Idonia: A Romance of Old London Part 12

"You know what is convenient," he returned in a voice of keen approval, as he brought it. "Now, I was once a serving man in Berkeley Inn, called so of my lord Berkeley that lodgeth there. But whether he were at home or absent, I was ever there. And where I was, you understand, there must needs be necessaries bought, and such things as were, as I say, convenient."

He leered upon me very sly as he spoke these mysteries; by which I perceived I was already deep in his favour, as he was (like enough) deep in villainies.

"I marvel how from a lord's mansion you came to serve in a common tavern," said I, to check him.

"Oh, rest you easy, sir," he laughed, "for the difference is less than one might suppose. There be pickings and leavings there as in an hostelry, a nimble wit needed in both places indifferently, and for the rest, work to be scanted and lies to be told. Hey! and lives to be lived, master, and purses filled, and nought had, here nor there, but must be paid for or else stolen."

Such light-hearted roguery I owed it to my conscience to condemn, but for the life of me I could not, so that I fell into a great laughter that no shame might control. I hope it was weakness of my body, and not of virtue, pushed me to this length, but however come by, I could not help it, and think moreover it did me good.

"Come, that is the note I like," said my tapster, whose name I learnt was Jocelin; and, setting his lips close to my ear, he added, "London town is but a lump of fat dough, master, till you set the yeast of wit to work therein; but after, look you! there be fair risings, and a handsome great loaf to share." His eyes sparkled. "I have the wit, man, I am the yeast, and so..."

He had not finished his period, or if he did I marked him not, for just at that season the gate of a great house over the way opening, a party of hors.e.m.e.n rode forth into the street with a clatter of hoofs. They wheeled off at a smart pace to the right-hand, laughing and calling out to each other as they went, and sending the children a-skelter this way and that before them. Yet, notwithstanding they were gone by so speedily, I had yet espied the device upon their harness and cloaks, which was the green dragon and Pembroke cognizance. I flung back my chair.

"Is yon house Baynards Castle?" I cried.

"None other," he replied, nodding while he grinned. "I have certain good friends there, too."

"Is Mr. Malpas of the number?" I demanded.

"Oh, he!" he answered with a shrug. "A bitter secret man! If 'a has plots he keeps them close. He flies alone, though 'tis whispered he flies boldly. But we be honest men," quoth he, and held his chin 'twixt finger and thumb. "We live and let live, and meet fortune with a smile. But I hate them that squint upon the world sidelong, as he doth." From which I drew inference that they twain had formerly thieved together, and that Malpas had retained the spoil.

But I soon tossed these thoughts aside for another, which, as it came without premeditation, so did I put it into practice immediately.

Having satisfied my charges at the inn, therefore, and without a word to Jocelin, I ran across the street and into the gate-house of the castle, before the porter had time to close the gate of it behind the hors.e.m.e.n.

"Is Mr. Malpas within?" I accosted him eagerly.

The porter regarded me awhile from beneath raised brows.

"Have you any business with him, young master?" said he.

"Grave business," I replied, "knowing, as I do, who it was gave him that hurt he lies sick withal."

The old man pushed the gate to with more dispatch than I had thought him capable of using. "Ay, you know that?" he muttered, looking upon me with extraordinary interest. "That should be comfortable news to Signor Guido; that should be honey and oil to his wound;" and I saw by that he understood his Malpas pretty well.

He led me aside into his lodge, and there, being set in his deep, leathern chair, spread himself to listen.

"Who is he, now?" he asked, in that rich, low voice a man drops into that antic.i.p.ates the savour of scandal.

I looked him up and down as though to a.s.sure myself of his secrecy, and then--

"'Twas Master Cleeve," said I.

Heavy man as he was, he yet near leapt from his chair.

"Is't come to that?" he cried. "Master Botolph Cleeve! Now the saints bless us, young man, that it should be so, and they once so close to hold as wind and the weather-c.o.c.k!"

I saw his error and meant to profit by it, but not yet. If, indeed, my uncle Botolph were hand-in-glove with Malpas, why, then, I was saved the pains to deal with them singly. Having smelled out the smoke, it should go hard but I would soon tread out the fire. Howbeit, I judged that to question the old man further at that season would be to spoil all; since by manifesting the least curiosity of my uncle, I should deny my news (as he understood it) that my uncle, and not I, had near robbed Malpas of his life. Noting the porter, then, for a man to be considered later, I returned to my politic resolution to get speech of Malpas himself, and to tell him, moreover, that Mistress Avenon abhorred his addresses, which I was therefore determined should cease.

