"Joy for the freed one! She might not stay
When the crown had fallen from her life away:
She might not linger, a weary thing,
A dove with no home for its broken wing,
Thrown on the harshness of alien skies,
That know not its own land's melodies.
From the long heart-withering early gone,
She hath lived--she hath loved--her task is done!"
_Felicia Hemans_.
"Now, Sir John de Averenches, what on earth dost _thou_ want?"
"Is there no room, Damsel?"
"Room! There is room enough for thee, I dare say," replied Eva, rather
contemptuously. She looked down on Sir John supremely for four reasons,
which in her own eyes at least were excellent ones. First, he was
rather short; secondly, he was very silent; thirdly, he was not
particularly handsome; and lastly (and of most import), he had remained
proof against all Eva's attractions.
"I thank thee," was all he said now; and he walked into Margaret's
bower, where he took a seat on the extreme end of the settle, and never
said a word to any body whilst he stayed.
"The absurd creature!" exclaimed Eva, when he was gone. "What an
absolute ass he is! He has not an idea in his head."
"Oh, I beg thy pardon, Eva," interposed Marie, rather warmly. "He's
plenty of ideas. He'll talk if one talks to him. Thou never dost."
"He is clever enough to please thee, very likely!" was the rather
snappish answer.
From that evening, Sir John de Averenches took to frequenting the bower
occasionally, much to the annoyance of Eva, until the happy thought
struck her that she might have captivated him at last. Mentally binding
him to her chariot wheels, she made no further objection, but on the
contrary, became so amiable that the shrewd little Marie noticed the
alteration.
"Well, Eva is queer!" said that acute young lady. "She goes into the
sulks if Sir William de Cantilupe so much as looks at any body; but she
does not care how many people she looks at! I think she should be
jealous on both sides!"
Eva's amenities, however, seemed to have no more effect on Sir John than
her displeasure. Night after night, there he sat, never speaking to any
one, and apparently not noticing one more than another.
"He's going out of his mind," suggested Marie.
"Not he!" said Eva. "He's none to go out of!"
The mystery was left unsolved, except by Bruno, who fancied that he
guessed its meaning; but since the clue was one which he preferred not
to pursue, he discreetly left matters to shape themselves, or rather, to
be shaped by Providence, when the time should come.
That was a dreary winter altogether. The King had openly insulted his
sister and Montfort, when they made their appearance at the ceremony of
the Queen's "up-rising;" [Churching] and they had left England,
pocketing the affront, but as concerned Montfort, by no means forgetting
it.
The Pope made further encroachments on the liberties of the Church of
England, by sending over a horde of Italians to fill vacant benefices.
The nobles blazed out into open wrath "that the Pope, through avarice,
should deprive them of their ancient right to the patronage of livings!"
They were headed, as usual, by the King's brother, Richard Earl of
Cornwall, who seems to have been not a true, living Christian (as there
is reason to believe his son was), but simply a political opponent of
the aggressions of Rome. The citizens of London were about equally
disgusted with the King, who at this time received a visit from the
Queen's uncle, Tomaso of Savoy, and in his delight, His Majesty
commanded his loyal and grumbling subjects to remove all dirt from the
streets, and to meet the Count in gala clothing, and with horses
handsomely accoutred.
The hint thrown out by Levina had not been lost on the Countess. She
thought a complete change might do good to the fading flower which was
only too patently withering on its stem: and at her instance the whole
household removed to Westminster at the beginning of this winter. They
had hardly settled down in their new abode when a fresh storm broke on
the now aged head of Earl Hubert.
Once more, all the old, worn-out charges were trumped up, including even
that by which the Princess Margaret's name had been so cruelly aspersed.
A flash of the early fire of the old man blazed forth when the
accusation was made.
"I was never a traitor to you, nor to your father!" said Hubert de
Burgh, facing his ungrateful King and pupil of long ago: "If I had been,
under God, you would never have been here!"
It was true, and Henry knew it, best of all men.
