The White Lady of Hazelwood Part 24

"Well, Avena, good morrow! Didst have half my message, or the whole?"

"I am here, Dame, to take your Grace's orders."

"I see, it wanted the whole. 'To take my Grace's orders!' Soothly, thou art pleasant. Well, take them, then. My Grace would like a couch prepared on yonder lawn, and were I but well enough, a ride on horseback; but I mis...o...b.. rides be over for me. Go to: what is this I hear touching the child Amphillis?--as though thou wentest about to be rid of her."

"Dame, I have thought thereupon."

"What for? Now, Avena, I will know. Thou dost but lose thy pains to fence with me."

In answer, Lady Foljambe told the story, with a good deal of angry comment. The Countess was much amused, a fact which did not help to calm the narrator.

"_Ha, jolife_!" said she, "but I would fain have been in thy bower when the matter came forth! Howbeit, I lack further expounding thereanentis.

Whereof is Phyllis guilty?"

Lady Foljambe, whose wrath was not up at the white heat which it had touched in the morning, found this question a little difficult to answer. She could not reasonably find fault with Amphillis for being Ricarda's cousin, and this was the real cause of her annoyance. The only blame that could be laid to her was her silence for a few days as to the little she knew. Of this crime Lady Foljambe made the most.

"Now, Avena," said the Countess, as peremptorily as her languor permitted, "hearken me, and be no more of a fool than thou canst help.

If thou turn away a quiet, steady, decent maid, of good birth and conditions, for no more than a little lack of courage, or maybe of judgment--and thou art not a she-Solomon thyself, as I give thee to wit, but thou art a fearsome thing to a young maid when thou art angered; and unjust anger is alway harder, and sharper, and fierier than the just, as if it borrowed a bit of Satan, from whom it cometh--I say, if thou turn her away for this, thou shalt richly deserve what thou wilt very like get in exchange--to wit, a giddy-pate that shall blurt forth all thy privy matter (and I am a privy matter, as thou well wist), or one of some other ill conditions, that shall cost thee an heartbreak to rule.

Now beware, and be wise. And if it need more, then mind thou"--and the tone grew regal--"that Amphillis Neville is my servant, not thine, and that I choose not she be removed from me. I love the maid; she hath sense, and she is true to trust; and though that keeps me in prison, yet can I esteem it when known. 'Tis a rare gift. Now go, and think on what I have said to thee."

Lady Foljambe found herself reluctantly constrained to do the Countess's bidding, so far, at least, as the meditation was concerned. And the calmer she grew, the more clearly she saw that the Countess was right.

She did not, however, show that she felt she had been in the wrong.

Amphillis was not informed that she was forgiven, nor that she was to retain her place, but matters were allowed to slide silently back into their old groove. So the winter came slowly on.

"The time drew near the birth of Christ," that season of peace and good-will to men which casts its soft suns.h.i.+ne even over the world, bringing absent relatives together, and suggesting general family amnesties. Perrote determined to make one more effort with Sir G.o.dfrey.

About the middle of December, as that gentleman was mounting his staircase, he saw on the landing that "bothering old woman," standing, lamp in hand, evidently meaning to waylay some one who was going up to bed. Sir G.o.dfrey had little doubt that he was the destined victim, and he growled inwardly. However, it was of no use to turn back on some pretended errand; she was sure to wait till his return, as he knew. Sir G.o.dfrey growled again inaudibly, and went on to meet his fate in the form of Perrote.

"Sir, I would speak with you."

Sir G.o.dfrey gave an irritable grunt.

"Sir, the day of our Lord's birth is very nigh, when men be wont to make up old quarrels in peace. Will you not yet once entreat of my Lord Duke, being in England, to pay one visit to his dying mother?"

"I wis not that she is dying. Folks commonly take less time over their dying than thus."

Perrote, as it were, waved away the manner of the answer, and replied only to the matter.

"Sir, she is dying, albeit very slowly. My Lady may linger divers weeks yet. Will you not send to my Lord?"

"I did send to him," snapped Sir G.o.dfrey.

"And he cometh?" said Perrote, eagerly for her.

"No." Sir G.o.dfrey tried to pa.s.s her with that monosyllable, but Perrote was not to be thus baffled. She laid a detaining hand upon his arm.

"Sir, I pray you, for our Lord's love, to tell me what word came back from my Lord Duke?"

Our Lord's love was not a potent factor in Sir G.o.dfrey's soul. More powerful were those pleading human eyes--and yet more, the sentiment which swayed the unjust judge--"Because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge her." He turned back.

"Must you needs wit? Then take it: it shall do you little pleasure. My Lord writ that he was busily concerned touching the troubles in Brittany, and ill at ease anentis my Lady d.u.c.h.ess, that is besieged in the Castle of Auray, and he could not spare time to go a visiting; beside which, it might be taken ill of King Edward, whose favour at this present is of high import unto him, sith without his help he is like to lose his duchy. So there ends the matter. No man can look for a prince to risk the loss of his dominions but to pleasure an old dame."

"One only, Sir, it may be, is like to look for it; and were I my Lord Duke, I should be a little concerned touching another matter--the account that he shall give in to that One at the last day. In the golden balances of Heaven I count a dying mother's yearning may weigh heavy, and the risk of loss of worldly dominion may be very light. I thank you, Sir. Good-night. May G.o.d not say one day to my Lord Duke, 'Thou fool!'"

