CHAPTER XLIII.

HOSPITALITY.

The Cardinal alone--left alone to himself--bethought him of his coming fall. He sent for Cavendish, and ordered every preparation for quiet hospitality.

'I want no state to-day. Let all my serving-men take holiday, let as many as please visit their friends in the city; and hark ye, Cavendish! let my state-visitors, who come to pry into my decline, and to partake of what good fare a Cardinal's table may afford them, be told that I am indisposed to-day.

'I am indisposed, indeed, to receive any strangers, or any ministers of state this day. My few early friends it is worth your while, my good secretary, to cultivate, for they have hearts of hospitality; and when greatness and I are separated, you may find them no mean substitute for your master. I would have you, therefore, at my table, none other; and as this is a day with which the world, the political or public world in which I am concerned, can have nothing to do, so let it be unrecorded among the transactions of my career, which you have undertaken to set down.'

Cavendish himself started at this; for, though his master knew that he kept account of all the events of his life, and employed himself in making memoranda of what happened in the course of his secretaryship, he rather desired to record that day, above all others, as one in which his master shone with the most conspicuous splendor.

'What would my lord have me say of this day?'

'Simply that I kept at home all the day. I have little stomach for the company of princes, Cavendish, but I shall be glad of thine.

'Ah! Mr. Secretary, the King has taken what he gave me, and he is welcome to it, for it is his own; and in my hands it has suffered no injury. My gold and silver is kept clean, and is fit for a king's table. But I have many things for thee to do, my worthy secretary, before we meet at our mid-day meal. You have made out a true inventory of all in my house?'

'Of everything, my master.'

'Good, then, make a true copy thereof. I give thee the things thou didst ask for, the handsome gold box in which the seals of my office are preserved; enter it not into the inventory.

'I give thee, also, Henry the Seventh's purse, which he gave to his poor almoner; and if all he gave with it had not long been handed over to his son, thou, Cavendish, shouldst have had it with its store. Note it not, but let it be a bauble preserved for the Royal Giver's sake. Henry VIII. will not leave me any memorial of himself but the remembrance of my long service.

'But tell me, Cavendish, didst thou ever see easier, gentler, or more graceful dignity in woman, than in the person of that lady now a guest in our house?'

'I never did, my lord: I thought so when I saw her, long before your arrival, nay, when she supported her father in Canon Street Prison. She is a gem of inestimable value. A princess in right of herself, at the same time that she is a servant to her husband.'

'On my word, Mr. Secretary, if the ladies knew what a discerner thou wert of true feminine dignity, they would perhaps strive to comport themselves with great carefulness before so nice a critic.'

'They would, therefore, assuredly fail, my lord; for when females try so much, or make so great an effort to appear what they ought to be in our eyes, it is a sign that they attempt to be what they really are not. The Lady Latimer has no such finesse about her. She is all she seems to be, and tries not for a moment to assume to be thought anything of. Her carriage is simplicity, the bearing of innocency; and in my eye she is handsomer, far handsomer, than Anne Boleyn.'

'Hush! this is treason as well as flattery in my house, and if reported, might disgrace thee. Thou art not yet sufficiently noble game for royal arrows to be shot at. Time, however, may come, when aim may be taken at thyself. A nobler quarry is at present in view.

'But I am glad, still, that this dear lady has attractions even for thy younger eye. Thou shall hear her converse, Cavendish; I heard it when I was your age, when it resembled the notes of a golden-strung lyre, and my young heart could respond to its song. Alas! alas! I am now like a broken harp, without one chord of love and harmony!'

'Say not so, my lord; I have ever found you sweetness and gentleness personified.'

'Go, Cavendish, prepare thyself. We meet at noon.'

At noon they all met.

The banquet-hall was spread with taste. No lords, no squires, no gentlemen-ushers, no display of courtly greatness.

Wolsey received his friends without any attempt to overwhelm them with magnificence. His condescension alone was overwhelming, for even De Freston could not be insensible to the delicacy shown upon this occasion, when the man at whose table nobles were accustomed to learn politeness, was himself so polite as to dispense with all display of nobility, that De Freston might be duly honored.

Cavendish alone participated in the unaffected pleasure of these friends. It was a banquet of love, a revival of days gone by. The Cardinal, his master, shone in a new light as the conqueror of himself.

The subject of conversation turned upon chivalry, the deeds and exploits of the tournament, the banners of the nobility, the arms, quarters, crests of the distinguished of the past and the existing day; and Wolsey said--

'I was once a gallant knight, Ellen De Freston was my mistress, and a savage mastiff my opponent; I had an ox shin-bone for my weapon, and a good courage, steady hand, and a righteous cause of action. Did I, or did I not, acquit myself valiantly?'

