Towers in the Mist

by Elizabeth Goudge

  As it had been with the ruby in the window of the aurifabray so it was with the little boy; he must have what he wanted or he could no longer support life. Why, he seemed to ask, was I born into this cruel world? Whose fault was it that earthly life was given to me? Why was I dragged from the realms of celestial glory, where the angels gave me the comets to play with, to this earth where I stretch out my empty hands in vain for my heart’s desire?

  “But you can’t have the little boy, my poppet,” explained Joyeuce. “He’s only a little boy in a story.”

  Diccon knelt up on the floor in front of her, his hands laid on her knees and his tear-stained face raised imploringly to hers. “He’s a real little boy,” he hiccuped, “and Diccon must have him.”

  “He was a real little boy years ago, when Master Foxe wrote that story,” explained Canon Leigh, “but he is not a little boy now.”

  Diccon shook his head and choked, the tears running out of his eyes and dripping off his pointed chin on to his cherry ribbons in a positive cascade. “A real boy,” he insisted, “just so big.” And he stretched out his arms to show his own minute height. “Just so big as me. He has fair hair. Diccon wants him.” And again he raised his imploring face to Joyeuce who loved him and always gave him what he wanted.

  Joyeuce was near tears herself. Was this his sorrow? Was he so lonely? The twins were older than he and he had no one but Tinker to play with. She had heard that lonely children often invented imaginary playmates to be with them. Perhaps he had imagined his little fair-haired boy and was heartbroken that he could not turn him into flesh and blood. She shook her head helplessly and Diccon, his hands still resting on her knees, shook her lap almost angrily. . . . It was Christmas Eve and seated upon it she should have had for him a little fair-haired boy.

  The door opened and they all looked round in astonishment. Standing there smiling at them was the gallant figure of Nicolas de Worde, dressed like Diccon in the Christmas colors of scarlet and green and carrying a little fair-haired boy clasping a woolly lamb with tin legs. He walked across to them and deposited his burden in Joyeuce’s lap.

  There was a moment’s pause of utter astonishment and then a chorus of ecstatic cries.

  “It’s Baa!” shrieked the twins and Will and Thomas. “The little boy has Baa!”

  “It’s Joseph!” shouted Faithful.

  “It’s a little Christmas angel,” cried Grace.

  “Tilly-vally! Angel indeed!” ejaculated Great-Aunt in some displeasure. “Some filthy child out of the streets!”

  Diccon, with the tears still wet on his cheeks, clasped Baa’s tail with one hand and Joseph’s left foot with the other and laughed and laughed, his dimples peeping and the whole of his pink tongue exposed to view, while Joseph, curled up on Joyeuce’s lap as though it were his proper home, seized his foster-brother’s dark curls with both hands and laughed too.

  As for Joyeuce and Canon Leigh, bewildered, incredulous, yet with a queer new joy struggling through their bewilderment, they found themselves gazing down into a little face that was the exact counterpart of that of the wife and mother they had both adored.

  Nicolas leaned against the mantelpiece, his eyes upon Joyeuce. “I was lonely and unhappy,” he told her, “and so I went up into the town. And so I found him at the inn.” Her eyes fell before his and he said no more, but watched the family group with smiling satisfaction. Without understanding yet what he had done he knew that he had done something good, and something, too, that would bring him into the very heart of this family. Moreover he found the picture of Joyeuce with Joseph in her arms as satisfying as he had expected it to be.

  The Christmas bells were still ringing and the waits were singing again under the window. “Unto us a Child is born. Unto us a Son is given.” There was no longer any mockery in the Christmas message.

  Chapter 13: Promise of Spring

  But in my mind so is her love inclosed,

  And is thereof not only the best part,

  But into it the essence is disposed.

  O love! (the more my woe) to it thou art

  Even as the moisture in each plant that grows;

  Even as the sun unto the frozen ground;

  Even as the sweetness to th’incarnate rose;

  Even as the center in each perfect round;

  As water to the fish, to men as air,

  As heat to fire, as light unto the sun;

  O love! it is but vain to say thou were;

  Ages and times cannot thy power outrun.

