Part 2—- Chapter 2.
The Lady of Ludlow.
“Toil-worn and very weary—
For the waiting-time is long;
Leaning upon the promise—
For the Promiser is strong.”
So were we children left alone in the Castle of Ludlow, and two weary months we had of it. Wearier were they by far than the six that ran afore them, when our mother was there, and our elder brethren, that she had now carried away. Lessons dragged, and play had no interest. It had been Meg that devised all our games, and Nym that made boats and wooden horses for us, and Joan that wove wreaths and tied cowslip balls—and they were all away. There was not a bit of life nor fun anywhere except in Jack, and if Jack were shut in a coal-hole by himself, he would make the coals play with him o’ some fashion. But even Jack could fetch no fun out of amo, amas, amat; and I grew sore weary of pulling my neeld (needle) in and out, and being banged o’er the head with the fiddlestick when I played the wrong string. If we could swallow learning as we do meat, what a lessening of human misery should it be!
No news came all this while—at least, none that we heard. Winter grew into spring, and May came with her flowers. Ay, and with something else.
The day rose like the long, dreary days that had come before it, and nobody guessed that any thing was likely to happen. We ate eggs and butter, and said our verbs and the commandments of God and the Church, to Sir Philip, and played some weary, dreary exercises on the spinnet to Dame Hilda, and dined (I mind it was on lamb, finches, and flaunes (custards)), and then Kate, I, and Maud, were set down to our needles. Blanche was something too young for needlework, saving to pull coloured silks in and out of a bit of rag for practice. We had scarce taken twenty stitches, when far in the distance we heard a horn sounded.
“Is that my Lady a-coming home?” said I to Kate.
“Eh, would it were!” quoth she. “I reckon it is some hunters in the neighbourhood.”
I looked to and fro, and no Dame Hilda could I see—only Margery, and she was easy enough with us for little things; so I crept out on tiptoe into the long gallery, and looked through the great oriel, which I could well reach by climbing on the window-seat. I remember what a sweet, peaceful scene lay before me,—the fields and cottages lighted up with the May sunshine, which glinted on the Teme as it wound here and there amid the trees. I looked right and left, but saw no hunters—nothing at all, I thought at first. And then, as I was going to leave the oriel, I saw the sun glance on something that moved, and looked like a dark square, and I heard the horn ring out again a little nearer. I watched the square thing grow—from dark to red, from an indistinct mass to a compact body of marching men, with mounted officers at their head; and then, forgetting Dame Hilda and every thing else except the startling news I brought, I rushed back into the nursery, crying out—
“The King’s troops! Jack, Kate, the King’s troops are coming! Come and see!”
Dame Hilda was there, but she did not scold me. She turned as white as the sindon in her hand, and stood up.
“Dame Agnes, what mean you? Surely ’tis never thus! Holy Mary, shield us!”
And she hurried forth to the oriel window, where Jack was already perched.
The square had grown larger and plainer now. It was evident they were marching straight for the Castle.
Dame Hilda hastened away—I guessed, to confer with Master Inge—and having so done, she came back to the nursery, bade us put aside our sewing and wash our hands, and come down with her to hall. We all trooped after, Beatrice led by her hand, and she ranged us afore her in the great hall, on the dais, standing after our ages,—Kate at the head, then I, Maud, and Jack. And so we awaited our fate.
I scarce think I was frighted. I knew too little what was likely to happen, to feel so. That something was going to happen, I had uncertain fantasy; but our life had been colourless for so long, that the idea of any thing to happen which would make a change was rather agreeable than otherwise.
We heard the last loud summons of the trumpet, which in our ignorance we had mistaken for a hunting-horn, and the trumpeter’s cry of “Open to the King’s troops!” We heard the portcullis lifted, and the steady tramp of the soldiers as they marched into the court-yard. There was a little parleying outside, and then two officers in the King’s livery (Note 1) came forward into the hall, bowing low to us and Dame Hilda.
The Dame spoke first. “Sir Thomas Gobioun, if I err not?”
“He, and your servant, Dame,” answered one of the officers.
