Unknown - "Sri Vishnu Sahasranaamam"

Roy Rockwood - "Through Space to Mars"

Dante Alighieri - "Divina Commedia di Dante"

Andrew Lang - "Shakespeare, Bacon and the Great Unknown"

To Have and To Hold:

M >> Mary Johnston >> To Have and To Hold:




"The handsomest man that ever I saw! " ejaculated the Governor.

Master Pory, standing beside him, drew in his breath, then puffed
it out again. "Handsome enough, your Honor," he said, "unless
handsome is as handsome does. That, gentlemen, is my Lord
Carnal, - that is the King's latest favorite."



CHAPTER VIII IN WHICH ENTERS MY LORD CARNAL


I FELT a touch upon my shoulder, and turned to find Mistress
Percy beside me. Her cheeks were white, her eyes aflame, her
whole frame tense. The passion that dominated her was so clearly
anger at white heat that I stared at her in amazement. Her hand slid
from my shoulder to the bend of my arm and rested there.
"Remember that I am your wife, sir," she said in a low, fierce
voice, - "your kind and loving wife. You said that your sword was
mine; now bring your wit to the same service!"

There was not time to question her meaning. The man whose
position in the realm had just been announced by the Secretary,
and of whom we had all heard as one not unlikely to supplant even
Buckingham himself, was close at hand. The Governor, headpiece
in hand, stepped forward; the other swept off his Spanish hat; both
bowed profoundly.

"I speak to his Honor the Governor of Virginia?" inquired the
newcomer. His tone was offhand, his hat already back upon his
head.

"I am George Yeardley, at my Lord Carnal's service," answered the
Governor.

The favorite raised his eyebrows. "I don't need to introduce myself,
it seems," he said. "You've found that I am not the devil, after all, -
at least not the Spanish Apollyon. Zooks ! a hawk above a poultry
yard could n't have caused a greater commotion than did my poor
little ship and my few poor birding pieces! Does every strange sail
so put you through your paces?"

The Governor's color mounted. "We are not at home," he answered
stiffly. "Here we are few and weak and surrounded by many
dangers, and have need to be vigilant, being planted, as it were, in
the very grasp of that Spain who holds Europe in awe, and who
claims this land as her own. That we are here at all is proof enough
of our courage, my lord."

The other shrugged his shoulders. "I don't doubt your mettle," he
said negligently. "I dare say it matches your armor."

His glance had rested for a moment upon the battered headpiece
and ancient rusty breastplate with which Master Jeremy Sparrow
was bedight.

"It is something antique, truly, something out of fashion,"
remarked that worthy, - "almost as out of fashion as courtesy from
guests, or respect for dignities from my-face-is-my-fortune
minions and lords on carpet considerations."

The hush of consternation following this audacious speech was
broken by a roar of laughter from the favorite himself. "Zounds!"
he cried, "your courage is worn on your sleeve, good giant! I'll
uphold you to face Spaniards, strappado, rack, galleys, and all!"

The bravado with which he spoke, the insolence of his bold glance
and curled lip, the arrogance with which he flaunted that King's
favor which should be a brand more infamous than the hangman's,
his beauty, the pomp of his dress, - all were alike hateful. I hated
him then, scarce knowing why, as I hated him afterward with
reason.

He now pulled from the breast of his doublet a packet, which he
proffered the Governor. "From the King, sir," he announced, in the
half-fierce, half- mocking tone he had made his own. "You may
read it at your leisure. He wishes you to further me in a quest upon
which I have come."

The Governor took the packet with reverence. "His Majesty's will
is our law," he said. "Anything that lies in our power, sir; though if
you come for gold" -

The favorite laughed again. "I've come for a thing a deal more
precious, Sir Governor, - a thing worth more to me than all the
treasure of the Indies with Manoa and El Dorado thrown in, - to
wit, the thing upon which I've set my mind. That which I
determine to do, I do, sir, and the thing I determine to have, why,
sooner or later, by hook or by crook, fair means or foul, I have it! I
am not one to be crossed or defied with impunity."

"I do not take your meaning, my lord," said the Governor, puzzled,
but courteous. "There are none here who would care to thwart, in
any honorable enterprise, a nobleman so high in the King's favor. I
trust that my Lord Carnal will make my poor house his own during
his stay in Virginia - What's the matter, my lord?"

