Chapter Five.
Begins with Temperance, and ends with Treachery.
“Whate’er we do, we all are doing this—
Reaping the harvest of our yesterdays,
Sowing for our to-morrows.”
S.V. Partridge.
On the following evening, Aubrey put in an appearance at the White Bear. As soon as he entered, he gave a quick, troubled look round the parlour, before he went up to kiss his grandmother’s hand. His Aunt Temperance greeted him with, “Give you good even, my Lord Chamberlain! Lancaster and Derby! do but look on him! Blue feather in his hat—lace ruff and ruffles—doublet of white satin with gold aglets—trunk hose o’ blue velvet, paned with silver taffeta—garters of blue and white silk—and I vow, a pair o’ white silken hose, and shoes o’ Spanish leather. Pray you, my Lord, is your allowance from the King’s Majesty five hundred pounds or a thousand by the year?”
“Now, Aunt, you know,” said Aubrey, laughing. “That thou art a spendthrift?” answered she. “Ay, I do: and if thou run not into debt this side o’ Christmas, my name is not Temperance Murthwaite.”
“I’m not in debt a penny,” retorted he.
“Then somebody must have given thee thy pantofles,” replied she. “Be they a cast-off pair of his Majesty’s, or did my Lord Oxford so much alms to thee?”
Aubrey laughed again, as merrily as if he had not a care nor a fault in the world.
“They cost not so much as you reckon,” he said.
“Four yards of velvet,” calculated Aunt Temperance—“you’ll not do it under, stuffed that wise of bombast, nor buy that quality, neither, under eighteen shillings the yard—let’s see,—that is three pounds twelve shillings: silver taffeta, a yard and an half, twenty-two and sixpence—that’s four pounds fourteen and six; then the lining, dowlas, I suppose, at fourteen pence—”
“They are lined with perpetuana, Aunt,” answered Aubrey, who seemed greatly amused by this reckoning.
“Perpetuana—lining? Thou reckless knave! Three-and-fourpence the yard at the least—well, we’ll say ten shillings—five pounds four and six: and the lace, at four shillings by the ounce, and there’ll be two ounces there, good: five pounds twelve shillings and sixpence, as I’m a living woman! ’Tis sinful waste, lad: that’s what it is. Your father never wore such Babylonian raiment, nor your grandfather neither, and there was ten times the wisdom and manliness in either of them that there’ll ever be in you, except you mean to turn your coat ere you are a month elder.”
As Aubrey turned to reply, his eyes fell on Hans, coming home from the mercer’s. His face changed in a minute: but Hans came forward with his hand held out as cordially as usual, and a look of real pleasure in his eyes.
“Good even, Aubrey; I am glad to see you,” said he.
“Ay, see him, do!” cried Temperance, before Aubrey could answer; and he only gave his hand in silence. “Look at him, Hans! Didst ever behold such a pair of pantofles? Five pounds twelve shillings and sixpence! How much cost thine?”
“Mine be not so brave as these,” replied Hans, smiling. “My Lord Oxford’s squire must needs wear better raiment than a silkman’s apprentice, Mrs Murthwaite.”
“Five pounds twelve shillings and sixpence!” persisted she.
“Come, now, Aunt Temperance! They cost not the half,” said Aubrey.
“Who didst thou cheat out of them, then?” asked she.
“I bought them,” he answered, laughing, “of a young noble that had borne them but twice, and was ill content with the cut and colour of them.”
“He’ll come to no good,” sternly pronounced Aunt Temperance.
“You made a good bargain,” said Hans. “That velvet cost full a pound the yard, I should say.”
“Aubrey,” inquired Temperance, “I do marvel, and I would fain know, what thou dost all the day long? Doth thy Lord keep thee standing by his chair, first o’ one leg, and then o’ tother, while he hath an errand for thee?”
“Why, no, Aunt! I am not an errand-lad,” said Aubrey, and laughed more merrily than ever. “Of late is his Lordship greatly incommoded, and hath kept his chamber during many days of this last month; but when he hath his health, I will specify unto you what I do.”
“Prithee specify, and I shall be fain to hearken.”
“Well, of a morning I aid his Lordship at his lever, and after breakfast I commonly ride with him, if it be my turn: then will he read an hour or twain in the law, without the Parliament be sitting, when he is much busied, being not only a morning man, but at committees also; in the afternoon he is often at Court, or practising of music—just now he exerciseth himself in broken music (the use of stringed instruments) and brachigraphy (shorthand): then in the evening we join my Lady and her gentlewomen in the withdrawing chamber, and divers gestes and conceits be used—such as singing, making of anagrams, guessing of riddles, and so forth. There is my day.”
