House of Torment

Speaking with great difficulty, looking downwards at the floor, Johnnie told him. He told him how he had met John Hull and taken him into his service, how that even now the man was in the kitchen among the servants of the Alderman. He told of the fellow's menace in Chepe, and how inexplicable it had seemed to him. Then he hesitated, and his voice sunk into silence.

"Ye saw the poor lamb?" Mr. Cressemer said in a low voice, which nevertheless trembled with excitement. "Ye saw her weeping as good Dr. Taylor was borne away? Ye took this good varlet Hull into thy service? And now thou art in my house. It seemeth indeed that God's finger is writing in the book of thy life; but I must hear more from thee, Mr. Commendone. Tell me, if thou wilt, what it may mean."

Johnnie straightened himself. He put his hand upon the pummel of his sword. He looked his host full in the eyes.

"It means this, sir," he said, in a quiet and resolute voice. "All my life I have kept myself from those pleasures and peccadilloes that young gentlemen of my station are wont to use. I have never looked upon a maiden with eyes of love – or worse. Before God His Throne, Our Lady the Blessed Virgin, and all the crowned saints I say it. But yester morn, when I saw her weeping in the grey, my heart went out from me, and is no more mine. I vowed then that by God's grace I would be her knight and lover for ever and a day. My employment hath not to-day given me the opportunity to go to Mass, but I have promised myself to-morrow morn that in the chapel of St. John I will vow myself to her with all fealty, and indeed nor man, nor power, nor obstacle of any sort shall keep me from her, if God allows. Wife she shall be to me, and so I can make her love me. All this I swear to you, by my honour" – here he pulled his sword from the scabbard and reverently kissed the hilt – "and to the Blessed Trinity." And now he pulled his crucifix from his doublet, and kissed it.

Then he turned away from the Alderman, took a few steps to the fire-place, and leant against the carving, his head bowed upon his arms.

There was a dead silence in the big room. Tears were gathering in the eyes of the grave elderly man, while his mind worked furiously. He saw in all this the direct hand of Providence working towards a definite and certain end.

He had loved the slim and gracious lad directly he saw him. His heart had gone out to one so gallant and one so debonair, the son of his old and trusted friend. He had long loved the Rector of Hadley's sweet daughter, who was so idolised also by Mistress Catherine Cressemer, his sister. During the reign of Edward VI the girl had often come up to London to spend some months with her wealthy and influential friends. She had a great part in the heart of the childless widower.

Now this strange and wonderful thing had happened.

These thoughts passed through the old man's mind in a few seconds, while the silence was not broken. Then, as he was about to turn and speak to Johnnie, the door of the room opened quickly, and a short, elderly woman hurried in.

She was very simply dressed in grey woollen stuff, though the bodice and skirt were edged with costly fur. The white lace of Bruges upon her head framed a face of great sweetness, and now it was alive with excitement.

She was a little woman, fifty years of age, with a flat wrinkled face; but her eyes were full of kindness, and, indeed, so was her whole face, although her lips were drawn in by the loss of her front teeth, and this gave her a rather witch-like mouth.

"Robert! Robert!" she said in a high, excited voice. "John Hull, that was servant to our dear Doctor, is in this house. The men have him in the kitchen – word has just been sent up to me. What shall we do? Dear Lizzie – she is more tranquil now, and bearing her cross very bravely – dear Lizzie had thought not to see him again. Will it be well that we should have him up? Think you the child can bear seeing him?"

The lady had piped this out in a rush of excited words. Then suddenly she saw Johnnie, who had turned round and stood by the fire, bowing. His face was drawn and white, and he was trembling.

"Catherine," Mr. Cressemer said, "strange things are happening to-night, of which I must speak with you anon. But this is Mr. John Commendone, son of our dear Knight of Kent, who hath come to see me, and who haply or by design of God was forced to witness the death of Dr. Rowland this morning."

Johnnie made a low bow, the little lady a lower curtsey.

Then, heedless of all etiquette, with the tears streaming down her cheeks, she trotted up to the young man and caught hold of both his hands, looking up at him with the saddest, kindest face he had ever seen.

"Oh, boy, boy," she said, "thou hast come at the right time. We know with what constancy the Doctor died, but our lamb will be well content to hear of it from kindly lips, for she is very strong and stedfast, the pretty dear! And thou hast a good face, and surely art a true son of thy father, Sir Henry of Commendone."

CHAPTER VI

A KING AND A VICTIM. TWO GRIM MEN

There was a "Red Mass," a votive Mass of the Holy Ghost, sung on the next morning in the Tower.

The King and Queen, with all the Court, were present.

Johnnie knelt with the gentlemen attached to the persons of the King and Queen, the gentlemen ushers behind them, and then the military officers of the guard.

The Veni Creator Spiritus was intoned by the Chancellor, and the music of the Mass was that of Dom Giovanni Palestrina, director of sacred music at the Vatican at that time.

The music, which by its dignity and beauty had alone prevented the Council of Trent from prohibiting polyphonic music at the Mass, had a marvellous appeal to the Esquire. It was founded upon a canto fermo, a melody of an ancient plain song of the Middle Ages, and used in High Mass from a very remote period.

