“whan cockle-shells ha’e siller bells,
and mussels grow on every tree—
whan frost and snaw shall warm us a’—
then shall my luve prove true to me!”
old ballad.
it was the evening of the third day succeeding isabel’s visit, and while she and avice were seated in the banquet-hall with the governor and his family, the scene lit up by blazing pine torches, a single earthen lamp threw a dull and unsteady light over the silent bedchamber of the royal prisoner. the little alianora was asleep in her cradle, and on the bed lay her mother, not asleep, but as still and silent as though she were. near the cradle, on a settle, sat maude lyngern, trying with rather doubtful success to read by the flickering light.
custance had not quitted her bed during all that time. she never spoke but to express a want or reply to a question. when maude brought her food, she submitted to be fed like an infant. of what thoughts were passing in her mind, she gave no indication.
at last maude came to the conclusion that the spell of silence ought to be broken. the passionate utterances which isabel’s news had evoked at first were better than this dead level of silent suffering. but she determined to break it by no arguments or consolations of her own, but by the inspired words of god. she felt doubtful what to select; so she chose a passage which, half knowing it by heart, would be the easier to make out in the uncertain light.
“‘and oon of the farisees preiede (prayed) jhesus that he schulde ete with him; and he entride into the hous of the farisee, and sat at the mete. and lo, a synful woman that was in the cytee, as sche knewe that jhesus sat at the mete in the hous of the farisee, she broughte an alabastre box of oynement, and sche stood bihynde bisidis hise feet, and bigan to moiste hise feet with teeris, and wypide with the heeris of hir heed, and kiste hise feet, and anoyntide with oynement. and the farisee seyng (seeing) that had clepide him seide within himsilf, seiyinge, if this were a profete, he schulde wete who and what maner womman it were that touchide him, for sche is a synful womman. and jhesus answerde and seide to him, symount, i han sum thing to seye to thee. and he seide, maistir, seye thou. and he answerde, tweye dettouris weren to oo lener (one lender); and oon oughte fyve hundrid pens (pence) and the tother fifty. but whanne thei hadden not wherof thei schulen yelde, (yield, pay) he forgaf to bothe. who thanne loueth him more? symount answerde and seide, i gesse that he to whom he forgaf more. and he answeride to him, thou hast demed (doomed, judged) rightly. and he turnide to the womman, and seyde to symount, seest thou this womman? i entride into thin hous, thou gaf no watir to my feet; but this hath moistid my feet with teeris, and wipide with her heeris. thou hast not gouen to me a cosse (kiss); but this, sithen sche entride, ceeside not to kisse my feet. thou anointidst not myn heed with oyle; but this anointide my feet with oynement. for the which thing i seye to thee, manye synnes ben forgiuen to hir, for sche hath loued myche; and to whom is lesse forgyuen to hir, he loueth lesse. and jhesus seyde to hir, thi synnes ben forgiuen to thee. and thei that saten togider at the mete bigunnen to seye withinne hemsilf, (themselves), who is this that forgyveth synnes? but he seide to the womman, thei feith hath maad thee saaf; go thou in pees.’”
maude added no words of her own. she closed the book, and relapsed into silence. but custance’s solemn stillness was broken at last.
“‘he seide to the womman!’—wherefore no, having so spoken to the pharisee, have left?” (concluded).
“nay, dear my lady,” answered maude, “it were not enough. so dear loveth our good and gentle lord, that he will not have so much as one of his children to feel any the least unsurety touching his mercy. wherefore he were not aseeth (contented) to say it only unto the pharisee; but on her face, bowed down as she knelt behind him, he looked, and bade her to be of good cheer, for that she was forgiven. o lady mine! ’tis great and blessed matter when a man hath god to his friend!”
“thy words sound well,” said the low voice from the bed. “very well, like the sound of sweet waters far away.”
“far away, dear my lady?”
“ay, far away, maude,—without (outside) my life and me.”
“sweet lady, if ye will but lift the portcullis, our lord is ready and willing to come within. and whereinsoever he entereth, he bringeth withal rest and peace.”
“rest! peace!—ay so. i guess there be such like gear some whither—for some folks.”
“they dwell whereso christ dwelleth, lady mine.”
“in paradise, then! i told thee it were far hence.”
