John Bennett

“ There is a half-light in the hour of an eclipse which casts a weird spell on the world, when the sun is but a narrow crescent at high noon and the earth grows oddly dim in an untimely dusk. Such a dusk was fallen upon Margot Lagoux.
Sultry beauty such as hers has ever an early afternoon; but this was more than sultry beauty’s early afternoon. Not day, not darkness yet, but dusk went with her everywhere like twilight in the woods. The sun shone brightly everywhere along a sparkling world, [101] but on Margot lay a shadow, strange and sinister. ”

“ Nick ran to the gate at the top of his speed. In the crowd afar off a yellow spot went fluttering like a butterfly along a country road. Without a single second thought, he followed it as fast as his legs could go.
Twice he lost it in the throng. But the yellow patch bobbed up again in the sunlight far beyond, and led him on, and on, and on, a breathless chase, down empty lanes and alley-ways, through unfrequented courts, among the warehouses and wharf-sheds along the river-front, into the kennels of Billingsgate, where the only sky was a ragged slit between the leaning roofs. ”

“ Then followed laughter and scraps of song, merry talking, and good cheer, for they all made glad together.
Across the fields beyond the hedge the pathway ran through Paris Garden, stark and clear in the white moon-shine, save here and there where the fog from the marsh crept down to meet the river-mist, and blotted out the landscape as it went. In the north lay London, stirring like a troubled sea. In the south was drowsy silence, save for the crowing of the cocks, and now and then the baying of a hound far off. The smell of bears was on the air; the river-wind breathed kennels. ”

“ Margot’s eyes hunted from [22] side to side as do a deer’s hard pressed by the dogs—can one elude destiny?
Where were the lovely and the fair she had known in her own youth? Dead, long ago; the graveyard sand lay cold upon their lips; their passion and their sweetness were forgotten long ago. Margot knew that youth and summer night are made for ecstasy. She knew, too, that in forgotten graveyards are many unmarked graves of hapless beauty. Looking into the mirror where life is stripped of its illusions, and truth stands stark and bare in its unmitigated ugliness, panic terror seized Margot. ”

“ Colley Warren was Nick’s best friend—a dark-eyed, quiet lad, as gentle as a girl, and with a mouth like a girl’s mouth, for which the others sometimes mocked him, though they loved him none the less.
It was not because his voice was loud that it could be so distinctly heard; but it was nothing like the rest, and came through all the others like sunshine through a mist. Nick pulled the stool up closer, and sat down in the chimney-corner, humming a second to the tune, and blowing little glory-holes in the embers with the bellows. He liked the smell of a wood fire, and liked to toast his toes. ”

“ The great house stood a ruin above a ruined court, a wreck of its former pride and splendor, black and foul; the fountain had fallen long ago, its pipes strangled and eaten away to crusts of lead and thready ribs of iron in the sand. Lilac lane was gone; there was no lane there any more, and had [106] been none for years; there was no trace of where it ran, its hedge-rows or its gardens, or of Margot’s cottage other than a mouldering heap of broken brick, bleak rafters of the fallen roof, and one stark, fallen gable; of Gabrielle’s garden nothing remained. ”

“ Why, indeed, thou lookest like a good boy! Why wilt thou be so bad and break my father’s heart?”
“Break thy father’s heart?” stammered Nick. “Pr’ythee, who is thy father, Mistress Princess?”
“Nay,” said the little maid, simply; “I am no princess. I am Cicely Carew.”
“Cicely Carew?” cried Nick, clenching his fists. “Art thou the daughter of that wicked man, Gaston Carew?”
“My father is not wicked!” said she, passionately, drawing back from the threshold with her hand trembling upon the latch. “Thou shalt not say that—I will not speak with thee at all!” ”

“ A flame was in her eyes which is in a maiden’s eyes but once, when love first lays his hands upon her heart. So transfigured was she, she seemed a winged creature. She loved; she was beloved; inarticulate ecstasy! Hands, feet, neck, and face told but one story. Her eyes shone like blazing stars; the roses had returned to her pale lips, the freshness to her wan cheeks.
Margot watched her with narrowed eyes.
“Mother, I am happy; so happy that I do not want to die; I want to live forever!” ”

“ Over the river, and over the town, and over the hills that lay blue in the north, was Stratford!
The damp, cool air from the garden below seemed a primrose whiff from the lane behind his father’s house. He could hear the cocks crowing in Surrey, and the lowing of the kine. There was a robin singing in a bush under the window, and there was some one in the garden with a pair of pruning-shears. Snip-snip! snip-snip! he heard them going. The light in the east was pink as a peach-bloom and too intense to bear. ”

