Kitabı oku: «Idonia: A Romance of Old London», sayfa 8

You may imagine how this talk of my letting him go, who was a thousand times the better swordsman, angered my antagonist.

"Ay, Mistress Avenon," he said, in that wicked, scorning voice he had, "we shall stay it here surely to please you. But yet there be some slight formalities accustomed to be used which must first be done; and after I will go."

"What be those formalities you speak of?" she asked, with an apparent gladness that the worst was past.

"Just that I must kill him," said the dark man, very quietly between his teeth.

"Good mistress," I cried out, for I was persuaded he spake truth and dreaded lest she should see what in pity of her womanhood I would should be hid, "go aside now. Go to your chamber." But to the man I whispered, "Come without into the street."

"There spoke a coward," was his word, and drawing back upon his ground he swung up his sword arm to the height, and husbanding the weight of his whole body, stood poised to cut me down. I saw the blow coming, even in the dark, and despairing to avoid it, let drive right forward, at the same moment muffling up my eyes in the sleeve of my idle arm, for the terror of death was upon me then. Our swords sang.... But even as I struck I knew that a miracle had been wrought, for his sword never fell. Sick with amazement I opened my eyes, to see him go over amongst the bales, where he sank down with a great sobbing cry. His sword hung quivering from a rafter of the ceiling, which it had bitten into by the blade's breadth. His tallness of stature, and hardly I, had overthrown him and left me victor.

"God be praised!" I said very low, when I perceived and could believe how matters had gone; but "God have mercy!" whispered the maid.

I turned about.

"You had best go, Mistress Avenon," I said. "The rest must be my work."

"You will not surrender yourself?" she asked, very white.

"If he be dead…" I began, but could not finish for trembling.

"He is not dead, I think," she interrupted hastily, and went back to the stair, whence she soon returned with the lamp, which she set down upon a hogshead, and then bent over the wounded man.

"A kerchief," she said, briefly, "a scarf; something linen if you have it."

I tore off a strip from my sleeve and with that she staunched the worst. We made a compress of my band, drenching it in cold water, and for tightness buckled my belt upon it, which I gave her.

"There is burnt wine in yonder firkin," she said, and I fetched a draught in the cup of my two hands.

When he sighed we looked at each other, and I said—

"Who is he?"

"It is Master Guido Malpas," she whispered, and added, "I am glad you have not killed him."

But that speech went near spoiling all, seeing that I had gone into that tourney her champion.

"Ay, there would have been another tale to tell," I returned very bitterly, "had your rafters been set but a span higher."

"Oh, you mistake me, Mr. Denis (I think they call you so)," said she, and bent low over the wounded man again. "I mean I am glad your kindness to me hath not run so far as you must needs have wished to recall it."

It is a maid's voice more than her words that comforts a man, and so, scarce had she spoken but I saw I had misjudged her.

"Denis is my name," I said eagerly, "but tell me yours now."

"You have heard it, and used it too," she answered smiling. "'Tis Avenon."

"Ay, but the other?" I cried.

She paused before she told me "Idonia."

"He loves you?" I said very quick, and nodded toward Malpas.

"He saith so."

"Doth he often trouble you thus?"

"I fear him," she said so low I could scarce hear her.

"But your father?" said I, "or your brothers? Have you none to protect you?"

"My father was slain in a sea-battle long since," she told me, "when he went in the Three Half Moons with others that traded with the Seville merchants, but falling in with a fleet of Turkey, they were nearly all taken prisoners, but my father was killed."

"You were a child then?" I asked her, and she said she was but an infant; and that her mother was long since dead also, and that she had no brothers.

