Love's Alchemy

by Bryan Crockett

  It was even said that when she visited London, Eliza Vaux always made a point of carrying a rosary in full view of anyone who cared to look. Jack could not remember ever seeing her in London, but so went the rumor. And it was said that never once had anyone—pursuivant, constable, agent of the Crown—called her to task for her open Catholicism, nor had she ever been arrested. Now that he saw the Dowager Lady Vaux in person, Jack could well believe it. The fines on her once-wealthy household, though, had been heavy.

  She paused in the doorway and motioned the three men to sit again. “Welcome to you all,” she said, her voice surprisingly warm. “You’ll have noticed the house and gardens are fallen off somewhat—more of that anon—but I trust you may consider yourselves at home nonetheless.” Jack thanked her for the respite from the weather and introduced his companions. Lady Vaux looked at old Burr for a moment as if she knew and did not much like him, but if that was true she said nothing about it.

  As the group sat around the kitchen fire, steam rose from the three travellers’ garments. The talk was of horses, hawking, and the news from London. After the third or fourth piggin of beer—Lady Vaux drank as heartily as the men—she said, “Master Donne, might you join me in the hall on some business the Lord Northumberland bespeaks in the letter you brought from Syon House? We shan’t trouble your friends with the like, as it concerns only yourself.” The red-cheeked Chute sat with a vacant smile on his face, but Jack noticed that Burr stiffened a bit and narrowed his eyes.

  “Of course,” Jack said.

  Burr watched them leave. He hadn’t missed Lady Vaux’s sharp look at him, and he wondered what lay behind it. Well, maybe she remembered him but couldn’t think where or when it had been. Maybe what he had seen as a look of disapproval was merely her wonted expression when she tried, but failed, to call up a memory.

  He remembered, though. She had been in London the only time he had ever seen her, perhaps a dozen years ago. She and her sister-in-law Eleanor Vaux had visited Burr’s master at the time, the Earl of Southampton, to ask some favor. Apparently Southampton had refused the request, and the two had told him what they thought of the refusal. For after they left, Southampton looked as if he had found himself on the wrong side of the Lord on Judgment Day. The man did not sleep until the third day after.

  Burr took a sip of ale. Chute reached with his empty piggin and said, “Another, Tim. Damnable muddy country, this north country. Damnable muddy country. Good English beer, though. But what makes this north country so damnably muddy?”

  “Rain, I should think, sir.” Burr filled the vessel and handed it back to Chute.

  “Rain, is it?” said Chute. “Damn this damnable rain.”

  When the Dowager had closed the door behind her she said, “Well, Master Donne, my friend the Earl writes of you warmly. But the burden of his letter seems to concern some change impending in your life. Am I near the mark in guessing he dares not commit the matter plainly to paper?”

  “You are not near the mark,” Jack said. “You have hit it.”

  Looking squarely into his eyes, the Dowager said, “And the Earl thinks I may be of some aid.”

  “He does.” It was true enough, and Jack was confident no hint of dissembling crossed his face as he continued: “When my brother Henry died for sheltering a Catholic priest, my grief was such that I left the Mother Church. I meant to have no more to do with her.”

  “I see.” Still she watched him closely.

  Jack found himself looking away as he said, “It was a mistake.” Well, there was some truth in it. In certain dark moods he still thought it a mistake. At such times faint voices from the past whispered his faithlessness, and accusations of treachery troubled his dreams. Yet Henry and the priest he sheltered had died, both of them horribly. And for what? For their allegiance to an enthroned, triple-crowned Italian bishop. No, God had not shed his beam of light on Rome alone, nor on Wittenberg nor Canterbury. All beams shone from the same sun. Yet the dark, whispering voices persisted. . . . “I would repent my sin,” he said, “and join the Church again.”

  The Dowager waited for perhaps a full minute—it seemed to Jack an hour—before saying, “You would rejoin the Church. Well, you would do so if . . . what?”

