The Man On a Donkey

by H. F. M. Prescott

  ‘For he doth dread them. He says, “If I might but be full dead before I be dismembered—” Oh! I promise you he dreads them well enough, however he may feign. I can see him turning the thought over and over like hay in a wet June. Well – well. So I brought him paper, and, “Write,” I says, “and none of your pride,” says I. But what will he write? No goodly humbleness but only, “for the reverence of God and for charity”.’

  ‘Give them to me,’ said July, through her teeth, and tried to snatch the letters. But again he fended her off.

  ‘Na! Na! Wait till I tell you. There’s that one, on the big sheet to the King’s Grace, for that was the fairest piece I could come by. And this other is to Privy Seal, and that little bit too goes with it, for at the last he remembered, said he, one in Yorkshire, a poor man whom he had, so he said, defrauded of his land, though unwitting, and now would right him.’ He held the papers out now to July and she laid her hand on them, but he did not yet let go.

  ‘Will ye swear that ye will take them to the King and Privy Seal?’

  ‘I will take them,’ said July.

  ‘Well,’ said the old man, his eyes boring into her face, ‘I believe you will,’ and he cackled suddenly as if lovers and their love were a sour jest.

  ‘Did he—’ asked July, looking down at the papers which their two hands held. ‘Did he – at once think of me to carry them? Of me before all other?’

  Ned looked at her. He read, in her averted face and hesitating speech, misgiving and withdrawal. He could not know how July did not dare to look up, desiring so greatly the answer ‘Yes’, knowing that the answer must be ‘No’.

  And it was ‘No’. For old Ned began to excuse Aske. ‘’Twasn’t him thought on you. ’Twas I. He says, “None will dare take it.” So then I says, “There’s your leman?” says I. “Try her.” But he was angry with me for that, only at the last he said, “Tell her then that she shall run into no danger for me. For that,” says he, “would be worse to me than death, seeing I have been cause of bringing so many into danger. Yet,” he says, “if she may without danger, tell her I’ll pray God bless her for it for ever.”’

  He waited a moment, and then made as if to take back the papers. But July snatched them then from him.

  ‘Will ye do it then?’ he said, but got no answer from her, as she turned away and left him standing there.

  May 31

  July met Master John Heath, Laurence’s cousin’s cousin, the one who was in Lord Privy Seal’s Household, as he had appointed at the west end of St. Paul’s. It was raining, a soft, misting rain after a great fall during the night, and she was glad of it because she could muffle herself up in her cloak in such a way that none would know her.

  From Paul’s they went down together to take a boat at the Cranes for Westminster. July was too breathless to talk, seeing that the child was growing a heavy burden, and Master Heath, not liking the business, hurried on always a little ahead of her. Once he pulled up where a pool had swilled out of the blocked kennel and half-way across the road.

  ‘You tell the truth when you say you formerly were affianced to this man?’

  ‘Surely I was,’ said July, hastening to tell her tale once more. ‘But then my sister’s husband would not pay my dower, and therefore—’

  ‘And,’ Master Heath continued, without letting her finish, ‘and it’s true also that you came then together, being betrothed.’

  ‘It is true.’

  ‘Well,’ said Master Heath, ‘I’ve promised you, and so I shall bring you to the Queen. Woman’s frail, and if you thought of this fellow Aske as your husband, and if he so used you before you were married to my cousin—’

  ‘He had me in the North Country before I came here to my marriage – just before,’ said July.

  ‘Well,’ he looked her up and down with suspicion, ‘I’ve never seen a wench carry what must be nigh a nine months’ child with as little show as you.’

  ‘All women,’ said July, ‘are not the same.’ Then she laughed, as if the matter were a light one and as if she were not desperate with fear lest he should, even now, refuse to help her. ‘And surely it is I that should know whose is the child.’

  He laughed too, and leered at her with a familiar insulting look. But then again he hesitated.

  ‘It’s the truth you say? I’ll not help you if you’ve wronged my cousin’s bed.’

