Читать книгу Shakespeare's Christmas and Other Stories - Arthur Quiller-Couch - Страница 9

"Tut! tut!—the wench will come to fast enough in the fresh air. A dare-devil jade, too, to be sparking it on Bankside at this hour! But it takes more than a woman, they say, to kill a mouse, and with serpents her sex hath an ancient feud. What's her name, I wonder?"

The candles, burning low and guttering in the draught of the open window, showed a banquet-hall deserted, or all but deserted. A small crowd of the guests—our apprentice among them—had trooped downstairs after Shakespeare and his burden. Others, reminded by the grey dawn, had slipped away on their own account to hire a passage home from the sleepy watermen before Paris Garden Stairs.

"Can any one tell me her name, now?" repeated John Shakespeare, rolling to the table and pouring himself yet another glass of wine. But no one answered him. The snake-woman had folded back her pets within her bodice and resumed her meal as though nothing had happened. The burly drummer had chosen a chair beside her and fallen to on the remains of a pasty. Both were eating voraciously. Francisco, the pipe-player, sat sidesaddle-wise on a form at a little distance and drank and watched them, still with the horror in his eyes. One or two women lingered, and searched the tables, pocketing crusts—searched with faces such as on battlefields, at dawn, go peering among the dead and wounded.

"But hullo!" John Shakespeare swung round, glass in hand, as the apprentice stood panting in the doorway. "Faith, you return before I had well missed you."

The lad's eyes twinkled with mischief.

"An thou hasten not, master, I fear me thou may'st miss higher game; with our hosts—your son amongst 'em—even now departing by boat and, for aught I know, leaving thee to pay the shot."

"Michael and all his angels preserve us! I had forgot——"

John Shakespeare clapped a hand on his empty pocket, and ran for the stairhead. "Will!" he bawled. "Will! My son Will!"

The apprentice laughed and stepped toward the window, tittuping slightly; for (to tell the truth) he had drunk more wine than agreed with him. Standing by the window, he laughed again vacuously, drew a long breath, and so spun round on his heels at the sound of a choking cry and a rush of feet. With that he saw, as in a haze—his head being yet dizzy—the heavy man catch up his drum by its strap and, using it as a shield, with a backward sweep of the arm hurl off the youth Francisco, who had leapt on him knife in hand. Clutching the curtain, he heard the knife rip through the drum's parchment and saw the young man's face of hate as the swift parry flung him back staggering, upsetting a form, against the table's edge. He saw the glasses there leap and totter from the shock, heard their rims jar and ring together like a peal of bells.

The sound seemed to clear his brain. He could not guess what had provoked the brawl; but in one and the same instant he saw the drummer reach back an arm as if to draw the dancing woman on his knee; heard his jeering laugh as he slipped a hand down past her bare shoulder; saw her unmoved face, sullenly watching; saw Francisco, still clutching his knife, gather himself up for another spring. As he sprang the drummer's hand slid round from behind the woman's back, and it too grasped a knife. An overturned chair lay between the two, and the rail of it as Francisco leapt caught his foot, so that with a clutch he fell sideways against the table. Again the glasses jarred and rang, and yet again and more loudly as the drummer's hand went up and drove the dagger through the neck, pinning it to the board. The youth's legs contracted in a horrible kick, contracted again and fell limp. There was a gush of blood across the cloth, a sound of breath escaping and choked in its escape: and as the killer wrenched out his knife for a second stroke, the body slid with a thud to the floor.

The apprentice had feasted, and feasted well; yet throughout the feast (he bethought himself of this later), no serving-man and but one serving-maid had entered the room. Wines and dishes had come at call to a hatch in the wall at the far end of the room. One serving-maid had done all the rest, moving behind the guests' chairs with a face and mien which reminded him of a tall angel he had seen once borne in a car of triumph at a City show. But now as he left his curtain, twittering, crazed with fear, spreading out both hands toward the stain on the tablecloth, a door beside the hatch opened noiselessly, and swift and prompt as though they had been watching, two men entered, flung a dark coverlet over the body, lifted and bore it off, closing the door behind them. They went as they had come, swiftly, without a word. He had seen it as plainly as he saw now the murderer sheathing his knife, the woman sullenly watching him. The other women, too, had vanished—they that had been gleaning among the broken crusts. Had they decamped, scurrying, at the first hint of the brawl? He could not tell: they had been, and were not.

He stretched out both hands towards the man, the woman—would they, too, vanish?—and the damning stain? A cry worked in his throat, but would not come.

"Gone!" a voice called, hearty at once and disconsolate, from the doorway behind him. "Gone—given me the slip, as I am a Christian sinner. What? You three left alone here? But where is our friend the piper?"

The apprentice made a snatch at a flask of wine, and, turning, let its contents spill wildly over the bloodied tablecloth.

"Art drunk, lad—shamefully drunk," said John Shakespeare, lurching forward. "They have given me the slip, I say, and ne'er a groat have I to redeem my promises."

"They paid the score below—I saw them; and this thy son charged me to hand to thee." The apprentice drew a full purse from his pocket and flung it on the table. "I—I played thee a trick, master: but let me forth into fresh air. This room dizzies me...."

"Go thy ways—go thy ways, child. For my part I was ever last at a feast to leave it, and would crack one more cup with these good folk. To your health, Madam!" He reached a hand for the wine-flask as the apprentice set it down and went forth, tottering yet.