Part 15

What a strange thing it is, that when our hearts are specially wrung with distress, our eyes seem opened to notice all sorts of insignificant minutiae which we should never see at another time, or should never remember if we did see them. I perceived that one of the buttons of Lady Sybil's robe had caught her chatelaine, and that a bow of ribbon on her super-tunic was coming loose.

"May it please your Grace," I said--and I heard a hard metallic ring in my own voice,--"have I heard the truth just now from Lady Judith?"

"What hast thou heard, Helena?"

I did not spare her for the crushing clasp of her hands, for the slight quiver of the under lip. Let her suffer! Had she not wronged my Guy?

"I have heard that your Grace means to give way before the vulgar clamour of your inferiors, and to repudiate your wedded lord at their dictation."

No, I would not spare her so much as one adjective. She pressed her lips close, and a sort of shudder went over her from head to foot. But she said, in a calm, even voice, like a child repeating some formal lesson--

"Thou hast heard the truth."

If she would have warmed into anger, and have resented my words, I think I might have kept more within bounds. But she was as cold as ice, and it infuriated me.

"And you call yourself a Christian and a Catholic?" cried I, raising my voice.

"The Lord knoweth!" was her cool answer.

"The Lord look upon it, and avenge us!" I cried. "Do you know how I loved you? Next to my love for Guy himself,--better than I loved any other, save you two, in earth or Heaven! You!--was it you I loved? My sister Sybil loved Guy, and would have died rather than sacrifice him to a mob of parvenu nobles. She is gone, and you are come in her stead, the saints know how! You are not the Sybil whom I loved, but a stranger,--a cold, calculating, politic, false-hearted woman. Heartless, ungenerous, faithless, false! I sweep you out of my heart this day, as if you had never entered it. You are false to Guy, and false to God. I will never, never, never forgive you! From this hour you are no more to me than the meanest Paynim idolatress whom I would think scorn to touch!"

I do not know whence my words came, but they poured out of me like the rain in a tempest. I noted, without one spark of relenting, the shudder which shook her again from head to foot when I named Guy,--the trembling of lips and eyes,--the pitiful, appealing look. No, I would not spare one atom of misery to the woman who had broken my Guy's heart.

Perhaps I was half mad. I do not know.

When I stopped, at last, she only said--

"It must look so to thee. But trust me, Helena."

"Trust you, Lady Sybil!--how to trust you?" I cried. "Have I not trusted you these four years, before I knew you for what you are? And you say, 'Trust me!'--Hear her, holy Saints! Ay, when I have done trusting the scorpions of this land and the wolves of my own,--trust me, I will trust you!"

She rose, and came to me, holding out both hands, with a look of piteous appeal in those fair grey eyes that I used to love so much.

"I know," she said,--"I know. Thou must think so. Yet,--trust me, Helena!"

I broke from her, and fled. I felt as if I could not bear to touch her,--to look at her another moment. To my own chamber I ran, and casting myself on the bed, I buried my face in the pillow, and lay there motionless. I did not weep; my eyes were dry and hard as stones. I did not pray; there was no good in it. Without God, without hope, without any thing but crushing agony and a sense of cruel wrong,--I think in that hour I was as near Hell as I could be, and live.

It was thus that Marguerite found me.

I heard her enter the room. I heard the half-exclamation, instantly checked, which came to her lips. I heard her move quietly about the chamber, arranging various little things, and at last come and stand beside my bed.

"Damoiselle!"

I turned just enough to let her see my face.

"Is Satan tempting my Damoiselle very hard just now?"

What made her ask that question?

"No, Margot," I said, sitting up, and pushing the hair off my forehead. "God is very, very cruel to me."

"Ah, let my Damoiselle hush there!" cried the old woman, in a tone of positive pain. "No, no, never! She does not mean to cut her old nurse to the heart, who loves her so dearly. But she will do it, if she says such things of the gracious Lord."

"Now, Margot, listen to me. I thought something was going to happen which would wring my heart to its very core. All night long I lay awake, praying and crying to God to stay it. And He has not heard me. He has let it happen--knowing what it would be to me. And dost thou not call that cruel?"

