The Man On a Donkey

by H. F. M. Prescott

  December 22

  Master Laurence Machyn and his wife sat late at breakfast. The servants had finished theirs and gone away on their several occasions; every now and then one or other of them would go past the screens to the street door with a bundle of mourning robes over his arm, or a sheaf of long candles, or a load of painted buckram escutcheons upon staves, for there was a great burial to-day at St. Laurence Pountney. But Laurence and his wife sat on; they had argued all breakfast-time, and the argument was not yet concluded.

  July said: ‘Well, Sir, if you will not go, I cannot.’

  ‘Oh, Sweet! It’s not that I will not go. I cannot. I must be at this great burial.’

  July flung down upon the board that one of Laurence’s big gilt spoons of the Apostles with the figure of St. Peter on it, as if it had been no better than a spoon of tin.

  ‘Why should they bury him to-day, when the King goes to Greenwich?’

  ‘He has been dead four days.’

  ‘There’s a quarter of mutton in the larder,’ she declared callously, ‘that’s been dead longer than that. In this great frost—’

  But he stopped her there with a fair show of sternness, which, however, he knew he should not be able to keep up for long. And true enough, when he saw July sit there, drooping glumly over the table, all light gone from her face, he had to think of a way of setting things right.

  ‘I’ll tell you, wife, what I shall do.’ He stood up, and, standing so, felt that he could speak as a husband should, who, if he chose to be indulgent, was firm withal.

  ‘I’ll send the boy to fetch Mistress Holland. She loves a show. You shall go together.’ July was picking with her finger-nail at the blue stripe that was woven across the board cloth. She did not look up. ‘And Mat shall go with you, so you shall have a man to attend you in the crowd.’ Mat was Laurence’s eldest journeyman; to send him away on a busy day meant much, and July knew it; but still she sulked.

  ‘There, Sweet,’ Laurence cast from him the last rag of simulated firmness, and pleaded openly. ‘There, Sweet, be merry. Give me a kiss, and you shall have a gold noble to spend.’

  When he had taken his kiss, and paid his gold noble, he went away to see to all that he had promised July before he set to work on the business of the burial. He told himself that he had a dutiful wife – she was dutiful, he repeated to himself, in the main. Also she was hardly more than a child; whenever he chose to make a stand, then she must yield.

  Yet the truth was not so, and he knew it. Already she took her way as freely as ever the first Mistress Machyn, and in return he got less comfort, for she would not be troubled to see after the maids. And lately, since he had given her a fine green nightgown lined with budge, she had shown herself a sad slug-a-bed, even trailing down to breakfast in it. He prepared a rebuke, yet when he saw her lay her cheek on the soft fur of the collar, and snuggle the green folds about her, his disapproval was quite swamped by pleasure in her pleasure, and pity for her pride in the gown, for, in her first delight, she had cried, ‘Oh! I never had none such before! My sister had no finer.’

  Laurence had spoken to Mat, who looked down and sidelong, disapproving. He stood for a moment at the door watching the boy go off on his errand to Mistress Holland. The briskness of frost and sunshine had got into the lad’s toes, and at the street door he must take off in a great leap, so as to brush the lintel with his hand; then he was away with a bound and a hoot, as though he had escaped from a cage.

  Laurence smiled and shut the door. In the darkness of the passage he stood a moment, as his thoughts went back and hung over July. He did not know how often in a day he would stand like this, apparently vacant, but in reality searching, wondering, learning.

  Now he shook his head. He did not care if she was by no means as meek as she had been. ‘One of her birth,’ he thought, ‘must find it ill to be wife to such as I.’ With her growth – and she had shot up tall since last autumn – she had put on a look as of fugitive, proscribed nobility. Sometimes she was imperious, though defiantly rather than with any confidence; sometimes, when among company, there was a sort of dark sparkle about her. ‘And if,’ thought Laurence, ‘she be so set on this show, it’s but as it should be.’ It came to him with a pang of tenderness that when she was first his wife she was so frightened a thing as to have no heart for pleasure. He could not guess that she would have had no heart for it to-day, only that she had heard his friends talk last night of the Yorkshire rebels, saying that the King had pardoned them every one. That was why she was so set on holiday-making.