  ‘It’s the truth, as God shall judge me. I’ll swear it on my Maker at the next church, if you will.’

  But he said – no, he’d believe her, only it went sore against his mind that it should be a rank traitor that had her maidenhead, and he hurried her on again.

  By the time they reached Westminster the rain had taken off and the sun shone, so that all the puddles flashed, and the roads steamed; when they came into the Palace Gardens the rose bushes were dressed with diamonds, and the briar rose leaves smelt of sun-warmed apples. As they drew nearer to the Palace there were no rose bushes but tall posts striped white and green, set in puncheons painted with the same colours; the posts had painted and gilded beasts and escutcheons of arms on top. There were too, instead of grass, curious beds of pounded colours set among clipped borders; the gardeners were busy here smoothing away the pock marks which the rain had left in the King’s coat of arms, and the Queen’s.

  The sun was bringing other people out too, besides the gardeners. As July and Master Heath went by the long range of buildings two young men came through a little low doorway; they stooped because they were so tall; and because they were so broad in their puffed sleeves the silks whistled against the stone of the doorway as they came through. They went past laughing, and with only a sliding glance that took in July’s pale pinched face and brown stuff gown. July did not look at them at all, but she saw them well enough to hate them for being free and in no danger of the hangman’s knife.

  She and Master Heath turned into a little paved court, where a dog was busy with a bone; then by an open stairway into a gallery which was bare of tapestries and swept of its strawing herbs. Servants were just then casting down fresh strawings out of big bundles of sacking, and raking them into smooth swathes. As the sweet herbs and rushes tumbled out all the gallery smelt as if the summer fields were come within its four walls.

  After that gallery they went on through passages, upstairs, downstairs, through rooms great and small, some empty, some furnished; in some there were ladies, young and old, and children, as well as men reverend and men saucily or grandly young. It was more like going through a whole street of houses than through one house.

  At last Master Heath stopped in a gallery where there was a small oriel jutting out, and told July to wait there till he could find out at what hour the Queen would pass by on her way to the Chamber of Presence. July went to the oriel and sat down. She felt the child kick strongly in her body; clutching her hands tight across him, and shutting her eyes, she went over once more the lies that she would tell, not liking them at all since they dishonoured Master Aske, but trying them on her tongue so as to be sure that they were plausible and likely to move another woman, also great with child.

  She heard a door open and started up; she had not thought that Master Heath would so soon have returned. But it was not Master Heath. A dozen or so ladies were coming into the room preceded by two elderly persons in black velvet with gold chains, one of whom carried in his hand a white wand. Among the ladies was one young, very fair in complexion, with a pleasant prim face; she wore as many jewels, sewn upon her gown, and loading her neck and fingers, as a May Day Queen wears flowers. Behind her, with one hand on her shoulder, puffed and huge in purple and cloth of gold, came the King, rolling in his walk, and limping a little.

  July went out from the shelter of the window, and sank down on her knees, less for reverence than for fear lest she should fall.

  ‘Your Grace...’ she cried, and dragged Aske’s petition from where it lay between her breasts. ‘Madame, have mercy on an unhappy man, and thereby upon a most wretched woman.�
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  The King took the letter; he read it. July saw the small mouth tighten and sneer. She averted her eyes from his face, and, looking nowhere but at the Queen, began to pour out that same tale she had told to Cousin Heath – all lies, yet the Queen listened, as July harped desperately upon that one string: – ‘the child – the child – his child.’

  But the King broke in.

  ‘You ask mercy, Mistress, for a traitor, because you carry his bastard,’ and at that the Queen flushed and turned her head away.

  July laid hold of the skirt of her gown and felt the jewels and the gold stitching harsh and crisp under her fingers. The Queen tried to free herself, but July clenched her hands tighter.

  She could say no more. To beg mercy for love’s sake was impossible, for that would trench upon the truth, huge, inmost, which might not be come at in speech. But she thought – ‘I’ll not let her go. I can’t let her go,’ since to let the Queen go would deliver him to torment.

