CHAPTER X
THE PACKMAN’S VISIT
WHEN the men had gone Aline lay thinking, dreaming, building castles in the air. What a narrow escape she had had! Life seemed full of troubles and dangers. Here was she whose life had been a series of misfortunes and now she had only just escaped death, and there was Ian, whose escape had been as close as her own and who was still in uncertainty and peril. He not only had misfortunes but was in danger all the time. “It must be terrible to live in perpetual anxiety,” she thought. “What a pity Ian is a heretic,” she mused; “it means that he is never safe anywhere and it hinders his chances. He is obviously very clever in spite of his humble station. Only think,—if he had not been a heretic he might have become a prince of the church; after all the great Cardinal Wolsey was only the son of a butcher and Ian is better than that. I think his people had a little bit of land. Why, some of these yeomen round here are almost like gentlemen. Ah! but if he had been on the road to a cardinal, I should never have seen him and so I should not be interested in him at all.
“Now I wonder,—but I suppose he could hardly be as clever as all that; but why should he not become a great doctor in a university?” and Aline drew herself a vivid picture of Ian as a sort of Abelard gathering thousands of students round him wherever he went. But the picture was spoiled when again she remembered that his heresy would stand in the way. “How cruel they were to Abelard,” she said, “but marry, they are worse now, and that was cruel enough.”
Then her thoughts turned from Abelard to the heart-rending picture of Heloise and her love for him. “She was clever, too,” she thought, “I should like to be clever like that. Why should not a girl be clever? The Lady Jane was clever, as father was always reminding me and then they chopped off her head, alas! So is the Lady Elizabeth’s Grace. I dare say the Queen’s Grace will have her sister’s head cut off, too. I believe the best people always have a sad time. Poor, poor Heloise!”
“I wonder,” she reflected, “if I ever could love like that, with absolute entire whole-hearted devotion, giving up everything for my love,—my friends, my honour, and even the consolations of religion. And yet I believe that’s the right kind of love, not the kind that just lets other people love you. Well, if one can’t be clever or love or do anything that is best without suffering, then I think I would choose the suffering. But, oh dear! it is very hard, I wonder if things get easier as one gets older. I am afraid not. Yet fancy having the praise of one’s love sung by all the world hundreds of years after one was dead! That must have been a love indeed. Ah, Heloise, I should like to love like you when I grow older. Yes, I would rather be Heloise with all her sorrow than the grand ladies who marry for wealth or position or passing affection and do not know really what love is at all.
“Yes, and I think I should prefer to marry some one very clever, some one who really in himself was superior to other men, a man with something that couldn’t be taken away like riches or titles or outer trappings of any kind. Yes, my knight must be clever as well as brave. I should like some one like father. But I think I should like him to be great and wealthy, too, although these other things are best. It would be rather nice to be allowed to wear cloth of silver and gold chains,[12] but I suppose that is very silly. I wish father were alive now to help me. I should like to be clever myself, too, and there is no one here who can give me aid. Master Richard does not care about these things; I wonder if Ian would be any good. It’s marvellous what he has picked up. I wonder if he knows Latin. But that isn’t likely. I shall ask him next time I see him, but I suppose I really ought to try and sleep now.”
[12] The sumptuary laws very strictly regulated what people were allowed to wear according to their rank.
So she fell asleep and dreamed; and dreamed that she was dressed in velvet and cloth of silver and a gold chain; and a knight in shining armour was kneeling at her feet and calling her his most learned lady.
Aline did not get well very quickly. It was not many days before she was able to get up, but she was much shaken and easily tired, so that she was hardly able to do more than walk a little bit about the house. She was quite unequal to going upstairs and although at her particular request she had gone back to her own room, Richard Mowbray himself used to carry her up when it came to bed time. Sometimes he would even carry her out on to the moors, and altogether he paid her more attention than he had been wont to do. This made his wife more jealous than ever and, although at the time it prevented her from ill-treating the child, it only made matters worse afterwards.
One afternoon when she had somewhat gained strength, he carried her out across the court and up the nine steps on to the library terrace. “I am going to take you into the library,” he said as he set her down, while he opened the door. Aline was pleased, as it was now some weeks since she had entered the room.