Chapter Six.
Peppered broth.
“Father! O Father! Must I forgive Uncle Edward? I don’t see how I can.”
“I’m afraid you must, Christie, if you look to follow Christ.”
“But how can I? To use dear Aunt Alice so cruelly!”
“How can God forgive thee and me, Christie, that have used His blessed Son far, far worser than Uncle Edward hath used Aunt Alice, or ever could use her?”
“Father, have you forgiven him?”
It was a hard question. Next after his little Christie herself, the dearest thing in the world to Roger Hall was his sister Alice. He hesitated an instant.
“No, you haven’t,” said Christie, in a tone of satisfaction. “Then I’m sure I don’t need if you haven’t.”
“Dost thou mean, then, to follow Roger Hall, instead of the Lord Jesus?”
Christie parried that difficult query by another.
“Father, love you Uncle Edward?”
“I am trying, Christie.”
“I should think you’d have to try about a hundred million years!” said Christie. “I feel as if I should be as glad as could be, if a big bear would just come and eat him up!—or a great lion, I would not mind which it was, if it wouldn’t leave the least bit of him.”
“But if Christ died for Uncle Edward, my child?”
“I don’t see how He could. I wouldn’t.”
“No, dear heart, I can well believe that. ‘Scarce will any man die for a righteous man... But God setteth out His love toward us, seeing that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.’ And He left us ‘an ensample,’ my Christie, ‘that we should follow His steps.’”
“I can’t, Father; I can’t!”
“Surely thou canst not, without the Lord make thee able. Thou canst never follow Christ in thine own strength. But ‘His strength is made perfect through weakness.’ I know well, my dear heart, ’tis vastly harder to forgive them that inflict suffering on them we love dearly—far harder than when we be the sufferers ourselves. But God can enable us to do even that, Christie.”
Christie’s long sigh, as she turned on her cushion, said that it was almost too hard for her to believe. But before she had found an answer, the door opened, and Mrs Tabitha Hall appeared behind it.
“Well, Roger Hall, how love you your good brother-in-law this morrow?” was her greeting. “I love not his action in no wise, sister.”
“What mean you by that? Can you set a man’s action in one basket, and himself in another? It’s a strain beyond E-la, that is.” (See note.)
“We’re trying to forgive Uncle Edward, Aunt,” said Christie from her couch, in a rather lugubrious tone.
“Pleasant work, isn’t it?” was Aunt Tabitha’s answer. “I haven’t forgiven him, nor tried neither; nor I amn’t going.”
“But Father says we must.”
“Very good; let him set us the ensample.”
Aunt Tabitha made herself comfortable in Mr Hall’s big chair, which he vacated for her convenience. By her side she set down her large market-basket, covered with a clean cloth, from which at one end protruded the legs of two geese, and at the other the handle of a new frying-pan.
“I’ve been up to see him this morrow; I thought he’d best not come short o’ bitters. But he’s off to Cranbrook with his bay horse—at the least so saith Mall—and I shall need to tarry while he comes back. It’ll not hurt: bitters never lose strength by standing. I’ll have it out with him again, come this even.”
“Best not, Tabitha. It should maybe turn to more bitters for poor Alice, if you anger him yet further. And we have no right to interfere.”
“What mean you by that, Roger Hall?” demanded Mistress Tabitha, in warlike tones. “No right, quotha! If that isn’t a man, all o’er! I’ve a right to tell my brother-in-law he’s an infamous rascal, and I’ll do it, whether I have or no! No right, marry come up! Where else is he to hear it, prithee? You talk of forgiving him, forsooth, and Alice never stands up to him an inch, and as for that Tom o’ mine, why, he can scarce look his own cat in the face. Deary weary me! where would you all be, I’d like to know, without I looked after you? You’d let yourselves be trod on and ground down into the dust, afore you’d do so much as squeal. That’s not my way o’ going on, and you’d best know it.”
“Thank you, Sister Tabitha; I think I knew it before,” said Mr Hall quietly.
“Please, Aunt Tabitha—” Christie stopped and flushed.
“Well, child, what’s ado?”
“Please, Aunt, if you wouldn’t!” suggested Christie lucidly. “You see, I’ve got to forgive Uncle Edward, and when you talk like that, it makes me boil up, and I can’t.”
“Boil up, then, and boil o’er,” said Aunt Tabitha, half-amused. “I’ll tarry to forgive him, at any rate, till he says he’s sorry.”
“But Father says God didn’t wait till we were sorry, before the Lord Jesus died for us, Aunt Tabitha.”
“You learn your gram’mer to suck eggs!” was the reply. “Well, if you’re both in that mind, I’d best be off; I shall do no good with you.” And Aunt Tabitha swung the heavy market-basket on her strong arm as lightly as if it were only a feather’s weight. “Good-morrow; I trust you’ll hear reason, Roger Hall, next time I see you. Did you sup your herbs, Christie, that I steeped for you?”
“Yes, Aunt, I thank you,” said Christabel meekly, a vivid recollection of the unsavoury flavour of the dose coming over her, and creating a fervent hope that Aunt Tabitha would be satisfied without repeating it.
“Wormwood, and betony, and dandelion, and comfrey,” said Aunt Tabitha. “Maybe, now, you’d best have a change; I’ll lay some camomile and ginger to steep for you, with a pinch of balm—that’ll be pleasant enough to sup.”
Christabel devoutly hoped it would be better than the last, but she wisely refrained from saying so.
