MARGARET OF MARGARETS
At that I was wroth, and with reason. For who could have dreamed of
such a thing--except, as I said, one blinded by monkish ignorance or
childish jealousy? Yes, I was very angry, and I am glad to pass
quickly from the cruel words I spoke to my comrade.
But the truth is, that perhaps it was true that I had been as the
ostrich, which (says Leo Africanus) hides its head in a heap of sand
to escape the hunter. But it was, indeed, small wonder that I was
angry. For nothing touches a woman more than to be reproved for that
which, till that moment, she thinks no one but herself has perceived.
“I see it all now,” I said, clenching (I am sure, for I always do so)
my hands by my side with the arms stiff. “You have learned your lesson
well, Sir Priest. William Douglas has set you to spy upon me, has he?
Well, go back to him! Carry your tale! There is not much to tell.
Faith o’ my body, I wish there had been more. ’Tis not the first time
that you have been ambassador for your patron. Who knows but he may
have some further advancement to give you!”
It was still with the utmost gentleness that Laurence listened, which
was the more surprising, considering what a spitfire he had been in
earlier days, the days when Sholto and he had flung themselves each on
the other like wild cats till separated by their father’s waist-strap
and arm of power, as hath been told elsewhere.
“No,” he said, “William Douglas is, indeed, my master and the head of
my clan. But you know, Margaret--yes, as well as I--that he has asked
nothing, and I have told him nothing. Yet is my heart sore for you, my
dear, my dear!”
“You forget to whom you speak!” I said, trying to build the dyke thus.
But he would none of it. I had played too long at blindman’s-buff with
him to stand of a sudden upon my princesshood.
“I do not forget,” he said, “I remember--everything. I am the Abbot of
Dulce Cor, yet I call you ‘my dear.’ You yourself it was gave me the
office, yet you are ‘my dear.’ I am the son of your father’s
armourer--a blacksmith, if you will. Yet for all that, and even
because of all that, you are (I say it again) ‘my dear--my dear--my
dear!’”
I continued to look at him without speaking, yet no longer angrily,
but with a sort of warmth about the heart which, if not love’s self,
was yet his cousin-german. At any rate this was better than Sister
Eulalie and the Bald Cat.
Laurence went on, still holding the little mill-wheel between his
fingers--I think I see him yet. He kept nervously turning it this way
and that, adjusting a bucket held in place with its wooden pin, and
firming the axle with care and skill; yet with the most sorely pained
expression on his face, and something like a film of unshed tears
behind his eyes. He was sorry for himself, yet he seemed, somehow,
tenfold sorrier for me. And indeed, the thought of this dear young
lad, who had never loved but me really, helped me many a time in after
hours, that of themselves were naught but the blackness of pitchy
darkness. It might have been better if I could have followed my
impulse of the morrow--but it is false that a woman can do with
herself as she will. Nevertheless, it was in no wise his fault; for
all that Larry did and said was so sweet and simple and undemanding.
Not at all like--like that other. Yet, perhaps, if Laurence had asked
more he might have saved me much, who can tell?
“Ah,” he continued, “if only you loved as I would have you love--how
safe that would keep you. It is (I, who am half a monk, know it--have
seen it) a terrible thing for a woman to marry a man she does not
love, whom she never can love!”
“And pray, Sir Abbot,” I cried, “who are you to judge of the likes and
dislikes, loves and hates, marryings and givings in marriage of
Margaret of Douglas and Galloway? Your breviary and the lives of the
holy saints Trophimus and Kentigern would suit you better! Or perhaps
that of St. Anthony might teach the danger of championing damosels in
distress.”
But all this was thrown away upon the fixity of Laurence M‘Kim’s
purpose, and changed nothing of the sweet and gentle melancholy with
which he spoke. There was no passion in his words or in his speech, as
there would have been in James Douglas’s--but all pure and
child-tender, at times almost maternal. Where had the lad learned the
secret? Within and without he was wholly different from the
rough-colted boy who had gone forth with my uncle, the abbot, to learn
singing at Sweetheart on the eve of the great tournament on the Lochar
braes.
“It is true,” he said, “you have every right to flout me. But, all the
same, you will never love William Douglas. And being the girl you are,
the last daughter of your race, a Douglas of the Douglases, you must
have someone to love. If that one be not a good man--ah, then I see
clouds black and terrible rise up before us. And I risk all--your
favour, Earl William’s favour, my place and rank, which I owe to
you--so that when the storm comes you may know that there is one who
will love you truly and surely--even as, if they had lived, your
brothers would--and in the same fashion.”
Then I think that Laurence saw I was not scornful any more, for the
tone of his voice grew more cheerful--not glad or amorous, or even
hopeful, but as of one who feels neither himself nor his motives any
longer misunderstood.
