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And Maude began to wonder how long it would last. It was a calm, mild evening in January, 1394, and in the Princess's bower, or bedroom, stood Maude, re-arranging a portion of her lady's wardrobe. The Duchess had been that day more than usually exacting and precise, much to the amusement of Bertram Lyngern, at present at Langley in the train of his master.
"Be merry, Mistress Maude, I pray you! you mope not, surely?" "I scarce know, Master Lyngern. Mayhap so." "Shame to mope on such a day!" said Bertram, springing from the saddle, and holding his hand to help Maude to jump down also. "There hath not been so fair a morrow this month gone."
"Home!" whispered the noble fugitive, slackening his pace an instant, as the beloved panorama broke upon his sight. "Now forward, Lyngern home!" Down they galloped wearily to the gates, walked through the town stopped every moment by demands for news till at last the Castle was reached, and in the base court they alighted from their exhausted steeds.
When the ceremony was just completed, without any previous intimation, the Duke of York, who was present, drew his sword, and lightly struck the shoulder of the bridegroom, before he could rise from his knees. "Rise, Sir Bertram Lyngern!" So Maude became entitled at once to the honourable prefix of "Dame." The grander wedding was on the following Thursday.
"If you will take mine avisement, you will be wed likewise," said Bertram gravely. "What mean you, Master Lyngern?" Maude was really hurt. She liked Bertram, and here he was making fun of her, without the least consideration for her feelings. "Marry, I mean that same," responded Bertram coolly. "Would it like you, Mistress Maude?"
At last it was settled that the King should be appealed to, and the request urged upon him by his emissary, by letter. Isabel, however, was evidently gifted with no slight ambassadorial powers; for when she selected Bertram Lyngern as her messenger, the Governor did not hesitate to let him go. But Bertram's projected journey never took place, for a most unexpected event intervened to stop it.
But one winter day, eighteen years later, Maude Lyngern heard that Sister Avice, of the Minoresses' house at Aldgate, had died in the odour of sanctity; and that the sisters were not without hope that the holy Father might pronounce her a saint, or at least "beata."
"As you will, Master Lyngern." This was Bertram's wooing; and Maude wondered, when she was alone, if any woman had been so wooed before. Constance expressed the greatest satisfaction when she heard of her bower-woman's approaching marriage; but one item of Bertram's project she commanded altered namely, that Maude's nuptials should not take place on the same day as her own.
Maude wished he would have left her to her own thoughts, from which his questions were no diversion in any sense. "Mistress Maude, when will you be wed?" The diversion was effected. "I, Master Lyngern! I am not about to wed." "Are you well avised of that, Mistress Maude?" "Marry, Master Lyngern!" said Maude, feeling rather affronted.
Bertram and Maude rode back as they had come. Maude was very silent, which was no wonder; and so, for ten minutes, was Bertram. Then he began: "How liked you this forest life, Mistress Maude?" "Well, Master Lyngern, and I thank you," said she absently. "And to-morrow is a week our Lady's Grace shall wed?" "Why, Master Lyngern, you know that as well as I."
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