by Robert Nye
I made to hurry after her, thinking that in the street it might be easier to attract her attention to me, since in the church there was plainly such an air of concentration about her.
But my feet were as though they were nailed to the stone floor. I could not budge.
The great door swung behind her. Then it swung again, and a spotted priest entered. He stared at me suspiciously where I stood like an idiot, my back to the high altar, gazing at him. The sight of his spots cured the paralysis or whatever it was that was affecting my limbs, anyway. I crossed myself and inclined my head pleasantly enough to the cleric, so that he would believe I had no intention of dipping my fingers in his Poor Box.
Then I went to kneel where the lady had knelt. On a little rush-mat before the fine statue of the Blessed Virgin. No doubt the spotty priest thought I had my eyes on the gold candlesticks. I wanted only to bless my knees by having them where that blessed creature had lately been.
I said three Paternosters and seven Hail Marys.
I believe I never in my life prayed so fervently, before or since. When I was about to go out, I was moved also to open a psalter – watched closely still by the red-eyed priest. I knew that it would speak to me in some way. Sure enough, my eyes fell instantly on the verse in the psalms: I have loved, because the Lord will hear the voice of my prayer. (I translate it for you. So great is my benevolence even at the memory!)
I closed the book.
‘God knows my heart’s desire!’ I murmured to the priest as I passed him on the way out. He did not look convinced. When I glanced back from the door, he was busy checking that the jewels were still in the statues.
The next day and the next I haunted that church. And was myself haunted by the priest with the spots and the red eyes, obviously unable to believe in this sudden access of holiness in one who already had something of a small reputation as a sinner.
The lady did not come.
I lurked also in the churchyard, at night. I slept out of sight of the watch, wrapping myself in my great cloak and keeping as warm as a man can with only a tombstone for a sheet and himself not quite yet clay. It was as though I felt compelled not to stray far from what was now to me very holy ground indeed. Holy because it was a church. Holy because she had been there.
There was a nightingale in that churchyard, and this being about the month of May it sang its nocturns there in an apple tree which was just in flower. Soft flower, sweet bird, such painful song. Under this tree I lay – yes, even I, Sir John Fastolf, K.G., though not then that of course, but see the depths of my melancholy degradation in this extraordinary sickness, Love, dear reader, and be warned! – (this is a moral tale) – under that tree I lay, as pale as the apple blossom, eating out my heart with the nightingale.
Tiouou tiouou tiouou tiouou! Lu, lu, lu, ly, ly, ly, li li, li, li!
That is what the nightingale sang. And so mad are men in love that I thought it must mean something.
Laugh at me if you like.
I can laugh at most of the things I have done in my life, and at most of the things which I am. But I have never yet learnt the art of laughing at this.
So there I was – covered in apple blossom and bird shit – wrapped in my melancholy cloak and praying to God that he might have it planned to grant me my heart’s desire.
And sometimes I added a P.S.:
That he would then restore me to my right mind again!
Tiouou tiouou tiouou was the only answer I heard.
On the third day, half-blind, half-deaf, what with love and nightingales, I had given up hope.
Picture my unspeakable joy when at noon all birdsong ceased and the bell rang for Mass and the object of my devotion passed before me through the churchyard, bound for St Botolph’s. I hurried after her. She knelt in the Lady Chapel and I slipped into a seat in the choir, where I could spy her, myself unseen, through a little knocked-out knot-hole.
Her face was more beautiful than I had perceived it to be at our first encounter. She wore a veil that crossed it just down the left cheek – but even so I could make out high cheekbones, that smooth brow, a delicately curved mouth.
I attended on my beloved all through that Mass. My heart was beating as though it wanted to jump out. No one ever heard the Missa est with more reluctance than I did that day. Because, yes, her devotions ended, the lovely lady melted away again into the mid-day throng of people that used St Botolph’s, and search as I did through all Shoreditch, and the other way, right as far as Moorgate, I could not find her.
