"O purblind race of miserable men,
How many among us at this very hour
Do forge a life-long trouble for themselves,
By taking true for false, or false for true!"
_Tennyson_.
Three months had rolled away since that thirteenth of January which had
made Constance a widow. Her versatile, volatile nature soon recovered
the shock of her husband's violent death. The white garments of
widowhood which draped her found little response either in the gravity
of her demeanour or in the expression of her face. But on the Dowager
Lady the effect was very different. She became an old, infirm woman all
at once; but her manner was softer and gentler. She learned to make
more allowance for temperaments which entirely differed from hers.
There were no further efforts to repress her little grandson's noisy
glee, no more cold responses to his occasionally troublesome
demonstrations of affection. The alteration was quiet, but lasting.
It was an hour after dinner, and Maude sat alone at work in the
banquet-hall. She was almost unconsciously humming to herself the air
of a troubadour chanson--an air as well-known to ourselves as to her,
though we have turned it into a hymn tune, and have christened it
Innocents, or Durham. A fresh stave was just begun, when the hall door
opened, and a voice at the further end announced--
"A messenger from my Lord of Aumerle!"
Maude rose as the messenger approached her.
"Your servant, sir! If you bear any letter, I will carry the same unto
my Lady."
"Here is the letter, Mistress Maude," replied the messenger with a
smile. "Methinks I am more changed than you be."
Maude looked more narrowly at him.
"I know you now, Master Calverley," she said, a smile breaking over her
lips. "But you ware not that beard the last time I did see you."
She took the letter to Constance, and when she returned, she found Hugh
and his old friend Bertram in close conversation.
"Verily, sweet Hugh,"--Bertram was saying--"there is one thing in this
world I can in no wise fathom! How thy Lord--"
"There be full many things in this world that I cannot," interposed
Hugh.
"How thy Lord ordereth his dealings is beyond me," ended Bertram.
"In good sooth, I have enough ado to look to mine own dealings, though I
should let other men's be," answered Hugh.
"Lo' you now, Mistress Maude! Here is my Lord of Aumerle--you wis
somewhat of his deeds--high in favour with the King, and prevailing upon
his Grace to grant all manner of delicates [good things] unto our Lady.
He hath soothly-stirred [persuaded] him unto the bestowal of every manor
that was our late Lord's father's (whom God assoil!) and of all his
jewels, and of the custody of the young Lord. And 'tis not four months
gone since he sold our Lord to his death! What signifieth he by this
whileness?" [Whirling, turning round.]
Maude shook her head, as if to say that she could not tell. She had
resumed her work, the hemming of what she (not very elegantly) called
a sudary, and we, euphemistically but tautologically, a
pocket-handkerchief.
"Ah! 'tis a blessed thing to have a brother!" observed Bertram with
irony. "Well!--and what news, sweet Hugh, of olden friends?"
"None overmuch," responded Hugh, "unless it be of the death of Father
Wilfred, of the Priory at Langley."
"Ah me!" exclaimed Bertram regretfully.
"Master Calverley," said Maude, looking up, "do me to wit, of your
goodness, if you wot any thing touching the Lady Avice de Narbonne?"
"But so much," answered he, "that she hath taken veil upon herself in
the Minoresses' convent at Aldgate, and is, I do hear, accounted of the
sisters a right holy and devout woman."
"Marry, I am well fain to hear so good news," said Maude.
"Good news, Mistress Maude! forsooth, were I lover or kinsman of the
fair lady, I would account them right evil news," commented Bertram, in
a tone of some surprise.
"Methinks I conceive what Mistress Maude signifieth," quietly observed
Hugh. "She accounteth that the Lady Avice shall find help and comfort
in the Minoresses' house."
"Ay, in very deed," said Maude, "the which methinks she could never have
found without."
"God have it so!" answered Hugh, gently. "Yet I trust, Mistress Maude,
that our Lord may be found without convent cell, as lightly [easily] as
within it."
"Be these all thy news, sweet Hugh?" inquired Bertram. "Is nought at
work in the outer world?"
"Matters be reasonable peaceful at this present. But methinks King
Henry sitteth not over delightsomely on his throne, seeing he hath
captivated [captured] the four childre of my sometime Lord of March, and
shut them close in the Castle of Windsor."
"Hath he so?" asked Bertram, with interest. "Poor hearts!"
"Be they small childre?" said Maude, compassionately.
"The Lady Anne, that is eldest, hath but nine years, I do hear."
"Ay me, Master Calverley! Have they any mother?"
"Trust me, ay!" broke in Bertram. "Why, have you forgot that my Lady of
March is sister unto the Duchess' Grace of York?"
"And is she prisoned with the childre?"