"Ah, I guessed right. Satan is tempting my Damoiselle, very, very hard. I thought so from her face.--Damoiselle, the good Lord cannot be cruel: it is not in His nature. No, no!"

"Dost thou know what has happened, Margot?"

"I? Ha!--no."

"The Lady Sybil, incited by her nobles, has consented to divorce Count Guy, and wed with another."

I saw astonishment, grief, indignation, chase one another over old Marguerite's face, followed by a look of extreme perplexity. For a few moments she stood thus, and did not speak. Then she put her hands together, like a child at prayer, and lifted her eyes upward.

"Sir God," she said, "I cannot understand it. I do not at all see why this is. Good Lord, it puzzles poor old Marguerite very much. But Thou knowest. Thou knowest all things. And Thou canst not be hard, nor cruel, whatever things may look like. Thou art love. Have patience with us, Sir God, when we are puzzled, and when it looks to us as if things were going all wrong. And teach the child, for she does not know. My poor lamb is quite lost in the wilderness, and the great wolf is very near her. Gentle Jesu Christ, leave the ninety and nine safe locked in the good fold, and come and look for this little lamb. If Thou dost not come, the great wolf will get her. And she is Thy little lamb. It is very cold in the wilderness, and very dark. Oh, do make haste!"

"Thou seemest to think that God Almighty is sure to hear thee, Margot," said I wearily.

Yet I could not help feeling touched by that simple prayer for me.

"Hear me?" she said. "Ah no, my Damoiselle, I cannot expect God Almighty to hear me. But He will hear the blessed Christ. He always hears Him. And He will ask for me what I really need, which is far better than hearing me. Because, my Damoiselle sees, I make so many blunders; but He makes none."

"What blunders didst thou make just now, Margot?"

"Ha! Do I know, I? When He translated it into the holy language of Heaven, the blessed Christ would put them all right. Maybe, where I said, 'Be quick,' He would say, 'Be slow.'"

"I am sure that would be a blunder!" said I bitterly.

"Ha! Does it not seem so, to my Damoiselle and her servant? But the good God knows. If my Damoiselle would only trust Him!"

"'Trust'!" cried I, thinking of Sybil. "Ah, Margot, I have had enough of trusting. I feel as if I could never trust man again--nor woman."

"Only one Man," said Marguerite softly. "And He died for us."

After saying that, she went away and left me. I lay still, her last words making a kind of refrain in my head, mingling with the one thought that seemed to fill every corner.

"He died for us!" Surely, then, He cannot hate us. He is not trying to give us as much suffering as we can bear?

I rose at last, and went to seek Guy. But I had to search the house almost through for him. I found him at length, in the base court, gazing through one of the narrow windows through which the archers shoot. The moment I saw his face, I perceived that though we might be one in sorrow we were emphatically two in our respective ways of bearing it. The quiet, patient grief in that faraway look which I saw in his eyes, was dictated by a very different spirit from that which actuated me. And he found it, too.

Not a word would he hear against Sybil. He nearly maddened me by calmly assuming that her sufferings were beyond ours, and entreating me not to let any words of mine add to her burden. It was so like Guy--always himself last! And when I said passionately that God was cruel, cruel!--he hushed me with the only flash of the old impetuosity that I saw in him.

"No, Elaine, no! Let me never hear that again."

I was silent, but the raging of the sea went on within.

"I think," said Guy quietly, "that it is either in a great sorrow or a serious illness that a man really sees himself as he is, if it please God to give him leave. I have thought, until to-day, in a vague way, that I loved God. I begin to wonder this morning whether I ever did at all."

His words struck cold on me. Guy no true Christian!--my brave, generous, noble, unselfish Guy! Then what was I likely to be?

"Guy," I said,--"_will_ she?" I could bear the torture no longer. And I knew he would need no more.

"I think so, Elaine," was his quiet answer. "I hope so."

"'_Hope_ so'!"

"It is her only chance for the kingdom. The nobles are quite right, dear. I am a foreigner; I am an adventurer; I am not a scion of any royal house. It would very much consolidate her position to get rid of me."

"And canst thou speak so calmly? I want to curse them all round, if I cannot consume them!"

