PART TAKEN IN AFFAIRS BY THE HALF TESTOON
It was seven o'clock in the evening when John Commendone arrived at the
Tower. He went to the Queen's Gallery, and found that Her Majesty had
just come back from Vespers in St. John's Chapel, and was in the Privy
Garden with some of her ladies.
Mr. Ambrose Cholmondely was lieutenant of the guard at this hour, and
Johnnie went to him, explaining that he must see the Queen at once.
"She won't see any one, Commendone," young Mr. Cholmondely answered. "I
really cannot send your name to Her Grace."
"But I must see Her Grace. It is highly important."
Cholmondely looked at Commendone.
"You have ridden far and fast," he said. "You might even be the bearer
of despatches, my friend John. But I cannot send in your name to the
Queen. Even if I could, I certainly would not do so when you are like
this, in such disorder of dress. You've come from no battle-field with
news of victory. If the matter urgeth, as you say, then you have your
own remedy. The King Consort lies ill in his own lodging; he hath not
been seen of any one since supper last night. I don't know where you
have been or what you have been doing, and it is no concern of mine, i'
faith, but you can very well go to the King's quarters, where, if your
business is as you say, one of the dons or Spanish priests will speedily
arrange an audience for you with Her Grace."
Johnnie knew the rigid etiquette of the Court very well.
Technically young Mr. Cholmondely was within his rights. He had received
orders and must obey them. Upon the other hand, no one knew better than
Commendone that this young gallant was a fool, puffed up with the favour
of ladies, and who from the first had regarded him as in some sense a
rival--was jealous of him.
John realised in a moment that no one of the Court except the Queen and
King Philip's private gentlemen knew of His Highness's absence. It had
been put about that he was ill. It would have been an easy thing for
Johnnie to turn away from the gate of the Privy Garden, where, in the
soft sunset light, Mr. Cholmondely ruffled it so bravely, and find
Father Diego. But he was in no mood at that moment for compromise. He
was perfectly certain of his own right to admission. He knew that the
tidings he bore were far more important than any point of etiquette. He
was cool and suave enough as a general rule--not at all inclined, or a
likely person, to infringe the stately machinery which controlled the
lives of monarchs. But now he was in a mood when these things seemed
shrunken, smaller than they had ever been before. He himself was
animated by a great private purpose, he bore a message from the King
himself to the Queen; he was in a state of exaltation, and looking at
the richly dressed young courtier before him, remembering what a
popinjay and lap-dog of ladies he was, he felt a sudden contempt for the
man who barred his way.
He wouldn't have felt it before, but he was older now. He had bitten in
upon life, an extraordinary strength and determination influenced him
and ran in his blood.
"Mr. Cholmondely," he said, "nevertheless, I will go to the Queen, as I
am, and go at once."
Cholmondely was just inside the gates which led to the Privy Garden,
strolling up and down, while outside the gates were two archers of the
Queen's Guard, and a halberdier of the garrison, who was sitting upon a
low stone bench.
Johnnie had passed the men and was standing within the garden.
"You will, Mr. Commendone?"
Johnnie took a step forward and brushed the other away with his left
arm, contemptuously, as if he had been a serving-man. Then he strode
onwards.
The other's sword was out of his scabbard in a second, and he threw
himself on guard, his face livid with passion. Johnnie made no motion
towards his own sword hilt, but he grasped the other's light rapier with
his right hand, twisted it away with a swift muscular motion, broke it
upon his knee and flung the pieces into Cholmondely's face.
"I go to Her Majesty," he said. "When I have done my business with her,
I will see you again, Mr. Cholmondely, and you can send your friend to
my lodging."
Without a further glance at the lieutenant of the guard he hurried down
a broad gravelled path, edged with stocks, asters and dark green borders
of box, towards where he knew he would find the Queen.
Cholmondely stood, swaying and reeling for a second. No word escaped
him, but from his cheek, cut by the broken sword, came a thin trickle of
scarlet.
Johnnie had turned out of the broad walk and into the terraced
rose-garden, which went down to the river--where he saw a group of
brightly-dressed ladies, rightly conjecturing that the Queen was among
them--when he heard running steps behind him.
Cholmondely had almost caught him up, and a dagger gleamed in his right
hand. A loud oath burst from him, and he flung himself upon Commendone.
At the exact moment that he did so, the ladies had turned, and saw what
was going on; and while the two young men wrestled together,
Cholmondely vainly trying to free his dagger-arm from Commendone's
vice-like grip, there came a loud, angry voice which both knew well,
booming through the pergolas of roses. The instant the great voice
struck upon their ears they fell away from each other, arms dropped to
their sides, breaths panting, eyes of hate and anger suddenly changed
and full of apprehension.
