It was surprising, therefore, that he was bidden to Hilbury, and no less surprising that he accepted. But he had accepted gladly. A halting time had come. He had a week between what he reckoned to be the two momentous periods of his life. It was to be a week of holiday and enjoyment, in which he would renew his old friendship with Humphrey and recapture, if only for seven poor days, something of the sparkle and the laughter which belong to youth.
He left Abbot’s Gap an hour after his dinner with a servant riding behind him and leading a third horse with his luggage packed upon its back. He was starved for pleasure, and with the great beeches in full leaf, the hills baking themselves brown in the sunlight like any modern maiden, the ferns and wild flowers fresh in any patch of shade, and the song of the thrush and lark overhead, he threw off yet another wrapping of deliberation with every step he took. He strewed the bridle path with his cares and trampled his plans under the hooves of his horse.
His way led over the Purbeck Hills and down across the water meadows. He left Wareham and the great heath away on his right; and as he rode he made his plans. Plans the poor lad had to have, he had so schooled himself to weighing the this against the that from his boyhood. So plans he made now to cram each waking minute of a week full to the brim with pleasure. He would start with a match at tennis after breakfast, say, at seven-fifteen or so, or tilt at the ring in the courtyard, or have a bout with the foils or shoot at the butts. Then he would hunt one day — Hilbury was famous for its stags — course the next day, go wild-fowling on the third with that fine new caliver which was on the pack saddle of the led horse. On the fourth day there would be hawking. After dinner he would play any game that was forward, from keelpins to quoits, and after supper a galliard or a coranto in the great hall, with a game of primero in between, would carry him happily to bedtime. It was to be a week which should bubble with all the unenjoyed enjoyment of his past years, and all the rounded enchantments of full manhood on which, the week once ended, he must turn his back. A week to hold the pith of years. He would sleep of nights, and as for clothes, no dandy in England should outshine him.
Thus he planned as he rode through the park where the beeches and oaks dotted the sweep of turf, and here a shrubbery, there a little wood broke the great expanse. But in all his reckoning he had forgotten the one pastime which was the most likely to capture and enchain a youth who had starved himself of pleasure and disciplined himself like a monk. The first hour of his visit, however, was to open his eyes to his omission.
The great house built of red brick and glowing in the sunlight of the afternoon was strangely silent and strangely empty. The house party, he was told, had gone hawking and was holding an assembly or, as we should say, a picnic, in a glade some miles away. Supper was therefore put off until six o’clock. Robin was conducted to his bedroom on the second floor, and his bags were carried up to him. He changed his dress at his leisure and descended into the hall. It was four o’clock, but the hawking party had not yet returned. He was suddenly aware, however, that he had not the house to himself. For in a room on his right hand behind the big staircase someone was diligently practising the scales upon a virginal.
“Some poor little girl with a governess at her elbow,” he assumed. On such an afternoon! Robin shook his head over her hard fate. Up and down the unseen hands were flying over the keyboard. Not very correctly, that had to be admitted. For every now and then one note stumbled into another note, or two notes would be struck together. Then a silence would follow and all begin over again. Sad work for a little girl on a summer afternoon! Robin felt a great pity for her. Probably her tears were dropping on the keys as she thought of the house party eating good things in a glade whilst she was pinned upon her music stool, like Andromeda on her rock, with a dragon of a governess, no doubt, to rap her knuckles when she made mistakes. Of course, a little girl must learn the virginal for her own comfort and consolation in her after life. But on a summer afternoon — was it fair? Robin settled his ruff before a mirror. It was a smart new ruff of fine cambric, delicately embroidered with silver, and starched just stiffly enough to hold its pleats in order and not to spoil its look of fragility. Robin turned his head to the right and to the left. It was a very good ruff.
And suddenly the scales tinkled evenly and true. The little girl had mastered them. Robin was delighted with her. She deserved a treat.
“Ah!”
