Chapter Three.
Belasez.
“And, born of Thee, she may not always take
Earth’s accents for the oracles of God.”
Felicia Hemans.
The last word had scarcely left the pedlar’s lips, when the door of the ante-chamber was flung open, and a boy of Margaret’s age burst into the room.
He was fair-haired and bright-faced, with a slender, elegant figure, and all his motions were very agile. Beginning with—“I say, Magot!”—he stopped suddenly both tongue and feet as he caught sight of the Countess.
“Well, Sir Richard?” suggested that lady.
“I cry you mercy, Lady. I did not know you were here.”
“And if you had done—what then?”
“Why, then,” answered Richard, laughing but colouring, “I suppose I ought to have come in more quietly.”
“Ah! Did you ever read with Father Nicholas about an old man who said that the Athenians knew what was right, but the Lacedemonians did it?”
“Your pardon, Lady! I always forget what I read with Father Nicholas.”
“I should suppose so. I am afraid there is Athenian blood in your veins, Sir Richard!”
“Lady, if it stand with your pleasure, there is none but true Christian blood in my veins!” was the proud reply.
“Pure foy! If you are so proud of your blood, I fear you will disdain to do what I was about to bid you.”
“I shall never disdain to execute the commands of a fair lady.”
“My word, Sir Richard, but you are growing a courtly knight! You see that Jew boy has left his cap behind. As there are none here but damsels, I was thinking I would ask you to call him back to fetch it.”
“He shall have it—a Jew boy! I’ll take the tongs, then!”
The next minute Delecresse, who was just turning back to fetch the forgotten cap, heard a boyish voice calling to him out of a window, and looking up, saw his cap held out in the tongs.
“Here, thou cur of a Jew! What dost thou mean, to leave thy heathen stuff in the chamber of a noble damsel?”
And the cap was dropped into the courtyard, with such good aim that it first hit Delecresse on the head, and then lodged itself in the midst of a puddle.
Delecresse, without uttering a word, yet flushing red even through his dark complexion, deliberately stooped, recovered his wet cap, and placed it on his head, pressing it firmly down as if he wished to impart the moisture to his hair. Then he turned and looked fixedly at Richard, who was watching him with an amused face.
“That wasn’t a bad shot, was it?” cried the younger lad.
“Thank you,” was the answer of Delecresse. “I shall know you again!”
The affront was a boyish freak, perpetrated rather in thoughtlessness than malice: but the tone of the answer, however simple the words, manifestly breathed revenge. Richard de Clare was not an ill-natured boy. But he had been taught from his babyhood that a Jew was the scum of the earth, and that to speak contumeliously to such was so far from being wrong, that it absolutely savoured of piety. Jews had crucified Christ. To have aided one of them, or to have been over civil to him, would in a Christian have been considered as putting a slight upon his Lord. There was, therefore, some excuse for Richard, educated as he had been in this belief.
Delecresse, on the contrary, had been as carefully brought up in the opposite conviction. To him it was the Gentile who was the refuse of humanity, and it was a perpetual humiliation to be forced to cringe to, and wait upon, such contemptible creatures. Moreover, the day was coming when their positions should be reversed; and who could say how near it was at hand? Then the proud Christian noble would be the slave of the despised Jew pedlar, and—thought Delecresse, grinding his teeth—he at least would take care that the Christian slave should indulge no mistakes on that point.
To both the youths Satan was whispering, and by both he was obeyed. And each of them was positively convinced that he was serving God.
The vengeful words of Delecresse made no impression whatever on the young Earl of Gloucester. He would have laughed with scorn at the mere idea that such an insect as that could have any power to hurt him. He danced back to Margaret’s bower, where, in a few minutes, he, she, Marie, and Eva were engaged in a merry round game.
Beside the three girls who were in the care of the Countess, Earl Hubert had also three boy-wards—Richard de Clare, heir of the earldom of Gloucester; Roger de Mowbray, heir of the barony of Mowbray, now about fifteen years old; and John de Averenches (or Avranches), the son of a knight. With these six, the Earl’s two sons, his daughter, and his daughter-in-law, there was no lack of young people in the Castle, of whom Sir John de Burgh, the eldest, was only twenty-nine.
