“god’s very kindest answers to our prayers
come often in denials or delays.”
s.w. partridge.
lord basset turned back into his house with a sensation akin to relief. not that he allowed the thought of his wife’s unhappiness to deter him from any course on which he had set his heart, but that he felt the pressure of her atmosphere, and could not enjoy his transgressions with the full abandon which he would have liked. her stately, cold, unbending reserve was like a constant chill and blight. how much more happy they might have been if they had chosen! the world held many a worse man than lord basset; he was rather idle and careless than wicked, though idleness and carelessness are very often the seed of wickedness, when left to go to flower. if she would only have dropped that haughty coldness, he thought, he could have felt interest in her, and have taken some pleasure in her society; while her conviction was that if he would only have shown some interest, she could have loved him and returned it. would both have done it together, the result might have been attained.
mr godfrey foljambe was meditating, not on this, but on his own personal wrongs, as he led the little cavalcade in an easterly direction. first, he had been deprived of that glass of malvoisie—which would probably have been plural rather than singular—and of a conversation with lord basset, which might have resulted in something of interest: and life was exceedingly devoid of interest, thought mr godfrey, in a pessimistic spirit. he had not discovered that, to a great extent, life is to every man what he chooses to make it; that he who keeps his eyes fixed on street mud need not expect to discover pearls, while he who attentively scans the heavens is not at all unlikely to see stars. let a man set himself diligently to hunt for either his misfortunes or his mercies, and he will find plenty of the article in request. misfortunes were the present object of mr godfrey’s search, and he had no difficulty in discovering them. he was disgusted with the folly of lady basset in thus setting off at once, and making him set off, without so much as an hour’s rest. it was just like a woman! women never had a scrap of patience. this pleasing illusion that all patience was masculine was kept up in popular literature just so long as men were the exclusive authors; when women began to write, otherwise than on kingly sufferance of the nobler half of creation, it was seen that the feminine view of that and similar subjects was not quite so restricted. last and worst to young godfrey was the expectation of his father’s displeasure. sir godfrey’s anger was no passing cloud, as his son well knew. to be thought to have failed in his mission—as assuredly he would be—by his own fault, would result in considerable immediate discomfort, and might even damage his worldly prospects in future. he would gladly have prolonged the journey; for his instinct always led him to put off the evil day rather than to face it and put it behind him—which last is usually the wiser course; but lady basset would brook no delay, and on the afternoon of the second day after leaving drayton they rode up to hazelwood manor.
godfrey hastily despatched the porter’s lad to inform his mother of lady basset’s arrival; and lady foljambe met her on the steps of the hall. the latter was scandalised to find that the former saw no need for secrecy, or at any rate had no intention of preserving it.
“dame,” said lady foljambe, “i am honoured by your ladyship’s visit. pray you, suffer me to serve you with hypocras and spice in your privy chamber.”
this was intended as a gentle hint to the visitor that secrets were not to be talked in the hall; but the hint was not accepted.
“how fares my lady and mother?” was the response.
“dame, much worse than when my son departed,” said lady foljambe, in a fluttered manner.
“then i pray you to break my coming, and lead me to her forthwith,” said lady basset, in her style of stately calm.
a curtain was drawn aside, and perrote came forward.
“damoiselle jeanne!” she said, greeting lady basset by the old youthful title unheard for years. “my darling, mine own dear child!”
a smile, not at all usual there, quivered for a moment on the calm fixed lips.
“is this mine ancient nurse, perrote de carhaix?” she said. “i think i know her face.”
the smile was gone in a moment, as she repeated her wish to be taken immediately to the countess.
lady foljambe felt she had no choice. she led the way to the chamber of the royal prisoner, requesting lady basset to wait for a moment at the door.
the countess sat no longer in her cushioned chair by the window. she was now confined to her bed, where she lay restlessly, moaning at intervals, but always on one theme. “my children! my lost children! will not god give me back one?”
lady foljambe signed to perrote—she scarcely knew why—to break the news to the suffering mother.
