A Forgotten Hero Page 6

  CHAPTER SIX.

  DESTROYED BY THE HURRICANE.

  "Our plans may be disjointed, But we may calmly rest: What God has once appointed Is better than our best."--Frances Ridley Havergal.

  The Countess left Clarice prostrate on the ground, sobbing as if herheart would break--Olympias feebly trying to raise and soothe her,Roisia looking half-stunned, and Felicia palpably amused by the scene.

  "Thou hadst better get up, child," said Diana, in a tone divided betweenconstraint and pity. "It will do thee no good to lie there. We shallall have to put up with the same thing in our turn. I haven't got theman I should have chosen; but I suppose it won't matter a hundred yearshence."

  "I am not so sure of that," said Roisia, in a low voice.

  "Oh, thou art disappointed, I know," said Diana. "I would hand Fulkover to thee with pleasure, if I could. I don't want him. But Isuppose he will do as well as another, and I shall take care to bemistress. It is something to be married--to anybody."

  "It is everything to be married to the right man," said Roisia; "but itis something very awful to be married to the wrong one."

  "Oh, one soon gets over that," was Diana's answer. "So long as you canhave your own way, I don't see that anything signifies much. I shallnot admire myself in my wedding-dress any the less because my squire isnot exactly the one I hoped it might be."

  "Diana, I don't understand thee," responded Roisia. "What does itmatter, I should say, having thine own way in little nothings so long asthou art not to have it in the one thing for which thou really carest?Thou dost not mean to say that a velvet gown would console thee forbreaking thy heart?"

  "But I do," said Diana. "I must be a countess before I could wearvelvet; and I would marry any man in the world who would make me acountess."

  Mistress Underdone, who had lifted up Clarice, and was holding her inher arms, petting her into calmness as she would a baby, now thought fitto interpose.

  "My maids," she said, "there are women who have lost their hearts, andthere are women who were born without any. The former case has the moresuffering, yet methinks the latter is really the more pitiable."

  "Well, I think those people pitiable enough who let their hearts breaktheir sleep and interfere with their appetites," replied Diana. "I havegot over my disappointment already; and Clarice will be a simpleton ifshe do not."

  "I expect Clarice and I will be simpletons," said Roisia, quietly.

  "Please yourselves, and I will please myself," answered Diana. "Now,mistress, Clarice seems to have given over crying for a few seconds; maywe see the gear?"

  "Oh, I want Father Bevis!" sobbed Clarice, with a fresh gush of tears.

  "Ay, my dove, thou wilt be the better of shriving," said MistressUnderdone, tenderly. "Sit thee down a moment, and I will see to FatherBevis. Wait awhile, Diana."

  It was not many minutes before she came back with Father Bevis, who tookClarice into his oratory; and as it was a long while before she rejoinedthem, the others--Roisia excepted--had almost time to forget the scenethey had witnessed, in the interest of turning over Diana's _trousseau_,and watching her try on hoods and mantles.

  The interview with Father Bevis was unsatisfactory to Clarice. Shewanted comfort, and he gave her none. Advice he was ready with inplenty; but comfort he could not give her, because he could not see whyshe wanted it. He was simply incapable of understanding her. He wasvery kind, and very anxious to comfort her, if he could only have toldhow to do it. But love--spiritual love excepted--was a stranger to hisbosom. No one had ever loved him; he could not remember his parents; hehad never had brother nor sister; and he had never made a friend. Hisheart was there, but it had never been warmed to life. Perhaps he camenearest to loving the Earl his master; but even this feeling awakenedvery faint pulsations. His capacity for loving human beings had beensimply starved to death. Such a man as this, however anxious to be kindand helpful, of course could not enter in the least into the position ofClarice. He told her many very true things, if she had been capable ofreceiving them; he tried his very best to help her; but she felt throughit all that they were barbarians to each other, and that Father Bevisregarded her as partially incomprehensible and wholly silly.

  Father Bevis told Clarice that the chief end of man was to glorify God,and to enjoy Him for ever; that no love was worthy in comparison withHis; that he who loved father and mother more than Christ was not worthyof Him. All very true, but the stunned brain and lacerated heart couldnot take it in. The drugs were pure and precious, but they were not themedicine for her complaint. She only felt a sensation of repulsion.

  Clarice did not know that the Earl was doing his very best to rescueher. He insisted on Father Miles going to the Countess about it; nay,he even ventured an appeal to her himself, though it always cost himgreat pain to attempt a conversation with this beloved but irresponsivewoman. But he took nothing by his motion. The Countess was asobstinate as she was absolute. If anything, the opposition to her willleft her just a shade more determined. In vain her husband pleadedearnestly with her not to spoil two lives. Hers had been spoiled, shereplied candidly: these ought not to be better off, nor should they be.

