Idonia: A Romance of Old London

"One at a time is better than neither," he said coolly, and I heard his blade grate in the scabbard.

But even as he fetched it forth, the Chinese had his crooked short sword out, and leaping past me with the swiftness of a cat, brought our opponent down. Against the starry sky I could see his arm work forward and back, as he plunged in and withdrew the steel. The lantern rolled from the dead man's hand, but, not immediately extinguished, threw exaggerated shadows of the grass-bents along the path.

Horrified at the fury of his onslaught, I flung myself upon the grovelling heathen, crying out—

"This is not your man, you fool! This is not Skene."

"No, my nephew," he replied quietly enough and in perfect English, "but it is that black thief, Malpas, that would have done the same for me." And without awaiting my reply, he took up the Chinese jar, which in the assault he had necessarily relinquished, and having carefully wiped it, went whistling softly down the causeway to the silent Inn.

CHAPTER XXI

THE "FAIR HAVEN" OF WAPPING

My father once, reading in a favourite philosopher, paused with his finger on a certain passage to ask me what I made of the sense of that he should read; and so continuing his lecture aloud, rehearsed some score of good reasons there set down, why a man should do virtuously; but that, either way, the gods ruled the event. When he had done I asked him in my turn whether the whole book were in that kind, to which he answered that such was indeed the tenour of it, though there were yet other reasons given besides those he had read. But while I was yet considering of my answer, he intercepted it, himself replying for me.

"You think there are too many reasons," said he smiling, "and that if these the author calls gods take occasion to correct our errors we may do as we please; but that if they do not so, then must we do as we can."

Then stroking down his beard with his hand, he bade me do virtuously, at least so long as I was in any doubt about the gods; "which," said he, "is a question only to be settled in that manner."

How many times since then I had recalled my father's grave and tolerant irony, I know not, but it was not often; nor certainly had it ever returned upon me with so compelling an insistency as now, while I still stared after his evil-hearted brother, that murderer of the man at my feet.

"If the gods rule the event out of this business," I thought, "how will it go with thee, my uncle?" So easy is it to apply to another the precepts were meant for ourselves! And truly, when I contrasted my own qualities with Mr. Botolph Cleeve's, I came near to forgiving him, so eminently did he make my own uprightness to appear.

Now, very greatly though I desired Idonia should know of my safe return, I yet could not bring myself to leave Malpas thus exposed and subject to every chance indignity by the wayside, nor was I willing to carry him openly to the Inn or any house at hand; so that, after some while's reflection, I decided to lay him in the boat I had come down by, covering his face with the sailcloth, and after, to launch him out into the ebbing stream. The night was clear above, the thunder having wholly passed; but from a mounting wrack of cloud that peered above the edges of the sky and a chill light wind athwart the river, I judged we should have rain before morning, and so hastened to be done with my task (which unspeakably revolted me) and get into shelter against the oncoming tempest. Notwithstanding 'twas the better part of an hour ere I had completed these hasty and suspicious rites, and had shoved away the skiff with its gaunt recumbent passenger outward (or was it homeward?) bound.

These pious offices done, I turned with a sigh from the black hurrying water, and approached near to the Inn. I was surprised to see that a light now shone in Idonia's chamber, and from the shadows that now and then traversed it, I understood that she was not yet retired to rest. How then I might direct her attention to me without at the same time attracting such attention of others as I might well enough spare, I very earnestly debated; but at length, minding myself of the knife I had got from the dead Chinese, I drew it forth; and having torn off a great burdock leaf where it grew by the bank, pricked with the knife's point the one word Denis (sufficient for my purpose, I thought), and running the blade through the midst of the leaf, poised, and let fly with it at the window. It struck the sill fairly, and hung quivering. My heart stood still during the interval that succeeded, but when presently that sweet small head appeared, all dark against the glory of her hair, it leapt to my very throat for excess of joy.

"Idonia," I whispered hoarsely, and came right beneath her window as I spoke her name; "Idonia, I have come back."

"Hush, dear," she besought me, and leaned forth from the sill, so that a strand or two of her hair hung down and touched the letters of my name in the leaf. "Do not speak again.... Oh, I have been waiting for you, Denis! But you are come; I can see your face. I can see your eyes…"

"You speak as if you feared something," I replied, in disregard of her warning. "Are you threatened with any danger?"