Now I started asking questions of the spotty priest with red eyes, and all the other clerics of St Botolph’s, and the grave-diggers, and people who lived in houses and shops round and about the church. Who was the lady in the blue dress? But I got the same unbelievable reply from all of them. They did not know. They had never noticed her. What lady in the blue dress? The spotty priest thought I was mad, or possessed by devils, and recommended exorcism.
I hung about for a week – two weeks – three … Not a sign of her. I began to doubt the whole thing myself. I started to wonder if she was a fantasy, some ethereal ideal, a beautiful shadow strangely cast out of my own brain. I was worn away (believe it or not!) to little or nothing. I was being consumed by my own sighs. The torments and abominations of love had me by the throat and were choking me to death. My legs had grown scraggy. My stockings flapped at my knees. My shoes were all down at heel in that strange despondency of shoes which afflicts unrequited lovers – ask any cobbler! (It will be providing half his business.) As for my voice: it was quite scratched to bits with so much praying. I was at those altars, or before the statue of our Lady, night and day, and the priests had grown bored with hearing my confession.
Then, once more at noon, as the Mass bell sounded, I saw her again!
This time it happened that I was standing just inside St Botolph’s, but to the side, when the great door swung open and she came in. Sun streamed, half-rose, half-purple, through the stained-glass windows, warming the stones. But she was brighter than the sun. Her face dazzled me. My eyes filled with tears.
She stood a moment in the portal, her eyes downcast. Then she looked up. She looked up and gazed directly at me!
At her entrance – so glad, so mad with joy at realising she was not a phantom after all – I had rushed forward into the aisle, not caring what anyone thought of me, just so long as my beloved should see me and acknowledge my existence also in this wretched (but because of her, wonderful) world. Now, she looked for a moment full upon my face with those shy, clear blue eyes under the long eyelashes, and she smiled …
Such a smile!
I think I must have stammered something. I cannot remember what it could have been.
But, anyway, the lady answered not a word. She smiled and smiled, and then with a faint whisper of her blue dress she passed by me and on, on down the church to her place.
I hurried after.
The priest was leading in the antiphon:
Asperges me, Domine …
I came into the choir again, and fell to heartily –
hyssopo et mundabor!
O and I felt sprinkled with hyssop, Lord, just by her look, just by her blessed smile, just by the fact that those eyes had seen me.
Gloria Patri!
I swear that I roared the whole versicle as it had never been sung before in that great minster.
My love did not sing. My love knelt with her sweet head bowed towards the white chapel of her praying hands.
The priest passed out of the choir. A villain trotted after him with the holy water. The priest sprinkled and sprinkled with the hyssop, casting the salt water, as best he could, direct upon the head of my beloved. For her part, she looked up – O shining gaze! O blue eyes burning in that holy gloom! – and parted her hair beneath its soft coif, smoothing her hair with her pearlpale hand, parted it meekly and gently in the middle, the better to receive that benison.
Her skin was white and tender. The sun, spilling suddenly into
the church where a side-door swung, did her much courtesy – lighting straight upon her where she knelt, bathing her in his golden rays like Danae under the loving care of Jove. When I saw this, my heart leapt for joy. I swear it. My heart laughed and leapt for joy. And the meanwhile my lips chanted forth the Signum salutis …
Tall yellow candles on the altar. The clink of censers.
And O my love! my love! With her high white forehead which had in the gold shade of that church the exquisite look of tinted alabaster.
I noticed then the spotty priest, the same little red-eyed clerk who had followed me so miserably with his suspicions wherever I wandered in the church in the first days of my love. He was gliding down the aisle in the wake of the celebrating priest. And he bore in his hand a breviary.
Immediately, I knew what I must do.
How? By inspiration, that’s how!
Stepping out of the choir, I moved directly into the path of the little priest as he came towards me.
I bowed. He stopped, surprised. But returned my bow. I held out my hands for the breviary.
His mouth fell open. But, astonished, as if in a trance, or not knowing why he was doing what he was doing, he handed it to me. Perhaps I appeared to him then – with the stained-glass sun at my elbow – like an angel or some other authority! (Laugh, reader, if you can.) Possibly he mistook me for one of his confreres.
