“Woe to the eye that sheds no tears -
No tears for God to wipe away!”
“G.E.M.”
“And is it so hard to forgive?” asked the soft voice of Isabel.
“I will try, but it seems impossible,” responded Philippa. “How can any forgive injuries that reach down to the very root of the heart and life?”
“My child,” said Isabel, “he that injureth followeth after Satan; but he that forgiveth followeth after God. It is because our great debt to God is too mighty1 for our bounded sight, and we cannot reach to the ends thereof, that we are so ready to require of our fellow-debtors the small and sorry sum owed to ourselves. ‘He that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?’ And can any love and yet not forgive?”
“It is sometimes easier to love one ere he be seen than after,” said Philippa, sarcastically2.
Isabel smiled rather sadly, for the latent thought in her daughter’s mind was only too apparent to her. Had Philippa known as little of her father as of her mother, her feeling towards him would have been far less bitter. But there was no other answer. Even though twenty-seven years lay between that day and the June morning on which she had quitted Arundel, Isabel could not trust herself to speak of Richard Fitzalan. She dared not run the risk of re-opening the wound, by looking to see whether it had healed.
“Then I shall not go,” replied Isabel quietly. “I will not enter his house without his permission.”
Philippa’s surprise and disappointment were legible in her face.
“But, mother, thou knowest not my lord,” she interposed. “There is not in all the world a man more wearisome to dwell withal. Every thing I do, he dislikes; and every thing I wish to do, he forbids. I am thankful for his absence, for when he is at home, from dawn to dusk he doth nought6 save to find fault with me.”
But, notwithstanding her remonstrance7, Philippa had fathomed8 her mother’s motive9 in thus answering. Sir Richard possessed10 little of his own; he was almost wholly dependent on the Earl her father; and had it pleased that gentleman to revoke11 his grant of manors12 to herself and her husband, they would have been almost ruined. And Philippa knew quite enough of Earl Richard the Copped-Hat to be aware that few tidings would be so unwelcome at Arundel as those which conveyed the fact of Isabel’s presence at Kilquyt. Her mother’s uplifted hand stopped her from saying more.
“Hush, my daughter!” said the low voice. “Repay not thou by finding fault in return. ‘What glory is it, if, when ye be buffeted14 for your faults, ye shall take it patiently? but if, when ye do well and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is acceptable with God.’”
“I am not so patient as you, mother,” answered Philippa, shaking her head. “Perhaps it were better for me if I were. But dost thou mean that I must really ask my lord’s leave ere thou wilt come with me?”
“I do mean it.”
“And thou sayest, ‘for a time’—wilt thou not dwell with me?”
“The vows15 of the Lord are upon me,” replied Isabel, gravely. “I cannot forsake16 the place wherein He hath set me, the work which He hath given me to do. I will visit thee, and my sister also; but that done, I must return hither.”
“But dost thou mean to live and die in yonder cell?”
It was in the recreation-room of the Convent that they were conversing17.
“Even so, my daughter.” (See Note 1.)
Philippa’s countenance18 fell. It seemed very hard to part again when they had but just found each other. If this were religion, it must be difficult work to be religious. Yet she was more disappointed than surprised, especially when the first momentary19 annoyance20 was past.
“My child,” said Isabel softly, seeing her disappointment, “if I err21 in thus speaking, I pray God to pardon me. I can but follow what I see right; and ‘to him that esteemeth anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean.’ How can I forsake the hearts that look to me for help throughout this valley? And if thou have need of me, thou canst always come, or send for me.”
This gentle, apologetic explanation touched Philippa the more, because she felt that in the like case, she could not herself have condescended22 to make it.
