L’ALLEGRO
To the market-place of Plymouth, up in the high town, twice a week
the country folk brought their produce, consisting of eggs and fresh
butter, great jars of scalded cream, fat ducks and capons, brawn in
marbled columns, apples by the barrel, and vegetables, such as were
grown, by the crate. These were laid out on trestles, with alleys
between, and thither flocked the housewives of every condition and
age, the sedate on business bent, and the frivolous on enjoyment. It
made an animated scene in the bright sunshine, to which Brion was
irresistibly drawn. He had not cast his melancholy; but he felt it
good to be among his own blossom-cheeked countrywomen again, and
indeed to be alive; for after all he was young, and Youth finds it
hard to resist the influences of jollity and fine weather. So he moved
among the stalls, forgetful and happy for the time being, and leaving
behind him, like a very human craft, a swell of soft bosoms and
following eyes, that dwelt tenderly on the passing of a form so
gallant and a face so manly attractive--but of all that he was
unconscious.
‘Come buy, come buy,’ cried a shrill buxom dame, presiding over a
counter of gingerbread, and speaking across the shoulder of a young
woman, who, busy with her purse, stood with her back to Brion.
‘Alack, I lack a ha’penny, mother,’ answered a soft voice, ‘to buy me
my gingerbread ship withal. So I must e’en go fasting for to-day.’
She _seemed_ a comely young woman, judging by what is not always to be
trusted, the human reverse. She had a quantity of bright hair,
insufficiently confined within a little staid Puritanical coif, which
released certain tendrils of it to nestle in the nape of a neck like
ivory. She wore a dress of plain stone blue, with a short white linen
tippet about her shoulders, and might have been a country wench, were
it not for the smooth delicacy of her skin, and some quality in her
voice which spoke of a better refinement. A small basket hung on her
arm, and she looked into it.
‘I’faith,’ she said, with a little crow, and producing the coin, ‘it
is here after all. I cried out, mother, before my chickens were
hatched.’
Brion gasped, and stood as if stricken. What was this wonder--this
delirious wonder? A sob--laughter--were in his throat together. As the
vendee, having received her gingerbread ship and placed it in her
basket, went off down the alley, he followed in pursuit, stumbling,
half blind. She passed out into the sunlight and he after. He had not
yet seen her face, but he looked for tell-tale characteristics,
agonised for them, and, identifying them, as he believed, felt a very
sickness of joy. She walked like one who _did not love violent
exercise_ for its own sake; there was a tranquil placidity in her
movements; he thought of the white rabbit he had once possessed, ‘warm
and soft and cuddlesome,’ and felt a thrill in his arms. She turned
into a quiet street, going down-hill towards the Hoe, and he was
closing on her. She seemed to become conscious of his pursuit, for her
steps suddenly faltered, hesitated and slowed down, as if to let him
pass. But he did not pass, and she turned, a shadow of apprehension in
her eyes; she turned--and stopped.
He uttered a little irresistible cry:--
‘Joan--Joan! O, after all these years!’
She stood looking wide-eyed at him, as if he were an apparition; but
she did not speak--a woman where had been a child; ripeness where had
been promise. Yet he would have laughed to scorn the thought of one
doubt possessing his heart. How could it, seeing that her image had
never ceased to dwell there?
‘Do you not know me?’ he pleaded. Drollery quivered in him. ‘One does
not cry out,’ he said, ‘before one’s chickens are hatched. The moment
I heard that, “Joan for a ducat!” says I; and without your turning I
knew you.’
He searched her face, grown in knowledge and in sweet
self-consciousness; but unchanged in its flower-like complexion, its
dear blue eyes, its straight level brows: he searched it, pleading for
recognition and remembrance, and, searching, there suddenly were the
little flickering betraying dimples at the wings of the short nose.
‘Ah! you do know me?’ he said, with a great jubilant sigh. ‘Say who I
am, Joan.’
‘Brion,’ she half whispered, and something seemed to throb in her
white throat.
‘Yes, Brion, Joan. How sweet it is to hear my name upon your lips
again! Is not this wonderful? Come where we can talk in quiet. We have
such thousands of things to tell one another. What are you doing with
gingerbread ships at your age?’
