A Forgotten Hero, or, Not for Him, by Emily Sarah Holt. 

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This shortish book takes us to the end of the thirteenth century, and, although the people in the book are mostly high-born, the scene is avery domestic one. It gives us a good understanding of the way life waslived in those days. Recommended for its social interest. ________________________________________________________________________

A FORGOTTEN HERO, OR, NOT FOR HIM, BY EMILY SARAH HOLT. 

CHAPTER ONE. 

CASTLES IN THE AIR. 

 "O pale, pale face, so sweet and meek, Oriana!"

 Tennyson. 

"Is the linen all put away, Clarice?"

"Ay, Dame. "

"And the rosemary not forgotten?"

"I have laid it in the linen, Dame. "

"And thy day's task of spinning is done?"

"All done, Dame. "

"Good. Then fetch thy sewing and come hither, and I will tell theesomewhat touching the lady whom thou art to serve. "

"I humbly thank your Honour. " And dropping a low courtesy, the girlleft the room, and returned in a minute with her work. 

"Thou mayest sit down, Clarice. "

Clarice, with another courtesy and a murmur of thanks, took her seat inthe recess of the window, where her mother was already sitting. Forthese two were mother and daughter; a middle-aged, comfortable-lookingmother, with a mixture of firmness and good-nature in her face; and adaughter of some sixteen years, rather pale and slender, but active andintelligent in her appearance. Clarice's dark hair was smoothly brushedand turned up in a curl all round her head, being cut sufficiently shortfor that purpose. Her dress was long and loose, made in what we callthe Princess style, with a long train, which she tucked under one armwhen she walked. The upper sleeve was of a narrow bell shape, but underit came down tight ones to the wrist, fastened by a row of large roundbuttons quite up to the elbow. A large apron--which Clarice called abarm-cloth--protected the dress from stain. A fillet of ribbon wasbound round her head, but she had no ornaments of any kind. Her motherwore a similar costume, excepting that in her case the fillet round thehead was exchanged for a wimple, which was a close hood, covering headand neck, and leaving no part exposed but the face. It was a verycomfortable article in cold weather, but an eminently unbecoming one. 

These two ladies were the wife and daughter of Sir Gilbert Le Theyn, aknight of Surrey, who held his manor of the Earl of Cornwall; and thedate of the day when they thus sat in the window was the 26th of March1290. 

It will strike modern readers as odd if I say that Clarice and hermother knew very little of each other. She was her father's heir, beingan only child; and it was, therefore, considered the more necessary thatshe should not live at home. It was usual at that time to send allyoung girls of good family, not to school--there were no schools inthose days--but to be brought up under some lady of rank, where theymight receive a suitable education, and, on reaching the proper age, have a husband provided for them, the one being just as much a matter ofcourse as the other. The consent of the parents was asked to thematrimonial selection of the mistress, but public opinion required somevery strong reason to justify them in withholding it. The onlyexception to this arrangement was when girls were destined for thecloister, and in that case they received their education in a convent. But there was one person who had absolutely no voice in the matter, andthat was the unfortunate girl in question. The very idea of consultingher on any point of it, would have struck a mediaeval mother withastonishment and dismay. 

Why ladies should have been considered competent in all instances toeducate anybody's daughters but their own is a mystery of the MiddleAges. Dame La Theyn had under her care three girls, who were receivingtheir education at her hands, and she never thought of questioning herown competency to impart it; yet, also without a question, she sentClarice away from her, first to a neighbouring knight's wife, and now toa Princess, to receive the education which she might just as well havehad at home. It was the command of Fashion; and who does not know thatFashion, whether in the thirteenth century or the nineteenth, _must_ beobeyed?

Clarice was on the brink of high promotion. By means of a ladder ofseveral steps--a Dame requesting a Baroness, and the Baroness entreatinga Countess--the royal lady had been reached at last, whose husband wasthe suzerain of Sir Gilbert. It made little difference to this ladywhether her bower-women were two or ten, provided that the attendancegiven her was as much as she required; and she readily granted thepetition that Clarice La Theyn might be numbered among those youngladies. The Earl of Cornwall was the richest man in England, notexcepting the King. It may be added that, at this period, Earl was thehighest title known short of the Prince of Wales. The first Duke hadnot yet been created, while Marquis is a rank of much later date. 

Dame La Theyn, though she had some good points, had also one grandfailing. She was an inveterate gossip. And it made no difference toher who was her listener, provided a listener could be had. A spicydish of scandal was her highest delight. She had not the least wish norintention of doing harm to the person whom she thus discussed. She hadnot even the slightest notion that she did any. But her bower-maidensknew perfectly well that, if one of them wanted to put the dame in highgood-humour before extracting a favour, the best way to do so was toinform her that Mrs Sheppey had had words with her goodman, or thatDame Rouse considered Joan Stick i' th' Lane [Note 1], no better thanshe should be. 

An innocent request from Clarice, that she might know something abouther future mistress, had been to Dame La Theyn a delightful opportunityfor a good dish of gossip. Reticence was not in the Dame's nature; andin the thirteenth century--and much later than that--facts which in thenineteenth would be left in concealment, or, at most, only delicatelyhinted at, were spoken out in the plainest English, even to young girls. The fancy that the Countess of Cornwall might not like her whole life, so far as it was known, laid bare to her new bower-woman was one whichnever troubled the mind of Dame La Theyn. Privacy, to any person ofrank more especially, was an unknown thing in the Middle Ages. 

"Thou must know, Clarice, " began the Dame, "that of old time, beforethou wert born, I was bower-maiden unto my most dear-worthy Lady ofLincoln--that is brother's wife to my gracious Lady of Gloucester, mother unto my Lady of Cornwall, that shall be thy mistress. The Ladyof Lincoln, that was mine, is a dame of most high degree, for her fatherwas my Lord of Saluces, [Note 2], in Italy--very nigh a king--and sheherself was wont to be called `Queen of Lincoln, ' being of so highdegree. Ah, she gave me many a good gown, for I was twelve years in herservice. And a good woman she is, but rarely proud--as it is but likesuch a princess should be. I mind one super-tunic she gave me, but halfworn, "--this was said impressively, for a garment only _half worn_ wasconsidered a fit gift from one peeress to another--"of blue damask, allset with silver buttons, and broidered with ladies' heads along theborder. I gave it for a wedding gift unto Dame Rouse when she was wed, and she hath it now, I warrant thee. Well! her lord's sister, our LadyMaud, was wed to my Lord of Gloucester; but stay!--there is a tale totell thee thereabout. "

And Dame La Theyn bit off her thread with a complacent face. Nothingsuited her better than a tale to tell, unless it were one to hear. 

"Well-a-day, there be queer things in this world!"

The Dame paused, as if to give time for Clarice to note that veryoriginal sentiment. 

"Our Lady Maud was wed to her lord, the good Earl of Gloucester, withbut little liking of her side, and yet less on his. Nathless, she madeno plaint, but submitted herself, as a good maid should do--for markthou, Clarice, 'tis the greatest shame that can come to a maiden to sether will against those of her father and mother in wedlock. A goodmaid--as I trust thou art--should have no will in such matters but thatof those whom God hath set over her. And all love-matches end ill, Clarice; take my word for it! Art noting me?"

Clarice meekly responded that the moral lesson had reached her. She didnot add whether she meant to profit by it. Probably she had her ownideas on the question, and it is quite possible that they did notentirely correspond with those which her mother was instilling. 

"Now look on me, Clarice, " pursued Dame La Theyn, earnestly. "When Iwas a young maid I had foolish fancies like other maidens. Had I beenleft to order mine own life, I warrant thee I should have wed with oneMaster Pride, that was page to my good knight my father; and when I wistthat my said father had other thoughts for my disposal, I slept of a wetpillow for many a night--ay, that did I. But now that I be come toyears of discretion, I do ensure thee that I am right thankful my saidfather was wiser than I. For this Master Pride was slain at Evesham, when I was of the age of five-and-twenty years, and left behind him notso much as a mark of silver that should have come to me, his widow. Itwas a good twenty-fold better that I should have wedded with thy father, Sir Gilbert, that hath this good house, and forty acres of land, andspendeth thirty marks by the year and more. Dost thou not see thesame?"

No. Clarice heard, but she did not see. 

"Well-a-day! Now know, that when my good Lord of Gloucester, that wedwith our Lady Maud, was a young lad, being then in wardship unto SirHubert, sometime Earl of Kent (whom God pardon!) he strake up alove-match with the Lady Margaret, that was my said Lord of Kent hisdaughter. And in very deed a good match it should have been, had itbeen well liked of them that were above them; but the Lord King thatthen was--the father unto King Edward that now is--rarely misliked thesame, and gat them divorced in all hate. It was not meet, as thoumayest well guess, that such matters should be settled apart from hisroyal pleasure. And forthwith, ere further mischief could ensue, hecaused my said Lord of Gloucester to wed with our Lady Maud. But lookthou, so obstinate was he, and so set of having his own way, that hescarce ever said so much as `Good morrow' to the Lady Maud until he knewthat the said Lady Margaret was commanded to God. Never do thou beobstinate, Clarice. 'Tis ill enough for a young man, but yet worse fora maid. "

"How long time was that, Dame, an' it like you?"

"Far too long, " answered Dame La Theyn, somewhat severely. "Three yearsand more. "

Three years and more! Clarice's thoughts went off on a long journey. Three years of disappointed hope and passionate regret, three years ofweary waiting for death, on the part of the Lady Margaret! Naturallyenough her sympathies were with the girl. And three years, to Clarice, at sixteen, seemed a small lifetime. 

"Now, this lady whom thou shalt serve, Clarice, " pursued her mother--andClarice's mind came back to the subject in hand--"she is first-borndaughter unto the said Sir Richard de Clare, Lord of Gloucester, and ourLady Maud, of whom I spake. Her name is Margaret, after the damsel thatdied--a poor compliment, as methinks, to the said Lady Maud; and had Ibeen she, the maid should have been called aught else it liked my baron, but not that. "

Ah, but had I been he, thought Clarice, it should have been just that!

"And I have heard, " said the Dame, biting off her thread, "that thereshould of old time be some misliking--what I know not--betwixt the LadyMargaret and her baron; but whether it were some olden love of his partor of hers, or what so, I cast no doubt that she hath long ere thisoverlived the same, and is now a good and loving lady unto him, as ismeet. "

Clarice felt disposed to cast very much doubt on this suggestion. Sheheld the old-fashioned idea that a true heart could love but once, andcould not forget. Her vivid imagination instantly erected an exquisitecastle in the air, wherein the chief part was played by the LadyMargaret's youthful lover--a highly imaginary individual, of the mostperfect manners and unparalleled beauty, whom the unfortunate maidencould never forget, though she was forced by her cruel parents to marrythe Earl of Cornwall. He, of course, was a monster of ugliness inperson, and of everything disagreeable in character, as a man in suchcircumstances was bound to be. 

Poor Clarice! she had not seen much of the world. Her mental picture ofthe lady whom she was to serve depicted her as sweet and sorrowful, witha low plaintive voice and dark, starry, pathetic eyes, towards whom theonly feelings possible would be loving reverence and sympathy. 

"And now, Clarice, I have another thing to say. "

"At your pleasure, Dame. "

"I think it but meet to tell thee a thing I have heard from thy father--that the Lord Edmund, Earl of Cornwall, thy lady's baron, is one thathath some queer ideas in his head. I know not well what kind they are;but folk say that he is a strange man and hath strange talk. So do thoumind what thou dost. Alway be reverent to him, as is meet; but sufferhim not to talk to thee but in presence of thy lady. "

Clarice felt rather frightened--all the more so from the extremevagueness of the warning. 

"And now lap up thy sewing, child, for I see thy father coming in, andwe will go down to hall. "

A few weeks later three horses stood ready saddled at the door of SirGilbert's house. One was laden with luggage; the second was mounted bya manservant; and the third, provided with saddle and pillion, was forClarice and her father. Sir Gilbert, fully armed, mounted his steed, Clarice was helped up behind him, and with a final farewell to Dame LaTheyn, who stood in the doorway, they rode forth on their way to OakhamCastle. Three days' journey brought them to their destination, and theywere witnesses of a curious ceremony just as they reached the Castlegate. All over the gate horseshoes were nailed. A train of visitorswere arriving at the Castle, and the trumpeter sounded his horn forentrance. 

"Who goes there?" demanded the warder. "The right noble and puissantPrince Edmund, Earl of Lancaster, Leicester, and Derby; and his mostnoble lady, Blanche, Queen Dowager of Navarre, Countess of the same, cousins unto my gracious Lord of Cornwall. "

"Is this my said noble Lord's first visit unto the lordship of Oakham?"asked the warder, without opening the gate. "It is. "

"Then our gracious Lord, as Lord of the said manor, demands of him oneof the shoes of the horse whereon he rides as tribute due from everypeer of the realm on his first coming to this lordship. "

"My right noble and puissant Lord, " returned the trumpeter, "denies thesaid shoe of his horse; but offers in the stead one silver penny, forthe purchase of a shoe in lieu thereof. "

"My gracious Lord deigns to receive the said silver penny in lieu of theshoe, and lovingly prays your Lord and Lady to enter his said Castle. "

Then the portcullis was drawn up, and the long train filed noisily intothe courtyard. This ceremony was observed on the first visit of everypeer to Oakham Castle; but the visitor was allowed, if he chose, as inthis instance, to redeem the horse-shoe by the payment of money to buyone. The shoes contributed by eminent persons were not unfrequentlygilded. 

The modest train of Sir Gilbert and Clarice crept quietly in at the endof the royal suite. As he was only a knight, his horse-shoe was not inrequest Sir Gilbert told the warder in a few words his name and errand, whereupon that functionary summoned a boy, and desired him to conductthe knight and maiden to Mistress Underdone. Having alighted from thehorse, Clarice shook down her riding-gown, and humbly followed SirGilbert and the guide into the great hall, which was built like achurch, with centre and aisles, up a spiral staircase at one end of it, and into a small room hung with green say [Note 3]. Here they had towait a while, for every one was too busily employed in the reception ofthe royal guests to pay attention to such comparatively mean people. Atlast--when Sir Gilbert had yawned a dozen times, and strummed upon thetable about as many, a door at the back of the room was opened, and aportly, comfortable-looking woman came forward to meet them. Was thisthe Countess? thought Clarice, with her heart fluttering. It wasextremely unlike her ideal picture. 

"Your servant, Sir Gilbert Le Theyn, " said the newcomer, in a cheerful, kindly voice. "I am Agatha Underdone, Mistress of the Maids unto mygracious Lady of Cornwall. I bid thee welcome, Clarice--I think that isthy name?"

Clarice acknowledged her name, with a private comforting conviction thatMistress Underdone, at least, would be pleasant enough to live with. 

"You will wish, without doubt, to go down to hall, where is good companyat this present, " pursued the latter, addressing Sir Gilbert. "So, ifit please you to take leave of the maiden--"

Sir Gilbert put two fingers on Clarice's head, as she immediately kneltbefore him. For a father to kiss a daughter was a rare thing at thattime, and for the daughter to offer it would have been thought quitedisrespectful, and much too familiar. 

"Farewell, Clarice, " said he. "Be a good maid, be obedient and meek;please thy lady; and may God keep thee, and send thee an husband in goodtime. "

There was nothing more necessary in Sir Gilbert's eyes. Obedience wasthe one virtue for Clarice to cultivate, and a husband (qualityimmaterial) was sufficient reward for any amount of virtue. 

Clarice saw her father depart without any feeling of regret. He waseven a greater stranger to her than her mother. She was aself-contained, lonely-hearted girl, capable of intense love andhero-worship, but never having come across one human being who hadattracted those qualities from their nest in her heart. 

"Now follow me, Clarice, " said Mistress Underdone, "and I will introducethee to the maidens, thy fellows, of whom there are four beside thee atthis time. "

Clarice followed, silently, up a further spiral staircase, and into alarger chamber, where four girls were sitting at work. 

"Maidens, " said Mistress Underdone, "this is your new fellow, Clarice LaTheyn, daughter of Sir Gilbert Le Theyn and Dame Maisenta La Heron. Stand, each in turn, while I tell her your names. "

The nearest of the four, a slight, delicate-looking, fair-haired girl, rose at once, gathering her work on her arm. 

"Olympias Trusbut, youngest daughter of Sir Robert Trusbut, of thecounty of Lincoln, and Dame Joan Twentymark, " announced MistressUnderdone. 

She turned to the next, a short, dark, merry-looking damsel. 

"Elaine Criketot, daughter of Sir William Criketot and Dame Alice LaGerunell, of the county of Chester. "

The third was tall, stately, and sedate. 

"Diana Quappelad, daughter of Sir Walter Quappelad and Dame BeatriceCotele, of the county of Rutland. "

Lastly rose a quiet, gentle-looking girl. 

"Roisia de Levinton, daughter of Sir Hubert de Levinton and Dame MaudIngham, of the county of Surrey. "

Clarice's heart went faintly out to the girl from her own county, butshe was much too shy to utter a word. 

Having introduced the girls to each other, Mistress Underdone left themto get acquainted at their leisure. 

"Art thou only just come?" asked Elaine, who was the first to speak. 

"Only just come, " repeated Clarice, timidly. 

"Hast thou seen my Lady?"

"Not yet: I should like to see her. "

Elaine's answer was a little half-suppressed laugh, which seemed theconcentration of amusement. 

"Maids, hear you this? Our new fellow has not seen the Lady. She wouldlike to see her. "

A smile was reflected on all four faces. Clarice thought Diana's wasslightly satirical; those of the other two were rather pitying. 

"Now, what dost thou expect her to be like?" pursued Elaine. 

"I may be quite wrong, " answered Clarice, in the shy way which she wasnot one to lose quickly. "I fancied she would be tall--"

"Right there, " said Olympias. 

"And dark--"

"Oh, no, she is fair. "

"And very beautiful, with sorrowful eyes, and a low, mournful voice. "

All the girls laughed, Roisia and Olympias gently, Diana scornfully, Elaine with shrill hilarity. 

"_Ha, jolife_!" cried the last-named young lady. "Heard one ever thelike? Only wait till supper. Then thou shalt see this lovely lady, with the sweet, sorrowful eyes and the soft, low voice. _Pure foy_! Ishall die with laughing, Clarice, if thou sayest anything more. "

"Hush!" said Diana, sharply and suddenly; but Elaine's amusement had toomuch impetus on it to be stopped all at once. She was sitting with herback to the door, her mirthful laughter ringing through the room, whenthe door was suddenly flung open, and two ladies appeared behind it. The startled, terrified expression on the faces of Olympias and Roisiawarned Clarice that something unpleasant was going to happen. HadMistress Underdone a superior, between her and the Countess, whom tooffend was a very grave affair? Clarice looked round with much interestand some trepidation at the new comers. 

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Note 1. Stykelane and Bakepuce--both most unpleasantly suggestivenames--occur on the Fines Roll for 1254. 

Note 2. Saluzzo. 

Note 3. A common coarse silk, used both for dress and upholstery. 

CHAPTER TWO. 

THE MISTS CLEAR AWAY. 

 "Nec tecum possum vivere, nec sine te. "

 Martial. 

One at least of the ladies who had disturbed Elaine's hilarity did notlook a person of whom it was necessary to be afraid. She was a matronlywoman of middle age, bearing the remains of extreme beauty. She had agood-natured expression, and she rather shrank back, as if she werethere on sufferance only. But the other, who came forward into theroom, was tall, spare, upright, and angular, with a face which struckClarice as looking very like verjuice. 

"Agatha!" called the latter, sharply; and, laying her hand, not gently, on Elaine's shoulder, she gave her a shake which rapidly reduced her togravity. 

"Ye weary, wretched giglots, what do ye thus laughing and tittering, when I have distinctly forbidden the same?--Agatha!--Know ye not thatall ye be miserable sinners, and this lower world a vale of tears?--Agatha!"

"Truly, Cousin Meg, " observed the other lady, now coming forward, "methinks you go far to make it such. "

"Agatha might have more sense, " returned her acetous companion. "I havebidden her forty times o'er to have these maids well ordered, and minehouse as like to an holy convent as might be compassed; and here is shenone knows whither--taking her pleasure, I reckon--and these caitiffhildings making the very walls for to ring with their wicked foolishlaughter!--Agatha! bring me hither the rod. I will see if a goodwhipping bring not down your ill-beseen spirits, mistress!"

Elaine turned pale, and cast a beseeching glance at the pleasanter ofthe ladies. 

"Nay, now, Cousin Meg, " interposed she, "I pray you, let not this myfirst visit to Oakham be linked with trouble to these young maids. I amwell assured you know grey heads cannot be well set on green shoulders. "

"Lady, I am right unwilling to deny any bidding of yours. But I dodesire of you to tell me if it be not enough to provoke a saint toswear?"

"What! to hear a young maid laugh, cousin? Nay, soothly, I would notthink so. "

Mistress Underdone had entered the room, and, after dropping a courtesyto each of the ladies, stood waiting the pleasure of her mistress. Clarice was slowly coming to the conclusion, with dire dismay, that thesharp-featured, sharp-tongued woman before her was no other than theLady Margaret of Cornwall, her lovely lady with the pathetic eyes. 

"Give me the rod, Agatha, " said the Countess, sternly. 

"Nay, Cousin Meg, I pray you, let Agatha give it to me. "

"_You'll_ not lay on!" said the Countess, with a contortion of her lipswhich appeared to do duty for a smile. 

"Trust me, I will do the right thing, " replied Queen Blanche, taking therod which Mistress Underdone presented to her on the knee. "Now. Elaine, stand out here. "

Elaine, very pale and preternaturally grave, placed herself in therequired position. 

"Say after me. `I entreat pardon of my Lady for being so unhappy as tooffend her. '"

Elaine faltered out the dictated words. 

"Kiss the rod, " said the Queen. 

She was immediately obeyed. 

"Now, Cousin Meg, for my sake, I pray you, let that suffice. "

"Well, Lady, for _your_ sake, " responded the Countess, with apparentreluctance, looking rather like a kite from whose talons the Queen hadextracted a sparrow intended for its dinner. 

"Sit you in this chamber, Cousin Meg?" asked the Queen, taking a curulechair as she spoke--the only one in the room. 

"Nay, Lady. 'Tis mine hour for repeating the seven penitential psalms. I have no time to waste with these giglots. "

"Then, I pray you, give me leave to abide here myself for a season. "

"You will do your pleasure, Lady. I only pray of you to keep them fromlaughing and such like wickedness. "

"Nay, for I will not promise that for myself, " said Queen Blanche, witha good-tempered smile. "Go your ways, Meg; we will work no evil. "

The Countess turned and stalked out of the door again. And Clarice'sfirst castle in the air fell into pieces behind her. 

"Now, Agatha, I pray thee shut the door, " said the Queen, "that weoffend not my Cousin Margaret's ears in her psalms. Fare ye all well, my maids? Thy face is strange to me, child. "

Clarice courtesied very low. "If it please the Lady Queen, I am butjust come hither. "

She had to tell her name and sundry biographical particulars, and then, suddenly looking round, the Queen said, "And where is Heliet?"

"Please it the Lady Queen, in my chamber, " said Mistress Underdone. 

"Bid her hither, good Agatha--if she can come. "

"That can she, Lady. "

Mistress Underdone left the room, and in another minute the regular tapof approaching crutches was audible. Clarice imagined their wearer tobe some old woman--perhaps the mother of Mistress Underdone. But assoon as the door was opened again, she was surprised and touched toperceive that the sufferer who used them was a girl little older thanherself. She came up to Queen Blanche, who welcomed her with a smile, and held her hand to the girl's lips to be kissed. This was her onlyway of paying homage, for to her courtesying and kneeling were alikeimpossible. 

Clarice felt intuitively, as she looked into Heliet's face, that herewas a girl entirely different from the rest. She seemed as if Naturehad intended her to be tall, but had stopped and stunted her when onlyhalf grown. Her shoulders were unnaturally high, and one leg wasconsiderably shorter than the other. Her face was not in any waybeautiful, yet there was a certain mysterious attraction about it. Something looked out of her eyes which Clarice studied without beingable to define, but which disposed her to keep on looking. They weredark, pathetic eyes, of the kind with which Clarice had gifted her veryimaginary Countess; but there was something beyond the pathos. 

"It looks, " thought Clarice, "as if she had gone through the pathos andthe suffering, and had come out on the other side--on the shore of theGolden Land, where they see what everything meant, and are satisfied. "

There was very little time for conversation before the supper-bell rang. Queen Blanche made kind inquiries concerning Heliet's lameness andgeneral health, but had not reached any other subject when the sound ofthe bell thrilled through the room. The four girls rapidly folded uptheir work, as though the summons were welcome. Queen Blanche rose anddeparted, with a kindly nod to all, and Heliet, turning to Clarice, said, "Wilt thou come down with me? I cannot go fast, as thou mayestsee; but thou wilt sit next to me, and I can tell thee anything thoumayest wish to know. "

Clarice thankfully assented, and they went down the spiral staircasetogether into the great hall, where three tables were spread. At thehighest and smallest, on the dais, were already seated the Queen and theCountess, two gentlemen, and two priests. At the head of the secondstood Mistress Underdone, next to whom was Diana, and Heliet led upClarice to her side. They faced the dais, so that Clarice could watchits distinguished occupants at her pleasure. Tables for meals, at thatdate, were simply boards placed on trestles, and removed when the repastwas over. On the table at the dais was silver plate, then a rareluxury, restricted to the highest classes, the articles being spoons, knives, plates, and goblets. There were no forks, for only one fork hadever then been heard of as a thing to eat with, and this had been theinvention of the wife of a Doge of Venice, about two hundred yearsprevious, for which piece of refinement the public rewarded the lady byconsidering her as proud as Lucifer. Forks existed, both in the form ofspice-forks and fire-forks, but no one ever thought of eating with themin England until they were introduced from Italy in the reign of Jamesthe First, and for some time after that the use of them marked either atraveller, or a luxurious, effeminate man. Moreover, there were noknives nor spoons provided for helping one's self from the dishes. Eachperson had a knife and spoon for himself, with which he helped himselfat his convenience. People who were very delicate and particular wipedtheir knives on a piece of bread before doing so, and licked theirspoons all over. When these were the practices of fastidious people, the proceedings of those who were not such may be discreetly left toimagination. The second table was served in a much more ordinarymanner. In this instance the knife was iron and the spoon pewter, theplate a wooden trencher (never changed), and the drinking-cup of horn. In the midst of the table stood a pewter salt-cellar, formed like acastle, and _very_ much larger than we use them now. 

This salt-cellar acted as a barometer, not for weather, but for rank. Every one of noble blood, or filling certain offices, sat above thesalt. 

With respect to cooking our fathers had some peculiarities. They atemany things that we never touch, such as porpoises and herons, and theyused all manner of green things as vegetables. They liked their breadhot from the oven (to give cold bread, even for dinner, was a shabbyproceeding), and their meat much underdone, for they thought thatoverdone meat stirred up anger. They mixed most incongruous thingstogether; they loved very strong tastes, delighting in garlic andverjuice; they never appear to have paid the slightest regard to theirdigestion, and they were, in the most emphatic sense, not teetotallers. 

The dining-hall, but not the table, was decorated with flowers, andsingers, often placed in a gallery at one end, were employed the wholetime. A gentleman usher acted as butler, and a yeoman was always athand to keep out strange dogs, snuff candles, and light to bed theguests, who were not always in a condition to find their way upstairswithout his help. The hours at this time were nine or ten o'clock fordinner (except on fast-days, when it was at noon), and three or four forsupper. Two meals a day were thought sufficient for all men who werenot invalids. The sick and women sometimes had a "rear-supper" at sixo'clock or later. As to breakfast, it was a meal taken only by somepersons, and then served in the bedchamber or private boudoir atconvenience. Wine, with bread sopped in it, was a favourite breakfast, especially for the old. Very delicate or exceptionally temperate peopletook milk for breakfast; but though the Middle Ages present us withexamples of both vegetarians and total abstainers, yet of both therewere very few indeed, and they were mainly to be found among thereligious orders. 

In watching the illustrious persons on the dais one thing struck Clariceas extremely odd, which would never be thought strange in the nineteenthcentury. It was the custom in her day for husband and wife to sittogether at a meal, and, the highest ranks excepted, to eat from thesame plate. But the Earl and Countess of Cornwall were on oppositesides of the table, with one of the priests between them. Claricethought they must have quarrelled, and softly demanded of Heliet if thatwere the case. 

"No, indeed, " was Heliet's rather sorrowful answer. "At least, not morethan usual. The Lady of Cornwall will never sit beside her baron, and, as thou shalt shortly see, she will not even speak to him. "

"Not speak to him!" exclaimed Clarice. 

"I never heard her do so yet, " said Heliet. 

"Does he entreat her very harshly?"

"There are few gentlemen more kindly or generous towards a wife. Nay, the harsh treatment is all on her side. "

"What a miserable life to live!" commented Clarice. 

"I fear he finds it so, " said Heliet. 

The dillegrout, or white soup, was now brought in, and Clarice, beinghungry, attended more to her supper than to her mistress for a time. But during the next interval between the courses she studied her master. 

He was a tall and rather fine-looking man, with a handsome face and agentle, pleasant expression. 

There certainly was not in his exterior any cause for repulsion. Hishair was light, his eyes bluish-grey. He seemed--or Clarice thought soat first--a silent man, who left conversation very much to others; butthe decidedly intelligent glances of the grey eyes, and an occasionaltwinkle of fun in them when any amusing remark was made, showed that hewas not in the least devoid of brains. 

Clarice thought that the priest who sat between the Earl and Countesswas a far more unprepossessing individual than his master. He was aFranciscan friar, in the robe of his order; while the friar who sat onthe other side of the Countess was a Dominican, and much more agreeableto look at. 

At this juncture the Earl of Lancaster, who bore a strong familylikeness to his cousin, the Earl of Cornwall--a likeness which extendedto character no less than person--inquired of the latter if any news hadbeen heard lately from France. 

"I have had no letters lately, " replied his host; and, turning to theCountess, he asked, "Have you, Lady?"

Now, thought Clarice, she must speak to him. Much to her surprise, theCountess, imagining, apparently, that the Franciscan friar was herquestioner, answered, [Note 1], "None, holy Father. "

The friar gravely turned his head and repeated the words to the Earl, though he must have heard them. And Clarice became aware all at oncethat her own puzzled face was a source of excessive amusement to her_vis-a-vis_, Elaine. Her eyes inquired the reason. 

"Oh, I know!" said Elaine, in a loud whisper across the table. "I knowwhat perplexes thee. They are all like that when they first come. Itis such fun to watch them!"

