Towers in the Mist
“I have known you one hour,” she whispered sadly, her head still bowed, “and I shall never see you again.”
“You will,” said Raleigh, still loudly. “I will find a way. I will have you for mine, even if I have to come to Court and steal you from under the Queen’s nose.”
But she shook her head. The maids of honor might not marry without the Queen’s permission; and besides, she already knew something of men and their ways. “You will forget,” she murmured.
“I never forget what I want,” he said, “and I get it. Look at me. Do you think I look as though I would forget?”
She dared to raise her head, then, and looked at him, seeing afresh the bold penetrating blue eyes, the obstinacy and impetuous strength of the face bent above her. “I think,” she said, “that you will always get what you want; or else you will die trying to get it. What else do you want, besides me?”
He pulled her eagerly down on to the windowseat and began to tell her, holding her so close against him that she thrilled to the pulse of excitement beating in his body and to the eager whispering of his warm, vehement voice. “All sorts of things. I want to sail a tall ship into the west to find the land beyond the sunset, so that the Queen may have a better Indies than the King of Spain. That’s a wonderful land, Bess. Birds of white and carnation sing in tall cedar trees, and the stones are all made of gold and silver.”
“Do you want gold and silver so badly?” asked Bess a little doubtfully; and she shivered, thinking of that tall ship that would carry him away from her.
“I want masses of gold,” said Raleigh hotly. “I mean to sail round the world to look for it, and I mean to make it, too, for I shall be alchemist as well as sailor. We shall never do away with poverty and misery, never build a new world, until we have wealth; lots and lots of wealth.”
“One can be happy in poverty,” whispered Bess.
He snorted in contempt. He never had any use for poverty. “Only the well-off think so,” he said. “Do you know what my idea of heaven is? A place that is all shining with jewels. I’ve made up a verse about it.
And when. . . . we
Are filled with immortality,
Then the holy paths we’ll travel,
Strewed with rubies thick as gravel,
Ceilings of diamonds, sapphire floors.
High walls of coral and pearl bowers.
“Dreams! Dreams!” said a woman’s low voice, and looking up the two culprits saw three figures standing by them in their shadowy window, splendid figures that even in the dimness gleamed and sparkled. The Queen, the Chancellor and Dean Godwin. Little Bess, as she slipped out of Raleigh’s arms and slid to her feet to make her curtsey, was gasping with terror, but Raleigh bowed with the flourish that never deserted him.
“And who is this who has made away with my little Bess?” asked the Queen tartly, and she motioned him towards the light.
“Master Walter Raleigh of Oriel,” said Dean Godwin severely. “He very kindly played Arcite in our play, our own Arcite having met with an accident. But what he is doing here tonight I do not know.”
“I came through the window,” said Raleigh loudly, “that I might feast my eyes upon Her Grace.”
“It seems to me,” said the Queen with increased tartness, “that it is upon the little Bess, not the big one, that you have been feasting them.” But face to face with the future Captain of her Guard she could not but smile; he gave promise of becoming a very fine figure of a man, and she was always as wax in the hands of a handsome man. “And what were these dreams of which you murmured?” she asked him. “These dreams of carnation colored birds and floors of sapphire? Dreams, young man, are useless things that lead you nowhere.”
“I venture to disagree with Your Grace,” said Raleigh, his head up. “All achievement is born of dreams followed bravely to an unknown destination.”
A figure passing between them and the light threw a shadow on his face and the Queen shivered with a sudden icy little premonition. To what destiny would his dreams bring himself and little Bess? To what end of blood and death and agonizing sorrow? He had answered her impudently, and she had meant to rebuke him for it, but now she could not. “You must bring Bess back into the hall,” was all she said. “She is only a little girl and she must not be played with.”
She turned and went away, followed by the Dean and the Chancellor, but Raleigh, before he obeyed her, turned and flung his arms once more round Bess. “It was not play!” he whispered fiercely. “I have loved you and chosen you in my happiest hour. You must not forget me.”
