The Man On a Donkey

by H. F. M. Prescott

  The bell rang in the tower to tell the Dale that God, the Omnipotent, was in this place, this very place.

  Dame Christabel smiled to herself, remembering Dame Margery’s discomfiture.

  March 16

  Gib had been paid to sing Mass that day in the Chantry of John Chamber in the Church of Holy Trinity, Knightrider Street. The Church was small, old and ruinous, sheared up with props of timber, and the tower covered with ivy and full of noisy jackdaws. Jackdaws built inside too, so that sticks rolled and snapped under his feet as he moved about, making ready for his Mass in the Chantry, which, like all the rest of the Church, was dusty and decayed, with the paint chipping off the carved angels and little figures of mourners about the tomb.

  Gib had been glad to take the money for singing the Mass, but now the dirt and disrepair of the Church affected him to a gloom more savage than melancholy. He stood and knelt, did reverence and raised the Host, all without thinking of what he did, having wilfully, though blindly, barred God out. For that morning he had quarrelled again with the Cook, his landlord, and he hated him yet. He hated him, he hated all men, and himself he hated most.

  June 10

  July shut the door very softly, and tiptoed away and downstairs. She did not know if Sir John and Meg knew that she had seen them, but she had seen, and now she shrank away, sick and soiled, and frightened lest something that was horrible should reach out and touch her. All that morning she lurked in the shed where the empty wine casks were stored, so that she did not know when Sir John went away, nor when William Cheyne came back, nor that there was a guest to dinner. But when she slunk in, a little late but not enough to be noticeable, there, beside William Cheyne at the table, sat an Abbess, whose plump face looked very pink against the white of the Cistercian habit.

  ‘Jesu!’ thought July, scared, yet with a feeling of relief, ‘he knows—’ (‘he’ always meant Cheyne for her) ‘and he has brought this Abbess to chide Meg and persuade her to do no more of – those things – with Sir John – or other.’

  So she fastened her eyes on the Lady, but soon came to the conclusion that such chiding and persuasion were not to be hoped for from her, since she was a very merry, free-tongued lady, and also a little drunk.

  Upstairs, when July was sent for to find a piece of music that Meg wanted, Meg and the Abbess were laughing together over a story which the Abbess told of a lusty, gallant Prior, ‘not twenty miles,’ cried the Abbess with a giggle and a wink, ‘from a house of religious women that I know of’, and then an account of his carryings on, at which Meg laughed till she cried. But William Cheyne sat apart, watching them with a sour, thin look on his face that July knew, and her attention was more on him, wondering always, ‘Does he know? What will he do?’ than upon the Abbess. She only wanted to find the music quickly and get away before he would come out from his silence and stillness.

  But when she had found the music at the bottom of the small painted chest, Meg wanted her box regals, and when July had brought those, and pulled up a stool to set them on, Meg told her to lay hold of the bellows and blow. And then, worse still, for it made her conspicuous, Meg bade July sing the song with her. July had a voice as small as a wren’s tiny pipe, but as true and clear; it was her one grace, and of no pleasure to her, because she dreaded to be noticed for any reason, seeing that to be ignored was so much safer.

  She sang with her eyes lowered and did not therefore have time to draw back before she found herself drawn by the Abbess into her arms, hugged to a warm, soft breast, and kissed with moist, lingering kisses that July detested. ‘Nay,’ cried the lady, ‘I must kiss that sweet little mouth. Marry! and by Our Lady! but the voice is the voice of a bird.’

  She held July off, staring at her, while July looked only at a little chain of gold with enamel flowers of blue and white which the Abbess wore; it heaved up and down with the Lady’s breathing in a way that disgusted July.

  ‘And this is your little sister, Madame? By the Mass, little gentlewoman, I would I had you among my Ladies to sing. Such a high, sweet note! It puts me in mind... Ah! me!’ She did not tell them of what it put her in mind, but still holding July firmly she shed a few tears, murmuring, ‘Alas. I was young. I was young.’

