Like half the noblemen of Scotland! And not a few of them in England.
Sir Robert took his meaning.
“It may be so. There is little honesty in public affairs today,” he said sententiously.
“Very true, Sir Robert. I had, moreover, a word with my Lord Paget, from which I learned that the Tuscan ambassador is at Lisbon.”
Sir Robert Bannet sat up in his chair.
“Indeed, and is it so? Informations from Lisbon might be of value.”
“These, I must think, are of special value.”
“Why do you think that, Mr Vode?”
“They are received with special precautions.”
Sir Robert rapped the table impatiently.
“Come, come, Mr Vode! There are too many wrappers round your meaning. A big nut doesn’t always mean a large kernel.”
Mr Christopher Vode, however, was not the man to undervalue his wares. People took you at your own value and estimated your merchandise by the advertisement you gave to it. Mr Vode drank a mouthful of his wine before he replied.
“In the first there is an effort to pass them through unnoticed. They are not addressed to Sir Francis at all.”
“To whom, then?”
“To Gregory.”
“Gregory of Lyme?” Sir Robert asked with a tightening of his lips. He looked at Vode with a closer scrutiny.
It was, indeed, through Vode that knowledge of Mr Gregory’s activities had come to the ears of the Popish party in the realm. Robert Bannet could never hear his name now without bethinking him of the fool conspiracy of Ballard and Babington, which had been nursed and sanctified in this very house, when Gregory of Lyme was a guest. He had kept himself and Humphrey out of any open connivance of the plot, but he was aghast at the recollection of the risks he had run.
“I do not meddle with Gregory of Lyme,” he said, stroking his beard.
“Nor is there need to, sir.”
“But these communications are addressed to him.”
“Addressed, yes. But not delivered.”
“How so?”
“They are carried at once to Mr Phelippes.”
And at the mention of that name an extraordinary change came over Sir Robert Bannet. He was shaken altogether out of his calm. A black look of rage convulsed his face, his eyes blazed, his voice trembled with passion.
“That villain! How is it God lets him live! So many years he’s overdue in hell!” and his fingers tore the lace at his wrists.
It was Phelippes who had deciphered the fatal letter of Mary Queen of Scots which commended the assassination of Elizabeth. That was now known to the world. The trial of Mary had brought it to light. Without Phelippes the tragedy of Fotheringay would never have taken place. Without Phelippes Mary of Scotland would still be alive, perhaps already seated on her throne. There was no name, except perhaps Walsingham’s, which roused such wild hatred amongst the enemies of Elizabeth. It took Bannet some minutes to regain his self-control and bring his mind back to the subject in hand. Then he nodded his head once or twice.
“These letters are carried to Phelippes? Proceed!”
“Yes, and at once.”
“They are written in cipher, then.”
Vode raised his hands.
“I suppose so.”
“You have not seen them?”
“No more than the superscription.”
Sir Robert Bannet had the letter from Paris in his hand. Oh, no doubt the great crisis was at hand. Elizabeth’s shifts and evasions, her promises of marriage which were never fulfilled, her offers of loans which were never paid — they had held off her doom for thirty years, but she had come to the end of them. The beast that troubles the world. Yes, but the beast could double and twist no more. She was in her corner with her back to the wall. It was honest tooth and nail now.
“It would be well to have the contents of those letters,” he agreed.
“But how?” asked Vode in a despairing voice. Yet his eyes were fixed cunningly upon his host.
“Let us consider,” said Sir Robert. “When that false scoundrel — his name burns my tongue — has finished his deciphering, what happens to it?”
“It goes at once to Sir Francis.”
“Wherever he may be?”
“If he is in the house, Phelippes takes it to him with his own hands. If he is at court, a tried servant rides with it.”
“And if he is at Sydling St Nicholas?”
Mr Vode was quick to understand all the suggestion which lay behind that simple question.