“ Margot’s delight in her daughter’s beauty was turned into bitterness. “Peace!” she cried. “And leave me. [36] All this will pass away.” But, deep within, her heart said, “Never!” Innocence will be indiscreet. Sin alone is always clever. And in youth great things are lightly asked and lightly given. “Go!” she cried to Gabrielle.
Gabrielle left the room. Margot buried her face in her hands.
It is hard for woman to stand alone and to resist temptation forever. Soon or late the black moment comes; reason is off guard; prudence abandons her; caution is thrown to the winds: passion betrays. ”

“ Yet when they marched into the quaint old town to the blare of trumpets and the crash of the kettledrums, all the long line gaudy with the coat-armour of the Lord High Admiral beneath their flaunting banners, and the horses pricked up their ears and arched their necks and pranced along the crowded streets, Nick, stared at by all the good townsfolk, could not help feeling a thrill of pride that he was one of the great company of players, and sat up very straight and held his head up haughtily as Master Carew did, and bore himself with as lordly an air as he knew how. ”

“ Her lips were pomegranate blossoms; her cheeks were wild peach flowers; it was a boy’s dream, a dream of joy, a dream of heart’s delight! Her waist was as a willow-withe, her voice a bird in the deep wood calling; her feet danced fantasies in his heart. He came all in the daze of a boy’s dream, a dream of joy, a dream of heart’s desire. With every eager breath he drew in the hyacinthine fragrance of the night.
All day long, like a sullen army, a [75] great cloud heaved and gloomed along the west, with wind-blown vapors streaming around its thunderous heights. ”

“ The window faced the north, and in the night, wakened by some outcry in the street below, Nick had leaned his log-pillow against the wainscot, and, climbing up, looked out into the sky. It was clear, for a wonder, and the stars were very bright. The moon, like a smoky golden platter, rose behind the eastern towers of the town, and in the north hung the Great Wain pointing at the polar star.
Somewhere underneath those stars was Stratford. The throstles would be singing in the orchard there now, when the sun was low and the cool wind came up from the river with a little whispering in the lane. ”

“ In all the town there were none so pretty, none so graceful or so sweet, as the golden girls of San Domingo. They flowed along the windy streets, their turbans nodding, like a stream of tulips. They fluttered down the byways in their white muslin dresses like bevies [8] of butterflies. The loveliness of their slender bodies and the beauty of their youthful faces were far beyond all dull description; they were a bed of tiger-lilies in the sun. The earth loved the tread of their flying feet, which seemed to be forever dancing pastourelles ”

“ Then they were gone behind the curtain, into the shadow and the twilight there, Colley with his arms about Nick’s neck, not quite laughing, not quite sobbing. The manuscript of the Revel lay torn in two upon the floor, and Master Gyles had a foot upon each piece.
In the hall beyond the curtain was a silence that was deeper than a hush, a stillness rising from the hearts of men.
Then Elizabeth turned in the chair where she sat. Her eyes were as bright as a blaze. And out of the sides of her eyes she looked at the Venetian ambassador. ”

“ Here is an irremediable disease which baffles the skill of the physicians. Margot recoiled as she faced the future. Time had become a terror. Burning tears flowed down her cheeks. There is no woe so sickening as the monotone of fear, the shuddering, interior sense of impending catastrophe. [37] Nor is it eased by the strange apathy which is granted to the doomed. Margot groaned in an agony, half remorse, half apprehension. Could God set so foul a seal upon so fair a thing?
Again on a day Gabrielle came in from the garden, her eyes dry-burning and famine-bright. “Mother, give me a lover!” ”

“ What! These legs, that have put on the very gentleman in proud Verona’s streets, laid in Stratford’s common stocks, like a silly apprentice’s slouching heels? Nay, nay; some one should taste old Bless-his-heart here first!” and with that he clapped his hand upon the hilt of his poniard, with a wonderful swaggering tilt of his shoulders. “Dost take me, boy?”
“Why, sir,” hesitated Nick, no little awed by the stranger’s wild words and imperious way, “ye surely are the master-player.”
“There!” cried the stranger, whirling about, as if defying some one in the hedge. ”

“ He looked; he listened; and his heart stood still; save for the glow-worm and the moth there was nothing alive there but him. Like the chill which creeps across the matted grass of evening in the last fair days of autumn, full of the faded fragrance and haunted dusk of fall, a wordless dread stole over him. The moonlight gleamed on the cottage-wall with a singular, mournful splendor; a heavy wind began to stir the trees; immensely mournful, faint and far-away, there came a boom of thunder from beyond the rim of the world ”

“ Little motes floated up and down these thin blue bars, wavering in the uncertain light and then lost in the darkness. Upon the floor was a pallet of straw, covered with a coarse sheet, and having a rough coverlet of sheepskin. A round log was the only pillow.
Something moved. Nick, startled, peered into the shadows: it was a strip of ragged tapestry which fluttered on the wall. As he watched it flapping fitfully there came a hollow rattle in the wainscot, and an uncanny sound like the moaning of wind in the chimney. ”