The promise made by Abraham of Norwich was faithfully kept. A week had not quite elapsed when Levina announced to the Countess that the Jew pedlar and the maiden his daughter awaited her pleasure in the court. The Countess desired her to bring them up immediately to Margaret’s bower, whither she would go herself to meet them.
Margaret and Doucebelle had just come in from a walk upon the leads—the usual way in which ladies took airings in the thirteenth century. Indeed, the
leads were the only safe and proper place for a young girl’s out-door recreation. The courtyard was always filled by the household servants and soldiers of the garrison: and the idea of taking a walk outside the precincts of the Castle, would never have occurred to anybody, unless it were to a very ignorant child indeed. There were no safe highroads, nor quiet lanes, in those days, where a maiden might wander without fear of molestation. Old ballads are full of accounts of the perils incurred by rash and self-sufficient girls who ventured alone out of doors in their innocent ignorance or imprudent bravado. The roadless wastes gave harbour to abundance of fierce small animals and deadly vipers, and to men worse than any of them.
Old Abraham, cap in hand, bowed low before the Princess, and presented a closely-veiled, graceful figure, as the young broideress whom he had promised.
“Lay thy veil aside, my maid,” said the Countess, with most unusual kindness, considering that it was a Jewess to whom she spoke.
The maiden obeyed, and revealed to the eyes of the Princess and her damsels a face and figure of such extreme loveliness that she no longer wondered at the anxiety of her father to provide for her concealment. But the beauty of Belasez was of an entirely different type from that of the Christians around her. Her complexion was olive, her hair raven black, her eyes large and dark, now melting as if in liquid light, now brilliant and full of fire. And if Margaret looked two years beyond her real age, Belasez looked more like seven.
“Thou knowest wherefore thou art come hither?” asked the Countess, smiling complacently on the vision before her.
“To broider for my Lady,” said Belasez, in a low, clear, musical voice.
“And wilt thou obey my orders?”
“I will obey my Lady in every thing not forbidden by the holy law.”
“Well, I think we shall agree, my maid,” returned the Countess, whose private views respecting religious tolerance were something quite extraordinary for the time at which she lived. “I would not willingly coerce any person’s conscience. But as I do not know thy law, thou wilt have to tell me if I should desire thee to do some forbidden thing.”
“My Lady is very good to her handmaiden,” said Belasez.
“Margaret, take the maid into thy wardrobe for a little while, until she has dined; and after that I will show her what I require. She will be glad of rest after her journey.”
Margaret obeyed, and a motion of her mother’s hand sent Doucebelle after her. The daughter of the house sat down on the settle which stretched below the window, and Doucebelle followed her example: but Belasez remained standing.
“Come and sit here by me,” said Margaret to the young Jewess. “I want to talk to thee.”
Belasez obeyed in silence.
“Art thou very tired with thy journey?”
“Not now, damsel, I thank you. We have come but a short stage this morning.”
“Art thou fond of broidery?”
“I love everything beautiful.”
“And nothing that is not beautiful?”
“I did not say that, damsel.” Belasez’s smile showed a perfect row of snow-white teeth.
“Am I fair enough to love?” asked Margaret laughingly. She had a good deal of her mother’s easy tolerance of differences, and all her sweet affability to those beneath her.
“Ah, my damsel, true love regards the heart rather than the face, methinks. I cannot see into my damsel’s heart in one minute, but I should think it was not at all difficult to love her.”
“I want every body to love me,” said Margaret. “And I love every body.”
“If my damsel would permit me to counsel her,—love every body by all means: but do not let her want every body to love her.”
“Why not?”
“Because I fear my damsel will meet with disappointment.”
“Oh, I hate to be disappointed. Hast thou brought thine image with thee?”
To Margaret this question sounded most natural. In the first place, she could not conceive the idea of prayer without something visible to pray to: and in the second, she had been taught that all Jews and Saracens were idolaters. She was surprised to see the blood rush to Belasez’s dark cheek, and the fire flash from her eyes.
“Will my damsel allow me to ask what she means? I do not understand.”
“Wilt thou not want to say thy prayers whilst thou art here?” responded Margaret, who was at least as much puzzled as Belasez.
“Most certainly! but not to an image!”
“Oh, do you Jews sometimes pray without images?”
“Does my damsel take us for idolaters?”
“Yes, I was always told so,” said Margaret, looking astonished.