The next thing to be done was to write to Sir Richard. This Philippa was unable to do personally, since the art of handling the pen had formed no part of her education. Her mother did it for her; for Isabel had been solidly and elaborately instructed by Giles de Edingdon, under the superintendence of the King’s Confessor, Luke de Wodeford, also a Predicant Friar. The letter had to be directed very much at random,—to “Sir Richard Sergeaux, of the Duke of Lancaster’s following, at Bordeaux, or wherever he may be found.” Fortunately for Philippa, the Prior of the neighbouring monastery23 was just despatching his cellarer to London on conventual business: and he undertook to convey her letter to the Savoy Palace, whence it would be forwarded with the next despatches sent to John of Gaunt. Philippa, in whose name the letter was written, requested her husband to reply to her at Shaftesbury, whither she and Isabel meant to proceed at once.
The spring was in its full beauty when they reached Shaftesbury. Philippa had not found an opportunity to let the Abbess know of her coming, but she was very cordially welcomed by that good-natured dame24. The recreation-bell sounded while they were conversing, and at Philippa’s desire the Abbess sent for Mother Joan to the guest-chamber. Sister Senicula led her in.
“How is it with you, Aunt?” said Philippa affectionately. “I have returned hither, as you may hear.”
“Ah! Is it thou, child?” said the blind nun25 in answer. “I fare reasonably well, as a blind woman may. I am glad thou hast come hither again.”
It evidently cost Isabel much to make herself known to the sister from whom she had parted in such painful circumstances, thirty-seven years before. For a few moments longer, she did not speak, and Philippa waited for her. At last Isabel said in a choked voice—“Sister Joan!”
“One that thou knewest once,” answered Isabel’s quivering voice.
“From Heaven?” cried Joan almost wildly. “Can the dead come back again?” And she stretched forth27 her hands in the direction from which the sound of her sister’s voice had come.
“No, but the living may,” said Isabel, kneeling down by her, and clasping her arms around her.
“Isabel!” And Joan’s trembling hands were passed over her face, as if to assure herself that her ears had not deceived her. “It can be no voice but thine. Holy Virgin, I thank thee!”
The Abbess broke in, in a manner which, though well-meant, was exceedingly ill-timed and in bad taste. She was kindly-disposed, but had not the faintest trace of that delicate perception of others’ feelings, and consideration for them, which constitutes the real difference between Nature’s ladies and such as are not ladies.
“Verily, to think that this holy Mother and our Mother Joan be sisters!” cried she, “I remember somewhat of your history, my holy Sister: are you not she that was sometime Countess of Arundel?”
Philippa saw how Isabel trembled from head to foot; but she knew not what to say. Joan La Despenser was equal to the emergency.
“Holy Mother,” she said quietly, “would it please you, of your great goodness, to permit me to remain here during the recreation-hour with my sister? I am assured we shall have much to say each to other, if we may have your blessed allowance to speak freely after this manner.”
“Be it so, Sister,” said the Abbess, smiling genially28; “I will see to our sisters in the recreation-chamber.”
A long conversation followed the departure of the Abbess. Joan took up the history where she had parted from Isabel, and told what had been her own lot since then; and Isabel in her turn recounted her story—neither a long nor an eventful one; for it told only how she had been taken to Sempringham by the page, and had there settled herself, in the hermit’s cell which happened to be vacant.
When Philippa was lying awake that night, her thoughts were troublous ones. Not only did she very much doubt Sir Richard’s consent to her mother’s visit to Kilquyt; but another question was puzzling her exceedingly. How far was it desirable to inform Isabel of the death of Alianora? She had noticed how the unfortunate remark of the Abbess had agitated30 her mother; and she also observed that when Joan came to speak to Isabel herself, she was totally silent concerning Earl Richard. The uncomplimentary adjectives which she had not spared in speaking to Philippa were utterly31 discarded now. Would it not do at least as much harm as good to revive the old memories of pain by telling her this? Philippa decided32 to remain silent.
