while it awakened her pity, repelled her. He was still clutching his
sword as though to thrust it at his unseen adversary, and the point
of the trembling blade danced on the carpet. Her impulse had been
to afford him succor, but the sight of his dying struggles, and the
weakness of her limbs prevented. She sank on a couch before one of the
walls, and, as though fascinated by the scene that had rendered her
momentarily powerless, she continued to gaze upon it.
The morbid curiosity that controls an observer of the strongest agonies
appears to give the lie to the belief that man is naturally humane; or
why does resistance against impending death attract more than beauty
or the peacefully sublime? Our resistance against observation availeth
not, until the issue is no longer in doubt. Is it not because the
glow and fire of intense action is communicated from the actor to the
spectator? for even frailty of physical body, or purity of mind can not
close the eyes at that point where in the supreme struggle neither life
nor death appears to have complete mastery? But when the horror has
reached its climax, interest fails with the cessation of action, and
if death hath prevailed, then at length we hide our faces.
Thus it was that the woman was controlled; thus it was that, speechless
and with straining vision, she caught every move of the man before
her. His struggles grew less; his gaspings more prolonged and choked,
until with a last effort he partly raised himself and then fell back
motionless. The death-rattle escaped from his lips, and from the
ensuing silence, the woman knew that the body upon the floor was
lifeless; but she saw it not. She had long desired a separation from
this man, but not at such sacrifice. She thought not of it then, even
with the old love returned and every obstacle apparently swept aside.
It was the thought of murder done that surged in and out, and in and
out, of her mind.
And Marlowe, still against the wall, seemed reeling with the burden of
his thoughts. He saw not the woman with terror-stricken face before
him; he saw not the flaring candles, the fallen chairs, the naked
swords upon the floor, the bleeding body near his feet. All these
objects were before his open eyes, but the horror of the scene had
bred new and shifting phantoms. The spirit which in quiet meditation
had bodied forth the good and evil angels of Faustus, the harnessed
emperors of Tamburlaine and the dying Edward, now saw itself in body
hounded by the officers of the law; saw the impassive judge, the dull
jury, and the shadow of the gallows.
He saw the honors of Cambridge blotted with stains indelible; the
averted face of Walsingham, his patron; the sad countenance of Manwood,
under whose flattering praise and financial aid he had pursued his
studies. And, closer still, he saw the troubled and pallid face of that
one woman, who, with steadfast faith in his genius and undying hope in
his ultimately glorious career, prayed ever for him under the home-roof
in Canterbury. Was she--his mother--to hear of his trial, and death
under sentence of the law? And Marlowe, what of thyself?
In the train of these dark presentiments of what the material life
promised, came now the heavy clouds wrought through consideration of
the aspect of his ideal world. The treble darkness of night was about
him. The dreams with which he had nursed his ambition vanished. And
that ambition how deplorably annihilated. He who had written:
“Virtue solely is the sum of glory,
And fashions men with true nobility,”
required no posthumous lines to point his place among the immortals.
What dramas stood on the same eminence with Faustus and Edward the
Second? Were not the gates of the inner temple opening wide before him?
Were not his fancy’s wings gathering strength for greater flights? The
flush of youth at nine-and-twenty was upon him; the fate of a murderer
awaited him. Of reasoning faculty sublime, he shuddered at the thought
of his name being eternally linked with crime.
In this agony, all thoughts of the original purpose of his presence in
the room, all consideration of the woman, were buried as though beneath
ice. It was the contrasted thoughts of the height from which he had
fallen with the depth that he had reached that pervaded his mind. He
blinded his eyes with his hand and staggered like a drunken man across
the room toward the windows at the front, where he stood looking out
through the lattice, back from which the heavy shutters had been swung.
No objects met his gaze; no sounds arose. The woman heard his steps and
aroused herself. It was Kit whom she saw, and the calmness resulting
from her knowledge of freedom from hated ties came to her like fresh
air through windows lately pent. The dead man escaped her eyes; she saw
no one but the living, and raising herself from the couch she followed
him across the room. Misapprehending the nature of his distress, she
whispered encouragingly:
“There is chance for escape.”
