CHAPTER X
Before we parted I had promised to help Frank, as far as my purse would go, to fit out a ship for the Indies, that he might make survey of the whole region, and find out when and how best to strike his blow, and haply pick up a prize or two to pay his fellow-adventurers a fair profit on their risk.
Harry helped him too, but to a very small extent, for his travels had made a large hole in his purse, and he never had the heart to squeeze his tenants so hard as others would have done in like case. Frank's kinsmen, the Hawkins, still took what they called his desertion at San Juan de Ulloa so unkindly that he could get nothing from them, and while the disaster was fresh in men's minds a good many pockets were shut to him that a year ago would have run like a river at the very name of a venture to the Indies.
Still, by the next year—it was, I remember, soon after the bull for the Queen's deposition had been found affixed to Lambeth Palace—he sailed. It was, I think, in a great measure the fury with which that wanton insult to the Queen filled the country that helped Frank more than anything to get the money he wanted for his enterprise.
During the whole of this time Harry was in London or elsewhere with the Court, and not more than once or twice for a few days at Ashtead. I do not know whether I felt more lonely when he was away and I was poring over my books at Mr. Cartwright's work, or when he came down on his hurried visits.
Each time I saw him his heart seemed farther away from me. Not that he was less kind than of old, but now his whole soul seemed wrapped up in the pageantries, the passages of arms, and, above all, the ladies of the Court. Of these he seemed never to tire of talking, though I wearied of listening.
I was longing, as I used, to speak to him of all that was next my heart—of the great strife in which I laboured for the purifying of religion; of the solemnity of this present life, of which he seemed to take no heed; of the awful doom for all eternity, which I shuddered to see yawning before him. Yet I knew not how to win his ear. Whenever I tried to start such talk he was quick enough to see my intention and thwart it with a rattling jest or some whimsical conceit. Nor had I much heart for it, if the truth must be told; for I dreaded in speaking to him on such things to find he was more Italianate than I believed him.
So in his company I was lonely, and in his absence lonely. I strove to find comfort in my books, hunting daily in their inmost coverts. All was game that my net enclosed. No allusion was too fantastic, no phrase too ambiguous, no simile too conceited, no argument too fanciful for me. I swept them all up to feed Mr. Cartwright's great idea, no matter where I found them. Daily and all day I worked on, searching like some warrener for every unsuspected bolt-hole through which our adversaries might seek to escape. No sooner was one found than I was weaving cunning nets with terms and figures, premiss and consequence, to set across it, and entangle them in its wordy meshes as soon as ever they should try to give us the slip.
Yet I got little comfort from it all. For though my studies assured me of my own salvation, they also confirmed my dread and certainty of Harry's perdition. Never was my life more joyless than then. There was no one I cared to see except my servant Lashmer, and sometimes Mr. Drake, though I won a most godly name by entertaining all the preachers and such like that came my way. I was fast growing to be a morose misanthropic scholar, and an iron-bound Puritan to boot.
Yet I knew it not, but rejoiced to think how utterly I denied myself the joys of this world, and how dear in the sight of God my life must be. I shudder, too, to think that as the breach continued to widen between Harry and me, I began at last to find some sort of solace in what I saw in store for him hereafter, and though I prayed for him unceasingly my prayers were the prayers of the Pharisee.
Perhaps it was a sort of jealousy, that he was so wicked and so happy, while I, God help me for my blindness, was so good and so miserable. I confessed it not to myself, yet indeed I think it was no different. For those were the days when I and half England beside were gathering up what we took in our ignorance for the manna of heaven, when in truth it was little better than a foul poison to our souls.
But now I must cry forgiveness for my tedious babbling of myself, if indeed my credit be not already cracked with over much borrowing of patience with no return of profit or pleasure. Yet, at the risk of earning ill-will, I have thought so much necessary for the proper understanding of what next befell.
Such, then, was I when one morning some time after Frank Drake had sailed I again heard Mr. Alexander Culverin crying out for me at the gate. This time he was at once shown to my presence by Lashmer, where, with a grave salute, he presented me with a letter from Harry. I opened it and read as follows:—
DEAR LAD—After my most loving and hearty commendations, this is to crave you give me joy. A little pretty bird piped to me and witched my heart away or ever I felt it go. In despair I sang back the song I learned of her, and, the gods be praised, saw my way to steal her heart in payment for mine. Then, lest we should quarrel over the felonies, we agreed to love.
