Slowly and lost in gloomy thought, John Heywood walked toward his lodgings. These lodgings were situated in the second or inner court of the vast palace of Whitehall, in that wing of the castle which contained the apartments of all the higher officers of the royal household, and so those of the court-jesters also; for the king’s fool was at that period a very important and respectable personage, who occupied a rank equal to that of a gentleman of the royal bed-chamber.
John Heywood had just crossed this second courtyard, when all at once loud, wrangling voices, and the clear, peculiar ring of a box on the ear, startled him out of his meditations. He stopped and listened. His face, before so serious, had now reassumed its usual merry and shrewd expression; his large eyes again glittered with humor and mischief. “There again verily is my sweet, charming housekeeper, Gammer Gurton,” said John Heywood, laughing; “and she no doubt is quarrelling again with my excellent servant, that poor, long-legged, blear-eyed Hodge. Ah! ha! Yesterday I surprised her as she applied a kiss to him, at which he made as doleful a face as if a bee had stung him. To-day I hear how she is boxing his ears. He is perhaps now laughing at it, and thinks it is a rose-leaf which cools his cheek. That Hodge is such a queer bird! But we will at once see what there is to-day, and what farce is being performed now.”
He crept softly up-stairs, and, opening the door of his room, closed it again behind him quickly and gently. Gammer Gurton, who was in the room adjoining, had heard nothing, seen nothing; and had the heavens come tumbling down at that moment, she would have scarcely noticed it; for she had eyes and sense only for this long, lank lackey who stood before her shaking with fear, and staring at her out of his great bluish-white eyes. Her whole soul lay in her tongue; and her tongue ran as fast as a will-wheel, and with the force of thunder. How, then, could Gammer Gurton well have time and ears to hear her master, who had softly entered his chamber and slyly crept to the door, only half closed, which separated his room from that of the housekeeper? “How!” screamed Gammer Gurtoh, “you silly raga muffin, you wish to make me believe that it was the cat that ran away with my sewing-needle, as if my sewing-needle were a mouse and smelt of bacon, you stupid, blear-eyed fool!”
“Ah, you call me a fool,” cried Hodge, with a laugh, which caused his mouth to describe a graceful line across his face from ear to ear; “you call me a fool, and that is a great honor for me, for then I am a servant worthy of my master. And as to being blear-eyed, that must be caused by the simple fact that I have nothing all day long before my eyes but you, Gammer Gurton—you, with your face like a full moon—you, sailing through the room like a frigate, and with your grappling-irons, your hands, smashing to pieces everything except your own looking-glass.”
“You shall pay me for that, you double-faced, thread-bare lout!” screamed Gammer Gurton, as she rushed on Hodge with clenched fist.
But John Heywood’s cunning servant had anticipated this; he had already slipped under the large table which stood in the middle of the room. As the housekeeper now made a plunge to drag him out of his extemporary fortress, he gave her such a hearty pinch on the leg, that she sprang back with a scream, and sank, wholly overcome by the pain, into the huge, leather-covered elbow-chair which was near her workstand at the window.
“You are a monster, Hodge,” groaned she, exhausted—“a heartless, horrible monster. You have stolen my sewing-needle—you only. For you knew very well that it was my last one, and that, if I have not that, I must go at once to the shopkeeper to buy some needles. And that is just what you want, you weathercock, you. You only want me to go out, that you may have an opportunity to play with Tib.”
“Tib? Who is Tib?” asked Hodge as he stretched out his long neck from under the table, and stared at Gammer Gurton with well-assumed astonishment.
“Now this otter wants me yet to tell him who Tib is!” screamed the exasperated dame. “Well, then, I will tell you. Tib is the cook for the major-domo over there—a black-eyed, false, coquettish little devil, who is bad and mean enough to troll away the lover of an honest and virtuous woman, as I am; a lover who is such a pitiful little thing that one would think no one but myself could find him out and see him; nor could I have done it had I not for forty years trained my eyes to the search, and for forty years looked around for the man who was at length to marry me, and make me a respectable mistress. Since my eyes then were at last steadily fixed on this phantom of man, and I found nothing there, I finally discovered you, you cobweb of a man!”
“What! you call me a cobweb?” screamed Hodge, as he crept from under the table, and, drawing himself up to his full height, placed himself threateningly in front of Gammer Gurton’s elbow-chair. “You call me a cobweb? Now, I swear to you that you shall henceforth never more be the spider that dwells in that web! For you are a garden-spider, an abominable, dumpy, old garden-spider, for whom a web, such as Hodge is, is much too fine and much too elegant. Be quiet, therefore, old spider, and spin your net elsewhere! You shall not live in my net, but Tib—for, yes, I do know Tib. She is a lovely, charming child of fourteen, as quick and nimble as a kid, with lips red as the coral which you wear on your fat pudding of a neck, with eyes which shine yet brighter than your nose, and with a figure so slender and graceful that she might have been carved out of one of your fingers. Yes, yes, I know Tib. She is an affectionate, good child, who would never be so hard-hearted as to abuse the man she loves, and could not be so mean and pitiful, even in thought, as to wish to marry the man she did not love. Just because he is a man. Yes, I know Tib, and now I will go straight to her and ask her if she will marry a good, honest lad, who, to be sure, is somewhat lean, but who doubtless will become fatter if he has any other fare than the meagre, abominable stuff on which Gammer Gurton feeds him; a lad who, to be sure, is blear-eyed, but will soon get over that disease when he no more sees Gammer Gurton, who acts on his eyes like a stinking onion, and makes them always red and running water. Good-by, old onion! I am going to Tib.”