“Then I must needs do you to wit, Sir, that in this castle is neither Lord nor Lady, and I trust our Lord the King wars not with little children such as you see here.”
“Stale news, good Dame!” answered Sir Thomas, with (as methought) a rather grim smile. “We know something more, I reckon, than you, touching your Lord and Lady. Sir Roger de Mortimer is o’er seas in Normandy, and the Lady Joan at Skipton Castle.”
“At Southampton, you surely mean?” said Master Inge, who stood at the other end of the line whereof I made the midmost link.
The knight laughed out. “Nay, worthy Master Inge, I mean not Southampton, but Skipton. ’Tis true, both begin with an S, and end with a p and a ton; but there is a mile or twain betwixt the places.”
“What should my Lady do at Skipton?” saith Dame Hilda.
“Verily, I conceive not this!” saith Master Inge, knitting his brows. “It was to Southampton my Lady went—at least so she told us.”
“Your Lady told you truth, Master Castellan. She set forth for Southampton, and reached it. But ere a fair wind blew for her voyage, came a somewhat rougher gale in the shape of a command from the King’s Grace to the Sheriff to take her into keeping, and send her into ward at Skipton Castle, whither she set forth a fortnight past. Now, methinks, Master Inge, you are something wiser than you were a minute gone.”
“And our young damsels?” cries Dame Hilda. “Be they also gone to Skipton?”
I felt Kate’s hand close tighter upon mine.
“Soft you, now, good Dame!” saith Sir Thomas—who, or I thought so, took it all as a very good joke. “Your damsels be parted in so many as they be, and sent to separate convents,—one to Shuldham, one to Sempringham, and one to Chicksand—and their brothers be had likewise into ward.”
To my unspeakable amazement, Dame Hilda burst into tears, and catched up Beatrice in her arms. I had never seen her weep in my life: and a most new and strange idea was taking possession of me—did Dame Hilda actually care something for us?
“Sir,” she sobbed, “you will never have the heart to part these babes from all familiar faces, and send them amongst strangers that may use them hardly, to break their baby hearts? Surely the King, that is father of his people, hath never commanded such a thing as that? At the least leave me this little one—or put me in ward with her.”
I was beginning to feel frightened now. I looked at Kate, and read in her face that she was as terrified as I was.
“Tut, tut, Dame,” saith the other officer (Sir Thomas, it seemed to me, enjoyed the scene, and rather wished to prolong it, but this other was of softer metal), “take not on where is no cause, I pray you. The little ones bide here under your good care. Only, as you may guess, we be commanded to take to the King’s use this Castle of Ludlow and all therein, and we charge you—” and he bowed to Dame Hilda, and then to Master Inge—“and you, in the King’s name, that you thwart not nor hinder us, in the execution of his pleasure. Have here our commission.”
Master Inge took the parchment, and scrutinised it most carefully, while Dame Hilda wiped her eyes and put Beatrice down with a fervent “Bless thee, my jewel!”
Now out bursts Jack, with a big sob that he could contain no longer. “Does the King want my new ball of string, and my battledores?”
“Certes,” answered Sir Thomas: but I saw a twinkle in his eye, though his mouth was as grave as might be.
Jack fell a-blubbering.
“No, no—nonsense!” saith the other officer. “Don’t spoil the fun, man!” quoth Sir Thomas. “Fun! it is no fun to these babes,” answered the other. “I’ve a little lad at home, and this mindeth me of him. I cannot bear to see a child cry—and for no cause!—Nay, my little one,” saith he to Jack, “all in this Castle now belongs to the King, as aforetime to thy father: but thy father took not thy balls and battledores from thee, nor will he. Cheer up, for thou hast nought to fear.”
“Please, Sir,” saith Kate, “shall all our brothers and sisters be made monks and nuns, whether they like or no?”
Sir Thomas roared with laughter. His comrade saith gently, “Nay, my little damsel, the King’s will is not so. It is but that they shall be kept safe there during his pleasure.”
“And will they get any dinner and supper?” saith Maud.
