The White Rose of Langley Part 5

"It did not serve Ned. He said he would know. And so will I."

"The Lord Edward is two years your elder, Lady."

"Truth," said the child shrewdly, "and you be sixty years mine elder, so you should know more than he by thirty."

Agnes could not help smiling, but she was sadly perplexed how to dismiss the unwelcome topic.

"Let be. If thou wilt not tell me, I will blandish some that will.

There be other beside thee in the university [world, universe].--What is yonder bruit?" [a noise.]

It was little Maude, flying in frantic terror, with Parnel in hot pursuit, both too much absorbed to note in what direction they were running. The cause was not far to seek.

After Maude had recovered from the effects of her exposure in the forest, she lighted unexpectedly on the little flat parcel which her mother had charged her to keep. It was carefully sewn up in linen, and the sewing cost Maude some trouble to penetrate. She reached the core at last. It was something thin and flat, with curious black and red patterns all over it. This would have been the child's description. It was, in truth, a vellum leaf of a ma.n.u.script, elaborately written, but not illuminated, unless capitals in red ink can be termed illumination.

Remembering her mother's charge, to let "none beguile her of it," Maude had striven to keep its possession a secret from every one, first from the nuns, and then from Ursula Drew. Strange to say, she had succeeded until that morning. It was to her a priceless treasure--all the more inestimable because she could not read a word of it. But on that unlucky morning, Parnel had caught a glimpse of the precious parcel, always hidden in Maude's bosom, and had immediately endeavoured to s.n.a.t.c.h it from her. Contriving to elude her grasp, yet fearful of its repet.i.tion, Maude rushed out of the kitchen door, and finding that her tormentor followed, fled across the base court, took refuge in an open archway, dashed up a flight of steps, and sped along a wide corridor, neither knowing nor caring that her flying feet were bearing her straight in the direction of the royal apartments. Parnel was the first to see where they were going, and at the last corner she stayed her pursuit, daring to proceed no further. But Maude did not know that Parnel was no longer on her track, and she fled wildly on, till her foot tripped at an inequality in the stone pa.s.sage, and she came down just opposite an open door.

For a minute the child was too much stunned by her fall to think of any thing. Then, as her recollection returned, she cast a terrified glance behind her, and saw that her pursuer had not yet appeared round the corner. And then, before she could rise, she heard a voice in front of her.

"What is this, my child?"

Maude looked up, past a gorgeous spread of blue and gold drapery, into a meek, quiet face--a face whose expression rea.s.sured and comforted her.

A calm, pale, oval face, in which were set eyes of sapphire blue, framed by soft, light hair, and wearing a look of suffering, past or present.

Maude answered the gentle voice which belonged to that face as she might have answered her mother.

"I pray you of pardon, Mistress! Parnel, my fellow, ran after me and affrighted me."

"Wherefore ran she after thee?"

"Because she would needs see what I bare in my bosom, and I was loth she so should, lest she should do it hurt."

"What is that? I will do it no hurt."

Maude looked up again, and felt as if she could trust that face with any thing. So merely saying--"You will not give it Parnel, Mistress?" she drew forth her treasure and put it into the lady's hand.

"I will give it to none saving thine own self. Dost know what it is, little maid?"

"No, Mistress, in good sooth."

"How earnest by it? 'Tis a part of a book."

"My mother, that is dead, charged me to keep it; for it was all she had for to give me. I know not, in very deed, whether it be Charlemagne or Arthur"--the only two books of which poor Maude had ever heard. "But an' I could meet with one that wist to read, and that were my true friend, I would fain cause her to tell me what I would know thereabout."

"And hast no true friend?" inquired the lady.

"Not one," said Maude sorrowfully.

"Well, little maid, I can read, and I would be thy true friend. What is it thou wouldst fain know?"

"Why," said Maude, in an interested tone, "whether the great knight, of whose mighty deeds this book doth tell, should win his 'trothed love at the last, or no."

For the novel-reader of the fourteenth century was not very different from the novel-reader of the nineteenth. The lady smiled, but grew grave again directly. She sat down in one of the cushioned window-seats, keeping Maude's treasured leaf in her hand.

"List, little maid, and thou shalt hear--that the great Knight, of whose mighty prowess this book doth tell, shall win His 'trothed love at last."

And she began to read--very different words from any Maude expected.

The child listened, entranced.

"And I saigh [saw] newe heuene and newe erthe; for the firste heuene and the firste erthe wenten awei; and the see is not now. And I ioon [John]

