"`Now God, that is of mightes most,
Grant him grace of the Holy Ghost
His heritage to win:
And Mary moder of mercy fre
Save our King and his meynie
Fro' sorrow and shame and sin.'"
The song was trilled in a pleasant voice by an old lady who sat spinning
in an upper chamber of Langley Palace. She paused a moment in her work,
and then took up again the latter half of the strain.
"`And Mary moder of mercy fre'--Called any yonder?"
"May I come in, Dame Agnes?" said a child's voice at the door.
The old lady rose hastily, laid down her distaff, and opening the door,
courtesied low to the little girl of ten years old who stood outside.
"Enter freely, most gracious Lady! Wherefore abide without?"
It was a pretty vision which entered. Not that there was any special
beauty in the child herself, for in that respect she was merely on the
pretty side of ordinary. She was tall for her age--as tall as Maude,
though she was two years younger. Her complexion was very fair, her
hair light with a golden tinge, and her eyes of a peculiar shade of
blue, bright, yet deep--the shade known as blue eyes in Spain, but
rarely seen in England. But her costume was a study for a painter.
Little girls dressed like women in the fourteenth century; and this
child wore a blue silk tunic embroidered with silver harebells, over a
brown velvet skirt spangled with rings of gold. Her hair was put up in
a net of golden tissue, ornamented with pearls. The dress was cut
square at the neck; she wore a pearl necklace, and a girdle of turquoise
and pearls. Two rows of pearls and turquoise finished the sleeves at
the wrist; they were of brown velvet, like the skirt. This finery was
evidently nothing new to the little wearer. She came into the room and
flung herself carelessly down on a small stool, close to the chair where
Dame Agnes had been sitting--to the unfeigned horror of that courtly
person.
"Lady, Lady! Not on a stool, for love of the blessed Mary!"
And drawing forward an immense old arm-chair, Dame Agnes motioned the
child to take it.
"Remember, pray you, that you be a Prince's daughter!" [See Note 1.]
The child rose with some reluctance, and climbed into the enormous
chair, in which she seemed almost lost.
"Prithee, Dame Agnes, is it because I be a Prince's daughter that I must
needs be let from sitting whither I would?"
"There is meetness in all things," said the old lady, picking up her
distaff.
"And what meetness is in setting the like of me in a chair that would
well hold Charlemagne and his twelve Peers?" demanded the little girl,
laughing.
"The twelve Peers of Charlemagne, such saved as were Princes, were not
the like of _you_, Lady Custance," said Dame Agnes, almost severely.
"Ah me!" and Constance gaped (or, as she would herself have said,
"goxide.") "I would I were a woodman's daughter."
Dame Agnes de La Marche, [see Note 2], whose whole existence had been
spent in the scented atmosphere of Court life, stared at the child in
voiceless amazement.
"I would so, Dame. I might sit then of the rushes, let be the stools,
or in a fieldy nook amid the wild flowers. And Dona Juana would not be
ever laying siege to me--with `Dona Constanca, you will soil your
robes!'--or, `Dona Constanca, you will rend your lace!'--or, `Dona
Constanca, you will dirty your fingers!' Where is the good of being
rich and well-born, if I must needs sit under a cloth of estate [a
canopy] all the days of my life, and dare not so much as to lift a pin
from the floor, lest I dirty my puissant and royal fingers? I would
liefer have a blacksmith to my grandsire than a King."
"Lady Custance! With which of her Grace's scullion maidens have you
demeaned yourself to talk?"
"I will tell thee, when thou wilt answer when I was suffered to say so
much as `Good morrow' to any maid under the degree of a knight's
daughter."
"Holy Mary, be our aid!" interjected the horrified old lady.
"I am aweary, Dame Agnes," said the child, laying herself down in the
chair, as nearly at full length as its size would allow. "I have played
the damosel [person of rank--used of the younger nobility of both sexes]
so long time, I would fain be a little maid a season. I looked forth
from the lattice this morrow, and I saw far down in the base court a
little maid the bigness of me, washing of pans at a window. Now,
prithee, have yon little maid up hither, and set her under the cloth of
estate in my velvets, and leave me run down to the base court and wash
the pans. It were rare mirth for both of us."