“lady, the lord hath heard your moaning, and hath seen your tears,” said perrote, kneeling by the bed. “he hath given you back—”
“my son?”
the cry was a pitiful one. then, as ever, the boy was the dearest to his mother’s heart.
“very dear lady, no. your daughter.”
it was painful to see how the sudden gleam died out of the weary eyes.
“ah, well!” she said, after an instant’s pause. “well! i asked but for one, and when man doth that, he commonly gets the lesser of the twain. well! i shall be glad to see my jeanne. let her come in.”
lady basset came forward and bent over the dying woman.
“dame!” she said.
“come, now!” was the answer. “there be folks enough call me dame. only two in all this world can call me mother.”
“mother!” was the response, in a tremulous voice. and then the icy stateliness broke up, and passionate sobs broke in, mingled with the sounds of “o mother! mother!”
“that’s good, little lass,” said the countess. “it’s good to hear that, but once, ma fillette. but wherefore tarrieth thy brother away? it must be king edward that will not suffer him to come.”
it was piteous to hear her cling thus to the old illusion. all the time of her imprisonment, though now and then in a fit of anger she could hurl bitter names at her son, yet, when calm, she had usually maintained that he was kept away from her, and refused to be convinced that his absence was of his own free will. the longer the illusion lasted, the more stubbornly she upheld it.
“’tis not always the best-loved that loveth back the best,” said perrote, gently, “without man’s best love be, as it should be, fixed on god. and ’tis common for fathers and mothers to love better than they be loved; the which is more than all other true of the father in heaven.”
“thou mayest keep thy sermons, old woman, till mass is sung,” said the countess, in her cynical style. “ah me! my jean would come to the old, white-haired mother that risked her life for his—he would come if he could. he must know how my soul hungereth for the sight of his face. i want nothing else. heaven would be purgatory to me without him.”
“ah, my dear lady!” tenderly replied perrote. “if only i might hear you say that of the lord that laid down his life for you!”
“i am not a nun,” was the answer; “and i shall not say that which i feel not.”
“god forbid you should, lady! but i pray him to grant you so to feel.”
“i tell thee, i am not a nun,” said the countess, rather pettishly.
her idea was that real holiness was impossible out of the cloister, and that to love god was an entirely different type of feeling from the affection she had for her human friends. this was the usual sentiment in the middle ages. but perrote had been taught of god, and while her educational prejudices acted like coloured or smoked glass, and dimmed the purity of the heavenly light, they were unable to hide it altogether.
“very dear lady,” she said, “god loveth sinners; and he must then love other than nuns. shall they not love him back, though they be not in cloister?”
“thou hadst better win in cloister thyself, when thou art rid of me,” was the answer, in a tone which was a mixture of languor and sarcasm. “thou art scarce fit to tarry without, old woman.”
“i will do that which god shall show me,” said perrote, calmly. “dame, were it not well your grace should essay to sleep?”
“nay, not so. i have my jeanne to look at, that i have not seen for five-and-twenty years. i shall sleep fast enough anon. daughter, art thou a happy woman, or no?”
lady basset answered by a shake of the head. “why, what aileth thee? is it thy baron, or thy childre?”
“i have no child, mother.”
the countess heard the regretful yearning of the tone.
“thank the saints,” she said. “thou wert better. soothly, to increase objects for love is to increase sorrow. if thou have no childre, they’ll never be torn from thee,nor they will never break thine heart by ill behaving.
and most folks behave ill in this world. ha, chétife! ’tis a weary, dreary place, this world, as ever a poor woman was in. hast thou a good man to thy baron, child?”
“he might be worser,” said lady basset, icily.
“that’s true of an handful of folks,” said the countess. “and i reckon he might be better, eh? that’s true of most. good lack, i marvel wherefore we all were made. was it by reason god loved or hated us? say, my predicant friaress.”
“very dear lady, the wise man saith, ‘god made a man rightful, and he meddled himself with questions without, number.’ (ecclesiastes eight, verse 29.) and saint paul saith that ‘god commendeth his charity in us, for when we were sinners, christ was dead for us.’ (romans five, verse 8.) moreover, saint john—”
“hold! there be two scriptures. where is the sermon?”