He did not answer her, and this utter disregard of her presence and of
her voice provoked an involuntary tremor.
“Kit, Kit, Kit,” she said, prolonging the name with each utterance, “do
you not hear me? No alarm has been given. We can escape.”
But still he gave no sign of hearing, and she shook his shoulder
desperately and turned his face so that his eyes could not but dwell
upon her face. Again she spoke sympathizingly:
“At worst, ’twas done in self-defense. The combat was forced upon you.
And was not the fatal stroke an accident? Come, come, we can not remain
here.”
“Self-defense?” he repeated, questioningly, as though the idea was
a new one generated wholly through his own deliberations. “’Twas a
duel, and a death in such event is murder,” he added, observing her
apparently for the first time.
“Thou couldst not avoid the deed,” she said in remonstrance.
“True, but what of that? Did not Hopton, Renow, and Dalton seek refuge
under such a plea without avail? The outcome of a tavern brawl will
not be handled by a judge with gloves on. The jury, it is true, can
speak but only under the direction of the court.” He seemed talking to
himself, but aloud so that she heard him. “The killing of another in a
duel is murder on the part of the survivor. And then the infamy of such
a trial!”
“But,” she exclaimed, “you may avoid arrest. And as for infamy, the
disgrace would be mine. My husband killed by thee and in my apartments.”
At these latter thoughts the look of distress deepened on her face,
and the weakness exhibited was in striking contrast with the strength
she had displayed in her endeavor to afford him solace. His apparent
coldness had also chilled and repelled her, and not understanding the
nature of a despair in which he could not give some faint expression of
love for her, she sank helpless at his feet.
This movement shook him from his brooding over the far-reaching and
distant effect of the fatal stroke, to a consideration of the living
reality. The tide of his feelings rose in its proper channel; he bent
over her compassionately and raised her from the floor.
“Anne, Anne,” he said with returning fervor, “forgive me for my
selfishness. I have been so blinded by the darkness that I thought I
walked alone. And what is my misery compared with thine?”
He held her closely in his arms. It was not strange that a relaxation
of mind should follow with the knowledge that she was not standing
wholly alone. With her realisation that his past indifference had been
but a temporary condition, her emotions became too strong to control,
and the flood of tears that welled from her eyes gave evidence of the
recent strain to which her feelings had been subjected. He did not
attempt to subdue this exhibition of sensitiveness except with words of
hope and assurance of his love, while he continued to hold her to him.
The emotion had at length spent its force, and a calmness that seemed
unnatural in the presence of the dead pervaded her. Releasing herself
from his embrace she went over and kneeled down beside the body of
Frazer. She touched the face compassionately, at the same time shocked
with the sense that life was wholly extinct. The face was turned
back so that the wound was on the side toward the floor. Half of the
horribleness of the object was thus hidden, and viewing the profile she
was again struck with its likeness to Marlowe’s.
“Look,” she said to her companion, who stood near her, “how like he is
to thee.”
“So?” he asked, quickly.
“Yes, do you not see? Is there not a striking similarity in form? Is
not the nose the same as thine? The face clean shaven; the hair of like
color?”
“But his dress.”
He spoke as though to change her opinion, and then added, “Dost thou
mean that there is enough resemblance for the one to be taken for the
other?”
This time his anxiety for an affirmative answer could have been read by
the veriest tyro.
“Like? Yes, much like, and when you met here I was startled by the
resemblance,” she answered decidedly; and in a strain like that of
one whose mind has dwelt long and intensely upon the subject, she
continued, “I could not fail to comment on it when I met him shortly
after I last saw you and when I believed we were done with each other
for ever. It was this that drew my attention to him, and prevailed upon
by his apparently sincere professions of love, I became his wife.”
“When was this marriage, Anne?” he interrupted.
“Had you not heard of it?”
“No,” he answered, “nor even entertained a suspicion that you had so
soon forgotten me.”
“Nay, do not say that,” she remonstrated, “it was seven months since,
but----”
“Why was this? Did I not love thee?” he interposed.
“Yes, yes; will you listen to the whole story? Ah----”
He interrupted her. “This is no place for such confession. Later, Anne;
I cannot listen now.”
“Ah, see how he bleeds, Kit, and so cold.”