My lord's face was dark red, his black eyes afire, his mustaches
working up and down. His white teeth had closed with a click on
the loud oath which had interrupted the Governor's speech. Honest
Sir George and his circle stared at this unaccountable guest in
amazement not unmixed with dismay. As for myself, I knew
before he spoke what had caused the oath and the fierce triumph in
that handsome face. Master Jeremy Sparrow had moved a little to
one side, thus exposing to view that which his great body had
before screened from observation, - namely, Mistress Jocelyn
Percy.

In a moment the favorite was before her, hat in hand, bowing to
the ground.

"My quest hath ended where I feared it but begun!" he cried,
flushed and exultant. "I have found my Manoa sooner than I
thought for. Have you no welcome for me, lady?"

She withdrew her arm from mine and curtsied to him profoundly;
then stood erect, indignant and defiant, her eyes angry stars, her
cheeks carnation, scorn on her smiling lips.

"I cannot welcome you as you should be welcomed, my lord," she
said in a clear voice. "I have but my bare hands. Manoa, my lord,
lies far to the southward. This land is quite out of your course, and
you will find here but your travail for your pains. My lord, permit
me to present to you my husband, Captain Ralph Percy. I think that
you know his cousin, my Lord of Northumberland."

The red left the favorite's cheeks, and he moved as though a blow
had been dealt him by some invisible hand. Recovering himself he
bowed to me, and I to him, which done we looked each other in
the eyes long enough for each to see the thrown gauntlet.

"I raise it," I said.

"And I raise it," he answered.

"A l'outrance, I think, sir?" I continued.

"A l'outrance," he assented.

"And between us two alone," I suggested.

His answering smile was not good to see, nor was the tone in
which he spoke to the Governor good to hear.

"It is now some weeks, sir," he said, "since there disappeared from
court a jewel, a diamond of most inestimable worth. It in some sort
belonged to the King, and his Majesty, in the goodness of his heart,
had promised it to a certain one, - nay, had sworn by his kingdom
that it should be his. Well, sir, that man put forth his hand to claim
his own - when lo! the jewel vanished! Where it went no man
could tell. There was, as you may believe, a mighty running up and
down and looking into dark corners, all for naught, - it was clean
gone. But the man to whom that bright gem had been promised
was not one easily hoodwinked or baffled. He swore to trace it,
follow it, find it, and wear it."

His bold eyes left the Governor, to rest upon the woman beside
me; had he pointed to her with his hand, he could not have more
surely drawn upon her the regard of that motley throng. By degrees
the crowd had fallen back, leaving us three - the King's minion, the
masquerading lady, and myself - the centre of a ring of staring
faces; but now she became the sole target at which all eyes were
directed.

In Virginia, at this time, the women of our own race were held in
high esteem. During the first years of our planting they were a
greater rarity than the mocking-birds and flying squirrels, or than
that weed the eating of which made fools of men. The man whose
wife was loving and daring enough, or jealous enough of Indian
maids, to follow him into the wilderness counted his friends by the
score and never lacked for company. The first marriage in Virginia
was between a laborer and a waiting maid, and yet there was as
great a deal of candy stuff as if it had been the nuptials of a
lieutenant of the shire. The brother of my Lord de la Warre stood
up with the groom, the brother of my Lord of Northumberland
gave away the bride and was the first to kiss her, and the President
himself held the caudle to their lips that night. Since that wedding
there had been others. Gentlewomen made the Virginia voyage
with husband or father; women signed as servants and came over,
to marry in three weeks' time, the husband paying good tobacco for
the wife's freedom; in the cargoes of children sent for apprentices
there were many girls. And last, but not least, had come Sir
Edwyn's doves. Things had changed since that day - at the memory
of which men still held their sides - when Madam West, then the
only woman in the town with youth and beauty, had marched down
the street to the pillory, mounted it, called to her the drummer, and
ordered him to summon to the square by tuck of drum every man
in the place. Which done, and the amazed population at hand,
gaping at the spectacle of the wife of their commander (then
absent from home) pilloried before them, she gave command,
through the crier, that they should take their fill of gazing,
whispering, and nudging then and there, forever and a day, and
then should go about their business and give her leave to mind her
own.

That day was gone, but men still dropped their work to see a
woman pass, still cheered when a farthingale appeared over a
ship's side, and at church still devoted their eyes to other service
than staring at the minister. In our short but crowded history few
things had made a greater stir than the coming in of Sir Edwyn's
maids. They were married now, but they were still the observed of
all observers; to be pointed out to strangers, run after by children,
gaped at by the vulgar, bowed to with broad smiles by Burgess,
Councilor, and commander, and openly contemned by those dames
who had attained to a husband in somewhat more regular fashion.
Of the ninety who had arrived two weeks before, the greater
number had found husbands in the town itself or in the
neighboring hundreds, so that in the crowd that had gathered to
withstand the Spaniard, and had stayed to welcome the King's
favorite, there were farthingales not a few.

