“What did he do? I’ll see if I can’t help.”
“I doubt it, sir; and truly, I cannot quite make out what did happen. But Frizer and Skeres, they promised to lend Drue sixty pounds, and gave him thirty in cash and the rest in goods, but when Drue tried to sell the goods he found they belonged to nobody, they were guns on Tower Hill in London; I don’t quite know about it, sir, but they got another twenty pounds out of Drue and when he couldn’t meet the bill, they took his home and lands from him. That was many years agone, and so we were not married after all. I but tell ye, sir, to show you what kind of heartless rogue this Frizer be.”
“And Frizer’s my enemy? Why?”
“It seems, sir, that ye threw him out of winder once. He never forgets. He is a very smiling villain. We maids are sure he poisoned the gipsy wench that men say died of the plague; but Frizer was once her man, and he can cast the evil eye where he wishes.”
“Is Rose dead?”
“Ay, sir; you knew her, did ye? Our poor master is sadly sick after her going, for he thought kindly of her; but Madame has him back and that’s her heart’s desire. She and that Frizer plotting against you…”
“Against me!” Marlowe leaped to his feet, white with rage. “She’s with Frizer?”
Mary darted back from him, crying, “Please, sir, I should not talk so much. Ye’ll not tell them what I said! But you were so kind to me, I felt sorry. I’m weak and foolish.”
“I won’t tell.” He sat back slowly on the stool, breathing heavily with rage. “Tell me everything,” he muttered, “everything. I’ll not say a word.”
“I heard them plotting ’gainst you one night when I passed her bedroom,” said Mary haltingly, flushing, and watching him with large, frightened eyes. “He hates you and she fears you. I don’t know why. She’s a wicked woman, though she be my mistress; she swears she loves my master, but can a woman love another yet toy with a beast like Frizer?”
“My God!” cried Marlowe. “Don’t tell me she’s his lover!”
Mary saw the pain on his face. “Oh, what have I said!” she cried. “You love her, too!”
“No, by God, no!”
“You do! Oh, I must bite out my tongue! I am a fool! I thought to help, and look what I’ve done now!”
Marlowe saw that she was crying, and he went to comfort her, but she pushed him off and ran swiftly, sobbing, from the room.
He did not try to follow her. He sat down on the stool, leaned forward on the table and clenched his fists.
This was the worst blow of all. He accepted her loving Tom and taking him for a makeshift; but to have that rat Frizer preferred to him…
*
As he sat there, stricken with rage and despair, he heard horses cantering up the drive, then Awdrey’s merry laughter as the front door was swung open and she and Tom entered the screens, the entrance hall. He braced himself to look upon her, and stood stiffly to his feet.
They did not come in. They turned to the left, into the Hall; and relieved for the moment, he sat down again, trying to bring his scattered wits into form.
But minutes were ticking past, flying by like swallows, and Alice would be waiting for him in Watling Street; she said that she would have a stuffed turkey and green peas, with cabbage and radish for dinner. He must not waste his time sitting here while she was busy at home, trusting him.
With a great effort, he rose to his feet and gazed into the glass window-pane at his distorted image. He cocked his hat rakishly on one side, smoothed hair and beard, swung his sword a little forward, tightened the points of his doublet and straightened the white collar. He was surprised to see how pale he looked. Oh, curse it! he was behaving like a small boy with his first love.
He pushed out his chest and strode from the parlour like a gallant in Paul’s, whistling a tune softly as if he had not a care in the world.
They were not in the Hall, and he ran up the stairs to the gallery at the back.
Both Walsingham and Awdrey watched him with startled eyes as he walked the whole long length of the glassed-in gallery towards them. She was seated on cushions at a window, and Walsingham was leaning against the wall, balanced on two legs of his stool, idly turning the pages of a vellum-covered book.
“Nobody told us you were here!” said Awdrey, trying to force a smile.
“I hope I’m not less welcome because of that,” said Marlowe, taking her hand and carelessly kissing it. “But I come on an errand of mercy.”