“As for Edward Benden, I’ll mix him some wormwood and rue,” resumed Aunt Tabitha grimly: “and I’ll not put honey in it neither. Good-morrow. You’ve got to forgive him, you know: much good may it do you! It’ll not do him much, without I mistake.”
And Aunt Tabitha and her basket marched away. Looking from the window, Mr Hall descried Mr Benden coming up a side road on the bay horse, which he had evidently not succeeded in selling. He laughed to himself as he saw that Tabitha perceived the enemy approaching, and evidently prepared for combat. Mr Benden, apparently, did not see her till he was nearly close to her, when he at once spurred forward to get away, pursued by the vindictive Tabitha, whose shrill voice was audible as she ran, though the words could not be heard. They were not, however, difficult to imagine. Of course the horse soon distanced the woman. Aunt Tabitha, with a shake of her head and another of her clenched fist at the retreating culprit, turned back for her basket, which she had set down on the bank to be rid of its weight in the pursuit.
Mr Benden’s reflections were not so pleasant as they might have been, and they were no pleasanter for having received curt and cold welcome that morning from several of his acquaintances in Cranbrook. People manifestly disapproved of his recent action. There were many who sympathised but little with Alice Benden’s opinions, and would even have been gratified by the detection and punishment of a heretic, who were notwithstanding disgusted and annoyed that a quiet, gentle, and generally respected gentlewoman should be denounced to the authorities by her own husband. He, of all men, should have shielded and screened her. Even Justice Roberts had nearly as much as told him so. Mr Benden felt himself a semi-martyr. The world was hard on disinterested virtue, and had no sympathy with self-denial. It is true, the world did not know his sufferings at the hands of Mary, who could not send up a decent hash—and who was privately of opinion that an improper hash, or no hash at all, was quite good enough for the man who had accused her dear mistress to the authorities. Mr Benden was growing tired of disinterested virtue, which was its own reward, and a very poor one.
“I can’t stand this much longer; I must have Alice back!” was his reflection as he alighted from the bay horse.
But Nemesis had no intention of letting him off thus easily. Mistress Tabitha Hall had carried home her geese and frying-pan, and after roasting and eating the former with chestnut sauce, churning the week’s supply of butter, setting the bread to rise, and indicating to Friswith and Joan, her elder daughters, what would be likely to happen to them if the last-named article were either over or under-baked, she changed her gown from a working woollen to an afternoon camlet, and took her way to Briton’s Mead. Mr Benden had supped as best he might on a very tough chicken pie, with a crust not much softer than crockery, and neither his digestion nor his temper was in a happy condition, when Mary rapped at the door, and much to her own satisfaction informed her master that Mistress Hall would fain have speech of him. Mr Benden groaned almost audibly. Could he by an act of will have transported Tabitha to the further side of the Mountains of the Moon, nobody in Staplehurst would have seen much more of her that year. But, alas! he had to run the gauntlet of her comments on himself and his proceedings, which he well knew would not be complimentary. For a full hour they were closeted together. Mary, in the kitchen, could faintly hear their voices, and rejoiced to gather from the sound that, to use her own expression, “the master was supping his broth right well peppered.” At last Mistress Tabitha marched forth, casting a Parthian dart behind her.
“See you do, Edward Benden, without you want another basin o’ hot water; and I’ll set the kettle on to boil this time, I promise you!”
“Good even, Mary,” she added, as she came through the kitchen. “He (without any antecedent) has promised he’ll do all he can to fetch her forth; and if he doesn’t, and metely soon too, he’ll wish he had, that’s all!”
So saying, Mistress Tabitha marched home to inspect her bread, and if need were, to “set the kettle on” there also.
Note: E-la is the highest note in the musical system of Guido d’Aretino, which was popular in the sixteenth century. “A strain beyond E-la,” therefore, signified something impossible or unreasonable.
Chapter Seven.
Wherein Alice comes home.
Partly moved by a faint sense of remorse, partly by Mrs Tabitha’s sharp speeches, and partly also—perhaps most of all—by his private discomfort in respect of Mary’s culinary unskilfulness, Mr Benden set himself to eat his dose of humble pie. He waited on Mr Horden of Finchcocks, and Mr Colepeper of Bedgebury Park, two of the chief men of position and influence in his neighbourhood, to entreat them to exert themselves in persuading the Bishop to release Alice as soon as possible. The diocese, of course, was that of Cardinal Pole; but this portion of it was at that time in the hands of his suffragan, Dr Richard Thornton, Bishop of Dover, whom the irreverent populace familiarly termed Dick of Dover. This right reverend gentleman was not of the quiet and reasonable type of Mr Justice Roberts. On the contrary, he had a keen scent for a heretic, and took great delight in bringing one into tribulation. On receiving the letters wherein Messrs Horden and Colepeper interceded for Alice Benden, his Lordship ordered the prisoner to be brought before him.
The Archbishop’s gaoler went down to the prison, where Alice Benden, a gentlewoman by birth and education, shared one large room with women of the worst character and lowest type, some committed for slight offences, some for heavy crimes. These women were able to recognise in an instant that this prisoner was of a different order from themselves. Those who were not fallen into the depths, treated her with some respect; but the lowest either held aloof from her or jeered at her—mostly the latter. Alice took all meekly; did what she could for the one or two that were ailing, and the three or four who had babies with them; spoke words of Gospel truth and kindly sympathy to such as would let her speak them: and when sleep closed the eyes and quieted the tongues of most, meditated and communed with God. The gaoler opened the door a little way, and just put his head into the women’s room. The prisoners might have been thankful that there were separate chambers for men and women... Such luxuries were unknown in many gaols at that date.