“Half a priest--yes,” he said, still with the tone of gentle
melancholy which sat so well on him. “But, thank God, not a whole
monk. Do not forget that I have been longer alone within that fair
abbot’s house at the New Abbey, within sound of the vesper bells, than
you in the convent of St. Brigida. Yes, and I have been much lonelier,
for I was not meant to be a holy man, according to the acceptation of
the Orders. Yet I obey--that is, so far as in me is. But my heart is
apart from this thing. To be kindly to all, helpful to as many as
possible, to do evil to none, to carry no ill tale and to listen to
none. Such things as these I read in four booklets called the ‘Holy
Gospels.’ But that is noways religion according to the Church and the
Orders. To pray so often, to eat meat on this day and fish on that, to
fast till noon on chicken-broth, to click so many beads, to sing so
many hymns, to declare all men outcast and condemned, going before
into judgment, unless they can prove themselves properly ear-marked
sheep of the churchly pasture, lambs of the monkish fold--!”
“Laurence,” I broke in hastily, “in such a case were it not better to
cast your abbotship to the winds, to bend bow or lay spear in rest as
a knight or yeoman? Nay, to cut wood and draw water like a villein,
rather than to abide practising the things in which you do not
believe, chanting songs without a meaning, carrying forth sacraments
to mock dying lips?”
He appeared to consider a while.
“There is somewhat in what you say, though, in fact, I do none of
these things,” thus he answered me. “Also, there is an obverse to the
coin. In the first place, at least, I can make of Dulce Cor a clean
place as compared with other foundations, a harbourage of peace and
right living, a centre of help and kindly brotherhood. For not the
Grand Bashaw of the Turks has more absolute power than I in the
Cistercian abbey of Sweetheart--so long, that is, as I have the
Douglases at my back.”
I shook my head in my turn.
“You are keeping something behind that,” I said. “Larry, you cannot
deceive me. You, a soldier and a brave lad to drive a spear, handsome
and young, you should not be content to rule in a monastery, when you
could as easily lead five hundred men, all clad in mail, into the
shock and turmoil of battle. No, Larry lad, you ever liked your drink
heady. Tell me the true reason why you have come down to curds and
whey!”
He thought a while and then said, “It is true--there _is_ more
behind.”
“Tell it me, then!” said I.
And I laid my hand upon his arm, looking at him. For one could not
help being gracious with Laurence. At least I could not. He never
presumed even once--perhaps I should add, “Alas!”
“I have little to live for,” he said, “leave me this. I would rather a
thousand times spend my life in a cell, than take away the one hope
which I hold in the deep places of my heart.”
“And that hope is--?”
“That one day the White House of the Sisters of Dulce Cor may be a
refuge for you--at the storm-breaking, in the day which shall
come--yes, surely!”
“But am I not to be the wife of William Douglas, Earl of Galloway and
Duke of Touraine? What need shall I have of refuges and convents? I
had done with such on the day I left Cour Cheverney yonder!”
“Ah, wait,” he made answer, gently as ever; “the great house stands
high, and the winds bear sore upon it. The tides run strong beneath.
But mine is but a little dwelling, set in a green howe, with only a
streamlet that runs thereby. And--I am content. At least it shall be
kept in readiness for you.”
“Then you think that William will not succeed in his great schemes for
Scotland--or that he will perish in the doing of them?”
“As to that, there is none who can tell,” Laurence answered; “either
William of Douglas will be the first man in the land or--his head will
go the way of those other two--his cousins!”
“Then,” said I, “there is one other of the race who will stand by the
chief, and the name of her--Margaret Douglas.”
Laurence smiled, yet with something so strange, so far away and sweet
in his smile, that I asked him what he meant. For it seemed that I had
not yet snatched the whole heart out of the mystery he propounded.
But he would only say, “My Margaret of Margarets, it is the rule of
the Master of All that days run to weeks, that weeks, being summed,
make the months, and the returning months count the years and the
lifetime. That is a long time for a woman of the Douglas race to do
without being loved. As for the love with which I love you, it is (I
promise you) as the well-water in the abbey precinct, under the great
oak, cool, clear, and--savourless. But you Douglases, man and woman of
you, drink of love as one who quenches his thirst in strong wine,
goblet after goblet. So it was with your brother, and so it will be
with you!”
“Bah,” said I, “you preach too much, Laurence M‘Kim! And all your
texts are taken from the Song of Solomon--which even clerks ought to
read only on high days and holidays. I agree not with your
conclusions. I deny your premises. I will none of your reproof. Set up
your mill-wheel in the linn; and let us be going!”