“Forsooth, and a useless one it is,” commented she. “The law-books and the Parliament business seem the only decent things in it.”
“Ah, ’tis full little changed,” remarked Lady Louvaine, “these sixty years since I dwelt at Surrey Place.” And she sighed.
“Temperance, I am astonished at you,” interposed Faith. “You do nought save fault-find poor Aubrey.”
“Poor Aubrey! ay, that he is,” returned his Aunt, “and like to be a sight poorer, for all that I can see. If you’ll fault-find him a bit more, Faith, there’ll not be so much left for me to do.”
“What is the matter?” asked Edith, coming softly in.
“There’s a pair of velvet pantofles and an other of silken hose the matter, my dear,” answered Temperance, “and a beaver hat with a brave blue feather in it. I trust you admire them as they deserve, and him likewise that weareth them.”
“They are brave, indeed,” said Edith, in her quiet voice. “I would fain hope it is as fair within as without, my boy.”
She looked up in his face as she spoke with yearning love in her eyes; and as Aubrey bent his head to kiss her, he said, in the softest tone which he had yet employed since his entrance, “I am afraid not, Aunt Edith.”
And Edith answered, in that low, tender voice—
“‘Thy beauty was perfect through My comeliness which I had put upon thee.’ Dear Aubrey, let us seek that.”
Aubrey made no answer beyond a smile, and quickly turned the conversation, on his mother asking if he brought any news.
“But little,” said he. “There be new laws against witchcraft, which is grown greater and more used than of old, and the King is mightily set against it—folks say he is afraid of it. None should think, I ensure you, how easily frightened is his Majesty, and of matters that should never fright any save a child.”
“But that is not news, Aubrey,” said his mother plaintively. “I want to hear something new.”
“There isn’t an artichoke in the market this morrow,” suddenly remarked her sister.
“Temperance, what do you mean?”
“Why, that’s news, isn’t it? I am sure you did not know it, till I told you.”
Mrs Louvaine closed her eyes with an air of deeply-tried forbearance.
“Come, lad, out with thy news,” added Temperance. “Wherewith hath my Lady guarded her new spring gowns? That shall serve, I reckon.”
Aubrey laughed. “I have not seen them yet, Aunt. But I heard say of one of the young gentlewomen that silk is now for the first to be woven in England, so ’tis like to be cheaper than of old.”
“There’s a comfort!” said Mrs Louvaine, rather less languidly than usual.
“I heard tell likewise of a fresh colewort, from Cyprus in the East—they call it broccoli or kale-flower. Methinks there is nought else, without you would hear of a new fashion of building of churches, late come up—but his Lordship saith ’tis a right ancient fashion, wherein the old Greeks were wont to build their houses and temples.”
“Methinks it scarce meet to go to the heathen for the pattern of a church,” said Lady Louvaine; “are not our old churches fair enough, and suitable for their purpose?”
“In this new fashion he no chancels,” said Aubrey.
“Well, and I should hold with that,” cried Temperance: “they give rise to vain superstitions. If there be no mass, what lack we of a chancel?”
“If men list, my dear, to bring in the superstitions,” quietly remarked Lady Louvaine, “they shall scarce stick at the want of a chancel.”
“True, Madam: yet would I fain make it as hard to bring them as ever I could.”
Aubrey left his friends about six o’clock, and Hans followed him to the door. On the steps there was a short, low-toned conversation.
“Hans, after all, thou art a good lad. Did I hurt thee?”
“’Tis all o’er now, Aubrey: no matter.”
“Then I did. Well, I am sorry. Shall I give thee a silver chain to make up, old comrade?”
“All is made up. Prithee, give me nothing—save—my brother Aubrey.”
Aubrey’s tone was glib and light, though with a slight sub-accent of regret. Hans’s voice was more hesitating and husky. It cost Hans much to allow any one a glimpse into his heart; it cost Aubrey nothing. But, as is often the case, the guarded chamber contained rare treasure, while in the open one there was nothing to guard.
“Thou art a good lad!” said Aubrey again, in a slightly ashamed tone, as he took the offered hand. “Truly, Hans, I was after none ill, only—well, I hate to be watched and dogged, or aught like thereto.”
“Who does not?” replied Hans. “And in truth likewise, I was but coming home, and spake my astonishment at seeing you.”
“We are friends, then?”
“God forbid we should ever be any thing else! Good-night, and God keep you in His way!”
Not many days afterwards, an event happened, of some consequence to our friends at the White Bear. Their one powerful friend, Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford, died in June, 1604.
