Delphi Works of Ford Madox Ford (Illustrated) (395 page)

The nuns, despairing of enforcing their rights, had sold them to the priory of St. Michael for the sum of nine hundred pounds. The priors, having occasion to send to Rome to appeal against the election of a prior forced upon them against their will by King Edward the Second of glorious and unhappy memory, had taken the opportunity to procure from the Pope a writ directing the lords of the manor of Stapleton to procure for the monks the due observance of the duties of the peasants of the manor. On the other hand, the inhabitants of the town of Wishford, owning as a community certain of the lands along the River Wiley, claimed as a right, which had been ceded to them by Sir Guy’s grandfather, in return for certain monies amounting to three hundred and fourteen pounds and a cup of gold worth forty pounds, the pasturing of certain beasts upon the lands of the peasants of Stapleton, which lands the monks of the priory of St. Michael claimed to hold in fee from the estate of Egerton de Tamville the cousin of Sir Guy de Coucy de Stapleton. The prior of St. Michael’s had threatened with excommunication, not only Sir Guy de Coucy de Stapleton, but also Sir Stanley de Egerton de Tamville, along with the inhabitants of the town of Wishford. And under the threat of this excommunication the jurats of the town of Wishford had withheld payment from Sir Guy of the rent of the knights’ fields, a large stretch of land running up to Groley Woods, a rent amounting by the year to
£4
7 3s. which was claimed, not only by Sir Guy, but by the prior of St. Michael’s, the chapter of the cathedral of Salisbury and the Chancellor of the Queen-Mother Isabella.

“And my lord and husband,” the Lady Blanche continued, having explained all these things now for the hundredth time to the Lady Amoureuse, “my lord and husband, having expended untold money in the prosecution of suits before the portman-mote here, in the Sheriff’s Court at Devizes, upon the sending of solicitors and learned clerks to the King when he was in France and to the Pope in Rome, is now minded out of a childish levity and weariness of the flesh to abandon all these his rights, though he has spent upon the maintaining of them much more than his rights are worth.”

The Lady Blanche paused, expecting some opposition from the Lady Amoureuse, whom she detested because she was as tall, as dark, and less high-coloured than herself. For whereas the Lady Blanche, to attain to the then fashionable paleness, must daub her features with slaked lime, Lady Amoureuse could grow as white as a sheet at the expense of one day’s fasting and one night’s vigil and prayer before the day of any ceremony when she might desire to appear at her most attractive in the eyes of men. The Lady Amoureuse, however, answered nothing, but kept her mournful gaze fixed upon the hills, and the Lady Blanche continued, speaking now in English instead of French.

“My ox of a husband, who can neither increase his family nor yet his gear, will neither go on with his suits, nor yet set his hand to the task of claiming his rights. For if he had been a man in my father’s day, he would have very lightly ended these quarrels. Upon the one hand he would have burned down the convent about the heads of the nuns, and upon the other he would have slit the throats of the priors and going with a strong many to the portman-hall of the citizens of Wishford, he would have taken from them their charters and have torn them into a thousand pieces, so that never more they could have been alleged against him.”

The Lady Amoureuse, with her eyes upon the distant path, exclaimed in a deep, hollow, and mournful voice:

“I think some men of the same mind as you — some brigands or outlaws are pursuing the Sister Lugdwitha, so fast does she gallop upon her white mule.”

At the same moment the watchman set his horn to his lips and blew a hesitating blast that was neither high nor low.

“And behold,” the Lady Blanchemain said, “one comes trotting along the path in a white shift that appears neither man nor woman nor yet priest of Holy Church.”

“What folly is this?” the Lady Blanche exclaimed. And to the watchman, “What read you this pursuer to be that comes with such haste after the Sister Louise?”

The old watchman peered for a long time at the figure. “A beggar it will not be,” he said, “for his robes are too clean. One it might be that had been condemned to do penance in a sheet. Nor yet ‘tis no sheet that he wears, and upon his head is bound a cloth for all the world such as is borne by the pagans that I have seen in the birthplace of our Saviour, and in his hand is a shining something that in the rays of the sun is like the weather-cock upon a church steeple.”

