“He must make a fair wage selling his herbs. Why should he live and dress as a pauper?” he asked.
“He needs every penny for his brotherhood.”
“Brotherhood?”
“Did you notice the blocked-up doorway in the warehouse wall? It had an arch surmounted by a cross and must have been a door to a chapel. I think there was a small religious house there once, in Queen Mary’s day perhaps, and the herb garden was the cloister garth. Old Sage has carried on the tradition but it is my guess that his monks are a company of jailbirds and vagabonds, old or sick men whom no one wants. The goodwife opened that cupboard in the wall as we went out, to get something for Old Sage, and it was stocked as a physician’s would have been.”
“He often came late to the Garden,” said William. “He was always erratic in his comings and goings.”
“He would be,” said Robert. “He would have to see to his brothers before he left and if any were dying he would not be able to leave them. What a devilish clamour they must make about his silence! Those hours of reading alone in the church must mean much to him.”
The river traffic was beginning now and they hailed a boat. Their waterman chuckled at their disreputable appearance, but he was not in much better shape himself with one eye closed up and his clothes filthy and torn. Mercifully he was as tired as they were and not disposed for conversation. The river, flooded now from bank to bank with brimming gold, received them with calm indifference and six o’clock struck from the church towers. Three swans were flying high, their wings lit by the morning.
Fourteen
1
That dawn was the last but one that the Earl of Strafford would see. The King had given his consent to the Act of Attainder and he would die at noon on the following day. In his cell he received the news calmly, but Archbishop Laud, in his, heard it with despair, and wrote in his diary that this King whom he and the Earl had served so faithfully was not worth serving. Yet the King made one more attempt to save the Earl’s life. He wrote a letter to both Houses of Parliament begging that the sentence of execution should be changed to imprisonment, and at the Queen’s suggestion Prince Charles was sent to deliver it. How could they refuse anything to Charles? Everyone adored him. By that evening all London knew what had happened. The boy had been driven hurriedly through back streets to Westminster and had entered the House of Lords quite alone. He, the darling of the nation, used to cheers and adulation wherever he went, was received with coldness. No one smiled at him and when he tendered the letter it was returned to him unopened to take back to his father. Then he was dismissed.
Lucy had heard the story by the evening and when she was in bed that night, afraid even to try to go to sleep in case she had a nightmare, she wondered what it had been like for him, getting out of the coach and walking alone into that awful place, he who never went anywhere alone, and meeting not the usual wave of love carried up to greet him by the cheers but only silence and cold dislike. Had he pleaded with them as he presented the letter, or had he just stood in silence watching their faces to see how they would look when they opened it and read it? He would know by their faces what they were going to do to the Earl. But they had not opened it. They had just told him to take it back where it had come from. She could see him walking out of the silent place, the unopened letter in his hand, his back straight, but transfixed by all the hostile glances that drove him away like a shower of arrows. She could feel in her own body the coldness that had made him shiver all the way home in the coach, though the day was warm, and the numbed feeling in his feet as he went up the stairs to return the letter to his father.
And now he was lying awake, just as she was, listening to the clocks striking all over London. Their own church clock had just struck one. It was morning now. In a few more hours the birds would be singing and when the sun was high the Earl would be coming out of the Tower to die. Unless somebody thought of something else they could do. Children are never quite without hope and she at last fell asleep, but her nightmares were not of the Earl. She dreamed that Charles, with the body of a boy, came running to meet her, but when he came close he had a man’s face with deep lines in it, and when the eyes looked into hers they were dark and unhappy as the face. It frightened her that such a young body could have such an old face; the contrast was grotesque and horrible. The fear remained with her the next morning and was perhaps merciful, because it was not until she heard the distant boom of the gun at the Tower, and saw her grandmother’s blanched face, that she fully realized that no one had thought of anything and the Earl was dead.
