‘Would not Barbe help us to a messenger?’
‘I doubt it. She would scarce bring trouble on her lords; but we might be worse off than with her.’
‘Why does she not come? I want some more drink,’ moaned Jean. Barbe did come, and, moreover, brought not only water but some tisane of herbs that was good for fever and had been brewing all night, and she was wonderfully good-humoured at the patient’s fretful refusal, though between coaxing and authority ‘Leddy Lindsay’ managed to get it taken at last. After Margaret’s experience of her as a stern duenna, her tenderness in illness and trouble was a real surprise.
No keys were turned on them, but there was little disposition to go beyond the door which opened on the stone stair in the gray wall. The view from the windows revealed that they were very high up. There was a bit of castle wall to be seen below, and beyond a sea of forest, the dark masses of pine throwing out the lighter, more delicate sweeps of beech, and pale purple distance beyond—not another building within view, giving a sense of vast solitude to Eleanor’s eyes, more dreary than the sea at Dunbar, and far more changeless. An occasional bird was all the variety to be hoped for.
By and by Barbe brought a message that her masters requested the ladies’ presence at the meal, a dinner, in fact, served about an hour before noon. Eleanor greatly demurred, but Barbe strongly advised consent, ‘Or my young lord will be coming up here,’ she said; ‘they both wish to have speech of you, and would have been here before now, if my old lord were not so lame, and the young one so shy, the poor child!’
‘Shy,’ exclaimed Eleanor, ‘after what he has dared to do to us!’
‘All the more for that very reason,’ said Barbe.
‘True,’ returned Madame; ‘the savage who is most ferocious in his acts is most bashful in his breeding.’
‘How should my poor boy have had any breeding up here in the forests?’ demanded Barbe. ‘Oh, if he had only fixed his mind on a maiden of his own degree, she might have brought the good days back; but alas, now he will be only bringing about his own destruction, which the saints avert.’
It was agreed that Eleanor had better make as royal and imposing an appearance as possible, so instead of the plain camlet riding kirtles that she and Lady Lindsay had worn, she donned a heraldic sort of garment, a tissue of white and gold thread, with the red lion ramping on back and breast, and the double tressure edging all the hems, part of the outfit furnished at her great-uncle’s expense in London, but too gaudy for her taste, and she added to her already considerable height by the tall, veiled headgear that had been despised as unfashionable.