The Well in the Desert Part 7

THE STORY OF ISABEL.

"O dumb, dumb lips! O crushed, crushed heart!

O grief, past pride, past shame!"

Miss Muloch.

Mother Joan had arrived at the point closing the last chapter, when the sharp ringing of the Abbess' little bell announced the end of the recreation-time; and convent laws being quite as rigid as those of the Medes and Persians, Philippa was obliged to defer the further gratification of her curiosity. When the next recreation-time came, the blind nun resumed her narrative.

"When Dame Isabelle was lodged at her ease, for she saw first to that, she ordered her prisoners to be brought before the Prince her son. She had the decency not to sit as judge herself; but, in outrage of all womanliness, she sat herself in the court, near the Prince's seat. She would have sat in the seat rather than have missed her end. The Prince was wholly governed by his mother; he knew not her true character; and he was but a lad of fourteen years. So, when the prisoners were brought forth, the tigress rose up in her place, and spake openly to the a.s.sembled barons (a shameful thing for a woman to do!) that she and her son would see that law and justice were rendered to them, according to their deeds. She! That was the barons' place, not hers. She should have kept to her distaff.

"Then said my grandfather, bowing his white head, 'Ah, Dame! G.o.d grant us an upright judge, and a just sentence; and that if we cannot have it in this world, we may find it in another.'

"The charges laid against them were then read by the Marshal; and the barons gave sentence--of course as Dame Isabelle wished. The Lord of Arundel and Surrey, the premier Earl of England, [see Note 1], and the aged white-haired Earl of Winchester, [see Note 2], were doomed to the death of traitors.

"Saint Denis' Day--child, it gives me a shudder to name it! We were within the castle, and they set up the gibbet before our eyes. Before the eyes of the son of the one man, the wife and son of the other! I remember catching up Isabel, and running with her into an inner chamber--any whither to be out of sight of that awful thing. I remember, too, that the Lady of Arundel, having seen all she could bear, fainted away on the rushes, and I laid her gently down, and nursed her back into life. But when she came to herself, she cried--'Is it all over? O cruel Joan, to have made me live! I might have died with my lord.' At last it was all over: over--for that time. And G.o.d had taken no notice. He had not opened the heavens and thundered down His great ire. I suppose that must have been on account of some high festival they had in Heaven in honour of Saint Denis, and G.o.d was too busy, listening to the angels, to have any time for us.

"But that night, ere the dawn, my father softly entered the chamber where we maidens slept. He had been closeted half the night with the King, taking counsel how to escape the cruel jaws of the tigress; and now he roused us, and bade us farewell. He and the King would set forth in a little boat, and endeavour to reach Wales. They thought us, however, safer in the castle. We watched them embark in the grey dawn, ere men were well astir; and they rowed off toward Wales. Would G.o.d they had stayed where they were!--but G.o.d had not ended the festival of Saint Denis.

"Twelve days that little boat rode the silver Severn; beaten back, beaten back at every tide, the waves rough, and the wind contrary. And at length Sir Henry Beaumont, the devil whispering to him who were in the boat, set forth in pursuit. [See Note 3.]

"We saw them taken. The Monday after Saint Luke, Edward of Caernarvon, sometime King of England, and Hugh Le Despenser, sometime Earl of Gloucester, were led captives into Bristol, and delivered to the tigress. But we were not to see them die. Perhaps Saint Luke had interceded for us, as it was in his octave. The King was sent to Berkeley Castle. My father they set on the smallest and poorest horse they could find in the army, clad in an emblazoned surcoat such as he was used to wear. From the moment that he was taken, he would touch no food. And when they reached Hereford, he was so weak and ill, that Dame Isabelle began to fear he would escape her hands by a more merciful death than she designed for him. So she stayed her course at Hereford for the Feast of All Saints, and the morrow after she had him brought forth for trial. They had need to bear him into her presence, he was so nearly insensible. Finding that they could not wake him into life by speaking to him and calling him, they twined a crown of nettles and set it on his head. But he was even then too near death to rouse himself.

So, lest he should die on the spot, they hurried him forth to execution.

He died the death of a traitor; but maybe G.o.d was more merciful than they, and s.n.a.t.c.hed his soul away ere he had suffered all they meant he should. I suppose He allowed him to suffer previously, in punishment for his allying himself with the wicked men of Edingdon: but I trust his suffering purified his soul, and that G.o.d received him.

"Her vengeance thus satiated, Dame Isabelle set out for London. The Castle of Arundel was forfeited, and the Lady and her son Richard were left homeless. [See Note 4.] We set forth with them, a journey of many weary days, to join my mother. But when we reached London, we found all changed. Dame Isabelle, on her first coming, had summoned my mother to surrender the Tower; and she, being affrighted, had resigned her charge, and was committed to the custody of the Lord de la Zouche. So we homeless ones bent our steps to Sempringham, where were two of my father's sisters, Joan and Alianora; and we prayed the holy nuns there to grant us shelter in their abode of peace. The Lord of Hereford gave an asylum for young Richard.

