THE LOVER AND THE GALLANT--WOMAN'S CHOICE.
Alwyn bent his way to the ramparts, a part of which then resembled the
boulevards of a French town, having rows of trees, green sward, a
winding walk, and seats placed at frequent intervals for the repose of
the loungers. During the summer evenings, the place was a favourite
resort of the court idlers; but now, in winter, it was usually
deserted, save by the sentries, placed at distant intervals. The
trader had not gone far in his quest when he perceived, a few paces
before him, the very man he had most cause to dread; and Lord
Hastings, hearing the sound of a footfall amongst the crisp, faded
leaves that strewed the path, turned abruptly as Alwyn approached his
side.
At the sight of his formidable rival, Alwyn had formed one of those
resolutions which occur only to men of his decided, plain-spoken,
energetic character. His distinguishing shrewdness and penetration
had given him considerable insight into the nobler as well as the
weaker qualities of Hastings; and his hope in the former influenced
the determination to which he came. The reflections of Hastings at
that moment were of a nature to augur favourably to the views of the
humbler lover; for, during the stirring scenes in which his late
absence from Sibyll had been passed, Hastings had somewhat recovered
from her influence; and feeling the difficulties of reconciling his
honour and his worldly prospects to further prosecution of the love,
rashly expressed but not deeply felt, he had determined frankly to cut
the Gordian knot he could not solve, and inform Sibyll that marriage
between them was impossible. With that view he had appointed this
meeting, and his conference with the king but confirmed his intention.
It was in this state of mind that he was thus accosted by Alwyn:--
"My lord, may I make bold to ask for a few moments your charitable
indulgence to words you may deem presumptuous?"
"Be brief, then, Master Alwyn,--I am waited for."
"Alas, my lord! I can guess by whom,--by the one whom I seek myself,
--by Sibyll Warner."
"How, Sir Goldsmith!" said Hastings, haughtily, "what knowest thou of
my movements, and what care I for thine?"
"Hearken, my Lord Hastings,--hearken!" said Alwyn, repressing his
resentment, and in a voice so earnest that it riveted the entire
attention of the listener--"hearken, and judge not as noble judges
craftsman, but as man should judge man. As the saw saith, 'We all lie
alike in our graves.' From the first moment I saw this Sibyll Warner
I loved her. Yes; smile disdainfully, but listen still. She was
obscure and in distress. I loved her not for her fair looks alone; I
loved her for her good gifts, for her patient industry, for her filial
duty, for her struggles to give bread to her father's board. I did
not say to myself, 'This girl will make a comely fere, a delicate
paramour!' I said, 'This good daughter will make a wife whom an
honest man may take to his heart and cherish!'" Poor Alwyn stopped,
with tears in his voice, struggled with his emotions, and pursued: "My
fortunes were more promising than hers; there was no cause why I might
not hope. True, I had a rival then; young as myself, better born,
comelier; but she loved him not. I foresaw that his love for her--if
love it were--would cease. Methought that her mind would understand
mine; as mine--verily I say it--yearned for hers! I could not look on
the maidens of mine own rank, and who had lived around me, but what--
oh, no, my lord, again I say, not the beauty, but the gifts, the mind,
the heart of Sibyll, threw them all into the shade. You may think it
strange that I--a plain, steadfast, trading, working, careful man--
should have all these feelings; but I will tell you wherefore such as
I sometimes have them, nurse them, brood on them, more than you lords
and gentlemen, with all your graceful arts in pleasing. We know no
light loves! no brief distractions to the one arch passion! We sober
sons of the stall and the ware are no general gallants,--we love
plainly, we love but once, and we love heartily. But who knows not
the proverb, 'What's a gentleman but his pleasure?'--and what's
pleasure but change? When Sibyll came to the palace, I soon heard her
name linked with yours; I saw her cheek blush when you spoke. Well,
well, well! after all, as the old wives tell us, 'Blushing is virtue's
livery.' I said, 'She is a chaste and high-hearted girl.' This will
pass, and the time will come when she can compare your love and mine.