The scapegoat had finished out the ritual until the end with composure and dignity. The two men who had once shared a vision of England’s greatness, and together had loved their King and worked for him in the faith that he too could be great, were allowed no last meeting, but when the Earl went out to die he passed beneath the window of Archbishop Laud’s cell and the old man thrust his hands through the bars and blessed him. On the scaffold at Tower Hill, a tall black figure sombre in the spring sunshine, he looked out over the vast crowd of his countrymen who had come to see him die and made his last profession of loyalty to them and to the King. “I had not any intention in my heart but what did aim at the joint and individual prosperity of the King and his people.” Then he turned to the block and was offered up. There was a roar of exultation when they saw that he was dead.
2
The next day a queer peacefulness fell upon London. The rioting was over, the anger and hatred spent. The shops opened and the docks came to life again. People went about their business as usual, but with an exhausted gentleness, as though they were convalescing after a long illness. For the moment at any rate the Earl’s friends were too grief-stricken for hatred, and his enemies too uneasy for gloating. The shadow of yet another dream shattered, and yet another great man dead, lay over them all and was dumbly recognized as a recurrent shadow of majesty. They felt in some way purged, as though the majesty had divinity in it and had carried away their sins. And they felt pity for the little King, left now to carry for the rest of his days the guilt of the survivor for whom another man has died. They wondered if he was strong enough to do it or whether it would break him. For a short while the royal family became almost popular again, and when at the end of the month Prince Charles escorted Prince William in state to Gravesend, to see him off for Holland, the two young princes were cheered almost in the old style.
It was during this interlude of gentleness, two days after the Earl’s death, that Robert thought it his duty to go to the Spanish Embassy and enquire after the health of the old man sheltering there. He was ushered up to the old man’s bedchamber and found him sitting before a small wood fire, wrapped in a furred gown against the chill of the east wind. He was not yet physically recovered from his ordeal but his spirits were lively and he was disposed for conversation. He had been told Robert’s name and expressed himself as honoured by a visit from a member of the Sidney family. His own family, he was able to convey without actually saying so, was equally noble. The formalities of greeting over, Robert experienced at once that sense of magnetic suction known to good listeners who have strayed too near the web of a compulsive talker. He still felt dazed with weariness and sorrow but he need do little more than listen to give the old man a happy afternoon; and in a very few moments he knew that he would want to listen.
“As no doubt you have guessed,” said the old man, “I am a Catholic priest; Father Ignatius of the Society of Jesus. We do not wear the habit in times of trouble such as these.”
“You honour me by trusting me with the information,” said Robert cautiously.
“Ah, I knew your distinguished grandfather the Earl of Northumberland,” said Father Ignatius. “Naturally I should trust his grandson. And also naturally I should trust a friend of Isaiah Fuller.” Then seeing a blank look on Robert’s face he added, “Possibly you only know Isaiah by the name given him after he became a sel
ler of herbs.”
Robert smiled. “Old Sage! In my mind I have always called him Socrates, but Isaiah is equally suitable.” Then he sheered away from the subject of Old Sage to another, still unwilling to know what Old Sage could not tell him. “The mob who attacked the house where we found you expected to find Spanish soldiers hidden there. Had it at one time been a Catholic house?”
“Many years ago it was owned by a house of Augustinian friars across the way,” said Father Ignatius. “When they were driven out at the Dissolution of the Monasteries a few of them lived there as laymen for a while. One of them, a novice at the time of the Dissolution, later married and lived there for the rest of his life. He was Isaiah Fuller’s grandfather, which is why Isaiah is so attached to Fish Street. This was told me by Isaiah himself before his accident. In the time of the late king it came into the hands of a Catholic family who in their devotion are always ready to give refuge to priests in hiding. I went there for shelter a week ago, feeling myself in danger in my own lodging, and found them away from home, but their two old servants were there and took me in. The night of the fire I got up and dressed and then found that they had already fled. They had, I feel sure, forgotten in their fright that I was there. The back door was locked and I feared to go out from the front door because of the crowd. I remained in the house hoping the fire would not spread to it. The rest you know. But what you do not know is how I became acquainted with your grandfather and Isaiah Fuller.”