She had touched the hand of the dead man, and then as she noticed the
glittering and unstained brand she shuddered at the thought of how much
more deplorable would have been her situation had the sword reached the
mark for which she had lately seen it wielded.
While Anne was thus momentarily occupied, her companion was possessed
with new and entirely different thoughts than those which had lately
disturbed him. In his late reflections concerning his future the
question of escape had cut no prominent figure, for even though he
might forever successfully baffle the officers of the law, none the
less this dark chapter of his life would sully his fame. But the
woman’s words of his resemblance to the dead man had lifted the
heaviest of the clouds of darkness; and in the succeeding mental
illumination, he felt a transport that urged him to immediate action.
His mind, fertile in plot, had developed a cover for his fame. He saw
the passing away of his old life, and, in the transition, read the
promise of a new one; it might be in obscurity, but without obloquy.
There was no time to be spent in aught but the furtherance of his
design, but first he felt the need of his companion’s assurance of
absolute secrecy concerning the tragedy. His own future might now be
subjected to so many vicissitudes, that a separation between himself
and Anne might be inevitable. Who could tell what influences might be
brought to bear upon her years hence? The seal of secrecy must never be
broken.
“Anne,” he said, abruptly, “this deed may bring trouble to both of us.
Can I rely upon thee absolutely and forever, in whatever situation
thou art placed, whether apart from me or with me, to let no whisper
of my name come from thy lips so far as the events of this night are
concerned? I know it is asking much, but I have more than my personal
safety at heart. I can not explain to thee. I can only implore----”
“Stop,” she exclaimed, passionately, as though the doubt in her implied
by the question had cut her to the quick. “Why should you ask?”
“But we know not,” he resumed, “to what test thy love, thy constancy
may be put. I do not doubt thee nor thy strength.”
“Say no more,” she again interrupted. “No persuasion, no promises, no
threats, no torture shall ever prevail upon me to lisp one syllable of
thy name as connected with this death. You can trust me in that.”
“Even though I should die to-morrow?” he asked.
“Yes,” she answered.
“And such answer might be of advantage to thee?”
“Yes,” again came the firm reply.
Her assurance was of a character calculated to press him forward in his
hastily formulated scheme of concealment.
“I trust you implicitly,” he said, “and now you must lose no time in
flight.”
“And then?” came the quick inquiry.
“I shall go, too, but it must be by a different way. You know the exits
from this tavern even better than I do.”
“Yes, yes,” she returned, “the stairway, hall and every outer door.”
“And the inn-yard?”
“Yes, and the stall where my horse is standing.”
She hurried into the alcove and returned with a cape thrown over her
shoulders, in the hood of which she was hastily arranging her hair.
“See,” she said, pointing towards the arras, “the filled saddle bags
are there. You must bring them with thee. And where am I to meet thee?”
“At the gnarled oak,” he answered, “a half mile from here at the point
where the road turns downward to the little bridge. You will wait for
me there.”
“But why do you not go with me?”
“I wish to hide the crime,” he whispered, and as she looked inquiringly
at him, he added, “Nay, do not ask how.”
And with these words he cautiously unbolted and opened the door wide
enough to admit of her exit. The hall lamps had been extinguished.
“It is very dark,” he whispered as though hesitating at the thought of
her departure alone.
“I only fear for thy safety,” she said, bravely.
“Have no fears of that,” he returned, “hasten, we have no time to
spare.”
No further words were spoken, but hurriedly embracing each other as
though years instead of minutes was to be their term of separation, she
disappeared into the darkness.
He closed the door and bolted it again. Then he knelt beside the dead.
His hands trembled in spite of the determination with which he set
himself to accomplish his project. The excitement, apprehension of
discovery, and the horror of the scene, almost unnerved him; but he
covered his eyes with one of his hands for a moment, shook off the
feeling of weakness, and then moved the body to one side, to clear it
of the pool of blood. He unbuttoned the buff doublet of the corpse, and
drew it off. Next he stripped it of the jerkin, belt and scabbard, then
the shoes, hose and trunks and shirt. A naked body lay before him under
the flickering light of the candles. Heavy footsteps in an adjoining
room startled him, and he glanced at one of the corners beside the
great chimney as though expecting a form to come forth. But immediately
the source of the noise became apparent, and the chorus of a bacchanal
song jarred him with its unfitness:
“O for a bowl of fat Canary,
Rich Palermo, sparkling sherry,
Some nectars else from Juno’s dairy,
O these draughts would make us merry.”
