In Convent Walls. Emily Sarah Holt

      “Lack-a-day! I am aweary of living in this world!”

      “Well, if so,” saith Dame Elizabeth, peacefully waxing her thread, “you had best look about for a better.”

      “Nay!” quoth she, “how to get there?”

      “Ask my Lord of Winchester,” saith Dame Isabel.

      “I shall lack the knowledge ill ere I trouble him,” she made answer. “Is it he with the Queen this even?”

      “There’s none with the Queen!” quoth Dame Isabel, as sharp as if she should have snapped her head off.

      Dame Joan looked up in some astonishment.

      “Dear heart!” said she, “I thought I heard voices in her chamber.”

      “There was one with her,” answereth Meliora, “when I passed the door some minutes gone.”

      “Maybe the visitor is gone,” said I. “As I came in but now, I met one coming forth.”

      “Who were it, marry?” quoth Dame Joan.

      “It was none of the household,” said I. “A tall, personable man, wrapped in a great cloak, wherewith he hid his face; but whether it were from me or from the November even, that will I not say.”

      “There hath been none such here,” saith Dame Elizabeth.

      “Not in this chamber,” saith Meliora.

      “Meliora Servelady!” Dame Isabel made answer, “who gave thee leave to join converse with thy betters?” (Note 10).

      The sub-damsel looked set down for a minute, but nought ever daunted her for long. She was as pert a little maid as ever I knew, and but little deserved her name of Meliora. (Ah me, is this another hare? Have back.)

      “There hath been none of any sort come to the Queen to-day,” said Dame Isabel, in so angered a tone that I began at once to marvel who had come of whom she feared talk.

      “Nay, but there so hath!” makes response Dame Joan: “have you forgot Master Almoner that was with her this morrow nigh an hour touching his accounts?—and Ralph Richepois with his lute after dinner?”

      “Marry, and the Lady Gibine, Prioress of Oremont,” addeth Dame Elizabeth.

      “And the two Beguines—” began Meliora; but she ended not, for Dame Isabel boxed her ears.

      “Ay, and Jack Bonard, that she sent with letters to the Queen of France,” saith Dame Joan.

      “Yea, and Ivo le Breton came a-begging, yon poor old man that had served her when a child,” made answer Dame Elizabeth.

      “And Ma—” Poor Meliora got no further, for Dame Isabel gave her a buffet on the side of her head that nigh knocked her off the form. I could not but think that some part of that buffet was owing to us three, though Meliora had it all. But what so angered Dame Isabel, that might I not know.

      At that time came the summons to supper, so the matter ended. But as supper was passing, Dame Joan de Vaux, by whom I sat, with Master Almoner on mine other hand, saith to me—

      “Pray you, Dame Cicely, have you any guess who it were that you met coming forth?”

      “I have, and I have not,” said I. “There was that in his face which I knew full well, yet cannot I bethink me of his name.”

      “It was not Master Madefray, trow?”

      “In no wise: a higher man than he, and of fairer hair.”

      “Not a priest neither?”

      “Nay, certes.”

      “Leave not to sup your soup, Dame Cicely, nor show no astonishment, I pray, while I ask yet a question. Was it—Sir Roger the Mortimer of Ludlow?”

      For all Dame Joan’s warnful words, I nigh dropped my spoon, and I never knew how the rest of the soup tasted.

      “Wala wa!” said I, under my breath, “but I do believe it was he.”

      “I saw him,” saith she, quietly. “And take my word for it, friend—that man cometh for no good.”

      “Marry!” cried I in some heat, “how dare he come nigh the Queen at all? he, a banished man! Without, soothly, he came humbly to entreat her intercession with the King for his pardon. But e’en then, he might far more meetly have sent his petition by some other. Verily, I marvel she would see him!”

      “Do you so?” saith Dame Joan in that low quiet voice. “So do not I. She will see him yet again, or I mistake much.”

      “Ha, chétife!” I made answer. “It is full well we be on our road back to Paris, for there at least will he not dare to come.”

      “Not dare?”

      “Surely not, for the King of France, which himself hath banished him, should never suffer it.”

      Dame Joan helped herself to a roasted plover with a smile. When the sewer was gone, quoth she—

      “I think, Dame Cicely, you know full little whether of Sir Roger de Mortimer or of the King of France. For the last, he is as easily blinded a man as you may lightly see; and if our Queen his sister told him black was white, he should but suppose that she saw better than he. And for the other—is there aught in all this world, whether as to bravery or as to wickedness, that Sir Roger de Mortimer would not dare?”

      “Dear heart!” cried I. “I made account we had done with men of that order.”

      “You did?” Dame Joan’s tone, and the somewhat dry smile which went with it, said full plainly, “In no wise.”

      “Well, soothly we had enough and to spare!” quoth I. “There was my Lord of Lancaster—God rest his soul!—and Sir Piers de Gavaston (if he were as ill man as some said).”

      “He was not a saint, I think,” she said: “yet could I name far worser men than he.”

      “And my sometime Lord of Warwick,” said I, “was no saint likewise, or I mistake.”

      “Therein,” saith she, “have you the right.”

      “Well,” pursued I, “all they be gone: and soothly, I had hoped there were no more such left.”

      “Then should there be no original sin left,” she made answer; “yea, and Sathanas should be clean gone forth of this world.”

      The rest of the converse I mind not, but that last sentence tarried in my mind for many a day, and hath oft-times come back to me touching other matters.

      We reached Loure on Saint Martin’s Day (November 11th), and Paris the next morrow. There found we the Bishops of Winchester and Exeter, (Stratford and Stapleton), whom King Edward had sent over to join the Queen’s Council. Now I never loved overmuch neither of these Reverend Fathers, though it were for very diverse causes. Of course, being priests, they were holy men; but I misdoubt if either were perfect man apart from his priesthood—my Lord of Winchester more in especial. Against my Lord of Exeter have I but little to say; he was fumish (irritable, captious) man, but no worse. But my Lord of Winchester did I never trust, nor did I cease to marvel that man could. As to King Edward, betray him to his enemies to-day, and he should put his life in your hands again to-morrow: never saw I man like to him, that no experience would learn mistrust. Queen Isabel trusted few: but of them my said Lord of Winchester was one. I have noted at times that they which be untrue themselves be little given to trust other. She trusted none save them she had tried: and she had tried this Bishop, not once nor twice. He never brake faith with her; but with King Edward he brake it a score of times twice told, and with his son that is now King belike. I wis not whether at this time the Queen was ready to put affiance in him; I scarce think she was: for she shut both Bishops out of her Council from the day she came to Paris. But not