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Come Rack! Come Rope! by Robert Hugh Benson

R >> Robert Hugh Benson >> Come Rack! Come Rope!




She fell on her knees by her bedside.

"Jesu!" she cried. "Jesu! Give me strength to meet him."

* * * * *

Mrs. Manners, too, hearing the horse's footsteps on the pavement a
minute later, and Marjorie's steps going downstairs, also looked forth
and saw him dismounting. She was a prudent woman, and did not stir a
finger till she heard the bell ringing in the court for the dinner to be
served. They would have time, so she thought, to arrange their
attitudes.

And, indeed, she was right: for it was two quiet enough persons who met
her as she came down into the hall: Robin flushed with riding, yet
wholly under his own command--bright-eyed, and resolute and natural
(indeed, it seemed to her that he was more of a man than she had thought
him). And her daughter, too, was still and strong; a trifle paler than
she should be, yet that was to be expected. At dinner, of course,
nothing could be spoken of but the most ordinary affairs--in such
speaking, that is, as there was. It was not till they had gone out into
the walled garden and sat them down, all three of them, on the long
garden-seat beside the rose-beds, that a word was said on these new
matters. There was silence as they walked there, and silence as they sat
down.

"Tell her, Robin," said the maid.

* * * * *

It appeared that matters were not yet as wholly decided as Mrs. Manners
had thought. Indeed, it seemed to her that they were not decided at all.
Robin had written to Dr. Allen, and had found means to convey his letter
to Mr. Simpson, who, in his turn, had undertaken to forward it at least
as far as to London; and there it would await a messenger to Douay. It
might be a month before it would reach Douay, and it might be three or
four months, or even more, before an answer could come back. Next, the
squire had taken a course of action which, plainly, had disconcerted the
lad, though it had its conveniences too. For, instead of increasing the
old man's fury, the news his son had given him had had a contrary
effect. He had seemed all shaken, said Robin; he had spoken to him
quietly, holding in the anger that surely must be there, the boy
thought, without difficulty. And the upshot of it was that no more had
been said as to Robin's leaving Matstead for the present--not one word
even about the fines. It seemed almost as if the old man had been trying
how far he could push his son, and had recoiled when he had learned the
effect of his pushing.

"I think he is frightened," said the lad gravely. "He had never thought
that I could be a priest."

Mrs. Manners considered this in silence.

"And it may be autumn before Dr. Allen's letter comes back?" she asked
presently.

Robin said that that was so.

"It may even be till winter," he said. "The talk among the priests, Mr.
Simpson tells me, is all about the removal from Douay. It may be made at
any time, and who knows where they will go?"

Mrs. Manners glanced across at her daughter, who sat motionless, with
her hands clasped. Then she was filled with the spirit of reasonableness
and sense: all this tragic to-do about what might never happen seemed to
her the height of folly.

"Nay, then," she burst out, "then nothing may happen after all. Dr.
Allen may say 'No;' the letter may never get to him. It may be that you
will forget all this in a month or two."

Robin turned his face slowly towards her, and she saw that she had
spoken at random. Again, too, it struck her attention that his manner
seemed a little changed. It was graver than that to which she was
accustomed.

"I shall not forget it," he said softly. "And Dr. Allen will get the
letter. Or, if not he, someone else."

There was silence again, but Mrs. Manners heard her daughter draw a long
breath.


III

It was an hour later that Marjorie found herself able to say that which
she knew must be said.

Robin had lingered on, talking of this and that, though he had said half
a dozen times that he must be getting homewards; and at last, when he
rose, Mistress Manners, who was still wholly misconceiving the
situation, after the manner of sensible middle-aged folk, archly and
tactfully took her leave and disappeared down towards the house,
advancing some domestic reason for her departure.

Robin sighed, and turned to the girl, who still sat quiet. But as he
turned she lifted her eyes to him swiftly.

"Good-bye, Mr. Robin," she said.

He pulled himself up.

"You understand, do you not?" she said. "You are to be a priest. You
must remember that always. You are a sort of student already."

She could see him pale a little; his lips tightened. For a moment he
said nothing; he was taken wholly aback.

"Then I am not to come here again?"

Marjorie stood up. She showed no sign of the fierce self-control she was
using.

