The Queen was coming! No sooner had the first note of surrender been
sounded from the towers of Meaux, than Henry had sent intelligence to
England that the way was open for the safe arrival of his much-loved
wife; and at length, on a sunny day in May, tidings were received that
she had landed in France, under the escort of the Duke of Bedford.
Vincennes, in the midst of its noble forest, was the place fixed for the
meeting of the royal pair; and never did a happier or more brilliant
cavalcade traverse those woodlands than that with which Henry rode to the
appointed spot.
All the winter, the King had heeded appearances as little as of old when
roughing it with Hotspur in Wales; but now his dress was of the most
royal. On his head was a small green velvet cap, encircled by a crown in
embroidery; his robe was of scarlet silk, and over it was thrown a mantle
of dark green samite, thickly powdered with tiny embroidered white
antelopes; the Garter was on his knee, the George on his neck. It was a
kingly garb, and well became the tall slight person and fair noble
features. During these tedious months he had looked wan, haggard, and
careworn; but the lines of anxiety were all effaced, his lustrous blue
eyes shone and danced like Easter suns, his complexion rivalled the fresh
delicate tints of the blossoms in the orchards; and when, with a shyness
for which he laughed at himself, he halted to brush away any trace of
dust that might offend the eye of his 'dainty Kate,' and gaily asked his
brother king if he were sufficiently pranked out for a lady's bower,
James, thinking he had never seen him so handsome, replied:
'Like a young bridegroom--nay, more like a young suitor.'
'You're jealous, Jamie--afraid of being outshone. 'Tis is your own
fault, man; none can ever tell whether you be in festal trim or not.'
For King James's taste was for sober, well-blending hues; and as he never
lapsed into Henry's carelessness, his state apparel was not very
apparently dissimilar from his ordinary dress, being generally of dark
rich crimson, blue, or russet, with the St. Andrew's cross in white silk
on his breast, or else the ruddy lion, but never conspicuously; and the
sombre hues always seemed particularly well to suit his auburn colouring.
Malcolm, in scarlet and gold, was a far gayer figure, and quite conscious
of the change in his own appearance--how much taller, ruddier, and
browner he had become; how much better he held himself both in riding and
walking; and how much awkwardness and embarrassment he had lost. No
wonder Esclairmonde had despised the sickly, timid, monkish school-boy;
and if she had then shown him any sort of grace or preference, what would
she think of the princely young squire he could new show her, who had
seen service, had proved his valour, and was only not a knight because of
King Henry's unkindness and King James's punctilio?--at any rate, no
child to be brow-beaten and silenced with folly about cloistral
dedication, but a youth who had taken his place in the world, and could
allege that his inspiration had come through her bright eyes.
Would she be there? That was the chief anxiety: for it was not certain
that either she or her mistress would risk themselves on the Continent;
and Catherine had given no intimation as to who would be in her suite--so
that, as Henry had merrily observed, he was the only one in the whole
party who was not in suspense, except indeed Salisbury, who had sent his
commands to his little daughter to come out with the Queen.
'She is come!' cried Henry. 'Beforehand with us, after all;' and he
spurred his horse on as he saw the banner raised, and the escort around
the gate; and in a few seconds more he and his companions had hurried
through the court, where the ladies had scarcely dismounted, and hastened
into the hall, breaking into the seneschal's solemn reception of the
Queen.
'My Kate, my fairest! Mine eyes have been hungry for a sight of thee.'
And Catherine, in her horned head-gear and flutter of spangled veil, was
almost swallowed up in his hearty embrace; and the fervency of his great
love so far warmed her, that she clung to him, and tenderly said, 'My
lord, it is long since I saw you.'
'Thou wert before me! Ah! forgive thy tardy knight,' he continued,
gazing at her really enhanced beauty as if he had eyes for no one else,
even while with lip and hand, kiss, grasp, and word, he greeted her
companions, of whom Jaqueline of Hainault and John of Bedford were the
most prominent.
'And the babe! where is he?' then cried he. 'Let me have him to hold up
to my brave fellows in the court!'
