Mistress Margery | Page 6

seid to you; for I go to make readi to you a place. And if I go to make redy to you a place, eftsoone I come, and I schal take you to my silf, that where I am, ye be." John xiv. 1-3.
Never before had Margery read words like these. "Be not your herte afrayed!" Why, the one feeling which she was taught was more acceptable to God than any other, was fear. "In the hous of my Fadir ben manye dwellingis." Margery clasped her hands above her head, and laid head and hands upon the open volume; and in the agony of her earnestness she cried aloud, "O Lamb that was slain, hast thou not made ready a dwelling for Margery Lovell!"
Margery read on, and the more she read the more she wondered. The Church did not teach as this book did, and both could not be right. Which, then, was wrong? How could the Church be wrong, which was the depository of God's truth? And yet, how could the holy apostle be wrong in reporting the words of Christ?
Many times over during that night did Margery's thoughts arrange themselves in this manner. At one time she thought that nothing could possibly supersede the infallibility of the Church; at another she saw the complete impossibility of anything being able to stand for a moment against the infallibility of God. The only conclusion at which she could arrive was a determination to read the volume, and judge for herself. She read on. "I am weye, treuthe, and lyf; no man cometh to the Fadir but by me." [John xiv. 6.] Were these words the words of Christ? And what way had Margery been taught? Obedience to the Church, humility, penances, alms-giving--works always, Christ never. Could these be the right way? She went on, till the tears ran down her cheeks like rain--till her heart throbbed and her soul glowed with feelings she had never felt before--till the world, and life, and death, and things present, all seemed to be nothing, and Christ alone seemed to be everything. She read on, utterly oblivious of the flight of time, and regardless that darkness had given place to light, until the fall of something in the room below, and the voice of Dame Lovell calling for Cicely, suddenly warned her that the house was astir. Margery sprang up, her heart beating now for a different reason. She hurriedly closed the book, and secreted it in a private cupboard, of which she alone had the key, and where she generally kept her jewels, and any little trinkets on which she set a special value. Margery's next act, I fear, was indefensible; for it was to throw the cover and pillows of her bed into confusion, that the maids might suppose it had been occupied as usual. She then noiselessly unfastened the door, and proceeded with her dressing, so that when, a few minutes after, Dame Lovell came panting up the stairs, and lifted the latch, the only thing she noticed was Margery standing before the mirror, and fastening up her hair with what she called a pin, and what we should, I suspect, designate a metallic skewer.
"What, Madge, not donned yet?" was Dame Lovell's greeting. "How thou hast overslept thyself, girl! Dost know it is already five of the clock, and thy father and I have been stirring above an hour?"
"Is it so late, of a truth?" asked Margery, in dismay. "I cry you mercy, good mother!"
And Margery was thinking what excuse she could use by way of apology, when Dame Lovell's next words set her at rest, as they showed that the mind of that good lady was full of other thoughts than her daughter's late rising.
"Grand doings, lass!" said she, as she sat down in the carved arm-chair. "Grand doings, of a truth, Madge!"
"Where, good mistress mine?"
"Where?" said Dame Lovell, lifting her eyebrows. "Why, here, in Lovell Tower. Where should they be else? Richard Pynson was so late of returning from Marston that he saw not thy father until this morrow."
"I heard him come."
"Wert awake?"
"Yea. I was awake a long season!"
"Poor lass!" said her mother. "No marvel thou art late. But harken to what I was about to tell thee. Sir Ralph Marston and his kinsman the Lord Marnell, dine with us to-day."
"To-day?"
"Yea, to-day. Dear, dear, dear, dear! What folk must they be that live in London town! Marry, Sir Ralph sent word by Richard Pynson, praying us not to dine until one of the clock, for that the Lord Marnell is not used to it at an earlier hour. I marvel when they sup! I trow it is not until all Christian folk be a-bed!"
"Dwells the Lord Marnell in London?" inquired Margery, with surprise; for Margery was more astonished and