The King, in the fulness of his compassionate grace, was pleased to let
the Earl off very lightly. The sentence passed was, that he should only
resign the four most valuable castles that he had. This, of course, was
not because Hubert was guilty, but because His Majesty was covetous.
Chateau Blanc, Grosmond, Skenefrith, and Hatfield, were given up to the
Crown. Hubert bore it, we are told, very quietly and patiently. His
own time could not be long now, for he was at least seventy; and the
Benjamin of his love was dying of a broken heart.
King Henry himself was not without sorrow, for about All Saints' Day,
Guglielmo of Savoy, the beloved uncle who had moulded him like wax, died
rather suddenly at Viterbo. So grieved was the King, that he tore his
royal mantle from his shoulders, and flung it into the fire. With that
sudden and passionate reaction to the other side, often seen in weak
natures, he now threw himself into the arms of the Predicants and
Minorites--until he set up a new favourite, who was not long in
appearing.
Before the winter was over, a second sorrow fell upon Richard de Clare,
in the death of his mother, Isabel, wife of the King's brother.
Cornwall grieved bitterly both for the loss of his wife and for the
miserable state into which England was sinking; and declaring that he
loved his country so much, that he could not bear to stay and see it go
to ruin, he prepared to head a fresh crusade. Perhaps it did not occur
to him that love and patriotism would have been shown better by staying
at home and trying to keep his country from going to ruin. That was
reserved for another Richard--the young Earl of Gloucester.
Another comet, and a violent hurricane, in the spring, made the augurs
shake their heads and prophesy worse calamities than ever. There was a
fresh one on the way, in the shape of a Papal exaction of one-fifth of
the property of foreign beneficed clerks in England, in order to support
the war then waged by the Pope on the Emperor of Germany. The royal
Council was stirred, and told its listless master that he "ought not to
suffer England to become a spoil and a desolation to immigrants, like a
vineyard without a wall, exposed to wild beasts." His Majesty, like a
true son of holy Church, replied that he "neither wished nor dared to
oppose the Pope in any thing." As if to make confusion worse
confounded, the Archbishop of Canterbury (subsequently known as Saint
Edmund of Pontigny) aspired to become a second Becket, and appealed to
the Pope to do away with state patronage, which he of course considered
ought to be vested in the Primate. King Henry, supine as he was, was
roused at last, and sent a message to Rome to the effect that the appeal
of the Archbishop was contrary to his royal dignity. The Pope declined
to entertain the appeal: and the King, we are told (by a monk) "became
more tyrannical than ever," and appointed Bonifacio of Savoy to the See
of Winchester. The defeated Archbishop submitted to the Pope's demand
of a fifth of his income: but when the Pope, emboldened by success,
came, to an agreement with the Italian priests occupying English
benefices, that on condition of their helping him against the Emperor,
all benefices in his gift should be bestowed upon Italians, the
Archbishop could bear no longer, and he left England, never to return.
He died at Pontigny, his birthplace, on the sixteenth of November
following; and not long afterwards, King Henry reverently knelt to
worship at the tomb of the saint [Note 1] who had been a thorn in his
side as long as he lived.
Then the English Abbots, cruelly mulcted by the Pope, appealed to their
natural Sovereign, to be met by a scowl, and to hear the Legate told
that he might choose the best of the royal castles wherein to imprison
them. Twenty-four Roman priests came over to fill English benefices:
and at last, when the Legate left England (for which "no one was sorry
but the King"), it was calculated that with the exception of church
plate, he carried out of England more wealth than he left in it.
But in the halls of Earl Hubert at Westminster, all interest in outside
calamities was lost in the inside. As that spring drew on towards
summer, the blindest eyes could no longer refuse to see that the white
lily had faded at last, and the star was going out.
The trial of patience had been long for Margaret but it was over now.
Master Aristoteles could not understand it. The maiden had no disease
that he could discover: and to think that the blessed hair of Saint
Dominic should have failed to restore her! It was most unaccountable.
