Lady Philippa sat with her little daughter Eleanor in the tapestry chamber. This was the only corner of the gray old Norman castle which seemed really their own. All the rest of it was under the rule of Sir Stephen Giffard, the eldest son of the house, and still more under the rule of his mother, Lady Ebba, who seemed more like a man than a woman and managed everything, in-doors and out, including her sons. Eleanor, watching her grandmother with shy observant eyes, was not quite sure whether her father came under that rule or not. He never disputed anything his mother said or opposed her will, but somehow, when he saw that his sweet Provencal wife wanted anything, he contrived that she should have it.
Eleanor could not help seeing, however, that her mother was careful not to appear discontented or melancholy, and to do all that a daughter could do for her husband's stern old mother. Both Sir Stephen Giffard and Sir Walter, Eleanor's father, were away most of the time, and if Lady Philippa had been disposed to make herself unhappy she might have been exceedingly miserable. The old chatelaine did not approve of luxury, even such small luxuries as were almost necessities in that vast pile of stone which was the inheritance of the Norman Giffards. The castle hall was as grim and bare as a guard-room except on state occasions, and the food was hardly better on the master's table than below the salt, where the common folk ate. To be sure, there was plenty to eat, such as it was. The old lord, who had been dead for many years now, had married the daughter of a Saxon earl when he was a young knight in England, and Lady Ebba had been used to plentiful provision in the house of her father. In the autumn, when the other castles in the neighborhood sent forth gay hunting parties, and the deep forest, whose trees had never known the ax since Caesar built his bridges in Gaul, rang to the hunting horns, there was no such merrymaking on the Giffard lands. Instead, the folk were salting down beef and fish and pork—particularly pork, from the herds of swine that roamed the woods feeding on the acorns and beech mast. Toward the end of the winter there seemed to be more pork than anything else on the table.
Lady Philippa had ruled her father's house when she was a girl of fourteen, and she could have taught the people a different way of living. She knew how to raise and care for the great variety of poultry, water-fowl, pigeons, hares, fish, and delicate small birds of many kinds, such as some of their neighbors had and the southern provinces of France enjoyed in even greater abundance. But Lady Ebba would have none of it. Fowls had to be carefully tended, protected from foxes, hawks and other enemies; the fierce half-wild hogs could take care of themselves. All that they needed was a peasant herdsman with a dog to keep them together and see that thieving neighbors did not help themselves. There was more food in one hog than in a whole covey of game birds, to say nothing of the trouble of catching and cooking the birds.
Neither did the old dame approve of tapestried walls, cups and bowls of silver, gold and enamel, flower-gardens or delicately-made dishes. Fortunately her daughter-in-law's herb-garden was not wholly under the ban. It contained herbs useful in medicine, and God has ordained that many useful plants are also beautiful in their season. Sage, balm, caraway, monk's hood, thyme, thrift, mint, and other plants therefore dwelt contentedly in a sunny nook of the castle. The Provence roses, lilies and violets needed little care, and having once taken root were not ousted. One reason may have been that on special occasions perfumed water was offered to some guest of importance, for the washing of the hands after eating. By her manner though not in words Lady Ebba conveyed the idea that it was as well to have some one in the house who had time and taste for such things. The embroidering of tapestries and rich robes, and the repairing of such vestments as had come to mending, might also be done by the person who had time for it.
The pleasantest hours in Eleanor's day were those that she spent with her mother in the tapestry chamber. Whenever the weather would allow it they sat there during the sunny hours of the day, and if Sir Walter was at home, or it was very cold and some important piece of work must be done, they could have a brazier of charcoal to keep them warm. There was no fireplace in the room.
It was not a very large room, and it was stone-floored and stone-walled. It was Lady Philippa's bedchamber. The bed was oak, built into the wall like a cupboard, and almost black with age. There were carved doors of oak that could be shut, making it look like an armoire, but these were usually open, displaying pillow-slips of fine linen and a linen coverlet, spun, woven, and embroidered with black silk, by the lady herself. On the floor were strewn rushes and fragrant herbs. There were two straight carved chairs of old oak, an ivory footstool and a small table which held a few books and an ebony work-box inlaid with ivory, and writing materials. Two carved chests set one on the other served as wardrobe. As for washing conveniences, these were brought in as they were needed, by the knight's body-servant or the lady's own maid. The real luxury in the room was the window, which was more than twice the size of the narrow slits that lighted the great hall, and opened to the south. On pleasant days the sun looked in early and lingered late, as if he loved the room and its gentle mistress.
