“Listen!”
Gregory hardly breathed the word.
Robin wondered whether he would hear a thunderstorm, so wildly his heart was throbbing in his ears. But after a little while a sound reached him from very far away — not the kind of sound which he had expected: the creak of a stair, a stumble against a coffer or a stool — but a curious hum, like the drone of bees about a hive, which swelled suddenly and diminished and continued in a monotone, with every now and then for a brief minute a complete intermittence. The buzzing grew louder as they advanced, grew loudest as Gregory carefully turned the handle of a door and opened it. Robin was led into a room as black as pitch. The sounds rose from below them.
“Take care,” Gregory whispered. “And not a sound.”
He knelt down upon the floor, and in a wall which their faces almost touched there appeared a thread of light. The wall was nothing but a pair of stout doors. Gregory drew one of them towards him. The chink widened. Robin looked straight down into the big chapel of the house. The little room was a private loft. The doors opened from the roof to the floor of it. A step forward and Robin would have pitched down onto the stone pavement of the chapel forty feet below. The chapel was lit, candles burned upon the altar, and a small company of people were on their knees. At the altar, with his back towards them, a priest in his vestments was intoning a mass, and every now and then the worshippers joined together in a response. Anthony Babington was present, Barnewell, who had ridden to Hilbury in such desperate hurry the night before, some others of the guests, and kneeling alone on the first of the altar steps was the young soldier, John Savage.
Robin looked for Sir Robert and Humphrey, but neither of them was anywhere to be seen. Then the priest lifted something from the altar, rose from his knees and turned towards his congregation. It was well that Gregory had gripped tight Robin’s shoulder, otherwise a cry would have burst from the boy’s lips. For the man in the priest’s vestments was Captain Fortescue, of the gold embroidery and the braggart voice.
“Watch! Watch!” whispered Mr Gregory.
The priest raised before them a flashing poniard. He held it aloft for a few moments. Then he descended the steps to John Savage and bent over him. He said, using the Latin tongue:
“Take this consecrated weapon! Let it serve God!”
No more than that, and Robin realized that Captain Fortescue in the priest’s vestments was a different being from Captain Fortescue in the embroidered cloak.
John Savage took the poniard reverently, kissed it and slipped it into a scabbard at his side. As the priest reached out his hand and began to pronounce a blessing Mr Gregory of Lyme shut the door.
“Let us be quick!” he said.
They hurried along the corridors as quickly and silently as they had come. When they were again in Robin’s bedroom neither spoke for a little while. Robin dropped into a chair and buried his face in his hands.
“So behind this fine entertainment,” he said at last, “Protestants and Catholics boiling in the same pot, there has been rank treachery?”
“Yes,” said Mr Gregory.
“Then she . . . ? The she of whom Barnewell spoke last night?”
“Yes,” said Mr Gregory. “The queen. Barnewell went to the palace gardens by the river at Richmond. All the world may walk there with Her Grace’s good will. He went to see behind which bush a murderer should stand.”
“And she approached him?”
“She said, ‘See, I am unarmed.’ She has no fear. She will not go guarded.”
“And tonight?” cried Robin in a low voice. “The dagger?”
“Consecrated by Mr Ballard, the Jesuit priest fresh from that fine Englishman, Cardinal Allan, at Rheims,” said Mr Gregory contemptuously. “But have no fear, Mr Aubrey! That dagger will not find its way to the queen’s heart.” He dropped his hand upon Robin’s shoulder. “Her servants will see to it.”
There came upon Robin an overwhelming sense of his own insufficiency. Others watched for her, toiled for her, spent their fortunes and their lives for her, subduing themselves to their work, masking their faces —— That was his trouble. He could not mask his face. He had that art still to learn.
“How shall I meet them tomorrow with an open face?” he cried.