“the scriptures, lady, preach a better sermon than i can.”
“that’s but a short one. man’s ill, and god is good; behold all thine homily. that man is ill, i lack no preaching friar to tell me. as to god being good, the church saith so, and there i rest. mary, mother! if he were good, he would bring my jean back to me.”
“very dear lady, god is wiser than men, and he seeth the end from the beginning.”
“have done, perrotine! i tell thee, if god be good, he will bring my jean to me. there i abide. i’ll say it, if he do. i would love any man that wrought that: and if he will work it, i will love him—and not otherwise. hold! i desire no more talk.”
the countess turned her face to the wall, and perrote retired, with tears in her eyes.
“lord, thou art wise!” she said in her heart; “wiser than i, than she, than all men. but never yet have i known her to depart from such a word as that. oh, if it be possible,—if it be possible!—thou who camest down from heaven to earth, come down once more to the weak and stubborn soul of this dying woman, and grant her that which she requests, if so she may be won to love thee! father, the time is very short, and her soul is very dark. o fair father, jesu christ, lose not this soul for which thou hast died!”
perrote’s next move was to await lady basset’s departure from her mother’s chamber, and to ask her to bestow a few minutes’ private talk on her old nurse. the princess complied readily, and came into the opposite chamber where amphillis sat sewing.
“damoiselle jeanne,” said perrote, using the royal title of lady basset’s unmarried days; “may i pray you tell me if you have of late seen the lord duke your brother?”
“ay, within a year,” said lady basset, listlessly.
“would it please you to say if king edward letteth his coming?”
“i think not so.”
“would he come, if he were asked yet again, and knew that a few weeks—maybe days—would end his mother’s life?”
“i doubt it, perrotine.”
“wherefore? he can love well where he list.”
“ay, where he list. but i misdoubt if ever he loved her—at the least, sithence she let him from wedding the damoiselle de ponteallen.”
“then he loved the damoiselle very dearly?”
“for a month—ay.”
“but wherefore, when the matter was by—”
lady basset answered with a bitter little laugh, which reminded perrote of her mother’s.
“because he loved jean de montfort, and she thwarted him, not the damoiselle. he loved alix de ponteallen passionately, and passion dies; ’tis its nature. it is not passionately, but undyingly, that he loves himself. men do; ’tis their nature.”
perrote shrewdly guessed that the remark had especial reference to one man, and that not the duke of bretagne.
“ah, that is the nature of all sinners,” she said, “and therefore of all men and women also. dame, will you hearken to your old nurse, and grant her one boon?”
“that will i, perrotine, if it be in my power. i grant not so many boons, neither can i, that i should grudge one to mine old nurse. what wouldst?”
“dame, i pray you write a letter to my lord duke, the pitifullest you may pen, and send one of your men therewith, to pray him, as he loveth you, or her, or god, that he will come and look on her ere she die. tell him his old nurse full lovingly entreateth him, and if he will so do, i will take veil when my lady is gone hence, and spend four nights in the week in prayer for his welfare. say i will be his bedes-woman for ever, in any convent he shall name. say anything that will bring him!”
“i passed thee my word, and i will keep it,” said lady basset, as she rose. “but if i know him, what i should say certainly to bring him would be that sir oliver de clisson lay here in dungeon, and that if he would come he should see his head strake off in yonder court. he is a fair lover, my brother; but he is a far better hater.”
perrote sighed.
“amphillis!” came faintly up the stairs and along the gallery. “am-phil-lis!”
“go, child,” said perrote, replying to a look from amphillis. “’tis agatha calling thee. what would the foolish maid?”
amphillis left her work upon the bench and ran down.
“well, it is merry matter to catch hold of thee!” said agatha, who was waiting at the foot of the stairs, and who never could recollect, unless lady foljambe were present, that amphillis was to be addressed with more reverence than before. “here be friends of thine come to visit thee.”
“friends!—of mine!” exclaimed amphillis, in surprise. “why, i haven’t any friends.”
“well, enemies, then,” said agatha, with a giggle. “come, go into hall and see who they be, and then tell me.”
amphillis obeyed, and to her still greater surprise, found herself in the presence of mr altham and regina.