"Holy Mary! the King's Grace lacketh not her," said Bertram.
"She was dancing at the Court a few weeks gone," returned Hugh rather
drily, "with her servant [lover], the Baron of Powys, a-waiting upon
her; and so was likewise the Lady Elizabeth, my Lord of Exeter his
widow, with the Lord Fanhope. Men say there shall be divers weddings at
Court this next summer, and these, as I reckon, among them."
"Ah! the Lady Elizabeth's Grace danceth right well!" said Bertram
sarcastically. "Marry, Robin Falconer, of my Lord's Grace of York's
following, which bare hither certain letters this last month, told me
they had dances at Court in Epiphany octave, when we rade for our lives
from Oxford; and that very night my Lord's Grace of Exeter was beheaden
at Pleshy, his wife, the Lady Elizabeth, was at the cushion dance and
singing to her lute in the Lady Blanche [the Princess Royal] her
chamber, where all the Court was gathered."
"Aid us, our Lady of Pity!" whispered Maude in a shocked voice.
"There be some women hard as stones!" pursued Bertram disgustedly.
For men knew the Lady Elizabeth well in those days, as fairest and
gayest of the Princesses. She was King Henry's favourite sister, though
that royal gentleman showed his favour rather oddly, by granting her a
quantity of damaged goods of her late husband, among which were sundry
towels, "used and torn." During the terrible struggle which had just
occurred, she had sided with her brother, against King Richard, of whom
her husband Exeter was a fervent partisan. Perhaps such vacillation as
was occasionally to be seen in Exeter's conduct may be traced to her
influence. The night that King Richard was taken, she "made good
cheer," though the event was almost equivalent to the signing of her
husband's death-warrant. I doubt if we must not class this accomplished
and beautiful Elizabeth among the most heartless women whose names have
come down to us on the roll of history. And where a woman is heartless,
she is heartless indeed.
"Forsooth, Master Lyngern, methinks I wis what you mean by women hard as
stones," observed Maude with a slight shudder. "They do give me alway
the horrors."
"Think you there is naught of the stone in the Lady Custance?" said Hugh
in a low voice.
Maude energetically repudiated the imputation.
"She a stone? nay!--she is a butterfly," said Bertram.
"And, pray you, which were better--to have a stone or a butterfly to
your wife?" asked Hugh, laughingly.
"The stone, in good surety," said Bertram. "I were allgates [always]
afeard of hurting the butterfly."
"Very well," responded Hugh, rather drily; "but the stone might hurt
thee."
The summer passed very quietly at Cardiff, except for one incident.
Maude spent it in learning to read, for which she had always had a
strong wish, and now coaxed Father Ademar to teach her. The confessor
was a Lollard, and was therefore not deterred by any fear of her
becoming acquainted with forbidden books. He willingly complied with
Maude's wish.
The incident which disturbed the calm was a hostile visit of Owain
Glyndwr, who appeared with a large force on the tenth of July, and held
the Church of Saint Mary against all comers, until driven out with great
slaughter. On the very morning of his appearance, the last baby came to
Cardiff Castle--a baby which would never see its father. The Bishop of
Llandaff, who was a guest in the Castle, was obliged to reconsecrate the
church before the child could be christened. It was not till late in
the evening that the little lady was baptised by the name of Isabel,
after the dead Infanta. She might have been born to illustrate
Bertram's observations, for her heart was as hard as a stone, and as
cold.
When Maude became able to read well, she was installed in the post of
daily reader to the Dowager. Constance had never cared for books; but
the old lady, who had been a great reader for her time, missed her usual
luxury now that age was dimming her eyes, and was very glad to employ
Maude's younger sight. The book was nearly always one of Wycliffe's,
and the reading invariably closed with a chapter of his Testament. Now
and then, but only now and then, she would ask for a little poetry--
taking by preference that courtly writer whom she knew as a great
innovator, but whom we call the father of English poetry. But she was
very particular which of his poems was selected. The Knight's, the
Squire's, the Man of Law's, the Prioress's, and the Clerk's Tales, were
all that she would have of that book by which we know Geoffrey Chaucer
best. She liked better the graceful fairy tale of the Flower and the
Leaf, written for the deceased Lollard Queen; and best of all that most
pathetic lamentation for the Duchess Blanche of Lancaster, whom
Elizabeth Le Despenser had known personally in her youth. Maude would
never have suspected the Dowager of the least respect for poetry; and
she was surprised to watch her sit by the open casement, dreamily
looking out on the landscape, while she read to her of the "white
ycrowned Queen" of the Daisy, or of the providential interpositions by
which "Crist unwemmed kept Custance," or oftener yet--
"But what visage had she thereto?
