Idonia: A Romance of Old London

But scarce had I gone forth into the gallery again, when I thought I heard a sound that proceeded from a chamber I had not till then observed, in a retired and somewhat darksome corner beyond the stairs. I held my breath to listen, and the little rustling noise beginning again after a space, I went directly to the door and opened it.

Mistress Avenon sat within, in a nook by the window, tearing a paper she had in her hands.

"Idonia!" I cried, and running forward had her in my arms and her hot face close against mine. "My bird," said I—for so she seemed as a dainty bird caught in an iron trap—"my bird, who hath brought you into this infamous place?"

She leant back a little from my shoulder, yet without loosing me, and looked up into my eyes with such a deal of honest, sweet pleasure to see me there, that I had to pretermit my anxiety some while, and indeed had near lost it by the time I renewed my question.

"Why infamous?" inquired Idonia in her turn, "save that I knew not you were here too. But now it is certainly not infamous, though something lacking of luxuries, and a thought slack in the attendance they bestow upon guests!"

"You must not misconstrue my insistence," I said, "and you will not, when you shall have heard all I have to tell you. But for the first, where is Mr. Skene?"

"He brought me here early last night," said she, but with a little of reproach in her voice that I knew meant I wasted good time idly.

"And whither is he gone?"

"Do you desire he should be present, then?" asked Idonia, very innocently.

"No, but I would warn him if I could," I replied gravely, and so told her everything as it had befallen me.

"Always that Malpas!" whispered the maid, and trembled so I had to clasp her tight to me.

"He does not know you are here, that is clear," I said, as indeed it was manifest to both of us.

"My guardian hath used this place often ere this," said Idonia, "and I suppose none thought to prate of what happened ordinarily."

"Perhaps he has left you to seek out Malpas," I conjectured, and at this she nodded.

"They have had some design in hand together this great while, of which I know nothing."

I did not tell her that I knew it well enough, and was even commissioned to prevent it, but said—

"Wherever he hath gone, Malpas hath certainly gone to seek him; but he must not be found."

"You owe him small thanks," whispered Idonia, her head low down, "and if this intends a danger to you…"

I did not suffer her to finish, but asked whether she were well enough acquainted with the house to know of any means of egress from it, besides the doors that were so straitly watched. She thought a great while before she replied how, once, it might be eight years since, she being lodged there, she had gone upon some occasion into the cellars, and remembered to have noted that the window which lighted it was a sort of grate within the river wall and was even then decayed and corrupted by the salt water, so that by this time it should, she thought, be easily broken through.

"The tide is out," said I, "so that if I may but get through, there is the dry bank above the pirates' gallows to go by; and after, the rest should be plain enough." Which gallows I spoke of (now all rotten) yet stood in the ooze to be flooded at high tide, it having been formerly used against such pirates and river thieves as were caught and there hanged, until, the tide rising, they were drowned.

In reply to my further questionings, she said that Skene was to be sought amidst the streets about the Tower Royal, which was where I had gone that day I lost my way in the fog, when Idonia found me, and, indeed, was no great distance from Chequer Lane.

"When you shall have found him, or however it fall out, you will return to me, dear heart?" said Idonia, who was now weeping so bitterly that I could scarce keep hold of my resolution to be gone. But I did so at length, and, going downstairs to the room I had left, found it to my delight still free. Nigh choked with the beating of my heart, I soon discovered the stone steps that led down to the cellars, which were a narrow passage-room lit with a swinging lantern, and having three or four locked doors of other vaults (used, I supposed, for storage of wines and such-like) to the right and left of it. But in the river-wall, when I looked, I could perceive no grid nor aperture of such sort as Idonia had spoken, and for some moments remained as one lost, for mere disappointment. However, recovering myself a little, I felt along the whole, length of the wall, high and low, until to my infinite pleasure my hand struck upon a new oaken door, bolted with a great bolt that I slid back without the least noise. For the door itself, I clearly perceived, it had been found necessary to put it in place of the old, decayed grid, and 'twas sure as provident a repairing as any it hath been my fortune to light on!

