“He is not satisfied,” resumed Agnes in a low tone. “He is only weary. He is not happy—only too worn-out to care for happiness. Ah, holy Virgin! how many of us women are so! And she was wont to say that there was happiness in this life, yet not in this world. It lay, she said, in that other world above, where God sitteth; and if we would ask for Him that was meant by the better water, it would come and dwell in our hearts along with Him. Our sweet Lady help us! we seem to have missed it somehow.”
“I have, at any rate,” whispered Philippa, her eyes fixed dreamily on the weary lark.
Chapter Three.
Guy of Ashridge.
“For merit lives from man to man,
And not from man, O Lord, to Thee.”
Tennyson.
Not until the evening before her marriage did Philippa learn the name of her new master. The Earl’s choice, she was then informed, had fallen on Sir Richard Sergeaux, a knight of Cornwall, who would receive divers manors with the hand of the eldest daughter of Arundel. Philippa was, however, not told that Sir Richard was expected to pay for the grants and the alliance in extremely hard cash.
For to the lofty position of eldest daughter of Arundel (for that morning only) Philippa, to her intense surprise, found herself suddenly lifted. She was robed in cloth of silver; her hair flowed from beneath a jewelled golden fillet; her neck was encircled by rubies, and a ruby and pearl girdle clasped her waist. She felt all the time as though she were dreaming, especially when the Lady Alianora herself superintended her arraying, and even condescended to remark that “the Lady Philippa did not look so very unseemly after all.”
Not least among the points which astonished her was the resumption of her title. She did not know that this had formed a part of the bargain with Sir Richard, who had proved impracticable on harder terms. He did not mind purchasing the eldest daughter of Arundel at the high price set upon her; but he gave the Earl distinctly to understand that if he were merely selling a Mistress Philippa, there must be a considerable discount.