Lady Latimer

“ Eva had treated him coolly for a few [261] days, and he had practically decided that he wanted neither Judge Latimer's wife nor Burroughs' money. But as he gazed at the lady's ripe beauty he became more infatuated than before. He changed the subject abruptly. "I must go down to the valley to-morrow, after the session adjourns. Will you come with me for a ride?"
"Are you crazy?" Mrs. Latimer spoke with scorn.
"No one will see us," he pleaded. "I can pick you up where you used to live. You can wear a veil if you like. What do we care if we do meet somebody we know? ”

“ Life was so lightly esteemed, and death invested with so little tragic importance, that a man of the position and standing of Latimer, Bishop of Worcester, when appointed to preach on the occasion of the burning of a priest, could treat the matter with a flippant levity scarcely credible at a later day. ”

“ In this sermon he was reported to have revived his old heresies, and also to have declared that our Lady was a sinner. The mayor asked him to preach again at Easter; but the Bristol clergy took alarm, procured an inhibition against any one preaching without the bishop's license, and set up Drs. Hubbardine and Powell to answer Latimer's dangerous doctrines from the pulpit. The matter was reported in convocation, and a copy of Latimer's submission, signed by his own hand, was sent down to Bristol. ”

“ He will not do that,” he added quickly, but looking questioningly at Latimer and speaking in a tone almost of command. “He will not undo all that he has done; I know him better than that.” But Latimer made no answer, and for a moment the two men stood watching each other and questioning each other with their eyes. Then Latimer turned, and without again so much as glancing at the girl walked steadily to the door and left the room. He passed on slowly down the stairs and out into the night, and paused upon the top of the steps leading to the street. ”

“ With a high reputation and an excellent cook he enjoyed a great popularity, both with his own party and the world in general; and he was the centre of a small, but distinguished circle of acquaintances, who drank Latimer’s wine, and quoted Latimer’s sayings, and liked Latimer much better, because, not being author or minister, he was not in their way.
Lord Latimer received Maltravers with marked courtesy, and even deference, and invited him to join his own whist-table, which was one of the highest compliments his lordship could pay to his intellect. ”

“ Nothing is more marked in the change in the social attitude towards tobacco than the revolution which has taken place in woman's view of smoking. The history of smoking by women is dealt with separately in the next chapter; but here it may be noted that most of the old intolerance of tobacco has disappeared. "To smoke in Hyde Park," said the late Lady Dorothy Nevill, in 1907, "even up to comparatively recent years, was looked upon as absolutely unpardonable, while smoking anywhere with a lady would have been classed as an almost disgraceful social crime." ”

“ His irony was yet more telling than his invective. "I would ask you a strange question," he said once at Paul's Cross to a ring of Bishops; "who is the most diligent prelate in all England, that passeth all the rest in doing of his office? I will tell you. It is the Devil! of all the pack of them that have cure, the Devil shall go for my money; for he ordereth his business. Therefore, you unpreaching prelates, learn of the Devil to be diligent in your office. If you will not learn of God, for shame learn of the Devil." But Latimer was far from limiting himself to invective. ”

“ On Christmas Day, 1847, Lady Elizabeth, writing to her husband from Holkham, the home of her childhood, remarked: "The Billiard table is always lighted up for the gentlemen when they come from shooting, and there they sit smoking." ”

“ He shows large acquaintance with books; with the Bible, most of all; with patristic divinity and school divinity; and history, sacred and profane: but if this had been all, he would not have been the Latimer of the Reformation, and the Church of England would not, perhaps, have been here to-day. Like the physician, to whom a year of practical experience in a hospital teaches more than a life of closet study, Latimer learnt the mental disorders of his age in the age itself; and the secret of that art no other man, however good, however wise, could have taught him. ”

“ In the list of the committee which he forwarded to the king, Latimer's name, marked, like others favourable to the king's purpose, with an A, appears in the class of 'masters in theology,' not in that of doctors. Latimer was at once appointed to preach before the king at Windsor on 13 March, to the deep annoyance of his opponents; and the king, highly commending his sermon, remarked significantly to the Duke of Norfolk that it was very unpalatable to the vice-chancellor of Cambridge, who was present during part of it. Latimer received for his sermon the usual gratuity of 20s. ”

