The White Rose of Langley Part 11

Maude was silent, though she thought it strange doctrine. But Avice said in a low voice, recurring to her former subject,--"You believe, Master Calverley, that G.o.d can raise the dead; but think you that He can quicken again to life an heart that is dead, and cold, and hard as yonder stone? Is there any again rising for such?"

"Madam, if no, there had been never none for neither you nor me. We be all dead souls by nature."

"Ay, afore baptism, so wit I; but what of mortal sin done after baptism?"

"I speak but as I am learned, Madam," said Hugh modestly. "I am younger even than you, methinks, and far more witless. But I have heard them say that have been deep skilled, as methinks, in the ministeries [mysteries] of G.o.d, that wherein it is said that 'He mai save withouten ende,' it scarce signifieth only afore baptism."

"Ah!" said Maude, with a sigh, "to do away sin done after baptism is a mighty hard and grievous matter. Good sooth, at my first communion, this last summer, so abashed [nervous] was I, and in so painful bire [confused haste], that I let drop the holy wafer upon the ground; and for all I gat it again unbroke, and licked well with my tongue the stide [spot] where it had fallen, Father Dominic [a fict.i.tious person] said I had done dreadful sin, and he caused me to crawl upon my knees all around the church, and to say an hundred Ave Marys and ten Paternosters at every altar. And in very deed I was right sorrowful for mine ill mischance; nor could I help the same, for I saw not the matter rightly.

But Father Dominic said our Lord should be right sore offenced with me, and mine only hope lay in moving the mercy of our dear worthy Lady to plead with Him. If it be not wicked to say the same," added she timidly, "I would G.o.d were not angered with us for such like small gear.

But I count our Lady heard me, sith Father Dominic was pleased to absolve me at last."

"Will you give me leave to say a thing, Mistress Maude?"

"I pray you so do, Master Calverley."

"Then if the same hap should chance unto you again, I counsel you to travail [trouble] yourself neither with Father Dominic nor our Lady, but to go straight to our Lord Himself. Maybe He were pleased to absolve you something sooner than Father Dominic. Look you, the priest died not to atone G.o.d for your sins, neither our Lady did not. And if it be, as men do say, that commonly the mother is more fond [foolishly indulgent]

unto the child than any other, by reason she hath known more travail and pain [labour] with him, then surely in like manner He that hath borne death for our sins shall be more readier to a.s.soil them than he that no did."

These were bold words to speak in the year of grace 1385. But the Queen's squire, John Calverley, was one of those advanced Lollards of whom there were very few, and his son had learned of him. Even Wycliffe himself would scarcely have dared to venture so far as this, until the latter years of his life. It takes long to convince men that no lesser advocate is needed between them and the one Mediator with G.o.d. And where they are taught that "Mary is the human side of Jesus," the result generally is that they lose sight of the humanity of Jesus altogether.

It was not, therefore, unnatural that Maude's answer should have been,--"But, Master Calverley! so saying you should have no need of our Lady." She expected Hugh to reply by an indignant denial; and it astounded her no little to hear him quietly accept the unheard-of alternative.

"Do you as you list, Mistress Maude," he answered. "For me, I am content with our Lord."

"Well-a-day! methought all pity [piety] lay in worship of our Lady!"

said Maude, in that peculiar constrained tone which implies that the speaker feels himself the infinitely distant superior of his antagonist.

"Mistress," was Hugh's answer, "I never said that I was content without our Lord. I lack an advocate, to the full as well as any; but Saint Paul saith that 'oo [one] G.o.d and a mediatour is of G.o.d and of men, a man, Christ Jesu.' And methinks he should be a sorry mediator that lacked an advocate himself."

Avice had lifted her head, and had fixed her eyes intently on Hugh. She had said nothing more; she was learning.

"Likewise saith He," resumed Hugh, "that 'no man cometh to the Fadir but by me.' Again, 'no man may come to me but if the Fadir that hath sente me drawe him:' yet 'all thing that the Fadir gyueth me schal come to me.'"

Avice spoke at last.

"'All thing given' and none other? Then without we be given, we may not come. And how shall a man wit so much?"

"Methinks, Madam," said Hugh, thoughtfully, "that if a man be willing to come, and to give himself, he hath therein witness that he was given of the Father."

"But to give himself wholly unto G.o.d," added Maude, "signifieth that he shall take no more pleasure in this life?"

