[Illustration]
“Now let us take our Leave”
There lived once in Verona two friends who loved each other dearly;
their names were Valentine and Proteus. They were both young and
gallant gentlemen, but they were very different in character, as
you will presently see. Valentine was simple and honest, a loyal
and devoted friend, and too candid and sincere himself to think of
treachery in others. Proteus had warm affections, but he was fickle
and changeable, carried away by impulse, and always so desperately
eager for what he happened to want at the moment that he stopped at no
means to gain his ends.
Valentine and Proteus were very happy together as companions, but at
last the time came when they were to part. Valentine was not content
to settle down at Verona; he wanted to see something of the world and
its wider life.
“Home-keeping youth have ever homely wits,” he said to Proteus, who
was trying to persuade him to stay. “If it were not that you were
chained here by your affections I would rather beg your company to
see the wonders of the world abroad. But since you are in love, love
still, and thrive in it, even as I would when I once begin to love.”
This he said because Proteus was deeply in love at that moment with a
fair lady of Verona called Julia. And then Valentine went on to tease
Proteus, pretending that all love was folly, and that only foolish
people let themselves be deluded into it. He little knew how soon
he was himself to be caught in the same folly, and how basely and
treacherously his friend was going to act towards him.
However, at that moment Proteus had no thought for anyone but Julia,
and would not have left Verona on any account. The two friends took an
affectionate farewell of each other, and Valentine went his way, to
travel to the Court of Milan.
“He hunts after honour, I after love,” thought Proteus, when his
friend had left him. “He leaves his friends to bring more credit to
them by improving himself. I leave myself, my friends, and all, for
love. Thou, Julia, hast changed me, made me neglect my studies, lose
my time, fight against good counsel, set the world at naught, weaken
my brains with dreaming, and make my heart sick with thought!”
While Proteus was indulging in this rhapsody, Speed, the clownish
servant of Valentine, came hurrying up.
“Sir Proteus, save you!” he cried, in the greeting of those days. “Saw
you my master?”
“He has just this minute gone to embark for Milan,” replied Proteus.
“Did you give my letter to the Lady Julia?”
“Ay, sir, and she gave me nothing for my labour,” said Speed, who was
out of temper at not having received the handsome fee he was hoping
for.
“But what did she say?” asked Proteus eagerly.
“Oh--she nodded!”
“Come, come, what did she say?”
“If you will open your purse, sir....”
“Well, there is something for your trouble. Now, what did she say?”
“Truly, sir, I think you will hardly win her,” said Speed with a sly
look, pocketing the piece of money Proteus threw to him.
“Why? Could you perceive so much from her manner?”
“Sir, I could perceive nothing at all from her--no, not so much as a
ducat for delivering your letter. And as she was so hard to me who was
your messenger, I fear she will prove equally hard to you. Give her no
present but a stone, for she is as hard as steel.”
“What did she say? Nothing?” repeated poor Proteus.
“No, not so much as ‘Take that for your pains,’” said Speed, still
harping on his own grievance. “I thank you for your bounty, sir.
Henceforth carry your letters yourself. And so I will go seek my
master.”
“Go, go, to save your ship from wreck!” cried Proteus, incensed at
the fellow’s impertinence. “It cannot perish when you are aboard, for
you are certainly destined for a drier death on shore!--I must find
some better messenger to send,” he added to himself, when the saucy
serving-man had taken himself off. “I am afraid my Julia would not
deign to accept my lines, receiving them from such a worthless envoy.”
* * * * *
But, as it happened, the letter had so far not reached the hands of
the lady for whom it was intended, for it was only her waiting-maid
Lucetta whom Speed had seen, and to whom he had given the letter in
mistake for Julia.
Lucetta went in search of her mistress, and found her in the garden,
musing over many things, for by this time Julia really loved Proteus,
although she would not acknowledge it even to herself. When Lucetta
handed her the letter, saying she thought it had been sent by Proteus,
Julia pretended to be angry, and scolded her maid for daring to
receive it.
“There, take the paper again,” she said, “and see that it is returned,
or never again come into my presence.”
“To plead for love deserves a better reward than to be scolded,”
muttered Lucetta.
From being so much with her young mistress, the maid was treated more
as a companion than as a servant, and was accustomed to speak out her
mind frankly on every occasion.
“Go!” said Julia severely; but no sooner had Lucetta disappeared than
she was seized with remorse.
