In which Two Drink of One Cup
Waiting for us in the doorway we found Master Jeremy Sparrow, relieved
of his battered armour, his face wreathed with hospitable smiles, and a
posy in his hand.
"When the Spaniard turned out to be only the King's minion, I slipped
away to see that all was in order," he said genially. "Here are roses,
madam, that you are not to treat as you did those others."
She took them from him with a smile, and we went into the house to find
three fair large rooms, something bare of furnishing, but clean and
sweet, with here and there a bow pot of newly gathered flowers, a dish
of wardens on the table, and a cool air laden with the fragrance of the
pine blowing through the open window.
"This is your demesne," quoth the minister. "I have worthy Master
Bucke's own chamber upstairs. Ah, good man, I wish he may quickly
recover his strength and come back to his own, and so relieve me of the
burden of all this luxury. I, whom nature meant for an eremite, have no
business in kings' chambers such as these."
His devout faith in his own distaste for soft living, and his longings
after a hermit's cell, was an edifying spectacle. So was the evident
pride which he took in his domain, the complacence with which he
pointed out the shady, well-stocked garden, and the delight with which
he produced and set upon the table a huge pasty and a flagon of wine.
"It is a fast day with me," he said. "I may neither eat nor drink until
the sun goes down. The flesh is a strong giant, very full of pride and
lust of living, and the spirit must needs keep watch and ward, seizing
every opportunity to mortify and deject its adversary. Goodwife Allen is
still gaping with the crowd at the fort, and your man and maid have not
yet come, but I shall be overhead if you need aught. Mistress Percy must
want rest after her ride."
He was gone, leaving us two alone together. She stood opposite me,
beside the window, from which she had not moved since entering the room.
The colour was still in her cheeks, the light in her eyes, and she still
held the roses with which Sparrow had heaped her arms. I was moving to
the table.
"Wait!" she said, and I turned toward her again.
"Have you no questions to ask?" she demanded.
I shook my head. "None, madam."
"I was the King's ward!" she cried.
I bowed, but spoke no word, though she waited for me.
"If you will listen," she said at last, proudly, and yet with a pleading
sweetness,--"if you will listen, I will tell you how it was that I--that
I came to wrong you so."
"I am listening, madam," I replied.
She stood against the light, the roses pressed to her bosom, her dark
eyes upon me, her head held high. "My mother died when I was born; my
father, years ago. I was the King's ward. While the Queen lived she kept
me with her,--she loved me, I think; and the King, too, was kind,--would
have me sing to him, and would talk to me about witchcraft and the
Scriptures, and how rebellion to a king is rebellion to God. When I was
sixteen, and he tendered me marriage with a Scotch lord, I, who loved
the gentleman not, never having seen him, prayed the King to take the
value of my marriage and leave me my freedom. He was so good to me then
that the Scotch lord was wed elsewhere, and I danced at the wedding with
a mind at ease. Time passed, and the King was still my very good lord.
Then, one black day, my Lord Carnal came to court, and the King looked
at him oftener than at his Grace of Buckingham. A few months, and my
lord's wish was the King's will. To do this new favourite pleasure he
forgot his ancient kindness of heart; yea, and he made the law of no
account. I was his kinswoman, and under my full age; he would give my
hand to whom he chose. He chose to give it to my Lord Carnal."
She broke off, and turned her face from me toward the slant sunshine
without the window. Thus far she had spoken quietly, with a certain
proud patience of voice and bearing; but as she stood there in a silence
which I did not break, the memory of her wrongs brought the crimson to
her cheeks and the anger to her eyes. Suddenly she burst forth
passionately: "The King is the King! What is a subject's will to clash
with his? What weighs a woman's heart against his whim? Little cared he
that my hand held back, grew cold at the touch of that other hand in
which he would have put it. What matter if my will was against that
marriage? It was but the will of a girl, and must be broken. All my
world was with the King; I, who stood alone, was but a woman, young and
untaught. Oh, they pressed me sore, they angered me to the very heart!