There was no word of complaint from the dying girl. She no longer
thought it strange that God should have made her young life short and
bitter. The lesson was learned, at last.
So gradually her life went out, that no one expected the end just when
it came. Weaker and weaker she grew from day to day; more unable to sit
up, to work, to talk: but the transition from life to death was so quiet
that it was difficult for those around to realise how near it was.
Margaret had risen and dressed every day, but had lain outside her bed
when dressed, for the greater part of April. It was May Day now, and in
all the streets were May-poles and May dancers, singing and sunshine.
Eva went out early, with a staff of attendants, to join in the
festivities.
"Why, what good can there be in my staying at home?" she said, answering
Doucebelle's face. "Margaret will not be any better because I am here.
And then, when I come in at night, I can tell her all about it. And it
is no use talking, Doucebelle! I really cannot bear this sort of thing!
I get so melancholy, you have no idea! I don't know what would become
of me if I had not some diversion."
Beatrice and Doucebelle stayed with Margaret: Doucebelle from a sort of
inward sensation, she hardly knew what or why; Beatrice from a remark
made by Bruno the night before.
"It will not be long, now, at least," he had said.
The day wore slowly on, but it seemed just like twenty days which had
preceded it. Bruno paid his daily visit towards evening.
"Are the streets very full of holiday-makers?" asked Margaret.
"Very full, my daughter. There is a great crowd round the May-pole."
"I hope Eva will enjoy herself."
"I have no doubt she will."
"It seems so far off, now," said Margaret, dreamily. "As if I were
where I could hardly see it--somewhere above this world, and all the
things that are in the world. Father, have you any idea what there will
be in Heaven?"
"There will be Christ," answered Bruno. "And what may be implied in
`His glory, which God hath given Him,'--our finite minds are scarcely
capable of guessing. Only, His will is that His people shall behold it
and share it. It must be something that He thinks worth seeing--He, who
has beheld the glory of God before the worlds were."
"Father," said Margaret, with deep feeling, "it seems too much that _we_
should see it."
"True. But not too much that He should bestow it. He gives,--as He
forgives--like a king."
Like what king?--was the thought in Doucebelle's mind. Not like the one
of whom she knew any thing--who was responsible before God for that
death which was coming on so quietly, yet so surely.
Beatrice had left the room a few minutes before, and she was now
returning to it through the ante-chamber. The dusk was rapidly falling,
and, not knowing of any presence but her own, she was extremely startled
to find herself grasped by the shoulder, by a firm hand which evidently
had no intention of standing any trifling. She looked up into the face
of a stranger, and yet a face which was not altogether strange. It was
that of a tall, handsome man, with fair hair, and a stern, pained
compression of brow and lips.
"Is it true?" he said in a husky voice.
"Is what true?" Beatrice was too startled to think what he meant.
The grasp upon her shoulder tightened till a weaker woman would have
screamed.
"Belasez, do not trifle with me! Is she dying?"
And then, all at once, Beatrice knew who it was that asked her.
"It is too true, Sir Richard," she said sadly, pityingly, with almost a
reverential compassion for that faithful love which had brought him
there that night.
"I must see her, Belasez."
"Is it wise, Sir Richard?"
"Wise!"
"Pardon me--is it right?"
"Right!--what is the wrong? She is my wife, in God's sight--she and
none other. What do I care for Pope or King? Is not God above both?
We plighted our vows to Him, and none but He could part us."
"Let me break it to her, then," said Beatrice, feeling scarcely so much
convinced as overwhelmed. "It will startle her if she be not told
beforehand."
Richard's only answer was to release Beatrice from his grasp. She
passed into Margaret's bower, and, was surprised to see a strange gleam
in the eyes of the dying girl.
"Beatrice, Richard is here. I know I heard his voice. Bring him to
me."
"God has told her," said Bruno, in an undertone, as he left the room,
with a sign to Beatrice and Doucebelle to follow.
They stood in the ante-chamber, minute after minute, but no sound came
through the closed door. Half an hour passed in total silence. At last
Bruno said--
"I think some one should go in."
