“we will not come to thee
till thou hast nailed us to some bitter cross
and made us look on thee.”
“b.m.”
amphillis took her own spindle, and sat down beside marabel, who was just beginning to spin.
“what was it so diverted agatha at supper?” inquired marabel.
“she laughs full easily,” answered amphillis; and told her what had been the subject of discourse.
“she is a light-minded maid,” said marabel. “so you thought master norman had a satisfied look, trow? well, i count you had the right.”
“agatha said she knew not of nought in this world that should satisfy him.”
marabel smiled. “i misdoubt if that which satisfieth him ever came out of this world. amphillis, whenas you dwelt in london town, heard you at all preach one of the poor priests?”
“what manner of folks be they?”
“you shall know them by their raiment, for they mostly go clad of a frieze coat, bound by a girdle of unwrought leather.”
“oh, ay? i heard once a friar so clad; and i marvelled much to what order he belonged. but it was some while gone.”
“what said he?”
“truly, that cannot i tell you, for i took not but little note. i was but a maidling, scarce past my childhood. my mother was well pleased therewith. i mind her to have said, divers times, when she lay of her last sickness, that she would fain have shriven her of the friar in the frieze habit. wherefore, cannot i say.”
“then perchance i can say it for you:—for i reckon it was because he brought her gladder tidings than she had heard of other.”
amphillis looked surprised. “why, whatso? sermons be all alike, so far as ever i could tell.”
“be they so? no, verily, amphillis. is there no difference betwixt preaching of the law—‘do this, and thou shalt live,’ and preaching of the glad gospel of the grace of god—‘i give unto them everlasting life?’”
“but we must merit heaven!” exclaimed amphillis.
“our lord, then, paid not the full price, but left at the least a few marks over for us to pay? nay, he bought heaven for us, amphillis: and only he could do it. we have nothing to pay; and if we had, how should our poor hands reach to such a purchase as that? it took god to save the world. ay, and it took god, too, to love the world enough to save it.”
“why, but if so be, we are saved—not shall be.”
“we are, if we ever shall be.”
“but is that true catholic doctrine?”
“it is the true doctrine of god’s love. either, therefore, it is catholic doctrine, or catholic doctrine hath erred from it.”
“but the church cannot err!”
“truth, so long as she keep her true to god’s law. the church is men, not god! and god must be above the church. but what is the church? is it this priest or that bishop? nay, verily; it is the congregation of all the faithful elect that follow christ, and do after his commandments. so long, therefore, as they do after his commands, and follow him, they be little like to err. ‘he that believeth in the son hath everlasting life.’”
“but we all believe in our lord!” said amphillis, feeling as if so many new ideas had never entered her head all at once before.
“believe what?” said marabel, and she smiled.
“why, we believe that he came down from heaven, and died, and rose again, and ascended, and such-like.”
“wherefore?”
“wherefore came he? truly, that know i not. by reason that it liked him, i count.”
“ay, that was the cause,” said marabel, softly. “he came because—shall we say?—he so loved amphillis neville, that he could not do without her in heaven: and as she could win there none other way than by the laying down of his life, he came and laid it down.”
“marabel! never heard i none to speak after this manner! soothly, our lord died for us: but—”
“but—yet was it not rightly for us, thee and me, but for some folks a long way off, we cannot well say whom?”
amphillis span and thought—span fast, because she was thinking hard: and marabel did not interrupt her thoughts.
“but—we must merit it!” she urged again at last.
“dost thou commonly merit the gifts given thee? when man meriteth that he receiveth—when he doth somewhat, to obtain it—it is a wage, not a gift. the very life and soul of a gift is that it is not merited, but given of free favour, of friendship or love.”
“i never heard no such doctrine!”
marabel only smiled.
“followeth my lady this manner?”
“a little in the head, maybe; for the heart will i not speak.”
“and my la—i would say, mistress perrote?” amphillis suddenly recollected that her mistress was never to be mentioned.
