House of Torment Part 19

A man entered immediately, to whom Mr. Cressemer gave orders, and then sat himself down upon the other side of the fire.

"Your father," he said confidentially, "came to me after he left you in the Tower the morning before this. He was very pleased with what he saw of you, Master Johnnie, and what he heard of you also. Art going to be a big man in affairs without doubt. I wish I had met ye before. I have been twice to Commendone Park. Once when thou wert a little rosy thing of two year old or less, and the Senora--Holy Mary give her grace!--had thee upon her knee. I was staying with the Knight. And then again when Father Chilches was thy tutor, and thou must have been fourteen year or more. I was at the Park for three days. But thou wert away with thy aunt, Miss Commendone, of Wanstone Court, and I saw nothing of thee."

"So you knew my mother," Johnnie said eagerly.

"Aye, that I did, and a very gracious lady she was, Master Commendone. I will tell thee of her, and thy house in those days, at supper. My sister will be well pleased to hear it also. Meanwhile"--he sipped at the white liqueur which the servant had brought, and motioned Johnnie towards his own thin green gla.s.s with little golden spirals running through it--"meanwhile, tell me how like you the Court life?"

Johnnie started. They were the exact words of his father. "I am getting on very well," he said in reply.

"So I hear, and am well pleased," the Alderman answered. "You have everything in your favour--a knowledge of Spanish, a pleasant presence, and trained to the usage of good society. But, though you may not think it, I have influence, even at Court, though it is in no ways apparent.

Tell me something of your aims, and your views, and I shall doubtless be able to help your advancement. There are ticklish times coming, be certain of that, and my experience may be of great service to you. Her Grace, G.o.d bless her! is, I fear--I speak to you as man to man, Mr.

Commendone--too keen set and determined upon the Papal Supremacy for the true welfare of this realm. I am Catholic. I have always been Catholic.

But doctrine, and a purely political dominion from Rome, aye, or from Spain either, is not what we of the City, and who control the finances of the kingdom much more than less, desire or wish to see. After all, Mr. Commendone, I trust I make myself clearly understood to you, and that you are of the same temper and mind as your father and myself; after all is loudly set and perchance badly done, we have to look to the upholding of the realm, inside and out, rather than to be fine upon points of doctrine."

He leant forward in his seat with great earnestness, clasped his right hand, upon the little finger of which was a great ring, with a cut seal of emerald, and brought it down heavily upon the table by his side.

"I believe," he said, "in the Ma.s.s, and if I were asked to die for my belief, that would I do. I would do it very reluctantly, Master John. I would evade the necessity for doing it in every way I knew. But if I were set down in front of judges or eke inquisitors, and asked to say that when the priest hath said the words of consecration, the elements are not the very true body of Our Lord Jesus, then I would die for that belief. And of the Invocation of Saints, and of the greatest saint of all--Our Lady--I see no harm in it, but a very right and pleasant practice. For, look you, if these are indeed, as we believe and know cl.u.s.tering around the throne of G.o.d, which is the Holy Trinity, then indeed they must hear our prayers, if we believe truly in the Communion of Saints; and hearing them, being in high favour in heaven, their troubles past and they glorified, certes, we down here may well think their voices will be heard around the Throne. That is true Catholic doctrine as I see it. But of the power of the Bishop of Rome to direct and interfere in the honest internal affairs of a country--well, I snap my fingers at it. And of the power of the priesthood, which is but part of the machinery by which His Holiness endeavoureth to accrue to himself all earthly power, at that also I spit. From my standpoint, a priest is an ordained man of G.o.d; his function is to say Ma.s.s, to consecrate the elements, and so to bring G.o.d near to us upon the altar. But of your confessions, your pryings into family life, your temporal dominion, I have the deepest mistrust. And also, I think, that the cause of Holy Church would be much better served if its priests were allowed--for such of them as wished it--to be married men. A man is a man, and G.o.d hath given him his natural attributes. I am not really learned, nor am I well read in the history of the world, but I have looked into it enough, Master Commendone, to know that G.o.d hath ordained that men should take women in marriage and rear up children for the glory of the Lord and the welfare of the State. Mark you"--his face became striated with lines of contempt and dislike--"mark you, this celibacy is to be the thing which will destroy the power of the sacrificing priest in the eyes of all before many hundred years have pa.s.sed. I shall not see it, thou wilt not see it. We are good Church of England men now, but what I say will come to pa.s.s, and then G.o.d himself only knoweth what anarchs and deniers, what blasphemers and runagates will hold the world.

