“when the shore is won at last,
who will count the billows past?”
keble.
it was winter again; and the winds blew harshly and wailingly around the castle of arundel. in the stateliest chamber of that castle, where the hangings were of cramoisie paned with cloth of gold, the evening tapers were burning low, and a black-robed priest knelt beside the bed where an old man lay dying.
“i can think of nothing more, father,” faintly whispered the penitent. “i have confessed every sin that i have ever sinned, so far as my memory serveth: and many men have been worse sinners than i. i never robbed a church in all my wars. i have bequeathed rents and lands to the priory of god and saint pancras at lewes, for two monks to celebrate day by day masses of our lady and of the holy ghost,—two hundred pounds; and for matins and requiem masses in my chapel here, a thousand marks; and four hundred marks to purchase rent lands for the poor; and all my debts i have had a care to pay. can i perform any other good work? will that do, father?”
“thou canst do nought else, my son,” answered the priest. “thou hast right nobly purchased the favour of god, and thine own salvation. thy soul shall pass, white and pure, through the flames of purgatory, to be triumphantly acquitted at the bar of god.”
and lifting his hands in blessing, he pronounced the unholy incantation,—“absolvo te!”
“thank the saints, and our dear lady!” feebly responded the dying man. “i am clean and sinless.”
before the morrow dawned on the conversion of saint paul, that old man knew, as he had never known on earth, whether he stood clean and sinless before god or not. there were no bands in that death. the river did not look dark to him; it did not feel cold as his feet touched it. but on the other side what angels met him? and what entrance was accorded, to that sin-defiled and uncleansed soul, into that land wherein there shall in no wise enter anything that defileth?
and so richard fitzalan, earl of arundel, passed away.
two months later,—by a scribe’s letter, written in the name of her half-brother, the young, brave, joyous man upon whose head the old coronet had descended,—the news of the earl’s death reached philippa sergeaux at kilquyt. very differently it affected her from the manner in which she would have received it four years before. and very differently from the manner in which it was received by the daughters of alianora, to whom (though they did not put it into audible words) the real thought of the heart was—“is the old man really gone at last? well, it was time he should. now i shall receive the coronet he left to me, and the two, or three, thousand marks.” for thus he had remembered joan and alesia; and thus they remembered him. to mary he left nothing; a sure sign of offence, but how incurred history remains silent. but to the eldest daughter, whose name was equally unnamed with hers—whose ears heard the news so far away—whose head had never known the fall of his hand in blessing—whose cheek had never been touched by loving lips of his—to philippa sergeaux the black serge for which she exchanged her damask robes was real mourning.
she did not say now, “i can never forgive my father.” it is not when we are lying low in the dust before the feet of the great king, oppressed with the intolerable burden of our ten thousand talents, that we feel disposed to rise and take our fellow-servant by the throat, with the pitiless, “pay me that thou owest.” the offensive “stand by,—i am holier than thou!” falls only from unholy lips. when the woman that was a sinner went out, washed and forgiven, from that sinless presence, with the shards of the broken alabaster box in her hand, she was less likely than at any previous time in her life to reproach the fellow-sinners whom she met on her journey home. so, when philippa sergeaux’s eyes were opened, and she came to see how much god had forgiven her, the little that she had to forgive her father seemed less than nothing in comparison. she could distinguish now, as previously she could not—but as god does always—between the sin and the sinner; she was able to keep her hatred and loathing for the first, and to regard the second with the deepest pity. and when she thought of the sleep into which she could have little doubt that his soul had been lulled,—of the black awakening “on the brink of the pit,”—there was no room in her heart for any feeling but that of unutterable anguish.
they had not sent for her to arundel. until she heard that the end was reached, she never knew he was near the end at all.
