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 civilised world. It was the end of the Crusades, the Turks driving the Christians from Acre, the last place which they held in Palestine. It opened with the submission of the Scottish succession to the arbitrament of Edward the First, and it closed with the funeral of his mother, Queen Eléonore of Provence—a woman whom England was not able to thank for one good deed during her long and stormy reign. She had been a youthful beauty, she wrote poetry, and she had never scandalised the nation by any impropriety of womanly conduct. But these three statements close the list of her virtues. She was equally grasping, unscrupulous, and extravagant. 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 the autumn of 1291. No voice had whispered to her, all through her long life 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 Fulk de Chaucombe and Diana had been promoted to the royal household—the former as attendant upon the King, the latter as Lady of the Bedchamber to his eldest daughter, the Princess Alianora, who, though twenty-seven years of age, was still unmarried. It was a cause of some surprise in her household that the Countess of Cornwall did not fill up the vacancy created among her maidens by the marriages of Clarice and Diana. But when December came it was evident that before she did so she meant to make the vacancy still more complete.
One dark afternoon in that cheerful month, the Lady Margaret marched into the bower, where her female attendants usually sat when not engaged in 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 on Monday morning.”
Olympias showed slight signs of going into hysterics, which being observed by the Lady Margaret, she calmly desired Felicia to fetch a jug of water. On this hint of what was likely to happen to her if she imprudently screamed or fainted, Olympias managed to recover.
“Ye are to wed the two squires,” observed their imperious mistress. “I gave 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 you your 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 as that comes to.”
An hour or two later, however, Mistress Underdone appeared, in a state of 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,” added she, laughing, “that incense was as breath of life to Narcissus, and he would needs choose the maid that should burn plenty on his altar. But—the thing is fair unheard of!—Ademar de Gernet refuses to wed under direction 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 for thus dealing; but having given his heart to another of the Lady’s damsels, 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 Lady hath sent for him hither, to know of him in thy presence what he would be at.”
“Ha, chétife!” 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 down on the curule chair which Mistress Underdone set for her, looking like a judge, and a very stern one, too. In another minute the culprit made his 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 to this young damsel”—and De Gernet turned and bowed to Roisia. “This it means, that I dearly love another of your Ladyship’s damsels, and I do most 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—Heliet Pride.”
The faces in the bower just then might have furnished a study for an artist. Those of Clarice and Olympias expressed surprise mixed with some pleasure; so did Mistress Underdone’s, but the degree of both was intense. The Countess looked half vexed and wholly astonished, with a little contempt superadded. Felicia’s face foreboded nothing but ill to either Ademar or Heliet.
“Heliet Pride!” cried the Countess sharply. “Why, man, she goes on crutches!”
“They will carry her to the chapel, with my Lady’s leave,” answered De Gernet, coolly.
“Gramercy, but thou wilt have a lovely wife! There’ll be no pride in her outside her name,” said the Countess, with a grim smile at her own joke. 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,” responded De Gernet, in the same tone.
“Eh, thou shalt have her,” said the Countess. “I shall get Roisia disposed of a sight easier than Heliet. So be it. Roisia, thou canst still prepare for thy bridal; I will find somebody by Monday morning.”
The Countess was rising from her chair, when Sir Lambert, after a glance at Roisia, observed that if her Ladyship found any difficulty in that selection, he had no particular objection to be chosen.
“You!” said the Countess. “Oh, very good; it will save trouble. Let it be so.”
Roisia appeared to be, if anything, rather gratified by the exchange. But Clarice, looking into the dark, passionate eyes of Felicia, felt troubled for the happiness of Heliet.
Olympias, like Clarice, was promoted to a vacancy among the ladies of the bedchamber. But Sir Lambert and Roisia passed away from the life at Whitehall. The new Maids of Honour were speedily appointed. Their names 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 train the Earl and Countess of Cornwall, with their household, moved north as far as Oakham. The household had been increased by one more, for in the April previous Clarice Barkeworth became the mother of a little girl. This was the first event which helped to reconcile her to her lot. She had been honestly trying hard to do her duty by Vivian, who scarcely seemed to think that he had any duty towards her, beyond the obvious one of civility in public. All thought of Piers Ingham had been resolutely crushed down, except when it came—as it sometimes did—in the form of a dream of bliss from which she awoke to desolation. A miserable day was sure to follow one of those dreams. The only other moment when she allowed herself to think of him was in her evening prayer.