Alas, my heart is wonder woe
That I ne can discriven it
Me lacketh both English and wit...
For certes Nature had such lest
To make that fair, that truly she
Was her chief patron of beaute,
And chief ensample of all her work
And monstre--for be 't ne'er so derk,
Methinketh I see her evermo'!"
[Note: Monstre was then employed in the sense in which we now use
_phoenix_.]
But this, as has been said, was only now and then. The words which were
far more common were Wycliffe's; and those which were invariable were
Christ's.
When Maude began this work, she had not the remotest idea of changing
her faith, nor even of inquiring into the grounds on which it rested.
She entertained no personal prejudice against the Lollards, with whom
she associated her dead mistress the Infanta, and her young murdered
master; but she vaguely supposed their doctrines to be somehow
unorthodox, and considered herself as good a "Catholic" as any one. She
noticed that Father Ademar gave her fewer penances than Father Dominic
used to do; that he treated her mistakes as mistakes only, and not as
sins; that generally his ideas of sin had to do rather with the root of
evil in the heart than with the diligent pruning of particular branches;
that he said a great deal about Christ, and not much about the saints.
So Maude's change of opinion came, over her so gradually and noiselessly
that she never realised herself to have undergone any change at all
until it was unalterable and complete.
The realisation came suddenly at last, with a passing word from Dame
Audrey, the mistress of the household at Cardiff.
"Nay," she had said, a little contemptuously, in answer to some remark:
"Mistress Maude is too good to consort with us poor Catholics. She is a
great clerk, quotha! and hath Sir John de Wycliffe his homilies and
evangels at her tongue's end. Marry, I count in another twelvemonth
every soul in this Castle saving me shall be a Lollard."
Maude was startled. Was the charge true--that she was no longer a
"Catholic," but a Lollard? And if so, in what did the change consist of
which she was herself unconscious?
That afternoon, when she sat down to read to the Dowager as usual, Maude
asked timidly--
"Madam, under your Ladyship's good leave, there is a thing I would fain
ask at you."
"Ask freely, my maid," was the kindly answer.
"Might it like you to arede me, Madam, of your grace--in what regard,
and to what greatness, the Lollards do differ from the Catholics?"
The Dowager smiled, but she looked a little surprised.
"A short question, forsooth, my maid, the which to answer shortly should
lack sharper wit than mine. But I will give thee to wit so far as I
can. We do believe that all things which be needful for a Christian man
to know, be founden in God's Word, yclept Holy Scripture: so that all
other our differences take root in this one. For the which encheson
[reason] we do deny the Pope to have right and rule over this our Church
of England, which lieth not in his diocese, neither find we in Holy
Scripture that the Bishop of Rome should wield rule over other Bishops;
but that in every realm the King thereof should be highest in estate
over the priests as over any other of his subjects. Wherefore likewise
we call not upon the saints, seeing that Holy Scripture saith `oo God
and a Mediatour is of God and of men, a man, Crist Jesu:' neither may we
allow the holy bread of the blessed Sacrament of the Altar to be the
very carnal flesh of our Saviour Christ, there bodily present, seeing
both that Paul sayeth of it `this breed' after that it be consecrate,
and moreover that our own very bodily senses do deny it to be any other
matter. So neither will any of us use swearing, which is utterly forbid
in God's Word; neither hold we good the right of sanctuary, ne the power
of the Pope's indulgence, ne virginity of the priesthood--seeing that no
one of all these be bidden by Holy Scripture."
The old lady paused, and cut off her loose threads before she continued,
in a rather more constrained voice.
"Beyond all these," she then added, "there be other matters wherein
certain of us do differ from other. To wit, some of us do love to sing
unto symphony [music] the praise and laud of God; the which othersome
(of whom am I myself) do account to be but a vain indulgence of the
flesh, and a thing unmeet for its vanity to be done of God's servants
dwelling in this evil world. Some do hold that childre ought not to be
baptised, but only them that be of age to perceive the signification of
that holy rite: herein I see not with them. Likewise there be othersome
that would have the old prayers for to abide, being but a form of words;
while other (of whom be I) do understand such forms to be but things
dead and dry, and we rather would pray unto our Lord with such words as
He in the instant moment shall show unto us--the which (nowise contaking
[reproaching] other) we do nathless judge to be more agreeable with Holy
Scripture. But wherefore wouldst know all this, my maid?"
Maude's answer was not a reply according to grammar, but it showed her
thoughts plainly enough. She had been carefully comparing her own
inward convictions with the catalogue as it proceeded. She certainly
could see no harm either in infant baptism or sacred music: as to the
question of forms of prayer, she had never considered it. But on all
the other points, though to her own dismay, she found herself exactly in
agreement with the description given by the Dowager.