And she did not succeed in repressing a convulsion behind herhandkerchief, even with the aid of Diana's "Elaine! do be sensible. "

"Hush, my maid, " said Mistress Underdone, gently. "If the Lady see theelaugh--"

"I shall be sent away without more supper, I know, " said Elaine, shrugging her shoulders. "It is Clarice who ought to be punished, notI. I cannot help laughing when she looks so funny. "

Elaine having succeeded in recovering her gravity without attracting thenotice of the Countess, Clarice devoured her helping of salt beef alongwith much cogitation concerning her mistress's singular ways. Still, she could not restrain a supposition that the latter must have supposedthe priest to speak to her, when she heard the Earl say, "I hear fromGeoffrey Spenser, [Note 2], that our stock of salt ling is beyond whatis like to be wanted. Methinks the villeins might have a cade or twothereof, my Lady. "

And again, turning to the friar, the Countess made answer, "It shall beseen to, holy Father;" while the friar, with equal composure, as thoughit were quite a matter of course, repeated to the Earl, "The Lady willsee to it, my Lord. "

"Does she always answer him so?" demanded Clarice of Heliet, in anastonished whisper. "Always, " replied Heliet, with a sad smile. "Butsurely, " said Clarice, her amazement getting the better of her shyness, "it must be very wanting in reverence from a dame to her baron!"

Clarice's ideas of wifely duty were of a very primitive kind. Unboundedreverence, unreasoning obedience, and diligent care for the husband'scomfort and pleasure were the main items. As for love, in the sense inwhich it is usually understood now, that was an item which simply mightcome into the question, but it was not necessary by any means. Parents, at that time, kept it out of the matter as much as possible, andregarded it as more of an encumbrance than anything else. 

"It is a very sad tale, Clarice, " answered Heliet, in a low tone. "Heloves her, and would cherish her dearly if she would let him. But thereis not any love in her. When she was a young maid, almost a child, sheset her heart on being a nun, and I think she has never forgiven herbaron for being the innocent means of preventing her. I scarcely knowwhich of them is the more to be pitied. "

"Oh, he, surely!" exclaimed Clarice. 

"Nay, I am not so sure. God help those who are unloved! but, far more, God help those who cannot love! I think she deserves the morecompassion of the two. "

"May be, " answered Clarice, slowly--her thoughts were running so fastthat her words came with hesitation. "But what shouldst thou say to onethat had outlived a sorrowful love, and now thought it a happy chancethat it had turned out contrary thereto?"

"It would depend upon how she had outlived it, " responded Heliet, gravely. 

"I heard one say, not many days gone, " remarked Clarice--not meaning tolet Heliet know from whom she had heard it--"that when she was young sheloved a squire of her father, which did let her from wedding with him;and that now she was right thankful it so were, for he was killed on thefield, and left never a plack behind him, and she was far better off, being now wed unto a gentleman of wealth and substance. What shouldstthou say to that?"

"If it were one of any kin to thee I would as lief say nothing to it, "was Heliet's rather dry rejoinder. 

"Nay, heed not that; I would fain know. "

"Then I think the squire may have loved her, but so did she never him. "

"In good sooth, " said Clarice, "she told me she slept many a night on awet pillow. "

"So have I seen a child that had broken his toy, " replied Heliet, smiling. 

Clarice saw pretty plainly that Heliet thought such a state of thingswas not love at all. 

"But how else can love be outlived?" she said. 

"Love cannot. But sorrow may be. "

"Some folks say love and sorrow be nigh the same. "

"Nay, 'tis sin and sorrow that be nigh the same. All selfishness issin, and very much of what men do commonly call love is but pureselfishness. "

"Well, I never loved none yet, " remarked Clarice. 

"God have mercy on thee!" answered Heliet. 

"Wherefore?" demanded Clarice, in surprise. 

"Because, " said Heliet, softly, "`he that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is charity. '"

"Art thou destined for the cloister?" asked Clarice. 

Only priests, monks, and nuns, in her eyes, had any business to talkreligiously, or might reasonably be expected to do so. 

"I am destined to fulfil that which is God's will for me, " was Heliet'ssimple reply. "Whether that will be the cloister or no I have not yetlearned. "

Clarice cogitated upon this reply while she ate stewed apples. 

"Thou hast an odd name, " she said, after a pause. 

"What, Heliet?" asked its bearer, with a smile. "It is taken from thename of the holy prophet Elye, [Elijah] of old time. "

"Is it? But I mean the other. "

"Ah, I love it not, " said Heliet. 

"No, it is very queer, " replied Clarice, with an apologetic blush, "veryodd--Underdone!"

"Oh, but that is not my name, " answered Heliet, quickly, with a littlelaugh; "but it is quite as bad. It is Pride. "

Clarice fancied she had heard the name before, but she could notremember where. 

"But why is it bad?" said she. "Then I reckon Mistress Underdone hathbeen twice wed?"

"She hath, " said Heliet, answering the last question first, as peopleoften do, "and my father was her first husband. Why is pride evil?Surely thou knowest that. "

"Oh, I know it is one of the seven deadly sins, of course, " respondedClarice, quickly; "still it is very necessary and noble. "

Heliet's smile expressed a mixture of feelings. Clarice was not thefirst person who has held one axiom theoretically, but has practicallybehaved according to another. 

"The Lord saith that He hates pride, " said the lame girl, softly. "How, then, can it be necessary, not to say noble?"

"Oh, but--" Clarice went no further. 

"But He did not mean what He said?"

"Oh, yes, of course!" said Clarice. "But--"

"Better drop the _but_, " said Heliet, quaintly. "And Father Bevis isabout to say grace. "

The Dominican friar rose and returned thanks for the repast, and thecompany broke up, the Earl and Countess, with their guests, leaving thehall by the upper door, while the household retired by the lower. 

The preparations for sleep were almost as primitive as those for meals. Exalted persons, such as the Earl and Countess, slept in handsomebedsteads, of the tent form, hung with silk curtains, and spread withcoverlets of fur, silk, or tapestry. They washed in silver basins, withewers of the same costly metal; and they sat, the highest rank in curulechairs, the lower upon velvet-cove red forms or stools. But ordinarypeople, of whom Clarice was one, were not provided for in this luxuriousstyle. Bower-maidens slept in pallet-beds, which were made extremelylow, so as to run easily under one of the larger bedsteads, and thus beput out of the way. All beds rejoiced in a quantity of pillows. Ourancestors made much more use of pillows and cushions than we--a facteasily accounted for, considering that they had no softly-stuffedchairs, but only upright ones of hard carved wood. But Clarice's sheetswere simple "cloth of Rennes, " while those of her mistress were set withjewels. Her mattress was stuffed with hay instead of wool; she hadneither curtains nor fly-nets, and her coverlet was of plain cloth, unwrought by the needle. In the matter of blankets they fared alikeexcept as to quality. But in the bower-maidens' chamber, where all thegirls slept together, there were no basins of any material. Early inthe morning a strong-armed maid came in, bearing a tub of water, whichshe set down on one of the coffers of carved oak which stood at the footof each bed and held all the personal treasures of the sleeper. Then, by means of a mop which she brought with her, she gently sprinkled everyface with water, thus intimating that it was time to get up. The tubshe left behind. It was to provide--on the principle of "first come, first served"--for the ablutions of all the five young ladies, thougheach had her personal towel. Virtue was thus its own reward, thelaziest girl being obliged to content herself with the dirtiest water. It must, however, be remembered that she was a fastidious damsel whowashed more than face and hands. 

They then dressed themselves, carefully tying their respective amuletsround their necks, without which proceeding they would have anticipatedall manner of ill luck to befall them during the day. These articleswere small boxes of the nature of a locket, containing either a littledust of one saint, a shred of the conventual habit of another, or a fewverses from a gospel, written very minutely, and folded up extremelysmall. Then each girl, as she was ready, knelt in the window, andgabbled over in Latin, which she did not understand, a Paternoster, tenAves, and the Angelical Salutation, not unfrequently breaking eagerlyinto the conversation almost before the last Amen had left her lips. Prayers over, they passed into the sitting-room next door, where theygenerally found a basket of manchet bread and biscuits, with a large jugof ale or wine. A gentleman usher called for Mistress Underdone and hercharges, and conducted them to mass in the chapel. Here they usuallyfound the Earl and Countess before them, who alone, except the priests, were accommodated with seats. Each girl courtesied first to the altar, then to the Countess, and lastly to the Earl, before she took herallotted place. The Earl always returned the salutation by a quietinclination of his head. The Countess sat in stony dignity, and nevertook any notice of it. Needlework followed until dinner, after whichthe Countess gave audience for an hour to any person desiring to seeher, and usually concluded it by a half-hour's nap. Further needlework, for such as were not summoned to active attendance on their mistress ifshe went out, lasted until vespers, after which supper was served. After supper was the recreation time, when in most houses thebower-maidens enjoyed themselves with the gentlemen of the household ingames or dancing in the hall; but the Lady Margaret strictly forbade anysuch frivolous doings in her maidens. They were still confined to theirown sitting-room, except on some extraordinary occasion, and the onlyamusements allowed them were low-toned conversation, chess, draughts, orillumination. Music, dancing (even by the girls alone), noisy games ofall kinds, and laughter, the Countess strictly forbade. The practicalresult was that the young ladies fell back upon gossip andghost-stories, until there were few nights in the year when Roisia wouldhave dared to go to bed by herself for a king's ransom. An hour beforebed-time wine and cakes were served. After this Mistress Underdonerecited the Rosary, the girls making the responses, and at eighto'clock--a late hour at that time--they trooped off to bed. All wereexpected to be in bed and all lights out by half-past eight. Theunlucky maiden who loitered or was accidentally hindered had to finishher undressing in the dark. 

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Note 1. This strange habit of the Countess is a fact, and sorelydistressed the Earl, as he has himself put on record, though with allhis annoyance he shows himself quite conscious of the comicality of theproceeding. 

Note 2. The _depenseur_, or family provider. Hence comes the name ofLe Despenser, which, therefore, should not be spelt Despencer. 

CHAPTER THREE. 

ON THE THRESHOLD OF LIFE. 

 "I will not dream of him handsome and strong-- My ideal love may be weak and slight; It matters not to what class he belong, He would be noble enough in my sight; But he must be courteous toward the lowly, To the weak and sorrowful, loving too; He must be courageous, refined, and holy, By nature exalted, and firm, and true. "

By the time that Clarice had been six weeks at Oakham she had prettywell made up her mind as to the characters of her companions. TheCountess did not belie the estimate formed on first seeing her. Thegentle, mournful, loving woman of Clarice's dreams had vanished, neverto be recalled. The girl came to count that a red-letter day on whichshe did not see her mistress. Towards the Earl her feeling was an oddmixture of reverential liking and compassion. He came far nearer theideal picture than his wife. His manners were unusually gentle andconsiderate of others, and he was specially remarkable for one traitvery rarely found in the Middle Ages--he was always thoughtful of thosebeneath him. Another peculiarity he had, not common in his time; he wasdecidedly a humourist. The comic side even of his own troubles wasalways patent to him. Yet he was a man of extremely sensitive feeling, as well as of shrewd and delicate perceptions. He lived a mostuncomfortable life, and he was quite aware of it. The one person whoshould have been his truest friend deliberately nursed baseless enmitytowards him. The only one whom he loved in all the world hated him withdeadly hatred. And there was no cause for it but one--the strongestcause of all--the reason why Cain slew his brother. He was of God, andshe was of the world. Yet nothing could have persuaded her that he wasnot on the high road to perdition, while she was a special favourite ofHeaven. 

Clarice found Mistress Underdone much what she had expected--agood-natured, sensible supervisor. Her position, too, was not an easyone. She had to submit her sense to the orders of folly, and to sinkher good-nature in submission to harshness. But she did her best, steered as delicately as she could between her Scylla and Charybdis, andalways gave her girls the benefit of a doubt. 

The girls themselves were equally distinct as to character. Olympiaswas delicate, with a failing of delicate people--a disposition tocomplaining and fault-finding. Elaine was full of fun, ready to barterany advantage in the future for enjoyment in the present. Diana wascaustic, proud of her high connections, which were a shade above thoseof her companions, and inclined to be scornful towards everything notimmediately patent to her comprehension. Roisia, while the mostamiable, was also the weakest in character of the four; she was easilyled astray by Elaine, easily persuaded to deviate from the right throughfear of Diana. 

The two priests had also unfolded themselves. The Dominican, FatherBevis, awoke in Clarice a certain amount of liking, not unmixed withrather timorous respect. But he was a grave, silent, undemonstrativeman, who gave no encouragement to anything like personal affection, though he was not harsh nor unkind. The Franciscan, Father Miles, wasof a type common in his day. The man and the priest were two differentcharacters. Father Miles in the confessional was a stern master; FatherMiles at the supper-table was a jovial playfellow. In his eyes, religion was not the breath and salt of life, but something altogetherseparate from it, and only to be mentioned on a Sunday. It was a bundleof ceremonies, not a living principle. To Father Bevis, on thecontrary, religion was everything or nothing. If it had anything to dowith a man at all, it must pervade his thoughts and his life. It wasthe leaven which leavened the whole lump; the salt whose absence leftall unsavoury and insipid; the breath, which virtually was identicalwith life. One mistake Father Bevis made, a very natural mistake to aman who had been repressed, misunderstood; and disliked, as he had beenever since he could remember--he did not realise sufficiently thatwarmth was a necessity of life, and that young creatures more especiallyrequired a certain brooding tenderness to develop their faculties. Noone had ever given him love but God; and he was too apt to suppose thatreligion could be fostered only in that way which had cherished his own. His light burned bright to Godward, but it was not sufficiently visibleto men. 

Clarice La Theyn had by this time discovered that there were otherpeople in the household beyond those already mentioned. The Earl hadfour squires of the body, and the Countess two pages in waiting, besidea meaner crowd of dressers, sewers, porters, messengers, and all kindsof officials. The squires and the pages were the only ones who camemuch in contact with the bower-maidens. 

Both the pages were boys of about fifteen, of whom Osbert was quiet andsedate for a boy, while Jordan was _espiegle_ and full of mischievoustricks. The squires demand longer notice. 

Reginald de Echingham was the first to attract Clarice's notice--a factwhich, in Reginald's eyes, would only have been natural and proper. Hewas a handsome young man, and no one was better aware of it thanhimself. His principal virtue lay in a silky moustache, which heperpetually caressed. The Earl called him Narcissus, and he deservedit. 

Next came Fulk de Chaucombe, who was about as careless of his personalappearance as Reginald was careful. He looked on his brother squirewith ineffable disdain, as a man only fit to hunt out rhymes forsonnets, and hold skeins of silk for ladies. Call him a man! thoughtMaster Fulk, with supreme contempt. Fulk's notion of manly occupationscentred in war, with an occasional tournament by way of dessert. 

Third on the list was Vivian Barkworth. To Clarice, at least, he was aperplexity. He was so chameleon-like that she could not make up hermind about him. He could be extremely attractive when he liked, and hecould be just as repellent. 

Least frequently of any were her thoughts given to Ademar de Gernet. She considered him at first entirely colourless. He was not talkative;he was neither handsome nor ugly; he showed no special characteristicwhich would serve to label him. She merely put him on one side, andnever thought of him unless she happened to see him. 

Her fellow bower-maidens also had their ideas concerning these younggentlemen. Olympias was--or fancied herself--madly in love with thehandsome Reginald, on whom Elaine cracked jokes and played tricks, andDiana exhausted all her satire. As to Reginald, he was too deeply inlove with himself to be sensible of the attractions of any other person. It struck Clarice as very odd when she found that the weak and gentleRoisia was a timid admirer of the bear-like De Chaucombe. As for Diana, her shafts were levelled impartially at all; but in her inmost heartClarice fancied that she liked Vivian Barkeworth. Elaine washeart-whole, and plainly showed it. 

The Countess had not improved on further acquaintance. She was not onlya tyrant, but a capricious one. Not merely was penalty sure to followon not pleasing her, but it was not easy to say what would please her atany given moment. 

"We might as well be in a nunnery!" exclaimed Diana. 

"Nay, " said Elaine, "for then we could not get out. "

"Don't flatter thyself on getting out, pray, " returned Diana. "We shallnever get out except by marrying, or really going into a nunnery. "

"For which I am sure I have no vocation, " laughed Elaine. "Oh, no! Ishall marry; and won't I lead my baron a dance!"

"Who is it to be, Elaine?" asked Clarice. 

"_Ha, chetife_! How do I know? The Lady will settle that. I only hopeit won't be a man who puts oil on his hair and scents himself. "

This remark was a side-thrust at Reginald, as Olympias well knew, andshe looked reproachfully at Elaine. 

"Well, I hope it won't be one who kills half-a-dozen men every morningbefore breakfast, " said Diana, making a hit at Fulk. 

It was Roisia's turn to look reproachful. Clarice could not helplaughing. 

"What dost thou think of our giddy speeches, Heliet?" said she. 

Heliet looked up with her bright smile. 

"Very like maidens' fancies, " she said. "For me, I am never like towed, so I can look on from the outside. "

"But what manner of man shouldst thou fancy, Heliet?"

"Oh ay, do tell us!" cried more than one voice. 

"I warrant he'll be a priest, " said Elaine. 

"He will have fair hair and soft manners, " remarked Olympias. 

"Nay, he shall have such hair as shall please God, " said Heliet, moregravely. "But he must be gentle and loving, above all to the weak andsorrowful: a true knight, to whom every woman is a holy thing, to beguarded and tended with care. He must put full affiance in God, andlove Him supremely: and next, me; and below that, all other. He mustnot fear danger, yet without fool-hardiness; but he must fear disgrace, and fear and hate sin. He must be true to himself, and must aim atmaking of himself the best man that ever he can. He must not be afraidof ridicule, or of being thought odd. He must have firm convictions, and be ready to draw sword for them, without looking to see whetherother men be on the same side or not. His heart must be open to allmisery, his brain to all true and innocent knowledge, his hand ready toredress every wrong not done to himself. For his enemies he must haveforgiveness; for his friends, unswerving constancy: for all men, courtesy. "

"And that is thy model man? _Ha, jolife_!" cried Elaine. "Why, I couldnot stand a month of him. "

"I am afraid he would be rather soft and flat, " said Diana, with a curlof her lip. 

"No, I don't think that, " answered Roisia. "But I should like to knowwhere Heliet expects to find him. "

"Do give his address, Heliet!" said Elaine, laughing. 

"Ah! I never knew but one that answered to that description, " wasHeliet's reply. 

"_Ha, jolife_!" cried Elaine, clapping her hands. "Now for his name! Ihope I know him--but I am sure I don't. "

"You all know His name, " said Heliet, gravely. "How many of us know_Him_? For indeed, I know of no such man that ever lived, except onlyJesus Christ our Lord. "

There was no answer. A hush seemed to have fallen on the whole party, which was at last broken by Olympias. 

"Well, but--thou knowest we cannot have Him. "

"Pardon me, I know no such thing, " answered Heliet, in the same soft, grave tone. "Does not the Psalmist say, `_Portio mea, Domine_'? [Note1] And does not Solomon say, `_Dilectus meus mihi_?' [Note 2. ] Is itnot the very glory of His infinitude, that all who are His can have allof Him?"

"Where did Heliet pick up these queer notions?" said Diana under herbreath. 

"She goes to such extremes!" Elaine whispered back. 

"But all that means to go into the cloister, " replied Olympias in adiscontented tone. 

"Nay, " said Heliet, taking up her crutches, "I hope a few will go toHeaven who do not go into the cloister. But we may rest assured ofthis, that not one will go there who has not chosen Christ for hisportion. "

"Well, " said Diana, calmly, a minute after Heliet had disappeared, "Isuppose she means to be a nun! But she might let that alone till she isone. "

"Let what alone?" asked Roisia. 

"Oh, all that parson's talk, " returned Diana. "It is all very well forpriests and nuns, but secular people have nothing to do with it. "

"I thought even secular people wanted to go to Heaven, " coolly put inElaine, not because she cared a straw for the question, but because shedelighted in taking the opposite side to Diana. 

"Let them go, then!" responded Diana, rather sharply. "They can keep itto themselves, can't they?"

"Well, I don't know, " said Elaine, laughing. "Some people cannot keepthings to themselves. Just look at Olympias, whatever she is doing, howshe argues the whole thing out in public. `Oh, shall I go or not? Yes, I think I will; no, I won't, though; yes, but I will; oh, can't somebodytell me what to do?'"

Elaine's mimicry was so perfect that Olympias herself joined in thelaugh. The last-named damsel carried on all her mental processes inpublic, instead of presenting her neighbours, as most do, with resultsonly. And when people wear their hearts upon their sleeves, the dawswill come and peck at them. 

"Now, don't tease Olympias, " said Roisia good-naturedly. 

"Oh, let one have a bit of fun, " said Elaine, "when one lives in aconvent of the strictest order. "

"I suspect thou wouldst find a difference if thou wert to enter one, "sneered Diana. 

Elaine would most likely have fought out the question had not MistressUnderdone entered at that moment with a plate of gingerbread in her handsmoking hot from the oven. 

"Oh, Mistress, I am so hungry!" plaintively observed that young lady. 

Mistress Underdone laughed, and set down the plate. "There, part thespice-cake among you, " said she. "And when you be through, I havesomewhat to tell you. "

"Tell us now, " said Elaine, as well as a mouthful of gingerbread allowedher to speak. 

"Let me see, now--what day is this?" inquired Mistress Underdone. 

All the voices answered her at once, "Saint Dunstan's Eve!" [May 13th]. 

"So it is. Well--come Saint Botolph, [June 17th] as I have but nowlearned, we go to Whitehall. "

"_Ha, jolife_!" cried Diana, Elaine, and Roisia at once. 

"Will Heliet go too?" asked Clarice, softly. 

"Oh, no; Heliet never leaves Oakham, " responded Olympias. 

Mistress Underdone looked kindly at Clarice. "No, Heliet will not go, "she said. "She cannot ride, poor heart. " And the mother sighed, as ifshe felt the prospective pain of separation. 

"But there will be dozens of other maidens, " said Elaine. "There areplenty of girls in the world beside Heliet. "

Clarice was beginning to think there hardly were for her. 

"Oh, thou dost not know what thou wilt see at Westminster!" exclaimedElaine. "The Lord King, and the Lady Queen, and all the Court; and theAbbey, with all its riches, and ever so many maids and gallants. It isdelicious beyond description, when the Lady is away visiting someshrine, and she does that nearly every day. "

Roisia's "Hush!" had come too late. 

"I pray you say that again, my mistress!" said the well-known voice ofthe Lady Margaret in the doorway. "Nay, I will have it. --Fetch me therod, Agatha. --Now then, minion, what saidst? Thou caitiff giglot! If Ihad thee not in hand, that tongue of thine should bring thee to ruin. What saidst, hussy?"

And Elaine had to repeat the unlucky words, with the birch in prospect, and immediately afterwards in actuality. 

"I will lock thee up when I go visiting shrines!" said the Countess withher last stroke. "Agatha, remember when we are at Westminster that Ihave said so. "

"Ay, Lady, " observed Mistress Underdone, composedly. 

And the Lady Margaret, throwing down the birch, stalked away, and leftthe sobbing Elaine to resume her composure at her leisure. 

In a vaulted upper chamber of the Palace of Westminster, on a brightmorning in June, four persons were seated. Three, who were of thenobler sex, were engaged in converse; the last, a lady, sat apart withher embroidery in modest silence. They were near relatives, for the menwere respectively husband, brother-in-law, and uncle of the woman, andthey were the most prominent members of the royal line of England, withone who did not belong to it. 

Foremost of the group was the King. He was foremost in more senses thanone, for, as is well known, Edward the First, like Saul, was higher thanany of his people. Moreover, he was as spare as he was tall, which madehim look almost gigantic. His forehead was large and broad, hisfeatures handsome and regular, but marred by that perpetual droop in hisleft eyelid which he had inherited from his father. Hair andcomplexion, originally fair, had been bronzed by his Eastern campaignstill the crisp curling hair was almost black, and the delicate tint hadacquired a swarthy hue. He had a nose inclining to the Roman type, abroad chest, agile arms, and excessively long legs. His dark eyes weresoft when he was in a good temper, but fierce as a tiger's when rousedto anger; and His Majesty's temper was--well, not precisely angelic. [Note 3. ] It was like lightning, in being as sudden and fierce, but itdid not resemble that natural phenomenon in disappearing as quickly asit had come. On the contrary, Edward never forgot and hardly forgave aninjury. His abilities were beyond question, and, for his time, he wasan unusually independent and original thinker. His moral character, however, was worse than is commonly supposed, though it did not descendto the lowest depths it reached until after the death of his fair andfaithful Leonor. 

The King's brother Edmund was that same Earl of Lancaster whom we havealready seen at Oakham. He was a man of smaller intellectual calibrethan his royal brother, but of much pleasanter disposition. Extremegentleness was his principal characteristic, as it has been that of allour royal Edmunds, though in some instances it degenerated intoexcessive weakness. This was not the case with the Earl of Lancaster. His great kindness of heart is abundantly attested by his own lettersand his brother's State papers. 

William de Valence, Earl of Pembroke, was the third member of the group, and he was the uncle of the royal brothers, being a son of theirgrandmother's second marriage with Hugh de Lusignan, Count de La Marche. Though he made a deep mark upon his time, yet his character is not easyto fathom beyond two points--that his ability had in it a little elementof craft, and that he took reasonable care of Number One. 

Over the head of the lady who sat in the curule chair, quietlyembroidering, twenty-five years had passed since she had been styled bya poet, "the loveliest lady in all the land. " She was hardly less evennow, when her fifty years were nearly numbered; when, unseen by anyearthly eyes, her days were drawing to their close, and the angel ofdeath stood close beside her, ready to strike before six months shouldbe fulfilled. Certainly, according to modern ideas of beauty, never wasa queen fairer than Leonor the Faithful, and very rarely has there beenone as fair. And--more unusual still--she was as good as she wasbeautiful. The worst loss in all her husband's life was the loss ofher. 

So far from seeing any sorrow looming in the future was King Edward atthis moment, that he was extremely jubilant over a project which he hadjust brought to a successful issue. 

"There!" said he, rubbing his hands in supreme satisfaction, "thatparchment settles the business. When both my brother of Scotland and Iare gone, our children will reign over one empire, king and queen ofboth. Is not that worth living for?"

"_Soit_!" [Be it so] ejaculated De Valence, shrugging his Provencalshoulders. "A few acres of bare moss and a handful of stags, to saynothing of the barbarians who dwell up in those misty regions. A finematter surely to clap one's hands over!"

"Ah, fair uncle, you never travelled in Scotland, " interposed the gentleLancaster, before the King could blaze up, "and you know not what sortof country it is. From what I have heard, it would easily match yourland in respect of beauty. "

"Match Poitou? or Provence? Cousin, you must have taken leave of yoursenses. You were not born on the banks of the Isere, or you would notchatter such treason as that. "

"Truly no, fair Uncle, for I was born in the City of London, justbeyond, " said Lancaster, with a good-humoured laugh; "and, verily, thatwould rival neither Scotland nor Poitou, to say nothing of Dauphine andProvence. The goddess of beauty was not in attendance when I was born. "

Perhaps few would have ventured on that assertion except himself. Edmund of Lancaster was among the most handsome of our princes. 

"Beshrew you both!" cried King Edward, unfraternally; "wherever willthese fellows ramble with their tongues? Who said anything aboutbeauty? I care not, I, if the maiden Margaret were the ugliest lassthat ever tied a kerchief, so long as she is the heiress of Scotland. Ned has beauty enough and to spare; let him stare in the glass if hecannot look at his wife. "

The Queen looked up with an amused expression, and would, perhaps, havespoken, had not the tapestry been lifted by some person unseen, and alittle boy of six years old bounded into the room. 

No wonder that the fire in the King's eyes died into instant softness. It would have been a wonder if the parents had not been proud of thatboy, for he was one of the loveliest children on whom human eye everrested. Did it ever cross the minds of that father and mother that thekindest deed they could have done to that darling child would have beento smother him in his cradle? Had the roll of his life been held upbefore them at that moment, they would have counted only thirty-sevenyears, written within and without in lamentation, and mourning, and woe. 

King Edward lifted his little heir upon his knee. 

"Look here, Ned, " said he. "Seest yonder parchment?"

The blue eyes opened a little, and the fair curls shook with a nod ofaffirmation. 

"What is it, thinkest?"

A shake of the pretty little head was the reply. 

"Thy Cousin Margaret is coming to dwell with thee. That parchment willbring her. "

"How old is she?" asked the Prince. 

"But just a year younger than thou. "

"Is she nice?"

The King laughed. "How can I tell thee? I never saw her. "

"Will she play with us?"

"I should think she will. She is just between thee and Beatrice. "

"Beatrice is only a baby!" remarked the Prince disdainfully. Six yearsold is naturally scornful of four. 

"Not more of a baby than thou, " said his uncle Lancaster, playfully. 

"But she's a girl, and I'm a man!" cried the insulted little Prince. 

King Edward, excessively amused, set his boy down on the floor. "There, run to thy mother, " said he. "Thou wilt be a man one of these days, Idare say; but not just yet, Master Ned. "

And no angel voice whispered to one of them that it would have been wellfor that child if he had never been a man, nor that ere he was sixmonths older, the mother, whose death was a worse calamity to him thanto any other, and the little Norwegian lassie to whom he was nowbetrothed, would pass almost hand in hand into the silent land. Threemonths later, Margaret, Princess of Norway and Queen of Scotland, setsail from her father's coast for her mother's kingdom, whence she was totravel to England, and be brought up under the tender care of the royalLeonor as its future queen. But one of the sudden and terrible stormsof the North Sea met her ere she reached the shore of Scotland. Shejust lived to be flung ashore at Kirkwall, in the Orkneys, and there, inthe pitying hands of the fishers' wives, the child breathed out herlittle life, having lived five years, and reigned for nearly as long. Who of us, looking back to the probable lot that would have awaited herin England, shall dare to pity that little child?

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Note 1. "Thou art my portion, O Lord. "--Psalm 119, verse 57. 

Note 2. "My beloved is mine. "--Canticles 2, verse 16. 

Note 3. Two anecdotes may be given which illustrate this in a manneralmost comical; the first has been published more than once, the latterhas not to my knowledge. When his youngest daughter Elizabeth wasmarried to the Earl of Hereford in 1302, the King, annoyed by someunfortunate remark of the bride, snatched her coronet from her head andthrew it into the fire, nor did the Princess recover it undamaged. In1305, writing to John de Fonteyne, the physician of his second wife, Marguerite of France, who was then ill of small-pox, the King warns himnot on any account to allow the Queen to exert herself until she hascompletely recovered, "and if you do, " adds the monarch in French, ofconsiderably more force than elegance, and not too suitable for exactquotation, "you shall pay for it!"

CHAPTER FOUR. 

WAITING AND WEARY. 

 "Oh! for the strength of God's right hand! the way is hard and dreary, Through Him to walk and not to faint, to run and not be weary!"