“Plenty!” he answered: “and right good learning, and play in the convent garden at recreation-time, with such other young damsels as shall be bred up there. They will be merry as crickets, I warrant.”
Kate fetched a great sigh of relief. She told me afterwards that she had felt quite sure we should every one of us be had to separate convents, and never see each other any more.
So matters dropped down again into their wonted course. For over two years, our mother tarried at Skipton, and then she was moved into straiter ward at Pomfret, about six weeks only (Note 2) before Queen Isabel landed with her alien troops under Sir John of Ostrevant, and drave King Edward first from his throne, and finally from this life. Our father came with her. And this will I say, that our mother might have been set free something earlier (Note 3), if every body had done his duty. But folks are not much given to doing their duties, so far as I can see. They are as ready as you please to contend for their rights—which generally seems to mean, “Let me have somebody else’s rights;” ay, they will get up a battle for that at short notice: but who ever heard of a man petitioning, much less fighting, for the right to do his duty? And yet is not that, really and verily, the only right a man has?
It was a gala day for us when our mother returned home, and our brothers and sisters were gathered and sent back to us. Nym (always a little given to romance) drew heart-rending pictures of his utter misery, while in ward; but Roger said it was not so bad, setting aside that it was prison, and we were parted from one another. And Geoffrey, the sensible boy of the family, said that while he would not like a monk’s life on the whole, being idle and useless, yet he did like the quiet and peacefulness of it.
“But I am not secure,” said our mother, “that such quiet is what God would for us, saving some few. Soldiers be not bred by lying of a bed of rose-leaves beside scented waters. And I think the soldiers of Christ will scarce be taught o’ that fashion.”
Diverse likewise were the maids’ fantasies. Meg said she would not have bidden at Shuldham one day longer than she was forced. Joan said she liked not ill at Sempringham, only for being alone. But Isabel, as she sat afore the fire with me on her lap, the even of her coming home—Isabel had ever petted me—and Dame Hilda asked her touching her life at Chicksand—Isabel said, gazing with a far-away look into the red ashes—
“I shall go back to Chicksand, some day, if I may win leave of mine elders.”
“Why, Dame Isabel!” quoth Dame Hilda in some surprise. “Liked you so well as that?”
“Ay, I liked well,” she said, in that dreamy fashion. “Not that I did not miss you all, Dame; and in especial my babe here,—who is no longer a babe”—and she smiled down at me. “And verily, I could see that sins be not shut out by convent walls, but rather shut in. Yet—”
“Ay?” said Dame Hilda when she stayed. I think she wanted to make her talk.
“I scarce know how to say it,” quoth she. “But it seemed to me that for those who would have it so, Satan was shut in with them, and pleasure was shut out. And also, for those who would have it so, God was shut in with them, and snares and temptations—some of them—were shut out. Only some: but it was something to be rid of them. If it were possible to have only those who wanted to shut out the world, and to shut themselves in with God! That is the theory: and that would be Heaven on earth. But it does not work in practice.”
“Yet you would fain return thither?” said Dame Hilda.
Isabel looked into the fire and answered not, until she said, all suddenly, “Dame Hilda, be there two of you, or but one?”
“Truly, Dame Isabel, I take not your meaning.”
“Ah!” saith she; “then is there but one of you. If so, you cannot conceive me. Thou dost, Ellen?”
“Ay, Dame Isabel, that do I, but too well.”
“They have easier lives, methinks, that are but one. You look on me, Dame Hilda, as who should say, What nonsense doth this maid talk! But if you knew what it was to have two natures within you, pulling you diverse ways, sometimes the one uppermost, and at times the other; and which of the twain be you, that cannot you tell—I will tell you, I have noted this many times”—Isabel’s voice sank as if she feared to be overheard—“in them whose father and mother have been of divers dispositions. Some of the children may take after the one, and some after the other; but there will be one, at least, who partaketh both, and then they pull him divers ways, that he knoweth no peace.” Isabel’s audience had been larger than she supposed. As she ended, with a weary sigh, a soft hand fell upon her head, and I who, sat upon her knees, could better see than she, looked up into my Lady’s face.