The room had been much the same for more than a hundred years, the castle having been built during the tenth century. The thing that made it Lady Philippa's own particular room, which could have belonged to no one else, was the set of soft yet brilliant tapestries which covered the walls. They had been worked by her in her girlhood, and she sometimes felt that more than half her life was wrought into the quaint figures and innumerable flowers and leaves and emblems of those narrow panels of embroidery. They had adorned the room which had been hers in her father's castle, and single panels had curtained or covered wall-spaces in many other castles during her life as Queen Eleanor's maid of honor. Little Eleanor had heard the story of the pictures as soon as she was old enough to hear stories at all, and there was some story connected with the making of each part of the set. It presented in a series of scenes the history of Sainte Genevieve of Paris. In the first picture she was shown as a little girl tending her sheep; then there were pictures of her at the various exciting times in her life—her saving the people from the Huns, her staying of the plague, her audience with King Clovis and finally her peaceful old age among the people who loved her.
Eleanor was kneeling on the window-seat where she sometimes slept, her bright braids falling over her white linen underdress and gown of soft blue wool. “Mother,” she said earnestly, “I wish I could make some tapestry.”
Lady Philippa was deftly drawing together the edges of a rent in an old and magnificent gold-embroidered bed-curtain. “Have you finished your spinning, daughter?” she asked.
“N-o, but it is almost done. Mother, I will spin twice as much every day if you will teach me to do tapestry. Were you older than I am when you learned?”
“Not very much older. Perhaps you might begin now. Finish your task while I make this curtain whole, and we will see.”
When her mother said she would “see,” Eleanor knew that a favor was as good as granted. She spun away to a happy little song that Collet, her mother's maid, had taught her, and very soon the good linen thread was all wound smoothly and the little spinster sat demurely watching the preparations for her new undertaking.
First her mother opened the wardrobe chest and took out a strip of linen about twenty inches wide and of a brownish cream-color. Next she selected some skeins of dyed linen thread from a heap of all the colors of the rainbow, mementoes of the work her busy fingers had done during many years. In a little enameled box, very carefully wrapped in soft wool to keep them from rusting, were a few needles. Out of a wrapping of cotton paper came a thin stick of charcoal rather like a crayon—charred hard wood that could be used for drawing.
“Now,” said the lady smiling at the eager little face, “what shall we choose for the subject of your tapestry, and what is to be its use? Will you have it for a cushion, or a panel of a screen, or something else?”
“I think—a set of panels,” said Eleanor slowly. “It will take a long time, but I should like to do exactly like you.”
Lady Philippa gave a little, amused, affectionate laugh that ended in a sigh. “But, my dear child, you don't think of copying these?”
“N-o. But when I grow up I want my room to look like yours. I want the tapestry to have a story. Mother, do you think I could work the story of Saint George and the dragon? I like that best of all.”
Eleanor drank in all the tales told her so delightedly that her mother had never known she liked one much more than another. “But,” she said smiling, “Saint George was an English saint. He was born in Coventry.”
“That's why he is my favorite,” Eleanor explained. “You know father is English. And Saint George had so many adventures. I think he would be very interesting to do.”
“It is your tapestry, dear child,” her mother said, laughing her sweet, joyous laugh. “I am sure I think Saint George and the dragon would make a very handsome set. And we need not draw all the designs now. Perhaps by-and-by we shall know some one who will draw a dragon for us. Meanwhile you may begin on the first panel.”
Eleanor flung her arms around her mother. “Oh, mother dearest, it's so good of you. I'm so excited to begin. Please commence at the very first part of the story, for that will be easy.”
“Not so easy as you think, perhaps, sweetheart. However, we can but try. You mean the setting forth of the knight?”