A strange study for a student of human nature is this Earl of Oxford—a curious compound, like his late royal lady, of greatness and littleness. He began life as a youthful exquisite. His costumes were more extravagant, his perfumes more choice, his Italian more pure and fluent, than those of the other dilettante nobles of his time. He was a minor poet of some note in his day, and was esteemed to be the first writer of comedy then living—though Shakespeare was living too. In middle life he blossomed out into a military patriot. He ended his days as a hard, cold, morose old man. His life-lamp was used up: it had been made so to flare in early youth, that there was no oil left to light him at the end, when light and warmth were most needed. Having quarrelled with his father-in-law, the great Earl of Burleigh, he registered a savage and senseless vow to “ruin his daughter,” which he could do only by ruining himself. In pursuance of this insane resolution, he spent right and left, until his estate was wrecked, and the innocent Countess Anne was hunted into her grave.
The son who succeeded to his father’s title, and to the few acres which this mad folly had not flung away, was a mere boy of twelve years old. It became a serious question in Lady Louvaine’s mind whether Aubrey should remain in the household after the decease of the old Earl. She found, however, that the widowed Countess Elizabeth kept a very orderly house, and a strict hand over her son and his youthful companions, so that Lady Louvaine, who saw no other door open, thought it best to leave Aubrey where he was. The Countess, who had been Maid of Honour to Queen Elizabeth, had been well drilled by that redoubtable lady into proper and submissive behaviour; and she now required similar good conduct from her dependants, with excellent reasons for absence or dereliction from duty. That she was never deceived would be too much to say.
Meanwhile, matters progressed busily in the house by the river-side. The conspirators took in a sixth accomplice—Christopher Wright, the younger brother of John—and the six began their mine, about the eleventh of December, 1604.
The wall of the House of Lords was three yards in thickness; the cellar of Percy’s house was extremely damp, being close to the river, and the water continually oozed through into the mine. Finding their task more difficult than they had anticipated, a seventh was now taken into the number—a pervert, Robert Keyes, the son of a Protestant clergyman in Derbyshire. A second house was hired at Lambeth, of which Keyes was placed in charge, while to Fawkes was committed the chief business of laying in the combustibles, first in the Lambeth house, and afterwards of removing them to that at Westminster. Fawkes went cautiously about his business, purchasing his materials in various parts of the City, so as not to excite suspicion. He provided in all, three thousand billets of wood, five hundred faggots, thirty-six barrels of gunpowder, with stones and bars of iron, in order that the explosion might be more destructive. From the Bankside, or south bank of the Thames, where it lay in hampers, twenty barrels of the powder was first brought in boats, by night, to the house at Westminster, where it was stored in the cellar to await the finishing of the mine. By Christmas they had penetrated the wall of Percy’s house, and had reached that of the House of Lords. They thought it desirable now to rest for the Christmas holidays; Keyes was left in charge of the house at Lambeth, and the others departed in various directions.
“Well, upon my word! Prithee, good my master, who’s your tailor?”
The speaker was Temperance Murthwaite, who was clad in the plainest of brownish drab serges, without an unnecessary tag or scrap of fringe, and carried on her arm an unmistakable market-basket, from which protruded the legs of a couple of chickens and sundry fish-tails, notwithstanding the clean cloth which should have hidden such ignoble articles from public view. The person addressed was Mr Aubrey Louvaine, and his costume was a marvel of art and a feast of colour.
“My tailor is Adrian Sewell, Aunt, in Thieving Lane—”
“Like enough!” was the response. “Well, Gentleman?”
“Shall I—” The words died on Aubrey’s lips. His aunt, who read his thoughts exactly, stood wickedly enjoying the situation.
“Shall you carry the basket? By all means, if it please your Highness. Have a care, though, lest the tails of those whitings sully yon brave crimson velvet, and see the fowls thrust not their talons into that Spanish lace. Methinks, Master Aubrey, considering your bravery of array, you were best pocket your civility this morrow. It’ll be lesser like to harm the lace and velvet than the chicks’ legs and the fish-tails. You may keep me company an’ you will, if I be good enough to trudge alongside so fine a Whitsuntide show as you are. That’s two of ’em.”
“Of what, Aunt?” said Aubrey, feeling about as unhappy as a mixture of humiliation and apprehension could make him. If they were to meet one of Lord Oxford’s gentlemen, or one of his wealthy acquaintances, he felt as though he should want the earth to open and swallow him.
“Suits, Gentleman,” was the reply. “Blue and white the first; crimson and silver the second. Haven’t seen the green and gold yet, nor the yellow, nor purple. Suppose they’re in the wardrobe. Rather early times, to be thus bedizened, or seems so to working folks—the Abbey clock went eight but a few minutes since. But quality is donned early, I know.”
