Earl Hubert's Daughter Page 6

  CHAPTER FIVE.

  NOT WISELY.

  "I love but one, and only one,-- O Damon, thou art he; Love thou but one, and only one, And let that one be me."

  [Note 1.]

  The pedlar, Abraham, declined to remain at the Castle. There wereplenty of places, he said, where an old man could be safe: it was quiteanother thing for a young girl. If his gracious Lady would of herbounty give his bird shelter until the riot and its consequences wereover, and every thing peaceable again, Abraham would come and fetch heras soon as he deemed it thoroughly prudent. Meanwhile, Belasez couldwork for the Lady. The Countess was only too pleased to procure suchincomparable embroidery on such easy terms. She set Belasez to work onthe border of an armilaus, intended as a present for the new Queen: forthe hitherto unmarriageable King had at last found a Princess to accepthim. She was the second daughter of a penniless Provencal Count; butshe was a great beauty, though an extremely young girl; and her eldestsister was Queen of France. She proved a costly bargain. Free from allvisible vices except two, which, unfortunately, were two cultivated byHenry himself--unscrupulous acquisition and reckless extravagance--shenevertheless contrived to do terrible mischief, by giving her husband noadvice in general, and bad advice whenever she gave it in particular.His ivy-like nature wanted a strong buttress upon which to lean; andEleonore of Provence was neither stronger nor more stable than himself.Her one idea of life was to enjoy herself to the utmost. When shewanted a new dress, she had not the slightest notion of waiting till shehad money to pay for it. What were the people of England in her eyes,but machines for making it--things to be taxed--a vast and inexhaustibletreasury, of which you did but turn the handle, and coins came showeringout?

  So the tax-gatherers went grinding on, and the land cried to God, andthe Court heard no sound. The man who was to be God's avenger upon themwas an obscure foreigner as yet. And the English noble who above allothers was to aid him in that vengeance, was still only a fair-hairedyouth of fifteen, whose thoughts were busy with a very differentsubject. But out of the one, the other was to grow, watered by tearsand blood.

  He was standing--young Richard de Clare--in one of the recessed windowsof the great hall, with Margaret beside him. They were talking in verylow tones. Richard's manner was pleading and earnest, while Margaret'seyes were cast down, and she was diligently winding round her finger ashred of green sewing-silk, as though her most important concern were tomake it go round a certain number of times.

  It was the old story, so many times repeated in this world, sometimes toflow smoothly on like waters to their haven, sometimes to end in stormywreckage and bitter disappointment.

  They were very young lovers. We should term them mere boy and girl, andcount them unfit to consider the matter at all. But in the thirteenthcentury, when circumstances forced men and women early to the front, andsixty years was considered ripe old age, fifteen was equivalent at leastto twenty now.

  In this instance, the course of true love--for it was on both sides verytrue--seemed likely to be smooth enough. The King had granted themarriage of Richard to Earl Hubert; and, as was then well understood,the person to whom he would most probably marry his ward was his owndaughter. The only irregular item of the matter was that the pairshould fall in love, or should broach the subject at all to each other.But human hearts are unaccountable articles; and even in those days,when matrimony was an affair of rule and compasses, those irregularthings did occasionally conduct themselves in a very irregular manner,leading young people to fall in love (and sometimes to run away) withthe wrong person, but happily and occasionally, as in this instance,with the right one.

  Half an hour later, Margaret was kneeling on a velvet cushion at thefeet of the Countess, who was (with secret delight) receiving auricularconfession concerning the very point on which she had set her heart.

  This mother and daughter were great friends,--a state of things tooinfrequent at any time, and particularly so in the Middle Ages.Margaret, the only one of her mother, was an unusually cherished andpetted child. The result was that she had no fear of the Countess, andlooked upon her as her natural confidante. Perhaps, if more daughterswould do so, there might be fewer unhappy marriages. At the same timeit must be admitted, that some mothers by no means invite confidence.

