Chapter Four.
We get into bad Company.
“Will you walk into my parlour?” said the Spider to the fly:
“’Tis the prettiest little parlour that ever you did spy.”
One afternoon during that winter, as Lettice was coming down-stairs, her sense of smell was all at once saluted by a strange odour, which did not strike her as having any probable connection with Araby the blest, mixed with slight curls of smoke suggestive of the idea that something was on fire. But before she had done more than wonder what might be the matter, a sound reached her from below, arguing equal astonishment and disapproval on the part of Aunt Temperance.
“Northumberland, Cumberland, Westmoreland, and Durham!” was the ejaculation of that lady. “Lad, art thou afire, or what ails thee?”
The answering laugh was in Aubrey’s voice. “Why, Aunt!” said he, “is this the first time you did ever see a man to drink Uppówoc?”
“‘Drink up a work!’” exclaimed she. “What on earth—”
“Picielt,” said he.
“Lettice, is that thou?” inquired Aunt Temperance. “Call Charity quickly, and bid her run for the apothecary: this boy’s gone mad.”
A ringing peal of laughter from Aubrey was the answer. Lettice had come far enough to see him now, and there he stood in the hall (his coat more slashed and puffed than ever), and in his hand a long narrow tube of silver, with a little bowl at the end, in which was something that sent forth a great smoke and smell.
“Come, Aunt Temperance!” cried he. “Every gentleman in the land, well-nigh, doth now drink the Indian weed. ’Tis called uppóvoc, picielt, petum (whence comes petunia), or tobago, and is sold for its weight in silver; men pick out their biggest shillings to lay against it, and ’tis held a favour for a gentlewoman to fill the pipe for her servant (suitor). I have heard say some will spend three or four hundred a year after this manner, drinking it even at the table; and they that refuse be thought peevish and ill company.”
“And whither must we flee to get quit of it?” quoth she grimly.
“That cannot I say, Aunt. In France they have it, calling it Nicotine, from one Nicot, that did first fetch it thither; ’twas one Ralph Lane that brought it to England. Why, what think you? there are over six thousand shops in and about London, where they deal in it now.”
“Six thousand shops for that stinking stuff!”
“Oh, not for this alone. The apothecaries, grocers, and chandlers have it, and in every tavern you shall find the pipe handed round, even where, as in the meaner sort, it be made but of a walnut shell and a straw. Why, Aunt, ’tis wondrous wholesome and healing for divers diseases.”
“Let’s hear which of them.”
“Well—migraines (headaches), colics, toothache, ague, colds, obstructions through wind, and fits of the mother (hysterics); gout, epilepsy, and hydropsy (dropsy). The brain, look you, being naturally cold and wet, all hot and dry things must be good for it.”
“I’d as soon have any of those divers distempers as that,” solemnly announced Aunt Temperance. “‘Brain cold and wet!’ when didst thou handle thy brains, that thou shouldst know whether they be cold or not?”
“I do ensure you, Aunt, thus saith Dr Barclay, one of the first physicians in London town, which useth this tobago for all these diseases. He only saith ’tis not to be touched with food, or after it, but must be took fasting. Moreover, it helps the digestion.”
“It’ll not help mine. And prithee, Mr Aubrey Louvaine, which of all this list of disorders hast thou?”
“I, Aunt? Oh, I’m well enough.”
“Dear heart! When I am well enough, I warrant you, I take no physic.”
“Oh, but, Aunt, ’tis not physic only. ’Tis rare comforting and soothing.”
Aunt Temperance’s face was a sight to see. She looked Aubrey over from the crown of his head to his boots, till his face flushed red, though he tried to laugh it away.
“Soothing!” said she in a long-drawn indescribable tone. “Lettice, prithee tell me what year we be now in?”
“In the year of our Lord 1603, Aunt,” said Lettice, trying not to laugh.
“Nay,” answered she, “that cannot be: for my nephew, Aubrey Louvaine, was born in the year of our Lord 1583, and he is yet, poor babe, in the cradle, and needs rocking and hushing a-by-bye. S-o-o-t-h-i-n-g!” and Aunt Temperance drew out the word in a long cry, for all the world like a whining baby. “Lad, if you desire not the finest thrashing ever you had yet, cast down that drivelling folly of a silver toy, and turn up your sleeves and go to work like a man! When you lie abed ill of the smallpox you may say you want soothing, and no sooner: and if I hear such another word out of your mouth, I’ll leather you while I can stand over you.”