Ere Diana sleeps and wakes again the compact will be sealed by Holy Church. Then look for your sister at Ashtead, which I pray you see well bestowed for her coming, for I am too busy and happy to leave her side.
Yours from the seventh heaven of ecstacy, and higher than that again, HARRY WALDYVE.
See a mad lover! I had near forgot to tell you your sister's name. It is the name of names, even the name of the little ruddy-haired child that I knew, and yet knew not, while I was of my Lord of Bedford's household.
'Why, this is news indeed, Sergeant,' said I.
'Yes, it is new, sir,' said Culverin; 'that is all that is to be said in its favour. I knew he would do it, I knew he would, if we stayed at Court so long. Not that I blame Mistress St. John. It was not her fault. How any lady amongst them all could sit and see him ride a tilt without doing the like is more than I can say; but I claim no cunning in the management of women, sir, saving your worship.'
'So you think it was his riding that won her?'
'Never doubt it, sir. That and how men spoke of his conduct in the wars. It was enough to turn any woman's head. I blame him, not her.'
'But why blame him, Culverin?'
'Why, sir, for good enough reason, because he has spoilt one of the prettiest soldiers and horsemen in Europe. For how can a man love his horse or even his weapon with a woman like that always about his elbow? It is not natural, sir.'
'But cannot a man love his horse and weapon all the better that he has something he loves to protect with them?'
'Well, I think not, sir, saving your scholarship. I never knew one that could; and if there is one, certes, it is not Mr. Waldyve. He never loved a horse well enough before, that was where he always failed. He had no contemplation of horsemanship. In the exercise of it he was without match that ever I saw, save only Signor John Peter Pugliano himself. But his contemplation of it was naught. The Signor Esquire of the Emperor's stables always said so. He proved to him many times how it was a science to be preferred next to divinity. He gave him La Gloria del Gavallo to read, and Orison Claudia too, but it availed nothing. In pace, in trot, in gallop, in career, in stop, in manage he was a Centaur, but he could never see how peerless a beast a horse was; how it was the only serviceable courtier without flattery, the beast of most beauty, faithfulness, courage, and all the virtues. Why, sir, I have seen Signor John Peter Pugliano, when a man spoke slightingly of a horse, so belabour him with the richness and strength of his contemplation, that before he ended the wretch was like to weep that God had made him a man and not a horse. But it was never born or bred in Mr. Waldyve, and this is what has come of it.'
'Still, men must marry now and then, Sergeant, though the Queen seems to think otherwise.'
'I know, sir, I know; yet I hold marriage a poor distempered state that soldiers should leave to men of peace, saving your worship's presence. Still, it is not of that that I complain most. There is worse than that.'
'What do you mean? You told me of no ill fortune.'
'Did I not, sir? Why, then, it is this. He has given her his bay horse, and sent me down for the roan—by this light, he has, sir, given that peerless quadruped to a woman! What man with contemplation enough to fill half a pepper-corn could have done the like?'
I knew not how to console the poor soldier, so fell to asking him about Mistress St. John. He could tell me little, never having seen her except in the tilt-yard at Whitehall and Hampton Court, when, as he said, it was easy to know the little red-haired lady by her most free nodding at his master.
So I had to rest content till she should come, meanwhile taking what pains I could to see that the work-people from Rochester carried out Harry's instructions. I found more comfort in the task than I could have believed, hoping that now my brother was coming to settle down at home things would go between us more as they used.
Indeed, so light did my heart grow as the time of their coming drew near, that I began to doubt whether it were not a sin for me take pleasure in the company of so carnally-minded a man as Harry, and to begin to think I ought wholly to eschew, as far as good manners would allow, the conversation of the wanton Court lady that I pictured his wife to be.
The day came at last, and, not a little doubting whether it were right, I rode out to Rochester to meet them.
They were already at the 'Crown' resting awhile when I alighted there. Harry rushed out and seized me by both hands, and then, throwing his arm about me in his old way, dragged me to see his wife.
'Wife! wife!' he cried, 'set a good face for our brother, whom you wanted so much to see. Here he is come to meet us.'
