“woe to the eye that sheds no tears -
no tears for god to wipe away!”
“g.e.m.”
“and is it so hard to forgive?” asked the soft voice of isabel.
“i will try, but it seems impossible,” responded philippa. “how can any forgive injuries that reach down to the very root of the heart and life?”
“my child,” said isabel, “he that injureth followeth after satan; but he that forgiveth followeth after god. it is because our great debt to god is too mighty for our bounded sight, and we cannot reach to the ends thereof, that we are so ready to require of our fellow-debtors the small and sorry sum owed to ourselves. ‘he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love god whom he hath not seen?’ and can any love and yet not forgive?”
“it is sometimes easier to love one ere he be seen than after,” said philippa, sarcastically.
isabel smiled rather sadly, for the latent thought in her daughter’s mind was only too apparent to her. had philippa known as little of her father as of her mother, her feeling towards him would have been far less bitter. but there was no other answer. even though twenty-seven years lay between that day and the june morning on which she had quitted arundel, isabel could not trust herself to speak of richard fitzalan. she dared not run the risk of re-opening the wound, by looking to see whether it had healed.
“mother,” said philippa suddenly, “thou wilt come with me to kilquyt?”
“for a time,” answered isabel, “if thine husband assent thereto.”
“i shall not ask him,” said philippa, with a slight pout.
“then i shall not go,” replied isabel quietly. “i will not enter his house without his permission.”
philippa’s surprise and disappointment were legible in her face.
“but, mother, thou knowest not my lord,” she interposed. “there is not in all the world a man more wearisome to dwell withal. every thing i do, he dislikes; and every thing i wish to do, he forbids. i am thankful for his absence, for when he is at home, from dawn to dusk he doth nought save to find fault with me.”
but, notwithstanding her remonstrance, philippa had fathomed her mother’s motive in thus answering. sir richard possessed little of his own; he was almost wholly dependent on the earl her father; and had it pleased that gentleman to revoke his grant of manors to herself and her husband, they would have been almost ruined. and philippa knew quite enough of earl richard the copped-hat to be aware that few tidings would be so unwelcome at arundel as those which conveyed the fact of isabel’s presence at kilquyt. her mother’s uplifted hand stopped her from saying more.
“hush, my daughter!” said the low voice. “repay not thou by finding fault in return. ‘what glory is it, if, when ye be buffeted for your faults, ye shall take it patiently? but if, when ye do well and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is acceptable with god.’”
“i am not so patient as you, mother,” answered philippa, shaking her head. “perhaps it were better for me if i were. but dost thou mean that i must really ask my lord’s leave ere thou wilt come with me?”
“i do mean it.”
“and thou sayest, ‘for a time’—wilt thou not dwell with me?”
“the vows of the lord are upon me,” replied isabel, gravely. “i cannot forsake the place wherein he hath set me, the work which he hath given me to do. i will visit thee, and my sister also; but that done, i must return hither.”
“but dost thou mean to live and die in yonder cell?”
it was in the recreation-room of the convent that they were conversing.
“even so, my daughter.” (see note 1.)
philippa’s countenance fell. it seemed very hard to part again when they had but just found each other. if this were religion, it must be difficult work to be religious. yet she was more disappointed than surprised, especially when the first momentary annoyance was past.
“my child,” said isabel softly, seeing her disappointment, “if i err in thus speaking, i pray god to pardon me. i can but follow what i see right; and ‘to him that esteemeth anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean.’ how can i forsake the hearts that look to me for help throughout this valley? and if thou have need of me, thou canst always come, or send for me.”
this gentle, apologetic explanation touched philippa the more, because she felt that in the like case, she could not herself have condescended to make it.
the next thing to be done was to write to sir richard. this philippa was unable to do personally, since the art of handling the pen had formed no part of her education. her mother did it for her; for isabel had been solidly and elaborately instructed by giles de edingdon, under the superintendence of the king’s confessor, luke de wodeford, also a predicant friar. the letter had to be directed very much at random,—to “sir richard sergeaux, of the duke of lancaster’s following, at bordeaux, or wherever he may be found.” fortunately for philippa, the prior of the neighbouring monastery was just despatching his cellarer to london on conventual business: and he undertook to convey her letter to the savoy palace, whence it would be forwarded with the next despatches sent to john of gaunt. philippa, in whose name the letter was written, requested her husband to reply to her at shaftesbury, whither she and isabel meant to proceed at once.
the spring was in its full beauty when they reached shaftesbury. philippa had not found an opportunity to let the abbess know of her coming, but she was very cordially welcomed by that good-natured dame. the recreation-bell sounded while they were conversing, and at philippa’s desire the abbess sent for mother joan to the guest-chamber. sister senicula led her in.
“how is it with you, aunt?” said philippa affectionately. “i have returned hither, as you may hear.”
“ah! is it thou, child?” said the blind nun in answer. “i fare reasonably well, as a blind woman may. i am glad thou hast come hither again.”
it evidently cost isabel much to make herself known to the sister from whom she had parted in such painful circumstances, thirty-seven years before. for a few moments longer, she did not speak, and philippa waited for her. at last isabel said in a choked voice—“sister joan!”