Aunt Temperance marched to the parlour door, and flung it wide open.
“Madam,” said she, “give me leave to introduce to your Ladyship the King of Fools. I go forth to buy a cradle for him, and Edith, prithee run to the kitchen and dress him some pap. He lacks soothing, Madam; and having been brought so low as to seek it, poor fool, at the hands of the evillest-smelling weed ever was plucked off a dunghill, I am moved to crave your Ladyship’s kindliness for him. Here’s his rattle,”—and Aunt Temperance held forth the silver pipe,—“which lacks but the bells to be as rare a fool’s staff as I have seen of a summer day.—Get thee in, thou poor dizard dolt! (Note 1) to think that I should have to call such a patch my cousin!”
Lady Louvaine sat, looking first at Aubrey and then at Temperance, as though she marvelled what it all meant. Edith said, laughingly—
“Why, Aubrey, what hast thou done, my boy, so to vex thine aunt?” and Faith, throwing down her work, rose and came to Aubrey.
“My darling! my poor little boy!” she cried, as a nurse might to a child; but Faith’s blandishment was real, while Temperance’s was mockery.
All Aunt Temperance’s mocking, nevertheless, provoked Aubrey less than his mother’s reality. He flushed red again, and looked ready to weep, had it been less unmanly. Temperance took care not to lose her chance.
“Ay, poor little boy!” said she. “Prithee, Faith, take him on thy lap and cuddle him, and dandle him well, and sing him a song o’ sixpence. Oh, my little rogue, my pretty bird! well, then, it shall have a new coral, it shall—Now, Madam, pray you look on this piece of wastry! (Dear heart, but a fool and his money be soon parted!) What think you ’tis like?”
“Truly, my dear, that cannot I say,” replied Lady Louvaine, looking at the pipe as Temperance held it out: “but either that or somewhat else, it strikes me, hath a marvellous ill savour.”
“Ill savour, Madam!” cried Temperance. “Would you even such mean scents as roses and lilies to this celestial odour? Truly, this must it be the angels put in their pouncet-boxes. I am informed of my Lord of Tobago here that all the gentlemen of the Court do use to perfume their velvets with it.”
“Well, I can tell you of two which so do,” said Aubrey in a nettled fashion—“my Lord of Northumberland and Sir Walter Raleigh: and you’ll not call them fools, Aunt Temperance.”
“I’ll give you a bit of advice, Mr Louvaine: and that is, not to lay your week’s wages out in wagers what I shall do. I call any man fool that is given to folly: and as to this filthy business, I should scarce stick at the King’s Majesty himself.”
“Nay, the King is clean contrary thereto,” saith Aubrey, with a rather unwilling air: “I hear of my Lord that he saith it soils the inward parts of men with oily soot, and is loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs, counted effeminate among the Indians themselves, and by the Spanish slaves called sauce for Lutheran curs.”
“Well, on my word!” cried Aunt Temperance. “And knowing this, thou Lutheran cur, thou wilt yet soil thine inward parts with this oily soot?”
“Oh, Aunt, every one so doth.”
Lady Louvaine and Edith exchanged sorrowful looks, and the former said—
“Aubrey, my boy, no true man accounts that a worthy reason for his deeds. It was true of the Israelites when they fell to worship the golden calf, and of the scribes and priests when they cried, ‘Crucify Him!’ Hadst thou been in that crowd before Pontius Pilate, wouldst thou have joined that cry?”
Edith went up to her mother, and said in a low voice, “May I tell him?”
Evidently it cost Lady Louvaine some pain to say “Yes,” yet she said it. Edith went back to her seat.
“Aubrey,” she said, “four-and-twenty years gone, thine uncle, my brother Walter, was what thou art now, in the very same office and household. His wages were then sixteen pound by the year—”
“But mine are thirty-five, Aunt,” responded Aubrey quickly, as though he guessed what she was about to say.
“In order to be like every one else, Aubrey, and not come in bad odour with his fellows, he spent well-nigh four hundred pound by the year, and—”
“Uncle Walter!” cried Aubrey in amazement, and Lettice could have been his echo.
