In Convent Walls Part 23

Whereon Jack fell a-moaning and a-crying out, that Dame Hilda thought he was rare sick, and ordered Emelina to get ready a dose of violet oil.

But before Emelina could so much as fetch a spoon, there was Jack dancing a hornpipe and singing, or rather screaming, at the top of his voice, till Dame Hilda put her hands over her ears and cried for mercy.

I never did see such another lad as Jack.

We heard but little, and being children, we cared less, for the events that followed--the beheading of my Lord of Kent, and the rising under my Lord of Lancaster. And the next thing after that was the last thing of all.

It was in October, 1330. We had no more idea of such a blow falling on us than we had of the visitation of an angel. I remember we were all gathered--except the little ones--in my Lady's closet, for after my marriage I was no longer kept in the nursery, though Beattie, on account of her much youth, was made an exception to that rule. My Lady was spinning, and her damsel Aveline carding, and Joan and I, our arms round each others' waists, sat in the corner, Joan having on her lap a piece of finished broidery, and I having nothing: what the others were doing I forget. Then came the familiar sound of the horn, and my Lady turned white. I never felt sure why she always turned white when a horn sounded: whether she expected bad news, or whether she expected our father. She was exceeding afraid of him, and yet she loved him, I know: I cannot tell how she managed it.

After the horn, we heard the tramp of troops entering the court-yard, and I think we all felt that once more something was going to happen.

Aveline glanced at my Lady, who returned the look, but did not speak; and then Lettice, one of the other maidens, rose and went forth, at a look from Aveline. But she could scarcely have got beyond the door when Master Inge came in.

"Dame," said he, "my news is best told quickly. The Castle and all therein is confiscate to the Crown. But the King hath sent strict command that the wardrobe, jewels, and all goods, of your Ladyship, and of all ladies and children dwelling with you, shall be free from seizure, and no hand shall be laid on you nor any thing belonging to you."

My Lady rose up, resting her hand on the chair from which she rose; I think it was to support her.

"I return humble thanks to the Lord King," said she, in a trembling voice. "What hath happened, Master Inge?"

"Dame," quoth he, "how shall I tell you? My Lord is a prisoner of the Tower, and Sir Edmund and Sir Geoffrey with him--"

If my Lady could turn whiter, I think she did. I felt Joan's hand-clasp tighten upon mine, till I could almost have cried out.

"And Dame Isabel the Queen is herself under ward in the Castle of Berkhamsted, and all matters turned upside down. Man saith that the great men with the King be now Sir William de Montacute and Sir Edward de Bohun, and divers more of like sort. And my Lord of Lancaster, man saith, flung up his cap, and thanked G.o.d that he had lived to see that day."

My Lady had stood as still and silent as an image, all the while Master Inge was speaking, only that when he said the Queen was in ward, she gave a sort of gasp. When he had done, she clasped her hands, and looked up to Heaven.

"Dost Thou come," she said, in a strange voice that did not sound like hers, "dost Thou come to judge the earth? We have waited long for Thee.

Yet--Oh, if it be possible--if it be possible! Spare my boys to me!

And spare--"

A strange kind of sob seemed to come up in her throat, and she held out her hands as if she could not see. I believe, if Master Inge and Lettice had not been quick to spring forward and catch her by the arms, she would have fallen to the floor. They bore her into her bedchamber close by; and we children saw her not for some time. Dame Hilda was in and out; but when we asked her how my Lady fared, she did nought save shake her head, from which we learned little except that things went ill in some way. When we asked Lettice, she said--

"There, now! don't hinder me. Poor children, you will know soon enough."

Aveline was the best, for she sat down and gathered us into her arms and comforted us; but even she gave us no real answer, only she kept saying, "Poor maids! poor little maids!"

So above a month pa.s.sed away. Master John de Melbourne was sent down from the King as supervisor of the lands and goods of my Lady and her children; but he came with the men-at-arms, so he brought no fresh news: and it was after Christmas before we knew the rest. Then, one winter morrow, came a warrant of the Chancery, granting to my Lady all the lands of her own inheritance, by reason of the execution of her husband.

And then she knew that all had come that would come.

We children, Meg except, had not yet been allowed to see our mother, who had never stirred from her bedchamber. One evening, early in January, we were sitting in her closet, clad in our new doole raiment (how I hated it!), talking to one another in low voices, for I think we all had a sort of instinct that things were going wrong somehow, even the babies who understood least about it: when all at once, for none of us saw her enter, a lady stood before us. A lady whom we did not know, clad in white widow-doole, tall and stately, with a white, white face, so that her weeds were scarcely whiter, and a kind of fixed, unalterable expression of intense pain, yet unchangeable peace. It seemed to me such a strange look. Whether the pain or the peace were the greater I knew not, nor could I tell which was the newer. We girls sat and looked at her with puzzled faces. Then a faint smile broke through the pain, on the white face, like the sun breaking through clouds, and a voice we knew, asked of us--

"Don't you know me, my children?"

