The White Rose of Langley Part 10

Maude looked, and saw a young girlish figure, splendidly attired,--a rich red and white complexion, beautiful blue eyes, and a sunny halo of shining fair hair. But she saw as well, a cold, hard curve of the delicate lips, a proud cynical expression in the handsome eyes, a bold, forward manner. Yes, Maude admitted, the Lady de Narbonne was beautiful; yet she did not care to look at her. Bertram was disappointed. And so was Maude, for all hope of finding Hawise had disappeared.

When supper was over, the tables were lifted. The festive board was at this time literally a board or boards, which were simply set upon trestles to form a table. At the close of a meal, the tables were reduced to their primitive elements, and boards and trestles were either carried away, or heaped in one corner of the hall. The dining-room was thus virtually trans.m.u.ted into the drawing-room, ceremony and precedence being discarded for the rest of the evening--state occasions of course excepted, and the royal persons present not being addressed unless they chose to commence a conversation.

Maude kept pretty strictly to her corner all that evening. She was generally shy of strangers, and none of these were sufficiently attractive to make her break through her usual habits. Least attractive of all, to her, was the lovely Lady de Narbonne. Her light, airy ways, which seemed to enchant the Earl's knights and squires, simply disgusted Maude. She was the perpetual centre of a group of frivolous idlers, who dangled round her in the hope of leading her to a seat, or picking up a dropped glove. She laughed and chatted freely with them all, distributing her smiles and frowns with entire impartiality--except in one instance. One member of the Earl's household never came within her circle, and he was the only one whom she seemed at all desirous to attract. This was Hugh Calverley. He held aloof from the bright lamp around which all the other moths were fluttering, and Maude fancied that he admired the queen of the evening as little as she did herself.

All at once, by no means to Maude's gratification, the lady chose to rise and walk across the room to her corner.

"And what name hast thou, little maid?" she asked, with a light swing of her golden pomander--the vinaigrette of the Middle Ages.

Maude had become very tired of being asked her name, the more so since it was the manner in which strangers usually opened negotiations with her. She found it the less agreeable because she was conscious of no right to any surname, her mother's being the only one she knew. So she answered "Maude" rather shortly.

"Maude--only Maude?"

"Only Maude. Madam, might it like your Ladyship to tell me if you wit of one Hawise Gerard anything?"

If the Lady de Narbonne would talk to her, Maude resolved to utilise the occasion; though she felt there could be little indeed in common between her gentle, modest cousin, and this far from retiring young widow. That they could not have been intimate friends Maude was sure; but acquaintances they might be--and must be, unless the Lady de Narbonne had been too short a time at Pleshy to know Hawise. As Maude in speaking lifted her eyes to the lady's face, she saw the smiling lips grow suddenly grave, and the cold bright light die out of the beaming eyes.

"Child," said the Lady de Narbonne seriously, "Hawise Gerard is dead."

"Woe is me! I feared so much," answered Maude sorrowfully. "And might it please you, Madam, to arede [tell] me fully when she died, and how, and where?"

"She died to thee, little maid, when she went to the Castle of Pleshy,"

was the unsatisfactory answer.

"May I wit no more, Madam? Your Ladyship knew her, trow?"

"Once," said the lady, with a slight quiver of her lower lip,--"long, long ago!" And she suddenly turned her head, which had been for a moment averted from Maude, round towards her. "'When, and how, and where?'" she repeated. "Little maid, some dying is slower than men may tell the hour, and there be graves that are not dug in earth. Thy cousin Hawise is dead and gone. Forget her."

"That can I never!" replied Maude tenderly, as the memory of her dead came fresh and warm upon her.

The Lady de Narbonne rose abruptly, and walked away, without another word, to the further end of the room. Half an hour later, Maude saw her in the midst of a gay group, laughing and jesting in the cheeriest manner. Of what sort of stuff could the woman be made?

The Countess of Buckingham did not leave Langley until after dinner the next day--that is to say, about eleven a.m. A little before dinner, as Maude, not being wanted at the moment, stood alone at the window of the hall, leaning her arms on the wide window-ledge, a voice asked behind her,--"Art yet thinking of Hawise Gerard?"

"I was so but this moment, Madam," replied Maude, turning round to meet the eyes of the Lady de Narbonne, now quiet and grave enough. "'Tis little marvel, for I loved her dear."

"And love lasteth with thee--how long time?"

"Till death, a.s.suredly," said Maude. "What may lie beyond death I wis nothing."

"Till what manner of death? The resurrection, men say, shall give back the dead. But what shall give back a dead heart or a lost soul? Can thy love pa.s.s such death as this, Maude Gerard?"

