Mistress Margery Part 10

"You have had time, daughter, to think over your sin, in penitence and prayer. Are you yet conscious that you have committed a grievous sin?"

"No, father."

"No are? [i.e., Are you not?] I grieve to hear it. Fear you not the ban of Holy Church?"

"I fear it not, so Christ confirm it not; He did warn me afore of the same. '_Thei schulen make ghou withouten the synagogis; but the our cometh, that ech man that sleeth ghou deme that he doith seruyse to G.o.d_.'" [John xvi. 2.]

"Cease thy endless quotations from Scripture!" cried the Abbot, waxing wroth, and forgetting his civilities.

But Margery only replied by another--"'_He that is of G.o.d herith the wordis of G.o.d; therefore ye heren not for ye be not of G.o.d_.'" [John viii. 47.]

"Take the curse of the Church, miserable reprobate!" cried Bilson, losing all command of himself, and smiting her in the face.

"Take you heed," was the answer, "that you bring not on yourself the curse of Christ, who is the Head and Lord of the Church, for He suffereth not lightly that His sheep be ill handled."

"Aroint thee, sorceress!" said the abbot. "I am no sorceress," replied Margery, quietly, "neither do I use evil arts; I speak unto you in the words of Christ--bear you the sin if you will not hear. But lo! it is even that which is written, '_He hath blyndid her yghen_ [their eyes], _and he hath maad hard the herte of hem; that thei see not with yghen, and undirstonde with herte, and that thei be conuertid, and I heele hem_.'" [John xii. 40.]

The abbot could bear no more. He struck her furiously--a blow which stretched her senseless on the stone floor of the cell. Having by this primitive means silenced Margery's "endless quotations," he let himself out with a private key.

When Lord Marnell returned to the prison that evening, he found Margery in what he supposed to be a swoon. He summoned the jailer, and through him sent for a physician, who applied restoratives, but told Lord Marnell at once that Margery had fallen, and had received a heavy blow on the head. By the united care of the physician and her husband, she slowly returned to consciousness: not, however, fully so at first, for she murmured, "Mother!" When Lord Marnell bent over her and spoke to her, she suddenly recognised him as if awaking from a dream. Yes, she replied to their inquiries, she had certainly fallen, and she thought she had hurt her head; but she would not tell them that the cause of the fall was a pa.s.sionate blow from the Abbot's hand. The physician asked when her examination was to take place; and on Lord Marnell replying, "To-morrow," he shook his head, and said she would not be able to appear.

"Oh ay, ay, let me go!" said Margery, "I would not have delay therein.

I shall be better by morn, and--"

But as she spoke she fainted away, and the doctor, turning to Lord Marnell, said--

"She is no wise fit for it, poor lady! The inquiry must needs be delayed, and the blame thereof be mine own."

"Then I pray you," replied Lord Marnell, "to say the same unto the council; for they heed not me."

He answered that he would go to them as soon as he thought that his patient required no further professional a.s.sistance. Margery seemed better shortly, and Master Simon, for such was the doctor's name, repaired at once to the council charged with the examination of prisoners accused of heresy, and told them that their State prisoner, the Lady Marnell, was very ill in her dungeon, and would not be able to appear before them for at least some weeks to come. Arundel, who presided, only laughed. The doctor insisted.

"Why," said be, "the poor lady is sickening for a fever; let her alone: how can a woman light-headed answer questions upon doctrine and heresy?"

The council, governed by Arundel, still seemed unwilling to grant the prayer; when, to the surprise of every one present, Abbot Bilson, the princ.i.p.al witness for the Crown, rose and supported the pet.i.tion. The puzzled council accordingly granted it. Arundel was very much under Bilson's influence, and Bilson had a private reason for his conduct, which will presently appear.