“I’ll not forget,” said little Bess.
The Queen, with the Chancellor upon her right and Dean Godwin upon her left, passed on down the hall through the lines of scholars, smiling at their eager faces, pausing now and then to ask a question or recognize a familiar face. “Which are my scholars of Westminster?” she asked the Dean, and there was immediately a great commotion in the crowd, Westminster plunging to the fore with Ipswich kicked viciously into the background. . . . But she would not have that. . . . When she had spoken sweet words to her own Westminster she had Ipswich rescued from a sprawling position under the tables and spoke soothing words to it of its founder, the great Cardinal, of his love for this College and the faithful service he gave to his king. “Love this fair house as he did,” she bade them, “and serve me as loyally as he served my father.” They promised her to do so, gazing at her with eyes full of worship, and hastened, as soon as her back was turned, to retaliate upon Westminster with hard and well-placed kicks.
The Queen passed on down the line, pausing next for Philip Sidney to be presented to her by the Chancellor. “A fair boy,” she murmured to the infatuated uncle, as Philip bowed low before her. “A boy of whom we shall both be proud.” And again, as Philip straightened himself and his eyes met hers, she felt that stirring of premonition. She remembered her own words, spoken at the end of her speech, “Go forth into the world. Fight and work for your Queen and country.” She had said that word “fight” carelessly, hardly stopping to think what she meant by it, but now it seemed to her that beyond the walls enclosing this space of light and laughter she could hear the galloping hoofs of the Rider on the Red Horse. She hated war; above all things she asked for her reign the blessing of peace. Would she ever have to endure the agony of sending these boys and others like them over the seas to meet the Red Horseman? She saw all their fair lives threatened by terror and blood and wounds. She saw herself, an older woman, weary and sick at heart, standing up with a proud face to make bold speeches, doing her best to hearten men for death as just now she had been heartening boys for life. . . . Speeches. . . . Speeches. . . . How sick of them she would be before the end. She looked again at Philip Sidney’s face and felt a sharp pang of grief, as sharp as any she would feel in the years to come when she would weep for his death and refuse to be comforted, vowing that she had lost her mainstay. It was a terrible thing to be the Queen of England. It was a burden too heavy to be borne. She turned abruptly away, without speaking another word to Philip. . . . The Chancellor, much annoyed at her neglect, followed her with a heightened color.
But her next encounter cheered her. Joyeuce in her pale green gown and Nicolas in his royal blue, standing hand in hand, were a couple to challenge attention. Joyeuce she remembered as a fragile wraith who had hovered behind Dame Cholmeley on her arrival at her lodgings, but Nicolas’s face puzzled her. She remembered the eyebrows so wickedly tilted at the corners, the laughing black eyes and the strong chin with the cleft in it, but she could not remember where she had seen them last. Nicolas, putting his hand into his doublet and bringing it out with a crumpled red rose lying on the palm, enlightened her. “Ever since the Queen of England gave it me I have worn it next my heart,” he lied superbly.
“The troubadour!” she laughed. “The young man who sang me a lullaby under my window. And what can I do for you, good sir?”
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Nicolas gripped Joyeuce’s hand tightly and eyed his sovereign with boldness. “With the permission of Your Grace, my bride and I would like to come to Court.”
The Dean broke in here with a neat little memorandum of Nicolas’s family tree, which was well rooted in wealth, well-watered with blue blood, had been quite satisfactory in growth and gave promise of loyal foliage in the future. The recitation was well received. “You shall come,” said the Queen.
And instantly joy, like dawn, broke over the two faces before her in such a flood of brightness that her late sadness was suddenly lightened. It was sweet to have it in her power to give such pleasure. It was sweet to know, as she knew, that her people found in her the fulfillment of all hope and the inspiration of all action. Beyond the walls that enclosed her, out in the night, she remembered that there stretched the woods and hills and valleys of her country, and the towns and homesteads that sheltered the men and women who were her people; a most fair and lovely country, a people compounded of courage, humor and kindliness. And they seemed to her, as she thought of them, to be invincible. The galloping hoofs of the Rider on the Red Horse might pass over them, but they would still endure. It was not so little a thing to be the Queen of England. It was not so little a thing to say of this country and this people, “They are mine.”
