Come Rack! Come Rope! by Robert Hugh Benson
CHAPTER V
I
"First give me your blessing, Mr. Alban," said Marjorie, kneeling downbefore him in the hall in front of them all. She was as pale as a ghost,but her eyes shone like stars.
* * * * *
It was a couple of months after his leaving Chartley before he came atlast to Booth's Edge. First he had had to bestow Mr. Arnold inLancashire, for suspicion was abroad; and it was a letter from Marjorieherself, reaching him in Derby, at Mr. Biddell's house, that had toldhim of it, and bidden him go on with his friend. The town had never beenthe same since Topcliffe's visit; and now that Babington House was nolonger in safe Catholic hands, a great protection was gone. He hadbetter go on, she said, as if he were what he professed to be--agentleman travelling with his servant. A rumour had come to her earsthat the talk in the town was of the expected arrival of a new priest totake Mr. Garlick's place for the present, and every stranger wasscrutinised. So he had taken her advice; he had left Derby againimmediately, and had slowly travelled north; then, coming round aboutfrom the north, after leaving his friend, saying mass here and therewhere he could, crossing into Yorkshire even as far west as Wakefield,he had come at last, through this wet November day, along the Derwentvalley and up to Booth's Edge, where he arrived after sunset, to findthe hall filled with folks to greet him.
He was smiling himself, though his eyes were full of tears, by the timethat he had done giving his blessings. Mr. John FitzHerbert was come upfrom Padley, where he lived now for short times together, greyer thanever, but with the same resolute face. Mistress Alice Babington wasthere, still serene looking, but with a new sorrow in her eyes; and,clinging to her, a thin, pale girl all in black, who only two monthsbefore had lost both daughter and husband; for the child had diedscarcely a week or two before her father, Anthony Babington, had diedmiserably on the gallows near St. Giles' Fields, where he had so oftenmet his friends after dark. It was a ghastly tale, told in fragments toRobin here and there during his journeyings by men in taverns, beforewhom he must keep a brave face. And a few farmers were there, old Mr.Merton among them, come in to welcome the son of the Squire of Matstead,returned under a feigned name, unknown even to his father, and there,too, was honest Dick Sampson, come up from Dethick to see his oldmaster. So here, in the hall he knew so well, himself splashed with redmarl from ankle to shoulder, still cloaked and spurred, one by one theseknelt before him, beginning with Marjorie herself, and ending with theyoungest farm-boy, who breathed heavily as he knelt down and got upround-eyed and staring.
"And his Reverence will hear confessions," proclaimed Marjorie to themultitude, "at eight o'clock to-night; and he will say mass and giveholy communion at six o'clock to-morrow morning."
II
He had to hear that night, after supper, and before he went to keep hisengagement in the chapel-room, the entire news of the county; and, inhis turn, to tell his own adventures. The company sat together beforethe great hall-fire, to take the dessert, since there would have been noroom in the parlour for all who wished to hear. (He heard the tale ofMr. Thomas FitzHerbert, traitor, apostate and sworn man of her Grace,later, when he had come down again from the chapel-room, and theservants had gone.) But now it was of less tragic matters, and moretriumphant, that they talked: he told of his adventures since he hadlanded in August; of his riding in Lancashire and Yorkshire, and of thefervour that he met with there (in one place, he said, he had reconciledthe old minister of the parish, that had been made priest under Marythirty years ago, and now lay dying); but he said nothing at that timeof what he had seen of her Grace of Scotland, and Chartley: and therest, on the other hand, talked of what had passed in Derby, of all thatMr. Ludlam and Mr. Garlick had done; of the arrest and banishment of thelatter, and his immediate return; of the hanging of Mr. Francis Ingolby,in York, which had made a great stir in the north that summer, since hewas the son of Sir Francis, of Ripley Castle; as well as of the deathsof many others--Mr. Finglow in August; Mr. Sandys, in the same month, inGloucester; and of Mr. Lowe, Mr. Adams and Mr. Dibdale, all together atTyburn, the news of which had but just come to Derbyshire; and ofMistress Clitheroe, that had been pressed to death in York, for the verycrime which Mistress Marjorie Manners was perpetrating at this moment,namely, the assistance and harbourage of priests; or, rather, forrefusing to plead when she had been arrested for that crime, lest sheshould bring them into trouble.
