Judith Shakespeare: Her love affairs and other adventures

"But if one were in distress, Prudence," said the other, absently, "perchance with a false charge hanging over him that could be disproved – say that one were in hiding, and only anxious to prove his innocence, or to get away from the country, is my father likely to look coldly on such a one in misfortune? No, no, surely, sweet mouse!"

"But of whom do you speak, Judith?" exclaimed her friend, regarding her with renewed alarm. "It cannot be that you know of such a one? Judith, I beseech you speak plainly! You have met with some stranger that is unknown to your own people? You said you had but put a case, but now you speak as if you knew the man. I beseech you, for the love between us, speak plainly to me, Judith!"

"I may not," said the other rising. And then she added, more lightly, "Nay, have no fear, sweet Prue; if there be any danger, it is not I that run it, and soon there will be no occasion for my withholding the secret from you, if secret there be."

"I cannot understand you, Judith," said her friend, with the pale, gentle face full of a tender wistfulness and anxiety.

"Such timid eyes!" said Judith, laughing good-naturedly. "Indeed, Prudence, I have seen no ghost, and goodman Wizard has failed me utterly; nor sprite nor phantom has been near me. In sooth I have buried poor Tom's bit of rosemary to little purpose. And now I must get me home, for Master Parson comes this afternoon, and I will but wait the preaching to hear Susan sing: 'tis worth the penance. Farewell, sweet mouse; get you rid of your alarm. The sky will clear all in good time."

So they kissed each other, and she left; still in much perplexity, it is true, but nevertheless resolved to tell the young man honestly and plainly the result of her inquiries.

As it turned out, she was to hear something more about the King and politics and religion that afternoon; for when she got home to New Place, Master Blaise was already there, and he was eagerly discussing with Judith's mother and her sister the last news that had been brought from London; or rather he was expounding it, with emphatic assertions and denunciations that the women-folk received for the most part with a mute but quite apparent sympathy. He was a young man of about six-and-twenty, rather inclined to be stout, but with strongly lined features, fair complexion and hair, an intellectual forehead, and sharp and keen gray eyes. The one point that recommended him to Judith's favor – which he openly and frankly, but with perfect independence, sought – was the uncompromising manner in which he professed his opinions. These frequently angered her, and even at times roused her to passionate indignation; and yet, oddly enough, she had a kind of lurking admiration for the very honesty that scorned to curry favor with her by means of any suppression or evasion. It may be that there was a trace of the wisdom of the serpent in this attitude of the young parson, who was shrewd-headed as well as clear-eyed, and was as quick as any to read the fearless quality of Judith's character. At all events, he would not yield to any of her prejudices; he would not stoop to flatter her; he would not abate one jot of his protests against the vanity and pride, the heathenish show and extravagance, of women; the heinousness and peril of indifferentism in matters of doctrine; and the sinfulness of the life of them that countenanced stage plays and such like devilish iniquities. It was this last that was the real stumbling-block and contention between them. Sometimes Judith's eyes burned. Once she rose and got out of the room. "If I were a man, Master Parson," she was saying to herself, with shut teeth, "by the life of me I would whip you from Stratford town to Warwick!" And indeed there was ordinarily a kind of armed truce between these two, so that no stranger or acquaintance could very easily decide what their precise relations were, although every one knew that Judith's mother and sister held the young divine in great favor, and would fain have had him of the family.

At this moment of Judith's entrance he was much exercised, as has been said, on account of the news that was but just come from London – how that the King was driving at still further impositions because of the Commons begrudging him supplies; and naturally Master Blaise warmly approved of the Commons, that had been for granting the liberties to the Puritans which the King had refused. And not only was this the expression of a general opinion on the subject, but he maintained as an individual – and as a very emphatic individual too – that the prerogatives of the crown, the wardships and purveyances and what not, were monstrous and abominable, and a way of escape from the just restraint of Parliament, and he declared with a sudden vehemence that he would rather perish at the stake than contribute a single benevolence to the royal purse. Judith's mother, a tall, slight, silver-haired woman, with eyes that had once been of extraordinary beauty, but now were grown somewhat sad and worn, and her daughter Susanna Hall, who was darker than her sister Judith as regarded hair and eyebrows, but who had blue-gray eyes of a singular clearness and quickness and intelligence, listened and acquiesced; but perhaps they were better pleased when they found the young parson come out of that vehement mood; though still he was sharp of tongue and sarcastic, saying as an excuse for the King that now he was revenging himself on the English Puritans for the treatment he had received at the hands of the Scotch Presbyterians, who had harried him not a little. He had not a word for Judith; he addressed his discourse entirely to the other two. And she was content to sit aside, for indeed this discontent with the crown on the part of the Puritans was nothing strange or novel to her, and did not in the least help to solve her present perplexity.