“No doubt something might be done that way. A horse may stumble, a rider’s head may strike a stone. But Walsingham has gone no farther afield than Barn Elms this many a month. There are so many meetings of the privy council, so much hobnobbing with Burghley and Hawkins and agents of my Lord Leicester, that the poor man has not had a moment of leisure.”
“What of the tried servant, then? Is he — amenable?”
Bannet had come to the point which was Mr Vode’s concern. Mr Vode lifted his eyebrows and spread out his hands in protest.
“How should I know? I have not a real wherewith to try the tried servant.”
“Many reals could be found,” said Sir Robert cautiously, “if the prize were worth the price.”
“But that cannot be known until the money’s spent,” Vode argued very reasonably.
“No,” Sir Robert agreed.
“No,” Mr Vode repeated, and there it seemed the matter would be left. But Sir Robert looked again at his letter from Paris. No opportunity must be lost now. It was so certain that the long-delayed Enterprise was to be undertaken. What should he do? Hold a middle course? Lie soft and avoid risk? Yes, and see every honour snatched and vast estates granted to those who had struck for the Church and for Philip, before Philip and the Church had won.
He leaned forward and tapped Christopher Vode on the knee.
“Bring me these informations and you shall ask your price for them. But I know nothing of them until they are here, on the table, in front of me. I am no party to any attempt to obtain them. I will not appear as the rich man who tried to seduce a faithful servant from his duty, as I might well be made to look. I will not say to you, you shall have money if you do this or that. No, Mr Vode. We have a phrase in this country: a Bridport dagger. Do you know what that is, Mr Vode?”
Mr Vode was a little put out of countenance by Bannet’s evident distrust of him.
“No sir. I never heard of it.”
“It is a hempen rope, Mr Vode. And ‘ifs’ have brought too many good men to suffer the thrust of it for me to feel worthy of their company.”
Sir Robert rose to his feet as he ended, and smiled.
“But you will be wishing to go, lest you set Sir Francis wondering why you dawdled on the way.”
Bannet accompanied him to the stables and saw him ride away on the grass at the edge of the drive so that no sound might be caused by the hooves of his horse. Vode was using the same precautions as he had used on his arrival. He did not indeed hope to impress his host by the exhibition. But such displays had from long habit become part of his very nature, and he could no more avoid them than change his skin.
“A mountebank,” said Sir Robert sardonically, “but he has his uses.”
Once clear of the park gates Vode set his horse to a brisk trot and, coming to Poole, went comfortably to bed at the best inn, untroubled by any fear of Walsingham’s suspicions. Nevertheless he did not sleep, tired though he was. In this country, with the threat of war so close and so many great families still dabbling in treason and conspiracy, there were surely great fortunes to be made by a clever man who played his cards well. But he must hold good cards to begin with. He must have a good secret to sell, and Mr Christopher Vode thought that he was on the scent of one. He would have liked, of course, to secure some conditional promise from Sir Robert written down on a sheet of paper, which, even if he could not lay his hands upon the secret, might get him some greater favour with Sir Fra
ncis Walsingham than he enjoyed at present. But the secret was his great opportunity. He had been looking for it for years, and here it was, under Phelippes’ nose. But how to bring his own nose into the exact position of Phelippes’ nose was a problem he had not yet solved. Chance might help him — chance which solved so many great problems if a man was alert to seize it when for a second it flashed within his sight. The letters addressed to Mr Gregory of Lyme and carried straight to Phelippes and from Phelippes straight to Walsingham! Suddenly Mr Christopher Vode saw Sir Francis hand them to him on a salver, and to his amazement heard him say, “Make your profit of them, my good fellow. For your merits have never received their proper meed.” But by this time Mr Vode was asleep and dreaming.
CHAPTER XX. Plots and Conspiracies
SIR ROBERT BANNET went back to the room in which he had entertained Christopher Vode and sat alone, sunk in a deep speculation. He put aside altogether Vode’s story of a great secret. That might be true or not. But whether true or not, it could not hold his thoughts at this moment. Sir Robert Bannet was a man of clear, cold, calculating mind. If he came into the open it would be at the last moment, when there was no longer safety in the shadows. And that last moment was very near. He never had come into the open. To break cover was not in his nature. He was certain that he would feel naked in the open.
