The Well in the Desert | Page 5

intervals with seed-pearl and beryls, certainly was not worth much; especially since the snap was gone, one of the beryls and several pearls were missing, and from the centre ornament, an enamelled rose, a portrait had apparently been torn away. Did the rose open? Philippa tried it; for she was anxious to reach the device, if there were one to reach. The rose opened with some effort, and the device lay before her, written in small characters, with faded ink, on a scrap of parchment fitting into the bracelet.
Philippa's one accomplishment, which she owed to her old friend Alina, was the rare power of reading. It was very seldom that she found any opportunity of exercising it, yet she had not lost the art. Alina had been a priest's sister, who in teaching her to read had taught her all that he knew himself; and Alina in her turn had thus given to Philippa all that she had to give.
But the characters of the device were so small and faint, that Philippa consumed half an hour ere she could decipher them. At length she succeeded in making out a rude rhyme or measure, in the Norman-French which was to her more familiar than English.
"Quy de cette eaw boyra Ancor soyf aura; Mais quy de cette eaw boyra Que moy luy donneray, Jamais soif n'aura A l'eternite."
Devices of the mediaeval period were parted into two divisions-- religious and amatory. Philippa had no difficulty in deciding that this belonged to the former category; and she guessed in a moment that the meaning was a moral one; for she was accustomed to such hidden allegorical allusions. And already she had advanced one step on the road to that Well; she knew that "whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again." Ay, from her that weary thirst was never absent. But where was this Well from which it might be quenched? and who was it that could give her this living water?
Philippa's memory was a perfect storehouse of legends of the saints, and above all of the Virgin, who stood foremost in her pantheon of gods. She searched her repertory over and over, but in vain. No saint, and in particular not Saint Mary, had ever, in any legend that she knew, spoken words like these. And what tremendous words they were! "Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst."
There were long and earnest prayers offered that night in the little turret-chamber. Misdirected prayers--entreaties to be prayed for, addressed to ears that could not hear, to hands that could not help. But perhaps they reached another Ear that could hear, another Hand that was almighty. The unclosing of the door is promised to them that ask. Thanks be to God, that while it is not promised, it does sometimes in His sovereign mercy unclose to them that know not how to ask.
The morning after this, as Philippa opened her door, one of the castle lavenders, of washerwomen, passed it on her way down the stairs. She was a woman of about fifty years of age, who had filled her present place longer than Philippa could recollect.
Throughout the whole of the Middle Ages--for a period of many centuries, closing only about the time of the accession of the House of Hanover-- laundress was a name of evil repute, and the position was rarely assumed by any woman who had a character to lose. The daughters of the Lady Alianora were strictly forbidden to speak to any lavender; but no one had cared enough about Philippa to warn her, and she was therefore free to converse with whom she pleased. And a sudden thought had struck her. She called back the lavender.
"Agnes!"
The woman stopped, came to Philippa's door, and louted--the old-fashioned reverence which preceded the French courtesy.
"Agnes, how long hast thou been lavender here?"
"Long ere you were born, Lady."
"Canst thou remember my mother?"
Philippa was amazed at the look of abject terror which suddenly took possession of the lavender's face.
"Hush, Lady, Lady!" she whispered, her voice trembling with fear.
Philippa laid her hand on the woman's arm.
"Wilt thou suffer aught if thou tarry?"
Agnes shook her head.
"Then come in hither." And she pulled her into her own room, and shut the door. "Agnes, there is some strange thing I cannot understand: and I will understand it. What letteth [hinders] thee to speak to me of my mother?"
Agnes looked astonished at Philippa's tone, as well she might. "It hath been forbidden, Lady."
"Who forbade it?"
The lavender's compressed lips sufficiently intimated that she did not mean to answer that question.
"Why was it forbidden?"
The continued silence replied.
"When died she? Thou mayest surely tell me so much."
"I dare not, Lady," replied Agnes in a scarcely audible whisper.
"How died she?"
"Lady, I dare not answer,--I must not. You weary yourself to