  WALTER RALEIGH.

  1.

  IT was February the fourteenth, and Canon Leigh, on his way home from the lecture he had just given in the Lady Chapel, paused for a moment in the cloisters. The scholars who had clattered out at his heels had gone back to their rooms, for the spring viva voce examinations were not far away and it behooved them to keep their noses well wedged in their books, and he was quite alone. It was a windless day and there was not a sound to be heard except the cawing of a rook, and a faint chiming of bells so muted by distance that it seemed only the echo of some music past or to come. The gray mist that hid the sun, and veiled the roofs and towers so that they lost their hardness of outline and became little more than shadows in the sky, had in it a warmth and fragrance that told of the coming of spring. The smell of the earth was in it, a soft wet earth through which the snowdrops had already driven their green spears, and some elusive scent that was like the ghost of the fragrance of a thousand flowers. It seemed all there behind the mist, the colors of all the springs that had passed and yet would come again, the riotous music of bird song and falling water that would pour over the earth in so short a while. In the darkest days of January one might doubt if it would come again, but on these warm February days one was certain.

  They destroyed all sense of time, these days. Past and present and future seemed all one. There were ghosts of the past as well as of the future about on these days, and those who watched and listened could see their gray shapes in the gray shadows and hear again, muffled by the mist, the voices and the laughter that had once rung out in arrogant possession.

  In no part of the College did Canon Leigh feel so aware of the passing and re-passing of the ghosts as he did in these cloisters, for here, at the heart of Wolsey’s College, the old Priory that had succeeded Frideswide’s Nunnery still seemed to have its stronghold. To the north was the monks’ Cathedral Church, to the east the Deanery that had once been the Prior’s house, and at right angles to it the monks’ refectory that was now the library, and in the center of the inclosed square old gray stones, the remains of the monks’ washing place, showed through the green grass. This little square, with the cloisters running round it, seemed always a little dark and dim, a little withdrawn from the rest of the College. In it old memories lived on.

  But today was February the fourteenth and Canon Leigh, as he stood in this place of memories, saw not the cowled figures of the monks pacing in the cloisters but a packed mob of people, as many as the place would hold, bishops, courtiers, scholars, citizens and riffraff of the town, swaying this way and that in the grip of wild mob excitement, mocking, taunting, and crying out in compassion, anger or horror; and standing before them, the object of their hatred or their pity, was Thomas Cranmer Archbishop of Canterbury, come here that he might be publicly degraded by the people whose shepherd he had been.

  That scene had only been a few years ago but so much had happened since then, so much horror had flowed over Oxford, and then again as much joy and thanksgiving, that it seemed that centuries had passed. . . . And yet it was happening now and Canon Leigh, as he stood with bent head, was watching it.

  The Archbishop had been three years in prison, finding himself unable, now that Queen Mary was on the throne, to change at her command the convictions that had been his when her father had made him Archbishop. He had been imprisoned in the Tower of London and then, wi
th Bishop Ridley and Bishop Latimer, in the prison of Bocardo. In the Oxford Divinity School they were tried and condemned to death, they being Cambridge men and it being apparently the policy of the Queen always to humiliate Cambridge men at Oxford. From the top of Bocardo the Archbishop had seen Latimer and Ridley, who were to suffer before him, led out to be burned to death outside the North Gate, and had kneeled down and prayed to God to strengthen them.

  Then his own turn had come. After the formal excommunication in the Cathedral he had been led out to the cloisters for his degradation. They had put up a mock altar there and upon it were laid copies, made of rough and coarse materials, of an Archbishop’s vestments, mitre and pastoral staff, and with these two jeering priests invested him; yet it was said that his dignity was so great that the crowd did not notice that the vestments he wore were only a mockery. Then one by one they were taken off him, the threadbare gown of a yeoman bedel was thrown over his shoulders and a townsman’s greasy cap was forced upon his head. He was no longer Archbishop, he was Thomas Cranmer, an old man led away through the crowd to die as his friends had died.