'No knight could ever do better execution. Did not the lady bestow her guerdon?'

'He was too proud to claim it, father,' replied Ellen.

'Then he will claim it now, fair lady; and in the presence of thy husband, too; and he himself shall not deny thee the honor of the grant.'

All looked astonishment; Ellen alone smiled, for she knew the courteous propriety of that delicate hospitality which could not ask a thing it would be unbecoming a lady's love to grant.

'I grant it thee, Wolsey, and with gratitude, for I can never forget the gallantry of that day, nor do I fail to acknowledge the compliment in this. Name it, and I will assuredly grant it.'

'Thou seest my coat-of-arms: my crest is now a Cardinal's hat; but, with thy permission, a naked arm, (for I was never a mail-clad warrior) a naked arm, bearing a shin-bone, shall surmount that hat in commemoration of our mention of the event in thy presence in York Place.'

'I cannot fail to grant it; but promise me this, that over the portal of my favorite tower, I may place thine arms so surmounted, in the hope that thou wilt honor yet again our Freston Tower.'

The Cardinal sighed. His nature could not but be grateful, nor his spirit otherwise than courteous. He felt the compliment and replied--

'I fear the latter cannot be; I must go where the King orders me, for I am his servant; but believe me, Lady, once to see the Tower again, and to feel as I now do, would be a happiness, I fear, too great for Cardinal Wolsey.

'Ipswich is in my heart: I received the rudiments of education there, and its refinements in the company of thee and of thy father.

'My friend Latimer knows well that the strong shin-bone was in my view all the days of his residence at Oxford, and only when I returned from the ceremony of thy marriage, did I drop it into the river from Magdalen Bridge.

'The memory, however, of thy kindness shall not be lost; I will send thee a nobly-sculptured coat-of-arms to be placed over the gateway of Freston Castle. Nay, lady, I have one nearly completed for my college at St. Peter's. It shall even precede thee on thy way homeward, and I will soon forward the additional appendage to surmount the Cardinal's hat.'

These things led to all the local points of memory--in which the Cardinal showed a gratitude of heart to which, for years, he had been thought to be a stranger--his inquiries after friends, his naming many who had been kind to him, the very boys whom he remembered at school.

This led to a long discussion about his college, the suppression of the monasteries, the death of John of Alneshborne, and last, not least, his hours at Freston Tower.

Upon this theme he seemed to dwell with all the fervor of imagination which he possessed in his youth; and, would time have permitted, he would have talked of Latimer's Tower and Magdalen until morning.

But his old friend, Latimer, observed that the spirit of sorrow seemed to steal over his brow; and, from excessive vivacity, a sober but delicate mournfulness came upon him. His voice, though always soft, became gradually painful, and one of those early visitations, to which his great mind was subject, oppressed him.

Nothing can be more infectious than melancholy, especially when exhibited in a great man; and though Wolsey endeavored to shake it off, it so completely subdued him, that he became silent, thoughtful, and abstracted.

Latimer and Cavendish knew his mood; but De Freston and Ellen, whose hearts were touched to pity, felt the change.

'My dear friends,' said the Cardinal,' I have enjoyed your society, but I must say farewell. I feel an oppression--a swimming of the brain--a dizziness to which I am subject, and I must retire.'

'O, Wolsey!' said De Freston, 'let me thank you for this hospitality. I am not insensible to your kindness. Proud should I be to see you again in Suffolk. Let me hope you will visit your college and me.'

I thank you, good nobleman. My college there, unless the royal Henry shall regard it, will, I fear, be neglected. Your proffered hospitality I do not think I shall tax; but my friend Cavendish, if ever you should have the opportunity of paying him any attention, I shall greet it as in memory of myself.

'I will forward you on your way to-morrow; and when, a few months hence, you hear of the Cardinal and his altered fortunes, bespeak him kindly for old friendship's sake.

'I can see a host of enemies arising, backed by the King, like his huntsman and hounds in pursuit of a poor stricken hart. Cavendish, do the duties of hospitality for me.

'Dear friends, farewell!'

With dignity and gentleness combined, the great Wolsey pressed respectfully the hand of Ellen, and cordially those of De Freston and Latimer, and left them to think of him, and to mourn over his fate.

'Twas the last day of meeting, and they part-- Reader, thou hast some gentleness of heart-- Forgive poor Ellen if she wept alone, To see his altered mien, his altered tone, We love our early days, our friends of youth, When all seems loveliness and joy of truth. So let us love, in sorrow and in shade, For love is lasting and will never fade.'