The King's Achievement Part 64

And beneath his formidable shadow Ralph was waxing great. He had failed to get Lewes for himself, for Cromwell designed it for Gregory his son; but he was offered his choice among several other great houses. For the present he hesitated to choose; uncertain of his future. If his father died there would be Overfield waiting for him, so he did not wish to tie himself to one of the far-away Yorkshire houses; if his father lived, he did not wish to be too near him. There was no hurry, said Cromwell; there would be houses and to spare for the King's faithful servants; and meantime it would be better for Mr. Torridon to remain in Westminster, and lay his foundations of prosperity deeper and wider yet before building. The t.i.tle too that Cromwell dangled before him sometimes--that too could wait until he had chosen his place of abode.

Ralph felt that he was being magnificently treated by his master; and his grat.i.tude and admiration grew side by side with his rising fortune.

There was no n.i.g.g.ardliness, now that Cromwell had learnt to trust in him; he could draw as much money as he wished for the payment of his under-agents, or for any other purpose; and no questions were asked.

The little house at Westminster grew rich in treasures; his bed-coverlet was the very cope he had taken from Rusper; his table was heavy with chalices beaten into secular shape; his fire-screen was a Spanish chasuble taken in the North. His servants were no longer three or four sleeping in the house; there was a brigade of them, some that attended for orders morning by morning, some that skirmished for him in the country and returned rich in doc.u.ments and hearsay; and a dozen waited on his personal wants.

He dealt too with great folks. Half a dozen abbots had been to see him in the last year or two, stately prelates that treated him as an equal and pleaded for his intercession; the great n.o.bles, enemies of his master and himself, eyed him with respectful suspicion as he walked with Cromwell in Westminster Hall. The King had pulled his ears and praised him; Ralph had stayed at Greenwich a week at a time when the execution of the Benedictine abbots was under discussion; he had ridden down Cheapside with Henry on his right and Cromwell beyond, between the shouting crowds and beneath the wild tossing of gold-cloth and tapestry and the windy pealing of a hundred brazen bells. He had gone up with Norfolk to Doncaster, a mouth through which the King might promise and threaten, and had strode up the steps beside the Duke to make an end of the insurgent-leaders of the northern rebellion.

He did not lack a goad, beside that of his own ambition, to drive him through this desperate stir; he found a sufficient one in his memory. He did not think much of his own family, except with sharp contempt. He did not even trouble to make any special report about Chris or Margaret; but it was impossible to remember Beatrice with contempt. When she had left him kneeling at his table, she had left something besides--the sting of her words, and the bitter coldness of her eyes.

As he looked back he did not know whether he loathed her or loved her; he only knew that she affected him profoundly. Again and again as he dealt brutally with some timid culprit, or stood with his hand on his hip to direct the destruction of a shrine, the memory whipped him on his raw soul. He would show her whether he were a man or no; whether he depended on her or no; whether her woman's tongue could turn him or no.

He was exercised now with very different matters. Religious affairs for the present had fallen into a secondary place, and home and foreign politics absorbed most of Cromwell's energies and time. Forces were gathering once more against England, and the Catholic powers were coming to an understanding with one another against the country that had thrown off allegiance to the Pope and the Empire. There was an opportunity, however, for Henry's propensity to marriage once more to play a part in politics; he had been three years without a wife; and Cromwell had hastened for the third time to avail himself of the King's pa.s.sions as an instrument in politics. He had understood that a union between England and the Lutheran princes would cause a formidable obstacle to Catholic machinations; and with this in view had excited Henry by a description and a picture of the Lady Anne, daughter of the Duke of Cleves and sister-in-law of the Elector of Saxony. He had been perfectly successful in the first stages; the stout d.u.c.h.ess had landed at Deal at the end of December; and the marriage had been solemnised a few days later. But unpleasant rumour had been busy ever since; it was whispered far and wide that the King loathed his wife, and complained that he had been deceived as to her charms; and Ralph, who was more behind the scenes than most men, knew that the rumour was only too true. He had been present at an abominable incident the day after the marriage had taken place, when the King had stormed and raved about the council-room, crying out that he had been deceived, and adding many gross details for the benefit of his friends.

Cromwell had been strangely moody ever since. Ralph had watched his heavy face day after day staring vacantly across the room, and his hand that held the pen dig and p.r.i.c.k at the paper beneath it.

Even that was not all. The Anglo-German alliance had provoked opposition on the continent instead of quelling it; and Ralph saw more than one threatening piece of news from abroad that hinted at a probable invasion of England should Cromwell's schemes take effect. These too, however, had proved deceptive, and the Lutheran princes whom he had desired to conciliate were even already beginning to draw back from the consequences of their action.

Ralph was in Cromwell's room one day towards the end of January, when a courier arrived with despatches from an agent who had been following the Spanish Emperor's pacific progress through France, undertaken as a kind of demonstration against England.

