"Oh! for the strength of God's right hand! the way is hard and dreary,
Through Him to walk and not to faint, to run and not be weary!"
E.L. Marzials.
We left the Royal party in conversation in the chamber at Westminster.
"Have you quite resolved, Sire, to expel all the Jews from England?"
asked De Valence.
"Resolved? Yes; I hope it is half done," replied the King. "You are
aware, fair Uncle, that our Commons voted us a fifteenth on this
condition?"
"No, I did not hear that," said De Valence.
"How many are there of those creatures?" inquired Lancaster.
"How should I know?" returned Edward, with an oath. "I only know that
the Chancellor said the houses and goods were selling well to our
profit."
"Fifteen thousand and sixty, my Lord of Surrey told me," said Lancaster.
"I doubted if it were not too high a computation; that is why I asked."
"Oh, very likely not," responded Edward, carelessly. "There are as many
of them as gnats, and as much annoyance."
"Well, it is a pious deed, of course," said Lancaster, stroking his
moustache, not in the dilettante style of De Echingham, but like a man
lost in thought. "It seems a pity, though, for the women and children."
"My cousin of Lancaster, I do believe, sings _Dirige_ over the chickens
in his barnyard," sneered De Valence.
Lancaster looked up with a good-tempered smile.
"Does my fair Uncle never wish for the day when the lion shall eat straw
like the ox?" [Note 1.]
"Not I!" cried De Valence, with a hearty laugh. "Why, what mean you?
are we to dine on a haunch of lion when it comes?"
"Nay, for that were to make us worse than either, methinks. I suppose
we shall give over eating what has had life, at that time."
"_Merci, mille fois_!" laughed his uncle. "My dinner will be spoiled.
Not thine, I dare say. I'll be bound, Sire, our fair cousin will munch
his apples and pears with all the gusto in the world, and send his
squire to the stable to inquire if the lion has a straw doubled under
him."
"Bah!" said the King. "What are you talking about?"
"How much will this business of the Jews cost your Grace?" asked De
Valence, dropping his sarcasms.
"Cost _me_?" demanded Edward, with a short laugh. "Did our fair uncle
imagine we meant to execute such a project at our own expense? Let the
rogues pay their own travelling fees."
"Ha! good!" said the Poitevin noble. "And our fair cousin of Lancaster
shall chant the _De Profundis_ while they embark, and I will offer a
silver fibula to Saint Edward that they may all be drowned. How sayest,
fair Cousin?"
"Nay," was Lancaster's answer, in a doubtful tone. "I reckon we ought
not to pity them, being they that crucified our Lord. But--"
But for all that, his heart cried out against his creed. Yet it did not
occur to him that the particular men who were being driven from their
homes for no fault of theirs, and forced with keen irony of oppression
to pay their own expenses, were not those who crucified Christ, but were
removed from them by many generations. The times of the Gentiles were
not yet fulfilled, and the cry, "His blood be on us, _and on our
children_" had not yet exhausted its awful power.
There was one person not present who would heartily have agreed with
Lancaster. This was his cousin and namesake, Edmund, Earl of Cornwall,
who not only felt for the lower animals--a rare yet occasional state of
mind in the thirteenth century--but went further, and compassionated the
villeins--a sentiment which very few indeed would have dreamed of
sharing with him. The labourers on the land were serfs, and had no
feelings,--that is, none that could be recognised by the upper classes.
They were liable to be sold with the land which they tilled; nor could
they leave their "hundred" without a passport. Their sons might not be
educated to anything but agriculture; their daughters could not be
married without paying a fine to the master. Worse things than these
are told of some, for of course the condition of the serf largely
depended on the disposition of his owner.
The journey from Oakham to Westminster was a pleasant change to all the
bower-maidens but one, and that was the one selected to travel with her
mistress in the litter. Each was secretly, if not openly, hoping not to
be that one; and it was with no little trepidation that Clarice received
the news that this honour was to be conferred on her. She discovered,
however, on the journey, that scolding was not the perpetual occupation
of the Countess. She spent part of every day in telling her beads, part
in reading books woefully dry to the apprehension of Clarice, and part
in sleeping, which not unfrequently succeeded the beads. Conversation
she never attempted, and Clarice, who dared not speak till she was
spoken to, began to entertain a fear of losing the use of her tongue.
