"There are," said Esclairmonde; "but I trust I may be pardoned for saying that such often seem to me to play at humility when they stickle for birth and dower with the haughtiest. I never honoured any nuns so much as the humble Sisters of St. Begga, who never ask for sixteen quarterings, but only for a tender hand, soft step, pure life, and pious heart."
"I deemed," said Malcolm, "that heavenly contemplation was the purpose of convents."
"Even so, for such as can contemplate like the holy man I have told you of," said Esclairmonde; "but labour hath been greatly laid aside in convents of late, and I doubt me if it be well, or if their prayers be the better for it."
"And so," said Alice, "I heard my Lord of Winchester saying how it were well to suppress the alien priories, and give their wealth to found colleges like that founded by Bishop Wykeham."
For in truths the spirit of the age was beginning to set against monasticism. It was the period when perhaps there was more of license and less of saintliness than at any other, and when the long continuance of the Great Schism had so injured Church discipline that the clergy and ecclesiastics were in the worst state of all, especially the monastic orders, who owned no superior but the Pope, and between the two rivals could avoid supervision altogether. Such men as Thomas a Kempis, or the great Jean Gerson, were rare indeed; and the monasteries had let themselves lose their missionary character, and become mere large farms, inhabited by celibate gentlemen and their attendants, or by the superfluous daughters of the n.o.bles and gentry. Such devotion as led Esclairmonde to the pure atmosphere of prayer and self-sacrifice had well-nigh died out, and almost every other lady of the time would have regarded her release from the vows made for her its her babyhood a happy escape.
Still less, at a time when no active order of Sisters, save that of the Beguines in Holland, had been invented, and when no nun ever dreamt of carrying her charity beyond the quadrangle of her own convent, could any one be expected to enter into Esclairmonde"s admiration and longing for out-of-door works; but the person whom she had chiefly made her friend was the King"s almoner and chaplain, sometimes called Sir Martin Bennet, at others Dr. Bennet, a great Oxford scholar, bred up among William of Wykeham"s original seventy at Winchester and New College, and now much trusted and favoured by the King, whom he everywhere accompanied. That Sir Martin was a pluralist must be confessed, but he was most conscientious in providing subst.i.tutes, and was a man of much thought and of great piety, in whom the fair pupil of the Canon of St. Agnes found a congenial spirit.
CHAPTER VI: MALCOLM"S SUIT
"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 superst.i.tion, 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 a.s.sertion, "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 st.i.tchery, 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 inst.i.tution. 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 pa.s.sed off with no small satisfaction to both parties.