The Golden Age of Science Fiction Novels Vol 02

by Anthology

  She blushed suddenly, wondering if it were Guy who had done this. Stepping to the side of the stable-boy, she examined the post.

  The letters were in pairs. They were M. B. and G. F.

  Her feeling bubbled over in a little half-stifled laugh.

  "Silly!" she exclaimed. Then to the boy: "Know you him who cut the letters?" she asked, with affected indifference.

  "Nay, mistress," he replied, falling again to his work, "but he be a rare un wi' the bottle."

  "The bottle!" Phoebe exclaimed, in amazement. Then quite sternly: "Thou beliest him, knave! No more sober--" She checked herself, suddenly conscious of her indiscretion.

  "Why, how knowest his habits?" she asked, more quietly.

  "A saw un, mistress, sitting in the kitchen wi' two bottles o' Spanish wine. Ask the player else."

  "The player! What player?"

  "Him as was drinking wi' him. Each cracked his bottle, and 'twas nip and tuck which should call first for the second."

  So Guy had spent the evening--those hours when she was tenderly dreaming of him with love renewed--drinking and carousing with some dissolute actor!

  Within her Phoebe Wise and Mary Burton struggled for mastery of her opinion.

  What more natural than that a poor lad, tired with waiting on his feet for hours for one look from the mistress who disdained him, should seek to forget his troubles quaffing good wine in the company of some witty player? This was Mary's view.

  What! To leave the presence of his sweetheart--the girl to whom he had just written that penitent letter--to go fresh from the inspiration of all that should uplift a lover, and befuddle his brains with "rum," gossiping with some coarse-grained barn-stormer! So Phoebe railed.

  "Who was the player?" she asked, sharply.

  "Him as wore the long white beard," said the boy. "The Jew, to wit. Eh, but a got his cess, the runnion!"

  "Shylock!" she cried, in spite of herself.

  So this was the gossiping barn-stormer, the dissolute actor. Will Shakespeare it was with whom her Guy had spent the evening! Phoebe Wise could but capitulate, and Mary Burton took for a time triumphant possession of the heart that was Guy Fenton's.

  "Have the players left the Peacock?" she asked, eagerly.

  "Nay, mistress, know you not that they play to-night at the home of Sir William Percy?"

  "Then they are here, at the inn, boy?"

  "A saw him that played the Jew i' the garden not a half hour since. He's wont to wander there and mutter the words of the play. I'll warrant him there now, mistress."

  Here, indeed, was good fortune! Shakespeare was in the garden. He should tell her where to find Guy that she might warn him. Quickly she turned away and hurried out of the yard and around the north L, beyond which was the garden, laid out with ancient hedges and long beds of old-fashioned flowers.

  Now this same garden was the chief pride of the neighborhood, the more especially that gardens were but seldom found attached to inns in those days. Here there had been a partly successful attempt to imitate Italian landscape gardening; but the elaborately arranged paths, beds, and parterres, with their white statues and fountains, lost their effectiveness closed in as they were by high walls of vine-covered brick. It was rumored that once a stately peacock had here once flaunted his gorgeous plumage, giving his name to the inn itself--but this legend rested upon little real evidence.

  When Phoebe reached the entrance to the main walk she stopped and looked anxiously about her. Nowhere could she see or hear anyone. Sadly disappointed, she moved slowly forward, glancing quickly to right and left, still hoping that he whom she sought had not utterly departed.

  She reached a small stone basin surmounted by a statue of Plenty, whose inverted horn suggested a copious stream long since choked up. Behind the fountain there was a stone bench with a high back. Peeping behind this, Phoebe found that a second seat was placed beyond the back, inviting a seclusion whose expected purpose was distinctly suggested by a sly little Cupid on a pedestal, holding one forefinger to his smiling lips.

  At this moment Phoebe was conscious of a distant mumbling to her left, and, glancing quickly in that direction, she saw a plainly dressed, bareheaded man of medium height just turning into the main walk out of a by-path, where he had been hidden from view by a thick hedge of privet. His eyes were turned upon some slips of paper which he held in one hand.

  Could this be he? Shakespeare! The immortal Prince of Poets!