As Mistress Temperance emitted this tingling small-shot of words, she was marching with some rapidity up Old Palace Yard and the Abbey Close, her magnificent nephew keeping pace with her, right sore against his will. At last Aubrey could bear no longer. The windows of the Golden Fish were in sight, and his soul was perturbed by a vision of the fair Dorothy, who might be looking out, and whose eyes might light on the jewel of himself in this extremely incongruous setting of Aunt Temperance and the fish-tails.
“Aunt Temperance, couldn’t—” Aubrey’s words did not come so readily as usual, that morning.
“Couldn’t I walk slower?” suggested the aggravating person who was the cause of his misery. “Well, belike I could.—There’s Mrs Gertrude up at the window yonder—without ’tis Mrs Dorothy.—There’s no hurry in especial, only I hate to waste time.”
And suiting the action to the word, Aunt Temperance checked her steps, so as to give the young lady, whether it were Gertrude or Dorothy, a more leisurely view of the fish-tails.
“Couldn’t Rachel go marketing instead of you?” sputtered out Aubrey.
“Rachel has her own work; and so has Charity. And so have I, Mr Louvaine. I suppose you haven’t, as you seem to be gallivanting about Westminster in crimson and silver at eight o’clock of a morning. Now then—”
“Aunt, ’tis not my turn this morrow to wait on my Lord’s lever. I shall be at his coucher this even.”
“You may open the door, my master, if it demean not so fine a gentleman.—Good maid! Take my basket, Rachel. The fish for dinner, and the chicken for to-morrow.”
“There’s nobut four whitings here, Mistress: shouldn’t there be five?”
“Hush thee, good maid. They’re twopence apiece.”
“Eh, yo’ never sen (say) so!”
“Ay, but I do. Let be; I’ll have a bit of green stuff, or something.”
And as Rachel, looking but half satisfied, went off with the basket, Temperance threw open the parlour door.
“Madam, suffer me to announce the Duke of Damask, the Prince of Plush, the Viscount of Velvet, and the Baron of Bombast. Pray you, look not for four nobles; there is but one.”
“Aubrey!” was the response, in diverse tones, from the three ladies.
The object of this attention did not look happy; but he walked in and offered due greeting to his relatives. Temperance sat down, untied her plain black hood, and laid it aside.
“And whither might your Lordship be going when I captivated you?” asked she. “Not to this house, for you had passed it by.”
“In good sooth, Aunt, I did not—I meant, indeed—I should maybe have looked in,” stammered the young man.
“Tell no lies, my lad, for thou dost it very ill,” was Aunt Temperance’s most inconsiderate reply.
“You might come to see us oftener, I’m sure, Aubrey, if you would,” said his mother in a plaintive voice. “It is hard, when I have only one child, that he should never care to come. I wish you had been a girl like Lettice, and then we could have had some comfort out of you.”
“My dear,” said Aunt Temperance, “he is devoutly thankful he’s not. He doesn’t want to be tied at the aprons of a parcel of women, trust me. Have you had your pipe of open-work, or what you are pleased to call it, Gentleman, this morrow? Only think of hanging that filthy stench about those velvet fal-lals! With whom spent you last even, lad?”
The question came so suddenly that Aubrey was startled into truth. “With some friends of mine in the Strand, Aunt.” The next instant he was sorry.
“Let’s have their names,” said Aunt Temperance.
“Well, Tom Rookwood was one.”
“Folks generally put the best atop. Hope he wasn’t the best. Who else?”
“Some gentlemen to whom Rookwood introduced me.”
“I want their names,” said the female examiner.
“Well—one of them is a Mr Winter.” Aubrey spoke with great reluctance, as his aunt saw well. He selected Winter’s name as being least uncommon of the group. But he soon found that Destiny, in the person of Aunt Temperance, did not mean to let him off so lightly as this.
“What sort of an icicle is he?”
“He isn’t an icicle at all, Aunt, but a very good fellow and right pleasant company.”
“Prithee bring him to see us. Where lodgeth he?—is he a London man?”
“He is a Worcestershire gentleman, on a visit hither.”
“Pass him. Who else?”
“Well—a man named Darcy.”
“A man, and not a gentleman? Whence comes he?”
“I don’t know. Scarcely a gentleman, seeing he deals in horses.”
“Horses are good fellows enough, mostly: but folks who deal in horses are apt to be worser,—why, can I never tell. Is the horse-dealer pleasant company belike?”
“Not so much to my liking as Mr Winter.”
“I’m fain to hear it. Who else?”
“There is a Mr Percy, kin to my Lord Northumberland.”
Aunt Temperance drew in her breath with an inverted whistle. “Lo, you now, we are in select society!”