“ Latimer looked at him plodding along in the scorching, pitiless sunshine, a weary, bent man dragging one ill-shod foot wearily after the other, a man who had no faith in tenderness or love, no belief in the kindliness of human nature. He felt he hated him for one brief second, and then he pitied him. And yet it shamed him to think he had fallen so low that this man was his mate. He would get out, he would. There was a man he knew in Adelaide, he would go to him and ask him to give him another chance, for his father's sake to give him another chance. ”

“ Latimer married Anne, daughter of Sir Humphrey Stafford of Grafton, Worcestershire, who predeceased him. He contemplated marrying Mary, widow of Sir James Strangwishe, in July 1522 (ib. iii. ii. 2415) . By his wife he had issue John, third baron Latimer [q. v.] ”

“ We knew nothing of Judith’s marriage until her cable came.”
“How about Richards’ financial standing?”
“Why do you ask, Frank?” John Hale regarded his friend in surprise.
Latimer moved nearer. “The question is prompted by our long friendship, John, by my affection for Judith.” The gravity of his manner startled the listening girl. “I had to see you to-night; I could not rest until I did.” Latimer [Pg 109] polished his round spectacles and adjusted them with care. “What we say is in confidence. ”

“ There was much that he had not told her, she suspected, and when she bade him good-by it was with a reserve which she had not shown at any other time during their interview.
“I wonder who that woman was?” she murmured, as young Latimer turned from the brougham door and said “Home,” to the groom. She thought about it a great deal that afternoon; at times she repented that she had given up the medal, and at times she blushed that she should have been carried in her zeal into such an unwarranted intimacy with another's story. ”

“ I suppose the registry is little more than an adjunct to the shop. But when I pass, I see a great many young women going in and out.”
“Should I have to go there to meet them?” asked Lucy, with a look of repugnance.
“Oh, dear, no,” Miss Latimer answered. “That is not done save in the big offices, unless an appointment is desired by some mistress from the country. Young women who seem likely to suit are sent to wait upon you in your house. If you decide on this, you can go there and give instructions to-morrow morning; I can keep house and look after Hugh during your absence. ”

“ I ain’t that kind of a hairpin! I’m a woman that knows her rights and is willin’ to fight fer ’em. And if he thinks he can hide, and that I’ll soon go away and leave him, why, then he is mightily mistaken.”
“Your hostler seems to have got into a good deal of trouble,” the scout remarked to Latimer, as they returned to the house together, leaving Pizen Kate hunting for Nick Nomad.
“Cody,” said Latimer, “that is the most absurd episode I ever saw, or knew about. I’m afraid that new hostler is a great rascal, in spite of what you informed me about him.” ”

“ Latimer was the son of a Leicestershire fanner, and rose to be Bishop of Worcester, and to the far higher rank of a martyr for his faith. He has been pronounced by writers of this age as a good but not a great man. To our mind he was a very great man. Not in worldly wisdom, for he was simple and unambitious as a child; but he was a genius, true, racy, original, and inspired. He was made, as his sermons show, for a preacher to the people rather than to princes, though to them he bore a bold and unblenching testimony. ”

“ Yet Latimer cursed beneath his breath.
“Let’s get on,” he said, and proceeded to feel his way towards the ravine.
In a few minutes they reached it. Here was another sentry-group. Assuring himself that all was in order, he began to retrace his steps. He was conscious of nothing except the procession of fantasies and memories within his brain: verses he had written last year beneath the young flowering laburnum in his father’s garden; a girl’s hand in which his heart seemed to be inevitably cupped; a flannelled figure, with a rapid, crushing serve, on the other side of the tennis-net ”

“ Now I know from the soul that struggled with me that you are ready to go home."
"Let me give her some supper and go up with her," begged Jeanne Latimer in her husband's ear, as she, alarmed by their long stay in the church, joined them when they were leaving. "Send Hugh home, and ask Potts to let Oliver Gilbert know that she will soon be there. She needs a woman of her own sort to be with her at this moment, not Satira Pegrim." ”