“No, the time when he was a little boy, and the weird woman of the woods took him away and taught him everything. I like that part almost best of all.”
“Very well. That will be a wise beginning, for in embroidering the trees and flowers of the forest you will learn all the different stitches. You will have to embroider quite well before beginning on the figures.”
Eleanor leaned breathless over the table while her mother drew the outlines of the picture upon the linen—the witch-woman in her forest home, the straight, sturdy figure of small George standing before her. On two sides and the bottom of the panel were drawn gnarled and twisted tree-trunks and roots, ferns and flowers. Across the top a narrow conventional border was outlined, the cross of Saint George alternating with a five-petaled rose, the wild rose of England.
“You may begin the border now,” said Lady Philippa, threading a needle with brown thread. “This is outline stitch, and the design must all be outlined with this, using different colors according to the part of it you are working. Then each space is to be filled in with another stitch—you see it here in the tapestry. For the background we will use still another stitch, and when you are covering large spaces the work is to be done in tent-stitch. Every inch of this linen will be covered with embroidery when it is finished, you know.”
Eleanor looked very grave and responsible. She saw long years of work before her, occupied with the triumphant career of the soldier-saint. But the new work proved so fascinating that an hour had gone by before she knew it. It was hard to tear herself away and go down to the chilly stone hall. She was not expected to come very near the fire of blazing logs, and felt her grandmother's eye constantly upon her lest she should not sit erect or behave as a well-born maiden should. She felt also that if Lady Ebba knew how much time would be consumed by the adventures of Saint George, she would begin a calculation of the number of skeins of linen thread that might be spun in that time, to the enrichment of the family. Eleanor privately thought that there was bed-linen in the castle to last for at least twenty years—which was true.
Letters had been received at the castle that day. Sir Walter was on his way home, and with him an English knight who had been his friend for many years—ever since they were squires together in Normandy. Lady Philippa looked rather sad and wistful when she spoke of Sir Hugh l'Estrange. He had married her dearest childhood friend, Alazais de Montfaucon, and Alazais was dead. She had gone a bride into that foreign land, lived seven happy years, and died. Eleanor could not help wondering whether she should ever have any friends who were dear to her as these early friends were to her father and mother. She had never played with any other children at all.
The news of her father's coming had traveled more slowly than he himself did. The next day, while Eleanor and her mother were busy transplanting some asphodel, the horn blew at the gate, and in a few minutes the knight came striding across the turf and caught his wife in one arm and his daughter in the other. Behind him was a great tall man with laughing eyes and a rather sad mouth, and standing very straight and soldierly beside the stranger was a boy some two years older than Eleanor, whom Sir Hugh introduced as “my son, Roger.”
The following days were so full of excitement that little time was left for the tapestry chamber. The two knights were on their way southward to meet King Henry and aid him to pacify some of his turbulent subjects. Roger was to be left at the castle. It was usual for a knight to send his sons to some friend for training during the years when a boy must learn the duties of page and esquire. In this case there was more than usual reason for it, for Sir Hugh's castle was in a remote part of England and it would not be safe to leave his only son there during his absence.
Roger himself, while he frankly admitted that he did not much like leaving England, was keenly interested in all that he saw and heard. Soon it seemed as if he had always been at home in the old Norman castle. He called Lady Ebba “grandame,” as Eleanor had never dared to do, and though she was as strict with him as she was with every one else, she never seemed exactly displeased with him. Roger himself saw it.
“Why do you like boys better than girls?” he asked her point blank, one day.
“Men can fight,” Lady Ebba answered, curtly.
“Of course,” Roger reflected. “But women can make men fight. Father told me that once when the Danes tried to take your father's castle you held them off until he came back.”
Lady Ebba did not say anything. She rose and stalked away, but although her back was to Roger, Eleanor could see that she was actually smiling.
Eleanor knew that story. It gave her a feeling of enormous admiration and awe when she thought of it, but love—for a grandmother who had commanded a garrison, on scanty rations, besieged by fierce and bloodthirsty pirates—seemed a little out of place.
