Chapter Sixteen.
At the White Hart.
There was a good deal of bustle going on in the kitchen of the White Hart, the little hostelry at Staplehurst. It was “fair day,” and fairs were much more important things in the olden time than now. A fair now-a-days is an assemblage of some dozen booths, where the chief commodities are toys and sweetmeats, with an attempt at serious business in the shape of a little crockery or a few tin goods. But fairs in 1557 were busy places where many people laid in provisions for the season, or set themselves up with new clothes. The tiny inn had as many guests as it could hold, and the principal people in the town had come together in its kitchen—country inns had no parlours then—to debate all manner of subjects in which they were interested. The price of wool was an absorbing topic with many; the dearness of meat and general badness of trade were freely discussed by all. Amongst them bustled Mistress Final, the landlady of the inn, a widow, and a comely, rosy-faced, fat, kindly woman, assisted by her young son Ralph, her two daughters, Ursula and Susan, and her maid Dorcas. Cakes and ale were served to most of the customers; more rarely meat, except in the form of pies, which were popular, or of bacon, with or without accompanying eggs.
The company in the kitchen were all more or less acquainted with each other, two persons excepted. Those who were not Staplehurst people had come in from the surrounding villages, or from Cranbrook at the farthest. But these two men were total strangers, and they did not mix with the villagers, but sat, in travelling garb, at one corner of the kitchen, listening, yet rarely joining in the talk which went on around them. One of them, indeed, seemed wrapped in his own thoughts, and scarcely spoke, even to his companion. He was a tall spare man, with a grave and reserved expression of countenance. The other was shorter and much more lively in his motions, was evidently amused by the conversation in his vicinity, and looked as if he would not object to talk if the opportunity were given him.
Into this company came Emmet Wilson and Collet Pardue. Both had brought full baskets from the fair, which they set down in a corner, and turned to amuse themselves with a little chat with their friends.
“Any news abroad?” asked Collet. She dearly loved a bit of news, which she would retail to her quiet husband as they sat by the fireside after the day’s work was done.
“Well, not so much,” said John Banks, the mason, to whom Collet had addressed herself. He was the brother of Mr Benden’s servant Mary. “Without you call it news to hear what happed at Briton’s Mead last night.”
“Why, whatso? Not the mistress come home, trow?”
“Alack, no such good hap! Nay, only Tabby came down to see the master, and brought her claws with her.”
“Scrat him well, I hope?”
“Whipped him, and laid on pretty hard to boot.”
“Why, you never mean it, real true, be sure!”
“Be sure I do. He’s a-bed this morrow.”
“I have my doubts if there’ll be many tears shed in Staplehurst,” said Mistress Final, laughing, as she went past with a plate of biscuit-bread, which, to judge from the receipt for making it, must have been very like our sponge cake.
“He’s none so much loved of his neighbours,” remarked Nicholas White, who kept a small ironmonger’s shop, to which he added the sale of such articles as wood, wicker-work, crockery, and musical instruments.
The shorter and livelier of the travellers spoke for the first time.
“Pray you, who is this greatly beloved master?”
John Fishcock, the butcher, replied. “His name is Benden, and the folks be but ill-affected to him for his hard ways and sorry conditions.”
“Hard!—in what manner, trow?”
“Nay, you’d best ask my neighbour here, whose landlord he is.”
“And who’d love a sight better to deal with his mistress than himself,” said Collet, answering the appeal. “I say not he’s unjust, look you, but he’s main hard, be sure. A farthing under the money, or a day over the time, and he’s no mercy.”
“Ah, the mistress was good to poor folks, bless her!” said Banks.
“She’s dead, is she?” asked the stranger.
“No, she’s away,” replied Banks shortly.
“Back soon?” suggested the stranger.
John Banks had moved away. There was a peculiar gleam in his questioner’s eye which he did not admire. But Collet, always unsuspicious, and not always discreet, replied without any idea of reserve.
“You’d best ask Dick o’ Dover that, for none else can tell you.”
“Ah, forsooth!” replied the stranger, apparently more interested than ever. “I heard as we came there were divers new doctrine folks at Staplehurst. She is one of them, belike?—and the master holds with the old? ’Tis sore pity folks should not agree to differ, and hold their several opinions in peace.”
“Ah, it is so,” said unsuspicious Collet.
“Pray you, who be the chief here of them of the new learning? We be strangers in these parts, and should be well a-paid to know whither we may seek our friends. Our hostess here, I am aware, is of them; but for others I scarce know. The name of White was dropped in mine hearing, and likewise Fishcock; who be they, trow? And dwells there not a certain Mistress Brandridge, or some such?—and a Master Hall or Ball—some whither in this neighbourhood, that be friends unto such as love not the papistical ways?”
“Look you now, I’ll do you to wit all thereanent,” said Collet confidentially. “For Fishcock, that was he that first spake unto you; he is a butcher, and dwelleth nigh the church. Nicholas White, yon big man yonder, that toppeth most of his neighbours, hath an ironmongery shop a-down in the further end of the village. Brandridge have we not: but Mistress Bradbridge—”
“Mistress, here’s your master a-wanting you!” came suddenly in John Banks’ clear tones; and Collette, hastily lifting her basket, and apologising for the sudden termination of her usefulness, departed quickly.
“She that hath hastened away is Mistress Wilson, methinks?” asked the inquisitive traveller of the person next him, who happened to be Mary Banks.
Mary looked quietly up into the animated face, and glanced at his companion also before replying. Then she said quietly—
“No, my master; Mistress Wilson is not now here.”
“Then what name hath she?”
“I cry you mercy, Master; I have no time to tarry.”
The grave man in the corner gave a grim smile as Mary turned away.
“You took not much by that motion, Malledge,” he said in a low tone.
