JESTING FORTUNE
Jesting Fortune had not yet done with Colonel Holles.
A month later, towards the middle of September, without having seen
Nancy again--since that, of course, would have been denied him, as
it would have nullified his sequestration from infected persons and
surroundings--he found himself at liberty to return to the ordinary
haunts of man, supplied with a certificate of health.
He had been considering, in the few days preceding his discharge,
whither he should direct his steps once he were made free of the world
again, and he had returned to that earlier resolve of his to embark as
a hand aboard some vessel bound for France. But a vessel must be found
quickly, for Holles was utterly penniless. He possessed, as he had
reminded Nancy, nothing but the comparatively cheap garments in which
he stood. He might have obtained a few shillings from the pest-house
authorities, but his gorge rose at the thought of seeking charity,
particularly where it would better become him to bestow it, out of
consideration for the benefits received.
So within an hour of his discharge he found himself tramping along the
empty streets of the City, bound for distant Wapping. He must go afoot,
not only because he lacked the means to go otherwise, but because there
were no longer any boats plying for hire at any of the steps along the
river, nor any hackney-coaches remaining in the streets. More than ever
was London become a city of the dead.
He trudged on, and everywhere now he beheld great fires of sea-coal
burning in the streets, a sight that puzzled him at first, until a
chance wayfarer informed him that it was done by order of the Lord
Mayor and with the approval of His Grace of Albemarle as a means of
purifying the tainted air. Yet, although these fires had been burning
now for a week, there was no sign yet that they had any such effect as
was desired. Indeed, the bill of mortality in that week had been higher
than ever before, having risen--as that same wayfarer informed him--to
the colossal figure of eight thousand. The marvel was, thought Holles,
that any should still be left to die in London.
On through that desolate emptiness he tramped in the noontide heat,
which still continued as intense as through the months that were
past of that exceptional summer, until he came to the Fleet Ditch.
Here it was that he bethought him of The Harp in Wood Street where
he had lodged, and of its landlord, the friendly Banks, who at some
risk to himself had warned him that the messengers of the law were on
his heels. It was his utter destitution that now shaped his destiny.
But for that, he might not have remembered that in his precipitate
departure from that hostelry he had left some gear behind including
a fine suit of clothes. He could have no personal use for such brave
raiment now. The homespun in which he stood was better suited far to
one who sought work as a hand aboard a ship. But, if he could recover
that abandoned gear, it was possible that he might be able to convert
it into a modest sum of money to relieve his present necessities. He
laughed a little over the notion of Fortune being so kind to him as to
permit him to find The Harp still open or Banks alive.
Still, forlorn hope though it might be, forlorn hopes were the only
hopes that remained him. So in the direction of Wood Street he now
turned his steps.
He found it much as other streets. Not more than one shop in four
was standing open, and trade in these was idle and stagnant.
Proctor’s famous ordinary at the sign of The Mitre--the most reputed
eating-house in London--was closed and shuttered. He regarded this as
an evil omen. But he passed on, and came presently to stand before the
more modest Harp. He could scarcely believe his eyes when he saw its
windows clean and open, its door flung wide.
He crossed the threshold, and turned into the common room on his left.
The room was clean-swept, its long deal tables were well scoured; but
trade was slack, for the place contained a single occupant, a man in
an apron who started up from a wooden armchair in which he had been
dozing, with an ejaculation of:
“As God’s my life, a customer!”
Holles stared at him and the man stared back at Holles. It was Banks,
the vintner himself. But a Banks whose paunch had shrunk, whose
erstwhile ruddy cheeks had lost their glow and fullness.
“Colonel Holles!” he cried. “Or is it your ghost, sir? There’s more
ghosts than living men in this stricken city.”
“We are both ghosts, I think, Banks,” the Colonel answered him.
“Maybe, but our gullets ain’t ghostly, praise the Lord! And there’s
still some sack left at The Harp. It’s the greatest of all electuaries
is sack, as Dr. Hodges has it. Sack with plenty of nutmeg, says he, and
avoid sweating. And that’s how I’ve kept myself alive. Shall we have a
bottle of the medicine, Colonel?”
“I’d say yes, with all my heart. But--lackaday!--I’ve not the means to
pay for the sack.”
“Pay?” The vintner made a lip. “Sit ye down, Colonel.”