"I am past that, Elaine," said Guy in a low voice, not quite so firmly as before. "Once, I did---- May the good Lord pardon me! His thunders are not for mortal hands. And I am thankful that it is so."

"I suppose nobody is wicked, except me," I said bitterly. "Every body else seems to be so terribly resigned, and so shockingly good, and so every thing else that he ought to be: and--I will go, if thou hast no objection, Guy. I shall be saying something naughty, if I don't."

Guy put his arm round me, and kissed my forehead.

"My poor little Lynette!" he said. "We can go home to Poitou, dear, and be once more all in all to each other, as we used to be long ago. Monseigneur will be glad to see us."

But I could not stand that. Partly Guy's dreadful calm, and partly that allusion to the long ago when we were so much to each other, broke me down, and laying my head down upon Guy's arm, I burst into a passionate flood of tears.

Oh, what good they did me! I could scarcely have believed how much quieted and lightened I should feel for them. Though there was no real change, yet the most distressing part of the weight seemed gone. I actually caught myself fancying what Monseigneur would say to us when we came home.

Guy said he would go with me to my chamber. I was glad that we met no one below. But as we entered the corridor at the head of the stairs, little Agnes came running to us, holding up for admiration a string of small blue beads.

"See, Baba!--See, Tan'!--Good!"

These are her names for Guy and me. Every thing satisfactory is "good" with Agnes--it is her expressive word, which includes beautiful, amiable, precious, and all other varieties. I felt as if my heart were too sore to notice her, and I saw a spasm of pain cross Guy's face. But he lifted the child in his arms, kissed her, and admired her treasure to her baby heart's content. If I were but half as selfless as he!

"And who gave thee this, little one?"

"Amma. Good!"

It was the child's name for her mother. Ah, little Agnes, I cannot agree with thee! "Amma" and "good" must no longer go into one sentence. How could she play, to-day, with Guy's children?

Yet I suppose children must be fed, and cared for, and trained, and amused,--even though their elders' hearts are breaking.

Oh, if I might lie down somewhere, and sleep, and awake eighteen years ago, when I was a little sorrowless child like Agnes!

The coronation is fixed for Holy Cross Day. And Lady Sybil has undertaken, as soon as she is crowned, to select her future husband. One condition she has insisted on herself. Every noble, on the coronation day, is to take a solemn oath that he will be satisfied with and abide by her decision, and will serve the King of her choice for ever. This seems to me a very wise and politic move, as it will prevent any future disputes. Every body appears to have no doubt on whom her choice will fall. All expect the Count of Tripoli.

Guy has requested permission to retire to Ascalon; and she has accorded it, but with the express stipulation that he is to be in his place, with the rest of her peers, at the coronation. It does seem to me a piece of needless cruelty. Surely she might have spared him this!

I also have asked permission to retire from Court. Of course I go with Guy. Whoever forsakes him, the little sister shall be true.

For about the first time in my life, I am thoroughly pleased with Amaury. He is nearly as angry as I am--which is saying a great deal. And he is the only person in whose presence I dare relieve my feelings by saying what I think of Sybil, for Guy will not hear a word.

Eschine has the most extraordinary idea. She thinks that Sybil's heart is true, and that only her head is wrong. It is all nonsense! Heart and head go together.

The worst item of the agony is over--the divorce.

The ceremony was short enough. A speech--from Count Raymond--stating to the public the necessities of the case; a declaration from both parties that they acted of their own free will; a solemn sentence from the holy Patriarch:--and all was over, and Guy and Sybil were both free to wed again.

I did think Sybil would have fainted before she could get through the few words she had to speak. But Guy was as calm and quiet as if he were making some knightly speech. I cannot understand him. It seems so unnatural for Guy.

I expressed some surprise afterwards.

"O Lynette! how could I make it harder for her!"

That was his answer. It was all for her. He seems to think himself not worth considering.

We leave for Ascalon very early to-morrow; and as this was my last night, I went to Lady Judith's cell to say farewell to her. On my way I met Count Raymond, returning from an audience of Lady Sybil, with triumph flashing in his eyes as he met mine. He evidently agrees with the multitude that he has a good chance of the crown. My heart swelled against him, but I managed to return his bow with courtesy, and passing on, tapped at Lady Judith's door.

