CHAPTER FOURTEEN.
POSTING A LETTER.
"Whose fancy was his only oracle; Who could buy lands and pleasure at his will, Yet slighted that which silver could not win."
Rev Horatius Bonar, D.D.
The Archbishop rapped softly on the door of the chamber, and Amphillissprang to let him out. She had to let herself in, so he passed her withonly a smile and a blessing, and going straight to his own chamber,spent the next hour in fervent prayer. At the end of that time he wentdown to the hall, and asked for writing materials.
This was a rather large request to make in a mediaeval manor house.Father Jordan was appealed to, as the only person likely to know thewhereabouts of such scarce articles.
"Well, of a surety!" exclaimed the old priest, much fluttered by theinquiry. "Methinks I may find the inkhorn,--and there _was_ some ink init,--but as for writing-paper!--and I fear there shall be never a bit ofparchment in the house. Wax, moreover--Richard, butler, took the lastfor his corks. Dear, dear! only to think his Grace should lack matterfor writing! Yet, truly, 'tis not unnatural for a prelate. Now,whatever shall man do?"
"Give his Grace a tile and a paint-brush," said careless Matthew.
"Cut a leaf out of a book," suggested illiterate Godfrey.
Father Jordan looked at the last speaker as if he had proposed to cook achild for dinner. Cut a leaf out of a book! Murder, theft, and arsoncombined, would scarcely have been more horrible in his eyes.
"Holy saints, deliver us!" was his shocked answer.
Norman Hylton came to the rescue.
"I have here a small strip of parchment," said he, "if his Grace werepleased to make use thereof. I had laid it by for a letter to mymother, but his Grace's need is more than mine."
The Archbishop took the offered gift with a smile.
"I thank thee, my son," said he. "In good sooth, at this moment my needis great, seeing death waiteth for no man."
He sat down, and had scarcely remembered the want of ink, when FatherJordan came up, carrying a very dilapidated old inkhorn.
"If your Grace were pleased to essay this, and could serve you withal,"suggested he, dubiously; "soothly, there is somewhat black at thebottom."
"And there is alegar in the house, plenty," added Matthew.
The Archbishop looked about for the pen.
"Unlucky mortal that I am!" cried Father Jordan, smiting himself on theforehead. "Never a quill have I, by my troth!"
"Have you a goose? That might mend matters," said Matthew. "Had we buta goose, there should be quills enow."
"_Men culpa, mea culpa_!" cried poor Father Jordan, as though he were atconfession, to the excessive amusement of the young men.
Norman, who had run upstairs on finding the pen lacking, now returnedwith one in his hand.
"Here is a quill, if your Grace be pleased withal. It is but an oldone, yet I have no better," he said, modestly.
"It shall full well serve me, my son," was the answer; "and I thank theefor thy courtesy."
For his day the Archbishop was a skilful penman, which does not by anymeans convey the idea of covering sheet after sheet of paper with rapidwriting. The strip of parchment was about fourteen inches by four. Helaid it lengthwise before him, and the letters grew slowly on it, in theold black letter hand, which took some time to form. Thus ran hisletter:--
"Alexander, by Divine sufferance elect of York, to the Lady Basset ofDrayton wisheth peace, health, and the blessing of God Almighty.
"Very dear Lady,--
"Let it please you to know that the bearer hereof hath tidings todeliver of serious and instant import. We pray you full heartily tohear him without any delay, and to give full credence to such matter ashe shall impart unto you: which having done, we bid you, as you valueour apostolical blessing, to come hither with all speed, and we chargeour very dear son, your lord, that he let not nor hinder you in obeyingthis our mandate. The matter presseth, and will brook no delay: and weaffy ourself in you, Lady, as a woman obedient to the Church, that youwill observe our bidding. And for so doing this shall be your warrant.Given at Hazelwood Manor, in the county of Derby, this Wednesday afterCandlemas."
The Archbishop laid down his pen, folded his letter, and asked for silkto tie it. Matthew Foljambe ran off, returning in a moment with a rollof blue silk braid, wherewith the letter was tied up. Then wax wasneeded.
"_Ha, chetife_!" said Father Jordan. "The saints forgive me my sins!Never a bit of wax had I lacked for many a month, and I gave the last toRichard, butler."
"Hath he used it all?" asked Matthew.
"Be sure he so did. He should have some left only if none needed it,"responded his brother.
