In Convent Walls Part 20

"Jack's always the favourite; I never do any thing right."

"Yes, you do--now and then, by accident," responded Joan, who was sitting at the foot of our bed; a speech which did not better Maud's temper, and it was never angelic.

Jack seemed to have forgotten his pa.s.sage-at-arms with Maud. He was always good-tempered enough, though he did tease outrageously.

"Why am I poor, Dame?" quoth Jack.

"Little Jack, thou must shortly go into the wars, and thou hast no armour."

"But you'll get me a suit. Dame?"

"I cannot, Jack. Not for these wars. Neither can I give thee the wealth to make thee rich, as I fain would."

"Then, Dame, you will pet.i.tion the King for a grant, will you not?"

saith Meg.

"True, my daughter," saith our mother softly. "I must needs pet.i.tion the King, both for the riches from His treasury, and for the arms from His armoury." And then she bent down to kiss Jack. "O my boy, lay not up treasure for thyself, and thus fail to be rich in G.o.d."

I began then to see what she meant; but I rather wondered why she said it. Such talk as that, it seemed to me, was only fit for Sunday. And then I remembered that she was going away for a long, long time, and that therefore Sunday talk might be appropriate.

I do not recollect any thing she said to the others, only to Jack and me. Jack and I were always fellows. We children had paired ourselves off, not altogether according to age, but rather according to tastes.

Edmund and Meg should have gone together, and then Hodge and Joan, and so forth: whereas it was always Nym and Joan, and Meg and Hodge. Then Geoffrey and Isabel made the right pair, and Kate, Jack, and I, went in a trio. Maud was by herself; she paired with n.o.body, and n.o.body wanted her, she was so cross. Blanche was every body's pet while she was the baby, and Beatrice came last of all.

Our mother went round, and kissed and blessed us all. I lay inside with Kate and Maud, and when she said, "Now, my little Agnes,"--I crept out and travelled over the tawny silk coverlet, to those gentle velvet arms, and she took me on her lap, and lapped me up in a fur mantle that Meg bare on her arm.

"And what shall I say to my little Agnes?"

"Mother, say you love me!"

It came out before I knew it, and when I had said it, I was so frightened that I hid my face in the fur. It did not encourage me to hear Dame Hilda's exclamation--

"Lack-a-day! what next, trow?"

But the other voice was very tender and gentle.

"Didst thou lack that told thee, mine own little Annis? Ay me! Maybe men are happier lower down. Who should love thee, my floweret, if not thine own mother? Kiss me, and say thou wilt be good maid till I see thee again."

I managed to whisper, "I will try, Dame."

"How long will it be?" cries Jack.

"I cannot tell thee, Jack," she saith. "Some months, I fear. Not years--I do trust, not years. But G.o.d knoweth--and to Him I commit you." And as she bent her head low over the mantle wherein I was lapped, I heard her say--"_Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere n.o.bis, Jesu_!"

I knew that, because I always had to repeat it in my evening prayers, though I never could tell what it meant, only, as it seemed to say "Agnes" and "Monday," I supposed it had something to do with me, and was to make me good after some fashion, but I saw not why it must be only on a Monday, especially as I had to say it every day. Now, of course, I know what it means, and I wonder children and ignorant people are not taught what prayers mean, instead of being made to say them just like popinjays. I wanted to teach my Joan what it meant, but the Lady Julian, my lord's mother, commanded me not to do so, for it was unlucky.

I begged her to tell me why, and she said the Latin was a holy tongue, known to G.o.d and the saints, and so long as they understood our prayers, we did not need to understand them.

"But, Dame," said I, "saving your presence, if I say prayers I understand not, how can I tell the way to use them? I may be asking for a basket of pears when I want a pair of shoes."

"Wherefore trouble the blessed saints for either?" saith she. "Prayers be only for high and holy concerns--not for base worldly matter, such as be pears and shoes."

"But I am worldly matter, under your leave, Dame," said I. "And saith not the Paternoster somewhat touching daily bread?"

"Ay, the food of the soul--'_panem supersubstantialem da n.o.bis_'" quoth she. "It means not a loaf of bread, child."

"That's Saint Matthew," said I. "But Saint Luke hath it '_panem quotidianum_,' and saith nought of '_supersubstantialem_.' And surely common food cometh from G.o.d."

"Daughter!" saith she, somewhat severely, "thou shouldst do a deal better to leave thy fantasies and the workings of thine own brain, and listen with meek submission to the holy doctors that can teach thee with authority."

"Dame, I cry you mercy," said I. "But surely our Lord teacheth with more authority than they all; and if I have His words, what need I of theirs?"

_Ha, chetife_! she would not listen to me,--only bade me yet again to beware of pride and presumption, lest I should fall into heresy, from the which Saint Agnes preserve me! But it doth seem strange that folks should fall into heresy by studying our Lord's words; I had thought they should rather thereby keep them out of it.

Well--dear heart, here again am I got away from my story! this it is to have too quick a wit--our mother blessed us, and kissed us all, and set forth, the six eldest with her, for Southampton. I know now, though I heard not then, that she was on her way to join our father. News had come that he was safe over seas, in France, with the Sieurs de Fienles, the Lady Margaret's kin, and no sooner had she learned it than she set forth to join him. I doubt greatly if he sent for her. Nay, I should rather say he would scarce have blessed her for coming. But she got not thus far on her way, as shall be seen.