But Edith turned suddenly round. “Aubrey, is he a true Protestant?” She knew that Lord Northumberland was reckoned “the head of the recusants.”
“I really don’t know, Aunt,” replied Aubrey, to whom the idea had never before occurred. “I never heard him say aught whence I could guess it. He is a very agreeable man.”
“The more agreeable, maybe, the more dangerous. My boy, do have a care! ‘He that is not with Me is against Me.’”
“Oh, he’s all right, I am sure,” said Aubrey, carelessly.
“You seem sure on small grounds,” said Aunt Temperance. “Well, have we made an end?—is he the last?”
“No, there is one other—Mr Catesby.”
Aubrey had deliberately left Catesby to the last, yet he could not have explained for what reason. Lady Louvaine spoke for the first time.
“Catesby?—a Catesby of Ashby Ledgers?”
“I have not heard, further than that his home is in Northamptonshire, and his mother the Lady Anne Catesby.”
“I think it is. They are a Popish family, or were, not many years ago. Aubrey, come here.”
The young man obeyed, in some surprise. His gentle grandmother was not wont to speak in tones of such stern determination as these.
“My boy!” she said, “I charge thee on my benison, and by the dear memory of him from whom thou hast thy name, that thou endeavour thyself to thine utmost to discover whether these men be Papists or no. Ask not of themselves—they may deceive thee; and a Papist oft counts deceit no wrong when it is done in the interests of his Church. Make my compliments to my cousin, my Lady Oxford, and give her the names of these gentlemen, and where they lodge; saying also that I do most earnestly beseech that she will make inquiry by her chaplain, and give me to know, how they stand concerned in this matter. Aubrey, you know not the danger of such friendship: I do. Obey me, at your peril.”
Never in his life had Aubrey heard such words from the usually soft, sweet lips of the Lady Lettice. He was thoroughly frightened, all the more because the dangers to be feared were so vague and unknown. A few minutes before, he had been feeling vexed with his Aunt Temperance for catechising him so strictly about his friends. Now, this sensation had quite given way before astonishment and vague apprehension.
“Yes, Madam, I will,” he answered gravely.
And he meant it. But—
What a number of excellent people, and what a multiplicity of good deeds, there would be in this naughty world, if only that little conjunction could be left out!
Aubrey quitted the White Bear with the full intention of carrying out his grandmother’s behest. But not just now. He must do it, of course, before he saw her again. Lady Oxford might take it into her head to pay a visit to Lady Louvaine, in which case it would surely be discovered if the question had not been passed on. Of course it must be done: only, not just now. He might surely spend a few more pleasant evenings at Winter’s lodgings, before he set on foot those disagreeable inquiries which might end in his being deprived of the pleasure. Lady Oxford, therefore, was not troubled that evening,—nor the next, nor indeed for a goodly number to follow. But within a week of his visit to the White Bear, when the sharp edge of his grandmother’s words had been a little blunted by time, and the cares of other things had entered in, Aubrey again made his way to the lodgings occupied by Winter at the sign of the Duck, in the Strand, “hard by Temple Bar.”
There were various reasons for this action. In the first place, Aubrey was entirely convinced that the judgment of a man of twenty-one was to be preferred before that of a woman of seventy-seven. Secondly, he enjoyed Winter’s society. Thirdly, he liked Winter’s tobacco. Fourthly, he admired Betty, who usually let him in, and who, being even more foolish than himself, was not at all averse to a few empty compliments and a little frothy banter, which he was very ready to bestow. For Aubrey was not of that sterling metal of which his grandfather had been made, “who loved one only and who clave to her,” and to whom it would have been a moral impossibility to flirt with one woman while he was making serious love to another. Lastly, the society of his friends had acquired an added zest by the probability of its being a dangerous luxury. He loved dearly to poise himself on the edge of peril, though of course, like all who do so, he had not the slightest intention of falling in.
On the evening in question, Betty made no appearance, and Aubrey was let in by her mistress, a plain-featured middle-aged woman, on whom he had no temptation to waste his perfumes. He made his way up the stairs to Winter’s door, and his hand was on the latch when he heard Percy’s voice.
“Through by the seventh of February! You’ll be nothing of the sort.”
“I cry you mercy. I think we shall,” answered Catesby.
Aubrey lifted the latch, and entered.
Four gentlemen sat round the fire—Winter and Catesby; Percy, whom Aubrey knew, and in whose hand was the pipe; and a fourth, a tall, dark, and rather fine-looking man, with brown hair, auburn beard, and a moustache the ends of which curled upwards.