“is paradise far hence, lady? i once heard say father ademar that it were not over three hours’ journey at the most; for the thief on the cross went there in one day, and it were high noon ere he set out.”
maude stopped sooner than she intended, suddenly checked by a moan of pain from custance. the mere mention of ademar’s name seemed to evoke her overwhelming distress, as if it brought back the memory of all the miserable events over which she had been brooding for three days past. she rocked herself from side to side, as though her suffering were almost unendurable.
“if he could come back! o maude, maude!—if only he could come back!”
“sweet lady, an’ he were hither, methinks father ademar—”
“no, no—not father ademar. oh, if i could rend the grave open!—if i could tear asunder the blue veil of heaven! i set no store by it all then; but now! he would forgive me: he would not scorn me! he would not count me too vile for his mercy. o my lord, mine own dear lord! you would never have served me thus!”
and down rained the blessed tears, and relieved the dry, parched soil of the agonised heart. she lay quieter after that torrent of pain and passion. the terrible spell of dark silence was broken; and maude knew at last, that through this bitterest trial she had ever yet experienced, the wandering heart was coming home—at least to le despenser.
was it needful that she should pass through yet deeper waters, before she would come home to god?
the leaves were carpeting the ground around kenilworth, when custance granted a second interview to her cousin isabel. there was more news for her by that time. edward had been once more pardoned, and was again in his usual place at court. how this inscrutable man procured his pardon, and what sum he paid for it, in cash or service, is among the mysteries of the medieval “back-stairs.” he had to be forgiven for more than custance knew. among his other political speculations, he had been making love to the queen; a fact which, though there can be little doubt that it was a mere piece of policy on his part, was unlikely to be acceptable to the king. but the one item which most closely concerned his sister was indicated in plain terms by his pardon—that she need look for no help at her brother’s hands until she too “put herself in the king’s mercy.”
the king’s mercy! what that meant depended on the king. in the reign of richard of bordeaux, that prisoner must be heavily-charged to whom it did not mean at least a smile of pardon—not unfrequently a grant of lands, or sometimes a coronet. but in the reign of henry of bolingbroke, it meant rigid justice, as he understood justice. and his mercy, to any lollard, convicted or suspected, usually meant solitary confinement in a prison cell. what inducement was there for custance to throw herself on such mercy as that? nor was she further encouraged by hearing of another outbreak on behalf of king richard or the earl of march, headed by archbishop scrope and lord mowbray, and the heads of the ringleaders had fallen on the scaffold.
isabel had sat and talked for an hour without winning any answer beyond monosyllables. she was busy with her rosary—a new coral one—while she unfolded her budget of news, and tried to persuade her cousin into compliance with the king’s wish. the last bead was just escaping from her fingers with an amen, when custance turned to her with a direct question.
“now speak plainly, fair cousin;—what wouldst have me to do?”
“in good sooth, to put thee in the king’s mercy.”
“in his mercy!” murmured the prisoner significantly. “the which should be—wist how much?”
“truly, to free thee hence, and thou shouldst go up to london to wait upon his grace.”
“and then—?”
isabel knew what the king intended to exact, but the time was not yet come to say too much, lest custance should be alarmed and draw back altogether. so she replied evasively—
“then his highness should restore to thee thy lands, on due submission done.”
“and yield me back my childre?”
“most surely.”
a knot was tied upon isabel’s memory, unknown to her cousin. if custance cared much for her children, they might prove a most effective instrument of torture.
“well!—and then?”
“nay, ask at thine own self. me supposeth thou shouldst choose to return to thine own castle of cardiff. but if it pleased thee rather to abide in the court, i cast no doubt—”
“let be!—and then?”
“then, in very deed,” resumed isabel, warming with her subject, “thou shouldst have chance to make good alliance for nib and dickon, and see them well set in fair estate.”
“ah!—and then?”
“why, then thou mayest match thy grandchildre yet better,” answered isabel, laughing.
“and after all, isabel,” returned custance, in a manner much graver than was usual with her, “there abideth yet one further then—death, and god’s judgment.”
“holy mary aid us!—avaunt with such thoughts!”
“canst thou avaunt with such thoughts, child?” said custance, with a heavy sigh. “ah me! they come unbidden, when the shadows of night be over the soul, and the thick darkness hath closed in upon the life. and i, at the least, have no spell to bid them avaunt. if holy mary aid thee in that avoidment, ’tis more than she doth for me.”
isabel seemed at a loss for a reply. “i have had no lack of time for thought, fair cousin, while i yonder lay. and the thought would not away,—when we stand together, i and harry of bolingbroke, at that bar of god’s judgment, shall i desire in that day that i had said ay or nay to him now?”