So it had come back again and now Robert must know about Old Sage. He did not change the subject again. The talk that followed was interrupted only by a servant bringing them fruit and wine, and fresh logs for the fire, and by the fitful gleams of sunshine that came late in the afternoon. Whenever for the rest of his life he thought of the story he would smell again the burning apple logs and see the pale sun sparkling in the golden wine in the goblet he held between his hands. For throughout the story he did not drink his wine. He held the goblet much as David must have held the cup of water in the cave of Adullam, as though the sparkle within it were the sparkle of heroism.
“I was at one time engaged with your grandfather in scientific work,” said Father Ignatius. “Science has always had an overwhelming fascination for me. Science is exploration. Geographical, mystical, scientific exploration are the three prongs of man’s thrust forwards into the mystery of things. What you are doing may become eventually sacrilege in regard to the Almighty, exploitation in regard to man, but the explorer is like a creature tunnelling underground towards the light, with the tunnel closing behind him as he goes, and he cannot turn back. We are ruthless, you will say. Possibly. But we have our honour. We never betray each other. Your grandfather never betrayed the Catholics who worked with him.”
“Was Old Sage one of them?” asked Robert.
“No, Isaiah Fuller was never a Catholic. I imagine he would have called himself a Protestant, perhaps still does, but like so many mystics he found it difficult to accept any particular religious allegiance. It was difficult for him to tolerate the pettiness and intolerance of religious controversy. But his greatest friend, Patrick O’Donovan, the man whom I imagine he loved better than any other human creature—and Isaiah has an enormous power of love—was a Catholic, and I imagine it was for his protection that he joined our scientific circle. For his own way of exploration was the mystical one. He was a good scientist only because his fine mind could encompass all intellectual concepts with ease.”
“Tell me about Patrick,” said Robert. “If Old Sage loved him so much he must have been a remarkable man.”
“He was intellectually remarkable, a very promising young lawyer, as was Isaiah himself. The friendship had started when they shared rooms together at Gray’s Inn. Patrick was the only son of an aristocratic but impoverished Irish Catholic family. His parents died and he came to live in London with his uncle, who decided to make a lawyer of him. The uncle also soon died but at Gray’s Inn Patrick found Isaiah, a young man slightly older than himself, and held to him like a limpet to a rock. Isaiah is, I think, a largely self-educated man. But what a scholar he is! In the days when he had his speech it was a delight to talk with him. He had a golden voice and a clear and balanced mind, and those combined with an extraordinary winning charm made him a brilliant advocate. We used to say among ourselves that he would be Lord Chancellor one day. He would have been the best Lord Chancellor since Thomas More.”
“And Patrick O’Donovan?” asked Robert again. He was already aware of Patrick as one of those men of fascination and weakness who bring down stronger men into ruin in their defence, as the King had just destroyed the Earl of Strafford.
“A very different proposition,” said Father Ignatius. “I think his mind was actually more brilliant than Isaiah’s, but he was without Isaiah’s strength and balance. He was strikingly beautiful to look at, tall and slender, full of fire and enthusiasm but physically delicate, abnormally sensitive and highly strung. The sort of young man who catches a fever and dies before his prime, mourned and lamented as a dead Adonis. Those whom the gods love die young, men say, and often say it with relief. Such men as Patrick, living so often in a world of their imagining, are ill equipped to face the world as it is.”
“Did Patrick die young?”
