When Knighthood Was in Flower

by Charles Major

  _CHAPTER XIV_

  _In the Siren Country_

  With the king, admiration stood for affection, a mistake frequentlymade by people not given to self-analysis, and in a day or two areaction set in toward Brandon which inspired a desire to make someamends for his harsh treatment. This he could not do to any greatextent, on Buckingham's account; at least, not until the London loanwas in his coffers, but the fact that Brandon was going to New Spainso soon and would be out of the way, both of Mary's eyes and Mary'smarriage, stimulated that rare flower in Henry's heart, a goodresolve, and Brandon was offered his old quarters with me until suchtime as he should sail for New Spain.

  He had never abandoned this plan, and now that matters had taken thisturn with Mary and the king, his resolution was stronger than ever, inthat the scheme held two recommendations and a possibility.

  The recommendations were, first, it would take him away from Mary,with whom--when out of the inspiring influence of her buoyanthopefulness--he knew marriage to be utterly impossible; and second,admitting and facing that impossibility, he might find at leastpartial relief from his heartache in the stirring events andadventures of that faraway land of monsters, dragons, savages andgold. The possibility lay in the gold, and a very faintly burningflame of hope held out the still more faintly glimmering chance thatfortune, finding him there almost alone, might, for lack of anotherlover, smile upon him by way of squaring accounts. She might lead himto a cavern of gold, and gold would do anything; even, perhaps,purchase so priceless a treasure as a certain princess of the bloodroyal. He did not, however, dwell much on this possibility, but keptthe delightful hope well neutralized with a constantly present senseof its improbability, in order to save the pain of a long fall whendisappointment should come.

  Brandon at once accepted the king's offer of lodging in the palace,for now that he felt sure of himself in the matter of New Spain, andhis separation from Mary, he longed to see as much as possible of herbefore the light went out forever, even though it were playing withdeath itself to do so.

  Poor fellow, his suffering was so acute during this period that itaffected me like a contagion.

  It did not make a mope of him, but came in spasms that almost drovehim wild. He would at times pace the room and cry out: "Jesu!Caskoden, what shall I do? She will be the wife of the French king,and I shall sit in the wilderness and try every moment to imagine whatshe is doing and thinking. I shall find the bearing of Paris, andlook in her direction until my brain melts in my effort to see her,and then I shall wander in the woods, a suffering imbecile, feeding onroots and nuts. Would to God one of us might die. If it were notselfish, I should wish I might be the one."

  I said nothing in answer to these outbursts, as I had no consolationto offer.

  We had two or three of our little meetings of four, dangerous as theywere, at which Mary, feeling that each time she saw Brandon might bethe last, would sit and look at him with glowing eyes that in turnsoftened and burned as he spoke. She did not talk much, but devotedall her time and energies to looking with her whole soul. Never beforeor since was there a girl so much in love. A young girl thoroughly inlove is the most beautiful object on earth--beautiful even inugliness. Imagine, then, what it made of Mary!

  Growing partly, perhaps, out of his unattainability--for he was as farout of her reach as she out of his--she had long since begun toworship him. She had learned to know him so well, and his valiantdefense of her in Billingsgate, together with his noble self-sacrificein refusing to compromise her in order to save himself, had presentedhim to her in so noble a light that she had come to look up to him asher superior. Her surrender had been complete, and she found in it ajoy far exceeding that of any victory or triumph she could imagine.

  I could not for the life of me tell what would be the outcome of itall. Mary was one woman in ten thousand, so full was she of feminineforce and will--a force which we men pretend to despise, but to whichin the end we always succumb.

  Like most women, the princess was not much given to analysis; and, Ithink, secretly felt that this matter of so great moment to her would,as everything else always had, eventually turn itself to her desire.She could not see the way, but, to her mind, there could be no doubtabout it; fate was her friend; always had been, and surely alwayswould be.

  With Brandon it was different; experience as to how the ardently hopedfor usually turns out to be the sadly regretted, together with athorough face-to-face analysis of the situation, showed him the truth,all too clearly, and he longed for the day when he should go, as asufferer longs for the surgeon's knife that is to relieve him of anaching limb. The hopelessness of the outlook had for the timedestroyed nearly all of his combativeness, and had softened his naturealmost to apathetic weakness. It would do no good to struggle in aboundless, fathomless sea; so he was ready to sink and was going toNew Spain to hope no more.

