The White Rose of Langley Part 18

Now Constance liked dearly both to pet and to be petted. She loved, as she hated, intensely. The calm, sedate personal regard, in consideration of the meritorious qualities of the individual in question, which the Lady Le Despenser termed love, was not love at all in the eyes of Constance. The Dowager, moreover, was cool and deliberate; she objected to impulses, and after her calm fashion disliked impulsive people, whom she thought were not to be trusted. And Constance was all impulse. The squeaking of a mouse would have called forth gestures and e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns from the one, which the other would have deemed too extreme to be appropriate to an earthquake.

The Lord Le Despenser was the last of his mother's three sons--the youngest-born, and the only survivor; and she loved him in reality far more than she would have been willing to allow, and to an extent which she would have deemed iniquitous idolatry in any other woman. In character he resembled her but slightly. The narrow-mindedness and obstinacy inherent in her family--for no Burghersh was ever known to see more than one side of any thing--was softened and modified in him into firmness and fidelity. His heart was large enough to hold a deep reservoir of love, but not so wide at its exit as to allow the stream to flow forth in all directions at once. If this be narrow-mindedness, then he was narrow-minded. But he was loyal to the heart's core, faithful unto death, true in every fibre of his being. "He loved one only, and he clave to her," and there was room in his heart for none other.

The Dowager had several times hinted to the Duke of York that she considered it high time that Constance should take up her residence at Cardiff, for she was a firm believer in "the eternal fitness of things,"

and while too much love was in her eyes deeply reprehensible, a proper quant.i.ty of matrimony, at a suitable age, was a highly respectable thing, and a state into which every man and woman ought to enter, with due prudence and decorum. And as a wife married in childhood was usually resigned to her husband at an age some years earlier than Constance had now attained, the Dowager was scandalised by her persistent absence. The Duke, who recognised in his daughter a more self-reliant character than his own, and was therefore afraid of her, had pa.s.sed over the intimation, accompanied with a request that she would do as she liked about it. That Constance would do as she liked her father well knew; and she did it. She stayed at home, the Queen of Langley, where no oppressive pseudo-maternal atmosphere interfered with her perfect freedom.

But in the October following the death of her mother, a thunderbolt fell at Constance's feet, which eventually drove her to Cardiff.

The Duke was from home, and, as everybody supposed, at Court. He was really in mischief; for mischief it proved, to himself and all his family. Late one evening a courier reached Langley, where in her bower Constance was disrobing for the night, and Maude was combing out her mistress's long light hair. A sudden application for admission, in itself an unusual event at that hour, brought Maude to the door, where Dona Juana, pale and excited, besought immediate audience of her Senorita.

The Princess, without looking back, desired her to come forward.

"Senorita, my Lord's courier, Rodrigo, is arrived hither from Brockenhurst, and he bringeth his Lord's bidding that we make ready his Grace's chamber for to-morrow."

"From Brockenhurst! Well, what further?"

"And likewise _her_ Grace's chamber--whom Jesu pardon!--for the Lady newly-espoused that cometh with my Lord."

"Mary Mother!" exclaimed Maude, dropping the silver comb in her sudden surprise.

Constance had sprung up from her seat with such quick abruptness that the chair, though no light one, fell to the ground behind her.

"Say that again!" she commanded, in a hard, steel-like voice; and, in a more excited tone than ever, Dona Juana repeated her unwelcome tidings.

"So I must needs have a mistress over me! Who is she?"

"From all that Rodrigo heard, Senorita, he counteth that it should be the Lady Joan de Holand, sister unto my Lord of Kent and my Lady of March. She is, saith he, of a rare beauty, and of most royal presence."

"Royal presence, quotha!--and a small child of ten years!" cried the indignant girl of nineteen. "Marry, I guess wherefore he told me not aforetime. He was afeard of me."

She pressed her lips together till they looked like a crimson thread, and a bright spot of anger burned on either cheek. But all at once her usual expression returned, and she resumed her seat quietly enough on the chair which Maude had mechanically restored to its place.

"Go, Dona Juana, and bid the chambers be prepared, as is meet. But no garnishing of the chambers of my heart shall be for this wedding. Make an end, Maude. 'A thing done cannot be undone.' I will abide and see this small damsel's conditions [disposition]; but my heart misgiveth me if it were not better dwelling with my Lord Le Despenser than with her."

Maude obeyed, feeling rather sorry for the Lord Le Despenser, whose loving spouse seemed to regard him as the less of two evils.