Perrote disappeared, but Sir G.o.dfrey Foljambe stood where she had left him. Over his pleasure-chilled, gold-hardened conscience a breath from Heaven was sweeping, such a breath as he had often felt in earlier years, but which very rarely came to him now. Like the soft toll of a pa.s.sing bell, the terrible words rang in his ears with their accent of hopeless pity--"Thou fool! Thou fool!" Would G.o.d, some day, in that upper world, say that to _him_?

The sound was so vivid and close that he actually glanced round to see if any one was there to hear but himself. But he was alone. Only G.o.d had heard them, and G.o.d forgets nothing--a thought as dreadful to His enemies as it is warmly comforting to His children. Alas, for those to whom the knowledge that G.o.d has His eye upon them is only one of terror!

Yet there is one thing that G.o.d does forget. He tells us that He forgets the forgiven sin. "As far as the sun-rising is from the sun-setting [Note 1], so far hath He removed our transgressions from us"--"Thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea." But as it has been well said, "When G.o.d pardons sin, He drops it out of His memory into that of the pardoned sinner." We cannot forget it, because He has done so.

For Sir G.o.dfrey Foljambe the thought of an omniscient eye and ear was full of horror. He turned round, went downstairs, and going to a private closet in his own study, where medicines were kept, drank off one of the largest doses of brandy which he had ever taken at once. It was not a usual thing to do, for brandy was not then looked on as a beverage, but a medicine. But Sir G.o.dfrey wanted something potent, to still those soft chimes which kept saying, "Thou fool!" Anything to get away from G.o.d!

Note 1. This is really the Hebrew of Psalm 103, verse 12. The infidel objection, therefore, that since "east" and "west" meet, the verse has no meaning, is untenable as concerns the inspired original. It is only valid as a criticism on the English translation.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

MY LORD ELECT OF YORK.

"She only said,--'The day is dreary, He will not come,' she said: She wept,--'I am aweary, weary,-- O G.o.d, that I were dead!'"

Tennyson.

"What, ho! Gate, ho! Open unto my Lord elect of York!"

The cry startled the porter at Hazelwood Manor from an afternoon nap.

He sprang up and hurried out, in utter confusion at his negligence. To keep a priest waiting would have been bad manners enough, and an abbot still worse; but an archbishop was, in the porter's estimate, a semi-celestial being. True, this Archbishop was not yet consecrated, nor had he received his pallium from Rome, both which considerations detracted from his holiness, and therefore from his importance; but he was the Archbishop of the province, and the shadow of his future dignity was imposing to an insignificant porter. Poor Wilkin went down on his knees in a puddle, as soon as he had got the gate open, to beg the potentate's pardon and blessing, and only rose from them summarily to collar Colle, who had so little notion of the paramount claims of an archbishop that he received the cavalcade with barks as noisy as he would have bestowed on any worldly pedlar. Nay, so very unmannerly was Colle, that when he was let go, he marched straight to the Archbishop, and after a prolonged sniff at the archiepiscopal boots, presumed so far as to wag his very secular tail, and even to give an uninvited lick to the archiepiscopal glove. The Archbishop, instead of excommunicating Colle, laid his hand gently on the dog's head and patted him; which so emboldened that audacious quadruped that he actually climbed up the prelate, with more decided wagging than before.

"Nay, my son!" said the Archbishop, gently, to an officious young priest in his suite, who would have dragged the dog away--"grudge me not my welcome. Dogs be honest creatures, and dissemble not. Hast thou never heard the saw, that 'they be ill folks that dogs and children will not go withal'?"

And with another pat of Colle's head, the Archbishop dismissed him, and walked into the hall to meet a further welcome from the whole family and household, all upon their knees. Blessing them in the usual priestly manner, he commanded them to rise, and Sir G.o.dfrey then presented his sons and squire, while Lady Foljambe did the same for the young ladies.

"Mistress Margaret Foljambe, my son's wife, an' it please your Grace; and Mistress Perrote de Carhaix, my head chamberer. These be my bower-women, Agatha de La Beche and Amphillis Neville."

"Neville!" echoed the Archbishop, instantly. "Of what Nevilles comest thou, my maid?"

"Please it you, holy Father," said the confused Amphillis, more frightened still to hear a sharp "your Grace!" whispered from Lady Foljambe; "I know little of my kin, an' it like your Grace. My father was Walter Neville, and his father a Ralph, but more know I not, under your Grace's pleasure."

"How comes it thou wist no more?"

"May it please your Grace, my father dwelt in Hertfords.h.i.+re, and he wedded under his estate, so that his family cast him off, as I have heard," said Amphillis, growing every moment more hot and confused, for it was no light ordeal for one in her position to be singled out for conversation by an archbishop, and she sorely feared an after ebullition of Lady Foljambe's wrath.

"My child!" said the Archbishop with great interest, and very gently, "did thy father wed one Margery Altham, of London, whose father dwelt in the Strand, and was a baker?"

"He did so, under your Grace's pardon," said poor Amphillis, blus.h.i.+ng for the paternal shortcomings; "but, may it please your Grace, he was a master-pastiller, not a baker."

A little smile of amus.e.m.e.nt at the delicate distinction played about the Archbishop's lips.