"Then I _am_ a Lollard, I account!" she said at last, with a sigh.
"And what if so, my maid?" quietly asked the old lady.
"Good Madam, can I so be, and yet be in unity with the Catholic Church?"
said Maude in a tone of distress. "Methinks 'tis little comfort to be
not yet excommunicate, if I do wit that an' holy Church knew of mine
errors, she should cut me away as a dry branch. And yet--" and a very
puzzled, troubled look came into Maude's face--"what I crede, I crede;
ne can I thereof uncharge [disburden] me."
"My maid," said the Dowager earnestly, looking up, "the true unity of
the Church Catholic is the unity of Christ. He said not `Come into the
Church,' but `Come to Me.' He that is one with Christ cannot be
withoutenside Christ's Church."
No more was said at that time; but what she had heard already left
Maude's mind in a turmoil. She next, but very cautiously, endeavoured
to ascertain the opinions of her mistress. Constance made her explain
her motive in asking, and then laughed heartily.
"By Saint Veronica her sudary, what matter? Names be but names. So
long as a man deal uprightly and keep him from deadly sin--call him
Catholic, call him Lollard--is he the worser man? There be good and ill
of every sort. I have known some weary tykes [really, a sheep-dog; used
as a term of reproach] that were rare Catholics; and I once had a mother
that is with God and His angels now, and men called her a Lollard."
Evidently Constance's practical religion was summed up in the childish
phrase--"Be good." An excellent medicine--if the patient were not
unable to swallow.
Maude tried Bertram next, and felt, to use her own phrase, more "of a
bire" [confused] than ever. For she found him nearly in the same state
of mind as herself, but advanced one step further. Convinced that the
true meaning of Lollardism was plain adhesion to Holy Scripture, he was
prepared to accept the full consequences. He had not only been thinking
for himself, but talking with Hugh Calverley: and Hugh, like his father,
was a Lollard of the most extreme type.
"It seemeth me, Mistress Maude," he said boldly, "less dread to say that
the Church Catholic must needs have erred, than to say that God in His
Word can err."
"But the whole Church Catholic!" objected Maude in a most troubled
voice. "All the holy doctors and bishops that have ever been--yea, and
the very Fathers of the Church!"
"`Nyle ye clepe to you a fadir on erthe,'" replied Bertram gravely.
"But, Master Lyngern, think you, the Holy Ghost dwelleth in the priests,
and so He doth not in slender folk like to you and me."
"Ay so?" answered he, with a slight curl of his lip. "He dwelleth in
such men as my Lord of Canterbury, trow? Our Lord saith the tree is
known by his fruits. It were a new thing, mereckoneth, for a man to be
indwelt of the Holy Ghost, and to bring forth fruits of the Devil."
"But our Lord behote [promised] to dwell in His Church alway," urged
Maude, though she was arguing against herself.
"He behote to dwell in all humble and faithful souls--they be His
Church, Mistress Maude. I never read in no Scripture that He behote to
write all the Pope's decretals, nor to see that no Archbishop of
Canterbury should blunder in his pastorals."
"But the Church, Master Lyngern--_the Church_ cannot err! Holy
Scripture saith it."
"Ay so?" said Bertram again. "Where?"
Maude was obliged to confess that she did not know where; she had "alway
heard say the same;" but finding Bertram rather too much for her in
argument, she carried her difficulty to Father Ademar when she next went
to confession. She would never have propounded such a query to Father
Dominic at Langley, since it would most certainly have ensured her a
severe scolding and some oppressive penance; perhaps to lie flat on the
threshold of the chapel and let every one pass over her, perhaps to lick
the dust all round the base of the Virgin's pedestal. And Maude's own
private conviction was that penances of this kind never did her the
least good. Father Dominic told her that they humbled her. It was true
they made her feel humiliated; but was that the same as feeling humble?
They also made her feel irritated and angry--with whom, or with what,
she hardly knew; but certainly with some person or thing outside of
herself. But they never made her think that she had done wrong--only
that she had been misunderstood and badly used.
Matters were very different with Father Ademar. He was so quiet and
gentle that Maude never felt afraid of him. Confession to Father
Dominic bore the awful aspect cast over a visit to a dentist's surgery;
but confession to Father Ademar was (at least to Maude) merely talking
over her difficulties with a friend. He often said, "Pray our Lord to
grant thee wisdom in this matter," but he never said, "Repeat fifty Aves
and ten Paternosters." And when Maude now laid her troubles before him
as lucidly as she could, he gave her an answer which, she thought at
first, did not touch the case at all, and yet which in the end settled
every difficulty connected with it.
