One Dagger For Two Read online

“Stand up straight, don’t lean forward, out with the left foot — like this!” She sprang beside him, showing him how to stand, and he tried to imitate her. “Draw the string right to your ear, hold the arrow like this, between these fingers, rest the steel on here, on this knuckle. You’re as gawky as a girl. You a Tamburlaine! Give it to me! You’ll only make a fool of both of us.”

  Meekly, he gave her the bow, the arrow, the bracer and glove, pleased to be rid of them. With easy grace, legs firm, body straight, she stretched the string swiftly to her little ear, and unloosed it. The arrow quivered in the white of the butt, less than an inch from the pin.

  “Excellent, Madame,” said Frizer. “Just a little more training and you’ll be better than any man amongst us.”

  She did not answer, but turned away and strode out again, Marlowe following, feeling like a small boy. He had never before felt such a fool.

  All that night she jeered at him about it. She told the story to Walsingham at supper, but he did not smile. He said, “I don’t see anything peculiarly droll about it,” and turned to speak of other things to Marlowe.

  Awdrey bit her lips and rubbed her feet together behind the wickerwork that protected her hose and skirt from the fire.

  *

  Alone in his room at night, Marlowe would sit for hours, striving to understand her moods. Did she love him? That first day of surrender that had seemed the prelude to great happiness was, after all, but one day isolated from all other days; she had given in for one brief morning, then swiftly barred him out. Had she given in because of pique against Tom?

  “I’ll leave you,” he told her one morning, “I’ll go to-day.”

  She looked up quickly. “Please don’t go,” she said, it seemed, with genuine pain, and he was softened.

  “Then why torture me?” he demanded.

  Tenderly, she put her cool hand on his forehead. “Is it so sad for you?” she whispered. “Please don’t think I’m happy.”

  “Then why? …”

  “Am I one of your London doxies,” she said bitterly, “that fling their bodies into any man’s lap? You have no understanding of gentlewomen. You’ve mingled too much with tavern-stales.”

  “There is hope?” he asked eagerly.

  “A stupid question!” she scoffed. “Would there be any living without hope?”

  It was a slender hope to hang his dreams upon. She was so beautiful, he could not drive her from his mind. No matter what he did, always she returned to scatter his thoughts. Her pale, thin face, the large, sad blue eyes, the mouth curled back deliciously from the white glitter of teeth, the little arched nostrils, proud little nostrils, the curve of her throat rising out of the froth of lace collar, her nervous hands that were never still, her little feet arched in pantophiles, the hair so lightly coloured with the merest tinge of gold that it seemed like flax… Witchcraft! There was witchcraft in her body, in that warm covering for her little bones, that miracle that was flesh…

  He tried to work, but her image was too strong for him to bind it with words. She was too beautiful for words to express her beauty.

  At last, with infinite trouble, he wrote one poem and thought to give it to her; but always his heart failed him and it remained folded in his pouch. He feared that she would laugh at it and at the dream it told; it was too precious to him to be trampled on, even by her small feet. But alone he would read it over to himself, correct a word or two, and swear to give it to her in the morning.

  This was the poem, as he wrote it:

  “Come lyve with mee and bee my love

  And wee will all the pleasures prove

  that vallyes groves and woods or feildes

  and craggie Rockes or mountaines yeildes

  Where wee will sitt upon the Rockes

  and see the sheppardes feede theire flockes

  by shallowe Ryvers to whose falles

  melodious birdes sings madrygalles

  Where wee will make a bedd of Roses

  and thowsande other fragrant poses

  a capp of flowers and a kirtle

  imbrodred all with leaves of myrtle

  A belt of strawe with Ivie budes

  with corall claspes and amber studes

  if theise delightes thy mynde may move

  then lyve with mee and bee my love

  A goune made of the finest woolle

  which from our little lambs wee pull

  faire lined slippers for the coulde

  with buckets of the pureste goulde

  Thy dyshes shal be filde with meate

  such as the gods doe use to eate

  shall one and everye table bee

  preparde eache daye for thee and mee

  The shepparde swaines shall daunce and singe

  for thy delyght eache faire mornningne

  if theise delights thy mynde may move

  then lyve with mee and bee my love.”

