“I am too low for scorn to lower me,
And all too sorrow-stricken to feel grief.”
Edwin Arnold.
Soft and balmy was the air, and the sunlight radiant, at an early hour of a beautiful June morning; and fair was the landscape that met the eyes of the persons who were gathered a few feet from the portcullis of a grand stately old castle, crowning a wooded height near the Sussex coast. There were two persons seated on horseback: the one a youth of some twenty years, in a page’s dress; the other a woman, who sat behind him on the pillion. Standing1 about were two men and a woman, the last holding a child in her arms. The woman on the pillion was closely veiled, and much muffled2 in her wrappings, considering the season of the year and the warmth of the weather; nor did she lift her veil when she spoke4.
“The child, Alina,” she said, in a tone so soft and low that the words seemed rather breathed than spoken.
The woman who stood beside the horse answered the appeal by placing the child in the arms of the speaker. It was a pretty, engaging little girl of three years old. The lady on the pillion, lifting the child underneath5 her veil, strained it to her bosom6, and bowed her head low upon its light soft hair. Meanwhile, the horse stood still as a statue, and the page sat as still before her. In respectful silence the other three stood round. They knew, every one of them, that in that embrace to one of the two the bitterness of death was passing; and that when it was ended she would have nothing left to fear—only because she would have nothing left to hope. At length, suddenly, the lady lifted her head, and held forth7 the child to Alina. Turning her head away toward the sea, from the old castle, from the child, she made her farewell in one word.
“Depart!”
The three standing there watched her departure—never lifting her veil, nor turning her head—until she was hidden from their sight among the abundant green foliage8 around. They lingered a minute longer; but only a minute—for a shrill9, harsh voice from the portcullis summoned them to return.
“Ralph, thou lither hilding! Alina, thou jade10! Come hither at once, and get you to work. My Lady’s bower11 yet unswept, by the Seven Sleepers12! and ye lingering yonder as ye had leaden heels! By the holy bones of Saint Benedict, our master shall con3 you light thanks when he cometh!”
“That may be,” said Alina, under her breath. “Get you in, Ralph and Jocelyn, or she shall be after again.”
And she turned and walked quickly into the castle, still carrying the child.
Eleven hours later, a very different procession climbed the castle-hill, and passed in at the portcullis. It was headed by a sumptuous13 litter, beside which rode a gentleman magnificently attired14. Behind came a hundred horsemen in livery, and the line was closed by a crowd of archers15 in Lincoln green, bearing cross-bows. From the litter, assisted by the gentleman, descended16 a young lady of some three-and-twenty years, upon whose lips hovered17 a smile of pleasure, and whose fair hair flowed in natural ringlets from beneath a golden fillet. The gentleman was her senior by about fifteen years. He was a tall, active, handsome man, with a dark face, stern, set lips, and a pair of dark, quick, eagle-like eyes, beneath which the group of servants manifestly quailed18.
“Is the Lady’s bower ready?” he asked, addressing the foremost of the women—the one who had so roughly insisted on Alina’s return.
“It is so, an’t like your noble Lordship,” answered she with a low reverence19; “it shall be found as well appointed as our poor labours might compass.”
He made no answer; but, offering his hand to the young lady who had alighted from the litter, he led her up the stairs from the banqueting-hall, into a suite20 of fair, stately apartments, according to the taste of that period. Rich tapestry21 decorated the walls, fresh green rushes were strewn upon the floor, all the painting had been renewed, and above the fireplace stood two armorial shields newly chiselled22.
“Lady,” he said, in a soft, courtly tone, “here is the bower. Doth it like the bird?”
“It is beauteous,” answered the lady, with a bright smile.
“It hath been anew swept and garnished23,” replied the master, bowing low, as he took his leave. “Yonder silver bell shall summon your women.”
The lady moved to the casement24 on his departure. It stood open, and the lovely sea-view was to be seen from it.
“In good sooth, ’tis a fair spot!” she said half aloud. “And all new swept and garnished!”
There was no mocking echo in the chamber25. If there had been, the words might have been borne back to the ear of the royal Alianora—“Not only garnished, but swept!”
My Lady touched the silver bell, and a crowd of damsels answered her call. Among them came Alina; and she held by the hand the little flaxen-haired child, who had played so prominent a part in the events of the morning.
“Do you all speak French?” asked the Countess in that language—which, be it remembered, was in the reign26 of Edward the Third the mother-tongue of the English nobles.
She received an affirmative reply from all.
“That is well. See to my sumpter-mules being unladen, and the gear brought up hither.—What a pretty child! whose is it?”