There was not one to fight my battle, to help me in that strait, to show
me a better path than that I took. With all my heart, with all my soul,
with all my might, I _hate_ that man which that ship brought here
to-day! You know what I did to escape them all, to escape that man. I
fled from England in the dress of my waiting maid and under her name. I
came to Virginia in that guise. I let myself be put up, appraised, cried
for sale, in that meadow yonder, as if I had been indeed the piece of
merchandise I professed myself. The one man who approached me with
respect I gulled and cheated. I let him, a stranger, give me his name. I
shelter myself now behind his name. I have foisted on him my quarrel. I
have---- Oh, despise me, if you will! You cannot despise me more than I
despise myself!"
I stood with my hand upon the table and my eyes studying the shadow of
the vines upon the floor. All that she said was perfectly true, and
yet---- I had a vision of a scarlet and black figure and a dark and
beautiful face. I too hated my Lord Carnal.
"I do not despise you, madam," I said at last. "What was done two weeks
ago in the meadow yonder is past recall. Let it rest. What is mine is
yours: it's little beside my sword and my name. The one is naturally at
my wife's service; for the other, I have had some pride in keeping it
untarnished. It is now in your keeping as well as my own. I do not fear
to leave it there, madam."
I had spoken with my eyes upon the garden outside the window, but now I
looked at her, to see that she was trembling in every limb,--trembling
so that I thought she would fall. I hastened to her. "The roses," she
said,--"the roses are too heavy. Oh, I am tired--and the room goes
round."
I caught her as she fell, and laid her gently upon the floor. There was
water on the table, and I dashed some in her face and moistened her
lips; then turned to the door to get woman's help, and ran against
Diccon.
"I got that bag of bones here at last, sir," he began. "If ever I----"
His eyes travelled past me, and he broke off.
"Don't stand there staring," I ordered. "Go bring the first woman you
meet."
"Is she dead?" he asked under his breath. "Have you killed her?"
"Killed her, fool!" I cried. "Have you never seen a woman swoon?"
"She looks like death," he muttered. "I thought----"
"You thought!" I exclaimed. "You have too many thoughts. Begone, and
call for help!"
"Here is Angela," he said sullenly and without offering to move, as,
light of foot, soft of voice, ox-eyed and docile, the black woman
entered the room. When I saw her upon her knees beside the motionless
figure, the head pillowed on her arm, her hand busy with the fastenings
about throat and bosom, her dark face as womanly tender as any English
mother's bending over her nursling; and when I saw my wife, with a
little moan, creep further into the encircling arms, I was satisfied.
"Come away!" I said, and, followed by Diccon, went out and shut the
door.
My Lord Carnal was never one to let the grass grow beneath his feet. An
hour later came his cartel, borne by no less a personage than the
Secretary of the colony.
I took it from the point of that worthy's rapier. It ran thus: "Sir,--At
what hour to-morrow and at what place do you prefer to die? And with
what weapon shall I kill you?"
"Captain Percy will give me credit for the profound reluctance with
which I act in this affair against a gentleman and an officer so high in
the esteem of the colony," said Master Pory, with his hand upon his
heart. "When I tell him that I once fought at Paris in a duel of six on
the same side with my late Lord Carnal, and that when I was last at
court my Lord Warwick did me the honour to present me to the present
lord, he will see that I could not well refuse when the latter requested
my aid."
"Master Pory's disinterestedness is perfectly well known," I said,
without a smile. "If he ever chooses the stronger side, sure he has
strong reasons for so doing. He will oblige me by telling his principal
that I ever thought sunrise a pleasant hour for dying, and that there
could be no fitter place than the field behind the church, convenient as
it is to the graveyard. As for weapons, I have heard that he is a good
swordsman, but I have some little reputation that way myself. If he
prefers pistols or daggers, so be it."
