Part 15 (2/2)
CHAPTER EIGHT.
THE SHADOW OF THE FUTURE.
In His name was struck the blow That hath laid thy old life low In a garb of blood-red woe.
A very eventful year was 1291 in England and over all the civilised world. It was the end of the Crusades, the Turks driving the Christians from Acre, the last place which they held in Palestine. It opened with the submission of the Scottish succession to the arbitrament of Edward the First, and it closed with the funeral of his mother, Queen Eleonore of Provence--a woman whom England was not able to thank for one good deed during her long and stormy reign. She had been a youthful beauty, she wrote poetry, and she had never scandalised the nation by any impropriety of womanly conduct. But these three statements close the list of her virtues. She was equally grasping, unscrupulous, and extravagant. In her old age she retired to the Convent of Amesbury, where her two granddaughters, Mary of England, and Alianora of Bretagne, were nuns already, for the desirable purpose of ”making her salvation.”
Perhaps she thought she had made it when the summons came to her in the autumn of 1291. No voice had whispered to her, all through her long life of nearly eighty years, that if that ever were to be--
”Jesus Christ has done it all Long, long ago.”
Matters had settled down quietly enough in Whitehall Palace. Sir Fulk de Chaucombe and Diana had been promoted to the royal household--the former as attendant upon the King, the latter as Lady of the Bedchamber to his eldest daughter, the Princess Alianora, who, though twenty-seven years of age, was still unmarried. It was a cause of some surprise in her household that the Countess of Cornwall did not fill up the vacancy created among her maidens by the marriages of Clarice and Diana. But when December came it was evident that before she did so she meant to make the vacancy still more complete.
One dark afternoon in that cheerful month, the Lady Margaret marched into the bower, where her female attendants usually sat when not engaged in more active waiting upon her. It was Sat.u.r.day.
”Olympias Trusbut, Roisia de Levinton,” she said in her harsh voice, which did not sound unlike the rasping of a file, ”ye are to be wed on Monday morning.”
Olympias showed slight signs of going into hysterics, which being observed by the Lady Margaret, she calmly desired Felicia to fetch a jug of water. On this hint of what was likely to happen to her if she imprudently screamed or fainted, Olympias managed to recover.
”Ye are to wed the two squires,” observed their imperious mistress. ”I gave the choice to Reginald de Echingham, and he fixed on thee, Olympias.”
Olympias pa.s.sed from terror to ecstasy.
”Thou, Roisia, art to wed Ademar de Gernet. I will give both of you your gear.”
And away walked the Countess.
”I wish she would have let me alone,” said Roisia, in doleful accents.
”Too much to hope for,” responded Felicia.
”Dost thou not like De Gernet?” asked Clarice, sympathisingly.
”Oh, I don't dislike him,” said Roisia; ”but I am not so fond of him as that comes to.”
An hour or two later, however, Mistress Underdone appeared, in a state of flurry by no means her normal one.
”Well, here is a pretty tale,” said she. ”Not for thee, Olympias; matters be running smooth for thee, though the Lord Earl did say,” added she, laughing, ”that incense was as breath of life to Narcissus, and he would needs choose the maid that should burn plenty on his altar. But-- the thing is fair unheard of!--Ademar de Gernet refuses to wed under direction from the Lady.”
”Why?” asked Roisia, looking rather insulted.
”Oh, it has nought to do with thee, child,” said Mistress Underdone.
”Quoth he that he desired all happiness to thee, and pardon of thee for thus dealing; but having given his heart to another of the Lady's damsels, he would not wed with any but her.”
”Why, that must be Felicia,” said the other three together.
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