The Well in the Desert | Page 7

Lady that used to be."
"My mother?"
Agnes nodded. "And the water that He should give should bring life and peace. It was a sweet story and a fair, as she told it. But there never was a voice like hers--never."
Philippa rose, and opened her cherished bracelet. She could guess what that bracelet had been. The ornament was less common in the Middle Ages than in the periods which preceded and followed them; and it was usually a love-token. But where was the love which had given and received this? Was it broken, too, like the bracelet?
She read the device to Agnes.
"It was something like that," said Agnes. "But she read the story touching it, out of a book."
"What was she like?" asked Philippa in a low tone.
"Look in the mirror, Lady," answered Agnes.
Philippa began to wonder whether this were the mysterious reason for her bitter lot.
"Dost thou know I am to be wed?"
"Ay, Lady."
So the very lavenders had known it before herself! But finding Agnes, as she thought, more communicative than before, Philippa returned to her former subject.
"What was her name?"
Agnes shook her head.
"Thou knowest it?"
The lavender nodded in answer.
"Then why not tell it me? Surely I may know what they christened her at the font--Philippa, or Margaret, or Blanche?"
Agnes hesitated a moment, but seemed to decide on replying. She sank her voice so low that Philippa could barely hear her, but she just caught the words.
"The Lady Isabel."
Philippa sat a minute in silence; but Agnes made no motion to go.
"Agnes, thou saidst her lot was more bitter than mine. How was it more bitter?"
Agnes pointed to the window of the opposite turret, where the tiring-women slept, and outside of which was hung a luckless lark in a small wicker cage.
"Is his lot sweet, Lady?"
"I trow not, in good sooth," said Philippa; "but his is like mine."
"I cry you mercy," answered the lavender, shaking her head. "He hath known freedom, and light, and air, and song. That was her lot--not yours, Lady."
Philippa continued to watch the lark. His poor caged wings were beating vainly against the wicker-work, until he wearily gave up the attempt, and sat quietly on the perch, drooping his tired head.
"He is not satisfied," resumed Agnes in a low tone. "He is only weary. He is not happy--only too worn-out to care for happiness. Ah, holy Virgin! how many of us women are so! And she was wont to say that there was happiness in this life, yet not in this world. It lay, she said, in that other world above, where God sitteth; and if we would ask for Him that was meant by the better water, it would come and dwell in our hearts along with Him. Our sweet Lady help us! we seem to have missed it somehow."
"I have, at any rate," whispered Philippa, her eyes fixed dreamily on the weary lark.
CHAPTER THREE.
GUY OF ASHRIDGE.
"For merit lives from man to man, And not from man, O Lord, to Thee."
Tennyson.
Not until the evening before her marriage did Philippa learn the name of her new master. The Earl's choice, she was then informed, had fallen on Sir Richard Sergeaux, a knight of Cornwall, who would receive divers manors with the hand of the eldest daughter of Arundel. Philippa was, however, not told that Sir Richard was expected to pay for the grants and the alliance in extremely hard cash.
For to the lofty position of eldest daughter of Arundel (for that morning only) Philippa, to her intense surprise, found herself suddenly lifted. She was robed in cloth of silver; her hair flowed from beneath a jewelled golden fillet; her neck was encircled by rubies, and a ruby and pearl girdle clasped her waist. She felt all the time as though she were dreaming, especially when the Lady Alianora herself superintended her arraying, and even condescended to remark that "the Lady Philippa did not look so very unseemly after all."
Not least among the points which astonished her was the resumption of her title. She did not know that this had formed a part of the bargain with Sir Richard, who had proved impracticable on harder terms. He did not mind purchasing the eldest daughter of Arundel at the high price set upon her; but he gave the Earl distinctly to understand that if he were merely selling a Mistress Philippa, there must be a considerable discount.
When the ceremony and the wedding festivities were over, and her palfrey was standing ready at the door, Philippa timidly entered the banqueting-hall, to ask--for the first and last time--her father's blessing. He was conversing with the Earl of Kent, the bridegroom of Alesia, concerning the merits of certain hawks recently purchased; and near him, at her embroidery-frame, sat the Countess Alianora.
Philippa knelt first to her.
"Farewell, Philippa!" said the Countess, in a rather kinder