The King's Achievement Part 9

It was a wonderfully pleasant house, Ralph thought, as his wherry came up to the foot of the garden stairs that led down from the lawn to the river. It stood well back in its own grounds, divided from the river by a wall with a wicket gate in it. There was a little grove of trees on either side of it; a flock of pigeons were wheeling about the bell-turret that rose into the clear blue sky, and from which came a stroke or two, announcing the approach of dinner-time as he went up the steps.

There was a figure lying on its face in the shadow by the house, as Ralph came up the path, and a small dog, that seemed to be trying to dig the head out from the hands in which it was buried, ceased his excavations and set up a shrill barking. The figure rolled over, and sat up; the pleasant brown face was all creased with laughter; small pieces of gra.s.s were clinging to the long hair, and Ralph, to his amazement, recognised the ex-Lord Chancellor of England.

"I beg your pardon, sir," said More, rising and shaking himself. "I had no idea--you take me at a disadvantage; it is scarcely dignified"--and he stopped, smiling and holding out one hand, while he stretched the other deprecatingly, to quiet that insistent barking.

Ralph had a sensation of mingled contempt and sympathy as he took his hand.

"I had the honour of seeing you once before, Master More," he said.

"Why, yes," said More, "and I hope I cut a better figure last time, but Anubis would take no refusal. But I am ashamed, and beg you will not speak of it to Mrs. More. She is putting on a new coif in your honour."

"I will be discreet," said Ralph, smiling.

They went indoors almost immediately, when Sir Thomas had flicked the gra.s.s sufficiently off his gown to escape detection, and straight through to the hall where the table was laid, and three or four girls were waiting.

"Your mother is not here yet, I see," said Sir Thomas, when he had made Ralph known to his daughters, and the young man had kissed them deferentially, according to the proper etiquette--"I will tell you somewhat--hush--" and he broke off again sharply as the door from the stairs opened, and a stately lady, with a rather solemn and uninteresting face, sailed in, her silk skirts rustling behind her, and her fresh coif stiff and white on her head. A middle-aged man followed her in, looking a little dejected, and made straight across to where the ladies were standing with an eagerness that seemed to hint at a sense of escape.

"Mrs. Alice," said Sir Thomas, "this is Mr. Ralph Torridon, of whom you have heard me speak. I was fortunate enough to welcome him on the lawn just now."

"I saw you, Mr. More," said his wife with dignity, as she took Ralph's hand and said a word about the weather.

"Then I will confess," said Sir Thomas, smiling genially round, "I welcomed Mr. Torridon with the back of my head, and with Anubis biting my ears."

Ralph felt strangely drawn to this schoolboy kind of man, who romped with dogs and lay on his stomach, and was so charmingly afraid of his wife. His contempt began to melt as he looked at him and saw those wise twinkling eyes, and strong humorous mouth, and remembered once more who he was, and his reputation.

Sir Thomas said grace with great gravity and signed himself reverently before he sat down. There was a little reading first of the Scriptures and a commentary on it, and then as dinner went on Ralph began to attend less and less to his hostess, who, indeed appeared wholly absorbed in domestic details of the table and with whispering severely to the servants behind her hand, and to listen and look towards the further end where Sir Thomas sat in his tall chair, his flapped cap on his head, and talked to his daughters on either side. Mr. Roper, the man who had come in with Mrs. More, was sitting opposite Ralph, and seemed to be chiefly occupied in listening too. A bright-looking tall girl, whom her father had introduced by the name of Cecily, sat between Ralph and her father.

"Not at all," cried Sir Thomas, in answer to something that Ralph did not catch, "nothing of the kind! It was Juno that screamed. Argus would not condescend to it. He was occupied in dancing before the bantams."

Ralph lost one of the few remarks that Mrs. More addressed to him, in wondering what this meant, and the conversation at the other end swept round a corner while he was apologising. When he again caught the current Sir Thomas was speaking of wherries.

"I would love to row a wherry," he said. "The fellows do not know their fortune; they might lead such sweet meditative lives; they do not, I am well aware, for I have never heard such blasphemy as I have heard from wherrymen. But what opportunities are theirs! If I were not your father, my darling, I would be a wherryman. _Si cognovisses et tu quae ad pacem tibi_! Mr. Torridon, would you not be a wherryman if you were not Mr.

Torridon?"

"I thought not this morning," said Ralph, "as I came here. It seemed hot rowing against the stream."

"It is part of the day's work," said More. "When I was Chancellor I loved nothing more than a hot summer's day in Court, for I thought of my cool garden where I should soon be walking. I must show you the New Building after dinner, Mr. Torridon."