There were one or two shrieks and feminine twitters, a rustle of silk
skirts, a jangle of long silver chatelaines, and like a bouquet of
flowers coming towards them, the queen's ladies hurried over the lawn;
Her Grace's small form was a little in advance of the rest.
Queen Mary came up to them, her thin face suffused with passion.
"Sirs," she shouted, "what mean you by this? Are gentlemen of Our Court
to brawl in Our gardens? By the Mass, it shall go very hard with you
gentlemen. It----"
She saw Commendone.
Her voice changed in a second.
"Mr. Commendone! Mr. Commendone! You here? I had looked to see you hours
agone. Where is----"
She had nearly said it, but a warning flash from the young man's eyes
stayed the wild inquiry upon her lips. Clever as she was, the Queen
caught herself up immediately.
"What is this, sir?" she said, more softly, and in Spanish.
Johnnie sank on one knee.
"I have just come to the Tower, M'am," he said, "with news for Your
Majesty. As you see, I am but just from my horse. I sought you
post-haste, and were told that you were here. Unfortunately, I could not
persuade Mr. Cholmondely of the urgency of my business. He had orders to
admit no one, and daring greatly, I pushed past him, and in the
execution of his duty he followed me."
The Queen said nothing for a moment. Then she turned upon Cholmondely.
"And who are you, Mr. Cholmondely," she said in a cold, hard voice, "to
deny the Esquire Our presence when he comes with special tidings to Us?"
Cholmondely bowed low.
"I did but hold to my orders, Madam," he said, in a low voice.
The Queen ground her high-heeled shoe into the gravel.
"Your sword, Mr. Cholmondely," she said, "you will hand it to the
Esquire, and you will go to your lodging to await our pleasure."
At that, the lieutenant of the guard gave a loud sob, and his face
became purple.
The Queen looked at him in amazement and then saw that his scabbard was
empty.
In a moment Johnnie had whipped out his own riding-sword and pressed it
into Mr. Cholmondely's hand.
"Stupid!" he said, "here thou art. Now give it me in order."
The Queen had taken it all in immediately. The daughter of a King to
whom the forms and etiquette of chivalry were one of the guiding
principles of life, she realised in a moment what had occurred.
"Boys! Boys!" she said, impatiently. "A truce to your quarrels. If Mr.
Commendone robbed you of your sword, Mr. Cholmondely, he hath very well
made amends in giving you his. You were right, Mr. Cholmondely, in not
admitting Mr. Commendone to Our presence, because you knew not the
business upon which he came. And you were right, Mr. Commendone, in
coming to Us as you did at all hazards. Art two brave, hot-headed boys.
Now take each other's hand; let there be no more of this, for"--and her
voice became lowing and full of menace again--"if I hear so much as the
rattle of thy swords against each other, in future, neither of thee will
e'er put hand to pummel again."
The two young men touched each other's hand--both of them, to tell the
truth, excessively glad that affairs had turned out in this way.
"Get you back to your post," the Queen said to the lieutenant. "Mr.
Commendone, come here."
She turned swiftly, passing through her ladies, who all remained a few
yards behind.
"Well, well," she said impatiently, "hath His Highness returned? Hath
he borne the fatigue of the journey well?"
Most carefully, with studied phrases, furtively watching her face, with
the skill and adroitness of an old courtier, Johnnie told his story. At
any moment he expected an outburst of temper, but it did not come. To
his surprise, the Queen was now in a quiet and reflective mood. She
walked up and down the bowling green with him, her ladies standing apart
at one edge of it, nodding and whispering to see this young gallant so
favoured, and wondering what his mission might be.
The Queen asked Johnnie minute questions about Mr. Peter Lacel's house.
Was it well found? Would His Highness find proper accommodation to lie
there? Was Mr. Lacel married, and had he daughters?
Johnnie assured Her Grace that Mr. Lacel was a widower and without
children. He could plainly see that the Queen had that fierce jealousy
of a woman wedded late. Not only the torturing of other women, but also
the stronger and more pervading dislike of a husband living any life,
going through any experiences that she herself did not share. At the
same time, he saw also that the Queen was doing her very best to
overcome such thoughts as these, was endeavouring to assume the matron
of common sense and to put the evil thing away from her.
Then, just as the young man was beginning to feel a little embarrassed
at the quick patter of questions, wondering if he would be able to be
as adequate as hitherto, remembering guiltily where he had met the King
the night before, the Queen ceased to speak of her husband.
She began to ask him of Dr. Rowland Taylor and his end.
He told her some of the details as quietly as he could, trying to soften
the horror which even now overwhelmed him in memory. At one question he
hesitated for a moment, mistaking its intent, and the Queen touched him
smartly on the arm.