“Ha! Mr Louvaine? You are right welcome,” said Winter, rising to greet his young friend, while Percy took his pipe from his lips, and offered it to the latter. Nobody introduced the stranger, and Aubrey took but little notice of him, especially as thenceforth he sat in silence. He might have paid more if he could have known that after three hundred years had rolled by, and the names of all then known as eminent men should have faded from common knowledge, the name of that man should be fresh in the memory of every Englishman, and deeply interesting to every English boy. He was in the company of Guy Fawkes.
To appear as a nameless stranger, and indeed to appear at all as little as possible, was Fawkes’s policy at this moment. He was just about to present himself on the stage as John Johnson, “Mr Percy’s man,” and for any persons in London to know him by his own name would be a serious drawback, for it was to a great extent because he was unknown in Town that he had been selected to play this part. Yet matters were not quite ready for the assumption of his new character. He therefore sat silent, and was not introduced.
They smoked, sipped Rhenish wine, and chatted on indifferent subjects, for an hour or more; discussed the “sleeping preacher,” Richard Haydock, then just rising into notoriety—who professed to deliver his sermons in his sleep, and was afterwards discovered to be an imposter; the last benefaction in the parish church, for two poor Irish gentlewomen on their journey home, recommended by letters from the Council; the last new ballad.
“But have you beheld,” asked Winter, when these topics were exhausted, “the King’s new caroche of the German fashion, with a roof to fall asunder at his Majesty’s pleasure?”
“I have,” said Catesby; “and methinks it shall take with many, gentlewomen more in especial.”
“Wherefore, now?” inquired Percy, laughing. “Think you gentlewomen lack air rather than gentlemen, or that they shall think better to show their dainty array and their fair faces?”
“A little of both,” was the answer.
“There is truly great increase in coaches of late years,” remarked Winter.
“Why, the saddlers are crying out they are like to be ruined,” said Percy; “the roads are cloyed and pestered, and the horses lamed.”
“Ay, and that is not the worst of it,” added Catesby. “Evil-disposed persons, who dare not show themselves openly for fear of correction, shadow and securely convey themselves in coaches, and so are not to be distinguished from persons of honour.”
The whole company agreed that this was extremely shocking, and piously denounced all evil-disposed persons in a style which Aubrey thought most edifying. As he walked back later, he meditated whether he should make those inquiries of Lady Oxford that night, and decided not to do so. No real Papist or traitor, thought the innocent youth, would be likely to denounce evil-disposed persons! The airs they had been singing, before parting, recurred to his mind, and he hummed fragments of them as he went along. “Row well, ye mariners,” “All in a garden green,” “Phillida flouts me,” and the catch of “Whoop, Barnaby!” finishing up with “Greensleeves” and one or two madrigals—these had been their evening entertainment: but madrigals were becoming unfashionable, and were not heard now so often as formerly. The music of Elizabeth’s day, which was mainly harmony with little melody, containing “scarcely any tune that the uncultivated ear could carry away,” was giving way to a less learned but more melodious style. Along with this, there was a rapid increase in the cultivation of instrumental music, while vocal music continued to be exceedingly popular. It was usual enough for tradesmen and artisans to take part in autiphons, glees, and part-songs of all kinds, while ballads were in such general favour that ballad-mongers could earn twenty shillings a day. A bass viol generally hung in a drawing-room for the visitors to play; but the few ladies who used this instrument were thought masculine. The education of girls at this time admitted of scarcely any accomplishment but music: they were taught to read, write, sew, and cook, to play the virginals, lute, and cithern, and to read prick-song at sight,—namely, to sing from the score, without accompaniment. Those who were acquainted with any language beside their own were the few and highly-cultured; and a girl who knew French or Italian was still more certain to have learned Latin, if not Greek. German and Spanish were scarcely ever taught; indeed, the former was regarded as quite outside the list of learnable tongues.
It was a sore trouble to Aubrey that the White Bear and the Golden Fish were next door to each other. Had he had the ordering of their topography, they would have been so situated that he could have dropped into the latter, to sun himself in the eyes of the fair Dorothy, without the least fear of being seen from the former. He stood in wholesome fear of his Aunt Temperance’s sharp speeches, and had a less wholesome, because more selfish, dislike of his mother’s ceaseless complaints. Moreover, Aunt Edith was wont to disturb his equanimity by a few quiet occasional words which would ring in his ears for days afterwards, and make him very uncomfortable. Her speeches were never long, but they were often weighty, and were adapted to make their hearers consider their ways, and think what they would do in the end thereof—a style of consideration always unwelcome to Aubrey, and especially so since his view of the world had been enlarged by coming to London.