  "Life has been spoiled for us both," said the Earl, sadly; "but I shouldhave thought that a reason why we might have been tenderer to others."

  "You are a fool!" said the Countess with a flash of angry scorn.

  They were the first words she had spoken to him for eighteen years.

  "Maybe, my Lady," was the gentle answer. "It would cost me less to beaccounted a fool than it would to break a heart."

  And he left her, feeling himself baffled and his endeavours useless, yetwith a glow at his heart notwithstanding. His Margaret had spoken tohim at last. That her words were angry, even abusive, was aconsideration lost in the larger fact. Tears which did not fall welledup from the soft heart to the dove-like eyes, and he went out to theterrace to compose himself. "O Margaret, Margaret! if you could haveloved me!" He never thought of blaming her--only of winning her as adim hope of some happy future, to be realised when it was God's will.He had never yet dared to look his cross in the face sufficiently toadd, if it were God's will.

  When the Monday came, which was to be the last day of Clarice's maidenlife, it proved a busy, bustling day, with no time for thought until theevening. Clarice lived through it as best she might. Diana seemed tohave put her disappointment completely behind her, and to be thoroughlyconsoled by the bustle and her _trousseau_.

  One consideration never occurred to any of the parties concerned, whichwould be thought rather desirable in the nineteenth century. This was,that the respective bridegrooms should have any interview with theirbrides elect, or in the slightest degree endeavour to make themselvesagreeable. They met at meals in the great hall, but they neverexchanged a word. Clarice did not dare to lift her eyes, lest sheshould meet those either of Vivian or Piers. She kept them diligentlyfixed upon her trencher, with which she did little else than look at it.

  The evening brought a lull in the excitement and busy labour. TheCountess, attended by Felicia, had gone to the Palace on royalinvitation. Clarice sat on the terrace, her eyes fixed on the riverwhich she did not see, her hands lying listlessly in her lap. Thoughshe had heard nothing, that unaccountable conviction of anotherpresence, which comes to us all at times, seized upon her; and shelooked up to see Piers Ingham.

  The interview was long, and there is no need to add that it was painful.The end came at last.

  "Wilt thou forget me, Clarice?" softly asked Piers.

  "I ought," was the answer, with a gush of tears, "if I can."

  "I cannot," was the reply. "But one pain I can spare thee, my beloved.The Lady means to retain thee in her service as damsel of the chamber."[Note 1.]

  If Clarice could have felt any lesser grief beside the one great one,she would have been sorry to hear that.

  "I shall retire," said Sir Piers, "from my Lord's household. I will notgive thee the misery o
f meeting me day by day. Rather I will do what Ican to help thee to forget me. It is the easier for me, since I havehad to offend my Lady by declining the hand of Felicia de Fay, which shewas pleased to offer me."

  "The Lady offered Felicia to thee?"

  Sir Piers bent his head in assent. Clarice felt as if she could havepoisoned Felicia, and have given what arsenic remained over to the LadyMargaret.

  "And are we never to meet again?" she asked, with an intonation ofpassionate sorrow.

  "That must depend on God's will," said Sir Piers, gravely.

  Clarice covered her face with both hands, and the bitter tears trickledfast through her fingers.

  "Oh, why is God's will so hard?" she cried. "Could He not have left usin peace? We had only each other."

  "Hush, sweet heart! It is wrong to say that. And yet it is hardlypossible not to think it."

  "It is not possible!" sobbed Clarice. "Does not God know it is notpossible?"

  "I suppose He must," said Sir Piers, gloomily.

  There was no comfort in the thought to either. There never is any tothose who do not know God. And Piers was only feeling after Him, ifhaply he might find Him, and barely conscious even of that; whileClarice had not reached even that point. To both of them, in this veryanguish, Christ was saying, "Come unto Me;" but their own cry of painhindered them from hearing Him. It was not likely they should hear,just then, when the sunlight of life was being extinguished, and themusic was dying to its close. But afterwards, in the silence and thedarkness, when the sounds were hushed and the lights were out, and therewas nothing that could be done but to endure, then the still, smallvoice might make itself heard, and the crushed hearts might sob outtheir answer.

  So they parted. "They took but ane kiss, and tare themselves away," tomeet when it was God's will, and not knowing on which side of the riverof death that would be.

  Half an hour had passed since Sir Piers' step had died away on theterrace, and Clarice still sat where he had left her, in crushed andsilent stillness. If this night could only be the end of it! If thingshad not to go on!

  "Clarice," said a pitying voice; and a hand was laid upon her head as ifin fatherly blessing.

  Clarice was too stunned with pain to remember her courtly duties. Sheonly looked up at Earl Edmund.

  "Clarice, my poor child! I want thee to know that I did my best forthee."

  "I humbly thank your Lordship," Clarice forced herself to say.

  "And it may be, my child, though it seems hard to believe, that God isdoing His best for thee too."