Alina brought the little girl forward, and answered for her. “The Lady Philippa Fitzalan, my Lord’s daughter.”
“My Lord’s daughter!” And a visible frown clouded the Countess’s brow. “I knew not he had a daughter— Oh! that child! Take her away—I do not want her. Mistress Philippa, for the future. That is my pleasure.”
And with a decided28 pout29 on her previously30 smiling lips, the Lady of Arundel seated herself at her tiring-glass. Alina caught up the child, and took her away to a distant chamber in a turret31 of the castle, where she set her on her knee, and shed a torrent32 of tears on the little flaxen head.
“Poor little babe! fatherless and motherless!” she cried. “Would to our dear Lady that thou wert no worse! The blessed saints help thee, for none other be like to do it save them and me.”
And suddenly rising, she slipped down on her knees, holding the child before her, beside a niche33 where a lamp made of pottery34 burned before a blackened wooden doll.
“Lady of Pity, hast thou none for this little child? Mother of Mercy, for thee to deceive me! This whole month have I been on my knees to thee many times in the day, praying thee to incline the Lady’s heart, when she should come, to show a mother’s pity to this motherless one. And thou hast not heard me—thou hast not heard me. Holy Virgin35, what doest thou? Have I not offered candles at thy shrine36? Have I not deprived myself of needful things to pay for thy litanies? What could I have done more? Is this thy pity, Lady of Pity?—this thy compassion37, Mother and Maiden38?”
But the passionate39 appeal was lost on the lifeless image to which it was made. As of old, so now, “there was neither voice, not any to answer, nor any that regarded.”
Nineteen years after that summer day, a girl of twenty-two sat gazing from the casement in that turret-chamber—a girl whose face even a flatterer would have praised but little; and Philippa Fitzalan had no flatterers. The pretty child—as pretty children often do—had grown into a very ordinary, commonplace woman. Her hair, indeed, was glossy40 and luxuriant, and had deepened from its early flaxen into the darkest shade to which it was possible for flaxen to change; her eyes were dark, with a sad, tired, wistful look in them—a look
“Of a dumb creature who had been beaten once,
And never since was easy with the world.”
Her face was white and thin, her figure tall, slender, angular, and rather awkward. None had ever cared to amend41 her awkwardness; it signified to nobody whether she looked well or ill. In a word, she signified to nobody. The tears might burn under her eyelids42, or overflow43 and fall,—she would never be asked what was the matter; she might fail under her burdens and faint in the midst of them,—and if it occurred to any one to prevent material injury to her, that was the very utmost she could expect. Not that the Lady Alianora was unkind to her stepdaughter: that is, not actively44 unkind. She simply ignored her existence. Philippa was provided, as a matter of course, with necessary clothes, just as the men who served in the hall were provided with livery; but anything not absolutely necessary had never been given to her in her life. There were no loving words, no looks of pleasure, no affectionate caresses45, lavished46 upon her. If the Lady Joan lost her temper (no rare occurrence), or the Lady Alesia her appetite, or the Lady Mary her sleep, the whole household was disturbed; but what Philippa suffered never disturbed nor concerned any one but herself. To these, her half-sisters, she formed a kind of humble47 companion, a superior maid-of-all-work. All day long she heard and obeyed the commands of the three young ladies; all day long she was bidden, “Come here,” “Go there,” “Do this,” “Fetch that.” And Philippa came, and went, and fetched, and did as she was told. Just now she was off duty. Their Ladyships were gone out hawking48 with the Earl and Countess, and would not, in all probability, return for some hours.
And what was Philippa doing, as she sat gazing dreamily from the casement of her turret-chamber—hers, only because nobody else liked the room? Her eyes were fixed49 earnestly on one little spot of ground, a few feet from the castle gate; and her soul was wandering backward nineteen years, recalling the one scene which stood out vividly50, the earliest of memory’s pictures—a picture without text to explain it—before which, and after which, came blanks with no recollection to fill them. She saw herself lifted underneath a woman’s veil—clasped earnestly in a woman’s arms,—gazing in baby wonder up into a woman’s face—a wan27 white face, with dark, expressive51, fervent52 eyes, in which a whole volume of agony and love was written. She never knew who that woman was. Indeed, she sometimes wondered whether it were really a remembrance, or only a picture drawn53 by her own imagination. But there it was always, deep down in the heart’s recesses54, only waiting to be called on, and to come. Whoever this mysterious woman were, it was some one who had loved her—her, Philippa, whom no one ever loved. For Alina, who had died in her childhood, she scarcely recollected55 at all. And at the very core of the unseen, unknown heart of this quiet, undemonstrative girl, there lay one intense, earnest, passionate longing56 for love. If but one of her father’s hawks57 or hounds would have looked brighter at her coming, she thought it would have satisfied her. For she had learned, long years ere this, that to her father himself, or to the Lady Alianora, or to her half-brothers and sisters, she must never look for any shadow of love. The “mother-want about the world,” which pressed on her so heavily, they would never fill. The dull, blank uniformity of simple apathy58 was all she ever received from any of them.
