The Well in the Desert Part 14

"For a time," answered Isabel, "if thine husband a.s.sent thereto."

"I shall not ask him," said Philippa, with a slight pout.

"Then I shall not go," replied Isabel quietly. "I will not enter his house without his permission."

Philippa's surprise and disappointment were legible in her face.

"But, mother, thou knowest not my lord," she interposed. "There is not in all the world a man more wearisome to dwell withal. Every thing I do, he dislikes; and every thing I wish to do, he forbids. I am thankful for his absence, for when he is at home, from dawn to dusk he doth nought save to find fault with me."

But, notwithstanding her remonstrance, Philippa had fathomed her mother's motive in thus answering. Sir Richard possessed little of his own; he was almost wholly dependent on the Earl her father; and had it pleased that gentleman to revoke his grant of manors to herself and her husband, they would have been almost ruined. And Philippa knew quite enough of Earl Richard the Copped-Hat to be aware that few tidings would be so unwelcome at Arundel as those which conveyed the fact of Isabel's presence at Kilquyt. Her mother's uplifted hand stopped her from saying more.

"Hush, my daughter!" said the low voice. "Repay not thou by finding fault in return. 'What glory is it, if, when ye be buffeted for your faults, ye shall take it patiently? but if, when ye do well and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is acceptable with G.o.d.'"

"I am not so patient as you, mother," answered Philippa, shaking her head. "Perhaps it were better for me if I were. But dost thou mean that I must really ask my lord's leave ere thou wilt come with me?"

"I do mean it."

"And thou sayest, 'for a time'--wilt thou not dwell with me?"

"The vows of the Lord are upon me," replied Isabel, gravely. "I cannot forsake the place wherein He hath set me, the work which He hath given me to do. I will visit thee, and my sister also; but that done, I must return hither."

"But dost thou mean to live and die in yonder cell?"

It was in the recreation-room of the Convent that they were conversing.

"Even so, my daughter." [See Note 1.]

Philippa's countenance fell. It seemed very hard to part again when they had but just found each other. If this were religion, it must be difficult work to be religious. Yet she was more disappointed than surprised, especially when the first momentary annoyance was past.

"My child," said Isabel softly, seeing her disappointment, "if I err in thus speaking, I pray G.o.d to pardon me. I can but follow what I see right; and 'to him that esteemeth anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean.' How can I forsake the hearts that look to me for help throughout this valley? And if thou have need of me, thou canst always come, or send for me."

This gentle, apologetic explanation touched Philippa the more, because she felt that in the like case, she could not herself have condescended to make it.

The next thing to be done was to write to Sir Richard. This Philippa was unable to do personally, since the art of handling the pen had formed no part of her education. Her mother did it for her; for Isabel had been solidly and elaborately instructed by Giles de Edingdon, under the superintendence of the King's Confessor, Luke de Wodeford, also a Predicant Friar. The letter had to be directed very much at random,--to "Sir Richard Sergeaux, of the Duke of Lancaster's following, at Bordeaux, or wherever he may be found." Fortunately for Philippa, the Prior of the neighbouring monastery was just despatching his cellarer to London on conventual business: and he undertook to convey her letter to the Savoy Palace, whence it would be forwarded with the next despatches sent to John of Gaunt. Philippa, in whose name the letter was written, requested her husband to reply to her at Shaftesbury, whither she and Isabel meant to proceed at once.

The spring was in its full beauty when they reached Shaftesbury.

Philippa had not found an opportunity to let the Abbess know of her coming, but she was very cordially welcomed by that good-natured dame.

The recreation-bell sounded while they were conversing, and at Philippa's desire the Abbess sent for Mother Joan to the guest-chamber.

Sister Senicula led her in.

"How is it with you, Aunt?" said Philippa affectionately. "I have returned hither, as you may hear."

"Ah! Is it thou, child?" said the blind nun in answer. "I fare reasonably well, as a blind woman may. I am glad thou hast come hither again."

It evidently cost Isabel much to make herself known to the sister from whom she had parted in such painful circ.u.mstances, thirty-seven years before. For a few moments longer, she did not speak, and Philippa waited for her. At last Isabel said in a choked voice--"Sister Joan!"

"Holy Virgin!" exclaimed the blind woman; "who called me that?"

"One that thou knewest once," answered Isabel's quivering voice.

"From Heaven?" cried Joan almost wildly. "Can the dead come back again?" And she stretched forth her hands in the direction from which the sound of her sister's voice had come.

"No, but the living may," said Isabel, kneeling down by her, and clasping her arms around her.

"Isabel!" And Joan's trembling hands were pa.s.sed over her face, as if to a.s.sure herself that her ears had not deceived her. "It can be no voice but thine. Holy Virgin, I thank thee!"

The Abbess broke in, in a manner which, though well-meant, was exceedingly ill-timed and in bad taste. She was kindly-disposed, but had not the faintest trace of that delicate perception of others'

feelings, and consideration for them, which const.i.tutes the real difference between Nature's ladies and such as are not ladies.

"Verily, to think that this holy Mother and our Mother Joan be sisters!"

cried she, "I remember somewhat of your history, my holy Sister: are you not she that was sometime Countess of Arundel?"

Philippa saw how Isabel trembled from head to foot; but she knew not what to say. Joan La Despenser was equal to the emergency.

"Holy Mother," she said quietly, "would it please you, of your great goodness, to permit me to remain here during the recreation-hour with my sister? I am a.s.sured we shall have much to say each to other, if we may have your blessed allowance to speak freely after this manner."

"Be it so, Sister," said the Abbess, smiling genially; "I will see to our sisters in the recreation-chamber."

