“And thought they Margaret was Hero?” murmured Conrade, beginning to smile as he foresaw what might become of this villainy.
“Two of them did,” answered Borachio, with satisfaction, “the Prince and Claudio, but the devil my master knew she was Margaret. Away went Claudio enraged; swore he would meet her as he was appointed next morning in the temple, and there, before the whole congregation, shame her with what he saw o’ernight, and send her home again without a husband!”
His tale done, he collapsed into laughter. Conrade tried to help him to his feet, when a terrible voice shouted in their very ears,
“We charge you, in the Prince’s name, stand!”
In an instant, they were surrounded and seized by huge, burly fellows, armed with enormous cudgels!
Dogberry’s watchmen, sitting in breathless silence on their bench round the corner of the church, had overheard every single word! They were simple men. They looked for no double meanings to muddle them. They knew plain villainy when they heard it, and they knew a pair of villains when they saw them. And they knew what to do with them.
It was the morning of the wedding, and Leonato’s house was in a cheerful uproar. Everywhere servants were running, cooks were shouting and ladies were rushing hither and thither in a commotion of silks, pursued by attendants with their mouths full of pins. And Leonato himself, his head in a whirl, bustled to and fro in his efforts to bring everything to a happy conclusion. The last thing he needed, at the present frantic time, was two idiots from the town, come to chatter in his ear. But he’d got them, in the persons of that fat pompous fool Dogberry, and his skinny companion Verges, who was no better.
“What would you with me, honest neighbour?” asked Leonato, striving to hide his impatience.
“Marry, sir, I would have some confidence with you that decerns you nearly,” confided Dogberry, making his usual mincemeat of the language and garnishing it with the onions on his breath.
“Brief, I pray you,” urged Leonato, watching with agony as a servant tottered by, bearing a toppling tower of plates, “for you see it is a busy time with me.”
It seemed that a pair of villains had been seized during the night; and the two constables, in accordance with their duty, had come to ask Leonato to examine them that very morning.
It was plainly impossible. “Take the examination yourself,” cried Leonato desperately, “and bring it to me. I am now in great haste, as it must appear unto you!”
“It shall be suffigance,” said Dogberry solemnly. Leonato blinked; then, remembering it was a happy day, and that the two before him were worthy fellows, bade them courteously, “Drink some wine ere you go; fare you well.”
Once out of their sight, he shook his head and marvelled that even Dogberry should be so thick-witted as to trouble him, on the morning of his daughter’s wedding, with his tale of two villains in the night. How could their examination matter to him at such a time?
Everyone loves a wedding. The church was stuffed to overflowing with gorgeous rustling silks and quilted velvets, and a host of eager, sparkling eyes. Then, as Hero appeared, blessed with the happy radiance of a bride, up went a universal sigh.
“Come, Friar Francis, be brief,” begged Leonato, anxious to have done with ceremony and eager to get on with the feasting and music and dancing for which he’d prepared.
“You come hither, my lord, to marry this lady?” asked the friar of Claudio. How pale the young man looked! Perhaps he’d been celebrating too much the night before?
Claudio’s pallor increased as he answered the priest. “No,” he said.
Leonato frowned. What the devil did Claudio think he was doing? Then Leonato’s brow cleared. Of course! The foolish friar had made a mistake. “To be married to her!” Leonato corrected. “Friar, you come to marry her!”
There was a murmur of amusement from the congregation. The friar grew red. He had not made a mistake. The young man’s expression confirmed it. However, he put the question to Hero, who answered, sensibly and modestly, “I do.”
“If either of you know any inward impediment why you should not be conjoined,” said the friar to the two before him, “I charge you on your souls to utter it.”
“Know you any, Hero?” the young man asked; and his voice was strangely harsh.
“None, my lord,” said she.
“Know you any, Count?” asked the priest.
“I dare make his answer, none!” put in the impatient Leonato, dreading some long, poetical utterance from Claudio; and besides, he knew his daughter’s honour was above reproach.