"Daughter," said the Lollard priest, "there is another question which
must be first answered. Thou hast taken up the golden rod by the wrong
end. Turn it around and have the other ensured; then we will talk of
this."
"What other question, Father?"
"The same that our Lord asked of the sick man at the cistern
[pool]--`Wilt thou be made whole?' Art thou of the unity of Christ?--
art thou one with Him? Hast thou closed with Him? Wist thou that `He
loved _thee_, and gave Himself for thee?' For without thou be first
ensured of this, it shall serve thee but little to search all the tomes
of the Fathers touching the unity of the Church."
"But if I be in the true Church, Father, I must needs be of the unity of
Christ."
"Truth," said Father Ademar, in his quietest manner. "Then turn the
matter about, as I bade thee, and see whether thou art in Christ. So
shalt thou plainly see thyself to be in the true Church."
Maude was silenced, but at first she was not convinced. Ademar did not
press her answer. He left her to decide the question for herself. But
many months passed away, fraught with many struggles and heart
searchings and deep studies of Wycliffe's Bible, before Maude was able
to decide it. Bertram, whose mental nature was less self-conscious and
analytical than hers, was at peace long before she was. But the day
came at last when Maude was able to answer Ademar's question--when she
could say, "Father, I am of the true Church, because I am one with
Christ."
The life at Cardiff Castle was very quiet--much too quiet to please
Constance, who was again becoming extremely restless. They heard of
wars and rumours of war--conspiracy after conspiracy, all more or less
futile: some to free King Richard, whom a great number believed to be
still living; some to release and crown the little Earl of March, yet a
close prisoner in Windsor Castle; some to depose or assassinate Henry.
But they were all to the dwellers in Cardiff Castle like the sounds of
distant tempest, until the summer of 1402, when two terrible events
happened almost simultaneously, and one at their very doors. Owain
Glyndwr, the faithful Welsh henchman of King Richard, took and burnt
Cardiff in one of his insurrectionary marches; sparing the Castle and
one of the monasteries on account of the loyalty (to Richard) of their
inmates; and about the same time Hugh Calverley came one day from
Bristol, to summon the Princess to come immediately to Langley. Her
father was dying.
Constance reached Langley in time to receive his last blessing. He died
in the same quiet, apathetic manner in which he had lived--his intellect
insufficient to realise all the mischief of which he had been guilty,
but having realised one mistake he had made--his second marriage. He
desired to be buried in the Priory Church at Langley, by the side of his
"dear wife Isabel," whose worth he had never discovered until she was
lost to him for ever.
It was on the first of August that Edmund of Langley died. After his
funeral, the Duchess Joan--now a young woman of nineteen--intimated her
intention of paying a visit to Court, as soon as her first mourning was
over, and blandishingly hoped that her dear daughter would do her the
pleasure of accompanying her. Maude would have liked her mistress to
decline the invitation, for she would far rather have gone home. But
Constance accepted it eagerly. It was exactly what she wished. They
reached Westminster Palace just after the King had returned from his
autumn progress, and he expressed a hope that his aunt and cousin would
stay with him long enough to be present at the approaching ceremony of
his second marriage with the Duchess Dowager of Bretagne.
It was the evening after their arrival at Westminster, and Maude sat on
a stool in the great hall, every now and then recognising and addressing
some acquaintance of old time. On the dais was a brilliant crowd of
royal and semi-royal persons, among whom Constance sat engaged in
animated conversation, and evidently enjoying herself. Maude knew most
of them by sight, but as her eyes roved here and there, they lighted on
a young man coming up towards the dais whom she did not know. He
stopped almost close to her, to speak to Aumerle, now Duke of York, so
that Maude had time and opportunity to study him.
He was dressed in the height of the fashion. In the present day his
costume would be thought supremely ridiculous for a man; but when he
wore it, it was considered perfectly enchanting. It consisted of a
gown--similar to a long dressing-gown, nearly touching the feet--of blue
velvet, spangled with gold fleur-de-lis, and lined with white satin; an
under-tunic (equivalent to a waistcoat) of bright apple-green satin,
with wide sweeping sleeves of the same, cut at the edge into imitations
of oak-leaves. Under these were tight sleeves of pink velvet, edged at
the wrist by white frills, and a similar white frill finished the gown
at the neck. His boots were black velvet, with white buttons; they were
about a yard long, tapering to a point, and were tied up to the garter
by silver chains, a pattern resembling a church window being cut through
the upper portion of the boot. These very fashionable and most
uncomfortable articles were known as cracowes, having come over from
Germany with the late Queen Anne. In the young man's hand was a black
velvet cap, covered by a spreading plume of apple-green feathers. Round
the waist, outside the gown, was a tight black velvet band, to which was
fastened the scabbard of a golden-hilted sword.
