daughter's marriage over before her own. The divorce could take place
any time--the sooner the better. She had already induced her royal
brother to make sundry small grants of minor offices and inexpensive
manors to St. Leger: and His Majesty was just now very busy--partly
occupied in settling political difficulties, and partly in recruiting
his recent heavy exertions. Among the former were a quantity of pardons
to Lancastrians who had submitted themselves--among whom was a mercer of
London, by name William Caxton, whose thoughts were busy on the setting
up of that quiet little printing-press at Westminster which was to
revolutionise the world; the removal of Clarence from Court (where he
was eternally quarrelling with Gloucester) by creating him Viceroy of
Ireland; the re-arrest of Archbishop Neville, under cover of a friendly
visit from the King, who gleefully appropriated his L20,000 worth of
personalty, and broke up his mitre to make a crown for himself. Edward
was still worried on the subject of Richmond, whom he was trying hard to
induce to come to England, alleging as his sole object the desire to
restore his dear young kinsman to his forfeited inheritance: but the
Duke of Burgundy--with whom Richmond had now taken refuge--at the last
moment stopped the negotiations, on hearing from the proverbial little
bird that what Edward really wanted with his dear young kinsman was to
show him the same civility which Herod did to John the Baptist. King
Edward's recourse, under these accumulated annoyances, for rest and
refreshment, was as usual to a sylvan recreation which was a mixture of
picnic and hunting tour, gorgeous pavilions being pitched for that
galaxy of Court ladies without whom life would in his eyes have been a
howling wilderness.
The Duchess of Exeter and her daughter were among the royal guests. The
flirtation between the former and Mr. St. Leger was thereby considerably
promoted: while the aversion of the Lady Anne for Mr. Thomas Grey was
very far from lessened. The Duchess, however, pushed on the settlements
and preparations: and soon after the King's return to Westminster, both
events were ready to happen. The divorce came first. On the twelfth of
November, 1472, the marriage of the Duke and Duchess of Exeter was
dissolved by Papal bull: and in the following January, the Lady Anne de
Holand was made to give her hand--_not_ with her heart in it--to the
eldest son of Queen Elizabeth.
On the evening before this sacrifice was offered at the shrine of
politics and propriety, the Lady Anne, and several of her mother's
chamberers, were gathered at Coldharbour. The bride had been trying on
her wedding-dress, which Jane Grisacres and Marion Rothwell were
carefully folding up. It was of rich crimson velvet, heavily furred with
ermine, and was almost too great a weight for the slight shoulders which
drooped beneath it. Suddenly there was an exclamation from Jane.
"Help us, holy Mary! If I have not lost my locket!"
"Dear heart!" responded Marion. "Look and see if it have not catched in
my Lady's gown."
The search was made, but without success.
"Woe is me! I had liefer have lost all mine having rather than yon
locket," lamented Jane.
"I know wherefore," suggested the teazing Tamzine, in that tantalising
style which is always meant to provoke a request for further
explanation: and Marion, who was not devoid of curiosity, responded as
Tamzine intended she should.
"Wherefore? The saints be about us! Had she not yon locket for a token
of Master Sellinger? _I_ know!" announced Miss Thomasine, in a tone
which called the colour into Jane's face.
The last-named young lady was still hunting for her lost treasure, in
likely and unlikely places, with a running accompaniment of remarks
addressed to nobody, such as are usual in similar cases.
"I am assured I put it on this morrow!--Dear, dear, but to think of
it!--Where can it be?--I have looked every whither!--Had ever poor maid
such an ill loss?"
"It had his hair in it, I warrant you," said Marion, not
ill-naturedly--she was not an ill-natured girl--but with that spice of
enjoyable excitement at the least adventure or misadventure, which gave
Rochefoucauld the occasion to observe that there is something
exhilarating in the misfortunes of our friends.
"Not it, forsooth!" said Tamzine. "Master Sellinger is not he that
should lay violent hands of his greatest treasure to please a woman."