“Alice Benden!” he said gruffly.
Alice rose, gave back to its mother a baby she had been holding, and went towards the gaoler, who stood at the top of the stone steps which led down from the door.
“Here I am, Master Gaoler: what would you with me?”
“Tie on your hood and follow me; you are to come afore my Lord of Dover.”
Alice’s heart beat somewhat faster, as she took down her hood from one of the pegs around the room, and followed the gaoler through a long passage, up a flight of steps, across a courtyard, and into the hall where the Bishop was holding his Court. She said nothing which the gaoler could hear: but the God in whom Alice trusted heard an earnest cry of—“Lord, I am Thine; save Thine handmaid that trusteth in Thee!”
The gaoler led her forward to the end of a long table which stood before the Bishop, and announced her name to his Lordship.
“Alice Benden, of Briton’s Mead, Staplehurst, an’ it like your Lordship.”
“Ah!” said his Lordship, in an amiable tone; “she it is touching whom I had letters. Come hither to me, I pray you, Mistress. Will you now go home, and go to church in time coming?”
That meant, would she consent to worship images, and to do reverence to the bread of the Lord’s Supper as if Christ Himself were present? There was no going to church in those days without that. And that, as Alice Benden knew, was idolatry, forbidden by God in the First and Second Commandments.
“If I would have so done,” she said in a quiet, modest tone, “I needed not have come hither.”
“Wilt thou go home, and be shriven of thy parish priest?”
“No, I will not.” Alice could not believe that a man could forgive sins. Only God could do that; and He did not need a man through whom to do it. The Lord Jesus was just as able to say to her from His throne above, as He had once said on earth to a poor, trembling, despised woman—“Thy sins be forgiven thee; go in peace.”
Something had made “Dick of Dover” unusually gentle that afternoon. He only replied—“Well, go thy ways home, and go to church when thou wilt.”
Alice made no answer. She was resolved to promise nothing. But a priest who stood by, whether mistakenly thinking that she spoke, or kind enough to wish to help her, answered for her—“She says she will, my Lord.”
“Enough. Go thy ways!” said the Bishop, who seemed to wish to set her at liberty: perhaps he was a little afraid of the influential men who had interceded for her. Alice, thus dismissed, walked out of the hall a free woman. As she came out into Palace Street, a hand was laid upon her shoulder.
“Well, Alice!” said Edward Benden’s voice. “I wrought hard to fetch you forth; I trust you be rightly thankful. Come home.”
Not a word did he say of the pains he had taken originally to drive her into the prison; neither did Alice allude to that item. She only said in the meekest manner—“I thank you, Edward”—and followed her lord and master down Mercery Lane towards Wincheap Gate. She did not even ask whether he had made any preparations for her journey home, or whether he expected her to follow him on foot through the five-and-twenty miles which lay between Canterbury and Staplehurst. But when they reached the western corner of the lane, Mr Benden stopped at the old Chequers Inn, and in a stentorian voice demanded “that bay.” The old bay horse which Alice knew so well, and which her husband had not succeeded in selling for more than its worth, as he desired, was brought forth, laden with a saddle and pillion, on the latter of which Alice took her place behind Mr Benden.
Not a word was spoken by either during the journey. They were about a mile from Staplehurst, and had just turned a corner in the road, when they were greeted by words in considerable number.
“Glad to see you!” said a brown hood—for the face inside it was not visible. “I reckoned you’d think better of it; but I’d got a good few bitters steeping for you, in case you mightn’t. Well, Alice! how liked you yonder?—did Dick o’ Dover use you metely well?—and how came he to let you go free? Have you promised him aught? He doesn’t set folks at liberty, most commonly, without they do. Come, speak up, woman! and let’s hear all about it.”
“I have promised nothing,” said Alice calmly; “nor am I like so to do. Wherefore the Bishop let me go free cannot I tell you; but I reckon that Edward here wist more of the inwards thereof than I. How go matters with you, Tabitha?”
“Oh, as to the inwards,” said the brown hood, with a short, satirical laugh, “I guess I know as much as you or Edward either; ’twas rather the outwards I made inquiry touching. Me? Oh, I’m as well as common, and so be folks at home; I’ve given Friswith a fustigation, and tied up Joan to the bedpost, and told our Tom he’d best look out. He hasn’t the spirit of a rabbit in him. I’d fain know where he and the childre ’d be this day month, without I kept matters going.”
“How fares Christabel, I pray you?”
“Oh, same as aforetime; never grows no better, nor no worser. It caps me. She doesn’t do a bit o’ credit to my physicking—not a bit. And I’ve dosed her with betony, and camomile, and comfrey, and bugloss, and hart’s tongue, and borage, and mugwort, and dandelion—and twenty herbs beside, for aught I know. It’s right unthankful of her not to mend; but childre is that thoughtless! And Roger, he spoils the maid—never stands up to her a bit—gives in to every whim and fantasy she takes in her head. If she cried for the moon, he’d borrow every ladder in the parish and lash ’em together to get up.”
“What ’d he set it against?” gruffly demanded Mr Benden, who had not uttered a word before.
“Well, if he set it against your conceit o’ yourself, I guess he’d get high enough—a good bit higher than other folks’ conceit of you. I marvel if you’re ashamed of yourself, Edward Benden. I am.”
“First time you ever were ashamed of yourself.”
“Ashamed of myself?” demanded Tabitha Hall, in tones of supreme contempt, turning her face full upon the speaker. “You’ll not butter your bread with that pot o’ dripping, Edward Benden, if you please. You’re not fit to black my shoes, let alone Alice’s, and I’m right pleased for to tell you so.”