This extremely smart young gentleman was Sir Edmund de Holand, Earl of
Kent,--brother and heir of the Duke of Surrey, and brother also of
Constance's step-mother. He was a true Holand in appearance, nearly six
feet in height, most graceful in carriage, very fair in complexion, his
hair a glossy golden colour, with a moustache of similar shade. His age
was just twenty-one. He was pre-eminently handsome--surpassing even
Surrey. His eyes were of the softest blue, clear and bright; his voice
soft, musical, and insinuating.
I am careful to describe the Earl of Kent fully, because he is about to
become a prominent person in the story, and also because he had
absolutely nothing to recommend him beyond his physical courage, his
taste in dress, his fascinating manners, and his very handsome person.
These points have to be dwelt upon, since his virtues lay entirely in
them.
Kent and York conversed in a low tone for some minutes. When the
subject seemed exhausted, York turned quickly round to his sister, as if
a sudden idea had occurred to him.
"Lady Custance! You remember my Lord of Kent, trow?--though methinks
you have scarce met together sithence we were all childre."
Constance lifted up her eyes, and offered her hand to Kent's kiss of
homage. Ay, to her utter misery and undoing, like Elaine--
--"she lifted up her eyes,
And loved him, with that love which was her doom."
Not worth such love as that, Constance! Not worth one beat of that true
heart which was stilled at Bristol, and which now lies, dust to dust, in
Tewkesbury Abbey. This man will not love you as he did, to the end. He
will only give you what love he can spare from himself, for he is his
own most cherished treasure. And it will be--as, a few hours later, you
whisper to yourself, pulling the petals from a white daisy--"_un
peu_--_beaucoup_--_point du tout_:"--a little yesterday, intense to-day,
and none at all to-morrow.
Constance and Kent saw a good deal of each other during her visit to
Westminster. Her brother of York evidently furthered his suit to the
utmost of his power. Maude, who had learned utterly to distrust the
Duke of York, set herself to consider what his reason could be. That
York rarely did any thing except with some ulterior and selfish object,
she was satisfied. But the more she thought about the matter, the
further she found herself from arriving at any conclusion. The secret
was to be revealed to her before long. The plotting brain of the Prince
was busy as usual in the concoction of another conspiracy, and to
forward his purposes on this occasion he intended to make a catspaw of
his sister. The plot was not yet quite ripe; but when it should be, for
Constance to be Kent's wife would make her all the more eligible as a
tool.
The ceremonies attendant on the royal marriage were over; the King was
about to take the field against another insurrection of Glyndwr, and the
Earl of Kent had undertaken to guard him to Shrewsbury. Maude, in close
attendance on her mistress, heard the parting words between Kent and
Constance.
"You will render me visit at Cardiff, my Lord?"
"Sweet Lady, were it possible I could neglect such bidding?"
Constance journeyed in the royal train for a distance, and turned off
towards Cardiff, when their ways parted.
Her manner when she arrived at home was particularly affectionate, both
to the Dowager and her children, of whom little Richard was now eight
years old, while Isabel had just reached four. The keen eyes of the old
lady--much sharper mentally than physically--soon discerned the presence
of some new element in her daughter-in-law's mind. She closely
questioned Maude as to what had happened, or was about to happen; and
after a minute's hesitation, Maude told her all she knew and feared.
For some time after receiving this information, Elizabeth Le Despenser
sat gazing uneasily from the lattice, with unwontedly idle hands.
"Sister's son unto our adversary!" she murmured to herself at last.
"Whither shall this tend? Verily, there is One stronger than Thomas de
Arundel. Is He leading us blind by a way that we know not?--for in very
sooth _I_ cannot discern the way. If so it be, then--Lord, lead Thou
on!"
Kent paid his visit to Cardiff in the winter, accompanied by Constance's
pet brother, Lord Richard of Conisborough, who had been promoted to his
father's old dignity of Earl of Cambridge. It was the first time that
the Dowager had seen either; and she afterwards communicated her
impressions of the pair to Maude, as they sat together at work.
"As touching the Lord Richard, he is gent and courteous enough; he were
no ill companion, an' he knew his own mind a little better. Mayhap
three of him, or four, might make a man amongst them."
For Cambridge, though in a much fainter degree, reflected his father's
character by finding it very difficult to say no.
"And what thinks your Ladyship of my Lord of Kent?" asked Maude with
some anxiety.
The Dowager shook the loose threads from her work with a peculiar little
laugh.