But no one liked to do it, and the silence went on again.
Then Hawise same in, and wanted to know what they were all doing there.
She was excessively shocked when Doucebelle told her. How extremely
improper! She must go in and put a stop to it that minute.
Hawise tapped at the door, but no answer came. She opened it, and
stood, silenced and frightened by what she saw. Richard de Clare bent
over the bed, pouring passionate, unanswered kisses upon dead violet
eyes, and tenderly smoothing the tresses of the cedar hair.
"The Lord has been here!" said Beatrice involuntarily.
"O Lord, be thanked that Thou hast given Thy child quiet rest at last!"
was the response from Bruno.
Richard stood up and faced them.
"Is this God's doing, or is it man's?" he said, in a voice which sounded
almost like an execration of some one. "God gave me this white dove, to
nestle in my bosom and to be the glory of my life. Who took her from
me? Does one of you dare to say it was God? It was man!--a man who
shall pay for it, if he coin his heart's blood to do so. And if the
payment cost my heart's blood, it will be little matter, seeing it has
cost my heart already."
He drew his dagger, and bending down again, severed one of the long soft
tresses of the cedar hair.
"Farewell, my dove!" he murmured, in a tone so altered that it was
difficult to recognise the same voice. "Thou at least shalt suffer no
more. Thy place is with the blessed saints and the holy angels, where
nothing may ever enter that shall grieve or defile. But surely as thou
art safe housed in Heaven, and I am left desolate on earth, thy death
shall be avenged by fair means or by foul!"
"`Vengeance is Mine; I will repay, saith the Lord,'" softly quoted Bruno
as Richard passed him in the doorway.
"He will,--by my hands!"
And Richard de Clare was seen no more.
It was hard to tell the poor mother, who came into her Margaret's bower
with a bright smile, guessing so little of the terrible news in store.
Tenderly as they tried to break it, she fainted away, and had to be
nursed back to life and diligently cared for. But all was over for the
night, and Doucebelle and Beatrice were beginning to think of bed,
before Eva made her appearance. Of course the news had to be told
again.
"Oh dear, how shocking!" said Eva, putting down her bouquet. "How very
distressing! (I am afraid those flowers will never keep till morning.)
Well, do you know, I am really thankful I was not here. What good could
it have done poor dear Margaret, you know?--and I am so easily upset,
and so very sensitive! I never can _bear_ scenes of that sort. (Dear,
I had no idea my shoes were so splashed!) As it is, I shall not sleep a
wink. I sha'n't get over it for a week,--if I do then! Oh, how very
shocking! Look, Doucebelle, aren't these cowslips sweet?"
"Eva, wilt thou let me have some of the white flowers--for Margaret?"
said Doucebelle.
"For Margaret!--why, what dost thou mean? Oh! To put by her in her
coffin? Horrid! Really, Dulcie, I think that is great waste. And the
bouquet is so nicely made up,--it would be such a pity to pull it to
pieces! I spent half an hour at least in putting it together, and
Brimnatyn de Hertiland helped me. Of course thou canst have them if
thou must,--but--"
Doucebelle quietly declined the gift so doubtfully offered.
"I wish, Doucebelle, thou wouldst have more consideration for people's
feelings!" said Eva in a querulous tone, smoothing the petals of her
flowers. "I am sure, whenever I look at a bouquet for the next
twelvemonth, I shall think of this. I cannot help it--things do take
such hold of me! And just think, how easily all that might be avoided!"
"I beg thy pardon, Eva. I am sorry I asked thee," was the soft answer.
It was not far to Margaret's grave, for they laid her in the quiet
cloisters of Westminster Abbey, and the King who had been an accessory
to her end followed her bier. Hers was not the only life that his act
had shortened. Earl Hubert had virtually done with earth, when he saw
lowered into the cold ground the coffin of his Benjamin. He survived
her just two years, and laid down his weary burden of life on the fourth
of May, 1243.
