besides Ralph’s own marked by its rich saddle, and still attached
to the ring by the stable door, and a couple of men were busy loading
one of them with bundles. From one of these, which was badly packed, a
shimmering corner of gold cloth projected.
Ralph was standing by the door of the guest-house watching, and making a
sign now and again with his whip. They could not see his face as he
stood so directly below them, only his rich cap and feather, and his
strong figure beneath. Mr. Morris was waiting now by his master’s horse;
the portress was by her door.
As they looked the little black and white figure of the Abbess came out
beneath them, and stood by the portress.
The packing went on in silence. It was terrible to Mary to stand there
and watch the dumb-show tragedy, the wrecking and robbing of this
peaceful house; and yet there was nothing to be done. She knew that the
issues were in stronger hands than hers; she glanced piteously at her
father and brother on either side, but their faces were set and white,
and they did not turn at her movement.
There was the sound of an opening door, and two women came out from the
convent at one side and stood waiting. One was in secular dress; the
other was still in her habit, but carried a long dark mantle across her
arm, and Mary caught her breath and bit her lip fiercely as she
recognised the second to be her sister.
She felt she must cry out, and denounce the sacrilege, and made an
instinctive movement nearer the window, but in a moment her father’s
hand was on her arm.
“Be still, Mary: it is all well.”
One of the horses was being led away by now through the open door; and
the two others followed almost immediately; but the principal actors
were still in their places; the Abbess and the portress together on this
side; Ralph on that; and the two other women, a little apart from one
another, at the further end of the court.
Then Ralph beckoned abruptly with his whip, and Mary saw her sister move
out towards the gate; she caught a glance of her face, and saw that her
lips were white and trembling, and her eyes full of agony. The other
woman followed briskly, and the two disappeared through to the road
outside.
Again Ralph beckoned, and Mr. Morris brought up the horse that he had
now detached from the ring, and stood by its head, holding the
off-stirrup for his master to mount. Ralph gathered the reins into his
left hand, and for a moment they saw his face across the back of the
horse fierce and white; then he was up, and settling his right foot into
the stirrup.
Mr. Morris let go, and stood back; and simultaneously Ralph struck him
with his riding-whip across the face, a furious back-handed slash.
Mary cried out uncontrollably and shrank back; and a moment later her
father was leaning from the window, and she beside him.
“You damned coward!” he shouted. “Morris, you are my servant now.”
Ralph did not turn his head an inch, and a moment later disappeared on
horse-back through the gate, and the portress had closed it behind him.
The little court was silent now, and empty except for the Abbess’
motionless figure behind, with Mr. Morris beside her, and the lay sister
by the gate, her hand still on the key that she had turned, and her eyes
intent and expectant fixed on her superior. Mr. Morris lifted a
handkerchief now and again gently to his face, and Mary as she leaned
half sobbing from above saw that there were spots of crimson on the
white.
“Oh! Morris!” she whispered.
The servant looked up, with a great weal across one cheek, and bowed a
little, but he could not speak yet. Outside they could hear the jingle
of bridle-chains; and then a voice begin; but they could not distinguish
the words.
It was Ralph speaking; but they could only guess what it was that he was
saying. Overhead the autumn sky was a vault of pale blue; and a bird or
two chirped briskly from the roof opposite.
The voice outside grew louder, and ceased, and the noise of horse hoofs
broke out.
Still there was no movement from any within. The Abbess was standing now
with one hand uplifted as if for silence, and Mary heard the hoofs sound
fainter up the road; they grew louder again as they reached higher
ground; and then ceased altogether.
The old man touched Mary on the arm, and the three went out along the
little corridor, and down the stone stairs.
As they passed through the lodge and came into the court Mary saw that
the Abbess had moved from her place, and was standing with the portress
close by the gate; her face was towards them, a little on one side, and
she seemed to be listening intently, her ear against the door, her lower
lip sucked in, and her eyes bright and vacant; she still held one hand
up for silence.
Then there came a tiny tapping on the wood-work, and she instantly
turned and snatched at the key, and a moment later the door was wide.