But Gammer Gurton whirled up out of her elbow-chair like a top, and was upon Hodge, whom she held by the coat-tail, and brought him to a stand.
“You dare go to Tib again! You dare pass that door and you shall see that the gentle, peaceable, and patient Gammer Gurton is changed into a lioness, when any one tries to tear from her that most sacred and dearest of treasures, her husband. For you are my husband, inasmuch as I have your word that you will marry me.”
“But I have not told you when and where I will do it, Gammer Gurton; and so you can wait to all eternity, for only in heaven will I be your husband.”
“That is an abominable, malicious lie!” screamed Gammer Gurton. “A good-for-nothing lie, say I! For did you not long ago snivel and beg till I was forced to promise you to make a will, and in it declare Hodge, my beloved husband, sole heir of all my goods and chattels, and bequeath to him everything I have scraped together in my virtuous and industrious life?”
“But you did not make it—the will. You broke your word; and, therefore, I will do the same.”
“Yes, I have made it, you greyhound. I have made it; and this very day I was going with you to a justice of the peace and have it signed, and then to-morrow we would have got married.”
“You have made the will, you round world of love?” said Hodge tenderly, as with his long, withered, spindling arms he tried to clasp the gigantic waist of his beloved. “You have made the will and declared me your heir? Come, then, Gammer Gurton, come, let us go to the justice of the peace!”
“But do you not see, then,” said Gammer Gurton, with a tender, cat-like purr, “do you not see, then, that you rumple my frill when you hug me so? Let me go, then, and help me find my needle quickly, for without the needle we cannot go to the justice of the peace.”
“What, without the needle not go to the justice of the peace?”
“No; for only see this hole which Gib, the cat, tore in my prettiest cap awhile ago, as I took the cap out of the box and laid it on the table. Indeed I cannot go to the justice of the peace with such a hole in my cap! Search then, Hodge, search, so that I can mend my cap, and go with you to the justice of the peace!”
“Lord God, where in the world can it be, the unlucky needle? I must have it, I must find it, so that Gammer Gurton may take her will to the justice of the peace!”
And in frantic desperation, Hodge searched all about on the floor for the lost needle, and Gammer Gurton stuck her large spectacles on her flaming red nose and peered about on the table. So eager was she in the search, that she even let her tongue rest a little, and deep silence reigned in the room.
Suddenly this silence was broken by a voice; which seemed to come from the courtyard. It was a soft, sweet voice that cried: “Hodge, dear Hodge, are you there? Come to me in the court, only for a few minutes! I want to have a bit of a laugh with you!”
It was as though an electric shock had passed through the room with that voice, and struck at the same time both Gammer Gurton and Hodge.
Both startled, and discontinuing the search, stood there wholly immovable, as if petrified. Hodge especially, poor Hodge, was as if struck by lightning. His great bluish-white eyes appeared to be coming out of their sockets; his long arms hung down, flapping and dangling about like a flail; his knees, half bent, seemed already to be giving way in expectation of the approaching storm.
This storm did not in fact make him wait long. “That is Tib!” screamed Gammer Gurton, springing like a lioness upon Hodge and seizing him by the shoulders with both her hands. “That is Tib, you thread-like, pitiful greyhound! Well, was I not right, now, when I called you a faithless, good-for-nothing scamp, that spares not innocence, and breaks the hearts of the women as he would a cracker, which he swallows at his pleasure? Was I not right, in saying that you were only watching for me to go out in order to go and sport with Tib?”
“Hodge, my dear, darling Hodge,” cried the voice beneath there, and this time louder and more tender than before, “Hodge, oh come, do now, come with me in the court, as you promised me; come and get the kiss for which you begged me this morning!”
“I will be a damned otter, if I begged her for it, and if I understand a single word of what she says!” said Hodge, wholly dumfounded and quaking all over.
“Ah, you understand not a word of what she says?” screamed Gammer Gurton. “Well, but I understand it. I understand that everything between us is past and done with, and that I have nothing more to do with you, you Moloch, you! I understand that I shall not go and make my will, to become your wife and fret myself to death over this skeleton of a husband, that I may leave you to chuckle as my heir. No, no, it is past. I am not going to the justice of the peace, and I will tear up my will!”
“Oh, she is going to tear up her will!” howled Hodge; “and then I have tormented myself in vain; in vain have endured the horrible luck of being loved by this old owl! Oh, oh, she will not make her will, and Hodge will remain the same miserable dog he always was!”
