Chapter XII Idonia Understands
“But hush! What is the utmost that I would?
To give my life to God is all I could:
And this may be the way He wills to take—
This daily death may be for God’s own sake;
He gave, and took. So let my soul be still.”
—ISABELLA FYVIE MAYO.
At Lovell Tower, things were going as merry as marriage-bells could make them. About six weeks after her return home, Frideswide Marston became the wife of John Combe. They were to live, for the present, with Lord Marnell, until it should be seen what would happen further. There was a pretty little estate in Devonshire, named Combe Abbas, which belonged of right to Queen Marguerite’s henchman: but of course, so long as King Edward lived, no deprived Lancastrian could expect to recover his lands. What might happen in the next reign, when men’s minds might be supposed to have cooled down, and the throne to be assured to the House of York, was another matter.
Frideswide had delivered the Duke’s message and token to her sister. They were so quietly received by Agnes, almost in silence, that Frideswide was afraid that she felt disappointed at receiving so small a gift.
“Thou seest, dear heart,” said she, apologetically, “there is so little left to his Lordship that methought it were ill done to choose any choice thing: and moreover I counted thou shouldst better love a matter whereon was his badge than something greater that had it not. That speaketh for himself, from whom he came.”
“Thou hast done well, and I thank thee,” was the reply, as Agnes lifted her eyes for a moment.
Could Frideswide have read the eyes, her impression would have been different. The language of her sister’s inmost heart was—“Do you understand me no better than that?” From that day, the silver ring with its ruby sparks was always to be seen on Agnes Marston’s hand.
The year 1473 was drawing to a close, when Walter Marston came home from London. His life had been an eventful one. From the household of Queen Marguerite he had passed to that of the Duke of Burgundy, shortly before his sister’s arrival in France. Thence, returning to King Henry, he had fought at Barnet and Tewkesbury, had remained long a prisoner, had received pardon, and was now a knight in the household of the Earl of Oxford. Often very near Frideswide, he had never actually met her. Now he came home on a month’s leave, and as it was six years since any of his relatives had seen him, the occasion was a festive one indeed.
“But how big thou art!—and what a beard hast thou!” exclaimed Dorathie.
“I am not by the half as much bigger as thou,” laughed Walter. “Why, I left thee a little chick all over down, and here thou art a proper young damsel.”
“And what news abroad, Wat?” said his father.
“No great matter, my Lord, to my knowledge. ’Tis said the Venetians have won the Isle of Cyprus, that lieth off the coast of the Holy Land: and likewise that, I know not well how, they of Genoa have lost a certain land66 that lieth beyond the Grand Turk. Here at home, the King goeth to build a new chapel to his Castle of Windsor. You shall have heard, I reckon, of the young Lady of Clarence67 that was born some weeks gone? I mind not aught else of any moment, without you would hear of a poor Lollard of late brent upon Tower Hill.”
“The Lord may reckon that of more moment than all the rest, Wat,” said the Lady Idonia, gravely.
“Truly so, Madam.”
“Was he of any note, lad?”
“In no wise, my Lord: a parchment-maker, as I heard, that dwelt without the City.”
“Of what name?” asked Frideswide, quickly.
“Why, ’twas a queer name,” said her brother. “One John Goose, they told me. A young man, I heard—scarce elder than I.”
“Aye me! Had he it to do for himself?” murmured Frideswide in an unsteady voice.
“What sayest, sweeting?”
“Prithee, Wat, tell me all thou wist of the inwards68 thereof.”
“Well, that is not much. He was delivered afore dinner to Master Sheriff, to put in execution the same afternoon; who had him home to his house, and gave him great exhortation that he should reny69 his false errors, quoth he: but—as I heard from one that was by—all that Goose would say was to desire that he might have meat, for he was sore hungered. Then Master Sheriff commanded him meat, whereof he ate as though he had ailed nothing: and quo’ he, ‘I eat now a good and competent dinner, for I shall pass a little sharp shower ere I go to supper.’ Then, when he had dined, he required to be shortly led to execution; and so, as I heard it, merrily and with good cheer took his death.”