But there were none like the woman whose hand I had kissed in
the courting meadow. In the throng, that day, in her Puritan dress
and amid the crowd of meaner beauties, she had passed without
overmuch comment, and since that day none had seen her save
Rolfe and the minister, my servants and myself; and when "The
Spaniard!" was cried, men thought of other things than the beauty
of women; so that until this moment she had escaped any special
notice. Now all that was changed. The Governor, following the
pointing of those insolent eyes, fixed his own upon her in a stare of
sheer amazement; the gold-laced quality about him craned necks,
lifted eyebrows, and whispered; and the rabble behind followed
their betters' example with an emphasis quite their own.

"Where do you suppose that jewel went, Sir Governor," said the
favorite, - "that jewel which was overnice to shine at court, which
set up its will against the King's, which would have none of that
one to whom it had been given?"

"I am a plain man, my lord," replied the Governor bluntly. "An it
please you, give me plain words."

My lord laughed, his eyes traveling round the ring of greedily
intent faces. "So be it, sir," he assented. "May I ask who is this
lady?"

"She came in the Bonaventure," answered the Governor. "She was
one of the treasurer's poor maids."

"With whom I trod a measure at court not long ago," said the
favorite. "I had to wait for the honor until the prince had been
gratified."

The Governor's round eyes grew rounder. Young Hamor, a-tiptoe
behind him, drew a long, low whistle.

"In so small a community," went on my lord, "sure you must all
know one another. There can be no masks worn, no false colors
displayed. Everything must be as open as daylight. But we all have
a past as well as a present. Now, for instance" -

I interrupted him. "In Virginia, my lord, we live in the present. At
present, my lord, I like not the color of your lordship's cloak."

He stared at me, with his black brows drawn together. "It is not of
your choosing nor for your wearing, sir," he rejoined haughtily.

"And your sword knot is villainously tied," I continued. "And I like
not such a fire-new, bejeweled scabbard. Mine, you see, is out at
heel."

"I see," he said dryly.

"The pinking of your doublet suits me not, either," I declared. "I
could make it more to my liking," and I touched his Genoa
three-pile with the point of my rapier.

A loud murmur arose from the crowd, and the Governor started
forward, crying out, "Captain Percy! Are you mad?"

"I was never saner in my life, sir," I answered. "French fashions
like me not, - that is all, - nor Englishmen that wear them. To my
thinking such are scarcely true-born."

That thrust went home. All the world knew the story of my late
Lord Carnal and the waiting woman in the service of the French
ambassador's wife. A gasp of admiration went up from the crowd.
My lord's rapier was out, the hand that held it shaking with
passion. I had my blade in my hand, but the point was upon the
ground. "I'll lesson you, you madman!" he said thickly. Suddenly,
without any warning, he thrust at me; had he been less blind with
rage, the long score which each was to run up against the other
might have ended where it began. I swerved, and the next instant
with my own point sent his rapier whirling. It fell at the Governor's
feet.

"Your lordship may pick it up," I remarked. "Your grasp is as firm
as your honor, my lord."

He glared at me, foam upon his lips. Men were between us now, -
the Governor, Francis West, Master Pory, Hamor, Wynne, - and a
babel of excited voices arose. The diversion I had aimed to make
had been made with a vengeance. West had me by the arm. "What
a murrain is all this coil about, Ralph Percy? If you hurt hair of his
head, you are lost!"

The favorite broke from the Governor's detaining hand and
conciliatory speech.

"You'll fight, sir?" he cried hoarsely.

"You know that I need not now, my lord," I answered.

He stamped upon the ground with rage and shame; not true shame
for that foul thrust, but shame for the sword upon the grass, for
that which could be read in men's eyes, strive to hide it as they
might, for the open scorn upon one face. Then, during the minute
or more in which we faced each other in silence, he exerted to
some effect that will of which he had boasted. The scarlet faded
from his face, his frame steadied, and he forced a smile. Also he
called to his aid a certain soldierly, honest-seeming frankness of
speech and manner which he could assume at will.

"Your Virginian sunshine dazzleth the eyes, sir," he said. "Of a
verity it made me think you on guard. Forgive me my mistake."

I bowed. "Your lordship will find me at your service. I lodge at the
minister's house, where your lordship's messenger will find me. I
am going there now with my wife, who hath ridden a score of
miles this morning and is weary. We give you good-day, my lord."

