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, withered article which Vivian Barkeworth called his soul, was unable to pardon Clarice for having shown herself morally so much his superior. That his wife should be better than himself was in his eyes an inversion of the proper order of things. And as of course it was impossible that he should be to blame, why, it must be her fault Clarice found herself most cruelly snubbed for days after her interference in behalf of her graceless husband. Not in public; for except in the one instance of this examination, where his sense of shame and guilt had overcome him for a moment, Vivian’s company manners were faultless, and a surface observer would have pronounced him a model husband. Poor Clarice had learned by experience that any restraint which Vivian put upon himself when inwardly vexed, was sure to rebound on her devoted head in the form of after suffering in private.
To Clarice herself the reaction came soon and severely. On the evening before Rosie’s funeral, Heliet found her seated by the little bier in the hall, gazing dreamily on the face of her lost darling, with dry eyes and strained expression. She sat down beside her. Clarice took no notice. Heliet scarcely knew how to deal with her. If something could be said which would set the tears flowing it might save her great suffering; yet to say the wrong thing might do more harm than good. The supper-bell rang before she had made up her mind. As they rose Clarice slipped 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 to the hall where Rosie lay. To her astonishment, she found a sudden and touching change in the surroundings of the dead child. Rosie lay now wreathed round in white rosebuds, tastefully disposed, as by a hand which 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, and eyes 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 must not know.”
“Certainly not,” he said, quietly. “Tell her nothing; let her think, if she 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 be glad to hear it—when she meets the child again.”
He glided out of the hall so softly that Heliet did not hear him go, and only looked up and found herself alone. She knelt for a few minutes by the bier and then went quietly to her own room.
The next morning there were abundance of conjectures as to who could have paid this tender and graceful tribute. The Earl was generally suspected, but he at once said that it was no doing of his. Everybody was asked, and all denied it. Father Bevis was appealed to, as being better acquainted with the saints than the rest of the company, to state whether he thought it probable that one of them had been the agent. But Father Bevis’s strong common sense declined to credit any but human hands with the deed.
Clarice was one of the last to appear. And when the sweet, fair tribute to her darling broke suddenly upon her sight, the result was attained for which all had been more or less hoping. That touch of nature set the floodgates open, and dropping on her knees beside the bier, Clarice poured forth a rain of passionate tears.
When all was over, and Rosie had been hidden away from sight until the angel-trump should call her, Clarice and Heliet went out together on the Castle green. They sat down on one of the seats in an embrasure. The Earl, with his thoughtful kindness, seeing them, sent word to the commandant to keep the soldiers within so long as the ladies chose to stay there. So they were left undisturbed.
Heliet was longing intensely to comfort Clarice, but she felt entirely at a loss what line to take. Clarice relieved her perplexity by being the first to speak.
“Heliet!” she said, “what does God mean by this?”
“I cannot tell, dear heart, except that He means love and mercy. ‘All the ways of the Lord are mercy and truth unto the lovers of His will and testimony.’ 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 thou hast?”
“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 leave me 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 a shrinking one. Just in that first agony, to be content with it seemed beyond human nature.
Heliet laid her hand on that of her friend. “Dear, would you have had Rosie suffer as you have done?”
For a moment Clarice’s mental eyes ran forward, over what would most likely, according to human prevision, have been the course of Rosie’s after 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 Vivian Barkeworth’s daughter. He would have disposed of her without a thought of her own wish, and no prayers nor tears from her would have availed to turn him from his purpose. No—it was well with the child.
“Thou art right,” she said, in a pained voice. “It is better for Rosie as it is. But for me?”
“Leave that with God. He will show thee some day that it was better for thee too.”
Clarice rose from her seat; but not till she had said the one thing which Heliet had been hoping that she would not say.
“Who could have laid those flowers there? Heliet, canst thou form any idea? Dost thou think it was an angel?”
Heliet had an excuse in settling her crutches for delaying her reply for a moment. Then she said in a low tone, the source of whose tenderness it was well that Clarice could not guess—“I am not sure, dear, that it was not.”
If Clarice’s sufferings had been passive before, they began to be active now. 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 so carefully veiled in courtesy that not one of her friends guessed how much she really suffered. As much time as she could she spent in her oratory, which was the only place where Vivian left her at peace, under a vague idea that it would bring him ill luck to interrupt any one’s prayers. Unfortunately for Clarice, he had caught a glimpse of Piers, and, having no conscientiousness in his own composition, he could not imagine it in that of another. That Piers should be at Berkhamsted without 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 who had no faith in any human being. In his belief, the only possible means to prevent Clarice from running away with Piers was to keep her either in his sight or locked up when out of it. The idea of trusting to her principles would have struck him as simply ridiculous.
Sir Piers, however, had completely disappeared, as completely as though he had never been seen. And after a while Vivian grew more confident, and not so particular about keeping the key turned. Clarice knew neither why he locked her in, nor why he gave over doing so. Had she had a suspicion of the reason, her indignation would not have been small.