  The Countess of Kent, sweet as she was, had one great failing,--a faultoften to be found in very gentle and amiable natures. She was notsufficiently straightforward. Instead of honestly telling people whatshe wanted them to do, she liked to manage them into it; and thismanaging involved at most times more or less dissimulation. She dearlyloved to conduct her affairs by a series of little secrets. This is atemperament which usually rests on a mixture of affection and want ofcourage. We cannot bear to grieve those whom we love, and we shrinkfrom calling down their anger on ourselves, or even from risking theirdisapprobation of our conduct, past or proposed. Now, it had been forsome years the dearest wish of the Countess's heart that her Margaretshould marry Richard de Clare. But she never whispered her desire toany one,--least of all to her husband, with whom, humanly speaking, itlay mainly to promote or defeat it. And now, when Margaret's blushingconfession was whispered to her, the Countess privately congratulatedherself on her excellent management, and thought how much better it wasto pull unseen strings than to blaze one's wishes abroad.

  "And, Lady, will you of your grace plead for us with my Lord andfather?" said Margaret in a coaxing tone at last.

  "Oh, leave it all to me," replied her mother. "I will manage him intoit. Never tell a man anything, my dove, if thou wouldst have him do it.Men are such obstinate, perverse creatures, that as often as not theywill just go the other way out of sheer wilfulness. Thou must alwayscontrive to manage them into it."

  Margaret, who had inherited her father's honesty with her mother'samiability, was rather puzzled by this counsel.

  "But how do you manage them?" said she.

  "There is an art in that, my dear. It takes brains. Different menrequire very different kinds of management. Now thy father is one whowill generally consent to a thing when it is done, though he would notif it were suggested to him at first. He rather likes his own way;still, he is very good when he is well managed,"--for instance afterinstance came floating back to the wife's mind, in which he had againsthis own judgment given way to her. "So that is the way to manage him.Now our Lord King Henry requires entirely different handling."

  That was true enough. While Earl Hubert always had a will of his own,and knew what it was (though he did not always get it), King Henry hadno will, and never knew what it was until somebody else told him.

  "I am afraid, Lady, I don't understand the management of men," saidMargaret, with a little laugh and blush.

  "Thou wilt learn in time, my dear. Thou art rather too fond of sayingall thou meanest. That is not wise--for a woman. Of course a man oughtto tell his wife every thing. But there is no need for a wife always tobe chattering to her husband: she must have her little secrets, and heought to respect them. Now, as to Sir Richard, I can see as well aspossible the kind of management he will require; thou must quietlysuggest ideas to him, gently and diffidently, as if thou wert desirousof his opinion: but whenever he takes them up, mind and always let himthink he is getting his own way. He has a strong will, against which afoolish woman would just run full tilt, and spoil every thing. A wiseone will quietly get her own way, and let him fancy he has got his.That is thy work, Magot."

  Margaret shook her bright head with a laugh. Such work as that was notat all in her line.

  It took only a day for the girls to discover that the Belasez who hadcome back to them in October was not the Belasez who had gone away fromthem at Whitsuntide. She seemed almost a different being. Quite asamiable, as patient, as refined, as before, there was something abouther which they instantly perceived, but to which they found it hard togive a name. It was not exactly any one thing. It was not sadness, forat times she seemed more bright and lively than the
y remembered her ofold: it was not ill-temper, for her patience was proof against anyamount of teasing. But her moods were far more variable than they usedto be. A short time after she had been playing with little Marie, allsmiles and sunshine, they would see tears rush to her eyes, which sheseemed anxious to conceal. And at times there was an expression ofdistress and perplexity in her face, evidently not caused by anyintricacy in the pattern she was working.