"No, no," she said, "I don't want to hear of the runagate's torment. He
suffered rightly, and doubtless his sufferings were great. But tell me
not of them. They are not meet for our ears. Tell me of what he said,
and if grace came to him at last."
He was forced to tell her, as he knew others would tell her afterwards,
of the sturdy denial of the martyr till the very end.
And as he did so, he saw the face, which had been alight with tenderness
and anxiety when the King's name was mentioned, gravely judicial and a
little disgusted when the actual sufferings of the Archdeacon were
touched upon, now become hard and cruel, aflame with bigotry.
"They shall go," the Queen said, rather to herself than to him. "They
shall be rooted out; they shall die the death, and so may God's most
Holy Church be maintained."
At that, with another and astonishing change of mood, she looked at the
young man, looked him up and down, saw his long boots powdered with
dust, his dress in disorder, him travel-stained and weary.
"You have done well," she said, with a very kindly and eminently human
smile. "I would that all the younger gentlemen of our old houses were
like you, Mr. Commendone. His Highness trusts you and likes you. I
myself have reason to think well of you. You are tired by your long
ride. Get you to your lodging, and if so you wish it, you shall do as
you please to-night, for when His Highness returns I will see that he
hath no need of you. And take this from your Queen."
In her hand the Queen carried a little volume, bound in Nile-green skin,
powdered with gold heraldic roses. It was the _Tristia et Epistolae ex
Ponto_ of Ovid, which she had been reading. Johnnie sank upon one knee
and took the book from the ivory-white and wrinkled hand.
"Madam," he said, "I will lose my life rather than this gracious gift."
"Hey ho!" the Queen answered. "Tell that to your mistress, Mr.
Commendone, if you have one. Still, the book is rare, and when you read
of the poet's sorrows at Tomi, think sometimes of the giver who--and do
not doubt it--hath many sorrows of her own. It is an ill thing to rule
We sometimes think, Mr. Commendone, but God hath put Us in Our place,
and We must not falter."
She turned. "Lady Paget," she called, "I have done with this young spark
for the nonce; come you, and help me pick red roses, red roses, for my
chamber. The King loveth deep red roses, and I am told that they are the
favoured flower of all noble gentlemen and ladies in the dominions of
Spain."
Bowing deeply once more, and walking backwards to the edge of the
bowling green, Johnnie withdrew.
He passed through the flower-bordered ways till he came to the gate of
the garden.
Outside the gate this time, on the big gravelled sweep which went in
front of the Palace, Cholmondely was walking up and down, the blood
dried upon his cheek, but not washed away. He turned in his sentinel's
parade as Johnnie came out, and the two young men looked at each other
for a moment in silence.
"What's it to be?" Johnnie said, with a smile--"Lincoln's Inn Fields
to-morrow morning? Her Grace will never know of it."
"I was waiting for you, Johnnie," the other answered. "No, we'll not
fight, unless you wish it. Come you to the Common Room, and the pantler
shall boil his kettle and brew us some sack."
Johnnie thrust his arm into the other's and together they passed away
from the garden, better friends at that moment than they had ever been
before--friends destined to be friends for two hours before they were to
part forever, though during these hours one of them was to do the other
a service which would help to alter the whole course of his life.
They went into the Common Room, and the pantler was summoned and ordered
to brew them a bowl of sack--simply the hot wine and water, with added
spices, which our grandmothers of the present time sipped over their
cards, and called Negus.
Commendone sunk down into a big oak chair, his hands stretched out along
the arms, his whole body relaxed in utter weariness, his dark face now
grown quite white. There were lines about his eyes which had not been
there a few hours before. The eyes themselves were dull and glassy, the
lips were flaccid.
Cholmondely looked at him in amazement. "Go by, Jeronymo!" he said,
using a popular tag, or catch-word, of the time, the "What ho, she
bumps!" of the period, though there were no music-halls in those days to
popularise such gems of phrase. "What ails you, Esquire? I was
frightened also by Her Grace, and, i' faith, 'tis a fearful thing to
hear the voice of Majesty in reproof. But thou camest better out of it
than I, though all was well at the end of it for both of us. Is it with
you still?"
Johnnie shook his head feebly. "No," he said, lifting a three-handled
silver cup of sack to his lips. "'Twas not that, though I was sorely
angered with you, Ambrose; but I have had a long journey into the
country, and have returned but half an hour agone. I have seen
much--much." He put one hand to his throat, swallowing as he spoke, and
then recollecting himself, adding hurriedly, "Upon affairs of State."
The other gallant sipped his wine. "Thou need'st not have troubled to
tell me that," he said dryly. "When a gentleman bursts into the Privy
Garden against all order he is doubtless upon business of State. What
brought you to this doing I do not know, and I don't ask you, Johnnie.
All's well that ends well, and I hope we are to be friends."
"With all my goodwill," Commendone answered. "We should have been
friends before."
