The Well in the Desert | Page 7

mind that last time she spake, only the very day before--never mind
what. But that which came after stamped it on mine heart for ever. It
was the last time I heard her voice; and I knew--we all knew--what was
coming, though she did not. It was about water she spake, and he that
drank should thirst again; and there was another well some whither,
whereof he that should drink should never thirst. And He that died on
the rood would give us that better water, if we asked Him."
"But how shall I get at Him to ask Him?" cried Philippa.
"She said He could hear, if we asked," replied the lavender.
"Who said?"
"She--that you wot of. Our 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