2.
“Let’s get away from here,” said Philip Sidney to Faithful; “away from the crowds and out into the country.”
The ordeal was over and he had done his part well, but now he was suffering from reaction. He hated the crowds and the shouting. The sound of the trumpets and the music of the longbows had stirred the depths in him. He wanted to get away where it was quiet.
Faithful, as became a good servitor, shouldered Philip’s bow good-humoredly, though it was a good deal taller than he was and carrying it gave him a crick in the neck, and lolloped at his friend’s heels like an obedient dog. He was, he had noticed, frequently treated as a faithful dog. People who did not exactly want company, but yet wanted that invisible companion who seems to sit enthroned in our minds, and to whom we talk in moments of emotion, to take some visible form would often choose either Faithful or a dog to accompany them on their walks abroad. In both they would find an unobtrusive admiration which helped them to express their thoughts without either fear or shame.
Philip went straight to a place that he knew of, where a lazy stream meandered through meadows where in early summer the grass was as high as little children. It was short now, and had no movement or murmur to give back to the wind as it rolled away into the distance to lose itself in the blue hills and woods that shut in the valley. The afternoon was utterly and completely still. They could see the silver ribbon of the river winding its way from Oxford past Binsey and the holy well to Godstow. “Look!” said Philip, pointing to some old gray walls among the trees. “From here you can see the ruins of Godstow Nunnery. It’s odd, isn’t it, to sit here between Beaumont Palace, where Henry the Second lived sometimes, and Godstow Nunnery where his Rose of the World hid herself. I wonder how often he sat here, where we are sitting now, after she had become a nun and he could not see her any more, and looked at the gray walls that kept him out.”
They were silent, thinking of that famous love story, so wrapped up in legend now that it was hard to disentangle truth from falsehood.
Rosamond had lived at Woodstock, and Henry had met her one day when he was out riding his white horse in the springtime in the flowery fields that surrounded his royal palace, fields so lovely that they were like the fields of heaven. Rosamond came walking towards him through the buttercups and daisies and cuckoo flowers, and she was so freshly and radiantly lovely that she seemed to the King the spirit of beauty itself. The singing of the birds, that rang all about them in the blue air, the green flames that burned in the beech trees, and the swaying whispering mass of the thousand flowers and grasses that clothed the meadows seemed to be no more than a garment for the incomparable beauty of the girl who moved in their midst.
The King was a young man who had been married since his boyhood to Eleanor, the divorced wife of the King of France, a woman so evil that her husband’s life seemed to him to have been poisoned on the day he married her. She hated him, and taught his children to hate him. Only in regarding the great beauty of the land that was his kingdom could he find release from misery.
And now it seemed to him, as he jumped from his horse and gazed astounded at the girl who came towards him, that this fair land was giving him its very spirit. It was as though the fields and the trees and the bird song lifted her up and held her towards him, as merciful hands cup themselves to carry water to a thirsty man. He was bewildered by the wonder of it. Though he was the King of England he fell upon his knees before Rosamond, holding her desperately by the skirts of her long green gown, imploring her to stay as she was, a warm breathing comforting creature who could be touched and held, not a wraith who would float away through the tree trunks when night came on, and the first stars signaled from their watch towers that the sun was set.
What could poor Rosamond do? Held by the compelling hands of a young and comely King, while the birds sang and the flowers shivered in ecstasy under the touch of the spring wind, she seemed to herself drained of all strength. For a moment she shook her head in bewilderment, then put her own hands caressingly over the hands that held her. . . . So he took her home with him, and when the stars signaled warningly, and all good birds and maidens and children hied them home, she did not look at them; she looked only upon her lover.
In the garden of Woodstock Palace there was a labyrinth and at the heart of it the King made a bower all overgrown with roses for his Rose of the World. Only he and one of his friends knew the secret of the labyrinth, but they taught it to Rosamond that she might be able to hide herself there if any danger threatened when Henry was away from her.
He was often away from her, for there was war across the sea and he must be often fighting in France. One summer day Rosamond sat at her embroidery near the entrance to the labyrinth. The sun was warm and the red roses and white lilies were in bloom and she sang as she worked, for she had news that soon her lover would be home again. There was no fear in her heart, only a deep and tranquil happiness that she, of all women in the world, should be the one to bring joy and comfort to the King.
Suddenly from the palace the trumpets sounded, and she lifted her head, for they rang out in that way only when one of royal blood visited the palace. But still she was not afraid, for Queen Eleanor never came to Woodstock, and she was sure that no one could have been so cruel as to betray the King’s secret to her. Was it Henry himself? Had he come earlier than he had promised? She jumped up in joy, still holding the end of a long thread of embroidery silk that she had been unwinding from its ball when the trumpets sounded, and she would have started to run to the palace had she not seen the bright figure of a little page coming pelting towards her through the trees, his face as white as the white lilies that grew beside the entrance to the labyrinth.