"No," she said; "at least I do not comprehend what may be dangers here. For it is a house of mystery. My guardian has but now left me. He is disguised: I cried out when I saw him.... Oh, Denis, I am horribly afraid here.... It is all so silent, and yet I know the place is full of men."

I hesitated no longer.

"Is there anything by which you can make a rope?" I asked, "any sheet from your bed, or clothing?"

She caught at my intention.

"Yes, yes," she murmured, nodding. "There is my cloak. I will tear it."

"They may hear the sound of the tearing," I said. "Do not move from the window." And so, returning to the little slip or inlet whence I had sent down the boat, I found the oars which I had removed from it, and carried them with me to the house. Idonia could just touch the blade of one with extended fingers when I held it out at arm's length.

"It is too short," said Idonia, with a pitiful catch in her voice.

I bade her keep her heart up, and, unclasping my belt, laced the two oars tightly together where they were frayed hollow by the thole. The joined staff they made reached high enough now, and without awaiting my instruction Idonia caught it to her (I holding it upright) and swung herself lightly to the ground.

"Free, oh free!" came her cry of exultation, and a moment after we held each other closely in a long embrace. Her lips were fire.

"Oh, Denis, Denis, do not let me go, nor never leave you," she said, and I (witless braggart) swore that nought upon earth should sever us.

I led her up the turf path, sheltering her from the rain that had already begun to fall thickly. My thoughts were all astray and I had no plan of any sort, but still to have my arm about her, and feel her yielding to my touch, as spent with love and weary with the pride of so much given.

A man must feel humbled by the magnitude of that he asks of a maid, but all I could say was, brokenly: "I will try to be worthy, sweetheart." Poor words, but she thanked me for them joyfully. She besought me to let her rest soon, and we sat down by a weather-twisted pile at the water's edge, for I could not run into the jeopardy that might lurk amid the inhospitable dark houses of this place, where everything oppressed with a sense of evil. My cloak kept off the worst of the rain, but, as the rising wind swept across the river, Idonia shivered with the cold. Nevertheless she lost not a whit of her gaiety, which indeed seemed to increase with her distress, and she would laugh more loudly than I thought was altogether safe at some odd construction put upon my remonstrance in her wayward speech. I could not long disguise from myself her condition of fever, which at the same time I knew not how to alleviate; but more than once I caught myself wishing I had left her that night at the Inn, where, for all her fears, she had not been any way molested, nor, I now thought, would likely have been, her guardian having returned, and Malpas beyond the power to annoy her further.

A little later, and quite suddenly, she relaxed her extravagant hilarity, and fell into a moodiness equally to be pitied. She wept a deal then, and seemed to have got a strange perception of the malignant influences that surrounded us. The sound of the wind terrified her, and she would shrink down whispering that something tugged at her cloak. I did what I could to soothe and comfort her, but she only shook her head, or pressed my fingers with her hot hand.

But the worst was when, by some trick of the brain, she thought herself back in the Inn-room again, when Cleeve had entered in his horrid uncouth dress, and with his yellow face and hands.

"He said he was my guardian," she ran on, in a dull low voice, "but I knew he was no one of this world. He said it was a foreign habit he had filched from a dead man he had been enforced to kill, and that he used it to escape detection of the watch. Ah! it is all escaping with us—escaping and killing! I knew he had some secret lurking-place near the river; he has often said so, and that he went disguised when any great danger threatened. The watch … and yet he used to laugh at it; but lately he has come to fear arrest: why is it? and so he killed an innocent man and took his coat to save himself.... His eyes, when he told me he had been waylaid at last, and almost at the Inn door! but he killed that man too, he said: he hindering him. Christ! how his eyes do sift you....

"These jewels in the jar, now, I know they have all been worn by men he has killed. I remember them perfectly well. There is the great cross the Spaniard wore; and these rings. I wonder when it was you murdered him. He was a fair-spoken gentleman, and I thought you were friends…

"I forgot. This is you, Denis, not he I call my guardian. I do not think he altogether trusts me any longer, although he gave me the jar to keep … and I have left it behind in the Inn. It was worth a king's ransom, he said, and ordered me to keep it by me until he should have finished a certain work he had below, that would not take him long. I have left it, and he will be angry … I fear him, Denis. He is calm as death when he is angry....

