"What is to be reformed. Mother?" said she.
"Why, if each of us would reform herself, I suppose the whole house
would be reformed," I answered.
"Capital!" said Sister Gaillarde. "Let's set to work."
"Who will begin?" said Sister Ismania.
"Every body will be the second," replied Sister Gaillarde, "except those
who have begun already: that's very plain!"
"I expect every body will be the last," said Margaret.
Sister Gaillarde nodded, as if she meant Amen.
"Well, thank goodness, I want no reforms," said Sister Ada.
"Nor any reforming?" said Sister Gaillarde.
"Certainly not," she answered. "I always do my duty--always. Nobody
can lay any thing else to my charge." And she looked round with an air
that seemed to say, "Deny it if you can!"
"It is manifest," observed Sister Gaillarde gravely, "that our Sister
Ada is the only perfect being among us. I am not perfect, by any means:
and really, I feel oppressed by the company of a seraph. I'm not nearly
good enough. Perchance, Sister Ada, you would not mind my sitting a
little further off."
And actually, she rose and went over to the other side of the room.
Sister Ada tossed her head,--not as I should expect a seraph to do: then
she too rose, and walked out of the room. Sister Ismania had laughingly
followed Sister Gaillarde: so that the Lady Joan, Margaret, and I, were
alone in that corner.
"My mother had a Book of Evangels," said the Lady Joan, "in which I have
sometimes read: and I remember, it said, `be ye perfect,' The priests
say only religious persons can be perfect: yet our Lord, when He said
it, was not speaking to them, but just to the common people who were His
disciples, on the hill-side. Is it the case, that we could all be
perfect, if only we tried, and entreated the grace of our Lord to enable
us to be so?"
"Did your Ladyship ever know any who was?" asked Margaret.
The Lady Joan shook her head. "Never--not perfect. My mother was a
good woman enough; but there were flaws in her. She was cleverer than
my father, and she let him feel it. He was nearer perfection than she,
for he was humbler and gentler--God rest his sweet soul! Yet she was a
good woman, for all that: but--no, not perfect!"
Suddenly she ceased, and a light came in her eyes.
"You two," she said, looking on us, "are the Despenser ladies, I
believe?"
We assented.
"Do you mind telling me--pardon me if I should not ask--which of you was
affianced, long years ago, to the Lord Lawrence de Hastings, sometime
Earl of Pembroke?"
"Sometime!" ah me, then my lost love is no more!
I felt as though my tongue refused to speak. Something was coming--
what, I did not know.
Margaret answered for me, and the Lady Joan's hand fell softly on mine.
"Did you love each other," she said, "when you were little children? If
so, we ought to love each other, for he was very dear to me. Mother
Annora, he was my father."
"You!" I just managed to say.
"Ah, you did, I think," she said, quietly. "He died a young man, in the
first great visitation of the Black Death, over twenty years ago: and my
mother survived him twenty years. She married again, and died three
years since."
Margaret asked what I wanted to hear. I was very glad, for I felt as if
I could ask nothing. It was strange how Margaret seemed to know just
what I wished.
"Who was your mother, my Lady?"
The Lady Joan coloured, and did not answer for a moment. Then she
said,--"I fear you will not like to know it: yet it was not her fault,
nor his. Queen Isabel arranged it all: and she hath answered for her
own sins at the Judgment Bar. My mother was Agnes de Mortimer, daughter
of the Earl of March."
"Why not?" said Margaret.
"Ah, then you know not. I scarce expected a Despenser to hear his name
with patience. But I suppose you were so young--Sisters, he was the
great enemy of your father."
So they wedded my lost love to the daughter of my enemy! Almost before
the indignation rose up within me, there came to counteract it a vision
of the cross of Calvary, and of Him who said, "Father, forgive them!"
The momentary feeling of anger died away. Another feeling took its
place: the thought that the after-bond was dissolved now, and death had
made him mine again.
"Mother Annora," said the Lady Joan's soft voice, "will you reject me,
and look coldly on me, if I ask whether you can love me a little? He
used to love to talk to me of you, whom he remembered tenderly, as he
might have remembered a little sister that God had taken. He often
wondered where you were, and whether you were happy. And when I was a
little child, I always wanted to hear of that other child--you lived,
eternal, a little child, for me. Many a time I have fancied that I
would make retreat here, and try to find you out, if you were still
alive. Do you think it sinful to love any thing?--some nuns do. But if
not, I should like you to love the favourite child of your lost love."
"Methinks," said Margaret, quietly, "it is true in earthly as in
heavenly things, and to carnal no less than spiritual persons, `_Major
horum est caritas_.'" [First Corinthians 13, verse 13.]