Emily Sarah Holt

“ Who is a stranger to the One shall needs be a stranger to the other.”
“I have tried hard to make my salvation,” responded Philippa more sadly; “but as yet I cannot do it.”
“Nor will you, though you could try a thousand years,” answered Guy. “That is a manufacture beyond saints and angels, and how then shall you do it?”
“Who then can do it?”
“God,” said Guy, solemnly.
“God hates me,” replied Philippa, under her breath. “He hateth all mine house. For nigh fifty years, He hath sent us sorrow upon sorrow, and hath crushed us down into the dust of death.” ”

“ It was winter again; and the winds blew harshly and wailingly around the Castle of Arundel. In the stateliest chamber of that Castle, where the hangings were of cramoisie paned with cloth of gold, the evening tapers were burning low, and a black-robed priest knelt beside the bed where an old man lay dying.
“I can think of nothing more, Father,” faintly whispered the penitent. “I have confessed every sin that I have ever sinned, so far as my memory serveth: and many men have been worse sinners than I. I never robbed a church in all my wars. ”

“ Philippa was silent.
“Is the flower so fair, that you will risk life for it?” pursued the monk. “Nay, not risk—that is a word implying doubt, and here is none. So fair, then, that you will throw life away for it? And is the Father not fair and precious in your eyes, that you are in so little haste to come to Him? Daughter, what shall it profit you, if you gain the whole world—and lose your own soul?” ”

“ Mother Joan made the sign of the cross, and a very mournful expression came over her face.
“Ah, holy Virgin!” she said, lifting her sightless eyes, “why is it that such things are permitted? The wicked dwell in peace, and increase their goods; the holy dwell hardly and die poor. Couldst not thou change the lots? There is at this moment one man in the world, clad in cloth of gold, dwelling gloriously, than whom the foul fiend himself is scarcely worse; and there was one woman, like the angels, whose Queen thou art, and only God and thou know what became of her. ”

“ In short, Father Guy tells me to do what I cannot do, and then he saith I will not do it. Will you teach me, and comfort me, if you can? The monk only makes me more unhappy. And I do not want to be unhappy. I want comfort—I want rest—I want peace. Tell me how to obtain it!”
“No one wishes to be unhappy,” said the eremitess, in her gentle accents; “but sometimes we mistake the medicine we need. Before I can give you medicine, I must know your disease.”
“My disease is weariness and sorrow,” answered Philippa. “I love none, and none loveth me. None hath ever loved me. I hate all men.” ”

“ Every pang 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 followers 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?” ”

“ 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 augur love, to take out of our way all things loved or loving?” ”

“ The least stone in his path was treated as a gigantic mountain; the narrowest brooklet as an unfathomable sea. And gradually—she scarcely knew how or when—the old weary discomfort crept back over Philippa’s heart, the old unsatisfied longing for the love that no one gave. Her bower at Kilquyt was no more strewn with roses than her turret-chamber at Arundel. She found that “On change du ciel—l’on ne change point de soi.” ”

“ And what we love, we become. He that loveth sin must needs be a sinner.”
“I do not think I love sin,” rejoined Philippa, rather offended.
“That is because you cannot see yourself.”
Just what Guy of Ashridge had told her; but not more palatable now than it had been then.
“What is sin?” asked the Grey Lady.
Philippa was ready with a list—of sins which she felt certain she had not committed.
“Give me leave to add one,” said the eremitess. “Pride is sin; nay, it is the abominable sin which God hateth. And is there no pride in you, Lady de Sergeaux? You tell me you cannot forgive your own father. ”

“ Philippa spoke not angrily now, but very sorrowfully.
“And ‘thou hast nothing to draw with, and the Well is deep.’”
“That is just what I feel,” said Philippa, earnestly.
“Yet it is close beside you,” answered the Grey Lady. “The water is drawn, and ready. All that is needed is your outstretched hand to take it. Christ giveth the Living Water; Christ is the Door by which, if any man enter in, he shall be saved; Christ is our peace with God. You have not to make peace; for them that take Christ’s salvation, peace is made. You can never make peace: it took Christ to make it. ”

“ She could not see the smile that crossed the lips of the eremitess.
“Most certainly it does,” said she.
“And God made man,” objected Philippa. “To injure the dignity of man, therefore, is to affront the dignity of God.”
“Dignity fell with Adam,” said the Grey Lady. “Satan fatally injured the dignity of man, when he crept into Eden. Man hath none left now, but only as he returneth unto God. And do you think there be any grace of condignity in a beggar, when he holdeth forth his hand to receive a garment in the convent dole? ”

“ You are a married woman, of course, for your dress is not that of a nun, nor of a widow. Have you children? Are your parents living?”
“I have no child,” said Philippa: and the Grey Lady’s penetration must have been obtuse if she were unable to detect a tone of deep sadness underlying the words. “And parents—living—did you ask me? By Mary, Mother and Maiden, I have but one living, and I hate—I hate him!” The passionate energy with which the last words were spoken told its own tale. ”

