“Only Maude. Madam, might it like your Ladyship to tell me if you wit of one Hawise Gerard anything?”
If the Lady de Narbonne would talk to her, Maude resolved to utilise the occasion; though she felt there could be little indeed in common between her gentle, modest cousin, and this far from retiring young widow. That they could not have been intimate friends Maude was sure; but acquaintances they might be—and must be, unless the Lady de Narbonne had been too short a time at Pleshy to know Hawise. As Maude in speaking lifted her eyes to the lady’s face, she saw the smiling lips grow suddenly grave, and the cold bright light die out of the beaming eyes.
“Child,” said the Lady de Narbonne seriously, “Hawise Gerard is dead.”
“Woe is me! I feared so much,” answered Maude sorrowfully. “And might it please you, Madam, to arede (tell) me fully when she died, and how, and where?”
“She died to thee, little maid, when she went to the Castle of Pleshy,” was the unsatisfactory answer.
“May I wit no more, Madam? Your Ladyship knew her, trow?”
“Once,” said the lady, with a slight quiver of her lower lip,—“long, long ago!” And she suddenly turned her head, which had been for a moment averted from Maude, round towards her. “‘When, and how, and where?’” she repeated. “Little maid, some dying is slower than men may tell the hour, and there be graves that are not dug in earth. Thy cousin Hawise is dead and gone. Forget her.”
“That can I never!” replied Maude tenderly, as the memory of her dead came fresh and warm upon her.
The Lady de Narbonne rose abruptly, and walked away, without another word, to the further end of the room. Half an hour later, Maude saw her in the midst of a gay group, laughing and jesting in the cheeriest manner. Of what sort of stuff could the woman be made?
The Countess of Buckingham did not leave Langley until after dinner the next day—that is to say, about eleven a.m. A little before dinner, as Maude, not being wanted at the moment, stood alone at the window of the hall, leaning her arms on the wide window-ledge, a voice asked behind her,—“Art yet thinking of Hawise Gerard?”