“Then his Lord gave him the endurance,—laud be to His name!” said Frideswide. “I knew him, Walter, though I talked with him but once. He did at that time lodge my gracious Lord of Exeter, and his house was that whereat I last spake with my Lord.”
“Thou hast well said, good sister: for thou shalt speak with my Lord of Exeter no more.”
“Walter!—Woe is me! is my Lord dead?”
It was from Frideswide the cry came. There was no sound from Agnes. Only the Lady Idonia, who happened to be looking at her, saw her needlework stand suddenly still.
“’Tis a few weeks gone, Frid,” said Walter, kindly. “Dear heart, I am sorry if I started thee. I thought he had been little more than a name to either of you.”
“How died he, and where? Do tell me all.”
“Nay, good sister, for how he died must we remit to God. But for where, it was in the waves of the sea—the British Channel, betwixt Calais and Dover. His body was washed up on the sands of Dover, and was there found by the fishers, a dead corpse, stripped of all.”
“But was he drowned, Wat? My poor master!”
“The Lord wot, dear heart. The matter had the look of a shipwreck, but no boat was found. If he so were wrecked, or fell from the cliff of misadventure, or—well, whatso it were—who shall tell thee? The sea hath given up her dead, but blabbeth none of their secrets.”
This is all that was ever known of the death of Henry Duke of Exeter. The days of his mourning were ended: but how they closed—whether by accident, or shipwreck, or by the worse violence which Walter would not suggest openly—only his God and Father knows.
A few tears stole from Frideswide’s eyes. She had felt for her noble master very deep compassion.
“On whose soul God have mercy!” she said with an accent of tender regret. “He hath his little Nan at the last.—Annis! art thou not sorry at all?”
The last words were spoken rather reproachfully.
“I am sorry,” said Agnes. But she said it in tones that sounded even and hard: and leaving her work on the settle where she had been sitting, she rose and quitted the room.
“Well!” said Frideswide, looking after her. “Verily, I am astonied. I had thought Annis should be well-nigh as sorry as I for our poor master.”
“Folks can be sorry, Frideswide, though they say it not,” quietly answered the Lady Idonia.
But in her heart she was saying,—“O blind eyes, that can see no further than that! Agnes is an hundred times more sorry than Frideswide—so sorry that she can speak of it to none but God.”
In the early winter of this year, the baby Prince of Wales, just three years old, was placed under the care of governors spiritual and temporal. His uncle Lord Rivers was the latter, and the Bishop of Rochester the former. King Edward’s language, in the decrees which record these appointments, is worth quoting, not only as a specimen of the English of his day, but on account of its inherent singularity. The one entry commences thus:—
“How be it euery child in his yong age ought to be brought vp in vertue and cunnyng,70 to then-tent that he might delite therin and contynue in the same, and soo consequently deserue the merites of euerlasting blisse, and in this world to be therfore the more eureux71 and fortunat, yit nathelesse such persoones as god hath called to the pre-eminent astate of princes, and to succede thair progenitours in thestate of Regalte ought more singulerly and more diligently to be enfourmed and instructed in cunnyng and vertu,” etc.