“How churlishly I sent her away, when all the time I wanted her here!”
she thought. “How angrily I tried to frown, when really my heart was
smiling with secret joy! To punish myself I must call Lucetta back,
and ask her pardon for my folly.... What ho, Lucetta!”
“What does you ladyship want?” asked Lucetta, reappearing.
But at the sight of her maid Julia suddenly became shy again.
“Is it near dinner-time?” she asked, with an air of pretended
indifference.
“I would it were, madam, so that you might spend your anger on your
meat, and not on your maid,” replied Lucetta rather flippantly; and at
that moment she let the letter fall, and picked it up ostentatiously.
“What is it you took up so gingerly?” inquired Julia.
“Nothing.”
“Why did you stoop, then?”
“To pick up a paper I let fall.”
“And is that paper nothing?”
“Nothing that concerns me.”
“Then let it lie there for whom it does concern.”
But Lucetta had no intention that the letter should lie unheeded
on the ground, for her only purpose in dropping it was to bring it
again to Julia’s notice. She little knew how her mistress longed at
that moment to have it in her own possession, but was too proud to
acknowledge it. Lucetta could not refrain from some pert speeches, and
her jesting words irritated Julia, especially when Lucetta declared
she was taking the part of Proteus.
“I will have no more chatter about this,” said Julia; and she tore the
letter and threw the pieces on the ground. “Go, get you gone, and let
the papers lie!”
[Illustration: “Go, get you gone, and let the papers lie!”]
“She pretends not to like it, but she would be very well pleased to be
so angered with another letter,” said the shrewd maid, half aloud, as
she walked away.
“Nay, would I were so angered with the same!” cried Julia, eagerly
seizing some of the fragments. “O hateful hands to tear such loving
words! I’ll kiss each little piece of paper to make amends. Look! here
is written ‘Kind Julia!’ _Unkind_ Julia! Be calm, good wind; do not
blow any of the words away until I have found every letter.”
And with a loving touch she began carefully to collect the torn scraps
of paper.
“Madam,” said Lucetta, coming back, “dinner is ready, and your father
waits.”
“Well, let us go,” said Julia.
“Are these papers to lie here like tell-tales, madam?”
“If you care about them, you had better pick them up.”
“They shall not stay here, for fear of catching cold,” said Lucetta,
with a mischievous little smile to herself.
“I see you are very anxious to have them,” said Julia.
“Ay, madam, you may say what sights you see,” said the maid, quite
unabashed. “I see things, too, although you judge my eyes are shut.”
“Come, come, let us go,” said Julia.
* * * * *
Proteus had refused to accompany his friend Valentine, but he soon
found that he was not to be allowed to remain at Verona. In those days
it was considered that no young man was well brought up unless he had
had the advantage of foreign travel, and an uncle of his spoke very
strongly on the subject.
“I wonder that his father lets him spend his youth at home,” he said,
“while other men of much less repute send out their sons to seek
preferment--some to the wars, to try their fortune there; some to
discover islands far away; some to study at the universities. For any
or for all of these Proteus is fit. It will be a great disadvantage to
him in after-years to have known no travel in his youth.”
To this Proteus’s father, Antonio, answered that he had already been
thinking over the matter.
“I have reflected how he is wasting his time, and how he can never be
a perfect man unless he goes out in the world to learn by experience,”
he said.
And he came to the conclusion that he could not do better than send
Proteus after Valentine, to the Court of the Duke of Milan. Proteus
was ordered to hold himself in readiness to start the next day, and
all appeals were useless. The only consolation he had in leaving Julia
was that the lady now frankly admitted her love.
“Keep this remembrance for thy Julia’s sake,” she said, giving him a
ring when the moment came to part.
“Why, then, we’ll make an exchange,” said Proteus. “Here, take you
this. And here is my hand for my true constancy. If ever I do not
remember you for a single hour, Julia, the next hour let some evil
mischance torment me for my forgetfulness.”
And so, with many protestations of love and fidelity, Proteus started
to rejoin his friend Valentine at Milan, and Julia was left behind at
Verona.
“Who is Silvia?”
Valentine had spoken many wise words to Proteus on the folly of being
in love, but he had not been long in Milan before he was in just the
same sad plight that he had cautioned his friend against. The Duke of
Milan had a beautiful daughter called Silvia, and it was with her that
Valentine fell deeply in love. She returned his affection, and they
became secretly betrothed, but they dared not let this be known, for
her father favoured another suitor, Sir Thurio, a rich and well-born
gentleman, but foolish and extremely vain.