The six movements of the Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Benedictus, and Agnus Dei were of a superlative technical excellence. The trained ear, the musical mind, were alike enthralled by them. Tinel, Waddington, and Christopher Tye had written no music then, and the mellow angelic harmonies of Messer Palestrina were all new and fresh in their inspiration of dignity, grandeur, and devotion, most precious incense, as it were, about the feet of the Lord.

The Bishop of London was celebrant, and Father Deza deacon. The Queen and King received in the one Kind, while two of the re-established Carthusians from Sheen, and two Brigittine monks from Sion, held a white cloth before Their Graces.

This was not liked by many there – it had always been the privilege of peers.

But of this Commendone knew nothing. The hour was for him one of the deepest devotion and solemnity. He had not slept all the night long. For a few moments he had seen Elizabeth, had spoken with her, had held her by the hand. His life was utterly and absolutely changed. His mind, excited with want of sleep, irrevocably stamped and impressed by the occupation of the last two days, was caught up by the exquisite music into a passionate surrender of self as he vowed his life to God and his lady.

Earth and all it held – save only her – was utterly dissolved and swept away. An unspeakable peace and stillness was in his heart.

Much, we read, is required from those to whom much is given, and Johnnie was to go through places far more terrible than the Valley of the Shadow of Death ever is to most men before he saw the Dawn.

When the Mass was said – the final "Missa est" was to ring in the young man's ears for many a long day – he went to breakfast. He took nothing in the Common Room, however, but John Hull brought him food in his own chamber.

The man's brown, keen face beamed with happiness. He was like some faithful dog that had lost one master and found another. He could not do enough for Johnnie now – after the visit to Mr. Cressemer's house. He took charge of him as if he had been his man for years. There was a quiet assumption which secretly delighted Commendone. There they were, master and man, a relationship fixed and settled.

On that afternoon there was to be a tournament in the tilting yard, and Johnnie meant to ride – he had nearly carried away the ring at the last joust. Hull knew of it – in a few hours the fellow seemed to have fallen into his place in an extraordinary fashion – and he had been busy with his master's armour since early dawn.

While Johnnie was making his breakfast, though he would very willingly have been alone, and indeed had retired for that very purpose, Hull came bustling in and out of the armour-room his face a brown wedge of pleasure and excitement. The volante pièce, the mentonnière, the grande-garde of his master's exquisite suite of light Milan armour shone like a newly-minted coin. The black and lacquered cuirasse, with a line of light blue enamel where it would meet the gorget, was oiled and polished – he had somehow found the little box of bandrols with the Commendone colour and cypher which were to be tied above the coronels of Johnnie's lances.

And all the time John Hull chattered and worked, perfectly happy, perfectly at home. Already, to Commendone's intense amusement, the man had become dictatorial – as old and trusted servants are. He had got some powder of resin, and was about to pour it into the jointed steel gauntlet of the lance hand.

"It gives the grip, master," he said. "By this means the hand fitteth better to the joints of the steel."

"But 'tis never used that I know of. 'Tis not like the grip of a bare hand on the ash stave of a pike…"

There was a technical discussion, which ended in Johnnie's defeat – at least, John Hull calmly powdered the inside of the glaive.

He was got rid of at last, sent to his meal with the other serving-men, and Commendone was left alone. He had an hour to himself, an hour in which to recall the brief but perfect joy of the night before.

They had taken him to Elizabeth after supper, his good host and hostess. There was something piteously sweet in the tall slim girl in her black dress – the dear young mouth trembling, the blue eyes full of a mist of unshed tears, the hair ripest wheat or brownest barley.

She had taken his hand – hers was like cool white ivory – and listened to him as a sister might.

He had sat beside her, and told her of her father's glorious death. His dark and always rather melancholy face had been lit with sympathy and tenderness. Quite unconscious of his own grace and grave young dignity, he had dwelt upon the Martyr's joy at setting out upon his last journey, with an incomparable delicacy and perfection of phrase.

His voice, though he knew it not, was full of music. His extreme good looks, the refinement and purity of his face, came to the poor child with a wonderful message of consolation.

When he told her how a brutal yeoman had thrown a faggot at the Archdeacon, she shuddered and moaned a little.

Mr. Cressemer and his sister looked at Johnnie with reproach.

But he had done it of set purpose. "And then, Mistress Elizabeth," he continued, "the Doctor said, 'Friend, I have harm enough. What needeth that?'"

His hand had been upon his knee. She caught it up between her own – innocent, as to a brother, unutterably sweet.

"Oh, dear Father!" she cried. "It is just what he would have said. It is so like him!"

"It is liker Christ our Lord," Robert Cressemer broke in, his deep voice shaking with sorrow. "For what, indeed, said He at His cruel nailing? '[Greek: Pater, aphes autois ou gar oidasi ti poiusi.]'"

… And then they had sent Johnnie away, marvelling at the goodness, shrewdness, and knowledge of the Alderman, with his whole being one sob of love, pity, and protection for his dear simple mourner – so crystal clear, so sisterlike and sweet!