“I took a good deal by the former,” replied Malledge, with a laugh. “Beside, I lacked it not; I wis well the name of my useful friend that is now gone her way. I did but ask to draw on more talk. But one matter I have not yet.”
These words were spoken in an undertone, audible only to the person to whom they were addressed; and the speaker turned back to join in the general conversation. But before they had obtained any further information, the well-known sounds of the hunt came through the open door, and the whole company turned forth to see the hunters and hounds go by. Most of them did not return, but dispersed in the direction of their various homes, and from the few who did nothing was to be drawn.
John Banks walked away with Nicholas White. “Saw you those twain?” he asked, when they had left the White Hart a little way behind them. “The strange men? Ay, I saw them.”
“I misdoubt if they come for any good purpose.”
“Ay so?” said Nicholas in apparent surprise. “What leads you to that thought, trow?”
“I loved not neither of their faces; nor I liked not of their talk. That shorter man was for ever putting questions anent the folks in this vicinage that loved the Gospel; and Collet Pardue told him more than she should, or I mistake.”
Nicholas White smiled. “I reckoned you were in some haste to let her wit that her master wanted her,” he said.
“I was that. I was in a hurry to stop her tongue.”
“Well!” said the ironmonger after a short pause, “the Lord keep His own!”
“Amen!” returned the mason. “But methinks, friend, the Lord works not many miracles to save even His own from traps whereinto they have run with their eyes open.”
They walked on for a few minutes in silence. “What think you,” asked White, “is come of Mistress Benden?”
“Would I wist!” answered Banks. “Master Hall saith he’ll never let be till he find her, without he be arrest himself.”
“That will he, if he have not a care.”
“I’m not so sure,” said Banks, “that those two in the White Hart could not have told us an’ they would.”
“Good lack!—what count you then they be?”
“I reckon that they be of my Lord Cardinal’s men.”
“Have you any ground for that fantasy?”
“Methought I saw the nether end of a mitre, broidered on the sleeve of the shorter man, where his cloak was caught aside upon the settle knob. Look you, I am not sure; but I’m ’feared lest it so be.”
“Jack, couldst thou stand the fire?”
“I wis not, Nichol. Could you?”
“I cast no doubt I could do all things through Christ, nor yet that without Christ I could do nothing.”
“It may come close, ere long,” said Banks gravely.
The two travellers, meanwhile, had mounted their horses, and were riding in the direction of Goudhurst. A third man followed them, leading a baggage-horse. As they went slowly along, the taller man said—
“Have you all you need, now, Malledge?”
“All but one matter, Master Sumner—we know not yet where Hall dwelleth. Trust me, but I coveted your grave face, when we heard tell of Tabby horsewhipping yon Benden!”
“He hath his demerits,” said the sumner,—that is, the official who served the summonses to the ecclesiastical courts.
“Of that I cast no doubt; nor care I if Tabby thrash him every day, for my part. When come we in our proper persons, to do our work?”
“That cannot I tell. We must first make report to my Lord of Dover.”
A young girl and a little child came tripping down the road. The short man drew bridle and addressed them.
“Pray you, my pretty maids, can you tell me where dwelleth Mistress Bradbridge? I owe her a trifle of money, and would fain pay the same.”
“Oh yes, sir!” said little Patience Bradbridge eagerly; “she’s my mother. She dwells in yon white house over the field yonder.”
“And Master Roger Hall, where dwelleth he?”
Penuel Pardue hastily stopped her little friend’s reply.
“Master Hall is not now at home, my masters, so it should be to no purpose you visit his house. I give you good-morrow.”
“Wise maid!” said Malledge with a laugh, when the girls were out of hearing. “If all were as close as thou, we should thrive little.”
“They are all in a story!” said the sumner.
“Nay, not all,” replied Malledge. “We have one to thank. But truly, they are a close-mouthed set, the most of them.”
Chapter Seventeen.
The Justice is indiscreet.
“Methinks we be like to have further troubles touching religion in these parts. Marry, I do marvel what folks would be at, that they cannot be content to do their duty, and pay their dues, and leave the cure of their souls to the priest. As good keep a dog and bark thyself, say I, as pay dues to the priest and take thought for thine own soul.”
The speaker was Mr Justice Roberts, and he sat at supper in his brother’s house, one of a small family party, which consisted, beside the brothers, of their sister, Mistress Collenwood, Mistress Grena Holland, Gertrude, and Pandora. The speech was characteristic of the speaker. The Justice was by no means a bad man, as men go—and all of them do not go very straight in the right direction—but he made one mistake which many are making in our own day; he valued peace more highly than truth. His decalogue was a monologue, consisting but of one commandment: Do your duty. What a man’s duty was, the Justice did not pause to define. Had he been required to do so, his dissection of that difficult subject would probably have run in three grooves—go to church; give alms; keep out of quarrels.
“It were verily good world, Master Justice, wherein every man should do his duty,” was the answer of Mistress Grena, delivered in that slightly prim and didactic fashion which was characteristic of her.
“What is duty?” concisely asked Mistress Collenwood, who was by some ten years the elder of her brothers, and therefore the eldest of the company.
Gertrude’s eyes were dancing with amusement; Pandora only looked interested.
“Duty,” said Mr Roberts, the host, “is that which is due.”
“To whom?” inquired his sister.
“To them unto whom he oweth it,” was the reply; “first, to God; after Him, to all men.”
“Which of us doth that?” said Mistress Collenwood softly, looking round the table.
Mistress Grena shook her head in a way which said, “Very few—not I.”
Had Gertrude lived three hundred years later, she would have said what now she only thought—“I am sure I do my duty.” But in 1557 young ladies were required to “hear, see, and say nought,” and for one of them to join unasked in the conversation of her elders would have been held to be shockingly indecorous. The rule for girls’ behaviour was too strict in that day; but if a little of it could be infused into the very lax code of the present time, when little misses offer their opinions on subjects of which they know nothing, and unblushingly differ from, or even contradict their mothers, too often without rebuke, it would be a decided improvement on social manners.