"Why, yes," she said. "Come as you would come to any Catholic
neighbours. But no more than that.... You are to be a priest."

* * * * *

The spring air was full of softness and sweetness as they stood there.
On the trees behind them and on the roses in front the budding leaves
had burst into delicate green, and the copses on all sides sounded with
the twittering of birds. The whole world, it seemed, was kindling with
love and freshness. Yet these two had to stand here and be cold, one to
the other.... He was to be a priest; that must not be forgotten, and
they must meet no more on the old footing. That was gone. Already he
stood among the Levites, at least in intention; and the Lord alone was
to be the portion of his inheritance and his Cup.

It was a minute before either of them moved, and during that minute the
maid felt her courage ebb from her like an outgoing tide, leaving a
desolation behind. It was all that she could do not to cry out.

But when at last Robin made a movement and she had to look him in the
face, what she saw there braced and strengthened her.

"You are right, Mistress Marjorie," he said both gravely and kindly. "I
will bid you good-day and be getting to my horse."

He kissed her gently, as the manner was, and went down the path alone.






PART II




CHAPTER I


I

It was with a sudden leap of her heart that Marjorie, looking out of her
window at the late autumn landscape, her mind still running on the sheet
of paper that lay before her, saw a capped head, and then a horse's
crest, rise over the broken edge of land up which Robin had ridden so
often two and three years ago. Then she saw who was the rider, and laid
her pen down again.

* * * * *

It was two years since the lad had gone to Rheims, and it would be five
years more, she knew (since he was not over quick at his books), before
he would return a priest. She had letters from him: one would come now
and again, a month or two sometimes after the date of writing. It was
only in September that she had had the letter which he had written her
on hearing of her father's death, and Mr. Manners had died in June. She
had written back to him then, a discreet and modest letter enough,
telling him of how Mr. Simpson had read mass over the body before it was
taken down to Derby for the burying; and telling him, too, of her
mother's rheumatics that kept her abed now three parts of the year. For
the rest, the letters were dull enough reading to one who did not
understand them: the news the lad had to give was of a kind that must be
disguised, lest the letters should fall into other hands, since it
concerned the coming and going of priests whose names must not appear.
Yet, for all that, the letters were laid up in a press, and the heap
grew slowly.

It was Mr. Anthony Babington who was come now to see her, and it was
his third visit since the summer. But she knew well enough what he was
come for, since his young wife, whom he had married last year, was no
use to him in such matters: she had lately had a child, too, and lived
quietly at Dethick with her women. His letters, too, would come at
intervals, carried by a rider, or sometimes some farmer's man on his way
home from Derby, and these letters, too, held dull reading enough for
such as were not in the secret. Yet the magistrates at Derby would have
given a good sum if they could have intercepted and understood them.

It was in the upper parlour now that she received him. A fire was
burning there, as it had burned so long ago, when Robin found her fresh
from her linen, and Anthony sat down in the same place. She sat by the
window, with the paper in her hands at which she had been writing when
she first saw him.

He had news for her, of two kinds, and, like a man, gave her first that
which she least wished to hear. (She had first showed him the paper.)

"That was the very matter I was come about," he said. "You have only a
few of the names, I see. Now the rest will be over before Christmas, and
will all be in London together."

"Can you not give me the names?" she said.

"I could give you the names, certainly. And I will do so before I leave;
I have them here. But--Mistress Marjorie, could you not come to London
with me? It would ease the case very much."

"Why, I could not," she said. "My mother--And what good would it
serve?"

"This is how the matter stands," said Anthony, crossing his legs. "We
have a dozen priests coming all together--at least, they will not travel
together, of course; but they will all reach London before Christmas,
and there they will hold counsel as to who shall go to the districts.
Eight of them, I have no doubt, will come to the north. There are as
many priests in the south as are safe at the present time--or as are
needed. Now if you were to come with me, mistress--with a serving-maid,
and my sister would be with us--we could meet these priests, and speak
with them, and make their acquaintance. That would remove a great deal
of danger. We must not have that affair again which fell out last
month."

Marjorie nodded slowly. (It was wonderful how her gravity had grown on
her these last two years.)

