“But if I be in the true Church, Father, I must needs be of the unity of Christ.”
“Truth,” said Father Ademar, in his quietest manner. “Then turn the matter about, as I bade thee, and see whether thou art in Christ. So shalt thou plainly see thyself to be in the true Church.”
Maude was silenced, but at first she was not convinced. Ademar did not press her answer. He left her to decide the question for herself. But many months passed away, fraught with many struggles and heart searchings and deep studies of Wycliffe’s Bible, before Maude was able to decide it. Bertram, whose mental nature was less self-conscious and analytical than hers, was at peace long before she was. But the day came at last when Maude was able to answer Ademar’s question—when she could say, “Father, I am of the true Church, because I am one with Christ.”
The life at Cardiff Castle was very quiet—much too quiet to please Constance, who was again becoming extremely restless. They heard of wars and rumours of war—conspiracy after conspiracy, all more or less futile: some to free King Richard, whom a great number believed to be still living; some to release and crown the little Earl of March, yet a close prisoner in Windsor Castle; some to depose or assassinate Henry. But they were all to the dwellers in Cardiff Castle like the sounds of distant tempest, until the summer of 1402, when two terrible events happened almost simultaneously, and one at their very doors. Owain Glyndwr, the faithful Welsh henchman of King Richard, took and burnt Cardiff in one of his insurrectionary marches; sparing the Castle and one of the monasteries on account of the loyalty (to Richard) of their inmates; and about the same time Hugh Calverley came one day from Bristol, to summon the Princess to come immediately to Langley. Her father was dying.
Constance reached Langley in time to receive his last blessing. He died in the same quiet, apathetic manner in which he had lived—his intellect insufficient to realise all the mischief of which he had been guilty, but having realised one mistake he had made—his second marriage. He desired to be buried in the Priory Church at Langley, by the side of his “dear wife Isabel,” whose worth he had never discovered until she was lost to him for ever.
It was on the first of August that Edmund of Langley died. After his funeral, the Duchess Joan—now a young woman of nineteen—intimated her intention of paying a visit to Court, as soon as her first mourning was over, and blandishingly hoped that her dear daughter would do her the pleasure of accompanying her. Maude would have liked her mistress to decline the invitation, for she would far rather have gone home. But Constance accepted it eagerly. It was exactly what she wished. They reached Westminster Palace just after the King had returned from his autumn progress, and he expressed a hope that his aunt and cousin would stay with him long enough to be present at the approaching ceremony of his second marriage with the Duchess Dowager of Bretagne.
It was the evening after their arrival at Westminster, and Maude sat on a stool in the great hall, every now and then recognising and addressing some acquaintance of old time. On the daïs was a brilliant crowd of royal and semi-royal persons, among whom Constance sat engaged in animated conversation, and evidently enjoying herself. Maude knew most of them by sight, but as her eyes roved here and there, they lighted on a young man coming up towards the dais whom she did not know. He stopped almost close to her, to speak to Aumerle, now Duke of York, so that Maude had time and opportunity to study him.
He was dressed in the height of the fashion. In the present day his costume would be thought supremely ridiculous for a man; but when he wore it, it was considered perfectly enchanting. It consisted of a gown—similar to a long dressing-gown, nearly touching the feet—of blue velvet, spangled with gold fleur-de-lis, and lined with white satin; an under-tunic (equivalent to a waistcoat) of bright apple-green satin, with wide sweeping sleeves of the same, cut at the edge into imitations of oak-leaves. Under these were tight sleeves of pink velvet, edged at the wrist by white frills, and a similar white frill finished the gown at the neck. His boots were black velvet, with white buttons; they were about a yard long, tapering to a point, and were tied up to the garter by silver chains, a pattern resembling a church window being cut through the upper portion of the boot. These very fashionable and most uncomfortable articles were known as cracowes, having come over from Germany with the late Queen Anne. In the young man’s hand was a black velvet cap, covered by a spreading plume of apple-green feathers. Round the waist, outside the gown, was a tight black velvet band, to which was fastened the scabbard of a golden-hilted sword.
This extremely smart young gentleman was Sir Edmund de Holand, Earl of Kent,—brother and heir of the Duke of Surrey, and brother also of Constance’s step-mother. He was a true Holand in appearance, nearly six feet in height, most graceful in carriage, very fair in complexion, his hair a glossy golden colour, with a moustache of similar shade. His age was just twenty-one. He was pre-eminently handsome—surpassing even Surrey. His eyes were of the softest blue, clear and bright; his voice soft, musical, and insinuating.
I am careful to describe the Earl of Kent fully, because he is about to become a prominent person in the story, and also because he had absolutely nothing to recommend him beyond his physical courage, his taste in dress, his fascinating manners, and his very handsome person. These points have to be dwelt upon, since his virtues lay entirely in them.