"Content to fill Religion's vacant place
With hollow form, and gesture, and grimace."
_Cowper_.
"Nay, my son, it is of no use. I shall never forsake the faith of my
fathers. For this child, if she can believe it,--well: she is more
thine than mine,--_ay Dios_! And perhaps there is this much change in
me, that I have come to think it just possible that it may not be
idolatry to fancy the Nazarene was the Messiah. How can I tell? We
know so little, and Adonai knows so much! But the cowslip is easily
transplanted: the old oak will take no new rooting. Let the old oak
alone. And there are other things in thy faith, my son,--a maiden whom
I should deem it sin to worship, images of stone before which no Jew may
bow down, a thing you call the Church, which we cannot understand, but
which seems to bind you all, hand and foot, soul and body, as a slave is
bound by his master. I cannot take up with those."
"Nor I," said Belasez in a low voice.
"Then do not," was the quiet answer of Bruno. "I shall never ask it of
either of you."
"But thou believest all these?" said Abraham.
"I believe Jesus Christ my Lord. The rest is all to me a very little
matter. I never pray with an image; I need it not. If another man
think he does need it, to his own conscience I leave it before God. For
Mary, Mother and Maid, I honour her, as you maybe honour your mother.
_I_ do not worship her: about other men I say nothing. And as to the
Church,--why, what is the Church but a congregation of saved souls, to
whom Christ is Lawgiver and Saviour? Her laws are His: or if not, then
they have no right to be hers."
"Ah Bruno," said Abraham rather sadly, "thy religion is not that of
other Christians."
"It is better," said Belasez softly.
"Father, my Christianity is Christ. I concern not myself with other
men, except to save them, so far as it pleases God to work by me."
"Well, well! May Adonai forgive us all!--My son, what dost thou mean to
do with the child? It is for thee to decide now."
"My father, I shall endeavour to obtain absolution from my vows, and to
become once more a parish priest, so that my Beatrice may dwell with me.
Until then, choose thou whether she shall remain with thee, or go back
to Bury Castle. I am sure the Lady would gladly receive her."
"Nay, Bruno, do not ask me to choose! If the child be here when
Licorice returns, she will never dwell with thee. I believe she would
well-nigh stab us both to the heart sooner than permit it. And I fear
she may come any day."
"Then she had better come with me to Bury."
"`It is Adonai!' So be it."
"But I shall see thee, my father?" asked Belasez, addressing Abraham.
"Trust me for that, my Belasez! I can come to thee on my trade
journeys, so long as it pleases the Holy One that I have strength to
take them. And after that--He will provide. My son, wilt thou come for
the child to-morrow? I will let thee out at the postern door; for thou
hadst better not meet Delecresse."
And Abraham drew back the bolt, and opened the baize door.
"Father Jacob!" they heard him instantly ejaculate, in a very different
tone from that of his last words.
"What hast thou been about now?" demanded the shrill voice of Licorice
in the passage outside. "When folks are frightened at the sight of
their lawful wives, it is a sure sign they have been after some
mischief. Is there any one in yon chamber except thyself?--Ah, Belasez,
I am glad to see thee; 'tis more than I expected. But, child, thou
shouldst have set the porridge on half an hour ago; go down and look to
it.--Any body else? Come, I had best see for myself."
And Licorice pushed past her husband, and walked into the room where
Bruno was standing. He came forward to meet her, with far more apparent
calmness than Abraham seemed to feel.
"Good even, my mother," he said courteously.
"If I were thy mother, I would hang myself from the first gable," hissed
Licorice between her closed teeth. "I know thee, Bruno de Malpas, thou
vile grandson of a locust! Nay, locust is too good for thee: they are
clean beasts, and thou art an unclean. Thou hare, camel, coney,
night-hawk, raven, lobster, earwig, hog! I spit on thee seven times,"--
and she did it--"I deliver thee over to Satan thy master--"
"That thou canst not," quietly said Bruno.
"I sweep thee out of my house!" And suiting the action to the word,
Licorice caught up a broom which stood in the corner, and proceeded to
apply it with good will. Bruno retreated, as was but natural he should.
"Licorice, my dear wife!"
"I'll sweep _thee_ out next!" cried Licorice, brandishing her broom in
the very face of her lord and master. "I'll have no Christians, nor
Christian blood, nor Christian faith, in my house, as I am a living
daughter of Abraham! Get you all out hence, ye loathsome creeping
things, which whosoever toucheth shall be unclean! Get ye out, I say!--
Belasez, bring me soap and water. I'll not sleep till I've washed the
floor. I'd wash the air if I could."
"Your pardon, Mother, but if you will have no Christian blood in your
house, you must sweep me out," answered Belasez, with a mixture of
dignity and irrepressible amusement.
Licorice turned round to Abraham.
"Thou hast told her?"
"It was better she should know, wife."
"I'll chop thy head off, if I hear thee say that again!--And dost thou
mean to be a Christian, thou wicked girl?"
"I do, Mother. And I mean to go with my father."
"Go, then--like to like!--and all the angels of Satan go with thee!"
And the broom came flying after Belasez.
"Nay, wife, give the child her raiment and jewels."
"I'll give her what belongs to her, and that's a hot iron, if she does
not get out of that door this minute!"
"Wife!"
"I'll spoil her pretty face for her!" shrieked Licorice. "I never liked
the vain chit overmuch, nor Anegay neither: but if she does not go, I'll
give her something she won't forget in a hurry!"
"Come, my Beatrice,--quick!" said Bruno.
"Go, go, my Belasez, and God keep thee!" sobbed Abraham.
And so Belasez was driven away from her old home. She had hardly
expected it. It had always been a trouble to her, and a cause of
self-reproach, that she and Licorice did not love each other better: and
she was not able to repress a sensation of satisfaction in making the
discovery that Licorice was not her mother. Yet Belasez had not looked
for this.
"What are we to do, Father?" she asked rather blankly.
"I must lodge thee with the Sisters of Saint Clare, my child; there is
nothing else to be done. I will come and fetch thee away so soon as my
arrangements can be made."
Beatrice,--as we must henceforth call her,--did not fancy this
arrangement at all. Bruno detected as much in her face.
"Thou dost not like it, my dove?"
"I do not like being with strangers," she said frankly. "And I am
afraid the nuns will think me a variety of heathen, for I cannot do all
they will want me."
"They will not, if I tell the Abbess that thou art a new convert," said
Bruno. "They may very likely attempt to instruct thee."
"Father, why should there be any nuns?"
Beatrice did not know how she astonished Bruno. But he only smiled.
"Thine eyes are unaccustomed to the light," was all he answered.
"But, Father, among our people of old,--I mean," said Beatrice
hesitatingly, "my mother's people--"
"Go on, my Beatrice. Let it be `our people.' Speak as it is nature to
thee to do."
"Thank you, my father. Among our people, there were no nuns. So far
from it, that for a woman to remain unwed was considered a reproach."
"Why?--dost thou know?"
"I think, because every woman longed for the glory of being the mother
of the Messiah."
"True. Therefore, Christ being come, that reproach is done away. Let
each woman choose for herself. `If a virgin marry, she hath not
sinned.' Nevertheless, `she that is unmarried thinks of the things of
the Lord, that she may be holy, body and soul.'"
"Father, do you wish _me_ to be a nun?"
"Never!" hastily answered Bruno. "Nay, my Beatrice; I should not have
said that. Be thou what the Lord thinks best to make thee. But I do
not want to be left alone again."
Beatrice's heart was set at rest. She had terribly feared for a moment
lest Bruno, being himself a monk, might think her absolutely bound to be
a nun.
They soon reached the Franciscan Convent. The Abbess, a rather
stiffly-mannered, grey-haired woman, received her young guest with
sedate kindliness, and committed her to the special charge of Sister
Eularia. This was a young woman of about twenty-five, in whose mind
curiosity was strongly developed. She took Beatrice up to the
dormitory, showed her where she was to sleep, and gave her a seat on the
form beside her at supper, which was almost immediately served.
Beatrice noticed that whenever Eularia helped herself to any thing
edible, she made the sign of the cross over it.
"Why dost thou do that?" asked the young Jewess.
"It is according to our rule," replied the nun. "Surely thou knowest
how to cross thyself?"
"Indeed I do not. And I do not see why I should."
"Poor thing!--how sadly thou lackest teaching! Dost thou not know that
our Lord Christ suffered on the cross?"
"Oh yes! But why must I cross myself on that account?"
"In respect to Him!" exclaimed Eularia.
"Pardon me. If one whom I loved were slain by the sword, I should not
courtesy to every sword I saw, because I loved him. I should hate the
very sight of one."
Eularia was scarcely less puzzled than Beatrice.
"It is the symbol of our salvation," she said.
"I should look on it rather as the symbol of His suffering."
"True: but He suffered for us."
"For which reason I should still less admire that which made Him
suffer."
Eularia shrugged her shoulders.
"Thou art very ignorant."
The discussion slumbered until they rose from supper; when Eularia
seated Beatrice beside her on the settle, and offered to instruct her in
the use of the rosary.
"What a pretty necklace! I thought nuns did not wear ornaments?"
"Ornaments! Of course not."
"Then what do you do with that?"
"We pray by it."
"Pray--by--it! I do not understand."
"We keep count of our prayers."
"Count!--why?"
"Why, how could we remember them else?"
"But why should you remember?"
"Poor ignorant child! When thou comest to make confession, thou wilt
find that the priest will set thee for penance, so many Aves and so many
Paternosters."
"What are those?"
"Dost thou never pray?" gasped Eularia.
"I never say so many of one thing, and so many of another," answered
Beatrice, half laughing. "I never heard anything so absurd. The holy
prophets did not pray in that way."
"Of course they did!" exclaimed Eularia. "How could they obtain help of
our Lady, without repeating Ave and Salve?"
"How could they, indeed, before she was born?" was the retort.
"Oh dear, dear!" said Eularia. "Why, thou knowest nothing."
Beatrice privately thought that she would prefer not to know all that
rubbish. Plenty of it was served up to her before she left the convent,
by the holy Sisters of Saint Clare.
It was nearly three weeks before Bruno came for her, and very weary of
her hosts she was. They were no less astonished and dismayed by her.
The ignorant heathen would not worship the holy images, would not use
holy water, would not kneel before the holy Sacrament, would not do
this, that, and the other: and, not content with this series of
negations, she actually presumed to reason about them!
"What dost thou believe?" despairingly demanded Sister Eularia at last.
"I believe in God," said Beatrice gravely. "And I believe that Jesus of
Nazareth was the Sent of God."
"And in the Holy Ghost?" asked Eularia.
"If I understand you, certainly. Is it not written, `The Spirit of God
hath made me'?"
"And in holy Church?"
"I do not know. What is it?"
"How shocking! And in the forgiveness of sins?"
"Assuredly."
"And in the resurrection and eternal life?"
"Undoubtedly."
"And in the invocation of the holy saints?"
"I believe that there have been holy men and women."
"And dost thou invoke them?"
"Do you mean, pray to them?"
"Dost thou beg of them to intercede for thee?"
"No, indeed, not I!"
"Did I ever see such ignorance! And thou wilt not learn."
"I will learn of my father, and no one else. I am sure he does not
believe half the rubbish you do."
"_Sancta Hilaria, or a pro nobis_!"
"What language is that?" innocently asked Beatrice.
"The holy tongue, of course."
"It is not our holy tongue."
"Have Jews a holy tongue?" responded Eularia, in surprise.
"Yes, indeed,--Hebrew."
"I did not know they believed any thing to be holy. Have they any
relics?"
"I do not know what those are."
Eularia led the way to the sacristy.
"Look here," she said, reverently opening a golden reliquary set with
rubies. "Here is a small piece of the holy veil of our foundress, Saint
Clare. This is the finger-bone of the blessed Evangelist Matthew. Here
is a piece of the hoof of the holy ass on which our Lord rode. Now thou
knowest what relics are."
"But what can make you keep such things as those?" asked Beatrice,
opening wide her lustrous eyes.
"And this," enthusiastically added Eularia, opening another reliquary
set with emeralds and pearls, "is our most precious relic,--one of the
small feathers from the wing of the holy angel, Saint Gabriel."
To the intense horror of Eularia, a silver laugh of unmistakable
amusement greeted this holy relic.
"Beatrice! hast thou no reverence?"
"Not for angels' feathers," answered Beatrice, still laughing. "Well, I
did think you had more sense!"
"I can assure thee, thou wilt shock Father Bruno if thou allowest
thyself to commit such improprieties."
"I shall shock him, then. How excessively absurd!"
Eularia took her unpromising pupil out of the sacristy more hastily than
she had led her in. And perhaps it was as well for Beatrice that Father
Bruno arrived the next day.
They reached Bury Castle in safety. The Countess had been very much
interested in Father Bruno's story, and most readily acceded to his
request to leave Beatrice as her visitor until he should have a home to
which he could take her. And Beatrice de Malpas, the daughter of a
baronial house in Cheshire, was a very different person in the
estimation of a Christian noble from Belasez, daughter of the Jew
pedlar.
Rather to her surprise, she found herself seated above the salt, that
is, treated as a lady of rank: and the embargo being over which had
confined her to Margaret's apartments, she took her place at the Earl's
table in the banquet-hall. Earl Hubert's quick eyes soon found out the
addition to his supper-party, and he condescended to remark that she was
extremely pretty, and quite an ornament to the hall. Beatrice herself
was much pleased to find her old friend Doucebelle seated next to her,
and they soon began to converse on recent events.
It is a curious fact as concerns human nature, that however long friends
may have been parted, their conversation nearly always turns on what has
happened just before they met again. They do not speak of what
delighted or agonised them ten years ago, though the effect may have
extended to the whole of their subsequent lives. They talk of last
week's journey, or of yesterday's snow-storm.
Beatrice fully expected Doucebelle's sympathy on the subject of relics,
and she was disappointed to find it not forthcoming. Doucebelle was
rather inclined to be shocked than amused. The angel's feather, in her
eyes, was provocative of any thing rather than ridicule: and Beatrice,
who had anticipated her taking the common-sense view of the matter, felt
chilled by the result.
Life had fallen back into its old grooves at Bury Castle. Grief, with
the Countess, was usually a passionate, but also a transitory feeling.
Her extremely easy temper led her to get rid of a sorrow as soon as ever
she could. Pain, whether mental or bodily, was in her eyes not a
necessary discipline, but an unpleasant disturbance of the proper order
of events. In fact, she was one of those persons who are always popular
by reason of their gracious affability, but in whom, below the fair flow
of sweet waters, there is a strong substratum of stony selfishness. She
objected to people being in distress, not because it hurt them, but
because it hurt her to see them. And the difference between the two,
though it may scarcely show at times on the surface, lies in an entire
and essential variety of the strata underneath.
It was only natural that, with this character, the Countess should
expect others to be as little impressed by suffering as herself. She
really had no conception of a disposition to which sorrow was not an
easily-healed scratch, but a scar that would be carried to the grave.
In her eyes, the calamity which had happened to her daughter was a
disappointment, undoubtedly, but one which she would find no difficulty
in surmounting at all. There were plenty of other men in the world,
quite as handsome, as amiable, as rich, and as noble, as Richard de
Clare. If such a grief had happened to herself, she would have wept
incessantly for a week, been low-spirited for a month, and in a year
would have been wreathed with smiles, and arranging her trousseau for a
wedding with another bridegroom. The only thing which could really have
distressed her long, would have been if the vacant place in her life had
_not_ been refilled.
But Margaret's character was of a deeper type. For her the world held
no other man, and life's blossom once blighted, no second crop of
happiness could grow, at least on the same tree. To such a character as
this, the only possibility of throwing out fresh bloom is when the tree
is grafted by the great Husbandman with amaranth from Heaven.
Yet it was not in Margaret's nature--it would have been in her
mother's--to say much of what she felt. Outwardly, she showed no
difference, except that her _coeur leger_ was gone, never to return.
She did not shut herself up and refuse to join in the employments or
amusements of those around her. And the majority of those around never
suspected that the work and the amusement alike had no interest for her,
nor would ever have any: that she "could never think as she had thought,
or be as she had been, again."
One person only perceived the truth, and that was because he was cast in
a like mould. Bruno saw too plainly that the hope expressed by the
Countess that "Magot was getting nicely over her disappointment" was not
true,--never would be true. In his case the amaranth had been grafted
in, and the plant was blossoming again. But there was no such hope for
her, at least as yet.
Beatrice was unable to enter into Margaret's feelings, not so much
through want of capacity as of experience. Eva was equally unable,
being naturally at once of a more selfish and a less concentrated
disposition: her mind would have been more easily drawn from her
sorrow,--an important item of the healing process. Doucebelle came
nearest; but as she was the most selfless of all, her grief in like case
would have been rather for the sufferings of Richard than for her own.
Beatrice soon carried the relic question to her father for decision;
though with some trepidation as to what he would say. If he should not
agree with her, she would be sorely disappointed. Bruno's smile half
reassured her.
"So thou canst not believe in the genuineness of these relics?" said he.
"Well, my child, so that thou hast full faith in Christ and His
salvation, I cannot think it much matters whether thou believest a
certain piece of stuff to be the veil of Saint Clare or not. Neither
Saint Clare nor her veil is concerned in thine eternal safety."
"But Doucebelle seems almost shocked. She does believe in them."
"Perhaps it will not harm her--with the like proviso."
"But, Father!--the honour in which they hold these rags and bones seems
to me like idolatry!"
"Then be careful thou commit it not."
"But _you_ do not worship such things?"
"Dear child, I find too much in Christ and in this perishing world, to
have much time to think of them."
Beatrice was only half satisfied. She would have felt more contented
had Bruno warmly disclaimed the charge. It was at the cost of some
distress that she realised that what were serious essentials to her were
comparatively trivial matters to him. The wafts of polluted air were
only too patent to her, which were lost in the purer atmosphere, at the
altitude where Bruno stood.
The girls were gathered together one afternoon in the ante-chamber of
Margaret's apartments, and Bruno, who had come up to speak to his
daughter, was with them. Except in special cases, no chamber of any
house was sacred from a priest. Eva was busy spinning, but it would be
more accurate to say that Marie, who was supposed to be spinning also,
was engaged in breaking threads. Margaret was employed on
tapestry-work; Doucebelle in plain sewing; and Beatrice with her
delicate embroidery.
"Father," said Beatrice, looking up suddenly, "I was taught that it was
sin to make images of created things, on account of the words of the
second commandment. What do you say?"
"`_Non fades tibi sculptile, neque omnem similitudinem_,'" murmured
Bruno, reflectively. "I think, my child, that it depends very much on
the meaning of `_tibi_' Ah, I see in thy face thou hast learned no
Latin. `Thou shalt not make _to thee_ any sculptured image.' Then a
sculptured image may be made otherwise. The latter half of the
commandment, I think, shows what is meant. `_Non adorabis ea, neque
coles_'--`thou shalt not worship them.' At the same time, Saint Paul
saith, `_Omne autem, quod non est ex fide, peccatum est_'--`all that is
not of faith is sin;' and `_nisi ei qui existimat quid commune esse,
illi commune est_': namely, `to him who esteemeth a thing unclean, to
him it is unclean.' If thou really believest it sin, by no means allow
thyself to do it."
