Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England
The White Rose of Langley, a Story of the Olden Time, by Emily SarahHolt.
________________________________________________________________________This book is set in aristocratic circles in the fifteenth century. Forthat reason there is a great deal of mediaeval English. However, mostof the unusual words are explained as they occur, so there is no problemwith comprehension. The last chapter is headed "Historical Appendix",and contains potted lives of most of the people whom we meet in thebook, since the majority of them really existed. Of course the detailof the conversations in the book is made up, but we can well believethat something very like them might well have happened. What is veryevident is that many of these people were plotters, the object of theirdesires being in some way to increase their own wealth or status. Evensmall children may be imprisoned and murdered, as we remember from thesad tale of "the Princes in the Tower".
If you are fond of reading historical novels, and are familiar with thegeneral history of the fifteenth century, you will enjoy this view ofthe lives of the figures that made that history.
________________________________________________________________________THE WHITE ROSE OF LANGLEY, A STORY OF THE OLDEN TIME, BY EMILY SARAHHOLT.
CHAPTER ONE.
NOBODY'S CHILD.
"Oh, how full of briars is this working-day world!"
_Shakspere_.
"It is so cold, Mother!"
The woman addressed languidly roused herself from the half-shelterednook of the forest in which she and her child had taken refuge. She wasleaning with her back supported by a giant oak, and the child was in herarms. The age of the child was about eight. The mother, though stillyoung in years, was old before her time, with hard work and exposure,and it might be also with sorrow. She sat up, and looked wearily overthe winter scene before her. There was nothing of the querulous,complaining tone of the little girl's voice in hers; only the dull,sullen apathy of hopeless endurance.
"Cold, child!" she said. "'Tis like to be colder yet when the nightcometh."
"O Mother! and all snow now!"
"There be chiller gear than snow, maid," replied the mother bitterly.
"But it had been warmer in London, Mother?--if we had not lost ourroad."
"May-be," was the answer, in a tone which seemed to imply that it didnot signify.
The child did not reply; and the woman continued to sit upright, andlook forward, with an absent expression in her face, indicating that themind was not where the eyes were.
"Only snow and frost!" she muttered--not speaking to the child. "Noughtbeyond, nor here ne there. Nay, snow is better than snowed-up hearts.Had it been warmer in London? May-be the hearts there had been asfrosty as at Pleshy. Well! it will be warm in the grave, and we shallsoon win yonder."
"Be there fires yonder, Mother?" asked the child innocently.
The woman laughed--a bitter, harsh laugh, in which there was no mirth.
"The devil keepeth," she said. "At least so say the priests. But whatwit they? They never went thither to see. They will, belike, someday."
The little girl was silent again, and the mother, after a moment'spause, resumed her interrupted soliloquy.
"If there were nought beyond, only!" she murmured; and her look and toneof dull misery sharpened into vivid pain. "If a man might die, and havedone with it all! But to meet God! And 'tis no sweven, [dream] nefallacy, this dread undeadliness [immortality]--it is real. O all yeblessed saints and martyrs in Heaven! how shall I meet God?"
"Is that holy Mary's Son, Mother?"
"Ay."
"Holy Mary will plead for us," suggested the child. "She can alwaypeace her Son. But methought _He_ was good to folks, Mother. SisterChristian was wont to say so."
"To saints and good women like Sister Christian, may-be."
"Art thou not good, Mother?"
The question was put in all innocence. But it struck the heart of themiserable mother like a poisoned arrow.
"Good!" she cried, again in that tone of intense pain. "_I_ good? No,Maude!--I am bad, bad, bad! From the crown of mine head to the sole ofmy foot, there is nothing in me beside evil; such evil as thou, unwemmed[undefiled, innocent] dove as thou art, canst not even conceive! God isgood to saints--not to sinners. Sister Christian--and thou, yet!--beamongst the saints. I am of the sinners."
"But why art thou not a saint, Mother?" demanded the child, asinnocently as before.
"I was on the road once," said the woman, with a heavy sigh. "I was tohave been an holy sister of Saint Clare. I knew no more of ill thanthou whiteling in mine arms. If I had died then, when my soul wasfair!"
Suddenly her mood changed. She clasped the child close to her breast,and showered kisses on the little wan face.
