CHAPTER V
JOSEPH LACKINGTON
It was a bitter ride back to Great Keynes for Hubert. He had justreturned from watching the fifty vessels, which were all that were leftof the Great Armada, pass the Blaskets, still under the nominal commandof Medina Sidonia, on their miserable return to Spain; and he had comeback as fast as sails could carry him, round the stormy Land's-End upalong the south coast to Rye, where on his arrival he had been almostworshipped by the rejoicing townsfolk. Yet all through his voyage andadventures, at any rate since his interview with her at Rye, it had beenthe face of Isabel there, and not of Grace, that had glimmered to him inthe dark, and led him from peril to peril. Then, at last, on his arrivalat home, he had heard of the disaster to the Dower House, and his ownunintended share in it; and of Isabel's generous visit to his wife; andat that he had ordered his horse abruptly over-night and ridden offwithout a word of explanation to Grace on the following morning. And hehad been met by a sneering man who would not sit at table with him, andwho was the protector and friend of Isabel.
* * * *
He rode up through the village just after dark and in through thegatehouse up to the steps. A man ran to open the door, and as Hubert camethrough told him that a stranger had ridden down from London and hadarrived at mid-day, and that he had been waiting ever since.
"I gave the gentleman dinner in the cloister parlour, sir; and he is atsupper now," added the man.
Hubert nodded and pushed through the hall. He heard his name calledtimidly from upstairs, and looking up saw his wife's golden head over thebanisters.
"Well!" he said.
"Ah, it is you. I am so glad."
"Who else should it be?" said Hubert, and passed through towards thecloister wing, and opened the door of the little parlour where Isabel andMistress Margaret had sat together years before, the night of Mr. James'return, and of the girl's decision.
A stranger rose up hastily as he came in, and bowed with great deference.Hubert knew his face, but could not remember his name.
"I ask your pardon, Mr. Maxwell; but your man would take no denial," andhe indicated the supper-table with a steaming dish and a glass jug ofwine ruddy in the candlelight. Hubert looked at him curiously.
"I know you, sir," he said, "but I cannot put a name to your face."
"Lackington," said the man with a half smile; "Joseph Lackington."
Hubert still stared; and then suddenly burst into a short laugh.
"Why, yes," he said; "I know now. My father's servant."
The man bowed.
"Formerly, sir; and now agent to Sir Francis Walsingham," he said, withsomething of dignity in his manner.
Hubert saw the hint, but could not resist a small sneer.
"Why, I am pleased to see you," he said. "You have come to see yourold--home?" and he threw himself into a chair and stretched his legs tothe blaze, for he was stiff with riding. Lackington instantly sat downtoo, for his pride was touched.
"It was not for that, Mr. Maxwell," he said almost in the tone of anequal, "but on a mission for Sir Francis."
Hubert looked at him a moment as he sat there in the candlelight, withhis arm resting easily on the table. He was plainly prosperous, and waseven dressed with some distinction; his reddish beard was trimmed to apoint; his high forehead was respectably white and bald; and his sealshung from his belt beside his dagger with an air of ease and solidity.Perhaps he was of some importance; at any rate, Sir Francis Walsinghamwas. Hubert sat up a little.
"A mission to me?" he said.
Lackington nodded.
"A few questions on a matter of state."
He drew from his pouch a paper signed by Sir Francis authorising him asan agent, for one month, and dated three days back; and handed it toHubert.
"I obtained that from Sir Francis on Monday, as you will see. You cantrust me implicitly."
"Will the business take long?" asked Hubert, handing the paper back.
"No, Mr. Maxwell; and I must be gone in an hour in any case. I have to beat Rye at noon to-morrow; and I must sleep at Mayfield to-night."
"At Rye," said Hubert, "why I came from there yesterday."
Lackington bowed again, as if he were quite aware of this; but saidnothing.
"Then I will sup here," went on Hubert, "and we will talk meantime."
When a place had been laid for him, he drew his chair round to the tableand began to eat.
"May I begin at once?" asked Lackington, who had finished.
Hubert nodded.
"Then first I believe it to be a fact that you spoke with Mistress IsabelMorris on board the _Elizabeth_ at Rye on the tenth of August last."