The other nodded. He was a tall, handsome young man, a little florid in
face, but of a high and easy bearing. There was, nevertheless, something
infinitely more boyish and ingenuous in his appearance than in that of
Commendone. The latter, perhaps of the same age as his companion, was
infinitely more unreadable than the other. He seemed older, not in
feature indeed, but in manner and capability. Cholmondely was explicit.
There was a swagger about him. He was thoroughly typical. Johnnie was
cool, collected, and aware.
"To tell you the truth, Commendone," Cholmondely said, with a light
laugh which rang with perfect sincerity, "to tell you the truth, I have
been a little jealous of you since you came to Court. Thou art a
newcomer here, and thou hast risen to very high favour; and then, by the
Mass! thou dost not seem to care about it all. Here am I, a squire of
dames, who pursue the pleasures of Venus with great ardour and not ever
with success. But as for thee, John Commendone of Kent, i' faith, the
women are quarrelling for thee! Eyes grow bright when thou comest into
the dance. A week agone, at the barrier fight in the great hall, Cicily
Thwaites, that I had marked out for myself to be her knight, was looking
at thee with the eyes of a duck in a tempest of thunder. So that is
that, Johnnie. 'Tis why I have not liked thee much. But we're friends
now, and see here----"
He stepped up to the young man in the chair and clapped his hand upon
his shoulder. "See here," he went on in a deeper voice, "thou hast well
purged the dregs and leaven of my dislike. Thou gav'st me thy sword when
hadst disarmed me, and I stood before Her Grace shamed. I don't forget
that. I will never forget it. There will never be any savour or smell of
malice between thou and me."
The wine had roused the blood in Commendone's tired veins. He was more
himself now. The terrible fatigue and nerve tension of the past few
hours was giving place to a sense of physical well-being. He looked at
the handsome young fellow before him standing up so taut and trim, with
the sunlight pouring in upon his face from one of the long open windows,
his head thrown slightly back, his lips a little parted, bright with the
health of youth, and felt glad that Ambrose Cholmondely was to be his
friend. And he would want friends now, for some reason or other--why he
could not divine--he had a curious sense that friends would be valuable
to him now. He felt immeasurably older than the other, immeasurably
older than he had ever felt before. There was something big and stern
coming into his life. The diplomatic, the cautious, trained side of him
knew that it must hold out hands to meet all those that were proffered
in the name of friend.
Cholmondely sat down upon the table, swinging his legs backwards and
forwards, and stroking the smooth pointed yellow beard which lay upon
his ruff, with one long hand covered with rings.
"And how like you, Johnnie," he said, "your attendance upon His Majesty?
From what we of the Queen's Household hear, the garden of that service
is not all lavender. Nay, nor ale and skittles neither."
Johnnie shrugged his shoulders, his face quite expressionless. In a
similar circumstance, Ambrose Cholmondely would have gleefully entered
into a gossip and discussion, but Commendone was wiser than that, older
than his years. He knew the value of silence, the virtue of a still
tongue.
"Sith you ask me, Ambrose," he answered, sipping his wine quietly, "I
find the service good enough."
The other grinned with boyish malice. There was a certain rivalry
between those English gentlemen who had been attached to King Philip
and those who were of the Queen's suite. Her Majesty was far more
inclined to show favour to those whom she had put about her husband than
to the members of her own _entourage_. They were picked men, and the gay
young English sparks resented undue and too rapid promotion and favour
shown to men of their own standing, while, Catholics as most of them
were, there was yet an innate political distrust instilled into them by
their fathers and relations of this Spanish Match. And many courtiers
thought that, despite all the safe-guards embodied in the marriage
contract, the marriage might yet mean a foreign dominion over the
realm--so fond and anxious was the Queen.
"Each man to his taste," Cholmondely said. "I don't know precisely what
your duties are, Johnnie, but for your own sake I well hope they don't
bring you much into the companionship of such gentry as Sir John
Shelton, let us say."
Johnnie could hardly repress a start, though it passed unnoticed by his
friend. "Sir John Shelton?" he said, wondering if the other knew or
suspected anything of the events of the last twenty-four hours. "Sir
John Shelton? It's little enough I have to do with him."
"And all the better."
Johnnie's ears were pricked. He was most anxious to get to know what was
behind Cholmondely's words. It would be worth a good deal to him to have
a thorough understanding of the general Court view about the King
Consort. He affected an elaborate carelessness, even as he did so
smiling within himself at the ease by which this boy could be drawn.
"Why all the better?" he said. "I care not for a bully-rook such as
Shelton any more than you, but I have nothing to do with him."
"Then you make no excursions and sallies late o' nights?"
Commendone's face was an elaborate mask of wonder.
"Sallies o' nights?" he said.