  Indirect questions produced none but evasive answers. Each of the girlshad her own idea as to the solution of the enigma. Margaret, verynaturally, pronounced Belasez in love. Eva, one of whose sisters hadbeen recently ill, thought she was anxious about her brother. Mariesuggested that too much damson tart might be a satisfactoryexplanation,--that having been the state of things with herself a fewdays before. Hawise, who governed her life by a pair of moralcompasses, was of opinion that Belasez thought it proper to looksorrowful in her circumstances, and therefore did so except in anemergency. Doucebelle alone was silent: but her private thought wasthat no one of the four had come near the truth.

  When Belasez had been about a week at the Castle, one afternoon she andDoucebelle were working alone in the wardrobe. The Countess andMargaret were away for the day, on a visit to the Abbess of Thetford;Eva and Marie were out on the leads; Hawise was busy in her ownapartments. Belasez had been unusually silent that morning. She workedon in a hurried, nervous way, never speaking nor looking up, and alovely arabesque pattern grew into beauty under her deft fingers.Suddenly Doucebelle said--

  "Belasez, does life never puzzle thee?"

  Belasez looked up, with almost a frightened expression in her eyes.

  "Can anything puzzle one more?" she said: "unless it were the perplexitywhich is hovering over my soul."

  "Is that anything in which I could help thee?"

  "It is something in which no human being could help me--only He beforewhom the inhabitants of the earth are as grasshoppers."

  There was silence for a moment. Then, in a low, hushed tone, Belasezsaid--

  "Doucebelle, didst thou ever do a thing which must be either very right,or very wrong, and thou hadst no means whereby to know which it was?"

  "No," answered Doucebelle slowly. "I can scarcely imagine such athing."

  "Scarcely imagine the thing, or the uncertainty?"

  "The uncertainty. Because I should ask the priest."

  "The priest!--where is he?"

  Doucebelle looked up in surprise at the tone, and saw that Belasez wasin tears.

  "We had priests," said the young Jewess. "We had sons of Aaron, and atemple, and an altar, and a holy oracle, whereby the Blessed One madeknown His will in all matters of doubt and perplexity to His people.But where are they now? The mountains of Zion are desolate, and thefoxes walk upon them. The light has died out of the sacred gems, evenif they themselves were to be found. We have walked contrary to Him,--ah! where is the unerring prophet that shall tell us how we did it?--andHe walks contrary to us, and is punishing us seven times for our sins.We are in the desert, in the dark. And the pillar of fire has gone backinto Heaven, and the Angel of the Covenant leadeth us no more."

  Doucebelle was almost afraid to speak, lest she should say somethingwhich might do more harm than good. She only ventured after a pause toremark--

  "Still there are priests."

  "Yours? I know what they would tell me." Belasez's fervent voice hadgrown constrained all at once.

  "Yes, thou dost not believe them, I suppose," said Doucebelle, with abaffled feeling.

  "I want a prophet, Doucebelle, not a priest. Nay, He knows, the HolyOne, that we want a priest most bitterly; that we have no sacrificewherewith to stand before Him,--no blood to make atonement. But we wantthe prophet to point us to the priest. Let us know, by revelation fromHeaven, that this man, or that man, is the accepted Priest of the MostHigh, and trust us to bring our fairest lambs in sacrifice."

  "Belasez, I believe that the Lamb was offered, twelve hundred years ago,and the sacrifice which alone God will accept for the sins of men isover for ever, and is of everlasting efficacy."

  "I know." Belasez's face was more troubled than before.

  "If thou canst not trust His priests, couldst thou not trust Him?"

  "Trust whom?" exclaimed Belasez, with her eyes on fire. "O Doucebelle,Doucebelle, I know not how to bear it! I thought I was so strong tostand up against all falsehood and error,--and here, one man, with oneword,--Let me hold my peace. But O that Thou wouldst rend the heavens,that Thou wouldst come down! Hast Thou but one blessing, O Thou thatart a Father unto Israel? Or are we so much worse off than our fathersin the desert? Nay, are we not in the desert, with no leader to guideus, no fiery pillar to bid us rest here, or journey thither? Why hastThou given the dearly-beloved of Thy soul into the hands of her enemies?Is it--is it, because we hid our faces--from Him!"