The second decree asserts that—
“We, considering the great bounte of our lord god, whom it hath pleased to send unto us our first begoten son, hole72 and furnysshed in nature, to succeed us in our Realmes of England and France, and lordship of Ireland, for the which we thank most humbly his infynyte magnificens, purpose by his grace so to purvey for his precieux sonde73 and yefte74 and our most desired tresour our seid first begoten son, that he shall be so virtuously, cunningly, and knyghtly brought up, for to serue Almighty God cristenly and deuoutly, as accordeth to his dute, and to leue and precede in the world honourably, after his estate and dignite.”75
The child thus belauded with a flourish of court trumpets was of utterly different character to both parents. He had neither his father’s ease-loving selfishness, nor his mother’s sly cajolery. The shadow of the sanctuary wherein his eyes first saw the light seemed to lie upon his soul for ever. Grave and shrewd far beyond his years, yet at the same time of child-like transparency, his character was one that might have become a rare blessing to England. He lived in the constant, calm expectation of early death. When his little brother, who was “joyous and witty, nimble, and ever ready for dances and games”—true son of Edward IV.—besought the elder to learn to dance, the young Prince’s grave reply was, “It would be better for us to learn to die.” It seems as though in him, perhaps alone of all his family, there was some good thing found towards the Lord God of Israel. “His soul pleased the Lord: therefore He hasted to take him away from among the wicked.”
The King was still supremely blind concerning the matrimonial intentions of his sister of Exeter, and continued to lavish favours on St. Leger. He and the Queen were at this time interested in the approaching second marriage of Thomas Grey, with Cicely Bonvile, which took place immediately on the expiration of the year of mourning for his dead wife. In the same month, on a summer evening, and in the private chapel at Coldharbour, with only two or three witnesses, the Princess Anne, Duchess of Exeter, bestowed her hand upon Mr. St. Leger, and—the deed irrevocably done—sent information of it to her royal brother. It was characteristically received. Edward did not see the slightest occasion to put himself out. Anne could do as she liked, he said, as he lounged on his sofa. She liked to please herself, and so did he. After all, Sellenger was not a bad fellow, nor an ill-looking one. “What ho! Bid the minstrels strike up there!” And settling himself comfortably among his cushions, His Majesty prepared to listen to the music.
But there was one person at Coldharbour who received the information very differently.
The news that her suitor was married to her mistress came upon Jane Grisacres like a thunderbolt. Her love had been so blind that the bare possibility of such a thing had never occurred to her for an instant. She heard the terrible tidings suddenly, with nothing to soften the blow: and with a sharp cry of astounded anguish, she fell into Marion Rothwell’s arms in a dead swoon. The Duchess, who was herself present, merely glanced at the white face, and in a tone which was calmly contemptuous, commanded that somebody should carry yon poor dolt to her bed. Tamzine, silent for once, came forward and helped Marion to lift the dead weight of poor Jane, and to bear her away from the sight of the mistress to whom her stricken face was a reproach. But the reproach was felt by the Duchess only as she might have regarded a dead fly in her pot of scented ointment. Pick out the intrusive nuisance, throw it away, and then all would be well again. What did a smothered fly, or a broken heart, signify to the royal bride who had obtained her own wishes?
Not long after that event, Master Rotherham, who had been the fellow-traveller of Agnes on her journey home, paid a visit at Lovell Tower, and at his own request was closeted with Lord Marnell for some time. For so much time, indeed, that Lady Margery became rather impatient, and expressed it as she sat and span.
“Dear heart! what would yonder man with my Lord? I had so much to ask him! I want to know when he will have the calf killed, and how much lime we shall take in for the meadow. Will he ne’er have done? What can the companion be after, trow?”
“Thou alway wert a bat, Madge,” said her mother, calmly. “He is after Annis.”
“Eh, good lack!” returned the daughter. “I marvel where he dwelleth, and if it be far away.”
“Shall my Lord covenant with him, I marvel?” said Frideswide, looking up from her embroidery-frame.
Agnes was not in the room.
“Not ere he ask our counsel, methinks,” replied Lady Idonia. “At the least I hope not.”
“I will read him a lecture an’ he do!” said Lady Margery, laughing.
“Hush!” was her mother’s quick check. “Hold your peace afore the maid.”
For Agnes was just entering, and she came and sat down to her sewing. Another half-hour passed almost in silence. At its close, Lord Marnell came to the door and called out John Combe, who was seated with a book in the recess of the window. With a few low-toned words he sent him off somewhere, and came forward into the hall himself.