And then at last they began to speak of Mary in Fotheringay and at thata maid came in to say that it was eight o'clock, and would his Reverencecome up, as a few had to travel home that night and to come again nextday....
* * * * *
It was after nine o'clock before he came downstairs again, to find thegentlefolk alone in the little parlour that opened from the hall. Itgave him a strange thrill of pleasure to see them there in thefirelight; the four of them only--Mr. John in the midst, with the threeladies; and an empty chair waiting for the priest. He would hear theirconfessions presently when the servants were gone to bed. A great mug ofwarm ale stood by his place, to comfort him after his long ride and hisspiritual labours.
Mr. John told him first the news of his own son, as was his duty to do;and he told it without bitterness, in a level voice, leaning his cheekon his hand.
It appeared that Mr. Thomas still passed for a Catholic among thesimpler folk; but with none else. All the great houses round about hadthe truth as an open secret; and their doors were closed to him; neitherhad any priest been near him, since the day when Mr. Simpson met himalone on the moors and spoke to him of his soul. Even then Mr. Thomashad blustered and declared that there was no truth in the tale; and hadso ridden away at last, saying that such pestering was enough to make aman lose his religion altogether.
"As for me," said Mr. John, "he has not been near me, nor I near him. Helives at Norbury for the most part. My brother is attempting to setaside the disposition he had made in his favour; but they say that itwill be made to stand; and that my son will get it all yet. But he hasnot troubled us at Padley; nor will he, I think."
"He is at Norbury, you say, sir?"
"Yes; but he goes here and there continually. He has been to London tolay informations, I have no doubt, for I know that he hath been seenthere in Topcliffe's company.... It seems that we are to be in the thickof the conflict. We have had above a dozen priests in this county alonearraigned for treason, and the most of them executed."
His voice had gone lower, and trembled once or twice as he talked. Itwas plain that he could not bear to speak much more against the son thathad turned against him and his Faith, for the sake of his own libertyand the estates he had hoped to have. Robin made haste to turn the talk.
"And my father, sir?"
Mr. John looked at him tenderly.
"You must ask Mistress Marjorie of him," he said. "I have not seen himthese three years."
Robin turned to the girl.
"I have had no more news of him since what I wrote to you," she saidquietly. "After I had spoken with him, and he had given me the warning,he held himself aloof."
"Hath he been at any of the trials at Derby?"
She bowed her head.
"He was at the trial of Mr. Garlick," she said; "last year; and was oneof those who spoke for his banishment."
* * * * *
And then, on a sudden, Mistress Alice moved in her corner, where she satwith the widow of her brother.
"And what of her Grace?" she said. "Is it true what Dick told us beforesupper, that Parliament hath sentenced her?"
Robin shook his head.
"I hear so much gossip," he said, "in the taverns, that I believenothing. I had not heard that. Tell me what it was."
He was in a torment of mind as to what he should say of his ownadventure at Chartley. On the one side it was plain that no rumour ofthe tale must get abroad or he would never be able to come to her again;on the other side, no word had come from Mr. Bourgoign, though twom
But Mistress Alice would not be put off. She repeated what she had said.Dick had come up from Dethick only that afternoon, and was now goneagain, so that he could not be questioned; but he had told his mistressplainly that the story in Derby, brought in by couriers, was thatParliament had consented and had passed sentence on her Grace; that herGrace herself had received the news only the day before; but that thewarrant was not signed.
"And on what charge?" asked Robin desperately. Mistress Alice's voicerang out proudly; but he saw her press the girl closer as she spoke.
