It was a little after noon next day that first we saw the Norman church
upon the hill, and then the roofs of Hare Street.
I had been astonished at the badness of the roads from London, coming as
I had from Rome, where paved ways go out in every direction. We came out
by Bishopsgate, by the Ware road, and arrived at Waltham Cross a little
before sunset, riding through heavy dust that had hardly been laid at
all by the recent rains. We rode armed, with four servants, besides my
Cousin Dorothy's maid, for fear of the highwaymen who had robbed a coach
only last week between Ware and London. My Cousin Dorothy rode a white
mare named Jenny which mightily became her. We lay at the _Four Swans_
at Waltham Cross, and went out before supper to see the Cross which was
erected where Queen Eleanor's body had lain--of which the last was at
Charing Cross--and I was astonished that the Puritans had not more
mutilated it. The beds were pretty comfortable, and the ale excellent,
so that once more my Cousin Tom drank too much of it. And so, early in
the morning we took horse again, and rode through Puckeridge, where we
left for the first time the road by which the King went to Newmarket,
when he went through Royston; and we found the track very bad
thenceforward. My Cousin Tom carried with him, though for no purpose
except for show, a map by John Ogilby which shows all the way from
London to King's Lynn, very ingeniously, and which was made after the
Restoration to encourage road traffic again; but it was pleasant for me
to look at it from time to time and see what progress we made towards
Hormead Magna which is the parish in which Hare Street lies.
Now it was very pleasant for me to ride, as I did a good deal, with my
Cousin Dorothy; for her father, for a great part, rode with the men and
cracked stories with them. For journeying with a person sets up a great
deal of intimacy; and acquaintance progresses at least as swiftly as
the journey itself. She spoke to me very freely of her father, though
never as a daughter should not; and told me how distressed she was
sometimes at the quantity of ale and strong waters that he drank. She
told me also how seldom it was that a Catholic could hear mass at Hare
Street: sometimes, she said, a priest would lie there, and say mass in
the attic; but not very often; and sometimes if a priest were in the
neighbourhood they would ride over and hear mass wherever he happened to
be. The house, she said, lay near upon the road, so that they would hear
a good deal of news in this way. But she told me nothing of another
matter--for indeed she could not--which distressed her; though I
presently guessed it for myself, as will appear in the course of this
tale.
My horse, Peter (as I had named him after the Apostle when I bought him
at Dover), was pretty weary as we came in sight of the church of Hormead
Parva; for I had given him plenty to do while I was in London; and he
stumbled three or four times.
"We are nearly home," said my Cousin Dorothy; and pointed with her whip.
"It is pleasant to hear such a word," I said: "for, as for me, I have
none."
She said nothing to that; and I was a little ashamed to have said it;
for nothing is easier than to touch a maid's heart by playing Othello to
her Desdemona.
"I have no business to have said that, cousin," I went on presently:
"for England is all home to me just now."
"I hope you will find it so, cousin," she said.
The country was pretty enough through which we rode; though in no ways
wonderful. It was pasture-land for the most part, with woods here and
there; and plenty of hollow ways (all of which were marked upon the map
with great accuracy), by which drovers brought their sheep to the
highway. I saw also a good many fields of corn. The hills were lowish,
and ran in lines, with long valleys between; and there was one such on
the right as we came to Hare Street, through which flowed a little
stream, nearly dry in the summer.
The house itself was the greatest house in the village, and lay at the
further end of it upon the right; sheltered from the road by limes, in
the midst of which was the gateway, and the house twenty yards within.
My Cousin Tom came up with us as we entered the village, and shewed me
with a great deal of pride his new iron gate just set up, with a twisted
top.
"It is the finest little gate for ten miles round," he said, "and cost
me near twenty pound."
We rode past the gate, however, into the yard just beyond; and here
there was a great barking of dogs set up; and two or three men ran out.