  Jack found he could look her in the eye again. “There are no ifs,” he said. “Lady Vaux, it is true I harbor doubts. They torment my heart, and I would find a priest to settle my soul. I confess to you doubts in plenty, doubts in especial about the Jesuits and their doings. But know this: my resolve is clear. I set no conditions. And what is more, I swear before you and Almighty God, on peril of my salvation, that I mean no harm to you nor any priest—nor to any other Catholic woman, man, or child.”

  The Dowager let another silence pass, during which Jack thought he heard a faint footfall in a room overhead. Lady Vaux held his gaze and said, “There are many who mean no harm; that is nothing. The question is this: do they do harm?”

  Spoken like a true Catholic. And, false Catholic though he was, in this instance he agreed: much depended on his doing no harm. He said quietly but firmly, “I have told you my intent. If you cannot or will not help me, my friends and I will thank you for your hospitality and be on our way. But I think you can help me.”

  This time she eyed him for only a few heartbeats. Then she said, “Well, something in me misgives, but I think so too. For the Wizard Earl’s sake, at least, I will trust you. I remind you, though: good men’s lives hang in the balance.”

  “I am well aware of it.”

  “And what of your two companions? Can we trust them?”

  “That, my lady, is a very good question. I know neither man well. Circumstances have brought us together for a time. But Chute—”

  “He’s the one that looks like a cherub?”

  Jack smiled. “Yes. Chute I think you can trust, in so far as his religion tends. His wish to join the Church appears genuine. Yet I counsel you to hold. I would fain know the man better before I hazarded much on his faith. On his ability to keep counsel I would rely even less. Of the other—old Burr—I am also unsure. In any case, my aim is to go with them to the Spanish Netherlands and there let priests whose lives are less in peril try their faith.”

  She nodded. “It is well considered.” After rising from her chair she said, “I will occupy your friends while you make your confession. Afterward, come down and join us for supper.” He thanked her.

  The Dowager led him up the stairs and into a narrow, windowless room. A faint yellow light glowed from an oil lamp hanging from a chain affixed to an overhead beam. The only other objects in the room were two unadorned chairs, one of them near the lamp. Lady Vaux motioned for Jack to sit in the other, a few feet away. She left the room.

  A few minutes later a tall, broad-shouldered man entered and sat opposite Jack. He was dressed as a country gentleman at his leisure, in a leather jerkin and faded blue breeches. In the dim light Jack could not see the man’s face clearly. When the stranger sat, the glow from the lamp behind him formed a faint nimbus of light around his head. The big man watched Jack for a while before saying, “So you would rejoin the Mother Church.”

  “I would. Are you a priest?” If he was, he certainly didn’t look the part. The man sat forward in his chair, which was of normal size but seemed too small for him. His feet were planted wide apart.

  “There might be one hard by, but I would fain speak to you first.”

  Jack leaned toward him, extended his hand, and said, “I am Jack Donne.”

  “Catesby,” the man said as he shook Jack’s hand with a firm grip. “Robin Catesby.”

  Jack tried to remember where he had heard the name. Then he had it: “Ah! You rose with Essex in ’01.”

  Catesby nodded.

  “I fought under him at Cadiz,” Jack said.

  “Aye. Would that I had too. But the bitch-queen had me mewed up in the Tower on a false charge in ’96.” Catesby reached above him to unhook the lantern from its chain. He held it to his left, turned his
head to the right, and pulled back his hair. The top of Catesby’s ear was missing, as though someone had taken a pair of shears to it. “A bullet took it off in the rising.” He set the lantern on the floor before him and relaxed into his chair. “I had no more finished saying a rosary than the ball came that close. It was the Virgin looking out for me, seeing to it the shot didn’t carry more of me away.” Catesby put his hands on his knees and sat back in the chair. “Essex would have made a fine king of England, would he not? No Catholic, he, but he would have made friends with us all. At the least, he promised toleration.”

  Jack shrugged. “So did the Scotsman.”

  Catesby turned his head and spat. “That’s for the punk-livered Scots turncoat. Had he kept to his word, we had served him well. But as it is . . .” Catesby didn’t need to finish the sentence; there was murder in his voice. “England needs true sons: true to the one God and to God’s one Church.” Jack slowly nodded his agreement. Catesby asked, “Are you such a man?”

