'That is a gentle and gracious slip of the Stewart. What shall you do
with him?' asked King Henry of James, as they stood together at one end
of the tilt-yard at Westminster, watching Malcolm Stewart and Ralf Percy,
who were playing at closhey, the early form of nine-pins.
'I know what I should like to do,' said James.
'What may that be?'
'To marry him to the Lady Esclairmonde de Luxemburg.'
Henry gave a long whistle.
'Have you other views for her?'
'Not I! Am I to have designs on every poor dove who flies into my tent
from the hawk? Besides, are not they both of them vowed to a religious
life?'
'Neither vow is valid,' replied James.
'To meddle with such things is what I should not _dare_,' said Henry.
'Monks and friars are no such holy beings, that I should greatly concern
me about keeping an innocent had out of their company,' said James.
'Nor do I say they are,' said Henry; 'but it is ill to cross a vow of
devotion, and to bring a man back to the world is apt to render him not
worth the having. You may perchance get him down lower than you
intended.'
'This boy never had any real vocation at all,' said James; 'it was only
the timidity born of ill-health, and the longing for food for the mind.'
'Maybe so,' replied the English king, 'and you may be in the right; but
why fix on that grand Luxemburg wench, who ought to be a Lady Abbess of
Fontainebleau at least, or a very St. Hilda, to rule monks and nuns
alike?'
'Because they have fixed on each other. Malcolm needs a woman like her
to make a man of him; and with her spirit and fervent charity, we should
have them working a mighty change in Scotland.'
'If you get her there!'
'Have I your consent, Harry?'
'Mine? It's no affair of mine! You must settle it with Madame of
Hainault; but you had best take care. You are more like to make your
tame lambkin into a ravening wolf, than to get that Deborah the
prophetess to herd him.'
James in sooth viewed this warning as another touch of Lancastrian
superstition, and only considered how to broach the question. Malcolm,
meantime, was balancing between the now approaching decision between
Oxford and France. He certainly felt something of his old horror of
warlike scenes; but even this was lessening; he was aware that battles
were not every-day occurrences, and that often there was no danger at
all. He would not willingly be separated from his king; and if the
female part of the Court were to accompany the campaign, it would be
losing sight of all he cared for, if he were left among a set of stranger
shavelings at Oxford. Yet he was reluctant to break with the old habits
that had hitherto been part of his nature; he felt, after every word of
Esclairmonde--nay, after every glance towards her--as though it were a
blessed thing to have, like her, chosen the better part; he knew she
would approve his resort to the home of piety and learning; he was aware
that when with Ralf Percy and the other youths of the Court he was
ashamed of his own scrupulousness, and tempted to neglect observances
that they might call monkish and unmanly; and he was not at all sure that
in face of the enemy a panic might not seize him and disgrace him for
ever! In effect he did not know what he wished, even when he found that
the Queen had decided against going across the sea, and that therefore
all the ladies would remain with her at Shene or Windsor.
He should probably never again see Esclairmonde, the guiding star of his
recent life, the embodiment of all that he had imagined when conning the
quaint old English poems that told the Legend of Seynct Katharine; and as
he leant musingly against a lattice, feeling as if the brightness of his
life was going out, King James merrily addressed him:--
'Eh! the fit is on you too, boy!'
'What fit, Sir?' Malcolm opened his eyes.
'The pleasing madness.'
Malcolm uttered a cry like horror, and reddened crimson. 'Sir! Sir!
Sir!' he stammered.
'A well-known token of the disease is raving.'
'Sir, Sir! I implore you to speak of nothing so profane.'
'I am not given to profanity,' said James, endeavouring to look severe,
but with laughter in his voice. 'Methought you were not yet so sacred a
personage.'
'Myself! No; but that I--I should dare to have such thoughts of--oh,
Sir!' and Malcolm covered his face with his hands. 'Oh, that you should
have so mistaken me!'
'I have _not_ mistaken you,' said James, fixing his keen eyes on him.
'Oh, Sir!' cried Malcolm, like one freshly stung, 'you have! Never,
never dreamt I of aught but worshipping as a living saint, as I would
entreat St. Margaret or--'
There was still the King's steady look and the suppressed smile. Malcolm
broke off, and with a sudden agony wrung his hands together. The King
still smiled. 'Ay, Malcolm, it will not do; you are man, not monk.'
'But why be so cruel as to make me vile in my own eyes?' almost sobbed
Malcolm.
'Because,' said the King, 'she is not a saint in heaven, nor a nun in a
convent, but a free woman, to be won by the youth she has marked out.'