She seemed as though she were about to add more, but just then the sick man revived, opening his eyes and gazing upon us as one that seemed to consider how we twain should be together in such a place. I got up from where I had been kneeling beside him and stood to stretch myself; but was surprised to find how painful my own hurts were, which I had almost forgotten to have received. I suppose Idonia saw me flinch, for she suddenly cried out, "Mr. Denis, Mr. Denis, I will come to you," and leaving Malpas where he lay, rose and came over to me, when she took me very gently by the arm and made me sit, as indeed I needed little persuasion to do. Howbeit I was (as I have said) scarcely scratched, and should have felt foolish at the elaborate business she made of it, had not her hair been so near to my lips.

But presently, and while we were thus employed, she with dressing my hurts, and I with such and such affairs, Idonia whispered—

"Doth he know where you lodge?"

"Yes," said I, "he discovered the place to-night," and told her where it was, and of the kindness Master Gregory had shown me.

"I knew not his name," she interrupted me hurriedly, while making pretence to busy herself with the tightening a bandage, "nor of what authority he were that took you from me when you were hurt before; but he looked at me as at one that would not use you well, and in the end spoke something roughly to me, so that I dared not follow you. Ah! these upright staid men!" she added with a world of bitterness; but then, "Now your lodging is known, you must leave it straightway, sir."

"I am not used to run away," said I, more coldly than I had meant to do, and she said no more. When we looked up Malpas had gone.

We looked at each other without speaking for admiration of the strength and secrecy he had shown in thus stealing off.

"I must go too," I said presently, and saw her eyes widen in dismay.

"Beware of him!" she whispered. "He doth not forget. And see! he hath not neglected to take his sword;" as indeed, most marvellously, he had done.

"Well, he serves an honest gentleman," quoth I carelessly, "so that if I have cause to think he plots against my life, I shall lay my complaint before my lord Pembroke."

But she shook her head as doubting the wisdom, or at least the efficacy, of that, though she said nought either way, but led me soon after to the great oaken door (which Malpas had left ajar when he went) and set it wide. The night was very dark, with the moon now gone down into the bank of cloud, and so still that we heard a sentinel challenge one at the Bulwark Gate of the Tower. I thought too I heard the rattle of an oar against the thole, as though a boat put off from the Galley Quay a little below, but of that I was not sure.

"God keep you," I said to the maid; but when she did not answer me I looked down and saw she was weeping.

When I went away, I heard the bolt shoot into its rusted socket, and asked myself: how would my case stand now, had Idonia shot it, as she essayed to do, at the first?

CHAPTER XII

HOW MR. JORDAN COULD NOT RUN COUNTER TO THE COURSE OF NATURE

I know not yet (and I thank Heaven for my ignorance) what may be the peculiar weakness of old age, though I suspect it to lie in an excessive regard for life; but of youth I have proved it to be a contempt of life; which, despite the philosophic ring of the phrase, I do affirm to be a fault, though I am willing to allow that I mean a contempt, not of our own, but of another man's life, and a surprise that he should hold dear so vulgar a commodity.

Thus, as I walked away from the house of Idonia, I pondered long and carefully the small account that Mr. Malpas was of, and could not conceive how he had the monstrous impudency to cling so tight as he did to the habit of living, which (as a soiled shirt) he might well enough have now been content to exchange. Indeed, the more I thought upon the matter, the greater increased my sense of the absurdity that such a man should claim his share of the world, or rather (to select the essential quality of my complaint) his share of that corner of Thames Street where Idonia lived, which goeth by the name of Petty Wales. From thence, at all hazards, I was determined to exclude him. For had not Idonia said: "I fear him"? and that was enough for me. Indeed it seemed to elevate my jealousy into an obligation of chivalry, merely to remember that sallow-faced swaggerer that said he loved her. Simon Powell should have fitted me with some knight's part, methought, amidst his Peredurs and Geraints, and I would have proved myself worthy as the best of them.