  "Then what would His worst be?" came in a gush from Clarice.

  "It might be that for which thou wouldst thank Him now."

  The sorrowing girl was arrested in spite of herself, for the Earl spokein that tone of quiet certainty which has more effect on an undecidedmind than any words. She wondered how he knew, not realising that heknows "more than the ancients" who knows God and sorrow.

  "My child," said the Earl again, "man's best and God's best are oftenvery different things. In the eyes of Monseigneur Saint Jacob, the bestthing would have been to spare his son from being cast into the pit andsold to the Ishmaelites. But God's best was to sell the boy intoslavery, and to send him into a dungeon, and then to lift him up to thesteps of the king's throne. When _then_ comes, Clarice, we shall besatisfied with what happened to us now."

  "When will it come, my Lord?" asked Clarice, in a dreary tone.

  "When it is best," replied the Earl quietly.

  "Your Lordship speaks as if you knew!" said Clarice.

  "God knows. And he who knows God may be sure of everything else."

  "Is it so much to know God?"

  "It is life. `Without God' and `Without hope' are convertible terms."

  "My Lord," said Clarice, wondering much to hear a layman use languagewhich it seemed to her was only fit for priests, "how may one know God?"

  "Go and ask Him. How dost thou know any one? Is it not by converse andcompanionship?"

  There was a silent pause till the Earl spoke again.

  "Clarice," he said, "our Lord has a lesson to teach thee. It rests withthee to learn it well or ill. If thou choose to be idle and obstinate,and refuse to learn, thou mayst sit all day long on the form indisgrace, and only have the task perfect at last when thou art weariedout with thine own perverseness. But if thou take the book willingly,and apply thyself with heart and mind, the task will be soon over, andthe teacher may give thee leave to go out into the sunshine."

  "My Lord," said Clarice, "I do not know how to apply your words here.How can I learn this task quickly?"

  "Dost thou know, first, what the task is?"

  "Truly, no."

  "Then let a brother tell thee who has had it set to him. It is a hardlesson, Clarice, and one that an inattentive scholar can make yet harderif he will. It is, `Not my will, but Thine, be done.'"

  "I cannot! I cannot!" cried Clarice passionately.

  "Some scholars say that," replied the Earl gently, "until the eveningshadows grow very long. They are the weariest of all when they reachhome."

  "My Lord, pardon me, but you cannot understand it!" Clarice stood up."I am young, and you--"

  "I am over forty years," replied the Earl. "Ah, child, dost thou makethat blunder?--dost thou think the child's sorrows worse than the man's?I have known both, and I tell thee the one is not to be compared to theother. Young hearts are apt to think it, for grief is a thing new andstrange to them. But if ever it become to thee as thy daily bread, thouwilt understand it better. It has been mine, Clarice, for eighteenyears."

  That was a year more than Clarice had been in the world. She looked upwonderingly into the saddened, dove-like Plantagenet eyes--those eyescharacteristic of the House--so sweet in repose, so fiery in anger.Clarice had but a dim idea what his sorrow was.

  "My Lord," she said, half inquiringly, "methinks you never knew such agrief as mine?"

  The smile which parted the Earl's lips was full of pity.

  "Say rather, maiden, that thou never knewest one like mine. But Godknows both, Clarice, and He pities both, and when His time comes He willcomfort both. At the best time, child! Only let us acquaint ourselveswith Him, for so only can we be at peace. And now, farewell. I hadbetter go in and preach my sermon to myself."

  Clarice was left alone again. She did not turn back to exactly the sametrain of thought. A new idea had been given her, which was to becomethe germ of a long train of others. She hardly put it into words, evento herself; but it was this--that God meant something. He was notsitting on the throne of the universe in placid indifference to hersorrows; neither was He a malevolent Being who delighted in interferingwith the plans of His creatures simply to exhibit His own power. He wasdoing this--somehow--for her benefit. She saw neither the how nor thewhy; but He saw them, and He meant good to her. All the world was notlimited to the Slough of Despond at her feet. There was blue sky above.

  Very vaguely Clarice realised this. But it was sufficient to soften therocky hardness which had been the worst element of her pain--to takeaway the blind chance against which her impotent wings had been beatenin vain efforts to escape from the dark cage. It was that contact with"the living will of a living person," which gives the human element towhat would otherwise be hard, blind, pitiless fate.

  Clarice rose, and looked up to the stars. No words came. The cry ofher heart was, "O Lord, I am oppressed; undertake for me." But she wastoo ignorant to weave it into a prayer. When human hearts look up toGod in wordless agony, the Intercessor translates the attitude into thewords of Heaven.