“Ay!” said Edith, sadly. “And for over ten years thereafter was my father so crippled with his debts, that I mind it being a fine treat when I and my sisters had a new gown apiece, though of the commonest serge, and all but bare necessaries were cut off from our board. Walter laid it so to heart that of a spendthrift he became a miser. I would not have thee so to do, but I bid thee mind that we have very little to live on, owing all we yet have, and have brought withal, to the goodness of my dear Aunt Joyce; and if thou fall in such ways, Aubrey—”
“Dear heart, Aunt! Think you I have no wit?”
“Thou hast not an ill wit, my lad,” said Aunt Temperance, “if a wise man had the keeping of it.”
“Temperance, you are so unfeeling!” exclaimed Faith. “Must I needs stand up for my fatherless boy?”
“You’d ruin any lad you were mother to,” answered her sister.
Hans now coming in, she set on him.
“Look here, Hans Floriszoon! Didst ever see any thing like this?”
Hans smiled. “Oh ay, Mistress Murthwaite, I have seen men to use them.”
“Hast one of these fiddle-faddles thyself? or dost thou desire to have one?”
“Neither, in good sooth,” was his reply.
“There, Mr Louvaine! hearken, prithee.”
“Hans is only a boy; I am a man,” said Aubrey, loftily: though Hans was but a year younger than himself.
“Lancaster and Derby! and are you then content, my Lord Man, that a contemptible boy should have better wit than your magnifical self? Truly, I think Hans was a man before thou hadst ended sucking of thy thumb.”
Just then Charity brought in the Rector.
“See you here, Mr Marshall!” cried Temperance, brandishing her pipe. “Be you wont to solace your studies with this trumpery?”
Mr Marshall smiled. “Truly, nay, Mistress Murthwaite; ’tis accounted scandalous for divines to use that tobago, not to name the high cost thereof.”
“Pray you, how many pence by the ounce hath any man the face to ask for this stinking stuff?”
“Three shillings or more, and that the poorest sort.”
“Mercy me! And can you tell me how folks use it that account it physical?”
“Ay, I have heard tell that the manner of using it as physic is to fill the patient’s mouth with a ball of the leaves, when he must incline the face downward, and keep his mouth open, not moving his tongue: then doth it draw a flood of water from all parts of the body. Some physicians will not use it, saying it causeth over-quick digestion, and fills the stomach full of crudities. For a cold or headache the fumes of the pipe only are taken. His Majesty greatly loathes this new fashion, saying that the smoke thereof resembles nothing so much as the Stygian fume of the bottomless pit, and likewise that ’tis a branch of drunkenness, which he terms the root of all sins.”
Aubrey laughed rather significantly.
“Why,” asked his mother, “is the King’s Majesty somewhat given that way?”
“Well, I have heard it said that when the King of Denmark was here, their two Majesties went not to bed sober every night of the week: marry, ’tis whispered all the Court ladies kept not so steady feet as they might have done.”
“Alack the day! not the Queen, I hope?”
“Nay, I heard no word touching her.”
“Ah, friends!” said Mr Marshall with a sigh, “let me ensure you that England’s mourning is not yet over for Queen Elizabeth, and we may live to lament our loss of her far sorer than now we do. Folks say she was something stingy with money, loving not to part with it sooner than she saw good reason: but some folks will fling their money right and left with no reason at all. The present Court much affecteth masques, plays, and such like, so that now there be twenty where her late Majesty would see one.”
“Mr Marshall,” asked Edith, “is it true, as I have heard say, that King James is somewhat Papistically given?”
“Ay and no,” said he. “He is not at all thus, in the signification of obeying the Pope, or suffering himself to be ridden of priests: in no wise. But he hates a Puritan worse than a Papist. Mind you not that in his speech when he opened his first Parliament, he said that he did acknowledge the Roman Church to be our mother Church, though defiled with some infirmities and corruptions?”
“Yet he said also, if I err not, that he sucked in God’s truth with his nurse’s milk.”
“Ay. But what one calls God’s truth is not what an other doth. All the Papistry in the world is not in the Roman Church; and assuredly she is in no sense our mother.”
