In Convent Walls Part 19

"I know not what you mean, Damsel."

"Why, when she sits down in that chair, and takes Blanchette on her knee,--her eyes go running out of the window first thing. Whither wend they?"

"Children like you cannot understand," replied Dame Hilda, with one of those superior smiles which used to make me feel so very naughty. It seemed to say, "My poor, little, despicable insect, how could you dream of supposing that your intellect was even with Mine?" (There, I have writ that a capital M in red ink. To have answered to Dame Hilda's tone when she put that smile on, it should have been in vermilion and gold leaf.) Howbeit, Jack never cared for all the airs she put on.

"Then why don't you make us understand it?" said he.

I do not remember what Dame Hilda said to that, but I dare say she boxed Jack's ears.

Deary me, how ill doth my tale get forward! Little things keep a-coming to my mind, and I turn aside after them, like a second deer crossing the path of the first. That shall never serve; I must keep to my quarry.

All this time our mother grew thinner and whiter. Poor soul, she loved him well!--but so sure as the towel of the blessed Nicodemus is in the sacristy of our Lady at Warwick, cannot I tell for why. Very certain am I that he never gave her any reason.

We reckoned those six months dreary work. There were no banquets in hall, nor shows came to the Castle, nor even so much as a pedlar, that we children saw; only the same every-day round, and tired enough we were of it. All the music we ever heard was in our lessons from Piers le Sautreour; and if ever child loved her music lessons, her name was not Agnes de Mortimer. All the laughter that was amongst us we made ourselves; and all the shows were when Jack chose to tumble somersaults, or Maud twisted some cold lace round her head, and said, "Now I am Queen Isabel." Dreary work, in good sooth! yet was it a very Michaelmas show and an Easter Day choir to that which lay ahead.

And then, one night,--ah, what a night that was! It was near our bed-time, and Jack, Kate, and I, were playing on the landing and up and down the staircase of our tower. I remember, Jack was the stag, and Kate and I were the hunters; and rarely did Jack throw up his head, to show off his branching horns--which were divers twigs tied on his head by a lace of Dame Hilda's, for the use whereof Jack paid a pretty penny when she knew it. Kate had just made a grab at him, and should have caught him, had his tunic held, but it gave way, and all she won was an handful of worsted and a slip of the step that grazed her shins; and she was rubbing of her leg and crying "Lack-a-day!" and Jack above, well out of reach, was making mowes [grimaces] at us--when all at once an horn rang loud through the Castle, and man on little ambling nag came into the court-yard. Kate forgat her leg, and Jack his mowes, and all we, stag and hunters alike, ran to the gallery window for to gaze.

I know not how long we should have tarried at the window, had not Emelina come and swept us afore her into the nursery, with an impatient--"Deary me! here be these children for ever in the way!"

And Jack cries, "You always say we are in the way; but mustn't we be any where?"

Whereto she makes answer--"Go and get you tucked into bed; that's the only safe place for the like of you!"

Jack loudly resented being sent to bed before the proper time, whereupon he and Emelina had a fight (as they had most nights), and Kate and I ran into the nursery to get out of the way. Here was Margery, turning down the beds, but Dame Hilda we saw not till, an half-hour after, as we were doffing us for bed, she came, with her important face which she was wont to wear when some eventful thing had befallen her or us.

"Are the damsels abed, Emelina?" saith she.

"The babes be, Dame; and the elders be a-doffing them."

Dame Hilda came forward into the night nursery.

"Hold you there, young ladies!" saith she: "at the least, I would say my three elder young ladies--Dame Margaret, Dame Joan, and Dame Isabel.

Pray you, don you once more, but of your warmest gear, for a journey by night."

"Are we not to go to bed?" asked Joan in surprise: but our three sisters donned themselves anew, as Dame Hilda had said, of their warmest gear.

Dame Hilda spake not word till they were all ready. Then Meg saith--

"Whither be we bound, Dame?--and with whom?"

