CHAPTER NINE.
OVERWHELMED.
"I am a useless and an evil man,-- God planned my life, and let men spoil His plan."
_Isabella Fyvie Mayo_.
Oakham was left behind; and to the surprise of the party--except theCountess, her Prime Minister, Father Miles, and her Foreign Secretary,Felicia--they found themselves lodged in Rochester Castle. Here theCountess shut herself up, and communicated with the outward worldthrough her Cabinet only. All orders were brought to the ladies byFelicia, and were passed to Vivian by Father Miles. The latter wascloseted with his lady for long periods, and rolls of writing appearedto be the result of these conferences.
The winter moved on with leaden feet, according to the ideas of thehousehold, and of Ada more particularly.
"This sort of life is really something dreadful!" said that young lady."If the frost would only break up, it would make something fresh to lookat. There is _nothing_ to be done!"
"Poor Ada!" responded Olympias, laughing. "Do get some needlework."
"I am tired of needlework," answered Ada. "I am tired of everything!"
Felicia came in as the words were spoken.
"I have permission to tell you something," she said, with a light in herblack eyes which Clarice felt sure meant mischief. "The Lady hasappealed to the holy Father for a divorce from the Lord Earl."
"Will she get it?" asked Olympias.
"No doubt of it," replied Felicia dogmatically.
"And if so, what will she do then?" asked Ada.
"Her pious intention," said Felicia, the black eyes dancing, "is tobecome a holy Sister of the Order of the blessed Saint Dominic."
"Then what is to become of the Lord Earl?" queried Olympias. "I supposehe can marry somebody else. I hope he will."
"That is no concern of the Lady's," said Felicia, in a tone of piousseverity. "The religious do not trouble their holy repose aboutexterns, except to offer prayers for their salvation."
"Why, then, we shall all be turned out!" blankly cried Ada. "What is tobecome of us all?"
"What will become of me is already settled," replied Felicia demurely."I am about to make profession in the same convent with my mistress."
"Thank the saints!" reached Clarice's ears in a whisper from Olympias,and was deliberately echoed in the heart of the former.
"But that will never do for me!" exclaimed Ada. "I am sure I have novocation. What am I to do?"
"The Lady proposes, in her goodness," said the Countess's mouthpiece,"to get thee an appointment in the household of one of the Ladies theKing's daughters."
"_Ha, jolife_!" said Ada, and ceased her interjections.
"For you, Dames," continued Felicia, turning to Clarice and Olympias,"she says that, being wedded, you are already provided for, and need nothought on her part."
"Oh, then, I may go back to Oakham," answered Olympias in a satisfiedtone. "That is what I want."
Clarice wondered sorrowfully what her lot would be--whether she mightreturn to Oakham. She felt more at home there than anywhere else. Thequestion was whether, Clarice being now at large, Vivian would continuein the Earl's service; and even if he did, they might perhaps no longerlive in the Castle. Clarice took this new trouble where she carriedthem all; but the Earl's sorrow was more in her mind than her own. Shewas learning to cultivate:--
"A heart at leisure from itself, To soothe and sympathise."
She found that Vivian had already heard the news from Father Miles, andshe timidly ventured to ask him what he intended to do.
After a few flights of rhetoric concerning the extreme folly of theCountess--to forsake an earldom for the cloister was a proceeding not inVivian's line at all--that gentleman condescended so far to answer hiswife as to observe that he was not fool enough not to know when he waswell off. Clarice thankfully conjectured that they would return toOakham. She thought it better, however, to ask the question pointblank; and she received a reply--of course accompanied by a snub.
"Why should we be such fools as to go to Oakham when my Lord is inBermondsey?"
"Bermondsey!" Clarice was surprised. "You never know anything!" saidVivian. "Of course he is come to town."
Clarice received the snubbing in silence. "You are so taken up withthat everlasting brat of yours," added Rose's affectionate father, "thatyou never know what anybody else is doing."
There had been a time when Clarice would have defended herself againstsuch accusations. She was learning now that she suffered least when shereceived them in meek silence. The only way to deal with VivianBarkeworth was to let him alone.
Two long letters went to the Pope that February; one was from theCountess, the other from the Earl. They are both yet extant, and theyshow the character of each as no description could set it forth.