An idea occurred to him. He turned again to the mirror and smoothed his doublet down. It was a fine new doublet, pointed in the latest fashion and of dark-crimson velvet with tight sleeves and a puffing of white satin at the shoulders. It was a good doublet, and the jewelled pomander which swung on a golden chain set about his shoulders set it off well. The breeches matched it. They were quite newfangled affairs and very satisfactory — padded and closed tight above the knees with golden garters, and short enough to show off properly the long straight legs in brown silk stockings. A cape of Venetian brown swung from his shoulders and was tied with a silver cord upon his breast. Robin swung this way and that on his heels. The little girl at the virginal ought to have a treat. Well, she should have one. He waved a perfumed handkerchief at the smiling young coxcomb who confronted him in the mirror, marched to the door behind which the scales were played, flung it open, stepped proudly in, bowed low till his body made a right angle with his legs, clapped a hand upon his heart, cried in a fervid voice:
“Good Mistress Andromeda, Perseus is here — —” and felt that he had made such a fool of himself as he had never done in all the eighteen years of his life.
For there was no dragon of a governess; there was no little Andromeda. There was only a grown-up young lady seated at the virginal, whose slender hands arrested on the board made the keys yellow as jealousy itself. Her back was towards him, she was dressed in a pink satin gown with a high, fanlike collar of lace which showed him only a wealth of pale-gold curls on a small head. And in a voice which was startled, but low and more excellent than music, she answered:
“Mr Perseus, there are scales upon my virginal, as there were no doubt scales upon the dragon, but you are, I am afraid, rescuing your ears from them rather than rescuing me.”
In another mirror hung upon the wall above the virginal their eyes met and moved no more. There was never anything so convenient as that mirror. Its fellow in the hall was a thing of no value. It merely reflected a coxcomb admiring his clothes to a coxcomb admiring his clothes. It was hardly to be considered a mirror at all. This one above the virginal was, on the other hand, magical. It showed to Robin at the door a small oval face with a firm little rounded chin, a red mouth opened in laughter and disclosing the prettiest white teeth, dark eyebrows below a white forehead, and a pair of big eyes of so dark a blue that surely no sea could match them, and with a sparkle in their depths such as gleams in the heart of jewels. Lovely? Robin was struck with the poverty of words. A paragon? The world’s wonder? The envy of the planets? Fie, she was warm as earth. When did a planet laugh? Nay, when did any other girl laugh so that each note struck upon the heart and made it breathe the melody of birds? She was the incomparable maid.
The incomparable maid was gazing into that bewitching mirror too. She saw a brown-haired boy’s face over a big white ruff, a face flushing in confusion, with lips parted in wonder, and brown eyes which held hers as his were held by hers. Messages passed between them which neither the one who sent them nor the one who received them could yet interpret. But they were of enormous significance. Both knew that. They changed the world. She dropped her eyes first, the long dark curling lashes eclipsing the universe. He spoke first, his voice trembling a little. Was this all — these threadbare foolish words — that so overwhelming a moment put into his mouth to speak?
“I broke in upon your playing.”
The maid nodded gravely at the mirror.
“You did.”
And the ground crumbled beneath him.
“Oh!”
Remorse so deep, disappointment so sharp, never
sounded so loudly in an “Oh!” before. At least, so his ears told him. The maid was quick to comfort him.
“But I am glad that you did.”
She smiled again, and he breathed again. The blood rose into her cheeks, her brow. What lunatic had thought the universe eclipsed?
She rose hastily from her seat and faced him. She was middling tall, now that she stood up. Her doublet was cut low in the front, as was the way with maidens’ doublets. She showed him a white slender throat on which the small head was poised most daintily.
“You, sir, wait upon Sir Robert. He has not yet returned from hawking. I am only a visitor at the house. Cynthia Norris at your pleasure.”
“Cynthia Norris,” Robin repeated, lingering on each syllable and nodding his head foolishly. He was still a little dazed. “There is music in the name.”
“More than in my fingers,” said Cynthia ruefully. Certainly she did not play the virginal well. It looked as though even the angels had their limitations. Robin’s wits were astray, and he had no comforting words for her.