"And yet he can laugh too. He laughed when he told me of the Chinese he killed, and how he dared his fellow to betray him. Oh, he made a merry tale of it, and of his forcing the poor wretch to simulate a desire to take vengeance upon a man that had fled—when it was he, the murderer himself, remained behind! Yes, and he laughed at you, Denis, until my blood burnt me … I shall never forget his wrinkled heathen face as he laughed."

It may appear an incredible motion of my mind, but I could have cried out for joy at a diversion which, then befalling, served to turn Idonia from these crazed memories; albeit the cause was one properly, and at another time wholly, to be feared. For chancing to lift my eyes to one of the houses that be here builded by the water's edge, and serve doubtless for the storage of marine stores and tackle, I saw a man, and after, another, and then a whole posse of men armed with cuirass and halberd, that advanced directly towards us. Idonia saw them almost at the same moment, and seeming to recover her wits in the suddenness of the danger, she broke off, and turned to me with a swift glance of inquiry.

"Quick," I whispered; "down by the piles to the beach," and helped by the darkness of the night we scrambled off the path on to the ribbon of wet bank beneath it, where we crouched, perfectly concealed from the soldiers.

"Halt!" cried a voice above our heads, and the trampling footsteps ceased. "We be thirty men strong, and none too many for this business. Anthony, take you twelve and post them before the door. Six men go with Will Huet; see that none escape by the windows. There is a light burns at one yet. I will take the complement and go within. Now mark me well: our warrant is principally to the capture of Skene, alias Cleeve, and one Guido Malpas, that was of the Earl of Pembroke's household, but since discharged. He is a tall black man and a dangerous. It standeth upon us to apprehend the whole sort that here congregate together. They will make resistance and you will defend yourselves, but for the rest I have it in my authority that no blood be wasted needlessly. A live captive may prove useful; a dead villain is nothing worth. The password is At last. Set on."

Idonia had half risen from her place; she watched the retreating men as they filed along towards the Inn.

"I must warn him," she cried impetuously, and had clambered on to the turf path ere I could let her.

"What madness is this?" I urged, aghast. "You would yourself be arrested or ever you could get sight of that devil."

"Devil or no," she panted, while she struggled to unclasp my restraining arms, "devil or no, he is my guardian. Denis, I cannot stand by idle and see him taken."

"Sweetheart," I entreated her, "you can do nought, indeed. They be all armed men…"

"Hinder me no more!"

"Idonia!"

"Oh, it is cowardly, cowardly!"

"Listen," I said, appealing.

"Ah, Denis, let me not thus, or you will kill me.... See! they are close to the house already. A little while and…" Her voice rose to a scream of absolute terror that I vainly sought to stifle against my heart. She flung her head back; her hair, shaken from the filet and caught by the wind, streamed betwixt us like a cloud. We stood long thus.

"Loose my wrists," she whispered, "or I shall grow to hate you, Denis!" and methought there went a sort of awe with the words. I let her go, when suddenly, with a sob, she dropped down unresisting into my arms.

I knew she had spoken under the stress of her disorder, but none the less her words hurt me like a lash. It had revolted me to use my strength upon her, although in love, and to hold her so straitly against her will, who but a moment before had been leaning in free confidence beside me. The wind and rain were now increased to such a pitch as I have scarce known: the dim bulk of the Inn hung in a mist of swinging vapour, through which the glimmer of the one light aloft, shining, touched the edges of the slanted pikes.

Idonia was plucking weakly at my sleeve. Her eyes were pitifully big. "You look distressed, Denis," she said, in a crazed dull voice. "Why do you look so stern and sad? We are together.... I forget how I got away, but that does not matter now, does it? Some one was holding me by the wrist and hurting me. I cried out, and you came. You always come when they would be hurting me.... It is very cold," she shivered, and drew down more closely within my arms; all wet as her cheek was, its fever heat burnt through to my bosom.