Hubert had started violently at her name; but did his utmost to gainoutward command of himself again immediately.
"Well?" he said.
--"And with Master Anthony Norris, lately made a priest beyond the seas."
"That is a lie," said Hubert.
Lackington politely lifted his eyebrows.
"Indeed?" he said. "That he was made a priest, or that you spoke withhim?"
"That I know aught of him," said Hubert. His heart was beating furiously.
Lackington made a note rather ostentatiously; he could see that Hubertwas frightened, and thought that it was because of a possible accusationof having dealings with a traitor.
"And as regards Mistress Norris," he said judicially, with his pencilraised, "you deny having spoken with her?"
Hubert was thinking furiously. Then he saw that Lackington knew too muchfor its being worth his own while to deny it.
"No, I never denied that," he said, lifting his fork to his mouth; and hewent on eating with a deliberate ease as Lackington again made a note.
The next question was a home-thrust.
"Where are they both now?" asked Lackington, looking at him. Hubert'smind laboured like a mill.
"I do not know," he said.
"You swear it?"
"I swear it."
"Then Mistress Norris has changed her plans?" said Lackington swiftly.
"What do you mean by that?"
"Why she told you where they were going when you met?" said the other ina remonstrating tone.
Hubert suddenly saw the game. If the authorities really knew that, itwould have been a useless question. He stared at Lackington with anadmirable vacancy.
"Indeed she did not," he said. "For aught I know, they--she is in Franceagain."
"They?" said Lackington shrewdly. "Then you do know somewhat of thepriest?"
But Hubert was again too sharp.
"Only what you told me just now, when you said he was at Rye. I supposedyou were telling the truth."
Lackington passed his hand smoothly over his mouth and beard, and smiled.Either Hubert was very sharp or else he had told everything; and he didnot believe him sharp.
"Thank you, Mr. Maxwell," he said, with a complete dropping of hisjudicial manner. "I will not pretend not to be disappointed; but Ibelieve what you say about France is true; and that it is no use lookingfor him further."
Hubert experienced an extraordinary relief. He had saved Isabel. He drankoff a glass of claret. "Tell me everything," he said.
"Well," said Lackington, "Mr. Thomas Hamon is my informant. He sent up toSir Francis the message that a lady of the name of Norris had beenintroduced to him at Rye; because he thought he remembered some stir inthe county several years ago about some reconciliations to Rome connectedwith that name. Of course we knew everything about that: and we have ouragents at the seminaries too; so we concluded that she was one of ourbirds; the rest, of course, was guesswork. Mr. Norris has certainly leftDouai for England; and he may possibly even now be in England; but fromyour information and others', I now believe that Mistress Isabel cameacross first, and that she found the country too hot, what with theSpaniards and all; and that she returned to France at once. Of courseduring that dreadful week, Mr. Maxwell
, we could not be certain of allvessels that came and went; so I think she just slipped across again; andthat they are both waiting in France. We shall keep good watch now at theports, I can promise you."
Hubert's emotions were varied during this speech. First shame at havingentirely forgotten the mayor of Rye and his own introduction of Isabel tohim; then astonishment at the methods of Walsingham's agents; and lastlyintense triumph and relief at having put them off Isabel's track. ForAnthony, too, he had nothing but kindly feelings; so, on the whole, hethought he had done well for his friends.
The two talked a little longer; Lackington was a stimulating companionfrom both his personality and his position; and Hubert found himselfalmost sorry when his companion said he must be riding on to Mayfield. Ashe walked out with him to the front door, he suddenly thought of Mr.Buxton again and his reception in the afternoon. They had wandered intheir conversation so far from the Norrises by now that he felt sure hecould speak of him without doing them any harm. So, as they stood on thesteps together, waiting for Lackington's horse to come round, he suddenlysaid:
"Do you know aught of one Buxton, who lives somewhere near Tonbridge, Ithink?"
"Buxton, Buxton?" said the other.
"I met him in town once," went on Hubert smoothly; "a little man, dark,with large eyes, and looks somewhat like a Frenchman."
"Buxton, Buxton?" said the other again. "A Papist, is he not?"
"Yes," said Hubert, hoping to get some information against him.
