Earl Hubert's Daughter Part 12

That was true enough. While Earl Hubert always had a will of his own, and knew what it was (though he did not always get it), King Henry had no will, and never knew what it was until somebody else told him.

"I am afraid, Lady, I don't understand the management of men," said Margaret, with a little laugh and blush.

"Thou wilt learn in time, my dear. Thou art rather too fond of saying all thou meanest. That is not wise--for a woman. Of course a man ought to tell his wife every thing. But there is no need for a wife always to be chattering to her husband: she must have her little secrets, and he ought to respect them. Now, as to Sir Richard, I can see as well as possible the kind of management he will require; thou must quietly suggest ideas to him, gently and diffidently, as if thou wert desirous of his opinion: but whenever he takes them up, mind and always let him think he is getting his own way. He has a strong will, against which a foolish woman would just run full tilt, and spoil every thing. A wise one will quietly get her own way, and let him fancy he has got his.

That is thy work, Magot."

Margaret shook her bright head with a laugh. Such work as that was not at all in her line.

It took only a day for the girls to discover that the Belasez who had come back to them in October was not the Belasez who had gone away from them at Whitsuntide. She seemed almost a different being. Quite as amiable, as patient, as refined, as before, there was something about her which they instantly perceived, but to which they found it hard to give a name. It was not exactly any one thing. It was not sadness, for at times she seemed more bright and lively than they remembered her of old: it was not ill-temper, for her patience was proof against any amount of teasing. But her moods were far more variable than they used to be. A short time after she had been playing with little Marie, all smiles and sunshine, they would see tears rush to her eyes, which she seemed anxious to conceal. And at times there was an expression of distress and perplexity in her face, evidently not caused by any intricacy in the pattern she was working.

Indirect questions produced none but evasive answers. Each of the girls had her own idea as to the solution of the enigma. Margaret, very naturally, p.r.o.nounced Belasez in love. Eva, one of whose sisters had been recently ill, thought she was anxious about her brother. Marie suggested that too much damson tart might be a satisfactory explanation,--that having been the state of things with herself a few days before. Hawise, who governed her life by a pair of moral compa.s.ses, was of opinion that Belasez thought it proper to look sorrowful in her circ.u.mstances, and therefore did so except in an emergency. Doucebelle alone was silent: but her private thought was that no one of the four had come near the truth.

When Belasez had been about a week at the Castle, one afternoon she and Doucebelle were working alone in the wardrobe. The Countess and Margaret were away for the day, on a visit to the Abbess of Thetford; Eva and Marie were out on the leads; Hawise was busy in her own apartments. Belasez had been unusually silent that morning. She worked on in a hurried, nervous way, never speaking nor looking up, and a lovely arabesque pattern grew into beauty under her deft fingers.

Suddenly Doucebelle said--

"Belasez, does life never puzzle thee?"

Belasez looked up, with almost a frightened expression in her eyes.

"Can anything puzzle one more?" she said: "unless it were the perplexity which is hovering over my soul."

"Is that anything in which I could help thee?"

"It is something in which no human being could help me--only He before whom the inhabitants of the earth are as gra.s.shoppers."

There was silence for a moment. Then, in a low, hushed tone, Belasez said--

"Doucebelle, didst thou ever do a thing which must be either very right, or very wrong, and thou hadst no means whereby to know which it was?"

"No," answered Doucebelle slowly. "I can scarcely imagine such a thing."

"Scarcely imagine the thing, or the uncertainty?"

"The uncertainty. Because I should ask the priest."

"The priest!--where is he?"

Doucebelle looked up in surprise at the tone, and saw that Belasez was in tears.

"We had priests," said the young Jewess. "We had sons of Aaron, and a temple, and an altar, and a holy oracle, whereby the Blessed One made known His will in all matters of doubt and perplexity to His people.

But where are they now? The mountains of Zion are desolate, and the foxes walk upon them. The light has died out of the sacred gems, even if they themselves were to be found. We have walked contrary to Him,-- ah! where is the unerring prophet that shall tell us how we did it?--and He walks contrary to us, and is punishing us seven times for our sins.

We are in the desert, in the dark. And the pillar of fire has gone back into Heaven, and the Angel of the Covenant leadeth us no more."

Doucebelle was almost afraid to speak, lest she should say something which might do more harm than good. She only ventured after a pause to remark--

"Still there are priests."

"Yours? I know what they would tell me." Belasez's fervent voice had grown constrained all at once.

"Yes, thou dost not believe them, I suppose," said Doucebelle, with a baffled feeling.

"I want a prophet, Doucebelle, not a priest. Nay, He knows, the Holy One, that we want a priest most bitterly; that we have no sacrifice wherewith to stand before Him,--no blood to make atonement. But we want the prophet to point us to the priest. Let us know, by revelation from Heaven, that this man, or that man, is the accepted Priest of the Most High, and trust us to bring our fairest lambs in sacrifice."

"Belasez, I believe that the Lamb was offered, twelve hundred years ago, and the sacrifice which alone G.o.d will accept for the sins of men is over for ever, and is of everlasting efficacy."

"I know." Belasez's face was more troubled than before.

"If thou canst not trust His priests, couldst thou not trust Him?"

