A Forgotten Hero Part 1

A Forgotten Hero.

by Emily Sarah Holt.

CHAPTER ONE.

CASTLES IN THE AIR.

"O pale, pale face, so sweet and meek, Oriana!"

Tennyson.

"Is the linen all put away, Clarice?"

"Ay, Dame."

"And the rosemary not forgotten?"

"I have laid it in the linen, Dame."

"And thy day's task of spinning is done?"

"All done, Dame."

"Good. Then fetch thy sewing and come hither, and I will tell thee somewhat touching the lady whom thou art to serve."

"I humbly thank your Honour." And dropping a low courtesy, the girl left the room, and returned in a minute with her work.

"Thou mayest sit down, Clarice."

Clarice, with another courtesy and a murmur of thanks, took her seat in the recess of the window, where her mother was already sitting. For these two were mother and daughter; a middle-aged, comfortable-looking mother, with a mixture of firmness and good-nature in her face; and a daughter of some sixteen years, rather pale and slender, but active and intelligent in her appearance. Clarice's dark hair was smoothly brushed and turned up in a curl all round her head, being cut sufficiently short for that purpose. Her dress was long and loose, made in what we call the Princess style, with a long train, which she tucked under one arm when she walked. The upper sleeve was of a narrow bell shape, but under it came down tight ones to the wrist, fastened by a row of large round b.u.t.tons quite up to the elbow. A large ap.r.o.n--which Clarice called a barm-cloth--protected the dress from stain. A fillet of ribbon was bound round her head, but she had no ornaments of any kind. Her mother wore a similar costume, excepting that in her case the fillet round the head was exchanged for a wimple, which was a close hood, covering head and neck, and leaving no part exposed but the face. It was a very comfortable article in cold weather, but an eminently unbecoming one.

These two ladies were the wife and daughter of Sir Gilbert Le Theyn, a knight of Surrey, who held his manor of the Earl of Cornwall; and the date of the day when they thus sat in the window was the 26th of March 1290.

It will strike modern readers as odd if I say that Clarice and her mother knew very little of each other. She was her father's heir, being an only child; and it was, therefore, considered the more necessary that she should not live at home. It was usual at that time to send all young girls of good family, not to school--there were no schools in those days--but to be brought up under some lady of rank, where they might receive a suitable education, and, on reaching the proper age, have a husband provided for them, the one being just as much a matter of course as the other. The consent of the parents was asked to the matrimonial selection of the mistress, but public opinion required some very strong reason to justify them in withholding it. The only exception to this arrangement was when girls were destined for the cloister, and in that case they received their education in a convent.

But there was one person who had absolutely no voice in the matter, and that was the unfortunate girl in question. The very idea of consulting her on any point of it, would have struck a mediaeval mother with astonishment and dismay.

Why ladies should have been considered competent in all instances to educate anybody's daughters but their own is a mystery of the Middle Ages. Dame La Theyn had under her care three girls, who were receiving their education at her hands, and she never thought of questioning her own competency to impart it; yet, also without a question, she sent Clarice away from her, first to a neighbouring knight's wife, and now to a Princess, to receive the education which she might just as well have had at home. It was the command of Fas.h.i.+on; and who does not know that Fas.h.i.+on, whether in the thirteenth century or the nineteenth, _must_ be obeyed?

Clarice was on the brink of high promotion. By means of a ladder of several steps--a Dame requesting a Baroness, and the Baroness entreating a Countess--the royal lady had been reached at last, whose husband was the suzerain of Sir Gilbert. It made little difference to this lady whether her bower-women were two or ten, provided that the attendance given her was as much as she required; and she readily granted the pet.i.tion that Clarice La Theyn might be numbered among those young ladies. The Earl of Cornwall was the richest man in England, not excepting the King. It may be added that, at this period, Earl was the highest t.i.tle known short of the Prince of Wales. The first Duke had not yet been created, while Marquis is a rank of much later date.