Well, I think it stands not upon me to relate the several stages of my prison-breaking, nor of my lurking along the river-bank under the very eyes of my warders into safety; though I confess that more than once my back burnt hot with the thought of the little peering tapster and of that great arquebus he so diligently polished.

CHAPTER XX

THE ADVENTURE OF THE CHINESE JAR

The events which succeeded upon my escape from the Fair Haven of Wapping have come to assume in my mind a significance and singular quality of completeness that hath, therefore, moved me to bestow upon them the name of the "Adventure of the Chinese Jar;" for, detached from every circumstance, there yet stands out, clear and hard against my background of memory, that odd, fantastic shape of a blue-painted jar, with its dragon-guarded lid, its flowered panels, and a haunting remnant scent of the spices it had once enclosed.

I left the ooze and filthy slime of the river-bank when I had gone some furlong or so, and, turning inland up a row of squalid cabins, got at length into the Minories, and entered through the wall by Aldgate. Methought that some of the guard I encountered about the gatehouse regarded me with looks of surprise and ill-will, which, indeed, the disorderliness of my clothing necessarily invited, as well, perhaps, as a no very restrained gait and behaviour, for I was in a fever to be forward upon my errand, and dreaded the least hindrance therein. However, none accosting me, I passed by into the City, and was already proceeding at a great rate towards Tower Royal, when I came upon a group of persons that were talking eagerly and in loud voices, so that I could not but hear a part of their discourse.

"He will certainly be apprehended before nightfall," said one, a merchant by his habit; "so close a watch do they keep in these days upon all suspected malefactors."

"I know not the man by either the names he goeth by; neither Skene nor Cleeve," said another.

"It is not likely you should," said the first, with a twinkle of his grey eyes, "that are inquest-man of this wardmote, and brother to a canon."

I stepped close to the man had spoken last, and, doffing my cap, said: "Sir, I am but just arrived in this town, but overhearing something of that hath been made mention of betwixt you, I imagined that I heard the name of one Cleeve in question."

"You did," said the merchant; "Cleeve or Skene, for 'tis all one. But, why? Do you know the fellow?"

"It is my own name," I replied modestly; "at least, Cleeve is, and so if you were inquiring after me, I am here to serve you."

A great laughter moved the whole party at my seeming ingenuousness, and the merchant replied—

"No, no, honest Mr. Cleeve; go your ways and keep your innocence. But this other Cleeve is one grown old in treachery; a harbourer of Jesuits and Spanish spies, against whom a writ runs for his immediate attachment, and upon whose crafty head there is a price set."

"Is he escaped away then?" said I.

"He hath no settled habitation," replied one that held a paper in his hands, upon which he continually looked, "but was last seen at a certain great ruined house over against the Galley Quay, from which he is now fled, no man knows whither. But from manifest evidence it appeareth he is engaged in deep and secret designs against the State, in which moreover he works not singly."

"Now, I marvel how, if his abode were so positively known and his conduct anyways dubious, he came to be allowed such freedom to go in and out, as the sequel shows was done," I returned with some study of resentment.

"Why, as to that, it is but since he is gone that the case is proved against him; for upon a search which was then made of all the chambers of that house, there was discovered a very nest of those he was in treaty with, whose names be here set down, and themselves are brought to-day before the Council to be examined." He handed me the paper as he spoke, wherein I read the list of them. There were three Spanish men of high-sounding titles, and two or three alleged to be malignant Papists. Here was answer enough to Master Malpas, I thought, and with a vengeance! I returned the paper, and presently saluting, took my leave.

Very full of thought, I went forward until I had come into that web of mean streets I spoke of, below Tower Royal, which was where Idonia had said her guardian should probably be found. But although I spent the greater part of the afternoon in that quarter, I saw him not, nor any I dared trust, to inquire after him. Indeed, the longer I stayed, the more ill-considered and absurd did my precipitancy to this business appear, so that at last I gave it over altogether, and being by then got as far as to the Three Cranes Wharf, I stood idly there a great while, watching the wharfingers at their task of ordering the heavy goods that were there piled up and stored. Against the wharf lay a barge or lighter moored, which I perceived had but lately discharged the cargo of some great galley that rested below bridge in the fairway.