This song of John Lilly, one which he had sung many times with riotous
companions, could not but cause him to add, in the momentary relaxation
afforded:
And if the tapster does not bring
The draughts for which you’re clamoring,
Come drain with me the bitter bowl
I drink at passing of a soul.
They were lines provoked half in jest half in earnest; and again
as quietness prevailed, he relapsed into his previous condition of
profound melancholy. His task was but half completed; he unbuckled his
own sword belt, and his fingers, which had again begun to tremble, let
the scabbard fall clattering at his feet. He shook himself as though
his body were the unruly instrument of a prompting and immovable mind.
If this action had any result whatever it did not prevent his hands
from wrenching several buttons from the front of his scarlet doublet,
as he stripped it off. Still he proceeded in his task.
One by one his rich but rough-used vestments were thrown off, until
the living was as the dead. The work was now bringing the calm which
afforded speed to his movements, so that in an interval he had dressed
the corpse in his garments, leaving it just as it had fallen on the
floor. He next retreated to the alcove and washed himself clear of
blood.
The buff coat was stained and spotted by the life-current of the dead
man. He cast it to one side. The rest of the garments were free of any
traces of the catastrophe. In these he dressed himself; buckled the
belt around his waist; picked up the long murderous-looking blade of
Ferrera and sheathed the same in its scabbard against his puffed upper
hose. From a hook upon the wall, in the alcove, he took a long dark
cloak with white silk lining and silver buckle at the collar. This he
threw over his shoulders so that the absence of a coat or doublet was
not perceptible.
The papers from his own pockets, with his name written upon several
of them, he had dropped near one of the out-stretched hands upon the
carpet. There seemed no possibility for the body to be buried under any
name but that of Christopher Marlowe. He readjusted the misfitting hat,
extinguished the candles, opened the door, and closing it after him,
stepped into the hall.
The old life had closed. So far as the world should know the first
adventurous pilot upon the ocean of English blank verse [note 17], the
mighty Marlowe, was among the immortal dead.
THE APPREHENSION OF ANNE.
_Was that the face that launched a thousand ships_
_And burnt the topless towers of Ilium?_
--_Faustus, by Marlowe, Scene xiv._
_Why she is a pearl_
_Whose price hath launched above a thousand ships_
_And turned crowned kings to merchants._
--_Troilus and Cressida, ii, 2._
Eighteen years before the date fixed for the beginning of this
narrative, a daughter of Manuel Crossford, alderman and mercer, was
born in the town of Canterbury. This child was christened Anne, and, as
the sole offspring of the house and only companion of the father, whose
wife had soon after joined the silent majority, her welfare became his
chief concern. At sixteen years of age she had developed into a girl of
such beauty that Christopher Marlowe, son of the clerk of “St. Maries”
of Canterbury, a graduate of Cambridge, and resident of London, had
fallen desperately in love with her. It was during a temporary visit to
his native town that this occurred.
Well authenticated stories of Marlowe’s five years of dissipation in
London, after the termination of his scholarship at Cambridge, caused
Manuel Crossford to look with disfavor upon his attentions. There was
the chapter in which he figured as a common player of interludes,
or, in other words, as a vagrant actor, forming part of the unwritten
biography of the suitor; and the father of the maiden could not forget
the account of Marlowe’s having broken “his leg in one lewd scene, when
in his early age,” as was expressed some time later by a malignant
rhymster.[19]
This latter report had been clearly disproved, but it had raised a
prejudice which could not be overturned. Then again, Crossford was
a devout Brownist, and it was too well known to admit of doubt that
Marlowe was an avowed freethinker. Had he not written in one of his
plays:
“I count religion but a childish toy,
And hold there is no crime but ignorance”?[20]
If a man did not entertain such opinions himself he would not allow
them to be mouthed by any speaker before an assemblage, thought
Crossford. It was true that he had written passages that glowed with
the fervor of his worship of the All-creating Soul of the Universe,
but this did not prevent him from abjuring the Trinity. There were
suspicions that he had committed this ecclesiastical crime.
