"He keeps me patient, Helena. I cannot keep myself. He knows: He is at the helm: He will guide me to the haven where I would be. Ah, my child, thou hast yet to learn what that meaneth,—'When He giveth quietness, who shall then condemn?'"
Indeed I have. And I do not know how to begin.
We have been very busy, after all, during the terrible interval, and it hardly seems ten days since the news came. All the mourning robes were to be made of sackcloth—bah! how rough and coarse it is!—one need be a villein to stand it!—and the hoods of cloth of Cyprus. I never remember being in mourning before Amaury's poor little baby was born and died in one day, and I did hope then that I should never need it again. It is so abominable to wear such stuff—and how it smells!—and to have to lay aside one's gloves, just like a bourgeoise! Count Raymond is expected to-night.
I did not properly guess what a dreadful scene it would be, when the coffin was borne into the hall by four knights, and laid down on the daïs, and the lid opened, and the embalmed body of the fair child brought to view, clad in the cowl of the holy brethren of Saint Benedict, which was put on him just before he died. The holy Patriarch—I suppose he is holy, being a patriarch—held the holy censer, which he swung to and fro by the head of the coffin; and a royal chaplain at his side bore the bénitier, from which each of us, coming forward, took the asperge, and sprinkled the still face with holy water.
It was Lady Sybil's turn last, of course. But she, the poor mother, broke down utterly, and dropped the asperge, and if Guy had not sprung forward and caught her, I think she would have fainted and fallen on the coffin of her child. Oh, it was terrible!
Later in the evening, there was a family council, at which Count Raymond suggested—and Guy said it was an excellent idea—that Lady Sybil should convene a council of all the nobles, when her title should be solemnly recognised, and no room be left for any dissension about it in future. The council, therefore, will meet on Midsummer Day next, and at the same time it will be decided what to do after the truce with Saladin has expired.
I tapped at Lady Judith's door as I went up to bed.
"Well, holy Mother," said I, when I was inside, and the door shut, "what think you now of the Count of Tripoli?"
"What thinkest thou, Helena?" answered she.
"Truly, I hardly know what to think," I said. "He speaks fair."