Idonia: A Romance of Old London

  CHAPTER XIII

  PETTY WALES

  If a young man's heels be seldom slow to follow after his heart whitherhe hath left it for lost, he hath indeed so many classical examples todraw upon as he need stand in no fear of censure save of such as haveneither loved at all, nor ever in their lives been young. And so itwas with me, who had no sooner swallowed down my pudding and as much asI could stomach of the good wife's reproaches but I was off and away toPetty Wales to inquire after Idonia, how she did.

  'Twas a quiet grey morning of the early year, and as I strode alongvery gladsome, methought there could be few places in the world sopleasant as Thames Street, nor any odour of spices comparable with thehealthful smell about Billingsgate and Somers Quay; although I confessnot to have remarked the fine qualities of either, the night before. Agreat body of soldiers was marching, a little way before me, toward theTower, their drums beating, and their ensign raised in the midst; asheartening a sight and sound as a lad could wish for, and of good omentoo. But for all my courage was high, and my steps directed towardsthe lass I loved, there was yet a fleck of trouble in my mind I wouldhave wiped out willingly enough, and that was my father's expresseddesire (which I knew, too, was very necessary) that I should set aboutearning my living at a trade. I suppose a boy's thoughts be naturallyaverse from buying and selling, and from all the vexatious and mediatedelays which interpose between desires and their satisfaction; foryouth looketh ever to the end itself, and never to the means, whetherthe means be money and matters of business, or patient toil, orincrease of knowledge. Success and the golden moment are youth'saffair, and all else of no account at all. Ah! of no account when webe young, seem preparation and discipline and slow acquirement and thegathering burden of years; but just to live, and to love, and towin.... Imperious fools that we are: pitiful, glorious spendthrifts!

  I got to the great ruined house at length, as the troop swung out ontoTower Hill, and the roll of their drums died down. Without loss oftime I drew my poniard and hammered with the haft upon the gate. Tocome to her thus, wearing the arms I had used to defend her from theman she feared and I had valorously overthrown, surely (said I) thiswill get me her admiration and a thousand thanks. I would dismiss mywounds with a shrug when she should say she hoped they were mended, andswear they were not painful, yet with such slight dragging of the wordsas she should not believe me but rather commend my fortitude insuffering (though for that matter they were easy enough and only one ofthem anyways deep). In short I savoured the sweet of our comingcolloquy as greedily as any feast-follower; and at the same time Icontinued to rattle my dagger-heel on the oaken door. After someminutes thus spent, the grid opened, and behind the bars was Idoniafacing me and very pale.

  "What would you, Mr. Denis?" said she.

  I dropped my jaw and simply stared upon her.

  "What would I?" I gasped out.

  "How do your wounds?" she asked hurriedly. Our conversation seemedlike to stay upon interrogatories.

  "But am I not to enter, then?" cried I, as near sobbing as I had everbeen in my life.

  "Can we not speak thus?" said Idonia, and glanced backward into thehall.

  "Oh, Mistress Avenon!" I said to that, "is it thus you use me?" and soturned away, smitten to the very heart. But I had not gone ten pacesfrom the gate, ere she caught me, and laid a hand upon my arm.

  "Ah, Mr. Denis," she whispered, "be not angry with me; say you are notwroth, and then go. I beseech you to go away, but first say you arenot angry.... I must not talk with you; must not be seen to talk withyou, I mean." She might have said more had I not stopped her.

  "Not to be seen to talk with me? Am I a man to be scorned, then?"

  She answered below her breath: "'Tis rather I am a maid to be scorned,methinks.... Oh, look not so!" she added swiftly, "I must gowithin.... If they should know you have come..."

  "Who should know?" cried I, very big; "and what care I who knows? I amnot accustomed to shun them that question my behaviour."

  "No, no, you are brave," said she, "and 'tis there that my peril lies,if not your own. You may defend yourself, a man may do so having asword. But we women have no weapon."

  "Who would hurt you?" I asked, moving a step back to the gate. "NotGuido Malpas, I warrant, this many a day."

  "I live amongst wicked men coming and going," she replied. I couldfeel her hand shake that I now held in mine. "But now go. I am notworth this coil we make; you can do nothing that you have not donealready. I will remember you," said she in a strange pleading voice,"and I think you will not forget me awhile either." She paused alittle, panting as though she had been weary. "And, Mr. Denis, myheart is big with pride of your coming hither."

  These words she spoke in the deep full voice she used when moved, andthen turning from me, went within and shut to the door.

  "Now Heaven forbid me mercy," said I aloud, "if I probe not to thebottom of this pool."