I helped my Cousin Dorothy from her horse; and then all three of us went
through a side-door to the front of the house.
The house without was of timber and plaster, very solidly built, but in
no way pretentious; and the plaster was stamped, in panels, with a kind
of comb-pattern in half circles, peculiar, my cousin told me, to that
part of the country. Within, it was very pleasant. There was a little
passage as we came in, and to right and left lay the Great Chamber (as
it was called), and the dining-room. Beyond the little passage was the
staircase, panelled all the way up, with the instruments of the Passion
and other emblems carved on a row of the panels; and at the foot of the
staircase on the right lay a little parlour, very pretty, with hangings
presenting the knights of the Holy Grail riding upon their Quest. Upon
the left of the staircase, lay a paved hall, with a little pantry under
the stairs, to the left, and the kitchens running out to the back; and
opposite to them, enclosing a little grassed court, the brewhouse and
the bakehouse. Behind all lay the kitchen gardens; and behind the
brewhouse a row of old yews and a part of the lawn, that also ran before
the house. The house was of three stories high, and contained about
twenty rooms with the attics.
It is strange how some houses, upon a first acquaintance with them, seem
like old friends; and how others, though one may have lived in them
fifty years are never familiar to those who live in them. Now Hare
Street House was one of the first kind. This very day that I first set
eyes on it, it was as if I had lived there as a child. The sunlight
streamed into the Great Chamber, and past the yews into the parlour; and
upon the lawns outside; and the noise of the bees in the limes was as if
an organ played softly; and it was all to me as if I had known it a
hundred years.
My Cousin Tom carried me upstairs presently to the Guest-chamber--a
great panelled room, with a wide fire-place, above the dining-room--that
I might wash my hands and face before dinner; and my heart smote me a
little for all my thoughts of him, for, when all was said, he had
received me very hospitably, and was now bidding me welcome again, and
that I must live there as long as I would, and think of it as my home.
"And here," he said, opening a door at the foot of the bed, "is a little
closet where your man can hang your clothes; it looks out upon the yard;
and my room is beyond it, over the kitchen."
I thanked him again and again for his kindness; and so he left me.
* * * * *
We dined below presently, very excellently. The room was hung with
green, with panels of another pattern upon it; and the dishes were put
in through a little hatch from the kitchen passage. My man James waited
with the rest, and acquitted himself very well. Then after dinner, when
the servants were gone away, my Cousin Tom carried me out, with a
mysterious air, to the foot of the stairs.
"Now look well round you, Cousin Roger," he said, when he had me
standing there; "and see if there be anything that would draw your
attention."
I looked this way and that but saw nothing; and said so.
"Have you ever heard of Master Owen," he said, "of glorious memory?"
"Why, yes," I said, "he was a Jesuit lay-brother, martyred under
Elizabeth: and he made hiding-holes, did he not?"
"Well; he hath been at work here. Look again, Cousin Roger."
I turned and saw my Cousin Dorothy smiling--(and it was a very pretty
sight too!)--but there was nothing else to be seen. I beat with my foot;
and it rang a little hollow.
"No, no; those are the cellars," said my Cousin Tom.
I beat then upon the walls, here and there; but to no purpose; and then
upon the stairs.
"That is the sloping roof of the pantry, only," said my Cousin Tom.
I confessed myself outwitted; and then with great mirth he shewed me
how, over the door into the paved hall, there was a space large enough
to hold three or four men; and how the panels opened on this side, as
well as into the kitchen passage on the other.
"A priest or suchlike might very well lie here a week or two, might he
not?" asked my Cousin Tom delightedly; "and if the sentry was at the one
side, he might be fed from the other. It is cunningly contrived, is it
not? A man has but to leap up here from a chair; and he is safe."
I praised it very highly, to please him; and indeed it was very curious
and ingenious.
"But those days are done," I said.
"Who can tell that?" he cried--(though a week ago he had told me the
same himself). "Some priest might very well be flying for his life along
this road, and turn in here. Who knows whether it may not be so again?"