4.
The sky was a clear cold green, and in the east the morning star blazed gloriously between bars of flaming cloud, when Nicolas supported the slightly wavering footsteps of Walter Raleigh home to Oriel. Everyone else had gone home long ago. They had lingered behind for a few last drinks with some kindred spirits, and now they seemed to themselves to be quite alone in the lovely silence of the dawn. They walked slowly, drinking in the clear air like great draughts of cold water, feeling its freshness like a benediction on their hot faces. . . . Not that they showed many signs, in the outward man, that this dawn was the climax of a night of revelry. . . . Their two brilliant figures, scarlet and royal blue, were both still unruffled, both of them having that gift for keeping tidy under the most unlikely circumstances shared alike by robbins, buttercups, cats, tigers, and all those dowered with stout hearts, self-confidence, and that beauty that draped over the iron foundation of strong nerves is not easily frayed by contact with the sorrows and entertainments of this exhausting world. Though their faces were flushed they were becomingly flushed, though their hair was tumbled it had fallen into that graceful abandon that is more pleasing to the eye than correctitude. The only noticeable signs of a slight tendency to insobriety were in Raleigh’s legs, Nicolas’s solemn concern for them, and an exceedingly poetical frame of mind in both. Raleigh, as always when in his cups, was composing scraps and shreds of verse so lovely that they seemed to Nicolas to have floated straight out of that beautiful dawn where the morning star burned between bars of flaming cloud.
She is neither white nor brown,
But as the heavens fair,
There is none hath a form so divine
In the earth or the air.
He sighed heavily, and looked up at the fleecy clouds above his head as though challenging them to form an image lovelier than the one he had in his mind. “Look where you’re going,” said Nicolas, easing him round the corner of the quadrangle towards Peckwater Inn. “And you can’t have met a maiden as lovely as that tonight; there wasn’t one there; except Joyeuce.” Raleigh rolled upon him an injured and rebuking eye and began again.
Such an one did I meet, good Sir,
Such an angelic face,
Who like a queen, like a nymph did appear
By her gait, by her grace.
They pursued their wavering way to Canterbury College, where he cried out in despair so profound that he nearly lost his footing and sent them both sprawling.
Know that Love is a careless child,
And forgets promise past;
He is blind, he is deaf when he list
And in faith never fast.
“Sometimes,” said Nicolas gently, remembering the pledge he had given to Joyeuce, “he remembers.”
“Sometimes,” murmured Raleigh dolefully, but as they crossed Shidyard Street he seemed to change his mind, for his face lightened, and when they had reached the gate of Oriel he propped himself carefully against it and faced Nicolas with a sudden blaze of triumph.
But love is a durable fire
In the mind ever burning;
Never sick, never old, never dead,
From itself never turning.
Then he turned and disappeared, admitted by a watchful porter who delighted, as did Heatherthwayte for Nicolas, to keep the eccentric hours of his exits and entrances hidden from the eye of Authority.
Nicolas strolled homewards through the lovely morning, that grew with every moment richer in beauty and promise. At the doorway that led to the room he still shared with Faithful, under the carved pomegranate of Catherine of Aragon, he paused to look back at the towers and spires so delicately penciled against the glorious dawn sky that curved above them in the semblance of a great circle. He felt a pang of pain to think that he must so soon leave it all, but yet he had at the same time a glorious feeling of permanence. Raleigh at the last had been quite right. Love was an unchanging thing, not an emotion but an element in which the whole world had its being. All the lovely things upon earth, beauty and truth and courage, were faint pictures of it, even as the puddles of rain water at his feet held a faint picture of the fiery sky bending above the earth. And in the mind of man too the flame was caught and held; in his own mind whose strength and vigor made it possible for his eyes to see this picture of a fair city and a golden sky, for his soul to face life vowed to integrity and courage, for his heart to feel for Joyeuce an affection so strong that he dared to call it by the name of that eternal and embracing love.
