House of Torment

Seated by the fireside was a stout, short, elderly man, with a pointed grey beard, and heavy black eyebrows from beneath which large, slightly prominent, and very alert eyes looked out. His hair was white, and apparently he was bald, because a skull cap of black velvet covered his head. He wore a ruff and a long surtout of wool dyed crimson, and pointed here and there with braid of dark green and thin lace of gold. A belt of white leather was round his middle, and from it hung a chatelaine of silver by his right side, from which depended a pen case and some ivory tablets. On his left side, Johnnie noticed that a short serviceable dagger was worn. His trunk hose were of black, his shoes easy ones of Spanish leather with crimson rosettes upon the instep.

"Mr. John Commendone," said the footman.

Mr. Cressemer rose from his seat, his shrewd, capable face lighting up with welcome.

"Ah," he said, "so thou hast come to see me, Mr. Commendone. 'Tis very good of thee, and a welcome sight to eyes which have looked upon your father so often."

He went up to the slim young man as the footman closed the door, and shook him warmly by the hand, looking him in the face meanwhile with a keen wise scrutiny, which made Johnnie feel young, inexperienced, a little embarrassed.

He felt he was being summed up, judged and weighed, appraised in the most kindly fashion, but by one who did not easily make a mistake in his estimate of men.

At Court, King Philip had regarded him with cold interest, the Queen herself with piercing and more lively regard. Since his arrival in London, Johnnie had been used to scrutinies. But this was different from any other he had known. It was eminently human and kindly first of all, but in the second place it was more searching, more real, than any other he had hitherto undergone. In short, a king or queen looked at a courtier from a certain point of view. Would he serve their ends? Was he the right man in the right place? Had they chosen well?

There was nothing of this now. It was all kindliness mingled with a grave curiosity, almost with hope.

Johnnie, who was much taller than Mr. Cressemer, could not help smiling a little, as the bearded man looked at him so earnestly, and it was his smile that broke the silence, and made them friends from that very moment.

The Alderman put his left hand upon Johnnie's shoulder.

"Lad," he said, and his voice was the voice of a leader of men, "lad, I am right glad to see thee in my poor house. Art thy father's son, and that is enough for me. Come, sit you down t'other side of the fire. Come, come."

With kindly geniality the merchant bustled his guest to a chair opposite his own, and made him sit. Then he stood upon a big hearthrug of bear-skin, rubbed his hands, and chuckled.

"When I heard ye announced," he said, "I thought to myself, 'Here's another young gallant of the Court keen on his money; he hath lost no time in calling for it.' But now I see thee, and know thee for what thou art – for it is my boast, and a true one, that I was never deceived in man yet – I see my apprehensions were quite unfounded."

Johnnie bowed. For a moment or two he could hardly speak. There was something so homelike, so truly kind, in this welcome that his nerves, terribly unstrung by all he had gone through of late, were almost upon the point of breakdown.

This was like home. This was the real thing. This was not the Court – and here before him he knew very well was a man not only good and kindly, but resolute and great.

"Now, I'll tell thee what we'll do, Master Johnnie, sith thou hast come to me so kindly. We will sip a little water of Holland – I'll wager you've tasted nothing like it, for it cometh straight from the English Exchange house at Antwerp – and then we will to supper, where you will meet my dear sister, Mistress Catherine Cressemer, who hath been the long companion of my widowerhood, and ordereth this my house for me."

He turned to where a square sheet of copper hung from a peg upon a cord of twisted purple silk. Taking up the massive silver pen case at the end of his chatelaine, he beat upon the gong, and the copper thunder echoed through the big room.

A man entered immediately, to whom Mr. Cressemer gave orders, and then sat himself down upon the other side of the fire.

"Your father," he said confidentially, "came to me after he left you in the Tower the morning before this. He was very pleased with what he saw of you, Master Johnnie, and what he heard of you also. Art going to be a big man in affairs without doubt. I wish I had met ye before. I have been twice to Commendone Park. Once when thou wert a little rosy thing of two year old or less, and the Señora – Holy Mary give her grace! – had thee upon her knee. I was staying with the Knight. And then again when Father Chilches was thy tutor, and thou must have been fourteen year or more. I was at the Park for three days. But thou wert away with thy aunt, Miss Commendone, of Wanstone Court, and I saw nothing of thee."

"So you knew my mother," Johnnie said eagerly.

"Aye, that I did, and a very gracious lady she was, Master Commendone. I will tell thee of her, and thy house in those days, at supper. My sister will be well pleased to hear it also. Meanwhile" – he sipped at the white liqueur which the servant had brought, and motioned Johnnie towards his own thin green glass with little golden spirals running through it – "meanwhile, tell me how like you the Court life?"

Johnnie started. They were the exact words of his father. "I am getting on very well," he said in reply.