He was just now in an awkward position, and the centre and knot of the awkwardness was Dorothy Rookwood. He was making no way with Dorothy. Her brother he met frequently at Winter’s rooms, but if he wished to see her, he must go to her home. If he went there, he must call at the White Bear. If he did that, he must first deliver his grandmother’s message to Lady Oxford. And only suppose that Lady Oxford’s inquiries should lead to discoveries which would end in a rupture between the Golden Fish and the White Bear—in Aubrey’s receiving an order to drop all acquaintance with the Rookwoods! For Aubrey’s training, while very kindly conducted, had been one of decided piety; and unchanged as was his heart, the habits and tone of eighteen years were not readily shaken off. He could not feel easy in doing many things that he saw others do; he could not take upon his lips with impunity words which he heard freely used around him. His conscience was unseared as yet, and it tormented him sorely. The result of these reflections was that Aubrey turned into Oxford House, without visiting King Street at all, and sought his bed without making any attempt to convey the message.
Before the conspirators resumed their work after the Christmas holidays, they took two more into their number. These were Robert Winter of Huddington, the elder brother of Thomas, and John Grant of Norbrook, who had married Dorothy, sister of the Wrights. Catesby and Thomas Winter went down to the Catherine Wheel at Oxford, whence they sent for their friends to come to them, and having first pledged them to secrecy, they were then initiated into the plot.
It was about this Christmas that Catesby also took into his confidence the only one of the conspirators who was not a gentleman—his own servant, Thomas Bates, partly because he had “great opinion of him for his long-tried fidelity,” and partly also because, having been employed in carrying messages, he suspected that he had some inkling of the secret, and wished that, like the rest, he should be bound to keep it by oath. Bates is described as a yeoman, and “a man of mean station, who had been much persecuted on account of religion.” Having been desired to confirm his oath by receiving the Sacrament “with intention,” and as a pre-requisite of this was confession, Bates went to Greenway, whom he acquainted with the particulars, “which he was not desirous to hear,” and asked if he might lawfully join in such work. Greenway directed him to keep the secret, “because it was for a good cause,” and forbade him to name the subject to any other priest. This is Bates’s account; Greenway asserts that Bates never named the subject to him, either in or out of confession; but the Jesuit code of morality required his denial, if he had heard it in confession only. Poor Bates was the most innocent of the conspirators, and the most truly penitent: he was rather a tool and a victim than a miscreant. He lost his life through neglect of a much-forgotten precept—“If sinners entice thee, consent thou not.”
The conspirators now set to work again on their mine, and wrought till Candlemas Day, by which time they were half through the wall of the House. Fawkes was on all occasions the sentinel. They had provided themselves with “baktmeats,” pasties, and hard-boiled eggs, sufficient for twenty days, in order to avoid exciting the suspicions of their neighbours by constantly bringing fresh provisions to a house supposed to be occupied by one person alone. The labour was very severe, especially to Catesby and Percy, on account of their unusual height. The oozing in of the water was a perpetual annoyance. But one day, something terrible occurred.
As the amateur miners plied their picks with diligence, the toll of a bell was suddenly heard. John Wright, who was furthest in the mine, stopped with uplifted tool.
“Blessed saints! what can that be?”
Work was unanimously suspended.
“It comes from the very midst of the wall!” said Catesby, growing a shade paler.
“Refugium peccatorum, ora pro nobis!” piously entreated Percy, crossing himself.
“Call Mr Fawkes,” suggested Christopher.
Mr Fawkes was summoned, by his official name of Johnson; and coming down into the cellar, declared that he also distinctly heard the uncanny sound.
“’Tis the Devil that seeketh to make stay of our work,” pronounced Percy—a most improbable suggestion, for Satan surely had no cause to interfere with his servants when engaged in his own business.
“Have we here any holy water?” asked Catesby.
“Ay, there is in the bedchamber,” said Fawkes.
“Pray you, fetch it quickly.”
The holy water was at once brought, and the wall was sprinkled with it. At that moment the tolling ceased.
“Blessed be our Lady! the holy water hath stayed it,” said Percy.
After a few minutes’ pause, the work was recommenced: but it had gone on for barely an hour when again the unearthly bell began its work. Once more the benitier was brought, and the wall sprinkled; whereupon the diabolical noise stopped at once. For several days these processes were repeated, the bell invariably being silenced by the sprinkling of the blessed element. At least, so said the conspirators.
About the second of February, there was another scare. A strange rushing noise was heard on the other side of the wall, from what cause was unknown; and Catesby, as usual the chief director, whispered to Fawkes to go out and ascertain what it was.
Fawkes accordingly went upstairs, and out into the street. A waggon stood before the door of the House of Lords, and men were busy carrying sacks and tubs from the cellar to the waggon. Charcoal only was then sold by the sack; sea-coal being disposed of in tubs.
