The Caged Lion, Charlotte M. Yonge [dark books to read TXT] 📗

your own mind to wed, at least you would less turn from me than from the others proposed to you.’

‘That were saying little for you,’ said Esclairmonde, half smiling.  ‘But, Sir,’ she added gravely, ‘you have no right to put the question; and I will say nothing on which you can presume.’

‘You were kinder to me in England,’ sighed Malcolm, with tears in his eyes.

‘Then you seemed as one like-minded,’ she answered.

‘And,’ he cried, gathering fresh ardour, ‘I would be like-minded again.  You would render me so, sweetest lady.  I would kiss your every step, pray with you, bestow alms with you, found churches, endow your Béguines, and render our change from our childish purpose a blessing to the whole world; become your very slave, to do your slightest bidding.  O lady, could I but give you my eyes to see what it might be!’

‘It could not be, if we began with a burthened conscience,’ said Esclairmonde.  ‘We have had enough of this, Sieur de Glenuskie.  You know that with me it is no matter of likes or dislikes, but that I am under a vow, which I will never break!  Make way, Sir.’

He could but obey: she was far too majestic and authoritative to be gainsaid.  And Malcolm, in an access of misery, stood lost to all the world, kneeling in the window-seat, where she had left him resting his head against the glass, when suddenly a white plump hand was laid on his shoulder, and a gay voice cried:

‘All à la mort, my young damoiseau!  What, has our saint been unpropitious?  Never mind, you shall have her yet.  We will see her like the rest of the world, ere we have done within her!’

And Malcolm found himself face to face with the free-spoken Jaqueline of Hainault.

‘You are very good, madame,’ he stammered.

‘You shall think me very good yet!  I have no notion of being opposed by a little vassal of mine; and we’ll succeed, if it were but for the fun of the thing!  Monseigneur de Thérouenne is on your side, or would be, if he were sure of the Duke of Burgundy.  You see, these prelates hate nothing so much as the religious orders; and all the pride of the Luxemburgs is in arms against Clairette’s fancy for those beggarly nursing Sisters; so it drives him mad to hear her say she only succoured you for charity.  He thinks it a family disgrace, that can only be wiped off by marrying her to you; and he would do it bon gré, mal gré, but that he waits to hear what Burgundy will say.  You have only to hold out, and she shall be yours, if I hold her finger while you put on the ring.  Only let us be sure of Burgundy.’

This was not a very flattering way of obtaining a bride; but Malcolm was convinced that when once married to Esclairmonde, his devotion would atone to her for all that was unpleasant in obtaining her.  At least, she loved no one else; she had even allowed that she had once thought him like-minded; she had formerly distinguished him; and nothing lay between them but her scruples; and when they were overcome, by whatever means, his idol would be his, to adore, to propitiate, to win by the most intense devotion.  All now must, however, turn upon the Duke of Burgundy, without whose sanction Madame of Hainault would be afraid to act openly.

The Duke was expected at Paris for the Whitsuntide festival, which was to be held with great state.  The custom was for the Kings of France to feast absolutely with all Paris, with interminable banquet tables, open to the whole world without question.  And to this Henry had conformed on his first visit to the city; but he had learnt that the costly and lavish feast had been of very little benefit to the really distressed, who had been thrust aside by loud-voiced miscreants and sturdy beggars, such as had no shame in driving the feeble back with blows, and receiving their own share again and again.

By the advice of Dr. Bennet, his almoner, he was resolved that this should not happen again; that the feast should be limited to the official guests, and that the cost of the promiscuous banquet should be distributed to those who really needed it, and who should be reached through their parish priests and the friars known to be most charitable.

Dr. Bennet, as almoner, with the other chaplains, was to arrange the matter; and horrible was the distress that he discovered in the city, that had for five-and-twenty years been devastated by civil fury, as well as by foreign wars; and famines, pestilences, murders, and tyrannies had held sway, so as to form an absolute succession of reigns of terror.  The poor perished like flies in a frost; the homeless orphans of the parents murdered by either faction roamed the streets, and herded in the corners like the vagrant dogs of Eastern cities; and meantime, the nobles and their partisans revelled in wasteful pomp.

Scholar as he was, Dr. Bennet was not familiar enough with Parisian ways not to be very grateful for aid from Esclairmonde in some of his conferences, and for her explanations of the different tastes and needs of French and English poor.

What she saw and heard, on the other hand, gave form and purpose to her aspirations.  The Dutch Sisters of St. Bega, the English Bedeswomen of St. Katharine, were sorely needed at Paris.  They would gather up the sufferers, collect the outcast children, feed the hungry, follow with balm wherever a wound had been.  To found a Béguinage at Paris seemed to her the most befitting mode of devoting her wealth; and her little admirer, Alice, gave up her longing desire that the foundation should be in England, when she learned that, as the wife of Nevil, her abode was likely to be in France as long as that country required English garrisons.

To the young heiress of Salisbury, her own marriage, though close at hand, seemed a mere ordinary matter compared with Esclairmonde’s Béguinage, to her the real romance.  Never did she see a beggar crouching at the church door, without a whisper to herself that there was a subject for the Béguines; and, tender-hearted as she was, she looked quite gratified at any lamentable tale which told the need.

If Esclairmonde had a climax to her visions of her brown-robed messengers of mercy, it was that the holy Canon of St. Agnes should be induced to come and act the part of master to her bedeswomen, as did Master Kedbesby at home.