it is not christianity, but pharisaism, which would shut up the kingdom of heaven against all but itself. to those who have tasted that the lord is gracious, it is something more than mere privilege to summon him that is athirst to come. “necessity is upon them—yea, woe is unto them if they preach not the gospel!” though no christian is a priest, every christian must be a preacher. ay, and that whether he will or not. he may impose silence upon his lips, but his life must be eloquent in spite of himself. and what a terrible thought is this, when we look on our poor, unworthy, miserable lives rendered unto the lord, for all his benefits toward us! when the world sees us vacillating between right and wrong—questioning how near we may go to the edge of the precipice and yet be safe—can it realise that we believe that right and wrong to be a matter of life and death? or when it hears us murmuring continually over trifling vexations, can it believe that we honestly think ourselves those to whom it is promised that all shall work for good—that all things are ours—that we are heirs of god, and joint-heirs with christ?
o lord, pardon the iniquities of our holy things! verily, without thee we can do nothing.
on the morning that this news reached kilquyt, an old man in the garb of the dominican order was slowly mounting the ascent which led from the vale of sempringham. the valley was just waking into spring life. in the trees above his head the thrushes and chaffinches were singing; and just before him, diminished to a mere speck in the boundless blue, a lark poured forth his “flood of delirious music.” the dominican paused and rested on his staff while he listened.
“sing, happy birds!” he said, when at length the lark’s song was over, and the bird had come down to earth again. “for you there are no vain regrets over yesterday, no woeful anticipations of to-morrow. but what kind of song can she sing when she hath heard the news i bring her?”
“father guy!” said a voice beside him.
it was a child of ten years old who stood in his path—a copy of elaine four years before.
“ah, maid, art thou there?” answered guy. “run on, annora, and say to the grey lady that i will be at her cell in less than an hour. thy feet are swifter than mine.”
annora ran blithely forward. guy of ashridge pursued his weary road, for he was manifestly very weary. at length he rather suddenly halted, and sat down on a bank where primroses grew by the way-side.
“i can go no further without resting,” said he. “ten is one thing, and threescore and ten is another. if i could turn back and go no further!—is the child here again already?”
“father guy,” said annora, running up and throwing herself down on the primrose bank, “i have been to the cell, but i have not given your message.”
“is the lady not there?” asked guy, a sudden feeling of relief coming over him.
“oh yes, she is there,” replied the child; “but she was kneeling at prayer, and i thought you would not have me disturb her.”
“right,” answered the monk. “but lest she should leave the cell ere i reach it, go back, annora, and keep watch. tell her, if she come forth, that i must speak with her to-day.”
once more away fled the light-footed annora, and guy, rising, resumed his journey.
“if it must be, it may as well be now,” he said to himself, with a sigh.
so, plodding and resting by turns, he at length arrived at the door of the cell. the door was closed, and the child sat on the step before it, singing softly to herself, and playing with a lapful of wild flowers—just as her sister had been doing when philippa sergeaux first made her acquaintance.
“is she come forth yet?” asked guy.
annora shook her flaxen curls. guy went to the little window, and glanced within. the grey figure was plainly visible, kneeling in prayer, with the head bent low, and resting against a ledge of the rock which formed the walls of the little dwelling. the monk sat down on a piece of rock outside the cell, and soon so completely lost himself in thought that annora grew weary of her amusement before he spoke again. she did not, however, leave him; but when she had thrown away her flowers, and had spent some minutes in a vain search for a four-leaved clover, fairly tired out, she came and stood before him.
“the shadow is nearly straight, father guy. will she be much longer, do you think?”
guy started suddenly when annora spoke.
“there is something amiss,” he replied, in a tone of apprehension. “i never knew her so long before. has she heard my news already?”
he looked in again. the grey veiled figure had not changed its position. after a moment’s irresolution, guy laid his hand upon the latch. the monk and the child entered together,—guy with a face of resolute endurance, as though something which would cost him much pain must nevertheless be done; annora with one of innocent wonder, not unmixed with awe.
guy took one step forward, and stopped suddenly.
“o father guy!” said annora in a whisper, “the grey lady is not praying,—she is asleep.”
“yes, she is asleep,” replied guy in a constrained voice. “‘so he giveth his beloved sleep.’ he knew how terribly the news would pain her; and he would let none tell it to her but himself. ‘i thank thee, o father, lord of heaven and earth!’”
“but how strangely she sleeps!” cried annora, still under her breath. “how white she is! and she looks so cold! father guy, won’t you awake her? she is not having nice dreams, i am afraid.”
