So it was settled, and all was amicable, except that there was a slight contest between the sisters whether they should dress alike, as Eleanor wished, while Jean had eyes and instinct enough to see that the colours and forms that set her fair complexion and flaxen tresses off to perfection were damaging to Elleen’s freckles and general auburn colouring. Hitherto the sisters had worn only what they could get, happy if they could call it ornamental, and the power of choice was a novelty to them. At last the decision fell to the one who cared most about it, namely Jean. Elleen left her to settle for both, being, after the first dazzling display, only eager to get back again to Saint Marie Maudelin before the King should reclaim it.
There was something in the legend, wild and apocryphal as it is, together with what she had seen of the King, that left a deep impression upon her.
‘And by these things ye understand maun
The three best things which this Mary chose,
As outward penance and inward contemplation,
And upward bliss that never shall cease,
Of which God said withouten bees
That the best part to her chose Mary,
Which ever shall endure and never decrease,
But with her abideth eternally.’
Stiff, quaint, and awkward sounds old Bokenham’s translation of the ‘Golden Legend,’ but to Eleanor it had much power. The whole history was new to her, after her life in Scotland, where information had been slow to reach her, and books had been few. The gewgaws spread out before Jean were to her like the gloves, jewels, and braiding of hair with which Martha reproached her sister in the days of her vanity, and the cloister with its calm services might well seem to her like the better part. These nuns indeed did not strike her as models of devotion, and there was something in the Prioress’s easy way of declaring that being safe there might prevent any need of special heed, which rung false on her ear; and then she thought of King Henry, whose rapt countenance had so much struck her, turning aside from enjoyment to seclude himself at the first hint that his pleasure might be a temptation. She recollected too what Lady Drummond had told her of Father Malcolm and Mother Clare, and how each had renounced the world, which had so much to offer them, and chosen the better part! She remembered Father Malcolm’s sweet smile and kind words, and Mother Clare’s face had impressed her deeply with its lofty peace and sweetness. How much better than all these agitations about princely bridegrooms! and broken lances and queens of beauty seemed to fade into insignificance, or to be only incidents in the tumult of secular life and worldly struggle, and her spirit quailed at the anticipation of the journey she had once desired, the gay court with its follies, empty show, temptations, coarsenesses and cruelties, and the strange land with its new language. The alternative seemed to her from Maudelin in her worldly days to Maudelin at the Saviour’s feet, and had Mother Margaret Stafford been one whit more the ideal nun, perhaps every one would have been perplexed by a vehement request to seclude herself at once in the cloister of St. Helen’s.
Looking up, she saw a figure slowly pacing the turf walk. It was the Mother Clare, who had come to see the Lady of Glenuskie, but finding all so deeply engaged, had gone out to await her in the garden.
Much indeed had Dame Lilias longed to join her friend, and make the most of these precious hours, but as purse-bearer and adviser to her Lady Joanna, it was impossible to leave her till the arrangements with the merchants were over. And the nuns of St. Helen’s did not, as has already been seen, think much of an uncloistered sister. In her twenty years’ toils among the poor it had been pretty well forgotten that Mother Clare was Esclairmonde de Luxembourg, almost of princely rank, so that no one took the trouble to entertain her, and she had slipped out almost unperceived to the quiet garden with its grass walks. And there Eleanor came up to her, and with glistening tears, on a sudden impulse exclaimed, ‘Oh, holy Mother, keep me with you, tell me to choose the better part.’
‘You, lady? What is this?’
‘Not lady, daughter—help me! I kenned it not before—but all is vanity, turmoil, false show, except the sitting at the Lord’s feet.’
‘Most true, my child. Ah! have I not felt the same? But we must wait His time.’
‘It was I—it was I,’ continued Eleanor, ‘who set Jean upon this journey, leaving my brother and Mary and the bairns. And the farther we go, the more there is of vain show and plotting and scheming, and I am weary and heartsick and homesick of it all, and shall grow worse and worse. Oh! shelter me here, in your good and holy house, dear Reverend Mother, and maybe I could learn to do the holy work you do in my own country.’