Chapter Seventeen.
The Justice is indiscreet.
“Methinks we be like to have further troubles touching religion in these parts. Marry, I do marvel what folks would be at, that they cannot be content to do their duty, and pay their dues, and leave the cure of their souls to the priest. As good keep a dog and bark thyself, say I, as pay dues to the priest and take thought for thine own soul.”
The speaker was Mr Justice Roberts, and he sat at supper in his brother’s house, one of a small family party, which consisted, beside the brothers, of their sister, Mistress Collenwood, Mistress Grena Holland, Gertrude, and Pandora. The speech was characteristic of the speaker. The Justice was by no means a bad man, as men go—and all of them do not go very straight in the right direction—but he made one mistake which many are making in our own day; he valued peace more highly than truth. His decalogue was a monologue, consisting but of one commandment: Do your duty. What a man’s duty was, the Justice did not pause to define. Had he been required to do so, his dissection of that difficult subject would probably have run in three grooves—go to church; give alms; keep out of quarrels.
“It were verily good world, Master Justice, wherein every man should do his duty,” was the answer of Mistress Grena, delivered in that slightly prim and didactic fashion which was characteristic of her.
“What is duty?” concisely asked Mistress Collenwood, who was by some ten years the elder of her brothers, and therefore the eldest of the company.
Gertrude’s eyes were dancing with amusement; Pandora only looked interested.
“Duty,” said Mr Roberts, the host, “is that which is due.”
“To whom?” inquired his sister.
“To them unto whom he oweth it,” was the reply; “first, to God; after Him, to all men.”
“Which of us doth that?” said Mistress Collenwood softly, looking round the table.
Mistress Grena shook her head in a way which said, “Very few—not I.”
Had Gertrude lived three hundred years later, she would have said what now she only thought—“I am sure I do my duty.” But in 1557 young ladies were required to “hear, see, and say nought,” and for one of them to join unasked in the conversation of her elders would have been held to be shockingly indecorous. The rule for girls’ behaviour was too strict in that day; but if a little of it could be infused into the very lax code of the present time, when little misses offer their opinions on subjects of which they know nothing, and unblushingly differ from, or even contradict their mothers, too often without rebuke, it would be a decided improvement on social manners.
“Which of the folks in these parts be not doing their duty?” asked Mr Roberts of his brother.
“You know Benden of Briton’s Mead?” replied the Justice.
“By sight; I am not well acquaint with him.”
“Is he not an hard man, scarce well liked?” said his sister.
“True enough, as you shall say ere my tale come to an end. This Benden hath a wife—a decent Woman enough, as all men do confess, save that she is bitten somewhat by certain heretical notions that the priest cannot win her to lay by; will not come to mass, and so forth; but in all other fashions of good repute: and what doth this brute her husband but go himself to the Bishop, and beg—I do ensure you, beg his Lordship that this his wife may be arrest and lodged in prison. And in prison she is, and hath so been now these three or four months, on the sworn information of her own husband. ’Tis monstrous!”
“Truly, most shocking!” said Mistress Grena, cutting up the round of beef. The lady of the house always did the carving.
“Ah! As saith the old proverb: ‘There is no worse pestilence than a familiar enemy,’” quoted the host.
“Well!” continued the Justice, with an amused look: “but now cometh a good jest, whereof I heard but yester-even. This Mistress Benden hath two brothers, named Hall—Roger and Thomas—one of whom dwelleth at Frittenden, and the other at yon corner house in Staplehurst, nigh to the Second Acre Close. Why, to be sure, he is your manager—that had I forgot.”
Mr Roberts nodded. Pandora had pricked up her ears at the name of Hall, and now began to listen intently. Mistress Benden, of whom she heard for the first time, must be an aunt of her protégée, little Christabel.
“This Thomas Hall hath a wife, by name Tabitha, that the lads hereabout call Tabby, and by all accounts a right cat with claws is she. She, I hear, went up to Briton’s Mead a two-three days gone, or maybe something more, and gave good Master Benden a taste of her horsewhip, that he hath since kept his bed—rather, I take it, from sulkiness than soreness, yet I dare be bound she handled him neatly. Tabitha is a woman of strong build, and lithe belike, that I would as lief not be horsewhipped by. Howbeit, what shall come thereof know I not. Very like she thought it should serve to move him to set Mistress Alice free: but she may find, and he belike, that ’tis easier to set a stone a-rolling down the hill than to stay it. The matter is now in my Lord of Dover’s hands; and without Mistress Tabitha try her whip on him—”
Both gentlemen laughed. Pandora was deeply interested, as she recalled little Christie’s delicate words, that Aunt Alice was “away at present.” The child evidently would not say more. Pandora made up her mind that she would go and see Christie again as soon as possible, and meanwhile she listened for any information that she might give her.