Otherwise she was grave and quiet enough, poor girl! for she was not
naturally talkative. She was very sorry to part with Heliet, and she
felt, almost without knowing why, some apprehension concerning the
future. Sentiments of this sort were quite unknown to such girls as
Elaine, Diana, and Roisia, while with Olympias they arose solely from
delicate health. But Clarice was made of finer porcelain, and she could
not help mournfully feeling that she had not a friend in the world. Her
father and mother were not friends; they were strangers who might be
expected to do what they thought best for her, just as the authorities
of a workhouse might take conscientious care in the apprenticing of the
workhouse girls. But no more could be expected, and Clarice felt it.
If there had only been, anywhere in the world, somebody who loved her!
There was no such probability to which it was safe to look forward.
Possibly, some twenty or thirty years hence, some of her children might
love her. As for her husband, he was simply an embarrassing future
certainty, who--with almost equal certainty--would not care a straw
about her. That was only to be expected. The squire who liked Roisia
would be pretty sure to get Diana; while the girl who admired Reginald
de Echingham was safe to fall to Fulk de Chaucombe. Things always were
arranged so in this world. Perhaps, thought Clarice, those girls were
the happiest who did not care, who took life as it came, and made all
the fun they could out of it. But she knew well that this was how life
and she would never take each other.
Whitehall was reached at last, on that eve of Saint Botolph. Clarice
was excessively tired, and only able to judge of the noise without, and
the superb decorations and lofty rooms within. Lofty, be it remembered,
to her eyes; they would not look so to ours. She supped upon salt
merling [whiting], pease-cods [green peas], and stewed fruit, and was
not sorry to get to bed.
In the morning, she found the household considerably increased. Her
eyes were almost dazzled by the comers and goers; and she really noticed
only one person. Two young knights were among the new attendants of the
Earl, but one of them Clarice could not have distinguished from the
crowd. The other had attracted her notice by coming forward to help the
Countess from her litter, and, instead of attending his mistress
further, had, rather to Clarice's surprise, turned to help _her_. And
when she looked up to thank him, it struck her that his face was like
somebody she knew. She did not discover who it was till Roisia
observed, while the girls were undressing, that--"My cousin is growing a
beard, I declare. He had none the last time I saw him."
"Which is thy cousin?" asked Clarice.
"Why, Piers Ingham," said Roisia. "He that helped my Lady from the
litter."
"Oh, is he thy cousin?" responded Clarice.
"By the mother's side," answered Roisia. "He hath but been knighted
this last winter."
"Then he is just ready for a wife," said Elaine. "I wonder which of us
it will be! It is tolerably sure to be one. I say, maids, I mean to
have a jolly time of it while we are here! It shall go hard with me if
I do not get promoted to be one of the Queen's bower-women!"
"Oh, would I?" interpolated Diana.
"Why?" asked more than one voice.
"I am sure," said Olympias, "I had ever so much rather be under the Lady
Queen than our Lady."
"Oh, that may be," said Diana. "I was not looking at it in that light.
There is some amusement in deceiving our Lady, and one doesn't feel it
wrong, because she is such a vixen; but there would be no fun in taking
in the Queen, she's too good."
"I wonder what Father Bevis would say to that doctrine," demurely
remarked Elaine. "What it seems to mean is, that a lie is not such a
bad thing if you tell it to a bad person as it would be if you told it
to a good one. Now I doubt if Father Bevis would be quite of that
opinion."
"Don't talk nonsense," was Diana's reply.
"Well, but is it nonsense? Didst thou mean that?"
It was rather unusual for Elaine thus to satirise Diana, and looked as
if the two had changed characters, especially when Diana walked away,
muttering something which no one distinctly heard.
