“Cludde,” I answered softly.
“Cludde!” He called it out. Even his self-mastery could not cope with this surprise. “Cludde,” he said again — said it twice in a lower voice.
“Yes, Cludde,” I answered, meeting and yet shrinking from his questioning eyes, “my name is Cludde. So is yours. I tried to save your life, because I learned from Mistress Anne — —”
I paused. I shrank from telling him that which, as it seemed to me, would strike him to the ground in shame and horror. But he had no fear.
“What?” he cried. “What did you learn?”
“That you are my father,” I answered slowly. “I am Francis Cludde, the son whom you deserted many years ago, and to whom Sir Anthony gave a home at Coton.”
I expected him to do anything except what he did. He stared at me with astonished eyes for a minute, and then a low whistle issued from his lips.
“My son, are you! My son!” he said coolly. “And how long have you known this, young sir?”
“Since yesterday,” I murmured. The words he had used on that morning at Santon, when he had bidden me die and rot, were fresh in my memory — in my memory, not in his. I recalled his treachery to the Duchess, his pursuit of us, his departure with Anne, the words in which he had cursed me. He remembered apparently none of these things, but simply gazed at me with a thoughtful smile.
“I wish I had known it before,” he said at last. “Things might have been different. A pretty dutiful son you have been!”
The sneer did me good. It recalled to my mind what Master Bertie had said.
“There can be no question of duty between us,” I answered firmly. “What duty I owe to any one of my family, I owe to my uncle.”
“Then why have you told me this?”
“Because I thought it right you should know it,” I answered, “were it only that, knowing it, we may go different ways. We have nearly done one another a mischief more than once,” I added gravely.
He laughed. He was not one whit abashed by the discovery, nor awed, nor cast down. There was even in his cynical face a gleam of kindliness and pride as he scanned me. We were almost of a height — I the taller by an inch or two; and in our features I believe there was a likeness, though not such as to invite remark.
“You have grown to be a chip of the old block,” he said coolly. “I would as soon have you for a son as another. I think on the whole I am pleased. You talked of Providence just now” — this with a laugh of serene amusement— “and perhaps you were right. Perhaps there is such a thing. For I am growing old, and lo! it gives me a son to take care of me.”
I shook my head. I could never be that kind of son to him.
“Wait a bit,” he said, frowning slightly. “You think your side is up and mine is down, and I can do you no good now, but only harm. You are ashamed of me. Well, wait,” he continued, nodding confidently. “Do not be too sure that I cannot help you. I have been wrecked a dozen times, but I never yet failed to find a boat that would take me to shore.”
Yes, he was so arrogant in the pride of his many deceits that an hour after Heaven had stretched out its hand to save him, he denied its power and took the glory to himself. I did not know what to say to him, how to undeceive him, how to tell him that it was not the failure of his treachery which shamed me, but the treachery itself. I could only remain silent.
And so he mistook me; and, after pondering a moment with his chin in his hand, he continued:
“I have a plan, my lad. The Queen dies. Well — I am no bigot — long live the Queen and the Protestant religion! The down will be up and the up down, and the Protestants will be everything. It will go hard then with those who cling to the old faith.”
He looked at me with a crafty smile, his head on one side.
“I do not understand,” I said coldly.
“Then listen. Sir Anthony, will hold by his religion. He used to be a choleric gentleman, and as obstinate as a mule. He will need but to be pricked up a little, and he will get into trouble with the authorities as sure as eggs are eggs. I will answer for it. And then — —”
“Well?” I said grimly. How was I to observe even a show of respect for him when I was quivering with fierce wrath and abhorrence? “Do you think that will benefit you?” I cried. “Do you think that you are so high in favor with Cecil and the Protestants that they will set you in Sir Anthony’s place? You!”
He looked at me still more craftily, not put out by my indignation, but rather amused by it.
