London folk went up and down. Palace where sat a strong king, Tower
where traitors lay in ward, wall maintained through the centuries upon
the base the Romans laid, Aldgate, Newgate, Ludgate, Bishopsgate.
London Bridge, London Stone, Baynard Castle, old Temple without the
Templars, with the lawyers. Blackfriars, Whitefriars, Greyfriars,
Austin Friars, Crutched Friars, crowd of monasteries and nunneries,
great buildings of stone, lesser buildings of wood, churches and
churches, and a good way out of town Westminster, where the king was
building his great chapel with the wonderful roof. Sixty thousand,
maybe seventy thousand people in London. Learned men were there,
artists were there, merchants there, men of the Church, of the law, of
the sword. Hidden Wickliffites, hidden Lollards were there. Astrologers
and alchemists were there and men of the rosy cross. Navigators and
discoverers were there, striving to show Henry what to do to balance
or counter Ferdinand of Spain and Emmanual of Portugal. Mechanics and
artisans were there, many and many men of many crafts. Guilds and
guilds. London of the bells, of the Wall and the Thames; London outer,
London inner.
Near the Old Jewry ran a narrow street where dwelled many workers in
metal--ironsmith, coppersmith, silversmith, goldsmith--not the great
known workers but the lesser ones that the great hired. A narrow street
of poor houses, dark and noisy, or dark and still. The children were
poured into the street, the women sat in the doors or clacked up and
down. From some houses came always the clink of metal upon metal, from
others the workers went away to other places of work. At night they
returned. Now the sun cleansed all, now the fog came dull-footed into
the street and the houses and stayed.
Jankin, a worker for an armourer, opened the door of an old house. A
large room, which was a workshop, and four small rooms, and out of
the house had recently been carried a bier. The man who died had been
an old, independent metal worker. Here still were his furnace and his
tools. Whatever had been his family it was gone; apprentices who had
dwelled with him were away to other masters. “But his custom would come
back,” said Jankin. “The whole thing for so many pounds. Something
down, but the most could be worked out. ’Tis said there’s a ghost in
the house, and so they don’t sell or rent it easily.”
The man with him said, “I rent it and buy the tools.”
Jankin answered, “If you do the work you used to do, master, ’t will be
like planting a tree in a flowerpot!”
“No. And ‘master’ me no more, Jankin!”
“_Diccon Dawn._ It comes strange! But many a man and a great man is
in danger. Well, you were never much in London, master, and you’re
changed. Eh, those days I was with you in Paris! I hear them still
between hammer strokes, and they come around me like fairies. And
you’ll live here?”
“Aye.”
“The great vase you made for the cardinal! Tall as a man, and a wreath
of silver dancers! And he would have you to sup with him--and even I in
the hall had venison pasty and marchpane and such wine as Saint Vulcan
drinks!”
“Let us go to the owner.”
_Five days ago Wander Forest._
Owner of the house, heir of the dead man’s furnishings, was found.
Yes, yes! let and sell on easy terms, Jankin, who was responsible,
answering for Richard or Diccon Dawn, and the latter’s gold pieces also
answering. The long June day saw the whole completed, key in the hand
of Diccon Dawn, and still two hours lacking of sunset.
Quoth Jankin, “I can get you plain work to start on.”
He stood a middle-aged, surly, doggedly faithful man. “If you chose to
work with me again, Jankin--?”
Jankin regarded workroom, regarded street through wide, low window.
“Well, I will! I’d like to watch tree break flowerpot!”
Through the street alone, into the outer street near the river, a poor
street also, filled with a great clanging noise. Men-at-arms poured
by, going for some reason to the Tower. When they were passed he met a
country cart, two girls, sisters, seated and a boy walking beside the
horse. They had strawberries and they were crying them. “Strawberries!
Strawberries! Make you young again! Strawberries!”
Down a cross street he saw the river and it was running sunset gold
with beds of violets. He entered a poor house where lodged sailors’
wives, and here he sought and found Morgen Fay. “Come with me! I want
to show you something.”
After a moment of silence she moved toward him and they went out
together. They went through the street, a tall man and a woman very
poorly clad, tall almost as he, and of a rich beauty. There was a great
sunset this eve, bathing London and Thames and these two.
Diccon Dawn opened the door. They entered the workshop. “This place is
now mine. I do not know if you know it, but I am a smith in gold and
silver.”