The new d.u.c.h.ess proved to be, like most of the Holands, very tall and extremely fair. No one would have supposed her to be only ten years old, and her proud, demure, unbashful bearing helped to make her look older than she was. The whole current of life at Langley changed with her coming. From morning to night every day was filled with feasts, junkets, hawking parties, picnics, joustings, and dances. The Duke was devoted to her, und fulfilled, if he did not antic.i.p.ate, her every wish.

Her youthful Grace was entirely devoid of shyness, and she made a point of letting Constance feel her inferiority by addressing her on every occasion as "Fair Daughter." She also ordered a much stricter observance of etiquette than had been usual during the life of the Infanta, whose rule, Spaniard though she was, had been rather lax in this particular. The stiff manners commonly expected from girls towards their mothers had only hitherto been exacted from Constance upon state occasions. But the new d.u.c.h.ess quickly let it be understood that she required them to the smallest detail. She was particular that her step-daughter's chair should not be set one inch further under the canopy than was precisely proper; her fur tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs must be carefully regulated, so as not to equal those of the d.u.c.h.ess in breadth; instead of the old home name of "the Lady Custance," she must be styled "the Lady Le Despenser;" and the d.u.c.h.ess strongly objected to her using such vulgar nicknames as "Ned" and "d.i.c.kon," desiring that she would in future address her brothers properly as "my Lord." Angrily the royal lioness chafed against this tyranny. Many a time Maude noticed the flush of annoyance which rose to her lady's cheek, and the tremor of her lip, as if she could with difficulty restrain herself from wrathful words. It evidently vexed her to be given her married name; but the interference with the pet name of the pet brother was what she felt most bitterly of all. And Maude began to wonder how long it would last.

It was a calm, mild evening in January, 1394, and in the Princess's bower, or bedroom, stood Maude, re-arranging a portion of her lady's wardrobe. The d.u.c.h.ess had been that day more than usually exacting and precise, much to the amus.e.m.e.nt of Bertram Lyngern, at present at Langley in the train of his master. The door of Constance's bower was suddenly opened and dashed to again, and the Princess herself entered, and began pacing up and down the room like a chafed lioness--a habit of all the Plantagenets when in a pa.s.sion. She stopped a minute opposite Maude, and said in a determined voice:

"Make ready for Cardiff!"

And she resumed her angry march.

In this manner the Lady Le Despenser intimated her condescending intention of fulfilling her matrimonial duties at last. Maude knew her too well to reply by anything beyond a respectful indication of obedience. Constance only gave her one day to prepare. The next morning but one the whole train of the Lady Le Despenser set forth on their eventful journey.

CHAPTER SIX.

TRUE GOLD AND FALSE.

"Woe be to fearful hearts and faint hands, and the sinner that goeth two ways!"--Ecclus. two 12.

Whatever may have been the feeling which possessed the mind of Constance on her departure from Langley, the incident was felt by Maude as a wrench and an uprooting, surpa.s.sing any previous incident of her life since leaving Pleshy. The old house itself had come to feel like a mute friend; the people left behind were acquaintances of many years; the ground was all familiar. She was going now once more into a new world, to new acquaintances, new scenes, new incidents. The journey over land was in itself very pleasant. But the journey over sea from Bristol was so exceedingly unpleasant, that poor Maude found herself acquainted with a degree of physical misery which until then she had never imagined to exist. And when at last the great, grim, square towers of the Castle of Cardiff, which was to be her new home, rose before her eyes, she thought them absolutely lovely--because they were _terra firma_. It can only be ascribed to her unusual haste on the one hand, or to her usual caprice on the other, that it had not pleased the Lady of Cardiff to give any notice of her approach. Of course n.o.body expected her; and when her trumpeter sounded his blast outside the moat, the warder looked forth in some surprise. It was late in the evening for a guest to arrive.

"Who goeth yonder?"

"The Lady and her train."

"Saint Taffy and Saint Guenhyfar!" said the warder.

"Put forth the bridge!" roared the trumpeter.

"It had peen better to send word," calmly returned the warder.

"Send word to thy Lord, thou lither oaf!" cried the irate trumpeter, "and see whether it liketh him to keep the Lady awaiting hither on an even in January, while thou pratest in chopped English!"

Thereupon arose a pa.s.sage of arms between the two affronted persons of diverse nationalities, which was terminated by Constance, with one of her sudden impulses, riding forward to the front, and taking the business on herself.

"Sir Warder," she said--with that exquisite grace and lofty courtesy which was natural to every Plantagenet, be the other features of his character what they might,--"I am your Lady, and I pray you to notify unto your Lord that I am come hither."

The warder was instantly mollified, and blew his horn to announce the arrival of a guest. There was a minute's bustle among the minor officials about the gate, a little running to and fro, and then the drawbridge was thrown across, and the next moment the Lord Le Despenser knelt low to his royal spouse. He could have had no idea of her coming five minutes before, but he did his best to show her that any omissions in her welcome were no fault on his part.