But that was all very well. It was past ten o'clock, and when I got to London Bridge I found it barred against me and the watch within the gate-house snoring. I knocked twice or thrice pretty hard and at length woke the watch; but so angered was he at thus losing of his sleep, besides that he thought perhaps to recover upon his late remissness, that he flew into an unnecessary zeal of watchfulness, swearing I was some vagabond rogue, and, bidding me begone, shut the wicket in my face. In vain did I endeavour to make myself known, bawling my name through the gate, and Mr. Nelson's too; the porter had returned to his interrupted repose, and nothing on earth would move him again, for that night at least.

So after having launched one or two such observations as I thought befitted the occasion, I made the best of it I could, and turned away to seek for some cleanly house of receipt where I might pass the remainder of the night. Some while I spent in ranging hither and thither, without happening on such an hostelry as did please me (for I confess to a niceness in these matters); but at length, coming into a place where two streets met, I found there a very decent quiet house that answered to my wishes so well that I immediately entered and bespoke a chamber for the night. Here I slept exceeding soundly, and in the morning awoke, though yet sore from my scratches, yet otherwise refreshed and cheerful.

The better part of the travellers that had lain there were already up and away ere I arose, so that I had the room to myself almost, wherein I broke my fast, and, save for the lad that served me, held conversation with none other. Had I known in what fashion we were to meet later, I should no doubt have observed him with more closeness than I did, but I saw in a trice he was one that a groat would buy the soul of, and another groat the rest of him.

"'Twas late you came hither last night," he said as he set down my tankard beside me upon the table.

I smiled without replying, and nodded once or twice, to give him a supposition of my discretion; but he took it otherwise.

"Ay, you say truly," he ran on, "there is a liberty of inns that no private house hath. Come when you list and go when you have a mind to; there's no constraint nor question amongst us."

"Be pleased to fetch me the mustard," said I.

"You know what is convenient," he returned in a voice of keen approval, as he brought it. "Now, I was once a serving man in Berkeley Inn, called so of my lord Berkeley that lodgeth there. But whether he were at home or absent, I was ever there. And where I was, you understand, there must needs be necessaries bought, and such things as were, as I say, convenient."

He leered upon me very sly as he spoke these mysteries; by which I perceived I was already deep in his favour, as he was (like enough) deep in villainies.

"I marvel how from a lord's mansion you came to serve in a common tavern," said I, to check him.

"Oh, rest you easy, sir," he laughed, "for the difference is less than one might suppose. There be pickings and leavings there as in an hostelry, a nimble wit needed in both places indifferently, and for the rest, work to be scanted and lies to be told. Hey! and lives to be lived, master, and purses filled, and nought had, here nor there, but must be paid for or else stolen."

Such light-hearted roguery I owed it to my conscience to condemn, but for the life of me I could not, so that I fell into a great laughter that no shame might control. I hope it was weakness of my body, and not of virtue, pushed me to this length, but however come by, I could not help it, and think moreover it did me good.

"Come, that is the note I like," said my tapster, whose name I learnt was Jocelin; and, setting his lips close to my ear, he added, "London town is but a lump of fat dough, master, till you set the yeast of wit to work therein; but after, look you! there be fair risings, and a handsome great loaf to share." His eyes sparkled. "I have the wit, man, I am the yeast, and so…"

He had not finished his period, or if he did I marked him not, for just at that season the gate of a great house over the way opening, a party of horsemen rode forth into the street with a clatter of hoofs. They wheeled off at a smart pace to the right-hand, laughing and calling out to each other as they went, and sending the children a-skelter this way and that before them. Yet, notwithstanding they were gone by so speedily, I had yet espied the device upon their harness and cloaks, which was the green dragon and Pembroke cognizance. I flung back my chair.

"Is yon house Baynards Castle?" I cried.

"None other," he replied, nodding while he grinned. "I have certain good friends there, too."

"Is Mr. Malpas of the number?" I demanded.

"Oh, he!" he answered with a shrug. "A bitter secret man! If 'a has plots he keeps them close. He flies alone, though 'tis whispered he flies boldly. But we be honest men," quoth he, and held his chin 'twixt finger and thumb. "We live and let live, and meet fortune with a smile. But I hate them that squint upon the world sidelong, as he doth." From which I drew inference that they twain had formerly thieved together, and that Malpas had retained the spoil.