“Good even, Mistress Hall; ’tis time we were at home.”
“Got a home-truth more than you wanted, haven’t you? Well, ’tis time enough Alice was, so go your ways; but as where ’tis time you were, my dainty master, that’s the inside of Canterbury Gaol, or a worser place if I could find it; and you’ve got my best hopes of seeing you there one o’ these days. Good den.”
The bay horse was admonished to use its best endeavours to reach Briton’s Mead without delay, and Mistress Tabitha, tongue and all, was left behind on the road.
“Eh, Mistress, but I’m fain to see you!” said Mary that evening, as she and Alice stood in the pleasant glow of the kitchen fire. “I’ve had a weary fortnight on’t, with Master that contrarious, I couldn’t do nought to suit him, and Mistress Hall a-coming day by day to serve him wi’ vinegar and pepper. Saints give folks may be quiet now! We’ve had trouble enough to last us this bout.”
“I am glad to come home, Mall,” was the gentle answer. “But man is born to trouble, and I scarce think we have seen an end of ours. God learneth His servants by troubles.”
“Well, I wouldn’t mind some folks being learned thus, but I’d fain see other some have a holiday. What shall I dress for supper, Mistress? There’s a pheasant and a couple of puffins, and a platter of curds and whey, and there’s a sea-pie in the larder, and a bushel o’ barberries.”
“That shall serve, Mall. We had best lay in some baconed herrings for next fish-day; your master loves them.”
“Afore I’d go thinking what he loved, if I were you!”
This last reflection on Mary’s part was not allowed to be audible, but it was very earnest notwithstanding.
Chapter Eight.
Repenting his repentance.
It was Saturday evening, and three days after Alice returned home. Mr Benden sat in the chimney-corner, having just despatched a much more satisfactory supper than Mary had ever allowed him to see during her mistress’s imprisonment; and Alice, her household duties finished for the day, came and sat in the opposite corner with her work.
The chimney-corner, at that date, was literally a chimney-corner. There were no grates, and the fire of logs blazed on a wide square hearth, around which, and inside the chimney, was a stone seat, comfortably cushioned, and of course extremely warm. This was the usual evening seat of the family, especially its elder and more honourable members. How they contrived to stand the very close quarters to the blazing logs, and how they managed never to set themselves on fire, must be left to the imagination.
Alice’s work this evening was knitting. Stockings? Certainly not; the idea of knitted stockings had not yet dawned. Stockings were still, as they had been for centuries, cut out of woollen cloth, and sewn together like any other garment. The woman who was to immortalise her name by the brilliant invention of knitting stockings was then a little girl, just learning to use her needles. What Alice was knitting this evening was a soft woollen cap, intended for the comfort of Mr Benden’s head.
The inside of the head in question was by no means so comfortable as Alice was preparing to make the outside. Mr Benden was pulled two ways, and not knowing which to go, he kept trying each in turn and retracing his steps. He wanted to make Alice behave herself; by which he meant, conform to the established religion as Queen Mary had Romanised it, and go silently to church without making insubordinate objections to idolatry, or unpleasant remarks afterwards. This was only to be attained, as it seemed to him, by sending her to prison. But, also, he wanted to keep her out of prison, and to ensure the continuance of those savoury suppers on which his comfort and contentment depended, and the existence of which appeared to depend on her remaining at home. How were the two to be harmoniously combined? Reflections of this kind resulted in making Mr Benden a very uncomfortable man; and he was a man with whom to be uncomfortable was to be unreasonable.
“Alice!” he said at last, after a period of silent thought Alice looked up from her work.
“The morrow shall be Sunday.”
Alice assented to that indisputable fact.
“You’ll come to church with me?”
For one instant Alice was silent. Her husband thought she was wavering in her decision, but on that point he was entirely mistaken. She was doing what Nehemiah did when he “prayed to the God of heaven” between the King’s question and his answer. Well she knew that to reply in the negative might lead to reproach, prison, torture, even death. Yet that was the path of God’s commandments, and no flowery By-path Meadow must tempt her to stray from it. In her heart she said to Him who had redeemed her—
“Saviour, where’er Thy steps I see,
Dauntless, untired, I follow Thee!”
and then she calmly answered aloud, “No, Edward, that I cannot do.”
“What, hath your taste of the Bishop’s prison not yet persuaded you?” returned he angrily.
“Nay, nor never will.”
“Then you may look to go thither again, my mistress.”
“Very well, Edward.” Her heart sank low, but she did not let him see it.
“You’ll either go to church, or here you bide by yourself.”
“I thought to go and sit a while by Christie,” she said.
“You’ll not go out of this house. I’ll have no whisperings betwixt you and those brethren of yours—always tuting in your ear, and setting you up to all manner of mischief. You’d not be so troublesome if you hadn’t Roger Hall at your back—that’s my belief. You may just keep away from them; and if they keep not away from you, they’ll maybe get what they shall love little.”
Alice was silent for a moment. Then she said very quietly, “As you will, Edward. I would only ask of you one favour—that I may speak once with Roger, to tell him your pleasure.”
“I’ll tell him fast enough when I see him. Nay, my mistress: you come not round me o’ that fashion. I’ll not have him and you plotting to win you away ere the catchpoll (constable) come to carry you hence. You’ll tarry here, without you make up your mind to be conformable, and go to church.”