“Good-morrow, Master,” said Roger Neck, the servant who was superintending the transaction, as Fawkes paused a moment, apparently to look on, after the fashion of an idle man. Roger had seen him more than once, passing in and out of Percy’s house; but he was the only one of the plotters ever visible in the daytime.
“Good-morrow, friend. Selling your coals off?”
“Ay, we’re doing a middling stroke of business this morrow.”
“How much a load? We shall want some ere long.”
“Charcoal, fourteen shillings; cannel, sixpence to ninepence, according to quality.”
Fawkes walked down the street, to avoid suspicion, into King Street, where he turned into the first shop to which he came. It happened to be a cutler’s, and he bought the first thing he saw—a dozen knives of Sheffield make. Had they been London-made, they would have cost four times as much as the modest shilling demanded for them. He then returned to Percy’s house, carrying the knives in his hand. Fawkes had now fully blossomed out in his new rôle of “Mr Percy’s man,” and was clad in blue camlet accordingly, blue being then the usual wear of servants out of livery.
“What is it, Johnson?” asked Percy, addressing Fawkes by his assumed name, when he came down into the cellar.
“It is a dozen of Sheffield knives, Master,” replied Fawkes a little drily: “and by the same token, our next neighbour is selling his coals, and looks not unlike to clear out his cellar.”
“Is that all?”
“That is all.”
Two of the conspirators looked at each other.
“If you could hire the cellar—” suggested Catesby.
“Done!” said Percy. “It should save us a peck of trouble.”
“Who owns it?—or who hath it?” asked Catesby.
“Why, for who owns it, I guess the Parliament House,” answered Fawkes; “but for who hath it, that must we discover.”
“Pray you, make haste and discover it, then.”
Fawkes went out again to make inquiries. He found without difficulty that the cellar, like the houses adjoining, was held by the Wyniards, and it was agreed that Percy should call on them and endeavour to obtain it.
He accordingly went to see his landlady, to whom he represented that he wished to bring his wife up to live with him in London—she was in the country at present, and he missed her sorely—but if that were done, he must have more stowage for wood and coals.
Mrs Wyniard’s interest was aroused at once in a man who cared for his wife, and felt a want of her society.
“Well, now, I am sorry!” said she. “You see, we’ve let that vault to Mrs Skinner—leastwise, Mrs Bright, she is now—o’ King Street, to store her coals. Her new husband’s a coal-seller, see you. You should have had it, as sure as can be, if I hadn’t.”
“It were very much to my commodity,” said Percy, truthfully this time, “if I could hire that cellar, and,”—the second half of the sentence was a falsehood—“I have already been to Mrs Skinner, and hold her consent.”
“Well, now, but that’s a bit mean o’ Skinner’s wife,” said Mrs Wyniard in a vexed tone; “she shouldn’t ha’ done that and ne’er ha’ let me know. I wouldn’t ha’ thought that of Ellen Skinner—no, I wouldn’t.”
“But,” suggested Percy, insinuatingly, “if I gave you twenty shillings over for your good-will, and prayed you to say nought to Mrs Skinner, and I will likewise content her?”
“Well, you know how to drive a bargain, forsooth,” answered Mrs Wyniard, laughing. “Come, I’ll let Widow Skinner be—Mistress Bright, I mean. You shall have the vault for four pounds a quarter, if so be she’s content.”
Percy’s next visit was to the coal-seller and his bride. Mr Bright was not at home, but Mrs Bright was; and though she could not write her name (Note 1), she could use her tongue to some purpose.
“To be sure we hold the cellar. Sixteen pound by the year, and that’s plenty. Takes a many loads of coals to make that, I warrant you.”
“I wondered,” said Percy in a careless manner, as though he did not much care whether he got it or not, “whether you might let me the cellar for the same purpose? I think to lay in wood and coals for the winter, and my own cellar is scarce large enough, for I am a Northern man, and love a good fire. This cellar of yours, being so close by, should be greatly to my convenience, if you were willing.”
“Well, to be sure, and it would so!” assented innocent Mrs Bright. “You see, I can’t speak certain till my master comes in, but I’m sure you may take it as good: he mostly does as I bid him. So we’ll say, if Mrs Wyniard be content to accept the rent from you, you shall have it at four pound by the quarter, and give me forty shillings in my hand.” (Note 2.)
“Done,” said Percy, “if your husband consent.”
“I’ll see to it he doth,” she answered with a capable nod.
The bargain was struck: Andrew Bright did as he was told, and Percy was to become the occupant of the cellar without delay.
Note 1. She signed her deposition by a mark, while her servant Roger Neck, wrote his name.
Note 2. Examination of Ellen Bright, Gunpowder Plot Book, article 24.