Two Penniless Princesses by Charlotte M. Yonge (the two towers ebook TXT) 📖

himself. ‘And you are on your way to your sister, the Dolfine, as your knight tells me. It is well. You may be worthily wedded in France, and I will take order for your safe going. Meantime, this is a house where you may well serve your poor mother’s soul by prayers and masses, and likewise perfect yourselves in French.’

This was not at all what Jean had intended, and she pouted a little, while the Cardinal asked, changing his language, ‘Ces donzelles, ont elles appris le Francais?’

Jean, who had tried to let Father Romuald teach her a little in conversation during the first part of the journey, but who had dropped the notion since other ideas had been inspired at Fotheringay, could not understand, and pouted the more; but Eleanor, who had been interested, and tried more in earnest, for Margaret’s sake, answered diffidently and blushing deeply, ‘Un petit peu, beau Sire Oncle.’

He smiled, and said, ‘You can be well instructed here. The Reverend Mother hath sisters here who can both speak and write French of Paris.’

‘That have I truly, my good Lord,’ replied the Prioress. ‘Sisters Isabel and Beata spent their younger days, the one at Rouen, the other at Bordeaux, and have learned many young ladies in the true speaking of the French tongue.’

‘It is well!’ said the Cardinal, ‘my fair nieces will have good leisure. While sharing the orisons that I will institute for the repose of your mother, you can also be taught the French.’

Jean could not help speaking now, so far was this from all her hopes. ‘Sir, sir, the Duke and Duchess of York, and the Countess of Salisbury, and the Queen of the Isle of Wight all bade us to be their guests.’

‘They could haply not have been aware of your dool,’ said the Cardinal gravely.

‘But, my Lord, our mother hath been dead since before Martinmas,’ exclaimed Jean.

‘I know not what customs of dool be thought befitting in a land like Scotland,’ said the Cardinal, in such a repressive manner that Jean was only withheld by awe from bursting into tears of disappointment and anger at the slight to her country.

Lady Drummond ventured to speak. ‘Alack, my Lord,’ she said, ‘my poor Queen died in the hands of a freebooter, leaving her daughters in such stress and peril that they had woe enough for themselves, till their brother the King came to their rescue.’

‘The more need that they should fulfil all that may be done for the grace of her soul,’ replied the uncle; but just at this crisis of Jean’s mortification there was a knocking at the door, and a sister breathlessly entreated—

‘Pardon! Merci! My Lord, my Lady Mother! Here’s the King, the King himself—and the King and Queen of the Isle of Wight asking licence to enter to visit the ladies of Scotland.’

Kings were always held to be free to enter anywhere, even far more dangerous monarchs than the pious Henry VI. Jean’s heart bounded up again, with a sense of exultation over the old uncle, as the Prioress went out to receive her new guest, and the Cardinal emitted a sort of grunting sigh, without troubling himself to go out to meet the youth, whom he had governed from babyhood, and in whose own name he had, as one of the council, given permission for wholesome chastisements of the royal person.

King Henry entered. He was then twenty-four years old, tall, graceful, and with beautiful features and complexion, almost feminine in their delicacy, and with a wonderful purity and sweetness in the expression of the mouth and blue eyes, so that he struck Eleanor as resembling the angels in the illuminations that she had been studying, as he removed his dark green velvet jewelled cap on entering, and gave a cousinly, respectful kiss lightly to each of the young ladies on her cheek, somewhat as if he were afraid of them. Then after greeting the Cardinal, who had risen on his entrance, he said that, hearing that his fair cousins were arrived, he had come to welcome them, and to entreat them to let him do them such honour as was possible in a court without a queen.

‘The which lack will soon be remedied,’ put in his grand-uncle.

‘Truly you are in holy keeping here,’ said the pious young King, crossing himself, ‘but I trust, my sweet cousins, that you will favour my poor house at Westminster with your presence at a supper, and share such entertainment as is in our power to provide.’

‘My nieces are keeping their mourning for their mother, from which they have hitherto been hindered by the tumults of their kingdom,’ said the Cardinal.

‘Ah!’ said the King, crossing himself, and instantly moved, ‘far be it from me to break into their holy retirement for such a purpose.’ (Jean could have bitten the Cardinal.) ‘But I will take order with my Lord Abbot of Westminster for a grand requiem mass for the good Queen Joanna, at which they will, I trust, be present, and they will honour my poor table afterwards.’

To refuse this was quite impossible, and the day was to be fixed after reference to the Abbess. Meantime the King’s eye was caught by the illuminated breviary. He was a connoisseur in such arts, and eagerly stood up to look at it as it lay on the desk. Eleanor could not but come and direct him to the pages with which she had been most delighted. She found him looking at Jacob’s dream on the one side, the Ascension on the other.

‘How marvellous it is!’ she said. ‘It is like the very light from the sky!’

‘Light from heaven,’ said the King; ‘Jacob has found it among the stones. Wandering and homelessness are his first step in the ladder to heaven!’

‘Ah, sir, did you say that to comfort and hearten us?’ said Eleanor.

There was a strange look in the startled blue eyes that met hers. ‘Nay, truly, lady, I presumed not so far! I was but wondering whether those who are born to have all the world are in the way of the stair to heaven.’

Meantime the King of Wight had made his request for the presence of the ladies at a supper at Warwick House, and Jean, clasping her hands, implored her uncle to consent.

‘I am sure our mother cannot be the better for our being thus mewed up,’ she cried, ‘and I’ll rise at prime, and tell my beads for her.’

She looked so pretty and imploring that the old man’s heart was melted, all the more that the King was paying more attention to the book and the far less beautiful Eleanor, than to her and the invitation was accepted.

The convent bell rang for nones, and the King joined the devotions of the nuns, though he was not admitted within the choir; and just as these were over, the Countess of Salisbury arrived to take the Lady of Glenuskie to see their old friend, the Mother Clare at St. Katharine’s, bringing a sober palfrey for her conveyance.

‘A holy woman, full of alms-deeds,’ said the King. ‘The lady is happy in her friendship.’

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