  “If God gives me strength.”

  Catesby stood, picked up the lantern, and said gruffly, “Aye. You were best pray that he does.” He stepped forward, leaned until his face nearly touched Jack’s, and added, “It will go well for true sons of the true Church, but for intelligencers and spies, it will go very, very hard.”

  Jack could see the pores in Catesby’s nose, and he could feel as well as smell the garlic-laden breath. His own heart-blood was pounding in his ears, but he held steady, showing no outward sign. He crossed himself, forcing Catesby to move his head back an inch or two, then glared silently at him before saying, “That’s as it should be.”

  Catesby hovered for a few heartbeats, searching Jack’s eyes. Then, apparently satisfied, he set the lantern on the floor, straightened, and strode out of the room.

  Jack took a few deep breaths to calm himself. He closed his eyes and thought of Anne, picturing her on the settle by the fire, her head inclined a little to one side, Little Jack asleep in her arms while Constance sat nearby and stared wide-eyed into the flames. He heard a faint rustling in the room, and when he opened his eyes, there sat an affable-looking gentleman, shoeless but otherwise dressed impeccably. Jack introduced himself and explained that Lady Vaux, then Robin Catesby, had led him to think he’d be meeting with a priest.

  “Oh, but I am one,” the man said. “Palmer. Father Valentine Palmer.”

  “Ah.” Of course. A Catholic priest must stay disguised somehow, and this Palmer wore his clothes so easily he seemed a born nobleman. Where had he heard the name? In a moment he had it: old Mrs. Aylesbury, trying to cover her blunder. Jack’s eyes went to the man’s wrists. A sleeve covered one, but the other . . . yes, there it was. “You’re John Gerard.”

  The man raised his eyebrows. “But who told you so?”

  “The scar on your wrist. You’ve hung from the manacles.”

  Gerard’s easy smile faded. “I have. Hung from the manacles and stretched on the rack.” He pulled back his sleeves and held up both wrists. “Topcliffe’s work.”

  A tingling stuttered along Jack’s spine. “A madman, Topcliffe. Cecil picked a right reprobate for his rackmaster general.”

  With a rueful little smile the priest said, “I can assure you Topcliffe takes great pleasure in his vocation.”

  Jack hardly knew what to think. Here before him sat either a hero or a fool: a Jesuit who revealed no information under torture and now was back for another trip to the rack. “But you escaped from the Tower.”

  “I did, with help from friends.”

  “You made it to Rome.”

  “Yes, and I am here for only a few hours longer. I’ll be on my way back to Rome before you leave this house.”

  Jack wondered if it was true. Certainly if the priest had any notion Jack was a spy, it would be a sensible thing to say. “I heard you could hardly hold the rope strung across the moat.”

  Gerard said, “I could not grasp the rope at all, but only drape my arms about it. I used my legs to move along the line. It was by God’s grace alone I ’scaped a drowning. Much time passed before I could so much as hold a pen and write.” The priest added quietly, “But the pain in the wrists and the hands—terrible as that pain raged, so much so that I like not to remember it—was not the worst. After you hang from Topcliffe’s manacles for two or three hours, your belly bursts inside you. I could scarce say a prayer, for all the spitting out of blood. . . .” Both men were silent for a while. Then the priest’s smile returned. “But here I am, by God’s grace.”

  His thoughts a mixture of wonder and disgust, Jack pressed the point. “You escaped. You landed safely in Rome. And your superior sent you—you, a man whose face was known to Topcliffe and all his henchmen—your superior sent you back here?”

  Gerard shrugged. “He did, for this short mission. But not before I asked him.”

  Jack leaned forward. “Father, is this not madness masking as devotion? Do you not know that if you are caught, the King will fear you Jesuits all the more? He will make it his business to tighten his grip on all Catholics.”

  The priest sat looking at Jack for a moment before saying calmly, “Master Donne, God will hold me to account not for the King’s sins but for mine own. I am called to minister to the flock of the Lord. Shall I not answer the call? The Lord’s sheep famish for want of the Blessed Sacrament. Which is more godly: to save these aching bones of mine by suffering the sheep to starve, or to feed the sheep by suffering upon the rack? Which road leads to Paradise?”