The idea of escape from the toils drawing close around her had never entered Alice’s brain till then. Now, for one moment, it surged in wild excitement through her mind. The next moment it was gone. A voice seemed to whisper to her—
“The cup which thy Father hath given thee, wilt thou not drink it?”
Then she said tranquilly, “Be it as you will. Because I cannot rightly obey you in one matter, I will be the more careful in all other to order me as you desire.”
Mr Benden answered only by a sneer. He did not believe in meekness. In his estimation, women who pretended to be meek and submissive were only trying to beguile a man. In his heart he knew that this gentle obedience was not natural to Alice, who had a high spirit and plenty of fortitude; and instead of attributing it to the grace of God, which was its real source, he set it down to a desire to cheat him in some unrevealed fashion.
He went to church, and Alice stayed at home as she was bidden. Finding that she had done so, Mr Benden tried hard to discover that one of her brothers had been to see her, sharply and minutely questioning Mary on the subject.
“I told him nought,” said Mary afterwards to Mistress Tabitha: “and good reason why—there was nought to tell. But if every man Jack of you had been here, do you think I’d ha’ let on to the likes o’ him?”
A very uncomfortable fortnight followed. Mr Benden was in the exasperating position of the Persian satraps, when they could find no occasion against this Daniel. He was angry with the Bishop for releasing Alice at his own request, angry with the neighbouring squires, who had promoted the release, angry with Roger Hall for not allowing himself to be found visiting his sister, most angry with Alice for giving him no reasonable cause for anger. The only person with whom he was not angry was his unreasonable self.
“If it wasn’t for Mistress yonder, I should be in twenty minds not to tarry here,” said Mary to Mistress Tabitha, whom she overtook in the road as both were coming home from market. “I’d as lief dwell in the house with a grizzly bear as him. How she can put up with him that meek as she do, caps me. Never gives him an ill word, no matter how many she gets; and I do ensure you, Mistress Hall, his mouth is nothing pleasant. And how do you all, I pray you? for it shall be a pleasure to my poor mistress to hear the same. Fares little Mistress Christabel any better?”
“Never a whit, Mall; and I am at my wits’ end to know what I shall next do for her. She wearies for her Aunt Alice, and will not allow of me in her stead.”
Mary felt privately but small astonishment at this.
“I sent Friswith and Justine over to tarry with her, but she seemed to have no list to keep them; they were somewhat too quick for her, I reckon.” By quick, Mistress Hall meant lively. “I’ll tell you what, Mary Banks—with all reverence I speak it, but I do think I could order this world better than it is.”
“Think you so, Mistress Hall? And how would you go to do it?”
“First business, I’d be rid of that Edward Benden. Then I’d set Alice in her brother Roger’s house, to look after him and Christabel. She’d be as happy as the day is long, might she dwell with them, and had that cantankerous dolt off her hands for good. Eh dear! but if Master Hall, my father-in-law, that made Alice’s match with Benden, but had it to do o’er again, I reckon he’d think twice and thrice afore he gave her to that toad. The foolishness o’ folks is beyond belief. Why, she might have had Master Barnaby Final, that was as decent a man as ever stepped in leather—he wanted her: but Benden promised a trifle better in way of money, and Master Hall, like an ass as he was, took up wi’ him. There’s no end to men’s doltishness (foolishness). I’m homely, (plain-spoken) you’ll say, and that’s true; I love so to be. I never did care for dressing my words with all manner o’ frippery, as if they were going to Court. ’Tis a deal the best to speak plain, and then folks know what you’re after.”
When that uncomfortable fortnight came to an uncomfortable end, Mr Benden went to church in a towering passion. He informed such of his friends as dared to approach him after mass, that the perversity and obduracy of his wife were beyond all endurance on his part. Stay another week in his house she should not! He would be incalculably indebted to any friend visiting Cranbrook, if he would inform the Justices of her wicked ways, so that she might be safely lodged again in gaol. An idle young man, more out of thoughtless mischief than from any worse motive, undertook the task.
When Alice Benden appeared the second time before the Bench, it was not with ease-loving, good-natured Justice Roberts that she had to do. Sir John Guildford was now the sitting magistrate, and he committed her to prison with short examination. But the constable, whether from pity or for some consideration of his own convenience, did not wish to take her; and the administration of justice being somewhat lax, she was ordered by that official to go home until he came for her.
“Go home, forsooth!” cried Mr Benden in angry tones. “I’ll not have her at home!”
“Then you may carry her yourself to Canterbury,” returned the constable. “I cannot go this week, and I have nobody to send.”
“Give me a royal farthing, and I will!” was the savage answer.
The constable looked in his face to see if he meant it. Then he shook his head, dipped his hand into his purse, and pulled out half-a-crown, which he passed to Mr Benden, who pocketed this price of blood. Alice had walked on down the Market Place, and was out of hearing. Mr Benden strode after her, with the half-crown in his pocket.
Chapter Nine.
Alice decides for herself.
“Not that road, Mistress!”
Alice had nearly reached the end of the Market Place, when her husband’s harsh call arrested her. She had been walking slowly on, so that he might overtake her. On hearing this, she paused and waited for him to come up.
“That’s not the way to Canterbury!” said Mr Benden, seizing her by the wrist, and turning her round.
“I thought we were going home,” said Alice quietly.
“Methinks, Mistress, there’s somewhat wrong with your hearing this morrow. Heard you not the Justice commit you to gaol?”
“Truly I so did, Edward; but I heard also the constable to say that he would come for me when it should stand with his conveniency, and I reckoned it was thus settled.”
“Then you reckoned without your host. The constable hath given me money to carry you thither without delay, and that will I with a very good will.”