  Mary did not see what was to prevent the separation, but this did nottrouble her as much as one would suppose, and she was content to letevents take their own way, hoping and believing that in the end itwould be hers. Events, however, continued in this wrong course solong and persistently that at last the truth dawned upon her and shebegan to doubt; and as time flew on and matters evinced a dispositionto grow worse instead of better, she gradually, like the sundial inthe moonlight, awakened to the fact that there was something wrong; acog loose somewhere in the complicated machinery of fate--the fatewhich had always been her tried, trusted and obedient servant.

  The trouble began in earnest with the discovery of our meetings inLady Mary's parlor. There was nothing at all unusual in the fact thatsmall companies of young folk frequently spent their evenings withher, but we knew well enough that the unusual element in our partieswas their exceeding smallness. A company of eight or ten young personswas well enough, although it, of course, created jealousy on the partof those who were left out; but four--two of each sex--made adifference in kind, however much we might insist it was only indegree; and this we soon learned was the king's opinion.

  You may be sure there was many a jealous person about the court readyto carry tales, and that it was impossible long to keep our meetingssecret among such a host as then lived in Greenwich palace.

  One day the queen summoned Jane and put her to the question. Now, Janethought the truth was made only to be told, a fallacy into which manygood people have fallen, to their utter destruction; since the truth,like every other good thing, may be abused.

  Well! Jane told it all in a moment, and Catherine was so horrifiedthat she was like to faint. She went with her hair-lifting horror tothe king, and poured into his ears a tale of imprudence and debaucherywell calculated to start his righteous, virtue-prompted indignationinto a threatening flame.

  Mary, Jane, Brandon and myself were at once summoned to the presenceof both their majesties and soundly reprimanded. Three of us wereordered to leave the court before we could speak a word inself-defense, and Jane had enough of her favorite truth for once.Mary, however, came to our rescue with her coaxing eloquence andpotent, feminine logic, and soon convinced Henry that the queen, whoreally counted for little with him, had made a mountain out of a verysmall mole-hill. Thus the royal wrath was appeased to such an extentthat the order for expulsion was modified to a command that there beno more quartette gatherings in Princess Mary's parlor. This leniencywas more easy for the princess to bring about, by reason of the factthat she had not spoken to her brother since the day she went to seehim after Wolsey's visit, and had been so roughly driven off. Atfirst, upon her refusal to speak to him--after the Wolsey visit--Henrywas angry on account of what he called her insolence; but as she didnot seem to care for that, and as his anger did nothing towardunsealing her lips, he pretended indifference. Still the same stubbornsilence was maintained. This soon began to amuse the king, and of latehe had been trying to be on friendly terms again with his sisterthrough a series of elephantine antics and bear-like pleasantries,which were the most dismal failures--that is, in the way of bringingabout a reconciliat
ion. They were more successful from a comical pointof view. So Henry was really glad for something that would loosen thetongue usually so lively, and for an opportunity to gratify his sisterfrom whom he was demanding such a sacrifice, and for whom he expectedto receive no less a price than the help of Louis of France, the mostpowerful king of Europe, to the imperial crown.

  Thus our meetings were broken up, and Brandon knew his dream was over,and that any effort to see the princess would probably result indisaster for them both; for him certainly.

  The king upon that same day told Mary of the intercepted letter sentby her to Brandon at Newgate, and accused her of what he was pleasedto term an improper feeling for a low-born fellow.

  Mary at once sent a full account of the communication in a letter toBrandon, who read it with no small degree of ill comfort as theharbinger of trouble.

  "I had better leave here soon, or I may go without my head," heremarked. "When that thought gets to working in the king's brain, hewill strike, and I--shall fall."

