The Lady of Loyalty House: A Novel
“You are in the right,” he said. “It is ill for man to sit alone at meat, for it encourages whimsical humors and the mounting of crudities to the brain. A flagon is twice a flagon that is shared by camerados, and who can praise a pasty to himself with only dumb walls to echo his plaudits? And here in good time come flagon and pasty, both.”
The door had opened as he spoke, and Mistress Satchell came into the room, followed by a brace of serving-men who bore on trays the materials for an ample repast. Halfman eyed the viands with approval, while Evander returned gravely Mrs. Satchell’s florid bobs and greetings.
“I saw to it last night,” he went on, “that Harby was revictualled. You pinched us, sir, you pared us; our larder was as lean as a stork’s leg, but to-day we can eat our fill.”
And, indeed, the table now being spread by Mrs. Satchell’s directions bore out the assertion of Halfman. Jolly, white loaves, a grinning boar’s head, a pasty with a golden dome, a ham the color of a pink flower, and a dish of cold game tempted hunger where flagons of white wine and red wine tempted thirst. Halfman dismissed Mrs. Satchell and her satellites affably.
“We can wait upon ourselves,” he averred. “We shall be more private so,” and he motioned Evander to a seat and took his own place opposite. “Yes,” he said, resuming the thread of his thought, as he piled a plate for Evander, “you did your best to starve us; we must not do the like by you.”
Evander smiled as he stayed the generosity of his host’s hands and accepted from his reluctance a plate less lavishly charged with viands than Halfman had proposed to offer him.
“Yet,” he said, “I think I heard, no later ago than yesterday, much clatter of dishes and much rattling of cups and all the sounds of plenty.”
Halfman hurriedly bolted a goodly slice of ham lest it should choke him while he laughed, which he now did heartily, lolling back in his chair. He was honestly amused, and yet it seemed to Evander as if there were something in his strange friend’s mirth which was carefully calculated to produce its effect. Indeed, Halfman, as he laughed, was thinking of Sir John Falstaff’s full-bodied thunders over some ticklish misdoings of Bardolph or Nym. When he had enough of his own performance, he allowed the laughter to die as suddenly as it had dawned, and gave tongue.
“That was the best jest in the world,” he chuckled. “Clatter of dishes, say you, and rattle of cups. Once, when I was in Aleppo, I heard an old fellow in an Abraham beard telling a tale to a crowd of Moors. I had not enough of their lingo to know why they laughed, but one who was with me that had more Moorish told me the tale. It was of one who invited a poor man to his house and pretended to feed him nobly, naming this fair dish and that fine wine, and pressing meat and drink upon him, while all the while, in very mockery, there was neither bite in any platter nor sup in any bottle. Well, excellent sir, our table of yesterday was in some such case.”
Evander nodded. “I guessed as much,” he commented. “But, indeed, it was bravely done.”
“It was bravely devised,” Halfman asserted. “It was my lady’s thought. She would never let a rascally Roundhead – I crave your pardon, she would never let an enemy – dream that we were in lack of aught at Harby that could help us to serve the King.”
“Your lady is a very brave lady,” Evander said, quietly. Halfman caught at his words with a kind of cheer in his voice.
“Hippolyta was not more valiant, nor Parthian Candace, nor French Joan. She is the rose of the world, the fairest fair, the valiantest valor. There is no wine in the world that is worthy to pledge her, but we must do our best with what we have.”
He filled himself a spacious tankard as he spoke and drained it at a draught. Evander listened to his ebullient praises in silence. He did not think that the Lady of Harby should be so spoken of and by such an one. Over-eating and especially over-drinking were ever distasteful to him, and he took it that Halfman was on the high-road to becoming drunk. But in this he was wrong. When Halfman set down his vessel he was as sober as when he had lifted it, but of a sudden a shade graver, as if Evander’s silence had shadowed his boisterous gayety. He pushed the beaker from him with a sigh, and then, seeing that Evander’s plate was empty, offered to ply him with more food. On Evander’s refusal he pushed back his chair. “Well,” he said, “if your stomach is stayed, are you for a stroll in the gardens – will you see lawns and parks of fairyland?”