  The boy came back jigging on his toes and snapping his fingers behind Mistress Holland, who moved at a slow-pace which his feet could not well endure. Mistress Holland, having kissed both July and Laurence, explained that she had been ready to go out to watch the show with Mistress Pacey, but just before Laurence’s lad came she had heard that Mistress Pacey could not go, she having fallen down the cellar steps, nine steps, and broken her leg. ‘I told her,’ said Mistress Holland, ‘I told her she would be sorry when she had the picture of the blessed St. Christopher in the parlour whitewashed over, and a motto – something about Fortune – painted over it. “It may be the new fashion,” I said to her, “but you’ll be sorry therefor.”’ Then she kissed July again, and pushed into her hands a little box of comfits.

  So July, far from losing her dignity, was able to feel that she was doing Mistress Holland a kindness on going with her to watch the King riding to Greenwich, not as usual by water, but, because the Thames was quite frozen over, through London and over London Bridge.

  They came through crowded streets, where the stones rang with frost, and the heaps of scattered garbage were hard almost as the stones, and laced over with patterns of white rime, to London Bridge, and following the crowd, passed under the arches of the gate-house there and a little way along the bridge till from a space between two of the houses they could look down upon the river, like a great dark green highway, with people walking about on it in the sunshine, and boys sliding, and some few people gliding at great speed upon bones tied under their feet; one of these, less skilful than the rest, was most popular with the crowd because of his frequent and comical tumbles.

  But while Mistress Holland and Mat looked down July turned her back and looked up towards the sun, because its light was so blessed as it moved, in greater splendour than King Harry’s, across the sky which in these last days was empty of clouds from dawn to the red setting, and now of as clear a blue as any summer morning. She forgot everything in that pure light, and the delicate warmth on her cheeks, and, half-smiling, turned her eyes this way and that, enjoying everything without thought. There were many banners set out in their brackets over the gate to-day; they stirred a little, sleepily, unfolding their colours and their gold against the sun, then, drooping, hung close again. July looked below them, to the ledge just above the arch, and she startled Mistress Holland by catching her arm and letting out a shrill cackle of laughter.

  ‘Oh!’ she cried, ‘See him grin with never a tooth in his top jaw. And his hair – red hair – it moves in the wind.’

  Mistress Holland looked where July pointed, and pulled her hand down.

  ‘Sh!’ she said, low but very urgent. ‘That is one of the Monks of the Charterhouse. They were holy men. Martyrs. You should not laugh.’

  July stopped laughing with a gulp. When she spoke, what with the way her voice shook and her teeth chattered, Mistress Holland could make little of it, and it seemed no explanation at all for July to say – if that was what she did say – ‘I laughed because they will not do so to the Yorkshiremen now.’

  Mistress Holland could see however that the girl was near now to tears. ‘Tut! Tut!’ she said, comfortingly, tucked July’s arm under hers and talked cheerfully of easy, everyday things. She also took some pains to shake off Mat so that she could ask July a few close questions; but July gave her none of the answers she hoped for, and certainly the girl was thin as a rake handle with no signs yet that she was bre
eding.

  Soon the King and Queen went by, and small, pale Lady Mary, the King’s elder daughter, who had once been Princess of Wales, close after them. The Queen smiled, and drew her hand out of her mantle of Russian furs to wave to the people as they shouted, and the King looked about too, with a gracious expression, and put up his hand to his cap now and then. But the Lady Mary went by them with a look like a sleep-walker.

  After that Mistress Holland and July went down by Old Swan Stairs onto the ice, stepping on it very gingerly at first, then with more confidence. It was deep green, it showed feet thick, and had bubbles in it. July, staring down, thought it beautiful, and thought of the river flowing beneath the ice, all alone in its own silence, seen and yet unseen, for though the ice was clearish, like thick green glass, you could not see the water through it; or else you did not know which was water and which was the ice through which you saw the water. She thought that the river must feel now very safe, moving thus solitary below its frozen skin.