  Sad or bright, there was no time for thought on the Tuesday morning.The day was bitterly cold, for it was the 16th of January 1291, and aheavy hoar-frost silvered all the trees, and weighed down the bushes inthe Palace garden. Diana, wrapped in her white furs, was the picture ofhealth and merriment. Was it because she really had not enough heart tocare, or because she was determined not to give herself a moment
toconsider? Clarice, white as the fur round her throat, pale andheavy-eyed, grave and silent, followed Diana into the Palace chapel.The Countess was there, handsomely attired, and the Earl, in goldenarmour; but they stood on opposite sides of the chancel, and the formerignored her lord's existence. Diana's wedding came first. De Chaucombebehaved a little more amiably than usual, and, contrary to all hishabits, actually offered his hand to assist his bride to rise. ThenDiana fell back to the side of the Countess, and Fulk to that of theEarl, and Clarice recognised that the moment of her sacrifice was come.

  With one passionately pleading look at the Lady Margaret--who met it asif she had been made of stone--Clarice slowly moved forward to thealtar. She shuddered inwardly as Vivian Barkeworth took her hand intohis clasp, and answered the queries addressed to her in so low a voicethat Father Miles took the words for granted. It seemed only a fewminutes before she woke to the miserable truth that she was now Vivian'swife, and that to think any more of Piers Ingham was a sin against God.

  Clarice dragged herself through the bridal festivities--how, she neverknew. Diana was the life of the party. So bright and gay she was thatshe might never have heard of such a thing as disappointment. Shedanced with everybody, entered into all the games with the zest of aneager child, and kept the hall ringing with merry laughter, whileClarice moved through them all as if a weight of lead were upon her, andlooked as though she should never smile again. Accident at length threwthe two brides close together.

  "Art thou going to look thus woe-begone all thy life through, Clarice?"inquired the Lady De Chaucombe.

  "I do not know," answered Clarice, gloomily. "I only hope it will notbe long."

  "What will not be long?--thy sorrowful looks?"

  "No--my life."

  "Don't let me hear such nonsense," exclaimed Diana, with a little of herold sharpness. "Men are all deceivers, child. There is not one of themworth spoiling a woman's life for. Clarice, don't be a simpleton!"

  "Not more than I can help," said Clarice, with the shadow of a smile;and then De Echingham came up and besought her hand for the next dance,and she was caught away again into the whirl.

  The dancing, which was so much a matter of course at a wedding, thateven the Countess did not venture to interfere with it, was followed bythe hoydenish romps which were considered equally necessary, and whichfell into final desuetude about the period of the accession of the Houseof Hanover. King Charles the First's good taste had led him to frownupon them, and utterly to prohibit them at his own wedding; but thepeople in general were attached to their amusements, rough and evengross as they often were, and the improvement filtered down from palaceto cottage only very slowly.

  The cutting of the two bride-cakes, as usual, was one of the mostinteresting incidents. It was then, and long afterwards, customary toinsert three articles in a bride-cake, which were considered to foretellthe fortunes of the persons in whose possession they were found when thecakes were cut up. The gold ring denoted speedy marriage; the silverpenny indicated future wealth; while the thimble infallibly doomed itsrecipient to be an old maid. The division of Diana's cake revealed SirReginald de Echingham in possession of the ring, evidently to hissatisfaction; while Olympias, with the reverse sensation, discovered inher slice both the penny and the thimble. Clarice's cake proved evenmore productive of mirth; for the thimble fell to the Countess, whilethe Earl held up the silver penny, laughingly remarking that he was thelast person who ought to have had that, since he had already more ofthem than he wanted. But the fun came to its apex when the ring wasdiscovered in the hand of Mistress Underdone, who indignantly assertedthat if a thousand gold rings were showered upon her from as many cakesthey would not induce her to marry again. She thought two husbands wereenough for any reasonable woman; and if not, she was too old now forfolly of that sort. Sir Lambert sent the company into convulsions oflaughter by clasping his hands on this announcement with a look ofpretended despair, upon which Mistress Underdone, justly indignant, gavehim such a box on the ear that he was occupied in rubbing it for thenext ten minutes, thereby increasing the merriment of the rest. Loudestand brightest of all the laughers was Diana. She at least had notbroken her heart. Clarice, pale and silent in the corner, where she satand watched the rest, dimly wondered if Diana had any heart to break.

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  Note 1. There were two divisions of "damsels" in the household of amediaeval princess, the _domicellae_ and the _domicellae camera_. Theformer, who corresponded to the modern Maids of Honour, were young andunmarried; the latter, the Ladies of the Bedchamber, were always marriedwomen. Sufficient notice of this distinction has not been taken bymodern writers. Had it so been, the supposition long held of theidentity of Philippa Chaucer, _domicella camera_, with Philippa Pycard,_domicella_, could scarcely have arisen; nor should we be told thatChaucer's marriage did not occur until 1369, or later, when we findPhilippa in office as Lady of the Bedchamber in 1366.