THE COVER OF HIS FAME.
Come death and with thy fingers close my eyes,
Or if I live, let me forget myself:
—Edward the Second, v, 1.
Oh God!—Horatio, what a wounded name,
Things standing thus unknown, shall leave behind me!
—Hamlet, v, 2.
The termination of the combat awakened feelings in the woman varied in their character and following one another with the speed of successive thoughts. She was stunned with the suddenness of the close; horror-stricken with the violence of the catastrophe; elated with the escape of Marlowe, find tremulous with sympathy for the unfortunate slain. In her silent prayer for the deliverance of Marlowe, she had only thought of it through deliberate truce, or interference from without. No idea of his escape through the death of his antagonist had occurred to her. She could not have prayed for such catastrophe, and even the wish was foreign to her mind. All the confidence that Fraser had displayed had been impressed upon her, and there had been nothing in the prolonged, though skillful, resistance of Marlowe that had raised a doubt over the dreaded outcome.
Faint with her loss of hope for mercy on the part of Frazer, she had crept to the door with the idea of throwing it open and alarming the house. With one hand on the bolt and the other on the knob she had turned her face for a last look at the combatants. It was at this moment that the coup de grace was given. She turned about and started forward with a low cry, partly of relief, partly of anguish, partly of horror.
There was something in the agonized face of the wounded man, that, while it awakened her pity, repelled her. He was still clutching his sword as though to thrust it at his unseen adversary, and the point of the trembling blade danced on the carpet. Her impulse had been to afford him succor, but the sight of his dying struggles, and the weakness of her limbs prevented. She sank on a couch before one of the walls, and, as though fascinated by the scene that had rendered her momentarily powerless, she continued to gaze upon it.
The morbid curiosity that controls an observer of the strongest agonies appears to give the lie to the belief that man is naturally humane; or why does resistance against impending death attract more than beauty or the peacefully sublime? Our resistance against observation availeth not, until the issue is no longer in doubt. Is it not because the glow and fire of intense action is communicated from the actor to the spectator? for even frailty of physical body, or purity of mind can not close the eyes at that point where in the supreme struggle neither life nor death appears to have complete mastery? But when the horror has reached its climax, interest fails with the cessation of action, and if death hath prevailed, then at length we hide our faces.
Thus it was that the woman was controlled; thus it was that, speechless and with straining vision, she caught every move of the man before her. His struggles grew less; his gaspings more prolonged and choked, until with a last effort he partly raised himself and then fell back motionless. The death-rattle escaped from his lips, and from the ensuing silence, the woman knew that the body upon the floor was lifeless; but she saw it not. She had long desired a separation from this man, but not at such sacrifice. She thought not of it then, even with the old love returned and every obstacle apparently swept aside. It was the thought of murder done that surged in and out, and in and out, of her mind.
And Marlowe, still against the wall, seemed reeling with the burden of his thoughts. He saw not the woman with terror-stricken face before him; he saw not the flaring candles, the fallen chairs, the naked swords upon the floor, the bleeding body near his feet. All these objects were before his open eyes, but the horror of the scene had bred new and shifting phantoms. The spirit which in quiet meditation had bodied forth the good and evil angels of Faustus, the harnessed emperors of Tamburlaine and the dying Edward, now saw itself in body hounded by the officers of the law; saw the impassive judge, the dull jury, and the shadow of the gallows.
He saw the honors of Cambridge blotted with stains indelible; the averted face of Walsingham, his patron; the sad countenance of Manwood, under whose flattering praise and financial aid he had pursued his studies. And, closer still, he saw the troubled and pallid face of that one woman, who, with steadfast faith in his genius and undying hope in his ultimately glorious career, prayed ever for him under the home-roof in Canterbury. Was she—his mother—to hear of his trial, and death under sentence of the law? And Marlowe, what of thyself?