"I think we may assume the sword," said Master Pory.
I bowed.
"You'll bring a friend?" he asked.
"I do not despair of finding one," I answered, "though my second, Master
Secretary, will put himself in some jeopardy."
"It is _combat à l'outrance_, I believe?"
"I understand it so."
"Then we'd better have Bohun. The survivor may need his services."
"As you please," I replied, "though my man Diccon dresses my scratches
well enough."
He bit his lip, but could not hide the twinkle in his eye.
"You are cocksure," he said. "Curiously enough, so is my lord. There are
no further formalities to adjust, I believe? To-morrow at sunrise,
behind the church, and with rapiers?"
"Precisely."
He slapped his blade back into its sheath. "Then that's over and done
with, for the nonce at least! Sufficient unto the day, etcetera. 'S
life! I'm hot and dry! You've sacked cities, Ralph Percy; now sack me
the minister's closet and bring out his sherris. I'll be at charges for
the next communion."
We sat us down upon the doorstep with a tankard of sack between us, and
Master Pory drank, and drank, and drank again.
"How's the crop?" he asked. "Martin reports it poorer in quality than
ever, but Sir George will have it that it is very Varinas."
"It's every whit as good as the Spanish," I answered. "You may tell my
Lord Warwick so, when next you write."
He laughed. If he was a timeserver and leagued with my Lord Warwick's
faction in the Company, he was a jovial sinner. Traveller and student,
much of a philosopher, more of a wit, and boon companion to any beggar
with a pottle of ale,--while the drink lasted,--we might look askance at
his dealings, but we liked his company passing well. If he took half a
poor rustic's crop for his fee, he was ready enough to toss him sixpence
for drink money; and if he made the tenants of the lands allotted to his
office leave their tobacco uncared for whilst they rowed him on his
innumerable roving expeditions up creeks and rivers, he at least
lightened their labours with most side-splitting tales, and with bottle
songs learned in a thousand taverns.
"After to-morrow there'll be more interesting news to write," he
announced. "You're a bold man, Captain Percy."
He looked at me out of the corners of his little twinkling eyes. I sat
and smoked in silence.
"The King begins to dote upon him," he said; "leans on his arm, plays
with his hand, touches his cheek. Buckingham stands by, biting his lip,
his brow like a thundercloud. You'll find in to-morrow's antagonist,
Ralph Percy, as potent a conjurer as your cousin Hotspur found in
Glendower. He'll conjure you up the Tower, and a hanging, drawing, and
quartering. Who touches the King's favourite had safer touch the King.
It's _lèse majesté_ you contemplate."
He lit his pipe and blew out a great cloud of smoke, then burst into a
roar of laughter. "My Lord High Admiral may see you through. Zooks!
there'll be a raree-show worth the penny, behind the church
to-morrow,--a Percy striving with all his might and main to serve a
Villiers! Eureka! There is something new under the sun, despite the
Preacher!" He blew out another cloud of smoke. By this the tankard was
empty, and his cheeks were red, his eyes moist, and his laughter very
ready.
"Where's the Lady Jocelyn Leigh?" he asked. "May I not have the honour
to kiss her hand before I go?"
I stared at him. "I do not understand you," I said coldly. "There's none
within but Mistress Percy. She is weary, and rests after her journey. We
came from Weyanoke this morning."
He shook with laughter. "Ay, ay, brave it out!" he cried. "It's what
every man Jack of us said you would do! But all's known, man! The
Governor read the King's letters in full Council an hour ago. She's the
Lady Jocelyn Leigh; she's a ward of the King's; she and her lands are to
wed my Lord Carnal!"
"She was all that," I replied. "Now she's my wife."
"You'll find that the Court of High Commission will not agree with you."
My rapier lay across my knees, and I ran my hand down its worn scabbard.
"Here's one that agrees with me," I said. "And up there is Another," and
I lifted my hat.