“Well, my Lady,” said he, rubbing his hands with the air of a man very well satisfied with his morning’s work, “and what think you is Master Rotherham come about?”
“You were best tell us, my Lord,” answered his wife, prudently declining to commit herself.
“Of a truth I am well pleased,” returned he. “I have heard much good of the young gentleman: and he hath a fair estate, and spendeth well-nigh two hundred pound by the year; and true to the Red is he, and a good fellow belike, as I do believe. He would make his wife jointure of sixty pound by the year, and an house—not so ill, eh?”
“Has he a wife?” demanded Lady Margery rather slily.
“Nay, for that he came hither,” said her husband, laughing complacently.
“Dear heart, but Doll is o’er young to be wed yet—think you not so, my Lord?” responded she, with an affectation of innocent simplicity.
“Doll!” cried Lord Marnell. “Gramercy, what would the woman be at? Doll! she is but a babe in the cradle. ’Tis Annis he would have—where be thine eyes, Madge?”
Lady Margery’s laugh revealed her joke.
“Oh! good heart, thou wert but a-mocking, I see.—Well, my maid, how likest the matter?” And he turned to Agnes.
He expected to see a blush, a smile, and to hear a few faltered words of satisfaction with his arrangement. But no one of them answered him. Instead of these, what he did hear was perhaps the last speech he ever expected from the lips of Agnes Marston.
“Good my Lord, I thank you for your care. But if it may stand with your pleasure, pray you, give me leave to be a nun.”
“A what!” came in accents of astonished dismay from her father, and the expression of satisfaction died out of his face in an instant.
“Annis!” exclaimed her stepmother.
“Gramercy!” said Frideswide.
Lady Idonia said nothing. She sat and watched the quiet, pale face, with its set lips, and the far-away look in the eyes which were gazing from the window.
“If you please, my Lord,” repeated Agnes calmly. “That is my desire.”
“And what in all this world hath moved thee to desire the same?”
“I have so done of some time,” was the reply, in the same quiet tone.
“Lack-a-day, maid! How long time?”
A faint flush rose to the white brow, and dying away, left it whiter than ever. But she was spared an answer.
“Give the maid her way, Jack,” said a voice hitherto silent. “She hath well spoken.”
“Truly, fair Mother, but I thought it ill spoken,” said Lord Marnell, in a puzzled tone, turning to face the Lady Idonia. “I never looked to see one of my little maids in cloister—not by my good-will.”
“Then thou hadst best bring thy good-will thereto, Jack.—Frideswide and Annis, give us leave, dear hearts.”
The young ladies retired obediently. No sooner had the door closed on them than Lady Margery said, with a mixture of perplexity and eagerness,—
“Pray you, sweet Madam, give us to wit your meaning. It seems me you see further into this matter than either my Lord or I.”
“’Tis little enough I see,” added her husband. “Verily, I counted it rare good fortune for the lass. Here is a good man, that loveth her, and offers her jointure of sixty pound by the year—”
“For thee, Madge,” resumed her mother calmly, “thou always wert a bat, as I have aforetime told thee. As to Jack here, men be rarely aught else where women be concerned. Let the maid be, dear hearts. I tell you, she has well said.”
“But what doth it all mean?” asked Lord Marnell, impatiently.
“I go not about to tell Annis’ secrets—more in especial when she hath not confided them to me,” replied the Lady Idonia drily. “Only this I say to you both—withered hearts make the best nuns, and the worst wives. God, not you, hath made a nun of Annis. Let her obey His voice.”
“Dear heart, I would ne’er think to hinder it!” returned her father, in a voice of much regret. “But what means your Ladyship? How gat she her heart withered, poor wretch?”
“The babe that shall cry for the moon is commonly disappointed, Jack. I do but tell thee, Agnes Marston will never wed with any—and it were to his hurt an’ she so did. Aye, and to her own belike. Enough said.”
