the only person whose sympathy would have been a comfort to me was the
very one who had distressed me; and in the second place, I had a vague
idea underlying my grief that I had no business to feel any; that every
body (if they knew) would tell me I was exceedingly silly--that it was
only what I ought to have expected--and all sorts of uncomfortable
consolations of that kind. Was I a foolish baby, crying for the
moon?--or was I a grand heroine of romance, whose feelings were so
exquisitely delicate and sensitive that the common clay of which other
people were made could not be expected to understand me? I could not
tell.
Oh, why must we come out of that sweet old world where we walked hand in
hand, and were all in all to each other? Why must we grow up, and drift
asunder, and never be the same to one another any more?
Was I wicked?--or was I only miserable?
About the last item at any rate there was no doubt. I sat, thinking sad
thoughts, and trying to see my work through half-dimmed eyes, when Lady
Judith spoke again.
"Helena," she said, "grief has two voices; and many only hear the upper
and louder one. I shall be sorry to see thee miss that lower, stiller
voice, which is by far the more important of the two."
"What do you mean, holy Mother?" I asked.
"Dear heart," she said, "the louder voice, which all must hear, chants
in a minor key, 'This world is not your rest.' It is a sad, sad song,
more especially to those who have heard little of it before. But many
miss the soft, sweet music of the undertone, which is,--'Come unto Me,
and I will give you rest.' Yet it is always there--if we will only
listen."
"But a thing which is done cannot be undone," said I.
"No," she answered. "It cannot. But can it not be compensated? If
thou lose a necklace of gilt copper, and one give thee a gold carcanet
instead, hast thou really sustained any loss?"
"Yes!" I answered, almost astonished at my own boldness. "If the copper
carcanet were a love-gift from the dead, what gold could make up to me
for that?"
"Ah, my child!" she replied, with a quick change in her tone. It was
almost as if she had said,--"I did not understand thee to mean
_that_!"--"For those losses of the heart there is but one remedy. But
there is one."
"Costly and far-fetched, methinks!" said I, sighing.
"Costly, ay, in truth," she replied; "but far-fetched? No. It is close
to thee, if thou wilt but stretch forth thine hand and grasp it."
"What, holy Mother?"
Her voice sank to a low and very reverent tone.
"'Nevertheless, not as I will, but as Thou wilt.'"
"I cannot!" I sobbed.
"No, thou couldst not," she said quietly, "until thou lovest the will of
Him that died for thee, better than thou lovest the will of Helene de
Lusignan."
"O holy Mother!" I cried. "I could not set up my will against the good
God!"
"Couldst thou not?" was all she said.
"Have I done that?" I faltered.
"Ask thine own conscience," replied Lady Judith. "Dear child, He loved
not His will when He came down from Heaven, to do the will of God His
Father. That will was to save His Church. Little Helena, was it to
save thee?"
"How can I know, holy Mother?"
"It is worth knowing," she said.
"Yes, it is worth knowing," said I, "but how can we know?"
"What wouldst thou give to know it? Not that it can be bought: but what
is it worth in thine eyes?"
I thought, and thought, but I could not tell wherewith to measure any
thing so intangible.
"Wouldst thou give up having thine own will for one year?" she asked.
"I know not what might happen in it," said I, with a rather frightened
feeling.
Why, I might marry, or be ill, or die. Or Guy might give over loving me
altogether, in that year. Oh, I could not, could not will that! And a
year is such a long, long time. No, I could not--for such a time as
that--let myself slip into nothing, as it were.
"Helena," she said, "suppose, at this moment, God were to send an angel
down to thee from Heaven. Suppose he brought to thee a message from God
Himself, that if thou wouldst be content to leave all things to His
ordering for one year, and to have no will at all in the matter, He
would see that nothing was done which should really harm thee in the
least. What wouldst thou say?"
"Oh, then I should dare to leave it!" said I.
"My child, if thou art of His redeemed, He has said it--not for one
short year, but for all thy life. _If_, Helena!"
"Ah,--if!" I said with a sigh.
Lady Judith wrought at her gold diapering, and I at my roses, and we
were both silent for a season. Then the Lady Queen and the Lady Isabel
came in, and there was no further opportunity for quiet conversation.
*CHAPTER VII.*
_*A LITTLE CLOUD OUT OF THE SEA*_*.*
"Coming events cast their shadows before."
--CAMPBELL.
It is Monday night, and I am,--Oh, so tired!
