He was silent for a few seconds. Then he turned to her. “Why, Meg,” he said, “did I not think of this before? We will build our own house. And all of us shall have a hand in it. We shall build what we would have. There shall be Mercy's hospital, your mothers chapel, your library for me and Jack's green fields….”
“But, Father, you have bought this place.”
“We can sell the lease.”
“Father, it sounds wonderful, but could it really be done?”
“Why not? I am high in the King's favor, am I not? I have money I have not spent. That is the answer, Meg. We will not live in this gloomy house which is full of unhappy ghosts. We will seek our own land and we will build our own house … our ideal house.”
“As you would build an ideal state,” she reminded him.
“A house is easier to build than a state, Meg, and I doubt not that, with the help of my family, I can do it.” He was as excited as a boy. “There I shall pass my days with my children and my grandchildren about me. My father will have to be with us soon. He and his wife are getting too old to be alone. Elizabeth, Cecily and Mercy must marry and fill our new house with children. It must be outside the City… but not too far out. We shall have to be within reach of London, for I am still bound to the Court. And Meg … Meg, whenever I can, I shall slip away. I shall come home. Let us go. Let us decide where we shall live. I can scarcely wait to discuss this with the others. Meg, we will call a conference this night; and the land shall be bought without delay and the ideal house shall be built… and we shall live in it happily for many years.”
They walked home, talking of the house.
Thomas was as good as his word. In a short time he had sold his lease of Crosby Place to a rich Italian merchant friend who was looking for a house in London.
Antonio Bonvisi, the merchant from Lucca, settled in at Crosby Place and Thomas bought land in Chelsea.
BUILDING THEIR ideal house occupied the minds of the family so much that they gave little thought to what was happening about them.
The Cardinal had again been disappointed of his hopes of the Papacy. On the death of Adrian, Giulio de' Medici, called Clement the Seventh, was elected. The Emperor Charles came to London and was made a Knight of the Garter. This meant that Thomas was taken from his family to be in constant attendance at the Court, but it was regarded as an annoyance rather than a fact of political importance.
It seemed more interesting that that great friend of the family, Dr. Linacre, who was now the King's physician, brought the damask rose to England. It should be awarded a special place of honor in the Chelsea gardens. There was again war with France; but that seemed remote, for meanwhile the house at Chelsea was being built.
It stood back from the river, with about a hundred yards of garden between it and the water. There were four bay windows and eight casements, allowing a superb view of the river. The center block was occupied largely by the great hall, and there were numerous rooms in the east and west wings.
“Mercy,” Thomas had said, “once you said your dearest wish was to own a hospital of your own in which you could tend the sick. Now that we are building at Chelsea, that hospital shall be yours.”
And so it was built, separated from the house by pales; for Mercy had said: “What if I should have contagious diseases in my hospital? I could not have my patients passing them on to my family.”
They had never seen Mercy quite so happy as she was when she showed Dr. Clement over the hospital. It seemed that when she had the young doctor there, Mercy had all she desired in life— John Clement, her family, and her hospital on the other side of the pales.
There was Thomas's library and the chapel in a separate building—just as they had pictured it.
Elizabeth and Cecily planned the gardens; and Jack decided where they would grow their wheat, keep their cows and have their dairy. Alice designed her buttery and her kitchens; Thomas planned his library, gallery and chapel, with Margaret to help him.
It was to be a house in which one family, who had discovered the means of being happy, would live together, cherishing each other.
Will and his father-in-law were now the best of friends, although Will was not altogether weaned from the new ideas. Thomas prayed for him; Will prayed for Thomas; Will was wavering, for it seemed to him that a man such as his father-in-law, who seemed so right in all other matters, could not be entirely wrong on what seemed to Will the greatest matter of all.
By the end of the year they had moved into the house.
They were a bigger family now, for Thomas's father, the judge, Sir John More, and his wife came to live with them.
In spite of his cynical views on marriage, Sir John had taken a fourth wife and lived amicably with her. He had ceased to fret about his son, and he would often laugh when he remembered how he had worried in the old days because Thomas had paid more attention to Greek and Latin than to law. He admitted that he had been wrong. He had seen Thomas as an ordinary man; and, like the rest of the household, he now knew that to be an error.
He was content in his old age to rest in this great house at Chelsea, to wander in the gardens watching the gardeners at work, now and then discussing a point of law with Thomas, who never failed to give him that deference which he had given him as a young and obscure student. Occasionally he worked in the courts at Westminster; he was treated with greater respect as the father of Sir Thomas More than he was as a judge of these courts.
It was a very happy family that lived in the house at Chelsea.
SOON AFTER they were established there, Sir John Heron, the Treasurer of the King's Chamber, approached Sir Thomas concerning his son Giles. Sir John admired Sir Thomas More and, having heard of the large house, which had been built in the village of Chelsea, he would esteem it a favor if his son might live there with the Mores, after the fashion of the day.
Alice was atwitter with glee when she heard this.
“The Herons!” she cried. “Why, they are a most wealthy family. I shall look after that young man as though he were my own son.”
“And doubtless will endeavor to turn him into that,” said Thomas wryly.
“I have told you, Master More, that I shall cherish the young man…. He shall be my son in very truth.”
“Nay, by very law, Alice … the law of marriage. I'll warrant that before you have seen him you have decided that he will make a suitable husband for one of the girls.”
“They are becoming marriageable. Have you not noticed that?”
“I have indeed.”
“Well, then, it is time we had more such as Master Giles Heron in our household, for one day he will inherit his father's goodly estates.”
“And that is a good thing, for I doubt young Giles will ever win much for himself.”
“Tilly valley! Is it a clever thing, then, to be turned against a young man merely because one day he will inherit his father's fortune?” demanded Alice.
“It is wise, you would no doubt tell me, to be turned toward him because he will inherit one.”
“Now, Master More, will you endeavor to arrange a marriage between this young man and one of your daughters?”