Crossford was not familiar with Marlowe’s works, but he had heard the
clerk of “St. Maries” enthusiastically repeat the lines written by his
distinguished son:
“Our souls, whose faculties can comprehend
The wonderous architecture of the world,
And measure every wandering planet’s course,
Still climbing after knowledge infinite,
And always moving as the restless spheres,
Will us to wear ourselves, and never rest,
Until we reach the ripest fruit of all.”
And at their recital he, Crossford, had nodded approval, and then shook
his head as he thought of the eternal fires already prepared for the
irreverent young man. The predicted fame of the latter had no weight
in the other side of the scales held by the non-compromising Brownist
[note 30].
At length matters reached such a crisis that in 1592, the alderman
determined that his daughter should be placed under more strict
surveillance than he was capable of maintaining. In considering the
matter his thoughts had turned in the direction of his sister’s house
in London. The chances were fair for the close confinement there of the
maiden until time should have worn away the image of her lover. For
the moment, the Protestant actually wished for the restoration of the
dissolved nunneries. Like the Jew of Malta, who had placed his daughter
within the walls of a priory, the stiff-necked Brownist could have
smothered his religious prejudices when the interests lying next to his
heart were at stake. But half a century had elapsed since the sisters
of the convents, with only their clothes upon their backs, had been
rudely forced into secular life, and their abodes confiscated by the
crown.
The sister of Crossford was the wife of Richard Bame. Living
childless, she had long since pleaded for the adoption of her niece,
but Crossford had turned a deaf ear toward all such entreaties. Her
home was a “faire dwelling” amid spacious and walled grounds, the
bequest of her father. As she was a woman of advanced education for
the times, and a strict disciplinarian, it was no wonder that Manuel
Crossford turned toward her in what he deemed was his extremity.
Without notice given his daughter of their destination or his
intentions, the alderman started with her on the journey toward the
great metropolis.
They traveled by the way of Deptford, and knowing Dodsman intimately
from an early day, they stayed for several days at the Golden Hind.
Before their sojourn at the latter place had ended, Marlowe had
heard of their presence there and forthwith appeared at the tavern.
A stormy interview took place between the father and the suitor; a
misunderstanding arose, and a bitter quarrel followed between the
lovers, and apparently the meeting was but an episode in the journey.
Anne was soon afterward received into the house of Mistress Bame,
where studies were begun and assiduously maintained. Any tears which
she might have shed over what she supposed was the termination of the
affair with Marlowe, were soon followed by a condition of mind giving
evidence of its freedom from regret and melancholy, by clarity of
countenance. But this peaceful condition of mind was more in the nature
of a reflection of the new, and, at first, pleasant surroundings. The
extent to which her affection had become involved was not at that time
known to herself. It required another revolution of the kaleidoscope of
her life to show the contrasting pictures of light and gloom, traced by
her first love in ineffaceable colors. This revolution was not to be
long delayed. It required another’s devotion; the paling of the fire of
attraction and the second advent of Marlowe.
Anne had not been wholly restricted to the grounds within the walls
of the residence of Bame; but upon all her departures therefrom she
was accompanied by the watchful mistress. Upon one of these occasions
they became separated from each other by the waves of a great crowd
rushing through Fenchurch Street. It was an insurrection raised by the
apprentices of the city against the alien workingmen; and although
neither riotous nor destructive at the point where the younger woman
became lost from the older, it was sufficiently threatening to cause
the closing and barricading of all shops and houses along that ancient
thoroughfare. Anne became extricated from the mob through the efforts
of a young man, who proved to be Francis Frazer. He had noticed her
upon a previous occasion. He had the grace of a courtier and his
apparel was in keeping with his apparent rank.
Her beauty had flashed upon him and fixed his attention. On his part,
it was love at first sight. Upon her part, she was attracted by
his distinguished appearance, and visibly affected by his immediate
protestations of affection. Unfortunately for both, as the sequel
proved, he escorted her to her home.