The fire died out of Belasez’s eyes. She saw that Margaret had simply made an innocent mistake from sheer ignorance of the question.
“My damsel has been misinformed. We Israelites hold all images to be wicked, and abhorrent to the holy law.”
“Then thou wilt not want to set up an idol for thyself anywhere?”
“Most assuredly not.”
“I hope I have not vexed thee,” said Margaret, ingenuously. “I did not know.”
“My damsel did not vex me, as soon as I saw that she did not know.”
“And wouldst thou not like better to be a Christian than a Jew?” demanded Margaret, who could not imagine the possibility of any feeling on Belasez’s part regarding her nationality except those of regret and humiliation.
But the answer, though it came in a single syllable, was unmistakable. Intense pride, passionate devotion to her own creed and people, the deepest scorn and loathing for all others, combined to make up the tone of Belasez’s “No!”
“How very odd!” exclaimed Margaret, looking at her, with an expression of great astonishment upon her own fair, open features.
“Is it odd to my damsel? Does she know what her question sounded like, to me?”
“Tell me.”
“‘Would she not like better to be a villein scullion-maid, than to be the daughter of my noble Lord of Kent?’”
“But Jews are not noble!” cried Margaret, gazing in bewilderment from Belasez to Doucebelle, as if she expected one of them to help her out of the puzzle.
“Not in the world’s estimate,” answered Belasez. “There is One above the world.”
Before Margaret could reply, the deep bass “Ding-dong!” of the great dinner-bell rang through the Castle, and Levina made her appearance at the door.
“My Lady has given me charge concerning thee, Belasez,” she said, rather coldly addressing the Jewess. “Thou wilt come with me.”
With a graceful reverence to Margaret, Belasez turned, and followed Levina.
At that date, no titles except those of nobility or office were usual in England. Any woman below a peer’s daughter, was addressed by her Christian name or by that of her husband. That is to say, the unmarried woman was simply “Joan;” the married one was “John’s Wife.”
Belasez was gifted by nature with a large amount of that kind of intuition which has been defined as feeling the pressure of other people’s atmosphere. It may be a gift which augurs delicacy and refinement, but it always brings discomfort to its possessor. She knew instinctively, and in a moment, that Levina was likely to be her enemy.
It was true. Levina was a prey to that green-eyed monster which sports itself with the miseries of humanity. She had been the best broideress in the Castle until that day. And now she felt herself suddenly supplanted by a young thing of barely more than half her age and experience, who was called in, forsooth, to do something which it was imagined that Levina could not do. What business had the Countess to suppose there was any thing she could not do?—or, to want something out of her power to provide? Was there the slightest likelihood, thought Levina, flaring up, that this scrap of a creature could work better than herself?—a mere chit of a child (Levina was past thirty), with a complexion like the fire-bricks (Levina’s resembled putty), and hair the colour of nasty sloes (Levina’s was nearer that of a tiger-lily), and great staring eyes like horn lanterns! The Countess was the most unreasonable, and Levina the most cruelly-outraged, of all the women that had ever held a needle since those useful instruments were originally invented.
Levina did not put her unparalleled wrongs into words. It would have been easier for Belasez to get on with her if she had done so. She held her head up, and snorted like an impatient horse, as she stalked through the door into the ante-chamber.
“This is where thou art to be,” she snapped in a staccato tone.
Any amount of personal slight and scorn was merely what Belasez had been accustomed to receive from Christians ever since she had left her cradle. The disdain of Levina, therefore, though she could hardly enjoy it, made far less impression on her than the unaccountable kindliness of the royal ladies.
“The Lady bade me ask what thou wouldst eat?” demanded Levina in the same tone as before.
“I thank thee. Any thing that has not had life.”
“What’s that for?” came in shorter snaps than ever.
“It would not be kosher.”
“Speak sense! What does the vermin mean?”
“I mean, it would not be killed according to our law.”
“Suppose it wasn’t I—what then?”
“Then I must not eat it.”
“Stupid, silly, ridiculous stuff! May I be put in a pie, if I know what the Lady was thinking about, when she brought in such road-dirt as this! And my damsel sets herself above us all, forsooth! She must have her meat served according to some law that nobody ever heard of, least of all the Lord King’s noble Council: and she must have a table set for her all by herself, as though she were a sick queen. Pray you, my noble Countess, would you eat in gold or silver?—and how many varlets shall serve to carry your dainty meat?—and is your sweet Grace served upon the knee, or no? I would fain have things done as may pleasure my right noble Lady.”