A search was instituted. The butler regretfully admitted that all thewax supplied, to him was fastening down corks upon bottles of Alicantand Osey. Sir Godfrey had none; he had sent for some, but had not yetreceived it. Everybody was rather ashamed; for wax was a very necessaryarticle in a mediaeval household, and to run short of it was a smalldisgrace. In this emergency Matthew, usually the person of resources,came to the rescue.
"Hie thee to the cellar, Dick, and bring me up a two-three bottles ofthy meanest wine," said he. "We'll melt it off the corks."
By this ingenious means, sufficient wax was procured to take the impressof the Archbishop's official seal, without which the letter would bearno authentication, and the recipient could not be blamed if she refusedobedience. It was then addressed--"To the hands of our very dear Lady,the Lady Joan Basset, at Drayton Manor, in the county of Stafford, bethese delivered with speed. Haste, haste, for thy life, haste!"
All nobles and dignitaries of the Church in 1374 used the "we" nowexclusively regal.
Having finished his preparations, the Archbishop despatched youngGodfrey to ask his father for a private interview. Sir Godfrey at oncereturned to the hall, and ceremoniously handed the Archbishop into hisown room.
All large houses, in those days, contained a hall, which was the generalmeeting-place of the inhabitants, and where the family, servants, andguests, all took their meals together. This usually ran two storeyshigh; and into it opened from the lower storey the offices andguard-chambers, and from the upper, into a gallery running round it, theprivate apartments of the family, a spiral stair frequently winding downin the corner. The rooms next the hall were private sitting-rooms,leading to the bedchambers beyond; and where still greater secrecy wasdesired, passages led out towards separate towers. Every bedroom hadits adjoining sitting-room. Of course in small houses such elaboratearrangements as these were not found, and there were no sitting-roomsexcept the hall itself; while labourers were content with a two-roomedhouse, the lower half serving as parlour and kitchen, the upper as thefamily bedchamber.
Young Godfrey carried a chair to his father's room. An Archbishop couldnot sit on a form, and there were only three chairs in the house, two ofwhich were appropriated to the Countess. The prelate took his seat, andlaid down his letter on a high stool before Sir Godfrey.
"Fair Sir, may I entreat you of your courtesy, to send this letter withall good speed to my Lady Basset of Drayton, unto Staffordshire?"
"Is it needful, holy Father?"
"It is in sooth needful," replied the Archbishop, in rather peremptorytones, for he plainly saw that Sir Godfrey would not do this part of hisduty until he could no longer help it.
"It shall put her Ladyship to great charges," objected the knight.
"The which, if she defray unwillingly, then is she no Christian woman."
"And be a journey mighty displeasant, at this winter season."
"My answer thereto is as to the last."
"And it shall blurt out the King's privy matters."
"In no wise. I have not writ thereof a word in this letter, but haveonly prayed her Ladyship to give heed unto that which the bearer thereofshall make known to her privily."
"Then who is to bear the same?"
"I refer me thereon, fair Sir, to your good judgm
ent. Might one of yourown sons be trusted herewith?"
Sir Godfrey looked dubious. "Godfrey should turn aside to see an horse,or to tilt at any jousting that lay in his path; and Matthew, I cast nodoubt, should lose your Grace's letter in a snowdrift."
"Then have you brought them up but ill," said the Archbishop. "But whathindereth that you go withal yourself?"
"I, holy Father! I am an old man, and infirm, an' it like your Grace."
"Ay, you were full infirm when the tilting was at Leicester," repliedthe Archbishop, ironically. "My son, I enjoin thee, as thineArchbishop, that thou send this letter. Go, or send a trusty messenger,as it liketh thee best; and if thou have no such, then shall mysecretary, Father Denny, carry the same, for he is full meet therefor;but go it must."
Poor Sir Godfrey was thus brought to the end of all his subterfuges. Hecould only say ruefully that his eldest son should bear the letter. TheArchbishop thereupon took care to inform that young gentleman that ifhis missive should be either lost or delayed, its bearer would have toreckon with the Church, and might not find the account quite convenientto pay.
Godfrey was ready enough to go. Life at Hazelwood was not so excitingthat a journey, on whatever errand, would not come as a very welcomeinterlude. He set forth that evening, and as the journey was barelyforty miles, he could not in reason take longer over it than three daysat the utmost. Sir Godfrey, however, as well as the Archbishop, hadconfided his private views to his son. He charged him to see LordBasset first, and to indoctrinate him with the idea that it was mostdesirable Lady Basset should not receive the prelate's message. Couldhe find means to prevent it?