Thomas Le Despenser was just twenty years of age. He was only of moderate height for a man; and Constance, who was a tall woman, nearly equalled him. His Norman blood showed itself in his dark glossy hair, his semi-bronzed complexion, and his dark liquid eyes, the expression of which was grave almost to sadness. An extremely short upper lip perhaps indicated blue blood, but it gave a haughty appearance to his features, which was not indicative of his character. He had a sweet low-toned voice, and an extremely winning smile.

The Princess suffered her husband to lift her from the pillion on which she rode behind Bertram Lyngern, who had been transferred to her service by her father's wish. At the door of the banquet-hall the Dowager Lady met them. Maude's impression of her was not exactly pleasant. She thought her a stiff, solemn-looking, elderly woman, in widow's garb.

The Lady Elizabeth received her royal guest with the lowest of courtesies, and taking her hand, conducted her with great formality to a state chair on the dais, the Lord Le Despenser standing, bare-headed, on the step below.

The ensuing ten minutes were painfully irksome to all parties.

Everybody was shy of everybody else. A few common-place questions were asked and answered; but when the Dowager suggested that "the Lady" must be tired with her journey, and would probably like to rest for an hour ere the rear-supper was served, it was a manifest relief to all.

A sudden incursion of so many persons into an unprepared house was less annoying in the fourteenth century than it would be in the nineteenth.

There was then always superfluous provision for guests who might suddenly arrive; a castle was invariably victualled in advance of the consumption expected; and as to sleeping accommodation, a sack filled with chaff and a couple of blankets was all that any person antic.i.p.ated who was not of "high degree." Maude slept the first night in a long gallery, with ten other women; for the future she would occupy the pallet in her lady's chamber. Bertram was provided for along with the other squires, in the banquet-hall, the chaff beds and blankets being carried out of the way in the morning; and as to draughts, our forefathers were never out of one inside their houses, and therefore did not trouble themselves on that score. The washing arrangements, likewise, were of the most primitive description. Princes and the higher cla.s.s of peers washed in silver basins in their own rooms; but a squire or a knight's daughter would have been thought unwarrantably fastidious who was not fully satisfied with a tub and a towel. A comb was the only instrument used for dressing the hair, except where crisping-pins were required; and mirrors were always fixtures against the wall.

A long time elapsed before Maude felt at home at Cardiff; and she could not avoid seeing that a still longer period pa.s.sed before Constance did so. The latter was restless and unsettled. She had escaped from the rule of her step-mother to that of her mother-in-law, and she disliked the one only a little less than the other; though "Daughter" fell very differently on the ear from the lips of a child of ten, and from those of a woman who was approaching sixty. But the worst point of Constance's new life was her utter indifference to her husband. She looked upon his gentle deference to her wishes as want of spirit, and upon his quiet, reserved, undemonstrative manner as want of brains.

From loving him she was as far as she had been in those old days when she had so cruelly told his sister Margaret that "when she loved Tom, she would let him know."

That he loved her, and that very dearly, was patent to the most superficial observer. Maude, who was not very observant of others, used to notice how his eyes followed her wherever she went, brightened at the sound of her step, and kindled eagerly when she spoke. The Dowager saw it too, with considerable disapproval; and thought it desirable to turn her observations to profit by a grave admonition to her son upon the sin and folly of idolatry. She meant rightly enough, yet it sounded harsh and cruel, when she bluntly reminded him that Constance manifestly cared nothing for him.

Le Despenser's lip quivered with pain.

"Let be, fair Mother," he said gently. "It may be yet, one day, that my Lady's heart shall come home to G.o.d and me, and that she shall then say unto me, 'I love thee.'"

Did that day ever come? Ay, it did come; but not during his day. The time came when no music could have been comparable to the sound of his voice--when she would have given all the world for one glimpse of his smile--when she felt, like Avice, as though she could have climbed and rent the heavens to have won him back to her. But the heavens had closed between them before that day came. While they journeyed side by side in this mortal world, he never heard her say, "I love thee."

The news received during the next few months was not likely to make Constance feel more at home at Cardiff than before. It was one constant funeral wail. On the 24th of March, 1394, her aunt Constanca, d.u.c.h.ess of Lancaster, died of the plague at Leicester; in the close of May, of the same disease, the beloved Lollard Queen; and on the first of July her cousin, Mary Countess of Derby. Constance grew so restless, that when orders came for her husband to attend the King at Haverford, where he was about to embark on his journey to Ireland, she determined to go there also.