Belasez answered as she usually disposed of similar affronts,—by treating them as if they were offered in genuine courtesy, but with a faint ring of satire beneath her tone.
“I thank you. I should prefer wood, or pewter if it please you: and I should think one varlet might answer. I was never served upon the knee yet, and it will scarcely be necessary now.”
Levina gave a second and stronger snort, and disappeared down the stairs. In a few minutes she made her reappearance, carrying in one hand a plate of broiled ham, and in the other a piece of extremely dry and rather mouldy bread.
“Here is my gracious damsel’s first course! Fulk le Especer was so good as to tell me that folks of her sort are mighty fond of ham; so I took great care to bring her some. There’ll be sauce with the next.”
That there would be sauce—of one species—with every course served to her in that house, Belasez was beginning to feel no doubt. Yet however Levina chose to behave to her, the young Jewess maintained her own dignity. She quietly put aside the plate of ham, and, cutting off the mouldy pieces, ate the dry bread without complaint Belasez’s kindly and generous nature was determined that the Countess, who had been so much kinder to her than at that time Christians usually were to Jews, should hear no murmuring word from her unless it came to actual starvation.
Levina’s sauce presented itself unmistakably with the second course, which proved to be a piece of apple-pie, swimming in the strongest vinegar. Though it must have set her teeth on edge, Belasez consumed the pie in silence, avoiding the vinegar so far as she could, and entertained while she did so by Levina’s assurances that it delighted her to see how completely Belasez enjoyed it.
The third article, according to Levina, was cheese: but the first mouthful was enough to convince the persecuted Jewess that soft soap would have been a more correct epithet. She quietly let it alone.
“Ha, chétife! I am sadly in fear that my sweetest damsel does not like our Suffolk cheese?” said Levina in a most doleful tone.
“Is it manufactured in this county?” asked Belasez very coolly; for, in 1234, all soaps were of foreign importation. “I thought it tasted more like the French make.”
Levina vanished down the stairs, but her suppressed laughter was quite audible. She came up again with two more plates, and informed Belasez that they constituted the last course. One of them was filled with chicken-bones, picked exceedingly clean: the other with a piece of sweet cake, over which had been poured some very hot saline compound which by no means harmonised with the cake, but set Belasez’s throat on fire. She managed, however, to eat it, thinking that she would get little food of any kind if she did not: and Levina departed with the plates, remarking that it had done her good to see the excellent meal which Belasez had made. It was a relief to the girl to be left alone: for solitude had no terrors for her, and Levina was certainly not an enjoyable companion. After half-an-hour’s quiet, Margaret and Eva entered the ante-chamber.
“Hast thou dined, Belasez?” asked Margaret, kindly.
“I thank my damsel, yes.”
“Did Levina bring thee such dishes as thou mightest eat?”
“According to our law? Oh yes.”
It was rather a relief to Belasez that the question took that form.
“Then that is all right,” said Margaret, innocently, and passed on into her own room.
The Countess’s step was heard approaching, but just before entering she stopped at the head of the stairs.
“Thou hast given the girl her dinner, Levina?”
“Oh yes, my Lady!”
“What had she?”
“I brought her apple-pie, if it please my Lady, and cheese, and gateau de Dijon, and ham, and—a few other little things: but she would not touch the ham, and scarcely the cheese.”
“Thou hast forgotten, Levina: I told thee no meat of any kind, nor fish; and I believe no Jew will touch ham. I did not know they objected to cheese. But had she enough? Apple-pie and gateau de Dijon make but a poor dinner.”
And without questioning Levina further, the Countess went on and addressed Belasez direct.
“My maid, hast thou fared well? I fear Levina did not bring thee proper things.”
Belasez hesitated. She was very unwilling to say no: and how could she in conscience say yes?
“They were according to our law, I thank my Lady,—all but the ham. That, under her gracious leave, I must decline.”
“But thou didst not take the cheese?”
“No,—with my Lady’s leave.”
“Was it not in accordance with thy law, or didst thou not like it?”
“If my Lady will pardon me,” said poor Belasez, driven into a corner, “I did not like it.”
“What kind was it?”