Lord Basset was a man of a type not uncommon in any time, andparticularly rife at the present day. He lived to amuse himself. Ofsuch things as work and duty he simply had no idea. In his eyes workwas for the labouring class, and duty concerned the clergy; neither ofthem applied at all to him. He was, therefore, of about as much valueto the world as one of the roses in his garden; and if he would be moremissed, it was because his temper did not at all times emulate thesweetness of that flower, and its absence would be felt as a relief.This very useful and worthy gentleman was languidly fitting on thejesses of a hawk, when young Godfrey was introduced into the hall. LadyBasset was not present, and Godfrey seized the opportunity to initiateher husband into the part he was to play. He found to his annoyancethat Lord Basset hesitated to perform the task assigned to him. Had theletter come from an insignificant layman, he would have posted it intothe fire without more ado; but Lord Basset, who was aware of sundryhabits of his own that he was not able to flatter himself were thefashion in Heaven, could not afford to quarrel with the Church, which,in his belief, held the keys of that eligible locality.
"Nay, verily!" said he. "I cannot thwart the delivering of his Grace'sletter."
"Then will my Lady go to Hazelwood, and the whole matter shall be blazedabroad. It is sure to creep forth at some corner."
"As like as not. Well, I would not so much care--should it serve you ifI gave her strict forbiddance for to go?"
"Would she obey?"
Lord Basset laughed. "That's as may be. She's commonly an easy mare todrive, but there be times when she takes the bit betwixt her teeth, andbolts down the contrary road. You can only try her."
"Then under your leave, may I deliver the letter to her?"
"Here, De Sucherche!" said Lord Basset, raising his voice. "BidEmeriarde lead this gentleman to thy Lady; he hath a privy word todeliver unto her."
Emeriarde made her appearance in the guise of a highly respectable,middle-aged upper servant, and led Godfrey up the staircase from thehall to Lady Basset's ante-chamber, where, leaving him for a moment,while she announced a visitor to her mistress, she returned andconducted him into the presence of the Princess of Bretagne.
He saw a woman of thirty-six years of age, tall and somewhat stately,only moderately good-looking, and with an expression of intenseweariness and listlessness in her dark eyes. The face was a true indexto the feelings, for few lonelier women have ever shut their sorrows intheir hearts than the Princess Jeanne of Bretagne. She had no child;and her husband followed the usual rule of people who spend life inamusing themselves, and who are apt to be far from amusing to their ownfamilies. His interest, his attractions, and his powers ofentertainment were kept for the world outside. When his wife saw him,he was generally either vexed, and consequently irritable, or tired andsomewhat sulky. All the sufferings of reaction which fell to him werevisited on her. She was naturally a woman of strong but silentcharacter; a woman who locked her feelings, her sufferings, and herthoughts in her own breast, and having found no sympathy where she oughtto have found it, refrained from seeking it elsewhere.
Lord Basset would have been astonished had he been accused of ill-usinghis wife. He never lifted his hand against her, nor even found faultwith her before company. He simply let her feel as if her life were notworth living, and there was not a soul on earth who cared to make it so.If, only now and then, he would have given her half an hour of thatbrilliance with which he entertained his guests! if he wouldoccasionally have shown her that he cared whether she was tired, that itmade any difference to his happiness whether she was happy! She was awoman with intense capacity for loving, but there was no fuel for thefire, and it was dying out for sheer want of material. Women of lightercharacter might have directed their affections elsewhere; women of moreversatile temperament might have found other interests for themselves;she did neither. Though strong, her intellect was neither quick nor ofgreat range; it was deep rather than wide in its extent. It must beremembered, also, that a multitude of interests which are open to awoman in the present day, were quite unknown to her. The whole world ofliterature and science was an unknown thing; and art was only accessiblein the two forms of fancy work and illumination, for neither of whichhad she capacity or taste. She could sew, cook, and act as a doctorwhen required, which was not often; and there the list of heraccomplishments ended. There was more in her, but nobody cared to drawit out, and herself least of all.
Lady Basset bowed gravely in reply to Godfrey's courtesy, broke the sealof the letter, and gazed upon the cabalistic characters therein written.Had they been Chinese, she would have learned as much from them as shedid. She handed back the letter with a request that he would read it toher, if he possessed the art of reading; if not, she would send forFather Collard.
