Evander awoke in a strange world steeped in lavender. It was long
since he had lain so soft, long since he had drifted out of dreams to
breathe lavender. His pleased senses, less alert for very ease and
pleasure, denied him immediate knowledge of his whereabouts. He saw a
fair room, well appointed; he welcomed the morning sunlight through
delicate, unfamiliar curtains; he questioned the insisting
deliciousness of lavender. Where was he? What was this chamber of
calm panelled in pale oak? It was not Leyden, it was not Cambridge;
then in a flash he knew. It was the west room at Harby--Harby where
he lay a prisoner on parole, Harby which he had tried to take and
which had ended by taking him. He leaped from his bed instantly, well
awake, well alive, and gaining the window peeped through the parted
curtains. He looked out across the moat on the terrace to the rear of
Harby, beyond which lay the spacious gardens for which Harby was held
famous. His men had held that terrace twenty-four hours earlier; now
they had vanished as if they had never been, save for the testimony
of the trampled grass. In their place a solitary figure sat on a
baluster drinking smoke contemplatively from a pipe of clay. Evander
knew him for Halfman--knew, too, that Halfman watched there for him,
for the moment the curtains parted the sitter rose and, advancing
towards the edge of the moat, waved and voiced salutation to Evander.
"Give you good-morning, gallant capitano," he called. "Jocund day
stands on the top of yon high eastern hill. Will it please your
worthiness to be stirring?"
"Very willingly," Evander called back. "Have I overslept?"
Halfman made a gesture of protestation.
"Nay, nay," he answered. "Your time is your own nag here, to amble,
pad, or gallop as you choose. Have I your permission to wait upon you
in your apartment?"
On Evander's assurances that nothing would afford him greater
pleasure, Halfman favored him with a military salute, and, crossing
the moat by the now restored bridge, disappeared inside the house.
Evander hastened to clothe himself, a task which he had but partially
accomplished when the drumming of a pair of hands upon the door
informed him that his custodian waited at the threshold. He opened
the door, and Halfman walked in wearing for the occasion a manner in
which good-fellowship and condescension, with the consideration of a
noble victor for a noble vanquished, were artfully blended and
emphatically interpreted. He held out his hand for Evander's and gave
to it a martial pressure.
"A soldier should ever be abroad betimes," he asserted. "Wherefore I
applaud your rising."
Evander inquired again, somewhat anxiously, if he had been expected
to appear before, which again Halfman denied.
"Since you have passed your parole," he affirmed, "Harby Hall is
Liberty Hall for you as far as to the park limits. I would have
battered at your door ere this, but I respected your first sleep in a
strange bed, wherein often a bad night makes a late matins. Can you
break your fast?"
Evander answering that he could, Halfman called upon him to follow,
and led the way into an adjoining room, which was, so he assured
Evander, set at his disposal during the period of his stay. The room,
like the bedchamber, was panelled of oak, was handsomely furnished,
and its long windows, which occupied almost the entirety of one wall,
afforded the same view of terrace and garden that Evander had already
seen. Much had been newly done, so Evander could see, to brighten and
cheer the place. A bowl of royal roses stood on the buffet, and
Evander smiled at the delicate defiance. In the alcove of the
window-seat a number of books were piled, books that had patently
been newly dusted, and Evander, glancing at these, found that they
were all theological, an attention which made him smile. A table
decked with lily-white linen and silver furniture bore preparations
for a meal.
"Here, sir," said Halfman, cheerfully, "for some few hours of flying
time, you are, in a word, king of the castle. These rooms are yours
to eat in, read in, pray in, sleep in--what you please. None shall
disturb your privacy without your leave."
Evander guessed that his hostess had found this way of treating him
well and yet keeping her from his presence. There was bitterness in
the thought that she must needs hate him so deeply. It may be that
something of the bitterness of the thought asserted itself on
Evander's face, and that Halfman misread it thinking he read the
prisoner's thoughts clearly.
"Do not think," he proceeded, "that you are cabined and cribbed to
these walls. All Harby Park is your pleasant paradise when you are
pleased to walk abroad, and after you have broken your fast I shall
be pleased to guide you through its glories. And now, will you that I
eat with you? I have kept myself fasting, or wellnigh fasting, till
now, but if you would rather break your bread in solitude say,
without offence given, what I shall hear without offence taken."
Evander assured his companion that he desired his company of all
things. Indeed, had Halfman been other than he was, Evander would
have preferred any companionship that kept him from his melancholy
thoughts. And already Halfman attracted him, or at least interested
him. His fantastical manner, his fluent speech, his assurance, and
that note of something foreign, odd, as characteristic, as
conclusive, as the scorch of foreign suns upon his face, appealed to
the curiosity in Evander which ever made men books for him. Halfman's
manner grew more expansive at Evander's ready acceptance of his
offer. He was now the magnificent host, soldier still, but soldier at
his ease, and he played at Lord of Harby with enthusiasm.