“ Now and then I used to notice that there came to the castle an aged man, in the garb of the Friars Predicants; unto whom—and to him only—Isabel used to confess. So changed was he from his old self, that I never knew till long after that this was our father’s old confessor, Giles de Edingdon. She only said to me that he taught her good things. If he taught her her saintly endurance, it was good. But I fear he taught her other things as well: to hold in light esteem that blessed doctrine of grace of condignity, whereby man can and doth merit the favour of God. ”

“ Nothing is small that becomes to thee an occasion of sin; nothing, that can be made an incentive 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 ”

“ You have as much need to be forgiven.”
“But I have not!” cried Philippa, in no dulcet tones, her annoyance getting the better of her civility. “I never was a murderer! I never turned coldly away from one that loved me—for none ever did love me. I never crushed a loving, faithful heart down into the dust. I never brought a child up like a stranger. ”

“ Philippa made no reply; she was too vexed to make any. The monk laid his hand gently upon her head.
“Take the best wish that I can make for you:—God show you how blind you are! God put life within you, that you may awake, and arise from the dead, and see the light of Christ! May He grant you that thirst which shall be satisfied with nothing short of the Living Water—which shall lead you to disregard all the roughnesses of the way, and the storms of the journey, so that you may win Christ, and be found in Him! ”

“ When no one came forward, in answer to her appeal, as the Duke’s executioner, Joan exclaimed, “Cursed be you villains! are none of you bold enough to kill a man?” A squire volunteered to officiate, but when he had seen and heard the man whom he was to slay, he shrank from the terrible task. “Madam,” was his remonstrance to the Countess, “for all the gold in the world, I cannot kill such a Lord!” “Thou shalt do what thou hast promised,” said Joan, “or I will cut thy head off.” ”

“ Philippa shook her head. She had never looked at her troubles in this light “But if the way be thus rough, and yet you will walk in it alone, though your feet be bleeding; if the waters be deep, and yet you will strive to ford them unaided; if the house be drear and lonely, and yet you will not rise up and go home—is it any wonder that you are sorrowful, or that you do not know Him whose love you put thus away from you? And you tell me that God’s love were better to you than none! Better than none!—better than any, better than all! ”

“ Christ will save you with no half nor quarter salvation. He will not let you lay the foundation whereon He shall build. He will not tear His fair shining robe of righteousness to patch your worthless rags. With Him, either not at all, or all in all.”
“But what would you have me do?” said Philippa, in a vexed tone.
“Believe,” replied Guy.
“Believe what?” said she.
“‘Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.’”
“The easiest thing in the world,” answered Philippa, a little contemptuously.
“Is it so?” responded the monk, with a pitying smile. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Her voice fell so mournfully that Philippa tried to turn her attention by asking her,—“Knew you King Edward of Westminster?” (See note 3.)
“Nay, Lady de Sergeaux, with what years do you credit me?” rejoined the nun, laughing a little. “Edward of Westminster was dead ere I was born. But I have heard of him from them that did remember him well. He was a goodly man, of lofty stature, and royal presence: a wise man, and a cunning (clever) —saving only that he opposed our holy Father the Pope.”
“Did he so?” responded Philippa.
“Did he so!” ironically repeated Mother Joan. ”

“ 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! ”

“ Philippa wondered who the other men were, and whether Mother Joan alluded to her own ancestors. She knew nothing of the Despensers, except the remembrance that she had never heard them alluded to at Arundel but in a tone of bitter scorn and loathing.
“Maybe,” continued the blind woman, in a softer voice, “he was no worse for his strange opinions. Some were not. ’Tis a marvellous matter, surely, that there be that can lead lives of angels, and yet hold views that holy Church condemneth as utterly to be abhorred.” ”

“ We were in Bristol on that awful day. My mother, the King had left in charge of the Tower of London; but in Bristol, with the King, were my grandfather and father my Lord and Lady of Arundel, their son Richard, and Isabel, and myself. I was then a maiden of sixteen years. When Dame Isabelle’s banners floated over the gates of the city, and her trumpets summoned the citizens to surrender, King Edward, who was a timid man, flung himself into the castle for safety, and with him all of us, saving my grandfather, and my Lord of Arundel, who remained without, directing the defence. ”

“ It was plain that the eremitess was no peasant.
Elaine seemed to know that she was no longer wanted, and she drew Annora away. The children went dancing through the wood, and Philippa, desiring Lena and Oliver to await her pleasure, shut the door of the cell.
“Mother,” she began—for recluses were addressed as professed nuns, and were indeed regarded as the holiest of all celibates—“I desire your help.”
“For body or soul?” was the reply.
“For the soul—for the life,” said Philippa.
“Ay,” replied the eremitess; “the soul is the life.”
“Know you Guy of Ashridge?” asked Philippa. ”