When Margaret was gone, there was no further tie to Bury Castle for
Bruno and his daughter. Bishop Grosteste was again applied to, and
responded as kindly as before, though circumstances did not allow him to
do it equally to his satisfaction. The rich living originally offered
to Bruno had of course been filled up, and there was nothing at that
moment in the episcopal gift but some very small ones. The best of
these he gave; and about two months after the death of Margaret, Bruno
and Beatrice took leave of the Countess, and removed to their new home.
It was a quiet little hamlet in the south of Lincolnshire, with a
population of barely three hundred souls; and Beatrice's time was filled
up by different duties from those which had occupied her at Bury Castle.
The summer glided away in a peaceful round of most unexciting events.
There had been so much excitement hitherto in their respective lives,
that the priest and his daughter were only too thankful for a calm
stretch of life, all to themselves.
One evening towards the close of summer, as Bruno came home to his
little parsonage, where the dog-roses looked in at the windows, and the
honeysuckles climbed round the porch, a sight met him which assured him
that his period of peace and content was ended. On the stone bench in
the porch, alone, intently examining a honeysuckle, sat Sir John de
Averenches.
Bruno de Malpas was much too shrewd to suppose that his society was the
magnet which had attracted the silent youth some fifty miles across the
country. He sighed, but resigning himself to the inevitable, lifted his
biretta as he came up to the door. Sir John rose and greeted him with
evident cordiality, but he did not appear to have any thing particular
to say beyond two self-evident statements--that it was a fine evening,
and the honeysuckles were pretty.
"Is Beatrice within?" said the priest, feeling pretty sure that he knew.
Sir John demurely thought not. It was another half-hour before Beatrice
made her appearance; and Bruno noticed that the unexpected presence of a
third person evoked no expression of surprise on her part. The
preparations for supper were made by Beatrice and her attendant
handmaiden Sabina; and after the meal was over, Bruno discreetly went
off, with the interesting observation that he was about to visit a sick
person at the furthest part of the parish. Sir John had taken his seat
on the extreme end of a form, and Beatrice came and sat with her
embroidery at the other end. Ten minutes of profound silence
intervened.
"Beatrice!"
"Yes."
Another minute of silence.
"Beatrice!"
"Well?"
"Beatrice, what dost thou think of me?"
Beatrice coolly cut off an end of yellow silk, and threaded her needle
with blue.
"Ask my father."
"How does he know what thou thinkest?"
"Well, he always does," said Beatrice, calmly fastening the blue silk on
the wrong side of the material.
"Wilt thou not tell me thyself?"
"I should, if I wanted to be rid of thee."
The distance between the two occupants of the form was materially
lessened.
"Then thou dost not want to be rid of me?"
"I can work while I am talking," replied Beatrice, in her very coolest
manner.
"Why dost thou think I came, Beatrice?"
"Because it pleased thee, I should think."
The needle was drawn from the blue silk, and a needleful of scarlet went
in instead, while the end of the blue thread was carefully secured in
Beatrice's left hand for future use.
"One, two, three, four,"--Beatrice was half audibly counting her
stitches.
"It did please me, Beatrice."
"Five, six--all right, Sir John--seven, eight, nine--"
"Does it please thee?"
"Thirteen, fourteen--it is pleasant to have some one to talk to--
fifteen, sixteen--when I am not counting--seventeen, eighteen,
nineteen."
And in went the needle, and the scarlet silk began to flow in and out
with rapidity.
"Do I interrupt thee, Beatrice?"
"Thanks, I have done counting for the present."
"Would it interrupt thee very much to be married?"
"Well, I should think it would." Beatrice stopped the scarlet, and
rethreaded the blue.
"More than thou wouldst like?"
"That would depend on circumstances."
"What circumstances?" inquired the bashful yet persistent suitor.
"Who was to marry me, principally."
"Suppose I was?"
"Thou canst not, till thou hast asked my father."
There was a gleam in the dark eyes veiled with their long lashes. It
might be either resentment or fun.
"May I ask him, Beatrice?"
"Did I not tell thee so at first?"