  I pulled down my jerkin in front, and set my ruff even. Then openingthe purse that hung at my belt, I counted the coins that were in it.There were a dozen shillings and some few halfpence. "Certain 'tistime I got employment," I mused, "yet I allow myself one day more;" andwith that I slid the coins back in my purse, and looked about me.

  Now, this great building of Petty Wales before which I stood was once(or at least is reported to have been) an Inn of the Welsh Princes fortheir occasions in the City, but was, upon their long disuse of it,turned into tenements, as Northumberland House was where Mr. Jordan hadformerly lodged, and was now let out to marine traders, victuallers,and such other as found it convenient to the quays. How it came aboutthat Idonia had her dwelling here I knew not yet, nor indeed did I atthat time know anything of all I am about to set down of this mansion,which, however, it is very necessary should be understood, seeing howlarge a space it occupies in my adventures.

  Besides the tenants, then, that by right inhabited there, there hadgrown up another sort of secret tenants that lurked amid such odd nooksand forgotten chambers herein as were overlooked, or of no advantagefor the stowage of merchandise. Between these mean unnoted folk, thathad crept thither like rats for shelter, and lay as close, there wasmaintained a sort of fearful communion and grudged acquaintanceship.But the house being strongly parted in twain by a stone wall builtthroughout the middle of it, from back to front, it was as though therewere two separate houses, of which Idonia used the one, but these theother. And since moreover there was but one gate upon the street sideof the house, the men of whom I speak, both the honest ships' brokersand the lawless poor men, perforce used a certain low-pitched posterndoor at the bottom of a narrow alley which ran behind the house.

  This door let on to a wide and decayed stair that (I was to learn) wasthe poor men's hall and common room; here they met and shared theirstealthy mess together; here elected and deposed their captains, andcelebrated their improvident espousals. Living on sufferance, strickenby poverty and terror of the law, hardly allowed as men and women, butrather as abject orts of nature, they yet preserved amongst themselvesa perfect order from the very necessity of silence; and upon the leastmotion of discontent the mutineer was instantly seized, his headcovered, and the captain's knife deep in his heart. 'Twas the women'soffice, then, to lay the body out decently; and about midnight four menbore it secretly to the riverside, and straightway returned.

  All this I was to learn from a strange accident that befell me when atlength I left loitering before Idonia's door, and skirted about theplace in search of any index to the riddle she had read me. For I waspersuaded that to reach the heart of the mystery, I must at alladventures gain access to the house itself; I being then quite ignorantof the dividing of it in the manner I have told. It was with anextraordinary delight, therefore, that I discovered the lane to therearward of the house, and the low door. Somewhat to my surprise Ifound the door not made fast, and so at once entering by it, I begancautiously to ascend the rotten stair. But scarce had I gone half-wayto the first stage, when I stumble
d over the body of a man that laystretched there in the dark, and was, I thought, dead. Howbeit, he wasnot, and when I had him down into the air, and had loosened hisclothing, he opened his eyes. He stared upon me wildly.

  "How? You are not of the brotherhood?" he stammered.

  I said nothing in reply, but leaving him where he was, ran to a tavernhard by upon Tower Hill, called _The Tiger_, whence I returnedpresently with a flask of strong wine. The drinking of it revived himmarvellously, so that he was soon able to support himself on his feet,although without strength to walk yet. I got him some meat, too, andbread, both of which he ate like a wolf rather than a man; so far hadhe gone in starvation. When he had done, he would have thanked me, butI interrupted him, asking in my turn who he was, and what trade he wasof. He straightened his back at that, and looking me very proudly inthe face replied: "My name is Andrew Plat, and by the grace of Heaven Iam a lyrical poet."

  Upon the sudden I recalled Mr. Jordan. "So," I thought, "'tis theworthy that stole my lord Pembroke's buttery-beer." However, all Isaid was: "I think I have not read any of your writing, Mr. Plat."

  "'Tis very possible," said he, "for I write less than I think: andindeed publish less than I write."

  "And how standeth it with your fasting, Master Poet?" quoth I.

  "I feed my thoughts that way," he replied simply, "as 'twas in a fast Iconceived my famous lines upon the Spring."

  I bade him drink another draught of the wine, having no interest toscrape acquaintance with his Muse; but he was not so easily to be putoff.

  "It begins thus," said he, and tossing back his long and tawny hairfrom his eyes, lifted his right hand aloft and beat the air with hisfingers as he proceeded--

  "Fresh Spring, the lovely herald of great Love, On whose green tabard are the quarterings Of many flowers below and trees above In proper colours, as befits such things-- Go to my love----"

  "Hold, hold!" I cried, "methinks I have read something very similar tothese lines of yours in another man's verses."

