The Well in the Desert Part 9

"Ay. She alway giveth me leave to visit the Grey Lady."

The appointment was made, and Philippa turned back to the convent.

"I was searching you, Lady de Sergeaux," said the portress, when Philippa re-entered the gate. "During your absence, there came to the priory close by a messenger from Arundel on his road toward Hereford; and hearing that the Lady de Sergeaux was with us, he sent word through a lay-brother that he would gladly have speech of you."

"A messenger from Arundel! What can he want with me?"

Philippa felt that all messengers from Arundel would be very unwelcome to her. She added, rather ungraciously, that "perhaps she had better see him." She pa.s.sed into the guest-chamber, whither in a few minutes the messenger came to her. He was a page, habited in deep mourning; and Philippa recognised him at once as the personal "varlet" attendant on the Countess. The thought rose to her mind that the Earl might have fallen in Gascony.

"G.o.d keep thee, good Hubert!" she said. "Be thy tidings evil?"

"As evil as they might be, Lady," answered the page sadly. "Two days before the feast of Saint Hilary, our Lady the Countess Alianora was commanded to G.o.d."

A tumult of conflicting feelings went surging through Philippa's heart and brain.

"Was thy Lord at home?"

She inwardly hoped that he was not. It was only fitting, said the vindictive hatred which had usurped the place of her conscience, that Alianora of Lancaster should feel something of that to which she had helped to doom Isabel La Despenser.

"Lady, no. Our Lord abideth in Gascony, with the Duke of Lancaster."

Philippa was not sorry to hear it; for her heart was full of "envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness."

When the shadow began to lengthen on the following day, Philippa wrapped her mantle around her, and called to her damsel to follow. Her varlet followed also, at a little distance behind. She found Elaine and a younger child waiting for her outside the gate. Elaine introduced her companion as her sister Annora. Annora proved much less shy than Elaine, and far more ready with her communications. But she was not asked many questions; for as they turned away from the convent gate, they were met by a monk in the Dominican habit, and Philippa knew directly the face of Guy of Ashridge.

"Christ save you, Father," said she.

"And you, daughter," he answered. "Are you yet seeking comfort, or have you found it?"

"I am further from it than ever," she replied, rather petulantly.

"No wonder," said Guy. "For comfort hath another name, which is-- Christ. Who is a stranger to the One shall needs be a stranger to the other."

"I have tried hard to make my salvation," responded Philippa more sadly; "but as yet I cannot do it."

"Nor will you, though you could try a thousand years," answered Guy.

"That is a manufacture beyond saints and angels, and how then shall you do it?"

"Who then can do it?"

"G.o.d," said Guy, solemnly.

"G.o.d hates me," replied Philippa, under her breath. "He hateth all mine house. For nigh fifty years, He hath sent us sorrow upon sorrow, and hath crushed us down into the dust of death."

"Poor blindling! is that a proof that He hateth you?" answered Guy more gently. "Well, it is true at times, when the father sendeth a varlet in haste to save the child from falling over a precipice, the child--whose heart is set on some fair flower on the rock below--doth think it cruel.

You are that child; and your trouble is the varlet G.o.d hath sent after you."

"He hath sent His whole meynie, then," said Philippa bitterly.

"Then the child will not come to the Father?" said Guy, softly.

Philippa was silent.

"Is the flower so fair, that you will risk life for it?" pursued the monk. "Nay, not risk--that is a word implying doubt, and here is none.

So fair, then, that you will throw life away for it? And is the Father not fair and precious in your eyes, that you are in so little haste to come to Him? Daughter, what shall it profit you, if you gain the whole world--and lose your own soul?"

"Father, you are too hard upon me!" cried Philippa in a pained tone, and resisting with some difficulty a strong inclination to shed tears. "I would come to G.o.d, but I know not how, nor do you tell me. G.o.d is afar off, and hath no leisure nor will to think on me; nor can I presume to approach Him without the holy saints to intercede for me. I have sought their intercession hundreds of times. It is not I that am unwilling to be saved; and you speak to me as if you thought it so. It is G.o.d that will not save me. I have done all I can."

"O fool, and slow of heart to believe!" earnestly answered Guy. "Can it be G.o.d, when He cared so much for you that He sent His blessed Son down from Heaven to die for your salvation? Beware how you accuse the Lord.

I tell you again, it is not His will that opposeth itself to your happiness, but your own. You have built up a wall of your own excellencies that you cannot see G.o.d; and then you cry, 'He hath hidden Himself from me.' Pull down your miserable mud walls, and let the light of Heaven shine in upon you. Christ will save you with no half nor quarter salvation. He will not let you lay the foundation whereon He shall build. He will not tear His fair shining robe of righteousness to patch your worthless rags. With Him, either not at all, or all in all."

"But what would you have me do?" said Philippa, in a vexed tone.

"Believe," replied Guy.

"Believe what?" said she.

"'Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.'"

"The easiest thing in the world," answered Philippa, a little contemptuously.

"Is it so?" responded the monk, with a pitying smile. "It seems to me that you have found it since last June the hardest thing in the world.

Whither go you now?" he asked, suddenly changing his tone.

"I go," she rejoined, "with this child, to the cell of an eremitess of whom she hath told me, 'that hath,' quoth she, 'great power of comforting the sorrowful.' All about here seem to know her. They call her the Grey Lady."

Guy looked on her long and earnestly, an expression creeping over his face which Philippa could not understand.

"Be it so," he said at last. "'I will lead the blind by a way that they know not.' Let my voice be silent when He speaketh. Verily"--and his voice fell to a softer tone--"I never pa.s.sed through the deep waters wherein she has waded; nor, perchance, where you have. Let G.o.d speak to you through her. Go your way."

"But who is she--this Grey Lady?"

Philippa asked in vain. Guy either did not hear her, or would not answer. He walked rapidly down the hill, with only "Farewell!" as he pa.s.sed her; and she went her way, to meet her fate--rather, to meet G.o.d's providence--in the cell of the Grey Lady.

Note 1. Anchorites never left their cells, though they received visitors within them, and sometimes taught children; hermits wandered about freely.

Note 2. Saint Agnes' Day is January 21; but the 28th, instead of the octave of Saint Agnes, was commonly called Saint Agnes the second.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

IN THE CELL OF THE GREY LADY.

"Blood must be my body's balmer,-- While my soule, like peaceful palmer, Travelleth toward the Land of Heaven, Other balm will not be given."