Chapter Thirteen.My Lord Elect of York.“She only said,—‘The day is dreary,He will not come,’ she said:She wept,—‘I am aweary, weary,—O God, that I were dead!’”Tennyson.“What, ho! Gate, ho! Open unto my Lord elect of York!”The cry startled the porter at Hazelwood Manor from an afternoon nap. He sprang up and hurried out, in utter confusion at his negligence. To keep a priest waiting would have been bad manners enough, and an abbot still worse; but an archbishop was, in the porter’s estimate, a semi-celestial being. True, this Archbishop was not yet consecrated, nor had he received his pallium from Rome, both which considerations detracted from his holiness, and therefore from his importance; but he was the Archbishop of the province, and the shadow of his future dignity was imposing to an insignificant porter. Poor Wilkin went down on his knees in a puddle, as soon as he had got the gate open, to beg the potentate’s pardon and blessing, and only rose from them summarily to collar Colle, who had so little notion of the paramount claims of an archbishop that he received the cavalcade with barks as noisy as he would have bestowed on any worldly pedlar. Nay, so very unmannerly was Colle, that when he was let go, he marched straight to the Archbishop, and after a prolonged sniff at the archiepiscopal boots, presumed so far as to wag his very secular tail, and even to give an uninvited lick to the archiepiscopal glove. The Archbishop, instead of excommunicating Colle, laid his hand gently on the dog’s head and patted him; which so emboldened that audacious quadruped that he actually climbed up the prelate, with more decided wagging than before.“Nay, my son!” said the Archbishop, gently, to an officious young priest in his suite, who would have dragged the dog away—“grudge me not my welcome. Dogs be honest creatures, and dissemble not. Hast thou never heard the saw, that ‘they be ill folks that dogs and children will not go withal’?”And with another pat of Colle’s head, the Archbishop dismissed him, and walked into the hall to meet a further welcome from the whole family and household, all upon their knees. Blessing them in the usual priestly manner, he commanded them to rise, and Sir Godfrey then presented his sons and squire, while Lady Foljambe did the same for the young ladies.“Mistress Margaret Foljambe, my son’s wife, an’ it please your Grace; and Mistress Perrote de Carhaix, my head chamberer. These be my bower-women, Agatha de La Beche and Amphillis Neville.”“Neville!” echoed the Archbishop, instantly. “Of what Nevilles comest thou, my maid?”“Please it you, holy Father,” said the confused Amphillis, more frightened still to hear a sharp “your Grace!” whispered from Lady Foljambe; “I know little of my kin, an’ it like your Grace. My father was Walter Neville, and his father a Ralph, but more know I not, under your Grace’s pleasure.”“How comes it thou wist no more?”“May it please your Grace, my father dwelt in Hertfordshire, and he wedded under his estate, so that his family cast him off, as I have heard,” said Amphillis, growing every moment more hot and confused, for it was no light ordeal for one in her position to be singled out for conversation by an archbishop, and she sorely feared an after ebullition of Lady Foljambe’s wrath.“My child!” said the Archbishop with great interest, and very gently, “did thy father wed one Margery Altham, of London, whose father dwelt in the Strand, and was a baker?”“He did so, under your Grace’s pardon,” said poor Amphillis, blushing for the paternal shortcomings; “but, may it please your Grace, he was a master-pastiller, not a baker.”A little smile of amusement at the delicate distinction played about the Archbishop’s lips.“Why, then, Cousin Amphillis, I think thy cousin may ask thee for a kiss,” said he, softly touching the girl’s cheek with his lips. “My Lady Foljambe, I am full glad to meet here so near a kinswoman, and I do heartily entreat you that my word may weigh with you to deal well with this my cousin.”Lady Foljambe, with a low reverence, assured his Grace that she had been entirely unaware, like Amphillis herself, that her bower-woman could claim even remote kindred with so exalted a house and so dignified a person; and that in future she should assume the position proper to her birth. And to her astonishment, Amphillis was passed by her Ladyship up the table, above Agatha, above even Perrote—nay, above Mistress Margaret—and seated, not by any means to her comfort, next to Lady Foljambe herself. From that day she was no more addressed with the familiarthou, but always with theyou, which denoted equality or respect. When Lady Foljambe styled her Mistress Amphillis, she endured it with a blush. But when Perrote substituted it for the affectionate “Phyllis” usual on her lips, she was tearfully entreated not to make a change.The Archbishop was on his way south for the ceremony of consecration, which required a dispensation if performed anywhere outside the Cathedral of Canterbury, unless bestowed by the Pope himself. His visit set Sir Godfrey thinking. Here was a man who might safely be allowed to visit the dying Countess—being, of course, told the need for secrecy—and if he requested it of him, Perrote must cease to worry him after that. No poor priest, nor all the poor priests put together, could be the equivalent of a live Archbishop.He consulted Lady Foljambe, and found her of the same mind as himself. It would be awkward, she admitted, if the Countess died, to find themselves censured for not having supplied her with spiritual ministrations proper for her rank. Here was a perfect opportunity. It would be a sin to lose it.It was, indeed, in a different sense to that in which she used the words, a perfect opportunity. The name of Alexander Neville has come down to us as that of the gentlest man of his day, one of the most lovable that ever lived. Beside this quality, which rendered him a peculiarly fit ministrant to the sick and dying, he was among the most prominent Lollards; he had drunk deep into the Scriptures, and, therefore, while not free from superstition—no man then was—he was very much more free than the majority. Charms and incantations, texts tied round the neck, and threads or hairs swallowed in holy water, had little value to the masculine intellect of Alexander Neville. And along with this masculine intellect was a heart of feminine tenderness, which would enable him to enter, so far as it was possible for a celibate priest to enter, into the sad yearnings of the dying mother, whose children did not care to come to her, and held aloof even in the last hour of her weary life. In those times, when worldliness had eaten like a canker into the heart of the Church, almost as much as in our own—when preferment was set higher than truth, and Court favour was held of more worth than faithfulness, one of the most unworldly men living was this elect Archbishop. The rank of his penitent would weigh nothing with him. She would be to him only a passing soul, a wronged woman, a lonely widow, a neglected mother.After supper, Sir Godfrey drew the Archbishop aside into his private room, and told him, with fervent injunctions to secrecy, the sorrowful tale of his secluded prisoner. As much sternness as was in Archbishop Neville’s heart contracted his brows and drew his lips into a frown.“Does my Lord Duke of Brittany know his mother’s condition?”“Ay, if it please your Grace.” Sir Godfrey repeated the substance of the answer already imparted to Perrote.“Holy saints!” exclaimed the Archbishop. “And my Lady Basset, what saith she?”“An’ it like your Grace, I sent not unto her.”“But wherefore, my son? An’ the son will not come, then should the daughter. I pray you, send off a messenger to my Lady Basset at once; and suffer me to see your prisoner. Is she verily nigh death, or may she linger yet a season?”“Father Jordan reckoneth she may yet abide divers weeks, your Grace; in especial if the spring be mild, as it biddeth fair. She fadeth but full slow.”Sir Godfrey’s tone was that of an injured man, who was not properly treated, either by the Countess or Providence, through this very gradual demise of the former. The Archbishop’s reply—“Poor lady!” was in accents of unmitigated compassion.Lady Foljambe was summoned by her husband, and she conducted the prelate to the turret-chamber, where the Countess sat in her chair by the window, and Amphillis was in attendance. He entered with uplifted hand, and the benediction of “Christ, save all here!”Amphillis rose, hastily gathering her work upon one arm. The Countess, who had heard nothing, for she had been sleeping since her bower-maiden returned from supper, looked up with more interest than she usually showed. The entrance of a complete stranger was something very unexpected and unaccountable.“Christ save you, holy Father! I pray you, pardon me that I arise not, being ill at ease, to entreat your blessing. Well, Avena, what has moved thee to bring a fresh face into this my dungeon, prithee? It should be somewhat of import.”“Madame, this is my Lord’s Grace elect of York, who, coming hither on his way southwards, mine husband counted it good for your Grace’s soul to shrive you of his Grace’s hand. My Lord, if your Grace have need of a crucifix, or of holy water, both be behind this curtain. Come, Mistress Amphillis. His Grace will be pleased to rap on the door, when it list him to come forth; and I pray you, abide in your chamber, and hearken for the same.”“I thank thee, Avena,” said the Countess, with her curt laugh. “Sooth to say, I wist not my soul was of such worth in thine eyes, and still less in thine husband’s. I would my body weighed a little more with the pair of you. So I am to confess my sins, forsooth? That shall be a light matter, methinks; I have but little chance to sin, shut up in this cage. Truly, I should find myself hard put to it to do damage to any of the Ten Commandments, hereaway. A dungeon’s all out praisable for keeping folks good—nigh as well as a sick bed. And when man has both together, he should be marvellous innocent. There, go thy ways; I’ll send for thee when I lack thee.”Lady Foljambe almost slammed the door behind her, and, locking it, charged Amphillis to listen carefully for the Archbishop’s knock, and to unlock the door the moment she should hear it.The Archbishop, meanwhile, had seated himself in the only chair in the room corresponding to that of the Countess. A chair was an object of consequence in the eyes of a mediaeval gentleman, for none but persons of high rank might sit on a chair; all others were relegated to a form, styled a bench when it had a back to it. Stools, however, were allowed to all. That certain formalities or styles of magnificence should have been restricted to persons of rank may be reasonable; but it does seem absurd that no others should have been allowed to be comfortable. “The good old times” were decidedly inconvenient for such as had no handles to their names.“I speak, as I have been told, to the Lady Marguerite, Duchess of Brittany, and mother to my Lord Duke?” inquired the Archbishop.“And Countess of Montfort,” was the answer. “Pray your Grace, give me all my names, for nought else is left me to pleasure me withal—saving a two-three ounces of slea-silk and an ell of gold fringe.”“And what else would you?”“What else?” The question was asked in passionate tones, and the dark flashing eyes went longingly across the valley to the Alport heights. “I would have my life back again,” she said. “I have not had a fair chance. I have done with my life not that I willed, but only that which others gave leave for me to do. Six and twenty years have I been tethered, and fretted, and limited, granted only the semblance of power, the picture of life, and thrust and pulled back whensoever I strained in the least at the leash wherein I was held. No dog has been more penned up and chained than I! And now, for eight years have I been cabined in one chamber, shut up from the very air of heaven whereunto God made all men free—shut up from every face that I knew and loved, saving one of mine ancient waiting-maids—verily, if they would use me worser than so, they shall be hard put to it, save to thrust me into my coffin and fasten down the lid on me. I want my life back again! I want the bright harvest of my youth, which these slugs and maggots have devoured, which I never had. I want the bloom of my dead happiness which men tare away from me. I want my dead lord, and mine estranged children, and my lost life! Tell me, has God no treasury whence He pays compensation for such wrongs as mine? Must I never see my little child again, the baby lad that clung to me and would not see me weep? My pillow is wet now, and no man careth for it—nay, nor God Himself. I was alway true woman; I never wronged human soul, that I know. I paid my dues, and shrived me clean, and lived honestly. Wherefore is all this come upon me?”“Lady Marguerite, if you lost a penny and gained a gold noble, would you think you were repaid the loss or no?”“In very deed I should,” the sick woman replied, languidly; the fire had spent itself in that outburst, and the embers had little warmth left in them.“Yet,” said the Archbishop, significantly, “you would not have won the lost thing back.”“What matter, so I had its better?”“We will return to that. But first I have another thing to ask. You say you never wronged man to your knowledge. Have you always paid all your dues to Him that is above men?”“I never robbed the Church of a penny!”“There be other debts than pence, my daughter. Have you kept, to the best of your power, all the commandments of God?”“In very deed I have.”“You never worshipped any other God?”“I never worshipped neither Jupiter nor Juno, nor Venus, nor Diana, nor Mars, nor Mercury.”“That can I full readily believe. But as there be other debts than money, so there be other gods than Jupiter. Honoured you no man nor thing above God? Cared you alway more for His glory than for the fame of Marguerite of Flanders, or the comfort of Jean de Bretagne?”“Marry, you come close!” said the Countess, with a laugh. “Fame and ease be not gods, good Father.”“They be not God,” was the significant answer. “‘Ye are servants to him whom ye obey,’ saith the apostle, and man may obey other than his lawful master. Whatsoever you set, or suffer to set himself, in God’s place, that is your god. What has been your god, my daughter?”“I am never a bit worse than my neighbours,” said the Countess, leaving that inconvenient question without answer, and repairing, as thousands do, to that very much broken cistern of equality in transgression.“You must be better than your neighbours ere God shall suffer you in His holy Heaven. You must be as good as He is, or you shall not win thither. And since man cannot be so, the only refuge for him is to take shelter under the cross of Christ, which wrought righteousness to cover him.”“Then man may live as he list, and cover him with Christ’s righteousness?” slily responded the Countess, with that instant recourse to the Antinomianism inherent in fallen man.“‘If man say he knoweth Him, and keepeth not His commandments, he is a liar,’” quoted the Archbishop in reply. “‘He that saith he abideth in Him, ought to walk as He walked.’ Man cannot abide in Christ, and commit sin, for He hath no sin. You left unanswered my question, Lady: what has been your god?”“I have paid due worship to God and the Church,” was the rather stubborn answer. “Pass on, I pray you. I worshipped no false god; I took not God’s name in vain no more than other folks; I always heard mass of a Sunday and festival day; I never murdered nor stole; and as to telling false witness, beshrew me if it were false witness to tell Avena Foljambe she is a born fool, the which I have done many a time in the day. Come now, let me off gently, Father. There are scores of worser women in this world than me.”“God will not judge you, Lady, for the sins of other women; neither will He let you go free for the goodness of other. There is but One other for whose sake you shall be suffered to go free, and that only if you be one with Him in such wise that your deeds and His be reckoned as one, like as the debts of a wife be reckoned to her husband, and his honours be shared by her. Are you thus one with Jesu Christ our Lord?”“In good sooth, I know not what you mean. I am in the Church: what more lack I? The Church must see to it that I come safe, so long as I shrive me and keep me clear of mortal sin: and little chance of mortal sin have I, cooped up in this cage.”“Daughter, the Church is every righteous man that is joined with Christ. If you wist not what I mean, can you be thus joined? Could a woman be wedded to a man, and not know it? Could two knights enter into covenant, to live and die each with other, and be all unsure whether they had so done or no? It were far more impossible than this, that you should be a member of Christ’s body, and not know what it meaneth so to be.”“But I am in Holy Church!” urged the Countess, uneasily.“I fear not so, my daughter.”“Father, you be marvellous different from all other priests that ever spake to me. With all other, I have shrived me and been absolved, and there ended the matter. I had sins to confess, be sure; and they looked I should so have, and no more. But you—would you have me perfect saint, without sin? None but great saints be thus, as I have been taught.”“Not the greatest of saints, truly. There is no man alive that sinneth not. What is sin?”“Breaking the commandments, I reckon.”“Ay, and in especial that first and greatest—‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy mind, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength.’ Daughter, hast thou so loved Him—so that neither ease nor pleasure, neither fame nor life, neither earth nor self, came between your love and Him, was set above Him, and served afore Him? Speak truly, like the true woman you are. I wait your answer.”It was several moments before the answer came.“Father, is that sin?”“My daughter, it is the sin of sins: the sin whence all other sins flow—this estrangement of the heart from God. For if we truly loved God, and perfectly, should we commit sin?—could we so do? Could we desire to worship any other than Him, or to set anything before Him?—could we bear to profane His name, to neglect His commands, to go contrary to His will? Should we then bear ill-will to other men who love Him, and whom He loveth? Should we speak falsely in His ears who is the Truth? Should we suffer pride to defile our souls, knowing that He dwelleth with the lowly in heart? Answer me, Lady Marguerite.”“Father, you are sore hard. Think you God, that is up in Heaven, taketh note of a white lie or twain, or a few cross words by nows and thens? not to name a mere wish that passeth athwart man’s heart and is gone?”“God taketh note of sin, daughter. And sin issin—it is rebellion against the King of Heaven. What think you your son would say to a captain of his, which pleaded that he did but surrender one little postern gate to the enemy, and that there were four other strong portals that led into the town, all whereof he had well defended?”“Why, the enemy might enter as well through the postern as any other. To be in, is to be in, no matter how he find entrance.”“Truth. And the lightest desire can be sin, as well as the wickedest deed. Verily, if the desire never arose, the deed should be ill-set to follow.”“Then God is punishing me?” she said, wistfully.“God is looking for you,” was the quiet answer. “The sheep hath gone astray over moor and morass, and the night is dark and cold, and it bleateth piteously: and the Shepherd is come out of the warm fold, and is tracking it on the lonely hills, and calling to it. Lady, will the sheep answer His voice? will it bleat again and again, until He find it? or will it refuse to hear, and run further into the morass, and be engulfed and fully lost in the dark waters, or snatched and carried into the wolf’s den? God is not punishing you now; He is loving you; He is waiting to see if you will take His way of escape from punishment. But the punishment of your sins must be laid upon some one, and it is for you to choose whether you will bear it yourself, or will lay it upon Him who came down from Heaven that He might bear it for you. It must be either upon you or Him.”The face lighted up suddenly, and the thin weak hands were stretched out.“If God love me,” she said, “let Him give me back my children! He would, if He did. Let them come back to me, and I shall believe it. Without this I cannot. Father, I mean none ill; I would fain think as you say. But my heart is weak, and my life ebbs low, and I cannot bleat back again. O God, for my children!—for only one of them! I would be content with one. If Thou lovest me—if I have sinned, and Thou wouldst spare me, give me back my child! ‘Thou madest far from me friend and neighbour’—give me backone, O God!”“Daughter, we may not dictate to our King,” said the Archbishop, gently. “Yet I doubt not there be times when He stoops mercifully to weakness and misery, and helps our unbelief. May He grant your petition! And now, I think you lack rest, and have had converse enough. I will see you again ere I depart.Benedicite!”
“She only said,—‘The day is dreary,He will not come,’ she said:She wept,—‘I am aweary, weary,—O God, that I were dead!’”Tennyson.
“She only said,—‘The day is dreary,He will not come,’ she said:She wept,—‘I am aweary, weary,—O God, that I were dead!’”Tennyson.
“What, ho! Gate, ho! Open unto my Lord elect of York!”
The cry startled the porter at Hazelwood Manor from an afternoon nap. He sprang up and hurried out, in utter confusion at his negligence. To keep a priest waiting would have been bad manners enough, and an abbot still worse; but an archbishop was, in the porter’s estimate, a semi-celestial being. True, this Archbishop was not yet consecrated, nor had he received his pallium from Rome, both which considerations detracted from his holiness, and therefore from his importance; but he was the Archbishop of the province, and the shadow of his future dignity was imposing to an insignificant porter. Poor Wilkin went down on his knees in a puddle, as soon as he had got the gate open, to beg the potentate’s pardon and blessing, and only rose from them summarily to collar Colle, who had so little notion of the paramount claims of an archbishop that he received the cavalcade with barks as noisy as he would have bestowed on any worldly pedlar. Nay, so very unmannerly was Colle, that when he was let go, he marched straight to the Archbishop, and after a prolonged sniff at the archiepiscopal boots, presumed so far as to wag his very secular tail, and even to give an uninvited lick to the archiepiscopal glove. The Archbishop, instead of excommunicating Colle, laid his hand gently on the dog’s head and patted him; which so emboldened that audacious quadruped that he actually climbed up the prelate, with more decided wagging than before.
“Nay, my son!” said the Archbishop, gently, to an officious young priest in his suite, who would have dragged the dog away—“grudge me not my welcome. Dogs be honest creatures, and dissemble not. Hast thou never heard the saw, that ‘they be ill folks that dogs and children will not go withal’?”
And with another pat of Colle’s head, the Archbishop dismissed him, and walked into the hall to meet a further welcome from the whole family and household, all upon their knees. Blessing them in the usual priestly manner, he commanded them to rise, and Sir Godfrey then presented his sons and squire, while Lady Foljambe did the same for the young ladies.
“Mistress Margaret Foljambe, my son’s wife, an’ it please your Grace; and Mistress Perrote de Carhaix, my head chamberer. These be my bower-women, Agatha de La Beche and Amphillis Neville.”
“Neville!” echoed the Archbishop, instantly. “Of what Nevilles comest thou, my maid?”
“Please it you, holy Father,” said the confused Amphillis, more frightened still to hear a sharp “your Grace!” whispered from Lady Foljambe; “I know little of my kin, an’ it like your Grace. My father was Walter Neville, and his father a Ralph, but more know I not, under your Grace’s pleasure.”
“How comes it thou wist no more?”
“May it please your Grace, my father dwelt in Hertfordshire, and he wedded under his estate, so that his family cast him off, as I have heard,” said Amphillis, growing every moment more hot and confused, for it was no light ordeal for one in her position to be singled out for conversation by an archbishop, and she sorely feared an after ebullition of Lady Foljambe’s wrath.
“My child!” said the Archbishop with great interest, and very gently, “did thy father wed one Margery Altham, of London, whose father dwelt in the Strand, and was a baker?”
“He did so, under your Grace’s pardon,” said poor Amphillis, blushing for the paternal shortcomings; “but, may it please your Grace, he was a master-pastiller, not a baker.”
A little smile of amusement at the delicate distinction played about the Archbishop’s lips.
“Why, then, Cousin Amphillis, I think thy cousin may ask thee for a kiss,” said he, softly touching the girl’s cheek with his lips. “My Lady Foljambe, I am full glad to meet here so near a kinswoman, and I do heartily entreat you that my word may weigh with you to deal well with this my cousin.”
Lady Foljambe, with a low reverence, assured his Grace that she had been entirely unaware, like Amphillis herself, that her bower-woman could claim even remote kindred with so exalted a house and so dignified a person; and that in future she should assume the position proper to her birth. And to her astonishment, Amphillis was passed by her Ladyship up the table, above Agatha, above even Perrote—nay, above Mistress Margaret—and seated, not by any means to her comfort, next to Lady Foljambe herself. From that day she was no more addressed with the familiarthou, but always with theyou, which denoted equality or respect. When Lady Foljambe styled her Mistress Amphillis, she endured it with a blush. But when Perrote substituted it for the affectionate “Phyllis” usual on her lips, she was tearfully entreated not to make a change.
The Archbishop was on his way south for the ceremony of consecration, which required a dispensation if performed anywhere outside the Cathedral of Canterbury, unless bestowed by the Pope himself. His visit set Sir Godfrey thinking. Here was a man who might safely be allowed to visit the dying Countess—being, of course, told the need for secrecy—and if he requested it of him, Perrote must cease to worry him after that. No poor priest, nor all the poor priests put together, could be the equivalent of a live Archbishop.
He consulted Lady Foljambe, and found her of the same mind as himself. It would be awkward, she admitted, if the Countess died, to find themselves censured for not having supplied her with spiritual ministrations proper for her rank. Here was a perfect opportunity. It would be a sin to lose it.
It was, indeed, in a different sense to that in which she used the words, a perfect opportunity. The name of Alexander Neville has come down to us as that of the gentlest man of his day, one of the most lovable that ever lived. Beside this quality, which rendered him a peculiarly fit ministrant to the sick and dying, he was among the most prominent Lollards; he had drunk deep into the Scriptures, and, therefore, while not free from superstition—no man then was—he was very much more free than the majority. Charms and incantations, texts tied round the neck, and threads or hairs swallowed in holy water, had little value to the masculine intellect of Alexander Neville. And along with this masculine intellect was a heart of feminine tenderness, which would enable him to enter, so far as it was possible for a celibate priest to enter, into the sad yearnings of the dying mother, whose children did not care to come to her, and held aloof even in the last hour of her weary life. In those times, when worldliness had eaten like a canker into the heart of the Church, almost as much as in our own—when preferment was set higher than truth, and Court favour was held of more worth than faithfulness, one of the most unworldly men living was this elect Archbishop. The rank of his penitent would weigh nothing with him. She would be to him only a passing soul, a wronged woman, a lonely widow, a neglected mother.
After supper, Sir Godfrey drew the Archbishop aside into his private room, and told him, with fervent injunctions to secrecy, the sorrowful tale of his secluded prisoner. As much sternness as was in Archbishop Neville’s heart contracted his brows and drew his lips into a frown.
“Does my Lord Duke of Brittany know his mother’s condition?”
“Ay, if it please your Grace.” Sir Godfrey repeated the substance of the answer already imparted to Perrote.
“Holy saints!” exclaimed the Archbishop. “And my Lady Basset, what saith she?”
“An’ it like your Grace, I sent not unto her.”
“But wherefore, my son? An’ the son will not come, then should the daughter. I pray you, send off a messenger to my Lady Basset at once; and suffer me to see your prisoner. Is she verily nigh death, or may she linger yet a season?”
“Father Jordan reckoneth she may yet abide divers weeks, your Grace; in especial if the spring be mild, as it biddeth fair. She fadeth but full slow.”
Sir Godfrey’s tone was that of an injured man, who was not properly treated, either by the Countess or Providence, through this very gradual demise of the former. The Archbishop’s reply—“Poor lady!” was in accents of unmitigated compassion.
Lady Foljambe was summoned by her husband, and she conducted the prelate to the turret-chamber, where the Countess sat in her chair by the window, and Amphillis was in attendance. He entered with uplifted hand, and the benediction of “Christ, save all here!”
Amphillis rose, hastily gathering her work upon one arm. The Countess, who had heard nothing, for she had been sleeping since her bower-maiden returned from supper, looked up with more interest than she usually showed. The entrance of a complete stranger was something very unexpected and unaccountable.
“Christ save you, holy Father! I pray you, pardon me that I arise not, being ill at ease, to entreat your blessing. Well, Avena, what has moved thee to bring a fresh face into this my dungeon, prithee? It should be somewhat of import.”