“forsooth, custance, i am not thy confessor. these be priests’ matters—not gear for women like thee and me.”
“what, child! is thy soul matter for the priest’s concernment only? is it not rather matter for thee—thee by thyself, beyond all priests that be? thou and the priest may walk handed (walk hand in hand) up to that bar, but methinks he will be full fain to leave thee to bide the whipping.”
“nay, in very deed, custance, thou art a lollard, else hadst thou never spoken no such a thing!”
“what, be lollards the only men that have a care for their own souls? but be it as thou wilt—what will it matter then? isabel, in good sooth i have sins enough to answer for, neither will i by my good-will add thereto. and if it be no sin to stand up afore god and men, and swear right solemnly unto his dread face that i did not that which i did before his sun in heaven—good lack! i do marvel what sin may be. there is no such thing as sin, if it be no sin to swear to a lie!”
“but, custance, the king’s highness asketh not thee to deny that thou wert wed unto my lord of kent, but only to allow openly that the same were not good in law.”
“can a law go backwards-way?”
“fair cousin, the priest was excommunicate afore.”
“god wot if he were!” said custance shrewdly.
“bishops use not to leave their letters tarry two months on the road, child. there have been riddles writ ere now; ay, and black treachery done—by shaven crowns too. canst thou crede that story? ’tis more than i can.”
“custance, i do ensure thee, the king’s grace sware into me his own self, by the holy face of lucca, and said, if thou didst cast any doubt of the same, my lord archbishop should lay to pledge his corporal oath thereon.”
“his corporal oath ensure me! nay, nor an’ he sware by saint beelzebub!” cried custance in bitter scorn. “i have heard of a corporal oath ere now, child. i know of one that was taken at conway, by an old white-haired man (note 1), whose reverend head should have lent weight to his words: but they were words, and nought else. how many days were, ere it was broken to shivers? i tell thee, nib, harry of bolingbroke may swear an’ it like him by every saint in the calendar from aaron to zachary; and when he is through, my faith in his oaths will go by the eye of a needle. why, what need of oath if a man be but true? if i would know somewhat of maude yonder, i shall never set her to swear by saint nicholas; i can crede her word. and if a man’s word be not trustworthy, how much more worth is his oath?”
“but, custance! the king’s grace and my lord archbishop—”
“how thou clarifiest (glorifiest) the king’s grace! satan ruleth a wider realm than he, child, but i would not trust his oath. what caused them to take account that i should not believe them, unless their own ill consciences?”
isabel was silent.
“isabel!” said her cousin, suddenly turning to her, “have they his oath for the same?”
“whose, custance?—my lord of kent?”
custance nodded impatiently.
“oh, ay.”
“he hath allowed our wedding void in law?”
“ay so.”
“what manner of talk held his conscience with him, sithence, mewondereth?” suggested custance, in a low, troubled voice. “but maybe, like thee, he accounteth if but priest’s gear.”
“marry, ’tis far lighter travail. i list not to carry mine own sins: i had the liefer by the worth of the queen’s highness’ gems they were on the priest’s back.”
“ah, nib!—but how if god charge them on thy back at the last?”
“good lack! a white lie or twain, spiced with a little matter of frowardness by times! my back is broad enough.”
“i am fain to hear it, for so is not mine.”
“ah! thou art secular—no marvel.”
“much thanks for thy glosing (flattery), mine holy sister!” said custance sarcastically. “the angels come down from heaven, to set thee every morrow in a bath of rose-water, trow? while i, poor sinner that i am, having been twice wed, may journey to heaven as best i can in the mire. ’tis well, methinks, there be some secular in the world, for these monks and nuns be so holy that elsewise there were no use for god’s mercy.”
“nay, custance!”
“well, have it as thou wilt, child! what matter?” returned her cousin with a weary air. “i am no doctor of the schools, to break lances with thee. only methinks i have learned, these last months, a lesson or twain, which maybe even thy holiness were not the worser to spell over. now let me be.”
isabel thought that the victim was coming round by degrees, and she wisely forbore to press her beyond the point to which she chose to go of herself. so the interview ended. it was not till october that they met again.
maude fancied that avice eschewed any renewal of intercourse with her. she kept herself strictly secluded in the chamber which had been allotted to the nuns; and since maude had no power to pass beyond the door of the guard-room, the choice lay in avice’s own hands. at neither of the subsequent interviews was she present.
“well, fair cousin! what cheer?” was isabel’s greeting, when she presented herself anew.
