TIME WHICH ANTIQUATES antiquities and hath an art to make dust of all things, hath yet spared these minor monuments.
— Sir Thomas Browne
It was the Queen’s pride that she was “mere English.” She certainly had the love of sport and the love of the English countryside in her blood. She was hawking that morning on the South Downs, than which, whether you look at them from land or sea, no hills more lovely or more English can be found. She started, therefore, in boisterous spirits. Behind her rode a couple of falconers, behind them a cadger with a cadge of perfectly trained Soar hawks. They were riding to a hill beyond Bignor where they were sure to flush some herons. And the day was so clear that she could see far up into the pale blue sky. There rode with her some of the most expert gentlemen of the neighbourhood. But after a time her spirits flagged. The Netherlands, the King of France, Mary Queen of Scots, the importunities of her own Parliament for a nominated heir to the throne, and always, always Philip of Spain — she had a world of troubles upon her shoulders and had spent half the night with her Secretaries, winding in and out to hold everything in suspense. Her statecraft was a minute in a Government Office. It could go round and round from Department to Department, each one writing its comment and neither good nor harm done, until the decisive words were written, “Action Taken.” She alone had the authority to write them, and if she had been forced to write them, she would have found that she had writer’s cramp and could not use her pen.
It may have been that these troubles weighed upon her, or her late work, or the apple-cheeked squires with their local stories. Certain it is that as they mounted the knoll beyond Bignor Hill, she beckoned his Lordship to her side.
“I fear me, my Lord, that these gentlemen will weary of me before the day’s out unless I grant them some relief. Will you have that long lad fetched to me!”
His Lordship concealed his chagrin as best he could. There were his fine sons. Her Grace made no more account of them than if they were Gentlemen Ushers. He fell back, his mind reproaching his son Henry for bringing this pretty, scented butterfly under Her Grace’s high-arched nose. But the butterfly could not be found. The butterfly was playing truant.
He returned with his excuses, and the royal features sharpened and the royal eyes looked bleak. Someone hazarded a guess. There were two riders behind them and below them, walking their horses very slowly side by side down the hillside. Was it not possible that — ?
“Who is the wench?” Her Majesty asked.
Someone thought that it might be — did not know, to be sure — but thought that it might be Sylvia Buckhurst from Woolbeding. A dark-haired girl — rather lovely — with a delicate white face and big dark eyes which changed so with her moods that it was difficult to name their colour.
“Hoit and toit!” cried Her Grace, “do I care what the slut’s eyes are like? I want to hear no more of her. Who is she?”
My Lord explained.
“Her father has the Manor of Woolbeding, and, with Your Majesty’s consent, I asked him to sup in the Private Garden at Your Majesty’s table tomorrow.”
A tiny smile — not too pleasant and friendly — curved Her Majesty’s lips. It seemed to some that her hand tightened upon her riding whip.
“Shall I send a horseman after them?” his Lordship suggested, his spirits mounting. But the Queen turned on him.
“What, my Lord! I am to pray for his company, am I? By God’s death, the knave’s as vain as twenty peacocks already.”
She rode on, annoyed at the blindness of men. It was not to be expected that a blonde lady whose hair got redder and redder with each twelvemonth could discern enchantment in a cloudy slip of a girl in her teens. She made a small promise to herself
“Her father sups in the Private Garden tomorrow. That is excellent. They shall learn better manners before the night’s out. I’ll take a course with them, since they’re so forthcoming.”
And a few minutes later a pleasant story was told into her ear of a dance practised in the Closewalks and a kiss that ended it. So they were cutting their capers in the country dance, were they? She would see to it that they cut a few more than they had practised.
Meanwhile they were approaching the ground where their lure might be expected. The falconers took each a hawk upon his wrist, holding it by the jesses. A great heron rose with a startled flap of wings. The falconers unhooded the hawks and launched them in pursuit. Whatever tomorrow’s supper might bring forth, this day’s sport had begun.