“Hide, Rosamond!” he gasped. “Someone has betrayed you and the Queen is here!” Then he turned and doubled back again, quick as a darting dragonfly, terrified that someone at the palace had seen the way he came.
Instantly, as quick in her flight as he was, Rosamond ran through the mazes of the labyrinth; but in her terror she still held the end of embroidery silk and the ball unrolled behind her as she ran, showing the windings of the maze.
At the heart of the labyrinth, crouching in the bower of roses, Queen Eleanor found her. That evil lady was not a woman who wasted time. In one hand she carried a bowl of poison and in the other a dagger, and coming instantly to the point without undue expenditure of words she briefly offered Rosamond her choice. Rosamond, also coming to the point after only a brief interval of desperate pleading, chose the poison, and died there, and the roses dropped their petals pitifully upon the maiden who was fairer than they.
That was one version of the story, but there was another, less picturesque but more likely, that related how Rosamond of her own will cut herself adrift from the King.
Wandering among the roses in the Woodstock garden at evening, after the sun had set, she wondered what would be the end of it all. What could be the end of it for Henry, what for her? Could there be any outcome for Henry except dishonor and bewilderment, any for her but shame and torment that her name should have tarnished his? She looked up at the quiet evening sky where the first stars were signaling to the world, “Go home,” and then she looked about her at all the myriad of God’s creatures who had listened to that command. Most of them were safely home already. There were no butterflies or little birds about now; she could picture them safely asleep in their own particular nooks and crannies, wings folded and heads tucked under wings. Many of the flowers were tightly closed, their golden hearts and amber honey drops safe and inviolate behind the shut doors of their petals. Over in the village of Woodstock lights sprang out behind windows, telling of laborers home from the fields and little children safely cradled for the night. Above her head flapped a party of rooks, flying home to the rookery in the great park beyond the garden. All these creatures had their own appointed places, and however far they might have wandered through the day when the stars s
ignaled from their watch towers that the night had come they turned always homeward.
But Rosamond, with a sickening stab at her heart, remembered that she had no home. One of the twinkling lights, over there in Woodstock, shone out from the window of the house where once she had lived; but its door was shut against her now; though she came only of yeoman stock her people were people who had their honor, and she had disgraced them. Once before the stars had told her to go home, but she had not gone. Now it was too late.
What should she do? Standing there in despair on the garden path, with her knuckles pressed into her eyes, she heard a harsh rhythmical sound, a sound that though ugly always delighted her. The swans! They came sometimes by day to visit the lake in the park, but at night they always flew back again to that particular reach of the river that was their home; it was at Godstow, Henry had told her, at Godstow where the nunnery was.
She gazed up at them in delight. They were flying in perfect formation, first one alone, then two more, then three, and so high up in the sky that the last gleam of sunset caught them and bathed their snowy feathers in a light that seemed to shine right out from Paradise. Rosamond thought that never in her life had she seen a sight so radiantly pure and lovely; and they were going home to Godstow, where the nunnery was.
Then she knew what she must do. There were more homes in the world than one. Though the door of an earthly home might be shut against her there were other doors that never denied the knocking of the sinner who repented. She did not stop to go indoors and change the white silk dress that she wore for one more suited for a journey, she did not even wait to say farewell to those in the palace who had been good to her, she ran at once to the stableyard and wrenched at the stable door in a passion of eagerness. It was unlocked, for the grooms were careless when their master was away, and she went in and found her white horse that Henry had given her, the same white horse that he had been riding that day in the meadows when he found her. She saddled him quickly and easily, for Rosamond was no fine lady but a strong country girl who could sweep a room or groom a horse with the best, and then she led him out, mounted him and turned towards Godstow.
She rode quickly through the woods and meadows, for she was fearful that her courage and resolution might falter and she turn back again, but as she rode she looked about her, for she knew she was looking her last upon the world she loved; from henceforth she would see it only through the windows of a nunnery. Though the darkness was gathering she could still see the pale faces of the wild roses scattered over the hedgerows, and the branches of the trees sweeping up against the stars, and she gazed at them as though she were about to be smitten with perpetual blindness. From under her horse’s feet there came up to her the scent of wet grass and of those pungent herbal plants that grow near water, and she drew in great breaths of it as though her lungs labored. She pressed her knees tightly against her horse, for this was the last time that she would feel the ripple of horseflesh beneath them.
