Part 29 (1/2)

”Lady, the Lord hath heard your moaning, and hath seen your tears,” said Perrote, kneeling by the bed. ”He hath given you back--”

”My son?”

The cry was a pitiful one. Then, as ever, the boy was the dearest to his mother's heart.

”Very dear Lady, no. Your daughter.”

It was painful to see how the sudden gleam died out of the weary eyes.

”Ah, well!” she said, after an instant's pause. ”Well! I asked but for one, and when man doth that, he commonly gets the lesser of the twain.

Well! I shall be glad to see my Jeanne. Let her come in.”

Lady Ba.s.set came forward and bent over the dying woman.

”Dame!” she said.

”Come, now!” was the answer. ”There be folks enough call me Dame. Only two in all this world can call me Mother.”

”Mother!” was the response, in a tremulous voice. And then the icy stateliness broke up, and pa.s.sionate sobs broke in, mingled with the sounds of ”O Mother! Mother!”

”That's good, little la.s.s,” said the Countess. ”It's good to hear that, but once, _ma fillette_. But wherefore tarrieth thy brother away? It must be King Edward that will not suffer him to come.”

It was piteous to hear her cling thus to the old illusion. All the time of her imprisonment, though now and then in a fit of anger she could hurl bitter names at her son, yet, when calm, she had usually maintained that he was kept away from her, and refused to be convinced that his absence was of his own free will. The longer the illusion lasted, the more stubbornly she upheld it.

”'Tis not always the best-loved that loveth back the best,” said Perrote, gently, ”without man's best love be, as it should be, fixed on G.o.d. And 'tis common for fathers and mothers to love better than they be loved; the which is more than all other true of the Father in Heaven.”

”Thou mayest keep thy sermons, old woman, till ma.s.s is sung,” said the Countess, in her cynical style. ”Ah me! My Jean would come to the old, white-haired mother that risked her life for his--he would come if he could. He must know how my soul hungereth for the sight of his face. I want nothing else. Heaven would be Purgatory to me without him.”

”Ah, my dear Lady!” tenderly replied Perrote. ”If only I might hear you say that of the Lord that laid down His life for you!”

”I am not a nun,” was the answer; ”and I shall not say that which I feel not.”

”G.o.d forbid you should, Lady! But I pray Him to grant you so to feel.”

”I tell thee, I am not a nun,” said the Countess, rather pettishly.

Her idea was that real holiness was impossible out of the cloister, and that to love G.o.d was an entirely different type of feeling from the affection she had for her human friends. This was the usual sentiment in the Middle Ages. But Perrote had been taught of G.o.d, and while her educational prejudices acted like coloured or smoked gla.s.s, and dimmed the purity of the heavenly light, they were unable to hide it altogether.

”Very dear Lady,” she said, ”G.o.d loveth sinners; and He must then love other than nuns. Shall they not love Him back, though they be not in cloister?”

”Thou hadst better win in cloister thyself, when thou art rid of me,”

was the answer, in a tone which was a mixture of languor and sarcasm.

”Thou art scarce fit to tarry without, old woman.”

”I will do that which G.o.d shall show me,” said Perrote, calmly. ”Dame, were it not well your Grace should essay to sleep?”

”Nay, not so. I have my Jeanne to look at, that I have not seen for five-and-twenty years. I shall sleep fast enough anon. Daughter, art thou a happy woman, or no?”

Lady Ba.s.set answered by a shake of the head. ”Why, what aileth thee?