The King's Confidante: The Story of the Daughter of Sir Thomas More (15 page)

“That would delight me greatly. Do tell me.”

“You take an egg and break a hole in it and take the yolk from the white as cleanly as you can. Fill the shell with the yolk and some saffron; then close the ends with eggshell. Put it in the embers and leave it until it be hard and can be made into a fine powder.”

Ailie came over to where they sat; she eyed them mischievously.

“What is it that interests you so much that you forget aught else?” she wanted to know.

“Master Clement is telling me how to make the philosopher's egg.”

“The philosophers egg! You mean that which changes base metals into gold or silver? Oh, Master Clement, I beg of you to tell
me
your secret.”

“You misunderstand,” said John Clement soberly.

“The philosophers
egg”
explained Mercy. “You think of the philosophers
stone”

“And what magic powers hath this egg?”

“It cures the sick,” said Mercy.

“I would rather the stone,” said Ailie.

“Heed her not,” said Mercy with some impatience. “She loves to jest.”

Ailie stood by smiling at them, and John Clement went on: “You will need white mustard, dittony and termontell with a dram of crownuts; you must also add angelica and pimpernel, four grains of unicorns horn if you can get it. All these must be mixed with treacle until they hang to the pestle. I will write this out for you to keep. When this substance is made it can be put into glass boxes, and kept for years. Its great virtue is that the longer you keep it the better.”

“Oh thank you. I shall never forget your kindness.”

Ailie went to Cecily and whispered: “See how friendly they are becoming.”

“What is it he gives her?” asked Cecily.

“It is a love letter,” said Ailie. “To think that Mercy should have a lover before me.”

“Love letter! You are wrong, Ailie. It is a recipe for some medicine, I'll swear.”

“Ah, my dear little Cecily, that may be. But there are many kinds of love letters.”

And Ailie pouted, for she said she liked it not that any of the girls should have a lover before she did.

Alice laughed at the two young people. “Master More, what strange daughters you have! They love Latin verse better than fine clothes, and exchange recipes when other youths and maidens exchange love tokens.”

“That may be,” said Thomas, “but with my family—and this fits every member of it—with my family, I am well pleased.”

“Tilly valley!” said Alice; but she herself was no less pleased.

THOMAS WROTE
home regularly while he was away from them.

They must write to him for, he said, he missed them sorely,
and it was only when he received their letters that he could be happy. He wanted to hear everything, no matter how trivial it seemed to them; if it concerned his home, that was enough to delight him. “There is no excuse for you girls,” he wrote. “Cannot girls always find something to chatter about? That is what I want you to do, my darlings. Take up your pens and chatter to your father.”

There was always a special compliment if Jack wrote anything. Poor Jack, now that he was growing up he was beginning to realize how difficult it was for a normal, healthy boy to compete with such brilliant sisters. Alice said it was God's rebuke on his father for having prated so much and so consistently about the equality of men's and women's brains when all the rest of the world opined that men were meant to be the scholars. Here are your brilliant daughters, perhaps God had said. And your son shall be a dullard.

Not that Jack was a dullard by any means; he was merely normal. He could not love lessons as he loved the outdoor life. Therefore his father wrote to his son very tenderly and cherished his efforts with the pen, encouraging him, understanding that all cannot love learning as some do.

He wrote enthusiastically to Margaret. He could not help it if writing to Margaret gave him pleasure which was greater than anything else he could enjoy during his sojourn abroad.

He was writing a book, which had long been in his mind, he told her. It consisted of imaginary conversations between himself and a man who had come from a strange land, which was called
Utopia.
They discussed the manners and customs of this land. The writing of this book was giving him great pleasure, and when he came home he would enjoy reading it to her.

“I showed one of your Latin essays to a very great man, Margaret. He is a great scholar, and you will be gratified when I tell you who he is. Reginald Pole. My dearest, he was astonished. He said that but for the fact that I assured him this was so, he would not have believed a girl—or anyone your age, boy or girl—could have done such work unaided. My dearest child, how can I explain to you my pride?”

He was a very proud man. He kept his children's writings with him, that he might read them through when he felt dejected and homesick; nor could he refrain from showing them to his friends and boasting a little. His pride and joy in his family was profound. He wrote to them:

Then he went on to tell them how he had always loved them and how he longed to be with them:

And so they waited, while the sweating sickness passed over Bucklersbury, for the return of the father whom they loved.

ONE DAY
after his return when the family were gathered at the table, Thomas said to them: “I have a surprise for you all. There is to be a new addition to our family. I hope you will all make him
welcome. I find him an interesting and charming person. I am sure you will too.”

“Is it a man?” asked Ailie, her eyes sparkling.

“It is, daughter.”

“Not a gray-bearded scholar this time, Father!”

“Half right and half wrong. A scholar but not a gray-bearded one. He is, I gather, some twenty years of age.”

“It is to be hoped he has not the finical manners of that Erasmus,” said Alice. “I want no more such foreigners in the house.”

“Nay, Alice, he is not a foreigner. He is an Englishman; and I doubt you will find him overfinical. He is of a very good family, I must tell you, and he comes to study the law with me.”

“Father,” cried Margaret, “how will you have time to help a young man with his studies, do your law work and serve the King and the Cardinal? You do too much. We shall never have you with us.”

“Do not scold me, Meg. I'll warrant you'll like Friend Roper. He is a serious young man, a little quiet, so he'll not disturb you overmuch. I think he will be ready to join our family circle.”