The Countess's letter is a mixture of pious demureness and querulousselfishness. She tells the Pope that all her life she has intenselydesired to be a nun: that she is, unhappily, in the irreligious positionof a matron, and, moreover, is the suffering wife of an impious husband.This sinful man requires of her--of her, a soul devoted to religion--that she shall behave as if she belonged to the wicked world which holdshimself within its thrall, and shall sacrifice God to him. She humblyand fervently entreats the holy Father to grant her a divorce from thesebonds of matrimony which so cruelly oppress her, and to set her soulfree that it may soar upwards unrestrained. It is the letter of a womanwho did wish to serve God, but who was incapable of recognising that itwas possible to do it without shutting herself up in stone walls, andstarving body and soul alike.
The Earl's letter is of an entirely different calibre. He tells thePope in his turn that he is wedded to a woman whom he dearly loves, andwho resolutely keeps him at arm's length. She will not make a friend ofhim, nor behave as a good wife ought to do. This is all he asks of her;he is as far as can be from wishing to be unkind to her or to cross herwishes. He only wants her to live with him on reasonable and ordinaryterms. But she--and here the Earl's irrepressible humour breaks out; hemust see the comical side even of his own sorest trouble, and certainlythis had its comical side--she will not sit next to him at table, butinsists on putting her confessor between; she will not answer Yes or Noto his simplest question, but invariably returns the answer through athird person. When she goes into her private apartments, she turns thekey in his face. Does the holy Father think this is the way that arational wife ought to behave to her own husband? and will he notremonstrate with her, and induce her to use him a little more kindly andreasonably than she does? The Earl's letter is that of an injured andjustly provoked man; of a man who loves his wife too well to coerce orquarrel with her, and who thoroughly perceives the absurdity of hisposition no less than its pain. Yet he does feel the pain bitterly, andhe would do anything to end it.
This letter to the Patriarch of Christendom was his last hope.Entreaties, remonstrances, patient tenderness, loving kindness, all hadproved vain. Now:--
"He had set his life upon a cast, And he must run the hazard of the die."
Weary and miserable weeks they were, during which Earl Edmund waited thePope's answer. It came at last. The Pope replied as only a Romishpriest could be expected to reply. For the human anguish of the one hehad no sympathy; for the quasi-religious sorrows of the other he hadvery much. He decreed, in the name of God, a full divorce betweenEdmund Earl of Cornwall, and Margaret his wife, coldly admonishing theEarl to take the Lord's chastening in good part, and to let the griefsof earth lift his soul towards Heaven.
But it was not there that this sorrow lifted it at first. The humanagony had to be lived through before the Divine calm and peace couldcome to heal it. His last effort had been made in vain. The passionatehope of twenty years, that the day would come when his long, patientlove should meet with its reward even on earth, was shattered to thedust. Even if she wished to come back after this, she could neverretrace her steps. Compensation he might find in Heaven, but therecould be none left for
him on earth now. Even hope was dead within him.
The fatal Bull fell from the Earl's hand, and dropped a dead weight onthe rushes at his feet. He was a heart-wrecked man, and life had to goon.
Was this man--for his is no fancy picture--a poor weak creature, or washe a strong, heroic soul? Many will write him down the weakling;perhaps all but those who have themselves known much of that hopedeferred which maketh the heart sick, and drains away the morallife-blood drop by drop. It may be that the registers of Heaven heldappended to his name a different epithet. It is harder to wait than towork; hardest of all to awake after long suspense to the blankconviction that all has been in vain, and then to take up the cross andmeekly follow the Crucified.
Two hours later, a page brought a message to Reginald de Echingham tothe effect that he was wanted by his master.
Reginald, in his own eyes, was a thoroughly miserable man. He hadnobody to talk with, and nothing to do. He missed Olympias sadly, foras the Earl had once jestingly remarked, she burnt perpetual incense onhis altar, and flattery was a necessary of life to Reginald. Olympiaswas the only person who admired him nearly as much as he did himself.Like the old Romans, _partem et circenses_ constituted his list ofindispensables; and had it been inevitable to dispense with one of themfor a time, Reginald would have resigned the bread rather than the game.On this particular morning, his basket of grievances was full. Thedamp had put his moustache out of curl; he had found a poor breakfastprovided for him--and Reginald was by no means indifferent to hisbreakfast--and, worst of all, the mirror was fixed so high up on thewall that he could not see himself comfortably. The usual religiousrites of the morning before his own dear image had, therefore, to bevery imperfectly performed. Reginald grumbled sorely within himself ashe went through the cold stone passages which led to the Earl's chamber.
