Chapter Eleven.
Tabitha’s basket.
Of all the persons concerned in our story at this juncture, the least unhappy was Alice Benden in Canterbury Gaol, and the most miserable was Edward Benden at Briton’s Mead. His repentance was longer this time in coming, but his suffering and restlessness certainly were not so. He tried all sorts of ways to dispel them in vain. First, he attempted to lose himself in his library, for he was the rich possessor of twenty-six volumes, eight of which were romances of chivalry, wherein valiant knights did all kinds of impossibilities at the behest of fair damsels, rescued enchanted princesses, slew two-headed giants, or wandered for months over land and sea in quest of the Holy Grail, which few of them were sufficiently good even to see, and none to bring back to Arthur’s Court. But Mr Benden found that the adventures of Sir Isumbras, or the woes of the Lady Blanchefleur, were quite incapable of making him forget the very disagreeable present. Then he tried rebuilding and newly furnishing a part of his house; but that proved even less potent to divert his thoughts than the books. Next he went into company, laughed and joked with empty-headed people, played games, sang, and amused himself in sundry ways, and came home at night, to feel more solitary and miserable than before. Then, in desperation, he sent for the barber to bleed him, for our forefathers had a curious idea that unless they were bled once or twice a year, especially in spring, they would never keep in good health. We perhaps owe some of our frequent poverty of blood to that fancy. The only result of this process was to make Mr Benden feel languid and weak, which was not likely to improve his spirits. Lastly, he went to church, and was shriven—namely, confessed his sins, and was absolved by the priest. He certainly ought to have been happy after that, but somehow the happiness would not come. He did not know what to do next.
All these performances had taken some time. Christmas came and passed—Christmas, with its morning mass and evening carols, its nightly waits, its mummers or masked itinerant actors, its music and dancing, its games and sports, its plum-porridge, mince-pies, and wassail-bowl. There were none of these things for Alice Benden in her prison, save a mince-pie, to which she treated herself and Rachel: and there might as well have been none for her husband, for he was unable to enjoy one of them. The frosts and snows of January nipped the blossoms, and hardened the roads, and made it difficult work for Roger Hall to get from Staplehurst to Canterbury: yet every holy-day his pleasant face appeared at the window of the gaol, and he held a short sympathising chat with Alice. The gaoler and the Bishop’s officers came to know him well. It is a wonder, humanly speaking, that he was never arrested during these frequent visits: but God kept him.
“Good den, Alice,” he said as he took leave of her on the evening of Saint Agnes’ Day, the twenty-first of January. “I shall scarce, methinks, win hither again this month; but when our Lady Day next cometh, I will essay to see thee. Keep a good heart, my sister, and God be with thee.”
“I do so, Roger,” replied Alice cheerily. “Mistress Potkin here is a rare comfort unto me; and God is in Canterbury Gaol no less than at Staplehurst. I would fain, ’tis true, have been able to come and comfort Christie; but the Lord can send her a better help than mine. Give my loving commendations to the sweet heart, and may God reward thee for the brave comfort thou hast been to me all this winter! Farewell.”
The next day, another and a less expected visitor presented himself. A tired bay horse drooped its weary head at the door of the Bishop’s Palace, and a short, thick-set, black-haired man, with bushy eyebrows, inquired if he might be allowed to speak with his Lordship. The Bishop ordered him to be admitted.
“Well, and what would you, my son?” he asked condescendingly of the applicant.