at which our Lord and the holy Apostles ate the Last Supper, and they
received the Holy Sacrament at His hands. There is also a chapel, with
an altar whereat our Lord heard mass sung by the angels; and here is
kept the vessel wherein our Lord washed the feet of His disciples. All
these are on Mount Zion.
Marguerite was very much interested in the vessel in which the holy
Apostles' feet were washed: but she wanted to know which of them had put
it by and kept it so carefully. This, of course, I could not tell her.
Perhaps it was revealed by miracle that this was the vessel.
"Ah, well!" she said, turning away at last, with a contented face. "It
does not much matter, if only the good God wash our feet."
"But that cannot be, Margot!" said I.
Lady Judith was with us that day, and she laid her hand on my arm.
"Child," said she gently, "'if He wash thee not, thou hast no part with
Him.'"
"And," said Marguerite, "my Lady will pardon me,--if He wash us, we have
part with Him."
"Ay," answered Lady Judith. "'Heirs of God, joint-heirs with Christ.'
Thou knowest it, my sister?--thou hast washed? Ay, 'we believers enter
into rest.'"
I wondered what they were talking about. Lady Judith--of the Caesars'
purple blood, and born in a palace at Constantinople; and old
Marguerite,--a villein, born in a hovel in Poitou,--marvel to relate!
they understood each other perfectly. They have seemed quite friendly
ever since. It can hardly be because they are both old. There must be
some mystery. I do not understand it at all.
Another day, we went to the Church of the Ascension, which is on the
summit of Mount Olivet. This also has an open roof. When our Lord
ascended, He left the impression of His feet in the dust; and though
palmers are constantly carrying the holy dust away by basketsful, yet
the impression never changes. This seemed to me so wonderful that I
told Marguerite, expecting that it would very much astonish her. But
she did not seem to think much about it. Her mind was full of something
else.
"Ah, my Damoiselle," she said, "they did well that built this church,
and put no roof on it. For He is not here; He is gone up. And He will
come again. Thank God! He will come again. 'This same Jesus'--the
same that wore the crown of thorns, and endured the agony of the
cross,--the same that said 'Weep not' to the bereaved mother, and 'Go in
peace' to the woman that was a sinner--the very same, Himself, and none
other. I marvel if it will be just here! I would like to live and die
here, if it were."
"O Margot!" said I, laughing, "thou dost not fancy it will be while thou
art alive?"
"Only the good God knows that," she said, still looking up intently
through the roof of the church,--or where the roof should have
been--into the sky. "But I would it might. If I could find it in my
heart to envy any mortal creature, it would be them who shall look up,
maybe with eyes dimmed by tears, and see Him coming!"
"I cannot comprehend thee, Margot," said I. "I think it would be just
dreadful. I can hardly imagine a greater shock."
"Suppose, at this moment, my Damoiselle were to look behind her, and see
Monseigneur Count Guy standing there, smiling on her,--would she think
it a dreadful shock?"
"Margot! How can the two be compared?"
"Only love can compare them," answered the old woman softly.
"Marguerite! Dost thou--canst thou--love our Lord as much as I love
Guy? It is not possible!"
"A thousand times more, my Damoiselle. Your Nobility, I know, loves
Monseigneur very dearly; yet you have other interests apart from him. I
have no interest apart from my Lord. All my griefs, all my joys, I take
to Him; and until He has laid His hand on them and blessed them, I can
neither endure the one nor enjoy the other."
I wonder if Lady Judith feels like that! I should like to ask her, if I
could take the liberty.
Marguerite was looking up again into the sky.
"Only think what it will be!" she said. "To look up from the cradle of
your dying child, with the anguish of helplessness pressing tight upon
your heart--and see Him! To look up from your own sick bed, faint and
weary beyond measure--and see Him! From the bitter sense of sin and
failure--from cruel words and unkind looks--from loneliness and
desolation--from hunger and cold and homelessness--to look up, and see
Him! There will be some suffering all these things when He comes. Oh,
why are His chariot-wheels so long in coming? Does not He long for it
even more than we?"
I was silent. She looked--this old villein woman--almost like one
inspired.
"He knows!" she added softly. "He knows. He can wait. Then we can.
Surely I come quickly. Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!"'
Amaury called me, and I left her there.
