One Dagger For Two Page 14

  “Indeed?” said Marlowe, steadying himself against the door. “Not unwelcome ones, I hope?”

  “To you, sir, nay, sir; to me, ay, sir,” retorted the carpenter, frowning.

  “Say it again, will you, please?” said Marlowe. “I didn’t get it the first time.”

  “Sir,” said the carpenter. He was a lean insect-like man with a long proboscis and eyeballs too big for their lids; and as he spoke, his lower-lip came pugnaciously up, almost to the nostrils. “Sir,” said he, “I be no Puritan, but I be a Christian. I ask not what I cannot get and expect what is right. And, sir, is it right for women to run up your stairs, and wearing masks, sir?”

  “I don’t know,” said Marlowe, “till I’ve seen the women.”

  “Wearing masks, sir, red masks,” repeated the carpenter glumly, “unescorted females a-begging for your key so they might leave ye presents.”

  “Look ye here,” said Marlowe, suddenly standing upright and lurching over to his landlord with clenched fists. “I pay my rent, and I ask you to stick to your adze. That woman, sirrah, whom you insult so grossly that only blood can wash it out, that woman, sirrah, is my sister!”

  “Your sister!” cried the carpenter, edging away. “I never knew, Master Marlowe, who she were. There ain’t no need for blood, sir; I’ll send her straight up when she comes ag’in.”

  “Send her up,” said Marlowe, “quick! or I come down to you!” And with gentlemanly dignity, slightly marred by an unexpected hiccup, Marlowe strode out of the shop and up the stairs.

  He went up, clinging to the banisters, and once inside his room, he threw the meat and raisins on to the floor, fell heavily upon his truckle-bed, and slept at once.

  *

  It was night when he awoke, and it was terribly cold. He felt ill, exhausted. Every muscle in his body ached, his legs were quivering as if stuck with hot needles; and his tongue was like a large piece of felt blocking up his mouth. He lay perfectly still in the darkness, too tired even to get up and take off his clothes.

  Faint moonlight came through his open window, gleamed on the papers scattered on the floor, turned a silver buckle to diamonds. A fierce wind rattled on the cloth curtains, doubled them inside-out as if fighting them; the woodwork rattled like skeletons above their graves at midnight. Cold and miserable: March, 1593.

  Outside, Marlowe heard the watch trudge past, their brown bills — so called because of the rust — dragged behind them, rattling on the cobbles. The watchman cried the hour like a screech-owl in a belfry calling on the dead. Silence then, save for the wind at the window, wind crying down the chimney, the abrupt scream of a cat on the tiles, it seemed to call to him, saying Mar-lowe, Mar-lowe, ending in a kind of whine. Silence. London slept under a winter sky, buffeted with winds, tiles falling; the watch walked the streets, sniffing onions to keep away the cold; drunkards shouted at the hidden stars; thieves with their picklocks, handsaws, long hooks, ladders and other paraphernalia of their trade, crept in the shadows, feeling window-locks, prising open shutters; perhaps, a serving-maid unlocked the door to a cloaked lover; women still walked the streets, shivering, here and there… Night; and in the suburbs and fields, the beggars hid their earnings under their armpits, stretched themselves on the greasy floors of tenements — Upright Men under their doxies’ gowns for bedclothes; Abraham Men, who ape the Bedlamites for pity’s coin; Dummerers who pretend to have lost their tongues; Tinkers; Palliards; Rufflers who boast they fought in wars and whiningly show painted wounds; Whipjacks calling themselves sailors; all these dregs of beggardom slept peacefully in old barns and falling tenements with their women, the Walking Morts; Autem Morts, the few who be married; Bawdy-Baskets, who carry baskets not only to hold their goods, but to hide their thefts in; Dells, those rare virgins, not yet turned to doxies by the Upright Men, the kings of beggardom; and Kinchin-morts, young girls, and Kinchin-coes, the boys…scum of the city, they herded together, lucky to get straw to warm their lousy bodies with.

  All London was united in the world of dreams, for in that democratic world the rogues went dressed as merchants and flung the Lord Mayor’s cloak around thin, naked shoulders. The Lord Mayor himself slept in his gigantic bed beside his little wife: Sir Cuthbert Buckle was his name and he was a vintner by trade, wealthy from putting cider in his wine; a godly, big-bellied man, he had never heard of Christopher Marlowe who that moment lay on his truckle-bed staring at the moonlight with shame and remorse at his heart; for Christopher Marlowe did not sleep.