  And to Doucebelle's astonishment, Belasez covered her face with herapron, and sobbed almost as if her heart were breaking.

  "Poor Belasez!" said Doucebelle, gently. "It is often better to tellout what troubles us, than to keep it to ourselves."

  "If thou wert a daughter of Israel, I should tell it thee, and ask thycounsel. I need some one's counsel sorely."

  "And canst thou not trust me, Christian though I am?"

  "Oh no, it is not that. Thou dost not understand, Doucebelle. Thoucouldst not enter into my difficulty unless thou wert of my faith. Thatis the reason. It is not indeed that I mistrust thee."

  "Hast thou told thy father?"

  "My father? No! He would be as much horrified to hear that suchthoughts had ever entered my head, as the Lady would be if thou wert totell her thou didst not believe any longer in thy Christ."

  "Then what canst thou do? Could thy mother help thee, or thy brother?"

  "My mother would command me to dismiss such ideas from my mind, on painof her curse. But I cannot dismiss them. And for Delecresse--I thinkhe would stab me if he knew."

  "What sort of thoughts are they?"

  "Wilt thou keep my secret, if I tell thee?"

  "Indeed, I will not utter them without thy leave." Belasez cut off hersilk, laid down the armilaus, and clasped both hands round her knee.

  "When your great festivals draw nigh," she said, "four times in everyyear, we Israelites are driven into your churches, and forced to listento a discourse from one of your priests. Until that day, I have neverpaid any attention to what I deemed blasphemy. I have listened for amoment, but at the first word of error, or the first repetition of oneof your sacred names, I have always stopped my ears, and heard no more.But this last Midsummer, when we were driven into Lincoln Cathedral, thenew Bishop was in the pulpit. And he spake not like the other priests.I could not stop my ears. Why should I, when he read the words of oneof our own prophets, and in the holy tongue, rendering it into French ashe went on? And Delecresse said it was correctly translated, for Iasked him afterwards. He saw nothing in it different from usual. Butit was terrible to me! He read words that I never knew were in ourScriptures--concerning One whom it seemed to me must be--_must_ be, Hewhom you call Messiah. `As a root out of a dry ground'--`no form norcomeliness'--`no beauty that we should desire Him,'--`despised andrejected of men'--and lastly, `we hid our faces from Him.' For we did,Doucebelle,--we did! I could think of nothing else for a while. For wedid not hide them from others. We welcomed Judas of Galilee, andBarchocheba, and many another who rose up in our midst, claiming to besent of God. But He, who claimed to be The Sent One,--we crucified Him.We did not crucify them. We hid our faces from Him, and from Himalone. And then I heard more words, for the Bishop kept reading on.`We all like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his ownway'--ah, was that not true of the dispersed of Judah?--`and the Lordhath made to meet upon Him the iniquities of us all.' Doucebelle, itwas like carrying a lamp into a dark chamber, and beholding every thingin it suddenly illuminated. Was that what it all meant? Was the Bishopright, when he said afterwa
rds, that it was not possible that the bloodof bulls and goats could take away sin? Were they all not realities, asI had always thought them, but shadows, pointing forward through theages, to the One who was to come, to the Blood which could take awaysin? Did our own Scripture say so? `The Man that is My Fellow'--heread it, from one of our very own prophets. And `we hid our faces fromHim!' If He from whom we hid our faces--for there was but one such--ifHe were the Sent of God, the Man that is His Fellow, the Lamb whoseblood maketh atonement for the soul,--why then, what could there be forus but tribulation and wrath and indignation from before the Holy Onefor ever? Was it any marvel that we were punished seventy times for oursins, if we had done that?"

  Belasez drew a long breath, and altered her position.

