CHAPTER IV
STANFIELD PLACE
Life at Stanfield Place was wonderfully sweet to Anthony and Isabel aftertheir exile abroad, for both of them had an intense love of England andof English ways. The very sight of fair-faced children, and the noise oftheir shrill familiar voices from the village street, the depths of theAugust woods round them, the English manners of living--all this wasalive with a full deliberate joy to these two. Besides, there was theunfailing tenderness and gaiety of Mr. Buxton; and at first there was thepleasant company of Mary Corbet as well.
There was little or no anxiety resting on any of them. "God was served,"as the celebration of mass was called, each morning in the little roomwhere Anthony had made the exercises, and the three others were alwayspresent. It was seldom that the room was not filled to over-flowing onSundays and holy-days with the household and the neighbouring Catholics.
Everything was, of course, perfection in the little chapel when it wasfurnished; as was all that Mr. Buxton possessed. There was a wonderfulgolden crucifix by an unknown artist, that he had picked up in histravels, that stood upon the altar, with the bird-types of the Saviour ateach of the four ends; a pelican at the top, an eagle on the rightsupporting its young which were raising their wings for a flight, on theleft a phoenix amid flames, and at the foot a hen gathering herchickens under her wings--all the birds had tiny emerald eyes; the figureon the cross was beautifully wrought, and had rubies in hands and feetand side. There were also two silver altar-candlesticks designed byMarrina for the Piccolomini chapel in the church of St. Francis in Siena;and two more, plainer, for the Elevation. The vestments were exquisite;those for high festivals were cloth of gold; and the other white oneswere beautifully worked with seed pearls, and jewelled crosses on thestole and maniple. The other colours, too, were well represented, andwere the work of a famous convent in the south of France. All the otherarticles, too, were of silver: the lavabo basin, the bell, the thurible,the boat and spoon, and the cruets. It was a joy to all the Catholics whocame to see the worship of God carried on with such splendour, when in somany places even necessaries were scarcely forthcoming.
There was a little hiding-hole between the chapel and the priest's room,just of a size to hold the altar furniture and the priests in case of asudden alarm; and there were several others in the house too, which Mr.Buxton had showed to Anthony with a good deal of satisfaction, on themorning after his arrival.
"I dared not show them to you the last time you were here," he said, "andthere was no need; but now there must be no delay. I have lately madesome more, too. Now here is one," he said, stopping before the greatcarved mantelpiece in the hall.
He looked round to see that no servant was in the room, and then,standing on a settee before the fire, touched something above, and acircular hole large enough for a man to clamber through appeared in themidst of the tracery.
"There," he said, "and you will find some cured ham and a candle, with afew dates within, should you ever have need to step up there--which, prayGod, you may not."
"What is the secret?" asked Anthony, as the tracery swung back intoplace, and his host stepped down.
"Pull the third roebuck's ears in the coat of arms, or rather push them.It closes with a spring, and is provided with a bolt. But I do notrecommend that refuge unless it is necessary. In winter it is too hot,for the chimney passes behind it; and in summer it is too oppressive, forthere is not too much air."
At the end of the corridor that led in the direction of the little oldrooms where Anthony had slept in his visit, Mr. Buxton stopped before theportrait of a kindly-looking old gentleman that hung on the wall.
"Now there is an upright old man you would say; and indeed he was, for hewas my own uncle, and made a godly end of it last year. But now see whata liar I have made of him!"
Mr. Buxton put his hand behind the frame, and the whole picture openedlike a door showing a space within where three or four could stand.Anthony stepped inside and his friend followed him, and after showing himsome clothes hanging against the wall closed the picture after them,leaving them in the dark.
"Now see what a sharp-eyed old fellow he is too," whispered his host.Anthony looked where he was guided, and perceived two pinholes throughwhich he could see the whole length of the corridor.
"Through the centre of each eye," whispered his friend. "Is he not shrewdand secret? And now turn this way."
Anthony turned round and saw the opposite wall slowly opening; and in amoment more he stepped out and found himself in the lobby outside thelittle room where he had made the exercises six years ago. He heard adoor close softly as he looked about him in astonishment, and on turninground saw only an innocent-looking set of shelves with a couple of booksand a little pile of paper and packet of quills upon them.
"There," said Mr. Buxton, "who would suspect Tacitus his history andJuvenal his satires of guarding the passage of a Christian ecclesiasticfleeing for his life?"
Then he showed him the secret, how one shelf had to be drawn outsteadily, and the nail in another pressed simultaneously, and how thenthe entire set of shelves swung open.