  Beggars and the Lord Mayor, merchants, Court gentlemen and ladies, divines and tradesmen and artisans, even players and poets — all these slept; but, like the thieves creeping in the shadows, Christopher Marlowe was wide-awake.

  And far from this vast hulk, this black city of London next to the mumbling muttering river, scaly with moonlight, far away in the peaceful countryside — who slept at Scadbury?

  Was Thomas in his bed these nights? And Awdrey? Did she sleep, or did she dream of him, of Kit Marlowe, who loved her with all his body and soul?

  He lay in bed, fighting the phantoms of drunkenness. Always after drinking, came remorse. Marlowe talked too much when he was drunk; and he was terribly conscious of the fact. All his rage at his poverty, at the futility of his Machiavellian ambitions, burst out once drink had unloosed his tongue. He was a fool; for underneath, Marlowe envied the Queen; if he had had his chance, he would have been the most gallant courtier that danced around her throne, saying sweet words into the dyed hair while his eyes wantoned with the maids of honour. But he was a poor poet, a scholarship M.A., son of a cobbler; and the world gave no future to such as he.

  It was this terrible jealousy, this jealousy of a man who understood his own worth, that turned Kit Marlowe into a traitorous talker. He vented his rage in words, aided by the subtle Chomley, a man who loved mischief and lived dangerously; Chomley did not talk very much, except where he knew he was safe, but he put words into Marlowe’s head, and let Marlowe say them.

  Marlowe was conscious of this, he knew he was but Chomley’s tool, but he could not stop himself when the wine had heated his blood. One day he would be arrested, he would be put in the Tower, broken on the wheel and dragged to Tyburn to make an apprentices’ holiday; and his skull would grin with other skulls on London Bridge.

  Therefore, always after drink came remorse, came remorse so self-destroying that often he doubted if he would live through its agony.

  Work was the only salve. Next day, when he wrote he saw the words linking together into great lines of poetry, and he felt assured, safe and very powerful. His interest in Edward II was reborn; he tore up what he had written and started afresh; and as he wrote, he thought always of what the masked lady would think of his work.

  Days passed, and no masked lady came. He had eaten his meat and the last of the raisins, and his stomach was burning him as if filled with acid, but he did not wish to leave his work. The enthusiasm of creating had gripped him, and he feared to break the charm. This was the finest thing he had yet written, he was sure of that; the characters sprang out of his pen with an assurance he had never felt before, and the construction was more carefully poised. In his earlier works, the whole drama ran together like a violent river smashing a dam, without coherency — a bright muddle, a handful of jewels; but now it built up solidly, into a carefully arranged necklace.

  He imagined the masked lady acting in it; she would be Isabella; and how well she would play that sad queen! It gave full scope for all her powers — for tenderness, for rhetoric and for calm tragedy. He did not like to think of a boy squeaking the part, he imagined Isabella with the strange lady’s brown hair and deep blue eyes.

  *

  Then suddenly she came. The wind had died down, leaving a raw coldness in the air; his window was shuttered and the fire dying in the grate, when suddenly the door opened, and she was smiling at him.

  “I thought I’d lost you!” he cried.

  “I thought I’d lost you,�
� she retorted. “Where have you been this long while? It wasn’t gallant of you to have me knocking like a drab at your door; I don’t know what your landlord must have thought of me.”

  He took her hand and kissed it. “I was away,” he said awkwardly, “in the country. Why did you run from me at the Rose?”

  “I had servants with me. May I take off my cloak?”

  He took it from her and laid it on the bed, then drew up a stool for her at the fireside. He ran out for more coals from the butt on the landing, and as he laid them on the dying fire, she said, looking closely at him, “You have been ill?”

  “Oh, no, no! Merely tired. I’m working hard on a new play.”

  “You shouldn’t work so hard, you’re fearfully thin.” She laid her hand tenderly on his cheek as he knelt beside her, poking the fire. “But surely it’s not only tiredness? Tell me, Kit, tell me truthfully: have you been eating properly?”

