CHAPTER XVI.

A MARRIED MAID

Even yet, of the marriage and all that concerns it I cannot bear to speak at length.

It was done, and as to that there was an end. I was left alone, at once a wife and a maid--the wife of William Douglas and the betrothed of James, his brother, with the full knowledge of both! Was ever girl so bestead?

What Will had said to James I knew not at that time--nor, indeed, till long afterwards, and then perhaps coloured by time and the personality of the narrator. Briefly, however, the two men were of an accord.

To James Douglas, till his brother’s death, Thrieve was a shut door. I laughed a little when I heard it, baldly stated by Will as a thing certified and agreed upon. For I could imagine very well James’s wry face, and the ill grace with which he would bind himself to that compact.

“But,” said the Earl William, with some philosophy, “the arrangement is good for both; I gain an arm, and James will have the advantage of a head”--

“And I?” I asked of him quickly--“what do I gain?”

He glanced at me simply and without suspicion.

“You will gain that which you yearned for--liberty.”

I pointed about the circumference of the Isle of Thrieve, round and round.

“There,” said I, “that is your liberty--a prison of twenty acres!”

William Douglas smiled. We were in the banqueting tent, sitting apart--and I daresay the guests thought that, as we raised our eyes to each other, we spoke of the light things of lovers, masking our hopes with glances and happy laughters, our anticipations with the touches of hands beneath the table board.

“Maud Lindsay finds it enough!” he said slowly. And I think that for once he spake to try me.

“I wot well,” I answered, giving him back glance for glance. “She hath here all that she desires: husband, bairns, housewifery, love”--

“_Well?_” he questioned, with some hidden meaning of his own in the word.

And I think he meant that even then I also might have all these if I chose. But if such was his intent, I knew not what was for my good. Will Douglas, if he believed this thing, had spoken too late. What he asked (if so be that he asked it) was no longer mine to give. And the fact that I was not sure _whose_ it was did not help Will’s case at all. At any rate, it pertained not to William Douglas.

Laurence M‘Kim had come to the wedding after all, and throughout the ceremony (in which he took no part, being, though an abbot, only in deacon’s orders) I was conscious of his pale face, fine and clear in outline as the carving of a statue. Behind, in the groomsman’s place, James gloomed and glowered, seeming even then to meditate flinging me across his horse’s croup, and galloping out upon the road for the Little Ross on the chance of the vessel that was to take us into the roads of Nantes.

Before he departed I demanded of Will where were the boundary posts of my liberty, what I was to say to my jailers when I desired permission to cross the drawbridge, or if (upon disobedience) I was to have Black Archibald’s dungeon with bread-and-water. Yes, it was thus that I spoke when I was young. Time and the flux of things have made me sorry enough for it now. But during those years I am sure I had no particle of gratitude, and I am not even sure that I had any heart.

But Will answered quite gravely that Sholto and his two hundred men would be at my service if I desired to ride any considerable distance. Also that, as far as concerned the braes of Galloway, from Palnure to Carsethorn, and from the Ross to the Merrick foot, all was as safe for me as if I had been one of these bairns of Maud Lindsay’s that scampered and made daisy chains upon the green pied leas of Balmaghie and the Isle.

I looked across at James, as Will mentioned the Ross. I meant to remind him that all might not be as safe for me as the earl imagined. So, to reassure him, I added that I did not intend to be carried off twice to France, but would cling to Maud Lindsay’s tails close as a burr in a frieze coat.

“And then I can have Laurence sometimes, is it not so?” I asked. “He reads tales out of the Latin and tells them to Maud and me in the summer gloamings. Is it permitted to your prisoner that she should speak with Laurence when he comes over from Sweetheart?”

“Ay, surely,” said William Douglas carelessly, “have all the monks of Dundrennan if it be any pleasure to you, child. Let them tell you tales by the league--Laurence or another; ’tis all the same to me!”

For he had it not in him to be jealous of any--least of all of Laurence M‘Kim. And indeed, what call had he? For did not he ride away, free even as he left me behind him free, bidding me company with all, save only with his brother James? For that was the agreement that the brothers had made between themselves.

It was the deed of a great heart--though, perhaps, a somewhat cold one. Still, it made of James Douglas, almost to a certainty, ninth Earl of Douglas. It was something to wait for--two-thirds of Scotland--with a widow that had never been a wife into the bargain. Certes, a noble gift! Yet for all that, James Douglas only gloomed, thinking of the present, and looking as sulky as a dog from whom a stranger has taken a bone. But that was James’s way all the days of him.

Then William seemed to recall something to himself.

“Laurence M‘Kim,” he said meditatively, “yes--yes, that is well thought on. I am glad you spoke of him. He is a man of many books, and will be good company for you all. I will see to it--I will see to it immediately.”

He knitted his brows, as he did over great problems of the State, yet he was only thinking for my comfort. And I all the while as cold as a stone and as ungrateful.

He went on, “Also there is Malise over at the Carlinwark--by the Three Thorns. And did one not tell me of a girl there of your own age, or younger? What is her name? Magdalen, was it not? A maid with a rare beauty of promise! She will keep you company, and help you in summer with the flower-gathering, and at your broidering over the winter fire!”