“Which of the folks in these parts be not doing their duty?” asked Mr Roberts of his brother.
“You know Benden of Briton’s Mead?” replied the Justice.
“By sight; I am not well acquaint with him.”
“Is he not an hard man, scarce well liked?” said his sister.
“True enough, as you shall say ere my tale come to an end. This Benden hath a wife—a decent Woman enough, as all men do confess, save that she is bitten somewhat by certain heretical notions that the priest cannot win her to lay by; will not come to mass, and so forth; but in all other fashions of good repute: and what doth this brute her husband but go himself to the Bishop, and beg—I do ensure you, beg his Lordship that this his wife may be arrest and lodged in prison. And in prison she is, and hath so been now these three or four months, on the sworn information of her own husband. ’Tis monstrous!”
“Truly, most shocking!” said Mistress Grena, cutting up the round of beef. The lady of the house always did the carving.
“Ah! As saith the old proverb: ‘There is no worse pestilence than a familiar enemy,’” quoted the host.
“Well!” continued the Justice, with an amused look: “but now cometh a good jest, whereof I heard but yester-even. This Mistress Benden hath two brothers, named Hall—Roger and Thomas—one of whom dwelleth at Frittenden, and the other at yon corner house in Staplehurst, nigh to the Second Acre Close. Why, to be sure, he is your manager—that had I forgot.”
Mr Roberts nodded. Pandora had pricked up her ears at the name of Hall, and now began to listen intently. Mistress Benden, of whom she heard for the first time, must be an aunt of her protégée, little Christabel.
“This Thomas Hall hath a wife, by name Tabitha, that the lads hereabout call Tabby, and by all accounts a right cat with claws is she. She, I hear, went up to Briton’s Mead a two-three days gone, or maybe something more, and gave good Master Benden a taste of her horsewhip, that he hath since kept his bed—rather, I take it, from sulkiness than soreness, yet I dare be bound she handled him neatly. Tabitha is a woman of strong build, and lithe belike, that I would as lief not be horsewhipped by. Howbeit, what shall come thereof know I not. Very like she thought it should serve to move him to set Mistress Alice free: but she may find, and he belike, that ’tis easier to set a stone a-rolling down the hill than to stay it. The matter is now in my Lord of Dover’s hands; and without Mistress Tabitha try her whip on him—”
Both gentlemen laughed. Pandora was deeply interested, as she recalled little Christie’s delicate words, that Aunt Alice was “away at present.” The child evidently would not say more. Pandora made up her mind that she would go and see Christie again as soon as possible, and meanwhile she listened for any information that she might give her.
“What is like to come of the woman, then?” said Mr Roberts, “apart from Mistress Tabitha and her whip?”
“Scarce release, I count,” said the Justice gravely. “She hath been moved from the gaol; and that doubtless meaneth, had into straiter keeping.”
“Poor fools!” said his brother, rather pityingly than scornfully.
“Ay, ’tis strange, in very deed, they cannot let be this foolish meddling with matters too high for them. If the woman would but conform and go to church, I hear, her womanish fantasies should very like be overlooked. Good lack I can a man not believe as he list, yet hold his tongue and be quiet, and not bring down the laws on his head?” concluded the Justice somewhat testily.
There was a pause, during which all were silent—from very various motives. Mr Roberts was thinking rather sadly that the only choice offered to men in those days was a choice of evils. He had never wished to conform—never would have done so, had he been let alone: but a man must look out for his safety, and take care of his property—of course he must!—and if the authorities made it impossible for him to do so with a good conscience, why, the fault was theirs, not his. Thus argued Mr Roberts, forgetting that the man makes a poor bargain who gains the whole world and loses himself. The Justice and Gertrude were simply enjoying their supper. No scruples of any kind disturbed their slumbering consciences. Mistress Collenwood’s face gave no indication of her thoughts. Pandora was reflecting chiefly upon Christabel.
But there was one present whose conscience had been asleep, and was just waking to painful life. For nearly four years had Grena Holland soothed her many misgivings by some such reasoning as that of Mr Justice Roberts. She had conformed outwardly: had not merely abstained from contradictory speeches, but had gone to mass, had attended the confessional, had bowed down before images of wood and stone, and all the time had comforted herself by imagining that God saw her heart, and knew that she did not really believe in any of these things, but only acted thus for safety’s sake. Now, all at once, she knew not how, it came on her as by a flash of lightning that she was on the road that leadeth to destruction, and not content with that, was bearing her young nieces along with her. She loved those girls as if she had been their own mother. Grave, self-contained, and undemonstrative as she was, she would almost have given her life for either, but especially for Pandora, who in face, and to some extent in character, resembled her dead mother, the sister who had been the darling of Grena Holland’s heart. She recalled with keen pain the half-astonished, half-shrinking look on Pandora’s face, as she had followed her to mass on the first holy-day after her return from Lancashire. Grena knew well that at Shardeford Hall, her mother’s house in Lancashire, Pandora would never have been required to attend mass, but would have been taught that it was “a fond fable and a dangerous deceit.” And now, she considered, that look had passed from the girl’s face; she went silently, not eagerly on the one hand, yet unprotestingly, even by look, on the other. Forward into the possible future went Grena’s imagination—to the prison, and the torture-chamber, and the public disgrace, and the awful death of fire. How could she bear those, either for herself or for Pandora?
These painful meditations were broken in upon by a remark from the Justice.
“There is some strong ale brewing, I warrant you, for some of our great doctors and teachers of this vicinage. I heard t’other day, from one that shall be nameless—indeed, I would not mention the matter, but we be all friends and good Catholics here—”
Mistress Collenwood’s eyes were lifted a moment from her plate, but then went down again in silence.
