Then suddenly on the eleventh of June there arrived the news of Cromwell’s fall and of all that it involved to Ralph.
They were at dinner when it came.
There was a door suddenly thrust open at the lower end of the hall; and a courier, white with dust and stiff with riding, limped up the matting and delivered Beatrice’s letter. It was very short.
“Come,” she had written. “My Lord of Essex is arrested. He is in the Tower. Mr. Ralph, too, is there for refusing to inform against him. He has behaved gallantly.”
There followed a line from Mistress Jane Atherton, her aunt, offering rooms in her own house.
A wild confusion fell upon the household. Men ran to and fro, women whispered and sobbed in corners under shadow of the King’s displeasure that lay on the house, the road between the terrace and the stable buzzed with messengers, ordering and counter-ordering, for it was not certain at first that Margaret would not go. A mounted groom dashed up for instructions and was met by Sir James in his riding-cloak on the terrace who bade him ride to Great Keynes with the news, and entreat Sir Nicholas Maxwell to come up to London and his wife to Overfield; there was not time to write. Sir James’s own room was in confusion; his clothes lay tumbled on the ground and a distraught servant tossed them this way and that; Chris was changing his habit upstairs, for it would mean disaster to go to town as a monk. Margaret was on her knees in chapel, silent and self-controlled, but staring piteously at the compassionate figure of the great Mother who looked down on her with Her Son in Her arms. The huge dog under the chapel-cloister lifted his head and bayed in answer, as frantic figures fled across the court before him. And over all lay the hot June sky, and round about the deep peaceful woods.
A start was made at three o’clock.
Sir James was already in his saddle, as Chris ran out; an unfamiliar figure in his plain priest’s cloak and cap and great riding boots beneath. A couple of grooms waited behind, and another held the monk’s horse. Margaret was on the steps, white and steadied by prayer; and the chaplain stood behind with a strong look in his eyes as they met those of his patron.
“Take care of her, father; take care of her. Her sister will be here to-night, please God. Oh! God bless you, my dear! Pray for us all. Jesu keep us all! Chris, are you mounted?”