Complete Works of a E W Mason

by A. E. W. Mason

  Mr Walsingham relaxed in one of his rare, wan smiles.

  “I did not give Dr Evans credit for scholarship so ingenious,” he said.

  Dr Evans? Anthony could not remember that Dr Evans had ever uttered a word about Northwest Frontiers. But no doubt he had. Otherwise how had he, Anthony, come by the notion himself? He could find no other source for it than Dr Evans. Dr Evans must have dropped it out in an idle moment, and Anthony must have embraced it because of its appeal rather than because of its authority. So both were satisfied, and Mr Walsingham more than satisfied. For he had averted an embarrassing question about Captain Drake, and he had a little new trifle of political theory to play with.

  The warmth of the day had gone. He drew his cloak about him with a shiver.

  “The air nips my poor bones,” he pleaded, and Anthony led him back to the house and to Dr Evans in the library.

  “Your pupil,” he said, letting himself contentedly down in a chair by the hearth, “has been telling me of an odd speculation of yours, Dr Evans,” he began, and the good Doctor looked up, not a little flattered but a great deal more perplexed.

  “Nay, Mr Walsingham, I angle, I fear, in the old waters and catch none but old fish.”

  Mr Walsingham shook his head.

  “You shall not get away from me so easily.”

  Anthony had judged correctly that the statesman took no pleasure in a horse. But the curvets and caracoles of a spirited scholar gave him the keenest enjoyment. Unhappily the Reverend Doctor had no unexpected leaps. Qua horse he was a dobbin and, pressed keenly by Mr Walsingham, he renounced all claim to any theory of frontiers, political, historical, or geographical. To him a Northwest Frontier was no worse than any other, except that it inspired Mr Walsingham to confuse him with questions. As far as the Spanish Main was concerned, he understood there were few roads in it and all of them new. Therefore it could not be very interesting.

  “So — so—” said Mr Walsingham slowly.

  Dr Evans flushed.

  “I’m afraid that I disappoint you,” he said, with a trifle of sharpness in his voice.

  “On the contrary, Sir,” Walsingham answered quickly, and he added, looking at the fire: “I had little doubt before. I have less doubt now. Quickness, courage, a gift of imagination, youth, languages, a certain charm and grace.” His voice sank to a whisper. “The instrument — when the time comes.”

  He rose from his chair and went away to his room to make himself ready for his supper. But he left the Doctor in a panic. These words threatened his loved pupil. Dr Evans was a Fellow of Queen’s College, Oxford, and knew something of this statesman, its benefactor and friend. He knew him to be forceful, ruthless, subtle, a man of plots laid long ahead and conducted unswervingly, one against whom he would be powerless as a baby. His instruments! He used them to the bone and marrow.

  “I wish to God,” he cried, “that he had never come to this house.”

  The next morning Mr Walsingham took his leave. His train of servants was assembled at the door. He mounted his palfrey. Anthony, with Dr Evans at his elbow, stood bareheaded on the steps. All was set for the great man’s going. But at the last he called the boy down to his stirrup. He stooped and laid a hand upon his shoulder and said in a low voice which none other could hear: “Silence can ask and silence can answer with less embarrassment, at times, than speech. You put such a wordless question to me yesterday, and wordlessly I think I answered it to your understanding. But I cannot leave you with the thought that, if I meddled, it was because I held you lightly. When I first spoke of you to — shall we say Her Majesty’s good Sword? — I had no inkling of your plans. I was told of them afterwards. Yet had I known them I should still have done my best to check them. For mark me well, Mr Scarr, the day is near when each true man must serve the realm where he best fits, be the service high or low, famous or secret, and the end honour or shame. But that you know, I think.” He gathered up his reins in his hand, and of a sudden his voice shook with a quiet passion. “I would that day should be tomorrow. I have no fear of it. But it must be near.” And he rode away.

  But there were years to pass before it came. Mr Walsingham could never understand nor value at its worth his Queen’s capacity for standing pat until all was ripe. He rode away with his serving men behind him, and Anthony saw with amazement his tutor, red with fury, shaking a most unclerical fist at the back of his departing guest. He burst out laughing.