Anyway, for whatever reason, or none, or all, and because it was God’s will, he handed me the book …
I bowed again to him, in thanks, and then turned to the place where my lady knelt.
Now, the pax was applied to this book. I mean – the celebrating priest had kissed it and passed it to the little clerk and now it was with me and it was my chance to pass it to my love. The kiss of peace was made by applying the lips to the same holy object one after another. Usually it was an engraved tablet or a crucifix – but in this church and on this day it was the breviary. This little volume of psalms, hymns, gospels, prayers, responses, versicles and lessons was about to receive the benefit of those adorable lips.
As she kissed it, I saw her mouth pressed close with love. I never saw or knew such a kiss in all my life. Her lips kissed only a book, but her soul spoke in that kiss.
She moved then herself as if in a dream, to return the breviary to the little clerk –
He hesitated –
He was lost –
I seized my chance.
I reached out my hand –
She handed me the book again!
Ah God, what bliss! I fell into such prayer over that breviary that not a hundred red-eyed priests all covered in spots from top to toe could have torn it from me. I bent low and kissed the book more than a hundred times. I wet the pages with my tears. The whole world seemed mine, and heaven too.
The little priest tugged at my sleeve, but I ignored him. Meanwhile, the canon proper of the Mass had begun, and our red-eyed friend was needed to assist back at the high altar. Dillying and dallying, shillying and shallying, at length he returned to his duties there, thinking no doubt to grab hold of me after and have the book back without fail.
I cannot remember the next quarter hour. Mass was said, and sung. And I was only technically in this world at all.
Ite, Missa est …
Deo gratias!
O thanks thanks thanks be to God.
I looked up.
She was gone.
I knew she would be gone.
She was gone. And left me here alone.
I ran from the church. Still clutching the little breviary. The red-eyed priest ran after me, tripping in his chasuble. No doubt he thought it had all been an elaborate plot for the stealing of a not very valuable book.
I shook him off in Houndsditch.
She was gone. And left me here alone. All alone, as unknown.
And I have been alone in this world ever since, for I never saw her again from that day to this.
But I shall see her again. In Heaven. Of that I am certain. Beauty like hers – chance-seen and evanishing – is the surest proof of Heaven we are given. It is a fall of snow from the moon itself. And when I do see her again, in Heaven, I shall return to her that kiss of peace which she gave this breviary.
Yes. This is it. The very book. Father, my friend, there is no need to bless it. That book blesses your fingers which touch it. Those sweet pages were once hallowed by the sweetest lips I never kissed. That breviary has been with me in battle, in siege, in plague, in fire, in flood – in Ireland and in France – in courts and dungeons – in all kinds of places, high and low – in all manner of fortune and misfortune.
It has gone with me next to my heart.
It is my heart.
When I die, I say you are to bury it with me.
