“O Maude!” she said one evening, “if I could know what is befallen my Lord, methinks I might the lighter bear this grievance!”
Would it have been any relief if she could have known—if the curtain had been lifted, and had revealed the cushion-dance which was in full progress in the Lady Blanche’s chamber at Westminster, where the Earl of Kent, resplendent in violet and gold, was dropping the embroidered cushion at the feet of the Princess Lucia?
“Dear my Lady,” said Maude in answer, “our Lord wot what is befallen him.”
“What reck I, the while I wis it not?”
And Maude remembered that the thought which was a comfort to her would be none to Constance. The reflection that God knows is re-assuring only to those who know God. What could she say which would be consoling to one who knew Him not?
“Maude,” resumed her mistress, “’tis my very thought that King Harry, my cousin, doth this spite and ire against me, to some count (extent), because he maketh account of me as a Lollard.”
Maude looked up quickly; but dropped her eyes again in silence.
“Thou wist I have dwelt with them all my life,” proceeded Constance. “My Lord that was, and my Lady his mother, and my Lady my mother—all they were Lollards. My fair Castle of Llantrissan to a shoe-latchet, but he reckoneth the like of me!”
“Would it were true!” said Maude under her breath.
“‘Would it were true!’” repeated Constance, laughing. “Nay, by the head of Saint John Baptist, but this Maude would have me an heretic! Prithee, turn thy wit to better use, woman. I may be taken for a Gospeller, yet not be one.”