 E. L. Marzials. 

We left the Royal party in conversation in the chamber at Westminster. 

"Have you quite resolved, Sire, to expel all the Jews from England?"asked De Valence. 

"Resolved? Yes; I hope it is half done, " replied the King. "You areaware, fair Uncle, that our Commons voted us a fifteenth on thiscondition?"

"No, I did not hear that, " said De Valence. 

"How many are there of those creatures?" inquired Lancaster. 

"How should I know?" returned Edward, with an oath. "I only know thatthe Chancellor said the houses and goods were selling well to ourprofit. "

"Fifteen thousand and sixty, my Lord of Surrey told me, " said Lancaster. "I doubted if it were not too high a computation; that is why I asked. "

"Oh, very likely not, " responded Edward, carelessly. "There are as manyof them as gnats, and as much annoyance. "

"Well, it is a pious deed, of course, " said Lancaster, stroking hismoustache, not in the dilettante style of De Echingham, but like a manlost in thought. "It seems a pity, though, for the women and children. "

"My cousin of Lancaster, I do believe, sings _Dirige_ over the chickensin his barnyard, " sneered De Valence. 

Lancaster looked up with a good-tempered smile. 

"Does my fair Uncle never wish for the day when the lion shall eat strawlike the ox?" [Note 1. ]

"Not I!" cried De Valence, with a hearty laugh. "Why, what mean you?are we to dine on a haunch of lion when it comes?"

"Nay, for that were to make us worse than either, methinks. I supposewe shall give over eating what has had life, at that time. "

"_Merci, mille fois_!" laughed his uncle. "My dinner will be spoiled. Not thine, I dare say. I'll be bound, Sire, our fair cousin will munchhis apples and pears with all the gusto in the world, and send hissquire to the stable to inquire if the lion has a straw doubled underhim. "

"Bah!" said the King. "What are you talking about?"

"How much will this business of the Jews cost your Grace?" asked DeValence, dropping his sarcasms. 

"Cost _me_?" demanded Edward, with a short laugh. "Did our fair uncleimagine we meant to execute such a project at our own expense? Let therogues pay their own travelling fees. "

"Ha! good!" said the Poitevin noble. "And our fair cousin of Lancastershall chant the _De Profundis_ while they embark, and I will offer asilver fibula to Saint Edward that they may all be drowned. How sayest, fair Cousin?"

"Nay, " was Lancaster's answer, in a doubtful tone. "I reckon we oughtnot to pity them, being they that crucified our Lord. But--"

But for all that, his heart cried out against his creed. Yet it did notoccur to him that the particular men who were being driven from theirhomes for no fault of theirs, and forced with keen irony of oppressionto pay their own expenses, were not those who crucified Christ, but wereremoved from them by many generations. The times of the Gentiles werenot yet fulfilled, and the cry, "His blood be on us, _and on ourchildren_" had not yet exhausted its awful power. 

There was one person not present who would heartily have agreed withLancaster. This was his cousin and namesake, Edmund, Earl of Cornwall, who not only felt for the lower animals--a rare yet occasional state ofmind in the thirteenth century--but went further, and compassionated thevilleins--a sentiment which very few indeed would have dreamed ofsharing with him. The labourers on the land were serfs, and had nofeelings, --that is, none that could be recognised by the upper classes. They were liable to be sold with the land which they tilled; nor couldthey leave their "hundred" without a passport. Their sons might not beeducated to anything but agriculture; their daughters could not bemarried without paying a fine to the master. Worse things than theseare told of some, for of course the condition of the serf largelydepended on the disposition of his owner. 

The journey from Oakham to Westminster was a pleasant change to all thebower-maidens but one, and that was the one selected to travel with hermistress in the litter. Each was secretly, if not openly, hoping not tobe that one; and it was with no little trepidation that Clarice receivedthe news that this honour was to be conferred on her. She discovered, however, on the journey, that scolding was not the perpetual occupationof the Countess. She spent part of every day in telling her beads, partin reading books woefully dry to the apprehension of Clarice, and partin sleeping, which not unfrequently succeeded the beads. Conversationshe never attempted, and Clarice, who dared not speak till she wasspoken to, began to entertain a fear of losing the use of her tongue. Otherwise she was grave and quiet enough, poor girl! for she was notnaturally talkative. She was very sorry to part with Heliet, and shefelt, almost without knowing why, some apprehension concerning thefuture. Sentiments of this sort were quite unknown to such girls asElaine, Diana, and Roisia, while with Olympias they arose solely fromdelicate health. But Clarice was made of finer porcelain, and she couldnot help mournfully feeling that she had not a friend in the world. Herfather and mother were not friends; they were strangers who might beexpected to do what they thought best for her, just as the authoritiesof a workhouse might take conscientious care in the apprenticing of theworkhouse girls. But no more could be expected, and Clarice felt it. If there had only been, anywhere in the world, somebody who loved her!There was no such probability to which it was safe to look forward. Possibly, some twenty or thirty years hence, some of her children mightlove her. As for her husband, he was simply an embarrassing futurecertainty, who--with almost equal certainty--would not care a strawabout her. That was only to be expected. The squire who liked Roisiawould be pretty sure to get Diana; while the girl who admired Reginaldde Echingham was safe to fall to Fulk de Chaucombe. Things always werearranged so in this world. Perhaps, thought Clarice, those girls werethe happiest who did not care, who took life as it came, and made allthe fun they could out of it. But she knew well that this was how lifeand she would never take each other. 

Whitehall was reached at last, on that eve of Saint Botolph. Claricewas excessively tired, and only able to judge of the noise without, andthe superb decorations and lofty rooms within. Lofty, be it remembered, to her eyes; they would not look so to ours. She supped upon saltmerling [whiting], pease-cods [green peas], and stewed fruit, and wasnot sorry to get to bed. 

In the morning, she found the household considerably increased. Hereyes were almost dazzled by the comers and goers; and she really noticedonly one person. Two young knights were among the new attendants of theEarl, but one of them Clarice could not have distinguished from thecrowd. The other had attracted her notice by coming forward to help theCountess from her litter, and, instead of attending his mistressfurther, had, rather to Clarice's surprise, turned to help _her_. Andwhen she looked up to thank him, it struck her that his face was likesomebody she knew. She did not discover who it was till Roisiaobserved, while the girls were undressing, that--"My cousin is growing abeard, I declare. He had none the last time I saw him. "

"Which is thy cousin?" asked Clarice. 

"Why, Piers Ingham, " said Roisia. "He that helped my Lady from thelitter. "

"Oh, is he thy cousin?" responded Clarice. 

"By the mother's side, " answered Roisia. "He hath but been knightedthis last winter. "

"Then he is just ready for a wife, " said Elaine. "I wonder which of usit will be! It is tolerably sure to be one. I say, maids, I mean tohave a jolly time of it while we are here! It shall go hard with me ifI do not get promoted to be one of the Queen's bower-women!"

"Oh, would I?" interpolated Diana. 

"Why?" asked more than one voice. 

"I am sure, " said Olympias, "I had ever so much rather be under the LadyQueen than our Lady. "

"Oh, that may be, " said Diana. "I was not looking at it in that light. There is some amusement in deceiving our Lady, and one doesn't feel itwrong, because she is such a vixen; but there would be no fun in takingin the Queen, she's too good. "

"I wonder what Father Bevis would say to that doctrine, " demurelyremarked Elaine. "What it seems to mean is, that a lie is not such abad thing if you tell it to a bad person as it would be if you told itto a good one. Now I doubt if Father Bevis would be quite of thatopinion. "

"Don't talk nonsense, " was Diana's reply. 

"Well, but is it nonsense? Didst thou mean that?"

It was rather unusual for Elaine thus to satirise Diana, and looked asif the two had changed characters, especially when Diana walked away, muttering something which no one distinctly heard. 

Elaine proved herself a tolerably true prophetess. _Fete_ followed_fete_. Clarice found herself initiated into Court circles, anddiscovered that she was enjoying herself very much. But whether theattraction lay in the pageants, in the dancing, in her own bright array, or in the companionship, she did not pause to ask herself. Perhaps ifshe had paused, and made the inquiry, she might have discovered thatlife had changed to her since she came to Westminster. The thingseternal, of which Heliet alone had spoken to her, had faded away intofar distance; they had been left behind at Oakham. The things temporalwere becoming everything. 

In a stone balcony overhanging the Thames, at Whitehall, sat Earl Edmundof Cornwall, in a thoughtful attitude, resting his head upon his hand. He had been alone for half an hour, but now a tall man in a Dominicanhabit, who was not Father Bevis, came round the corner of the balcony, which ran all along that side of the house. He was the Prior or Rectorof Ashridge, a collegiate community, founded by the Earl himself, ofwhich we shall hear more anon. 

The Friar sat down on the stone bench near the Earl, who took no furthernotice of him than by a look, his eyes returning to dreamy contemplationof the river. 

"Of what is my Lord thinking?" asked the Friar, gently. 

"Of life, " said the Prince. 

"Not very hopefully, I imagine. "

"The hope comes at the beginning, Father. Look at yonder pleasure-boat, with the lads and lasses in it, setting forth for a row. There is hopeenough in their faces. But when the journey comes near its end, and theperilous bridge must be shot, and the night is setting in, what you seein the faces then will not be hope. It will be weariness; perhapsdisgust and sorrow. And--in some voyages, the hope dies early. "

"True--if it has reference only to the day. "

"Ah, " responded the Prince, with a smile which had more sadness thanmirth in it, "you mean to point me to the hope beyond. But the day islong Father. The night has not come yet, and the bridge is still to beshot. Ay, and the wind and rain are cold, as one drops slowly down theriver. "

"There is home at the end, nevertheless, " answered the Dominican. "Whenwe sit round the fire in the banquet hall, and all we love are round us, and the doors shut safe, we shall easily forget the cold wind on thewater. "

"When! Yes. But I am on the water yet, and it may be some hours beforemy barge is moored at the garden steps. And--it is always the same, Father. It does seem strange, when there is only one earthly thing forwhich a man cares, that God should deny him that one thing. Why rousethe hope which is never to be fulfilled? If the width of the world hadlain all our lives between me and my Lady, we should both have beenhappier. Why should God bring us together to spoil each other's lives?For I dare say she is as little pleased with her lot as I with mine--poor Magot!"

"Will my Lord allow me to alter the figure he has chosen?" said thePredicant Friar. "Look at your own barge moored down below. If therope were to break, what would become of the barge?"

"It would drift down the river. "

"And if there were in it a little child, alone, too young to have eitherskill or strength to steer it, what would become of him when the bargeshot the bridge?"

"Poor soul!--destruction, without question. "

"And what if my Lord be that little child, safe as yet in the bargewhich the Master has tied fast to the shore? The rope is his trouble. What if it be his safety also? He would like far better to go driftingdown, amusing himself with the strange sights while daylight lasted; butwhen night came, and the bridge to be passed, how then? Is it notbetter to be safe moored, though there be no beauty or variety in thescene?"

"Nay, Father, but is there no third way? Might the bridge not be passedin safety, and the child take his pleasure, and yet reach home well andsound?"

"Some children, " said the Predicant Friar, with a tender intonation. "But not that child. "

The Earl was silent. The Prior softly repeated a text of Scripture. 

"Endure chastisement. As sons God dealeth with you; what son then ishe, whom the Father chasteneth not?" [Hebrews 12, verse 7, Vulgateversion. ]

A low, half-repressed sigh from his companion reminded the Prior that hewas touching a sore place. One of the Prince's bitterest griefs was hischildlessness. [He has told us so himself. ] The Prior tacked about, andcame into deeper water. 

"`Nor have we a High Priest who cannot sympathise with our infirmities, for He was tempted in all things like us, except in sinning. '" [Hebrews4, verse 15, Vulgate version. ]

"If one could see!" said the Earl, almost in a whisper. 

"It would be easier, without doubt. Yet `blessed are they who see not, and believe. ' God can see. I would rather He saw and not I, than--ifsuch a thing were possible--that I saw and not He. Whether is better, my Lord, that the father see the danger and guard the child without hisknowing anything, or that the child see it too, and have all the painand apprehension consequent upon the seeing? The blind has theadvantage, sometimes. "

"Yet who would wish to be blind on that account?" answered the Earl, quickly. 

"No man could wish it, nor need he. Only, the blind man may take thecomfort of it. "

"But you have not answered one point, Father. Why does God rouselongings in our hearts which He never means to fulfil?"

"Does God rouse them?"

"Are they sin, then?"

"No, " answered the Prior, slowly, as if he were thinking out thequestion, and had barely reached the answer. "I dare not say that. They are nature. Some, I know, would have all that is nature to be sin;but I doubt if God treats it thus in His Word. Still, I question if Heraises those longings. He allows them. Man raises them. "

"Does He never guide them?"

"Yes, that I think He does. "

"Then the question comes to the same thing. Why does God not guide usto long for the thing that He means to give us?"

"He very often does. "

"Then, " pursued the Earl, a little impatiently, "why does He not turn usaway from that which He does not intend us to have?"

"My Lord, " said the Predicant, gravely, "from the day of his fall, manhas always been asking God _why_. He will probably go on doing it tothe day of the dissolution of all things. But I do not observe that Godhas ever yet answered the question. "

"It is wrong to ask it, then, I suppose, " said the Earl, with a wearysigh. 

"It is not faith that wants to know why. `He that believeth hastenethnot. ' [Isaiah 28, verse 16, Vulgate version. ] `What I do, thou knowestnot now; but thou shalt know hereafter. ' [John 13 verse 7. ] We canafford to wait, my Lord. "

"Easily enough, " replied the Earl, with feeling, "if we knew it wouldcome right in the end. "

"It will come as He would have it who laid down His life that you shouldlive for ever. Is that not enough for my Lord?"

Perhaps the Prince felt it enough. At all events, he gave no answer. 

"Well, that is not my notion of going comfortably through life!"observed Miss Elaine Criketot, in a decided tone. "My idea is to pullall the plums out of the cake, and leave the hard crusts for those thatlike them. "

"Does anybody like them?" laughingly asked Clarice. 

"Well, for those who need them, then. Plenty of folks in this world areglad of hard crusts or anything else. "

"Thy metaphor is becoming rather confused, " observed Diana. 

"Dost thou not think, Elaine Criketot, that it might be only fair toleave a few plums for those whose usual fare is crusts? A crust now andthen would scarcely hurt the dainty damsels who commonly regalethemselves on plums. "

It was a fourth voice which said this--a voice which nobody expected, and the sound of which brought all the girls to their feet in aninstant. 

"Most certainly, Lord Earl, " replied Elaine, courtesying low; "but Ihope they would be somebody else's plums than mine. "

"I see, " said the Earl, with that sparkle of fun in his eyes, which theyall knew. "Self-denial is a holy and virtuous quality, to be cultivatedby all men--except me. Well, we might all subscribe that creed withlittle sacrifice. But then where would be the self-denial?"

"Please it the Lord Earl, it might be practised by those who liked it. "

"I should be happy to hear of any one who liked self-denial, " respondedthe Earl, laughing. "Is that not a contradiction in terms?"

Elaine was about to make a half-saucy answer, mixed sufficiently withreverence to take away any appearance of offence, when a sight met hereyes which struck her into silent horror. In the doorway, looking ashade more acetous than usual, stood Lady Margaret. It was well knownto all the bower-maidens of the Countess of Cornwall that there were twocrimes on her code which were treated as capital offences. Laughing wasthe less, and being caught in conversation with a man was the greater. But beneath both these depths was a deeper depth yet, and this wastalking to the Earl. Never was a more perfect exemplification of thedog in the manger than the Lady Margaret of Cornwall. She did not wantthe Earl for herself, but she was absolutely determined that no one elseshould so much as speak to him. Here was Elaine, caught red-handed inthe commission of all three of these stupendous crimes. And if theoffence could be made worse, it was so by the Earl saying, as he walkedaway, "I pray you, my Lady, visit not my sins on this young maid. "

Had one compassionate sensation remained in the mind of the Countesstowards Elaine, that unlucky speech would have extinguished it at once. She did not, as usual, condescend to answer her lord; but she turned toElaine, and in a voice of concentrated anger, demanded the repetition ofevery word which had passed. Diana gave it, for Elaine seemed almostparalysed with terror. Clarice, on the demand of her mistress, confirmed Diana's report as exact. The Countess turned back to Elaine. Her words were scarcely to be reported, for she lost alike her temperand her gentlewomanly manners. "And out of my house thou goest thisday, " was the conclusion, "thou shameful, giglot hussey! And I will notgive thee an husband; thou shalt go back to thy father and thy mother, with the best whipping that ever I gave maid. And she that shall be inthy stead shall be the ugliest maid I can find, and still of tongue, andsober of behaviour. Now, get thee gone!"

And calling for Agatha as she went, the irate lady stalked away. 

Of no use was poor Elaine's flood of tears, nor the united entreaties ofher four companions. Clarice and Diana soon found that they were not tocome off scatheless. Neither had spoken to the Earl, as Elaine readilyconfessed; but for the offence of listening to such treachery, both weresent to bed by daylight, with bread and water for supper. The offencesof grown-up girls in those days were punished like those of littlechildren now. All took tearful farewells of poor Elaine, who dolefullyexpressed her fear of another whipping when she reached home; and so shepassed out of their life. 

It was several weeks before the new bower-maiden appeared. Dianasuggested that the Countess found some difficulty in meeting with a girlugly enough to please her. But, at last, one evening in November, Mistress Underdone introduced the new-comer, in the person of a girl ofeighteen, or thereabouts, as Felicia de Fay, daughter of Sir Stephen deFay and Dame Sabina Watefeud, of the county of Sussex. All the restlooked with much curiosity at her. 

Felicia, while not absolutely ugly, was undeniably plain. Dianaremarked afterwards to Clarice that there were no ugly girls to be had, as plainly appeared. But the one thing about her which really was uglywas her expression. She looked no one in the face, while she diligentlystudied every one who was not looking at her. Let any one attempt tomeet her eyes, and they dropped in a moment. Some do this from merebashfulness, but Felicia showed no bashfulness in any other way. Clarice's feeling towards her was fear. 

"I'm not afraid!" said Diana. "I am sure I could be her match in fairfight!"

"It is the fair fight I doubt, " said Clarice. "I am afraid there istreachery in her eyes. "

"She makes me creep all over, " added Olympias. 

"Well, she had better not try to measure swords with me, " said Diana. "I tell you, I have a presentiment that girl and I shall fight; but Iwill come off victor; you see if I don't!"

Clarice made no answer, but in her heart she thought that Diana was toohonest to be any match for Felicia. 

It was the Countess's custom to spend her afternoon, when the day wasfine, in visiting some shrine or abbey. When the day was not fine, shepassed the time in embroidering among her maidens, and woe betide theunlucky damsel who selected a wrong shade, or set in a false stitch. The natural result of this was that the pine-cone, kept by Olympias as aprivate barometer, was anxiously consulted on the least appearance ofclouds. Diana asserted that she offered a wax candle to Saint Wulstanevery month for fair weather. One of the young ladies always had toaccompany her mistress, and the fervent hope of each was to escape thispromotion. Felicia alone never expressed this hope, never joined in anytirades against the Countess, never got into disgrace with her, andseemed to stand alone, like a drop of vinegar which would not minglewith the oil around it. She appeared to see everything, and saynothing. It was impossible to get at her likes and dislikes. She tookeverything exactly alike. Either she had no prejudices, or she was allprejudice, and nobody could tell which it was. 

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Note 1. Some readers will think such ideas too modern to have occurredto any one in 1290. There is evidence to the contrary. 

CHAPTER FIVE. 

BUILDING A FRESH CASTLE. 

 "Oh, had I wist, afore I kissed, That loue had been sae ill to win, I'd locked my heart wi' a key o' gowd, And pinned it wi' a siller pin. "--_Old Ballad_. 

On an afternoon early in December, the Countess sat among herbower-women at work. Roisia was almost in tears, for she had just beensharply chidden for choosing too pale a shade of blue. A little stir atthe door made all look up, and they saw Father Bevis. All rose to theirfeet in an instant, the Countess dropping on her knees, and entreatingthe priest's blessing. He gave it, but as if his thoughts were faraway. 

"Lady, my Lord hath sent me to you with tidings. May God grant they benot the worst tidings for England that we have heard for many a day! Amessenger is come from the North, bringing news that the Lady Alianorathe Queen lieth dead in the marsh lands of Lincolnshire. "

It was a worse loss to England than any there knew. Yet they knewenough to draw a cry of horror and sorrow from the lips of all thosethat heard the news. And a fortnight later, on the 17th of December, they all stood at Charing Cross, to see the funeral procession wind downfrom the north road, and set down the black bier for its last momentaryrest on the way to Westminster. 

It is rather singular that the two items which alone the general readerusually remembers of this good Queen's history should be two pointsdistinctly proved by research to be untrue. Leonor did not suck thepoison from her husband's arm--a statement never made until a hundredand fifty years after her death, and virtually disproved by thetestimony of an eye-witness who makes no allusion to it, but who tellsus instead that she behaved like a very weak woman instead of a verybrave one, giving way to hysterical screams, and so distressing thesufferer that he bade four of his knights to carry her out of the room. Again, Edward's affectionate regret did not cause the erection of thefamous Eleanor Crosses wherever the bier rested on its journey. Leonorherself desired their erection, and left money for it in her will. 

The domestic peace of the royal house died with her who had stood at itshead for nineteen years. To her son, above all others, her loss wassimply irreparable. The father and son were men of very differenttastes and proclivities; and the former never understood the latter. Infact, Edward the Second was a man who did not belong to his century; andsuch men always have a hard lot. His love of quiet, and hatred of war, were, in the eyes of his father, spiritless meanness; while his musicaltastes and his love of animals went beyond womanish weakness, and werelooked upon as absolute vices. But perhaps to the nobles the worstfeatures of his character were two which, in the nineteenth century, would entitle him to respect. He was extremely faithful in friendship, and he had a strong impatience of etiquette. He loved to associate withhis people, to mix in their joys and sorrows, to be as one of them. Hisfavourite amusement was to row down the Thames on a summer evening, withmusic on board, and to chat freely with the lieges who came down intheir barges, occasionally, and much to his own amusement, buyingcabbages and other wares from them. We should consider such actionsindicative of a kindly disposition and of simplicity of taste. But inthe eyes of his contemporaries they were inexpressibly low. And be itremembered that it was not a question of associating with persons ofmore or less education, whose mental standard might be unequal to hisown. There was no mental standard whereby to measure any one in thethirteenth century. All (with a very few exceptions, and those chieflyamong the clergy) were uneducated alike. The moral standard looked uponwar and politics as the only occupations meet for a prince, and uponhunting and falconry as the only amusements sufficiently noble. A manwho, like Edward, hated war, and had no fancy for either sport orpolitics, was hardly a man in the eyes of a mediaeval noble. 

The hardest treatment to which Edward was subjected, whether from hisfather in youth or from his people at a later time, arose out of thattouching constancy which was his greatest virtue. Perhaps he did notalways choose his friends well; he was inclined to put rather too muchtrust in his fellow creatures; and Hugh Le Despenser the elder may havebeen grasping and mean, and Piers Gavestone too extravagant. Yet wemust remember that we read their characters only as depicted by the pensof men who hated them--of men who were simply unable to conceive thattwo persons might be drawn together by mutual taste for some elevatedand innocent pursuit. The most wicked motives imaginable wererecklessly suggested for the attachment which Edward showed for thesechosen friends--who were not of noble origin, and had no handles totheir names till he conferred them. 

It is only through a thick mist of ignorance and prejudice that we ofthis day can see the character of Edward the Second. We read it only inthe pages of monks who hated their Lollard King--in the angry complaintsof nobles who were jealous that he listened to and bestowed gifts onother men than themselves. But we do see some faint glimpses of theEdward that really was, in the letter-book but recently dug out of amass of State papers; in the pages of De La Moor, [Note 1], the onlychronicler of his deeds who did not hate him, and who, as his personalattendant, must have known more of him in a month than the monks couldhave learned in a century; and last, not least, in that touching Latinpoem in which, during the sad captivity which preceded his sadder death, he poured out his soul to God, the only Friend whom he had left in allthe universe. 

 "Oh, who that heard how once they praised my name, Could think that from those tongues these slanders came? . . . I see Thy rod, and, Lord, I am content. Weave Thou my life until the web is spun; Chide me, O Father, till Thy will be done: Thy child no longer murmurs to obey; He only sorrows o'er the past delay. Lost is my realm; yet I shall not repine, If, after all, I win but that of Thine. "

 [See Note 2. ]

To a character such as this, the loss of his chief friend and onlyreliable intercessor, when just emerging from infancy into boyhood, wasa loss for which nothing could atone. It proved itself so in thosedreary after-years of perpetual misunderstandings and severities on thepart of his father, who set him no good example, and yet looked on theson whose tastes were purer than his own as an instance of irredeemabledepravity. The easiest thing in the world to do is one against whichGod has denounced a woe--to put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter. 

Another item of sorrowful news reached London with the coffin of QueenLeonor. It was the death of the baby Queen of Scotland, by whosebetrothal to Prince Edward the King had vainly hoped to fuse thenorthern and southern kingdoms into one. It left Scotland in acondition of utter distraction, with no less than eleven differentclaimants for the Crown, setting up claims good, bad, and indifferent;but every one of them persuaded that all the others had not an inch ofground to stand on, and that he was the sole true and rightfulinheritor. 

The only claimants who really had a shadow of right may be reduced tothree. If the old primitive custom of Scotland was to be regarded--acustom dear to all Celtic nations--by which illegitimate children wereconsidered to have an equal right to the succession with the legitimateones, then there could be no question that the heir was Patrick deGalithlys, son of Henry, the natural son of Alexander the Second. Butif not--and in this respect undoubtedly the custom had become obsolete--the struggle rested between John Baliol and Robert Bruce, of whom thefirst was the son of Dervorgoyl, daughter of Margaret, eldest daughterof David Earl of Huntingdon, brother of King William the Lion; while thelatter was the son of Isabel, the second daughter of David. Everyreader knows that the question was submitted by consent of the Scottishnobles to Edward the First as arbitrator, and that he gave his decisionin favour of Baliol. In other words, he gave it against the existinglaw both of England and Scotland, which did not recogniserepresentation, and according to which the son of the second sisterought to have been preferred to the grandson of the elder. 

The anxiety of our kings to bring in this law of representation is acurious psychological fact. Richard the First tried to do it by will, in leaving the crown to his nephew Arthur; but the law was too strongfor him, and the rightful heir succeeded--his brother John. Edward theFirst contrived to abrogate the law, so far as Scotland was concerned, ahundred years later. And eighty years after him Edward the Third triedagain to alter the English law of succession, and this time theexperiment succeeded. But its success was due mainly to two reasons--the personal popularity of the dead Prince whose son was thus liftedinto the line of succession, while the rightful heir was extremelyunpopular; and the fact that the disinherited heir gave full consent andassistance to the change in the law. 

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The knights and squires of the Earl of Cornwall's household weregathered together on the balcony which faced the river. One only wasabsent, Piers Ingham, who was occupied in a more interesting manner, aswill presently be seen. His colleague, Sir Lambert Aylmer, was holdingforth in a lively manner for the benefit of the four squires, who werelistening to him with various degrees of attention. Reginald deEchingham could never spare much of that quality from his admirableself, and De Chaucombe was an original thinker, who did not purchaseready-made ideas from other people. Barkeworth invariably agreed withthe last speaker in public, but kept his private views an inscrutablemystery; while all that could be said of Gernet's notions was that hehad "_un grand talent pour le silence_. "

To this quartette Sir Lambert was explaining his forecast of thepolitical weather. The young knight had a great fancy for airing hispolitics, and an unwavering conviction of the infallibility of hisjudgment. If Sir Lambert was to be believed, what King Edward wouldundoubtedly do was to foment civil war in Scotland, until all the rivalmale claimants had destroyed each other. He would then marry thedaughter of one of them, and annex Scotland as her appanage. All beingsmooth in that quarter, the King would next undertake a pilgrimage toPalestine, drive the Saracens out, and confer that country on one of hissons-in-law. He would then carry fire and sword through Borussia, Lithuania, and other heathen kingdoms in the north, subdue them all, puta few more sons-in-law in possession as tributary governors, and beingby that time an old man, would then return to Westminster to end hisdays in peace, a new Alexander, and to leave a magnificent empire to hisson. 

"Easier said than done, " growled De Chaucombe, in his beard. 

"Charming!" observed De Echingham, caressing his pet moustache. 

"A lovely prospect, indeed, " said De Barkeworth, with a bow, in a toneso impartially suspended between conviction and cynicism that nobodycould tell which had dictated it. "I should like to win my spurs inLithuania. "

"Win thy spurs!" muttered De Chaucombe again. "There are no spurs forcarpet-knights [Note 3] in the wardrobe of the Future. "

"I think knights should have golden spurs, not gilt ones--don't you?"inquired De Echingham. 

"Puppy!" sneered De Chaucombe. "If ever either are on thy heels it willbe a blunder of somebody's making. "

"Is it necessary to quarrel?" asked Gernet, speaking for the first time. 

"Oh, I trust I have more generosity than to quarrel with _him_, " rathercontemptuously returned De Echingham, who, as every one present knew, had as little physical courage as any girl. 

"Make thyself easy, " was the answer of De Chaucombe, as he walked away. "I should not think of running the risk. "

"What risk?" demanded Barkeworth, laughing. De Chaucombe looked backover his shoulder, and discharged a Parthian dart. 

"The risk of turning my good Damascus blade on a toad, " said he, to thegreat amusement of Barkeworth. 

De Chaucombe went to the end of the balcony, descended the steps whichled to the ground floor, and came on a second terrace, also fronting theriver. As he turned a corner of the house he suddenly confronted twopeople, who were walking slowly along the terrace, and conversing inhushed tones. Sir Piers Ingham was evidently and deeply interested, hishead slightly bowed towards Clarice who was as earnestly engaged in thedissection of one of the _few_ leaves which Christmas had leftfluttering on the garden bushes. As De Chaucombe approached she lookedup with a startled air, and blushed to her eyes. 

De Chaucombe muttered something indistinct which might pass for "Goodevening, " and resumed his path rather more rapidly than before. 

"So the wind blows from that direction!" he said to himself. "Well, itdoes not matter a straw to me. But what our amiable mistress will sayto the fair Clarice, when she comes to know of it, is another question. I do believe that, if she had made up her mind to a match between them, she would undo it again, if she thought they wished it. It would bejust like her. "

It had never occurred to Clarice to suppose that she did anything wrongin thus disobeying point blank the known orders of her mistress that thebower-maidens were to hold no intercourse whatever with the gentlemen ofthe household. She knew perfectly well that if the Countess saw hertalking to Sir Piers, she would be exceedingly angry; and she knew thather parents fully intended and expected her to obey her mistress as shewould themselves. Poor Clarice's code of morals looked upon discovery, not disobedience, as the thing to be dreaded; and while she would haverecoiled with horror from the thought of unfaithfulness to her beloved, she looked with absolute complacency on the idea of disloyalty to themistress whom she by no means loved. How could she do otherwise whenshe had never been taught better?

