He had news for her, of two kinds, and, like a man, gave her first that which she least wished to hear. (She had first showed him the paper.)
"That was the very matter I was come about," he said. "You have only a few of the names, I see. Now the rest will be over before Christmas, and will all be in London together."
"Can you not give me the names?" she said.
"I could give you the names, certainly. And I will do so before I leave; I have them here. But--Mistress Marjorie, could you not come to London with me? It would ease the case very much."
"Why, I could not," she said. "My mother--And what good would it serve?"
"This is how the matter stands," said Anthony, crossing his legs. "We have a dozen priests coming all together--at least, they will not travel together, of course; but they will all reach London before Christmas, and there they will hold counsel as to who shall go to the districts.
Eight of them, I have no doubt, will come to the north. There are as many priests in the south as are safe at the present time--or as are needed. Now if you were to come with me, mistress--with a serving-maid, and my sister would be with us--we could meet these priests, and speak with them, and make their acquaintance. That would remove a great deal of danger. We must not have that affair again which fell out last month."
Marjorie nodded slowly. (It was wonderful how her gravity had grown on her these last two years.)
She knew well enough what he meant. It was the affair of the clerk who had come from Derby on a matter connected with her father"s will about the time she was looking for the arrival of a strange priest, and who had been so mistaken by her. Fortunately he had been a well-disposed man, with Catholic sympathies, or grave trouble might have followed. But this proposal of a visit to London seemed to her impossible. She had never been to London in her life; it appeared to her as might a voyage to the moon. Derby seemed oppressingly large and noisy and dangerous; and Derby, she understood, was scarcely more than a village compared to London.
"I could not do it," she said presently. "I could not leave my mother."
Anthony explained further.
It was evident that Booth"s Edge was becoming more and more a harbour for priests, owing largely to Mistress Marjorie"s courage and piety. It was well placed; it was remote; and it had so far avoided all suspicion.
Padley certainly served for many, but Padley was nearer the main road; and besides, had fallen under the misfortune of losing its master for the very crime of recusancy. It seemed to be all important, therefore, that the ruling mistress of Booth"s Edge, since there was no master, should meet as many priests as possible, in order that she might both know and be known by them; and here was such an opportunity as would not easily occur again. Here were a dozen priests, all to be together at one time; and of these, at least two-thirds would be soon in the north. How convenient, therefore, it would be if their future hostess could but meet them, learn their plans, and perhaps aid them by her counsel.
But she shook her head resolutely.
"I cannot do it," she said.
Anthony made a little gesture of resignation. But, indeed, he had scarcely hoped to persuade her. He knew it was a formidable thing to ask of a countrybred maid.
"Then we must do as well as we can," he said. "In any case, I must go.
There is a priest I have to meet in any case; he is returning as soon as he has bestowed the rest."
"Yes?"
"His name is Ballard. He is known as Fortescue, and pa.s.ses himself off as a captain. You would never know him for a priest."
"He is returning, you say?"
A shade of embarra.s.sment pa.s.sed over the young man"s face, and Marjorie saw that there was something behind which she was not to know.
"Yes," he said, "I have business with him. He is not to come over on the mission yet, but only to bring the others and see them safe--"
He broke off suddenly.
"Why, I was forgetting," he cried. "Our Robin is coming too. I had a letter from him, and another for you."
He searched in the breast of his coat, and did not see the sudden rigidity that fell on the girl. For a moment she sat perfectly still; her heart had leapt to her throat, it seemed, and was hammering there.... But by the time he had found the letter she was herself again.
"Here it is," he said.
She took it; but made no movement to open it.
"But he is not to be a priest for five years yet?" she said quietly.
"No; but they send them sometimes as servants and such like, to make a party seem what it is not, as well as to learn how to avoid her Grace"s servants. He will go back with Mr. Ballard, I think, after three or four weeks. You have had letters from him, you told me?"
She nodded.
"Yes; but he said nothing of it, but only how much he longed to see England again."
"He could not. It has only just been arranged. He has asked to go."
There was a silence for a moment. But Anthony did not understand what it meant. He had known nothing of the affair of his friend and this girl, and he looked upon them merely as a pair of acquaintances, above all, when he had heard of Robin"s determination to go to Rheims. Even the girl saw that he knew nothing, in spite of her embarra.s.sment, and the thought that had come to her when she had heard of Robin"s coming to London grew on her every moment. But she thought she must gain time.
She stood up.
"You would like to see his letters?" she asked. "I will bring them."
And she slipped out of the room.
II
Anthony Babington sat still, staring up at Icarus in the chariot of the Sun, with something of a moody look on his face.
It was true that he was sincere and active enough in all that he did up here in the north for the priests of his faith; indeed, he risked both property and liberty on their behalf, and was willing to continue doing so as long as these were left to him. But it seemed to him sometimes that too much was done by spiritual ways and too little by temporal.
Certainly the priesthood and the ma.s.s were instruments--and, indeed, the highest instruments in G.o.d"s hand; it was necessary to pray and receive the sacraments, and to run every risk in life for these purposes. Yet it appeared to him that the highest instruments were not always the best for such rough work.
It was now over two years ago since the thought had first come to him, and since that time he had spared no effort to shape a certain other weapon, which, he thought, would do the business straight and clean. Yet how difficult it had been to raise any feeling on the point. At first he had spoken almost freely to this or that Catholic whom he could trust; he had endeavoured to win even Robin; and yet, with hardly an exception, all had drawn back and bidden him be content with a spiritual warfare.
One priest, indeed, had gone so far as to tell him that he was on dangerous ground ... and the one and single man who up to the present had seemed on his side, was the very man, Mr. Ballard, then a layman, whom he had met by chance in London, and who had been the occasion of first suggesting any such idea. It was, in fact, for the sake of meeting Ballard again that he was going to London; and, he had almost thought from his friend"s last letter, it had seemed that it was for the sake of meeting him that Mr. Ballard was coming across once more.
So the young man sat, with that moody look on his face, until Marjorie came back, wondering what news he would have from Mr. Ballard, and whether the plan, at present only half conceived, was to go forward or be dropped. He was willing enough, as has been said, to work for priests, and he had been perfectly sincere in his begging Marjorie to come with him for that very purpose; but there was another work which he thought still more urgent.... However, that was not to be Marjorie"s affair.... It was work for men only.
"Here they are," she said, holding out the packet.
He took them and thanked her.
"I may read them at my leisure? I may take them with me?"
She had not meant that, but there was no help for it now.
"Why, yes, if you wish," she said. "Stay; let me show you which they are. You may not wish to take them all."
The letters that the two looked over together in that wainscoted parlour at Booth"s Edge lie now in an iron case in a certain muniment-room. They are yellow now, and the ink is faded to a pale dusky red; and they must not be roughly unfolded lest they should crack at the creases. But they were fresh then, written on stout white paper, each occupying one side of a sheet that was then folded three or four times, sealed, and inscribed to "Mistress Marjorie Manners" in the middle, with the word "Haste" in the lower corner. The lines of writing run close together, and the flourishes on one line interweave now and again with the tails on the next.