The three grand weddings are over. Very beautiful sights they were; and
very pleasant the feasts and the dances; but all is done now, and if
Messire Renaud feels any doubt to-night about his body being himself, I
have none about mine.
Eschine made a capital bride, in the sense in which a man would use the
words. That is, she looked very nice, and she stood like a statue. I
do not believe she had an idea in her head beyond these: that she was
going to be married, that it was a very delightful thing, and that she
must look well and behave becomingly.
Is that the sort of woman that men like? It is the sort that some men
seem to think all women are.
But Amaury! If ever I did see a creature more absurd than he, I do not
know who it was. He fidgetted over Eschine's bridal dress precisely as
if he had been her milliner. At the very last minute, the garland had
to be altered because it did not suit him.
Most charming of all the weddings was Guy's. Dear Lady Sybil was so
beautiful, and behaved so perfectly, as I should judge of a bride's
behaviour,--a little soft moisture dimming her dark eyes, and a little
gentle tremulousness in her sweet lips. Her dress was simply
enchanting,--soft and white.
Perhaps Lady Isabel made the most splendid-looking bride of the three;
for her dress was gorgeous, and while Lady Sybil's style of beauty is by
far the more artistic and poetical, Lady Isabel's is certainly the more
showy.
So far as I could judge, the three brides regarded their bridegrooms
with very different eyes. To Eschine, he was an accident of the rite; a
portion of the ceremony which it would spoil the show to leave out. To
Lady Isabel, he was a new horse, just mounted, interesting to try, and a
pleasant triumph to subdue. But to Lady Sybil, he was the sun and
centre of all, and every thing deserved attention just in proportion as
it concerned him.
I almost hope that Eschine does not love Amaury, for I feel sure she
will be very unhappy if she do. As to Messire Homfroy de Tours, I do not
think Lady Isabel will find him a pleasant charger. He is any thing but
spirited, and seems to me to have a little of the mule about him--a
creature who would be given at times to taking the bit in his teeth, and
absolutely refusing to go a yard further.
And now it is all over,--the pageants, and the feasts, and the dancing.
And I cannot tell why I am sad.
How is it, or why is it, that after one has enjoyed any thing very much,
one always does feel sad?
I think, except to the bride and bridegroom, a wedding is a very
sorrowful thing. I suppose Guy would say that was one of my queer
notions. But it looks to me so terribly like a funeral. There is a
bustle, and a show; and then you wake up, and miss one out of your life.
It is true, the one can come back still: but does he come back to be
yours any more? I think the instances must be very, very few in which
it is so, and only where both are, to you, very near and dear.
I think Marguerite saw I looked tired and sad.
"There have been light hearts to-day," she said; "and there have been
heavy ones. But the light of to-day may be the heavy of to-morrow; and
the sorrow of to-night may turn to joy in the morning."
"I do feel sorrowful, Margot; but I do not know why."
"My Damoiselle is weary. And all great joy brings a dull, tired feeling
after it. I suppose it is the infirmity of earth. The angels do not
feel so."
"I should like to be an angel," said I. "It must be so nice to fly!"
"And I," said Marguerite; "but not for that reason. I should like to
have no sin, and to see the good God."
"Oh dear!" said I. "That is just what I should not like. In the sense
of never doing wrong, it might be all very well: but I should not want
never to have any amusement, which I suppose thou meanest: and seeing
the good God would frighten me dreadfully."
"Does my Damoiselle remember the time when little Jacquot, Bertrade's
brother, set fire to the hay-rick by playing with lighted straws?"
"Oh yes, very well. Why, what has that to do with it?"
"Does she recollect how he shrieked and struggled, when Robert and
Pierre took him and carried him into the hall, for Monseigneur himself
to judge him for his naughtiness?"
"Oh yes, Margot. I really felt sorry for the child, he was so
terrified; and yet it was half ludicrous--Monseigneur did not even have
him whipped."
"Yet, if I remember rightly, my Damoiselle was standing by Monseigneur's
side at the very time; and she did not look frightened in the least.
Will she allow her servant to ask why?"
"Why should I, Margot? I had done nothing wrong."
"And why is my Damoiselle more like Jacquot than herself, when she comes
to think of seeing the good God?"
"Ah!--thou wouldst like me to say, Because I have done wrong, I
suppose."
"Yes; but I think there was another reason as well."
"What was that, Margot?"
"My Damoiselle is Monseigneur's own child. She knows him. He loves her,
and she knows it."