'The Prince of Wales?' said Catherine. 'You never spake of my bringing
him.'
'If I spake not, it was because I doubted not for a moment that you would
keep him with you. Nay, verily it is not in sooth that you left him. You
are merely sporting with use.'
'Truly, Sir,' said Catherine, 'I never guessed that you would clog
yourself with a babe in the cradle, and I deemed him more safely nursed
at Windsor.'
'If it be for his safety! Yet a soldier's boy should thrive among
soldiers,' said the King, evidently much disappointed, and proceeding to
eager inquiries as to the appearance and progress of his child; to which
the Queen replied with a certain languor, as though she had no very
intimate personal knowledge of her little son.
Other eyes were meanwhile eagerly scanning the bright confusion of veils
and wimples; and Malcolm had just made out the tall head and dark locks
under a long almost shrouding white veil far away in the background
behind the Countess of Hainault, when the Duke of Bedford came up with a
frown of consternation on his always anxious face, and drawing King James
into a window, said, 'What have you been doing to him?'--to which James,
without hearing the question, replied, 'Where is _she_?'
'Joan? At home. It was the Queen's will. Of that another time. But
what means this?' and he signed towards his brother. 'Never saw I man so
changed.'
'Had you seen him at Christmas you might have said so,' replied James;
'but now I see naught amiss; I had been thinking I had never seen him so
fair and comely.'
'I tell you, James,' said Bedford, contracting his brows till they almost
met ever his arched nose, 'I tell you, his look brings back to me my
mother's, the last time she greeted my father!'
'To your fantasy, not your memory, John! You were a mere babe at her
death.'
'Of five years,' said Bedford. 'That face--that cough--have brought all
back--ay, the yearning look when my father was absent, and the pure rosy
fairness that Harry and Tom cited so fiercely against one who would have
told them how sick to death she was. I mind me too, that when our
grandame of Hereford made us motherless children over to our grandsire of
Lancaster, it was with a warning that Harry had the tender lungs of the
Bohuns, and needed care. One deadly sickness he had at Kenilworth, when
my father was ridden for post-haste. My mind misgave me throughout this
weary siege; but his service held me fast at home, and I trusted that you
would watch over him.'
'A man like him is ill to guide,' said James; 'but he is more himself now
than he has been for months, and a few weeks' quiet with his wife will
restore him. But what is this?' he proceeded in his turn; 'why is the
Lady Joan not here?'
'How can I tell? It was no fault of mine. I even got a prim warning
that it became me not to meddle about her ladies, and I doubted what
slanders you might hear if I were seen asking your Nightingale for a
token.'
'Have you none! Good John, I know you have.'
John smiled his ironical smile, produced from the pouch at his girdle a
small packet bound with rose-coloured silk, and said: 'The Nightingale
hath a plume, you see, and saith, moreover, that her knight hath done his
devoir passably, but that she yet looks to see him send some captive
giant to her feet. So, Sir Knight, I hope your poor dwarf hath acquitted
him well in your chivalrous jargon.'
James smiled and coloured with pleasure; the fantastic message was not
devoid of reality in the days when young imaginative spirits tried to
hide the prose of war and policy in a bright mist of romantic fancy; nor
was he ashamed to bend his manly head in reverence to, and even press to
his lips, his lady's first love-letter, in the very sight of the
satirical though sympathizing Bedford, of whom he eagerly asked of the
fair Joan's health and welfare, and whether she were flouted by Queen
Catherine.
'No more than is the meed of her beauty,' said Bedford. 'Sister Kate
likes not worship at any shrine save one. Look at our suite: our
knights--yea, our very grooms are picked for their comeliness; to wit
that great feather-pated oaf of a Welshman, Owen Tudor there; while dames
and demoiselles, tire-women and all, are as near akin as may be to Sir
Gawain's loathly lady.'
'Not at least the fair Luxemburg. Did not I see her stately mien?'
'She is none of the Queen's, and moreover she stands aloof, so that the
women forgive her gifts! There is that cough of Harry's again! He is
the shadow of the man he was; I would I knew if this were the step-dame's
doing.'