He laughed, and choked, and bantered, dancing with excitement.
‘I was going to eat it on the Hoe,’ she said. ‘I have eaten one near
every week since you sailed away in a ship. I used to eat men.’
‘What is that? How did you know I sailed?’
‘I was on the Quay. I saw you go down to the boat. I was sure it was
you; and then I heard one point to you by name.’
‘And you were so close, and I never guessed! Curst fortune, that; but
never mind, since I have found you. Six months ago it was, Joan, and
such things have happened to me, wonderful and sad. I am only this
moment returned--but yesterday. But we will speak of all that anon. It
is not the first, nor best nor worst, of what we have to say. Where
have you been all these long years? And did you in truth eat a
gingerbread ship every week in pretty pledge to me, you dear? My
thoughts and words tumble over one another. They all push to be first
out, because I am wild with such joy. Come where we can be quiet. Your
colour comes and goes. Are you as madly happy as I am? Joan, had you
never seen me once again since we parted, before that day of the
sailing?’
‘Never once, Brion.’
‘Nor heard of me?’
‘No, never.’
‘Nor I of you. It near broke my heart. Well, where were you?’
‘Here, in Plymouth.’
‘My God! Not all the time?’
‘Near all the time, indeed.’
‘O, monstrous and incredible fate! So near and yet so divorced! And to
think of all the suffering of these years! Who brought you here?’
‘’Twas a maiden sister of Sir John’s. She had me to live with her
after his death, and I am with her still. She ought that duty, she
believed, to him and me.’
‘And she loves you, Joan?’
‘Not greatly, Brion, I fear. She loves atonement.’
‘For what?’
The girl was silent, hanging her head a little.
‘Ah!’ said Brion. ‘Well, sit thee down.’
She was glad to do so, being more overcome than her looks confessed.
They had found a warm grassy hollow, overlooking the Sound, where they
could rest and talk without fear of interruption. Joan sat clasping
her hands about her knees--a characteristic position which Brion
observed with a laughing bliss. He flung himself beside her, and,
resting on his elbow, feasted and feasted his starved eyes on all that
recovered dearness.
‘You are not changed in the least,’ he said--‘only taller and a little
fuller. You are one of those, I think, Joan, who hang at lovely
ripeness all their lives.’
A faint pink mantled her cheek. She turned to him with a caressing
reproof:--
‘I am a woman now, Brion. It is not right you should speak to me so.
And you have grown too, and into a fine man. I think you very
handsome.’
‘Do you?’ He laughed. ‘Why don’t you eat your gingerbread?’
‘I don’t think I want it now.’
‘Let us share it together, and be shipmates.’
‘Very well.’
They broke and munched--or pretended to. They were both far too
agitated to eat. ‘I have seen squawks, real squawks, since last we
met,’ he said; and then suddenly, recalling the association the word
conveyed, his eyes filled with gravity.
‘Now, tell me, Joan,’ he said, ‘why does this lady not love you?’
He sought to take her hand in his, but she would not let him.
‘I would not meet their wishes,’ she said, in a low voice. ‘That is
one reason why.’
‘What wishes?’
She looked him full in the face without answering.
‘Ah!’ he cried: ‘the suitor failed?’
‘He was fat and mottled like a toad,’ she said pleadingly. ‘He was Sir
John’s, my father’s, shipping-agent.’
He conned her queerly, and a little sadly.
‘Your father’s, Joan? Do you still say so?’
‘Why should I not?’ she answered, wondering. ‘I don’t understand you.’
‘Joan, do you remember that first day we met in the beautiful glen?’
‘Yes, Brion.’
‘And you said, as we parted, that I had guessed your secret.’
‘Brion, I never did. I remember every word. I said “Have you guessed
my secret?” Which was not to say you had.’
‘That is but a quibble, after all. Why would you not be candid with
me?’
She dropped her lids, plucking at the blades of grass, in a way which
recalled, O, so pathetically, the sorrow of an earlier day.
‘I’faith and in truth I _am_ Joan, Brion,’ she said piteously.
‘What, two Joan Medleys?’
‘Yes, two Joans. I cannot help it if my mother named me so.’
‘Your mother? She would have two daughters named Joan?’