  “What troubles you, Sir,” he cried, “that you run this risk of an apoplexy?”

  “What troubles me?” stuttered the Doctor.

  “Yes.”

  “That you did not sail with Drake. Yes, yes, yes — that troubles me.”

  Anthony stared with his mouth open. What? He had been so cunning, so secret!

  “You guessed, Sir?”

  The Doctor’s anger melted away in a smile.

  “Guessed? I read an open book. No maiden’s cheek ever told a plainer tale than yours. Say Drake was a pirate — and you bit your handkerchief to rags. Say that he had sailed — you swooned. And our jaunt to Plymouth! Was ever impudence so open?” But his smile died away, and he repeated very quietly: “I would that you had gone! I should have been held false to my trust. I should have been true to it. For that man—” and again his arm stretched out towards the avenue. “He outdoes the Jesuits in their own bow and overreaches them with his equivocations,” he thundered like a preacher in his pulpit.

  “It was he who stopped me sailing with Drake,” said Anthony slowly. “He told me as much yesterday. He told me plainly a minute ago. He has some purpose in his mind.

  Dr Evans threw up his hands. Here were matters beyond him. He went back to the library with a very troubled mind.

  “We must to our books,” he said with a sigh. “And may God dispose all for the best.” But the poor man seemed to have but slight hope that his prayer would be granted.

  XV. ROMAN ROADS

  Ever the wonder waxeth more and more

  So that we say all this hath been before.

  Tennyson

  Now, there were two books lying open upon the library table. Anthony, still revolving in his mind what purpose Mr Walsingham designed him for, plumped himself down in the chair in front of them. But though his eyes were upon the pages, he was not aware of them.

  He said: “Mr Walsingham, at the first of his visit, withheld his name from me.”

  Dr Evans stirred the logs of the fire and looked more than a little uncomfortable.

  “Your books, my, boy. Tully on the Commonwealth. We have lost a day.”

  “I wonder,” said Anthony. His grey eyes shone with amusement at his tutor’s uneasiness. But his conversation was still of Mr Walsingham. Tully, having waited a day, could wait another ten minutes.

  “He persuaded you to withhold his name.”

  Dr Evans’ reply was lamentable.

  “He did. I was at a loss. Here was a man high in council and very earnest to have his way.” Then he chuckled with pleasure. “But you dealt with him. Forthcoming he might be, but he was forced to mend his manners. You stood at the foot of the stairs, a boy, straight and slim, with the dignity of a great gentleman. ‘Gentlemen, you are served!’ — but you never budged. So out it had to come-not the false name he proposed to give, but his own. He had met his match. So— ‘I am Mr Walsingham, the big lion with the fox’s tail.”

  The tutor’s scornful mimicry and additions sent Anthony off into a peal of laughter. But he kept to his questions.

  “Why did he withhold his name?”

  “He came to spy out the land. He had his excuse ready. He would be a colleague of mine, if you please, from Oxford, looking in — to break a journey — upon an old friend. But he came, he saw, and you conquered. Yes, in a moment. ‘I am Mr Walsingham,’ and here was his instrument to his hand. His instrument!”

  The Doctor’s pride in his pupil went down before the memory of that word uttered so thoughtfully over the log fire. One moment he triumphed that Anthony
had forced so quickly the great man into the open. Another he saw the boy helpless, in pain, his leg caught in a trap like an animal. And it was the last picture which prevailed with him. If he had only found the land barren and gone his way, with his name still hidden! The same pity which had held quiet the great Captain in his cabin shone in the eyes of the little tutor now.

  “But our books grow cold whilst we prattle,” he cried. “What! Shall Tully wait on Walsingham? Oh, fie!”