  Jack had answers in plenty. He quickly turned over possibilities. One: priests in the Protestant Church of England, no less than priests in the Catholic Church of Rome, fed the faithful with the Body and Blood of Christ. Two: the Jesuits risked not just their own lives but the lives of all who housed and fed them. The Act Against Jesuits made that clear. Three: while they claimed to do no more than minister to the faithful, the Jesuits worked like Machiavels toward a Spanish takeover of England—or at the least, turned a blind eye to those who worked for it. Four: once in power, the Catholics would prove as bloody as the Protestants. Five: the Jesuits had fallen, as Jack himself had fallen in his youth, half in love with death.

  Jack had spoken only the first of his objections, though, before Gerard interrupted him: “Come. Are you here to argue theology or confess your sins?”

  “I have been confessing them, Father. My sins are my doubts.”

  “Not all doubts are sins.”

  “Tell me if this is one of them: I doubt that you and others of your order do more good than harm with your presence in England. Do you not make civil war more likely rather than less?”

  Gerard pressed the tips of his fingers together, then let his hands rest on his lap. He said, “You are right that we must weigh probable results along with godly motives and charitable deeds. But you may be sure that among those deeds is the dissuasion of our hot-blooded young men from acts of rebellion. If we priests were not here to turn them from violence, who could do the same? They know they are bound by their faith to obey us.” He paused, then said, “Have you other doubts?”

  As if that settled the matter of the Jesuits and their endangering England. “Yes. Doubts about my decision to rejoin the Church of Rome.” Gerard waited for him to continue. Jack asked, “Are there not many paths to the truth?” After a few seconds he added, “Do you have them, these doubts?” He was surprised by the earnestness in his voice.

  This time the silence lasted a long time. Jack sat waiting uneasily. Finally, Gerard said, “Do I have doubts? Taking holy orders does not silence the voice of the fiend. But we are here for you, not for me. Do you succumb to your doubts, or do you resolve to stand firm against them?”

  “But Father, I would know: do you suffer these plaguing doubts?”

  The priest closed his eyes and let out a heavy breath. “Regarding the authority of our Lord and his Holy Catholic Church? No,” he said quietly. “Or not often, and not for long. Those few foul whisperings I now hear are now most faint
, and easy to answer. But this certitude of soul has not come to me cheaply. I paid dearly to get it, and still I pay for it daily. I can assure you that the gift of certitude is as real as you or I, and that it is offered to you as well as me. If a man daily, hourly puts his trust in the Lord and His Holy Church, over time the fiend’s whisperings lose their strength.”

  “I would I could believe you,” Jack said. He meant it. Or part of him did. What would he not trade for a settled sureness like Father Gerard’s? But those Protestants he most admired—Morton, Andrewes, his own wife Anne—were similarly sure, and their beliefs differed from Gerard’s. Protestant and Catholic could not both be right in their certitude that theirs was the one true church. He said, “I believe—or I desire to believe—that the faithful of the Church of England as well as the faithful of the Church of Rome will be saved.”

  “In that case why would you risk life and limb to engraft yourself anew into the Holy Catholic Church? You seem to think the hasty-cobbled church of the eighth Henry will serve you well enough.”

  Jack shifted in his chair. “I hardly know how to answer.” He thought for a moment, then said, “In these late years I have been like a child lost. My earthly mother renounced me when I joined the new faith. Now she is fled to Antwerp. I would see her again; I would be reconciled with her before she dies.” Again it was the truth.

  “Are you certain she renounced you, or perhaps did she renounce only your apostasy? Perhaps the source of the curse you felt was your own conscience and not your mother’s heart.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Go on.”

  “And as I would return to the arms of my earthly mother, I would return to the bosom of the Mother Church. In especial, I would return to the warm embrace of the Holy Mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary.”

  Gerard nodded slowly, then said, “These are reasons you would return. Tell me why you left.”