Dame La Theyn, though she had some good points, had also one grand failing. She was an inveterate gossip. And it made no difference to her who was her listener, provided a listener could be had. A spicy dish of scandal was her highest delight. She had not the least wish nor intention of doing harm to the person whom she thus discussed. She had not even the slightest notion that she did any. But her bower-maidens knew perfectly well that, if one of them wanted to put the dame in high good-humour before extracting a favour, the best way to do so was to inform her that Mrs Sheppey had had words with her goodman, or that Dame Rouse considered Joan Stick i' th' Lane [Note 1], no better than she should be.

An innocent request from Clarice, that she might know something about her future mistress, had been to Dame La Theyn a delightful opportunity for a good dish of gossip. Reticence was not in the Dame's nature; and in the thirteenth century--and much later than that--facts which in the nineteenth would be left in concealment, or, at most, only delicately hinted at, were spoken out in the plainest English, even to young girls.

The fancy that the Countess of Cornwall might not like her whole life, so far as it was known, laid bare to her new bower-woman was one which never troubled the mind of Dame La Theyn. Privacy, to any person of rank more especially, was an unknown thing in the Middle Ages.

"Thou must know, Clarice," began the Dame, "that of old time, before thou wert born, I was bower-maiden unto my most dear-worthy Lady of Lincoln--that is brother's wife to my gracious Lady of Gloucester, mother unto my Lady of Cornwall, that shall be thy mistress. The Lady of Lincoln, that was mine, is a dame of most high degree, for her father was my Lord of Saluces, [Note 2], in Italy--very nigh a king--and she herself was wont to be called 'Queen of Lincoln,' being of so high degree. Ah, she gave me many a good gown, for I was twelve years in her service. And a good woman she is, but rarely proud--as it is but like such a princess should be. I mind one super-tunic she gave me, but half worn,"--this was said impressively, for a garment only _half worn_ was considered a fit gift from one peeress to another--"of blue damask, all set with silver b.u.t.tons, and broidered with ladies' heads along the border. I gave it for a wedding gift unto Dame Rouse when she was wed, and she hath it now, I warrant thee. Well! her lord's sister, our Lady Maud, was wed to my Lord of Gloucester; but stay!--there is a tale to tell thee thereabout."

And Dame La Theyn bit off her thread with a complacent face. Nothing suited her better than a tale to tell, unless it were one to hear.

"Well-a-day, there be queer things in this world!"

The Dame paused, as if to give time for Clarice to note that very original sentiment.

"Our Lady Maud was wed to her lord, the good Earl of Gloucester, with but little liking of her side, and yet less on his. Nathless, she made no plaint, but submitted herself, as a good maid should do--for mark thou, Clarice, 'tis the greatest shame that can come to a maiden to set her will against those of her father and mother in wedlock. A good maid--as I trust thou art--should have no will in such matters but that of those whom G.o.d hath set over her. And all love-matches end ill, Clarice; take my word for it! Art noting me?"

Clarice meekly responded that the moral lesson had reached her. She did not add whether she meant to profit by it. Probably she had her own ideas on the question, and it is quite possible that they did not entirely correspond with those which her mother was instilling.

"Now look on me, Clarice," pursued Dame La Theyn, earnestly. "When I was a young maid I had foolish fancies like other maidens. Had I been left to order mine own life, I warrant thee I should have wed with one Master Pride, that was page to my good knight my father; and when I wist that my said father had other thoughts for my disposal, I slept of a wet pillow for many a night--ay, that did I. But now that I be come to years of discretion, I do ensure thee that I am right thankful my said father was wiser than I. For this Master Pride was slain at Evesham, when I was of the age of five-and-twenty years, and left behind him not so much as a mark of silver that should have come to me, his widow. It was a good twenty-fold better that I should have wedded with thy father, Sir Gilbert, that hath this good house, and forty acres of land, and spendeth thirty marks by the year and more. Dost thou not see the same?"

No. Clarice heard, but she did not see.

