*CHAPTER XII.*
*LAWRENCE'S REWARD.*
"Walking together o'er the restless earth With faces set to the eternal hills." --REV. HORATIUS BONAR.
Lawrence Madison had time given him to recover, for it was Novemberbefore the funeral cortege left Usk for Wigmore. Earl Roger was found tohave died intestate. It was no wonder, for how could he haveanticipated that his life would end as or when it had done? This factleft all the details of his burial, usually so carefully provided for inthe will of the deceased, to the decision of the survivors. TheCountess, when appealed to, replied that her unspeakable afflictioncould not concern itself with matters of that kind; she would be obligedto Lord Bardolf to see that all was done properly, and to leave heralone with her life-long sorrow. Having said which, she called for abackgammon board, and was soon smilingly interested in a game with myLord Powys.
Lord Powys, however, perceived that notwithstanding the distraction ofbackgammon, something was really annoying the lady of his heart: andafter a sufficient administration of flattery and coaxing, he succeededin inducing her to confess what it was. She was seriously distressed atthe discovery that her husband had left no will, for what that meant wasthat her only claim on his property was a third share in the estate.Had he attended properly to his conjugal duties, he ought to have made amuch better provision for her. Now, when her eldest son came of age,and his wardship ceased, two-thirds of the estate would go to him, andshe would be left in a position which it pleased her to regard asequivalent to destitution. Considering that this lamentable descentfrom affluence to poverty would leave her Ladyship with a small balanceof about a hundred and fifty thousand pounds, according to the value ofmoney at the present day, it may be supposed that there was a slighttwinkle in the eyes of Lord Powys while he condoled in a grave voicewith the calamitous widow. He thought her still quite sufficientlygolden to be worth the trouble of wooing, and she knew it. He wasmoreover aware that a very large casket of jewels lay at her disposal,and that dexterous management might squeeze a further grant out of theCrown. Alianora was troubled by no fear of losing Lord Powys, and hadshe been so, would readily have comforted herself with anybody else whopossessed good looks, gentlemanly manners, and a flattering tongue. Butbefore this little arrangement with Lord Powys could come to pass, alicence was required from the Crown, and this in Alianora's case wouldbe an awkward and delicate business. The King might notapprove--probably would not approve--of the widow of his heirpresumptive throwing herself away on an obscure Welsh baron. AndAlianora was determined to marry Lord Powys, who suited her taste muchbetter than Roger had done. He was not a handsomer man, but he wasgood-looking, and he possessed a tongue of that silvery descriptionwhich, to use the Irishman's expression, "would wile a bird off a tree."His tastes accorded with hers; he knew how to please her--an art inwhich Roger, with all his desire to do it, had been much less of anadept--he was an exquisite hand at that airy small-talk which Alianoraloved better than she loved her children, and his supply of flatteryequalled the demand, which implies that it was deep and extensiveindeed. Alianora, therefore, set what she called her heart--namely, anobstinate unreasoning will--upon Edward Charlton, and was determined tomarry him, obstacles or no obstacles. In order to do this, a licence tomarry whom she would must be procured from the Crown,--no hint beinggiven of whom it was to be: and this could not in decency be asked foruntil some months had elapsed after Roger's death. She obtained it,however, before twelve months were over: and having done so, sheinstantly gave her hand to Lord Powys in the Castle chapel, to theannoyance of all her own relations, and the decided displeasure of theKing. That did not matter to her: once secure of her prize, she couldsnap her fingers at them all.
She had, in fact, though it may be doubted if King Richard knew it, donethe one thing which her licence bound her not to do, and married one ofthe King's enemies. Lord Powys was an adherent of Henry of Lancaster,and one of the bitterest anti-Lollards in the kingdom.[#] They bothknew that they could reasonably expect no extraordinary favours at thehands of the reigning King, and they contrived to bear existence on thatpoor pittance of a hundred and fifty thousand pounds, until, only fourmonths after the granting of the licence, which was one of the last actsof King Richard, Henry of Lancaster, Earl of Derby, unseated his cousinand occupied his throne. He might be expected to have friendlyintentions towards Powys and Alianora. She accordingly, in due time andform, represented to the new King "the charge she was at in maintenanceof her two daughters," Anne and Alianora; "the devastation of all herdowry in Wales, and the spoil of her late husband's lands by the Welsh,"and prayed for relief from the Crown. Henry answered hercharacteristically, and in a manner which arouses an idea that his clearcold eyes saw through her dramatic craft. He granted her, to the valueof a hundred guineas per annum, all annuities, forfeitures, andreversions which Earl Roger had assigned during his life:--a clever modeof making provision in name, with very little solid advantage to accrue.It was not for long that Alianora survived this episode. She died atthe birth of Joyce Charlton, the second child of her second marriage,leaving her elder children in prison, and going to her own place--theplace she was fit for, and the place she had chosen.
