MISTRESS MILLICENT.
"'Tis a pretty wench, a very pretty wench,--nay, a very, very, very
pretty wench."--_The Wise-woman of Hogsdon._
The house of Thomas Etheridge, goldsmith, was near facing the great
gilt cross in Cheapside, the images around whose base--especially that
of the Virgin--were chronically in a state of more or less defacement.
A few doors east of Master Etheridge's, and directly opposite the
cross, was the western end of Goldsmith's Row, described by Stow as
"the most beautiful frame of fair houses and shops that be within the
walls of London, or elsewhere in England." It consisted of "ten fair
dwelling-houses and fourteen shops, all in one frame, uniformly built
four stories high, beautified toward the street with the Goldsmiths'
arms and the likeness of woodmen, ... riding on monstrous beasts, all
... cast in lead, richly painted over and gilt."
Master Etheridge's house, thrusting out an iron arm from which hung
a blue-painted square board with a great gilt acorn, was quite as
tall and "fair" as any of the ten in the neighbouring "frame." Its
upper stories were bright with the many small panes of wide projecting
windows. The shop, whose front was usually open to the street by day,
occupied the full width, and a good part of the depth, of the ground
floor. Behind the shop was a "gallery" or passage, with a private
entrance from the side street, and with a stairway; beyond this passage
was the kitchen; and over that, the dining-room, which looked down upon
a back yard that was really a small garden.
Upon the low plastered ceiling of the dining-room was moulded a curious
design of golden acorns. The walls were hung with tapestry representing
a chase of deer. The floor was covered with rushes, which crackled
under the feet of the boys that waited upon the family at supper.
Captain Ravenshaw, with face clean-shaven all but for the skilfully
up-turned moustaches and the tiny lip-tuft, leaned back in his carven
chair after a comforting draught of his host's canary, drew his foot
away from the dog that was pretending to mistake it for a bone under
the table, and thought how lucky were those who supped every day at the
board of Thomas Etheridge.
"Yes," said Master Etheridge, who was a man square-faced,
square-bodied, hard-eyed, hard-voiced, looking and sounding as if he
should deal rather in iron than in the softer, sunnier metal, a man
with a shrewd mouth and a keen glance; but just now, for once, a little
mellowed by the recollections of youth which his visitor had stirred;
"your father was ever a man to have his will or raise a storm else. He
led your poor mother many a mad dance. Be thankful all husbands are not
as obstinate as Frank Holyday, Jane."
Jane, the goldsmith's wife, looked as if she could tell a tale or two
of husband's obstinacy, that would match any to be told of the elder
Holyday; but she sweetly refrained. She was a plump, handsome woman,
who filled her velvet bodice and white stomacher to the utmost on the
safe side of bursting; she was the complete housewife, precise about
the proper starching of the ruffs and collars, nice in her dress, of
an even temper, choosing serenity rather than supremacy. So she merely
beamed the more placidly upon the visitor, and said:
"I warrant this young gentleman will not copy his father in that.
His looks show the making of a kind husband. I wish you joy, Master
Holyday."
For the pretended Holyday had told the goldsmith in the shop that he
was about to marry a young lady of Kent, wherefore he wished presently
to buy plate and jewelry. This news had turned the cool reception of an
uninvited caller into the cordial welcome of a possible customer. And,
as it was a guarantee against his wooing the daughter of the house,
for whom a man of the Holydays' moderate estate was no acceptable
suitor, it had removed the paternal objection to his presence in
the family circle. Hence the goldsmith had honoured the claims of
hospitality, and invited his old friend's supposed son to supper.
On being introduced to the ladies, Ravenshaw had promptly recognised
the maid of that February night. On her part, his voice had seemed to
touch her memory distinctly, but the transformation wrought by the
razor had puzzled her as to his face. At supper, sitting opposite him
in silence, she had listened alertly while he had continued deluding
her father with anecdotes of the elder Holyday; and she had shyly
scrutinised his face. He had covertly noticed this. No doubt she was
racking her brain in efforts to identify him. Why not enlighten her?
The knowledge that he was in the secret of her attempted flight would
give him a power over her. So he had said, to her father:
"Oh, pardon my forgetting, sir. I was wrong when I told you I had not
been in London except in passing to Cambridge and back. I was here over
night last February." At this he had brought his eyes to bear full on
Mistress Millicent. "I was in this neighbourhood, too. But the hour was
so late, I durs'n't intrude on you. Indeed, no one was abroad in the
streets but roysterers, and brawlers, and runaways, and such."
The girl's face had turned of a colour with her lips, her eyes had
flashed complete recognition, had met his for an instant in a startled
plea for silence, then had hid themselves under their long lashes.
Ravenshaw, feeling as if he had struck a blow at something helpless,
had glanced quickly at her parents. They had been busy with their
knives and spoons, fingers and napkins, and had observed nothing.