“Well, I heard say two men of my Lord Cardinal’s had already been a-spying about these parts, for to win the names of such as were suspect: and divers in and nigh Staplehurst shall hear more than they wot of, ere many days be over. Mine hostess at the White Hart had best look out, and—well, there be others; more in especial this Master Ro— Come, I’ll let be the rest.”
“I trust you have not said too much already,” remarked Mr Roberts rather uneasily.
That the Justice also feared he had been indiscreet was shown by his slight testiness in reply.
“Tush! how could I? There’s never a serving-man in the chamber, and we be all safe enough. Not the tail of a word shall creep forth, be sure.”
“‘Three may keep counsel, if twain be away,’” said Mr Roberts, shaking his head with a good-humoured smile.
“They do not alway then,” added Mistress Collenwood drily.
“Well, well!” said the Justice, “you wot well enough, every one of you, the matter must go no further. Mind you, niece Gertrude, you slip it not forth to some chattering maid of your acquaintance.”
“Oh, I am safe enough, good Uncle,” laughed Gertrude.
“Indeed, I hope we be all discreet in such dangerous matters,” added Mistress Grena.
Only Mrs Collenwood and Pandora were silent.
Chapter Eighteen.
Out of heart.
“Aunt Grena,” said Pandora Roberts, “if it stand with your pleasure, may I have leave to visit little Christabel Hall this fine morrow?”
“Thou shouldst, my dear heart, with my very good will,” was the kindly answer; “but misfortunately, at this time I am not in case to accompany thee.”
Pandora did not reply, but she looked greatly disappointed, when her aunt, Mistress Collenwood, suggested—
“Could not old Osmund go with her, Grena?”
“He might, if it were matter of grave concern,” replied Mistress Grena, in a tone which indicated that the concern would have to be very grave indeed.
“Well, Dorrie, thou mayest clear those troubled eyes,” said Mistress Collenwood with a smile: “for I myself will accompany thee to visit thy friend.”
“You, Aunt Francis? Oh, I thank you!” said Pandora joyfully, passing in a moment from distress to delight.
In half-an-hour the horses were at the door. Not much was said during the ride to Staplehurst, except that Pandora told her aunt that Christabel was an invalid child, and that her father was the manager at the cloth-works. Christie, who of course was always at home, was rejoiced to see her friend; and Mistress Collenwood inquired closely into her ailments, ending with the suggestion, which she desired might be conveyed to her father, that Christie should rub her limbs with oil of swallows, and take a medicine compounded of plantain water and “powder of swine’s claws.”
“Father’s in the house,” said Christie. “He had to return back for some papers the master desired.”
Roger Hall confirmed her words by coming into the room in a few minutes, with the papers in his hand which he had been sent to seek. He made a reverence to his master’s relatives.
“Master Hall,” said Mrs Collenwood, “I would gladly have a word with you touching your little maid’s ailments.”
Roger detected her desire to say something to him out of Christie’s hearing, and led her to the kitchen, which was just then empty, as Nell was busy in the wash-house outside.
“I pray you to bar the door,” said Mrs Collenwood.
Roger obeyed, rather wondering at the request. Mrs Collenwood shortly told him that she thought the oil of swallows might strengthen Christie’s limbs, and the medicine improve her general health, but she so quickly dismissed that subject that it was plain she had come for something else. Roger waited respectfully till she spoke.
Speech seemed to be difficult to the lady. Twice she looked up and appeared to be on the point of speaking; and twice her eyes dropped, her face flushed, but her voice remained silent. At last she said—
“Master Hall, suffer me to ask if you have friends in any other county?”
Roger was considerably surprised at the question.
“I have, my mistress,” said he, “a married sister that dwelleth in Norfolk, but I have not seen her these many years.”
He thought she must mean that Christie’s health would be better in some other climate, which was a strange idea to him, at a time when change of air was considered almost dangerous.
“Norfolk—should scarce serve,” said the lady, in a timid, hesitating manner. “The air of the Green Yard at Norwich (where stood the Bishop’s prison for heretics) is not o’er good. I think not of your little maid’s health, Master Hall, but of your own.”
Roger Hall was on the point of asserting with some perplexity and much amazement, that his health was perfect, and he required neither change nor medicine, when the real object of these faltering words suddenly flashed on him. His heart seemed to leap into his mouth, then to retreat to its place, beating fast.
“My mistress,” he said earnestly, “I took not at the first your kindly meaning rightly, but I count I so do now. If so be, I thank you more than words may tell. But I must abide at my post. My sister Alice is not yet found; and should I be taken from the child”—his voice trembled for a moment—“God must have care of her.”
“I will have a care of her, in that case,” said Mrs Collenwood. “Master Hall, we may speak freely. What you are, I am. Now I have put my life in your hands, and I trust you to be true.”
“I will guard it as mine own,” answered Roger warmly, “and I give you the most heartiest thanks, my mistress, that a man wot how to utter. But if I may ask you, be any more in danger? My brother, and Master White, and Mistress Final—”
“All be in danger,” was the startling answer, “that hold with us. But the one only name that I have heard beside yours, is mine hostess of the White Hart.”
“Mistress Final? I reckoned so much. I will have a word with her, if it may be, on my way back to Cranbrook, and bid her send word to the others. Alack the day! how long is Satan to reign, and wrong to triumph?”
“So long as God will,” replied Mrs Collenwood. “So long as His Church hath need of the cleansing physic shall it be ministered to her. When she is made clean, and white, and tried, then—no longer. God grant, friend, that you and I may not fail Him when the summons cometh for us—‘The Master calleth for thee.’”
“Amen!” said Roger Hall.