“Truly, I thought Saint Austin brought the Gospel hither from Rome.”
“Saint Austin brought a deal from Rome beside the Gospel, and he was not the first to bring that. The Gallican Church had before him brought it to Kent; and long ere that time had the ancient British Church been evangelised from no sister Church at all, but right from the Holy Land itself, and as her own unchanging voice did assert, by the beloved Apostle Saint John.”
“That heard I never afore,” said Lady Louvaine, who seemed greatly interested. “Pray you, Mr Marshall, is this true?”
“I do ensure you it is,” replied he; “that is, so far as the wit of man at this distance of time may discern the same.”
“Was the French Church, then, lesser corrupted than that of Rome?” queried Edith.
“Certainly so,” he said: “and it hath resisted the Pope’s usurpations nigh as much as our own Church of England. I mean not in respect of the Reformation, but rather the time before the Reformation, when our kings were ever striving with the Pope concerning his right to appoint unto dignities and livings. Yet the Reformation itself began first in France, and had they in authority been willing to aid it as in England, France had been a Protestant country at this day.”
That evening, as they sat round the fire, Hans astonished them all.
“Lady Lettice,” said he, “were you willing that I should embark in trade?”
“Hans, my dear boy!” was the astonished response.
“I will not do it without your good-will thereto,” said he; “nor would I at all have done it, could I have seen any better way. But I feel that I ought to be a-work on some matter, and not tarry a burden on your hands: and all this time have I been essaying two matters—to look out for a service, and to make a little money for you. The second I have in some sense accomplished, though not to the extent I did desire, and here be the proceeds,”—and rising from his seat, Hans opened his purse, and poured several gold pieces into his friend’s lap. “The former, howbeit, is not—”
He was interrupted by a little cry from Lady Louvaine.
“Hans! thou surely thinkest not, dear lad, that I shall strip thee of thy first earnings, won by hard work?”
“You will, Lady Lettice, without you mean to disappoint and dishearten me very sore,” he answered.
“But all this!” she exclaimed.
“’Tis much less than I would have had it; and it hath taken me three-quarters of a year to scrape so much together. But—nay, Lady Lettice, forgive me, but never a penny will I take back. You sure forget that I owe all unto you. What should have come of me but for you and Sir Aubrey? But I was about to say, I have essayed in every direction to take service with a gentleman, and cannot compass it in any wise. So I see no other way but to go into trade.”
“But, Hans, thou art a gentleman’s son!”
“I am a King’s son, Madam,” said Hans with feeling: “and if I tarnish not the escocheon of my heavenly birth by honest craft, then shall I have no fear for that of mine earthly father.”
“Yet if so were, dear lad—though I should be verily sorry to see thee come down so low—yet bethink thee, thine apprenticeship may not be compassed without a good payment in money.”
“Your pardon, Madam. There is one craftsman in London that is willing to receive me without a penny. Truly, I did nothing to demerit it, since I did but catch up his little maid of two years, that could scarce toddle, from being run over by an horse that had brake loose from the rein. Howbeit, it pleaseth him to think him under an obligation to me, and his good wife likewise. And having made inquiries diligently, I find him to be a man of good repute, one that feareth God and dealeth justly and kindly by men: also of his wife the neighbours speak well. Seeing, then, all doors shut upon me save this one, whereat I may freely enter, it seems to me, under your Ladyship’s leave, that this is the way which God hath prepared for me to walk in: yet if you refuse permission, then I shall know that I have erred therein.”
“Hans, I would give my best rebate Aubrey had one half thy wit and goodness!” cried Temperance.
“I thank you for the compliment, Mistress Murthwaite,” said Hans, laughingly. “But truly, as for my wit, I should be very ill-set to spare half of it; and as for my goodness, I wish him far more of his own.”
“Where dwells this friend of thine, Hans?” inquired Lady Louvaine. “What is his name? and what craft doth he follow?”
“He dwells near, Madam, in Broad Saint Giles’; his name, Andrew Leigh, and is a silkman.”
“We shall miss thee, my boy,” said Edith.
