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

of a precipice, step by step. But those black eyes held and compelled him on. He scarcely knew what he was saying.

"And are these papers all his? What have you been doing with them?"

"My Lord told me to sort them."

The words were drawn out against his own will.

"And those in your hand--on the chair. What are they?"

Ralph made one more violent effort to regain the mastery.

"If you were not a woman, Mistress Atherton, I should tell you you were insolent."

Not a ripple troubled those strong eyes.

"Tell me, Mr. Torridon, what are they?"

He stood silent and furious.

"I will tell you what they are," she said; "they are my Lord's secrets. Is it not so? And you were about to burn them. Oh! Ralph, is it not so?"

Her voice had a tone of entreaty in it. He dropped his eyes, overcome by the passion that streamed from her.

"Is it not so?" she cried again.

"Do you wish me to do so?" he said amazed. His voice seemed not his own; it was as if another spoke for him. He had the same sensation of powerlessness as once before when she had lashed him with her tongue in the room downstairs.

"Wish you?" she cried. "Why, yes; what else?"

He lifted his eyes to hers; the room seemed to have grown darker yet in those few minutes. He could only see now a shadowed face looking at him; but her bright passionate eyes shone out from it and dominated him.

Again he spoke, in spite of himself.

"I shall not burn them," he said.

"Shall not? shall not?"

"I shall not," he said again.

There was silence. Ralph's soul was struggling desperately within him. He put out his hand mechanically and took up the papers once more, as if to guard them from this fierce, imperious woman. Beatrice's eyes followed the movement; and then rested once more on his face. Then she spoke again, with a tense deliberateness that drove every word home, piercing and sharp to the very centre of his spirit.

"Listen," she said, "for this is what I came to say. I know what you are thinking--I know every thought as if it were my own. You tell yourself that it is useless to burn those secrets; that there are ten thousand more--enough to cast my lord. I make no answer to that."

"You tell yourself that you can only save yourself by giving them up to his enemies. I make no answer to that."

"You tell yourself that it will be known if you destroy them--that you will be counted as one of His Highness's enemies. I make no answer to that. And I tell you to burn them."

She came a step nearer. There was not a yard between them now; and the fire of her words caught and scorched him with their bitterness.

"You have been false to every high and noble thing. You have been false to your own conscience--to your father--your brother--your sister--your Church--your King and your God. You have been false to love and honour. You have been false to yourself. And now Almighty God of His courtesy gives you one more opportunity--an opportunity to be true to your master. I say nothing of him. God is his judge. You know what that verdict will be. And yet I bid you be true to him. He has a thousand claims on you. You have served him, though it be but Satan's service; yet it is the highest that you know--God help you! He is called friendless now. Shall that be wholly true of him? You will be called a traitor presently--shall that be wholly true of you? Or shall there be one tiny point in which you are not false and treacherous as you have been in all other points?"

She stopped again, looking him fiercely in the eyes.

* * * * *


From the street outside there came the sound of footsteps; the ring of steel on stone. Ralph heard it, and his eyes rolled round to the window; but he did not move.

Beatrice was almost touching him now. He felt the fragrance that hung about her envelop him for a moment. Then he felt a touch on the papers; and his fingers closed more tightly.

The steps outside grew louder and ceased; and the house suddenly reverberated with a thunder of knocking.

Beatrice sprang back.

"Nay, you shall give me them," she said; and stood waiting with outstretched hand.

Ralph lifted the papers slowly, stared at them, and at her.

Then he held them out.

* * * * *


In a moment she had snatched them; and was on her knees by the hearth. Ralph watched her, and listened to the steps coming up the stairs. The papers were alight now. The girl dashed her fingers among them, grinding, tearing, separating the heavy pages.

They were almost gone by now; the thick smoke poured up the chimney; and still Beatrice tore and dashed the ashes about.

There was a knocking at the door; and the handle turned. The girl rose from her knees and smiled at Ralph as the door opened, and the pursuivants stood there in the opening.