In the parlour Pandora said to Christabel—
“Dear child, thou mayest speak freely to me of thine Aunt Alice. I know all touching her.”
“O Mistress Pandora! wot you where she is?”
Pandora was grieved to find from Christie’s eager exclamation that she had, however innocently, roused the child’s hopes only to be disappointed.
“No, my dear heart,” she said tenderly, “not that, truly. I did but signify that I knew the manner of her entreatment, and where she hath been lodged.”
“Father can’t find her anywhere,” said Christie sorrowfully. “He went about two whole days, but he could hear nothing of her at all.”
“Our Father in Heaven knows where she is, my child. He shall not lose sight of her, be well assured.”
“But she can’t see Him!” urged Christie tearfully.
“Truth, sweeting. Therefore rather ‘blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.’ Consider how hard the blessed Paul was tried, and how hard he must have found faith, and yet how fully he did rely on our Saviour Christ.”
“I don’t think Saint Paul was ever tried this way,” said Christie in her simplicity. “And his sister’s son knew where he was, and could get at him. They weren’t as ill off as me and Father.”
“Poor old Jacob did not know where Joseph was,” suggested Pandora.
“Well, ay,” admitted Christie. “But Jacob was an old man; he wasn’t a little maid. And Joseph came all right, after all. Beside, he was a lad, and could stand things. Aunt Alice isn’t strong. And she hasn’t been nobody’s white child (favourite) as Joseph was; I am sure Uncle Edward never made her a coat of many colours. Mistress Pandora, is it very wicked of me to feel as if I could not bear to look at Uncle Edward, and hope that he will never, never, never come to see us any more?”
“’Tis not wicked to hate a man’s sinful deeds, dear heart; but we have need to beware that we hate not the sinner himself.”
“I can’t tell how to manage that,” said Christie. “I can’t put Uncle Edward into one end of my mind, and the ill way he hath used dear Aunt Alice into the other. He’s a bad, wicked man, or he never could have done as he has.”
“Suppose he be the very worst man that ever lived, Christie—and I misdoubt if he be so—but supposing it, wouldst thou not yet wish that God should forgive him?”
“Well; ay, I suppose I would,” said Christie, in a rather uncertain tone; “but if Uncle Edward’s going to Heaven, I do hope the angels will keep him a good way off Aunt Alice, and Father, and me. I don’t think it would be so pleasant if he were there.”
Pandora smiled.
“We will leave that, sweet heart, till thou be there,” she said.
And just as she spoke Mrs Collenwood returned to the parlour. She chatted pleasantly for a little while with Christie, and bade her not lose heart concerning her Aunt Alice.
“The Lord will do His best for His own, my child,” she said, as they took leave of Christabel; “but after all, mind thou, His best is not always our best. Nay; at times it is that which seems to us the worst. Yet I cast no doubt we shall bless Him for it, and justify all His ways, when we stand on the mount of God, and look back along the road that we have traversed. ‘All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth unto such as keep His covenant and his testimonies.’”
Some such comfort as those words of God can give was sorely needed by Roger Hall. To use a graphic expression of his day, he was “well-nigh beat out of heart.” He had visited all the villages within some distance, and had tramped to and fro in Canterbury, and could hear nothing. He had not as yet hinted to any one his own terrible apprehension that Alice might have been removed to London for trial. If so, she would come into the brutal and relentless hands of Bishop Bonner, and little enough hope was there in that case. The only chance, humanly speaking, then lay in the occasional visits paid by Cardinal Pole to Smithfield, for the purpose of rescuing, from Bonner’s noble army of martyrs, the doomed who belonged to his own diocese. And that was a poor hope indeed.
There were two important holy-days left in February, and both these Roger spent in Canterbury, despite the warning of his impending arrest if he ventured in that direction. On the latter of these two he paid special attention to the cathedral precincts. It was possible that Alice might be imprisoned in the house of one of the canons or prebendaries; and if so, there was a faint possibility that she might be better treated than in the gaol. Everywhere he listened for her voice. At every window he gazed earnestly, in the hope of seeing her face. He saw and heard nothing.
As he turned away to go home, on the evening of Saint Matthias’, it struck him that perhaps, if he were to come very early in the morning, the town would be more silent, and there might be a better likelihood of detecting the sound of one voice among many. But suppose she were kept in solitary confinement—how then could he hope to hear it?
Very, very down-hearted was Roger as he rode home. He met two or three friends, who asked, sympathetically, “No news yet, Master Hall?” and he felt unable to respond except by a mournful shake of the head.
“Well, be sure! what can have come of the poor soul?” added Emmet Wilson. And Roger could give no answer.
What could have become of Alice Benden?
Chapter Nineteen.
Eureka!
In the court where the prebendaries’ chambers were situated, within the Cathedral Close at Canterbury, was an underground vault, known as Monday’s Hole. Here the stocks were kept, but the place was very rarely used as a prison. A paling, four feet and a half in height, and three feet from the window, cut off all glimpses of the outer world from any person within. A little short straw was strewn on the floor, between the stocks and the wall, which formed the only bed of any one there imprisoned. It was a place where a man of any humanity would scarcely have left his dog; cold, damp, dreary, depressing beyond measure.
That litter of straw, on the damp stones, had been for five weary weeks the bed of Alice Benden. She was allowed no change of clothes, and all the pittance given her for food was a halfpenny worth of bread, and a farthing’s worth of drink. At her own request she had been permitted to receive her whole allowance in bread; and water, not over clean nor fresh, was supplied for drinking. No living creature came near her save her keeper, who was the bell-ringer at the cathedral—if we except the vermin which held high carnival in the vault, and were there in extensive numbers. It was a dreadful place for any human being to live in; how dreadful for an educated and delicate gentlewoman, accustomed to the comforts of civilisation, it is not easy to imagine.