  "And, if we had not done that, what had we done? The old perplexitycame back on me, worse than ever. What had we done? We were notidolaters any more; we were not profane; we kept the rest of the holySabbath. Yet the Blessed One was angry with us,--He hid His face fromus: and the centuries went on, and we were exiles still,--still underthe displeasure of our heavenly King. And what had we done?--if we hadnot hidden our faces from Him who was the Man that is His Fellow. Andthen--"

  Belasez paused again, and a softer, sadder expression came into hereyes.

  "And then the Bishop read some other words,--I suppose they were fromyour sacred books: I do not think they came from ours. He read that`because this Man continueth to eternity, untransferable hath He thepriesthood.' He read that `if any man sin, we have an Advocate with theFather, and He is the propitiation for our sins.' And again he readsome grand words, said by this Man Himself,--`I am the First and theLast, and the Living One: and I was dead, and am alive for evermore; andwith Me are the keys of Sheol and of death.' Oh, it was so different,Doucebelle, from your priests' sermons generally! There was not a wordabout that strange thing you call the Church,--not a word about themaiden whom you worship. It was all about Him who was to be the Sent ofGod. And I thought--may I be forgiven of the Holy One, if it werewicked!--I thought this was the Priest that would suit me: this was theProphet that could teach me: this was the Man, who, if only I knew thatto do it was truth and not error, was light and not darkness, was lifeand not death, I could be content to follow to the world's end. And howam I to know it?"

  Doucebelle looked up earnestly, and the girls' eyes met. One of themwas groping in the darkness in search of Christ. The other had gropedher way through the darkness, and had caught hold of Him. She did notsee His Face very clearly, but enough so to be sure that it was He.

  "Belasez, dear maid, He said one other thing. `Come unto Me, all yethat labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.' Trust me,the surest way to find out who He is, is to come to Him."

  "What meanest thou? He is not on earth."

  "He is where thy need is," answered Doucebelle gently. "In anylabyrinth out of which we know not the way,--over any grave where ourhearts lie buried,--we can meet Him."

  "But how? Thy words are a riddle to me."

  "Call Him, and see if He do not come to thee. And if He and thou do butmeet, it does not much matter by which track thou earnest thither."

  Belasez was silent, and seemed to be thinking deeply.

  "Doucebelle," she said at last, "are there two sorts of Christians?Because thy language is like the Bishop of Lincoln's. All the priests,and other Christians, whom I have heard before, spoke in quite anotherstrain."

  "There are live Christians, and dead ones. I know not of any thirdsort."

  "The dead ones must be fearfully in the majority!" said Belasez: "Imean, if thou and the Bishop are live ones."

  "That may be true, I am afraid," replied Doucebelle.

  "It must be the breathing of the Holy One that makes the difference,"observed Belasez, very thoughtfully. "For it is written, that Adonaiformed man of the dust of the earth, and breathed into his nostrils theneshama of life; and man became a living soul. Thus He breathed thelife into man at first, in the day of the creation of Adam. Surely, inthe day when the soul of man becomes alive to the will of the Holy One,He must breathe into him the second time, that he may live."

  "Belasez, what are your sacred books? You seem to have some."

  "We gave them to you," was Belasez's reply. "But ye have added tothem."

  "But the Scriptures were given to the Church!" remonstrated Doucebellewith some surprise.

  "I know not what ye mean by the Church," answered the Jewess. "Theywere ours,--given to our fathers, revealed to them by the Holy One. Wegave them to you,--or ye filched them from us,--I scarcely know which.And ye have added other books, which we cannot recognise."

  The flash of fervent confidence had died away, and Belasez was once morethe reserved, impenetrable Jewish maiden, to whom Gentile Christianswere unclean animals, and their doctrines to be mentioned only withscorn and abhorrence. And as Marie came dancing in at that moment, theconversation was not renewed. But it made a great impression uponDoucebelle, who ever afterwards added to her prayers thepetition,--"Fair Father, Jesu Christ, teach Belasez to know Thee."["Bel Pere"--then one of the common epithets used in prayer.]