“thus much,” replied custance; “that, leave given, i will go with thee to london.”
“well said!” was the answer, in a tone which intimated that it was more than isabel expected.
“but mark me, isabel! i byhote (promise) nought beyond.”
“oh ay!—well and good.”
“and for thus much yielding, i demand to have again the keeping of my childre.”
“good lack! thou treatest with the king’s grace as though thou wert queen of some land thyself,” said isabel, with a little laugh. “verily, that goeth beyond my commission: but methinks i can make bold to say thus much: that an’ thou come with me, they shall be suffered at the least to see thee and speak with thee.”
custance shook her head decidedly.
“that shall not serve.”
“nay, then, we be again at a point. i can but give mine avisement unto thee to come thither and see.”
the point was sturdily fought over on both sides. isabel dared promise nothing more than that custance should be allowed to see her children, and that she herself would do her utmost to obtain further concessions. at last it was settled that the king should be appealed to, and the request urged upon him by his emissary, by letter. isabel, however, was evidently gifted with no slight ambassadorial powers; for when she selected bertram lyngern as her messenger, the governor did not hesitate to let him go.
but bertram’s projected journey never took place, for a most unexpected event intervened to stop it.
it was the seventh of november, and a warm, close, damp day, inducing languor and depression in any person sensitive to the influence of weather. custance and maude had received no visit that day from any one but bertram, who was busy preparing for his journey. there were frequent comers and goers to kenilworth castle, so that the sound of a bugle-horn without was likely to cause no great curiosity; nor, as custance’s drawing-room window opened on a little quiet corner of the inner court-yard, did she often witness the arrival of guests. so that three horns rang out on that afternoon without awakening more than a passing wonder “who it might be;” and when an unusual commotion was heard in the guard-room, the cause remained unsurmised. but when the door of the drawing-room was opened, a most unexpected sight dawned on the eyes of the prisoners. unannounced and completely unlooked-for, in the doorway stood henry of bolingbroke, the king.
it was no wonder that maude’s work dropped from her hands as she rose hastily; nor that custance’s eyes passed hurriedly on to see who composed the suite. but the suite consisted of a solitary individual, and this was her ubiquitous brother, edward of york.
“god give you good even, fair cousin!” said henry, with a bend of his stately head. his manners in public, though less really considerate, were stiffer and more ceremonious than those of his predecessor. “you scantly looked, as methinks, for a visit of ours this even?”; “your highness’ servant!” was all chat custance said, in a voice the constrained tone of which had its source rather in coldness than in reverence.
“christ save thee, custance!” said edward, sauntering in behind his royal master. “thou hast here a fine look-out, in very deed.”
“truth, ned; and time to mark it!” rejoined his sister.
the door opened again, and with a lout (the old english courtesy, now considered rustic) of the deepest veneration, isabel made her appearance.
“i pray you sit, ladies,” commanded the king.
the princesses obeyed, but maude did not consider herself included. the king took the isolated chair with which the room was provided.
“an’ you be served, our fair cousins,” he remarked, “we will to business, seeing our tarrying hither shall be but unto monday; and if your leisure serve, lady le despenser, we would fain bear you with us unto london. our fair cousin isabel, as methinks, did you to wit of our pleasure?”
what was the occult power within this man—whom no one liked, yet who seemed mysteriously to fascinate all who came inside the charmed circle of his personal influence? instead of answering defiantly, as she had done to isabel, custance contented herself with the meek response—
“she so did, sire.”
“you told her all?” pursued the king, turning his keen eyes upon isabel.
“to speak very truth, sire,” hesitated isabel, “i did leave one little matter.”
she seemed reluctant to confess the omission; and custance’s face paled visibly at this prospect of further sorrow in store.
“which was that, fair cousin?”
henry was a perfect master of the art of expressing displeasure without any use of words to convey it. isabel knew in an instant that he considered her to have failed in her mission.
“under your gracious leave, my liege,” she said deprecatingly, “had your grace seen how my fair cousin took that which i did say, it had caused you no marvel that i stayed ere more were spoken.”
“we blamed you not, fair cousin,” responded henry coldly. “what matter left you unspoken?”
“an’ it like your grace to pardon me, touching her presence desired—”
“enough said. all else spake you?”
“all else, your highness’ pleasure served,” answered isabel meekly.
“my ‘presence desired’!” broke in custance. “what meaneth your grace, an’ it like you? our fair cousin did verily arede (tell) me that your grace commandeth mine appearing in london; and thither i had gone, had it not pleased your grace to win hither.”
