“for merit lives from man to man,
and not from man, o lord, to thee.”
tennyson.
not until the evening before her marriage did philippa learn the name of her new master. the earl’s choice, she was then informed, had fallen on sir richard sergeaux, a knight of cornwall, who would receive divers manors with the hand of the eldest daughter of arundel. philippa was, however, not told that sir richard was expected to pay for the grants and the alliance in extremely hard cash.
for to the lofty position of eldest daughter of arundel (for that morning only) philippa, to her intense surprise, found herself suddenly lifted. she was robed in cloth of silver; her hair flowed from beneath a jewelled golden fillet; her neck was encircled by rubies, and a ruby and pearl girdle clasped her waist. she felt all the time as though she were dreaming, especially when the lady alianora herself superintended her arraying, and even condescended to remark that “the lady philippa did not look so very unseemly after all.”
not least among the points which astonished her was the resumption of her title. she did not know that this had formed a part of the bargain with sir richard, who had proved impracticable on harder terms. he did not mind purchasing the eldest daughter of arundel at the high price set upon her; but he gave the earl distinctly to understand that if he were merely selling a mistress philippa, there must be a considerable discount.
when the ceremony and the wedding festivities were over, and her palfrey was standing ready at the door, philippa timidly entered the banqueting-hall, to ask—for the first and last time—her father’s blessing. he was conversing with the earl of kent, the bridegroom of alesia, concerning the merits of certain hawks recently purchased; and near him, at her embroidery-frame, sat the countess alianora.
philippa knelt first to her.
“farewell, philippa!” said the countess, in a rather kinder tone than usual. “the saints be with thee.”
then she turned to the only relative she had.
earl richard just permitted his jewelled fingers to touch philippa’s velvet hood, saying carelessly,—“our lady keep thee!—i cry you mercy, fair son; the lesser tercel is far stronger on the wing.”
as philippa rose, sir richard sergeaux took her hand and led her away. so she mounted her palfrey, and rode away from arundel castle. there were only two things she was sorry to leave—agnes, because she might have told her more about her mother,—and the grave, in the priory churchyard below, of the baby lady alianora—the little sister who never grew up to tyrannise over her.
it was a long journey ere they reached kilquyt manor, and philippa had time to make the acquaintance of her new owner. he was about her own age, and so far as she could at first judge, a reasonably good-tempered man. the first discovery she made was that he was rather proud of her. of philippa the daughter of arundel, of course, not of philippa the woman: but it was so new to be reckoned anything or anybody—so strange to think that somebody was proud of her—that philippa enjoyed the knowledge. as to his loving her, or her loving him, these were ideas that never entered the minds of either.
so at first philippa found her married life a pleasant change. she was now at the head, instead of being under the feet of every one else; and her experience of sir richard gave her the impression at the outset that he would not prove a hard master. nor did he, strictly speaking; but on further acquaintance he proved a very trying one. his temper was not of the stormy kind that reigned at arundel, which had hitherto been philippa’s only idea of a bad temper: but he was a perpetual grumbler, and the slightest temporary discomfort or vexation would overcast her sky with conjugal clouds for the rest of the day. the least stone in his path was treated as a gigantic mountain; the narrowest brooklet as an unfathomable sea. and gradually—she scarcely knew how or when—the old weary discomfort crept back over philippa’s heart, the old unsatisfied longing for the love that no one gave. her bower at kilquyt was no more strewn with roses than her turret-chamber at arundel. she found that “on change du ciel—l’on ne change point de soi.” the damask robes and caparisoned palfreys, which her husband did not grudge to her as her father had done, proved utterly unsatisfying to the misunderstood cravings of her immortal soul. she did not herself comprehend why she was not happier. she knew not the nature of the thirst which was upon her, which she was trying in vain to quench at the broken cisterns within her reach. drinking of this water, she thirsted again; and she had not yet found the way to the well of the living water.
