Idonia: A Romance of Old London Part 13

"'Tis like enough," said the old man with an air of infinite resignation, and affecting still not to know me. "And I am my lord of Pembroke's poor librarian, and at this time somewhat deeply engaged upon the duties attaching to that service."

He drew forth a volume with a trembling hand as he spoke, and made as if to consult it.

"Being so accustomed as you are to the use of parchments," said I, "I had supposed you led a company of foot to tuck of drum."

He was so clearly abashed at my remembering his very words that he had formerly spoken, that I had not the heart to proceed further in my jesting, and so sitting down upon the couch beside him I told him that I applauded this his exchange of resolutions, and that there was enough of soldiers for any wars we were likely to have, but of scholars not so ample a supply as he could be spared therefrom, save upon unlooked for occasion. Mr. Jordan regarded me very mournfully while I spoke thus, and when I had done lay a great while silent, fingering his folios and shaking his ta.s.selled head. At length he replied thus--

[Ill.u.s.tration: Mr. Jordan regarded me very mournfully. Chapter XII]

"You have a great heart, my son," said he with a sigh, "and think to comfort one that lacks not virtue (I hope), although the diligence to apply it manfully. Alas! much learning, Denis, hath made me marvellously to hate confusion and strife. My mind burroweth as a coney in the dark places of knowledge, but never my body endureth a posture of opposition. Thought is a coward, all said: and philosophy nought else but the harness we have forged to protect our hinder parts while we shuffle ingloriously from the fray. 'Tis no hero's person we a.s.sume, lad; and your old fool, your erudite scratchpole--_Graecis litteris eruditus_, hey?--is everywhere and rightly derided."

I told him very earnestly I thought otherwise, but he would not hear me out, affirming his contrary opinion, namely, that he was a coward and trembled at the very name of an enemy, excepting only of his princ.i.p.al enemy, to wit, his bed. "And with that," said he, "I have been forced into concluding an unconditional alliance."

Now I could not bear he should thus contemptuously belittle his valour, of which I had formerly seen sufficient proof in his dealing with the thieves about Glas...o...b..ry, and said so roundly.

"Well, lad," he replied, and puckering up his face into a grim smile, "be it as you will; and at bottom I confess I believe I have as much courage as another man: of which quality indeed it needed some modic.u.m to encounter my conscience and return to the path I was set in by Nature. For there is but little bravery in running counter to our natures, Denis, and especially when applause and honour lie both that way. Ay, I think," quoth he, "I have some obstinacy below, though you must e'en stir in the sediment to raise it."

In reply to my asking how it had come about that he was installed keeper of my lord's books, he said it had been consequent upon his intention (while he yet held to it) of enrolling himself soldier; that the magistrate to whom he had applied him for that purpose, when he proposed the oath of allegiance had seen fit to eke it out and amplify his warrant with so offensive a comparison betwixt the arts of letters and war, to the utter disadvantage of letters, as he could not abide the conclusion of, but made off; nor could he ever be induced to return thither any more.

"And notwithstanding I cried out upon my defection daily," he proceeded, "I perceived that fate had put the term to my military service or ever 'twas begun, and so sought elsewhere for employment.

Indeed I had arrived at my last victual, and had scarce wherewithal to meet the charges of my lodging. But in a good hour I fell in with another of the like condition with mine, though for the rest, a poet, and therefore of a more disordered spirit. His name was, as I remember, Andrew Plat, but of where he dwelt I am ignorant. He was boldly for stealing what he could not come by honestly, and so far put his design into practice as, breaking into this very Castle, he furnished his belly with the best, both of meat and drink. In the morning he was found drunk, in which condition he confessed all, but with such craven and mendacious addition as involved me also, who was thereupon cited to appear.

"I excused myself, as you may suppose, very easily, but by an inadvertence I excused myself in Latin.

"'How!' cried my lord, 'you make your apology in Latin?'

"'Have I so done?' said I, 'then judge me as a Roman, for amongst these barbarians thou and I be the only two civilized.'

"He laughed very heartily at that, and having informed himself of my merits, soon after delivered up his books into my charge.

"And thus I am, as you see me, returned to my former occupation, which I shall never again pretermit upon any motion of magnanimity. If aught in the future shall offend me, if evil rumours shall penetrate to this quiet angle of the world, I take up no lance to combat the same, my son, having a better remedy: which is to rinse out my mouth with great draughts of Virgil and Cicero, and thereafter with a full voice to thank the G.o.ds that I was not begot of the seed of Achilles."

