A Forgotten Hero Part 24

His Majesty, however, had other matters to attend to beside the provocation received from his heir; for in the month of September following (1299) he was married at Canterbury to the Princess Marguerite of France. It was a case approaching that of Rachel and Leah, for it was the beautiful Princess Blanche for whom the King had been in treaty, and Marguerite was foisted on him by a process of crafty diplomacy not far removed from treachery. However, since Marguerite, though not so fair as her sister, proved the better woman of the two, the King had no reason to be disappointed in the end.

The Council of Regency established in Scotland, discontented with Edward's arbitration, referred the question of their independence to the Pope, and that wily potentate settled the matter in his own interests, by declaring Scotland a fief of the Holy See. The King was still warring in that vicinity; the young Queen was left with her baby boy in Yorks.h.i.+re to await his return.

It was a hot July day, and Vivian, who highly disapproved of the stagnation of Berkhamsted, declared his intention of going out to hunt.

People hunted in all weathers and seasons in the Middle Ages. Ademar declined to accompany him, and he contented himself by taking two of the Earl's squires and a handful of archers as company. The Earl did not interfere with Vivian's proceedings. He was quite aware that the quiet which he loved was by no means to everybody's taste; and he left his retinue at liberty to amuse themselves as they pleased.

Vivian did not think it necessary to turn the key on Clarice; but he gave her a severe lecture on discreet behaviour which astonished her, since her conscience did not accuse her of any breach of that virtue, and she could not trace the course of her husband's thoughts. Clarice meekly promised to bear the recommendation in mind; and Vivian left her to her own devices.

The day dragged heavily. Mistress Underdone sat with Heliet and Clarice at work; but not much work was gone through, for in everybody's opinion it was too hot to do anything. The tower in which they were was at the back of the Castle, and looked upon the inner court. The Earl's apartments were in the next tower, and there, despite the heat, he was going over sundry grants and indentures with Father Bevis and his bailiff, always considering the comfort and advantage of his serfs and tenants. The sound of a horn outside warned the ladies that in all probability Vivian was returning home; and whether his temper were good, bad, or indifferent was likely to depend on the condition of his hunting-bags. Good, was almost too much to hope for. With a little smothered sigh Clarice ventured to hope that it might not be worse than indifferent. Her comfort for the next day or two would be much affected by it.

They looked out of the window, but all they saw was Ademar crossing the inner court with rapid steps, and disappearing within the Earl's tower.

There was some noise in the outer court, but no discernible solution of it. The ladies went back to their work. Much to their surprise, ten minutes later, the Earl himself entered the chamber. It was not at all his wont to come there. When he had occasion to send orders to Clarice concerning his household arrangements, he either sent for her or conveyed them through Vivian. These were the Countess's rooms which they were now occupying, and the Earl had never crossed the threshold since she left the Castle.

They looked up, and saw in his face that he had news to tell them. And all at once Clarice rose and exclaimed--"Vivian!"

"Dame, I grieve to tell you that your knight has been somewhat hurt in his hunting."

Clarice was not conscious of any feeling but the necessity of knowing all. And that she had not yet been told all she felt certain.

"Much hurt?" she asked.

"I fear so," answered the Earl.

"My Lord, will you tell me all?"

The Earl took her hand and looked kindly at her. "Dame, he is dead."

Mistress Underdone raised her hands with an exclamation of shocked surprise, to which Heliet's look of horror formed a fitting corollary.

Clarice was conscious only of a confused medley of feelings, from which none but a sense of amazement stood out in the foreground. Then the Earl quietly told her that, in leaping a wide ditch, Vivian had been thrown from his horse, and had never spoken more.

No one tried to comfort Clarice. Pitifully they all felt that comfort was not wanted now. The death of Rosie had been a crus.h.i.+ng blow; but Vivian's, however sudden, could hardly be otherwise than a relief. The only compa.s.sion that any one could feel was for him, for whom there was--

"No reckoning made, but sent to his account With all his imperfections on his head."

The very fact that she could not regret him on her own account lay a weight on Clarice's conscience, though it was purely his own fault.

Severely as she tried to judge herself, she could recall no instance in which, so far as such a thing can be said of any human sinner, she had not done her duty by that dead man. She had obeyed him in letter and spirit, however distasteful it had often been to herself; she had consulted his wishes before her own; she had even honestly tried to love him, and he had made it impossible. Now, she could not resist the overwhelming consciousness that his death was to her a release from her fetters--a coming out of prison. She was free from the perpetual drag of apprehension on the one hand, and of constantly endeavouring on the other to please a man who was determined not to be pleased. The spirit of the uncaged bird awoke within her--a sense of freedom, and light, and rest, such as she had not known for those eight weary years of her married slavery.

Yet the future was no path of roses to the eyes of Clarice. She was not free in the thirteenth century, in the sense in which she would have been free in the nineteenth, for she had no power to choose her own lot.