I said no more then on that point; though I did not believe him.
"And there is one more matter I must shew you in your own chamber; if
you have any private papers and suchlike."
Then he shewed me in my own room, by the head of the bed that stood
along the wall, how one of the panels slid back from its place,
discovering a little space behind where a man might very well keep his
papers or his money.
"Not a living soul," he said, "knows of that, besides Dolly and myself.
You are at liberty to use that, Cousin Roger, if you like."
I thanked him; and said I would do so.
The rest of that day I spent in going about the house, and acquainting
myself with it all. My Cousin Dorothy shewed me the rooms. Her own was a
little one at the head of the stairs; and she told me, smiling, that a
ghost was said to walk there.
"But I have never been troubled with it," she said. "It is a tall old,
woman, they say, who comes up the stairs and into the room; but she does
no harm to anyone."
Next her room, along the front of the house, lay two other greater
rooms, one with a fire-place and one without: then was my chamber, and
then her father's: and upstairs were the attics where the men lay. The
maids lay in two little rooms above the kitchen.
It was mighty pleasant to me to be with my Cousin Dorothy. She had
changed her riding clothes into others more suitable for a country
maid--with a white starched neckerchief that came down upon her
shoulders, and a grey dress and petticoat below that. Her sleeves were
short, as the custom is in the country, with great linen cuffs folded
back upon them, so as to leave her hands and arms to the elbow free for
her occupations. But most of all I loved her simplicity and her
quietness and her discretion. Her father bade her expressly to shew me
all the house; or she would not have done it, for she was very maidenly
and modest; but as soon as he said that, she did it without affectation.
She shewed me the parlour too, with the hangings upon the walls, and the
chapel of the Grail, with the Grail itself upon an altar within, flanked
by two candlesticks, that was represented over the fire-place. She came
out with me too to shew me the bakehouse where the baking was already
begun, and the brewhouse--both of which too were all built of timber and
plaster; and there my Cousin Tom came upon us, and carried me off to see
his garden and his pasture; for he farmed a few acres about here, and
made a good profit out of it: and it was while I walked with him that
for the first time I understood what his intention was towards me.
He was speaking, as he very often did, of his daughter Dorothy--which I
had taken to be a father's affection only. (We were walking at the time
up and down in the pasture below the garden; and the house lay visible
among the gardens, very fair and peaceful with the sunlight upon it.)
"She will be something of an heiress," he said; "and when I say that, I
do not mean that she will have as many acres as yourself. But she will
have near a thousand pound a year so soon as poor Tom Jermyn dies: and I
may die any day, for I am short in the neck, and might very well be
taken with an apoplexy. I wish above all things then, to see her safely
married before I go--to some solid man who will care for her. There is a
plenty of Protestants about here that would have her; for she is a
wonderful housewife, and as pure as Diana too."
He paused at that; and looked at me in that cunning way of his that I
misliked so much. Yet even now I did not see what he would be at; for
gentlemen do not usually fling their daughters at the head of any man;
and he knew nothing of me but that I was pretty rich and would be more
so one day. But I suppose that that was enough for him.
"I had thought at one time," he went on, "of sending her to Court. I
could get her in, under the protection of my Lady Arlington. But the
Court is no place for a maiden who knows nothing of the world. What
would you advise, Cousin Roger? I would not have her marry a Protestant,
if I could help it."
And with that he looked at me again.
Then, all of a sudden I saw his meaning; and my heart stood still; for
not only did his words reveal him to me, but myself also; and I
understood why he had questioned me so closely in town, as to my
fortune. I cannot say at this time that I loved my Cousin Dolly--for I
had not known that I loved her--but his words were very effective.