"Her Grace," he went on, "believeth that as Moses ordered blasphemers to be put to death, so she thinketh it the duty of a Christian prince to eradicate the c.o.c.kle from the fold of G.o.d's Church, to cut out the gangrene that it may not spread to the sounder parts. But Her Grace is a woman that hath been much sequestered all her life till now. She cometh to the throne, and is but--I trust I speak no treason, Mr. Commendone--a tool and instrument of the priests from Spain, and the man from Spain also who is her lord. Why! if only the Church in this realm could go on as King Henry started it--not a new Church, mind you, but a Church which hath thrown off an unnecessary dominion from Italy--if it could go on as under the reign of the little King Edward was set out and promised very well, 'twould be truly Catholic still, and the priests of the Church would be all married men and citizens within the State, with a stake in civil affairs, and so by reason of their spiritual power and civil obligations, the very bulwark of society."

Johnnie listened intently, nodding now and then as the Alderman made a point, and as he himself realised the value of it.

"Look you, Master Commendone," His Worship continued, "look you, only yesterday a worthy clergyman, whom I knew and loved, a man of his inches, a shrewd and clever gentleman of good birth, was haled from the City down to his own parish and burnt as a heretic. Heretic doubtless the good man was. He would be living now if he had not denied the blessed and comforting truth of Transubstantiation before that blood-stained wolf, the Bishop of London. The man I speak of was a good man, and though he was mistaken on that issue, he would, under kindlier auspices, doubtless have returned to the central truth of our religion.

He was married, and had lived in honourable wedlock with his wife for many years. She was a lady from Wales, and a sweet woman. But it was his marriage as much as any other thing about him that brought him to his death."

The Alderman's voice sank into something very like a whisper. "One of my men," he said, "was riding down with the Sheriff of London to Hadley, where Dr. Taylor, he of whom I speak, suffered this very morning. At five this afternoon my man was back, and told me how the good doctor died. He died with great constancy, very much, Mr. Commendone, as one of the old saints that the Romans did use so cruelly in the early years of Our Lord's Church. Yet, as something of a student of affairs--and Dr.

Taylor is not the first good heretic who hath died rather than recant--I see that the married clergy suffer with the most alacrity. And why?

Because, as I see it, they are bearing testimony to the validity and sanct.i.ty of their marriage. The honour of their wives and children is at stake; the desire of leaving them an unsullied name and a virtuous example, combined with a sense of religious duty. And thus the heart derives strength from the very ties which in other circ.u.mstances might well tend to weaken it.

"I am in mourning to-night, mourning in my heart, Mr. Commendone, for a good, mistaken friend who hath suffered death."

As his voice fell, the Alderman was looking sadly into the red embers of the fire with the music of a deep sadness and regret in his voice. He wasn't an emotional man at all--by nature that is--Johnnie saw it at once. But he saw also that his host was very deeply moved. Johnnie rose from his chair.

"You are telling me no news at all, Mr. Alderman," he said. "I had orders, and I was one of those who rode with Sir John Shelton and the Sheriff to take Dr. Taylor to the stake at Aldham Common."

Mr. Cressemer started violently.

"Mother of G.o.d!" he said, "did you see that done?"

Johnnie nodded. He could not trust himself to speak.

The Alderman's cry of horror brought home to him almost for the first time not the terror of what he had seen--that he had realised long ago--but a sense of personal guilt, a disgust with himself that he should have been a partic.i.p.ator in such a deed, a spectator, however pitying.

He felt unclean.

Then he said in a low voice: "What I tell you, Mr. Cressemer, will, I know, remain as a secret between us. I feel I am not betraying any trust in telling _you_. I am, as you know, attached to the person of His Majesty, and I have been admitted into great confidence both by him and Her Grace the Queen. The King rode to Hadley disguised as a simple cavalier, and I was with him as his attendant."

He stopped short, feeling that the explanation was bald and unsufficing.

The Alderman stepped up to Johnnie and put his hand upon his arm. "Poor lad, poor lad," he said in tones of deepest pity. "I grieve in that thou hadst to witness such a thing in the following of thy duty."

"I had thought," the young man faltered, his a.s.surance deserting him for a moment at the words of this reverend and broad-souled man, "I thought you would think me stained in some wise, Mr. Cressemer. I...."

"Whist!" the elder man answered impatiently. "Have no such foolish thoughts. Am I not a man of affairs? Do I not know what discipline means? But this gives me great cause for thought. You have confided in me, Mr. Commendone, and so likewise will I in you. This morning the Doctor's wife, his little son, and little daughter Mary, set off for the Marches of Wales with a party of my men and their baggage. Mistress Taylor was born a Rhyader, of a good family in Conway town. Her brother liveth there, and all her friends are of Wales. It was as well that the dame should leave the City at once, for none knoweth what will be done to the relations of heretics at this time----Why, man! Thou art white as linen, thy hand shakes. What meaneth it?"

Johnnie, in truth, was a strange sight as he stood in front of his host.

All his composure was gone. His eyes burnt in a white face, his lips were dry and parted, there was an almost terrible inquiry in his whole aspect and manner.

"'Tis nothing," he managed to say in a hoa.r.s.e voice, which he hardly knew for his own. "Pr'ythee continue, sir."