It was a relief to Clarice that she had never heard a word of Piers since he left Whitehall. Her work would have been harder if his name had remained a household word. And yet in another sense it was hard never 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 shared with the rest. In private she was terribly snubbed whenever he was in a bad temper, and carelessly ignored when he was in a good one. The baby daughter, who was such a comfort to Clarice, was a source of bitter vexation to Vivian. In his eyes, while a son would have been an undoubted blessing, a daughter was something actively worse than a disappointment. When Clarice timidly inquired what name he wished the child to bear, Vivian distinctly intimated that the child and all her belongings were totally beneath his notice. She could call the nuisance what she liked.
Clarice silently folded her insulted darling to her breast, and tacitly promised 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, common name. 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 not called 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, or Sauncelina. Let her have a good, honest name, Dame, one syllable, or at most 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 means a pretty, sweet, pleasant thing. I don’t know but I should have called my girl Rose, if I’d chosen her name; but her father fancied Heliet, and so 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 Rose Barkeworth in the chapel of the palace, the Earl standing sponsor for her, with the Lady de Chaucombe and the Lady de Echingham. The Countess had been asked, but to Clarice’s private satisfaction had declined, for she would much rather have had the Earl, and the canon law forbade husband 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, and was given to long, silent reveries, which had not been usual with her.
Filomena, who was of a lively turn of mind, declared that life at Whitehall was becoming absolutely intolerable, and that she should be thankful 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, leaning on her crutches, ready to welcome them with smiles in the hall. No news had reached her of their proceedings, and there was a great deal to tell her; but Heliet and the baby took to one another in an instant, as if by some unseen magical force.
The item of news which most concerned herself was not told to Heliet that night. The next morning, when all were seated at work, and baby Rose, 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 a great 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 did not care for thy crutches so they carried thee safe to chapel; and he ran the risk of offending the Lady to get thee. So I reckon he sets some store by thee, lass.”
“Who is it?” said Heliet, in a low voice, while a bright red spot burned in each cheek.
“Ademar de Gernet.” Two or three voices told her. The bright spots burned 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 Rose gently 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’s eyes, which made her sigh for herself. Then, looking further, she perceived a depth of black hate in those of Felicia de Fay, which made her tremble for Heliet.
It appeared very shortly that the Countess was in a hurry to get the wedding over. Perhaps she was weary of weddings in her household, for she did not seem to be in a good temper about this. She always thought Heliet would have had a vocation, she said, which would have been far better for her, with her lameness, than to go limping into chapel to be wed. She wondered nobody saw the impropriety of it. However, as she had promised De Gernet, she supposed it must be so. She did not know what she herself could have been thinking about to make such a foolish promise. 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 receiving knighthood from the Earl at the close of the ceremony.
Mistress Underdone had petitioned that her lame and only child might not be separated from her, and the Countess—according to her own authority, in a moment of foolishness—had granted the petition. So Heliet was drafted among the Ladies of the Bedchamber, but only as an honorary distinction.
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 her oratory for the remainder of the day. Clarice thought, and Heliet agreed with her, that something was going to happen. Once, too, as Clarice was carrying Rose along the terrace, she was met by the Earl, who stopped and noticed the child, as in his intense and unsatisfied love for little children he always did. Clarice thought he looked even unwontedly sorrowful.
From the child, Earl Edmund looked up into the pleased eyes of the young mother.
“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 be content 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 any form,” 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 her body was as starved as her mind, and she should be frozen to death if she stayed any longer. The next day, to everybody’s astonishment, the Countess issued orders to pack up for travelling. Sir Vivian and Clarice were to go with her—where, she did not say. So were Olympias, Felicia, and Ada. Mistress Underdone, Sir Reginald, Sir Ademar and Heliet, Filomena and Sabina, were left behind at Oakham.
Olympias grumbled extremely at being separated from her husband, and Filomena 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. I doubt if Sir Vivian and his dame will return at all. Ada certainly will not.”
“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. And what 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 lady had during the past few months been trying her best to make Heliet miserable. She began by attempting to flirt with Sir Ademar, but she found him completely impervious material. Her arrows glanced upon his shield, and simply dropped off without further notice. Then she took to taunting Heliet with her lameness, but Heliet kept her temper. Next she sneered at her religious views. Heliet answered her gently, gravely, but held her own with undiminished calmness. This point had been reached when the Countess’s order was given to depart from Oakham.
Even those least disposed to note the signs of the times felt the pressure of some impending calamity. The strange manner of the Countess, the restless misery of the Earl, whom they all loved, the busy, bustling, secretly-triumphant air of Father Miles—all denoted some hidden working. Father Bevis had been absent for some weeks, and when he returned he wore the appearance of a baffled and out-wearied man.
“He looks both tired and disappointed,” remarked Clarice to Heliet.
“He looks,” said Heliet, “like a man who had been trying very hard to scale the wall of a tower, and had been flung back, bruised and helpless, upon the stones below.”