But I soon tossed these thoughts aside for another, which, as it came without premeditation, so did I put it into practice immediately. Having satisfied my charges at the inn, therefore, and without a word to Jocelin, I ran across the street and into the gate-house of the castle, before the porter had time to close the gate of it behind the horsemen.

"Is Mr. Malpas within?" I accosted him eagerly.

The porter regarded me awhile from beneath raised brows.

"Have you any business with him, young master?" said he.

"Grave business," I replied, "knowing, as I do, who it was gave him that hurt he lies sick withal."

The old man pushed the gate to with more dispatch than I had thought him capable of using. "Ay, you know that?" he muttered, looking upon me with extraordinary interest. "That should be comfortable news to Signor Guido; that should be honey and oil to his wound;" and I saw by that he understood his Malpas pretty well.

He led me aside into his lodge, and there, being set in his deep, leathern chair, spread himself to listen.

"Who is he, now?" he asked, in that rich, low voice a man drops into that anticipates the savour of scandal.

I looked him up and down as though to assure myself of his secrecy, and then—

"'Twas Master Cleeve," said I.

Heavy man as he was, he yet near leapt from his chair.

"Is't come to that?" he cried. "Master Botolph Cleeve! Now the saints bless us, young man, that it should be so, and they once so close to hold as wind and the weather-cock!"

I saw his error and meant to profit by it, but not yet. If, indeed, my uncle Botolph were hand-in-glove with Malpas, why, then, I was saved the pains to deal with them singly. Having smelled out the smoke, it should go hard but I would soon tread out the fire. Howbeit, I judged that to question the old man further at that season would be to spoil all; since by manifesting the least curiosity of my uncle, I should deny my news (as he understood it) that my uncle, and not I, had near robbed Malpas of his life. Noting the porter, then, for a man to be considered later, I returned to my politic resolution to get speech of Malpas himself, and to tell him, moreover, that Mistress Avenon abhorred his addresses, which I was therefore determined should cease.

Perhaps I counted upon his sick condition in this, and upon a correspondent meekness of behaviour, but regard it as you will, I was a mere fool and deserved my rival should rise from his bed and beat the folly out of me. Nevertheless, I take pride that my folly ran no further, so that when the porter inquired who I might be that desired to carry this message to the wounded man, I had sufficient wit to answer frankly that I was Mr. Cleeve's nephew; which reply seemed to set the seal of truth to that had preceded.

"Mass!" swore the porter, lying back in his chair, "then methinks your news will doubly astonish Mr. Malpas, seeing who you be that bring it."

"It should somewhat surprise him to learn 'twas my uncle wounded him," quoth I modestly.

The porter: "Surprise him! 'Twill make him run mad! I admire how you can venture into his chamber with such heady tidings."

"Oh, in the cause of truth, Master Porter," I returned stoutly, "one should not halt upon the sacrificing of an uncle or so."

"Why, that's religiously said," quoth the porter, who, I could see, having relieved his conscience in warning me, was glad I would not be put off, and, indeed (old cock-pit haunter that he was!), did love the prospect of battle with all his withered heart.

I asked him then what office about my lord's household Mr. Guido held, and he told me he was keeper of the armoury, and served out the pikes and new liveries; that, moreover, when my lord was absent he was advanced to a place of greater trust.

"The which I hope he justifies," said I gravely, but the porter blew out his cheeks and said nothing.

"Will you lead me to his chamber?" I asked him presently, and he bade me follow him, first taking up his ring of keys.

