One Dagger For Two Read online

  “They are. I wished for you. I brought you from your bed by wishing, with magic. I am a wizard. Friar Bacon. Listen:

  “Thou know’st that I have dived into hell,

  And sought the darkest palaces of fiends,

  That with my magic spells great Belcephon…”

  “Kit! don’t, please!” She put her hand over his mouth, and he was surprised to feel the trembling in her body. “It frightens me.”

  “Why, it’s only what Greene wrote.”

  “That makes it worse. I thought it yours; but a dead man’s…”

  “You never feared Rob alive; why fear him dead?”

  “I fear everybody that’s dead. I hate dead things.”

  “My proud, insolent Awdrey; I never thought to find a weakness in you. Anyhow, we’re alive now. … Your hair, it’s alive, all on its own, it seems to hiss like a cat when I crumple it. I love your hair. I’d die satisfied if I could think of one line to describe your hair.”

  He bunched it in his hand, then let it spring out again, bunched it carefully, let it spring again…

  “Ah, why can’t moments like this last for ever?” he cried.

  “Shhh! did you hear somebody come in?”

  They waited, limbs stretched tensely, holding their breath.

  “No, nobody,” he said.

  “Oh, Kit, I’m frightened!”

  He held her tightly, kissing her and stroking her long, unbound hair.

  “There’s nothing to fear, darling, you’re safe enough.”

  Yet she was terrified, he heard her sobbing with terror, screwing her own hair into her mouth, and biting it, eyes open on the firelight.

  “That’s somebody at the window! Look!”

  “The wind, honey, the wind; it envies us and wants to break in.”

  “Don’t jest, Kit; this is an evil night.”

  “It is the only night in my life in which I have been really happy.”

  “Do you mean that?” Through the gloom she gazed at him, striving to read his eyes. Then suddenly she caught her breath in a sob, flung her arms tightly about his neck and dragged his mouth on hers. But he saw that, even as she kissed him, her eyes were wide open and moving warily, in terror.

  *

  As a last thing, as an expression of all he could not hope to say by speech, Marlowe pressed into Awdrey’s listless hand the poem he had written to her. Then, enfolded in the door curtains, he kissed her slowly, a farewell kiss.

  She struggled aside, and then he heard her walking swiftly on tiptoes along the passage, and he was alone in his little room. Nay, not alone! There was the very feel of her body in the atmosphere locked up with him. The pillow showed the pressure of her dear head, and when he drew the candle close, he saw a long fair hair entwined in the gold lace. Around the bed he pinned the curtains tightly so that no essence of her could escape. He was a miser hoarding up the slightest memory of her, gloating upon the things her hands and feet had touched, drunk with delight.

  Let the winds howl, they sought the treasure that was his, the treasure of memories; she was gone, but the subtlest part of her remained; it was a wraith that had gone, the real Awdrey was here — the soul, the heart of Awdrey was here…

  The wraith of Awdrey perhaps it was that walked the passage, for she was numbed with terror, afraid to pass the gaping top of the back stairs, holding her breath in agony and crossing her shaking hands before her throat. Her own hair tingling on her shoulders frightened her, the cold floor frightened her, the slimy feel of rushes on her toes sent the blood galloping to the roots of her hair and seemed to paralyse her for the moment.

  She hated storms. The house sounded as if it were being battered down by the wind: she heard it pounding below-stairs, careering in the attics above where Thomas had his library and laboratory — for he was a dabbler in alchemy —; wind, vile wind! There would be roofs lifted to-night, folk thrown out of bed, tiles flying like kites, birds bruised and crippled, limbs wrenched from trees. Wind, a devilish wind; and this, of all nights, was the one she must choose to lie in away from her own familiar bed! With all the devils in the world without and with witches clawing at the door with their lean black cats shrieking in human voices! This, of all nights! A witches’ night!

  Clinging to the wall, she crept along, open-eyed with terror, until she had gained the sanctuary of her own room, had swiftly bolted the door, and leaned against it, sobbing with relief.

