Earl Hubert's Daughter. Emily Sarah Holt
of Contents
“What do you lack?”
“If pestilence stalk through the land, ye say, This is God’s doing. Is it not also His doing, when an aphis creepeth on a rosebud?”
Martin F. Tupper.
Earl Hubert was far too busy a man to waste his time in lounging on velvet settles and exchanging sallies of wit with the ladies of his household. He had done little more than give a cordial welcome to Marjory, and pat Margaret on the head, when he again disappeared, to be seen no more until supper-time.
“Well, Magot,” said Marjory, sitting down in the chair, while Margaret as before accommodated herself with a footstool at her feet, “let us get on with thy story. I want to know all about that affair two years ago. Thy fair father looks wonderfully well, methinks, considering all that he has gone through.”
“Does he not? O Aunt Marjory, I scarcely know how I am to tell you about that. It was dreadful—dreadful!”
And the tears stood in big drops on Margaret’s eyelashes.
“Well, I will try,” she said, with a deep sigh, as Marjory stroked her hair. “In the first place, the year ended all very well. My fair father had been created Justiciary of Ireland for life, and Constable of the Tower, and various favours had been granted to him. That he should be on the brink of trouble—and such trouble!—was the very last thing thought of by any one of us. And then that Bishop of Winchester came back, and before a soul knew anything about it, he was high in the Lord King’s favour, and on the twenty-ninth of July—(I am not likely to forget that date!)—the blow fell.”
“He was dismissed, then, was he not, from all his offices, without a word of warning?”
“Dismissed and degraded, without a shadow of it!—and a string of the most cruel, wicked accusations brought against him—things that he never did nor dreamed of doing—Aunt Marjory, it makes my blood boil, only to remember them! I am not going to tell you all: there was one too horrid to mention.”
“I know, my maiden.” Marjory interposed rather hastily. She had heard already of King Henry’s delicate and affectionate assault upon the fair name of Margaret’s mother, and she did not wish for a repetition of it.
“But beyond that, of what do you think he was accused?”
“I have not heard the other articles, Magot.”
“Then I will tell you. First, of preventing the Lord King’s marriage with the Duke of Austria’s daughter, by telling the Duke that the King was lame, and blind, and deaf, and a leper, and—”
“Gently, Magot, gently!” said Marjory, laughing.
“I am not making a syllable of it, fair Aunt!—And that he was a wicked, treacherous man, not worthy of the love or alliance of any noble lady. Pure foy!—but I know what I should say, if I said just what I think.”
“It is sometimes quite as well not to do that, Magot.”
“Ha! Perhaps it is, when one may get into prison by it. It is a comfort one can always think. Neither Pope nor King can stop that.”
“Magot, my dear child!”
“Oh yes, I know! You think I am horribly imprudent, Aunt Marjory. But nobody hears me except you and Eva de Braose—she is the only person in the wardrobe, and there is no one in the ante-chamber. And as I have heard her say more than I did just now, I don’t suppose there is much harm done.—Then, secondly—they charged my fair father with stealing—only think, stealing!—a magical gem from the royal treasury which made the wearer victorious in battle, and sending it to the Prince of Wales.” (Llywelyn the Great, with whom King Henry was at war.)
“Why should they suppose he would do that?”
“Pure foy, Aunt Marjory, don’t ask me! Then, thirdly, they said it was—”
Margaret sprang from her footstool suddenly, and disappeared for a second through the door of the wardrobe. Marjory heard her say—
“Eva! I had completely forgotten, till this minute, to tell Marie that my Lady and mother desired her to finish that piece of tapestry to-night, if she can. Do go and look for her, and let her know, or she will not have time.”
A slight rustle as of some one leaving the room was audible, and then Margaret dashed back to her footstool, as if she too had not a minute to lose.
“You know, Aunt Marjory, I could not tell you the next thing with Eva listening. They said that it was by traitorous letters from my fair father that the Prince of Wales had caused Sir William de Braose to be hung.”
“Eva’s father, thou meanest?”
“Yes. Then they accused him of administering poison to my Lord of Salisbury, of sending my cousin Sir Raymond to try and force the Lady of Salisbury into marrying him while her lord was beyond seas, of poisoning my Lord of Pembroke, Sir Fulk de Breaut, and my sometime Lord of Canterbury’s Grace. He might have spent his life in poisoning every body! Then, lastly, they said he had obtained favour of the Lord King by help of the black art.”
Marjory smiled contemptuously. It was not because she was more free from superstition than other people, but simply because she knew full well that the only sorcery necessary to be used towards Henry the Third was “the sorcery of a strong mind over a weak one.” (Note 1.)
“It was rather unfortunate,” she said, “that my good Lord of Salisbury (whom God rest!) was seized with his last illness the very day after he had supped at my fair brother’s table.”
“Aunt Marjory!” cried her indignant niece. “Why, it is not a month since I was taken ill in the night, after I had supped likewise. Do you suppose he poisoned me?”
“It is quite possible that walnuts might have something to do with it, Magot. But did I say he poisoned any one?”
“Now, Aunt Marjory, you are laughing at me, because you know I like them. But don’t you think it is absurd—the way in which people insist on fancying themselves poisoned whenever they are ill? It looks as if every human being were a monster of wickedness!”
“What would Father Warner say they are, Magot?”
“Oh, he would say it was perfectly true: and he would be right—so far as my Lord of Winchester and a few more are concerned.—Well, Eva, hast thou found Marie?”
“Yes, my dear. She is with the Lady, and she is busy with the tapestry.”
“Oh, that is right! I am sorry I forgot.”
“And the Lady bade me tell thee, mignonne, that she is coming to thy bower shortly, with a pedlar who is waiting in the court, to choose stuffs for thy Whitsuntide robes.”
“A pedlar! Delightful! Aunt Marjory, I am sure you want something?”
Marjory laughed. “I want thy tale finished, Magot, before the pedlar comes.”
“Too long, my dear Aunt Marjory, unless the pedlar takes all summer to mount the stairs. But you know my Lord and father fled into sanctuary at Merton Abbey, and refused to leave it unless the Lord King would pledge his royal word for his safety. I don’t think I should have thought it made much difference. (I wonder if that pedlar has any silversmiths’ work.) The Lord King did not pledge his word, but he ordered the Lord Mayor and the citizens to fetch my fair father—only think of that, Aunt Marjory!—dead or alive. Some of the nobler citizens appealed to the Bishop, who was everything with the King just then: but instead of interceding for my fair father, as they asked, he merely confirmed the order. So twenty thousand citizens marched on the Abbey; and when my fair father knew that, he fled to the high altar, and embraced the holy cross with one hand, holding the blessed pix in the other.”
“Was