We crossed the court together, going towards the west corner of it, where he opened a door that led on to a winding stair, which we ascended. When we had climbed almost to the roof as I thought, he stayed before another door that I had not observed (so dark and confined was the place), through which he preceded me into the gallery beyond it, a low but very lightsome place, with a row of dormer windows along the outer side of it, from one of which, when I paused to look forth, I beheld the river Thames directly beneath us, and a fleet of light craft thereon, wherries and barges and the like, and across the Southwark flats, far distant, London Bridge, with Nonsuch House in the midst of it, that cut in twain the morning light with a bar of grey.

While I stood thus gazing idly the great bell of the gate rang out with a sudden clangour.

"Pox o' the knave that founded thee a brazen ass!" cried the porter. "Ay, kick thy clapper-heels, ring on! Again! again! Shield us, master, what doomsday din is there! Well, get gone your ways, Master Nephew of Cleeve; that long, yellow man's chamber lieth beyond, upon the right hand, in a bastion of the wall.... List to the bell!" and with that he turned back in haste and clattered down the stair.

I followed his direction as well as I might, going forward down the gallery to Malpas' room, although, to speak truly, I had come into some distaste of that business already, and would have been glad enough to forego it altogether had not my pride forbidden me so to return upon my resolution. At the door I stooped down and listened for any sound of groaning, which, when I plainly heard, I could not but confess 'twas something less than merciful to trouble the poor man at such a time. But having conjured up the figure of Idonia, my pity of her aggressor fell away again, so that without more ado I knocked smartly upon the door.

I was answered by a groan deeper than before.

"Have I leave to enter?" I demanded, but was told very petulantly I had not.

"We are not unacquainted," said I, with my lips to the keyhole.

"The more reason you should stay without," said he, and I could hear him beat his pillow flat, and turn over heavily upon his side.

"Hast thou forgot my sword so soon?" cried I in a great resentment that the victor should be pleading thus at the chamber door of the vanquished.

"Go, hack with thy tongue, Thersites!" came the voice again; but at that I waited no further, but burst in. I had got scarce two paces over the threshold when—

"Why, Master Jordan!" I cried out, for there on the bed lay my ancient fat friend, his heavy Warham-face peering above the quilt, a tasselled nightcap bobbing over his nose, and all else of him (and of the furniture too) hid and o'erlaid by a very locust-swarm of folios.

At the first sight of me I thought he would have called upon the mountains to bury him, from mere shame of his discovery.

"Away!" he gasped, when he could get breath to say it; "away, graceless child! I am no foiner; I know you not. I am a man of peace, a reverend doctor. My trade is in books. Impallesco chartis; I grow pallid with conning upon the written word. What be your armies and your invasions and your marchings to and fro? that lives should be lived, and brains spent and lost therein. I tell you, one verse of Catullus shall outweigh the clatter of a battalion, and Tully is the only sergeant I salute." And so, having hurled his defiance, he sank back amongst the bed clothes and drew down his nightcap an inch lower upon his brow.

"You know me very well, good doctor," quoth I, and advanced to his bedside, which was fortified with an huge vallum of the Consolations. "I am Denis Cleeve."

"'Tis like enough," said the old man with an air of infinite resignation, and affecting still not to know me. "And I am my lord of Pembroke's poor librarian, and at this time somewhat deeply engaged upon the duties attaching to that service."

He drew forth a volume with a trembling hand as he spoke, and made as if to consult it.

"Being so accustomed as you are to the use of parchments," said I, "I had supposed you led a company of foot to tuck of drum."

He was so clearly abashed at my remembering his very words that he had formerly spoken, that I had not the heart to proceed further in my jesting, and so sitting down upon the couch beside him I told him that I applauded this his exchange of resolutions, and that there was enough of soldiers for any wars we were likely to have, but of scholars not so ample a supply as he could be spared therefrom, save upon unlooked for occasion. Mr. Jordan regarded me very mournfully while I spoke thus, and when I had done lay a great while silent, fingering his folios and shaking his tasselled head. At length he replied thus—

"You have a great heart, my son," said he with a sigh, "and think to comfort one that lacks not virtue (I hope), although the diligence to apply it manfully. Alas! much learning, Denis, hath made me marvellously to hate confusion and strife. My mind burroweth as a coney in the dark places of knowledge, but never my body endureth a posture of opposition. Thought is a coward, all said: and philosophy nought else but the harness we have forged to protect our hinder parts while we shuffle ingloriously from the fray. 'Tis no hero's person we assume, lad; and your old fool, your erudite scratchpole—Graecis litteris eruditus, hey?—is everywhere and rightly derided."