“Given you money!”
Through six years of unhappy married life Alice Benden had experienced enough of her husband’s constant caprice and frequent brutality; but this new development of it astonished her. She had not supposed that he would descend so far as to take the price of innocent blood. The tone of her voice, not indignant, but simply astonished, increased Mr Benden’s anger. The more gently she spoke, the harsher his voice grew. This is not unusual, when a man is engaged in wilfully doing what he knows to be wrong.
“Verily, your hearing must be evil this morrow, Mistress!” he said, with some wicked words to emphasise his remark. “The constable hath paid me a royal farthing, and here it is”—patting his pocket as he spoke—“and I have yet to earn it. Come, step out; we have no time to lose.”
Alice came to a sudden stand-still.
“No, Edward,” she said firmly. “You shall not carry me to gaol. I will have a care of your character, though you little regard mine. I pray you, unhand me, and I will go mine own self to the constable, and entreat him to take me, as his office and duty are.” (This part of the story, however extraordinary, is pure fact.)
In sheer amazement, Mr Benden’s hand unloosed from Alice’s arm; and seizing her opportunity, she walked rapidly back to the Court House. For a moment he stood considering what to do. He had little more concern for his own reputation than for hers; but he felt that if he followed her to the constable, he could scarcely avoid refunding that half-crown, a thing he by no means desired to do. This reflection decided him. He went quickly to the inn where he had left his horse, mounted, and rode home, leaving Alice to her own devices, to walk home or get taken to Canterbury in any way she could.
The constable was not less astonished than Mr Benden. He was not accustomed to receive visits from people begging to be taken to gaol. He scratched his head, put it on one side and looked at Alice as if she were a curiosity in an exhibition, then took off his cap again, and scratched his head on the other side.
“Well, to be sure!” he said at last. “To tell truth, my mistress, I know not what to do with you. I cannot mine own self win this day to Canterbury, and I have no place to tarry you here; nor have I any to send withal save yon lad.”
He pointed as he spoke to his son, a lad of about twelve years old, who sat on the bench by the Court House door, idly whistling, and throwing up a pebble to catch it again.
“Then, I pray you, Master Constable,” said Alice eagerly, “send the lad with me. I am loth to put you to this labour, but verily I am forced to it; and methinks you may lightly guess I shall not run away from custody.”
The constable laughed, but looked undecided.
“In very deed,” said he, “I see not wherefore you should not go home and tarry there, till such time as I come to fetch you. But if it must be, it must. I will go saddle mine horse, and he shall carry you to Canterbury with George.”
While the constable went to saddle the horse, and Alice sat on the bench waiting till it was ready, she fought with a very strong temptation. Her husband would not receive her, so much she knew for a certainty; but there were others who would. How welcome Roger would have made her! and what a perfect haven of rest it would be, to live even for a few days with him and Christabel! Her old father, too, at Frittenden, who had told her not many days before, with tears in his eyes, how bitterly he repented ever giving her to Edward Benden. It must be remembered that in those days girls were never permitted to choose for themselves, whether they wished to marry a man or not; the parents always decided that point, and sometimes, as in this instance, they came to a sadly mistaken decision. Alice had not chosen her husband, and he had never given her any reason to love him; but she had done her best to be a good wife, and even now she would not depart from it. The temptation was sore, and she almost gave way under it. But the constant habit of referring everything to God stood her in good stead in this emergency. To go and stay with her brother, whose visits to her Mr Benden had forbidden, would be sure to create a scandal, and to bring his name into even worse repute than it was at present. She must either be at Briton’s Mead or in Canterbury Gaol; and just now the gaol was the only possible place for her. Be it so! God would go with her into the gaol—perhaps more certainly than into Roger’s home. And the place where she could be sure of having God with her was the place where Alice chose and wished to be.
Her heart sank heavily as she heard the great door of the gaol clang to behind her. Alice was made of no materials more all-enduring than flesh and blood. She could enjoy rest and pleasantness quite as well as other people. And she wondered drearily, as she went down the steps into the women’s room, how long she was to stay in that unrestful and unpleasant place.
“Why, are you come again?” said one of the prisoners, as Alice descended the steps. “What, you wouldn’t conform? Well, no more would I.”
Alice recognised the face of a decent-looking woman who had come in the same day that she was released, and in whom she had felt interested at the time from her quiet, tidy appearance, though she had no opportunity of speaking to her. She sat down now on the bench by her side.
“Are you here for the like cause, friend? I mind your face, methinks, though I spake not to you aforetime.”
“Ay, we row in the same boat,” said the woman with a pleasant smile, “and may as well make us known each to other. My name’s Rachel Potkin, and I come from Chart Magna: I’m a widow, and without children left to me, for which I thank the Lord now, though I’ve fretted o’er it many a time. Strange, isn’t it, we find it so hard to remember that He sees the end from the beginning, and so hard to believe that He is safe to do the best for us?”
“Ay, and yet not strange,” said Alice with a sigh. “Life’s weary work by times.”
“It is so, my dear heart,” answered Rachel, laying a sympathising hand on Alice’s. “But, bethink you, He’s gone through it. Well, and what’s your name?”
“My name is Alice Benden, from Staplehurst.”
“Are you a widow?”
Had Tabitha been asked that question in the same circumstances, she would not improbably have replied, “No; worse luck!” But Alice, as we have seen, was tender over her husband’s reputation. She only returned a quiet negative. Rachel, whose eyes were keen, and ears ditto, heard something in the tone, and saw something in the eyes, which Alice had no idea was there to see and hear, that made her say to herself, “Ah, poor soul! he’s a bad sort, not a doubt of it.” Aloud she only said,—
“And how long look you to be here—have you any notion?”
