CHAPTER VIII.

MARGARET OF MARGARETS

At that I was wroth, and with reason. For who could have dreamed of such a thing--except, as I said, one blinded by monkish ignorance or childish jealousy? Yes, I was very angry, and I am glad to pass quickly from the cruel words I spoke to my comrade.

But the truth is, that perhaps it was true that I had been as the ostrich, which (says Leo Africanus) hides its head in a heap of sand to escape the hunter. But it was, indeed, small wonder that I was angry. For nothing touches a woman more than to be reproved for that which, till that moment, she thinks no one but herself has perceived.

“I see it all now,” I said, clenching (I am sure, for I always do so) my hands by my side with the arms stiff. “You have learned your lesson well, Sir Priest. William Douglas has set you to spy upon me, has he? Well, go back to him! Carry your tale! There is not much to tell. Faith o’ my body, I wish there had been more. ’Tis not the first time that you have been ambassador for your patron. Who knows but he may have some further advancement to give you!”

It was still with the utmost gentleness that Laurence listened, which was the more surprising, considering what a spitfire he had been in earlier days, the days when Sholto and he had flung themselves each on the other like wild cats till separated by their father’s waist-strap and arm of power, as hath been told elsewhere.

“No,” he said, “William Douglas is, indeed, my master and the head of my clan. But you know, Margaret--yes, as well as I--that he has asked nothing, and I have told him nothing. Yet is my heart sore for you, my dear, my dear!”

“You forget to whom you speak!” I said, trying to build the dyke thus. But he would none of it. I had played too long at blindman’s-buff with him to stand of a sudden upon my princesshood.

“I do not forget,” he said, “I remember--everything. I am the Abbot of Dulce Cor, yet I call you ‘my dear.’ You yourself it was gave me the office, yet you are ‘my dear.’ I am the son of your father’s armourer--a blacksmith, if you will. Yet for all that, and even because of all that, you are (I say it again) ‘my dear--my dear--my dear!’”

I continued to look at him without speaking, yet no longer angrily, but with a sort of warmth about the heart which, if not love’s self, was yet his cousin-german. At any rate this was better than Sister Eulalie and the Bald Cat.

Laurence went on, still holding the little mill-wheel between his fingers--I think I see him yet. He kept nervously turning it this way and that, adjusting a bucket held in place with its wooden pin, and firming the axle with care and skill; yet with the most sorely pained expression on his face, and something like a film of unshed tears behind his eyes. He was sorry for himself, yet he seemed, somehow, tenfold sorrier for me. And indeed, the thought of this dear young lad, who had never loved but me really, helped me many a time in after hours, that of themselves were naught but the blackness of pitchy darkness. It might have been better if I could have followed my impulse of the morrow--but it is false that a woman can do with herself as she will. Nevertheless, it was in no wise his fault; for all that Larry did and said was so sweet and simple and undemanding.

Not at all like--like that other. Yet, perhaps, if Laurence had asked more he might have saved me much, who can tell?

“Ah,” he continued, “if only you loved as I would have you love--how safe that would keep you. It is (I, who am half a monk, know it--have seen it) a terrible thing for a woman to marry a man she does not love, whom she never can love!”

“And pray, Sir Abbot,” I cried, “who are you to judge of the likes and dislikes, loves and hates, marryings and givings in marriage of Margaret of Douglas and Galloway? Your breviary and the lives of the holy saints Trophimus and Kentigern would suit you better! Or perhaps that of St. Anthony might teach the danger of championing damosels in distress.”

But all this was thrown away upon the fixity of Laurence M‘Kim’s purpose, and changed nothing of the sweet and gentle melancholy with which he spoke. There was no passion in his words or in his speech, as there would have been in James Douglas’s--but all pure and child-tender, at times almost maternal. Where had the lad learned the secret? Within and without he was wholly different from the rough-colted boy who had gone forth with my uncle, the abbot, to learn singing at Sweetheart on the eve of the great tournament on the Lochar braes.

“It is true,” he said, “you have every right to flout me. But, all the same, you will never love William Douglas. And being the girl you are, the last daughter of your race, a Douglas of the Douglases, you must have someone to love. If that one be not a good man--ah, then I see clouds black and terrible rise up before us. And I risk all--your favour, Earl William’s favour, my place and rank, which I owe to you--so that when the storm comes you may know that there is one who will love you truly and surely--even as, if they had lived, your brothers would--and in the same fashion.”