“Mrs Edith, that was the only one point that made me to doubt if I should take Master Leigh’s offer or no. If my personal service be of more value to you than my maintenance is a burden, I pray you tell it me: but if not—”
“We never yet reckoned thy maintenance a burden, my dear,” answered Lady Louvaine, lovingly. “And indeed we shall miss thee more than a little. Nevertheless, Hans, I think thou hast wisely judged. There is thine own future to look to: and though, in very deed, I am sorry that life offer thee no fairer opening, yet the Lord wot best that which shall be best for thee. Ay, Hans: thou wilt do well to take the offer.”
But there were tears in her eyes as she spoke.
The old feudal estimate was still strong in men’s minds, by which the most honourable of all callings was held to be domestic service; then, trade and handicraft; and, lowest and meanest of all, those occupations by which men were not fed, clothed, nor instructed, but merely amused. Musicians, painters, poetasters, and above all, actors, were looked on as the very dregs of mankind. The views of the old Lollards, who held that art, not having existed in Paradise, was a product of the serpent, had descended to the Puritans in a modified form. Was it surprising, when on every side they saw the serpent pressing the arts and sciences into his service? It was only in the general chaos of the Restoration that this estimate was reversed. The view of the world at present is exactly opposite: and the view taken by the Church is too often that of the world. Surely the dignity of labour is lost when men labour to produce folly, and call it work. There can be no greater waste either of time, money, or toil, than to expend them on that which satisfieth not.
When Hans came home, a day or two afterwards, he went straight to Lady Louvaine and kissed her hand.
“Madam,” said he, in a low voice of much satisfaction, “I bring good news. I have covenanted with Mr Leigh, who has most nobly granted me, at my request, a rare favour unto a ’prentice—leave to come home when the shop is closed, and to lie here, so long as I am every morrow at my work by six of the clock. I can yet do many little things that may save you pain and toil, and I shall hear every even of your welfare.”
“My dear lad, God bless thee!” replied Lady Louvaine, and laid her hand upon his head.
Somewhat later in the evening came Aubrey, to whom all this concerning Hans was news.
“Master Floriszoon, silkman, at the Black Boy in Holborn!” cried he, laughingly. “Pray you, my worthy Master, how much is the best velvet by the yard? and is green stamyn now in fashion? Whereto cometh galowne lace the ounce? Let us hear thee cry, ‘What do you lack?’ that we, may see if thou hast the true tone. Hans Floriszoon, I thought thou hadst more of the feeling of a gentleman in thee.”
The blood flushed to Hans’ forehead, yet he answered quietly enough.
“Can a gentleman not measure velvet? and what harm shall it work him to know the cost of it?”
“That is a quibble,” answered Aubrey, loftily. “For any gentleman to soil his fingers with craft is a blot on his escocheon, and that you know as well as I.”
“For any man, gentle or simple, to soil his fingers with sin, or his tongue with falsehood, is a foul blot on his escocheon,” replied Hans, looking Aubrey in the face.
Once more the blood mounted to Aubrey’s brow, and he answered with some warmth, “What mean you?”
“I did but respond to your words. Be mine other than truth?”
“Be not scurrilous, boy!” said Aubrey, angrily.
“Hans, I am astonished at you!” said Faith. “I know not how it is, but since we came to London, you are for ever picking quarrels with Aubrey, and seeking occasion against him. Are you envious of his better fortune, or what is it moves you?”
It was a minute before Hans answered, and when he did so, his voice was very quiet and low.
“I am sorry to have vexed you, Mrs Louvaine. If I know myself, I do not envy Aubrey at all; and indeed I desire to pick no quarrel with any man, and him least of any.”
Then, turning to Aubrey, he held out his hand. “Forgive me, if I said aught I should not.”
Aubrey took the offered hand, much in the manner of an insulted monarch to a penitent rebel. Lettice glanced just then at her Aunt Edith, and saw her gazing from one to the other of the two, with a perplexed and possibly displeased look on her face, but whether it were with Aubrey or with Hans, Lettice could not tell. What made Aubrey so angry did not appear.
Lettice’s eyes went to her grandmother. On her face was a very sorrowful look, as if she perceived and recognised some miserable possibility which she had known in the past, and now saw advancing with distress. But she did not speak either to Hans or Aubrey.