“holy virgin!” exclaimed the blind woman; “who called me that?”
“one that thou knewest once,” answered isabel’s quivering voice.
“from heaven?” cried joan almost wildly. “can the dead come back again?” and she stretched forth her hands in the direction from which the sound of her sister’s voice had come.
“no, but the living may,” said isabel, kneeling down by her, and clasping her arms around her.
“isabel!” and joan’s trembling hands were passed over her face, as if to assure herself that her ears had not deceived her. “it can be no voice but thine. holy virgin, i thank thee!”
the abbess broke in, in a manner which, though well-meant, was exceedingly ill-timed and in bad taste. she was kindly-disposed, but had not the faintest trace of that delicate perception of others’ feelings, and consideration for them, which constitutes the real difference between nature’s ladies and such as are not ladies.
“verily, to think that this holy mother and our mother joan be sisters!” cried she, “i remember somewhat of your history, my holy sister: are you not she that was sometime countess of arundel?”
philippa saw how isabel trembled from head to foot; but she knew not what to say. joan la despenser was equal to the emergency.
“holy mother,” she said quietly, “would it please you, of your great goodness, to permit me to remain here during the recreation-hour with my sister? i am assured we shall have much to say each to other, if we may have your blessed allowance to speak freely after this manner.”
“be it so, sister,” said the abbess, smiling genially; “i will see to our sisters in the recreation-chamber.”
a long conversation followed the departure of the abbess. joan took up the history where she had parted from isabel, and told what had been her own lot since then; and isabel in her turn recounted her story—neither a long nor an eventful one; for it told only how she had been taken to sempringham by the page, and had there settled herself, in the hermit’s cell which happened to be vacant.
when philippa was lying awake that night, her thoughts were troublous ones. not only did she very much doubt sir richard’s consent to her mother’s visit to kilquyt; but another question was puzzling her exceedingly. how far was it desirable to inform isabel of the death of alianora? she had noticed how the unfortunate remark of the abbess had agitated her mother; and she also observed that when joan came to speak to isabel herself, she was totally silent concerning earl richard. the uncomplimentary adjectives which she had not spared in speaking to philippa were utterly discarded now. would it not do at least as much harm as good to revive the old memories of pain by telling her this? philippa decided to remain silent.
the summer was passing away, and the autumn hues were slowly creeping over the forest, when sir richard’s answer arrived at shaftesbury. it was not a pleasing missive; but it would have cost philippa more tears if it had made her less angry. that gentleman had not written in a good temper; but he was not without excuse, for he had suffered something himself. he had not dared to reply to philippa’s entreaty, without seeking in his turn the permission of the earl of arundel, in whose hands his fortune lay to make or mar. and, by one of those uncomfortable coincidences which have led to the proverb that “misfortunes never come single,” it so happened that the news of the countess’s death had reached the earl on the very morning whereon sir richard laid philippa’s letter before him. the result was that there broke on the devoted head of sir richard a tempest of ungovernable rage, so extremely unpleasant in character that he might be excused for his anxiety to avoid provoking a second edition of it. the earl was grieved—so far as a nature like his could entertain grief—to lose his second wife; but to find that the first wife had been discovered, and by her daughter, possessed the additional character of insult. that the occurrence was accidental did not alter matters. words would not content the aggrieved mourner: his hand sought the hilt of his sword, and sir richard, thinking discretion the better part of valour, made his way, as quickly as the laws of matter and space allowed him, out of the terrible presence whereinto he had rashly ventured. feeling himself wholly innocent of any provocation, it was not surprising that he should proceed to dictate a letter to his wife, scarcely calculated to gratify her feelings. thus ran the offending document:—
“dame,—your epistle hath reached mine hands, (see note 2) wherein it hath pleased you to give me to know of your finding of the lady isabel la despenser, your fair mother, (see note 3) and likewise of your desire that she should visit you at my manor of kilquyt. know therefore, that i can in no wise assent to the same. for i am assured that it should provoke, and that in no small degree, the wrath of your fair father, my gracious lord of arundel: and i hereby charge you, on your obedience, so soon as you shall receive this my letter, that you return home, and tarry no longer at shaftesbury nor sempringham. know that i fare reasonably well, and eustace my squire; and your fair father likewise, saving that he hath showed much anger towards you and me. and thus, praying god and our blessed lady, and saint peter and saint paul, to keep you. i rest.
“r. sergeaux.”
the entire epistle was written by a scribe, for sir richard was as innocent of the art of calligraphy as philippa herself; and the appending of his seal was the only part of the letter achieved by his own hand.
philippa read the note three times before she communicated its contents to any one. the first time, it was with feelings of bitter anger towards both her father and her husband; the second, her view of her father’s conduct remained unchanged, but she began to see that sir richard, from his own point of view, was not without reasonable excuse for his refusal, and that considering the annoyance he had himself suffered, his letter was moderate and even tolerably kind,—kind, that is, for him. after the third perusal, philippa carried the letter to joan, and read it to her—not in isabel’s presence.