'Marked! Oh, Sir, she only condescended because she knew my
destination.'
'That is well,' said King James. 'Thus sparks kindle at unawares.'
Malcolm's groan and murmur of 'Never!' made James almost laugh at the
evidence that on one side at least the touch-wood was ready.
'Oh, Sir,' he sighed, 'why put the thought before me, to make me
wretched! Even were she for the world, she would never be for me.
I--doited--hirpling--'
'Peace, silly lad; all that is past and gone. You are quite another now,
and a year or two of Harry's school of chivalry will send you home a
gallant knight and minstrel, such as no maiden will despise.'
The King went, and Malcolm fell into a silent state of musing. He was
entirely overpowered, both by the consciousness awakened within himself,
by the doubt whether it were not a great sin, and by the strangeness that
the King, hitherto his oracle, should infuse such a hope. What King
James deemed possible could never be so incredible, or even sacrilegious,
as he deemed it. Restless, ashamed, rent by a thousand conflicting
feelings, Malcolm roamed up and down his chamber, writhed, tried to sit
and think, then, finding his thoughts in a whirl, renewed his frantic
pacings. And when dire necessity brought him again into the ladies'
chamber, he was silent, blushing, ungainly, abstracted, and retreated
into the farthest possible corner from the unconscious Esclairmonde.
Then, when again alone with the King, he began with the assertion, 'It is
utterly impossible, Sir;' and James smiled to see his poison working. Not
that he viewed it as poison. Monasticism was at a discount, and the
ranks of the religious orders were chiefly filled, the old Benedictine
and Augustinian foundations by gentlemen of good family who wanted the
easy life of a sort of bachelor squire, and the friaries were recruited
by the sort of men who would in modern times be dissenting teachers of
the lower stamp. James was persuaded that Malcolm was fit for better
things than were usually to be seen in a convent, and that it was a real
kindness not to let him merely retire thither out of faintness of heart,
mistaken for devotion; and he also felt as if he should be doing good
service, not only to Malcolm, but to Scotland, if he could obtain for him
a wife of the grand character of Esclairmonde de Luxemburg.
He even risked the mention of the project to the Countess of Hainault,
without whose consent nothing could be effected. Jaqueline laughed long
and loud at the notion of her stately Esclairmonde being the lady-love of
King James's little white-visaged cousin; but if he could bring it about
she had no objection, she should be very glad that the demoiselle should
come down from the height and be like other people; but she would wager
the King of Scots her emerald carcanet against his heron's plume, that
Esclairmonde would never marry unless her hands were held for her. Was
she not at that very moment visiting some foundation of bedeswomen--that
was all she heard of at yonder feast of cats!
In fact, under Dr. Bennet's escort, Esclairmonde and Alice were in a
barge dropping down the Thames to the neighbourhood of the frowning
fortress of the Tower--as yet unstained; and at the steps leading to the
Hospitium of St. Katharine the ladies were met, not only by their friend
Mrs. Bolt, but by Sir Richard Whittington, his kindly dame, and by
'Master William Kedbesby,' a grave and gentle-looking old man, who had
been Master of St. Katharine's ever since the first year of King Richard
II., and delighted to tell of the visits 'Good Queen Anne' of Bohemia had
made to her hospital, and the kind words she had said to the old alms-
folk and the children of the schools; and when he heard that the Lady
Esclairmonde was of the same princely house of Luxemburg, he seemed to
think no honour sufficient for her. They visited the two houses, one for
old men, the other for old women, each with a common apartment, with a
fire, and a dining-table in the midst, and sleeping cells screened off
round it, and with a paved terrace walk overhanging the river, where the
old people could sit and sun themselves, and be amused by the gay barges
and the swans that expatiated there. The bedeswomen, ten in number, had
a house arranged like an ordinary nunnery, except that they were not in
seclusion, had no grating, and shared the quadrangle with the alms-folk
and children. They were gentle and well-nurtured women, chiefly
belonging to the city and country families that furnished servants to the
queens; and they applied themselves to various offices of charity, going
forth into the city to tend the poor, and to teach the women and
children. The appointments of alms-folk and admissions to the school
were chiefly made at their recommendation; and though a master taught all
the book-learning in the busy hive of scholars--eighty in number--one or
more of them instructed the little girls in spinning and in stitchery, to
say nothing of gentle and modest demeanour. There was a great look of
happiness and good order about all; and the church, fair and graceful,
seemed well to complete and rule the institution. Esclairmonde could but
sigh with a sort of regret as she left it, and let herself be conducted
by Sir Richard Whittington to a refection at his beautiful house in
Crutched Friars, built round a square, combining warehouse and
manor-house; richly-carved shields, with the arms of the companies of
London, supporting the tier of first-floor windows, and another row of
brackets above supporting another overhanging story. A fountain was in
the centre of a beautiful greensward, with beds of roses, pansies, pinks,
stars of Bethlehem, and other good old flowers, among which a monkey was
chained to a tree, while a cat roamed about at a safe distance from him.