  When they had had enough of walking about July and Mistress Holland began to look for Mat, but could not find him. ‘Well, we’ll stand and wait,’ said Mistress Holland, and they stood back to back, the Vintner’s wife scanning the crowds on the ice, July looking up at the wharf above, till her eyes were dazzled by the bright sky beyond the people’s heads.

  Behind her she heard, among many scraps of meaningless talk, this, spoken in a man’s voice:—

  ‘...A great brush and a pail of ink, and he inked every sign from Paul’s to Old Bailey.’

  Whoever spoke had gone by now. Another voice answered him from farther away with a great laugh, and, ‘Hal! you lie!’

  July whipped round.

  Master Aske and a taller man had passed, and were swinging on up towards the Vintry at a good pace. July seized Mistress Holland by the hand. ‘There he is,’ she cried, and dragged her along. Mistress Holland, in her anxiety to recover Mat, was willing to show what nimbleness she could. Only when she found that July was plucking by the sleeve a strange gentleman did she pull her back, assuring her hastily that, ‘This is not Mat, Mistress Machyn.’

  Master Aske had stopped and turned. He looked first blank, then astonished, and then pleased.

  ‘Mass!’ he said. ‘Mistress July here!’

  July stood dumb, only looking at him. If there were any thought in her mind it was that it would be enough for her could she look at him always and listen when he spoke. The perfection and quiescence of her sudden joy so warmed and lit her face as to make her, for those few moments, almost beautiful.

  But Mistress Holland was insisting that she should know who was this gentleman.

  July told her, ‘Master Aske.’

  ‘Not – not the Captain of the Yorkshiremen?’

  July, without taking her eyes for a moment from his face, said yes, this was he. She did not remember, and would not have cared had she remembered, that she had lied to Mistress Holland, saying that she knew none of the Yorkshire gentlemen.

  Mistress Holland herself did not precisely remember it yet, though it lurked in her mind, creating a slight confusion there. But of one thing she was sure, since little Mistress Machyn was acquainted with Master Aske, she herself should shake him by the hand, and having shaken him by the hand would bid him home to supper, and his friend too.

  His friend it seemed was promised forth. Master Aske, after an instant’s hesitation, remembered that the chimney at the Cardinal’s Hat smoked, and said he’d come, and gladly.

  At the Vintner’s house they supped and drank well, and afterwards in the last coloured light went to an upper parlour that looked upon the river. A servant poured more wine, and set down wafers, sugar comfits, and a dish of oranges. When he had shut the door and gone away Master Holland stood up.

  ‘Sir,’ said he, ‘we and all England may well thank you, under God, for you and your fellows have saved religion,’ and he drank to Master Aske, standing.

  Aske flushed and his eye shone. He was as ready to tell them about the Pilgrimage as they were to hear. ‘And,’ said he at last, ‘now there is nothing to fear. The King is a very gracious Prince. He only needed to know the truth, which was kept from him.’

  Mistress Holland cried out that she’d said so all along. ‘It’s that Cromwell,’ she said.

  The Vintner asked quickly, ‘Was Lord Privy Seal there while you spoke with the King?’

  ‘At first, but the King drove him out.’

  ‘Is it possible?’ said Master Holland. He looked shrewdly at Aske. ‘The King heard you patiently?’

  ‘He heard me.’ Aske leaned forward looking from one to another, half smiling. ‘I’ll tell you now what I’ve told no man. I rode here in great fear of my life. But the King’s no dissembler. If he’d been smooth with me I’d have doubted him. But he was not so. I knelt there for half an hour, I think, while he rated me. But then, at the last, he said I should write down all that I had been telling him of the grievances of the North, and he would take counsel on them.’

  ‘Ho!’ said the Vintner, ‘you spoke of grievances to him?’

  ‘When he let me speak.’ Aske gave a little laugh. ‘I thought he’d have knocked his dagger about my ears before I’d done. Yet in the end he gave me his hand to kiss.’

  He sat for a moment in silence, staring down at his wine which, in the silver cup, showed no colour, but only a surface that was dark, and darkly shining. He could see again the King’s hand laid on his own, a plump, wide, white hand, with finely tapering fingers and many rings. He said, thinking aloud, ‘It’s strange how when you have stood against any true man you love him all the better for it. There’s Sir Robert Constable. We had each other always in displeasure in the old days. But now I know him, and he me. So too with my Lord Darcy. And so with the King’s Grace; I never would have done him hurt, but now I’d die for him.’