“No, lad, not me,” he replied, with tolerant good-nature. “I am somewhat blown upon of late. But Providence has not given me back my son for nothing. I am not alone in the world now. I must remember my family. I must think a little of others as well as of myself.”
“What do you mean?” I said, recoiling.
He scanned me for a moment, with his eyes half-shut, his head on one side. Then he laughed, a cynical, jarring laugh.
“Good boy!” he said. “Excellent boy! He knows no more than he is told. His hands are clean, and he has friends upon the winning side who will not see him lose a chance, should a chance turn up. Be satisfied. Keep your hands clean if you like, boy. We understand one another.”
He laughed again and turned away; and, much as I dreaded and disliked him, there was something in the indomitable nature of the man which wrung from me a meed of admiration. Could the best of men have recovered more quickly from despair? Could the best of men, their plans failing, have begun to spin fresh webs with equal patience? Could the most courageous and faithful of those who have tried to work the world’s bettering, have faced the downfall of their hopes with stouter hearts, with more genuine resignation? Bad as he was, he had courage and endurance beyond the common.
He came back to me when he had gone a few paces.
“Do you know where my sword is?” he asked in a matter-of-fact tone, as one might ask a question of an old comrade.
I found it cast aside behind the door. He took it from me, grumbling over a nick in the edge, which he had caused by some desperate blow when he was seized. He fastened it on with an oath. I could not look at the sword without remembering how nearly he had taken my life with it. The recollection did not trouble him in the slightest.
“Now farewell!” he said carelessly, “I am going to turn over a new leaf, and begin returning good for evil. Do you go to your friends and do your work, and I will go to my friends and do mine.”
Then with a nod he walked briskly away, and I heard him climb the ladder and depart.
What was he going to do? I was so deeply amazed by the interview that I did not understand. I had thought him a wicked man, but I had not conceived the hardness of his nature. As I stood alone looking round the vault, I could hardly believe that I had met and spoken to my father, and told him I was his son — and this was all! I could hardly believe that he had gone away with this knowledge, unmoved and unrepentant; alike unwarned by the Providence which had used me to thwart his schemes, and untouched by the beneficence which had thrice held him back from the crime of killing me — ay, proof even against the long-suffering which had plucked him from the abyss and given him one more chance of repentance.
I found Master Bertie in the stables waiting for me with some impatience. Of which, upon the whole, I was glad. For I had no wish to be closely questioned, and the account I gave him of the interview might at another time have seemed disjointed and incoherent. He listened to it, however, without remark; and his next words made it clear that he had other matters in his mind.
“I do not know what to do about fetching the Duchess over,” he said. “This news seems to be true, and she ought to be here.”
“Certainly,” I agreed.
“The country in general is well affected to the Princess Elizabeth,” he continued. “Yet the interests of the Bishops, of the Spanish faction, and of some of the council, will lie in giving trouble. To avoid this, we should show our strength. Therefore I want the Duchess to come over with all speed. Will
you fetch her?” he added sharply, turning to me.
“Will I?” I cried in surprise.
“Yes, you. I cannot well go myself at this crisis. Will you go instead?”
“Of course I will,” I answered.
And the prospect cheered me wonderfully. It gave me something to do, and opened my eyes to the great change of which Penruddocke had been the herald, a change which was even then beginning. As we rode down Highgate Hill that day, messengers were speeding north and south and east and west, to Norwich and Bristol and Canterbury and Coventry and York, with the tidings that the somber rule under which England had groaned for five years and more was coming to an end. If in a dozen towns of England they roped their bells afresh; if in every county, as Penruddocke had prophesied, they got their tar-barrels ready; if all, save a few old-fashioned folk and a few gloomy bigots and hysterical women, awoke as from an evil dream; if even sensible men saw in the coming of the young queen a panacea for all their ills — a quenching of Smithfield fires, a Calais recovered, a cure for the worthless coinage which hampered trade, and a riddance of worthless foreigners who plundered it — with better roads, purer justice, a fuller Exchequer, more favorable seasons — if England read all this in that news of Penruddocke’s, was it not something to us also?