He wanted to creep through the columns, and wished me to try first, as I
am slimmer than he. I managed it pretty well,--so now all my sins are
remitted, and I do feel so good and nice! Lady Isabel could hardly do
it; and Amaury, who has been growing fatter of late, could not get
through at all. He was much disappointed, and very cross in
consequence. Damoiselle Melisende would not try. She said, laughing,
that she was quite sure she could not push through, and she must get her
sins forgiven some other way. But she mischievously ran and fetched old
Marguerite, and putting on a grave face, proposed to her to try the
feat. Now I am quite certain Marguerite could never have done it; for
though she is not stout, she is a large-built woman. But she looked at
the place for a moment, and then said to Melisende--
"If the Damoiselle pleases, what will follow?"
"Oh, thou wilt have all thy sins forgiven," said she.
"I thank the Damoiselle," answered Marguerite, and turned quietly away.
"Then it would be to no good, for my sins are forgiven."
"What a strange old woman!" exclaimed Lady Isabel.
"Oh, Marguerite is very queer," said I. "She amuses me exceedingly."
"Is she quite right in her head, do you think?" demanded the Princess,
eyeing Margot with rather a doubtful expression.
I laughed, and Amaury said, "Oh yes, as bright as a new besant. She is
only comical."
Then we went into the Church of Saint John, where a piece of marble is
kept on which our Lord wrote when the heathen Jews desired to know His
judgment on a wicked woman. Marguerite seemed puzzled with this. She
said she had heard Father Eudes read the story, and the holy Evangel
said that our Lord wrote on the ground. How did the writing get on that
marble?
"Oh," said I, "the marble must have been down below, and it pleased the
good God that it should receive the impress."
"The good God can do all things," assented Margot. "But--well, I am an
ignorant woman."
Coming down, on the slope of Olivet, the place is shown where our Lady
appeared to Monseigneur Saint Thomas, who refused to believe her
assumption, and gave him her girdle as a token of it. This girdle is
kept in an abbey in England, and is famous for easing pain.
That same afternoon, at the spice in the Queen's presence-chamber, were
Messire de Montluc and his sons. And we fell in talk--I remember not
how--upon certain opinions of the schoolmen. Messire Renaud would have
it that nothing is, but all things only seem to be.
"Nay, truly, Messire," said I, laughing; "I am sure I am."
"Pardon me--not at all!" he answered.
"And that cedar-wood fire is," said Damoiselle Melisende.
"By no means," replied Messire Renaud. "It exists but in your fancy.
There is no such thing as matter--only mind. My imagination sees a fire
there: your imagination sees a fire:--but there is no fire,--such a
thing does not exist."
"Put your finger into this fire which does not exist, if you please,
Messire," remarked the Queen, who seemed much amused; "I expect you will
come to a different conclusion within five minutes."
"I humbly crave your Highness' pardon. My finger is an imagination. It
does not really exist."
"And the pain of the burn--would that be imagination also?" she
inquired.
"Undoubtedly, Lady," said he.
"But what is to prevent your imagining that there is no pain?" pursued
Her Highness.
"Nothing," he answered. "If I did imagine that, there would be none.
There is no such thing as matter. Mind--Soul--is the only existence,
Lady."
"What nonsense is the boy talking!" growled the Baron.
"But, I pray you, Messire Renaud," said I, "if I do not exist, how does
the idea that I do exist get into my head?"
"How do I have a head for it to get into?" added Guy.
"Stuff and nonsensical rubbish!" said the Baron. "Under leave of my Lady
Queen,--lad, thou hast lost thy senses. No such thing as matter,
quotha! Why, there is nothing but matter that is in reality. What men
call the soul is simply the brain. Give over thy fanciful stuff!"
"You are a Realist, Messire?" asked Guy.
"Call me what name you will, Sir Count," returned the Baron. "I am no
such fool as yon lanky lad of mine. I believe what I see and hear, and
there I begin and end. So does every wise man."
"Is it not a little odd," inquired Guy, "that everybody should think all
the wise men must believe as he does?"
"Odd? No!" said the Baron. "Don't you think so yourself, Sir Count?"
Guy laughed. "But there is one thing I should like to know," said he.
"I have heard much of Realists and Nominalists, but I never before met
one of either. I wish to ask each of you, Messires,--In your system,
what becomes of the soul after death?"
"Nay, if there be no soul, what can become of it?" put in Damoiselle
Melisende.
"Pure foy!" cried the Baron. "I concern myself about nothing of that
sort. Holy Church teaches that the soul survives the body, and it were
unseemly to gainsay her teaching. But--ha! what know I?"
"For me," said Messire Renaud, a little grandiloquently, "I believe that
death is simply the dissolution of that which seems, and leaves only the
pure essence of that which is. The modicum of spirit--of that
essence--which I call my soul, will then be absorbed into the great soul
of the Universe--the Unknowable, the Unknown."