“Father,” said Claudio quietly, “will you with free and unconstrained soul give me this maid, your daughter?”
“As freely, son, as God did give her me.”
“And what have I to give you back whose worth may counterpoise this rich and precious gift?” asked Claudio.
“Nothing, unless you render her again.”
The speaker was Don Pedro. He stepped forward and stood beside Claudio. His countenance was grave. The church was silent.
“Sweet Prince,” said Claudio, turning to his master, “you learn me noble thankfulness.” He raised his voice; and in tones that shook with anger and bitterness declared, “Give not this rotten orange to your friend! She’s but the sign and semblance of her honour. She knows the heat of a luxurious bed; her blush is guiltiness, not modesty!” He took Hero by the arm and thrust her, so fiercely that she stumbled, into her father’s arms.
Amazed, the congregation held its breath as the fair wedding crumbled into dust. Frantically Leonato protested, while Hero stood, like one half-dead, staring from her accusing lover to his grim-faced, princely friend.
“What man was he talked with you yesternight out at your window betwixt twelve and one?” demanded Claudio.
“I talked with no man at that hour, my lord,” answered Hero, but so faintly that the congregation could scarcely hear her.
But Don Pedro bore witness against her. “Upon mine honour,” he swore, “myself, my brother, and this grieved count did see her, hear her, at that hour last night talk with a ruffian at her chamber-window, who hath confessed the vile encounters they have had a thousand times in secret!”
None could doubt the word of the Prince. Once, Hero herself had proposed, in jest, that she should slander her cousin Beatrice. Now it was she who had been slandered, and in deadly earnest. One doth not know, she’d said, how much an ill word may empoison liking. The world had been poisoned, and she had been destroyed.
“Hath no man’s dagger here a point for me?” cried her father, tottering amid the wreckage of his hopes; while Hero, with a frightened sigh, sank lifeless to the ground!
Claudio stared down at the still figure lying on the altar steps; then Don Pedro gently touched his arm and led him away. Don John followed, and after him, the shaken congregation. Only her father, the priest, and Beatrice and Benedick remained with the ruined bride.
She lay with her head cradled in Beatrice’s lap. At first, it was feared she was dead; but in a little while, her eyelids began to quiver, as life returned.
“O Fate! take not away thy heavy hand, death is the fairest cover for her shame that may be wished for!” groaned the distracted Leonato; but the others, perhaps because they were not so nearly touched as a father by his daughter’s fall, took a kinder view. Beatrice’s belief in her cousin’s honour was unshaken, and Benedick shrewdly judged that the villainous Don John was somehow to blame; but it was the steady faith of Friar Francis that was of the greatest comfort.
All his long and deep experience of the ways of men, all his knowledge of guilt and innocence, and the masks they wore, had convinced him that Hero was blameless. Therefore he proposed a strange and daring plan that would bring Claudio to his senses. Let it be given out that Hero was dead. Then surely Claudio, learning what his cruel words had brought about, if he truly loved Hero, would be overcome with shame and remorse. “Then shall he mourn,” said the friar, “and wish he had not so accused he
r.”
“Signior Leonato, let the friar advise you,” gently urged Benedick; and the father, shaking his poor bewildered head, submitted.
“Being that I flow in grief,” he sighed, “the smallest twine may lead me.”
Gently, Hero was helped to her feet, and, supported by the friar and her father (though he was as much in need of support as she) left the church for her seeming death.
Beatrice and Benedick were alone. Strange meeting for the lovers who had so newly discovered themselves. Beatrice was weeping, and Benedick was serious and pale. The tragedy of Hero had clouded their sunshine, and hung heavy in the air.
“Surely I do believe your fair cousin is wronged,” said Benedick, gently.
“Ah, how much might the man deserve of me that would right her!” said Beatrice, her eyes all fiery with tears.
“Is there any way to show such friendship?” murmured Benedick. “I do love nothing in the world so well as you—is not that strange?”
She smiled. “You have stayed me in a happy hour, I was about to protest I loved you.”
