We only know that she had nothing to live on. Perhaps, like Warwick's
sister, his widow kept herself alive by means of her needle, deeming
herself happy when she could buy a few yards of serge for a new dress,
while her daughters were decked with pearls and diamonds, and trailed
velvet and ermine trains over palace floors. One of the daughters at
least was not to blame. The Duchess Anne of Gloucester was as helpless
in her palace as her destitute mother in her northern refuge.
Gloucester kept her in watch and ward as closely as if she had been his
prisoner, which in fact she was: for the first three years of her hated
marriage were spent in perpetual efforts to escape its cruel toils. The
Act of Parliament just quoted contains the significant entry that if a
divorce shall take place between Gloucester and Anne, he shall
nevertheless continue to enjoy her property as if she were still his
wife, so long as he "doo his effectuell diligence and continuell deuoir
by all conuenient and laufull meanes to be lawfully maried to the said
Anne." No words could have shown more plainly that the caged bird was
constantly working at the fastenings of the cage, and that the jailer
was afraid lest it should compass its end some time.
Less than this can be said for Isabel of Clarence. She was in no
durance, and her influence over her husband was great. She was, in
fact, the only person who was permanently able to do any thing with
Clarence. It is difficult to believe that if she had chosen to exert
herself, some small pension at least--which would have made all the
difference between comfort and care--should not have been conferred on
her lonely and destitute mother. But she did it not. Are we justified
in assuming that it was by more than fortuitous coincidence or the
action of sanitary laws, that her days were not long in the land?
"God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also
reap."
*CHAPTER XII.*
*IDONIA UNDERSTANDS.*
"But hush! What is the utmost that I would?
To give my life to God is all I could:
And this may be the way He wills to take--
This daily death may be for God's own sake;
He gave, and took. So let my soul be still."
--ISABELLA FYVIE MAYO.
At Lovell Tower, things were going as merry as marriage-bells could make
them. About six weeks after her return home, Frideswide Marston became
the wife of John Combe. They were to live, for the present, with Lord
Marnell, until it should be seen what would happen further. There was a
pretty little estate in Devonshire, named Combe Abbas, which belonged of
right to Queen Marguerite's henchman: but of course, so long as King
Edward lived, no deprived Lancastrian could expect to recover his lands.
What might happen in the next reign, when men's minds might be supposed
to have cooled down, and the throne to be assured to the House of York,
was another matter.
Frideswide had delivered the Duke's message and token to her sister.
They were so quietly received by Agnes, almost in silence, that
Frideswide was afraid that she felt disappointed at receiving so small a
gift.
"Thou seest, dear heart," said she, apologetically, "there is so little
left to his Lordship that methought it were ill done to choose any
choice thing: and moreover I counted thou shouldst better love a matter
whereon was his badge than something greater that had it not. That
speaketh for himself, from whom he came."
"Thou hast done well, and I thank thee," was the reply, as Agnes lifted
her eyes for a moment.
Could Frideswide have read the eyes, her impression would have been
different. The language of her sister's inmost heart was--"Do you
understand me no better than that?" From that day, the silver ring with
its ruby sparks was always to be seen on Agnes Marston's hand.
The year 1473 was drawing to a close, when Walter Marston came home from
London. His life had been an eventful one. From the household of Queen
Marguerite he had passed to that of the Duke of Burgundy, shortly before
his sister's arrival in France. Thence, returning to King Henry, he had
fought at Barnet and Tewkesbury, had remained long a prisoner, had
received pardon, and was now a knight in the household of the Earl of
Oxford. Often very near Frideswide, he had never actually met her. Now
he came home on a month's leave, and as it was six years since any of
his relatives had seen him, the occasion was a festive one indeed.
"But how big thou art!--and what a beard hast thou!" exclaimed Dorathie.
"I am not by the half as much bigger as thou," laughed Walter. "Why, I
left thee a little chick all over down, and here thou art a proper young
damsel."
"And what news abroad, Wat?" said his father.
"No great matter, my Lord, to my knowledge. 'Tis said the Venetians have
won the Isle of Cyprus, that lieth off the coast of the Holy Land: and
likewise that, I know not well how, they of Genoa have lost a certain
land[#] that lieth beyond the Grand Turk. Here at home, the King goeth
to build a new chapel to his Castle of Windsor. You shall have heard, I
reckon, of the young Lady of Clarence[#] that was born some weeks gone?
I mind not aught else of any moment, without you would hear of a poor
Lollard of late brent upon Tower Hill."
[#] The Crimea.