"Madam, I said never unto your Ladyship that Hawise Gerard was kinswoman of mine. How wit you the same?"

A faint, soft smile, very unlike her usual one, so bright and cold, flickered for a moment on the lips of the Lady de Narbonne.

"Not too far gone for that, Cousin Maude," she said.

"'Cousin'--Madam! You are--"

"I am Avice de Narbonne, waiting-dame unto my Lady of Buckingham's Grace. I was Hawise Gerard, David Gerard's daughter."

"Hawise! Thou toldest me she was dead!" cried Maude confusedly.

"That Hawise Gerard whom thou knewest is dead and gone, long ago. Thou wilt never see her again. Thy mother Eleanor is not more dead than she; but the one may return to thee on the resurrection morrow, and the other never can. Tell me now whether I could arede thee, as thou wouldst have had it, how, or where, or when, thy cousin Hawise died?"

"Our dear Lady be thine aid, Hawise! What has changed thee so sore?"

asked Maude, the tears running down her cheeks.

"Call me Avice, Maude. Hawise is old-fashioned," said the lady coolly.

Maude seized her cousin's hands, and looking into her eyes, spoke as girls of her age rarely speak, though they think frequently.

"Come back to me, Hawise Gerard!--from the dead, if thou wilt have it so. Cousin Hawise--fair, gent, shamefaced, loving, holy!--come back to me, and speak with the olden voice, and give me to wit what terrible thing hath been, to take away thyself, and leave but this instead of thee!"

Maude's own earnestness was so intense, that she felt as if her pa.s.sionate words must have moved a granite mountain; but they fell cold and powerless upon Avice de Narbonne.

"Look out into the dark this night, Maude, and call thy mother, and see whether she will answer. The dead _cannot_ come back. I have no more power to call back to thee the maiden I was of old, than thou. Rest, maid; and do what thou wilt and canst with that which is."

"What can I?" said Maude bitterly. "At least thou canst tell me what hath wrought this fearful change in thee."

"Can I?" replied Avice, seating herself on the window-seat, and motioning her cousin to do the same. "And what shall I say it were-- call it light or darkness, love or hate? For six months after I left home I was right woesome. (It is all gone, Maude--the old cottage, and the forge, and the elms--they razed them all!) And then there came into my life a fair false face, and a voice that spake well, and an heart that was black as night. And I trusted him, for I loved him. Loved him--ay, better than all the saints in Heaven! I could have died to save a pang of pain to him, and smiled in doing it. But he was false, false, false! And on the day that I knew it--O that horrible day!--my love turned to black hate within me. I knelt and prayed that my wrong should be avenged--that some sorrow should befal him. But I never meant that. Holy Mary, Lady of Sorrows, thou knewest I never meant that! And that very night I knelt and prayed, he died on the field of battle far away. I knew not he was in danger till four days after. When I so did, I prayed as fervently for his safety. The old love came back upon me, and I could have rent the heavens if my weak hands had reached them, to undo that fearful prayer. But she heard me not--she, the Lady of Pity!

She had heard me once too well. And fifteen days later, I knew that I was a widow--that he had died that night, with none to pillow his head or wipe the death-dews from his brow--died una.s.soiled, unatoned with either G.o.d or me! And I had done it. Child, my heart was closed up that day as with a wall of stone. It will never open again. It is not my love that is dead--it is my heart."

"But, Hawise, hadst no ma.s.ses sung for his soul?" asked Maude in loving pity.

"Too late," she said, dropping her face upon her hands. "Too late!"

"Too late for what?" softly inquired a third voice--so gently and compa.s.sionately that no annoyance could be felt.

Avice was silent, and Maude answered for her.

"For the winning of a soul from Purgatory that hath pa.s.sed thither without housel ne chrism."

"Too late for the mercy of G.o.d?" replied Hugh Calverley gently. "For the housel and the chrism, they be mercies of man. But the mercies of G.o.d are infinite and unchangeable unto all such as grip hold on Jesu Christ."

"Unto them that die in mortal sin?" said Avice, not lifting her head.

"All sin is mortal," said Hugh in the same quiet manner; "but for His people, He hath made an end of sin, and hath 'distreiede [destroyed]

deeth, and lightnide [brought to light] lyf.'"

"That is, for the saints?" said Maude sadly.

"Mistress, an' it had not been for the sinners, you and I must needs have fared ill. Who be saints saving they that were once sinners?"

"Soothly, Master Calverley, these be matters too high for me. I am no saint, G.o.d wot."

"Doth G.o.d wot that, Mistress Maude? Then of a surety I am sorry for you."