Earl Hubert's Daughter Part 19

"What canst thou mean, Licorice?"

"'Kind to her!' If they had starved her and beaten her, there might have been no harm done. Canst thou not see that the girl's heart is with her Christian friends? Why, she had been crying behind her veil, quietly, all the journey."

"Well, wife? What then?"

"'What then?' Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob! 'What then?' Why, then--she will do like Anegay."

"The G.o.d of our fathers forbid it!" cried Abraham, in tones of horror and distress.

"It is too late for that," said Licorice, with a short, contemptuous laugh. "Thou shouldst have said that a year ago, and have kept the child at home."

"We had better marry her at once," suggested Abraham, still in a voice of deep pain.

"'There are no birds in last year's nest,' old man," was the response.

"Marry her or let it alone, the child's heart is gone from us. She has left behind her in yonder Castle those for whom she cares more than for us, and, I should not wonder also, a faith dearer to her than ours. It will be Anegay over again. Ah, well! Like to like! What else could we expect?"

"Can she hear us, Licorice?"

"Not she! She was fast asleep an hour ago."

"Wife, if it be so, have we not deserved it?"

"Abraham, don't be a fool!" cried Licorice, so very snappishly that it sounded as if her conscience might have responded a little to the accusation.

"I cannot but think thou didst evil, Licorice,--thou knowest how and when."

"I understand thee, of course. It was the only thing to do."

"I know thou saidst so," answered Abraham in an unconvinced tone. "Yet it went to my heart to hear the poor child's sorrowful moan."

"Thy heart is stuffed with feathers."

"I would rather it were so than with stones."

"Thanks for the compliment!"

"Nay, I said nothing about thee. But, Licorice, if it be as thou thinkest, do not let us repeat that mistake."

"I shall repeat no mistakes, I warrant thee."

The conversation ceased rather suddenly, except for one mournful exclamation from Abraham,--"Poor Anegay!"

Anegay! where had Belasez heard that name before? It belonged to no friend or relative, so far as she knew. Yet that she had heard it before, and that in interesting connection with something, she was absolutely certain.

Belasez dropped asleep while she was thinking. It seemed to her that hardly a minute pa.s.sed before she woke again, to hear her mother moving in the next room, and to see full daylight streaming in at the window.

And suddenly, just as she awoke, it rushed upon her when and how she had heard of Anegay.

She saw herself, a little child, standing by the side of Licorice. With them was old Belya, the mother of Hamon, and before them stood an enormous illuminated volume at which they were looking. Belasez found it impossible to remember what had been said by Belya; but her mother's response was as vivid in her mind as if the whole scene were of yesterday.

"Hus.h.!.+ The child must not know. Yes, Belya, thou art right. That was taken from Anegay's face."

What was it that was taken? And dimly before Belasez's mental eyes a picture seemed to grow, in which a king upon his throne, and a woman fainting, were the princ.i.p.al figures. Esther before Ahasuerus!

That was it, of course. And Belasez sprang up, with a determination to search through her father's books, and to find the picture which had been taken from Anegay's face.

But, after all, who was Anegay?

Licorice was in full tide of business and porridge-making, in her little kitchen, when Belasez presented herself with an apology for being late.

"Nay, folks that go to bed at nine may well not rise till five," said Licorice, graciously. "Throw more salt in here, child, and fetch the porringers whilst I stir it. Call thy father and Delecresse,--breakfast will be ready by the time they are."

Breakfast was half over when Licorice inquired of her daughter whom she had seen at Bury Castle.

"Oh! to speak to, only the Countess and her daughter, Damsel Margaret, and the other young damsels, Doucebelle, Eva, and Marie; and Levina, the Lady's dresser. They showed me some others through the window, so that I knew their names and faces."

Belasez quietly left out the priests.

"And what knights didst thou see there?"

"Through the window? Sir Hubert the Earl, and Sir Richard of Gloucester, and Sir John the Earl's son, and Sir John de Averenches.

Oh! I forgot Dame Hawise, Sir John's wife; but I never saw much of her."

"There was no such there as one named Bruno de Malpas, I suppose?" asked Licorice, with a.s.sumed carelessness. "No, there was no knight of that name." But in her heart Belasez felt that the name belonged to the priest, Father Bruno.

A few more questions were asked her, of no import, and then they rose.

When Licorice set her free from household duties, Belasez took her way to the little closet over the porch which served as her father's library. He was the happy possessor of eleven volumes,--a goodly number at that date. Eight she pa.s.sed by, knowing them to contain no pictures.

The ninth was an illuminated copy of the Brut, which of course began, as all chronicles then did, with the creation; but Belasez looked through it twice without finding any thing to satisfy her. Next came the Chronicle of Benoit, but the illuminations in this were merely initials and tail-pieces in arabesque. There was only one left, and it was the largest volume in the collection. Belasez could not remember having ever opened it. She pulled it down now, just missing a sprained wrist in the process, and found it to be a splendid copy of the Hagiographa, with full-page pictures, glowing with colours and gold. Of course, the illuminations had been executed by Christian hands; but all these books had come to Abraham in exchange for bad debts, and he was not so consistent as to refuse to look at the representations of created things, however wicked he might account it to produce them. Belasez turned over the stiff leaves, one after another, till she reached the Book of Esther. Yes, surely that was the picture she remembered. There sat the King Ahasuerus on a curule chair, wearing a floriated crown and a mantle clasped at the neck with a golden fibula; and there fainted Queen Esther in the arms of her ladies, arrayed in the tight gown, the pocketing sleeve, the wimple, and all other monstrosities of the early Plantagenet era. A Persian satrap, enclosed in a coat of mail and a surcoat with a silver s.h.i.+eld, whereon an exceedingly rampant red lion was disporting itself, appeared to be coming to the help of his liege lady; while a tall white lily, in a flower-pot about twice the size of the throne, occupied one side of the picture. To all these details Belasez paid no attention. The one thing at which she looked was the face of the fainting Queen, which was turned full towards the spectator.

It was a very lovely face of a decidedly Jewish type. But what made Belasez glance from it to the brazen mirror fixed to the wall opposite?

Was it Anegay of whom Bruno had been thinking when he murmured that she was so like some one? Undoubtedly there was a likeness. The same pure oval face, the smooth calm brow, the dark glossy hair: but it struck Belasez that her own features, as seen in the mirror, were the less prominently Jewish.

And, once more, who was Anegay?

How little it is possible to know of the innermost heart of our nearest friends! Belasez went through all her duties that day, without rousing the faintest suspicion in the mind of her mother that she had heard a syllable of the conversation between her parents the night before. Yet she thought of little else. Her household work was finished, and she sat in the deep recess of the window at her embroidery, when Delecresse came and stood beside her.

"Belasez, who was that damsel that sat talking with my Lord of Gloucester in the hall when we pa.s.sed through?"

"That was the Damsel Margaret, daughter of Sir Hubert the Earl."

"What sort of a maiden is she?"

"Very sweet and gentle. I liked her extremely. She was always most kind to me."

"Is she attached to my Lord of Gloucester?"

It was a new idea to Belasez.

"Really, I never thought of that, Cress. But I should not at all wonder if she be. She is constantly talking of him."