So the examination was adjourned until February, and Margery, released for the moment from the struggle with her enemies, was left to combat the fever which had seized her. Lord Marnell and Master Simon begged for an order of the council to remove poor Margery home, the latter a.s.serting that she would never recover in the Tower. The council refused this application. They then requested that one of her waiting-women should be allowed to attend her, and that bedding and linen, with such other necessaries as Master Simon might deem fit, might be supplied to the prisoner from her own house. The council, after a private consultation among its members, thought fit to grant this reasonable prayer.

Alice Jordan was made very happy by an order from Lord Marnell to attend her sick mistress. Everything that Marnell Place could furnish, which Master Simon did not absolutely forbid,--and Master Simon was easy of persuasion--was lavished on the whitewashed cell in the Tower. Alice, however, was carefully searched every time she pa.s.sed in and out of the Tower, to see that she supplied no books nor writing-materials to the prisoner, nor took any letters from her. Poor Margery! the care was needless, for she was just then as incapable of writing as if she had never been taught.

Margery's illness lasted even longer than Master Simon had antic.i.p.ated.

On a dark, cold winter night, when snow was falling thickly outside the prison, and a low rushlight burned on the table, dimly lighting up the narrow cell, Margery unexpectedly whispered, "Who is there?"

"I, dear mistress--Alice Jordan."

"Alice Jordan! Where then am I? Or was it all a terrible dream? Is this Lovell Tower?" Alice's voice trembled as she said, "No."

"What then? Oh! I know now. It is the Tower of London, and the end cometh nigh."

"Nay, dearest mistress, you fare marvellous better now."

"I mean not the fever-death, good friend, but _the end_--the end of my weary pilgrimage, the gate of the Happy City. Welcome be the end of the way, for the way hath been a rough one and a sore! However sharp be the end, I can bear it now. My soul hath been loosed from earth. I see nothing now, I want nothing but Christ, and to be with Him in the glory.

Alice, how fareth the child? I dared not to ask afore, since I came into this place, but I can now."

"I trow he fareth well, good mistress, but of a long season I have not seen him. My Lord hath sent him unto the care of Dame Lovell."

Margery's eyes, rather than her voice, expressed her pleasure at this news.

"Hath my Lord my husband been here sithence I took sick?"

"Every day, my Lady; and I trow he sent away the boy for that reason, lest his coming hither should give him the sickness."

"Knoweth my mother of my sickness?"

"I wis not, my Lady, but I trow that my Lord would tell her, when he sent the child down with Master Pynson."

"Master Pynson! Hath he been hither?"

"Yea, good my Lady, he came up, I ween, on Saint Luke's Day [October 18], and took back the young master with him."

"What said he when ye told him of my prison, Alice?"

"He covered his face, and wept sore."

Margery turned her face to the wall. "A fiery trial!" she murmured, as if to herself--"a fiery trial for him as well as me! Is this the way wherein the Father will draw him? If so, Richard, I can bear it."

The 16th of February came. On the morning of that day, as Lord Marnell stepped out of his own house into the open air, with the intention of paying his usual visit to Margery, Abbot Bilson came up, radiant and smiling, and carrying under his arm a large parchment roll.

"Ah, my very good Lord, well met! Whither away?"

"I purpose to see Madge."

"Ah!" exclaimed the Abbot, who was occupied with an amus.e.m.e.nt which comes naturally to men of his disposition, and has been wittily denned as "was.h.i.+ng one's hands with invisible soap, in imperceptible water."

"What hast under thine arm, reverend father?" asked Lord Marnell.

"Ah! this is the indictment of the Lady Marnell. Your Lords.h.i.+p witteth that she will be examined to-morrow afore the council, and by them sentenced."

"You will endeavour yourself, reverend father, that the sentence be made as light as may be."

"My Lord, we have but one sentence for heretics," said Abbot Bilson, with a smile which showed all his teeth, like a wild beast. "The Act regarding them was yestermorn sceptred by the King's Grace."

"One!" remarked Lord Marnell, in some surprise. "The sentence now, then, is--?"

"_Death_."

Lord Marnell hastily laid his hand on a b.u.t.tress, to steady himself, when he heard this awful news.