The Lady Amoureuse’s eyes distended romantically. “Should it be,” she said, with her mournful and tragic tones, “the slave of the dead Sir Stanley whom we have so long awaited?”

With her quick dislike for the Lady Amoureuse, the Lady Blanche said sharply, “Pack of nonsense and legends! This is some beggar who is coming along with his clapdish in his hands.”

The little page had stood all the while two steps behind the Ladies Blanchemain and Amoureuse, in the proper attitude, one hand upon his hip, one hand behind his back, and his right leg drawn up so that the point of his long shoe rested upon the ground two inches from his left instep. A fly had alighted upon his nose, but he had not even stirred. Yet, at this moment he could not keep silence, his curiosity overcame him.

“Dear Lady,” he said, and his tones were fluting, his face pink and white, and his curls long and golden, “what is even the truth about the slave of the dead Sir Stanley, for the pages say one thing and the old soldiers another, and the nuns another, and the fathers confessor another. So that by the one he is held to be a magician and by the other an angel, and this is a very marvellous matter and one worthy to be understood.”

“Saucebox!” the Lady Blanche exclaimed haughtily but not so unkindly as she might have. “Our brachets and lap-dogs shall be daring next to ask questions.” Then she turned again upon the Lady Amoureuse and continued: “Nonsense and these follies of chivalry will never be out of your head. I tell you this slave is long since dead and his eyes picked out by ravens, and robbers have taken his cross. It is three months since he left the town of Sandwich, and though the news of his leaving has been with us sixty days, yet he is not here. Surely he is dead.”

“But so sacred a relic is this cross,” the Lady Amoureuse said, “that surely an angel will have walked beside him to render him invisible to evil men by day and to guide him at night.”

“Then if he travelled both by night and day,” the Lady Blanche said, “he would have been here twice the sooner, and he is not here at all.” She looked upon the little foot-page and said suddenly, “Saucebox, follow me into my bower. I will chastise and rebuke you, for it is not well with your bringing up.” And she descended into the narrow stairway that went from the leads down through the thickness of the wall into her own chamber.

This bower of hers took up maybe one half of the watch-tower of the castle, and yet it was not so very large neither. The walls were of bare stone, the small windows looked out on three sides upon the blue air, and the place, though it was then the heat of midsummer, was not so very hot, since the windows had no glass, but only iron bars that had been painted red and white in squares to make them look gay. In this room there was a bed, very large, with pillows of red velvet, curtains of blue cloth, and a coverlet of red fox’s fur. At the foot was a great chest or hutch of oak that was carved half-way across with figures representing the coronation of the Virgin in heaven. This carving was not yet finished, for since it took a long time, and the Lady Blanche had need of the hutch, the carver worked upon it when the chamber was unoccupied. Indeed, upon the stone floor were the shavings and chips that he had that day left behind him. Upon this hutch, at the foot of the bed, which was all there was to sit upon, the Lady Blanche seated herself and remained for a space grinning at the little page who stood blushing and silent before her. His doublet was of old brown fur caught in at the waist by a leather strap and reaching to about the middle of his hips. His stockings were of red wool, fitting very close and being at once stockings and trousers. His shoes were of old green leather, very long and pointed and falling in flaps about his ankles. He was fourteen years old, and having been seen by the Lady Blanche when she was upon a visit to her cousins, the De la Poers of Southampton, four years before, she had asked for and received him as her servant, though till that moment she had taken very small account of him. He had served at her table, he had learned to fight with her many other pages, and one clerk and another had taught him his letters and how to sail eastward to the Holy Land to aid in the perpetual task of recovering and retaining the Sepulchre of our Lord. But Sir Guy having taken off with him to Scotland all the pages who were of fourteen and a half years and upwards, this little Jehan de la Coucy de la Poer had become a servant at her table and the sergeant of all the little boys that she had then in training.