“Madame, this is my Lord’s Grace elect of York, who, coming hither on his way southwards, mine husband counted it good for your Grace’s soul to shrive you of his Grace’s hand. My Lord, if your Grace have need of a crucifix, or of holy water, both be behind this curtain. Come, Mistress Amphillis. His Grace will be pleased to rap on the door, when it list him to come forth; and I pray you, abide in your chamber, and hearken for the same.”
“I thank thee, Avena,” said the Countess, with her curt laugh. “Sooth to say, I wist not my soul was of such worth in thine eyes, and still less in thine husband’s. I would my body weighed a little more with the pair of you. So I am to confess my sins, forsooth? That shall be a light matter, methinks; I have but little chance to sin, shut up in this cage. Truly, I should find myself hard put to it to do damage to any of the Ten Commandments, hereaway. A dungeon’s all out praisable for keeping folks good—nigh as well as a sick bed. And when man has both together, he should be marvellous innocent. There, go thy ways; I’ll send for thee when I lack thee.”
Lady Foljambe almost slammed the door behind her, and, locking it, charged Amphillis to listen carefully for the Archbishop’s knock, and to unlock the door the moment she should hear it.
The Archbishop, meanwhile, had seated himself in the only chair in the room corresponding to that of the Countess. A chair was an object of consequence in the eyes of a mediaeval gentleman, for none but persons of high rank might sit on a chair; all others were relegated to a form, styled a bench when it had a back to it. Stools, however, were allowed to all. That certain formalities or styles of magnificence should have been restricted to persons of rank may be reasonable; but it does seem absurd that no others should have been allowed to be comfortable. “The good old times” were decidedly inconvenient for such as had no handles to their names.
“I speak, as I have been told, to the Lady Marguerite, Duchess of Brittany, and mother to my Lord Duke?” inquired the Archbishop.
“And Countess of Montfort,” was the answer. “Pray your Grace, give me all my names, for nought else is left me to pleasure me withal—saving a two-three ounces of slea-silk and an ell of gold fringe.”
“And what else would you?”
“What else?” The question was asked in passionate tones, and the dark flashing eyes went longingly across the valley to the Alport heights. “I would have my life back again,” she said. “I have not had a fair chance. I have done with my life not that I willed, but only that which others gave leave for me to do. Six and twenty years have I been tethered, and fretted, and limited, granted only the semblance of power, the picture of life, and thrust and pulled back whensoever I strained in the least at the leash wherein I was held. No dog has been more penned up and chained than I! And now, for eight years have I been cabined in one chamber, shut up from the very air of heaven whereunto God made all men free—shut up from every face that I knew and loved, saving one of mine ancient waiting-maids—verily, if they would use me worser than so, they shall be hard put to it, save to thrust me into my coffin and fasten down the lid on me. I want my life back again! I want the bright harvest of my youth, which these slugs and maggots have devoured, which I never had. I want the bloom of my dead happiness which men tare away from me. I want my dead lord, and mine estranged children, and my lost life! Tell me, has God no treasury whence He pays compensation for such wrongs as mine? Must I never see my little child again, the baby lad that clung to me and would not see me weep? My pillow is wet now, and no man careth for it—nay, nor God Himself. I was alway true woman; I never wronged human soul, that I know. I paid my dues, and shrived me clean, and lived honestly. Wherefore is all this come upon me?”
“Lady Marguerite, if you lost a penny and gained a gold noble, would you think you were repaid the loss or no?”
“In very deed I should,” the sick woman replied, languidly; the fire had spent itself in that outburst, and the embers had little warmth left in them.
“Yet,” said the Archbishop, significantly, “you would not have won the lost thing back.”
“What matter, so I had its better?”
“We will return to that. But first I have another thing to ask. You say you never wronged man to your knowledge. Have you always paid all your dues to Him that is above men?”
“I never robbed the Church of a penny!”
“There be other debts than pence, my daughter. Have you kept, to the best of your power, all the commandments of God?”
“In very deed I have.”
“You never worshipped any other God?”
“I never worshipped neither Jupiter nor Juno, nor Venus, nor Diana, nor Mars, nor Mercury.”
“That can I full readily believe. But as there be other debts than money, so there be other gods than Jupiter. Honoured you no man nor thing above God? Cared you alway more for His glory than for the fame of Marguerite of Flanders, or the comfort of Jean de Bretagne?”
“Marry, you come close!” said the Countess, with a laugh. “Fame and ease be not gods, good Father.”
“They be not God,” was the significant answer. “‘Ye are servants to him whom ye obey,’ saith the apostle, and man may obey other than his lawful master. Whatsoever you set, or suffer to set himself, in God’s place, that is your god. What has been your god, my daughter?”
“I am never a bit worse than my neighbours,” said the Countess, leaving that inconvenient question without answer, and repairing, as thousands do, to that very much broken cistern of equality in transgression.
“You must be better than your neighbours ere God shall suffer you in His holy Heaven. You must be as good as He is, or you shall not win thither. And since man cannot be so, the only refuge for him is to take shelter under the cross of Christ, which wrought righteousness to cover him.”
“Then man may live as he list, and cover him with Christ’s righteousness?” slily responded the Countess, with that instant recourse to the Antinomianism inherent in fallen man.
“‘If man say he knoweth Him, and keepeth not His commandments, he is a liar,’” quoted the Archbishop in reply. “‘He that saith he abideth in Him, ought to walk as He walked.’ Man cannot abide in Christ, and commit sin, for He hath no sin. You left unanswered my question, Lady: what has been your god?”
“I have paid due worship to God and the Church,” was the rather stubborn answer. “Pass on, I pray you. I worshipped no false god; I took not God’s name in vain no more than other folks; I always heard mass of a Sunday and festival day; I never murdered nor stole; and as to telling false witness, beshrew me if it were false witness to tell Avena Foljambe she is a born fool, the which I have done many a time in the day. Come now, let me off gently, Father. There are scores of worser women in this world than me.”
“God will not judge you, Lady, for the sins of other women; neither will He let you go free for the goodness of other. There is but One other for whose sake you shall be suffered to go free, and that only if you be one with Him in such wise that your deeds and His be reckoned as one, like as the debts of a wife be reckoned to her husband, and his honours be shared by her. Are you thus one with Jesu Christ our Lord?”
“In good sooth, I know not what you mean. I am in the Church: what more lack I? The Church must see to it that I come safe, so long as I shrive me and keep me clear of mortal sin: and little chance of mortal sin have I, cooped up in this cage.”
“Daughter, the Church is every righteous man that is joined with Christ. If you wist not what I mean, can you be thus joined? Could a woman be wedded to a man, and not know it? Could two knights enter into covenant, to live and die each with other, and be all unsure whether they had so done or no? It were far more impossible than this, that you should be a member of Christ’s body, and not know what it meaneth so to be.”
“But I am in Holy Church!” urged the Countess, uneasily.
“I fear not so, my daughter.”
“Father, you be marvellous different from all other priests that ever spake to me. With all other, I have shrived me and been absolved, and there ended the matter. I had sins to confess, be sure; and they looked I should so have, and no more. But you—would you have me perfect saint, without sin? None but great saints be thus, as I have been taught.”
“Not the greatest of saints, truly. There is no man alive that sinneth not. What is sin?”
“Breaking the commandments, I reckon.”
“Ay, and in especial that first and greatest—‘Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy mind, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength.’ Daughter, hast thou so loved Him—so that neither ease nor pleasure, neither fame nor life, neither earth nor self, came between your love and Him, was set above Him, and served afore Him? Speak truly, like the true woman you are. I wait your answer.”
It was several moments before the answer came.
“Father, is that sin?”
“My daughter, it is the sin of sins: the sin whence all other sins flow—this estrangement of the heart from God. For if we truly loved God, and perfectly, should we commit sin?—could we so do? Could we desire to worship any other than Him, or to set anything before Him?—could we bear to profane His name, to neglect His commands, to go contrary to His will? Should we then bear ill-will to other men who love Him, and whom He loveth? Should we speak falsely in His ears who is the Truth? Should we suffer pride to defile our souls, knowing that He dwelleth with the lowly in heart? Answer me, Lady Marguerite.”
“Father, you are sore hard. Think you God, that is up in Heaven, taketh note of a white lie or twain, or a few cross words by nows and thens? not to name a mere wish that passeth athwart man’s heart and is gone?”
“God taketh note of sin, daughter. And sin issin—it is rebellion against the King of Heaven. What think you your son would say to a captain of his, which pleaded that he did but surrender one little postern gate to the enemy, and that there were four other strong portals that led into the town, all whereof he had well defended?”
“Why, the enemy might enter as well through the postern as any other. To be in, is to be in, no matter how he find entrance.”
“Truth. And the lightest desire can be sin, as well as the wickedest deed. Verily, if the desire never arose, the deed should be ill-set to follow.”
“Then God is punishing me?” she said, wistfully.
“God is looking for you,” was the quiet answer. “The sheep hath gone astray over moor and morass, and the night is dark and cold, and it bleateth piteously: and the Shepherd is come out of the warm fold, and is tracking it on the lonely hills, and calling to it. Lady, will the sheep answer His voice? will it bleat again and again, until He find it? or will it refuse to hear, and run further into the morass, and be engulfed and fully lost in the dark waters, or snatched and carried into the wolf’s den? God is not punishing you now; He is loving you; He is waiting to see if you will take His way of escape from punishment. But the punishment of your sins must be laid upon some one, and it is for you to choose whether you will bear it yourself, or will lay it upon Him who came down from Heaven that He might bear it for you. It must be either upon you or Him.”
The face lighted up suddenly, and the thin weak hands were stretched out.
“If God love me,” she said, “let Him give me back my children! He would, if He did. Let them come back to me, and I shall believe it. Without this I cannot. Father, I mean none ill; I would fain think as you say. But my heart is weak, and my life ebbs low, and I cannot bleat back again. O God, for my children!—for only one of them! I would be content with one. If Thou lovest me—if I have sinned, and Thou wouldst spare me, give me back my child! ‘Thou madest far from me friend and neighbour’—give me backone, O God!”
“Daughter, we may not dictate to our King,” said the Archbishop, gently. “Yet I doubt not there be times when He stoops mercifully to weakness and misery, and helps our unbelief. May He grant your petition! And now, I think you lack rest, and have had converse enough. I will see you again ere I depart.Benedicite!”