Banks fetched the wine, and poured it.
“A plague on the plague, is the toast,” said he, and they drank it.
“’Slife, Colonel, but I am glad to see you alive. I feared the worst
for you. Yet you’ve contrived to keep yourself safe, avoiding not only
the plague, but them pestilential fellows that was after you.” Without
waiting for a reply, he dropped his voice to add: “Ye’ll have heard how
Danvers was took, and how he broke away and won free--good luck to him!
But all that is a dream by now, that conspiracy business, and no one
bothers much about it. Not even the government. There’s other things to
engage them, and not much government left neither. But of yourself now,
Colonel?”
“My tale’s soon told. I’ve not fared quite as well as you suppose. I’ve
had the plague.”
“The devil you have. And ye’ve won through!” Banks regarded him with a
new respect. “Well, ye were born lucky, sir.”
“You give me news,” said the Colonel.
“There isn’t many escapes,” the vintner assured him ruefully. “And you
having had the pestilence makes you a safe man. Ye can come and go as
ye please without uneasiness.”
“And your sack as an electuary is wasted on me. But if I’m safe I’m
also penniless, which is what has brought me here: to see if some gear
of mine is still in your possession that I may melt it into shillings.”
“Aye, aye, I have it all safe,” Banks assured him. “A brave suit, with
boots and a hat, a baldric, and some other odds and ends. They’re
above-stairs, waiting for you when you please. But what may you be
thinking of doing, Colonel, if I may make so bold as to ask?”
Holles told him of his notion of sailing as a hand aboard a vessel
bound for France.
The vintner pursed his lips and sadly shook his head, regarding his
guest the while from under bent brows.
“Why, sir,” he said, “there’s no French shipping and no ships bound for
France at Wapping, and mighty few ships of any kind. The plague has
put an end to all that. The port of London is as empty as Proctor’s
yonder. There’s not a foreign ship’ll put into it, nor an English one
go out of it, for she wouldn’t be given harbour anywhere for fear of
the infection.”
The Colonel’s face lengthened in dismay. This, he thought, was the last
blow of his malignant Fortune.
“I shall have to go to Portsmouth, then,” he announced gloomily. “God
knows how I shall get there.”
“Ye never will. For Portsmouth won’t have ye, nor any other town in
England neither, coming as ye do from London. I tell you, sir, the
country’s all crazed with fear of the plague.”
“But I’ve a certificate of health.”
“Ye’d need to have it backed by a minister of state or ever Portsmouth
would let you inside her gates.”
Holles looked at him blankly for a moment, then expressed his
bitterness in a laugh.
“In that case I don’t know what remains. Ye don’t need a drawer these
days, I suppose?”
The vintner was frowning thoughtfully, considering the first of those
two questions.
“Why, ye say ye’re a safe man. Ye’ll not have seen His Grace of
Albemarle’s proclamation asking for safe men?”
“Asking for safe men? To what end?”
“Nay, the proclamation don’t say. Ye’ll find that out in Whitehall,
maybe. But there’s a service of some kind his grace has to offer to
them as is safe. Things being like this with you, now, ye might think
it worth while to ask. It might be something for ye, for the present at
least.”
“It might,” said Holles. “And, apparently, it’s that or nothing. He’ll
be needing scavengers, likely, or drivers for the dead-cart.”
“Nay, nay, it’ll be something better than that,” said Banks, taking him
literally.
Holles rose. “Whatever it may be, when a man is faced with starvation
he had best realize that pride won’t fill an empty belly.”
“No more it will,” Banks agreed, eyeing the Colonel’s uncouth garments.
“But if ye’re thinking of paying a visit to Whitehall ye’d be wise to
put on that other suit that’s above-stairs. Ye’ll never get past the
lackeys in that livery.”
So you see issuing presently from the sign of The Harp a Colonel Holles
very different from the Colonel Holles who had entered it an hour
earlier. In a dark blue suit of camlet enlivened by a little gold lace,
black Spanish boots, and a black beaver set off by a heavy plume of
royal blue, without a sword, it is true, but swinging a long cane, he
presented a figure rarely seen just then in London streets. Perhaps
because of that his appearance at the Cockpit made the few remaining
and more or less idle ushers bestir themselves to announce him.