  Canon Leigh could never think of the fate of those three “special and singular captains and principal pillars of Christ’s Church” without sick rage. It gripped him now as he looked round him at the quiet scene of the Archbishop’s humiliation. It hurt him to the heart that it should have taken place within the walls of his own College. He had to remind himself of Latimer’s words to Ridley when the fire was kindled at his feet. “Be of good comfort, Master Ridley, and play the man. We shall this day light such a candle, by God’s grace, as I trust shall never be put out.” He was right; it burned yet; and would do while the stones of this town stood. So many candles had been lit by saints and martyrs in this city that surely the flames had burned up all the cruelties and obscenities that might have tarnished its spirit.

  Canon Leigh sighed a little and found himself musing upon the life of cities. As the hands of men had laid their stones one upon another, clumsily or with grace according to the conception of beauty that was in them, so surely the spirit of the city was woven of the spirits of the men who had lived within it, woven coarsely or finely according to the fiber of their spirits, but as vital to the material city as is heat to fire, or light to the sun. It seemed to him that both the body and the spirit of this city had in this sixteenth century an incomparable beauty. He wondered how much the men who lived here today, rejoicing in the beauty of the towers and spires against the sky, of gardens planted with fair flowers, of quiet evenings whose silence seemed to rest upon the foundations of fortitude and peace, were aware of their debt to the creators of the past, how often they paused to watch for the passing of ghosts in the shadows and to listen for their footfall on the stones. . . . Well, the men of today had their work to do. They were busy with their ambitions, their loves and their hates. They too were creators who were building for the men of the future. . . . And he must go home and prepare questions for the coming examinations.

  2.

  Raising his eyes as he passed under the dim archway that led from the cloisters to the quadrangle he saw, outlined against the brighter light beyond, the glittering figure of that scapegrace Nicolas de Worde. He was dressed at this moment in the sober garments of a scholar, yet nevertheless he glittered. His dark blue doublet and hose fitted his graceful figure with such an elegant neatness that they looked as jaunty as crimson satin studded with sapphires, his ruff, that on most scholars was apt to become a sordid and bedraggled affair, pale gray in color and wavering in outline, was crisp and white, the cap that he held in his hand had in it a curling white feather, his cheeks glowed with health and his eyes with some suppressed excitement, and his whole body was taut and vigorous as a drawn bow. When Canon Leigh, bowing a little distantly and uttering a slightly frigid “Good morning,” had brought his own bent and weary body on a level with this radiant vision and was about to pass on, Nicolas, to his consternation, wheeled round and paced alongside. . . . He saw that he had been waylaid and trapped, he, a busy man in the midst of the many labors of his arduous morning.

  “Can I serve you in any way?” he inquired politely, for though he could never feel himself much attracted by Nicolas de Worde he realized that in spite of all assertions to the contrary it is in this world the old who must serve the young; they are wasted by them, despoiled of their riches and wisdom by them, grateful if they can win their liking and allegiance, thankful at the end to be given, as reward for their sacrifice and labors, a small portion of a warm chimney corner to end their days in.

  “Any help as regards your work?” he asked with gloom, for the examinations were upon them and he had no doubt that Nicolas’s stock of information was, as ever, low. And Nicolas had the right to ask him for help, for to Nicolas he owed the restoration of his son Joseph, that adorable and happily most intelligent child who had come so miraculously out of the darkness of Christmas Eve to take the place of the son who had gone. . . . Certainly Nicolas had claims upon him. . . . Though he could wish, at times, that the young man were not so aware of the fact. During the last few weeks Nicolas had impudently inserted himself into the life of the family to a degree that seemed to Canon Leigh unnecessary. He was always there. If one went into the garden he would be there playing with the children and increasing their noise, at any time quite sufficiently severe, tenfold. When one entered the hall he was to be seen sitting up above at Great-Aunt’s window—he got on uncommonly well with Great-Aunt—paying the old lady such outrageous compliments that her cackle of laughter rose up to the rafters in the most unseemly way. If one went into the parlor he was there too, holding skeins of yarn for Joyeuce; with Joyeuce looking most unlike herself, her usually pale face feverishly flushed, her eyes bright as though she were happy yet her mouth poignantly drooping. He doubted if the young man had a good effect upon Joyeuce. It would be better if he were to attend to his work.

