Down in the lower castle, the Archbishop was accustomed, when he
undressed, to have with him neither priest nor page, but only, when he
desired to converse of public matters--as now he did--his gentleman,
Lascelles. He knelt above his kneeling-stool of black wood; he was
telling his beads before a great crucifix with an ivory Son of God upon
it. His chamber had bare white walls, his bed no curtains, and all the
other furnishing of the room was a great black lectern whereto there was
chained a huge Book of the Holy Writ that had his Preface. The tears
were in his eyes as he muttered his prayers; he glanced upwards at the
face of his Saviour, who looked down with a pallid, uncoloured face of
ivory, the features shewing a great agony so that the mouth was opened.
It was said that this image, that came from Italy, had had a face
serene, before the Queen Katharine of Aragon had been put away. Then it
had cried out once, and so remained ever lachrymose and in agony.
'God help me, I cannot well pray,' the Archbishop said. 'The peril that
we have been in stays with me still.'
'Why, thank God that we are come out of it very well,' Lascelles said.
'You may pray and then sleep more calm than ever you have done this
sennight.'
He leant back against the reading-pulpit, and had his arm across the
Bible as if it had been the shoulder of a friend.
'Why,' the Archbishop said, 'this is the worst day ever I have been
through since Cromwell fell.'
'Please it your Grace,' his confidant said, 'it shall yet turn out the
best.'
The Archbishop faced round upon his knees; he had taken off the jewel
from before his breast, and, with his chain of Chaplain of the George,
it dangled across the corner of the fald-stool. His coat was unbuttoned
at the neck, his robe open, and it was manifest that his sleeves of
lawn were but sleeves, for in the opening was visible, harsh and grey,
the shirt of hair that night and day he wore.
'I am weary of this talk of the world,' he said. 'Pray you begone and
leave me to my prayers.'
'Please it your Grace to let me stay and hearten you,' Lascelles said,
and he was aware that the Archbishop was afraid to be alone with the
white Christ. 'All your other gentry are in bed. I shall watch your
sleep, to wake you if you cry out.'
And in his fear of Cromwell's ghost that came to him in his dreams, the
Archbishop sighed--
'Why stay, but speak not. Y'are over bold.'
He turned again to the wall; his beads clicked; he sighed and remained
still for a long time, a black shadow, huddled together in a black gown,
sighing before the white and lamenting image that hung above him.
'God help me,' he said at last. 'Tell me why you say this is _dies
felix_?'