He waited but a moment in the empty anteroom where three months ago he
had overheard Mr. Pepys of the Navy Office proclaiming England’s need
of practised soldiers. The usher who went to announce him returned
almost at once to conduct him into that pleasant chamber overlooking
the park where His Grace of Albemarle acted to-day as deputy for the
pleasure-loving libertine prince who had forsaken his stricken capital.
The Duke heaved himself up as the Colonel entered.
“So you’re come at last, Randal!” was his astounding greeting. “On my
life, you’ve taken your own time in answering my letter. I concluded
long since that the plague had carried you off.”
“Your letter?” said Holles. And he stared blankly at the Duke, as he
clasped the proffered hand.
“My letter, yes. You had it? The letter that I sent you nigh upon a
month ago to the Paul’s Head?”
“Nay,” said Holles. “I had no letter.”
“But....” Albemarle looked almost as if he did not believe him. “The
landlady there kept it for you. She said, I think, that you were absent
at the time, but would be back in a day or two, and that you should
have the letter at once on your return.”
“A month ago, do you say? But it is two months and more since I left
the Paul’s Head!”
“What do you tell me? Ah, wait. My messenger shall speak for himself on
this.” And he strode away to the bell-rope.
But Holles checked him.
“Nay, nay,” he cried with a wry smile. “There’s not the need. I think I
understand. Mrs. Quinn has been riding her malice on a loose rein. Your
messenger would, no doubt, announce whence he came, and Mrs. Quinn,
fearing that the news might be to my advantage, acted so as to prevent
his making further search for me. Evidently the plague has spared that
plaguy woman.”
“What’s this?” The Duke’s heavy face empurpled. “Do you charge her with
suppressing a communication from an office of state? By Heaven, if
she’s still alive I’ll have her gaoled for it.”
“Let be,” said Holles, seizing him by the arm. “Devil take the woman!
Tell me of the letter. Ye’ll never mean that you had found employment
for me, after all?”
“You seem incredulous, Randal? Did you doubt my zeal for you?”
“Oh, not your zeal. But the possibility of your helping one who was in
my case.”
“Aye, aye. But as to that, why, Buckingham improved it when he stood
surety for your loyalty before the Justices. I heard of that. And when
the chance came, the chance of this Bombay command that already I had
earlier intended for you....”
“The Bombay command?” Holles began to wonder did he dream. “But I
thought that it had been required by Buckingham for a friend of his
own.”
“Sir Henry Stanhope, yes. So it had, and Stanhope sailed for the Indies
with the commission. But it seems that when he did so he already
carried the seeds of the plague within him. For he died of it on the
voyage. It was a Providence that he did, poor devil; for he was no more
fitted for the command than to be Archbishop of Canterbury. I wrote
to you at once asking you to seek me here, and I waited a fortnight
to hear from you. As you made no sign, I concluded that either you
were stricken with the plague, or no longer desired the office, and I
proceeded to appoint another gentleman of promise.”
Holles folded the pinions of his soaring hopes and let himself fall
back into his despondency. He uttered a groan.
“But that’s not the end,” Albemarle checked him. “No sooner had I
appointed this other than he, too, fell sick of the plague, and died a
week ago. I have already found another suitable man--no easy matter in
these days--and I had resolved to appoint him to-morrow to the vacant
office. But, if ye’re not afraid that the plague is bound up with this
commission, it’s at your disposal, and it shall be made out to you at
once.”
Holles was gasping for breath. “You ... you mean that ... that I am to
have the command, after all!” It was incredible. He dared not believe
it.
“That is what I have said. The commission is ...” Albemarle broke off
suddenly, and fell back before him. “What ails you man? You’re white
as a ghost. Ye’re not ill?” And he lugged out a handkerchief that
flung a reek of myrrh and ginger on the air, leaving Holles no single
doubt of the thing his grace was fearing. Albemarle imagined that the
plague which, as he had said, seemed bound up with this commission,
was already besetting the man upon whom he now proposed to bestow it.
The humour of it took Holles sharply, and his laugh rang out further to
startle the Duke.
“There’s no need for electuaries against me,” he assured his grace. “I
am certified in health and carry no infection. I left Bunhill Fields
this morning.”
“What?” Albemarle was astounded. “D’ye mean ye’ve had the plague?”