She knew well enough what he meant. It was the affair of the clerk who
had come from Derby on a matter connected with her father's will about
the time she was looking for the arrival of a strange priest, and who
had been so mistaken by her. Fortunately he had been a well-disposed
man, with Catholic sympathies, or grave trouble might have followed. But
this proposal of a visit to London seemed to her impossible. She had
never been to London in her life; it appeared to her as might a voyage
to the moon. Derby seemed oppressingly large and noisy and dangerous;
and Derby, she understood, was scarcely more than a village compared to
London.

"I could not do it," she said presently. "I could not leave my mother."

Anthony explained further.

It was evident that Booth's Edge was becoming more and more a harbour
for priests, owing largely to Mistress Marjorie's courage and piety. It
was well placed; it was remote; and it had so far avoided all suspicion.
Padley certainly served for many, but Padley was nearer the main road;
and besides, had fallen under the misfortune of losing its master for
the very crime of recusancy. It seemed to be all important, therefore,
that the ruling mistress of Booth's Edge, since there was no master,
should meet as many priests as possible, in order that she might both
know and be known by them; and here was such an opportunity as would not
easily occur again. Here were a dozen priests, all to be together at one
time; and of these, at least two-thirds would be soon in the north. How
convenient, therefore, it would be if their future hostess could but
meet them, learn their plans, and perhaps aid them by her counsel.

But she shook her head resolutely.

"I cannot do it," she said.

Anthony made a little gesture of resignation. But, indeed, he had
scarcely hoped to persuade her. He knew it was a formidable thing to ask
of a countrybred maid.

"Then we must do as well as we can," he said. "In any case, I must go.
There is a priest I have to meet in any case; he is returning as soon as
he has bestowed the rest."

"Yes?"

"His name is Ballard. He is known as Fortescue, and passes himself off
as a captain. You would never know him for a priest."

"He is returning, you say?"

A shade of embarrassment passed over the young man's face, and Marjorie
saw that there was something behind which she was not to know.

"Yes," he said, "I have business with him. He is not to come over on the
mission yet, but only to bring the others and see them safe--"

He broke off suddenly.

"Why, I was forgetting," he cried. "Our Robin is coming too. I had a
letter from him, and another for you."

He searched in the breast of his coat, and did not see the sudden
rigidity that fell on the girl. For a moment she sat perfectly still;
her heart had leapt to her throat, it seemed, and was hammering
there.... But by the time he had found the letter she was herself again.

"Here it is," he said.

She took it; but made no movement to open it.

"But he is not to be a priest for five years yet?" she said quietly.

"No; but they send them sometimes as servants and such like, to make a
party seem what it is not, as well as to learn how to avoid her Grace's
servants. He will go back with Mr. Ballard, I think, after three or four
weeks. You have had letters from him, you told me?"

She nodded.

"Yes; but he said nothing of it, but only how much he longed to see
England again."

"He could not. It has only just been arranged. He has asked to go."

There was a silence for a moment. But Anthony did not understand what it
meant. He had known nothing of the affair of his friend and this girl,
and he looked upon them merely as a pair of acquaintances, above all,
when he had heard of Robin's determination to go to Rheims. Even the
girl saw that he knew nothing, in spite of her embarrassment, and the
thought that had come to her when she had heard of Robin's coming to
London grew on her every moment. But she thought she must gain time.

She stood up.

"You would like to see his letters?" she asked. "I will bring them."

And she slipped out of the room.


II

Anthony Babington sat still, staring up at Icarus in the chariot of the
Sun, with something of a moody look on his face.

It was true that he was sincere and active enough in all that he did up
here in the north for the priests of his faith; indeed, he risked both
property and liberty on their behalf, and was willing to continue doing
so as long as these were left to him. But it seemed to him sometimes
that too much was done by spiritual ways and too little by temporal.
Certainly the priesthood and the mass were instruments--and, indeed, the
highest instruments in God's hand; it was necessary to pray and receive
the sacraments, and to run every risk in life for these purposes. Yet it
appeared to him that the highest instruments were not always the best
for such rough work.

