Mistress Margery Part 3

"Ay, Madge is a feat scribe, truly!" remarked Dame Lovell, to Margery's unspeakable distress. "She hath written two Breviaries, I wis."

"Two!" said Sir Geoffrey, laughing. "One for Sundays and feasts, and the other for week-days? Madge, bring us both of them."

Margery left the room, and returned in a few minutes, with both the books in her hand. Sir Geoffrey took them, and opened the illuminated one--the genuine Breviary--first. Margery reseated herself, and took up her distaff, but the thread was very uneven, and she broke it twice, while her father turned over the leaves of the book, and praised her writing and illuminations. His praise was sweet enough, but some time he must come to the end, and _then_--!

How fervently Margery wished that Dame Lovell would ask an irrelevant question, which might lead to conversation--that Friar Andrew would awake--that Cicely would rush in with news of the cows having broken into the garden--or that _anything_ would occur which would put a stop to the examination of those volumes before Sir Geoffrey arrived at the last leaf! But everything, as it always is under such circ.u.mstances, was unusually quiet; and Sir Geoffrey fastened the silver clasps of the Breviary, and opened the book without anything to hinder his doing so.

Margery stole furtive looks at her father over her distaff, and soon observed an ominous look of displeasure creeping over his face. He pa.s.sed over several leaves--turned to the beginning, and then to the end,--then, closing the volume, he looked up and said, in a stern voice--

"Andrew!"

Friar Andrew snored placidly on.

"Andrew!" said Sir Geoffrey, in a louder tone.

Friar Andrew gave an indistinct sound between a snore and a grunt. Sir Geoffrey rose from his seat, and striding over to where his confessor slept, laid hold of his shoulders, and gave him such a shake as nearly brought him to the stone floor.

"Awake, thou sluggard!" said he, angrily. "Is it a time for the shepherd to sleep when the wolf is already in the fold, and the lambs be in danger?"

"Eh? Oh! ay!" said Friar Andrew, half awake. "Time to sup, eh?"

"Look here, Andrew!" roared his offended patron, "and see thee what this sinful maid hath been doing. What penance deemest thou fit for such fault as this?" He handed the book to the friar. The friar sat up, rubbed his eyes, opened the book, and turned over two or three leaves.

"I cry your good wors.h.i.+p mercy," said he. "I knew not you were a.s.saying to arouse me. I was dreaming of a kettle of furmety of Madge's making."

"I trow here is a pretty kettle of furmety of Madge's making!" was the irate response.

"I conceive you not, good master," said the friar. "The book is a good book enough, trow."

"Thou art an a.s.s!" was the civil answer. "Seest thou not that it is the translation of Scripture whereof the Lord Marnell spake, by Master John Wycliffe, the Lollard priest? Mindest thou not that which he said about Lollards?"

"An what if it be?" said the confessor, yawning. "I pin not my faith on my Lord Marnell's sleeve, though it _were_ made of slashed velvet. And I trow Madge hath been too well bred up to draw evil from the book. So let the damsel alone, good master, and give her book back. I trow it will never harm her." Margery was exceedingly surprised at the turn which affairs were taking. The truth was, that Friar Andrew was very fond of her; he had been Sir Geoffrey's chaplain before she was born, she had grown up under his eye, and she made, moreover, such a kettle of furmety as he declared no one else could make. Beside this, Andrew was a marvellous poor scholar; he could never read a book at sight, and required to spell it over two or three times before he could make out the meaning. He could read his ma.s.s-book, because he had done so for the last forty years, and could have gone through the service as easily without book as with it; though, had a different copy been given him, in which the pages did not commence with the same line, it would probably have perplexed him extremely. Thus, under these circ.u.mstances, his love for Margery, his love for furmety, and his utter ignorance, combined to dispose him to let her off easily.

Sir Geoffrey took the book from his chaplain with a sort of growl, and threw it into Margery's lap.

"There! take it, damsel!" said he. "I account it Andrew's business to take care of thy soul, and he saith it will not hurt thee. I mind it the less, as thou wilt shortly go to dwell with one who will see to thee in these matters, and will not let thee read Lollard books."

The thread fell from Margery's hand, and so did the distaff, which rolled over the floor with a clatter. She never heeded it. A terrible, indefinite dread had taken hold of her.

"Father! what mean you?" she stammered forth at last.

"What mean I?" said Sir Geoffrey, in the same half-affectionate, half-sarcastic tone. "Why, that I have promised thee to the Lord Marnell, Lord of the Bedchamber to the King's Grace, and Knight of the Garter--and thou wilt be a lady and dwell in London town, and hold up thine head with the highest! What sayest to _that_, child?" he added, proudly.

She sat a moment with her white lips parted,--cold, silent, stunned.

Then the bitter cry of "Father, father!" awoke the echoes of the old hall.

