“I shall be sent away without more supper, I know,” said Elaine, shrugging her shoulders. “It is Clarice who ought to be punished, not I. I cannot help laughing when she looks so funny.”
Elaine having succeeded in recovering her gravity without attracting the notice of the Countess, Clarice devoured her helping of salt beef along with much cogitation concerning her mistress’s singular ways. Still, she could not restrain a supposition that the latter must have supposed the priest to speak to her, when she heard the Earl say, “I hear from Geoffrey Spenser, (Note 2), that our stock of salt ling is beyond what is like to be wanted. Methinks the villeins might have a cade or two thereof, my Lady.”
And again, turning to the friar, the Countess made answer, “It shall be seen to, holy Father;” while the friar, with equal composure, as though it were quite a matter of course, repeated to the Earl, “The Lady will see to it, my Lord.”
“Does she always answer him so?” demanded Clarice of Heliet, in an astonished whisper. “Always,” replied Heliet, with a sad smile. “But surely,” said Clarice, her amazement getting the better of her shyness, “it must be very wanting in reverence from a dame to her baron!”
Clarice’s ideas of wifely duty were of a very primitive kind. Unbounded reverence, unreasoning obedience, and diligent care for the husband’s comfort and pleasure were the main items. As for love, in the sense in which it is usually understood now, that was an item which simply might come into the question, but it was not necessary by any means. Parents, at that time, kept it out of the matter as much as possible, and regarded it as more of an encumbrance than anything else.
“It is a very sad tale, Clarice,” answered Heliet, in a low tone. “He loves her, and would cherish her dearly if she would let him. But there is not any love in her. When she was a young maid, almost a child, she set her heart on being a nun, and I think she has never forgiven her baron for being the innocent means of preventing her. I scarcely know which of them is the more to be pitied.”
“Oh, he, surely!” exclaimed Clarice.
“Nay, I am not so sure. God help those who are unloved! but, far more, God help those who cannot love! I think she deserves the more compassion of the two.”
“May be,” answered Clarice, slowly—her thoughts were running so fast that her words came with hesitation. “But what shouldst thou say to one that had outlived a sorrowful love, and now thought it a happy chance that it had turned out contrary thereto?”
“It would depend upon how she had outlived it,” responded Heliet, gravely.