"You are in the right," he said. "It is ill for man to sit alone at
meat, for it encourages whimsical humors and the mounting of
crudities to the brain. A flagon is twice a flagon that is shared by
camerados, and who can praise a pasty to himself with only dumb walls
to echo his plaudits? And here in good time come flagon and pasty,
both."
The door had opened as he spoke, and Mistress Satchell came into the
room, followed by a brace of serving-men who bore on trays the
materials for an ample repast. Halfman eyed the viands with approval,
while Evander returned gravely Mrs. Satchell's florid bobs and
greetings.
"I saw to it last night," he went on, "that Harby was revictualled.
You pinched us, sir, you pared us; our larder was as lean as a
stork's leg, but to-day we can eat our fill."
And, indeed, the table now being spread by Mrs. Satchell's directions
bore out the assertion of Halfman. Jolly, white loaves, a grinning
boar's head, a pasty with a golden dome, a ham the color of a pink
flower, and a dish of cold game tempted hunger where flagons of white
wine and red wine tempted thirst. Halfman dismissed Mrs. Satchell
and her satellites affably.
"We can wait upon ourselves," he averred. "We shall be more private
so," and he motioned Evander to a seat and took his own place
opposite. "Yes," he said, resuming the thread of his thought, as he
piled a plate for Evander, "you did your best to starve us; we must
not do the like by you."
Evander smiled as he stayed the generosity of his host's hands and
accepted from his reluctance a plate less lavishly charged with
viands than Halfman had proposed to offer him.
"Yet," he said, "I think I heard, no later ago than yesterday, much
clatter of dishes and much rattling of cups and all the sounds of
plenty."
Halfman hurriedly bolted a goodly slice of ham lest it should choke
him while he laughed, which he now did heartily, lolling back in his
chair. He was honestly amused, and yet it seemed to Evander as if
there were something in his strange friend's mirth which was
carefully calculated to produce its effect. Indeed, Halfman, as he
laughed, was thinking of Sir John Falstaff's full-bodied thunders
over some ticklish misdoings of Bardolph or Nym. When he had enough
of his own performance, he allowed the laughter to die as suddenly as
it had dawned, and gave tongue.
"That was the best jest in the world," he chuckled. "Clatter of
dishes, say you, and rattle of cups. Once, when I was in Aleppo, I
heard an old fellow in an Abraham beard telling a tale to a crowd of
Moors. I had not enough of their lingo to know why they laughed, but
one who was with me that had more Moorish told me the tale. It was of
one who invited a poor man to his house and pretended to feed him
nobly, naming this fair dish and that fine wine, and pressing meat
and drink upon him, while all the while, in very mockery, there was
neither bite in any platter nor sup in any bottle. Well, excellent
sir, our table of yesterday was in some such case."
Evander nodded. "I guessed as much," he commented. "But, indeed, it
was bravely done."
"It was bravely devised," Halfman asserted. "It was my lady's
thought. She would never let a rascally Roundhead--I crave your
pardon, she would never let an enemy--dream that we were in lack of
aught at Harby that could help us to serve the King."
"Your lady is a very brave lady," Evander said, quietly. Halfman
caught at his words with a kind of cheer in his voice.
"Hippolyta was not more valiant, nor Parthian Candace, nor French
Joan. She is the rose of the world, the fairest fair, the valiantest
valor. There is no wine in the world that is worthy to pledge her,
but we must do our best with what we have."
He filled himself a spacious tankard as he spoke and drained it at a
draught. Evander listened to his ebullient praises in silence. He did
not think that the Lady of Harby should be so spoken of and by such
an one. Over-eating and especially over-drinking were ever
distasteful to him, and he took it that Halfman was on the high-road
to becoming drunk. But in this he was wrong. When Halfman set down
his vessel he was as sober as when he had lifted it, but of a sudden
a shade graver, as if Evander's silence had shadowed his boisterous
gayety. He pushed the beaker from him with a sigh, and then, seeing
that Evander's plate was empty, offered to ply him with more food. On
Evander's refusal he pushed back his chair. "Well," he said, "if your
stomach is stayed, are you for a stroll in the gardens--will you see
lawns and parks of fairyland?"
Evander willingly acquiesced, and the strangely assorted pair rose
and quitted the chamber. They met Mistress Satchell on the threshold,
and Tiffany hiding slyly behind her highness. Evander smilingly
complimented Mistress Satchell on the excellence of her table, to the
good dame's great gratification. But much to Tiffany's indignation he
paid little heed to her pretty face.