CHAPTER XVI
MA'M'SELLE CICELY CAREW
How long he lay there in a stupor of despair Nick Attwood never knew. Itmight have been days or weeks, for all that he took heed; for he wasthinking of his mother, and there was no room for more.
The night passed by. Then the day came, by the lines of light that creptacross the floor. The door was opened at his back, and a trencher ofbread and meat thrust in. He did not touch it, and the rats came out ofthe wall and pulled the meat about, and gnawed holes in the bread, andsqueaked, and ran along the wainscot; but he did not care.
The afternoon dragged slowly by, and the creeping light went up the walluntil the roofs across the street shut out the sunset. Sometimes Nickwaked and sometimes he slept, he scarce knew which nor cared; nor did hehear the bolts grate cautiously, or see the yellow candle-light steal inacross the gloom.
"Boy!" said a soft little voice.
He started up and looked around.
For an instant he thought that he was dreaming, and was glad to thinkthat he would waken by and by from what had been so sad a dream, andfind himself safe in his own little bed in Stratford town. For thelittle maid who stood in the doorway was such a one as his eyes hadnever looked upon before.
She was slight and graceful as a lily of the field, and her skin waswhite as the purest wax, save where a damask rose-leaf red glowedthrough her cheeks. Her black hair curled about her slender neck. Hergown was crimson, slashed with gold, cut square across the breast andsimply made, with sleeves just elbow-long, wide-mouthed, and lined withcreamy silk. Her slippers, too, were of crimson silk, high-heeled,jaunty bits of things; her silken stockings black. In one hand she helda tall brass candlestick, and through the fingers of the other thecandle-flame made a ruddy glow like the sun in the heart of a hollyhock.And in the shadow of her hand her eyes looked out, as Nick said longafterward, like stars in a summer night.
Thinking it was all a dream, he sat and stared at her.
"Boy!" she said again, quite gently, but with a quaint little air ofreproof, "where are thy manners?"
Nick got up quickly and bowed as best he knew how. If not a dream, thiswas certainly a princess--and perchance--his heart leaped up--perchanceshe came to set him free! He wondered who had told her of him? DicconField, perhaps, whose father had been Simon Attwood's partner till hedied, last Michaelmas. Diccon was in London now, printing books, he hadheard. Or maybe it was John, Hal Saddler's older brother. No, it couldnot be John, for John was with a carrier; and Nick had doubts ifcarriers were much acquainted at court.
Wondering, he stared, and bowed again.
"Why, boy," said she, with a quaint air of surprise, "thou art a verypretty fellow! Why, indeed, thou lookest like a good boy! Why wilt thoube so bad and break my father's heart?"
"Break thy father's heart?" stammered Nick. "Pr'ythee, who is thyfather, Mistress Princess?"
"Nay," said the little maid, simply; "I am no princess. I am CicelyCarew."
"Cicely Carew?" cried Nick, clenching his fists. "Art thou the daughterof that wicked man, Gaston Carew?"
"My father is not wicked!" said she, passionately, drawing back from thethreshold with her hand trembling upon the latch. "Thou shalt not saythat--I will not speak with thee at all!"
"I do na care! If Master Gaston Carew is thy father, he is the wickedestman in the world!"
"Why, fie, for shame!" she cried, and stamped her little foot. "Howdarest thou say such a thing?"
"He hath stolen me from home," exclaimed Nick, indignantly; "and I shallnever see my mother any more!" With that he choked, and hid his face inhis arm against the wall.
The little maid looked at him with an air of troubled surprise, and,coming into the room, touched him on the arm. "There," she saidsoothingly, "don't cry!" and stroked him gently as one would a littledog that was hurt. "My father will send thee home to thy mother, I know;for he is very kind and good. Some one hath lied to thee about him."
Nick wiped his swollen eyes dubiously upon his sleeve; yet the littlemaid seemed positive. Perhaps, after all, there was a mistake somewhere.
"Art hungry, boy?" she asked suddenly, spying the empty trencher on thefloor. "There is a pasty and a cake in the buttery, and thou shalt havesome of it if thou wilt not cry any more. Come, I cannot bear to seethee cry--it makes me weep myself; and that will blear mine eyes, andfather will feel bad."
"If he but felt as bad as he hath made me feel--" began Nick,wrathfully; but she laid her little hand across his mouth. It was a verywhite, soft, sweet little hand.
"Come," said she; "thou art hungry, and it hath made thee cross!" and,with no more ado, took him by the hand and led him down the corridorinto a large room where the last daylight shone with a smoky glow.