In the train of these dark presentiments of what the material life promised, came now the heavy clouds wrought through consideration of the aspect of his ideal world. The treble darkness of night was about him. The dreams with which he had nursed his ambition vanished. And that ambition how deplorably annihilated. He who had written: “Virtue solely is the sum of glory,
And fashions men with true nobility,”
required no posthumous lines to point his place among the immortals. What dramas stood on the same eminence with Faustus and Edward the Second? Were not the gates of the inner temple opening wide before him? Were not his fancy’s wings gathering strength for greater flights? The flush of youth at nine-and-twenty was upon him; the fate of a murderer awaited him. Of reasoning faculty sublime, he shuddered at the thought of his name being eternally linked with crime.
In this agony, all thoughts of the original purpose of his presence in the room, all consideration of the woman, were buried as though beneath ice. It was the contrasted thoughts of the height from which he had fallen with the depth that he had reached that pervaded his mind. He blinded his eyes with his hand and staggered like a drunken man across the room toward the windows at the front, where he stood looking out through the lattice, back from which the heavy shutters had been swung. No objects met his gaze; no sounds arose. The woman heard his steps and aroused herself. It was Kit whom she saw, and the calmness resulting from her knowledge of freedom from hated ties came to her like fresh air through windows lately pent. The dead man escaped her eyes; she saw no one but the living, and raising herself from the couch she followed him across the room. Misapprehending the nature of his distress, she whispered encouragingly:
“There is chance for escape.”
He did not answer her, and this utter disregard of her presence and of her voice provoked an involuntary tremor.
“Kit, Kit, Kit,” she said, prolonging the name with each utterance, “do you not hear me? No alarm has been given. We can escape.”
But still he gave no sign of hearing, and she shook his shoulder desperately and turned his face so that his eyes could not but dwell upon her face. Again she spoke sympathizingly:
“At worst, ’twas done in self-defense. The combat was forced upon you. And was not the fatal stroke an accident? Come, come, we can not remain here.”
“Self-defense?” he repeated, questioningly, as though the idea was a new one generated wholly through his own deliberations. “’Twas a duel, and a death in such event is murder,” he added, observing her apparently for the first time.
“Thou couldst not avoid the deed,” she said in remonstrance.
“True, but what of that? Did not Hopton, Renow, and Dalton seek refuge under such a plea without avail? The outcome of a tavern brawl will not be handled by a judge with gloves on. The jury, it is true, can speak but only under the direction of the court.” He seemed talking to himself, but aloud so that she heard him. “The killing of another in a duel is murder on the part of the survivor. And then the infamy of such a trial!”
“But,” she exclaimed, “you may avoid arrest. And as for infamy, the disgrace would be mine. My husband killed by thee and in my apartments.”
At these latter thoughts the look of distress deepened on her face, and the weakness exhibited was in striking contrast with the strength she had displayed in her endeavor to afford him solace. His apparent coldness had also chilled and repelled her, and not understanding the nature of a despair in which he could not give some faint expression of love for her, she sank helpless at his feet.
This movement shook him from his brooding over the far-reaching and distant effect of the fatal stroke, to a consideration of the living reality. The tide of his feelings rose in its proper channel; he bent over her compassionately and raised her from the floor.
“Anne, Anne,” he said with returning fervor, “forgive me for my selfishness. I have been so blinded by the darkness that I thought I walked alone. And what is my misery compared with thine?”
He held her closely in his arms. It was not strange that a relaxation of mind should follow with the knowledge that she was not standing wholly alone. With her realisation that his past indifference had been but a temporary condition, her emotions became too strong to control, and the flood of tears that welled from her eyes gave evidence of the recent strain to which her feelings had been subjected. He did not attempt to subdue this exhibition of sensitiveness except with words of hope and assurance of his love, while he continued to hold her to him. The emotion had at length spent its force, and a calmness that seemed unnatural in the presence of the dead pervaded her. Releasing herself from his embrace she went over and kneeled down beside the body of Frazer. She touched the face compassionately, at the same time shocked with the sense that life was wholly extinct. The face was turned back so that the wound was on the side toward the floor. Half of the horribleness of the object was thus hidden, and viewing the profile she was again struck with its likeness to Marlowe’s.