Gammer Gurton laughed scornfully. “Ah, you are aware at last what a pitiable wretch you are, and how much a noble and handsome person, as I am, lowered herself when she made up her mind to pick up such a weed and make him her husband.”
“Yes, yes, I know it!” whined Hodge; “and I pray you pick me up and take me, and above all things make your will!”
“No, I will not take you, and I shall not make my will! It is all over with, I tell you; and now you can go as soon as you please to Tib, who has called you so lovingly. But first give me back my sewing-needle, you magpie, you! Give me here my sewing-needle, which you have stolen. It is of no use to you now, for it is not necessary for me to go out in order that you may go and see Tib. We have nothing more to do with each other, and you can go where you wish. My sewing-needle, say I—my needle, or I will hang you as a scarecrow in my pea-patch, to frighten the sparrows out of it. My sewing-needle, or—”
She shook her clenched fist threateningly at Hodge, fully convinced that now, as always before, Hodge would retreat before this menacing weapon of his jealous and irritable lady-love, and seek safety under the bed or the table.
This time, however, she was mistaken. Hodge, who saw that all was lost, felt that his patience was at length exhausted; and his timidity was now changed to the madness of despair. The lamb was transformed into a tiger, and with a tiger’s rage he pounced upon Gammer Gurton, and, throwing aside her fist, he dealt her a good sound blow on the cheek.
The signal was given, and the battle began. It was waged by both sides with equal animosity and equal vigor; only Hodge’s bony hand made by far the most telling blows on Gammer Gurton’s mass of flesh, and was always certain, wherever he struck, to hit some spot of this huge mass; while Gammer Gurton’s soft hand seldom touched that thin, threadlike figure, which dexterously parried every blow.
“Stop, you fools!” suddenly shouted a stentorian voice. “See you not, you goblins, that your lord and master is here? Peace, peace then, you devils, and do not be hammering away at one another, but love each other.”
“It is the master!” exclaimed Gammer Gurton, lowering her fist in the utmost contrition.
“Do not turn me away, sir!” moaned Hodge; “do not dismiss me from your service because at last I have for once given the old hag a good bruising. She has deserved it a long time, and an angel himself must at last lose patience with her.”
“I turn you out of my service!” exclaimed John Heywood, as he wiped his eyes, wet with laughing. “No, Hodge, you are a real jewel, a mine of fun and merriment; and you two have, without knowing it, furnished me with the choicest materials for a piece which, by the king’s order, I have to write within six days. I owe you, then, many thanks, and will show my gratitude forthwith. Listen well to me, my amorous and tender pair of turtle-doves, and mark what I have to say to you. One cannot always tell the wolf by his hide, for he sometimes put on a sheep’s skin; and so, too, a man cannot always be recognized by his voice, for he sometimes borrows that of his neighbor. Thus, for example, I know a certain John Heywood, who can mimic exactly the voice of a certain little miss named Tib, and who knows how to warble as she herself: ‘Hodge, my dear Hodge!’” And he repeated to them exactly, and with the same tone and expression, the words that the voice had previously cried.
“Ah, it was you, sir?” cried Hodge, with a broad grin—“that Tib in the court there, that Tib about whom we have been pummelling each other?”
“I was Tib, Hodge—I who was present during the whole of your quarrel, and found it hugely comical to send Tib’s voice thundering into the midst of our lovers’ quarrel, like a cannon-stroke! Ah, ha! Hodge, that was a fine bomb-shell, was it not? And as I said ‘Hodge, my dear Hodge,’ you tumbled about like a kernel of corn which a dung-beetle blows with his breath. No, no, my worthy and virtuous Gammer Gurton, it was not Tib who called the handsome Hodge, and more than that, I saw Tib, as your contest began, go out at the courtyard gate.”
“It was not Tib!” exclaimed Gammer Gurton, much moved, and happy as love could make her. “It was not Tib, and she was not in the court at all, and Hodge could not then go down to her, while I went to the shopkeeper’s to buy needles. Oh, Hodge, Hodge, will you forgive me for this; will you forget the hard words which I spoke in the fury of my anguish, and can you love me again?”
“I will try,” said Hodge, gravely; “and without doubt I shall succeed, provided you go to-day forthwith to the justice, and make your will.”
“I will make my will, and to-morrow we will go to the priest; shall it not be so, my angel?”
“Yes, we go to the priest to-morrow!” growled Hodge, as with a frightful grimace he scratched himself behind the ears.
“And now come, my angel, and give me a kiss of reconciliation!” She spread her arms out, and when Houge did not come to her, but remained immovable, and steadfast in his position, she went to Hodge and pressed him tenderly to her heart.
Suddenly she uttered a shriek, and let go of Hodge, She had felt a terrible pain in her breast. It seemed as though a small dagger had pierced her bosom.
And there it was, the lost needle, and Hodge then was innocent and pure as the early dawn.
He had not mischievously purloined the needle, so that Gammer Gurton would be compelled to leave her house in order to fetch some new needles from the shopkeeper’s; he had not intended to go to Tib, for Tib was not in the court, but had gone out.
