The King's Achievement

  CHAPTER XII

  A RECOVERY

  There was a moment of intense silence, only emphasized by the settlingrustle of the girl's dress. The door had closed softly, and Mr. Morrisstood within, in the shadow by the window, ready to give help if it wereneeded. Beatrice remained a yard inside the room, very upright anddignified, a little pale, looking from one to the other of the twobrothers, who stared back at her as at a ghost.

  Ralph spoke first, swallowing once or twice in his throat beforespeaking, and trying to smile.

  "It is you then," he said.

  Beatrice moved a step nearer, looking at Chris, who stood white andtense, his eyes wide and burning.

  "Mr. Torridon," said Beatrice softly, "I have brought the bundle. Mywoman has it."

  Still she looked, as she spoke, questioningly at Chris.

  "Oh! this is my brother, the monk," snapped Ralph bitterly, glancing athim. "Indeed, he is."

  Then Chris lost his self-control again.

  "And this is my brother, the murderer; indeed, he is."

  Beatrice's lips parted, and her eyes winced. She put out her handhesitatingly towards Ralph, and dropped it again as he moved a littletowards her.

  "You hear him?" said Ralph.

  "I do not understand," said the girl, "your brother--"

  "Yes, I am his brother, God help me," snarled Chris.

  Beatrice's lips closed again, and a look of contempt came into herface.

  "I have heard enough, Mr. Torridon. Will you come with me?"

  Chris moved forward a step.

  "I do not know who you are, madam," he said, "but do you understand whatthis gentleman is? Do you know that he is a creature of MasterCromwell's?"

  "I know everything," said Beatrice.

  "And you were at Tyburn, too?" questioned Chris bitterly, "perhaps withthis brother of mine?"

  Beatrice faced him defiantly.

  "What have you to say against him, sir?"

  Ralph made a movement to speak, but the girl checked him.

  "I wish to hear it. What have you to say?"

  "He is a creature of Cromwell's who plotted the death of God's saints.This brother of mine was at the examinations, I hear, and at thescaffold. Is that enough?"

  Chris had himself under control again by now, but his words seemed toburn with vitriol. His lips writhed as he spoke.

  "Well?" said Beatrice.

  "Well, if that is not enough; how of More and my Lord of Rochester?"

  "He has been a good friend to Mr. More," said Beatrice, "that I know."

  "He will get him the martyr's crown, surely," sneered Chris.

  "And you have no more to say?" asked the girl quietly.

  A shudder ran over the monk's body; his mouth opened and closed, and thefire in his eyes flared up and died; his clenched hands rose and fell.Then he spoke quietly.

  "I have no more to say, madam."

  Beatrice moved across to Ralph, and put her hand on his arm, lookingsteadily at Chris. Ralph laid his other hand on hers a moment, thenraised it, and made an abrupt motion towards the door.

  Chris went round the table; Mr. Morris opened the door with an impassiveface, and followed him out, leaving Beatrice and Ralph alone.

  * * * * *

  Chris had come back the previous evening from Tyburn distracted almostto madness. He had sat heavily all the evening by himself, brooding andmiserable, and had not slept all night, but waking visions had movedcontinually before his eyes, as he turned to and fro on his narrow bedin the unfamiliar room. Again and again Tyburn was before him, peopledwith phantoms; he had seen the thick ropes, and heard their creaking,and the murmur of the multitude; had smelt the pungent wood-smoke andthe thick drifting vapour from the cauldron. Once it seemed to him thatthe very room was full of figures, white-clad and silent, who watchedhim with impassive pale faces, remote and unconcerned. He had flunghimself on his knees again and again, had lashed himself with thediscipline that he, too, might taste of pain; but all the serenity ofdivine things was gone. There was no heaven, no Saviour, no love. He wasbound down here, crushed and stifled in this apostate city whose soundsand cries came up into his cell. He had lost the fiery vision of theconqueror's welcome; it was like a tale heard long ago. Now he wasbeaten down by physical facts, by the gross details of the tragedy, thestrangling, the blood, the smoke, the acrid smell of the crowd, andheaven was darkened by the vapour.

  It was not until the next day, as he sat with the Prior and a strangeror two, and heard the tale once more, and the predictions about More andFisher, that the significance of Ralph's position appeared to himclearly. He knew no more than before, but he suddenly understood what heknew.

  A monk had said a word of Cromwell's share in the matters, and the Priorhad glanced moodily at Chris for a moment, turning his eyes only as hesat with his chin in his hand; and in a moment Chris understood.

  This was the work that his brother was doing. He sat now more distractedthan ever: mental pictures moved before him of strange council-roomswith great men in silk on raised seats, and Ralph was among them. Heseemed to hear his bitter questions that pierced to the root of thefaith of the accused, and exposed it to the world, of their adherence tothe Vicar of Christ, their uncompromising convictions.

  He had sat through dinner with burning eyes, but the Prior noticednothing, for he himself was in a passion of absorption, and gave Chris ahasty leave as he rose from table to go and see his brother if hewished.