"My babe Maude, my bird Maude!" she said. "My dove that God sped downfrom Heaven unto me, thinking me not too ill ne wicked to have thee!The angels may love thee, my bird in bower! for thou art white andunwemmed. The robes of thy chrism [see Note 1] are not yet soiled; but,O sinner that I am! how am I to meet God? And I must meet Him--andsoon."
"Did not God die on the rood, Mother?"
The woman assented, the old listless tone returning to her voice.
"Wherefore, Mother?"
"God wot, child."
"Sister Christian told me He had no need for Himself, but that He lovedus; yet why that should cause Him to die I wis not."
The mother made no answer. Her thoughts had drifted away, back throughher weary past, to a little village church where a fresco painting stoodon the wall, sketched in days long before, of a company of guests at afeast, clad in Saxon robes; and of One, behind whom knelt a womanweeping and kissing His feet, while her flowing hair almost hid themfrom sight. And back to her memory, along with the scene, came a linefrom a popular ballad ["The Ploughman's Complaint"] which referred toit. She repeated it aloud--
"`Christ suffered a sinful to kisse His fete.'
"Suffered her, for that she was a saint?" she asked of herself, in thedreamy languor which the intense cold had brought over her. "Nay, forshe was `a sinful.' Suffered her, then, for that she sinned? Were notthat to impeach His holiness? Or was He so holy and high that no sin ofhers could soil the feet she touched? What good did it her to touchthem? Made it her holy?--fit to meet God in the Doom [Judgment], whenshe had thus met Him here in His lowliness? How wis I? And could itmake me fit to meet Him? But I can never kiss His feet. Nor lack theythe ournment [adornment] of any kiss of mine. Yet methinks it were she,not He, which lacked it then. And He let her kiss His feet. O ChristJesu! if in very deed it were in love for us that Thou barest death onthe bitter rood, hast Thou no love left to welcome the dying sinner?Thou who didst pity her at yonder feast, hast Thou no mercy for EleanorGerard too?"
The words were spoken only half aloud, but they were heard by the childcradled in her arms.
"Mother, why christened you me not Eleanor?" she asked dreamily.
"Hush, child, and go to sleep!" answered the mother, startled out of herreverie.
Maude was silent, and Eleanor wrapped her closer in the old cloak whichenfolded both of them. But before the woman yielded herself up to thestupor which was benumbing her faculties, she passed her hand into herbosom, and drew out a little flat parcel, folded in linen, which shesecreted in the breast of the child's dress.
"Keep this, Maude," she said gravely.
"What is it, Mother?" was Maude's sleepy answer.
"It is what thou shalt find it hereafter," was the mysterious rejoinder."But let none take it away, neither beguile thee thereof. 'Tis all Ihave to give thee."
Maude seemed too nearly asleep for her curiosity
to be roused; andEleanor, leaning back against the tree, resigned herself to slumberalso.
Not long afterwards, a goatherd passing that way in search of a strayedkid, came on the unconscious pair, wrapped in each other's arms. He ranfor help to his hut, and had them conveyed to a convent at a littledistance, which the wanderers had failed to find. The rescue was justin time to bring the life back to the numbed limbs of the child. Butfor the mother there was no waking in this world. Eleanor Gerard hadmet God.
Four years after that winter evening, in the guest-chamber of theConvent of Sopwell sat a nun of middle age and cheerful look, inconversation with a woman in ordinary costume, but to whom the samedescription would very nearly apply.
"Then what were the manner of maid you seek, good Ursula?" inquired thenun.
"By Saint Luke's face, holy Sister, but I would not have her too cunning[clever]. I count (though I say it that need not) I am none ill one tolearn her her work; and me loveth not to be checked ne taunted of mineunderlings."
The nun, who had known Ursula Drew for some time, was quite aware thatsuperfluity of meekness did not rank among that worthy woman's failings.
"I would fain have a small maid of some twelve or thirteen years. An'ye have them elder, they will needs count they know as much as you, andcan return a sharp answer betimes. I love not masterful childre."
"But would you not she were something learned?"
"Nay! So she wit not a pig's head from a crustade Almayne, [A kind ofpie of custard or batter, with currants] 'tis all one to me, an' shewill do my bidding."