“I think few of them will be here tomorrow,” Gregory answered. “You will meet Sir Robert and Mr Humphrey and your good friend the Ferret, no doubt — all, no doubt, very innocent people. You must school your features, Mr Aubrey. But the rest will have gone Londonwards, the priest with them.”
Mr Gregory of Lyme was right. When Robin went down the stairs to breakfast he discovered that the house party was the smaller by the absence of Babington, Barnewell, John Savage and Captain Fortescue, and a good many others amongst Sir Robert’s guests. Affairs had called them all to London.
CHAPTER VIII. The Better Plan
AT NOON ON the Saturday Cynthia Norris and Robin Aubrey were standing side by side on the gravel walk at the back of Hilbury Melcombe. They had been busy with their rehearsal all through the morning and waited now for Sir Robert’s trumpeter to call them in to dinner. At their feet the garden fell away in a steep succession of terraces to a stream in the bed of the valley; and the noise of the water tumbling over its tiny lashers rose in a clear small music to their ears. The floor of each terrace was a mown, well-watered emerald lawn, in the midst of which an oblong lily pond was set in stone. A stone wall backed it overhung with clematis as white as stars, red roses and eglantine. On each side of the terraces winding steps in stone led down between tall urns, and in the ponds fountains played. Over all the sun flamed in a pale-blue sky.
“This is our last day together,” said Cynthia, and she did not try to hide the wistful appeal of her voice.
“For a little while only,” Robin answered.
Though no word of love had yet been spoken by either of them to the other, they were grave with the great gravity of lovers.
“You go early tomorrow?” Robin asked.
Cynthia told him of the arrangements for her departure. A cart would start at daybreak, carrying the baggage of her cousin and herself.
“Olivia and I will ride off after breakfast. I shall dine at Olivia’s house and go on alone afterwards.”
“I have a better plan,” said Robin, staring down into the valley, and Cynthia’s lips twitched suddenly.
“Had you not a plan in your cradle, sir? For a new kind of rockers, I think. And when you cut your teeth — yesterday, was it? — did you not have a plan for drawing them down with a poultice? Well, well, let me hear how you improve upon mine!”
But alas! before she could hear, the trumpeter blew his summons.
“We have not the time now,” Robin exclaimed. “Why must we be always having meals?”
“Because pasties made of air are only satisfying to — —”
Before she could utter the word Robin turned quickly round upon her. “To whom?”
Cynthia gasped and got red and sought to cover her confusion with a laugh.
“It is not for me to say,” she said in a hurry, and so was more confused than ever.
She looked about her for help and through the windows saw that the great hall was filling up with people, and now she wanted them away.
“What of this better plan?” she asked in a still greater hurry. “When shall I hear of it?”
“Tonight, if you will.”
“I will,” said she.
Robin looked down the garden slope.
“The third terrace,” he said.
“I cannot see it from here,” she replied.
“Nor from any of the windows. That’s why,” said Robin, nodding his head wisely, and again the blood mantled Cynthia’s cheeks.
“When the masque is ended — —” he began.
“There will be congratulations and more eating and drinking — —”
“And such a hubbub and confusion, that no one’s absence would be noted.”
“And out here ther
e will be moonlight and silence,” said Cynthia.
“On the third terrace,” Robin resumed, “there is a setting of yew hedges like a theatre and a bench placed ready — —”
“Yes, and at the far end of the lily pond a Mercury poised ready for flight,” Cynthia took him up. “A warning!”
“A pretence. For he never flies,” Robin answered. “I shall be there on the bench.”
Cynthia laughed suddenly. But there was a little break in her voice as she asked:
“In your leather jerkin and your linen galligaskins?”
Robin laughed in reply with great enjoyment.
“Mr Stafford wrote my part, and I have studied it with great care. There are only ten lines in it, but I have sounded the character better than he who wrote it. The servant I play is no Carlo Manucci. No! I have the truth of him. He is the sort of servant who goes courting in his master’s clothes.”
Cynthia’s laughter bubbled from her lips.