Clarice's standard was _loyaute d'amour_. It is the natural standard ofall men, the only difference being in the king whom they set up. A vastnumber are loyal to themselves only, for it is themselves whom alonethey love. Fewer are loyal to some human being; and poor humanity beinga very fallible thing, they often make sad shipwreck. Very few indeed--in comparison of the mass--are loyal to the King who claims and has aright to their hearts' best affections. And Clarice was not one ofthese. 

Inside the house the Countess and Mistress Underdone were very busyindeed. Before them, spread over forms and screens, lay piles ofmaterial for clothing--linen, serge, silk, and crape, of many colours. On a leaf-table at the side of the room a number of gold and silverornaments were displayed. Furs were heaped upon the bed, boots andloose slippers stood in a row in one corner; while Mistress Underdonewas turning over for her mistress's inspection a quantity of embroideredneckerchiefs. 

"Now, let me see, " said the Countess, peremptorily. "Measure off linenfor four gowns, Agatha--two of brown and two of red. Serge for two--thedark green. One silk will be enough, and one of crape. "

"How many ells the gown does my Lady choose to allow?" asked MistressUnderdone, taking an ell-wand from the table. 

"Four, " said the Countess, curtly. This was rather miserly measure, four ells and a third being the usual reckoning; but Mistress Underdonemeasured and cut in silence. 

"Thou mayest allow a third more for the silk and crape, " said theCountess, in a fit of unusual generosity. 

Mistress Underdone finished her measuring, laying each piece of materialneatly folded on the last, until the table held a tall heap of them. 

"Now for hoods, " pursued the Countess. "Black cloth for two, lined withcats' fur; russet for two more. Capes for outdoor wear--two of thegreen serge; one of black cloth lined with cats' fur; one of silk. Fourlinen wimples; two pairs of cloth boots, two of slippers; two corsets;three of those broidered kerchiefs, one better than the others; fourpairs of hosen. Measure off also twenty-four ells of linen cloth. "

"Of what price, if it please my Lady?"

"Fivepence the ell. And the boots of sixpence a pair. What did thatgreen serge cost?"

"Threepence the ell, my Lady. "

"That is monstrous. Have I no cheaper? Twopence would be good enoughfor her. "

"If it please my Lady, there is only that coarse grey serge at threehalfpence the ell, which was bought for the cook-maids. "

"Humph! I suppose that would scarcely do, " said the Countess, in a tonewhich sounded as if she wished it would. "Well, then--those ornaments. She must have a silver fibula, I suppose; and a copper-gilt one forcommon. What made thee put out all those other things? That is enoughfor her. If she wants a silver chain, her husband must give it her; Ishall not. As to rings and necklaces, they are all nonsense--not fitfor such as she. "

"Would my Lady think proper to allow a dovecote with silver pins?"

The dovecote was a head-dress, a kind of round caul of gold or silvernetwork, secured by gold or silver pins fastened in the hair. 

"Not I. Let her husband give her such fooleries. "

"And may I request to know what my Lady allows for making the garments?"

"Three halfpence each. "

"Might I be pardoned if I remind my Lady that the usual price istwopence each?"

"For me, perhaps; not for her. "

Mistress Underdone went on measuring the linen in silence. 

"There, that finishes for Clarice, " said the Countess. "Now for Diana. She may have a silver chain in addition, two of the best kerchiefs, and--no, that is enough. Otherwise let her have just the same. "

"If my Lady would graciously indulge her servant with permission to askit, do the maidens know yet what is to befall them?"

"No. I shall tell them on Sunday. Time enough. "

And the Countess left Mistress Underdone to finish the work by herself. 

"On Sunday! Only two days beforehand!" said Agatha Underdone toherself. "Diana will stand it. She is one that would not care much foranything of that kind, and she will rule the house. But Clarice! Ifshe should have given her heart elsewhere!--and I have fancied, lately, that she has given it somewhere. That poor child!"

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"But how can we?" queried Clarice. "If I were to speak to the Lady--even if I dared--I doubt--"

"I do not doubt, sweetheart, " replied Sir Piers. "No, the path must berather mere winding than that, though I confess I hate tortuous paths. Father Miles is the only person who has any influence with the Lady, andFather Bevis is the only one who has any with him. "

"But Father Bevis would have no sympathy with a love-story. "

"I am not sure that he would. But my Lord will, I know; and FatherBevis will listen to him. Leave this business to me, my fair Clarice. If I can obtain my Lord's ear this evening after vespers, and I think Ican, we shall soon have matters in train; and I have a fine hawk forFather Miles, which will put him in a good humour. Now, farewell, for Ihear the Lady's voice within. "

The lovers parted hastily, and Clarice went in to attire herself formass. For any one of her maidens to be absent from that ceremony wouldhave been a terrible offence in the eyes of the Countess; nor would anyless excuse than serious illness have availed to avert her displeasure. Dinner followed mass, and a visit to the shrine of Saint Edward, concluded by vespers, occupied the remainder of the afternoon. Therewas half an hour to spare before supper, and the girls were chattingtogether in their usual "bower, " or boudoir, when, to their surprise, the Countess entered. 

"I have ado but with two of you, " she said, as she seated herself. 

Naturally, the girls supposed that some penalty was about to befallthose two. How had they offended her? and which of them were theoffenders? To displease the Countess, as they all knew, was soextremely easy, that not one of them was prepared for the next sentence. 

"Two of you are to be wed on Tuesday. "

This was a bombshell. And it was the more serious because they wereaware that from this sentence there was no appeal. Troubled eyes, setin white faces, hurriedly sought each other. 

Was it from sheer thoughtlessness, or from absolute malice, or even froma momentary feeling of compassion towards the two who were to besacrificed, that the Countess made a long pause after each sentence?

"Diana Quappelad, " she said. 

Olympias, Roisia, and Clarice drew a sigh of relief. There were justhalf the chances against each that there had been. Diana stood forward, with a slight flush, but apparently not much concerned. 

"Thou art to wed with Master Fulk de Chaucombe, and thy bridegroom willbe knighted on the wedding-day. I shall give thee thy gear and thywedding-feast. Mistress Underdone will show thee the gear. "

The first momentary expression of Diana's face had been disappointment. It passed in an instant, and one succeeded which was divided betweenpleasurable excitement and amusement. She courtesied very low, andthanked the Countess, as of course was expected of her. 

Roisia stood behind, with blank face and clasped hands. There might befurther pain in store, but pleasure for her there could now be none. The Countess quite understood the dumb show, but she made no sign. 

"Clarice La Theyn. "

The girl stood out, listening for the next words as though her life hungon them. 

"I shall also give thee thy gear, and thy squire will be knighted on thewedding-day. "

The Countess was turning away as though she had said all. Clarice hadheard enough to make her feel as if life were not worth having. Asquire who still required knighthood was not Piers Ingham. Did itmatter who else it was? But she found, the next moment, that it might. 

"Would my Lady suffer me to let Clarice know whom she is to wed?" gentlysuggested Mistress Underdone. 

"Oh, did I not mention it?" carelessly responded the Countess, turningback to Clarice. "Vivian Barkeworth. "

She paused an instant for the courtesy and thanks which she expected. But she got a good deal more than she expected. With a passionate sobthat came from her very heart, Clarice fell at the feet of the LadyMargaret. 

"What is all this fuss about?" exclaimed her displeased mistress. "Inever heard such ado about nothing. "

Her displeasure, usually feared above all things, was nothing to Claricein that terrible instant. She sobbed forth that she loved elsewhere--she was already troth-plight. 

"Nonsense!" said the Countess, sharply. "What business hadst thou withsuch foolery, unknown to me? All maidens are wed by orders from theirsuperiors. Why shouldst thou be an exception?"

"Oh, have you no compassion?" cried poor Clarice, in her agony. "Lady, did you never love?"

All present were intently watching the face of the Countess, in the hopeof seeing some sign of relenting. But when this question was asked, thestern lips grew more set and stern than ever, and something like fireflashed out of the usually cold blue-grey eyes. 

"Who--I?" she exclaimed. "Thanks be to all the saints right verily, nay. I never had ado with any such disgraceful folly. From mineearliest years I have ever desired to be an holy sister, and never tosee a man's face. Get up, girl; it is of no use to kneel to me. Therewas no kindness shown to me; my wishes were never considered; why shouldthine be? I was made to array myself for my bridal, to the veryuprooting and destruction of all that I most loved and desired. Ah! ifmy Lord and father had lived, it would not have been so; he alwaysencouraged my vocation. He said love was unhappy, and I thought it wasscandalous. No, Clarice; I have no compassion upon lovers. There neverought to be any such thing. Let it be as I have said. "

And away stalked the Countess, looking more grey, square, and angularthan ever. 

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Note 1. De La Moor is the only chronicler in whose pages it is possibleto recognise the Edward of the letter-book, in which all his letters arecopied for the thirty-third year of his father's reign--1304-5. 

Note 2. Barnes's Edward the Third. I must in honesty confess that Ihave taken the liberty of smoothing Dr Barnes's somewhat ruggedtranslation. 

Note 3. A carpet-knight was one whose heroism lay more in rhetoricalvisions addressed to his partner in the intervals of dancing than inhard blows given and taken in the field. 

CHAPTER SIX. 

DESTROYED BY THE HURRICANE. 

 "Our plans may be disjointed, But we may calmly rest: What God has once appointed Is better than our best. "--Frances Ridley Havergal. 

The Countess left Clarice prostrate on the ground, sobbing as if herheart would break--Olympias feebly trying to raise and soothe her, Roisia looking half-stunned, and Felicia palpably amused by the scene. 

"Thou hadst better get up, child, " said Diana, in a tone divided betweenconstraint and pity. "It will do thee no good to lie there. We shallall have to put up with the same thing in our turn. I haven't got theman I should have chosen; but I suppose it won't matter a hundred yearshence. "

"I am not so sure of that, " said Roisia, in a low voice. 

"Oh, thou art disappointed, I know, " said Diana. "I would hand Fulkover to thee with pleasure, if I could. I don't want him. But Isuppose he will do as well as another, and I shall take care to bemistress. It is something to be married--to anybody. "

"It is everything to be married to the right man, " said Roisia; "but itis something very awful to be married to the wrong one. "

"Oh, one soon gets over that, " was Diana's answer. "So long as you canhave your own way, I don't see that anything signifies much. I shallnot admire myself in my wedding-dress any the less because my squire isnot exactly the one I hoped it might be. "

"Diana, I don't understand thee, " responded Roisia. "What does itmatter, I should say, having thine own way in little nothings so long asthou art not to have it in the one thing for which thou really carest?Thou dost not mean to say that a velvet gown would console thee forbreaking thy heart?"

"But I do, " said Diana. "I must be a countess before I could wearvelvet; and I would marry any man in the world who would make me acountess. "

Mistress Underdone, who had lifted up Clarice, and was holding her inher arms, petting her into calmness as she would a baby, now thought fitto interpose. 

"My maids, " she said, "there are women who have lost their hearts, andthere are women who were born without any. The former case has the moresuffering, yet methinks the latter is really the more pitiable. "

"Well, I think those people pitiable enough who let their hearts breaktheir sleep and interfere with their appetites, " replied Diana. "I havegot over my disappointment already; and Clarice will be a simpleton ifshe do not. "

"I expect Clarice and I will be simpletons, " said Roisia, quietly. 

"Please yourselves, and I will please myself, " answered Diana. "Now, mistress, Clarice seems to have given over crying for a few seconds; maywe see the gear?"

"Oh, I want Father Bevis!" sobbed Clarice, with a fresh gush of tears. 

"Ay, my dove, thou wilt be the better of shriving, " said MistressUnderdone, tenderly. "Sit thee down a moment, and I will see to FatherBevis. Wait awhile, Diana. "

It was not many minutes before she came back with Father Bevis, who tookClarice into his oratory; and as it was a long while before she rejoinedthem, the others--Roisia excepted--had almost time to forget the scenethey had witnessed, in the interest of turning over Diana's _trousseau_, and watching her try on hoods and mantles. 

The interview with Father Bevis was unsatisfactory to Clarice. Shewanted comfort, and he gave her none. Advice he was ready with inplenty; but comfort he could not give her, because he could not see whyshe wanted it. He was simply incapable of understanding her. He wasvery kind, and very anxious to comfort her, if he could only have toldhow to do it. But love--spiritual love excepted--was a stranger to hisbosom. No one had ever loved him; he could not remember his parents; hehad never had brother nor sister; and he had never made a friend. Hisheart was there, but it had never been warmed to life. Perhaps he camenearest to loving the Earl his master; but even this feeling awakenedvery faint pulsations. His capacity for loving human beings had beensimply starved to death. Such a man as this, however anxious to be kindand helpful, of course could not enter in the least into the position ofClarice. He told her many very true things, if she had been capable ofreceiving them; he tried his very best to help her; but she felt throughit all that they were barbarians to each other, and that Father Bevisregarded her as partially incomprehensible and wholly silly. 

Father Bevis told Clarice that the chief end of man was to glorify God, and to enjoy Him for ever; that no love was worthy in comparison withHis; that he who loved father and mother more than Christ was not worthyof Him. All very true, but the stunned brain and lacerated heart couldnot take it in. The drugs were pure and precious, but they were not themedicine for her complaint. She only felt a sensation of repulsion. 

Clarice did not know that the Earl was doing his very best to rescueher. He insisted on Father Miles going to the Countess about it; nay, he even ventured an appeal to her himself, though it always cost himgreat pain to attempt a conversation with this beloved but irresponsivewoman. But he took nothing by his motion. The Countess was asobstinate as she was absolute. If anything, the opposition to her willleft her just a shade more determined. In vain her husband pleadedearnestly with her not to spoil two lives. Hers had been spoiled, shereplied candidly: these ought not to be better off, nor should they be. 

"Life has been spoiled for us both, " said the Earl, sadly; "but I shouldhave thought that a reason why we might have been tenderer to others. "

"You are a fool!" said the Countess with a flash of angry scorn. 

They were the first words she had spoken to him for eighteen years. 

"Maybe, my Lady, " was the gentle answer. "It would cost me less to beaccounted a fool than it would to break a heart. "

And he left her, feeling himself baffled and his endeavours useless, yetwith a glow at his heart notwithstanding. His Margaret had spoken tohim at last. That her words were angry, even abusive, was aconsideration lost in the larger fact. Tears which did not fall welledup from the soft heart to the dove-like eyes, and he went out to theterrace to compose himself. "O Margaret, Margaret! if you could haveloved me!" He never thought of blaming her--only of winning her as adim hope of some happy future, to be realised when it was God's will. He had never yet dared to look his cross in the face sufficiently toadd, if it were God's will. 

When the Monday came, which was to be the last day of Clarice's maidenlife, it proved a busy, bustling day, with no time for thought until theevening. Clarice lived through it as best she might. Diana seemed tohave put her disappointment completely behind her, and to be thoroughlyconsoled by the bustle and her _trousseau_. 

One consideration never occurred to any of the parties concerned, whichwould be thought rather desirable in the nineteenth century. This was, that the respective bridegrooms should have any interview with theirbrides elect, or in the slightest degree endeavour to make themselvesagreeable. They met at meals in the great hall, but they neverexchanged a word. Clarice did not dare to lift her eyes, lest sheshould meet those either of Vivian or Piers. She kept them diligentlyfixed upon her trencher, with which she did little else than look at it. 

The evening brought a lull in the excitement and busy labour. TheCountess, attended by Felicia, had gone to the Palace on royalinvitation. Clarice sat on the terrace, her eyes fixed on the riverwhich she did not see, her hands lying listlessly in her lap. Thoughshe had heard nothing, that unaccountable conviction of anotherpresence, which comes to us all at times, seized upon her; and shelooked up to see Piers Ingham. 

The interview was long, and there is no need to add that it was painful. The end came at last. 

"Wilt thou forget me, Clarice?" softly asked Piers. 

"I ought, " was the answer, with a gush of tears, "if I can. "

"I cannot, " was the reply. "But one pain I can spare thee, my beloved. The Lady means to retain thee in her service as damsel of the chamber. "[Note 1. ]

If Clarice could have felt any lesser grief beside the one great one, she would have been sorry to hear that. 

"I shall retire, " said Sir Piers, "from my Lord's household. I will notgive thee the misery of meeting me day by day. Rather I will do what Ican to help thee to forget me. It is the easier for me, since I havehad to offend my Lady by declining the hand of Felicia de Fay, which shewas pleased to offer me. "

"The Lady offered Felicia to thee?"

Sir Piers bent his head in assent. Clarice felt as if she could havepoisoned Felicia, and have given what arsenic remained over to the LadyMargaret. 

"And are we never to meet again?" she asked, with an intonation ofpassionate sorrow. 

"That must depend on God's will, " said Sir Piers, gravely. 

Clarice covered her face with both hands, and the bitter tears trickledfast through her fingers. 

"Oh, why is God's will so hard?" she cried. "Could He not have left usin peace? We had only each other. "

"Hush, sweet heart! It is wrong to say that. And yet it is hardlypossible not to think it. "

"It is not possible!" sobbed Clarice. "Does not God know it is notpossible?"

"I suppose He must, " said Sir Piers, gloomily. 

There was no comfort in the thought to either. There never is any tothose who do not know God. And Piers was only feeling after Him, ifhaply he might find Him, and barely conscious even of that; whileClarice had not reached even that point. To both of them, in this veryanguish, Christ was saying, "Come unto Me;" but their own cry of painhindered them from hearing Him. It was not likely they should hear, just then, when the sunlight of life was being extinguished, and themusic was dying to its close. But afterwards, in the silence and thedarkness, when the sounds were hushed and the lights were out, and therewas nothing that could be done but to endure, then the still, smallvoice might make itself heard, and the crushed hearts might sob outtheir answer. 

So they parted. "They took but ane kiss, and tare themselves away, " tomeet when it was God's will, and not knowing on which side of the riverof death that would be. 

Half an hour had passed since Sir Piers' step had died away on theterrace, and Clarice still sat where he had left her, in crushed andsilent stillness. If this night could only be the end of it! If thingshad not to go on!

"Clarice, " said a pitying voice; and a hand was laid upon her head as ifin fatherly blessing. 

Clarice was too stunned with pain to remember her courtly duties. Sheonly looked up at Earl Edmund. 

"Clarice, my poor child! I want thee to know that I did my best forthee. "

"I humbly thank your Lordship, " Clarice forced herself to say. 

"And it may be, my child, though it seems hard to believe, that God isdoing His best for thee too. "

"Then what would His worst be?" came in a gush from Clarice. 

"It might be that for which thou wouldst thank Him now. "

The sorrowing girl was arrested in spite of herself, for the Earl spokein that tone of quiet certainty which has more effect on an undecidedmind than any words. She wondered how he knew, not realising that heknows "more than the ancients" who knows God and sorrow. 

"My child, " said the Earl again, "man's best and God's best are oftenvery different things. In the eyes of Monseigneur Saint Jacob, the bestthing would have been to spare his son from being cast into the pit andsold to the Ishmaelites. But God's best was to sell the boy intoslavery, and to send him into a dungeon, and then to lift him up to thesteps of the king's throne. When _then_ comes, Clarice, we shall besatisfied with what happened to us now. "

"When will it come, my Lord?" asked Clarice, in a dreary tone. 

"When it is best, " replied the Earl quietly. 

"Your Lordship speaks as if you knew!" said Clarice. 

"God knows. And he who knows God may be sure of everything else. "

"Is it so much to know God?"

"It is life. `Without God' and `Without hope' are convertible terms. "

"My Lord, " said Clarice, wondering much to hear a layman use languagewhich it seemed to her was only fit for priests, "how may one know God?"

"Go and ask Him. How dost thou know any one? Is it not by converse andcompanionship?"

There was a silent pause till the Earl spoke again. 

"Clarice, " he said, "our Lord has a lesson to teach thee. It rests withthee to learn it well or ill. If thou choose to be idle and obstinate, and refuse to learn, thou mayst sit all day long on the form indisgrace, and only have the task perfect at last when thou art weariedout with thine own perverseness. But if thou take the book willingly, and apply thyself with heart and mind, the task will be soon over, andthe teacher may give thee leave to go out into the sunshine. "

"My Lord, " said Clarice, "I do not know how to apply your words here. How can I learn this task quickly?"

"Dost thou know, first, what the task is?"

"Truly, no. "

"Then let a brother tell thee who has had it set to him. It is a hardlesson, Clarice, and one that an inattentive scholar can make yet harderif he will. It is, `Not my will, but Thine, be done. '"

"I cannot! I cannot!" cried Clarice passionately. 

"Some scholars say that, " replied the Earl gently, "until the eveningshadows grow very long. They are the weariest of all when they reachhome. "

"My Lord, pardon me, but you cannot understand it!" Clarice stood up. "I am young, and you--"

"I am over forty years, " replied the Earl. "Ah, child, dost thou makethat blunder?--dost thou think the child's sorrows worse than the man's?I have known both, and I tell thee the one is not to be compared to theother. Young hearts are apt to think it, for grief is a thing new andstrange to them. But if ever it become to thee as thy daily bread, thouwilt understand it better. It has been mine, Clarice, for eighteenyears. "

That was a year more than Clarice had been in the world. She looked upwonderingly into the saddened, dove-like Plantagenet eyes--those eyescharacteristic of the House--so sweet in repose, so fiery in anger. Clarice had but a dim idea what his sorrow was. 

"My Lord, " she said, half inquiringly, "methinks you never knew such agrief as mine?"

The smile which parted the Earl's lips was full of pity. 

"Say rather, maiden, that thou never knewest one like mine. But Godknows both, Clarice, and He pities both, and when His time comes He willcomfort both. At the best time, child! Only let us acquaint ourselveswith Him, for so only can we be at peace. And now, farewell. I hadbetter go in and preach my sermon to myself. "

Clarice was left alone again. She did not turn back to exactly the sametrain of thought. A new idea had been given her, which was to becomethe germ of a long train of others. She hardly put it into words, evento herself; but it was this--that God meant something. He was notsitting on the throne of the universe in placid indifference to hersorrows; neither was He a malevolent Being who delighted in interferingwith the plans of His creatures simply to exhibit His own power. He wasdoing this--somehow--for her benefit. She saw neither the how nor thewhy; but He saw them, and He meant good to her. All the world was notlimited to the Slough of Despond at her feet. There was blue sky above. 

Very vaguely Clarice realised this. But it was sufficient to soften therocky hardness which had been the worst element of her pain--to takeaway the blind chance against which her impotent wings had been beatenin vain efforts to escape from the dark cage. It was that contact with"the living will of a living person, " which gives the human element towhat would otherwise be hard, blind, pitiless fate. 

Clarice rose, and looked up to the stars. No words came. The cry ofher heart was, "O Lord, I am oppressed; undertake for me. " But she wastoo ignorant to weave it into a prayer. When human hearts look up toGod in wordless agony, the Intercessor translates the attitude into thewords of Heaven. 

Sad or bright, there was no time for thought on the Tuesday morning. The day was bitterly cold, for it was the 16th of January 1291, and aheavy hoar-frost silvered all the trees, and weighed down the bushes inthe Palace garden. Diana, wrapped in her white furs, was the picture ofhealth and merriment. Was it because she really had not enough heart tocare, or because she was determined not to give herself a moment toconsider? Clarice, white as the fur round her throat, pale andheavy-eyed, grave and silent, followed Diana into the Palace chapel. The Countess was there, handsomely attired, and the Earl, in goldenarmour; but they stood on opposite sides of the chancel, and the formerignored her lord's existence. Diana's wedding came first. De Chaucombebehaved a little more amiably than usual, and, contrary to all hishabits, actually offered his hand to assist his bride to rise. ThenDiana fell back to the side of the Countess, and Fulk to that of theEarl, and Clarice recognised that the moment of her sacrifice was come. 

With one passionately pleading look at the Lady Margaret--who met it asif she had been made of stone--Clarice slowly moved forward to thealtar. She shuddered inwardly as Vivian Barkeworth took her hand intohis clasp, and answered the queries addressed to her in so low a voicethat Father Miles took the words for granted. It seemed only a fewminutes before she woke to the miserable truth that she was now Vivian'swife, and that to think any more of Piers Ingham was a sin against God. 

Clarice dragged herself through the bridal festivities--how, she neverknew. Diana was the life of the party. So bright and gay she was thatshe might never have heard of such a thing as disappointment. Shedanced with everybody, entered into all the games with the zest of aneager child, and kept the hall ringing with merry laughter, whileClarice moved through them all as if a weight of lead were upon her, andlooked as though she should never smile again. Accident at length threwthe two brides close together. 

"Art thou going to look thus woe-begone all thy life through, Clarice?"inquired the Lady De Chaucombe. 

"I do not know, " answered Clarice, gloomily. "I only hope it will notbe long. "

"What will not be long?--thy sorrowful looks?"

"No--my life. "

"Don't let me hear such nonsense, " exclaimed Diana, with a little of herold sharpness. "Men are all deceivers, child. There is not one of themworth spoiling a woman's life for. Clarice, don't be a simpleton!"

"Not more than I can help, " said Clarice, with the shadow of a smile;and then De Echingham came up and besought her hand for the next dance, and she was caught away again into the whirl. 

The dancing, which was so much a matter of course at a wedding, thateven the Countess did not venture to interfere with it, was followed bythe hoydenish romps which were considered equally necessary, and whichfell into final desuetude about the period of the accession of the Houseof Hanover. King Charles the First's good taste had led him to frownupon them, and utterly to prohibit them at his own wedding; but thepeople in general were attached to their amusements, rough and evengross as they often were, and the improvement filtered down from palaceto cottage only very slowly. 

The cutting of the two bride-cakes, as usual, was one of the mostinteresting incidents. It was then, and long afterwards, customary toinsert three articles in a bride-cake, which were considered to foretellthe fortunes of the persons in whose possession they were found when thecakes were cut up. The gold ring denoted speedy marriage; the silverpenny indicated future wealth; while the thimble infallibly doomed itsrecipient to be an old maid. The division of Diana's cake revealed SirReginald de Echingham in possession of the ring, evidently to hissatisfaction; while Olympias, with the reverse sensation, discovered inher slice both the penny and the thimble. Clarice's cake proved evenmore productive of mirth; for the thimble fell to the Countess, whilethe Earl held up the silver penny, laughingly remarking that he was thelast person who ought to have had that, since he had already more ofthem than he wanted. But the fun came to its apex when the ring wasdiscovered in the hand of Mistress Underdone, who indignantly assertedthat if a thousand gold rings were showered upon her from as many cakesthey would not induce her to marry again. She thought two husbands wereenough for any reasonable woman; and if not, she was too old now forfolly of that sort. Sir Lambert sent the company into convulsions oflaughter by clasping his hands on this announcement with a look ofpretended despair, upon which Mistress Underdone, justly indignant, gavehim such a box on the ear that he was occupied in rubbing it for thenext ten minutes, thereby increasing the merriment of the rest. Loudestand brightest of all the laughers was Diana. She at least had notbroken her heart. Clarice, pale and silent in the corner, where she satand watched the rest, dimly wondered if Diana had any heart to break. 

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Note 1. There were two divisions of "damsels" in the household of amediaeval princess, the _domicellae_ and the _domicellae camera_. Theformer, who corresponded to the modern Maids of Honour, were young andunmarried; the latter, the Ladies of the Bedchamber, were always marriedwomen. Sufficient notice of this distinction has not been taken bymodern writers. Had it so been, the supposition long held of theidentity of Philippa Chaucer, _domicella camera_, with Philippa Pycard, _domicella_, could scarcely have arisen; nor should we be told thatChaucer's marriage did not occur until 1369, or later, when we findPhilippa in office as Lady of the Bedchamber in 1366. 

CHAPTER SEVEN. 

DAME MAISENTA DOES NOT SEE IT. 

 "With a little hoard of maxims, preaching down a daughter's heart. "--_Tennyson_. 

Earl Edmund had not been callous to the white, woeful face under one ofthe bridal wreaths. He set himself to think how most pleasantly todivert the thoughts of Clarice; and the result of his meditations was arequest to Father Miles that he would induce the Countess to invite theparents of Clarice on a visit. The Countess always obeyed Father Miles, though had she known whence the suggestion came, she might have beenless docile. A letter, tied up with red silk, and sealed with theCountess's seal, was despatched by a messenger to Dame La Theyn, whom itput into no small flutter of nervous excitement. 

A journey to London was a tremendous idea to that worthy woman, thoughshe lived but forty miles from the metropolis. She had never been therein her life. Sir Gilbert had once visited it, and had dilated on thesize, splendour, and attractions of the place, till it stood, in theDame's eyes, next to going to Heaven. It may, indeed, be doubted if shewould not have found herself a good deal more at home in the formerplace than the latter. 

Three sumpter-mules were laden with the richest garments and ornamentsin the wardrobes of knight and dame. Two armed servants were on onehorse, Sir Gilbert and his wife on another; and thus provided, late inFebruary, they drew bridle at the gate of Whitehall Palace. Clarice hadnot been told of their coming by the Countess, because she was notsufficiently interested; by the Earl, because he wished it to be apleasant surprise. She was called out into the ante-chamber oneafternoon, and, to her complete astonishment, found herself in thepresence of her parents. 

The greeting was tolerably warm. 

"Why, child, what hast done to thy cheeks?" demanded Sir Gilbert, whenhe had kissed his palefaced daughter. "'Tis all the smoke--that's whatit is!"

"Nay; be sure 'tis the late hours, " responded the Dame. "I'll warrantyou they go not to bed here afore seven o' the clock. Eh, Clarice?"

"Not before eight, Dame, " answered Clarice, with a smile. 

"Eight!" cried Dame Maisenta. "Eh, deary me! Mine head to a pod ofpeas, but that's a hearing! And what time get they up of a morrow?"

"The Lady rises commonly by five or soon after. "

"Saint Wulstan be our aid! Heard I ever the like? Why, I am never abedafter three!"

"So thou art become Dame Clarice?" said her father, jovially. 

The smile died instantly from Clarice's lips. "Yes, " she said, drearily. 

"Where is thy knight, lass?" demanded her mother. 

"You will see him in hall, " replied Clarice. And when they went down tosupper she presented Vivian in due form. 

No one knew better than Vivian Barkeworth how to adapt himself to hiscompany. He measured his bride's parents as accurately, in the firstfive minutes, as a draper would measure a yard of calico. It is notsurprising if they were both delighted with him. 

The Countess received her guests with careless condescension, the Earlwith kind cordiality. Dame La Theyn was deeply interested in seeingboth. But her chief aim was a long _tete-a-tete_ discourse withClarice, which she obtained on the day following her arrival. TheCountess, as usual, had gone to visit a shrine, and Clarice, being offduty, took her mother to the terrace, where they could chat undisturbed. 

