Delphi Works of Ford Madox Ford (Illustrated) (538 page)

In the middle of that dispute came the Countess Maud a knocking at the door. She cried out that it was not to be thought of that this lady should leave their Castle in that wise. She, the Countess, had done as best she might to make hospitality for that lady, and it would be an ill discourtesy if she left them so. This Countess Maud, daughter of Sir Herbert Stanley, Earl of Bedford, was of the South parts, and she was amazed at all these clamours. Indeed she had not well understood all that had been said, for when the Earl and the Lady Margaret had become heated they spoke in the Northern fashion of which she knew nothing. So the Countess said again that she had done all she knew to do honour to that her guest. If she had fallen short of due hospitality, very gladly she would amend it. This Countess was a large, white woman that had once been very fair. And she wrung her hands.

Then the Lady Margaret laughed and bade peremptorily John Bellingham to bid her men arm themselves and lie all together under arms, for they had been scattered about the Castle. And, at all those noises the women of the Lady Margaret awakened and came into the little room where they slept; two were in their shifts and one had her bed clothes about her. Then the Lady Margaret bade them dress themselves and lie down upon their beds; but to be ready. After that she answered the Countess Maud that her entertainment had been such as she had seldom had before, lacking nothing, but with certain dishes added, that in their rough North parts they had seldom seen before though they had heard of them. Such were the scents in the water for washing hands, the golden apples of Spain, and the fowl called a Turkey. And indeed the Countess had made her great cheer. Nevertheless, since eating these things she and the Earl had become sworn enemies, and it would be contrary to the rules of hospitality if she stayed longer in that Castle.

The Countess wrung her hands again and said, “What was this of making enemies and why could they not live amicably together as cousins did in the South?” The Lady Margaret laughed and answered that if the people of the South were better than they of the North in these matters, then they were better than God meant men to be; nevertheless she was glad of it.

Then came John Bellingham, who by now understood the danger of the matter, to say that the Lady Margaret’s men were all together and armed in a room in a wall by the postern gate and at the foot of a stairway just beside that lady’s chamber-room. Then the Lady Margaret bade him let her men lie down upon straw in that room; but upon any sound that the Percy’s men were arming or at any movement of lights in the Castle, he should come at once to her.

Then the Countess Maud asked what was this, for she had not understood what had passed between the lady and her ancient, by reason that they spoke in the Northern tongue. Then came a knocking at the door and the dame Bellingham said that there stood the Earl Percy in his night-gown. So the Lady Margaret said that was what she feared — that the Earl should come down at night with amorous proposals; but she was jesting. The Countess did not know this and she went to the door and began to cry out upon that lord for desiring to dishonour her.

Then between the two of them came a great clamour, the Countess holding to that, and the Earl crying out that she was a fool and that this matter might lead to the deaths of them all if she would not let him come in to speak to the Lady Margaret. This the Countess did not wish to allow, for the Countess Maud had no comprehension at all of what all this trouble was about, and it seemed to her to be nonsense to say, as her lord did, that this matter might lead to the deaths of them all.

Nevertheless, when the Lady Margaret heard those words she laughed very silently but long to herself. For she knew that now, if she could come out of the Castle and get safe away, she had a power that might well drive that Earl to do all that she wished later, or some of it.

Henry, Earl Percy, had indeed said much and so much to his kinswoman in his anger. For it was indeed his intention, secret but resolute, to break the power of all the barons and great nobles in the North, so that King Henry VII should be almighty and himself the King’s viceregent. When the day came there would be indeed no end to his power in those parts, for the King would be very distant and there would be no one to oppose him. So he fomented all the quarrels that he could amongst these people, and he had seen with joy the troubles that were afoot about the Castle Lovell.

But as yet he was not ready; for all these people were still very strong in armed men, wealth and lands, and, if they joined together they might well overset both himself and King Henry VII with him. Thus he wished he had bitten his tongue out before ever, in his anger, he had revealed what was his secret design to his cousin. For the Lady Margaret was a great gadabout and, if he could not come to her, either to modify what he had said or to bind her to secrecy, there would not be a Dacre or a Eure or a Widdrington that would not soon know the worst of his design.

He had sought his bed, but his pillow had seemed to be of nettles, and since he had discerned that it might be her design to ride away early, he had sought her chamber door to have speech with her. He did not in truth know what to do. He was very willing to have laid her by the heels and to keep her a prisoner in that tower. But he was afraid that that might bring about his ears a hornet’s nest of his cousins, and even it might bring him reproof from the King. The King was not at all willing or ready to have the whole of Northumberland rise upon him at that time. Nay, Henry VII had bidden him to be very careful that, whilst he weakened these troublesome people as much as he could, he should rouse their anger as little as he might.

All this, laughing behind the door, the Lady Margaret knew very well, even to the fact that the Lord Percy might come to shutting her up in prison. But she knew that, whilst the silly Countess kept him crying at the door, he could not bid his men to arm against her, and whilst her men were armed and his not, he could do little or nothing at all. They could all go out at the postern gate and so into the trackless sedges of the sea and the marches. Moreover, the Percy and his Countess were such married people that, upon any occasion they quarrelled furiously and at great length and so they did now.

For the Countess was well begun upon her grievances such as, as how the Earl had dealt with his lands of her dowry, as to the little attention he paid her as his wife, as to the fact that she had no more than four damask dresses and, very particularly, as to the store he set by one of her ladies called Isabel. And at the last she pushed the door to against his resistance and set the bar across it.

The Earl thundered upon it very violently but in the end he went away. The Lady Margaret did as best she might to comfort the Countess Maud until at last John Bellingham came to tell her that people were astir in the Castle with some lights, though whether they were about arming themselves or getting ready for the day and the hay harvest, he could not well say. But indeed the Earl Percy had twice ordered his men to arm and seize the lady and twice he ordered them to desist, during that night; for he was in a very great quandary.