“Come in, my poor child,” she said.
CHAPTER VII
ST PANCRAS PRIORY
It was a little more than a month later that Ralph met his
fellow-Visitor at Lewes Priory.
He had left Rusper in a storm of angry obstinacy, compelled by sheer
pride to do what he had not intended. The arrival of his father and Mary
there had had exactly the opposite effect to that which they hoped, and
Ralph had turned Margaret out of the convent simply because he could not
bear that they should think that he could be frightened from his
purpose.
As he had ridden off on that October morning, leaving Margaret standing
outside with her cloak over her arm he had had a very sharp suspicion
that she would be received back again; but he had not felt himself
strong enough to take any further steps; so he contented himself with
sending in his report to Dr. Layton, knowing well that heavy punishment
would fall on the convent if it was discovered that the Abbess had
disobeyed the Visitors’ injunctions.
Then for a month or so he had ridden about the county, carrying off
spoils, appointing new officials, and doing the other duties assigned to
him; he was offered bribes again and again by superiors of Religious
Houses, but unlike his fellow-Visitors always refused them, and fell the
more hardly on those that offered them; he turned out numbers of young
Religious and released elder ones who desired it, and by the time that
he reached Lewes was fairly practised in the duties of his position.
But the thought of the consequences of his action with regard to his
future seldom left him. He had alienated his family, and perhaps
Beatrice. As he rode once through Cuckfield, and caught a glimpse of the
woods above Overfield, glorious in their autumn livery, he wondered
whether he would ever find himself at home there again. It was a good
deal to give up; but he comforted himself with the thought of his own
career, and with the pleasant prospect of possessing some such house in
his own right when the work that he now understood had been
accomplished, and the monastic buildings were empty of occupants.
He had received one letter, to his surprise, from his mother; that was
brought to him by a messenger in one of the houses where he stayed. It
informed him that he had the writer’s approval, and that she was
thankful to have one son at least who was a man, and described further
how his father and Mary had come back, and without Margaret, and that
she supposed that the Abbess of Rusper had taken her back.
“Go on, my son,” she ended, “it will be all well. You cannot come home,
I know, while your father is in his present mind; but it is a dull place
and you lose nothing. When you are married it will be different. Mr.
Carleton is very tiresome, but it does not matter.”
Ralph smiled to himself as he thought of the life that must now be
proceeding at his home.
He had written once to Beatrice, in a rather tentative tone, assuring
her that he was doing his best to be just and merciful, and professing
to take it for granted that she knew how to discount any exaggerated
stories of the Visitors’ doings that might come to her ears. But he had
received no answer, and indeed had told her that he did not expect one,
for he was continually on the move and could give no fixed address.
As he came up over the downs above Lewes he was conscious of a keen
excitement; this would be the biggest work he had undertaken, and it had
the additional zest of being a means of annoying his brother who had
provoked him so often. Since his quarrel with Chris in his own rooms in
the summer he had retained an angry contempt towards him. Chris had been
insolent and theatrical, he told himself, and had thrown off all claims
to tenderness, and Ralph’s feelings towards him were not improved by the
information given him by one of his men that his brother had been
present at the scene at Rusper, no doubt summoned there by Morris, who
had proved such a desperate traitor to his master by slipping off to
Overfield on the morning of the Sunday.
Ralph was very much puzzled at first by Morris’s behaviour; the man had
always been respectful and obedient, but it was now evident to him that
he had been half-hearted all along, and still retained a superstitious
reverence for ecclesiastical things and persons; and although it was
very inconvenient and tiresome to lose him, yet it was better to be
inadequately than treacherously served.
* * * * *
Lewes Priory was a magnificent sight as Ralph came up on to the top of
the last shoulder below Mount Harry. The town lay below him in the deep,
cup-like hollow, piled house above house along the sides. Beyond it in
the evening light, against the rich autumn fields and the gleam of
water, towered up the tall church with the monastic buildings nestling
behind.