Some of us modern folks would rather shrink from sitting on an openterrace in February; but our forefathers were wonderfully independent ofthe weather, and seem to have been singularly callous in respect to heatand cold. Dame La Theyn made no objection to the airiness of herposition, but settled herself comfortably in the corner of the stonebench, and prepared for her chat with much gusto. 

"Well, child, " was the Dame's first remark, "the good saints haveordered matters rarely for thee. I ventured not to look for such goodfortune, not so soon as this. Trust me, but I was rejoiced when I readthy lady's letter, to hear that thou wert well wed unto a knight, andthat she had found all the gear. I warrant thee, the grass grew notunder my feet afore Dame Rouse, and Mistress Swetapple, and every womanof our neighbours, down to Joan Stick-i'-th'-Lane, knew the good luckthat was come to thee. "

Clarice sat with her hands in her lap looking out on the river. Goodluck! Could Dame La Theyn see no further than that!

"Why, lass, what is come to thee?" demanded the Dame, when she found noresponse. "Sure, thou art not ungrateful to thy lady for her care andgoodness! That were a sin to be shriven for. "

Clarice turned her wan face towards her mother. 

"Grateful!" she said. "For what should I be thankful to her? Dame, shehas torn me away from the only one in the world that I loved, and hasforced me to wed a man whom I alike fear and hate. Do you think thatmatter for thankfulness, or does she!"

"Tut, tut!" said the Dame. "Do not ruffle up thy feathers like a pigeonthat has got bread-crumbs when he looked for corn! Why, child, 'tis butwhat all women have to put up with. We all have our calf-loves and bitsof maidenly fancies, but who ever thought they were to rule the roast?Sure, Clarice, thou hast more sense than so?"

"Dame, pardon me, but you understand not. This was no light love ofmine--no passing fancy that a newer one might have put out. It was theone hope and joy of my whole life. I had nothing else to live for. "

To Clarice's horror, the rejoinder to her rhetoric was what the Dameherself would have called "a jolly laugh. "

"Dear, dear, how like all young maids be!" cried the mother. "Just thevery thought had I when my good knight my father sent away Master Pride, and told me I must needs wed with thy father, Sir Gilbert. That istwenty years gone this winter Clarice, and I swear to thee I thoughtmine heart was broke. Look on me now. Look I like a woman that hadbrake her heart o' love? I trow not, by my troth!"

No; certainly no one would have credited that rosy, comfortable matronwith having broken her heart any number of years ago. 

"And thou wilt see, too, when twenty years be over, Clarice, I warrantthee thou shalt look back and laugh at thine own folly. Deary me, child! Folks cannot weep for ever and the day after. Wait till thouart forty, and then see if thy trouble be as sore in thy mind then asnow. "

Forty! Should she ever be forty? Clarice fondly hoped not. And wouldany lapse of years change the love which seemed to her interwoven withevery fibre of her heart? That heart cried out and said, Impossible!But Dame La Theyn heard no answer. 

"When thou hast dwelt on middle earth [Note 1], child, as long as Ihave, thou wilt look on things more in proportion. There be otheraffairs in life than lovemaking. Women spend not all their daysthinking of wooing, and men still less. I warrant thee thy lover, whosohe be, shall right soon comfort himself with some other damsel. Neversuspect a man of constancy, child. They know not what the word means. "

Clarice's inner consciousness violently contradicted this sweepingstatement. But she kept silence still. 

"Ah, I see!" said her mother, laughing. "Not a word dost thou creditme. I may as well save my breath to cool my porridge. Howsoe'er, Clarice, when thou hast come to forty years, if I am yet alive, let mehear thy thoughts thereupon. Long ere that time come, as sure as eggsbe eggs, thou shalt be a-reading the same lesson to a lass of thine, ifit please God so to bless thee. And she'll not believe thee a word, anymore than thou dost me. Eh, these young folks, these young folks!truly, they be rare fun for us old ones. They think they've gotten allthe wisdom that ever dwelt in King Solomon's head, and we may standaside and doff our caps to them. Good lack!--but this world is a queerplace, and a merry!"

Clarice thought she had not found it a merry locality by any means. 

"And what ails thee at thy knight, child? He is as well-favoured andtall of his hands as e'er a one. Trust me, but I liked him well, and sosaid thy father. He is a pleasant fellow, no less than a comely. Whatails thee at him?"

"Dame, I cannot feel to trust him. "

"Give o'er with thy nonsense! Thou mayest trust him as well as anotherman. They are all alike. They want their own way, and to pleasethemselves, and if they've gotten a bit of time and thought o'er they'llmaybe please thee at after. That's the way of the world, child. Ifthou art one of those silly lasses that look for a man who shall neverlet his eyes rove from thee, nor never make no love to nobody else, why, thou mayest have thy search for thy pains. Thou art little like tocatch that lark afore the sky falls. "

Clarice thought that lark had been caught for her, and had been tornfrom her. 

"And what matter?" continued Dame La Theyn. "If a man likes his wifethe best, and treats her reasonable kind, as the most do--and I make nodoubt thine shall--why should he not have his little pleasures? Thoucanst do a bit on thine own account. But mind thou, keep on thewindward side o' decency. 'Tis no good committing o' mortal sin, and adeal o' trouble to get shriven for it. Mind thy ways afore the world!And let not thy knight get angered with thee, no more. But I'll tellthee, Clarice, thou wilt anger him afore long, to carry thyself thustowards him. Of course a man knows he must put up with a bit ofperversity and bashfulness when he is first wed; because he can guessreasonable well that the maid might not have chose him her own self. But it does not do to keep it up. Thou must mind thy ways, child. "

Clarice was almost holding her breath. Whether horror or disgust werethe feeling uppermost in her mind, she would have found difficult totell. Was this her mother, who gave her such counsel? And were allwomen like that? _One_ other distinct idea was left to her--that therewas an additional reason for dying--to get out of it all. 

"Thou art but a simple lass, I can see, " reflectively added Dame LaTheyn. "Thou hast right the young lass's notions touching truth, andfaith, and constancy, and such like. All a parcel of moonshine, child!There is no such thing, not in this world. Some folks be a bit worsethan others, but that's all. I dare reckon thy knight is one of thebetter end. At any rate, thou wilt find it comfortable to think so. "

Clarice was inwardly convinced that Vivian belonged to the scrag end, sofar as character went. 

"That's the true way to get through the world, child. Shut thy eyes towhatever thou wouldst not like to see. Nobody'll admire thee more forhaving red rims to 'em. And, dear heart, where's the good? 'Tis nonebut fools break their hearts. Wise folks jog on jollily. And ifthere's somewhat to forgive on the one side, why, there'll be somewhaton the other. Thou art not an angel--don't fancy it. And if he isn'tneither--"

Of that fact Clarice felt superlatively convinced. 

"The best way is not to expect it of him, and thou wilt be the lessdisappointed. So get out thy ribbons and busk thee, and let's have nomore tears shed. There's been a quart too much already. "

A slight movement of nervous impatience was the sole reply. 

"Eh, Clarice? Ne'er a word, trow?"

Then she turned round a wan, set, distressed face, with ferventdetermination glowing in the eyes. 

"Mother! I would rather die, and be out of it!"

"Be out of what, quotha?" demanded Dame La Theyn, in astonished tones. 

"This world, " said Clarice, through her set teeth. "This hard, cold, cruel, miserable, wicked world. Is there only one of two lives beforeme--either to harden into stone and crush other hearts, or to be crushedby the others that have got hard before me? Oh, Mother, Mother! isthere nothing in the world for a woman but _that_?--God, let me diebefore I come to either!"

"Deary, deary, deary me!" seemed to be all that Dame La Theyn feltherself capable of saying. 

"A few weeks ago, " Clarice went on, "before--_this_, there was a higherand better view of life given to me. One that would make _one's_crushed heart grow softer, and not harder; that was upward and notdownward; that led to Heaven and God, not to Hell and Satan. There isno hope for me in this life but the hope of Heaven. For pity's sake letme keep that! If every other human creature is going down--you seem tothink so--let me go higher, not lower. Because my life has been spoiledfor me, shall I deliberately poison my own soul? May God forbid it me!If I am to spend my life with demons, let my spirit live with God. "

The feelings of Dame La Theyn, on hearing this speech from Clarice, werenot capable of expression in words. 

In her eyes, as in those of all Romanists, there were two lives which aman or woman could lead--the religious and the secular. To lead areligious life meant, as a matter of course, to go into the cloister. Matrimony and piety were simply incompatible. Clarice was a marriedwoman: _ergo_, she could not possibly be religious. Dame La Theyn'smind, to use one of her favourite expressions, was all of a jumble withthese extraordinary ideas of which her daughter had unaccountably gothold. "What on earth is the child driving at? is she mad?" thought hermother. 

"What dost thou mean, child?" inquired the extremely puzzled Dame. "Thou canst not go into the cloister--thou art wed. Dear heart, but Inever reckoned thou hadst any vocation! Thou shouldst have told thylady. "

"I do not want the cloister, " said Clarice. "I want to do God's will. I want to belong to God. "

"Why, that is the same thing!" responded the still perplexed woman. 

"The Lord Earl is not a monk, " replied Clarice. "And I am sure hebelongs to God, for he knows Him better than any priest that I eversaw. "

"Child, child! Did I not tell thee, afore ever thou earnest into thishouse, that thy Lord was a man full of queer fancies, and all manner ofstrange things? Don't thee go and get notions into thine head, formercy's sake! Thou must live either in the world or the cloister. Whoever heard of a wedded woman devote to religion? Thou canst not haveboth--'tis nonsense. Is that one of thy Lord's queer notions? Sure, these friars never taught thee so?"

"The friars never taught me anything. Father Bevis tried to help me, but he did not know how. My Lord was the only one who understood. "

"Understood? Understood what?"

"Who understood me, and who understood God. "

"Clarice, what manner of tongue art thou talking? 'Tis none I neverlearned. "

No, for Clarice was beginning to lisp the language of Canaan, and "theythat kept the fair were men of this world. " What wonder if she and herthoroughly time-serving mother found it impossible to understand eachother?

"I cannot make thee out, lass. If thou wert aware afore thou wert wedthat thou hadst a vocation, 'twas right wicked of thee not to tell thyconfessor and thy mistress, both. But I cannot see how it well could, when thou wert all head o'er ears o' love with some gallant or other--the saints know whom. I reckon it undecent, in very deed, Clarice, tomeddle up a love-tale with matters of religion. I do wonder thou hastno more sense of fitness and decorum. "

"It were a sad thing, " said Clarice quietly, "if only irreligious peoplemight love each other. "

"Love each other! Dear heart, thy brains must be made o' forcemeat!Thou hast got love, and religion, and living, and all manner o' things, jumbled up together in a pie. They've nought to do with each other, thou silly lass. "

"If religion has nought to do with living, Dame, under your goodpleasure, what has it to do with?"

A query which Dame La Theyn found it as difficult to comprehend as toanswer. In her eyes, religion was a thing to take to church on Sunday, and life was restricted to the periods when people were not in church. When she laid up her Sunday gown in lavender, she put her religion inwith it. Of course, nuns were religious every day, but nobody else everthought of such an unreasonable thing. Clarice's new ideas, therefore, to her, were simply preposterous and irrational. 

"Clarice!" she said, in tones of considerable surprise, "I do wonderwhat's come o'er thee! This is not the lass I sent to Oakham. Have thefairies been and changed thee, or what on earth has happened to thee? Icannot make thee out!"

"I hardly know what has happened to me, " was the answer, "but I think itis that I have gone nearer God. He ploughed up my heart with the furrowof bitter sorrow, and then He made it soft with the dew of His grace. Isuppose the seed will come next. What that is I do not know yet. Butmy knowing does not matter if He knows. "

The difference which Dame La Theyn failed to understand was thedifference between life and death. The words of the Earl had been usedas a seed of life, and the life was growing. It is the necessity oflife to grow, and it is an impossibility that death should appreciatelife. 

"Well!" was the Dame's conclusion, delivered as she rose from the stonebench, in a perplexed and disappointed tone, "I reckon thou wilt be liketo take thine own way, child, for I cannot make either head or tail ofthy notions. Only I do hope thou wilt not set up to be unlike everybodyelse. Depend upon it, Clarice, a woman never comes to no good when shesets up to be better than her neighbours. It is bad enough in anybody, but 'tis worser in a woman than a man. I cannot tell who has stuck thyqueer notions into thee--whether 'tis thy Lord, or thy lover, or who;but I would to all the saints he had let thee be. I liked thee a dealbetter afore, I can tell thee. I never had no fancy for philosophy andsuch. "

"Mother, " said Clarice softly, "I think it was God. "

"Gently, child! No bad language, prithee. " Dame La Theyn looked uponpious language as profanity when uttered in an unconsecrated place. "But if it were the Almighty that put these notions into thy head, Ipray He'll take 'em out again. "

"I think not, " quietly replied Clarice. 

And so the scene closed. Neither had understood the other, so far, atleast, as spiritual matters were concerned. But in respect to thesecular question Dame La Theyn could enter into Clarice's thoughts morethan she chose to allow. The dialogue stirred within her faintmemories--not quite dead--of that earlier time when her tears had flowedfor the like cause, and when she had felt absolutely certain that shecould never be happy again. But her love had been of a selfish andsurface kind, and the wound, never more than skin-deep, had healedrapidly and left no scar. Was it surprising if she took it for grantedthat her daughter's was of the same class, and would heal with equalrapidity and completeness? Beside this, she thought it very unwisepolicy to let Clarice perceive that she did understand her in any wise. It would encourage her in her folly, Dame La Theyn considered, if shesupposed that so wise a person as her mother could have any sympathywith such notions. So she wrapped herself complacently in her mantle ofwisdom, and never perceived that she was severing the last strand of therope which bound her child's heart to her own. 

"O, purblind race of miserable men!"

How strangely we all spend our lives in the anxious labour of strainingout gnats, while we scarcely detect the moment when we swallow thecamel!

A long private conversation between Clarice's parents resulted the nextday in Sir Gilbert taking her in hand. His comprehension was even lessthan her mother's, though it lay in a different direction. 

"Well, Clarice, my dame tells me thou art not altogether well pleasedwith thy wedding. What didst thou wish otherwise, lass?"

"The man, " said Clarice, shortly enough. 

"What, is not one man as good as another?" demanded her father. 

"Not to me, Sir, " said his daughter. 

"I am afeared, Clarice, thou hast some romantic notions. They are allvery pretty to play with, but they don't do for this world, child. Thouhast better shake them out of thine head, and be content with thy lot. "

"It is a bad world, I know, " replied Clarice. "But it is hard to becontent, when life has been emptied and spoiled for one. "

"Folly, child, folly!" said Sir Gilbert. "Thou mayest have as many silkgowns now as thou couldst have had with any other knight; and I dare bebound Sir Vivian should give thee a gold chain if thou wert pining forit. Should that content thee?"

"No, Sir. "

Sir Gilbert was puzzled. A woman whose perfect happiness could not besecured by a gold chain was an enigma to him. 

"Then what would content thee?" he asked. 

"What I can never have now, " answered Clarice. "It may be, as time goeson, that God will make me content without it--content with His will, andno more. But I doubt if even He could do that just yet. The wisestphysician living cannot heal a wound in a minute. It must have itstime. "

Sir Gilbert tried to puzzle his way through this speech. 

"Well, child, I do not see what I can do for thee. "

"I thank you for wishing it, fair Sir. No, you can do nothing. No onecan do anything for me, except let me alone, and pray to God to heal thewound. "

"Well, lass, I can do that, " said her father, brightening. "I will saythe rosary all over for thee once in the week, and give a candle to ourLady. Will that do thee a bit of good, eh?"

Clarice had an instinctive feeling, that while the rosary and the candlemight be a doubtful good, the rough tenderness of her father was apositive one. Little as Sir Gilbert could enter into her ideas, hisaffection was truer and more unselfish than that of her mother. Neitherof them was very deeply attached to her; but Sir Gilbert's love couldhave borne the harder strain of the two. Clarice began to recognise thefact with touched surprise. 

"Fair Sir, I shall be very thankful for your prayers. It will do megood to be loved--so far as anything can do it. "

Sir Gilbert was also discovering, with a little astonishment himself, that his only child lay nearer to his heart than he had supposed. Hisheart was a plant which had never received much cultivation, either fromhimself or any other; and love, even in faint throbs, was a ratherstrange sensation. It made him feel as if something were the matterwith him, and he could not exactly tell what. He patted Clarice'sshoulder, and smoothed down her hair. 

"Well, well, child! I hope all things will settle comfortably by andby. But if they should not, and in especial if thy knight were everunkindly toward thee--which God avert!--do not forget that thou hast afriend in thine old father. Maybe he has not shown thee over muchkindliness neither, but I reckon, my lass, if it came to a pull, there'dbe a bit to pull at. "

Neither Sir Gilbert nor Dame Maisenta ever fully realised the result ofthat visit. It found Clarice indifferent to both, but ready to reachout a hand to either who would clasp it with any appearance oftenderness and compassion. It left her with a heart closed for ever toher mother, but for ever open to her father. 

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Note 1. This mediaeval term for the world had its rise in the notionthat earth stood midway between Heaven and Hell, the one being as farbelow as the other was above. 

CHAPTER EIGHT. 

THE SHADOW OF THE FUTURE. 

 In His name was struck the blow That hath laid thy old life low In a garb of blood-red woe. 

A very eventful year was 1291 in England and over all the civilisedworld. It was the end of the Crusades, the Turks driving the Christiansfrom Acre, the last place which they held in Palestine. It opened withthe submission of the Scottish succession to the arbitrament of Edwardthe First, and it closed with the funeral of his mother, Queen Eleonoreof Provence--a woman whom England was not able to thank for one gooddeed during her long and stormy reign. She had been a youthful beauty, she wrote poetry, and she had never scandalised the nation by anyimpropriety of womanly conduct. But these three statements close thelist of her virtues. She was equally grasping, unscrupulous, andextravagant. In her old age she retired to the Convent of Amesbury, where her two granddaughters, Mary of England, and Alianora of Bretagne, were nuns already, for the desirable purpose of "making her salvation. "Perhaps she thought she had made it when the summons came to her in theautumn of 1291. No voice had whispered to her, all through her longlife of nearly eighty years, that if that ever were to be--

 "Jesus Christ has done it all Long, long ago. "

Matters had settled down quietly enough in Whitehall Palace. Sir Fulkde Chaucombe and Diana had been promoted to the royal household--theformer as attendant upon the King, the latter as Lady of the Bedchamberto his eldest daughter, the Princess Alianora, who, though twenty-sevenyears of age, was still unmarried. It was a cause of some surprise inher household that the Countess of Cornwall did not fill up the vacancycreated among her maidens by the marriages of Clarice and Diana. Butwhen December came it was evident that before she did so she meant tomake the vacancy still more complete. 

One dark afternoon in that cheerful month, the Lady Margaret marchedinto the bower, where her female attendants usually sat when not engagedin more active waiting upon her. It was Saturday. 

"Olympias Trusbut, Roisia de Levinton, " she said in her harsh voice, which did not sound unlike the rasping of a file, "ye are to be wed onMonday morning. "

Olympias showed slight signs of going into hysterics, which beingobserved by the Lady Margaret, she calmly desired Felicia to fetch a jugof water. On this hint of what was likely to happen to her if sheimprudently screamed or fainted, Olympias managed to recover. 

"Ye are to wed the two squires, " observed their imperious mistress. "Igave the choice to Reginald de Echingham, and he fixed on thee, Olympias. "

Olympias passed from terror to ecstasy. 

"Thou, Roisia, art to wed Ademar de Gernet. I will give both of youyour gear. "

And away walked the Countess. 

"I wish she would have let me alone, " said Roisia, in doleful accents. 

"Too much to hope for, " responded Felicia. 

"Dost thou not like De Gernet?" asked Clarice, sympathisingly. 

"Oh, I don't dislike him, " said Roisia; "but I am not so fond of him asthat comes to. "

An hour or two later, however, Mistress Underdone appeared, in a stateof flurry by no means her normal one. 

"Well, here is a pretty tale, " said she. "Not for thee, Olympias;matters be running smooth for thee, though the Lord Earl did say, " addedshe, laughing, "that incense was as breath of life to Narcissus, and hewould needs choose the maid that should burn plenty on his altar. But--the thing is fair unheard of!--Ademar de Gernet refuses to wed underdirection from the Lady. "

"Why?" asked Roisia, looking rather insulted. 

"Oh, it has nought to do with thee, child, " said Mistress Underdone. "Quoth he that he desired all happiness to thee, and pardon of thee forthus dealing; but having given his heart to another of the Lady'sdamsels, he would not wed with any but her. "

"Why, that must be Felicia, " said the other three together. 

Felicia looked flattered and conscious. 

"Well, I reckon so, " answered Mistress Underdone. "Howbeit, the Ladyhath sent for him hither, to know of him in thy presence what he wouldbe at. "

"_Ha, chetife_!" exclaimed Roisia. "I wish it had been somewhere else. "

"Well, I cannot quite--. Hush! here she comes. "

And for the second time that day in stalked the Countess, and sat downon the curule chair which Mistress Underdone set for her, looking like ajudge, and a very stern one, too. In another minute the culprit madehis appearance, in charge of Sir Lambert Aylmer. 

"Now, De Gernet, what means this?" irascibly demanded his mistress. 

"Lady, it means not disobedience to you, nor any displeasance done tothis young damsel"--and De Gernet turned and bowed to Roisia. "This itmeans, that I dearly love another of your Ladyship's damsels, and I domost humbly and heartily crave your permission to wed with her. "

"What, Felicia de Fay?" said the Countess. 

"Under your Ladyship's pleasure and her pardon, no. "

Felicia's face changed evilly. 

"But who, then? There is none other. "

"Let my Lady be pleased to pardon me. There is one other--HelietPride. "

The faces in the bower just then might have furnished a study for anartist. Those of Clarice and Olympias expressed surprise mixed withsome pleasure; so did Mistress Underdone's, but the degree of both wasintense. The Countess looked half vexed and wholly astonished, with alittle contempt superadded. Felicia's face foreboded nothing but ill toeither Ademar or Heliet. 

"Heliet Pride!" cried the Countess sharply. "Why, man, she goes oncrutches!"

"They will carry her to the chapel, with my Lady's leave, " answered DeGernet, coolly. 

"Gramercy, but thou wilt have a lovely wife! There'll be no pride inher outside her name, " said the Countess, with a grim smile at her ownjoke. Indeed, she was so much amused that she forgot to be angry. 

"I will see about that, if my Lady will grant me her grace, " respondedDe Gernet, in the same tone. 

"Eh, thou shalt have her, " said the Countess. "I shall get Roisiadisposed of a sight easier than Heliet. So be it. Roisia, thou canststill prepare for thy bridal; I will find somebody by Monday morning. "

The Countess was rising from her chair, when Sir Lambert, after a glanceat Roisia, observed that if her Ladyship found any difficulty in thatselection, he had no particular objection to be chosen. 

"You!" said the Countess. "Oh, very good; it will save trouble. Let itbe so. "

Roisia appeared to be, if anything, rather gratified by the exchange. But Clarice, looking into the dark, passionate eyes of Felicia, felttroubled for the happiness of Heliet. 

Olympias, like Clarice, was promoted to a vacancy among the ladies ofthe bedchamber. But Sir Lambert and Roisia passed away from the life atWhitehall. The new Maids of Honour were speedily appointed. Theirnames proved to be Sabina Babingell, Ada Gresley, and Filomena Bray. The Countess declared her intention of keeping four only in the future. 

The summer of 1292 saw the King on the Scottish border, and in his trainthe Earl and Countess of Cornwall, with their household, moved north asfar as Oakham. The household had been increased by one more, for in theApril previous Clarice Barkeworth became the mother of a little girl. This was the first event which helped to reconcile her to her lot. Shehad been honestly trying hard to do her duty by Vivian, who scarcelyseemed to think that he had any duty towards her, beyond the obvious oneof civility in public. All thought of Piers Ingham had been resolutelycrushed down, except when it came--as it sometimes did--in the form of adream of bliss from which she awoke to desolation. A miserable day wassure to follow one of those dreams. The only other moment when sheallowed herself to think of him was in her evening prayer. 

It was a relief to Clarice that she had never heard a word of Pierssince he left Whitehall. Her work would have been harder if his namehad remained a household word. And yet in another sense it was hardnever to know what had become of him, whether he were as sad as herself, or had been comforted elsewhere. 

Vivian's manners in public were perfect to every one, and Clarice sharedwith the rest. In private she was terribly snubbed whenever he was in abad temper, and carelessly ignored when he was in a good one. The babydaughter, who was such a comfort to Clarice, was a source of bittervexation to Vivian. In his eyes, while a son would have been anundoubted blessing, a daughter was something actively worse than adisappointment. When Clarice timidly inquired what name he wished thechild to bear, Vivian distinctly intimated that the child and all herbelongings were totally beneath his notice. She could call the nuisancewhat she liked. 

Clarice silently folded her insulted darling to her breast, and tacitlypromised it that its mother at least should never think it a nuisance. 

"What shall I call her?" she said to Mistress Underdone and Olympias, both of whom were inclined to pet the baby exceedingly. 

"Oh, something pretty!" said Olympias. "Don't have a plain, commonname. Don't call her Joan, or Parnel, or Beatrice, or Margery, or Maud, or Isabel. You meet those at every turn. I am quite glad I was notcalled anything of that sort. "

"I wouldn't have it too long, " was Mistress Underdone's recommendation. "I'd never call her Frethesancia, or Florianora, or Aniflesia, orSauncelina. Let her have a good, honest name, Dame, one syllable, or atmost two. You'll have to clip it otherwise. "

"I thought of Rose, " said Clarice, meditatively. 

"Well, it is not common, " allowed Olympias. "Still, it is very short. Couldn't you have had it a _little_ longer?"

"That'll do, " pronounced Mistress Underdone. "It is short, and it meansa pretty, sweet, pleasant thing. I don't know but I should have calledmy girl Rose, if I'd chosen her name; but her father fancied Heliet, andso it had to be so. "

"Well, we can call her Rosamond, " comfortingly suggested Olympias. 

So, in the course of that evening, Father Bevis baptised little RoseBarkeworth in the chapel of the palace, the Earl standing sponsor forher, with the Lady de Chaucombe and the Lady de Echingham. The Countesshad been asked, but to Clarice's private satisfaction had declined, forshe would much rather have had the Earl, and the canon law forbadehusband and wife being sponsors to the same infant. 

Something was the matter with the Countess. Every one agreed upon this, but nobody could guess what it was. She was quieter than her wont, andwas given to long, silent reveries, which had not been usual with her. 

Filomena, who was of a lively turn of mind, declared that life atWhitehall was becoming absolutely intolerable, and that she should bethankful to go to Oakham, for at least it would be something new. 

"Thou wilt be thankful to come away again, " said Mistress Underdone, with a smile. 

They reached Oakham about the middle of July, and found Heliet, leaningon her crutches, ready to welcome them with smiles in the hall. No newshad reached her of their proceedings, and there was a great deal to tellher; but Heliet and the baby took to one another in an instant, as if bysome unseen magical force. 

The item of news which most concerned herself was not told to Helietthat night. The next morning, when all were seated at work, and babyRose, in Heliet's lap, was contentedly sucking her very small thumb, Mistress Underdone said rather suddenly, "We have not told thee all, Heliet. "

"I dare say not, " replied Heliet, brightly. "You must have all done agreat deal more in these two years than you have told me. "

"Well, lass, 'tis somewhat I never looked I should have to tell thee. There's somebody wants to wed thee. "

"Me!" cried Heliet, in large capitals. 

"Ay, thee--crutches and all, " said her mother laughing. "He said he didnot care for thy crutches so they carried thee safe to chapel; and heran the risk of offending the Lady to get thee. So I reckon he setssome store by thee, lass. "

"Who is it?" said Heliet, in a low voice, while a bright red spot burnedin each cheek. 

"Ademar de Gernet. " Two or three voices told her. The bright spotsburned deeper. 

"Is it to be?" was the next question. 

"Ay, the Lady said so much; and I reckon she shall give thee thy gear. "

"God has been very good to me, " said Heliet, softly, rocking little Rosegently to and fro. "But I never thought He meant to give me _that_!"

Clarice looked up, and saw a depth of happy love in the lame girl'seyes, which made her sigh for herself. Then, looking further, sheperceived a depth of black hate in those of Felicia de Fay, which madeher tremble for Heliet. 

It appeared very shortly that the Countess was in a hurry to get thewedding over. Perhaps she was weary of weddings in her household, forshe did not seem to be in a good temper about this. She always thoughtHeliet would have had a vocation, she said, which would have been farbetter for her, with her lameness, than to go limping into chapel to bewed. She wondered nobody saw the impropriety of it. However, as shehad promised De Gernet, she supposed it must be so. She did not knowwhat she herself could have been thinking about to make such a foolishpromise. She was not usually so silly as that. However, if it must be, it had better be got over. 

So got over it was, on an early morning in August, De Gernet receivingknighthood from the Earl at the close of the ceremony. 

Mistress Underdone had petitioned that her lame and only child might notbe separated from her, and the Countess--according to her own authority, in a moment of foolishness--had granted the petition. So Heliet wasdrafted among the Ladies of the Bedchamber, but only as an honorarydistinction. 

The manner of the Countess continued to strike every one as unusual. Long fits of musing with hands lying idle were becoming common with her, and when she rose from them she would generally shut herself up in heroratory for the remainder of the day. Clarice thought, and Helietagreed with her, that something was going to happen. Once, too, asClarice was carrying Rose along the terrace, she was met by the Earl, who stopped and noticed the child, as in his intense and unsatisfiedlove for little children he always did. Clarice thought he looked evenunwontedly sorrowful. 

From the child, Earl Edmund looked up into the pleased eyes of the youngmother. 

"Dame Clarice, " he asked, gently, "are you happier than you were?"

Her eyes grew suddenly grave. 

"Thus far, " she said, touching the child. "Otherwise--I try to becontent with God's will, fair Lord. It is hard to bear heart-hunger. "

"Ah!" The Earl's tone was significant. "Yes, it is hard to bear in anyform, " he said, after a pause. "May God send you never to know, Dame, that there is a more terrible form than that wherein you bear it. "

And he left her almost abruptly. 

The winter of 1292 dragged slowly along. Filomena declared that herbody was as starved as her mind, and she should be frozen to death ifshe stayed any longer. The next day, to everybody's astonishment, theCountess issued orders to pack up for travelling. Sir Vivian andClarice were to go with her--where, she did not say. So were Olympias, Felicia, and Ada. Mistress Underdone, Sir Reginald, Sir Ademar andHeliet, Filomena and Sabina, were left behind at Oakham. 