The other young man swung his legs to and fro, and began to chuckle. He
caught hold of the edge of the table with both hands, and looked down on
Johnnie in the chair with an amused smile.
"And I had thought you were right in the thick of it," he said. "Thy
very innocence, Johnnie, hath prevented thee from seeing what goes on
under thy nose. Why, His Highness, Sir John Shelton, and Mr. Clarence
Attwood leave the Tower night after night and hie them to old Mother
Motte's in Duck Lane whenever the Queen hath the vapours and thinketh
her lord is in bed, or at his prayers. Phew!"--he made a gesture of
disgust. "It stinketh all over the Court. I see, Commendone, now why
thou knowest nothing of this. The King chooseth for his night-bird
friends ruffians like Shelton and Attwood. He would not dare ask one
that is a gentleman to wallow in brothels with him. But be assured, I
speak entirely the truth."
Johnnie shrugged his shoulders once more. "I know nothing of it," he
said, with a quick, side-long glance at Ambrose Cholmondely. "I am not
asked to be Esquire on such occasions, at any rate."
"And wouldst not go if thou wert," Cholmondely said, loudly. "Nor would
any other gentleman that I know of--only the very scum and vermin of the
Court. The game of love, look you, is very well. I am no purist, but I
hunt after my own kind, and so should we all do. I don't bemire myself
in the stews. Well, there it is. And now, much refreshed by this good
wine, and much heartened by our compact, I'll leave thee. I must get
back to guard at the garden gate. Her Grace will be leaving anon to
dress for supper. Perchance to-night the King will be well enough to
make appearance. While thou hast been away, he hath been close in his
quarters and very sick. The Spanish priests have been buzzing round him
like autumn wasps. And Thorne, the chirurgeon from Wood Street, a very
skilful man, hath, they say, been summoned this morning to the Palace.
Addio!"
With a bright smile and a wave of his hand, he flung out of the room.
Johnnie finished the lukewarm sack in his goblet. He had learnt
something that he wished to know, and as he saw his friend pass beyond
the windows outside, his feet crunching the gravel and humming a little
song, Johnnie smiled bitterly to himself. He knew rather more about
King Philip's illness than most people in England at that moment. And as
for Duck Lane--well! he knew something of that also. As the thought came
to him, indeed, he shuddered. He remembered the great ham-like face of
the procuress who kept this fashionable hell. He heard her voice
speaking to him as, very surely, she spoke to but few people who visited
her there. He thought of Ambrose Cholmondely's fastidiousness, and he
smiled again as he wondered what the Esquire would say if he only knew.
It was not a merry smile. There was no humour in it. It was bitter,
cynical, and fraught with something of fear and expectation.
He had drunk the wine, and it had reanimated him physically; but he rose
now and realised how weary he was in mind, and also--for he was always
most scrupulous and careful about his dress--how stained and travel-worn
in appearance.
He walked out of the Common Room, his riding sword and spurs clanking as
he did so, mounted the stairway of the hall and entered the long
corridor which led to his own room.
He had nearly got to his doorway when he heard, coming from a little way
beyond it, a low, musical, humming voice. He remembered with a start
that there was an interview before him which would mean much one way or
the other to his private desires.
During the interview with the Queen and the squabble with Ambrose
Cholmondely--as also afterwards, when he was drinking in the Common
Room--he had lost mental sight and grip of his own private wishes and
affairs. Now they all came back to him in a flash as he heard the
humming voice coming from the end of the corridor--
"Bartl'my Fair! Bartl'my Fair!
Swanked I and drank I when I was there;
Boiled and roast goose and baiting of bear,
Who plays with cudgels at Bartl'my Fair?"
He turned into his own room and looked round. He saw that some of his
accoutrements had been taken away. There were vacant pegs upon the
walls. He sat down upon the small low bed, bent forward, clasped his
hands upon his knees, and wondered whether he should speak or not. He
wondered very greatly whether he dare make a query, start an
investigation, nearer to his heart than anything else in the world.
At Chelmsford he had run out of the Tun Inn and touched the burly man
who had killed the maddened stallion on the shoulder. He had brought him
into the ordinary, sat him down in a chair, put a great stoup of ale
before him, and then begun to talk to him.
"I know who you are," he said, "very well, because I was one of the
gentlemen riding from town to Hadley with your late master, Dr. Taylor.
I saw you when his Reverence was wishing good-bye outside St. Botolph,
his church, and I heard the words your master said--eke that you were
the 'faithfullest servant that ever a man had.' What do you here now,
John Hull?"
The man had drunk his great stoup of ale very calmly. The daring deed in
which he had been engaged had seemed to affect his nerves in no way at
all. He was shortish, thick-set, with a broad chest measurement, and a
huge thickness between chest and back. His face was tanned to the colour
of an old saddle, very keen and alert, and he was clean-shaved, a rather
odd and distinguishing feature in a serving-man of that time.