The truants had seized this opportunity. The day was too good to be wasted, their courage was high, Her Grace well ahead with the falconers. They fell back, and at the dip by Bignor Hill Sylvia led the way down a winding track grown over with grass during more years than anyone could remember. In a little copse they dismounted and tied their horses to trees. They clambered along the hillside at their ease. Sylvia had no skirts to incommode her. She wore a doublet and short breeches of brown velvet and boots of russet leather reaching above the knees. Anthony Scarr was dressed in green cloth, with a falling band about his neck instead of a ruff, and long black boots fitting close to his legs. He carried with him a package in a linen cloth which he spread out upon a green mound in a little hollow which they chanced upon. He had a cold capon, a flagon of wine, and all the necessaries of a picnic.
“We’ll have an assembly here, whilst they have theirs below.”
He looked down to the high garden terrace of Bignor, where the white cloths were laid upon the tables and serving men were busy spreading out the banquet against the Queen’s arrival. “Let them do their best, poor souls, they’ll have no such feast as this.”
Sylvia, with her mouth full of capon, was very sorry for them, too.
“I’ll wait upon Mr Buckhurst on Monday, we’ll be married on Tuesday, and set out on the grand tour on Wednesday,” said Anthony. “We are growing old and have no time to waste.”
“Will there be time for me to pack up a shift?” Sylvia asked.
“We can buy one on the road. You shall go as you are. You were never more adorable. Shall we conjugate?” He kissed her fingers, “Good!” her cheek, “Better!” her lips, “Best!”
“That is the true grammar of love,” said he, and to her admiration, he drew from his pouch a small brown stick which he put between his lips. With his tinder box he kindled a spark and lit it. Smoke came from it, and an aromatic, sharp smell which she sniffed, at first doubtfully and then with pleasure.
“Tobacco,” said she.
“Yes,” he answered, as though tobacco were to be expected.
“Oh!”
He was wonderful, this boy who had tumbled right out of summer skies and would wait upon her father on Monday and marry her on Tuesday and set out on the grand tour on Wednesday. There was no newfangled thing that he didn’t know about and do.
“When we set out on the grand tour — and it will not be Wednesday — where shall we go?” she asked, laughing gently.
“To Rome,” he replied so promptly upon her question that, but for the change of voice, she might have spoken the name herself But there was no stress of importance in his statement. It was mere matter of fact. Rome could be the only goal of this loving pilgrimage. As for Sylvia, Rome or Cathay! Both were in Fairyland.
“The strangest thing, dearest, in this our wooing, is that I should have found you here.”
He looked up at the sky and down upon the orchard and gardens of Bignor, with its close-clipped hedges and its terraces.
“Why, since we are both of Sussex?” and she laughed. A place in a country dance was Anthony’s enrolment as a burgess.
“Because” and leaning up on his elbow he told her the story he had told long ago to Walsingham — of a broad, lighted street where he had trotted once by his father’s side beneath arcades — a street with a treasure to bestow or a message to deliver — or — he broke off— “I don’t know. But it holds something for me of enormous importance,” he said slowly. “It should have been you. It may mean�
�” And swiftly she reached out a hand and stopped him. What was he about to say? It may mean — life or death? She would not have it said.
“We’ll search for your lost street in Rome,” she cried.
Anthony would have none of that proposal.
“It’s not in Rome.”
“You are sure?”
“Very! For I have seen my street. I have heard it noisy with people. I could draw it for you. A circle of tall buildings at the top, and the broad road dropping down the hill. But I have never seen Rome. I should not forget it if I had.”
“Yet you were so certain that we must go there.”
He turned to her in surprise.
“Was I? Sweetheart, we’ll go wherever your fancy sways you.”
He rolled up the utensils of their picnic and helped Sylvia to her feet.
“This is our sanctuary and bower. The Downs were raised so that they might shield you from the wind, and the hillside hollowed to make your resting place. We’ll seal it ours with a true lover’s knot written on the white slate prepared for us.”
He drew his dagger from its scabbard and, taking her by the hand, led her across the hollow to a steep chalk slab. He selected a spot in the middle of the slab and began to smooth it with his dagger.