Alice Montagu raised a laugh by asking if it were _the_ cat; to which her
city namesake replied that 'her master' never could abide to be without a
cat in memory of his first friend, and marshalled them into the beautiful
hall, with wainscot lining below, surmounted by an arcade containing
statues, and above a beautiful carved ceiling. Here a meal was served to
them, and the Lady talked with Whittington of the grand town-halls and
other buildings of the merchants of the Low Countries, with whom he was a
trader for their rich stuffs; and the visit passed off with no small
satisfaction to both parties.
Esclairmonde sat in the barge on her return, looking out on the gray
clear water, and on the bright gardens that sloped down to it, gay with
roses and fruitful with mulberries, apples, and strawberries, and the
mansions and churches that were never quite out of sight, though there
were some open fields and wild country ere coming to Westminster, all as
if she did not see them, but was wrapped in deep contemplation.
Alice at last, weary of silence, stole her arm round her waist, and
peeped up into her face. 'May I guess thy thoughts, sweet Clairette?
Thou wilt found such a hospice thyself?'
'Say not I _will_, child,' said Esclairmonde, with a crystal drop
starting in each dark eye. 'I would strive and hope, but--'
'Ah! thou wilt, thou wilt,' cried Alice; 'and since there are Beguines
enough for their own Netherlands, thou wilt come to England and be our
foundress here.'
'Nay, little one; here are the bedeswomen of St. Katharine's in London.'
'Ah! but we have other cities. Good Father, have we not?
Hull--Southampton--oh! so many, where poor strangers come that need
ghostly tendance as well as bodily. Esclairmonde--Light of the World--oh!
it was not for nothing that they gave thee that goodly name. The hospice
shall bear it!'
'Hush, hush! sweet pyet; mine own name is what they must not bear.'
'Ah! but the people will give it; and our Holy Father the Pope, he will
put thee into the canon of saints. Only pity that I cannot live to hear
of Ste. Esclairmonde--nay, but then I must overlive thee, mind I should
not love that.'
'Oh, silence, silence, child; these are no thoughts to begin a work with.
Little flatterer, it may be well for me that our lives must needs lie so
far apart that I shall not oft hear that fond silly tongue.'
'Nay,' said Alice, in the luxury, not of castle-building but of convent-
building; 'it may be that when that knight over there sees me so small
and ill-favoured he will none of me, and then I'll thank him so, and pray
my father to let him have all my lands and houses except just enough to
dower me to follow thee with, dear Lady Prioress.'
But here Alice was summarily silenced. Such talk, both priest and
votaress told her, was not meet for dutiful daughter or betrothed maiden.
Her lot was fixed, and she must do her duty therein as the good wife and
lady of the castle, the noble English matron; and as she looked half
disposed to pout, Esclairmonde drew such a picture of the beneficent
influence of the good baronial dame, ruling her castle, bringing up her
children and the daughters of her vassals in good and pious nurture,
making 'the heart of her husband safely trust in her,' benefiting the
poor, and fostering holy men, wayfarers, and pilgrims, that the girl's
eyes filled within tears as she looked up and said, 'Ah! lady, this is
the life fitted for thee, who can paint it so well. Why have I not a
brother, that you might be Countess of Salisbury, and I a poor little
sister in a nunnery?'
Esclairmonde shook her head. 'Silly child, _petite niaise_, our lots
were fixed by other hands than ours. We will strive each to serve our
God, in the coif or in the veil, in samite or in serge, and He will only
ask which of us has been most faithful, not whether we have lived in
castle or in cloister.'
Little had Esclairmonde expected to hear the greeting with which the
Countess received her, breaking out into peals of merriment as she told
her of the choice destiny in store for her, to be wedded to the little
lame Scot, pretending to read her a grave lecture on the consequences of
the advances she had made to him.
Esclairmonde was not put out of countenance; in fact, she did not think
the Countess in earnest, and merely replied with a smile that at least
there was less harm in Lord Malcolm than in the suitors at home.
