The Caged Lion by Charlotte M. Yonge (books to read to increase intelligence TXT) 📕

and while they were being collected, a message bade me to the Lady Esclairmonde’s presence.  I went, suspecting naught, but I found myself in presence of Madame of Hainault, and of a veiled lady—who, my Lord—’  He paused.  ‘She was broad in form, and had a trick of gasping as though over-fat.’

Bedford nodded.  Every one knew Queen Isabeau by these tokens.

‘She scarce spoke, my Lord; but the Countess Jaqueline pretended to be in one of her merry moods.  She told me one good turn deserved another, and that, as in gratitude and courtesy bound, I must do her the favour of either lending her the signet, or, if I would not let it out of my hands, of setting it to a couple of parchments, which she declared King Henry had promised to grant.’

‘The false woman!’

‘Sir, words told not on her.  She laughed and clapped her hands at whatever I said of honour, faith, or trust.  She would have it that it was a jest—nay, romping fashion, she seized my hand, which I let her have, knowing it was only my own seal that was on it.  Never was I so glad that the signet being too small for my fingers, it was in my bosom.’

‘Knew you what the parchments bore?’ asked, Bedford, anxiously.

‘One—so far as I could see—was of the Duke of Orleans’ liberty,’ said Malcolm.  ‘The other—pardon me, Sir—it bore the names of Duke Humfrey and Countess Jaqueline.’

‘The shameless wanton!’ broke forth Bedford.  ‘How did you escape her at last, boy?’

‘Sir,’ said Malcolm, turning as red as loss of blood permitted, ‘she had not kept her hands off me; therefore when she stood between me and the door, I told her that discourtesy was better than trust-breaking, and while she jeered at my talking out of a book of chivalry, I e’en took her by the hands, lifted her aside, opened the door, ran down-stairs, and so to the stables, where I mounted with the only three men I could get together.’

Bedford could not but laugh, as he added, ‘Bravely done, Lord Malcolm; but, I fear me, she will never forgive you.  What next?’

‘I left word for the other fellows to join us at the hostel by the gate, and tarried for them till I feared being here after the gates were fast; then set out without them, and rode till, just within the forest, a band of men, how many I cannot tell, were on us, and before my sword was well drawn they had surrounded me, and seized my bridle.  One of them bade me submit quietly, and they would not harm me, if I would yield up that which I wist of.  I said I would sooner yield my life than my trust; whereupon they mastered me, and dragged me off my horse, and were rifling me, when I—knowing the Flemish accent of that drunken fellow of the Countess’s—called out, “Shame on you, Ghisbert!”  Then it was that he stabbed me, even at the moment when the holy Saints sent brave Percy and the rest to rush in upon them.’

‘You are sure it was Ghisbert?’ repeated Bedford, anxiously.

‘As certain as a man’s voice can make me,’ said Malcolm.  ‘Methinks, had I not named him, he would perhaps have bound me to a tree, and left it to be thought that they were but common thieves.’

‘Belike,’ said Bedford, thoughtfully.  ‘We are beholden to you, my Lord Glenuskie; the whole state of England is beholden to you for the saving of the confusion and evils the loss of that ring would have caused.  You can keep counsel, I wot well.  Then let all this matter of the Queen and Countess rest a secret.’

Malcolm looked amazed; and Bedford added: ‘I cannot quarrel with the woman, nor banish her from Court.  Did we accuse her, Holland would become Armagnac; nor is she subject of ours, to have justice done on her.  It is for her interest to hush the matter up, and it must be ours too.  If that knave Ghisbert ever gives me the chance, he shall hang like a dog; but for the rest—’ he shrugged his shoulders.

‘And,’ said Malcolm, ‘Ghisbert only meant to serve his lady.  Any vassal of mine would do the like for me or my sister.’

Bedford half smiled; then sighed and said: ‘Once we were like to get laws more obeyed than lords; but that is all over now!  Yet you, young Sir, have seen a great pattern; you will have great powers!’

‘Sir,’ interrupted Malcolm, ‘I pray you believe me, great powers I shall not have.  As I told you last night, I do but hold this precious troth in trust!  It must be a secret, or it would not save her; but you—oh, Sir! you will believe that!’

‘If it be so,’ said Bedford, gravely, ‘it is too sacred a trust to be spoken of.  You will deserve greater honour if you keep your word, than ever you will receive from the world.  Farewell—and recover fast.’

Malcolm did not meet with much encouragement from the few to whom he thought fit to confide the conditions of his espousal.  The King allowed that he could not have acted otherwise, but was concerned at it, because of the hindrance that might for years be interposed in the way of his welfare; and secretly hoped that Malcolm, in his new capacity, would so gain on Esclairmonde’s esteem and gratitude, as to win her affection, and that by mutual consent they would lay aside their loftier promises, and take up their espousal where they had left it.

And what James secretly desired, Sir Patrick Drummond openly recommended.  In his eyes, Malcolm would be no better than a fool if he let his ladye-love, with all her lands, slip through his fingers, when she was lawfully his own.  Patrick held that a monastery was a good place to be nursed in if wounded, and a convenience for disposing of dull or weakly younger sons; and he preferred that there should be some holy men to pray for those who did the hard and bloody work of the world; but he had no desire that any one belonging to himself should plunge into extra sanctity; and the more he saw Malcolm developing into a man among men, the more he opposed the notion of his dedicating himself.