Mr. Cressemer gave the young man a keen, questioning glance before he went on speaking. Then he said:

"As I tell you, these members of the good Doctor's family are now safely on their way, and G.o.d grant them rest and peace in their new life. They will want for nothing. But the Doctor's other daughter, Mistress Elizabeth, was not his own daughter, but was adopted by him when she was but a little child. The girl is a very sweet and good girl, and my sister, Mistress Catherine, has long loved her. And as this is a childless house, alas! the maid hath come to live with us and she will be as my own daughter, if G.o.d wills it."

"She is well?" Johnnie asked, in a hoa.r.s.e whisper.

The Alderman shook his head sadly. "She is the bravest maiden I have ever met," he said. "She hath stuff in her which recalls the ladies of old Rome, so calm and steadfast is she. There is in her at this time some divine illumination, Mr. Commendone, that keepeth her strong and unafraid. Ah, but she is sore stricken! She knew some hours agone of the doings at Hadley, for as I told you, one of my men brought the news. She hath been in prayer a long time, poor lamb, and now my sister is with her to hearten her and give her such comfort as may be. G.o.d's ways are very strange, Mr. John. Who would have thought now that you should come to this house to-night from that butchery?" He sighed deeply.

Johnnie made the sign of the cross. "G.o.d moveth in a mysterious way," he said, "to perform His wonders. He rides upon the tempest, and eke directs the storm, and leadeth pigmy men and women with a sure hand and a certain purpose."

"Say not 'pigmy,' Mr. John," the Alderman answered, "we are not small in His eyes, though it is well that we should be in our own. But you speak with a certain meaning. You grew pale just now. I think you may justly confide in me. I am of thy father's age, and a friend of thy father's.

What is it, lad?"

Speaking with great difficulty, looking downwards at the floor, Johnnie told him. He told him how he had met John Hull and taken him into his service, how that even now the man was in the kitchen among the servants of the Alderman. He told of the fellow's menace in Chepe, and how inexplicable it had seemed to him. Then he hesitated, and his voice sunk into silence.

"Ye saw the poor lamb?" Mr. Cressemer said in a low voice, which nevertheless trembled with excitement. "Ye saw her weeping as good Dr.

Taylor was borne away? Ye took this good varlet Hull into thy service?

And now thou art in my house. It seemeth indeed that G.o.d's finger is writing in the book of thy life; but I must hear more from thee, Mr.

Commendone. Tell me, if thou wilt, what it may mean."

Johnnie straightened himself. He put his hand upon the pummel of his sword. He looked his host full in the eyes.

"It means this, sir," he said, in a quiet and resolute voice. "All my life I have kept myself from those pleasures and peccadilloes that young gentlemen of my station are wont to use. I have never looked upon a maiden with eyes of love--or worse. Before G.o.d His Throne, Our Lady the Blessed Virgin, and all the crowned saints I say it. But yester morn, when I saw her weeping in the grey, my heart went out from me, and is no more mine. I vowed then that by G.o.d's grace I would be her knight and lover for ever and a day. My employment hath not to-day given me the opportunity to go to Ma.s.s, but I have promised myself to-morrow morn that in the chapel of St. John I will vow myself to her with all fealty, and indeed nor man, nor power, nor obstacle of any sort shall keep me from her, if G.o.d allows. Wife she shall be to me, and so I can make her love me. All this I swear to you, by my honour"--here he pulled his sword from the scabbard and reverently kissed the hilt--"and to the Blessed Trinity." And now he pulled his crucifix from his doublet, and kissed it.

Then he turned away from the Alderman, took a few steps to the fire-place, and leant against the carving, his head bowed upon his arms.

There was a dead silence in the big room. Tears were gathering in the eyes of the grave elderly man, while his mind worked furiously. He saw in all this the direct hand of Providence working towards a definite and certain end.

He had loved the slim and gracious lad directly he saw him. His heart had gone out to one so gallant and one so debonair, the son of his old and trusted friend. He had long loved the Rector of Hadley's sweet daughter, who was so idolised also by Mistress Catherine Cressemer, his sister. During the reign of Edward VI the girl had often come up to London to spend some months with her wealthy and influential friends.

She had a great part in the heart of the childless widower.

Now this strange and wonderful thing had happened.

These thoughts pa.s.sed through the old man's mind in a few seconds, while the silence was not broken. Then, as he was about to turn and speak to Johnnie, the door of the room opened quickly, and a short, elderly woman hurried in.

She was very simply dressed in grey woollen stuff, though the bodice and skirt were edged with costly fur. The white lace of Bruges upon her head framed a face of great sweetness, and now it was alive with excitement.

She was a little woman, fifty years of age, with a flat wrinkled face; but her eyes were full of kindness, and, indeed, so was her whole face, although her lips were drawn in by the loss of her front teeth, and this gave her a rather witch-like mouth.