“Oh Hodge, Hodge, good Hodge, you innocent dove, will you forgive me?”
“Come to the justice of the peace, Gammer Gurton, and I forgive you!”
They sank tenderly into each other’s arms, wholly forgetful of their master, who still stood near them, and looked on, laughing and nodding his head.
“Now, then, I have found the finest and most splendid materials for my piece,” said John Heywood, as he left the loving pair and betook himself to his own room. “Gammer Gurton has saved me, and King Henry will not have the satisfaction of seeing me whipped by those most virtuous and most lovely ladies of his court. To work, then, straightway to work!”
He seated himself at his writing-desk, and seized pen and paper.
“But how!” asked he, suddenly pausing. “That is certainly a rich subject for a composition; but I can never in the world get an interlude out of it! What shall I do with it? Abandon this subject altogether, and again jeer at the monks and ridicule the nuns? That is antiquated and worn out! I will write something new, something wholly new, and something which will make the king so merry, that he will not sign a death-warrant for a whole day. Yes, yes, a merry play shall it be, and then I will call it boldly and fearlessly a comedy!”
He seized his pen and wrote: “Gammer Gurton’s Needle, a right pithy, pleasant, and merry comedy.”
And thus originated the first English comedy, by John Heywood, fool to King Henry the Eighth. [Footnote: This comedy was first printed in the year 1661, but it was represented at Christ College fully a hundred years previously. Who was the author of it is not known with certainty; but it is possible that the writer of it was John Heywood, the epigrammatist and court-jester.—See Dramaturgic oder Theorie und Geschichte der dramatischen Kunst, von Theodore Mundt, vol i, p. 809. Flogel’s Geschichte der Hofnarren, p. 399.]
All was quiet in the palace of Whitehall. Even the servants on guard in the vestibule of the king’s bedchamber had been a long time slumbering, for the king had been snoring for several hours; and this majestical sound was, to the dwellers in the palace, the joyful announcement that for one fine night they were exempt from service, and might be free men.
The queen also had long since retired to her apartments, and dismissed her ladies at an unusually early hour. She felt, she said, wearied by the chase, and much needed rest. No one, therefore, was to disturb her, unless the king should order it.
But the king, as we have said, slept, and the queen had no reason to fear that her night’s rest would be disturbed.
Deep silence reigned in the palace. The corridors were empty and deserted, the apartments all silent.
Suddenly a figure tripped along softly and cautiously through the long feebly lighted corridor. She was wrapped in a black mantle; a veil concealed her face.
Scarcely touching the floor with her feet, she floated away, and glided down a little staircase. Now she stops and listens. There is nothing to hear; all is noiseless and still.
Then, on again. Now she wings her steps. For here she is sure of not being heard. It is the unoccupied wing of the castle of Whitehall. Nobody watches her here.
On, then, on, adown that corridor, descending those stairs. There she stops before a door leading into the summer-house. She puts her ear to the door, and listens. Then she claps her hands three times.
The sound is reechoed from the other side.
“Oh, he is there, he is there!” Forgotten now are her cares, forgotten her pains and tears. He is there. She has him again.
She throws open the door. It is dark indeed in the chamber, but she sees him, for the eye of love pierces the night; and if the sees him not, yet she feels his presence.
She rests on his heart; he presses her closely to his breast. Leaning on each other, they grope cautiously along through the dark, desolate chamber to the divan at the upper end, and there, both locked in a happy embrace, they sink upon the cushion.
“At last I have you again! and my arms again clasp this divine form, and again my lips press this crimson mouth! Oh, my beloved, what an eternity has this separation been! Six days! Six long nights of agony! Have you not felt how my soul cried out for you, and was filled with trepidation; how I stretched my arms out into the night, and let them fall again disconsolate and trembling with anguish, because they clasped nothing—naught but the cold, vacant night breeze! Did you not hear, my beloved, how I cried to you with sighs and tears, how in glowing dithyrambics I poured forth to you my longing, my love, my rapture? But you, cruel you, remained ever cold, ever smiling. Your eyes were ever flashing in all the pride and grandeur of a Juno. The roses on your cheeks were not one whit the paler. No, no, you have not longed for me; your heart has not felt this painful, blissful anguish. You are first and above all things the proud, cold queen, and next, next the loving woman.”
“How unjust and hard you are, my Henry!” whispered she softly. “I have indeed suffered; and perhaps my pains have been more cruel and bitter than yours, for I—I had to let them consume me within. You could pour them forth, you could stretch out your arms after me, you could utter lamentations and sighs. You were not, like me, condemned to laugh, and to jest, and to listen with apparently attentive ear to all those often heard and constantly repeated phrases of praise and adoration from those about me. You were at least free to suffer. I was not. It is true I smiled, but amidst the pains of death. It is true my cheeks did not blanch, but rouge was the veil with which I covered their paleness; and then, Henry, in the midst of my pains and longings, I had, too, a sweet consolation—your letters, your poems, which fell like the dew of heaven upon my sick soul, and restored it to health, for new torments and new hopes. Oh, how I love them—those poems, in whose noble and enchanting language your love and our sufferings are reechoed! How my whole soul flew forth to meet them when I received them, and how pressed I my lips thousands and thousands of times on the paper which seemed to me redolent with your breath and your sighs! How I love that good, faithful Jane, the silent messenger of our love! When I behold her entering my chamber, with the unsullied paper in hand, she is to me the dove with the olive-leaf, that brings me peace and happiness, and I rush to her, and press her to my bosom; and give her all the kisses I would give you, and feel how poor and powerless I am, because I cannot repay her all the happiness that she brings me. Ah, Henry, how many thanks do we owe to poor Jane!”