about seven years after her marriage, philippa stood one day at the gate of her manor. it was a beautiful june morning—just such another as that one which “had failed her hope” at the gate of arundel castle, thirty years before. sir richard had ridden away on his road to london, whence he was summoned to join his feudal lord, the earl, and lady sergeaux stood looking after him in her old dreamy fashion, though half-an-hour had almost passed since she had caught sight of the last waving of his nodding plume through the trees. he had left her a legacy of discomfort, for his spurs had been regilded, not at all to his mind, and he had been growling over them ever since the occurrence, “dame, have you a draught of cold water to bestow on a weary brother?”
philippa started suddenly when the question reached her ear.
he who asked it was a monk in the habit of the dominican order, and very worn and weary he looked. lady sergeaux called for one of her women, and supplied him with the water which he sorely needed, as was manifest from the eager avidity with which he drank. when he had given back the goblet, and the woman was gone, the monk turned towards philippa, and uttered words which astonished her no little.
“‘quy de cette eaw boyra
ancor soyf aura;
mays quy de l’eaw boyra
que moy luy donneray,
jamays soyf n’aura
a l’éternité.’”
“you know that, brother?” she said breathlessly.
“do you, lady?” asked the monk—as philippa felt, with a deeper than the merely literal meaning.
“i know the ‘ancor soyf aura,’” she said, mournfully; “i have not reached beyond that.”
“then did you ask, and he did not give?” inquired the stranger.
“no—i never asked, for—” she was going on to add, “i never knew where to ask.”
“then ’tis little marvel you never had, lady,” answered the monk.
“but how to ask?—whom to ask? there may be the well, but where is the way?”
“how to ask, lady? as i asked you but now for that lower, poorer water, whereof whosoever drinketh shall thirst again. whom to ask? be there more gods in heaven than one? ask the master, not the servants. and where is the way? it was made on the red rood, thirteen hundred years ago, when ‘one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came thereout blood and water.’ over that stream of blood is the way to the well of living water.”
“i do not fully understand you,” returned philippa.
“you look weary, lady,” said the monk, changing his tone.
“i am weary,” she answered; “wearier than you—in one sense.”
“ay, wearier than i,” he replied; “for i have been to the well, and have found rest.”
“are you a priest?” asked philippa suddenly.
the monk nodded.
“then come in hither and rest, and let me confess to you. i fancy you might tell me what would help me.”
the monk silently obeyed, and followed her to the house. an hour later he sat in philippa’s bower, and she knelt before him.
“father,” she said, at the close of her tale, “i have never known rest nor love. all my life i have been a lonely, neglected woman. is there any balm-tree by your well for such wounds as mine?—any healing virtue in its waters that could comfort me?”
“have you never injured or neglected any, daughter?” asked the monk quietly.
“never!” she said, almost indignantly.
“i cannot hold with you there,” he replied.
“whom have i ever injured?” exclaimed philippa, half angrily, half amazed.
“listen,” said he, “and i will tell you of one whom all your life you have injured and neglected—god.”
philippa’s protestations died on her lips. she had not expected to hear such words as these.
“nay, heed not my words,” he pursued gently. “your own lips shall bring you in guilty. have you loved god with all your mind, and heart, and soul, and strength? hath he been in all your thoughts?”
philippa felt instinctively that the monk spoke truly. she had not loved god, she had not even wished to love him. her conscience cried to her, “unclean!” yet she was too proud to acknowledge it. she felt angry, not with herself, but with him. she thought he “rubbed the sore, when he should bring the plaster.” comfort she had asked, and condemnation he was giving her instead.
“father!” she said, in mingled sadness and vexation, “you deal me hard measure.”
“my daughter,” answered the monk very gently, “the pitcher must be voided ere it can be filled. if you go to the well with your vessel full of the water of earth, there will be no room there for the living water.”
“is it only for saints, then?” she asked in a disappointed tone.
“it is only for sinners,” answered he: “and according to your own belief, you are not a sinner. the living water is not wasted on pitchers that have been filled already at other cisterns, ‘i will give unto him that is athirst’—but to him only—‘of the fountain of the water of life, freely.’”