“On the third terrace, Carlo. I shall be there to hear your plan.”
“And three words only, my dear,” said Robin softly. “But three words as long as life — longer if God wills.”
And once more the gravity of lovers drove the laughter from their faces and delayed their feet.
The afternoon was given to the last touches, a scratch meal was taken by the performers, and they retired to dress. No girl ever prinked herself before her mirror with a greater care to look her best than did Robin that evening. There was to be an hour in the garden when he would plead for a great prize. He was not worthy of it, to be sure, but he meant to look as worthy of it as he could. He put on a rose-coloured velvet doublet and breeches of the same hue fitting close. His stockings were of a lighter shade, his small ruff was piped with gold, the roses on his shoes matched his doublet and were spangled with silver. He carried a pair of embroidered gloves to give his hands something to do when he was standing on the stage, and went down to the long gallery where the players were assembled. There all was bustle and disarray. It seemed as though the masque would not be ready for a month. But even in the midst of the confusion Mr Stafford found time to fling up his hands in indignation at the sight of Robin. For a moment he was the tutor again at Mrs Parker’s house at the end of the lane.
“But you are a servant, sirrah! Odd’s life, but this is rank contumacy! The masque is ruined. You are the first to be seen. You lead all in. You, Jack Doodle, the buttery servant. By God, sir, the masque’s ruined.”
Robin shook his head gravely.
“I go by the lines, Mr Stafford. They are of your composing. I rush into the great chamber, followed by torches — these are the stage directions — when Sir Robert and his guests are finishing their supper.”
“Jack Doodle rushes in, sir.”
“And Jack Doodle speaks at once your admirable lines, Mr Stafford. The very spirit of poetry is in them:
“ ’Hold, gentles all! Be patient whilst I prate
In fairer mien than fits my mean estate.’
In other words, Jack Doodle is wearing his master’s clothes. There’s no doubt of it.”
Mr Stafford exclaimed upon the stupidity of his pupil.
“Nay, sir, the words refer to the civility of your address. Besides, ‘mien’ and ‘mean’ represent a play upon words.” But Mr Stafford was called off to where a corner of the cloud had got loose. Robin looked at Cynthia, who, seated already at her virginal, was abubble with delight, and gathered the torchbearers behind him. At the right moment he rushed into the great chamber. Sir Robert and his guests were duly amazed and prettily counterfeited their alarm at the irruption. However, after debate they agreed to be led in and hear “a rustical foolish allegory designed for their delight.”
It went very well. Mr Stafford’s doggerel was interspersed with country songs. There were dances, heys and caprioles, and even a dump. The cloud descended very properly to earth — John Savage was a better carpenter than he was like to be a bravo. Humphrey Bannet made a fine descending figure as the god, and an entertainment which would not have been found tolerable in a later age was received with enthusiasm. In the midst of the congratulations and applause Robin slipped out of the gallery. There was no one on the staircase. The hall was empty. Outside the garden slept in the moonlight, its flowers closed.
At the west end of the third terrace yew hedges a yard thick and more than Robin’s height made a small amphitheatre about a bench. There Robin waited. In front of him the oblong pond lay still and shining as a strip of silver, and beyond it the bronze Mercury on a pedestal stood holding his cloak up behind his head, poised for flight. Whither? Robin asked himself. No-whither. There he stood, week after week, month after month, year after year, on moonlit nights and summer days, through storms, through mists, always poised and never flying. A message to deliver which never was delivered, someone to serve and the service never done.
A little cry brought Robin to his feet. Cynthia, holding up her farthingale so that it could not catch her feet, came running down the winding steps, now out of sight, now some jewel in her hair flashing in the moonlight, now plain to see from head to foot. She ran with such light, swift steps she might have been flying on the errand which the Mercury shirked. She came to Robin, her eyes like stars, her white throat and bosom rising and falling. He had thought out some fine speeches to make to her, but alas! he had wasted his time. His arms were out and she within them before a word of them could be uttered.