Dame Agnes shook her head, as if words failed to express her feelings at
so unparalleled a proposal.
"What sangst thou as I was a-coming in?" asked the child, dropping a
subject on which she found no sympathy.
"'Twas but an old song, Lady, of your Grace's grandsire King Edward
(whom God assoil! [pardon]) and his war of France."
"That was ere I was born. Was it ere thou wert, Dame?"
"Truly no, Lady," said Agnes, smiling; "nor ere my Lord your father."
"What manner of lad was my Lord my father, when he was little?"
"Rare meek and gent, Lady,--for a lad, and his ire saved." [Except when
he was angry.]
Dame Agnes saved her conscience by the last clause, for gentle as Prince
Edmund had generally been, he was as capable of going into a genuine
Plantagenet passion as any of his more fiery brothers.
"But a maiden must be meeker and gentler?"
"Certes, Damosel," said Agnes, spinning away.
The child reclined in her chair for a time in silence. Perhaps it was
the suddenness of the next question which made the old lady drop her
distaff.
"Dame, who is Sir John de Wycliffe?"
The distaff had to be recovered before the question could be considered.
"Ask at Dame Joan, Lady," was the discreet reply.
"So I did; and she bade me ask at thee."
"A priest, methinks," said Agnes vaguely.
"Why, I knew that," answered the child. "But what did he, or held he?--
for 'tis somewhat naughty, folk say."
"If it be somewhat naughty, Lady Custance, you should not seek to know
it."
"But my Lady my mother wagged her head, though she spake not. So I want
to know."
"Then your best way, Damosel," suggested the troubled Agnes, "were to
ask at her Grace."
"I did ask at her."
"And what said she?"
"She said she would tell me another day. But I want to know now."
"Her Grace's answer might have served you, Lady."
"It did not serve Ned. He said he would know. And so will I."
"The Lord Edward is two years your elder, Lady."
"Truth," said the child shrewdly, "and you be sixty years mine elder, so
you should know more than he by thirty."
Agnes could not help smiling, but she was sadly perplexed how to dismiss
the unwelcome topic.
"Let be. If thou wilt not tell me, I will blandish some that will.
There be other beside thee in the university [world, universe].--What is
yonder bruit?" [a noise.]
It was little Maude, flying in frantic terror, with Parnel in hot
pursuit, both too much absorbed to note in what direction they were
running. The cause was not far to seek.
After Maude had recovered from the effects of her exposure in the
forest, she lighted unexpectedly on the little flat parcel which her
mother had charged her to keep. It was carefully sewn up in linen, and
the sewing cost Maude some trouble to penetrate. She reached the core
at last. It was something thin and flat, with curious black and red
patterns all over it. This would have been the child's description. It
was, in truth, a vellum leaf of a manuscript, elaborately written, but
not illuminated, unless capitals in red ink can be termed illumination.
Remembering her mother's charge, to let "none beguile her of it," Maude
had striven to keep its possession a secret from every one, first from
the nuns, and then from Ursula Drew. Strange to say, she had succeeded
until that morning. It was to her a priceless treasure--all the more
inestimable because she could not read a word of it. But on that
unlucky morning, Parnel had caught a glimpse of the precious parcel,
always hidden in Maude's bosom, and had immediately endeavoured to
snatch it from her. Contriving to elude her grasp, yet fearful of its
repetition, Maude rushed out of the kitchen door, and finding that her
tormentor followed, fled across the base court, took refuge in an open
archway, dashed up a flight of steps, and sped along a wide corridor,
neither knowing nor caring that her flying feet were bearing her
straight in the direction of the royal apartments. Parnel was the first
to see where they were going, and at the last corner she stayed her
pursuit, daring to proceed no further. But Maude did not know that
Parnel was no longer on her track, and she fled wildly on, till her foot
tripped at an inequality in the stone passage, and she came down just
opposite an open door.