Prisoners in our milder days are committed to prison for a certain term. In those days there was no fixed limit. A man never knew for a certainty, when he entered the prison, whether he would remain there for ten days or for fifty years. He could only guess from appearances how long it might be likely to be.
“Truly, friend, that know I not. God knoweth.”
“Well said, Mistress Benden. Let us therefore give thanks, and take our hearts to us.”
Just then the gaoler came up to them.
“Birds of a feather, eh?” said he, with not unkindly humour. For a gaoler, he was not a hard man. “Mistress Benden, your allowance is threepence by the day—what shall I fetch you?”
The prisoners were permitted to buy their own food through the prison officials, up to the value of their daily allowance. Alice considered a moment.
“A pennyworth of bread, an’ it like you, Master; a farthing’s worth of beef; a farthing’s worth of eggs; and a pennyworth of ale. The halfpenny, under your good pleasure, I will keep in hand.”
Does the reader exclaim, Was that the whole day’s provision? Indeed it was, and a very fair day’s provision too. For this money Alice would receive six rolls or small loaves of bread, a pound of beef, two eggs, and a pint of ale,—quite enough for supper and breakfast. The ale was not so much as it seems, for they drank ale at every meal, even breakfast, only invalids using milk. To drink water was thought a dreadful hardship, and they had no tea or coffee.
The gaoler nodded and departed.
“Look you, Mistress Benden,” said Rachel Potkin, “I have thought by times to try, being here in this case, on how little I could live, so as to try mine endurance, and fit me so to do if need were. Shall we essay it together, think you? Say I well?”
“Very well, Mistress Potkin; I were fain to make the trial. How much is your allowance by the day?”
“The like of yours—threepence.”
“We will try on how little we can keep in fair health,” said Alice with a little laugh, “and save our money for time of more need. On what shall we do it, think you?”
“Why, I reckon we may look to do it on fourpence betwixt us.”
“Oh, surely!” said Alice. “Threepence, I well-nigh think.”
While this bargain was being made, Mr Benden sat down to supper, a pork pie standing before him, a dish of toasted cheese to follow, and a frothed tankard of ale at his elbow. Partly owing to her mistress’s exhortations, Mary had changed her tactics, and now sought to mollify her master by giving him as good a supper as she knew how to serve. But Mr Benden was hard to please this evening. “The pork is as tough as leather,” he declared; “the cheese is no better than sawdust, and the ale is flat as ditch-water.” And he demanded of Mary, in rasping tones, if she expected such rubbish to agree with him?
“Ah!” said Mary to herself as she shut the door on him, “’tis your conscience, Master, as doesn’t agree with you.”
Chapter Ten.
Trying experiments.
Old Grandfather Hall had got a lift in a cart from Frittenden, and came to spend the day with Roger and Christabel. It was a holy-day, for which cause Roger was at home, for in those times a holy-day was always a holiday, and the natural result was that holiday-making soon took the place of keeping holy. Roger’s leisure days were usually spent by the side of his little Christie.
“Eh, Hodge, my lad!” said Grandfather Hall, shaking his white head, as he sat leaning his hands upon his silver-headed staff, “but ’tis a strange dispensation this! Surely I never looked for such as this in mine old age. But ’tis my blame—I do right freely confess ’tis my blame. I reckoned I wrought for the best; I meant nought save my maid’s happiness: but I see now I had better have been content with fewer of the good things of this life for the child, and have taken more thought for an husband that feared God. Surely I meant well,—yet I did evil; I see it now.”
“Father,” said Roger, with respectful affection, “I pray you, remember that God’s strange dispensations be at times the best things He hath to give us, and that of our very blunders He can make ladders to lift us nearer to Himself.”
“Ay, lad, thou hast the right; yet must I needs be sorry for my poor child, that suffereth for my blunder. Hodge, I would thou wouldst visit her.”
“That will I, Father, no further than Saint Edmund’s Day, the which you wot is next Tuesday. Shall I bear her any message from you?”
Old Mr Hall considered an instant; then he put his hand into his purse, and with trembling fingers pulled out a new shilling.
“Bear her this,” said he; “and therewithal my blessing, and do her to wit that I am rarely troubled for her trouble. I cannot say more, lest it should seem to reflect upon her husband: but I would with all mine heart—”
“Well, Nell!” said a voice in the passage outside which everybody knew. “Your master’s at home, I count, being a holy-day? The old master here likewise?—that’s well. There, take my pattens, that’s a good maid. I’ll tarry a bit to cheer up the little mistress.”
“Oh dear!” said Christabel in a whisper, “Aunt Tabitha won’t cheer me a bit; she’ll make me boil over. And I’m very near it now; I’m sure I must be singing! If she’d take me off and put me on the hob! Aunt Alice would, if it were she.”
“Good-morrow!” said Aunt Tabitha’s treble tones, which allowed no one else’s voice to be heard at the same time. “Give you good-morrow, Father, and the like to thee, Christie. Well, Roger, I trust you’re in a forgiving mood this morrow? You’ll have to hammer at it a while, I reckon, afore you can make out that Edward Benden’s an innocent cherub. I’d as lief wring that man’s neck as eat my dinner!—and I mean to tell him so, too, afore I do it.”
Aunt Tabitha left her sentence grammatically ambiguous, but practically lucid enough to convey a decided impression that a rod for Mr Benden was lying in tolerably sharp pickle.