Evander willingly acquiesced, and the strangely assorted pair rose and quitted the chamber. They met Mistress Satchell on the threshold, and Tiffany hiding slyly behind her highness. Evander smilingly complimented Mistress Satchell on the excellence of her table, to the good dame’s great gratification. But much to Tiffany’s indignation he paid little heed to her pretty face.
XIV
A PASSAGE AT ARMS
The vane of Halfman’s attitude towards the captive had veered strongly in the past half-hour. He had been ready to treat him well, for such was Brilliana’s pleasure; he was willing to make friends and taste the agreeables of the magnanimous victor. But the conquered man had gained no ground that morning in the heart of one of his conquerors. He ate little, which Halfman pitied; he drank little, which Halfman despised; and it was with a much-augmented disdain that he beheld Evander dash his solitary cup with water.
“Craftily qualified, curse him,” he thought; “the fellow’s a damned Cassio, and will be fumbling with his right hand and his left in a twinkle.”
In this he was disappointed; Evander’s draught wrought no havoc in his speech or demeanor; Halfman was more disappointed that the prisoner took so coldly his laudations of his lady.
“The Roundpoll is so mad to be mastered by a woman that he has not enough gentility in his thin wits to spur him to a compliment.”
His hostile thoughts brewed in his heated brain-pan till their fumes fevered him. As he led the way by stair and corridor, his mood for quarrel grew the keener that he knew his choler could find no hope of ventage with a prisoner committed to his care. And even as he thought this, chance seemed to furnish him with some occasion for satisfaction. They were passing by the open door of a room which had long been used as a place of arms at Harby, and its walls were hung with weapons of the time and weapons of an earlier generation. Halfman had passed much time there with the brisker fellows of the garrison, breaking them in to feats of weapon-play, and he smiled at the memory and the magnitude of his own dexterity. He paused for a moment at the threshold and looked round at Evander.
“Here,” he said, with a smile that was half a leer and an intonation that was little less than a sneer – “here is a spot that will scarce have enough attraction for your worship to merit your worship’s stay.”
Evander, who had been following his guide almost mechanically, enveloped in his own gray reflections, took surprised note of his companion’s changed bearing. Up to now he had been civil enough, even if his civility had not been of a quality greatly to Evander’s liking, yet now his blustering good-humor gave place to something akin to deliberate offence. But he might be mistaken, and it was not for a prisoner to snatch at straws of quarrel. Therefore he protested, courteously:
“Why should you think that a soldier takes no interest in a soldier’s tools?”
Halfman gave a shrug to his shoulders that might or might not be intended to annoy.
“Your worship is too raw a soldier to know much of these same tickers and tappers. Let us rather to the library for volumes of divinity.”
This time the intention to affront was so patent, so patent, too, that Halfman’s temper was getting the better of whatever discretion he possessed, that Evander’s face hardened, and yet for his own reasons he still spoke mildly enough:
“There is no need to call me worship, for I can claim no such title. But I think I know something of these trinkets, and with your leave will examine them.”
He passed by Halfman as he spoke and entered the room, where he immediately busied himself in the examination of some of the weapons displayed there, and apparently ignoring Halfman’s existence. Halfman watched him with a scowl for a moment and then followed him into the room.
“Your honor,” he said – “since you will not be called worship – your honor really has a use for these toys of gentlefolk?”
Evander had taken a handsome Italian rapier from its case against the wall, and, after glancing at its blade, was weighing and testing the weapon in the air. As he gave Halfman no answer, the latter took up the talk again, provocatively:
“I cannot deny that your honor showed fight briskly enough yester evening, but then it seemed little less than fight or die, and even a rat, if you corner him, will snap for dear life. Moreover, you were well ambushed, and there was a gentle lady present who would not see a rat butchered unnecessarily.”
Evander, still weighing the fine Italian blade, turned to Halfman and addressed him with an exasperating composure.
“Friend,” he said, “I have told you that I am not unacquainted with arms. When I am a free man I enforce belief in my word. As it is – ”
He left his sentence uncompleted, and with a contemptuous shrug of his shoulders proceeded on his journey round the room, still carrying the Italian rapier in his hand. Under his tan Halfman’s face blazed and his eyes glittered, but he spoke with a forced calm and a feigned civility:
“Say you so much? Why, I believe your honor, surely. Yet, as they say, seeing is believing, and if you are in the vein for a gentle and joyous passage with buttoned arms, I that am here to entertain your honor would not for the world’s width gainsay you.”
