“That can I never!” replied Maude tenderly, as the memory of her dead came fresh and warm upon her.
The Lady de Narbonne rose abruptly, and walked away, without another word, to the further end of the room. Half an hour later, Maude saw her in the midst of a gay group, laughing and jesting in the cheeriest manner. Of what sort of stuff could the woman be made?
The Countess of Buckingham did not leave Langley until after dinner the next day—that is to say, about eleven a.m. A little before dinner, as Maude, not being wanted at the moment, stood alone at the window of the hall, leaning her arms on the wide window-ledge, a voice asked behind her—“Art yet thinking of Hawise Gerard?”
“I was so but this moment, Madam,” replied Maude, turning round to meet the eyes of the Lady de Narbonne, now quiet and grave enough. “ ’Tis little marvel, for I loved her dear.”
“And love lasteth with thee—how long time?”
“Till death, assuredly,” said Maude. “What may lie beyond death I wis nothing.”
“Till what manner of death? The resurrection, men say, shall give back the dead. But what shall give back a dead heart or a lost soul? Can thy love pass such death as this, Maude Gerard?”
“Madam, I said never unto your Ladyship that Hawise Gerard was kinswoman of mine. How wit you the same?”
A faint, soft smile, very unlike her usual one, so bright and cold, flickered for a moment on the lips of the Lady de Narbonne.
“Not too far gone for that, Cousin Maude,” she said.
“ ‘Cousin’—Madam! You are—”
“I am Avice de Narbonne, waiting-dame unto my Lady of Buckingham’s Grace. I was Hawise Gerard, David Gerard’s daughter.”
“Hawise! Thou toldest me she was dead!” cried Maude confusedly.
“That Hawise Gerard whom thou knewest is dead and gone, long ago. Thou wilt never see her again. Thy mother Eleanor is not more dead than she; but the one may return to thee on the resurrection morrow, and the other never can. Tell me now whether I could arede thee, as thou wouldst have had it, how, or where, or when, thy cousin Hawise died?”
“Our dear Lady be thine aid, Hawise! What has changed thee so sore?” asked Maude, the tears running down her cheeks.
“Call me Avice, Maude. Hawise is old-fashioned,” said the lady coolly.
Maude seized her cousin’s hands, and looking into her eyes, spoke as girls of her age rarely speak, though they think frequently.
“Come back to me, Hawise Gerard!—from the dead, if thou wilt have it so. Cousin Hawise—fair, gent, shamefaced, loving, holy!—come back to me, and speak with the olden voice, and give me to wit what terrible thing hath been, to take away thyself, and leave but this instead of thee!”
Maude’s own earnestness was so intense, that she felt as if her passionate words must have moved a granite mountain; but they fell cold and powerless upon Avice de Narbonne.
“Look out into the dark this night, Maude, and call thy mother, and see whether she will answer. The dead cannot come back. I have no more power to call back to thee the maiden I was of old, than thou. Rest, maid; and do what thou wilt and canst with that which is.”
“What can I?” said Maude bitterly. “At least thou canst tell me what hath wrought this fearful change in thee.”
“Can I?” replied Avice, seating herself on the window-seat, and motioning her cousin to do the same. “And what shall I say it were—call it light or darkness, love or hate? For six months after I left home I was right woesome. (It is all gone, Maude—the old cottage, and the forge, and the elms—they razed them all!) And then there came into my life a fair false face, and a voice that spake well, and an heart that was black as night. And I trusted him, for I loved him. Loved him—ay, better than all the saints in Heaven! I could have died to save a pang of pain to him, and smiled in doing it. But he was false, false, false! And on the day that I knew it—O that horrible day!—my love turned to black hate within me. I knelt and prayed that my wrong should be avenged—that some sorrow should befal him. But I never meant that. Holy Mary, Lady of Sorrows, thou knewest I never meant that! And that very night I knelt and prayed, he died on the field of battle far away. I knew not he was in danger till four days after. When I so did, I prayed as fervently for his safety. The old love came back upon me, and I could have rent the heavens if my weak hands had reached them, to undo that fearful prayer. But she heard me not—she, the Lady of Pity! She had heard me once too well. And fifteen days later, I knew that I was a widow—that he had died that night, with none to pillow his head or wipe the death-dews from his brow—died unassoiled, unatoned with either God or me! And I had done it. Child, my heart was closed up that day as with a wall of stone. It will never open again. It is not my love that is dead—it is my heart.”
“But, Hawise, hadst no masses sung for his soul?” asked Maude in loving pity.
“Too late,” she said, dropping her face upon her hands. “Too late!”
“Too late for what?” softly inquired a third voice—so gently and compassionately that no annoyance could be felt.
Avice was silent, and Maude answered for her.
“For the winning of a soul from Purgatory that hath passed thither without housel ne chrism.”
“Too late for the mercy of God?” replied Hugh Calverley gently. “For the housel and the chrism, they be mercies of man. But the mercies of God are infinite and unchangeable unto all such as grip hold on Jesu Christ.”
“Unto them that die in mortal sin?” said Avice, not lifting her head.
“All sin is mortal,” said Hugh in the same quiet manner; “but for His people, He hath made an end of sin, and hath ‘distreiede (destroyed) deeth, and lightnide (brought to light) lyf.’ ”
“That is, for the saints?” said Maude sadly.
“Mistress, an’ it had not been for the sinners, you and I must needs have fared ill. Who be saints saving they that were once sinners?”
“Soothly, Master Calverley, these be matters too high for me. I am no saint, God wot.”
“Doth God wot that, Mistress Maude? Then of a surety I am sorry for you.”
Maude was silent, though she thought it strange doctrine. But Avice said in a low voice, recurring to her former subject—“You believe, Master Calverley, that God can raise the dead; but think you that He can quicken again to life an heart that is dead, and cold, and hard as yonder stone? Is there any again rising for such?”
“Madam, if no, there had been never none for neither you nor me. We be all dead souls by nature.”
“Ay, afore baptism, so wit I; but what of mortal sin done after baptism?”
“I speak but as I am learned, Madam,” said Hugh modestly. “I am younger even than you, methinks, and far more witless. But I have heard them say that have been deep skilled, as methinks, in the ministeries (mysteries) of God, that wherein it is said that ‘He mai save withouten ende,’ it scarce signifieth only afore baptism.”
“Ah!” said Maude, with a sigh, “to do away sin done after baptism is a mighty hard and grievous matter. Good sooth, at my first communion, this last summer, so abashed (nervous) was I, and in so painful bire (confused haste), that I let drop the holy wafer upon the ground; and for all I gat it again unbroke, and licked well with my tongue the stide (spot) where it had fallen, Father Dominic (a fictitious person) said I had done dreadful sin, and he caused me to crawl upon my knees all around the church, and to say an hundred Ave Marys and ten Paternosters at every altar. And in very deed I was right sorrowful