The summer was passing away, and the autumn hues33 were slowly creeping over the forest, when Sir Richard’s answer arrived at Shaftesbury. It was not a pleasing missive; but it would have cost Philippa more tears if it had made her less angry. That gentleman had not written in a good temper; but he was not without excuse, for he had suffered something himself. He had not dared to reply to Philippa’s entreaty34, without seeking in his turn the permission of the Earl of Arundel, in whose hands his fortune lay to make or mar29. And, by one of those uncomfortable coincidences which have led to the proverb that “Misfortunes never come single,” it so happened that the news of the Countess’s death had reached the Earl on the very morning whereon Sir Richard laid Philippa’s letter before him. The result was that there broke on the devoted35 head of Sir Richard a tempest of ungovernable rage, so extremely unpleasant in character that he might be excused for his anxiety to avoid provoking a second edition of it. The Earl was grieved—so far as a nature like his could entertain grief—to lose his second wife; but to find that the first wife had been discovered, and by her daughter, possessed the additional character of insult. That the occurrence was accidental did not alter matters. Words would not content the aggrieved36 mourner: his hand sought the hilt of his sword, and Sir Richard, thinking discretion37 the better part of valour, made his way, as quickly as the laws of matter and space allowed him, out of the terrible presence whereinto he had rashly ventured. Feeling himself wholly innocent of any provocation38, it was not surprising that he should proceed to dictate39 a letter to his wife, scarcely calculated to gratify her feelings. Thus ran the offending document:—
“Dame,—Your epistle hath reached mine hands, (see Note 2) wherein it hath pleased you to give me to know of your finding of the Lady Isabel La Despenser, your fair mother, (see Note 3) and likewise of your desire that she should visit you at my Manor13 of Kilquyt. Know therefore, that I can in no wise assent to the same. For I am assured that it should provoke, and that in no small degree, the wrath40 of your fair father, my gracious Lord of Arundel: and I hereby charge you, on your obedience41, so soon as you shall receive this my letter, that you return home, and tarry no longer at Shaftesbury nor Sempringham. Know that I fare reasonably well, and Eustace my squire42; and your fair father likewise, saving that he hath showed much anger towards you and me. And thus, praying God and our blessed Lady, and Saint Peter and Saint Paul, to keep you. I rest.
“R. Sergeaux.”
The entire epistle was written by a scribe, for Sir Richard was as innocent of the art of calligraphy43 as Philippa herself; and the appending of his seal was the only part of the letter achieved by his own hand.
Philippa read the note three times before she communicated its contents to any one. The first time, it was with feelings of bitter anger towards both her father and her husband; the second, her view of her father’s conduct remained unchanged, but she began to see that Sir Richard, from his own point of view, was not without reasonable excuse for his refusal, and that considering the annoyance he had himself suffered, his letter was moderate and even tolerably kind,—kind, that is, for him. After the third perusal44, Philippa carried the letter to Joan, and read it to her—not in Isabel’s presence.
“What a fool wert thou, child,” said Joan, with her usual bluntness, “to send to thy lord concerning this matter! Well, what is done, is done. I had looked for no better had I known of it.”
Philippa did not read the letter to her mother. She merely told her the substance; that Sir Richard would not permit her to receive her at Kilquyt, and that he had ordered her home without delay. Isabel’s lip quivered a moment, but the next instant she smiled.
“I am not surprised, my child,” she said. “Take heed45, and obey.” It was hard work to obey. Hard, to part with Joan; harder yet, to leave Isabel in her lonely cell at Sempringham, and to go forward on the as lonely journey to Kilquyt. Perhaps hardest of all was the last night in the recreation-room at Sempringham. Isabel and Philippa sat by themselves in a corner, the hand of the eremitess clasped in that of her daughter.
“But how do you account for all the sorrow that is in the world?” Philippa had been saying. “Take my life, for instance, or your own, mother. God could have given us very pleasant lives, if it had pleased Him; why did He not do so? How can it augur46 love, to take out of our way all things loved or loving?”
“My daughter,” answered Isabel, “I am assured—and the longer I live the more assured I am—that the way which God marketh out for each one of His chosen is the right way, the best way, and for that one the only way. Every pang47 given to us, if we be Christ’s, is a pang that could not be spared. ‘As He was, so are we in this world;’ and with us, as with Him, ‘thus it must be.’ All our Lord’s followers48 wear His crown of thorns; but theirs, under His loving hand, bud and flower; which His never did, till He could cry upon the rood, ‘It is finished.’”