  July stood very still, knowing that it would be unmannerly to pull herself away, but as stiff as a poker. The Abbess loosed her at last, in order to wipe her eyes, and July drew back a little and felt enormous relief, but not for long. For the next thing was that the Abbess leaned over to Meg, and put one of her plump hands on Meg’s fine small one, and said, sighingly, that there was nothing would make her gladder than to take the young gentlewoman back with her and receive her into religion. ‘For I doubt she’s not portionless, seeing, as ye say, ye come of such high blood,’ and at that she turned from Meg to William Cheyne, as though he were the one to deal with that side of the matter. But he said nothing, nor gave any sign that he had heard her, though his eyes were on the three of them, cold and unwinking as a snake’s eye.

  Meg looked at the Abbess, then at July, and laughed.

  ‘There!’ said she to July. ‘You hear that? There are you provided for,’ and she began to thank the Abbess and praise July more than July had ever thought to be praised. But when the two of them were making all arrangements – of how and when the child’s dower should be paid, and what stuff she should bring with her, and whether it would go on one of the Abbess’s pack beasts or need a hired mule to carry it – July suddenly broke in on them.

  ‘No!’ she cried. ‘No! I will not go.’ She stopped because they turned and stared at her. But she cried again with a shrill, breaking voice, ‘No, I will not. I will not. I will never go with her.’

  Meg was angry, but the Abbess said, ‘No, no, do not chide her,’ and put an arm once more about July, promising her that she’d find it no harsh life, ‘for you shall have a rabbit to keep or a little dog, and when you are grown perhaps a gay scholar of Oxford for your true love, for we must have our pleasures, we religious, being for all our vows but women, and therefore weak, as all the Fathers knew, God wot, nor would Our Saviour, who... but what was I saying—?’ She laughed a little emptily, for the wine was mounting ever more potently to her head. And then she said, very solemnly, ‘Even though it comes to a babe, that is no matter. And it has so come, more than once among us. For we’re women, we religious, women... God forgive us.’

  July wrenched herself away. ‘I will not go. I will not go,’ she cried again, and then ducked her head because Meg had sprung up, and her eyes were flaming with anger.

  But before Meg could catch her William Cheyne spoke, and his man’s voice, coming so suddenly and so sharply, startled them all to stillness.

  ‘No,’ said he, ‘she shall not go. But for you, Mistress,’ he spoke to the Abbess as though she were a person of no importance, ‘you shall be gone from my house.’

  Then there was a great to-do. The Abbess was dignified, then wept. Meg raged till her voice cracked. But it was the Abbess who went, July who stayed. In the charged silence after the guest had gone William Cheyne told his wife why he had refused to let July go. ‘For it is not right,’ said he, ‘that nuns should be so lewd, nor that such a jig as yonder Abbess should bear rule.’ Those were the reasons he gave, but they were not the true ones. He had refused to let July go chiefly to thwart Meg, but partly also to have the opportunity to use words of the Abbess and her wantonness that he dared not these days use of his wife; yet they both knew at whom he cast the ugly words.

  Meg answered him that she would have let the child go for a Religious, ‘because,’ said she, ‘well I can see that her being here irks you, and for her sake I would set her beyond reach of your ill tongue and your unkindly handling’. But neither was that the truth. She had jumped at the offer partly because she thought if July were not there a few of Cheyne’s east-wind angers might be scaped, but mostly because that morning she had seen the girl’s face at the open door, though she was sure Jack Bulmer had not. But the girl had peeped in, and
drawn back with such a white, sick face that she might even do so mad a thing as to tell William Cheyne what she had seen. ‘But, Jesu!’ thought Meg, tossing up her chin, ‘let her tell him.’

  They neither of them asked why July had refused to go, and she went away quietly, having realized as soon as Cheyne had spoken for her that if she had escaped the Abbess she had condemned herself to prison with him for her jailer.

  Yet she would have done the same again. For while she stayed with Meg that thing which she had feared this morning would, at most, reach to her and touch, and leave a slimy trail on her mind, like that of a garden slug. But if she went with the pink-faced Abbess the thing might wind round her, catch hold and hug her close. Down in the yard she pumped water into a bowl and splashed and scrubbed her face from the touch of the Abbess’s lips. Then she went and played hop-scotch with a neighbour’s child, and forgot, or covered over, what had happened. But one thing remained. She would have nothing to do with that to which Meg and the Abbess took so kindly.