  Anthony dropped his eyes upon the books in front of him — at first with indifference, for his head was buzzing with Mr Walsingham. But he found his attention caught. He glanced at the second book which lay by the side of it and then back again to the first. He frowned; he smiled. These two books were of the parcel which he had brought from Mr Hopton at Plymouth. One was an edition, with commentaries, of the Itinerary of Antonine by Mr Robert Talbot of New College, Oxford. The second was William Harrison’s Description of England, published for the first time that year. And Mr Harrison included also in his description that famous Itinerary of the Roman roads in Britain, their posting stations and the towns through which they passed. Anthony was looking at the map at the beginning of the book and tracing with his fingers the black lines which stood for roads. From London to York, from Alcester to Dorchester upon the Thames and the hills of Sinodun. Lost to all consciousness of that library even, and even of Mr Walsingham, his finger moved to the south whilst his face was lit with the strangest gleam. Dr Evans was spellbound, for no reason that he could give. He felt that he must not move. He stood expectant of he knew not what. Over the map the boy’s finger moved and stopped. He looked up. His eyes opened to their fullest width, his parted lips, his suspended breathing proved that he, too, was expectant of he knew not what. He waited. A burning log fell from the iron cradle onto the hearth. Neither the tutor nor the pupil noticed it. It seemed to Dr Evans that from the spot which Anthony’s finger had reached now it would never move. He grew afraid. Legends of magicians who changed the souls of men tumbled into his mind. The sunlight was pouring into their room. It was morning, when men’s minds are sane. Yet Dr Evans was on the very edge of panic. He was sinking deep into a belief that somehow Anthony Scarr was gone, withdrawn into some region beyond the stars, and that a stranger sat in his place at the library table — a stranger who inexplicably was — yes, was also Anthony Scarr.

  Dr Evans forced himself to break the spell. He nodded towards the point where Anthony’s finger rested. It was very near to the coast.

  “They call it Stane Street now.”

  Anthony looked at him but did not see him.

  “Yes,” he said, but he had not heard him either.

  At all events the finger moved on again, but this time differently. Before, it had moved delicately as over a flower which must not be bruised, and hovered rather than pressed. Now Anthony tapped. He frowned, he was puzzled. He came back from his dim chamber of vague dreams with a start.

  “The man, Sir, is a blockhead.”

  “Mr Talbot is a great scholar.”

  “The Itinerary’s wrong. He makes Regnum Ringwood. I suppose because both begin with R. But Regnum is Chichester.

  Dr Evans would have none of such nonsense. There was the printed book and here was an impudent boy.

  “Rubbish, Anthony, rubbish. How could you know that it’s Chichester?”

  Well, after all, Anthony asked of himself, how could he know? But he did know. Of course he knew. Then, with the map under his eyes he argued it out and thought he saw why he knew.

  “Chichester, Sir, is a harbour, a big harbour. The very shelter and landing place for a Roman galley. While Ringwood is nothing at all, a by-end on the edge of a forest. Why should Rome build a road to Ringwood?”

  Dr Evans could not answer that question, and indeed he had not the time. For Anthony continued indifferently: “However, I see that he has put Bablock Hythe correctly on the left bank of the river.”

  “Bablock—” cried the Doctor with his mouth open. “There was no Bablock Hythe in Roman days. Let me see.

  He ran round the table and snatched the book from the boy’s hand. There was not a sign of Bablock Hythe on the map. There was not a name which could be mistaken for Bablock Hythe. He looked at Anthony indignantly. Anthony was the very image of modesty and innocence. But the Reverend one was not to be mollified so easily. What? Should he allow his pupil to make a mock of him just because, after a busy day, he had nodded over a fire at Plymouth? No, indeed!

  “It is of all sad things the saddest that you didn’t sail with Drake as cabin boy and I as quartermaster,” he cried. “A length of nice tarry rope with a tight hard knot at the end of it and you horsed on a carronade, I’d Bablockhythe you, Mr Scarr. It’d be babble and writhe for you and a very enjoyable morning for me.”

  Anthony’s innocence was more noticeable than ever.

  “But, Sir, I thought it was only ears that you wanted tickled,” and before Dr Evans could find a rejoinder to a remark so outrageous, he took the book with its map gently from his tutor’s hands.

  “Do you see this map, Sir?” he asked, in a voice which no longer held one hint of raillery. “The roads run north and south. From Rome to the Wall. From the Wall to Rome. Each nation to its own day, I think, and it’s own way. Our roads run from east to west. From India to the Indies. The wet roads of the sea.”

  He laid the book again upon the table open at its map and, with a yawn, set himself down to Cicero upon the State.