[#] It is doubtful if he were not also to some extent an adherent ofGloucester, for in the previous November he had suffered eleven daysimprisonment in the Tower, evidently on some such suspicion. (CloseRoll, 21 Ric. II., Part 1.)
But this is an anticipation, and we must return to that November morningon which the funeral procession quitted Usk for Wigmore.
The bier was placed on a charette, and covered with a pall of blackcloth, surmounted by the waxen image then always carried outside thecoffin, the face of which was a mask taken from that of the corpsebeneath. Two horses drew the charette until about a mile from Wigmore,when four more were added in order to form a more imposing spectacle.Lord Bardolf rode behind the coffin, on the right hand of the youngEarl, who was chief mourner, and whose horse was led, at the leader'sspecial request, by Sir Lawrence Madison. It was usual to depute asquire to this work: and it was paying the highest honour in his powerto the dead and the living, that Lawrence should demean himself to doit.
The little Earl, seven years old, behaved extremely well, as wasadmitted and admired by everybody. He really behaved so well, because hefelt so little. The true son of Alianora, it was not in his nature tolove any creature but Edmund Mortimer, nor even for his own ultimatebenefit was he ready to take much trouble. He took the loss of a fatherat seven years of age, as he afterwards took the loss of a crown atfourteen, with the most philosophical placidity.
At the door of the Abbey Church of St. James at Wigmore, the BenedictineAbbot and his canons met the coffin of the Lord of the Marches of Wales.Over the coffin was a pall of cloth of gold, edged with blue, thecolours of the house of Mortimer. It was borne by six squires on eachside, but once more Sir Lawrence Madison stepped forward, and took theplace of the foremost squire. His hand should be among those whichperformed the last offices to the brother of his love,--"More than hisbrothers were to him."
When the bier was set down before the high altar, twenty-five poor menclad in white, according to the number of the years of the dead, cameforward to receive the thick wax tapers which they were to hold duringthe service, standing about the coffin.
Then came the solemn mass, accompanied as it always is, by that grandestof all funeral hymns which, like the inspired hymnal of King David,seems to be inimitable in translated metre:--
"Recordare, Jesu pie, Quod sum causa taae viae; Ne me perdas ilia die!
"Quaerens me sedisti lassus, Redemisti crucem passus; Tantus labor non sit cassus."
When the coffin had been lowered into the vault,--to which again, thelast office, Lawrence lent his hand--the mourners slowly filed out ofthe church, each as he passed the vault receiving the sprinkler from thehand of a priest in attendance, and sprinkling the coffin with
holywater. They returned to Usk not as they had come, in ceremonialprocession, but in a quiet and orderly group.
Considerable time elapsed, and much investigation was necessary, beforeLawrence could discover what had become of the relatives whom he hadleft in the hut at the foot of the castle, eighteen years before. Theparents of Beatrice (his old friends Blumond and Philippa) were dead;and having been an only child, she had no near relatives whoseassistance could be lent in the matter. For a long while, all that hecould ascertain with any certainty was that the present inhabitants ofthe hut knew nothing of the late ones, and that an old woman, the onlyperson left of those who had dwelt there in Lawrence's childhood, couldtell him that his mother was dead, two of his sisters married and gone,and that his father and his brother Simon had been removed to some otherestate of their feudal owner--"down yonder," said she, with a nod of herhead towards the north, which might take in a large tract of country.What had befallen the younger brother and sister she appeared to have noidea. All to whom Lawrence applied gave him an answer, half awe-struck,half kindly, excepting those whose brains and hearts seemed dulled byhard usage. Most promised to bear the matter in mind, and to make suchinquiries as they had opportunity.
