The King's Achievement Part 74

In desperation Nicholas began to talk of his visit to the Tower, of the Lieutenant's timidity, and his own insistence; and they noticed nothing, till the door was flung open, and the old man stood there, his eyes bright and his lips trembling with hope. He held a sc.r.a.p of paper in his hand.

"Listen," he cried as the others sprang to their feet.

"A fellow has just come from Mr. Herries with this"--he lifted the paper and read,--"Mr. Torridon's name is not in the bill. I will be with you to-morrow."

"Thank G.o.d!" said Chris.

There was another long discussion the following morning. Mr. Herries arrived about ten o'clock to certify his news; and the four sat till dinner once again, talking and planning. There was not the same desperate hurry now; the first danger was pa.s.sed.

There was only one thing that the lawyer could do, and that was to repeat his advice to seek the intercession of the Archbishop. He observed again that while Cranmer had the friendship of the fallen minister, he had not in any sense been involved in his fall; he was still powerful with the King, and of considerable weight with the Council in consequence. He was likely therefore to be both able and willing to speak on behalf of Cromwell's agent.

"But I would advise nothing to be done until the bill of attainder has come before Parliament. We do not know yet how far Mr. Torridon's action has affected the evidence. From what you say, gentlemen, and from what I have heard elsewhere, I should think that the papers Mr. Torridon destroyed are not essential to a conviction. My Lord's papers at his own house are sufficient."

But they had some difficulty in persuading Sir James to consent to ask a favour of the Archbishop. In his eyes, Cranmer was beyond the pale of decency; he had lived with two women, said the old man, whom he called his wives, although as a priest he was incapable of marriage; he had violated his consecration oath; he had blessed and annulled the frequent marriages of the King with equal readiness; he was a heretic confessed and open on numberless points of the Catholic Faith.

Mr. Herries pointed out with laborious minuteness that this was beside the question altogether. He did not propose that Sir James Torridon should go to the Archbishop as to a spiritual superior, but as to one who chanced to have great influence;--if he were a murderer it would make no difference to his advice.

Chris broke in with troubled eyes.

"Indeed, sir," he said to his father, "you know how I am with you in all that you say; and yet I am with Mr. Herries too. I do not understand--"

"G.o.d help us," cried the old man. "I do not know what to do."

"Will you talk with Mistress Beatrice?" asked Chris.

Sir James nodded.

"I will do that," he said.

The next day the bill was pa.s.sed; and the party in the house at Charing sat sick at heart within doors, hearing the crowds roaring down the street, singing and shouting in triumph. Every cry tore their hearts; for was it not against Ralph's master and friend that they rejoiced? As they sat at supper a great battering broke out at the door that looked on to the lane; and they sprang up to hear a drunken voice bellowing at them to come out and shout for liberty. Nicholas went crimson with anger; and he made a movement towards the hall, his hand on his hilt.

"Ah! sit down, Nick," said the monk. "The drunken fool is away again."

And they heard the steps reel on towards Westminster.

It was not until a fortnight later that they went at last to Lambeth.

Sir James had been hard to persuade; but Beatrice had succeeded at last.

Nicholas had professed himself ready to ask a favour of the devil himself under the circ.u.mstances; and Chris himself continued to support the lawyer's opinion. He repeated his arguments again and again.

Then it was necessary to make an appointment with the Archbishop; and a day was fixed at last. My Lord would see them, wrote a secretary, at two o'clock on the afternoon of July the third.

Beatrice sat through that long hot afternoon in the window-seat of the upstairs parlour, looking out over the wide river below, conscious perhaps for the first time of the vast weight of responsibility that rested on her.

She had seen them go off in a wherry, the father and son with Nicholas in the stern, and the lawyer facing them on the cross-bench; they had been terribly silent as they walked down to the stairs; had stood waiting there without a word being spoken but by herself, as the wherry made ready; and she had talked hopelessly, desperately, to relieve the tension. Then they had gone off. Sir James had looked back at her over his shoulder as the boat put out; and she had seen his lips move. She had watched them grow smaller and smaller as they went, and then when a barge had come between her and them, she had gone home alone to wait for their return, and the tidings that they would bring.

And she, in a sense was responsible for it all. If it had not been for her visit to Ralph, he would have handed the papers over to the authorities; he would be at liberty now, no doubt, as were Cromwell's other agents; and, as she thought of it, her tortured heart asked again and again whether after all she had done right.