“But could not God,” said Philippa, a little timidly, “have given us more grace to avoid sinning, rather than have needed thus to burn our sins out of us with hot irons?”
“Thou art soaring up into the seventh Heaven of God’s purposes, my child,” answered Isabel with a smile; “I have no wings to follow thee so far.”
“Thou thinkest, then, mother,” replied Philippa with a sigh, “that we cannot understand the matter at all.”
“We can understand only what is revealed to us,” replied Isabel; “and that, I grant, is but little; yet it is enough. ‘As many as I love, I rebuke49 and chasten.’ ‘What son is he whom the father chasteneth not?’ How could it be otherwise? He were no wise father nor loving, who should teach his son nothing, or should forbear to rebuke him for such folly50 as might hereafter be his ruin.”
Isabel was silent, and Philippa’s memory went back to those old loveless days at Arundel, when for her there had been no chastening, no rebuke, only cold, lifeless apathy51. That was not love. And she thought also of her half-sister Alesia, whom she had visited once since her marriage, and who brought up her children on the principle of no contradiction and unlimited52 indulgence; and remembering how discontented and hard to please this discipline had made them, she began to see that was not love either.
“Thou hast wrought53 arras, my daughter,” said Isabel again. “Thou knowest, therefore, that to turn the arras the backward way showeth not the pattern. The colours are all mixed out of proportion, as the fastenings run in and out. So our life is in this world. The arras shall only be turned the right way above, when the angels of God shall see it, and marvel54 at the fair proportions and beauteous colours of that which looked so rough and misshapen here below.
“Moreover, we are thus tried, methinks, not only for our own good. We are sent into this world to serve: to serve God first, and after to serve man for God’s sake. And every blow of the chisel55 on the stone doth but dress it for its place. God’s chisel never falleth on the wrong place, and never giveth a stroke too much. Every pang fitteth us for more service; and I think thou shouldst find, in most instances, that the higher and greater the service to which the varlet is called, the deeper the previous suffering which fitteth him therefor. And God’s greatnesses are not ours. In His eyes, a poor serving-maiden may have a loftier and more difficult task than a lord of the King’s Council, or a Marshal of the army.
“And after all, every sorrow and perplexity, be it large or small, doth but give God’s child an errand to his Father. Nothing is too little to bear to His ear, if it be not too little to distress56 and perplex His servant. To Him all things pertaining57 to this life are small—the cloth of estate no less than the blade of grass; and all things pertaining to that other and better life in His blessed Home, are great and mighty. Yet we think the first great, and the last little. And therefore things become great that belong to the first life, just in proportion as they bear upon the second. Nothing is small that becomes to thee an occasion of sin; nothing, that can be made an incentive58 to holiness.”
“O mother, mother!” said Philippa, with a sudden sharp shoot of pain, “to-morrow I shall be far away from you, and none will teach me any more!”
“God will teach thee Himself, my child,” said Isabel tenderly. “He can teach far better than I. Only be thou not weary of His lessons; nor refuse to learn them. Maybe thou canst not see the use of many of them till they are learned; but ‘thou shalt know hereafter.’ Thou shalt find many a thorn in the way; but remember, it is not set there in anger, if thou be Christ’s; and many a flower shall spring up under thy feet, when thou art not looking for it. Only do thou never loose thine hold on Him, who has promised never to loose His on thee. Not that thou shouldst be lost in so doing; He will have a care of that: but thou mightest find thyself in the dark, and so far as thou couldst see, alone. It is sin that hides God from man; but nothing can hide man from God.”
And Philippa, drawing closer to her, whispered,—“Mother, pray for me.”
A very loving smile broke over Isabel’s lips, as she pressed them fondly upon Philippa’s cheek.
“Mine own Philippa,” she said, in the softest accent of her soft voice, “dost thou think I have waited thirty years for that?”
