Idonia: A Romance of Old London Part 8

Such were the interior pa.s.sages (to call them so) of my sickness that was now quite pa.s.sed; for, with hope at length steadfast with me, it is clear I lacked nothing of my perfect health, excepting only what strong meat and sunlight would soon bring.

And so it was I felt myself ready to go upon a certain discovery I had in mind (and did presently put into execution), which was to determine precisely where in the world I might be! For the whiles I had lain idle this question had intermittently perplexed me: my chamber being very narrow and low, and bearing, I thought, small likeness to my room in Mr. Malt's house, of which the window was a large and latticed one, whereas this I now had was little and barred. My meals, too, were served by a woman I could not remember to have seen; a pleasant, bustling body, with a mouth widened by smiling and eyes narrowed by shrewd discernment. But what troubled me more than all was a persistent sound of water lapping about the house, which led me to suppose I was somehow lodged upon an island; or else in the prison beside the Fleet River--though I thought this could not well be.

Using more precaution, then, than I had done previously, I got out of my bed, and sitting on the edge of it, was soon half dressed. The exercise fatigued me but slightly, and as soon as I had my clothes on completely I ventured across the floor (that was about an ell in width), and leaned forth between the bars of the window...

I burst into laughter at the easy resolution of my doubts, which the first view thence afforded me. For I was upon London Bridge, in one of the houses that are builded thereupon, on either side of it. Below me lay the narrow bridge-way that is spanned across by divers arches (which be houses too), and is full, at most hours, as it was when I beheld it, of people that cheapened stuffs and trinkets at the booths there set up, or else hastened on, north or south continuously.

'Twas the strangest sight by far I had yet seen; this little market-world above the waters, so straitened and fantastick, and withal so intent and earnest upon its affairs, with never a thought to the great shining river (its very cause and origin) that flowed scarce two fathom beneath it. I stood awhile fairly entranced by the prospect, and followed with my eyes every motion and frolick adventure. Thus, there would be a fine lady that bought an infinite deal of scarlet cloth, and a pannier-a.s.s that, in turning, struck it from her arm and unrolled the length of it, so that the a.s.s continued on her way grave as any judge, with her hoofs upon the cloth like a spread carpet, while my lady stood by, bewailing her loss. Then there would be a company of halberdiers that went by at a great swinging stride to quell some riot (I heard one say) in Southwark by the Bear-garden. By and by, with more noise, comes there a score of mariners that had left their galley in the Pool, and after their late hardships on the sea seemed gone into an excess of jollity, and sacked the shops for toys. Grey-haired mercers that stood and conversed in groups, and coltish apprentices in flat caps and suits of blue I noted, and otherwhiles dancers and mountebanks with a host of idle folk following.

So engrossed indeed was I, that I did not hear the woman, that in the meantime had entered my chamber, calling upon me to return to my bed; until at length she enforced her command with a buffet on my shoulder.

"Thou art but a graceless lad to be chilling thy marrow at an open window," she cried; yet I could see she was rather pleased than wrathful to find me there.

"Nay, I am whole again, mistress," I answered quickly, and then looking forth again, cried, "But who be those that go by in a troop, with great bonnets on and red coats?"

"Why, who but the Queen's yeomen?" she said, and stood beside me to catch a sight of them. "Ay, and there goes my husband's brother at their head, their sergeant, and a proper soldier too, that hath seen service abroad."

"Whither go they?" I asked, breathless for the pleasure I took in this brave show.

"To the Tower, lad. But now, back to your couch, or at least to a chair, for the goodman would speak with you."

"How came I to this house?" I asked, when I had left the window, "for I remember nought of the matter."

"Enough of words," she laughed pleasantly. "And enough too that you be here, and your rantings and ravings o'er. I tell you we were like to have had the watch about us for harbouring a masterless rogue, so impudently did your sick tongue wag; and that at all hours of the night too."

She went away soon after, still laughing; for which I blessed her; it being a comfortable exercise to laugh, and as comforting a sound to hear. I was full dressed, and expecting the good Samaritan her husband a while ere he came, which when he did, I found he was a man of brief speech and one to be trusted. He began by asking how I did, and when I told him I was quite recovered and thanked him for his charity, he put up his hand.