  Letters began to come to our rooms from Mary, at first begging Brandonto come to her, and then upbraiding him because of his coldness andcowardice, and telling him that if he cared for her as she did forhim, he would see her, though he had to wade through fire and blood.That was exactly where the trouble lay; it was not fire and bloodthrough which he would have to pass; they were small matters, merenothings that would really have added zest and interest to theachievement. But the frowning laugh of the tyrant, who could bind himhand and foot, and a vivid remembrance of the Newgate dungeon, with adangling noose or a hollowed-out block in the near background, werematters that would have taken the adventurous tendency out of even thecracked brain of chivalry itself. Brandon cared only to fight wherethere was a possible victory or ransom, or a prospect of some sort, atleast, of achieving success. Bayard preferred a stone wall, andthought to show his brains by beating them out against it, and in asense he could do it. * * * What a pity this senseless, stiff-kneed,light-headed chivalry did not beat its brains out several centuriesbefore Bayard put such an absurd price upon himself.

  So every phase of the question which his good sense presented toldBrandon, whose passion was as ardent though not so impatient asMary's, that it would be worse than foolhardy to try to see her. He,however, had determined to see her once more before he left, but as itcould, in all probability, be only once, he was reserving the meetinguntil the last, and had written Mary that it was their best and onlychance.

  This brought to Mary a stinging realization of the fact that Brandonwas about to leave her and that she would lose him if something werenot done quickly. Now for Mary, after a life of gratified whims, tolose the very thing she wanted most of all--that for which she wouldwillingly have given up every other desire her heart had evercoined--was a thought hardly to be endured. She felt that the worldwould surely collapse. It could not, would not, should not be.

  Her vigorous young nerves were too strong to be benumbed by anoverwhelming agony, as is sometimes the case with those who arefortunate enough to be weaker, so she had to suffer and endure. Lifeitself, yes, life a thousand times, was slipping away from her. Shemust be doing something or she would perish. Poor Mary! How a grandsoul like hers, full of faults and weakness, can suffer! What aninfinite disproportion between her susceptibility to pain and herpower to combat it! She had the maximum capacity for one and theminimum strength for the other. No wonder it drove her almostmad--that excruciating pang of love.

  She could not endure inaction, so she did the worst thing possible.She went alone, one afternoon, just before dusk, to see Brandon at ourrooms. I was not there when she first went in, but, having seen her onthe way, suspected something and followed, arriving two or threeminutes after her. I knew it was best that I should be present, andwas sure Brandon would wish it. When I entered they were holding eachother's hands, in silence. They had not yet found their tongues, sofull and crowded were their hearts. It was pathetic to see them,especially the girl, who had not Brandon's hopelessness to deaden thepain by partial resignation.

  Upon my entrance, she dropped his hands and turned quickly toward mewith a frightened look, but was reassured upon seeing who it was.Brandon mechanically walked away from her and seated himself on astool. Mary, as mechanically, moved to his side and placed her hand onhis shoulder. Turning her face toward me, she said: "Sir Edwin, I knowyou will forgive me when I tell you that we have a great deal to sayand wish to be alone."

  I was about to go when Brandon stopped me.

  "No, no; Caskoden, please stay; it would not do. It would be badenough, God knows, if the princess should be found here with both ofus; but, with me alone, I should be dead before morning. There isdanger enough as it is, for they will watch us."

  Mary knew he was right, but she could not resist a vicious littleglance toward me, who was in no way to blame.

  Presently we all moved into the window-way, where Brandon and Mary satupon the great cloak and I on a camp-stool in front of them,completely filling up the little passage.

  "I can bear this no longer," exclaimed Mary. "I will go to my brotherto-night and tell him all; I will tell him how I suffer, and that Ishall die if you are allowed to go away and leave me forever. He lovesme, and I can do anything with him when I try. I know I can obtain hisconsent to our--our--marriage. He cannot know how I suffer, else hewould not treat me so. I will let him see--I will convince him. I havein my mind everything I want to say and do. I will sit on his knee andstroke his hair and kiss him." And she laughed softly as her spiritrevived in the breath of a growing hope. "Then I will tell him howhandsome he is, and how I hear the ladies sighing for him, and he willcome around all right by the third visit. Oh, I know how to do it; Ihave done it so often. Never fear! I wish I had gone at it long ago."