“Here,” he said.
“No,” said Sylvia.
She had moved to the edge where the slab touched the earth of the hillside.
“See, Anthony. Here the turf overhangs and makes a roof. Carve under these eaves and our lover’s knot will last the longer.”
A vanity as old as the hills. Lovers wrote their names in pictures on the walls of a tomb at Sakhara only to have them buried in sand for four thousand years and brought to light again fresh as though they were written yesterday. And their later counter-parts scribble theirs on the shining flanks of a Zeppelin which has come to rest for a few hours in an aërodrome on the Bath Road. Our pair must cut their memorial on a chalk screen of the South Downs.
Moss had sprouted here and there in tiny tufts on the face of the chalk at this point. Here and there, too, the chalk had dripped and roughened. Anthony cut out the tufts, measured an oblong panel and marked it out.
“Within the lines I’ll make a surface as smooth as a schoolboy’s slate.”
“We’ll carve a love knot deep enough to last for centuries,” said Sylvia.
They were boy and girl during this hour, as earnest over their craftsmanship as if their immortality depended on it. The great Queen with her red halberdiers and her shimmering retinue might ride away from Bignor in the sulks. The couple up on the hillside could not spare a thought for her, so cunning and neat must be their handiwork. Anthony scraped delicately with the edge of his dagger, and suddenly Sylvia cried: “Oh, stop!” and she stayed him with her hand. “Some other two have been before us.”
They stepped a few paces back to see the better. Where he had cleared the mould and through the incrustations, some old symbols were vaguely taking shape.
“Let us see,” said Anthony, stepping up again to the face of the slab.
“Oh, be careful!” cried Sylvia, clasping her hands.
“To whom do you say it?” asked Anthony. “Am I not a Pilgrim who desires antiquities?”
Very carefully he scraped and smoothed. The symbol took shape.
“An apple,” said he.
“A heart,” she corrected.
A minute later: “With a broken arrow through it,” he added.
Sylvia leaned forward and traced the cutting with the tip of her finger.
“We mustn’t spoil it,” said she.
There was a proper graduation in such important matters. If a lover’s knot was reverend, a heart with an arrow through it was inviolable. Anthony’s dagger picked even more delicately at the chalk.
“Oh! There’s a word coming to light! See, Anthony. That’s a big P.”
“And a U,” he continued.
The word slowly emerged in the Latin lettering. “Puniamini,” Anthony read. “For shame! Some old Roman cut the word.”
“A discarded lover,” said she.
“Or a jealous husband,” said he.
“We shall never know,” said Sylvia, and, turning about, she saw that the sun was low in the western sky. “We must go,” she cried in panic. She did not wish to creep back with her lover, their absence remarked upon, and excuses to be made which no one would believe. They must ride and ride quickly. They went without scratching their love knot in their white slate after all. But it seemed that fortune was on their side that afternoon. For Her Highness had affairs of State to occupy her and supped privately in her own lodging.
XX. THE DANCING LESSON
A tedious brief scene of young Pyramus
And his love Thisbe; very tragical mirth.
— A Midsummer Night’s Dream
The supper in the Private Garden was a triumph for Lord Montague. The yeoman of his pantry had set out his best gold plate, the yeoman of his buttery his most elaborate jugs and goblets; the yeoman of his cellar had broached his Lordship’s finest French wine and the Steward of his Household had provided oxen, ducks, venison, hares, capons, neats’ tongues, and sheep enough to satisfy a battalion of famished soldiers. The Clerk of his Kitchen had superintended the cooks so that roasting and baking roasted and baked; his carvers had carved with economy and skill, his sewers had apportioned to each guest in the order of his rank; the gentlemen waiters had most gentlemanly waited; music of a discreet tenuity had been wafted over the top of a hedge; and, happiest circumstance, Her Majesty was in a loud and frolic mood.
Forty-eight guests sat at the Queen’s long table, amongst them, glowing with delight, Mr Rigby Buckhurst of Woolbeding. Her Highness had smiled at him benignly and spoken uplifting words.