She had even dared to murmur her design to Dr. Bennet; and when he, under strict seal of secrecy, had sounded King Henry, the present real master of Paris, he reported that the tears had stood in the King’s eyes for a moment, as he said, ‘Blessings on the maiden!  Should she be able to do this for this city, I shall know that Heaven hath indeed sent a blessing by my arms!’

For one brief week, Esclairmonde and Alice were very happy in this secret hope; but at the end of that time the Bishop of Thérouenne appeared.  Esclairmonde had ventured to hope that the King’s influence, and likewise the fact that her intention was not to enrich one of the regular monastic orders, might lead him to lend a favourable ear to her scheme; but she was by no means prepared to find him already informed of the affair of the Dance of Death, and putting his own construction on it.

‘So, my fair cousin, this is the end of your waywardness.  The tokens were certainly somewhat strong; but the young gentleman’s birth being equal to yours, after the spectacle you have presented, your uncle of St. Pol, and I myself, must do our utmost to obtain the consent of the Duke of Burgundy.’

‘Monseigneur is mistaken,’ said Esclairmonde.

‘Child, we will have no more folly.  You have flown after this young Scot in a manner fitted only for the foolish name your father culled for you out of his books of chivalry.  You have given a lesson to the whole Court and city on the consequences of a damsel judging for herself, and running a mad course over the world, instead of submitting to her guardians.’

‘The Court understands my purpose as well as you do, Monseigneur.’

‘Silence, Mademoiselle.  Your convent obstinacy is ended for ever now, since to send you to one would be to appear to hide a scandal.’

‘I do not wish to enter a convent,’ said Esclairmonde.  ‘My desire is to dedicate my labour and my substance to the foundation of a house here at Paris, such as are the Béguinages of our Netherlands,’

The Bishop held up his hands.  He had never heard of such lunacy and it angered him, as such purposes are wont to anger worldly-hearted men.  That a lady of Luxemburg should have such vulgar tastes as to wish to be a Beguine was bad enough; but that Netherlandish wealth should be devoted to support the factious poor of Paris was preposterous.  Neither the Duke of Burgundy, nor her uncle of St. Pol, would allow a sou to pass out of their grasp for so absurd a purpose; the Pope would give no license—above all to a vain girl, who had helped a wife to run away from her husband—for new religious houses; and, unless Esclairmonde was prepared to be landless, penniless, and the scorn of every one, for her wild behaviour, she must submit, bon gré, mal gré, to become the wife of the Scottish prince.

‘Landless and penniless then will I be, Monseigneur,’ said Esclairmonde.  ‘Was not poverty the bride of St. Francis?’

The Bishop made a growl of contempt; but recollecting himself, and his respect for the saint, began to argue that what was possible for a man, a mere merchant’s son, an inspired saint besides, was not possible to a damsel of high degree, and that it was mere presumption, vanity, and obstinacy in her to appeal to such a precedent.

There was something in this that struck Esclairmonde, for she was conscious of a certain satisfaction in her plan of being the first to introduce a Béguinage at Paris, and that she was to a certain degree proud of her years of constancy to her high purpose; and she looked just so far abashed that the uncle saw his advantage, and discoursed on the danger of attempting to be better than other people, and of trying to vapour in spiritual heights, to all of which she attempted no reply; till at last he broke up the interview by saying, ‘There, then, child; all will be well.  I see you are coming to a better mind.’

‘I hope I am, Monseigneur,’ she replied, with lofty meekness; ‘but scarcely such as you mean.’

Alice Montagu’s indignation knew no bounds.  What! was this noble votaress to be forced, not only to resign the glory of being the foundress of a new order of beneficence, but to be married, just like everybody else, and to that wretched little coward?  Boëmond of Burgundy was better than that, for he at least was a man!

‘No, no, Alice,’ said Esclairmonde, with a shudder; ‘any one rather than the Burgundian!  It is shame even to compare the Scot!’

‘He may not be so evil in himself,’ said Alice; ‘but with a brave man you have only his own sins, while a coward has all those other people may frighten him into.’

‘He bore himself manfully in battle,’ said the fair Fleming in reproof.

But Alice answered with the scorn that sits so quaintly on the gentle daughter of a bold race: ‘Ay, where he would have been more afraid to run than to stand.’

‘You are hard on the Scot,’ said Esclairmonde.  ‘Maybe it is because the Nevils of Raby are Borderers,’ she added, smiling; and, as Alice likewise smiled and blushed, ‘Now, if it were not for this madness, I could like the youth.  I would fain have had him for a brother that I could take care of.’

‘But what will you do, Esclairmonde?’

‘Trust,’ said she, sighing.  ‘Maybe, my pride ought to be broken; and I may have to lay aside all my hopes and plans, and become a mere serving sister, to learn true humility.  Anyhow, I verily trust to my Heavenly Spouse to guard me for himself.  If the Duke of Burgundy still maintains Boëmond’s suit, then in the dissension I see an escape.

‘And my father will defend you; and so will Sir Richard,’ said Alice, with complacent certainty in their full efficiency.  ‘And King Harry will interfere; and we will have your hospital; ay, we will.  How can you talk so lightly of abandoning it?’

‘I only would know what is human pride, and what God’s will,’ sighed Esclairmonde.

The Duke arrived with his two sisters, his wife being left at home in bad health, and took up his abode at the