With that I saw rise to greet me a little lady not much over twenty, with ruddy hair and brown eyes like the Queen's. In a moment the memory of my old boy's love at Cambridge came to my mind, but when I looked once more at the dainty little head and smiling face, set so prettily in her snow-white ruff, the memory was lost in the greater beauty of the present vision.
Beautiful as I had thought the Queen, yet she, I confessed, was more beautiful still, although so like. It was a more laughing face than the Queen's, and yet in her eyes, unlike the Queen's, there was that wistful look that all men love till they learn to fear it as own sister to discontent. Yet this I knew not then, having, as I say, known no woman all my life; and so my heart, that I had tried so sore to harden, was melted like wax at the soft music of her voice.
'Well met, brother,' she said, holding out her hand with a gay smile.
'Your desires upon you, lady,' I answered, taking her greeting with as little awkwardness as I could.
'A most gentle prayer, brother. And yourself shall begin its granting.'
'I, lady?'
'Yes, you. Yourself is my desire. Bestow on me yourself and call me "sister." All my life I have desired a brother, and Hal says, by your sweet leave, I am to be no more brotherless; so call me henceforth sister, brother Jasper.'
'Then, sister, shall I gain more than I bestow.'
'Nay, brother, it is I that gain. I have full report of all your scholarship and most excellent parts.'
'Believe it not, sister, or you will wrong yourself. Harry will ever be making too long an inventory of my commendations. But he is a most false reckoner, and you must not take me by his tale.'
'Out upon you, lad,' said Harry. 'What a dry feast of modest phrases is that to set before your sister! Come, now, palm to palm is no greeting for brother and sister. A man would think you had never been to Court.'
But I drew back, feeling very country-bred, and blushed, and then a flush of sunset hue made her beauty radiant, and Harry laughed at us his rattling laugh, which his wife could only stop with kisses.
That made her my sister indeed. At first I had thought her manner tainted with too much Court freedom, but now she seemed a most wise and modest lady, who might in deed as well as word be a true sister to me. So we talked together pleasantly enough till it was time to go, nor did we stop our tongues as we rode out towards Ashtead. And yet again, now I bethink me, it was I that talked and she that listened, while Harry smiled to see us such good friends.
I thinked he wondered, too, to hear me, and I am sure I marvelled at myself no less than that she should want to listen to my homily. Yet whenever my tongue ceased wagging, she had some little magic phrase or witch's glance to set it a-gallop again, and I felt I could talk to her till the sun grew cold.
'It is a scholar,' she said, as we came to the place where our ways parted, 'that I have always desired to call "brother." Some one whose mouth would be all my books in little, just as was my Lord Bedford's when I was a little girl. And now methinks you have bestowed on me all my desire.'
'Indeed you wrong yourself and me. I am not such a one, though I think my master, Mr. Cartwright, is.'
'Ah, I have heard of him that he is a ripe scholar for all his wild doctrine; and now I know it, for I hear his pupil talk. I think Hal must speak no more than truth when he says you have read more books than Mr. Ascham himself.'
'I tell you, sister, you must not mark his commendations, that are bred in love and not in reason.'
'Now, I cry you mercy. You must not tell a new-wed wife that love and reason are not one. That were a philosophy fit for none but monkish scholars. There I must school you, and you me in all else but that. So I will prove a most gentle scholar; and now farewell, my brother, since it is here our ways are parting.'
Mark what a change had come over my life since I travelled the road but a few hours ago. I had ridden into Rochester from pure good manners, thinking to carry a cold greeting to Harry's wife, and so return to my books and loneliness. How differently had it fallen out! Since I left Longdene I had found a sister—a courtly and beautiful woman to whom I could talk, and who would talk kindly to me. I knew not what to think as I rode slowly along, with the shouts of the crowds which had gathered to welcome Harry and his wife coming faintly to my ears across the fields on the still evening air.
It had been the first hot day of summer, and as the night fell I sat in my old corner in the library at the open lattice, watching the golden labyrinth that broke up the dark stretch of the marshes into a hundred fantastic shapes of gloomy hue wherever the intricate channels caught the glow of the dying sunset.
No less mazy and shapeless, no less gilded and gloomy, were my wandering thoughts. My man-born sense of stern duty cried to me that the carnal conversation of Harry and his wife was sin to be shunned, a temptation of the devil to drag me from the godly work on which I was set. But then, again, my God-born sense of beauty both in body and soul said, 'Go to them, and there your hunger shall be filled.'