His master lifted very sad eyes to his face.
"De Echingham, I wish to set out for Ashridge to-morrow. Can you beready?"
Ashridge! De Echingham would as soon have received marching orders forSpitzbergen. If there were one place in the world which he hated in hisinmost soul, it was that Priory in Buckinghamshire, which Earl Edmundhad himself founded. He would be worse off there than even inBermondsey Palace, with nothing around him but silent walls and almostequally silent monks. De Echingham ventured on remonstrance.
"Would not your Lordship find Berkhamsted much more pleasurable,especially at this season?"
"I do not want pleasure," answered the Earl wearily. "I want rest."
And he rose and began to walk aimlessly up and down the room, in thatrestless manner which was well suited to emphasise his words.
"But--your Lordship's pardon granted--would you not find it far betterto seek for distraction and pleasance in the Court, than to shutyourself up in a gloomy cell with those monks?"
Earl Edmund stopped in his walk and looked at Reginald, whose speechtouched his quick sense of humour.
"I would advise you to give thanks in your prayers to-night, DeEchingham."
"For what, my Lord?"
"That you have as yet no conception of a sorrow which is pastdistraction by pleasance. `Vinegar upon nitre!' You never tasted it, Ishould think."
"I thank your Lordship, I never did," said Reginald, who took theallusion quite literally.
"Well, I have done, and I did not like it," rejoined his master. "Iprefer the monks' _soupe maigre_, if you please. Be so good as to makeready, De Echingham."
Reginald obeyed, but grumbling bitterly within his disappointed soul.Could there be any misery on earth worse than a cold stone bench, a bowlof sorrel soup, and a chapter of Saint Augustine to flavour it? Andwhen they had only just touched the very edge of the London season!Why, he would not get a single ball that spring. Poor Reginald!
They stayed but one night at Berkhamsted, though, to the Earl,Berkhamsted was home. It was the scene of his birth, and of thatblessed unapprehensive childhood, when brothers and sisters had playedwith him on the Castle green, and light, happy laughter had rung throughthe noble halls; when the hand of his fair Provencal mother had fallensoftly in caresses on his head, and his generous, if extravagant, fatherhad been only too ready to shower gold ducats in anticipation of hisslightest wish. All was gone now but the cold gold--hard, silent,unfeeling; a miserable comforter indeed. There was one brother left,but he was far away--too far to recall in this desolate hour. Like asufferer of later date, he must go alone with his God to bear hispassion. [Note 1.]
The Priory of Ashridge--of the Order of Bonihomines--which Earl Edmundhad founded a few years before, was the only one of its class inEngland. The Predicant Friars were an offshoot of the Dominican Order;and the Boni-Homines were a special division of the Predicant Friars.It is a singular fact that from this one source of Dominicans or BlackMonks, sprang the best and the worst issues that ever emanated frommonachism--the Bonihomines and the Inquisition.
The Boni-Homines were, in a word, the Protestants of the Middle Ages.And--a remarkable feature--they were not, like all other seceders,persons who had separated themselves from the corruptions of Rome. Theywere better off, for they had never been tainted with them. From thefirst ages of primitive Christianity, while on all sides the stream wasgradually growing sluggish and turbid, in the little nest of valleysbetween Dauphine and Piedmont it had flowed fresh and pure, fed by theWord of God, which the Vaudois [Note 2] mountaineers suffered no Popenor Church to wrench or shut up from them.
The oldest name by which we know these early Protestants is Paulikians,probably having a reference to the Apostle Paul as either the exponentof their doctrines, or the actual founder of their local church. Alittle later we find them styled Cathari, or Pure Ones. Then we come ontheir third name of Albigenses, derived from the neighbouring town ofAlby, where a Council was held which condemned them. But by whatevername they are called they are the same people, living in the samevalleys, and holding unwaveringly and unadulterated the same faith.