His tarrying with the Sieurs de Fienles was in truth but a blind to hide his true proceedings. He stayed in Normandy but a few weeks, until the hue and cry was over, and folks in England should all have got well in their heads that he was there: then, or ever harm should befall him by tarrying there too long, he made quiet departure, and ere any knew of it he was safe in the King of France's dominions. At this time the King of France was King Charles le Bel, youngest brother of our Queen. I suppose he was too much taken up with the study of his own perfections to see the perfections or imperfections of any body else: otherwise had he scarce been so stone-blind to all that went on but just afore his nose. There be folks that can see a mouse a mile off, and there be others that cannot see an elephant a yard in front of them. But there be a third sort, and to my honest belief King Charles was of them, that can see the mouse as clear as sunlight when it is their own interest to detect him, but have not a notion of the elephant being there when they do not choose to look at him. When he wanted to be rid of his first wife Queen Blanche, he could see her well enough, and all her failings too, as black as midnight; but when his sister behaved herself as ill as ever his wife did or could have done, he only shut his eyes and took a comfortable nap. Now King Charles had himself expelled my father from his dominions, for some old grudge that I never rightly understood; yet never a word said he when he came back without licence. Marry, but our old King Edward should not have treated thus the unlicenced return of a banished man! He would have been hung within the week, with him on the throne. But King Charles was not cut from that stuff. He let my father alone till the Queen came over--our Queen Isabel, his sister, I mean-- and then who but he in all the French Court! Howbeit, they kept things pretty quiet for that time; nought came to King Edward's ears, and she did her work and went home. Forsooth, it was sweet work, for she treated with her brother as the sister of France, and not as the wife of England. King Charles had taken Guienne, and she, sent to demand rest.i.tution, concluded a treaty of peace on his bare word that it should be restored, with no pledge nor security whatever: but bitter complaints she laid of the King her husband, and the way in which he treated her.

Well, it is true, he did not treat her as I should have done in his place, for he gave in to all her whims a deal too much, where a good buffet on her ear should have been ever so much more for her good--and his too, I will warrant. Deary me, but if some folks were drowned, the world would get along without them! I mention no names (only that weary Nichola, that is for ever mashing my favourite things). So the Queen came home, and all went on for a while.

But halt, my goose-quill! thou marchest too fast. Have back a season.

Note 1. This is the probable order of birth. The date a.s.signed to the birth of Agnes is fict.i.tious, but that of her husband is taken from his _Probatio Aetatis_.

Note 2. July 8th, 1317; this is about the probable time. The Countess is supposed to be writing in the spring of 1348.

Note 3. This word was then used of both s.e.xes, and was the proper designation of the son of a prince or peer not yet arrived at the age of knighthood.

PART TWO, CHAPTER 2.

THE LADY OF LUDLOW.

"Toil-worn and very weary-- For the waiting-time is long; Leaning upon the promise-- For the Promiser is strong."

So were we children left alone in the Castle of Ludlow, and two weary months we had of it. Wearier were they by far than the six that ran afore them, when our mother was there, and our elder brethren, that she had now carried away. Lessons dragged, and play had no interest. It had been Meg that devised all our games, and Nym that made boats and wooden horses for us, and Joan that wove wreaths and tied cowslip b.a.l.l.s--and they were all away. There was not a bit of life nor fun anywhere except in Jack, and if Jack were shut in a coal-hole by himself, he would make the coals play with him o' some fashion. But even Jack could fetch no fun out of _amo, amas, amat_; and I grew sore weary of pulling my neeld [needle] in and out, and being banged o'er the head with the fiddlestick when I played the wrong string. If we could swallow learning as we do meat, what a lessening of human misery should it be!

No news came all this while--at least, none that we heard. Winter grew into spring, and May came with her flowers. Ay, and with something else.

The day rose like the long, dreary days that had come before it, and n.o.body guessed that any thing was likely to happen. We ate eggs and b.u.t.ter, and said our verbs and the commandments of G.o.d and the Church, to Sir Philip, and played some weary, dreary exercises on the spinnet to Dame Hilda, and dined (I mind it was on lamb, finches, and flaunes [custards]), and then Kate, I, and Maud, were set down to our needles.

Blanche was something too young for needlework, saving to pull coloured silks in and out of a bit of rag for practice. We had scarce taken twenty st.i.tches, when far in the distance we heard a horn sounded.

"Is that my Lady a-coming home?" said I to Kate.

"Eh, would it were!" quoth she. "I reckon it is some hunters in the neighbourhood."

I looked to and fro, and no Dame Hilda could I see--only Margery, and she was easy enough with us for little things; so I crept out on tiptoe into the long gallery, and looked through the great oriel, which I could well reach by climbing on the window-seat. I remember what a sweet, peaceful scene lay before me,--the fields and cottages lighted up with the May sunshine, which glinted on the Teme as it wound here and there amid the trees. I looked right and left, but saw no hunters--nothing at all, I thought at first. And then, as I was going to leave the oriel, I saw the sun glance on something that moved, and looked like a dark square, and I heard the horn ring out again a little nearer. I watched the square thing grow--from dark to red, from an indistinct ma.s.s to a compact body of marching men, with mounted officers at their head; and then, forgetting Dame Hilda and every thing else except the startling news I brought, I rushed back into the nursery, crying out--

"The King's troops! Jack, Kate, the King's troops are coming! Come and see!"