Cecily and Margaret presently had a short encounter across the table on some subject that Ralph did not catch, but he saw Margaret on the other side flush up and bring her lips sharply together. Sir Thomas leapt into the breach.

"_Unde leves animae tanto caluere furore?_" he cried, and glanced up at Ralph to see if he understood the quotation, as the two girls dropped their eyes ashamed.

"_Pugnavare pares, succubuere pares_," said Ralph by a flash of inspiration, and looking at the girls.

Sir Thomas's eyes shone with pleasure.

"I did not know you were such a treasure, Mr. Torridon. Now, Master Cromwell could not have done that."

There fell a silence as that name was spoken, and all at the table eyed Ralph.

"He was saying as much to me the other day," went on Ralph, excited by his success. "He told me you knew Horace too well."

"And that my morals were corrupted by him," went on More. "I know he thinks that, but I had the honour of confuting him the other day with regard to the flagon and gloves. Now, there is a subject for Martial, Mr. Torridon. A corrupt statesman who has retired on his ill-gotten gains disproves an accusation of bribery. Let us call him Atticus 'Attice ... Attice' ...--We might say that he put on the gloves lest his forgers should be soiled while he drank from the flagon, or something of the kind."

Sir Thomas's eyes beamed with delight as he talked. To make an apt cla.s.sical quotation was like wine to him, but to have it capped appropriately was like drunkenness. Ralph blessed his stars that he had been so lucky, for he was no great scholar, and he guessed he had won his host's confidence.

Dinner pa.s.sed on quietly, and as they rose from table More came round and took his guest by the arm.

"You must come with me and see my New Building," he said, "you are worthy of it, Mr. Torridon."

He still held his arm affectionately as they walked out into the garden behind the house, and as he discoursed on the joys of a country life.

"What more can I ask of G.o.d?" he said. "He has given me means and tastes to correspond, and what man can say more. I see visions, and am able to make them realities. I dream of a dovecote with a tiled roof, and straightway build it; I picture a gallery and a chapel and a library away from the clack of tongues, and behold there it is. The eye cannot say to the hand, 'I have no need of thee.' To see and dream without the power of performance is heart-breaking. To perform without the gift of imagination is soul-slaying. The man is blessed that hath both eye and hand, tastes and means alike."

It was a very pleasant retreat that Sir Thomas More had built for himself at the end of his garden, where he might retire when he wanted solitude. There was a little entrance hall with a door at one corner into the chapel, and a long low gallery running out from it, lined with bookshelves on one side, and with an open s.p.a.ce on the other lighted by square windows looking into the garden. The polished boards were bare, and there was a path marked on them by footsteps going from end to end.

"Here I walk," said More, "and my friends look at me from those shelves, ready to converse but never to interrupt. Shall we walk here, Mr.

Torridon, while you tell me your business?"

Ralph had, indeed, a touch of scrupulousness as he thought of his host's confidence, but he had learnt the habit of silencing impulses and of only acting on plans deliberately formed; so he was soon laying bare his anxiety about Chris, and his fear that he had been misled by the Holy Maid.

"I am very willing, Mr. More," he said, "that my brother should be a monk if it is right, but I could not bear he should be so against G.o.d's leading. How am I to know whether the maid's words are of G.o.d or no?"

Sir Thomas was silent a moment.

"But he had thoughts of it before, I suppose," he said, "or he would not have gone to her. In fact, you said so."

Ralph acknowledged that this was so.

"--And for several years," went on the other.

Again Ralph a.s.sented.

"And his tastes and habits are those of a monk, I suppose. He is long at his prayers, given to silence, and of a tranquil spirit?"

"He is not always tranquil," said Ralph. "He is impertinent sometimes."

"Yes, yes; we all are that. I was very impertinent to you at dinner in trying to catch you with Martial his epigram, though I shall not offend again. But his humour may be generally tranquil in spite of it. Well, if that is so, I do not see why you need trouble about the Holy Maid. He would likely have been a monk without that. She only confirmed him."

"But," went on Ralph, fighting to get back to the point, "if I thought she was trustworthy I should be the more happy."

"There must always be doubtfulness," said More, "in such matters. That is why the novitiate is so severe; it is to show the young men the worst at once. I do not think you need be unhappy about your brother."

"And what is your view about the Holy Maid?" asked Ralph, suddenly delivering his point.

More stopped in his walk, c.o.c.ked his head a little on one side like a clever dog, and looked at his companion with twinkling eyes.