‘Nay, but one. It was my father had the two.’
She raised the blue eyes, with a line of appealing pain between them,
to his. O, _will_ you not understand? they said.
‘Joan!’ whispered Brion, in a voice of amazed comprehension: ‘are
you--are _you_ a “bustard” too?’
She did not answer, and he heaved himself a thought nearer her.
‘You poor dear! And I never thought or guessed, blockhead that I am.
Why, to be sure’--he laid a compassionate hand on her arm. ‘Did you
never know _her_, Joan?’
The girl shook her head.
‘Only in dreams. I think she died very young.’
‘Like mine. O, Joan! were we not guided by these two to meet one
another? I think we need not have feared the spirits of the ilex
grove. Tell me, dear’--he pressed closer, and laid his cheek coaxingly
against the soft shoulder; and she flushed, but suffered him--even
leaned a little, irresistibly, towards the caress. ‘I have been
longing, yet agonising, from the first to put one question to
you--just one. Joan--you are still unwed?’
Looking straight before her, she whispered yes--it stood to reason.
‘Why?’ he asked rapturously.
‘If you do not know, Brion, how can I tell you?’
Every nerve in his body thrilled with ecstasy.
‘You need not,’ he said. ‘I hide my eyes before such loving
constancy--I will, Joan, yes, I will, in your hair, in your neck. O,
how could I ever have doubted you, my own maid!’
‘Did you doubt me, Brion?’
‘The way of parting has been long, sweetheart, and sometimes unhappy;
but it finds me at the blissful end, as at the beginning, thy maiden
knight. Yet there have been moments when despair and loneliness--O,
Joan! will you forgive me, not that I broke my plight, but that ever I
thought I could?’
‘Poor boy! It is different with a man.’
‘You sweet! Then, sometimes, thinking you--what I thought you, it
seemed a mad presumption on my part--O, I have such a tale to tell
you, Joan! But now, two nameless things together----’
‘It was that, Brion, which made me afraid to set you right. I thought,
if you knew the truth, you would not want to love me any more.’
‘What has loving _you_ to do with titles? A man, save his veins were
arctic ice, could love and desire you for your own self, I think. Did
your father treat you kindly?’
‘He had not been unkind, I trow, unless for my lady sister, who liked
me not. He gave me my little Gritty. O, Brion, the day I had to go,
and could not keep my tryst! He was ever so in his decisions, sudden
and inexorable. I thought I should have wept myself to death.’
She turned to him, bewildered even with the memory: he held out
passionate arms, unable to contain himself longer.
‘Come to your true-mate, pretty bird--Nay, I will have you. O,
darling, after all these years--ten, if a day, Joan--and I have all
that hunger to make good!’
‘O, forbear, Brion! We shall be seen. O, I love you so.’ And then, all
rosy and ruffled, she looked up in his face, and said, as she had said
once before, so quaintly and trustingly: ‘Will you marry me, Brion?’
He laughed with joy.
‘How can such constancy live in such lovely kindness? Is it all for
me--all? If I said no, Joan, would you love me still?’
‘Yes, Brion.’
‘Did ever “yes” sigh so sweetly from troubled lips! Shall we go to the
church now?’
‘I would we might.’
‘Why not? I have friends of weight here. Hist, Joan--shall we, in good
sooth? Are we not ten years betrothed, to justify a little haste at
the end? Will you meet me again this afternoon?’
She whispered that she would, ashamed, now she had spoken, of her
forwardness. The poor child had suffered in these years, made the bait
and foil of a frigid and intolerant Pharisaism. The Mistress Medley
who had undertaken her charge had never ceased to point in her the
moral of ungodly appetites, or to hold her responsible, as it were,
for her father’s sin. She had led a dull, disregarded life--on a penny
a week pocket money--and could have suffered it only, as she told
Brion, on the sure conviction that he would return to her some day. In
that faith she had never wavered; it had kept her heart alive, and
supported her through every desolate tribulation.
And Brion, remembering his own errant thoughts, bowed ashamed before
that whole-hearted fidelity. He could not give his tender maid enough
love and fondling, but longed only for the moment when she should be
secured to him, with nothing but death ever again to part them. They
talked together yet awhile before they separated, for of what, in
simple volume, had they not to deliver their souls--explanation,
story, confession, all the crowded details of that long interval? Yet
the stupendous thing of all was that their idyll, begun in the
perfection of blossom, was about to consummate itself in the
perfection of fruit. None could look at them, lovely things, and doubt
it, and not envy either.
