“Now come, dear Mr. Norris,” he wrote, “as soon as you leave the Archbishop’s service; I will place three or four rooms at your disposal, if you wish for quiet; for I have more rooms than I know what to do with; and you shall make the Exercises if you will with some good priest. They are a wonderful method of meditation and prayer, designed by Ignatius Loyola (one day doubtless to be declared saint), for the bringing about a resolution of all doubts and scruples, and so clearing the eye of the soul that she discerns God’s Will, and so strengthening her that she gladly embraces it. And that surely is what you need just now in your perplexity.”
The letter went on to describe briefly the method followed, and ended by entreating him again to come and see him. Anthony answered this by telling him of his resignation of his post at Lambeth, and accepting his invitation; and he arranged to spend the last three weeks before Easter at Stanfield, and to go down there immediately upon leaving Lambeth. He determined not to go to Great Keynes first, or to see Isabel, lest his resolution should be weakened. Already, he thought, his motives were sufficiently mixed and perverted without his further aggravating their earthly constituents.
He wrote to his sister, however, telling her of his decision to leave Lambeth; and adding that he was going to stay with a friend until Easter, when he hoped to return to the Dower House, and take up his abode there for the present. He received what he thought a very strange letter in return, written apparently under excitement strongly restrained. He read in it a very real affection for himself, but a certain reserve in it too, and even something of compassion; and there was a sentence in it that above all others astonished him.
“J. M. has been here, and is now gone to Douai. Oh! dear brother, some time no doubt you will tell us all. I feel so certain that there is much to explain.”
Had she then guessed his part in the priest’s release? Anthony wondered; but at any rate he knew, after his promise to the Queen, that he must not give her any clue. He was also surprised to hear that James had been to Great Keynes. He had inquired for him at the Tower on the Monday after his visit to Greenwich, and had heard that Mr. Maxwell was already gone out of England. He had not then troubled to write again, as he had no doubt but that his message to Lady Maxwell, which he had sent in his note to Isabel, had reached her; and that certainly she, and probably James too, now knew that he had been an entirely unconscious and innocent instrument in the priest’s arrest. But that note, as has been seen, never reached its destination. Lady Maxwell did not care to write to the betrayer of her son; and Isabel on the one hand hoped and believed now that there was some explanation, but on the other did not wish to ask for it again, since her first request had been met by silence.
As the last days of his life at Lambeth were coming to an end, Anthony began to send off his belongings on pack-horses to Great Keynes; and by the time that the Saturday before Mid-Lent Sunday arrived, on which he was to leave, all had gone except his own couple of horses and the bags containing his personal luggage.
His last interview with the Archbishop affected him very greatly.
He found the old man waiting for him, walking up and down Cranmer’s parlour in an empty part of the room, where there was no danger of his falling. He peered anxiously at Anthony as he entered.
“Mr. Norris,” he said, “you are greatly on my mind. I fear I have not done my duty to you. My God has taken away the great charge he called me to years ago, to see if I were fit or not for the smaller charge of mine own household, and not even that have I ruled well.”
Anthony was deeply moved.