Perhaps I counted upon his sick condition in this, and upon a correspondent meekness of behaviour, but regard it as you will, I was a mere fool and deserved my rival should rise from his bed and beat the folly out of me. Nevertheless, I take pride that my folly ran no further, so that when the porter inquired who I might be that desired to carry this message to the wounded man, I had sufficient wit to answer frankly that I was Mr. Cleeve's nephew; which reply seemed to set the seal of truth to that had preceded.

"Ma.s.s!" swore the porter, lying back in his chair, "then methinks your news will doubly astonish Mr. Malpas, seeing who you be that bring it."

"It should somewhat surprise him to learn 'twas my uncle wounded him,"

quoth I modestly.

The porter: "Surprise him! 'Twill make him run mad! I admire how you can venture into his chamber with such heady tidings."

"Oh, in the cause of truth, Master Porter," I returned stoutly, "one should not halt upon the sacrificing of an uncle or so."

"Why, that's religiously said," quoth the porter, who, I could see, having relieved his conscience in warning me, was glad I would not be put off, and, indeed (old c.o.c.k-pit haunter that he was!), did love the prospect of battle with all his withered heart.

I asked him then what office about my lord's household Mr. Guido held, and he told me he was keeper of the armoury, and served out the pikes and new liveries; that, moreover, when my lord was absent he was advanced to a place of greater trust.

"The which I hope he justifies," said I gravely, but the porter blew out his cheeks and said nothing.

"Will you lead me to his chamber?" I asked him presently, and he bade me follow him, first taking up his ring of keys.

We crossed the court together, going towards the west corner of it, where he opened a door that led on to a winding stair, which we ascended. When we had climbed almost to the roof as I thought, he stayed before another door that I had not observed (so dark and confined was the place), through which he preceded me into the gallery beyond it, a low but very lightsome place, with a row of dormer windows along the outer side of it, from one of which, when I paused to look forth, I beheld the river Thames directly beneath us, and a fleet of light craft thereon, wherries and barges and the like, and across the Southwark flats, far distant, London Bridge, with Nonsuch House in the midst of it, that cut in twain the morning light with a bar of grey.

While I stood thus gazing idly the great bell of the gate rang out with a sudden clangour.

"Pox o' the knave that founded thee a brazen a.s.s!" cried the porter.

"Ay, kick thy clapper-heels, ring on! Again! again! Shield us, master, what doomsday din is there! Well, get gone your ways, Master Nephew of Cleeve; that long, yellow man's chamber lieth beyond, upon the right hand, in a bastion of the wall.... List to the bell!" and with that he turned back in haste and clattered down the stair.

I followed his direction as well as I might, going forward down the gallery to Malpas' room, although, to speak truly, I had come into some distaste of that business already, and would have been glad enough to forego it altogether had not my pride forbidden me so to return upon my resolution. At the door I stooped down and listened for any sound of groaning, which, when I plainly heard, I could not but confess 'twas something less than merciful to trouble the poor man at such a time.

But having conjured up the figure of Idonia, my pity of her aggressor fell away again, so that without more ado I knocked smartly upon the door.

I was answered by a groan deeper than before.

"Have I leave to enter?" I demanded, but was told very petulantly I had not.

"We are not unacquainted," said I, with my lips to the keyhole.

"The more reason you should stay without," said he, and I could hear him beat his pillow flat, and turn over heavily upon his side.

"Hast thou forgot my sword so soon?" cried I in a great resentment that the victor should be pleading thus at the chamber door of the vanquished.

"Go, hack with thy tongue, Thersites!" came the voice again; but at that I waited no further, but burst in. I had got scarce two paces over the threshold when--

"Why, Master Jordan!" I cried out, for there on the bed lay my ancient fat friend, his heavy Warham-face peering above the quilt, a ta.s.selled nightcap bobbing over his nose, and all else of him (and of the furniture too) hid and o'erlaid by a very locust-swarm of folios.

At the first sight of me I thought he would have called upon the mountains to bury him, from mere shame of his discovery.

"Away!" he gasped, when he could get breath to say it; "away, graceless child! I am no foiner; I know you not. I am a man of peace, a reverend doctor. My trade is in books. _Impallesco chartis_; I grow pallid with conning upon the written word. What be your armies and your invasions and your marchings to and fro? that lives should be lived, and brains spent and lost therein. I tell you, one verse of Catullus shall outweigh the clatter of a battalion, and Tully is the only sergeant I salute." And so, having hurled his defiance, he sank back amongst the bed clothes and drew down his nightcap an inch lower upon his brow.

"You know me very well, good doctor," quoth I, and advanced to his bedside, which was fortified with an huge _vallum_ of the Consolations.

"I am Denis Cleeve."