Evander eyed him quietly. “Are you ready at fence?” he inquired. “I shall be pleased to take a lesson from you.”
Halfman’s heart warmed at his words. “The coney creeps towards the gin,” he thought, exultantly; then he answered, aloud:
“Why, if you have a stomach for it you shall not be crossed. Here be two buttoned rapiers, true twins – length, weight, workmanship. I will beleather them in a twink. I promise you I would not hurt your honor.”
“You are very good,” Evander answered, gravely. Halfman was already busy tying two large pads of leather the size of small oranges onto the buttoned blades. While he was at work Evander occupied himself with the contents of the room until Halfman, having finished his job, advanced towards him with the weapons extended. Suddenly he paused.
“Stop!” he said. “Let us make a wager on our game. I always play with more heart so. Here is my stake.”
He began to fumble at his doublet, and presently produced from an inner pocket a great thumb-ring with a ruby in it.
“I gained that,” he said, “at the sacking of a Spanish town. ’Tis worth a pope’s ransom. Set what you please against it.”
Evander lifted the ring from the table where Halfman placed it and took it to the window to look at it closely. Presently he laid it on the table again.
“It is a goodly ring,” he observed. “The setting is old and curious, and the stone, though it has a slight flaw in it, as you have been doubtless told before now, is worth more than any poor possessions I have about my person. Wherefore I would rather we contended for love.”
Halfman shook his head. He was a thought dashed by Evander’s discovery of the blemish in the stone, and he carried off his discomfiture by bravado.
“Nay, nay,” he answered; “there is my stake. Set what you please against it, were it no more than a silver groat. I do not ask to be paid well for my lesson.”
Evander said nothing, but drew his purse from his pocket and laid it on the table. Through the meshes Halfman could see the gleam of a few pieces of gold, and the gleam cheered him, as it always did. He was ever greedy of gold, and thought the death of Crassus not unkingly.
“Choose your blade,” he said. Evander, with a quick glance at the two weapons, selected the one nearest to him, flung his hat onto a chair, stripped off his doublet, and quietly waited for his adversary. Halfman did not keep him long. He flung his hat and doublet on the floor and advanced.
“Are you ready?” he asked. Evander saluted in silence, and in another moment the antagonists engaged and the mock duello began. Halfman expected that it would be short, but it proved much shorter than he expected. He was far too good a swordsman not to know when he had encountered a better. The thing had not happened to him very often; it happened very flagrantly now. In less than five minutes Evander had placed the muffled button of his blade three times on Halfman’s person – once upon either breast, and the third time fair on the forehead, just between the eyes. The last blow was so surely delivered that had it been given with greater force it might have knocked the receiver senseless. As it was, however, it was given with such deliberate delicacy that, though Halfman’s head hummed for the moment and his eyes saw stars, he rallied quickly enough to stare at Evander where he stood with lowered point and to tender him a salutation of honest admiration.
“Great Jove of glory!” he gasped; “who was it that ran liquid steel into your spare body?”
Evander smiled at the new change in his chameleon companion.
“I learned a little fencing when I was in Paris,” he admitted. “I fear I was over-inclined for the pastime.”
“A little fencing!” Halfman ejaculated. “A little fencing! Why, man, that botte between the eyes would have done for me, even if you had not spitted both my lungs first. No one can ever say of you that you held your sword like a dancer. Give me your hand – by God! I must grip your hand.”
“Sir,” said Evander, as the pair clasped hands with the hearty clasp of true combatants, “you overpraise me; yet for your friendly praises I have a favor to ask of you.”
“Name it and it is done,” Halfman asseverated, with an oath, “were it to pluck a purple hair for you from the beard of the Grand Cham himself.”
“’Tis no such matter,” Evander answered. “I do but entreat you of your courtesy to take back your ring, for which in very truth I have no use.”
Halfman protested a little for form’s sake, then gave way, glad enough to pouch his jewel again.
“You are a gentleman,” he declared. “Come, let us taste the air in the gardens.”