Chapter Fourteen.Posting a Letter.“Whose fancy was his only oracle;Who could buy lands and pleasure at his will,Yet slighted that which silver could not win.”Rev. Horatius Bonar, D.D.The Archbishop rapped softly on the door of the chamber, and Amphillis sprang to let him out. She had to let herself in, so he passed her with only a smile and a blessing, and going straight to his own chamber, spent the next hour in fervent prayer. At the end of that time he went down to the hall, and asked for writing materials.This was a rather large request to make in a mediaeval manor house. Father Jordan was appealed to, as the only person likely to know the whereabouts of such scarce articles.“Well, of a surety!” exclaimed the old priest, much fluttered by the inquiry. “Methinks I may find the inkhorn,—and therewassome ink in it,—but as for writing-paper!—and I fear there shall be never a bit of parchment in the house. Wax, moreover—Richard, butler, took the last for his corks. Dear, dear! only to think his Grace should lack matter for writing! Yet, truly, ’tis not unnatural for a prelate. Now, whatever shall man do?”“Give his Grace a tile and a paint-brush,” said careless Matthew.“Cut a leaf out of a book,” suggested illiterate Godfrey.Father Jordan looked at the last speaker as if he had proposed to cook a child for dinner. Cut a leaf out of a book! Murder, theft, and arson combined, would scarcely have been more horrible in his eyes.“Holy saints, deliver us!” was his shocked answer.Norman Hylton came to the rescue.“I have here a small strip of parchment,” said he, “if his Grace were pleased to make use thereof. I had laid it by for a letter to my mother, but his Grace’s need is more than mine.”The Archbishop took the offered gift with a smile.“I thank thee, my son,” said he. “In good sooth, at this moment my need is great, seeing death waiteth for no man.”He sat down, and had scarcely remembered the want of ink, when Father Jordan came up, carrying a very dilapidated old inkhorn.“If your Grace were pleased to essay this, and could serve you withal,” suggested he, dubiously; “soothly, there is somewhat black at the bottom.”“And there is alegar in the house, plenty,” added Matthew.The Archbishop looked about for the pen.“Unlucky mortal that I am!” cried Father Jordan, smiting himself on the forehead. “Never a quill have I, by my troth!”“Have you a goose? That might mend matters,” said Matthew. “Had we but a goose, there should be quills enow.”“Men culpa, mea culpa!” cried poor Father Jordan, as though he were at confession, to the excessive amusement of the young men.Norman, who had run upstairs on finding the pen lacking, now returned with one in his hand.“Here is a quill, if your Grace be pleased withal. It is but an old one, yet I have no better,” he said, modestly.“It shall full well serve me, my son,” was the answer; “and I thank thee for thy courtesy.”For his day the Archbishop was a skilful penman, which does not by any means convey the idea of covering sheet after sheet of paper with rapid writing. The strip of parchment was about fourteen inches by four. He laid it lengthwise before him, and the letters grew slowly on it, in the old black letter hand, which took some time to form. Thus ran his letter:—“Alexander, by Divine sufferance elect of York, to the Lady Basset of Drayton wisheth peace, health, and the blessing of God Almighty.“Very dear Lady,—“Let it please you to know that the bearer hereof hath tidings to deliver of serious and instant import. We pray you full heartily to hear him without any delay, and to give full credence to such matter as he shall impart unto you: which having done, we bid you, as you value our apostolical blessing, to come hither with all speed, and we charge our very dear son, your lord, that he let not nor hinder you in obeying this our mandate. The matter presseth, and will brook no delay: and we affy ourself in you, Lady, as a woman obedient to the Church, that you will observe our bidding. And for so doing this shall be your warrant. Given at Hazelwood Manor, in the county of Derby, this Wednesday after Candlemas.”The Archbishop laid down his pen, folded his letter, and asked for silk to tie it. Matthew Foljambe ran off, returning in a moment with a roll of blue silk braid, wherewith the letter was tied up. Then wax was needed.“Ha, chétife!” said Father Jordan. “The saints forgive me my sins! Never a bit of wax had I lacked for many a month, and I gave the last to Richard, butler.”“Hath he used it all?” asked Matthew.“Be sure he so did. He should have some left only if none needed it,” responded his brother.A search was instituted. The butler regretfully admitted that all the wax supplied, to him was fastening down corks upon bottles of Alicant and Osey. Sir Godfrey had none; he had sent for some, but had not yet received it. Everybody was rather ashamed; for wax was a very necessary article in a mediaeval household, and to run short of it was a small disgrace. In this emergency Matthew, usually the person of resources, came to the rescue.“Hie thee to the cellar, Dick, and bring me up a two-three bottles of thy meanest wine,” said he. “We’ll melt it off the corks.”By this ingenious means, sufficient wax was procured to take the impress of the Archbishop’s official seal, without which the letter would bear no authentication, and the recipient could not be blamed if she refused obedience. It was then addressed—“To the hands of our very dear Lady, the Lady Joan Basset, at Drayton Manor, in the county of Stafford, be these delivered with speed. Haste, haste, for thy life, haste!”All nobles and dignitaries of the Church in 1374 used the “we” now exclusively regal.Having finished his preparations, the Archbishop despatched young Godfrey to ask his father for a private interview. Sir Godfrey at once returned to the hall, and ceremoniously handed the Archbishop into his own room.All large houses, in those days, contained a hall, which was the general meeting-place of the inhabitants, and where the family, servants, and guests, all took their meals together. This usually ran two storeys high; and into it opened from the lower storey the offices and guard-chambers, and from the upper, into a gallery running round it, the private apartments of the family, a spiral stair frequently winding down in the corner. The rooms next the hall were private sitting-rooms, leading to the bedchambers beyond; and where still greater secrecy was desired, passages led out towards separate towers. Every bedroom had its adjoining sitting-room. Of course in small houses such elaborate arrangements as these were not found, and there were no sitting-rooms except the hall itself; while labourers were content with a two-roomed house, the lower half serving as parlour and kitchen, the upper as the family bedchamber.Young Godfrey carried a chair to his father’s room. An Archbishop could not sit on a form, and there were only three chairs in the house, two of which were appropriated to the Countess. The prelate took his seat, and laid down his letter on a high stool before Sir Godfrey.“Fair Sir, may I entreat you of your courtesy, to send this letter with all good speed to my Lady Basset of Drayton, unto Staffordshire?”“Is it needful, holy Father?”“It is in sooth needful,” replied the Archbishop, in rather peremptory tones, for he plainly saw that Sir Godfrey would not do this part of his duty until he could no longer help it.“It shall put her Ladyship to great charges,” objected the knight.“The which, if she defray unwillingly, then is she no Christian woman.”“And be a journey mighty displeasant, at this winter season.”“My answer thereto is as to the last.”“And it shall blurt out the King’s privy matters.”“In no wise. I have not writ thereof a word in this letter, but have only prayed her Ladyship to give heed unto that which the bearer thereof shall make known to her privily.”“Then who is to bear the same?”“I refer me thereon, fair Sir, to your good judgment. Might one of your own sons be trusted herewith?”Sir Godfrey looked dubious. “Godfrey should turn aside to see an horse, or to tilt at any jousting that lay in his path; and Matthew, I cast no doubt, should lose your Grace’s letter in a snowdrift.”“Then have you brought them up but ill,” said the Archbishop. “But what hindereth that you go withal yourself?”“I, holy Father! I am an old man, and infirm, an’ it like your Grace.”“Ay, you were full infirm when the tilting was at Leicester,” replied the Archbishop, ironically. “My son, I enjoin thee, as thine Archbishop, that thou send this letter. Go, or send a trusty messenger, as it liketh thee best; and if thou have no such, then shall my secretary, Father Denny, carry the same, for he is full meet therefor; but go it must.”Poor Sir Godfrey was thus brought to the end of all his subterfuges. He could only say ruefully that his eldest son should bear the letter. The Archbishop thereupon took care to inform that young gentleman that if his missive should be either lost or delayed, its bearer would have to reckon with the Church, and might not find the account quite convenient to pay.Godfrey was ready enough to go. Life at Hazelwood was not so exciting that a journey, on whatever errand, would not come as a very welcome interlude. He set forth that evening, and as the journey was barely forty miles, he could not in reason take longer over it than three days at the utmost. Sir Godfrey, however, as well as the Archbishop, had confided his private views to his son. He charged him to see Lord Basset first, and to indoctrinate him with the idea that it was most desirable Lady Basset should not receive the prelate’s message. Could he find means to prevent it?Lord Basset was a man of a type not uncommon in any time, and particularly rife at the present day. He lived to amuse himself. Of such things as work and duty he simply had no idea. In his eyes work was for the labouring class, and duty concerned the clergy; neither of them applied at all to him. He was, therefore, of about as much value to the world as one of the roses in his garden; and if he would be more missed, it was because his temper did not at all times emulate the sweetness of that flower, and its absence would be felt as a relief. This very useful and worthy gentleman was languidly fitting on the jesses of a hawk, when young Godfrey was introduced into the hall. Lady Basset was not present, and Godfrey seized the opportunity to initiate her husband into the part he was to play. He found to his annoyance that Lord Basset hesitated to perform the task assigned to him. Had the letter come from an insignificant layman, he would have posted it into the fire without more ado; but Lord Basset, who was aware of sundry habits of his own that he was not able to flatter himself were the fashion in Heaven, could not afford to quarrel with the Church, which, in his belief, held the keys of that eligible locality.“Nay, verily!” said he. “I cannot thwart the delivering of his Grace’s letter.”“Then will my Lady go to Hazelwood, and the whole matter shall be blazed abroad. It is sure to creep forth at some corner.”“As like as not. Well, I would not so much care—should it serve you if I gave her strict forbiddance for to go?”“Would she obey?”Lord Basset laughed. “That’s as may be. She’s commonly an easy mare to drive, but there be times when she takes the bit betwixt her teeth, and bolts down the contrary road. You can only try her.”“Then under your leave, may I deliver the letter to her?”“Here, De Sucherche!” said Lord Basset, raising his voice. “Bid Emeriarde lead this gentleman to thy Lady; he hath a privy word to deliver unto her.”Emeriarde made her appearance in the guise of a highly respectable, middle-aged upper servant, and led Godfrey up the staircase from the hall to Lady Basset’s ante-chamber, where, leaving him for a moment, while she announced a visitor to her mistress, she returned and conducted him into the presence of the Princess of Bretagne.He saw a woman of thirty-six years of age, tall and somewhat stately, only moderately good-looking, and with an expression of intense weariness and listlessness in her dark eyes. The face was a true index to the feelings, for few lonelier women have ever shut their sorrows in their hearts than the Princess Jeanne of Bretagne. She had no child; and her husband followed the usual rule of people who spend life in amusing themselves, and who are apt to be far from amusing to their own families. His interest, his attractions, and his powers of entertainment were kept for the world outside. When his wife saw him, he was generally either vexed, and consequently irritable, or tired and somewhat sulky. All the sufferings of reaction which fell to him were visited on her. She was naturally a woman of strong but silent character; a woman who locked her feelings, her sufferings, and her thoughts in her own breast, and having found no sympathy where she ought to have found it, refrained from seeking it elsewhere.Lord Basset would have been astonished had he been accused of ill-using his wife. He never lifted his hand against her, nor even found fault with her before company. He simply let her feel as if her life were not worth living, and there was not a soul on earth who cared to make it so. If, only now and then, he would have given her half an hour of that brilliance with which he entertained his guests! if he would occasionally have shown her that he cared whether she was tired, that it made any difference to his happiness whether she was happy! She was a woman with intense capacity for loving, but there was no fuel for the fire, and it was dying out for sheer want of material. Women of lighter character might have directed their affections elsewhere; women of more versatile temperament might have found other interests for themselves; she did neither. Though strong, her intellect was neither quick nor of great range; it was deep rather than wide in its extent. It must be remembered, also, that a multitude of interests which are open to a woman in the present day, were quite unknown to her. The whole world of literature and science was an unknown thing; and art was only accessible in the two forms of fancy work and illumination, for neither of which had she capacity or taste. She could sew, cook, and act as a doctor when required, which was not often; and there the list of her accomplishments ended. There was more in her, but nobody cared to draw it out, and herself least of all.Lady Basset bowed gravely in reply to Godfrey’s courtesy, broke the seal of the letter, and gazed upon the cabalistic characters therein written. Had they been Chinese, she would have learned as much from them as she did. She handed back the letter with a request that he would read it to her, if he possessed the art of reading; if not, she would send for Father Collard.For a moment, but no more, the temptation visited Godfrey to read the letter as something which it was not. He dismissed it, not from any conscientious motive, but simply from the doubt whether he could keep up the delusion.“Good!” said Lady Basset, when the letter had been read to her; “and now what is that you are to tell me?”“Dame, suffer me first to say that it is of the gravest moment that there be no eavesdroppers about, and that your Ladyship be pleased to keep strait silence thereupon. Otherwise, I dare not utter that wherewith his Grace’s letter hath ado.”“There be no ears at hand save my bower-woman’s, and I will answer for her as for myself. I can keep silence when need is. Speak on.”“Then, Lady, I give you to know that the Duchess’ Grace, your mother, is now in ward under keeping of my father, at Hazelwood Manor, and—”Lady Basset had risen to her feet, with a strange glow in her eyes.“My mother!” she said.“Your Lady and mother, Dame; and she—”“My mother!” she said, again. “My mother! I thought my mother was dead and buried, years and years ago!”“Verily, no, Lady; and my Lord Archbishop’s Grace doth most earnestly desire your Ladyship to pay her visit, she being now near death, and your Lord and brother the Duke denying to come unto her.”The glow deepened in the dark eyes.“My Lord my brother refused to go to my mother?”“He did so, Dame.”“And she is near death?”“Very near, I am told, Lady.”“And he wist it?”“He wist it.”Lady Basset seemed for a moment to have forgotten everything but the one.“Lead on,” she said. “I will go to her—poor Mother! I can scarce remember her; I was so young when taken from her. But I think she loved me once. I will go, though no other soul on earth keep me company.”“Lady,” said Godfrey, saying the exact reverse of truth, “I do right heartily trust your Lord shall not let you therein.”“What matter?” she said. “If the Devil and all his angels stood in the way, I would go to my dying mother.”She left the room for a minute, and to Godfrey’s dismay came back attired for her journey, as if she meant to set out there and then.“But, Lady!” he expostulated.“You need not tarry for me,” she said, calmly. “I can find the way, and I have sent word to bid mine horses.”This was unendurable. Godfrey, in his dismay, left the room with only a courtesy, and sought Lord Basset in the hall.“Ah! she’s taken the bit betwixt her teeth,” said he. “I warrant you’d best leave her be; she’ll go now, if it be on a witch’s broom. I’ll forbid it, an’ you will, but I do you to wit I might as well entreat yon tree not to wave in the wind. When she doth take the bit thus, she’s—”An emphatic shake of Lord Basset’s head finished the sentence. He rose as if it were more trouble than it was reasonable to impose, walked into his wife’s room, and asked her where she was going that winter day.“You are scarce wont to inquire into my comings and goings,” she said, coldly. “But if it do your Lordship ease to wit the same, I am going to Hazelwood Manor, whence yonder young gentleman is now come.”“How if I forbid it?”“My Lord, I am sent for to my dying mother. Your Lordship is a gentleman, I believe, and therefore not like to forbid me. But if you so did, yea, twenty times twice told, I should answer you as now I do. Seven years have I done your bidding, and when I return I will do it yet again. But not now. Neither you, nor Satan himself, should stay me this one time.”“Your Ladyship losengeth,” (flatters) was the careless answer. “Fare you well. I’ll not hinder you. As for Satan, though it pleaseth you to count me in with him, I’ll be no surety for his doings. Master Foljambe, go you after this crack-brained dame of mine, or tarry you here with me and drink a cup of Malvoisie wine?”Godfrey would very much have preferred to remain with Lord Basset; but a wholesome fear of his father and the Archbishop together restrained him from doing so. He was exceedingly vexed to be made to continue his journey thus without intermission; but Lady Basset was already on a pillion behind her squire, and Emeriarde on another behind the groom, a few garments having been hastily squeezed into a saddle-bag carried by the latter. This summary way of doing things was almost unheard of in the fourteenth century; and Godfrey entertained a private opinion that “crack-brained” was a truthful epithet.“Needs must,” said he; “wherefore I pray your Lordship mercy. Her Ladyship shall scantly make good road to Hazelwood without I go withal. But—ha, chétife!”Lord Basset slightly laughed, kissed his hand to his wife, lifted his hat to Godfrey with a shrug of his shoulders, and walked back into Drayton Manor House.