He told Johnnie that, now he knew, he recognised him as one of the
company who rode with Dr. Taylor to his death. He had followed the
cavalcade almost immediately, and on foot. The way was long, and he had
arrived at Chelmsford faint and weary with very little money in his
pouch, and been compelled to wait there a time for rest and food. His
design was to proceed to Hadley, where he knew he could get work and
would be welcome.
Mr. Peter Lacel, he told Johnnie in the inn, would doubtless employ him,
for though a Catholic gentleman, he had been a friend of the Rector's in
the past.
"You want work, then?" Johnnie had said. "You do not wish to be a
masterless man, a hedge-dodger, poacher, or a rogue?"
"Work I must have, sir," John Hull replied, "but it must be with a good
master. Mr. Peter Lacel will take me on. Masterless, I should be a very
great rogue."
All this happened in the dining-room of the Chelmsford inn, Johnnie
sitting in his chair and looking at the thick, brown-faced man with a
cool scrutiny which well disguised the throbbing excitement he felt at
seeing him--at meeting him in this strange, and surely pre-ordained
fashion.
"I'll tell thee who I am," Johnnie had said to the man, naming himself
and his state. "That the Doctor spoke of you as he did when going to his
death is enough recommendation to me of your fidelity. I need a servant
myself, but I would ask you this, John Hull: You are, doubtless, of a
certain party. If I took you to my service, how would you square with
who and what I am? A led man of mine must be loyal."
Hull had answered but very little. "Ye can but try me, sir," he said,
"but I will come with you to London very joyfully. And I well think----"
He stopped, mumbled something, and stood there, his hands stained with
the blood of the horse he had killed, rather clumsy, very much
tongue-tied, but with something faithful and even hungry in his eyes.
Johnnie's own servant was a man called Thumb, a dissolute London fellow,
who had been with him for a month, and who had performed his duties in a
very perfunctory way. Life had been so quick and vivid, so full of
movement and the newness of Court life, that the Groom of the Body had
hardly had time to remember the personal discomfort he endured from the
fellow who had been recommended to him by one of the lieutenants of the
Queen's Archers. He had always meant to get rid of him at the first
opportunity. Now the opportunity presented itself, though it was not for
mere convenience that Commendone had engaged his new servitor.
He had not the slightest doubt in his own mind that the man was sent to
him--put in his way--by the Power which ruled and controlled the
fortunes of men. Living as he did, and had done for many years, in a
quiet, fastidious, but very real dream and communion with things that
the hand or body do not touch and see, he had always known within
himself that the goings-in and goings-out of those who believe depend
not at all upon chance. Like all men of that day, Commendone was deeply
religious. His religion had not made him bigoted, though he clung to the
Church in which he had been brought up. But, nevertheless, it was very
real to him. There were good and bad angels in those days, who fought
for the souls of men. The powers of good and evil were invoked....
The Esquire was certain that this sturdy John Hull had come into his
life with a set purpose.
He was riding back to London with one fixed idea in his mind. One word
rang and chimed in his brain--the word was "Elizabeth!"
He had left Chelmsford with John Hull definitely enrolled as his
servant, had hired a horse for him from the landlord of the "Tun," and
had taken him straight to the Tower. When he had entered within the
walls, he had told his man Thumb that he would dismiss him on the
morrow, and pay him his wages due. He had told him, moreover, that--just
as he was hurrying to the Privy Garden with news for the Queen--he must
take John Hull to his quarters and put him into the way of service. For
a moment, Thumb had been inclined to be insolent, but one single look
from the dark, cool eyes, one hinted flash of anger upon the oval
olive-coloured face, had sent the Londoner humbly to what he had to do;
while the fellow looked, not without a certain apprehension, at the
thick-set quiet man who followed him to be shown his new duties....
"The Spanish don came over seas,
Hey ho nonino;
A Gracious Lady tried to please,
Hey ho nonny.
The country fellows strung their bows,
Hey ho nonino;
What 'twill be, no jack man knows!
Hey ho nonny."
Johnnie jumped up from his bed, strode out of the room, walked a yard or
two down the corridor, and entered another and larger room, which he
shared with three other members of the suite.
It was the place where they kept their armour, their riding-boots, and
some of their swords.
As he came in he saw that Hull was sitting upon an overturned barrel,
which had held quarels for cross-bows.
The man had tied a piece of sacking round his waist and over his
breeches, and was hard at work.
Johnnie's three or four damascened daggers were rubbed bright with hog's
lard and sand. His extra set of holster pistols gleamed fresh and
new--the rust had been all removed from flint-locks and hammers; while
the stocks shone with porpoise oil.