  He held his hand still suspended, though his eyes flashed in disdain ofmy commentary.

  "An' you were not young and my benefactor," he said, with an extremebitterness, "I would be tempted to clap you into a filthy ballad."

  "Do you use to write your ballads, full?" I inquired, "seeing 'tisapparently your custom to steal your lyricks, empty."

  He brought down his raised hand clenched upon the other.

  "I steal nothing from any man," he cried in a great voice; but even ashe spoke his face went white, and his eyes rolled in his head. Ithought he had fallen into some fit of poetics, and offered him thewine again, but he cautioned me to be silent, at the same time cringingbackward into the shadows.

  "Why, what ails you?" I asked encouragingly.

  He laid his forefinger to his lips, and then, laying his hand upon myarm, drew me to him.

  "Spake I overloud?" he muttered, shivering, too, when I answered thathe certainly had done.

  "'Twould be my death were I heard," said the miserable fellow, and thentold me, by starts and elliptic phrases all that I have set down aboutthis mysterious fellowship of Petty Wales, and the cruel rigour inwhich its secrecy was maintained.

  "'Tis no place for an honest man," he said, "for all here, but I, benotable thieves and outlaw villains, bawds, and blasphemers every one.And were't not for the common table we keep, each man bringing to itthat he may, but all equally partaking, and that we lie sheltered fromfoul weather and terror of the watch, I had long since avoided hence.For I am a lyrical poet, sir, and have no commerce with such as steal."

  I could have returned upon him there, with his unconscionableplagiarism and his assault upon Baynards Castle too, but judged itChristian to hold my peace. Furthermore, I had entered thisunwholesome den for another purpose than to argue a point ofauthorship, and therefore said quietly enough, but in such a manner ashe should perceive I meant it--

  "Now listen to me, Master Poet," quoth I, "and answer me fair, elsewill I raise my voice to such pitch as your Captain shall take note ofit for a contingent fault of thine to have loud-speaking friends.

  "This great mansion, now," I went on, when I thought he could bear apart in the argument; "do all the parts of it join, and the dwellersherein have exchange of intercourse each with the other?"

  "No," he said, "they do not."

  "But once they had," said I.

  "Long since they may have done," replied the poet, "but since the placehath been converted to its present use, it hath been divided by strongwalls of partition, so as each man is now master of his own."

  "How!" I cried, raising my voice of set purpose to frighten him. "Inthis nest of thieves what man is so absolute a master as another maynot possess himself of his goods?"

  "I know not, I know nothing," he wailed piteously.

  "Are there no cracks in the wainscote even?" I persisted, for somethingin his denial led me to suspect he put me off. He shook his head,whispering that their new Captain reposed but a dozen paces distant andwould hear, and kill us both.

  "Enough," I said pretty stern, "for I see there be privy ways openedthat you have at the least heard tell of (though you may not have daredinvestigate them), and communication hence through every party-wall."

  "There is none," he repeated, near mad with apprehension.

  "It is necessary I discover these passages," I continued, "or ratherone of them, as I think there is one leads to the great hall."

  "What know you of such a place?" he almost screamed.

  "Rest you easy, sweet singer," said I, laughing at the slip he made,"for we will not go headlong to this work, nor disturb your Captain'ssleep where he lieth snug till nightfall; but you shall lead me byquiet ways thither, and when you shall have put me through, I willsuffer you to depart in peace. But so much I most positively requireof you."

  He wept and wrung his hands, protesting I was grievously in error, andhe the most miserable of men; indeed 'twas not until I pulled out mysword and showed him the blood on it, that he professed himself willingto serve me, though he still continued to pretend his inability therein.

  "That we shall see," said I. "But first finish your bottle, and thenadvance, man, in Master Spenser's name!"

  He drank it down, and then cramming the broken morsels of bread andmeat into his wallet (where I saw he kept his verses also with a parcelof goose quills) he cautioned me to be silent, and stole ahead of me upthe wide and broken stair.