  He looked up, and this time was aware of how July was watching him. He smiled at her. ‘He gave me a crimson satin jacket of his own,’ he said, ‘so you’ll see me going very fine.’

  She dropped her eyes from his face to his breast for a second. ‘Is that it?’ she asked, in a bemused sort of way, though the jacket he wore was of cloth, pretty well worn and not at all fine.

  ‘Goose!’ he said, and laughed. ‘Not this one. And that jacket will have to be mightily cut down or I wear it, so much bigger a man is the King than I. I told His Grace it’d be as in the fable of the ass and the lion’s skin.’ He turned to the others and said, to explain his familiarity with July, ‘This maid I have known for many years since she was so high,’ and showed them with his hand.

  But Mistress Holland cried out, ‘Maid? She’s a married wife this three months.’

  ‘Benedicite!’ said Master Aske, and looked again at July, more narrowly and more kindly. He thought to himself that he had never before seen her eyes so shining; he was glad to think that this must mean she’d got a good man, and was at last, as it were, warm, sheltered, and out of the wind.

  1537

  January 2

  After the dullness of grey ice the pool in the old knot garden at Wilton gleamed dark with the reflection of the wall and the yewtrees, bright with the pale sky. It was pleasant to see the water quiver as a breath of wind touched it, after so long immobility, just as it was pleasant to walk in the air, and feel it soft and clean on the cheek, after the biting chills or heat of great fires in perfumed, shuttered rooms, which all had endured for the last weeks. So Sir John Bulmer and Sir Francis Bigod paced together in the garden, followed by Meg with a nurse carrying her latest born, a boy now a month old.

  Here, in Dame Anne’s time it had not been thought amiss to dry linen yarn or new-bleached cloths along the flat, clipped tops of box that edged the convoluted beds. But now that it was Dame Meg instead of Dame Anne such things were not done in the old knot garden: indeed already part of it had been grubbed up to make Dame Meg one of those newer gardens, such as the King had, and some great nobles, where the owner’s coat armour was most cunningl
y picked out in colours, with, for gold, yellow sand or crumbled and pounded Flanders tile, chalk or well-burnt plaster for the herald’s argent, sifted coaldust for sable, bricks broken to dust for red. and so on. This display of coat armour, where Bulmer impaled Stafford (and Stafford with no sinister bend), had been Meg’s first flourish in her altered state, when from mistress she became a lawful wedded wife. She had set the gardeners about it in the first fine days of last spring, before even she began to root through all those coffers and chests which contained Dame Anne’s stuff – old-fashioned, enormously ample gowns, hosen of gigantic proportions, shoes easy, large, and slovenly trodden over. Of all these things Meg had made great mock to her women, though not when Sir John was there, for he exacted more respect for a dead wife than he had done for one alive and going heavily about her duties at Wilton with an invincible silent patience.

  For a while Meg carried in her arms the stiff little bundle that was young John Bulmer of Pinchinthorpe, rocking him, making sweet silly noises to him, bidding him watch the birds as they flew, and bending her lovely face above him, lovelier than ever after the stress of child-birth. Partly she did it for sheer pleasure, because she was proud to be the mother of a true-born son, but also she was aware how Sir Francis Bigod marked her, as he and Sir John turned; his eyes lingered as if he saw her in a new guise, and with new kindness; that being so, and she what she was, she could not keep her claws from him, though she might hide them in the most demure gentleness of approach.

  So, when John of Pinchinthorpe set up a high thin wail, Meg pushed the child into the nurse’s arms. ‘In! In with him!’ she said. ‘For I can see he’s cold – Oh, such cold cheeks!’ She let her lips travel with a bee’s light cruising kiss over the child’s face, then caught Sir John’s arm and leaned upon him, looking across him to Sir Francis with a faint smile.

  For a little the three of them moved in silence. They came so to the small round pool, and stood, looking down. Then Sir John said: