The White Lady of Hazelwood Part 10

"Marabel! Never heard I none to speak after this manner! Soothly, our Lord died for us: but--"

"But--yet was it not rightly for us, thee and me, but for some folks a long way off, we cannot well say whom?"

Amphillis span and thought--span fast, because she was thinking hard: and Marabel did not interrupt her thoughts.

"But--we must merit it!" she urged again at last.

"Dost thou commonly merit the gifts given thee? When man meriteth that he receiveth--when he doth somewhat, to obtain it--it is a wage, not a gift. The very life and soul of a gift is that it is not merited, but given of free favour, of friendship or love."

"I never heard no such doctrine!"

Marabel only smiled.

"Followeth my Lady this manner?"

"A little in the head, maybe; for the heart will I not speak."

"And my La--I would say, Mistress Perrote?" Amphillis suddenly recollected that her mistress was never to be mentioned.

"Ask at her," said Marabel, with a smile.

"Then Master Norman is of this fashion of thinking?"

"Ay. So be the Hyltons all."

"Whence gat you the same?"

"It was learned me of my Lady Molyneux of Sefton, that I served as chamberer ere I came hither. I marvel somewhat, Amphillis, that thou hast never heard the same, and a Neville. All the Nevilles of Raby be of our learning--well-nigh."

"Dear heart, but I'm no Neville of Raby!" cried Amphillis, with a laugh at the extravagance of the idea. "At the least, I know not well whence my father came; his name was Walter Neville, and his father was Ralph, and more knew I never. He bare arms, 'tis true--gules, a saltire argent; and his device, '_Ne vile velis_.'"

"The self arms of the Nevilles of Raby," said Marabel, with an amused smile. "I marvel, Amphillis, thou art not better learned in thine own family matters."

"Soothly. I never had none to learn me, saving my mother; and though she would tell me oft of my father himself, how good and true man he were, yet she never seemed to list to speak much of his house. Maybe it was by reason he came below his rank in wedding her, and his kin refused to acknowledge her amongst them. Thus, see you, I dropped down, as man should say, into my mother's rank, and never had no chance to learn nought of my father's matters."

"Did thine uncle learn thee nought, then?"

"He learned me how to make patties of divers fashions," answered Amphillis, laughing. "He was very good to me, and belike to my mother, his sister; but I went not to dwell with him until after she was departed to G.o.d. And then I was so slender [insignificant] a country maid, with no fortune, ne parts [talents], that my cousins did somewhat slight me, and keep me out of sight. So never met I any that should be like to wise me in this matter. And, the sooth to say, but I would not desire to dwell amongst kin that had set my mother aside, and reckoned her not fit to company with them, not for no wickedness nor unseemly dealing, but only that she came of a trading stock. It seemeth me, had such wist our blessed Lord Himself, they should have bidden Him stand aside, for He was but a carpenter's son. That's the evil of being in high place, trow."

"Ah, no, dear heart! It hath none ado with place, high or low. 'Tis human nature. Thou shalt find a d.u.c.h.ess more ready to company with a squire's wife, oft-times, than the squire's wife with the bailiff's wife, and there is a deal further distance betwixt. It hangeth on the heart, not on the station."

"But folks' hearts should be the better according to their station."

Marabel laughed. "That were new world, verily. The grace of G.o.d is the same in every station, and the like be the wiles of Satan--not that he bringeth to all the same temptation, for he hath more wit than so; but he tempteth all, high and low. The high have the fairer look-out, yet the more perilous place; the low have the less to content them, yet are they safer. Things be more evenly parted in this world than many think.

Many times he that hath rich food, hath little appet.i.te for it; and he that hath his appet.i.te sharp, can scarce get food to satisfy it."

"But then things fit not," said Amphillis.

"Soothly, nay. This world is thrown all out of gear by sin. Things fitted in Eden, be thou sure. Another reason is there also--that he which hath the food may bestow it on him that can relish it, and hath it not."

The chapel bell tolled softly for the last service of the day, and the whole household a.s.sembled. Every day this was done at Hazelwood, for prime, s.e.xt, and compline, at six a.m., noon, and seven p.m.

respectively, and any member of the household found missing would have been required to render an exceedingly good reason for it. The services were very short, and a sermon was a scarcely imagined performance.

