A Forgotten Hero Part 13

The Countess was there, handsomely attired, and the Earl, in golden armour; but they stood on opposite sides of the chancel, and the former ignored her lord's existence. Diana's wedding came first. De Chaucombe behaved a little more amiably than usual, and, contrary to all his habits, actually offered his hand to a.s.sist his bride to rise. Then Diana fell back to the side of the Countess, and Fulk to that of the Earl, and Clarice recognised that the moment of her sacrifice was come.

With one pa.s.sionately pleading look at the Lady Margaret--who met it as if she had been made of stone--Clarice slowly moved forward to the altar. She shuddered inwardly as Vivian Barkeworth took her hand into his clasp, and answered the queries addressed to her in so low a voice that Father Miles took the words for granted. It seemed only a few minutes before she woke to the miserable truth that she was now Vivian's wife, and that to think any more of Piers Ingham was a sin against G.o.d.

Clarice dragged herself through the bridal festivities--how, she never knew. Diana was the life of the party. So bright and gay she was that she might never have heard of such a thing as disappointment. She danced with everybody, entered into all the games with the zest of an eager child, and kept the hall ringing with merry laughter, while Clarice moved through them all as if a weight of lead were upon her, and looked as though she should never smile again. Accident at length threw the 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 not be 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 her old sharpness. "Men are all deceivers, child. There is not one of them worth 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, that even the Countess did not venture to interfere with it, was followed by the hoydenish romps which were considered equally necessary, and which fell into final desuetude about the period of the accession of the House of Hanover. King Charles the First's good taste had led him to frown upon them, and utterly to prohibit them at his own wedding; but the people in general were attached to their amus.e.m.e.nts, rough and even gross as they often were, and the improvement filtered down from palace to cottage only very slowly.

The cutting of the two bride-cakes, as usual, was one of the most interesting incidents. It was then, and long afterwards, customary to insert three articles in a bride-cake, which were considered to foretell the fortunes of the persons in whose possession they were found when the cakes were cut up. The gold ring denoted speedy marriage; the silver penny indicated future wealth; while the thimble infallibly doomed its recipient to be an old maid. The division of Diana's cake revealed Sir Reginald de Echingham in possession of the ring, evidently to his satisfaction; while Olympias, with the reverse sensation, discovered in her slice both the penny and the thimble. Clarice's cake proved even more productive of mirth; for the thimble fell to the Countess, while the Earl held up the silver penny, laughingly remarking that he was the last person who ought to have had that, since he had already more of them than he wanted. But the fun came to its apex when the ring was discovered in the hand of Mistress Underdone, who indignantly a.s.serted that if a thousand gold rings were showered upon her from as many cakes they would not induce her to marry again. She thought two husbands were enough for any reasonable woman; and if not, she was too old now for folly of that sort. Sir Lambert sent the company into convulsions of laughter by clasping his hands on this announcement with a look of pretended despair, upon which Mistress Underdone, justly indignant, gave him such a box on the ear that he was occupied in rubbing it for the next ten minutes, thereby increasing the merriment of the rest. Loudest and brightest of all the laughers was Diana. She at least had not broken her heart. Clarice, pale and silent in the corner, where she sat and watched the rest, dimly wondered if Diana had any heart to break.

Note 1. There were two divisions of "damsels" in the household of a mediaeval princess, the _domicellae_ and the _domicellae camera_. The former, who corresponded to the modern Maids of Honour, were young and unmarried; the latter, the Ladies of the Bedchamber, were always married women. Sufficient notice of this distinction has not been taken by modern writers. Had it so been, the supposition long held of the ident.i.ty of Philippa Chaucer, _domicella camera_, with Philippa Pycard, _domicella_, could scarcely have arisen; nor should we be told that Chaucer's marriage did not occur until 1369, or later, when we find Philippa in office as Lady of the Bedchamber in 1366.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

DAME MAISENTA DOES NOT SEE IT.

"With a little h.o.a.rd of maxims, preaching down a daughter's heart."--_Tennyson_.

Earl Edmund had not been callous to the white, woeful face under one of the bridal wreaths. He set himself to think how most pleasantly to divert the thoughts of Clarice; and the result of his meditations was a request to Father Miles that he would induce the Countess to invite the parents of Clarice on a visit. The Countess always obeyed Father Miles, though had she known whence the suggestion came, she might have been less docile. A letter, tied up with red silk, and sealed with the Countess's seal, was despatched by a messenger to Dame La Theyn, whom it put into no small flutter of nervous excitement.

A journey to London was a tremendous idea to that worthy woman, though she lived but forty miles from the metropolis. She had never been there in her life. Sir Gilbert had once visited it, and had dilated on the size, splendour, and attractions of the place, till it stood, in the Dame's eyes, next to going to Heaven. It may, indeed, be doubted if she would not have found herself a good deal more at home in the former place than the latter.

Three sumpter-mules were laden with the richest garments and ornaments in the wardrobes of knight and dame. Two armed servants were on one horse, Sir Gilbert and his wife on another; and thus provided, late in February, they drew bridle at the gate of Whitehall Palace. Clarice had not been told of their coming by the Countess, because she was not sufficiently interested; by the Earl, because he wished it to be a pleasant surprise. She was called out into the ante-chamber one afternoon, and, to her complete astonishment, found herself in the presence of her parents.