CHAPTER VIII


TO CHARING

Chris had something very like remorse after Ralph had left Overfield, and no words of explanation or regret had been spoken on either side. He recognised that he had not been blameless at the beginning of their estrangement--if, indeed, there ever had been a beginning--for their inflamed relations had existed to some extent back into boyhood as far as he could remember; but he had been responsible for at least a share in the fierce words in Ralph's house after the death of the Carthusians. He had been hot-headed, insolent, theatrical; and he had not written to acknowledge it. He had missed another opportunity at Lewes--at least one--when pride had held him back from speaking, for fear that he should be thought to be currying favour. And now this last opportunity, the best of all--when Ralph had been accessible and courteous, affected, Chris imagined, by the death of his mother--this too had been missed; and he had allowed his brother to ride away without a word of regret or more than formal affection.

He was troubled at mass, an hour after Ralph had gone; the distraction came between him and the sweet solemnity upon which he was engaged. His soul was dry and moody. He showed it in his voice. As a younger brother in past years; as a monk and a priest now, he knew that the duty of the first step to a reconciliation had lain with him; and that he had not taken it.

It had been a troubled household altogether when Ralph had gone. There was first the shock of Lady Torridon's death, and the hundred regrets that it had left behind. Then Beatrice too, who had helped them all so much, had told them that she must go back to town--her aunt was alone in the little house at Charing, for the friend who had spent Christmas there was gone back to the country; and Margaret, consequently, had been almost in despair. Lastly Sir James himself had been troubled; wondering whether he might not have been warmer with Ralph, more outspoken in his gratitude for the affair of the mummers, more ready to welcome an explanation from his son. The shadow of Ralph then rested on the household, and there was something of pathos in it. He was so much detached now, so lonely, and it seemed that he was content it should be so.

* * * * *


There were pressing matters too to be arranged; and, weightiest of all, those relating to Margaret's future. She would now be the only woman besides the servants, in the house; and it was growing less and less likely that she would be ever able to take up the Religious Life again in England. There seemed little reason for her remaining in the country, unless indeed she threw aside the Religious habit altogether, and went to live at Great Keynes as Mary preferred. Beatrice made an offer to receive her in London for a while, but in this case again she would have to wear secular dress.

The evening before Beatrice left, the two sat and talked for a couple of hours. Margaret was miserable; she cried a little, clung to Beatrice, and then was ashamed of herself.

"My dear child," said the other. "It is in your hands. You can do as you please."

"But I cannot," sobbed the nun. "I cannot; I do not know. Let me come with you, Beatrice."

Beatrice then settled down and talked to her. She told her of her duty to her father for the present; she must remember that he was lonely now. In any case she must not think of leaving home for another six months. In the meantime she had to consider two points. First, did she consider herself in conscience bound to Religion? What did the priest tell her? If she did so consider herself, then there was no question; she must go to Bruges and join the others. Secondly, if not, did she think herself justified in leaving her father in the summer? If so, she might either go to Great Keynes, or come up for at least a long visit to Charing.

"And what do you think?" asked the girl piteously.

"Do you wish me to tell you!" said Beatrice.

Margaret nodded.

"Then I think you should go to Bruges in July or August."

Margaret stared at her; the tears were very near her eyes again.

"My darling; I should love to have you in London," went on the other caressing her. "Of course I should. But I cannot see that King Henry his notions make any difference to your vows. They surely stand. Is it not so, my dear?"

And so after a little more talk Margaret consented. Her mind had told her that all along; it was her heart only that protested against this final separation from her friend.

Chris too agreed when she spoke to him a day or two later when Beatrice had gone back. He said he had been considering his own case too; and that unless something very marked intervened he proposed to follow Dom Anthony abroad. They could travel together, he said. Finally, when the matter was laid before their father he also consented.

"I shall do very well," he said. "Mary spoke to me of it; and Nicholas has asked me to make my home at Great Keynes; so if you go, my son, with Meg in the summer, I shall finish matters here, lease out the estate, and Mr. Carleton and I shall betake ourselves there. Unless"--he said--"unless Ralph should come to another mind."

* *