I told him very earnestly I thought otherwise, but he would not hear me out, affirming his contrary opinion, namely, that he was a coward and trembled at the very name of an enemy, excepting only of his principal enemy, to wit, his bed. "And with that," said he, "I have been forced into concluding an unconditional alliance."

Now I could not bear he should thus contemptuously belittle his valour, of which I had formerly seen sufficient proof in his dealing with the thieves about Glastonbury, and said so roundly.

"Well, lad," he replied, and puckering up his face into a grim smile, "be it as you will; and at bottom I confess I believe I have as much courage as another man: of which quality indeed it needed some modicum to encounter my conscience and return to the path I was set in by Nature. For there is but little bravery in running counter to our natures, Denis, and especially when applause and honour lie both that way. Ay, I think," quoth he, "I have some obstinacy below, though you must e'en stir in the sediment to raise it."

In reply to my asking how it had come about that he was installed keeper of my lord's books, he said it had been consequent upon his intention (while he yet held to it) of enrolling himself soldier; that the magistrate to whom he had applied him for that purpose, when he proposed the oath of allegiance had seen fit to eke it out and amplify his warrant with so offensive a comparison betwixt the arts of letters and war, to the utter disadvantage of letters, as he could not abide the conclusion of, but made off; nor could he ever be induced to return thither any more.

"And notwithstanding I cried out upon my defection daily," he proceeded, "I perceived that fate had put the term to my military service or ever 'twas begun, and so sought elsewhere for employment. Indeed I had arrived at my last victual, and had scarce wherewithal to meet the charges of my lodging. But in a good hour I fell in with another of the like condition with mine, though for the rest, a poet, and therefore of a more disordered spirit. His name was, as I remember, Andrew Plat, but of where he dwelt I am ignorant. He was boldly for stealing what he could not come by honestly, and so far put his design into practice as, breaking into this very Castle, he furnished his belly with the best, both of meat and drink. In the morning he was found drunk, in which condition he confessed all, but with such craven and mendacious addition as involved me also, who was thereupon cited to appear.

"I excused myself, as you may suppose, very easily, but by an inadvertence I excused myself in Latin.

"'How!' cried my lord, 'you make your apology in Latin?'

"'Have I so done?' said I, 'then judge me as a Roman, for amongst these barbarians thou and I be the only two civilized.'

"He laughed very heartily at that, and having informed himself of my merits, soon after delivered up his books into my charge.

"And thus I am, as you see me, returned to my former occupation, which I shall never again pretermit upon any motion of magnanimity. If aught in the future shall offend me, if evil rumours shall penetrate to this quiet angle of the world, I take up no lance to combat the same, my son, having a better remedy: which is to rinse out my mouth with great draughts of Virgil and Cicero, and thereafter with a full voice to thank the gods that I was not begot of the seed of Achilles."

He invited me to remain to dinner with him, but I would not, and went away by the way I had come, my head so full of this strange case of Mr. Jordan (whom I had only chanced upon through the lucky accident of my having mistaken the porter's direction), that I remembered not so much as Malpas his name even, until I was safe in the warden's house upon the Bridge; where I found good Madam Nelson anxiously expecting my return, who moreover had a steaming hot platter for me that she served up with certain less palatable satires upon my night's absence. However, I thought it wise to let them pass for that season, and not justify myself therein; for a woman loveth not the man that answereth her again; and especially when he is in the right of it.