“Did he so?” responded Philippa.
“Did he so!” ironically repeated Mother Joan. “Did he not command that no Bull should ever be brought into England? and hanged he not the Prior of Saint John of Jerusalem for reading one to his monks? I can tell you, to brave Edward of Westminster was no laughing matter. He never cared what his anger cost. His own children had need to think twice ere they aroused his ire. Why, on the day of his daughter the Lady Elizabeth’s marriage with my noble Lord of Hereford, he, being angered by some word of the bride, snatched her coronet from off her head, and flung it behind the fire. Ay, and a jewel or twain was lost therefrom ere the Lady’s Grace had it back.”
“And his son, King Edward of Caernarvon—what like was he?” asked Philippa, smiling.
Mother Joan did not answer immediately. At last she said,—“The blessed Virgin grant that they which have reviled him be no worse than he! He had some strange notions—so had other men, whom I at least am bound to hold in honour. God grant all peace!”
Philippa wondered who the other men were, and whether Mother Joan alluded to her own ancestors. She knew nothing of the Despensers, except the remembrance that she had never heard them alluded to at Arundel but in a tone of bitter scorn and loathing.
“Maybe,” continued the blind woman, in a softer voice, “he was no worse for his strange opinions. Some were not. ’Tis a marvellous matter, surely, that there be that can lead lives of angels, and yet hold views that holy Church condemneth as utterly to be abhorred.”
“Whom mean you, Mother?”
“I mean, child,” replied the nun, speaking slowly and painfully, “one whom I hope is gone to God. One to whom, and for whom, this world was an ill place; and, therefore, I trust she hath found her rest in a better. God knoweth how and when she died—if she be dead. We never knew.”
Mother Joan made the sign of the cross, and a very mournful expression came over her face.
“Ah, holy Virgin!” she said, lifting her sightless eyes, “why is it that such things are permitted? The wicked dwell in peace, and increase their goods; the holy dwell hardly and die poor. Couldst not thou change the lots? There is at this moment one man in the world, clad in cloth of gold, dwelling gloriously, than whom the foul fiend himself is scarcely worse; and there was one woman, like the angels, whose Queen thou art, and only God and thou know what became of her. Blessed Mary must such things always be? I cannot understand it. I suppose thou canst.”