It was certainly far pleasanter, having Roger for a playmate. Eleanor thought it was better than having a sister. He taught her to run, to fish, to play bowls, nine-men-morris, and draughts. The dismal stone hall was not half so grim with Roger in her corner.
These diversions did not, however, interrupt the daily lessons, the task in spinning, or the newly-begun tapestry. To her great satisfaction Eleanor found that Roger liked the tapestry chamber nearly or quite as well as she did. When he saw Eleanor's tapestry he persuaded Sir Hugh l'Estrange to spend a rainy morning in making sketches for it.
“Father has been to Egypt and the other places,” he explained, “and knows just how they look. You never saw a dragon, though, father?” he added doubtfully.
“Not exactly, but I have seen a beast rather like one,” laughed the knight, and he drew a very fair picture of a crocodile, adding wings and a fiery breath and fearsome talons by way of establishing its dragonship. “I have seen the place where they say the monster was killed. And did you know that Saint George is said to have helped the Allies under Godfrey in the First Crusade, at the battle for Jerusalem?” While the children looked on in fascinated wonder, he sketched in a battle-scene—rather cramped for space because of the narrow linen web—showing Godfrey de Bouillon cheering on his knights, the saint on his great white horse leading the charge, and the banner of the Cross rising above the host. From the tapestried walls Sainte Genevieve and her people looked on with kindly interest at the little group.
When the two fathers had gone away life settled into a quiet but pleasant order. Roger shared some of Eleanor's lessons, and when she was at her spinning or needlework he was often by, with a bow to shape, a spear to polish or some other in-door work to do, while they listened to Lady Philippa's stories. To him nearly all of them were new.
As the spring advanced the three spent much time in the garden. A drain was needed in one place, and Roger retrieved a spade from the gardener's quarters and went at it. He had heard Lady Philippa say that she should like to have a “mount” there—an artificial hill made of packed earth and stones—and as he dug he threw the dirt inward and tramped it down. He explained that this was the way a castle mount was made if the hill selected was not high enough. The one at Lewes that William de Warenne had made was a hundred and fifty feet high.
Eleanor caught the enthusiasm, brought stones and helped tread them down with her stout little leather shoes, and old Jehan's grandson with his sabots helped also.
“Wouldn't it be beautiful if we could build a castle on the top?” Eleanor suggested as they stood looking at it.
“Perhaps we can—if your mother is willing. Ask her if we may have all the stones we pick out of the garden—if we don't harm the plants—will you, Eleanor?”
Eleanor climbed the winding stairs to the tapestry chamber, and came flying back with the glad permission. Then the small building force went to work in deep earnest.
“I know exactly how to build it, for I saw the building of our castle from the very first,” Roger explained.
“We lived in a tent all summer until it was done—part of it—so that we could have a room. First they dig a ditch, just like this one, around the mount, and they make a palisade of forest trees—whole trunks set close together—to keep off enemies. When they have time to build a stone wall, of course the wooden wall is taken down.
“Now here, on the most solid side of the mount, is the place for the keep. We use the biggest stones for that. The bottom storey of father's keep is partly cut right out of the rock, and the walls are twenty-five or thirty feet thick. Nobody can knock down that wall with a battering-ram! Here we'll make a great arched door, so that the knights can ride right in without dismounting when they're hard pressed by the enemy. Here's the drawbridge—” Roger hastily whittled off a piece of bark—“and this line I've scratched inside the outer wall is for the wall round the inner bailey. We'll have a watch-tower here—and here—and here. Father says that a good builder places his towers so that each one protects one or two others, and in the end every one is protected.
“In the storey above will be the great hall. These walls don't need to be so thick—not more than eighteen feet. Here on this side we'll cut a little room out of the thickness of the wall, for the private chamber of my lord and lady—”
“The tapestry chamber!” cried Eleanor.
“Yes,” Roger went on, “and here on the other side we have the well-chamber. There's a stone bason with a shaft that goes away down to the well in the lowest part of the castle, and the defenders can always get water by lowering a bucket when they're besieged. Up above is another storey for a guard-room, and a flat roof with battlements around it, where the sentinels can see for miles and miles across the country.”