It was now over two years ago since the thought had first come to him,
and since that time he had spared no effort to shape a certain other
weapon, which, he thought, would do the business straight and clean. Yet
how difficult it had been to raise any feeling on the point. At first he
had spoken almost freely to this or that Catholic whom he could trust;
he had endeavoured to win even Robin; and yet, with hardly an exception,
all had drawn back and bidden him be content with a spiritual warfare.
One priest, indeed, had gone so far as to tell him that he was on
dangerous ground ... and the one and single man who up to the present
had seemed on his side, was the very man, Mr. Ballard, then a layman,
whom he had met by chance in London, and who had been the occasion of
first suggesting any such idea. It was, in fact, for the sake of meeting
Ballard again that he was going to London; and, he had almost thought
from his friend's last letter, it had seemed that it was for the sake
of meeting him that Mr. Ballard was coming across once more.

So the young man sat, with that moody look on his face, until Marjorie
came back, wondering what news he would have from Mr. Ballard, and
whether the plan, at present only half conceived, was to go forward or
be dropped. He was willing enough, as has been said, to work for
priests, and he had been perfectly sincere in his begging Marjorie to
come with him for that very purpose; but there was another work which he
thought still more urgent.... However, that was not to be Marjorie's
affair.... It was work for men only.

* * * * *

"Here they are," she said, holding out the packet.

He took them and thanked her.

"I may read them at my leisure? I may take them with me?"

She had not meant that, but there was no help for it now.

"Why, yes, if you wish," she said. "Stay; let me show you which they
are. You may not wish to take them all."

* * * * *

The letters that the two looked over together in that wainscoted parlour
at Booth's Edge lie now in an iron case in a certain muniment-room. They
are yellow now, and the ink is faded to a pale dusky red; and they must
not be roughly unfolded lest they should crack at the creases. But they
were fresh then, written on stout white paper, each occupying one side
of a sheet that was then folded three or four times, sealed, and
inscribed to "Mistress Marjorie Manners" in the middle, with the word
"Haste" in the lower corner. The lines of writing run close together,
and the flourishes on one line interweave now and again with the tails
on the next.

The first was written within a week of Robin's coming to Rheims, and
told the tale of the sailing, the long rides that followed it, the
pleasure the writer found at coming to a Catholic country, and something
of his adventures upon his arrival with his little party. But names and
places were scrupulously omitted. Dr. Allen was described as "my host";
and, in more than one instance, the name of a town was inscribed with a
line drawn beneath it to indicate that this was a kind of _alias_.

The second letter gave some account of the life lived in Rheims--was a
real boy's letter--and this was more difficult to treat with discretion.
It related that studies occupied a certain part of the day; that
"prayers" were held at such and such times, and that the sports
consisted chiefly of a game called "Cat."

So with the eight or nine that followed. The third and fourth were
bolder, and spoke of certain definitely Catholic practices--of prayers
for the conversion of England, and of mass said on certain days for the
same intention. It seemed as if the writer had grown confident in his
place of security. But later, again, his caution returned to him, and he
spoke in terms so veiled that even Marjorie could scarcely understand
him. Yet, on the whole, the letters, if they had fallen into hostile
hands, would have done no irreparable injury; they would only have
indicated that a Catholic living abroad, in some unnamed university or
college, was writing an account of his life to a Catholic named Mistress
Marjorie Manners, living in England.

* * * * *

When the girl had finished her explaining, it was evident that there was
no longer any need for Anthony to take them with him. He said so.

"Ah! but take them, if you will," cried the girl.

"It would be better not. You have them safe here. And--"

Marjorie flushed. She felt that her ruse had been too plain.

"I would sooner you took them," she said. "You can read them at your
leisure."

So he accepted, and slipped them into his breast with what seemed to the
girl a lamentable carelessness. Then he stood up.

"I must go," he said. "And I have never asked after Mistress Manners."

"She is abed," said the girl. "She has been there this past month now."

She went with him to the door, for it was not until then that she was
courageous enough to speak as she had determined.

"Mr. Babington," she said suddenly.

He turned.

"I have been thinking while we talked," she said. "You think my coming
to London would be of real service?"

"I think so. It would be good for you to meet these priests before
they--"

"Then I will come, if my mother gives me leave. When will you go?"

"We should be riding in not less than a week from now. But, mistress--"

"No, I have thought of it. I will come--if my mother gives me leave."

