The King's Achievement, Robert Hugh Benson [beginner reading books for adults txt] 📗

talk and clatter at table; there would be a momentary kindling of glances, as from the tall chair opposite the chaplain a psychological atmosphere of peril made itself felt; then the blow would be delivered; the weapons clashed; and once more the talk rose high and genial over the battlefield.

* * * * *


The moment when Beatrice's position in the house came nearest to being untenable, was one morning in January, when the whole party were assembled on the steps to see the sportsmen off for the day.

Sir James was down with the foresters and hounds at the further end of the terrace, arranging the details of the day; Margaret had not yet come out of chapel, and Lady Torridon, who had had a long fit of silence, was standing with Mary and Nicholas at the head of the central stairs that led down from the terrace to the gravel.

Christopher and Beatrice came out of the house behind, talking cheerfully; for the two had become great friends since they had learnt to understand one another, and Beatrice had confessed to him frankly that she had been wrong and he right in the matter of Ralph. She had told him this a couple of days after her arrival; but there had been a certain constraint in her manner that forbade his saying much in answer. Here they came then, now, in the frosty sunshine; he in his habit and she in her morning house-dress of silk and lace, talking briskly.

"I was sure you would understand, father," she said, as they came up behind the group.

Then Lady Torridon turned and delivered her point, suddenly and brutally.

"Of course he will," she said. "I suppose then you are not going out, Mistress Atherton." And she glanced with an offensive contempt at the girl and the monk. Beatrice's eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly, and opened again.

"Why, no, Lady Torridon."

"I thought not," said the other; and again she glanced at the two--"for I see the priest is not."

There was a moment's silence. Nick was looking at his wife with a face of dismay. Then Beatrice answered smiling.

"Neither are you, dear Lady Torridon. Is not that enough to keep me?"

A short yelp of laughter broke from Nicholas; and he stooped to examine his boot.

Lady Torridon opened her lips, closed them again, and turned her back on the girl.

"But you are cruel," said Beatrice's voice from behind, "and--"

The woman turned once more venomously.

"You do not want me," she said. "You have taken one son of mine, and now you would take the other. Is not my daughter enough?"

Beatrice instantly stepped up, and put her hand on the other's arm.

"Dear Mistress," she said; and her voice broke into tenderness; "she is not enough--"

Lady Torridon jerked her arm away.

"Come, Mary," she said.

* * * * *


Matters were a little better after that. Sir James was not told of the incident; because his son knew very well that he would not allow Beatrice to stay another day after the insult; but Chris felt himself bound to consult those who had heard what had passed as to whether indeed it was possible for her to remain. Nicholas grew crimson with indignation and vowed it was impossible. Mary hesitated; and Chris himself was doubtful. He went at last to Beatrice that same evening; and found her alone in the oak parlour, before supper. The sportsmen had not yet come back; and the other ladies were upstairs.

Beatrice affected to treat it as nothing; and it was not till Chris threatened to tell his father, that she told him all she thought.

"I must seem a vain fool to say so;" she said, leaning back in her chair, and looking up at him, "and perhaps insolent too; yet I must say it. It is this: I believe that Lady Torridon--Ah! how can I say it?"

"Tell me," said Chris steadily, looking away from her.

Beatrice shifted a little in her seat; and then stood up.

"Well, it is this. I do not believe your mother is so--so--is what she sometimes seems. I think she is very sore and angry; there are a hundred reasons. I think no one has--has faced her before. She has been obeyed too much. And--and I think that if I stay I may be able--I may be some good," she ended lamely.

Chris nodded.

"I understand," he said softly.

"Give me another week or two," said Beatrice, "I will do my best."

"You have worked a miracle with Meg," said Chris. "I believe you can work another. I will not tell my father; and the others shall not either."

* * * * *


A wonderful change had indeed come to Margaret during the last month. Her whole soul, so cramped now by circumstances, had gone out in adoration towards this stranger. Chris found it almost piteous to watch her--her shy looks, the shiver that went over her, when the brilliant figure rustled into the room, or the brisk sentences were delivered from those smiling lips. He would see too how their hands met as they sat together; how Margaret would sit distracted and hungering for attention, eyeing the ceiling, the carpet, her embroidery; and how her eyes would leap to meet a glance, and her face flush up, as Beatrice throw her a soft word or look.