It was by their fourth name of Boni-Homines, or Good Men, that they tookadvantage of the preaching movement set up by the Dominicans in thethirteenth century. They permeated their ranks, however, very graduallyand quietly--perhaps all the more surely. For shortly after the date ofthis story, in the early part of the fourteenth century, it is said thatof every three Predicant Friars, two were Bonihomines.
The Boni-Homines were rife in France before they ever crept intoEngland; and the first man to introduce them into England was Edmund,Earl of Cornwall. A hundred years later, when the Boni-Homines hadshown what they really were, and the leaven with which they hadsaturated society had evolved itself in Lollardism, the monks of otherOrders did their best to bring both the movement and the men intodisrepute, and to paint in the blackest colours the name of the Princewho had first introduced them into this country. In no monkishchronicle, unless written by a Bonus Homo, will the name of Earl Edmundbe found recorded without some word of condemnation. And theBoni-Homines, unfortunately for history, were not much given to writingchronicles. Their business was saving souls.
Most important is it to remember, in forming just estimates of thecharacter of things--whether men or events--in the Middle Ages, thatwith few exceptions monks were the only historians. Before we cantruthfully set down this man as good, or that man as bad, we must,therefore, consult other sources--the chronicles of those few writerswho were not monks, the State papers, but above all, where accessible,the personal accounts and private letters of the individuals inquestion. It is pitiable to see well-meaning Protestant writers, evenin our _own_ day, repeating after each other the old monkish calumnies,and never so much as pausing to inquire, Are these things so?
Late on the evening of the following day the Prior and monks of Ashridgestood at the gate ready to receive their founder. The circumstances ofhis coming were unknown to them, and they were prepared to make it atriumphal occasion. But the first glance at his face altered all that.The Prior quietly waved his monks back, and, going forward himself,
kissed his patron's hand, and led him silently into the monastery.
Poor Sir Reginald found himself condemned to all the sorrows he hadanticipated, down to the sorrel soup--for it was a vigil--and the strawmattress, which, though considerably softer than the plank beds of themonks, was barely endurable to his ease-loving limbs. He looked as hefelt--extremely uncomfortable and exceedingly cross.
The Prior wasted no attentions on him. Such troubles as these were notworth a thought in his eyes; but his founder's face cost him manythoughts. He saw too plainly that for him had come one of those dreadhours in life when the floods of deep waters overflow a man, and unlessGod take him into the ark of His covenant mercy, he will go down in thecurrent. It was after some hours of prayer that the Prior tapped at thedoor of the royal guest.
Earl Edmund's quiet voice bade him enter.
"How fares it with my Lord?"
"How is it likely to fare," was the sorrowful answer, "with one who hathlost hope?"
The Prior sat down opposite his guest, where he might have theopportunity of studying his countenance. He was himself the senior ofthe Earl, being a man of about sixty years--a man in whom there had beena great deal of fire, and in whose dark, gleaming eyes there were manysparks left yet.
"Father," said the Earl, in a low, pained voice, "I am perplexed tounderstand God's dealings with me."
"Did you expect to understand them?" was the reply.
"Thus far I did--that I thought He would finish what He had begun. Butall my life--so far as this earthly life is concerned--I have beenstriving for one aim, and it has come to utter wreck. I set one objectbefore me, and I thought--I _thought_ it was God's will that I shouldpursue it. If He, by some act of His own providence, had shown me thecontrary, I could have understood it better. But He has let men step inand spoil all. It is not He, but they who have brought about thiswreck. My barge is not shattered by the winds and waves of God, butscuttled by the violence of pirates. My life is spoiled, and I do notunderstand why. I have done nothing but what I thought He intended meto do: I have set my heart on one thing, but it was a thing that Ibelieved He meant to give me. It is all mystery to me."
"What is spoiled, my Lord? Is it what God meant you to do, or what youmeant God to do?"
The sand grew to a larger heap in the hour-glass before another word wasspoken.
"Father," said the Prince at last, "have I been intent on following myown will, when I thought I was pursuing the Lord's will for me? FatherBevis thinks so: he gave me some very hard words before I came here. Heaccuses me of idolatry; of loving the creature more than the Creator--nay, of setting up my will and aim, and caring nothing for those of theLord. In his eyes, I ought to have perceived years ago that God calledme to a life apart with Him, and to have detached my heart from all butHimself and His Church. Father, it is hard enough to realise the wreckof all a man hoped and longed for: yet it is harder to know that thevery hope was sin, that the longing was contrary to the Divine purposefor me. Have I so misunderstood my life? Have I so misunderstood myMaster?"
