The Well in the Desert Read online

  CHAPTER FOUR.

  MOTHER JOAN.

  "She hears old footsteps wandering slow Through the lone chambers of her heart."

  Lowell.

  When Guy of Ashridge was fairly gone, Philippa felt at once relieved andvexed to lose him. She had called in a new physician to prescribe forher disease; and she was sure that he had administered a harmfulmedicine, if he had not also given a wrong diagnosis. Instead of beingbetter, she felt worse; and she resolved to give herself the next dose,in the form of a "retreat" into a convent, to pray and fast, and makeher peace with God. Various reasons induced her to select a convent ata distance from home. After a period of indecision, she fixed upon theAbbey of Shaftesbury, and obtained the necessary permission to residethere for a time.

  Lady Sergeaux arrived at Shaftesbury towards the close of August. Shefound the Abbess and nuns kindly-disposed towards her; and her stay wasnot disagreeable, except for the restless, dissatisfied feelings of herown heart. But she found that her peace was not made, for all herfastings, scourgings, vigils, and prayers. Guy's words came back to herwith every rite, "God strip you of your own goodness!" and she could notwrap herself in its mantle as complacently as before.

  In the Abbey of Shaftesbury was one nun who drew Philippa's attentionmore than the others. This was a woman of about sixty years of age,whom all the convent called Mother Joan. An upright, white-hairedwoman, with some remnant of former comeliness; but Mother Joan wasblind. Philippa pitied her affliction, and liked her simple,straightforward manner. She had many old memories and tales offorgotten times, which she was ready enough to tell; and these Philippa,as well as the nuns, always liked to hear.

  "How old were you, Mother Joan, when you became a nun?" she asked herone day during the recreation-hour.

  "Younger than you, Lady," said Mother Joan. "I was but an hilding [seeNote 1] of twenty."

  "And wherefore was it, Mother?" inquired a giddy young nun, whose namewas Laura. "Wert thou disappointed in love, or--"

  The scorn exhibited on the blind woman's face stopped her.

  "I never was such a fool," said Mother Joan, bluntly. "I became a nunbecause my father had decreed it from my cradle, and my mother willed italso. There were but two of us maids, and--ah, well! she would not havemore than one to suffer."

  "Had thy sister, then, a woeful story?" asked Sister Laura, settling herwimple, [see note 2], as she thought, becomingly.

  "Never woman woefuller," sadly replied Mother Joan.

  The next opportunity she had, Lady Sergeaux asked one of the morediscreet nuns who Mother Joan was.

  "Eldest daughter of the great house of Le Despenser," replied SisterSenicula; "of most excellent blood and lineage; daughter unto my nobleLord of Gloucester that was, and the royal Lady Alianora de Clare, hiswife, the daughter of a daughter of King Edward. By Mary, Mother andMaiden, she is the noblest nun in all these walls."

  "And what hath been her history?" inquired Philippa.

  "Her history, I think, was but little," replied Senicula; "your Ladyshipheard her say that she had been professed at twenty years. But I haveknown her to speak of a sister of hers, who had a very sorrowful story.I have often wished to know what it were, but she will never tell it."

  The next recreation-time found Philippa, as usual, seated by MotherJoan. The blind nun passed her hand softly over Philippa's dress.

  "That is a damask," [the figured silk made at Damascus] she said. "Iused to like damask and baudekyn."

  [Note: Baudekyn or baldekyn was the richest silk stuff then known, andalso of oriental manufacture.]

  "I never wear baudekyn," answered Philippa. "I am but a knight's wife."

  "What is the colour?" the blind woman wished to know.

  "Red and black, in stripes," said Philippa.

  "I remember," said Mother Joan, dreamily, "many years ago, seeing mineaunt, the Lady of Gloucester, at the court of King Edward of Caernarvon,arrayed in a fair baudekyn of rose colour and silver. It was theloveliest stuff I ever saw. And I could see then."

  Her voice fell so mournfully that Philippa tried to turn her attentionby asking her,--"Knew you King Edward of Westminster?" [See note 3.]