So William Roper came to the house—a young man of quiet manners and seeming meekness, but, Margaret noticed, with an obstinate line to his mouth. There was one thing about him that Margaret liked, and that was his devotion to her father. It was quite clear that the young man had decided to follow in Thomas's footsteps whenever possible.

John Clement, who had returned to the household of the Cardinal, came to the house whenever he could; and in a few months it became clear that Will Roper and John Clement looked upon The Barge in Bucklersbury as their home.

Margaret was thirteen when Will Roper came; he was twenty; yet in spite of the difference in their ages, Margaret felt as old as he was. As John Clement sought Mercy's company, Will Roper sought Margaret's; and this fact made Ailie pout a little. There was she, by far the prettiest of the three of them, and yet the two eligible
young men at the house seemed to seek the friendship of Margaret and Mercy.

“Not,” she said to Cecily who was herself a little frivolous, “that we could call such as John Clement and Will Roper
men;
one is always sniffing herbs and cures, and the other always has his nose in his law books. Now that Father is at Court, perhaps he will bring home some real men … for you, Cecily, and for me. I doubt whether Margaret or Mercy would be interested.”

Alice worried Thomas when they were alone: “Now that you have such opportunities, you must see to husbands for the girls.”

“Why, Alice, there are some years to go yet.”

“Not so many. Mercy, Margaret and my girl are thirteen. In a year or two it will be time to settle them.”

“Then we may wait a year or two yet.”

“I know. I know. And by that time who knows what honors will be heaped upon you! It is all very well to be wise and noble and to prattle in Greek, but it seems to me you would be wiser and more noble if you thought a little about your children's future.”

He was thoughtful, and suddenly he laid his hand on her shoulder.

“In good time,” he said, “I promise you I will do all that a father should.”

Those were the happy days, with few cares to disturb the household. They had grown accustomed to Thomas's working with Wolsey now. He came home at every opportunity, and they would laugh at his tales of how he had managed to slip away from the Court unseen.

At that time the only troubles were petty annoyances. There was an occasion when Thomas went to Exeter to see Vesey, the Bishop, and he came home quite put out; and while they sat at the table he told them why this was so.

“I had some of your work in my pocket… a little piece from each of you … and the best you have ever done. Well, I could not resist the chance of showing them to the Bishop, and, to tell the
truth, it was that which I was longing to do all the time I was with him. So, at the first opportunity I brought out this piece of Margaret's. He read it, and he stared at me. ‘A girl wrote this!’ he said with astonishment. ‘My daughter Margaret,’ I answered lightly. ‘And her age?’ ‘She is just thirteen.’ And, my dear one, like Reginald Pole, he would not have believed me had I not given him my word. He would not hand the piece back to me. He read it through and through again. He walked about his room in some excitement and then unlocked a box and produced this.”

They crowded round to see what he held up.

“What is it, Father?” asked Jack.

“A gold coin, my son, from Portugal”

“Is it valuable?”

“It is indeed. The Bishop said: ‘Give this to your daughter Margaret with my compliments and good wishes, for I never saw such work from one so young. Let her keep it and look at it now and then and be encouraged to grow into that great scholar, which I know she will become.’ I begged him to take back the coin. I refused to accept the coin. But the more I refused, the more earnest he became that I should accept it.”

Ailie said: “But why, Father, did you not wish to take it?”

“Because, my daughter, I wished to show him the work of the others which I had in my pocket. But how could I show it? He would think I was asking for more gold coins. I have rarely been so disappointed. I felt cheated. I wanted to say: ‘But I have five clever daughters and one clever son, and I wish you to know how clever they all are.’ But how could I?”

They all laughed, for now he looked like a child—a little boy who has been denied a treat, Margaret told him.

“Well, here is your coin. Meg, do you not like it?”

“No, Father. Every time I look at it I shall remember it brought disappointment to you.” Then she put her arms about his neck and kissed him. “Father, you must not be so proud of your children. Pride is a sin, you know—one of the deadly sins. I am
going to write some verses for you … about a father who fell into the sin of pride.”

“Ah, Meg, I shall look forward to hearing them. They will make up for the disappointment the Bishop gave me.”

In the evenings they would gather together and talk and read; sometimes they would sing. Thomas had taught Alice to sing a little. She had begun under protest. She was too old, she declared, to join his school. And did the man never think of anything but learning and teaching? Latin she would not touch. As for Greek, that was more heathen than anything.

He would put his arms about her and wheedle her gently: “Come, Alice, try these notes. You've a wonderful voice. You'll be our singing bird yet.”

“I never heard such nonsense!” she declared. But they heard her singing to herself when she sat stitching, trying out her voice; and they knew that one day she would join in; and she did.

Margaret felt that with the passing of that year she had grown to love her father even more—so much more, as he had said, that it seemed that previously she could hardly have loved him at all.

His book
Utopia
taught her more about him. She understood from it his longing for perfection. She enjoyed discussing it with him. “My pride in you, Father, is as great as yours in your children. Methinks we are a very proud pair. And, Father, there is one thing that pleases me more then any other: That is your tolerance in this matter of religion.” She quoted: “‘King Utopus made a decree that it should be lawful for every man to favor and follow what religion he would, and that he might do the best he could to bring others to his opinion, if he did it peaceably, gently, quietly and soberly, without hasty and contentious rebuking and inveighing against others….’ I like the views of King Utopus on religion. I feel them to be right.”

“Ah, Meg, what a wonderful world we could have if men could be induced to make it so.”