The thought crossed his mind that it would do very well for himself;
the town was conveniently placed between London and the sea, within a
day’s ride from either; there would be shops and company there, and the
priory itself would be a dignified and suitable house, when it had been
properly re-arranged. The only drawback would be Beatrice’s
scrupulousness; but he had little doubt that ultimately that could be
overcome. It would be ridiculous for a single girl to set herself up
against the conviction of a country, and refuse to avail herself of the
advantages of a reform that was so sorely needed. She trusted him
already; and it would not need much persuasion he thought to convince
her mind as well as her heart.
Of course Lewes Priory would be a great prize, and there would be many
applicants for it, and he realized that more than ever as he came up to
its splendid gateway and saw the high tower overhead, and the long tiled
roofs to the right; but his own relations with Cromwell were of the
best, and he decided that at least no harm could result from asking.
It was with considerable excitement that he dismounted in the court, and
saw the throng of Dr. Layton’s men going to and fro. As at Durford, so
here, his superior had arrived before him, and the place was already
astir. The riding-horses had been bestowed in the stables, and the
baggage-beasts were being now unloaded before the door of the
guest-house; there were servants going to and fro in Dr. Layton’s
livery, with an anxious-faced monk or two here and there among them, and
a buzz and clatter rose on all sides. One of Dr. Layton’s secretaries
who had been at Durford, recognised Ralph and came up immediately,
saluting him deferentially.
“The doctor is with the Sub-Prior, sir,” he said. “He gave orders that
you were to be brought to him as soon as you arrived, Mr. Torridon.”
Ralph followed him into the guest-house, and up the stairs up which
Chris had come at his first arrival, and was shown into the parlour.
There was a sound of voices as they approached the door, and as Ralph
entered he saw at once that Dr. Layton was busy at his work.
“Come in, sir,” he cried cheerfully from behind the table at which he
sat. “Here is desperate work for you and me. No less than rank treason,
Mr. Torridon.”
A monk was standing before the table, who turned nervously as Ralph came
in; he was a middle-aged man, grey-haired and brown-faced like a
foreigner, but his eyes were full of terror now, and his lips trembling
piteously.
Ralph greeted Dr. Layton shortly, and sat down beside him.
“Now, sir,” went on the other, “your only hope is to submit yourself to
the King’s clemency. You have confessed yourself to treason in your
preaching, and even if you did not, it would not signify, for I have the
accusation from the young man at Farley in my bag. You tell me you did
not know it was treason; but are you ready, sir, to tell the King’s
Grace that?”
The monk’s eyes glanced from one to the other anxiously. Ralph could see
that he was desperately afraid.
“Tell me that, sir,” cried the doctor again, rapping the table with his
open hand.
“I--I--what shall I do, sir?” stammered the monk.
“You must throw yourself on the King’s mercy, reverend father. And as a
beginning you must throw yourself on mine and Mr. Torridon’s here. Now,
listen to this.”
Dr. Layton lifted one of the papers that lay before him and read it
aloud, looking severely at the monk over the top of it between the
sentences. It was in the form of a confession, and declared that on such
a date in the Priory Church of St Pancras at Lewes the undersigned had
preached treason, although ignorant that it was so, in the presence of
the Prior and community; and that the Prior, although he knew what was
to be said, and had heard the sermon in question, had neither forbidden
it beforehand nor denounced it afterwards, and that the undersigned
entreated the King’s clemency for the fault and submitted himself
entirely to his Grace’s judgment.
“I--I dare not accuse my superior,” stammered the monk.
Dr. Layton glared at him, laying the paper down.
“The question is,” he cried, “which would you sooner offend--your Prior,
who will be prior no longer presently, or the King’s Grace, who will
remain the King’s Grace for many years yet, by the favour of God, and
who has moreover supreme rights of life and death. That is your choice,
reverend father.”--He lifted the paper by the corners.--“You have only
to say the word, sir, and I tear up this paper, and write my own report
of the matter.”
The monk again glanced helplessly at the two men. Ralph had a touch of
contentment at the thought that this was Christopher’s superior, ranged
like a naughty boy at the table, and looked at him coldly. Dr. Layton
made a swift gesture as if to tear the paper, and the Sub-Prior threw
out his hands.