And now the maids (for Judith's father would have no serving-men, nor stable-men, nor husbandmen of any grade whatever, come within-doors; the work of the house was done entirely by women-folk) entered to prepare the long oaken table for supper, seeing which Master Blaise suggested that before that meal it might be as well to devote a space to divine worship. So the maids were bidden to stay their preparations, and to remain, seating themselves dutifully on a bench brought crosswise, and the others sat at the table in their usual chairs, while the preacher opened the large Bible that had been fetched for him, and proceeded to read the second chapter of the Book of Jeremiah, expounding as he went along. This running commentary was, in fact, a sermon applied to all the evils of the day, as the various verses happened to offer texts; and the ungodliness and the vanity and the turning away from the Lord that Jeremiah lamented were attributed in no unsparing fashion to the town of Stratford and the inhabitants thereof: "Hear ye the word of the Lord, O house of Jacob, and all the families of the house of Israel: thus saith the Lord, What iniquity have your fathers found in me, that they are gone far from me, and have walked after vanity, and are become vain?" Nor did he spare himself and his own calling: "The priests said not, Where is the Lord? and they that should minister the law knew me not: the pastors also offended against me, and the prophets prophesied in Baal, and went after things that did not profit." And there were bold paraphrases and inductions, too: "What hast thou now to do in the way of Egypt, to drink the waters of Nilus? or what makest thou in the way of Asshur, to drink the waters of the river?" Was not that the seeking of strange objects – of baubles, and jewels, and silks, and other instruments of vanity – from abroad, from the papist land of France, to lure the eye and deceive the senses, and turn away the mind from the dwelling on holy things? "Can a maid forget her ornament, or the bride her attire? yet my people have forgotten me days without number." This was, indeed, a fruitful text, and there is no doubt that Judith was indirectly admonished to regard the extreme simplicity of her mother's and sister's attire; so that there can be no excuse whatever for her having in her mind at this very moment some vague fancy that as soon as supper was over she would go to her own chamber and take out a certain beaver hat. She did not often wear it, for it was a present that her father had once brought her from London, and it was ranked among her most precious treasures; but surely on this evening (she was saying to herself) it was fitting that she should wear it, not from any personal vanity, but to the end that this young gentleman, who seemed to know several of her father's acquaintances in London, should understand that the daughter of the owner of New Place was no mere country wench, ignorant of what was in the fashion. It is grievous that she should have been concerned with such frivolous thoughts. However, the chapter came to an end in due time.

Then good Master Blaise said that they would sing the One-hundred-and-thirty-seventh Psalm; and this was truly what Judith had been waiting for. She herself was but an indifferent singer. She could do little more than hum such snatches of old songs as occurred to her during her careless rambles, and that only for her private ear; but her sister Susanna had a most noble, pure, and clear contralto voice, that could at any time bring tears to Judith's eyes, and that, when she joined in the choral parts of the service in church, made many a young man's heart tremble strangely. In former days she used to sing to the accompaniment of her lute; but that was given over now. Once or twice Judith had brought the discarded instrument to her, and said,

"Susan, sweet Susan, for once, for once only, sing to me 'The rose is from my garden gone.'"

"Why, then – to make you cry, silly one?" the elder sister would answer. "What profit those idle tears, child, that are but a luxury and a sinful indulgence?"

"Susan, but once!" Judith would plead (with the tears almost already in her eyes) – "once only, 'The rose is from my garden gone.' There is none can sing it like you."