  To Mary Burton, the approach of a mere player would have given little concern. But Phoebe Wise, better knowing his unrivalled rank, was seized with a violent attack of diffidence, and in an instant she dodged behind the stone seat and sat in hiding with a beating heart.

  The steps of the new-comer slowly approached. Phoebe knew not whether pleasure or a painful fear were stronger within her. Here was indeed the culmination of her strange adventure! There, beyond the stone which mercifully concealed her, He was approaching--the wondrous Master Mind of literature.

  Would he go by unheeding? Could she let him pass on without one glance--one word? And yet, how address him? How dare to show her face?

  The slow steps ceased and at the same time he fell silent. She could picture him gazing with unconscious eyes at the fountain while within he listened to the Genius that prompted his majestic works. Again the gravel creaked, and then she knew that he had seated himself on the other bench. The two were sitting back to back with only a stone partition between them.

  To her own surprise, the diffidence which had oppressed her seemed now to be gradually passing off. She still realized the privilege she enjoyed in thus sharing his seat, but perhaps Mary Burton was gaining her head as well as her heart, for she positively began to think of leaving her concealment, contemplating almost unmoved a meeting with her demi-god.

  Then he spoke.

  "The infant first--then the school-boy," he muttered. "So far good! The third age--m--m--m--" There was a pause before he proceeded, slowly and distinctly:

  "Unwillingly to school. And then the lover, Sighing his heart out in a woful ballad--

  m--m--m--Ah!--

  Made to his mistress' eyebrow."

  He chuckled audibly a moment, and then, speaking a little louder:

  "Fenton to the life, poor lad!" he said.

  Phoebe sat up very straight with a startled movement. Oh, to think of it! That she should have forgotten Sir Guy! To have sought Will Shakespeare for the sole purpose of tracing her threatened lover--and then to forget him for a simple name--a mere celebrity!

  Unconscious of the small inward drama so near at hand, the playwright proceeded with his composition.

  "'Sighing his heart out,'" he mused. "Nay, that were too strong a touch for Jacques. Lighter--lighter." Then, after a moment of thought: "Ay--ay!" he chuckled. "'Sighing like furnace'--poor Fenton! How like a very furnace in his dolor! Yet did he justice to the Canary. So--so! To go back now:

  "Unwillingly to school. And then the lover, Sighing like furnace with a woful ballad Made to his mistress' eyebrow."

  'Twill pass, in sooth, 'twill pass!"

  Lightly Phoebe climbed onto the bench and peeped over the back. She looked down sidewise upon the author, who was writing rapidly in an illegible hand upon one of his paper slips.

  There was the head so familiar to us all--the domelike brow, the long hair hanging over the ears. This she could see, but of his face only the outline of his left cheek was visible. Strange and unexpected to herself was the light-hearted calm with which, now that she really saw him, she could contemplate the great poet.

  He ceased writing and leaned against the back, gazing straight ahead.

  "The third age past, what then? Why the soldier, i' faith--the soldier----"

  "Full of strange oaths"

  came a mischievous whisper from an invisible source--

  "and bearded like the pard. Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel, Seeking the bubble reputation Even in the cannon's mouth."

  For a momen
t the poet sat as though paralyzed with astonishment. Then rising, he turned and faced the daring girl.

  Now she saw the face so well remembered and yet how little known before. Round it was and smooth, save for the small, well-trimmed mustache above the beautifully moulded mouth and chin--sensitive yet firm. But above all, the splendid eyes! Eyes of uncertain color that seemed to Phoebe mirrors of universal life, yet just now full of a perplexed admiration.

  For she was herself the centre of a picture well fitted to arrest a poet's attention. Her merry face was peering over the smooth white stone, with four pink finger-tips on each side clinging for greater security. Behind her a cherry-tree was dropping its snowy blossoms, and two or three had fallen unheeded upon her wavy brown hair, making a charming frame for the young eyes and tender lips whose smiling harmony seemed to sing with arrant roguishness.

  With a trilling laugh, half-suppressed, she spoke at last.

  "A penny for your thoughts, Master Shakespeare!" she said.

  The mood of the astonished player had quickly yielded to the girl's compelling smile, and his fine lips opened upon a firm line of teeth.

  "'Show me first your penny,'" he quoted.

