In Convent Walls Part 4

I have set down these wise words of good Father Philip, for though they be too high and wide for mine understanding, maybe some that shall read my chronicle may have better brains than she that writ.

So now once again to my chronicling, and let me endeavour to do the same as Father Philip bade me.

It was on the eve of Saint Michael, 1325, that the Queen and her meynie (I being of them) reached Paris. We were ferried over the Seine to the gate of Nully [Note 1], and thence we clattered over the stones to the Hotel de Saint Pol [Note 2], where the Queen was lodged in the easternmost tower, next to our Lady Church, and we her meynie above.

Dame Isabel de Lapyoun and I were appointed to lie in the pallet by turns. The Queen's bedchamber was hung with red sindon, broidered in the border with golden swans, and her cabinet with blue say, powdered with lily-flowers in gold, which is the arms of France, as every man knoweth, seeing they are borne by our King that now is, in right of this same Queen Isabel his mother. He, that was then my Lord of Chester, was also of the cortege, having sailed from Dover two days before Holy Cross [Note 3], and joined the Queen in Guienne; but the Queen went over in March, and was all that time in Guienne.

Dear heart! but Jack--which loveth to be square and precise in his matters--should say this were strange fashion wherein to write chronicles, to date first September and then the March afore it! I had better go back a bit.

It was, then, the 9th of March the Queen crossed from Dover to Whitsand, which the French call Guissant. She dwelt first, as I said, in Guienne, for all that summer; very quiet and peaceful were we, letters going to and fro betwixt our Queen and her lord, and likewise betwixt her and the King of France; but no visitors (without there were one that evening Dame Isabel lay in the pallet in my stead, and was so late up, and pa.s.sed by the antechamber door with her shoes in her hands, as little Meliora the sub-damsel would have it she saw by the keyhole): and we might nearhand as well have been in nunnery for all the folks we saw that were not of the house. Verily, I grew sick irked [wearied, distressed] of the calm, that was like a dead calm at sea, when ships lie to, and can win neither forward nor backward. Ah, foolish Cicely!

thou hadst better have given thanks for the last peace thou wert to see for many a year.

Well, my Lord of Chester come, which was the week after Holy Cross, we set forth with few days' delay, and came to Paris, as I said, the eve of Michaelmas. Marvellous weary was I with riding, for I rade of an horse the whole way, and not, as Dame Isabel did, with the Queen in her char.

I was so ill tired that I could but eat a two-three wafers [Note 4], and drink a cup of wine, and then hied I to my bed, which, I thank the saints, was not the pallet that night.

The King and Queen of France were then at Compiegne, King Charles having been wed that same summer to his third wife, Dame Jeanne of Evreux: and a good woman I do believe was she, for all (as I said aforetime) there be but few. But I do think, and ever shall, that three wives be more than any man's share. The next morrow, they came in from Compiegne, to spend Michaelmas in Paris: and then was enough noise and merriment.

First, ma.s.s in our Lady Church, whereto both Dame Isabel and I waited on the Queen; and by the same token, she was donned of one of the fairest robes that ever she bare, which was of velvet blue of Malyns [Malines], broidered with apple-blossom and with diapering of gold. It did not become her, by reason of her dark complexion, so well as it should have done S--

"Hold! Man spelleth not Cicely with an S."

"Jack, if thou start me like this any more, then will I turn the key in the lock when I sit down to write," cried I, for verily mine heart was going pitter-patter to come up in my throat, and out at my mouth, for aught I know. "Thou irksome man, I went about to write 'some folks,'

not 'Cicely.'"

"But wherefore?" saith Jack, looking innocent as a year-old babe. "When it meaneth Cicely, then would I put Cicely."

"But I meant _not_ Cicely, man o' life, bless thee!"

"I thank thee for thy blessing, Sissot; and I will fain hope thou didst mean that any way. I will go bail thy pen meant not Cicely, good wife; but if it were not in thine heart that Sissot's fair hair, and rose-red complexion, and grey eyes, should have gone better with that blue velvet gown than Queen Isabel's dusky hair and brown eyes, then do I know little of man or woman. And I dare be bound it would, belike."

And Jack lifteth his hat to me right courteously, and is gone afore I well know whether to laugh or to be angered. So I ween I had better laugh.

Where was I, trow? Oh, at ma.s.s in our Lady Church of Paris, where that day was a miracle done on two that were possessed of the Devil, whose names were Geoffrey Boder and Jeanne La Pet.i.te; and the girdle of Saint Mary being shown on the high altar, they were allowed to touch the same, whereon they were healed straightway. And the Queen, with her own hands, gave them alms, a crown; and her oblation to the image of Saint Mary in the said church, being a festival, was a crown (her daily oblation being seven-pence the day); and to the said holy girdle a crown, and to the holy relics, yet another. Then came we home by the water of Seyne, for which the boatman had twelve pence. [Note 5.]