“Sit still, daughter,” said she, as Isabel strove to rise. “Nay, sweet heart, I am not angered at thy fantasy, though truly I, being but one like Dame Hilda, conceive not thy meaning. It may be so. I have not all the wit upon earth, that I should scorn or set down the words of them that speak out of other knowledge than mine. But, my Isabel, there is another way than this wherein thou mayest have two natures.”
“How so, Dame, an’ it like you?”
“The nature of sinful man, and the nature of God Almighty.”
“They must be marvellous saints that so have,” said Dame Hilda, crossing herself.
“Some of them,” said my Lady gently, “were once marvellous sinners.”
“Why, you should have to strive a very lifetime for that,” quoth Dame Hilda. “I should think no man could rise thereto that dwelt not in anchorite’s cell, and scourged him on the bare back every morrow, and ate but of black rye-bread, and drank of ditch-water. Deary me, but I would not like that! I’d put up with a bit less saintliness, I would!”
“You are all out there, Dame,” my Lady made answer. “This fashion of saintliness may be along with such matters, but it cometh not by their help.”
“How comes it then, Dame, an’t like you?”
“By asking for it,” saith our mother, quietly.
“Good lack! but which of the saints must I ask for it?” quoth she. “I’ll give him all the wax candles in Ludlow, a week afore I die. I’d rather not have it sooner.”
“When go you about to die, Dame?”
“Our Lady love us! That cannot I say.”
“Then you shall scarce know the week before, I think.”
“Oh, no! but the saint shall know. Look you, Dame, to be too much of a saint should stand sore in man’s way. I could not sing, nor dance, nor lake me a bit, if I were a saint; and that fashion of saintliness you speak of must needs be sorest of all. If I do but just get it to go to Heaven with, that shall serve me the best.”
“I thought they sang in Heaven,” saith Isabel.
“Bless you, Damsel!—nought but Church music.”
“Dame Hilda, I marvel if you would be happy in Heaven.”
“Oh, I should be like, when I got there.”
My Lady shook her head.
“For that,” quoth she, “you must be partaker of the Divine nature. Which means not, doing good works contrary to your liking, but having the nature which delights in doing them.”
“Oh, ay, that will come when we be there.”
“On the contrary part, they that have it not here on earth shall not win there. They only that be partakers of Christ may look to enter Heaven. And no man that partaketh Christ’s merits can miss to partake Christ’s nature.”
“Marry, then but few shall win there.”
“So do I fear,” saith my Lady.
“Dame, under your good pleasure,” saith Dame Hilda, looking her earnestly in the face, “where gat you such notions? They be something new. At the least, never heard I your Ladyship so to speak aforetime.”
My Lady’s cheek faintly flushed.
“May God forgive me,” saith she, “all these years to have locked up his Word, which was burning in mine own heart! Yet in good sooth, Dame, you are partly right. Ere I went to Skipton, I was like one that seeth a veiled face, or that gazeth through smoked glass. But now mine eyes have beheld the face of Him that was veiled, and I have spoken with Him, as man speaketh with his friend. And if you would know who helped me thereto, it was an holy hermit, by name Richard Rolle, that did divers times visit me in my prison at Skipton. And he knows Him full well.”
“Dame!” saith Dame Hilda, looking somewhat anxiously on my mother, “I do trust you go not about to die, nor to hie in cloister and leave all these poor babes! Do bethink you, I pray, ere you do either.”
My Lady smiled. “Nay, good my Dame!” saith she. “How can I go in cloister, that am wedded wife?”
“Eh, but you might get your lord’s consent thereto—some wedded women doth.”
I was looking on my Lady, and I saw a terrible change in her face when Dame Hilda spoke those words. I felt, too, Isabel’s sudden nervous shiver. And I guessed what they both thought—that assent would be easy enough to win. For in all those months since Queen Isabel came over, he had never come near us. He was ever at the Court, waiting upon her. And though his duties—if he had them, but what they were we knew not—might keep him at the Court in general, yet surely, had he been very desirous to see us, he might have won leave to run over when the Queen was at Hereford, were it only for an hour or twain.