This curious conversation had taken so long, and had been interrupted by
so many pauses, that Bruno appeared before it had progressed further.
He glanced at the pair with some amusement in his eyes, not unmixed with
sadness, for he had a decided foreboding that he was about to lose his
Beatrice. But no more was said that night.
The next morning, Sir John de Averenches made the formal appeal which
Bruno was fully expecting.
"I am not good at words, Father," he said, with honest manliness; "and I
know the maiden is fair beyond many. You may easily look higher for
her; but you will not easily find one that loves her better."
"Truly, my son, that is mine own belief," said Bruno. "But hast thou
fully understood that she is of Jewish descent, which many Christian
knights would count a blot on their escocheons?"
"Being a Christian, that makes _no_ difference to me."
"Well! She shall decide for herself; but I fancy I know what she will
say. It will be hard to part with her."
"Why should you, Father? Will she not still want a confessor?--and
could she have a better than you?"
"Thank you, Father!" said Beatrice demurely, when Bruno told her that
his consent was given, contingent upon hers. "Then I will begin my
wedding-dress."
In this extremely cool manner the fair maiden intimated her intention of
becoming a matron. But Bruno, who knew every change of her features and
colour, was well aware that she felt a great deal more than she said.
The mask was soon dropped.
The wedding-dress was a marvel of her own lovely embroidery. It was
worn about the beginning of winter, and once more Bruno resigned his
parish duties, and became, as his son-in-law had wisely suggested, a
family confessor.
They heard from Bury that the marriage of Eva de Braose took place about
the same time. And the general opinion in the Lincolnshire parsonage
was rather, as respected Sir William de Cantilupe, one of condolence
than of congratulation.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Eighteen years after that summer, a solitary traveller was approaching
the city of Tewkesbury. He sat down on a low wall which skirted the
road, and wiped his heated brow. He was a tall, fine-looking man, with
a dark olive complexion, and clustering masses of black hair. There was
no one in sight, and the traveller began to talk in an undertone to
himself, as solitary men are sometimes wont to do.
"A good two hours before sunset, I suppose," he said, looking towards
the sun, which was blazing fiercely. "Pugh! where does that horrid
smell come from? Ah, that is the vesper bell, as they call it--the
unclean beasts that they are! Well, we at least are pure from every
shadow of idolatry.
"Yet are we pure from sin? I do think, now, it was a pity--a mistake--
that visit of mine to Sir Piers de Rievaulx. I might have let that girl
live--the girl that Belasez loved. Well! she is one of the creeping
things now. She--our Belasez! This is a cross-grained, crooked sort of
world. Faugh! that smell again!
"I suppose this is the wall of Tewkesbury Castle. Is my Lord the Earl
at home, I wonder? How I did hate that boy!
"What is coming yonder, with those jingling bells? A string of pilgrims
to some accursed shrine, most likely. May these heathen idolaters be
all confounded, and the chosen people of Adonai be brought home in
peace! I could see, I dare say, if I stood on the wall. They may have
some vile idol with them, and if I do not get out of the way--"
He had sprung upon the parapet, and stood trying so to twist himself as
to catch a glimpse of the religious procession which he supposed to be
approaching, when suddenly he slipped and fell backwards. A wild cry
for "Help!" rang through the startled air. Where was he going? Down,
down, plunging overhead into some soft, evil-odoured, horrible mass,
from which, by grasping an iron bar that projected above, he just
managed so far to raise himself as to get his head free. And then the
dreadful truth broke upon him, and his cries for help became piercing.
Delecresse had fallen into the open cess-pool of Tewkesbury Castle.
Suddenly he ceased to shriek, and all was still. Not that he needed
help any the less, nor that he was less conscious of it, but because he
remembered what at first he had forgotten in his terror and disgust,
that until sunset it was the rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord.
Perhaps, by clinging to the iron bar, he could live till the sun dropped
below the horizon. At any rate, Delecresse, sternest of Pharisees to
his heart's core, would not profane the Sabbath, even for life.