  But to every one in general, and to Doucebelle in particular, Belasezseemed shut up closer than ever.

  The January of 1236 came, and with it the royal marriage. Theceremonial took place at Canterbury, and Earl Hubert was present, as hisoffice required of him. The Countess excused herself on the ground ofslight illness, which would make it very irksome for her to travel inwinter. Her "intimate enemies" kindly suggested that she was actuatedby pique, since a time had been when she might have been herself Queenof England. But they did not know Margaret of Scotland. Pique andspite were not in her. Her real motive was something wholly different.She was not naturally ambitious, nor did she consider the crown ofEngland so highly superior to the gemmed coronal of a Scottish Princess;and she had never held King Henry in such personal regard as to feel anyregret at his loss. Her true object in remaining at Bury was to"manage" the marriage of Margaret with Richard de Clare. It was to be aclandestine match, except as concerned a few favoured witnesses; andEarl Hubert was to be kept carefully in the dark till all was safelyover. The wedding was to be one "_per verba de presenti_" then assacred by the canon law as if it had been performed by a priest in fullcanonicals; and as a matter of absolute necessity, no witness wasrequired at all. But the Countess thought it more satisfactory to haveone or two who could be trusted not to chatter till the time came forrevelation. She chose Doucebelle along with herself, as the one inwhose silence she had most confidence. Thus, in that January, in thedead of the night, the four indicated assembled in the bed-chamber ofthe Countess, and the bride and bridegroom, joining hands, said simply--

  "In the presence of God and of these persons, I, Richard, take thee,Margaret, to my wedded wife:" and, "In the same presence I, Margaret,take thee, Richard, to my wedded husband."

  And according to canon and statute law they were legally married, norcould anything short of a divorce part them again.

  "Now then, go to bed," said the Countess, addressing Doucebelle: "andbeware, every soul of you, that not a word comes out till I tell you yemay speak."

  "Belasez, when wilt thou be wed?" inquired Margaret, the next morning.If the thoughts of the bride ran upon weddings, it was not much to bewondered.

  "Next summer," said Belasez, as coolly as if the question had been whenshe would finish her embroidery. There was no shadow of emotion of anykind to be seen.

  "Oh, art thou handfast?" replied Margaret, interested at once.

  "I was betrothed in my cradle," was the answer of the Jewish maiden.

  "To a Jew, of course?"

  "Of course! To Leo the son of Hamon of Norwich, my father's greatestfriend."

  "Is he a nice young man?"

  "I never saw him."

  "Why, Belasez!"

  "The maidens of my people are strictly secluded. It is not so withChristians."

  Yet it was
less strange to these Christian girls than it would be to thereader. They lived in times when the hand of an heiress was entirely atthe disposal of her guardian, who might marry her to some one whom shehad never seen. As to widows, they were in the gift of the Crown,unless they chose (as many did) to make themselves safe by paying a highprice for "liberty to marry whom they would." Even then, such a thingwas known as the Crown disregarding the compact. Let it be added, sincemuch good cannot be said of King John, that he at least was careful tofulfil his engagements of this description. His son was lessparticular.

  Margaret looked at Belasez with a rather curious expression.

  "And how dost thou like the idea," she asked, "of being wife to one whomthou hast never seen?"

  "I do not think about it," said Belasez, in the same tone as before."What is to be will be."

  "But what is to be," said Margaret, "may be very delightful, or it maybe very horrid."

  "Yes, no doubt," was the cool answer. "I shall see when the timecomes."

  Margaret turned away, with a shrug of her shoulders and a comic look inher eyes which nearly upset the gravity of the rest.

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  Note 1. These lines are (or were) to be seen, written with a diamondupon a pane of glass in a window of the Hotel des Pays-Bas, Spa,Belgium, with the date 1793. I do not know whether they are to be foundin the writings of any poet.