Indeed I had not thought to marry, though I was free to do so; for a
novice does not quickly shake off his monkishness. I had thought far
more of the mission I was come to England upon, and what I could
accomplish, with God's blessing, for Christ and His Church. But, as I
say, my heart stood still when my cousin said that to me; for, as in a
vision, I saw myself here as her husband, and her as my wife, in this
house among its gardens. Here we might live a life which even the angels
might envy--harmless, innocent, separate from sinners, as the Apostle
says--not accomplishing, maybe, any great things, but at least
refraining from the hindering of God's Kingdom. The summers would come
and go, and we still be here, with our children growing about us, to
inherit the place and the name, such as it was. And no harm done, no
vows broken, no offence to any. Such thoughts as these did not as yet
shew any very great ardour of love in me; and indeed I had not got this
yet; but she was the first maid I had ever had any acquaintance with, at
least for some while; and this no doubt, had its effect upon me. All
this came upon me of a sudden; and as I lifted my eyes I saw my Cousin
Dolly's sunbonnet going among the herbs of the garden; and saw her in my
mind's eye too as I had seen her just now, cool and innocent and good,
with that touch of hidden fire in her eyes that draws a man's heart.
Neither had she looked unkindly on me: our intimacy had made wonderful
progress, though I had known her scarcely more than a week: she had
spoken to me of her father, too, as one would speak only to a friend.
Yet I could not say one word of this to him; for he had not said
anything explicit to me: and I knew, too, that I must give myself time;
for a man does not, if he is wise, change the course of his life on an
instant's thought. Yet I must not say No outright, and thereby, maybe,
bang the door on my new hopes.
"I could not advise you at present," I said. "I do not know my cousin
well enough to advise anything. I am one with you so far as concerns the
Court: I cannot think that any Catholic father should send his daughter
into such a den of lions--and worse. And I am one with you as concerns
marrying her to a Protestant. Yet I can say no more at present."
And at that my Cousin Tom looked at me in such a manner as near to ruin
his own scheme; for his eyes said, if his mouth did not, that now we
understood one another; and were upon the same side, or at least not
opposed; and to think that I was leagued with him against her made my
heart hot with anger.
"Very well," he said; "we will say no more at present." And he bade me
observe an old ram that was regarding us, with a face not unlike Cousin
Tom's own: but I suppose that he did not know this.
* * * * *
In this manner, then, began our life at Hare Street; for I was there six
weeks before I went back again to London in the way I shall relate
presently. The days were passed for the most time, from rising until
dinner, upon the farm, or in hunting; for we rode out now and again with
the neighbours after a stag who had come from the woods. But we did not,
because of the Papistry of the house, see a great deal of the
neighbours, or they of us. The parson of Hormead came to see us now and
again, and behaved very civilly: but during those six weeks we had no
sight of a priest, except once when we rode to Standon to hear mass.
After dinner, I gave myself up to writing; for I thought that I could
best serve His Holiness in this way, making my diary each day in
shorthand (as I had learned from an Italian); and it is from that very
diary that this narrative is composed; and I wrote too a report or two,
apologizing for the poverty of it, which I determined to send to the
Cardinal Secretary as soon as I had an opportunity. I read too a little
Italian or Spanish or French every day; and thus, for the most part kept
to my chamber. But all my papers I put away each afternoon in the little
hiding-place in my chamber; and made excuse for keeping my room on the
score of my practice in languages.
We supped at five o'clock--which was the country hour; and after that,
to me, came the best part of the day.
For my Cousin Dorothy, I had learned, was an extraordinary fine
musician. We had, of course, no music such as was possible in town; but
she had taught a maid to play upon a fiddle, and herself played upon the
bass-viol; and the two together would play in the Great Chamber after
supper for an hour or two, when the dishes were washed. In this manner
we had many a corrant and saraband; and I was able to prick down for
them too some Italian music I remembered, which she set for the two
instruments. Sometimes, too, when Cousin Tom was not too drowsy after
his day and his ale, the three would sing and I would listen; for my
Cousin Tom sang a plump bass very well when he was in the mood for it.