  July 28

  In the evening the new Prioress, elected, and now duly confirmed by the Bishop’s letter, set about moving her belongings from the chamber she had shared with Dame Bess Dalton and Dame Elizabeth Close to the Prioress’s chamber overlooking the Great Court. Jankin had been called from the gate-house, and two of the men from the stable, and between them they carried down, and through the Cloister, and up the outside stair to the Prioress’s chamber, all the stuff which Dame Christabel Cowper had brought with her from Richmond, or had since received as gifts from her family.

  The meditations of the Ladies who sat in the Cloister were much disturbed by the tramping back and forth. First Jankin and the two men bore out the new Prioress’s bed, which had carved oak panels, and an oak tester above; after these came the new Prioress and Dame Anne, one with a pair of tongs and a fire pan, and the other with a couple of candle-sticks. And so it went on: there was the feather bed, the big silver cokernut cup, red and blue curtains, the painted hangings that Andrew Cowper had left his daughter, and irons, a pewter basin, sheets and blankets, two stools, and three worked cushions. Of course everyone knew the things by heart but to see them moved created a stir of interest in the Cloister.

  At supper-time Dame Anne ate with the new Prioress. They were tired, but Dame Christabel was, and with reason, elated. After supper they sat looking about the room. It was strange and interesting to see Dame Christabel’s painted hangings in place of the old Prioress’s red and yellow say, and to see the carved cupboard set up beside the window which looked out towards Calva, instead of the old square coffer of ash, with its faded paintings of the life of St. George, which was now pushed to the foot of the bed. On the carved cupboard the pewter plates, a little salt of silver, and the great cup Edward made a worthy show. It was a pity that there had to be a gap in the painted hangings above the fire-place, but the old hanging for the chimney breast had been so worn it was not worth putting up again. So the raw stone showed there, and upon it in large old letters of dark red paint the monogram – I.H.S.

  Dame Anne nodded in that direction—

  ‘You’ll be needing new hangings.’ She could not keep a spice of malice from her tone. These two were now friends, or allies, but the old unkindness still ran below like a spring underground.

  Dame Christabel smiled. She had not missed the tone. ‘I think to wainscot the room one day,’ she said.

  ‘Wainscot!’

  ‘And above the hearth, work in plaster, painted, such as I hear is done by these foreign craftsmen of Italy.’

  ‘And when,’ Dame Anne scoffed openly, ‘will such a craftsman come to Marrick?’

  ‘But till I may find my man,’ Christabel continued calmly, ‘I shall hang between the wainscot a piece of arras, very choice.’

  She knew that she had triumphed. Dame Anne could not better a flight of fancy so daring. The new Prioress had pity on her.

  ‘Let us drink a cup of wine together,’ she said; and when Dame Anne had poured it out, waiting upon her who was now Lady of Marrick Priory, they drank and were accorded, each reminding herself that the other must be very tired after the excitements of the day, and that weariness sharpened the temper.

  August 29

  The King had been shooting at the mark with the Duke of Suffolk, Sir George Boleyn and Sir Henry Norris. Lord Darcy was one of those bidden to watch the match, and when it was over – the King and Norris had won it – the King fell into conversation with Darcy of horses, and in particular of a stallion he had bought. So, with Norris and Boleyn carrying the bows and quivers, for the King had sent the gentlemen and pages away, they all went in by the little gate into the Privy Garden, and that way to the stables.

  Some of the grooms were leading out horses ready saddled. A very lively grey came sidling out with two grooms skipping along beside him, and all the gold fringes and tassels on the black velvet harness dancing and swinging. It was a very rich harness; besides the fringes and tassels it was studded with gilt buttons, shaped like pears, and all the buckles and pendants were gilt.

  The King had been speaking to one of the yeomen grooms, an old grey fellow in a leather coat, with the cold eye and slit mouth of a man brought up among horses. But when he saw the dapple grey go bucking by he turned and cried—

  ‘Ho! Who bade you put that harness upon that brute?’

  The grooms pulled up, with some difficulty. It was Madame Anne, they said, had commanded the grey to be harnessed with one of the new harnesses sent from the Great Wardrobe, or else they had not thought to use it without His Grace’s own commandment.