"Try it," responded Hugh, "and see if it signifieth not rather that a man shall enter into joys he never knew aforetime. G.o.d's gifts to us prevent our gifts to Him."

"Lady Avice! Dame Edusa hath asked twice where you be," said Polegna, running into the hall. "The bell shall sound in an other minute, and our Lady maketh no tarrying after dinner."

So the trio were parted. There was no opportunity after dinner for anything beyond a farewell, and Maude, with her heart full of many thoughts, went back to her sewing in the antechamber.

About an hour after Maude had resumed her work, Constance strolled into the room in search of amus.e.m.e.nt. She looked at the crimson tunic and black velvet skirt which were in making for her own wear at the coming Easter festival; gazed out of the window for ten minutes; sat and watched Maude work for about five; and at last, a bright idea striking her, put it into action.

"Dona Juana! lacked you Maude a season?"

Half an hour previous, Juana had been urging on her workwomen with reminders that very little time was left before the dresses must be ready; but Maude had learned now that in the eyes of the Mistress, Constance's will was law, and she therefore received with little surprise the order to "sue the Senorita." Resigning her work into the hands of Sybil, Maude followed her imperious little lady into the chamber of Dame Agnes de La Marche, who was busy arranging fresh flax for her spinning.

"Your fingers be busy, Dame Agnes," observed the little Princess. "Is your tongue at leisure?"

"Both be alway at your service, Damosel," replied the courtly old lady.

"Then, I pray you, tell to me and Maude your fair story of the Lyonesse."

"With a very good will."

"Then, prithee, set about it," said Constance, ensconcing herself in the big chair. "Sit thou on that stool, Maude."

The old lady took her distaff, now ready, and sat down, smiling at the impatience of the capricious child.

"Once upon a time," she began, "the ending of the realm of England was not that stide [place] which men now call the Land's End in Cornwall.

Far beyond, even as far as the Isles of Scilly, stretched the fair green plains: a kingdom lay betwixt the two, and men called it La Lyonesse.

And in the good olden days, when Arthur was king, the Lyonesse had her prince, and on her plains and hills were fair rich cities, and through her forests p.r.i.c.ked good knights on the quest of the Holy Grail, [see note 2] that none, save unsinning eyes, might ever see. For of all the four-and-twenty Knights of the Round Table, none ever saw the Holy Grail save one, and that was Sir Galahad, that was pure of heart and clean of life. Howbeit, one night came a mighty tempest. The sea raged and roared on the Cornish coast, and dashed its waters far up the rocks, washing the very walls of the Castle of Tintagel. And they that saw upon that night told after, that there came one wild flash of lightning that lightened sky and earth; and men looked and saw by its light, statelily standing, the rich cities and green forests of the Lyonesse; and then came black darkness, and a roar, and a crash, and a rending, as though all the rocks and the mountains should be torent [violently torn asunder]; and then another wild flash lightened sky and earth, and men looked, and the rich cities and green forests of the Lyonesse were gone."

Maude was listening entranced, with parted lips; Constance carelessly, as if she knew all about it beforehand, and were chiefly amusing herself by watching the rapt face of her fellow-listener.

"Long years thereafter," resumed Dame Agnes, "ay, and even now, men said and say, that at times ye may yet hear the sound and see the sight of the drowned cities of the Lyonesse. Ever sithence that tempestuous night, the deep green sea lies heavy on the bosom of the lost land; and no man of unpure heart, nor of evil life, ne unbaptised, ne unshriven, may see nor hear. But if one of Christian blood, a christened man, pure of heart and clean in life, that is newly shriven, whether man or maid, will sail forth at midnight over the green sea, and when he cometh to the place where lieth the Lyonesse, will bend him down from the boat, and look and listen, then shall come up around his ears soft weird music from the church bells in the silver steeples of the doomed cities: yea, and there have been so pure, and our Lady hath shown them such grace, that they have seen the very self streets down at the bottom of the sea, where the dead walk and speak as they did of old--the knights and the ladies, as in the days gone by, when Arthur was King, a thousand years ago, when he held his court in the palaces of the lost land. And the Islands of Scilly, as men say, be the summits of the mountains, that towered once h.o.a.ry and barren over the green forests and the rich cities." [This story is a veritable legend of the Middle Ages.]

The story was being told to an uncritical and unchronological audience, or Dame Agnes might have received a gentle intimation that she was antedating the reign of King Arthur by the short period of two hundred years.