At that I pouted. It was good of Will, doubtless; but as for me, I have always found both these occupations go better in company with a man than with any girl, of beauty how rare soever.

“I was very happy as I was,” I said; “why had you to come and make me marry you, only to ride away, you and James, leaving me with women and babies?”

“Child,” he said, a little drily, “you will find the bower as it was. It looks to the north, and commands a fine prospect!”

But I still was ill-satisfied, thinking of myself, and taking no account of his irony.

“Well, there is no one to speak with,” I complained; “you take away James.”

“Yes,” he answered, with mighty sudden gravity, “I take away James. I choose not that--my wife--should go to the Lady’s Bower with James Douglas, not if he were twice and three times my brother!”

“And Laurence?” I asked, determined to be as bitter with him as I could, though I cannot tell why, save that the events of the day had been too much for me.

“Oh,” he answered carelessly, “Laurence M‘Kim, or the collie dog from the Mains, or Puggy the monkey from the guard-hall--have whom you will at the Lady’s Bower! But as for my brother, let him bide his turn! I am doing enough and more for James Douglas!”

And at that I laughed. For, apart from the strange, pleasurable fear I had of James, and so far as good company was concerned, in my heart I preferred to be with Larry. For William had spoken truth. It was as safe to be with Laurence as with the collie from the Mains.

All the same, I did not think Laurence would have liked to be told of it, nor yet would James have been flattered to know that it was a certain relief to my heart, great and definite, to see them both ride away over the hills towards Douglas Castle.

Then the stillness settled down. The tents were struck, the ground cleared--the revellers departing as they had come to their keeps and peel-towers. There fell a deep peace--a Sabbath on the land. So still was it after their way-going, that often the ringing of the kirk-bell at Balmaghie could be heard for vespers or prime, Sir Harry the parson doubtless himself pulling at the rope.

It was indeed almost like the days at St. Brigida’s come again. Only--and it was a great difference--at Thrieve there was no Bald Cat and no hateful espionage. Also there were men sometimes, though only Laurence and Sholto counted very much--or rather, to speak truth, Laurence--that is, if he would only have come.

As for Maud, she grew sweeter every day. She made herself winsome and beloved by women, and that easily. For me it is different--I have found only a few women, not more than I could number twice over upon the fingers of a hand, who were even tolerable to me. But with Maud it was all different. She not only endured all women, but, with her motherly ways, won them to love her too. And yet I can recall her in her youth, as great a petticoated rogue and villain as the best! For I never had it in my heart to tease men as Maud Lindsay was used to do. Yet a home, a husband, and wealth of children may make the most daring of us even as Maud Lindsay!

Now the men had not long gone when I began to bethink me of what Will, my husband, had said as to company and riding--that all was safe in Galloway, and that he had left me a fair white mare of Arab blood, fine and gentle-pacing as a Spanish jennet, yet when fretted, fiery as Varlet after he had been in stable for a week--my dear old Varlet, that of his courtesy the Sieur Paul was keeping for me at Cour Cheverney lest I should again find myself in the land of France.

On Haifa, then (for so out of the old crusading histories I had named the little mare), I could go everywhere, and Sholto soon found that it was no heavy-haunched charger of the lists that could hold its own with the blood of Arabia.

But Maud Lindsay, for whose little finger Sholto cared more than for my whole body, was mounted on a steed that paced like a packman’s pony well laden with creels. Rouncy was the fitting name, given in derision, which this broad-backed, sure-footed beast of burden bore. Haifa could ride about and about the padding brute as a deerhound circles a charging ox. I think, however, that our Maud was none the best pleased to be thus made a matron of, while the earliest autumn of her beauty was yet far to seek. But it was all owing to Sholto’s affection, which fussed and fumed over her like a hen over ducklings. And as often as she went riding with me, it was ever, “Be wise now, Maud! Let not that madcap lead you into wild tricks!”

The first of our adventurings was on the day after they had ridden away--Will and James together over that hill, which we called the Hiding Hill, because behind it many and many a Douglas has passed in his time, watched by the eyes of loving women to the last flutter of the cap and the last gleam of the spear-head as it dipped and rose, and dipped again.

But this time, strangely enough, the two women in Thrieve were glad to see the men depart.

Maud heaved a sigh and threw up her hands, pressing her temples as if to still an ache or to be rid of an anxiety.

“I thought he was never going to understand,” she said. “If I had not seen James follow you across the meadow and round the willow copses towards the Lady’s Bower, I had surely been at my wits’ end. So I sent him after you twain!”

“For me,” said I, “I know not yet whether it was well or ill done of you!”

Maud looked a while at me fixedly, at first with a certain vexation, but afterwards gradually breaking into a smile, serene as gracious.

“Ah,” she said, “I was wrong. I took you for a child, but you are a woman for all that with your reasons and counterings. If you have a thing given you, you mislike it. If you get it not, that you like worse. But if, having cast it away as worthless, it will not come back, being whistled for--_that_ you like worst of all! This it is to be all a woman! A very woman!”