"But we are all children of the good God, Margot."
"Will my Damoiselle pardon me? We are all His creatures: not all His
children. Oh no, no!"
"O Margot!" said I suddenly, "didst thou note that tall, dark, handsome
knight, who stood on Count Guy's left hand,--Count Raymond of Tripoli?"
"He in the mantle lined with black sable, and gold-barred scarlet hose?"
"That is the man I mean."
"I saw him. Why, if it please my Damoiselle?"
"Didst thou like him?"
"My Damoiselle did not like him?"
Marguerite is very fond of answering one question by another.
"I did not; and I could not tell why."
"Nor I. But I could."
"Then tell me, Margot."
"My Damoiselle, every man has a mark upon his brow which the good God
and His angels can see. But few men see it, and in some it is not easy
to see. Many foreheads look blank to our eyes. But sooner or later,
one of the two marks is certain to shine forth--either the holy cross of
our Lord, or the badge of the great enemy, the star that fell from
heaven. And what I saw on that man's lofty brow was not the cross of
Christ, but the star of Satan."
"Margot, thy queer fancies!" said I, laughing. "Now tell me, prithee, on
whose forehead, in this house, thou seest the cross."
"The Lady Judith," she answered without the least hesitation; "and I
think, the Lady Sybil. Let my Damoiselle pardon me if I cannot name any
other, with certainty. I have weak eyes for such sights. I have hope
of Monseigneur Count Guy."
"Margot, Margot!" cried I. "Thou uncharitable old creature, only three!
What, not the Lady Queen, nor the Lady Isabel, nor the holy Patriarch!
Oh, fie!"
"Let my Damoiselle pardon her servant. The Lady Queen,--ah, I have no
right to say. She looks blank, to me. The cross may be there, and I
may be blind. But the Patriarch--no! and the Lady Isabel--the good God
forgive me if I sin, but I believe I see the star on her."
"And on me?" said I, laughing to hide a curious sensation which I felt,
much akin to mortification. Yet what did old Marguerite's foolish
fancies matter?
I was surprised to see her worn old eyes suddenly fill with tears.
"My sweet Damoiselle!" she said. "The good God bring out the holy cross
on the brow that I love so well! But as yet,--if I speak at all, I must
speak truth--I have not seen it there."
I could not make out why I did not like the Count of Tripoli. He is a
very handsome man,--even my partial eyes must admit, handsomer than Guy.
But there is a strange look in his eyes, as if you only saw the lid of a
coffer, and beneath, inside the coffer, there might be something dark
and dangerous. Guy says he is a splendid fellow; but Guy always was
given to making sudden friendships, and to imagining all his friends to
be angels until he discovered they were men. I very much doubt the
angelic nature of Count Raymond. I do not like him.
But what a queer fancy this is of old Marguerite's--that Satan puts
marks on some people! Yet I cannot help wishing she had not said that
about me. And I do not think it was very respectful. She might have
said something more civil, whatever she thought. Marguerite always will
speak just as she thinks. That is like a villein. It would never do
for us nobles.
Guy has now been Regent of the Holy Land for half a year. Some people
seem to fancy that he is rather too stern. Such a comical idea!--and of
Guy, of all people. I think I know how it is. Guy is very impulsive in
enterprise, and very impetuous in pursuing it. And he sees that during
the King's illness every thing has gone wrong, and fallen into disorder;
and of course it will not do to let things go on so. People must be
governed and kept in their places. Of course they must. Why, if there
were no order kept, the nobles and the villeins would be all mixed up
with each other, and some of the more intelligent and ambitious of the
villeins might even begin to fancy themselves on a par with the nobles.
For there is a sort of intelligence in some of those people, though it
must be of quite a different order from the intellect of the nobles. I
used to think villeins never were ambitious. But I have learned lately
that some of them do entertain some such feeling. It must be a most
dangerous idea to get into a villein's head!--though of course, right
and proper enough for a noble. But I cannot imagine why villeins cannot
be contented with their place. Did not Providence make them
villeins?--and if they have plenty of food, and clothing, and shelter,
and fire, and a good dance now and then on the village green, and an
extra holiday when the Seigneur's daughter is married, or when his son
comes of age,--what can they possibly want more?
I said so to Marguerite.
"Ah, that is all the nobles know!" she answered, quietly enough, but
with some fire in the old eyes. "They do not realise that we are men,
just as they are. God sent us into His world, with just as much, body
and soul, as He did them. We have intellects, and hearts, and
consciences, just like them. ('Just like'--only fancy!) I trust the
good God may not have to teach it them through pain."