“ Her daughters married and were fruitful, bearing children fair as an April day, with eyes like the sky of the morning. For them, for her, the world rolled on in unperturbed peace.
But she never saw her golden lad again.
Something inscrutable, deeper than whim, had come over Margot Lagoux. Her work was oddly altered: it had more air, less ease; more spell, less charm; more force, and less dexterity. The stuffs she chose no longer were notable for the exquisite, wan delicacy which so becomes the pallor of high-bred beauty; she took an incomprehensible joy in vivid color ”

“ Why, Nick, of course thou’lt sing. Thou hast not heart to say thou wilt not sing—even for me whom thou hatest.”
Nick smiled in spite of himself, for Cicely was leaning on the arm of his chair, devouring him with her great dark eyes: “Dost truly, truly sing?” she asked.
Nick laughed and blushed, and Carew laughed. “What, doth he sing? Why, Nick, come, tune that skylark note of thine for little Golden-heart and me. ’Twill make her think she hears the birds in verity—and, Nick, the lass hath never seen a bird that sang, except within a cage. Nay, lad, this is no cage!” ”

“ The earth was transfigured with beauty.
It was a golden age, when all things were fair; nothing had grown old; even the tragic and the terrible were comely then. Wonder lay on everything. Merely to exist was to be happy. It was a world of unextinguished youth; life was brimful to the lips with delight.
In the gardens rare flowers bloomed, and rare fruits ripened,—pomegranates, oranges, medlars, figs, jujubes, and the purple Indian peach ”

“ The ragged stretches of Snitterfield downs scrambled away to the left; and on the right, beyond Bearley, were the wooded uplands where Guy of Warwick and Heraud of Arden slew the wild ox and the boar. And down through the midst ran the Avon southward, like a silver ribbon slipped through Kendal green, to where the Stour comes down, past Luddington, to Bidford, and away to the misty hills.
“Why,” exclaimed the master-player—“why, upon my word, it is a fair town—as fair a town as the heart of man could wish. Wish? I wish ’t were sunken in the sea, with all its pack of fools! ”

“ Then Gabrielle grew tired and white. Her hand became tremulous; her light foot stumbled; she left off dancing in the garden. She sighed wistfully; her song ceased; her mouth showed scarcely a smile’s wasted ghost. Her eyes, like those of a wounded creature, followed everywhere; her tears flowed at nothing. She grew as languid as a withering flower. The light of her seemed going out. The pallor of her face and the feverish luster of her eyes startled and frightened Margot.
Days dragged a laggard length; night still more oppressed her. She lay awake, whispering with dry lips she knew not what ”

“ Nick made haste to rise, but could not stifle a sharp cry of pain as he staggered to his feet, he was so racked and sore with riding.
At the boy’s smothered cry Carew turned, and his dark face softened with a sudden look of pity and concern. “Why, Nick, my lad,” he cried, and hurried to his side, “this is too bad, indeed!” and without more words took him gently in his arms and carried him down to the courtyard well, where he bathed him softly from neck to heel in the cold, refreshing water, and wiped him with a soft, clean towel as tenderly as if he had been the lad’s own mother. ”

“ Margot kept it a solitude lest Gabrielle suffer corruption, and around her maintained a veritable nunnery of care, hovered over her, and kept her as close withdrawn as a novice in a convent-garth.
But beauty cannot be sequestered always safely anywhere. Cloistral life is very well for souls of cloistral nature and of the convent sort; but youth and spring hate convents, and will have life’s novitiate, or none. There is a crevice in every hedge, no matter how tall or how thick it may be, and through it, ever, Gabrielle peeps. ”

“ The wind was blowing both warm and cool; and, oh, the blithe breeze of the English springtime! Nick went up the green hills, and down the white dells like a leaf in the wind, now ahead and now behind the winding train, or off into the woods and over the fields for a posy-bunch for Cicely, calling and laughing back at her, and filling her lap with flowers and ferns until the cart was all one great, sweet-smelling bower. ”

“ There was no door without a gorgeous usher, no room without a page, no corridor without a guard, no post without a man of noble birth to fill it.
On the walls of the great gallery were masterly paintings of great folk, globes showing all the stars fast in the sky, and drawings of the world and all its parts, so real that one could see the savages in the New World hanging to the under side by their feet, like flies upon the ceiling. How they stuck was more than Nick could make out ”

“ People were coming and going through the gates like bees about a hive, and in the distance Nick could hear the sound of many voices, the rush of feet, wheels, and hoofs, and the shrill pipe of music. Here and there were little knots of country folk making holiday: a father and mother with a group of rosy children; a lad and his lass, spruce in new finery, and gay with bits of ribbon—merry groups that were ever changing. Gay banners flapped on tall ash staves. The suburb fields were filled with booths and tents and stalls and butts for archery. ”