“What is like to come of the woman, then?” said Mr Roberts, “apart from Mistress Tabitha and her whip?”
“Scarce release, I count,” said the Justice gravely. “She hath been moved from the gaol; and that doubtless meaneth, had into straiter keeping.”
“Poor fools!” said his brother, rather pityingly than scornfully.
“Ay, ’tis strange, in very deed, they cannot let be this foolish meddling with matters too high for them. If the woman would but conform and go to church, I hear, her womanish fantasies should very like be overlooked. Good lack I can a man not believe as he list, yet hold his tongue and be quiet, and not bring down the laws on his head?” concluded the Justice somewhat testily.
There was a pause, during which all were silent—from very various motives. Mr Roberts was thinking rather sadly that the only choice offered to men in those days was a choice of evils. He had never wished to conform—never would have done so, had he been let alone: but a man must look out for his safety, and take care of his property—of course he must!—and if the authorities made it impossible for him to do so with a good conscience, why, the fault was theirs, not his. Thus argued Mr Roberts, forgetting that the man makes a poor bargain who gains the whole world and loses himself. The Justice and Gertrude were simply enjoying their supper. No scruples of any kind disturbed their slumbering consciences. Mistress Collenwood’s face gave no indication of her thoughts. Pandora was reflecting chiefly upon Christabel.
But there was one present whose conscience had been asleep, and was just waking to painful life. For nearly four years had Grena Holland soothed her many misgivings by some such reasoning as that of Mr Justice Roberts. She had conformed outwardly: had not merely abstained from contradictory speeches, but had gone to mass, had attended the confessional, had bowed down before images of wood and stone, and all the time had comforted herself by imagining that God saw her heart, and knew that she did not really believe in any of these things, but only acted thus for safety’s sake. Now, all at once, she knew not how, it came on her as by a flash of lightning that she was on the road that leadeth to destruction, and not content with that, was bearing her young nieces along with her. She loved those girls as if she had been their own mother. Grave, self-contained, and undemonstrative as she was, she would almost have given her life for either, but especially for Pandora, who in face, and to some extent in character, resembled her dead mother, the sister who had been the darling of Grena Holland’s heart. She recalled with keen pain the half-astonished, half-shrinking look on Pandora’s face, as she had followed her to mass on the first holy-day after her return from Lancashire. Grena knew well that at Shardeford Hall, her mother’s house in Lancashire, Pandora would never have been required to attend mass, but would have been taught that it was “a fond fable and a dangerous deceit.” And now, she considered, that look had passed from the girl’s face; she went silently, not eagerly on the one hand, yet unprotestingly, even by look, on the other. Forward into the possible future went Grena’s imagination—to the prison, and the torture-chamber, and the public disgrace, and the awful death of fire. How could she bear those, either for herself or for Pandora?
These painful meditations were broken in upon by a remark from the Justice.
“There is some strong ale brewing, I warrant you, for some of our great doctors and teachers of this vicinage. I heard t’other day, from one that shall be nameless—indeed, I would not mention the matter, but we be all friends and good Catholics here—”
Mistress Collenwood’s eyes were lifted a moment from her plate, but then went down again in silence.
“Well, I heard say two men of my Lord Cardinal’s had already been a-spying about these parts, for to win the names of such as were suspect: and divers in and nigh Staplehurst shall hear more than they wot of, ere many days be over. Mine hostess at the White Hart had best look out, and—well, there be others; more in especial this Master Ro— Come, I’ll let be the rest.”
“I trust you have not said too much already,” remarked Mr Roberts rather uneasily.
That the Justice also feared he had been indiscreet was shown by his slight testiness in reply.
“Tush! how could I? There’s never a serving-man in the chamber, and we be all safe enough. Not the tail of a word shall creep forth, be sure.”
“‘Three may keep counsel, if twain be away,’” said Mr Roberts, shaking his head with a good-humoured smile.
“They do not alway then,” added Mistress Collenwood drily.
“Well, well!” said the Justice, “you wot well enough, every one of you, the matter must go no further. Mind you, niece Gertrude, you slip it not forth to some chattering maid of your acquaintance.”
“Oh, I am safe enough, good Uncle,” laughed Gertrude.
“Indeed, I hope we be all discreet in such dangerous matters,” added Mistress Grena.
Only Mrs Collenwood and Pandora were silent.