"Is his hair his greatest treasure?" laughed Marion.
"Trust me!" was Tamzine's sententious response. "Have you ne'er beheld
him shake it with yon delicate turn of his head that he hath? Why, he
beareth it a good inch longer than any other in the Court."
"Good lack! the man is a very popinjay,"[#] said Marion. "He might be a
maid, with his pouncet-box and his pomanders."[#]
[#] Parrot.
[#] The pomander, now becoming old-fashioned, was a ball of
sweet-scented drugs enclosed in a network of metal, which was held in
the warm hand to call out its fragrance: the pouncet box had taken its
place, and was filled with sweet powder.
"And his little mirror stuck of a little poke[#] of his doublet--have
you ne'er watched him pull it forth when he counted him unseen?"
[#] Pocket is the diminutive of poke.
"Nay, verily! but doth he so? That passeth!"[#]
[#] Surpasses belief.
"Use your eyes," said Tamzine. "Jane, sweet chuck, give up searching
for a needle of a bottle of hay. The cat hath it, I'll be bound, or
some animal belike."
In which Miss Tamzine was not so far wrong, seeing that the missing
article lay in her own pocket.
"Cats eat no lockets, trow," said Marion.
"Nay, but I cannot," answered Jane in a distressed voice. "I had never
yet heavier loss in all my life."
"Good sooth, your life must have been a merry one," said Tamzine.
"I have lost father and mother," added Marion. "Somewhat passing a
locket, belike."
"I have lost worser than that," said the cynical Tamzine, "for I had
eleven hundred pound put out to usury, and he that had it paid me ne'er
a plack."
"Dear heart! how came that?" said Marion.
"Father Nokes said it came of the temptation of Satan, and the evilness
of men's hearts," was the demure reply of Tamzine.
"What was your worst loss, Agnes?" asked Marion.
Agnes had to think. "I scarce can tell," said she. "I were o'er young
when my mother died to feel any loss."
"What happy maids be ye!" came softly from Lady Anne, who had listened
hitherto without joining. "Dear damsels, I pray you to thank God that
the worsest loss ye know is the loss of death."
"Can there be a worser, Madam?"
"Aye, Marion, there be losses in life far wofuller."
"Your Ladyship scarce speaks from your own knowledge, methinks."
"Aye, but I do!" answered the bride sadly. "We may lose our living, in a
sorer fashion than our dead. The dead can go no further from us than
they be: and the day cometh when we shall go to them. But the living
may go further away from us till they never come back again: aye, and
worser--for they may go further and further from God till they never
come back to Him. And who shall measure the loss of a lost life?--who
shall measure the loss of a lost soul?"
"Cheery talk for a bride of her wedding-eve!" muttered Marion, not for
Lady Anne to hear.
Nor did she hear it. She sat by the table, resting her head upon her
hand, and her thoughts evidently far away. Probably they were either on
the life that lay before her, or on the father whom she might never see
again.
"Oh dear!" exclaimed poor Jane, standing up from the cramped position in
which she had been hunting for the missing locket. "I must give it up
till daylight come. Our sweet Lady grant it be not truly lost!"
"Not a bit of it," said Tamzine peremptorily: and reasonably enough,
since she knew where it was.
"I will help you look for it to-morrow," said Agnes kindly.
"Truly, I am beholden to you," replied Jane. "I would give a gold
half-angel to know where it were."
"Give it me," said Tamzine, holding out her hand. "I am going to-morrow
even to see the White Witch of Bermondsey."
"Wait and see if the locket be found afore the even," wisely suggested
Marion.
"Won't be," said Tamzine.
Jane, whose chief failing was being too easily led, paid over the five
shillings to Tamzine without taking Marion's advice.
"We must be early abed, maids," said Lady Anne, rising, with a weary
air. "We must needs be stirring early, and 'tis now so late the night
shall not be long."