“I will sign it, sir,” he said, “I will sign it.”
When the monk had left the room, leaving his signed confession behind
him, Dr. Layton turned beaming to Ralph.
“Thank God!” he said piously. “I do not know what we should have done if
he had refused; but now we hold him and his prior too. How have you
fared, Mr. Torridon?”
Ralph told him a little of his experiences since his last report, of a
nunnery where all but three had been either dismissed or released; of a
monastery where he had actually caught a drunken cellarer unconscious by
a barrel, and of another where he had reason to fear even worse crimes.
“Write it all down, Mr. Torridon,” cried the priest, “and do not spare
the adjectives. I have some fine tales for you myself. But we must
despatch this place first. We shall have grand sport in the
chapter-house to-morrow. This prior is a poor timid fellow, and we can
do what we will with him. Concealed treason is a sharp sword to threaten
him with.”
Ralph remarked presently that he had a brother a monk here.
“But you can do what you like to him,” he said. “I have no love for him.
He is an insolent fellow.”
Dr. Layton smiled pleasantly.
“We will see what can be done,” he said.
* * * * *
Ralph slept that night in the guest-house, in the same room that Chris
had occupied on his first coming. He awoke once at the sound of the
great bell from the tower calling the monks to the night-office, and
smiled at the fantastic folly of it all. His work during the last month
had erased the last remnants of superstitious fear, and to him now more
than ever the Religious Houses were but noisy rookeries, clamant with
bells and chanting, and foul with the refuse of idleness. The sooner
they were silenced and purged the better.
He did not trouble to go to mass in the morning, but lay awake in the
white-washed room, hearing footsteps and voices below, and watching the
morning light brighten on the wall. He found himself wondering once or
twice what Chris was doing, and how he felt; he did not rise till one of
his men looked in to tell him that Dr. Layton would be ready for him in
half-an-hour, if he pleased.
The chapter-house was a strange sight as he entered it from the
cloister. It was a high oblong chamber some fifty feet long, with arched
roof like a chapel, and a paved floor. On a dozen stones or so were cut
inscriptions recording the presence of bodies entombed below, among them
those of Earl William de Warenne and Gundrada, his wife, founders of the
priory five centuries ago. Ralph caught sight of the names as he strode
through the silent monks at the door and entered the chamber, talking
loudly with his fellow-Visitor. The tall vaulted room looked bare and
severe; the seats ran round it, raised on a step, and before the Prior’s
chair beneath the crucifix stood a large table covered with papers.
Beneath it, and emerging on to the floor lay a great heap of vestments
and precious things which Dr. Layton had ordered to be piled there for
his inspection, and on the table itself for greater dignity burned two
tapers in massive silver candlesticks.
“Sit here, Mr. Torridon,” said the priest, himself taking the Prior’s
chair, “we represent the supreme head of the Church of England now, you
must remember.”
And he smiled at the other with a solemn joy.
He glanced over his papers, settled himself judicially, and then signed
to one of his men to call the monks in. His two secretaries seated
themselves at either end of the table that stood before their master.
Then the two lines began to file in, in reverse order, as the doctor had
commanded; black silent figures with bowed heads buried in their hoods,
and their hands invisible in the great sleeves of their cowls.
Ralph ran his eyes over them; there were men of all ages there, old
wrinkled faces, and smooth ones; but it was not until they were all
standing in their places that he recognised Chris.
There stood the young man, at a stall near the door, his eyes bent down,
and his face deadly pale, his figure thin and rigid against the pale oak
panelling that rose up some eight feet from the floor. Ralph’s heart
quickened with triumph. Ah! it was good to be here as judge, with that
brother of his as culprit!
The Prior and Sub-prior, whose places were occupied, stood together in
the centre of the room, as the doctor had ordered. It was their case
that was to come first.
There was an impressive silence; the two Visitors sat motionless,
looking severely round them; the secretaries had their clean paper
before them, and their pens, ready dipped, poised in their fingers.
Then Dr. Layton began.
* * * * *