But the elder sister was obdurate, as she considered was right; and Judith, as she walked through the meadows in the evening, would sometimes try the song for herself, thinking, or endeavoring to think, that she could hear in it the pathetic vibrations of her sister's voice. Indeed, at this moment the small congregation assembled around the table would doubtless have been deeply shocked had they known with what a purely secular delight Judith was now listening to the words of the psalm. There was but one Bible in the house, so that Master Blaise read out the first two lines (lest any of the maids might have a lax memory):

"When as we sat in Babylon,The rivers round about;"

and that they sang; then they proceeded in like manner:

"And in remembrance of Sion,The tears for grief burst out;We hanged our harps and instrumentsThe willow-trees upon;For in that place men for their useHad planted many a one."

It is probable, indeed, that Judith was so wrapped up in her sister's singing that it did not occur to her to ask herself whether this psalm, too, had not been chosen with some regard to the good preacher's discontent with those in power. At all events, he read out, and they sang, no further than these two verses:

"Then they to whom we prisoners were,Said to us tauntingly:Now let us hear your Hebrew songsAnd pleasant melody.Alas! (said we) who can once frameHis sorrowful heart to singThe praises of our loving GodThus under a strange king?"But yet if I JerusalemOut of my heart let slide,Then let my fingers quite forgetThe warbling harp to guide;And let my tongue within my mouthBe tied forever fast,If that I joy before I seeThy full deliverance past."

Then there was a short and earnest prayer; and, that over, the maids set to work to get forward the supper; and young Willie Hart was called in from the garden – Judith's father being away at Wilmcote on some important business there. In due course of time, supper being finished, and a devout thanksgiving said, Judith was free; and instantly she fled away to her own chamber to don her bravery. It was not vanity (she again said to herself), it was that her father's daughter should show that she knew what was due to him and his standing in the town; and indeed, as she now regarded herself in the little mirror – she wore a half-circle farthingale, and had on one of her smartest ruffs – and when she set on her head of short brown curls this exceedingly pretty hat (it was a gray beaver above, and underneath it was lined with black satin, and all around the rim was a row of hollow brass beads that tinkled like small bells), she was quite well satisfied with her appearance, and that she was fairly entitled to be. Then she went down and summoned her sweetheart Willie, to act as her companion and protector and ally; and together these two passed forth from the house – into the golden clear evening.

CHAPTER VII.

A FAREWELL

Always, when she got out into the open air, her spirits rose into a pure content; and now, as they were walking westward through the peaceful meadows, the light of the sunset was on her face; and there was a kind of radiance there, and careless happiness, that little Willie Hart scarce dared look upon, so abject and wistful was the worship that the small lad laid at his pretty cousin's feet. He was a sensitive and imaginative boy; and the joy and crown of his life was to be allowed to walk out with his cousin Judith, her hand holding his; and it did not matter to him whether she spoke to him, or whether she was busy with her private thinking, and left him to his own pleasure and fancies. He had many of these; for he had heard of all kinds of great and noble persons – princesses, and empresses, and queens; but to him his cousin Judith was the Queen of queens; he could not believe that any one ever was more beautiful – or more gentle and lovable, in a magical and mystical way – than she was; and in church, on the quiet Sunday mornings, when the choir was singing, and all else silence, and dreams were busy in certain small brains, if there were any far-away pictures of angels in white and shining robes, coming toward one through rose-red celestial gardens, be sure they had Judith's eyes and the light and witchery of these; and that, when they spoke (if such wonderful creatures vouchsafed to speak), it was with the softness of Judith's voice. So it is not to be conceived that Judith, who knew something of this mute and secret adoration, had any malice in her heart when, on this particular evening, she began to question the boy as to the kind of sweetheart he would choose when he was grown up: the fact being that she spoke from idleness, and a wish to be friendly and companionable, her thoughts being really occupied elsewhere.