'Nay, John, when you talk to me of Harry's cough, and of night-watches
and flooded camps, I hearken; but when your wits run wool-gathering after
that poor woman, making waxen images stuck full--'
'You are in the right on't, James,' said Henry, who had come up to them
while he was speaking. 'John will never get sorceries out of his head. I
have thought it over, and will not be led into oppressing my father's
widow any more. I cannot spend this Pentecost cheerily till I know she
is set free and restored to her manors; and I shall write to Humfrey and
the Council to that effect.'
And as John shrugged his shoulders, Henry gaily added: 'Thou seest what
comes of a winter spent with this unbeliever Jamie; and truly, I found
the thought of unright to my father's widow was a worse pin in my heart
than ever she is like to thrust there.'
Thus then it was, that in the overflowing joy and good-will of his heart,
and mayhap with the presentiment which rendered him willing to be at
peace with all his kindred, Henry forgave and released his step-mother,
Joan of Navarre, whom common rumour termed the Witch Queen, and whom he
had certainly little reason to love, whether it were true or not that she
had attempted to weave spells against him. In fact, there were few of
the new-comers from England who did not, like Bedford, impute the
transparency of Henry's hands, and the hollowness of his brightly-tinted
cheek, to some form of sorcery.
Meantime, Esclairmonde de Luxemburg, more beautiful than ever under a
still simpler dress, had greeted Malcolm with her wonted kindness;
adding, with a smile, that he was so much grown and embrowned that she
should not have known him but for the sweet Scottish voice which he, like
his king, possessed.
'You do me too much grace in commending aught that is mine, madame,' said
Malcolm, with an attempt at the assurance he believed himself to have
acquired; but he could only finish by faltering and blushing. There was
a power of repression about Esclairmonde that annihilated all his
designs, and drove him back into his bashful self whenever he came into
contact with her, and felt how unlike the grave serene loftiness of her
presence was to the mere queen of romance, that in her absence her shadow
had become.
Alice Montagu, returning to her side, relieved while disconcerting him.
Sweet little Alice had been in a continual flutter ever since commands
had come from Meaux that she was to come out to meet the father whom she
had not seen since what seemed like half her childish lifetime, and the
betrothed whom she had never seen at all; and Lady Westmoreland had added
to her awe by the lengthened admonition with which she took leave of her.
And on this day, when Esclairmonde herself had arrayed the fair child in
the daintiest of rose-pink boddices edged with swan's-down, the whitest
of kirtles, and softest of rosy veils, the flush of anxiety on the pale
little face made it so fair to look upon, that as the maiden wistfully
asked, 'Think you he will flout me?' it was impossible not to laugh at
the very notion. 'Ah! but I would be glad if he did, for then I might
bide with you.'
When, in the general greeting, Alice had been sought out by a tall, dark-
browed, grizzled warrior, Esclairmonde had, cruelly, as the maiden
thought, kept her station behind the Countess, and never stirred for all
those wistful backward glances, but left her alone to drop on her knee to
seek the blessing of the mighty old soldier.
And now she was holding his great hand, almost as tough as his gauntlets,
and leading him up to her friend, while he louted low, and spoke with a
grand fatherly courtesy:
'Fair demoiselle, this silly wench of mine tells me that you have been
good friend to her, and I thank you for the same with all mine heart.'
'Silly' was a fond term of love then, and had all the affection of a
proud father in it, as the Earl of Salisbury patted the small soft
fingers in his grasp.
'Truly, my lord,' responded Esclairmonde, 'the Lady Alice hath been my
sweetest companion, friend, and sister, for these many months.'
'Nay, child, art worthy to be called friend by such a lady as this? If
so, I shall deem my little Alice grown a woman indeed, as it is time she
were--Diccon Nevil is bent on the wedding before we go to the wars
again.'
Alice coloured like a damask rose, and hid her face behind her friend.
'Hast seen him, sweet?' asked Esclairmonde, when Salisbury had been
called away. 'Is he here?'