"I did no more than your hurt required," he said. "'Twas fortunate we had this room to lay you in, and a good physician near at hand upon the Bridge. But now tell me (for I think it necessary I should know it) how came you wounded?"

I told him all simply, seeing no reason why I should not, and the whole affair of my uncle; to which he listened in silence, his eyes on my face.

"My name is Gregory Nelson," he said, when I had done, "and of this Bridge, where I have my lodging, I am one of the wardens. You may bide here as long as you list, Master Cleeve, seeing that by this h.e.l.lish robbery of Skene's you should be nigh penniless, as you be also left without friends to help you, unless it be that Mr. Malt accounts himself so."

"I pay him for my lodging," I said, "but cannot claim any friendship with him."

"Have you any goods left at his house?" he asked me, a little as though he smiled inwardly.

"Some spare apparel I have there," I replied, "and a parcel of linen or so, besides my mare."

"Seeing that you have been absent so long," said Master Nelson, "and without warning, you may chance to find your chattels sold under a sheriff's warrant against charges proved. Nay, that is lawful," he added, seeing I made a motion of dissent, "and indeed you have been near three weeks a truant."

This disclosure shocked me, and particularly when I reflected that my father had no knowledge of anything that had occurred to me, nor yet where I now lay. Two things I did therefore with all speed, first writing a full account of the attorney, how he had robbed me, and of my illness so much as I thought necessary; and secondly, going to Fetter Lane in the hope to recover my goods. On this errand the warden would by no means suffer me to go alone, and I for my part was very glad of his arm to lean upon, as I was also of his companionship by the way.

In discourse I found him to be something more blunt than complacent, and moreover to have set his notions, as it were, by the clock of his profession. Thus, I chancing to speak of the great mansions of the n.o.bles that were frequent upon the bank about the Bridge-end, and making mention of their power that lived therein, he answered me pretty roundly that I was out.

"If there be two or three wise heads amongst them," said he, "there be two or three score otherwise disposed. 'Tis a common error, master, to belaud all alike and merely because their honours be similar. But I say, let her Grace enn.o.ble any the least considered merchant on Change, and nought should go worse for it, but rather the better. I say further, 'tis in the shops and among the great Companies of the City that England's worthies are now to be found, and her advancement lieth less in the Great Council to be debated on, than in Cheape to be accomplished. But enough!" said he, with a little shake of his head.

"I am a servant of this City, and perhaps it is for that I have a bias of thinking well of what the City doth. Yet few will be bold enough to deny that we owe much to our great citizens and merchants, as to Sir Richard Whittington in the old days, and later to Sir Thomas Gresham, that very praise-worthy knight; not forgetting Mr. Lamb that brought sweet water in a conduit to Holborn; nor Mr. Osborne, which was Mayor two year since, and now is Governor of the famous Turkey Company by charter of the Queen established."

"And what of the Queen's Grace herself?" quoth I, for my humour was not a little tickled at this decrying of those in high estate, whose wisdom and guidance we be commonly taught to extol. But at the Queen's name Mr. Nelson had his cap off immediately.

"G.o.d bless her," he said very reverently, "and give her a mind to perceive her own and her realm's, true good. And so He doth!" he broke off vehemently, "and hath made her to be the greatest merchant of them all! Ask Master Drake, else, whose partner and fellow-adventurer she was when he sailed from Plymouth with but five poor ships, and returned thence with such treasure of the Spaniards as it took two whole days to discharge upon the quay."

In such converse we walked on, I straitly considering of these things he told, whether indeed those mighty lords, whose names were in everybody's mouth, were truly of less account than men trading in silk and furs and spices, as he would have me believe; and whether, also, overmuch service with the City Sheriffs had not worn out an esteem for greater folk in this honest stout warden of London Bridge.

When at length we arrived at my old lodging in Fetter Lane, Mr. Nelson said he would not enter, but would await me in the street, and so I went in alone. I found Madam Malt in a chamber behind the shop, with her daughters, and very busy upon a great piece, of needlework. She looked up swiftly as I entered, but never a word she spake.

"I come to make account of my prolonged absence," said I, something out of countenance for this unlooked for rebuff.