Nor was another word on that subject to be extracted from the Dowager. But Master Rotherham received a kindly dismissal, and it was generally understood from that hour that Agnes was to be a nun. Should this strike the reader as a strange thing, it must be remembered that the Lollard views on the subject of monasticism were scarcely at all in advance of the Roman, and that the time had not come when any woman who did not wish to be a wife could be otherwise than a nun. There did exist the rare phenomenon of an old bachelor; but an old maid, out of the cloister, was unknown before the Reformation.
The same evening, when she came up to her chamber, which Agnes shared with her, Lady Idonia sat down by the window, and remained there for a time, looking out upon the summer night. Agnes, who usually helped her to undress, was bidden to “hie her abed, and tarry not.” She obeyed; but the old lady sat still, long after Agnes was asleep, or at any rate seemed to be so. Each of the two was under the impression that she knew the other’s train of thought, and had kept her own a profound secret. In truth, the thoughts of Agnes were much better understood by the Dowager than the reverse. Quarter after quarter of an hour dripped heavily from the water-clock in the corner, yet the Lady Idonia sat still in the carved oaken chair. And,
“Her great heart through all the faultful past
Went sorrowing.”
At last she turned her head towards the sleeper. Agnes lay with her cheek pillowed on one hand, and from that hand, close by the cheek, the ruby cresset of the Duke’s ring sparkled in the lamp-light.
“Poor child!” said the heart of the Lady Idonia, though her lips were silent. “I can guess what that ruby cresset is to thee. To him, of course, it was nothing, beyond a kindly wish to give pleasure to an inferior who had shown a kindly feeling towards him. But out of thy life all possibility of wedlock died upon Dover sands, fifteen months ago. Not that that was ever possible—poor child! Didst thou fancy, babe, that thou wert about to touch the stars? God grant, for thy sake, that it was not so!”
It was not so. Never, for one moment, had Agnes Marston dreamed of that impossible thing. Her love had never calculated on a return. It had only grown out of the necessity of love to give itself; and her heart had passed out of her keeping before she had known that it was gone.
Idonia was right, also, in guessing that the Duke had never entertained the faintest suspicion of the deep wealth of self-sacrificing love hidden under that quiet manner and silent face. His one venture in the matrimonial lottery had been so utter a blank that the very idea of trying another had never occurred to him, and, had it been suggested, would probably have been dismissed with a shudder.
“And so—” the thoughts of the watcher went on—“‘so He leadeth them unto the haven of their desire.’ So! Ah, how many devious, winding paths there are, which lead up to the door of life! One He leads through pain, another through sorrow: one by loneliness and absence of human love, another by the happiness of a satisfied heart, a third through the shards of broken idols. Not often the second of those three: much oftener the first or the last. But through all the paths He brings us to the one Gate—through all the wilderness journeying, to the one City. He who has paid for us the price of His own life cannot afford to lose us. And then, ‘when we have forded the Jordan, with the ark of the Lord borne before us, we eat of the fruit of the Land of Canaan that year.’”
Far back into the past years ran the “inner eye,”—back to a stately woman in robes of white, with long black hair flowing behind her. The years seemed obliterated, and Idonia Marnell stood in a turret-chamber of the Palace of Holyrood, with the mournful music of Marjory Douglas’ voice sounding in her ears.
“It cannot be much longer for me now,” she said to herself in conclusion. “She has been comforted these thirty years; and I am nigh fourscore. But for thee, poor little Agnes!—the wilderness may be long yet: and unless I mistake, for thee also it will be ‘the wilderness all the way.’ So the ark of the Lord go before thee, it is well. He will lead thee no whither but into the Holy Land.”
Notes
66 The Crimea.
67 Margaret Countess of Salisbury.
68 Details.
69 Recant.
70 Knowledge.
71 Heureux=happy.
72 Whole.
73 The lost noun of the verb to send.
74 Gift.
75 Patent Roll. 13 Edw. IV.