“what a fool wert thou, child,” said joan, with her usual bluntness, “to send to thy lord concerning this matter! well, what is done, is done. i had looked for no better had i known of it.”
philippa did not read the letter to her mother. she merely told her the substance; that sir richard would not permit her to receive her at kilquyt, and that he had ordered her home without delay. isabel’s lip quivered a moment, but the next instant she smiled.
“i am not surprised, my child,” she said. “take heed, and obey.” it was hard work to obey. hard, to part with joan; harder yet, to leave isabel in her lonely cell at sempringham, and to go forward on the as lonely journey to kilquyt. perhaps hardest of all was the last night in the recreation-room at sempringham. isabel and philippa sat by themselves in a corner, the hand of the eremitess clasped in that of her daughter.
“but how do you account for all the sorrow that is in the world?” philippa had been saying. “take my life, for instance, or your own, mother. god could have given us very pleasant lives, if it had pleased him; why did he not do so? how can it augur love, to take out of our way all things loved or loving?”
“my daughter,” answered isabel, “i am assured—and the longer i live the more assured i am—that the way which god marketh out for each one of his chosen is the right way, the best way, and for that one the only way. every pang given to us, if we be christ’s, is a pang that could not be spared. ‘as he was, so are we in this world;’ and with us, as with him, ‘thus it must be.’ all our lord’s followers wear his crown of thorns; but theirs, under his loving hand, bud and flower; which his never did, till he could cry upon the rood, ‘it is finished.’”
“but could not god,” said philippa, a little timidly, “have given us more grace to avoid sinning, rather than have needed thus to burn our sins out of us with hot irons?”
“thou art soaring up into the seventh heaven of god’s purposes, my child,” answered isabel with a smile; “i have no wings to follow thee so far.”
“thou thinkest, then, mother,” replied philippa with a sigh, “that we cannot understand the matter at all.”
“we can understand only what is revealed to us,” replied isabel; “and that, i grant, is but little; yet it is enough. ‘as many as i love, i rebuke and chasten.’ ‘what son is he whom the father chasteneth not?’ how could it be otherwise? he were no wise father nor loving, who should teach his son nothing, or should forbear to rebuke him for such folly as might hereafter be his ruin.”
isabel was silent, and philippa’s memory went back to those old loveless days at arundel, when for her there had been no chastening, no rebuke, only cold, lifeless apathy. that was not love. and she thought also of her half-sister alesia, whom she had visited once since her marriage, and who brought up her children on the principle of no contradiction and unlimited indulgence; and remembering how discontented and hard to please this discipline had made them, she began to see that was not love either.
“thou hast wrought arras, my daughter,” said isabel again. “thou knowest, therefore, that to turn the arras the backward way showeth not the pattern. the colours are all mixed out of proportion, as the fastenings run in and out. so our life is in this world. the arras shall only be turned the right way above, when the angels of god shall see it, and marvel at the fair proportions and beauteous colours of that which looked so rough and misshapen here below.
“moreover, we are thus tried, methinks, not only for our own good. we are sent into this world to serve: to serve god first, and after to serve man for god’s sake. and every blow of the chisel on the stone doth but dress it for its place. god’s chisel never falleth on the wrong place, and never giveth a stroke too much. every pang fitteth us for more service; and i think thou shouldst find, in most instances, that the higher and greater the service to which the varlet is called, the deeper the previous suffering which fitteth him therefor. and god’s greatnesses are not ours. in his eyes, a poor serving-maiden may have a loftier and more difficult task than a lord of the king’s council, or a marshal of the army.
“and after all, every sorrow and perplexity, be it large or small, doth but give god’s child an errand to his father. nothing is too little to bear to his ear, if it be not too little to distress and perplex his servant. to him all things pertaining to this life are small—the cloth of estate no less than the blade of grass; and all things pertaining to that other and better life in his blessed home, are great and mighty. yet we think the first great, and the last little. and therefore things become great that belong to the first life, just in proportion as they bear upon the second. nothing is small that becomes to thee an occasion of sin; nothing, that can be made an incentive to holiness.”
“o mother, mother!” said philippa, with a sudden sharp shoot of pain, “to-morrow i shall be far away from you, and none will teach me any more!”
“god will teach thee himself, my child,” said isabel tenderly. “he can teach far better than i. only be thou not weary of his lessons; nor refuse to learn them. maybe thou canst not see the use of many of them till they are learned; but ‘thou shalt know hereafter.’ thou shalt find many a thorn in the way; but remember, it is not set there in anger, if thou be christ’s; and many a flower shall spring up under thy feet, when thou art not looking for it. only do thou never loose thine hold on him, who has promised never to loose his on thee. not that thou shouldst be lost in so doing; he will have a care of that: but thou mightest find thyself in the dark, and so far as thou couldst see, alone. it is sin that hides god from man; but nothing can hide man from god.”
and philippa, drawing closer to her, whispered,—“mother, pray for me.”
a very loving smile broke over isabel’s lips, as she pressed them fondly upon philippa’s cheek.
“mine own philippa,” she said, in the softest accent of her soft voice, “dost thou think i have waited thirty years for that?”