“ask at her,” said marabel, with a smile.
“then master norman is of this fashion of thinking?”
“ay. so be the hyltons all.”
“whence gat you the same?”
“it was learned me of my lady molyneux of sefton, that i served as chamberer ere i came hither. i marvel somewhat, amphillis, that thou hast never heard the same, and a neville. all the nevilles of raby be of our learning—well-nigh.”
“dear heart, but i’m no neville of raby!” cried amphillis, with a laugh at the extravagance of the idea. “at the least, i know not well whence my father came; his name was walter neville, and his father was ralph, and more knew i never. he bare arms, ’tis true—gules, a saltire argent; and his device, ‘ne vile velis.’”
“the self arms of the nevilles of raby,” said marabel, with an amused smile. “i marvel, amphillis, thou art not better learned in thine own family matters.”
“soothly. i never had none to learn me, saving my mother; and though she would tell me oft of my father himself, how good and true man he were, yet she never seemed to list to speak much of his house. maybe it was by reason he came below his rank in wedding her, and his kin refused to acknowledge her amongst them. thus, see you, i dropped down, as man should say, into my mother’s rank, and never had no chance to learn nought of my father’s matters.”
“did thine uncle learn thee nought, then?”
“he learned me how to make patties of divers fashions,” answered amphillis, laughing. “he was very good to me, and belike to my mother, his sister; but i went not to dwell with him until after she was departed to god. and then i was so slender (insignificant) a country maid, with no fortune, ne parts (talents), that my cousins did somewhat slight me, and keep me out of sight. so never met i any that should be like to wise me in this matter. and, the sooth to say, but i would not desire to dwell amongst kin that had set my mother aside, and reckoned her not fit to company with them, not for no wickedness nor unseemly dealing, but only that she came of a trading stock. it seemeth me, had such wist our blessed lord himself, they should have bidden him stand aside, for he was but a carpenter’s son. that’s the evil of being in high place, trow.”
“ah, no, dear heart! it hath none ado with place, high or low. ’tis human nature. thou shalt find a duchess more ready to company with a squire’s wife, oft-times, than the squire’s wife with the bailiff’s wife, and there is a deal further distance betwixt. it hangeth on the heart, not on the station.”
“but folks’ hearts should be the better according to their station.”
marabel laughed. “that were new world, verily. the grace of god is the same in every station, and the like be the wiles of satan—not that he bringeth to all the same temptation, for he hath more wit than so; but he tempteth all, high and low. the high have the fairer look-out, yet the more perilous place; the low have the less to content them, yet are they safer. things be more evenly parted in this world than many think. many times he that hath rich food, hath little appetite for it; and he that hath his appetite sharp, can scarce get food to satisfy it.”
“but then things fit not,” said amphillis.
“soothly, nay. this world is thrown all out of gear by sin. things fitted in eden, be thou sure. another reason is there also—that he which hath the food may bestow it on him that can relish it, and hath it not.”
the chapel bell tolled softly for the last service of the day, and the whole household assembled. every day this was done at hazelwood, for prime, sext, and compline, at six a.m., noon, and seven p.m. respectively, and any member of the household found missing would have been required to render an exceedingly good reason for it. the services were very short, and a sermon was a scarcely imagined performance. after compline came bed-time. each girl took her lamp, louted to lady foljambe and kissed her hand, and they then filed upstairs to bed after perrote, she and amphillis going to their own turret.
hitherto perrote had been an extremely silent person. not one word unnecessary to the work in hand had she ever uttered, since those few on amphillis’s first arrival. it was therefore with some little surprise that the girl heard her voice, as she stood that evening brushing her hair before the mirror.
“amphillis, who chose you to come hither?”
“truly, mistress, that wis i not. only, first of all, mistress chaucer, of the savoy palace, looked me o’er to see if i should be meet for taking into account, and then came a lady thence, and asked at me divers questions, and judged that i should serve; but who she was i knew not. she bade me be well ware that i gat me in no entanglements of no sort,” said amphillis, laughing a little; “but in good sooth, i see here nothing to entangle me in.”