Jankin had brought and left upon the table a loaf and cheese, a pitcher
of ale and a platter heaped with strawberries. Moreover there was water
provided and candles in the stand and he had swept the room. All the
tools of this trade were about; at the back stood the furnace. The
room faced the south and the west, and through the window streamed the
glowing light. They entered, they drank a little water, then stood and
faced each the other.
She spoke. “We came away upon the ship together, two mortals in the
most merciless danger. ‘That cannot be helped!’ I thought, after the
first astounding when all the blood went from my heart and my knees
bent under me. The _Vineyard_ shook us down together like two leaves
in London. ‘That cannot be helped,’ I thought, ‘but now the wind will
drive the one north and the other south!’ ‘Lodge at the Old Anchor,’
says _Vineyard_ master. I go there, and I find you there before me.
Still the wind does not rise. But now it must!”
“You have gold,” said the other. “I saw him to whom we owe more than
gold give it to you. There is still lodging at the Old Anchor. Return
there if you choose. I will walk with you. You shall lodge as you have
lodged, and I as I have lodged. But this house is now mine. Lodge here,
Morgen Fay!”
“No! Now at last we speak together! Now at last!”
“Now at last!”
She stood away from the table, he nearer window. Gold and red sunset
was behind him, a gold and red pool upon the floor between them, and a
rosy light struck her--face, head and throat.
It was again--it was again!
She cried, “Cell at Silver Cross, and you on your knees before heaven,
and I the ape!”
He put his hands before his face. “All heaven was mine!”
“Dressed so, like the great picture, and with my fingers drawing or
slackening cords that made the blue mantle to wave and lights to
brighten. Oh, God--oh, God!”
“It is so, yet they brighten.”
She leaned against the wall, clasping her hands above her forehead.
“Through wickedness and mire and hell and silly paradises I could come
at times to her garden gate and feel her within, though ever was a
fence between us! Her the Blessed, Her the Mother, Mother of All! A
sweet song of her, a bright picture of her is that one who moved in
Bethlehem and went down into Egypt and came back to Nazareth! A little
song, a little story of her is the great picture in Silver Cross. All
songs and all stories have her in them! But what _I_ did, because I
thought I was in danger and because there was mire in me, was to choose
to clip the gold coin and take it from where it was needed and buy
perdition with it! I chose to lie and cheat, to mock and perjure, to
make her small and ugly--Her the Blissful, Her the Wholly Pure, Her the
Strong and Beautiful!”
Richard Englefield turned to the window. Fiery light! The moon on the
coasts of Italy! Fiery light!
Moments dropped, far apart, slowly, one after the other. Morgen Fay
spoke again, in a changed tone. “I am not going back to the old life.
To please myself I learned to make lace and I can make it rarely. There
is here a guild of sewing women and lace-makers. A sailor’s wife told
me.”
“Work if you will, Morgen. But do you lodge here!”
“Why--why?”
They moved. Light seemed to pour over them, red light. A horn was blown
in the street. Again she cried out. “It is heaven that you love and
seek, far above this and all sinning! When I was ape I saw that, the
light falling on your face!”
“Heaven, yes--heaven grown small maybe, but heaven that man
understands! Give me heaven!”
She cried, “Oh, the ape has done murder!”
“No! No murder was done. I thought so at first, and indeed it might
seem so, but it was not. _Diccon and Alice Dawn._ Lodge here, Morgen,
lodge here!”
The fiery light, the music in the street. The brown-gold figure, the
smith in gold and silver, tall, like King David in the window of Saint
Ethelred. “Decide! It is for you to decide!”
All her life seemed to come around her. All her life up to the ruined
farm and Wander forest, and then and for a long time Wander forest,
ruined farm. And then in full, sounding and lighted, Silver Cross. Four
times in all. Prison, the _Vineyard_ ship and the Old Anchor. Fire-red
and brown-gold and shreds and lines of blue. Horns in the street,
but somewhere a lute and a viol. _Build as build you can!_ _Vineyard_
ship, Old Anchor, fiery street, house of the smith, colour and odour of
roses, viol, lute. She moved, she sat down by the table and buried her
face in her arms. Presently he lighted the candles. “Come, Morgen, come
and see the whole of it!”
“No!” said Morgen Fay and rose to her height. She stood up. “No! It is
not little me thou art seeking--little me, little thee. Perhaps--it is
great daring to say it--perhaps I also who have been ape am seeker!
At any rate, I’ll not give thee tinsel who needeth gold! And now I am
going back to Old Anchor.”