Our mother did not answer for a moment. When she did, it was to say—“Nay, vows may not be thus lightly done away. ‘Till death’ scarce means, till one have opportunity to undo.”
“Then, pray you, go not and die, Dame!”
“I am immortal till God bids me die,” she made answer. “But why should man die because he loveth Jesu Christ better than he was wont?”
“Oh, folks always do when they get marvellous good.”
“It were ill for the world an’ they so did,” saith my Lady. “That is bad enough to lack good folks.”
“It is bad enough to lack you,” saith Dame Hilda.
My Lady gave a little laugh, and so the converse ended.
The next thing that I can remember, after that, was the visit of our father. He only came that once, and tarried scarce ten days; but he took Nym and Geoffrey back with him. I heard Dame Hilda whisper somewhat to Tamzine, as though he had desired to have also one or two of the elder damsels, and that my Lady had so earnestly begged and prayed to the contrary that for once he gave way to her. It was not often, I think, that he did that. It was four years good ere we saw either of our brothers again—not till all was over—and then Geoff told us a sorry tale indeed of all that had happed.
It was at the time when our father paid us this visit that my marriage and that of Beatrice were covenanted. King Edward of Caernarvon had contracted my lord that now is to the Lady Alianora La Despenser, daughter of my sometime Lord of Gloucester (Hugh Le Despenser the Younger), who was put to death at Hereford by Queen Isabel. But she—I mean the Queen—who hated him and all his, sent the Lady Alianora to Sempringham, with command to veil her instantly, and gave the marriage of my Lord to my Lord Prince, the King that now is (Edward the Third). So my father, being then at top of the tree, begged the marriage for one of his daughters, and it was settled that should be me. I liked it well enough, to feel myself the most important person in the pageant, and to be beautifully donned, and all that; and as I was not to leave home for some years to come, it was but a show, and cost me nothing. I dare say it cost somebody a pretty penny. Beatrice was higher mated, with my Lord of Norfolk’s son, who was the King’s cousin, but he died a lad, poor soul! so her grandeur came to nought, and she wedded at last a much lesser noble.
Thus dwelt we maids with our mother in the Castle of Ludlow, seeing nought of the fine doings that were at Court, save just for the time of our marriages, which were at Wynchecombe on the day of Saint Lazarus, that is the morrow of O Sapientia (Note 4). The King was present himself, and the young Lady Philippa, who the next month became our Queen, and his sisters the Ladies Alianora and Joan, and more Earls and Countesses than I can count, all donned their finest. Well-a-day, but there must have been many a yard of velvet in that chapel, and an whole army of beasts ermines must have laid their lives down to purfile (trim with fur) the same! I was donned myself of blue velvet guarded of miniver, and wore all my Lady’s jewels on mine head and corsage; and marry, but I queened it! Who but I for that morrow, in very sooth!
Ay, and somebody else (Queen Isabelle, the young King’s mother) was there, whom I have not named. Somebody robed in snow-white velvet, with close hood and wimple, so that all that showed of her face was from the eyebrows to the lips,—all pure, unstained mourning white. Little I knew of the horrible stains on that black heart beneath! And I thought her so sweet, so fair! Come, I have spoken too plainly to add a name.
So all passed away like a dream, and we won back to Ludlow, and matters fell back to the old ways, as if nought had ever happened—the only real difference being that instead of “Damsel Agnes” I was “my Lady of Pembroke,” and our baby Beatrice, instead of “Damsel Beattie,” was “my Lady Beatrice of Norfolk.” And about a year after that came letters from Nym, addressed to “my Lady Countess of March,” in which he writ that the King had made divers earls, and our father amongst them. Dame Hilda told us the news in the nursery, and Jack turned a somersault, and stood on his hands, with his heels up in the air.
“Call me Jack any more, if you dare!” cries he. “I am my Lord John of March, and I shall expect to be addressed so, properly. Do you hear, children?”