"We have a name for that, Messire," said Guy reverently. "We call
it--God."
"Precisely," answered Messire Renaud. "You--we--holy Church--personify
this Unknowable Essence, which is the fountain of all essence. The
parable--for a parable it is--is most beautiful. But It--He--name it as
you will--is none the less the Unknown and the Unknowable."
"The boy must have a fever, and the delirium is on him," said the Baron.
"Get a leech, lad. Let out a little of that hot blood which mystifies
thy foolish brains."
There was silence for a minute, and it was broken by the low, quiet
voice of Lady Judith, who sat next to the Lady Queen, with a spindle in
her hand.
"'And this is life eternal, that they should _know Thee_.'" She added
no more.
"Beautiful words, truly," responded Messire Renaud. "But you will
permit me to observe, Lady, that they are--like all similar
phrases--symbolical. The soul that has risen the nearest to this
ineffable Essence--that is most free from the shell of that which
seems--may, in a certain typical sense, be said to 'know' this Essence.
Now there never was a soul more free from the seeming than that of Him
whom we call our Lord. Accordingly, He tells us that--employing one of
the loveliest of all types--He 'knew the Father.' It is perfectly
charming, to an enlightened mind, to recognise the force, the beauty,
the hidden meaning, of these exquisite types."
"Lad, what is the length of thine ears?" growled the Baron. "What
crouched ass crammed all this nonsense into thee? 'Enlightened
mind'--'exquisite types'--'charming symbolism'! I am not at all sure
that I understand thee, thou exquisite gander! But if I do, what thou
meanest, put in plain language, is simply that there is no God. Eh?"
"Fair Father, under your good leave, I would choose other words.
God--what we call God--is the Unknowable Essence. Therefore,
undoubtedly there is God, and in a symbolic sense, He is the Creator of
all things, this Essence being the source out of which all other
essences are evolved. Therefore, parabolically speaking"----
"I'll lay my stick about thy back, thou parabolical mud-puddle!" cried
the Baron. "Let me be served up for Saladin's supper if I understand a
word of thy foolery! Art thou a true son of holy Church or not? That
is what I want to know."
"Undoubtedly, fair Sir!" said Messire Renaud. "God forbid that I should
be a heretic! Our holy Mother the Church has never banned the
Nominalists."
"Then it is high time she did!" retorted the Baron. "I reckon she
thinks they will do nobody much harm, because no mortal being can
understand them. But where, in the name of all the Seven Wonders of the
World, thou gattest such moonshine sticking in thy brains, shoot me if I
know. It was not from my Lady, thy fair mother; and I am sure it was
not from me."
Messire Renaud made no answer beyond a laugh, and the Lady Queen quickly
introduced a different subject. I fancy she saw that the Baron was
losing his temper. But when Messire Renaud was about to take leave,
Lady Judith arose, as quietly as she does everything, and glided to his
side.
"Fair Sir," she said gently, "I pray you, pardon one word from an old
woman. You know years should teach wisdom."
"Trust me, Lady, to listen with all respect," said he courteously.
"Fair Sir," she said, "when you stand face to face with death, you will
find _It_ does not satisfy your need. You will want _Him_. You are not
a thing, but a person. How can the thing produced be greater than that
which produces it?"
"Your pardon, fair Lady and holy Mother!" interposed Messire Renaud
quickly. "I do not object to designate the Unknowable Essence as Him.
Far from it! I do but say, as the highest minds have said,--We cannot
know. It maybe Him, It, Them:--we cannot know. We can but bow in
illimitable adoration, and strive to perfect, to purify and enlighten,
our minds, so that they shall grow nearer and nearer to that ineffable
Possibility."
A very sad look passed over Lady Judith's face.
"My son," she said, "'if the light that is in thee be darkness, how
great is that darkness!' These are not my words, but His that died for
thee."
And without another word, she glided back to her seat.
"Margot," said I, when she came to undress me, "is my body or my soul
me?"
"To fall and bruise yourself, Damoiselle, would tell you the one," said
she; "and to receive some news that grieved you bitterly would show you
the other."
"Messire Renaud de Montluc says that only my soul is me; and that my
body does not exist at all,--it only seems to be."
"Does he say the same of his own body?"
"Oh yes; of all."
"Wait till he has fleshed his maiden sword," said Margot. "If he come
into my Damoiselle's hands for surgery[#] with a broken leg and a
sword-cut on the shoulder, let her ask him, when she has dressed them,
whether his body be himself or not."