The greeting was tolerably warm.

"Why, child, what hast done to thy cheeks?" demanded Sir Gilbert, when he had kissed his palefaced daughter. "'Tis all the smoke--that's what it is!"

"Nay; be sure 'tis the late hours," responded the Dame. "I'll warrant you they go not to bed here afore seven o' the clock. Eh, Clarice?"

"Not before eight, Dame," answered Clarice, with a smile.

"Eight!" cried Dame Maisenta. "Eh, deary me! Mine head to a pod of peas, but that's a hearing! And what time get they up of a morrow?"

"The Lady rises commonly by five or soon after."

"Saint Wulstan be our aid! Heard I ever the like? Why, I am never abed after three!"

"So thou art become Dame Clarice?" said her father, jovially.

The smile died instantly from Clarice's lips. "Yes," she said, drearily.

"Where is thy knight, la.s.s?" demanded her mother.

"You will see him in hall," replied Clarice. And when they went down to supper she presented Vivian in due form.

No one knew better than Vivian Barkeworth how to adapt himself to his company. He measured his bride's parents as accurately, in the first five minutes, as a draper would measure a yard of calico. It is not surprising if they were both delighted with him.

The Countess received her guests with careless condescension, the Earl with kind cordiality. Dame La Theyn was deeply interested in seeing both. But her chief aim was a long _tete-a-tete_ discourse with Clarice, which she obtained on the day following her arrival. The Countess, as usual, had gone to visit a shrine, and Clarice, being off duty, took her mother to the terrace, where they could chat undisturbed.

Some of us modern folks would rather shrink from sitting on an open terrace in February; but our forefathers were wonderfully independent of the weather, and seem to have been singularly callous in respect to heat and cold. Dame La Theyn made no objection to the airiness of her position, but settled herself comfortably in the corner of the stone bench, and prepared for her chat with much gusto.

"Well, child," was the Dame's first remark, "the good saints have ordered matters rarely for thee. I ventured not to look for such good fortune, not so soon as this. Trust me, but I was rejoiced when I read thy lady's letter, to hear that thou wert well wed unto a knight, and that she had found all the gear. I warrant thee, the gra.s.s grew not under my feet afore Dame Rouse, and Mistress Swetapple, and every woman of our neighbours, down to Joan Stick-i'-th'-Lane, knew the good luck that was come to thee."

Clarice sat with her hands in her lap looking out on the river. Good luck! Could Dame La Theyn see no further than that!

"Why, la.s.s, what is come to thee?" demanded the Dame, when she found no response. "Sure, thou art not ungrateful to thy lady for her care and goodness! That were a sin to be shriven for."

Clarice turned her wan face towards her mother.

"Grateful!" she said. "For what should I be thankful to her? Dame, she has torn me away from the only one in the world that I loved, and has forced me to wed a man whom I alike fear and hate. Do you think that matter for thankfulness, or does she!"

"Tut, tut!" said the Dame. "Do not ruffle up thy feathers like a pigeon that has got bread-crumbs when he looked for corn! Why, child, 'tis but what all women have to put up with. We all have our calf-loves and bits of maidenly fancies, but who ever thought they were to rule the roast?

Sure, Clarice, thou hast more sense than so?"

"Dame, pardon me, but you understand not. This was no light love of mine--no pa.s.sing fancy that a newer one might have put out. It was the one hope and joy of my whole life. I had nothing else to live for."

To Clarice's horror, the rejoinder to her rhetoric was what the Dame herself would have called "a jolly laugh."

"Dear, dear, how like all young maids be!" cried the mother. "Just the very thought had I when my good knight my father sent away Master Pride, and told me I must needs wed with thy father, Sir Gilbert. That is twenty years gone this winter Clarice, and I swear to thee I thought mine heart was broke. Look on me now. Look I like a woman that had brake her heart o' love? I trow not, by my troth!"

No; certainly no one would have credited that rosy, comfortable matron with having broken her heart any number of years ago.

"And thou wilt see, too, when twenty years be over, Clarice, I warrant thee thou shalt look back and laugh at thine own folly. Deary me, child! Folks cannot weep for ever and the day after. Wait till thou art forty, and then see if thy trouble be as sore in thy mind then as now."

Forty! Should she ever be forty? Clarice fondly hoped not. And would any lapse of years change the love which seemed to her interwoven with every fibre of her heart? That heart cried out and said, Impossible!

But Dame La Theyn heard no answer.

"When thou hast dwelt on middle earth [Note 1], child, as long as I have, thou wilt look on things more in proportion. There be other affairs in life than lovemaking. Women spend not all their days thinking of wooing, and men still less. I warrant thee thy lover, whoso he be, shall right soon comfort himself with some other damsel. Never suspect a man of constancy, child. They know not what the word means."

Clarice's inner consciousness violently contradicted this sweeping statement. But she kept silence still.

"Ah, I see!" said her mother, laughing. "Not a word dost thou credit me. I may as well save my breath to cool my porridge. Howsoe'er, Clarice, when thou hast come to forty years, if I am yet alive, let me hear thy thoughts thereupon. Long ere that time come, as sure as eggs be eggs, thou shalt be a-reading the same lesson to a la.s.s of thine, if it please G.o.d so to bless thee. And she'll not believe thee a word, any more than thou dost me. Eh, these young folks, these young folks!