The expression of the Prior's eyes was very pitying and full oftenderness. Hard words were not what he thought needed as the medicinefor that patient. They were only to be expected from Father Bevis, whohad never suffered the least pang of that description of pain.
"My Lord," answered the Prior, gently, "it is written of the wicked man,`Thou hast removed Thy judgments from his eyes.' They are not to beseen nor fathomed by him. And to a great extent it is equally true ofthe righteous man. Man must not look to be able to comprehend the waysof God--they are above him. It is enough for him if he can walksubmissively in them."
"I wonder," said the Earl, still pursuing his own train of thought, "ifI ought to have been a monk. I never imagined it, for I never felt anyvocation. It seemed to me that Providence called me to a life entirelydifferent. Have I made an utter blunder all my life? I cannot thinkit."
"There is no need to think it, my Lord. We cannot all be monks, even ifwe would. And why should we? It might, perhaps, be better for you tothink one other thing."
"What?" asked the Earl, with more appearance of interest than he hadhitherto shown.
"That what you suppose to be the spoiling of your life is just what Godintended for you."
The Earl's face grew dark. "What! that all my life long He was leadingme up to _this_?"
"It looks like it," said the Prior, quietly.
"Oh! but why?"
"Now, my Lord, you go beyond me. Neither you nor I can guess that. ButHe knows."
"Yes, I suppose He knows." But the consideration did not seem tocomfort him as it had done before when suggested by Father Bevis.
"Perhaps," said the Prior again, softly, "there was no other way foryour Lordship to the gate of the Holy City. He leads us by diverseways; some through the flowery mead, and some over the desert sandswhere no water is. But of all it is written, `He led them forth by theright way, that they might reach the haven of their desire.' Would yourLordship have preferred the mead and have missed the haven?"
"No," answered the Earl, firmly.
"Remember that you hold God's promise that when you awake up after Hislikeness you shall be satisfied with it. And he is not satisfied withhis purchase who accounts it to have cost more than it was worth."
"Will your figure hold if pressed further?" said the Earl, with a wintrysmile. "The purchase may be worth a thousand marks, but if I have butfive hundred in the world I shall starve to death before the gem ismine."
"No, my Lord, it will not hold. For you cannot pay the price of thatgem. The cost of it was His who will keep it safe for you, so that youcannot fling it away in mistake or folly. Figures must fail somewhere;and we want another in this case. My Lord, you are the gem, and theheavenly Graver is fashioning on you the King's likeness. Will you stayHis hand before it is perfect?"
"I would it were near perfection!" sighed the Earl.
"Perhaps it is," said the Prior, gently. "Remember, it is your Fatherwho is graving it."
The Earl's lip quivered. "If one could but know when it would be done!If one might know that in seven years--ten years--it would be complete,and one's heart and brain might find rest! But to think of its going onfor twenty, thirty, forty--"
"They will look short enough, my Lord, when they are over."
"True. But not while they are passing."
"Nay, `No chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous.' Yet `faintnot when thou art rebuked of Him.'"
"It is the going on, that is so terrible!" said the Earl, almost underhis breath. "If one might die when one's hope dies! Father, do youknow anything of that?"
"In this world, my Lord, I dug a grave in mine own heart for all myhopes, forty years ago."
"And can you look back on that time calmly?"
"That depends on what you mean by calmness. Trustfully, yes;indifferently, no."
"Yet the religious say that God requires their affections to be detachedfrom the world. That must produce deadness of feeling."
"My Lord, there is such a thing as being alive from the dead. That iswhat God requires. If we tarry at the dying, we shall stop short of Hisperfection. We are to be dead to sin; but I nowhere find in Scripturethat we are to die to love and happiness. That is man's gloss uponGod's precept."
"Is that what you teach in your valleys?"
"We teach God's Word," said the Vaudois Prior. "Alas! for the men thathave made it void through their tradition! `If they speak not accordingthereunto, it is because there is no light in them.'"