“That is the whole reason of my being here. I am a safe man now. And I
came in answer to your proclamation asking for safe men.”
Albemarle continued to stare at him in deepening amazement.
“So that is what brought you?” he said at last, when full understanding
came to him.
“But for that I certainly should never have come.”
“Gad!” said Albemarle, and he repeated the ejaculation with a laugh,
for he found the situation curious enough to be amusing. “Gad! The ways
of Chance!”
“Chance!” echoed Holles, suddenly very sober, realizing how this
sudden, unexpected turn of Fortune’s wheel had changed the whole
complexion of his life. “Almost it seems that Chance has stood my
friend at last, though it has waited until I had touched the very
bottom of misfortune. But for your proclamation, and but for Mrs.
Quinn, too, I should have been Fortune’s fool again over the matter of
this commission. It would have been here waiting for me, and I should
never have known. The very malice by which Mrs. Quinn sought to do me
disservice has turned to my benefit. For had she told your messenger
the truth--that I had vanished and that she had no knowledge of my
whereabouts--you would never have traced me just then, and you would
never have waited that fortnight. Thus all might have been changed.”
He paused, lost in a wonder that Albemarle did not share.
“Maybe, maybe,” said his grace briskly. “But what matters now is
that you are here, and that the command is yours if you still wish
it. There is not even the fear of the plague to deter you, since you
are a safe man now. It is an important office, as I told you, and so
that you discharge its duties, as I know you will, it may prove but a
stepping-stone to greater things. What do you say?”
“Say?” cried Holles, his cheeks flushed, his grey eyes gleaming. “Why,
I give you thanks with all my heart.”
“Then you accept it. Good! For I believe you to be the very man for the
office.” Albemarle stepped to his writing-table, selected from among
some documents a parchment bearing a heavy seal, sat down, took up a
pen, and wrote briskly for a few seconds. He dusted the writing with
pounce, and proffered the document. “Here, then, is your commission.
How soon can you sail?”
“In a month,” said Holles promptly.
“A month!” Albemarle was taken aback. He frowned. “Why, man, you should
be ready in a week.”
“Myself, I could be ready in a day. But I mean to take this new-found
tide of fortune at the flood, and....”
But Albemarle interrupted him impatiently.
“Don’t you realize, man, the time that has been already lost? For four
months now this office has stood vacant.”
“Which means that there’s a very competent lieutenant in charge. Let
him continue yet awhile. Once I am there, I’ll speedily make up for
lost time. That I can promise you. You see, it may be that I shall have
a companion, who cannot possibly be ready in less than a month.”
With an odd, reckless trust in the continuance of Fortune’s favour now,
he boldly added: “You have said that I am the very man for the office.
The government can wait a month, or you can appoint some one less
likely to serve it as efficiently.”
Albemarle smiled at him grimly across the table. “Ye’re very full of
surprises to-day, Master Randal. And this one baffles me.”
“Shall I explain it?”
“It would be a condescension.”
Holles poured out his tale, and Albemarle gave him a sympathetic
hearing. When he had done, the Duke sighed and turned aside before
replying, to examine the pages of a notebook at his elbow.
“Well, well,” he said at length, having consulted an entry. “The
_English Lass_ is fitting at Portsmouth for the voyage, and should be
ready, I am informed, in two weeks from now. But there are ever delays
at present, and it is odds that in no case would she be ready in less
than three weeks. I’ll see to it that she is not ready under a month.”
Impetuously the Colonel held out both hands to the Duke.
“What a friend you are!” he cried.
Albemarle wrung them hard. “You’re damnably like your father, God
rest him!” said he. Then, almost brusquely: “Away with you now, and
good-luck to you. I’ll not ask you to stay to see her grace at present,
since you’re pressed. You shall kiss her hands before you sail. Be off!”
Holles took his leave. At the door he suddenly checked, and, turning,
displayed a rueful countenance.
“Although I have the King’s commission in my pocket and hold an
important office in his service, I haven’t a shilling in the world,” he
said. “Not a shilling.”
Albemarle responded instantly by producing a purse from which he
counted twenty pounds. There was no sign of parsimonious reluctance
about his offer now.
“As a loan, of course,” said Holles, gathering up the yellow coins.
“No, no,” Albemarle corrected him. “An advance. Take no further thought
for it. The Treasury shall refund me the money at once.”