Chapter 5 MASTER MORE

It was not until nearly a month later that Ralph made an opportunity to call upon Sir Thomas More. Cromwell had given him to understand that there was no immediate reason for haste; his own time was tolerably occupied, and he thought it as well not to make a show of over-great hurry. He wrote to Sir Thomas, explaining that he wished to see him on a matter connected with his brother Christopher, and received a courteous reply begging him to come to dinner on the following Thursday, the octave of the Assumption, as Sir Thomas thought it proper to add.

* * * * *

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 grass 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 grass 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 classical 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 passed 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 God?" 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 space 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 God's leading. How am I to know whether the maid's words are of God 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 assented.

"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, cocked his head a little on one side like a clever dog, and looked at his companion with twinkling eyes.

"It is a delicate subject," he said, and went on again.

"That is what puzzles me," said Ralph. "Will you not tell me your opinion, Mr. More?"

There was again a silence, and they reached the further end of the gallery and turned again before Sir Thomas answered.

"If you had not answered me so briskly at dinner, Mr. Torridon, do you know that I should have suspected you of coming to search me out. But such a good head, I think, cannot be allied with a bad heart, and I will tell you."

Ralph felt a prick of triumph but none of remorse.

"I will tell you," went on More, "and I am sure you will keep it private. I think the Holy Maid is a good woman who has a maggot."

Ralph's spirits sank again. This was a very non-committing answer.

"I do not think her a knave as some do, but I think, to refer to what we said just now, that she has a large and luminous eye, and no hand worth mentioning. She sees many visions, but few facts. That tale about the Host being borne by angels from Calais to my mind is nonsense. Almighty God does not work miracles without reason, and there is none for that. The blessed sacrament is the same at Dover as at Calais. And a woman who can dream that can dream anything, for I am sure she did not invent it. On other matters, therefore, she may be dreaming too, and that is why once more I tell you that to my mind you can leave her out of your thoughts with regard to your brother. She is neither prophetess nor pythoness."

This was very unsatisfactory, and Ralph strove to remedy it.

"And in the matter of the King's death, Mr. More?" he said.

Again Sir Thomas stopped in his walk.

"Do you know, Mr. Torridon, I think we may leave that alone," he said a little abruptly. And Ralph sucked in his lip and bit it sharply at the consciousness of his own folly.

"I hope your brother will be very happy," went on the other after a moment, "and I am sure he will be, if his call is from God, as I think likely. I was with the Carthusians myself, you know, for four years, and sometimes I think I should have stayed there. It is a blessed life. I do not envy many folks, but I do those. To live in the daily companionship of our blessed Lord and of his saints as those do, and to know His secrets-secreta Domini-even the secrets of His Passion and its ineffable joys of pain-that is a very fortunate lot, Mr. Torridon. I sometimes think that as it was with Christ's natural body so it is with His mystical body: there be some members, His hands and feet and side, through which the nails are thrust, though indeed there is not one whole spot in His body-inglorius erit inter viros aspectus ejus-nos putavimus eum quasi leprosum-but those parts of His body that are especially pained are at once more honourable and more happy than those that are not. And the monks are those happy members."

He was speaking very solemnly, his voice a little tremulous, and his kindly eyes were cast down, and Ralph watched him sidelong with a little awe and pity mingled. He seemed so natural too, that Ralph thought that he must have over-rated his own indiscretion.

A shadow fell across the door into the garden as they came near it, and one of the girls appeared in the opening.

"Why, Meg," cried her father, "what is it, my darling?"

"Beatrice has come, sir," said the girl. "I thought you would wish to know."

More put out his arm and laid it round his daughter's waist as she turned with him.

"Come, Mr. Torridon," he said, "if you have no more to say, let us go and see Beatrice."

There was a group on the lawn under one of the lime trees, two or three girls and Mr. Roper, who all rose to their feet as the three came up. More immediately sat down on the grass, putting his feet delicately together before him.

"Will, fetch this gentleman a chair. It is not fit for Master

Cromwell's friend to sit on the grass like you and me."

Ralph threw himself down on the lawn instantly, entreating Mr. Roper not to move.

"Well, well," said Sir Thomas, "let be. Sit down too, Will, et cubito remanete presso. Mr. Torridon understands that, I know, even if Master Cromwell's friend does not. Why, tillie-vallie, as Mrs. More says, I have not said a word to Beatrice. Beatrice, this is Mr. Ralph Torridon, and this, Mr. Torridon, is Beatrice. Her other name is Atherton, but to me she is a feminine benediction, and nought else."

Ralph rose swiftly and looked across at a tall slender girl that was sitting contentedly on an outlying root of the lime tree, beside of Sir Thomas, and who rose with him.

"Mr. More cannot let my name alone, Mr. Torridon," she said tranquilly, as she drew back after the salute. "He made a play upon it the other day."