"Then methinks I could right well fit you. We have here at this instantmoment a small maid of twelve years, that my Lady the Prioress were wellfain to put with such as you be, and she bade me give heed to the same.'Tis a waif that Anthony, our goatherd, found in the forest, with hermother, that was frozen to death in an hard winter; but the child abode,and was saved. Truly, for cunning there is little in her; but formeekness and readiness to do your will, the maid is as good as any. Butye shall see her I think on."
Sister Oliva stepped to the door, and spoke in a low tone to some personoutside. She came back and reseated herself, and a minute afterwardsthere was a low, timid tap at the door.
"Come in, child," said the nun.
And Maude came in.
She was small and slight for her twelve years, and preternaturallygrave. A quantity of long dark hair hung round her head in a conditionof seemingly hopeless tanglement, and the dark eyes, proportionatelylarger than the rest of the features, wore an expression of mingledapathy and suspicion, alike strange and painful to see in the eyes of achild.
"Come forward, Maude, and speak with Mistress Drew. Mercy on us, child!how hast moiled thine hair like a fowl his pennes!" [Feathers.]
Maude made no reply. She came a few steps nearer, dropped a rusticcourtesy, and stood to be questioned.
"What is thy name?" inquired Mistress Ursula, as though she werebeginning the catechism.
"Maude," said the child under her breath.
"And what years hast--twelve?"
"Twelve, the last Saint Margaret."
"And where wert born? Dost know?"
Maude knew, though for some reason with which she herself was bestacquainted, she had been much more chary of her information to my Ladythe Prioress than she now chose to be.
"At Pleshy, in Essex."
"And what work did thy father?"
Maude looked up with a troubled air, as if the idea of that relative'spossible existence had never suggested itself to her.
"I never had any father!" she said, in a pained tone. "Cousin Hawisehad a father, and he wrought iron on the anvil. But I had none--never!I had a mother--that was all."
"And what called men thy mother?"
"Eleanor Gerard."
"Then thy name is Maude Gerard," said Oliva, sharply.
Maude's silence appeared to indicate that she declined to commit herselfeither affirmatively or negatively.
"And what canst do, maid?" inquired Ursula, changing the subject to oneof more practical purport.
Perhaps the topic was too large for reply, for Maude's only response wasa nervous twisting of her fingers. Sister Oliva answered for her.
"Marry, she can pluck a chick, and roll pastry, and use a bedstaff, andscour a floor, and sew, and the like. She hath not been idle, I warrantyou."
"Couldst cleanse out a pan an' thou wert set about it?"
"Ay," said Maude, under her breath.
"And couldst run of a message?"
"Ay."
"And couldst do as folk bid thee?"
"Ay."
But each time the child's voice grew fainter.
"Sister Oliva, I will essay the little maid, by your leave."
"And with my very good will, friend Ursula."
"Me counteth I shall make the best cook of her in all Herts. Whatsayest, maid?--wilt of thy good will be a cook?"
Maude looked up, looked down, and said nothing. But nature had not madeher a cook, and the utmost Ursula Drew could do in that direction was tospoil a good milliner.
So little Maude went with Ursula--into a very different sphere of lifefrom any which she could hitherto remember. The first home which sherecollected was her grandfather's cottage, with the great elms on oneside of it and the forge on the other, at which the old man had wroughtso long as his strength permitted, and had then handed over, as thefamily inheritance, to his son. Since the world began for Maude, thatcottage and the forge had always stood there, and its inhabitants hadalways been Grandfather, and Uncle David, and Aunt Elizabeth, and CousinHawise, and Cousin Jack, and Mother.