  "Nay, Lady de Sergeaux, with what years do you credit me?" rejoined thenun, laughing a little. "Edward of Westminster was dead ere I was born.But I have heard of him from them that did remember him well. He was agoodly man, of lofty stature, and royal presence: a wise man, and acunning [clever]--saving only that he opposed our holy Father the Pope."

  "Did he so?" responded Philippa.

  "Did he so!" ironically repeated Mother Joan. "Did he not command thatno Bull should ever be brought into England? and hanged he not the Priorof Saint John of Jerusalem for reading one to his monks? I can tellyou, to brave Edward of Westminster was no laughing matter. He nevercared what his anger cost. His own children had need to think twice erethey aroused his ire. Why, on the day of his daughter the LadyElizabeth's marriage with my noble Lord of Hereford, he, being angeredby some word of the bride, snatched her coronet from off her head, andflung it behind the fire. Ay, and a jewel or twain was lost therefromere the Lady's Grace had it back."

  "And his son, King Edward of Caernarvon--what like was he?" askedPhilippa, smiling.

  Mother Joan did not answer immediately. At last she said,--"The blessedVirgin grant that they which have reviled him be no worse than he! Hehad some strange notions--so had other men, whom I at least am bound tohold in honour. God grant all peace!"

  Philippa wondered who the other men were, and whether Mother Joanalluded to her own ancestors. She knew nothing of the Despensers,except the remembrance that she had never heard them alluded to atArundel but in a tone of bitter scorn and loathing.

  "Maybe," continued the blind woman, in a softer voice, "he was no worsefor his strange opinions. Some were not. 'Tis a marvellous matter,surely, that there be that can lead lives of angels, and yet hold viewsthat holy Church condemneth as utterly to be abhorred."

  "Whom mean you, Mother?"

  "I mean, child," replied the nun, speaking slowly and painfully, "onewhom I hope is gone to God. One to whom, and for whom, this world wasan ill place; and, therefore, I trust she hath found her rest in abetter. God knoweth how and when she died--if she be dead. We neverknew."

  Mother Joan made the sign of the cross, and a very mournful expressioncame over her face.

  "Ah, holy Virgin!" she said, lifting her sightless eyes, "why is it thatsuch things are permitted? The wicked dwell in peace, and increasetheir goods; the holy dwell hardly and die poor. Couldst not thouchange the lots? There is at this moment one man in the world, clad incloth of gold, dwelling gloriously, than whom the foul fiend himself isscarcely worse; and there was one woman, like the angels, whose Queenthou art, and only God and thou know what became of her. Blessed Marymust such things always be? I cannot understand it. I suppose thoucanst."

  It was the old perplexity--as old as Asaph; but he understood it when hewent into the sanctuary of God, and Mother Joan had never followed himthere.

  "Lady de Sergeaux," resumed the blind nun, "there is at times a tone inyour voice, which mindeth me strangely of hers--hers, of whom I spakebut now. If I offend not in asking it, I pray you tell me who were yourelders?"

  Philippa gave her such information as she had to give. "I am a daughterof my Lord of Arundel."

  "Which Lord?" exclaimed Mother Joan, in a voice as of deep interestsuddenly awakened.

  "They call him," answered Philippa, "Earl Richard the Copped-Hat." [SeeNote 4.]

  "Ah!" answered Mother Joan, in that deep bass tone which sounds almostlike an execration. "That was the man. Like Dives, clad in purple andfine linen, and faring sumptuously every day; and his portion shall bewith Dives at the last. Your pardon, Dame; I forgat for the nonce thatI spake to his daughter. Yet I said but truth."

  "That may be," responded Philippa under her breath.

  "Then you have not found him a saint?" replied the blind
nun, with abitter little laugh. "Well, I might have guessed that. And you, then,are a daughter of that proud jade Alianora of Lancaster, for whoseindwelling the fiend swept the Castle of Arundel clean of God's angels?I do not think she made up for it."

  Philippa's own interest was painfully aroused now. Surely Mother Joanknows something of that mysterious history which hitherto she had failedso sadly to discover.