"Helena, dear child!--Come in," she said.

"I am come to bid you good-bye, holy Mother."

Lady Judith silently motioned me to a seat on her bed, and sat down beside me.

"Is it quite as dark, my child?"

"Yes, quite!" I said, sighing.

"Poor child! I would give much to be able to comfort thee. But, please God, thou wilt be comforted one day."

"The day seems a long way off, holy Mother."

"It seemed a long way off, dear, to the holy Jacob, the very day before the waggons arrived to carry him down to his son Joseph. Yet it was very near, Helena."

I listened with respect, of course: but I could not see what that had to do with me. The waggons were not coming for me--that one thing was certain.

"Wilt thou be here for the coronation, my child?"

"I shall be where Guy is," I said shortly. "But--O holy Mother, she might have spared him that!"

Lady Judith's look was very pitiful. Yet she said--

"Perhaps not, my child."

Why, of course she might, if she would. What was to hinder her? But I did not say so, for it would have been discourteous.

Even between me and my dear old Lady Judith there seemed a miserable constraint. Was it any marvel? I rose to go. Almost noiselessly the door opened, and before I could exclaim or escape, Sybil stood before me.

"And wert thou going without any farewell--me,--little sister, Helena?"

I stood up, frozen into stone.

"I ask your Grace's pardon. We are not sisters _now_."

She turned aside, and covered her face with her hands.

"O Lynette! thou makest it so hard, so hard!"

"So hard?" said I coldly. "I hope I do. If your heart had not been harder than the nether millstone, Lady Sybil, you would never, never have required our presence at your coronation. God give you what you deserve!"

"That is a terrible prayer, in general," she said, turning and meeting my eyes. "And yet, Lynette, in this one thing, I dare to echo it. Ay, God render unto me what I deserve!"

How could she? Oh, how could she?

Lady Judith kissed me, and I went away. I believe Sybil would have kissed me too, but I would not have it from her.

It was easy, after that, to say farewell to the rest.

"I wish I were going too!" growled Amaury.

Then why does he not? He might if he chose. Just like Amaury!

"Farewell, dear," said Eschine. "I shall miss thee, Elaine."

--And nobody else. Yes, I know that.

So we go forth. Driven out of our Paradise, like Adam and Eva. But the flaming sword is held by no angel of God.

I always thought it such a dreadful thing, that our first parents should be driven out of Paradise. Why could not God have let them stay? It was not as if He had wanted it for the angels. If He had meant to use it for any thing, it would be on the earth now.

I cannot understand! Oh, why, why, _why_ are all these terrible things?

"I cannot understand either," says old Marguerite. "But I can trust the good God, and I can wait till He tells me. I am happier than my Damoiselle,--always wanting to know."

Well, I see that I marvel if there is any maiden upon earth much more miserable than I am. Last night, only, I caught myself wishing--honestly wishing--that I could change with Marguerite, old and poor as she is. It must be such a comfort to think of God as she does. It seems to answer for every thing.

The sultry quiet here is something almost unendurable to me. There is nothing in the world to see or hear but the water-carriers crying "The gift of God!" and strings of camels passing through the gateway, and women washing or grinding corn in the courts. And there is nothing to do but wait and bear, and prepare, after a rather sluggish fashion, for our return home when the coronation is over. Here, again, old Marguerite is better off than I am, for she has constantly things which she must do.

I do not think it likely that Amaury will come with us. Things never take hold of him long. If he be furiously exasperated on Monday, he is calmly disgusted on Tuesday, supremely content on Wednesday, and by Thursday has forgotten that he was ever otherwise. And he seems disposed to make his home here.

To me, it looks as though my life divided itself naturally into two portions, and the four years I have passed here were the larger half of it. I seem to have been a woman only since I came here.

Three months to wait!--and all the time we are waiting for a dreadful ordeal, which we know must come. Why does Lady Sybil give us this suffering? And far more, why, why does the good God give it to us?

If I could only understand, I could bear it better.

"Ha!" says Marguerite, with a rather pitying smile. "If my Damoiselle could but know every thing, she would be content not to know more!"