saigh the hooli citee ierusalim newe comynge doun fro heuene maad redi of G.o.d as a wyf ourned to hir husbonde. And I herde a greet voice fro the trone seiynge [saying], lo a tabernacle of G.o.d is with men, and he schal dwelle with hem, and thei schulen be his peple, and he, G.o.d with hem, schal be her [their] G.o.d. And G.o.d schal wipe awei ech teer fro the ighen [eyes] of hem, and deeth schal no more be, neithir mournyng neither criyng neither sorewe schal be ouer, whiche thing is firste [first things] wenten awei. And he seide that sat in the trone, lo I make alle thingis newe. And he seide to me, write thou, for these wordis ben [are] moost feithful and trewe. And he seide to me, it is don, I am alpha and oo [omega] the bigynnyng and ende, I schal ghyue [give] freli of the welle of quyk [quick, living] water to him that thirst.i.th. He that schal ouercome schal welde [possess] these thingis, and I schal be G.o.d to him, and he schal be sone to me. But to ferdful men, and unbileueful, and cursid, and manquelleris, and fornicatours, and to witchis and worschiperis of ydols and to alle lyeris the part of hem schal be in the pool brenynge with fyer and brymstoon, that is the secounde deeth. And oon [one] cam of the seuene aungelis hauynge violis ful of seuene the laste ueniauncis [vengeances, plagues], and he spak with me and seide, come thou and I schal schewe to thee the spousesse [bride] the wyf of the lombe. And he took me up in spirit into a greet hill and high, and he schewide to me the hooli cite ierusalem comynge doun fro heuene of G.o.d, hauynge the cleerte [glory] of G.o.d; and the light of it lyk a precious stoon as the stoon iaspis [jasper], as cristal. And it hadde a wall greet and high hauynge twelue ghatis [gates], and in the ghatis of it twelue aungelis and names writen yn that ben the names of twelue lynagis [lineages, tribes] of the sones of israel. Fro the eest three ghatis, and fro the north three ghatis, and fro the south three ghatis, and fro the west three ghatis. And the wall of the citee hadde twelue foundamentis, and in hem the twelue names of twelue apostlis and of the lombe. And he that spak with me hadde a goldun mesure of a rehed [reed] that he schulde mete the citee and the ghatis of it and the wall. And the citee was sett in a square, and the lengthe of it is so mych as mych as is the brede [breadth], and he mat [meted, measured] the citee with the rehed bi furlongis twelue thousyndis, and the highthe and the lengthe and breede of it ben euene.

And he maat [meted, measured] the wallis of it of an hundride and foure and fourti cubitis bi mesure of man, that is, of an aungel. And the bilding of the wall thereoff was of the stoon iaspis and the citee it silff was cleen gold lyk cleen glas. And the foundamentis of the wal of the cite weren ourned [adorned] with al precious stoon, the firste foundament iaspis, the secound saphirus, the thridde calsedonyus, the fourthe smaragdus [emerald], the fifthe sardony [sardonyx], the sixte sardyus [ruby], the seuenthe crisolitus, the eighthe berillus, the nynthe topasius, the tenthe crisopa.s.sus, the elleuenthe iacinctus [jacinth], the tweluethe amiatistus [amethyst]. And twelue ghatis ben twelue margaritis [pearls] bi ech [each], and ech ghate was of ech [each] margarite and the streetis of the citee weren cleen gold as of glas ful schinynge. And I saigh no temple in it, for the lord G.o.d almyghti and the lomb is temple of it, and the citee hath not nede of sunne neither moone that thei schine in it, for the cleerite of G.o.d schal lightne it, and the lombe is the lanterne of it, and the kyngis of erthe schulen bringe her glorie and onour into it. And the ghatis of it schulen not be closid bi dai, and nyght schal not be there, and thei schulen bringe the glorie and onour of folkis into it, neither ony man defouled and doynge abomynacioun and leesyng [lying] schal entre into it, but thei that ben writun in the book of lyf and of the lombe."

When the soft, quiet voice ceased, it was like the sudden cessation of sweet music to the enchanted ears of little Maude. The child was very imaginative, and in her mental eyes the City had grown as she listened, till it now lay spread before her--the streets of gold, and the gates of pearl, and the foundations of precious stones. Of any thing typical or supernatural she had not the faintest idea. In her mind it was at once settled that the City was London, and yet was in some dreamy way Jerusalem; for of any third city Maude knew nothing. The King, of course, had his Palace there; and a strong desire sprang up in the child's mind to know whether the royal mistress, who was to her a kind of far-off fairy queen, had a palace there also. If so--but no! it was too good to be true that Maude would ever go to wash the golden pans and diamond dishes which must be used in that City.

"Mistress!" said Maude to her new friend, after a short silence, during which both were thinking deeply.

The lady brought her eyes down to the child from the sky, where they had been fixed, and smiled a reply to the appeal.

"Would you tell me, of your grace, whether our Lady mistresshood's graciousness hath in yonder city a dwelling?"

Maude wondered exceedingly to see tears slowly gather in the sapphire eyes.

"G.o.d grant it, little maid!" was, to her, the incomprehensible answer.

"And if so were, Mistress, counteth your Madamship that our said puissant Lady should ever lack her pans cleansed yonder?"

"Wherefore, little maid?" asked the lady very gently.

"Because, an' I so might, I would fain dwell in yonder city," said Maude, with glittering eyes.

"And thy work is to cleanse pans?"

Little Maude sighed heavily. "Ay, yonder is my work."

"Which thou little lovest, as methinks."

"Should you love it, Mistress, think you?" demanded Maude.

"Truly, little maid, that should I not," answered the lady. "Now tell me freely, what wouldst liefer do?"

"Aught that were clean and fair and honest!" [pretty] said Maude confidentially, her eyes kindling again. "An' they lack any 'prentices in that City, I would fain be bound yonder. Verily, I would love to twine flowers, or to weave dovecotes [the golden nets which confined ladies' hair], or to guard brave gowns with lace, and the like of that, an' I could be learned. Save that, methinks, over there, I would be ever and alway a-gazing from the lattice."

"Wherefore?"

"And yet I wis not," added Maude, thinking aloud. "Where the streets be gold, and the gates margarites, what shall the gowns be?"

"Pure, bright stones [see Note 3], little maid," said the lady. "But there be no 'prentices yonder."

"What! be they all masters?" said the child.