There is ever something that fascinates a man in this his own careless regarding of other men at work; and I had already stayed upon the quay no small while, before I bethought myself to return; though, when I had so determined, it came upon me that 'twas one thing to get out of prison (I mean mine Inn), but altogether a different matter to get in again, and so fell to considering whether I should make my entrance boldly by the ordinary door, or whether creep in after nightfall, by the vent in the cellar-wall I had escaped by.

Now I had not altogether decided this matter, when I found myself in that steep little lane I had inadvertently descended so many months since in the fog, of which the houses upon both sides stood almost all of them closed up and shuttered as though (to repeat what I then said) the place had been visited by the plague; which deathlike and stealthy character it yet maintained. There was nobody, man nor child, in the street as I slowly mounted it, a strange sense of abhorrence and foreboding gathering about my heart: while to this distress of my mind was now added the annoyance of a smart squall of rain and wind, that, suddenly breaking, had soon wetted me through, but for my crouching close beneath the shallow porch of a door upon the right hand, where I availed myself of such shelter as it afforded.

I had stood so about a quarter of an hour, as I suppose, and was listening to a long roll of thunder that seemed to shake the very foundations of these palsied buildings when, as if answering to the call of the storm, there arose within the house behind me a cry so agonized, so hopeless, and withal so horribly inhuman, as even now my hair stirs to remember it. To avoid this cursed spot and begone was my involuntary and half-acted purpose, checked, however, on the instant by a blinding flash of lightning that seared my very eyes, while my brain seemed all shattered in by the accompanying peal. Painfully wrought upon as I have ever been by any loudness of sound, it was some moments before I could recover myself, and indeed I was still reeling from the shock, when the door was flung wide and the figure of a man outlandishly clothed, and of a yellowness of skin such as I had never before seen, hurried by me into the midst of the road, where it fell quash in the kennel. The man was dead. It was evident from the mere sight of him, and from the formless clutter of gaudy rags he was; I turned about, and within the gap of the door ere it was shut-to, I saw the delicate, handsome features of my uncle, Botolph Cleeve.

How the storm went thereafter I know not, but I know that for a full half-hour I stood wrenching at the door that callous fiend had locked in my face, but could nowise move it. Then, with a thrill of disgust, I went to the dead outcast, where he lay all wet and smirched, and drew from between his shoulders the long thin knife that was stuck there to the haft. This I cleaned and put up in my jerkin. It was my only weapon. The body was of a man stout and of great strength, though not tall, and as well by the cast of his features as by his clothing I knew him for one of them they name Cataians, or Chinese, that perhaps had been led to this inhospitable asylum by rascally allurements of adventurers upon some Eastward voyage; as I had once seen two Indians, that sat huddled on the ground in the Exchange, with a ring of laughing apprentices about them, and of whom I heard it said that they were princes in their own land. But by what marches of fate this poor Chinese had been defeated, and sent down from his home in the East to death in our inexorable London, I could by no means conjecture; nor yet could I determine (which imported me more) what course it were fittest I should herein follow. Howbeit, a certain strange faintness then assailing me, partly from sheer hunger, but more by reason of the horror of this murder, I saw my dilemma settled for that while; and so, staggering forth of the lane into Royal Street, where is a good tavern, I there made shift to eat, but principally drank, until I had rid myself at least of the extremity of distress into which I had fallen.

In that place I stayed a good hour, there being a merry company come together of players and other (for which I was indeed glad, and it cheered me more than all else), when the day beginning to fail, the guests departed their several ways, and I also, upon my own.

"The watch will certainly have been notified by this time," I said to myself, "for 'tis impossible that a dead body should lie so long in the streets unperceived. Well, my uncle will have got hence scot-free, as he is accustomed to do in despite of all justice, and of writs of attachment, or of black Malpas either; which saveth my conscience a toll, and so I hope there's an end of my dealings with him."