He nodded briskly and brightly. He loved courage, and he understood that
this decision of hers had required courage.

"Then my sister shall come for you, and--"

"No, Mr. Babington, there is no need. We shall start from Derby?"

"Why, yes."

"Then my maid and I will ride down there and sleep at the inn, and be
ready for you on the day that you appoint."

* * * * *

When he was gone at last she went back again to the parlour, and sat
without moving and without seeing. She was in an agony lest she had been
unmaidenly in determining to go so soon as she heard that Robin was to
be there.




CHAPTER II


I

Anthony lifted his whip and pointed.

"London," he said.

Marjorie nodded; she was too tired to speak.

* * * * *

The journey had taken them some ten days, by easy stages; each night
they had slept at an inn, except once, when they stayed with friends of
the Babingtons and had heard mass. They had had the small and usual
adventures: a horse had fallen lame; a baggage-horse had bolted; they
had passed two or three hunting-parties; they had been stared at in
villages and saluted, and stared at and not saluted. Rain had fallen;
the clouds had cleared again; and the clouds had gathered once more and
rain had again fallen. The sun, morning by morning, had stood on the
left, and evening by evening gone down again on the right.

They were a small party for so long a journey--the three with four
servants--two men and two maids: the men had ridden armed, as the custom
was; one rode in front, then came the two ladies with Anthony; then the
two maids, and behind them the second man. In towns and villages they
closed up together lest they should be separated, and then spread out
once more as the long, straight track lengthened before them. Anthony
and the two men-servants carried each a case of dags or pistols at the
saddle-bow, for fear of highwaymen. But none had troubled them.

A strange dreamlike mood had come down on Marjorie. At times it seemed
to her in her fatigue as if she had done nothing all her life but ride;
at times, as she sat rocking, she was living still at home, sitting in
the parlour, watching her mother; the illusion was so clear and
continuous that its departure, when her horse stumbled or a companion
spoke, was as an awaking from a dream. At other times she looked about
her; talked; asked questions.

She found Mistress Alice Babington a pleasant friend, some ten years
older than herself, who knew London well, and had plenty to tell her.
She was a fair woman, well built and active; very fond of her brother,
whom she treated almost as a mother treats a son; but she seemed not to
be in his confidence, and even not to wish to be; she thought more of
his comfort than of his ideals. She was a Catholic, of course, but of
the quiet, assured kind, and seemed unable to believe that anyone could
seriously be anything else; she seemed completely confident that the
present distress was a passing one, and that when politics had run their
course, it would presently disappear. Marjorie found her as comfortable
as a pillow, when she was low enough to rest on her....

* * * * *

Though Marjorie had nodded only when the spires of London shone up
suddenly in the evening light, a sharp internal interest awakened in
her. It was as astonishing as a miracle that the end should be in sight;
the past ten days had made it seem to her as if all things which she
desired must eternally recede.... She touched her horse unconsciously,
and stared out between his ears, sitting upright and alert again.

It was not a great deal that met the eye, but it was so disposed as to
suggest a great deal more. Far away to the right lay a faint haze, and
in it appeared towers and spires, with gleams of sharp white here and
there, where some tall building rose above the dark roofs. To the left
again appeared similar signs of another town--the same haze, towers and
spires--linked to the first. She knew what they were; she had heard half
a dozen times already of the two towns that made London--running
continuously in one long line, however, which grew thin by St. Mary's
Hospital and St. Martin's, she was told--the two troops of houses and
churches that had grown up about the two centres of Court and City,
Westminster and the City itself. But it was none the less startling to
see these with her proper eyes.

Presently, in spite of herself, as she saw the spire of St. Clement's
Dane, where she was told they must turn City-wards, she began to talk,
and Anthony to answer.


II

Dark was beginning to fall and the lamps to be lighted as they rode in
at last half an hour later, across the Fleet Ditch, through Ludgate and
turned up towards Cheapside. They were to stay at an inn where Anthony
was accustomed to lodge when he was not with friends--an inn, too, of
which the landlord was in sympathy with the old ways, and where friends
could come and go without suspicion. It was here, perhaps, that letters
would be waiting for them from Rheims.

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