“so quoth she; but this was other matter,” calmly rejoined the king. “our council thought good, fair cousin, that you should be of the guests bidden unto the wedding of our cousin of kent with the fair lady lucy of milan.”
for one instant after the words were spoken, there was dead silence through the room—the silence which marks the midst of a cyclone. the next moment, custance rose, and faced the man who held her life in his hands. the spell of his mysterious power was suddenly broken; and the old fiery spirit of plantagenet, which was stronger in her than in him, flamed in her eyes and nerved her voice.
“you meant that?” she demanded, dropping etiquette.
“it hath been reckoned expedient,” was the calm reply.
“then you may drag me thither in my coffin, for alive will i never go!”
“this, custance, to the king’s highness’ face!” deprecated her pardoned and (just then) subservient brother.
“to his face? ay,—better than behind his back!” cried the defiant princess. “and to thy face, harry of bolingbroke, i do thee to wit that thou art no king of mine, nor i owe thee no allegiance! wreak thy will on me for saying it! after all, i can die but once; and i can die as beseems a king’s daughter; and i would as lief die and be rid of thee as ’bide in a world vexed with thy governance.”
“custance! custance!” cried edward and isabel in concert.
“let be, fair cousins,” answered the cool unmoved tones of the king. “we can make large allowance for our cousin’s words—they be but nature.”
this astute man knew how to overlook angry words. and certainly no words he could have used would have vexed custance half so much as this assumption of calm superiority.
“speak your will, lady,” he quietly added. “to all likelihood it shall do you some relievance to uncharge your mind after this fashion; and i were loth to let you of that ease. for us, we are used to hear our intent misconceived. but all said, hear our pleasure.”
which was as much as to say with contemptuous pity,—poor captive bird! beat your wings against the iron bars of your cage as much as you fancy it; they are iron, after all.
“fair cousin,” resumed the king, “you must be at this wedding, clad in your widow’s garb; and you must set your hand to the paper which our cousin isabel holdeth. know that if you be obedient, the custody and marriage of your son, with all lands of your sometime lord, shall be yours, and you shall forthwith be set at full liberty, nor word further spoken touching past offences. but you still refusing, then every rood of your land is forfeit, and the marriages and custody of all your childre shall be given unto our fair aunt, the duchess dowager of york. we await your answer.”
it was not in words that the answer came at first. only in an exceeding bitter cry—
“as of a wild thing taken in a trap,
which sees the trapper coming through the wood.”
custance saw now the full depth of misery to which she was doomed. the utmost concession hitherto wrung from her was that she would go to london and confront the king. and now it was calmly required of her that she should not only sign away her own fair name, but should confront kent himself—should sit a quiet spectator of a ceremony which would publicly declare the invalidity of her right to bear his name—should by her own act consign her child to degradation and penury—should be a witness and a consenting party to the utter destruction of all her hopes of happiness. she knew that the lark might as well plead with the iron bars as she with henry of bolingbroke. and the penalty of her refusal was not merely poverty and homelessness. she could have borne that; indeed, the sentence about the estates passed by her, hardly noted. the bitterest sting lay in the assurance thus placidly given her, that her loving little richard would be consigned to the keeping of a woman whom she knew to hate her fiercely—that he would be taught to hate and despise her himself. he would be brought up as a stranger to her; he would be led to associate her name with scorn and disgrace. and how was joan likely to treat the children, when she had perpetually striven to vex and humiliate the mother?
the words came at last. but they were of very different character from those which had preceded them.
“grant me one further mercy, sire,” she said in a low voice, looking up to him:—“the one greater grace of death.”
“fair cousin, we would fain grant you abundant grace, so you put it not from you with your own perversity. we have proffered unto you full restorance to our favour, and to endow you with every of your late lord’s lands, on condition only of your obedience in one small matter. we take of you neither life nor liberty.”
“life? no!—only all that maketh life worthy the having.”
“we wist not, fair cousin, that our cousin of kent were so precious,” replied the king, with the faintest accent of satire in his calm, polished voice.
but custance, like a spring let loose, had returned to her previous mood.