“And do it with all thy heart!” cried Benedick, joyfully. “Come, bid me do anything for thee!”
For a moment, she did not answer. She stared at him strangely. Then she uttered the most terrible words in the world. “Kill Claudio!”
Benedick fell back in horror. “Ha, not for the wide world!” Claudio was his friend.
“You kill me to deny it. Farewell,” cried Beatrice, bitterly.
“Tarry, sweet Beatrice!” pleaded Benedick, seizing her by the hand.
“There is no love in you. I pray you let me go.”
“We’ll be friends first.”
“You dare easier be friends with me than fight with mine enemy.”
“Is Claudio thine enemy?”
“Oh God that I were a man!” she cried, wild with grief and anger. “I would eat his heart in the market-place!”
She stood like an avenging fury; yet he loved her, better than his friendship, better, even, than his reason and his honour. “Enough,” he said, “I will challenge him,” and away he went, to keep his word.
Hero was dead. Everybody knew of it. Don John, fearing discovery and retribution, fled from Messina. But those who had obeyed his orders, remained behind. Conrade and Borachio were in prison, and their fate reposed in the large, important hands of Constable Dogberry.
With Verges to second him, and the Town Clerk to record the proceedings, Dogberry began upon his examination of the prisoners before him. The Town Clerk frowned, he sighed, he shook his head. The constable seemed a little too fond of the sound of his own loud voice. He kept wandering from the point; and unless he was stopped, the proceedings would last all day.
“Master Constable,” he said wearily, as Dogberry became more and more involved in a fruitless argument with the prisoners as to whether or not they were villains, “you go not the way to examine; you must call forth the watch that are their accusers.”
The constable looked surprised. Plainly, the trifling matter of evidence had escaped him. Nonetheless, he took the Town Clerk’s advice. He summoned the watch, who proceeded to give their evidence.
The Town Clerk’s eyes widened, his face grew grave, and his pen scratched and scratched like a thousand frantic mice, as he wrote down what the watch had overheard—the villainy of Don John, the vile deception by Borachio, and the wicked slandering of the Lady Hero!
“Master Constable,” he cried, finishing his writing in the utmost haste, “let these men be bound, and brought to Leonato’s! I will go before and show him their examination!” and away he rushed to the bereaved father with the proof of his daughter’s innocence!
Leonato stood outside his stricken house like a statue advertising grief. In vain, his brother Antonio tried to comfort him. He would have none of it. Only a father who had suffered as he had suffered had the right to preach patience at him. “Therefore give me no counsel,” he said, shaking off his brother’s comforting arm. “I will be flesh and blood, for there was never yet a philosopher who would endure the toothache patiently.”
Antonio sighed and shook his head. “Yet bend not all the harm upon yourself,” he begged; “make those that do offend you suffer too.” Even as he uttered the words, the two chief offenders came walking by.
Although they felt themselves to be guiltless in the affair, Don Pedro and Claudio felt ill at ease when they saw the two old gentlemen, and made to hurry by.
“We have some haste, Leonato,” muttered Don Pedro uncomfortably, as the old gentleman sought to detain them.
“Some haste, my lord?” repeated Leonato, with bitter scorn. “Well, fare you well, my lord! Are you so hasty now? well, all is one.”
“Nay, do not quarrel with us, good old man—”
“If he could right himself with quarrelling,” said Antonio, coming forward and standing by his brother with a threatening air, “some of us would lie low!”
“Who wrongs him?” asked Claudio, trying not to smile at the sight of the two warlike old men. He wished he’d held his tongue, for Leonato turned upon him in a fury.
“Thou dost wrong me,” he shouted, “thou dissembler, thou—Nay, never lay thy hand upon thy sword, I fear thee not.”
Guiltily, Claudio took away his hand that had gone instinctively to his weapon. But the old man was not to be stopped. “Thou hast so wronged mine innocent child and me that I am forced to lay my reverence by and challenge thee to trial of a man! Thou hast killed my child. If thou kill’st me, boy, thou shalt kill a man!”