Curiosity and fear, the captain had thought, would now make her grant,
if not seek, a word with him alone. After that, he had not rested his
look upon her again during the supper. He had met her father's eyes
readily enough, and her mother's, and those of the ladies' woman, the
head shopman, and the other dependents at the lower part of the table,
but not hers.
For, of a truth, she was not the vain and affected hussy, or the stiff
and supercilious minx, or the bold and impudent hoyden, he had expected
to find as the only daughter of a purse-proud citizen. Every movement
of her slim young figure, encased in a close blue taffeta gown, seemed
to express innocence and gentleness; her oval face, rich in the colour
of blushes, lips, and blue eyes, had a most ineffable softness; even
her hair, brown and fine, parting across her brow without too many
waves, gave an impression of grace and tenderness; and over her
countenance, whose natural habit was one of kindly cheerfulness, there
now lay something plaintive. Ravenshaw found it not easy to face her,
knowing for what purpose he had lied himself into her presence.
And now, the trenchers being nearly bare, and mouths having more
leisure to talk than the voracious custom of that day allowed them
during meals, Master Etheridge was minded for further reminiscence of
his old friend.
"Ay, ay, many's the quart of wine we've drunk together after supper,
in my rash days. Your father would have all drink that were about him.
Even his dogs he would make drunk. A great man for dogs. I mind me of a
prick-eared cur he had, would drink sack with the best of us, and sit
on a stool at table with us, and howl with us when we sang our ballads.
And there was a terrier, too; I have my reason not to forget him."
"Yes," quoth Ravenshaw; "he bit you in the calf o' the leg the last
time you were at our house."
"Nay, that was a water-spaniel did that," said the goldsmith.
Ravenshaw remembered now that Holyday had said a water-spaniel; but
he thought it would appear the more natural if he should seem to be
in this point tricked by memory, as, in some detail or other, people
often are.
"Nay," said he, "I am sure it was the terrier; I remember it as well--"
"Oh, no, never, never the terrier; 'twas the water-spaniel, on my
word. Why, I never see the spaniels diving for ducks in the ponds at
Islington but I think of it."
But Ravenshaw feigned to be unconvinced, and when, after some further
talk, he yielded the point, it was as if merely out of courtesy. When
the supper party rose from the table, the captain was for a pipe of
tobacco, which he forthwith produced. But Master Etheridge said he
was no tobacconist, and that the smoke made his lady ill. Ravenshaw
replied that, by their leave, he would then take a turn or two, and a
whiff or two, in the garden, whose beauty, observed by him from the
window, invited closer acquaintance. Etheridge liked to hear his garden
commended before his wife, as its implied sufficiency saved him the
expense of a garden with a summer-house in the suburbs, which many a
citizeness compelled her husband to possess. So he went cheerfully
ahead to show the way.
"When you return, you shall find us in the withdrawing room, across the
passage," said Mistress Etheridge.
Ravenshaw bowed to the ladies; in doing which, he met Mistress
Millicent's eyes with a look that said as plainly as spoken words:
"I have something for your ears." This intimation, in view of the
circumstances of their former meeting, could not fail to engage her
interest.
The goldsmith led him down-stairs to the ground floor passage, whence a
door opened to a narrow way running past the rear of the house to the
little garden. This comprised a square of green turf, in the centre of
which was an apple-tree, now in blossom; a walk led to and around this
tree, and another walk enclosed the whole square. This latter walk was
flanked on the outer side by rosemary and various shrubbery, banks of
pinks and other flowers; which screened the garden walls except where a
gate gave entrance from Friday Street. The farther side of the garden
was sheltered by a small arbour of vines; beneath this was a bench, and
another bench stood out upon the turf, so that one might sit either in
sun or in shade.
It was still daylight; the regular household supper was taken early
in those times, and English days are long in May. Yet an early star
or two showed themselves in the clear sky. The scent of the pinks and
apple-blossoms was in the air.
"A sweet night toward," said the goldsmith, manifesting an inclination
to remain with his guest in the garden. But this was what Ravenshaw
did not desire. The captain, therefore, as soon as he had lighted his
pipe, took Master Etheridge's arm so as to have the greater pretext
for walking close to him, and blew such volumes of smoke in the poor
man's direction that, for the sake of his eyes and nostrils, being no
"tobacconist," he was soon glad to make excuse for returning into the
house, and to hasten back, coughing and blinking.
"If she is a woman," mused the captain, left alone, "she will come to
hear what I may tell her. She has been on pins and needles. By this
light, what a piece of chance!--that this maid should be that one! What
shall I say to her? I must open upon the matter of that night. Tut, has
she not yet observed I am alone here now? Or has she not the freedom of
the house? or the wit to devise means of coming hither? Well, I will
give her the time of this pipeful. What a sweet evening!"
But the sweetness of the evening made him only sigh uneasily, and feel
more out of sorts with himself. Several minutes passed, and he was
thinking he might have to resort to some keen stroke of wit to get
private speech with her, after all; when suddenly she appeared, with
ghostlike swiftness, at the corner where the passage along the kitchen
wing gave into the garden. He was, at the moment, scarce ten feet from
that spot.