“Levina said it was Suffolk cheese.” Belasez’s conscience rather smote her in giving this answer.
“Ah!” responded the unconscious Countess, “it is often hard, and everybody does not like it, I know.”
Belasez was silent beyond a slight reverence to show that she heard the observation.
“But hast thou had enough?” pursued the Countess, still unsatisfied.
“I am greatly obliged to my Lady, and quite ready to serve her,” was the evasive reply.
The Countess looked hard at Belasez, but she said no more. She despatched Levina for the scarf which was to be copied, and gave the young Jewess her instructions. The exquisite work which grew in Belasez’s skilful hands evidently delighted the Countess. She was extremely kind, and the reserved but sensitive nature of Belasez went out towards her in fervent love.
To Margaret, the Jewish broideress was an object of equal mystery and interest. She would sit watching her work for long periods. She noticed that Belasez ignored the existence of her private oratory, made no reverence to the gilded Virgin which stood on a bracket in her wardrobe, and passed the bénitier without vouchsafing the least attention to the holy water. Manifestly, Jews did not believe in gilded images and holy water. But then, in what did they believe? Had they any faith in any thing? Belasez had owned to saying her prayers, and she acknowledged the existence of some law which she felt herself bound to obey. But whose law was it?—and to whom did she pray? These thoughts seethed in Margaret’s brain till at last, one afternoon when she sat watching the embroidery, they burst forth into speech, “Belasez!”
“What would my damsel?”
“Belasez, what dost thou believe?”
The Jewess looked up in surprise.
“I am not sure that I understand my damsel’s question. Will she condescend to explain?”
“I mean, what god dost thou worship?”
“There is but one God,” answered Belasez, solemnly.
“That I believe, too: but we do not worship the same God, do we?”
“I think we do—to a certain extent.”
“But there is a difference between us. What is the difference?”
Belasez seemed to hesitate.
“Don’t be afraid, but speak out!” said Margaret, eagerly.
“If I say what my Lady would not approve, would it be right in me?”
“My Lady and mother will not mind. Go on!”
“Damsel, I think the difference touches Him who is the Sent of God, and the Son of the Blessed. We believe in Him, as well as you. But we believe that He is yet to come, and is to be the salvation of Israel. You believe,”—Belasez’s words came slowly, as if dragged from her—“that He is come, long ago; and you think He will save all men.”
“But that is our Lord Christ, surely?” said Margaret.
“You call Him so,” was Belasez’s reply. “But He did come!” said Margaret, in a puzzled tone.
“A man came, undoubtedly, who claimed to be the Man who was to come. But was the claim a true one?”
“I have always been told that it was!”
“And I have always been told that it was not.”
“Then how are we to find out which is true?” Belasez spread her hands out with a semi-Eastern gesture, which indicated hopeless incapacity, of some sort.
“Damsel, do not ask me. The holy prophets told our fathers of old time that so long as Israel walked contrary to the Holy One, so long should they wander over the earth, forsaken exiles, and be punished seven times for their sins. Are we not exiles? Is He not punishing us? Our holy and beautiful house is a desolation; our land is overthrown by strangers. Yet we are no idolaters; we are no Sabbath-breakers; we do not profane the name of the Blessed. Do you think I never ask myself for what sin it is that we are thus cast away from the presence of our King? In old days it was always for such sins as I have named: it cannot be that now. Is it—O Abraham our father! can it be?—that He has come, the King of Israel, and we have not known Him? Damsel, there are thousands of the sons of Israel that have asked that question! And then—”
Belasez stopped suddenly.
“Go on!” urged Margaret. “What then?”
“I shall say what my damsel will not wish to hear, if I do go on.”
“But I wish very much to hear it.”
“And then we look around on you, who call yourselves servants of Him whom ye say is come. We ask you to tell us what you have learned of Him. And ye answer us with the very things which the King of Israel solemnly forbade. Ye point us to images of dead men, and ye hold up before us a goddess, a fair dead woman, and ye say, These are they whom ye shall serve! And we answer, If these things be what ye have learned from him that is come, then he never can be the Sent of God. God forbade all idolatry, and all image-making: if he taught it, can he be Messiah? This is why in all the ages we have stood aloof. We might have received him, we might have believed him,—but for this.”
