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

Alexander Borgia to grant the first licence of this kind. To Jean the idea was simply abhorrent, alike as regarded her instincts and for the sake of the man himself. His sneering manner towards her sister had filled her with disgust and indignation, and he had, in those days, been equally contemptuous towards herself—besides which she was aware of his share in her capture by Balchenburg, and whispers had not respected the manner in which his silence had fostered the slanders that had broken Margaret’s heart.

‘I would sooner wed a viper!’ she said.

What was Louis’s motive it is very hard to guess. Perhaps there was some real admiration of Jean’s beauty, and it seems to have been his desire that his wife should be a nonentity, as was shown in his subsequent choice of Charlotte of Savoy. Now Jean was in feature very like her sister Isabel, Duchess of Brittany, who was a very beautiful woman, but not far from being imbecile, and Louis had never seen Jean display any superiority of intellect or taste like Margaret or Eleanor, but rather impatience of their pursuits, and he therefore might expect her to be equally simple with the other sister. However that might be, Sir Patrick was utterly incredulous; but when his wife asked Madame Ste. Petronelle’s opinion, she shook her head, and said the Sire Dauphin was a strange ower cannie chiel, and advised that Maitre Jaques Coeur should be consulted.

‘Who may he be?’

‘Ken ye not Jaques Coeur? The great merchant of Bourges—the man to whom, above all others, France owes it that we be not under the English yoke. The man, I say, for it was the poor Pucelle that gave the first move, and ill enough was her reward, poor blessed maiden as she was. A saint must needs die a martyr’s death, and they will own one of these days that such she was! But it was Maitre Coeur that stirred the King and gave him the wherewithal to raise his men—lending, they called it, but it was out of the free heart of a true Frenchman who never looked to see it back again, nor even thanks for it!’

‘A merchant?’ asked Sir Patrick.

‘Ay, the mightiest merchant in the realm. You would marvel to see his house at Bourges. It would fit a prince! He has ships going to Egypt and Africa, and stores of silk enough to array all the dames and demoiselles in France! Jewels fit for an emperor, perfumes like a very grove of camphire. Then he has mines of silver and copper, and the King has given him the care of the coinage. Everything prospers that he sets his hand to, and he well deserves it, for he is an honest man where honest men are few.’

‘Is he here?’

‘Yea; I saw his green hood crossing the court of the castle this very noon. The King can never go on long without him, though there are those that so bate him that I fear he may have a fall one of these days. Methinks I heard that he ay hears his morning mass when here at the little chapel of St. James, close to the great shrine of St. Martin, at six of the clock in the morning, so as to be private. You might find him there, and whatever he saith to you will be sooth, whether it be as you would have it, or no.’

On consideration Sir Patrick decided to adopt the lady’s advice, and on her side she reflected that it might be well to take care that the interview did not fail for want of recognition.

The glorious Cathedral of Tours was standing up dark, but with glittering windows, from the light within deepening the stained glass, and throwing out the beauty of the tracery, while the sky, brightening in the autumn morning, threw the towers into relief, when, little recking of all this beauty, only caring to find the way, Sir Patrick on the one hand, the old Scots French lady on the other, went their way to the noble west front, each wrapped in a long cloak, and not knowing one another, till their eyes met as they gave each other holy water at the door, after the habit of strangers entering at the same time.

Then Madame de Ste. Petronelle showed the way to the little side chapel, close to the noble apse. There, beneath the six altar-candles, a priest was hurrying through a mass in a rapid ill-pronounced manner, while, besides his acolyte, worshippers were very few. Only the light fell on the edges of a dark-green velvet cloak and silvered a grizzled head bowed in reverence, and Madame de Ste. Petronelle touched Sir Patrick and made him a significant sign.

Daylight was beginning to reveal itself by the time the brief service was over. Sir Patrick, stimulated by the lady, ventured a few steps forward, and accosted Maitre Coeur as he rose, and drawing forward his hood was about to leave the church.

‘Beau Sire, a word with you. I am the kinsman and attendant of the Scottish King’s sisters.’

‘Ah! one of them is to be married. My steward is with me. It is to him you should speak of her wardrobe,’ said Jaques Coeur, an impatient look stealing over his keen but honest visage.

‘It is not of Duke Sigismund’s betrothed that I would speak,’ returned the Scottish knight; ‘it is of her sister.’

Jaques Coeur’s dark eyes cast a rapid glance, as of one who knew not who might lurk in the recesses of a twilight cathedral.

‘Not here,’ he said, and he led Sir Patrick away with him down the aisle, out into the air, where a number of odd little buildings clustered round the walls of the cathedral, even leaning against it, heedless of the beauty they marred.

‘By your leave, Father,’ he said, after exchanging salutations with a priest, who was just going out to say his morning’s mass, and leaving his tiny bare cell empty. Here Sir Patrick could incredulously tell his story, and the merchant could only sigh and own that he feared that there was every reason to believe that the intention was real. Jaques Coeur, religiously, was shocked at the idea, and, politically, wished the Dauphin to make a more profitable alliance. He whispered that the sooner the lady was out of reach the better, and even offered to advance a loan to facilitate the journey.

There followed a consultation in the securest place that could be devised, namely, in the antechamber where Sir Patrick and Lady Drummond slept to guard their young princesses, in the palace at Tours, Jean, Eleanor, and Madame de Ste. Petronelle having a bedroom within.

Sir Patrick’s view was that Jean might take her leave in full state and honour, leaving Eleanor to marry her Duke in due time; but the girl shuddered at this. ‘Oh no, no; he would call himself my brother for the nonce and throw me into some convent! There is nothing for it but to make it impossible. Sir Patie, fetch Geordie, and tell him, an’ he loves me, to wed me on the spot, and bear me awa’ to bonnie Scotland. Would that I had never been beguiled into quitting it.’

‘Geordie Douglas! You were all for flouting him a while ago,’ said Eleanor, puzzled.

‘Dinna be sae daft like, Elleen, that was but sport, and—and a maid may not hold herself too cheap! Geordie that followed me all the way from home, and was sair