"A friend?" asked Lackington.
"No," said Hubert with such vehemence that Lackington looked at him.
"I remember him," he said in a moment; "he was imprisoned at Wisbeach sixor seven years ago. But I do not think he has been in trouble since. Youwish, you wish----?" he went on interrogatively.
"Nothing," said Hubert; but Lackington saw the hatred in his eyes.
The horses came round at this moment; and Lackington said good-bye toHubert with a touch of the old deference again, and mounted. Hubertwatched him out under the gatehouse-lamp into the night beyond, and thenhe went in again, pondering.
His wife was waiting for him in the hall now--a delicate golden-hairedfigure, with pathetic blue eyes turned up to him. She ran to him and tookhis arm timidly in her two hands.
"Oh! I am glad that man has gone, Hubert."
He looked down at her almost contemptuously.
"Why, you know nothing of him!" he said.
"Not much," she said, "but he asked me so many questions."
Hubert started and looked suddenly at her, in terror.
"Oh, Hubert!" she said, shrinking back frightened.
"Questions!" he said, seizing her hands. "Questions of whom?"
"Of--of--Mistress Isabel Norris," she said, almost crying.
"And--and--what did you say? Did you tell him?"
"Oh, Hubert!--I am so sorry--ah! do not look like that."
"What did you say? What did you say?" he said between his teeth.
"I--I--told a lie, Hubert; I said I had never seen her."
Hubert took his wife suddenly in his two arms and kissed her three orfour times.
"You darling, you darling!" he said; and then stooped and picked her up,and carried her upstairs, with her head against his cheek, and her tearsrunning down because he was pleased with her, instead of angry.
They went upstairs and he set her down softly outside the nursery door.
"Hush," she said, smiling up at him; and then softly opened the door andlistened, her finger on her lip; there was no sound from within; then shepushed the door open gently, and the wife and husband went in.
There was a shaded taper still burning in a high bracket where an imageof the Mother of God had stood in the Catholic days of the house. Hubertglanced up at it and remembered it, with just a touch at his heart.Beneath it was a little oak cot, where his four-year-old boy laysleeping; the mother went across and bent over it, and Hubert leaned hisbrown sinewy hands on the end of the cot and watched him. There his sonlay, with tangled curls on the pillow; his finger was on his lips as ifhe bade silence even to thought. Hubert looked up, and just above thebed, where the crucifix used to hang when he himself had slept in thisnursery, probably on the very same nail, he thought to himself, was arusty Spanish spur that he himself had found in a sea-chest of the _SanJuan_. The boy had hung up with a tarry bit of string this emblem of hisfather's victory, as a protection while he slept.
The child stirred in his sleep and murmured as the two watched him.
"Father's home again," whispered the mother. "It is all well. Go to sleepagain."
When she looked up again to her husband, he was gone.
* * * *
It was not often that Hubert had regrets for the Faith he had lost; butto-night things had conspired to prick him. There was his rebuff from Mr.Buxton; there was the sight of Isabel in the dignified grace that he hadnoticed so plainly before; there had been the interview with theex-Catholic servant, now a spy of the Government, and a remorseless enemyof all Catholics; and lastly there were the two little external remindersof the niche and the nail over his son's bed.
He sat long before the fire in Sir Nicholas' old room, now his own study.As he lay back and looked about him, how different this all was, too! Themantelpiece was almost unaltered; the Maxwell devices, two-headed eagles,hurcheons and saltires, on crowded shields, interlaced with the motto_Reviresco_, all newly gilded since his own accession to the estate, roseup in deep shadow and relief; but over it, instead of the little oldpicture of the Vernacle that he remembered as a child, hung his ownsword. Was that a sign of progress? he wondered. The tapestry on the eastwall was the same, a hawking scene with herons and ladies in immenseheaddresses that he had marvelled at as a boy. But then the books on theshelves to the right of the door, they were different; there had been olddevotional books in his father's time, mingled strangely with small workson country life and sports; now the latter only remained, and the nearestto a devotional book was a volume of a mystical herbalist who identifiedplants with virtues, strangely and ingeniously. Then the prie-dieu, wherethe beads had hung and the little wooden shield with the Five Woundspainted upon it--that was gone; and in its place hung a cupboard where hekept a crossbow and a few tools for it; and old hawk-lures and jesses andthe like.