“Cynthia!” he whispered.
“Boy Robin,” she answered with her cheek against his heart.
Robin spoke his three words.
“I love you.”
He lifted up her chin with his hand and kissed her upon the lips.
“Oh, if you had not come to Hilbury!” she moaned.
Robin comforted her. It wasn’t possible that he shouldn’t have come. In the dawn of time it was ordered that one night of late July in this scented garden Cynthia Norris and Robin Aubrey should plight their troth. Cynthia, however, must still torture herself.
“There was so much persuasion. The two families, neighbours, two estates would have become one.”
Robin held her off, gazed at her as though she had been stricken to death and then gathered her again to his heart.
“Humphrey?”
“Yes. And I might have yielded.”
“Never!”
But Cynthia insisted.
“But I might! No one had caused me a single added heartbeat. So why not Humphrey as well as another? When you broke into the little music room — oh!—” she had to pause as she looked back on the miracle of that afternoon, to draw a deep breath, to make sure by running her hand over his shoulder that he was here in flesh and blood— “I was miserable. I think that was why I played so many wrong notes.”
“I am sure of it,” said Robin stoutly.
“I was thinking that I was set apart from other girls, that I couldn’t love. And then I looked up, and there were you staring at me in the mirror as if I were the earth’s only jewel. Oh, I adored it — and the next day I adored you — and to this pass am I come, oh shameless!” But she ended the words with a quick laugh which was full of pride and delight in her shamelessness.
The quiet and the peace of the night lapped them about. It was the girl who remembered, the first of the pair, where they were.
“We must go back. They will all be sitting down to supper.”
Robin held her fast.
“Dearest, you hold my heart.”
“It shall be wrapped in rose leaves.”
“You must hold my secrets too.”
Cynthia smiled.
“What a lad it is for secrets, and he not full grown yet.”
“I shall never be taller than I am tonight,” said Robin.
“God be praised,” she returned. “Else I should never reach your lips”; and her hands tightened about his neck. “I shall buy a gold casket for your secrets.”
“You shall have them tomorrow. I shall rid
e with you when you go.”
“Then Olivia will have them too,” said Cynthia disconsolately.
But Robin had his better plan. On the way to Wareham the road forked. The road to the south climbed the Purbeck Hills, and thence a track wound down to Abbot’s Gap.
“I want you to come down with me to my house. I have that to tell you which I have told to none. You will hold everything of me then, heart, secrets — honour.”
He spoke gravely and simply, and Cynthia answered him at once.
“I will arrange it with Olivia.”
They went together up the steps, and the house, with its lighted windows, rose storey by storey within their view. “We’ll keep our secret for tonight,” said Cynthia. Separately they slipped into the hall and separately they sat at supper.
Early in the morning Robin sent off his servant with the led horse. Olivia, Cynthia and he rode away at seven. At the corner where the road forks by Bindon Abbey, Cynthia and Robin said good-bye to Olivia. At eleven o’clock they looked down from the sun-browned ridge to Abbot’s Gap in its cluster of trees and the sea shimmering away beyond Warbarrow Bay. To the west the great crouching lion of Portland Rock stretched into the Channel with the bloom of the hills of Egypt upon its flanks. Cynthia reined in her horse and gazed down and out.
“Our home, my dear,” she said in a low voice, and she reached out a hand to him. But Robin’s eyes were looking out beyond Portland. The lovely coast line had vanished altogether from his view. He seemed to be listening to a voice from beyond the edge of the sea, to be watching some strange procession draw up from out its depths. He turned to her and took her hand gently. There was a look upon his face which she had never seen till now.
“Even then, sweetheart, you were in my thoughts,” he said. “I wanted all done and to be hasting home.”
She was to remember that saying through many a day and to cherish it. Now she answered not a word, having at her command a great gift of silence.
Complete Works of a E W Mason Page 668