A Forgotten Hero Part 17

"G.o.d has been very good to me," said Heliet, softly, rocking little Rose gently to and fro. "But I never thought He meant to give me _that_!"

Clarice looked up, and saw a depth of happy love in the lame girl's eyes, which made her sigh for herself. Then, looking further, she perceived a depth of black hate in those of Felicia de Fay, which made her tremble for Heliet.

It appeared very shortly that the Countess was in a hurry to get the wedding over. Perhaps she was weary of weddings in her household, for she did not seem to be in a good temper about this. She always thought Heliet would have had a vocation, she said, which would have been far better for her, with her lameness, than to go limping into chapel to be wed. She wondered n.o.body saw the impropriety of it. However, as she had promised De Gernet, she supposed it must be so. She did not know what she herself could have been thinking about to make such a foolish promise. She was not usually so silly as that. However, if it must be, it had better be got over.

So got over it was, on an early morning in August, De Gernet receiving knighthood from the Earl at the close of the ceremony.

Mistress Underdone had pet.i.tioned that her lame and only child might not be separated from her, and the Countess--according to her own authority, in a moment of foolishness--had granted the pet.i.tion. So Heliet was drafted among the Ladies of the Bedchamber, but only as an honorary distinction.

The manner of the Countess continued to strike every one as unusual.

Long fits of musing with hands lying idle were becoming common with her, and when she rose from them she would generally shut herself up in her oratory for the remainder of the day. Clarice thought, and Heliet agreed with her, that something was going to happen. Once, too, as Clarice was carrying Rose along the terrace, she was met by the Earl, who stopped and noticed the child, as in his intense and unsatisfied love for little children he always did. Clarice thought he looked even unwontedly sorrowful.

From the child, Earl Edmund looked up into the pleased eyes of the young mother.

"Dame Clarice," he asked, gently, "are you happier than you were?"

Her eyes grew suddenly grave.

"Thus far," she said, touching the child. "Otherwise--I try to be content with G.o.d's will, fair Lord. It is hard to bear heart-hunger."

"Ah!" The Earl's tone was significant. "Yes, it is hard to bear in any form," he said, after a pause. "May G.o.d send you never to know, Dame, that there is a more terrible form than that wherein you bear it."

And he left her almost abruptly.

The winter of 1292 dragged slowly along. Filomena declared that her body was as starved as her mind, and she should be frozen to death if she stayed any longer. The next day, to everybody's astonishment, the Countess issued orders to pack up for travelling. Sir Vivian and Clarice were to go with her--where, she did not say. So were Olympias, Felicia, and Ada. Mistress Underdone, Sir Reginald, Sir Ademar and Heliet, Filomena and Sabina, were left behind at Oakham.

Olympias grumbled extremely at being separated from her husband, and Filomena at being left behind. The Countess would listen to neither.

"When shall we return, under my Lady's leave?" asked Olympias, disconsolately.

"_You_ can return," was the curt answer, "when I have done with you. I doubt if Sir Vivian and his dame will return at all. Ada certainly will not."

"_Ha, jolife_!" said Ada, under her breath. She did not like Oakham.

Clarice, on the contrary, was inclined to make an exclamation of horror.

For never to return to Oakham meant never to see Heliet again. And what could the Countess mean by a statement which sounded at least as if _she_ were not intending to return?

Concerning Felicia the Countess said nothing. That misnamed young lady had during the past few months been trying her best to make Heliet miserable. She began by attempting to flirt with Sir Ademar, but she found him completely impervious material. Her arrows glanced upon his shield, and simply dropped off without further notice. Then she took to taunting Heliet with her lameness, but Heliet kept her temper. Next she sneered at her religious views. Heliet answered her gently, gravely, but held her own with undiminished calmness. This point had been reached when the Countess's order was given to depart from Oakham.

Even those least disposed to note the signs of the times felt the pressure of some impending calamity. The strange manner of the Countess, the restless misery of the Earl, whom they all loved, the busy, bustling, secretly-triumphant air of Father Miles--all denoted some hidden working. Father Bevis had been absent for some weeks, and when he returned he wore the appearance of a baffled and out-wearied man.

"He looks both tired and disappointed," remarked Clarice to Heliet.

"He looks," said Heliet, "like a man who had been trying very hard to scale the wall of a tower, and had been flung back, bruised and helpless, upon the stones below."