[#] Margaret Countess of Salisbury.
"The Lord may reckon that of more moment than all the rest, Wat," said
the Lady Idonia, gravely.
"Truly so, Madam."
"Was he of any note, lad?"
"In no wise, my Lord: a parchment-maker, as I heard, that dwelt without
the City."
"Of what name?" asked Frideswide, quickly.
"Why, 'twas a queer name," said her brother. "One John Goose, they told
me. A young man, I heard--scarce elder than I."
"Aye me! Had he it to do for himself?" murmured Frideswide in an
unsteady voice.
"What sayest, sweeting?"
"Prithee, Wat, tell me all thou wist of the inwards[#] thereof."
[#] Details.
"Well, that is not much. He was delivered afore dinner to Master
Sheriff, to put in execution the same afternoon; who had him home to his
house, and gave him great exhortation that he should reny[#] his false
errors, quoth he: but--as I heard from one that was by--all that Goose
would say was to desire that he might have meat, for he was sore
hungered. Then Master Sheriff commanded him meat, whereof he ate as
though he had ailed nothing: and quo' he, 'I eat now a good and
competent dinner, for I shall pass a little sharp shower ere I go to
supper.' Then, when he had dined, he required to be shortly led to
execution; and so, as I heard it, merrily and with good cheer took his
death."
[#] Recant.
"Then his Lord gave him the endurance,--laud be to His name!" said
Frideswide. "I knew him, Walter, though I talked with him but once. He
did at that time lodge my gracious Lord of Exeter, and his house was
that whereat I last spake with my Lord."
"Thou hast well said, good sister: for thou shalt speak with my Lord of
Exeter no more."
"Walter!--Woe is me! is my Lord dead?"
It was from Frideswide the cry came. There was no sound from Agnes.
Only the Lady Idonia, who happened to be looking at her, saw her
needlework stand suddenly still.
"'Tis a few weeks gone, Frid," said Walter, kindly. "Dear heart, I am
sorry if I started thee. I thought he had been little more than a name
to either of you."
"How died he, and where? Do tell me all."
"Nay, good sister, for how he died must we remit to God. But for where,
it was in the waves of the sea--the British Channel, betwixt Calais and
Dover. His body was washed up on the sands of Dover, and was there
found by the fishers, a dead corpse, stripped of all."
"But was he drowned, Wat? My poor master!"
"The Lord wot, dear heart. The matter had the look of a shipwreck, but
no boat was found. If he so were wrecked, or fell from the cliff of
misadventure, or--well, whatso it were--who shall tell thee? The sea
hath given up her dead, but blabbeth none of their secrets."
This is all that was ever known of the death of Henry Duke of Exeter.
The days of his mourning were ended: but how they closed--whether by
accident, or shipwreck, or by the worse violence which Walter would not
suggest openly--only his God and Father knows.
A few tears stole from Frideswide's eyes. She had felt for her noble
master very deep compassion.
"On whose soul God have mercy!" she said with an accent of tender
regret. "He hath his little Nan at the last.--Annis! art thou not sorry
at all?"
The last words were spoken rather reproachfully.
"I am sorry," said Agnes. But she said it in tones that sounded even
and hard: and leaving her work on the settle where she had been sitting,
she rose and quitted the room.
"Well!" said Frideswide, looking after her. "Verily, I am astonied. I
had thought Annis should be well-nigh as sorry as I for our poor
master."
"Folks can be sorry, Frideswide, though they say it not," quietly
answered the Lady Idonia.
But in her heart she was saying,--"O blind eyes, that can see no further
than that! Agnes is an hundred times more sorry than Frideswide--so
sorry that she can speak of it to none but God."
In the early winter of this year, the baby Prince of Wales, just three
years old, was placed under the care of governors spiritual and
temporal. His uncle Lord Rivers was the latter, and the Bishop of
Rochester the former. King Edward's language, in the decrees which
record these appointments, is worth quoting, not only as a specimen of
the English of his day, but on account of its inherent singularity. The
one entry commences thus:--
"How be it euery child in his yong age ought to be brought vp in vertue
and cunnyng,[#] to then-tent that he might delite therin and contynue in
the same, and soo consequently deserue the merites of euerlasting
blisse, and in this world to be therfore the more eureux[#] and
fortunat, yit nathelesse such persoones as god hath called to the
pre-eminent astate of princes, and to succede thair progenitours in
thestate of Regalte ought more singulerly and more diligently to be
enfourmed and instructed in cunnyng and vertu," etc.
[#] Knowledge.