All widows were wards of the Crown; and it was not at all usual for the Crown to concern its august self respecting their wishes, unless they bought leave to comply with them at a very costly price. By a singular perversion of justice, the tax upon a widow who purchased permission to remarry or not, at her pleasure, was far heavier than the fine exacted from a man who married a ward of the Crown without royal licence. The natural result of this arrangement was that the ladies who were either dowered widows or spinster heiresses very often contracted clandestine marriages, and their husbands quietly endured the subsequent fine and imprisonment, as unavoidable evils which were soon over, and well worth the advantage which they purchased.

It seemed, however, as if blessings, no less than misfortunes, were not to come single to Clarice Barkeworth. A few weeks after Vivian's death, the Earl silently put a parchment into her hand, which conveyed to her the information that King Edward had granted to his well-beloved cousin, Edmund, Earl of Cornwall, the marriage of Clarice, widow of Vivian Barkeworth, knight, with the usual proviso that she was not to marry one of the King's enemies. This was, indeed, something for which to be thankful. Clarice knew that her future was as safe in her master's hands as in her own.

"Ah!" said Heliet, when that remark was made to her, "if we could only have felt, dear heart, that it was as safe in the hands of his Master!"

"Was I very faithless, Heliet?" said Clarice, with tears in her eyes.

"Dear heart, no more than I was!" was Heliet's answer.

"But has it not occurred to thee, Heliet, now--why might I not have had Rosie?"

"I know not, dear Clarice, any more than Rosie knew, when she was a babe in thine arms, why thou gavest her bitter medicine. Oh, leave all that alone--our Master understands what He is doing."

It was the middle of September, and about two months after Vivian's death. Clarice sat sewing, robed in the white weeds of widowhood, in the room which she usually occupied in the Countess's tower. The garments worn by a widow were at this time extremely strict and very unbecoming, though the period during which they were worn was much less stringent than now. From one to six months was as long as many widows remained in that condition. Heliet had not been seen for an hour or more, and Mistress Underdone, with some barely intelligible remarks very disparaging to "that Nell," who stood, under her, at the head of the kitchen department, had disappeared to oversee the venison pasty.

Clarice was doing something which she had not done for eight years, though hardly aware that she was doing it--humming a troubadour song.

Getting past an awkward place in her work, words as well as music became audible--

"And though my lot were hard and bare, And though my hopes were few, Yet would I dare one vow to swear My heart should still be true."

"Wouldst thou, Clarice?" asked a voice behind her.

Clarice's delicate embroidery got the worst of it, for it dropped in a heap on the rushes, and n.o.body paid the slightest attention to it for a considerable time. Nor did any one come near the room until Heliet made her appearance, and she came so slowly, and heralded her approach by such emphatic raps of her crutches on the stone floor, that Clarice could scarcely avoid the conclusion that she was a conspirator in the plot. The head and front of it all, however, was manifestly Earl Edmund, who received Sir Piers with a smile and no other greeting--a distinct intimation that it was not the first time they had met that day.

The wedding--which n.o.body felt inclined to dispute--was fixed for the fifteenth of October. The Earl wished it to take place when he could be present and give away the bride, and he wanted first a fortnight's retreat at Ashridge, to which place he had arranged to go on the last day of September. Sir Piers stepped at once into his old position, but the Earl took Ademar with him to Ashridge. He gave the grant of Clarice's marriage to Piers himself, in the presence of the household, with the remark:--

"It will be better in your hands than mine; and there is no time like the present."

Into Clarice's hand her master put a s.h.i.+ning pile of gold for the purchase of wedding garments and jewellery.

"I am glad," he said, "that your path through life is coming to the roses now. I would hope the thorns are over for you--at least for some time. There have been no roses for me; but I can rejoice, I hope, with those for whom they blossom."

And so he rode away from Berkhamsted, looking back to smile a farewell to Heliet and Clarice, as they stood watching him in the gateway. Long years afterwards they remembered that kind, almost affectionate, smile.

As the ladies turned into their own tower, and began to ascend the staircase--always a slow process with Heliet--Clarice said, "I cannot understand why our Lord the Earl has such a lonely and sorrowful lot."

"Thou wouldst like to understand everything, Clarice," returned Heliet, smiling.

"I would!" she answered. "I can understand my own troubles better, for I know how much there is in me that needs setting right; but he--why he is almost an angel already."

"Perhaps he would tell thee the same thing," said Heliet. "I am afraid, dear heart, if thou hadst the graving of our Lord's gems, thou wouldst stop the tool before the portrait was in sufficient relief."

"But when the portrait _is_ in sufficient relief?" answered Clarice, earnestly.

"Ah, dear heart!" said Heliet, "neither thine eyes nor mine are fine enough to judge of that."

"It seems almost a shame to be happy when I know he is not," replied Clarice, the tears springing to her eyes; "our dear master, who has been to me as a very angel of G.o.d."

"Nay, dear, he would wish thee to be happy," gently remonstrated Heliet.

"I believe both thou and I are to him as daughters, Clarice."

"I wish I could make him happy!" said Clarice, as they turned into her rooms.

"Ask G.o.d to do it," was Heliet's response.

They both asked Him that night. And He heard and answered them, but, as is often the case, not at all as they expected.

CHAPTER TWELVE.