So the Lady Margaret went down the little stairway, after she had roused her women, and found her men by the postern gate. The keeper of the gate did not dare to withhold the keys for he knew that they, being thirty to one, could slay him very peacefully.

When they had walked from the walls of that Castle over the bridge and two good gunshots beyond and the day was beginning to break, they all stood together upon a little mound, and the Lady Margaret sent a little boy called Piers, that was her kinsman and page, back to the Castle to ask for their horses. For they could not have taken horses out by the postern way which went narrowly down twisting steps. She did not think that the Earl would dare to come and take her there. It would have been too great an outrage, to set upon a lady of her quality in the open; besides, being thirty and more, they would be able to give account of themselves and no doubt get away by tracks that John Bellingham knew very well. So the ladies sat down upon shields of the men-at-arms, for the grass was wet with the night’s dew, and they watched the dawn come up over the sea and across the wide stretches of the Coquet river. The Lady Margaret and her handmaidens made merry and played a game with white stones that they picked up; but the old lady Bellingham moaned and grumbled a great deal, for she was weary with having watched and stiff with the rawness of the air.

So, after a time, when it was quite light, the page called Piers came back. He reported that at first the Earl had been in a great rage and had threatened to hamstring all the Lady Margaret’s horses; but, afterwards, he had seemed to change his mind and had given orders that all the horses should be sent out to her. Moreover, he sent her word that, if she would come back into the Castle he would give her news of the Young Lovell, for his receiver, John Harbottle, had sent him, through the night a messenger from Alnwick with very certain tidings, and these she should have and might make a treaty with the Earl if she would go back.

But she believed this to be more lying in order to get her back into his power; so she sent ten of her men to fetch the horses from the Castle gate and very soon they perceived all the horses come round the Castle wall, to the number of thirty-two with eleven mules. The Lady Margaret rode a tall horse called Christopher, a brown, that she loved, and John Bellingham had another tall horse. But the old lady and the three maids had mules, and there were seven pack mules that carried the Lady Margaret’s hangings, furnishings for her room if she slept in an inn, her dresses and much things of value as she would not willingly leave in the Tower of Glororem. The men-at-arms rode little, nimble horses, such as the false Scots had, very fit for picking their way amongst springs, heather and the stones of hillsides. This lady could not bring herself to believe that her true love was not dead, so that, although she laughed and jested to keep up the hearts of her maids, as her plain duty was, within herself she was a very sad woman.

When the sun was off the horizon they broke their fast with small beer and cheese that they got from a husbandman’s tower near Acklington, for they were sticking inland. This husbandman advised them to go by way of Eshot Hill and Helm, for, by reason of the dry weather, the road from this latter place to Morpeth was very good travelling, and it ran straight. The Lady Margaret was minded to sleep that night at Newcastle, which would be twenty-four miles more or less, for she had no haste to be in one place more than another. She had little pleasure in life; although she wished to rescue the Lady Rohtraut she thought this could only be done by means of the Lady Dacre, her mother, that had been a Princess of Croy. And, from the news she had, it was very unlikely that that ancient lady would reach her house in the city of Durham before that night or the next day.

So, as they rode between the fields, the sun rose up — its rays poured down fiercely and smote on them. It was marvellously hot weather, so that those ladies must at first lay off their gray cloaks and then open their shifts at the neck and fan themselves with their neckerchers. A great langour descended upon the Lady Margaret; her head ached sorely and her sadness grew unbearable.

And all, even to the men-at-arms and the page Piers, complained of the great heat and because they had had little sleep the night before, and the ladies yawned and half slept upon their mules. So, when they came to a little green hill where ash trees climbed to the top, the Lady Margaret said, out of compassion to them, that when they were at the top of the hill, so that they could see the flat country all round, they might get down from their horses and mules and sleep the noontide away in the shade. And so they did.

The men-at-arms got down from the sumpter mules mattresses that the ladies might lie upon them, and there, in a shady grove, they lay and slept. The men set their backs against trees and let their heads fall forward between their knees. One or two were set to walk as sentries outside that wood, to watch the flat country below, so that no sound was heard in that little wood save the light noises of steel and of buckles clinking as the watchmen walked. And so they lay a long time, all recumbent, some covering their faces with their arms, some casting them abroad.

The Lady Margaret awakened from a slumber, and the sun had climbed far round in the heaven. Then she perceived a lady watching her through the trees and smiling. So beautiful and smiling a lady she had never seen. She stood between the stems of two white birch trees and leaned upon one, with her arm over her head in an attitude of great leisure. The Lady Margaret rose from her mattress and went towards that lady; she had never felt so humble, nor had her eyes ever so gladdened her at the sight of the handiwork of God.

Then that lady walked through the wood, very light of foot, so that the long grass was hardly trampled at all, and no briars caught at her gown. Yet the Lady Margaret could not overtake her. So that lady came to the edge of the wood and the hill to the west, looking over the tower called Helm, where the white road ran southward and the green lands swung up towards the distant hills. And here there was a white charger and a great company of ladies-in-waiting, all very beautiful, in gowns of sea-blue silk with girdles of silver and gold. The Lady Margaret had never seen so fair a company, though she had seen the Queen of Richard Crookback with all her court. Then it seemed to her that that lady pointed down into the plain as if she wanted to show her lover and her lord. On the road that came from the North, the Lady Margaret perceived one that she knew for a knight, by the sun upon his armour, and a monk that walked beside him. And a mile behind, by the cloud of dust that rose, she knew there were men-at-arms, and perceived their spears above the dust. The Lady Margaret knew that this must be the other lady’s husband, for certainly such a troop of fair women would never ride abroad in that dangerous country without men to guard them.