Her very place was filled. The Lady Joan was the eldest59 daughter of the house—not Mistress Philippa. For the pleasure of the Countess had been fulfilled, and Mistress Philippa the girl was called. And when Joan was married and went away from the castle (in a splendid litter hung with crimson60 velvet), her sister Alesia stepped into her place as a matter of course. Philippa did not, indeed, see the drawbacks to Joan’s lot. They were not apparent on the surface. That the stately young noble who rode on a beautiful Barbary horse beside the litter, actually hated the girl whom he had been forced to marry, did not enter into her calculations: but as Joan cared very little for that herself, it was the less necessary that Philippa should do so. And Philippa only missed Joan from the house by the fact that her work was so much the lighter61, and her life a trifle less disagreeable than before.
More considerations than one were troubling Philippa just now. Blanche, one of the Countess’s tire-women, had just visited her turret-chamber, to inform her that the Lady Alesia was betrothed62, and would be married six months thence. It did not, however, trouble her that she had heard of this through a servant; she never looked for anything else. Had she been addicted63 (which, fortunately for her, she was not) to that most profitless of all manufactures, grievance-making,—she might have wept over this little incident. But except for one reason, the news of her sister’s approaching marriage was rather agreeable to Philippa. She would have another tyrant64 the less; though it was true that Alesia had always been the least unkind to her of the three, and she would have welcomed Mary’s marriage with far greater satisfaction. But that one terrible consideration which Blanche had forced on her notice!
“I marvel65, indeed, that my gracious Lord hath not thought of your disposal, Mistress Philippa, ere this.”
Suppose he should think of it! For to Philippa’s apprehension66, love was so far from being synonymous with marriage, that she held the two barely compatible. Marriage to her would be merely another phase of Egyptian bondage67, under a different Pharaoh. And she knew this was her probable lot: that (unless her father’s neglect on this subject should continue—which she devoutly68 hoped it might) she would some day be informed by Blanche—or possibly the Lady Alianora herself might condescend69 to make the communication—that on the following Wednesday she was to be married to Sir Robert le Poer or Sir John de Mountchenesey; probably a man whom she had never seen, possibly one whom she just knew by sight.
Philippa scarcely knew how, from such thoughts as these, her memory slowly travelled back, and stayed outside the castle gate, at that June morning of nineteen years ago. Who was it that had parted with her so unwillingly70? It could not, of course, be the mother of whom she had never heard so much as the name; she must have died long ago. On her side, so far as Philippa knew, she had no relations; and her aunts on the father’s side, the Lady Latimer, the Lady de l’Estrange, and the Lady de Lisle, never took the least notice of her when they visited the castle. And then came up the thought—“Who am I? How is it that nobody cares to own me? There must be a reason. What is the reason?”
“Mistress Philippa! look you here: the Lady Mary left with me this piece of arras, and commanded me to give it unto you to be amended71, and beshrew me but I clean forgot. This green is to come forth, and this blue to be set instead thereof, and clean slea-silk for the yellow. Haste, for the holy Virgin’s love, or I shall be well swinged when she cometh home!”