At some unknown time in the remote past there had been a grandmother,for Maude had heard of her; but with that exception, there had neverbeen anybody else, and her father was to her an utterly mythicindividual. She had never heard such a person named until Ursula Drewinquired his calling. And then, one awful winter night, somethingdreadful had happened. What it was Maude never precisely knew. Sheonly knew that there was a great noise in the night, and strange voicesin the cottage, and cries for mercy; and that when morning broke UncleDavid was gone, and was seen afterwards no more. So then they tried tokeep on the old forge a little longer; but Grandfather was past work,and Cousin Jack was young and inexperienced, and customers would notcome as they had done to brawny-armed Uncle David, to whose ringingblows on the anvil Maude had loved to listen. And one day she heardAunt Elizabeth say to Grandfather that the forge brought in nothing, andthey must go up to the castle and ask the great Lord there, whosevassals they were, to find them food until Jack was able to work: butthe old man rose up from the settle and answered, his voice tremblingwith passion, that he would starve to death ere he would take food fromthe cruel hand which had deprived him of his boy. So then, Cousin Jackused to go roaming in the forest and bring home roots and wild fruits,and sometimes the neighbours would give them alms in kind or in money,and so for a while they tried to live. But Grandfather grew weaker, andMother and Aunt Elizabeth very thin and worn, and the bloom faded fromCousin Hawise's cheeks, and the gloss died away from her shining hair.And at last Grandfather died. And then Aunt Elizabeth went to aneighbouring franklin's farm, to serve the franklin's dame; and CousinJack went away to sea; and Maude could not recollect how they lived fora time. And then came another mournful day, when strange people came tothe cottage and roughly ordered the three who were left to go away.They took Cousin Hawise with them, for they said she would be comely ifshe were well fed, and the Lady had seen her, and she must go and servethe Lady. And Maude never knew what became of her. But Mother weptbitterly, and seemed to think that Hawise's lot was a very unhappy one.So then they set out, Mother and Maude, for London. The reasons forgoing to London were very dim and vague to Maude's apprehension. Theywere going to look for somebody; so much she knew: and she thought itwas some relation of Grandmother's, who might perchance give them a homeagain. London was a very grand place, only a little less than theworld
: but it could not fill quite all the world, because there was roomleft for Pleshy and one or two other places. The King lived in London,who never did any thing all day long but sit on a golden throne, with acrown on his head, and eat bread and marmalade, and drink Gascon wine;and the Queen, who of course sat on another golden throne, and sharedthe good things, and wore minever dresses and velvet robes which trailedall across the room. Perhaps the houses were not all built of gold;some of them might be silver; but at any rate the streets were pavedwith one or other of the precious metals. And of course, nobody inLondon was at all poor, and everybody had as much as he could possiblyeat, and was quite warm and comfortable, and life was all music, andflowers, and sunshine. Poor little Maude! was her illusion much moreextravagant than some of ours?
But, as we have seen, the hapless travellers never reached their bourne.And now even Mother was gone, and Maude was left alone in all theworld. The nuns had not been particularly unkind to her; they hadtaught her many things, though they had not made her work beyond herstrength; yet not one of them had given her what she missed most--sympathy. The result was that the child had been unhappy in theconvent, and yet she could not have said why, had she been asked. Butnobody ever asked that of little Maude. She was alone in all theworld--the great, bare, hard, practical world.
For this was the side of the world presented to Maude.
The world is many-sided, and it presents various sides and corners tovarious people. The side which Maude saw was hard and bare. Hard bed,hard fare, hard work, hard words sometimes. Had she any opportunity ofthinking the world a soft, comfortable, cushioned place, as some of hersisters find it?
This had been the child's life up to the moment when Ursula Drew madeher appearance on the scene. But now a new element was introduced; forMaude's third home was a stately palace, filled with beautiful carvings,and delicate tracery, and exquisite colours, all which, lowest of thelow as she was, she enjoyed with an intensity till then unknown toherself, and certainly not shared by any other in her sphere. Thatsense of the beautiful, which, trained in different directions, makesmen poets, painters, and architects, was very strong in little Maude.She could not have explained in the least _how_ it was that the curvesin the stonework, or the rich colours in the windows of the great hall,gave her a mysterious sensation of pleasure, which she could not avoiddetecting that they never gave to any of her kitchen associates; and sheobtained many a scolding for her habit of what my Lady the Prioress hadcalled "idle dreaming," and Mistress Drew was pleased to term "litherlaziness;" when, instead of cleaning pans, Maude was thinking poetry.Alas for little Maude! her vocation was not to think poetry; and it wasto scour pans.
The Palace of Langley, which had become the scene of Maude'span-cleaning, was built in a large irregular pile. The kitchen and itsattendant offices were at one end, and over them reigned Ursula Drew,who, though supreme in her government of Maude, was in reality only avice-queen. Over Ursula ruled a man-cook, by name Warine de laMisericorde, concerning whom his subordinate's standing joke was that"Misericorde was rarely [extremely] merciless." But this potentate inhis turn owed submission to the master of the household, a very greatgentleman with gold embroidery on his coat, concerning whom Maude's onlydefinite notion was that he must be courtesied to very low indeed.