Olympias grumbled extremely at being separated from her husband, andFilomena at being left behind. The Countess would listen to neither. 

"When shall we return, under my Lady's leave?" asked Olympias, disconsolately. 

"_You_ can return, " was the curt answer, "when I have done with you. Idoubt if Sir Vivian and his dame will return at all. Ada certainly willnot. "

"_Ha, jolife_!" said Ada, under her breath. She did not like Oakham. 

Clarice, on the contrary, was inclined to make an exclamation of horror. For never to return to Oakham meant never to see Heliet again. Andwhat could the Countess mean by a statement which sounded at least as if_she_ were not intending to return?

Concerning Felicia the Countess said nothing. That misnamed young ladyhad during the past few months been trying her best to make Helietmiserable. She began by attempting to flirt with Sir Ademar, but shefound him completely impervious material. Her arrows glanced upon hisshield, and simply dropped off without further notice. Then she took totaunting Heliet with her lameness, but Heliet kept her temper. Next shesneered at her religious views. Heliet answered her gently, gravely, but held her own with undiminished calmness. This point had beenreached when the Countess's order was given to depart from Oakham. 

Even those least disposed to note the signs of the times felt thepressure of some impending calamity. The strange manner of theCountess, the restless misery of the Earl, whom they all loved, thebusy, bustling, secretly-triumphant air of Father Miles--all denotedsome hidden working. Father Bevis had been absent for some weeks, andwhen he returned he wore the appearance of a baffled and out-weariedman. 

"He looks both tired and disappointed, " remarked Clarice to Heliet. 

"He looks, " said Heliet, "like a man who had been trying very hard toscale the wall of a tower, and had been flung back, bruised andhelpless, upon the stones below. "

During the four months last spent at Oakham, Clarice had been absolutelysilent to Heliet on the subject of her own peculiar trouble. Perhapsshe might have remained so, had it not been for the approachingseparation. But her lips were unsealed by the strong possibility thatthey might never meet again. It was late on the last evening thatClarice spoke, as she sat rocking Rose's cradle. She laid bare herheart before Heliet's sympathising eyes, until she could trace the wholeweary journey through the arid desert sands. 

"And now tell me, friend, " Clarice ended, "why our Lord deals sodifferently with thee and with me. Are we not both His children? Yetto thee He hath given the desire of thine heart, and on mine He lays Hishand, and says, `No, child, thou must not have it. '"

"I suppose, beloved, " was Heliet's gentle answer, "that the treatmentsuitable for consumption will not answer for fever. We are both sick ofthe deadly disease of sin; but it takes a different development in each. Shall we wonder if the Physician bleeds the one, and administersstrengthening medicines to the other?"

Clarice's lip quivered, but she rocked Rose's cradle without answering. 

"There is also another consideration, " pursued Heliet. "If I mistakenot--to alter the figure--we have arrived at different points in oureducation. If one of us can but decline `_puer_, ' while the other ishalf through the syntax, is it any wonder if the same lesson be notgiven to us to learn? Dear Clarice, all God's children need keepingdown. I have been kept down all these years by my physical sufferings. That is not appointed to thee; thou art tried in another way. Shall weeither marvel or murmur because our Father sees that each needs adifferent class of discipline?"

"Oh, Heliet, if I might have had thine! It seems to me so much thelighter cross to carry. "

"Then, dear, I am the less honoured--the further from the full share ofthe fellowship of our Lord's sufferings. "

Clarice shook her head as if she hardly saw it in that light. 

"Clarice, let me tell thee a parable which I read the other day in thewritings of the holy Fathers. There were once two monks, dwelling inhermits' cells near to each other, each of whom had one choice treegiven him to cultivate. When this had lasted a year, the tree of theone was in flourishing health, while that of the other was all stuntedand bare. `Why, brother, ' said the first, `what hast thou done to thytree?' `Now, judge thou, my brother, ' replied the second, `if I couldpossibly have done more for my tree than I have done. I watched itcarefully every day. When I thought it looked dry, I prayed for rain;when the ground was too wet, I prayed for dry weather; I prayed fornorth wind or south wind, as I saw them needed. All that I asked, Ireceived; and yet look at my poor tree! But how didst thou treat thine?for thy plan has been so much more successful than mine that I wouldfain try it next year. ' The other monk said only, `I prayed God to makemy tree flourish, and left it to Him to send what weather He saw good. '"

"He has sent a bitter blast from the north-east, " answered Clarice, withtrembling lips. 

"And a hedge to shelter the root of the tree, " said Heliet, pointing toRose. 

"Oh, my little Rosie!" exclaimed Clarice, kissing the childpassionately. "But if God were to take her, Heliet, what would becomeof me?"

"Do not meet trouble half way, dear, " said Heliet, gently. "There is noapparent likelihood of any such thing. "

"I do not meet it--it comes!" cried poor Clarice. 

"Then wait till it comes. `Sufficient unto the day is the evilthereof. '"

"Yet when one has learned by experience that evil is perpetually coming, how can one help looking forward to the morrow?"

"Look forward, " said Heliet. "But let it be to the day afterto-morrow--the day when we shall awake up after Christ's likeness, andbe satisfied with it--when the Lord our God shall come, and all thesaints with Him. Dear, a gem cannot be engraved without thecutting-tools. Wouldst thou rather be spared the pain of the cuttingthan have Christ's likeness graven upon thee?"

"Oh, could it not be done with less cutting?"

"Yes--and more faintly graven then. "

Clarice sobbed, without speaking. 

"If the likeness is to be in high relief, so that all men may see it, and recognise the resemblance, and applaud the graver, Clarice, the toolmust cut deep. "

"If one could ever know that it was nearly done, it would be easier tobear it. "

"Ay, but how if the vision were granted us, and we saw that it was notnearly done by many a year? It is better not to know, dear. Yet it isnatural to us all to think that it would be far easier if we could see. Therefore the more `blessed is he that hath not seen, and yet hathbelieved. '"

"I do think, " said poor Clarice, drearily, "that I must be the worsttried of all His people. "

"Clarice, " answered Heliet, in a low voice, "I believe there is one inthis very castle far worse tried than thou--a cross borne which is tentimes heavier than thine, and has no rose-bud twined around it. And itis carried with the patience of an angel, with the unselfishforgetfulness of Christ. The tool is going very deep there, and alreadythe portrait stands out in beautiful relief. And that cross will neverbe laid down till the sufferer parts with it at the very gate of Heaven. At least, so it seems to me. As the years go on it grows heavier, andit is crushing him almost into the dust now. "

"Whom dost thou mean, Heliet?"

"The Lord Earl, our master. "

"I can see he is sorely tried; but I never quite understand what histrouble is. "

"The sorrow of being actively hated by the only one whom he loves. Theprospect of being left to die, in wifeless and childless loneliness--that terrible loneliness of soul which is so much worse to bear than anymere physical solitude. God, for some wise reason, has shut him up toHimself. He has deprived him of all human relationship and human love;has said to him, `Lean on Me, and walk loose from all other ties. ' Awedded man in the eyes of the world, God has called him in reality to bean anchorite of the Order of Providence, to follow the Lambwhithersoever He goeth. And unless mine eyes see very wrongly into thefuture--as would God they did!--the Master is about to lead this dearservant into the Gethsemane of His passion, that he may be fashionedlike Him in all things. Ah, Clarice, that takes close cutting!"

"Heliet, what dost thou mean? Canst thou guess what the Lady is aboutto do?"

"I think she is going to leave him. "

"Alone?--for ever?"

"For earth, " said Heliet, softly. "God be thanked, that is not forever. "

"What an intensely cruel woman she is!" cried Clarice, indignantly. 

"Because, I believe, she is a most miserable one. "

"Canst thou feel any pity for _her_?"

"It is not so easy as for him. Yet I suspect she needs it even morethan he does. Christ have mercy on them both!"

"I cannot comprehend it, " said Clarice. 

"I will tell thee one thing, " answered Heliet. "I would rather changewith thee than with Sir Edmund the Earl; and a hundred times rather withthee than with the Lady Margaret. It is hard to suffer; but it is worseto be the occasion of suffering. Let me die a thousand times over withSaint Stephen, before I keep the clothes of the persecutors with Saul. "

Clarice stooped and lifted the child from the cradle. 

"It is growing late, " she said. "I suppose we ought not to be uplonger. Good-night, sweetheart, and many thanks for thy counsel. It isall true, I know; yet--"

"In twenty years, may be--or at the longest, when thou hast seen HisFace in righteousness--dear Clarice, thou wilt know it, and want to addno _yet_. "

The soft tap of Heliet's crutches had died away, but Clarice stood stillwith the child in her arms. 

"It must be _yet_ now, however, " she said, half aloud. "Do Thy willwith me--cut me and perfect me; but, O God, leave me, leave me Rosie!"

CHAPTER NINE. 

OVERWHELMED. 

 "I am a useless and an evil man, -- God planned my life, and let men spoil His plan. "

 _Isabella Fyvie Mayo_. 

Oakham was left behind; and to the surprise of the party--except theCountess, her Prime Minister, Father Miles, and her Foreign Secretary, Felicia--they found themselves lodged in Rochester Castle. Here theCountess shut herself up, and communicated with the outward worldthrough her Cabinet only. All orders were brought to the ladies byFelicia, and were passed to Vivian by Father Miles. The latter wascloseted with his lady for long periods, and rolls of writing appearedto be the result of these conferences. 

The winter moved on with leaden feet, according to the ideas of thehousehold, and of Ada more particularly. 

"This sort of life is really something dreadful!" said that young lady. "If the frost would only break up, it would make something fresh to lookat. There is _nothing_ to be done!"

"Poor Ada!" responded Olympias, laughing. "Do get some needlework. "

"I am tired of needlework, " answered Ada. "I am tired of everything!"

Felicia came in as the words were spoken. 

"I have permission to tell you something, " she said, with a light in herblack eyes which Clarice felt sure meant mischief. "The Lady hasappealed to the holy Father for a divorce from the Lord Earl. "

"Will she get it?" asked Olympias. 

"No doubt of it, " replied Felicia dogmatically. 

"And if so, what will she do then?" asked Ada. 

"Her pious intention, " said Felicia, the black eyes dancing, "is tobecome a holy Sister of the Order of the blessed Saint Dominic. "

"Then what is to become of the Lord Earl?" queried Olympias. "I supposehe can marry somebody else. I hope he will. "

"That is no concern of the Lady's, " said Felicia, in a tone of piousseverity. "The religious do not trouble their holy repose aboutexterns, except to offer prayers for their salvation. "

"Why, then, we shall all be turned out!" blankly cried Ada. "What is tobecome of us all?"

"What will become of me is already settled, " replied Felicia demurely. "I am about to make profession in the same convent with my mistress. "

"Thank the saints!" reached Clarice's ears in a whisper from Olympias, and was deliberately echoed in the heart of the former. 

"But that will never do for me!" exclaimed Ada. "I am sure I have novocation. What am I to do?"

"The Lady proposes, in her goodness, " said the Countess's mouthpiece, "to get thee an appointment in the household of one of the Ladies theKing's daughters. "

"_Ha, jolife_!" said Ada, and ceased her interjections. 

"For you, Dames, " continued Felicia, turning to Clarice and Olympias, "she says that, being wedded, you are already provided for, and need nothought on her part. "

"Oh, then, I may go back to Oakham, " answered Olympias in a satisfiedtone. "That is what I want. "

Clarice wondered sorrowfully what her lot would be--whether she mightreturn to Oakham. She felt more at home there than anywhere else. Thequestion was whether, Clarice being now at large, Vivian would continuein the Earl's service; and even if he did, they might perhaps no longerlive in the Castle. Clarice took this new trouble where she carriedthem all; but the Earl's sorrow was more in her mind than her own. Shewas learning to cultivate:--

 "A heart at leisure from itself, To soothe and sympathise. "

She found that Vivian had already heard the news from Father Miles, andshe timidly ventured to ask him what he intended to do. 

After a few flights of rhetoric concerning the extreme folly of theCountess--to forsake an earldom for the cloister was a proceeding not inVivian's line at all--that gentleman condescended so far to answer hiswife as to observe that he was not fool enough not to know when he waswell off. Clarice thankfully conjectured that they would return toOakham. She thought it better, however, to ask the question pointblank; and she received a reply--of course accompanied by a snub. 

"Why should we be such fools as to go to Oakham when my Lord is inBermondsey?"

"Bermondsey!" Clarice was surprised. "You never know anything!" saidVivian. "Of course he is come to town. "

Clarice received the snubbing in silence. "You are so taken up withthat everlasting brat of yours, " added Rose's affectionate father, "thatyou never know what anybody else is doing. "

There had been a time when Clarice would have defended herself againstsuch accusations. She was learning now that she suffered least when shereceived them in meek silence. The only way to deal with VivianBarkeworth was to let him alone. 

Two long letters went to the Pope that February; one was from theCountess, the other from the Earl. They are both yet extant, and theyshow the character of each as no description could set it forth. 

The Countess's letter is a mixture of pious demureness and querulousselfishness. She tells the Pope that all her life she has intenselydesired to be a nun: that she is, unhappily, in the irreligious positionof a matron, and, moreover, is the suffering wife of an impious husband. This sinful man requires of her--of her, a soul devoted to religion--that she shall behave as if she belonged to the wicked world which holdshimself within its thrall, and shall sacrifice God to him. She humblyand fervently entreats the holy Father to grant her a divorce from thesebonds of matrimony which so cruelly oppress her, and to set her soulfree that it may soar upwards unrestrained. It is the letter of a womanwho did wish to serve God, but who was incapable of recognising that itwas possible to do it without shutting herself up in stone walls, andstarving body and soul alike. 

The Earl's letter is of an entirely different calibre. He tells thePope in his turn that he is wedded to a woman whom he dearly loves, andwho resolutely keeps him at arm's length. She will not make a friend ofhim, nor behave as a good wife ought to do. This is all he asks of her;he is as far as can be from wishing to be unkind to her or to cross herwishes. He only wants her to live with him on reasonable and ordinaryterms. But she--and here the Earl's irrepressible humour breaks out; hemust see the comical side even of his own sorest trouble, and certainlythis had its comical side--she will not sit next to him at table, butinsists on putting her confessor between; she will not answer Yes or Noto his simplest question, but invariably returns the answer through athird person. When she goes into her private apartments, she turns thekey in his face. Does the holy Father think this is the way that arational wife ought to behave to her own husband? and will he notremonstrate with her, and induce her to use him a little more kindly andreasonably than she does? The Earl's letter is that of an injured andjustly provoked man; of a man who loves his wife too well to coerce orquarrel with her, and who thoroughly perceives the absurdity of hisposition no less than its pain. Yet he does feel the pain bitterly, andhe would do anything to end it. 

This letter to the Patriarch of Christendom was his last hope. Entreaties, remonstrances, patient tenderness, loving kindness, all hadproved vain. Now:--

 "He had set his life upon a cast, And he must run the hazard of the die. "

Weary and miserable weeks they were, during which Earl Edmund waited thePope's answer. It came at last. The Pope replied as only a Romishpriest could be expected to reply. For the human anguish of the one hehad no sympathy; for the quasi-religious sorrows of the other he hadvery much. He decreed, in the name of God, a full divorce betweenEdmund Earl of Cornwall, and Margaret his wife, coldly admonishing theEarl to take the Lord's chastening in good part, and to let the griefsof earth lift his soul towards Heaven. 

But it was not there that this sorrow lifted it at first. The humanagony had to be lived through before the Divine calm and peace couldcome to heal it. His last effort had been made in vain. The passionatehope of twenty years, that the day would come when his long, patientlove should meet with its reward even on earth, was shattered to thedust. Even if she wished to come back after this, she could neverretrace her steps. Compensation he might find in Heaven, but therecould be none left for him on earth now. Even hope was dead within him. 

The fatal Bull fell from the Earl's hand, and dropped a dead weight onthe rushes at his feet. He was a heart-wrecked man, and life had to goon. 

Was this man--for his is no fancy picture--a poor weak creature, or washe a strong, heroic soul? Many will write him down the weakling;perhaps all but those who have themselves known much of that hopedeferred which maketh the heart sick, and drains away the morallife-blood drop by drop. It may be that the registers of Heaven heldappended to his name a different epithet. It is harder to wait than towork; hardest of all to awake after long suspense to the blankconviction that all has been in vain, and then to take up the cross andmeekly follow the Crucified. 

Two hours later, a page brought a message to Reginald de Echingham tothe effect that he was wanted by his master. 

Reginald, in his own eyes, was a thoroughly miserable man. He hadnobody to talk with, and nothing to do. He missed Olympias sadly, foras the Earl had once jestingly remarked, she burnt perpetual incense onhis altar, and flattery was a necessary of life to Reginald. Olympiaswas the only person who admired him nearly as much as he did himself. Like the old Romans, _partem et circenses_ constituted his list ofindispensables; and had it been inevitable to dispense with one of themfor a time, Reginald would have resigned the bread rather than the game. On this particular morning, his basket of grievances was full. Thedamp had put his moustache out of curl; he had found a poor breakfastprovided for him--and Reginald was by no means indifferent to hisbreakfast--and, worst of all, the mirror was fixed so high up on thewall that he could not see himself comfortably. The usual religiousrites of the morning before his own dear image had, therefore, to bevery imperfectly performed. Reginald grumbled sorely within himself ashe went through the cold stone passages which led to the Earl's chamber. 

His master lifted very sad eyes to his face. 

"De Echingham, I wish to set out for Ashridge to-morrow. Can you beready?"

Ashridge! De Echingham would as soon have received marching orders forSpitzbergen. If there were one place in the world which he hated in hisinmost soul, it was that Priory in Buckinghamshire, which Earl Edmundhad himself founded. He would be worse off there than even inBermondsey Palace, with nothing around him but silent walls and almostequally silent monks. De Echingham ventured on remonstrance. 

"Would not your Lordship find Berkhamsted much more pleasurable, especially at this season?"

"I do not want pleasure, " answered the Earl wearily. "I want rest. "

And he rose and began to walk aimlessly up and down the room, in thatrestless manner which was well suited to emphasise his words. 

"But--your Lordship's pardon granted--would you not find it far betterto seek for distraction and pleasance in the Court, than to shutyourself up in a gloomy cell with those monks?"

Earl Edmund stopped in his walk and looked at Reginald, whose speechtouched his quick sense of humour. 

"I would advise you to give thanks in your prayers to-night, DeEchingham. "

"For what, my Lord?"

"That you have as yet no conception of a sorrow which is pastdistraction by pleasance. `Vinegar upon nitre!' You never tasted it, Ishould think. "

"I thank your Lordship, I never did, " said Reginald, who took theallusion quite literally. 

"Well, I have done, and I did not like it, " rejoined his master. "Iprefer the monks' _soupe maigre_, if you please. Be so good as to makeready, De Echingham. "

Reginald obeyed, but grumbling bitterly within his disappointed soul. Could there be any misery on earth worse than a cold stone bench, a bowlof sorrel soup, and a chapter of Saint Augustine to flavour it? Andwhen they had only just touched the very edge of the London season!Why, he would not get a single ball that spring. Poor Reginald!

They stayed but one night at Berkhamsted, though, to the Earl, Berkhamsted was home. It was the scene of his birth, and of thatblessed unapprehensive childhood, when brothers and sisters had playedwith him on the Castle green, and light, happy laughter had rung throughthe noble halls; when the hand of his fair Provencal mother had fallensoftly in caresses on his head, and his generous, if extravagant, fatherhad been only too ready to shower gold ducats in anticipation of hisslightest wish. All was gone now but the cold gold--hard, silent, unfeeling; a miserable comforter indeed. There was one brother left, but he was far away--too far to recall in this desolate hour. Like asufferer of later date, he must go alone with his God to bear hispassion. [Note 1. ]

The Priory of Ashridge--of the Order of Bonihomines--which Earl Edmundhad founded a few years before, was the only one of its class inEngland. The Predicant Friars were an offshoot of the Dominican Order;and the Boni-Homines were a special division of the Predicant Friars. It is a singular fact that from this one source of Dominicans or BlackMonks, sprang the best and the worst issues that ever emanated frommonachism--the Bonihomines and the Inquisition. 

The Boni-Homines were, in a word, the Protestants of the Middle Ages. And--a remarkable feature--they were not, like all other seceders, persons who had separated themselves from the corruptions of Rome. Theywere better off, for they had never been tainted with them. From thefirst ages of primitive Christianity, while on all sides the stream wasgradually growing sluggish and turbid, in the little nest of valleysbetween Dauphine and Piedmont it had flowed fresh and pure, fed by theWord of God, which the Vaudois [Note 2] mountaineers suffered no Popenor Church to wrench or shut up from them. 

The oldest name by which we know these early Protestants is Paulikians, probably having a reference to the Apostle Paul as either the exponentof their doctrines, or the actual founder of their local church. Alittle later we find them styled Cathari, or Pure Ones. Then we come ontheir third name of Albigenses, derived from the neighbouring town ofAlby, where a Council was held which condemned them. But by whatevername they are called they are the same people, living in the samevalleys, and holding unwaveringly and unadulterated the same faith. 

It was by their fourth name of Boni-Homines, or Good Men, that they tookadvantage of the preaching movement set up by the Dominicans in thethirteenth century. They permeated their ranks, however, very graduallyand quietly--perhaps all the more surely. For shortly after the date ofthis story, in the early part of the fourteenth century, it is said thatof every three Predicant Friars, two were Bonihomines. 

The Boni-Homines were rife in France before they ever crept intoEngland; and the first man to introduce them into England was Edmund, Earl of Cornwall. A hundred years later, when the Boni-Homines hadshown what they really were, and the leaven with which they hadsaturated society had evolved itself in Lollardism, the monks of otherOrders did their best to bring both the movement and the men intodisrepute, and to paint in the blackest colours the name of the Princewho had first introduced them into this country. In no monkishchronicle, unless written by a Bonus Homo, will the name of Earl Edmundbe found recorded without some word of condemnation. And theBoni-Homines, unfortunately for history, were not much given to writingchronicles. Their business was saving souls. 

Most important is it to remember, in forming just estimates of thecharacter of things--whether men or events--in the Middle Ages, thatwith few exceptions monks were the only historians. Before we cantruthfully set down this man as good, or that man as bad, we must, therefore, consult other sources--the chronicles of those few writerswho were not monks, the State papers, but above all, where accessible, the personal accounts and private letters of the individuals inquestion. It is pitiable to see well-meaning Protestant writers, evenin our _own_ day, repeating after each other the old monkish calumnies, and never so much as pausing to inquire, Are these things so?

Late on the evening of the following day the Prior and monks of Ashridgestood at the gate ready to receive their founder. The circumstances ofhis coming were unknown to them, and they were prepared to make it atriumphal occasion. But the first glance at his face altered all that. The Prior quietly waved his monks back, and, going forward himself, kissed his patron's hand, and led him silently into the monastery. 

Poor Sir Reginald found himself condemned to all the sorrows he hadanticipated, down to the sorrel soup--for it was a vigil--and the strawmattress, which, though considerably softer than the plank beds of themonks, was barely endurable to his ease-loving limbs. He looked as hefelt--extremely uncomfortable and exceedingly cross. 

The Prior wasted no attentions on him. Such troubles as these were notworth a thought in his eyes; but his founder's face cost him manythoughts. He saw too plainly that for him had come one of those dreadhours in life when the floods of deep waters overflow a man, and unlessGod take him into the ark of His covenant mercy, he will go down in thecurrent. It was after some hours of prayer that the Prior tapped at thedoor of the royal guest. 

Earl Edmund's quiet voice bade him enter. 

"How fares it with my Lord?"

"How is it likely to fare, " was the sorrowful answer, "with one who hathlost hope?"

The Prior sat down opposite his guest, where he might have theopportunity of studying his countenance. He was himself the senior ofthe Earl, being a man of about sixty years--a man in whom there had beena great deal of fire, and in whose dark, gleaming eyes there were manysparks left yet. 

"Father, " said the Earl, in a low, pained voice, "I am perplexed tounderstand God's dealings with me. "

"Did you expect to understand them?" was the reply. 

"Thus far I did--that I thought He would finish what He had begun. Butall my life--so far as this earthly life is concerned--I have beenstriving for one aim, and it has come to utter wreck. I set one objectbefore me, and I thought--I _thought_ it was God's will that I shouldpursue it. If He, by some act of His own providence, had shown me thecontrary, I could have understood it better. But He has let men step inand spoil all. It is not He, but they who have brought about thiswreck. My barge is not shattered by the winds and waves of God, butscuttled by the violence of pirates. My life is spoiled, and I do notunderstand why. I have done nothing but what I thought He intended meto do: I have set my heart on one thing, but it was a thing that Ibelieved He meant to give me. It is all mystery to me. "

"What is spoiled, my Lord? Is it what God meant you to do, or what youmeant God to do?"

The sand grew to a larger heap in the hour-glass before another word wasspoken. 

"Father, " said the Prince at last, "have I been intent on following myown will, when I thought I was pursuing the Lord's will for me? FatherBevis thinks so: he gave me some very hard words before I came here. Heaccuses me of idolatry; of loving the creature more than the Creator--nay, of setting up my will and aim, and caring nothing for those of theLord. In his eyes, I ought to have perceived years ago that God calledme to a life apart with Him, and to have detached my heart from all butHimself and His Church. Father, it is hard enough to realise the wreckof all a man hoped and longed for: yet it is harder to know that thevery hope was sin, that the longing was contrary to the Divine purposefor me. Have I so misunderstood my life? Have I so misunderstood myMaster?"

The expression of the Prior's eyes was very pitying and full oftenderness. Hard words were not what he thought needed as the medicinefor that patient. They were only to be expected from Father Bevis, whohad never suffered the least pang of that description of pain. 

"My Lord, " answered the Prior, gently, "it is written of the wicked man, `Thou hast removed Thy judgments from his eyes. ' They are not to beseen nor fathomed by him. And to a great extent it is equally true ofthe righteous man. Man must not look to be able to comprehend the waysof God--they are above him. It is enough for him if he can walksubmissively in them. "

"I wonder, " said the Earl, still pursuing his own train of thought, "ifI ought to have been a monk. I never imagined it, for I never felt anyvocation. It seemed to me that Providence called me to a life entirelydifferent. Have I made an utter blunder all my life? I cannot thinkit. "

"There is no need to think it, my Lord. We cannot all be monks, even ifwe would. And why should we? It might, perhaps, be better for you tothink one other thing. "

"What?" asked the Earl, with more appearance of interest than he hadhitherto shown. 

"That what you suppose to be the spoiling of your life is just what Godintended for you. "

The Earl's face grew dark. "What! that all my life long He was leadingme up to _this_?"

"It looks like it, " said the Prior, quietly. 

"Oh! but why?"

"Now, my Lord, you go beyond me. Neither you nor I can guess that. ButHe knows. "

"Yes, I suppose He knows. " But the consideration did not seem tocomfort him as it had done before when suggested by Father Bevis. 

"Perhaps, " said the Prior again, softly, "there was no other way foryour Lordship to the gate of the Holy City. He leads us by diverseways; some through the flowery mead, and some over the desert sandswhere no water is. But of all it is written, `He led them forth by theright way, that they might reach the haven of their desire. ' Would yourLordship have preferred the mead and have missed the haven?"

"No, " answered the Earl, firmly. 

"Remember that you hold God's promise that when you awake up after Hislikeness you shall be satisfied with it. And he is not satisfied withhis purchase who accounts it to have cost more than it was worth. "

"Will your figure hold if pressed further?" said the Earl, with a wintrysmile. "The purchase may be worth a thousand marks, but if I have butfive hundred in the world I shall starve to death before the gem ismine. "

"No, my Lord, it will not hold. For you cannot pay the price of thatgem. The cost of it was His who will keep it safe for you, so that youcannot fling it away in mistake or folly. Figures must fail somewhere;and we want another in this case. My Lord, you are the gem, and theheavenly Graver is fashioning on you the King's likeness. Will you stayHis hand before it is perfect?"

"I would it were near perfection!" sighed the Earl. 

"Perhaps it is, " said the Prior, gently. "Remember, it is your Fatherwho is graving it. "

The Earl's lip quivered. "If one could but know when it would be done!If one might know that in seven years--ten years--it would be complete, and one's heart and brain might find rest! But to think of its going onfor twenty, thirty, forty--"

"They will look short enough, my Lord, when they are over. "

"True. But not while they are passing. "

"Nay, `No chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous. ' Yet `faintnot when thou art rebuked of Him. '"

"It is the going on, that is so terrible!" said the Earl, almost underhis breath. "If one might die when one's hope dies! Father, do youknow anything of that?"

"In this world, my Lord, I dug a grave in mine own heart for all myhopes, forty years ago. "

"And can you look back on that time calmly?"

"That depends on what you mean by calmness. Trustfully, yes;indifferently, no. "

"Yet the religious say that God requires their affections to be detachedfrom the world. That must produce deadness of feeling. "

"My Lord, there is such a thing as being alive from the dead. That iswhat God requires. If we tarry at the dying, we shall stop short of Hisperfection. We are to be dead to sin; but I nowhere find in Scripturethat we are to die to love and happiness. That is man's gloss uponGod's precept. "

"Is that what you teach in your valleys?"

"We teach God's Word, " said the Vaudois Prior. "Alas! for the men thathave made it void through their tradition! `If they speak not accordingthereunto, it is because there is no light in them. '"

"And you learn--" suggested the Earl in a more interested tone. 

"We learn that God requires of His servants that they shall overcome theworld; and He has told us what He means by the world--`The lust of theflesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. ' Whatever hasbecome that to me, that am I to overcome, if I would reign with Christwhen He cometh. "

We Protestants can hardly understand the fearful extent to which Romebinds the souls of her votaries. When she goes so far--which she rarelydoes--as to hold out God's Word with one hand, she carries in the otheran antidote to it which she calls the interpretation of the Church, derived from the consent of the Fathers. That the Fathers scarcely everconsent to anything does not trouble her. According to thisinterpretation, all human affection comes for monk or nun under the headof the lusts of the flesh. [Note 3. ] A daughter's love for her mother, a father's for his child, is thus branded. From his cradle Earl Edmundhad been taught this; was it any marvel if he found it impossible to getrid of the idea? The Prior's eyes were less blinded. He had comestraight from those Piedmontese valleys where, from time immemorial, theWord of God has not been bound, and whosoever would has been free toslake his thirst at the pure fountain of the water of life. Love wasnot dead in his heart, and he was not ashamed of it. 

"But then, Father, you must reckon all love a thing to be left behind?"very naturally queried the Earl. 