And it was the right love, too, to the monk's eyes; not a rival flame, but fuel for divine ardour. Margaret spent longer, not shorter, time at her prayers; was more, not less, devout at mass and communion; and her whole sore soul became sensitive and alive again. The winter had passed for her; the time of the singing-birds was come.

* * * * *


She was fascinated by the other's gallant brilliance. Religion for the nun had up to the present appeared a delicate thing that grew in the shadow or in the warm shelter of the cloister; now it blossomed out in Beatrice as a hardy bright plant that tossed its leaves in the wind and exulted in sun and cold. Yet it had its evening tendernesses too, its subtle fragrance when the breeze fell, its sweet colours and outlines--Beatrice too could pray; and Margaret's spiritual instinct, as she knelt by her at the altar-rail or glanced at the other's face as she came down fresh with absolution from the chair in the sanctuary where the chaplain sat, detected a glow of faith at least as warm as her own.

She was astonished too at her friend's gaiety; for she had expected, so far as her knowledge of human souls led to expect anything, a quiet convalescent spirit, recovering but slowly from the tragedy through which Margaret knew she had passed. It seemed to her at first as if Beatrice must be almost heartless, so little did she flinch when Lady Torridon darted Ralph's name at her, or Master More's, or flicked her suddenly where the wound ought to be; and it was not until the guest had been a month in the house that the nun understood.

They were together one evening in Margaret's own white little room above the oak parlour. Beatrice was sitting before the fire with her arms clasped behind her head, waiting till the other had finished her office, and looking round pleased in her heart, at the walls that told their tale so plainly. It was almost exactly like a cell. A low oak bed, red-blanketted, stood under the sloping roof, a prie-dieu beside it, and a cheap little French image of St. Scholastica over it. There was a table, with a sheet of white paper, a little ink-horn and two quills primly side by side upon it; and at the back stood a couple of small bound volumes in which the nun was accumulating little by little private devotions that appealed to her. A pair of beads hung on a nail by the window over which was drawn an old red curtain; two brass candlesticks with a cross between them stood over the hearth, giving it a faint resemblance to an altar. The boards were bare except for a strip of matting by the bed; and the whole room, walls, floor, ceiling and furniture were speckless and precise.

Margaret made the sign of the cross, closed her book, and smiled at Beatrice.

"You dear child!" she answered.

Margaret's face shone with pleasure; and she put out her hand softly to the other's knee, and laid it there.

"Talk to me," said the nun.

"Well?" said Beatrice.

"Tell me about your life in London. You never have yet, you know."

An odd look passed over the others face, and she dropped her eyes and laid her hands together in her lap.

"Oh, Meg," she said, "I should love to tell you if I could. What would you like to hear?"

The nun looked at her wondering.

"Why--everything," she said.

"Shall I tell you of Chelsea and Master More?"

Margaret nodded, still looking at her; and Beatrice began.

It was an extraordinary experience for the nun to sit there and hear that wonderful tale poured out. Beatrice for the first time threw open her defences--those protections of the sensitive inner life that she had raised by sheer will--and showed her heart. She told her first of her life in the country before she had known anything of the world; of her father's friendship with More when she was still a child, and of his death when she was about sixteen. She had had money of her own, and had come up to live with Mrs. More's sisters; and so had gradually slipped into intimacy at Chelsea. Then she described the life there--the ordered beauty of it all--and the marvellous soul that was its centre and sun. She told her of More's humour, his unfailing gaiety, his sweet cynicism that shot through his talk, his tender affections, and above all--for she knew this would most interest the nun--his deep and resolute devotion to God. She described how he had at one time lived at the Charterhouse, and had seemed to regret, before the end of his life, that he had not become a Carthusian; she told her of the precious parcel that had been sent from the Tower to Chelsea the day before his death, and how she had helped Margaret Roper to unfasten it and disclose the hair-shirt that he had worn secretly for years, and which now he had sent back for fear that it should be seen by unfriendly eyes or praised by flattering tongues.

Her face grew inexpressibly soft and loving as she talked; more than once her black eyes filled with tears, and her voice faltered; and the nun sat almost terrified at the emotion she had called up.