“Whose fancy was his only oracle;Who could buy lands and pleasure at his will,Yet slighted that which silver could not win.”Rev. Horatius Bonar, D.D.
“Whose fancy was his only oracle;Who could buy lands and pleasure at his will,Yet slighted that which silver could not win.”Rev. Horatius Bonar, D.D.
The Archbishop rapped softly on the door of the chamber, and Amphillis sprang to let him out. She had to let herself in, so he passed her with only a smile and a blessing, and going straight to his own chamber, spent the next hour in fervent prayer. At the end of that time he went down to the hall, and asked for writing materials.
This was a rather large request to make in a mediaeval manor house. Father Jordan was appealed to, as the only person likely to know the whereabouts of such scarce articles.
“Well, of a surety!” exclaimed the old priest, much fluttered by the inquiry. “Methinks I may find the inkhorn,—and therewassome ink in it,—but as for writing-paper!—and I fear there shall be never a bit of parchment in the house. Wax, moreover—Richard, butler, took the last for his corks. Dear, dear! only to think his Grace should lack matter for writing! Yet, truly, ’tis not unnatural for a prelate. Now, whatever shall man do?”
“Give his Grace a tile and a paint-brush,” said careless Matthew.
“Cut a leaf out of a book,” suggested illiterate Godfrey.
Father Jordan looked at the last speaker as if he had proposed to cook a child for dinner. Cut a leaf out of a book! Murder, theft, and arson combined, would scarcely have been more horrible in his eyes.
“Holy saints, deliver us!” was his shocked answer.
Norman Hylton came to the rescue.
“I have here a small strip of parchment,” said he, “if his Grace were pleased to make use thereof. I had laid it by for a letter to my mother, but his Grace’s need is more than mine.”
The Archbishop took the offered gift with a smile.
“I thank thee, my son,” said he. “In good sooth, at this moment my need is great, seeing death waiteth for no man.”
He sat down, and had scarcely remembered the want of ink, when Father Jordan came up, carrying a very dilapidated old inkhorn.
“If your Grace were pleased to essay this, and could serve you withal,” suggested he, dubiously; “soothly, there is somewhat black at the bottom.”
“And there is alegar in the house, plenty,” added Matthew.
The Archbishop looked about for the pen.
“Unlucky mortal that I am!” cried Father Jordan, smiting himself on the forehead. “Never a quill have I, by my troth!”
“Have you a goose? That might mend matters,” said Matthew. “Had we but a goose, there should be quills enow.”
“Men culpa, mea culpa!” cried poor Father Jordan, as though he were at confession, to the excessive amusement of the young men.
Norman, who had run upstairs on finding the pen lacking, now returned with one in his hand.
“Here is a quill, if your Grace be pleased withal. It is but an old one, yet I have no better,” he said, modestly.
“It shall full well serve me, my son,” was the answer; “and I thank thee for thy courtesy.”
For his day the Archbishop was a skilful penman, which does not by any means convey the idea of covering sheet after sheet of paper with rapid writing. The strip of parchment was about fourteen inches by four. He laid it lengthwise before him, and the letters grew slowly on it, in the old black letter hand, which took some time to form. Thus ran his letter:—
“Alexander, by Divine sufferance elect of York, to the Lady Basset of Drayton wisheth peace, health, and the blessing of God Almighty.
“Very dear Lady,—
“Let it please you to know that the bearer hereof hath tidings to deliver of serious and instant import. We pray you full heartily to hear him without any delay, and to give full credence to such matter as he shall impart unto you: which having done, we bid you, as you value our apostolical blessing, to come hither with all speed, and we charge our very dear son, your lord, that he let not nor hinder you in obeying this our mandate. The matter presseth, and will brook no delay: and we affy ourself in you, Lady, as a woman obedient to the Church, that you will observe our bidding. And for so doing this shall be your warrant. Given at Hazelwood Manor, in the county of Derby, this Wednesday after Candlemas.”
The Archbishop laid down his pen, folded his letter, and asked for silk to tie it. Matthew Foljambe ran off, returning in a moment with a roll of blue silk braid, wherewith the letter was tied up. Then wax was needed.
“Ha, chétife!” said Father Jordan. “The saints forgive me my sins! Never a bit of wax had I lacked for many a month, and I gave the last to Richard, butler.”
“Hath he used it all?” asked Matthew.
“Be sure he so did. He should have some left only if none needed it,” responded his brother.
A search was instituted. The butler regretfully admitted that all the wax supplied, to him was fastening down corks upon bottles of Alicant and Osey. Sir Godfrey had none; he had sent for some, but had not yet received it. Everybody was rather ashamed; for wax was a very necessary article in a mediaeval household, and to run short of it was a small disgrace. In this emergency Matthew, usually the person of resources, came to the rescue.
“Hie thee to the cellar, Dick, and bring me up a two-three bottles of thy meanest wine,” said he. “We’ll melt it off the corks.”
By this ingenious means, sufficient wax was procured to take the impress of the Archbishop’s official seal, without which the letter would bear no authentication, and the recipient could not be blamed if she refused obedience. It was then addressed—“To the hands of our very dear Lady, the Lady Joan Basset, at Drayton Manor, in the county of Stafford, be these delivered with speed. Haste, haste, for thy life, haste!”
All nobles and dignitaries of the Church in 1374 used the “we” now exclusively regal.
Having finished his preparations, the Archbishop despatched young Godfrey to ask his father for a private interview. Sir Godfrey at once returned to the hall, and ceremoniously handed the Archbishop into his own room.
All large houses, in those days, contained a hall, which was the general meeting-place of the inhabitants, and where the family, servants, and guests, all took their meals together. This usually ran two storeys high; and into it opened from the lower storey the offices and guard-chambers, and from the upper, into a gallery running round it, the private apartments of the family, a spiral stair frequently winding down in the corner. The rooms next the hall were private sitting-rooms, leading to the bedchambers beyond; and where still greater secrecy was desired, passages led out towards separate towers. Every bedroom had its adjoining sitting-room. Of course in small houses such elaborate arrangements as these were not found, and there were no sitting-rooms except the hall itself; while labourers were content with a two-roomed house, the lower half serving as parlour and kitchen, the upper as the family bedchamber.
Young Godfrey carried a chair to his father’s room. An Archbishop could not sit on a form, and there were only three chairs in the house, two of which were appropriated to the Countess. The prelate took his seat, and laid down his letter on a high stool before Sir Godfrey.
“Fair Sir, may I entreat you of your courtesy, to send this letter with all good speed to my Lady Basset of Drayton, unto Staffordshire?”
“Is it needful, holy Father?”
“It is in sooth needful,” replied the Archbishop, in rather peremptory tones, for he plainly saw that Sir Godfrey would not do this part of his duty until he could no longer help it.
“It shall put her Ladyship to great charges,” objected the knight.
“The which, if she defray unwillingly, then is she no Christian woman.”
“And be a journey mighty displeasant, at this winter season.”
“My answer thereto is as to the last.”
“And it shall blurt out the King’s privy matters.”
“In no wise. I have not writ thereof a word in this letter, but have only prayed her Ladyship to give heed unto that which the bearer thereof shall make known to her privily.”
“Then who is to bear the same?”
“I refer me thereon, fair Sir, to your good judgment. Might one of your own sons be trusted herewith?”
Sir Godfrey looked dubious. “Godfrey should turn aside to see an horse, or to tilt at any jousting that lay in his path; and Matthew, I cast no doubt, should lose your Grace’s letter in a snowdrift.”
“Then have you brought them up but ill,” said the Archbishop. “But what hindereth that you go withal yourself?”
“I, holy Father! I am an old man, and infirm, an’ it like your Grace.”
“Ay, you were full infirm when the tilting was at Leicester,” replied the Archbishop, ironically. “My son, I enjoin thee, as thine Archbishop, that thou send this letter. Go, or send a trusty messenger, as it liketh thee best; and if thou have no such, then shall my secretary, Father Denny, carry the same, for he is full meet therefor; but go it must.”
Poor Sir Godfrey was thus brought to the end of all his subterfuges. He could only say ruefully that his eldest son should bear the letter. The Archbishop thereupon took care to inform that young gentleman that if his missive should be either lost or delayed, its bearer would have to reckon with the Church, and might not find the account quite convenient to pay.
Godfrey was ready enough to go. Life at Hazelwood was not so exciting that a journey, on whatever errand, would not come as a very welcome interlude. He set forth that evening, and as the journey was barely forty miles, he could not in reason take longer over it than three days at the utmost. Sir Godfrey, however, as well as the Archbishop, had confided his private views to his son. He charged him to see Lord Basset first, and to indoctrinate him with the idea that it was most desirable Lady Basset should not receive the prelate’s message. Could he find means to prevent it?
Lord Basset was a man of a type not uncommon in any time, and particularly rife at the present day. He lived to amuse himself. Of such things as work and duty he simply had no idea. In his eyes work was for the labouring class, and duty concerned the clergy; neither of them applied at all to him. He was, therefore, of about as much value to the world as one of the roses in his garden; and if he would be more missed, it was because his temper did not at all times emulate the sweetness of that flower, and its absence would be felt as a relief. This very useful and worthy gentleman was languidly fitting on the jesses of a hawk, when young Godfrey was introduced into the hall. Lady Basset was not present, and Godfrey seized the opportunity to initiate her husband into the part he was to play. He found to his annoyance that Lord Basset hesitated to perform the task assigned to him. Had the letter come from an insignificant layman, he would have posted it into the fire without more ado; but Lord Basset, who was aware of sundry habits of his own that he was not able to flatter himself were the fashion in Heaven, could not afford to quarrel with the Church, which, in his belief, held the keys of that eligible locality.
“Nay, verily!” said he. “I cannot thwart the delivering of his Grace’s letter.”
“Then will my Lady go to Hazelwood, and the whole matter shall be blazed abroad. It is sure to creep forth at some corner.”
“As like as not. Well, I would not so much care—should it serve you if I gave her strict forbiddance for to go?”
“Would she obey?”
Lord Basset laughed. “That’s as may be. She’s commonly an easy mare to drive, but there be times when she takes the bit betwixt her teeth, and bolts down the contrary road. You can only try her.”
“Then under your leave, may I deliver the letter to her?”
“Here, De Sucherche!” said Lord Basset, raising his voice. “Bid Emeriarde lead this gentleman to thy Lady; he hath a privy word to deliver unto her.”
Emeriarde made her appearance in the guise of a highly respectable, middle-aged upper servant, and led Godfrey up the staircase from the hall to Lady Basset’s ante-chamber, where, leaving him for a moment, while she announced a visitor to her mistress, she returned and conducted him into the presence of the Princess of Bretagne.
He saw a woman of thirty-six years of age, tall and somewhat stately, only moderately good-looking, and with an expression of intense weariness and listlessness in her dark eyes. The face was a true index to the feelings, for few lonelier women have ever shut their sorrows in their hearts than the Princess Jeanne of Bretagne. She had no child; and her husband followed the usual rule of people who spend life in amusing themselves, and who are apt to be far from amusing to their own families. His interest, his attractions, and his powers of entertainment were kept for the world outside. When his wife saw him, he was generally either vexed, and consequently irritable, or tired and somewhat sulky. All the sufferings of reaction which fell to him were visited on her. She was naturally a woman of strong but silent character; a woman who locked her feelings, her sufferings, and her thoughts in her own breast, and having found no sympathy where she ought to have found it, refrained from seeking it elsewhere.