“Why do you call her poor, when she can be near you, always behold yon, always hear you?”
“I call her poor, because she is unhappy. For she loves, Henry—she loves to desperation, to madness, and she is not loved. She is pining away with grief and pain, and wrings her hands in boundless woe. Have you not noticed how pale she is, and how her eyes become daily more dim?”
“No, I have not seen it, for I see naught but you, and Lady Jane is to me a lifeless image, as are all other women. But what! You tremble; and your whole frame writhes in my arms, as if in a convulsion! And what is that? Are you weeping?”
“Oh, I weep, because I am so happy. I weep, because I was thinking how fearful the suffering must be, to give the whole heart away, and receive nothing in return, naught but death! Poor Jane!”
“What is she to us? We, we love each other. Come, dear one, let me kiss the tears from your eyes; let me drink this nectar, that it may inspire me, and transfigure me to a god! Weep no more—no, weep not; or, if you will do so, be it only in the excess of rapture, and because word and heart are too poor to hold all this bliss!”
“Yes, yes, let us shout for joy; let us be lost in blessedness!” exclaimed she passionately, as with frantic violence she threw herself on his bosom.
Both were now silent, mutely resting on each other’s heart.
Oh, how sweet this silence; how entrancing this noiseless, sacred night! How the trees without there murmur and rustle, as if they were singing a heavenly lullaby to the lovers! how inquisitively the pale crescent moon peeps through the window, as though she were seeking the twain whose blessed confidante she is!
But happiness is so swift-winged, and time flies so fast, when love is their companion!
Even now they must part again—now they must again say farewell. “Not yet, beloved, stay yet! See, the night is still dark; and hark, the castle clock is just striking two. No, go not yet.”
“I must, Henry, I must; the hours are past in which I can be happy.”
“Oh, you cold, proud soul! Does the head already long again for the crown; and can you wait no longer for the purple to again cover your shoulders? Come, let me kiss your shoulder; and think now, dear, that my crimson lips are also a purple robe.”
“And a purple robe for which I would gladly give my crown and my life!” cried she, with the utmost enthusiasm, as she folded him in her arms.
“Do you love me, then? Do you really love me?”
“Yes, I love you!”
“Can you swear to me that you love no one except me?”
“I can swear it, as true as there is a God above us, who hears my oath.”
“Bless you for it, you dear, you only one—oh, how shall I call you?—you whose name I may not utter! Oh, do you know that it is cruel never to name the name of the loved one? Withdraw that prohibition; grudge me not the painfully sweet pleasure of being able at least to call you by your name!”
“No,” said she, with a shudder; “for know you not that the sleep-walkers awake out of their dreams when they are called by name? I am a somnambulist, who, with smiling courage, moves along a dizzy height; call me by name, and I shall awake, and, shuddering, plunge into the abyss beneath. Ah, Henry, I hate my name, for it is pronounced by other lips than yours. For you I will not be named as other men call me. Baptize me, my Henry; give me another name—a name which is our secret, and which no one knows besides us.”
“I name you Geraldine; and as Geraldine I will praise and laud you before all the world. I will, in spite of all these spies and listeners, repeat again and again that I love you, and no one, not the king himself, shall be able to forbid me.”
“Hush!” said she, with a shudder, “speak not of him! Oh, I conjure you, my Henry, be cautious; think that you have sworn to me ever to think of the danger that threatens us, and will, without doubt, dash us in pieces if you, by only a sound, a look, or a smile, betray the sweet secret that unites us two. Are you still aware what you have sworn to me?”
“I am aware of it! But it is an unnatural Draconian law. What! even when I am alone with you, shall I never be allowed to address you otherwise than with that reverence and restrain which is due the queen? Even when no one can hear us, may I, by no syllable, by none, not the slightest intimation, remind you of our love?”
“No, no, do it not; for this castle has everywhere eyes and ears, and everywhere are spies and listeners behind the tapestry; behind the curtains; everywhere are they concealed and lurking, watching every feature, every smile, every word, whether it may not afford ground for suspicion. No, no, Henry; swear to me by our love that you will never, unless here in this room, address me otherwise than your queen. Swear to me that, beyond these walls, you will be to me only the respectful servant of your queen, and at the same time the proud earl and lord, of whom it is said that never has a woman been able to touch his heart. Swear to me that you will not, by a look, by a smile, by even the gentlest pressure of the hand, betray what beyond this room is a crime for both of us. Let this room be the temple of our love; but when we once pass its threshold, we will not profane the sweet mysteries of our happiness, by allowing unholy eyes to behold even a single ray of it. Shall it be so, my Henry?