A man!  Yes; Malcolm was rising from his bed notably advanced in manliness.  As the King’s keen eye had seen from the first, and as Esclairmonde had felt, there was an elevation, tenderness, and refinement in his cast of character, which if left to his natural destiny would have either worn out his life early in the world, or carried him to the obscure shelter of a convent.  In the novelty of the secular life, and temptations of all kinds, dread of ridicule, and the flood of excitements which came with reviving health, that very sensitiveness led him astray; and the elevated aims fell with a heavier fall when diverted from heavenly palaces to earthly ones.  Self-reproach and dejection drove him further from the right course, and in proportion to the greater amount of conscience he had by nature, his character was the more deteriorating.  His deeds were far less evil in themselves than those of many of his companions, but inasmuch as they were not thoughtless in him, they were injuring him more.  But the sudden shock of Patrick’s danger roused him to a new sense of shame.  King Henry’s death had lifted his mind out of the earthly atmosphere, and then the treasure of Esclairmonde’s pure and perfect trust seemed to be the one thing to be guarded worthily and truly.  It gave him weight, drew him out of himself, lifted him above the boyish atmosphere of random self-indulgence and amusement.  To be the protector who should guard her vows for the heavenly Bridegroom to whom her soul was devoted, was indeed a championship that in his eyes could only have befitted Sir Galahad; and a Galahad would he strive to be, so long as that championship held him to the secular life.  James and Bedford both told him he had won his spurs, and should have them on the next fit occasion; but he had ceased to care for knighthood, save in that half-consecrated aspect which he thought would render his guardianship less unmeet for Esclairmonde.

She had not shunned to send him a kind greeting on hearing of his wound, and by way of token a fresh leaf of vellum with a few more of those meditations from Zwoll—meditations that he spelled over from Latin into English, and dwelt upon in great tranquillity and soothing of spirit during the days that he was confined to his bed.

These were not many.  He was on his feet by the time the funeral cavalcade was in readiness to move from Vincennes to convey Henry of Monmouth to his last resting-place in Westminster Abbey.  Bedford could not be spared to return to England, and was only to go as far as Calais; and James of Scotland was therefore to act as chief mourner, attended by his own small personal suite.

Sir Patrick Drummond—though, shrugging his shoulders, he muttered that he should as soon have thought of becoming mourner at the foul fiend’s funeral as at the King of England’s—could not object to swell the retinue of his sovereign by his knighthood; and though neither he nor Malcolm were in condition for a campaign, both could ride at the slow pace of the mournful procession.

The coffin was laid on a great car, drawn by four black horses, and surmounted by Henry’s effigy, made in boiled leather and coloured to the life, robed in purple and ermine, crown on head, sceptre and orb in either hand.  The great knights and nobles rode on each side, carrying the banners of the Saints; and close behind came James and Bedford, each with his immediate attendants; then the household officers of the King, Fitzhugh his chamberlain, Montagu his cup-bearer, Ralf Percy and his other squires, and all the rest.  Four hundred men-at-arms in black armour, with lances pointed downwards, formed the guard behind; and the vanguard was of clergy, robed in white, bearing banners and wax lights, and chanting psalms.  At the border of every parish, all the ecclesiastics thereto appertaining, parochial, chantry, and monastic, turned out to meet the procession with their tapers; escorted it to the principal church; performed Mass there, if it were in the forenoon; and then accompanied the coffin to the other limit of their ground, and consigned it to the clerks of the next parish.  At night, the royal remains always rested in a church, guarded by alternate watches of the English men-at-arms, and sung over by the local clergy, while the escort were quartered in the town, village, or abbey where the halt chanced to be made.  Very slow was this progress; almost like a continual dream was that long column, moving, moving on—white in front, black behind—when seen winding over a hill, or, sometimes, the banners peering over the autumn foliage of some thicket, all composed to profound silence and tardy measured tread; while the chants rose and fell with the breeze, like unearthly music.  Many moved on more than half asleep; and others of the younger men felt like Ralf Percy, who, for all his real sorrow for the King, declared that, were it not for rushing out, morning and evening, for a bathe and a gallop, to fly a hawk or chase a hare, he should some day run crazed, blow out all the wax lights, or play some mad prank to break the intolerable oppression.  Malcolm smiled at this; but to him, still in the dreamy inertness of recovery, this tranquil onward movement in the still autumn weather had some thing in it of healing influence; and the sweet chants, the continual offices of devotion, were accordant with his present tone of mind, and deepened the purpose he had formed.

Queen Catherine and her ladies joined the funeral march at Rouen, or rather followed it at a mile’s interval; but the two trains kept apart, and only occasional messages were sent from one to the other.  Some of the gentlemen, who had a wife or sister in the Queen’s suite, would ride at nightfall to pay her a hasty visit; but Malcolm—though he longed to be sent—durst not intrude upon Esclairmonde; and the Duke of Bedford was not only forced to spend all the evening and half the night in business, but was not loth to put off the day of the meeting with his dear sister Catherine—to say nothing of the ‘Woman of Hainault.’

Therefore it was not until all had arrived at Calais, where a fleet was waiting to meet them, that any visits were openly made by the one party to the other.

Bedford and James went together to the apartments of the Queen, and while they saw her in private, Malcolm came blushing towards