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1
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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muffled
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| adj.（声音）被隔的；听不太清的；（衣服）裹严的；蒙住的v.压抑，捂住( muffle的过去式和过去分词 )；用厚厚的衣帽包着（自己） | |
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con
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| n.反对的观点，反对者，反对票，肺病；vt.精读，学习，默记；adv.反对地，从反面；adj.欺诈的 | |
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4
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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5
underneath
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| adj.在...下面，在...底下；adv.在下面 | |
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bosom
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| n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的 | |
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7
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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foliage
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| n.叶子，树叶，簇叶 | |
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9
shrill
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| adj.尖声的；刺耳的；v尖叫 | |
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10
jade
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| n.玉石；碧玉；翡翠 | |
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11
bower
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| n.凉亭，树荫下凉快之处；闺房；v.荫蔽 | |
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12
sleepers
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| n.卧铺（通常以复数形式出现）；卧车( sleeper的名词复数 )；轨枕；睡觉（呈某种状态）的人；小耳环 | |
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13
sumptuous
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| adj.豪华的，奢侈的，华丽的 | |
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14
attired
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| adj.穿着整齐的v.使穿上衣服，使穿上盛装( attire的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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15
archers
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| n.弓箭手，射箭运动员( archer的名词复数 ) | |
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16
descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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hovered
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| 鸟( hover的过去式和过去分词 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫 | |
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quailed
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| 害怕，发抖，畏缩( quail的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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19
reverence
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| n.敬畏，尊敬，尊严；Reverence:对某些基督教神职人员的尊称；v.尊敬，敬畏，崇敬 | |
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20
suite
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| n.一套(家具)；套房；随从人员 | |
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tapestry
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| n.挂毯，丰富多采的画面 | |
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22
chiselled
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| adj.凿过的，凿光的； （文章等）精心雕琢的v.凿，雕，镌( chisel的过去式 ) | |
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23
garnished
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| v.给（上餐桌的食物）加装饰( garnish的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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24
casement
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| n.竖铰链窗；窗扉 | |
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chamber
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| n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所 | |
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reign
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| n.统治时期，统治，支配，盛行；v.占优势 | |
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27
wan
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| (wide area network)广域网 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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29
pout
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| v.撅嘴；绷脸；n.撅嘴；生气，不高兴 | |
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30
previously
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| adv.以前，先前（地） | |
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turret
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| n.塔楼，角塔 | |
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torrent
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| n.激流，洪流；爆发，(话语等的)连发 | |
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niche
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| n.壁龛；合适的职务(环境、位置等) | |
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pottery
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| n.陶器，陶器场 | |
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virgin
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| n.处女，未婚女子；adj.未经使用的；未经开发的 | |
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shrine
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| n.圣地，神龛，庙；v.将...置于神龛内，把...奉为神圣 | |
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37
compassion
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| n.同情，怜悯 | |
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38
maiden
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| n.少女，处女；adj.未婚的，纯洁的，无经验的 | |
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39
passionate
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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40
glossy
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| adj.平滑的；有光泽的 | |
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41
amend
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| vt.修改，修订，改进；n.[pl.]赔罪，赔偿 | |
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42
eyelids
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| n.眼睑( eyelid的名词复数 )；眼睛也不眨一下；不露声色；面不改色 | |
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43
overflow
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| v.(使)外溢，(使)溢出；溢出，流出，漫出 | |
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44
actively
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| adv.积极地，勤奋地 | |
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45
caresses
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| 爱抚，抚摸( caress的名词复数 ) | |
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46
lavished
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| v.过分给予，滥施( lavish的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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47
humble
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| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
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48
hawking
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| 利用鹰行猎 | |
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49
fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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50
vividly
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| adv.清楚地，鲜明地，生动地 | |
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51
expressive
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| adj.表现的，表达…的，富于表情的 | |
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52
fervent
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| adj.热的，热烈的，热情的 | |
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53
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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54
recesses
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| n.壁凹( recess的名词复数 )；（工作或业务活动的）中止或暂停期间；学校的课间休息；某物内部的凹形空间v.把某物放在墙壁的凹处( recess的第三人称单数 )；将（墙）做成凹形，在（墙）上做壁龛；休息，休会，休庭 | |
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55
recollected
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| adj.冷静的；镇定的；被回忆起的；沉思默想的v.记起，想起( recollect的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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56
longing
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| n.（for）渴望 | |
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57
hawks
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| 鹰( hawk的名词复数 )； 鹰派人物，主战派人物 | |
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58
apathy
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| n.漠不关心，无动于衷；冷淡 | |
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59
eldest
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| adj.最年长的，最年老的 | |
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60
crimson
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| n./adj.深(绯)红色(的)；vi.脸变绯红色 | |
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61
lighter
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| n.打火机，点火器；驳船；v.用驳船运送；light的比较级 | |
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62
betrothed
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| n. 已订婚者 动词betroth的过去式和过去分词 | |
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63
addicted
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| adj.沉溺于....的，对...上瘾的 | |
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64
tyrant
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| n.暴君，专制的君主，残暴的人 | |
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65
marvel
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| vi.(at)惊叹vt.感到惊异；n.令人惊异的事 | |
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66
apprehension
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| n.理解，领悟；逮捕，拘捕；忧虑 | |
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67
bondage
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| n.奴役，束缚 | |
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68
devoutly
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| adv.虔诚地，虔敬地，衷心地 | |
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69
condescend
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| v.俯就，屈尊；堕落，丢丑 | |
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70
unwillingly
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| adv.不情愿地 | |
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71
Amended
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| adj. 修正的 动词amend的过去式和过去分词 | |
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