“Look,” she said to her companion, who stood near her, “how like he is to thee.”
“So?” he asked, quickly.
“Yes, do you not see? Is there not a striking similarity in form? Is not the nose the same as thine? The face clean shaven; the hair of like color?”
“But his dress.”
He spoke as though to change her opinion, and then added, “Dost thou mean that there is enough resemblance for the one to be taken for the other?”
This time his anxiety for an affirmative answer could have been read by the veriest tyro.
“Like? Yes, much like, and when you met here I was startled by the resemblance,” she answered decidedly; and in a strain like that of one whose mind has dwelt long and intensely upon the subject, she continued, “I could not fail to comment on it when I met him shortly after I last saw you and when I believed we were done with each other for ever. It was this that drew my attention to him, and prevailed upon by his apparently sincere professions of love, I became his wife.”
“When was this marriage, Anne?” he interrupted.
“Had you not heard of it?”
“No,” he answered, “nor even entertained a suspicion that you had so soon forgotten me.”
“Nay, do not say that,” she remonstrated, “it was seven months since, but——”
“Why was this? Did I not love thee?” he interposed.
“Yes, yes; will you listen to the whole story? Ah——”
He interrupted her. “This is no place for such confession. Later, Anne; I cannot listen now.”
“Ah, see how he bleeds, Kit, and so cold.”
She had touched the hand of the dead man, and then as she noticed the glittering and unstained brand she shuddered at the thought of how much more deplorable would have been her situation had the sword reached the mark for which she had lately seen it wielded.
While Anne was thus momentarily occupied, her companion was possessed with new and entirely different thoughts than those which had lately disturbed him. In his late reflections concerning his future the question of escape had cut no prominent figure, for even though he might forever successfully baffle the officers of the law, none the less this dark chapter of his life would sully his fame. But the woman’s words of his resemblance to the dead man had lifted the heaviest of the clouds of darkness; and in the succeeding mental illumination, he felt a transport that urged him to immediate action. His mind, fertile in plot, had developed a cover for his fame. He saw the passing away of his old life, and, in the transition, read the promise of a new one; it might be in obscurity, but without obloquy.
There was no time to be spent in aught but the furtherance of his design, but first he felt the need of his companion’s assurance of absolute secrecy concerning the tragedy. His own future might now be subjected to so many vicissitudes, that a separation between himself and Anne might be inevitable. Who could tell what influences might be brought to bear upon her years hence? The seal of secrecy must never be broken.
“Anne,” he said, abruptly, “this deed may bring trouble to both of us. Can I rely upon thee absolutely and forever, in whatever situation thou art placed, whether apart from me or with me, to let no whisper of my name come from thy lips so far as the events of this night are concerned? I know it is asking much, but I have more than my personal safety at heart. I can not explain to thee. I can only implore——”
“Stop,” she exclaimed, passionately, as though the doubt in her implied by the question had cut her to the quick. “Why should you ask?”
“But we know not,” he resumed, “to what test thy love, thy constancy may be put. I do not doubt thee nor thy strength.”
“Say no more,” she again interrupted. “No persuasion, no promises, no threats, no torture shall ever prevail upon me to lisp one syllable of thy name as connected with this death. You can trust me in that.”
“Even though I should die to-morrow?” he asked.
“Yes,” she answered.
“And such answer might be of advantage to thee?”
“Yes,” again came the firm reply.
Her assurance was of a character calculated to press him forward in his hastily formulated scheme of concealment.
“I trust you implicitly,” he said, “and now you must lose no time in flight.”
“And then?” came the quick inquiry.
“I shall go, too, but it must be by a different way. You know the exits from this tavern even better than I do.”