It was indeed. We were saved at the last moment from the dangerous enterprise on which we had rashly embarked. We had now such prospects before us as only the success of that scheme could have ordinarily opened. Ease and honor instead of the gallows, and to lie warm instead of creaking in the wind! Thinking of this, I fell into a better frame of mind as I jogged along toward London. For what, after all, was my father to me, that his existence should make me unhappy, or rob mine of all pleasure? I had made a place for myself in the world. I had earned friends for myself. He might take away my pride in the one, but he could never rob me of the love of the others — of those who had eaten and drunk and fought and suffered beside me, and for whom I too had fought and suffered!
* * * * *
“A strange time for the swallows to come back,” said my lady, turning to smile at me, as I rode on her off-side.
It would have been strange, indeed, if there had been swallows in the air. For it was the end of December. The roads were frost-bound and the trees leafless. The east wind, gathering force in its rush across the Essex marshes, whirled before it the last trophies of Hainault Forest, and seemed, as it whistled by our ears and shaved our faces, to grudge us the shelter to which we were hastening. The long train behind us — for the good times of which we had talked so often had come — were full of the huge fire we expected to find at the inn at Barking — our last stage on the road to London. And if the Duchess and I bore the cold more patiently, it was probably because we had more food for thought — and perhaps thicker raiment.
“Do not shake your head,” she continued, glancing at me with mischief in her eyes, “and flatter yourself you will not go back, but will go on making yourself and some one else unhappy. You will do nothing of the kind, Francis. Before the spring comes you and I will ride over the drawbridge at Coton End, or I am a Dutchwoman!”
“I cannot see that things are changed,” I said.
“Not changed?” she replied. “When you left, you were nobody. Now you are somebody, if it be only in having a sister with a dozen serving-men in her train. Leave it to me. And now, thank Heaven, we are here! I am so stiff and cold, you must lift me down. We have not to ride far after dinner, I hope.”
“Only seven miles,” I answered, as the host, who had been warned by an outrider to expect us, came running out with a tail at his heels.
“What news from London, Master Landlord?” I said to him as he led us through the kitchen, where there was indeed a great fire, but no chimney, and so to a smaller room possessing both these luxuries. “Is all quiet?”
“Certainly, your worship,” he replied, bowing and rubbing his hands. “There never was such an accession, nor more ale drunk, nor powder burned — and I have seen three — and there was pretty shouting at old King Harry’s, but not like this. Such a fair young queen, men report, with a look of the stout king about her, and as prudent and discreet as if she had changed heads with Sir William Cecil. God bless her, say I, and send her a wise husband!”
“And a loving one,” quoth my lady prettily. “Amen.”
“I am glad all has gone off well,” I continued, speaking to the Duchess, as I turned to the blazing hearth. “If there had been blows, I would fain have been here to strike one.”
“Nay, sir, not a finger has wagged against her,” the landlord answered, kicking the logs together— “to speak of, that is, your worship. I do hear to-day of a little trouble down in Warwickshire. But it is no more than a storm in a wash-tub, I am told.”
“In Warwickshire?” I said, arrested, in the act of taking off my cloak, by the familiar name. “In what part, my man?”
“I am not clear about that, sir, not knowing the country,” he replied. “But I heard that a gentleman there had fallen foul of her Grace’s orders about church matters, and beaten the officers sent to see them carried out; and that, when the sheriff remonstrated with him, he beat him too. But I warrant they will soon bring him to his senses.”
“Did you hear his name?” I asked. There was a natural misgiving in my mind. Warwickshire was large; and yet something in the tale smacked of Sir Anthony.
“I did hear it,” the host answered, scratching his head, “but I cannot call it to mind. I think I should know it if I heard it.”
“Was it Sir Anthony Cludde?”
“It was that very same name!” he exclaimed, clapping his hands in wonder. “To be sure! Your worship has it pat!”
I slipped back into my cloak again, and snatched up my hat and whip. But the Duchess was as quick. She stepped between me and the door.
“Sit down, Francis!” she said imperiously. “What would you be at?”
“What would I be at?” I cried with emotion. “I would be with my uncle. I shall take horse at once and ride Warwickshire way with all speed. It is possible that I may be in time to avert the consequences. At least I can see that my cousin comes to no harm.”
“Good lad,” she said placidly. “You shall start tomorrow.”
“To-morrow!” I cried impatiently. “But time is everything, madam.”
“You shall start to-morrow,” she repeated. “Time is not everything, firebrand! If you start to-day what can you do? Nothing! No more than if the thing had happened three years ago, before you met me. But to-morrow — when you have seen the Secretary of State, as I promise you you shall, this evening if he be in London — to-morrow you shall go in a different character, and with credentials.”
“You will do this for me?” I exclaimed, leaping up and taking her hand, for I saw in a moment the wisdom of the course she proposed. “You will get me — —”
“I will get you something to the purpose,” my lady answered roundly. “Something that shall save your uncle if there be any power in England can save him. You shall have it, Frank,” she added, her color rising, and her eyes filling, as I kissed her hand, “though I have to take Master Secretary by the beard!”
CHAPTER XXII.
SIR ANTHONY’S PURPOSE.
Late, as I have heard, on the afternoon of November 20, 1558, a man riding between Oxford and Worcester, with the news of the queen’s death, caught sight of the gateway tower at Coton End, which is plainly visible from the road. Though he had already drunk that day as much ale as would have sufficed him for a week when the queen was well, yet much wants more. He calculated he had time to stop and taste the Squire’s brewing, which he judged, from the look of the tower, might be worth his news; and he rode through the gate and railed at his nag for stumbling.
Half way across the Chase he met Sir Anthony. The old gentleman was walking out, with his staff in his hand and his dogs behind him, to take the air before supper. The man, while he was still a hundred paces off, began to wave his hat and shou
t something, which ale and excitement rendered unintelligible.
“What is the matter?” said Sir Anthony to himself. And he stood still.
“The queen is dead!” shouted the messenger, swaying in his saddle.
The knight stared.
“Ay, sure!” he ejaculated after a while. And he took off his hat. “Is it true, man?”
“As true as that I left London yesterday afternoon and have never drawn rein since!” swore the knave, who had been three days on the road, and had drunk at every hostel and at half the manor-houses between London and Oxford.
“God rest her soul!” said Sir Anthony piously, still in somewhat of a maze. “And do you come in! Come in, man, and take something.”
But the messenger had got his formula by heart, and was not to be defrauded of any part of it.
“God save the queen!” he shouted. And out of respect for the knight, he slipped from his saddle and promptly fell on his back in the road.
“Ay, to be sure, God save the queen!” echoed Sir Anthony, taking off his hat again. “You are right, man!” Then he hurried on, not noticing the messenger’s mishap. The tidings he had heard seemed of such importance, and he was so anxious to tell them to his household — for the greatest men have weaknesses, and news such as this comes seldom in a lifetime — that he strode on to the house, and over the drawbridge into the courtyard, without once looking behind him.
He loved order and decent observance. But there are times when a cat, to get to the cream-pan, will wet its feet. He stood now in the middle of the courtyard, and raising his voice, shouted for his daughter. “Ho, Petronilla! do you hear, girl! Father! Father Carey! Martin Luther! Baldwin!” and so on, until half the household were collected. “Do you hear, all of you? The queen is dead! God rest her soul!”
“Amen!” said Father Carey, as became him, putting in his word amid the wondering silence which followed; while Martin Luther and Baldwin, who were washing themselves at the pump, stood with their heads dripping and their mouths agape.
Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman Page 69