'Yes; out there--he with the white bull on his surcoat,' said Alice,
dreading to look that way.
'And hast spoken with him?' asked the lady next, feeling as if the stout,
commonplace, hardy-looking soldier she saw was scarce what she would have
chosen for her little wild rose of an Alice, comely and brave though he
were.
'He hath kissed mine hand,' faltered Alice, but it was quite credible
that not a word had passed. The marriage was a business contract between
the houses of Wark and Raby, and a grand speculation for Sir Richard
Nevil, that was all; but gentle Alice had no reluctance beyond mere
maidenly shyness, and unwillingness to enter on an unknown future under a
new lord. She even whispered to her dear Clairette that she was glad Sir
Richard never tormented her by talking to her, and that he was grave, and
so old.
'So old? why, little one, he can scarce be seven-and-twenty!'
'And is not that old? oh, so old!' said Alice. 'Able to take care of me.
I would not have a youth like that young Lord of Glenuskie. Oh
no--never!'
'That is well,' said Esclairmonde, smiling; 'but wherefore put such
disdain in thy voice, Alice? He used to be our playfellow, and he hath
grown older and more manly in this year.'
'His boyhood was better than such manhood,' said Alice; 'he was more to
my taste when he was meek, than now that he seems to say, "I would be
saucy if I durst." And he hath not the stuff to dare any way.'
'Fie! fie! Alice, you are growing slanderous.'
'Nay, now, Clairette, own verily--you feel the like!'
'Hush, silly one, what skills it? Youths must pass through temptation;
and if his king hindered his vocation, maybe the poor lad may rue it
sorely, but methinks he will come to the right at last. It were better
to say a prayer for his faults than to speak evil of them, Alice.'
Poor Malcolm! He was at that very moment planning with an embroiderer a
robe wherein to appear, covered with flashes of lightning transfixing the
world, and mottoes around--'Esclaire mais Embrase'
Every moment that he was absent from Esclairmonde was spent in composing
chivalrous discourses in which to lay himself at her feet, but the mere
sight of her steady dark eyes scattered them instantly from his memory;
and save for very shame he would have entreated King James again to break
the ice for him, since the lady evidently supposed that she had last year
entirely quashed his suit. And in this mood Malcolm mounted and took his
place to ride into Paris, where the King wished to arrive in the evening,
and with little preparation, so as to avoid the weary length of a state
reception, with all its speeches and pageants.
In the glow of a May evening the cavalcade passed the gates, and entered
the city, where the streets were so narrow that it was often impossible
to ride otherwise than two and two. The foremost had emerged into an
open space before a church and churchyard, when there was a sudden pause,
a shock of surprise. All across the space, blocking up the way, was an
enormous line of figures, looking shadowy in the evening light, and
bearing the insignia of every rank and dignity that earth presented.
Popes were there, with triple crown and keys, and fanned by peacock
tails; scarlet-matted and caped cardinals, mitred and crosiered bishops,
crowned and sceptred kings, ermined dukes, steel-clad knights, gowned
lawyers, square-capped priests, cowled monks, and friars of every
degree--nay, the mechanic with his tools, the peasant with his spade,
even the beggar within his dish; old men, and children of every age; and
women too of all grades--the tower-crowned queen, the beplumed dame, the
lofty abbess, the veiled nun, the bourgeoise, the peasant, the
beggar;--all were there, moving in a strange shadowy wild dance,
sometimes slow, sometimes swift and mad with gaiety, to the music of an
unseen band of clashing kettle-drums, cymbals, and other instruments,
that played fast and furiously; while above all a knell in the church
tower rang forth at intervals a slow, deep, lugubrious note; and all the
time there glided in and out through the ring a grisly
being--skull-headed, skeleton-boned, scythe in hand--Death himself; and
ever and anon, when the dance was swiftest, would he dart into the midst,
pounce on one or other, holding an hour-glass to the face, unheeding
rank, sex, or age, and bear his victim to the charnel-house beside the
church. It was a sight as though some terrible sermon had taken life, as
though the unseen had become visible, the veil were taken away; and the
implicit unresisting obedience of the victims added to the sense of awful
reality and fatality.