As for me, I had but a monk's voice, that is very well when all the
choir is a-cry together, but not of much use under other circumstances.
In this way then I made acquaintance with a number of songs--such as Mr.
Wise's "It is not that I love you less" and his duet "Go, perjured man!"
of which the words are taken from Herrick's "Hesperides," and of which
the music was made by Mr. Wise (who was a gentleman of the Chapel Royal)
at His Majesty's express wish.
* * * * *
I have many very pleasant memories of Hare Street, but I think none more
pleasant than of the music in the Great Chamber. I would sit near the
window, and see them in the evening light, with their faces turned to
me; or, when it grew late with the candlelight upon them and their
dresses or sometimes when the evening was fair and warm I would sit out
upon the lawn, and they at the window, and listen to the singing coming
out of the candlelight, and see them move against it. My Cousin Dorothy
would make herself fine in the evening--not, I mean, like a Court lady,
for these dresses of hers were put away in lavender--but with a lace
neckerchief on her throat and shoulders, and lace ruffles at her wrists.
Yet all this while I made no progress with her or even with myself; for
every time that I was alone with her, or when her father was asleep in
his chair, a remembrance of what he had said came over me with a kind of
sickness, and I could not say one word that might seem to set me on his
side against her; and so I was torn two ways, and the very thing by
which he had hoped to encourage me, (or rather to help himself) had the
contrary effect, and silenced me when I might have spoken.
For I understood very well by now what was in his mind. He saw no
prospect of marrying Dolly to a Protestant--or I take it, if I know the
man, he would have leapt at it; neither was there any hope of marrying
her to a Catholic; and as for his talk about my Lady Arlington I did not
believe one word of it. Therefore, since I was at hand, and would be a
wealthy man some day, and indeed even now did very well on my French
_rentes_, he had set his heart on this. It was not wholly evil; yet the
cold-bloodedness of it affected me like a stink....
* * * * *
The matter ended, for the time, on the evening of the thirteenth of
August, in the following manner, when my adventures, of which my life,
ever since my audience with our Most Holy Lord the Pope, had been but a
prelude, properly began--those adventures for whose sake I have begun
this transcript from my diary, and this adventure was pre-shadowed, as I
think now, by one or two curious happenings.
On the morning of the thirteenth of August, two days before the Feast of
the Assumption (on which we had intended to hear mass again at Standon)
my Cousin Dorothy came down a little late, and found us already over our
oatbread and small beer which we were accustomed to take upon
rising--and which was called our "morning."
"I slept very ill," she said; and no more then.
Afterwards, however, as I was lighting my pipe in the little court at
the back of the house, she came out and beckoned me in; and I saw that
something was amiss. I went after her into the little hung parlour and
we sat down.
"I slept very ill, cousin," she said again; and I observed again that
her eyes looked hollow. "And I dare not tell my father my fancies," she
said, "for he is terrified at such things; and has forbade the servants
to speak of such things."
"The tall old woman, then?" I said; for I had not forgotten what she had
told me before.
"Yes," she said, smiling a little painfully--"and yet I was not at all
afraid when she came; or when I thought that she did."
"Tell me the whole tale," I said.
"I awakened about one o'clock this morning," she said, "and knew that my
sleep was gone from me altogether. Yet I did not feel afraid or
restless; but lay there content enough, expecting something, but what it
would be I did not know. The cocks were crowing as I awakened; and then
were silent; and it appeared to me as if all the world were listening.
After a while--I should say it was ten minutes or thereabouts--I turned
over with my face to the wall; and as I did so, I heard a soft step
coming up the stairs. One of the maids, thought I, late abed or early
rising, for sickness. When the steps came to my door they ceased; and a
hand was laid upon the latch; and at that I made to move; but could not.