The walls were wainscoted with many panels, dark, old, and mysterious;and in a burnished copper brazier at the end of the room cinnamon,rosemary, and bay were burning with a pleasant smell. Along the wallswere joined-work chests for linen and napery, of brass-bound oak--one ablack, old, tragic sea-chest, carved with grim faces and weird griffins,that had been cast up by the North Sea from the wreck of a Spanishgalleon of war. The floor was waxed in the French fashion, and was sosmooth that Nick could scarcely keep his feet. The windows were high upin the wall, with their heads among the black roof-beams, which withtheir grotesquely carven brackets were half lost in the dusk. Throughthe windows Nick could see nothing but a world of chimney-pots.
"Is London town all smoke-pipes?" he asked confusedly.
"Nay," replied the little maid; "there are people."
Pushing a chair up to the table, she bade him sit down. Then pulling atall, curiously-made stool to the other side of the board, she perchedherself upon it like a fairy upon a blade of grass. "Greg!" she calledimperiously, "Greg! What, how! Gregory Goole, I say!"
"Yes, ma'm'selle," replied a hoarse voice without; and through a door atthe further end of the room came the bandy-legged man with the bow ofcrimson ribbon in his ear.
Nick turned a little pale; and when the fellow saw him sitting there, hecame up hastily, with a look like a crock of sour milk. "Tut, tut!ma'm'selle," said he; "Master Carew will not like this."
She turned upon him with an air of dainty scorn. "Since when hath fatherleft his wits to thee, Gregory Goole? I know his likes as well asthou--and it likes him not to let this poor boy starve, I'll warrant.Go, fetch the pasty and the cake that are in the buttery, with a glassof cordial,--the Certosa cordial,--and that in the shaking of a blacksheep's tail, or I will tell my father what thou wottest of." And shelooked the very picture of diminutive severity.
"Very good, ma'm'selle; just as ye say," said Gregory, fawning, withvery poor grace, however. "But, knave," he snarled, as he turned away,with a black scowl at Nick, "if thou dost venture on any of thy scurvypranks while I be gone, I'll break thy pate."
Cicely Carew knitted her brows. "That is a saucy rogue," said she; "buthe hath served my father well. And, what is much in London town, he isan honest man withal, though I have caught him at the Spanish winebehind my father's back; so he doth butter his tongue with smooth wordswhen he hath speech with me, for I am the lady of the house." She heldup her head with a very pretty pride. "My mother--"
Nick caught his breath, and his eyes filled.
"Nay, boy," said she, gently; "'tis I should weep, not thou; for _my_mother is dead. I do not think I ever saw her that I know," she went onmusingly; "but she was a Frenchwoman who served a murdered queen, andshe was the loveliest woman that ever lived." Cicely clasped her handsand moved her lips. Nick saw that she was praying, and bent his head.
"Thou art a good boy," she said softly; "my father will like that"; andthen went quietly on: "That is why Gregory Goole doth call me'ma'm'selle'--because my mother was a Frenchwoman. But I am a rightEnglish girl for all that; and when they shout, 'God save the Queen!' atthe play, why, I do too! And, oh, boy," she cried, "it is a brave thingto hear!" and she clapped her hands with sparkling eyes. "It drove theSpaniards off the sea, my father
ofttimes saith."
"Poh!" said Nick, stoutly, for he saw the pasty coming in, "they can nabeat us Englishmen!" and with that fell upon the pasty as if it were theSpanish Armada in one lump and he Sir Francis Drake set on to do thejob alone.
As he ate his spirits rose again, and he almost forgot that he wasstolen from his home, and grew eager to be seeing the wonders of thegreat town whose ceaseless roar came over the housetops like a distantstorm. He was still somewhat in awe of this beautiful, flower-likelittle maid, and listened in shy silence to the wonderful tales shetold: how that she had seen the Queen, who had red hair, and pearls likegooseberries on her cloak; and how the court went down to Greenwich. Butthe bandy-legged man kept popping his head in at the door, and, afterall, Nick was but in a prison-house; so he grew quite dismal aftera while.
"Dost truly think thy father will leave me go?" he asked.
"Of course he will," said she. "I cannot see why thou dost hate him so?"
"Why, truly," hesitated Nick, "perhaps it is not thy father that I hate,but only that he will na leave me go. And if he would but leave me go,perhaps I'd love him very much indeed."
"Good, Nick! thou art a trump!" cried Master Carew's voice suddenly fromthe further end of the hall, where in spite of all the candles it wasdark; and, coming forward, the master-player held out his hands in amost genial way. "Come, lad, thy hand--'tis spoken like a gentleman.Nay, I will kiss thee--for I love thee, Nick, upon my word, and on theremnant of mine honour!" Taking the boy's half-unwilling hands in hisown, he stooped and kissed him upon the forehead.
"Father," said Cicely, gravely, "hast thou forgotten me?"