But to the coarser tortures of physical deprivation and suffering had been added the more refined torments of heart and soul. During four of those five weeks all God’s waves and billows had gone over Alice Benden. She felt herself forsaken of God and man alike—out of mind, like the slain that lie in the grave—forgotten even by the Lord her Shepherd.
One visitor she had during that time, who had by no means forgotten her. Satan has an excellent memory, and never lacks leisure to tempt God’s children. He paid poor Alice a great deal of attention. How, he asked her, was it possible that a just God, not to say a merciful Saviour, could have allowed her to come into such misery? Had the Lord’s hand waxed short? Here were the persecutors, many of them ungodly men, robed in soft silken raiment, and faring sumptuously every day; their beds were made of the finest down, they had all that heart could wish; while she lay upon dirty straw in this damp hole, not a creature knowing what had become of her. Was this all she had received as the reward of serving God? Had she not tried to do His will, and to walk before Him with a perfect heart? and this was what she got for it, from Him who could have swept away her persecutors by a word, and lifted her by another to the height of luxury and happiness.
Poor Alice was overwhelmed. Her bodily weakness—of which Satan may always be trusted to take advantage—made her less fit to cope with him, and for a time she did not guess who it was that suggested all these wrong and miserable thoughts. She “grievously bewailed” herself, and, as people often do, nursed her distress as if it were something very dear and precious.
But God had not forgotten Alice Benden. She was not going to be lost—she, for whom Christ died. She was only to be purified, and made white, and tried. He led her to find comfort in His own Word, the richest of earthly comforters. One night Alice began to repeat to herself the forty-second Psalm. It seemed just made for her. It was the cry of a sore heart, shut in by enemies, and shut out from hope and pleasure. Was not that just her case?
“Why art thou so full of heaviness, O my soul? and why art thou so disquieted within me? Put thy trust in God!”
A little relieved, she turned next to the seventy-seventh Psalm. She had no Bible; nothing but what her well-stored memory gave her. Ah! what would have become of Alice Benden in those dark hours, had her memory been filled with all kinds of folly, and not with the pure, unerring Word of God? This Psalm exactly suited her.
“Will the Lord absent Himself for ever?—and will He be no more entreated? Is His mercy clean gone for ever?—and is His promise come utterly to an end for evermore? Hath God forgotten to be gracious?—and will He shut up His loving-kindness in displeasure? And I said, It is mine infirmity: but I will remember the years of the right hand of the Most Highest.”
A light suddenly flashed, clear and warm, into the weak, low, dark heart of poor lonely Alice. “It is mine infirmity!” Not God’s infirmity—not God’s forgetfulness! “No, Alice, never that,” it seemed just as if somebody said to her: “it is only your poor blind heart here in the dark, that cannot see the joy and deliverance that are coming to you—that must come to all God’s people: but He who dwells in the immortal light, and beholds the end from the beginning, knows how to come and set you free—knows when to come and save you.”
The tune changed now. Satan was driven away. The enemy whom Alice Benden had seen that day, and from whom she had suffered so sorely, she should see again no more for ever. From that hour all was joy and hope.
“I will magnify Thee, O God my King, and praise Thy name for ever and ever!”
That was the song she sang through her prison bars in the early morning of the 25th of February. The voice of joy and thanksgiving reached where the moan of pain had not been able to penetrate, to an intently listening ear a few yards from the prison. Then an answering voice of delight came to her from without.
“Alice! Alice! I have found thee!”
Alice looked up, to see her brother Roger’s head and shoulders above the paling which hid all but a strip of sky from her gaze.
“Hast thou been a-searching for me all these weeks, Roger?”
“That have I, my dear heart, ever since thou wast taken from the gaol. How may I win at thee?”
“That thou canst not, Hodge. But we may talk a moment, for my keeper, that is the bell-ringer of the minster, is now at his work there, and will not return for an half-hour well reckoned. Thou wert best come at those times only, or I fear thou shalt be taken.”
“I shall not be taken till God willeth,” said Roger. “I will come again to thee in a moment.”
He ran quickly out of the precincts, and into the first baker’s shop he saw, where he bought a small loaf of bread. Into it he pushed five fourpenny pieces, then called groats, and very commonly current. Then he fixed the loaf on the end of his staff, and so passed it through the bars to Alice. This was all he could do.
“My poor dear heart, hast thou had no company in all this time?”
“I have had Satan’s company a weary while,” she answered, “but this last night he fled away, and the Lord alone is with me.”
“God be praised!” said Roger. “And how farest thou?”
“Very ill touching the body; very well touching the soul.”
“What matter can I bring thee to thy comfort?”
“What I lack most is warmth and cleanly covering. I have no chance even to wash me, and no clothes to shift me. But thou canst bring me nought, Hodge, I thank thee, and I beseech thee, essay it not. How fares little Christie?—and be all friends well?”
“All be well, I thank the Lord, and Christie as her wont is. It shall do her a power of good to hear thou art found. Dost know when thou shalt appear before the Bishop?”
“That do I not, Hodge. It will be when God willeth, and to the end He willeth; and all that He willeth is good. I have but to endure to the end: He shall see to all the rest. Farewell, dear brother; it were best that thou shouldst not tarry.”
As Roger came within sight of Staplehurst on his return, he saw a woman walking rapidly along the road to meet him, and when he came a little nearer, he perceived that it was Tabitha. Gently urging his horse forward, they met in a few minutes. The expression of Tabitha’s face alarmed Roger greatly. She was not wont to look so moved and troubled. Grim and sarcastic, even angry, he had seen her many times; but grieved and sorrowful—this was not like Tabitha. Roger’s first fear was that she had come to give him some terrible news of Christie. Yet her opening words were not those of pain or terror.