“I hear one of the children, in good sooth,” said Meg, comically. And Maud saith—
“Prithee, Jack, take no airs, for they beseem thee but very ill.”
Whereon Jack fell a-moaning and a-crying out, that Dame Hilda thought he was rare sick, and ordered Emelina to get ready a dose of violet oil. But before Emelina could so much as fetch a spoon, there was Jack dancing a hornpipe and singing, or rather screaming, at the top of his voice, till Dame Hilda put her hands over her ears and cried for mercy. I never did see such another lad as Jack.
We heard but little, and being children, we cared less, for the events that followed—the beheading of my Lord of Kent, and the rising under my Lord of Lancaster. And the next thing after that was the last thing of all.
It was in October, 1330. We had no more idea of such a blow falling on us than we had of the visitation of an angel. I remember we were all gathered—except the little ones—in my Lady’s closet, for after my marriage I was no longer kept in the nursery, though Beattie, on account of her much youth, was made an exception to that rule. My Lady was spinning, and her damsel Aveline carding, and Joan and I, our arms round each others’ waists, sat in the corner, Joan having on her lap a piece of finished broidery, and I having nothing: what the others were doing I forget. Then came the familiar sound of the horn, and my Lady turned white. I never felt sure why she always turned white when a horn sounded: whether she expected bad news, or whether she expected our father. She was exceeding afraid of him, and yet she loved him, I know: I cannot tell how she managed it.
After the horn, we heard the tramp of troops entering the court-yard, and I think we all felt that once more something was going to happen. Aveline glanced at my Lady, who returned the look, but did not speak; and then Lettice, one of the other maidens, rose and went forth, at a look from Aveline. But she could scarcely have got beyond the door when Master Inge came in.
“Dame,” said he, “my news is best told quickly. The Castle and all therein is confiscate to the Crown. But the King hath sent strict command that the wardrobe, jewels, and all goods, of your Ladyship, and of all ladies and children dwelling with you, shall be free from seizure, and no hand shall be laid on you nor any thing belonging to you.”
My Lady rose up, resting her hand on the chair from which she rose; I think it was to support her.
“I return humble thanks to the Lord King,” said she, in a trembling voice. “What hath happened, Master Inge?”
“Dame,” quoth he, “how shall I tell you? My Lord is a prisoner of the Tower, and Sir Edmund and Sir Geoffrey with him—”
If my Lady could turn whiter, I think she did. I felt Joan’s hand-clasp tighten upon mine, till I could almost have cried out.
“And Dame Isabel the Queen is herself under ward in the Castle of Berkhamsted, and all matters turned upside down. Man saith that the great men with the King be now Sir William de Montacute and Sir Edward de Bohun, and divers more of like sort. And my Lord of Lancaster, man saith, flung up his cap, and thanked God that he had lived to see that day.”
My Lady had stood as still and silent as an image, all the while Master Inge was speaking, only that when he said the Queen was in ward, she gave a sort of gasp. When he had done, she clasped her hands, and looked up to Heaven.
“Dost Thou come,” she said, in a strange voice that did not sound like hers, “dost Thou come to judge the earth? We have waited long for Thee. Yet—Oh, if it be possible—if it be possible! Spare my boys to me! And spare—”
A strange kind of sob seemed to come up in her throat, and she held out her hands as if she could not see. I believe, if Master Inge and Lettice had not been quick to spring forward and catch her by the arms, she would have fallen to the floor. They bore her into her bedchamber close by; and we children saw her not for some time. Dame Hilda was in and out; but when we asked her how my Lady fared, she did nought save shake her head, from which we learned little except that things went ill in some way. When we asked Lettice, she said—
“There, now! don’t hinder me. Poor children, you will know soon enough.”
Aveline was the best, for she sat down and gathered us into her arms and comforted us; but even she gave us no real answer, only she kept saying, “Poor maids! poor little maids!”
So above a month passed away. Master John de Melbourne was sent down from the King as supervisor of the lands and goods of my Lady and her children; but he came with the men-at-arms, so he brought no fresh news: and it was after Christmas before we knew the rest. Then, one winter morrow, came a warrant of the Chancery, granting to my Lady all the lands of her own inheritance, by reason of the execution of her husband. And then she knew that all had come that would come.