Public affairs meanwhile maintained their interest. The King marched his army to Scotland, and routed Wallace’s troops in the battle of Falkirk; but his success was somewhat counterbalanced by the burning of Westminster Palace and Abbey before he left home. It was about this time that Piers Gavestone began to appear at Court, introduced by his father with a view to making his fortune; and to the misfortune of the young Prince Edward, their musical tastes being alike, they became fast friends. The Prince was now only fourteen years of age; and, led by Gavestone, he was guilty—if indeed the charge be true—of a mischievous boyish frolic, in “breaking the parks” of the Bishop of Chester, and appropriating his deer. The boy was fond of venison, and he was still more fond of pets; but neither of these facts excused the raid on the Bishop of Chester, who chose to take the offence far more seriously than any modern bishop would be likely to do, and carried his complaint to the King. The royal father, as his wont was, flew into a passion, and weighted the boys’ frolic with the heavy penalty of banishment for Gavestone, and imprisonment for the Prince. In all probability young Edward had never looked on his action in any other light than as a piece of fun. Had his father been concerned about the sin committed against God—exactly the sin of a boy who robs an orchard—he might, with less outward severity, have produced a far more wholesome impression on his son; but what he considered appears to have been merely the dignity of the Prince, which was outraged by the act of the boy who bore the title. A quiet, grave exhortation might have done him good, but imprisonment did none, and left on many minds the impression that the boy had been hardly used.
One striking feature in the conduct of Edward the Second is the remarkable meekness and submission with which he bore his father’s angry outbursts and severe punishments—often administered for mere youthful follies, such as most fathers would think amply punished by a strong lecture, and perhaps a few strokes of the cane. Edward the First seems to 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 the provocation received from his heir; for in the month of September following (1299) he was married at Canterbury to the Princess Marguerite of France. It was a case approaching that of Rachel and Leah, for it was the beautiful Princess Blanche for whom the King had been in treaty, and Marguerite was foisted on him by a process of crafty diplomacy not far removed from treachery. However, since Marguerite, though not so fair as her sister, proved the better woman of the two, the King had no reason to be disappointed in the end.
The Council of Regency established in Scotland, discontented with Edward’s arbitration, referred the question of their independence to the Pope, and that wily potentate settled the matter in his own interests, by declaring Scotland a fief of the Holy See. The King was still warring in that vicinity; the young Queen was left with her baby boy in Yorkshire to await his return.
It was a hot July day, and Vivian, who highly disapproved of the stagnation of Berkhamsted, declared his intention of going out to hunt. People hunted in all weathers and seasons in the Middle Ages. Ademar declined to accompany him, and he contented himself by taking two of the Earl’s squires and a handful of archers as company. The Earl did not interfere with Vivian’s proceedings. He was quite aware that the quiet which he loved was by no means to everybody’s taste; and he left his retinue at liberty to amuse themselves as they pleased.
Vivian did not think it necessary to turn the key on Clarice; but he gave 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. Clarice meekly promised to bear the recommendation in mind; and Vivian left her to her own devices.
The day dragged heavily. Mistress Underdone sat with Heliet and Clarice at work; but not much work was gone through, for in everybody’s opinion it was too hot to do anything. The tower in which they were was at the back of the Castle, and looked upon the inner court. The Earl’s apartments were in the next tower, and there, despite the heat, he was going over sundry grants and indentures with Father Bevis and his bailiff, always considering the comfort and advantage of his serfs and tenants. The sound of a horn outside warned the ladies that in all probability Vivian was returning home; and whether his temper were good, bad, or indifferent was likely to depend on the condition of his hunting-bags. Good, was almost too much to hope for. With a little smothered sigh Clarice ventured to hope that it might not be worse than indifferent. Her comfort for the next day or two would be much affected by it.
They looked out of the window, but all they saw was Ademar crossing the inner court with rapid steps, and disappearing within the Earl’s tower. There was some noise in the outer court, but no discernible solution of it. The ladies went back to their work. Much to their surprise, ten minutes later, the Earl himself entered the chamber. It was not at all his wont to come there. When he had occasion to send orders to Clarice concerning his household arrangements, he either sent for her or conveyed them through Vivian. These were the Countess’s rooms which they were now occupying, and the Earl had never crossed the threshold since she left the Castle.
They looked up, and saw in his face that he had news to tell them. And all at once Clarice rose and exclaimed—“Vivian!”
“Dame, I grieve to tell you that your knight has been somewhat hurt in his hunting.”
Clarice was not conscious of any feeling but the necessity of knowing all. 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 shocked surprise, to which Heliet’s look of horror formed a fitting corollary. Clarice was conscious only of a confused medley of feelings, from which none but a sense of amazement stood out in the foreground. Then the Earl quietly told her that, in leaping a wide ditch, Vivian had been thrown from his horse, and had never spoken more.