  She heard the King cry, ‘Off! Pull her off!’ But then Queen Jane’s eyes met hers again. She said no word, but none was needed.

  July loosed her hold, and the Queen laid her hand upon the King’s sleeve.

  ‘Sir,’ she said, ‘Sir, if I asked mercy for my sake? I do ask it.’

  ‘He shall not live.’

  ‘Oh!’ July cried, repeating the words that Ned Stringer had used, and which had never been silent since in her mind. ‘Oh! if he could but be full dead before he be dismembered!’

  The King’s glance, oblique and contemptuous, came back to her face.

  ‘Will that content you? And – him?’ He watched her while she nodded. ‘You think it will? Well then, he shall have that. Tell him that surely he shall hang till he be full dead.’

  He went away. July had only time to snatch the Queen’s hand and kiss it before she too went after the King.

  June 15

  July, who was alone in the kitchen, the women both being out, heard Laurence come into the house, and go upstairs. After a while, since she must go up sooner or later, she took the dish of honey cakes which she had been baking, and going slowly through the Hall began to climb the stairs. She had her head bent, so that it gave her a start when she saw his feet upon the stair above her; she raised her eyes and found him standing looking down at her.

  ‘Strumpet!’ he said, speaking quite softly, and struck at her face with his fist.

  It was a wild, swinging blow, and she dodged it easily, but in doing so she lost her footing, tried to grab the rail, and began to fall. As she fell she heard him cry, ‘July!’ and again, ‘Strumpet!’

  She picked herself up at the bottom of the stairs, and, dazed and shaken, began to collect the cakes, but then the pains began. He came down to where she leaned against the wall, peering at her and whispering to know what was the matter. Yet really he knew at once what it must be, though July could only shake her head in answer.

  So he got her upstairs as best he could and then rushed out to find a woman to help her.

  June 30

  July sat in Laurence’s father’s chair, which the journeyman had brought out into the sun for her. Every now and then one of the women would put her head through the open kitchen window and ask if she needed anything. Oftener than that Laurence would come from the workshop, and look at her, and go back again. July answered the maids, because they asked her a question. As Laurence said nothing, but only looked, she did not need to answer him, nor did she turn her head when he came out, though she knew quite well that he was there. She sat staring before her at the bell-flowers, sweet williams and tall white lilies, and at the washing hung out on the line, men’s breeches, women’s smocks and sheets and kitchen clouts. Not one of these things, from the lilies to the oldest torn clout, was more lovely to her eyes than any other, or of more significance.

  She heard from the house the sound of the women talking, clattering their pails, or churning the clothes in the big tub with the wooden dolly-peg. From further away came the noises of the street – grinding of wheels, boy’s whistling, sing-song cries of hucksters of lavender, fish, milk, and just now of fine raspberries. She heard, without remarking, one of the women open the street door and begin to haggle over a price. Then the elder of the two came into the garden, and set on her knees an earthen pot full of raspberries.

  ‘There, Mistress!’ she said. ‘There’s the first of the season.’ She was a woman with a kind, plain, lined face. ‘And for the one child that miscarried,’ she said, ‘there’ll be plenty more in time to come,’ and before she went away she gave July’s shoulder a little pat with her hand, which was pale purple, soft, wet and wrinkled from the wash-tub.

  July looked down at the smouldering soft crimson of the raspberries. She did not want them. Nor did she want another child. Nor did she want the one that passed from dark to dark. The one thing she wanted was to know if Master Aske were alive or dead, and here there was no one to tell her, since she could not ask Laurence, and the maids would not know.

  Laurence came out of the workshop again, and this time he did not go back, but instead threw down upon the ground a big pair of cloth shears which he had in his hands, and came towards her. There was a little low stool beside her chair, upon which she had set the raspberries. He took them up and sat down on it, looking up at her as she looked down at him. Then each turned away.

  He began to take the raspberries one by one and put them into his mouth, as if he were very hungry. But in a moment he spun round on the stool and laid the pot down on the ground, and so turned away from her he said—

  ‘Wife, do you forgive me?’