“You are from Winterborne Hyde,” he said.
“Yes,” she agreed. She looked at him enquiringly, repeated her name with a trifle of emphasis and then, holding wide her skirt, sank in a curtsy before him. A lovely movement. He could have watched its repetition for a twelvemonth. But that she should pay so much respect to him shocked him.
“You must not, Mistress Cynthia, sink by an inch of your stature to me,” he protested.
“And how should I know that?” she asked demurely. “You may be the great Cham of Tartary.”
Robin flushed to his forehead.
“My manners have gone with my wits.” He bowed as low before her as he had done to her back. “I am Robin Aubrey.”
For a moment Cynthia Norris was utterly startled. Then as he stood erect again she looked at him slowly from his feet to his head. Robin smiled vaguely and felt as uncomfortable under her scrutiny as a young man could. He had promised himself to give a little girl a treat in the spectacle of a fine young gentleman dressed up for a killing. But in the fact he had given a big girl a surprise and apparently no pleasure with it. She was perplexed, and he had been at pains to cut a dash. Poor fool, he was just a clotted pudding of vanity, a homely kitchen thing served up in a porcelain porringer. No wonder she disapproved. Besides, his stockings were wrinkling down his legs like a pantaloon’s. He felt absolutely sure of it, though for the life of him he dared not look.
“Indeed?” said she.
“Of a truth,” he answered.
And suddenly she comprehended, though what she comprehended he could no more tell than a cat could tell the time by the clock. Her face lightened. The perplexity vanished from her face. She began to laugh, and merrily, at some excellent jest.
“To be sure,” she cried, mocking him. “So spruce and trim! You must be Robin Aubrey. Give you good day, fair Robin. We are well met, Master Aubrey. When last Wednesday comes again you will indeed be he.”
And her eyes lighted on a small diamond earring which sparkled in the lobe of his left ear. She might have seen just such an ornament in the ear of any young exquisite, but in Robin’s it entranced her. She clapped her hands delightedly, her laughter bubbling, her dancing eyes bidding him share it with her.
“Mr Robin Aubrey!” she cried. “Indeed, you do very well to tell me you are Robin Aubrey,” and once more she dipped in derisive reverence to the floor. “I know you from your diamond earring and your jewelled pomander.” She looked at his modish pointed shoes of brown velvet pinked with red to match his doublet. “None but misers foot it so daintily.”
His voice broke through her laughter, loud as the bellow of an animal in pain. “Miser!” he cried; and looking at his face her laughter ceased on the instant, and she put her hand to her heart as if the whiteness of his cheeks and the distress in his eyes checked its beating.
“Miser,” he repeated in a lower tone, nodding his head to the syllables. So that was what was said of him wherever his name was known. And reasons for the name could be put forward. The belief could be argued. And there was no defence. Worse, there could be no defence, unless he was false to every dream that he was trying to dream true.
“Miser.”
The word hurt horribly. It had never occurred to Robin that in that word lay the quite natural explanation of his secret life and the closed shutters of Abbot’s Gap. Someone had been the first to use it, to be sure — some enemy. Someone had composed this detestable picture of a young skinflint gloating over his money-bags in the corner of a locked and guarded house; and the picture was there to be composed by anyone who was in the mind to belittle him. Very likely he would not have been so seriously distressed had another, even another girl, thrown the name at him. But it was this girl, Cynthia Norris, who lived at Winterborne Hyde. If ever his name had been mentioned in her presence, this was the epithet and portrait she had of him. Oh, horrible! “Robin Aubrey, Miser.”
The words were painted in front of him. Her laughter had set them forward in relief. They marched with him, a canopy, a banner of disgrace.
“What can I say to you?” he stammered.
Still Cynthia had not got the truth.
“We share the blame,” she said gently. “You set the jest on foot. I followed, but overshot you. I beg your pardon — Robin Aubrey is a kinsman of yours.”
“He is myself,” said Robin.