Now, my lord, the time has come. I know that you seek her. Yea, at
this moment, I know that her heart beats for your footstep. Say but
one word,--say that you love Sibyll Warner with the thought of wedding
her,--say that, on your honour, noble Hastings, as gentleman and peer,
and I will kneel at your feet, and beg your pardon for my vain
follies, and go back to my ware, and work, and not repine. Say it!
You are silent? Then I implore you, still as peer and gentleman, to
let the honest love save the maiden from the wooing that will blight
her peace and blast her name! And now, Lord Hastings, I wait your
gracious answer."
The sensations experienced by Hastings, as Alwyn thus concluded, were
manifold and complicated; but, at the first, admiration and pity were
the strongest.
"My poor friend," said he, kindly, "if you thus love a demoiselle
deserving all my reverence, your words and your thoughts bespeak you
no unworthy pretender; but take my counsel, good Alwyn. Come not--
thou from the Chepe--come not to the court for a wife. Forget this
fantasy."
"My lord, it is impossible! Forget I cannot, regret I may.
"Thou canst not succeed, man," resumed the nobleman, more coldly, "nor
couldst if William Hastings had never lived. The eyes of women
accustomed to gaze on the gorgeous externals of the world are blinded
to plain worth like thine. It might have been different had the
donzell never abided in a palace; but as it is, brave fellow, learn
how these wounds of the heart scar over, and the spot becomes hard and
callous evermore. What art thou, Master Nicholas Alwyn," continued
Hastings, gloomily, and with a withering smile--"what art thou, to ask
for a bliss denied to me--to all of us,--the bliss of carrying poetry
into life, youth into manhood, by winning--the FIRST LOVED? But think
not, sir lover, that I say this in jealousy or disparagement. Look
yonder, by the leafless elm, the white robe of Sibyll Warner. Go and
plead thy suit."
"Do I understand you, my lord?" said Alwyn, somewhat confused and
perplexed by the tone and the manner Hastings adopted. "Does report
err, and you do not love this maiden?"
"Fair master," returned Hastings, scornfully, "thou hast no right that
I trow of to pry into my thoughts and secrets; I cannot acknowledge my
judge in thee, good jeweller and goldsmith,--enough, surely, in all
courtesy, that I yield thee the precedence. Tell thy tale, as
movingly, if thou wilt, as thou hast told it to me; say of me all that
thou fanciest thou hast reason to suspect; and if, Master Alwyn, thou
woo and win the lady, fail not to ask me to thy wedding!"
There was in this speech and the bearing of the speaker that superb
levity, that inexpressible and conscious superiority, that cold,
ironical tranquillity, which awe and humble men more than grave
disdain or imperious passion. Alwyn ground his teeth as he listened,
and gazed in silent despair and rage upon the calm lord. Neither of
these men could strictly be called handsome. Of the two, Alwyn had
the advantage of more youthful prime, of a taller stature, of a more
powerful, though less supple and graceful, frame. In their very
dress, there was little of that marked distinction between classes
which then usually prevailed, for the dark cloth tunic and surcoat of
Hastings made a costume even simpler than the bright-coloured garb of
the trader, with its broad trimmings of fur, and its aiglettes of
elaborate lace. Between man and man, then, where was the visible, the
mighty, the insurmountable difference in all that can charm the fancy
and captivate the eye, which, as he gazed, Alwyn confessed to himself
there existed between the two? Alas! how the distinctions least to be
analyzed are ever the sternest! What lofty ease in that high-bred
air; what histories of triumph seemed to speak in that quiet eye,
sleeping in its own imperious lustre; what magic of command in that
pale brow; what spells of persuasion in that artful lip! Alwyn
muttered to himself, bowed his head involuntarily, and passed on at
once from Hastings to Sibyll, who now, at the distance of some yards,
had arrested her steps, in surprise to see the conference between the
nobleman and the burgher.
But as he approached Sibyll, poor Alwyn felt all the firmness and
courage he had exhibited with Hastings melt away. And the trepidation
which a fearful but deep affection ever occasions in men of his
character, made his movements more than usually constrained and
awkward, as he cowered beneath the looks of the maid he so truly
loved.