"So I hear, and am well pleased," the Alderman answered. "You have everything in your favour – a knowledge of Spanish, a pleasant presence, and trained to the usage of good society. But, though you may not think it, I have influence, even at Court, though it is in no ways apparent. Tell me something of your aims, and your views, and I shall doubtless be able to help your advancement. There are ticklish times coming, be certain of that, and my experience may be of great service to you. Her Grace, God bless her! is, I fear – I speak to you as man to man, Mr. Commendone – too keen set and determined upon the Papal Supremacy for the true welfare of this realm. I am Catholic. I have always been Catholic. But doctrine, and a purely political dominion from Rome, aye, or from Spain either, is not what we of the City, and who control the finances of the kingdom much more than less, desire or wish to see. After all, Mr. Commendone, I trust I make myself clearly understood to you, and that you are of the same temper and mind as your father and myself; after all is loudly set and perchance badly done, we have to look to the upholding of the realm, inside and out, rather than to be fine upon points of doctrine."

He leant forward in his seat with great earnestness, clasped his right hand, upon the little finger of which was a great ring, with a cut seal of emerald, and brought it down heavily upon the table by his side.

"I believe," he said, "in the Mass, and if I were asked to die for my belief, that would I do. I would do it very reluctantly, Master John. I would evade the necessity for doing it in every way I knew. But if I were set down in front of judges or eke inquisitors, and asked to say that when the priest hath said the words of consecration, the elements are not the very true body of Our Lord Jesus, then I would die for that belief. And of the Invocation of Saints, and of the greatest saint of all – Our Lady – I see no harm in it, but a very right and pleasant practice. For, look you, if these are indeed, as we believe and know clustering around the throne of God, which is the Holy Trinity, then indeed they must hear our prayers, if we believe truly in the Communion of Saints; and hearing them, being in high favour in heaven, their troubles past and they glorified, certes, we down here may well think their voices will be heard around the Throne. That is true Catholic doctrine as I see it. But of the power of the Bishop of Rome to direct and interfere in the honest internal affairs of a country – well, I snap my fingers at it. And of the power of the priesthood, which is but part of the machinery by which His Holiness endeavoureth to accrue to himself all earthly power, at that also I spit. From my standpoint, a priest is an ordained man of God; his function is to say Mass, to consecrate the elements, and so to bring God near to us upon the altar. But of your confessions, your pryings into family life, your temporal dominion, I have the deepest mistrust. And also, I think, that the cause of Holy Church would be much better served if its priests were allowed – for such of them as wished it – to be married men. A man is a man, and God hath given him his natural attributes. I am not really learned, nor am I well read in the history of the world, but I have looked into it enough, Master Commendone, to know that God hath ordained that men should take women in marriage and rear up children for the glory of the Lord and the welfare of the State. Mark you" – his face became striated with lines of contempt and dislike – "mark you, this celibacy is to be the thing which will destroy the power of the sacrificing priest in the eyes of all before many hundred years have passed. I shall not see it, thou wilt not see it. We are good Church of England men now, but what I say will come to pass, and then God himself only knoweth what anarchs and deniers, what blasphemers and runagates will hold the world.

"Her Grace," he went on, "believeth that as Moses ordered blasphemers to be put to death, so she thinketh it the duty of a Christian prince to eradicate the cockle from the fold of God's Church, to cut out the gangrene that it may not spread to the sounder parts. But Her Grace is a woman that hath been much sequestered all her life till now. She cometh to the throne, and is but – I trust I speak no treason, Mr. Commendone – a tool and instrument of the priests from Spain, and the man from Spain also who is her lord. Why! if only the Church in this realm could go on as King Henry started it – not a new Church, mind you, but a Church which hath thrown off an unnecessary dominion from Italy – if it could go on as under the reign of the little King Edward was set out and promised very well, 'twould be truly Catholic still, and the priests of the Church would be all married men and citizens within the State, with a stake in civil affairs, and so by reason of their spiritual power and civil obligations, the very bulwark of society."

Johnnie listened intently, nodding now and then as the Alderman made a point, and as he himself realised the value of it.

"Look you, Master Commendone," His Worship continued, "look you, only yesterday a worthy clergyman, whom I knew and loved, a man of his inches, a shrewd and clever gentleman of good birth, was haled from the City down to his own parish and burnt as a heretic. Heretic doubtless the good man was. He would be living now if he had not denied the blessed and comforting truth of Transubstantiation before that blood-stained wolf, the Bishop of London. The man I speak of was a good man, and though he was mistaken on that issue, he would, under kindlier auspices, doubtless have returned to the central truth of our religion. He was married, and had lived in honourable wedlock with his wife for many years. She was a lady from Wales, and a sweet woman. But it was his marriage as much as any other thing about him that brought him to his death."