She was blushing and perturbed. She cast a look up at the dining-room
window, then glanced at him, and, instantly dropping her eyes, sped
over the turf to the farther side of the apple-tree. He quickly
followed her; and when, thereupon, they stood together, the tree
screened them from the house.
Without looking at him, and tremblingly plucking the apple-blossoms to
hide her confusion, she said, quickly:
"Sir, I thank you for what you did that night. You will not tell them,
will you?"
He thought that, by promising unconditionally, he should lose a
possible means of controlling her actions; so he must, for the moment,
evade.
"Then they know not?" he queried.
"Nay; I got in, and to my chamber, without waking any one."
"And had you no further molestation in the streets? One of those men
tricked me, and followed you. I learned it after."
She looked at him with a little surprise. "Nay, I saw him not, nor
heard him. I had no trouble. But you will not tell?"
Her wide-open eyes, round and large and of the deepest blue, were
turned straight upon his face, as if they meant to leave him not till
they should have a direct answer.
[Illustration: "'SIR, I THANK YOU FOR WHAT YOU DID THAT NIGHT.'"]
"Why--mistress," he blundered, and then dropped his own gaze to
where he was beginning to scrape the gravel awkwardly with his shoe,
"why need you ask? Did I not protect your secret that night?"
"Then why do you hesitate now?" she demanded, with a sudden unconcealed
mistrust. "Oh, Master Holyday, what is in your mind? Why have you drawn
me hither to speak with you alone? Why do you make a doubt of promising
not to betray me? Come, sir, I have little time; they will soon be
wondering where I am; either promise me, or I myself will tell them,
and then, by St. Anne, I care not--"
There was a threat of weeping in her voice and face, and Ravenshaw
impulsively threw up his hand, and said:
"Nay, fear not. I will not tell. I give my word."
Trouble fled from her face, and a smile of gratitude made her appear
doubly charming.
Ravenshaw cleared his throat, without reason, and tried to meet her
glance without seeing her, if that had been possible.
"You are a happy maid," quoth he, settling down to a disagreeable
business. "'Tis proven that you may play the runaway for an hour or
two, when you wish, and none be the wiser. There's many a maid would
give her best gown thrice over, for that assurance."
"Troth, it serves me nothing," she said, with a forlornness he could
not understand. "An I were to play the runaway again, whither should I
run?"
He thought for an instant of going into the mystery of her former
desire to run away; but he decided that, as time pressed, it were
better to hold to the present design.
"Whither, indeed?" quoth he. "Faith, London has no lack of pleasant
bowers, where beauty may hear itself praised by the lips of love. Sure,
you look as if I talked Greek to you. Certainly you are wont to hear
yourself admired?"
"Oh!" she murmured, at a loss, with a smile, and a blush of confusion.
"Troth, now," said he; "confess you enjoy to be admired."
"Oh, pray," she faltered, "talk not of such things. I know not how to
answer."
"Yet you take pleasure in hearing them? Come, the truth, mistress.
Faith, 'tis but a simple question."
"Oh--why--I do--and I do not."
"I warrant," quoth he, softly, "there would be no 'I do not,' if the
right gentleman spoke them." The captain's tone seemed lightly gay and
bantering; but, though she knew it not, his throat was dry, and he was
trembling from head to foot like a shivering terrier.
"I am sure I know not," she answered, embarrassedly, but still smiling.
"Put it to the test," he whispered, huskily. "Give him the occasion to
speak--one that adores you--hear him utter your praises--hear him vow
his devotion--give him the occasion."
"Methinks--you take the occasion now," said she, in a voice scarce
above the rustle of the air among the leaves.
"Nay--heaven's light!--I mean not myself!" he said, dismayed.
"Why, wha--? What then? What mean you?"
Her smile had fled in a breath, and in its place was a look of suddenly
awakened horror that smote him like a whip's blow across the eyes.
"Oh, nothing," he stammered. "I mean--'tis not myself that's worthy to
praise you. I know not--I am out of my wits--forget--"
Just then a woman's voice was heard calling from the house, "Mistress
Millicent, where art thou?"
"'Tis Lettice, my mother's woman," whispered the girl, quickly. "I must
in. I have come out for this bunch of apple-blossoms. Some other time
we'll talk--perhaps."
Without another word she ran from the garden.
The captain snapped his pipe in two, and flung the pieces to the
ground; then turned toward the evening sky, in which a numerous
company of stars now twinkled, a face bitter with self-loathing.
"I am a beast," he hissed; "a slave, a scavenger, a raker of rags, fit
company for the dead curs in Houndsditch. Foh! but, by God's light and
by this hand, I swear--"
He raised his hand toward the stars, and finished his oath, whatever
it was, in thought, not in speech. Then, suddenly resuming his former
mien, he turned and walked rapidly into the house.