Master and mistress were mere names to Maude. The child wasnear-sighted, and though, like every other servant in the Palace, sheate daily in the great hall, her eyes were not sufficiently clear, fromher low place at the extreme end, to make out anything on the distantdais beyond a number of grey shapeless shadows. She knew when theroyal, and in her eyes semi-celestial persons in question were, or werenot, at home; she had a dim idea that they bore the titles of Earl andCountess of Cambridge, and that they were nearly related to majestyitself; she now and then heard Ursula informed that my Lord was pleasedto command a certain dish, or that my Lady had condescended to approve aparticular sauce. She had noticed, moreover, that two of the greyshadows at the very top of the hall, and therefore among the mostdistinguished persons, were smaller than the rest; she inferred thatthese ineffable superiors had at least two children, and she oftenlonged to inspect them within comfortable seeing distance. But no suchgood fortune had as yet befallen her. Their apartments wereinaccessible fairy-land, and themselves beings scarcely to be gazed onwith undazzled eyes.
Very monotonous was Maude's new life:--cleaning pans, washing jars,sorting herbs, scouring pails, running numberless infinitesimal errands,doing everything that nobody else liked, hard-worked from morning tonight, and called up from her hard pallet to recommence her toil beforeshe had realised that she was asleep. Ursula's temper, too, did notimprove with time; and Parnel, the associate and contemporary of Maude,was by no means to be mistaken for an angel.
Parnel was three years older than Maude, and much better acquainted withher work. She could accomplish a marvellous quantity within a giventime, when it pleased her; and it generally did please her to rush tothe end of her task, and to spend the remaining time in teasing Maude.She had no positive unkind feeling towards the child, but she wasextremely mischievous, and Maude being extremely teasable, thetemptation of amusing her leisure by worrying the nervous andinexperienced child was too strong to be resisted. The occupations ofher present life disgusted Maude beyond measure. The scullery-work, ofwhich Ursula gave her the most unpleasant parts, was unspeakablyrevolting to her quick sense of artistic beauty, and to a certaindelicacy and refinement of nature which she had inherited, not acquired;and which Ursula, if she could have comprehended it, would have despisedwith the intense contempt of the coarse mind for the fine. The childwas one morning engaged in cleaning a very greasy saucepan, close to theopen window, when, to her surprise, she was accosted by a strange voicein the base court, or back yard of the palace.
"Is that pleasant work--frotting [rubbing] yonder thing?"
Maude looked up into a pair of bright, kindly eyes, which belonged to aboy attired as a page, some three or four years older than herself.Something in the lad's good-natured face won her confidence.
"No," she answered honestly, "'tis right displeasant to have ado withsuch feune!" [dirt.]
"So me counted," replied the boy. "What name hast thou, little maid?"
"Maude."
"I have not seen thee here aforetime," resumed the page.
"Nor I you," said Maude. "I have bidden hither no long time.Whereabout sit you in hall?"
"Nigh the high end," said he. "But we are only this day come fromClarendon with the Lord Edward, whom I and my fellows serve. Fare theewell, little maid!"
The bright eyes smiled at her, and the head nodded kindly, and passedon. But insignificant as the remarks were, Maude felt as if she hadfound a friend in the great wilderness of Langley Palace.
The next time the page's head paused at her window, Maude summonedcourage to ask him his name.
"Bertram Lyngern," said he smilingly. "I have a longer name than thou."[See Note 2.]
"And a father and mother?" asked Maude.
"A father," said the boy. "He is one of my Lord's knights; but for mymother,--the women say she died the day I was born."
"I have ne father ne mother," responded Maude, sorrowfully, "ne none tocare for me in all the wide world."
"Careth Mistress Drew nought for thee?"
Maude's laugh was bitterly negative.
"Ne Parnel, thy fellow?"
"She striveth alway to abash [frighten] and trouble me," sighed Maude.
"Poor Maude!" said Bertram, looking concerned. "Wouldst have me carefor thee? May be I could render thy life somewhat lighter. If I talkedwith Parnel--"
"It were to no good," said Maude, brushing away to get her sink clean."There is nothing but sharp words and snybbyngs [scoldings] all daylong; and if I give her word back, then will she challenge [accuse] meto Mistress, and soothly I am aweary of life."