"But they ought to be satisfied," said I. "I am perfectly content with
my place in the world. Why are they not contented?"
"It is easier to be content with velvet than duffle," said Marguerite
more calmly. "It looks better, and feels softer, too. If my Damoiselle
were to try the duffle for a day, perhaps she would complain that it
felt harsh."
"To me, very likely," said I. "But a villein would not have a fine skin
like mine."
"The finest skin does not always cover the finest feelings," said
Marguerite in her dry way.
What a very silly idea! Of course those people cannot have such
feelings as I have. It would be quite absurd to think so.
I do think, however, that what vexed me most of any thing, was that
Amaury--that silly little boy!--should take it into his head to lecture
Guy on the way he chose to govern. As if he could know anything about
it! Why, he is two whole years younger than Guy. I told him so,
feeling really vexed at his impudence; and what should he say but that I
was seven years younger than he. I know that, but I am a woman; and
women have always more sense than men. At least, I have more sense than
Amaury. I should be an idiot if I had not.
I have made a discovery to-day which has astonished me. Lady Judith has
a whole Bible, and Psalter too, of her own, not written in Latin, but in
her own tongue in which she was born,--that is, Greek. And she says
that a great part of the Bible--all the holy Evangels, and the writings
of Messeigneurs the holy Apostles--were originally written in Greek. I
always thought that holy Scripture had been written in Latin. I asked
her if Latin were not the language the holy angels spoke, and our Lord,
when He was upon earth. She answered, that she did not think we knew
what language the holy angels spoke, and she should doubt if it were any
tongue spoken on earth: but that the good God, and Messeigneurs the holy
Apostles, she had no doubt at all, spoke Greek. It sounds very strange.
Lady Isabel has had a violent quarrel with her lord, and goes about with
set lips and her head erect, as if she were angry with every one.
I almost think Eschine improves upon acquaintance. Not that I find her
any cleverer than I expected, but I think she is good-natured, and seems
to have no malice in her. If Amaury storms--as he does sometimes--she
just lets the whirlwind blow over her, and never gives him a cross word.
I could not do that. I suppose that is why I admire it in Eschine.
A young nun came this morning to visit Lady Judith--one of her own
Order. I could not quite understand their conversation. Sister
Eudoxia--for that is her name--struck me as being the holiest religious
person I have ever seen. She spoke so beautifully, I thought, about the
perfection one could attain to in this life: how one's whole heart and
soul might be so permeated with God, that one might pass through life
without committing any deed of sin, or thinking any evil thought. Not,
of course, that I could ever attain to such perfection But it sounded
very beautiful and holy.
I was quite surprised to see how constrained, and even cool, Lady Judith
was. It was only yesterday that she assented warmly to old Marguerite's
saying that no one who served God could love any kind of sin. But with
Sister Eudoxia--who spoke so much more charmingly on the same
subject--she sat almost silent, and when she did speak, it seemed to be
rather in dissent than assent. It puzzled me.
When Sister Eudoxia was gone, Lady Sybil said--
"Oh, what happiness, if one could attain to the perfection of living
absolutely without sin!"
"We shall," answered Lady Judith. "But it will not be in this world."
"But Sister Eudoxia says it might be."
"Ah, my poor Sister Eudoxia!" said Lady Judith sadly. "She has taken up
with a heresy nearly as old as Christianity itself, and worse than than
that of Messire Renaud de Montluc, because it has so much more truth in
it. Ay, so much mixture of truth, and so much apparent loveliness, that
it can be no wonder if it almost deceive the very elect. Beware of
being entangled in it, my children."
"Heresy, holy Mother!" cried Lady Sybil, with a shocked look. "I
thought I had never heard any one ascribe more of the glory of our
salvation to God than she did. For she said that every thing was done
for us by the good Lord, and that even our perfection was wrought by Him
for us."
"And not by Him in us," said Lady Judith. "The very point of the heresy,
my child. Eudoxia sees no distinction between the righteousness done
for us, which is our ground of justification before God, and the
holiness wrought in us, which is our conformity to His image. The first
was finished on the rood, eleven centuries ago: the second goes on in
the heart of every child of God, here and now. She is one of those who,
without intending it, or even knowing that they do it, do yet sadly fail
to realise the work of the Holy Ghost.
"But how much she spoke of the blessed Spirit!" objected Lady Sybil.