The two children gazed at their castle mount and almost believed the walls, eighteen, twenty, thirty feet thick—rising before their eyes.
“But that isn't all of the castle,” said Eleanor at last.
“No; we'll build more towers after awhile, and have a banquet hall to entertain the King. And the soldiers and people will live in tents and wattled huts until the stonework is done. But the keep is the first thing to build, because, you see, you have to defend yourself from enemies no matter when they come.”
Lady Philippa's garden was cleared of stones in a much shorter time than she had expected. But to build a stone wall simply by laying one stone upon another is less easy than it seems. Roger had done something of the sort before, but he had had fragments of stone from the masons' work instead of water-washed pebbles. And when the keep was actually built as high as the first floor above the foundation, a heavy rain came, streams tore out one side of the mount, and the stone-work tumbled into a hopeless ruin.
In the crystal brilliance of the morning after the storm Roger surveyed it ruefully. “Father says,” he recalled, “that everything depends on the foundations. We'll do it over again and make the mount more solid.”
“And when it is done,” said Eleanor, never losing faith, “I'll beg some linen of mother and make tapestry for the walls of the little room and the great hall.”
But the stones would not stay in place. Roger tried plastering them with mud, then with clay. Neither would hold when dry. Then he saw a workman repairing part of the garden wall, and in an evil moment borrowed some of the mortar while the man was gone to his dinner. He had just set it down near the mount when Collet came to call the children to their own dinner. The bucket remained there, and Lady Ebba's old gray cat, chasing a hound she had discovered near the hole where her kittens were secreted, bounced off a wall and fell into the mortar—fortunately hind feet foremost. The indignant Jehan came searching for his bucket and kicked the pile of stones in all directions, Lady Ebba made stern inquiry into the misfortune which had come to her cat, and wall-building was abandoned.
For a week or more, Roger gardened, fished and practiced archery in a somewhat subdued fashion. Lady Philippa, watching Eleanor's brown head and the boy's tousled tow-colored mop, as they consulted over a boat Roger was making, smiled and sighed. She wished that Alazais were there to see them play together.
Not long after the disastrous building incident Sir Walter appeared one day with surprising news indeed. Sir Stephen Giffard, the elder brother, was about to marry and come to live in the old Norman chateau. The new chatelaine was a rich widow of Louvain. Sir Stephen and Lady Adelicia would be the lord and lady of the castle, and would have the tapestry chamber.
“Oh, moth-er!” cried Eleanor piteously. No other room in the castle would ever be so pleasant. She could not understand her mother's untroubled acceptance of the change.
“But my dear child,” Lady Philippa went on, “we shall not be here; we are going away. King Henry has given your father a great estate in a wild country in the west of England, and he is building a castle for our home. You will be an English maiden, sweetheart, and have your tapestry of Saint George for your very own room.”
Eleanor's eyes were starlike. Then her mouth began to droop a little. “Is Roger to stay here?”
“Roger will be with us. His father's castle is only a few leagues from ours, and he is going to leave Roger at our home for a year or more while he is away.”
This made it quite perfect. Roger rejoiced openly at the prospect of going back to England. In stray moments Eleanor wondered a little how Lady Ebba liked it. She rather doubted whether Lady Adelicia would be as content there as her mother.
When they rode away from the old Norman gateway for the last time Eleanor laughed gleefully: “I don't care where we go, mother,” she whispered, “we've the roots and seeds from your garden, and we shall have a tapestry chamber!”
THE CASTLE
O the Castle of Heart's Delight!
The winds of the sunrise know it,
And the music adrift in its airy halls,
To the end of the world they blow it—
Music of glad hearts keeping time
To bells that ring in a crystal chime
With the cadence light of an ancient rime—
Such music lives on the winds of night
That blow from the Castle of Heart's Delight!
O the Castle of Heart's Delight
Where you and I go faring—
Heritage dear of love and toil,
Guerdon of faith and daring.
For all may win to the ancient gate,
Though some are early and some are late,
And each hath borne with his hidden Fate,—
To enter his Castle of Heart's Delight!
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