"But, Father, suppose we cannot be sure?" said Doucebelle.
"Thou needst not fear that thou wilt ever walk _too_ close to Christ,
daughter," quietly answered Bruno.
"But, Father I are we bound to give up all that can possibly be sin, or
even can become sin?" asked Eva, in a tone which decidedly indicated
dissent.
"I should like to hear thy objection, daughter."
"Why, we should have to give up every thing nice!" said Eva,
disconsolately. "There are all sorts of delightful things, which are
not exactly sins, but--"
"Not quite virtues," interposed Beatrice, with an amused expression, as
Eva paused.
"Well, no. Still they are not wrong--in themselves. But they make one
waste one's time, or forget to say one's beads, or be cross to one's
sister,--just because they are so delightful, and one does not want to
give over. And being cross is sin, I suppose; and so it is when one
forgets to say one's prayers: I don't know whether wasting time is
exactly a sin."
"I see," said Bruno, in the same quiet tone. "Had our Lord sent thee to
clear His Temple of the profane who desecrated it by traffic, thou
wouldst have overthrown the tables of the money-changers, but not the
seats of them that sold doves."
Beatrice and Doucebelle answered by a smile of intelligence; Eva looked
rather dissatisfied.
"But it is not a sin to be happy, Father?" asked Margaret in a low
voice.
"Not if God give thee the happiness."
"That is just it!" said Eva, discontentedly. "How is one to know?"
"My child," answered Bruno, ignoring the tone, "God never means His
children to put any thing into the place of Himself. The moment thou
dost that, that thing is sin to thee."
"But when do we do that, Father?" asked Doucebelle.
"When it makes thee forget to say thy prayers, I should think," drily
observed Beatrice.
"When it comes in the way between Him and thee," said Bruno.
"And is it a sin to waste time, Father?" queried Eva.
"It is a sin to waste any thing," answered Bruno. "But if it be more a
sin to waste one thing than another, surely it is to waste life itself."
He rose and went away. Eva shrugged her shoulders with a wry face.
"There never was any body so precise as Father Bruno! I would rather
ask questions of Father Nicholas, ten times over."
"Well, I don't like asking questions of Father Nicholas," responded
Doucebelle, "because he never answers them. He never goes down to the
bottom of things."
"_Ha, chetife_!" cried Eva. "Dost thou want to get to the bottom of
things? That is just why I like Father Nicholas, because he never
bothers one with reasons and distinctions. It is only, `Yes, thou
mayest do so,' or `No, do not do that,'--and then I am satisfied. Now,
Father Bruno will persist in explaining why I am not to do it, and that
sometimes makes me want to do it all the more. It seems to leave it in
one's own hands."
Beatrice broke into a laugh. "Why, Eva, thou wouldst rather be a chair
to be moved about, than a woman to be able to go at pleasure."
"I would rather have a distinct order," said Eva, a little scornfully.
"`Do,' or `Don't,' I can understand. But, `Saint Paul says this,' or
`Saint John says that,' and to have to make up one's own mind,--I detest
it."
"And I should detest the opposite."
"I am afraid, Beatrice, thou art greatly wanting in the virtue of holy
obedience. But of course one can make allowances for thine unhappy
education."
Eva had occasion to leave the room at the conclusion of this
unflattering speech: and Beatrice indulged in a long laugh.
"Well, what I am afraid of," she said to Margaret and Doucebelle, "is
that Eva is rather wanting in the virtue of common-sense. But whether I
am to lay that on her education, I do not know."
There was no answer: but the thoughts of the hearers were almost
opposites. Margaret considered Beatrice rash and self-satisfied.
Doucebelle thought heartily with her, and only wished that she had as
much courage to say so.