I bowed to him again and to the Governor, then gave my hand to
Mistress Percy. The crowd opening before us, we passed through
it, and crossed the parade by the west bulwark. At the further end
was a bit of rising ground. This we mounted; then, before
descending the other side into the lane leading to the minister's
house, we turned as by one impulse and looked back. Life is like
one of those endless Italian corridors, painted, picture after picture,
by a master hand; and man is the traveler through it, taking his
eyes from one scene but to rest them upon another. Some remain a
blur in his mind; some he remembers not; for some he has but to
close his eyes and he sees them again, line for line, tint for tint, the
whole spirit of the piece. I close my eyes, and I see the sunshine
hot and bright, the blue of the skies, the sheen of the river. The
sails are white again upon boats long lost; the Santa Teresa, sunk
in a fight with an Algerine rover two years afterward, rides at
anchor there forever in the James, her crew in the waist and the
rigging, her master and his mates on the poop, above them the
flag. I see the plain at our feet and the crowd beyond, all staring
with upturned faces; and standing out from the group of perplexed
and wondering dignitaries a man in black and scarlet, one hand
busy at his mouth, the other clenched upon the newly restored and
unsheathed sword. And I see, standing on the green hillock, hand
in hand, us two, myself and the woman so near to me, and yet so
far away that a common enemy seemed our only tie.

We turned and descended to the green lane and the deserted
houses. When we were quite hidden from those we had left on the
bank below the fort, she dropped my hand and moved to the other
side of the lane; and thus, with never a word to spare, we walked
sedately on until we reached the minister's house.



CHAPTER IX IN WHICH TWO DRINK OF ONE CUP


WAITING for us in the doorway we found Master Jeremy
Sparrow, relieved of his battered armor, his face wreathed with
hospitable smiles, and a posy in his hand.

"When the Spaniard turned out to be only the King's minion, I
slipped away to see that all was in order," he said genially. "Here
are roses, madam, that you are not to treat as you did those others."

She took them from him with a smile, and we went into the house
to find three fair large rooms, something bare of furnishing, but
clean and sweet, with here and there a bow pot of newly gathered
flowers, a dish of wardens on the table, and a cool air laden with
the fragrance of the pine blowing through the open window.

"This is your demesne," quoth the minister. "I have worthy Master
Bucke's own chamber upstairs. Ah, good man, I wish he may
quickly recover his strength and come back to his own, and so
relieve me of the burden of all this luxury. I, whom nature meant
for an eremite, have no business in kings' chambers such as these."

His devout faith in his own distaste for soft living and his longings
after a hermit's cell was an edifying spectacle. So was the evident
pride which he took in his domain, the complacence with which he
pointed out the shady, well-stocked garden, and the delight with
which he produced and set upon the table a huge pasty and a
flagon of wine.

"It is a fast day with me," he said. "I may neither eat nor drink until
the sun goes down. The flesh is a strong giant, very full of pride
and lust of living, and the spirit must needs keep watch and ward,
seizing every opportunity to mortify and deject its adversary.
Goodwife Allen is still gaping with the crowd at the fort, and your
man and maid have not yet come, but I shall be overhead if you
need aught. Mistress Percy must want rest after her ride."

He was gone, leaving us two alone together. She stood opposite
me, beside the window, from which she had not moved since
entering the room. The color was still in her cheeks, the light in
her eyes, and she still held the roses with which Sparrow had
heaped her arms. I was moving to the table.

"Wait!" she said, and I turned toward her again.

"Have you no questions to ask?" she demanded.

I shook my head. "None, madam."

"I was the King's ward!" she cried.

I bowed, but spoke no word, though she waited for me.

"If you will listen," she said at last, proudly, and yet with a
pleading sweetness, - "if you will listen, I will tell you how it was
that I - that I came to wrong you so."

"I am listening, madam," I replied.

She stood against the light, the roses pressed to her bosom, her
dark eyes upon me, her head held high. "My mother died when I
was born; my father, years ago. I was the King's ward. While the
Queen lived she kept me with her, - she loved me, I think; and the
King too was kind, - would have me sing to him, and would talk to
me about witchcraft and the Scriptures, and how rebellion to a
king is rebellion to God. When I was sixteen, and he tendered me
marriage with a Scotch lord, I, who loved the gentleman not, never
having seen him, prayed the King to take the value of my marriage
and leave me my freedom. He was so good to me then that the
Scotch lord was wed elsewhere, and I danced at the wedding with
a mind at ease. Time passed, and the King was still my very good
lord. Then, one black day, my Lord Carnal came to court, and the
King looked at him oftener than at his Grace of Buckingham. A
few months, and my lord's wish was the King's will. To do this
new favorite pleasure he forgot his ancient kindness of heart; yea,
and he made the law of no account. I was his kinswoman, and
under my full age; he would give my hand to whom he chose. He
chose to give it to my Lord Carnal."