The advance of the victorious King Henry made no difference to the
continuousness of the frightful dance; nay, it was plain that he was but
in the presence of a monarch yet more victorious than himself, and the
mazes wound on, the performers being evidently no phantoms, but as
substantial as those who beheld them; nay, the grisly ring began to
absorb the royal suite within itself, and an awe-stricken silence
prevailed--at least, where Malcolm Stewart and Ralf Percy were riding
together.
Neither lad durst ask the other what it meant. They thought they knew
too well. Percy ceased not for one moment to cross himself, and mutter
invocations to the saints; Malcolm's memory and tongue alike seemed inert
and paralyzed with horror--his brain was giddy, his eyes stretched open;
and when Death suddenly turned and darted in his direction, one horrible
gush of thought--'Fallen, fallen! Lost, lost! No confession!'--came
over him; he would have sobbed out an entreaty for mercy and for a
priest, but it became a helpless shriek; and while Percy's sword flashed
before his eyes, he felt himself falling, death-stricken, to the earth,
and knew no more.
'There--he moved,' said a voice above him.
'How now, Glenuskie?' cried Ralf Percy. 'Look up; I verily thought you
were sped by Death in bodily shape; but 'twas all an abominable grisly
pageant got up by some dismal caitiffs.'
'It was the Danse Macabre,' added the sweet tone that did indeed unclose
Malcolm's eyes, to see Esclairmonde bending over him, and holding wine to
his lips. Ralf raised him that he might swallow it, and looking round,
he saw that he was in a small wainscoted chamber, with an old burgher
woman, Ralf Percy, and Esclairmonde; certainly not in the other world. He
strove to ask 'what it meant,' and Esclairmonde spoke again:
'It is the Danse Macabre; I have seen it in Holland. It was invented as
a warning to those of sinful life, and this good woman tells me it has
become the custom to enact it every evening at this churchyard of the
Holy Innocents.'
'A custom I devoutly hope King Harry will break!' exclaimed Ralf. 'If
not, I'll some day find the way between those painted ribs of Monseigneur
de la Mort, I can tell him! I had nearly given him a taste of my sword
as it was, only some Gascon rogue caught my arm, and he was off ere I
could get free. So I jumped off, that your poor corpse should not be
trodden by French heels; and I hardly know how it was, but the Lady
Esclairmonde was by my side as I dragged you out, and caused these good
folks to let me bring you in behind their shop.'
'Lady, lady, I am for ever beholden,' cried Malcolm, gathering himself up
as if to fall at her feet, and his heart bounding high with joy, for this
was from death to life indeed.
'I saw there was some one hurt,' said Esclairmonde in her repressive
manner. 'Drink some more wine, eat this bread, and you will be able to
ride to the Hotel de St. Pol.'
'Oh, lady, let me speak of my bliss!' and he snatched at her hand, but
was still so dizzy that he sank back, becoming aware that he was stiff
and bruised from his fall. Almost at the same moment a new step and
voice were heard in the little open booth where the cutler displayed his
wares, and King James was at once admitted.
'How goes it, laddie?' he asked. 'They told me grim Death had clutched
you and borne you off to his charnel-house; but at least I see an angel
has charge of you.'
Esclairmonde slightly coloured as she made answer:
'I saw some one fall, and came to offer my poor skill, Sir; but as the
Sieur de Glenuskie is fast recovering, if you will permit Sir Nigel Baird
to attend me, Sir, I will at once return.'
'I am ready--I am not hurt. Oh, let us go together!' panted Malcolm,
leaping up.
'Eh, gentlemen!' exclaimed the hospitable cutler's wife; 'you will not
away so fast! This gallant knight will permit you to remain. And the
fair lady, she will do me the honour to drink a cup of wine to the
recovery of her betrothed.'
'Not so, good woman,' said Esclairmonde, a little apart, 'I am the
betrothed of Heaven. I only assisted because I feared the youth's fall
was more serious than it proves.'