"Trust whom?" exclaimed Belasez, with her eyes on fire. "O Doucebelle, Doucebelle, I know not how to bear it! I thought I was so strong to stand up against all falsehood and error,--and here, one man, with one word,--Let me hold my peace. But O that Thou wouldst rend the heavens, that Thou wouldst come down! Hast Thou but one blessing, O Thou that art a Father unto Israel? Or are we so much worse off than our fathers in the desert? Nay, are we not in the desert, with no leader to guide us, no fiery pillar to bid us rest here, or journey thither? Why hast Thou given the dearly-beloved of Thy soul into the hands of her enemies?

Is it--is it, because we hid our faces--from Him!"

And to Doucebelle's astonishment, Belasez covered her face with her ap.r.o.n, and sobbed almost as if her heart were breaking.

"Poor Belasez!" said Doucebelle, gently. "It is often better to tell out what troubles us, than to keep it to ourselves."

"If thou wert a daughter of Israel, I should tell it thee, and ask thy counsel. I need some one's counsel sorely."

"And canst thou not trust me, Christian though I am?"

"Oh no, it is not that. Thou dost not understand, Doucebelle. Thou couldst not enter into my difficulty unless thou wert of my faith. That is the reason. It is not indeed that I mistrust thee."

"Hast thou told thy father?"

"My father? No! He would be as much horrified to hear that such thoughts had ever entered my head, as the Lady would be if thou wert to tell her thou didst not believe any longer in thy Christ."

"Then what canst thou do? Could thy mother help thee, or thy brother?"

"My mother would command me to dismiss such ideas from my mind, on pain of her curse. But I cannot dismiss them. And for Delecresse--I think he would stab me if he knew."

"What sort of thoughts are they?"

"Wilt thou keep my secret, if I tell thee?"

"Indeed, I will not utter them without thy leave." Belasez cut off her silk, laid down the armilaus, and clasped both hands round her knee.

"When your great festivals draw nigh," she said, "four times in every year, we Israelites are driven into your churches, and forced to listen to a discourse from one of your priests. Until that day, I have never paid any attention to what I deemed blasphemy. I have listened for a moment, but at the first word of error, or the first repet.i.tion of one of your sacred names, I have always stopped my ears, and heard no more.

But this last Midsummer, when we were driven into Lincoln Cathedral, the new Bishop was in the pulpit. And he spake not like the other priests.

I could not stop my ears. Why should I, when he read the words of one of our own prophets, and in the holy tongue, rendering it into French as he went on? And Delecresse said it was correctly translated, for I asked him afterwards. He saw nothing in it different from usual. But it was terrible to me! He read words that I never knew were in our Scriptures--concerning One whom it seemed to me must be--_must_ be, He whom you call Messiah. 'As a root out of a dry ground'--'no form nor comeliness'--'no beauty that we should desire Him,'--'despised and rejected of men'--and lastly, 'we hid our faces from Him.' For we did, Doucebelle,--we did! I could think of nothing else for a while. For we did not hide them from others. We welcomed Judas of Galilee, and Barchocheba, and many another who rose up in our midst, claiming to be sent of G.o.d. But He, who claimed to be The Sent One,--we crucified Him.

We did not crucify them. We hid our faces from Him, and from Him alone. And then I heard more words, for the Bishop kept reading on.

'We all like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way'--ah, was that not true of the dispersed of Judah?--'and the Lord hath made to meet upon Him the iniquities of us all.' Doucebelle, it was like carrying a lamp into a dark chamber, and beholding every thing in it suddenly illuminated. Was that what it all meant? Was the Bishop right, when he said afterwards, that it was not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sin? Were they all not realities, as I had always thought them, but shadows, pointing forward through the ages, to the One who was to come, to the Blood which could take away sin? Did our own Scripture say so? 'The Man that is My Fellow'--he read it, from one of our very own prophets. And 'we hid our faces from Him!' If He from whom we hid our faces--for there was but one such--if He were the Sent of G.o.d, the Man that is His Fellow, the Lamb whose blood maketh atonement for the soul,--why then, what could there be for us but tribulation and wrath and indignation from before the Holy One for ever? Was it any marvel that we were punished seventy times for our sins, if we had done that?"

Belasez drew a long breath, and altered her position.

"And, if we had not done that, what had we done? The old perplexity came back on me, worse than ever. What had we done? We were not idolaters any more; we were not profane; we kept the rest of the holy Sabbath. Yet the Blessed One was angry with us,--He hid His face from us: and the centuries went on, and we were exiles still,--still under the displeasure of our heavenly King. And what had we done?--if we had not hidden our faces from Him who was the Man that is His Fellow. And then--"

Belasez paused again, and a softer, sadder expression came into her eyes.

"And then the Bishop read some other words,--I suppose they were from your sacred books: I do not think they came from ours. He read that 'because this Man continueth to eternity, untransferable hath He the priesthood.' He read that 'if any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, and He is the propitiation for our sins.' And again he read some grand words, said by this Man Himself,--'I am the First and the Last, and the Living One: and I was dead, and am alive for evermore; and with Me are the keys of Sheol and of death.' Oh, it was so different, Doucebelle, from your priests' sermons generally! There was not a word about that strange thing you call the Church,--not a word about the maiden whom you worship. It was all about Him who was to be the Sent of G.o.d. And I thought--may I be forgiven of the Holy One, if it were wicked!--I thought this was the Priest that would suit me: this was the Prophet that could teach me: this was the Man, who, if only I knew that to do it was truth and not error, was light and not darkness, was life and not death, I could be content to follow to the world's end. And how am I to know it?"