The White Lady of Hazelwood Part 27

"_Ha, chetife_!" said Father Jordan. "The saints forgive me my sins!

Never a bit of wax had I lacked for many a month, and I gave the last to Richard, butler."

"Hath he used it all?" asked Matthew.

"Be sure he so did. He should have some left only if none needed it,"

responded his brother.

A search was inst.i.tuted. The butler regretfully admitted that all the wax supplied, to him was fastening down corks upon bottles of Alicant and Osey. Sir G.o.dfrey had none; he had sent for some, but had not yet received it. Everybody was rather ashamed; for wax was a very necessary article in a mediaeval household, and to run short of it was a small disgrace. In this emergency Matthew, usually the person of resources, came to the rescue.

"Hie thee to the cellar, d.i.c.k, and bring me up a two-three bottles of thy meanest wine," said he. "We'll melt it off the corks."

By this ingenious means, sufficient wax was procured to take the impress of the Archbishop's official seal, without which the letter would bear no authentication, and the recipient could not be blamed if she refused obedience. It was then addressed--"To the hands of our very dear Lady, the Lady Joan Ba.s.set, at Drayton Manor, in the county of Stafford, be these delivered with speed. Haste, haste, for thy life, haste!"

All n.o.bles and dignitaries of the Church in 1374 used the "we" now exclusively regal.

Having finished his preparations, the Archbishop despatched young G.o.dfrey to ask his father for a private interview. Sir G.o.dfrey at once returned to the hall, and ceremoniously handed the Archbishop into his own room.

All large houses, in those days, contained a hall, which was the general meeting-place of the inhabitants, and where the family, servants, and guests, all took their meals together. This usually ran two storeys high; and into it opened from the lower storey the offices and guard-chambers, and from the upper, into a gallery running round it, the private apartments of the family, a spiral stair frequently winding down in the corner. The rooms next the hall were private sitting-rooms, leading to the bedchambers beyond; and where still greater secrecy was desired, pa.s.sages led out towards separate towers. Every bedroom had its adjoining sitting-room. Of course in small houses such elaborate arrangements as these were not found, and there were no sitting-rooms except the hall itself; while labourers were content with a two-roomed house, the lower half serving as parlour and kitchen, the upper as the family bedchamber.

Young G.o.dfrey carried a chair to his father's room. An Archbishop could not sit on a form, and there were only three chairs in the house, two of which were appropriated to the Countess. The prelate took his seat, and laid down his letter on a high stool before Sir G.o.dfrey.

"Fair Sir, may I entreat you of your courtesy, to send this letter with all good speed to my Lady Ba.s.set of Drayton, unto Staffordshire?"

"Is it needful, holy Father?"

"It is in sooth needful," replied the Archbishop, in rather peremptory tones, for he plainly saw that Sir G.o.dfrey would not do this part of his duty until he could no longer help it.

"It shall put her Ladyship to great charges," objected the knight.

"The which, if she defray unwillingly, then is she no Christian woman."

"And be a journey mighty displeasant, at this winter season."

"My answer thereto is as to the last."

"And it shall blurt out the King's privy matters."

"In no wise. I have not writ thereof a word in this letter, but have only prayed her Ladyship to give heed unto that which the bearer thereof shall make known to her privily."

"Then who is to bear the same?"

"I refer me thereon, fair Sir, to your good judgment. Might one of your own sons be trusted herewith?"

Sir G.o.dfrey looked dubious. "G.o.dfrey should turn aside to see an horse, or to tilt at any jousting that lay in his path; and Matthew, I cast no doubt, should lose your Grace's letter in a snowdrift."

"Then have you brought them up but ill," said the Archbishop. "But what hindereth that you go withal yourself?"

"I, holy Father! I am an old man, and infirm, an' it like your Grace."

"Ay, you were full infirm when the tilting was at Leicester," replied the Archbishop, ironically. "My son, I enjoin thee, as thine Archbishop, that thou send this letter. Go, or send a trusty messenger, as it liketh thee best; and if thou have no such, then shall my secretary, Father Denny, carry the same, for he is full meet therefor; but go it must."

Poor Sir G.o.dfrey was thus brought to the end of all his subterfuges. He could only say ruefully that his eldest son should bear the letter. The Archbishop thereupon took care to inform that young gentleman that if his missive should be either lost or delayed, its bearer would have to reckon with the Church, and might not find the account quite convenient to pay.

G.o.dfrey was ready enough to go. Life at Hazelwood was not so exciting that a journey, on whatever errand, would not come as a very welcome interlude. He set forth that evening, and as the journey was barely forty miles, he could not in reason take longer over it than three days at the utmost. Sir G.o.dfrey, however, as well as the Archbishop, had confided his private views to his son. He charged him to see Lord Ba.s.set first, and to indoctrinate him with the idea that it was most desirable Lady Ba.s.set should not receive the prelate's message. Could he find means to prevent it?

Lord Ba.s.set was a man of a type not uncommon in any time, and particularly rife at the present day. He lived to amuse himself. Of such things as work and duty he simply had no idea. In his eyes work was for the labouring cla.s.s, and duty concerned the clergy; neither of them applied at all to him. He was, therefore, of about as much value to the world as one of the roses in his garden; and if he would be more missed, it was because his temper did not at all times emulate the sweetness of that flower, and its absence would be felt as a relief.

