CHAPTER II.

ONE LEG GREEN AND ONE LEG PINK

For, after all, Laurence was a good deal older than I. And that makes a difference. Besides, he had known me from the time that Maud Lindsay sent me off to play with him, that she might have the more time (and the better) in which to torment his brother Sholto with her wilfulnesses.

That was, of course, before they were married and had five children. Some time before.

But all of that may be read in the history, that is titled after the chief of our house, _The Black Douglas_. But that is writ solemnly and of set purpose; also straight on, as a book should be, while this which for my pleasure I am writing contains just the things that a woman has done and thought and heard and seen ever since she was a girl, and is of little value save to herself and to make the winter nights pass.

And so Laurence M‘Kim was an abbot, and, indeed, might have been a bishop had he wished it. But he was not given that way, having enough knowledge of himself to know that he was not worthy. That he was a real Lord Abbot I knew. For had not I myself made him so--or, rather, my cousins William and James, who acted for me, and did not cross me in aught, save only in sending me to this abominable convent!

But that is always the way with men. They give us a thousand things we do not want; they refuse us the one thing we do.

I wonder, indeed, how they would have liked it themselves. William would have spitted the porteress in a week, I know, and broke open the great spiked door. But James, who was ever ready with his answer, had in after-times the effrontery to tell me that he would have liked it, contenting himself always well where women were.

Bah! At any rate, I am not come to that yet. _Then_ I was glad enough to see Larry. Yes, glad with a great gladness that no man can tell. And he did not even damp me when he out with a great folded parchment, all done in purple and black, with the seal of St. Peter hanging to it, almost as big as the great censer of Trèves which only a six-foot man can swing.

And then, last of all, there came out the Lady Superior, whom we maids called the Bald Cat. I mean that I did--I, and two French girls who, for various kittenishnesses wrought in overstrait homes, had been sent to the Sign of the Bald Cat to repent themselves of their sins. The Lady Superior’s other name was Marie Noël de Saint Verrier, and she had (I remarked it myself, but not overtly to Sister Eulalie) as much discernment of the good things of life, or the honest, well-meaning thoughts of men and women, as a sow hath of the perfumes in a flower garden. She had but one table in her decalogue--that at which she did continually over-eat herself; but one article in her _credo_--that all was right which was done within the convent of St. Brigida of Cheverney, and all wrong that was done outside of it.

Well--there was more done in St. Brigida than was told to Madame Noël de Saint Verrier--otherwise and more exactly the Bald Cat.

But let it be understood that Laurence, Venerable Prior of the Abbey of Holy Devorgil, called Dulce Cor by Solway Side, did not in the least misbecome his errand. Troth, sirs, I wot not! William, my cousin, now Earl of Douglas, would not have sent him else. He was, albeit, a young and personable prelate, also well to look upon--a thing which always had its effect with the Bald Cat--that is, in a man. In girls she could not abide it. She cut their love-locks to the bristle with her own hand, and added an extra six inches to their poke bonnets if their eyes sparkled. But not to mine. For though she had been bidden to be strict with me in the matter of discipline, yet for all that, I was still a princess in my own country, and the daughter of one Duke of Touraine and the sister of another.

But the Bull--the papal Bull!

The Bald Cat took it, fumbling meanwhile for the pieces of Venice glass set together in an oval frame with water between them, by means of which it pleased her to think that she could read. But all the glasses in the world--no, not Agrippa’s ball of crystal itself, could have taught her to read that Papal Bull. It was in Latin, and so after turning it this way and that, she gave it back to the Abbot Laurence, who now stood before her, tall and young and fair to look upon.

“Read it, if you please, your learned reverency!” she said, softly for her.

But Laurence, with a proud gesture, which amounted almost to contempt, handed it to the almoner of the convent, Father Pierre Bartentane, called Gigot from his shape--this, by us ill-behaved girls.

“Let the Lady Abbess hear what says the Holy Father!” he said. “As I am come to carry off her fairest flower, I wish her to understand that I do not misconstrue my warrant!”

I leaped towards Larry, and would have hugged him in my arms.

“Am I indeed quit of this for ever and a day?” I cried in our own Scots, which I knew that none of the others could understand. “Am I to go away with you? Tell me quick!”