“The Lord be thanked you were not here this day, Roger Hall!” was Tabitha’s strange greeting.
“What hath happed?” demanded Roger, stopping his horse.
“What hath happed is that Staplehurst is swept nigh clean of decent folks. Sheriffs been here—leastwise his man, Jeremy Green—and took off a good dozen of Gospellers.”
“Tom—Christie?” fell tremulously from Roger’s lips.
“Neither of them. I looked to them, and old Jeremy knows me. I heard tell of their coming, and I had matters in readiness to receive them. I reckon Jerry had an inkling of that red-hot poker and the copper of boiling water I’d prepared for his comfort; any way, he passed our house by, and at yours he did but ask if you were at home, and backed out, as pleasant as you please, when Nell made answer ‘Nay.’”
“Then whom have they taken?”
“Mine hostess of the White Hart gat the first served. Then they went after Nichol White, and Nichol Pardue.”
“Pardue!” exclaimed Roger.
“Ay, Nichol: did not touch Collet. But they took Emmet Wilson, and Fishwick, butcher, and poor Sens Bradbridge, of all simple folks.”
“And what became of her poor little maids?” asked Roger pityingly.
“Oh, Collet’s got them. I’d have fetched ’em myself if she hadn’t. They’ve not taken Jack Banks, nor Mall. Left ’em for next time, maybe.”
“Well, I am thankful they took not you, Tabitha.”
“Me? They’d have had to swallow my red-hot poker afore they took me. I count they frighted Christie a bit, fearing they’d have you; but I went to see after the child, and peaced her metely well ere I came thence.”
“I am right thankful to you, sister. Tabitha, I have found Alice.”
“You have so?—and where is she?”
Roger gave a detailed account of the circumstances.
“Seems to me they want a taste of the poker there,” said Tabitha in her usual manner. “I’ll buy a new one, so that I run not out of stock ere customers come. But I scarce think old Jeremy’ll dare come a-nigh me; it’ll be Sheriff himself, I reckon, when that piece of work’s to be done. If they come to your house, just you bid Nell set the poker in the fire, and run over for me, and you keep ’em in talk while I come. Or a good kettle of boiling water ’d do as well—I’m no wise nice which it is—or if she’d a kettle of hot pitch handy, that’s as good as anything.”
“I thank you for your counsel, Tabitha. I trust there may be no need.”
“And I the like: but you might as well have the pitch ready.”
Chapter Twenty.
Unstable as water.
“And I hope, my dear son,” said the Rev. Mr Bastian, with a face and voice as mellifluous as a honeycomb, “that all the members of your household are faithful, and well affected towards the Church our mother?”
The Rev. Mr Bastian chose his words well. If he had said, “as faithful as yourself,” Mr Roberts might have assented, with an interior conviction that his own faithfulness was not without its limits. He left no such loophole of escape. Mr Roberts could only reply that he entertained a similar hope. But whatever his hopes might be, his expectations on that score were not extensive. Mr Roberts had the nature of the ostrich, and imagined that if he shut his eyes to the thing he wished to avoid seeing, he thereby annihilated its existence. Deep down in his heart he held considerable doubts as concerned more than one member of his family; but the doubts were uncomfortable: so he put them to bed, drew the curtains, and told them to be good doubts and go to sleep. When children are treated in this manner, mothers and nurses know that sometimes they go to sleep. But sometimes they don’t. And doubts are very much like children in that respect. Occasionally they consent to be smothered up and shelved aside; at other times they break out and become provokingly noisy. A good deal depends on the vitality of both the doubts and the children.
Mr Roberts’s doubts and fears—for they went together—that all his household were not in a conformable state of mind, had hitherto gone to sleep at his bidding; but lately they had been more difficult to manage. He was uneasy about his sister, Mrs Collenwood; and with no diminution of his affection for her, was beginning to realise that his mind would be relieved when she ended her visit and went home. He feared her influence over Pandora. For Gertrude he had no fears. He knew, and so did the priest, that Gertrude was not the sort of girl to indulge in abstract speculations, religious or otherwise. So long as her new gown was not made in last year’s fashion, and her mantua-maker did not put her off with Venice ribbon when she wanted Tours, it mattered nothing at all to Gertrude whether she attended mass or went to the nearest conventicle. Nor had the fears spread yet towards Mistress Grena, who still appeared at mass on Sunday and holy-days, though with many inward misgivings which she never spoke.
Perhaps the priest had sharper eyes than the easy-tempered master of Primrose Croft. But his tongue had lost nothing of its softness when he next inquired—
“And how long, my son, does your sister, Mistress Collenwood, abide with you?”
“Not much longer now, Father,” replied the unhappy Mr Roberts, with a private resolution that his answer should be true if he could make it so.
Mr Bastian left that unpleasant topic, and proceeded to carry his queries into the servants’ department, Mr Roberts growing more relieved as he proceeded. He had never observed any want of conformity among his servants, he assured the priest; so far as he knew, all were loyal to the Catholic Church. By that term both gentlemen meant, not the universal body of Christian believers (the real signification of the word), but that minority which blindly obeys the Pope, and being a minority, is of course not Catholic nor universal. When Mr Roberts’s apprehensions had thus been entirely lulled to rest, the wily priest suddenly returned to the charge.
“I need not, I am fully ensured,” he said in his suave manner, “ask any questions touching your daughters.”
“Of that, Father,” answered Mr Roberts quickly, “you must be a better judge than I. But I do most unfeignedly trust that neither of my maids hath given you any trouble by neglect of her religious duties? Gertrude, indeed, is so—”
“Mistress Gertrude hath not given me trouble,” replied the priest. “Her worst failing is one common to maidens—a certain lack of soberness. But I cannot conceal from you, my son, that I am under some uneasiness of mind as touching her sister.”
