Sir John advanced toward her with as much elegance as he might muster; for gout when coupled with such excessive bulk does not beget an overpowering amount of grace.
"_See, from the glowing East, Aurora comes_," he chirped. "Madam, permit me to welcome you to my poor apartments; they are not worthy--"
"I would see Sir John Falstaff, sir," declared the lady, courteously, but with some reserve of manner, and looking him full in the face as she said this.
"Indeed, madam," suggested Sir John, "if those bright eyes--whose glances have already cut my poor heart into as many pieces as the man in the front of the almanac--will but desist for a moment from such butcher"s work and do their proper duty, you will have little trouble in finding the bluff soldier you seek."
"Are you Sir John?" asked the lady, as though suspecting a jest. "The son of old Sir Edward Falstaff, of Norfolk?"
"His wife hath frequently a.s.sured me so," Sir John protested, very gravely; "and to confirm her evidence I have about me a certain villainous thirst that did plague Sir Edward sorely in his lifetime, and came to me with his other chattels. The property I have expended long since; but no Jew will advance me a maravedi on the Falstaff thirst. It is a priceless commodity, not to be bought or sold; you might as soon quench it."
"I would not have known you," said the lady, wonderingly; "but," she added, "I have not seen you these forty years."
"Faith, madam," grinned the knight, "the great pilferer Time hath since then taken away a little from my hair, and added somewhat (saving your presence) to my belly; and my face hath not been improved by being the grindstone for some hundred swords. But I do not know you."
"I am Sylvia Vernon," said the lady. "And once, a long while ago, I was Sylvia Darke."
"I remember," said the knight. His voice was altered. Bardolph would hardly have known it; nor, perhaps, would he have recognized his master"s manner as he handed Dame Sylvia to the best chair.
"A long while ago," she repeated, sadly, after a pause during which the crackling of the fire was very audible. "Time hath dealt harshly with us both, John;--the name hath a sweet savor. I am an old woman now. And you--"
"I would not have known you," said Sir John; then asked, almost resentfully, "What do you here?"
"My son goes to the wars," she answered, "and I am come to bid him farewell; yet I should not tarry in London, for my lord is feeble and hath constant need of me. But I, an old woman, am yet vain enough to steal these few moments from him who needs me, to see for the last time, mayhap, him who was once my very dear friend."
"I was never your friend, Sylvia," said Sir John.
"Ah, the old wrangle!" said the lady, and smiled a little wistfully. "My dear and very honored lover, then; and I am come to see him here."
"Ay!" interrupted Sir John, rather hastily; and he proceeded, glowing with benevolence: "A quiet, orderly place, where I bestow my patronage; the woman of the house had once a husband in my company. G.o.d rest his soul! he bore a good pike. He retired in his old age and "stablished this tavern, where he pa.s.sed his declining years, till death called him gently away from this naughty world. G.o.d rest his soul, say I!"
This was a somewhat euphemistic version of the taking-off of Goodman Quickly, who had been knocked over the head with a joint-stool while rifling the pockets of a drunken guest; but perhaps Sir John wished to speak well of the dead, even at the price of conferring upon the present home of Sir John an idyllic atmosphere denied it by the London constabulary.
"And you for old memories" sake yet aid his widow?" the lady murmured.
"That is like you, John."
There was another silence, and the fire crackled more loudly than ever.
"And are you sorry that I come again, in a worse body, John, strange and time-ruined?"
"Sorry?" echoed Sir John; and, ungallant as it was, he hesitated a moment before replying: "No, faith! But there are some ghosts that will not easily bear raising, and you have raised one."
"We have summoned up no very fearful spectre, I think," replied the lady; "at most, no worse than a pallid, gentle spirit that speaks--to me, at least--of a boy and a girl who loved each other and were very happy a great while ago."
"Are you come hither to seek that boy?" asked the knight, and chuckled, though not merrily. "The boy that went mad and rhymed of you in those far-off dusty years? He is quite dead, my lady; he was drowned, mayhap, in a cup of wine. Or he was slain, perchance, by a few light women. I know not how he died. But he is quite dead, my lady, and I had not been haunted by his ghost until to-day."
He stared at the floor as he ended; then choked, and broke into a fit of coughing which unromantic chance brought on just now, of all times.
"He was a dear boy," she said, presently; "a boy who loved a young maid very truly; a boy that found the maid"s father too strong and shrewd for desperate young lovers--Eh, how long ago it seems, and what a flood of tears the poor maid shed at being parted from that dear boy!"
"Faith!" admitted Sir John, "the rogue had his good points."
"Ah, John, you have not forgotten, I know," the lady said, looking up into his face, "and, you will believe me that I am very heartily sorry for the pain I brought into your life?"
"My wounds heal easily," said Sir John.
"For though my dear dead father was too wise for us, and knew it was for the best that I should not accept your love, believe me, John, I always knew the value of that love, and have held it an honor that any woman must prize."
"Dear lady," the knight suggested, with a slight grimace, "the world is not altogether of your opinion."
"I know not of the world," she said; "for we live away from it. But we have heard of you ever and anon; I have your life quite letter-perfect for these forty years or more."
"You have heard of me?" asked Sir John; and, for a seasoned knave, he looked rather uncomfortable.
"As a gallant and brave soldier," she answered; "of how you fought at sea with Mowbray that was afterward Duke of Norfolk; of your knighthood by King Richard; of how you slew the Percy at Shrewsbury; and captured Coleville o" late in Yorkshire; and how the Prince, that now is King, did love you above all men; and, in fine, of many splendid doings in the great world."
Sir John raised a protesting hand. He said, with commendable modesty: "I have fought somewhat. But we are not Bevis of Southampton; we have slain no giants. Heard you naught else?"
"Little else of note," replied the lady; and went on, very quietly: "But we are proud of you at home in Norfolk. And such tales as I have heard I have woven together in one story; and I have told it many times to my children as we sat on the old Chapel steps at evening, and the shadows lengthened across the lawn, and I bid them emulate this, the most perfect knight and gallant gentleman that I have known. And they love you, I think, though but by repute."
Once more silence fell between them; and the fire grinned wickedly at the mimic fire reflected by the old chest, as though it knew of a most entertaining secret.
"Do you yet live at Winstead?" asked Sir John, half idly.
"Yes," she answered; "in the old house. It is little changed, but there are many changes about."
"Is Moll yet with you that did once carry our letters?"
"Married to Hodge, the tanner," the lady said; "and dead long since."
"And all our merry company?" Sir John demanded. "Marian? And Tom and little Osric? And Phyllis? And Adelais? Zounds, it is like a breath of country air to speak their names once more."
"All dead," she answered, in a hushed voice, "save Adelais, and even to me poor Adelais seems old and strange. Walter was slain in the French wars, and she hath never married."
"All dead," Sir John informed the fire, as if confidentially; then he laughed, though his bloodshot eyes were not merry. "This same Death hath a wide maw! It is not long before you and I, my lady, will be at supper with the worms. But you, at least, have had a happy life."
"I have been content enough," she said, "but all that seems run by; for, John, I think that at our age we are not any longer very happy nor very miserable."
"Faith!" agreed Sir John, "we are both old; and I had not known it, my lady, until to-day."
Again there was silence; and again the fire leapt with delight at the jest.
Sylvia Vernon arose suddenly and cried, "I would I had not come!"
Then said Sir John: "Nay, this is but a feeble grieving you have wakened.
For, madam--you whom I loved once!--you are in the right. Our blood runs thinner than of yore; and we may no longer, I think, either sorrow or rejoice very deeply."
"It is true," she said; "but I must go; and, indeed, I would to G.o.d I had not come!"