  “It goes well?” he inquired further.

  Nicolas shook his head, but showed no signs of that shame that would have been becoming in him. “It is about Mistress Joyeuce,” he said, “that I wish to talk to you.”

  Canon Leigh, as ever when he thought of his daughters in connection with emotional disturbances, with which he knew himself to be quite incompetent to deal, came out in a cold sweat. He had hoped, and believed because he had hoped, that that highly emotional evening which the pair had spent at the Tavern on Midsummer Eve had left no trace. . . . But it seemed it had. . . . He was bereft of words and the glance which he flung at Nicolas was one of deep alarm.

  This strengthened Nicolas’s hand. Any qualms which he might have felt, and he had felt a few, were a thing of the past. With kindly benevolence he took the older man under his wing.

  “I asked her to marry me some time ago,” he explained, “but she thought it her duty to devote herself to you and the children.”

  “But you should have asked for my daughter’s hand in marriage from me, not from herself,” ejaculated Canon Leigh in some indignation.

  “At that time you did not know me well, and I doubted if you cared for me much,” explained Nicolas. “While she did.”

  Canon Leigh was touched by Nicolas’s implied certainty that now he did know him he must care for him; even though it augured a certain bump of conceit in the young man there was a child-like confidence about it that warmed him.

  “But does Joyeuce love you?” he asked in bewilderment.

  “Oh, very deeply indeed,” Nicolas hastened to assure him.

  “And what,” asked Canon Leigh, with a meekness that thinly veiled a suggestion of sarcasm, “do you wish me to do in this matter?”

  “Explain to Joyeuce that she is not as indispensable in your household as she thinks she is. Her sister Grace is perfectly capable of taking her place. I have talked the matter over with Faithful Crocker and he agrees that he and Grace together would find it an easy matter to run your household to your entire satisf
action.”

  “But why should Faithful Crocker concern himself in this?” demanded Canon Leigh in some indignation.

  “You forget,” said Nicolas gently, “that he has been my servitor since—since—”

  “I remember,” said Canon Leigh hastily, and with more warmth. Nicolas, with that fine generosity of his that even a prospective father-in-law was bound to admire, had not left Faithful at Giles’s death without a rich scholar to share his room with him. He hated having an intellectual servitor whose industry was a perpetual reproach to his lack of it, but he was not going to leave Faithful stranded.

  “It is natural,” he said, “that we should talk together.”

  “Quite, quite,” said Canon Leigh. “I merely wondered why Faithful should contemplate making himself responsible for the welfare of my household.”

  “He hopes to marry Grace.”

  Canon Leigh stopped dead in his walk and put a hand against the wall to steady himself. Grace, that child hardly out of the cradle, in love? Joyeuce, his demure housekeeper, in love? And the young men—mere infants, both of them—coolly arranging the affairs of his family and household between them? And all this behind his back? He did not know what the modern generation was coming to.

  “It seems to have been a shock to you,” said Nicolas in some surprise.

  Canon Leigh removed his hand from the wall and passed it across his forehead. “A slight shock,” he murmured. In his young day elders had not been so treated by the young. Their idea was, apparently, that they should arrange things to their liking while their parents footed the bill.

  “And on what,” he asked, “do you intend to support Joyeuce? And on what does Faithful Crocker intend to support Grace? And are you aware that while you are scholars of this University you are not permitted to marry?”

  “I am leaving Christ Church at the end of this summer,” said Nicolas. “Then I hope, with your permission, to marry Joyeuce. My father,” he added with a touch of arrogance, as though the honor of the de Wordes had been called in question, “is of course able to support his eldest son in the married state.”