  “Well,” he said with a shrug, “not of earthly foods. I’ve been living on the lotus.”

  “That’s no good for a big man like you.” She sprang to her feet, and ran for her cloak. “You wait here,” she cried, “while I get you something to eat. Look! what I have brought you!” And she showed him a purse heavy with gold. “It’s what I owe you,” she explained, “for the pendant.”

  “You owe me nothing. I won’t take it.”

  “What’s this I hear!” she cried. “Surely you aren’t proud-stomached! All men take presents from ladies.”

  “Ay, but I don’t need money. If I’ve got money I don’t do any work. I’ll have friends dragging me out to drink it.”

  “If that’s so,” she laughed, “I’ll keep the money, and give you it groat by groat, fattening you. I’ll be your housekeeper. I’ll bring you food and drink and make your room pretty. Eh, how will you like that?”

  “But your husband!” cried Marlowe. “You can’t come running here every day to see me.”

  She laughed merrily. “Don’t worry your head about my husband,” she cried, “I’ll look after him. Now, first, what would you like to eat: chicken?”

  “Oh, o-o-oh,” wailed Marlowe. “Chicken!”

  *

  She bought a chicken, roasted and still hot, some peas, a loaf of bread, half-a-pound of butter in a cabbage-leaf, a bottle of white wine, a lettuce, a primrose-pie, and a box of sugar-meats — marchpane made of pounded almonds, pistachio nuts, sugar and rich essences, moulded like a fish, and gilt; orangy sugarplates; and eringo, the candied root of sea-holly; and some candied violets. It was a feast that made Marlowe’s stomach turn with longing.

  He helped the boy from the cookshop to lay the food on the table, then dismissed him with a penny from her purse.

  “Ah!” said he, rubbing his hands, and gloating on the dainties, “fall to!” and he wrenched a brown leg from the chicken.

  After eating, she insisted that Marlowe work, and herself sat on a stool beside the fire, reading to herself what he had written.

  “Isabella was done for you,” he told her, and she flushed with pleasure.

  He found great peace in her company. It was restful to look up from his paper when thought came slowly for a moment and to see her in the red firelight, conning the sheets that he had scrawled on. It gave him impetus to continue; and he worked contentedly, happy to look up now and then and to see her sitting placidly before him; to look upon her, as a swimmer rises for a gulp of air, then to dive back amidst the turmoils of Edward with his rowdy nobles shouting at him on paper.

  *

  When at last she went, he felt very lonely, although they had scarcely spoken a dozen words after dinner.

  She came again, next day. She came early in the morning, bringing painted cloths for his window, cloths painted with Faustus at the feet of Helen, with Faustus talking to Mephistopheles amongst his retorts and alchemistical bottles. “I had them specially painted,” she told him, “for my bedroom; that’ll prove how much Kit Marlowe meant to me even before I met him.” She brought clean sheets for his bed, and pouted when she saw the filthy ones he had slept in; she lifted them disdainfully in her fingers and threw them out on to the stairs; then when the old woman came to clean his room, the strange lady railed at her for a dirty brach and sent her off to buy fresh rushes and some lavender and ambergris.

  Marlowe watched her, entranced; and watching her, he suddenly realized that he did not know her name.

  “What does it matter?” she laughed, setting the lavender in his chest and folding up his clothes in candles to keep the moths off. “You called me Helen. I like that better than the name my mother gave me.”

  “I must know your name,” he insisted.

  And after a pause, during which she gazed smilingly at him, at last she whispered, “Alice — a silly name.”

  “A lovely name!” he cried. “It makes me think of lilies.”

  He was pleased to have a name to call her by, and found great pleasure in saying it at every opportunity, saying “Alice” this, and “Alice” that, so that it seemed as if every second word he said was “Alice.”

  Each page he finished, she took from him and read at once; but it did not interrupt him. He would hurry to finish a page so that she could read it. She never criticized a line, only now and then she would draw in her breath and would say how beautiful that was, how sweet that sounded; and he would listen with an embarrassed smile, then try to make a better line of the one he was writing.