"You cannot walk," I said: "I will carry you." But all the while I was thinking: "Is her reason gone?"

"Whither, Denis? To the Inn? It would be warm there, out of the wind."

"God forbid!" I answered her.

"Ah! no … I remember now. He is there.... His yellow face, and his eyes when he gave me the jar to keep! … Denis, Denis, Denis…"

And so, without any further effort to beat off the oppression in her brain and blood, she fell away into a long swoon: so long, indeed, that I had almost despaired of reviving her, when I bethought me of the Inn, to which she had hoped I was about to bear her. There would be strong cordial wine in the vault, I knew; and a cordial she needed instantly. I might quickly go and return again with the wine—if the vent were but open.

The Inn was scarce ten score paces distant. There was some risk, perhaps, but not great: less, surely, than I took, kneeling helpless beside her in the bitter storm. I bent over her and kissed her passionately on her eyes and lips and brow; and then I hastened away.

Had I known the upshot then, I would rather have lost my right hand than leave her; but that was in God's mercy hid....

To speak my bottom thought, I had hardly dared to hope that the shutter were still unhasped: but yet it was, and yielded easily to my touch. I felt a strange tightening of the throat as I pushed it back and leapt astride the sill. The vault below me was wholly dark. Without more ado I swung myself in. I missed my footing, fell, and lay stunned.

How long a while elapsed ere I recovered consciousness I know not, nor yet how long I remained in that intermediate state where things outward be still denied for real. A confusion of sounds assailed my aching brain, from which I recked not to gather any purpose or tendency. But at length, my head having somewhat cleared, I recalled my situation, where I was in the narrow passage-vault; and soon perceived that the sounds I had heard were those of men in earnest conference within one of the vaults adjacent, that had formerly been barred. The lamp which had lighted the passage had been removed, and from the pale ray that issued from the chink of the door, I saw it was now used for their purposes who spoke together beyond.

Without, the storm raged very furiously, so that there were times when I could hear nought else; but otherwhiles, whatever snatches of debate I overheard they went always to the continuous deep second of the wind. Some instinct of security held me silent, and after a little I dragged myself painfully along the stone floor, until I had my ear at the chink. The halberdiers were certainly not of the party; they had either not yet entered, or else had come and, failing to discover these men's place of concealment, had gone. A man was speaking; a jovial rough voice it was, interrupted now and again by careless laughter.

"You mind me of that tale of the two robbers," said the fellow, and I heard the clink of a cup set down, "that were engaged to set upon a certain Canon who should pass through the wood they lurked within. Now a passenger approaching, the one was for killing him out of hand, but his companion, being something scrupulous, would not, but bade him stay his hand until the man should sing.

"'I care not a jot how he sing,' says the Captain-robber.

"'Nay, by his singing I can tell in a trice whether he be a canon or no,' says the robber-squire.

"By this the passenger was got free of their ambush and into a place where two sheriff's men met him, at which he swore for mere joy.

"'I would he had sung,' says the squire.

"'Go to, buffle-head!' cries the other in a great rage, 'for by his swearing I know him for the Father Abbot himself, and better your squealing Canon, by how much noon-sun surpasses candle-light.'"

A round of hoarse merriment went to this shrewd apologue, of which I was yet to learn the application; but waited not long for it.

"So then, Cutts, 'hold to that you have,' is your advice, trow?"

"Ay, abbot or traitor, or barndoor fowl," replied Cutts (who was none other, I found, than he that had fled away from Dunster so long since); "'truss and lay by,' says the housewife."

"Well, you have me trussed already," said a mild voice, that for all its stillness overbore the murmurs which greeted Cutts his policy; and at the sound of it I caught in my breath, for 'twas my uncle that spoke, and by his words I knew they had him bound.

"I am not in case to do you harm, as a traitor, nor yet to benefit you as an abbot," my uncle proceeded very coolly. "But if it seem good to your worships to restore me my freedom, I have my proofs of innocence at hand to show to any that professes to doubt my faith."

"Too late for that, Master Skene," said another.