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1
mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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sarcastically
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| adv.挖苦地，讽刺地 | |
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3
wilt
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| v.(使)植物凋谢或枯萎；(指人)疲倦，衰弱 | |
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assent
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| v.批准，认可；n.批准，认可 | |
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pout
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| v.撅嘴；绷脸；n.撅嘴；生气，不高兴 | |
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nought
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| n.／adj.无，零 | |
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remonstrance
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| n抗议，抱怨 | |
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8
fathomed
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| 理解…的真意( fathom的过去式和过去分词 )； 彻底了解； 弄清真相 | |
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motive
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| n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的 | |
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10
possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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revoke
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| v.废除，取消，撤回 | |
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manors
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| n.庄园（manor的复数形式） | |
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manor
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| n.庄园，领地 | |
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buffeted
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| 反复敲打( buffet的过去式和过去分词 )； 连续猛击； 打来打去； 推来搡去 | |
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vows
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| 誓言( vow的名词复数 )； 郑重宣布，许愿 | |
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16
forsake
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| vt.遗弃，抛弃；舍弃，放弃 | |
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conversing
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| v.交谈，谈话( converse的现在分词 ) | |
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18
countenance
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| n.脸色，面容；面部表情；vt.支持，赞同 | |
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momentary
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| adj.片刻的，瞬息的；短暂的 | |
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annoyance
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| n.恼怒，生气，烦恼 | |
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err
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| vi.犯错误，出差错 | |
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condescended
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| 屈尊，俯就( condescend的过去式和过去分词 )； 故意表示和蔼可亲 | |
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monastery
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| n.修道院，僧院，寺院 | |
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dame
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| n.女士 | |
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nun
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| n.修女，尼姑 | |
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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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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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genially
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| adv.亲切地，和蔼地；快活地 | |
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mar
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| vt.破坏，毁坏，弄糟 | |
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agitated
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| adj.被鼓动的，不安的 | |
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utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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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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hues
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| 色彩( hue的名词复数 )； 色调； 信仰； 观点 | |
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entreaty
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| n.恳求，哀求 | |
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devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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aggrieved
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| adj.愤愤不平的，受委屈的；悲痛的；（在合法权利方面）受侵害的v.令委屈，令苦恼，侵害( aggrieve的过去式)；令委屈，令苦恼，侵害( aggrieve的过去式和过去分词) | |
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discretion
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| n.谨慎；随意处理 | |
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provocation
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| n.激怒，刺激，挑拨，挑衅的事物，激怒的原因 | |
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dictate
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| v.口授；(使)听写；指令，指示，命令 | |
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40
wrath
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| n.愤怒，愤慨，暴怒 | |
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obedience
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| n.服从，顺从 | |
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42
squire
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| n.护卫, 侍从, 乡绅 | |
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calligraphy
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| n.书法 | |
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perusal
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| n.细读，熟读；目测 | |
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45
heed
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| v.注意，留意；n.注意，留心 | |
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46
augur
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| n.占卦师；v.占卦 | |
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47
pang
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| n.剧痛，悲痛，苦闷 | |
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48
followers
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| 追随者( follower的名词复数 )； 用户； 契据的附面； 从动件 | |
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49
rebuke
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| v.指责，非难，斥责 [反]praise | |
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50
folly
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| n.愚笨，愚蠢，蠢事，蠢行，傻话 | |
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51
apathy
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| n.漠不关心，无动于衷；冷淡 | |
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52
unlimited
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| adj.无限的，不受控制的，无条件的 | |
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53
wrought
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| v.引起；以…原料制作；运转；adj.制造的 | |
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54
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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55
chisel
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| n.凿子；v.用凿子刻，雕，凿 | |
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56
distress
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| n.苦恼，痛苦，不舒适；不幸；vt.使悲痛 | |
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57
pertaining
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| 与…有关系的，附属…的，为…固有的(to) | |
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58
incentive
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| n.刺激；动力；鼓励；诱因；动机 | |
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