The Caged Lion, Charlotte M. Yonge [top 10 most read books in the world TXT] 📗

my fears.'

Malcolm could not but be cheered by being for once spoken to by her in so friendly a tone; and he added, gravely and resolutely: 'My suit, then, I yield up, lady--yield for ever. Am I permitted once to kiss that fair and holy hand, as I resign my presumptuous hopes thereof?'

'Mayhap it were wiser left undone,' said Esclairmonde. 'My mind misgives me that this meeting is planned to bring us into trouble. Farewell, my lord.'

As she had apprehended, the door was flung back, and Countess Jaqueline rushed in, clasping her hands in an affectation of merry surprise, as she cried, 'Here they are! See, Monseigneur! No keeping doves apart!'

'Madame,' said Esclairmonde, turning on her with cold dignity, 'I have been thanking Monsieur de Glenuskie for having resigned the suit that I always declared to be in vain.'

'You misunderstood, Clairette,' said Jaqueline. 'No gentleman ever so spoke! No, no; my young lord has kept his promise to me, and I will not fail him.'

'Madame,' faltered Malcolm, 'I came by command of the King of Scots.'

'So much the better,' cried Jaqueline. 'So he can play into our hands, for all his grandeur! It will lose him his wager, though! Here is bride--there is priest--nay, bishop!' pointing to him of Therouenne, who had accompanied her, but hitherto had stood silent.

'Madame,' said Malcolm, 'the time and state of the household forbid.'

'_Ma foi_! What is that to us? King Henry is neither our brother nor our father; and Catherine will soon laugh at it as a good joke.'

'Nay,' said the Bishop, with more propriety, 'it is the contract and troth-plight alone that could take place at present. That secure, the full solemnities will await a fitting time; but it is necessary that the troth be exchanged at once.'

'Monseigneur,' said Esclairmonde, 'mine is in other keeping.'

'And, Monseigneur,' added Malcolm, 'I have just told the lady that I repent of having fallen from my vocation, and persecuted her.'

'How, Sir!' said the Bishop, turning on him; 'do you thus lightly treat a lady of the house of Luxemburg? Beware! There are those who know how to visit an insult on a malapert lad, who meddles with the honour of the family.'

'Be not threatened, Lord Malcolm,' said Esclairmonde, with a gleam in her eye.

And Malcolm was Stewart enough to answer with spirit: 'My lord, I will meet them if needed. This lady is so affianced, that it is sacrilege to aspire to her.'

'Ah!' said the Bishop, in an audible aside to the giggling Countess: 'this comes of her having thrown herself at the youth's head. Now he will no more of her.'

Crimson with wrath, and also with a wild sense of hope that the obligation had become absolute, Malcolm made a vehement incoherent exclamation; but Esclairmonde retained her composure.

'Monseigneur and Madame both know better,' she said. 'This is but another menace.'

'Peace, minion,' said the Bishop of Therouenne, 'and listen to me. If this young gentleman, after professing himself willing to wed you, now draws back, so much the worse for him. But if you terrify him out of it with your humours, then will my brother St. Pol and the Duke of Burgundy soon be here, with no King of England to meddle; and by St. Adrian, Sir Boemond will be daunted by no airs, like Monsieur there. A bride shall you be, Esclairmonde de Luxemburg, ere the week is out, if not to Monsieur de Glenuskie, to the Chevalier Boemond de Bourgogne.'

'Look not at me,' said Jaqueline. 'I am weary of your contumacy. All I shall do is to watch you well. I've suspected for some days that you were concocting mischief with the little Montagu; but you'll not escape again, as when I was fool enough to help you.'

The two stood a few paces apart, where they had been discovered; Esclairmonde's eyes were closed, her hands clasped, as if in silent prayer for aid.

'Girl--your choice!' said the Bishop, peremptorily. 'Wedlock on the spot to this gentleman, or to Sir Boemond a week hence.'

Esclairmonde was very white.

'My will shall not consent to a present breach of vow to save a future one,' she said, in a scarce audible voice.

A sudden thought darted into Malcolm's mind. With colour flooding his face to his very temples, he stepped nearer to her, and said, in a tremulous under-tone, 'Lady, trust me.'

The Bishop withheld Jaqueline almost by force, so soon as he saw that the pair were whispering together, and that there was something of relaxation in Esclairmonde's face as she looked up at him in silent interrogation.

He spoke low, but solemnly and imploringly. 'Trust me with your plight, lady, and I will restore it when you are free.'

Hardly able to speak, she however murmured, 'You will indeed do this?'

'So help me Heaven!' he said, and his eyes grew large and bright; he held his head with the majesty of his race.

'Heaven has sent you,' said Esclairmonde, with a long sigh, and holding out her hand to him, as though therewith she conferred a high-souled woman's full trust.

And Malcolm took it with a strange pang of pain and exultation at the heart. The trust was won, but the hope of earthly joy was gone for ever.

The Countess broke out with a shout of triumph: 'There, there! they have come to reason at last. There's an end of her folly.'