During the four months last spent at Oakham, Clarice had been absolutely silent to Heliet on the subject of her own peculiar trouble. Perhaps she might have remained so, had it not been for the approaching separation. But her lips were unsealed by the strong possibility that they might never meet again. It was late on the last evening that Clarice spoke, as she sat rocking Rose's cradle. She laid bare her heart before Heliet's sympathising eyes, until she could trace the whole weary journey through the arid desert sands.

"And now tell me, friend," Clarice ended, "why our Lord deals so differently with thee and with me. Are we not both His children? Yet to thee He hath given the desire of thine heart, and on mine He lays His hand, and says, 'No, child, thou must not have it.'"

"I suppose, beloved," was Heliet's gentle answer, "that the treatment suitable for consumption will not answer for fever. We are both sick of the deadly disease of sin; but it takes a different development in each.

Shall we wonder if the Physician bleeds the one, and administers strengthening medicines to the other?"

Clarice's lip quivered, but she rocked Rose's cradle without answering.

"There is also another consideration," pursued Heliet. "If I mistake not--to alter the figure--we have arrived at different points in our education. If one of us can but decline '_puer_,' while the other is half through the syntax, is it any wonder if the same lesson be not given to us to learn? Dear Clarice, all G.o.d's children need keeping down. I have been kept down all these years by my physical sufferings.

That is not appointed to thee; thou art tried in another way. Shall we either marvel or murmur because our Father sees that each needs a different cla.s.s of discipline?"

"Oh, Heliet, if I might have had thine! It seems to me so much the lighter cross to carry."

"Then, dear, I am the less honoured--the further from the full share of the fellowship of our Lord's sufferings."

Clarice shook her head as if she hardly saw it in that light.

"Clarice, let me tell thee a parable which I read the other day in the writings of the holy Fathers. There were once two monks, dwelling in hermits' cells near to each other, each of whom had one choice tree given him to cultivate. When this had lasted a year, the tree of the one was in flourishing health, while that of the other was all stunted and bare. 'Why, brother,' said the first, 'what hast thou done to thy tree?' 'Now, judge thou, my brother,' replied the second, 'if I could possibly have done more for my tree than I have done. I watched it carefully every day. When I thought it looked dry, I prayed for rain; when the ground was too wet, I prayed for dry weather; I prayed for north wind or south wind, as I saw them needed. All that I asked, I received; and yet look at my poor tree! But how didst thou treat thine?

for thy plan has been so much more successful than mine that I would fain try it next year.' The other monk said only, 'I prayed G.o.d to make my tree flourish, and left it to Him to send what weather He saw good.'"

"He has sent a bitter blast from the north-east," answered Clarice, with trembling lips.

"And a hedge to shelter the root of the tree," said Heliet, pointing to Rose.

"Oh, my little Rosie!" exclaimed Clarice, kissing the child pa.s.sionately. "But if G.o.d were to take her, Heliet, what would become of me?"

"Do not meet trouble half way, dear," said Heliet, gently. "There is no apparent likelihood of any such thing."

"I do not meet it--it comes!" cried poor Clarice.

"Then wait till it comes. 'Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.'"

"Yet when one has learned by experience that evil is perpetually coming, how can one help looking forward to the morrow?"

"Look forward," said Heliet. "But let it be to the day after to-morrow--the day when we shall awake up after Christ's likeness, and be satisfied with it--when the Lord our G.o.d shall come, and all the saints with Him. Dear, a gem cannot be engraved without the cutting-tools. Wouldst thou rather be spared the pain of the cutting than have Christ's likeness graven upon thee?"

"Oh, could it not be done with less cutting?"

"Yes--and more faintly graven then."

Clarice sobbed, without speaking.

"If the likeness is to be in high relief, so that all men may see it, and recognise the resemblance, and applaud the graver, Clarice, the tool must cut deep."

"If one could ever know that it was nearly done, it would be easier to bear it."

"Ay, but how if the vision were granted us, and we saw that it was not nearly done by many a year? It is better not to know, dear. Yet it is natural to us all to think that it would be far easier if we could see.

Therefore the more 'blessed is he that hath not seen, and yet hath believed.'"

"I do think," said poor Clarice, drearily, "that I must be the worst tried of all His people."

"Clarice," answered Heliet, in a low voice, "I believe there is one in this very castle far worse tried than thou--a cross borne which is ten times heavier than thine, and has no rose-bud twined around it. And it is carried with the patience of an angel, with the unselfish forgetfulness of Christ. The tool is going very deep there, and already the portrait stands out in beautiful relief. And that cross will never be laid down till the sufferer parts with it at the very gate of Heaven.