  Small light there was to see by, for the few windows which should haveserved us were all shuttered or roughly boarded up, and the wind pipedthrough them shrilly. Upon the great open gallery he paused as indoubt which way to proceed, and, to speak justly, 'twould have puzzleda wiser man in that dimness to pursue any right course between the hugebales and chests of sea-merchandise that pestered our passage. Nay,even the very roof and ceilings were become warehouses, so that once Iespied so great a thing as a ship's cockboat slung from the raftersabove our heads, and once rasped my cheek against the dried slough of amonstrous water-snake that some adventurer had doubtless brought homefrom the Indies. But I knew well enough that we should have made twiceour progress but for the infinite dread in which the poor poet went ofcrossing the lair where the officers of this unholy brotherhood awaitedtheir hour to steal forth. At every rustle of wind he staggered so hecould scarce stand, and had it not been for the invigorating coolnessof my sword upon the nape of his neck, he would have fled thence anhundred times. Yet for all the dangers (to call them so) of our stolenmarch, the thought that stood in the front of my mind was: What lover,since the world began, hath gone in this fashion to his mistress? Forinsensibly my intention had narrowed down to the mere necessity ofseeing Idonia again. Surely, never was a house of so many turnings andbewildered issues; so that we seemed to traverse half the ward in ourquest, and for the most part in pitchy blackness, as I have said, untilI almost could have believed the day had gone down into night while weshuffled tardily forward. But at last Mr. Andrew
stopped. We hadturned a coign of the wall, and come into an open space palely lightedfrom above; and looking up I saw we stood beneath the vent wherein thecrane worked that I had note from without the night before.

  "If it be not closed up, 'tis here," whispered the poet, and enjoiningupon me to succeed him, he took the crane-rope in his hand and pulledhimself up thereby until he had ascended some fifteen feet, when heswung himself a little to the right hand where was a sort of ledge inthe masonry of the wall (I mean not the front wall of the building, buta wall that joined it on the square), and there he stood firm. I wasnot slow to join him aloft and there found, behind the ledge or sill, alow arch in the thick of the wall, and within it a little wicket door.

  "You have guided me well," I said, clasping his hand hard, "and I shallnot forget it. If there be any favour I can show you before we part,name it, Mr. Plat, and I will use my endeavour to please you."

  He considered some while before he replied, and then looking at me veryearnestly, said--

  "Since you seem to have some acquaintance with the poets, and thoughtfit to remark upon a certain fancied resemblance (though indeed thereis none) betwixt my lyrick of the Spring and another's treatment ofthat subject, I would beg you, should you be in any company where myworks are spoken of, as I make no pretence they shall be everywhere assoon as they be published, I say, I would beg you to refrain yourselffrom bringing in that ... from directing the attention of the companytoward ... but I see you take me, sir, and so enough said."

  However he would not let me go before he had begged my acceptance of acopy of his works, which he intended should be decently bound in calfleather, with a device of Britannia sitting upon Helicon, and his nameof Andrew Plat entwined in a wreath of flowerets at her feet.

  "And wherefore not upon her brow?" I asked him.

  "Oh, sir," said the poet, flinging an arm about my shoulder, "youhonour me too much."

  I got him down the rope soon after, and saw him return along thepassage, his head high and his gait light as though he trod a measure.

  "We be both in the same plight," I sighed, "and support ourselves uponfavours not yet received."

  Then I set open the door. A stout ladder reached down from thence tothe hall where I had fought with Guido Malpas, or rather to a part ofit that was full double the height of that part, and had entrance intoit by means of a sort of wide arch betwixt pillars. The hall wasempty, and I descended to it immediately.

  "Well," thought I, pretty grave now I had accomplished this much of mybusiness, "I would I knew in what case I shall depart hence."

  At that moment I heard a footstep on the stair beyond the arches, andMistress Avenon entered the hall.

  At first she saw me not, but when she did she stood perfectly still,the colour fading from her face, and one hand upon her bosom. I bowedlow, having no words to speak, and then expected with an infiniteweight at my heart, until she should declare her will.

  At length she came slowly toward me.

  "What is this you have dared to do?" she murmured, so low I couldscarce hear her.

  "I could not help it," I said, and would have told her there and thenthat I loved her, had not my courage all gone to wreck before hervisible anger. She drew herself to her full height, and keeping hereyes on mine said in a louder voice--

  "Ay, you could not help intruding upon a defenceless girl, and yet youwent nigh enough to slaying Mr. Malpas, poor man! for that same fault.Have I not given you thanks enough, that you are come hither for more?Are you greedy of so much praise? Else indeed wherefore have you come?"

  Her words so stung me, and her coldness after all I had suffered to getspeech with her, that I felt the tears very close behind my eyes, and,as a schoolboy that has been detected in some misdemeanour casts aboutfor any excuse however vain, so did I; for all in a hurry I stammeredout--

  "I came hither to tell you I have twelve shillings."

  Was ever any excuse so ill-considered?

  "Twelve shillings!" cried Idonia; but my self-respect was all down bythat time, and I could not stop; I spoke of my father's letter, mineown penury, and the detestation in which I held the necessity to enterinto trade.

  "I have but twelve shillings in the whole world," said I, but she notanswering, I turned my head sharply to see how she had received it. Tomy utter astonishment Idonia was laughing at me through a blind oftears.