  Her enthusiastic fever of hope was really contagious, but Brandon,whose life was at stake, had his wits quickened by the danger.

  "Mary, would you like to see me a corpse before to-morrow noon?" heasked.

  "Why! of course not; why do you ask such a dreadful question?"

  "Because, if you wish to make sure of it, do what you have justsaid--go to the king and tell him all. I doubt if he could wait tillmorning. I believe he would awaken me at midnight to put me to sleepforever--at the end of a rope or on a block pillow."

  "Oh! no! you are all wrong; I know what I can do with Henry."

  "If that is the case, I say good-bye now, for I shall be out ofEngland, if possible, by midnight. You must promise me that you willnot only not go to the king at all about this matter, but that youwill guard your tongue, jealous of its slightest word, and rememberwith every breath that on your prudence hangs my life, which, I know,is dear to you. Do you promise? If you do not, I must fly; so you willlose me one way or the other, if you tell the king; either by myflight or by my death."

  "I promise," said Mary, with drooping head; the embodiment of despair;all life and hope having left her again.

  After a few minutes her face brightened, and she asked Brandon whatship he would sail in for New Spain, and whence.

  "We sail in the Royal Hind, from Bristol," he replied.

  "How many go out in her; and are there any women?"

  "No! no!" he returned; "no woman could make the trip, and, besides, onships of that sort, half pirate, half merchant, they do not takewomen. The sailors are superstitious about it and will not sail withthem. They say they bring bad luck--adverse winds, calms, storms,blackness, monsters from the deep and victorious foes."

  "The ignorant creatures!" cried Mary.

  Brandon continued: "There will be a hundred men, if the captain caninduce so many to enlist."

  "How does one procure passage?" inquired Mary.

  "By enlisting with the captain, a man named Bradhurst, at Bristol,where the ship is now lying. There is where I enlisted by letter. Butwhy do you ask?"

  "Oh! I only wanted to know."

  We talked awhile on various topics, but Mary always brought theconversation back to the same subject,
the Royal Hind and New Spain.After asking many questions, she sat in silence for a time, and thenabruptly broke into one of my sentences--she was always interruptingme as if I were a parrot.

  "I have been thinking and have made up my mind what I will do, and youshall not dissuade me. I will go to New Spain with you. That will beglorious--far better than the humdrum life of sitting at home--andwill solve the whole question."

  "But that would be impossible, Mary," said Brandon, into whose facethis new evidence of her regard had brought a brightening look;"utterly impossible. To begin with, no woman could stand the voyage;not even you, strong and vigorous as you are."

  "Oh, yes I can, and I will not allow you to stop me for that reason. Icould bear any hardship better than the torture of the last few weeks.In truth, I cannot bear this at all; it is killing me, so what wouldit be when you are gone and I am the wife of Louis? Think of that,Charles Brandon; think of that, when I am the wife of Louis. Even ifthe voyage kills me, I might as well die one way as another; and thenI should be with you, where it were sweet to die." And I had to sitthere and listen to all this foolish talk!

  Brandon insisted: "But no women are going; as I told you, they wouldnot take one; besides, how could you escape? I will answer the firstquestion you ever asked me. You are of 'sufficient consideration aboutthe court' for all your movements to attract notice. It is impossible;we must not think of it; it cannot be done. Why build up hopes only tobe cast down?"

  "Oh! but it can be done; never doubt it. I will go, not as a woman,but as a man. I have planned all the details while sitting here.To-morrow I will send to Bristol a sum of money asking a separate roomin the ship for a young nobleman who wishes to go to New Spain_incognito_, and will go aboard just before they sail. I will buy aman's complete outfit, and will practice being a man before you andSir Edwin." Here she blushed so that I could see the scarlet even inthe gathering gloom. She continued: "As to my escape, I can go toWindsor, and then perhaps on to Berkeley Castle, over by Reading,where there will be no one to watch me. You can leave at once, andthere will be no cause for them to spy upon me when you are gone, soit can be done easily enough. That is it; I will go to my sister, whois now at Berkeley Castle, the other side of Reading, you know, andthat will make a shorter ride to Bristol when we start."