[#] All ladies were taught surgery, and practised it, at this date.
"Oh, he says that pain is only imagination," said I. "If he chose to
imagine that he had no pain, it would stop."
"Very good," said Marguerite. "Then let him set his broken leg with his
beautiful imagination. If he can cure his pain by imagining he has none,
what must he be if he do not?"
"Well, I know what I should think him. But his father, the Baron de
Montluc, will have it just the opposite--that there is no soul, nor
anything but what we can see and hear."
"Ah! they will both find out their mistakes when they come to die," said
Margot. "Poor blind things! The good God grant that they may find them
out a little sooner."
I asked Guy if he did not think the Baron's notion a very dangerous one.
But while he said "yes," he added that he thought Messire Renaud's much
more so.
"It is so much more difficult to disprove," said he. "It may look more
absurd on the surface, but it is more subtle to deal with, and much more
profound."
"They both look to me very silly," said I.
"I wish they were no worse," was Guy's answer.
To-day we have been to the Church of the Nativity, at Bethlehem. This
is a little city, nearly two leagues from Jerusalem, that is, half a
day's ride. The way thither is very fair, by pleasant plains and woods.
The city is long and narrow, and well walled, and enclosed with good
ditches on all sides. Between the city and the church lies the field
Floridus, where of old time a certain maiden was brought to the burning,
being falsely accused. But she, knowing her innocence, prayed to our
Lord, and He by miracle caused the lighted faggots to turn into red
roses, and the unlighted into white roses; which were the first roses
that were ever in the world.
The place where our Lord was born is near the choir of the church, down
sixteen steps, made of marble and richly painted; and under the
cloister, down eighteen steps, is the charnel-house of the holy
Innocents. The tomb of Saint Jerome is before the holy place. Here are
kept a marble table, on which our Lady ate with the three Kings that
came from the East to worship our Lord; and the cistern into which the
star fell that guided them. The church, as is meet, is dedicated to our
Lady.
Marguerite wanted to know if I were sure that the table was marble.
Because, she said, our Lady was a poor woman--only imagine such a
fancy!--but she insisted upon it that she had heard Father Eudes read
something about it. As if the Queen of Heaven, who was, moreover, Queen
of the land, could have been poor! I told Marguerite I was sure she
must be mistaken, for our Lady was a Princess born.
"That may be, of blood," said she; "but she was poor. Our Lord Himself,
when on earth, was but a villein."
I was dreadfully shocked.
"O Marguerite!" I cried. "What horrible sacrilege! Art thou not afraid
of the church falling on thee?"
"It would not alter that if it did," said she drily.
"Our Lord a villein!" exclaimed I. "How is such a thing possible? He
was the King of Kings."
"He is the King of Kings," said Marguerite, so reverently that I was
sure she could mean no ill; "and He was of the royal blood of
Monseigneur Saint David. That is the Evangel of the nobles. But He was
by station a villein, and wrought as a carpenter, and had no house and
no wealth. That is the Evangel of the villeins. And the villeins need
their Evangel, Damoiselle; for they have nothing else."
I could not tell what to answer. It is rather puzzling. I suppose it
is true that our Lord was reputed the son of a carpenter; and he must
have wrought as such,--Monseigneur Saint Joseph, I mean,--for the Lady
de Montbeillard, who is fond of picking up relics, has a splinter of
wood from a cabinet that he made. But I always thought that it was to
teach religious persons[#] a lesson of humility and voluntary poverty.
It could not be that He was _poor_!
[#] By this term a Romanist does not mean what a Protestant does. The
only "religious persons," in the eyes of the former, are priests or
monks.
Then our Lady,--I have seen a scrap of her tunic, and it was as fine
stuff as it could be; and I have heard, though I never saw it, that her
wedding-ring is set with gems. I said this to Marguerite. How could
our Lady be poor?
"All that may be," she replied, with quiet perverseness. "But I know,
for all that, Father Eudes read that our Lord was born in a cratch, or
laid in one, because there was no room in the inn. And they do not
behave in that way to kings and nobles. That is the lot of the villein.
And He chose the villein's lot; and I, a villein, have been giving Him
thanks for it."
And nothing that I could say would disturb her calm conviction.