"Marry, my maid, what think I of my Lord of Kent his barber, and his
tailor?" said she; "for they made my Lord of Kent betwixt them. He is
not a man of God's making."
"But think you, Madam, he is to be trusted or no?"
"Trusted!--for what? To oil his golden locks, and perfume well his
sudary, and have his sleeves of the newest cutting? Ay, forsooth, and
that right worthily!"
"I meant," explained Maude, "to have a care of our Lady."
"Maybe he shall keep her in ointment for her hair," returned the
Dowager.
The Earl of Kent returned to Court, and for some time stayed there. He
was rather too busy to prosecute his wooing. The Lord Thomas of
Lancaster, one of the King's sons, was projecting and executing an
expedition from Calais to Sluys, and he took Kent with him; so that,
with one or another obstacle arising, Constance's second marriage was
not quite so quick in coming as Maude had expected. But at last it did
come.
The Duke of York and his Duchess--not long married--and the Earl of
Cambridge, journeyed to Cardiff for their sister's wedding. The Duchess
of York, though both an heiress and a beauty, left no mark on her time.
She was by profession at least a Lollard; and since Lollardism was not
now walking in silver slippers, this says something for her. But in all
other respects she appears to have been one of those beautiful, mindless
women whom clever men frequently marry. Perhaps no woman with a decided
character of her own would have ventured on such a husband as Edward
Duke of York.
It was a mild winter day, and a picnic was projected in the woods near
Cardiff. The wedding was to take place in about a week. Maude rode on
a pillion to the scene where the rustic dinner was to be behind Bertram
Lyngern, who seemed in a particularly bright and amiable mood. When a
woman rode on a pillion, it must be remembered that she was in a very
insecure position; and it was an absolute necessity for the fair rider
to clasp her arms round the waist of the man who sat before her, and,
when the road was rough, to cling pretty tightly. It was therefore
desirable that the pair should be at least reasonably civil to one
another, and should not get on quarrelsome terms. There was little
likelihood of Maude's quarrelling with Bertram, her friend of twenty
years' standing; but she did not share his evident light-heartedness as
he rode carolling along, now breaking out into a snatch of one song, and
now of another, and constantly interrupting himself with playful
remarks.
"`Sitteth all still, and hearkeneth to me:
The King of Almayne, by my leaute,
Thritti thousand pound asked he--'
"A squirrel, Mistress Maude! shall I catch it?
"_Dame avec l'oeil de beaute_--
"So, my good lad, softly! so, Lyard! How clereful a day! Nigh as soft
as summer.
"`Summer is ycomen in--
Merry sing, cuckoo!
Groweth glede, and bloweth mead,
And springeth wood anew.'
"Be merry, Mistress Maude, I pray you! you mope not, surely?"
"I scarce know, Master Lyngern. Mayhap so."
"Shame to mope on such a day!" said Bertram, springing from the saddle,
and holding his hand to help Maude to jump down also. "There hath not
been so fair a morrow this month gone."
He was soon busy unpacking the sumpter-mules' bags, with two or three
more; and dinner was served under the shade of the trees, without any
consideration of ceremony. Our fathers spent so much of their time out
of doors, and dressed for the season so much more warmly than we do,
that they chose days for picnics at which we should shudder. After
dinner Maude wandered about a little by herself, and at length sat down
at the foot of a lofty oak. She had not been there many minutes before
she saw Constance and York coming slowly towards her, evidently in
earnest conversation.
"Lo' you here, Ned!" said Constance eagerly, when she caught sight of
Maude. "Here is one true as steel. If that you say must have no
eavesdroppers, sit we on the further side of this tree; and Maude, hold
where thou art, and if any come this way, give a privy pluck at my gown,
and we will speak other."
They sat down on the other side of the oak.
"Custance," began her brother, "I misconceive not, trow, to account thee
yet true to the cause of King Richard, be he where he may?"
York knew, as certainly as he knew of his own existence, that Richard
had been dead five years. But it suited his purpose to speak
doubtfully.
"Certes, Ned, of very inwitte!" [Most heartily.]
"Well. And if King Richard were dead, who standeth next heir?"
"My Lord of March, no manner of doubt."
"Good again. Then we thus stand: King Henry that reigneth hath no
right; and the true King is shut up in Pomfret, or, granting he be dead,
is then shut up in Windsor."
"Well, Ned?"
"Shall we--thou and I--free young March and his brother and sisters?"
"Thou and I!"
She was evidently doubtful. Edward took a stronger bolt from his
quiver.
"Custance, Dickon loves Anne Mortimer."
That was a different matter. If Dickon wanted Anne Mortimer or anything
else, in his sister's eyes, he must have it. To refuse to help Ned was
one thing, but to refuse to help Dickon was quite another.