  "I cry you mercy, Mother," she said. "But I am not the daughter of theLady Alianora."

  "Whose, then? Quick!" cried Mother Joan, in accents of passionateearnestness.

  "Who was my mother," answered Philippa, "I cannot tell you, for I wasnever told myself. All that I know of her I had but from a poorlavender, that spake well of her, and she called her the Lady Isabel."

  "Isabel! Isabel!"

  Philippa was deeply touched; for the name, twice repeated, broke in awail of tender, mournful love, from the lips of the blind nun.

  "Mother," she pleaded, "if you know anything of her, for the holyVirgin's love tell it to me, her child. I have missed her and longedfor her all my life. Surely I have a right to know her story who gaveme that life!"

  "Thou shalt know," responded Mother Joan in a choked voice. "But,child, name me Mother Joan no longer. Call me what I am to thee--Aunt.Thy mother was my sister."

  And then Philippa knew that she stood upon the threshold of all herlong-nursed hopes.

  "But tell me first," pursued the nun, "how that upstart treated thee--Alianora."

  "She was not unkind to me," answered Philippa hesitatingly. "She didnot give me precedence over her daughters, but then she is of the bloodroyal, and I am not. But--"

  "Not royal!" exclaimed Mother Joan in extremely treble tones. "Havethey brought thee up so ignorantly as that? Not of the blood royal,quotha! Child, by our Lady's hosen, thou art fifty-three steps nearerthe throne than she! We were daughters of Alianora, whose mother wasJoan of Acon, [Acre, where Joan was born], daughter of King Edward ofWestminster; and she is but the daughter of Henry, the son of Edmund,son of Henry of Winchester." [Henry the Third.]

  Philippa was silent from astonishment.

  "Go on," said the nun. "What did she to thee?"

  "She did little," said Philippa in a low voice. "She only left undone."

  "Ah!" replied Mother Joan. "The one half of the _Confiteor_. The othercommonly marcheth apace behind."

  "Then," said Philippa, "my mother was--"

  "Isabel La Despenser, younger daughter of the Lord Hugh Le Despenser theyounger, Earl of Gloucester, and grand-daughter of Hugh the elder, Earlof Winchester. Thou knowest their names well, if not hers."

  "I know nothing about them," replied Philippa, shaking her head. "Noneever told me. I only remember to have heard them named at Arundel asvery wicked persons, and rebels against the King."

  "Holy Virgin!" cried Mother Joan. "Rebels!--against which King?"

  "I do not know," answered Philippa.

  "But I do!" exclaimed the blind woman, bitterly. "Rebels against arebel! Traitors to a traitress! God reward Isabelle of France for allthe shame and ruin that she brought on England! Was the crown that shecarried with her worth the price which she cost that carried it? Well,she is dead now--gone before God to answer all that long and blackaccount of hers. Methinks it took some answering. Child, my father didsome ill things, and my grandfather did more; but did either everanything to merit the shame and agony of those two gibbets at Herefordand Bristol? Gibbets for them, that had sat in the King's council, andaided him to rule the realm,--and one of them a white-haired man oversixty years! [See Note 5.] And what had they done save to anger thetigress? God help us all! We be all poor sinners; but there be some,at the least in men's eyes, a deal blacker than others. But thouwouldst know her story, not theirs: yet theirs is the half of hers, andthe tale were unfinished if I told it not."

  "What was she like?" asked Philippa.

  Mother Joan passed her hand slowly over the features of her niece.

  "Like, and not like," she said. "Thy features are sharper cut thanhers; and though in thy voice there is a sound of hers, it is less softand low. Hers was like the wind among the strings of an harp hanging onthe wall. Thy colouring I cannot see. But if thou be like her, thinehair is glossy, and of chestnut hue; and thine eyes are dark andmournful."

  "Tell me about her, Aunt, I pray you," said Philippa.

  Joan La Despenser smoothed down her monastic habit, and leaned her headback against the wall. There was evidently some picture of memory'sbringing before her sightless eyes, and her voice itself had a lower andsofter tone as she spoke of the dead sister. But her first words werenot of her.