But love is a durable fire
In the mind ever burning;
Never sick, never old, never dead.
From itself never turning.
5.
That same day the Queen left Oxford. It was now early September, a calm and lovely day, one of those soft blue days of early autumn when the color of the sky seems to have soaked into the earth. The city itself seemed built of blue air, and the flowers in the gardens, the late roses, the hollyhocks and michaelmas daisies, had drawn a thin blue veil over their bright colors. When evening came again the shadows would be very deep and very blue and the calling of the birds would be very clear in the stillness.
But now, in the morning, the city was full of noise and bustle. The Queen was to ride out of East Gate and up through Shotover Forest on the first stage of her journey to London, and once more scholars lined the route, from the Fair Gate to East Gate, with the townspeople packed behind them. Once more garlands were slung across the street, tapestries hung from every window, and the bells rang out to speed the Queen upon her way. But though all was noise and bustle and excitement there was an undercurrent of sadness about this day; the longed-for visit was over and it might be many years before the Queen’s Grace came again. Yet mixed with the sadness there was still rejoicing, for during this time of heightened living, dreams and visions and ideals had glowed more radiantly, and when the Queen had left the city the life she left behind her would burn the more brightly because she had been.
So when the cavalcade left Christ Church it was greeted by another great roar of cheering, and shouts of “Vivat Regina! Vivat Regina!” rolled up Fish Street and down the High Street as the procession wound its way down through the town. The departure was perhaps a lovelier sight than the arrival had been, for the beautiful curves of the High Street lent themselves to a processional passing. It was like a lovely ribbon of color slowly unwinding itself between the cheering crowds and the gabled houses, slipping downwards to coil away forever into the green and silent woods.
The Queen was on horseback today, sitting her white mare superbly, wearing a long
blue habit whose skirts nearly swept the cobbles and a tall blue hat with white plumes in it. She was quite alone that all the people might see her, with the Chancellor, Vice Chancellor and heads of houses riding in front and the Court behind, and she took most gracious notice of all that was done to show her love and honor. She missed nothing of the long and polished Latin oration delivered outside the Fair Gate by Master Tobie Matthews, an M.A. of Christ Church, even though she was trying to mount her spirited horse at the time and it was difficult to fix her attention on it, and as she rode down High Street she reined in her horse that she might have read to her the copies of verses bemoaning her departure that were hung upon the walls of All Souls and University College. And all the while she was waving to the people, raising a laughing face to the little children crowded at the windows, smiling when armfuls of flowers were flung upon the cobbles and the sweet smell of bruised September roses came up to her from beneath her horse’s feet. When she had passed the people strained forward, leaning perilously from windows, standing on tiptoe to see over each other’s heads and shoulders while tears ran down their faces, trying to catch a last glimpse of that dazzling blue and white figure on the white horse, the young and lovely Queen whom they might never see again. Then the cavalcade passed under East Gate and they had lost her. Sadly they turned homeward.
Under Magdalen tower the pealing bells were stilled and the procession was halted that the Mayor and city fathers, gathered there to take their leave, might take it with the customary speeches. But it was noticed that though she smiled and bowed at the correct moment the attention of the Queen’s Grace seemed inclined to wander; her eyes were continually leaving the earnest perspiring faces of the city fathers and gazing at Magdalen tower, soaring up into the blue sky above her, its ornamented belfry fretting the sky like wing-tips; and when the speeches were over and the farewells said, and the horses once more curvetting forward, she looked up at it and raised her hand in greeting, as though it stood beside the East Gate like a veritable presence set to guard the city, one whom she would remember and who would remember her.