She turned away from them, to go to her own chamber, with a hollow cough
which smote painfully on Agnes Marston's heart.
"Not long!" she said to herself, in another sense. "No, dear, gentle,
suffering maiden--the night will not be long!"
The next morning rose brilliantly clear, and cruelly cold. There was a
keen frost, and a keener east wind: but it was _de rigueur_ that the
bride must wear no covering on her head except a coronal of gems. She
bore herself royally, with no sign of the outward sufferings which were
consuming her life, any more than of the inward anguish which was
gnawing at her heart. The marriage took place at Greenwich Palace,
after a freezing voyage: and the bride was given away by her royal
uncle. All the chamberers of course were present, and so were the
people of England, represented by as many as could squeeze into the
Palace chapel. Men and women of all ranks were there: but only two
pairs of eyes noticed one man, muffled in a thick cloak as if he felt
the cold, who stood back in the furthest corner. Agnes thought she
could guess who he was; and she contrived to leave the chapel by the
door close to which he stood. As she passed him in the crush, the Duke
slipped a scrap of paper into her hand, with a significant look. Agnes
hid it hastily, for it was not for a long time that she dared to examine
it. There was a grand banquet to be gone through, and a series of
dances and games in the Palace hall; and hours were over before Agnes
could without notice slip away from the dancers, and in the recess of a
window where no eyes saw her, unfold the Duke's missive.
"I would fain speak with you," it ran. "Dare you come alone to the
waterside, without the little postern, as soon as the dark falleth?
Risk nothing: but if you can come, you shall find me there."
It was growing dusk already. Agnes listened for a moment to the sounds
of mirth which came surging from the hall. No one would miss her there.
She tied a hood over her head, and ran down to the little postern. True
to his appointment, the Duke was walking slowly up and down, muffled in
his cloak.
"May Christ bless you, my good damsel!" he said warmly, as Agnes made
her appearance. "I do heartily trust that no ill shall hap to you for
this grace. Now tell me quickly, for I would not keep you to your
harm--what manner of man is this Master Grey? Since he were babe have I
never seen him. What is in him?--what hath he done?"
Ah, Agnes knew of one thing he had done, which so far as in her lay must
be kept from the ears of Anne's father for ever. Could she look up into
those mournful, longing eyes, and tell him that the man into whose hands
his one darling had fallen was one of the murderers of Prince Edward?
She cast her eyes downwards, and played nervously with her chatelaine.
"Methinks, my gracious Lord, not much hath been yet known of the young
gentleman."
"Perchance, not much," answered the Duke quietly: "yet something, my
gentle maid, which you would fain not tell me."
Agnes took refuge in the smaller of the two evil actions of which she
knew Grey to be guilty. The smaller--yet showing, as straws show how
the wind blows, that he was capable of the greater.
"I have seen him not o'er good to his dog," said she. "But I know not
much of his conditions."
The Duke sighed. "Doth my little maid love him?" he asked. "Was she
willing to wed with him?"
It was an unusual idea for that time, and would scarcely have been asked
but by an exceptionally tender-hearted parent. Agnes shook her head.
"O my darling, my darling! My little white dove!"
"My Lord," said Agnes tremulously, "it will not be for long."
"I know it. And then--I shall have nothing left to live for."
Agnes Marston was one of those shy, undemonstrative, yet deeply-feeling
natures, to whom talking of any thing they feel deeply is all but
impossible. The fervent souls who wear their hearts upon their sleeves
never comprehend a nature like this. They always think them cold,
impassive, unfeeling. Yet such have shown themselves capable of martyr
death: and they beyond all others can live the martyr life.[#] The most
suffering life, and the most saintly, is the life that has no outlet
except towards God.
[#] I would fain take this opportunity of protesting against a very
common misapprehension (as it appears to me) of a passage of Scripture,
by which hearts have been made sad which I believe God would not have
made sad. How often the fervent nature condemns the shy and silent with
"Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh." If the latter
cannot speak, it is assumed, it is because it cannot feel, or is only
half-hearted; if love be in your heart, it must come out of your lips:
Christ says so! But does Christ say so? Let the context be carefully
examined, and it will be found that Christ says, not that whatever is
felt in the heart will come out of the mouth--but that whatever does
come out of the mouth must first have originated in the heart. I
venture to submit that this passage does not deal with the
counter-proposition at all: and that between the two there is as much
difference as between saying all one thinks, and meaning all one says.
As she stood there by the river, listening to the soft lapping of the
water against the bank, Agnes felt as though she could have given any
thing to comfort that desolate man. Yet what could she say that might
comfort him? To quote God's Word, for a woman, and especially in
English, would put herself in jeopardy: but she did not mind that, if it
would do him any good. Agnes did not realise that the Duke had been
educated by a Lollard stepmother, herself the daughter of a martyr of
Jesus Christ.
"'_Youre liif is hidde with Crist in God_.'" She made the quotation
very tremblingly. Amazed indeed she was at the style of its reception.
The Duke's hand fell softly on her head as if in blessing, and--most
astonishing of all--the quotation went on.
"'_For whanne Crist schal apere youre liif, thanne also ye schuln apere
with him in glorie... Where is not male and female, ... larlarus and
scita, bonde man and fre man; but alle thingis and in alle thingis
Crist_.' I thank you, heartily, my good maid. Aye, and methinks it
runneth next,--'_As the Lord forgaf to you, so also ye_.' It is well.
I count that shall last us both for this little while. '_Alle thingis
and in alle thingis, Crist_.'"
Agnes was silent. She had taken a text: if her hearer would preach the
sermon to himself, it was far better than any comment on her part.
"I scarce looked to find one of that sort in Coldharbour now," said the
Duke, with a smile which made him but look the sadder. "But you must
have a care, Mistress Agnes. We be no longer under King Henry, that
would not see a Christian man nor woman ill-usen. Yet I would fain,
whenso you find safe chance, that you should speak such words to my
little maid as you have spoken to me to-night. She cannot remember her
grandmother, that should have learned them to her, as she did to me."
"My gracious Lord, the Lady Anne wist thereof far more and better than
I."
The light came to the Duke's eyes, for the first time that sorrowful
night.
"Then we shall meet again," he said. "Not long--no, not long! God keep
you, Mistress Agnes, and give you, for this little while,--give all of
us--to have, '_alle thingis and in alle thingis, Crist_.'"
Once more, light and warm, his hand rested on her head: and the next
moment he was gone. She stood still and silent, with the feeling of
that hand upon her head--of that last word in her ear. It was as if
Christ Himself had blessed her. A sense of deep peace sank into Agnes
Marston's heart. The little while to be spent on this side the cold
river seemed so very little, and the golden gates of Paradise so very
near. She would never forget those words--never forget that
tone--"_alle thingis, and in alle thingis, Crist_."
"Agnes! Agnes Marston! Where art, hussy? Dost look for thy betters to
waste their breath a-bawling of thee? Art any better than thou shouldst
be, a-chattering to strange men at postern doors? Come in this minute,
for shame of thy face, and tell me who is thy gallant. Some
penny-go-quick pot-loving companion, I'll be bound. Come hither, I
say!"
Oh, what a revulsion it was! But Agnes did not hesitate a moment. Her
conscience was clean as snow. She ran up the spiral staircase, and
found herself in the awful, because angry, presence of the Mistress of
the Household, Lady Elizabeth Darcy.
"Come up to the light, and let me look at thee!"
Agnes stood the scrutiny without flinching.
"Now then--with whom wert thou talking yonder?"
"Please it you, Madam, with a gentleman whose daughter is a maid of my
cognisance, and he, knowing the same, did desire to have some speech of
me touching her."
"Yonder's a jolly hearing! Get thy tale up better another time.
Wherefore should such meet thee after dark, behind posterns? He should
have come up to the hall, and desired speech of thee like an honest man.
Now then, tell me another story, and let it be the true one, this time."
"Madam, I have spoken truth. An' I tell your Ladyship any other tale,
it must needs be false."
The two pairs of eyes met, and the Lady Elizabeth's fell first.
"Holy Mary! but thou art a brazen piece of goods as ever I saw! Come
with me to thy Lady. She must be told of this."
Agnes followed silently. Wild horses should not drag that secret from
her keeping.
The Duchess of Exeter--who had just divorced her own husband in order to
marry another man--was inexpressibly horrified at the moral turpitude of
Agnes Marston. Was she to allow of such scandals in her house? No,
indeed! The only atonement that Agnes could make was to declare then
and there the name and business of her companion. The Duchess was
doubtful whether, after any disclosures or expressions of penitence, she
would be justified in overlooking the matter.
Agnes kept silence. She had repeated her explanation, and she held to
it as the simple truth: but not another word would she utter.
"Wilt not even say thou art sorry?" demanded Lady Darcy, who, now that
the Duchess had taken up the matter so warmly, was herself cooling down.
Sorry! would she ever be sorry, all her life long, for what had passed
in those few minutes?
"No, Madam. I am not sorry."
"Nor ashamed?"
"Nor ashamed, in any wise." And Agnes lifted her clear, honest eyes to
her examiners.
"Verily, this passes!" cried the Duchess. "Dost look to tarry any
longer in mine house, thou good-for-nought?"
"At your pleasure, Madam."
"Then thou mayest write to my Lord Marnell, and tell him I send him back
a thing that is no better than she should be."
Agnes, whose sense of the ludicrous was very delicate, thought she would
be quite safe in making that report.
"I'll have thy sister in the stead of thee. She is a well-looking maid
enough, and of good conditions. I saw her this last week, when she that
was Queen Margaret was sent from Windsor to Wallingford."
Agnes felt quietly amused. It was Frideswide who had been the Duke's
first friend, not she. He would be no worse by the exchange--whatever
she might be.
"Dost hear, hussy?"
"Aye, Madam, an't like you."
"Then begone!"
And so--for Agnes Marston--closed the Lady Anne's wedding-day.
She went quietly enough upstairs to the room shared by the chamberers of
the Duchess. For a moment she stopped at the summit, with her hand on
the banister. A sharp pain was shooting through her heart, but whence
and what it was she did not know herself.
"What does it matter?" she said to herself, looking out of the window at
the starry night. "Only such a little while! '_Alle thingis, and in
alle thingis, Crist!_'"
*CHAPTER IX.*
*DRAWING NEARER.*
"A bowing, burdened head,
That only asks to rest
Unquestioning, upon
A loving breast."
The Duchess carried her point, and packed off Agnes in disgrace within a
week of the offence. She had the grace to see that there was some
escort for the friendless girl on her journey home. A small party of
travellers were on their way to the north--consisting of three
gentlemen, one of whom was accompanied by his wife and daughters. Agnes
received a frigid intimation that she was to make one of this party, and
must be ready to start in four days. Mr. Banaster, the married
gentleman, lived in Lancashire, whither he was returning, and would take
charge of Agnes as far as Sheffield, where, if her friends did not meet
her, she must be content to go forward to York with the two younger men
whose destination it was. Agnes inwardly hoped that somebody would meet
her: but it was a difficult matter to let them know. She wrote to her
father, and contrived to send the letter by a post who was going to York
with letters from the Duke of Gloucester: but whether it would reach
Lovell Tower before herself was an open question. She humbly requested
to know the names of the other gentlemen, in a faint hope that they
might possibly be acquaintances. Lady Darcy informed her, in her
coldest manner, that one of them was a Yorkshire squire, Master
Rotherham by name: as for the other, his name was Combe, and whence he
might come, she neither knew nor cared. Wherein my Lady Darcy was
guilty of saying the thing that is not, since she was perfectly well
aware that Master John Combe was of old time Queen Marguerite's
henchman, and she had, under different circumstances, appeared to be
very good friends with him. Both names were strange to Agnes. She had
one more request to make--for an interview with Frideswide ere she set
out. Lady Darcy hesitated, but finally granted the request, though she
made a great favour of doing so.