The Alderman's voice sank into something very like a whisper. "One of my men," he said, "was riding down with the Sheriff of London to Hadley, where Dr. Taylor, he of whom I speak, suffered this very morning. At five this afternoon my man was back, and told me how the good doctor died. He died with great constancy, very much, Mr. Commendone, as one of the old saints that the Romans did use so cruelly in the early years of Our Lord's Church. Yet, as something of a student of affairs – and Dr. Taylor is not the first good heretic who hath died rather than recant – I see that the married clergy suffer with the most alacrity. And why? Because, as I see it, they are bearing testimony to the validity and sanctity of their marriage. The honour of their wives and children is at stake; the desire of leaving them an unsullied name and a virtuous example, combined with a sense of religious duty. And thus the heart derives strength from the very ties which in other circumstances might well tend to weaken it.

"I am in mourning to-night, mourning in my heart, Mr. Commendone, for a good, mistaken friend who hath suffered death."

As his voice fell, the Alderman was looking sadly into the red embers of the fire with the music of a deep sadness and regret in his voice. He wasn't an emotional man at all – by nature that is – Johnnie saw it at once. But he saw also that his host was very deeply moved. Johnnie rose from his chair.

"You are telling me no news at all, Mr. Alderman," he said. "I had orders, and I was one of those who rode with Sir John Shelton and the Sheriff to take Dr. Taylor to the stake at Aldham Common."

Mr. Cressemer started violently.

"Mother of God!" he said, "did you see that done?"

Johnnie nodded. He could not trust himself to speak.

The Alderman's cry of horror brought home to him almost for the first time not the terror of what he had seen – that he had realised long ago – but a sense of personal guilt, a disgust with himself that he should have been a participator in such a deed, a spectator, however pitying.

He felt unclean.

Then he said in a low voice: "What I tell you, Mr. Cressemer, will, I know, remain as a secret between us. I feel I am not betraying any trust in telling you. I am, as you know, attached to the person of His Majesty, and I have been admitted into great confidence both by him and Her Grace the Queen. The King rode to Hadley disguised as a simple cavalier, and I was with him as his attendant."

He stopped short, feeling that the explanation was bald and unsufficing.

The Alderman stepped up to Johnnie and put his hand upon his arm. "Poor lad, poor lad," he said in tones of deepest pity. "I grieve in that thou hadst to witness such a thing in the following of thy duty."

"I had thought," the young man faltered, his assurance deserting him for a moment at the words of this reverend and broad-souled man, "I thought you would think me stained in some wise, Mr. Cressemer. I…"

"Whist!" the elder man answered impatiently. "Have no such foolish thoughts. Am I not a man of affairs? Do I not know what discipline means? But this gives me great cause for thought. You have confided in me, Mr. Commendone, and so likewise will I in you. This morning the Doctor's wife, his little son, and little daughter Mary, set off for the Marches of Wales with a party of my men and their baggage. Mistress Taylor was born a Rhyader, of a good family in Conway town. Her brother liveth there, and all her friends are of Wales. It was as well that the dame should leave the City at once, for none knoweth what will be done to the relations of heretics at this time – Why, man! Thou art white as linen, thy hand shakes. What meaneth it?"

Johnnie, in truth, was a strange sight as he stood in front of his host. All his composure was gone. His eyes burnt in a white face, his lips were dry and parted, there was an almost terrible inquiry in his whole aspect and manner.

"'Tis nothing," he managed to say in a hoarse voice, which he hardly knew for his own. "Pr'ythee continue, sir."

Mr. Cressemer gave the young man a keen, questioning glance before he went on speaking. Then he said:

"As I tell you, these members of the good Doctor's family are now safely on their way, and God grant them rest and peace in their new life. They will want for nothing. But the Doctor's other daughter, Mistress Elizabeth, was not his own daughter, but was adopted by him when she was but a little child. The girl is a very sweet and good girl, and my sister, Mistress Catherine, has long loved her. And as this is a childless house, alas! the maid hath come to live with us and she will be as my own daughter, if God wills it."

"She is well?" Johnnie asked, in a hoarse whisper.

The Alderman shook his head sadly. "She is the bravest maiden I have ever met," he said. "She hath stuff in her which recalls the ladies of old Rome, so calm and steadfast is she. There is in her at this time some divine illumination, Mr. Commendone, that keepeth her strong and unafraid. Ah, but she is sore stricken! She knew some hours agone of the doings at Hadley, for as I told you, one of my men brought the news. She hath been in prayer a long time, poor lamb, and now my sister is with her to hearten her and give her such comfort as may be. God's ways are very strange, Mr. John. Who would have thought now that you should come to this house to-night from that butchery?" He sighed deeply.

Johnnie made the sign of the cross. "God moveth in a mysterious way," he said, "to perform His wonders. He rides upon the tempest, and eke directs the storm, and leadeth pigmy men and women with a sure hand and a certain purpose."

"Say not 'pigmy,' Mr. John," the Alderman answered, "we are not small in His eyes, though it is well that we should be in our own. But you speak with a certain meaning. You grew pale just now. I think you may justly confide in me. I am of thy father's age, and a friend of thy father's. What is it, lad?"