“What scrape are you in now?” said Walsingham, sighing as he laid his book on the floor. His eyes were hard, like glass.
“It is not for myself,” said Marlowe, growing angry at this cold reception. “I don’t beg favours for myself; it’s for another. But I thought you were my friends!”
“Kit, Kit!” cried Walsingham, “of course we are your friends!”
“Of course!” echoed Awdrey warmly — a little too warmly. “Whatever we can do, Kit, we will do; you know that. But methinks we’ve heard your trouble.”
“It is not my trouble. But Tom Kyd’s in the Tower because of a thing I wrote, or rather, what I copied. A few phrases from a book on the Arian faith. I want you to get him out of it.”
“Do you know, Kit, that they are after you, too?” said Walsingham idly.
“Ay, I know it! but I’ve naught to fear. It’s for Kyd, poor harmless devil, that I ask your favour.” Every minute, he grew angrier. They treated him like a penny-poet begging the price of a dedication. He had never been so insulted. “You’d not let Kyd suffer for what he never did, would you?” he cried.
“Kyd’ll be out all right; I’ve heard that the Lord Keeper, Sir John Puckering, is taking pity on him.”
“Then my mission is ended. I wasted a trip. I thank you, I will go.”
“You mustn’t go like this!” cried Walsingham. “Kyd is going out but they’re going to lock you in his place. They’re going to get at Ralegh through you. They’ll torture you to make you accuse Ralegh of treason.”
“I’ll never do that if they pull my legs off like an insect’s!” Yet the thought brought the cold sweat out on his body and dried his mouth. “Let them try it!” he snarled.
“We’ll see that they don’t.” Walsingham lounged to his feet and stretched himself, yawning. “Have no fear. You’ll be questioned by the Star Chamber, but be guarded in your answers. Keep that hot tongue of yours between your teeth and Awdrey’ll get Cecil to stop them from putting you in the Tower.”
“You fear my tongue, is that it?” said Marlowe bitterly.
“That’s not why we’re going to save you, Kit, but to be frank, I do fear your tongue. The Queen always loathed my cousin, Sir Francis, but he was too useful for her to hurt; but we later Walsinghams, now that he’s dead…she doesn’t like our name. I’ve good reasons to believe that she’d take any excuse to get at us.”
“And you think that I, I who once thought myself your friend, would talk treason about you! By God, Tom, I never thought this of you!”
“Don’t be angry, Kit, please, dear,” said Awdrey in a plaintive crooning voice. “We want to help you. But you know what your tongue is like! I’ve always told you to be discreet.”
“You too!” cried Marlowe with a fierce laugh. “What pretty friends I’ve got! Discreet? In what haven’t I been discreet?”
She wetted her lips with her tongue but did not answer, yet there was fear in her eyes.
Walsingham answered for her. “You’ve talked mighty stupid things, as you know,” he said warmly. “I told you that Baines was sending in reports to the Council about your sayings, and another about that rascal friend of yours, Dick Chomley; and that other friend, Poley, who’s suspected of everything from coining to treason. Chomley’s a Papist, too!”
“So my friends are called to account! This is the worst blow fate has yet given me. I thought at least you’d stand by me!”
“We’ll do all we can to help, Kit, dear,” said Awdrey. �
�Command us.”
“I would not dare command you.”
“But we beseech you to.”
He looked into her large blue eyes, so frank, so true they seemed, that almost he believed in her. “I have one thing to ask,” he said, in a calm voice that hid an enraged pride, “and I wouldn’t ask it but I know it enters your plans. You wish me to go abroad and be out of the way. Get a blank licence from Cecil for myself and page, and England’ll never see me again.”
“Where would you go?”
“Anywhere, everywhere! To Italy, Germany, Turkey, France; mayhap, to the New World.”
“Who is the page?”
“My servant,” said Marlowe. “A lad I’m fond of.”
Awdrey and Walsingham glanced slyly at each other, Walsingham biting his moustache, and Awdrey toying absently with the enamelled wedding-ring upon her thumb.