  He dared not give it to her. Often he had it ready in his palm, but somehow the time was never right; always his heart failed him at the last moment, until, one night, Awdrey was suddenly kind to him.

  Chapter VII

  HID IN DARKNESS

  The morning brought no presage of coming happiness, no hint of the beauties of that night. It was misty, and a snivelling rain floated down from flaky-looking clouds, making puddles about the yard, glinting on the trees, and running down the window-panes. Marlowe shivered in front of the fire as he washed: no need for riding-collar or high boots. It was too miserable out for riding. He went to breakfast, feeling the wet in his very bones, depressed, and having little desire for food.

  Awdrey had donned a loose silk jacket — or jump, as it was called — with tight sleeves embroidered with fine silver-lines, with a tall wired lace collar like a fan at her back, the jump ending in a sharp point below the stomach: and instead of her usual monstrous farthingale of canvas swollen over whalebone, then covered with taffeta or other lovely cloths, she had on a semi-circular farthingale, straight at the front and curving out enormously at the back like a rooster’s feathers — prettier, more feminine, Marlowe thought, than the common cartwheel farthingale.

  She walked into the Winter Parlour where breakfast was laid, looking pale, paler than usual — perhaps because of the simple blue coif about her head, showing a strip of yellowish hair above the high forehead — and she frowned when she saw Thomas with a wide-brimmed felt hat on his head and leather boots on up to his thighs.

  “You are going out?” she asked.

  Walsingham put down his glass of beer and gazed dully at her. “Yes, chuck, unless you want me to stay home.”

  “In this rain?” she asked.

  He turned languidly and gazed at the window, dimmed with rain. “You’re right,” he said, “it is raining. Never mind, I’ll take a long cloak. I’ve got some tenants’ business I promised Frizer I’d look into.”

  “Surely it can wait till the rain stops?”

  “Quite easily, chuck; but I doubt if the rain’ll ever stop.”

  “Of course it’ll stop.” She sat down at the table, opposite Walsingham. “As you object to having a butler,” she said, “you might at least help me to something to eat.”

  “Oh, chuck, I am sorry! What will you have? Tongue, cold chicken, chop or pigs’ toes?”

  “Pigs’ feet,” she said darkly, glowering at him; and when the trotters were passed to her, she picked them up gingerly in her fingers and gnawed them as if they were distasteful.

  “I don’t want any beer,” she said, when he passed her a glassful without her asking. “I’ll have some wine.”

  Walsingham shrugged his shoulders and passed her the wine.

  “Look at him!” cried Awdrey, standing at the Parlour window after breakfast and gazing out at her husband mounting his horse. “Can’t wait a moment! That’s because he hasn’t been to see her for three nights: it’s rained too heavily and he’s afraid of leaving tracks when he comes home.
I wonder what spells she uses?”

  “Do you really think she’s a witch?” asked Marlowe, going to stand beside her.

  She turned with a bitter smile. “What else can I think,” she cried, “with this example before me?”

  Marlowe did not reply, but somehow he could not think of that girl as a witch, not in the ordinary sense. Her witchcraft was a fleshy one; she drew him, he confessed it; but it was a crude desire he felt for her, a brutal desire, utterly unlike the love he felt for Awdrey.

  She was staring curiously into his face. “I really do believe she’s bewitched you too,” she said slowly. “Tell me the truth, Kit, you were thinking of her? I saw it in your eyes.”

  “I was not,” said Marlowe firmly, “I was thinking that you must be right; that only magic could draw a man from you to such a riggish mort.”

  “Sweet of you,” she said with a sad smile, “but I wonder what you really were thinking of?”

  “Of you!” he said, “always of you. I think of nothing else.”

  She laughed, swung away when he tried to catch her and ran from the room, to the gallery to play upon the virginal.