  Chris had walked up and down his room that afternoon, framing sentencesof appeal and pity and terror, but it was useless: he could not fix hismind; and he had gone off at last to Westminster at once terrified forRalph's soul, and blazing with indignation against him.

  And now he was walking down to the river again, in the cool of theevening, knowing that he had ruined his own cause and his right to speakby his intemperate fury.

  * * * * *

  It was another strange evening that he passed in the Prior's chamberafter supper. The same monk, Dom Odo, who had taken him to Tyburn theday before, was there again; and Chris sat in a corner, with thereaction of his fury on him, spent and feverish, now rehearsing thescene he had gone through with Ralph, and framing new sentences that hemight have used, now listening to the talk, and vaguely gathering itsmeaning.

  It seemed that the tale of blood was only begun.

  Bedale, the Archdeacon of Cornwall, had gone that day to theCharterhouse; he had been seen driving there, and getting out at thedoor with a bundle of books under his arm, and he had passed in throughthe gate over which Prior Houghton's arm had been hung on the previousevening. It was expected that some more arrests would be madeimmediately.

  "As for my Lord of Rochester," said the monk, who seemed to revel in thebusiness of bearing bad news, "and Master More, I make no doubt theywill be cast. They are utterly fixed in their opinions. I hear that mylord is very sick, and I pray that God may take him to Himself. He ismade Cardinal in Rome, I hear; but his Grace has sworn that he shallhave no head to wear the hat upon."

  Then he went off into talk upon the bishop, describing his sufferings inthe Tower, for he was over eighty years old, and had scarcely sufficientclothes to cover him.

  Now and again Chris looked across at his Superior. The Prior sat therein his great chair, his head on his hand, silent and absorbed; it wasonly when Dom Odo stopped for a moment that he glanced up impatientlyand nodded for him to go on. It seemed as if he could not hear enough,and yet Chris saw him wince, and heard him breathe sharply as each newdetail came out.

  The monk told them, too, of Prior Houghton's speech upon the cart.

  "They asked him whether even then he would submit to the King's laws,and he called God to witness that it was not for obstinacy or perversitythat he refused, but that the King and the Parliament had decreedotherwise than our Holy Mother enjoins; and that for himself he wouldsooner suffer every kind of pain than deny a doctrine of the Church. Andwhen he had prayed from
the thirtieth Psalm, he was turned off."

  The Prior stared almost vacantly at the monk who told his story with akind of terrified gusto, and once or twice his lips moved to speak; buthe was silent, and dropped his chin upon his hand again when the otherhad done.

  * * * * *

  Chris scarcely knew how the days passed away that followed his arrivalin London. He spent them for the most part within doors, writing for thePrior in the mornings, or keeping watch over the door as his Superiortalked with prelates and churchmen within, for ecclesiastical London wasas busy as a broken ant-hill, and men came and went continually--scared,furtive monks, who looked this way and that, an abbot or two up for theHouse of Lords, priors and procurators on business. There were continualcommunications going to and fro among the religious houses, for theprince of them, the contemplative Carthusian, had been struck at, and noone knew where the assault would end.

  Meanwhile, Chris had heard no further news from Ralph. He thought ofwriting to him, and even of visiting him again, but his heart sickenedat the thought of it. It was impossible, he told himself, that anycommunication should pass between them until his brother had forsakenhis horrible business; the first sign of regret must come from the onewho had sinned. He wondered sometimes who the girl was, and, as ahot-headed monk, suspected the worst. A man who could live as Ralph wasliving could have no morals left. She had been so friendly with him, soready to defend him, so impatient, Chris thought, of any possibility ofwrong. No doubt she, too, was one of the corrupt band, one of the greatladies that buzzed round the Court, and sucked the blood of God'speople.

  His own interior life, however, so roughly broken by his newexperiences, began to mend slowly as the days went on.

  He had begun, like a cat in a new house, to make himself slowly at homein the hostel, and to set up that relation between outward objects andhis own self that is so necessary to interior souls not yet living indetachment. He arranged his little room next the Prior's to be as muchas possible like his cell, got rid of one or two pieces of furniturethat distracted him, set his bed in another corner, and hung up hisbeads in the same position that they used to occupy at Lewes. Eachmorning he served the Prior's mass in the tiny chapel attached to thehouse, and did his best both then and at his meditation to draw in thetorn fibres of his spirit. At moments of worship the supernatural worldbegan to appear again, like points of living rock emerging through sand,detached and half stifled by external details, but real and abiding.Little by little his serenity came back, and the old atmospherereasserted itself. After all, God was here as there; grace, penance, theguardianship of the angels and the sacrament of the altar was the sameat Southwark as at Lewes. These things remained; while all else wasaccidental--the different height of his room, the unfamiliar angles inthe passages, the new noises of London, the street cries, the clash ofmusic, the disordered routine of daily life.

  Half-way through June, after a long morning's conversation with astranger, the Prior sent for him.