“You think it’s some criminal or Catholic I want to sneak out of the country!” cried Marlowe, interpreting that glance. “You doubt me in everything. I’m glad I learned in time!”
“Kit, Kit!” cried Awdrey, “you take us up too quickly. We don’t doubt you for a moment. You’ll have your licence, countries unnamed and time unspecified. Cecil might have work for you abroad. I’ll write at once.”
“It’ll be the last favour I beg of you,” said Marlowe, and turned insolently aside to stare into the fire.
Behind his back, Awdrey and Walsingham gazed wonderingly at each other, unsure what to do.
“A glass of malmsey!” said Walsingham very merrily. “Come, friend, let’s forget all this; let’s drink.”
Marlowe bowed, then he said abruptly, “What time is it?”
“You’re not going to hurry from us, please?” murmured Awdrey, taking up the watch that hung from her gold-worked girdle and flicking open the lid. “It’s just on eleven.”
“Eleven! I haven’t a moment to lose! I must be back in town by twelve. You will forgive me, but it’s most important.”
He turned away, eager to escape, but even as he turned, there was a knocking outside, and when Walsingham called for the knocker to enter, the curtains parted to show the lean major-domo, smiling fulsomely like a kicked spaniel — the obvious bearer of bad news.
“Sir,” said he, bowing, “there be two men below asking for Master Marlowe, they bear a warrant from the Privy Council.”
Nobody answered for a moment. The colour went from Marlowe’s face, leaving it very white and drawn; even Walsingham and Awdrey were surprised; they all gazed at each other stupidly.
“Send them up,” said Walsingham suddenly, and when the man had gone, he put his hand on Marlowe’s shoulder. “Have no fear,” he said. “They’ll do naught. Awdrey’ll write straight away to Cecil, and Frizer will carry it. He’ll reach Cecil before you get to the Council. This is only formality.”
“It’s the breaking of my appointment that worries me,” said Marlowe, “not fear for my own skin.”
“It must be a very important appointment?” said Awdrey curiously.
“A woman?” laughed Walsingham.
“Ay, the only woman!” answered Marlowe, and stared Awdrey full in the face as he spoke; but she made no sign, merely continued to smile sweetly; she said in a gentle voice:
“How very romantic! I do hope she waits for you, Kit dear, and keeps your dinner nice and warm.”
*
The heavy tramping of riding-boots on the stairs, the jingle of a sword, then the officers of the Privy Council were walking sternly towards them down the long gallery. One was obviously the servant, dressed in a leather doublet, with a decaying copatain on his head like half a sugar-loaf turned green and mildewed with age. He followed the other man, a thin soldier-like fellow with long moustaches and a short-clipped beard; on his head a round feathered cap was set jauntily over one ear, a lady’s dirty lace gold-wrought handkerchief for a favour pinned there with a metal brooch in the shape of two crossed swords; instead of a doublet, he wore a jack, the intercrossing threads on the cloth showing where the little steel-plates were laid like scales on a snake; boots up to his thighs; a grey collar falling from his scraggy neck; leather gloves turned up over the wrists; a long sword trailing to the floor.
Gazing fixedly ahead, he did not pause until he was directly opposite to Awdrey seated on the cushions; then he bowed abruptly from the hips, body straight like a marionette’s.
“There,” she said, waving languidly, “is my husband, Master Thomas Walsingham.”
The soldier jerked upright, swung round on Walsingham, spurs clinking as the heels met, and said in a heavy throaty voice:
“Captain Henry Maunder, at your service, sir. One-time soldier, now messenger to Her Majesty’s Chamber. I bear a warrant from the Privy Council for the arrest of one, Christopher Marlowe, believed to be your guest. By virtue of which warrant, I am commanded to apprehend the said Christopher Marlowe and bring him to Westminster in my company. You are required to place him instantly at Her Majesty’s service, and I am empowered to call on your aid in case of need.”
After that, he bowed again and stood primly at attention.
“I am Christopher Marlowe,” said Marlowe, lounging against the heavy overmantel and kicking at the fire, “and am at your service.”