He invited me to remain to dinner with him, but I would not, and went away by the way I had come, my head so full of this strange case of Mr.

Jordan (whom I had only chanced upon through the lucky accident of my having mistaken the porter's direction), that I remembered not so much as Malpas his name even, until I was safe in the warden's house upon the Bridge; where I found good Madam Nelson anxiously expecting my return, who moreover had a steaming hot platter for me that she served up with certain less palatable satires upon my night's absence.

However, I thought it wise to let them pa.s.s for that season, and not justify myself therein; for a woman loveth not the man that answereth her again; and especially when he is in the right of it.

CHAPTER XIII

PETTY WALES

If a young man's heels be seldom slow to follow after his heart whither he hath left it for lost, he hath indeed so many cla.s.sical examples to draw upon as he need stand in no fear of censure save of such as have neither loved at all, nor ever in their lives been young. And so it was with me, who had no sooner swallowed down my pudding and as much as I could stomach of the good wife's reproaches but I was off and away to Petty Wales to inquire after Idonia, how she did.

'Twas a quiet grey morning of the early year, and as I strode along very gladsome, methought there could be few places in the world so pleasant as Thames Street, nor any odour of spices comparable with the healthful smell about Billingsgate and Somers Quay; although I confess not to have remarked the fine qualities of either, the night before. A great body of soldiers was marching, a little way before me, toward the Tower, their drums beating, and their ensign raised in the midst; as heartening a sight and sound as a lad could wish for, and of good omen too. But for all my courage was high, and my steps directed towards the la.s.s I loved, there was yet a fleck of trouble in my mind I would have wiped out willingly enough, and that was my father's expressed desire (which I knew, too, was very necessary) that I should set about earning my living at a trade. I suppose a boy's thoughts be naturally averse from buying and selling, and from all the vexatious and mediate delays which interpose between desires and their satisfaction; for youth looketh ever to the end itself, and never to the means, whether the means be money and matters of business, or patient toil, or increase of knowledge. Success and the golden moment are youth's affair, and all else of no account at all. Ah! of no account when we be young, seem preparation and discipline and slow acquirement and the gathering burden of years; but just to live, and to love, and to win.... Imperious fools that we are: pitiful, glorious spendthrifts!

I got to the great ruined house at length, as the troop swung out onto Tower Hill, and the roll of their drums died down. Without loss of time I drew my poniard and hammered with the haft upon the gate. To come to her thus, wearing the arms I had used to defend her from the man she feared and I had valorously overthrown, surely (said I) this will get me her admiration and a thousand thanks. I would dismiss my wounds with a shrug when she should say she hoped they were mended, and swear they were not painful, yet with such slight dragging of the words as she should not believe me but rather commend my fort.i.tude in suffering (though for that matter they were easy enough and only one of them anyways deep). In short I savoured the sweet of our coming colloquy as greedily as any feast-follower; and at the same time I continued to rattle my dagger-heel on the oaken door. After some minutes thus spent, the grid opened, and behind the bars was Idonia facing me and very pale.

"What would you, Mr. Denis?" said she.

I dropped my jaw and simply stared upon her.

"What would I?" I gasped out.

"How do your wounds?" she asked hurriedly. Our conversation seemed like to stay upon interrogatories.

"But am I not to enter, then?" cried I, as near sobbing as I had ever been in my life.

"Can we not speak thus?" said Idonia, and glanced backward into the hall.

"Oh, Mistress Avenon!" I said to that, "is it thus you use me?" and so turned away, smitten to the very heart. But I had not gone ten paces from the gate, ere she caught me, and laid a hand upon my arm.

"Ah, Mr. Denis," she whispered, "be not angry with me; say you are not wroth, and then go. I beseech you to go away, but first say you are not angry.... I must not talk with you; must not be seen to talk with you, I mean." She might have said more had I not stopped her.

"Not to be seen to talk with me? Am I a man to be scorned, then?"

She answered below her breath: "'Tis rather I am a maid to be scorned, methinks.... Oh, look not so!" she added swiftly, "I must go within.... If they should know you have come..."

"Who should know?" cried I, very big; "and what care I who knows? I am not accustomed to shun them that question my behaviour."

"No, no, you are brave," said she, "and 'tis there that my peril lies, if not your own. You may defend yourself, a man may do so having a sword. But we women have no weapon."