“Ay,” said Laurence, turning away his eyes, “you are to go with me. But--I am to take you to marry your Cousin William--my Lord Earl of Douglas.”

“The Man of Iron!” I said.

And I think I made a wry face and shrugged my shoulders--for I was but young, and knew no better. “I had rather it had been yourself I was to wed, Larry,” I said. “And that in spite of your clerkery!”

His face reddened till it became almost scarlet. But he did not look at me as he replied.

“My clerkhood would not stand in my way, God wot--if that were all,” he answered; “but, my lady, I do not forget that I am but a poor man’s son, and my princess’s very humble servant.”

Now, all this about young Laurence M‘Kim being Abbot of beautiful Dulce Cor, and yet no whit a monk (save that he could sing like an angel), may sound strange to ears accustomed to authority episcopal and papal, to monasteries French and Italian. But in Galloway we Douglases minded not the King of Scots at all, wet day or dry day, and the pope only when we had need of him--generally to give us leave to marry within the proscribed degrees, for the sake of the Douglas properties, family tree, and such-like. At other times we of the Southern House did much as we liked, in the Church as in the State, our yea being yea, and our nay nay.

Now, the Douglases of the Red grew great, and are to this day great and high, by reason of truckling and fawning on the king and the Stewarts. But the Douglases of the Black--never! All except my Lord James, that is, and he never could help trying to please all that came his way, man and woman, gentle and simple. For he was ruddy as young David, the shepherd boy that became a king; tall, too, like a god; and my heart--went after him. Ah! but enough of this. The time to tell these things is not yet. All the same, James was always at heart, as in his person, a Douglas of the Red. For me, I am Black of the Black.

It was, of course, impossible that all the great train of honour and of defence which William Douglas, my cousin, had given to the Abbot Laurence to travel to Rome withal should find lodging within the walls of the convent of St. Brigida. Indeed, as these (barring the churchmen) were exclusively soldiers, and dashing blades most of them, it was perhaps as well, or certain variations in the Rule of that most excellent founder might have been introduced.

So it fell out exceedingly _à propos_. While the Bald Cat was hesitating what she should do, hemming and hawing hither and thither, trying to grant and not to grant at the same time, as was her bald-cattish way, there appeared from the midst of the retinue a man in an ample “pelicon,” or pelisse, longer than was then in vogue, but with a rich under-garnishing of fur. This garment had a wide rolling collar, all covered over with the Bloody Heart of the Douglases, and a great “bar sinister” of threaded gold crossed the mantle from shoulder to its deepest fold, as if it had been a heraldic shield hung upon an altar.

The new-comer was a man of about fifty, quickly greying, and with a mouth that pouted continually like that of a pettish, changeable woman. His long hose were of silk, in what I afterwards found was the height of the fashion at Paris--one leg and thigh being covered with pale blush rose-colour and the other tucked out in clear greenish white, like that which one sometimes sees behind a windy sunset, far in the deeps of the sky.

The man was indeed a marvel to behold, and at the sight of him the High Lady Superior ordered all her _pensionnaires_, especially the two kittenish French girls, back to their cells. But in the circumstances, of course, she was forced to permit me to remain. I should not have obeyed in any case. I would have shaken the papal Bull in her face.

“My lady,” he said, “I am Paul Herault de Douglas, Sieur de Cheverney. Permit me, Madame the Superior, to kiss your fair and devoted hand!”

The haughty expression which had distinguished the Mother Superior swiftly gave place to another--one of almost fearful anticipation.

“Ah,” she said, “then you are our over-lord of Cour Cheverney, the Seignior and civil protector of this blessed house of religion?”

“I fear I have but ill done my duty,” said the Sieur Paul, smiling and pouting; “I have wasted my time, lingering so long in Paris, in the train of the king, helping to drive out the English, and also employed in other ways. I have somewhat neglected my property of Cheverney--more especially in so far as concerns my duty to you, and to this noble and beautiful establishment!”

And again he bowed and kissed the hand of the Lady Superior.

“A beautiful hand and one more fit for a king’s court than--!”

He stopped, and believe it who will (the sisters in the convent would not!) the Bald Cat lifted her forefinger and waggled it at him, right well pleased, smiling the while like a fox at a barnyard pullet.

“Ah, naughty,” she murmured coaxingly; “these are indeed the manners of a court. But in Touraine we are accustomed to plainer things, are we not, Sister Margaret?”