Then I think that Laurence saw I was not scornful any more, for the tone of his voice grew more cheerful--not glad or amorous, or even hopeful, but as of one who feels neither himself nor his motives any longer misunderstood.

“Half a priest--yes,” he said, still with the tone of gentle melancholy which sat so well on him. “But, thank God, not a whole monk. Do not forget that I have been longer alone within that fair abbot’s house at the New Abbey, within sound of the vesper bells, than you in the convent of St. Brigida. Yes, and I have been much lonelier, for I was not meant to be a holy man, according to the acceptation of the Orders. Yet I obey--that is, so far as in me is. But my heart is apart from this thing. To be kindly to all, helpful to as many as possible, to do evil to none, to carry no ill tale and to listen to none. Such things as these I read in four booklets called the ‘Holy Gospels.’ But that is noways religion according to the Church and the Orders. To pray so often, to eat meat on this day and fish on that, to fast till noon on chicken-broth, to click so many beads, to sing so many hymns, to declare all men outcast and condemned, going before into judgment, unless they can prove themselves properly ear-marked sheep of the churchly pasture, lambs of the monkish fold--!”

“Laurence,” I broke in hastily, “in such a case were it not better to cast your abbotship to the winds, to bend bow or lay spear in rest as a knight or yeoman? Nay, to cut wood and draw water like a villein, rather than to abide practising the things in which you do not believe, chanting songs without a meaning, carrying forth sacraments to mock dying lips?”

He appeared to consider a while.

“There is somewhat in what you say, though, in fact, I do none of these things,” thus he answered me. “Also, there is an obverse to the coin. In the first place, at least, I can make of Dulce Cor a clean place as compared with other foundations, a harbourage of peace and right living, a centre of help and kindly brotherhood. For not the Grand Bashaw of the Turks has more absolute power than I in the Cistercian abbey of Sweetheart--so long, that is, as I have the Douglases at my back.”

I shook my head in my turn.

“You are keeping something behind that,” I said. “Larry, you cannot deceive me. You, a soldier and a brave lad to drive a spear, handsome and young, you should not be content to rule in a monastery, when you could as easily lead five hundred men, all clad in mail, into the shock and turmoil of battle. No, Larry lad, you ever liked your drink heady. Tell me the true reason why you have come down to curds and whey!”

He thought a while and then said, “It is true--there _is_ more behind.”

“Tell it me, then!” said I.

And I laid my hand upon his arm, looking at him. For one could not help being gracious with Laurence. At least I could not. He never presumed even once--perhaps I should add, “Alas!”

“I have little to live for,” he said, “leave me this. I would rather a thousand times spend my life in a cell, than take away the one hope which I hold in the deep places of my heart.”

“And that hope is--?”

“That one day the White House of the Sisters of Dulce Cor may be a refuge for you--at the storm-breaking, in the day which shall come--yes, surely!”

“But am I not to be the wife of William Douglas, Earl of Galloway and Duke of Touraine? What need shall I have of refuges and convents? I had done with such on the day I left Cour Cheverney yonder!”

“Ah, wait,” he made answer, gently as ever; “the great house stands high, and the winds bear sore upon it. The tides run strong beneath. But mine is but a little dwelling, set in a green howe, with only a streamlet that runs thereby. And--I am content. At least it shall be kept in readiness for you.”

“Then you think that William will not succeed in his great schemes for Scotland--or that he will perish in the doing of them?”

“As to that, there is none who can tell,” Laurence answered; “either William of Douglas will be the first man in the land or--his head will go the way of those other two--his cousins!”

“Then,” said I, “there is one other of the race who will stand by the chief, and the name of her--Margaret Douglas.”

Laurence smiled, yet with something so strange, so far away and sweet in his smile, that I asked him what he meant. For it seemed that I had not yet snatched the whole heart out of the mystery he propounded.

But he would only say, “My Margaret of Margarets, it is the rule of the Master of All that days run to weeks, that weeks, being summed, make the months, and the returning months count the years and the lifetime. That is a long time for a woman of the Douglas race to do without being loved. As for the love with which I love you, it is (I promise you) as the well-water in the abbey precinct, under the great oak, cool, clear, and--savourless. But you Douglases, man and woman of you, drink of love as one who quenches his thirst in strong wine, goblet after goblet. So it was with your brother, and so it will be with you!”

“Bah,” said I, “you preach too much, Laurence M‘Kim! And all your texts are taken from the Song of Solomon--which even clerks ought to read only on high days and holidays. I agree not with your conclusions. I deny your premises. I will none of your reproof. Set up your mill-wheel in the linn; and let us be going!”