She went over the whole question, as she sat there, looking out over the river towards Lambeth, fingering the shutter, glancing now and again at the bent old figure of her aunt in her tall chair, and listening to the rip of the needle through the silk. Could she have done otherwise? Was her interference and advice after all but a piece of mad chivalry, unnecessary and unpractical?

And yet she knew that she would do it again, if the same circ.u.mstances arose. It would be impossible to do otherwise. Reason was against it; Mr. Herries had hinted as much with a quick lifting of his bushy eyebrows as she had told him the story. It would have made no difference to Cromwell--ah! but she had not done it for that; it was for the sake of Ralph himself; that he might not lose the one opportunity that came to him of making a movement back towards the honour he had forfeited.

But it was no less torture to think of it all, as she sat here. She had faced the question before; but now the misery she had watched during these last three weeks had driven it home. Day by day she had seen the old father's face grow lined and haggard as the suspense gnawed at his heart; she had watched him at meals--had seen him sit in bewildered grief, striving for self-control and hope--had seen him, as the light faded in the parlour upstairs, sink deeper into himself; his eyes hidden by his hand, and his grey pointed beard twitching at the trembling of his mouth. Once or twice she had met his eyes fixed on hers, in a questioning stare, and had known what was in his heart--a simple, unreproachful wonder at the strange events that had made her so intimately responsible for his son's happiness.

She thought of Margaret too, as she sat there; of the poor girl who had so rested on her, believed in her, loved her. There she was now at Overfield, living in a nightmare of suspense, watching so eagerly for the scanty letters, disappointed every time of the good news for which she hoped....

The burden was an intolerable one. Beatrice was scarcely conscious of where she sat or for what she waited. She was living over again every detail of her relations with Ralph. She remembered how she had seen him at first at Chelsea; how he had come out with Master More from the door of the New Building and across the gra.s.s. She had been twisting a gra.s.s-ring then as she listened to the talk, and had tossed it on to the dog's back. Then, day by day she had met him; he had come at all hours; and she had watched him, for she thought she had found a man. She remembered how her interest had deepened; how suddenly her heart had leapt that evening when she came into the hall and found him sitting in the dark. Then, step by step, the friendship had grown till it had revealed its radiant face at the bitterness of Chris's words in the house at Westminster. Then her life had become magical; all the world cried "Ralph" to her; the trumpets she heard sounded to his praise; the sunsets had shone for him and her. Then came the news of the Visitors'

work; and her heart had begun to question her insistently; the questions had become affirmation; and in one pa.s.sionate hour she had gone to him, scourged him with her tongue, and left him. She had seen him again once or twice in the years that followed; had watched him from a window hung with tapestries in Cheapside, as he rode down beside the King; and had not dared to ask herself what her heart so longed to tell her. Then had come the mother's question; and the falling of the veils.

Then he had called her; she never doubted that; as she sat alone in her room one evening. It had come, thin and piteous;--"Beatrice, Beatrice."

He needed her, and she had gone, and meddled with his life once more.

And he lay in the Tower....

"Beatrice, my child."

She turned from the window, her eyes blind with tears; and in a moment was kneeling at her aunt's side, her face buried in her lap, and felt those kindly old hands pa.s.sing over her hair. She heard a murmur over her head, but scarcely caught a word. There was but one thing she needed, and that--

Then she knelt suddenly upright listening, and the caressing hand was still.

"Beatrice, my dear, Beatrice."

There were footsteps on the stairs outside, eager and urgent. The girl rose to her feet, and stood there, swaying a little with a restrained expectation.

Then the door was open, and Chris was there, flushed and radiant, with the level evening light full on his face.

"It is all well," he cried, "my Lord will take us to the King."

CHAPTER X

PLACENTIA

The river-front of Greenwich House was a magnificent sight as the four men came up to it one morning nearly three weeks later. The long two-storied row of brick buildings which Henry had named Placentia, with their lines of windows broken by the two cl.u.s.ters of slender towers, and porticos beneath, were fronted by broad platforms and a strip of turf with steps leading down to the water, and at each of these entrances there continually moved brilliant figures, sentries with the sunlight flashing on their steel caps and pike-points, servants in the royal livery, watermen in their blue and badges.