Damoiselle Melisende told me some interesting things as we rode back to
the Holy City. As,--that Jerusalem is very badly supplied with water,
and the villeins collect and drink only rain-water. Of course this does
not affect the nobles, who drink wine. About two leagues from
Jerusalem, towards the north, is a little village called Jericho, where
the walls of the house of Madame Saint Rahab are still standing. She
was a great lady who received into her house certain spies sent by
Monseigneur Saint Joshua, and hid them behind the arras. (Now, there
again!--if that stupid old Marguerite would not have it that Madame
Saint Rahab kept a cabaret. How could a great lady keep a cabaret? I
wish she would give over listening, if it makes her take such fancies.)
Damoiselle Melisende also told me that Adam, our first father, was
buried in the place where our Lord was crucified; and our Lord's blood
fell upon him, and he came to life again, and so did many others. And
Adam wept for his son Abel one hundred years. Moreover, there is a rock
still standing in the place where the wicked Jews had their Temple,
which was in the holiest place of all; and here our Lord was wont to
repose whilst His disciples confessed themselves to Him.[#]
[#] All these legends may be found in the Travels of Sir John
Mandeville.
Coming home, we passed by the Golden Gate, which is the gate whereby our
Lord entered the Holy City on the ass, and the gate opened to Him of its
own accord. Damoiselle Melisende bade me observe three marks in the
stone where the ass had set his feet. The marks I certainly saw, but I
could not have told that they were the print of an ass's hoofs. I
suppose I was not worthy to behold them quite distinctly.
Guy called me to him this evening.
"Little Lynette," he said, "I have something to tell thee."
"Let me spare thee the pains, Guy," answered I mischievously. "Dost
thou think I have no eyes? I saw it the first night we came."
"Saw what?" asked Guy, with an astonished look.
"That thy beautiful lady had appeared," I replied. "Thou art going to
wed with Lady Sybil."
"What fairy whispered it to thee, little witch?" said Guy, laughing.
"Thou art right, Lynette. The King hath bestowed on me the regency of
the kingdom, and the hand of his fair sister. To-morrow, in presence of
the nobles, I am to be solemnly appointed Regent: and a month hence, in
the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, I wed with the Lady Sybil."
"If thou art happy, Guy, I am very glad," said I; and I said it
honestly.
"Happy? I should think so!" cried he. "To be Regent of the land of all
lands! And she, Lynette--she is a gem and a treasure."
"I am sure of that, Guy," said I.
"And now, my news is not finished, little sister," said he. "The King
has given Amaury a wife."
"Oh, poor thing!--who is it?" said I.
Guy laughed till his eyes were full of tears.
"Poor thing!--who?" said he. "Amaury or his bride?"
"Oh, the bride, of course," said I. "Amaury won't care a straw for her,
and she will be worried out of her life if she does not dress to please
him."
"Let us hope that she will, then," answered Guy, still laughing. "It is
the Damoiselle Eschine d'Ibellin, daughter of Messire de Rames. Thou
dost not know her."
"Dost thou?--what is she like?"
"Oh, most women are like one another," said Guy--(what a falsehood!).
"Except my fair Lady, and thee, little Lynette, and the Lady Clemence,
thy fair mother,--a woman is a woman, and that is all."
"Oh, indeed!" said I, rather indignantly. "A man is a man, I suppose,
and that is all! Guy, I am astonished at thee. If Amaury had said such
a thing, I should not have wondered."
"Men are different, of course," answered Guy. "But a woman's business is
to look pretty and be attractive. Everybody understands that. Nobody
expects a woman to be over wise or clever."
"Thou hadst better be quiet, Guy, if thou dost not want thine ears
boxed," said I. "If that is not a speech enough to vex any woman, I
never heard one. You men are the most aggravating creatures. You seem
to look upon us as a kind of pretty animal, to be kept for a pet and
plaything; and if you are not too obtuse yourselves to find out that
your plaything occasionally shows signs of a soul within it, you cry
out, 'Look here! This toy of mine is actually exhibiting scintillations
of something which really looks almost like human intellect!' Let me
tell you, Sir Count, we have as much humanity, and sense, and
individuality, as yourselves; and rather more independence. Pretty
phrases, and courtly reverences, and professions of servitude, may sound
very well in your ears; and of those you give us plenty. Does it never
occur to you that we should thank you a great deal more for a little
genuine respect and consideration? We are _not_ toys; we are not pet
animals; we are not pretty pictures. We are human creatures with human
feelings like yourselves. We can put up with fewer compliments to our
complexions, if you please, and a little more realisation of our
separate consciences and intellects."
"'Ha, Lusignan!'" cried Guy, looking half ashamed and half amused.
"'Sainte Marguerite for Poitou!' Upon my word, Lynette, I _have_ had a
lecture. I shall not forget it in a hurry."