[#] Heureux=happy.
The second decree asserts that--
"We, considering the great bounte of our lord god, whom it hath pleased
to send unto us our first begoten son, hole[#] and furnysshed in nature,
to succeed us in our Realmes of England and France, and lordship of
Ireland, for the which we thank most humbly his infynyte magnificens,
purpose by his grace so to purvey for his precieux sonde[#] and yefte[#]
and our most desired tresour our seid first begoten son, that he shall
be so virtuously, cunningly, and knyghtly brought up, for to serue
Almighty God cristenly and deuoutly, as accordeth to his dute, and to
leue and precede in the world honourably, after his estate and
dignite."[#]
[#] Whole.
[#] The lost noun of the verb to send.
[#] Gift.
[#] Patent Roll. 13 Edw. IV.
The child thus belauded with a flourish of court trumpets was of utterly
different character to both parents. He had neither his father's
ease-loving selfishness, nor his mother's sly cajolery. The shadow of
the sanctuary wherein his eyes first saw the light seemed to lie upon
his soul for ever. Grave and shrewd far beyond his years, yet at the
same time of child-like transparency, his character was one that might
have become a rare blessing to England. He lived in the constant, calm
expectation of early death. When his little brother, who was "joyous
and witty, nimble, and ever ready for dances and games"--true son of
Edward IV.--besought the elder to learn to dance, the young Prince's
grave reply was, "It would be better for us to learn to die." It seems
as though in him, perhaps alone of all his family, there was some good
thing found towards the Lord God of Israel. "His soul pleased the Lord:
therefore He hasted to take him away from among the wicked."
The King was still supremely blind concerning the matrimonial intentions
of his sister of Exeter, and continued to lavish favours on St. Leger.
He and the Queen were at this time interested in the approaching second
marriage of Thomas Grey, with Cicely Bonvile, which took place
immediately on the expiration of the year of mourning for his dead wife.
In the same month, on a summer evening, and in the private chapel at
Coldharbour, with only two or three witnesses, the Princess Anne,
Duchess of Exeter, bestowed her hand upon Mr. St. Leger, and--the deed
irrevocably done--sent information of it to her royal brother. It was
characteristically received. Edward did not see the slightest occasion
to put himself out. Anne could do as she liked, he said, as he lounged
on his sofa. She liked to please herself, and so did he. After all,
Sellenger was not a bad fellow, nor an ill-looking one. "What ho! Bid
the minstrels strike up there!" And settling himself comfortably among
his cushions, His Majesty prepared to listen to the music.
But there was one person at Coldharbour who received the information
very differently.
The news that her suitor was married to her mistress came upon Jane
Grisacres like a thunderbolt. Her love had been so blind that the bare
possibility of such a thing had never occurred to her for an instant.
She heard the terrible tidings suddenly, with nothing to soften the
blow: and with a sharp cry of astounded anguish, she fell into Marion
Rothwell's arms in a dead swoon. The Duchess, who was herself present,
merely glanced at the white face, and in a tone which was calmly
contemptuous, commanded that somebody should carry yon poor dolt to her
bed. Tamzine, silent for once, came forward and helped Marion to lift
the dead weight of poor Jane, and to bear her away from the sight of the
mistress to whom her stricken face was a reproach. But the reproach was
felt by the Duchess only as she might have regarded a dead fly in her
pot of scented ointment. Pick out the intrusive nuisance, throw it
away, and then all would be well again. What did a smothered fly, or a
broken heart, signify to the royal bride who had obtained her own
wishes?
Not long after that event, Master Rotherham, who had been the
fellow-traveller of Agnes on her journey home, paid a visit at Lovell
Tower, and at his own request was closeted with Lord Marnell for some
time. For so much time, indeed, that Lady Margery became rather
impatient, and expressed it as she sat and span.
"Dear heart! what would yonder man with my Lord? I had so much to ask
him! I want to know when he will have the calf killed, and how much
lime we shall take in for the meadow. Will he ne'er have done? What
can the companion be after, trow?"
"Thou alway wert a bat, Madge," said her mother, calmly. "He is after
Annis."
"Eh, good lack!" returned the daughter. "I marvel where he dwelleth,
and if it be far away."
"Shall my Lord covenant with him, I marvel?" said Frideswide, looking up
from her embroidery-frame.
Agnes was not in the room.
"Not ere he ask our counsel, methinks," replied Lady Idonia. "At the
least I hope not."
"I will read him a lecture an' he do!" said Lady Margery, laughing.
"Hush!" was her mother's quick check. "Hold your peace afore the maid."