“ At that the hostler, whip in hand, and the tapster with his bit, were off as fast as their legs could carry them, bawling “Stop, thief, stop!” at the top of their lungs; and at their backs every idle varlet about the inn—grooms, stable-boys, and hangers-on—ran whooping, howling, and hallooing like wild huntsmen.
Nick’s frightened heart was in his mouth, and his breath came quick and sharp. Tap-a-tap, tap-a-tap went his feet on the cobblestones as down the long street he flew, running as he had never run before. ”

“ The mists were rising from the meadows; earth and sky were blending on the hills; a little silver sickle moon hung in the fading violet, low in the western sky. Under an old oak in a green place a fiddler and a piper were playing, and youths and maidens were dancing in the brown light. Some little chaps were playing blindman’s-buff near by, and the older folk were gathered by the tree.
Nick came straight to where they stood, and bowing, he and Cicely together, doffed his cap, and said in his most London tone, “We bid ye all good-e’en, good folk.” ”

“ Colley turned red, then very pale. “That I may stay in the palace forever and sing for your Majesty,” said he. His fingers shivered in Nick’s.
“Now that is right prettily asked,” she cried, and was well pleased. “Thou shalt indeed stay for a singing page in our household—a voice and a face like thine are merry things upon a rainy Monday. And thou, Master Lark,” said she, fanning the hair back from Nick’s forehead with her perfumed fan—“thou that comest up out of the field with a song like the angels sing—what wilt thou have: that thou mayst sing in our choir and play on the lute for us?” ”

“ But the fog still sifted through the streets, and all was damp and sticky to the touch, so Cicely was left behind to loneliness and disappointment.
Nick and the master-player came down Ludgate Hill to Blackfriars landing in a stream of merrymakers, high and low, rich and poor, faring forth to London’s greatest thoroughfare, the Thames; and as the river and the noble mansions along the Strand came into view, Nick’s heart beat fast. It was a sight to stir the pulse. ”

“ Come, Nick, I’ve promised Tom Heywood that thou shouldst sing his song; and, lad, there’s no one left in all the land to sing it if thou’lt not. Tom doth dearly love thee, lad—why, sure, thou hast seen that! And, Nick, I’ve promised all the company that thou wouldst sing Tom’s song with us to-night. ’Twill break their hearts if thou wilt not. ”

“ In places where the woods crept very near they pressed closer together and rode rapidly; and the horse-boy and the grooms lit up the matches of their pistolets, and laid their harquebuses ready in rest, and blew the creeping sparkle snapping red at every turn; not so much really fearing an attack upon so stout a party of reckless, dashing blades, as being overawed by the great, mysterious silence of the forest, the semi-twilight all about, and the cold, strange-smelling wind that fanned their faces. ”

“ Come, Nick, thou’lt sing it for us all, and set old Albans town afire!” said Carew, pleadingly.
Nick shook his head.
“Come, Nick,” said Carew, coaxingly, “we must hear that sweet voice of thine in Albans town to-night. Come, there’s a dear, good lad, and give us just one little song! Come, act the man and sing, as thou alone in all the world canst sing, in Albans town this night; and on my word, and on the remnant of mine honour, I’ll leave thee go back to Stratford town to-morrow morning!” ”

“ Nick mocked the wild bird, called again with a mellow, warbling trill, and then struck up the quaint old madrigal with the bird’s song running through it. Carew leaped to his feet, with a flash in his dark eyes. “My soul! my soul!” he exclaimed in an excited undertone. “It is not—nay, it cannot be—why, ’tis—it is the boy! Upon my heart, he hath a skylark prisoned in his throat! Well sung, well sung, Master Skylark!” he cried, clapping his hands in real delight, as Nick came singing up the bank. “Why, lad, I vow I thought thou wert up in the sky somewhere, with wings to thy back! ”

“ But not a sign of help for Nick.
Once, passing through a little town, he raised a sudden cry of “Help! Help—they be stealing me away!” But at that the master-player and the bandy-legged man waved their hands and set up such a shout that his shrill outcry was not even heard. And the simple country bumpkins, standing in a grinning row like so many Old Aunt Sallys at a fair, pulled off their caps and bowed, thinking it some company of great lords, and fetched a clownish cheer as the players galloped by. ”

“ And with that he sat down and buried his face in his arms among the dishes on the buffet.
“Nay, Simon Attwood,” said Master Shakspere, going to his side and putting his hand upon the tanner’s shoulder, “thou hast only been mistaken, that is all. Come, sit thee up. To see thyself mistaken is but to be the wiser. Why, never the wisest man but saw himself a fool a thousand times. Come, I have mistaken thee more than thou hast me; for, on my word, I thought thou hadst no heart at all—and that is far worse than having one which has but gone astray. ”