  "I'll owe you it."

  He laughed and shook his head.

  "That would I not my thoughts, damsel."

  "Pay them, then. Pay straightway!" she pouted, "and see the account be fair."

  "Nay, then," he replied, bowing half-mockingly, "an the accountant be so passing fair, must not the account suffer in the comparison?"

  The face disappeared for a moment, and then Phoebe emerged from behind the stone rampart, dusting her hands off daintily one against the other.

  "Did not your wit exceed your gallantry, sir," she said, courtesying slightly, "I had had my answer sooner."

  Shakespeare was somewhat taken aback to see a developed young woman, evidently of gentle birth, where he had thought to find the mere prank-loving child of some neighboring cottager. Instantly his manner changed. Bowing courteously, he stepped forward and began in a deferential voice:

  "Nay, then, fair mistress, an I had known----"

  "Tut--tut!" she interrupted, astonished at her own boldness. "You thought me a chit, sir. Let it pass. Pray what think you of my lines?"

  "They seemed the whisper of a present muse," he said, gayly, but with conviction in his voice. "'Twas in the very mood of Jacques, my lady--a melancholy fellow by profession----"

  "Holding that light which another might presently approve"--she broke in--"and praise bestowing on ill deserts in the mere wantonness of a cynic wit! What!--doth the cap fit?"

  The amazement in her companion's face was irresistible, and Phoebe burst forth into a spontaneous laugh of purest merriment.

  "'A hit--a hit--a very palpable hit!'" she quoted, clapping her hands in her glee.

  "Were not witches an eldritch race," said Shakespeare, "you, mistress, might well lie under grave suspicion."

  "What--what! Do I not fit the wizened stamp of Macbeth's sisters three?"

  Shakespeare flung out his arms with a gesture of despair.

  "Yet more and deeper mystery!" he cried. "My half-formed plots--half-finished scraps--the clear analysis of souls whose only life is here!" he tapped his forehead. "Say, good lady, has Will Shakespeare spoken, perchance, in sleep--yet e'en so, how could----"

  He broke off and coming to her side, spoke earnestly in lowered tones.

  "Tell me. Have you the fabled power to read the soul? Naught else explains your speech."

  "Tell me, sir, first the truth," said Phoebe. "In all sadness, Master Shakespeare, have you had aught from Francis Bacon? I mean by way of aid in writing--or e'en of mere suggestion?"

  "Bacon--Francis Bacon," said he, evidently at a loss. "There was one Nicholas Bacon----"

  "Nay, 'tis of his son I speak."

  "Then, in good sooth, I can but answer 'No,' mistress; since that I knew not even that this Nicholas had a son."

  Phoebe heaved a sigh of relief and then went on with a partial return of her former spirit.

  "Then all's well!" she exclaimed. "I am a muse well pleased; and now, an you will, I'll teach you straight more verses for your play."

  "As you like it," said Shakespeare, bowing, half-amused and wholly mystified.

  "Good!" she retorted, brightly. "'As You Like It' shall you name the piece, that henceforth this our conversation you may bear in mind."

  Smiling, he took up his papers and wrote across the top of one of them "As You Like It" in large characters.

  "Now write as I shall bid you," Phoebe said. "Pray be seated, good my pupil, come."

  Then, seated there by Phoebe's side, the poet committed to paper the whole of Jacques's speech on "The Seven Ages," just as Phoebe spoke it from her memory of the Shakespeare club at home.

  When he ceased scribbling, he leaned forward with elbows on his knees and ran his eyes slowly and wonderingly over each line in turn, whispering the words destined to become so famous. Phoebe leaned a little away from her companion, resting one hand on the bench, while she watched his face with a smile that slowly melted to the mood of dreamy meditation. They sat thus alone in silence for some time, so still that a wren, alighting on the path, hopped pecking among the stones at their very feet.

  At length the poet, without other change in position, turned his head and looked searchingly and seriously into the young girl's eyes. What amazing quality was it that stamped its impress upon the maiden's face--a something he had never seen or dreamed of? Even a Shakespeare could give no name to that spirit of the future out of which she had come.