  But as she turned, sighing, she was transfixed with horror; a terrible feeling of nauseous dread seized her by the cold naked feet, crept up her legs, raising each separate hair there that she boasted did not exist; up her legs went this feeling of terror, to her stomach, paralysing her like an insect poisoned with a spider’s fangs; up her arms, hairs rising, on to her throat, over her mouth, into nostrils, over eyes, up to her skull until she felt as if she were being seized by her unbraided hair and lifted from the floor. It was the most ghastly feeling she had ever suffered, it was as if she were pressed against an invisible wall of soft ice that slowly seeped into the pores of her body, groping for her heart.

  “My God!” was all that she could say, moaningly, arms out, hands open on the wall, her back to the door, head up. “My God, my God…”

  *

  A man sat on the window-seat, his head and shoulders clearly outlined in silhouette against the sky. He was looking straight at her she knew, although she could not see his eyes.

  “So you are back at last?” said the man, rising slowly to his feet.

  At the sound of that voice, the terror left her as if it had been seized and torn violently away; but it left her shaken, in a state of exhaustion, limp, and ready to fall. She stumbled to where she knew her stool was, drew it to her and sat heavily on it, leaning back against the bed. Her head fell forward, the long hair screening her from the man. He could see only the dark shadow that he knew was her.

  “A long time I’ve waited,” he said again, then calmly returned to the window-seat and sat down. After a pause, he said louder, “Are you dumb, do ye hear me?”

  “I — I hear you, Frizer,” she said at last in a shaking voice.

  “You’d better,” said Frizer. He picked his teeth with his finger-nail, looking coldly at her black shape. “Been with him, eh? A fine pair, you Walsinghams make; him over there, neither of you in your own beds. What a pretty story to tell on ’Change or in Duke Humphrey’s Walk. It’s almost too good to keep.”

  With a great effort, she raised her head and flung back the long hair. “What do you want with me?” she asked coldly. “I told you to keep away.”

  “And so I did, till I saw your riggish tricks with that poet of yours. I respected you, like a fool. I know better now.”

  “I am a hateful beast,” she muttered.

  “You are; you’re right for once. Do you know, Madame Awdrey Etheldred Walsingham, what I could do to you? I could take that pretty throat of yours, and… Oh, curse you! You’ve made a fool of me.”

  He stopped, waiting for her to answer; but she said nothing. “I’m frozen,” he growled suddenly, “not even a fire.”

  Outside, the wind rattling, clapping on the wood, leaves tapping like little fingers at the window-pane, a shout down the chimney, a falling of soot.

  “This vile weather! Me sitting here, can’t move a limb with cold, and you warm! Thought you were a grand lady, bah! ‘No, no, Frizer, you’re not good enough for me.’ Once, once only; then back you take yourself. ‘I love my husband!’ The old cant! I was a fool.”

  “Not half so big a fool as I, Frizer, ever to let you touch me,” she said wearily.

  “Then what did you do it for?”

  She shuddered. “Because I was mad,” she said. “Hurt pride. You came to me with your tell-tales, took me out to sneak through a fence and peer through a window at that witch; and while I looked, I didn’t know what you were doing, I didn’t care, I was mad with rage.”

  “Him sleeping inside, a
nd us wakeful outside. Funny, I suppose, you thought it was. Then you hit me on the face. I believed in your talk. I was a cony if ever there was one! It’s going to be different now, though.” He raised his voice. “Do you hear me, my lady; it’s going to be different now!”

  “I hear,” she answered calmly, “but it’s not going to be any different.”

  The wind shouted. It was a part of this mad scene. Anything was possible on a night like this: devils, devils of the past, old sins, this Frizer wretch, a fool she was with her stupid pride that was suddenly black with mud, but it was Tom’s fault, he shouldn’t have degraded her like that, he deserved anything. … Could she never forget, would she never be permitted to forget?

  “I tell you it’s going to be different!” A roar of the wind ripped the words out of his mouth and they came to Awdrey, crouched up on her stool, like an echo of words spoken years ago. “Either that,” he cried, “or I tell Tom Walsingham. How’d ye like that?”

  “I wouldn’t care,” she said. “Tell him what you like so long as you’ll but go away.”