There was so much circumstance in the letter from Paris that he could not disbelieve it. Then he must stand on the one side or stand on the other; and if he chose his side ill he would not stand for long, neither he, nor his son, nor his house. It would be the Bridport dagger for the lot of them, and his house a reward to strangers. But after an hour of doubt and conflicting argument he hit upon a scheme which would push off the last moment of decision to so convenient a date that there would be no risk when it was made.
He struck a gong, and to the servant who answered it he said:
“You will ask Mr Humphrey and Mr Stafford to join me in the library, and we must not be interrupted.”
Mr Humphrey was playing a game of billiards with Mr Stafford. He was more than a little flushed with wine, and he was losing, and he did not like to lose. He was very glad, therefore, to break off the match. No less glad was Mr Stafford, for he was winning, and he thought it impolitic to win. But he was in that rare state when the very billiard balls made themselves his sycophants. Let him deliberately miscue, he made a cannon. Let him strike his opponent’s ball with so much deliberate ferocity that both must jump off the table and he lose his point. No, they both rebounded and rebounded from cushion to cushion until, in disgust at so much useless labour, they glided into pockets at opposite ends of the table.
In the library Sir Robert bade his son and Stafford be seated, and before them he laid the letter from Lord Paget in Paris.
“The hesitations and the doubts are at an end. Pope Sextus puts his hand into his pocket. A million pounds when the Armada puts to sea, a million when its soldiers are landed on our shores. It was for that Philip waited. The fleet is assembled at Lisbon. In July from Creech Beacon we shall see it in the Channel.”
Sir Robert was no doubt encouraging himself by making the ultimate best of Lord Paget’s letter. But his exposition of it reacted upon him, and for once in a way there was a thrill in his voice and a gleam in his eyes as he announced his good news.
“No, but,” said Mr Stafford with a snigger, “here is the most excellent news that ever we have heard.”
He seized upon the letter and read it with little exclamations of delight.
“No, but they will land at Southampton.”
Humphrey Bannet looked up quickly.
“And is that so?” he said eagerly, and in his turn he snatched the letter out of Mr Stafford’s hand. He was wearied with the monotony of his country life. He longed for the coloured parade of courts, the pleasures of a great city, the lively gallantries of his time. But here he was penned in a rustic corner, aye and must so remain, quiet and unnoticed, so long as Elizabeth and her counsellors ruled the roost. There were no fine appointments for the schismatics of these days.
“It’s down dog with us now,” he said bitterly. “It is high time it should be up gentlemen.”
But he had something of his father’s caution in his blood. And as he read he remarked:
“It does not say that they will land at Southampton. It says only that they may.”
“It is left to Medina-Sidonia, their general,” Sir Robert agreed. “That is clear. He may go on to Calais and join with Parma’s army and Parma’s flat-bottomed boats. The one certain thing is that after all these delays, and doubts, the die is cast.”
“And the English ships will be caught guarding Chatham Church,” cried Mr Stafford.
Nothing could chill his enthusiasm. One day the queen would put her ships into commission. The next she would dismantle them. Always she was torn between her parsimony and her fears. God would see to it that she was caught napping!
“No, but the blow must fall, and between the head and the shoulders.” Mr Stafford rubbed his palms together in his glee. “We shall hear the church bells rung backwards, and Mr Ferret will pull on the ropes. Oh yes, my gracious lady, Mr Ferret will be there. The beast that troubles the world — the murderess! Blood for blood, a head for a head, Tower Hill for Fotheringay. Mr Ferret will be near enough on that day to fling his cap in your harlot’s face as they force you on your knees at the block.”
Mr Stafford’s mouth slobbered. He gobbled his words in the fury of his hatred.