Jaqueline clapped her hands and cried, 'Good tidings, Clairette. I'll
never forgive you if you make me lose my emerald carcanet! So the arrow
was winged, after all. She prefers him--her heart is touched by the
dainty step.'
'Madame!' entreated Esclairmonde, with agitation; 'at least, infirmity
should be spared.'
'It touches her deeply!' exclaimed the Duchess. 'Ah! to see her in the
mountains teaching the wild men to say their Aye, and to wear _culottes_,
the little prince interpreting for her, as King James told us in his
story of the saint his ancestor.'
Raillery about Malcolm had been attempted before, but never so
pertinaciously; and Esclairmonde heeded it not at all, till James himself
sought her out, and, within all his own persuasive grace, told her that
he was rejoiced to hear from Madame of Hainault that she had spoken
kindly of his youthful kinsman, for whose improvement he was sure he had
in great measure to thank her.
Esclairmonde replied composedly, but as one on her guard, that the Sieur
de Glenuskie was a gentle and a holy youth, of a good and toward wit.
'As I saw from the first,' said James, 'when I brought him away from
being crushed among our rude cousins; but, lady, I knew not how the task
of training the boy would be taken out of my hands by your kindness; and
now, pardon me, lady, only one thing is wanting to complete your work,
and that is hope.'
'Hope is always before a holy man, Sir.'
'O, madame! but we peer earthly beings require an earthly hope, nearer
home, to brace our hearts, and nerve our arms.'
'I thought the Sieur de Glenuskie was destined to a religious life.'
'Never by any save his enemies, lady. The Regent Albany and his fierce
sons have striven to scare Malcolm into a cloister, that his sister and
his lands may be their prey; and they would have succeeded had not I come
to Scotland in time. The lad never had any true vocation.'
'That may be,' said Esclairmonde, somewhat sorrowfully.
'Still,' added James, 'he is of a thoughtful and somewhat tender mould,
and the rudeness of life will try him sorely unless he have some cheering
star, some light of love, to bear him up and guide him on his way.'
'If so, may he find a worthy one.'
'Lady, it is too late to talk of what he may find. The brightness that
has done so much for him already will hinder him from turning his eyes
elsewhere.'
'You are a minstrel, Sir King, and therefore these words of light romance
fall from your lips.'
'Nay, lady, hitherto my romance has been earnest. It rests with you to
make Malcolm's the same.'
'Not so, Sir. That has long been out of my hands.'
'Madame, you might well shrink from what it was as insult to you to
propose; but have you never thought of the blessings you might confer in
the secular life, with one who would be no hindrance, but a help?'
'No, Sir, for no blessings, but curses, would follow a breach of
dedication.'
'Lady, I will not press you with what divines have decided respecting
such dedication. Any scruples could be removed by the Holy Father at
Rome, and, though I will speak no further, I will trust to your
considering the matter. You have never viewed it in any light save that
of a refuge from wedlock with one to whom I trust you would prefer my
gentle cousin.'
'It were a poor compliment to Lord Malcolm to name him in the same day
with Sir Boemond of Burgundy,' said Esclairmonde; 'but, as I said, it is
not the person that withholds me, but the fact that I am not free.'
'I do not ask you to love or accept the poor boy as yet,' said James; 'I
leave that for the time when I shall bring him back to you, with the
qualities grown which you have awakened. At least, I can bear him the
tidings that it is not your feelings, but your scruples that are against
him.'
'Sir King,' said Esclairmonde, gravely, 'I question not your judgment in
turning your kinsman and subject to the secular life; but if you lead him
by false hopes, of which I am the object, I tell you plainly that you are
deluding him; and if any evil come thereof, be it on your own head.'
She moved away, with a bend of her graceful neck, and James stood with a
slight smile curving his lip. 'By my troth,' he said to himself, 'a
lordly lady! She knows her own vocation. She is one to command scores
of holy maids, and have all the abbots and priors round at her beck,
instead of one poor man. Rather Malcolm than I! But he is the very
stuff that loves to have such a woman to rule him; and if she wed at all,
he is the very man for her! I'll not give it up! Love is the way to
make a man of him, whether successful or not, and she may change her
mind, since she is not yet on the roll of saints. If I could get a word
with her father confessor, and show him how much it would be for the
interest of the Church in Scotland to get such a woman there, it would be
the surest way of coming at her. Were she once in Scotland, my pretty
one would have a stay and helper! But all must rest till after the
campaign.'
James therefore told Malcolm so much as that he had spoken to his lady-
love for him, and that she had avowed that it was not himself, but her
own vows, that was the obstacle.