Elaine proved herself a tolerably true prophetess. _Fete_ followed
_fete_. Clarice found herself initiated into Court circles, and
discovered that she was enjoying herself very much. But whether the
attraction lay in the pageants, in the dancing, in her own bright array,
or in the companionship, she did not pause to ask herself. Perhaps if
she had paused, and made the inquiry, she might have discovered that
life had changed to her since she came to Westminster. The things
eternal, of which Heliet alone had spoken to her, had faded away into
far distance; they had been left behind at Oakham. The things temporal
were becoming everything.
In a stone balcony overhanging the Thames, at Whitehall, sat Earl Edmund
of Cornwall, in a thoughtful attitude, resting his head upon his hand.
He had been alone for half an hour, but now a tall man in a Dominican
habit, who was not Father Bevis, came round the corner of the balcony,
which ran all along that side of the house. He was the Prior or Rector
of Ashridge, a collegiate community, founded by the Earl himself, of
which we shall hear more anon.
The Friar sat down on the stone bench near the Earl, who took no further
notice of him than by a look, his eyes returning to dreamy contemplation
of the river.
"Of what is my Lord thinking?" asked the Friar, gently.
"Of life," said the Prince.
"Not very hopefully, I imagine."
"The hope comes at the beginning, Father. Look at yonder pleasure-boat,
with the lads and lasses in it, setting forth for a row. There is hope
enough in their faces. But when the journey comes near its end, and the
perilous bridge must be shot, and the night is setting in, what you see
in the faces then will not be hope. It will be weariness; perhaps
disgust and sorrow. And--in some voyages, the hope dies early."
"True--if it has reference only to the day."
"Ah," responded the Prince, with a smile which had more sadness than
mirth in it, "you mean to point me to the hope beyond. But the day is
long Father. The night has not come yet, and the bridge is still to be
shot. Ay, and the wind and rain are cold, as one drops slowly down the
river."
"There is home at the end, nevertheless," answered the Dominican. "When
we sit round the fire in the banquet hall, and all we love are round us,
and the doors shut safe, we shall easily forget the cold wind on the
water."
"When! Yes. But I am on the water yet, and it may be some hours before
my barge is moored at the garden steps. And--it is always the same,
Father. It does seem strange, when there is only one earthly thing for
which a man cares, that God should deny him that one thing. Why rouse
the hope which is never to be fulfilled? If the width of the world had
lain all our lives between me and my Lady, we should both have been
happier. Why should God bring us together to spoil each other's lives?
For I dare say she is as little pleased with her lot as I with mine--
poor Magot!"
"Will my Lord allow me to alter the figure he has chosen?" said the
Predicant Friar. "Look at your own barge moored down below. If the
rope were to break, what would become of the barge?"
"It would drift down the river."
"And if there were in it a little child, alone, too young to have either
skill or strength to steer it, what would become of him when the barge
shot the bridge?"
"Poor soul!--destruction, without question."
"And what if my Lord be that little child, safe as yet in the barge
which the Master has tied fast to the shore? The rope is his trouble.
What if it be his safety also? He would like far better to go drifting
down, amusing himself with the strange sights while daylight lasted; but
when night came, and the bridge to be passed, how then? Is it not
better to be safe moored, though there be no beauty or variety in the
scene?"
"Nay, Father, but is there no third way? Might the bridge not be passed
in safety, and the child take his pleasure, and yet reach home well and
sound?"
"Some children," said the Predicant Friar, with a tender intonation.
"But not that child."
The Earl was silent. The Prior softly repeated a text of Scripture.
"Endure chastisement. As sons God dealeth with you; what son then is
he, whom the Father chasteneth not?" [Hebrews 12, verse 7, Vulgate
version.]
A low, half-repressed sigh from his companion reminded the Prior that he
was touching a sore place. One of the Prince's bitterest griefs was his
childlessness. [He has told us so himself.] The Prior tacked about, and
came into deeper water.
"`Nor have we a High Priest who cannot sympathise with our infirmities,
for He was tempted in all things like us, except in sinning.'" [Hebrews
4, verse 15, Vulgate version.]