Lord Basset would have been astonished had he been accused of ill-using his wife. He never lifted his hand against her, nor even found fault with her before company. He simply let her feel as if her life were not worth living, and there was not a soul on earth who cared to make it so. If, only now and then, he would have given her half an hour of that brilliance with which he entertained his guests! if he would occasionally have shown her that he cared whether she was tired, that it made any difference to his happiness whether she was happy! She was a woman with intense capacity for loving, but there was no fuel for the fire, and it was dying out for sheer want of material. Women of lighter character might have directed their affections elsewhere; women of more versatile temperament might have found other interests for themselves; she did neither. Though strong, her intellect was neither quick nor of great range; it was deep rather than wide in its extent. It must be remembered, also, that a multitude of interests which are open to a woman in the present day, were quite unknown to her. The whole world of literature and science was an unknown thing; and art was only accessible in the two forms of fancy work and illumination, for neither of which had she capacity or taste. She could sew, cook, and act as a doctor when required, which was not often; and there the list of her accomplishments ended. There was more in her, but nobody cared to draw it out, and herself least of all.
Lady Basset bowed gravely in reply to Godfrey’s courtesy, broke the seal of the letter, and gazed upon the cabalistic characters therein written. Had they been Chinese, she would have learned as much from them as she did. She handed back the letter with a request that he would read it to her, if he possessed the art of reading; if not, she would send for Father Collard.
For a moment, but no more, the temptation visited Godfrey to read the letter as something which it was not. He dismissed it, not from any conscientious motive, but simply from the doubt whether he could keep up the delusion.
“Good!” said Lady Basset, when the letter had been read to her; “and now what is that you are to tell me?”
“Dame, suffer me first to say that it is of the gravest moment that there be no eavesdroppers about, and that your Ladyship be pleased to keep strait silence thereupon. Otherwise, I dare not utter that wherewith his Grace’s letter hath ado.”
“There be no ears at hand save my bower-woman’s, and I will answer for her as for myself. I can keep silence when need is. Speak on.”
“Then, Lady, I give you to know that the Duchess’ Grace, your mother, is now in ward under keeping of my father, at Hazelwood Manor, and—”
Lady Basset had risen to her feet, with a strange glow in her eyes.
“My mother!” she said.
“Your Lady and mother, Dame; and she—”
“My mother!” she said, again. “My mother! I thought my mother was dead and buried, years and years ago!”
“Verily, no, Lady; and my Lord Archbishop’s Grace doth most earnestly desire your Ladyship to pay her visit, she being now near death, and your Lord and brother the Duke denying to come unto her.”
The glow deepened in the dark eyes.
“My Lord my brother refused to go to my mother?”
“He did so, Dame.”
“And she is near death?”
“Very near, I am told, Lady.”
“And he wist it?”
“He wist it.”
Lady Basset seemed for a moment to have forgotten everything but the one.
“Lead on,” she said. “I will go to her—poor Mother! I can scarce remember her; I was so young when taken from her. But I think she loved me once. I will go, though no other soul on earth keep me company.”
“Lady,” said Godfrey, saying the exact reverse of truth, “I do right heartily trust your Lord shall not let you therein.”
“What matter?” she said. “If the Devil and all his angels stood in the way, I would go to my dying mother.”
She left the room for a minute, and to Godfrey’s dismay came back attired for her journey, as if she meant to set out there and then.
“But, Lady!” he expostulated.
“You need not tarry for me,” she said, calmly. “I can find the way, and I have sent word to bid mine horses.”
This was unendurable. Godfrey, in his dismay, left the room with only a courtesy, and sought Lord Basset in the hall.
“Ah! she’s taken the bit betwixt her teeth,” said he. “I warrant you’d best leave her be; she’ll go now, if it be on a witch’s broom. I’ll forbid it, an’ you will, but I do you to wit I might as well entreat yon tree not to wave in the wind. When she doth take the bit thus, she’s—”
An emphatic shake of Lord Basset’s head finished the sentence. He rose as if it were more trouble than it was reasonable to impose, walked into his wife’s room, and asked her where she was going that winter day.
“You are scarce wont to inquire into my comings and goings,” she said, coldly. “But if it do your Lordship ease to wit the same, I am going to Hazelwood Manor, whence yonder young gentleman is now come.”
“How if I forbid it?”
“My Lord, I am sent for to my dying mother. Your Lordship is a gentleman, I believe, and therefore not like to forbid me. But if you so did, yea, twenty times twice told, I should answer you as now I do. Seven years have I done your bidding, and when I return I will do it yet again. But not now. Neither you, nor Satan himself, should stay me this one time.”
“Your Ladyship losengeth,” (flatters) was the careless answer. “Fare you well. I’ll not hinder you. As for Satan, though it pleaseth you to count me in with him, I’ll be no surety for his doings. Master Foljambe, go you after this crack-brained dame of mine, or tarry you here with me and drink a cup of Malvoisie wine?”
Godfrey would very much have preferred to remain with Lord Basset; but a wholesome fear of his father and the Archbishop together restrained him from doing so. He was exceedingly vexed to be made to continue his journey thus without intermission; but Lady Basset was already on a pillion behind her squire, and Emeriarde on another behind the groom, a few garments having been hastily squeezed into a saddle-bag carried by the latter. This summary way of doing things was almost unheard of in the fourteenth century; and Godfrey entertained a private opinion that “crack-brained” was a truthful epithet.
“Needs must,” said he; “wherefore I pray your Lordship mercy. Her Ladyship shall scantly make good road to Hazelwood without I go withal. But—ha, chétife!”
Lord Basset slightly laughed, kissed his hand to his wife, lifted his hat to Godfrey with a shrug of his shoulders, and walked back into Drayton Manor House.
Chapter Fifteen.Too Little.“God’s very kindest answers to our prayersCome often in denials or delays.”S.W. Partridge.Lord Basset turned back into his house with a sensation akin to relief. Not that he allowed the thought of his wife’s unhappiness to deter him from any course on which he had set his heart, but that he felt the pressure of her atmosphere, and could not enjoy his transgressions with the fullabandonwhich he would have liked. Her stately, cold, unbending reserve was like a constant chill and blight. How much more happy they might have been if they had chosen! The world held many a worse man than Lord Basset; he was rather idle and careless than wicked, though idleness and carelessness are very often the seed of wickedness, when left to go to flower. If she would only have dropped that haughty coldness, he thought, he could have felt interest in her, and have taken some pleasure in her society; while her conviction was that if he would only have shown some interest, she could have loved him and returned it. Would both have done it together, the result might have been attained.Mr Godfrey Foljambe was meditating, not on this, but on his own personal wrongs, as he led the little cavalcade in an easterly direction. First, he had been deprived of that glass of Malvoisie—which would probably have been plural rather than singular—and of a conversation with Lord Basset, which might have resulted in something of interest: and life was exceedingly devoid of interest, thought Mr Godfrey, in a pessimistic spirit. He had not discovered that, to a great extent, life is to every man what he chooses to make it; that he who keeps his eyes fixed on street mud need not expect to discover pearls, while he who attentively scans the heavens is not at all unlikely to see stars. Let a man set himself diligently to hunt for either his misfortunes or his mercies, and he will find plenty of the article in request. Misfortunes were the present object of Mr Godfrey’s search, and he had no difficulty in discovering them. He was disgusted with the folly of Lady Basset in thus setting off at once, and making him set off, without so much as an hour’s rest. It was just like a woman! Women never had a scrap of patience. This pleasing illusion that all patience was masculine was kept up in popular literature just so long as men were the exclusive authors; when women began to write, otherwise than on kingly sufferance of the nobler half of creation, it was seen that the feminine view of that and similar subjects was not quite so restricted. Last and worst to young Godfrey was the expectation of his father’s displeasure. Sir Godfrey’s anger was no passing cloud, as his son well knew. To be thought to have failed in his mission—as assuredly he would be—by his own fault, would result in considerable immediate discomfort, and might even damage his worldly prospects in future. He would gladly have prolonged the journey; for his instinct always led him to put off the evil day rather than to face it and put it behind him—which last is usually the wiser course; but Lady Basset would brook no delay, and on the afternoon of the second day after leaving Drayton they rode up to Hazelwood Manor.Godfrey hastily despatched the porter’s lad to inform his mother of Lady Basset’s arrival; and Lady Foljambe met her on the steps of the hall. The latter was scandalised to find that the former saw no need for secrecy, or at any rate had no intention of preserving it.“Dame,” said Lady Foljambe, “I am honoured by your Ladyship’s visit. Pray you, suffer me to serve you with hypocras and spice in your privy chamber.”This was intended as a gentle hint to the visitor that secrets were not to be talked in the hall; but the hint was not accepted.“How fares my Lady and mother?” was the response.“Dame, much worse than when my son departed,” said Lady Foljambe, in a fluttered manner.“Then I pray you to break my coming, and lead me to her forthwith,” said Lady Basset, in her style of stately calm.A curtain was drawn aside, and Perrote came forward.“Damoiselle Jeanne!” she said, greeting Lady Basset by the old youthful title unheard for years. “My darling, mine own dear child!”A smile, not at all usual there, quivered for a moment on the calm fixed lips.“Is this mine ancient nurse, Perrote de Carhaix?” she said. “I think I know her face.”The smile was gone in a moment, as she repeated her wish to be taken immediately to the Countess.Lady Foljambe felt she had no choice. She led the way to the chamber of the royal prisoner, requesting Lady Basset to wait for a moment at the door.The Countess sat no longer in her cushioned chair by the window. She was now confined to her bed, where she lay restlessly, moaning at intervals, but always on one theme. “My children! my lost children! Will not God give me backone?”Lady Foljambe signed to Perrote—she scarcely knew why—to break the news to the suffering mother.“Lady, the Lord hath heard your moaning, and hath seen your tears,” said Perrote, kneeling by the bed. “He hath given you back—”“My son?”The cry was a pitiful one. Then, as ever, the boy was the dearest to his mother’s heart.“Very dear Lady, no. Your daughter.”It was painful to see how the sudden gleam died out of the weary eyes.“Ah, well!” she said, after an instant’s pause. “Well! I asked but for one, and when man doth that, he commonly gets the lesser of the twain. Well! I shall be glad to see my Jeanne. Let her come in.”Lady Basset came forward and bent over the dying woman.“Dame!” she said.“Come, now!” was the answer. “There be folks enough call me Dame. Only two in all this world can call me Mother.”“Mother!” was the response, in a tremulous voice. And then the icy stateliness broke up, and passionate sobs broke in, mingled with the sounds of “O Mother! Mother!”“That’s good, little lass,” said the Countess. “It’s good to hear that, but once,ma fillette. But wherefore tarrieth thy brother away? It must be King Edward that will not suffer him to come.”It was piteous to hear her cling thus to the old illusion. All the time of her imprisonment, though now and then in a fit of anger she could hurl bitter names at her son, yet, when calm, she had usually maintained that he was kept away from her, and refused to be convinced that his absence was of his own free will. The longer the illusion lasted, the more stubbornly she upheld it.“’Tis not always the best-loved that loveth back the best,” said Perrote, gently, “without man’s best love be, as it should be, fixed on God. And ’tis common for fathers and mothers to love better than they be loved; the which is more than all other true of the Father in Heaven.”“Thou mayest keep thy sermons, old woman, till mass is sung,” said the Countess, in her cynical style. “Ah me! My Jean would come to the old, white-haired mother that risked her life for his—he would come if he could. He must know how my soul hungereth for the sight of his face. I want nothing else. Heaven would be Purgatory to me without him.”“Ah, my dear Lady!” tenderly replied Perrote. “If only I might hear you say that of the Lord that laid down His life for you!”“I am not a nun,” was the answer; “and I shall not say that which I feel not.”“God forbid you should, Lady! But I pray Him to grant you so to feel.”“I tell thee, I am not a nun,” said the Countess, rather pettishly.Her idea was that real holiness was impossible out of the cloister, and that to love God was an entirely different type of feeling from the affection she had for her human friends. This was the usual sentiment in the Middle Ages. But Perrote had been taught of God, and while her educational prejudices acted like coloured or smoked glass, and dimmed the purity of the heavenly light, they were unable to hide it altogether.“Very dear Lady,” she said, “God loveth sinners; and He must then love other than nuns. Shall they not love Him back, though they be not in cloister?”“Thou hadst better win in cloister thyself, when thou art rid of me,” was the answer, in a tone which was a mixture of languor and sarcasm. “Thou art scarce fit to tarry without, old woman.”“I will do that which God shall show me,” said Perrote, calmly. “Dame, were it not well your Grace should essay to sleep?”“Nay, not so. I have my Jeanne to look at, that I have not seen for five-and-twenty years. I shall sleep fast enough anon. Daughter, art thou a happy woman, or no?”Lady Basset answered by a shake of the head. “Why, what aileth thee? Is it thy baron, or thy childre?”“I have no child, Mother.”The Countess heard the regretful yearning of the tone.