For Agnes was just entering, and she came and sat down to her sewing.
Another half-hour passed almost in silence. At its close, Lord Marnell
came to the door and called out John Combe, who was seated with a book
in the recess of the window. With a few low-toned words he sent him off
somewhere, and came forward into the hall himself.
"Well, my Lady," said he, rubbing his hands with the air of a man very
well satisfied with his morning's work, "and what think you is Master
Rotherham come about?"
"You were best tell us, my Lord," answered his wife, prudently declining
to commit herself.
"Of a truth I am well pleased," returned he. "I have heard much good of
the young gentleman: and he hath a fair estate, and spendeth well-nigh
two hundred pound by the year; and true to the Red is he, and a good
fellow belike, as I do believe. He would make his wife jointure of sixty
pound by the year, and an house--not so ill, eh?"
"Has he a wife?" demanded Lady Margery rather slily.
"Nay, for that he came hither," said her husband, laughing complacently.
"Dear heart, but Doll is o'er young to be wed yet--think you not so, my
Lord?" responded she, with an affectation of innocent simplicity.
"Doll!" cried Lord Marnell. "Gramercy, what would the woman be at?
Doll! she is but a babe in the cradle. 'Tis Annis he would have--where
be thine eyes, Madge?"
Lady Margery's laugh revealed her joke.
"Oh! good heart, thou wert but a-mocking, I see.--Well, my maid, how
likest the matter?" And he turned to Agnes.
He expected to see a blush, a smile, and to hear a few faltered words of
satisfaction with his arrangement. But no one of them answered him.
Instead of these, what he did hear was perhaps the last speech he ever
expected from the lips of Agnes Marston.
"Good my Lord, I thank you for your care. But if it may stand with your
pleasure, pray you, give me leave to be a nun."
"A what!" came in accents of astonished dismay from her father, and the
expression of satisfaction died out of his face in an instant.
"Annis!" exclaimed her stepmother.
"Gramercy!" said Frideswide.
Lady Idonia said nothing. She sat and watched the quiet, pale face,
with its set lips, and the far-away look in the eyes which were gazing
from the window.
"If you please, my Lord," repeated Agnes calmly. "That is my desire."
"And what in all this world hath moved thee to desire the same?"
"I have so done of some time," was the reply, in the same quiet tone.
"Lack-a-day, maid! How long time?"
A faint flush rose to the white brow, and dying away, left it whiter
than ever. But she was spared an answer.
"Give the maid her way, Jack," said a voice hitherto silent. "She hath
well spoken."
"Truly, fair Mother, but I thought it ill spoken," said Lord Marnell, in
a puzzled tone, turning to face the Lady Idonia. "I never looked to see
one of my little maids in cloister--not by my good-will."
"Then thou hadst best bring thy good-will thereto, Jack.--Frideswide and
Annis, give us leave, dear hearts."
The young ladies retired obediently. No sooner had the door closed on
them than Lady Margery said, with a mixture of perplexity and
eagerness,--
"Pray you, sweet Madam, give us to wit your meaning. It seems me you
see further into this matter than either my Lord or I."
"'Tis little enough I see," added her husband. "Verily, I counted it
rare good fortune for the lass. Here is a good man, that loveth her,
and offers her jointure of sixty pound by the year--"
"For thee, Madge," resumed her mother calmly, "thou always wert a bat,
as I have aforetime told thee. As to Jack here, men be rarely aught
else where women be concerned. Let the maid be, dear hearts. I tell
you, she has well said."
"But what doth it all mean?" asked Lord Marnell, impatiently.
"I go not about to tell Annis' secrets--more in especial when she hath
not confided them to me," replied the Lady Idonia drily. "Only this I
say to you both--withered hearts make the best nuns, and the worst
wives. God, not you, hath made a nun of Annis. Let her obey His
voice."
"Dear heart, I would ne'er think to hinder it!" returned her father, in
a voice of much regret. "But what means your Ladyship? How gat she her
heart withered, poor wretch?"
"The babe that shall cry for the moon is commonly disappointed, Jack. I
do but tell thee, Agnes Marston will never wed with any--and it were to
his hurt an' she so did. Aye, and to her own belike. Enough said."
Nor was another word on that subject to be extracted from the Dowager.
But Master Rotherham received a kindly dismissal, and it was generally
understood from that hour that Agnes was to be a nun. Should this
strike the reader as a strange thing, it must be remembered that the
Lollard views on the subject of monasticism were scarcely at all in
advance of the Roman, and that the time had not come when any woman who
did not wish to be a wife could be otherwise than a nun. There did
exist the rare phenomenon of an old bachelor; but an old maid, out of
the cloister, was unknown before the Reformation.