The full moon of a spring evening, almost as mild as summer, lighted up the Strand, throwing into bold relief the figure of a young man, fashionably dressed, who stood at the private door of a tailor’s shop, the signboard of which exhibited a very wild-looking object of human species, clad in a loose frock, with bare legs and streaming hair, known to the initiated as the sign of the Irish Boy.
Fashionably dressed meant a good deal at that date. It implied a doublet of velvet or satin, puffed and slashed exceedingly, and often covered with costly embroidery or gold lace; trunk hose, padded to an enormous width, matching the doublet in cost, and often in pattern; light-coloured silk stockings, broad-toed shoes, with extremely high heels, and silver buckles, or gold-edged shoe-strings; garters of broad silk ribbons, often spangled with gold, and almost thick enough for sashes; a low hat with a feather and silk hatband, the latter sometimes studded with precious stones; a suspicion of stays in the region of the waist, but too likely to be justified by fact; fringed and perfumed gloves of thick white Spanish leather; lace ruffs about the neck and wrists, the open ones of immense size, the small ones closer than in the previous reign; ear-rings and love-locks: and over all, a gaudy cloak, or rather cape, reaching little below the elbow. In the youth’s hand was an article of the first necessity in the estimation of a gentleman of fashion,—namely, a tobacco-box, in this instance of chased silver, with a mirror in the lid, whereby its owner might assure himself that his ruff sat correctly, and that his love-locks were not out of curl. A long slender cane was in the other hand, which the youth twirled with busy idleness, as he carelessly hummed a song.
“Let’s cast away care, and merrily sing,
For there’s a time for every thing:
He that plays at his work, and works at his play,
Doth neither keep working nor holy day.”
A second youth came down the street westwards, walking not with an air of haste, but of one whose time was too valuable to be thrown away. He was rather shorter and younger than the first, and was very differently attired. He wore a fustian doublet, without either lace or embroidery; a pair of unstuffed cloth hose, dark worsted stockings, shoes with narrow toes and plain shoe-strings of black ribbon; a flat cap; cloth gloves, unadorned and unscented, and a cloak of black cloth, of a more rational length than the other. As he came to the tailor’s shop he halted suddenly.
“Aubrey!” The tone was one of surprise and pain.
“Spy!” was the angry response.
“I am no spy, and you know it. But I would ask what you do here and now?”
“Are you my gaoler, that I must needs give account to you?”
“I am your brother, Aubrey; and I, as well as you, am my brother’s keeper in so far as concerns his welfare. It is over a month since you visited us, and your mother and Lady Lettice believe you to be with your Lord in Essex. How come you hither, so late at night, and at another door than your own?”
“No business of yours! May a man not call to see his tailor?”
“Men do not commonly go to their tailors after shops be shut.”
“Oh, of course, you wot all touching shop matters. Be off to your grograne and cambric! I’m not your apprentice.”
“My master’s shop is shut with the rest. Aubrey, I saw you last night—though till now I tried to persuade myself it was not you—in Holborn, leaving the door of the Green Dragon. What do you there?”
The answer came blazing with wrath.
“You saw—you mean, sneaking, blackguardly traitor of a Dutch shopkeeper! I’ll have no rascal spies dogging my steps, and—”
“Aubrey,” said the quiet voice that made reply, “you know me better than that. I never played the spy on you yet, and I trust you will never give me cause. Yet what am I to think when as I pass along the street I behold you standing at the door of a Pa—”
“Hold your tongue!”
The closing word was cut sharply in two by that fierce response. It might be a pavior, a pear-monger, or a Papist. Hans was silent until Aubrey had again spoken, which he did in a hard, constrained tone.
“I shall go where I please, without asking your leave or any body’s else! I am of age, and I have been tied quite long enough to the apron-strings of a parcel of women: but I mean not to cut myself loose from them, only to pass under guidance of a silly lad that hath never a spark of spirit in him, and would make an old woman of me if I gave him leave.” Then, in a voice more like his own, he added, “Get you in to your knitting, old Mistress Floriszoon, and tie your cap well o’er your ears, lest the cold wind give you a rheum.”
“I will go in when you come with me,” said Hans calmly.
“I will not.”
“To-night, Aubrey—only just to-night!”
“And what for to-night, prithee? I have other business afloat. To-morrow I will maybe look in.”
Perhaps Aubrey was growing a little ashamed of his warmth, for his voice had cooled down.