“Thank the saints,” she said. “Thou wert better. Soothly, to increase objects for love is to increase sorrow. If thou have no childre, they’ll never be torn from thee, nor they will never break thine heart by ill behaving.And most folks behave ill in this world.Ha, chétife! ’tis a weary, dreary place, this world, as ever a poor woman was in. Hast thou a good man to thy baron, child?”“He might be worser,” said Lady Basset, icily.“That’s true of an handful of folks,” said the Countess. “And I reckon he might be better, eh? That’s true of most. Good lack, I marvel wherefore we all were made. Was it by reason God loved or hated us? Say, my Predicant Friaress.”“Very dear Lady, the wise man saith, ‘God made a man rightful, and he meddled himself with questions without, number.’ (Ecclesiastes eight, verse 29.) And Saint Paul saith that ‘God commendeth His charity in us, for when we were sinners, Christ was dead for us.’ (Romans five, verse 8.) Moreover, Saint John—”“Hold! There be two Scriptures. Where is the sermon?”“The Scriptures, Lady, preach a better sermon than I can.”“That’s but a short one. Man’s ill, and God is good; behold all thine homily. That man is ill, I lack no preaching friar to tell me. As to God being good, the Church saith so, and there I rest. Mary, Mother! if He were good, He would bring my Jean back to me.”“Very dear Lady, God is wiser than men, and He seeth the end from the beginning.”“Have done, Perrotine! I tell thee, if God be good, He will bring my Jean to me. There I abide. I’ll say it, if He do. I would love any man that wrought that: and if He will work it, I will love Him—and not otherwise. Hold! I desire no more talk.”The Countess turned her face to the wall, and Perrote retired, with tears in her eyes.“Lord, Thou art wise!” she said in her heart; “wiser than I, than she, than all men. But never yet have I known her to depart from such a word as that. Oh, if it be possible,—if it be possible!—Thou who camest down from Heaven to earth, come down once more to the weak and stubborn soul of this dying woman, and grant her that which she requests, if so she may be won to love thee! Father, the time is very short, and her soul is very dark. O fair Father, Jesu Christ, lose not this soul for which Thou hast died!”Perrote’s next move was to await Lady Basset’s departure from her mother’s chamber, and to ask her to bestow a few minutes’ private talk on her old nurse. The Princess complied readily, and came into the opposite chamber where Amphillis sat sewing.“Damoiselle Jeanne,” said Perrote, using the royal title of Lady Basset’s unmarried days; “may I pray you tell me if you have of late seen the Lord Duke your brother?”“Ay, within a year,” said Lady Basset, listlessly.“Would it please you to say if King Edward letteth his coming?”“I think not so.”“Would he come, if he were asked yet again, and knew that a few weeks—maybe days—would end his mother’s life?”“I doubt it, Perrotine.”“Wherefore? He can love well where he list.”“Ay, where he list. But I misdoubt if ever he loved her—at the least, sithence she let him from wedding the Damoiselle de Ponteallen.”“Then he loved the Damoiselle very dearly?”“For a month—ay.”“But wherefore, when the matter was by—”Lady Basset answered with a bitter little laugh, which reminded Perrote of her mother’s.“Because he loved Jean de Montfort, and she thwartedhim, not the Damoiselle. He loved Alix de Ponteallen passionately, and passion dies; ’tis its nature. It is not passionately, but undyingly, that he loves himself. Men do; ’tis their nature.”Perrote shrewdly guessed that the remark had especial reference to one man, and that not the Duke of Bretagne.“Ah, that is the nature of all sinners,” she said, “and therefore of all men and women also. Dame, will you hearken to your old nurse, and grant her one boon?”“That will I, Perrotine, if it be in my power. I grant not so many boons, neither can I, that I should grudge one to mine old nurse. What wouldst?”“Dame, I pray you write a letter to my Lord Duke, the pitifullest you may pen, and send one of your men therewith, to pray him, as he loveth you, or her, or God, that he will come and look on her ere she die. Tell him his old nurse full lovingly entreateth him, and if he will so do, I will take veil when my Lady is gone hence, and spend four nights in the week in prayer for his welfare. Say I will be his bedes-woman for ever, in any convent he shall name. Say anything that will bring him!”“I passed thee my word, and I will keep it,” said Lady Basset, as she rose. “But if I know him, what I should say certainly to bring him would be that Sir Oliver de Clisson lay here in dungeon, and that if he would come he should see his head strake off in yonder court. He is a fair lover, my brother; but he is a far better hater.”Perrote sighed.“Amphillis!” came faintly up the stairs and along the gallery. “Am-phil-lis!”“Go, child,” said Perrote, replying to a look from Amphillis. “’Tis Agatha calling thee. What would the foolish maid?”Amphillis left her work upon the bench and ran down.“Well, it is merry matter to catch hold of thee!” said Agatha, who was waiting at the foot of the stairs, and who never could recollect, unless Lady Foljambe were present, that Amphillis was to be addressed with more reverence than before. “Here be friends of thine come to visit thee.”“Friends!—of mine!” exclaimed Amphillis, in surprise. “Why, I haven’t any friends.”“Well, enemies, then,” said Agatha, with a giggle. “Come, go into hall and see who they be, and then tell me.”Amphillis obeyed, and to her still greater surprise, found herself in the presence of Mr Altham and Regina.“Ah, here she cometh!” was her uncle’s greeting. “Well, my maid, I am fain to see thee so well-looking, I warrant thee. Can’st love a new aunt, thinkest?”“That am I secure,” replied Amphillis, smiling, and kissing the goldsmith’s daughter.“And an old uncle belike?” pursued Mr Altham, kissing her in his turn.“Assuredly, dear Uncle; but I pray, how came you hither?”“Dat shall I tell you,” said Mrs Altham, “for oderwise you shall not know what good uncle you have. He promise to take me to mine own home in Dutchland, to see my greatmoder and mine aunts; and when we nigh ready were, he say, ‘See you, now! shall we not go round by Derbyshire, to see Amphillis, and sail from Hull?’ So we come round all dis way; he miss you so, and want to make him sure you be well and kindly used. See you?”“How kind and good are you both!” said Amphillis, gratefully. “Pray you, good Aunt Regina, came Ricarda home safe?”“She came safe, and she had but de scold well, tanks to your message; if not, she had de beat, beat, I ensure you, and she deserve dat full well. She was bad girl, bad. Said I not to you, De mans is bad, and de womans is badder? It is true.”“She’s a weary hussy!” said Mr Altham; “but she’s been a sight better maid sithence she came back. She saith ’tis thy doing, Phyllis.”“Mine?” exclaimed Amphillis.“She saith so. I wis not how. And art happy here, my maid? Doth thy dame entreat thee well? and be thy fellows pleasant company? Because if no, there’s room for thee in the patty-shop, I can tell thee. Saundrina’s wed, and Ricarda looks to be, and my wife and I should be full fain to have thee back for our daughter. Howbeit, if thou art here welsome and comfortable, we will not carry thee off against thy will. What sayest?”“Truly, dear Uncle, I am here full welsome, saving some small matters of little moment; and under your good pleasure, I would fain not go hence so long as one liveth that is now sore sick in this house, and nigh to death. Afterward, if it like you to dispose of me otherwise, I am alway at your bidding.”“Well said. But what should best like thee?”Amphillis felt the question no easy one. She would not wish to leave Perrote; but if Perrote took the veil, that obstacle would be removed; and even if she did not, Amphillis had no certain chance of accompanying her wherever she might go, which would not improbably be to Drayton Manor. To leave the rest of her present companions would be no hardship at all, except—Amphillis’s heart said “except,” and her conscience turned away and declined to pursue that road. Norman Hylton had shown no preference for her beyond others, so far as she knew, and her maidenly instinct warned her that even her thoughts had better be kept away from him. Before she answered, a shadow fell between her and the light; and Amphillis looked up into the kindly face of Archbishop Neville.The Archbishop had delayed his further journey for the sake of the dying Countess, whom he wished to see again, especially if his influence could induce her son to come to her. He now addressed himself to Mr Altham.“Master Altham, as I guess?” he asked, pleasantly.Mr Altham rose, as in duty bound, in honour to a priest, and a priest who, as he dimly discerned by his canonicals, was not altogether a common one.“He, and your humble servant, holy Father.”“You be uncle, I count, of my cousin Amphillis here?”“Sir! Amphillis your cousin!”“Amphillis is my cousin,” was the quiet answer; “and I am the Archbishop of York.”To say that Mr Altham was struck dumb with amazement would be no figure of speech. He stared from the Archbishop to Amphillis, and back again, as if his astonishment had fairly paralysed his powers, that of sight only excepted; and had not Regina roused him from his condition of helplessness by an exclamation of “Ach, heilige, Maria!” there is no saying how long he might have stood so doing.“Ay, Uncle,” said Amphillis, with a smile; “this is my Lord elect of York, and he is pleased to say that my father was his kinsman.”“And if it serve you, Master Altham,” added the Archbishop, “I would fain have a privy word with you touching this my cousin.”Mr Altham’s reply was two-fold. “Saints worshipped might they be!” was meant in answer to Amphillis. Then, to the Archbishop, he hastily continued, “Sir, holy Father, your Grace’s most humble servant! I hold myself at your Grace’s bidding, whensoever it shall please your Grace.”“That is well,” said the Archbishop, smiling. “We will have some talk this evening, if it serve you.”
“God’s very kindest answers to our prayersCome often in denials or delays.”S.W. Partridge.
“God’s very kindest answers to our prayersCome often in denials or delays.”S.W. Partridge.
Lord Basset turned back into his house with a sensation akin to relief. Not that he allowed the thought of his wife’s unhappiness to deter him from any course on which he had set his heart, but that he felt the pressure of her atmosphere, and could not enjoy his transgressions with the fullabandonwhich he would have liked. Her stately, cold, unbending reserve was like a constant chill and blight. How much more happy they might have been if they had chosen! The world held many a worse man than Lord Basset; he was rather idle and careless than wicked, though idleness and carelessness are very often the seed of wickedness, when left to go to flower. If she would only have dropped that haughty coldness, he thought, he could have felt interest in her, and have taken some pleasure in her society; while her conviction was that if he would only have shown some interest, she could have loved him and returned it. Would both have done it together, the result might have been attained.
Mr Godfrey Foljambe was meditating, not on this, but on his own personal wrongs, as he led the little cavalcade in an easterly direction. First, he had been deprived of that glass of Malvoisie—which would probably have been plural rather than singular—and of a conversation with Lord Basset, which might have resulted in something of interest: and life was exceedingly devoid of interest, thought Mr Godfrey, in a pessimistic spirit. He had not discovered that, to a great extent, life is to every man what he chooses to make it; that he who keeps his eyes fixed on street mud need not expect to discover pearls, while he who attentively scans the heavens is not at all unlikely to see stars. Let a man set himself diligently to hunt for either his misfortunes or his mercies, and he will find plenty of the article in request. Misfortunes were the present object of Mr Godfrey’s search, and he had no difficulty in discovering them. He was disgusted with the folly of Lady Basset in thus setting off at once, and making him set off, without so much as an hour’s rest. It was just like a woman! Women never had a scrap of patience. This pleasing illusion that all patience was masculine was kept up in popular literature just so long as men were the exclusive authors; when women began to write, otherwise than on kingly sufferance of the nobler half of creation, it was seen that the feminine view of that and similar subjects was not quite so restricted. Last and worst to young Godfrey was the expectation of his father’s displeasure. Sir Godfrey’s anger was no passing cloud, as his son well knew. To be thought to have failed in his mission—as assuredly he would be—by his own fault, would result in considerable immediate discomfort, and might even damage his worldly prospects in future. He would gladly have prolonged the journey; for his instinct always led him to put off the evil day rather than to face it and put it behind him—which last is usually the wiser course; but Lady Basset would brook no delay, and on the afternoon of the second day after leaving Drayton they rode up to Hazelwood Manor.
Godfrey hastily despatched the porter’s lad to inform his mother of Lady Basset’s arrival; and Lady Foljambe met her on the steps of the hall. The latter was scandalised to find that the former saw no need for secrecy, or at any rate had no intention of preserving it.
“Dame,” said Lady Foljambe, “I am honoured by your Ladyship’s visit. Pray you, suffer me to serve you with hypocras and spice in your privy chamber.”
This was intended as a gentle hint to the visitor that secrets were not to be talked in the hall; but the hint was not accepted.
“How fares my Lady and mother?” was the response.
“Dame, much worse than when my son departed,” said Lady Foljambe, in a fluttered manner.
“Then I pray you to break my coming, and lead me to her forthwith,” said Lady Basset, in her style of stately calm.
A curtain was drawn aside, and Perrote came forward.
“Damoiselle Jeanne!” she said, greeting Lady Basset by the old youthful title unheard for years. “My darling, mine own dear child!”
A smile, not at all usual there, quivered for a moment on the calm fixed lips.
“Is this mine ancient nurse, Perrote de Carhaix?” she said. “I think I know her face.”
The smile was gone in a moment, as she repeated her wish to be taken immediately to the Countess.
Lady Foljambe felt she had no choice. She led the way to the chamber of the royal prisoner, requesting Lady Basset to wait for a moment at the door.
The Countess sat no longer in her cushioned chair by the window. She was now confined to her bed, where she lay restlessly, moaning at intervals, but always on one theme. “My children! my lost children! Will not God give me backone?”