"Seekest thou me, Master Alwyn?" asked Sibyll, gently, seeing that,
though he paused by her side, he spoke not.
"I do," returned Alwyn, abruptly, and again he was silent. At length,
lifting his eyes and looking round him, he saw Hastings at the
distance, leaning against the rampart, with folded arms; and the
contrast of his rival's cold and arrogant indifference, and his own
burning veins and bleeding heart, roused up his manly spirit, and gave
to his tongue the eloquence which emotion gains when it once breaks
the fetters it forges for itself.
"Look, look, Sibyll!" he said, pointing to Hastings "look! that man
you believe loves you. If so--if he loved thee,--would he stand
yonder--mark him--aloof, contemptuous, careless--while he knew that I
was by your side?"
Sibyll turned upon the goldsmith eyes full of innocent surprise,--eyes
that asked, plainly as eyes could speak, "And wherefore not, Master
Alwyn?"
Alwyn so interpreted the look, and replied, as if she had spoken:
"Because he must know how poor and tame is that feeble fantasy which
alone can come from a soul worn bare with pleasure, to that which I
feel and now own for thee,--the love of youth, born of the heart's
first vigour; because he ought to fear that that love should prevail
with thee; because that love ought to prevail. Sibyll, between us
there are not imparity and obstacle. Oh, listen to me,--listen still!
Frown not, turn not away." And, stung and animated by the sight of
his rival, fired by the excitement of a contest on which the bliss of
his own life and the weal of Sibyll's might depend, his voice was as
the cry of a mortal agony, and affected the girl to the inmost
recesses of her soul. "Oh, Alwyn, I frown not!" she said sweetly;
"oh, Alwyn, I turn not away! Woe is me to give pain to so kind and
brave a heart; but--"
"No, speak not yet. I have studied thee, I have read thee as a
scholar would read a book. I know thee proud; I know thee aspiring; I
know thou art vain of thy gentle blood, and distasteful of my yeoman's
birth. There, I am not blind to thy faults, but I love thee despite
them; and to please those faults I have toiled, schemed, dreamed,
risen. I offer to thee the future with the certainty of a man who can
command it. Wouldst thou wealth?--be patient (as ambition ever is):
in a few years thou shalt have more gold than the wife of Lord
Hastings can command; thou shalt lodge more statelily, fare more
sumptuously; [This was no vain promise of Master Alwyn. At that time
a successful trader made a fortune with signal rapidity, and enjoyed
greater luxuries than most of the barons. All the gold in the country
flowed into the coffers of the London merchants.] thou shalt walk on
cloth-of-gold if thou wilt! Wouldst thou titles?--I will win them.
Richard de la Pole, who founded the greatest duchy in the realm, was
poorer than I, when he first served in a merchant's ware. Gold buys
all things now. Oh, would to Heaven it could but buy me thee!"
"Master Alwyn, it is not gold that buys love. Be soothed. What can I
say to thee to soften the harsh word 'Nay'?"
"You reject me, then, and at once? I ask not your hand now. I will
wait, tarry, hope,--I care not if for years; wait till I can fulfil
all I promise thee!"
Sibyll, affected to tears, shook her head mournfully; and there was a
long and painful silence. Never was wooing more strangely
circumstanced than this,--the one lover pleading while the other was
in view; the one, ardent, impassioned, the other, calm and passive;
and the silence of the last, alas! having all the success which the
words of the other lacked. It might be said that the choice before
Sibyll was a type of the choice ever given, but in vain, to the child
of genius. Here a secure and peaceful life, an honoured home, a
tranquil lot, free from ideal visions, it is true, but free also from
the doubt and the terror, the storms of passion; there, the fatal
influence of an affection, born of imagination, sinister, equivocal,
ominous, but irresistible. And the child of genius fulfilled her
destiny!
"Master Alwyn," said Sibyll, rousing herself to the necessary
exertion, "I shall never cease gratefully to recall thy generous
friendship, never cease to pray fervently for thy weal below. But
forever and forever let this content thee,--I can no more."