“what, take you nought from me but only him?” she cried indignantly. “is it not rather mine own good name whereof you would undo me? ye have bereaved me of him already. i tare him from mine heart long ago, though i tare mine own heart in the doing of it. he is not worth the love i have wasted on him, and have repreved (denied, rejected) thereof one ten thousand times his better! god assoil (forgive) my blindness!—for mine eyes be opened now. but you, sire,—you ask of me that i shall sign away mine own honourable name and my child’s birthright, and as bribe to bid me thereunto, you proffer me my lands! what saw you ever in custance of langley to give you the thought that she should thus lightly sell her soul for gold, or weigh your paltry acres in the balances against her truth and honour?”
every nerve of the outraged soul was quivering with excitement. in the calm even tones which responded, there was no more excitement than in an iceberg.
“fair cousin, you do but utterly mistake. the matter is done and over; nor shall your ’knowledgment thereof make but little difference. ’tis neither for our own sake, neither for our cousin of kent, but for yours, that we would fain sway you unto a better mind. nor need you count, fair cousin, that your denial should let by so much as one day our cousin of kent his bridal with the lady lucy. we do you to wit that you stand but in your own light. your marriage is annulled. what good then shall come of your ’knowledgment, saving your own easement? but for other sake, if ye do persist yet in your unwisdom, we must needs make note of you as a disobedient subject.”
there was silence again, only broken by the quiet regular dripping of the water-clock in a corner of the room. silence, until custance sank slowly on her knees, and buried her face upon the cushion of the settle.
“god, help me; for i have none other help!” sobbed the agitated voice. “help me to make this unceli (miserable) choice betwixt wrong and wrong, betwixt sorrow and sorrow!”
a less impulsive and demonstrative woman would not have spoken her thoughts aloud. but custance wore her heart upon her sleeve. what wonder if the daws pecked at it?
“not betwixt wrong and wrong, fair cousin,” responded the cool voice of the king. “rather, betwixt wrong and right. nor betwixt sorrow and sorrow, but betwixt sorrow and pleasance.”
with another sudden change in her mood, custance lifted her head, and asked in a tone which was almost peremptory—
“is it the desire of my lord himself that i be present?”
to reply in the affirmative was to lie; for kent was entirely innocent and ignorant of the king’s demand. but what mattered a few lies, when archbishop arundel, the fountain of absolution, was seated in the banquet-hall? so henry had no scruple in answering unconcernedly—
“it is our cousin of kent his most earnest desire.”
“and yet once more,” she said, fixing her eyes upon him, as if to watch the expression of his face while she put her test-question. “yonder writ of excommunication:—was it verily and indeed forth against sir ademar de milford, the sunday afore i was wed?”
did she expect to read any admission of fraud in that handsome passionless face? if she did, she found herself utterly mistaken.
“fair cousin, have ye so unworthy thoughts of your friends? certes, the writ was forth.”
“my friends! where be my friends?—the writ was forth?”
“assuredly.”
“then wreak your will—you and satan together!”
“how conceive we by that, fair cousin?” inquired the king rather satirically.
“have your will, man!” she said wearily, as if she were tired of keeping measures with him any longer. “things be sorely acrazed in this world. if there be an other world where they be set straight, there shall be some travail to iron out the creases.”
“signify you that you will sign this paper?”
isabel passed the paper quietly to henry.
“what matter what i signify, or what i sign? if my name must needs be writ up in black soot, it were as well done on that paper as an other.”
the king laid the document on the table, where the standish was already, and with much show of courtesy, offered a pen to his prisoner. she knelt down to sign, holding the pen a moment idle in her fingers.
“what a little matter art thou!” she said, soliloquising dreamily. “a grey goose quill! yet on one stroke of thee all my coming life hangeth.”
the pen was lifted to sign the fatal document, when the proceedings were stopped by an unexpected little wail from something in maude’s arms. custance dashed down the quill, and springing up, took her little alianora to her bosom.
“sign away thy birthright, my star, my dove! wretched mother that i am, to dream thereof! how could i ever meet thine innocent eyes again? i will not sign it!”
“as it like you, fair cousin,” was the quiet response of that voice gifted with such inexplicable power. “for us, we have striven but to avance you unto your better estate. ’tis nought to us whether ye sign or no.”
she hesitated; she wavered; she held out the child to maude.
“i would but add,” observed the king, “that yonder babe is no wise touched by your signing of that paper. her birthright is gone already; or more verily, she had never none to go. your name unto yon paper maketh no diversity thereabout.”
still the final struggle was terrible. twice she resumed the pen; twice she flung it down in passionate though transient determination not by her own act to alienate her child’s inheritance and blot her own fair name. but every time the memory of her favourite, her loving little richard, rose up before her, and she could not utter the refusal which would deprive her of him for ever. perhaps she might even yet have held out, had the alternative been that of resigning him to any person but joan. but the certain knowledge that he would be taught to despise and hate her was beyond the mother’s power to endure. at last she snatched up the pen, and dashed her name on the paper. it was signed in regal form, without a surname.