Lawrence had never realised the immensity of the change in himself,until he attempted thus to resume the old familiar relations with thatstratum of society into which he was born. Through constant associationwith educated gentlemen, he had become one of them in thought andfeeling; but he was never aware how thoroughly, until he tried to beonce more that which he had ceased to be. His first thought was thatthe people of Usk had changed--they were more cold-hearted, and lesshomely and pleasant, than they had been in his boyhood. He discoveredin time that the alteration was not in them, but in himself, and thatall they were guilty of was the unavoidable and intuitive recognitionthat he belonged to the group of masters, and no more to that of serfs.But the discovery was not perfected until one evening, when a dirty,slatternly woman of about thirty years of age presented herself at theporter's lodge of Usk Castle, and demanded in a whining tone to see oneLawrence Madison.
"'Lawrence Madison,' forsooth!" returned the scandalised porter. "Is itthus thou wouldst speak of one of the most gallant knights in England?Mend thy ways, woman, and say Sir Lawrence, and then maybe I can findthe time to answer thee."
"Eh, lo' you now!" exclaimed the woman, resting a dirty hand against thestone wall. "Is't so fine as that, trow? Well, Master Porter, or SirPorter, or my Lord Porter, as it shall like your Bigness, I would see_Sir_ Lawrence Madison, if it should like you demean you to go and tellhim so much, and him to come hither and behold his sister."
"His what?" inquired the porter in an indescribable tone, reviewing thequerist in a style which was scarcely flattering.
"His sister," coolly returned the unabashed young woman. "His father'sdaughter, and his mother's belike, byname Emmot, and wife unto WillSumpterman, that keepeth my Lord Le Despenser his baggage mules, andhath trapesed many a weary mile to speak with my said worshipful knight.Canst carry so much, thinkest?"
The disgusted porter turned away without deigning a reply; but his wife,who had overheard the colloquy, came forward and in politic wise invitedEmmot to enter the lodge. There Lawrence found her when the porterreturned with him. His first idea had been one of great pleasure. Butwhen he saw the dirty, untidy, miserable-looking creature who called himBrother, a mixed feeling of compassion and disgust took its place.
To him she was another woman, and was very far from braving him as shehad done the porter.
"Give you good den, Sir Lawrence," said she, louting low: "Metrustethyou shall not have forgat your sister Emmot, that is your own flesh andblood, and right ill off, with eight childre that have scarce a rag totheir backs, nor an handful of meal to put in their mouths, I do ensureyou. We have heard you be come back a knight, worshipful Sir, with afortune in broad gold pieces, and sure you would never forget your ownflesh and blood. Mariot hath but five childre, and her man was betteroff than mine; and Joan hath but two. So you shall see, sweet Sir, Icast no doubt, that 'tis I have the most need of your bountifulness,good Sir Lawrence."
Lawrence's awakened pity was rapidly passing into unspeakable disgust.He had come home prepared to divide his savings among these relatives,as being his own flesh and blood: but he was not prepared to find themthrowing themselves upon him like a pack of wolves, intent upon nothingbut the horrible emulation which of them could bite the largest pieceout of him, and each utterly unconcerned whether the rest got any thingat all. It cost him something to say "Sister" to this wretchedcreature--not because she was poor,--Lawrence would never have feltthat--but because she was vulgar and slovenly, disgusting alike in mindand body. He controlled himself, however, and passing by the tooevident spirit of her speech, asked what she could tell him of the othermembers of the family. Emmot's communicativeness cooled manifestly. Sheprofessed that she knew nothing of the others, and Lawrence had toremind her what she had just said. After a little fencing she admittedthat she knew where nearly all of them were. Mariot was living abouttwo miles from Usk, and her husband had been a miner; he was dead, andshe made a living by plaiting straw. One of her sons was quite oldenough to work--a fact on which Emmot laid great stress; her husband hadbeen a freeman, and none of the family were serfs except herself, whichwas an enormous advantage: and Joan's husband was a serf, so that sheand her family were kept at their master's cost, and needed nothingwhatever,--another enormous advantage; and she had only two children.And once more the eight children of the illogical Emmot were paradedrhetorically before Lawrence.
He gave her a handsome donation, over which she grumbled sorely, and heturned away sick at heart.
Lawrence's next work was to visit his father, who lived a day's journeyaway, with his son Simon and his family. Nicholas showed some interestin his youngest son, and some slight affection for him; and he did notask for money--an omission fully made up by Simon's wife. Simon himselfproved the least changed of any of the family. Grim and surly as farback as Lawrence could recollect him, he was grim and surly still.Lawrence left another donation here, and coming back, went a little outof his way to call upon his sister Joan.