“ We seem to think that our daughters will live with us always, just as we expect to live on ourselves until death comes one day and startles us and finds us unprepared.” He took down his hand and smiled gravely at the younger man with an evident effort, and said, “I did not mean to speak so gloomily, but you see my point of view must be different from yours. And she says she loves you, does she?” he added, gently.
Young Latimer bowed his head and murmured something inarticulately in reply, and then held his head erect again and waited, still watching the bishop's face. ”

“ Grey was obliged to go he didn't think there would be any change before he came back, surely?" said Hardwicke anxiously.
"No. But she can't know what she is saying, can she? Poor girl! she will never do another stitch." Mrs. Latimer fairly broke down. The unfinished embroidery which never could be finished brought the truth home to her. It is hard to realize that a life with its interlacing roots and fibres is broken off short.
"Oh, Mrs. Latimer, don't! don't!" Harry exclaimed, aghast at her tears. "For dear Mrs. Middleton's sake!" ”

“ Elizabeth, who became a nun in the Minories, outside Aldgate, London; (2) Alice, married to William, lord Deincourt, who died on 14 Oct. 1381; (3) Mathilda, who married William le Scrope; (4) Iolande or Idina (Swallow, p. 34) ; (5) Eleanor, married Ralph, lord Lumley, slain and attainted in 1400. A sixth daughter is mentioned in his will.
By his second wife Neville had a son John, who proved his age in 1404, and was summoned to parliament as Baron Latimer until his death in 1430. He sold the Latimer barony to his eldest half-brother, the Earl of Westmorland (Dugdale) . ”

“ He had bad health, being troubled with headache, pleurisy, coiic, stone; his bodily constitution meeting feebly the demands which he was forced to make upon it. [120] But he struggled on, travelling up and down, to London, to Kent, to Bristol, wherever opportunity called him; marked for destruction by the bishops, if he was betrayed into an imprudent word, and himself living in constant expectation of death. [121]
At length the Bishop of London believed that Latimer was in his power. ”

“ Again Miss Grison gave him no time to make a comment, but went on talking in the shrill voice which Latimer had noted and mentioned.
“Henrietta and Jane Trent are twins,” she explained to Marie as if the girl knew nothing about her own servants. “I remember them as little toddlers in the village. The mother took in washing. Fine bouncing women they have grown into, my dear: red cheeks and black hair and wooden expressions, just like two Dutch dolls. Are they good servants?” ”

“ Danvers put his hand on the stooping shoulders. "I'm going home on the midnight train, and I'll send the old doctor up to see the lad; or," with a sudden thought, "why not wire him? I will do it as I go to the station."
"Perhaps you'd better," agreed Latimer. "I wish he had remained here for the convention; but I know he will be glad to make the trip for the sake of the boy, and the sight of his face will do me good."
"You've been working too hard. ”

“ His heart was drawn still more closely to the stricken man. He longed to bring back to that sad face the smile that he remembered on the Far West, when Latimer's buoyancy had been like wine to his lonely heart. He felt confident that the friendship of one man for another could reach the heart of his friend, now closing against all human sympathy.
It was noon before Danvers reached Helena and made his way to Judge Latimer's residence. He was startled by the absence of life, the silence and drawn shades. Turning, he saw Miss Blair entering her own gate. ”

“ But you made the effort in the dark, not knowing how it might end.”
“But it was right to do, and that was Lucy’s part, and the disposing of it is God’s,” said Miss Latimer. “We must not do evil that good may come. But we must do right, however its ending may seem to us.” ”

“ The shock of seeing his brother dead, a brother who had apparently passed out of his memory, restored the mind of John Latimer; so that when he recovered from it he was again sane and mentally sound.
The wedding which took place in the big house on the mesa soon after, and which united the “mysterious” youth to the equally “mysterious” maiden, was a great event, and was attended by Buffalo Bill, and by Nomad and “Pizen Kate.” ”