“there!” she cried passionately: “behold all ye get of me! if i may not sign ‘custance kent,’ content you with ‘custance.’ never ‘custance le despenser!’ my lord was true to his heart’s core; and never sign i his name to a dishonour and a lie!—o my dickon, my pretty, pretty dickon! thou little knowest the price thine hapless mother hath paid for thee this day!”
henry the fourth was not a man who loved cruelty for its own sake: he was simply a calculating, politic one. he never wasted power on unnecessary torture. when his purpose was served, he let his victim go.
“fully enough, fair cousin!” he said with apparent kindness. “you sign as a prince’s daughter—and such are you. we thank you right heartily for this your wise submission, and as you shall shortly see, you shall not lose thereby.”
not another word was said about her presence at the wedding. that would, come later. his present object was to get her to london. the evening of the 17th of november saw them at westminster palace.
during the journey, avice carefully avoided any private intercourse with maude. the latter tried once or twice to renew the interrupted conversation; but it was either dinner-time, or it was prayer-time, or there was some excellent reason why avice could not listen. and at last maude resigned the hope. they never met again. but one winter day, eighteen years later, maude lyngern heard that sister avice, of the minoresses’ house at aldgate, had died in the odour of sanctity; and that the sisters were not without hope that the holy father might pronounce her a saint, or at least “beata.” it was added that she had worn herself to a skeleton by fasting, and for three weeks before her death had refused all sustenance but the sacrament, which she received daily. and that was the last of cousin hawise.
we return from this digression to westminster palace.
news met them as they stepped over the threshold—news of death. alianora, countess of march, sister of kent, and mother of the mortimers, had died at powys castle.
when custance reached the chamber allotted to her at westminster, she found there all the personal property which she had left at langley twelve months earlier.
“maude!” she said that night, as she laid her head on the pillow.
“lady?” was the response.
“to-morrow make thou ready for me my widow’s garb. i shall never wear any other again.”
“ay, lady,” said maude quietly.
“and—hast here any book of sir john de wycliffe?”
“the evangel after lucas, lady.”
“wilt read me to sleep therewith?”
“surely, lady mine.”
“was it thence thou readst once unto me, of a woman that was sinful, which washed our lord’s feet?”
“ay so, madam.”
“read that again.”
the words were repeated softly in the quiet chamber, by the dim light of the silver lamp. maude paused when she had read them.
“when thou and i speak of such as we love, maude, we make allowance for their short-comings. ‘she did but little ill,’ quoth we, or, ‘she had sore provoking thereto,’ and the like. but he saith, ‘manye synnes ben forgiuen to hir’—yet not too many to be forgiven!”
“ah, dear my lady,” said maude affectionately, “methinks our lord can afford to take full measure of the sins of his chosen ones, sith he hath, to bless them, so full and free forgiveness.”
“yet that must needs cost somewhat.”
“cost!” repeated maude with deep feeling. “lady, the cost thereof to him was the cross.”
“but to us?” suggested custance.
“is there any cost to us, beyond the holding forth of empty hands to receive his great gift? i count, madam, that as it is his best glory to give all, so it must be ours to receive all.”
“o maude!” she wailed with a weary sigh, “when can i make me clean enough in his sight to receive this his gift?”
“methinks, lady mine, this woman which came into the pharisee’s house was no cleaner ne fairer than other women. and, tarrying to make her clean, she might have come over late. be not the emptiest meetest to receive gifts, and the uncleanest they that have most need of washing?”
“the most need,—ay.”
“and did ever an almoner ’plain that poor beggars came for his dole,—or a mother that her child were too much bemired to be cleansed?”
“is there woman on middle earth this night, maude, poorer beggar than i, or more bemired?”
“sweet lady!” said maude very earnestly, “if you would but make trial of our lord’s heart toward you! ‘alle ye that traveilen and ben chargid, come to me’—this is his bidding, dear my lady! and his promise is, ‘i will fulfille you’—‘ye schal fynde reste to your soulis.’”
“i would come, if i knew how!” she moaned.