The labyrinth in the marshes had faded to a faint starlit glimmer here and there ere I had resolved my doubts. The whole host of heaven glittered down upon the sleeping world, and amidst them from either hand the Lactea Via seemed to show a fair path brightened with the light of God to the highest regions of His kingdom.
I knelt upon the deep window-seat and thanked God that He had given me a lantern for my path, and prayed for strength not to swerve from the way He had shown. For I had resolved to face the danger at Ashtead, that I might save the two souls I loved so well from the certain perdition to which I saw them drifting.
Ah me! what cunning casuists are our desires! How subtly will the wantons weave a cloak of reasons round about their nakedness till we know them not, and follow whither they entice, taking them in their decent array for duty! So we march on after them to death and sin, with proudly lifted heads, as who should say, 'See a man who forsakes all to follow Christ.'
It was not difficult with such a guide to find occasions for going to Ashtead. As the days of their married life wore on, and Harry tired of love-making, my visits grew frequent. He every day came to love his estate more and more, and was ever riding up and down it, with Sergeant Culverin at his heels, planning and altering and improving, just like his father. Nor could he do without a share in the country life around, and was always away whenever he could hear of a cock-fight or a bear-baiting within a reasonable distance.
'Come over and bear Nan company,' he would say at such times. 'Her bright wit misses the companionship of the Court, and will, I fear, grow dull and humorous unless you keep it clear. It is no little comfort to me that you can be by her with your learning. Her scholarship trod on the heels of mine when she was little more than a baby, and now it has slipped ahead where I can never catch it. So you must be a good brother, Jasper, and be to her what I cannot.'
So he would ride off, gallantly waving kisses to his pretty bride, and we were left alone to study cosmography together. She had begged me to teach it her, and so my great tomes got a second hallowing. I wondered daily more and more at her keen wit; her quickness at grasping what I had to tell was past all believing unless seen; yet would she never stay long at it, but would soon want waywardly to wander out into the garden and down amongst the woodlands to talk with me of whatever fancies had taken her playful thoughts.
It was a pretty sight then to see how everything loved her. The cows came trotting at her call, the colts in the meadows raced for her caress and jostled each other jealously, while her dogs squatted round with drooping ears, miserable that her favours were for others, but too mannerly to protest. Then all together would follow her along the fence to the end of the field, where, as she went from them, they would break into rough play, and disperse cheerily to their rhythmical cropping of the grass again, while the spaniels, more fortunate, leaped round her with mended spirits.
Each husbandman we came to would pause at his work and grin in silly happiness as she nodded him a merry 'god-den,' and the woodman's eyes almost brimmed with tears when she would not stop to hear the oft-told secrets of his art; and then when we came near the village the children started out of the brakes to peep at her, while the younger and braver ran crying after her with a present of gillifiowers or long purples, which their hot little hands had withered by long cuddling to a sickly faintness.
The strangest and most difficult conquest which she made was Alexander. I remember well the day I saw it first. I was riding, as I often did, to Ashtead by way of the park, when as I topped a knoll I saw her wandering across the close-cropped turf with the old soldier at her heels, and a motley following of colts and cows and one short-winded hog. Now and again her dainty figure bent down to pick a flower, and as she stopped the colts stopped, and the cows and the hog, and the Sergeant stooped for a handful of all the flowers in reach.
My wonder was increased when I saw Harry not far off overlooking the work of the woodmen, seemingly forgotten by his devoted follower. I cantered over to her, and, giving my horse to Lashmer, joined her in her walk. Soon we came to a woodman's cottage, whither she was carrying some simple drug, which her own learned little hands had compounded, for a sick child. Culverin and I remained without.
'A most sweet and excellent lady,' sighed the Sergeant, as soon as she was out of hearing.
'What! is your mind so changed?' said I. 'But a few months ago you had not a good word to throw at her.'
'Well, that is getting on for a year now, sir,' he answered, 'and I did not know her as I do now. I did not dream what virtue was in her. Why, sir, there is not a colt here, take the wildest you will, that would not follow her up the turret stair. I never saw such management, except in Signor John Peter Pugliano. And then for contemplation, sir, I could not have believed it. It was but yesterday she told me horses were the only men for her heart, since there was nothing they would not do with coaxing.'