Impressed by the grave and solemn tone of Sibyll, Alwyn hushed the
groan that struggled to his lips, and gloomily replied: "I obey you,
fair mistress, and I return to my workday life; but ere I go, I pray
you misthink me not if I say this much: not alone for the bliss of
hoping for a day in which I might call thee mine have I thus
importuned, but, not less--I swear not less--from the soul's desire to
save thee from what I fear will but lead to woe and wayment, to peril
and pain, to weary days and sleepless nights. 'Better a little fire
that warms than a great that burns.' Dost thou think that Lord
Hastings, the vain, the dissolute--"
"Cease, sir!" said Sibyll, proudly; "me reprove if thou wilt, but
lower not my esteem for thee by slander against another!"
"What!" said Alwyn, bitterly; "doth even one word of counsel chafe
thee? I tell thee that if thou dreamest that Lord Hastings loves
Sibyll Warner as man loves the maiden he would wed, thou deceivest
thyself to thine own misery. If thou wouldst prove it, go to him
now,--go and say, 'Wilt thou give me that home of peace and honour,
that shelter for my father's old age under a son's roof which the
trader I despise proffers me in vain?"
"If it were already proffered me--by him?" said Sibyll, in a low
voice, and blushing deeply.
Alwyn started. "Then I wronged him; and--and--" he added generously,
though with a faint sickness at his heart, "I can yet be happy in
thinking thou art so. Farewell, maiden, the saints guard thee from
one memory of regret at what hath passed between us!"
He pulled his bonnet hastily over his brows, and departed with unequal
and rapid strides. As he passed the spot where Hastings stood leaning
his arm upon the wall, and his face upon his hand, the nobleman looked
up, and said,--
"Well, Sir Goldsmith, own at least that thy trial hath been a fair
one!" Then struck with the anguish written upon Alwyn's face, he
walked up to him, and, with a frank, compassionate impulse, laid his
hand on his shoulder. "Alwyn," he said, "I have felt what you feel
now; I have survived it, and the world hath not prospered with me
less! Take with you a compassion that respects, and does not degrade
you."
"Do not deceive her, my lord,--she trusts and loves you! You never
deceived man,--the wide world says it,--do not deceive woman! Deeds
kill men, words women!" Speaking thus simply, Alwyn strode on, and
vanished.
Hastings slowly and silently advanced to Sibyll. Her rejection of
Alwyn had by no means tended to reconcile him to the marriage he
himself had proffered. He might well suppose that the girl, even if
unguided by affection, would not hesitate between a mighty nobleman
and an obscure goldsmith. His pride was sorely wounded that the
latter should have even thought himself the equal of one whom he had
proposed, though but in a passionate impulse, to raise to his own
state. And yet as he neared Sibyll, and, with a light footstep, she
sprang forward to meet him, her eyes full of sweet joy and confidence,
he shrank from an avowal which must wither up a heart opening thus all
its bloom of youth and love to greet him.
"Ah, fair lord," said the maiden, "was it kindly in thee to permit
poor Alwyn to inflict on me so sharp a pain, and thou to stand calmly
distant? Sure, alas! that had thy humble rival proffered a crown, it
had been the same to Sibyll! Oh, how the grief it was mine to cause
grieved me; and yet, through all, I had one selfish, guilty gleam of
pleasure,--to think that I had not been loved so well, if I were all
unworthy the sole love I desire or covet!"
"And yet, Sibyll, this young man can in all, save wealth and a
sounding name, give thee more than I can,--a heart undarkened by moody
memories, a temper unsoured by the world's dread and bitter lore of
man's frailty and earth's sorrow. Ye are not far separated by
ungenial years, and might glide to a common grave hand in hand; but I,
older in heart than in age, am yet so far thine elder in the last,
that these hairs will be gray, and this form bent, while thy beauty is
in its prime, and--but thou weepest!"
"I weep that thou shouldst bring one thought of time to sadden my
thoughts, which are of eternity. Love knows no age, it foresees no
grave! its happiness and its trust behold on the earth but one glory,
melting into the hues of heaven, where they who love lastingly pass
calmly on to live forever! See, I weep not now!"
"And did not this honest burgher," pursued Hastings, softened and
embarrassed, but striving to retain his cruel purpose, "tell thee to
distrust me; tell thee that my vows were false?"