“she gave thee good counsel therein. there be tangles of divers sorts, my maid, and those which cut the tightest be not alway the worst. thou mayest tangle thy feet of soft wool, or rich silk, no less than of rough cord. ah me! there be tangles here, amphillis, and hard to undo. there were skilwise fingers to their tying—hard fingers, that thought only to pull them tight, and harried them little touching the trouble of such as should be thus tethered. and there be knots that no man can undo—only god. why tarry the wheels of his chariot?”
amphillis turned round from the mirror.
“mistress perrote, may i ask a thing at you?”
“ask, my maid.”
“my lady answered me not; will you? what hath our lady done to be thus shut close in prison?”
“she done?” was the answer, with a piteous intonation. perrote looked earnestly into the girl’s face. “amphillis, canst thou keep a secret?”
“if i know myself, i can well.”
“wilt thou so do, for the love of god and thy lady? it should harm her, if men knew thou wist it. and, god wot, she hath harm enough.”
“i will never speak word, mistress perrote, to any other than you, without you bid me, or grant me leave.”
“so shall thou do well. guess, amphillis, who is it that keepeth this poor lady in such durance.”
“nay, that i cannot, without it be our lord the king.”
“he, surely; yet is he but the gaoler. there is another beyond him, at whose earnest entreaty, and for whose pleasure he so doth. who is it, thinkest?”
“it seemeth me, mistress, looking to what you say, this poor lady must needs have some enemy,” said amphillis.
“amphillis, that worst enemy, the enemy that bindeth these fetters upon her, that bars these gates against her going forth, that hath quenched all the sunlight of her life, and hushed all the music out of it—this enemy is her own son, that she nursed at her bosom—the boy for whose life she risked hers an hundred times, whose patrimony she only saved to him, whose welfare through thirty years hath been dearer to her than her own. dost thou marvel if her words be bitter, and if her eyes be sorrowful? could they be aught else?”
amphillis looked as horrified as she felt.
“mistress perrote, it is dreadful! can my said lord duke be christian man?”
“christian!” echoed perrote, bitterly. “dear heart, ay! one of the best catholics alive! hath he not built churches with the moneys of his mother’s dower, and endowed convents with the wealth whereof he defrauded her? what could man do better? a church is a great matter, and a mother a full little one. mothers die, but churches and convents endure. ah, when such mothers die and go to god, be there no words writ on the account their sons shall thereafter render? is he all silent that denounced the jewish priests for their corban, by reason they allowed man to deny to his father and mother that which he had devote to god’s temple? is his temple built well of broken hearts, and his altar meetly covered with the rich tracery of women’s tears? ‘the hope of the hypocrite shall perish, when god taketh away his soul.’”
never before had amphillis seen any one change as perrote had changed now. the quiet, stolid-looking woman had become an inspired prophetess. it was manifest that she dearly loved her mistress, and was proportionately indignant with the son who treated her so cruelly.
“child,” she said to amphillis, “she lived for nought save that boy! her daughter was scarce anything to her; it was alway the lad, the lad! and thus the lad a-payeth her for all her love and sacrifice—for the heart that stood betwixt him and evil, for the gold and jewels that she thought too mean to be set in comparison with him, for the weary arms that bare him, and the tired feet that carried him about, a little wailing babe—for the toil and the labour, the hope and the fear, the waiting and the sorrow! ay, but i marvel in what manner of coin god our father shall pay him!”
“but wherefore doth he so?” cried amphillis.