Even to young Humphrey the exhibition was horrible in its meanness and ferocity. To the old man it was simply disgusting.
“We have to decide our own action,” he said coldly, and at that Humphrey’s face took on a look of concern.
“Yes, what we shall do here, in this corner of Dorsetshire, when the banner of Spain rides above the Channel.”
“I heard in the market at Wareham two days ago that five hundred Dorset men were offering themselves to the queen as her bodyguard,” said Humphrey anxiously.
“Then the fewer to defend her in Dorsetshire,” cried Mr Stafford.
“I was thinking of the temper of the county,” replied Humphrey, and he turned to his father. “But you, sir, have, I think, some policy in your mind.”
Sir Robert smiled and laid a hand upon his son’s arm.
“We must not be carried away. It will be time for us to get our caps ready to throw in the queen’s face when for a second time she has passed through Traitor’s Gate. Let us walk gently, we shall be the better breathed for running hard when we near the winning post.”
He laughed a little and stroked his beard, and added pleasantly:
“And let us not forget that this is the thirtieth year of Her Majesty’s reign, when it is right and proper that we should commemorate it.”
“We?” exclaimed Mr Stafford.
“Above all we who have so much to thank her for — the permission to stay away from the parish church so long as we pay a fine, her kindly tolerance of pirates and the like so long as they rob and murder those of our faith and share with her their profits afterwards, her persecution and cruelties practised upon priests and those who harbour them. Oh, we have a mort of favours to be grateful for! So I think that in July we should gather our friends together in this house to do honour to this great reign.”
Humphrey drew in a breath, Mr Stafford stared. The old gentleman was to buckle on his breastplate at last.
“We shall ask our friends,” he continued, “to come in some state, since the occasion is so remarkable, to bring their servants and retainers — armed, of course, against the mischances of the road. We shall set up tents in the park and fill the cottages; and for a week or two — three weeks, maybe — we shall give ourselves to their entertainment. There will be tilting and jousting for the gentry, football and games for attendants, and I think a good deal of practise at the butts for all, with some excellent prizes.”
Mr Stafford had grasped the ingenious plan.
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nbsp; “No, but,” he began with a snigger, thumping his fist upon the table.
“You contradict me, I think,” said Sir Robert, polite and acid.
Mr Stafford sat back in his chair bewildered. The last word he meant to speak was one of contradiction.
“I meant only to second your remark, Sir Robert.”
“I see,” returned Sir Robert. “It is a habit which I have happened to notice and misinterpret before. It is always ‘No, but’ with you, and then when we hang upon your lips for your objection, our remarks repeated in other and no doubt choicer words. I am glad to know that my plan meets with your approval. And Humphrey, what of you?”
“Why, sir, if Medina-Sidonia lands at Southampton we shall be very well placed. If, on the other hand, he goes to the Narrow seas, every Protestant will be rushing eastwards to repel him, and still we shall be very well placed where we are.”
“And if, by one of those calamities with which God has seen fit to afflict us these thirty years, again our hopes are frustrate, why we are celebrating Her Grace’s beneficent reign and so disperse each to his home,” and then for once the old man was carried away. A wave of passion broke through the reticence of thirty years. He raised his clenched hands in front of him.
“But I don’t believe the mischance will come. How will Drake and his fellow pirates stand against the soldiers of Spain? The humiliations of the Faith will be paid for to the uttermost drop of blood, this year, the year the stars have foretold — the year of wonder. Throw her down! — That was the order, and the painted Jezebel was thrown down and the dogs licked her blood. We shall help in that throwing down.”
He got up from his chair and struck a gong. He ordered champagne to be brought, and in silence they drank to the day when the Invincible fleet would be streaming, with its banners flying and its sails bulging, into the conduit between Hampshire and the Needles.
“Tomorrow we will begin to prepare our lists,” he said, “and this time we will omit from amongst our guests the name of Mr Gregory of Lyme.”
“But some Protestants we must have,” objected Humphrey.
Complete Works of a E W Mason Page 677