Weary of life at twelve years old! It was a new idea to Bertram, and hehad found no answer, when the shar
p voice of Ursula Drew summoned Maudeaway.
"Haste, child!" cried Ursula. "Thou art as long of coming as AdventSunday at Christmas. Now, by the time I be back, lay thou out for me onthe table four bundles of herbs from the dry herb closet--an handful ofknot-grass, and the like of shepherd's pouch, and of bramble-seeds, andof plantain. Now, mark thou, the top leaves of the plantain only!Leave me not find thee idling; but have yonder row of pans as bright asa new tester when I come, and the herbs ready." [See note 3.]
Ursula bustled off, and Maude set to work at the pans. When they weresufficiently scrubbed, she pulled off the dirty apron in which she hadbeen working, and went towards the dry herb closet. But she had notreached it, when her wrist was caught and held in a grasp like that of avice.
"Whither goest, Mistress Maude?" demanded an unwelcome voice.
"Stay me not, I pray thee, Parnel!" said the child entreatingly."Mistress Drew hath bidden me lay out divers herbs against she cometh."
"What herbs be they?" inquired Parnel demurely, with an assumption ofgravity and superior knowledge which Maude knew, from sad experience, tomask some project of mischief. But knowing also that peril lay insilence, no less than in compliance, she reluctantly gave theinformation.
"There is no shepherd's pouch in the closet," responded Parnel.
"Then whither must I seek it?" asked Maude.
"In the fields," said Parnel.
"Ay me!" exclaimed the child.
"And 'tis not in leaf, let be flower," added her tormentor.
"What can I do?" cried Maude in dismay.
Still keeping tight hold of her wrist, Parnel answered the query by theexecution of a war-dance around Maude.
"Parnel, do leave go!" supplicated the prisoner.
"Mistress Maude is bidden lay out herbs!" sang the gaoler in amateurrecitative. "Mistress Maude hath no shepherd's pouch! Mistress Maudeis loth to go and pluck it!"
"Parnel, _do_ leave me go!"
"Mistress Maude doth not her mistress' bidding! Mistr--"
Suddenly breaking off, Parnel, who could be as quick as a lizard whenshe chose, quitted her hold, and vanished out of sight in someincomprehensible manner, as Ursula Drew marched into the kitchen.
"Now, then, where be those herbs?" demanded that authority, in a toneindicative of a whipping.
"Mistress, I could not help it!" sobbed the worried child.
"By'r Lady, but thou canst help it if thou wilt!" returned Ursula."Reach me down the rod; thy laziness shall be well a-paid for once."
Maude sobbed helplessly, but made no effort to obey.
"Where be thine ears? Reach the rod!" reiterated Ursula.
"Whom chastise you, Mistress Drew?" inquired Bertram's voice through thedoor; "she that demeriteth the same, or she that no doth?"
"This lazy maid demeriteth fifty rods!" was the pleasing answer.
"I cry you mercy, but I think not so," said Bertram judicially. "An'you whipped the demeritous party, it should be Parnel. I saw all thatchanced, by the lattice, but the maids saw not me."
Parnel was not whipped, for her quickness made her a favourite; butneither was Maude, for Bertram's intercession rescued her.
"The saints bless you, Master Bertram!" said Maude, at the nextopportunity. "And the saints help me, for verily I have an hard life.I am all of a bire [hurry, confusion], and sore strangled [tired], frommorn to night."
"Poor little Maude!" answered Bertram pityingly. "Would I might shapethy matters better-good. Do the saints help, thinkest? Hugh Calverleysaith no."
"Talk you with such like evil fawtors, [factor, doer], Master Bertram?"asked Maude in a shocked voice.
"Evil fawtors, forsooth! Hugh is no evil fawtor. How can I help butrede [attend to] his sayings? He is one of my fellows. And 'tis butwhat he hath from his father. Master Calverley is a squire of theQueen's Grace, and one of Sir John de Wycliffe's following."
"Who is Sir John de Wycliffe?" said Maude.