After compline came bed-time. Each girl took her lamp, louted to Lady Foljambe and kissed her hand, and they then filed upstairs to bed after Perrote, she and Amphillis going to their own turret.

Hitherto Perrote had been an extremely silent person. Not one word unnecessary to the work in hand had she ever uttered, since those few on Amphillis's first arrival. It was therefore with some little surprise that the girl heard her voice, as she stood that evening brushing her hair before the mirror.

"Amphillis, who chose you to come hither?"

"Truly, Mistress, that wis I not. Only, first of all, Mistress Chaucer, of the Savoy Palace, looked me o'er to see if I should be meet for taking into account, and then came a lady thence, and asked at me divers questions, and judged that I should serve; but who she was I knew not.

She bade me be well ware that I gat me in no entanglements of no sort,"

said Amphillis, laughing a little; "but in good sooth, I see here nothing to entangle me in."

"She gave thee good counsel therein. There be tangles of divers sorts, my maid, and those which cut the tightest be not alway the worst. Thou mayest tangle thy feet of soft wool, or rich silk, no less than of rough cord. Ah me! there be tangles here, Amphillis, and hard to undo. There were skilwise fingers to their tying--hard fingers, that thought only to pull them tight, and harried them little touching the trouble of such as should be thus tethered. And there be knots that no man can undo--only G.o.d. Why tarry the wheels of His chariot?"

Amphillis turned round from the mirror.

"Mistress Perrote, may I ask a thing at you?"

"Ask, my maid."

"My Lady answered me not; will you? What hath our Lady done to be thus shut close in prison?"

"_She_ done?" was the answer, with a piteous intonation. Perrote looked earnestly into the girl's face. "Amphillis, canst thou keep a secret?"

"If I know myself, I can well."

"Wilt thou so do, for the love of G.o.d and thy Lady? It should harm her, if men knew thou wist it. And, G.o.d wot, she hath harm enough."

"I will never speak word, Mistress Perrote, to any other than you, without you bid me, or grant me leave."

"So shall thou do well. Guess, Amphillis, who is it that keepeth this poor lady in such durance."

"Nay, that I cannot, without it be our Lord the King."

"He, surely; yet is he but the gaoler. There is another beyond him, at whose earnest entreaty, and for whose pleasure he so doth. Who is it, thinkest?"

"It seemeth me, Mistress, looking to what you say, this poor lady must needs have some enemy," said Amphillis.

"Amphillis, that worst enemy, the enemy that bindeth these fetters upon her, that bars these gates against her going forth, that hath quenched all the sunlight of her life, and hushed all the music out of it--this enemy is her own son, that she nursed at her bosom--the boy for whose life she risked hers an hundred times, whose patrimony she only saved to him, whose welfare through thirty years hath been dearer to her than her own. Dost thou marvel if her words be bitter, and if her eyes be sorrowful? Could they be aught else?"

Amphillis looked as horrified as she felt.

"Mistress Perrote, it is dreadful! Can my said Lord Duke be Christian man?"

"Christian!" echoed Perrote, bitterly. "Dear heart, ay! one of the best Catholics alive! Hath he not built churches with the moneys of his mother's dower, and endowed convents with the wealth whereof he defrauded her? What could man do better? A church is a great matter, and a mother a full little one. Mothers die, but churches and convents endure. Ah, when such mothers die and go to G.o.d, be there no words writ on the account their sons shall thereafter render? Is He all silent that denounced the Jewish priests for their Corban, by reason they allowed man to deny to his father and mother that which he had devote to G.o.d's temple? Is His temple built well of broken hearts, and His altar meetly covered with the rich tracery of women's tears? 'The hope of the hypocrite shall perish, when G.o.d taketh away his soul.'"

Never before had Amphillis seen any one change as Perrote had changed now. The quiet, stolid-looking woman had become an inspired prophetess.

It was manifest that she dearly loved her mistress, and was proportionately indignant with the son who treated her so cruelly.