“But I do not know,” said Margaret, thoughtfully, “that holy Church lays much stress on images. I should think, if ye prefer to pray without them, she would allow you to do so. I cannot understand how ye can pray without them; for what is there to pray to? It is your infirmity, I suppose.”
“Ah, Damsel,” said Belasez with a sad smile, “this seems to you a very, very little matter! How shall a Jew and a Christian ever understand each other? For it is life or death to us. It is a question of obeying, or of disobeying—not of doing something we fancy, or do not fancy.”
“Yes, but holy Church would decide it for you,” urged Margaret, earnestly.
“Damsel, your words are strange to my ears. The Holy One (to whom be praise!) has decided it long ago. ‘Ye shall not make unto you any graven image: ye shall not bow down to them, nor worship them.’ The command is given. What difference can it make to us, that the thing you call the Church dares to disregard it? I scarcely understand what ‘the Church’ is. If I rightly know what my damsel means, it signifies all the Christians. And Christians are Gentiles. How can the sons of Israel take laws from them? And to speak as if they could abrogate the law of Him that sitteth in the heavens, before whom they are all less than nothing and vanity! It is a strange tongue in which my damsel speaks. I do not understand it.”
Neither did Margaret understand Belasez. She sat and looked at her, with her mind in bewildered confusion. To her, the authority of the Church was paramount,—was the only irrefragable thing. And here was something which looked like another Church, setting itself up with some unaccountable and unheard-of claim to be older, truer, better!—something which denied that the Church—with horror be it whispered!—had any right to make laws!—which referred to a law, and a Legislator, so high above the Church that it scarcely regarded the Church as worth mention in the matter at all! Margaret felt stunned.
“But God speaks through the Church!” she gasped.
“If that were so, they would speak the same thing,” was Belasez’s unanswerable response.
Margaret felt pushed into a corner, and did not know what to say next. The difference between her point of view and that of Belasez was so vast, that considerations which would have silenced any one else at once passed as the idle wind by her. And Margaret could not see how to alter it.
“I must ask Father Nicholas to show thee how it is,” she said at last in a kindly manner. “I am only an ignorant girl. But he can explain to thee.”
“Can he?” said Belasez. “What explanations of his, or any one’s, can prove that man may please himself about obeying his Maker? He will tell me—does my damsel think I have never listened to a Christian priest?—he will tell me to offer incense to yonder gilded image. Had I not better offer it to myself? I am a living daughter of Israel: is that not better than the stone image of a dead one?”
“Better than our blessed Lady!” cried the horrified Margaret.
“Perhaps, if she were here, a living woman, she might be the better woman of the two,” said Belasez, coolly. “But a living woman, I am sure, is better than a stone image, which can neither see, nor hear, nor feel.”
“Oh, but don’t you know,” said Margaret eagerly, as a bright idea occurred to her, “that we have the holy Father,—the Pope? He keeps the Church right; and our Lord commissioned Saint Peter, who was the first Pope, to teach every body and promised to guard him from all error.”
Margaret was mentally congratulating herself on this brilliant solution of all difficulties. Belasez looked up thoughtfully. “But did He promise to guard all the successors?”
“Oh, of course!”
“I wonder—supposing He were the Messiah—if He did,” said Belasez. “Because I have sometimes thought that might explain it.”
“What might explain it?”
“My damsel knows that the disciples of great teachers often corrupt their master’s teaching, and in course of time they may come to teach doctrines quite different from his. It has struck me sometimes whether it might be so with you: that your Master was truly the Sent of God, and that you have so corrupted His doctrines that there is very little likeness left now. There must be very little, if He spoke according to the will of the Holy One.”
“But the Church never changes,” said Margaret. “Then He could not be true,” said Belasez. “Oh, but Father Nicholas says the Church develops! She always teaches the truth, but she unfolds it more and more as time goes on.”
“The truth is one, my damsel. It maybe more. But it can never be different and contrary.”
“But we change,” urged Margaret, taking the last weapon out of her quiver. “We may need one thing to-day, and another to-morrow.”
“We may. And if the original command had been even, ‘Ye shall make no image but one,’ I should think it might then, as need were, have been altered to, ‘Ye may now make a thousand images.’ But being, ‘Ye shall make none’ it cannot be altered. That would be to alter His character who is in all His universe the only unchangeable One.”
Margaret sat and watched the progress of the embroidery, but she said no more.