Lady Foljambe signed to Perrote—she scarcely knew why—to break the news to the suffering mother.
“Lady, the Lord hath heard your moaning, and hath seen your tears,” said Perrote, kneeling by the bed. “He hath given you back—”
“My son?”
The cry was a pitiful one. Then, as ever, the boy was the dearest to his mother’s heart.
“Very dear Lady, no. Your daughter.”
It was painful to see how the sudden gleam died out of the weary eyes.
“Ah, well!” she said, after an instant’s pause. “Well! I asked but for one, and when man doth that, he commonly gets the lesser of the twain. Well! I shall be glad to see my Jeanne. Let her come in.”
Lady Basset came forward and bent over the dying woman.
“Dame!” she said.
“Come, now!” was the answer. “There be folks enough call me Dame. Only two in all this world can call me Mother.”
“Mother!” was the response, in a tremulous voice. And then the icy stateliness broke up, and passionate sobs broke in, mingled with the sounds of “O Mother! Mother!”
“That’s good, little lass,” said the Countess. “It’s good to hear that, but once,ma fillette. But wherefore tarrieth thy brother away? It must be King Edward that will not suffer him to come.”
It was piteous to hear her cling thus to the old illusion. All the time of her imprisonment, though now and then in a fit of anger she could hurl bitter names at her son, yet, when calm, she had usually maintained that he was kept away from her, and refused to be convinced that his absence was of his own free will. The longer the illusion lasted, the more stubbornly she upheld it.
“’Tis not always the best-loved that loveth back the best,” said Perrote, gently, “without man’s best love be, as it should be, fixed on God. And ’tis common for fathers and mothers to love better than they be loved; the which is more than all other true of the Father in Heaven.”
“Thou mayest keep thy sermons, old woman, till mass is sung,” said the Countess, in her cynical style. “Ah me! My Jean would come to the old, white-haired mother that risked her life for his—he would come if he could. He must know how my soul hungereth for the sight of his face. I want nothing else. Heaven would be Purgatory to me without him.”
“Ah, my dear Lady!” tenderly replied Perrote. “If only I might hear you say that of the Lord that laid down His life for you!”
“I am not a nun,” was the answer; “and I shall not say that which I feel not.”
“God forbid you should, Lady! But I pray Him to grant you so to feel.”
“I tell thee, I am not a nun,” said the Countess, rather pettishly.
Her idea was that real holiness was impossible out of the cloister, and that to love God was an entirely different type of feeling from the affection she had for her human friends. This was the usual sentiment in the Middle Ages. But Perrote had been taught of God, and while her educational prejudices acted like coloured or smoked glass, and dimmed the purity of the heavenly light, they were unable to hide it altogether.
“Very dear Lady,” she said, “God loveth sinners; and He must then love other than nuns. Shall they not love Him back, though they be not in cloister?”
“Thou hadst better win in cloister thyself, when thou art rid of me,” was the answer, in a tone which was a mixture of languor and sarcasm. “Thou art scarce fit to tarry without, old woman.”
“I will do that which God shall show me,” said Perrote, calmly. “Dame, were it not well your Grace should essay to sleep?”
“Nay, not so. I have my Jeanne to look at, that I have not seen for five-and-twenty years. I shall sleep fast enough anon. Daughter, art thou a happy woman, or no?”
Lady Basset answered by a shake of the head. “Why, what aileth thee? Is it thy baron, or thy childre?”
“I have no child, Mother.”
The Countess heard the regretful yearning of the tone.
“Thank the saints,” she said. “Thou wert better. Soothly, to increase objects for love is to increase sorrow. If thou have no childre, they’ll never be torn from thee, nor they will never break thine heart by ill behaving.And most folks behave ill in this world.Ha, chétife! ’tis a weary, dreary place, this world, as ever a poor woman was in. Hast thou a good man to thy baron, child?”
“He might be worser,” said Lady Basset, icily.
“That’s true of an handful of folks,” said the Countess. “And I reckon he might be better, eh? That’s true of most. Good lack, I marvel wherefore we all were made. Was it by reason God loved or hated us? Say, my Predicant Friaress.”
“Very dear Lady, the wise man saith, ‘God made a man rightful, and he meddled himself with questions without, number.’ (Ecclesiastes eight, verse 29.) And Saint Paul saith that ‘God commendeth His charity in us, for when we were sinners, Christ was dead for us.’ (Romans five, verse 8.) Moreover, Saint John—”
“Hold! There be two Scriptures. Where is the sermon?”
“The Scriptures, Lady, preach a better sermon than I can.”
“That’s but a short one. Man’s ill, and God is good; behold all thine homily. That man is ill, I lack no preaching friar to tell me. As to God being good, the Church saith so, and there I rest. Mary, Mother! if He were good, He would bring my Jean back to me.”
“Very dear Lady, God is wiser than men, and He seeth the end from the beginning.”
“Have done, Perrotine! I tell thee, if God be good, He will bring my Jean to me. There I abide. I’ll say it, if He do. I would love any man that wrought that: and if He will work it, I will love Him—and not otherwise. Hold! I desire no more talk.”
The Countess turned her face to the wall, and Perrote retired, with tears in her eyes.
“Lord, Thou art wise!” she said in her heart; “wiser than I, than she, than all men. But never yet have I known her to depart from such a word as that. Oh, if it be possible,—if it be possible!—Thou who camest down from Heaven to earth, come down once more to the weak and stubborn soul of this dying woman, and grant her that which she requests, if so she may be won to love thee! Father, the time is very short, and her soul is very dark. O fair Father, Jesu Christ, lose not this soul for which Thou hast died!”
Perrote’s next move was to await Lady Basset’s departure from her mother’s chamber, and to ask her to bestow a few minutes’ private talk on her old nurse. The Princess complied readily, and came into the opposite chamber where Amphillis sat sewing.
“Damoiselle Jeanne,” said Perrote, using the royal title of Lady Basset’s unmarried days; “may I pray you tell me if you have of late seen the Lord Duke your brother?”
“Ay, within a year,” said Lady Basset, listlessly.
“Would it please you to say if King Edward letteth his coming?”
“I think not so.”
“Would he come, if he were asked yet again, and knew that a few weeks—maybe days—would end his mother’s life?”
“I doubt it, Perrotine.”
“Wherefore? He can love well where he list.”
“Ay, where he list. But I misdoubt if ever he loved her—at the least, sithence she let him from wedding the Damoiselle de Ponteallen.”
“Then he loved the Damoiselle very dearly?”
“For a month—ay.”
“But wherefore, when the matter was by—”
Lady Basset answered with a bitter little laugh, which reminded Perrote of her mother’s.
“Because he loved Jean de Montfort, and she thwartedhim, not the Damoiselle. He loved Alix de Ponteallen passionately, and passion dies; ’tis its nature. It is not passionately, but undyingly, that he loves himself. Men do; ’tis their nature.”
Perrote shrewdly guessed that the remark had especial reference to one man, and that not the Duke of Bretagne.
“Ah, that is the nature of all sinners,” she said, “and therefore of all men and women also. Dame, will you hearken to your old nurse, and grant her one boon?”
“That will I, Perrotine, if it be in my power. I grant not so many boons, neither can I, that I should grudge one to mine old nurse. What wouldst?”
“Dame, I pray you write a letter to my Lord Duke, the pitifullest you may pen, and send one of your men therewith, to pray him, as he loveth you, or her, or God, that he will come and look on her ere she die. Tell him his old nurse full lovingly entreateth him, and if he will so do, I will take veil when my Lady is gone hence, and spend four nights in the week in prayer for his welfare. Say I will be his bedes-woman for ever, in any convent he shall name. Say anything that will bring him!”
“I passed thee my word, and I will keep it,” said Lady Basset, as she rose. “But if I know him, what I should say certainly to bring him would be that Sir Oliver de Clisson lay here in dungeon, and that if he would come he should see his head strake off in yonder court. He is a fair lover, my brother; but he is a far better hater.”
Perrote sighed.
“Amphillis!” came faintly up the stairs and along the gallery. “Am-phil-lis!”
“Go, child,” said Perrote, replying to a look from Amphillis. “’Tis Agatha calling thee. What would the foolish maid?”
Amphillis left her work upon the bench and ran down.
“Well, it is merry matter to catch hold of thee!” said Agatha, who was waiting at the foot of the stairs, and who never could recollect, unless Lady Foljambe were present, that Amphillis was to be addressed with more reverence than before. “Here be friends of thine come to visit thee.”
“Friends!—of mine!” exclaimed Amphillis, in surprise. “Why, I haven’t any friends.”
“Well, enemies, then,” said Agatha, with a giggle. “Come, go into hall and see who they be, and then tell me.”
Amphillis obeyed, and to her still greater surprise, found herself in the presence of Mr Altham and Regina.
“Ah, here she cometh!” was her uncle’s greeting. “Well, my maid, I am fain to see thee so well-looking, I warrant thee. Can’st love a new aunt, thinkest?”
“That am I secure,” replied Amphillis, smiling, and kissing the goldsmith’s daughter.
“And an old uncle belike?” pursued Mr Altham, kissing her in his turn.
“Assuredly, dear Uncle; but I pray, how came you hither?”
“Dat shall I tell you,” said Mrs Altham, “for oderwise you shall not know what good uncle you have. He promise to take me to mine own home in Dutchland, to see my greatmoder and mine aunts; and when we nigh ready were, he say, ‘See you, now! shall we not go round by Derbyshire, to see Amphillis, and sail from Hull?’ So we come round all dis way; he miss you so, and want to make him sure you be well and kindly used. See you?”
“How kind and good are you both!” said Amphillis, gratefully. “Pray you, good Aunt Regina, came Ricarda home safe?”
“She came safe, and she had but de scold well, tanks to your message; if not, she had de beat, beat, I ensure you, and she deserve dat full well. She was bad girl, bad. Said I not to you, De mans is bad, and de womans is badder? It is true.”
“She’s a weary hussy!” said Mr Altham; “but she’s been a sight better maid sithence she came back. She saith ’tis thy doing, Phyllis.”
“Mine?” exclaimed Amphillis.
“She saith so. I wis not how. And art happy here, my maid? Doth thy dame entreat thee well? and be thy fellows pleasant company? Because if no, there’s room for thee in the patty-shop, I can tell thee. Saundrina’s wed, and Ricarda looks to be, and my wife and I should be full fain to have thee back for our daughter. Howbeit, if thou art here welsome and comfortable, we will not carry thee off against thy will. What sayest?”
“Truly, dear Uncle, I am here full welsome, saving some small matters of little moment; and under your good pleasure, I would fain not go hence so long as one liveth that is now sore sick in this house, and nigh to death. Afterward, if it like you to dispose of me otherwise, I am alway at your bidding.”
“Well said. But what should best like thee?”
Amphillis felt the question no easy one. She would not wish to leave Perrote; but if Perrote took the veil, that obstacle would be removed; and even if she did not, Amphillis had no certain chance of accompanying her wherever she might go, which would not improbably be to Drayton Manor. To leave the rest of her present companions would be no hardship at all, except—
Amphillis’s heart said “except,” and her conscience turned away and declined to pursue that road. Norman Hylton had shown no preference for her beyond others, so far as she knew, and her maidenly instinct warned her that even her thoughts had better be kept away from him. Before she answered, a shadow fell between her and the light; and Amphillis looked up into the kindly face of Archbishop Neville.
The Archbishop had delayed his further journey for the sake of the dying Countess, whom he wished to see again, especially if his influence could induce her son to come to her. He now addressed himself to Mr Altham.
“Master Altham, as I guess?” he asked, pleasantly.
Mr Altham rose, as in duty bound, in honour to a priest, and a priest who, as he dimly discerned by his canonicals, was not altogether a common one.
“He, and your humble servant, holy Father.”
“You be uncle, I count, of my cousin Amphillis here?”
“Sir! Amphillis your cousin!”
“Amphillis is my cousin,” was the quiet answer; “and I am the Archbishop of York.”
To say that Mr Altham was struck dumb with amazement would be no figure of speech. He stared from the Archbishop to Amphillis, and back again, as if his astonishment had fairly paralysed his powers, that of sight only excepted; and had not Regina roused him from his condition of helplessness by an exclamation of “Ach, heilige, Maria!” there is no saying how long he might have stood so doing.
“Ay, Uncle,” said Amphillis, with a smile; “this is my Lord elect of York, and he is pleased to say that my father was his kinsman.”
“And if it serve you, Master Altham,” added the Archbishop, “I would fain have a privy word with you touching this my cousin.”
Mr Altham’s reply was two-fold. “Saints worshipped might they be!” was meant in answer to Amphillis. Then, to the Archbishop, he hastily continued, “Sir, holy Father, your Grace’s most humble servant! I hold myself at your Grace’s bidding, whensoever it shall please your Grace.”
“That is well,” said the Archbishop, smiling. “We will have some talk this evening, if it serve you.”