She broke off, and turned her face from me toward the slant
sunshine without the window. Thus far she had spoken quietly,
with a certain proud patience of voice and bearing; but as she
stood there in a silence which I did not break, the memory of her
wrongs brought the crimson to her cheeks and the anger to her
eyes. Suddenly she burst forth passionately: "The King is the King!
What is a subject's will to clash with his? What weighs a woman's
heart against his whim? Little cared he that my hand held back,
grew cold at the touch of that other hand in which he would have
put it. What matter if my will was against that marriage? It was but
the will of a girl, and must be broken. All my world was with the
King; I, who stood alone, was but a woman, young and untaught.
Oh, they pressed me sore, they angered me to the very heart! There
was not one to fight my battle, to help me in that strait, to show me
a better path than that I took. With all my heart, with all my soul,
with all my might, I hate that man which that ship brought here
to-day! You know what I did to escape them all, to escape that
man. I fled from England in the dress of my waiting maid and
under her name. I came to Virginia in that guise. I let myself be
put up, appraised, cried for sale, in that meadow yonder, as if I had
been indeed the piece of merchandise I professed myself. The one
man who approached me with respect I gulled and cheated. I let
him, a stranger, give me his name. I shelter myself now behind his
name. I have foisted on him my quarrel. I have - Oh, despise me, if
you will! You cannot despise me more than I despise myself!"

I stood with my hand upon the table and my eyes studying the
shadow of the vines upon the floor. All that she said was perfectly
true, and yet - I had a vision of a scarlet and black figure and a
dark and beautiful face. I too hated my Lord Carnal.

"I do not despise you, madam," I said at last. "What was done two
weeks ago in the meadow yonder is past recall. Let it rest. What is
mine is yours: it's little beside my sword and my name. The one is
naturally at my wife's service; for the other, I have had some pride
in keeping it untarnished. It is now in your keeping as well as my
own. I do not fear to leave it there, madam."

I had spoken with my eyes upon the garden outside the window,
but now I looked at her, to see that she was trembling in every
limb, - trembling so that I thought she would fall. I hastened to
her. "The roses," she said, - "the roses are too heavy. Oh, I am tired
- and the room goes round."

I caught her as she fell, and laid her gently upon the floor. There
was water on the table, and I dashed some in her face and
moistened her lips; then turned to the door to get woman's help,
and ran against Diccon.

"I got that bag of bones here at last, sir," he began. "If ever I" - His
eyes traveled past me, and he broke off.

"Don't stand there staring," I ordered. "Go bring the first woman
you meet."

"Is she dead?" he asked under his breath. "Have you killed her?"

"Killed her, fool!" I cried. "Have you never seen a woman swoon?"

"She looks like death," he muttered. "I thought" -

"You thought!" I exclaimed. "You have too many thoughts.
Begone, and call for help!"

"Here is Angela," he said sullenly and without offering to move,
as, light of foot, soft of voice, ox-eyed and docile, the black
woman entered the room. When I saw her upon her knees beside
the motionless figure, the head pillowed on her arm, her hand busy
with the fastenings about throat and bosom, her dark face as
womanly tender as any English mother's bending over her nursling;
and when I saw my wife, with a little moan, creep further into the
encircling arms, I was satisfied.

"Come away!" I said, and, followed by Diccon, went out and shut
the door.

My Lord Carnal was never one to let the grass
ILLUSTRATION
grow beneath his feet. An hour later came his cartel, borne by no
less a personage than the Secretary of the colony.

I took it from the point of that worthy's rapier. It ran thus: "SIR, -
At what hour to-morrow and at what place do you prefer to die?
And with what weapon shall I kill you?"

"Captain Percy will give me credit for the profound reluctance
with which I act in this affair against a gentleman and an officer so
high in the esteem of the colony," said Master Pory, with his hand
upon his heart. "When I tell him that I once fought at Paris in a
duel of six on the same side with my late Lord Carnal, and that
when I was last at court my Lord Warwick did me the honor to
present me to the present lord, he will see that I could not well
refuse when the latter requested my aid."

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