Portrait of an Unknown Woman by Vanora Bennett Page B
Authors: Vanora Bennett
Tags: Fiction, Historical
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about Luther’s posterioristics. “That’s William Ross speaking, not Thomas More.”
Another neat commonsense blow at my fears; another sign that John knew a lot about Father’s work. I had to admit that Father had been asked by the king—and not chosen himself—to reply to Luther’s writings against the pope. And it was true that he’d been ashamed enough of the crass language, zealotry, and poor reasoning of the writing he was doing in service of king and country that he’d only published it under a pen name. It still made me hot with shame to read those words: William Ross was a bullying bigot, and everyone knew William Ross was Father. Still, if John Clement could separate the two names in his mind, perhaps that meant Father hadn’t compromised himself as disastrously as I’d thought.
“He’s not imagining the danger of heresy,” John said gently, sensing that he’d found a chink in my armor. “I know that the man you showed me in the gatehouse looked pitiful. But we have to remember that he’s not what he seems. He’s part of the darkness that might envelop Christendom.”
“How can he be? He’s just a skinny little cobbler from Fleet Street!” I said hotly, on the defensive again.
“But a skinny little cobbler from Fleet Street can be the darkness,” John answered persuasively. “Or he can to most people. Look, you’re young enough, and lucky enough, to have been brought up in a time of peace and in a sophisticated household where everyone has read about different peoples through the ages having had very different kinds of beliefs and lived in very different kinds of states and still prospered. Your head is full of Greek gods and Roman lawmakers and Eastern men of learning and stars moving in orderly fashion through the heavens. You think civilization is everywhere. So you have a confidence that you don’t even know is unusual. You don’t live with the fear of chaos breaking through and destroying the way we live, which haunts the rest of us. You have no idea how other people feel. Most people feel mortal terror at the idea of the unholy chaos outside, waiting to engulf them. And I don’t just mean the poor and superstitious and unlettered, the people brought up without sucking in Seneca and Boethius and algebra with their mother’s milk. I mean everyone brought up in the shadow of war. Everyone brought up before this rare time of peace and outside the very unusual household you’re lucky enough to come from. I mean everyone older and less lucky than you. I mean people like your father and me.”
“But you and Father are men of learning! You know everything I know and more!” I cried, full of frustration that he wasn’t following my train of thought.
“Ah, but we weren’t brought up to it, and that’s the difference,” he said, with a certainty that made me pause. “We grew up in a world where there was nothing but the fear of the darkness. When death was waiting round every corner. When London could be surrounded at any time by an army threatening to string up every man and rape every woman and throw babies onto their sword blades and torch every parish church. When books were rare and locked up inside the monasteries, and our only hope of salvation was the One True Church and the priests who could mediate for us with God. Of course men of my age and your father’s age fell in love with the New Learning and the new freedom to think as soon as we had peace and leisure enough to explore it. But we haven’t forgotten the fear we grew up with. It’s always at the back of our minds. And we can’t feel easy when people take up arms against the church. You can’t expect that of us.”
He paused, waiting to see the light of acquiescence in my eyes. But I plowed on, even though his assurance was
Another neat commonsense blow at my fears; another sign that John knew a lot about Father’s work. I had to admit that Father had been asked by the king—and not chosen himself—to reply to Luther’s writings against the pope. And it was true that he’d been ashamed enough of the crass language, zealotry, and poor reasoning of the writing he was doing in service of king and country that he’d only published it under a pen name. It still made me hot with shame to read those words: William Ross was a bullying bigot, and everyone knew William Ross was Father. Still, if John Clement could separate the two names in his mind, perhaps that meant Father hadn’t compromised himself as disastrously as I’d thought.
“He’s not imagining the danger of heresy,” John said gently, sensing that he’d found a chink in my armor. “I know that the man you showed me in the gatehouse looked pitiful. But we have to remember that he’s not what he seems. He’s part of the darkness that might envelop Christendom.”
“How can he be? He’s just a skinny little cobbler from Fleet Street!” I said hotly, on the defensive again.
“But a skinny little cobbler from Fleet Street can be the darkness,” John answered persuasively. “Or he can to most people. Look, you’re young enough, and lucky enough, to have been brought up in a time of peace and in a sophisticated household where everyone has read about different peoples through the ages having had very different kinds of beliefs and lived in very different kinds of states and still prospered. Your head is full of Greek gods and Roman lawmakers and Eastern men of learning and stars moving in orderly fashion through the heavens. You think civilization is everywhere. So you have a confidence that you don’t even know is unusual. You don’t live with the fear of chaos breaking through and destroying the way we live, which haunts the rest of us. You have no idea how other people feel. Most people feel mortal terror at the idea of the unholy chaos outside, waiting to engulf them. And I don’t just mean the poor and superstitious and unlettered, the people brought up without sucking in Seneca and Boethius and algebra with their mother’s milk. I mean everyone brought up in the shadow of war. Everyone brought up before this rare time of peace and outside the very unusual household you’re lucky enough to come from. I mean everyone older and less lucky than you. I mean people like your father and me.”
“But you and Father are men of learning! You know everything I know and more!” I cried, full of frustration that he wasn’t following my train of thought.
“Ah, but we weren’t brought up to it, and that’s the difference,” he said, with a certainty that made me pause. “We grew up in a world where there was nothing but the fear of the darkness. When death was waiting round every corner. When London could be surrounded at any time by an army threatening to string up every man and rape every woman and throw babies onto their sword blades and torch every parish church. When books were rare and locked up inside the monasteries, and our only hope of salvation was the One True Church and the priests who could mediate for us with God. Of course men of my age and your father’s age fell in love with the New Learning and the new freedom to think as soon as we had peace and leisure enough to explore it. But we haven’t forgotten the fear we grew up with. It’s always at the back of our minds. And we can’t feel easy when people take up arms against the church. You can’t expect that of us.”
He paused, waiting to see the light of acquiescence in my eyes. But I plowed on, even though his assurance was
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