“maybe,” said maude softly, “they which would come an’ they knew how, do come after his reckoning. howbeit, this wis i,—that an’ your ladyship have will to come unto him, he hath full good will to show you the way.”
there was no more said on either side at the time. but if ever a weary, heavy-laden sinner came to christ, custance le despenser came that night.
the next day she resumed her widow’s garb. at that period the weeds of widowhood were pure white, the veil bound tightly round the face, a piece of embroidered linen crossing the forehead, and another the chin, so that the only portion of the face visible was from the eyebrows to the lips. indeed, the head-dress of a widow and that of a nun were so similar that inexperienced eyes might easily mistake one for the other. the costume was not by any means attractive.
the hour was yet early when the duchess of york was announced; and when the door was opened, the little richard, whose presence had been purchased at so heavy a cost, sprang into his mother’s arms. his little sister, who followed, was shy and hung back, clinging close to the duchess. the year which had elapsed since she had seen custance and maude seemed to have obliterated both from her recollection. with all her faults, custance was an affectionate mother, with that sort of affection which develops itself in petting; and it pained her to see how isabel shrank away from her. the only comfort lay in the hope that time would accustom her to her mother again; and beyond the mere affection of custom, isabel’s nature would never reach.
it soon became evident that king henry meant to keep his word. two months after her arrival at westminster, custance received a grant of all her late husband’s goods forfeited to the crown; and five days later was the marriage of edmund of kent and lucia of milan.
they were married in the church of saint mary overy, southwark, the king himself giving the bride. the queen and the whole court were present; but kent never knew who was present or absent; his eyes and thoughts were absorbed with lucia. he never saw a white-draped figure which shrank behind the queen, with eyes unlifted from the beginning of mass to the end. so, on that last occasion when the separated pair met, neither saw the face of the other.
but custance was not left to pass through her terrible ordeal alone. as the queen’s procession filed into the church, richard of conisborough placed himself by the side of his sister, and clasped her hand in his: he left her again at the door of her own chamber. no words were spoken between the brother and sister; the hearts were too near each other to need them.
maude was waiting for her mistress. the latter lay down on the trussing-bed—the medieval sofa—and turned her face away towards the wall. maude quietly sat down with her work; and the slow hours passed on. custance was totally silent, beyond a simple “nay” when asked if she wanted anything. with more consideration than might have been expected, the king did not require her presence at the wedding-banquet; he permitted her to be served in her own room. but the sufferer declined to eat.
the twilight came at last, and maude folded her needlework, unable to see longer, and doubtful whether her mistress would wish the lamp to be lighted. she had sat idle only for a’ few minutes when at last custance spoke—her words having evidently a meaning deeper than the surface.
“the light has died out!” she said.
“in the city of god,” answered maude gently, “‘night schal not be there,’ for the lantern of it is the lamb, and he is ‘the schynyng morewe sterre.’ and he is ‘with us in alle daies, into the endyng of the world.’”
“maude, is not somewhat spoken in the evangel, touching the taking up on us of his cross?”
“ay, dear my lady:—‘he that berith not his cross and cometh after me, may not be my disciple.’ and moreover:—‘he that takith not his cross and sueth (followeth) me is not worthi to me.’”
“i can never be worthy to him!” she said, with a new, strange lowliness which touched maude deeply. “but hitherto i have but lain charing under the cross—i have not taken ne borne it, neither sued him any whither. i will essay now to take it on me, humbly submitting me, and endeavouring myself to come after him.”
“methinks, lady mine, that so doing, ye shall find that he beareth the heavier end. at the least, he shall bear you, and he must needs bear your burden with you. yet in very sooth there is some gear we must needs get by rote ere we be witful enough to conceive the use thereof. the littlemaster (a schoolmaster) witteth what he doth in setting the task to his scholar. how much rather the great master of all things?”
“me feareth i shall be slow scholar, maude. and i have all to learn!”
“nor loved any yet the learning of letters, madam. yet meseemeth, an’ i speak not too boldly, that beside the lessons which be especial, that he only learneth (teaches), all this world is god’s great picture-book to help his children at their tasks. our lord likeneth him unto all manner of gear—easy, common matter at our very hands—for to aid our slow wits. he is bread of life, and water for cleansing, and raiment to put on, and staff for leaning upon, and shepherd, and comforter.”
“enough, now,” said custance, with that strange gentleness which seemed so unlike her old bright, wilful self. “leave me learn that lesson ere i crave a new one.”
note 1. the earl of northumberland, to induce king richard to place himself in the power of his cousin henry.