Malcolm crimsoned with joy as well as confusion; and the King proceeded:
'For the vows'--he shrugged his shoulders--'we knew there is a remedy!
Meantime, Malcolm, be you a man, win your spurs, and show yourself worth
overcoming something for!'
Malcolm smiled and brightened, holding his head high and joyously, and
handling his sword. Then came the misgiving--'But Lilias, Sir, and
Patrick Drummond.'
'We will provide for them, boy. You know Drummond is bent on carving his
own fortune rather than taking yours, and that your sister only longs to
see you a gallant knight.'
It was true, but Malcolm sighed.
'You have not spoken to the lady yourself?' asked the King.
'No, Sir. Oh, how can I?' faltered Malcolm, shamefaced and frightened.
James laughed. 'Let that be as the mood takes you, or occasion serves,'
he said, wondering whether the lad's almost abject awkwardness and shame
would be likely to create the pity akin to love or to contempt, and
deciding that it must be left to chance.
Nor did Malcolm find boldness enough to do more than haunt Esclairmonde's
steps, trembling if she glanced towards him, and almost shrinking from
her gaze. He had now no doubts about going on the campaign, and was in
full course of being prepared with equipments, horses, armour, and
attendants, as became a young prince attending on his sovereign as an
adventurer in the camp. It was not even worth while to name such
scruples to the English friar who shrived him on the last day before the
departure, and who knew nothing of his past history. He knew all priests
would say the same things, and as he had never made a binding vow, he saw
no need of consulting any one on the subject; it would only vex him
again, and fill him with doubts. The suspicion that Dr. Bennet was aware
of his previous intention made him shrink from him. So the last day had
come, and all was farewell. King Henry had persuaded the Queen to
seclude herself for one evening from Madame of Hainault, for his sake.
King James was pacing the gardens on the Thames banks, with Joan
Beaufort's hand for once allowed to repose in his; many a noble gentleman
was exchanging last words with his wife--many a young squire whispering
what he had never ventured to say before--many a silver mark was
cloven--many a bright tress was exchanged. Even Ralf Percy was in the
midst of something very like a romp with the handsome Bessie Nevil for a
knot of ribbon to carry to the wars.
Malcolm felt a certain exaltation in being enough like other people to
have a lady-love, but there was not much comfort otherwise; indeed, he
could so little have addressed Esclairmonde that it was almost a
satisfaction that she was the centre of a group of maidens whose lovers
or brothers either had been sent off beforehand, or who saw their
attentions paid elsewhere, and who all alike gravitated towards the
Demoiselle de Luxemburg for sympathy. He could but hover on the
outskirts, conscious that he must cut a ridiculous figure, but unable to
detach himself from the neighbourhood of the magnet. As he looked back
on the happy weeks of unconstrained intercourse, when he came to her as
freely as did these young girls with all his troubles, he felt as if the
King had destroyed all his joy and peace, and yet that these flutterings
of heart and agonies of shame and fits of despair were worth all that
childish calm.
He durst say nothing, only now and then to gaze on her with his great
brown wistful eyes, which he dropped whenever she looked towards him;
until at last, when the summer evening was closing in, and the last
signal was given for the break-up of the party, Malcolm ventured on one
faltering murmur, 'Lady, lady, you are not offended with me?'
'Nay,' said Esclairmonde, kindly; 'nothing has passed between us that
should offend me.'
His eye lighted. 'May I still be remembered in your prayers, lady?'
'As I shall remember all who have been my friends here,' she said.
'And oh, lady, if I should--should win honour, may I lay it at your
feet?'
'Whatever you achieve as a good man and true will gladden me,' said
Esclairmonde, 'as it will all others that wish you well. Both you and
your sister in her loneliness shall have my best prayers. Farewell, Lord
Malcolm; may the Saints bless and guard you, whether in the world or the
Church.'
Malcolm knew why she spoke of his sister, and felt as if there were no
hope for him. Esclairmonde's grave kindness was a far worse sign than
would have been any attempt to evade him; but at any rate she had spoken
with him, and his heart could not but be cheered. What might he not do
in the glorious future? As the foremost champion of a crusading king,
bearing St. Andrew's cross through the very gates of Jerusalem, what
maiden, however saintly, could refuse him his guerdon?
And he knew that, for the present, Esclairmonde was safe from retiring
into any convent, since her high birth and great possessions would make
any such establishment expect a large dower with her as a right, and few
abbesses would have ventured to receive a runaway foreigner, especially
as one of her guardians was the Bishop of Therouenne.