Meantime the King of Wight had made his request for the presence of the ladies at a supper at Warwick House, and Jean, clasping her hands, implored her uncle to consent.
‘I am sure our mother cannot be the better for our being thus mewed up,’ she cried, ‘and I’ll rise at prime, and tell my beads for her.’
She looked so pretty and imploring that the old man’s heart was melted, all the more that the King was paying more attention to the book and the far less beautiful Eleanor, than to her and the invitation was accepted.
The convent bell rang for nones, and the King joined the devotions of the nuns, though he was not admitted within the choir; and just as these were over, the Countess of Salisbury arrived to take the Lady of Glenuskie to see their old friend, the Mother Clare at St. Katharine’s, bringing a sober palfrey for her conveyance.
‘A holy woman, full of alms-deeds,’ said the King. ‘The lady is happy in her friendship.’
Which words were worth much to Lady Drummond, for the Prioress sent a lay-sister to invite Mother Clare to a refection at the convent.
CHAPTER 5. THE MEEK USURPER
‘Henry, thou of holy birth,
Thou to whom thy Windsor gave
Nativity and name and grave!
Heavily upon his head
Ancestral crimes were visited.’—SOUTHEY.
It suits not with the main thread of our story to tell of the happy and peaceful meetings between the Lady of Glenuskie and her old friend, who had given up almost princely rank and honour to become the servant of the poor and suffering strangers at the wharves of London. To Dame Lilias, Mother Clare’s quiet cell at St. Katharine’s was a blessed haven of rest, peace, and charity, such as was neither the guest-chamber nor the Prioress’s parlour at St. Helen’s, with all the distractions of the princesses’ visitors and invitations, and with the Lady Joanna continually pulling against the authority that the Cardinal, her uncle, was exerting over his nieces.