And she turned to me as she spoke. But I had suffered too much already, and was in no mood to be gracious at the eleventh hour.

“Indeed,” said I, “I am no sister, either of yours or of the Order of St. Bridget. Call in Sister Eulalie with her bread-and-water, if you like--she will tell you. I am on my way to be married to the greatest lord in all Scotland, and, besides, I am a princess in my own right!”

It was not, perhaps, very ladylike, though I have

[Illustration: AND AGAIN HE BOWED AND KISSED THE HAND OF THE LADY SUPERIOR.]

heard worse things said by much greater and wiser people. But then no more can bread-and-water for four days be called “ladylike.” If girls of eighteen are to be treated like galley-knaves--God wot, somebody has to pay for it in the end.

Yet I was no little ashamed when the Lady Superior took my ill-nature with great quietude, passing it over as the mere naughtiness of a child, as yet irresponsible--and so (I grant it) showing herself of the better breeding.

Then the Sieur Paul, advancing the rose-blush leg out of his armorial mantle (or, as we women say, pelisse), invited me to consider his castle of Cour Cheverney my home till such time as I should be ready to set out upon my journey to Scotland, there to wed with my Cousin William--my Lord High Buckram-and-Iron, as I had already named him in my heart.

Indeed, the phrase, which I thought happily invented, passed my lips that very night after we had departed for Cour Cheverney. I was speaking to Laurence at the time. But to my surprise and vexation he rebuked me for it, saying that William of Avondale was worth all the rest of the family put together--all, that is, who had been left on the earth after the Black Dinner which Chancellor Crichton, the fox, and Tutor Livingston, the Queen Mother’s fat spaniel, had given my brothers William and David within the castle of Edinburgh.

And at this rebuke I shrugged my shoulders and pouted, like the spoilt child I was at that time. God wot, I learned to behave better afterwards.

“Well, since it must be--so must it be!” I said, sighing, “but (I say it twice) I had rather have wedded with yourself, Larry!”

He turned on me, white this time, not red--yes, blue-white as the little shadows that sunshine makes behind snow-wreaths. (Oh, I love to see a man moved like that!)

“For God’s sake, girl, have ye no pity?” he cried, putting his hand to his brow--a gesture which his father also had when perplexed--“if ye say the like again, I will--I will--!”

“Ay, and what will ye do then?” said I, mocking his Galloway accent, which showed itself whenever he was excited. “Will ye refuse me your reverence’s blessing? Na, surely never! Or aiblins would ye smite a poor lass, that never did ye harm, with the Greater Excommunication?”

Larry turned away without speaking, and that made me a little sorry. But ah, the inward happiness to be among men again after two years! Yet even then I did not know the power which had come to me during these years, nor yet the good that all the greyhound fare of the convent had done me. In a word, I was just beginning to learn what I could do with the hearts of men.

And there is nothing like that to a woman! In her heart, carefully covered over, maybe--to be dug for deep and long, but still there--indisputable, unobtrusive, there is the same desire to every one of womankind. Bah--they tell you different, some of them, but they lie. To be beautiful and to turn men between their fingers this way and that, as a potter doth a vessel, moulding it to his thought. That is the Thing Desired of the Heart--the princesshood, the queen’s sceptre. All else, as I, who have tried all, do know--housewifery, maternity, charity, the life conventual, the chatter of a court, the mistressing of a great house--are, as the folk say in Galloway, but a “do-no-better”! And, indeed, among such men as I have known--Douglases of the Black and of the Red, Stewarts with the bitter, murderous Bruce blood in them--what better can a woman do?

Well, it is past for me now, and yet I can warm my heart at the fires of the past--yea, to this very day I chew the pleasant cud of memory. It was not all dust and ashes, as the priests say; it has not all turned to apples of Sodom, and the taste is not as of bitter ashes in my mouth. Still, even in old age, I judge that this is the second best thing which can happen to a woman--that she should have been beautiful in her youth, or, at least, by some quirk or trick of tongue or face or manner, witching, and capable of making herself desired.

I say that is the _second_ best thing in a woman’s life. The absolute best, the gold centre of all, is that during her love-time she should have known one man good, and true, and great. Then only can she wholly forget self in another, which is a woman’s heaven of heavens.