"It will not be so in Heaven, " answered the Prior; "then why should itbe on earth? Left behind! Think you I left behind me the one love ofmy life when I became a Bonus Homo? I trow not. My Lord, forty yearsago this summer, I was a young man, just entering life, and betrothed toa maiden of the Val Pellice. God laid His hand upon my hopes of earthlyhappiness, and said, `Not so!' But must I, therefore, sweep myAdelaide's memory out of my heart as if I had never loved her, and holdit sin against God to bear her sweet face in tender remembrance? Nay, verily, I have not so learned Christ. "

"What happened?" said the Earl. 

"God sent His angels for her, " answered the Prior in a low voice. 

"Ah, but she loved you!" was the response, in a tone still lower. TheEarl did not know how much, in those few words, he told the Prior ofAshridge. 

"My Lord, " said the Prior, "did you ever purchase a gift for one youloved, and keep it by you, carefully wrapped up, not letting him knowtill the day came to produce it?"

The Earl looked up as if he did not see the object of the question; buthe answered in the affirmative. 

"It may be, " continued the Prior, "that God our Father does the same attimes. I believe that many will find gifts on their Father's table, atthe great marriage-feast of the Lamb, which they never knew they were tohave, and some which they fancied were lost irrevocably on earth. Andif there be anything for which our hearts cry out that is not waitingfor us, surely He can and will still the craving. "

The Prior scarcely realised the effect of his words. He saw afterwardsthat the most painful part of the Earl's grief was lightened, that theterrible strain was gone from his eyes. He thanked God and tookcourage. He did not know that he had, to some extent, given him backthe most precious thing he had lost--hope. He had only moved it furtheroff--from earth to Heaven; and, if more distant, yet it was safer there. 

The Prior left the Earl alone after that interview--alone with theEvangelisterium and the Psalter. The words of God were better for himthan any words of men. 

He stayed at Ashridge for about a fortnight, and then, to the ecstasy ofSir Reginald, issued orders for return to Berkhamsted. Only a few wordspassed between the Prior and his patron as they took leave of each otherat the gate. 

"Farewell, Father, and many thanks. You have done me good--as much goodas man can do me now. "

"My Lord, that acknowledgment is trust money, which I will pay into thetreasury of your Lord and mine. "

So they parted, to meet only once again. The Vaudois Prior was to godown with his friend to the river-side, to the last point where man cango with man. 

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Note 1. "Je vais seul avec mon Dieu souffrir ma passion. "--Bonnivard, Prior of Saint Victor. 

Note 2. Vaudois is not really an accurate epithet, since the"Valley-Men" only acquired it when, in after years, ejected, from theirold home, they sought shelter in the Pays de Vaud. But it has come tobe regarded as a name expressive of certain doctrines. 

Note 3. "They (the Jesuits) were cut off from family and friends. Their vow taught them to forget their father's house, and to esteemthemselves holy only when every affection and desire which nature hadplanted in their breasts had been plucked up by the roots. "(_Jesuitism_, by the Reverend J. A. Wylie, Ll. D. ) This statement issimply a shade less true of the other monastic orders. 

CHAPTER TEN. 

FORGIVENESS NOT TO BE FORGIVEN. 

 "Ay, there's a blank at my right hand That ne'er can be made up to me. "--_James Hogg_. 

Before leaving Bermondsey, the Earl had accomplished one of the hardestpieces of work which ever fell to his lot. This was the execution ofthe deed of separation which conveyed his legal assent to the departureof his wife, and assigned to her certain lands for her separatesustenance. Himself the richest man in England, he was determined thatshe should remain the wealthiest woman. He assigned to her all hislands in Norfolk and Suffolk, the manors of Kirketon in Lincolnshire, Malmesbury and Wyntreslawe in Wiltshire, and an annuity on Queenhithe, Middlesex--the whole sum amounting to 800 pounds per annum, which wasequivalent to at least 15, 000 pounds a year. He reserved to himself theappointments to all priories and churches, and the military feofs andescheats. Moreover, the Countess was not to sell any of the lands, norhad she the right to build castles. So far, in all probability, any manwould have gone. But one other item was added, which came straight fromthe human heart of Earl Edmund, and was in the thirteenth century a verystrange item indeed. The Countess, it was expressly provided, shouldnot waste, exile, enslave, nor destroy "the serfs on these estates. "[Note 1. ]

The soul of Haman the Agagite, which had descended upon Margaret deClare, fiercely resented this unusual clause. On the same roll whichcontains the Earl's grant, in ordinary legal language--which must havecost him something where he records her wish, and his assent, "freely_during her widowhood_ to dedicate herself to the service of God, "--there is another document, in very extraordinary language, wherein theLady Margaret recounts the wrongs which her lord is doing her in respectof this 800 pounds a year. A more spiteful production was hardly everpenned. From the opening address "to all who shall read or hear thisdocument" to the concluding assertion that she has hereto set her seal, the indenture is crammed full of envy, hatred, and malice, and alluncharitableness. She lets it plainly be seen that all the lands inNorfolk and Suffolk avail her nothing, so long as these restrainingclauses are added to the grant. Margaret probably thought that she wasmerely detailing her wrongs; she did not realise that she was exhibitingher character. But for these four documents, the two letters, and thetwo indentures, wherein Earl and Countess have respectively "pressedtheir souls on paper, " we might never have known which was to blame inthe matter. Out of her own mouth is Margaret judged. 

With amazing effrontery, and in flat contradiction not only of herhusband's assertion, but of her own admission, the Countess commencedher tirade by bringing against her lord the charge of which she herselfwas guilty. As he was much the more worthy of credit, I prefer tobelieve him, confirmed as his statement is by her own letter to thePope. She went on to detail the terms of separation, making the most ofeverything against her husband, and wound up with a sentence which musthave pierced his heart like a poignard. She solemnly promised never toaggrieve him at any time by asking him to take her back, and never toseek absolution [Note 2] from that oath! In one sentence of cold, cruel, concentrated spite, she sarcastically swore never to demand fromhim the love for which during one and twenty years he had sued to her invain. 

So now all was over between them. The worst that could come had come. 

 "All was ended now, the hope, and the fear, and the sorrow, All the aching heart, the restless unsatisfied longing, All the dull deep pain, and constant anguish of patience!"

There was no more left to fear, for there was nothing left to hope. 

The Countess, attended by Father Miles and Felicia, left Rochester inJune for Romsey Abbey, where she solemnly assumed the veil of a blacknun. She was now plain Sister Margaret, and in due course of time andpromotion, she would become Mother Margaret, and then, perhaps, Prioressand Abbess. And then--her soul would be required of her. 

Mother Margaret! What bitter mockery of a title for the woman who haddeliberately flung away from her as a worthless weed the white flower oflove which she might have cherished!

Of course, the household was now scattered. Ada had been received intothe household of the Countess of Gloucester, the King's daughter Joan. Olympias was pining to return to Reginald, if she could form some ideain what part of the world he might be found; Clarice was awaiting herimperious lord's commands. The morning after the Countess had taken herlast farewell of them all, as they were still in this attitude of doubtand expectation, in walked Sir Lambert Aylmer. He was greeted withdelight. Roisia was well, he reported, and sent her lovingcommendations to all; but the object of his coming was not to talk aboutRoisia. The Earl, with Sir Reginald, was at Restormel, one of hisCornish castles; but in a letter received from the latter gentleman, SirLambert had been requested to inform Olympias that their master desiredthem all to repair to Berkhamsted, whither he meant to come shortly, andthey should then hear his intentions for the future. 

"The saints send he mean not to be a monk!" said Olympias, shrugging hershoulders. 

But nothing was further from Earl Edmund's purpose. 

They reached Berkhamsted in a day or two, and to Clarice's greatdelight, found there not only Mistress Underdone and the twobower-maidens, but Sir Ademar and Heliet. It was a new and pleasantdiscovery that Heliet could travel. It had been a sort of acceptedidea, never investigated, that her leaving Oakham was an impossibility;but Ademar had coaxed her to try, and Heliet was quite willing. Theresult was that she had reached Berkhamsted in safety, to her ownintense enjoyment; for she had never before been a mile from Oakham, andthe discovery that she was no longer a fixture, but could accompany herhusband wherever duty called him was to Heliet unspeakable delight. 

It was not till October that the Earl reached home; for he stayed atBristol for the wedding of the eldest princess, Alianora, with HenriDuke of Barre, which took place on the twentieth of September. Themorning after his arrival he desired to speak with the whole of hishousehold, who were to assemble in the hall for that purpose. 

Olympias was positive that her master was about to take the cowl. "Andit would be so nice, you see, " she said; "just a match to the Lady. "

"Nice, indeed!" said Reginald, pulling a terrible face. "Thou hast notspent a fortnight at Ashridge. "

"Well, but he would not want to make a monk of thee, " answered Olympias, rather blankly. 

"He would not manage it, if he tried, " responded her lord and master. 

When the Earl's intentions were stated, it appeared that he had nofurther occasion for the services of Sir Reginald and Olympias, and hehad secured for them situations, if they chose to accept them, in thehousehold of the royal bride. Olympias was in ecstasies; to live inFrance was a most delicious fate in her eyes, nor did Reginald in theleast object to it. Filomena and Sabina were provided for with theCountess of Lincoln and the Princess Elizabeth, Mistress Underdone, Heliet, and Sir Ademar would remain at Berkhamsted. And then the Earl, turning to Vivian and Clarice, requested as a favour to himself thatthey would remain also. It was necessary to have a lady of rank--namely, a knight's wife--at the head of the establishment. The Earl hadno sister who could take that position; and his brother's widow, theLady Constance d'Almayne, had preferred to return to her own home inBearn rather than live in England. Heliet might have answered, but theEarl felt, with his usual considerate gentleness, that her lamenesswould make it a great charge and trouble to her. He wished Clarice totake it, if her husband would allow her, and was willing to continue inhis service. 

"And, truth to tell, " said the Earl, with a sad smile at Rosie, who wasmaking frantic efforts to compass the fearful distance of three yardsbetween the Earl's chair and Clarice's outstretched hand, "you have herea jewel which I were very loth to lose from my empty casket. So, SirVivian, what say you?"

What became of either Clarice or Rosie was a matter of very littleimportance to Vivian, for he considered them both in the light ofencumbrances--which was rather hard on Clarice at least, as she wouldthankfully have got out of his way if duty had allowed it. But, as hehad once said, he knew when he was well off, and he had no wish to passinto the service either of a meaner nobleman or of a harder master. Vivian assented without a qualifying word. 

Thus, with Clarice, life sank back into its old groove, and time spedon, uneventful except for the two items that every day little Rosie grewin intelligence and attractiveness, and every month, as it seemed to hermother, the Earl grew a year older. Clarice doubted if Rosie were nothis sole tie to life. She became his chief companion, and on the littlechild who was no kin of his he poured out all the rich treasure of thatwarm great heart which his own held at so small a value. Rosie, however, was by no means irresponsive. Any one seeing her would havetaken the Earl to be her father, and Sir Vivian a stranger of whom shewas rather frightened. 

The year 1294 was signalised by a remarkable action on the part of KingEdward. In order to defray the vast expenses of his Welsh and Bretonwars, he took into his own hands all the priories in England, committingtheir lands and goods to the care of state officials, and allowingeighteenpence per week for the sustenance of each monk. The allowancewas handsome, but the proceeding was very like burglary. 

The exact religious position of Edward the First is not so easy todefine as that of some other monarchs. With respect to any personal andspiritual religion, it is, alas! only too easy. But it is difficult tosay how far his opposition to the Pope originated from a deliberatepolicy, well thought out beforehand, and how far from the momentaryirritation of a crossed will. He certainly was not the intelligentsupporter of the Boni-Homines from personal conviction, that was to befound in his son, Edward the Second, or in his cousin, Edmund, Earl ofCornwall. Yet he did support them to a certain extent, though more inthe earlier part of his life than in the later. Like many another manin his position, he was ready enough to assist a body of sensibleliterary reformers, but, when the doctrine which they held began topress personally on himself, he shrank from the touch of Ithuriel'sspear. That his subjects should be made better and more obedient bymeans of the Decalogue, or any other code, was a most excellent thing;but when the Decalogue came closer and said, "Thou shalt not, " tohimself, then it was an intrusive nuisance. 

In the following year, 1295, the King laid the foundation of boroughrepresentation, by directing the sheriffs of the various counties tosend to Parliament, along with the knights of the shire, two deputiesfrom each borough, who were to be elected by the townsmen, and empoweredto consent, in the name of their constituents, to the decrees of theKing and his Council. "It is a most equitable rule, " added the Monarch, "that what concerns all should be judged of by all. " Concerning thepossibility of these members dissenting from his decrees, however, HisMajesty was not quite so eloquent. That contingency was one which asovereign in the thirteenth century could scarcely be expected to takeinto his august consideration. 

But King Edward wanted more money, and apparently preferred to grind itout of his monks rather than his peasants. He now instituted a searchof all the monasteries in England, and commanded the confiscation of allcash. The monasteries resisting the excessive taxation laid upon them, the King seized their lay fees. 

In the December of this year, Earl Edmund left Berkhamsted for Cornwall, taking with him Vivian, and leaving Ademar behind as the only gentlemanin the party. He was going on an errand unpleasant to himself, for theKing had committed to his charge a portion of the Gascon army. War andcontention were altogether out of his line, yet he had no choice but toobey. He joined his cousin, the Earl of Lancaster, and the Earl ofLincoln, in Cornwall, and together they sailed on the fifteenth ofJanuary 1296, from a Cornish port termed Plumhupe in the "Chronicle ofWorcester, " but not easy to identify now, unless it be taken as ablunder for Plymouth, and the chronicler be supposed ignorant of itscounty. With them were twenty-five barons and a thousand knights. 

During the absence of the Earl, it struck his cousin, the King--for noother reason can be guessed--that the Earl's treasury being much betterfilled than his own, he might reasonably pay his debts out of hiscousin's overflowing coffers. Accordingly he sent to Berkhamsted, muchto the dismay of the household, and coolly annexed his cousin'svaluables to the Crown. But Earl Edmund was a man in whose eyes goldwas of comparatively small value, partly because he set other thingsmuch higher, and partly because he had always had so much of it, thatpoverty was a trouble which he was scarcely able to realise. 

A sad year was 1296 to the royal family of England. The Gasconexpedition proved so disastrous, that Edmund, Earl of Lancaster, died ofgrief and disappointment at Bayonne on the fifth of June; and theScottish one, though brilliantly successful in a political light, costno less, for an arrow shot at a venture, at the siege of Berwick, quenched the young life of Richard Plantagenet, the only brother andlast near relation of Edmund, Earl of Cornwall. The triumphant captureof the coronation chair and the Stone of Destiny and their removal fromDunstaffnage to England, was contrasted with a terrible famine, which soaffected the vines in particular, that there was hardly wine enough leftfor mass. 

In the midst of these sharp contrasts of triumph and sorrow, Earl Edmundreturned to England, escorting his widowed cousin Queen Blanche, andfollowing the coffin of the Earl of Lancaster. They found the Kingearnestly engaged in effecting a contract of marriage between the youngPrince Edward and a daughter of Guy, Count of Flanders, and bindinghimself to march to Guy's assistance against the King of France. 

Ah, had it been God's will that the wife destined for Edward the Secondshould have been the pure, high-minded, heroic Philippine of Flanders, instead of the she-wolf of France, what a different history he wouldhave had!

For among all the princesses of the thirteenth century one of thefairest souls is this Flemish maiden, who literally laid down her lifein ransom for her father. It was not Prince Edward's fault thatPhilippine was not Queen of England. It was the fault of the ambitiouspolicy alike of King Edward and the King of France, and perhaps stillmore of his Navarrese Queen. They did not know that they weresacrificing not only Philippine, but Edward. Would they have cared muchabout it if they had done?

The regalia of Scotland were solemnly offered at the shrine of SaintEdward on the 17th of June. Earl Edmund was present at the ceremony, and after it, "weary with the storms of earth, " he went home to courtrepose at Berkhamsted. 

It was the day after he came home, a soft, warm June day. Clarice andHeliet were playing with Rosie, now a bright, lively little child offive years old. In rushing away from Heliet, who was pretending tocatch her, Rosie, to the dismay of all parties, ran straight against herfather, who had just reached the top of the spiral staircase which ledto their own rooms. Vivian, never very amiable when his course wasimpeded, either by a physical or a moral hindrance, impatiently pushedthe child on one side. It was the wrong side. Rosie struggled torecover her balance for one moment, during which her father's hand_might_ have grasped her, had he been quick to do it; her mother had nottime to reach her. Then, with an inarticulate cry for help, she wentdown the well of the staircase. 

Past Heliet's exclamation of horror came a sharp ringing shriek--"OVivian! Rosie!" and darting by her astounded husband, down the stairsfled Clarice, with a celerity that she would have thought impossible anhour before. 

Vivian's state of mind was a mixture of selfishness and horror. He hadnot intended to hurt the child, merely to get her out of his way; butwhen selfishness and remorse struggle together, the worse of the twousually comes to the front. Vivian's first articulate answer was agrowl at his wife. 

"Why did you not keep her out of my way? Gramercy, what a fuss about agirl!"

Then he read his guilt in Heliet's eyes, and began faltering out excusesand asseverations that he had not meant anything. 

Clarice reached the foot of the stairs without heeding a word he said. But other hands, as tender as her own, were there before her. 

"Little Rosie! my poor little child!" came from Earl Edmund's gentlelips, as he lifted the bruised child in his arms. Tenderly as it wasdone, Rosie could not repress a moan of pain which went to the twohearts that loved her. 

She was not killed, but she was dying. 

"A few hours, " said the Earl's physician, instantly summoned, "a fewhours. There was nothing to be done. She would very likely not suffermuch--would hardly be conscious of pain until the end came. "

The Earl bore her into his own chamber, and laid her on his bed. Withspeechless agony Clarice watched beside her. 

Just once Rosie spoke. 

"Mother, Mother, don't cry!"

Clarice was shedding no tears; they would not come yet; but in Rosie'seyes her strained white face was an equivalent. 

"Mother, don't cry, " said Rosie. "You said--I asked you--why peopledied. You said our Lord called them. Must go--when our Lord calls. "

Clarice was not able to answer; but Rosie's words struck cold to herheart. 

"Must go when our Lord calls!"

She could hardly pray. What went up was not prayer, but rather a wild, passionate cry that this thing could not be--should not be. 

There were those few hours of half-consciousness, and then, just at theturn of the night, the Lord came and called, and Rosie heard His voice, and went to Him. 

Sir Vivian Barkeworth, during that day and night, was not pursuing theeven tenor of his way in that state of complacent self-approval whichwas the usual attitude of his mind. It was not that he mourned thechild; his affections were at all times of a microscopic character, andthe only spark of regard which he entertained for Rosie was not as hislittle child, but as his future heiress. Nor was he at all troubled bythe sufferings of Clarice. Women were always crying about something;they were decided hindrances and vexations in a man's way; in fact, theexistence of women at all, except to see to a man's comforts, and amusehis leisure, was, in Sir Vivian's eyes, an unfortunate mistake in thearrangements of Providence. He mourned first the good opinion whichpeople had of him, and which, by the way, was a much smaller packagethan Sir Vivian thought it; and secondly, the far more importantdisturbance of the excellent opinion which he had of himself. He couldnot rid himself of the unpleasant conviction that a little more patienceand amiability on his part would have prevented all this disagreeableaffair, though he would not for the world have acknowledged thisconviction to Clarice. That was what he thought it--a disagreeableaffair. It was the purest accident, he said to himself, and might havehappened to any one. At the same time, something, which did not oftentrouble Vivian, deep down in his inner man, distinctly told him thatsuch an accident would never have happened to the Earl or Sir Ademar. Vivian only growled at his conscience when it gave him that faint prick. He was so accustomed to bid it be quiet, that it had almost ceased togive him any hints, and the pricking was very slight. 

"A disagreeable business!" he said, inwardly; "a most disagreeablebusiness. Why did not Clarice attend to her duties better? It was herduty to keep that child from bothering me. What are women good for butto keep their children out of mischief, and to see that their husbands'paths through life are free from every thorn and pebble?"

Sir Vivian had reached this point when one of the Earl's pages broughthim a message. His master wished his attendance in his privatesitting-room. Vivian inwardly anathematised the Earl, the page, Heliet(as a witness), Rosie (as the offender), but above all, as the head andfront of all his misery, Clarice. He was not the less disposed toanathemas when he found Sir Ademar, Heliet, Clarice, and Master Franco, the physician, assembled to receive him with the Earl. It rasped himfurther to perceive that they were all exceedingly grave, though how hecould have expected any of them to look hilarious it would be difficultto say. Especially he resented the look of desolate despair inClarice's eyes, and the physical exhaustion and mental agony written inevery line of her white face. He would not have liked to admit that hefelt them all as so many trumpet-tongued accusers against him. 

"I desired you all to assemble, " said the Earl, in tones as gentle asusual, but with an under-current of pain, "because I wish to inquire inwhat manner our poor little darling met her death. How came she to falldown the staircase?"

He looked at Heliet, and she was the one to reply. 

"It was an accident, my Lord, I think, " she said. 

"`You think?' Is there some doubt, then?"

No one answered him but Ademar. "Pardon me, my Lord; I was notpresent. "

"Then I ask one who was present. Dame Heliet?"

"I hope there is no doubt, my Lord, " answered Heliet. "I should besorry to think so. "

The bushy eyebrows, which were the only blemish to the handsomePlantagenet face of the Earl, were lowered at this reply. 

"What am I to understand by that?" he asked. "Did the child throwherself down of her own will?"

"Oh, no, my Lord, no!"

"Did any one push her down?"

Dead silence. 

"Sir Ademar was not present. Were you, Sir Vivian?"

Vivian, whose face was far more eloquent in this instance than histongue, muttered an affirmative. 

"Then you can answer me. Did any one push her down?"

Vivian's reply was unintelligible, being hardly articulate. 

"Will you have the goodness to repeat that, if you please?" said hismaster. 

In Clarice's heart a terrible tempest had been raging. Ought she not tospeak, and declare the fact of which she felt sure, that Vivian had notbeen intentionally the murderer of his child? that whatever he mighthave done, he had meant no more than simply to push her aside?Conscientiousness strove hard with bitterness and revenge. Why shouldshe go out of her way to shield the man who had been the misery of herlife from the just penalty which he deserved for having made that lifemore desolate than ever? She knew that her voice would be the mostpotent there--that her vote would outweigh twenty others. The pleadingof the bereaved mother in favour of the father of the dead child wasjust what would make its way straight to the heart of his judge. Clarice's own heart said passionately, No! Rosie's dead face must standbetween him and her for ever. But then upon her spirit's fever fellcalming words--words which she repeated every day of her life--wordswhich she had taught Rosie. 

"Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. "

If God were to forgive her as she forgave Vivian, what would become ofher? Would she ever see Rosie again? And then a cry for help andstrength to do it went up beyond the stars. 

The Earl was quietly waiting for the repetition of Vivian's answer. Itcame at last--the answer--not a repetition. 

"Saint Mary love us, my Lord! I never meant any harm. "

"You never meant!" replied a stern voice, not at all like Earl Edmund'sgentle tones. "Did you _do_ it?"

Before Vivian could reply, to every one's astonishment, and most of allto his, Clarice threw herself down on her knees, and deprecatinglykissed the hand which rested on the arm of her master's chair. 

"Mercy, my good Lord, I entreat you! It was a pure accident, andnothing more. I know Sir Vivian meant no more than to push the childgently out of his way. He did not calculate on the force he used. Itwas only an accident--he never thought of hurting her. For the sake ofmy dead darling, whom I know you loved, my gracious Lord, grant me mercyfor her father!"

The silence was broken for a moment only by Heliet's sobs. The Earl hadcovered his face with his hands. Then he looked into Clarice's pleadingeyes, with eyes in which unshed tears were glistening. 

"Dame Clarice, " said Earl Edmund in his softest tone, "_you_ wish me togrant Sir Vivian mercy?"

"I implore it of your Lordship, for His sake to whom my child is gone, and hers. "

The Earl's eyes went to Vivian, who stood looking the picture of guiltand misery. 

"You hear, Sir Vivian? You are pardoned, but not for your sake. Be ityours to repay this generous heart. "

The party dispersed in a few minutes. But when Ademar and Heliet foundthemselves alone, the former said--"Will he love her after this?"

"Love her!" returned Heliet. "My dear husband, thou dost not know thatman. He owes his life to her generosity, and he will never forgive herfor it. "

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Note 1. Rot. Pat. , 22 Edward the First. 

Note 2. The language of this sentence is remarkable:--"Jeo ou nul autreen moun noun purchace absolucion _ou de Apostoile ou de autresouerein_. " (Rot. Pat. , 22 Edward the First. )

CHAPTER ELEVEN. 

THE SUN BREAKS OUT. 

 "If from Thine ordeal's heated bars, Our feet are seamed with crimson scars, Thy will be done!"--Whittier. 

Heliet's penetration had not deceived her. The mean, narrow, witheredarticle which Vivian Barkeworth called his soul, was unable to pardonClarice for having shown herself morally so much his superior. That hiswife should be better than himself was in his eyes an inversion of theproper order of things. And as of course it was impossible that heshould be to blame, why, it must be her fault Clarice found herself mostcruelly snubbed for days after her interference in behalf of hergraceless husband. Not in public; for except in the one instance ofthis examination, where his sense of shame and guilt had overcome himfor a moment, Vivian's company manners were faultless, and a surfaceobserver would have pronounced him a model husband. Poor Clarice hadlearned by experience that any restraint which Vivian put upon himselfwhen inwardly vexed, was sure to rebound on her devoted head in the formof after suffering in private. 

To Clarice herself the reaction came soon and severely. On the eveningbefore Rosie's funeral, Heliet found her seated by the little bier inthe hall, gazing dreamily on the face of her lost darling, with dry eyesand strained expression. She sat down beside her. Clarice took nonotice. Heliet scarcely knew how to deal with her. If something couldbe said which would set the tears flowing it might save her greatsuffering; yet to say the wrong thing might do more harm than good. Thesupper-bell rang before she had made up her mind. As they rose Clariceslipped her hand into Heliet's arm, and, to the surprise of the latter, thanked her. 

"For what?" said Heliet. 

"For the only thing any one can do for me--for feeling with me. "

After supper Clarice went up to her own rooms; but Heliet returned tothe hall where Rosie lay. To her astonishment, she found a sudden andtouching change in the surroundings of the dead child. Rosie lay nowwreathed round in white rosebuds, tastefully disposed, as by a handwhich had grudged neither love nor labour. 

"Who has done this?" Heliet spoke aloud in he surprise. 

"I have, " said a voice beside her. It was no voice which Heliet knew. She looked up into the face of a tall man, with dark hair and beard, andeyes which were at once sad and compassionate. 

"You! Who are you?" asked Heliet in the same tone. 

"You may not know my name. I am--Piers Ingham. "

"Then I do know, " replied Heliet, gravely. "But, Sir Piers, _she_ mustnot know. "

"Certainly not, " he said, quietly. "Tell her nothing; let her think, ifshe will, that the angels did it. And--tell me nothing. Farewell. "

He stooped down and kissed the cold white brow of the dead child. 

"That can hurt no one, " said Piers, in a low voice. "And she may beglad to hear it--when she meets the child again. "

He glided out of the hall so softly that Heliet did not hear him go, andonly looked up and found herself alone. She knelt for a few minutes bythe bier and then went quietly to her own room. 

The next morning there were abundance of conjectures as to who couldhave paid this tender and graceful tribute. The Earl was generallysuspected, but he at once said that it was no doing of his. Everybodywas asked, and all denied it. Father Bevis was appealed to, as beingbetter acquainted with the saints than the rest of the company, to statewhether he thought it probable that one of them had been the agent. ButFather Bevis's strong common sense declined to credit any but humanhands with the deed. 

Clarice was one of the last to appear. And when the sweet, fair tributeto her darling broke suddenly upon her sight, the result was attainedfor which all had been more or less hoping. That touch of nature setthe floodgates open, and dropping on her knees beside the bier, Claricepoured forth a rain of passionate tears. 

When all was over, and Rosie had been hidden away from sight until theangel-trump should call her, Clarice and Heliet went out together on theCastle green. They sat down on one of the seats in an embrasure. TheEarl, with his thoughtful kindness, seeing them, sent word to thecommandant to keep the soldiers within so long as the ladies chose tostay there. So they were left undisturbed. 

Heliet was longing intensely to comfort Clarice, but she felt entirelyat a loss what line to take. Clarice relieved her perplexity by beingthe first to speak. 

"Heliet!" she said, "what does God mean by this?"

"I cannot tell, dear heart, except that He means love and mercy. `Allthe ways of the Lord are mercy and truth unto the lovers of His will andtestimony. ' Is not that enough?"

"It might be if one could see it. "

"Is it not enough, without seeing?"

"O Heliet, Heliet, she was all I had!"

"I know it, beloved. But how if He would have thee to make Him all thouhast?"

"Could I not have loved God and have had Rosie?"

"Perhaps not, " said Heliet, gently. 

"I hope He will take me soon, " said Clarice. "Surely He can never leaveme long now!"

"Or, it may be, make thee content to wait His will. "

Clarice shook her head, not so much with a negative air as with ashrinking one. Just in that first agony, to be content with it seemedbeyond human nature. 

Heliet laid her hand on that of her friend. "Dear, would you have hadRosie suffer as you have done?"

For a moment Clarice's mental eyes ran forward, over what would mostlikely, according to human prevision, have been the course of Rosie'safter life. The thought came to her as with a pang, and grew upon her, that the future could have had no easy lot in store for VivianBarkeworth's daughter. He would have disposed of her without a thoughtof her own wish, and no prayers nor tears from her would have availed toturn him from his purpose. No--it was well with the child. 

"Thou art right, " she said, in a pained voice. "It is better for Rosieas it is. But for me?"

"Leave that with God. He will show thee some day that it was better forthee too. "

Clarice rose from her seat; but not till she had said the one thingwhich Heliet had been hoping that she would not say. 

"Who could have laid those flowers there? Heliet, canst thou form anyidea? Dost thou think it _was_ an angel?"

Heliet had an excuse in settling her crutches for delaying her reply fora moment. Then she said in a low tone, the source of whose tendernessit was well that Clarice could not guess--"I am not sure, dear, that itwas not. "

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If Clarice's sufferings had been passive before, they began to be activenow. Vivian made her life a torment to her by jealousy on the one hand, and positive cruelty on the other; yet his manners in public were socarefully veiled in courtesy that not one of her friends guessed howmuch she really suffered. As much time as she could she spent in heroratory, which was the only place where Vivian left her at peace, undera vague idea that it would bring him ill luck to interrupt any one'sprayers. Unfortunately for Clarice, he had caught a glimpse of Piers, and, having no conscientiousness in his own composition, he could notimagine it in that of another. That Piers should be at Berkhamstedwithout at least making an effort to open communication with Clarice, was an idea which Vivian would have refused to entertain for a moment. For what other earthly purpose could he be there? Vivian was a man whohad no faith in any human being. In his belief, the only possible meansto prevent Clarice from running away with Piers was to keep her eitherin his sight or locked up when out of it. The idea of trusting to herprinciples would have struck him as simply ridiculous. 