"If one could see!" said the Earl, almost in a whisper.
"It would be easier, without doubt. Yet `blessed are they who see not,
and believe.' God can see. I would rather He saw and not I, than--if
such a thing were possible--that I saw and not He. Whether is better,
my Lord, that the father see the danger and guard the child without his
knowing anything, or that the child see it too, and have all the pain
and apprehension consequent upon the seeing? The blind has the
advantage, sometimes."
"Yet who would wish to be blind on that account?" answered the Earl,
quickly.
"No man could wish it, nor need he. Only, the blind man may take the
comfort of it."
"But you have not answered one point, Father. Why does God rouse
longings in our hearts which He never means to fulfil?"
"Does God rouse them?"
"Are they sin, then?"
"No," answered the Prior, slowly, as if he were thinking out the
question, and had barely reached the answer. "I dare not say that.
They are nature. Some, I know, would have all that is nature to be sin;
but I doubt if God treats it thus in His Word. Still, I question if He
raises those longings. He allows them. Man raises them."
"Does He never guide them?"
"Yes, that I think He does."
"Then the question comes to the same thing. Why does God not guide us
to long for the thing that He means to give us?"
"He very often does."
"Then," pursued the Earl, a little impatiently, "why does He not turn us
away from that which He does not intend us to have?"
"My Lord," said the Predicant, gravely, "from the day of his fall, man
has always been asking God _why_. He will probably go on doing it to
the day of the dissolution of all things. But I do not observe that God
has ever yet answered the question."
"It is wrong to ask it, then, I suppose," said the Earl, with a weary
sigh.
"It is not faith that wants to know why. `He that believeth hasteneth
not.' [Isaiah 28, verse 16, Vulgate version.] `What I do, thou knowest
not now; but thou shalt know hereafter.' [John 13 verse 7.] We can
afford to wait, my Lord."
"Easily enough," replied the Earl, with feeling, "if we knew it would
come right in the end."
"It will come as He would have it who laid down His life that you should
live for ever. Is that not enough for my Lord?"
Perhaps the Prince felt it enough. At all events, he gave no answer.
"Well, that is not my notion of going comfortably through life!"
observed Miss Elaine Criketot, in a decided tone. "My idea is to pull
all the plums out of the cake, and leave the hard crusts for those that
like them."
"Does anybody like them?" laughingly asked Clarice.
"Well, for those who need them, then. Plenty of folks in this world are
glad of hard crusts or anything else."
"Thy metaphor is becoming rather confused," observed Diana.
"Dost thou not think, Elaine Criketot, that it might be only fair to
leave a few plums for those whose usual fare is crusts? A crust now and
then would scarcely hurt the dainty damsels who commonly regale
themselves on plums."
It was a fourth voice which said this--a voice which nobody expected,
and the sound of which brought all the girls to their feet in an
instant.
"Most certainly, Lord Earl," replied Elaine, courtesying low; "but I
hope they would be somebody else's plums than mine."
"I see," said the Earl, with that sparkle of fun in his eyes, which they
all knew. "Self-denial is a holy and virtuous quality, to be cultivated
by all men--except me. Well, we might all subscribe that creed with
little sacrifice. But then where would be the self-denial?"
"Please it the Lord Earl, it might be practised by those who liked it."
"I should be happy to hear of any one who liked self-denial," responded
the Earl, laughing. "Is that not a contradiction in terms?"
Elaine was about to make a half-saucy answer, mixed sufficiently with
reverence to take away any appearance of offence, when a sight met her
eyes which struck her into silent horror. In the doorway, looking a
shade more acetous than usual, stood Lady Margaret. It was well known
to all the bower-maidens of the Countess of Cornwall that there were two
crimes on her code which were treated as capital offences. Laughing was
the less, and being caught in conversation with a man was the greater.
But beneath both these depths was a deeper depth yet, and this was
talking to the Earl. Never was a more perfect exemplification of the
dog in the manger than the Lady Margaret of Cornwall. She did not want
the Earl for herself, but she was absolutely determined that no one else
should so much as speak to him. Here was Elaine, caught red-handed in
the commission of all three of these stupendous crimes. And if the
offence could be made worse, it was so by the Earl saying, as he walked
away, "I pray you, my Lady, visit not my sins on this young maid."