“Yes, it shall be so!” said he, with a troubled voice; “although I must confess that this dreadful illusion often tortures me almost to death. Oh, Geraldine, when I meet you elsewhere, when I observe the eye so icy and immovable, with which you meet my look, I feel as it were my heart convulsed; and I say to myself: ‘This is not she, whom I love—not the tender, passionate woman, whom in the darkness of the night I sometimes lock in my arms. This is Catharine, the queen, but not my loved one. A woman cannot so disguise herself; art goes not so far as to falsify the entire nature, the innermost being and life of a person.’ Oh, there have been hours, awful, horrible hours, when it seemed to me as though all this were a delusion, a mystification—as though in some way an evil demon assumed the queen’s form by night to mock me, poor frenzied visionary, with a happiness that has no existence, but lives only in my imagination. When such thoughts come to me, I feel a frenzied fury, a crushing despair, and I could, regardless of my oath and even the danger that threatens you, rush to you, and, before all the courtly rabble and the king himself, ask: ‘Are you really what you seem? Are you, Catharine Parr, King Henry’s wife—nothing more, nothing else than that? Or are you, my beloved, the woman who is mine in her every thought, her every breath; who has vowed to me eternal love and unchanging truth; and whom I, in spite of the whole world, and the king, press to my heart as my own?’”
“Unhappy man, if you ever venture that, you doom us both to death!”
“Be it so, then! In death you will at least be mine, and no one would longer dare separate us, and your eyes would no longer look so cold and strangely upon me, as they often now do. Oh, I conjure you, gaze not upon me at all, if you cannot do it otherwise than with those cold, proud looks, that benumb my heart. Turn away your eyes, and speak to me with averted face.”
“Then, men will say that I hate you, Henry.”
“It is more agreeable to me for them to say you abhor me than for them to see that I am wholly indifferent to you; that I am to you nothing more than the Earl of Surrey, your lord chamberlain.”
“No, no, Henry. They shall see that you are more to me than merely that. Before the whole assembled court I will give you a token of my love. Will you then believe, you dear, foolish enthusiast, that I love you, and that it is no demon that rests here in your arms and swears that she loves nothing but you? Say, will you then believe me?”
“I will believe you! But no, there is no need of any sign, or any assurance. Nay, I know it; I feel indeed the sweet reality that cuddles to my side, warm, and filling me with happiness; and it is only the excess of happiness that makes me incredulous.”
“I will convince you thoroughly; and you shall doubt no more, not even in the intoxication of happiness. Listen, then. The king, as you know, is about to hold a great tournament and festival of the poets, and it will take place in a few days. Now, then, at this fete I will publicly, in the presence of the king and his court, give you a rosette that I wear on my shoulder, and in the silver fringe of which you will find a note from me. Will that satisfy you, my Henry?”
“And do you still question it, my dear? Do you question it, when you will make me proud and happy above all others of your court?”
He pressed her closely to his heart and kissed her. But suddenly she writhed in his arms, and started up in wild alarm.
“Day is breaking, day is breaking! See there! a red streak is spreading over the clouds. The sun is coming; day is coming, and already begins to dawn.”
He endeavored to detain her still; but she tore herself passionately away, and again enveloped her head in her veil.
“Yes,” said he, “day is breaking and it is growing light! Let me then, for a moment at least, see your face. My soul thirsts for it as the parched earth for the dew. Come, it is light here at the window. Let me see your eyes.”
She tore herself vehemently away. “No, no, you must be gone! Hark, it is already three o’clock. Soon everything will be astir in the castle. Did it not seem as if some person passed by the door here? Haste, haste, if you do not wish me to die of dread!” She threw his cloak over him; she drew his hat over his brow; then once more she threw her arms around his neck and pressed on his lips a burning kiss. “Farewell, my beloved! farewell, Henry Howard! When we see each other again to-day, you are the Earl of Surrey, and I, the queen—not your loved one—not the woman who loves you! Happiness is past, and suffering awakes anew. Farewell.”
She herself opened the glass door, and pushed her lover out.
“Farewell, Geraldine; good-night, my dear! Day comes, and I again greet you as my queen, and I shall have to endure again the torture of your cold looks and your haughty smiles.”
She rushed to the window and gazed after him till he had disappeared, then she uttered a deep cry of anguish, and, wholly overcome by her agony, she sank down on her knees weeping and wailing, wringing her hands, and raising them to God.
But just before so happy and joyful, she was now full of woe and anguish; and bitter sighs of complaint came trembling from her lips.