  Always she ran from him. She ran also from herself, it seemed, for she was unable to stay still. She left the virginal to pet her hawks, then tired of that, and wandered restlessly about the house, smiling wanly when Marlowe tried to interest her in anything.

  Dinner came and was eaten; they dined alone; Walsingham did not return. In the afternoon, the same restless wandering from room to room.

  She is worrying about him all the while, thought Marlowe; the few crumbs of love thrown to me are given only to escape the torture of her own thoughts, her own jealousy…

  Both of them, jealous, tortured, both of them longing for the apple out of reach. Why should love be thrown where it is not wanted? There should be some way of controlling desire, of loving only those who love you.

  The rain ceased, but the sun still lurked behind a curtain of cloud.

  “I’m going riding,” said Awdrey suddenly. “Will you come?”

  “I’m always ready to do whatever you ask,” said Marlowe, yet it was with a heavy heart that he unbuttoned the ruff from his throat and pulled on the long boots. If he had dignity, he would leave this place. There was no hope of her ever loving him, she was only using him. She loved her husband. He should go back to London and leave her.

  But that he couldn’t do; there was happiness for him even in her presence, happiness to feel that she was close, to know that when he wished he could look upon her pale beauty.

  *

  He knew where she would ride to, and she made no pretence of going elsewhere. Straight to the loop of Hollybush Lane she guided her horse, and soon, as they sped down the hill, the little cottage came in sight. In the garden they saw a man and a woman. They were too far off to make quite sure, but it certainly looked like Walsingham and the gipsy. It was suspicious, too, the way the pair scampered inside when they saw them coming.

  Awdrey, breathing heavily, leaped from her horse outside the gate and strode up the pathway to the house; Marlowe followed, afraid of what rash thing she might do in her fury.

  But nobody could have been sweeter than Awdrey when the door opened, and the old mother peeped out at her in a frightened way.

  “Rose isn’t ill?” asked Awdrey anxiously.

  “Nay, nay, ma’am, she’s upstairs. I’ll call her.”

  As she spoke, Marlowe heard the pattering of feet on the stairs and the girl appeared, barefoot, black hair dishevelled, flung carelessly in a heavy mane down her back; she was wearing a torn jump with high shoulders, pinned carelessly with a small dagger at her throat, and a half-kirtle trailing on to the floor, the hem thick with mud.

  “Milk, Mother,” she said abruptly, “and beer for the gentleman.”

  “You’ve been lying down?” said Awdrey. “You have tiring chores?”

  “Nay, nay, ma’am, I don’t work very hard. A little milking, that’s all.”

  She had not changed, she was no more nervous than the last time Marlowe saw her; Awdrey was equally charming. Marlowe looked on, amazed at women’s powers of acting; and these creatures weren’t permitted on the stage! Why, they were born to it! Who would think, watching this nervous, shy, innocent-seeming girl with her kind patronizing mistress, that one had the other’s husband locked in upstairs? Men would have been at each other’s throats, but these women spoke lovingly together.

  He drank his beer, waiting for something to happen. They talked of the weather, of the bad time ploughmen were having during this passion for sheep; then suddenly Awdrey said, “You have been so kind to me, Rose, that I must return it somehow. Please, take these from me.”

  She drew from under her long lappet-cloak a cloth parcel, and Rose turned away, almost shuddering from it.

  “Just a few odd things, my dear; I’d love you to have them. You must please accept them.”

  “But I can’t…”

  “You must, I insist.” She put the parcel in the hall, then all of a sudden, caught Rose with both hands by the head, lifted her face and kissed her hard on the mouth.

  “Dear child,” she said, then turned and without a backward look, strode to her horse.

  “What did you give her?” asked Marlowe, when they had cantered a little.

  “A night-gown,” said Awdrey through her teeth, “a night-gown and a few odds and ends of clothes.” She wiped the back of her hand across her lips. “Her mouth tasted like any woman’s mouth,” she said. “No magic there.”

  Rain drove them inside, then supper came, but still Walsingham did not appear. They were alone in the house.