He flushed and flushed again, and rubbed the instep of one leg upon the ankle of another, and at last his lady said, “Little Jehan, talk!”

He said nothing. His colour came and went.

“Little cousin” his lady continued, “talk, chatter! What is it that you find to whisper and to titter about with my ladies? You are at it all the day. Yet I do not see what there is to talk about in this place.”

He was still silent, and large tears filled his eyes.

“Little Jehan, come hither,” the lady said. “Tell me what lady it is that you love.” And she took him by the hand and drew him towards her. She fingered the old shabby fur of his doublet, and the hairs came out upon her hands.

“This is the best clothing that you have?” she said; and then, “Tell me what lady it is that you prize above all others, and whose name you mutter beneath your breath when you turn over in bed in the deep night. Tell me, tell me!”

The little boy burst into tears.

“God is merciful,” he said. “I love my mother and the Virgin.”

“Oh, fie! Oh, fie!” she said,
“
to lie to your lady. Whom is it that you love?”

He continued to sob, and repeated, “My mother and the Virgin, and as God is my life none other.”

“Oh, fie! Oh, fie!” the lady said. “This is very bad. For either you lie to me, which is evil, or you have no lady that you love, which is far worse. For I suppose that now you have become the sergeant of the pages, you will desire shortly to be made a squire, and so to do great feats of arms and grow into a knight. And then you will send letters of challenge to fight other knights in the courts of France, of Navarre, of Spain, or even amongst the Saracens and the knights of Heathenesse, and how will you do all these things without the love of a lady to bear you up? Friend, it is time you bestirred yourself. Why is it that you are so badly clad?”

The little page answered nothing more, and she asked him again several times, “Why is it that you are so unfittingly dressed?”

Once more he burst into tears.

“It is because my little wages are not paid,” he stuttered at last. “It is God’s truth that I would be such a great and famous knight, but I do not know where I should find a lady to love except my mother and the Virgin.”

“Why, go open the door of my closet,” the Lady Blanche said, “that I may see my beloved birds.” Before the foot of the bed was a rough panelling of oaken boards shutting off a portion of the room, and the door of this, creaking upon its iron hinges, the page threw open. There came out an ancient and mouldy smell. Upon three perches there stood two hawks with their hoods over their eyes, and little plumes rising above them, and a lugubrious parrot that nonchalantly opened and shut one eye. Upon smaller pegs in the wall there were, moreover, falconer’s gloves, jesses, straps with little brass bells sewn on to them, and farther along Sir Guy’s tilting helmet, his winter surcoat of fur, and the splintered head of a large lance that Sir Guy had omitted to have repaired in the hurry of his departure for Scotland.

“Why, fetch me my parrot,” the lady said. And whilst the page held out to that depressed green and blue animal a gilt staff towards which the parrot extended an enormous and threatening upper mandible, the lady felt in her bosom for the great key of the hutch. She had opened it, and from amongst a medley of silver vessels, plates, and silken clothes and furs, selected one of the many little bags of cloth embroidered with silk, and she had again closed the solid slab of the lid before the page had succeeded in coaxing the parrot on to his staff. The boy placed the bird upon the lady’s knee, and it climbed slowly up her arm to settle on her shoulder, where from time to time with its long bill lugubriously but gently it nibbled at her ear.

“Now take this purse, my gentle page,” the lady said, “and go when I have done with you to Master Simon the tailor. In the purse are six pounds. You shall buy with them clothes and a little steel cap and gauntlets and breastplates and such other things as are proper for the equipment of a page, and a little horse, and you shall let me see with what discreetness you lay out your money, and you shall tell the tailor and the armourer and the horse merchant that the lady, your mother, has sent you this money that you may be properly equipped because you have been promoted to the sergeantry of pages, and between that time you shall think upon a lady that you may love, and on Sunday you shall wear your new garments, and you shall come to me in them after the dinner is drawn, and I will send my ladies away and you shall tell me what you have devised.” And the Lady Blanche raised her voice towards the little door that ran up the staircase in the wall: