By What Authority? by Robert Hugh Benson (large ebook reader txt) 📖

that Anthony grew frightened; he saw he must be very gentle.

"Sit down," he said, drawing her to a seat beside the path at the head of the steps: "and tell me the news."

By a great effort she regained her self-control.

"I did not know when you were coming," she said tremulously. "I was startled."

He talked of his journey for a few minutes; and of the kindness of the friend with whom he had been staying, and the beauty of the house and grounds, and so on; until she seemed herself again; and the piteous startled look had died out of her eyes: and then he forced himself to approach his point; for the horse was waiting saddled; and he must get to Cuckfield and back by supper if possible.

He took her hand and played with it gently as he spoke, turning over her rings.

"Isabel," he said, "I have news to tell you. It is not bad news--at least I think not--it is the best thing that has ever come to me yet, by the grace of God, and so you need not be anxious or frightened. But I am afraid you may think it bad news. It--it is about religion, Isabel."

He glanced at her, and saw that terrified look again in her face: she was staring at him, and her hand in his began to twitch and tremble.

"Nay, nay," he said, "there is no need to look like that. I have not lost my faith in God. Rather, I have gained it. Isabel, I am going to be a Catholic."

A curious sound broke from her lips; and a look so strange came into her face that he threw his arm round her, thinking she was going to faint: and he spoke sharply.

"Isabel, Isabel, what is there to fear? Look at me!"

Then a cry broke from her white lips, and she struggled to stand up.

"No, no, no! you are mocking me. Oh! Anthony, what have I done, that you should treat me like this?"

"Mocking!" he said, "before God I am not. My horse is waiting to take me to the priest."

"But--but--" she began again. "Oh! then what have you done to James Maxwell?"

"James Maxwell! Why? What do you mean? You got my note!"

"No--no. There was no answer, he said."

Anthony stared.

"Why, I wrote--and then Lady Maxwell! Does she not know, and James himself?"

Isabel shook her head and looked at him wildly.

"Well, well, that must wait; one thing at a time," he said. "I cannot wait now. I must go to Cuckfield. Ah! Isabel, say you understand."

Once or twice she began to speak, but failed; and sat panting and staring at him.

"My darling," he said, "do not look like that: we are both Christians still: we at least serve the same God. Surely you will not cast me off for this?"

"Cast you off?" she said; and she laughed piteously and sharply; and then was grave again. Then she suddenly cried,

"Oh, Anthony, swear to me you are not mocking me."

"My darling," he said, "why should I mock you? I have made the Exercises, and have been instructed; and I have here a letter to Mr. Barnes from the priest who has taught me; so that I may be received to-night, and make my Easter duties: and Geoffrey is still at the door holding Roland to take me to Cuckfield to-night."

"To Cuckfield!" she said. "You will not find Mr. Barnes there."

"Not there! why not? Where shall I find him? How do you know?"

"Because he is here," she went on in the same strange voice, "at the Hall."

"Well," said Anthony, "that saves me a journey. Why is he here?"

"He is here to say mass to-morrow."

"Ah!"

"And--and----"

"What is it, Isabel?"

"And--to receive me into the Church to-night."

* * * *


The brother and sister walked up and down that soft spring evening after supper, on the yew-walk; with the whispers and caresses of the scented, breeze about them, the shy dewy eyes of the stars looking down at them between the tall spires of the evergreens overhead; and in their hearts the joy of lovers on a wedding-night.

Anthony had soon told the tale of James Maxwell and Isabel had nearly knelt to ask her brother's pardon for having ever allowed even the shadow of a suspicion to darken her heart. Lady Maxwell, too, who had come down with her sister to see Isabel about some small arrangement, was told; and she too had been nearly overwhelmed with the joy of knowing that the lad was innocent, and the grief of having dreamed he could be otherwise, and at the wholly unexpected news of his conversion; but she had gone at last back to the Hall to make all ready for the double ceremony of that night, and the Paschal Feast on the next day. Mistress Margaret was in Isabel's room, moving about with a candle, and every time that the two reached the turn at the top of the steps they saw her light glimmering.

Then Anthony, as they walked under the stars, told Isabel of his great hope that he, too, one day would be a priest, and serve God and his countrymen that way.

"Oh, Anthony," she whispered, and clung to that dear arm that held her own; terrified for the moment at the memory of what had been the price of priesthood to James Maxwell.

"And where shall you be trained for it?" she asked.

"At Douai: and--Isabel--I think I must go this summer."

"This summer!" she said. "Why----" and she was silent.

"Anthony," she went on, "I would like to tell you about Hubert."

And then the story of the past months came out; she turned away her face as she talked; and at last she told him how Hubert had come for his answer, a week before his time.

"It was on Monday," she said. "I heard him on the stairs, and stood up as he came in; and he stopped at the door in silence, and I could not bear to look at him. I could hear him breathing quickly; and then I could not bear to--think of it all; and I dropped down into my chair again, and hid my face in my arm and burst into crying. And still he said nothing, but I felt him come close up to me and kneel down by me; and he put his hand over mine, and held them tight; and then he whispered in a kind of quick way:

"'I will be what you please; Catholic or Protestant, or what you will'; and I lifted my head and looked at him, because it was dreadful to hear him--Hubert--say that: and he was whiter than I had ever seen him; and then--then he began to wrinkle his mouth--you know the way he does when his horse is pulling or kicking: and then he began to say all kinds of things: and oh! I was so sorry; because he had behaved so well till then."

"What did he say?" asked Anthony quickly.

"Ah! I have tried to forget," said Isabel. "I do not want to think of him as he was when he was angry and disappointed. At last he flung out of the room and down the stairs, and I have not seen him since. But Lady Maxwell sent for me the same evening an hour later; and told me that she could not live there any longer. She said that Hubert had ridden off to London; and would not be down again till Whitsuntide; but that she must be gone before then. So I am afraid that he said things he ought not; but of course she did not tell me one word. And she asked me to go with her. And, and--Anthony, I did not know what to say; because I did not know what you would do when you heard that I was a Catholic; I was waiting to tell you when you came home--but now--but now----Oh, Anthony, my darling!"

At last the two came indoors. Mistress Margaret met them in the hall. She looked for a moment at the two; at Anthony in his satin and lace and his smiling face over his ruff and his steady brown eyes; and Isabel on his arm, with her clear pale face and bosom and black high-piled hair, and her velvet and lace, and a rope of pearls.

"Why," said the old nun, smiling, "you look a pair of lovers."

Then presently the three went together up to the Hall.

* * * *


An hour or two passed away; the Paschal moon was rising high over the tall yew hedge behind the Italian garden; and the Hall lay beneath it with silver roofs and vane; and black shadows under the eaves and in the angles. The tall oriel window of the Hall looking on to the terrace shone out with candlelight; and the armorial coats of the Maxwells and the families they had married with glimmered in the upper panes. From the cloister wing there shone out above the curtains lines of light in Lady Maxwell's suite of rooms, and the little oak parlour beneath, as well as from one or two other rooms; but the rest of the house, with the exception of the great hall and the servants' quarters, was all dark. It was as if the interior life had shifted westwards, leaving the remainder desolate. The gardens to the south were silent, for the night breeze had dropped; and the faint ripple of the fountain within the cloister-court was the only sound that broke the stillness. And once or twice the sleepy chirp of a bird nestling by his mate in the deep shrubberies showed that the life of the spring was beating out of sight.

And then at last the door in the west angle of the terrace, between the cloister wing and the front of the house, opened, and a flood of mellow light poured out on to the flat pavement. A group stood within the little oaken red-tiled lobby; Lady Maxwell and her sister, slender and dignified in their dark evening dresses and ruffs; Anthony holding his cap, and Isabel with a lace shawl over her head, and at the back the white hair and ruddy face of old Mr. Barnes in his cassock at the bottom of the stairs.

As Mistress Margaret opened the door and looked out, Lady Maxwell took Isabel in her arms and kissed her again and again. Then Anthony took the old lady's hand and kissed it, but she threw her other hand round him and kissed him too on the forehead. Then without another word the brother and sister came out into the moonlight, passed down the side of the cloister wing, and turning once to salute the group who waited, framed and bathed in golden light, they turned the corner to the Dower House. Then