Earl of Westmoreland.
She was under the charge of the Countess—a stately dame, with all the Beaufort pride; and much afraid of her she was, as everything that was shy or forlorn seemed to turn towards the maiden whose countenance not only promised kindness but protection.
Presently the cavalcade passed a gray building in the midst of green fields and orchards, where, under the trees, some black-veiled figures sat spinning.
‘A nunnery!’ quoth Esclairmonde, looking eagerly after it as she rode past.
‘A nunnery!’ said Malcolm, encouraged into the simple confidingness of a young boy. ‘How unlike the one where my sister is! Not a tree is near it; it is perched upon a wild crag overhanging the angry sea, and the winds roar, and the gulls and eagles scream, and the waves thunder round it!’
‘Yet it is not the less a haven of peace,’ replied Esclairmonde.
‘Verily,’ said Malcolm, ‘one knows what peace is under that cloister, where all is calm while the winds rave without.’
‘You know how to love a cloister,’ said the lady, as she heard his soft, sad tones.
‘I had promised myself to make my home in one,’ said Malcolm; ‘but my King will have me make trial of the world first. And so please you,’ he added, recollecting himself, ‘he forbade me to make my purpose known; so pray, lady, be so good as to forget what I have said.’
‘I will be silent,’ said Esclairmonde; ‘but I will not forget, for I look on you as one like myself, my young lord. I too am dedicated, and only longing to reach my cloistered haven.’
She spoke it out with the ease of those days when the monastic was as recognized a profession as any other calling, and yet with something of the desire to make it evident on what ground she stood.
Lady Alice uttered an exclamation of surprise.
‘Yes,’ said Esclairmonde, ‘I was dedicated his my infancy, and promised myself in the nunnery at Dijon when I was seven years old.’
Then, as if to turn the conversation from herself, she asked of Malcolm if he too had made any vow.
‘Only to myself,’ said Malcolm. ‘Neither my Tutor nor the Prior of Coldingham would hear my vows.’ And he was soon drawn into telling his whole story, to which the ladies both listened with great interest and kindness, Esclairmonde commending his resolution to leave the care of his lands and vassals to one whom he represented as so much better fitted to bear them as Patrick Drummond, and only regretting the silence King James had enjoined, saying she felt that there was safety and protection in being avowed as a destined religious.
‘And you are one,’ said Lady Alice, looking at her in wonder. ‘And yet you are with that lady—’ And the girl’s innocent face expressed a certain wonder and disgust that no one could marvel at who had heard the Flemish Countess talk in the loudest, broadest, most hoydenish style.
‘She has been my very good lady,’ said Esclairmonde; ‘she has, under the saints, saved me from much.’
‘Oh, I entreat you, tell us, dear lady!’ entreated Alice. It was not a reticent age. Malcolm Stewart had already avowed himself in his own estimation pledged to a monastic life, and Esclairmonde of Luxemburg had reasons for wishing her position and intentions to be distinctly understood by all with whom she came in contact; moreover, there was a certain congeniality in both her companions, their innocence and simplicity, that drew out confidence, and impelled her to defend her lady.
‘My poor Countess,’ she said, ‘she has been sorely used, and has suffered much. It is a piteous thing when our little imperial fiefs go to the spindle side!’
‘What are her lands?’ asked Malcolm.
‘Hainault, Holland, and Zealand,’ replied the lady. ‘Her father was Count of Hainault, her mother the sister of the last Duke of Burgundy—him that was slain on the bridge of Montereau. She was married as a mere babe to the Duke of Touraine, who was for a brief time Dauphin, but he died ere she was sixteen, and her father died at the same time. Some say they both were poisoned. The saints forfend it should be true; but thus it was my poor Countess was left desolate, and her uncle, the Bishop of Liége—Jean Sans Pitié, as they call him—claimed her inheritance. You should have seen how undaunted she was!’
‘Were you with her then?’ asked Alice Montagu.
‘Yes. I had been taken from our convent at Dijon, when my dear brothers, to whom Heaven be merciful! died at Azincourt. My oncles à la mode de Bretagne—how call you it in English?’
‘Welsh uncles,’ said Alice.
‘They are the Count de St. Pol and the Bishop of Thérouenne. They came to Dijon. In another month I should have been seventeen, and been admitted as a novice; but, alack! there were all the lands that came through my grandmother, in Holland and in Flanders, all falling to me, and Monseigneur of Thérouenne, like almost all secular clergy, cannot endure the religious orders, and would not hear of my becoming a Sister. They took me away, and the Bishop declared my dedication null, and they would have bestowed me in marriage at once, I believe, if Heaven had not aided me, and they could not agree on the person. And then my dear Countess promised me that she would never let me be given without my free will.’
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