Nevertheless I could not refrain from going part way down the hill again, to see whether the body were indeed removed. And so it was, as I had looked that it should be; though it occasioned me some surprise to note that the door of the house now stood wide, while a little within the threshold two other Chinese hung wailing and wringing their hands in the most abject misery.

Excited at this opportunity to learn the cause of the outrage I had been so close a witness to, I went over to the men, and accosting them, demanded whether the dead man were their friend; but to my question they replied by never a word, at least not in English, but continued to lament as before. I then made signs that I knew all that had befallen, and at that they ceased, and soon nodded, making eager signs that I should tell them more; whereupon I drew forth the knife from my bosom and handed it to the man I stood closest to, who received it with an exclamation of fury, passing it to the other with the one significant word—Skene! The other Chinese now came forward, and in the intense hatred that twisted his yellow face, I read the recompense that should be meted out to the murderer if ever they two should meet. "Skene," he repeated twice or thrice, tapping his long fingers upon the blade; and then with a gesture, pointing inward to the house, whispered, "Here—house;" by which I understood that this was a favourite lurking-place of my uncle's, who no doubt hoped, upon any domiciliary inquisition, to divert the vigilance of the officers by making parade of these uncouth strangers as alone inhabiting there; or in the last event, perhaps, intended to disguise himself in their clothing, and so steal off. I could not but admire the ingenuity of the man, for all my disgust of his countless villainies.

Meanwhile, the two Chinese were engaged upon a ceremony that at first I could not come by the meaning of, though I soon perceived it to be a solemn vow they made upon the dagger, to avenge their dead comrade. Which concluded, they gave me back my knife, and seemed to wait my further direction. All passion had left their faces, that now appeared serene and patient, as I think the features of those of that nation do generally, so that it quite overtasks an observer to guess their mood, whether it be bloody or peaceable.

"Have you any English?" I asked after a pause, at which one shrunk up his shoulders as meaning he had not; but the other replied with such childlike boastfulness, "English—much—yes, yes—English," that I could not forbear laughing.

"Do you propose to return home by ship?" I asked slowly, and made a motion with my hands as of a ship sailing. But this neither seemed at all to comprehend.

"China—Cathay," said I, somewhat at a loss how to suggest my meaning, but immediately the one who had so much English, replied vehemently—

"Skene—yes, yes—kill!"

There could be no question then that it was to be revenge at all costs, for the other Chinese, taking up the word, cried out too: "Skene—kill," which he followed up with a peck of his own Romany cant that I made no pretence to attend. However, the upshot was that they stood upon the fulfilment of their vow, and fully expected I should direct them therein. Now, that I was equally determined I would not; for little as I cared how it should go with my uncle Botolph, I had no stomach to set two bloodthirsty strangers at his throat, to dispatch him in cold blood. So, turning to my interpreter, I bade him in the simplest terms I might find, to have a care what he did, for that we lived under a just and peace-loving Queen, whose constables and guards were sworn to prevent such private revenges as they planned; in the which if they proceeded, they would themselves certainly be brought into confinement. But in truth I might have spared my breath, for I saw that no intelligence of my warning reached them, though they had evidently strained their apprehensions to the limit to receive it.

"Skene—kill," they said, when I had done, and without more ado went into one of the rooms where they kept their stuff, and took each of them a small curved sword with a marvellous long haft, which, though they made no pretence to conceal them from me, they carefully hid within the folds of their loose silken coats.

"This must be thwarted," I said to myself, and debated how it should best be done. At length I hit on a plan that promised, I thought, fairly, which was that I should contrive to divide their forces; sending forth him that had no word of our language by himself, one way, to search (and lose himself amidst) the streets thereabout; but as to the other that was perhaps the more dangerous by reason of his capacity to put such sloven-mumbled questions as might nevertheless lead to his discovering Botolph Cleeve (though it was indeed hardly possible): that I should take him with me as far as to Wapping, where I might easily fob him off with any tidings of Skene I should profess then to gather; and so be rid of him.