“Oh, oh,” moaned she, with sobs; “what terrible agonies are these, and how full of despair the anguish that lacerates my breast! I have lain in his arms; I have received his vows of love and accepted his kisses; and these vows are not mine, and these kisses he gave not to me. He kissed me, and he loves in me only her whom I hate. He lays his hands in mine and utters vows of love which he dedicates to her. He thinks and feels for her only—her alone. What a terrible torture this is! To be loved under her name; under her name to receive the vows of love that yet belong to me only—to me alone! For he loves me, me exclusively. They are my lips that he kisses, my form that he embraces; to me are addressed his words and his letters; and it is I that reply to them. He loves me, me only, and yet he puts no faith in me. I am nothing to him, naught but a lifeless image, like other women. This he has told me; and I did not become frenzied; and I had the cruel energy to pass off the tears wrung from me by despair, for tears of rapture. Oh, detestable, horrible mockery of fate—to be what I am not, and not to be what I am!”
And with a shrill cry of agony she tore her hair, and with her fist smote upon her breast, and wept and moaned aloud.
She heard naught; she saw naught; she felt naught but her inexpressible and despairing anguish.
She did not once tremble for herself; she thought not at all of this—that she would be lost if she were found in this place.
And yet at the other side of the room a door had opened, softly and noiselessly, and a man had entered.
He shut the door behind him and walked up to Lady Jane, who still lay on the floor. He stood behind her while she uttered her despairing lamentation. He heard every word of her quivering lips; her whole heart painfully convulsed and torn with grief lay unveiled before him; and she knew it not.
Now he bent over her; and with his hand he lightly touched her shoulder. At this touch she gave a convulsive start, as if hit by the stroke of a sword, and her sobbing was immediately silenced.
An awful pause ensued. The woman lay on the floor motionless, breathless, and near her, tall and cold as a figure of bronze, stood the man.
“Lady Jane Douglas,” said he then, sternly and solemnly, “stand up. It becomes not your father’s daughter to be upon her knees, when it is not God to whom she kneels. But you are not kneeling to God, but to an idol, which you yourself have made, and to which you hate erected a temple in your heart. This idol is called ‘Your own personal misfortune.’ But it is written, ‘Thou shalt have no other Gods but me.’ Therefore I say to you once more, Lady Jane Douglas, rise from your knees, for it is not your God to whom you kneel.”
And as though these words exercised a magnetic power over her, she raised herself up slowly from the floor, and now stood there before her father, stern and cold as a statue of marble.
“Cast from you the sorrows of this world, which burden you, and hinder you in the sacred work which God has imposed on you!” continued Earl Douglas in his metallic, solemn voice. “It is written, ‘Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest,’ saith our God. But you, Jane, you are to throw down your trouble at the foot of the throne; and your burden will become a crown that will glorify your head.”
He laid his hand on her head, but she wildly shook it off.
“No,” cried she, with heavy, faltering tongue, as if confused in a dream. “Away with this crown! I wish no crown upon which devils have laid a spell. I wish no royal robe that has been dyed crimson with the blood of my beloved.”
“She is still in the delirium of her anguish,” muttered the earl, as he contemplated the pale, trembling woman who had now sunk again to her knees, and was staring straight before her with eyes bewildered and stretched wide open. But the looks of the earl remained cold and unmoved, and not the least compassion was aroused in him for his poor daughter, now penetrated with anguish.
“Arise,” said he, in a hard, steelly voice. “The Church, by my mouth, commands you to serve her as you have vowed to do; that is to say, with glad heart and a sense of your reliance on God; that is to say, with smiling lips and a serene, beaming eye, as becomes a disciple inspired by faith, and as you have sworn to do in the hands of our lord and master, Ignatius Loyola.”
“I cannot! I cannot!” moaned she, in a low tone. “I cannot be glad at heart when despair, like a wild boar, is rending my heart; I cannot command my eye to shine when my eyes are dimmed with tears of anguish. Oh, have pity, have compassion! Remember that you are my father; that I am your daughter—the daughter of a wife whom you loved, and who would find in the grave no rest if she knew how you are racking and torturing me. My mother, my mother, if thy spirit is near me, come and protect me. Let thy mild looks overshadow my head, and breathe a breath of thy love into the heart of this cruel father, who is ready to sacrifice his child on the altar of his God.”
“God has called me,” said the earl, “and, like Abraham, I too will learn to obey. But I will not adorn my victim with flowers, but with a royal crown. I will not plunge a knife into her breast, but will put a golden sceptre into her hand and say: Thou art a queen before men, but before God be thou a faithful and obedient servant. Thou hast all to command. But the holy Church, to whose service thou hast consecrated thyself, and who will bless thee if thou art faithful, who will dash thee in pieces with her curse if thou darest deal treacherously, she commands thee. No, you are not my daughter, but the priestess of the Church, consecrated to her holy service. No, I have no sympathy with your tear’s and this anguish, for I see the end of these sorrows, and I know that these tears will be as a diadem of pearls about your temples. Lady Jane Douglas, it is the saintly Loyola who sends you his commands by my mouth. Obey them, not because I am your father, but because I am the general to whom you have sworn obedience and fidelity unto your life’s end.”