  That startled Frizer. He sat back on the seat, rubbed his hand over his curling brown beard, and was silent while the wind shouted encouragement against his ear, roared at him to be no coward but to take her.

  “Of course, it’s not even Tom you love,” he said bitterly, “it’s yourself, it’s your own pride. I wouldn’t be surprised if you’d like Tom to hear, just to hurt him. I was nothing, the poet’s nothing, Tom’s nothing, so long as you salve your own high opinion of yourself, my haughty sweet. A poor revenge you’re taking. Tom doesn’t even know of it.”

  “Then tell him,” she snarled.

  “Listen!” he said eagerly, “let’s strike a bargain. I’m no miser. I love you more than I dreamed any woman could make a fool of Ingram Frizer; I want but the crumbs, I’ve a coarse stomach that’ll be satisfied with favours flung once a year or so, a Christmas box to the beggars. You want your husband, you want him at your feet, your pride avenged; and I want you. If I give you back your husband where do I come in?”

  “Give me Tom and I will give you anything.”

  “Even yourself?”

  “How can I do that when I belong to Tom?”

  “No haggling with me. I know you inside out; you belong to nobody and never will. You want power, satisfied ambitions; I want that too, and I want you as well. I’m the perfect servant: discreet, will boggle at naught and always adoring you. Come: will you take my bargain?”

  He watched her narrowly for the least movement. All he could distinguish was the jewelled bracelet around one wrist, and now and then, for a brief flash, like a candle through a lanthorn-chink, the whites of her eyes when she turned to him.

  “And you will swear,” she said, “to bring Tom back to me?”

  “I swear it, I cross my fingers, look!” He held them up against the window, against the dark night with the moon bursting in silvery gusts through a whirlwind of clouds; like horns his crossed fingers were, horns of the devil, horns for Tom Walsingham. Was she, like Faustus, making a pact with Mephistopheles? Ay, surely it was a devilish pact, a wicked pact, such as no woman had ever made! she was a wicked woman, she had herded with swine; did it matter if she waded further into the mud, so long as she held safe against her breasts the jewel she hungered for, the jewel of her pride?

  She crouched forward, biting her hair, thinking deeply. She was already the devil’s, did it matter now what she did? She was doomed as it was to hell. Why had she ever let that Frizer wretch — and to-night, Marlowe? It had been despair. She needed Marlowe’s love to give her courage, as proof that she was still young, still beautiful, still desirable, to resuscitate her pride and give her courage to continue on the ladder of her ambitions. He had said that she was lovelier than Helen: he was a poet, he should know. “Lovelier than my dreams,” he called her; “you have made me immortal,” he said. It was not Marlowe she had desired, but the image of herself that he gave to her.

  But Frizer? That had been weakness, madness. And now he came with his compact. If she signed, it meant tied to him always…? Yet he was very useful, unscrupulous, fearless. She could strangle him in her hair if he grew dangerous, could say that he forced her and have him hanged, she could deny everything. Who would believe his word against hers?

  “Well?” said Frizer, “I’m waiting. But first, you must send the poet off; at once, do you understand me?”

  She turned dreamily towards him.

  “I agree,” she said.

  “But first the poet goes?”

  “To-morrow.”

  “And you promise me…?” he said very sternly.

  “Before God!”

  “Swear it.”

  “I swear it on the memory of all that I hold sacred.”

  He leaped up and strode over. “Let’s seal that bargain!” he cried; but she was swiftly on her feet and had fended him off with both arms. “Bring back Tom,” she said, “and I give you my word.”

  “How do I know you’ll keep it?”

  “Aren’t I in your power?” she said with dignity.

  He stood a moment, pulling at his beard, then abruptly he laughed. “All right,” he said, “I’ll see about that. But first, at least a kiss?”

  She held herself up very straight. “Very well,” she said grudgingly, “you may kiss me.”

  He took her by the shoulders and kissed her fiercely on the mouth. There was no response, no slackening of her body, no movement of the lips.

  “Now, go!” she said, pushing him off. “Tom may be back any moment.”

