Part 4 (1/2)
CHAPTER FOUR.
BABY.
A very quiet life was led by Avice and Bertha. The house work was done by the two in the early morning--cleaning, was.h.i.+ng, baking, churning, and brewing, as they were severally needed; and in the afternoon they sat down to their work, enlivened either by singing or conversation.
Sometimes both were silent, and when that was the case, unknown to Avice, Bertha was generally watching her features, and trying to read their meaning. At length, one evening after a long silence, she suddenly broke the stillness with a blunt question.
”Aunt, I wish you would tell me what you are thinking of when you look so.”
”How do I look, Bertha?”
”As if you were looking at something which n.o.body could see but yourself. Sometimes it seems to be something pretty, and sometimes something shocking; but oftener than either, something just a little sad, and yet as if there were pleasantness about it. I don't know exactly how to describe it.”
”That will do. When a woman comes to fifty years, little Bertha, there are plenty of things in the past of her life, which n.o.body can see who did not go through them with her. And often those who did so cannot see them. That will leave a scar upon one which makes not a scratch upon another.”
”But of what were you thinking, Aunt, if I may know?”
”That thou mayest. I fancy, when thou spakest, I was thinking--as I very often do--about my little Lady.”
”Now, if Aunt Avice is _very_ good,” said Bertha insinuatingly, and with brightened eyes, ”that means a story.”
Aunt Avice smiled. ”Ay, thou shalt have thy story. Only let us be sure first that all is done which need be. Cast a few more chips on the fire, and light another pine-torch; that is burnt nigh out. And see thy bodkin on the floor--careless child!”
Bertha jumped up and obeyed. From one corner of the room, where lay a heap of neatly-cut f.a.ggots, she brought a handful, and threw it into the wide fire-place, which stretched across half one side of the room, and had no grate, the fire burning on the stone hearth: then from a pile of long pointed stakes of pitch pine, she brought one, lighted it, and set it in an iron frame by the fire-place made for that purpose; and lastly, she picked up from the brick floor an article of iron, about a foot in length, and nearly as thick as her little finger, which she called a bodkin, but which we should think very rude and clumsy indeed.
”Hast thou heard, Bertha,” said Avice, ”that when I was young, I dwelt for a season in the Castle of Windsor, and my mother was nurse to some of the children of the Lord King that then was? Brothers and sister they were of our Lord King Edward that reigns now.”
Bertha's eyes brightened. She liked, as all girls do, to hear a story which had to do with great people.
”No, Aunt Avice, I never knew that. Won't you tell me all about it?”
So Avice began and told her what we know already--how the Bishop had recommended Agnes to the Queen, and all about the journey, and the Castle, and the Queen herself. Then she went on to tell the rest of the story.
”We lived nigh five years,” said Avice, ”in the Castle of Windsor--until the Lord Richard was dead, and the Lord William was nearly four years old. Then the Lady Queen removed to the royal Palace of Westminster, for the Lord King was gone over seas, and she with Earl Richard his brother was left to keep England. It was in August, the year of our Lord 1253, at we took up our abode in Thorney Island, where the Palace of Westminster stands. It is a marshy place--not over healthy, some folks say; but I never was ill while we dwelt there. And it was there, on Saint Katherine's Day”--which is the 25th of November--”that our little Lady was born. Her royal mother named her Katherine, after the blessed saint. She was the loveliest babe that eye could rest on, and she was christened with great pomp. And on Saint Edward's Day, when the Lady Queen was purified”--namely, churched--”there was such a feast as I never saw again while I dwelt with her. The provisions brought in for that feast were fourteen wild boars, twenty-four swans, one hundred and thirty-five rabbits, two hundred and fifty partridges, sixteen hundred and fifty fowls, fifty hares, two hundred and fifty wild ducks, thirty-six geese, and sixty-one thousand eggs.”
”Only think!” cried Bertha. ”Did you get some, Aunt?”
”Surely I did, child. The Lady Queen, I told thee, was then keeper of England, for the Lord King was away across the seas; and good provision she made. Truly, she was free-handed enough at spending. Would she had been as just in the way she came by her money!”
”Why, Aunt, what mean you?” asked Bertha, when Avice expressed her wish that Queen Eleanor had been as just in gaining money as she was liberal in spending it.
”Why, child, taxes came heavy in those days. When the Lord King needed money, he sent home to his treasurer, and it was had as he could get it--sometimes by selling up divers rich folks, or by levying a good sum from the Jews, or any way man could; not always by equal tenths or fifteenths, as now, which comes not nigh so heavy on one or two when it is equally meted out to all. But never was there king like our late Lord King Henry (whom G.o.d pardon) for squeezing money out of his poor subjects. Yet old folks did use to say his father King John was as ill or worse.”
Taxes, in those days, were a very different thing from what they are now, and were far more at the mere pleasure of the King, not only as to the collecting of them, but as to the spending. Ignorant people fancy that this is the case still; but it is not so. Queen Victoria has no money from the taxes for her private spending. When she became Queen, she gave up all the land belonging to her as Queen, on condition that her daughters should be portioned, and that she should receive a certain sum of money every year, of less value than the land she gave up; so that it would be fraud and breach of trust in the people if they did not keep their word to pay the sum agreed on to the Queen. There is so much misunderstanding on this point that it is worth while to mention it.
”Then were the King and Queen--” Bertha began.
Avice answered the half-asked question. ”They were like other folks, child. They liked their own way, and tried to get it. And they liked fine clothes, and great feasts, and plenty of company, and so forth; so they spent their money that way. I'll not say they were bad folks, though they did some bad things they were folks that only thought what they liked, and did it; and folks that do that are sure to bring sorrow to themselves and others too, whether they be kings and queens or cooks and haymakers. The kings and queens can do it on a larger scale; that is all the difference. There are few enough that think what G.o.d likes, as holy Bishop Robert did, and like to do His will better than their own; those that do scatter happiness around them, as the other sort scatter misery.
”Well, after a while, the Lady Queen left England, to join the Lord King across seas; but before she went, she took our little Lady down to the Castle of Windsor to the rest of the King's children. There was first the Lady Beatrice, who was a maiden of twelve years; and the Lord Edmund, a very pretty little boy of nine; and the Lord William, who was but four; and there were also with them other children of different ages that were brought up with them; but only one was near our little Lady's age, or had much to do with her. That was Alianora de Montfort, daughter of Earl Simon of Leicester, that bold baron that headed the lords against the King; and her mother was the King's own sister, the Lady Alianora. She was fifteen months older than our little Lady, and being youngest of all, the two used to play together. A sweet child she was, too; but not like my own little Lady--there never was a child like her.”
”What was she like, Aunt?”