During the last few months, Frideswide's movements had been regulated by
political necessities. Thirty-seven days was the limit beyond which no
person could claim the privilege of sanctuary at the cost of the house:
and to reside in sanctuary at a man's own expense was a ruinous
proceeding. It was therefore impossible to Frideswide to remain with
the Countess of Warwick: and she had no money to provide for herself;
yet, being unindicted, she was not a prisoner, and could not expect to
be kept at the royal cost. In these uncomfortable circumstances, she
had availed herself of an opportunity which few girls would have
accepted. A small, though extremely diminished suite had to be provided
for the imprisoned Queen, and Frideswide had thankfully received
permission to share her captivity. A fervent Lancastrian, she
reverenced Marguerite from the core of her heart. Beyond the one change
to her own home, any change from that service would be unwelcome.
The unwelcome change was at hand. The Duchess of Exeter had petitioned
her brother for Frideswide Marston, and no choice was allowed the
latter. One evening in January, Queen Marguerite's gaoler entered her
bower, as he politely termed it--she called it her dungeon--in
Wallingford Castle. As gaolers went in those days, Sir Thomas Thwaytes
was fairly civil to his illustrious captive.
"Dame," said he, "please you, take your leave of Mistress Marston, whom
it is His Highness' gracious pleasure to command otherwhere."
Frideswide turned rather pale, as was but natural. Her first idea was
that the alteration had reference to her mistress rather than herself.
But Sir Thomas soon undeceived her. Her sister was going home; and
Frideswide was to take her place with my Lady of Exeter. Every fibre of
Frideswide's heart and nerves revolted at the very name. Take service
under the woman who had ruined the life of that man with the soft sad
eyes, for whose miserable story her compassion had been intensely
awakened! But Frideswide had no choice. And then the thought flashed
upon her that perhaps she might serve him there. At least she could do
what Agnes had done, and help him, if he should seek it, to obtain
private interviews with his daughter.
Queen Marguerite took an affectionate leave of her young attendant. She
gave her a token, or gift, in the form of a table-book--one of those
little ivory books, turning on a pivot, for memoranda, which have lasted
in the same form for many a century. This one was among the few relics
of her lost estate, and was mounted in gold, and set with turquoises.
It was also fitted with a silver pen.[#]
[#] Silver pens are considerably more ancient than either steel or gold.
The next morning Frideswide left Wallingford, in charge of one Simon
Quyxley, an officer of the garrison, who was going on pilgrimage to
Canterbury, and meant to stay a few weeks with his friends in London on
his way thither. He delivered Frideswide at Coldharbour; and before she
well set her foot inside the house, she found herself in the arms of her
sister Agnes.
Fortunately for the sisters, the Duchess was spending the evening at
Court, and they were free to be alone together if they chose. Agnes
hurried Frideswide upstairs to the maidens' chamber, which was at that
moment empty, and each rapidly poured her story into the ear of the
other--a process which left Agnes comforted, and Frideswide indignant.
"Tarry here I must," said the latter: "but trust me, Annis, so far as
lieth in my good will, 'tis for his sake, not hers."
"And thou wilt serve our gracious Lord to thine uttermost, dear heart?"
urged Agnes earnestly.
"Trust me, but I will!" was the reply. "And who be thy travelling
fellows, sweeting?"
Agnes told her. The names of Messrs. Banaster and Rotherham were
received without any comment; but no sooner had she said, "Master
Combe," than Frideswide's eyes were lifted with light in them, and a
slight flush crept over her brow.