XV
MY LADY’S PLEASAUNCE
The gardens of Harby were captain jewels in the crown of Oxfordshire. From the terrace they spread in spaces of changeful beauty over many acres of fruitful earth. Evander had seen to it that no further harm was done to these lovely spaces than was inevitable for the conduct of the siege. There were some in his company, hissing hot zealots, who were all for laying violating hands upon the temples of Baal and the shrines of Ashtaroth, by which Evander rightly interpreted them to mean the pleasaunces of clipped yews, the rose bowers, the box hedges, and the generous autumnal orchards. They were eager to show their scorn of the Amalekites by the lopping of ancient trees and the treading of colored blossoms under the heel of Israel. But Evander was as firm as these were frantic, and the gardens of Harby smiled through familiar process of sun and rain and dew, untroubled by the daily rattle of musketry and the nightly tramp of sentinels.
Evander reaped a reward for which he had not labored in his chivalry to a belligerent and besieged lady. For the gardens that a conqueror had preserved were now very fair indeed for a conquered man to walk in. The October sun shone as if the royal triumph, yonder at Edgehill and here at Harby, had rekindled summer on the chilling altar of the year, and the hues of the lingering flowers flamed in the celestial fires.
If Evander’s thoughts were sable, he did not allow them to stain the fair day and his companion’s gayety. Halfman swam now in the extravagance of admiration for so miraculous a Puritan. Halfman loved the apostles best on spoons of silver in a sea-bag swollen with loot, but of the men he had the best word for Peter, who could use a sword on occasion. And here was one of the saints on earth playing his rapier as bravely as if he had been a gentleman born or gentleman adventurer made, and had skimmed the seas and kissed and killed and pilfered.
He plied Evander, as they paced, with questions of swordsmanship and schools of arms and masters, of the Italian method and the Spanish method and the French method, and never caught his new Hector tripping over a push or a parade. They moved over danceable lawns or under the canopies of dim avenues, chattering of arms, till the soft October air tingled with the names of famous fencers, and Halfman was in fancy a lubber lad again at his first passado.
But his wonder grew with their wanderings. They paused at the bowling-green and played a game which Evander won. They visited the stables where the horses now were rallied, that had lived hidden in farm-yard and cottage garden during the siege. Here Halfman learned that Evander liked hawks and loved horses, and knew their manage better than himself. Had Evander proclaimed himself a whisperer, it would not now have astonished Halfman.
Again, as they passed by the orchard where Luke Gardener was busy, Halfman must needs bring Luke and Evander acquainted, whereupon the pair set straight to talking of garden talk and airing of weather wisdom in speech long since to him as unfamiliar as Hebrew. Here Evander’s science wearied him, and he fairly dragged his captive away, declaring that there was yet much to see more honorable than herbs or brambles. Evander obeyed very contentedly, but they had not moved many paces when Luke came hobbling after, and, catching Halfman, drew him by the arm apart.
“Is yonder truly a damnable Roundhead?” he questioned. Halfman nodded his head.
“Well,” continued Luke, “for that he deserves to be hanged, and yet he has taught me a trick of grafting roses which he says the Dutch use that might serve to save a worser man from the gallows.”
Without a word Halfman shook his arm free and rejoined Evander, who was moving slowly along a pathway leading towards an enclosure of fantastically clipped yews. Hearing the footsteps behind him, Evander halted till Halfman joined him.
“How the devil came you to fathom flower knowledge?” Halfman asked. Evander smiled faintly.
“I would rather you unsaddled the devil from your question,” he answered, rebuking in his mind a woman; “but I have always loved gardens. You have one here who is skilled in topiary,” and he pointed towards the trim yew hedge they were approaching.
“Those are the green walls of my lady’s pleasaunce,” Halfman answered, “and the learned in such trifles call them mighty fine. But all I know of woodcraft is hatcheting me a path through virgin forest.”
“Where, indeed, your topiarist would be ill at ease,” Evander answered. “But I pray you let us retire, lest we intrude upon your lady.”
“Never fear for that,” said Halfman. “My lady is busy enough in-doors to-day, setting her house to rights, and you should not miss the comeliest nook in all the domain.”
As he spoke he passed under an archway of clipped yew, and, Evander following, the pair came upon a grassy space entirely girdled with yew hedges, the sight of which instantly justified to Evander the praise of his companion. The enclosure made a circle some half an acre in size of the greenest turf imaginable, orderly bordered with seats of white marble and belted all about with the black greenness of the yew-tree hedge, which was fashioned like an Italian colonnade. The arches afforded vistas of different and delightful prospects of the park at every quarter of the card – woodland, savanna-like lawns, flower-gardens, kitchen-gardens, and orchards in their pride.