Then he lay back again, and thought.
Had he then behaved unworthily? This old Faith that had been handed downfrom father and son for generations; that had been handed to him too asthe most precious heirloom of all--for which his father had so gladlysuffered fines and imprisonment, and risked death--he had thrown it over,and for what? For Isabel, he confessed to himself; and then the--thePower that stands behind the visible had cheated him and withdrawn thatfor which he had paid over that great price. Was that a reckless andbrutal bargain on his side--to throw over this strange delicate thingcalled the Faith for which so many millions had lived and died, all for awoman's love? A curious kind of family pride in the Faith began to prickhim. After all, was not honour in a manner bound up with it too; and mostof all when such heavy penalties attached themselves to the profession ofit? Was that the moment when he should be the first of his line toabandon it?
_Reviresco_--"I renew my springtide." But was not this a strangegrafting--a spur for a crucifix, a crossbow for a place of prayer?_Reviresco_--There was sap indeed in the old tree; but from what soil didit draw its strength?
His heart began to burn with something like shame, as it had burned nowand again at intervals during these past years. Here he lay back in hisfather's chair, in his father's room, the first Protestant of theMaxwells. Then he passed on to a memory.
As he closed his eyes, he could see even now the chapel upstairs, withthe tapers alight and the stiff figure of the priest in the midst of theglow; he could smell the flowers on the altar, the June roses strewn onthe floor in the old manner, and their fresh dewy scent mingled with thefragrance of the rich incense in an intoxicating chord; he
could hear therustle that emphasised the silence, as his mother rose from his side andwent up for communion, and the breathing of the servants behind him.
Then for contrast he remembered the whitewashed church where he attendednow with his wife, Sunday by Sunday, the pulpit occupied by the blackfigure of the virtuous Mr. Bodder pronouncing his discourse, the greattexts that stood out in their new paint from the walls, the table thatstood out unashamed and sideways in the midst of the chancel. And whichof the two worships was most like God?...
Then he compared the worshippers in either mode. Well, Drake, his hero,was a convinced Protestant; the bravest man he had ever met or dreamedof--fiery, pertinacious, gloriously insolent. He thought of his sailors,on whom a portion of Drake's spirit fell, their gallantry, theirfearlessness of death and of all that comes after; of Mr. Bodder, who wasnow growing middle-aged in the Vicarage--yes, indeed, they were alladmirable in various ways, but were they like Christ?
On the other hand, his father, in spite of his quick temper, his mother,brother, aunt, the priests who came and went by night, Isabel--and atthat he stopped: and like a deep voice in his ear rose up the lasttremendous question, What if the Catholic Religion be true after all? Andat that the supernatural began to assert itself. It seemed as if theempty air were full of this question, rising in intensity and emphasis.What if it is true? What if it is true? _What if it is true?_
He sat bolt upright and looked sharply round the room; the candles burnedsteadily in the sconce near the door. The tapestry lifted and droppednoiselessly in the draught; the dark corners beyond the press and in thewindow recesses suggested presences that waited; the wide chimney sighedsuddenly once.
Was that a voice in his ear just now, or only in his heart? But in eithercase----
He made an effort to command himself, and looked again steadily round theroom; but there seemed no one there. But what if the old tale be true? Inthat case he is not alone in this little oak room, for there is no suchthing as loneliness. In that case he is sitting in full sight of AlmightyGod, whom he has insulted; and of the saints whose power he hasrepudiated; and of the angels good and bad who have---- Ah! what wasthat? There had seemed to come a long sigh somewhere behind him; on hisleft surely.--What was it? Some wandering soul? Was it, could it be thesoul of one who had loved him and desired to warn him before it was toolate? Could it have been----and then it came again; and the hair prickledon his head.
How deathly still it is, and how cold! Ah! was that a rustle outside; atap?... In God's name, who can that be?...
And then Hubert licked his dry lips and brought them together and smiledat Grace, who had come down, opening the doors as she came, to see why hehad not come to bed.
Bah! what a superstitious fool he was, after all!