“Yes, yes,” she returned, “the stairway, hall and every outer door.”
“And the inn-yard?”
“Yes, and the stall where my horse is standing.”
She hurried into the alcove and returned with a cape thrown over her shoulders, in the hood of which she was hastily arranging her hair.
“See,” she said, pointing towards the arras, “the filled saddle bags are there. You must bring them with thee. And where am I to meet thee?”
“At the gnarled oak,” he answered, “a half mile from here at the point where the road turns downward to the little bridge. You will wait for me there.”
“But why do you not go with me?”
“I wish to hide the crime,” he whispered, and as she looked inquiringly at him, he added, “Nay, do not ask how.”
And with these words he cautiously unbolted and opened the door wide enough to admit of her exit. The hall lamps had been extinguished.
“It is very dark,” he whispered as though hesitating at the thought of her departure alone.
“I only fear for thy safety,” she said, bravely.
“Have no fears of that,” he returned, “hasten, we have no time to spare.”
No further words were spoken, but hurriedly embracing each other as though years instead of minutes was to be their term of separation, she disappeared into the darkness.
He closed the door and bolted it again. Then he knelt beside the dead. His hands trembled in spite of the determination with which he set himself to accomplish his project. The excitement, apprehension of discovery, and the horror of the scene, almost unnerved him; but he covered his eyes with one of his hands for a moment, shook off the feeling of weakness, and then moved the body to one side, to clear it of the pool of blood. He unbuttoned the buff doublet of the corpse, and drew it off. Next he stripped it of the jerkin, belt and scabbard, then the shoes, hose and trunks and shirt. A naked body lay before him under the flickering light of the candles. Heavy footsteps in an adjoining room startled him, and he glanced at one of the corners beside the great chimney as though expecting a form to come forth. But immediately the source of the noise became apparent, and the chorus of a bacchanal song jarred him with its unfitness:
“O for a bowl of fat Canary,
Rich Palermo, sparkling sherry,
Some nectars else from Juno’s dairy,
O these draughts would make us merry.”
This song of John Lilly, one which he had sung many times with riotous companions, could not but cause him to add, in the momentary relaxation afforded:
And if the tapster does not bring
The draughts for which you’re clamoring,
Come drain with me the bitter bowl
I drink at passing of a soul.
They were lines provoked half in jest half in earnest; and again as quietness prevailed, he relapsed into his previous condition of profound melancholy. His task was but half completed; he unbuckled his own sword belt, and his fingers, which had again begun to tremble, let the scabbard fall clattering at his feet. He shook himself as though his body were the unruly instrument of a prompting and immovable mind. If this action had any result whatever it did not prevent his hands from wrenching several buttons from the front of his scarlet doublet, as he stripped it off. Still he proceeded in his task.
One by one his rich but rough-used vestments were thrown off, until the living was as the dead. The work was now bringing the calm which afforded speed to his movements, so that in an interval he had dressed the corpse in his garments, leaving it just as it had fallen on the floor. He next retreated to the alcove and washed himself clear of blood.
The buff coat was stained and spotted by the life-current of the dead man. He cast it to one side. The rest of the garments were free of any traces of the catastrophe. In these he dressed himself; buckled the belt around his waist; picked up the long murderous-looking blade of Ferrera and sheathed the same in its scabbard against his puffed upper hose. From a hook upon the wall, in the alcove, he took a long dark cloak with white silk lining and silver buckle at the collar. This he threw over his shoulders so that the absence of a coat or doublet was not perceptible.
The papers from his own pockets, with his name written upon several of them, he had dropped near one of the out-stretched hands upon the carpet. There seemed no possibility for the body to be buried under any name but that of Christopher Marlowe. He readjusted the misfitting hat, extinguished the candles, opened the door, and closing it after him, stepped into the hall.
The old life had closed. So far as the world should know the first adventurous pilot upon the ocean of English blank verse [[note 17]], the mighty Marlowe, was among the immortal dead.