"My daughter," said Lady Judith, with a smile, "hast thou not yet found
out the difference between names and things? There are many men who
worship God most devoutly, but it is a God they have made to themselves.
Every man on earth is ready to love and serve God with his whole
heart,--if he may set up God after his own pattern. And what that
really means is, a God as like as possible to himself: who will look
with perfect complacency on the darling sins which he cherishes, and may
then be allowed to condemn with the utmost sternness all evil passions
to which he is not addicted."
"That sounds _very_ shocking, holy Mother!" said Lady Sybil.
"We are all liable to the temptation," replied Lady Judith, "and are apt
to slide into it ere we know it."
We all wrought for a little time in silence, when Lady Sybil said, "What
do you call that heresy, holy Mother, into which you say that Sister
Eudoxia has fallen?"
"If thou wilt look into the vision of the Apostle, blessed John, called
the Apocalypse," answered Lady Judith, "thou wilt see what Christ our
Lord calls it. 'This thou hast, that thou rejectest the teaching of the
Nicolaitanes, which I hate."'
"But I thought," said Lady Sybil, looking rather surprised, "that those
Nicolaitanes, who were heretics in the early Church, held some very
horrible doctrines, and led extremely wicked lives? The holy Patriarch
was speaking of them, not long ago."
"Ah, my child," said Lady Judith, "men do not leap, but grow, into great
wickedness. Dost thou not see how the doctrine works? First, it is
possible to live and do no sin. Secondly, _I_ can live and do no sin.
Thirdly, I do live and not sin. Lastly, when this point is
reached,--Whatever my spiritual instinct does not condemn--I being thus
perfect--cannot be sin. Therefore, I may do what I please. If I lie,
murder, steal--which would be dreadful sins in another--they are no sins
in me, because of my perfection. And is this following Christ?"
"Assuredly not! But does Sister Eudoxia really imagine that?"
"Oh no!" responded Lady Judith. "She has not reached that point.
Comparatively few get so far on the road as that. But that is whither
the road is leading them."
"Then what is the root of the heresy?"
"That which I believe lies at the root of every heresy--rejecting God's
Word, that we may keep our own traditions. The stem may perhaps consist
of two things; the want of sufficient lowliness, and the want of a right
knowledge of sin. It is not enough realised that a man's conscience,
like all else in him, has been injured by the fall, but conscience is
looked on as a heavenly judge, still in its original purity. This, as
thou mayest guess, leads to depreciation of the Word of God, and
exaltation of the conscience over the Word. And also, it is not
properly seen that while a man lives, the flesh shall live with him, and
the flesh and the renewed spirit must be in perpetual warfare to the
end."
"But we know----" said Lady Sybil,--and there she paused.
"'We know'!" repeated Lady Judith, with a smile. "Ah, my child, we
think we know a great deal. And we are like children playing on the
seashore, who fancy that they know all that is in the sea, because they
have scooped up a little sea-water in their hands. There are heights
and depths in God's Word and in God's purposes, which you and I have
never reached yet,--which perhaps we shall never reach. 'For as the
heaven is high above the earth, so are His ways higher than our ways,
and His thoughts than our thoughts.'"
I was curious to know what Marguerite would say: she always agrees so
strangely with Lady Judith, even when they have not talked the matter
over at all. So I said, when I went up to change my dress--
"Margot, dost thou commit sin?"
"My Damoiselle thinks me so perfect, then?" said she, with a rather
comical look.
I could not help laughing.
"Well, not quite, when thou opposest my will," said I; "but dost thou
know, there are some people who say that they live without sin."
"That may be, when to contradict the holy Evangels is a mark of
perfection," said Marguerite drily.
"Well, what hast thou heard about that in thy listening, Margot?" said
I, laughing.
"The first thing I heard perplexed me," said she. "It was of Monseigneur
Saint John, who said that he that is born of God doth not commit sin:
and it troubled me sorely for a time, since I knew I did sin, and feared
lest I was therefore not born of God. But one day, Father Eudes read
again, from the very same writing, that 'If any man sin, we have an
Advocate with the Father,' and likewise that if we say we have no sin,
we are liars. So then I thought, Well! how is this? Monseigneur the
holy Apostle would not contradict himself. But still I could not see
how to reconcile them, though I thought and thought, till my brain felt
nearly cracked. And all at once, Father Eudes read--thanks be to the
good God!--something from Monseigneur Saint Paul, which put it all
right."
"What was that?"