  The thought, of course, could not but please Brandon, to whom, in thewarmth of Mary's ardor, it had almost begun to offer hope; and he saidmusingly: "I wonder if it could be done? If it could--if we couldreach New Spain, we might build ourselves a home in the beautifulgreen mountains and hide ourselves safely away from all the world, inthe lap of some cosy valley, rich with nature's bounteous gift offruit and flowers, shaded from the hot sun and sheltered from theblasts, and live in a little paradise all our own. What a gloriousdream! but it is only a dream, and we had better awake from it."

  Brandon must have been insane!

  "No! no! It is not a dream," interrupted downright, determined Mary;"it is not a dream; it shall be a reality. How glorious it will be! Ican see our little house now nestling among the hills, shaded by greatspreading trees with flowers and vines and golden fruit all about it,rich plumaged birds and gorgeous butterflies. Oh! I can hardly wait.Who would live in a musty palace when one has within reach such ahome, and that, too, with you?"

  Here it was again. I thought that interview would be the death of me.

  Brandon held his face in his hands, and then looking up said: "It isonly a question of your happiness, and hard as the voyage and yourlife over there would be, yet I believe it would be better than lifewith Louis of France; nothing could be so terrible as that to both ofus. If you wish to go, I will try to take you, though I die in theattempt. There will be ample time to reconsider, so that you can turnback if you wish."

  Her reply was inarticulate, though satisfactory; and she took his handin hers as the tears ran gently down her cheeks; this time tears ofjoy--the first she had shed for many a day.

  In the Siren country again without wax! Overboard and lost!

  Yes, Brandon's resolution not to see Mary was well taken, if it couldonly have been as well kept. Observe, as we progress, into what thebreaking of it led him.

  He had known that if he should but see her once more, his alreadytoppling will would lose its equipoise, and he would be led to attemptthe impossible and invite destruction. At first this scheme appearedto me in its true light, but Mary's subtle feminine logic made itseem such plain and easy sailing that I soon began to draw enthusiasmfrom her exhaustless store, and our combined attack upon Brandoneventually routed every vestige of caution and common sense that evenhe had left.

  Siren logic has always been irresistible and will continue so, nodoubt, despite experience.

  I cannot define what it was about Mary that made her little speeches,half argumentative, all-pleading, so wonderfully persuasive. Her factswere mere fancies, and her logic was not even good sophistry. As toreal argument and reasoning, there was nothing of either in them. Itmust have been her native strength of character and intensely vigorouspersonality; some unknown force of nature, operating through heroccultly, that turned the channels of other persons' thoughts andfilled them with her own will. There was magic in her power, I amcertain, but unconscious magic to Mary, I am equally sure. She neverwould have used it knowingly.

  There was still another obstacle to which Mary administered herfavorite remedy, the Gordian knot treatment. Brandon said: "It cannotbe; you are not my wife, and we dare not trust a priest here to uniteus."

  "No," replied Mary, with hanging head, "but we can--can find one overthere."

  "I do not know how that will be; we shall probably not find one; atleast, I fear; I do not know."

  After a little hesitation she answered: "I will go with youanyway--and--and risk it. I hope we may find a priest," and sheflushed scarlet from her throat to her hair.

  Brandon kissed her and said: "You shall go, my brave girl. You make meblush for my faint-heartedness and prudence. I will make you my wifein some way as sure as there is a God."

  Soon after this Brandon forced himself to insist on her departure, andI went with her, full of hope and completely blinded to the dangers ofour cherished scheme. I think Brandon never really lost sight of thedanger, and almost infinite proportion of chance against this wild,reckless venture, but was daring enough to attempt it even in the faceof such clearly seen and deadly consequences.

  What seems to be bravery, as in Mary's case, for example, is often buta lack of perception of the real danger. True bravery is that whichdares a danger fully seeing it. A coward may face an unseen danger,and his act may shine with the luster of genuine heroism. Mary wasbrave, but it was the feminine bravery that did not see. Show her adanger and she was womanly enough--that is, if you could make her seeit. Her wilfulness sometimes extended to her mental vision and shewould not see. In common with many others, she needed mentalspectacles at times.