  "Holy Virgin!" she said, "when thou didst create the world, whereforedidst thou make women? For women have but two fates: either they areblack-souled, like the tigress Isabelle, and then they prosper andthrive, as she did; or else they are white snowdrops, like our deaddarling, and then they are martyrs. A few die in the cradle--those whomthou lovest best; and what fools are we to weep for them! Ah me! thingsbe mostly crooked in this world. Is there another, me wondereth, wherethey grow straight?--where the black-souled die on the gibbets, and thewhite-souled wear the crowns? I would like to die, and change to thatGolden Land, if there be. Methinks it is far off."

  It was a Land "very far off." And over the eyes of Joan La Despenserthe blinding film of earth remained; for she had not drunk of the LivingWater.

  "The founder of our house,"--thus Mother Joan began her narrative,--"wasmy grandfather's father, slain, above an hundred years ago, at thebattle of Evesham. He left an infant son, not four years old when hedied. This was my grandfather, Hugh Le Despenser, Earl of Winchester,who at the age of twenty-five advanced the fortunes of his house bywedding a daughter of Warwick, Isabel, the young widow of the Lord deChaworth, and the mother's mother of Alianora of Lancaster. Thou andthy father's wife, therefore, are near akin. This Isabel (after whomthy mother was named) was a famed beauty, and brought moreover a veryrich dower. My grandfather and she had many children, but I need onlyspeak of one--my hapless father.

  "King Edward of Caernarvon loved my father dearly. In truth, so didEdward of Westminster, who bestowed on him, ere he was fully ten yearsold, the hand of his grand-daughter, my mother, Alianora de Clare, whobrought him in dower the mighty earldom of Gloucester. The eldest of uswas Hugh my brother; then came I; next followed my other brothers,Edward, Gilbert, and Philip; and last of all, eight years after me, cameIsabel thy mother.

  "From her birth this child was mine especial care. I was alway athoughtful, quiet maiden, more meet for cloister than court; and I wellremember, though 'tis fifty years ago, the morrow when my baby-sisterwas put into mine arms, and I was bidden to have a care of her. Have acare of her! Had she never passed into any worse care than mine--well-a-day! Yet, could I have looked forward into the future, and haveread Isabel's coming history, I might have thought that the wisest andkindest course I could take would be to smother her in her cradle.

  "Before she was three years old, she passed from me. My Lord ofArundel--Earl Edmund that then was--was very friendly with my father;and he desired that their families should be drawn closer together bythe marriage of Richard Fitzalan, his son and heir--a boy of twelveyears--with one of my father's daughters. My father, thus appealedunto, gave him our snowdrop.

  "`Not Joan,' said he; `Joan is God's. She shall be the spouse of Christin Shaftesbury Abbey.'

  "So it came that ere my darling was three years old, they twined thebride-wreath for her hair, and let it all down flowing, soft andshining, from beneath her golden fillet. Ah holy Virgin! had it beenthy pleasure to give me that cup of gall they mixed that day for her,and to her the draught of pure fresh water thou hast held to me!Perchance I could have drunk it with less pain than she did; and atleast it would have saved the pain to her.

  "That was in the fourteenth year of Edward of Caernarvon. [1320.] Solong as Earl Edmund of Arundel lived, there was little to fear.
He, asI said, loved my father, and was a father to Isabel. The Lady ofArundel likewise was then living, and was careful over her as a mother.Knowest thou that the Lady Griselda, of such fame for her patientendurance, was an ancestress of thy father? It should have been of thymother. Hers was a like story; only that to her came no reward, nohappy close.

  "But ere I proceed, I must speak of one woeful matter, which I dobelieve to have been the ruin of my father. He was never loved by thepeople--partly, I think, because he gave counsel to the King to rule, asthey thought, with too stern a hand; partly because my grandfather lovedmoney too well, nor was he over careful how he came thereby; partlybecause the Queen hated him, and she was popular; but far above allthese for another reason, which was the occasion of his fall, and theruin of all who loved him.