  ‘Oh! Yes.’ July was indifferent.

  ‘When I thought you would die I did not care whether – I did not care for anything but that you should live, and should forgive me. You do forgive?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said again, as evenly.

  He was fidgeting with his foot so that he tossed the pot over and the raspberries tumbled out on the ground. He at once began to pick them up as if the matter were one of the greatest moment and urgency. ‘Yet,’ he said as he stooped, ‘if you could tell me truly – If I knew whether – If the child was his – You told the King so.’

  ‘Yes. It is. It was. Yes, I told the King,’ she said, not even wondering how he had come to hear so much, but thinking how she might learn if Master Aske were dead, and safe from pain.

  He sat quite still for a moment, then he said, ‘It makes no difference now. You are all that I love, and that is all I know.’

  When she heard him say that she was pricked by a thin small shaft of remorse. Yet though she was sorry, she hardened her heart, for she thought, ‘If I say it was a lie, and the King would hear of it, he might be angry and take a vengeance on him.’ But then, with a quick pang of hope and dread, another thought came – ‘If I first made him swear to tell no one, I might find out from him whether he still lives.’

  So she asked him, would he swear? ‘And I’ll tell you the truth,’ she said.

  He swore, his eyes on hers, and she told him, and he turned from her once more. ‘So I killed my son,’ he said, and after what seemed to her a great while, ‘But we shall have more. Shall we not?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes,’ speaking hastily because she could contain herself no longer. She was aware neither that her hands were gripped together on her lap till they shook, nor that he watched them. ‘Sir,’ she whispered, not trusting her voice if she spoke louder, ‘is he dead?’

  He said nothing, and now she dared not look at him. At last he got up. ‘I will go and find out,’ he said, and left her.

  He went, not knowing clearly why he went at once so far, nor what he should do when he got there, straight through London to the Tower. He had some idea of asking a porter at the gate, or one of the guard, but it turned out to be easier still than that. When he came by the foot of the green space to the north of the Tower, he found several men working on a temporary scaffold which had been set up there, and which they were now pulling down. Two ot
hers were forking together, and pitching into a cart, straw that was sodden in places with dark brownish red, and one of these was the old fellow to whom Laurence had given the bundle of clothes, and who, it was clear, at once remembered him, and was ready to talk.

  There was plenty to talk about, for to-day Lord Darcy had been beheaded on that scaffold, and the old man was full of it. He knew also the latest news of the two last surviving prisoners of the North Country insurrection, Constable and Aske, so that Laurence had not to put a single question.

  When he got back July was sitting in the garden where he had left her.

  He said, ‘They took him from the Tower two days ago. It is to be done at York.’

  ‘How long will it take them to get to York?’

  But Laurence could not tell her.

  She said, ‘I thank you,’ and after a minute he left her and went back to the workshop.

  July 15

  July stood by the kitchen table absently fingering the leaves of the rue that lay tumbled on it. There was a bowl of clean water to wash the rue, and an iron pot in which to boil it when washed. Rue boiled long, and strained, was good for the kidneys; Laurence believed much in it, and had asked for it last Christmas when the snow fell, and had lamented the lack of it through the long cold spring. So now she was preparing it against next winter.

  Yet if you looked through the kitchen door you might think that there would never be winter again, so gallant was the little space with flowers. The last of the sweet williams had been overtaken by pinks, carnations and the first of the snapdragons; above, in the bright sky, the swifts fled like arrows, and turning, flashed like dark wet gold against the sun. Over all lay the triumphant, open heat of perfect summer weather.

  But July was thinking neither of the rue on the table nor of the summer shows outside. She was listening to the bell of St. Andrew in the Wardrobe tolling for a burial. This was not one of Laurence’s burials, but July knew all about it, because his cousin Henry Machyn was furnishing it, and Laurence had gone out to help him, and had lent him hangings for the church, and two dozen staff torches; Cousin Henry had on this same day another funeral, almost as great, at St. Martin’s, Charing Cross, so he had needed to borrow from Laurence.