  “I wonder if he intends to stop out all night?” she muttered. “He’s never been quite so crude before.”

  Marlowe took her hand in his. “Awdrey,” he pleaded, “for God’s sake, try to forget him. You said you loved me.”

  “And before Christ, I do love you, Kit!”

  “I did not think that women could lie with such great oaths,” he said sadly. “But after this afternoon, I believe women are capable of any lies.”

  “I am not lying… I mean it. You’ll see to-night. By the rood, he deserves it. Wait till twelve, and then…”

  “Then what?” His pulse was beating hard, hammering against his heart, beating in his ears.

  “Wait,” she whispered fiercely, “and you’ll see…”

  *

  Twelve o’clock, and Walsingham not home. Awdrey abruptly stood to her feet, pushed back her stool, and sent Marlowe off to bed.

  “I must not make the maid think too much,” she told him, “she is waiting to undress me.”

  In his room, Marlowe did not light the candle; he poked up the dying fire, flung logs upon it, then went to the shut window, sat on the chest and gazed into the dark stormy night.

  A great wind was blowing, tearing at the creeper, pulling it out like seaweed in a strong tide; the moon seemed to fly out from behind black clouds like a pip shot from an orange: it reared up with monstrous clouds whirling beneath it in a giant cloak, as if to snare it and drag it down.

  The trees waved their branches tremulously, and the wind clattered about the house, banging on doors like an army of ghosts shouting for admittance, rattling at windows, bellowing down chimneys, whining through cracks under doors, tossing up curtains; a horrible wind, that flung dead leaves like a flock of little black birds into the sky, that made the whole house creak as if it were a ship at sea.

  Lit with the red firelight, Marlowe gazed out of his window, feeling the wind excite him as if it were a part of his own passion. The gods had put on a show for him, a fitting drama for love such as his; the whole world was in an upheaval, was tossing and shrieking before his eyes. It was easy to believe in witchcraft on such a night, to think of devils lounging on hills with the witches dancing back to back around them, with the giant goat kicking up its hoofs, slathering at the mouth and rolling rectangular yellow ey
es; witches flying with the storm — that little gipsy wrapped naked in the black coils of her own hair, eyes aflame, mouth snarling as she raced on pig’s back to the Devil’s Sabbath…

  Ay, witchcraft was real to-night; little images were bristling with pins, strange unguents were being made of lizard-fat, bat’s wing, henbane, blood from a virgin girl, soot, parsley and poplar leaves. Witches, where are your ointments? Here is a Faustus ready to bargain his soul to be made immortal in a kiss: here is Faustus waiting…

  A movement at the door, the lifting of the curtains, and in the firelight, the glow of a white body through darkness… Your prayers are answered, Faustus: Helen has come,

  And all is dross that is not Helena! …

  O, thou art fairer than the evening stars,

  Brighter art thou than flaming Jupiter

  When he appeared to hapless Semele;

  More lovely than the monarch of the sky

  In wanton Arethusa’s azured arms;

  And none but thou shalt be my paramour!

  Words like silver bells chiming, urging him to go to her, his own words beating like magic in his blood…witchcraft in the air; outside, the baying of Gabriel’s ratchets, the howling of winds harrying clouds like dogs after sheep; and in the firelight, Faustus at the feet of Helena…

  “I would give the world, all of the world, to stay like this for ever.”

  “Brave words, poor showing.”

  “The world’s not mine to give; but I’ll give all I have.”

  “Your life?”

  “It is under your feet.”

  “And is your life so small a thing that it can go under my feet?”

  “It is so small that the thinnest dagger can encompass it.”

  “A paltry thing to offer a woman! Haven’t you anything better?”

  “I have nothing else.”

  “You have love.”

  “I can’t give what’s already taken. You have all my love.”

  “Not a drop over?”

  “Not a drop as big as a pepper-grain.”

  “Dear Kit, what a child you are!” She kissed him between the eyes. “Oh, what a night!” she cried. “You’d think a thousand devils were out!”