  “He won’t be home all night. But, I’ll go. I’ll keep my bargain; see that you keep yours. I’ll bring you a magic potion, for only magic can combat magic. You must send it to Rose with your own hands. But I’ll see to that later.”

  “What potion’s this?”

  “A hate-philtre. There are such things. I know a gipsy I can get it from. Farewell, my lady.”

  As he turned, he noticed something on the floor, a scrap of paper, and pounced on it, pretending to drop his glove.

  With a swift leap he was on the window-seat, had kicked open the window, when suddenly Awdrey said, “ From a gipsy, did you say?”

  “Ay, an Egyptian, a cunning lad.”

  “That should do the work,” said Awdrey, and laughed quite merrily.

  Frizer stared at the solid shadow that was her body, musing upon that laugh; then he leaped out in of the window, keeping a strong grip on the creeper; and was gone.

  Softly, like a woman in a dream, Awdrey shut the window after him, bolting out the wind. She had to push hard as if against a physical body, to shut that wind out, but at last she succeeded, and frantically the creeper rattled on the glass as if panic-stricken and wailing for admittance.

  Awdrey wrapped her night-gown about her firm young body, and opening the curtains, crawled into bed, pinning the curtains after her.

  In that warm darkness, she stretched her limbs and pressed the bolster against her body, snuggled against it and smiled contentedly — the first truly gay smile that that bed had seen for many, many months.

  *

  Leaning forward against the wind as if propped up by it, Frizer battled down the path to the gates of Scadbury. He wanted to look at the paper he had picked up, but it was too dark until, just as he reached the high brick wall, the moon appeared to be hurled out of some clouds like a coin flung at a festival, and flooded Scadbury with silver tinsel.

  Leaning against the wall, and tucking his hat under his arm, Frizer puckered his brows over the paper. It was a poem, a hell of a mad poem, but might be useful. Marlowe’s, obviously. What in Satan was it about? “‘Melodious birds sing madrigals’?” he muttered, “do they? Well, I’m no madrigal, for one, and you’re going to jig to my tune, Master Marlowe, some day. You just see if you don’t. Damn this wind.”

  He almost lost the paper, but quickly unbuttoning his doublet, he pushed it in against hi
s shirt, then taking a deep breath, he leaped out on to the drawbridge — that was never taken up nowadays — and continued down the road towards Chislehurst, bent forward like a crippled old man, grinning with rage at the effort of trying to hold his own hat on.

  *

  Awdrey smiled in bed, dreaming, happy; Marlowe lay in his bed, dreaming, happy; and the plump little figure of Ingram Frizer, bent double with his hand on his hat on top of his head, staggered drunkenly through the mighty wind to Chislehurst, muttering fierce curses at the weather: little black doubled-up figure on the roadway. It passed Rose’s house, smiled at it, cocked its head on one side; passed Rose’s house, was kicked from side to side by the storm, spitting leaves and dust out of its mouth and blinking its eyes.

  Everybody lay contented, while the black figure of Ingram Frizer walked the stormy night alone, the only one that did not sleep.

  Chapter VIII

  DISMISSAL

  The storm had blown out by morning, yet there was still a strong wind outside — nothing, however, to compare with last night. And the sun had crawled from behind a vast alpine mass of tinted clouds, wafting a golden light through Marlowe’s window and making a tracery on the rush-marked floor with the quivering creeper. The fire in the grate looked dim in the morning light, as Mary unpinned the curtains, and curtsied good morning to him. They were very friendly, these two, for Marlowe had no self-consciousness with what were known as the lower classes, and could talk as easily with them as with dukes and duchesses. He wrapped the night-gown about him, jumped out of bed, and, chucking Mary under the chin, upraised her face for a kiss.

  “The sun!” he cried. “All welcome to the sun! What o’clock is it?”

  “Past six,” said Mary. Kneeling at the chest under the window she shone in the sunlight, her white coif like beaten silver, her russet gown gleaming as if powdered with gold. “What will you wear to-day, sir? You’ll be going riding?”

  “So I should think,” said Marlowe gaily, pouring the water into the basin, and well soaping face and neck. “Give me anything.”