Cromwell tore open the papers, and glanced at them, running his quick attentive eye over this page and that; and Ralph saw his face grow stern and white. He tossed the papers on to the table, and nodded to the courier to leave the room.

Then he took up a pen, examined it; dashed it point down against the table; gnawed his nails a moment, and then caught Ralph's eye.

"We are failing," he said abruptly. "Mr. Torridon, if you are a rat you had better run."

"I shall not run, sir," said Ralph.

"G.o.d's Body!" said his master, "we shall all run together, I think;--but not yet."

Then he took up the papers again, and began to read.

It was a few days later that Ralph received the news of his mother's illness.

She had written to him occasionally, telling him of his father's tiresome ways, his brother's arrogance, his sister's feeble piety, and finally she had told him of Beatrice's arrival.

"I consented very gladly," she had written, "for I thought to teach my lady a lesson or two; but I find her very pert and obstinate. I do not understand, my dear son, how you could have wished to make her your wife; and yet I will grant that she has a taking way with her; she seems to fear nothing but her own superst.i.tions and folly, but I am very happy to think that all is over between you. She never loved you, my Ralph; for she cares nothing when I speak your name, as I have done two or three times; nor yet Master More either. I think she has no heart."

Ralph had wondered a little as he read this, at his mother's curious interest in the girl; and he wondered too at the report of Beatrice's callousness. It was her d.a.m.ned pride, he a.s.sured himself.

Then, one evening as he arrived home from Hackney where he had slept the previous night; he found a messenger waiting for him. The letter had not been sent on to him, as he had not left word where he was going.

It contained a single line from his father.

"Your mother is ill. Come at once. She wishes for you."

It was in the stormy blackness of a February midnight that he rode up through the lighted gatehouse to his home. Above the terrace as he came up the road the tall hall-window glimmered faintly like a gigantic luminous door hung in s.p.a.ce; and the lower window of his father's room shone and faded as the fire leapt within.

A figure rose up suddenly from before the hall-fire as he came in, bringing with him a fierce gust of wet wind through the opened door; and when he had slipped off his dripping cloak into his servant's hands, he saw that his father was there two yards away, very stern and white, with outstretched hands.

"My son," said the old man, "you are too late. She died two hours ago."

It was a fierce shock, and for a moment he stood dazed, blinking at the light, holding his father's warm slender hands in his own, and trying to a.s.similate the news. He had been driven inwards, and his obstinacy weakened, during that long ride from town through the stormy sunset into the black, howling night; memories had rea.s.serted themselves on the strength of his anxiety; and the past year or two slipped from him, and left him again the eldest son of the house and of his two parents.

Then as he looked into the pale bearded face before him, and the eyes which had looked into his own a few months ago with such pa.s.sionate anger, he remembered all that was between them, dropped the hands and went forward to the fire.

His father followed him and stood by him there as he spread his fingers to the blaze, and told him the details, in short detached sentences.

She had been seized with pain and vomiting on the previous night at supper time; the doctor had been sent for, and had declared the illness to be an internal inflammation. She had grown steadily worse on the following day, with periods of unconsciousness; she had asked for Ralph an hour after she had been taken ill; the pain had seemed to become fiercer as the hours went on; she had died at ten o'clock that night.

Ralph stood there and listened, his head pressed against the high mantelpiece, and his fingers stretching and closing mechanically to supple the stiffened joints.

"Mistress Atherton was with her all the while," said his father; "she asked for her."

Ralph shot a glance sideways, and down again.

"And--" he began.

"Yes; she was shriven and anointed, thank G.o.d; she could not receive Viatic.u.m."

Ralph did not know whether he was glad or sorry at that news. It was a proper proceeding at any rate; as proper as the candles and the shroud and the funeral rites. As regards grief, he did not feel it yet; but he was aware of a profound sensation in his soul, as of a bruise.

There was silence for a moment or two; then the wind bellowed suddenly in the chimney, the tall window gave a crack of sound, and the smoke eddied out into the room. Ralph turned round.

"They are with her still," said Sir James; "we can go up presently."

The other shook his head abruptly.

"No," he said, "I will wait until to-morrow. Which is my room?"

"Your old room," said his father. "I have had a truckle-bed set there for your man. Will you find your way? I must stay here for Mistress Atherton."

Ralph nodded sharply, and went out, down the hill.

It was half an hour more before Beatrice appeared; and then Sir James looked up from his chair at the sound of a footstep and saw her coming up the matted floor. Her face was steady and resolute, but there were dark patches under her eyes, for she had not slept for two nights.

Sir James stood up, and held out his hands.

"Ralph has come," he said. "He is gone to his room. Where are the others?"

"The priests are at prayers and Meg too," she said, "It is all ready, sir. You may go up when you please."