"And have been ashamed of it ever since," said More; "it was sacrilege with such a name. Now, I am plain Thomas, and more besides. Why did you send for me, Beatrice?"

"I have no defence," said the girl, "save that I wanted to see you."

"And that is the prettiest defence you could have made-if it does not amount to corruption. Mr. Torridon, what is the repartee to that?"

"I need no advocate," said the girl; "I can plead well enough."

Ralph looked up at her again with a certain interest. She seemed on marvellously good terms with the whole family, and had an air of being entirely at her ease. She had her black eyes bent down on to a piece of grass that she was twisting into a ring between her slender jewelled fingers, and her white teeth were closed firmly on her lower lip as she worked. Her long silk skirts lay out unregarded on the grass, and her buckles gleamed beneath. Her voice was pleasant and rather deep, and Ralph found himself wondering who she was, and why he had not seen her before, for she evidently belonged to his class, and London was a small place.

"I see you are making one more chain to bind me to you," said More presently, watching her.

She held it up.

"A ring only," she said.

"Then it is not for me," said More, "for I do not hold with Dr. Melanchthon, nor yet Solomon in the matter of wives. Now, Mr. Torridon, tell us all some secrets. Betray your master. We are all agog. Leave off that ring, Beatrice, and attend."

"I am listening," said the girl as serenely as before, still intent on her weaving.

"The King breakfasted this morning at eight of the clock," said Ralph gravely. "It is an undoubted fact, I had it on the highest authority."

"This is excellent," said Sir Thomas. "Let us all talk treason. I can add to that. His Grace had a fall last night and lay senseless for several hours."

He spoke with such gravity that Ralph glanced up. At the same moment

Beatrice looked up from her work and their eyes met.

"He fell asleep," added Sir Thomas.

* * * * *

It was very pleasant to lie there in the shadow of the lime that afternoon, and listen to the mild fooling, and Ralph forgot his manners, and almost his errand too, and never offered to move. The grass began to turn golden as the sun slanted to the West, and the birds began to stir after the heat of the day, and to chirp from tree to tree. A hundred yards away the river twinkled in the sun, seen beyond the trees and the house, and the voices of the boatmen came, softened by distance and water, as they plied up and down the flowing highway. Once a barge went past under the Battersea bank, with music playing in the stern, and Ralph raised himself on his elbow to watch it as it went down the stream with flags flying behind, and the rhythmical throb of the row-locks sounding time to the dancing melody.

Ralph did his best to fall in with the humour of the day, and told a good story or two in his slow voice-among them one of his mother exercising her gift of impressive silence towards a tiresome chatterbox of a man, with such effect that the conversationalist's words died on his lips, after the third or fourth pause made for applause and comment. He told the story well, and Lady Torridon seemed to move among them, her skirts dragging majestically on the grass, and her steady, sombre face looking down on them all beneath half-closed languid eye-lids.

"He has never been near us again," said Ralph, "but he never fails to ask after my mother's distressing illness when I meet him in town."

He was a little astonished at himself as he talked, for he was not accustomed to take such pains to please, but he was conscious that though he looked round at the faces, and addressed himself to More, he was really watching for the effect on the girl who sat behind. He was aware of every movement that she made; he knew when she tossed the ring on the little sleeping brown body of the dog that had barked at him earlier in the day, and set to work upon another. She slipped that on her finger when she had done, and turned her hand this way and that, her fingers bent back, a ruby catching the light as she did so, looking at the effect of the green circle against the whiteness. But he never looked at her again, except once when she asked him some question, and then he looked her straight in her black eyes as he answered.

A bell sounded out at last again from the tower, and startled him. He got up quickly.

"I am ashamed," he said smiling, "how dare I stay so long? It is your kindness, Mr. More."

"Nay, nay," said Sir Thomas, rising too and stretching himself. "You have helped us to lose another day in the pleasantest manner possible-you must come again, Mr. Torridon."

He walked down with Ralph to the garden steps, and stood by him talking, while the wherry that had been hailed from the other side made its way across.

"Beatrice is like one of my own daughters," he said, "and I cannot give her better praise than that. She is always here, and always as you saw her today. I think she is one of the strongest spirits I know. What did you think of her, Mr. Torridon?"

"She did not talk much," said Ralph.

"She talks when she has aught to say," went on More, "and otherwise is silent. It is a good rule, sir; I would I observed it myself."

"Who is she?" asked Ralph.

"She is the daughter of a friend I had, and she lives just now with my wife's sisters, Nan and Fan. She is often in town with one of them. I am astonished you have not met her before."

The wherry slid up to the steps and the man in his great boots slipped over the side to steady it.

"Now is the time to begin your philosophy," said More as Ralph stepped in, "and a Socrates is ready. Talk it over, Mr. Torridon."