The Duke of Milan, as was the custom in those days, thought himself at
perfect liberty to dispose of his daughter in marriage as best pleased
himself, with but scant regard for her own feelings on the subject. He
suspected there was some love between Silvia and Valentine, and saw
many little things when they thought him blind. He often determined to
forbid Valentine his Court and his daughter’s company, but, fearing
that his jealousy might perhaps be leading him into error, and that
he might bring disgrace unworthily upon Valentine, he resolved not
to act rashly, but by gentle means to try to discover the truth. In
the meanwhile he kept a strict watch over Silvia, and, fearing some
attempt on the part of the young lovers to escape secretly, he gave
directions that Silvia should be lodged in an upper tower, the key of
which was brought every night to himself.
Matters were in this state when, to Valentine’s great joy, Proteus
arrived at the Court of Milan. In the full warmth of his generous
heart, Valentine lavished praises of his friend to the Duke of Milan
and to Silvia, and for the sake of the love she bore to Valentine
Silvia gave Proteus a hearty welcome.
But what a base return Proteus made for the kindness heaped on him!
In spite of the devotion which he had professed for Julia, in spite
of his lifelong friendship with Valentine, Proteus no sooner beheld
Silvia than he imagined himself desperately in love with her. All
thought of loyalty and honour was recklessly flung aside. He knew he
was behaving shamefully. He remembered his faithful lady in Verona;
he called to mind the duty he owed his dear friend Valentine. But for
the moment his weak and selfish nature carried him beyond control. He
had no thought but to gratify his own desires, and he determined to
throw over Julia, and to win Silvia for himself at whatever cost of
treachery and dishonour.
The task did not seem an impossible one, for Valentine, in the full
glow of his unsuspicious nature, was ready to place unbounded trust
in his friend, and in this way he gave into his hands the means by
which he was betrayed. He told Proteus that, unknown to the Duke, her
father, Silvia and he were betrothed--nay, more, that the hour of
their marriage and the method of their flight were already arranged.
Silvia was locked into her tower every night, but Valentine was to
come with a ladder of ropes, by which he could climb up and help her
to descend. That very evening was fixed for the carrying out of their
scheme, and Valentine was now on his way to procure the ladder of
ropes by which the attempt was to be made.
Proteus listened to this plot, and then in the depths of his meanness
he determined to give Silvia’s father notice of what was planned,
for he thought it would turn out greatly to his own advantage to
do so. Valentine would be banished, and the way would then be left
open for himself to try to win Silvia. True, her father favoured
another suitor, Sir Thurio, but Proteus had little fear of that
dull gentleman, and he thought it would be very easy to thwart his
proceedings with some sly trick.
Proteus lost no time in carrying out his scheme, and it was
immediately successful. With feigned reluctance, and under the
hypocritical pretence that he was only acting from a sense of duty,
Proteus repeated to the Duke of Milan what Valentine had told him.
He made the Duke promise that he would not reveal his treachery, and
pointed out how he could easily entrap Valentine as if the discovery
had been made by himself. The Duke acted on this advice. He pretended
to ask Valentine’s counsel as to the best way of winning a lady to be
his wife, whose friends kept her securely shut up. Valentine at once
suggested the method of escape which he was hoping to use in his own
case.
“A ladder quaintly made of cords,” he said, “with hooks at the end,
which you can throw up, and by which you can scale the tower.”
“But how shall I convey the ladder?” asked the Duke.
“It will be so light, my lord, that you can easily carry it under your
cloak,” said Valentine.
“Will a cloak as long as yours serve the purpose?”
“Why, any cloak will serve, my lord.”
“How shall I wear it?” said the Duke. “Pray let me feel your cloak
upon me.”
Valentine could scarcely refuse, and the next moment the Duke had
drawn forth from the cloak not only a letter addressed to Silvia,
saying that Valentine would set her free that night, but also the
ladder of ropes that was to be used for that purpose.
Then the Duke’s anger blazed forth.
“Go, base intruder! Overweening slave!” he exclaimed; and in words of
the most contemptuous wrath he ordered Valentine to leave his Court
and his territories, and never to be seen in them again on pain of
death.
[Illustration: “Go, base intruder! Overweening slave!”]