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

lord, that this is your Grace’s ladder to carry her to heaven?’

Henry blushed like a girl, and said that he trusted never to be so lacking in courtesy as the knight; and the King of Wight, wishing to change the subject, mentioned that the Lady Eleanor had sung or said certain choice ballads, and Henry eagerly entreated for one. It was the pathetic ‘Wife of Usher’s Well’ that Eleanor chose, with the three sons whose hats were wreathen with the birk that

‘Neither grew in dyke nor ditch, Nor yet in any shaugh, But at the gates of Paradise That birk grew fair eneugh.’

Henry was greatly delighted with the verse, and entreated her, if it were not tedious, to repeat it over again.

In return he promised to lend her some of the translations from the Latin of Lydgate, the Monk of Bury, and sent them, wrapped in a silken neckerchief, by the hands of one of his servants to the convent.

‘Was that a token?’ anxiously asked young Douglas, riding up to David Drummond, as they got into order to ride back to Winchester House, after escorting the ladies to St. Helen’s.

‘Token, no; ‘tis a book for Lady Elleen. Never fash yourself, man; the King, so far as I might judge, is far more taken with Elleen than ever he is with Jean. He seems but a bookish sort of bodie of Malcolm’s sort.’

‘My certie, an’ that be sae, we may look to winning back Roxburgh and Berwick!’ returned the Douglas, his eye flashing. ‘He’s welcome to Lady Elleen! But that ane should look at her in presence of her sister! He maun be mair of a monk than a man!’

Such was, in truth, Jean’s own opinion when she flounced into her chamber at the Priory and turned upon her sister.

‘Weel, Elleen, and I hope ye’ve had your will, and are a bit shamed, taking up his Grace so that none by yersell could get in a word wi’ him.’

‘Deed, Jeanie, I could not help it; if he would ask me about our ballants and buiks, that ye would never lay your mind to—’

‘Ballants and buiks! Bonnie gear for a king that should be thinking of spears and jacks, lances and honours. Ye’re welcome to him, Elleen, sin ye choose to busk your cockernnonny at ane that’s as good as wedded! I’ll never have the man who’s wanting the strick of carle hemp in the making of him!’

Eleanor burst into tears and pleaded that she was incapable of any such intentions towards a man who was truly as good as married. She declared that she had only replied as courtesy required, and that she would not have her harp taken to Warwick House the next day, as she had been requested to do.

Dame Lilias here interposed. With a certain conviction that Jean’s dislike to the King was chiefly because the grapes were sour, she declared that Lady Elleen had by no means gone beyond the demeanour of a douce maiden, and that the King had only shown due attention to guests of his own rank, and who were nearly of his own age. In fact, she said, it might be his caution and loyalty to his espoused lady that made him avoid distinguishing the fairest.

It was not complimentary to Eleanor, but Jean’s superior beauty was as much an established fact as her age, and she was pacified in some degree, agreeing with the Lady of Glenuskie that Eleanor was bound to take her harp the next day.

Warwick House was a really magnificent place, its courts, gardens, and offices covering much of the ground that still bears the name in the City, and though the establishment was not quite as extensive as it became a few years later, when Richard Nevil had succeeded his brother-in-law, it was already on a magnificent scale.

All the party who had travelled together from Fotheringay were present, besides the King, young Edmund and Jasper Tudor, and the Earl and Countess of Suffolk; and the banquet, though not a state one, nor encumbered with pageants and subtilties, was even more refined and elegant than that at Westminster, showing, as all agreed, the hand of a mistress of the household. The King’s taste had been consulted, for in the gallery were the children of St. Paul’s choir and of the chapel of the household, who sang hymns with sweet trained voices. Afterwards, on the beautiful October afternoon, there was walking in the garden, where Edmund and Jasper played with little Lady Anne Beauchamp, and again King Henry sought out Eleanor, and they had an enjoyable discussion of the Tale of Troie, which he had lent her, as they walked along the garden paths. Then she showed him her cousin Malcolm, and told of Bishop Kennedy and the schemes for St. Andrews, and he in return described Winchester College, and spoke of his wish to have such another foundation as Wykeham’s under his own eye near Windsor, to train up the godly clergy, whom he saw to be the great need and lack of the Church at that day.

By and by, on going in from the garden, the King and Eleanor found that a tall, gray-haired gentleman, richly but darkly clad, had entered the hall. He had been welcomed by the young King and Queen of Wight, who had introduced Jean to him. ‘My uncle of Gloucester,’ said the King, aside. ‘It is the first time he has come among us since the unhappy affair of his wife. Let me present you to him.’

Going forward, as the Duke rose to meet him, Henry bent his knee and asked his fatherly blessing, then introduced the Lady Eleanor of Scotland—‘who knows all lays and songs, and loves letters, as you told me her blessed father did, my fair uncle,’ he said, with sparkling eyes.

Duke Humfrey looked well pleased as he greeted her. ‘Ever the scholar, Nevoy Hal,’ he said, as if marvelling at the preference above the beauty, ‘but each man knows his own mind. So best.’ Eleanor’s heart began to beat high! What did this bode? Was this King fully pledged? She had to fulfil her promise of singing and playing to the King, which she did very sweetly, some of the pathetic airs of her country, which reach back much farther than the songs with which they have in later times been associated. The King thoroughly enjoyed the music, and the Duke of York came and paid her several compliments, begging for the song she had once begun at Fotheringay. Eleanor began—not perhaps so willingly as before. Strangely, as she sang—

‘Owre muckle blinking blindeth the ee, lass, Owre muckle thinking changeth the mind,’—

her face and voice altered. Something of the same mist of tears and blood seemed to rise before her eyes as before—enfolding all around. Such a winding-sheet which had before enwrapt the King of Wight, she saw it again—nay, on the Duke of Gloucester there was such another, mounting—mounting to his neck. The face of Henry himself grew dim and ghastly white, like that of a marble saint. She kept herself from screaming, but her voice broke down, and she gave a choking sob.

King Henry’s arm was the first to support her, though she shuddered as he