The White Lady of Hazelwood Part 29

"Lady, the Lord hath heard your moaning, and hath seen your tears," said Perrote, kneeling by the bed. "He hath given you back--"

"My son?"

The cry was a pitiful one. Then, as ever, the boy was the dearest to his mother's heart.

"Very dear Lady, no. Your daughter."

It was painful to see how the sudden gleam died out of the weary eyes.

"Ah, well!" she said, after an instant's pause. "Well! I asked but for one, and when man doth that, he commonly gets the lesser of the twain.

Well! I shall be glad to see my Jeanne. Let her come in."

Lady Ba.s.set came forward and bent over the dying woman.

"Dame!" she said.

"Come, now!" was the answer. "There be folks enough call me Dame. Only two in all this world can call me Mother."

"Mother!" was the response, in a tremulous voice. And then the icy stateliness broke up, and pa.s.sionate sobs broke in, mingled with the sounds of "O Mother! Mother!"

"That's good, little la.s.s," said the Countess. "It's good to hear that, but once, _ma fillette_. But wherefore tarrieth thy brother away? It must be King Edward that will not suffer him to come."

It was piteous to hear her cling thus to the old illusion. All the time of her imprisonment, though now and then in a fit of anger she could hurl bitter names at her son, yet, when calm, she had usually maintained that he was kept away from her, and refused to be convinced that his absence was of his own free will. The longer the illusion lasted, the more stubbornly she upheld it.

"'Tis not always the best-loved that loveth back the best," said Perrote, gently, "without man's best love be, as it should be, fixed on G.o.d. And 'tis common for fathers and mothers to love better than they be loved; the which is more than all other true of the Father in Heaven."

"Thou mayest keep thy sermons, old woman, till ma.s.s is sung," said the Countess, in her cynical style. "Ah me! My Jean would come to the old, white-haired mother that risked her life for his--he would come if he could. He must know how my soul hungereth for the sight of his face. I want nothing else. Heaven would be Purgatory to me without him."

"Ah, my dear Lady!" tenderly replied Perrote. "If only I might hear you say that of the Lord that laid down His life for you!"

"I am not a nun," was the answer; "and I shall not say that which I feel not."

"G.o.d forbid you should, Lady! But I pray Him to grant you so to feel."

"I tell thee, I am not a nun," said the Countess, rather pettishly.

Her idea was that real holiness was impossible out of the cloister, and that to love G.o.d was an entirely different type of feeling from the affection she had for her human friends. This was the usual sentiment in the Middle Ages. But Perrote had been taught of G.o.d, and while her educational prejudices acted like coloured or smoked gla.s.s, and dimmed the purity of the heavenly light, they were unable to hide it altogether.

"Very dear Lady," she said, "G.o.d loveth sinners; and He must then love other than nuns. Shall they not love Him back, though they be not in cloister?"

"Thou hadst better win in cloister thyself, when thou art rid of me,"

was the answer, in a tone which was a mixture of languor and sarcasm.

"Thou art scarce fit to tarry without, old woman."

"I will do that which G.o.d shall show me," said Perrote, calmly. "Dame, were it not well your Grace should essay to sleep?"

"Nay, not so. I have my Jeanne to look at, that I have not seen for five-and-twenty years. I shall sleep fast enough anon. Daughter, art thou a happy woman, or no?"

Lady Ba.s.set answered by a shake of the head. "Why, what aileth thee?

Is it thy baron, or thy childre?"

"I have no child, Mother."

The Countess heard the regretful yearning of the tone.

"Thank the saints," she said. "Thou wert better. Soothly, to increase objects for love is to increase sorrow. If thou have no childre, they'll never be torn from thee, nor they will never break thine heart by ill behaving. And most folks behave ill in this world. _Ha, chetife_! 'tis a weary, dreary place, this world, as ever a poor woman was in. Hast thou a good man to thy baron, child?"

"He might be worser," said Lady Ba.s.set, icily.

"That's true of an handful of folks," said the Countess. "And I reckon he might be better, eh? That's true of most. Good lack, I marvel wherefore we all were made. Was it by reason G.o.d loved or hated us?

Say, my Predicant Friaress."

"Very dear Lady, the wise man saith, 'G.o.d made a man rightful, and he meddled himself with questions without, number.' [Ecclesiastes eight, verse 29.] And Saint Paul saith that 'G.o.d commendeth His charity in us, for when we were sinners, Christ was dead for us.' [Romans five, verse 8.] Moreover, Saint John--"

"Hold! There be two Scriptures. Where is the sermon?"

"The Scriptures, Lady, preach a better sermon than I can."

"That's but a short one. Man's ill, and G.o.d is good; behold all thine homily. That man is ill, I lack no preaching friar to tell me. As to G.o.d being good, the Church saith so, and there I rest. Mary, Mother! if He were good, He would bring my Jean back to me."

"Very dear Lady, G.o.d is wiser than men, and He seeth the end from the beginning."

"Have done, Perrotine! I tell thee, if G.o.d be good, He will bring my Jean to me. There I abide. I'll say it, if He do. I would love any man that wrought that: and if He will work it, I will love Him--and not otherwise. Hold! I desire no more talk."

The Countess turned her face to the wall, and Perrote retired, with tears in her eyes.

"Lord, Thou art wise!" she said in her heart; "wiser than I, than she, than all men. But never yet have I known her to depart from such a word as that. Oh, if it be possible,--if it be possible!--Thou who camest down from Heaven to earth, come down once more to the weak and stubborn soul of this dying woman, and grant her that which she requests, if so she may be won to love thee! Father, the time is very short, and her soul is very dark. O fair Father, Jesu Christ, lose not this soul for which Thou hast died!"

Perrote's next move was to await Lady Ba.s.set's departure from her mother's chamber, and to ask her to bestow a few minutes' private talk on her old nurse. The Princess complied readily, and came into the opposite chamber where Amphillis sat sewing.

"Damoiselle Jeanne," said Perrote, using the royal t.i.tle of Lady Ba.s.set's unmarried days; "may I pray you tell me if you have of late seen the Lord Duke your brother?"

"Ay, within a year," said Lady Ba.s.set, listlessly.

"Would it please you to say if King Edward letteth his coming?"

"I think not so."

"Would he come, if he were asked yet again, and knew that a few weeks-- maybe days--would end his mother's life?"

"I doubt it, Perrotine."

"Wherefore? He can love well where he list."

"Ay, where he list. But I mis...o...b.. if ever he loved her--at the least, sithence she let him from wedding the Damoiselle de Ponteallen."

"Then he loved the Damoiselle very dearly?"

"For a month--ay."