If this lady had fewer children than her sister, she supplied the gap bya larger quantity of grumbling. When he left her--having had hard workto get away--Lawrence really wondered if she could have been moreabusive had he refused her a penny. It was with a sensation of utterdisgust with the whole concern that he went to pay his last visit, tohis sister Mariot.
He found a trim, neat little cottage by the roadside, where a clean,smiling lad was cutting up a log of wood, and a tidy, pleasant-lookinggirl was sewing in the little porch. And when Lawrence had made knownhis wishes, and the girl had called "Mother!" to someone in the innerroom--the cottage only held two--the woman who came forward in answerhad a clean rosy face, and smooth black hair neatly braided.
"Mariot, dost thou mind thy youngest brother?"
"Lolly! Eh, my little lad, is it thou?"
She laid both hands on his shoulders and turned him round to the light.
"My dear lad! My own little Lolly! Mind thee? aye, that do I,forsooth. And thou art come back to Usk?--is it to 'bide there? Andhow goes it with thee, lad? art wed? and hast done well? Tell me allabout thee, Lolly."
It was an entirely different welcome from any of the rest. The newsthat Lawrence was a knight, and had returned possessed of a sum which inher eyes was great riches, did not seem to strike Mariot in any lightbut that of being glad for him. And when he offered her the same sumwhich he had given to the rest, and they had received so murmuringly, tohis surprise she refused it.
"Nay, lad, I'll not take thy gold," said Mariot. "I want for nought, Godbe thanked, and my childre be good childre; and Jack hath so much as hecan do, and Alice yonder can make a pretty penny in the straw plaiting,and Maud comes on well with her sewing. Surely it were ill done, evenhad I need, that thy brethren and sisters should strip thee of eve
rypenny! Little Lolly, I guess I was pretty nigh the only one that lovedthee as a babe, and now, thanks be to God, since I knew how He loved meI have learned to love better. Go thy ways, lad, and see to thine ownwell-doing, and keep thy bits of savings in thy pocket. I am every whitas much beholden to thee as if thou hadst given me a thousand marks.But bethink thee somewhat of thine own future: for when folk think notof their own selves--of the which sort there be main few, by mytroth--other folk must think for them. Thou shalt wish to wed one ofthese days, an' thou dost not now: and how shall that be compassed withnever a plack in thy pocket? Go thy ways, and get thee a good wife anda pleasant home--the which shall do me a much more pleasure than to havethe spending of thy gold. Choose her by a true heart, and not by a fairface, and ask our Lord to help thee in the choosing, and then thou shaltdo well. And now and anon, when thou hast an hour or twain to spare,come down hither and drink thy four-hours with us, and give me to wit ofthy welfare--that shall pleasure me full greatly. My Lady Madison,trow, shall be too fine to sup her four-hours with a miner's widow; butI would like to see thee by nows and thens."
"She will not be my wife an' she so be," said Lawrence: "but truly,Mariot, I look for no such, and it should better serve that thou wouldstleave me help thee."
"Go to!" said Mariot with a knowing smile. "How many a time, thinkest,have I heard that saying from folks at whose wedding I have dancedwithin the next twelvemonth? Thine eyes be tell-tales, Lolly. An' thoube heart-free, mine eyes be no true men."
"Thou sayest sooth," was Lawrence's answer, in rather a sorrowful tone."But one heart is not enough for a wedding, my sister. More than oneswallow goeth to make a summer."
"Dear heart, two swallows were plenty for that summer," replied Mariot,laughing. "Hast asked her, lad?" she added somewhat drily.
Lawrence confessed the negative.
"Art awaiting till she ask thee?" demanded Mariot with an amused look.
"Scarce that, methinks. Nay, Mariot, she hath thought of the veil. Whoam I, that I should set me in rivalry with God?"
"Go to!" returned Mariot, with a strong good sense which was not commonin her era. "Veils be for broken hearts and worn-down widows, andunchilded mothers--for women which have smoothed down the green turfover their hearts' best love. They be not for young maids, fresh andbright, with life opening afore them. Never think it!"
"Yet we should give God the best," said Lawrence sadly.