"Judith," said her mother, sharply, "go see whether my babe wakes yet; Allison do this, and Maud do that," said she, and so emptied her bower of the maids at a word, and left me standing.

"Lord!" quoth I low to myself, "I am come into the garden of the Hesperides surely; yet I wist not that the Dragon was mother of them."

But aloud I said, "I am bound to thank you for the hospitality you extended to me, Madam, the which I cannot well repay."

"I thought no less," replied the lady, without raising her eyes from her work, "and therefore made application for distraint, which being granted, I sold such stuff as you thought fit to leave and was not past laundering."

"But there was my mare too," I cried.

"Ay, the poor jade," said she, "the knacker put a price upon her, but it reached not to the value of a feed of oats, so I cried quits and kept her."

"Then you have her yet?" quoth I.

"I have her not," quoth she, "for I gave her a gift to the parson of St. Dunstan's Church that hath been very full of encouragement to us in our trouble."

"Your trouble, Madam?" I began, but she proceeded with a terrible quietness--

"'A preached a singular comfortable sermon two Sundays after your stealing off, upon the text, 'Happy shall he be that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us,' as would have melted the most shameless, Mr.

Denis."

"Let us hope it did then," said I, pretty tired of this oblique attack.

"He was not of the congregation, sir," she blazed out, her eyes on mine.

"He was," I retorted, "for he both preached the sermon and hath my mare. But he shall give her me again, or else I will take her by force."

"Ah, you would despoil the Church then, you heretick Turk!" cried the lady in a thin, hissing voice that befitted the Dragon I had formerly called her in my thoughts. "Was it not enough that you should creep into a Christian household and steal all peace therefrom? What of the looks you were ever casting upon my tender Judith, and she so apt at her catechism and forward in works of grace. Your mare, quotha! What of her pretty beseeching ways that no man hath seen but saith she is rather Ruth than Judith--ay, and shall find her Boaz one day, I tell you, in despite of your heathen wiles and treachery. So, fetch away your beast from a churchman's stall, 'tis easy done every whit as get a simple maid's heart; and then off and abroad, while she weeps at home, poor la.s.s! that is so diligent a sempstress withal, and her father's prop of his age."

Whilst she was delivering this astonishing and very calumnious speech, Madam Malt had arisen from her chair and now stood close above me, wringing her hands that yet kept a hold of her piece of needlework, and shaking with rage. She was a marvellous large woman, with a face something loose-skinned about the jaw, and of a buff colour that mounted to a brownness in the folds and wrinkles. Her voice, as I have said, was very dragonlike, and her whole aspect and presence had something of an apocalyptic terribleness that seemed to draw the clouds about her as a garment. I see her yet in my dreams and awake shuddering.

Once or twice I strove to interpose a denial in the flood of her indictment, and to exonerate myself from her load of false charges, but could nowise make myself heard, or at least heeded, and so gave it over. Indeed, how all would have ended I know not, had not the infant in a lucky hour awakened and lamentably demanded sustenance; whereupon Judith running in (who I am persuaded had got no further than behind the door-c.h.i.n.k), the lady's thoughts were by the intelligence that her daughter brought, most happily diverted from me. Judith regarded me with one wistful glance, and then in the wake of the Dragon as she swept from the room, this last of the Hesperides departed from me for ever.

I stood some time very downcast, knowing not what to think, when the door opening a small s.p.a.ce, Mr. Richard's head was thrust in, his eyes winking with merriment.

"So you have returned to us, Mr. Prodigal," he whispered, "and have heard moreover how we take your leaving us so without ceremony as you did. Nay, be not melancholy, man," he went on, coming beside me and laying a hand upon my shoulder, "for we that use the playhouse and the jolly tavern understand these things well enough. No need for words where a nod sufficeth. But the women would have no men roysters, good souls! nor hardly allow us the stretch of a lap-dog's leash to gambol in. Eh!" he sang out in a pretty good mean voice, although from his late drinking not well controlled:

"'Better place no wit can find Cupid's yoke to loose or bind.'

But come you with me, Mr. Denis, one of these nights; for we be much of an age, and should sort handsomely together, if I mistake not."