During the four months last spent at Oakham, Clarice had been absolutely silent to Heliet on the subject of her own peculiar trouble. Perhaps she might have remained so, had it not been for the approaching separation. But her lips were unsealed by the strong possibility that they might never meet again. It was late on the last evening that Clarice spoke, as she sat rocking Rose’s cradle. She laid bare her heart before Heliet’s sympathising eyes, until she could trace the whole weary journey through the arid desert sands.
“And now tell me, friend,” Clarice ended, “why our Lord deals so differently with thee and with me. Are we not both His children? Yet to thee He hath given the desire of thine heart, and on mine He lays His hand, and says, ‘No, child, thou must not have it.’”
“I suppose, beloved,” was Heliet’s gentle answer, “that the treatment suitable for consumption will not answer for fever. We are both sick of the deadly disease of sin; but it takes a different development in each. Shall we wonder if the Physician bleeds the one, and administers strengthening 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 mistake not—to alter the figure—we have arrived at different points in our education. If one of us can but decline ‘puer,’ while the other is half through the syntax, is it any wonder if the same lesson be not given to us to learn? Dear Clarice, all God’s children need keeping down. 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 we either marvel or murmur because our Father sees that each needs a different class of discipline?”
“Oh, Heliet, if I might have had thine! It seems to me so much the lighter cross to carry.”
“Then, dear, I am the less honoured—the further from the full share of the 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 the writings of the holy Fathers. There were once two monks, dwelling in hermits’ cells near to each other, each of whom had one choice tree given him to cultivate. When this had lasted a year, the tree of the one was in flourishing health, while that of the other was all stunted and bare. ‘Why, brother,’ said the first, ‘what hast thou done to thy tree?’ ‘Now, judge thou, my brother,’ replied the second, ‘if I could possibly have done more for my tree than I have done. I watched it carefully 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 for north wind or south wind, as I saw them needed. All that I asked, I received; 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 would fain try it next year.’ The other monk said only, ‘I prayed God to make my 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, with trembling lips.
“And a hedge to shelter the root of the tree,” said Heliet, pointing to Rose.
“Oh, my little Rosie!” exclaimed Clarice, kissing the child passionately. “But if God were to take her, Heliet, what would become of me?”
“Do not meet trouble half way, dear,” said Heliet, gently. “There is no apparent 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 evil thereof.’”
“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 after to-morrow—the day when we shall awake up after Christ’s likeness, and be satisfied with it—when the Lord our God shall come, and all the saints with Him. Dear, a gem cannot be engraved without the cutting-tools. Wouldst thou rather be spared the pain of the cutting than 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 tool must cut deep.”
“If one could ever know that it was nearly done, it would be easier to bear it.”
“Ay, but how if the vision were granted us, and we saw that it was not nearly done by many a year? It is better not to know, dear. Yet it is natural 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 hath believed.’”
“I do think,” said poor Clarice, drearily, “that I must be the worst tried of all His people.”
“Clarice,” answered Heliet, in a low voice, “I believe there is one in this very castle far worse tried than thou—a cross borne which is ten times heavier than thine, and has no rose-bud twined around it. And it is carried with the patience of an angel, with the unselfish forgetfulness of Christ. The tool is going very deep there, and already the portrait stands out in beautiful relief. And that cross will never be 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, and it 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 his trouble is.”
“The sorrow of being actively hated by the only one whom he loves. The prospect of being left to die, in wifeless and childless loneliness—that terrible loneliness of soul which is so much worse to bear than any mere physical solitude. God, for some wise reason, has shut him up to Himself. 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.’ A wedded man in the eyes of the world, God has called him in reality to be an anchorite of the Order of Providence, to follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth. And unless mine eyes see very wrongly into the future—as would God they did!—the Master is about to lead this dear servant into the Gethsemane of His passion, that he may be fashioned like Him in all things. Ah, Clarice, that takes close cutting!”
“Heliet, what dost thou mean? Canst thou guess what the Lady is about to do?”
“I think she is going to leave him.”
“Alone?—for ever?”
“For earth,” said Heliet, softly. “God be thanked, that is not for ever.”
“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 more than 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 change with thee than with Sir Edmund the Earl; and a hundred times rather with thee than with the Lady Margaret. It is hard to suffer; but it is worse to be the occasion of suffering. Let me die a thousand times over with Saint 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 up longer. Good-night, sweetheart, and many thanks for thy counsel. It is all true, I know; yet—”
“In twenty years, may be—or at the longest, when thou hast seen His Face in righteousness—dear Clarice, thou wilt know it, and want to add no yet.”
The soft tap of Heliet’s crutches had died away, but Clarice stood still with the child in her arms.
“It must be yet now, however,” she said, half aloud. “Do Thy will with me—cut me and perfect me; but, O God, leave me, leave me Rosie!”