Chapter Forty-Two
How Sir John Fastolf went to Ireland in company with Prince Thomas
12th May
Remember Skogan? That abortion of the Muse. Sweet Clio’s bastard. He died of trying to find a rhyme for SCARCE. My exploit in ventilating his wits at the court gate, my refusal to take sides in that quarrel in Eastcheap about bloody silly African islands, and no doubt some good noise of my reputation in London generally – all this recommended me to the party of the King’s sons. From now on I was in and out of their company, passed from hand to hand as often as a dildoe in a nunnery. Hal I found as extraordinary as ever, a true prince, a dove when not provoked, a lion when stirred to anger. John was still the ox in the regal zoo, the taciturn one. Humphrey was just Hal’s shadow, but a nice boy. Curiously, and for what reason I cannot say, it was in the eyes of Bolingbroke’s second son, Thomas, Duke of Clarence, that I made most ascendancy at first. I say curiously because looking back on it now, over the long interval of years, and with both of them dead, I think I can perceive in this another small item in the rivalry that there always was between Hal and this brother who was just one year his junior. It is my belief that Thomas sensed already the bond that was to exist between myself and Hal. He perceived it almost before it was apparent to Hal or to me. And he was jealous. And he wanted his part of the action. And he always desired to do his brother down a little, if he could. So, in stepped Thomas, and for a while at least I was supposed to be his man. As for Hal himself – he was biding his time, in this as in several other Dionysian matters. There was a great wildness in the lad, a delight in disorder, a longing to see the world turned upside-down. And all these things conspired to make John Fastolf a kind of magnet for him. Why? Because he sensed in me King Riot. An English Bacchus. The mischief, the pressure, the fire were all there in Harry Monmouth’s eyes, and gathering force. Showing in a smoky glaze at times. But as yet he held back a little. He hesitated. Unwilling to consecrate himself entirely a priest of Bacchus, or to encourage me in giving reign and rein to a whole Bacchanalia. He waited for the right moment, having meanwhile to do some of his father’s business, dealing with History in the shape of tablecloth-stealers like Reggie Ruthin, for instance. Hm, and the Welsh were singing their song about independence. Glendower sent Hal something like a challenge. So Hal went off to Taffy’s house (at Glendourdy) but Taffy Glendower wasn’t home. So Hal burnt Taffy’s house down and then went for a march round Merionethshire and Powysland, having to pawn his jewels to pay his men. He was spoiling for a fight, but the Welsh nationalists had this quality of invisibility. Hal came back to London looking for me and some fun. But I had gone to Ireland.
Ireland. The Land of Ire. Erin isle. Where men are men and sheep are scared to death.
This was Prince Thomas’s doing. It was – I should think – the year of the Hypostatic Union 1401. That’s right. The very year that bugger Timur the Lame was sodding up the steelworks in Damascus. (Bad news travels fast, especially in the steel industry.) The year after Exton carved a peephole in Queen Dick. The same year of that monstrous statute of Heretico Comburendo, under which poor Badby was burnt in his barrel.
I went to Ireland in company with Prince Thomas, who had been appointed the King�
�s deputy in that place.
Ireland I did not care for.
The chief cause of my dislike was the Irish. I have found that a good Irishman is as rare as a good unicorn. Perhaps it’s just bad luck, but all the unicorns I’ve known have been feckless devils with the one horn sawn off.
I don’t say the Irish are a wicked race, mind you. Some of my best friends have been Irish. But there is a certain – shall we say Irishness? – about them … There’s the story of the Irish ploughboy, for instance, who was troubled by his little shillelagh turning into a big shillelagh every time he saw his master’s wife. He took his problem to his master.
‘Mick,’ said the master (whose name was Paddy). ‘Mick, me bhoy, me budding genius, I’ve a powerful deal of sympathy for you in your deformed predicament. And, because you’re like a son to me, I’ll tell you what to do about it.’
‘Oh, sir,’ says Mick, ‘Oh thank you, sir.’
(Always polite, the Irish. Especially when they’re murdering you.)
‘Yes,’ says Mick’s master Paddy. ‘Now, when you feel this terrible hardness coming into your shamrock, Mick, you go straight into the barn that’s behind the cowshed, and you slap two handfuls of cow dung on your fellow. That’ll do the trick. That’s the secret. It’s St Patrick’s answer, Mick. St Patrick himself.’
So Mick the ploughboy did as his master told him. Every time he got an erection he ran straight for the cow dung and pelted his prick with the stuff. Until one fine morning, caught in the act by the farmer’s wife – the original cause of the trouble, you’ll recall – it is suggested to him by this kind lady that there might be a better cure for his affliction.
‘Oh madam,’ says Mick. ‘Oh thank you, madam.’ A pause. ‘What is it?’ he asks.
Whereupon the Irish farm-wife takes the young ploughboy by the prick and leads him up to the hayloft. She takes off her dress. She slips down her undergarments. She lies down on her back in the sweet-smelling hay, and she opens wide her lovely legs.
‘Now,’ she pants. ‘Now put it in!’