“We can never do right either to-morrow or yesterday,” answered Hans. “To-night is all we have at this present.”
“I tell you I will not!” The anger mounted again. “I will not be at the beck and call of a beggarly tradesfellow!”
“You love better to be at Satan’s?”
“Take that for your impudence!”
There was the sound of a sharp, heavy blow—so heavy that the recipient almost staggered under it. Then came an instant’s dead silence: and then a voice, very low, very sorrowful, yet with no anger in it—
“Good-night, Aubrey. I hope you will come to-morrow.”
And Hans’s steps died away in the distance.
Left to himself, Aubrey’s feelings were far from enviable. He was compelled to recognise the folly of his conduct, as more calculated to fan than deter suspicion; and it sorely nettled him also to perceive that Hans, shopkeeper though he might be, had shown himself much the truer gentleman of the two. But little time was left him to indulge in these unpleasant reflections, for the door behind him was opened by a girl.
“Mr Catesby at home?”
“Ay, Sir, and Mr Winter is here. Pray you, walk up.”
Aubrey did as he was requested, adding an unnecessary compliment on the good looks of the portress, to which she responded by a simper of gratified vanity—thereby showing that neither belonged to the wisest class of mankind—and he was ushered upstairs, into a small but pleasant parlour, where three gentlemen sat conversing. A decanter stood on the table, half full of wine, and each gentleman was furnished with a glass. The long silver pipe was passing round from one to another, and its smoker looked up as Aubrey was announced.
“Ah! welcome, Mr Louvaine. Mr Winter, you know this gentleman. Sir, this is my very good friend Mr Darcy,”—indicating the third person by a motion of the hand. “Mr Darcy, suffer me to make you acquainted with Mr Louvaine, my good Lord Oxford’s gentleman and a right pleasant companion.—Pray you, help yourself to Rhenish, and take a pipe.”
Aubrey accepted the double invitation, and was soon puffing at the pipe which Catesby handed to him.
He had not taken much notice of the stranger, and none at all of a gesture on the part of Mr Catesby as he introduced him—a momentary stroking upwards of his forehead, intended as a sign not to Aubrey, but to the other. The stranger, however, perfectly understood it. To him it said, “Here is a simpleton: mind what you say.”
Mr Catesby, the occupant of the furnished apartments, was a man of unusually lofty height, being over six feet, and of slender build, though well-proportioned; he had a handsome and expressive face, and, while not eloquent, was possessed of the most fascinating and attractive manners by which man ever dragged his fellow-man to evil. Mr Winter, on the other hand, was as short as his friend was tall. His rather handsome features were of the Grecian type, and he had the power of infusing into them at will a look of the most touching child-like innocence. He spoke five, languages, and was a well-read man for his time.
The stranger, to whom Aubrey had been introduced as Mr Darcy, was an older man than either of the others. Mr Catesby was aged thirty-two, and Mr Winter about thirty-five; but Mr Darcy was at least fifty. He was a well-proportioned man, and dressed with studied plainness. A long, narrow face, with very large, heavy eyelids, and a long but not hooked nose, were relieved by a moustache, and a beard square and slightly forked in the midst. This moustache hid a mouth which was the characteristic feature of the face. No physiognomist would have placed the slightest confidence in the owner of that mouth. It was at once sanctimonious and unstable. The manners of its possessor might be suave or severe; his reputation might be excellent or execrable; but with that mouth, a Pharisee and a hypocrite at heart he must be. This gentleman found it convenient not to be too invariably known by a single name, and that whereby he had been introduced to Aubrey was one of five aliases—his real one making a sixth. Different persons, in various parts of the country, were acquainted with him as Mr Mease, Mr Phillips, Mr Farmer, and—his best-known alias—Mr Walley. But his real name was Henry Garnet, and he was a Jesuit priest.
To do justice to Aubrey Louvaine, who, though weak and foolish, being mainly led astray by his own self-sufficiency, was far from being deliberately wicked, it must be added that he entertained not the least idea of the real characters of his new friends. At the house of Mr Thomas Rookwood, whither he was attracted by the fair Dorothy—who, had he but known it, regarded him with cleverly concealed contempt—he had made the acquaintance of Mr Ambrose Rookwood, the elder of the brothers, and the owner of Coldham Hall. This gentleman, to Aubrey’s taste, was not attractive; but by him he was introduced to Mr Percy, and later, to Mr Thomas Winter, in whose society the foolish youth took great pleasure. For Mr Catesby he did not so much care; the fact being that he was too clever to suit Aubrey’s fancy.