“Under God,” she had said, “I have placed my chiefest safeguard in the loyal hearts of my subjects and I count none more faithful than my English squires.”
No wonder the honest gentleman’s head was turned a little. Where was Mr Edgar Howe of Fernhurst? Or Sir Arthur Chudd of Cocking Causeway? Not to be seen! And why? They had not been asked. Mr Rigby Buckhurst began to reflect whether he had done wisely in limiting himself to a country life. After all, he had a daughter who might compete with any Court beauty. Her Majesty, indeed, might single her out for a kindly sentence that very evening. He had been selfish. Yes, he must think of her a little more and take her for a season to the neighbourhood of Whitehall next year — certainly it must be next year.
In such pleasing dreams Mr Buckhurst ate from the gold plate and drank from the crystal goblets. They were only interrupted by Her Majesty rising from the table. His Lordship led her to another quarter of the garden where chairs were set in the form of a crescent about a lawn shaved smooth for the dancers. They were followed by the rest of the company, and for once in a way Her Majesty sat down and bade the others do the same.
“I expect a rare treat, my Lord,” she cried in a loud voice. “A country dance is true English. Shall I see Maid Marian and Friar Tuck? Will bold Sir Robin bid me stand and deliver? Let them begin, I pray,” and she clapped her hands towards the musicians. She could not wait a minute longer for this entrancing entertainment.
Lord Montague was a trifle disturbed by the pitch of Her Grace’s expectations. There were such country dances, to be sure, with the legendary figures of England’s first crime story and a rollicking hobbyhorse into the bargain. But this was not one of them.
“It’s no great matter, Your Majesty,” he said deprecatingly. “Some weavings and windings, some cuts and capers.”
But Her Majesty would not listen.
“Nay, nay, Sir Modesty,” she cried. “I have a week’s knowledge of the good fare you favour me with.”
Already the music had begun. Already, couple by couple, the dancers were advancing in file from an alley between the high yew hedges. The Queen leaned forward, all eagerness and anticipation, her head nodding to the tune. But, alas! it was soon apparent that she was
disappointed. Her head ceased to nod; she sat back in her chair, puzzled, it seemed, that so melancholy a diversion should have been foisted on her. She frowned. Then she yawned, not with her hand to her mouth as a lady should, but wide enough to show those long and dusky teeth which were something of a trouble to her suitors.
“My Lord,” she said reproachfully, “you give me bread and cheese after a banquet.”
My Lord was by this time near to wringing his hands. Apart from his humiliation as a host, he had a fear that, if Her Majesty rode away tomorrow in displeasure, she might satisfy it by visiting him again next year and so ruining him altogether.
“Shall I bid them stop?” he asked.
“Nay, let them finish!” said the Queen, with a shrug of the shoulders. “But it’s not a Hey, my good Lord, it’s a Dump.”
And all these disparagements were uttered so that each several word should reach the ears of the performers and especially of two of the performers. It is not to be wondered at that they one and all excelled themselves in the badness of their dancing. Cut they did, and caper they did. They wove and wound. But those glowering eyes and disdainful shoulders daunted them, as they had daunted the highest in the land. Anthony Scarr and Sylvia fell lower beneath their mark than any. For both of them knew, he with a rising anger, she with a fluttering heart, that all this contempt was aimed at them. It was the price they had to pay for a day’s truancy upon the Downs, he said. But was it all the price? she asked. Would Her Grace be content with that?
The unhappy performance came to an end at last. The dancers in a line made their obeisance and slunk away to their alley. Mr Rigby Buckhurst, contemplating from a distance his angry mistress, went back upon his soaring dreams of half an hour ago and determined to keep warm in his little manor of Woolbeding rather than confront the variable temperatures of Whitehall. An anxious silence fell upon the spectators. But the Queen did not move. She sat still as a rock. Then she whispered to a lady-in- waiting. A word or two was raised above the whisper.
Complete Works of a E W Mason Page 626