The silence which followed--for both the little girls were meditating on the story, and Dame Agnes's flax was just then entangled in a troublesome knot--was broken, suddenly and very thoroughly, by the unexpected entrance, quiet though it were, of the Countess herself.

Dame Agnes gave no heed to her broken thread, but rose instantly, distaff in hand, with a low reverence; Constance rubbed her sleepy eyes and slowly descended from her great chair; while Maude, recalled to the present, dropped her lowest courtesy and stood waiting.

There was a peculiar air about the Countess Isabel, which suggested to bystanders the idea of a tired, worn-out woman. It was not discontent, not irritability, not exactly even sadness; it was the tone of one who had never fitted rightly into the place a.s.signed to her, and who never felt at home. Though it disappeared when she spoke, yet as soon as her features were at rest it came again. It was little wonder that her face wore such an expression, for she was the daughter of a murdered father and a slandered mother, and the wife of a man who valued her very highly as the Infanta of Castilla, but as Isabel his wife not at all. During her early years, she had sought rest and comfort in the world. She plunged wildly into every manner of dissipation and pleasure; like Solomon, she withheld not her heart from any good; and like Solomon's, her verdict at the close was "Vanity and vexation of spirit." And then--just when she had arrived at the conclusion that there was nothing upon earth worth living for--when she had "come to the end of everything, and cared for nothing," she met with an old priest of venerable aspect, a trusted servant of King Edward, whose first words touched the deepest chord in her heart, while his second brought the healing balm. His name was John de Wycliffe. Was it any wonder that she accepted him as a very angel of G.o.d?

For he showed her where rest was, not within, but without; not from beneath, nor from around, but from above. So the tired heart rested in Jesus here, looking forward to its perfected rest in the presence of Jesus hereafter.

For so far as the world was concerned, there was no rest any longer. It was fearfully up-hill work for Isabel to aim at such a walk as should please G.o.d. Her husband did not oppose her; he was as profoundly indifferent to her new opinions and practices as he had been to her old ones, as he was to herself. So far as her life was concerned, of the two he considered that she had altered for the better. There had never been but one heart which had loved Isabel, and that heart she pierced as with a sword when she entered her new path on the narrow way.

To Constanca of Castilla, the sister who had shared with her their "heritage of woe," this younger sister was inexpressibly dear. The two sisters had married two brothers, and they saw a good deal of each other until that time; but after Isabel cast in her lot with Wycliffe, very little. The Gospel parted these loving sisters as with a sword; the magnet was received by each at an opposite end. It attracted Isabel, and repelled Constanca. The elder wanted nothing more than she had always had; the gorgeous ceremonies and absolving priests of the old Church satisfied her, and she demanded no further comfort. She was "a woman devout above all others" in the eyes of the monkish chroniclers.

And that usually meant that in this world she never awoke to her soul's uttermost need, and she was therefore content with the meagre supply she found. So the difference between the sisters was that Constanca slept peacefully while Isabel had awoke.

It was because Isabel had awoke, that she was unsatisfied with the round of ritual observances which were all in all to her sister. She could confess to man, and be absolved by man; but how could she wrestle against the conviction that she rose from the confessional with a soul none the cleaner, with a heart just as disinclined to go and sin no more? The branches might be lopped; but what mattered that while the root of bitterness remained? It is only when we hear G.o.d say, "Thy sins are forgiven thee," that it is possible to go in peace. And Isabel never heard it until she came to Him. Then, when she came empty-handed, He filled her hands with gifts; He breathed into the hara.s.sed soul rest and hope.

This was what G.o.d gave her. But men gave her something very different.

They had nothing better for this woman that had been a sinner, than the old comment of Simon the Pharisee. They were not ready to cast the remembrance of her iniquities into the depths of the sea--far from it.

What they gave her was a scorned and slandered name, a character sketched in words that dwelt gloatingly on her early devotion to the world, the flesh, and the Devil, and left unwritten the story of her subsequent devotion to G.o.d. The later portion of her life is pa.s.sed over in silence. We see something of its probable character in the supreme contempt of the monkish chroniclers; in the heretical epithet of "pestilent" applied to her; in the Lollard terms of her last will; in her choice of eminent Lollards as executors; in her bosom friendship with the Lollard Queen.

But at another Table from that of Simon the Pharisee, "many that are first shall be last, and the last first."

We have kept Maude standing for a long while, before her mistress, seated in the great chair in Dame Agnes de La Marche's chamber.

"And how lovest thy new fashion of life, my maid?" demanded the Countess, when she had taken her seat.