"Methinks, if an angel told me so, I should disbelieve!"
"Why, look thee, Sibyll, suppose his warning true; suppose that at
this hour I sought thee with intent to say that that destiny which
ambition weaves for itself forbade me to fulfil a word hotly spoken;
that I could not wed thee,--should I not seem to thee a false wooer, a
poor trifler with thy earnest heart; and so, couldst thou not recall
the love of him whose truer and worthier homage yet lingers in thine
ear, and with him be happy?"
Sibyll lifted her dark eyes, yet humid, upon the unrevealing face of
the speaker, and gazed on him with wistful and inquiring sadness;
then, shrinking from his side, she crossed her arms meekly on her
bosom, and thus said,--
"If ever, since we parted, one such thought hath glanced across thee--
one thought of repentance at the sacrifice of pride, or the lessening
of power--which (she faltered, broke off the sentence, and resumed)--
in one word, if thou wouldst retract, say it now, and I will not
accuse thy falsehood, but bless thy truth."
"Thou couldst be consoled, then, by thy pride of woman, for the loss
of an unworthy lover?"
"My lord, are these questions fair?"
Hastings was silent. The gentler part of his nature struggled
severely with the harder. The pride of Sibyll moved him no less than
her trust; and her love in both was so evident, so deep, so
exquisitely contrasting the cold and frivolous natures amidst which
his lot had fallen, that he recoiled from casting away forever a heart
never to be replaced. Standing on that bridge of life, with age
before and youth behind, he felt that never again could he be so
loved, or, if so loved by one so worthy of whatever of pure affection,
of young romance, was yet left to his melancholy and lonely soul.
He took her hand, and, as she felt its touch, her firmness forsook
her, her head drooped upon her bosom, and she burst into an agony of
tears.
"Oh, Sibyll, forgive me! Smile on me again, Sibyll!" exclaimed
Hastings, subdued and melted. But, alas! the heart once bruised and
galled recovers itself but slowly, and it was many minutes before the
softest words the eloquent lover could shape to sound sufficed to dry
those burning tears, and bring back the enchanting smile,--nay, even
then the smile was forced and joyless. They walked on for some
moments, both in thought, till Hastings said: "Thou lovest me, Sibyll,
and art worthy of all the love that man can feel for maid; and yet,
canst thou solve me this question, nor chide me that I ask it, Dost
thou not love the world and the world's judgments more than me? What
is that which women call honour? What makes them shrink from all love
that takes not the form and circumstance of the world's hollow rites?
Does love cease to be love, unless over its wealth of trust and
emotion the priest mouths his empty blessing? Thou in thy graceful
pride art angered if I, in wedding thee, should remember the sacrifice
which men like me--I own it fairly--deem as great as man can make; and
yet thou wouldst fly my love if it wooed thee to a sacrifice of thine
own."
Artfully was the question put, and Hastings smiled to himself in
imagining the reply it must bring; and then Sibyll answered, with the
blush which the very subject called forth,
"Alas, my lord, I am but a poor casuist, but I feel that if I asked
thee to forfeit whatever men respect,--honour and repute for valour,
to be traitor and dastard,--thou couldst love me no more; and marvel
you if, when man woos woman to forfeit all that her sex holds
highest,--to be in woman what dastard and traitor is in man,--she
hears her conscience and her God speak in a louder voice than can come
from a human lip? The goods and pomps of the world we are free to
sacrifice, and true love heeds and counts them not; but true love
cannot sacrifice that which makes up love,--it cannot sacrifice the
right to be loved below; the hope to love on in the realm above; the
power to pray with a pure soul for the happiness it yearns to make;
the blessing to seem ever good and honoured in the eyes of the one by
whom alone it would be judged. And therefore, sweet lord, true love
never contemplates this sacrifice; and if once it believes itself
truly loved, it trusts with a fearless faith in the love on which it
leans."
"Sibyll, would to Heaven I had seen thee in my youth! Would to Heaven
I were more worthy of thee!" And in that interview Hastings had no
heart to utter what he had resolved, "Sibyll, I sought thee but to say
Farewell."