"Give Him what He asketh of thee, Lolly. Methinks that is not often themaking a man's life desolate. But is the cloister the only way to giveto God? Didst learn that from the Word, or out of thine own heart? Hethat trusteth his own heart is a fool."
"Why, Mariot, art not giving me counsel to trust mine own heart in thismatter?"
"Never a whit. I counsel thee to trust God's providence, and let Himchoose for thee. If He have not meant this maid for thee, have no fearshe shall say yea to thine asking. Do the thing that did King Ezekias,my dear lad--spread it before the Lord, and ask Him to lead her inaccordance with His will. Then speak, and fear not. How wist thou thatin her mind the choice lieth not betwixt the cloister and thee,--and ifthy tongue be dumb, she must needs choose the other. She'll not askthee, I reckon."
"She loveth me not at all," said Lawrence.
"I'd make sure," was Mariot's quiet conclusion. "There be some nuts beall o'er prickles o' the outside, which be good enough when thou haststripped off the bur."
"Mistress Wenteline," said Lawrence, the next morning, "will you do meso much favour as tell me if Mistress Beatrice hath yet purpose to be anun?"
"I believe," answered Guenllian, "she hath purpose to be veiled with theWhite Ladies of Limbroke, if it may be, this next month." But asLawrence passed on, she said to herself, "Unless you can persuade herout of it!"
A few hours later, when the dusk had come, as Lawrence crossed theante-chamber, into which the moon was shining brightly, he saw a darkfigure standing in the recess of the window, and went up to it. Hisheart, rather than his eyes, told him who it was.
"Is it you, Mistress Beatrice?"
"It is I, Sir Lawrence."
The old playmates had become excessively ceremonious to each other. Thebrotherly sort of intercourse, resumed on their meeting at Trim, hadbeen quite dropped, and they were as distantly civil as if they had madeacquaintance only a few days before.
"You can scarce see much hence, methinketh."
"It is fair enough," said Beatrice, absently; adding after a moment,"fair enough for one who shall soon behold nought beyond convent walls."
"Are you well avised thereabout, Mistress Beatrice?"
"I think so much," she answered, gravely.
"Thus said Father Robesart. Yet he seemed, something doubtful if youhave well judged therein, as methought. It were grave matter to blunderover, Mistress Beatrice. There is no coming forth, howsoe'er one maydesire it."
"No," she said--and said no more.
Lawrence took another step, and dropped a little of his ceremoniousnessto do it.
"Beatrice, dear old friend, is this for your happiness? Not one otherword will I speak if you ensure me thereof."
"Happiness is not the only thing," she said in a constrained voice.
"Not so, maybe, for you to think on: yet methinks you might allow foryour friends to concern them touching the same."
Beatrice made no reply.
"Are you well assured that our Lord calls you to that life, dearBeatrice? Might it not be better for you, no less than for other, thatyou should make happy some home and heart, rather than bury yourself inthe cloister? Think well of it, ere you cast die that can never berecalled."
"I have thought of it," said Beatrice in rather a hard tone. "I am notwanted otherwhere. Why should I not be a nun?"
"Because you were never meant for one. Because it is not the right lifefor you, for whom life is but just opening. Because----"
Beatrice interrupted him. "Life opening! Your pardon, Sir Lawrence.Life has closed for me."
"You think so much now," he answered, gently. "This time next year, willyou so think? Not wanted! Would you come where you were? I could tellyou of one who wanteth you more than words can tell,--to whom the worldwill be black gloom if you go forth of it. But let that pass. I meantnot to speak--Beattie, old friend, old playmate, sister if I may callyou so, leave me plead with you this once, ere you bury your youth andhope where neither hope nor gladness can enter more. I know you toowell, Beattie! You would be miserable in the cloister. Why not makesome other life happy, and your own joined thereto?"
He listened earnestly for her answer. One more negative, and he wouldlet her alone, to go her own way, though his way would be darkness andloneliness thenceforward. Lawrence's love was very unselfish. IfBeatrice had loved some one who was not himself, he would have given herevery penny he possessed for her fortune, had he thought that the wantof fortune barred her from happiness. But he did not think that sheloved any one, and himself least of all. Only he could not bear thethought of the cloister for Blumond's Beattie, and he thought he knewher well enough to be sure that it would be misery in the latter end.
"I will," said Beatrice in a low voice, keeping her face in shadow. "Iwill, if----"
"If what, dear Beattie?"
"If it may be yours, Lawrence."