“ah, here she cometh!” was her uncle’s greeting. “well, my maid, i am fain to see thee so well-looking, i warrant thee. can’st love a new aunt, thinkest?”
“that am i secure,” replied amphillis, smiling, and kissing the goldsmith’s daughter.
“and an old uncle belike?” pursued mr altham, kissing her in his turn.
“assuredly, dear uncle; but i pray, how came you hither?”
“dat shall i tell you,” said mrs altham, “for oderwise you shall not know what good uncle you have. he promise to take me to mine own home in dutchland, to see my greatmoder and mine aunts; and when we nigh ready were, he say, ‘see you, now! shall we not go round by derbyshire, to see amphillis, and sail from hull?’ so we come round all dis way; he miss you so, and want to make him sure you be well and kindly used. see you?”
“how kind and good are you both!” said amphillis, gratefully. “pray you, good aunt regina, came ricarda home safe?”
“she came safe, and she had but de scold well, tanks to your message; if not, she had de beat, beat, i ensure you, and she deserve dat full well. she was bad girl, bad. said i not to you, de mans is bad, and de womans is badder? it is true.”
“she’s a weary hussy!” said mr altham; “but she’s been a sight better maid sithence she came back. she saith ’tis thy doing, phyllis.”
“mine?” exclaimed amphillis.
“she saith so. i wis not how. and art happy here, my maid? doth thy dame entreat thee well? and be thy fellows pleasant company? because if no, there’s room for thee in the patty-shop, i can tell thee. saundrina’s wed, and ricarda looks to be, and my wife and i should be full fain to have thee back for our daughter. howbeit, if thou art here welsome and comfortable, we will not carry thee off against thy will. what sayest?”
“truly, dear uncle, i am here full welsome, saving some small matters of little moment; and under your good pleasure, i would fain not go hence so long as one liveth that is now sore sick in this house, and nigh to death. afterward, if it like you to dispose of me otherwise, i am alway at your bidding.”
“well said. but what should best like thee?”
amphillis felt the question no easy one. she would not wish to leave perrote; but if perrote took the veil, that obstacle would be removed; and even if she did not, amphillis had no certain chance of accompanying her wherever she might go, which would not improbably be to drayton manor. to leave the rest of her present companions would be no hardship at all, except—
amphillis’s heart said “except,” and her conscience turned away and declined to pursue that road. norman hylton had shown no preference for her beyond others, so far as she knew, and her maidenly instinct warned her that even her thoughts had better be kept away from him. before she answered, a shadow fell between her and the light; and amphillis looked up into the kindly face of archbishop neville.
the archbishop had delayed his further journey for the sake of the dying countess, whom he wished to see again, especially if his influence could induce her son to come to her. he now addressed himself to mr altham.
“master altham, as i guess?” he asked, pleasantly.
mr altham rose, as in duty bound, in honour to a priest, and a priest who, as he dimly discerned by his canonicals, was not altogether a common one.
“he, and your humble servant, holy father.”
“you be uncle, i count, of my cousin amphillis here?”
“sir! amphillis your cousin!”
“amphillis is my cousin,” was the quiet answer; “and i am the archbishop of york.”
to say that mr altham was struck dumb with amazement would be no figure of speech. he stared from the archbishop to amphillis, and back again, as if his astonishment had fairly paralysed his powers, that of sight only excepted; and had not regina roused him from his condition of helplessness by an exclamation of “ach, heilige, maria!” there is no saying how long he might have stood so doing.
“ay, uncle,” said amphillis, with a smile; “this is my lord elect of york, and he is pleased to say that my father was his kinsman.”
“and if it serve you, master altham,” added the archbishop, “i would fain have a privy word with you touching this my cousin.”
mr altham’s reply was two-fold. “saints worshipped might they be!” was meant in answer to amphillis. then, to the archbishop, he hastily continued, “sir, holy father, your grace’s most humble servant! i hold myself at your grace’s bidding, whensoever it shall please your grace.”
“that is well,” said the archbishop, smiling. “we will have some talk this evening, if it serve you.”