And now the new servant was polishing a high-peaked Spanish saddle, and
all the leather trappings of a charger, with an inside crust of barley
bread and a piece of apple rind.
Directly the man saw his new master he stood up and made a saluting
motion with his hand.
Johnnie looked at him coldly, though inwardly he felt an extreme
pleasure at the sight of his new recruit so lately added to him, so
swift to get to work, and withal so blithe about it.
"You must not sing the songs I have heard you singing," he said,
shortly. "Don't you know where you are?"
"I had forgotten, sir," the man replied. "I have a plaguey knowledge of
rhymes. They do run in my head, and must out."
"They must not, I assure you," Johnnie answered, "but I like this well
enough. Hast got thee to work at once, then."
"I love it, sir. To handle such stuff as yours is rare for a man like
me. Look you here, sir"--he lifted up a small dagger which he withdrew
from its sheath of stag's leather, dyed vermilion--"Hear how it
ringeth!"
He twanged the supple blade with his forefinger, and the little
shivering noise rang out into the room.
The man's keen, brown face was lit up with simple enjoyment. "I love
weapons, master," he said, as if in apology.
Johnnie knew at once that here was the man he had been looking for for
weeks. The man who cared, the faithful man; but he knew also, or thought
he knew, that it was but poor policy to praise a servant unduly.
"Well, well," he said, "you can get on with your work. To-morrow
morning, I will see you fitted out as becometh my body servant. To-night
you will go below with the other men. I have spoken to the intendant
that I have a new servant, and you will have your evening-meat and a
place to lie in."
He turned to go.
With all his soul he was longing to ask this man certain questions. He
believed that he had been sent to him to tell him of the whereabouts of
the girl to whom, so strangely, at such a dreadful hour, he had vowed
his life. But the long control over temperament and emotion which old
Father Chilches had imposed upon him--the very qualities which made him,
already, a successful courtier--stood him in good stead now. The
dominant desire of his heart was to be repressed. He knew very well, he
realised perfectly clearly, how intimate a member of Dr. Taylor's
household this faithful servant--"the faithfullest servant that ever man
had"--must have been. And knowing it, he felt sure that the time was not
yet come to ask John Hull any questions. He must arouse no suspicions
within the man's mind. Hull had entered his service gladly, and promised
to be more than adequate and worthy of any trust that could be reposed
in him. But he had seen Johnnie riding away with his beloved master, one
of those who had taken him to torture and death. The very shrewdness and
cleverness imprinted upon the fellow's face were enough to say that he
would at once take alarm at any questioning about Dr. Taylor's family,
at this moment.
John Hull scraped with his foot and made a clumsy bow as his new master
turned away. Then, suddenly, he seemed to remember something. His face
changed in expression.
"God forgive me, sir," he said, "indeed, I had near forgot it. When I
went into your chamber and took this harness for cleaning, there was a
letter lying there for you. I can read, sir; Dr. Taylor taught me to
read somewhat. I took the letter, fearing that it might be overlooked or
e'en taken away, for there are a plaguey lot of serving-men in this
passage. 'Tis here, sir, and I crave you pardon me for forgetting of it
till now."
He handed Johnnie a missive of thick yellow-brown paper--such as was
woven from linen rags at Arches Smithfield Factory of that day. The
letter was folded four-square and tied round with a cord of green silk,
and where the threads intersected at the back was a broad seal of dull
red wax, bearing the sign of a lamb in its centre.
Johnnie pulled off the cord, the wax cracked, and the thick yellow paper
rustled as he pulled it open.
This was the letter:
"HONOURED SIR,--This from my house in Chepe. Thy honoured
father who hath lately left the City hath left with me a sum of
money which remaineth here at your charges, and for your
disposal thereof as you may think fit. This shall be sent to
you upon your letter and signature, to-morrow an you so wish.
"Natheless, should you come to my house to-night I will hand it
into your keeping in gold coin. I will say that Sir Henry
expressed hope that you might care to come to my poor house
which has long been the agency for Commendone. For your
father's son, sir, there will be very open welcome.
"Your obt. svt.,
and good friend,
ROBERT CRESSEMER,
Alderman of ye City of London."
Commendone read the letter through with care.
His father had been most generous since Johnnie had arrived at Court,
and the young man was in no need of money. Sir Henry had, indeed, hinted
that further supplies would be sent shortly, and he must have arranged
it with the Alderman ere he left the City.
Johnnie sighed. His father had always been good to him. No desire of his
had ever been left ungratified. Many sons of noblemen at Court had
neither such a generous allowance nor perfect equipment as he had. He
never thought of his father and the old house in Kent without a little
pang of regret. Was it worth it all? Were not the silent woods of
Commendone, with their shy forest creatures, better far than this
stately citadel and home of kings?