“the angels must awake her,” said guy, solemnly. “sweeter dreams than hers could no man have; for far above, in the holy land, she seeth the king’s face. child, this is not sleep—it is death.”
ay, in the attitude of prayer, her head pillowed in its last sleep on that ledge of the rock, knelt all that was mortal of isabel la despenser. with her had been no priest to absolve—save the high priest; no hand had smoothed her pathway to the grave but the lord’s own hand, who had carried her so tenderly through the valley of the shadow of death. painlessly the dark river was forded, silently the pearl-gates were thrown open; and now she stood within the veil, in the innermost sanctuary of the temple of god. the arras of her life, wrought with such hard labour and bitter tears, was complete now. all the strange chequerings of the pattern were made plain, the fair proportions no longer hidden: the perfected work shone out in its finished beauty, and she grudged neither the labour nor the tears now.
guy of ashridge could see this; but to annora it was incomprehensible. she had been told by her mother that the grey lady had passed a life of much suffering before she came to sempringham; for silent as she was concerning the details of that life, isabel had never tried to conceal the fact that it had been one of suffering. and the child’s childish idea was the old notion of poetical justice—of the good being rewarded, and the evil punished, openly and unmistakably, in this world; a state of affairs frequently to be found in novels, but only now and then in reality. had some splendid litter been borne to the door of the little cell, and had noblemen decked in velvet robes, shining with jewels, and riding on richly caparisoned horses, told her that they were come to make the grey lady a queen, annora would have been fully satisfied. but here the heavenly chariot was invisible, and had come noiselessly; the white and glistering raiment of the angels had shone with no perceptible lustre, had swept by with no audible sound. the child wept bitterly.
“what troubleth thee, annora?” said guy of ashridge, laying his hand gently upon her head.
“oh!” sobbed annora, “god hath given her nothing after all!”
“hath he given her nothing?” responded guy. “i would thou couldst ask her, and see what she would answer.”
“but i thought,” said the child, vainly endeavouring to stop crying, “i thought he had such beautiful things to give to people he loved. she used to say so. but he gave her nothing beautiful—only this cell and those grey garments. i thought he would have clad her in golden baudekyn (see note 1), and set gems in her hair, and given her a horse to ride,—like the lady de chartreux had when she came to the convent last year to visit her daughter, sister egidia. her fingers were all sparkling with rings, and her gown had beautiful strings of pearl down the front, with perry-work (see note 2) at the wrists. why did not god give the grey lady such fair things as these? was she not quite as good as the lady de chartreux?”
“because he loved her too well,” said guy softly. “he had better and fairer things than such poor gauds for her. the lady de chartreux must die one day, and leave all her pearls and perry-work behind her. but to the lady isabel that here lieth dead, he gave length of days for ever and ever; he gave her to drink of the living water, after which she never thirsted any more.”
“oh, but i wish he would have given her something that i could see!” sobbed annora again.
“little maid,” said guy, his hand again falling lightly on the little flaxen head, “god grant that when thy few and evil days of this lower life be over, thou mayest both see and share what he hath given her!”
and slowly he turned back to “her who lay so silent.”
“farewell, isabel, countess of arundel!” he said almost tenderly. “for the corruptible coronet whereof man deprived thee, god hath given thee an incorruptible crown. for the golden baudekyn that was too mean to to clothe thee,—the robes that are washed white, the pure bright stone (see note 3) whereof the angels’ robes are fashioned. for the stately barbs which were not worthy to bear thee,—a chariot and horses of fire. and for the delicate cates of royal tables, which were not sweet enough for thee,—the bread of life, which whosoever eateth shall never hunger, the water of life, which whosoever drinketh shall never thirst.
“‘o retributio! stat brevis actio, vita perennis;
o retributio! caelica mansio stat lue plenis.’”
see note 4 for a translation.
“how blessed an exchange, how grand a reward! i trust god, but thou seest him. i believe he hath done well, with thee, as with me, but thou knowest it.”
“‘jamais soyf n’auras
a l’éternité!’”