“she was in his way,” replied perrote, in a tone of constrained bitterness. “he could not have all his will for her. he desired to make bargains, and issue mandates, and reign at his pleasure, and she told him the bargains were unprofitable, and the mandates unjust, and it was not agreeable. ’twas full awkward and ill-convenient, look you, to have an old mother interfering with man’s pleasure. he would, have set her in a fair palace, and given her due dower, i reckon, would she but there have tarried, like a slug on a cabbage-leaf, and let him alone; and she would not. how could she? she was not a slug, but an eagle. and ’tis not the nature of an eagle to hang hour after hour upon a cabbage-leaf. so, as king edward had at the first kept her in durance for his own ends, my gracious lord duke did entreat him to continue the same on his account. as for my lady duchess, i say not; i know her not. this only i know, that my lady foljambe is her kinswoman. and, most times, there is a woman at the bottom of all evil mischief. ay, there is so!”
“mistress perrote, it seemeth me this is worser world than i wist ere i came hither.”
“art avised o’ that? ay, phyllis, thou shalt find it so; and the further thou journeyest therein, the worser shalt thou find it.”
“mistress, wherefore is it that this poor lady of ours is kept so secret? it seemeth as though man would have none know where she were.”
“ha, chétife! (oh, miserable!) i can but avise thee to ask so much at them that do keep her.”
“shall she never be suffered to come forth?”
“ay,” said perrote, slowly and solemnly. “she shall come forth one day. but i misdoubt if it shall be ere the king come himself for her.”
“the king! shall his grace come hither?” inquired amphillis, with much interest. she thought of no king but edward the third.
perrote’s eyes were uplifted towards the stars. she spoke as if she were answering them rather than amphillis.
“he shall deem (judge) the poor men of the people, and he shall make safe the sons of poor men; and he shall make low the false challenger. and he shall dwell with the sun, and before the moon, in generation and in to generation... and he shall be lord from the sea till to the sea, and from the flood till to the ending of the world... for he shall deliver a poor man from the mighty, and a poor man to whom was none helper. he shall spare a poor man and needy, and he shall make safe the souls of poor men... blessed be the name of his majesty withouten end! and all earth shall be filled with his majesty. be it done, be it done!” (note 1.)
amphillis almost held her breath as she listened, for the first time in her life, to the grand roll of those sonorous verses.
“that were a king!” she said.
“that shall be a king,” answered perrote, softly. “not yet is his kingdom of this world. but he is king of israel, and king of kings, and king of the everlasting ages; and the day cometh when he shall be king of nations, when there shall be one lord over all the earth, and his name one. is he thy king, amphillis neville?”
“signify you our blessed lord, mistress perrote?”
“surely, my maid. could any other answer thereto?”
“i reckon so,” said amphillis, calmly, as she put away her brush, and began undressing.
“i would make sure, if i were thou. for the subjects be like to dwell in the court when they be preferred to higher place. ‘ye ben servantis to that thing to which ye han obeisched.’ (note 2.) whose servant art thou? who reigns in thine inner soul, phyllis?”
“soothly, mistress, i myself. none other, i ween.”
“nay, one other must there needs be. thou obeyest the rule of one of two masters—either christ our lord, or satan his enemy.”
“in very deed, mistress, i serve god.”
“then thou art concerned to please god in everything. or is it rather, that thou art willing to please god in such matters as shall not displease amphillis neville?”
amphillis folded up sundry new and not altogether agreeable thoughts in the garments which she was taking off and laying in neat order on the top of her chest for the morning. perrote waited for the answer. it did not come until amphillis’s head was on the pillow.
“cannot i please god and myself both?”
“that canst thou, full well and sweetly, if so be thou put god first. otherwise, nay.”
“soothly, mistress, i know not well what you would be at.”
“what our saviour would be at himself, which is, thy true bliss and blessedness, phyllis. my maid, to be assured of fair ending and good welcome at the end of the journey makes not the journeying wearier. to know not whither thou art wending, save that it is into the dark; to be met of a stranger, that may be likewise an enemy; to be had up afore the judge’s bar, with no advocate to plead for thee, and no surety of acquittal,—that is evil journeying, phyllis, dost not think so much?”
perrote listened in vain for any answer.