Malcolm felt himself a man, and Esclairmonde's protector, all at once, as he stood forth, still holding her hand.

'Monseigneur,' he said, 'this lady consents to intrust her troth to me, and be affianced to me'--his chest heaved, but he still spoke firmly--'on condition that no word be spoken of the matter, nor any completion of the rite take place until the mourning for King Henry be at an end;' and, at a sort of shiver from Esclairmonde, he added: 'Not for a year, by which time I shall be of full age.'

'A strange bridegroom!' said Jaqueline; 'but maybe you do well to get her on what terms you can. Do you agree, Monseigneur?'

In truth, Monseigneur may have been relieved that the trial of strength between him and his ward had thus terminated. He was only anxious to have the matter concluded.

The agreement, binding Malcolm to accept a stated number of crowns in instalments, as the value of Esclairmonde's lands, under the guarantee of the Duke of Burgundy and King James of Scotland, had all been long ago signed, sealed, and secured; and there was nothing to prevent the _fiancailles_, or espousals, from taking place at once.

It was a much more real ceremony than a mere betrothal, being, in fact, in the eye of the civil law a marriage, though the full blessing and the sacramental words of union were deferred for the completion of the rite. It was the first part of the Marriage Service, binding the pair so indissolubly to one another, that neither could enter into wedlock with any one else as long as the other lived--except, of course, by Papal dispensation; and in cases of stolen weddings, it was all that was deemed needful.

All therefore that remained to be done was, that the Bishop summoned his chaplain to serve as a witness and as scribe; and then the two young people, in their deep mourning dresses, standing before the Bishop, vowed to belong to none other than to one another, and the betrothal rings being produced, were placed on their fingers, and their hands were clasped. Malcolm's was steady, as he felt Esclairmonde's rest in his untrembling, but with the quietness of one who trusted all in all where she trusted at all.

'Poor children! they have all to learn,' hilariously shouted the Countess. 'They have forgotten the kiss!'

'Will you suffer it, my sister?' said Malcolm, with burning cheeks.

'My brother and my guardian!' responded Esclairmonde, raising the white brow to his lips.

At that moment back went the door, and in flew Alice Montagu, crying aloud, 'Clairette! the Queen--oh, Madame, your pardon! but I am sent for Esclairmonde. The Queen is in worse fits than ever. Sir Lewis can't get the ring from her. They think she will rave like her father presently! Come!'

Esclairmonde could only hurry away at this; while Alice, grasping her hand, continued:

'Oh, have they been persecuting you? I dreaded it when I saw yon little wretch; but--oh, Esclairmonde, what is this?' in an utterly changed voice.

'He holds my faith in trust. He will restore it,' said Esclairmonde, hurriedly.

But Lady Montagu spoke not another word; and, indeed, they were hard upon the English queen's rooms, whence they already heard hysterical screams of passion.

Jaqueline had immediately set forth in the same direction out of curiosity; and Malcolm in much anxiety, since the mission that he had been cautioned to guard so jealously seemed in danger of being known everywhere. He had himself been allowed to stand by the Queen's bedside, and rehearse James's message; but when he had further hinted of his being sent by Bedford to bring the ring, the Queen, perhaps at the mention of the brother-in-law, pouted, knew nothing of any ring, and supposed M. le Duc meant to strip her, a poor desolate widow, of all her jewels.

Then Malcolm had spoken in private with Sir Lewis Robsart, who knew the ring was among her jewels, and promised to get it for him as soon as was possible; and it was while waiting for this that Malcolm had been summoned to the Countess of Hainault's apartments.

But ere Sir Lewis could get the ear of the Queen, as he now told Malcolm, her mother had been with her. Catherine was dull, jealous, unwilling to part with anything, but always easily coaxed over. Her mother Isabeau had, on the other hand, a good deal of low cunning and selfishness, and understood how valuable an instrument might be a duplicate seal of a deceased monarch. Therefore she instigated her daughter to deny that she possessed it, and worked her up into a state of impracticability, in which Sir Lewis Robsart was unable to deal with her, and only produced so wild a tempest of passion as perfectly to appal both him and her ladies.

That the Duke of Bedford had sent for a ring, which she would not give up, was known over the whole palace; the only matter still not perhaps known was, what was the value of that individual ring.

Robsart, however, promised to exonerate Malcolm from having shown any indiscretion; he charged it all on himself for having left his Queen for an instant to Isabeau.

Meanwhile, Malcolm and he, with other nobles and ladies, waited, waited in the outer chamber, listening to the fearful storm of shrieks and cries, till they began to spend themselves and die away; and then they heard Esclairmonde's low voice singing her lullaby, and every one breathed freer, as though relieved, and murmurs of conversation rose again. Malcolm moved across to greet the Lady Montagu; and though she looked at him with all the disdain her little gentle face could accomplish, he had somehow a spring and strength in him that could not now be brow-beaten.

He bent over her, and said, 'Lady,