No one tried to comfort Clarice. Pitifully they all felt that comfort was not wanted now. The death of Rosie had been a crushing blow; but Vivian’s, however sudden, could hardly be otherwise than a relief. The only compassion that any one could feel was for him, for whom there was—
“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 a weight on Clarice’s conscience, though it was purely his own fault. Severely as she tried to judge herself, she could recall no instance in which, so far as such a thing can be said of any human sinner, she had not done her duty by that dead man. She had obeyed him in letter and spirit, however distasteful it had often been to herself; she had consulted his wishes before her own; she had even honestly tried to love him, and he had made it impossible. Now, she could not resist the overwhelming consciousness that his death was to her a release from her fetters—a coming out of prison. She was free from the perpetual drag of apprehension on the one hand, and of constantly endeavouring on the other to please a man who was determined not to be pleased. The spirit of the uncaged bird awoke within her—a sense of freedom, and light, and rest, such as she had not known for those eight weary years of her married slavery.
Yet the future was no path of roses to the eyes of Clarice. She was not free in the thirteenth century, in the sense in which she would have been 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 the Crown to concern its august self respecting their wishes, unless they bought leave to comply with them at a very costly price. By a singular perversion of justice, the tax upon a widow who purchased permission to remarry or not, at her pleasure, was far heavier than the fine exacted from a man who married a ward of the Crown without royal licence. The natural result of this arrangement was that the ladies who were either dowered widows or spinster heiresses very often contracted clandestine marriages, and their husbands quietly endured the subsequent fine and imprisonment, as unavoidable evils which were soon over, and well worth the advantage which they purchased.
It seemed, however, as if blessings, no less than misfortunes, were not to come single to Clarice Barkeworth. A few weeks after Vivian’s death, the Earl silently put a parchment into her hand, which conveyed to her the information that King Edward had granted to his well-beloved cousin, Edmund, Earl of Cornwall, the marriage of Clarice, widow of Vivian Barkeworth, knight, with the usual proviso that she was not to marry one of the King’s enemies. This was, indeed, something for which to be thankful. Clarice knew that her future was as safe in her master’s hands as in her own.
“Ah!” said Heliet, when that remark was made to her, “if we could only have 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 had Rosie?”
“I know not, dear Clarice, any more than Rosie knew, when she was a babe in thine arms, why thou gavest her bitter medicine. Oh, leave all that alone—our Master understands what He is doing.”
It was the middle of September, and about two months after Vivian’s death. Clarice sat sewing, robed in the white weeds of widowhood, in the room which she usually occupied in the Countess’s tower. The garments worn by a widow were at this time extremely strict and very unbecoming, though the period during which they were worn was much less stringent than now. From one to six months was as long as many widows remained in that condition. Heliet had not been seen for an hour or more, and Mistress Underdone, with some barely intelligible remarks very disparaging to “that Nell,” who stood, under her, at the head of the kitchen 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 became audible—
“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 a heap on the rushes, and nobody paid the slightest attention to it for a considerable time. Nor did any one come near the room until Heliet made her appearance, and she came so slowly, and heralded her approach by such emphatic raps of her crutches on the stone floor, that Clarice could scarcely avoid the conclusion that she was a conspirator in the plot. The head and front of it all, however, was manifestly Earl Edmund, who received Sir Piers with a smile and no other greeting—a distinct intimation that it was not the first time they had met that day.
The wedding—which nobody felt inclined to dispute—was fixed for the fifteenth of October. The Earl wished it to take place when he could be present and give away the bride, and he wanted first a fortnight’s retreat at Ashridge, to which place he had arranged to go on the last day of September. Sir Piers stepped at once into his old position, but the Earl took Ademar with him to Ashridge. He gave the grant of Clarice’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 like the present.”
Into Clarice’s hand her master put a shining pile of gold for the purchase of wedding garments and jewellery.
“I am glad,” he said, “that your path through life is coming to the roses now. I would hope the thorns are over for you—at least for some time. There have been no roses for me; but I can rejoice, I hope, with those for whom they blossom.”
And so he rode away from Berkhamsted, looking back to smile a farewell to Heliet and Clarice, as they stood watching him in the gateway. Long years afterwards they remembered that kind, almost affectionate, smile.
As the ladies turned into their own tower, and began to ascend the staircase—always a slow process with Heliet—Clarice said, “I cannot understand 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, for I know how much there is in me that needs setting right; but he—why he is 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 wouldst stop 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 fine enough to judge of that.”
“It seems almost a shame to be happy when I know he is not,” replied Clarice, the tears springing to her eyes; “our dear master, who has been to 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 her rooms.
“Ask God to do it,” was Heliet’s response.
They both asked Him that night. And He heard and answered them, but, as is often the case, not at all as they expected.