Had one compassionate sensation remained in the mind of the Countess
towards Elaine, that unlucky speech would have extinguished it at once.
She did not, as usual, condescend to answer her lord; but she turned to
Elaine, and in a voice of concentrated anger, demanded the repetition of
every word which had passed. Diana gave it, for Elaine seemed almost
paralysed with terror. Clarice, on the demand of her mistress,
confirmed Diana's report as exact. The Countess turned back to Elaine.
Her words were scarcely to be reported, for she lost alike her temper
and her gentlewomanly manners. "And out of my house thou goest this
day," was the conclusion, "thou shameful, giglot hussey! And I will not
give thee an husband; thou shalt go back to thy father and thy mother,
with the best whipping that ever I gave maid. And she that shall be in
thy stead shall be the ugliest maid I can find, and still of tongue, and
sober of behaviour. Now, get thee gone!"
And calling for Agatha as she went, the irate lady stalked away.
Of no use was poor Elaine's flood of tears, nor the united entreaties of
her four companions. Clarice and Diana soon found that they were not to
come off scatheless. Neither had spoken to the Earl, as Elaine readily
confessed; but for the offence of listening to such treachery, both were
sent to bed by daylight, with bread and water for supper. The offences
of grown-up girls in those days were punished like those of little
children now. All took tearful farewells of poor Elaine, who dolefully
expressed her fear of another whipping when she reached home; and so she
passed out of their life.
It was several weeks before the new bower-maiden appeared. Diana
suggested that the Countess found some difficulty in meeting with a girl
ugly enough to please her. But, at last, one evening in November,
Mistress Underdone introduced the new-comer, in the person of a girl of
eighteen, or thereabouts, as Felicia de Fay, daughter of Sir Stephen de
Fay and Dame Sabina Watefeud, of the county of Sussex. All the rest
looked with much curiosity at her.
Felicia, while not absolutely ugly, was undeniably plain. Diana
remarked afterwards to Clarice that there were no ugly girls to be had,
as plainly appeared. But the one thing about her which really was ugly
was her expression. She looked no one in the face, while she diligently
studied every one who was not looking at her. Let any one attempt to
meet her eyes, and they dropped in a moment. Some do this from mere
bashfulness, but Felicia showed no bashfulness in any other way.
Clarice's feeling towards her was fear.
"I'm not afraid!" said Diana. "I am sure I could be her match in fair
fight!"
"It is the fair fight I doubt," said Clarice. "I am afraid there is
treachery in her eyes."
"She makes me creep all over," added Olympias.
"Well, she had better not try to measure swords with me," said Diana.
"I tell you, I have a presentiment that girl and I shall fight; but I
will come off victor; you see if I don't!"
Clarice made no answer, but in her heart she thought that Diana was too
honest to be any match for Felicia.
It was the Countess's custom to spend her afternoon, when the day was
fine, in visiting some shrine or abbey. When the day was not fine, she
passed the time in embroidering among her maidens, and woe betide the
unlucky damsel who selected a wrong shade, or set in a false stitch.
The natural result of this was that the pine-cone, kept by Olympias as a
private barometer, was anxiously consulted on the least appearance of
clouds. Diana asserted that she offered a wax candle to Saint Wulstan
every month for fair weather. One of the young ladies always had to
accompany her mistress, and the fervent hope of each was to escape this
promotion. Felicia alone never expressed this hope, never joined in any
tirades against the Countess, never got into disgrace with her, and
seemed to stand alone, like a drop of vinegar which would not mingle
with the oil around it. She appeared to see everything, and say
nothing. It was impossible to get at her likes and dislikes. She took
everything exactly alike. Either she had no prejudices, or she was all
prejudice, and nobody could tell which it was.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note 1. Some readers will think such ideas too modern to have occurred
to any one in 1290. There is evidence to the contrary.