In Convent Walls. Emily Sarah Holt

the Annals of Cicely were Cicely’s fancies and feelings,” he made answer: “this should be what Cicely heard and saw.”

      I sat and meditated thereon.

      “And afore thou wear thy fingers to the bone with thy much scribing,” saith he, with that manner of smile of his eyes which Jack hath, “call thou Father Philip to write at thy mouth, good wife.”

      “Nay, verily!” quoth I. “I would be loth to call off Father Philip from his godly meditations, though I cast no doubt he were both fairer scribe and better chronicler than I.”

      To speak sooth, it was Father Philip learned me to write, and the master should be better than the scholar. I marvel more that have leisure learn not to write. Jack cannot, nor my mother, and this it was that made my said mother desirous to have me taught, for she said, had she wist the same, she could have kept a rare chronicle when she dwelt at the Court, and sith my life was like to be there also, she would fain have me able to do so. I prayed Father Philip to learn my discreet Alice, for I could trust her not to make an ill use thereof; but I feared to trust my giddy little Vivien with such edged tools as Jack saith pen and ink be. And in very sooth it were a dread thing if any amongst us should be entrapped into intelligence with the King’s enemies, or such treasonable matter; and of this are wise men ever afeared, when their wives or daughters learn to write. For me, I were little feared of such matter as that: and should rather have feared (for such as Vivien) the secret scribing of love-letters to unworthy persons. Howbeit, Jack is wiser than I, and he saith it were dangerous to put such power into the hands of most men and women.

      Lo! here again am I falling into the Annals of Cicely. Have back, Dame Cicely, an’ it like you. Methinks I had best win back: yet how shall I get out of the said Annals, and forward on my journey, when the very next thing that standeth to be writ is mine own marriage?

      It was on the morrow of the Epiphany, 1320, that I was wedded to my Jack in the Chapel of York Castle. I have not set down the inwards of my love-tale, nor shall I, for good cause; for then should I not only fall into the Annals of Cicely, but should belike never make end thereof. Howbeit, this will I say,—that when King Edward bestowed me on my Jack, I rather count he had his eyes about him, and likewise that there had been a few little passages that might have justified him in so doing: for Jack was of the household, and we had sat the one by the other at table more than once or twice, and had not always held our tongues when so were. So we were no strangers, forsooth, but pretty well to the contrary: and verily, I fell on my feet that morrow. I am not so sure of Jack. And soothly, it were well I should leave other folks to blow my trumpet, if any care to waste his breath at that business.

      I was appointed damsel of the chamber on my marriage, and at after that saw I far more of the Queen than aforetime. Now and again it was my turn to lie in that pallet in her chamber. Eh, but I loved not that work! I used to feel all out (altogether) terrified when those great dark eyes flashed their shining flashes, and there were not so many nights in the seven that they did not. She was as easy to put out as to shut one’s eyes, but to bring in again—eh, that was weary work!

      I am not like to forget that July even when, in the Palace of Westminster, my Lord of Exeter came to the Queen, bearing the Great Seal. It was a full warm eve, and the Queen was late abed. Joan de Vilers was that night tire-woman, and I was in waiting. I mind that when one scratched on the door, we thought it Master Oliver, and instead of going to see myself, I but bade one of the sub-damsels in a whisper. But no sooner said she,—“Dame, if it shall serve you, here is my Lord of Exeter and Sir Robert de Ayleston,”—than there was a full great commotion. The Queen rose up with her hair yet unbound, and bade them be suffered to enter: and when my Lord of Exeter came in, she—and after her all we of her following—set her on her knees afore him to pray his blessing. This my Lord gave, but something hastily, as though his thoughts were elsewhere. Then said he—

      “Dame, the King sends you the Great Seal, to be kept of you until such time as he shall ask it again.”

      And he motioned forward Sir Robert de Ayleston, that held in his arms the great bag of white leather, wherein was the Great Seal of gold.

      Saw I ever in all my life face change as hers changed then! To judge from her look, she might have been entering the gates of Heaven. (A sorry Heaven, thought I, that gold and white leather could make betwixt them.) Her eyes glowed, and flashed, and danced, all at once: and she sat her down in a chair of state, and received the Seal in her own hands, and saith she—

      “Bear with you my duty to the King my lord, and tell him that I will keep his great charge in safety.”

      So her words ran. But her eyes said—and eyes be apt to speak truer than voices—“This day am I proudest of all the women in England, and I let not go this Seal so long as I can keep it!”

      Then she called Dame Elizabeth, which received the Seal upon the knee, and the Queen bade her commit it to the great cypress coffer wherein her royal robes were kept.

      Not long after that, the Queen took her chamber at the Tower afore the Lady Joan was born; and the Great Seal was then returned to the King’s Wardrobe. Master Thomas de Cherleton was then Comptroller of the Wardrobe: but he was not over careful of his office, and left much in the hands of his clerks; and as at that time Jack was clerk in charge, he was truly Keeper of the Great Seal so long as the Queen abode in the Tower. He told me he would be rare thankful when the charge was over, for he might not sleep o’ nights for thinking on the same. I do think folks in high place, that be set in great charge, should do their own work, and not leave it to them beneath, so that Master Comptroller hath all the credit when things go well, and poor John Clerk payeth all the wyte if things go wrong. But, dear heart! if man set forth to amend all the crooked ways of this world, when shall he ever have done? Maybe if I set a-work to amend me, Cicely, it shall be my best deed, and more than I am like to have done in any hurry.

      Now come I to the Queen’s journey to France in 1324, and my tale shall thereupon grow more particular. The King sent her over to remonstrate with the King of France her brother for his theft of Guienne—for it was no less; and to conclude a treaty with him to restore the same. It was in May she left England and just before that something had happened wherein I have always thought she had an hand. In the August of the year before, Sir Roger de Mortimer brake prison from the Tower, and made good his escape to Normandy; where, after tarrying a small season with his mother’s kinsmen, the Seigneurs de Fienles, he shifted his refuge to Paris, where he was out of the King’s jurisdiction. Now in regard of that matter it did seem to me that King Edward was full childish and unwise. Had his father been on the throne, no such thing had ever happed: he wist how to deal with traitors. But now, with so slack an hand did the King rule, that not only Sir Roger gat free of the Tower by bribing one of his keepers and drugging the rest, but twenty good days at the least were lost while he stale down to the coast and so won away. There was indeed a hue and cry, but it wrought nothing, and even that was not for a week. There was more diligence used to seize his lands than to seize him. And at the end of all, just afore the Queen’s journey, if my Lady Mortimer his wife, that had gone down to Southampton thinking to join him, was not taken and had to Skipton Castle, and the young damsels, her children, that were with her, sent to separate convents! I have ever believed that was the Queen’s doing. It was she that loved not the Lady Mortimer should go to France: it should have interfered with her game. But what weakness and folly was it that the King should hearken her! Well—

      “Soft you, now!”

      “O Jack, how thou didst start me! I very nigh let my pen fall.”

      “Then shouldst thou have inked thy tunic, Sissot; and it were pity, so good Cologne sindon as it is. But whither goest thou with thy goose-quill a-flying, good wife? Who was Sir Roger de Mortimer? and what like was he?”

      “Who was he, Jack?” quoth I, feeling somewhat took aback. “Why, he was—he was Sir Roger de Mortimer.”

      “How like a woman!” saith Jack, setting his hands in the pockets of his singlet.

      “Now, Jack!” said I. “And what was he like, saidst thou? Why, he was as like a traitor, and a wastrel,