"Those were peaceful, quiet days we pa.s.sed at Sempringham; and they were the last Isabel was to know. Meanwhile, the Friars Predicants, and in especial the men of Edingdon and Ashridge, were spreading themselves throughout the land, working well to bring back the King. Working too well; for Dame Isabelle took alarm, and on Saint Maurice's Day, twelve months after her landing, the King died at Berkeley Castle. G.o.d knew how: and I think she knew who had sat by his side on the throne, and who was the mother of his children. We only heard at Sempringham, that on that night shrieks of agony rang through the vale of the Severn, and men woke throughout the valley, and whispered a requiem for the hapless soul which was departing in such horrible torment.

"But that opened the eyes of the young King (for the Prince of Wales had been made King; ay, and all the hour of his crowning, Dame Isabelle stood by, and made believe to weep for her lord): he began to see what a serpent was his mother; and I daresay Brother John de Gaytenby, the Friar Predicant who was his confessor, let not the matter sleep. And no sooner did Edward of Windsor gain his full power, than he shut up the wicked Jezebel his mother in the Castle of Rising. She lived there twenty years: she died there, fourteen years ago.

"So the tide turned. The friends of Dame Isabelle died on the scaffold, four years later, even as _he_ had died; and we heard it at Sempringham, and knew that G.o.d and the saints and angels had taken up our cause at last. Child, G.o.d's mill grindeth slowly, but it grindeth very small.

"Ere this, Hugh, my brother, had been granted his life by the King, but not our father's earldom [see Note 5]; and when my father had been dead only two years, leaving such awful memories--our mother wedded again.

Ah, well! she was our mother. But, child, I have seen a caterpillar, shaken rudely from the fragrant petals of a rose, crawl to the next weed that grew. She was fair and well-dowered; and against the King's will, she wedded the Lord de la Zouche, in whose custody she was.

"And now for the end of my woeful tale, which is the story of Isabel herself. For, one year later, the Castle of Arundel was given back to Richard Fitzalan; and two years thereafter the Lady of Arundel died.

Listen a little longer with patience: for the saddest part of the story is that yet to come.

"When Richard and Isabel went back to the Castle of Arundel, I was a young novice, just admitted. And considering the second marriage of our mother, and the death of the Lady of Arundel, and the extreme youth of Isabel (who was not yet fourteen), I was permitted to reside very much with her. A woeful residence it was; for now began the fourteen terrible years of my darling's pa.s.sion.

"For no sooner was his mother's gentle hand removed, than, even on the very day of her burial, Earl Richard threw off the mask.

"Before that time, I had wonderingly doubted if he loved her. I knew then that he hated her. And I found one other thing, sadder yet--that she loved him. I confess unto thee, by the blessed ankle-bones of Saint Denis, that I never could make out why. I never saw in him anything to love; and had I so done, methinks he had soon had that folly out of me.

At first I scarcely understood all. I used to see livid blue bruises on her neck and arms, and ask her wherefore they were there; and she would only flush faintly, and say,--'It is nothing--I struck myself against something.' I never knew for months against what she struck. But she never complained--not even to me. She was patient as an angel of G.o.d.

"Now and then I used to notice that there came to the castle an aged man, in the garb of the Friars Predicants; unto whom--and to him only-- Isabel used to confess. So changed was he from his old self, that I never knew till long after that this was our father's old confessor, Giles de Edingdon. She only said to me that he taught her good things.

If he taught her her saintly endurance, it was good. But I fear he taught her other things as well: to hold in light esteem that blessed doctrine of grace of condignity, whereby man can and doth merit the favour of G.o.d. And what he gave her instead thereof I know not. She used to tell me, but I forget now. Only once, in an awful hour, she said unto me, that but for the knowledge he had given her, she could not have borne her life.

"What was that hour?--Ah! it was the hour, when for the first time he threw aside all care, even before me, and struck her senseless on the rushes at my feet. And I never forgave him. She forgave him, poor innocent!--nay, rather, I think she loved him too well to think of forgiveness. I never saw love like hers; it would have borne death itself, and have kissed the murderer's hand in dying. Some women do love so. I never did, nor could.

"But when this awful hour came, and she fell at my feet, as if dead, by a blow from his hand in anger,--the spirit of my fathers came upon me, and like a prophetess of woe, child, I stood forth and cursed him! I think G.o.d spake by me, for words seemed to come from me without my will; and I said that for two generations the heir of his house should die by violence in the flower of his age [See Note 6]. Thou mayest see if it be so; but I never shall.

"And what said he?--He said, bowing his head low,--'Sister Joan La Despenser is a great flatterer. Pray, accept my thanks. Henceforward, she may perhaps find the calm glades of Shaftesbury more pleasant than the bowers of Arundel. At least, I venture to beg that she will make the trial.' And he went forth, calling to his hounds.

"Ay, went forth, without another word, and left her lying there at my feet--her, to save whom one pang of pain I would have laid down my life.

And the portcullis was shut upon me. I was powerless to save her from that man: I was to see her again no more. I did see her again no more for ever. I waited till her sense came back, when she said she was not hurt, and fell to excusing him. I felt as though I could have torn him limb from limb. But that would have pained her.