He stared. "God and my good sword!" he cried. "A very knightly
dependence, but not to be mentioned nowadays in the same breath with
gold and the King's favour. Better bend to the storm, man; sing low
while it roars past. You can swear that you didn't know her to be of
finer weave than dowlas. Oh, they'll call it in some sort a marriage,
for the lady's own sake; but they'll find flaws enough to crack a
thousand such mad matches. The divorce is the thing! There's precedent,
you know. A fair lady was parted from a brave man not a thousand years
ago, because a favourite wanted her. True, Frances Howard wanted the
favourite, whilst this beauty of yours----"
"You will please not couple the name of my wife with the name of that
adulteress!" I interrupted fiercely.
He started, then cried out somewhat hurriedly: "No offence, no offence!
I meant no comparisons; comparisons are odorous, saith Dogberry. All at
court know the Lady Jocelyn Leigh for a very Britomart, a maid as cold
as Dian!"
I rose, and began to pace up and down the bit of green before the door.
"Master Pory," I said at last, coming to a stop before him, "if, without
breach of faith, you can tell me what was said or done at the Council
to-day anent this matter, you will lay me under an obligation that I
shall not forget."
He studied the lace on his sleeve in silence for a while, then glanced
up at me out of those small, sly, merry eyes. "Why," he answered, "the
King demands that the lady be sent home forthwith, on the ship that gave
us such a turn to-day, in fact, with a couple of women to attend her,
and under the protection of the only other passenger of quality, to wit,
my Lord Carnal. His Majesty cannot conceive it possible that she hath so
far forgotten her birth, rank, and duty as to have maintained in
Virginia this mad masquerade, throwing herself into the arms of any
petty planter or broken adventurer who hath chanced to have an hundred
and twenty pounds of filthy tobacco with which to buy him a wife. If she
hath been so mad, she is to be sent home none the less, where she will
be tenderly dealt with as one surely in this sole matter under the spell
of witchcraft. The ship is to bring home also--and in irons--the man who
married her. If he swears to have been ignorant of her quality, and
places no straws in the way of the King's Commissioners, then shall he
be sent honourably back to Virginia with enough in his hand to get him
another wife. _Per contra_, if he erred with open eyes, and if he remain
contumacious, he will have to deal with the King and with the Court of
High Commission, to say nothing of the King's favourite. That's the sum
and substance, Ralph Percy."
"Why was my Lord Carnal sent?" I asked.
"Probably because my Lord Carnal would come. He hath a will, hath my
Lord, and the King is more indulgent than Eli to those upon whom he
dotes. Doubtless, my Lord High Admiral sped him on his way, gave him the
King's best ship, wished him a favourable wind--to hell."
"I was not ignorant that she was other than she seemed, and I remain
contumacious."
"Then," he said shamelessly, "you'll forgive me if in public, at least,
I forswear your company? You're plague-spotted, Captain Percy, and your
friends may wish you well, but they must stay at home and burn juniper
before their own doors."
"I'll forgive you," I said, "when you've told me what the Governor will
do."
"Why, there's the rub," he answered. "Yeardley is the most obstinate man
of my acquaintance. He who at his first coming, beside a great deal of
worth in his person, brought only his sword, hath grown to be as very a
Sir Oracle among us as ever I saw. It's 'Sir George says this,' and 'Sir
George says that,' and so there's an end on't. It's all because of that
leave to cut your own throats in your own way that he brought you last
year. Sir George and Sir Edwyn! Zooks! you had better dub them St.
George and St. Edwyn at once, and be done with it. Well, on this
occasion Sir George stands up and says roundly, with a good round oath
to boot: 'The King's commands have always come to us through the
Company. The Company obeys the King; we obey the Company. His Majesty's
demand (with reverence I speak it) is out of all order. Let the Company,
through the treasurer, command us to send Captain Percy home in irons to
answer for this passing strange offence, or to return, willy nilly, the
lady who is now surely his wife, and we will have no choice but to obey.