"Come now, Willie, tell me," said she, "what sort of one you will choose, some fifteen or twenty years hence, when you are grown up to be a man, and will be going abroad from place to place. In Coventry, perchance, you may find her, or over at Evesham, or in Warwick, or Worcester, or as far away as Oxford; in all of them are plenty of pretty maidens to be had for the asking, so you be civil-spoken enough, and bear yourself well. Now tell me your fancy, sweetheart; what shall her height be?"

"Why, you know, Judith," said he, rather shamefacedly. "Just your height."

"My height?" she said, carelessly. "Why, that is neither the one way nor the other. My father says I am just as high as his heart; and with that I am content. Well, now, her hair – what color of hair shall she have?"

"Like yours, Judith; and it must come round about her ears like yours," said he, glancing up for a moment.

"Eyes: must they be black, or gray, or brown, or blue? nay, you shall have your choice, sweetheart Willie; there be all sorts, if you go far enough afield and look around you. What eyes do you like, now?"

"You know well, Judith, there is no one has such pretty eyes as you; these are the ones I like, and no others."

"Bless the boy! – would you have her to be like me?"

"Just like you, Judith – altogether," said he, promptly; and he added, more shyly, "for you know there is none as pretty, and they all of them say that."

"Marry, now!" said she, with a laugh. "Here be news. What? When you go choosing your sweetheart, would you pick out one that had as large hands as these?"

She held forth her hands, and regarded them; and yet with some complacency, for she had put on a pair of scented gloves which her father had brought her from London, and these were beautifully embroidered with silver, for he knew her tastes, and that she was not afraid to wear finery, whatever the preachers might say.

"Why, you know, Judith," said he, "that there is none has such pretty hands as you, nor so white, nor so soft."

"Heaven save us! am I perfection, then?" she cried (but she was pleased). "Must she be altogether like me?"

"Just so, Cousin Judith; altogether like you; and she must wear pretty things like you, and walk as you walk, and speak like you, else I shall not love her nor go near her, though she were the Queen herself."

"Well said, sweetheart Willie! – you shall to the court some day, if you can speak so fair. And shall I tell you, now, how you must woo and win such a one?" she continued, lightly. "It may be you shall find her here or there – in a farm-house, perchance; or she may be a great lady with her coach; or a wench in an ale-house; but if she be as you figure her, this is how you shall do: you must not grow up to be too nice and fine and delicate-handed; you must not bend too low for her favor; but be her lord and governor; and you must be ready to fight for her, if need there be – yes, you shall not suffer a word to be said in dispraise of her; and for slanderers you must have a cudgel and a stout arm withal; and yet you must be gentle with her, because she is a woman; and yet not too gentle, for you are a man; and you must be no slape-face, with whining through the nose that we are all devilish and wicked and the children of sin; and you must be no tavern-seeker, with oaths and drunken jests and the like; and when you find her you must be the master of her – and yet a gentle master: marry, I cannot tell you more; but, as I hope for heaven, sweet Willie, you will do well and fairly if she loves thee half as much as I do."

And she patted the boy's head. What sudden pang was it that went through his heart?

"They say you are going to marry Parson Blaise, Judith," said he, looking up at her.

"Do they, now?" said she, with a touch of color in her face. "They are too kind that would take from me the business of choosing for myself."

"Is it true, Judith?"

"It is but idle talk; heed it not, sweetheart," said she, rather sharply. "I would they were as busy with their fingers as with their tongues; there would be more wool spun in Warwickshire!"

But here she remembered that she had no quarrel with the lad, who had but innocently repeated the gossip he had heard; and so she spoke to him in a more gentle fashion; and, as they were now come to a parting of the ways, she said that she had a message to deliver, and bade him go on by himself to the cottage, and have some flowers gathered for her from out of the garden by the time she should arrive. He was a biddable boy, and went on without further question. Then she turned off to the left, and in a few minutes was in the wide and wooded lane where she was to meet the young gentleman that had appealed to her friendliness.