"Who would hurt you?" I asked, moving a step back to the gate. "Not Guido Malpas, I warrant, this many a day."

"I live amongst wicked men coming and going," she replied. I could feel her hand shake that I now held in mine. "But now go. I am not worth this coil we make; you can do nothing that you have not done already. I will remember you," said she in a strange pleading voice, "and I think you will not forget me awhile either." She paused a little, panting as though she had been weary. "And, Mr. Denis, my heart is big with pride of your coming hither."

These words she spoke in the deep full voice she used when moved, and then turning from me, went within and shut to the door.

"Now Heaven forbid me mercy," said I aloud, "if I probe not to the bottom of this pool."

I pulled down my jerkin in front, and set my ruff even. Then opening the purse that hung at my belt, I counted the coins that were in it.

There were a dozen shillings and some few halfpence. "Certain 'tis time I got employment," I mused, "yet I allow myself one day more;" and with that I slid the coins back in my purse, and looked about me.

Now, this great building of Petty Wales before which I stood was once (or at least is reported to have been) an Inn of the Welsh Princes for their occasions in the City, but was, upon their long disuse of it, turned into tenements, as Northumberland House was where Mr. Jordan had formerly lodged, and was now let out to marine traders, victuallers, and such other as found it convenient to the quays. How it came about that Idonia had her dwelling here I knew not yet, nor indeed did I at that time know anything of all I am about to set down of this mansion, which, however, it is very necessary should be understood, seeing how large a s.p.a.ce it occupies in my adventures.

Besides the tenants, then, that by right inhabited there, there had grown up another sort of secret tenants that lurked amid such odd nooks and forgotten chambers herein as were overlooked, or of no advantage for the stowage of merchandise. Between these mean unnoted folk, that had crept thither like rats for shelter, and lay as close, there was maintained a sort of fearful communion and grudged acquaintanceship.

But the house being strongly parted in twain by a stone wall built throughout the middle of it, from back to front, it was as though there were two separate houses, of which Idonia used the one, but these the other. And since moreover there was but one gate upon the street side of the house, the men of whom I speak, both the honest ships' brokers and the lawless poor men, perforce used a certain low-pitched postern door at the bottom of a narrow alley which ran behind the house.

This door let on to a wide and decayed stair that (I was to learn) was the poor men's hall and common room; here they met and shared their stealthy mess together; here elected and deposed their captains, and celebrated their improvident espousals. Living on sufferance, stricken by poverty and terror of the law, hardly allowed as men and women, but rather as abject orts of nature, they yet preserved amongst themselves a perfect order from the very necessity of silence; and upon the least motion of discontent the mutineer was instantly seized, his head covered, and the captain's knife deep in his heart. 'Twas the women's office, then, to lay the body out decently; and about midnight four men bore it secretly to the riverside, and straightway returned.

All this I was to learn from a strange accident that befell me when at length I left loitering before Idonia's door, and skirted about the place in search of any index to the riddle she had read me. For I was persuaded that to reach the heart of the mystery, I must at all adventures gain access to the house itself; I being then quite ignorant of the dividing of it in the manner I have told. It was with an extraordinary delight, therefore, that I discovered the lane to the rearward of the house, and the low door. Somewhat to my surprise I found the door not made fast, and so at once entering by it, I began cautiously to ascend the rotten stair. But scarce had I gone half-way to the first stage, when I stumbled over the body of a man that lay stretched there in the dark, and was, I thought, dead. Howbeit, he was not, and when I had him down into the air, and had loosened his clothing, he opened his eyes. He stared upon me wildly.

"How? You are not of the brotherhood?" he stammered.

I said nothing in reply, but leaving him where he was, ran to a tavern hard by upon Tower Hill, called _The Tiger_, whence I returned presently with a flask of strong wine. The drinking of it revived him marvellously, so that he was soon able to support himself on his feet, although without strength to walk yet. I got him some meat, too, and bread, both of which he ate like a wolf rather than a man; so far had he gone in starvation. When he had done, he would have thanked me, but I interrupted him, asking in my turn who he was, and what trade he was of. He straightened his back at that, and looking me very proudly in the face replied: "My name is Andrew Plat, and by the grace of Heaven I am a lyrical poet."

Upon the sudden I recalled Mr. Jordan. "So," I thought, "'tis the worthy that stole my lord Pembroke's b.u.t.tery-beer." However, all I said was: "I think I have not read any of your writing, Mr. Plat."