Until the Company commands us we will do nothing; nay, we can do
nothing.' And every one of my fellow Councillors (for myself, I was busy
with my pens) saith, 'My opinion, Sir George.' The upshot of it all is
that the _Due Return_ is to sail in two days with our humble
representation to his Majesty that though we bow to his lightest word as
the leaf bows to the zephyr, yet we are, in this sole matter, handfast,
compelled by his Majesty's own gracious charter to refer our slightest
official doing to that noble Company which owes its very being to its
rigid adherence to the terms of said charter. Wherefore, if his Majesty
will be graciously pleased to command us as usual through the said
Company--and so on. Of course, not a soul in the Council, or in
Jamestown, or in Virginia dreams of a duel behind the church at sunrise
to-morrow." He knocked the ashes from his pipe, and by degrees got his
fat body up from the doorstep. "So there's a reprieve for you, Ralph
Percy, unless you kill or are killed to-morrow morning. In the latter
case, the problem's solved; in the former, the best service you can do
yourself, and maybe the Company, is to walk out of the world of your
own accord, and that as quickly as possible. Better a cross-roads and a
stake through a dead heart than a hangman's hands upon a live one."
"One moment," I said. "Doth my Lord Carnal know of this decision of the
Governor's?"
"Ay, and a fine passion it put him into. Stormed and swore and
threatened, and put the Governor's back up finely. It seems that he
thought to 'bout ship to-morrow, lady and all. He refuseth to go without
the lady, and so remaineth in Virginia until he can have his will. Lord!
but Buckingham would be a happy man if he were kept here forever and a
day! My lord knows what he risks, and he's in as black a humour as ever
you saw. But I have striven to drop oil on the troubled waters. 'My
lord,' I told him, 'you have but to possess your soul with patience for
a few short weeks, just until the ship the Governor sends can return.
Then all must needs be as your lordship wishes. In the meantime you may
find existence in these wilds and away from that good company which is
the soul of life endurable, and perhaps pleasant. You may have daily
sight of the lady who is to become your wife, and that should count for
much with so ardent and determined a lover as your lordship hath shown
yourself to be. You may have the pleasure of contemplating your rival's
grave, if you kill him. If he kills you, you will care the less about
the date of the _Santa Teresa's_ sailing. The land, too, hath
inducements to offer to a philosophical and contemplative mind such as
one whom his Majesty delighteth to honour must needs possess. Beside
these crystal rivers and among these odoriferous woods, my lord, one
escapes much expense, envy, contempt, vanity, and vexation of mind.'"
The hoary sinner laughed and laughed. When he had gone away, still in
huge enjoyment of his own mirth, I, who had seen small cause for mirth,
went slowly indoors. Not a yard from the door, in the shadow of the
vines that draped the window, stood the woman who was bringing this fate
upon me.
"I thought that you were in your own room," I said harshly, after a
moment of dead silence.
"I came to the window," she replied. "I listened. I heard all." She
spoke haltingly, through dry lips. Her face was as white as her ruff,
but a strange light burned in her eyes, and there was no trembling.
"This morning you said that all that you had--your name and your
sword--were at my service. You may take them both again, sir. I refuse
the aid you offer. Swear what you will, tell them what you please, make
your peace whilst you may. I will not have your blood upon my soul."
There was yet wine upon the table. I filled a cup and brought it to her.
"Drink!" I commanded.
"I have much of forbearance, much of courtesy, to thank you for," she
said. "I will remember it when---- Do not think that I shall blame
you----"
I held the cup to her lips. "Drink!" I repeated. She touched the red
wine with her lips. I took it from her and put it to my own. "We drink
of the same cup," I said, with my eyes upon hers, and drained it to the
bottom. "I am weary of swords and courts and kings. Let us go into the
garden and watch the minister's bees."