We dwelt after this full peacefully at Paris for divers weeks, saving that we made short journeys to towns in the neighbourhood; as, one day to the house of the Sisters Predicants of Poissy, and another to G.o.d's House of Loure [Note 6], and another to Villers, where tarried the Queen of France, and so forth. And some days spent we likewise at Reyns and Sessouns. [Note 7.]

At Paris she had her robes made, of purple and colour of Malbryn, for the feast of All Saints, and they were furred with miniver and beasts ermines. And to me Cicely was delivered, to make my robe for the same, three ells rayed [striped] cloth and a lamb fur, and an hood of budge.

The Queen spent nigh an whole day at Sessouns, and another at Reyns, in visiting the churches; and the last can I well remember, by reason of that which came after. First, we went to the church of Saint Nicholas, where she offered a cloth of Turk, price forty shillings; and to Saint Remy she gave another, price forty-five shillings; and to the high altar of the Cathedral one something better. And to the ampulla [Note 7] and shrine of Saint Remy a crown, and likewise a crown to the holy relics there kept. Then to the Friars Minors, where at the high altar she offered a cloth of Lucca bought in the town, price three and an half marks [Note 8]. And (which I had nearhand forgot) to the head of Saint Nicasius in the Cathedral, a crown.

The last night ere we left Sessouns, I remember, as I came into the Queen's lodging from vespers in the Cathedral,--Jack, that went with me, having tarried at the potter's to see wherefore he sent not home three dozen gla.s.ses for the Queen's table (and by the same token, the knave asked fifteen pence for the same when they did come, which is a price to make the hair stand on end)--well, as I said, I was a-coming in, when I met one coming forth that at first sight I wist not. And yet, when I meditated, I did know him, but I could not tell his name. He had taken no note of me, save to hap his mantle somewhat closer about his face, as though he cared not to be known--or it might be only that he felt the cold, for it was sharp for the time of year. Up went I into the Queen's lodging, which was then in the house of one John de Gyse, that was an honester man than Master Bolard, with whom she lodged at Burgette, for that last charged her three shillings and seven-pence for a worser lodging than Master Gyse gave her for two shillings.

I had writ thus far when I heard behind me a little bruit that I knew.

"Well, Jack?" said I, not looking up.

"Would thou wert better flyer of falcons, Sissot!" saith he.

"Dear heart! what means that, trow?" quoth I.

"Then shouldst thou know," he made answer, "that to suffer a second quarry to turn thee from thy first is oft-times to lose both."

"Verily, Jack, I conceive not thy meaning."

"Why, look on yon last piece. It begins with thee coming home from vespers. Then it flieth to me, to the potter and his gla.s.ses, to the knavery of his charges, and cometh back to the man whom thou didst meet coming forth of the door--whom it hath no sooner touched, than it is off again to the cold even; then comest thou into the Queen's lodging, and down 'grees' [degrees, that is, stairs] once more to the landlord's bill. Do, prithee, keep to one heron till thou hast bagged him."

"_Ha, chetife_!" cried I. "Must I have firstly, secondly, thirdly, yea, up to thirty-seventhly, like old Father Edison's homilies?"

"Better so," saith he, "than to course three hares together and catch none."

"I'll catch mine hare yet, as thou shall see," saith I.

"Be it done. Gee up!" saith he. [Note 9].

Well, up came I into the Queen's antechamber, where were sat Dame Elizabeth, and Dame Isabel de Lapyoun, and Dame Joan de Vaux, and little Meliora. And right as I came in at the door, Dame Joan dropped her sewing off her knee, and saith--

"Lack-a-day! I am aweary of living in this world!"

"Well, if so," saith Dame Elizabeth, peacefully waxing her thread, "you had best look about for a better."

"Nay!" quoth she, "how to get there?"

"Ask my Lord of Winchester," saith Dame Isabel.

"I shall lack the knowledge ill ere I trouble him," she made answer.

"Is it he with the Queen this even?"

"There's none with the Queen!" quoth Dame Isabel, as sharp as if she should have snapped her head off.

Dame Joan looked up in some astonishment.

"Dear heart!" said she, "I thought I heard voices in her chamber."

"There was one with her," answereth Meliora, "when I pa.s.sed the door some minutes gone."

"Maybe the visitor is gone," said I. "As I came in but now, I met one coming forth."

"Who were it, marry?" quoth Dame Joan.

"It was none of the household," said I. "A tall, personable man, wrapped in a great cloak, wherewith he hid his face; but whether it were from me or from the November even, that will I not say."

"There hath been none such here," saith Dame Elizabeth.

"Not in this chamber," saith Meliora.

"Meliora Servelady!" Dame Isabel made answer, "who gave thee leave to join converse with thy betters?" [Note 10].

The sub-damsel looked set down for a minute, but nought ever daunted her for long. She was as pert a little maid as ever I knew, and but little deserved her name of Meliora. (Ah me, is this another hare? Have back.)

"There hath been none of any sort come to the Queen to-day," said Dame Isabel, in so angered a tone that I began at once to marvel who had come of whom she feared talk.