The bourgeoise begged pardon, and made a curtsey; there was nothing
unusual in the avowal the lady had made, when the convent was a
thoroughly recognized profession; but Esclairmonde could not carry out
her purpose of departing separately with old Sir Nigel Baird; Malcolm was
on his feet, quite ready to mount, and there was no avoiding the being
assisted to her saddle by any but the King, who was in truth quite as
objectionable a companion, as far as appearances went, for a young
solitary maiden, as was Malcolm himself. Esclairmonde felt that her
benevolence might have led her into a scrape. When she had seen the
fall, knowing that to the unprepared the ghastly pageant must seem
reality, she had obeyed the impulse to hurry to the rescue, to console
and aid in case of injury, and she had not even perceived that her female
companions did not attempt to accompany her. However, the mischance
could best be counteracted by simplicity and unconsciousness; so, as she
found herself obliged to ride by the King, she unconcernedly observed
that these fantastic dances might perhaps arouse sinners, but that they
were a horrible sight for the unprepared.
'Very like a dream becoming flesh and blood,' said James. 'We in advance
were slow to perceive what it was, and then the King merely thought
whether it would alarm the Queen.'
'I trow it did not.'
'No; the thing has not been found that will stir her placid face. She
merely said it was very lugubrious, and an ill turn in the Parisians thus
to greet her, but they were always senseless _betes_; and he, being
relieved of care for her, looked with all his eyes, with a strange
mixture of drollery at the antics and the masques, yet of grave musing at
the likeness to this present life.'
'I think,' said Esclairmonde, 'that King Henry is one of the few men to
whom the spectacle _is_ a sermon. He laughs even while he lays a thing
to heart.'
These few sentences had brought them to the concourse around the gateway
of the great Hotel de St. Pol, in whose crowded courtyard Esclairmonde
had to dismount; and, after being handed through the hall by King James,
to make her way to the ladies' apartments, and there find out, what she
was most anxious about, how Alice, who had been riding at some distance
from her with her father, had fared under the alarm.
Alice ran up to her eagerly. 'Ah, dear Clairette, and was he greatly
hurt?'
'Not much; he had only swooned for fright.'
'Swooned! to be a prince, and not have the heart of a midge!'
'And how was it with you, you very wyvern for courage?'
'With me? Oh, I was somewhat appalled at first, when my father took hold
of my rein, and bade me never fear; for I saw his face grow amazed. Sir
Richard Nevil rode up on the other side, and said the hobgoblins should
eat out his heart ere they hurt me; and I looked into his face as he said
that, and liked it more than ever I thought to like any but yours,
Clairette. I think my father was going to leave me to him and see
whether the King needed some one to back him; but up came a French lord,
and said 'twas all a mere show, and my father said he was glad I was a
stout-hearted wench that had never cried out for fear; and then I was so
pleased, that I never heeded the ugly sight any more. Ay, and when Sir
Richard lifted me off my horse, he kissed my hand of his own accord.'
'This is all he has ever said to you?' said Esclairmonde, smiling. 'It
is like an Englishman--to the purpose.'
'Yea, is it not? Oh! is it not better than all the fine speeches and
compliments that Joan Beaufort gets from her Scottish king?'
'They have truths in them too, child.'
'Ay; but too fine-spun, too minstrel-like, for a plain English maid. The
hobgoblins should eat out his heart ere they touched me!' she repeated to
herself, as though the saying were the most poetical concert sung on
minstrel lover's lute.
Death's Dance had certainly brought this affianced pair to a better
understanding than all the gayest festivities of the Court.
Esclairmonde would have been happy if no one had noticed her benevolence
to the young Scot save Alice Montagu; but she had to endure countless
railleries from every lady, from Countess Jaqueline downwards, on the
unmistakable evidence that her heart had spoken; and her grave dignity
had less effect in silencing them than usual, so diverting was the
alleged triumph over her propriety, well as they knew that she would have
done the same for the youngest horse-boy, or the oldest man-at-arms.