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.”
On one occason he said to her: “My dearest daughter, there is one matter which I wish to discuss with you. It is something between us two, and I want no other to know of it.”
“Yes, Father?”
“You know that at one time I considered taking my vows. Meg, it is a strange thing but the monastic life still calls to me.”
“What! You would leave us and go into solitude?”
“Nay, never! For you are dearer to me than all the world… you … you alone—and that is not counting the rest of the family. I once said to Colet, when he was my confessor, that I was a greedy man. I wanted two lives; and it seems I am a determined man, for I want to live those two lives side by side, Meg. While I live here in the midst of you all, while I am happy among you, still I crave to be a monk. While I live with you, I am happy with you, and I believe we are meant to be happy for a saintly life need not be a gloomy one, I still continue those practices which I followed when I was in the Charterhouse.” He undid the ruff about his neck and opened his doublet.
“Father!” she whispered. “A hair shirt!”
“Yes, Meg. A hair shirt. It subdues the flesh. It teaches a man to suffer and endure. Meg, it is our secret.”
“I will keep it, Father.”
He laughed suddenly. “Will you do more than that? Will you wash it for me … and in secret?”
“Assuredly I will.”
“Bless you, Meg. There is none other to whom I could confide this thing and be certain of understanding.”
“There is nothing you could not confide in me … nor I in you.”
“Your mother, God bless her, would not understand. She would ridicule the practice. So … I thank you, daughter.”
When she took the shirt and washed it in secret, she wept over it, seeing his blood upon it. Sometimes she marveled to see him so merry and to know he was wearing that painful thing. But he never gave a sign to the others of the pain he was inflicting on himself. If he was a monk at heart, he was a very merry monk.
There was great excitement when the Greek Testament, which Erasmus had edited and reconstructed, was received into the Mores' home. Thomas read it aloud to the family. Alice sat listening, although she could not understand it, her fingers busy with her needle.
Those were happy days. Looking back, a long time afterward, Margaret realized that the change came from an unexpected quarter, as such changes usually do. A German monk named Martin Luther had during that eventful year denounced the practices of the monks and the Catholic Church, as Erasmus had denounced them before him; but whereas Erasmus mildly disapproved, this man was bold and passionate in his denunciation; and whereas Erasmus had taken refuge behind his scholarship and attacked with an almost lighthearted cynicism, the German monk did so with passionate indignation; whereas Erasmus had written for the initiated, Luther was fulminating for the multitude.