CHAPTER IX

Plato

I was wonderfully fascinated by the whole personality of Lady Jane, her youth, beauty, sweetness of disposition, charming manner, and last but not least, her richly cultured mind and the true religion revealed not so much by what she said as by her every act and deed. Indeed this new love of mine bid fair to outrival even my recently sprung-up affection for Sir Hubert Blair, and I did not go down to the river bank to look out for him for several weeks owing to the great content with which the presence of my mistress filled me and the enjoyment I felt in her society. It was not so much that I was with her every minute, for her husband and other relations often engaged hours of her time, but it was my duty and my pleasure to linger near, that if by any chance she wished for me, or the others left her alone, I might be close as hand and ready to bear her company.[1]

[1] We have all of us seen, occasionally, the fascination with which an older, or more gifted young woman has over a girl of similar inclinations but less ability, and so can understand this new and ardent attachment of Margaret Brown's.--ED.

I remember so well and vividly what she said to me one day about her beloved Plato. We were in the garden, seated in an arbour shaded by pink and white hawthorn trees in full flower, the scent of which came to us pleasantly as we talked, whilst our eyes rested on the well-kept lawns and the trees in the park with the mighty river beyond flowing silently on its way.

'Is your book so very interesting?' I asked, for her eyes fell often upon it while we conversed as if it were enticing her back to its pages.

'Yes, dear,' she answered, 'it is most interesting, for it deals with the great truths of life. You will have to learn to read it for yourself, Margery, and you will like it, too.'

'But it is written in Greek,' said I with a sigh, 'and that would take such a lot of learning.'

'I would help you,' said Lady Jane kindly, 'and you would soon learn.'

But I shook my head.

'Why should I be at so much trouble,' said I, 'when you can tell me all about it--what it says, you know?'

'What we acquire without trouble does not do us much good,' was the gentle answer. 'However, you must know Plato was the founder of a great school of Greek philosophy. He was a disciple of Socrates. You have heard of him?'

'A little,' said I. 'Master Montgomery, our good curate, told me he was a man who taught truths which the people were not educated enough to receive; therefore they killed him.'

'Yes; they killed him, much as others killed Christ our Lord, because they could not receive His teaching. Killing the body is the _extreme penalty of the law_,' and Lady Jane shuddered. ''Tis a cruel thing,' she said, 'for men to crush out and destroy the life they cannot give, and 'tis a savage idea to murder the body for what they imagine is a crime of the mind.'

I thought of her words long afterwards, when her own fate gave to them a mournful significance. At the time I could not bear to see sadness in her face, and therefore, to change the subject, asked--

'When did Plato live?'

'In the fifth century before Christ. He was a great teacher----' she paused. How could she explain it all to one so ignorant as me?

'Tell me,' I said earnestly, 'tell me one thing that he said?'

A wistful expression came into the sweet face on which I looked, and, turning over the leaves of her book, she seemed to seek for something suitable for me. It was not, however, until she reached the last page of her volume that she opened her dear lips to translate, in quaint sweet accents, these words of Plato's--

'"If the company will be persuaded by me, accounting the soul immortal--_we shall always hold to the road that leads above, and justice with prudence we shall by all means pursue_, in order that we may be friends both to ourselves and to the gods, both whilst we remain here and when we receive its rewards, so we shall, like victors, both here and there enjoy a happy life." It is like our dear Lord's teaching,' she said, 'though it was uttered more than four centuries before He came to live as a man on earth.'

'They are good words,' said I, 'and I wish that I could remember them always.'

'I will write them out for you,' said Lady Jane. 'And you must learn them by heart, and never, never forget them.'

And she was as good as her word, and wrote them out for me in her beautiful handwriting, and I learned them every one, so that sometimes when we were sitting together in the gloaming, before the candles were lighted, I could say them to her without a book; and she would talk about them, telling me, too, what her dear old tutors, Master Ascham, and Master Aylmer, afterwards Bishop of London, used to teach about prudence, justice and kindred virtues.

One day the latter gentleman came to see her, to her intense delight, and I was much struck with his fine scholarly appearance and gentle manners. Lady Jane hung upon his lips, and treasured up everything he said, to discuss it with me afterwards and think over it many and many a time.

These tutors had indeed a great claim upon my dear lady's devotion, for they had instructed her so well that she spoke and wrote with correctness Greek, Latin, Italian and French, and also understood not a little of Hebrew, Chaldee and Arabic; moreover, she was, with all that learning, so modest and humble that you might have thought her a very simple ignorant maid at first sight, though, speaking for myself, I have ever noticed that large-minded people who are cultured and educated finely are more chary in expressing their feelings and meeker in their bearing than the empty-headed braggarts who think by much speaking and loud boasting they will carry all before them. ''Tis an empty whistle that makes most sound,' my father used to say, and he knew much of life, though he had buried himself latterly in the country.

It was very quiet at Sion House for a month or six weeks after I went there, and the life that we led would have seemed, though stately, tame and monotonous after the wild freedom of my home and the lively companionship of my young brothers if it had not been for the great beauty and fascination with which Lady Jane endowed it. Following her about, listening to her footsteps when she was absent, looking at her when she was present, wondering what I could do to please her, studying to comfort her when she was cast down--for she had troubles, even then, owing to the severity of her parents who, though she was married and apart from them (they lived at Sheen House at the other side of the Thames), by no means showed her kindness and consideration--so filled my time and thoughts that every moment of the days was full of interest and sped by with lightning speed.

Then, on the ninth of July, all at once, as a storm breaks out after a calm, or a tumult after a time of torpor and almost unnatural quiescence, the peaceful quietude of Sion House was broken up by the arrival of an illustrious company with their followers.

Mistress Ellen brought the news to Lady Jane, with whom I was sitting in the drawing-room, that the Duke of Northumberland, the Marquis of Northampton and the Earls of Arundel, Huntingdon, and Pembroke had arrived and were desirous of seeing her.

'What does this portend?' exclaimed my dear lady in the utmost dismay, and methought she had some idea of the truth, for she turned as pale as a corpse and wrung her hands. The Duchess of Northumberland, her mother-in-law, had dropped some hints in her letters of wonderful good fortune in store for her, and Lady Jane had spoken of it to me. But I had never ventured to acquaint her with my knowledge of the schemes of those who meant to place her on the throne when anything happened to our king. I felt instinctively that anything of that sort would distress her infinitely, and there was, besides, a dignity about her and a gracious reserve which caused me always to allow her to take the lead in our conversations. My heart smote me now, however, that I had not striven in some sort to prepare her mind for what was manifestly in store for her, and I wished that I had kept my promise to Lady Caroline Wood and had spoken of all that I had seen and heard at Woodleigh Castle in relation to Protestantism and Papacy, the kingdom and herself. It was too late now to say anything; I could only whisper to her to take courage and hope for the best.

'But, Margery,' she said, 'I fear this visit of noble dukes and lords betokens no good. I would that I were a simple country maid,' she added wistfully, 'that I might be left alone with my books and studies. However,' she pulled herself together, 'whatever happens, "I must hold to the road that leads above, and justice with prudence always pursue,"' and, with those words of her beloved Plato on her lips, she went forward to meet her fate and the visitors who were its harbingers.