  "Is it then true?" he said, in an undertone. "Doth the muse live? Not a mere prompting inward sense, but in bodily semblance visiting the poet's eye? Or art thou a creature of Fancy's colors blended, feigning reality?"

  Never before had the glamour of her situation so penetrated her to whom these words were addressed. She was choked by an irrepressible sob that was half a laugh, and a film of moisture obscured her vision. With a sudden movement, she seized the poet's hand and pressed it to her lips. Then, half-ashamed, she rose and turned away to toy with the foliage of a shrub that stood beside the path.

  "Nay, then!" Shakespeare cried, with something like relief in his voice, "you are no insubstantial spirit, damsel. Yet would I fain more clearly comprehend thee!"

  There was a minute's pause ere Phoebe turned toward the speaker, that spirit of mischief dancing again in her eyes and on her lips.

  "I am Mary Burton, of Burton Hall," she said.

  "Oh!" he exclaimed. And then again: "Oh!" with much of understanding and something of disappointment.

  "Is all clear now?" she asked, roguishly.

  Shakespeare rose, and, shaking one finger playfully at her, he said:

  "Most clear is this--that Sir Guy knows well to choose in love; although, an I read you aright, my Mistress Mockery, his wife is like to prove passing mettlesome. For the rest, your lover knows poor Will Shakespeare's secrets--his Macbeth and half-written Hamlet. 'Tis with these you have made so bold to-day! My muse, in sooth! Oh, fie--fie!" And he shook his head, laughing.

  "Indeed! In very sooth!" said Phoebe, with merry sarcasm. "And was it, then, Guy who brought me these same lines of Jacques the melancholy?" And she pointed to the papers in his hand.

  "Nay, there I grant you," said the poet, shaking his head, while the puzzled expression crept once more into his face.

  "Ay, there, and in more than this!" Phoebe exclaimed. "You have spoken of Hamlet, Master Shakespeare. Guy hath told me something of that tragedy. This Prince of Denmark is a most unhappy wight, if I mistake not. Doth he not once turn to thought of self-murder?"

  "Ay, mistress. I have given Sir Guy my thoughts on the theme of Hamlet, and have told him I planned a speech wherein should be made patent Hamlet's desperate weariness of life, sickened by brooding on his mother's infamy."

  "'To be or not to be, that is the question,'" quoted Phoebe. "Runs it not so?"

  "This pa
sses!" cried Shakespeare, once more all amazement. "I told not this to your friend!"

  "Nor did I from Guy receive it," said Phoebe. "Tell me, Master Shakespeare, have you yet brought that speech to its term?"

  "No," he replied, "nor have I found the task an easy one. Much have I written, but 'tis all too slight. Can you complete these lines, think you?"

  "My life upon it!" she cried, eagerly.

  He shook his head, smiling incredulously.

  "You scarce know what you promise," he said. "Can one so young--a damsel, too--sound to its bitter deeps the soul of Hamlet!"

  "Think you so?" Phoebe replied, her eyes sparkling. "Then what say you to a bargain, Master Shakespeare? You know where Sir Guy Fenton may be found?"

  "Ay, right well! 'Tis a matter of one hour's ride."

  "So I thought," she said. "Hear, then, mine offer. I must perforce convey a message straight that touches the life and honor of Sir Guy. To send my servant were over-dangerous, for there may be watchers on my going and coming. Will you go, sir, without delay, if that I speak for you the missing lines completing young Hamlet's soliloquy?"

  Shakespeare looked into her face for a few moments in silence.

  "Why, truly," he said at last, "I have here present business with my fellow-player Burbidge." He paused, and then, yielding to the pleading in her eyes: "Yet call it a bargain, mistress," he said. "Speak me the lines I lack and straightway will I take your word to Sir Guy."

  "Now blessings on thee!" cried Phoebe. "Give me straight the line you last have written."

  At once the poet began:

  "When he himself might his quietus make----"

  "With a bare bodkin"--broke in the excited girl. "Who would fardels bear, to grunt and sweat beneath a weary life, but that the thought of something after death--the undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveller returns--puzzles the will, and makes us rather bear the ills we have than fly to others that we know not of. Thus conscience does make cowards of us all, and so the native hue of resolution is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, and enterprises of great pith and moment by this regard their currents turn awry and lose the name of action."