Earl Hubert's Daughter Part 6

"My word, Sir Richard, but you are growing a courtly knight! You see that Jew boy has left his cap behind. As there are none here but damsels, I was thinking I would ask you to call him back to fetch it."

"He shall have it--a Jew boy! I'll take the tongs, then!"

The next minute Delecresse, who was just turning back to fetch the forgotten cap, heard a boyish voice calling to him out of a window, and looking up, saw his cap held out in the tongs.

"Here, thou cur of a Jew! What dost thou mean, to leave thy heathen stuff in the chamber of a n.o.ble damsel?"

And the cap was dropped into the courtyard, with such good aim that it first hit Delecresse on the head, and then lodged itself in the midst of a puddle.

Delecresse, without uttering a word, yet flus.h.i.+ng red even through his dark complexion, deliberately stooped, recovered his wet cap, and placed it on his head, pressing it firmly down as if he wished to impart the moisture to his hair. Then he turned and looked fixedly at Richard, who was watching him with an amused face.

"That wasn't a bad shot, was it?" cried the younger lad.

"Thank you," was the answer of Delecresse. "I shall know you again!"

The affront was a boyish freak, perpetrated rather in thoughtlessness than malice: but the tone of the answer, however simple the words, manifestly breathed revenge. Richard de Clare was not an ill-natured boy. But he had been taught from his babyhood that a Jew was the sc.u.m of the earth, and that to speak contumeliously to such was so far from being wrong, that it absolutely savoured of piety. _Jews_ had crucified Christ. To have aided one of them, or to have been over civil to him, would in a Christian have been considered as putting a slight upon his Lord. There was, therefore, some excuse for Richard, educated as he had been in this belief.

Delecresse, on the contrary, had been as carefully brought up in the opposite conviction. To him it was the Gentile who was the refuse of humanity, and it was a perpetual humiliation to be forced to cringe to, and wait upon, such contemptible creatures. Moreover, the day was coming when their positions should be reversed; and who could say how near it was at hand? Then the proud Christian n.o.ble would be the slave of the despised Jew pedlar, and--thought Delecresse, grinding his teeth--he at least would take care that the Christian slave should indulge no mistakes on that point.

To both the youths Satan was whispering, and by both he was obeyed. And each of them was positively convinced that he was serving G.o.d.

The vengeful words of Delecresse made no impression whatever on the young Earl of Gloucester. He would have laughed with scorn at the mere idea that such an insect as that could have any power to hurt him. He danced back to Margaret's bower, where, in a few minutes, he, she, Marie, and Eva were engaged in a merry round game.

Beside the three girls who were in the care of the Countess, Earl Hubert had also three boy-wards--Richard de Clare, heir of the earldom of Gloucester; Roger de Mowbray, heir of the barony of Mowbray, now about fifteen years old; and John de Averenches (or Avranches), the son of a knight. With these six, the Earl's two sons, his daughter, and his daughter-in-law, there was no lack of young people in the Castle, of whom Sir John de Burgh, the eldest, was only twenty-nine.

The promise made by Abraham of Norwich was faithfully kept. A week had not quite elapsed when Levina announced to the Countess that the Jew pedlar and the maiden his daughter awaited her pleasure in the court.

The Countess desired her to bring them up immediately to Margaret's bower, whither she would go herself to meet them.

Margaret and Doucebelle had just come in from a walk upon the leads--the usual way in which ladies took airings in the thirteenth century.

Indeed, the leads were the only safe and proper place for a young girl's out-door recreation. The courtyard was always filled by the household servants and soldiers of the garrison: and the idea of taking a walk outside the precincts of the Castle, would never have occurred to anybody, unless it were to a very ignorant child indeed. There were no safe highroads, nor quiet lanes, in those days, where a maiden might wander without fear of molestation. Old ballads are full of accounts of the perils incurred by rash and self-sufficient girls who ventured alone out of doors in their innocent ignorance or imprudent bravado. The roadless wastes gave harbour to abundance of fierce small animals and deadly vipers, and to men worse than any of them.

Old Abraham, cap in hand, bowed low before the Princess, and presented a closely-veiled, graceful figure, as the young broideress whom he had promised.

"Lay thy veil aside, my maid," said the Countess, with most unusual kindness, considering that it was a Jewess to whom she spoke.

The maiden obeyed, and revealed to the eyes of the Princess and her damsels a face and figure of such extreme loveliness that she no longer wondered at the anxiety of her father to provide for her concealment.

But the beauty of Belasez was of an entirely different type from that of the Christians around her. Her complexion was olive, her hair raven black, her eyes large and dark, now melting as if in liquid light, now brilliant and full of fire. And if Margaret looked two years beyond her real age, Belasez looked more like seven.

"Thou knowest wherefore thou art come hither?" asked the Countess, smiling complacently on the vision before her.

"To broider for my Lady," said Belasez, in a low, clear, musical voice.

"And wilt thou obey my orders?"

"I will obey my Lady in every thing not forbidden by the holy law."

"Well, I think we shall agree, my maid," returned the Countess, whose private views respecting religious tolerance were something quite extraordinary for the time at which she lived. "I would not willingly coerce any person's conscience. But as I do not know thy law, thou wilt have to tell me if I should desire thee to do some forbidden thing."

"My Lady is very good to her handmaiden," said Belasez.

"Margaret, take the maid into thy wardrobe for a little while, until she has dined; and after that I will show her what I require. She will be glad of rest after her journey."

Margaret obeyed, and a motion of her mother's hand sent Doucebelle after her. The daughter of the house sat down on the settle which stretched below the window, and Doucebelle followed her example: but Belasez remained standing.

"Come and sit here by me," said Margaret to the young Jewess. "I want to talk to thee."

Belasez obeyed in silence.

"Art thou very tired with thy journey?"

"Not now, damsel, I thank you. We have come but a short stage this morning."

"Art thou fond of broidery?"

"I love everything beautiful."

"And nothing that is not beautiful?"

"I did not say that, damsel." Belasez's smile showed a perfect row of snow-white teeth.

"Am I fair enough to love?" asked Margaret laughingly. She had a good deal of her mother's easy tolerance of differences, and all her sweet affability to those beneath her.

"Ah, my damsel, true love regards the heart rather than the face, methinks. I cannot see into my damsel's heart in one minute, but I should think it was not at all difficult to love her."

"I want every body to love me," said Margaret. "And I love every body."

"If my damsel would permit me to counsel her,--love every body by all means: but do not let her want every body to love her."

"Why not?"

"Because I fear my damsel will meet with disappointment."

"Oh, I hate to be disappointed. Hast thou brought thine image with thee?"

To Margaret this question sounded most natural. In the first place, she could not conceive the idea of prayer without something visible to pray to: and in the second, she had been taught that all Jews and Saracens were idolaters. She was surprised to see the blood rush to Belasez's dark cheek, and the fire flash from her eyes.

"Will my damsel allow me to ask what she means? I do not understand."

"Wilt thou not want to say thy prayers whilst thou art here?" responded Margaret, who was at least as much puzzled as Belasez.

"Most certainly! but not to an image!"

"Oh, do you Jews sometimes pray without images?"

"Does my damsel take us for idolaters?"

"Yes, I was always told so," said Margaret, looking astonished.