  *

  No love was spoken by these two. In truth, it seemed, as Marlowe had told his landlord, that they were brother and sister; and the landlord, cocking his lewd bulbous eye up the well of the staircase and lifting his long ears, began to doubt his own mind, and to believe that, for once, a tenant had not lied to him.

  Like brother and sister they were, a tender brother and sister, playful, and for ever laughing; they laughed when she placed a clean bright carpet on the table, laughed at every stupid thing, even when she gave him a fine silver inkpot, when he knocked a loaf of bread over accidentally — all was cause for laughter.

  He had not forgotten Awdrey. But, somehow, much of the pain was gone. She was a lovely memory and only occasionally would she come to him with the old torture of desire. Alice had robbed her of much of her sting. Alice he loved too, but in a wholly different way from that in which he loved Awdrey: one was mental, the other physical.

  While he worked, she would sit quietly embroidering or reading. And when, during pauses, he talked to her, she would tell him all the gossip of the city; of how the search for army-deserters was being pushed strongly, how one hundred and fifty men at Southampton were waiting for a wind to drive them to the hell overseas, and how forty of them managed to sneak off (“Brav-o!” cried Marlowe); how Mr. Peter Wentworth and Sir Henry Bromley were rash enough in Parliament to ask the Queen to appoint a successor and were swiftly locked up in the Fleet by the raging Virgin; how a warrant was chasing Penry for writing Martin Marprelate against the bishops; how a recusant called Gilbert Laton had confessed to being sent to kill Elizabeth, and how he had been cozened by Father Parsons, Sir Francis Englefield and Don Juan de Idiaques; how Parliament had resolved that a triple subsidy and six fifteenths and tenths were to be paid in four years to the Virgin against Perils of the Realm (“More blood!” cried Marlowe, “more blood from the stone!”); how the plague was growing worse each day.

  “You should go into the country,” she said; “we can’t afford to lose you.”

  “I’m safe enough,” he answered; “ you should go.”

  She sighed and laid the embroidery in her lap. “What does it matter what happens to me?” she said sadly. “A woman more or less — what’s that to the world? Women are cheap enough, God knows.”

  “Not women like you. I’ve never worked so hard nor so well.”

  “Then I have done some little good. Oh, I wish I were a man, I could do things then! But what can a woman do? She’s a nothing. Even with a woman on the throne our p
owers aren’t enlarged. Last year we were given Benefit of Clergy, that was something; we are at last permitted to read, thank the Lord. I’d love to do great things, but one can’t stride far in a farthingale.”

  “It’s a ghastly outlook,” agreed Marlowe, for the first time seeing the world through a woman’s eyes. What could she do, poor wretch? And a woman as intelligent as Alice…she was doomed, her farthingale was a prison.

  I wish you’d tell me something of your life,” he said.

  “Some day!” With forced gaiety, she took up her embroidery, leaned towards the fire and continued her quotidian catalogue of news. “I’ve just got a book on the plague,” she said brightly, “by somebody Kelleway. Do you know him? He says it’s caused by unnatural heat and dryness; either that, or by too much liquid in the body, too much rheum. And stinks cause it — dunghills, jails, filthy laneways, dogs and cats fouling the paths, pigs and weasels, and beasties like that. It seems truth, for the country does not suffer from it. Mayhap, dirt is the cause after all.”

  “Ay, there should be some way of cleaning the streets; the streets are a disgrace with the slops and refuse decaying and fly-blown, men turning their backs to the passers-by instead of waiting till they were home. A man I met once at Ralegh’s, John Harington, Bess’s godson, had invented a privy that could be drained with water. You pulled a little handle and water gushed from a cistern above. He had scented water for the ladies. But people won’t be clean. They think he’s mad or merely dirty-minded.”

  “It’s a vile world,” sighed Alice.

  “Ay,” said Marlowe, “it’s hell.”

  She was tormented by woman’s inferiority. He learned that slowly by occasional remarks and by little outbursts of spleen. She wanted to be an actress, but women weren’t allowed to disport on the stage; she wanted to travel, but women could not travel; she wanted to write, but feared she would get no bookseller to print her poems. They were quite good poems, too; not astonishingly good, but dainty and pleasant. She was well educated, she must be a merchant’s wife, he decided. He could not place her, and she would tell him nothing about herself, parrying all his questions with a laugh or by a sudden change of the conversation.