"And then, when she was restored, I went forth from the Castle of Arundel. I had been dismissed by the master; and dearly as I loved her, I was too proud to be dismissed twice. So we took our farewell. Her soft cheek pressed to mine--for the last time; her dear eyes looking into mine--for the last time; her sweet, low voice blessing me--for the last time.

"And what were her last words, saidst thou? I cannot repeat them tearlessly, even now.

"'G.o.d grant thee the Living Water.'

"Those were they. She had spoken to me oft--though I had not much cared to listen, except to her sweet voice--of something whereof this Giles had told her; some kind of fairy tale, regarding this life as a desert, and of some Well of pure, fresh water, deep down therein. I know not what. I cared for all that came from her, but I cared nought for what came only through her from Giles de Edingdon. But she said G.o.d had given her a draught of that Living Water, and she was at rest. I know nothing about it. But I am glad if anything gave her rest from that anguish--even a fairy tale.

"Well, after that I saw her no more again. But now and then, when mine hunger for her could no longer be appeased, I used to come to the Convent of Arundel, and send word to Alina, thy nurse, to come to me thither. And so, from time to time, I had word of her.

"The years pa.s.sed on, and with them he grew harder and harder. He had hated her, first, I think, from the fancy that my father had been after some manner the cause of his father's violent end; and after that he hated her for herself. And as time pa.s.sed, and she had no child, he hated her worse than ever. But at last, after many years, G.o.d gave her one--thyself. I thought, perchance, if anything would soften him, thy smiles and babyish ways might do it. But--soften him! It had been easier to soften a rock of stone. When he knew that it was only a girl that was born, he hated her worse than ever. Three years more; then the last blow fell. Earl Henry of Lancaster bade him to his castle. As they talked, quoth the Earl,--'I would you had not been a wedded man, my Lord of Arundel; I had gladly given you one of my daughters.'--'Pure foy!' quoth he, 'but that need be no hindrance, nor shall long.' Nor was it. He sent to our holy Father the Pope--with some lie, I trow--and received a divorce, and a dispensation to wed Alianora, his cousin, the young widow of the Lord de Beaumont, son of that Sir Henry that captured the King and my father. All the while he told Isabel nothing. The meanest of her scullions knew of the coming woe before she knew it. The night ere Earl Richard should be re-wedded, he thought proper to dismiss his discarded wife.

"'Dame,' said he to her, as he rose from the supper-table, 'I pray you, give good ear for a moment to what my chaplain is about to read.'

"He was always cruelly courteous before men.

"She stayed and listened. Then she grew faint and white--then she grasped the seat to support her--then she lost hold and sense, and fell down as if dead before him. Poor, miserably-crushed heart! She loved this monster so well!

"He waited till she came to herself. Then he gave the last stroke.

"'I depart now,' said he, 'to fetch home my bride. May I beg that the Lady Isabel La Despenser will quit the castle before she comes. It would be very unpleasant to her otherwise.'

"Unpleasant--to Alianora! And to Isabel, what would it be? Little he recked of that. She had received her dismissal. He had said to her, in effect,--'You are my wife, and Lady of Arundel, no more.'

"She lifted herself up a little, and looked into his face. She knew she was looking upon him for the last time. And once more the fervent, unvalued, long-outraged love broke forth,--once more, for the last time.

"'My lord! my lord!' she wailed. 'Leave me not so, Richard! Give me one kiss for farewell!'

"He did not lift her from the ground; he did not kiss her; but he was not quite silent to that last bitter cry. He held forth his hand--the hand which had been uplifted to strike her so often. She clasped it in hers, and kissed it many times. And that was his farewell.

"When he had drawn his hand from her, and was gone forth, she sat a season like a statue, listening. She hearkened till she heard him ride away--on his way to Alianora. Then, as if some prop that had held her up were suddenly withdrawn, she fell forward, and lay with her face to the rushes. All that awful night she lay there. Alina came to her, and strove to lift her, to give her food, to yield her comfort: but she took no heed of anything. When the dawn came, she arose, and wrapped herself in her mantle. She took no money, no jewels--not an ouche nor a grain of gold. Only she wrapped in silk two locks of hair--his and thine. I should have left the first behind. Then, when she was seated on the horse to depart, the page told her who mounted afore, that his Lord had given him command to take her to a certain place, which was not to be told beforehand.

"Alina said she shivered a little at this; but she only answered, 'Do my lord's will.' Then she asked for thee. Alina lifted thee up to her, and she clasped thee close underneath her veil, and kissed thee tenderly. And that was thy last mother's kiss."

"Then that is what I remember!" broke in Philippa suddenly.

"It is impossible, child!" answered Joan. "Thou wert but a babe of three years old."

"But I do--I am sure I do!" she repeated.

"Have thy way," said Joan. "If thou so thinkest, I will not gainsay thee. Well, she gave thee back in a few minutes; and then she rode away--never pausing to look back--no man knew whither."