His life had been so tranquil in the past. The happy days had gone by
with the regularity of some slow-turning wheel. Now all was stress and
turmoil. Dark and dreadful doings encompassed him. He was afloat upon
strange waters, and there was no pilot aboard, nor did he know what port
he should make, what unknown coast-line should greet his troubled eyes
when dawn should come.
These thoughts were but fleeting, as he sat in his bedroom, where he had
taken the letter from Mr. Cressemer. He sent them away with an effort of
will. The past life was definitely over; now he must gather himself
together and consider the immediate future without vain regrets.
As he mounted the stairs from the Common Room he had it in mind to
change from his riding costume and sleep. He needed sleep. He wanted to
enter that mysterious country so close to the frontiers of death, to be
alone that he might think of Elizabeth. He knew now how men dreamed and
meditated of their loves, why lovers loved to be alone.
He held the letter in his hand, looking down at the firm, clear writing
with lack-lustre eyes. What should he do? sleep, lose himself in happy
fancies, or go to the house of the Alderman? He had no Court duties that
night.
He knew Robert Cressemer's name well. Every one knew it in London, but
Commendone had heard it mentioned at home for many years. Mr. Cressemer,
who would be the next Lord Mayor, was one of those merchant princes who,
ever since the time of that great commercial genius, Henry VII, had
become such an important factor in the national life.
For many years the Alderman, the foundation of whose fortune had been
the export of English wool, had been in intimate relations, both of
business and friendship, with Sir Henry Commendone. The knight's wool
all went to the warehouses in Chepe. He had shares in the fleet of
trading vessels belonging to Cressemer, which supplied the wool-fairs of
Holland and the Netherlands. The childlike and absolutely uneconomic act
of Edward VI which endeavoured to make all interest illegal, and
enacted that "_whoever shall henceforth lend any sum of money for any
manner of usury, increase, lucre, gain or interest to be had, received,
or hoped for, over and above the sum so lent_," should suffer serious
penalties, had been repealed.
Banking had received a tremendous impetus, Robert Cressemer had
adventured largely in it, and Sir Henry Commendone was a partner with
him in more than one enterprise.
Of all this Johnnie knew nothing. He had not the slightest idea how rich
his father was, and knew nothing of the fortune that would one day be
his.
He did know, however, that Mr. Cressemer was a very important person
indeed, the admired and trusted confidant of Sir Henry, and a man of
enormous influence. Such a letter, coming from such a man, was hardly to
be neglected by a young courtier. Johnnie knew how, if one of his
colleagues had received it, it would have been shown about in the Common
Room, what rosy visions of fortune and paid bills it would invoke!
He read the letter again. There was no need to go to Mr. Cressemer's
house that night if he did not wish to do so. He was weary, he wanted to
be alone to taste and savour this new thing within him that was called
love. Yet something kept urging him to go, nevertheless. He could not
quite have said what it was, though again the sense that he stood very
much alone and friends were good--especially such a powerful one as
this--crossed his mind. And, as an instance of the quite unconscious but
very real revolution that had taken place in his thoughts during the
last forty hours, it is to be noted that he _did_ feel the need of
friends and supporters.
Yet he was high in favour with the King and Queen, envied by every one,
certain of rapid advancement.
But he no longer thought anything of this. Those great ones were on one
side of a great _something_ which he would not or could not define. He
was on the other, he and the girl with eyes of crushed sapphire and a
red mouth of sorrow.
It would be politic to go.... "I'll put it to chance," he said to
himself at length. "How doth Ovid have it?...
"'_Casus ubique valet; semper tibi pendeat hamus:
Quo minime credas gurgite, piscis erit_.'
I remember Father Chilches' translation:
"'There's always room for chance, so drop thy hook,
A fish there'll be when least for it you look.'
Here goes!"
He opened his purse to find a coin with which to settle the matter, and
poured out the contents into his palm. There were eight or nine gold
sovereigns of Henry VIII, beautiful coins with "_Hiberniae Rex_" among
the other titles, which were still known as "double ryals," three gold
ducats, coined in that year, with the Queen and King Consort
_vis-a-vis_ and one crown above the heads of both, and one little silver
half testoon.
He put the gold back in his purse and held out the small coin upon his
hand. "What is't to be, little testoon?" he said whimsically, looking at
the big M and crown, "bed and thoughts of her, or the worshipful Master
Cressemer and, I don't doubt, a better supper than I'm likely to get in
the Tower? 'M,' I go."
He spun the coin, and it came down with the initial uppermost. He
laughed and flung it on to a shelf, calling John Hull to help him change
his dress.
Nothing told him that in that spin he had decided--or let it better be
said there was decided for him--the whole course of his life. At that
actual moment!
Thus the intrusion of the little testoon.