"Ay, Captain Spurrier, say you so?" returned my uncle, with a little menacing thrill in the sweet of his voice. "I had thought you that use the sea knew that one must luff and tack upon occasion. Delay is sometimes necessary, when haste would mean sudden shipwreck. Wherefore then do you say I speak too late?"

"Where is Malpas?" cried Captain Spurrier, and by the grating of a chair I perceived he had started to his feet.

"I had thought to meet him here," said my uncle. "Our design stays for him."

There was a dead pause at that, and I could not but admire the fortitude with which the baited man met and countered his opposites.

"He denounced you to this council, ere he went forth," said that subtle voice of the tavern-server, "and upon such positive testimony as we could not but allow it. If any lead this enterprise it is Malpas, and not thou, old fox."

"So thou use better terms, friend Jocelin," said Cleeve, "it shall not be amiss, nor yet if thou answer me why it was I returned freely hither amongst you all? Had I aught to gain from you? But rather had I not all to lose? There is a warrant out against me on the Queen's part; had I not done wisely, being so disguised as no man might know me, to avoid this suspected house? Yet I returned. Our ship is to sail to-morrow. Captain Spurrier is here in his place. What lacks of our engagement? What hath gone untowardly? Is it Malpas his failure? I ask of you in my turn, where is Malpas? Is it not strange that upon such a night he should not be here to bear his part, as I do, and Lucas Spurrier and Jocelin, and the rest? I say there is something I like not in this defection; but yet it fears me not. Let them that be faint-hearted stay away; this enterprise is not for cowards. Do you lack a leader? You trusted me once. Malpas trusted me, for all he cozened you into a belief that he did not so; but he is gone." He paused, and then with so strangely intense a malignancy as, despite my knowledge, I could scarce credit that 'twas assumed, he added: "Would that I knew whither Guido Malpas hath gone, and what to do!"

There was such clamour of contrary opinions, oaths and hot argument, when he had done, that I could not tell how it went, but gradually conceived the opinion that they believed him and were about to set him free, when, to my utter dismay, I heard the door at the stairhead open and heavy steps descend to the passage where I lay concealed. I crouched down on the instant, but dared not move from the place, nor indeed had the opportunity to retreat by one step, when the men were already in the room; but so dark it was I could not see their arms (for I doubted nothing of their being the halberdiers) nor their numbers that entered. They set the door open of the inner vault and trooped in upon the conspirators.

I saw them now. They were men that bore a body. The tide had set in again. The boat with its burden had returned upon the flood.

CHAPTER XXII

HOW MY UNCLE BOTOLPH LOST HIS LUCK

The tide had turned. The river had given up its dead. There was no appeal from this distorted corpse, smirched with yellow so about the throat and breast, where my uncle's painted hands had gripped him. Wedged deep in the dead man's heart (I heard it said) a certain significant shred of blue silk was found that had been drawn in by the swinging blade, and torn from the murderer's sleeve.... After that there needed nothing more, and my uncle's luck, which a moment since had trembled to its apogee, shot downward like a portent star.

My pretence to write calmly of the sequel, to use the ordinary speech of every day, I support not as purposing to deceive, for it would deceive none, but rather as impelled thereto, lest writing as I feel (even yet after so long an interval) I should seem to set down frenzy itself in character, and illegible wild words.

But I may at least report my uncle's apology, as above the clamour I caught the most of it; and here affirm that, lying infamous villain as he was, yet so consummate a dignity did mark his every motion, and as it were attended upon all the situations in which he stood, as enforced respect of those even who knew him altogether base.

His judges had found against him to a man.

"Well, then, you have it," said he in his cold clear voice, "and are content enough this Malpas should have died, so you bring me in his slayer. You little men! I found a scorpion in my path and trampled on him; that's the sum of my offending. Or is it not? Nay, I had forgot the chief; that I would not betray my country, as you petty thieves would have done, and thought I did. What will you get of the Spaniards, prythee? Money, honours or what? Will those creeping Jesuits bestead you? Oh, you have their pledged words! I had as much. More; for I had their secret plans of conquest; their Enterprise of England forsooth! as they sat gnawing their crusts in my hall. There was to be an universal uprising of Papists, they told me; mutinies of the Queen's troops, and such; baubles of a fool!