Idonia: A Romance of Old London Part 15

"What is this you have dared to do?" she murmured, so low I could scarce hear her.

"I could not help it," I said, and would have told her there and then that I loved her, had not my courage all gone to wreck before her visible anger. She drew herself to her full height, and keeping her eyes on mine said in a louder voice--

"Ay, you could not help intruding upon a defenceless girl, and yet you went nigh enough to slaying Mr. Malpas, poor man! for that same fault.

Have I not given you thanks enough, that you are come hither for more?

Are you greedy of so much praise? Else indeed wherefore have you come?"

Her words so stung me, and her coldness after all I had suffered to get speech with her, that I felt the tears very close behind my eyes, and, as a schoolboy that has been detected in some misdemeanour casts about for any excuse however vain, so did I; for all in a hurry I stammered out--

"I came hither to tell you I have twelve shillings."

Was ever any excuse so ill-considered?

"Twelve shillings!" cried Idonia; but my self-respect was all down by that time, and I could not stop; I spoke of my father's letter, mine own penury, and the detestation in which I held the necessity to enter into trade.

"I have but twelve shillings in the whole world," said I, but she not answering, I turned my head sharply to see how she had received it. To my utter astonishment Idonia was laughing at me through a blind of tears.

CHAPTER XIV

HOW IDONIA TAUGHT ME AND A CAPTAIN OF THE GUARD HOW TO KEEP BOOKS

"Now, cry you mercy, Mr. Denis!" said Idonia, "for indeed I guessed not that affairs of trade were to be in debate between us."

But so confused as I was by her laughter, I could neither deny nor confirm that saying, but stood before her very hot in the face and, I make no question, as sour to look upon as she was merry to see me so.

"I had thought you had forced your way hither," she continued, setting her head a little aside, "in order to rid me of such dangers as might beset me here, albeit I know of none."

"And knew you of any," said I, pretty desperate by this, "my sword should make it none, if you would."

Perhaps it was the bitter tone I used, or the knowledge that I spoke not in mere idle boastfulness; but upon the sudden her manner changed wholly and she was pleading with me in so tender and deep a voice as it thrilled me through to hear it.

"Ah, Mr. Denis," said she, coming close and laying her hand on my arm, "we be friends surely, or if we be not, I know not where I am to seek for a friend as true hearted, nor one that would venture as far to aid me. I meant no harm, indeed I did not, though my tongue played my meaning false, as it doth, alas! too often. If I laughed, 'twas to fend off weeping, for once I fall to that, I know not when I should be done."

"Yet you said you had no especial trouble," I returned.

"Nay, if I did, I lied," said Idonia, "for I am beset with troubles here."

"I thought no less," said I, "and 'twas for that very reason, and in despite of your refusal to admit me awhile since, that I sought out other ways to come to you."

She smiled when she heard this honest confession. "So much trade as that comes to, Mr. Denis, will hardly satisfy your father's debts, I think."

"I gave myself this one day more," I told her, "but to-morrow I must necessarily seek employment, though the doing of it I can scarce abide to think of."

"Having but an half-handful of shillings," said she, "poor lad! there seemeth nought else to do, unless indeed you steal."

"Steal!" cried I.

"And wherefore not?" said Idonia, with a little hard laugh, "seeing we all do worse than steal here, or if we do not all so, yet do we stand by permissively while others do. Oh, sir," she cried, "I warned you this very morning I was not worth your thought of me, and 'twas truth, or less than the truth, I told, who live amongst evil folk in this place and secret men that whisper as they come and go."

She hid her face in her hands so overcome was she by the horror she had waked, and how to comfort her I knew not.

"Of what quality be these men you speak of?" I demanded, thinking perhaps they were the thieves beyond the part.i.tion wall, who overran into this place too. "I will lay information against them, before the magistrate if you will."

Idonia looked at me with a sort of wonder.

"But you know them not," said she, "nor where they bide, when they leave us."

"Is it not yonder then?" I asked her, and pointed to the little door aloft in the wall.

"They--poor folk!" she cried. "A pitiful lean company; would they were no worse I ope the gate to! ... If you had known, when you would have had me admit you, Mr. Denis.... But they be gone for this while ...

oh, I fear them!" said she, and fell again to weeping.

'Twas evident she dared not be open with me as touching the business nor estate of those she consorted with, nor, I found, dared give over this life she led amongst them, for all the fear and horror she had of it. So, notwithstanding I returned again and again to the question, she put me off with a manifest dismay.

"No, no," she would cry. "Even so much as I have already let fall is haply more than wise for me to speak and you to hear. But now," in conclusion she said, "let us return to your own affairs, in the which it may chance I may a.s.sist you."

She conceived from the first an infinite admiration of my father, bidding me tell over again the tale of his renouncing all his wealth in order to the ending his brother's supposed confinement, as well as to pay that added debt which I had so foolishly incurred. Idonia drew in her breath sharply when I had done, and then looking me full in the face, said--

"Whatever may befall you to do, Mr. Denis, 'twill be less than he hath the right to exact of you; although I believe that the least you will do he will give you thanks for it."

'Twas my father's nature just, and none could have bettered the character.

"What can you do?" she demanded briefly, and bade me sit (for we had both stood this while); she sitting too, on a bundle of folded sails that lay by the wall.

I hesitated to reply, for leaving the few sc.r.a.ps of Latin and logick that Master Jordan had been at such pains to drive into me and I had as easy let slip again, my studies had been woefully neglected, or rather I had profited by them so little, that there was nothing I knew anyways whole. I stammered out at last that what I could do, I doubted would scarce earn me a scavenger's wages, and looked (I suppose) so glum, that Idonia laughed outright.

"Come, there be books of account," said she, "can you not make shift to cast moneys in figure?"

I told her I thought I might compa.s.s that if I were given time enough; though for that matter I did not see how I was like greatly to profit the merchant that should employ me.

But without replying by so much as a word, Idonia went over to an oaken press by the stair, presently returning with a soiled leathern volume clasped with a deal of bra.s.s and so heavy as to be hardly portable.

This she set open before me saying it was a record of trade done, and had belonged to one Mr. Enos Procter, whom she knew, and bade me read in it.

"Lord!" said I, very grave, for I had never seen so intricate and mysterious a labyrinth of words and cyphers as she then discovered.

"If Dives the rich man got his wealth that way, I suppose his life to have been something less easy than our divines would have us believe."

"It is a ledger-book," said Idonia.

"Let it be what it will," said I, "it is more than I bargained for."

"Nay, but observe this superscription," she went on, eagerly, "where it commenceth as is customary: _Laus Deo_ in London, and so following."

She ran her finger along the line commenting with a facility that astonished me. "This is the accompt of one Mendoza, as you see, a wool-stapler of Antwerp, and as the Jews ever be, a punctual man of his money. Look you, now, how differently this other sets to work, Jacob Hornebolt of Amsterdam, and with what gross irregularity he transmitteth his bills of exchange ... nay, here, I mean, upon the Creditor side," cried she, for my eyes ran hither and thither, up and down the page, like any Jack-apparitor, in quest of her accursed Dutch Jacob and his pestilent bills.

"Oh, a truce to this," quoth I, "or else turn o'er to a page where a man's doings be set down in fair Queen's English, and not in such crabbed and alchemist terms as one must have gone to school to the Black Witch that should understand 'em. You point me here and you point me there, and there's Creditor this and Debitor that, with an whole history between them, good lack! mistress, but it makes my head reel to hear tell of."