Sir Geoffrey was evidently troubled. He had sought only his daughter's grandeur, and had never so much as dreamed that he might be making her miserable.

"Why, child! dost not like it?" said he, in surprise.

She rose from her seat, and went to him, and kneeling down by him, laid her head, bowed on her clasped hands, upon his knee. "O father, father!" was all she said again.

"Truly, la.s.s, I grieve much to see thee thus," said her father, in a perplexed tone. "But thou wilt soon get over this, and be right glad, too, to be so grand a lady. What shall I say to comfort thee?"

Long, terrible, hysterical sobs were coming from the bowed frame--but no tears. At length, still without lifting up her head, she whispered--

"Is there no way to shun it, father? I love him not. O father, I love him not--I cannot love him!"

"Truly, my poor la.s.s, I trow we cannot shun it," said he. "I never thought to see thee grieve so sore. The Lord Marnell is a n.o.ble gentleman, and will find thee in silken tissues and golden cauls."

Sir Geoffrey did not rightly understand his daughter's sorrow. His "silken tissues and golden cauls" did not raise the bowed head one inch.

"Father!" she whispered, "have you promised him?"

"I have, my child," he answered, softly.

She rose suddenly, and quickly turned to go up the stairs leading to her own room. At this moment Richard Pynson rose also, and quietly taking up the book, which had fallen from Margery's lap on the floor, he handed it to her. She took it with one hand, and gave him the other, but did not let him see her face. Then she pa.s.sed into her chamber, and they heard her fasten the door.

When she had done so, she flung herself down on the rushes [note 1], and bent her head forward on her knees. The longer she thought over her prospects, the more dreary and doleful they appeared. Her state of mind was one that has been touchingly described by a writer who lived three hundred years later--"Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother"--who, of all who have attempted and failed in the impossible task of rendering the Psalms into verse, perhaps approached as near success as any one.

"Troublous seas doe mee surrownde; Saue, O Lord, my sinking soule, Sinking wheare it feeles no grownde, In this gulf, this whirling hole; Wayghting ayde with earnest eying, Calling G.o.d with bootles crying; Dymme and drye in mee are fownde Eyes to see, and throat to sounde."

Suddenly, as she sat thus bowed down, too sorrowful for tears, like the dew to a parched flower came the words of the book--nay, the words of the Lord--into her soul.

"_Be not your herte afrayed, ne drede it_."

"_And therfore ghe han now sorowe, but eftsoone I schal se ghou, and ghoure herte schal haue ioie, and no man schal take fro ghou ghoure ioie. Treuly, treuly, I seie to ghou, if ghe axen the Fadir ony thing in my name he schal ghyue to ghou_." John xvi. 22, 23.

Now, Margery had neither teacher nor commentary to interpret to her the words of Scripture; and the result was, that she never dreamed of modifying any of them, but took the words simply and literally. It never entered her head to interpret them with any qualification--to argue that "anything" must mean only some things. Ah! how much better would it be for us, if we would accept those blessed words as plainly, as unconditionally, as conclusively, as this poor untaught girl!

But when Margery considered the question more minutely, poor child! she knew not what to ask. The constant reference of everything by the Lord Jesus to "the will of the Father" had struck her forcibly; and now she dared not ask for entire freedom from the cras.h.i.+ng blow which had fallen on her, lest it should not be the will of the Father. So she contented herself with a supplication which, under the circ.u.mstances, was the best she could have offered. She did not even try to form her pet.i.tions into words--the depths in which her soul lay were too deep for that; it was a wordless cry which went up to G.o.d. But its substance was an entreaty that the Father would do His will, and would bend her will to it; that whatever He saw fit to give her, He would always give His presence and His love; that whatever He was pleased to take away, He would not take from her the word unto His handmaid wherein He had caused her to hope.

And when she rose from her knees, the prominent idea in her mind might have been expressed in the words of the old proverb, "He loseth nothing that keepeth G.o.d for his friend."

An hour afterwards, Dame Lovell, who could not rest for the remembrance of her child's grief, came softly into Margery's chamber to see if she could comfort her. She was surprised to find her sleeping as quietly as a little child, with the book, even in sleep, held fast to her bosom, as if she would permit nothing to separate her from that Word of G.o.d which had given rest to her soul.

Note 1. Carpets were very rare at this time, and only used on state occasions and for invalids. Their place was supplied by fresh green rushes, strewn on the floor. It appears rather doubtful, however, whether carpets were not sometimes used in the winter.

CHAPTER FOUR.

LIFE IN LONDON.

"Whan we cam' in by Glasgow toun, We were a comely sicht to see,-- My luve was clad in velvet black And I mysel' in cramoisie."

Old Ballad.

A fortnight after the events recorded in the last chapter, Lovell Tower was in the confusion of great preparations for the approaching wedding.