And there, sure enough, he was; and as he came forward, hat in hand, to greet her, those eloquent black eyes of his expressed so much pleasure (and admiration of a respectful kind) that Judith became for a moment a trifle self-conscious, and remembered that she was in unusually brave attire. There may have been something else: some quick remembrance of the surprise and alarm of the morning; and also – in spite of her determination to banish such unworthy fancies – some frightened doubt as to whether, after all, there might not be a subtle connection between her meeting with this young gentleman and the forecasts of the wizard. This was but for a moment, but it confused her in what she had intended to say (for, in crossing the meadows, she had been planning out certain speeches as well as talking idly to Willie Hart), and she was about to make some stumbling confession to the effect that she had obtained no clear intelligence from her gossip Prudence Shawe, when the young gentleman himself absolved her from all further difficulty.

"I beseech your pardon, sweet lady," said he, "that I have caused you so much trouble, and that to no end; for I am of a mind now not to carry the letter to your father, whatever hopes there might be of his sympathy and friendship."

She stared in surprise.

"Nay, but, good sir," said she, "since you have the letter, and are so near to Stratford, that is so great a distance from London, surely it were a world of pities you did not see my father. Not that I can honestly gather that he would have any favor for a desperate enterprise upsetting the peace of the land – "

"I am in none such, Mistress Judith, believe me," said he, quickly. "But it behooves me to be cautious; and I have heard that within the last few hours which summons me away. If I were inclined to run the risk, there is no time at this present: and what I can do now is to try to thank you for the kindness you have shown to one that has no habit of forgetting."

"You are going away forthwith?" said she.

There was no particular reason why she should be sorry at his departure from the neighborhood, except that he was an extraordinarily gentle-spoken young man, and of a courteous breeding, whom her father, as she thought, would have been pleased to welcome as being commended from his friend Ben Jonson. Few visitors came to New Place; the faces to be met with there were grown familiar year after year. It seemed a pity that this stranger – and so fair-spoken a stranger, moreover – should be close at hand, without making her father's acquaintance.

"Yes, sweet lady," said he, in the same respectful way, "it is true that I must quit my present lodging for a time; but I doubt whether I could find anywhere a quieter or securer place – nay, I have no reason to fear you; I will tell you freely that it is Bassfield Farm, that is on the left before you go down the hill to Bidford; and it is like enough I may come back thither, when that I see how matters stand with me in London."

And then he glanced at her with a certain diffidence.

"Perchance I am too daring," said he; "and yet your courtesy makes me bold. Were I to communicate with you when I return – "

He paused, and his hesitation well became him; it was more eloquent in its modesty than many words.

"That were easily done," said Judith at once, and with her usual frankness; "but I must tell you, good sir, that any written message you might send me I should have to show to my friend and gossip Prudence Shawe, that reads and writes for me, being so skilled in that; and when you said that to no one was the knowledge to be given that you were in this neighborhood – "

"Sweet lady," said he, instantly, with much gratitude visible in those handsome dark eyes, "if I may so far trespass on your goodness, I would leave that also within your discretion. One that you have chosen to be your friend must needs be trustworthy – nay, I am sure of that."

"But my father too, good sir – "

"Nay, not so," said he, with some touch of entreaty in his voice. "Take it not ill of me, but one that is in peril must use precautions for his safety, even though they savor of ill manners and suspicion."

"As you will, sir – as you will; I know little of such matters," Judith said. "But yet I know that you do wrong to mistrust my father."

"Nay, dearest lady," he said, quickly, "it is you that do me wrong to use such words. I mistrust him not; but, indeed, I dare not disclose to him the charge that is brought against me until I have clearer proofs of my innocence, and these I hope to have in time, when I may present myself to your father without fear. Meanwhile, sweet Mistress Judith, I can but ill express my thanks to you that you have vouchsafed to lighten the tedium of my hiding through these few words that have passed between us. Did you know the dulness of the days at the farm – for sad thoughts are but sorry companions – you would understand my gratitude toward you – "

"Nay, nothing, good sir, nothing," said she; and then she paused, in some difficulty. She did not like to bid him farewell without any reference whatsoever to the future; for in truth she wished to hear more of him, and how his fortunes prospered. And yet she hesitated about betraying so much interest – of however distant and ordinary a kind – in the affairs of a stranger. Her usual frank sympathy conquered: besides, was not this unhappy young man the friend of her father's friend?