This very useful and worthy gentleman was languidly fitting on the jesses of a hawk, when young G.o.dfrey was introduced into the hall. Lady Ba.s.set was not present, and G.o.dfrey seized the opportunity to initiate her husband into the part he was to play. He found to his annoyance that Lord Ba.s.set hesitated to perform the task a.s.signed to him. Had the letter come from an insignificant layman, he would have posted it into the fire without more ado; but Lord Ba.s.set, who was aware of sundry habits of his own that he was not able to flatter himself were the fashion in Heaven, could not afford to quarrel with the Church, which, in his belief, held the keys of that eligible locality.

"Nay, verily!" said he. "I cannot thwart the delivering of his Grace's letter."

"Then will my Lady go to Hazelwood, and the whole matter shall be blazed abroad. It is sure to creep forth at some corner."

"As like as not. Well, I would not so much care--should it serve you if I gave her strict forbiddance for to go?"

"Would she obey?"

Lord Ba.s.set laughed. "That's as may be. She's commonly an easy mare to drive, but there be times when she takes the bit betwixt her teeth, and bolts down the contrary road. You can only try her."

"Then under your leave, may I deliver the letter to her?"

"Here, De Sucherche!" said Lord Ba.s.set, raising his voice. "Bid Emeriarde lead this gentleman to thy Lady; he hath a privy word to deliver unto her."

Emeriarde made her appearance in the guise of a highly respectable, middle-aged upper servant, and led G.o.dfrey up the staircase from the hall to Lady Ba.s.set's ante-chamber, where, leaving him for a moment, while she announced a visitor to her mistress, she returned and conducted him into the presence of the Princess of Bretagne.

He saw a woman of thirty-six years of age, tall and somewhat stately, only moderately good-looking, and with an expression of intense weariness and listlessness in her dark eyes. The face was a true index to the feelings, for few lonelier women have ever shut their sorrows in their hearts than the Princess Jeanne of Bretagne. She had no child; and her husband followed the usual rule of people who spend life in amusing themselves, and who are apt to be far from amusing to their own families. His interest, his attractions, and his powers of entertainment were kept for the world outside. When his wife saw him, he was generally either vexed, and consequently irritable, or tired and somewhat sulky. All the sufferings of reaction which fell to him were visited on her. She was naturally a woman of strong but silent character; a woman who locked her feelings, her sufferings, and her thoughts in her own breast, and having found no sympathy where she ought to have found it, refrained from seeking it elsewhere.

Lord Ba.s.set would have been astonished had he been accused of ill-using his wife. He never lifted his hand against her, nor even found fault with her before company. He simply let her feel as if her life were not worth living, and there was not a soul on earth who cared to make it so.

If, only now and then, he would have given her half an hour of that brilliance with which he entertained his guests! if he would occasionally have shown her that he cared whether she was tired, that it made any difference to his happiness whether she was happy! She was a woman with intense capacity for loving, but there was no fuel for the fire, and it was dying out for sheer want of material. Women of lighter character might have directed their affections elsewhere; women of more versatile temperament might have found other interests for themselves; she did neither. Though strong, her intellect was neither quick nor of great range; it was deep rather than wide in its extent. It must be remembered, also, that a mult.i.tude of interests which are open to a woman in the present day, were quite unknown to her. The whole world of literature and science was an unknown thing; and art was only accessible in the two forms of fancy work and illumination, for neither of which had she capacity or taste. She could sew, cook, and act as a doctor when required, which was not often; and there the list of her accomplishments ended. There was more in her, but n.o.body cared to draw it out, and herself least of all.

Lady Ba.s.set bowed gravely in reply to G.o.dfrey's courtesy, broke the seal of the letter, and gazed upon the cabalistic characters therein written.

Had they been Chinese, she would have learned as much from them as she did. She handed back the letter with a request that he would read it to her, if he possessed the art of reading; if not, she would send for Father Collard.

For a moment, but no more, the temptation visited G.o.dfrey to read the letter as something which it was not. He dismissed it, not from any conscientious motive, but simply from the doubt whether he could keep up the delusion.

"Good!" said Lady Ba.s.set, when the letter had been read to her; "and now what is that you are to tell me?"

"Dame, suffer me first to say that it is of the gravest moment that there be no eavesdroppers about, and that your Ladyship be pleased to keep strait silence thereupon. Otherwise, I dare not utter that wherewith his Grace's letter hath ado."

"There be no ears at hand save my bower-woman's, and I will answer for her as for myself. I can keep silence when need is. Speak on."

"Then, Lady, I give you to know that the d.u.c.h.ess' Grace, your mother, is now in ward under keeping of my father, at Hazelwood Manor, and--"

Lady Ba.s.set had risen to her feet, with a strange glow in her eyes.

"My mother!" she said.

"Your Lady and mother, Dame; and she--"

"My mother!" she said, again. "My mother! I thought my mother was dead and buried, years and years ago!"