"Well-a-day! Now know, that when my good Lord of Gloucester, that wed with our Lady Maud, was a young lad, being then in wards.h.i.+p unto Sir Hubert, sometime Earl of Kent (whom G.o.d pardon!) he strake up a love-match with the Lady Margaret, that was my said Lord of Kent his daughter. And in very deed a good match it should have been, had it been well liked of them that were above them; but the Lord King that then was--the father unto King Edward that now is--rarely misliked the same, and gat them divorced in all hate. It was not meet, as thou mayest well guess, that such matters should be settled apart from his royal pleasure. And forthwith, ere further mischief could ensue, he caused my said Lord of Gloucester to wed with our Lady Maud. But look thou, so obstinate was he, and so set of having his own way, that he scarce ever said so much as 'Good morrow' to the Lady Maud until he knew that the said Lady Margaret was commanded to G.o.d. Never do thou be obstinate, Clarice. 'Tis ill enough for a young man, but yet worse for a maid."

"How long time was that, Dame, an' it like you?"

"Far too long," answered Dame La Theyn, somewhat severely. "Three years and more."

Three years and more! Clarice's thoughts went off on a long journey.

Three years of disappointed hope and pa.s.sionate regret, three years of weary waiting for death, on the part of the Lady Margaret! Naturally enough her sympathies were with the girl. And three years, to Clarice, at sixteen, seemed a small lifetime.

"Now, this lady whom thou shalt serve, Clarice," pursued her mother--and Clarice's mind came back to the subject in hand--"she is first-born daughter unto the said Sir Richard de Clare, Lord of Gloucester, and our Lady Maud, of whom I spake. Her name is Margaret, after the damsel that died--a poor compliment, as methinks, to the said Lady Maud; and had I been she, the maid should have been called aught else it liked my baron, but not that."

Ah, but had I been he, thought Clarice, it should have been just that!

"And I have heard," said the Dame, biting off her thread, "that there should of old time be some misliking--what I know not--betwixt the Lady Margaret and her baron; but whether it were some olden love of his part or of hers, or what so, I cast no doubt that she hath long ere this overlived the same, and is now a good and loving lady unto him, as is meet."

Clarice felt disposed to cast very much doubt on this suggestion. She held the old-fas.h.i.+oned idea that a true heart could love but once, and could not forget. Her vivid imagination instantly erected an exquisite castle in the air, wherein the chief part was played by the Lady Margaret's youthful lover--a highly imaginary individual, of the most perfect manners and unparalleled beauty, whom the unfortunate maiden could never forget, though she was forced by her cruel parents to marry the Earl of Cornwall. He, of course, was a monster of ugliness in person, and of everything disagreeable in character, as a man in such circ.u.mstances was bound to be.

Poor Clarice! she had not seen much of the world. Her mental picture of the lady whom she was to serve depicted her as sweet and sorrowful, with a low plaintive voice and dark, starry, pathetic eyes, towards whom the only feelings possible would be loving reverence and sympathy.

"And now, Clarice, I have another thing to say."

"At your pleasure, Dame."

"I think it but meet to tell thee a thing I have heard from thy father-- that the Lord Edmund, Earl of Cornwall, thy lady's baron, is one that hath some queer ideas in his head. I know not well what kind they are; but folk say that he is a strange man and hath strange talk. So do thou mind what thou dost. Alway be reverent to him, as is meet; but suffer him not to talk to thee but in presence of thy lady."

Clarice felt rather frightened--all the more so from the extreme vagueness of the warning.

"And now lap up thy sewing, child, for I see thy father coming in, and we will go down to hall."

A few weeks later three horses stood ready saddled at the door of Sir Gilbert's house. One was laden with luggage; the second was mounted by a manservant; and the third, provided with saddle and pillion, was for Clarice and her father. Sir Gilbert, fully armed, mounted his steed, Clarice was helped up behind him, and with a final farewell to Dame La Theyn, who stood in the doorway, they rode forth on their way to Oakham Castle. Three days' journey brought them to their destination, and they were witnesses of a curious ceremony just as they reached the Castle gate. All over the gate horseshoes were nailed. A train of visitors were arriving at the Castle, and the trumpeter sounded his horn for entrance.

"Who goes there?" demanded the warder. "The right n.o.ble and puissant Prince Edmund, Earl of Lancaster, Leicester, and Derby; and his most n.o.ble lady, Blanche, Queen Dowager of Navarre, Countess of the same, cousins unto my gracious Lord of Cornwall."

"Is this my said n.o.ble Lord's first visit unto the lords.h.i.+p of Oakham?"

asked the warder, without opening the gate. "It is."