Neither had Aubrey any conception of the use which was being made of him by his new friends. He was very useful; he had just brains enough, and not too much, to serve their purpose. It delighted Aubrey to air his familiarity with the Court and nobility, and it was convenient to them to know some one whom they could pump without his ever suspecting that he was being pumped. They often required information concerning the movements and present whereabouts of various eminent persons; and nothing was easier than to obtain it from Aubrey as they sat and smoked. A few glasses of Rhenish wine, and a few ounces of tobacco, were well worth expending for the purpose.
Aubrey’s anger with Hans, therefore, was not based on any fear of discovery, arising from suspicion of his associates. He was only aiming at independence, combined with a little secret unwillingness to acknowledge his close connection with Mr Leigh’s apprentice. Of the real end of the road on which he was journeying, he had not the least idea. Satan held out to him with a smile a fruit pleasant to the eyes and good for food, saying, “Thou shalt be as a god,” and Aubrey liked the prospect, and accepted the apple.
Having enjoyed himself for about an hour in this manner, and—quite unconsciously on his part—given some valuable information to his associates, he bade them good evening, and returned to Lord Oxford’s mansion, in a state of the most delicately-balanced uncertainty whether to appear or not at the White Bear on the following evening. If only he could know how much Hans would tell the ladies!
In the room which he had left, he formed for some minutes the subject of conversation.
“Where picked you up that jewel?” asked Garnet of Winter.
“He lives—or rather his friends do—next door to Tom Rookwood,” answered Winter.
“A pigeon worth plucking?” was the next question.
“As poor as a church-mouse, but he knows things we need to know, and in point of wits he is a very pigeon. He no more guesseth what time of day it is with us than my Lord Secretary doth.”
The trio laughed complacently, but a rather doubtful expression succeeded that of amusement in Garnet’s face.
“Now, good gentlemen, be quiet,” said he, piously. Was there a faint twinkle in his eyes? “God will do all for the best. We must get it by prayer at God’s hands, in whose hands are the hearts of princes.”
“You pray, by all means, and we’ll work,” said Catesby, removing the pipe from his lips for an instant.
At that moment the door opened, and a fourth gentleman made his appearance. He was as tall and as handsome as Catesby; but the considerable amount of white in his dark hair, and more slightly in his broad beard, made him look older than his real age, which was forty-six. He stooped a little in the shoulders. His manners were usually gentle and grave; but a pair of large and very lively eyes and an occasional impulsive eagerness of speech, wherein he was ready and fluent at all times, showed that there was more fire and life in his character than appeared on the surface. Those who knew him well were aware that his temper was impetuous and precipitate, and on given occasions might be termed quarrelsome without calumny.
“Shall we always talk, gentlemen, and never do anything?” demanded the newcomer, without previous greeting.
“Come in, Mr Percy, and with a right good welcome! The talk is well-nigh at an end, and the doing beginneth.”
“Our Lady be thanked!” was Percy’s response. “We have dallied and delayed long enough. This morning have I been with Mr Fawkes over the house; and I tell you, the mining through that wall shall be no child’s play.”
Winter lifted his eyebrows and pursed his lips. Catesby only remarked, “We must buy strong pickaxes, then,” and resumed his puffing in the calmest manner.
“The seventh of February, is it not, Parliament meets?”
“Ay. I trust the Bulls will come from Rome before that.”
“They will be here in time,” said Garnet, rising. “Well, I wish you good-night, gentlemen. ’Tis time I was on my way to Wandsworth. I lie to-night at Mrs Anne’s, whither she looks for her cousin Tresham to come.”
“My commendations to my cousins,” said Catesby. “Good-night. We meet at White Webbs on Tuesday.”
“Pax vobiscum,” said Garnet softly, as he left the room.
Note 1. All these are old terms signifying a fool or idiot. Patch was the favourite jester of Henry the Eighth, whose name was used as synonymous with fool.