"That she was privy to the plot which my ... my brother had a hand in."
Then Robin drew a breath and decided.
"It may be so," he said. "But I do not believe she was privy to it. Ispoke with her Grace at Chartley--"
There was a swift movement in the half circle.
"I spoke with her Grace at Chartley," he said. "I went to her underguise of a herbalist: I heard her confession and gave her communion; andshe declared publicly, before two witnesses, after she had hadcommunion, that she was guiltless."
* * * * *
Robin was no story-teller; but for half an hour he was forced to becomeone, until his hearers were satisfied. Even here, in the distant hills,Mary's name was a key to a treasure-house of mysteries. It was throughthis country, too, that she had passed again and again. It was at oldChatsworth--the square house with the huge Italian and Dutch gardens,that a Cavendish had bought thirty years ago from the Agards--that shehad passed part of her captivity; it was in Derby that she had haltedfor a night last year; it was near Burton that she had slept two monthsago on her road to Fotheringay; and to hear now of her, from one who hadspoken to her that very autumn, was as a revelation. So Robin told it aswell as he could.
"And it may be," he said, "that I shall have to go again. Mr. Bourgoignsaid that he would send to me if he could. But I have heard no word fromhim." (He glanced round the watching faces.) "And I need not say that Ishall hear no word at all, if the tale I have told you leak out."
"Perhaps she hath a chaplain again," said Mr. John, after pause.
"I do not think so," said the priest. "If she had none at Chartley, shewould all the less have one at Fotheringay."
"And it may be you will be sent for again?" asked Marjorie's voicegently from the darkness.
"It may be so," said the priest.
"The letter is to be sent here?" she asked.
"I told Mr. Bourgoign so."
"Does any other know you are here?"
"No, Mistress Marjorie."
There was a pause.
"It is growing late," said Mr. John. "Will your Reverence go upstairswith me; and these ladies will come after, I think."
III
If it had been a great day for Robin that he should come back to his owncountry after six years, and be received in this house of strangememories; that he should sit upstairs as a priest, and hear confessionsin that very parlour where nearly seven years ago he had sat withMarjorie as her accepted lover--if all this had been charged, to him,with emotions and memories which, however he had outgrown them, yetechoed somewhere wonderfully in his mind; it was no less a kind ofclimax and consummation to the girl whose house this was, and who hadwaited so long to receive back a lover who came now in so different aguise.
But it must be made plain that to neither of them was there a thought ora memory that ought not to be. To those who hold that men are no better,except for their brains, than other animals; that they are but, afterall, bundles of sense from which all love and aspiration take theirrise--to such the thing will seem simply false. They will say that itwas not so; that all that strange yearning that Marjorie had to see theman back again; that the excitement that beat in Robin's heart as he hadridden up the well-remembered slope, all in the dark, and had seen thelighted windows at the top; that these were but the old loves in thedisguise of piety. But to those who understand what priesthood is, forhim that receives it, and for the soul that reverences it, the thing isa truism. For the priest was one who loved Christ more than all theworld; and the woman one who loved priesthood more than herself.
Yet her memories of him that remained in her had, of course, a place inher heart; and, though she knelt before him presently in the littleparlour where once he had kneeled before her, as simply as a childbefore her father, and told her sins, and received Christ's pardon, andwent away to make room for the next--though all this was without areproach in her eyes; yet, as she went she knew that she must face afresh struggle, and a temptation that would not have been one-tenth sofierce if it had been some other priest that was in peril. That perilwas Fotheringay, where (as she knew well enough) every strange facewould be scrutinized as perhaps nowhere else in all England; and thattemptation lay in the knowledge that when that letter should come (asshe knew in her heart it would come), it would be through her hands thatit would pass--if it passed indeed.
* * * * *
While the others went to the priest one by one, Marjorie kneeled in herroom, fighting with a devil that was not yet come to her, as is the waywith sensitive consciences.