  The King swore by God’s Wounds that it wasn’t the harness he cared for, ‘But it’s not fitting she should ride that beast. I’ll not have her on him. He’s killed two stable boys – God’s Death! Would she drive me mad?’ He seemed suddenly to realize how the attention of all was fastened upon him, the gentlemen watching covertly, the grooms with a gaping curiosity. ‘Take the grey back and saddle the little bay with the white blaze. I’ll tell my Lady why.’ He was halfway across the stable yard, and called back over his shoulder to the yeoman groom to show my Lords the stallion. He waved his hand and was gone into the Palace by the Ewery passage.

  The Lords looked at and discussed the stallion; they were shown, and admired, other sets of harness which had come from the Great Wardrobe for Mistress Anne, while Sir George, her brother, stood demurely by. Afterwards the Duke, Sir George and Norris turned back into the Palace, and Darcy and Sandys went out by the tiltyard, to take a boat at the next stairs, and so across the river to Lambeth, where Sandys went to see a couple of hounds, my Lord Darcy going with him for the pleasure of so fair an evening.

  Not till they sat among the box bushes and hollyhocks of the yeoman’s garden at Lambeth, waiting for the dogs to be brought out, did either speak of anything they had seen at the King’s Palace of Westminster. But then Sandys said, putting down his ale can, and squinting into it, ‘The Black Crow goes very fine these days,’ and they talked a little of Mistress Anne, speculating as to whether she still kept the King off. Darcy thought yes, and Sandys no. ‘For,’ said he, ‘she’s been openly in the Palace close on a year now, and with the King when he hunts, and how could she?’

  Darcy shrugged, and said in a low voice, his eyes narrowed against the light from the golden west, that he did not like these Boleyns. ‘Although,’ said he, ‘at least the Black Crow helped to bring down the Cardinal.’

  Sandys was still frowning. ‘They talk, and openly, of spoiling the goods of the Church. Look how they favour Lutherans and heretics. Sometimes—’ he hesitated, and then said it with a half laugh to excuse the improbability of it – ‘Sometimes I think they mean to pull down the Church with the Cardinal.’

  He turned to Darcy for reassuring derision, but Darcy was looking at the holes he was prodding in the mossed path with his iron-shod walking staff. He did not answer Sandys for a minute.

  ‘And if they so intend,’ said he at last, ‘let them but try.’


  September 13

  Gib was sitting at his copying, in shirt and breeches only, because the day was hot, and the upper room at the sign of King David was close under the rafters and above the big fires where the cooking was done. So he set the door open, and the window shutters as wide as they would. Downstairs he heard people coming in and out, for the roast ribs of beef and hot pies were ready, and if he had listened he could have heard what they asked for and how much they paid, but he did not, for he was busy writing.

  Dinner-time was past when he laid by his pen and thought of going down to eat with the Master Cook and his wife. But as he heard the voices of two men below who had entered the shop, he waited till they should have got what they wanted and gone.

  They were, he heard them say, church wardens of St. Botolph’s, and come to ask for the Cook’s charity for the Church, for, said they, money was needed for furnishing the rood lights.

  ‘Ha!’ Gib thought, hearing the Cook clearing his throat unnecessarily, ‘now will he give alms to their superstitious uses, or will he openly refuse?’ And he guessed that the Master Cook would, in fact, hedge.

  Hedge he did, pleading poverty; a dishonest servant had of late run away with a bag of silver. ‘Therefore, look you,’ said he, ‘I have nothing to give to-day, but come within and drink.’ So they went into the inner room and Gib heard the Cook go down the steps to the cellar, and heard the cans clink in his hand.

  But when he came back to the inner room and bade them drink Gib heard one of the visitors say, ‘Master, what book is this lies in your window? For I read in it strange things.’

  Gib could guess what book it must be, since the Master Cook had, before dinner-time, been disputing with him over one of Friar Laurence’s books. So now he sat very still upstairs, and leaned forward listening, but he could not hear what words the Master Cook mumbled, and Gib was angry and scornful. He said to himself that he had always known that such a prating fellow as the Cook would not hold his ground.