We children, Meg except, had not yet been allowed to see our mother, who had never stirred from her bedchamber. One evening, early in January, we were sitting in her closet, clad in our new doole raiment (how I hated it!), talking to one another in low voices, for I think we all had a sort of instinct that things were going wrong somehow, even the babies who understood least about it: when all at once, for none of us saw her enter, a lady stood before us. A lady whom we did not know, clad in white widow-doole, tall and stately, with a white, white face, so that her weeds were scarcely whiter, and a kind of fixed, unalterable expression of intense pain, yet unchangeable peace. It seemed to me such a strange look. Whether the pain or the peace were the greater I knew not, nor could I tell which was the newer. We girls sat and looked at her with puzzled faces. Then a faint smile broke through the pain, on the white face, like the sun breaking through clouds, and a voice we knew, asked of us—
“Don’t you know me, my children?”
And that was how our mother came back to us.
She did not leave us again. Ever since he died, she has lived for us. That white face, full of peace and yet of pain, abides with her; her colour has never returned. But I think the pain grows less with years, and the peace grows more. She smiles freely, but it is faintly, as if smiles hardly belonged to her, and were only a borrowed thing that might not be kept; and her eyes never light up as of old—only that once, when some months after our father’s end, Nym and Geoff came back to us. Then, just for one moment, her old face came again. For I think she had given them up,—not to King Edward, but to Christ our Lord, who is her King.
Ay, I never knew woman like her in that. There are many that will say prayers, and there are some that will pray, which is another thing from saying prayers: but never saw I one like her, that seemed to do all her work and to live all her living in the very light of the Throne of God. Just as an impassioned musician turns every thing into music, and a true painter longs to paint every lovely thing he sees, so with her all things turn to Jesu Christ. I should think she will be canonised some day. I am sure she deserves it better than many an one whom I have heard man name as meriting to be a saint. Perhaps it is possible to be a saint and not be canonised. Must man not have been a saint before he can be declared one? I know the Lady Julian would chide me for saying that, and bid me remember that the Church only can declare man to be saint. But I wonder myself if the Lord never makes saints, without waiting for the Church to do it for Him. The Church may never call my Lady “Saint Joan,” but that will she be whether she be so-called or no. And at times I think, too, that they who shall be privileged to dwell in Heaven will find there a great company of saints of whom they never heard, and perchance some of them that sit highest there will not be those most accounted of in the Calendar and on festival days. But I do not suppose—as an ancestress of my mother did, in a chronicle she wrote which I once read; it is in the possession of her French relatives, and was written by the Lady Elaine de Lusignan, daughter of Geoffroy Count de la Marche, who was a son of that House (Note 5)—I do not suppose that the saints who were nobles in this world will sit nearest the Throne, and those who were peasants furthest off. Nay, I think it will be another order of nobility that will obtain there. Those who have served our Lord the best, and done the most for their fellow-men, these I think will be the nobles of that world. For does not our Lord say Himself that the first shall be last there, and the last first? And I can guess that Joan de Mortimer, my Lady and mother, will not stand low on that list. It is true, she was a Countess in this life; but it was little to her comfort; and she was beside that early orphaned, and a cruelly ill-used wife and a bereaved mother. Life brought her little good: Heaven will bring her more.
But I wonder where one Agnes de Hastings will stand in that company. Nay, rather, will she be there at all?
It would be well that I should think about it.
Note 1. A word which then included uniform and all lands of official garb.
Note 2. On August 3rd she left Skipton, arriving at Pomfret on the 5th.
Note 3. I find no indication of the date: only that she was at Ludlow on October 26, 1330.
Note 4. The precise date and place are not recorded, but it was about this time, and the King, who was present, was in the West only from December 16th to the 21st. It is asserted by Walsingham that Beatrice was married “about” 1327.
Note 5. The Lady Elaine’s chronicle is “Lady Sybil’s Choice.”