It needed no small skill of mine to put the case before them in such sort as they should not guess the motive, but rather should approve the advantage, of my design; and in the result I brought them to my view. By this time it was perfectly dark without, though the room where we remained was faintly illumined by a little bronze lamp fashioned like a beast with a fish's tail, that one of the men had already lit. By the uncertain light it afforded, I gazed in admiration of the scene, so dim and vague, yet so deeply charged with purpose. We had left conversing together, for the two men had things to do that needed no speech to forward them. It was manifest that they would not return to the house, and therefore they applied themselves silently to the selection of such articles as seemed at once necessary and portable. So engaged, they moved about the shadowed chamber, their silken dresses slightly rustling, and their yellow, peering faces now and again bent towards the lamp, as they examined some piece of worth that they would carry away: caskets of sweet-smelling wood, or trinkets of silver, or else some mere idle toy they had bought in an English shop, not of a groat's worth but by them infinitely prized. What a satire was in this their so contemptible a fardel, who would lightly toss away another man's dear life! Amongst the many treasures they thus overlooked, and either kept or rejected, was a jar of about fifteen or eighteen inches height, six-sided, and very gay with painted devices of flowers and leaves; and upon this jar one of the Chinese dwelt long in doubt, as it seemed, whether it should be saved, for it was something cumbersome, although not of any groat burden. However he took it up at last with the rest, or rather exchanged it for some other trifles that might be of less value, and so ended his preparation.

"Let us begone," said I, and holding open the door, signed to the one of them to leave the house, which he did; and after, we, that is the man with the jar and I, left it likewise, directing our course towards Wapping and the Fair Haven Inn.

For a considerable time we trudged along together in this way through the deserted streets; I already more than a little weary of an enterprise in which I had, as it were, enlisted under force and without reason. The tumult of the storm, the murder, the strangeness of the habits and Eastern features of the two men, the disability to converse in a common tongue, by which one seemed to be pleading with the masked presences of some horrid dream, all these circumstances combined to deject my mind to a degree I have never since experienced; and I deplored this new plan for my uncle's safety more even than I did the one upon which I had set forth. I stole a glance or two at my companion, but wrapped in his placid reserve he never so much as raised his dull eyes to mine, nor showed himself scarce aware of my presence, save by the precision with which he paced by my side. Once and again he would shift the weight of the Chinese jar he carried in the slack of his coat, or finger the hilt of his sword.

As we approached near to the gate in the City wall, I became suddenly apprehensive of the danger we ran into, and cast about in my mind how to avoid the guard that, howsoever in ordinary times one might look to be passed through without much question, yet now in these times of suspicion would be sure to detain so irregular a pair as we that were thus about to present ourselves. Accordingly I turned off suddenly upon the right hand towards the river, and coming to one of the quays (I think Smart's Quay), was lucky enough to find a skiff there moored, which I loosed, and motioning the Chinese to get in, followed him and pushed off. The tide was again on the ebb, having passed its height about an hour since, and so without use of oars we drifted easily down stream, until in a pretty short while we got to Wapping, where I ran the boat ashore and leapt out. I could see the Fair Haven about a hundred paces ahead, and, although there was no light in Idonia's chamber, as in precaution she had doubtless left it dark, yet could I see the dim square of the window frame, and pleased myself with the hope that she was yet waking, and thought upon me.

A little path of turfs laid upon the piles that here restrain the river-course led right forward to the Inn, and trusting to the security which had so far attended us, I perhaps diminished something of the wariness I should have used; but at all events, we had gone a bare score of paces when I stumbled upon a man that lay crouched in the rank grass of the turfs. Recovering myself speedily, for I had not quite fallen, I accosted him angrily, who, without replying, but yet obstructing the narrow path so that I could not get past him, drew forth a lantern he held concealed in his cloak, and lifting it high, regarded the pair of us, but me especially, closely.