“This is a lovely place,” protested Evander. “One might sit here and dream of seeing the shy wood-nymphs flitting through these aisles – if one had no better thoughts for one’s idleness,” he added. Halfman laughed.
“There peeped out the Puritan,” he said. “I had lost him this long while, but run him to earth in my lady’s pleasaunce. Yet you are a queer kind of Puritan, too. You can fence like a Frenchman, you can play bowls as Father Jove plays with the globes of heaven, and you can ride like Diomed, the jolly Greek, who knew that horses could be stridden as well as driven.”
Evander, who had seated himself and had been tracing cabalistic signs on the grass with his staff, looked up into his companion’s face.
“Are not you rather a queer kind of Cavalier,” he asked, “if you think that a Puritan must needs be a fool?”
Halfman laughed back at him, and as he laughed he showed his teeth so seeming white by contrast with his sunburned cheeks, and he seemed to Evander more than ever like some half-tamed beast of prey.
“You are no fool, Puritan,” Halfman shouted, “or Heaven would not have wasted its time in gracing you with such skill at sports. So great with the rapier, so wise on the bias. No, no; you are no fool. I am almost sad to think you quit us so soon, enemy though you be.”
While Halfman had been babbling, Evander had again been busy with his staff. Halfman had paid no heed to his actions, being far too deep in his own phrases. Had he been attentive he might have noticed that at first Evander wrote on the green grass, as vainly as he might have written in water, a word, a name: Brilliana. Had he been attentive he might have noticed that Evander now wrote another word that was also a name and more than a name: Death. But he did not notice, and as he ended with his odd tribute to his enemy, Evander looked up at him with a calm face.
“I shall not quit you so soon,” he said, in an even voice. “I have come to stay at Harby.”
Halfman looked at him, puzzled.
“Stay at Harby,” he repeated. “Nonsense, man; what are you thinking of? You will be riding hence in three days’ time, when Sir Randolph is released.”
Evander shook his head.
“Sir Randolph will not be released,” he said. The quiet positiveness in his tone staggered Halfman. Stooping, with his hands resting on his knees, his unquiet eyes stared into Evander’s quiet eyes.
“Sir Randolph will not be released! Why the devil will Sir Randolph not be released?”
Evander rose from his seat and rested his hand for a moment lightly on Halfman’s arm, while he said, impressively:
“Say nothing of this to your lady, for Sir Randolph is her kinsman, and I think she holds him dear. Let ill news come late. But if Colonel Cromwell has taken a spy prisoner, that spy will very surely die.”
Halfman stiffened himself. His eyes had never left Evander’s, and he knew that Evander spoke what he believed. He gave a short laugh.
“And very surely if Sir Randolph be shot over yonder you will be shot down here.”
“That,” said Evander, still smiling, “is why I say that I have come to stay at Harby.”
“You take your fate blithely,” Halfman commented, scanning Evander with curiosity. He was familiar with the sight of men in peril of death; in most men he took courage for granted, but it was courage of a gaudier quality than the composure of the young Puritan, who had fenced with him and played bowls with him that very morning and talked so learnedly of roses with Luke, the gardener. Was there really something in the Puritan stuff that strengthened men’s spirits? Evander answered his words and unconsciously his thoughts.
“I should not have taken up arms if I held my life too precious. It will need three days to get the answer, the inevitable answer, and in the mean time the autumn air is kind and these gardens delightful.”
Halfman stared at him in an ecstasy of admiration, and then dealt him an applauding clap on the shoulder.
“Come to the kitchen-garden, philosopher,” he cried. “A fellow of your phlegm should find pleasure in the contemplation of cabbages.”
“It is a sage vegetable,” Evander answered. “But I fear I tax your time. There must be much for you to do.”
“I have done much already,” Halfman replied. “But, indeed, these be busy times.”
“Then,” protested Evander, “when I have stared my fill at your meditative cabbage I shall entreat no more of your kindness but that you convoy me to the safe port of the library, where I shall be content enough.”
“As you please,” Halfman responded. “I was never a bookish man; I care for no books but play-books and these I carry here,” and he beat his brown forehead. “But you may nose out some theologies in odd corners, as a pig noses truffles.”