Well! I suppose I am unreasonable. Yet it will be such a relief when the worst is over. But how can I wish the worst to come?

*CHAPTER XIV.*

_*SYBIL'S CHOICE*_*.*

"'Gifts!' cried the friend. He took: and, holding it High towards the heavens, as though to meet his star, Exclaimed,--'This, too, I owe to thee, Giafar!'" LEIGH HUNT.

It came at last--neither sooner for my dreading it, nor later for my wishing it--Holy Cross Day, the coronation morning.

Guy and I reached the Holy City the night before, and took up our quarters with the holy Patriarch and his Lady Irene. We were just opposite the Palace. We could see lights flashing through the loop-holes, and now and then a shadow pass behind them. It was hard to know that that house held all that we loved, and we were the only ones that dared not enter it.

The Patriarch was most disagreeably loquacious. He told us every thing. He might have been cooking the banquet and broidering the robes, for all the minute details he seemed to know. The Queen, he told us, was to be arrayed in golden baudekyn, and the Lady Isabel in rose and silver. Both the Princesses would be present, attired in gold and blue. Poor little Agnes and Helena! How little they would understand of their mother's actions!

As little, perhaps, as any of us could understand of God's dealings in this matter!

The officers of state were to surround the throne, which was to be placed on the highest step of the choir; the nobles of the Council were to stand, in order according to the date of their creation, round the nave below.

Lady Irene was as silent as her lord was talkative. But at night, when she brought me up to the chamber she had prepared for me, she told me the one thing I did care to know. A place had been specially reserved for me, in the nave, immediately behind Guy; and the Lady Irene's own place was next to me.

"I am obliged to the Master of the Ceremonies," said I: for that was just where I wished to be.

"Nay," quietly said Lady Irene, as she took up her lamp; "the Damoiselle is obliged to the Lady Sybil."

Had Sybil thought of my fancy? What a strange compound she was!--attending to one's insignificant likings, yet crushing one's very heart to dust!

I did not sleep till very late, and I was aroused in the early morning by a flourish of trumpets, announcing that the grand day had dawned. I dressed myself, putting off my mourning for a suit of leaf-green baudekyn, for I knew that Guy would not be pleased if I wore any thing sombre, though it would have suited my feelings well enough. A golden under-tunic and kerchief, with my best coronet, were the remainder of my attire. I found Guy himself flashing in golden armour,[#] and wearing his beautiful embroidered surcoat, which Sybil herself wrought for him, with the arms of Lusignan.

[#] This phrase was used of steel armour ornamented with gold.

How could she bear to see that existing token of her own dead love? The surcoat had worn better than the heart.

We took our appointed places--Lady Irene, Guy, and I,--and watched the nobles arrive,--now an odd one, now half-a-dozen together. The Patriarch of course left us, as he was to officiate.

He told us last night that eighty out of every hundred felt no doubt at all that the Count of Tripoli would be the future King. (That Patriarch is the queerest mortal. It never seemed to enter his head that such information would not be highly entertaining to Guy and me.)

Now was the time to discern our enemies from our friends. Those who did notice us risked Court favour. But Messire de Montluc came all the way from the choir to salute us; and I felt a throb of gratitude to him in my heart. The Count of Edessa was not able to see us, and Count Raymond--O serpent, demon that he is!--looked straight at us, as if he had never met us before.

It was an additional pang, that the order of precedence placed Count Raymond the very next to Guy. I sincerely wished him at the other end of the nave, though it would have placed him close to the throne.

And now the important persons began to arrive. Lady Judith, in the quiet brown habit of her Order, stopped and scanned the groups all round, till her eyes reached us, and then she gave us a full smile, so rich in love and peace, that my heart throbbed with sympathy, and yet ached with envy.

Then came a lovely vision of rich rose and gleaming silver, which did _not_ look for us, and I felt that was Lady Isabel. And then two sweet little fairy forms in blue and gold, and I saw Guy crush his under-lip as his eyes fell upon his children.

Last came the Queen that was to be--a glorious ray of gold, four pages bearing her train, and her long fair hair, no less golden than her robes, streaming down them to her feet. She took her seat by Lady Isabel, on the velvet settle near the throne.