The actions of Mother Margaret admirably matched her words. She gave herself heart and soul to the important business of securing her miserable third of her dead lord’s lands and goods. Not till they were safe in her possession did she allow herself any rest.
Did the day ever come when her feelings changed? During the ten years which she outlived the man who had loved her with every fibre of his warm, great heart, did her heart ever turn regretfully, when Abbesses were harsh or life was miserable, to the thought of that tender, faithful love which, so far as in it lay, would have sheltered her life from every breath of discomfort? Did she ever in all those ten years whisper to herself—
“Oh, if he would but come again,
I think I’d vex him so no more!”
Did she ever murmur such words as—
“I was not worthy of you, Douglas,
Not half worthy the like of you!”
...words which, honestly sobbed forth in very truth, would have been far nearer real penitence than all the “acts of contrition” which passed her lips day by day.
God knoweth. Men will never know. But all history and experience tend to assure us that women such as Margaret de Clare usually die as they have lived, and that of all barriers to penitence and conversion there is none so hard to overthrow as indulged malice and deliberate hardening of the heart against the love of God and man.
There was not, as Piers and Clarice had feared there might have been, any misfortune to them in the way of preventing their marriage. King Edward had great respect for justice and honour, and finding that his cousin had, though without legal formalities, granted Clarice’s marriage to Piers, he confirmed the grant, and Father Bevis married them quietly in the chapel of Berkhamsted Castle, without any festivity or rejoicings, for the embalmed body of the master to whom they owed so much lay in state in the banquet-hall. It was a mournful ceremony, where—
“The cheers that had erst made the welkin ring
Were drowned in the tears that were shed for the King.”