The White Rose of Langley Part 12

"Right well, an' it like your Grace."

"Thou art here welsomer [more comfortable] than in the kitchen?"

"Surely so, Madam."

"Dame Joan speaketh well of thy cunning." [Skill.]

Maude smiled and courtesied. She was gradually learning Court manners.

"And hast thou yet thy book-leaf, the which I read unto thee?"

"Oh ay, Madam!"

"'Thy book-leaf!'" interjected Constance. "What book hast thou?"

"A part of G.o.d's Word, my daughter," replied her mother gravely; "touching His great City, the holy Jerusalem, which shall come down from G.o.d out of Heaven, and is lightened with His glory."

"When will it come?" said Constance, with unwonted gravity.

"G.o.d wot. To all seeming, not ere thou and I be either within the same, or without His gates for ever."

The Countess turned back to Maude.

"My maid, thou wouldst fain know at that time whether I had any dwelling in that city. Wist thou that an' thou wilt, there thou mayest dwell?"

"I, Madam! In very sooth, should it like your Grace to take me?" And Maude's eyes sparkled with delight.

"I cannot take thee, my child!" was the reply, spoken in a tone so grave that it was almost sad. "If thou wouldst go, it is Another must bear thee thither."

"The Lady Custance?" inquired Maude, glancing at her.

"The Lord Jesus Christ."

Agnes mechanically crossed herself. Maude's memory ran far back.

"Sister Christian, that was a nun at Pleshy," she observed, dreamily, "was wont to say, long time agone, unto Mother and me, that holy Mary's Son did love us and die for us; but I never wist nought beyond that.

Would your Grace, of your goodness, tell me wherefore it were?"

"Wherefore He died? It was in the stead of thee, my maid, if thou wilt have it so: He died that thou mightest never die withouten end.--Or wherefore He loved, wouldst know? Truly, I can but bid thee ask that of Himself, for none wist that mystery save His own great heart. There was nought in us that He should love us; but there was every cause in Himself wherefore He should love."

Maude was silent; but the thought which she was revolving in her mind was whether any great saint had ever asked such a question of Him who to her was only "holy Mary's Son." Of course it would have to be asked through Mary. No one, not even the greatest saint, considered Maude, had ever spoken direct to Him, except in a vision. The next remark of the Countess rather startled her.

"My maid, dost ever pray?"

"An' it like your Grace, I do say every even the Hail Mary, and every morrow the Credo; and of Sundays and holy days likewise the Paternoster."

"And didst never feel no want ne lack, for the which thou findest not words in the Hail Mary ne in the Credo, if it be not an holy day?"

Ay, many a want, as Maude well knew, but what had Credo or Angelus to do with wants? Prayer, in her eyes, meant either long repet.i.tions imposed as penances by the priest, or else the daily use of a charm, the omission of which might entail evil consequences. Of prayer as a real means of procuring something about which she cared, she had no more notion than Dame Agnes's squirrel, at that moment running round his cage, had of the distance and extent of Sherwood Forest. Maude looked up in the face of her mistress with an expression of deep perplexity.

"Child," said the Countess, "when Dame Joan would send word touching some matter unto Dame Agnes here, falleth she a-saying unto herself of Dan Chaucer's brave Romaunt of The Flower and the Leaf?"

"Surely, no, Madam."

"Then what doth she?"

"She cometh unto her," said Maude, immediately adding, in a matter-of-fact way, "without she should send Mistress Sybil or some other."

"Good. Then arede [inform] me wherefore thou shouldst fall a-saying the Credo when thou wouldst send word of thy need unto G.o.d, any more than Dame Joan should fall a-saying the Romaunt?"

"But G.o.d heareth us, and conceiveth us, Madam," said Maude timidly, "and Dame Agnes no doth."

"Truth, my maid. Therein faileth my parable. But setting this aside, tell me,--how shall the Credo give to wit thy need?"

Maude cogitated for a minute in silence. Then she answered--

"No shall it, Madam."

"Then wherefore not speak thy lack straightway?"

Maude was silent, but not because she was stupid.

"My maid, what saith the Credo? When thus thou prayest, dost thou aught save look up to Heaven, and say, 'G.o.d, I believe in Thee'? So far as it goeth, good. But seest not that an' thou shouldst say to me, 'Madam, I crede and trust you,' thou shouldst have asked nought from me--have neither confessed need, ne presented pet.i.tion? The Credo is matter said to men--not to G.o.d. Were it not better to say, 'Lord, I love Thee?' Or best of all, 'Lord, love Thou me?'"

"I wis, Madam, that our Lord loveth the saints," said Maude in a low voice.

She felt very much in the condition graphically described by John Bunyan as "tumbled up and down in one's mind."

"Ah, child!" was the Countess's answer, "they be lost sheep whom Christ seeketh. And whoso Christ setteth out to seek shall, sooner or later, find the way to Him."

Note 1. Harl. Ms. 4016, folios 1, 2.

Note 2. The "Holy Grail" was one of the most singular of Romish superst.i.tions. A gla.s.s vessel, supported by a foot, was shown to the people as the cup in which Christ gave the wine to His disciples at the Last Supper; and they were taught, not only that Joseph of Arimathea had caught the blood from His side in the same vessel, but that he and Mary Magdalene, sailing on Joseph's s.h.i.+rt, had brought over the relic from Palestine to Glas...o...b..ry. "The Quest of the Saint Graal" was the highest achievement of the Knights of the Round Table.

CHAPTER FOUR.

IN THE SCRIPTORIUM.

"There are days of deepest sorrow In the season of our life; There are wild, despairing moments, There are hours of mental strife; There are times of stony anguish, When the tears refuse to fall; But the waiting time, my brothers, Is the hardest time of all."

_Sarah Doudney_.

Beside a Gothic window, and under a groined stone roof, that afternoon sat a monk at his work. The work was illumination. The room was bare of all kinds of furniture, with the exception of a wooden erection which was chair and desk in one. On the desk lay a large square piece of parchment, a future leaf of a book, in which the text was already written, but the illuminated border was not yet begun. There was a pen in the monk's hand, with which he was about to execute the outline; but the pen was dry, and the old man's eyes were fixed dreamily upon the landscape without.

"'In wisdom hast Thou made them all,'" he murmured half audibly. "O Lord, 'the earth is full of Thy riches!'"