Sir Mortimer: A Novel

by Mary Johnston

The Countess of Pembroke, in mourning for her parents, was spending a midsummer month in leafy Penshurst. It was a drowsy month, of roses fully blown and heavy lilies, of bees booming amongst all honey flowers, of shady copses and wide sunlit fields; and it was a quiet month because of the Countess's mourning and because Philip Sidney was Governor of Flushing. Therefore, save for now and then a messenger bringing news from London or Wilton or from that loved brother in the Netherlands, the Countess, her women, and a page or two made up the company at Penshurst. The pages and the young gentlewomen (all under the eye of an aged majordomo) moved sedately in the old house, pacing soberly the gardens beneath the open casements; but when they reached the sweet rusticity of the outward ways, fruit-dropping orchards and sunny spaces, they were for lighter spirits, heels, and wits. With laughter young hand caught at young hand, and fair forms circled swiftly an imaginary May-pole. Tall flowers upon the Medway's brim next took their eye, and they gathered pink and white and purple sheaves; then, limed by the mere joy of work, caught up and plied the rakes of the haymakers. The meadows became lists, their sudden employment a joust-at-arms, and some slender youth crowned the swiftest workwoman with field flowers, withering in the nearest swathe. All wove garlands, then made for the shade of the trees and shared a low basket of golden apples. One had a lute and another sang a love ditty with ethereal passion. They were in Arcadia,--silken shepherdesses, slim princes in disguise,--and they breathed the sweetness, the innocent yet lofty grace which was the country's natal air.

"Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother," kept much, in her gentle, filial sorrow, to her great chamber above the gardens, where she wrote and studied, and to her closet, where before an eastern window was set the low chair beside which she kneeled in prayer for her living and her dead. She prayed much alone, but once a day, when the morn was young, she sent for one who was named her gentlewoman indeed, but to whom all her train gave deference, knowing of the love between this lady and their mistress. The lady came, beautiful, patient, with lips that smiled on life, and wonderful dark eyes in which the smile was drowned. The Countess took her morning kiss and the fair coolness of her pressed cheek, then praised the flowers in her hands, all jewelled with the dew--a lovely posy to be set amongst the Countess's little library of pious works. Then on this as on other days the two fair women read together, their soft voices making tremulous music of the stately Latin. The reading done, they kneeled side by side, dark hair against light, praying silently, each her own prayers. It was a morning rite, poignantly dear to them both; it began and helped upon its way the livelong lingering day. They arose and kissed, and presently the Countess spoke of letters which she must write. "Then," said the other, "I will go sit by the fountain until you wish for me."

"The fountain!" answered Mary Sidney. "Ah, Damaris! I would that thou mightst forget the fountain. I would that other blooms than red roses were planted there!"

"That would not I!" the other answered. "I love the fountain. And once a red rose meant to me--Paradise!"

"Then go thy ways, and gather thy roses," said the Countess fondly. "I would give thee Heaven an I could--so that thou stayed upon earth with thy fairing!"

The Countess sat herself down to write to Philip Sidney, not knowing that he was so near the frontier whence no living messenger, no warm and loving cry could ever draw him back. Damaris, a book in her hand, passed through the silent, darkened house out to the sunlit lawns. Her skirt swept the enamelled turf; she touched the tallest flowers as she passed, and they bloomed no worse for that light caress. Poetry was in her every motion, and she was too beautiful a thing to be so sad. She made no parade of grief. Faint smiles came and went, and all things added to her birthright of grace. She was the Countess's almoner: every day she did good, lessening pain, whispering balm to the anguish-stricken, speaking as with authority to troubled souls. Back from the hovel to stately houses she went, and lo! the maid of honor, exquisite, perfect as a flower. Men wooed, but might not win her. They came and went, but to her it was no matter. In her eyes still burned the patient splendor with which she waited for the tide to take her, bearing her out beyond the shallows to one who also tarried.

With a gentle sound the fountain rose and fell in a gray stone basin. Around it were set the rose-trees, and beyond the roses tall box and yew most fantastically clipped screened from observation the fairy spot. Damaris, slowly entering, became at once the spirit of the place. She paced the fountain's grassy rim to a rustic seat and took it for her chair of state, from which for a while, with her white hands behind her head, she watched the silver spray and the blue midsummer sky. A lark sang, but so high in the blue that its joyous note jarred not the languor of the place. Damaris opened her book--but what need of written poesy? The red roses smelled so sweet that 'twas as though she lay against the heart of one royal bloom. She left her throne and trod the circle, and in both hands she took the heavy blossoms and pressed them to her lips. The odor was like warm wine. "Now and for all my life," said Damaris, "for me one faded rose! Afterwards, two in a garden like this--like this!"

The grass was so green and warm that presently she lay down upon it, her head pillowed upon her arm, her eyes gazing through the fountain mist and down the emerald slopes to where ran the elmwood avenue. She gazed in idleness, through half-shut eyelids, wrapped in lullabies and drowsy warmth. Hoof-beats between the elms troubled her not. When through the mist of falling water and the veil of drooping leaves she saw riding towards the house a youth clad in blue, the horse and rider seemed but figures in a piece of tapestry. Her satin eyelids closed, and if other riders presently showed in the tapestry she saw them not, for she was sound asleep. She dreamed of a masque at Hampton Court, long ago, and of the gown she had worn and how merry she had been, and she dreamed of the Queen. Then her dream changed and she sat with Henry Sedley on the sands of a lost sea-coast, stretching in pale levels beyond the ken of man. The surf raced towards them like shadowy white horses, and a red moon hung low in the sky. There was music in the air, and his voice was speaking, but suddenly the sea and its champing horses and the red moon passed away. She stirred, and now it was not her brother's voice that spoke. Green grass was beneath her; splendid roses, red and gold, were censers slowly swinging; the silver fountain leaped as if to meet the skylark's song. Slowly Damaris raised herself from her grassy bed and looked with widening eyes upon an intruder. "I--I went to sleep," she said. "Is't Heaven or will this rose also fade?" She closed her eyes for a moment, then, opening them, "O my dream!" she cried. "Go not away!"

The sunlight fell upon his lifted head, and on his dress, that was as rich as any bridegroom's, and on a sword-knot of silver gauze. "Look you thus in Heaven, O my King?" she breathed.

Sir Mortimer approached her very slowly, for he saw that her senses strayed. As he came nearer she shrank against the wall of bloom. "Dear heart," he said, "I am a living man, and before all the world I now may wear thy silver sleave." But the rose you gave me once before hath withered into dust. I could not hold it back. "Break for me another rose--Dione!"