Mr Bastian’s uneasiness was nothing to that of the man he was engaged in tormenting. The terrified mouse does not struggle more eagerly to escape the claws of the cat, than the suffering father of Pandora to avoid implicating her in the eyes of his insinuating confessor.
“Forsooth, Father, you do indeed distress me,” said he. “If Pandora have heard any foolish talk on matters of religion, I would gladly break her from communication with any such of her acquaintance as can have been thus ill-beseen. Truly, I know not of any, and methought my sister Grena kept the maids full diligently, that they should not fall into unseemly ways. I will speak, under your good leave, with both of them, and will warn Pandora that she company not with such as seem like to have any power over her for evil.”
“Well said, my son!” responded the priest, with a slight twinkle in his eye. “Therein shall you do well; and in especial if you report to me the names of any that you shall suspect to have ill-affected the maiden. And now, methinks, I must be on my way home.”
Mr Roberts devoutly thanked all the saints when he heard it. The priest took up his hat, brushed a stray thread from its edge, and said, as he laid his hand upon his silver-headed stick—said it as though the idea had just occurred to him—
“You spake of Mistress Holland. She, of course, is true to holy Church beyond all doubts?”
Mr Roberts went back to his previous condition of a frightened mouse.
“In good sooth, Father, I make no question thereof, nor never so did. She conformeth in all respects, no doth she?”
The cat smiled to itself at the poor mouse’s writhings under its playful pats.
“She conformeth—ay: but I scarce need warn you, my son, that there be many who conform outwardly, where the heart is not accordant with the actions. I trust, in very deed, that it were an unjust matter so to speak of Mistress Holland.”
Saying which, the cat withdrew its paw, and suffered the mouse to escape to its hole until another little excitement should be agreeable to it. In other words, the priest said good-bye, and left Mr Roberts in a state of mingled relief for the moment and apprehension for the future. For a few minutes that unhappy gentleman sat lost in meditation. Then rising with a muttered exclamation, wherein “meddlesome praters” were the only words distinguishable, he went to the foot of the stairs, and called up them, “Pandora!”
“There, now! You’ll hear of something!” said Gertrude to her sister, as she stood trying on a new apron before the glass. “You’d best go down. When Father’s charitably-minded he says either ‘Pan’ or ‘Dorrie.’ ‘Pandora’ signifies he’s in a taking.”
“I have done nought to vex him that I know of,” replied Pandora, rising from her knees before a drawer wherein she was putting some lace tidily away.
“Well, get not me in hot water,” responded Gertrude. “Look you, Pan, were this lace not better to run athwart toward the left hand?”
“I cannot wait to look, True; I must see what Father would have.”
As Pandora hastened downstairs, her aunt, Mrs Collenwood, came out of her room and joined her.
“I hear my brother calling you,” she said. “I would fain have a word with him, so I will go withal.”
The ladies found Mr Roberts wandering to and fro in the dining-room, with the aspect of a very dissatisfied man. He turned at once to his daughter.
“Pandora, when were you at confession?”
Pandora’s heart beat fast. “Not this week, Father.”
“Nor this month, maybe?”
“I am somewhat unsure, Father.”
“Went you to mass on Saint Chad’s Day?”
“Yes, Father.”
“And this Saint Perpetua?”
“No, Father; I had an aching of mine head, you mind.”
“Thomas,” interjected Mrs Collenwood, before the examination could proceed further, “give me leave, pray you, to speak a word, which I desire to say quickly, and you can resume your questioning of Pandora at after. I think to return home Thursday shall be a se’nnight; and, your leave granted, I would fain carry Pan with me. Methinks this air is not entirely wholesome for her at this time; and unless I err greatly, it should maybe save her some troublement if she tarried with me a season. I pray you, consider of the same, and let me know your mind thereon as early as may stand with your conveniency: and reckon me not tedious if I urge you yet again not to debar the same without right good reason. I fear somewhat for the child, without she can change the air, and that right soon.”
Pandora listened in astonishment. She was quite unconscious of bodily ailment, either present or likely to come. What could Aunt Frances mean? But Mr Roberts saw, what Pandora did not, a very significant look in his sister’s eyes, which said, more plainly than her words, that danger of some kind lay in wait for her niece if she remained in Kent, and was to be expected soon. He fidgeted up and down the room for a moment, played nervously with an alms-dish on the side-board, took up Cicero’s Orations and laid it down again, and at last said, in a tone which indicated relief from vexation—
“Well, well! Be it so, if you will. Make thee ready, then, child, to go with thine aunt. Doth Grena know your desire, Frank?”
“Grena and I have taken counsel,” replied Mrs Collenwood, “and this is her avisement no less than mine.”
“Settle it so, then. I thank you, Frank, for your care for the maid. When shall she return?”
“It were better to leave that for time to come. But, Thomas, I go about to ask a favour of you more.”
“Go to! what is it?”
“That you will not name to any man Pandora’s journey with me. Not to any man,” repeated Mrs Collenwood, with a stress on the last two words.
Mr Roberts looked at her. Her eyes conveyed serious warning. He knew as well as if she had shouted the words in his ears that the real translation of her request was, “Do not tell the priest.” But it was not safe to say it. Wherever there are Romish priests, there must be silent looks and tacit hints and unspoken understandings.
“Very good, Frances,” he said: “I will give no man to wit thereof.”
“I thank you right heartily, Tom. Should Dorrie abide here for your further satisfying, or may she go with me?”
“Go with you, go with you,” answered Mr Roberts hastily, waving Pandora away. “No need any further—time presseth, and I have business to see to.”
Mrs Collenwood smiled silently as she motioned to Pandora to pass out. Mr Roberts could scarcely have confessed more plainly that the priest had set him to a catechising of which he was but too thankful to be rid. “Poor Tom!” she said to herself.