"And you learn--" suggested the Earl in a more interested tone.
"We learn that God requires of His servants that they shall overcome theworld; and He has told us what He means by the world--`The lust of theflesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.' Whatever hasbecome that to me, that am I to overcome, if I would reign with Christwhen He cometh."
We Protestants can hardly understand the fearful extent to whic
h Romebinds the souls of her votaries. When she goes so far--which she rarelydoes--as to hold out God's Word with one hand, she carries in the otheran antidote to it which she calls the interpretation of the Church,derived from the consent of the Fathers. That the Fathers scarcely everconsent to anything does not trouble her. According to thisinterpretation, all human affection comes for monk or nun under the headof the lusts of the flesh. [Note 3.] A daughter's love for her mother,a father's for his child, is thus branded. From his cradle Earl Edmundhad been taught this; was it any marvel if he found it impossible to getrid of the idea? The Prior's eyes were less blinded. He had comestraight from those Piedmontese valleys where, from time immemorial, theWord of God has not been bound, and whosoever would has been free toslake his thirst at the pure fountain of the water of life. Love wasnot dead in his heart, and he was not ashamed of it.
"But then, Father, you must reckon all love a thing to be left behind?"very naturally queried the Earl.
"It will not be so in Heaven," answered the Prior; "then why should itbe on earth? Left behind! Think you I left behind me the one love ofmy life when I became a Bonus Homo? I trow not. My Lord, forty yearsago this summer, I was a young man, just entering life, and betrothed toa maiden of the Val Pellice. God laid His hand upon my hopes of earthlyhappiness, and said, `Not so!' But must I, therefore, sweep myAdelaide's memory out of my heart as if I had never loved her, and holdit sin against God to bear her sweet face in tender remembrance? Nay,verily, I have not so learned Christ."
"What happened?" said the Earl.
"God sent His angels for her," answered the Prior in a low voice.
"Ah, but she loved you!" was the response, in a tone still lower. TheEarl did not know how much, in those few words, he told the Prior ofAshridge.
"My Lord," said the Prior, "did you ever purchase a gift for one youloved, and keep it by you, carefully wrapped up, not letting him knowtill the day came to produce it?"
The Earl looked up as if he did not see the object of the question; buthe answered in the affirmative.
"It may be," continued the Prior, "that God our Father does the same attimes. I believe that many will find gifts on their Father's table, atthe great marriage-feast of the Lamb, which they never knew they were tohave, and some which they fancied were lost irrevocably on earth. Andif there be anything for which our hearts cry out that is not waitingfor us, surely He can and will still the craving."
The Prior scarcely realised the effect of his words. He saw afterwardsthat the most painful part of the Earl's grief was lightened, that theterrible strain was gone from his eyes. He thanked God and tookcourage. He did not know that he had, to some extent, given him backthe most precious thing he had lost--hope. He had only moved it furtheroff--from earth to Heaven; and, if more distant, yet it was safer there.
The Prior left the Earl alone after that interview--alone with theEvangelisterium and the Psalter. The words of God were better for himthan any words of men.
He stayed at Ashridge for about a fortnight, and then, to the ecstasy ofSir Reginald, issued orders for return to Berkhamsted. Only a few wordspassed between the Prior and his patron as they took leave of each otherat the gate.
"Farewell, Father, and many thanks. You have done me good--as much goodas man can do me now."
"My Lord, that acknowledgment is trust money, which I will pay into thetreasury of your Lord and mine."
So they parted, to meet only once again. The Vaudois Prior was to godown with his friend to the river-side, to the last point where man cango with man.
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Note 1. "Je vais seul avec mon Dieu souffrir ma passion."--Bonnivard,Prior of Saint Victor.
Note 2. Vaudois is not really an accurate epithet, since the"Valley-Men" only acquired it when, in after years, ejected, from theirold home, they sought shelter in the Pays de Vaud. But it has come tobe regarded as a name expressive of certain doctrines.
Note 3. "They (the Jesuits) were cut off from family and friends.Their vow taught them to forget their father's house, and to esteemthemselves holy only when every affection and desire which nature hadplanted in their breasts had been plucked up by the roots."(_Jesuitism_, by the Reverend J.A. Wylie, Ll.D.) This statement issimply a shade less true of the other monastic orders.
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