“The angels must awake her,” said Guy, solemnly. “Sweeter dreams than hers could no man have; for far above, in the Holy Land, she seeth the King’s face. Child, this is not sleep—it is death.”
Ay, in the attitude of prayer, her head pillowed in its last sleep on that ledge of the rock, knelt all that was mortal of Isabel La Despenser. With her had been no priest to absolve—save the High Priest; no hand had smoothed her pathway to the grave but the Lord’s own hand, who had carried her so tenderly through the valley of the shadow of death. Painlessly the dark river was forded, silently the pearl-gates were thrown open; and now she stood within the veil, in the innermost sanctuary of the Temple of God. The arras of her life, wrought with such hard labour and bitter tears, was complete now. All the strange chequerings of the pattern were made plain, the fair proportions no longer hidden: the perfected work shone out in its finished beauty, and she grudged neither the labour nor the tears now.
Guy of Ashridge could see this; but to Annora it was incomprehensible. She had been told by her mother that the Grey Lady had passed a life of much suffering before she came to Sempringham; for silent as she was concerning the details of that life, Isabel had never tried to conceal the fact that it had been one of suffering. And the child’s childish idea was the old notion of poetical justice—of the good being rewarded, and the evil punished, openly and unmistakably, in this world; a state of affairs frequently to be found in novels, but only now and then in reality. Had some splendid litter been borne to the door of the little cell, and had noblemen decked in velvet robes, shining with jewels, and riding on richly caparisoned horses, told her that they were come to make the Grey Lady a queen, Annora would have been fully satisfied. But here the heavenly chariot was invisible, and had come noiselessly; the white and glistering raiment of the angels had shone with no perceptible lustre, had swept by with no audible sound. The child wept bitterly.
“What troubleth thee, Annora?” said Guy of Ashridge, laying his hand gently upon her head.
“Oh!” sobbed Annora, “God hath given her nothing after all!”
“Hath He given her nothing?” responded Guy. “I would thou couldst ask her, and see what she would answer.”
“But I thought,” said the child, vainly endeavouring to stop crying, “I thought He had such beautiful things to give to people He loved. She used to say so. But He gave her nothing beautiful—only this cell and those grey garments. I thought He would have clad her in golden baudekyn (see Note 1), and set gems in her hair, and given her a horse to ride,—like the Lady de Chartreux had when she came to the Convent last year to visit her daughter, Sister Egidia. Her fingers were all sparkling with rings, and her gown had beautiful strings of pearl down the front, with perry-work (see Note 2) at the wrists. Why did not God give the Grey Lady such fair things as these? Was she not quite as good as the Lady de Chartreux?”
“Because He loved her too well,” said Guy softly. “He had better and fairer things than such poor gauds for her. The Lady de Chartreux must die one day, and leave all her pearls and perry-work behind her. But to the Lady Isabel that here lieth dead, He gave length of days for ever and ever; He gave her to drink of the Living Water, after which she never thirsted any more.”
“Oh, but I wish He would have given her something that I could see!” sobbed Annora again.
“Little maid,” said Guy, his hand again falling lightly on the little flaxen head, “God grant that when thy few and evil days of this lower life be over, thou mayest both see and share what He hath given her!”