The same evening, when she came up to her chamber, which Agnes shared
with her, Lady Idonia sat down by the window, and remained there for a
time, looking out upon the summer night. Agnes, who usually helped her
to undress, was bidden to "hie her abed, and tarry not." She obeyed;
but the old lady sat still, long after Agnes was asleep, or at any rate
seemed to be so. Each of the two was under the impression that she knew
the other's train of thought, and had kept her own a profound secret.
In truth, the thoughts of Agnes were much better understood by the
Dowager than the reverse. Quarter after quarter of an hour dripped
heavily from the water-clock in the corner, yet the Lady Idonia sat
still in the carved oaken chair. And,
"Her great heart through all the faultful past
Went sorrowing."
At last she turned her head towards the sleeper. Agnes lay with her
cheek pillowed on one hand, and from that hand, close by the cheek, the
ruby cresset of the Duke's ring sparkled in the lamp-light.
"Poor child!" said the heart of the Lady Idonia, though her lips were
silent. "I can guess what that ruby cresset is to thee. To him, of
course, it was nothing, beyond a kindly wish to give pleasure to an
inferior who had shown a kindly feeling towards him. But out of thy
life all possibility of wedlock died upon Dover sands, fifteen months
ago. Not that _that_ was ever possible--poor child! Didst thou fancy,
babe, that thou wert about to touch the stars? God grant, for thy sake,
that it was not so!"
It was not so. Never, for one moment, had Agnes Marston dreamed of that
impossible thing. Her love had never calculated on a return. It had
only grown out of the necessity of love to give itself; and her heart
had passed out of her keeping before she had known that it was gone.
Idonia was right, also, in guessing that the Duke had never entertained
the faintest suspicion of the deep wealth of self-sacrificing love
hidden under that quiet manner and silent face. His one venture in the
matrimonial lottery had been so utter a blank that the very idea of
trying another had never occurred to him, and, had it been suggested,
would probably have been dismissed with a shudder.
"And so--" the thoughts of the watcher went on--"'so He leadeth them
unto the haven of their desire.' _So_! Ah, how many devious, winding
paths there are, which lead up to the door of life! One He leads
through pain, another through sorrow: one by loneliness and absence of
human love, another by the happiness of a satisfied heart, a third
through the shards of broken idols. Not often the second of those
three: much oftener the first or the last. But through all the paths He
brings us to the one Gate--through all the wilderness journeying, to the
one City. He who has paid for us the price of His own life cannot
afford to lose us. And then, 'when we have forded the Jordan, with the
ark of the Lord borne before us, we eat of the fruit of the Land of
Canaan that year.'"
Far back into the past years ran the "inner eye,"--back to a stately
woman in robes of white, with long black hair flowing behind her. The
years seemed obliterated, and Idonia Marnell stood in a turret-chamber
of the Palace of Holyrood, with the mournful music of Marjory Douglas'
voice sounding in her ears.
"It cannot be much longer for me now," she said to herself in
conclusion. "She has been comforted these thirty years; and I am nigh
fourscore. But for thee, poor little Agnes!--the wilderness may be long
yet: and unless I mistake, for thee also it will be 'the wilderness all
the way.' So the ark of the Lord go before thee, it is well. He will
lead thee no whither but into the Holy Land."
*CHAPTER XIII.*
*THE LAST OF THE SILVER RING.*
"Past the pearl-gates, through the golden--
When we meet His face who died,
Each want full filled, new and olden,
We, too, shall be satisfied."
King Edward quitted England on the twentieth of June, 1475, for a
personal interview with the King of France. At this interview an
agreement was entered into between the monarchs for the ransom of the
royal widow who for four years had been pining out her life in English
prisons. What moved that inscrutable mortal, King Louis, to lay down
twenty thousand crowns in hard cash for the ransom of Marguerite, is one
of those puzzles in psychology which must ever remain perplexities. It
is true that her father, King Rene, was pressing him hard--as hard as it
lay in his dreamy artist nature: and it is also true that Louis was
urged--or at any rate professed to be so--by considerations of the
outraged dignity of his own family, to which Marguerite belonged,
through her continued imprisonment--a statement which might be true--and
by feelings of compassion for a helpless woman--an assertion which
hardly can be so. One of the last men to be moved by sentiments of
pity, particularly towards a woman, was surely Louis XI.