“Away,” cried Claudio, angry and alarmed at the turn events had taken, “I will not have to do with you!” Although he was deeply offended that his honour had been questioned, he had no wish to harm the old gentleman.
But his words served only to add fuel to the old man’s fire; and they set his brother Antonio alight into the bargain. And he was ten times worse. “God knows I loved my niece,” he shouted in his quavering voice, “and she is dead, slandered to death by villains! Boys, apes, braggarts, Jacks, milksops!”
God knew how it all would have ended had not Don Pedro come to the rescue. “Gentlemen both,” he said, with princely courtesy and great forbearance—for he had been insulted no less than Claudio, “my heart is sorry for your daughter’s death; but on my honour she was charged with nothing but what was true, and very full of proof.”
No man could have uttered more; and, though it was plain that Leonato was far from satisfied, he had the good sense to draw his brother away, and back into their house.
Don Pedro and Claudio looked at one another. They smiled. The old gentlemen’s fury had certainly had its comical side. Their smiles broadened. Benedick was coming towards them. The very man to laugh with them over their encounter!
“Welcome, signior,” greeted Don Pedro, “you are almost come to part almost a fray.”
“We had liked to have had our two noses snapped off with two old men without teeth,” said Claudio, cheerfully.
“Leonato and his brother,” explained Don Pedro. “What thinkst thou? Had we fought, I doubt we should have been too young for them!”
Benedick stared at them. “In a false quarrel there is no true valour,” he said coldly. “I came to seek you both.”
What was this? Was this pale and stern gentleman their ever-mocking Benedick?
“Art thou sick, or angry?” wondered Don Pedro.
Benedick ignored him. He turned to Claudio. He spoke quietly. “You are a villain. I jest not; I will make it good how you dare, with what you dare, and when you dare. Do me right, or I will protest your cowardice. You have killed a sweet lady, and her death shall fall heavy on you. Let me hear from you.” He turned to Don Pedro. “My lord, for your many courtesies I thank you. I must discontinue your company. Your brother the bastard is fled from Messina. You have among you killed a sweet and innocent lady. For my Lord Lackbeard there,” he nodded towards Claudio, “he and I shall meet, and till then peace be with him.”
With a cold, precise bow, he left them, and walked rapidly away.
“He is in earnest,” murmured Don Pedro.
“In most profound earnest,” said Claudio, “and I’ll warrant you, for the love of Beatrice.” He frowned. He was deeply troubled. This second challenge he had received was not one to be laughed away . . .
“How now?” cried Don Pedro suddenly, “two of my brother’s men bound?”
Claudio looked up. An extraordinary procession was approaching Leonato’s house. It was headed by two constables, one large and fat, the other, ancient and thin. Behind them, surrounded by armed men of the watch, walked Conrade and Borachio in chains.
“Officers,” demanded Don Pedro of the constables, “what offence have these men done?”
Dogberry, addressed by the Prince, was more than equal to the occasion. Swelling with pride and importance, he embarked upon a flood of legal eloquence that left his hearers dazed with admiration. The Prince was baffled. Helplessly he appealed to Borachio: “This learned constable is too cunning to be understood. What’s your offence?”
Borachio looked wretched. Having no corner to lurk in, no curtain to hide him, and no Don John to protect him, he was exposed for the miserable villain that he was. “Sweet Prince,” he answered abjectly, “let me go no farther to mine answer: do you hear me, and let this count kill me. I have deceived even your very eyes.” Then he confessed to Don John’s wicked plot, of his own guilty part in it, and of how he had tricked the innocent Margaret into becoming his accomplice.
As they listened, Don Pedro and Claudio began to tremble. They grew pale as death. What had they done? What had they done! Between them all, they had killed the blameless Hero.
“Runs not this speech like iron through your blood?” whispered Don Pedro; and Claudio replied, “I have drunk poison whiles he uttered it.”
Leon Garfield's Shakespeare Stories Page 30