A long conversation followed the departure of the Abbess. Joan took up the history where she had parted from Isabel, and told what had been her own lot since then; and Isabel in her turn recounted her story--neither a long nor an eventful one; for it told only how she had been taken to Sempringham by the page, and had there settled herself, in the hermit's cell which happened to be vacant.

When Philippa was lying awake that night, her thoughts were troublous ones. Not only did she very much doubt Sir Richard's consent to her mother's visit to Kilquyt; but another question was puzzling her exceedingly. How far was it desirable to inform Isabel of the death of Alianora? She had noticed how the unfortunate remark of the Abbess had agitated her mother; and she also observed that when Joan came to speak to Isabel herself, she was totally silent concerning Earl Richard. The uncomplimentary adjectives which she had not spared in speaking to Philippa were utterly discarded now. Would it not do at least as much harm as good to revive the old memories of pain by telling her this?

Philippa decided to remain silent.

The summer was pa.s.sing away, and the autumn hues were slowly creeping over the forest, when Sir Richard's answer arrived at Shaftesbury. It was not a pleasing missive; but it would have cost Philippa more tears if it had made her less angry. That gentleman had not written in a good temper; but he was not without excuse, for he had suffered something himself. He had not dared to reply to Philippa's entreaty, without seeking in his turn the permission of the Earl of Arundel, in whose hands his fortune lay to make or mar. And, by one of those uncomfortable coincidences which have led to the proverb that "Misfortunes never come single," it so happened that the news of the Countess's death had reached the Earl on the very morning whereon Sir Richard laid Philippa's letter before him. The result was that there broke on the devoted head of Sir Richard a tempest of ungovernable rage, so extremely unpleasant in character that he might be excused for his anxiety to avoid provoking a second edition of it. The Earl was grieved--so far as a nature like his could entertain grief--to lose his second wife; but to find that the first wife had been discovered, and by her daughter, possessed the additional character of insult. That the occurrence was accidental did not alter matters. Words would not content the aggrieved mourner: his hand sought the hilt of his sword, and Sir Richard, thinking discretion the better part of valour, made his way, as quickly as the laws of matter and s.p.a.ce allowed him, out of the terrible presence whereinto he had rashly ventured. Feeling himself wholly innocent of any provocation, it was not surprising that he should proceed to dictate a letter to his wife, scarcely calculated to gratify her feelings. Thus ran the offending doc.u.ment:--

"Dame,--Your epistle hath reached mine hands, [see Note 2] wherein it hath pleased you to give me to know of your finding of the Lady Isabel La Despenser, your fair mother, [see Note 3] and likewise of your desire that she should visit you at my Manor of Kilquyt. Know therefore, that I can in no wise a.s.sent to the same. For I am a.s.sured that it should provoke, and that in no small degree, the wrath of your fair father, my gracious Lord of Arundel: and I hereby charge you, on your obedience, so soon as you shall receive this my letter, that you return home, and tarry no longer at Shaftesbury nor Sempringham. Know that I fare reasonably well, and Eustace my squire; and your fair father likewise, saving that he hath showed much anger towards you and me. And thus, praying G.o.d and our blessed Lady, and Saint Peter and Saint Paul, to keep you. I rest.

"R. Sergeaux."

The entire epistle was written by a scribe, for Sir Richard was as innocent of the art of calligraphy as Philippa herself; and the appending of his seal was the only part of the letter achieved by his own hand.

Philippa read the note three times before she communicated its contents to any one. The first time, it was with feelings of bitter anger towards both her father and her husband; the second, her view of her father's conduct remained unchanged, but she began to see that Sir Richard, from his own point of view, was not without reasonable excuse for his refusal, and that considering the annoyance he had himself suffered, his letter was moderate and even tolerably kind,--kind, that is, for him. After the third perusal, Philippa carried the letter to Joan, and read it to her--not in Isabel's presence.

"What a fool wert thou, child," said Joan, with her usual bluntness, "to send to thy lord concerning this matter! Well, what is done, is done.

I had looked for no better had I known of it."

Philippa did not read the letter to her mother. She merely told her the substance; that Sir Richard would not permit her to receive her at Kilquyt, and that he had ordered her home without delay. Isabel's lip quivered a moment, but the next instant she smiled.

"I am not surprised, my child," she said. "Take heed, and obey." It was hard work to obey. Hard, to part with Joan; harder yet, to leave Isabel in her lonely cell at Sempringham, and to go forward on the as lonely journey to Kilquyt. Perhaps hardest of all was the last night in the recreation-room at Sempringham. Isabel and Philippa sat by themselves in a corner, the hand of the eremitess clasped in that of her daughter.

"But how do you account for all the sorrow that is in the world?"

Philippa had been saying. "Take my life, for instance, or your own, mother. G.o.d could have given us very pleasant lives, if it had pleased Him; why did He not do so? How can it augur love, to take out of our way all things loved or loving?"

"My daughter," answered Isabel, "I am a.s.sured--and the longer I live the more a.s.sured I am--that the way which G.o.d marketh out for each one of His chosen is the right way, the best way, and for that one the only way. Every pang given to us, if we be Christ's, is a pang that could not be spared. 'As He was, so are we in this world;' and with us, as with Him, 'thus it _must_ be.' All our Lord's followers wear His crown of thorns; but theirs, under His loving hand, bud and flower; which His never did, till He could cry upon the rood, 'It is finished.'"

"But could not G.o.d," said Philippa, a little timidly, "have given us more grace to avoid sinning, rather than have needed thus to burn our sins out of us with hot irons?"

"Thou art soaring up into the seventh Heaven of G.o.d's purposes, my child," answered Isabel with a smile; "I have no wings to follow thee so far."