“Then kill me, my father!” said she, feebly. “Let this life end, which is but a torture, a protracted martyrdom. Punish me for my disobedience by plunging your dagger deep into my breast. Punish me, and grudge me not the repose of the grave.”
“Poor enthusiast!” said the father; “suppose you, we would be foolish enough to subject you to so light a punishment! No, no, if you dare, in insolent disobedience, rebel against my commands, your penance shall be a terrible one, and your punishment without end. I will not kill you, but him whom you love; it will be his head that falls; and you will be his murderess. He shall die on the scaffold and you—you shall live in disgrace.”
“Oh, horrible!” groaned Jane, as she buried her face in her hands.
Her father continued: “Silly, short-sighted child, who thought she could play with the sword, and did not see that she herself might feel the stroke of this double-edged blade! You wanted to be the servant of the Church, that you might thereby become mistress of the world. You would acquire glory, but this glory must not singe your head with its fiery rays. Silly child! he who plays with fire will be consumed. But we penetrated your thoughts and the wish of which you yourself were unconscious. We looked into the depths of your being, and when we found love there, we made use of love for our own purposes and your salvation. What do you bewail, then, and why do you weep? Have we not allowed you to love? Have we not authorized you to give yourself entirely up to this love? Do you not call yourself Earl Surrey’s wife, though you cannot name to me the priest that married you? Lady Jane, obey, and we envy you not the happiness of your love; dare to rebel against us, and disgrace and shame overtake you, and you shall stand before all the world disowned and scoffed at; you the strumpet, that—”
“Stop, my father!” cried Jane, as she sprang vehemently from the floor. “Desist from your terrible words if you do not wish me to die of shame. Nay, I submit, I obey! You are right, I cannot draw back.”
“And why would you either? Is it not a life pleasant and full of enjoyment? Is it not rare good fortune to see our sins transfigured to virtue; to be able to account earthly enjoyment the service of Heaven? And what do you bewail then? That he does not love you? Nay, he does love you; his vows of love still echo in your ears; your heart still trembles with the fruition of happiness. What matters it if the Earl of Surrey with his inward eyes sees the woman he folds in his arms to be another than you? Yet in reality he loves but you alone. Whether you are for him named Catharine Parr or Jane Douglas, it is all the same if you only are his love.”
“But a day will come when he will discover his mistake, and when he will curse me.”
“That day will never come. The holy Church will find a way to avert that, if you bow to her will and are obedient to her.”
“I do bow to it!” sighed Jane. “I will obey; only promise me, my father, that no harm shall happen to him; that I shall not be his murderess.”
“No, you shall become his savior and deliverer. Only you must fulfil punctually the work I commit to you. First of all, then, tell me the result of your meeting to-day. He does not doubt that you are the queen?”
“No, he believes it so firmly that he would take the sacrament on it. That is to say, he believes it now because I have promised him to give him publicly a sign by which he may recognize that it is the queen that loves him.”
“And this sign?” inquired her father, with a look beaming with joy.
“I have promised him that at the great tournament, the queen will give him a rosette, and that in that rosette be will find a note from the queen.”
“Ah, the idea is an admirable one!” exclaimed Lord Douglas, “and only a woman who wishes to avenge herself could conceive it. So, then, the queen will become her own accuser, and herself give into our hands a proof of her guilt. The only difficulty in the way is to bring the queen, without arousing her suspicion, to wear this rosette, and to give it to Surrey.”
“She will do it if I beg her to do so, for she loves me; and I shall so represent it to her that she will do it as an act of kindness to me. Catharine is good-natured and agreeable, and cannot refuse a request.”
“And I will apprise the king of it. That is to say, I shall take good care not to do this myself, for it is always dangerous to approach a hungry tiger in his cage and carry him his food, because he might in his voracity very readily devour our own hand together with the proffered meat.”
“But how?” asked she with an expression of alarm. “Will he content himself with punishing Catharine alone; will he not also crush him—him whom he must look upon as her lover?”
“He will do so. But you yourself shall save him and set him free. You shall open his prison and give him freedom, and he will love you—you, the savior of his life.”
“Father, father, it is a hazardous game that you are playing; and it may happen that you will become thereby your daughter’s murderer. For, listen well to what I tell you; if his head falls, I die by my own hands; if you make me his murderess, you become thereby mine; and I will curse you and execrate you in hell! What to me is a royal crown if it is stained with Henry Howard’s blood? What care I for renown and honor, if he is not there to see my greatness, and if his beaming eyes do not reflect back to me the light of my crown? Protect him, therefore; guard his life as the apple of your eye, if you wish me to accept the royal crown that you offer me, so that the King of England may become again a vassal of the Church!”
“And that the whole of devout Christendom may praise Jane Douglas, the pious queen who has succeeded in the holy work of bringing the rebellious and recreant son of the Church, Henry the Eighth, back to the Holy Father in Rome, to the only consecrated lord of the Church, truly penitent. On, on, my daughter; do not despond. A high aim beckons you, and a brilliant fortune awaits you! Our holy mother, the Church, will bless and praise you, and Henry the Eighth will declare you his queen.”