And that was how our mother came back to us.

She did not leave us again. Ever since he died, she has lived for us.

That white face, full of peace and yet of pain, abides with her; her colour has never returned. But I think the pain grows less with years, and the peace grows more. She smiles freely, but it is faintly, as if smiles hardly belonged to her, and were only a borrowed thing that might not be kept; and her eyes never light up as of old--only that once, when some months after our father's end, Nym and Geoff came back to us.

Then, just for one moment, her old face came again. For I think she had given them up,--not to King Edward, but to Christ our Lord, who is her King.

Ay, I never knew woman like her in that. There are many that will say prayers, and there are some that will pray, which is another thing from saying prayers: but never saw I one like her, that seemed to do all her work and to live all her living in the very light of the Throne of G.o.d.

Just as an impa.s.sioned musician turns every thing into music, and a true painter longs to paint every lovely thing he sees, so with her all things turn to Jesu Christ. I should think she will be canonised some day. I am sure she deserves it better than many an one whom I have heard man name as meriting to be a saint. Perhaps it is possible to be a saint and not be canonised. Must man not have been a saint before he can be declared one? I know the Lady Julian would chide me for saying that, and bid me remember that the Church only can declare man to be saint. But I wonder myself if the Lord never makes saints, without waiting for the Church to do it for Him. The Church may never call my Lady "Saint Joan," but that will she be whether she be so-called or no.

And at times I think, too, that they who shall be privileged to dwell in Heaven will find there a great company of saints of whom they never heard, and perchance some of them that sit highest there will not be those most accounted of in the Calendar and on festival days. But I do not suppose--as an ancestress of my mother did, in a chronicle she wrote which I once read; it is in the possession of her French relatives, and was written by the Lady Elaine de Lusignan, daughter of Geoffroy Count de la Marche, who was a son of that House [Note 5]--I do not suppose that the saints who were n.o.bles in this world will sit nearest the Throne, and those who were peasants furthest off. Nay, I think it will be another order of n.o.bility that will obtain there. Those who have served our Lord the best, and done the most for their fellow-men, these I think will be the n.o.bles of that world. For does not our Lord say Himself that the first shall be last there, and the last first? And I can guess that Joan de Mortimer, my Lady and mother, will not stand low on that list. It is true, she was a Countess in this life; but it was little to her comfort; and she was beside that early orphaned, and a cruelly ill-used wife and a bereaved mother. Life brought her little good: Heaven will bring her more.

But I wonder where one Agnes de Hastings will stand in that company.

Nay, rather, will she be there at all?

It would be well that I should think about it.

Note 1. A word which then included uniform and all lands of official garb.

Note 2. On August 3rd she left Skipton, arriving at Pomfret on the 5th.

Note 3. I find no indication of the date: only that she was at Ludlow on October 26, 1330.

Note 4. The precise date and place are not recorded, but it was about this time, and the King, who was present, was in the West only from December 16th to the 21st. It is a.s.serted by Walsingham that Beatrice was married "about" 1327.

Note 5. The Lady Elaine's chronicle is "Lady Sybil's Choice."

PART THREE, CHAPTER 1.

WHEREIN SISTER ALIANORA LA DESPENSER MAKETH MOAN (1371).

CAGED.

"But of all sad words by tongue or pen, The saddest are these-- 'It might have been!'"

Whittier.

"I marvel if the sun is never weary!"

Thus spoke my sister Margaret [Note 1], as she stood gazing from the window of the recreation-room, and Sister Roberga looked up and laughed.

"Nay, what next?" saith she. "Heard I ever such strange fancies as thine? Thou wilt be marvelling next if the stars be never athirst."

"And if rain be the moon weeping," quoth Sister Philippa, who seemed as much amused as Roberga.

"No, the moon weepeth not," said Margaret. "She is too cold to weep.

She is like Mother Ada."

"Eh dear, what fancies hast thou!" saith Sister Roberga. "Who but thou would ever have thought of putting the moon and Mother Ada into one stall!"

"What didst thou mean, Sister Margaret?" saith the quiet voice of Mother Alianora, as she sat by the chimney corner.

Mother Alianora is our father's sister--Margaret's and mine; but I ought not to think of it, since a recluse should have no kindred out of her Order and the blessed saints. And there are three Sisters in the Priory named Alianora: wherefore, to make diversity, the eldest professed is called Alianora, and the second (that is myself) Annora, and the youngest, only last year professed, Nora. We had likewise in this convent an Aunt Joan, but she deceased over twenty years gone. Margaret was professed in the Order when I was, but not at this house; and she hath been transferred hither but a few weeks [Note 2], so that her mind and heart are untravelled ground to me. She was a Sister at Watton: and since I can but just remember her before our profession, it seems marvellous strange that we should now come to know one another, after nearly fifty years' cloistered life. There is yet another Sister named Margaret, but being younger in profession we call her Sister Magota.

When Mother Alianora spoke, Margaret turned back from the window, as she ought when addressed by a superior.