For a minute the child was too much stunned by her fall to think of any
thing. Then, as her recollection returned, she cast a terrified glance
behind her, and saw that her pursuer had not yet appeared round the
corner. And then, before she could rise, she heard a voice in front of
her.
"What is this, my child?"
Maude looked up, past a gorgeous spread of blue and gold drapery, into a
meek, quiet face--a face whose expression reassured and comforted her.
A calm, pale, oval face, in which were set eyes of sapphire blue, framed
by soft, light hair, and wearing a look of suffering, past or present.
Maude answered the gentle voice which belonged to that face as she might
have answered her mother.
"I pray you of pardon, Mistress! Parnel, my fellow, ran after me and
affrighted me."
"Wherefore ran she after thee?"
"Because she would needs see what I bare in my bosom, and I was loth she
so should, lest she should do it hurt."
"What is that? I will do it no hurt."
Maude looked up again, and felt as if she could trust that face with any
thing. So merely saying--"You will not give it Parnel, Mistress?" she
drew forth her treasure and put it into the lady's hand.
"I will give it to none saving thine own self. Dost know what it is,
little maid?"
"No, Mistress, in good sooth."
"How earnest by it? 'Tis a part of a book."
"My mother, that is dead, charged me to keep it; for it was all she had
for to give me. I know not, in very deed, whether it be Charlemagne or
Arthur"--the only two books of which poor Maude had ever heard. "But
an' I could meet with one that wist to read, and that were my true
friend, I would fain cause her to tell me what I would know thereabout."
"And hast no true friend?" inquired the lady.
"Not one," said Maude sorrowfully.
"Well, little maid, I can read, and I would be thy true friend. What is
it thou wouldst fain know?"
"Why," said Maude, in an interested tone, "whether the great knight, of
whose mighty deeds this book doth tell, should win his 'trothed love at
the last, or no."
For the novel-reader of the fourteenth century was not very different
from the novel-reader of the nineteenth. The lady smiled, but grew
grave again directly. She sat down in one of the cushioned
window-seats, keeping Maude's treasured leaf in her hand.
"List, little maid, and thou shalt hear--that the great Knight, of whose
mighty prowess this book doth tell, shall win His 'trothed love at
last."
And she began to read--very different words from any Maude expected.
The child listened, entranced.
"And I saigh [saw] newe heuene and newe erthe; for the firste heuene and
the firste erthe wenten awei; and the see is not now. And I ioon [John]
saigh the hooli citee ierusalim newe comynge doun fro heuene maad redi
of god as a wyf ourned to hir husbonde. And I herde a greet voice fro
the trone seiynge [saying], lo a tabernacle of god is with men, and he
schal dwelle with hem, and thei schulen be his peple, and he, god with
hem, schal be her [their] god. And god schal wipe awei ech teer fro the
ighen [eyes] of hem, and deeth schal no more be, neithir mournyng
neither criyng neither sorewe schal be ouer, whiche thing is firste
[first things] wenten awei. And he seide that sat in the trone, lo I
make alle thingis newe. And he seide to me, write thou, for these
wordis ben [are] moost feithful and trewe. And he seide to me, it is
don, I am alpha and oo [omega] the bigynnyng and ende, I schal ghyue
[give] freli of the welle of quyk [quick, living] water to him that
thirstith. He that schal ouercome schal welde [possess] these thingis,
and I schal be god to him, and he schal be sone to me. But to ferdful
men, and unbileueful, and cursid, and manquelleris, and fornicatours,
and to witchis and worschiperis of ydols and to alle lyeris the part of
hem schal be in the pool brenynge with fyer and brymstoon, that is the
secounde deeth. And oon [one] cam of the seuene aungelis hauynge violis
ful of seuene the laste ueniauncis [vengeances, plagues], and he spak
with me and seide, come thou and I schal schewe to thee the spousesse
[bride] the wyf of the lombe. And he took me up in spirit into a greet
hill and high, and he schewide to me the hooli cite ierusalem comynge
doun fro heuene of god, hauynge the cleerte [glory] of god; and the
light of it lyk a precious stoon as the stoon iaspis [jasper], as
cristal. And it hadde a wall greet and high hauynge twelue ghatis
[gates], and in the ghatis of it twelue aungelis and names writen yn
that ben the names of twelue lynagis [lineages, tribes] of the sones of
israel. Fro the eest three ghatis, and fro the north three ghatis, and
fro the south three ghatis, and fro the west three ghatis. And the wall
of the citee hadde twelue foundamentis, and in hem the twelue names of
twelue apostlis and of the lombe. And he that spak with me hadde a
goldun mesure of a rehed [reed] that he schulde mete the citee and the
ghatis of it and the wall. And the citee was sett in a square, and the
lengthe of it is so mych as mych as is the brede [breadth], and he mat
[meted, measured] the citee with the rehed bi furlongis twelue
thousyndis, and the highthe and the lengthe and breede of it ben euene.