"Nay, sweetheart, nay," cried Carew, with a wonderful laugh that somehowwarmed the cockles of Nick's forlorn heart; and turning quickly, themaster-player caught up the little maid and kissed her again and again,so tenderly that Nick was amazed to see how one so cruel could be sokind, and how so good a little maid could love so bad a man; for shetwined her arms about his neck, and then lay back with her head upon hisshoulder, purring like a kitten in his arms.
"Father," said she, patting his cheek, "some one hath told him naughtythings of thee. Come, daddy, say they are not so!"
The master-player's face turned red as flame. He coughed and looked upamong the roof-beams. "Why, of course they're not," said he, uneasily.
"There, boy!" cried she; "I told thee so. Why, daddy, think!--they saidthat thou hadst stolen him away from his own mother, and wouldst notleave him go!"
"Hollo!" ejaculated the master-player, abruptly, with a quiver in hisvoice; "what a hole thou hast made in the pasty, Nick!"
"Ah, daddy," persisted Cicely, "and what a hole it would make in hismother's heart if he had been stolen away!"
"Wouldst like another draught of cordial, Nick?" cried Carew, hurriedly,reaching out for the tall flagon with a trembling hand. "'Tis good tocheer the troubled heart, lad. Not that thou hast any reason in theworld to let thy heart be troubled," he added hastily. "No, indeed, uponmy word; for thou art on the doorstep of a golden-lined success. See,Nick, how the light shines through!" and he tilted up the flagon. "It isone of old Jake Vessaline's Murano-Venetian glasses; a beautiful thing,now, is it not? 'Tis good as any made abroad!" but his hand was shakingso that half the cordial missed the cup and ran into a little shimmeringpool upon the table-top.
"And thou'lt send him home again, daddy, wilt thou not?"
"Yes, yes, of course--why, to be sure--we'll send him anywhere that thoudost say, Golden-heart: to Persia or Cathay--ay, to the far side of thegreen-cheese moon, or to the court of Tamburlaine the Great," and helaughed a quick, dry, nervous laugh that had no laughter in it. "I hadone of De Lannoy's red Bohemian bottles, Nick," he rattled onfeverishly; "but that butter-fingered rogue"--he nodded his head at theouter stair--"dropped it, smash! and made a thousand most counterfeitfourpences out of what cost me two pound sterling."
"But will ye truly leave me go, sir?" faltered Nick.
"Why, of course--to be sure--yes, certainly--yes, yes. But, Nick, it istoo late this night. Why, come, thou couldst not go to-night. See, 'tisdark, and thou a stranger in the town. 'Tis far to Stratford town--thoucouldst not walk it, lad; there will be carriers anon. Come, stay awhilewith Cicely and me--we will make thee a right welcome guest!"
"That we will," cried Cicely, clapping her hands. "Oh, do stay; I am solonely here! The maid is silly, Margot old, and the rats run inthe wall."
"And thou must to the theater, my lad, and sing for London town--ay,Nicholas," and Carew's voice rang proudly. "The highest heads in Londontown must hear that voice of thine, or I shall die unshrift. What!lad?--come all the way from Coventry, and never show that face of thine,nor let them hear thy skylark's song? Why, 'twere a shame! And, Nick, mylord the Admiral shall hear thee sing when he comes home again;perchance the Queen herself. Why, Nick, of course thou'lt sing. Thouhast not heart to say thou wilt not sing--even for me whom thou hatest."
Nick smiled in spite of himself, for Cicely was leaning on the arm ofhis chair, devouring him with her great dark eyes: "Dost truly, trulysing?" she asked.
Nick laughed and blushed, and Carew laughed. "What, doth he sing? Why,Nick, come, tune that skylark note of thine for little Golden-heart andme. 'Twill make her think she hears the birds in verity--and, Nick, thelass hath never seen a bird that sang, except within a cage. Nay, lad,this is no cage!" he cried, as Nick looked about and sighed. "We willmake it very home for thee--will Cicely and I."
"That we will!" cried Cicely. "Come, boy, sing for me--my mother used tosing."
At that Gaston Carew went white as a sheet, and put his hand quickly upto his face. Cicely darted to his side with a frightened cry, and caughthis hand away. He tried to smile, but it was a ghastly attempt. "Tush,tush! little one; 'twas something stung me!" said he, huskily, "Sing,Nicholas, I beg of thee!"
There was such a sudden world of weariness and sorrow in his voice thatNick felt a pity for he knew not what, and lifting up his clear youngvoice, he sang the quaint old madrigal.
Carew sat with his face in his hand, and after it was done aroseunsteadily and said, "Come, Golden-heart; 'tis music such as charmethcare and lureth sleep out of her dark valley--we must be trotting offto bed."
That night Nick slept upon a better bed, with a sheet and a blue sergecoverlet, and a pillow stuffed with chaff.
But as he drifted off into a troubled dreamland, he heard the door-boltthrob into its socket, and knew that he was fastened in.