"But how should we win in?"
Edward drew a silver key from his pocket.
"I gat this made of a smith, Custance, a year gone. 'Tis a key for my
strong-room at Langley, the which was lost with other my baggage fording
the Thames, and I took the mould of the lock in wax, and gave it unto
the smith."
He looked in her face, pausing a little between the sentences, to make
sure that she understood him; and he saw by her eyes that she did. The
very peril and uncertainty involved in such an adventure gave it a charm
for her.
"When, Ned?"
"When I send word."
"Very well. I will be ready."
Before Edward could reply, Bertram Lyngern's horn sounded through the
forest, saying distinctly to all who heard it, "Time to go home!" The
three rose and walked towards the trysting-place, both Constance and
Maude possessed of some ideas which had never presented themselves to
them before.
Bertram and Maude rode back as they had come. Maude was very silent,
which was no wonder; and so, for ten minutes, was Bertram. Then he
began:--
"How liked you this forest life, Mistress Maude?"
"Well, Master Lyngern, and I thank you," said she absently.
"And to-morrow is a week our Lady's Grace shall wed?"
"Why, Master Lyngern, you know that as well as I."
Maude wished he would have left her to her own thoughts, from which his
questions were no diversion in any sense.
"Mistress Maude, when will you be wed?"
The diversion was effected.
"I, Master Lyngern! I am not about to wed."
"Are you well avised of that, Mistress Maude?"
"Marry, Master Lyngern!" said Maude, feeling rather affronted.
"If you will take mine avisement, you will be wed likewise," said
Bertram gravely.
"What mean you, Master Lyngern?"
Maude was really hurt. She liked Bertram, and here he was making fun of
her, without the least consideration for her feelings.
"Marry, I mean that same," responded Bertram coolly. "Would it like
you, Mistress Maude?"
"Methinks you had better do me to wit whom your avisement should have me
to wed," said Maude, standing on her dignity, and manufacturing an angry
tone to keep herself from crying. She would certainly have released her
hold of Bertram, and have sat on her pillion in indignant solitude, if
she had not felt almost sure that the result would be a fall in the mud.
Bertram's answer was quick and decided.
"Me!"
Maude would have answered with properly injured dignity if she could;
but a disagreeable lump of something came into her throat which spoilt
the effect.
"Thou hadst better wed me, Maude," said Bertram coaxingly, dropping his
voice and his conventionalities together. "There is not a soul loveth
thee as I do; and thou likest me well."
"I pray you, Master Lyngern, when said I so much?" responded Maude,
stung into speech again.
"Just twenty years gone, little Maude," was the gentle answer.
Bertram's voice had changed from its bantering tone into a tender, quiet
one, and Maude felt more inclined to cry than ever.
"Is that saying truth no longer, Maude?"
Maude's conscience whispered to her that she must not say any thing of
the sort. Still she thought it only proper to hold out a little longer.
She was silent; and Bertram, who thought she was coming round, let her
alone for a short time. The grey towers of Cardiff slowly rose to view,
and in a few seconds more they would no longer be alone.
"Well, Maude?" asked Bertram softly. "Is it ay or nay?"
"As you will, Master Lyngern."
This was Bertram's wooing; and Maude wondered, when she was alone, if
any woman had been so wooed before.
Constance expressed the greatest satisfaction when she heard of her
bower-woman's approaching marriage; but one item of Bertram's project
she commanded altered--namely, that Maude's nuptials should not take
place on the same day as her own.
"Why, Maude!" she said, "if our two weddings be one day, I shall have
but an half-day's rejoical, and thou likewise! Nay, good maid! we will
have each her full day, and a bonfire in the base court, and feasting,
and dancing to boot. Both on one day, quotha! marry, but that were
niggardly."
So Maude was married on the Saturday previous to her mistress. She was
dressed in lilac damask, trimmed with swansdown, and her hair, for the
last time in her life, streamed over her shoulders and fell at its own
sweet will. Matrons always tucked away their hair in the dove-cote,
while widows were careful not to show a single lock. Bertram exhibited
extraordinary splendour, for he was generally rather careless about his
dress. He wore a red damask gown, trimmed with rabbit's fur; a bright
blue under-tunic; a pair of red boots with white buttons; and he bore in
his hand a copped hat of blue serge. The copped hat had no brim, and
was about a foot and a half in height. Bertram's appearance, therefore,
to say the least, was striking.
When the ceremony was just completed, without any previous intimation,
the Duke of York, who was present, drew his sword, and lightly struck
the shoulder of the bridegroom, before he could rise from his knees.
"Rise, Sir Bertram Lyngern!"