Brion sought and found an accommodating chaplain--a jolly fellow, whom
he had already met, the eve before his sailing, in Raleigh’s company.
The pleasant cleric, very willing to oblige the friend of so great a
friend, made no demur, was willing to take his handsome fee and eschew
ceremonial, and in fact bound the couple man and wife that very
afternoon in his own parlour. It was the merest formality, like
signing a deed of gift to one already in possession of the property:
and so, I think, the two regarded it. They had always been one.
Then Brion, resolute to finish the business offhand, took his young
bride to lodgings prepared for her, while he went alone to face the
old harpy, her kinswoman, with the deed they had done. He went, armed
with indignation and authority, to the handsome dwelling overlooking
Sutton Pool and the Catwater where the abhorrent spinster lived, and
saw her, and delivered himself. There was a scene. It seemed Mistress
Medley knew of the ex-Judge by name, and held him in loathing as a
reputed Papish recusant. She heaped terms of foulest abuse on Quentin
Bagott’s head and on his house, which was already, she was rejoiced to
know--if rumours which had been wafted across the moor were to be
trusted--approaching the retribution which its iniquities deserved,
and a choice example of which was to witness in this deed of infamy
wrought by one of its nameless scions. Seduction and defilement, she
was pleased to say, were natural to one bred in that atmosphere, and
the will to surrender to them as natural in a child of Shame. But, as
the girl had chosen her bed, so might she lie in it. For her part, she
had only to declare that from that moment she cast the graceless
bastard from her door, and desired never to see her face again.
And then Brion spoke, in his quiet level way, in which, however, he
could be pretty poisonous when he chose. He began by putting the lady
right on certain points. Seduction, he said, was always a jealous term
in the mouths of those whose unwomanliness had never had reason to
fear it, and whose spite, it seemed, could go so far as to apply it to
the very Sacrament of Wedlock. And as to children of shame, said he,
the shame was in those who made and kept them so, and the truer
justice in his opinion would be to disinherit the father who begot a
child unlawfully, and endow with his forfeited name that innocent
victim of his wrong-doing. ‘’Tis ever,’ he went on, ‘old loveless
virginity that most hates the child of love; but to do it in the name
of religion is a beastly Pharisaism. Go on thy knees to Heaven, old
woman, and pray it forgive thee for thy harsh and narrow persecution
of one entrusted by it to thee as an instrument of atonement for a
wickedness perpetrated. Remember, ’twas Fortune, not thine own virtue,
gave thee a name, else had thou stood a sorry chance of any. And now I
have but this to say. I shake, on my Joan’s behalf, the dust of this
cruel bondage from my feet. She leaves it joyously for one pledged
long years ago, and now confirmed by Heaven’s sanction. And with that
I end.’
He did, and gained the street unhurried, leaving behind him a picture
of such baffled and speechless venom as, when he came to recall it,
made him shake with laughter. For, the business once accomplished, he
had no mind to let its memory disturb him, but recaptured at once all
that mood of exultant rapture to which it had been but a brief
disagreeable interlude. It had left him all he sought and desired,
absolute independent possession of the sweetest wife in the world.
Only one thing remained to cloud his thoughts with some shadowy
disquiet--that triumphant allusion to disturbances threatening across
the moors. Was it true, and could it be possible they had the Grange
for their objective? Remembering his own uneasiness before he left,
and the precautions he had taken, he could not but feel a certain
inquietude. At the same time he trusted to Raleigh’s promise to nip
any such demonstrations, should they occur, in the bud. But he felt it
necessary to the setting of his mind at rest to go at once. He and
Joan must bid good-bye to Plymouth on the morrow.
And so, having resolved, he abandoned himself to the happiness of the
moment. It seemed too stupendously incredible that after all these
weary years of separation he and Joan were found, rejoined and wedded,
and all in one day. Yes, wedded--the mad, preposterous thing! He
chuckled in mere helpless ecstasy to think of it.