Then they went back and he showed him the spring behind the frame of thepicture.
"You see the advantage of this," he went on: "on the one side you mayflee upstairs, a treasonable skulking cassocked jack-priest with thelords and the commons and the Queen's Majesty barking at your heels; andon the other side you may saunter down the gallery without your beard andin a murrey doublet, a friend of Mr. Buxton's, taking the air andwondering what the devil all the clamouring be about."
Then he took him downstairs again and showed him finally the escape ofwhich he was most proud--the entrance, designed in the cellar-staircase,to an underground passage from the cellars, which led, he told him,across to the garden-house beyond the lime-avenue.
"That is the pride of my heart," he said, "and maybe will be useful someday; though I pray not. Ah! her Grace and her honest Council are right.We Papists are a crafty and deceitful folk, Father Anthony."
* * * *
The four grew very intimate during those few weeks; they had manymemories and associations in common on which to build up friendship, andthe aid of a common faith and a common peril with which to cement it. Thegracious beauty of the house and the life at Stanfield, too, gilded itall with a very charming romance. They were all astonished at the easyintimacy with which they behaved, one to another.
Mary Corbet was obliged to return to her duties at Court at the beginningof September; and she had something of an ache at her heart as the timedrew on; for she had fallen once more seriously in love with Isabel. Shesaid a word of it to Mr. Buxton. They were walking in the lime-avenuetogether after dinner on the last day of Mary's visit.
"You have a good chaplain," she said; "what an honest lad he is! and howserious and recollected! Please God he at least may escape their claws!"
"It is often so," said Mr. Buxton, "with those wholesome out-of-doorboys; they grow up into such simple men of God."
"And Isabel!" said Mary, rustling round upon him as she walked. "What agreat dame she is become! I used to lie on her bed and kick my heels andlaugh at her; but now I would like to say my prayers to her. She issomewhat like our Lady herself, so grave and serious, and yet so warm andtender."
Mr. Buxton nodded sharply.
"I felt sure you would feel it," he said.
"Ah! but I knew her when she was just a child; so simple that I loved tostartle her. But now--but now--those two ladies have done wonders withher. She has all the splendour of Mary Maxwell, and all the softness ofMargaret."
"Yes," said the other meditatively; "the two ladies have done it--or, thegrace of God."
Mary looked at him sideways and her lips twitched a little.
"Yes--or the grace of God, as you say."
The two laughed into each other's eyes, for they understood one anotherwell. Presently Mary
went on:
"When you and I fence together at table, she does not turn frigid like somany holy folk--or peevish and bewildered like stupid folk--but she justlooks at us, and laughs far down in those deep grey eyes of hers. Oh! Ilove her!" ended Mary.
They walked in silence a minute or two.
"And I think I do," said Mr. Buxton softly.
"Eh?" exclaimed Mary, "you do what?" She had quite forgotten her lastsentence.
"It is no matter," he said yet more softly; and would say no more.
Presently the talk fell on the Maxwells; and came round to Hubert.
"They say he would be a favourite at Court," said Mary, "had he not awife. But her Grace likes not married men. She looked kindly upon him atDeptford, I know; and I have seen him at Greenwich. You know, of course,about Isabel?"
Mr. Buxton shook his head.
"Why, it was common talk that they would have been man and wife yearsago, had not the fool apostatised."
Her companion questioned her further, and soon had the whole story out ofher. "But I am thankful," ended Mary, "that it has so ended."
The next day she went back to Court; and it was with real grief that thethree watched her wonderful plumed riding-hat trot along behind the topof the churchyard wall, with her woman beside her, and her littleliveried troop of men following at a distance.
The days passed by, bringing strange tidings to Stanfield. News continuedto reach the Catholics of the good confessions witnessed here and therein England by priests and laity. At the end of July, three priests,Garlick, Ludlam and Sympson, had been executed at Derby, and at the endof August the defeat of the Armada seemed to encourage Elizabeth yetfurther, and Mr. Leigh, a priest, with four laymen and Mistress MargaretWard, died for their religion at Tyburn.