Sir Piers, however, had completely disappeared, as completely as thoughhe had never been seen. And after a while Vivian grew more confident, and not so particular about keeping the key turned. Clarice knewneither why he locked her in, nor why he gave over doing so. Had shehad a suspicion of the reason, her indignation would not have beensmall. 

Public affairs meanwhile maintained their interest. The King marchedhis army to Scotland, and routed Wallace's troops in the battle ofFalkirk; but his success was somewhat counterbalanced by the burning ofWestminster Palace and Abbey before he left home. It was about thistime that Piers Gavestone began to appear at Court, introduced by hisfather with a view to making his fortune; and to the misfortune of theyoung Prince Edward, their musical tastes being alike, they became fastfriends. The Prince was now only fourteen years of age; and, led byGavestone, he was guilty--if indeed the charge be true--of a mischievousboyish frolic, in "breaking the parks" of the Bishop of Chester, andappropriating his deer. The boy was fond of venison, and he was stillmore fond of pets; but neither of these facts excused the raid on theBishop of Chester, who chose to take the offence far more seriously thanany modern bishop would be likely to do, and carried his complaint tothe King. The royal father, as his wont was, flew into a passion, andweighted the boys' frolic with the heavy penalty of banishment forGavestone, and imprisonment for the Prince. In all probability youngEdward had never looked on his action in any other light than as a pieceof fun. Had his father been concerned about the sin committed againstGod--exactly the sin of a boy who robs an orchard--he might, with lessoutward severity, have produced a far more wholesome impression on hisson; but what he considered appears to have been merely the dignity ofthe Prince, which was outraged by the act of the boy who bore the title. A quiet, grave exhortation might have done him good, but imprisonmentdid none, and left on many minds the impression that the boy had beenhardly used. 

One striking feature in the conduct of Edward the Second is theremarkable meekness and submission with which he bore his father's angryoutbursts and severe punishments--often administered for mere youthfulfollies, such as most fathers would think amply punished by a stronglecture, and perhaps a few strokes of the cane. Edward the First seemsto have been one of those men who entirely forget their own childhood, and are never able in after life to enter into the feelings of a child. 

His Majesty, however, had other matters to attend to beside theprovocation received from his heir; for in the month of Septemberfollowing (1299) he was married at Canterbury to the Princess Margueriteof France. It was a case approaching that of Rachel and Leah, for itwas the beautiful Princess Blanche for whom the King had been in treaty, and Marguerite was foisted on him by a process of crafty diplomacy notfar removed from treachery. However, since Marguerite, though not sofair as her sister, proved the better woman of the two, the King had noreason to be disappointed in the end. 

The Council of Regency established in Scotland, discontented withEdward's arbitration, referred the question of their independence to thePope, and that wily potentate settled the matter in his own interests, by declaring Scotland a fief of the Holy See. The King was stillwarring in that vicinity; the young Queen was left with her baby boy inYorkshire to await his return. 

It was a hot July day, and Vivian, who highly disapproved of thestagnation of Berkhamsted, declared his intention of going out to hunt. People hunted in all weathers and seasons in the Middle Ages. Ademardeclined to accompany him, and he contented himself by taking two of theEarl's squires and a handful of archers as company. The Earl did notinterfere with Vivian's proceedings. He was quite aware that the quietwhich he loved was by no means to everybody's taste; and he left hisretinue at liberty to amuse themselves as they pleased. 

Vivian did not think it necessary to turn the key on Clarice; but hegave her a severe lecture on discreet behaviour which astonished her, since her conscience did not accuse her of any breach of that virtue, and she could not trace the course of her husband's thoughts. Claricemeekly promised to bear the recommendation in mind; and Vivian left herto her own devices. 

The day dragged heavily. Mistress Underdone sat with Heliet and Clariceat work; but not much work was gone through, for in everybody's opinionit was too hot to do anything. The tower in which they were was at theback of the Castle, and looked upon the inner court. The Earl'sapartments were in the next tower, and there, despite the heat, he wasgoing over sundry grants and indentures with Father Bevis and hisbailiff, always considering the comfort and advantage of his serfs andtenants. The sound of a horn outside warned the ladies that in allprobability Vivian was returning home; and whether his temper were good, bad, or indifferent was likely to depend on the condition of hishunting-bags. Good, was almost too much to hope for. With a littlesmothered sigh Clarice ventured to hope that it might not be worse thanindifferent. Her comfort for the next day or two would be much affectedby it. 

They looked out of the window, but all they saw was Ademar crossing theinner court with rapid steps, and disappearing within the Earl's tower. There was some noise in the outer court, but no discernible solution ofit. The ladies went back to their work. Much to their surprise, tenminutes later, the Earl himself entered the chamber. It was not at allhis wont to come there. When he had occasion to send orders to Clariceconcerning his household arrangements, he either sent for her orconveyed them through Vivian. These were the Countess's rooms whichthey were now occupying, and the Earl had never crossed the thresholdsince she left the Castle. 

They looked up, and saw in his face that he had news to tell them. Andall at once Clarice rose and exclaimed--"Vivian!"

"Dame, I grieve to tell you that your knight has been somewhat hurt inhis hunting. "

Clarice was not conscious of any feeling but the necessity of knowingall. And that she had not yet been told all she felt certain. 

"Much hurt?" she asked. 

"I fear so, " answered the Earl. 

"My Lord, will you tell me all?"

The Earl took her hand and looked kindly at her. "Dame, he is dead. "

Mistress Underdone raised her hands with an exclamation of shockedsurprise, to which Heliet's look of horror formed a fitting corollary. Clarice was conscious only of a confused medley of feelings, from whichnone but a sense of amazement stood out in the foreground. Then theEarl quietly told her that, in leaping a wide ditch, Vivian had beenthrown from his horse, and had never spoken more. 

No one tried to comfort Clarice. Pitifully they all felt that comfortwas not wanted now. The death of Rosie had been a crushing blow; butVivian's, however sudden, could hardly be otherwise than a relief. Theonly compassion that any one could feel was for him, for whom therewas--

 "No reckoning made, but sent to his account With all his imperfections on his head. "

The very fact that she could not regret him on her own account lay aweight on Clarice's conscience, though it was purely his own fault. Severely as she tried to judge herself, she could recall no instance inwhich, so far as such a thing can be said of any human sinner, she hadnot done her duty by that dead man. She had obeyed him in letter andspirit, however distasteful it had often been to herself; she hadconsulted his wishes before her own; she had even honestly tried to lovehim, and he had made it impossible. Now, she could not resist theoverwhelming consciousness that his death was to her a release from herfetters--a coming out of prison. She was free from the perpetual dragof apprehension on the one hand, and of constantly endeavouring on theother to please a man who was determined not to be pleased. The spiritof the uncaged bird awoke within her--a sense of freedom, and light, andrest, such as she had not known for those eight weary years of hermarried slavery. 

Yet the future was no path of roses to the eyes of Clarice. She was notfree in the thirteenth century, in the sense in which she would havebeen free in the nineteenth, for she had no power to choose her own lot. All widows were wards of the Crown; and it was not at all usual for theCrown to concern its august self respecting their wishes, unless theybought leave to comply with them at a very costly price. By a singularperversion of justice, the tax upon a widow who purchased permission toremarry or not, at her pleasure, was far heavier than the fine exactedfrom a man who married a ward of the Crown without royal licence. Thenatural result of this arrangement was that the ladies who were eitherdowered widows or spinster heiresses very often contracted clandestinemarriages, and their husbands quietly endured the subsequent fine andimprisonment, as unavoidable evils which were soon over, and well worththe advantage which they purchased. 

It seemed, however, as if blessings, no less than misfortunes, were notto come single to Clarice Barkeworth. A few weeks after Vivian's death, the Earl silently put a parchment into her hand, which conveyed to herthe information that King Edward had granted to his well-beloved cousin, Edmund, Earl of Cornwall, the marriage of Clarice, widow of VivianBarkeworth, knight, with the usual proviso that she was not to marry oneof the King's enemies. This was, indeed, something for which to bethankful. Clarice knew that her future was as safe in her master'shands as in her own. 

"Ah!" said Heliet, when that remark was made to her, "if we could onlyhave felt, dear heart, that it was as safe in the hands of his Master!"

"Was I very faithless, Heliet?" said Clarice, with tears in her eyes. 

"Dear heart, no more than I was!" was Heliet's answer. 

"But has it not occurred to thee, Heliet, now--why might I not have hadRosie?"

"I know not, dear Clarice, any more than Rosie knew, when she was a babein thine arms, why thou gavest her bitter medicine. Oh, leave all thatalone--our Master understands what He is doing. "

It was the middle of September, and about two months after Vivian'sdeath. Clarice sat sewing, robed in the white weeds of widowhood, inthe room which she usually occupied in the Countess's tower. Thegarments worn by a widow were at this time extremely strict and veryunbecoming, though the period during which they were worn was much lessstringent than now. From one to six months was as long as many widowsremained in that condition. Heliet had not been seen for an hour ormore, and Mistress Underdone, with some barely intelligible remarks verydisparaging to "that Nell, " who stood, under her, at the head of thekitchen department, had disappeared to oversee the venison pasty. Clarice was doing something which she had not done for eight years, though hardly aware that she was doing it--humming a troubadour song. Getting past an awkward place in her work, words as well as music becameaudible--

 "And though my lot were hard and bare, And though my hopes were few, Yet would I dare one vow to swear My heart should still be true. "

"Wouldst thou, Clarice?" asked a voice behind her. 

Clarice's delicate embroidery got the worst of it, for it dropped in aheap on the rushes, and nobody paid the slightest attention to it for aconsiderable time. Nor did any one come near the room until Heliet madeher appearance, and she came so slowly, and heralded her approach bysuch emphatic raps of her crutches on the stone floor, that Claricecould scarcely avoid the conclusion that she was a conspirator in theplot. The head and front of it all, however, was manifestly EarlEdmund, who received Sir Piers with a smile and no other greeting--adistinct intimation that it was not the first time they had met thatday. 

The wedding--which nobody felt inclined to dispute--was fixed for thefifteenth of October. The Earl wished it to take place when he could bepresent and give away the bride, and he wanted first a fortnight'sretreat at Ashridge, to which place he had arranged to go on the lastday of September. Sir Piers stepped at once into his old position, butthe Earl took Ademar with him to Ashridge. He gave the grant ofClarice's marriage to Piers himself, in the presence of the household, with the remark:--

"It will be better in your hands than mine; and there is no time likethe present. "

Into Clarice's hand her master put a shining pile of gold for thepurchase of wedding garments and jewellery. 

"I am glad, " he said, "that your path through life is coming to theroses now. I would hope the thorns are over for you--at least for sometime. There have been no roses for me; but I can rejoice, I hope, withthose for whom they blossom. "

And so he rode away from Berkhamsted, looking back to smile a farewellto Heliet and Clarice, as they stood watching him in the gateway. Longyears afterwards they remembered that kind, almost affectionate, smile. 

As the ladies turned into their own tower, and began to ascend thestaircase--always a slow process with Heliet--Clarice said, "I cannotunderstand why our Lord the Earl has such a lonely and sorrowful lot. "

"Thou wouldst like to understand everything, Clarice, " returned Heliet, smiling. 

"I would!" she answered. "I can understand my own troubles better, forI know how much there is in me that needs setting right; but he--why heis almost an angel already. "

"Perhaps he would tell thee the same thing, " said Heliet. "I am afraid, dear heart, if thou hadst the graving of our Lord's gems, thou wouldststop the tool before the portrait was in sufficient relief. "

"But when the portrait _is_ in sufficient relief?" answered Clarice, earnestly. 

"Ah, dear heart!" said Heliet, "neither thine eyes nor mine are fineenough to judge of that. "

"It seems almost a shame to be happy when I know he is not, " repliedClarice, the tears springing to her eyes; "our dear master, who has beento me as a very angel of God. "

"Nay, dear, he would wish thee to be happy, " gently remonstrated Heliet. "I believe both thou and I are to him as daughters, Clarice. "

"I wish I could make him happy!" said Clarice, as they turned into herrooms. 

"Ask God to do it, " was Heliet's response. 

They both asked Him that night. And He heard and answered them, but, asis often the case, not at all as they expected. 

CHAPTER TWELVE. 

IN THE CITY OF GOLD. 

 "I am not eager, strong, Nor bold--all that is past; I am ready not to do, At last--at last. 

 "My half-day's work is done, And this is all my part: I give a patient God My patient heart. "

Vespers were over at Ashridge on the last day of September, the eveningof the Earl's arrival. He sat in the guest-chamber, with the Prior andhis Buckinghamshire bailiff, to whom he was issuing instructions withrespect to some cottages to be built for the villeins on one of hisestates. The Prior sat by in silence, while the Earl impressed on themind of his agent that the cottages were to be made reasonablycomfortable for the habitation of immortal souls and not improbablysuffering bodies. When at last the bailiff had departed, the Priorturned to his patron with a smile. "I would all lay lords--andspiritual ones too--were as kindly thoughtful of their inferiors as yourLordship. "

"Ah, how little one can do at the best!" said the Earl. "Life is fullof miseries for these poor serfs; shall we, who would follow Christ'ssteps, not strive to lighten it?"

"It is very truth, " said the Prior. 

"Ay, and how short the boundary is!" pursued the Earl. "`Man isignorant what was before him; and what shall be after him, who can tellhim?' It may be, the next lord of these lands will be a hard man, whowill oppress his serfs, or at any rate take no care for their comfort. Poor souls! let them be happy as long as they can. "

"When I last saw your Lordship, you seemed to think that short boundarytoo long for your wishes. "

"It is seven years since that, " answered the Earl. "It hardly seems sofar away now. And lately, Father--I scarcely can tell how--I haveimagined that my life will not be long. It makes me the more anxious todo all I can ere `the night cometh in which no man can work. '"

The Prior looked critically and anxiously at his patron. The sevenyears which he had passed in sorrowful loneliness had aged him more thanseven years ought to have done. He was not fifty yet, but he wasbeginning to look like an old man. The burden and heat of the day weretelling on him sadly. 

"Right, my Lord, " replied the Prior; "yet let me beg of your Lordshipnot to over-weary yourself. Your life is a precious thing to alldependent on you, and not less to us, your poor bedesmen here. "

"Ah, Father! is my life precious to any one?" was the response, with asad smile. 

"Indeed it is, " answered the Prior earnestly. "As your Lordship hasjust said, he who shall come after you may be harsh and unkind, and yourpoor serfs may sorely feel the change. No man has a right to throw awaylife, my Lord, and you have much left to live for. "

Perhaps the Earl had grown a little morbid. Was it any wonder if hehad? He shook his head. 

"We have but one life, " continued the Prior, "and it is our duty to makethe best of it--that is, to do God's will with it. And when it is God'swill to say unto us, `Come up higher, ' we may be sorry that we haveserved Him no better, but not, I think, that we have given no more timeto our own ease, nor even to our own sorrows. "

"And yet, " said the Earl, resting his head upon one hand, "one getsvery, very tired sometimes of living. "

"Cannot we trust our Father to call us to rest when we really need it?"asked the Prior. "Nor is it well that in looking onward to the futureglory we should miss the present rest to be had by coming to Him, andcasting all our cares and burdens at His feet. "

"Does He always take them?"

"Always--if we give them. But there is such a thing as asking Him totake them, and holding them out to Him, and yet keeping fast hold of theother end ourselves. He will hardly take what we do not give. "

The Earl looked earnestly into his friend's eyes. 

"Father, I will confess that these seven years--nay! what am I saying?these eight-and-twenty--I have not been willing that God should do Hiswill. I wanted my will done. For five-and-forty years, ever since Icould lisp the words, I have been saying to Him with my lips, _Fiatvoluntas tua_. But only within the last few days have I really said toHim in my heart, Lord, have Thy way. It seemed to me--will you think itvery dreadful if I confess it?--that I wanted but one thing, and that itwas very hard of God not to let me have it. I did not say such a thingin words; I could talk fluently of being resigned to His will, but downat the core of my heart I was resigned to everything but one, and I wasnot resigned to that at all. And I think I only became resigned when Igave over trying and working at resignation, and sank down, like a tiredchild, at my Father's feet. But now I am very tired, and I would fainthat my Father would take me up in His arms. "

The Prior did not speak. He could not. He only looked very sorrowfullyinto the worn face of the heart-wearied man, with a conviction which hewas unable to repress, that the time of the call to come up higher wasnot far away. He would have been thankful to disprove his conclusion, but to stifle it he dared not. 

"I hope, " said the Earl in the same low tone, "that there are quietcorners in Heaven where weary men and women may lie down and rest awhile at our Lord's feet. I feel unfit to take a place all at once inthe angelic choir. Not unready to praise--I mean not that--only tooweary, just at first, to care for anything but rest. "

There were tears burning under the Prior's eyelids; but he was silentstill. That was not his idea of Heaven; but then he was less weary ofearth. He felt almost vexed that the only passage of Scripture whichwould come to him was one utterly unsuited to the occasion--"They restnot day nor night. " Usually fluent and fervent, he was tongue-tied justthen. 

"Did Christ our Lord need the rest of His three days and nights in thegrave?" suggested the Earl, thoughtfully. "He must have been very wearyafter the agony of His cross. I think He must have been very tired ofHis life altogether. For was it not one passion from Bethlehem toCalvary? And He could hardly have been one of those strong men whonever seem to feel tired. Twice we are told that He was weary--when Hesat on the well, and when He slept in the boat. Father, I ought to askyour pardon for speaking when I should listen, and seeming to teachwhere I ought to be taught. "

"Nay, my Lord, say not so, I pray you. " The Prior found his voice atlast. "I have learned to recognise my Master's voice, whether I hear itfrom the rostrum of the orator or from the lowly hovel of the serf. Andit is not the first time that I have heard it in yours. "

The Earl looked up with an expression of surprise, and then shook hishead again with a smile. 

"Nay, good Father, flatter me not so far. "

He might have added more, but the sound of an iron bar beaten on awooden board announced the hour of supper. The Earl conversed almostcheerfully with the Prior and his head officers during supper; andAdemar remarked to the Cellarer that he had not for a long while seenhis master so like his old self. 

The first of October rose clear and bright. At Berkhamsted, the ladieswere spending the morning in examining the contents of a pedlar'swell-stocked pack, and buying silk, lawn, furs, and trimmings for thewedding. At Ashridge, the Earl was walking up and down the Priorygarden, looking over the dilapidations which time had wrought in hismonastery, and noting on his tables sundry items in respect of which hemeant to repair the ravages. At Romsey, Mother Margaret, in her blackpatched habit and up-turned sleeves, was washing out the conventrefectory, and thereby, she fervently hoped, washing her sins out ofexistence--without a thought of the chivalrous love which would have sether high above all such menial labour, and would never have permittedeven the winds of heaven to "visit her cheek too roughly. " Did it neveroccur to her that she might have allowed the Redeemer of men to "makeher salvation" for her, and yet have allowed herself to make herhusband's life something better to him than a weary burden?

The day's work was over, and the recreation time had come. The Prior ofAshridge tapped at the door of the guest-chamber, and was desired toenter. 

He found the Earl turning over the leaves of his Psalter. 

"Look here, Father, " said the latter, pointing out the fifteenth verseof the ninetieth Psalm. 

"We are glad for the days wherein Thou didst humiliate us; the yearswherein we have seen evil. "

"What does that mean?" said the Earl. "Is it that we thank God for theafflictions He has given us? It surely does not mean--I hope not--thatour comfort is to last just as long as our afflictions have lasted, andnot a day longer. "

"Ah, my Lord, God is no grudging giver, " answered the Prior. "The versebefore it, methinks, will reply to your Lordship--`we exult and are gladall our days. ' All our earthly life have we been afflicted; all ourheavenly one shall we be made glad. "

"Glad! I hardly know what the word means, " was the pathetic reply. 

"You will know it then, " said the Prior. 

"You will--but shall I? I have been such an unprofitable servant!"

"Nay, good my Lord, but are you going to win Heaven by your own works?"eagerly demanded the Bonus Homo. "`Beginning in the spirit, are yeconsummated in the flesh?' Surely you have not so learned Christ. HathHe not said, `Life eternal give I to them; and they shall not perish forever, and none shall snatch them out of My hand'?"

"True, " said the Earl, bowing his head. 

But this was Vaudois teaching. And though Earl Edmund, first of all menin England, had drunk in the Vaudois doctrines, yet even in him they hadto struggle with a mass of previous teaching which required to beunlearned--with all that rubbish of man's invention which Rome has builtup on the One Foundation. It was hard, at times, to keep the old ghostsfrom coming back, and troubling by their shadowy presence the soul whomChrist had brought into His light. 

There was silence for a time. The Earl's head was bent forward upon hisclasped hands on the table, and the Prior, who thought that he might bepraying, forbore to disturb him. At length he said, "My Lord, thesupper-hour is come. "

The Earl gave no answer, and the Prior thought he had dropped asleep. He waited till the board was struck with the iron bar as the signal forsupper. Then he rose and addressed the Earl again. The silencedistressed him now. He laid his hand upon his patron's shoulder, butthere was no response. Gently, with a sudden and terrible fear, helifted the bowed head and looked into his face. And then he knew thatthe weary heart was glad at last--that life eternal in His beatificpresence had God given to him. From far and near the physicians weresummoned that night, but only to tell the Prior what he already knew. They stood round the bed on which the corpse had been reverently laid, and talked of his mysterious disease in hard words of sonorous Latin. It would have been better had they called it in simple English what itwas--a broken heart. Why such a fate was allotted to one of the best ofall our princes, He knows who came to bind up the broken-hearted, andwho said by the lips of His prophet, "Reproach hath broken mine heart. "

Ademar was sent back to Berkhamsted with the woeful news. There wasbitter mourning there. It was not, perhaps, in many of the household, unmixed with selfish considerations, for to a large proportion of themthe death of their master meant homelessness for the present, and tonearly all sad apprehensions for the future. Yet there was a great dealthat was not selfish, for the gentle, loving, humane, self-abnegatingspirit of the dead had made him very dear to all his dependants, andmore hearts wept for him than he would ever have believed possible. 

But there was one person in especial to whom it was felt the news oughtto be sent. The Prior despatched no meaner member of the Order, butwent himself to tell the dark tidings at Romsey. 

He pleaded hard for a private interview with the Countess, but thereigning Abbess of Romsey was a great stickler for rule, and she decidedthat it was against precedent, and therefore propriety, that one of hernuns should be thus singled out from the rest. The announcement must bemade in the usual way, to the whole convent, at vespers. 

So, in the well-known tones of the Prior of Ashridge, --some time theEarl's confessor, and his frequent visitor, --with the customary requestto pray for the repose of the dead, to the ears of Mother Margaret, asshe knelt in her stall with the rest, came the sound of the familiarname of Edmund, Earl of Cornwall. 

Very tender and pathetic was the tone in which the intimation was given. The heart of the Prior himself was so wrung that he could not imaginesuch a feeling as indifference in that of the woman who had been thedearest thing earth held for that dead man. But if he looked down thelong row of black, silent figures for any sign or sound, he looked invain. There was not even a trembling of Mother Margaret's black veil asher voice rose untroubled in the response with all the rest--

 "_O Jesu dulcis! O Jesu pie! O Jesu, Fili Maria! Dona eis requiem_. "

In the recreation-time which followed, the Prior sought out MotherMargaret. He found her without difficulty, seated on a form at the sideof the room, talking to a sister nun, and he caught a few words of theconversation as he approached. 

"I assure thee, Sister Regina, it is quite a mistake. Mother Wymarcatold me distinctly that the holy Mother gave Sister Maud an unpatchedhabit, and it is all nonsense in her to say there was a patch on theelbow. "

The Prior bit his lips, but he restrained himself, and sat down, reverently saluted by both nuns as he did so. Was she trying to hideher feelings? thought he. 

"Sister Margaret, I brought you tidings, " he said, as calmly as was inhim. 

The nun turned upon him a pair of cold, steel-blue eyes, as calm andirresponsive as if he had brought her no tidings whatever. 

"I heard them, Father, if it please you. Has he left any will?"

The priest-nature in the Prior compelled him officially to avoid anyreprehension of this perfect monastic calm; but the human nature, whichin his case lay beneath it, was surprised and repelled. 

"He has left a will, wherein you are fully provided for. "

"Oh, that is nice!" said Mother Margaret, in tones of unquestionablegratulation. "And how much am I to have? Of course I care about itonly for the sake of the Abbey. "

The Prior had his private ideas on that point; for, as he well knew, thevow of poverty was somewhat of a formality in the Middle Ages, since thenun who brought to her convent a title and a fortune was usually nottreated in the same manner as a penniless commoner. 

"The customary dower to a widow, Sister. "

"Do you mean to say I am only to have my third? Well, I call thatshameful! And so fond of me as he always professed to be! I thought hewould have left me everything. "

The Prior experienced a curious sensation in his right arm, which, hadMother Margaret not been a woman, or had he been less of a Christian anda Church dignitary, might have resulted in the measuring of her lengthon the floor of the recreation-room. But she was totally unconscious ofany such feeling on his part. Her heart--or that within her which didduty for one--had been touched at last. 

"Well, I do call it disgraceful!" she repeated. 

"And is that all?" asked the Prior involuntarily, and not by any meansin consonance with his duty as a holy priest addressing a veiled nun. But priests and nuns have no business with hearts of any sort, and heought to have known this as well as she did. 

"All?" she said, with a rather puzzled look in the frosty blue eyes. "Iwould it had been a larger sum, Father; for the convent's sake, ofcourse. "

"And am I to hear no word of regret, Sister, for the man to whom youwere all the world?"

This was, of course, a most shocking speech, considering the speaker andthe person whom he addressed; but it came warm from that inconvenientheart which had no business to be beneath the Prior's cassock. MotherMargaret was scandalised, and she showed it in her face, which awoke hercompanion to the fact that he was not speaking in character. That aprofessed nun should be expected to feel personal and unspiritualinterest in an extern! and, as if that were not enough, in a man!Mother Margaret's sense of decorum was quite outraged. 

"How could such thoughts trouble the blessed peace of a holy sister?"she wished to know. "Pardon me, Father; I shall pray for his soul, ofcourse. What could I do more?"

And the Prior recognised at last that to the one treasure of that deadman's heart, the news he brought was less than it had been to him. 

He bit his lips severely. It was all he could do to keep from tellingher that the pure, meek, self-abnegating soul which had passed fromearth demanded far fewer prayers than the cold, hard, selfish spiritwhich dwelt within her own black habit. 

"It is I who require pardon, Sister, " he said, in a constrained voice. "May our Lord in His mercy forgive us all!"

He made no further attempt to converse with Mother Margaret. But, as hepassed her a few minutes later, he heard that she and Sister Regina hadgone back to the previous subject, which they were discussing with someinterest in their tones. 

"O woman, woman!" groaned the Prior, in his heart; "the patch on SisterMaud's elbow is more to thee than all the love thou hast lost. Ah, mydear Lord! it is not you that I mourn. You are far better hence. "

From which speech it will be seen that the Bonus Homo was very far frombeing a perfect monk. 

The actions of Mother Margaret admirably matched her words. She gaveherself heart and soul to the important business of securing hermiserable third of her dead lord's lands and goods. Not till they weresafe in her possession did she allow herself any rest. 

Did the day ever come when her feelings changed? During the ten yearswhich she outlived the man who had loved her with every fibre of hiswarm, great heart, did her heart ever turn regretfully, when Abbesseswere harsh or life was miserable, to the thought of that tender, faithful love which, so far as in it lay, would have sheltered her lifefrom every breath of discomfort? Did she ever in all those ten yearswhisper to herself--

 "Oh, if he would but come again, I think I'd vex him so no more!"

Did she ever murmur such words as--

 "I was not worthy of you, Douglas, Not half worthy the like of you!"

. . . Words which, honestly sobbed forth in very truth, would have been farnearer real penitence than all the "acts of contrition" which passed herlips day by day. 

God knoweth. Men will never know. But all history and experience tendto assure us that women such as Margaret de Clare usually die as theyhave lived, and that of all barriers to penitence and conversion thereis none so hard to overthrow as indulged malice and deliberate hardeningof the heart against the love of God and man. 

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There was not, as Piers and Clarice had feared there might have been, any misfortune to them in the way of preventing their marriage. KingEdward had great respect for justice and honour, and finding that hiscousin had, though without legal formalities, granted Clarice's marriageto Piers, he confirmed the grant, and Father Bevis married them quietlyin the chapel of Berkhamsted Castle, without any festivity orrejoicings, for the embalmed body of the master to whom they owed somuch lay in state in the banquet-hall. It was a mournful ceremony, where--

 "The cheers that had erst made the welkin ring Were drowned in the tears that were shed for the King. "

Clarice and Piers made no attempt to obtain any further promotion. Theyretired to a little estate in Derbyshire, which shortly afterwards fellto Piers, and there they spent their lives, in serving their generationaccording to the will of God, often brightened by visits from Ademar andHeliet, who had taken up their abode not far from them in theneighbouring county of Rutland. And as time went on, around Claricegrew up brave sons and fair daughters, to all of whom she made a veryloving mother; but, perhaps, no one was ever quite so dear to her heartas the star which had gleamed on her life the brighter for thesurrounding darkness, the little white rosebud which had been gatheredfor the garden of God. 

 "In other springs her life might be In bannered bloom unfurled; But never, never match her wee White Rose of all the world. "

It was not until the spring which followed his death was blooming intogreen leaves and early flowers that the coffin of Edmund, Earl ofCornwall, was borne to the magnificent Abbey of Hales inGloucestershire, founded by his father. There they laid him down byfather and mother--the grand, generous, spendthrift Prince who had sonearly borne the proud title of Caesar Augustus, and the fair, soft, characterless Princess who had been crowned with him as Queen of theRomans. For the Prince who was laid beside them that Easter afternoon, the world had prepared what it considers a splendid destiny. Throne anddiadem, glory and wealth, love and happiness, were to have been his, sofar as it lay in the world's power to give them; but on most of allthese God had laid His hand, and forbidden them to come near the soulwhich He had marked for His own. For him there was to be anincorruptible crown, but no corruptible; the love of the Lord thatbought him, but not the love of the woman on whom he set his heart. Now--whatever he may have thought on earth--now, standing on the sea ofglass, and having the harp of God, he knows which was the betterportion. 

He wore no crown; he founded no dynasty; he passed away, like a namewritten in water, followed only by the personal love of a few heartswhich were soon dust like him, and by the undying curses and calumniesof the Church which he had done his best to purify against her will. But shall we, looking back across the six centuries which lie between usand him who brought Protestantism into England--shall we write on hisgravestone in the ruined Abbey of Hales, "This man lived in vain?"

THE END.