“Oh!” she cried in a whisper. The blood rushed into her face. Her hands flew up to it and hid it. “I am ashamed. My dear, I would not have so hurt you for the world.”
The gentleness of her words moved Robin. He went to her side.
“You must not trouble yourself for so little,” he said. “The blame is mine, if blame there is.” He was sorely tempted to blurt out to Cynthia all the hopes and dark passions which had held him from his boyhood in so strict a thrall. He had kept his heart shut against the charges of Sir Francis Walsingham more easily than he was now able to against the contrition of Cynthia’s voice.
“I did not know you. Else I should never have endured such foolish gossip. You have a very good cause, I am sure, for everything you do,” she said, nodding her head wisely. “And if you keep your house locked and your windows dark there is an excellent reason for it. Oh, I don’t ask for it.” Her eyes belied her lips. There was so tender a confidence in them, so eager an appeal to share his secret. “But if you could tell me! It’s pleasant to be sure that, whatever the rest may think, there’s one friend who knows.”
For a moment her hand rested on his arm. He was tempted as he never had been. She drew him down beside her on the long music stool. He felt the skirt of her dress against his leg. But he had lived with his secret too many years, nursing it with a fierce jealousy. No, not even to her — yet. He strengthened himself with that “yet.”
“It is too heavy a tale for a summer afternoon,” he returned, trying to speak lightly. But he did not dare to look at her lest he should see the appeal of her eyes waver into doubt and doubt again into utter disbelief. But if he had looked he would have seen only disappointment.
“Tell me rather why I find you practising your scales alone whilst all the rest of the house is at play.”
“Why, sir, if I didn’t,” and she made an effort, though with as little success as he, to take up a careless tone, “I must put the company to the torment of hearing me. And that my good nature would not have. We are to act a masque in the long gallery on Saturday night and there must be music to it. Sir Robert’s musician, Nicholas Bools, will play the lute, my cousin Olivia the pandora, and I, poor wretch, the virginal. Yet more wretched than I the company which shall hear me.”
She heaved a great sigh and played a scale upon her knees.
“I shall need Perseus on Saturday night,” she exclaimed with the glimmer of a smile.
“At the first complaint Perseus’ sword will be out of its scabbard.”
“Alas, no! For Perseus will be singing to my false notes as best he can
without any scabbard to draw a sword from.”
Robin sat up on the stool.
“There is to be a masque?”
“On Saturday night.”
“And I am to sing in it?”
“You are to do more than that. Everybody in the party is to write some lines of it. Tomorrow there will be nothing but sighing poets from the garrets to the cellars. By nightfall all must be done.”
“Very well,” said Robin. “I shall write a madrigal to Cynthia.”
“There is no Cynthia in the masque,” Cynthia returned severely. “You will write exactly to the fraction of a sentiment what Mr Stafford bids you write.”
“The Ferret!” cried Robin, and Cynthia broke into a laugh and cried, “Hush!”
“The name has stuck, then,” said Robin grimly.
“Like other names, my friend Robin, but with greater justice,” said Cynthia gently. Then she looked at him curiously. “You are that boy with the knot of ribbons,” she said suddenly.
“I was that boy,” Robin returned, drawing himself up majestically; and Cynthia laughed again.
“Boy Robin,” she said mischievously. “That, we were told, was Her Grace’s word. Well, well, never lose heart. One day you shall swear big oaths and wear a little brown beard at the end of your chin. Bless your soul, sir, rubbing will not bring it on,” and Robin dropped his hand quickly. “But all things will come if God pleases, even little brown beards.”
Robin smiled absently. In the midst of her raillery Cynthia had been warning him that he must expect to find that others believed him to be a miserable lickpenny. Since Mr Stafford was still of Sir Robert Bannet’s household, it was very likely he who had spread the story and seen that it lost nothing of its bitterness as he spread it.
“I might go,” he said slowly. “I might trump up some fable of a message and go before they returned from hawking.”
Complete Works of a E W Mason Page 665