Yet it was not fear that held me there, though it was like a gentle
pricking all over me. Then the latch was lifted, and still I could not
move, not even my eyes; and a person came in, and across the floor to my
bed. And even then I could not move nor cry out. Presently the person
spoke; but I do not know what she said, though it was only a word or
two: but the voice came from high up, as almost from the canopy of the
bed, and it was the voice of an old woman, speaking in a kind of
whisper. I said nothing; for I could not: and then again the steps moved
across the floor, and out of the door; and I heard the latch shut again;
and then they passed away down the stairs."
My Cousin Dorothy was pale as death by this time; and her blue eyes were
set wide open. I made to take her by the hand; but I did not.
"You were dreaming," I said; "it was the memory of the tale you have
heard."
She shook her head; but she said nothing.
"You have never had it before?" I asked.
"Never," she said.
"You must lie in another chamber for a week or two, and forget it."
"I cannot do that," she said. "My father would know of it." And she
spoke so courageously that I was reassured.
"Well; you must cry out if it comes again. You can have your maid to
sleep with you."
"I might do that," she said; and then--
"Cousin Roger; doth God permit these things to provide us against some
danger?"
"It may be so," I said, to quiet her; "but be sure that no harm can come
of it."
At that we heard her father calling her; and she stood up.
"I have told you as a secret, Cousin Roger; there must be no word to my
father."
I pledged myself to that; for I could see what a spirit she had; and we
said no more about it then.
As the day passed on, the sky grew heavy--or rather the air; for the sky
was still blue overhead; only on the horizon to the south the clouds
that are called _cumuli_ began to gather. The air was so hot too that I
could scarcely bear to work, for I had set myself to take some
plant-cuttings in a little glass-house that was in the garden against
the south wall; and by noon the sky was overcast.
After dinner I went up to my chamber; and a great heaviness fell upon
me, till I looked out of the window and saw that beyond the limes the
clouds spewed a reddish tint that marked the approach of thunder; and at
that grew reassured again; and not only for myself but for my Cousin
Dorothy, whose tale had lain close on my heart through the morning: for
this thought I, is the explanation of it all: the maid was oppressed by
the heat and the approaching storm, and fancied all the rest.
I fell asleep in my chair, over my Italian; and when I awakened it was
near supper-time, and the heaviness was upon me again, like lead; and my
diary not written.
After supper and some talk, I made excuse to do my writing; and as it
was growing dark, and I was finishing, I heard music from the Great
Chamber beneath. They were singing together a song I had not heard
before; and I listened, well pleased, promising myself the pleasure too
of going downstairs presently and hearing it.
Between two of the verses, I heard on a sudden, over the hill-top beyond
the village, the beat of a horse's hoofs, galloping; but I thought no
more of it. At the end of the next verse, even before it was finished, I
heard the hoofs again, through the music; I ran to the window to see who
rode so fast; and was barely in time to see a courier, in a blue coat,
dash past the new iron gate, pulling at his horse as he did so; an
instant later, I heard the horse turn in at the yard gate, and
immediately the singing ceased.
As I came down the stairs, I saw my Cousin Dolly run out into the inner
lobby, and her face, in the dusk, was as white as paper; and the same
instant there came a hammering at the hall door.
"What is it? What is it?" cried she; and clung to me as I came down.
I saw, through the inner door, my Cousin Tom unbolting the outer one; he
had taken down a pistol that hung upon the wall, for the highwaymen
waxed very bold sometimes; then when he opened the door, I heard my
name.
I went forward, and received from the courier, a sealed letter; and
there, in the twilight I opened and read it. It was from Mr. Chiffinch,
bidding me come to town at once on King's business.
"I must ride to town," I said. "Cousin Tom, will you order my horse for
me; and another for this man? I do not know when I shall be back again."
And, as I said these words, I saw my Cousin Dorothy's face looking at me
from the dusk of the inner hall, and knew what was in her mind; and that
it was the matter of the tall old woman in her room.