  "Hast thou ever heard of the Boni-Homines? They have other names--Albigenses, Waldenses, Cathari, Men of the Valleys. They are a sect ofheretics, dwelling originally in the dominions of the Marquis ofMonferrato, toward the borders betwixt France, Italy, and Spain: mencondemned by the Church, and holding certain evil opinions touching theholy doctrine of grace of condignity, and free-will, and the like. Yetsome of them, I must confess, lead not unholy lives."

  Philippa merely answered that she had heard of these heretics.

  "Well," resumed the blind woman, "my father became entangled with thesemen. How or wherefore I know not. He might have known that theirdoctrines had been condemned by the holy Council of Lumbars two hundredyears back. But when the Friars Predicants were first set up by theblessed Dominic, under leave of our holy Father the Pope, many of thesesectaries crept in among them. A company went forth from Ashridge, andanother from Edingdon--the two houses of this brood of serpents. Andone of them, named Giles de Edingdon, fell in with my father, and taughthim the evil doctrines of these wretches, whom Earl Edmund of Cornwall(of the blood royal), that wedded a daughter of our house, had in hisunwisdom brought into this land; for he was a wicked man and an illliver. [See Note 6.] King Edward of Caernarvon likewise listened tothese men, and did but too often according to their counsels.

  "Against my grandfather and others, but especially against these men ofEdingdon and Ashridge, Dame Isabelle the Queen set herself up. KingEdward had himself sent her away on a certain mission touching thehomage due to the King of France for Guienne; for he might not adventureto leave the realm at that time. But now this wicked woman gatheredtogether an army, and with Prince Edward, and the King's brother theEarl of Kent, who were deluded by her enchantments, she came back andlanded at Orewell, and thence marched with flying colours to Bristol,men gathering everywhere to her standard as she came.

  "We were in Bristol on that awful day. My mother, the King had left incharge of the Tower of London; but in Bristol, with the King, were mygrandfather and father my Lord and Lady of Arundel, their son Richard,and Isabel, and myself. I was then a maiden of sixteen years. WhenDame Isabelle's banners floated over the gates of the city, and hertrumpets summoned the citizens to surrender, King Edward, who was atimid man, flung himself into the castle for safety, and with him all ofus, saving my grandfather, and my Lord of Arundel, who remained without,directing the defence.

  "The citizens of Bristol, thus besieged (for she had surrounded thetown), sent to ask Dame Isabelle her will, offering to surrender thecity on condition that she would spare their lives and property. Butshe answered by her trumpeter, that she would agree to nothing unlessthey would first surrender the Earls of Winchester and Arundel; `for,'saith she, `I am come purposely to destroy them.' Then the citizensconsulted together, and determined to save their lives and property bythe sacrifice of the noblest blood in England, and (as it was shownafterwards) of the blood royal. They opened their gates, and yielded upmy grandfather and thine to her will."

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  Note 1. Hilding: a word derived from the Anglo-Saxon, and usedindiscriminately to denote a young person of either sex.

  Note 2. Wimple: the covering for the neck, worn by secular women aswell as nuns, and either with or without a veil or hood. It had been infashion for two centuries or thereabouts, but was now beginning to begenerally discarded.

  Note 3. In accordance with the custom of the time, by which personswere commonly named from their birth-places, Edward the First, theSecond, and the Third are respectively designated Edward of Westminster,of Caernarvon, and of Windsor.

  Note 4. The copped-hat was the high-crowned brimless hat thenfashionable, the parent of the modern one. An instance of it will befound in the figure of Bolingbroke, plate xvi. of the illustrations toCretan's History of Richard the Second, Archaeologia, vol. xx.

  Note 5. One historian after another has copied Froissart's assertionthat Hugh Le Despenser the elder at his death was an old man of ninety,and none ever took the trouble to verify the statement; yet the_post-mortem_ inquisition of his father is extant, certifying that hewas born in the first week in March 1261; so that on October 8, 1326,the day of his execution, he was only sixty-five.

  Note 6. It will be understood that this was the light in which themonks regarded Earl Edmund.