When she came to the ford, and saw across the gleaming river the gray walls of the nunnery rising out of the reeds and rushes on the other side, her courage nearly failed her. She reined in her horse and sat there trembling, her eyes hot and burning and her heart beating so that it nearly choked her. For, God in heaven, how she loved life! She was not a woman born to kneel all her days upon a cold stone floor, telling the beads of a rosary; she had a gay heart made for laughter and an adventurous spirit that craved its fill of love and danger. In her pride she had felt sometimes that life was not long enough for all she wanted to do, or the world packed full enough of the marvels that she wanted to see before she died. In her dreams she had often pictured herself, Eleanor being dead by some happy mischance, as Queen of England, her passionate love no longer hidden and shamed but crowned with honor in the sight of the world. She had imagined the heaven it would be to be Henry’s wife, living with him in his great house by the river in London town, or over there in the palace of the Fair Mount at Oxford; or perhaps going with him to France and watching the English bowmen march out to fight the French, and riding as near as she dared to the battle to hear the music of the plucked bowstrings and the singing of the arrows in the air. . . . But Eleanor was not dead, nor likely to be, for like all nasty people she was bound to live long. . . . And Rosamond was only a yeoman’s daughter. She would never be Queen of England. She would never, while she lived free in the world, bring Henry anything but trouble. Why could she not be a man, able to serve her king and country with her bow and arrows, her strong body laid upon her bow and her fingers like steel to pluck its music? Why must she be a woman, her only way of service this of sacrifice and death? In her anguish she cried out aloud, startling the white swans who were already sleeping in the rushes by the river, then set her horse at the ford.
The river was running high and the icy water crept up to her knees, chilling her to the bone. Numbed and silent now she looked stupidly at the skirts of her white dress floating out around her like the plumage of a bird, and at the little white water daisies that starred the water. Then the cold seemed to creep up to her heart and she seemed not to see or feel anything any more.
The nuns looked at each other, startled, when they heard the knocking at the nunnery door. They were up late that evening, praying in the cold chapel for that Scarlet Woman, that shameless Woodstock girl who was the troubler of the King’s peace and a disgrace to this fair valley where they lived. The knocking came so pat upon their thoughts of sin and shame that it frightened them. They went all together to open the door, not leaving the round-eyed young portress to face alone the devils who might be outside.
They opened in fear and trembling, recoiling in astonishment at sight of the pale-faced girl with the golden hair who stood outside. In her white dress in the moonlight, one hand holding the mane of her white horse and the other stretched out to them as though she pleaded for alms, she looked like a visitant from another world, like a water nymph risen from the river or the soul of a white swan.
“Or one of the flowers from the heavenly meadows,” whispered Sister Ursula the little portress. “She is so white; like one of the lilies of Our Lady.”
“Take me in, good sisters,” cried Rosamond. “Of your charity give refuge to the sinner that repenteth.”
“Who are you, who come knocking here after the night has fallen?” demanded the Abbess sternly. “Riding alone upon horseback with a jeweled circlet on your head and the silks of a queen upon your body. Such behaviour is not seemly in a young woman. Who are you?”
“Rosamond of Woodstock,” said Rosamond, but she did not bow her head and she looked at the Abbess calmly and with courage. For suddenly she was proud. They might have left much, these other women who had renounced the world, but they had not sacrificed the love of a king and the silks and jewels of a queen.
The other nuns cried out in horror, but the Abbess did not flinch. “Come in, Rosamond,” she said quietly. “We have prayed for you tonight, and God has answered our prayer. Come in, my child, to your home.”
Rosamond turned back once, to kiss her white horse on his forehead, then she pushed him gently away into the night, that he might find his way back to Woodstock, and stepped through the doorway into the cold shadows of the nunnery.
But they did not hold her for long. She stayed there for a few years, kneeling hour after hour upon the stone floor of the chapel, telling her beads and praying for King Henry and for the fair land of England that she loved, seeing him more and more as the symbol of it and pleading that her sacrifice of all she loved might by the mercy of God give increase of strength to its beauty; greater courage to the man, a deeper green to the grass and a new sparkle to the winding streams that comforted the valleys; an arrogant prayer, she sometimes feared, but one that was unceasing in her heart and on her lips.
And then she died; died as a wild bird will die who is shut in too small a cage. The nuns mourned for her as though she had been the dearest child
of each of them, and buried her in the meadows near the river, those meadows where in the summer the grass was as high as little children and as full of flowers as the fields of heaven. A gray stone marked her grave, and the nuns planted roses at the head and the foot and hung it with silken draperies and embroideries, as though it were the tomb of a queen.
The years passed, those who had loved Rosamond died, and only the roses decked the grave. Centuries passed and the gray stone itself was lost beneath the sea of flowers and grass that flowed over it. Then no man knew where Rosamond’s body lay buried; though perhaps the swallows knew, as they dipped and darted beside the river, and the white swans who had once led her home, and the spirit of beauty that lived in that valley and had absorbed her spirit into its own.
People wondered sometimes if the King had ever seen her again. They liked to think that the Abbess had allowed him to see her as she lay dead, dressed in her penitent’s dress, with her fair hair hidden under the nun’s coif. Master Samuel Daniel, who lived when Elizabeth was Queen and Beaumont Palace and Godstow Nunnery were in ruins, wrote in fair words the thoughts that might have been Henry’s as he stood beside the bier before the altar in the nunnery chapel.