“Daughter,” said old Mr Hall, “methinks you have but a strange notion of forgiveness, if you count that it lieth in a man’s persuading himself that the offender hath done him no wrong. To forgive as God forgiveth, is to feel and know the wrong to the full, and yet, notwithstanding the same, to pardon the offender.”
“And in no wise to visit his wrong upon him? Nay, Father; that’d not a-pay me, I warrant you.”
“That a man should escape the natural and temporal consequences of his evil doing, daughter, is not the way that God forgives. He rarely remits that penalty: more often he visits it to the full. But he loveth the offender through all, and seeks to purge away his iniquity and cleanse his soul.”
“Well-a-day! I can fashion to love Edward Benden that way,” said Tabitha, perversely misinterpreting her father-in-law’s words. “I’ll mix him a potion ’ll help to cleanse his disorder, you’ll see. Bitters be good for sick folks; and he’s grievous sick. I met Mall a-coming; she saith he snapped her head right off yester-even.”
“Oh dear!” said literal Christie. “Did she get it put on again, Aunt Tabitha, before you saw her?”
“It was there, same as common,” replied Tabitha grimly.
“He’s not a happy man, or I mistake greatly,” remarked Roger Hall.
“He’ll not be long, if I can win at him,” announced Tabitha, more grimly still. “Good lack! there he is, this minute, crossing the Second Acre Close—see you him not? Nell, my pattens—quick! I’ll have at him while I may!”
And Tabitha flew.
Christabel, who had lifted her head to watch the meeting, laid it down again upon her cushions with a sigh. “Aunt Tabitha wearies me, Father,” she said, answering Roger’s look of sympathetic concern, “She’s like a blowy wind, that takes such a deal out of you. I wish she’d come at me a bit quieter. Father, don’t you think the angels are very quiet folks? I couldn’t think they’d come at me like Aunt Tabby.”
“The angels obey the Lord, my Christie, and the Lord is very gentle. He ‘knoweth our frame,’ and ‘remembereth that we are but dust.’”
“I don’t feel much like dust,” said Christie meditatively. “I feel more like strings that somebody had pulled tight till it hurt. But I do wish Aunt Tabitha would obey the Lord too, Father. I can’t think she knows our frame, unless hers is vastly unlike mine.”
“I rather count it is, Christie,” said Roger.
Mr Benden had come out for his airing in an unhappy frame of mind, and his interview with Tabitha sent him home in a worse. Could he by an effort of will have obliterated the whole of his recent performances, he would gladly have done it; but as this was impossible, he refused to confess himself in the wrong. He was not going to humble himself, he said gruffly—though there was nobody to hear him—to that spiteful cat Tabitha. As to Alice, he was at once very angry with her, and very much put out by her absence. It was all her fault, he said again. Why could she not behave herself at first, and come to church like a reasonable woman, and as everybody else did? If she had stood out for a new dress, or a velvet hood, he could have understood it; but these new-fangled nonsensical fancies nobody could understand. Who could by any possibility expect a sensible man to give in to such rubbish?
So Mr Benden reasoned himself into the belief that he was an ill-used martyr, Alice a most unreasonable woman, and Tabitha a wicked fury. Having no principles himself, that any one else should have them was both unnecessary and absurd in his eyes. He simply could not imagine the possibility of a woman caring so much for the precepts or the glory of God, that she was ready for their sakes to brave imprisonment, torture, or death.
Meanwhile Alice and her fellow-prisoner, Rachel Potkin, were engaged in trying their scheme of living on next to nothing. We must not forget that even poor people, at that time, lived much better than now, so far as eating is concerned. The Spanish noblemen who came over with Queen Mary’s husband were greatly astonished to find the English peasants, as they said, “living in hovels, and faring like princes.” The poorest then never contented themselves with plain fare, such as we think tea and bread, which are now nearly all that many poor people see from one year’s end to another. Meat, eggs, butter, and much else were too cheap to make it necessary.
So Alice and Rachel arranged their provisions thus: every two days they sent for two pounds of mutton, which cost some days a farthing, and some a halfpenny; twelve little loaves of bread, at 2 pence; a pint and a half of claret, or a quart of ale, cost 2 pence more. The halfpenny, which was at times to spare, they spent on four eggs, a few rashers of bacon, or a roll of butter, the price of which was fourpence-halfpenny the gallon. Sometimes it went for salt, an expensive article at that time. Now and then they varied their diet from mutton to beef; but of this they could get only half the quantity for their halfpenny. On fish-days, then rigidly observed, of course they bought fish instead of meat. For a fortnight they kept up this practice, which to them seemed far more of a hardship than it would to us; they were accustomed to a number of elaborate dishes, with rich sauces, in most of which wine was used; and mere bread and meat, or even bread and butter, seemed very poor, rough eating. Perhaps, if our ancestors had been content with simpler cookery, their children in the present day would have had less trouble with doctors’ bills.
Roger Hall visited his sister, as he had said, on Saint Edmund’s Day, the sixteenth of November. He found her calm, and even cheerful, very much pleased with her father’s message and gift, and concerned that Mary should follow her directions to make Mr Benden comfortable. That she forgave him she never said in words, but all her actions said it strongly. Roger had to curb his own feelings as he promised to take the message to this effect which Alice sent to Mary. But Alice could pretty well see through his face into his heart, and into Mary’s too; and she looked up with a smile as she added a few words:—
“Tell Mall,” she said, “that if she love me, and would have me yet again at home, methinks this were her wisest plan.”
Roger nodded, and said no more.