For a moment, but no more, the temptation visited Godfrey to read theletter as something which it was not. He dismissed it, not from anyconscientious motive, but simply from the doubt whether he could keep upthe delusion.
"Good!" said Lady Basset, when the letter had been read to her; "and nowwhat is that you are to tell me?"
"Dame, suffer me first to say that it is of the gravest moment thatthere be no eavesdroppers about, and that your Ladyship be pleased tokeep strait silence thereupon. Otherwise, I dare not utter thatwherewith his Grace's letter hath ado."
"There be no ears at hand save my bower-woman's, and I will answer forher as for myself. I can keep silence when need is. Speak on."
"Then, Lady, I give you to know that the Duchess' Grace, your mother, isnow in ward under keeping of my father, at Hazelwood Manor, and--"
Lady Basset had risen to her feet, with a strange glow in her eyes.
"My mother!" she said.
"Your Lady and mother, Dame; and she--"
"My mother!" she said, again. "My mother! I thought my mother was deadand buried, years and years ago!"
"Verily, no, Lady; and my Lord Archbishop's Grace doth most earnestlydesire your Ladyship to pay her visit, she being now near death, andyour Lord and brother the Duke denying to come unto her."
The glow deepened in the dark eyes.
"My Lord my brother refused to go to my mother?"
"He did so, Dame."
"And she is near death?"
"Very near, I am told, Lady."
"And he wist it?"
"
He wist it."
Lady Basset seemed for a moment to have forgotten everything but theone.
"Lead on," she said. "I will go to her--poor Mother! I can scarceremember her; I was so young when taken from her. But I think she lovedme once. I will go, though no other soul on earth keep me company."
"Lady," said Godfrey, saying the exact reverse of truth, "I do rightheartily trust your Lord shall not let you therein."
"What matter?" she said. "If the Devil and all his angels stood in theway, I would go to my dying mother."
She left the room for a minute, and to Godfrey's dismay came backattired for her journey, as if she meant to set out there and then.
"But, Lady!" he expostulated.
"You need not tarry for me," she said, calmly. "I can find the way, andI have sent word to bid mine horses."
This was unendurable. Godfrey, in his dismay, left the room with only acourtesy, and sought Lord Basset in the hall.
"Ah! she's taken the bit betwixt her teeth," said he. "I warrant you'dbest leave her be; she'll go now, if it be on a witch's broom. I'llforbid it, an' you will, but I do you to wit I might as well entreat yontree not to wave in the wind. When she doth take the bit thus, she's--"
An emphatic shake of Lord Basset's head finished the sentence. He roseas if it were more trouble than it was reasonable to impose, walked intohis wife's room, and asked her where she was going that winter day.
"You are scarce wont to inquire into my comings and goings," she said,coldly. "But if it do your Lordship ease to wit the same, I am going toHazelwood Manor, whence yonder young gentleman is now come."
"How if I forbid it?"
"My Lord, I am sent for to my dying mother. Your Lordship is agentleman, I believe, and therefore not like to forbid me. But if youso did, yea, twenty times twice told, I should answer you as now I do.Seven years have I done your bidding, and when I return I will do it yetagain. But not now. Neither you, nor Satan himself, should stay methis one time."
"Your Ladyship losengeth," [flatters] was the careless answer. "Fareyou well. I'll not hinder you. As for Satan, though it pleaseth you tocount me in with him, I'll be no surety for his doings. MasterFoljambe, go you after this crack-brained dame of mine, or tarry youhere with me and drink a cup of Malvoisie wine?"
Godfrey would very much have preferred to remain with Lord Basset; but awholesome fear of his father and the Archbishop together restrained himfrom doing so. He was exceedingly vexed to be made to continue hisjourney thus without intermission; but Lady Basset was already on apillion behind her squire, and Emeriarde on another behind the groom, afew garments having been hastily squeezed into a saddle-bag carried bythe latter. This summary way of doing things was almost unheard of inthe fourteenth century; and Godfrey entertained a private opinion that"crack-brained" was a truthful epithet.
"Needs must," said he; "wherefore I pray your Lordship mercy. HerLadyship shall scantly make good road to Hazelwood without I go withal.But--_ha, chetife_!"
Lord Basset slightly laughed, kissed his hand to his wife, lifted hishat to Godfrey with a shrug of his shoulders, and walked back intoDrayton Manor House.