  XVI. THE REHEARSAL

  I TELL YOU, of a truth, that the spirits which now have affinity shall be kindred together, although they all meet in new persons and names.

  — The New Koran

  There was not a crumple in a rose-leaf from end to end of Cowdray House. If there had been, Sir Anthony Browne, KG, first Viscount Montague, would have discovered it, plucked it from its flower with his own noble fingers, and called upon his Gentleman Usher for an explanation. His eyes everywhere, he paced from the Hall to the Great Parlour. There hung the ancestral pictures, not so very ancestral. Sir Anthony Browne, KG, holding the Royal Banner when Henry VIII kissed the King of France at Marquison by Calais — an immense affair. Sir Anthony Browne, another one, riding with King Edward VI from the Tower to Westminster — as huge. Viscount Montague, the third Anthony Browne, looked at the vast canvases, loved them — and sighed. He mounted to the Great Chamber above the Great Parlour. All was magnificent and orderly. A chair like a throne for the Queen there, chairs and stools for her Court here, the sconces all set with new candles, the gilded baskets waiting for tomorrow’s blooms, Her Majesty’s card table in the little room behind — not a speck of dust anywhere. The first Viscount Montague was satisfied and again he sighed.

  He went down to his Officers’ Chamber on the west side of the Great Gate, composing his face to portray sedate happiness and ambition satisfied. There were present his Steward of Household, his Comptroller, his High Steward of Courts, his Receiver-General, his Gentleman Usher, the Clerk of the Kitchen, his Bailiff of Husbandry, and last but not least, his Brewer of Beer. There they were, stately gentlemen ministering to stateliness, all very anxious and flustered.

  “Her Majesty will dine at Farnham Castle tomorrow,” said Lord Montague, taking his seat at the table, “and will ride on to Cowdray with her great retinue afterwards. She will arrive here at eight and keep her lodging that night. On Sunday there will be breakfast,” and he looked at his Steward of Household.

  “For the main course I have provided, my Lord, three oxen and fourteen hundred geese,” said the Steward.

  Lord Montague repressed a sigh, set down some figures on a sheet of paper and divided. them~

  “That should be enough,” he said.

  It was a great honour, certainly, which Her Majesty did to him in putting up at his house for a week — a great and costly honour. He went carefully through the bills of fare with the Clerk of his Kitchen and his Steward of Household and let them go.

  It was the turn of
the Gentleman Usher.

  “You have seen to the beds of Her Highness’ train — the rooms sweetly kept with herbs and flowers?”

  “My Lord, they are ready.”

  “The bed quilts to be taken off at night and replaced by Irish rugs.”

  “It is so ordered, my Lord.”

  “And no more than two to a bed. See to it!” said his Lordship. “And, mark you well, a gentleman must be matched with a gentleman and a yeoman with a yeoman.”

  “I shall see to it myself,” said the Gentleman Usher.

  Lord Montague wondered, in the midst of these weighty concerns, whether Her Highness had ever heard of his Gentleman Usher who must ride bareheaded in front of him through all cities and towns and who must not announce dinner without knocking on the door of my Lord’s private lodging whether that door be open or shut and whether my Lord was in it or out of it, and must make two curtseys on the way to the announcement. Somehow or another Her Highness managed to hear a great deal about her subjects, and if their magnificence was a little too forthcoming — why, she stayed with them for a week. And what with food and clothes, liveries and pageants, they were certain to lie quiet and give her no trouble for a few years afterwards.

  These, however, were vain speculations. Lord Montague turned to his Gentleman of Horse.

  “Her Highness will shoot deer with the crossbow on Monday morning,” he said. “She will be in the bower in the Park and a nymph will present her with the crossbow.”

  “There are thirty deer ready in the paddock by the bower,” said the Gentleman of Horse.

  “She must kill four — no, three will do very well.”

  “The paddock is small and the deer so huddled together that Her Majesty cannot miss.”

  But Montague had lived for sixty years. It was amazing how people missed quarry which simply could not be missed.

  “There is a copse by the paddock,” said he.

  “Yes, my Lord.”

  “See to it that my best bowman is posted in that coppice. Three deer must call to Her Highness’ bolts.”