And he maat [meted, measured] the wallis of it of an hundride and foure
and fourti cubitis bi mesure of man, that is, of an aungel. And the
bilding of the wall thereoff was of the stoon iaspis and the citee it
silff was cleen gold lyk cleen glas. And the foundamentis of the wal of
the cite weren ourned [adorned] with al precious stoon, the firste
foundament iaspis, the secound saphirus, the thridde calsedonyus, the
fourthe smaragdus [emerald], the fifthe sardony [sardonyx], the sixte
sardyus [ruby], the seuenthe crisolitus, the eighthe berillus, the
nynthe topasius, the tenthe crisopassus, the elleuenthe iacinctus
[jacinth], the tweluethe amiatistus [amethyst]. And twelue ghatis ben
twelue margaritis [pearls] bi ech [each], and ech ghate was of ech
[each] margarite and the streetis of the citee weren cleen gold as of
glas ful schinynge. And I saigh no temple in it, for the lord god
almyghti and the lomb is temple of it, and the citee hath not nede of
sunne neither moone that thei schine in it, for the cleerite of god
schal lightne it, and the lombe is the lanterne of it, and the kyngis of
erthe schulen bringe her glorie and onour into it. And the ghatis of it
schulen not be closid bi dai, and nyght schal not be there, and thei
schulen bringe the glorie and onour of folkis into it, neither ony man
defouled and doynge abomynacioun and leesyng [lying] schal entre into
it, but thei that ben writun in the book of lyf and of the lombe."
When the soft, quiet voice ceased, it was like the sudden cessation of
sweet music to the enchanted ears of little Maude. The child was very
imaginative, and in her mental eyes the City had grown as she listened,
till it now lay spread before her--the streets of gold, and the gates of
pearl, and the foundations of precious stones. Of any thing typical or
supernatural she had not the faintest idea. In her mind it was at once
settled that the City was London, and yet was in some dreamy way
Jerusalem; for of any third city Maude knew nothing. The King, of
course, had his Palace there; and a strong desire sprang up in the
child's mind to know whether the royal mistress, who was to her a kind
of far-off fairy queen, had a palace there also. If so--but no! it was
too good to be true that Maude would ever go to wash the golden pans and
diamond dishes which must be used in that City.
"Mistress!" said Maude to her new friend, after a short silence, during
which both were thinking deeply.
The lady brought her eyes down to the child from the sky, where they had
been fixed, and smiled a reply to the appeal.
"Would you tell me, of your grace, whether our Lady mistresshood's
graciousness hath in yonder city a dwelling?"
Maude wondered exceedingly to see tears slowly gather in the sapphire
eyes.
"God grant it, little maid!" was, to her, the incomprehensible answer.
"And if so were, Mistress, counteth your Madamship that our said
puissant Lady should ever lack her pans cleansed yonder?"
"Wherefore, little maid?" asked the lady very gently.
"Because, an' I so might, I would fain dwell in yonder city," said
Maude, with glittering eyes.
"And thy work is to cleanse pans?"