“I cannot tell you. After he had been the ruin of Isaiah he disappeared.” The old man was silent while Robert sat patiently yet intently waiting, and then he sighed and continued. “And with no word to me. I would have helped him if I could, for I was more intimate with him than any man except Isaiah himself. But I am passing to the end of it before I have told you the crux of the matter. As a scientist Patrick was very helpful to us. Your grandfather especially thought highly of him, and would have made him his personal assistant, but before he had time to speak of it to Patrick the young man passed through a crisis in his spiritual life, and believed himself called to be a priest dedicated to the mission of England. He was beside himself with fervour. Isaiah, knowing Patrick’s emotional, unstable temperament, opposed his resolution; and this was the first rift between them. Patrick’s confessor and I myself were also uneasy. No one in those days, or in these either, could or can be a Catholic priest in England without risk of persecution and Patrick was not the stuff of which martyrs are made. But he held on with such tenacity and passion that he finally won the two of us over, and arrangements were made for him to go to the English college at Rome as soon as there was a vacancy. But Patrick did not convince Isaiah, and was so angered by his opposition that he broke off the friendship completely and went to live with a Catholic friend, a member of our scientific circle. It was one of those heartless actions of which men of his type are so strangely capable when their pride is stung by opposition. Isaiah left our circle, in which I think he had never been at ease, and we did not see him again, and a short while after I left it too owing to illness. But Patrick did not go to Rome. The Gunpowder Plot intervened.”
A slow smile spread over Robert’s face as he asked the question to which the avid curiosity of the Wizard Earl’s descendants had never received a satisfactory answer. “What exactly had my grandfather to do with the Gunpowder Plot?”
“No one knew,” was the careful reply. Father Ignatius had placed his fingertips together and he too was smiling. “Your grandfather was a very astute man. I think myself that his only connection with it was his refusal to inculpate one or two members of his circle, upon whom suspicion rested. Your grandfather was not only astute but, as I said before, loyal.”
“Hardly so to king and parliament,” said Robert. “But loyalty is one of the most difficult of virtues, a flower with all its petals pointing in different directions.”
“Looking back,” said Father Ignatius, “it must seem to you, as it now seems to me, almost incredible that Catholic gentlemen, good men it would have been said at the time, could assent to such a murderous affair as the Plot. They were enraged, of course, by the king’s inconstancy, promisin
g relief from recusancy fines and then reimposing them, and by the continuance of persecution. You know the dismal story. It would seem that some evil will inspired them with great subtlety. They brooded long, in a manner calculated to twist reason. They were so wrought upon that the destruction of such a king, and such a parliament, appeared to them an action both of necessity and nobility. The plans were laid by men who had served in the Spanish Netherlands and knew war, dependable men. But not all who knew of the affair were dependable, least of all Patrick, on fire like a torch, seeing himself as an avenging angel, half out of his mind with enthusiasm.”
How did the old man know all this, Robert wondered, if he had been ill at the time? How did he know that the plotters had been subtly inspired? Had he been supplied with information upon his sickbed? He did not ask but waited for more.
“You know the outcome,” said Father Ignatius. “The conspirators were betrayed by a man of tender conscience.”
“Patrick?” asked Robert.
“It is not definitely known,” said Father Ignatius. “All I know is that after the collapse of the conspiracy Patrick disappeared from his lodging, and was found later hidden in a church outside London, in a state of terror and collapse. He feared vengeance, perhaps, of God or man or both. But he was in no state to explain what he feared. He was arrested, imprisoned and later tried for complicity in the Plot. Isaiah was the defending counsel. I was about again by that time and was at the trial, and I never heard Isaiah speak more brilliantly or persuasively. Nothing could be proved against the poor devil and he was acquitted.
“Isaiah took him home and nursed him. I went to see him several times and found him pathetically deranged, believing himself already to be a priest, but one with a lost soul, guilty of every crime in the calendar. Isaiah looked after him with devotion and forgiveness. He might have nursed him back to health had not his own tragedy intervened. His golden-tongued advocacy was not forgotten and had increased his reputation. Jealousy, perhaps, as well as his devotion to Patrick, caused it to be put about that he himself was secretly a Catholic. England was understandably seething with anger and fear after the Plot. Going home one night he was set upon and we will not speak of what they did to him. He would defend no more Catholics.”