Captain Maunder swung round and again bowed. “You will please come with me instantly,” he said.
“Certainly.” Marlowe straightened up and turned with a smile to Walsingham and Awdrey. “You will remember your promise?” he said.
“Ay, have no fear, Kit; you’ll be out of this quick enough.”
“I mean the licence.”
“You will have that,” said Awdrey, “as yarely as I can will it.”
Marlowe kissed Awdrey’s white hand and bowed to Walsingham, then he swung round and strode along the gallery without a backward look, Captain Maunder and his attendant following.
*
For a few minutes after their footsteps had died away on the staircase, neither Walsingham nor Awdrey spoke. They remained exactly as they were: she sitting on cushions against the window, Walsingham beside the buffet that held his treasured bric-à-brac — pottery and jewellery and small works of virtu.
“I wonder,” he murmured, “what Kit’s up to. Do you think he’ll really go?”
“What I am fearing,” said Awdrey softly, “is that he might be more dangerous abroad than at home. Rheims and Rome both welcome English Papists, and Kit has leanings that way.” With sudden energy she sprang to her feet. “Fetch Frizer,” she said, “I must write to Cecil.”
“What are you going to say?”
“We must get him out of this mess first, at any rate. He’s angry with us. What a pity he took us by surprise! In this mood, he’s liable to blurt out anything, anything, any lie that comes into his head. Frizer’s at the accounts to-day, isn’t he? Bring him to me.”
Walsingham watched her as she energetically slid open the top of the writing cabinet, and sharpened the pen with a small knife. She was growing depressingly energetic these days…
“What are you waiting for?” she said, turning to him. “I told you to bring Frizer.”
“All right, chuck.” Sighing, he straightened his lank body and strolled down the gallery. She watched him sullenly: he was getting lazier every day now that he was hers and that wretched gipsy was gone. Looking back, she was amazed to think that she had ever longed for his return. It seemed a different Awdrey then from this present Awdrey who was strong with ambitions, determined to become a social power in the world. With a husband as lazy as that, what hopes had she of ever becoming a grand lady? He wasn’t even a knight, and as things were going, he never would be.
But she must write, she must see about this wretched poet.
Busily, she arranged the papers in the cabinet, drew forth the ink, selected the best sheet and dipped her pen into the silver inkwell. She wrote without difficulty, and very swiftly, never scratching out a word.
*
Walsingham, too, was thinking of the change in Awdrey as he dawdled on the stairs. Too energetic altogether, she was becoming. He had never really loved her; the only woman he had ever loved was little Rose, who was gone for ever now. He had seen her young body wrapped in a white shroud being carried from the cottage, twined with rosemary and rue, killed by the plague. She was gone now, and she had been so kind to him, so sweet and trusting in her rustic simplicity.
Always, Awdrey had eluded him somehow, she had never been mentally his; behind her love-making, from the very first, there had been reservations. She kept her eyes open all the time: that made him embarrassed. He hated it — it was frightening somehow to see a gigantic female eye watching him critically as he kissed her. There was nothing feminine about her; she tried to be womanly now and then, and that was even more embarrassing than her masculinity. It seemed indecent, peculiarly enough, when she turned kittenish. Sweet words sounded crude in her mouth. And now that he had lost Rose, she was growing more masculine every day, more shrewish, more the master.
But he must see Frizer, she would be angry if he was too long.
Feeling old and very tired, he walked up the stairs and into his study, where Frizer was twisted over a pile of accounts, his tongue out like a hanged man’s, his whole face writhing in the effort to pen letters and figures. He gazed up blankly at his master, then forced his usual gay smile.
“My head goes round and round like a dragonfly over these cursed numbers,” he muttered, “but they’re coming right.”
“They can wait,” said Walsingham, going to the window and gazing out at the May sky, at the trees splashed with gentle green. “I’ve got a pleasanter task for you. Kit Marlowe’s just been arrested and Madame wants you to fly with a note to Cecil, getting him off.”
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