"With my Lady, Dame Margaret, to Southampton."

I think we all cried out "Southampton!" in diverse tones.

"There is news come to her Ladyship, as she herself may tell you," said Dame Hilda, mysteriously.

"Aren't we to go, Dame?" saith Blanche's little voice.

Dame Hilda turned round sharply, as if she went about to snap Blanche's head off; and Blanche shrank in dismay.

"Certainly not, Dame Blanche! What should my Lady do to be worried with babes like you? She has enough else on her mind at this present, without a pack of tiresome children--holy saints be her help! Eh dear, dear, this world!"

"Dame, is this world so bad?" saith Jack, letting his nose appear above the bed-clothes.

"Go to sleep, the weary lot of you!" was Dame Hilda's irritable answer.

"Because," saith Jack, ne'er a whit daunted--nothing ever cowed Jack--"if it is so bad, hadn't you better be off out of it? You'd be better off, I suppose, and we shouldn't miss you,--that I'll promise.

Do go, Dame!"

Jack spake these last words with a full compa.s.sionate air, as though he were seriously concerned for Dame Hilda's happiness; but she, marching up to the bed where Jack lay, dealt him a stinging slap for his impudence.

"Ah!" saith Jack in a mumbled voice, having disappeared under the bed-clothes, "this is a bad world, I warrant you, where folks return evil for good o' this fashion!"

We heard no more of Jack beyond divers awesome snores, which I think were not altogether sooth-fast: but before many minutes had pa.s.sed, the door of the antechamber opened, and my Lady, donned in travelling gear, entered the nursery.

Dame Hilda's words had given me the fancy that some sorrowful, if not shocking news, had come to her; and I was therefore much astonished to see a faint flush in her cheeks, and a brilliant light in her eyes, which looked as though she had heard good news.

"My children," said our mother, "I come to bid you all farewell--may be a long farewell. I have heard that--never mind what; that which will take me away. Meg, and Joan, and Ibbot, must go with me."

"Take me too!" pleaded little Blanche.

"Thee too!" repeated our mother, with a loving smile. "Nay, sweetheart!

That cannot be. Now, my children, I hope you will all be good and obedient to Dame Hilda while I am away."

It was on Kate that her glance fell, being the next eldest after Isabel; and Kate answered readily--

"We will all be good as gold, Dame."

"Nym, and Hodge, and Geoffrey," she went on, "go also with me; so thou, Kate, wilt be eldest left here, and I look to thee to set a good ensample to thy brethren,--especially my little wilful Jack."

Jack's snoring had stopped when she came in, and now, as she went over and sat her down by the bed wherein Jack lay of the outside, up came Jack's head from under the blue velvet coverlet. Our mother laid her hand tenderly upon it.

"My dear little Jack!" she said; "my poor little Jack!"

"Dame, I'm not poor, an't like you!" made answer Jack, in a tone of considerable astonishment. "I've got a whole ball of new string, and two battledores and a shuttlec.o.c.k, and a ball, and a bow and arrows."

"Yes, my little Jack," she said, tenderly.

"There are lots of lads poorer than me!" quoth Jack. "Nym himself hasn't got a whole ball of string, and Geoff hasn't a bit. I asked him.

Master Inge gave it me yesterday. I'm going to make reins with it for Annis and Maud, and lots of cats' cradles."

"You're not going to make reins for _me_," said Maud from our bed.

"Dame, it is horrid playing horses with Jack. He wants you to take the string in your mouth, and you don't know where he's had it. I don't mind having it tied to my arms, but I won't have it in my mouth."

"Did you ever see a horse with his reins tied to his arms?" scornfully demanded Jack. "You do as you are bid, my Lady Maud, or I'll come and make you."

"Children!" said our mother's soft voice, before Maud could answer, "are you going to quarrel this last night when I have come to say farewell?

For shame, Maud! this was thy blame."

"Oh, of course, it is always me," muttered Maud, too angry for grammar.