"One of the Lord Pope his Cardinals," laughed Bertram. "Get thee tothine herbs and pans, little Maude; and burden not thy head with SirJohn de Wycliffe nor John de Northampton neither. Fare thee well, mymaid. I must after my master for the hawking."
But before Bertram turned away, Maude seized the opportunity to ask aquestion which had been troubling her for many a month.
"If you be not in heavy bire, Master Bertram--"
"Go to! What maketh a minute more nor less?"
"Would it like you of your goodness to tell me, an' you wit, whodwelleth in the Castle of Pleshy?"
"`An' I wit'! Well wis I. 'Tis my gracious Lord of Buckingham, brotherunto our Lord of Cambridge."
"Were you ever at Pleshy, Master Bertram?"
"Truly, but a year gone, for the christening of the young LordHumphrey."
"And liked it you to tell me if you wot at all of one Hawise Gerardamong the Lady's maidens?"
Maude awaited the answer in no little suppressed eagerness. She hadloved Cousin Hawise; and if she yet lived, though apart, she would notfeel herself so utterly alone. Perhaps they might even meet again, someday. But Bertram shook his head.
"I heard never the name," he said. "The Lady of Buckingham her maidensbe Mistress Polegna and Mistress Sarah [fictitious persons]: theirfurther names I wis not. But no Mistress Hawise saw I never."
"I thank you much, Master Bertram, and will not stay you longer."
But another shadow fell upon Maude's life. Poor, pretty, gentle, timidCousin Hawise! What had become of her? The next opportunity she had,Maude inquired from Bertram, "What like dame were my Lady ofBuckingham's greathood?"
Bertram shrugged his shoulders, as if the question took him out of hisdepth.
"Marry, she is a woman!" said he; "and all women be alike. There is notone but will screech an' she see a spider."
"Mistress Drew and Mother be not alike," answered Maude, falling back onher own small experience. "Neither were Hawise and I alike. She wouldalway stay at holy Mary her image, to see if the lamp were alight; butI--the saints forgive me!--I never cared thereabout. So good was CousinHawise."
"Maude," suggested Bertram in a low voice, as if he felt half afraid ofhis own idea, "Countest that blessed Mary looketh ever her own self towit if the lamp be alight?"
Maude was properly shocked.
"Save you All Hallows, Master Bertram! How come you by such fantasies?"
Bertram laughed and went away, chanting a stave of the "Ploughman'sComplaint"--[See Note 4.]
"Christ hath twelve apostles here; Now, say they, there may be but one, That may not erre in no manere-- Who 'leveth [believeth] not this ben lost echone. [each one] Peter erred--so did not Jhon; Why is he cleped the principal? [See note 5.] Christ cleped him Peter, but Himself the Stone-- All false faitours [doers] foule hem fall!" [Evil befall them.]
Late that evening a mounted messenger crossed the drawbridge, and stayedhis weary horse in the snows-prinkled base court. He was quicklyrecognised by the household as a royal letter-bearer from London.
"And what news abroad, Master Matthew?"
"Why, the King's Highness keepeth his Christmas at Eltham; and certainof the Council would fain have the Queen's Bohemians sent forth, but Imisdoubt if it shall be done. And Sir Nicholas Brembre is the newmayor. There is no news else. Oh, ay! The parson of Lutterworth, SirJohn de Wycliffe--"
"The lither heretic!" muttered Warine, for he was the questioner. "Whatmisturnment [perversion] would he now?"
"He will never turn ne misturn more," said the messenger. "The morrowafter Holy Innocents a second fit of the palsy took him as he stood atthe altar at mass, and they bare him home to die. And the eve of theCircumcision [December 31st, 1384], two days thereafter, the good manwas commanded to God."
"Good man, forsooth!" growled Warine.
"Master Warine," said Hugh Calverley's voice behind him, "the day maycome when thou and I would be full fain to creep into Heaven at theheels of the Lutterworth parson."
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Note 1. The anointing at baptism, when a white cloth was always placedon the head.
Note 2. Bertram, Ursula, Parnel, Warine, and Maude and her family, areall fictitious persons.
Note 3. The herbs were to be boiled and the liquid drunk, for a sprain,bruise, or broken bone.
Note 4. Wright's _Political Poems_, one 304, _et seq_. The date of thepoem given by Wright is anticipated by about nine years.
Note 5. Why is Peter called the "Prince of the Apostles?"