“but tell me, in plain words, what is that water of life?”
“the holy spirit of god.”
philippa’s next question was not so wide of the mark as it seemed.
“are you a true dominican?”
“i am one of the order of predicant friars.”
“from what house?”
“from ashridge.”
“who sent you forth to preach?”
“god.”
“ah! yes, but i mean, what bishop or abbot?”
“is the seal of the servant worth more than that of the master?”
“i would know, father,” urged philippa.
the monk smiled. “archbishop bradwardine,” he said.
“then ashridge is a dominican house? i know not that vicinage.”
“men give us another name,” responded the monk slowly, “which i see you would know. be it so. they call us—boni-homines.”
“but i thought,” said philippa, looking bewilderedly into his face, “i thought those were very evil men. and archbishop bradwardine was a very holy man—almost a saint.”
a faint ironical smile flitted for a moment over the monk’s grave lips. the gravity was again unbroken the next instant.
“a very holy man,” he repeated. “he walked with god; and he is not, for god took him. ay, took him away from the evil to come, where he should vex his righteous soul no more by unlawful deeds—where the alloyed gold of worldly greatness, which men would needs braid over the pure ermine of his life, should soil and crush it no more.”
he spoke rather to himself than to philippa: and his eyes had a far-away look in them, as he lifted his head and gazed from the window over the moorland.
“then what are the boni-homines?” inquired lady sergeaux.
“a few sinners,” answered the monk, “whose hearts god hath touched, that they have sought and found that well of the living water.”
“but, father, explain it to me!” she cried anxiously, perhaps even a little querulously. “put it in plain words, that i can understand it. what is it to drink this living water?”
“to come to christ, my daughter,” replies the monk.
“but i cannot understand you,” she objected, in the same tone. “how can i come? what mean you by coming? he is not here in this chamber, that i can rise and go to him. can you not use words more intelligible to me?”
“in the first place, my daughter,” softly replied the monk, “you are under a great mistake. christ is here in this chamber, and hath heard every word that we have said. and in the second place, i cannot use words that shall be plainer to you. how can the dead understand the living? how shall a man born blind be brought to know the difference of colour between green and blue. yet the hardship lieth not in the inaptness of the teacher, but in the inability of the taught.”
“but i am not blind, nor dead!” cried philippa.
“both,” answered the monk. “so, by nature, be we all.”
philippa made no reply; she was too vexed to make any. the monk laid his hand gently upon her head.
“take the best wish that i can make for you:—god show you how blind you are! god put life within you, that you may awake, and arise from the dead, and see the light of christ! may he grant you that thirst which shall be satisfied with nothing short of the living water—which shall lead you to disregard all the roughnesses of the way, and the storms of the journey, so that you may win christ, and be found in him! god strip you of your own goodness!—for i fear you are over-well satisfied therewith. and no goodness shall ever have admittance into heaven save the goodness which is of god.”
“but surely,” exclaimed philippa, looking up in surprise, “there is grace of congruity?”
“grace of congruity! grace of condignity!” (see note) cried the monk fervently. “grace of sin and gracelessness! it is not all worth so much as one of these rushes upon your floor. if you carry grace of congruity to the gates of heaven, i warn you it shall never bear you one step beyond. lay down those miserable rush-staffs, wherein is no pith; and take god’s golden staff held out to you, which is the full and perfected obedience of the lord jesus christ. that staff shall not fail you. all the angels at the gate of paradise know it; and the doors shall fly wide open to whoso smiteth on them with that staff of god. lord, open her eyes, that she may see!”
the prayer was answered, but not then.
“what shall i call you?” asked philippa, when the monk rose to depart.
“men call me guy of ashridge,” he said.
“i hope to see you again, father,” responded philippa.
“so do i, my daughter,” answered the monk, “in that other land whereinto nothing shall enter that defileth. nothing but christ and christ’s—the head and the body, the master and the meynie (household servant). may the master make you one of the meynie! farewell.”
and in five minutes more, guy of ashridge was gone.