  He was standing by the tall carved fire-place with his back to the door,his head and one hand leaning against the stone, and he turned rounddespondently as Chris came in. Chris could see he was deadly pale andthat his lips twitched with nervousness.

  "Brother," he said, "I have a perilous matter to go through, and youmust come with me."

  Chris felt his heart begin to labour with heavy sick beats.

  "I am to see my Lord of Rochester. A friend hath obtained the order. Weare to go at five o'clock. See that you be ready. We shall take boat atthe stairs."

  Chris waited, with his eyes deferentially cast down.

  "He is to be tried again on Thursday," went on the Prior, "and myfriends wish me to see him, God knows--"

  He stopped abruptly, made a sign with his hand, and as Chris left theroom he saw that he was leaning once more against the stone-work, andthat his head was buried in his arms.

  Three more Carthusians had been condemned in the previous week, but theBishop's trial, though his name was in the first indictment, waspostponed a few days.

  He too, like Sir Thomas More, had been over a year in the Tower; he hadbeen deprived of his see by an Act of Parliament, his palace had beenbroken into and spoiled, and he himself, it was reported, was beingtreated with the greatest rigour in the Tower.

  Chris was overcome with excitement at the thought that he was to seethis man. He had heard of his learning, his holiness, and hisausterities on all hands since his coming to London. When the bishop hadleft Rochester at his summons to London a year before there had been awonderful scene of farewell, of which the story was still told in town.The streets had been thronged with a vast crowd weeping and praying, ashe rode among them bare-headed, giving his blessing as he went. He hadchecked his horse by the city-gate, and with a loud voice had biddenthem all stand by the old religion, and let no man take it from them.And now here he lay himself in prison for the Faith, a Cardinal of theHoly Roman Church, with scarcely clothes to cover him or food to eat. Atthe sacking of his palace, too, as the men ran from room to room tearingdown the tapestries, and piling the plate together, a monk had found agreat iron box hidden in a corner. They cried to one another that itheld gold "for the bloody Pope"; and burst it open to find a hair shirt,and a pair of disciplines.

  * * * * *

  It was a long row down to the Tower from Southwark against thein-flowing tide. As they passed beneath the bridge Chris stared up atthe crowding houses, the great gates at either end, and the facescraning down; and he caught one glimpse as they shot through the narrowpassage between the piers, of the tall wall above the gate, the polesrising from it, and the severed heads that crowned them. Somewhere amongthat forest of grim stems the Carthusian priors looked down.

  As he turned in his seat he saw the boatman grinning to himself, andfollowing his eyes observed the Prior beside him with a white fixed facelooking steadily downwards towards his feet.

  They found no difficulty when they landed at the stairs, and showed theorder at the gate. The warder called to a man within the guard-room whocame out and went before them along the walled way that led to theinner ward. They turned up to the left presently and found themselves inthe great court that surrounded the White Tower.

  The Prior walked heavily with his face downcast as if he wished to avoidnotice, and Chris saw that he paid no attention to the men-at-arms andother persons here and there who saluted his prelate's insignia. Therewere plenty of people going about in the evening sunshine, soldiers andattendants, and here and there at the foot of a tower stood a halberdierin his buff jacket leaning on his weapon. There were many distinguishedpersons in the Tower now, both ecclesiastics and laymen who had refusedto take one or both of the oaths, and Chris eyed the windowswonderingly, picturing to himself where each lay, and with what courage.

  But more and more as he went he wondered why the Prior and he were here,and who had obtained the order of admittance, for he had not had a sightof it.

  When they reached the foot of the prison-tower the warder said a word tothe sentry, and took the two monks straight past, preceding them up thenarrow stairs that wound into darkness. There were windows here andthere, slits in the heavy masonry, through which Chris caught glimpses,now of the moat on the west, now of the inner ward with the White Towerhuge and massive on the east.

  The Prior, who went behind the warder and in front of Chris, stoppedsuddenly, and Chris could hear him whispering to himself; and at thesame time there sounded the creaking of a key in front.

  As the young monk stood there waiting, grasping the stone-work on hisright, again the excitement surged up; and with it was mingled somethingof terror. It had been a formidable experience even to walk those fewhundred yards from the outer gate, and the obvious apprehensiveness ofthe Prior who had spoken no audible word since they had landed, was farfrom reassuring.

  Here he stood now for the first time in his life within those terriblewalls; he had seen the low Traitor's Gate on his way t
hat was for somany the gate of death. Even now as he gripped the stone he could seeout to the left through the narrow slit a streak of open land beyond themoat and the wall, and somewhere there he knew lay the little risingground, that reddened week after week in an ooze of blood and slime. Andnow he was at the door of one who without doubt would die there soon forthe Faith that they both professed.

  The Prior turned sharply round.

  "You!" he said, "I had forgotten: you must wait here till I call youin."

  There was a sounding of an opening door above; the Prior went up andforward, leaving him standing there; the door closed, but not beforeChris had caught a glimpse of a vaulted roof; and then the warder stoodby him again, waiting with his keys in his hand.