By the end of September the news of the hopeless defeat and disappearanceof the Armada had by now been certified over and over again. Terriblestories had come in during August of that northward flight of all thatwas left of the fleet over the plunging North Sea up into the stormycoast of Scotland; then rumours began of the miseries that were fallingon the Spaniards off Ireland--Catholic Ireland from which they had hopedso much. There was scarcely a bay or a cape along the west coast wheresome ship had not put in, with piteous entreaties for water and aid--andscarcely a bay or a cape that was not blood-guilty. Along the straightcoast from Sligo Bay westwards, down the west coast, Clew Bay, Connemara,and haunted Dingle itself, where the Catholic religion under arms hadbeen so grievously chastened eight years ago--everywhere half-drowned orhalf-starved Spaniards, piteously entreating, were stripped and put tothe sword either by the Irish savages or the English gentlemen. Thechurch-bells were rung in Stanfield and in every English village, and theflame of national pride and loyalty burned fiercer and higher than ever.
* * * *
On the last day of September Isabel, just before dinner in her room,heard the trot of a couple of horses coming up the short drive, and ongoing downstairs almost ran against Hubert as he came from the corridorinto the hall, as the servant ushered him in.
The two stopped and looked at one another in silence.
Hubert was flushed with hard riding and looked excited; Isabel's faceshowed nothing but pleasure and surprise. The servant too stopped,hesitating.
Then Isabel put out her hand, smiling; and her voice was natural andcontrolled.
"Why, Mr. Hubert," she said, "it is you! Come through this way"; and shenodded to the servant, who went forward and opened the door of the littleparlour and stood back, as Isabel swept by him.
When the door was closed, and the servant's footsteps had died away,Hubert, as he stood facing Isabel, spoke at last.
"Mistress Isabel," he said almost imploringly, "what can I say to you?Your home has been wrecked; and partly through those wild and foolishwords of mine; and you repay it by that act of kindness to my wife! I amcome to ask your pardon, and to thank you. I only reached home lastnight."
"Ah! that was nothing," said Isabel gently; "and as for the house----"
"As for the house," he said, "I was not master of myself when I saidthose words that Grace told you of; and I entreat you to let me repairthe damage."
"No, no," she said, "Anthony has given orders; that will all be done."
"But what can I do then?" he cried passionately; "if you but knew mysorrow--and--and--more than that, my----"
Isabel had raised her grave eyes and was looking him full in the facenow; and he stopped abashed.
"How is Grace, and Mercy?" she asked in perfectly even tones.
"Oh! Isabel----" he began; and again she looked at him, and then went tothe door.
"I hear Mr. Buxton," she said; and steps came along through the hall; sheopened the door as he came up. Mr. Buxton stopped abruptly, and the twomen drew themselves up and seemed to stiffen, ever so slightly. A shadeof aggressive contempt came on Hubert's keen brown face that towered upso near the low oak ceiling; while Mr. Buxton's eyelids just drooped, andhis features seemed to sharpen. There was an unpleasant silence: Isabelbroke it.
"You remember Master Hubert Maxwell?" she said almost entreatingly. Hesmiled kindly at her, but his face hardened again as he turned once moreto Hubert.
"I remember the gentleman perfectly," he said, "and he no doubt knows me,and why I cannot ask him to remain and dine with us."
Hubert smiled brutally.
"It is the old story of course, the Faith! I must ask your pardon, sir,for intruding. The difficulty never came into my mind. The truth is thatI have lived so long now among Protestants that I had quite forgottenwhat Catholic charity is like!"
He said this with such extreme bitterness and fury that Isabel put outher hand instinctively to Mr. Buxton, who smiled at her once more, andpressed it in his own. Hubert laughed again sharply; his face grew whiteunder the tan, and his lips wrinkled back once or twice.
"So, if you can spare me room to pass," he went on in the same tone, "Iwill begone to the inn."
Mr. Buxton stepped aside from the door, and Hubert bowed to Isabel so lowthat it was almost an insult in itself, and strode out, his spurs ringingon the oak boards.
When he half turned outside the front door to beckon to his groom tobring up the horses, he became aware that Isabel was beside him.
"Hubert," she said, "Hubert, I cannot bear this."
There were tears in her voice, and he could not help turning and lookingat her. Her face, more grave and transparent than ever, was raised tohis; her red down-turned lips were trembling, and her eyes were full of agreat emotion. He turned away again sharply.
"Hubert," she said again, "I was not born a Catholic, and I do not feellike Mr. Buxton. And--and I do thank you for coming; and for your desireto repair the house; and--and will you give my love to Grace?"
Then he suddenly turned to her with such passion in his eyes that sheshrank back. At the same moment the groom brought up the horses; heturned and mounted without a word, but his eyes were dim with love andanger and jealousy. Then he drove his spurs into his great grey mare, andIsabel watched him dash between the iron gates, with his groom only halfmounted holding back his own plunging horse. Then she went within doorsagain.